“STOP,” Zane typed. “LISTEN TO ME. I REMEMBERED.”
“Remembered . . .”
“WHO WAS SITTING NEXT TO JUNIOR THAT NIGHT AT THE BAR.”
“Go on.”
It seemed to take him a long time to type the rest of it. “IT WAS THAT REPORTER. IT WAS ELI BARRINGER.”
45.
It made sense then, why seeing Eli with Junior that first day had jogged his memory. He hadn’t mistaken Eli for Owen. He was recognizing something he’d seen.
It might change nothing. Eli might not have heard Owen’s confession, or not acted on it if he had. On the other hand, it might change everything.
I stopped at my trailer to wash the blood from my hands and grab a clean shirt, then walked over to Eli’s camper. His Dodge was gone. I felt a pang of regret as I popped the camper door with my pocketknife and stepped inside. Despite his quirks, I liked Eli, liked his passion and his sincerity, and I hoped I would owe him an apology when all of this was over.
The quarters were cramped, a half bath and a single room with a cot, a counter with a microwave, and a table with an open laptop on it and an ergonomic chair pushed underneath. On the floor beside the bed was a pile of crumpled clothes. Black shirt, black jeans, black mask. Like the mask Zane’s hands had scrabbled at the night of the attack.
Spread across the table were old newspaper clippings—Tom Cole’s columns and the articles about his death, obituaries for Eli’s mother, who’d died of a drug overdose when Eli was a toddler, and his grandmother, who’d died of a heart attack a few weeks before the Hidden Hollow horse show. On top, on a lined tablet, was a cryptic note: M.E. at Jake’s. Gerardo—cartel? Motivation?
In a folder beside the bed were a foreclosure notice on his grandmother’s house, an article praising her prize-winning roses, and a stack of Eli’s own articles and musings. A quick skim showed a modicum of talent but a singular focus. Many were unpublishable rants about Tom Cole’s murder and the failure of the system to bring his killers to justice. Some were snapshots of Eli’s life, his shyness with girls, his grandmother’s rigid rules, the hours spent helping her in her rose garden. I skimmed through his dreams, his resentments, his hopes of making her proud. And the one night—the night of Owen’s death—when he’d finally earned her approval.
The stack was thick and had writings from as far back as junior high, when, in a barely legible scrawl, he’d written an essay about the grandfather who was both a martyr and a hero. The grandfather he’d been told from the time he was born he could never live up to.
Eli’s grandmother had blamed all of her troubles, from her financial woes to her daughter’s rebellion and eventual overdose, on her husband’s murder. In the same way Sam Trehorne had molded Junior, in her bitterness she’d shaped her grandson into a weapon of retribution.
And an effective weapon he was, because, unlike Junior, he seemed so unlike one.
I turned on his computer. Eli was a writer, not a computer geek, and the user name and password came up autofilled. I clicked on his browser history. Job listings for journalists and other freelance writers, a parts store for old Dodge trucks. I scrolled down the list until I found what I was looking for.
A search for shotgun booby traps.
I ran the players through my mind. Doc and Zane were in a crowd of witnesses. Dalt Underwood was dead, along with Owen Bodeen. That left Jim Lister and the Trehornes. I dialed Sam Trehorne’s number on the way out the door, got no answer, and cursed myself for not getting Rhonda’s number. The Listers’ trailer wasn’t far, but the closer I got, the farther away it seemed.
I let out a relieved breath when I found her healthy and whole, packing their tack. She paused, hefting a saddle, and looked up with a smile that was almost shy. I forced a smile back and said, “Where’s Jim?”
“Probably at the arena, glad-handing the judges. Why?”
“I need you to find him. Stay close to a crowd, don’t let anybody get you alone, especially Eli.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I hope I’m overreacting. But humor me anyway.”
She nodded. “I can do that.”
“And I need to borrow your car.”
She pulled out her keys. “You still have to get your things out of the trunk anyway. Can I drive you somewhere?”
“Not this time.”
