The Clincher

by Lisa Preston

  “Why are you asking me for blood?”

  “Your blood shouldn’t be in the Harper garage,” Suit Fellow said. “Should it?”

  “No,” I said, not looking right at the man. “It shouldn’t.”

  Chapter 11

  PSYCHO LIGHT GLINTED IN THE SPARE morning rays above the kitchen counters as the rack of copper and stainless steel pots and pans turned slightly on their hooks. When I’d been at Guy’s place about three days and he saw me forge welding more supports on my anvil stand—I hadn’t done too great a job when I’d first built it—he asked if I could make him a pot rack, as if I’d known what he was talking about. Once I’d wrested more words from his gullet, it turned out he’d wanted one of those metal thingies people have over their stoves or sinks to hang skillets and the like off of. I guess they cost a pretty penny.

  “Save me hundreds, if you can make one,” Guy’d said.

  So the hooks are old horseshoes, but they’re cleaned up real well and I used some spring steel I’d raided from a junkyard back before I’d headed for Oregon. Car steel’s better stuff, more consistent, than the leftover rebar I’d gotten from a construction place when I’d started to set myself up in business and scouted scrap steel to make my kit. Guy’s mighty proud of that rack, says it makes the kitchen.

  I plunked down, watching the light dance off Guy’s pots after the police left and Guy came inside.

  “Do you know the Solquists?” Guy asked. “Have one or two horses? Neighbors of the Langstons?”

  I shook my head without looking at him.

  “What’s up with you?” Guy asked.

  “Did you ever know someone who died?”

  He nodded. “My grandparents, my mom’s folks, went while I was in high school, one right after the other.”

  I cleared my throat. “Did you ever know someone who killed herself?”

  Guy shook his head. “Not sure I have, not sure I do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, obviously, it seems like the police don’t think Mrs. Harper killed herself after all.”

  “And did you know her?”

  He drew his face back and pinked a little. “Well, her husband is kind of the reason I moved to Cowdry—”

  “Mr. Harper? You moved to Cowdry because of him?”

  “I was working in Portland, my first job out of cooking school, a nice restaurant called Clams, but I only got to cook when the head chef was sick or on leave. Otherwise, I just did prep. One of my cooking nights, Winston Harper came in, complimented the meal. We talked. He told me he lived in this small town, Cowdry, that didn’t have any fine dining. I checked it out, liked it, started working at the Cascade. This little house was a foreclosure. It all worked out. And I’ve been waiting for my chance to—”

  “Mr. Harper went all the way to Portland for dinner?”

  “I think he was probably going to a show, overnighting at a hotel. It was a date.”

  “With Patsy-Lynn?”

  Guy shook his head. “Before her.”

  “You never told me any of this before.” I stood, pushed away, needed to think.

  I mumbled about wanting to figure out what happened to Patsy-Lynn because I knew I hadn’t tangled with her.

  When I turned back, Sherlock Holmes was sitting at the table, wearing a Guy-skin suit. He pursed his lips and spoke real slow.

  “Well, that wasn’t Mrs. Harper’s blood on your rasp.” He unscrewed his bottle of vitamins and popped one in his mouth. It must have been a new bottle because it still had the little packet of silica gel on top of the pills. Knowing I forage for these little packets and put them in the bottom of my toolbox for rust relief, he pushed it across the table for me. Finally, Guy spoke his piece. “I mean, if they’re asking for blood samples, then it’s someone else’s blood, not hers on the rasp.”

  “How’d you know there was blood on the rasp?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Didn’t you tell me?”

  I didn’t bother to shake my head because I don’t waste motion. Wasted motion is what makes some shoers slow as Christmas. I’m quality work at good speed.

  When he didn’t get an answer from me, Guy let his gaze fall on Butte County’s weekly paper on the table. The Western showed a story on Patsy-Lynn’s death. I reached over and folded the newspaper back, then flinched at the front page below it in the newspaper stack. Guy also takes the Trib and the Oregonian. Their cover stories were miserable, stuff like a big car pile-up outside of Portland, the Middle East was not peaceful and—God help us all—an adoption thing had gone ugly to the point that a kid ended up chained in a basement. Let’s take car wrecks and old blood feuds on the other side of the world any day of the week. I was not going to read this newspaper. Teeth clenched, I walked that paper over to Guy’s recycle pile.

