2 A Deadly Beef

by Jessica Beck

  "Okay, but you can’t upset him, no matter what happens. Talk softly, and keep your voices calm, regardless of what Ron tells you. Can you both promise to do that?"

  "We can," I said, wondering what I was about to see.

  We followed her through the doors and down the hallway, and she led us into one of the rooms. Moose was hanging back a few paces, but he was following nonetheless.

  I couldn’t blame him.

  In the same circumstances, I would have done the exact same thing.

  Ron was nearly unrecognizable, lying on the hospital bed with tubes and monitors circling him as though they were a part of him. The machines were anything but silent, putting out a dozen different sounds as they individually performed their functions. Ron’s head was so bandaged that there was very little of his face showing, but I could still see enough of him to know that it was the right man.

  "Victoria," he whispered, his voice just a rasp of its former self. "Is that you?"

  "I’m here," I said, speaking a little louder to be heard over the machines, but still doing my best to keep things calm and even.

  "Come closer," he said, and I took two steps forward, with Gracie just beside me. Moose hovered in the background, but I knew that he could hear everything that was being said as well. My grandfather might be getting on in age, but sometimes I thought he could hear better than I did.

  "What is it, Ron? Is there something you need to tell me?" I asked.

  One of his monitors started growing in its intensity, and Gracie said patiently, "Ron, if you can’t keep calm, Victoria’s going to have to leave. Do you understand?"

  "It’s okay, Ron," I told him, trying my best to reassure him.

  "My hands aren’t clean," he said abruptly as he wiped them on the sheet covering him. "They aren’t clean."

  "Ron, I’ve personally cleaned them twice since you came in," Gracie said. "They can’t get any cleaner than they are now."

  Ron shook his head back and forth in denial, dislodging one of his monitors as he jerked. Gracie moved in to replace it, and as she did, another monitor started to shrilly beep.

  "You need to go," Gracie ordered, and I felt Moose’s hand on my shoulder as he pulled me back.

  "Is he going to be okay?" I asked as two other nurses and a doctor rushed in.

  "Victoria, go!"

  A different nurse led us out of the room, and ushered Moose and me back down the hallway. Once we were there, I felt a few tears creep down my cheek.

  "It’s going to okay," Moose said as he stroked my shoulder.

  "Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m crying," I said. "Ron and I aren’t exactly that close, but seeing him helpless like that was just about more than I could take. What do you think is going on down there?"

  "I’m certain that they are doing everything they can to keep him alive," Moose said. "It’s just a shame he couldn’t tell us what he wanted to say."

  "I don’t understand it. Ron was in such an agitated state to get me there, and when I showed up, he was barely coherent."

  Gracie came through the doors. "Sorry about that earlier," she said.

  "No worries. How is he?"

  "Not good. We’re moving him to the intensive care unit," she said. "I’m afraid he’s taken a turn for the worse."

  "When can I speak with him again?" I asked her.

  "They’re putting him into a medically-induced coma," she said. "His body needs time to heal itself. There’s no use hanging around." She touched Moose’s arm lightly. "If there’s any change, I’ll let you know, but it could be several days before he wakes up again."

  "Thanks for calling us," Moose said.

  I grabbed my cell phone as we walked out into the parking lot to the truck, and my grandfather asked, "Who are you calling, Victoria?"

  "We made a promise to the sheriff, remember? I’m going to bring him up to date."

  "For all the good it’s going to do him," Moose said.

  After I made the call, I turned to my grandfather and asked, "Any other ideas while we’re out running around? Should we go back to the diner and do a little work?"

  "I don’t know about you, but I want to see that barn," he said.

  "Is there any reason in particular?"

  "Victoria, we need to know if what happened to Ron was an accident, or if someone deliberately tried to shut him up, and the only way we’re going to be able to tell is if we go see for ourselves."

  Unfortunately, police tape blocked the door to the barn when we got to Wally Bain’s place, and worst yet, one of the sheriff’s cruisers was still parked out front.

