by K. C. McRae
“I just keep running into you, Gutierrez. Arrested any little old ladies yet today?”
“No, but there’s still some daylight left.” His tone was acerbic. “You followed me.”
“Wow. You really are a cop.” More sarcasm than she’d intended leaked out around the words.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at his feet, then up at Merry, his expressive face suddenly wretched. “I wish all this stuff wasn’t going on with your cousin, so soon after you got home.”
Well, that really made her feel like a bitch. “It’s not your doing.” He was a cop, sure, but more importantly he was Jamie.
“I know. I just … what are you doing tomorrow?”
“Shirlene wants me to be there when she meets with Lauri’s attorney first thing in the morning.”
“She got one? Good for her. Who?”
She looked at him. “A Ms. O’Neil.”
“Oh. God. Well, there aren’t that many choices around here. And she’s good.”
Naturally. “Why didn’t you tell me she came back and set up in town?”
“Didn’t seem … relevant.”
She sighed. “No. Don’t suppose it was.”
Merry couldn’t bear the way he looked at her, like he wanted to bundle her up and feed her chicken soup from a spoon. She tore her gaze away, shifting attention to a barred Plymouth Rock cape, traditionally used for grizzly hackle by those who tied their own flies, hanging from the edge of a shelf. Her fingertips traced the half-plucked feathers, skimming over the gaps that exposed the withered bare skin beneath.
When she looked back, her friend had turned toward the street. She followed his gaze, wondering what infraction had caught his eye.
It wasn’t an infraction at all, unless you counted the length of her skirt, which probably should have been illegal. She wore it well, along with the straight blue-black hair that fell to her waist, the vermilion mouth, and the impossibly high-heeled sandals. A woman of extremes.
“Your wife know you still wander around town leering at sexy young things?”
“Leering? I’m just looking. Which is still allowed, as far as I know. In fact, it’s kind of a requirement when she walks by.”
The woman turned a corner and Jamie’s focus returned to Merry. “That’s Anna Knight. Hangs out with Clay Lamente’s roommate. Lives with his girlfriend.”
“Barbie Barnes?”
“Yeah. There’s something hinky about Anna.”
“Like what?” He’d said Lauri acted “hinky,” too.
“Just a feeling.”
“So, who’s Clay’s roommate, the one she hangs out with?”
“Name’s Denny Teller.”
“Did they get along?”
“Him and Clay? As far as we’ve been able to find out. Merry, what are you doing? This whole thing will only mean trouble for you. Stay clear.”
“I wish I could. I really do, but I can’t. In one day you’ve all decided Lauri killed Clay—is anyone looking for who really killed him?”
“She admitted to knowing where they kept the key and entering without either Clay or Denny’s knowledge. She just happened to find the body, despite the fact that they hadn’t dated for over a year. Someone saw her outside the house the night he was shot. If any of her shoes match the footprints outside his window …”
“So he was definitely shot.”
Jamie sighed.
“What about the girlfriend?” Merry asked. “Barbie.”
“She has an alibi.”
Merry made a get-on-with-it gesture. “And?”
Jamie looked over her shoulder and lifted his chin in greeting. “Harlan.”
She turned to see Harlan Kepper approaching. In six years he’d aged fifteen. Though it was late afternoon, he appeared hungover: red-rimmed eyes squinting against the daylight streaming in; a couple days’ worth of white stubble on his dry, sallow cheeks, and hair that might have been combed with a piece of buttered toast.
“Jamie,” he said. “Good to see you’re back, Merry.”
She nodded at him. “Thanks. It’s good to be back.”
“Can I help you folks find anything?”
“Nah,” Jamie said. “Stopped in for some size eleven hooks, but I just remembered where I have another pack. I’ll see you later.”
He sketched a wave and walked out to his Wrangler. Merry stared after him.
“How ’bout you? Gonna let me sell you something?” Harlan’s face was transformed by a sweet smile, and she felt herself returning it.
Then his expression became sorrowful. “Awful thing about your mom.”
“You two ran around a bit back in the day, didn’t you? Before my dad came along.”
Harlan looked uncomfortable. His eyebrows drew together. “She was a special lady.”
Merry felt her own smile begin to slide. “Hey, Harlan—do you know the Lamente kid?”
“The one who got shot?” News in Hazel apparently moved as fast as she remembered. His eyes narrowed and he looked like he wanted to spit. “Shit. Yeah, I knew him. Little cocksucker.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
He shook his head. “Never mind. Don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
“You have a run-in with him?”
“Let’s just say, as of this morning, he’s a lot more likeable.”
And though she tried, she couldn’t get the old man to say another word on the subject.
———
Merry gratefully headed back to the ranch. Funny how it had come to represent the ultimate comfort in a mere four days.
Between the late breakfast Shirlene’s desperate phone call had preempted and the tuna melt she hadn’t eaten at the Moose, she was more than ready for dinner. She consulted her mental list of freedom food, then checked the contents of the refrigerator. A fried egg sandwich would fit both criteria. White bread, one side smothered with mayonnaise, the other with catsup. Sliced dill pickles laid on top of the catsup, sliced cheddar cheese on the mayonnaise. Two eggs swirled together in the pan, not exactly scrambled, but cooked through and laid hot on the cheddar. Put the whole thing together and wash it down with a glass of cold milk.
