by Susan Union
“It’s only for a little while longer, buddy-boy.” She poured his kibble into a large metal bowl. “I hope.”
Normally, he yowled like a cat at breakfast time, but Jojo’s boundless enthusiasm had put a damper on Shane’s. He got up, like he was fifteen instead of five, and shuffled into the kitchen. He ate his breakfast though. Nothing short of death could part Shane from his dog chow.
Pulling a saucepan from the bottom cupboard, Randi filled it with water and oats, threw in a fistful of dried cherries and set the burner on low. At her desk she powered on her computer and pulled up a spreadsheet with the status of her articles in progress. All three of her projects, one on the mechanics of a horse’s eyeball, another for an Arabian horse publication, and the third covering the latest fashions in the Western show ring, were only half completed, at best. She needed to get on the stick or have editors breathing down her neck.
Jojo trit-trotted across the room, stuffed duck hanging from her mouth. Shane followed her with his eyes, head lowered, standing guard over his half-eaten food like it was the Holy Grail.
Her mother banged the front door open. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I tossed and turned. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No.” Yes, you did. She pushed herself away from the desk. This wasn’t working. She needed solitude to write. Might have to go to the library or Peet’s coffee shop. She swallowed her negativity and put a smile on her face. “You hungry?”
“Actually, I am.”
When the oatmeal had bubbled for the appropriate amount of time, she handed her mother a bowl. They went outside and sat together on the bench swing, pushing it with tiny tandem movements. The seasonal June gloom had taken the morning off and the sky was blue with white sheep-shaped clouds. The aroma of orange blossoms wafted and finches bustled from branch to branch in a nearby jacaranda. Hummingbirds darted by, pausing to stab the bougainvillea flowers with their beaks, their bodies visible but wings a blur before whizzing away.
From this angle, Randi could only see a windowless corner of Luke’s house. An enormous hedge blocked the rest of the structure from view. She stretched her legs in front of her and put her heels down, stopping the swing. “I had no idea Luke could cook like that. And that lava cake. Wow. I had some earlier with my first cup of coffee. It was unreal.”
“Mmm.” Her mother stared at the orange grove. No smirk, no spark. She obviously wasn’t “fine.” “I told you it was delicious.”
She didn’t seem to have a clue about Randi’s extracurricular prying upstairs last night, either, thank goodness.
A whinny came from the adjacent pasture, and Randi caught a glimpse of Kira’s palomino mare in Luke’s pasture. Oro’s finely chiseled ears were perked as she stared into the distance. Her mother took a bite of oatmeal but didn’t swallow. The spoon, with the blob of oatmeal intact, came back out of her mouth. She picked the cherries from the bowl and put them on the armrest. “Whatever happened to that Appaloosa you were so fond of, hon? The one with the eye condition?”
“Zany? His owner moved him up to L.A., near Baldwin Park. Last I heard he was doing well. I miss him though.”
“I know the feeling.” Her mother put the spoon in the bowl, set the whole thing on a nearby table, leaned back and closed her eyes.
Randi gripped a spiky sycamore seedpod with her bare toes, releasing her foothold on the patio and setting the swing in movement. “You thinking about Gina?”
“She had so much to look forward to, hon. I believe when your time is up, your time is up, but hers wasn’t right.”
“That’s the thing about death, you’re never ready for it. How can you be?”
“It stinks. Gina worked so hard, got the dog of her dreams, had the time and finally the means to pursue her passion. She was cut down in the prime of her life.” Her mother jerked the swing to a stop. “Damn it. We’ve got to find out who’s responsible.”
****
The sheriff’s station smelled of disinfectant, and the hum of machinery cycled through the space between the thick white walls. Everything about the office felt cold—air, floor, countertops, even the receptionist, openly not pleased about something, evidenced by her excessive use of force on the keyboard. Joe Reed emerged from a rear hallway and waved Randi toward the back.
