“Well, if you were a Nashville producer and you saw Cordie June and Tyler perform, which one would you pick to invest your time and money in?”
I watched him process the information, and could tell he didn’t like having to concede I was right.
“Let me guess,” he finally said. “You think I should tell Dewey.”
I looked down at my hamburger, avoiding his scrutiny. “What you do with it is your business.”
He let out a weary sigh. “I hate this.”
“I didn’t pry the information out of Cordie June,” I said, defending myself. “She volunteered it.”
“Look, I’ll bring it up to Dewey in a casual way, but I’m sure he already knows about it. They are dating.”
I hesitated, then blurted out, “Do you think that he’d cover up evidence if he thought she did it?” I knew I was skating on thin ice, but I felt compelled to say it.
“I’ve thought of that.”
“You have?”
“Benni, when are you going to realize that this is what I do for a living? That I’ve been doing it for over twenty years. Believe me, any suspicion you have, I’ve thought of long before.”
What he didn’t say, because maybe he didn’t realize it, was that he wasn’t thinking rationally this time because everyone involved except for Cordie June were his friends.
“They’ve got experienced investigators working on this,” he continued. “Let them do their job.” His last sentence came out in his macho I’m-the-chief tone of voice.
I tightened my lips and didn’t answer.
He took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “So, what’s the rest of the story?”
I set my half-eaten hamburger down and gave an intelligent “Huh?”
“Let me rephrase that to make it more personal. Are you telling me everything you know?”
“Yes.” Then I hesitated, doubt causing a miniature tornado in my chest. I hadn’t lied or hidden anything from him since we’d been married. I knew that if I started now, our relationship would take a turn down a road that just might eventually lead to a dead end. I knew what Dove would say, what she’d said to me so many other times when doubt about something made me hesitate. “Honeybun, if your heart’s feeling doubt, you’d best be taking another look at what you’re doing.”
“No,” I quickly amended.
He leaned back and folded his arms. In a rush of words, I told him about the postcards, the quilt, and my connection with the pattern name.
He waited a long moment before commenting. “Is that it?”
“Yes.” I bit the word off angrily.
He drained the rest of his soft drink and stood up. “I’ll tell Dewey.” He started walking away.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I called after his retreating back.
He whipped around and came back. He grabbed my elbows, pulling me up from the bench, bringing his face close until it was inches from mine. “What is it you want me to say, Benni? You want me to praise you for being such a great detective? You want some kind of medal for the most audacious snooping I’ve ever seen? Why can’t you understand that if I’d wanted to marry a cop, I would have?”
“I didn’t do any of this on purpose,” I snapped, struggling to free myself from his iron grip.
“Except the snooping at the Amish lady’s house.”
“I wasn’t snooping! I was looking at her quilt squares.”
“You know what really bothers me about this? That you look like you’re enjoying it.”
“I am not!” His words felt like a slap across the cheek. Was he right? I had to admit I liked figuring things out, putting the pieces together like quilt squares until the whole pattern was discernible and sense was made of all the separate parts. I was curious about who Tyler Brown/Ruth Stoltzfus really was, why she chose the life she did, what she was willing to do for her dreams, what circumstances led someone to kill her. But enjoy it? The way he put it, it sounded sick.
“I am not,” I repeated, with somewhat less conviction this time.
“We could fight about this all night, but I’m sick and tired of arguing.”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
He let go of me and started walking away again. I picked up my half-eaten hamburger and threw it at him. It hit the back of his left leg. A large splash of ketchup trailed down his faded jeans.
“Good shot, hon,” called a bouffant-haired woman in tight apple-green Wranglers.
He turned slowly around and walked back toward me. Anger caused a stain of red to start at his neck and spread to his high cheekbones. When he reached me, he said in a voice so low I strained to hear it over the boisterous crowd, “Has it ever occurred to you that we made a big mistake when we got married?”
I swallowed hard and answered, “More than once, Ortiz. More than once.”
