by Ann Aguirre
“Shit,” I said.
From behind me, Miss Minnie said, “Oh, how nice to see you again, dear.” She came into the kitchen, took one look, and then fainted dead away.
Before we trudged out to be apprehended like dastards, I couldn’t resist pulling the mask off; I had to see who Chance had killed. To my astonishment, I recognized the gas station attendant who had pointed me toward Augustus England. That made no sense at all. We’d hardly spoken to the man.
I sighed, collected my heroic dog, and went out with my hands up.
It took hours of separate interviews to convince Robinson of what had happened. The little jail in the courthouse basement wasn’t equipped to handle so many suspects, so he unlocked the surveyor’s office upstairs and used it as an interrogation room while the rest of us sat in the tiny cell.
Jesse was pale, but he didn’t mention the shot he’d taken to the upper arm. Calling it a flesh wound, Jesse refused to leave Shannon and me. He sat there, pinch faced, between us and tried to look reassuring.
“It’s going to all right,” he whispered. “If Miss Minnie doesn’t press charges, they can’t even do anything about that broken window. And I don’t think she will. We saved her life.”
I nodded as the sheriff came for me a fourth time and left Chance in my place. No matter how many times Robinson came at me or from what angle, I told the same story. We’d been invited to Miss Minnie’s house for supper; I had been her foster child once upon a time. And yes, that could be verified.
Local felons must have targeted her for a robbery—an elderly woman living alone, right? When they found us at the house, they panicked, and one of them tried to scare us off while the other attempted to complete the job. As off-the-cuff theories went, I felt rather proud of that one. The truth would make him lock me up quicker than I could spit.
He pursed his mouth and stared at me, hard. “Do you know that for a fact, Ms. Solomon?”
I think he was hoping to make me admit to being an accomplice, but I opened my eyes wide. “No, I don’t know that for a fact. I was just guessing. But why else would anybody shoot at innocent tourists? Why else would a masked man be in an old lady’s home?”
Sheriff Robinson had no answer for that, so he asked more questions. “Why do you think they didn’t just rob Miss Minnie another night?”
I shrugged. “Maybe they aren’t very bright. In fact, I’d say they definitely aren’t if they’re robbing old ladies in a town the size of Kilmer.”
The portly lawman growled his impatience. “Tell me what happened next, please, Ms. Solomon.” He put exaggerated stress on the please.
“We had our meal and visited for a while,” I answered. “Then she dozed off, so we saw ourselves out.” Best to stick close to the truth, whenever possible. “Someone started shooting at us, and I dove into the bushes. But my dog heard something inside that alarmed him, and I didn’t think; I just reacted.”
“By breaking her window,” the sheriff said in a tone of such dry sarcasm that I knew he didn’t believe a word I said. “Most people would’ve been too scared to move. Most people don’t listen to their dogs, either.”
I peered up at him through my lashes. “So you’re chastising me for being too bold, Sheriff?” Lifting Butch, I added, “It’s a good thing I do listen to him. And why wouldn’t I? He has good ears. We saved Miss Minnie’s life tonight.”
“Or you want her to think you did,” he muttered.
A lance of genuine surprise ran me through. “Are you accusing me of staging the break-in so she’ll feel grateful and put me in her will?”
“Right now I’m not accusing you of anything.” His jowls quivered. “I’m just fact-finding.”
I wanted to challenge him to find proof I’d had anything to do with the aborted “robbery,” which I suspected was something else entirely.
“Who was the guy who tried to kill Miss Minnie?” I asked.
The sheriff sighed. “Curtis Farrell. I just can’t believe he’d do something like this. He wasn’t a bad kid.”
Funny. Nobody ever thinks someone is bad until he up and does some terrible thing. I knew from firsthand experience that everyone was capable of that. It only required the right impetus.
“Well, I’m not sorry we were there to help her.”
Robinson frowned at me and kept asking the same questions.