  I thought we were stymied, but Moose grinned the second he saw the deputy inside. "Thomas Claremont," Moose said as he approached the barn door. "How’s that horse-thief of a grandfather of yours?"

  "He’s still every bit as mean and stubborn as you are, Moose," the deputy said with a smile as he extended a hand over the tape to my grandfather. "Every time I call, he complains about how hot it is in Florida. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he moved back here sometime."

  "We’ll be lucky to have him if he does," Moose answered. "Tell him I said hello the next time you talk to him, would you?"

  "I’d be happy to," the deputy said. His smile softened as he added, "Moose, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in. Sheriff Croft was pretty specific about keeping this place off limits to civilians, and he happened to mention the two of you by name."

  "I wouldn’t dream of asking you for any special favors," Moose said, a statement I knew for a fact was nothing but a big old fat lie. "I am curious about what happened, since we just left Ron’s bedside at the hospital. Sheriff Croft asked us to look in on him."

  "Really?" the deputy asked.

  He looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded in agreement. "I spoke to him not fifteen minutes ago. He was in Laurel Landing working on a hit-and-run case, but he wanted me to update him on Ron’s condition the second anything changed."

  "Do you mind sharing that with me?" Deputy Claremont asked.

  "Ron’s in a coma," I said. "He’s done all the talking he’s going to for quite a while now."

  "That’s not good, but it’s no wonder, after what I’ve found here." The deputy looked behind us into the parking area for the barn, and after seeing that we were alone, he said, "I still can’t let you in, but you can see for yourself what happened here." His hands were gloved, and he picked up a piece of bamboo leaning against the barn wall. Pointing with it to the loft near the ladder that led up to it, he said, "As near as I can figure it, the toolbox fell from here and hit Ron while his back was turned to it."

  "I had no idea that he was struck with something that heavy," Moose said. "No wonder he’s in trouble right now."

  "What I can’t figure out is what made it fall in the first place," I said.

  Deputy Claremont took the bamboo and tapped it on the loft’s floorboards near the ladder. "There’s a hole in the roof of the barn directly overhead, and the floorboards around this spot are all starting to rot. It’s a nasty coincidence that the toolbox fell while Ron was standing under it, but the fact that it came down is no surprise at all."

  "I have one question, though," Moose said as he peered upward. "If the floorboards were rotten in the first place, why would anyone in their right mind place a toolbox on them?"

  "That’s the irony," the deputy said. "It appears that Ron was trying to replace the rotten boards when one of them did him in. Wally’s sister, Jan, told me that he was here doing some chores for her as a favor from Sally, and Ron must have been working when the toolbox hit him. Jan’s the one who called it in, and if she hadn’t found him when she did, poor old Ron wouldn’t have made it."

  "It’s still not clear whether he’s going to survive or not," I said. "When will you be finished up here?"

  "Not for a few hours yet. Even though I’m fairly certain that this was an accident, the sheriff is being especially thorough. I need to take more photos, film it all, and then take a few samples of
the floorboards before I can release the barn."

  "We won’t keep you from your work, then," Moose said. "Come by the diner sometime and have a piece of pie, on the house."

  "I’d like nothing better, but the sheriff doesn’t approve of us taking things we don’t pay for," the deputy said. I knew that was true from experience, since he didn’t allow his men to receive even a cup of coffee on the house. To be fair, the sheriff wouldn’t accept anything gratis, either. I had to admire him for his high standards, even though I didn’t always agree with the way he investigated the major crimes that occurred in his jurisdiction.

  "Then I’ll cut you an extra big slice of whatever kind you buy," I said with a grin. "Surely he can’t fuss about that, can he?"

  The deputy was too smart to answer that directly, but he did offer me a grin. "Not if he doesn’t know," he said, and then he got back to work.

  Once Moose and I were away from the barn, I asked my grandfather, "What do you make of all of that?"

  "It’s certainly plausible that it could have just been an accident," he said after giving it a moment’s thought.