He turned away, and this time kept going. Through the blur in my eyes, the red streak on his pant leg looked like an open wound.
I picked up my purse and started through the crowd toward the exit. This rodeo was over for me. I’d give my apologies to Dewey and everyone else tomorrow, make up some excuse about feeling sick. I shook my head at a gap-toothed concessionaire’s attempt to sell me a glow-in-the-dark lariat and started back toward Main Street where the Camaro was parked.
“Benni, wait!” I stopped and turned around. Rob strode toward me, his face blazing with agitation. “I want to talk to you.”
He moved close, deliberately invading my personal space. I folded my arms across my chest and backed up slightly.
“What did you find in Tyler’s room?” he demanded.
I met his angry gaze. “Did I miss something? Were we supposed to give you a checklist of her possessions ?”
“She was my fiancée.”
“Funny,” I said coolly. “I thought she already had a husband.”
“We’d talked about marriage, when she . . . got things straightened out.”
“Well, if you want to look through her things, you’ll have to get permission from her husband.”
He spat at the ground. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
He thrust his jaw out belligerently. “I have my rights. She had some things of mine.”
I shrugged. “Rob, I don’t know what your rights are and frankly I don’t care. I only know one thing. Tyler’s belongings are legally her husband’s, and he gave permission for Becky and me to pack them up and store them. If you want to look through them, you need to talk to him. Or the police. Maybe they have what you’re looking for.” I smiled innocently.
He pointed a finger at me. “You better just watch it. This isn’t any of your business.”
“Why, Rob,” I said, keeping my voice amazingly calm, considering I felt like burying my boot tip in his crotch, “if I didn’t know any better I’d take that as a threat. But it isn’t, is it? Because if it was, I just might have to tell Gabe and Dewey, and they just might have to look a little closer into your part in Tyler’s murder.”
Calling me a five-letter word that would have been socially acceptable had I been a female member of the canine persuasion, he whipped around and pushed his way back through the crowd.
I headed through the gates toward Main Street and my car, boiling at his remark, wishing at that moment that I was a man, one big enough to beat the crap out of him. As I moved away from the arena, the sounds of the rodeo grew fainter. In the humid night air, I could still hear the blare of the eight-second horn, the chipper voice of the announcer, and the wail of the spectators, a monolithic ocean sound that rose and fell with the start and end of each cowboy’s ride.
Main Street was almost empty of people. I opened the door of the Camaro and threw my purse on the seat, still so mad I could hardly see. I closed the door and pocketed the keys. There was no doubt that it would be better to walk off my anger before getting behind the wheel. I headed down Main Street and just kept going. My mind was churning with questions—who killed Tyler, wh
ich of Gabe’s friends was really a murderer, was I really enjoying this like Gabe said, and did he mean it when he said our marriage might be a mistake? And did I really think it was, too? I didn’t notice until my side started to ache that I’d followed the street clear out of town and into the dark prairie. I stopped along the side of the road and stared up into the night sky. If possible, it seemed even bigger at night than during the day. The words of an old song came to me—something about deep purple nights. That was the sky’s exact shade at that moment—a deep, heavy purple. A color that matched my mood perfectly. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the turbid air, recalling something I once read by Willa Cather about the prairie, about how between the earth and sky she felt erased, blotted out.
My eyes flew open when the quiet night was pierced by the shrieks from a truck full of teenagers speeding past. An aluminum can ricocheted off the pavement and hit my leg. I jumped into the small ditch along the road to avoid another one. It was definitely time to head back toward town. Now that my anger had subsided, it occurred to me that meandering along a dark highway at night was not one of my smarter moves. I turned and started walking briskly toward the town’s flickering lights.
More headlights approached. I moved closer to the side of the road even though the vehicle was traveling on the opposite side. The bright lights blinded me for a second before the truck rumbled past. I let out the breath I’d unconsciously been holding and continued walking toward town. Behind me I heard another truck engine. I stepped off the pavement to give it more room. It downshifted with a rumbling growl. In the next second a pulsing roar enveloped me. Metal hit the side of my thigh. My arm flew up and smashed against the protruding side mirror.
