Dead Blow

by Lisa Preston

  I swallowed and said it, that thing that hung in the air. “Someone named ‘R’ is what I’d guess.”

  She nodded and frowned.

  I asked, “Do you know who was meant to have it?”

  Donna shook her head and moved her misty gaze away. It was a sorrowful look I’d seen slipping from her too much.

  “You keep that knife, Rainy.” Donna pushed the bone handle at me, the sheathed blade held light-like in her palm.

  With its heart shape, neatly tooled in above the letter R, it really was a nice knife. And I could sure see her not wanting it, not wanting it on her place. I knew, just knew, we were both thinking about the rumors of her cheating dead husband.

  I just tried not to think of the other rumor, the one about her having a hand in his death. No, I looked back and knew we were thinking about that Other Gender and their Ways.

  “You’re engaged,” Donna said. A wry smile twisted her mouth.

  Guy blabs sometimes.

  She looked at the knife in my hand. The leather scabbard was rough weathered and dry. The knife wanted a cleaning but it could be saved, just like the Buckeye.

  And this knife I’d found had been left out on her ranch, maybe by her husband or some little hottie he’d been with. Donna’s eyes looked wet and I felt mine getting there.

  For sure and for certain, we were both thinking about his habit of unfaithfulness.

  “Maybe that’s what we get,” Donna said, “for being the way we are.”

  I shook my head near off, hers was such a bad idea. We don’t deserve it, getting treated like trash, none of us. Not Donna, not me, and actually, come to think of it, not Guy.

  Pretty soon, I’d better start being nicer to my Guy. I’m finding out they don’t grow ’em on trees, not like him they don’t, not around these parts anyways.

  Donna Chevigny was still stuck. “I mean, that’s what we get for not having our center of gravity at our hearts, for loving something that doesn’t keep his center there either.”

  With that, Donna went into her round pen to love on Buster, sliding her hand across from his shoulder, stopping her palm a few inches just above and behind the point of his elbow. We thanked each other again and I called it a day.

  On the long drive down the forest road from the Buckeye, there’s just the one driveway to pass. It’s Stan Yates’s place. I was staring at it so hard, thinking, it took me a minute to notice the guy under an apple tree out front, pruners hanging still at his side. In my rear view, I saw Stan Yates lean, duck forward and gawk at me. He threw down the pruners. It sort of seemed like there were things to clear up, but like I’d said to Melinda Kellan, I didn’t have a dog in this fight.

  Would have been a decent ending if the next thing that happened was the last. Earl Delmont brought The Kid out to Red’s pasture. Soon, I’d take The Kid’s shoes off and that would be it for him for many months.

  After we had our howdy, I fed the horses on a tablecloth of maple leaves—to keep the hay off the dirt—and put generous flakes of hay on the leaves, more piles than horses so they could all eat in peace. I poured a handful of oats on each pile and stepped back. The Kid got busy lipping his oats, pleased and blowing. Red circled and nicker-grunted, the horse boy sound of new acquaintance. And I assured Earl that the oats were just a welcome thing, I’d not be feeding The Kid rich. The young draft was going to be a pasture ornament and we’d see if he fixed himself to something like a sound horse in half a year or even a year, if that’s what it took. Earl watched it all.

  “Wilted maple leaves are bad for horses,” he said, looking at the hay piles I’d left on fresh pulled leaves that would wilt in a day.

  We had few maples in Texas and Southern California. New girl needs to learn this area better. “I didn’t know that. Thank you.” I pulled the leaves and figured I needed to buy some stall mats to feed on if I didn’t want the horses eating hay off the dirt.

  Guy said the sheriff’s department had called earlier and asked for me.

  When I phoned back, they put me through to that soon to be retired Suit Fellow who wanted to talk to me about an ugly manslaughter case and he griped at me for not getting myself into his office to check in on the matter. I grumbled some apology about being busy with work and whatnot and he told me to find some balance and make time to come see him at exactly soon. I agreed, just glad to be off the phone with the po-lice.

