By the time I pulled up, Marty and Rhonda stood in front of the house, arms crossed, legs spread wide in challenge, their deranged version of American Gothic. I had barely climbed out of the car, pocketing my keys, since I’d learned a valuable lesson about leaving keys in cop cars—may my old cruiser rest in peace—when Rhonda advanced on me.
She wore a shabby turquoise velour sweat suit, and her dirty blond hair with inch-long dark roots looked like she hadn’t washed it in a week. “What the hell are you doing out here? I know the gate was locked this time. You goddamn owe me a lock if you cut it off.”
I watched her hands and kept an eye on Marty to make sure he didn’t reach for a gun, either. They gave off a dangerous stink. “Police business. Since I have no way to contact you, I had no choice.” I pulled the lock from my jacket pocket and held it out to her.
She folded her arms across her chest and curled her lip. “What do you want?”
I pocketed the lock and took in the sand dunes butting up against the house and the open basement windows, the giant cistern overturned with the wrecked top laying downhill, the cylinder empty like a spilled beer glass on the hillside above the house. Looked like the same cloudburst that wreaked such havoc at my cottage had settled over their place.
Marty joined Rhonda in front of me. “If you don’t have a warrant, you need to get your ass out of here.”
That Jersey accent in the middle of the Sandhills sounded mighty strange. “I’m here to see your building permits.”
Rhonda shot Marty a can-you-believe-this look.
He took an intimidating step toward me. “This ain’t no city or suburb with an HOA. This is our land, and we can do anything we damned well please out here.”
“More or less.” I gave my words an airy tone. “But you’re required to register building with the county assessor and have the place inspected for code.”
He raised his hand and unholstered his finger to poke it toward my face. “That’s bullshit, and you need to leave.”
I considered biting his finger, but not seriously. “You have some flooding?”
It worked. He dropped his hand and looked confused.
Rhonda joined us, a little too close for my taste. Her breath hadn’t improved much since the other morning. Stale coffee and permanent garlic. “Not your business, honey.”
“Building inspection, remember?”
Rhonda let her lids half close in menace. “Send the county assessor or building inspector. Make an appointment.”
I studied the hillside and toppled cistern. “My basement flooded in that storm. Made a big mess.”
Marty held up his thumb and forefinger and gave me the world’s smallest record player and a completely unsympathetic grimace. “Your doctor called and said you’re late for your lobotomy.”
“Are you having a hard time bailing out your basement?”
“We don’t have a flooded basement, and everything out here is peachy,” Rhonda said.
I nodded. “Okay. You can see how I might jump to that conclusion, what with the buckets scattered on the ground, the basement window open, and the upturned cistern.”
“You’re seeing things,” Marty said.
Their words weren’t frightening and I didn’t see any guns or knives, but they scared me. Threat wafted off them with the garlic and body odor. One thing I’d learned from growing up a Fox, though: Never let them see you flinch. “Probably. But, coincidently, I have a sump pump in my trunk.”
“A what-what?” Rhonda asked.
I gave them my back as I retreated to my trunk. I hefted the pump out. “See? You set it in the basement and hook up a hose. Crank it on and let it pump for you.”
Marty jerked his head toward the pump and spoke to Rhonda. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. That’s gonna work a whole lot better than buckets and mops.”
She swatted his arm. “But we got buckets and mops. We ain’t got a sump pump.” She said the last two words with an exaggerated Western accent. I wanted to tell her I didn’t sound like that.
Instead, I lit up with a Sandhills’ smile and set the pump down. “It’s right here. You can use it.”
Marty narrowed his eyes. “How much?”
I shook my head. “Not for sale. But you can borrow it.” I leaned on the grill of my car. “I’ll wait.”
Rhonda eyed the pump and then her house, obviously weighing whether to trust someone to help or go it alone. Resigned to accept a favor, she gave her regular sneer. “If you just can’t help yourself being a do-gooder, then fine. We could use the damned pump.”
