Chapter 17

 

I got off the farm as soon as possible, punching out at eleven-thirty and not giving a shit whether anyone would question it tomorrow. I didn't know what to think, but I no longer wanted to entertain the idea of Jenny's father being responsible for Bruce's disappearance. There had to be a perfectly logical explanation for the activities taking place at the bank barn during Bruce's last weekend on the farm. There just had to be. If not, then the answer would most likely destroy Jenny's life, and I didn't want to be a part of that.

I headed straight home. Home? What the hell was I thinking?

In exactly an hour and a half, I had a phone appointment with David Alexander Yates, drug dealer/undercover cop look-alike, and I didn't want to mess it up. More than ever, I just wanted Bruce to be off somewhere, screwing up his life but alive. What the hell? If he'd been hanging out with some unscrupulous druggies, then maybe, just maybe, he'd get out of it unscathed.

If Victor or Paul Genoa had had anything to do with Bruce's disappearance; then I doubted Corey was ever going to see her brother again.

I skipped lunch and pulled into the parking lot in front of the apartment complex. I hated to admit it, but finding the dead foal, along with the pending drug sting or controlled buy as Ralston had called it, and my growing certainty that Bruce had met a bad end, had combined to leave me rattled. I parked in front of unit six-forty-one, and as I switched off the engine, a light green Sebring four-door sedan glided into the spot next to my Chevy. The driver clicked open his door and climbed out. He wore a scruffy-looking denim jacket, jeans, and sneakers, and judging by his build and frizzy hair held back with a rubber band, I figured he was Detective Tyler McPherson.

McPherson nodded at me before he leaned back into the car and withdrew a Giant grocery bag with a bright orange package of Spicy Doritos sticking out the top.

I stepped around the Sebring's hood. "McPherson?"

"Cline?" McPherson's eyes sparkled with amusement; otherwise, his face was without expression. He swept his gaze across the lot as he turned to follow me up the steps. "You catch the game last night?"

"Nope." I flipped through my keys. "I'm usually sleeping then, because of my shift."

"That's gotta stink. I think we would've beat the Celtics if Stackhouse hadn't been nursing that knee of his."

"Maybe." I glanced over my shoulder as we stepped into the foyer and noticed a Toyota pickup pull into the lot.

"I thought our defense was good," McPherson said as he followed my gaze, "and we rebounded well. We just gave up too many points in the fourth quarter."

I slid the key into 2D's mailbox. "So I heard." Turned the key, glanced back into the sunlight. David Alexander Yates climbed out from behind the Toyota's wheel and took his time scanning the lot. The passenger's door opened. He had company. A dark-skinned guy with a shaved head and manicured goatee. Probably Hispanic, but not the guy Fluffy's owner had noticed driving Bruce's car. Not unless he'd grown a goatee and added five inches to his height.

"We got company," I whispered as I gathered the envelopes in my hand and shut the door. "Yates and a friend."

McPherson pivoted toward the entry and slipped his hand under his denim jacket at the small of his back.

"What'll we do?"

"Just go with it," McPherson said quietly as they approached the steps.

"Uh-huh." Sure. We were just going to go with it. Nice. "Eddie Jordan's got his work cut out for him," I said, referring to the Wizard's coach.

"Yeah." McPherson watched them climb the steps. "Arenas had a great game, but when he missed that free throw with seven seconds left in regulation, that clinched it."

"Yeah. It sure did."

Yates eyed McPherson as he paused in the entryway; then he looked at me while the Hispanic guy settled into a wide-legged stance and clasped his hands behind his back. "Talk to you alone?" Yates said.

I jerked my head toward McPherson. "He's with me."

Yates glanced over his shoulder. "Well, let's go up. Talk some business."

I thought about that for a second and didn't see any reason to go upstairs, where we wouldn't have backup or a way out if they decided to pull something. If all he intended was to set up the exchange, it could be done right in the foyer. "I don't think so. Come back when you've got the money."

