But give the big guy credit, he may have been wearing cowboy boots, but he turned like a high school quarterback heading for the goal line with the ball, catching her before she was five steps away from him. The cop picked her up with one long arm, lifted her right off her feet and swung her around like they’d just invented some new square-dance step. When he set her down she swung to face him, trying to deke around him. He had her again and there they stood, waiting for the other’s next move.
He didn’t know Marley. It was going to end badly. When Marley gets an idea into her head, nothing is going to stop her. That deputy was about to get injured so I hustled down off the porch to cut in on their little hoedown.
“She’s with me,” I told the cop. Nothing happened. She may be skinny, and since she and David broke up she’s lost even more weight, but there must be something on that bag of bones he was liking ’cause he was holding her real close.
“She belongs here,” I said, a little louder in case he had a hearing problem.
He frowned but stepped back a little, reluctantly loosening his hands. Like a shot Marley was around him and holding onto me. This girl just was way into grabbing anything she could. She was sobbing and babbling, “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked. I looked at the cop over her shoulder. He stood with his hands on his hips, heaving and puffing and watching us close, maybe hoping for a second round.
“What’s the sheriff’s guy doing here then?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Somebody died.”
Her nails bit into my arm. “Tully?”
She was voicing my worst fears. “No, no one you know.” With a great intake of breath, she looked back over her shoulder at the cop and leaned in real close, so close her breath tickled my ear when she whispered, “Laura Kemp?”
I pulled her towards the porch, out of earshot, and replied, “Unfortunately not, but someone just as deserving.”
“Why are they messing about with Jimmy’s truck?” she asked as she sank down into a chair.
I hitched my behind up on the railing. “Because there’s a dead body in the back.”
“Oh Jesus, Sherri, did you hit someone with the truck?”
“Man your brain is really full of interesting ideas, isn’t it? What do you think happened?”
“I just wondered if you maybe—” her hands made uncertain circles. “Well, I wondered if you ran over someone and then put him in your truck.” She frowned, maybe already seeing how weird it sounded.
“Nope. Besides, he’d have to be sleeping on the road for me to run over his head.”
She joined me on the railing. With our eyes on the activity in the yard, I told her about my passenger from hell and how he came to be in Big Red.
“Man,” Marley said, “you have crappy luck.”
“Don’t stand too close,” I advised her. “Never know what might drop on me next and you don’t want to get splattered.”
We watched for the best part of an hour as people wandered around doing things we could only speculate about. We did a lot of that. Some people left but not many. Mostly they just seemed to come and stand around talking in low voices, looking up at us sitting on the porch like they were looking at exhibit “A.” A long black hearse from the local undertaker pulled slowly into the circle of vehicles. They got a stretcher out of the back.
And then a flatbed truck broke from the trees along the drive and came towards us. Right behind it the sheriff sped back in.
CHAPTER 12
The “A One” towing truck pulled up towards the bunkhouse and then back into the turnaround.
The sheriff marched towards the porch. “We’re taking your truck into the lab to do the forensics, testing for prints and such,” the sheriff said from the bottom of the stairs. “And we’ll need to get samples of your prints to rule them out. Probably be a while before you get the truck back.”
“Not sure if I want it back.”
Sheriff Hozen shrugged. “Well, it will take some time,” he said and turned to leave. “Wait,” I called.
He swiveled around and frowned at me.
“How is—” I started to say “Lucan’s wife” but changed it to, “How is April?”
His frown didn’t improve. “A little upset. Didn’t believe me.” He turned away.
When I heard about Jimmy’s death I hadn’t believed it either. Hearing about April brought back that pain. “Is anyone with her?”
“Nope,” he said. He didn’t even stop walking.
We watched the technicians going about their work. Spreading out from the truck, eyes down, they searched the ground for clues.
“What are they looking for?” Marley wondered.
“Maybe they’re looking for blood,” I suggested. “Or the weapon. Or even signs of someone dragging Lucan to the shed.”
“Shouldn’t you tell them how the body got in the truck?”
“They’re having fun, and they’d probably do it anyway. Besides, no one listens to me.”
The technicians were starting to pack up when something caught Marley’s eye. “What are all the flowers for?” Marley pointed down to the bedding plants sitting under the tree.
“I was going to plant them for the party.”
“You were really going all out for this party, weren’t you?”
“Seems like it.”
“You can’t have it now, can you?”
“Maybe they’ll find the murderer real quick. It would be all right then to have a party, wouldn’t it, if they solved it?”
Marley shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Not like we knew him real well. I never met him. And none of us were involved, didn’t even happen here, so it has nothing to do with us really.” “I just love the way you wiggle, girl.”
“’Sides,” I said, “everyone is coming from Jacaranda. They won’t know a thing about it.”
Marley pointed at the plants. “Those flowers are looking a little worse for wear, aren’t they? They need to get in the ground or they’ll die too.” She hopped down from the railing. “Let’s do it now.”