  I will not cry. I will not cry in front of Guy, ever.

  “What’s wrong?” Guy asked.

  Everything. Can’t he see that? I wasn’t about to spell out for him how horrible the world and people in it are but I did consider whether or not it’d help matters for me to haul off and run my knee through his unmentionables. And then I thought, what in the world is the matter with me? I mean, there’s no helping what waffles through my messy brain, but am I just six kinds of awful or what?

  Enough changed in my face for him to reach for me.

  I pulled away. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Hey, why are you snapping at me?”

  One place that’s good to go when I catch myself being a knothead is the ladies’ room. I needed a bath, except Guy’s little house is standing room only on that account. Getting civilized, being able to take a shower every day, was a real luxury to me after I got settled here. And no one sweats like a shoer. Soap and water sounded like a real solution. A shower’d help my mind, too. I tried to remember what Guy had been saying about Langston’s neighbor, something about a missing horse and the pasturemate squealing and running ragged. Another something from Patsy-Lynn’s last day tried to wriggle up in the back of my brain.

  I took the overdue shower and puzzled about Patsy-Lynn, the police knowing I was the last one at her place, and I wondered what I should know about the other folks in this town. I shaved my legs while I stewed. Patsy-Lynn’s barn-help and the help she fired for stealing stuff needed some consideration, too. That made me flinch and I nicked myself. And what about that fake cowboy walking on foot and the truck that nearly ran us both over? Another flinch and another nick. Even though I half wanted to run away, I also wanted to poke around a bit. How long would it take the po-lice to figure out whose blood was on that rasp? I winced as I cut myself a third time.

  I dabbed at my legs. Most of the bloody spots quit oozing. A disposable razor can last six months before they bite too rough. When I’d settled here, I bought a ten pack of razors on sale for two dollars, so I was set for five years, but the way things were going, that seemed ambitious.

  * * *

  Since coming to Butte County, I’d never needed any kind of doctoring. The clinic that the detective sent me to hadn’t intended its parking lot for a big truck like Ol’ Blue. I jockeyed around, trying harder than I should have.

  Suit Fellow was waiting in the lobby and waved me down the clinic’s hallway to a medical tech guy’s little office. I made myself stand calm, blowing like Red when he’s talking himself down from flushing quail on a trail. As long as Horse Planet doesn’t send stupid orders, Red can manage and so can I.

  The lab-coated tech guy pulled out an alcohol swab, a needle, gauze, white tape, a glass tube, a piece of blue tape labeled evidence.

  “This won’t be bad. One little needle.” The tech sounded like he was calming a young horse caught in wire. He picked up the syringe and fit on the needle. “Quick poke and a little blood.”

  But he didn’t know all I’d done. They didn’t know how I’d hated it.

  Things were bad, but not at their worst, back when I’d sold my blood for money.

  Real
ly, it was my platelets, cause they’re worth more. Two needles, two hours, free orange juice and cookies before and after, plus a movie to watch while I lay on a thin plastic mattress with both arms straight.

  Once I got myself out of that time when I was scuzzy-needy, I swore I’d never sell my blood again, never again be poked by a needle.

  No one knew about this. Not my mama, not my daddy, certainly not Guy.

  Sweating as I looked at the tech’s medical malice, I had to turn my eyes away.

  I hate rubber tourniquets. I hate the sound they make and the stretch and pinch, the grippy feel when they pull just below the bicep. It’s a bad feeling. Wanting to disappear now set me to thinking about how I’d been disappearing when I’d parceled out my platelets.

  Maybe the only way out of this was to be cooperative, pretend to be, anyways.

  Maybe I should strip for one of the sheriff’s women employees after all.

  Isopropyl alcohol is a nauseating scent.

  I kept my eyes staring hard at the clinic wall. I didn’t blink.

