by Gwen Moffat
‘I’m too late but these will do for your breakfast.’ He turned to Sophie. ‘We were up to the Finger Lakes, caught us enough rainbow for Edna too. Clyde and me,’ he explained to Miss Pink.
Sophie was puzzled. ‘Clyde went fishing today? That’s not like him, leaving his mother on her own. I mean, we only buried Charlie yesterday.’
‘She insisted he go. There was nothing to do at Glenaffric and she said he was getting under her feet. When I called to say I was going fishing, he was off like a rocket. Now tell me, how was your day?’ He looked eagerly from one to the other.
‘You know the police questioned Bret?’ Sophie asked.
He nodded happily. ‘Another kinda fishing trip. They’d think the poor guy was the weak link: he’d spill the beans on the family, except there are no beans to spill.’
‘How right you are. Yes, the police let him go. Val was waiting and gave him a ride back to Benefit. There’s no news really.’ She glanced at Miss Pink who turned to the pilaf and stirred it with concentration. Regarding her back Sophie said casually, ‘Bret told them it was him visited Charlie at hunting camp.’
Russell gave the ghost of a sigh. He was no longer amused. ‘And?’
‘He left Charlie fit and well, and riding up to the rocks where he — Bret — had just seen a bear. Then Bret thought he glimpsed someone in the trees off the trail as he rode down the canyon.’ He stared at her. ‘Clyde was upstream of the cabin,’ she said with careful emphasis.
‘So who — Bret thought he saw someone?’
‘It could have been a moose.’
His mouth twitched. ‘Where does Hilton stand now? Does he still suspect foul play?’
‘Did he ever?’ They drifted into the living area, Miss Pink absently cradling the Tio Pepe she’d been using in the pilaf.
Sophie took it from her and filled three glasses. Russell accepted a drink without thanks, his eyes on the traffic below the window, his expression vacant.
‘Clyde and Val were together all the time,’ Sophie said, as if he didn’t know that. ‘Bret had no call to say he was at the cabin, he volunteered the information. He’s too simple to play a game of double bluff. Besides, if he had followed Charlie up to the rocks, he’d know he’d leave horse tracks?’ It turned into a question and it was directed to Miss Pink.
‘The slope was covered with tracks after the search,’ she pointed out. ‘And then it rained.’
‘What are you saying?’ Russell had emerged from his reverie. ‘That Bret could have shot Charlie, or that he’s covering for Jen?’
‘Jen had no motive,’ Sophie said. They stared at her. ‘She didn’t know,’ she reminded Miss Pink.
‘Everyone knew,’ Russell protested. ‘Even I knew. Clyde —’ He stopped.
‘I’m not talking about the money.’ Sophie was impatient. ‘OK, so Jen knew about that, but it wouldn’t mean anything to her.’
It would mean something, thought Miss Pink, recalling the evidence of straitened circumstances at Benefit, but Sophie continued. ‘I meant the other — factor: that she didn’t know about her parentage until after Charlie’s death. That is, she was unaware exactly how depraved her grand-daddy had been. Why’ — her voice rose — ‘she couldn’t have been more abused by that old monster if he’d done it physically.’
‘Keep it down.’ Russell was quick and firm, startling Miss Pink. Hidden depths were not revealed by three words and yet occasionally she’d had a glimpse of something powerful behind the clown’s mask. He had turned to her. ‘This family is volatile,’ he informed her. ‘They wear their hearts on their sleeves. Operatic, that’s what they are.’ He put an arm round Sophie’s shoulders. ‘We must learn to practise a little subterfuge, dear, if we’re not to arouse Hilton’s suspicions.’
‘He’s right,’ Miss Pink said when he’d gone and they had sat down to supper. ‘You are inclined to speak first and think afterwards.’
‘Only in my own home. In fact, I wasn’t speaking my mind to Russell. I’m annoyed that Clyde should have gone off and left Edna on her own.’
‘She had the maids.’ Miss Pink frowned and added, ‘And there was Byer.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking — and you forgot: she told the maids to leave at noon. She can’t cope with Byer in her condition — and I never asked Russell if Clyde was going back to Glenaffric or to his own place.’ Sophie put down her fork. ‘I’m going up there, tell her about this morning. She’ll be worried about Bret.’
