‘Squishy,’ Sonora said, trying not to look at Sam.
‘But he was picky about who he sold to – the dealer would have given him more money than I did. You sure this is the right guy?’
‘Can you describe him?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘God, I don’t know. Average. Not particularly attractive, but not gross.’
‘Hair color?’
‘Dark, I think. I’m not sure.’
‘Fat? Thin?’
‘In the middle.’
‘If you saw him again, do you think you’d recognize him?’
She scratched her cheek. ‘Yeah, sure, maybe. See, he had on one of those dorky hats with the flappers on the ears. You know the kind?’
Sonora knew the kind. ‘Who’d you sell the mare to?’
She shifted her weight. ‘A barn up in Wisconsin. They show saddlebreds and train and do lessons. She’s long gone, but she’s in good hands.’
‘Got the bill of sale on that one?’
‘Ah, no, I gave her to the guy in trade. Owed him on some stud fees, so I gave him the mare as partial payment.’
‘Okay, Ms Adair. We need you to get in our car and take us to whoever you sold her to. We’re investigating the homicide of a fifteen-year-old victim, and we know you’re going to do everything you can to help.’
She looked at them. ‘I don’t have time to go with you.’
‘You’ll have to make time,’ Sonora said.
Adair shifted her weight back and forth. ‘Actually, I guess the horse is still here.’
‘You guess that, do you?’ Sonora said.
‘Guy hasn’t had a chance to pick her up.’
‘Do you understand what obstruction of justice is?’
‘Look, I didn’t lie, I did sell her. Buyer just hasn’t had time to pick her up yet, and I forgot she was still here.’ Adair waved a hand to the outdoor stalls. ‘That one, over there. I mean it, I forgot the guy hadn’t been by. This is a big barn. I can’t remember every little detail.’
‘Of course not.’ Sam gave her an encouraging smile.
Sonora turned her back on them and headed for the stall. The woman had sold the horse to slaughter, or was planning to, maybe after the birth of the foal. If she waited. Somebody like the Horseman’s Buddy was slated for this mare’s future.
Sonora looked through the rusty grilled mesh of the stall door, saw the vague shape of a horse standing nose to the back wall. The stall was very dark. The smell of horse and urine was loud enough to make her eyes water.
She opened the door carefully, stood just inside.
She did not know whether to laugh or cry. The mare’s stomach was swollen with pregnancy, and her coat was coarse-looking, mud-streaked, mane windblown and snarled with mats. Hard to believe this one animal had set off a series of crimes including fraud, murder, grand theft auto and various violations of traffic laws. She looked hungry, cranky and very much in need of a friend.
‘Talk to me, baby,’ Sonora murmured. ‘We’ll put alfalfa in the witness box, if you’ll testify.’ The mare took a sidestep toward her, then changed her mind and backed away.
This too would come in time.
Adair came into the stall in a flurry that sent the mare further back into the dark, urine-soaked corner. ‘Are you really doing it? You’re taking my trailer?’
‘We could arrest you first,’ Sonora said.
‘What for?’
Sonora looked at the mounds of worm-infested manure, the scum-filled water bucket, no more than one-third full, the lack of bedding over the uneven dirt, the absence of light and ventilation, the complete lack of food.
‘We’re not just taking the trailer, Ms Adair. We’re also taking the horse.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Adair’s wail sounded like a temper tantrum winding up.
Sonora looked at her over one shoulder. ‘You want to come along?’
‘Hell, no.’
‘Then get this horse some feed and hay while I arrange transportation. And rinse out that water bucket.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Sam said.
Adair gave him a sour look. ‘Much obliged.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
Sonora went to the barn, alone, at dusk. Poppin was in his stall, finishing his dinner. She felt a twinge of disappointment. She’d hoped to give him his dinner herself.