In response, I kept giving the same answers until he returned me to the cell, his face reflecting high choler. Butch whined until one of his deputies took him outside. I further annoyed the man by demanding water for my dog.
“You should be giving him a medal,” I said as the man brought a plastic bowl. “I can’t believe this is how you treat people who help out. What do you do to the criminals? Take them to the woods to die?”
The deputy’s hand shook, slopping water on the cement floor. “That’s enough out of you, miss.” But his voice was none too steady, either, and he didn’t meet my eyes as he hurried away.
Butch yapped, and I picked him up. “You got that right, buddy. There’s something rotten in the state of Georgia, and it stinks like hell fire.”
One by one, Robinson questioned us, and nobody contradicted my version of events. I found it odd that Shannon’s parents never showed up to see if she was all right. Maybe her mother had washed her hands of Shannon . . . but that didn’t track. Women like Sandra Cheney didn’t quietly concede.
The sheriff spent longer interrogating Chance. I was deathly afraid they’d charge him with manslaughter, even though he’d clearly been defending my former foster mother’s life and property. In the end, Miss Minnie came down to the station and insisted he let us go.
She chastised Robinson roundly. “I wouldn’t be standing here, if not for these children and that sweet little dog. Curtis Farrell must’ve been on drugs. I know he wouldn’t have tried to steal from me if he’d been in his right mind.”
The sheriff complied grudgingly, but he let us know as he walked us to the Forester that he’d be watching us. As he put it, “People didn’t die nearly so often before you lot came around.”
I paused outside the SUV, unable to resist the reply. “That’s not true,” I said softly. “You just don’t go looking for the bodies anymore.”
We left Robinson looking sick in the reflected red glow of our taillights.
By the time we got back to the house, it was well after midnight, and most of us needed medical attention to varying degrees. I set to cleaning wounds, and Shannon saw to mine.
It wasn’t until morning we realized we’d missed our appointment with Dale Graham—and by then, it was too late.
Fire and Blood
“Any chance this could be a coincidence?” Shannon wanted to know.
“None,” I said flatly.
We’d managed to save one person last night, but we hadn’t been there for Dale Graham. If the wicked twelve wanted to make me feel guilty, they’d succeeded. But I knew this wasn’t our fault. Bad things had been happening in Kilmer since before I was born. I was just determined to get to the bottom of it.
I stood looking at the smoking ruin of his house on Rabbit Road and wanted to throw up. Nobody suggested I try to read it to find out what happened here. Too much heat remained trapped in the burnt timbers to make it feasible, even if I felt like trying that particular trick again so soon. I didn’t.
Volunteer firemen poked through the wreckage, looking for human remains. They seemed inappropriately cheerful, as if they did this all the time. Then again, in Kilmer, they probably did.
“Look at the grass and trees around the house,” Jesse murmured.
I shifted focus, along with the other two. It hit us all at the same time, but Chance articulated it. “A third of the trees on his property caught fire, and all the green grass burnt up.” “So Miss Minnie was right?” Shannon asked.
I felt a headache coming on. “Sort of. Just not on a global scale.”
“That means we need to take her seriously,” Jesse said. “However cra
zy that sounds.”
“An earthquake might not be literal.” Chance seemed distant but thoughtful.
Most of me felt glad he had eased off—that he was focused more on solving our problems. I wasn’t ready for reconciliation, not when his power was on temporary hiatus and our long-term problems hadn’t been resolved. When we left Kilmer for good, his luck would return—and I would become a victim of the need for cosmic balance again. I didn’t look forward to it.
“But what causes tremors?” Shannon fidgeted, obviously not sure why we were hanging around the fire scene. I guessed she wanted to be away from here before Sheriff Robinson showed up and decided to hold us indefinitely for being troublemaking pains in his sizable ass.
I thought about that, remembering the crappy places I’d lived over the years, and said at the same time as Jesse, “A train.”