Marty offered a humph and picked up the pump. He scuttled with it up the walk and into the house. Rhonda muttered a grudging thanks and sauntered after him.
I didn’t think she’d let me, but I had to try. I followed her to the concrete slab and had a foot poised to cross the threshold. She blocked the door before she opened it and turned to me. She glared until I backed all the way off the concrete pad of a front porch.
“You wait in your car.” She walked me toward my car.
“It’s a really beautiful day. Do you mind if I wait outside?”
She aimed her finger at me. “Suit yourself. You got no permission to go anywhere but right here by your car. We got signs posted. Trespassers will be shot.”
I propped myself on the fender. “Posting a sign doesn’t make killing someone legal.”
“You think I give a shit about legal, Rizzoli and Isles?”
“That’s two women, right?”
She slashed her finger in front of me, then showed a wolf grin and spoke in a singsong way. “Stay put. I’ll get your pump back to you in a jiffy.”
They went to work. Rhonda’s unhappy cat screech pelted from the basement window and Marty’s answers sounded like a boxer’s punches as they fired the pump and eventually opened up the front door and began hauling things from the basement.
Crates of dried food, plastic fifty-gallon barrels, and sealed boxes accumulated on the concrete porch.
“You guys want some help with that?” Ever so cheerful, I hollered from my perch on the car.
My offer didn’t merit a shut up from either of them. I didn’t know how big their basement was or how much water had seeped in, but I figured it would take at least two hours, maybe longer, to pump it.
They bickered, hefted boxes and containers outside, and retreated inside. The gaps of time between appearances on the porch lengthened, and I figured they were wearing down. They weren’t paying any attention to me. Like a baseball player stealing bases, I ventured farther and farther from my car.
My goal was the chicken house. The kid had taken a plate of food out there a couple of nights ago. I hadn’t heard so much as a cluck, and yet, it was locked up tight. The windows blacked out. Obviously, they were hiding something in there. The barn, too. No animals in sight.
I’d snuck halfway to the chicken house, and still they hadn’t noticed. Together they hauled a wooden crate the size of a coffin and placed it on the porch. I couldn’t hear their words, but they shot them at each other like bullets from ten paces.
The chicken house had a hundred-square-foot yard fenced with chicken wire and two low water troughs along with a metal pan—all the normal setup for chickens. And yet, no birds. The prefab shed was made of pressed wood with an asphalt shingled roof that sloped forward, creating a nice shelter for the entryway. It snugged up next to the barn, which was also shut tight.
I let myself through the wire gate in the fence. The contraption felt rickety, as if constructed quickly or without expertise. A padlock hung from the door of the shed, not like any Sandhills chicken house I knew. Who needed to lock in their hens?
No one. But if you stored stolen goods—or people—you might want to protect them. I inched toward the door, not sure what I planned to do, but maybe I’d see some clue.
“What are you doing?” The angry voice stabbed between my shoulder blades. I whirled around.
Marty hadn’t misplaced his gu
n after all. There it was, attached to his hand and pointing at my head.
Nothing like that feeling of your heart slamming into your chest and the air knocked from your lungs. Guns pointed at me tended to do that.
The string of curses flying from Rhonda wilted the new grass. “I told you to stay put. You’ve got no right to go snooping around.”
Hand up. I regained my breath, though my heart still pounded. Would he shoot me and bury me behind the barn?
Rhonda must have thought Marty’s gun had it covered, because her hands were empty. “You have a chicken fetish or something.”
Might as well call it. “You don’t have chickens in here.” I casually lowered my hands, inching my right hand toward the gun tucked behind my hip.
Rhonda’s shrewd eyes watched my hand rest on my gun. “We don’t?”
Marty seemed curious. “What makes you think we don’t have chickens?”
They weren’t going to shoot me, since Rhonda let me touch my gun. Feeling brave, I wasn’t above a little belligerence. “Aside from the fact you don’t seem like chicken kind of people?”
