by Ann Ripley
Louise could picture the little boy who learned to become first a bully, and then a braggart, to overcome a shaky ego. Wasn’t that one of the ways that murderers were made? She guessed that Eddie emulated his father every chance he had, probably even down to the country way he talked, but never had his father’s acumen. So he retreated to being a bully, and bully his brother he surely would, with that contract in hand.
Louise decided she had been brought in here to play devil’s advocate, so she stepped right into the role. “It makes sense what Eddie says, doesn’t it, Frank? You have every right to make top dollar off this land.”
Eddie looked at her, surprised and pleased at her remark. Frank seemed upset, his eyes downcast. “It’s true my quarry’s played out. But I’m going to turn those holes into pools surrounded by marshes, and deed the property over to the county for park land. I guess you could question whether or not I’m a hypocrite—profiting from the quarrying, but not wanting Eddie and me to make the biggest profit by selling to someone who’ll build twenty-six hundred homes out here.”
“Good grief,” said Louise. She had never heard the number of houses this property could hold, and it sounded enormous.
“Yes,” said Frank. “The place was platted, years ago, into five- and ten-acre plots.” He smiled ruefully. “My dad always hedged his bets. Now those small sites are like a time bomb. Developing them would be like introducing a new town with eight thousand people in it. That’s five times as big as Lyons. It would swamp Lyons’s schools and facilities. I don’t want to do it, Louise. I know thousands more homes will be built on the Front Range of the Rockies. There’s no stopping it. But Eddie and I can halt the development of this place, and we should. It’s one of the best remaining nature preserves in Colorado.” He shook his head wearily. “I just want to see the land left to the animals and the birds, and let the people in to see how great it is.”
“The same old song,” bellowed Eddie, banging his feet down on the floor and righting his chair. He got up and lit himself a cigarette, pacing the big kitchen like one of the mountain lions pacing the foothills. “If I hear that old song again, I’m gonna puke.” He went to the sideboard and grabbed the envelope, throwing it down in the middle of the table. Then he turned watery eyes to his brother. “There it is, a golden deal from Reingold. Have a heart, Frank. I’m a guy with a no-good education, a two-bit job in a lumberyard, who’s had a miserable time these past ten years. I just don’t have the earning power you do. I’m up to my ears in debt. I need that money, and bad, for right now and for the rest of my life.”
Frank looked at his brother sympathetically. Louise could see that Eddie had hit pay dirt. His brother knew full well how unsuccessful he had been at supporting himself. Eddie’s life was like a dark pool that needed cleansing.
Frank slumped in his chair and stared at the envelope, while Eddie continued his harangue. “People got a right, Frank, to live on a nice place like this ranch. And as for animals, hell, there’s plenty of land around here for the animals to go and live. The park, if nowhere else.”
Frank sighed. “Eddie, you know as well as I do, it’s a question of limited resources…”
Louise had had enough. This wasn’t the time to ask Frank if they could bring the crew up Monday to tape a couple of programs, and she began to wonder if there would ever be a right time. She raised both hands, as if she were a referee halting a fight. “I hope the two of you can continue to talk this out, but I have to go.” She looked at each of them. “I wish you well, whatever happens.”
And what would happen? If Eddie wanted to do his brother harm—and she had a suspicion that he did—he had plenty of opportunity. Neither she, nor Pete, nor the sheriff could do much about it.
Footsteps sounded on the porch. Frank stood and let Harriet Bingham in. Like a tall ghost, she stood near the door and asked the brothers the time of the wake this evening. Louise realized it was a memorial for both father and daughter.
Frank gave her the details of the seven o’clock affair, which was being held at Frank’s house. The old mountain woman took it all in, then told him she’d bring some fresh sweet buns by.
Eddie put an arm around the old woman’s shoulders and said, “I’m bringin’ my famous enchiladas over to Frank’s, and I bet you’ll like ’em, Harriet.” Apparently having said all he wanted to say, he clumped off somewhere into the interior of the house.