"I got the money now."

My gaze flicked over both of them. Neither had a package, and I didn't think fifteen grand would be easy to hide. Unless he'd left it in the truck, he was lying. "Bullshit. Anyway, I won't have the blow 'til tomorrow. You want it, come back then."

"When?"

McPherson shifted beside me. "Three o'clock."

Yates narrowed his eyes. "I ain't meeting here."

"You were ready to a minute ago," I said.

"Well, let's just say, I changed my mind." He glanced at the bag McPherson had shifted to his left arm when I'd first mentioned that they were in the lot. "Meet me behind the Giant."

Since I had no idea what controls the police needed in place, I waited for McPherson to say something.

"Sounds good," he said. "Three o'clock. And show up in the Toyota, or we just might not stick around."

"And what will you be driving, Mr.?"

"Derek," McPherson said. "You won't have any trouble spotting us, but we'll be in a green Sebring."

"Fifteen grand," I said to Yates, "or you won't even see the shit."

They glanced at each other. Yates shrugged; then they turned and headed for the parking lot.

When they reached the sidewalk, McPherson backed toward the steps, and when I joined him, he handed me the bag and said, "Upstairs."

I dumped Bruce's mail in the bag as McPherson yanked a cell phone out of his pocket and keyed a number. He headed up the steps. "Did you pick them up?" McPherson said. "A blue on blue late-nineties Toyota pickup?" He paused on the first floor landing, and we watched the Toyota pull out of the lot. "Heading west toward Van Roijen," he said, then spun around the banister and headed up the second flight. "Good." He paused, then said, "I'll call him in a minute."

I sorted through my keys one-handed, and after we entered the apartment, I locked it behind us and ignored a slight tremor that shook the key in my fingers.

McPherson crossed over to the sliders and looked down Waterloo. He keyed in another number, and from his end of the conversation, I guessed he was speaking with Detective Brandon as he explained that we'd made contact earlier than expected.

I set the grocery bag on the coffee table, lifted out the Doritos, and gathered up the mail. Two plastic-wrapped sandwiches, two Cokes, and a bag of Chex Mix sat on top of a black plastic case.

He described the Hispanic guy, told Brandon the exchange had been set to go down behind the Giant, then listened for a couple of minutes without speaking. "Great." He nodded. "We'll go over it when I get back. It's not as ideal as the apartment, but it's got a lot going for it."

He fiddled with the cord that opened and closed the drapes. "A box compactor, a bunch of carts, and they've always got trailers parked back there. Yeah, it'll work real well, and we can park our truck there, and they won't give it a second thought."

McPherson glanced in my direction. "Yeah, he did good." He turned back to the window and listened for another minute or two. "Okay. Later."

McPherson closed his cell phone and crossed over to the sofa. A broad grin lit up his face as he held out his hand. "Name's Tyler."

We shook. "Steve."

McPherson rubbed his hands together. "Well, Steve. You did good. Better than a lot of guys who've done this kind of thing before."

"Thanks."

He rummaged in the bag. "You want something to eat?"

"Sure."

He handed me a ham and cheese on Kaiser, then pulled out a Coke and sandwich for himself. Ever since Yates had driven off, I'd sensed McPherson's energy level building. A kind of nervous energy that fizzed around him like static electricity.

"So, what's tomorrow gonna be like?"

McPherson perched on the edge of the sofa's armrest. "Brandon tell you anything?"

I shook my head as I bit into my sandwich.

"We'll set up behind the Giant well ahead of schedule, especially since they didn't stick to the game plan today. Backup'll already be in place in several locations, behind the compactor or one of the trailers and in a beat-up delivery truck we got. Looks like a piece of shit, but runs good and has plenty of room for our tactical team and all their gear. We'll be in the Sebring with the dope. Yates will probably be the one with the cash, and no doubt he'll bring his goon. I'll try to get them in the car with us, so the guys don't get in a chase." McPherson took a bite of his sandwich, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "After the transaction, as soon as they get out, we'll pull away, and the guys'll grab 'em before they have a chance to get in the truck."