Not if Edna was convinced Charlie had died in a fall from his horse; it was more likely that Sophie was worried about Edna… ‘I’ll come with you,’ Miss Pink said.
*
Sophie need not have been concerned. At Glenaffric they were met by Clyde who told them that his mother was lying down. Miss Pink didn’t miss the exchange of looks between aunt and nephew. ‘You can go up,’ he said. ‘She’ll be pleased to see you.’
There was no feeling in the statement but Sophie chose to take it at face value. ‘I’ll just look in on her,’ she told Miss Pink. ‘You stay here.’
Seeming a trifle embarrassed, Clyde poured coffee and set himself to entertain the guest, but she forestalled him.
‘Russell brought us some fine trout,’ she said brightly.
He nodded. ‘There were plenty. Those lakes back of the Bobcats swarm with rainbow. Cut-throat too. Do you fish?’
She confessed that she was the rawest of amateurs and without a change of tone told him he must have heard about the outcome of Bret’s interview with the police that morning.
‘Val called,’ he admitted. ‘She’s over to Benefit. Kind of a reunion. Sam’s there too. I’m so glad.’ And he did look happy for them.
‘Hilton’s given no indication that he wants to speak to you?’
‘No-o. Why should he?’
‘Jen is the principal beneficiary in your father’s will. Val would do anything to protect her. Now that Bret’s admitted he was one of Charlie’s visitors at the hunting camp, Hilton will be wondering if Val was the other. And you are Val’s alibi.’
He’d listened intently: an incredibly handsome man, like a ravaged hawk. ‘He isn’t thinking that way,’ he told her. ‘If he was, he’d have pulled me in. Who was the other visitor Charlie had?’ He smiled. ‘Seeing as it wasn’t my sister.’
‘Bret saw someone below the hunting camp.’
‘No, ma’am, he thought he did but all he saw was its legs. At a distance you can easily mistake a moose for a horse.’
‘It could have been a poacher.’
‘What’s that?’ came Sophie’s voice as she entered from the passage. ‘What was a poacher?’
‘That Bret saw below the hunting camp.’
Sophie shrugged. ‘Could be.’ She addressed Clyde: ‘No wonder she gave the maids the afternoon off! I should have guessed.’ She glanced at Miss Pink and mimed lifting a glass to her lips. ‘Are you staying?’ she asked Clyde.
‘Yes, I’ll stay the night.’
‘I will if you want to go out. Melinda can take the car back.’
‘No, I’ll stay. She should be all right by tomorrow.’
‘She shouldn’t be —’
There was movement behind Miss Pink. Clyde leaped to his feet and plunged round the table. ‘Now, Mom —’
‘Don’ fuss, son, you shoulda told me we had company, shoulda offered her something — oh, you have coffee…’
Miss Pink was aghast at the appearance of Edna: hair like old hay, bleary-eyed, in a gaping pyjama top that exposed a greyish brassiere: staggering and drunkenly resisting Clyde’s efforts to turn her back to the passage. He gave up and lowered her to a chair where she succeeded in placing one elbow on the table. She tried to turn towards Miss Pink who had sunk into a chair at her side, but it appeared that arthritis prevented her from twisting her spine. This annoyed her. ‘Shoot!’ she mumbled. ‘I can’t see you.’
Miss Pink stood up and walked round the table but Edna was still making the effort to turn to the empty chair.
‘Come on,’ Sophie urged Miss Pink. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Clyde grimaced at them.
‘Not your fault,’ Sophie said roughly. ‘But you should have guessed; it was why she wanted you out of the way. And the maids. She does it,’ she told Miss Pink, ‘not often, she’s not an alcoholic.’
‘Who said I’m an alcoholic?’ Edna shouted, her hearing functioning if her vision was temporarily impaired. ‘Don’t you go saying I’m an alcoholic. I don’t drink at all — really, do I Clyde? Clyde! Where’s Clyde?’
‘Mom, how about a Scotch? There’s a bottle in your bedroom, let’s go and have a nice big Scotch, how’s that?’
‘I’m out of here,’ Sophie grunted. ‘You too, come on.’ And she grabbed Miss Pink’s arm and hustled her out of the kitchen.
