by Ellen Parker
“Leinnie’s original. Small.” He parked one arm on the counter and rested his gaze on the pool players. A blond man with a prominent chin alternated shots with a teen who looked like a younger edition. Brothers. The game ended as the teen sank his final three balls in as many strokes.
“Remind me not to play you for money.” The older brother put his cue in the wall rack before addressing the couple at the nearest table. “You want to give him a run, Brad? My mind’s not on the game tonight.”
Soft words bounced between the man in the long-sleeved T-shirt and the blond woman sipping a dark drink at his table.
“One game, Scott. Bragging rights, no cash.”
The teen grinned and began to rack the balls.
Basil sipped beer and tuned in to the conversation between the bartender and the man leaving the pool table.
“Did the sheriff stop in at Farm Service today?” The bartender pulled two beers and one Diet Coke for the server.
“Sent a deputy. More questions on that list than a body could answer.”
“Same here. They seem intent on tracing the steps of half a dozen people all the way from sunrise to midnight. What did you tell them, Sam?”
“The truth. Easier to remember that way. Pull me a Red.” Sam glanced at the pool players before continuing. “Daniel came in that morning. So did Dray, Corey, and a dozen other people. If you want my opinion, I’d say half of them are smiling at the news Daniel’s gone.”
“Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” The barkeep handed him a glass with a perfect half inch of foam.
Sam glanced around and leaned a few inches closer. “According to chatter at the store, they found a drug lab in the barn.”
“Explains the new truck. Any idea what will happen to it? It’s a beauty.”
Ingredients and equipment. I think I got all the finished product. Basil downed the last of his beer and tapped on the counter. “I’ll have another. And the brat with kraut.”
For the next half hour Basil dined on excellent bratwurst and sipped a second beer. He filed away bits of conversation and stray comments about Daniel from new arrivals and took special note when the server muttered a curse around the dead man’s name. Maybe the chemist—make that late chemist—had made more enemies than Basil had given him credit for. In addition to Mr. Lincoln Dray, he’d rubbed someone named Corey the wrong way, and boasted of all the wrong things to the local businessmen.
A glint of metal from the pool table caught his attention. He’d kept his glances casual while the teen lost a quick game. Now the adult named Brad appeared to be giving a lesson. A cue slid across a metal hook at a perfect, low angle and sent two solids off to opposite pockets.
Small-town characters. Basil turned his attention to the attractive woman who had been with the one-armed man. She shared the table now with a man old enough to be her father and dressed like a preacher in black pants and white dress shirt. No, not a religious man; that clothing choice indicated something much worse.
He turned away and gulped the last of his beer. The only people in Basil’s world that considered a tieless shirt casual dress were federal agents. Last thing he needed was to get dragged into conversation with a stray DEA busybody looking to cap his career with an exclamation point.
Basil slid a tip across the bar and made for the exit.
Chapter Twelve
Mona tapped the pristine number-ten envelope against her black twill pants. This morning, half an hour ago, she’d transferred her birth certificate from a mutilated manila container. I lucked out. She silently reviewed the highlights of the papers grabbed during her exit from the apartment.
She’d rescued birth certificates for both Matt and herself. She had her high school diploma, her parents’ marriage certificate, and a letter to her grandmother signed by the Archbishop of St. Paul. A photocopy of her mother’s life insurance, still awaiting payout, surprised her by being tucked inside a greeting card from her father.
“Are you still okay with this?” Linc pulled into a parking spot across from the courthouse.
“I’m good. I keep my promises.” Will I regret this one?
“Glad to hear that. Sit tight a moment and I’ll get your door like a polite fiancé.”
The enormity, the finality, of the impending marriage license purchase pressed against her shoulders. She found a small, brave smile and waited for Linc to close up the van. When he laced his fingers with hers, warm confidence flooded in to nudge the blanket of doubt away. “Are you sure they’re open?”
“Website said eight. It’s a quarter past.”
“Sounds like you want to be first in line.”
“Promptness is a family trait. From what I understand, June tends to be a busy month for marriage licenses.”
She nodded as they walked up the steps toward the main entrance. “And what other family traits go with punctuality?”
“You want the good ones or the questionable variety?”
“Let’s put the whole thing on hold.” She pointed to the directory board. “Room twenty-seven. Sounds like the basement.”
A few moments later they stood side by side in front of an antique wooden counter while a clerk entered information into a very modern computer. Mona smoothed more wrinkles out of her birth certificate and placed her wallet ID on top.
“Have you made arrangements with the officiant?” The clerk returned their documents after entering the required data.
“Yes. The ceremony will be Monday, ten o’clock, with Benjamin Cobb.” Linc gathered up his papers.
Mona brushed against his arm, blinked at the electric nature of such a small touch, and eased half a step away. She wanted all her senses to remain intact. This transaction was important to Linc’s future. And my own. She pressed her lips tight and straightened her shoulders a fraction of an inch. Her decision was firm. She’d share the future with Linc as a friend and business associate. It didn’t matter that they’d met less than a week ago. She sensed more stability in their relationship than in many marriages of her former co-workers.
