by J A Whiting
Joe shook his head. "Ross, I've lived around here for most of my life. I went to school with the colonel's two younger kids for a while. I wouldn't do that to the family even if I thought it was true, and I don't. Sam was a good kid and very brave in his own way, but he was the one who made a bad decision that day, not the colonel."
There was some excited commotion at the main door of the hotel as the bride and her purple-gowned bridesmaids all appeared. Mae caught sight of them and began walking Steel in their direction.
A little stiffly, but not bad for a man with an artificial knee, Joe got to his feet. "It wasn't me who tried to stop Col. Greene's funeral. I'd be pleased to play for him if the family ever decides to go ahead with the ceremony."
"I see. Thanks for the information. I'll let Mae know." Ross watched as his friend moved across the parking lot towards the carriage, convinced that Joe Burke was not the one who had tried to ruin the old colonel's legacy.
So who did? I'm about ready to find out before another blowgun dart, or worse, comes flying out of nowhere at one of us again.
"That's one thing I've learned about weddings," said Mae with a laugh, as she began unharnessing Steel in the hotel parking lot. "They're usually just a one-way drive for us. Like most of the brides, this one is leaving the church to go to the reception by car. Works for me."
"Makes it simple," agreed Ross, and backed up the white Landau so he could prepare to load it into the stock trailer.
"I saw you talking to Joe," said Mae. "Did he say anything about the colonel?"
"I did talk to Joe. And no, it wasn't him who tried to ruin the old colonel's reputation. And yes, I'm sure."
"I see. But, if it wasn't Joe and it wasn't Crystal Walsh, or she won't admit to it, then it could be almost anyone. We'd never know the truth. Maybe you're right that we weren't meant to know."
"At the end of the day, it's a family matter. Of course, we're the ones being shot at with blowguns and being kept from taking a sick man to an ambulance."
Mae paused. "And whoever did that could start attacking the Greene family the same way. They could decide that ruining a reputation wasn't enough. They could decide they want a much worse form of revenge."
"That's right. So, maybe you should get on your laptop thing tonight and see what else you can find out."
Mae glanced up at him. "I might do that. If it wasn't Crystal Walsh, and it wasn't Joe Burke, the only other suspect I'd have would be Wes Duncan. I'll see if I can find anything else on him. I have a feeling there's more to him than we know."
That night, back inside her condo, Mae sat down at her kitchen table with a mug of hot chocolate and opened up her laptop.
She began by searching online under different combinations of Wes Duncan Worthington Ohio, Wes Duncan Lowlands Farm Ohio, and a few others. At first there were only the standard address returns for Wes and for Lowlands Farm, which she already knew, so she added a few other things such as U.S. Army and Afghanistan.
In a moment, she was looking at an obituary for a man named Samuel Brian Duncan.
It had run in a local Columbus newspaper back in 2005, written for a U.S. Army soldier who had died while serving in Afghanistan. It listed the address of the deceased as being Lowlands Farm in Worthington.
Before going any further, Mae picked up her phone.
"Goodnight Farm," said Ross. "Everything all right, Mae?"
She smiled. "I think so. Earlier today, out at the wedding, you said you talked to Joe about a soldier who died overseas while under Greene's command. Did Joe remember the man's name?"
"Not the last name. Only the first. Sam."
Mae took a deep breath. "Ross, I'm sitting here looking at an obituary for a young man named Samuel Brian Duncan," she said. "This says he had an older brother named Wesley Duncan and a younger sister named Marie C. Duncan."
There was silence on the other end for a moment. "Hard to believe that's not the same one."
"It has to be the same one," said Mae. "So is Wes taking out his anger on the U.S. Army for his brother's death, by attacking the reputation of his own former commanding officer?"
"Maybe. But when we talked to Wes out at his farm, he described Greene as a good CO who was tough on his men because he wanted to keep them alive."
"That's right. Wes did say that," answered Mae. "But that's the complete opposite of what Joe said. Somebody's hiding something, but who? How do we find out?"
"Tell you one way," said Ross. "We look for a blowgun."
20
At ten thirty a.m. sharp, Mae got behind the wheel of the little two-passenger golf cart out at the Autumn Hills Country Club. Ross placed his rented clubs in the back of the cart and then sat down beside her.
"Sorry I'm running a little late," said Mae. "Got here as soon as I could. This was the only tee time they had?"
"Tee times can be real hard to get. This was in between the early birds and the lunch crowd."
"And it's only for nine holes, not the full eighteen?"
"Nine will be enough. Told them we wanted to try it out to see if we want to join."
Mae glanced around and laughed. "It's pretty, but there's plenty of grass and trees out at Goodnight Farm. And I wouldn't know one golf club from another."
"Doesn't matter today. Let's go."
Mae got the little cart moving and headed it for the first tee. The cart seemed like a toy after her big diesel truck, and it definitely was not as fast as Fireball had been. But right then she wanted to know why Ross had abruptly called and told her to meet him out here today.
It definitely was not to join a country club.
"You called the county sheriff late last night?"
"I did. Wanted to ask again about that blowgun. They found nothing."