“No!” I screamed as my feet lost touch with the ground. An animal shriek—my own voice—pierced the thick air, sounding high and thin and desperate. I tumbled into damp, scratchy weeds, hitting the ground with a sickening thump. A muscle in my back popped. Bone-rattling pain seemed to meld me into one mind-numbing ball of sparkling nerves. I rolled to a stop at the bottom of the shallow ditch. Instinctively I curled up in a fetal position, swallowing my whimper. Get up, some deep part of me commanded. Get away. But another part of me registered the sound of the truck driving away. Its menacing engine grew fainter and fainter until the only sound I heard was the whispery whirr of night insects and the faint drone of the rodeo announcer’s voice.
I don’t know how long I lay there in the darkness. I remember the stab of the wheat stalks poking through my shirt, the hiss of corn leaves rustling in the wind, the rattle of an old car driving past. The air was hot and fuzzy and tasted sharp like metal, then sweet like pollen. My brain flickered from one irrelevant subject to another while it tried to figure out what to do. Wheat grows along the side of the road in Kansas. Volunteer wheat, Gabe said his Grandfather Smith called it, ’cause it grew anywhere it darn well pleased. Dark purple sky. So dark and deep I could drown in it. Like the ocean. Like sleep. Like death. Sleep sounded so good. A chuckling, bass voice from my past roused me. “Cowboy up now.” The favorite expression of my uncle Luke in Nevada. He had been a part-time rodeo clown in his younger days. “Bullfighter,” he’d correct everyone in his dignified voice. One time at a Lions’ Club Rodeo in San Celina, Luke jumped off his barrel and ran straight down the back of a snot-spraying Brahma named Terrible Tootsie. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. “Luke, you stupid fool,” Daddy had said. “You always did have more balls than brains.” Uncle Luke just spit and grinned. “Cowboy up” he’d tell us kids when we fell off our horses or smashed our thumbs or came crying to him after a bully pushed us around. Don’t let the bad guys get you down, he was trying to teach us. Fight back, play through the pain. Real cowboys and cowgirls don’t ever give up.
Cowboy up, Benni.
I lifted my head, slowly unrolled myself, and struggled to my knees. Stars sparkled in front of my eyes, and I knelt for a moment, gasping in pain as my injuries became separate entities. My tingling arm, the throbbing in my thigh, the ache in my back, each screamed for my brain’s pain center to pay attention, take care of us. But my shoulder and side had taken the brunt of the fall, and though I ached all over, I hadn’t hit my head. I’d been thrown off horses enough times to know nothing was broken. Still, the walk back to town wouldn’t be fun. I stood up slowly, my arms flailing for support that wasn’t there, and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. Concentrate, I told myself, counting out each step. Think of how good it will feel to sit on that soft Camaro seat.
A few minutes later, a small white compact slowed down beside me. Had it been a truck, I would have tried to run. Since it wasn’t, I just kept my snail-like pace toward the town’s lights.
The car stopped, and the passenger window rolled down. “Sweetie, are you all right?” a woman’s voice called out. She leaned across from the driver’s side. “I know it’s not far, but do you need a ride to town?”
I glanced quickly in the car. There was a plaid baby seat in the back, a small box of Pampers on the passenger seat. Other than that, the car was empty.
I sent up a prayer. Thank you, Lord. “Yes,” I said, my voice shaky. “I could use a ride back to my car.”
She opened the door and tossed the box of Pampers in back. “My daughter ran out of diapers, but she didn’t want to miss her husband’s ride,” she explained. “And one of our mares is about to foal. I wanted to check on her.” She regarded me curiously with kind toffee-colored eyes framed by a fluffy cloud of matching curls. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, thank you,” I said, holding my hand up and attempting to cover the throbbing left side of my face.
