There had been a time not too long ago in my life when it hadn’t. Thankfully, it usually did now.
Cade and I had taken a table outside, ordered our food, and were one beer in when I said, “How’d Danny do?”
Cade shrugged, which was a fairly impressive feat with his shoulders. “He wasn’t worried about looking stupid, so he didn't. And he was willing to try whatever I showed him.” He smiled. “You might want to watch him when he sits in his chair tomorrow.”
“You had to make him do squats on his first day?”
“What good is working out if you're not going to work?”
“You, sir, are a terrible person.”
“Only mostly. He was good company though.”
“Really? Danny doesn't usually say much with new people.”
Cade nodded. “Exactly”
The waitress stopped by to let us know that our brisket was on the way and we ordered another beer to make it worth her trip. We were quiet for a moment, enjoying the last of the summer heat and the sound of the stream, when he said, “You and Liv were busy today.”
I nodded. “We had a lot to follow up on.” I told him about the day’s events, which took until the brisket and the second beer arrived. As we dug in, I said, “Now it sounds like there was an argument between Hamish and Archie the night of the attack.”
Cade raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know all of it yet, but I think they fought at the hospital too.”
Cade set his fork down. “I’m beginning to think it was a mistake to bond him going back to the same property.”
“Mrs. Mack’s been running interference between them.”
“Shep, if you were Hamish and you knew Archie had tried to kill Abby, what would stop you from going over there?”
That should have been enough. That should have been enough for me to put things together more quickly later, but it wasn’t. Which I would regret.
At the time, though, I said, “He hasn’t so far. Which makes me wonder if, deep down, Hamish doesn’t think Archie did it either.”
“He might be in denial.”
“I don’t think he did it, Cade.”
Cade shrugged. “Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter to a bondsman, Cade. Attendance and good behavior does.”
I smiled. “Liv’s got a different opinion about that.”
“She’s mentioned it.”
We finished that conversation and our brisket and talked about nothing in particular until we were done.
24
They need a specific expression for farm early. I mean, those men and women hit the field rolling as the sun comes up, which means they’re up and eating and caffeinating well before sunrise. Which in turn means that, if you need to meet with a farmer before he hits the field and you need to drive more than half an hour to get there, you’re getting up at a downright inhumane hour that makes you question how men and women of sterner stuff could possibly do this every day.
Or so I’ve been told.
I caught Archie at his house the next day before he went out into the field. There were two things I needed to ask him about and I’d decided I wanted to see how he looked when he answered me.
“Coffee?” he said as he let me in the front door.
“Please.”
He poured, we sat, and I said, “I know you have to get at it. I won’t keep you long.”
Archie shrugged. “If I want to stay on the field and out of…other places, I’ll need to make time.”
I nodded, took a sip of dark, bitter goodness, and said, “I talked to your mom about the offer from Hillside Oil & Gas.”
Archie took a sip so that the mug was in front of his face as I said it. “And?” said Archie.
“Were you in favor of it?”
Archie sipped, thought, and said, “I wasn't against it, exactly. With the way our harvest had gone the years before, I thought we should consider anything that would keep our heads above water and the banks off our back.”
“How about Hamish?”
“Hamish was against it.”
“Why?”
“He wanted the farm to survive on its own. He thought we could do it. He certainly worked hard to help, even more than usual.”
“More? I thought he farmed full time?”
“He does but his farm keeps him busy.”
“His farm. Do you operate separately?”
“Sort of. Not exactly but yes. We each own our third but we operate together. You saw we share some equipment and we’ll help each other for certain things. Hamish works most of his land himself and that takes all his effort. That summer, though, he did everything he could to help my parents’ survive. He spent as much time on their field as his own.”
“I see,” I said. “It’s the timing of Hillside’s offer that has me curious though. Your place gets sabotaged with the pesticide and two months later the oil company comes around offering up a lease that would solve your cash problems. That seems too fortunate to be a coincidence, doesn’t it?”
Archie didn’t look convinced. “I suppose.”
“It didn’t make sense to me at first, why they would do that. But then, the more I dug, the more I found that the oil company has just as much to gain from that lease as your family does. Maybe more. Do you know why?”
Archie looked at me. “Why’s that, Nate?”
I paused. Then I said, “The Albion-Scipio Trend.”
Archie stared. Not a blink. Not a twitch. “The what?”
“You know about those oil wells not far from your farm? Over in Hillsdale and Jackson and Calhoun counties?”
Archie’s expression was neutral. “Not really.”
I sipped my coffee, then shook my head. “I didn’t either. I mean, I generally knew that there were oil wells here and there, but it turns out that Albion-Scipio is the name of a really rich oil find.”
Archie’s brow furrowed. “So?”