I swallowed some Coke. "What if they try to rip us off?"

"Backup will be all over them. We'll be fine."

"I had a feeling they would have ripped us off today," I said, "if they thought they could get their hands on the dope."

McPherson stopped chewing. "Hard to say."

"'Hard to say'? You thought so, too."

"Look, Steve. They're paranoid. Difficult to judge at the best of times. We'll be okay. You'll see." He looked around the room. "This isn't your place, right?"

"Right."

"After the bust, you're gonna want to clear out. They'll both be in the joint until they make bail, but you never know who they might call. You don't want to worry about them sending someone over here . . ."

He didn't finish his sentence, as it wasn't necessary. I swallowed some more soda. "If you get a lead on Bruce Claremont, I won't need to stay here any longer."

McPherson nodded. "Ain't no guarantee they know what happened to him, and if they do, ain't no guarantee they'll talk."

"I know."

He grinned. "Then again, they might get the misimpression it'll help their case if they tell us what they know."

"Sounds good to me."

McPherson shifted onto a seat cushion and slouched against the backrest. "So, what got you into this? Looking for Claremont?"

I shrugged. "A friend asked me. His sister. Since there weren't any signs of foul play, the cops wouldn't look into his disappearance, but it needed looking into."

He nodded. "Besides the drug connection, you have any other ideas on his whereabouts?"

I glanced at my half-eaten sandwich and drained the rest of the Coke. "None that I'm ready to talk about."

"Fair enough."

McPherson finished his sandwich. "Can you get over to the station by one tomorrow?"

"I'll be there."

McPherson folded the bag, bundling the rest of the contents into a wad.

"What else you got there?" I said.

"Gear for recording the phone call."

"And the reason for the food?"

"Props," he said. "Plus, I knew I'd be hungry and didn't think you would have had a chance for lunch, either."

"Thanks."

He shrugged. "Thanks for helping us."

Before he left, I unlocked Bruce's car, and McPherson slid behind the wheel and dusted surfaces likely to yield prints. He paid particular attention to the back of the rearview mirror and the door handles. After he took off, I switched to a Miller Lite and sank into the cushions. In the past two weeks, I'd gathered a lot of facts about the people who worked at Stone Manor. The problem was, I had way too many theories. Assuming Yates knew what he was talking about, I liked to think that Bruce had sold his dope and had gone to Florida or Vegas. In that case, he wouldn't have taken his car since it was likely to break down. He would have hopped a plane or bus. But why not call his sister? Was he that irresponsible?

I didn't have anything on the agenda for the rest of the day. Rachel had her Applications class, and if I sat around Bruce's apartment any longer, I'd end up worrying about the pending controlled buy--why in the hell did they call it that, anyway?--so I took a shower and drove to the library.

It took me an hour to find an article on the accident that killed Deirdre's parents. Seven years earlier, Philip and Frances Thorndike left their home on Bear Wallow Road to attend a Christmas party in Loudon County when Dr. Thorndike lost control of his car. The vehicle careened off the pavement and crashed into a rock outcropping that jutted from a streambed. Although the temperature had been below freezing, the roads were dry.

A nighttime grainy photograph, thankfully lacking in detail, showed the tail end of the sedan's undercarriage. Apparently, the vehicle had slipped behind a guardrail and traveled parallel to it for sixty feet before plummeting down an embankment where it had impacted a boulder the size of a dump truck. Although the reporter didn't come out and say it, it appeared speed had contributed to the accident.

I printed the article, then twisted the knob, skimming the days that followed, looking for coverage on the funeral arrangements. When a blurry photograph slid onto the screen, my fingers tightened on the knob.

The hulk of a burnt down house loomed against a cloudless sky.

An early morning fire Thursday tore through a newly-constructed two-story house southeast of Warrenton, leaving nothing but a brick shell and fireplace standing. . . .