He put his head out the open Dutch window, dribbling grain over the wooden ledge and on to the ground. His ears were forward. He looked curious and friendly. Sonora rubbed him on the forehead, stroked the rub mark over his nose. He bobbed his head but did not pull away.
Joelle Chauncey’s final journal implied on-going discussions with her father. Had this been the trigger that had gotten her killed? What could have been so sensitive that he would kill her, when he had faithfully parented her all these years? Multiple mothers would not put a man in jail.
Sonora took a dirty lead rope from a peg next to Poppin’s stall. The cotton was thick; it felt good in her hands. She slid the stall door open, and Poppin was right there, trying to get his head through the opening.
She clipped the lead rope to his halter, glad Hal had insisted on leaving it on, since she had no idea how to get it on or off. Shoved the door open, and led the horse out.
She was nervous, stomach tight. She’d never handled the horse alone. There at the other end of the rope, he seemed bigger than he had in the stall.
She headed out the barn door, hoping the horse would come along quietly.
She led him out into the pasture, constructing scenarios in her mind. Suppose, for the sake of argument, Dixon Chauncey had killed Joelle, the trigger being whatever, was alluded to in the journals. There were still problems, and even with Sam coming round to her point of view, she was still uneasy. Because expecting someone to fall from a horse and die from their injuries was stretching it. Even for Dixon Chauncey.
The psychology was not so bad. It would be something Dixon Chauncey could set up, and stand away from. Perfect for a man as terrified of confrontation as Chauncey was.
But why take the horse?
And yet. Taking the mare put the suspicion on Bisky Farms – where there were tensions and dirty dealings already. Easy enough to get a blanket, and incredibly stupid of the mythical Bisky killer to wrap the child’s body in a cooler from the farm.
Could she picture Vivian Bisky pulling off such a cold-blooded murder? Actually, yes. Maybe she’d been a cop too long. She could picture people doing all kinds of things.
And stupid perps were a fact of life, which did wonders for the homicide clearance rate. So it wasn’t something she could rule out.
A jerk on her arm pulled her backward and to a sudden stop. Poppin had selected a clump of clover and short green shoots of tender grass to munch. Sonora let him eat for a minute, wondering what his criteria were, why one clump of grass was passed over for another.
He moved toward her, chewing, and she scrambled away, wondering how long it took to teach a horse not to step on its human.
She gave Poppin a rub on the shoulder. Even if Dixon Chauncey had killed Joelle, vague and suggestive journal entries were not enough to take to a grand jury, even with the prosecutor in their corner. And after convicting the lead district attorney of Murder One last year, Sonora did not have a prosecutor in her corner.
People were never grateful.
Poppin’s head came up, and he froze, eyes on the horizon. Something out there he didn’t like.
Sonora looked over the hill, saw nothing that should alarm a horse, even one like Poppin, who had so far proved sensitive to the bright yellow of a clump of daisies, the flutter of a butterfly, and the truly terrifying spectacle of a plastic grocery bag. If horses told horror stories, Sonora was convinced they’d use demon plastic grocery bags to scare the foals.
Poppin decided he’d had enough, for whatever reason, and headed toward Delaney’s fields. Now that his head was up, Sonora kept him going, circling ever closer to the break in the fence where Joel
le Chauncey had taken her final fall.
Poppin had other ideas.
Forty-two mintues later, Sonora, who had checked her watch at the outset, had sweat drenching her temples and the hairline at the base of her neck, but she had gotten Poppin across the fields, and he was now grazing nervously near the broken fence line. At which rate, she figured, it would take her only the better part of the night to get him back to the barn.
She was beginning to see an amazing number of similarities between horses and teenagers, not limited to but including a refusal to listen, a language barrier and a personal agenda that bore no relation to her own.
Horses could be put in their stalls, teenagers could be sent to their rooms, and both could be counted on to trash their living quarters when left unattended.
Sonora looked out over the horizon. What light there had been was quickly draining away. She could not accomplish much now, going over the crime scene in the dark. She kept hold of the lead rope, while Poppin, head to the ground, ate grass like a horse who has not been in good pasture for some years.
