Shallow Grave

by Karen Harper

  “Anything?” she asked, with a huge yawn almost obliterating her words.

  “Well—something from Lane Hoffman. I can’t believe Ann would tell him about that letter his dad wrote, and he’s not shy about verbal attacks, but a letter? It doesn’t look like a legal document, a cease and desist order, anything like that.”

  He tossed the envelope onto Claire’s lap, and she opened it with a fingernail under the flap. “Darn,” she said. “One of those paper cuts that hurt and never heal. What a day!”

  As she pulled out a folded note, a thin swipe of blood from her finger smeared across it. Two smaller, stiffer pieces of paper fell on her lap. “Oh, Nick. Lane has sent us tickets for two loge seats at the symphony for the Sunday evening performance, the day after Bronco and Nita’s wedding. They’re playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. So maybe he wants to mend bridges with us. Maybe he feels guilty for being so brusque and rude. And there’s a note with it.”

  She opened it and gasped.

  “A threat?” he asked, leaning toward her and taking the folded paper. “No,” he said, skimming it, “nice enough, saying that he’s been hasty and upset and apologizes.” He looked up at Claire. She’d gone as white as—as the sheet she had pulled up to her growing stomach and was gripping with both hands.

  “Sweetheart, are you nauseous? I thought you were over morning sickness, and we’re far from morning.”

  “No—look there,” she said, loosing the wadded sheet and pointing at the note.

  “You mean that it’s printed?”

  “I mean how it’s printed,” she insisted, and grabbed the plastic-covered letter from her bedside table. Her hands were shaking.

  “Nick, look! Lane wrote this suicide note, not his father!”

  17

  The next day, Sunday, six days before Nita and Bronco’s wedding, Claire had no time to find a way to corner Lane. Seeing him after the concert would have to do so it didn’t look like they were onto the fact that he wrote his father’s letter. She had compared more of the printing and was sure it was Lane’s. They needed to know when and why he wrote what now sounded like a fake suicide letter, but they had decided not to tell Ann or Brit, or especially full-steam-ahead Jace, until they got some answers. But this afternoon, their house was in chaos.

  Bronco had gone to the Trophy Ranch to sign a part-time work contract with Stan Helter, though he wouldn’t start until a week after the wedding. Nita was overseeing the professional cleaning of the driveway from the mess yesterday. Pictures of it had been trending online, but their avid neighborhood photographer had not mentioned the exact site of the gruesome array. So far, local news had not picked it up.

  This afternoon, Nita and Claire went over the RSVPs for the wedding and rechecked their numbers for the cake and catered food to feed thirty people. With Claire’s help, Nita tried on her wedding dress again in the guest bedroom. It was made by their friend Liz Collister, who usually designed corsets, the woman Gina worked for as a caregiver for her father’s Alzheimer’s disease. Chairs for the outside ceremony and rented card tables for the reception leaned against the wall in the Florida room along with a box of white folding-chair covers and tablecloths.

  Claire was proud to have come up with another idea to help Duncan and Marta. The wedding was on Marta’s day off from her job at Taco Bell, so they had hired her to help serve and clean up for the wedding so Claire and Gina could just be guests. That was a Saturday they would not meet with the Comfort Zone kids, but Marta had arranged for Duncan to go to a friend’s house.

  Lexi, thank heavens, was at Darcy’s, because she’d been driving Claire crazy with practicing being a flower girl, not to mention coming up with name after name for a new sister or brother. When the doorbell rang, Claire thought Nita might need help with the concrete cleaner, so she hurried to answer the door.

  The cleaning man was gone. Nita stood there, but so did Gracie Cobham with one of her “boys,” and both of their arms were full of orchid plants in baskets.

  “Oh, Gracie,” Claire said, “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

  “Don’t have a phone,” the old woman said. “Don’t like them. Cost too much. We got us a few more plants in the truck.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “Claire, you ordered these without telling us, didn’t you?” Nita said, tears in her eyes. “It’s going to be so beautiful.”