Frank turned to Louise. “Maybe you would like to come, too.”
“I would. Thanks for asking me.” Perhaps, afterward, peace would be restored between the feuding brothers, and they would settle on a date for the TV crew to visit the ranch.
Frank started some small talk with Harriet about his father’s and sister’s gravestones, and how the graves were now being dug back on the hill. The woman nodded approval. She was clearly accustomed to being a friendly advisor to the Porter children, ignoring Louise as if she were an interloper.
This was a strange back-country neighborhood, indeed, and she didn’t feel comfortable here. Not only because of Harriet’s coolness, but also in the face of the intractable hostility of Eddie Porter, who was like a snapping dog.
As she left the kitchen, Louise paused to examine the wood sculptures. They included several renditions of a steer—after all, cows were Jimmy’s business. A couple of dog figures. The figure of a very old man, as if Jimmy were presaging his own antiquity, an antiquity he never reached. Casually perched in a corner was a half heart with the bottom half of an arrow through it.
She nearly said something right then. Harriet and Frank stood watching her. Surely this was the other half of the heart she’d seen in Harriet’s living room. Was this a sentimental remembrance of the beloved Jacob, or something else?
A short time later Harriet left the house and Louise followed her out, saying her good-byes to Frank. She was thoroughly exhausted, and sensed Harriet was, too.
Another car pulled into the drive, and both of them hesitated. A small chesty woman with tight gray curls, wearing jeans and a bright shirt, sprang out. She was carrying a covered plastic bowl. It was Jimmy’s fiancée, whom Louise had seen at a distance at the open space meeting. She hurried up to the ranch house, a determined expression on her face.
“Hello, there,” the woman called out to Louise and Harriet. “I’m Grace Prangley.” She looked up at them and added in a girlish way, “I know one of you, but not the other.” Harriet and Louise were almost a foot taller than this diminutive woman. Transferring the bowl to one hand, she shook Louise’s hand, solemnly blinking her blue eyes. She reminded Louise of an animal trying to demonstrate its amicable intentions toward another.
“And here’s Harriet,” Grace acknowledged briskly, “I haven’t seen you in ages, Harriet. Last time was when I asked you to serve on a county-wide citizens’ committee, wasn’t it? The one to get support for a new school tax.” Waspishly, she added, “As I recall, you turned me down.”
“Seemed pretty silly to me,” said Harriet, “seein’ as how I didn’t have any kids.” Louise felt a tug of sympathy for the ranch woman. If only little baby Henry had lived, Harriet would have sent a son—no matter who the father was—through the school system, and had him by her side today, a man of about forty.
Grace was chatting on, and Louise realized nothing was casual with Grace. Each remark was intended for something. “Well, Harriet, it won’t be the last we see of each other, either, will it, with me so involved in the Porter family? Jimmy and I had kept our wedding plans very much to ourselves, but of course, after what happened to poor Jimmy, and then to poor Sally, the boys need me, and I’m going to be here for them. In fact, I brought some potato salad for the wake tonight.”
The implied intimacy of this didn’t go over well with Harriet. Louise couldn’t say she blamed her. This petite woman was pushy. With hardly a pause, she turned to Louise and said, “And you’re the lady with the public television garden show, and that strange mower ad.”
Louise just barely caught Har
riet’s eye. Grace Prangley knew how to stick in the shiv. “The very one,” she said, with forced joviality. “And you’re just the little lady I wanted to meet.”
The curly gray head cocked to the side, and the unyielding eyes stared at Louise. “Oh. How so? What could you possibly want with me?”
Next to her, Harriet Bingham had frozen in place, her glazed eyes peering suspiciously at Grace.
Carefully, Louise said, “I was clearing up some business before taping a couple of shows here at Porter Ranch. Now, I hear things have changed, and maybe it’s you I should be talking to.”