  Suit Fellow tried to start a conversation about doings among horse folk—something about vials of drugs—but I mumbled, “I dunno,” like a robot. When that thick nail of a needle drove into my inner elbow, when the little vacuum tubes sucked a shot of my body’s blood, when the pinching tourniquet snapped off, I never flinched.

  Their little murmurs of “thanks for your help on this matter” got nothing from me. I let the corners of my eyes air-dry as I walked away.

  Behind the wheel in Ol’ Blue, I stared at the windshield and thought about redemption. Too long without blinking makes the eyes dry, then wet, but I wasn’t going to blink. So driving away, trying to be tough, I cried.

  Chapter 12

  THE MINUTE I GOT HOME FROM shoeing that evening, I parked myself in front of Guy until he got off the phone, then used one of my better attitudes to ask, “What was it you said this morning about the Langstons’ neighbor and—”

  “I’ve got a ton to do. Don’t set anything down in the kitchen. Don’t move anything.” He smiled sideways, stuck a plate with a sandwich and some fried thingies in front of me, then turned back to scooping flour, dusting it from one place to another.

  I ate the fancy sandwich and cheese thingies on the plate he’d offered.

  Looking frazzled was unusual for Guy. He’d probably been tiffing with his boss, Dennis McDowell. Guy had been getting pretty touchy lately about that owner of the Cascade Kitchen and the man’s so-called ineptitude with presentation, variety, and the like. Guy fears food not much better tasting than salted farts gets served on the diner’s chipped plates when he’s not around.

  Plain enough, he wasn’t going to haul his brain back to whatever he’d tried to tell me before about the Solquists and a missing horse.

  Cooked cheese with brittle browned edges and a scent to match met my tongue. It did make a nice meal. “Good stuff.”

  “Croque monsieur and aigrettes de fromage,” Guy said. “You got home just in time. You know what happens if they’re not served right away.”

  “More big words?”

  “Oh, please, Rainy. You’re such an iconoclast. I think it’s a bit of an affectation with you, playing hick. Your mom called while you were out and we talked for a while.”

  My spine stiffened and I fixed Guy with a hairy eyeball. “Huh?”

  He was grinning now, looking all delighted with himself, which is often not a great thing. He gets delighted over things that don’t really rate delightment. “Well, she called while you were gone, so we chatted a few minutes.”

  Oh, mercy. “And?”

  “And now I know about the prep school.”

  I tried not to act like I was deciding whether to kill him first then my mama or the other way around. What is it with some people that they go talking to folk who are practically strangers and they want to gab about stuff that’s nobody’s business? Why’d I get birthed out of one and half take up with another? My mama could gab to a fence post and that’s where she ought to confine her gabbing. And just how much of my past world did she commit to Guy? I graveled up my throat with a few heaves. I needed to get the chef clear.

  “The thing is, is that prep school stuff, that’s just not who I am.”

  “The thing is, I don’t get to know, do I?” Guy had this reasonable tone going and looked wistful, like he wasn’t arguing, though clearly that’s what he was doing.

  That, and butting in.

  “No, you don’t get to know. Leave the past where it is.”

  “Rainy, your mom said you did super well in school when you wanted to.”

  I’d wanted to make her happy enough or mad enough to let me go back to Texas and stay with my daddy again, so I could be with my horse. “Then you know I flunked out.”

  “That’s not quite what she said.”

  Not looking at Guy, I said, “I bet. Just how far did you two take this little chat?”

  “Well, not too far. But you always give me the impression you’re almost estranged from your folks and I don’t get that impression from them. Even as different from each other as your parents are, they’re not—”

  “They’re not your business,” I said.

  He clammed up, more annoyed with me and pleased with himself than he had any right to be and I wished we’d never done the Talk To Each Other’s Parents thing in the first place. Folding my arms across my chest, I winced, just a little.

  Looked inside my elbow and remembered the morning. It had been Guy’s big idea, it seemed to me, that I let the police stick a needle in my arm. It hurt a little, was going to bruise, but I wanted no part of a pity party.

