Burn Out

by Marcia Muller

  “And?”

  “Across the highway there’s this rundown trailer park. Cop cars all over the place, and an ambulance was pulling out. Miri went nuts. Jumped out of my Jeep and ran across the highway without even looking. Lucky there wasn’t anybody coming.”

  “Did you follow her?”

  “Shit, no. I don’t mess with cops if I can help it. I’ve already had two DUIs. And if what was going on was as bad as it looked, I sure didn’t want to get involved. The wife—”

  “So you just left Miri there.”

  “Damn right. I didn’t owe her a thing. She was just this bitch I picked up in a bar.” He took a vodka bottle from the shelf behind his desk, poured into the mug, and drank, flashing me a childishly defiant look. “How much would it cost me to keep you from telling the sheriff?”

  “No sale, Mr. Martin. It doesn’t work that way.”

  For some reason my cellular was out of range in Bridgeport, so I found a phone booth—one of the few of that endangered species—and called Drew Warnell, the sheriff’s deputy I’d talked with last night at the crime scene. He confirmed that Miri Perez had run across the highway as the ambulance containing her daughter’s body was pulling away.

  “She went into a total meltdown when I told her what had happened. Assaulted me and another deputy.” He sounded as if he were still shaken by the incident. “We had to restrain her, and now she’s up here in the Bridgeport psych ward on a seventy-two-hour hold.”

  I took down the information about Miri, then called the Perez house. Sara answered and said Ramon had come home shortly after I’d left.

  “The fool went all the way to Bridgeport and checked out some bars and a few off-hours places he knows about, but Miri hadn’t been to any of them. Then he started back, but was too tired to drive all the way and fell asleep in Miri’s van at a rest stop.”

  That was a relief. Now Ramon could deal with the mess I’d uncovered.

  I said, “Well, he can stop worrying about Miri. I’m in Bridgeport, and the sheriff’s department tells me she’s in the psych ward up here.” I explained what Drew Warnell had told me. “She wouldn’t give them any information about next of kin, so they couldn’t contact you.”

  Sara sighed deeply. “Maybe now she’ll get the help she needs.”

  “Yes.” But I doubted that, knowing how our broken health-care system works—especially for the poor.

  “I’ll let Ramon know,” Sara said. “Thank you so much, Sharon.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  But as I hung up, I realized the words were false. The day had cost me, a reminder of too many years of visiting sleazy bars and talking to sleazy characters. Now I had a long ride home, and nothing but an empty evening to look forward to.

  The lights were out in the Perez house when I arrived at the ranch; probably they were up in Bridgeport dealing with Miri. Damn! Amy missing, Hayley murdered, Miri out of control—how could so much bad happen to good people like Ramon and Sara?

  I glanced at the stable, wondering if Ramon had had time to feed Lear Jet. Probably not. I might as well do it.

  The horse was in his stall. When he saw me he snorted and looked away.

  I said, “Look, you damn creature, I’m here to do you a favor.”

  I went to the bin where Ramon kept the alfalfa, measured out the amount I’d seen him give the horse, and started back toward the stall.

  Lear Jet moved restlessly, snorted.

  I tensed and stopped. “Hey, there. Take it easy.”

  The horse reared and let out a high-pitched whinny. His hooves smacked the stall door, splintering its brittle old wood.

  I dropped the food and backed toward the outer door.

  What you need to do is show them that you’re in control.

  Ramon’s words.

  Move away slowly.

  Something I’d read in an article about how to behave in an encounter with a mountain lion.

  Get the hell out of here.

  My philosophy.

  Before I could turn tail, Lear Jet kicked free from the stall and charged at me.

  I sidestepped, then scrambled backward toward the outer door. The horse came on. I feinted the other way, momentarily confusing him. As he passed I felt a sharp blow on the back of my head. My eyes lost focus. The last thing I remembered was grasping the wall and sliding down. . . .

  “Sharon.” Sara’s voice, commanding. “Wake up.”

  “Unh.” I could hear, but not see, her.

  A sharp, unfamiliar scent in my nostrils. One of her native remedies? But why couldn’t she let me sleep?