“Like I said, I’d never heard the name before this case. I heard it for the first time when Abby told me about it. She had heard the name while she was lying there among the rocks. The man who attacked her said it right before he tried to smash her head with a rock.”
Archie winced at the description but then nodded. “Sounds like you should follow up on that then.”
Nothing. No guilt, no recognition of the name, nothing. If Archie had heard of Albion-Scipio before, he was hiding it pretty well.
I nodded. “I will. Why didn’t you tell me you called Hamish from the Quarry?”
Archie’s coffee mug jerked. “What?”
“I got blindsided by the prosecutor yesterday. He said you called Hamish from the Quarry. And that the two of you argued.”
“How could he know…”
“I assume Hamish told him.”
It's hard to describe what happened to Archie's face next. One look after another flashed across his face. I saw puzzlement then realization then anger and then what I can only describe as a deep breath, a look at the ceiling, and a man gathering himself. Then he looked at me and said, “Well, that field’s not going to harvest itself.”
Archie’s voice was a rusty croak, a combination of early morning and a man who spent all day by himself on a combine. It was gravelly and jagged, like a plow blade scraping across a buried rock.
“What did you argue about?”
Archie stood. “The farm.”
“What about it?”
Archie dumped the last of his coffee into the sink. “Nothing that has a thing to do with Abby. Thanks for coming up.”
“Archie! The prosecutor thinks he has a motive from the call.”
Archie set his mug aside and pulled on his Mack Farms cap. “We argued about the farm, Nate, and it was between him and me. It had nothing to do with Abby. You can let yourself out.”
And just like that, Archie left. I was still standing there when his big red barn door opened, spilling light into a world that was still half an hour away from dawn.
I poured anoth
er cup of coffee. I watched Archie prepare his rig and then make his way out into the field. I was convinced he didn’t know anything about Albion-Scipio and I was just as convinced that he wasn’t telling me the whole truth about his brother.
I drank about half a cup until the remainder was less scalding than I liked. Then I dumped the coffee, rinsed the cup, and put it in the dishwasher before I walked out the front door.
My mom would have been proud.
I took my time getting back to the office and was still there an hour and a half early, so I was on my second cup of coffee when Olivia came through the door.
“I talked to Archie this morning,” I said.
She stopped. “That’s early for you.”
“No kidding. How do you do it by the way? I’m starving.”
“I told you, the Cast Iron Kitchen. There’s a spot for you at my table every morning at four-thirty.”
“Good Lord.”
“So, Archie?”
I shook my head. “I’m convinced he’d never heard the word Albion-Scipio before.”
“Okay.”
“But he reacted when I mentioned the call with Hamish.”
“What did he say?”
“He seemed madder that Hamish had said something than anything else. Then he wouldn’t tell me what the fight was about, just that it involved the farm.” I shook my head. “There’s something going on with those two. Besides our case, I mean.”
Olivia crossed her arms. “I suppose one explanation is that he did it and he's afraid anything he says will provide evidence against him.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”
“Me either. I’ll let you work. Danny in soon?”
“Should be.”
“I’ll tell him myself and see how it fits with what he’s doing.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Just then, I heard the rustlings of Danny entering the office and called him in. Danny staggered in on legs as stiff as stilts. Two evil people chuckled.
“Have a seat,” I said.
Danny made a face, came around to the front of the chair, and started to lower himself. He made it about three inches before he winced and dropped the rest of the way into the cushions.
I smiled. “Isn’t that better?”
“No.”
I filled Danny in on what I’d told Olivia and, seated and intent on the case, Danny’s enthusiasm returned. When I was done, I said, “Have you done any more work on the oil leases?”
Danny shook his head. “I’ve mostly been working on the video.”
“When you need a break, I need you to look up how may oil leases have been filed since Archie and Hamish got their land from Mr. and Mrs. Mack.”
“For how big an area?”
“All three counties that Albion-Scipio is in and in Ash County.”
I expected a sigh but instead Danny gave me a nod and said, “I think I have most of the raw data already so I’ll just have to match up the dates. Do you think it matters?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So you want me to drill down on that?” said Danny.
“Like a wildcat,” said Olivia.
“Very funny.”
“I have a whole reservoir of them,” said Danny.
“I'm sensing a trend here,” said Olivia.
I sighed.
“An endless well of humor,” said Danny.
“It's fracking hilarious,” said Olivia.
“You can leave now, Danny.” I smiled. “I’ll wait.”
Danny started to push himself up, winced, and dropped back into the chair. “I think I might work right here today.”
“You need your computer.”
He rocked forward, then stopped.
That was softness of a kind that Olivia would not tolerate. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet. Danny yelped—actually yelped—then nodded.
“Come on,” Olivia said.
She looked back at me and smiled. She might have winked, but I couldn’t tell behind the glasses. I chuckled and got back to work.