Chance nodded, excitement sparking like gold flecks in his eyes. “Shannon, are there any houses built close to the train tracks in town? Close enough that they’d shake when the train goes by?”
“Yep,” she said. “There used to be a station, a long time ago, but it closed down in—lemme think . . .” She broke off, pondering for a full minute. “In 1911. Now there’s just a cargo line that goes by twice a week.”
“Do you know the way?” Jesse asked.
She nodded. “I used to hang out with a kid who lived out there, but my mom made me stop because he wasn’t a desirable acquaintance.” I could tell from her tone that she was quoting her mother verbatim. “It’s the worst part of Kilmer.”
Saldana tossed her the keys. “Here you go.” At her stunned expression, he asked, “You do know how to drive?”
She was speechless, staring at him for a long minute before she managed to say, “Well, yeah. My dad taught me. I have a license too, but I don’t have a car, and the last few months, I’ve been grounded for one reason or another.”
He smiled at her. “Then you need the practice, and it’ll be easier if you just take us there. That okay with you?”
Her smile could’ve blinded the lot of us. “Sure. Get in.” Jesse Saldana would make a great dad, I decided, as I headed toward the workers raking the wreckage. He wasn’t quite old enough to be parenting Shannon, but he had the older-brother role polished to a fine sheen.
“I’ll be right back,” I said over my shoulder.
I picked my way toward the wreckage of Dale’s house. Ash sifted from the broken beams, and smoke still curled from the foundation. There were five men raking the place down; none of them looked pleased at my approach.
“What do you think happened?” I asked the lead volunteer.
Sooty-faced and weary, he shrugged. “My guess? He fell asleep with a lit cigarette. It would’ve spread faster if he was drinking.”
That was the official story they spread about my mama, too. Miz Ruth had said as much a few days back. That seemed an unlikely coincidence.
“Have you recovered his body?” Maybe it was macabre, but I had to know.
The volunteer shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll keep looking.”
First happy news I’d had all day. “Thanks. Good luck.”
Maybe Dale Graham hadn’t been home when they torched his house. I could hope, right? And maybe he had his journal with him, wherever he was. Playing dead might be the smartest thing he could do.
I pulled Butch out of my handbag and put him down. “Remember the hippie we ate pie with at the diner?”
He yapped once.
“Sniff around and see if you can find him.”
It was probably a long shot. The acrid smoke would likely overwhelm any subtler smells, but Butch appeared keen to try. He put his nose to the ground and sniffed all around the wreckage in a large perimeter, and then trotted toward the road. He barked and then lifted a leg on the mailbox.
I didn’t know what to make of that. “He got his mail yesterday?”
Butch gave the affirmative yap. I wasn’t sure how that helped us, but I bent to scratch behind his ears and told him, “Good dog.”
Then I scooped him up, sprinted for the Forester, and climbed in back, where I found Jesse. With his bad arm, he might’ve wanted help with the driving and was too much of a man to say so. The idea made me smile.
“What?” Jesse asked.
“How’s the injury?”
He glanced at the bandage wrapped around his biceps. “I’ll be fine; just a graze. It looks worse than it is.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Yeah? Well, the feeling’s mutual.” Jesse took my hand, and I took comfort in that tiny spark. He raised it gently to his lips; the heat sent shivers all through me.
Shannon pulled off the gravel drive and onto the county road smoothly. She looked small behind the wheel of the SUV, but she didn’t seem nervous. Chance asked her something, and she spared him a glance to answer. I couldn’t make out their words for the rush of the road beneath the tires and the soft crackle of blurry music on the radio. I’d never feel the same about AM/FM stations after meeting her. I wondered idly if she could tune in to the dead in a vehicle too.
For a few moments, I let myself enjoy the heat of his hand in mine, and then I pulled back. Touching him was a distraction I didn’t need.