I scrolled through the weeks that followed and discovered two more fires at regular intervals before they stopped altogether. I printed the articles, but whether or not they were connected to my fires remained to be seen. Each one had involved a house under construction, not vacant buildings or barns. Technically, they didn't fit the profile, but they were close enough. Close enough that I couldn't stop the one question I would have preferred left unasked from squirreling its way into my mind. Had Victor set them?

When I pulled into the apartment complex at a quarter to five, most of Bruce's neighbors were still at work. The temperature had taken a nosedive as the sun sank toward the mountains, painting the ridge gold and deepening the eastern face to purple in the failing light. Long shadows stretched halfway across the high school's grounds, yet I could swear the grass had begun to green after a few days' warmth.

I took the steps two at a time, and as I rounded the banister on the first landing, I stopped short. A guy I didn't recognize stepped off the landing midway between the first and second level. He gripped the railing with a meaty hand, and the smooth metal squeaked under his palm as he hustled down the steps toward me. I backed out of his way and didn't start breathing until he circled around the banister and continued down the stairwell.

I stood still and listened to the whine of tires on the street below, to the sound of a trash truck in the Food Lion's back lot lowering a Dumpster to the asphalt with a shuddering crash, to the hum of traffic on 211. The noise pushed against the apartment building and eddied around the corners and filtered into the foyer. I listened for any noise, a scrape of a shoe, the clearing of a throat, anything that indicated that someone was in the stairwell above me.

When I heard nothing out of the ordinary, I continued up the steps. The second floor landing was empty. I glanced in the stairwell leading to the third before I crossed over to Bruce's door. I let myself into his apartment and locked the door, feeling slightly foolish that I'd let myself get so spooked.

I got a Miller Lite out of the fridge; then I organized all the articles I'd collected over the last two weeks into chronological order. I spread them across the living room carpet before rooting through the kitchen cabinet for my marked-up calendar and a notepad. I scribbled Victor/arson/juvenile record/age sixteen across the top line and added 30 years ago. I knelt on the floor at the beginning of the row of printouts. The next event occurred ten years later: Deirdre's engagement to Lloyd Strauss followed almost immediately by his death in a barn fire. That event had been the catalyst for three more fires. A year later, Deirdre and Victor married, catapulting Victor into a social bracket he would have been unlikely to achieve on his own. I listed the events along with their dates.

Three years after they married, Deirdre graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in veterinary medicine, and ten years later, Jenny was born. As she neared her first birthday, Deirdre's parents were killed, and their deaths were followed by another series of fires. What I found increasingly disturbing was the fact that Victor had benefited hugely from both events. First, he marries into money. Then, since Deirdre had been an only child, one would assume she'd inherited the farm and accumulated wealth after her parents' death. Victor and Deirdre had certainly made the most of it, transforming what had been essentially a gentleman's farm into a hugely successful breeding operation. And they were still expanding. The training barns were so new, the paint had barely had a chance to dry.

I didn't know much about the psychology of arson but supposed stress could be a natural trigger. The fact that Lloyd Strauss's death and the automobile accident were both followed by fires did not bode well for Bruce.

I moved back to the beginning of my row of papers, spaced over the floor like so many playing cards, and started through them, again. The afternoon sun slanted through the sliders, casting long bars of shadow across the carpet and warming my shoulders. When I finished reading the article about Deirdre's engagement to Strauss, I was once again struck by the difference between the expense lavished on their party versus Victor's. As I studied the photograph of Deirdre and Strauss, I wondered how she could have moved on so quickly. If I'd loved someone enough to marry them, I doubted I would have recovered as fast. Before I turned toward the next article, a figure in the far corner of the photograph caught my eye. I squinted and, for the first time, noticed a young Victor standing on the fringe of the party.