“Raise your right hand, ma’am,” the clerk prompted. “Mary Monica Smith, do you swear that the information given is true and correct? Do you further affirm there are no legal impediments to this marriage and you enter of your own free will, without coercion?”
“I do,” Mona answered in a firm, strong voice.
“And you, sir.” The clerk turned to Linc and repeated the oath.
“I … I … do.”
Mona managed to constrain a bubbling laugh into a smile. Linc’s hesitant, hoarse whisper contrasted with the confident man holding the door for her a mere twenty minutes ago.
Then signatures were collected, copies made, and a fee paid without comment to each other. The clerk handed their copy over, instructed them of the penalty for non-use within thirty days, and wished them a perfunctory good luck.
“Ready?” Mona touched his wrist.
He smiled for the first time since entering the office. “At your service.”
“Lorraine asked that you bring me out to Polk Street today since our time frame was uncertain.”
“After we go back to the house.” Linc backed out of the parking space and merged into Tuesday-morning streets filled with commuters to nine o’clock deadlines. “I want to put our paperwork back in a safe place. I’ve got a locked drawer in the office desk if you want to put your things in it.”
“Not today.” Does my new status give me entrance to the office? While he’d never actually put the room off-limits in the same manner as his bedroom, he’d usually closed the door and projected an attitude that it was a private space. “The papers will be safe at Polk Street. Either Lorraine or I will be in the house one hundred percent of the time.”
“Humor me. I’ve been in that house. Do you want to risk these getting mixed up with some of the six hundred other envelopes?”
“When you put it that way …”
She gazed off at traffic.
“The next t
ime you have a few minutes,” he said, “make a shopping list. Not groceries, more personal things.” He turned to her while waiting for a traffic light. “I’m guessing you’ll want a dress for the wedding. Or do you have one secreted away in your backpack?”
“You’ve pretty much seen my entire wardrobe.” Except for the lingerie. Heat flashed up her neck. “I won’t get anything fancy.”
“We’re here.” He stated the obvious as he parked in front of the garage. “I’ll run these inside. You sit tight for a minute.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Your turn.” Linc dismounted from the small green tractor and patted the seat. At least two hours of good daylight remained and he intended to make use of them. “Settle in here and I’ll introduce you to John Deere.”
“If you insist.” Mona’s silence and deliberate actions expressed more doubt about this project than pages of words.
“Better to start with this than the van. For all sorts of reasons.” Insurance. Speed. Simplicity. The advantages clicked off in his mind as if part of a long master list. He didn’t understand her hesitancy. She spoke of riding a twelve-speed bike in city traffic to school and her former job. The way he viewed it, that would make driving a four-speed tractor in an open area easy.
“Left foot controls the clutch. Press down on it. Check the action.” He stood in the little wedge of space between the left rear wheel and the seat. “All the way. Don’t be afraid to stretch your leg out.”
“Stiff.” She pressed all the way down and then jerked her foot back.
“Release it slowly.” He watched her step off it like a hot rock again. “Did you ever take music lessons?”
“What’s that got to do with driving?”
“Count slowly. Dirge tempo, as you release it. It helps one to not kill the engine or toss off passengers.” He held back more instructions as she depressed and released the clutch twice more.
Pity he couldn’t teach her the same way he’d learned. But he’d been a kid, sitting on Grandpa’s lap, learning to steer and feel his way around while waiting for his legs to grow. He’d gained independence of a sort at age nine, when they let him drive with an empty hay wagon. He tamped down an image of Mona on his lap. Pictures like that damaged his concentration.
“What are all these other things?” She waved one hand across the control panel.
“One at a time.” He moved around to the other side and explained the dual brakes.
A few minutes later he stepped on the drawbar and gripped the edge of her seat. He brushed against her shoulder and the pleasure made him glance down. She extended her left leg on the clutch, making a firm acquaintance with the very important pedal. “Ready for review? I’ll name and you point.”
“Steering wheel.” She held it with both hands as she looked over her shoulder wearing a grin.
“First one correct.” He relaxed half a notch. She was intelligent. He’d known that since the first night when she’d walked away rather than enter the house of an unknown man. “Throttle.”
After the throttle and ignition he stepped off the drawbar and moved to the brake side. He hooked thumbs in back pockets to keep them from reaching out for her slender hand as she pointed and tapped. No matter how long in minutes this teaching session lasted it already felt like hours.
“Questions?”
“What’s this short lever?” She rested her left hand on a smooth black knob for an instant.
“Power take-off. We won’t be using it today. Not for a long time, actually.”
“What does it do?”
He exhaled, patted a rear tire, and hunted for an explanation that might fit her experience. “Turns a connector. Powers other equipment. Like the mower.”
She adjusted her pale blue cap and nodded. “Ignore.”
“Anything else?” He took his place on the drawbar and searched for a firm hold on the sides of the seat. “Shift in neutral? Step on the clutch and turn the key.”
Grrrr. Pop. Her hand flew away from the key before the engine caught.
“Again.” He forced calm into the word.
One more false start and two clutch releases that almost threw him off his perch, and they rolled forward. He instructed her to follow the orchard fence in low gear at one third throttle. He talked her through a corner and got her settled into a nice large oval in the unplanted half of the fenced area. “Check your front wheel. Ignore the gopher mounds. Now stop.”