“Why, you’re bleeding,” she exclaimed. She pulled out a couple of tissues from the box on the dashboard and passed them to me.
“Thank you.” I dabbed the side of my face tentatively. Nerves screamed when the tissues touched my raw skin.
The lady clucked under her breath. “Sweetie, I don’t know you, but I feel like I just got to say something. No cowboy is worth this no matter how good he looks in a pair of Wranglers. You don’t have to take this kind of crap.”
“It’s not what you think.” My voice sounded thick and wet, as if I had a head cold. I clenched my teeth. Don’t cry, I commanded myself, don’t cry. “I’m parked in front of the Civic Theater.”
She just shook her head and slowed down near the center of town.
“There.” I pointed to the Camaro. She stopped the car, and I gingerly stepped out. “Thank you,” I said, closing the door. “I’ll be okay, really.”
She shook her head again, a resigned look on her motherly face. “I’ll be praying for you, sweetie.”
“Thank you.” I sank into the buttery leather seat of the Camaro and sat for minute, trying to will the pain away. I dug through my purse for some aspirin, then realized after I found them that I didn’t have any water. The Wagon Wheel Cafe’s sign was still turned to Open, so I inched my way back out of the car and bought a Coke to go. Limping back toward the car, I swallowed four aspirin and drank half the Coke. I was concentrating so hard on making it back to the car, Cordie June had to shout to get my attention.
She was leaning against the side of a Ford pickup, smoking a cigarette.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked, pursing her lips and forming a perfect smoke ring.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said, ducking my head and letting my hair fall over my scraped face.
“Only when I’m nervous.” She smiled lazily through the smoke, then dropped the cigarette on the ground, mashing it with the tip of her boot. “Becky was wondering where you’d gotten to. I told her with all these cute cowboys wandering around, you probably got distracted.”
“I’m not feeling too good.” I started moving toward my car. “Let the others know I went home, okay?”
“Sure.” She gave a thin smile, then peered closer at me, her eyes widening. “Shoot howdy, what happened to your face?”
I touched it carefully
with my fingertips. “I slipped and fell. I’m okay, but I think I’ll go on back to Derby anyway.” I opened the car door.
“You want me to tell Gabe?”
“No!” I said sharply. “I’ll tell him about it when he gets home. I’m all right.” To prove my point, I forced myself to slide into the seat easily. Every muscle in my body protested the masquerade.
“Whatever,” she said, shrugging. “See you later.” She started to walk away, then turned abruptly and tapped on the car window.
I rolled it down. “What is it?”
“I didn’t do it,” she blurted. I could swear I smelled fear mixed in with the vanilla scent of her perfume.
“Do what?” I bit my lip and willed the aspirin to work faster.
“I’m not saying I’m not taking advantage of it. I am. And let me tell you something. If the places were reversed, she would have, too.”
“You really think so?” I asked in a noncommittal tone.
“I know so. And I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit. I didn’t like Tyler, but I learned a lot from her about not letting anything or anyone stand in the way of what you want.” She ran her tongue nervously over her teeth.
“I’m sorry,” I said, a bit sickened by her callousness. “But I can’t say I understand.”
“Maybe it’s because you never wanted anything that bad. Maybe it’s because your life has always been easy. Maybe . . .”
“Maybe you’d just better stop right there,” I snapped. My mind flashed on my father handing me a rose to place on my mother’s coffin when I was barely six years old, going to the police station to claim the plastic bag filled with the contents of Jack’s pockets, signing the bankruptcy papers on the Harper Ranch, the ranch I poured my heart and soul into for fifteen years. “You don’t know anything about me or my life.”
She hesitated for a moment. “Okay, maybe I don’t. But I do know one thing. You’re snooping around in places that are none of your business. I’m warning you, things aren’t always what they look like.” She scowled and strode back toward the rodeo grounds, her hair glistening like spun sugar under the street lights.
Kansas Troubles Page 22