The receptionist kept one hand on the keys and, not looking up, buzzed Randi through the swinging half-door. Joe led her into a windowless room. A lone rectangular table sat under the row of fluorescent lights, and a grade school wall clock ticked away the time. Joe set his Styrofoam coffee cup on the table next to a yellow legal pad. “How have you been?”
“Hanging in there. You?”
“Can’t complain.”
An awkward pause followed. Silence between two people, when there should have been words, made Randi uncomfortable and, for some reason, she always had to fill the void. “This room is about as cop clichéd as they come.”
Joe smiled and pulled out a chair. “Have a seat.” His close-cropped curls looked recently sheared, and he wore his button-down shirt and his slacks held up by a thin belt like a mannequin in a storefront window. Like Dainsworth, he had a certain style. Unlike Dainsworth, Joe’s didn’t feel forced.
Randi looked at the clock. “I appreciate you taking time this morning to meet with me.”
“It worked out. I had to come up here to do an interview anyway. Better for you. That way you don’t have to drive downtown.”
“It’s not an easy place to park my truck.”
“I know. Have a seat.”
With the door closed, the room shrunk. Would it have killed them to put a window in here? A penny near the corner of the table, new and shiny, caught her eye. She picked it up. “My mother and Gina Thorton were best friends. My mom’s devastated by what happened. I was hoping you could shed some light.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” A little rotgut never hurt anybody. Besides, she was tired. Her mother had tossed and fidgeted all night, keeping Jojo up who, in turn, kept Shane awake. Two dogs scratching, chewing and jingling their dog tags didn’t make for a good night’s sleep.
“Cream?”
“Sure. The flavored kind if you have any. Unless that’s too frivolous an item for cop coffee.”
Joe smirked and left the room, returning shortly with two cups. He closed the door behind him with his foot. “One coffee with cream—Irish cream.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Joe sat opposite. “So, how’s the gun thing?”
“Better. I try to get to the range a couple of times a month. Don’t want to lose my newfound skills.” She laughed. “I never thought I’d say this, but shooting’s almost become easy.”
“Stick to the targets and you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“Believe me, I have no intention of firing at a human, no matter how much he might deserve it.”
“Good,” Joe smiled. “Now, let’s get down to business. One of the reasons I agreed to this meeting is because I’m actually hoping you can help me.”
She drew her head back. “Of course. Anything.”
“I told you over the phone there were traces of suspicious substances in Gina Thorton’s system.”
“I thought you said poison.”
“No. That’s not what I said. I wasn’t specific.”
She considered coming clean about her mother answering his phone call, but she didn’t want him thinking she was cavalier with sensitive information. She hid behind her coffee cup. Joe was an expert at reading expressions. “What kind of substances?”
“I don’t want to say until we have a positive I.D. Some are harder to detect than others because of their short duration in body fluids, and the testing procedure is kind of a categorize-then-eliminate deal, anyway. It can take some time.”
She twirled the penny between her fingers. “I smelled alcohol on Gina’s breath.”
“When?”
“After Gina collapsed. When everyone was gathered
around her.”
“How far away were you?”
“A couple feet, I guess.”
“You smelled it from that far away?”
“I have a great sniffer.”
Joe looked doubtful. “I’ll have a look at the autopsy report. The fact is alcohol, when combined with many drugs, can increase the chance of the drug becoming lethal.”
“Mel said Gina would spike her morning coffee when she was anxious about something she had to do that day—like a big agility competition—so if Gina was poisoned with an alcohol concoction, wouldn’t her death come soon after she drank it?”
“Not necessarily, it would depend on the substance. It could take up to a few hours.” Joe scribbled on his notepad. “Who’s Mel?”
“Gina’s former girlfriend.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Not to throw her under the bus or anything, but Gina dumped her. Mel was crushed, and Gina took the dog they shared.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it enough to go on?”
Joe put down his pen and laced his fingers beneath his chin. “Maybe, but we’ve had someone else come forward.”
“Who?”