Which, for all she knew, might well be the case.
The sky was midnight-blue now, smudged with dirty pink streaks of cloud. She could see stars, a rare treat for a city girl. The wind was just enough to brush Poppin’s tangled red mane, and dry the sweat on her neck. She was wearing her favorite gray sweatshirt, inside out, like she really liked it, a loose pair of jeans and her latest Reeboks – a bad choice for barn time; she should have put on an old pair. If her checkbook ever recovered, she’d buy some barn boots.
Sonora breathed in the smell of horse, and felt an inexplicable wave of happiness. It was a rare and quiet moment. The cicadas were loud, countryside white noise, and she heard the staccato squeak of a bat.
A light went on in the Chauncey trailer, then another. It looked snug and homey, all windows glowing except one, which she guessed was Joelle’s bedroom. How were they doing, the Chaunceys? How were Mary Claire and Kippie handling the bottomless loss of an elder sister?
And she knew that in spite of his pitiful dyed hair, his cigarette offerings to acquaintances in the hopes of future friendship, his shuffling head-down walk, his kicked-puppy smile, Dixon Chauncey was trying to do all the right things.
The trailer would be clean, the bathroom would smell of Pine Sol. The children would have a hot, home-cooked meal, they would have clean folded clothes for school, home-packed lunches, supervised study time for homework, and help with their math.
She should manage her own household so well.
A man like this did not kill children. A man like this did not bury them alive.
What was she doing, trying to pin a heinous murder on the male equivalent of Donna Reed? Even Joelle, in her true journals, had seen the worth of this man.
This man had not amputated Donna Delaney’s index finger and stuffed it into a riding glove. This man had not terrorized a barn and a tough nut like Delaney. Surely the killer and the cutter were one and the same?
Sam had called this one. The focal point of the investigation should shift to Bisky Farms.
It was full dark now, and all Sonora could see of the trailer was those yellow glowing lights, the center one flickered with a bluish purple that meant a television screen. The bicycles would be lined up to one side, the front porch clear of toys.
But because she was a cop, her mind kept moving, ignoring the new conviction that Dixon Chauncey was exactly what he seemed, a devoted, meticulous, hard-luck kind of guy trying to raise three, now two, children on his own. And in her mind’s eye she saw the Weed Eater, propped up in front of the trailer, on the porch next to the bikes.
Had the Weed Eater been in front of the trailer the night Joelle had disappeared? Sonora was sure that it had. Even Dixon Chauncey would not come home and trim borders when his eldest daughter was missing. And he was not the type to leave his tools in front of the house for days on end, like others that Sonora knew.
She tied Poppin to a fence post with a knot that would make a man curl his lip, but she was alone and it was dark, so she did it her own way. She moved slowly in the dark, so as not to alarm her horse, who took exception to the noise of her feet in the grass, and to keep from turning an ankle in the uneven field. Looked for the fence post six feet from where Joelle Chauncey had come off her horse.
Frustrating, not to be able to see. She ran her fingertips slowly down the rough wood, catching a splinter in the ball of her thumb.
And even though she’d been half expecting it, she felt a chill and a tingle in her spine when she touched the thin plastic line of Weed Eater tape, tied to the post twelve inches up from the ground, shin level on a horse.
Sonora heard the howl and bark of a coyote, the horn of a train. She glanced at the mobile home, wondering if the Weed Eater was still propped out front.
She had answered one question. Which was how Dixon Chauncey could be sure that Joelle would come tumbling off that horse.
Chapter Forty-Nine
By the time Sonora got Poppin untied from the fence, the wind had kicked up, and lightning flashed on the horizon, a seam of brilliance in a thick night sky. The barn lights brought them in like a beacon.