“Couple things we need to talk about,” Jesse said quietly. “Sheriff Robinson? I got no sense of guilt off him last night. Even when you made your parting shot, all I felt from him was fear . . . bone-deep terror, in fact. Much worse than the night we sprung Chance from jail.”
“So he knows something’s wrong, but he’s not part of it,” I surmised. “Why do you think he threw away those missing persons forms?”
Saldana shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want proof of his dereliction of duty, but he didn’t want to go poking around out in the woods, either. I’m not infallible.” By his bleak expression, I could tell he was thinking of his dead partner. “But I don’t think I’m wrong this time.”
Frankly, if fear of the forest motivated the sheriff, I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to lead a search party out there, either. Too bad, because that was exactly what I needed to do. The only way to gather evidence was to go out there ourselves; I didn’t expect to like what we found.
“Good to know. If push comes to shove, Robinson might back us if he wants to get some of his spine back.”
Jesse nodded. “Possible.”
I watched the scenery for a while, green-brown trees passing in a blur. The filtered air felt damp and cool, as if it blew in from the distant sea. Then it occurred to me that I had no idea how the shooter had managed to peg him.
“How’d you get hit, anyway?” I’d thought he had good cover behind the hedge.
For a moment, Jesse studied his hands, seeming unwilling to answer. He said at last, “I stood up to distract the shooter when you went back onto the porch and through the window like a crazy person.”
My breath left me. “You got shot for me?”
He scowled. “I would’ve done the same for Chance or Shannon.”
“I know,” I said, smiling.
That was the kind of man he was. He took his vows to protect and serve very seriously. Living with him might be just as difficult as being with Chance, but for different reasons. When I’d told him that some women had a hard time handling the constant danger their men were exposed to, I hadn’t been exaggerating to make him feel better. The divorce statistics spoke for themselves.
Shannon parked the SUV. “We’re here.”
I clambered out of the Forester and decided she was right. This was the worst part of Kilmer, a section I’d never seen before. It was literally on the other side of the tracks, and the houses built closest must have shaken like blazes when the train came through. Like, say, in an earthquake?
Once more, I deposited Butch on the ground. “You were with me when I went into the gas station, right?”
He yapped in confirmation.
“You remember what the guy smelled like?”
Th
e Chihuahua tilted his head in thoughtful consideration, and it was cute as hell. After a moment, he barked once.
“Can I trust you to sniff around for him?”
Butch yapped twice, but I swear it was sarcastic.
I laughed. “Okay, sorry. I shouldn’t have even asked. Let me know if you find anything.”
He trotted off without deigning to reply.
It would help if we knew what we were looking for. As it was, we strolled through the run-down clapboard houses, admiring the patchy lawns, filthy gutters, and interesting piles of junk. Though I wasn’t inclined to agree with Sandra Cheney on principle, I could almost sympathize with her desire to keep Shannon from hanging around here. The whole neighborhood stank of despair and decay.
“So we had the fire,” Chance said, thinking aloud. “The burnt trees and grass. We found the ‘earthquake’ site. What are we missing?”
“Blood,” I murmured immediately.
“There was blood when I got shot,” Jesse muttered.
Shannon added, “Hail.”
Jesse thought for a moment, and we paused to give him a chance. “Miss Minnie said she saw the four horsemen coming and going.”
“People don’t ride horses through town,” Shannon objected. “Even in Kilmer, it can’t have been dudes on horse-back.”
“So what did she see?” I asked.
Unfortunately, nobody could come up with an answer. We continued in a meandering path around the two streets that made up this country ghetto. I kicked at a clump of pig-weed straggling up at the edge of the road.
“When does the next train come by?” Chance asked Shannon.
“Tuesday and Saturday, just before six a.m.”
I suspected she’d know that only if she’d spent the night with her scruffy “friend” at some point, but that wasn’t our business. Time had gotten away from me, so I mentally tabulated how long we’d been there.
“It’s Thursday?” I asked aloud, none too sure of my calculations.
Jesse agreed with a nod. “So no trains today.”