  "True, but if it were staged, it couldn’t have been done more elegantly."

  "That’s a point. I suppose for the moment we’ll just have to assume that it was intentional, and try to find out who might want to shut Ron Watkins up."

  "Why should we assume that, based on what we’ve seen and heard?" I asked.

  "Well, if it really was an accident, what good is that going to do us in our investigation? It’s better for now if we try to figure out exactly what happened to Ron, and if it was a direct attempt to keep him quiet. The real question is who would benefit most from him being permanently out of the picture?"

  "I don’t have a clue," I said after I considered the question. "Since Ron’s been working on Sally’s farm, if she wanted to shut him up, it would have been much easier for her to arrange something to happen to him on her own farm. Jan hasn’t been around long enough for Ron to have anything on her as far as we can tell, and I can’t imagine that his ties were any stronger with Dave or Penny."

  "That pretty much wipes out our complete list of suspects," Moose said.

  I knew that he was right as I nodded in agreement. "Since we’re assuming that Ron was attacked for a reason, we have to believe that the same person who murdered Wally Bain just tried to get rid of Ron. Otherwise, it’s all just too big a coincidence to swallow. If that’s the case, we need to find a reason for someone to kill both Wally and Ron. So you tell me. Why would anyone want both of them dead? Was it because of what they knew, or could it have been because of what the killer just suspected they knew? It’s a shame Ron couldn’t stay coherent long enough to name his attacker. It surely would make our lives a lot easier if he had."

  "Beggars can’t be choosers. We have to take what we get," Moose said. "I just wish we knew why Wally was killed in the first place. Learning that would go a long way to figuring out who might have tried to get rid of Ron as well, but if we’re being honest about it, we’re no closer to the truth than we were when we started this investigation."

  "I agree, but we haven’t been at it very long. These things take time, so for now, all we can do is keep digging."

  I was about to suggest that we should head back to the diner until we could come up with a new game plan when a car drove up and parked within a foot of my legs. I nearly took a step back as it approached, but Jan Bain stopped in barely enough time to avoid hitting me, though I didn’t care for the proximity of her front bumper to my shins.

  As she got out of her car, Moose asked Jan, "You were cutting it kind of close there, weren’t you?"

  "Nonsense," Jan said as she quickly approached us on foot. Apparently the woman drove the way she engaged people, up front, close, and personal. "I had plenty of room. What are you two doing out here on my farm, if I might ask?"

  It was a fair question, but I didn’t have a very good answer for her that didn’t include admitting that we were looking into what happened to Ron, or her brother, for that matter.

  Moose came through, though.

  "As a matter of fact, we’re here on an errand. We just spoke with Ron at the hospital," he said.

  Was it my imagination, or did Jan’s pupils dilate suddenly at the news?

  Chapter 8

  "He’s awake?" she asked, leaning forward as she did. I could feel her breath on my cheek, something that gave me the creeps.

  "Does that really surprise you?" I asked.

  "It would surprise you, too, if you’d seen the man the way I found him," Jan said, shuddering a little at the memory. "It was dreadful. It’s hard to imagine that he could survive after losing all of that blood."

  "Well, scalp wounds always tend to bleed a lot," Moose said, though how he’d gleaned that particular nugget of information was beyond me. "Ron’s not nearly as bad as he must have looked then."

  "What did he have to say?" Jan asked a little coyly. "Did he have any idea how that toolbox fell on him?"

  I could see that Moose was about to bend the truth a little, but I knew that if he did that, we’d lose all credibility with Jan Bain. Besides, I hated lying to anyone. I knew from experience that if we did skew the truth, it always seemed to find a way to come back and bite us later. "If Ron knew, he didn’t say," I answered, and Moose looked a little disappointed by my response.

  "But remember, just because he hasn’t said anything yet doesn’t mean that he’s not going to," Moose added ominously. "Is there anything you need to share with us, Jan?"

