by Ann Self
Detective Russell scrutinized her closely as if trying to monitor her thoughts. His feet were set apart like bracing pods. He asked her: “Have you had any other near-misses?” His gum snapped and popped under the beating.
“No. Well, just a close encounter with a rooster, not really life threatening.” She tried to laugh it off but neither of them cracked a smile, and Westerlund demanded the whole story. She told them, expecting at least a chuckle, but her recounting elicited not so much as snicker—making the incident that she had begun to dismiss as trivial, explode again to evil and ominous.
“So that’s how you got those scratches?” Westerlund asked, nodding at her hand.
“Yes, the rooster,” she answered, distractedly looking at her hand, which was now freshly red and abraded from Owen mashing it into a board. She wondered if he could tell there was more to the scratches than just a rooster. He was looking at her as if he could read her mind.
Russell spoke again, shifting even closer to her face. “What would anyone have to gain by hurting you?”
She looked at his durable, every-man haircut—the color and sheen of pavement—and into his florid face, and wondered about department fitness rules. “I...I’m not really sure.” She knew she flushed, and two pairs of eyes were almost gleeful in their joined recognition of fibbing.
“No idea at all, huh?” Russell asked sarcastically. Snap snap. His eyes—sharper than what she had first thought—now inventoried her strange outfit at close range, stitch by stitch. She retaliated by studying his tie.
“No. Not enough to make accusations.” She tried to breathe shallowly. Big Red Gum, cologne and old smoke. It was practically fuming off him, but she nailed him with her eyes and would not cower.
Westerlund observed them for a moment and then stood up abruptly.
“Let’s bring in Lucinda Whitbeck.”
Jane knew that was her dismissal, and left in the perfumed wake of Detective Sergeant Russell, observing his wide back, wondering how he fit all the lumpy equipment around his waist. Everyone was standing bleary-eyed in the corridor, waiting to be interviewed. Reggie was sitting on a bale of hay with an EMT checking his blood pressure and Lars hovering over him. Dylan and Sam were intently watching a uniformed officer on a ladder, who was examining a wire with a flashlight.
“Has it been cut?” Sam asked.
The officer backed down and jumped from the last three rungs. “Yep. Chopped clean through.”
The hefty detective approached them and scowled at the officer for answering questions. Then he asked him to produce Lucinda.
“The tiny blonde with all the hair? She stomped out of the office and said she’d be at the house if any one needed her. Thought you were done with her.”
“No, Damnit! They were all supposed to wait out here for an individual interview.”
“Well, I guess you didn’t make that clear.” They glared at each other for a moment, then Russell snagged Dylan and returned to the office with a fresh victim. Dylan followed Russell in a funny waddling gait, as if the detective had instructed him to “walk this way.” Sam rolled his eyes at the sight, hoping for Dylan’s sake that Russell didn’t turn around. Then he climbed the ladder to check the wire himself.
Jane was drained and exhausted and felt unable to participate in any more conversations. Her circuits were blown; she felt smothered by people. Clothes that she’d had on for the last fifteen hours were beginning to hurt, even her toes inside the boots were growing numb. She faded into the background, disappeared up her staircase and returned to her room.
Once there, she methodically checked every corner and closet, bolted the door that still held Chicken’s claw marks, and shoved a chair against it to protect her little sanctuary. Then she stripped off the boots and clothes; including a now-grubby white shirt that still held evidence of her tangle with Owen. She took a hot shower and scrubbed her hair, toweled off, blow-dried, then crawled into bed to try and get some rest—wrapped in a protective armor of afghans and comforters to ward off bogeymen. Her teeth were still chattering and her hand throbbed. She was terrified to be so alone and her stomach growled, but she was too tired for company and too tired to eat. As she drifted off to sleep, only the plastic eyes of Teddy bears watched over her.