She nodded. "This place is huge. A little thing like that could be anywhere."
"It could. But they searched the wrong area."
"Uh– what?"
"Deputy said they searched around the eighth green. That's where the wedding was held. Not where the horse was hit."
"Oh, they looked in the wrong place."
"They did. But they weren't interested in coming back. It's been almost a week. They think the shooter took his little blowgun home where he could hide it in a closet. They think he might want to use it again."
"I take it you don't agree."
"I think there's way less chance of anyone ever finding it out here, buried in the mud. Those things are cheap. He could always buy another blowgun if he wanted one."
"Makes sense to me," said Mae. "But look at this place. It's huge, with all these long, long stretches of grass that are lined on both sides with heavy forest. It all looks the same to me. Do you remember exactly where it was that Fireball jumped?"
"Thought I remembered the horse crashing his head through some branches when he got hit."
"That's right, he did. Fireball had leaves and twigs all over him when I went to unharness him. And, now that I think about it, pink flower petals, too."
Quickly Mae looked around again. "There are some dogwood trees in the forest. See the flowers? Some white, some pink."
"The horse didn't hit a tree in the forest. It was a lone pink flowering tree, right between the cart path and the fairway."
"That's right. How many of those can there be?"
Mae watched as Ross played the first few holes. He really was pretty good, considering he'd only played a few times before and that had been years ago. But her main concern was getting down the course and finding that pink flowering tree.
Mae drove the cart along the asphalt path and rounded the curve to the fifth tee, and there it was. A lone dogwood tree sitting a few yards out between the cart path and the fairway, covered with beautiful deep pink blooms.
"Park off the path. Under the tree."
She moved the cart next to the tree. "Do you really think you could find a blowgun in there? And how will you explain being out in the woods if you're seen?"
"No problem."
<
br /> Ross got out, selected a club, and carried it to the middle of the fairway. He took a golf ball from his pocket and set it on the grass. A nice swing sent the ball flying right over the cart and into the woods.
Before Mae could say anything, Ross went striding into the woods with the golf club up on his shoulder. All she could do was sit and wait, twice having to wave through a group of players. "He wants to look for the ball. Go ahead. He'll be out shortly."
He'd better be, or I'm just going to leave him here.
At last, she heard cracking sounds from within the woods, and Ross came trudging out. He was still carrying his golf club, the head of it thick with mud, and got back into the cart. He kept the dirty end of the club down on the floor.
"Keep going," he said. "Down to the next tee."
"Did you find anything?" Mae asked, nudging the cart into motion again.
"Sure. About a million old golf balls."
"Oh, well, we knew finding something like a blowgun in the woods would be like finding, I guess I don't have to say."
Then Ross twisted the golf club so that she could see the other side of the handle. Held tightly against it, so that it was not plainly visible, was a large mud-caked plastic tube about eighteen inches long … also known as a blowgun.
"I found it this morning at the golf course. It was in the woods, a few yards from where the horse was hit." Standing across from the deputy sheriff at the front desk, Ross balanced the mud-caked blowgun on the fingers of each hand and held it out.
"You found it out at that golf course?" said the deputy, standing up. "But we looked there. We didn't find a thing."
"It turns out," said Mae, standing beside Ross, "that your men searched near the eighth green. That's where the wedding was. It was not where my horse was hit by the blowgun dart."
The deputy shook his head. "Those woods are thick. Nobody ever goes in there. How did you manage to find it?"
"We felt sure we knew exactly where the shot was made. I walked in and found a faint path. I figured out how close he must have been, and started looking."
"That's some luck," marveled the deputy, looking at the blowgun.
"Not just luck. I think he most likely panicked after actually hitting the horse, dropped the thing and ran away."
Mae nodded. "So we've brought it to you."
"Don't know if there's fingerprints," said Ross. "A lot of mud. But might be worth a try."
"And either way," added Mae, "I'll bet you could post a picture of it online and see if anyone recognizes it. You wouldn't even have to say where you found it."
"Fingerprint check will take a little time," said the deputy. He took the muddy, scratched-up blowgun from Ross, placed it on a couple of pieces of white paper with a pencil for scale, and took out his cell phone to get a picture. "But this can go online right now."
After stopping at a fast-food place for a post-golf, and post-sheriff's office, lunch of cheeseburgers and fries, Mae and Ross returned to the farm. Ross got the wheelbarrow and rake to do some of the endless stall cleaning. Mae got the saddle soap to do some of the endless harness polishing.
The afternoon wore on pleasantly. Mae pulled up some classic 1950s music on her phone and kept on working.
It's a good thing we got ourselves a big lunch. I always forget how much work this is.
After a few hours, though, it was time for a break. She got a soft drink out of the refrigerator in the tack room and sat down in one of the white plastic chairs to check her phone.
She was very much in the habit of routinely checking for any messages for Tipperary Carriage Company. There were none at the moment so, as had also become her habit, she took a look at the local news in case there was anything that might affect her driving engagements.
Police standoff in rural area near Worthington, said one headline. Mae wondered what could be going on out there, in just another typical upper middle class suburb.