  The detective wasn’t so bad really. At least his words left me thinking without dwelling on the testifying thing. I thought about him having decided Cameron Chevigny might have had something to do with Arielle Blake’s passing. Judging by looks, she had a thing for older guys. But maybe she also had a thing for younger guys. Just because Cameron had an affair with her, that didn’t make him her killer. Maybe she’d been with other guys, too. I felt bad for everybody in the mess and thought about Donna’s notion of loving someone who’s not on the straight and narrow. What was it she’d said? Something about us loving things that don’t keep their center of gravity at their hearts. I thought of our love of the species that does better.

  My mind could see Donna’s hand stroking Buster’s side.

  That’s where horses keep their hearts.

  Even carrying a rider, right near their hearts is where horses keep their center of gravity, their balance.

  Chapter 15

  THAT WEEKEND, THE BUTTE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS had a reining competition, or, as the locals call it, a slide-in. I was mindful as I set my anvil on its stand that it might be the last weekend Abby and I would work together.

  For two days, I kept my forge and tools at the ready in case I got a little piece of business. I wouldn’t ever want to contemplate what hourly wage was earned by standing there from just after sunrise until four in the afternoon for the half shoeing and two quick fixes I was asked to do. In the idle time, I heated old shoes, cut them in half and twisted the metal, shaping it into hoof picks.

  “You ready to give this a try?” I asked Abby on day two. She’d quit regular store-bought picks the first time I gave her one made from an old horseshoe. And the first time she made one herself, she was excited to act big by giving it away to one of her little 4-H buddies. Homemade hoof picks do make great give-aways and absolutely every one of my clients has one by now. Even Sheriff Magoutsen.

  Abby nodded and I made her wear goggles when she pounded on the hot steel. I liked telling her she’d done well when she fashioned a couple hoof picks all by herself. Those, I let her keep.

  After the Sunday slide-in, as riders were loading their horses into trailers, Abby and I wandered past the food carts offering the steam and smoke of barbecued corn cobs and fry bread and cinnamon churros. At the far end of the parking lot lay craft booths. An older couple had houseplants in homemade clay pots for sale. Another gal had soaps and candles. A whole gaggle of women sat knitting or crocheting or something like that, with their scarves and dyed yarns for sale. A gal with flowing print skirts twisted copper wire into earrings and the like.

  Abby held a butterfly-shaped wire pendant up to her neck.

  The gal behind the display said, “Every piece is one of a kind.”

  I found myself staring at the weird-shaped rings, similar to the one I’d seen on Arielle Blake’s thumb in the photo from the old flyer at the Country Store.

  Abby gave me a smile a set the pendant back down. The smile I returned was fake, distracted. I bet Arielle bought the ring from the gal who ran this booth. Where had I put that flyer?

  Deputy Paulden had told Guy and me that they were waiting on DNA results, that the ring was the way they identified the body. Was I the first person to wonder if maybe the body Slowpoke unearthed on the federal land in back of the Buckeye ranch wasn’t Arielle Blake after all? And if it wasn’t her, where was she, and who was the dead person who’d been wearing a ring like Arielle’s?

  * * *

  Contemplating from the couch at home Monday morning, it took me some time to realize Guy and I had fallen asleep there the nigh
t before. I stretched, checking for a muscle that didn’t twang from overuse, but couldn’t find one.

  “We’ve got to stop working so many hours,” Guy said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m doing the lunch and dinner crowds tonight.”

  That probably meant he was thinking we could have a nice slow-style breakfast at home together. I purposely schedule my Monday mornings light so there’s room in my schedule for emergencies. But I shook my head and finger-combed my hair for a good working ponytail.

  “I reckon it’s high time for me to gird up my loins and get myself into town for a sit down with Sheriff Magoo and his Suit Fellow about this trial thing we got subpoenas for.” Still, the very idea made me grim. If I had to go to court and testify, it was going to do a lot of bad things. It’d make me get a case of the heebie-jeebies with the gut-knots to boot and it stood all sorts of chances of leaving a bad taste between me and one of my clients. Back when, Magoutsen and his investigator, Suit Fellow, had promised to keep me up to speed on whether or not this thing that was hanging over my head was actually going to have to happen.