It was three AM before the interviews were done and the crime-scene processed. Reggie and Lars left for their beds and Sam drove home to grab what little sleep he could. The cruisers, crime-scene van and ambulance eventually left, and Bill Welsh exited the estate in a body-bag with the county coroner. Keeping the coroner company for the evening had not been on his to-do list, and his resting place that night would not be the bed he expected to be in, but a gurney in the basement morgue of the county hospital awaiting autopsy. A situation that someone had earmarked for Jane; the cold-room in the morgue instead of her bed, and a body bag instead of a comforter.
There was a fine rain when Jane got up in the morning to shut her windows. The much cooler weather front had dropped the temperature abruptly, finally seeping all the pent-up heat out of the barn and bringing unsettled conditions. She was still draped in her afghan, but felt the cold and dampness right to her bones.
Jane shuddered—remembering the last time she had looked out this window. Bill’s truck still sat in the same spot, gray rain peppering the windshield and cab, and there was an official looking seal taped on the door and more yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the whole vehicle. She was immensely happy to see that the vehicles of Sam, Dylan and Lars were parked against the south wing.
Dylan banged heartily at her door, making her jump and gasp; she hadn’t even heard him climb the staircase. “You okay in there?” he yelled.
“Yes...yes, I’m okay. I’m just throwing on some clothes...”
“They have doughnuts and hot coffee,” he yelled through the door.
“Thank heavens. I’ll be down in a minute.”
She ran a brush through stubborn locks that had set an agenda for a bad hair day—no way around it—and then dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans and running shoes. Her limbs felt leaden as she dragged herself out, vaguely noticing two bales of hay near her door. She wound down the staircase to Sam’s office, her steps measured and slow. The men had all returned to the barn bringing four industrial size boxes of Dunkin Donuts and—since Sam’s Mr. Coffee was suspect and the carafe removed as evidence—several take-out containers of hot steaming coffee including an extra jug of coffee with a pouring spout.
“Where’s Reggie?” Jane asked, drifting sleepily through the door, trying to pat down the springs in shiny hair that hung in thick unruly shanks around her shoulders.
“Morning Jane,” Lars answered somberly. “Reggie is still resting in his room.”
The baseboard electric heat was ticking to life, and Sam, Dylan and Lars were gulping down coffee from the large take-out containers. Extra coffees were lined up on the shelf, along with open boxes of doughnuts displayed like an exhibit of fine jewels. Jane was ready to kill for coffee, but too tired to notice the containers of take-out. She was drawn hypnotically to the coffee pot, looking down at the cold empty appliance that was covered in print dust and missing a carafe. Her fogged-over brain made no sense of it. The men were crowded around the plank shelf making important doughnut choices.
“I know I smell coffee...”
“Not from that thing. Here...” Sam handed her one of the giant, lidded cups. “The cream and the sugar packets are fresh from the store, by the way.”
“Thanks. Oh good—coffee’s piping hot.” She grabbed a handful of sugar packets and began the chore of opening a few dozen, leaving her trademark pile of little pieces of torn paper on the plank shelf.
“So...is he...is the body...” she started to question, pouring half and half from a new carton, mixing it into the steaming black liquid with a plastic spoon.
“Gone,” Sam confirmed, sliding in behind his desk with his doughnut, napkin, and urn of coffee. “Took the poor guy away in the coroner’s van.”
Jane sighed, partly in sorrow for the vet, and partly in relief that there wasn’t a dead body garishly languishing in the cellar. “What’s their next move?” she asked, turning to lean against the shelf while she inhaled blessed coffee.
“Laurel and Hardy?” Sam cracked. “They’re coming back to attack the mansion some time today.”
“The tall one looks like he bought his wardrobe at Walmart,” Dylan mocked Westerlund, as he lowered himself into Old Ugly, gingerly balancing a giant coffee and a powdered doughnut. “Guy really thinks he’s some kinda Sherlock Holmes.”
Jane noticed that Dylan was still wearing the same MIAMI HURRICANES sweatshirt, but it was no longer clean. He looked as if one of the farm tractors had run over him. The sweatshirt was creased, rumpled and dirty, and his hair a frightening mess, with wisps of hay mashed into it. His usually clean-shaven face was scruffy with a light beard. Her own hair was a mess, but if she stood next to Dylan, she would look neat by comparison.