15
Over the grilled trout at breakfast time they discussed what they should do this day, each avoiding mention of that embarrassing scene at Glenaffric, but Miss Pink thinking that Sophie would want to visit Edna on her own. ‘Delicious fish,’ she observed, although, with the exception of kippers, fish wouldn’t be her preferred choice at breakfast. ‘Where are these Finger Lakes?’
‘On the west slope of the Bobcats. You’re thinking of going fishing?’
‘Oh, no, I’d never have the patience. I was thinking in terms of a ride. Barb could do with the exercise.’
‘That’s an excellent idea. Will you feel comfortable on your own? There are things to do… You see, the problem is the stock. The money doesn’t matter’ — she gave a light laugh — ‘it will be ages before the will’s probated and they’re not in urgent need, any of them; besides, I’m sure Seaborg would give the go-ahead and there’s always credit…’ Miss Pink was buttering toast with care, as if she had nothing else to do but wait for this flow of words to run its course. ‘… Although there’s the interest,’ Sophie gabbled on. ‘Charlie would turn in his grave… But there, you’re not interested in us discussing which animals are to go where. And to whom. Funny thing, us all being family it’s more complicated, not simplified as you’d expect. I mean, the brood mares at Glenaffric, the stallions, Val and her business… I guess she’ll be wanting to buy me out now.’
Miss Pink chewed stolidly, listening with only the surface of her mind, but vibrations must have been apparent. ‘Boring old stuff,’ Sophie announced, now with an edge in her tone. ‘A nuisance for you.’
‘Bad timing,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘Charlie’s death, Edna hitting the bottle. I’ll be fine on Barb. You’ll know where I am.’
Sophie was tight-lipped. ‘I’m scared stiff,’ she confessed, coming clean, as so many people did under Miss Pink’s bland eye and shock tactics.
‘I don’t see why you should be. Admittedly Val thought Jen was involved, but she wasn’t —’
‘Jen thought it was Val.’
‘Really? How do you know?’
‘Jen told Sam.’
‘Ah yes, he’s Jen’s obvious confidant now she’s returned to the fold. And Val is Clyde’s alibi and vice versa — and there’s Edna convinced that Ali was the perpetrator. I take it you rule out Bret; he didn’t have to tell Hilton he went to the cabin. Which leaves Sam —’
‘Oh, no. You might just as well cite Russell —’
‘No. He doesn’t ride.’
‘Melinda! You’re serious!’
‘Police thinking. And I’ve taken over the devil’s advocate role from you.’
‘You really think the police would consider Sam?’
‘They’ll consider everyone in the family, or connected with it. Now I wonder: do they know about Byer? That’s a thought; we don’t know that Val washed the coffee mugs, it was guesswork on my part. You should ask her. There’s no point in her lying now that we know Charlie’s visitor was Bret.’
‘You pointed out that there could have been another visitor at hunting camp.’
‘Bret’s apparition? That had to be a moose.’ Miss Pink was too casual and Sophie’s eyes narrowed.
‘You’re thinking of Byer. Are you meaning to go to his place?’ Miss Pink said nothing. ‘No way!’ Sophie was adamant. ‘If you have any suspicion — and you have, I know you have — then I’m coming with you. For God’s sake, Mel, if there’s a chance he was involved in Charlie’s death I’m not about to let you go to that house on your own.’
Miss Pink protested but Sophie refused to budge. In the event, protests and argument were superfluous; when the Cherokee nosed down the track to Bear Creek, Byer’s horses were in their pasture but there was no sign of his pick-up.
‘Saturday,’ Sophie said, without expression. ‘He could have taken off last night.’ She turned in the yard and started out again.
‘Stop!’
‘Why?’
‘I want to go inside.’
‘Mel! You can’t!’
‘You can’t, you’re his employer’s sister. I have no connection.’
‘Suppose he comes back?’
‘We’ll think of something. He can’t kill us.’
The words hung in the air. Otherwise there was only the sound of the creek, still running high after the rain, and a group of redwings talking in a reedy slough.
Sophie advanced to a dirty window. Miss Pink went to the door and turned the old-fashioned knob. The door opened obligingly. Sophie stared in alarm, but Miss Pink entered as if it were her own property.