  “Of course it is,” Gracie told her.

  “Ah, rather than bring those through the house,” Claire said, stepping out, “let me go through and unlock the gate, and we can bring them straight into the backyard that way.” She was thinking Nick would have a fit if he came downstairs from going over some casework and found Gracie and her son. She wasn’t sure of his name. And had he been the one with the knife or the hatchet at the BAA? She hoped Nick was wrong that she was out of her mind to befriend these people.

  Claire closed the door and tore through the house, unlocked the gate with the combination lock and hurried out to the front to help carry orchids.

  “We’re certainly going to pay you for these, Gracie. We’re having a special event here soon, and we want the backyard to look lovely. Friends of ours are getting married. As a matter of fact, this is the bride.”

  “Outside’s best place for that,” Gracie said from behind a massive blooming white Vanda orchid. “Got hitched outside myself, way back when.”

  Everything was shaping up, Claire thought with a sigh—until Nick came out on the patio. But he shook hands and thanked the Cobhams. Nita brought out iced tea and scones, and, though Nick sat at a table to keep an eye on things, he had a nice chat with Ronnie—what a too-cute name for a hefty six-footer. At least Claire felt relieved. The old woman had the three interior sides of the new fence abloom in no time.

  “Oh, Gracie,” Claire said to her as they worked in the back corner to hang the last of the orchids, “I meant to ask you something.” She figured if she didn’t ask this now when everything was going well, the chance might not come again. “You said at the BAA something about you were tired of looking through the fence at Thunder. But which fence? I didn’t realize you could see his cage except through the Trophy Ranch’s fence—not a public one.”

  Gracie snorted. “You think I didn’t climb trees for years when it was still legal to snatch these plants out of ’em? Hangin’ high, most of ’em.”

  “But the ranch is all fenced off, and around the BAA there’s a second fence. Wasn’t it dangerous to climb a tree? As for the fence, the twisted cross wire is hardly big enough to get a foot in.”

  “Ladders, my girl.”

  “You mean you went over into the ranch land?”

  “Then come across near the BAA. Crossed the ranch fence, not the BAA one, but I could see the cage from there.”

  “But the ranch has a gate you could have used and—”

  “Thought of that, of course, but they control it inward somehow. They got some touchy guards, even one, I swear, lives near the front gate. Prob’ly rained it all off now,” she went on, hands on her hips, “but there was mud caked on the fence footholds some of those places where you can get a ladder in a tree, then get over the fence, have the ladder pulled over to the other side. Someone climbed it afore me—I saw ladder holes in the mud. I watched my baby Thunder, but not close enough he could hear me or I could get proper food to him. Now, don’t you go tellin’ those ranch guards or that zookeeper Jackson that stays there all night that an old woman outsmarted them.”

  Claire finally remembered to close her mouth. Gracie had not been afraid that she’d meet a ranch hand or a wild animal because she wanted to see her own wild animal. And she’d seen evidence someone had climbed that way before. But was that all true? And could they really trust, since fences were no obstacles, that Gracie or her sons had not climbed over, then hit and pushed Ben into Thunder’s cage?

  *
* *

  Before Bronco arrived to pick up Nita, he phoned ahead to tell Nick he wanted to see him outside before he got to the house.

  “You okay?” Nick asked on his phone. “Something happen at the ranch or are you getting cold feet?”

  “What?”

  “Nervous about the wedding?”

  “Naw, I got warm feet and other parts too. I just want to tell you something alone.”

  “I’ll come out to meet the truck down the street a ways. Hope you found something out about dead gators and snakes.”

  “Five minutes, boss.”

  Nick told Claire he was going for a short walk. Was there something Bronco didn’t even want her to know, let alone Nita?

  Bronco had parked down by the Crossing Danger sign. That, Nick thought, as he stretched his strides to meet him, should be the name of the entire street—of his life.

  “Hey,” Nick greeted him, and got in the passenger side. “Just tell me. What did you learn?”