She handed me the keys. Touched her fingers first to her lips, then to mine. “Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“That’s why you have a black eye and a couple of cracked ribs.”
“Imagine what would happen if I were reckless.”
Hugging the curves in Rhonda’s Porsche, I prayed I’d be in time.
It was coming on noon when I reached the Trehorne house. Two cars were in the driveway, and Junior’s truck was parked in front of the barn alongside Trehorne’s trailer. The front door of the house was standing open, and a slight breeze tapped the screen door open and shut, open and shut.
I drew the Glock and climbed out of the car, my stomach tightening.
A cobblestone walkway led from the circular drive to the front door. I eased up it, pistol drawn, and listened at the open door. Somewhere inside, a woman sobbed. The air smelled faintly of blood and gunpowder. I stepped into the living room, past a pair of high-priced, free-form sculptures and a mantel lined with antique knickknacks, and saw Sam Trehorne sprawled on a carpet the color of cream. The puddle of blood beneath his head was already going tacky in the heat. When I came in, he moaned and tried to push himself up, then thrashed against the plastic zip-ties on his wrists and ankles.
I bent to check the wound. It had bled a lot, as head wounds do, but it was shallow. He was groggy, but I thought he’d be all right.
Beside him, his wife slumped in a chair. Like her husband, her feet and hands were bound. When she saw me, she looked up, eyes wild. “It’s Gerardo. He has Esmerelda. Please.” Her voice broke. “Please don’t let him hurt her.”
“He isn’t going to hurt her.” I glanced toward the stairwell, then the doorway to the kitchen. “Where did he go?”
“Out the back.” Her voice hitched. “Junior went after him. Please, cut me loose. I need to go after her.”
“You’re safer here,” I said, moving toward the back door. I couldn’t babysit her, and God knew what would happen if she tried to recover the child. “I’ll be back.”
“You’ll bring her back?” Her chin quivered. “Please. Bring them both back.”
There was no cover in the no-man’s-land between the house and the barn, so I went out the front and drove the Porsche, staying low behind the wheel. I parked it so it would block my approach to the barn, stopping long enough to put in a call to Sheriff Hap. “There’s trouble at your brother’s place,” I said. “You better get out here quick.”
“What’s going on?” A note of panic in his voice.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” I said. “But bring backup. I’m not sure what I’m getting into out here.”
I hung up before he could ask for more, then climbed out of the car, Glock at the ready. I popped the trunk and took out two more 9-millimeter magazines, both loaded with hollow points.
The barn was much as it had been when I was there before. The false Rogue and, presumably, a false Galahad stood in their stalls, munching hay and soaking in cool air from their electric fans. Halfway down the aisle, I saw a trail of blood drops. The trail became a pool of blood, then drag marks leading to the end of the aisle and around the corner.
I listened at the corner, then peered around, leading with the barrel of the Glock. The blood trail ended at the far wall, where Junior sat propped against a stall door, eyes closed, hands pressed tight against his belly. Dark blood seeped through his fingers. On the ground beside him was a Colt .45.
His eyelids fluttered open as I rounded the corner. “Hurts,” he said. A line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
I knelt beside him. “Your uncle’s on his way. Ger
ardo did this to you?”
He grimaced. “Tried to stop him. Too fast. Gone up to the other barn.”
“What other barn?”
“Out back a ways. Where we fix the horses.” He coughed. “I never hurt Maggie. I never would.”
“Okay,” I said.
He grabbed my shirt with a bloody hand. “Do you think we’re going to hell for what we done to them horses?”
I looked him in the eye, a hardness in me that I hardly recognized. “Yes.”
Fear flickered in his eyes. He took a final, bubbling breath. His hand fell away, and he was still.
The small cruelty sent a rush of satisfaction through me, followed by a wash of shame. It had diminished me, as cruelty always does. I reached up and closed his eyes, then headed for the secret barn.
46.
Behind the barn, I followed tire tracks to a thick line of brush and brambles. Behind them was a pasture gate. It swung open, and the brush swung with it, attached to the rails with slender, nearly invisible wires.