Arrogance spit from Marty. “Yeah, aside from that.”
“It’s afternoon, and there’s not a peep from the hen house. If you had birds, the roosters would be going crazy and the hens would be carrying on.”
Rhonda swatted Marty’s arm. “That damned kid forgot to let out the lousy birds.”
Marty lurched toward me, and I managed to not flinch. He grabbed the padlock and twisted, making me feel like a dope that it hadn’t even been locked. He popped the lock off and flung open the door. “We trained them to sleep in.”
Amid a blizzard of feathers and a chorus of clucking, hens fluttered from the shed, squawking and pecking, admonishing one and all.
I stared at them.
Rhonda plastered on her custom sneer. “Blackout paint, lights on a timer until midnight. We’re not morning people.”
Marty got behind me and herded me out the gate and toward my car. “Just because it’s always been done that way doesn’t mean we have to. We’re smarter than any dumb birds. They can adjust to our schedule.”
I swung my head back to see the hens happily pecking in their yard. Though I liked to hear a rooster crow first thing, I couldn’t argue with the logic of putting chickens on a human schedule. Different didn’t always mean wrong, even in the case of Rhonda and Marty.
I made a point of looking around. “Where’s Max?”
Marty and Rhonda went still and cold as a gravel pit lake. They passed a tense look between them, and Marty said, “He’s not here.”
“How old is he, anyway?”
Marty moved toward me, heading me toward my car. “Not your business.”
I slowed my steps. “Because he looks like he ought to be in school, but I’ve never seen him at HHS.”
Rhonda whirled around and bumped into me. “He’s homeschooled, so not your problem.”
I backed up a pace to give myself personal space. “Why so secretive? Is there something you’re hiding?”
Marty poked me in the back. “We’re not hurting anybody. We came out here to be left alone. Get it? So leave us alone.”
Rhonda scuttled to the house. “I’ll get your damned pump and you can be on your way.”
While she was gone, Marty prodded me toward my car. I could have put up more of a fight than I did, but one of the white pickups was missing from the carport. I had an idea where it might be and who was driving.
Rhonda returned in a toot and opened the back door of my cruiser. She tossed Josh’s pump onto the seat, ignoring the water soaking into the upholstery.
Marty leaned over, his breath hot and stale on my face. “Fair warning, Sheriff. You come back here again and we’re going to shoot first.”
26
I didn’t bother closing the steel gate on my way out and swung my cruiser off the road onto the trail. Pete and Barnett had their matching Broncos, but my ol’ Charger held its own cross-country, even without four-wheel drive. I followed the tracks of crushed grass up one hill and around another. Marty and Rhonda weren’t real ranchers, but they might have a few head of cattle and therefore a windmill or two that might need checking.
Around one more hill, I hit the jackpot. The white pickup sat next to a half-filled stock tank, the windmill clanking overhead. Max’s fuzzy head bent over the overflow pipe, and he yanked a soaking tumbleweed free, tossing it to the side.
A handful of motley cattle milled around the windmill. If anything proved to me Marty and Rhonda weren’t here to raise beef, it was this collection of rangy critters passing for a cattle herd. Thin, a couple had one horn, even a mixed-breed bull mingled in the bunch.
Max’s head jerked in my direction when he heard the car.
He hesitated a moment, and even from a hundred feet away, I saw his panic. He looked from me to the pickup and finally got to his feet and ran toward it. I gunned my engine.
His door shut and the pickup’s engine turned over, but I pulled up in front of him. This guy wasn’t nearly as slick or quick-thinking as I imagined his parents were. For instance, he didn’t seem to consider backing up to escape.
On the other hand, where was he going to run? Maybe he wasn’t quite as dense as I thought. I jumped out of my car, made sure my gun nestled on my back hip, and walked to the pickup.
Max sat with his hands on the wheel, watching me with scared eyes.
