Murder on the Horizon

by M. L. Rowland

  Tears were streaming down the boy’s cheeks. “Don’t die, Gracie. Please don’t die.”

  “Not g’nna die,” she mumbled in a voice that sounded a long way off. “You’re . . . hero, Bax. My buddy.”

  Her eyes closed.

  “Gracie,” she heard Baxter say.

  Another muffled explosion, this time from outside. Then feet pounding the floor. Men yelling. A door banged open.

  “Don’t shoot!” Baxter yelled, his voice high, terrified. “Don’t shoot!”

  More voices. Louder. Footsteps.

  The ramp quivered.

  “My grandpop shot her,” Baxter said, sobbing. “She helped me get away. He would have killed me. She’s my best friend. Please don’t let her die.”

  “We’re not going to let her die,” a male voice said.

  Gracie felt someone kneel beside her. Opened her eyes a slit and looked into a masked face. Tried to smile. “Happy to see you,” she said, then realized that nothing had come out of her mouth.

  Her eyes closed again.

  The world faded.

  CHAPTER

  34

  GRACIE leaned on her crutches and stared at the black heaps of charred wood and shingles and twisted metal that had been the Camp Ponderosa Gatehouse.

  Allen stood at her side, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, white T-shirt covered with a denim jacket, gray hair in a neat braid hanging down the middle of his back.

  The front reception area, the kitchen, the little bathroom, Gracie’s office, the maintenance shop, and equipment storage room downstairs were all gone. The only thing remaining of the building was the stone fireplace and chimney, a black sentinel rising up stubbornly against a backdrop of pines and Wedgwood blue sky. Burned to black and ash were the grass and yews in the front yard, and other shrubs and trees surrounding the building and along the path selected by the fire. Trees farther away were singed, leaves and needles scorched to rusty brown. All-pervasive was the stench of wet burned wood.

  The cold front that had brought the rain, even several inches of snow at the higher elevations, had stopped the Timber Creek arm of the Shady Oak Fire, the wind shift blowing the fire back on itself, allowing firefighters to gain the upper hand.

  The evening of the following day, the evacuation order had been lifted, and relieved residents and vacationers had poured back into the valley.

  But forty-eight acres of Camp Ponderosa had already burned. With typical caprice, flames had claimed most of the giant ponderosa pines comprising the high ropes course, two double-wide mobile homes used for employee housing, and the Gatehouse, but spared other wooden structures—the conference center, Mojave Lodge, the three side-by-side single-wide trailers, the rustic cabins and the little chapel next to the lake. The roof of Serrano Lodge had been singed, but the building itself, of cement block, was undamaged.

  A sharp wind was blowing from the northeast, swaying the tops of the trees, spinning ash into pewter dust devils, cutting through the fibers of Gracie’s fleece jacket and flannel shirt and straight through to the skin.

  “I lost your stupid gun,” she said, shivering.

  “My stupid gun?”

  “Your gun. I lost your gun. I’m sorry.”

  “Better off without it anyway.”

  “And, only for a second, I swear . . . I suspected you were a white supremacist. Suspected is too strong a word. Wondered. I wondered whether you were. But only for a second. I’m sorry.”

  “Cutie patootie, you wouldn’t believe how much that isn’t a problem,” Allen said, his arm sliding around her shoulder. He nodded toward the blackened rubble of the Gatehouse. “An improvement perhaps?”

  Gracie snorted a laugh. “Yeah.”

  After all that had happened, Gracie was numb, feeling nothing at the sight of the ruined building. That would come later, perhaps all at once like a sucker punch to the gut, perhaps gradually over time in a series of painful stabbing memories.

  But it was the dead zone of the back acreage of camp she couldn’t face, the charred skeletons of the giant trees she loved, the ash, the fire-scarred moonscape, once an Eden, unspoiled, teeming with wildlife.

  Rebirth would come, she knew. Trees and shrubs would regrow. Squirrels and flickers and coyotes and chickadees would return. But it would take years, eons, to regain its former glory.