I said, “I just don’t think this is the time to be planting flowers.”
She picked up a plant in each hand. “If I don’t do something I’m going to jump out of my skin. Besides, the dead guy will be planted soon too.”
I followed Marley reluctantly down the steps. For Marley a dead body in my truck was horrible but now it was over and she was back to important matters, like the flowers.
But I was never going to forget a buzzard holding down Lucan’s hand with its talons while it pulled off his flesh, never forget the naked bones and death dropping into my life again.
Even though I’d never known Lucan Percell, our lives had intersected hideously, and his death brought back my past, a past haunted by violence. My memories were like a wound that had scabbed over but hadn’t quite healed, and this new death peeled away the protective covering from my wound. Maybe I was never going to heal completely; maybe I was always going to have an open sore that life could rub raw at any moment. I felt alone and caught in a dark whirlpool that no one understood or could see but me.
I sat on the bottom step and watched Marley spreading out the flowers in the bed under the tree until she had them in a pattern she liked, making order out of chaos, and then beginning to dig them in while I sat there asking myself questions to which there were no answers, but it never stops me from asking them anyway.
Slowly the searchers were ebbing away, slamming doors and starting engines, going back to their own reality.
Tully opened the screen door and said, “You girls better come in an’ have a bite.” He looked down at me and smiled. “Food will make you feel better.”
“I don’t think so.” The thought of eating made my stomach do a funny little dance.
“Then come in and a
t least have a coffee.” Tully went back inside, letting the screen slam behind him.
Marley stood up, a plant in each hand and whispered, “Your father cooking is a novel idea and more than a little worrying.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Hopefully, whatever he’s serving up has come out of a package or the freezer, not something he’s liberated from a stretch of highway.”
“Oh, shit,” Marley said. “I’d forgotten about that.”
But the changes in Tully were nothing to the surprise I awoke to.
CHAPTER 13
It was barely sunrise, and not even Marley was up, so it took a while to realize the ringing wasn’t in my head. I grabbed the phone. “What?” “Good morning to you too,” Clay said.
“You’re doing this because I upset your girlfriend, aren’t you?”
“I thought you were my girlfriend.”
“Oh? I thought I was more than that.”
“This conversation isn’t getting off to a good start but then no conversation with you that takes place before nine goes well.” I rolled onto my back. “Tell me why you love me then.”
“Because I’m a glutton for the perverse…as opposed to the perverted. Now, let’s start again,” Clay suggested. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” I pulled the covers over my head, taking the cell phone with me. I was trying to calculate how many minutes more sleep I could get before Marley barged in.
“Any word on Lucan’s murder?”
“At this friggin’ hour of the morning? Even murderers are still in bed.”
“Right. You don’t sound like you’re ready for a long conversation so I’ll give you my news and let you get back to sleep. There are three storage units of furniture in Sarasota. It belonged to my parents. Plus there’s a few things in there I’ve picked up at auctions. You might want to have a look and see what you think of it before you start buying stuff.”
“Wait, you’re saying you have a whole load of furniture?”
“Yup.”
“Antiques?” I was awake now.
“Depends on your idea of antique — mostly it’s just old.”
“And some of this you bought…didn’t just inherit?”
“Yeah.”
“You sound embarrassed.”
“Well,” he fell silent.
“Why? Why are you embarrassed that you’re the owner of antiques or mostly old furniture, or that you held on to your folks’ stuff?”
“Why do you care? Just go have a look at it and we’ll talk later.”
“Did you tell your fancy decorator about this furniture?”
“Not really. Right out of the box she had her own ideas. Wasn’t too interested in what I thought.”
I figured it was because Ms. Kemp was decorating the house for herself, for when Clay saw the light and went back to her.
“I won’t talk about how much you’ve cost me in Laura’s fees if you don’t ask a lot of dumb questions, okay?” He gave me the details and told me where to find the keys. “I thought I knew you,” I told him, “But you still have a few surprises for me, don’t you?”
“As I’m sure you do for me, my little beach-bar Mona Lisa.”
“Not much of a compliment, she’s fat and plain.”
“But she has that mysterious smile.”
“Yeah, while mine’s just plain dirty, far better than mysterious.”
“I’ve been thinking about you and some dirty things.”
“Tell me.”
“Nope, I’m going to hang up now before I get all excited. Try not to pick up anymore hitchhikers, bye.”
I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. He knew I was going to start digging into the how and why of this treasure trove. Like why were none of these pieces from his family in his penthouse, which Laura Kemp had also decorated? Clay was uncomfortable with the whole subject while I was delighted. I went to wake Marley, which was also delightful.
“We’re going riding first, remember? You promised,” Marley said. “Then we’ll go look at the furniture.”
“Fine, but you ride Joey.” Clay had saved Joey from an abusive owner, but I was on the owner’s side in this argument. Joey was an animal even more stubborn and vicious than I was. That horse deserved to be abused. A gelding, he should have been much calmer, but someone forgot to tell Joey. Originally I thought if I could learn to handle Joey I could ride anything but he’d already dumped me twice. “I’m riding Wildflower,” I said and headed for the door.