I suspected Hap already knew about the hidden gate, but I dutifully texted its location and closed it behind me. The track led through the forest. There was no wind, and the air hung damp and heavy, humming with June bugs.
I followed the edge of the woods, keeping clear of the main track, until the barn came into view. It was old and weathered, the paint faded to gray. Eli’s Dodge was parked beside it, and somewhere inside, horses snorted and blew. I heard a moan, an animal sound I’d never heard from a horse before and hoped never to hear again.
I raised the Glock and moved toward the door. It creaked a little when I opened it, but the small noise was lost in the sounds of the horses. The smells of kerosene and diesel fuel were strong, and I fought to keep from coughing.
The barn windows were boarded over, and the only light came from a pair of dim incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling. In the shadows of their stalls, the horses shifted. As I passed Rogue, he gave an anxious nicker and pressed his muzzle through the bars.
In the stall beside him, a copper-colored mare with a flaxen mane lay on her side, flanks heaving, her lower legs twitching and wrapped tightly in plastic. It was the same mare I’d seen being inspected while Jim Lister stood in line behind her. I remembered how still she’d stood, and my stomach rolled. She must have been stewarded—hurt and then punished until she’d learned that the only way to escape from pain was not to react to it. A rage I hadn’t known I was capable of burned in my throat.
My hand was on the latch when reason reminded me that there was a man with a shotgun nearby. I stepped away from the mare’s stall and gave Rogue’s muzzle a gentle rub through the bars. Then with an aching heart, I left them there.
I forced my attention back to the layout of the barn. There were stalls on either side of me and an opening to my left, like the bar of an “H.” Based on the size of the building, it probably led to another aisle of stalls. The doors at the opposite end of the barn were half open, and sunlight spilled through onto the concrete of the aisle.
I checked each stall as I passed to make sure Eli wasn’t hiding in one. Then I moved cautiously down the connecting walkway. It was lined with stall rakes, Dura Forks, and two yellow plastic wheelbarrows propped against one wall.
The aisle to the right was empty. I eased around the corner and saw Eli backing away to the left, his eyes wide and his mouth half open in a silent protest.
“Stop right there and raise your hands,” I said, Glock trained on the center of his chest.
“No, no, no, you’ve got this all wrong.” He held his empty hands out, palms toward me.
“What have I got wrong?”
“What happened down at the house, I didn’t do that. They were already dead when I got here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Best laid plans,” I said. “The Trehornes aren’t dead.”
“Aren’t—” He frowned. “Of course they are. They have to be.”
“Why? Because you planned it that way? Wound up your weapon and pointed him at the Trehornes? I saw the search history on your computer.”
“How did you—? You broke into my camper, didn’t you? Yeah, I did a search. After what happened to Carlin. I wanted to see how somebody could have rigged a thing like that.”
“I wondered why I kept seeing you with Gerardo. You’ve been grooming him all weekend, laying the groundwork so when you set the trap for Carlin, he’d think the Trehornes were behind it. You thought he’d do your dirty work. But he’s not as cold-blooded as you thought he was.”
“You’re jumping to all the wrong conclusions.”
“What are you doing here then?”
“I figured this was where Gerardo would come. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the Trehornes were behind that shotgun blast.”
I laughed. “You followed a killing machine to his target’s house? Why not call the sheriff instead?”
He snorted. “Call a dirty cop who’s going to whitewash what his family did and try to pin all this on me? I don’t think so. Look, I swear to God, I’m just here to get a story.”
A flicker of his eyes warned me. Too late, I heard the scuff of a footstep behind me, and something cold and hard touched the hollow at the base of my skull. A familiar voice said, “Give my friend the gun, Señor. Two fingers, por favor. No funny business.”
“He’s not your friend,” I said.
“Neither are you.”
I flipped the pistol and held it up by two fingers. Eli stepped forward and plucked it from my hand. He turned it over carefully and pointed it at my head, holding it sideways like a TV gangbanger.