  Her reply was instant, and emphatic. "No, I don’t have a clue about how it happened. I was in the house trying to make some sense of my brother’s checking account when I heard something outside. Ron was doing a little work for me, at Sally’s request, and I hurried out to see what had happened. It was quite a shock finding him on the ground like that with the bloody toolbox so close to his head, I can tell you that. Do the doctors happen to have a prognosis yet?"

  This one I could answer honestly, at least technically, since the only thing we’d heard was from Gracie, a nurse, not a doctor. "Not that we’ve heard," I said.

  "Well, I hope he’s going to be all right. I feel a bit responsible for it, since the accident happened here. At least Wally had insurance, so I don’t have to worry about finding the money to pay Ron’s hospital bills. Now, if you two will excuse me, I need to find out how long my barn is going to be held hostage by the sheriff. The realtor refuses to come out to assess the farm until he can examine it all."

  "You really are in a hurry to sell, aren’t you?" I asked.

  "This farm isn’t doing anyone any good now sitting idle," she answered. As she walked toward the barn, she said, "I trust you two have other things to do."

  "We always do," Moose said, trying to smile as he said it.

  "Then I’ll leave you to them," she replied.

  I looked at Moose, who just shrugged as we walked back to his truck. "What was that all about?" I asked him.

  "It was quite the brush-off. Jan was finished with us," he said. "Thanks to you."

  "Why, because I told her the truth and kept you from lying about just how much we really knew about Ron’s condition?"

  "I was handling things just fine on my own," Moose said.

  "That’s what I was afraid of. It doesn’t matter now, though, what’s done is done. Should we head back to the diner?"

  Moose frowned, and then said, "Victoria, we’re already out this way. Why don’t we drop in on Sally and pay her a little visit?"

  "Do you honestly think she rigged the accident here all the way from her farm next door?" I asked.

  "There’s no way to know that at the moment, but I figure if we squeeze her a little, we might get lucky and get something out of her."

  "I’m game if you are, but Moose, we stick to the truth, okay?"

  He considered my proposal as he drove out onto the highway and headed for Sally’s place. "How about if we shade things just a little if the
occasion presents itself?"

  "I just don’t want either one of us caught in a direct lie," I said.

  "I can live with that," Moose said with a grin. "What would I do without you tagging along acting as my conscience, Victoria?"

  "For one thing, you’d most likely be lying through your teeth with an alarmingly regular frequency, and for the other, your life would be dull, listless, and devoid of all meaning," I said with a grin.

  "I might not go that far myself, but I have to admit, things are quite a bit livelier with you around."

  "You know what? I’ll take that as a compliment, no matter what the original intent was," I said with a smile as we turned off toward Sally’s farm.

  "I’m glad, because that was how it was meant."

  As we neared Sally Ketchum’s place, I found myself hoping that this visit would be more productive than it had in the past.

  It was time to push a little harder and see if we could shake anything loose from another of our suspects.

  "Do you need a hand with that?" Moose asked as we got out of his truck near Sally’s barn. She was parked inside, loading up crates marked Fresh Produce into the back of her truck, and she looked startled to see us.

  "Sure, why not? It’s tough doing this all by myself."

  As Moose and I jumped in to help, I said, "Speaking of your farmhand, we just left the hospital."

  She nodded. "I haven’t had a chance to get over there yet myself. Farm work is never done, you know what I mean? How’s he doing?"

  "I’m sorry to say that he’s in a coma right now," I said.

  Sally shook her head. "That is an honest shame. I tell you, If I’d known what he was getting himself into over there, I never would have let him go in the first place."

  "I thought it was your suggestion," I said.

  "No way. I’m too busy working over here at the moment to give up my help, but Jan implied that if I didn’t send Ron over there for a few days to help her out, she wasn’t going to sell the farm to me. I didn’t have much choice, and look what happened."

  That wasn’t the way we’d heard it, but which woman was telling us the truth? More importantly, with Ron in a coma, how could we even find out?