This rattled Grace a little; she had obviously not been in on the details when her now-deceased fiancé gave permission for Gardening with Nature to use the ranch as a location shoot. “Well, not really, not yet…”It took only a moment for her to come up with an answer. “Whatever Eddie—he’s the oldest, you know—whatever Eddie says, I would consider the final word.”
“Really?” said Louise, smiling.
Grace gave Louise a closer look, her eyes cataloguing her lack of a bra, her less-than-neat hair, the spots on her well-worn jeans, the dribble on her shirt front from her coffee spill. She cocked her elbow out and put a solid little hand upon her waist. “Just exactly what are these programs going to be about?”
“The ranch, a bit of its history, but mostly”—Louise spread her hand out to indicate die wildflower garden—“the late Bonnie Porter’s beautiful and historic garden. The unusual topography of the land. And, of course, the ranch’s future here in the crowded West.”
“Hmmh,” said Grace. “I certainly hope you do a decent job. Turning this great big piece of land into an open space park has its problems, you know, whether anyone has spoken of ’em or not.”
Louise said, “Harriet, here, has kindly agreed to be featured in another segment on weeds in the West—”
Grace turned from brisk to brusque. Kind words about Harriet didn’t seem to agree with her. “That, of course, is your business. I must go. I have to talk to my boys now.” Grace bounced off, her Nikes pattering against the steps of the ranch house.
Louise had learned more than she ever thought she could from one brief encounter with Grace Prangley. The woman was not only bossy and opinionated, but as she had suspected from the first moment Louise saw her at the Parks and Open Space meeting, she was on Eddie’s side. She intended that the ranch be sold privately. Louise had no doubt this woman would be around when she and her crew came up Monday to tape the show.
Noting how droopy Harriet appeared, she doubted the older woman had caught those nuances—but who knew? One thing was sure, Harriet didn’t like Grace much; it was quite clear in her sour facial expression as she went to re-mount her horse.
Louise decided it was time to go. She was not anxious to stay in this strange neighborhood, where yet another person had come to intrude in the affairs at Porter Ranch.
Chapter 19
FOR THE TRIP BACK TO TOWN, Louise rolled up the car windows and flipped on the air conditioning. Otherwise, the smell might not have reached her so fast. As it was, the overpowering odor of manure soon filled the car. She drove impatiently for a few miles until she reached die first turnout, then jerked to a stop.
Anger flared in her. Who could have done a thing like this? Then she gave the problem a second thought, and decided it might have been her own doing. She got out and looked at the wheels of her car to see if she could have driven through this excrement. But when she opened the back door she discovered the smell was coming from a plastic bag filled with manure. An open bag, set neatly on the floor just in back of the driver’s seat.
Of all the infantile tricks she had ever seen, this was the worst. Was it a warning from the angry Eddie, to mind her own business? Or could it have been someone else? After all, the traffic up here had been heavy this morning. Who, for instance, had been at the wheel of that four-by-four?
It was probably no more than a silly joke. After all, someone making a serious threat would surely have thrown the stuff around the car, ruining its interior and her day.
As it was, it was manageable. Turning her nose carefully away, she lifted the bag out and set it aside while she opened the trunk of her car. She had to think of this differently. Someone had given her a gift of natural fertilizer, and she would not spurn it. She would throw it on the compost pile in the garden at her rented house.
Closing the bag of offal as best she could, she tucked it in her trunk, got back in the car, and resumed her speedy ride over the ridges of the foothills. By the time she reached her rental house, her mind was on other things, and she completely forgot her smelly little present.
Louise had taken a long, hot shower, and come into the bedroom still toweling herself. “Damn,” she muttered when she saw the message button flashing. She pushed the replay button and heard her husband’s voice for the first time in days.
“Hi, honey. We’re pullin’ outta here—and I reckon I’ll be home by tomorrow.” Was this really Bill, or someone trying to pull her leg? “I hope y’ all’re doin’ real good,” he continued. “Sure was great t’hear your voice on the answerin’ machine.”