  With his back to me, Guy asked, “Are you going to Patsy-Lynn Harper’s funeral reception?”

  “Um,” I stalled, thinking that I hadn’t been invited. Then I reminded myself it wasn’t a party and she was the one who hired me after all, plus gave me a referral or two. I owed her. Attending her funeral was probably the right thing to do, in keeping with my Turning Over a New Leaf creed of sending occasional cards and trying to be a skosh nicer person.

  “The funeral’s tomorrow, at two,” Guy said.

  I shook my head, not needing to check my appointment book. “I’ve got a shoeing and two trims at the Rodriguez place scheduled for one o’clock. I shouldn’t reschedule them.”

  Guy hit the play button on the answering machine. A message from my client Anita Rodriguez announced that they were going to Patsy-Lynn’s funeral the next day, so wouldn’t be home for our shoeing appointment and wouldn’t expect me.

  “I’ve got to finish fixing some hors d’ouvres trays,” Guy said.

  Quite a spread he’d started, must have picked up a catering gig. “Party?”

  “The funeral reception for Patsy-Lynn Harper.”

  I thought out loud. “So, you’re going as a Harper employee.”

  “You would be, too. You’re a Harper employee since you shod horses for the Flying Cross.”

  True enough, I reckoned. I folded my arms across my chest, felt the bruise inside my elbow, and looked at its purple center and green edges.

  * * *

  The bruise was less tender when I came home the next day at lunchtime. Guy was spruced up, black pants and a white button-

  down cook’s shirt, hair combed. Catering clothes.

  “I’ll go to the funeral,” I said, shedding my dirty clothes and moving for the ladies’ room.

  From behind, Guy kissed the back of my neck and whispered that he’d see me at the reception.

  I whipped around. “You’re not going to Patsy-Lynn’s funeral?”

  “I can’t. I’ll be at the Harper house, setting up the reception food.”

  * * *

  Sorry to say, I remember the funeral none too well. It was at a local church and there were a lot of cowboys, and there was talk of the Maker and a final reward. There were flowers.

  Back at the Flying Cross, parking was a problem, even with all their driveway footage
. Double lane to the big new barn, another that went to the triple garage at the fancy house, and a single lane going past the house were all crowded with trucks in single file. Down the driveway that stretched to the way-back of the ranch, I pulled Ol’ Blue in behind another truck with a topper and could just glimpse an old cottage farther on. That was my kind of place, not the big fancy new house that I hiked back to now over a quarter mile of gravel.

  This was the first time I’d ever driven over to the Harpers’ without a shoeing scheduled, certainly the first time I’d worn my denim skirt to their spread.

  Well, his spread, not their spread, since there was no them anymore. I bit my lip and tried not to think about the last time I’d been there, just Monday. Instead I looked at the fancy new barn, the well-kept, beautiful grounds with rolling green pastures and strong horses.

  In his paddock, Spartacus shook his head then made a studly charge at his fence, pinning his ears at all the traffic, guffing that throaty stallion growl. I saw the gleaming hind leg scrape Patsy-Lynn had doctored with ointment, saw the edges of the shoes I’d put on him when he whirled away, bucking.

  Blast, that stud was getting huge. I’d noticed when I shod him the other day, but man, had he always been so built? I thought about how old he was. Seems like he should have been done filling out, I think he’s the better part of five, maybe even up to seven years old, but it did seem like he was getting beefier still. Late bloomer, I suppose.

  The droopy cedar trees seemed in keeping with everyone’s dark clothes and mood. A lot of town folks I’d seen at the funeral were milling in and out of the reception, which sprawled across the Harpers’ humongous meant-for-show home.

  Speaking of late bloomers, I was startled as I met Harper Junior inside the grand living room of that real estate-intensive ranch house. I’d met him briefly once about a year ago in one of my first visits to the Flying Cross. He was bigger than I remembered, blond and tan and overgrown, with pimples on his face that made it hard to guess his age, but he was probably not much older than me. I’m guessing he’d pop buttons on a size 48 shirt. His eyes were so close together, he could probably look through a keyhole with both eyes at the same time.