She pushed the clutch in one smooth motion.
“Reverse.”
“What?”
“Put it in reverse. The ‘R’ in the pattern.” He conquered the urge to reach across her arm and move the lever.
She moved the gear shift and released the clutch with a jerk.
He clung tight to the seat and leaned forward, fighting for patience. “Look over your shoulder. Turn the wheel to the right before you get to the fence.”
“Yes, sir.”
He felt every ripple under the wheels during a sweeping turn. One glance off to his left showed the fence a good three feet away. He relaxed half a degree.
“Turn right again. Straighten the wheel.” With his lips only inches from her right ear he spoke in a conversational tone, the steady throb of the engine no serious competition. “Stop. Low gear. Easy with the foot.”
They did circles and figure eights in forward and reverse until their shadow elongated to the credits of a monster cartoon. “Follow the fence and take us to the main gate.”
“Company?” She turned her face for an instant, her knuckles white and forcing the wheel steady.
“Neighbor.” It looked like Corey. He didn’t see a vehicle so figured the man stopped in during one of his cross-country walks. On Wednesday? He worked second shift, didn’t he? When they pulled even to the gate post he told Mona to stop. “Turn it off.” Sudden silence was broken by one person clapping. “Put it in a gear, any gear. You did good.”
Linc lingered by the rear of the tractor, holding his smile to small until Mona discovered a way down from her seat. A moment later she walked stiff-legged toward him, rubbing her bottom. “Yeah. It feels cushioned for five minutes or less.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close for a light kiss on the cheek. He longed to give her a proper reward, but they had an audience. “Let’s introduce you to Corey Maxwell.”
“Patti’s gone.” Corey spit out the statement after giving Mona’s hand a brief shake.
“When?” Linc pulled Mona nearer to his side. Patti was Corey’s third wife, much younger and rumored to be giving Daniel more than dancing lessons.
“Today?” Corey missed the horizontal bar on the gate with his foot, caught it on the second try, and perched a work boot in a cowboy pose. “No. Last night.”
“Is this the first time?” Linc studied the other man’s hands. They looked steady enough, but the more Corey drank the less he talked. And words appeared to be slow for him at the moment.
Corey shrugged, paused, and appeared to think hard. “Went to her sister.”
Linc waited, rubbed Mona’s shoulder, and prayed she’d stay silent. He doubted an intoxicated Corey would take well to interruptions by a stranger.
“We got into it before I went to work.” Corey lifted his shoulders and clung to the gate with both hands. “Patti. Music. Men.”
“Give her time,” Linc suggested. I should talk. What did Mona have? Thirty-six, forty-eight hours?
“She cheated.” Corey leaned forward, enveloping his words in stale beer scent. “Lawyers will take it all. Man can’t come out even.”
Linc glanced between Mona and Corey. His neighbor was in bad shape, acting as if he’d not added any food to his drink all day. At least he didn’t try to drive.
“Tango. Tangled. In my own damn bed. Daniel deserved his beating.”
Linc gazed toward yellow tape still across the barn doors. Either Corey knew something important or the alcohol told a good story. All he’d managed to get out of the sheriff’s department was l
ittle bits of information. They acknowledged that Daniel’s body was discovered on the doorstep of his shed, in a tarp they took into evidence. A mixture of official facts and rumors pointed to illegal drug manufacturing in the barn. Cause of death was being held close by law enforcement. Yet Corey spoke with certainty of a beating. “I tolerated him. No big secret we weren’t friends.”
“Nope. No secret.” Corey took notice of Mona with a nod and a crooked smile. “You been in the barn, little lady?”
“Sheriff’s got it off limits.” She squeezed Linc’s hand.
“Clever set-up. Generator and everything. Want to see?” Corey pushed the gate open further.
“Not today.”
“Corey,” Linc interrupted the exchange. “How about we drive you home?”
“Patti’s gone.”
“You’re drunk, Mr. Maxwell.” Mona pushed past him and opened the van’s side door. “You belong at home. In bed.”
“You coming with?”
“Dirty old man.”
Linc gave her a nod and a thumbs-up sign.
• • •
Mona swung her arm to direct Corey to the open van door. “Come sit, Mr. Maxwell.”
Corey studied her and raised an index finger to his temple. “Not old.”
“Drunk.” She managed only the single word before Linc started the tractor. She shrugged at the complication to conversation. Tipsy customers at the diner didn’t make for many rational exchanges. All too often they came in after the bars closed, demanded coffee, and grabbed at her arm as she poured. Unpredictable.
Linc emerged from the shed after parking the tractor and sent several glances in her direction as he closed the doors and snapped a new combination lock into place. “Time to go home, Corey.”
The drunk released his hold on the gate and took several uneven steps before sinking down in the van. He grabbed an assist handle, kept both feet on the ground, and looked at Mona. “I’m not old. Fifty. A month ago.”
“Inside, old man.” She stared at his one day growth of salt-and-pepper beard. “That makes you older than my father.”
“Bossy. Pretty. Come home with me?”
