Deadly Row to Hoe

by Cricket McRae

  I followed him out. The latch snicked into place, and he tested the knob to make sure it locked.

  As we went down the steps I tried to think why I hadn’t wanted to jump in with both feet. I’d searched other places with no qualms. But this felt different, despite the fact that my husband the detective had been in favor of it. Why?

  Barr started the engine.

  I fastened my seat belt. I liked Daphne, and truly believed she was upset about Nate. Deep down, I didn’t think she’d hurt him, at least not with a shovel. But I had to admit I could be off the mark. In the end it came down to the simple feeling that going through her things would have been … wrong.

  Okay, so I had a conscience. I liked to think I always had, but apparently so much contact with death and grief and tragedy in the last few years had gradually thinned my skin when it came to moral dilemmas. In a way, I was glad. But it could also mean Kelly—and Barr and Zahn—were all wrong about my investigative abilities now.

  Maybe I’d lost my edge.

  Eighteen

  It was just before two o’clock when Barr dropped me at home and headed back to the cop shop. He promised to call if they got any news about Nate’s condition. I strode up the walkway with purpose. It was all I had to fill the void left by the pile of unanswered questions about the events at the farm. There were a lot of reasons to kill someone. I’d personally known sociopathic negligence, greed, desire, fear for a loved one, simple anger, self-defense, and unadulterated ego to drive murderers. Given the dynamic of Hallie/Nate/Daphne/Darla or even Allie/Tom/Darla, all I could come up with was jealousy.

  Would I ever be willing to kill for Barr?

  Maybe. To save his life, say—but not out of jealousy.

  Inside, I veered toward the kitchen, ready to go down to the basement and get some work done. I always felt better when I had a handle on tasks, when things were organized and items checked neatly off my to-do list. But then I saw Clarissa out of the corner of my eye and changed my mind.

  She was sitting on the sofa in the living room, all alone. No television on, no books. Just sitting there.

  I stopped and leaned against the arch that opened from the entryway into the living room. “Hey.”

  Her head jerked up in alarm.

  “Didn’t you hear me come in?”

  “No.”

  Stepping into the room, I joined her on the sofa. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Nothing.” Her fingers twisted in her pink skirt. Knobby knees poked out from below it. She looked up at me with big eyes, and for the first time I saw they were deep blue.

  “Where’s Meghan?” I asked.

  “She came and told us she had a, a drop-in or something.”

  That did happen sometimes, though I was surprised she’d leave Clarissa all alone out here to give a massage.

  Wait a minute. “Us? Is Erin home?”

  “Yeah.”

  My forehead wrinkled in surprise. “Then where is she?”

  “In her bedroom with that Zoe girl.”

  Erin and Zoe had been friends since the first grade. But that didn’t explain why Clarissa wasn’t in there with them.

  My perplexity must have shown because she said, “They were busy with some stupid 4-H project. A stupid organic garden.”

  I sat back and considered her. A white gauzy top rested on her skinny shoulders, and several beaded necklaces looped around her little neck. Diamond-look drops dangled from her ear lobes. She wasn’t actually smaller than Erin, but she seemed smaller. Like somehow she lacked the same presence. I wondered how she’d talked Erin into defying her mother and going to the ice cream shop.

  Then I remembered the cell phone. Erin’s disobedience hadn’t been about Clarissa at all.

  “You don’t like gardening?” I asked.

  “Yuck. I don’t like any of that stuff.” Now her voice was stronger.

  “You mean farm-type stuff ?” I ventured.

  “I hate that stupid farm.”

  “All of it? What about the pigs and chickens?”

  “Especially the pigs and chickens!” Her jaw set. “They’re dirty and nasty and ugly and I have to feed them all the time. I have to gather eggs, and the stupid hens peck at me and try to eat my jewelry. The pigs stink, and after I’ve been around them five minutes then I stink. Aunt Hallie’s right. All animals are good for are eating.”