  And she wouldn’t be there to see it.

  Gracie turned toward her truck parked in the road beneath the arch, confirmed that Minnie’s little face was staring at her from the passenger’s seat, and turned back. “I talked to the church this morning,” she said. “They’re keeping camp closed through the holidays.”

  “So I heard,” Allen said.

  “Groups coming in starting in January. They won’t start rebuilding anything until next spring.” Gracie looked over at Allen. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry ’bout me, Rumpy Diddle. I always find something.” Allen jumped away in a crouch, feet apart, hands like claws. “I’m a cat. Fast. Land on my feet.”

  Gracie rolled her eyes and laughed. “You’re a strange man, Studley Do-Right.”

  Allen straightened and grinned at her.

  “You gonna come back?” she asked.

  “Haven’t asked me yet.”

  Gracie snorted another laugh. “You’ll be back.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “You comin’ back? Won’t be the same ’thoutchoo.”

  Gracie studied the charred ruins. “I don’t know. I’m . . . tired. Maybe I will.” She looked back at Allen. “But then again, maybe I won’t.”

  * * *

  SEARCH AND RESCUE teammate. A camp coworker. Now Morris. Too many damned funerals in the past year, Gracie thought and leaned against the end of the pew.

  Oblique streamers of sunlight pouring through stained glass windows bathed the enormous neo-Gothic sanctuary in crimson and saffron and peacock blue. Dark, elaborately carved wooden beams soared overhead. At the front of the cathedral, the coffin was barely visible beneath an ostentatious spray of every imaginable color of gladiola, mum, and lily—Morris’s last hurrah.

  Evelyn sat in the pew next to Gracie, looking both frail and chic in a neat mourning ensemble of black Chanel suit, stockings, satin pumps, and hat with a heavy veil obscuring her face.

  On the other side of Evelyn was Morris’s son, Harold, his current wife and his two sons. Then Morris’s daughter, Lenora, her husband, her children—a son and a daughter. All in a row, like mannequins, models of perfect behavior, dressed to the nines in black and white and gray with a dash of hot pink here or rebellious red there, staring stonily ahead, not a tear among them, not a single ounce of anything resembling loss or grief or love for the man in the coffin.

  The priest’s voice echoed throughout the sanctuary, his effusive, yet impersonal praise of Morris and his life ringing hollow and leaving Gracie wondering if the priest had ever even met the deceased. She couldn’t imagine Morris having set foot in a place of worship in his entire life.

  She considered the possibility that a lack of relationship with the Almighty, or accountability to any power higher than himself, had been one of Morris’s problems.

  Gracie’s sigh echoed throughout the hush of the church.

  Why am I here?

  For the second time in a month, she had flown two thousand miles to see a man she despised, whom she had wished dead for so many years, and who was now, in fact, dead.

  Her thoughts swept back to Timber Creek, to the events of the past few weeks. To Vivian and the two antifascist activists who had lost their lives. To Baxter and Boojum, to John and Acacia, whose lives had been changed forever.

  To Winston, who had lost his only son and now sat awaiting trial. To Lee, who had come out of the incident unscathed physically, but who had lost his father, his nephew, and, like his brother-in-law and ot
hers in the group, awaited trial.

  For what?

  She thought about choices. Between light and darkness. Between tolerance and fear. Flexibility and rigidity. Forgiveness or feeding the beast. God or the absence of God.

  She thought about her own life, her unease, her restless spirit, her bulldog tendency to hang on with her teeth and never let go. In some circumstances, in some settings, that was a positive trait. In others, it damaged, spoiled. Over the years she had carefully constructed onion layer after layer of emotional scar tissue, stifling her heart, until she had reached the point of emotional paralysis.

  She thought about those she had trusted, willfully or, by virtue of her young age, in innocence.

  Others, of course, had hurt her. Strangers, employers, casual friends. But for those with whom she had placed no real emotional trust, there had been no true emotional betrayal.