  “Wake up.” Insistent.

  I opened my eyes. Her round face came into focus.

  She held up her hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

  Stupid question. “Two.”

  “Good. Do you know where you are?”

  “Mmm.” I felt the ground around me. Wooden floor with scattering of straw. Now I remembered. That damn horse! “Stables.”

  “Very good. Let’s sit you up now.”

  She took hold of me under my armpits, eased me up till my back was against the wall.

  “Ramon and I saw the horse running free. I thought I’d better check in here.”

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Eight fifty-five.”

  I’d come out here at about 8:45. I couldn’t’ve been out more than a few minutes.

  “Let me look at your head.”

  It was already bowed forward. I felt her fingers probing, winced when they touched a tender spot.

  “Not so bad,” she said. “No cuts or abrasions, but you could have a mild concussion. I’ll take you back to the house in a few minutes and stay with you tonight. If there are any complications, we’ll go to the emergency clinic in the morning.”

  Hooves clopping. I jerked my head up, wrenching my neck. Ramon, leading Lear Jet into the stable.

  “Get him away from me!” I said. “He tried to kill me.”

  Ramon frowned and looked at Sara. She shook her head.

  He said, “The horse was spooked—”

  “Damn right he was!”

  “But not by you,” Sara added.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “The bump on your head isn’t anything he could have inflicted. I’d say someone else was here, possibly antagonizing him. When Lear Jet bolted, whoever it was hit you.”

  “But why . . . ?”

  “I don’t know,” Ramon said.

  I thought—fuzzily—of the people whom I’d come in contact with the whole day. Of others who might have felt they had reason to harm me. Of the rippling shadow at Willow Grove Lodge.

  No. Not again. That part of my life was supposed to be over!

  Thursday

  NOVEMBER 1

  When I awoke, Sara was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of Hy’s and my bedroom, her hands manipulating knitting needles and red yarn. She looked up when I stirred.

  “Good morning, Sharon. How’re you feeling?”

  I took inventory, touching my head. There was a fair-sized lump behind my right ear, but strangely it didn’t hurt much. “Not bad.”

  “I put some ointment on your scalp last night. It must have helped.”

  Vaguely I remembered the earthy smell and oily feel of it. “It did. One of your concoctions?”

  “Of course. Are you seeing all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “No headache, or sickness in your stomach?”

  “None.”

  “Then I prescribe twenty-four hours bed rest, and you’ll be fit as ever.” She finished a row of knitting and began putting the needles and yarn away in a brightly colored tote bag.

  “Thank God you were there last night, Sara. When I didn’t see any lights at your place I thought you and Ramon had gone to Bridgeport. That’s why I was trying to feed Lear Jet.”

  “We’d planned to go up there, but when we called the sheriff’s department they said Miri couldn’t have any visi
tors until this afternoon. And Ramon made the . . . arrangements for Hayley by phone, and then we went out for dinner at Zelda’s. We thought we owed ourselves a nice meal—”

  A knock at the bedroom door, and Ramon entered, eyes downcast as if he was afraid I might be scantily clad. No chance of that—Sara had enveloped me in a big terry cloth bathrobe of Hy’s. She’d seemed somewhat scandalized that I didn’t possess a proper nightgown.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine. Sara’s given me a clean bill of health.”

  “Only if you stay in bed today,” she said.

  I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender.

  Ramon said, “I’ve been thinking about what happened last night. I’ve been around horses all my life. I can feel what they’re feeling. Lear’s been testing you, but he would never attack—especially when you were bringing food to him. Somebody else had to be there. Somebody he would attack.”

  “Who?”

  “One person comes to mind: Boz Sheppard. He did some work up here a while back, rebuilding part of the pasture fence. He deviled the horse, and when I told him to stop, I suspect he kept on doing it behind my back. Lear landed him a good kick on the shoulder the last day he worked here.”

  “But what would Sheppard be doing here last night? And why would he hit me?”

  Didn’t add up, any of it.