  “How about dogs?” I teased.

  “They’re not even good for that.”

  Wow. She really meant it. Or thought she did.

  “How about people?”

  She looked at me like I’d crawled out from under a rock. “You can’t eat people.”

  I laughed—sort of. “But you can like them. You like people, right?”

  “Some of them. I like Aunt Hallie.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They’re the reason I have to live on that stupid farm. They’re the reason we had to move away from home, why I had to change schools, why I had to leave all my friends.”

  Ouch. Unfortunately, if she kept up with this lousy attitude, she wouldn’t be making very many new friends, either.

  “They’re the reason I can’t have nice things like Aunt Hallie has.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I like pretty things. I’m a girl, not a farm hand. But anything I wear at that stupid place gets dirty right away, and there isn’t anyplace else to go.” Clarissa was getting pretty worked up now. She yelled, “I hate this stupid little town. There aren’t any good stores, and there’s nothing fun to do.”

  Putting my hand on the girl’s arm, I said, “Please lower your voice. Meghan’s working.”

  Her tears spilled over.

  I put my arm around her and pulled her into my shoulder. She strained against me for a moment, then relaxed and leaned against my side. I held her there, stroking her hair while she sniffled, without saying anything. This little girl was trying so hard to figure out who she was. My guess was that her friends had defined her before, but now they were gone. As much as I enjoyed volunteering at the Turners’, I couldn’t pretend to know what it would be like to live full-time on a farm, the stress of trying to make a living from one, or how that stress might affect a child in the house.

  The only person she seemed close to was her crazy Aunt Hallie. That didn’t bode well.

  Her sniffles subsided, and we sat there for a while longer. Finally, I asked, “What do you like to do?”

  “I like to shop,” was her immediate reply. She peered up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you like to shop?”

  I grimaced. “Not really. Sorry.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not indeed? “I think it’s kind of boring.”

  She regarded me with a combination of disgust and amazement.

  “You don’t like working in the dirt, and I don’t like shopping. There’s nothing wrong with having different interests,” I said.

  One skinny shoulder rose and dropped. She looked at the floor. “I guess.”

  “I like your earrings, though.”

  Fear flickered through her eyes, and her fingers darted to the diamond drops. A little alarm went off in the back of my brain, and I leaned down for a closer look.

  “Are those real diamonds?” I put some awe in my voice.

  And as I watched, the fear turned hard. She pushed away from me. “So what if they are? Hallie has loads of nice stuff, and she lets me wear it sometimes.”

  “Does she know you have those right now?”

  Her shrug was elaborate. “Maybe. Maybe not. After all, she’s the one who told me it’s better to apologize later than to ask permission first.”

  The alarm in my brain went clang, clang, clang.

  “Otherwise you’ll never get anything you want in life. That’s what Hallie says.”

  Oh, boy. “What else does Hallie say?”

  “Tons of stuff. She’s really smart.”

  “How long has she lived with you?”

  “I don’t know. Back home she used to liv
e down the street. Then she got divorced and came for a visit and decided she liked living with us so she stayed. And when we moved here, she came with us. My dad gets mad at her sometimes, but I hope she stays with us forever.”

  “What does your dad get mad about?” Though I had a pretty good idea.

  “Silly stuff. Hallie should pay rent if she’s going to live in our house, he says. Or she should work in the fields. She’s like me though. She hates getting dirty, and she hates the animals. Only she’s old, so he can’t make her do things like he makes me.” She sighed. “I can hardly wait to be old enough that I don’t have to do what anyone tells me.”

  And she was already trying out her wings.

  “Does Hallie have any kids of her own?” I asked. If so, her ex-husband must have custody—which would say a lot.

  But Clarissa shook her head. “Nah. Mama said she wanted to but couldn’t. She tells Daddy that’s one of the reasons we have to be nice to her, ’cuz she’s so sad about not having a baby.”