I stopped a few feet away from his door and let the windmill clank a few times. The cows wandered away, not too disturbed but not wanting to be close to the commotion.
“Step out of the pickup.”
Max’s shoulders dropped, and he lowered his head. The door opened, and his tennis shoes plopped into the sand. He backed up and closed the door. “Don’t shoot me.”
That’s not what I expected him to say. “Why would I shoot you?”
He didn’t look at me. “Aren’t you working with Barnett?”
This surprised me even more. “Why would I be working with him?”
Max ventured a glance at me. “I don’t know. I thought maybe he sent you here.”
What was going on? “I’m looking for Shelly Red Owl. Do you know where she is?”
He seemed to catch a breath before he answered, his voice strained. “No.”
“But she was here.”
He didn’t answer, so I bluffed. “I know she was. You brought her food to the chicken house.”
He looked confused by that. “I feed the chickens every night.”
Okay, that hadn’t worked. “I saw you bring her here on your dirt bike after the car wreck.”
His eyes looked like that of a colt after he sees his first snake. “Okay. Okay, yeah. But she’s not here now.”
“Where is she?”
He shook his head.
“Did your parents hurt her?”
That threw him. “My parents?”
“Marty and Rhonda.”
His jaw dropped. “They’re not my parents. We aren’t even related.”
A cow mooed as if Max had surprised her, too. “You’d better explain.”
Max looked at me a moment, then shifted his focus to the tank. “Yeah, so we moved out here about two years ago. Rhonda and Marty came first, then us.”
I waved him to continue. “Who is we, and what are you doing out here?”
“Dad and the guy who owns this place had an accounting business in New Jersey. Marty had a bunch of money he needed to…” Max paused and searched for a word. “Invest. So, about that time, Mom started reading all these books about EMPs and, you know, just kind of what happens if the electricity goes out.”
“EMPs?” I asked.
Max looked disappointed in my ignorance. “Electromagnetic pulse. Could happen because of a sunspot or terrorism or just about anything. It can knock out the power grid and then, you know, the zombie apocalypse.”
This might or might not bring me to what happened to Shelly. “Right.”
The
windmill clanked in the light breeze. Max rocked a little as if burning off nerves. “So Marty comes in with all this money, and he’s kind of interested in getting out of town. You know, far away.”
I was starting to get the gist. “So, the Olson nephew sells Marty and Rhonda this land, they get your folks to come out here and help them set up to be totally off-grid. Your family is protected from EMPs, being the prepper types. Marty and Rhonda get to be in their own private witness protection program.”
He nodded. “Something like that. But my folks went home last winter. They couldn’t take the isolation and, well, they hated Marty and Rhonda.”
I could understand that.
Max went on. “Mom and Dad did all the work. They had a big garden and canned vegetables, took care of the chickens and butchered them. All the maintenance. It was too much work to keep it all going. And then, I think Mom got lonesome out here.”
This sounded so farfetched. There had to be more going on. “Your family came out here and you weren’t allowed off the ranch? Ever?”
“Marty and Rhonda were afraid if anyone knew we were here, the guys they were hiding from would find them. They let us hire people from the rez if we needed extra help.”
“And your parents agreed?”
“Marty owns this place.” Max raised his fingers in air quotes. “He let us live here for free because no way my folks could afford a ranch like this.”
“But now your folks are gone. Why are you here?”
His rocking accelerated, and his eyes flicked from the tank to the cows to my car and back, everywhere but on me. “I…I like it here, so I stayed.”
That was a bald-faced lie. “Why were you looking for Kyle Red Owl the other day?”
“I wasn’t. Well, yeah, I was. But, you know. I just kind of wanted to talk to him. About, well, about some Indian stuff.”
“Not about Shelly?”
He clenched his fists and looked directly into my eyes. “Shelly isn’t here. Stop looking for her.”
Bitter Rain (Kate Fox Book 3) Page 23