“The thin detective even took Sam’s rubber boots away,” Lars announced as he strolled to the window to look out at the rain, drinking his own coffee.
“Why?” Jane demanded, reaching for a glazed doughnut.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, taking a big swallow of coffee and looking worried. “They were making molds of footprints in the dirt cellar around the tractors, but I never go down there. Dylan’s boot prints were also all over the place, but he’s down there every day and they weren’t interested in those. They just seemed very keen on my rubber boots that I keep here in the office, but I haven’t worn them since that time it rained for three days—and that was three months ago. Now I’ll have to buy new ones, since that pair will undoubtedly be tied up indefinitely as evidence.”
“That’s strange,” Jane mused, as Reggie stumbled into the office yawning. His overalls were wrinkled and he looked he’d slept in a cardboard box under a highway overpass; not quite the fresh, spit-polished Reggie they usually saw in the morning. Jane rushed to equip him with a black coffee from the collection lined up on the shelf.
“Bless you,” Reggie croaked, clasping the giant take-out cup in two hands. He selected the wooden rocker in the worn seating collection around the coffee table.
Off and on, the sounds of pleading whinnies could be heard echoing through the barn, as the horses protested the fact they were ten minutes late on room service.
Jane went back to the shelf to reclaim her coffee. She took another large gulp and leaned back on the shelf again. “So, are the detectives done with us barn people?”
”No, not quite.” Sam said. They’ll be back to interview Owen also.”
“Oh no! Then they’ll really think we’re weird!” Jane complained.
“I think they’ve already decided we’re all a little weird here,” Sam replied.
“They think we’re weird?” Dylan exclaimed. “Shylock and Sponge Bob are the weirdest dudes I’ve ever seen—outside of Owen.”
“All in your point of view, I guess,” Sam said. “Except for Owen—he’s as weird as they come from anyone’s point of view.”
Lars moved away from the window where he was staring out and drinking his coffee, and cleared his throat. “So which of us is a murderer?” He spoke the words no one else wanted to say—or hear. “Which of us lined up the extra baling spears under the hole in the floor and set the trap?”
There was a slightly stunned silence for a few moments. Dylan wiped the arm of his sweatshirt over his mouth and then said: “I’m betting on someone at the house. None of us is a murderer!”
Reggie rocked a few times and then spoke up: “I think we should be more concerned about who this is all directed at. Can there be any doubt who was supposed to fall into the trap? I don’t think poor Bill was the intended victim.”
Jane’s doughnut suddenly turned to lead in her mouth. Her appetite disappeared in an instant and she felt flushed and light-headed. She was in serious denial—trying to write the whole thing off as an accident, and this was not helping. They all stared at her.
Dylan sat forward in his chair. “I think we should make it the first order of business to keep her protected.”
“That’s a good idea,” Sam agreed, “she shouldn’t be alone up on that second floor. The working students probably won’t show up after this fiasco, and she’s just a sitting duck.”
Jane felt like a spectator in a play as they made decisions about her. She swallowed hard and started to walk around the office, but her knees felt strange, so she sank onto the loveseat. “I was frightened up there last night...but I can’t move down here unless I turn a stall into a bedroom or sleep in the tackroom.”
“You weren’t alone up there,” Sam told her, nodding towards Dylan. “He slept on hay bales outside your room, under a horse blanket.”
Dylan stretched his back and groaned, “Yeah, it wasn’t a Serta Perfect-Sleeper, I’ll tell ya...”
Jane looked at him in amazement as she sank back in the loveseat. “For crying out loud! I was terrified all night, and I didn’t have to be?”
“I tapped on your door,” Dylan told her, “after Westerlund was through grilling me, but it was pretty late and you didn’t answer, so I figured you were asleep. You looked pretty rough yesterday—didn’t want to wake you up.”