  I cringed inwardly. What if I couldn’t get pregnant? Would I go through the rest of my life desperately full of regret? Would it affect our marriage? These were questions I hadn’t really thought about before. I didn’t like thinking about them now, either.

  “That and because her husband was a cheating bastard who broke her heart,” Clarissa recited.

  “Oh, hey,” I said, raising my hand. “We don’t use that kind of language around here.”

  She looked confused. “Whatever. You sure have a lot of rules, you know?”

  “We’ll try to fill you in on the others as they come up.”

  She didn’t look too happy at that prospect.

  “At least Hallie has you now.” I could hear the ziiinnng of the line going into the water as I fished away.

  But she brightened. In fact, it was the happiest look I could remember seeing on her face. “Yeah! She’s got me. She says that all the time. Thank God she’s got me. Thank God she’s got at least one person to love who loves her back.”

  That struck me speechless. What terrible thing to put on a little girl. Poor Clarissa. Heck, poor Hallie, if she really felt that way.

  “You want something to drink?” I finally managed.

  “Do you have anything good?”

  “I bet I could rustle up some lemonade.”

  She shrugged again. “Whatever.”

  Not knowing what else to do, I flipped on the television and left her staring at it while I went into the kitchen. Unlike Erin, who would have followed me and asked questions, or else gone to pursue her own interests, Clarissa sat on the sofa where I’d found her, staring at the images on the box. And she continued to do the same thing once I’d brought her a glass of cold, tart lemonade.

  I took two more glasses down to Erin’s room. At least the door wasn’t closed all the way this time, and I nudged it open with my foot. Erin and Zoe looked up from where they lay on their stomachs on the bed, a Girls’ Life magazine open in front of them.

  “I thought you were working on Zoe’s organic gardening project,” I said, handing each of them a sweating glass.

  “We’re done for now,” Zoe said. She was a tall, athletic thing, prone to skinny jeans, T-shirts with obscure band names on them, and vintage high-top sneakers.

  “You didn’t kick Clarissa out, did you?”

  They exchanged glances.

  My heart sank. “You didn’t.”

  Erin swung her feet to the floor. “No. But we didn’t stop her from leaving, either. She’s bossy, and she made fun of Zoe’s project.”

  “She’s weird,” Zoe said.

  “Mostly she’s lonely,” I said. “Give her another chance?”

  Again the glance. They were like sisters in their silent communication. I got it. Meghan and I were like that, too. I was glad to see the newcomer hadn’t broken that bond.

  “Okay,” Zoe said, which was fitting since she’d been the one Clarissa insulted.

  “Thanks,” I said. “She’s in the living room watching television.”

  “Will she watch what we want?” Erin asked. Sure enough, ever since the ice cream incident she didn’t seem as interested in Clarissa.

  “I’m sure you guys can work that out,” I said.

  Nineteen

  I snagged Meghan in the front hallway as her client left. Pulling her into the kitchen, I quickly updated her on the girls.

  “Darn it,” she said. “I thought it would be okay for an hour if they were all together. Mrs. Patterson’s sciatica has been acting up. I told Erin in no uncertain terms not to leave the house.”

  “Nah. It was fine,” I said. “Listen, I’m sorry I bailed on you to go over to Daphne’s. Still it’s good I went. She was frantic about Nate.” Not to mention Barr would have probably gone through her unmentionables if I hadn’t been there.

  “Poor girl. Any news on how he’s doing?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Barr said he’d call if he heard anything. Listen, I know you have another client at three. Would it be okay with you if I made a quick run down to Bette’s before then?”

  Her eyebrows knotted. “What for?”

  A grin sneaked onto my face. “I want to commission a mask for Barr’s birthday. What do you think?”

  She looked wry. “Would the mask be of you or of him?”

  “Of … hmmm … no, I think it would be funnier if it were of him. They’re great, don’t you think? She seems to capture some kind of essence in each one.” Okay, so I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with such a cool gift idea.