  I kept my promise to stay in bed until noon. Then restlessness got the better of me. I got up, showered, and dressed. Had some toast and coffee. Sara’s remedies had worked their magic, and I decided to do something nice for her and Ramon: I’d spend the afternoon making a casserole for them for when they returned, stressed and tired, from Bridgeport.

  Trouble was, I have a limited repertoire of specialties that runs along the lines of garlic bread, spaghetti, stuffed sourdough loaves, and dressing for the holiday turkey. Hy cooks more than I do; we eat out frequently; I’m the expert on prepackaged foods and the microwave.

  When I got back to the ranch house I located an old cookbook—The Woman’s Home Companion—that I recognized as being one of my mother’s bibles, my grandmother’s before her. There were a couple of simple recipes for noodle casseroles that I decided to combine, but I didn’t have the ingredients; I made a list and set out for town.

  Day after Halloween: smashed pumpkins in the streets, trees draped with toilet paper; some windows soaped; candy wrappers on the sidewalk. Simple, old-fashioned mischief, the kind we haven’t had in the city in some years. For safety reasons, trick-or-treating doesn’t happen in most neighborhoods there, and pranks are usually on the vandalous side. Many times Halloween parties end in injuries and fatalities.

  Of course, the day before Halloween here had been fatal for Hayley Perez. A reminder that no matter where you are, the world is a dangerous place.

  The scarecrow in the Food Mart’s parking lot had been dismembered: its head lay on top of the bales of hay, its clothes strewn around. Black spray paint on the white wall said THE DEVEL MADE ME DO IT! No one ever said graffiti artists can spell.

  I went inside, made my selections, and took them to the same checker I’d spoken with last Tuesday night. While she was ringing the order up she asked, “Did you find Amy Perez?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You hear about her sister, Hayley?”

  “The woman who was murdered? Yes.”

  “I’m wondering: Amy didn’t come in to work today, and nobody’s seen her. Maybe she and that scumbag Boz Sheppard killed her sister and took off. Nobody’s seen him, either.”

  “Why would they do such a thing?”

  “Money. I hear Hayley had a big life-insurance policy.”

  “Oh, yeah? How much?”

  “Not sure, but they say Amy was the beneficiary.”

  “Who says this?”

  “Well, everybody.” She swung out her arm to include the whole store, maybe the whole town.

  Small-town gossip. One misleading remark, and everybody thinks it’s gospel.

  Still, I asked, “D’you know what company insured her?”

  “There’s only one broker in town—Bud Smith. He represents a lot of companies.”

  “But Hayley had been gone a long time; she must’ve taken out the policy somewhere else.”

  “She’s been back long enough. Was staying with Boz Sheppard out in that trailer where she was killed. Didn’t show her face in town much, though.”

  “Why not?”

  The clerk shrugged. “Ashamed because she ran off and came back with nothing to show for it? Didn’t want to run into her mother? I mean, who does want to run into Miri? You should ask Bud Smith.”

  Bud Smith was in his mid-forties and losing his blond hair; a short military-style cut couldn’t disguise it. He was lean and wiry, dressed in a loud plaid polyester jacket that was decades out of date and a shirt and tie of the same era. Obviously a fan of vintage clothing. He was on the phone when I entered his office in a lakeside strip mall, but greeted me with a smile and waved me toward a chair.

  The smile faded as he said into the phone, “No, stay there. Stay right there. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  For a moment after he hung up he stared down at the desk. Then he looked at me and said, “What can I do for you?”

  When I said I was helping the Perez family deal with the details of Hayley’s death, his face grew even more somber: he reminded me of an eccentrically attired funeral director.

  “Such a tragedy,” he said, “such a waste.” His sorrowful expression looked genuine.

  “We understand Hayley had taken out a life-insurance policy with you. And that the beneficiary was her younger sister, Amy.”

  “Uh, yes, she did.” He began fiddling with a stack of papers on his desk, tapping them into a neat pile. “Are you putting in a claim? If so, Amy should be the one—”

  “Amy’s out of town and we haven’t been able to reach her. Basically, all we want to know is if the policy exists and what its terms are.”