I forced myself to ignore him and said over my shoulder to Gerardo, “You’re good. Very stealthy. Must’ve been all that time you spent sneaking around in the jungle.”
“Probably. I’m going to take a step back now, Señor. You turn around slowly with your hands up.”
I did.
He held the shotgun in one hand, relaxed but pointing at my chest. In the other arm, he was carrying Esmerelda. Her arms were clasped around his neck, but her cheeks were wet, and her eyes were huge with fear. Her utter silence was more troubling than her tantrum at the showground.
Keeping the shotgun level with my chest, Gerardo slid her to the floor. “Run into the stall, Chiquita. Close your eyes and cover your ears until I come for you. Some things are not meant for little ones.”
She clapped her hands to her ears and scampered into the nearest stall. I heard her whimper and the sawdust shift beneath her feet and her back thump against the wall. I looked at Gerardo and said, “You’re just taking her from her parents?”
His lips thinned. “They’re not her parents.”
“They’re the only ones she knows. Maybe you could ease her into it?”
“She will forget them in time.”
“I don’t think so. And she won’t forget Junior. He was trying to protect her.”
“He left me no choice.” He shifted his grip so that he held the shotgun in two hands. “She will come to understand that sometimes difficult things must be done.”
“Difficult things like killing Maggie James?”
Before I registered the anger in his eyes, he had flipped the shotgun around and rammed the stock into my ribs.
I heard a crack, and pain shot through my chest and dropped me to my hands and knees. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. A thought crept in around the edges of the pain. This man was the kind of quick you had to be to take on a cartel and survive.
Baiting him might not have been the smartest thing I’d ever done.
“Junior killed Maggie,” he said.
“No.” My voice sounded thin, and I drew in a shallow breath. It felt like being filleted. “He knew he was dying. No reason to lie. And that was the one thing he . . .” I took another breath. It was like sucking water through a straw with a hole in it. “That was the one thing he wanted me to be sure of.”
His gaze shifted to Eli and
then back to me, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Junior killed Maggie, and then he killed Carlin.”
I shook my head. “Carlin’s alive . . . She was still . . . breathing when the . . . paramedics came.”
A flicker of hope flashed in his eyes.
This time I got out a whole sentence before I ran out of air. “She’s hurt bad, but it wasn’t Junior who did it. He was . . . afraid he’d go to hell for soring horses . . . If he’d murdered Maggie and . . . booby-trapped Carlin, I’m pretty sure . . . they’d have been on his mind.”
Eli jabbed the gun in my direction. “Shut up. You’re just trying to confuse him.”
I looked at Gerardo. “Zane remembered who he saw with Junior . . . the night of his accident . . . It was Eli.”
Eli said, “I talked to Junior, sure. I’m a reporter, hell, I talk to a lot of people. I went to the men’s room to take a piss and when I came back, he was pretty upset about something. I didn’t know then, but now I guess he must have heard what Owen said about Doc and old man Trehorne.”
“That’s the second time you’ve . . . mentioned that,” I said. I was getting the hang of this talking thing. Incomprehensibly, it was easier than breathing. “But I never told you about it.”
“Sure you did.”
“No, I . . . really didn’t.”
“Then I heard it from somewhere else. What difference does it make where I heard it?”
“You heard it from Owen. And you killed him for it, for his part in it. And then you hurt Zane and . . . made it look like Rogue had done it.”
“Why? Why would I do that?”
“Sins of the fathers, you said. Or maybe . . . he saw something. Saw you kill Owen. Your gran was . . . proud of that, wasn’t she?”
His fists clenched. “You . . . you shut up about my grandmother.”
“You buried Owen in the . . . rose garden. But then your gran died and the house was . . . in foreclosure. You had to move . . . Owen’s remains. So you set the fire, made it look like a soring barn. Put the bones there. You got the idea because Trehornes . . . set fires. You ruin Dalt’s son, or you . . . frame the Trehornes. Either way, a win.”
A Taste of Blood and Ashes Page 23