  “There’s girls there, boss. I mean, kind of for the taking. One Latina woman, she came on to me. I overheard one of the Japanese guests telling Mr. Helter it was better than the comfort girls his grandfather told him about during the war. I thought what if Nita found out so I—well, I can guess what a comfort girl was.”

  “Okay, hold on. A girl—a prostitute—was part of the deal for you? Like a job perk or something?”

  Hands gripping the steering wheel as if he were still driving, Bronco nodded and exhaled a hard breath through clenched teeth. “And right before the wedding. I mean, I said no thanks and no way, but what if they meant to kind of blackmail me with that—with her—like take a picture and hold it over me to bring in snakes, or who knows what else?”

  “I’m thinking that may be what Helter’s hiding—the women, to make sure you don’t rat him out—tell on him. Didn’t mean to mention rats.”

  “This woman wasn’t hidden, boss. And there was more than one of them around. I mean they may serve meals or clean up, and make beds, but the way they were acting, they’re in beds too.”

  “I’m thinking those may be illegals, and that’s what he has to hide, why it made him nervous to have the BAA owners and guests so close. He could be bringing them in to work for him from Mexico, or they could be Cubans he’s picked up. I just hope they’re not forced into that. And that would make him and the ranch illegal. Before, I was thinking it might be he’d brought in exotic animals he had to hide, but it might be humans. You just make it clear you’re getting married soon—”

  “He knew that. Remember, when I met him I said that right away?”

  “Yeah, I do. Maybe he thought you’d go for a final fling, a private bachelor party. Look, you don’t need to go back there if you think there’s a problem, too much pressure, a trap. I don’t want you going to a place on my account if it seems risky, but I’ll sure like to get evidence to fry Helter—including, maybe, prove he killed Ben.”

  “I know you were hoping I’d find things like that out,” Bronco said, loosing the steering wheel at last. His fingers had gone white. “I owe you and Claire a lot, damn right I do. And I’m glad to help. We all been through worse. So I signed on to work half days three days a week, flexible hours to catch Burmese pythons—live ones. Course I didn’t mention I’d just seen a dead one,” he said, and forced a little snorted laugh.

  Nick turned more toward Bronco and squeezed his shoulder. “If you think there’s anything dangerous, you get out of there and come tell me. Stan’s for sure not the only one I’m thinking might have urged or helped Ben commit ‘suicide,’ but he’s still my number one.”

  Bronco nodded. “I’m not gonna tell Nita, not right away. If you tell your partner in crime—well, didn’t mean it that way about Claire—make sure she don’t tell Nita. I’ll tell her my own way in my own time.”

  “Deal,” Nick said, and they shook hands.

  “Oh, yeah, one more thing,” Bronco said, starting up the engine as Nick braced himself for what bad news surprise was coming next. “That place might look backwoods, but I parked behind the lodge and glanced in a window. They got banks of TV screens monitoring the hunting areas, clear to the fences, including those two back tree house places. Lots of screens, like inside a TV studio. A couple guys had headphones on too.”

  Nick’s thoughts started spinning. “I wonder if they make promotion videos or souvenir movies for hunters to take home with the heads of the mounted game. Maybe to keep track of the herd movements, so they can take their wealthy guests for a good hunt. Or, of course, security. Thanks for all that info, Bronco. It doesn’t mean Stan somehow was responsible for Ben’s death, but if not, we may get him on something else. Stay safe, but keep your eyes and ears open there. Now let’s go see our women and talk wedding.”

  * * *

  The house had finally settled down after dinner when there was a knock on the door. Nick, Claire and Lexi had just started playing the board game called Chutes and Ladders, though Claire kept thinking about that old woman climbing ladders to get a glimpse of her pet tiger—and the fact she’d said someone else had been using a ladder too.

  “I’ll see who’s there,” Nick said, getting up. “After all the excitement, we don’t need any more.”

  It was Lexi’s turn, so Claire trailed along behind Nick, preparing herself for something bad. But it was Marta Glover at the door, still in her black Taco Bell shirt and slacks. Her old truck was out in front, but Duncan was not in sight.