Ambrosia.
She made a fresh pot of coffee, poured a steaming cup, and went outside. As she sipped, the pungent taste mingled with memories of bacon-and-egg breakfasts eaten out on the porch on summer mornings. She stepped into the yard. Around back of the house, a quarter-acre vegetable garden reached south, a six-foot wire deer fence encircling the barren ribs of dark brown earth. One corner held a patch of garlic and onions growing up through the winter mulch Mama had spread over them last fall. The bare earth emphasized her mother’s absence: by this late in June the space should have been crowded with sprawling squash plants, neat tomato cages, rows and rows of cabbages and carrots, beans and greens, radishes nearly spent, and peppers just setting their compact white blooms.
A rose garden, also surrounded by deer fencing, snugged alongside the vegetable patch. The dirt strips on either side of the back steps where Mama had always planted the old-fashioned annuals—marigolds, geraniums, petunias—lay empty except for the tall, self-sown hollyhocks leaning their dark pink heads against the hip-high stones of the foundation and the white boards above. The drowsy sound of bees working among the flowers grew louder as she circled back toward the outbuildings.
Merry hated the old K5 Blazer, always had. But there was an alternative.
Dust coated the shiny paint of Daddy’s 1956 Chevy stepside, hazing the teal to bluish gray in the unlit interior of the wooden garage. Trellises and a wheelbarrow leaned against the passenger door. Moving the garden implements aside, she popped the hood. The battery was still connected. Corrosion bloomed white and grainy around the terminals.
Mama had taught her what to do about that w
hen Merry was only fifteen. In the house she opened a can of Coke, sipping it as she walked back to the truck. She poured the Coke over the battery, where it frothed and bubbled like a science experiment. When she rinsed the foam away with clear water, the corrosion had vanished.
On her way home she had filled two containers with gas and picked up some starter fluid. Now when she thumped on the gas tank and received a hollow response, she leaned hard on one side of the truck bed, listening for the sloshing sound of liquid as the vehicle rocked. The gas tank was empty or near enough that she wouldn’t have to drain it before putting in the fresh gas.
The rattle of metal and the sound of an engine on the ranch road announced a visitor. She came out of the garage, wiping her hands on an old rag. Parked in front of the house, dust still swirling behind it, was an F350 king cab pickup with a dingy white two-horse trailer hooked on behind. The driver’s door opened and disgorged Frank Cain. Of medium height and with a slight paunch, he wore jeans, a blue western-cut chambray shirt, and beat-up cowboy boots. His sweat-stained Resistol sat atop a head of hair more salt than pepper.
The lined face split into a lopsided grin as he approached her. They exchanged greetings, and Merry led the way inside to the kitchen and the coffeepot.
Steaming cup in hand, Frank stood at the kitchen sink and indicated the horse trailer in the drive. “I brought Izzy.”
“I was going to call you, find out what I owe you.”
“Don’t owe me nothin’.”
“Now, don’t be like that. You’ve been boarding her for over six months. That’s not cheap.”
“It’s not expensive, either. And the kids loved having her around. They’ve been riding her every day, almost, so she’s in pretty good shape.”
“You should charge me exercise fees, then.”
“Your Mama would’ve kept her in shape for you. It was the least I could do.”
If she kept pushing, she’d offend him. “Well, that’s awful nice of you. Let’s go see how the old girl’s doing.” The words required effort. She didn’t want to owe anyone, and at the same time she didn’t want anyone depending on her. Not even a horse.
A smile creased Frank’s face, and he put his empty cup in the sink.
Outside, he opened the gate on the horse trailer and attached the ramp. Composed and deliberate, Izzy backed down the incline. Her nostrils flared to receive the scents that had meant home for most of her nineteen years.
A chestnut mare with a white star on her forehead and three white socks, she was well muscled from her recent stay at the Cains’. Glossy highlights along her sixteen-hand shoulder and down her flank gleamed in the sunshine. Whether she smelled or saw her first, Merry couldn’t tell, but Izzy snorted and shifted toward her. Frank let her begin moving, then used her own momentum to turn her toward the fenced area along the east side of the barn, two fingertips hooked under the chin strap of her halter. The big horse followed, looking back over her shoulder at Merry.
“I’m coming, baby,” she murmured.
Inside the paddock, she closed the gate and moved to take the lead rope from Frank. She unbuckled the halter and slid it down the mare’s nose. Free of any encumbrance, Izzy stretched her neck and shook her head, then turned to face Merry. Planting her nose on Merry’s chest, she pushed against her. Merry instinctively leaned into her. The mare let out a soft snuffling whuffle and blinked slowly. The old ritual flowed over her and, without thinking, she reached up with both hands and began to scratch Izzy’s face, beginning at the ears and working her way down to the tender nose. The mare’s eyelids drooped to half-mast, and she sighed. Merry grinned wide and looked over at Frank, who smiled with his eyes and headed back out to the trailer.