“Gina’s fiancé.”
“Steve Copeland?” She leaned back. “Don’t believe that crap about them being engaged. Gina’s sister-in-law said he made it up.”
“You know him?”
“We’ve met.”
“Copeland told us he had a woman on the side who was furious over his relationship with Gina.” Joe paused like he was waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he continued. “He said she came unglued when she realized it wasn’t her he wanted, and she killed Gina because of it.”
Randi shook her head. “He’s yanking your chain. If Mel killed Gina, that wasn’t her motive. Mel doesn’t go for guys, and if she did, Steve Copeland would be at the bottom of her list.”
Joe unfolded his hands. “The woman’s name wasn’t Mel.” The way his eyes were wide, expecting her to react in a certain way, was disconcerting. Until this moment she’d never felt uneasy around him.
“Who was it?”
He drained his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. “Lee Ann Sterling.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Randi punched the steering wheel with her fist, jumping in surprise when it honked back at her. Mom and Steve Copeland? Unbelievable. On the other hand, this was her mother they were talking about–the woman who acted on impulse and lived for the moment. A student of the school of, “If it feels good, do it!”
There’d been signs, clues Randi had refused to acknowledge. She would have seen them if she hadn’t been so busy trusting her mother’s word as gospel truth. Like the way she knew more personal tidbits about Copeland than she let on, and how she acted all squirrely when his name came up in conversation. What about the way they looked at each other in the massage tent? “How’ve you been, Lee Ann?” Copeland had asked. Her answer, “About as well as can be expected,” had been delivered in a tone that could’ve frozen alcohol. Expected. Expected after one had been dumped?
Randi had naively attributed her mother’s anger to Copeland snatching her best friend’s dog before her body had turned cold, but the outrage over Gina’s engagement—allegedly because of the quickness and impropriety of it—was obviously a cover-up for her anger over being dumped by Steve Copeland.
In a daze, Randi pulled out of the sheriff’s station. What the hell was she going to say to her mother? Tossing the options around in her head—none of them pretty—she almost drove right over a Mini Cooper convertible stopped at a red light. She gulped for air, giving a feeble wave of regret in case the driver of the Mini was staring bug-eyed into his rearview mirror.
Collision averted, she reviewed her possible courses of action. One, backdoor the thing by bringing up Zoom, and maybe Copeland’s dog, Blast, too. Her mother would talk about the dogs, for sure, then Randi could change the subject and head toward more personal matters with the hope her mother would come clean. Choice number two involved bursting through the door to confront her flat out with what Joe had said about her as the odd-man-out in a dog agility love triangle. Use surprise as a weapon to startle her mother into telling the truth.
Rip the Band-Aid off slowly or all at once? Why had she kept this from her? She’d always been forthcoming about her sex life–usually too much so.
On the flip side, there was always the chance Copeland was lying. Why pick on her mother? Why not Carolyn, or Sheila, or Theresa? And those were just the ones whose names she knew. With Copeland’s looks, there had to be lots of women in his world.
To stifle the voices clamoring in her head, Randi tuned in a country station. Country lyrics took life’s difficulties and boiled them down to a simple stew. Maybe through osmosis, inspiration would come her way, but by the time three miles of pavement had rolled beneath her tires and she turned into the driveway, nothing had.
Out of habit, she checked Luke’s house to see if his F350 work truck sat under the porte-cochere. It didn’t. Too bad. She would have loved to get his opinion.
She rolled to a stop under the carport, crunching gravel giving away her arrival, and she still hadn’t decided how to approach her mother. She’d have to be careful. If her mother got spooked, she might run.
Climbing the porch steps, she rehearsed her lines: Why didn’t you tell me you’d shacked up with Steve? She shook her head. Too harsh, too abrupt. She needed a more gentle approach: “Mom, is there anything you want to tell me?” That was problematic too. Might give her time to come up with a story or an excuse to hold herself blameless.