“We wouldn’t leave you all by yourself up there after what happened,” Reggie added, huddling close to his barrel of black coffee, letting the steam curl around his face.
“What did you do, draw straws?” she joked.
“Naw,” Sam replied, “he volunteered. Had the youngest back.”
“Thanks, Dylan—I appreciate that.”
“Don’t mention it. Just have to forgive me if I smell like a horse blanket.” He looked at Sam who was laughing and agreeing. “You do,” he nodded, making Dylan chuckle as he finished off his doughnut. “Fine, fine—so I smell. All for a good cause.”
Then Dylan decided, “me and a couple other guys’ll move into the bunk beds permanently up there if the students are no-shows, we don’t want the sitting duck to be a dead duck.”
“That’s a good idea!” Reggie agreed. “Give her several bodyguards at night.”
“Ha!” Sam snorted. “She’ll probably need bodyguards to protect her from the bodyguards.”
“Hey,” Dylan shot back from the wing chair, “me and my friends don’t attack girls—we’re not like that perv Owen.”
“Yeah,” Reggie grumbled, “she probably needs protection from that moron too.”
“I hate to be such a problem.”
Dylan got up, selected a second sugar doughnut, and addressed her across the coffee table as he returned to his chair. “You’d be a much worse problem as a body. You’d just be no fun at all.”
Lars looked horrified, and Sam just sighed as he walked around from behind his desk and looked down at Jane. “Until the police get to the bottom of this, whoever is doing these things will have to watch out for all of us now.”
Reggie agreed. “We’re going to watch you like damned hawks. Just you be sure and cooperate, don’t go off on any solitary walks or trail rides, and stay out of the loft and the cellar.”
“I will...and thanks guys, for caring.”
Friday morning Jane gave a lesson with only half her brain engaged; she’d been in that state since Bill’s death Wednesday night. It was like anesthesia, the brain protecting itself from a reality so harsh that she had to maintain the numbness or else retreat into a curled up ball of fear—even though it was wreaking havoc on her thought process. The Whitbecks returned Thursday morning and had been interrogated, but not until the family lawyer was called in; and before that, Owen was thoroughly grilled by Laurel and Hardy as they were now permanently dubbed.
After Owen’s interview, Jane could tell Detective Westerlund was sure there was a big can of worms to be opened. His bloodhound nose was on the scent of convoluted secrets and mysteries, and he looked wired. A plush, exotic setting, wealthy people, plenty of twists
and turns—just the sort of thing to liven up a detective’s day. Westerlund seemed to be ignoring Jane for now, and she decided he had her pegged as the intended victim, and therefore as useless as if she were lying dead in the cellar.
Jane watched a young female student as the girl practiced round even circles on her horse and tried to focus her mind on coaching. This was one of the few lessons not canceled, and she wondered how many more cancellations would be flowing in when everyone learned the death was most likely a homicide. Sam had been right about the working students. Worried parents phoned almost immediately to say they just couldn’t allow their daughters to stay overnight on the estate. Jane didn’t blame them.
She hadn’t heard from Madeline yet, but she knew that would happen as soon as her friend surfaced for air from the hospital and picked up the paper or turned on the news. The press had been kept off the estate by guards that Elliot hired to man the front gate again, which was now closed at all times. Reporters from various news agencies sat on the street in vans with Mylar shades, checking all the cars coming and going with telephoto lenses the size of oil drums. Lately, Elliot was spending more time thwarting publicity than looking for it.
When Jane finished her lesson and returned to the barn, the expected call from Madeline was waiting for her on Sam’s portable phone. Sam handed it to her as he was on his way out to hitch up a two-horse trailer to his truck. “Got to clean out the trailer and go pick up a new school horse that Elliot bought off the track,” he explained.
“Oh? Hope it’s a good one—we could use a new recruit.” She took the phone from Sam and walked back outside the barn to sit on a wooden bench encircling one of the huge oaks. Jane caught a slight movement in a barn window as she clicked off the HOLD button, and knew someone was watching her. Hopefully it was a guardian, and not a predator.