It did not take her the better part of the night to come in from the fields, as she had feared, and in fact Poppin was so eager for his stall, and his flakes of hay, and for the handful of grain which he mysteriously knew she would give him as a treat, that they went back much more quickly than Sonora intended.
She was able to keep up, just.
She had been in enough barns lately to appreciate how clean and open this barn was, how it smelled of Pine Sol, and cedar shavings, hay and the musk of horse.
She turned on all the interior lights as she led Poppin to his stall.
He rushed the doorway, knocking her sideways, and she let go of the lead rope rather than be dragged in. Her wrist hit the door jamb, smashing her hand between the wood and the shoulder of the horse.
‘Shit,’ she said, which did not faze the horse. She held her wrist to her side and went into the stall, grabbed the lead rope. Poppin was snuffling his food bowl and did not care to be disturbed, but she did not take no for an answer. She dragged him out into the aisle.
The rain started, thumping on the tin roof of the barn. She listened for a moment, thinking there was no other sound quite like it.
Rain and dirt blew into the barn, and Poppin snorted and took off.
‘Whoa, you sonofabitch.’ Sonora zigzagged up and down the aisleway, trying to keep him under control, thinking that people who complained about being walked by their dog ought to try being led by a horse.
‘Shorten your lead rope and let him move around you in a circle.’
Sonora looked over her shoulder. Saw Hal.
She nodded, not bothering with hello, focused on the lead rope, the horse and not getting stepped on, and the fear in the pit of her stomach went away, the relief in Hal’s presence overwhelming. She felt safe again.
It was totally a girl thing, and she was surprised how good it felt to be in the company of one of those rare men who made her feel that way.
‘You talked to Crick yet?’ he asked her.
‘No.’ She had the horse circling. ‘Now what?’
‘Wait till he stops. When he does, pet him. You and your partner got a good reason for trying to blow my investigation?’
‘I have no idea what you mean by that.’ But she did. They had thrown Delaney to the wolves. ‘And what do you mean, pet him? How about I break his neck?’
‘Don’t you want him to stop?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then pet him. If you break his neck when he stops, he’s not going to want to stop for you any more.’ He leaned against the wall, arms folded. ‘Donna Delaney is about to have a stroke.’
‘How so?’
‘Spare me the look of sweet innocence. Vivian Bisky is not a happy camper. Donna’s thinking along the lines of if they cut off my finger last week, what are they go
ing to do to me tomorrow?’
‘That’s called pressure. Use it. What if this horse doesn’t ever stop?’
‘He’ll wear out eventually.’
‘So will Delaney.’ She remembered their conversation about Arabian endurance. If the Horseman’s Buddy had been in reach, she’d have broken his neck.
‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I’m pulling her in tomorrow. Going to make a sweep of it, early in the morning. Warrants for Vivian Bisky, Donna Delaney, and Claude Vincent.’
‘Vincent. Why don’t I know that name?’
‘Big strapping South African. Thick blond hair, wears it long. Recently treated by an under-the-counter medic who happens to owe me a favor, for damage to his left eye and a bullet wound.’
She looked at him. ‘You found my guy!’
He nodded.
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘I’m telling you now.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Tucked in his bunk, I hope, and under surveillance. We’ll be knocking on his door before sun-up. The TRC specializes in that early-morning adrenalin rush.’
‘Before your perps get their coffee? I always heard you guys were bad. What about the brother Bisky?’
‘Cliff? He’s big and fat, he smokes cigars, he falls asleep in meetings and his wife is ugly.’
‘So you’re not bringing him in?’
‘He’s out of town. It may interest you to know that Vincent is an illegal alien employed by Bisky Farms. I’m figuring he was stashing the finger in the riding glove the day you tripped over him in the barn. Likely, he’s the one who did Donna in the first place. Which may mean he did Joelle. He could be your guy.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so? Why don’t you think so?’
She told him about the Weed Eater tape. Finding the mare. The journal entries.
No Good Deed Page 23