Y’all? Reckon? Real good? The voice was definitely Bill’s. But her husband’s devotion to the Queen’s English seldom slipped; now he seemed to be wallowing in a quagmire of southwestern colloquialisms. She wondered who he was hanging out with to make his language change so dramatically. He sounded distinctly—Texan. “I hope somebody’s fïxin’ t’ solve those murders, and I hope you’re stayin’ out of it. Honey, I want you ta watch out for people, now—and you know what I mean.”
Fixin’ to? The answer came to her. He was associating with a bunch of southwest government agents, and then-speech habits were rubbing off on him.
Next came a message from Pete. “Maybe I’ll see ya this evenin,” the cameraman said. “Eddie was by earlier and told me about the wake. If you’re comin, I’ll be right there to try to protect you”—was that gentle taunting?—“though I’m sure you’re insulted to hear me suggest you need protection.”
Pete Fitzsimmons. She wished she weren’t so suspicious of the man.
“And one more thing,” he continued, “my great cat, Toughy. This mornin’ I talked to Jenny next door, and just on account of you I held my tongue, for awhile, anyway. And she gave me this little bottle of drops. Just for fun I think I’ll try ’em on Toughy. But I blew it with the woman. Couldn’t resist tellin her that her cat ought to get some balls.” He chuckled. “Course, that’s impossible because the critter’s been deballed. Jenny’s the kind of woman that can’t tolerate a real male cat around th’ house, much less a real man. Well, I’ll see ya, Louise.”
She smiled, and then immediately sobered. It was a mistake to fall for this man’s considerable charms. Why couldn’t he be in league with Reingold in an attempt to get Porter’s ranch? He could have shot Jimmy Porter and driven to her rental house in time to rendezvous with her and Ann Evans. Then, he only had to drive the three of them up the road again and innocently discover the body…
With a little shock of remembrance, she could picture that empty shotgun rack above his head in the truck. Where had his gun gone? Men like Pete always had their gun handy.
If Pete was the murderer, he had done it with his customary aplomb. It was a superb job of acting—showing her photos of the murder scene and the Porter Ranch and speculating darkly on the figure in the woods. Was all that just to finesse her, to throw her totally off track? It gave her a pang. Her old-shoe buddy, part of a murder plot…
Unfortunately, Pete fit the profile of a killer. He was more physically competent than most other men, and an excellent marksman. A man who knew Boulder inside out, who played different roles for different people, and played them smoothly. A man with no close family to know exactly what he was doing. A man with a modern, laissez-faire outlook on both the world and on sex—for he would have happily bedded her down in his National Landmark home had she given him the nod.
Sh
e shuddered and pulled her towel more tightly about her. She was getting scared.
She needed to talk to Bill and quit playing the tough guy, airily dismissing the fact that someone had tried to kill her. Hurriedly, she looked up the Langley, Virginia, emergency number Bill had given her. She told the operator her message was urgent. As she sat on the side of die bed and waited for the call to go through, she grabbed one of her scripts. She turned it over and on the pack she wrote down some names, then connected them with lines. Eddie Porter, connected to Josef Reingold, and to Grace Prangley. Frank Porter, his name standing alone. Pete Fitzsimmons, with a line drawn to Reingold. Mark Payne and Sheriff Tatum connected with another line, with Harriet’s name linked with both Payne’s and Tatum’s. Tom Spangler, with a dotted line connecting him to Reingold. Ann Evans, just for the record—but when Louise thought about it, with links to all of the other people. She drew the lines in. As she’d told Ann, everyone—no matter how unlikely—had to be considered when investigating a murder. She placed the script back on the bedside table.
The operator suddenly broke the silence. “Ma’am,” she said, “you say this is urgent? Maybe you should contact someone closer to you if you’re in an emergency situation.”
“Well,” huffed Louise, “I’m not in immediate danger. I just need to speak to my husband!”
“We can’t get through right now, Mrs. Eldridge, but we’ll try our best,” was all the aloof message-taker would say. Louise slumped down on the edge of the bed, disappointed. She felt as if she might never see her family again.