  But Morris.

  And her mother. Who had refused to defend her own child against her abuser.

  And her own father. Who had left his wife and adoring nine-year-old daughter with no warning, no explanation. For more than twenty-five years, Gracie had waited for him to come back, to contact her, to let her know he had loved her, that he still loved her.

  Her mother.

  Her father.

  And Morris.

  These were the thickest, toughest layers, the most difficult to remove.

  Gracie looked down at the funeral program in her hand, expensive, tasteful. She opened it and scanned the contents, then closed it.

  On the back, centered in the middle of the page, written in Edwardian script, was a scripture passage.

  “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”—Eph. 4:31–32 NIV.

  Gracie glanced up at Evelyn, a marble statue, the only sign of life a slight quivering of the black veil.

  She looked down again at the passage obviously placed by her mother for her daughter. A message. A plea.

  “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger . . . forgiving each other.”

  Gracie could walk through life, lugging on her back a big gunnysack of unforgiveness and anger, eventually turning into a lonely, bitter, shriveled-up shrew.

  Or she could forgive them.

  All of them.

  The choice was there.

  The choice was hers.

  Someday, she thought.

  Maybe.

  Gracie looked down at her mother’s hands, clenched tightly in her lap as if that were all that was holding her together. In spite of the perfectly applied red nail polish, her hands looked old—thin, liver spotted, bones and blue veins pronounced.

  With a start, Gracie recognized her mother’s pain, a pain that had probably lasted more than twenty-five years. For the first time in her life, she looked at Evelyn without blame and resentment, seeing her not as someone weak and flawed, a failed mother who, instead of protecting her child, had let her down, hurt her with her silence, damaged her with her defense of her abusive husband. Instead, Gracie saw her mother as a real person, battling demons of her own, dealing with her own mistakes, her own weaknesses, her own regrets, her own private pain.

  “Forgiving each other.”

  Gracie looked up at the high ceiling, the dark wood arching overhead, then to the front of the church, the crucifix. She blew out a long, slow, silent breath, then reached out and placed a hand on top of her mother’s.

  Startled, Evelyn looked up at Gracie. Tears glittered through the veil.

  Gracie smiled down at her mother and slid an arm around her thin shoulders.

  CHAPTER

  35

  “AHHH.” Gracie laid her head back on the pillow. “This feels great, doesn’t it?” she said to Minnie, who was curled up in her little bed next to her own. “Back in our own little cabin. Feels like we’ve been gone for years.”

  Finally back in Timber Creek, too exhausted to unpack the Ranger, Gracie had carried inside a grocery bag of a dozen eggs and a half gallon of low-fat milk, and the trash bag filled with items packed the previous week, pulling out only her clock and toothbrush and paste. Everything else could wait until Allen arrived the following morning to help her unpack and move back into her cabin.

  Gracie shifted her hips on the thin camp mattress that had served as her bed for more than ten years. “Maybe it’s time I actually bought a real bed. Whaddya think about that idea, Minnie? A real bed.”

  Minnie watched her with bright eyes and said nothing.

  Gracie reached over, turned out the lamp, lay back, and closed her eyes.

  She opened her eyes again, seeing nothing in the darkness, unsure of whether she had been asleep or not.

  What she was sure of was that she had heard something.

  Then she heard it again—a thump. Downstairs. Out on the side deck. Near the kitchen.

  She reached out and felt for Minnie. The dog was sitting up.

  “Probably that blasted raccoon again,” Gracie said, more to reassure herself than anything else. She hadn’t forgotten the prank phone calls, the wanted poster.

  But that was all behind her.

  Wasn’t it?

  Minnie growled.

  Gracie eased herself up into a sitting position, swung her legs off the bed. Hanging on to her crutch, she hauled herself to her feet.

  “Guess we better check it out. Don’t want ’im eating all that new birdseed, do we?”

  From downstairs came the sound of glass smashing.