25
When we’d divided up responsibility in the case, I’d taken charge of investigating the site. I decided it was time to take another look. I gave Kirby a call to make sure he was in and drove out to Century Quarry.
It was evening late in the season so there weren’t many swimmers and sunbathers making their way out when I got there. Kirby let me in and said I couldn't make a big scene around the patio because they had a fortieth birthday party going on but that I was free to check out the amphitheater and the back stairs.
I didn’t think the amphitheater where Big Luke had played would tell me much, so I didn't go over there. Instead, I decided to retrace the route Abby had taken around the Quarry to the abandoned stairs.
I walked through the courtyard, past the concessions and the restrooms, and around the east side of the Quarry to the beach and the swimming area. While it wasn't dark yet, it was getting there, so I had a sense of where the gloom was and where the lights shone. The posts were evenly spaced but far apart so that there were dark areas between the circles of light, clearly a product of 1960s lighting decisions as opposed to the 2000s.
I went past a light post and around the circle toward the abandoned stairs. I was expecting to stay in darkness, but as I rounded the Quarry’s edge, I found that there were two temporary camp lanterns sitting on either side of the old stairs which was cordoned off with bright yellow police tape. I figured that was Kirby’s temporary solution while the owner arranged for more lighting, but that’s not what I wanted to see tonight. I wanted to see what it had looked like for Abby.
I turned off both lanterns. The stairs went dark.
The light from the last post I’d passed on the path didn’t reach here and the light from those in the back parking lot were a good fifty yards away. There was an overgrowth of bushes on either side and even though it wasn’t fully night, the top area on either side of the stairs was concealed. I thought that a person, or two, could easily stand there and not be seen.
I went to the stairs, stepped over the tape, and descended all the way to the cement pad at the bottom. I took a few steps onto the jagged rocks where Abby had landed. She was lucky, both that the rocks had stopped her fall and that they hadn't hurt her worse. I knew the water here was clear, but at night, it would’ve looked like a black pit.
I stepped down off the cement pad and picked my way among the rocks to where Abby had lain. It was slippery and its was awkward and it was hard to keep your balance even when you could see.
There were plenty of fist-sized rocks around to grab.
I looked back up to the top. Forty feet. Fifty stairs. A miracle to survive a fall all that way. Then her attacker had walked all the way down those same stairs, stalked her, and tried to finish the job.
Despite everything, I still didn't think Archie was that guy.
Now that the case was with the prosecutor, I didn’t think that Sheriff Warren Dushane would meet with me. So I decided to get creative.
My oldest niece, Reed, was playing junior varsity volleyball that year for Carrefour North. I didn't have many opportunities to see her play during the week since they usually started at four o'clock, but tonight they were playing a jamboree with matches against three different teams so I decided to hustle over and see her.
The fact that Sheriff Dushane’s granddaughter was on the team and that he worked the scoreboard for their matches had nothing to do with my decision. How dare you suggest it?
The girls were in their third match when I arrived and, judging by the 23-9 score of the first game, I hadn't missed much. I looked around the gym and saw my dad's shock of white hair, standing out like a candle. I made my way over and climbed the rickety wooden bleachers to the top where my sister-in-law Kate was yelling, “Read the defense!”
“You tell her,” I laughed.
Kate looked disgusted. “She keeps hitting it right at the libero! There’s a huge gap on the ri
ght.”
“Sounds like you failed as a mother,” I said.
Kate didn’t look at me and muttered something about smart ass brothers-in-law. I think worthless may have crept in there too.
If you’ve come to the Shepherd barbecues, you’d know Kate as the placid mother of four who manages her family with a quiet grace. Volleyball matches are another matter entirely.
“It has been wide open,” whispered my dad.
“Don't you encourage her,” said my mom.
I laughed, gave my mom a kiss on the cheek, and sat down next my dad. I realized it was just the four of us. “Where is everybody?” I said.
Mom ticked off on her fingers. “Tom went right from practice to take Taylor to dance, Page to club volleyball, and Charlie for ice cream.”
“What about Mark and Izzy and the boys?”
“Justin had football practice and James and Joe are going to their first wrestling club practice.”
“Really? I thought they were a basketball house?”
My mom shook her head. “James is still having trouble running. Cade apparently suggested it to Mark over Labor Day and once James was going to wrestling practice…”
“Joe wasn't far behind?”
“Exactly. It’s good to have you here, though.”
“I’m sorry it took so long. It’s easier to make the later match.”
“Are you okay?”
I looked at her. “Of course.”
My mom looked at me, then patted my leg. “Well, Sarah would have loved watching Reed play.”
It had been almost three years since my Sarah had passed, but it still caught me off guard sometimes. What my mom said, though, was absolutely true, so I said, “She sure would have.”
Blind Conviction (Nate Shepherd Legal Thriller Series Book 3) Page 13