  Nick unlocked the screen door. “Are you all right?” Claire asked, drawing Marta in. “Where’s Duncan?”

  “Still at the sitter’s. I should have called first, but didn’t think to. Did you say something about you used to have nightmares, Mrs. Claire?”

  “Come in and sit down,” Claire said, urging her toward the front library room rather than taking her back where Lexi would overhear. Claire clicked on a light, and they sat on the leather couch, facing each other.

  Nick told them, “I’ll go make sure Lexi doesn’t manage to win the game with neither of us there. If you need any help from me, just let me know. Lexi has nightmares too, Mrs. Glover. Part of growing up.”

  “But not like this,” she whispered when she and Claire were alone. “Your house—so pretty and big,” she added, looking around the room.

  “We just moved in a few months ago. More room for the baby,” Claire told her, but again, she wished she could help Marta get out of that trailer. “So—yes, I’ve had nightmares for years, partly from a disease I’ve had since my early teens. It’s called narcolepsy. I still have to take my medicine, and I also use some herbs to be able to stay awake, to sleep on time and avoid weird, bad dreams where I really lose reality.”

  “Well, you think Duncan can have that disease?”

  “I haven’t seen signs of it in him, Marta. He seems alert during the day, when I used to practically sleep standing up until I got treatment.”

  “It’s the same bad dream. Well, I can understand it some. He thinks he sees his daddy watching him.”

  Claire’s head jerked. “In his bed in the trailer? While he’s sleeping?”

  “Says when he sleeps he remembers being watched. Says he hears noises outside. He opened the curtain by his bed more’n once and thought he saw Irv watching, even through the trailer-park fence.”

  A picture of Gracie watching her dear tiger through the fence shot through Claire’s mind, but she steadied herself. “Marta, you realize how much it traumatized—that is, shook up—Duncan that his father was such a violent man. To him, to you and to others.”

  “A killer too. You can say it.”

  “Let me ask this. Are you sure that your husband—”

  “I want to divorce that man! I’m saving money to get rid of him!”

  “All right, but let’s stick with Duncan now,” she said, taking Marta’s trembling hands in hers. “Are
you certain that Duncan’s father really is in Tennessee? Could he have come back, be hanging around, watching you or the boy?”

  “I’d be out of here, living in the woods or anywhere if I thought that. Those checks are postmarked Tennessee, and he’s even been spotted there, a positive ID the sheriff said. I pray each night the police there will haul him in and put him away for good—for being so bad.”

  Nick knocked on the open door and stepped in. “Sorry, but I was coming back and heard what you said, Marta. Do you have a restraining order on Irv?”

  “It run out about when he took off. He don’t pay no heed to something like that.”

  “But I think I’ll get you one anyway—get your old one renewed. If he’s spotted anywhere around, it might help to get you police protection, and we can arrange for an officer to drop by now and then, in case he does show up—and, if he’s watching you, to keep him away.”

  “I was telling Mrs. Claire here the boy’s having bad dreams over that, but I swear it’s all in his head. If I could, I’d take him to a fancy shrink.”

  “Well, I’m not a fancy shrink, not even a shrink,” Claire told her, loosing her hands, “but I am a psychologist, and I’d be happy to have you and Duncan here to use our pool, because he seemed to really love that. And then I’d have some time to see if we can settle him down and assure him he’s safe.”

  “But you got that big wedding next week.”

  “Then how about midweek, some evening after you get off work, under the patio lights? I could tell he liked our big, solid fence, so he’ll feel safe here to have fun and to talk. Just talking can help,” Claire tried to assure her.

  “It sure does,” she said with a decisive nod, even as she blinked away tears. “It sure enough does.”

  18

  Monday morning, Nick called his secretary to say he’d be in late, and after they dropped Lexi at preschool, he and Claire drove out to the BAA to see Ann. She’d told them she was keeping regular hours there but, when they arrived, Jackson said she wasn’t on-site.