Randi cracked the front door. “Mom?” Any way she spun it, this wasn’t going to be easy. She stepped inside. Shane trotted up to greet her, mouth open in a grinning pant, tail wagging. More cheerful than he’d been in days. The bottom bunk had been tidied, extra blanket folded neatly at the bottom and pillows nicely arranged. The sink was cleared of dirty dishes, blinds pulled up and countertops glossy with a freshly cleaned sheen.
“Mom…Jojo?”
The bathroom door was closed. Oh, God. Was her mother in the tub, floating in a pool of blood because she couldn’t live with the fact she poisoned her best friend over a man? An uneasy feeling chewed at her gut. She flung the door wide. The bathtub was empty, but so was the counter by the sink. Her mother’s toiletry bag and all the items that had covered the space—brushes, bobby pins, curling iron—were gone. The only thing remaining was her cell phone charger plugged into the wall.
She dialed her mother’s number. It went straight to voice mail. Cursing under her breath, she left the bathroom. In the corner by the bed, dust bunnies huddled where her mother’s suitcase had been. Randi ducked for a look under the bunk. Jojo’s duffel and the weave poles were missing too. A glance in the pantry confirmed her worst suspicions. The bag of Jojo’s special mail-order food was gone.
A search for a sticky note on the fridge, a scrap of paper on the counter, a matchbook cover with a message, a goodbye scribbled square of toilet paper—anything—turned up nothing. Her mother had pulled a fast one. Not good. Not good at all. She paced. Perhaps she was overreacting, too on edge after her visit to the sheriff’s station, and her nerves were getting the best of her.
In the back of Luke’s property, the orange grove on the east side of her house had a path that hooked up with a series of riding trails snaking through Rancho del Zorro. Randi had shown her mother how to access the trails when she and Jojo first arrived. She was out walking the dog. Simple answer.
With her suitcase? Okay, forget it. Maybe she was still pissed Randi had dissed her buddy Dainsworth. Maybe she packed her bags and went to stay with him for a while. Unlikely, but where else would she go?
Shane stood in the bathroom doorway, looking at her with understanding in his eyes—the way he used to, pre-Dainsworth. That man had put a wedge between her and the only creature on this earth with whom she shared unconditional love, but if she didn’t bel
ieve Dainsworth’s hoo-doo voo-doo, why did she feel so violated?
Maybe Luke would give Shane a quick once-over and run some blood work, just to make sure Dainsworth hadn’t slipped him anything funky.
Randi flopped onto the futon. “Where’d Mom go, buddy? She did this once before, you know. Left Dad and me without a word.”
Five minutes stretched into ten, ten into fifteen, fifteen into twenty-five. She wracked her brain. Had she told her mother she was going to meet Joe? Or had she just said she was running out to do some errands? Questions floated like bubbles in the cloaking silence.
Again, she tried her mother’s number. Same outcome. Next she dialed Luke. “Have you seen my mother?” Just like the baby bird in her favorite bedtime book.
“No? Why?”
“She’s gone.”
“Where’s Jojo?”
“Not here.”
“No note?”
“Nope. Did you notice anything? A cab coming down the driveway, maybe?”
“No, but I’m on the road. Left early this morning.”
The back of her eyes burned, threatening tears. “Damn it, Luke. Where would she go?”
He cleared his throat. “The last two days have been one hell of a shock. Maybe she went to the zoo or the beach or somewhere to get away from it all.”
“With her suitcase?” There was a hysterical edge to her voice. She couldn’t help it.
Luke fell silent.
“Sorry. That was unfair. I forgot to mention she packed up everything and took it with her. Even the agility equipment.” She opened the fridge. If she had any alcohol she would have helped herself to a swig—or two, or three. Where was the damn tequila? Great. Her mother was turning her into her father.
“When I get back, we’ll go to the police, okay?”
“No, we can’t do that.” They didn’t bug cell phones, did they? “I need to talk to you. Do you have any time today?”