  “They’re unique, all right,” Meghan said.

  I paused. “Wouldn’t you want one?”

  A few moments as she thought about it. “Only as long as Bette caught something about myself that I like.”

  “Good point,” I said. “I don’t want Barr to think we’re making fun of him. I’ll take a couple different pictures and ask her advice.”

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” she said, reaching into the refrigerator and removing the half-empty pitcher of lemonade I’d made earlier.

  As I walked down the street to Bette’s I thought about what Clarissa had told me about her aunt. Hearsay at best, though I was inclined to believe it. Hallie wanted kids, couldn’t have kids, had a cheating husband,and went through a bad divorce. If all that was true, was it enough to explain her behavior toward Nate? Or had he really done something to deserve it? Frankly, Nate didn’t strike me as the type to incite passion. But what did I know?

  I knew this: No matter what Nate had done, no one deserved the kind of fanaticism she showed. Possibly Hallie was a little unbalanced to begin with, and the divorce had sent her over the edge. If she really felt Clarissa was the only person she could love who would love her back, it might explain why she became so angry at the slightest rejection—from Nate or anyone else.

  But was it enough to kill someone over?

  Alexander greeted me at the sidewalk and accompanied me to Bette’s front door, his thick tail swishing back and forth. The inner door was closed, and there was no answer to my knock. I should have called first. I’d just turned around to leave when the sound of the deadbolt turning stopped me. I stepped back to see her peering out of the screen.

  “Sophie Mae!” Then she spied the photos in my hand. “Oh, no. Not again.”

  I looked down. “Oh! No, don’t worry. These are of Barr.”

  “Barr?”

  “I want to commission a mask. I got the idea when we were here yesterday.”

  She hesitated. “Well, then.” Pushing the screen door open, she said, “You’d better come in and tell me what you want.”

  I entered the living room behind her. That metallic, subterranean smell greeted my entrance, and there seemed to be more clay spatter than ever—on the floor and on Bette herself. From the look of things, I’d interrupted work on some big project. A big table in the center of the room was covered with tools and buckets, and as I watched she tucked plastic sheeting around her work in pr
ogress.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “No, thanks.” I scanned the masks on the walls. Handing her the pictures of Barr—one a candid shot of him laughing, and another from our wedding at his parents’ Wyoming lodge—I moved closer to the display. “Are these all commissions?”

  “No, I just liked the subjects. A couple are people I know; others are from photos I took. The Woodland Park Zoo is a great place to find willing subjects, especially kids.”

  Some of the clay faces were comical, others almost tragic. I was drawn to a laughing boy, an old woman with wise eyes, and a young woman looking toward the heavens. A little girl with a gap-toothed grin hung next to the face of a funny teddy bear. On the other side of her was a bearded man who looked fourteen kinds of weary.

  But three masks in particular snagged my interest. Unlike the mild caricatures all the others represented, these were realistic to the nth degree. Two were of women, and one a man. One of the women was older, and you could practically see how her mouth would move if she talked, how her eyes would dance when she smiled. The others were younger, but again the whole was more than the sum of the parts. That wasn’t clay on the wall. Those were the closest thing to actual people you could get with a static medium.

  Even better than the funny, quirky representation of Barr that I had imagined.

  “I want one like that.” I pointed to the older lady. “Real looking. Can you do that from the wedding photo? I’d like to be able to see the way he looks at me in that one, even when he’s not around.” Never mind that this present was supposed to be for him, not me.

  But Bette was shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Please?”

  “I’m sorry. Honest. I know what it’s like to want to be able to see the way someone looks at you, no matter what happens to them.”

  Oh. Gosh. I hadn’t intended to sound so morbid. “I meant if he’s at work or something.”

  “I can’t do it from a photo.”

  Watching her, I saw a deep sadness descend. I couldn’t help myself. “Who is that?” I asked, pointing to the older woman’s face again.

  “My mother. She died last year.”