It was a shabby little house: two up, two down, of no character other than that lent to it by a horseman. One room was given over to his saddle and tack, a slicker, chaps, old boots and spurs, tins and bottles on the dusty windowsill containing salves and thick brown liquids.
The other ground-floor room was furnished after a rough fashion with two ancient armchairs, a formica-topped table with tarnished gilt legs, kitchen chairs, cupboards, a sideboard and a telephone. There was a television set and a radio, tattered copies of Western Horseman and a stack of magazines on guns and hunting.
At the back there was a slip of a kitchen and a sink, but cooking would have been done on the wood stove in the living-room.
They went up the uncarpeted stairs. There were two bedrooms containing four single beds, only one of which was in use. The sheets were neither dirty nor clean, the blankets looked as if they were military surplus stock and dust swirled in sunbeams at every move they made.
There were clothes in a dark wood closet: mostly the usual possessions of a ranch hand, a few bright Western shirts but an unexpectedly smart fringed jacket in cinnamon suede. There was a new beaver Stetson with a turquoise and horsehair braid, stiff new Levis and a pair of lizard skin boots.
‘That hat will have set him back a few hundred bucks,’ Sophie observed. ‘He had to have stolen it — and look at that jacket! No way could he buy that on a hand’s pay. Curious, you’d expect him to wear his good gear on a weekend trip.’
Miss Pink mumbled something from the depths of the closet. She backed out, studying an object in her hand.
‘Broken cup,’ Sophie said. ‘What’s it doing in the closet?’
‘It’s Wedgwood.’
‘It can’t be. You mean genuine Wedgwood? Something from Glenaffric?’
They stared at each other. ‘I wonder,’ Sophie breathed. ‘Edna has this gorgeous vase — that colour —’
‘Blue jasper. I saw it when she showed me over the house.’
Sophie gasped as the significance dawned on her. ‘He stole it and broke it? The bugger. It had to be worth a small fortune. Where would the rest of it be?’
‘In the creek I would think.’
They moved to the window and looked out at the water beyond the cottonwoods. ‘I wonder what else he took,’ Sophie said. ‘And where he disposed of it? Billings?’
‘Too close. He’d have to go to an antiques dealer and anyone who recognised its value would be suspicious. What’s a cowboy doing with an eighteenth-century Wedgwood vase? He couldn’t fence this one but there were probably others. He’d hardly stop at s
tealing one piece — and would Edna notice?’
‘So he stashed them somewhere till he had the chance to go to a big city? He’s probably got a buddy —’ It hit them both at the same time. ‘Skinner!’ they exclaimed.
*
Edna stared at the three fragments of jasper on the kitchen table. She looked fresher this morning but after a moment it was obvious that she was on a different wavelength from the visitors. She touched one of the blue chips with a finger. ‘A lovely colour,’ she observed. ‘Like my pretty vase in the English room.’
‘Show us,’ Sophie ordered.
They trooped through passages to a shady bedroom where the colour scheme was blue and gold, the spindly chairs poor imitations of the type found in the corridors of great English houses. A flock of Meissen swans floated across the surface of a marquetry dressing-table that even in this dim light looked anything but fake.
‘It’s French,’ Edna said, seeing Miss Pink’s interest. ‘Lewis something.’
‘Louis Quinze,’ Sophie corrected. ‘Where’s the Wedgwood vase?’
‘Wedgwood, dear?’
‘The blue vase. You said those broken bits were like your pretty vase.’
‘The same colour, yes.’
‘Edna! Where’s the vase?’
‘There, you see’ — pointing — ‘the swans swam — no, they’re walking, you can see their little black feet. Aren’t they neat? They arranged themselves round the vase, like they made a setting for it.’
‘The vase isn’t there, Edna.’
There was a long pause. ‘No.’ Edna stared at an empty space in the centre of the white swans. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Have you missed anything else?’ Miss Pink asked.
Edna peered up at her. She really was a tiny ball of a woman.
And exasperating. ‘Such as?’ she asked, trying to be helpful.
‘She wouldn’t know,’ Sophie said. ‘Look at all this junk.’ Her gesture took in the whole house. ‘She’s no idea what she has.’
‘I do so.’ Edna was indignant. ‘And it’s not junk.’