  “Hayley should have had the policy in her possession. She picked it up”—he flipped backward through his desk calendar—“on September twenty-sixth.”

  So she’d been in town for quite a while. Why, as the clerk at the Food Mart had said, hadn’t she “shown her face”?

  I said, “Perhaps she put it in a safe place. The trailer where she was staying wasn’t very secure.”

  “Apparently not, since she was murdered there.” Smith hesitated, running his hand over his clean-shaven chin. “I’m not sure I should be discussing the policy with you. Are you a relative?”

  “A good friend. Ramon Perez is manager at my husband’s and my ranch.”

  “Oh, you’re Hy Ripinsky’s new wife. I heard he got married again. Forgive me. I’ll be glad to tell you anything you need to know.”

  I love to ask questions in small towns where I’m an insider. Hate it when I’m an outsider and they raise the bar against me.

  Bud Smith went to a file cabinet and came back to his desk with a slim manila folder. “She came in on September seventh. Said her mother was unreliable—which is true—and that her other siblings, except for Amy, were either dead or in prison. She wanted to provide for Amy should something happen to her. We agreed on a fifty-thousand-dollar whole-life policy, which would accumulate a cash value that could be withdrawn at any time if Hayley, as owner of the policy, needed money.”

  “Why fifty thousand?”

  “The premiums were affordable, and Hayley felt it was enough to give Amy a new start in life.”

  “She explain what she meant by that?”

  “No. And I didn’t ask. I don’t pry into my clients’ personal affairs.”

  “Did Hayley have to undergo a medical exam to get the coverage?”

  “Not at twenty-five. She filled out the usual health disclosure form; that was enough.”

  “And what address did she give you?”

  He consulted the file. “Her mother’s, but she asked the policy not be sent there
, which is why she picked it up.”

  “This type of policy—is there a double indemnity clause, in case of accidental death or murder?”

  The right corner of Smith’s mouth twitched. “Yes. Of course. Unless she was killed by the beneficiary . . . Not that Amy would’ve done such a thing. The girl’s a little wayward, but not bad.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “My avocation is volunteering as a life-skills coach. Helping kids who are at risk. My friend Dana Ivins, who runs the organization, had several sessions with her. She—Dana—thought Amy had great potential.”

  “This organization is called . . . ?”

  “Friends Helping Friends. The name is designed to let troubled teens know we coaches don’t consider ourselves superior, but just people who’ve undergone and overcome the same obstacles they’re facing.”

  “Sounds like a good program.”

  Bud Smith’s smile was a shade melancholy. “We try. That’s all we can do—try.”

  Friends Helping Friends operated out of a dilapidated cottage on an unpaved side street at the west end of town, across the highway from the point where Zelda’s was situated. A sign on the door said COME RIGHT IN, so I did. A short hallway opened in front of me. To my left was a parlor full of shabby but comfortable-looking furnishings; in the room to my right, a thin woman with short gray hair and round glasses that gave her face an owlish look sat at a desk. She saw me and smiled.

  “What can I do for you?”

  I introduced myself. “I’m interested in speaking with one of your coaches, Dana Ivins.”

  “You are in luck.” She got up and extended her hand across the desk to me. “I’m Dana.”

  “Bud Smith told me you’ve been working with a girl named Amy Perez.”

  She frowned. “Sit down, please. I’m afraid Bud shouldn’t have revealed that. Part of our success is that we keep our clients’ names confidential.”

  “Would you explain to me how the organization works?”

  “Well, the name describes it. We pair young people who are at risk with coaches who have had similar problems earlier in life. They can meet here in our parlor if the clients’ homes aren’t a supportive environment—which in most cases they’re not—or if they aren’t comfortable being seen with their coaches in public. Or they can pick another meeting place—so long as it isn’t the coach’s home; that’s inviting trouble from parents who resent our intrusion. We listen to the clients’ stories and tell them ours and what we’ve learned from them. It’s strictly a volunteer program with very little overhead, and what there is is funded by donations from local businesses. This is my house, so we don’t have to pay for offices.”