  Gracie grabbed up the phone from the bedside table and dialed 911. “This is Gracie Kinkaid,” she whispered in the phone. “Fifteen oh three Arcturus. Somebody’s breaking into my house. They just smashed a window.” She repeated the address.

  She threw on hiking boots, taking precious seconds to lace them up so she wouldn’t trip down the loft steps and break her neck.

  Then she stopped.

  She smelled smoke.

  Not from outside.

  From inside the cabin.

  Leaving the crutch behind, Gracie scooped Minnie up in her arms and hobbled down the steps. Tripped. Almost pitched forward. Fell against the wall, bumping her injured thigh. “Shhht,” escaped between clenched teeth. She recovered and stumbled the rest of the way down.

  At the bottom, she turned and looked into the kitchen.

  Flames already licked the curtains. Heavy smoke billowed out through the doorway.

  In two seconds, Gracie was across the living room. She heaved open the sliding glass window, stepped outside onto the deck, and slid the door closed.

  Setting Minnie down, she limped down the back steps into the dirt yard. Dialed 911 again on her cell phone. No reception. She left the line open.

  She threw open the gate below the house and, with Minnie at her heels, slid down the steep hillside toward the road.

  She glanced over her shoulder back up the hill. An orange light danced in the windows of the cabin. The fire was spreading fast.

  Somewhere on the road above, on the other side of the house, came the sound of an engine roaring to life, the screeching of tires.

  A vehicle with a hole in its muffler was speeding down Arcturus.

  “Stay, Minnie,” Gracie ordered. Ignoring the pain in her thigh, she slithered the rest of the way down the hill to the road. She landed on the pavement as a small white pickup rounded the corner on the road above, catching Gracie in its headlights.

  She picked up a fist-sized rock from the side of the road and heaved it with all her strength, hitting the truck’s windshield with a loud crack.

  The truck swerved to the left, almost winging Gracie. It veered past her, swerved right, then left again, missing the curve in the road. Plunging straight ahead, it left the pa
vement altogether, and thudded to a sudden stop against the brush-covered embankment.

  The driver’s side door opened. The driver fell out, landing on hands and knees on the ground.

  In the darkness, Gracie couldn’t see who it was.

  “Wha’ th’ . . . ? Wha’ jes’ happ’n?”

  Gracie would know that voice anywhere.

  Mrs. Lucas.

  Gracie leapt down the road, full-body-slamming herself on top of the smaller woman and flattening her to the ground.

  The woman screamed.

  In a stunning flash of recognition, Gracie knew the maniacal voice screaming in her ear on the telephone hadn’t been a man; it had been Mrs. Lucas, voice lowered by years of chain-smoking.

  “Get off . . . !” the woman grunted. Wriggling and writhing, she managed to turn herself partially over. By the light of the open door of her truck, she saw who it was on top of her. “You? You goddam bitch!” She bucked her emaciated body, trying to throw Gracie off. “Cuddlin’ up to those . . . those . . .” She let loose with an obscenity-laced string of racial slurs. “In my house! My house! Well, I showed ’em, didn’t I? And now I’m showin’ you!” She cackled. “You won’t have nothin’ left. Just like me. And there ain’t nothin’ you can do now to stop it!”

  Then she spat and hissed and scratched and fought like a wildcat in a snare.

  But Gracie had learned a thing or two over the past few months. Grabbing ahold of Mrs. Lucas’s wrists, she muscled them, first one, then the other, beneath the woman’s body, trapping them there with her own weight. Sliding her own hands out, she lay on top of Mrs. Lucas like a beached walrus, until finally the woman stopped struggling.

  “Ungh,” Mrs. Lucas grunted. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Let me up. I hit my head on the steering wheel.”

  “You should wear a seat belt.”

  “I hurt my knee, too. Let me up.”

  Crackling up the hill drew Gracie’s eyes back over her shoulder. An orange halo of light lit up the night sky. Her wooden cabin, old and bone-dry, was burning like a torch.