“No way,” Marley replied, throwing back the covers and swinging her legs out of bed. “You were the show-off who thought she could handle Joey, so handle him, tough girl.”
I led Joey into the center alley of the barn. His coat was sleek and black; his intelligent eyes were set wide on either side of a white blaze and his alert expression said, “This looks like fun.” He had everything but manners.
As I clamped the crossties on Joey, Tully came into the barn and asked, “How come Howie Sweet didn’t turn up this morning? Did he say anything to you?”
“Nope. Maybe he slept in, or maybe he told Pearl he was at the Gator Hole and she put him in the hospital, or maybe he’s been arrested for murder.” I threw the saddle on Joey’s back and reached under his belly for the cinch. “Whatever happened, there was no sign of him this morning. Marley and I turned the horses out.”
Tully came to my side and kneed Joey in the gut to get him to empty his belly full of air, a neat trick Joey had. When I snugged up the cinch he’d blow out the air and leave a loose saddle.
“Are you sure you want to ride this guy if he’s as bad as you say?”
“I told Clay I’d make sure he got exercised.”
“Well, he’s a trickster,” Tully said, and gave another yank on the belly strap. “This horse has more attitude than brains. You two are a matched set.”
Marley was talking a mile a minute as we walked the horses back the lane. Fresh air is happy gas to Marley but to me it just smells funny. I like my air like I liked my wine, full-bodied. My lungs need a little more ozone, a little cigarette smoke mingled with the smell of stale beer, to work properly.
The joy that had come back into Marley the night before was even more pronounced this morning and her enthusiasm for everything around her knew no bounds. I wanted to strangle her but I was too busy watching Joey’s ears. Apparently they were supposed to tell me when he planned on dumping me.
The day was pleasantly warm, unlike the unbearable heat we’d been experiencing, and there weren’t even any bugs. Joey was behaving like a prince. That should have warned me things were about to turn to rat shit.
I pointed ahead of me and off to the left of the trail, to a small black sow with five little piglets trotting behind her. “Look.”
Joey, who was even less trusting of nature than I was, danced sideways while keeping his eye on the sow. I patted his neck, trying to soothe him and watched his ears.
The sow and her family disappeared into the underbrush and Joey decided to walk on, tossing his head in indignation.
Things went along glowingly for another ten minutes. Joey and I were getting along faultlessly, forming a partnership and bonding when I saw what looked like the branch of a tree across the path. The log moved. “That can’t be right,” my brain was saying. “Logs don’t move.”
CHAPTER 14
Seven feet long, or maybe even over eight feet, Joey and I didn’t stop to measure it, the snake slithered across the trail in front of us. Joey jumped. Like an Olympic champion, he stretched out and sailed high in the air, clearing the reptile by at least his own height.
At lift-off I grabbed for his mane, the horn, anything that would keep me onboard. When he touched down I was thrown forward, nearly catapulting over his head. I lost my right stirrup.
I’d lost the reins in my grab for the horn and now
the stupid horse was off for the next county. Going like spit and cutting in too close on the corners, branches were slapping me. I forgot all those good things I’d been told, like keeping my heels down so my foot wouldn’t go through the stirrup and get me dragged behind Joey when I fell off, and I was going to fall off, no doubt about it. It was just a matter of time and finding a spot to land.
I was curling into a smaller and smaller ball, like a little burr, just trying to stay with him. I suppose if he’d been a racehorse this would have encouraged him to go faster but Joey didn’t seem to need any encouragement.
And then he suddenly stopped. I listed to the right and, in a losing battle with gravity, slowly slid off. When I hit the ground I started to curse the stupid, brain dead, ugly walking piece of carrion called Joey.
Marley sat there, arms folded on the horn of her saddle, not at all concerned for my wellbeing, and grinned down at me.
“I could be hurt,” I screamed at her.
“No pain, no gain.”
I got off my ass and climbed back on Joey, too mad to be afraid. Fear would come later. It often does with me.
“What the shit was that?” I asked. “Was it a snake?” Joey was now only interested in cropping grass
“An Eastern Indigo, they’re rare,” Marley said.
“Thank God for that.”
Marley, a nature lover who went on hikes and even raised money to save this and that, went on and on about the snake. “I only caught sight of the last of it disappearing into the bushes after you and Joey took off.” Her eyes and cheeks glowed.
“Runaway horses and snakes bigger than me, if I had a gun I would have shot both of them.”
“That would have been a mistake, at least shooting the snake. Indigos are really good to have around; they eat lots of mice and things. They live in gopher tortoise burrows. Think we should go have a look for a tortoise burrow? That would be neat to see.”
I offered her my view of her mental state.
“Maybe not,” Marley said.
“I’ve had all the nature I can take for one day,” I said. “Let’s go back.”
Champagne for Buzzards Page 5