  Now my Guy set one hand over mine. “Want me to go into town with you? The drive will be our only time together today.”

  That was all it took. Charley and Guy and me piled into Ol’ Blue for a run into Cowdry’s sheriff’s office.

  In the parking lot, I was of half a mind to leave the engine running—shutting on and off isn’t what diesels were meant for—just to be for sure and for certain I was in and out like a half flash.

  “You know,” I said, “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Well, fine.” Guy’s forever writing up menu ideas and he was happy now, scribbling notes and drawing on a pad of paper with one hand while the other ruffled Charley’s coat. But I was still muttering something from the back of my brain.

  “I hope it’s not her at the front counter.”

  “Hmm? Who?” Guy looked up, pen wavering mid-sketch.

  “That um, Melinda Kellan, the clerk there who was at the counter that time.” I looked at the steering wheel while he looked at me. Charley looked straight ahead through the windshield like he could wish up some sheep or cattle to gather.

  “She’s not your cup of tea?”

  Shrugging, I said, “Got quite an attitude on her.”

  Guy howled, which caused me and Charley to look around for coyotes. Finally, I about had to ask Guy to pick himself up off the truck floor and give a reason for his mirth.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said, wiping his eyes and working his mouth corners hard to wrench off a grin that didn’t belong there.

  Could there be a sillier man in all of Cowdry?

  Well, apparently so.

  The west end office of the Butte County Sheriff’s Department is in a strip mall, and not too awful impressive as a place where state of the art policing might occur. I do like the big map in the little public area that shows all of the county, but didn’t get a chance to study on it as Vince Pritchard swaggered up to the front counter.

  “I’m here to see the sheriff or Suit Fellow about a testifying thing,” I said.

  Remembering my manners, I pulled out one of my homemade hoof picks and offered it to Pritchard, who was decked out today in his reserve police uniform, brown and badge-y.

  “Suit Fellow?” Pritchard took the hoof pick, distracted.

  These picks Abby and I’d made out of old horse shoes really are nice, great for getting the hoof’s commissures a quick cleaning, easy in the hand with the gentle curve of half a shoe forming the backbone.

  “Thanks.” Pritchard tossed it in the air and grinned as he caught it. “That’s mighty white of you.”

  I wanted to snatch my hoof pick back, and I kept up a good scowling while Pritchard said the detective wasn’t in, got called out on something, and they didn’t have a firm court date, but he’d left an appointment open for a conference meeting with the prosecutor. More, he said the case might plead out, which sounded like a good thing, and he handed me a Butte County Sheriff’s Department pen, a black ballpoint with the name and logo in gold letters on the side, to write it all down.

  “You can keep that,” he said.

  “Thanks. That’s mighty beige of you.”

  Pritchard looked to be trying to fire up both brain cells, deciding if I was as big a jerk as him. I needed to move his mind in another direction.

  “Hey,” I said, “I was chewing the fat with Melinda about some things. And I’ve got to wondering about how well that body on the lease land was identified as Arielle Blake because I’ve seen rings similar to that thumb ring she’s wearing in the flyer that her boyfriend put up around town and—”

  “Melinda Kellan’s been talking to you?” There went Vince Pritchard’s meaty arms, first squared across his chest, then on his hips as he dipped his jaw down hard at me. “She’s not a sworn officer, you know. I am. Reserve deputies are duly sworn. If you’ve got anything police-related to say about Arielle Blake or any other case, you can say it to me. Now.”

  “She was just, we were just talking, I guess.” It was a weird place to be, feeling guarded about Melinda. And I bet Charley wouldn’t have cottoned to Pritchard at all.

  He gave the nod that said he knew all about everything, which maybe is a thing these reservist cops do. Then he snorted and rolled his eyes and I just knew we were still on the subject of the other deputy-wannabe.

  “Little girl,” he said, “lives with her parents.” His scorn was burning.

  I wondered if Magoutsen knew about the little tiff between his assorted wannabees, the reserve and the almost-a-reserve.