She tapped the screen and the video started to play, and then Mae caught her breath when the camera showed the carved wooden sign that said Lowland Farm.
The video showed a handcuffed Wes Duncan being walked down the lane by a couple of sheriff's deputies. This was the man who had owned and sold the horse he called "Meteor” to Mae.
He was very distraught and was weeping and being half-carried by the deputies. "Marie!" he yelled in the video, as they made him keep walking. "Marie, please. Come and get me. Please. And get Meteor. Don't let them use him for…."
Briefly, the camera showed the man being taken to an ambulance and then the video ended.
"Duncan was apprehended after threatening to take a gun to the home of his former commanding officer, the late Col. Miles Greene," said the male reporter. "It is unclear at this time what set him off."
Well, things just get stranger and stranger. Did Wes somehow see the blowgun online? He could have. But why was he yelling about the horse? "Don't let them use him for–" For the colonel's funeral. But didn't he know that the funeral had been called off?
And then there's the next question, did his sister, Marie, have anything to do with the blowgun or the threat to the colonel?
The next morning, after all the horses had been fed and turned out, Mae and Ross drove to the sheriff's office. Deputy Blackwood had asked them to come down and answer a few more questions so that he could prepare his final report.
Mae walked into the deputy's office where three chairs had been placed on the other side of his desk. She was a little surprised to see that a young blond woman, wearing only plain jeans and a sweatshirt, sat in the chair at one end.
Then the woman looked up at them. Her hair was pulled back in a flat ponytail and her face was bare of any makeup. Yet she looked familiar.
"Crystal? Crystal Walsh?" Mae asked.
The woman nodded in silence.
Mae was struck by how somber and still Crystal was, and how very different she looked. "Did you come here to get a story?"
The look on Crystal's face made Mae regret asking the question.
"No. I didn't. There's a lot you don't know. Maybe you'll understand better if you do."
"I'm sure I will," Mae said softly, and then she and Ross sat down in the other two chairs.
"In journalism school, they taught us to get to the point– who, what, why, where, and when," said Crystal, looking down at the desk. "As for the who … Wes Duncan is my oldest brother. Sam Duncan was my next oldest brother. They were a year apart. I'm five years younger."
Mae nodded. "I see," she whispered. "Now it makes sense."
"The what is that both of them were in the army and served under Col. Greene. The why is that Sam was killed while under his command. The where was Afghanistan, and the when was many years ago. But Wes was unable to come to terms with it."
"I'm truly sorry about your brother Sam, Crystal," said Mae. "Or maybe I should say, Marie?"
21
The blond woman glanced up. "Yes, my real name is Marie. How did you know?"
"I saw the name 'Marie C. Duncan' on Sam's obituary. The 'C' is for Crystal, isn't it?
"I'm actually Marie Crystal Duncan Walsh. I kept the 'Walsh' as an on-air name after the last divorce. Wes always calls me Marie. Sam did, too."
"Why are you here today?" asked Ross. "Answering questions, like we are?"
Crystal nodded. "Deputy Blackwood asked me to come in and answer some questions. But I'm also here because I want the truth about Wes to be out there. I've already lost one brother. I don't want to lose the other one, too. People shouldn't think that Wes is a bad person."
"You mean… you don't want him to be remembered that way," said Mae, looking closely at Crystal. "It's important to you. And, I'm sure, to the rest of your family."
"He's not a bad person," Crystal said, raising her chin. "He's just– just— "
"He's suffering and in need of help," said Ross.
Crystal looked away. "He's getting the help he needs right now. He's not in jail. He's in a hospital."
&n
bsp; "I'm glad," said Mae gently. "I know what you mean about the way someone should be remembered. That can be hard to understand, until it's one, or two, of your own."
Crystal just nodded. She looked utterly defeated, even vulnerable, without the heavy makeup and tight dress, heels, camera crew, and microphone. Now she looked like someone's sister who was trying to help a troubled family member, and preserve the good name of another who had passed on.
Deputy Blackwood sat at his desk making notes at the computer, just listening to what went back and forth between the three of them and trying to get it all down.
"We know, of course, that you were there at your friend's wedding," said Mae. "You were in the wedding party and rode in my carriage with the bride."
"Yes, of course. You saw me there."
"And I realize now that you must have been the 'Ms. Duncan' who called me and asked for a black horse at that wedding, right at the very last minute."
"I'd say it was also the same 'Ms. Duncan' who called the other carriage company and canceled that reservation," added Ross.
Crystal shrugged slightly. "I told the first company that the bride decided to use a car instead. They canceled the reservation with no questions asked. They even returned the deposit."
"Except the bride didn't know until her deposit refund suddenly showed up on her credit card account. She didn't get to make that choice. You made it for her," countered Mae.
Finally, Crystal sat up straight and glared at Mae with fire in her eyes. "There was something far bigger at stake here. My brother's peace and security. He was dangerously on edge and I knew that. I was just trying to help him."
Mae shook her head, still baffled. "Help him, how? We bought the horse from your brother. You must have known that. You even called him by his original name, 'Meteor,' when you did that story on me out at the office park."
"Yes, I knew you'd bought him. Wes told me."