He lugged a bale of alfalfa hay into the barn. Merry left Izzy in her paddock and followed him. “Hell, Frank, you don’t need to do that.”
“I got one more to bring in. Then you’re on your own.”
Shaking her head, she pushed the bale he’d dropped into the corner of an empty stall. He returned, dumped the second bale on top of the first, and turned to her.
“I got to tell you something.”
She started to bite her lip but stopped herself. Nodded once instead. “All right.”
He looked out through the open door to the yellowing grassland running up to the foothills. “I hate to do this when you just got back and all, but I wanted to give you as much warning as I could.”
She latched the stall door and leaned against it, waiting.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep leasing from you next year.”
She took a careful breath. “I see.”
“I got a good deal on those six sections that run along the north side of my property.”
Six sections. 3,840 acres. A few more acres than he currently leased from the McCoy ranch.
“That’s good grazing up there,” she said.
He nodded.
“I appreciate you telling me.”
“I’m sorry. I know the timing’s bad.”
Bad didn’t begin to describe it. Those leases were what had enabled her mother to keep the ranch solvent. To keep the ranch, period. When Daddy had died, Mama had the good sense not to try to work the place by herself and offered to lease the land to their neighbor who wanted to expand his herd of Angus cattle. It had worked out well for everyone for years.
Merry nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll figure something out.”
Frank left, the empty trailer bumping and rattling along the gravel road behind his truck. Merry swept out Izzy’s stall before spreading old but clean straw in it. She considered going for a ride but decided the day was getting away from her. Let the mare settle in a bit. She’d try to fit in a ride before the meeting with Kate O’Neil the next morning.
Yvette Trager’s instructions to get a job had just taken on a whole new urgency. The drugstore had displayed a Help Wanted sign in the window this morning. Couldn’t hurt to try.
Izzy watched with interest as she stuffed a flake of hay into the rack
on the wall and filled a water bucket, stepping close and nuzzling Merry in hopes of getting another good face scritchin’. Merry indulged her once and finished setting up her quarters. When she was done, she stood watching Izzy eat, listening to the loud, scissorlike grinding of hay between her teeth and breathing in the distinct scent of horse: musk, sweat, and honey.
“Welcome home, baby.”
———
Merry brought jumper cables from the shop and parked the Blazer outside the garage. The trick was gaining access, since Lotta—so named because she took a lotta money and a lotta work to fix up—was nosed into tight quarters. The smells of old dust and motor oil tickled her nose as she pushed into the hot, dingy interior of the garage. She cleared a mass of sticky cobwebs from around the old truck, rolling their white gossamer off her palms and letting it drop to the dirt floor. Wedging herself between the wall and the rounded front bumper, she leaned her back against the grille. She grunted with effort. The vehicle slowly began to roll out into the yard.
A voice close at hand startled her, and she stood up, losing a foot of ground she had just gained. She picked her way around to the back of the truck and found the speaker peering around the other side.
“Hello?” he said again in a tentative voice.
He swiveled and saw Merry watching him. A few dozen long hairs sprouted above the man’s left ear, arranged in elaborate denial above a childish face, pasty white and soft as newly risen bread dough.
“Hi there, hi there. My name’s T. J. Spalding. You must be Merry Green.”
He reached out and she reluctantly shook his hand.
“Merry McCoy,” she said. “Randall Green is my ex-husband.”
“Just so, just so. Well, I’m sure your mother told you all about me.”
A breeze caught the man’s hair,
lifted it whole, as if it were a cap attached to his scalp by a hinge, and laid it back down again. Merry studied him, trying to tamp down her instant dislike for T. J. Spalding.
“Nope. What would she have told me about you?”
“Why, I’m the one handling the sale of this ranch. Yep, yep, she was pretty happy to be rid of the place.”
A few beats while that hung in the air.
“Excuse me?”
“Well, hell yes. I’m the one taking care of the whole transaction, kit and caboodle.” He shoved a business card at Merry.
“My mother wasn’t selling this ranch.”
“Sure she was, you betcha you bet.” He lowered his voice. “The deal’s almost done.”
Crossing her arms, she leaned against the tailgate of the truck and considered him. “Is that so? And who, exactly, is under the impression that they’re buying my land?”
The real estate man shuffled his feet, hesitated. He spoke through the grin frozen on his face. “Well now, my client—” He waggled his eyebrows. “—prefers to remain anonymous. Doesn’t want to bring a lot of attention to himself.”
His theatrics ground against her already raw nerves. “Mister, you are so full of shit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mama never would have sold this ranch.”
“Well, she must not have told you about it, I guess. That’s a shame, it really is. Hard to find out when you come back after … being gone for so long and all. But trust me, you don’t want this big ol’ patch of land. Too much trouble to take care of, hasn’t been a working ranch for well over a decade. And I’m getting you a great deal.” He named a figure.
Merry stared at him. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. That’s what they’ll pay. You’ll be able to live the life of Riley.”
“I mean you have to be kidding to think I’d ever sell this land. Thanks for stopping by, but don’t let’s do this again.”
Patches of red mottled the pale sponge of the realtor’s face. His jowls quivered.