  Probably. The sheriff didn’t miss much. At a team roping benefit put on by the 4-H a couple months ago, the two cowboys just ahead of Magoutsen had riled all the waiting steers by shouting and swinging their ropes and spinning their horses. Magoutsen’s roping horse is one of the better heelers in the area and took it all in, blowing his disagreement at the roughnecks. I think only the sheriff and I noticed the little drama. He doesn’t know that I watched him raise one hand to take a few minute’s pause, while he stroked his gelding’s strong brown neck with the other. Then he turned around with a quiet nod to indicate the gate-keeper should release the next steer. His header was hot, got the steer roped and turned. They’d barely cleared the chute when the sheriff snagged its heels and they won the pot. Then he donated the cash to the 4-H kids on the spot.

  Guy doesn’t miss much either. When I’d told him what I witnessed at the roping, he’d called the rough cowboys’ behavior passive-aggressive. I just thought it was aggressive. But Guy also notices stuff that might not want to be noticed. Like me, now, lost in thought. Wanted to know all about my trip in to the sheriff’s office, Guy did, but I was curt as I drove us home.

  “And?” he asked, as I pulled Ol’ Blue onto the highway. “Who was at the counter?”

  “Not her,” I said, my mouth twisting. “Had that going for me at least.”

  “Well, why? What’s your heartburn with her?”

  “She’s a little bit of a witch.”

  Guy knows that that’s how I pronounce the word ‘witch’ without the B in the beginning since my language makeover. It’s pretty tough talk for me. And he knows better than to give me a little ol’ lecture about my opinion even when we both know I’m being crusty. Instead, he just looked at me out the corners of his eyeballs, his lips rolled in like he was suppressing all kinds of words. It didn’t soften me much but I did allow, “Anyways, that reserve guy, Pritchard, he was there.”

  Guy shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

  I shrugged. “Lives in Gris Loup. Runs the saddle shop with his wife. I think he’s going to be the next full-time deputy they hire. Maybe the Pritchards would move to Cowdry. Loretta had mentioned going riding with me. And she’s got a good trailer.”

  “Well, fine. So, you saw him on your way to see the detective and you got the court date and the case might not even go to trial?”

  I frowned and gave half a nod. “I didn�
��t get any of that dealt with, but he’s a jerk.”

  “Who?”

  “That guy. Pritchard. He’s a real piece of work.”

  “For crying out loud, Rainy, are you mad at everybody?”

  That needed less than a few seconds’ thought but I gave it miles before I kissed my dog and gave Guy an honest answer. “No, Charley’s okay.”

  Guy rolled his lips in and this time let out a sigh like a tire losing air fast. All over that, I shut the truck off at home and asked, “What are you so grumpy about?”

  “Me? Nothing. I’m pleased as punch.”

  Which is a comment that makes me think of the time I poured a bunch of Jell-O in the punch bowl at the PTA meeting, the only time mama and daddy both went. I’d been itching to see what would happen to the meeting when their drinking bowl congealed but my hopes were crushed, crushed, I say, when mama and daddy got into a spat about me and we got asked to leave early so I never did know for sure what happens to peoples’ punch with four boxes of Jell-O poured in, but I bet they weren’t too pleased.

  And I was none too pleased with the sheriff’s apparent replacement prospect of new deputy when he promoted one of his old ones up to be the investigator after Suit Fellow’s retirement. Vince Pritchard was so puffed up and edgy, I thought. Why? It bugged me.

  “Pritchard was like . . .” Even back on Vine Maple road, where I do my best thinking, it was hard to put a finger on the problem.

  “Like what?” Guy asked.

  “Like he’d been chained to the wrong end of a huge hog.”

  After I shut Ol’ Blue off in front of the house, I reached for the glove box for my new, old knife and reminded myself to fetch my honing stone from my shoeing tool box in Ol’ Blue’s bed so I could give the knife a good cleaning.

  Guy gawked when I showed it to him.

  Heart R.

  Well.

  Well, it was a decent knife and Donna didn’t need or want it on her place. “Donna Chevigny gave it to me.”

  Guy looked at it none too close, just glanced and grimaced at me. “She gave this to you?”