I went to bed around seven, tired but restless as I waited for sleep that wouldn't come. But sometime after ten, when the dark had deepened to a blackness achieved only in the dead of night, I slipped into a restless sleep. Disjointed images paraded behind my eyelids: Jenny tilting her head back to look in my face, a smudge of chocolate on her upper lip; Dr. Nash narrowing her eyes and telling me something I couldn't hear; Victor standing in the cold sunlight outside barn ten, his face lit with a broad smile; the hem of Elaine's dress slipping up her thigh as she crossed her legs; an unshed tear caught in Corey's long blond lashes; a thin brown streak tracking down a grocery bag.

A metal door swung open, and barn eight's aisle stretched before me. The dead foal was back where I'd found him, a silvery lump spotlighted under a cone of white light. A cold breeze curled under the eaves and stirred the dust particles that hung in the air. They swirled beneath the harsh light like a sudden exhalation of breath. I had no intention of walking down there. Yet, while I had the distinct impression that I was anchored in place, the row of stalls at my side and the roof above my head and the asphalt beneath my feet began a slow crawl to a point somewhere behind me, and I was propelled deeper into the barn.

Something large and heavy and primal rustled through the straw to my right as the foal's inert body drew closer. I slowly turned my head. A muscular stallion leaned into the stall front. His wild eyes caught and held the light as he stared down the aisle. He turned to circle his stall once more, and I noticed his massive erection and felt the wave of intensity that emanated from his sweat-soaked skin in a wall of heat that burned my face.

His stall continued its slow slide past me, along with the rest of the barn, and a feeling of dread welled up in my stomach and tightened around my lungs. The foal was moving closer. I wanted to turn and run. To get out of that barn. To stand under the stars and breathe in the clean night air. I forced myself to look down the aisle and watched in horror as the dead foal lifted his head off the ground. He splayed his front legs and lurched to his feet; then he swiveled his neck around and looked at me with milky, lifeless eyes.

A child's laughter sliced through the cold air like the tinkling of glass bells, and Jenny stepped into the barn aisle directly in front of the foal. She wore a ruffled pink dress and white tights and shiny patent leather shoes. Her hair was lifted off her neck with curled ribbons, and she looked like she should have been blowing out birthday candles instead of standing in a dark barn in the middle of the night. She stretched out her arms and spread her fingers toward the foal's face, and I wanted to yell at her, to warn her. I opened my mouth as a film of red moved across the foal's milky eyes.

Although no sound came from my throat, Jenny turned her head as if she'd heard my cry. Her gaze was drawn to something above my head as the foal reared onto its hind legs and clawed the air. Her mouth gaped open as she stared at whatever horror rose behind me and breathed its hot foul breath on the back of my neck.

I tried to warn her, to tell her to run as the heat intensified and seared my back. I jerked my eyes open and stared at the bedroom ceiling. I was out of breath, as if I'd been running, and a film of perspiration coated my skin. I shifted on the damp sheets and squinted across the room at the red glow from Bruce's alarm clock. Two-thirty. Time to get up.

* * *

Maddie was in barn two, foaling out the mare in the stall next to Sumthingelse. She was crouched at the mare's hindquarters with her hands gripping the foal's slippery cannon bones. The head and neck had been delivered, and the mare was bearing down in an effort to push the shoulders through.

"You want me to take over, Maddie?"

She shook her head. "Not until I get him out, then you can finish."

I smiled. Maddie would want to mark this one down as her own, and rightly so, even though the follow-up chores would be left to me. Rubbing the foal dry, clipping on the tail tag, medicating the navel . . . I'd learned that she kept a record of every foal she'd ever delivered, the date and time, all the details of the birth, the foal's pedigree.

I scanned the aisle. Maddie had assembled everything I could possibly need. Her people skills had something to be desired, but she sure knew her job.

The mare groaned and, with a final gritty effort, delivered the foal into the straw. Maddie peeled the amniotic sac down to the foal's hips and cleared his nostrils before she slipped out of the stall.

"We got a filly or colt?" I said.

"Colt." She pulled a pen out of her back pocket as she moved around me, and there was something odd in the way she hunched her shoulders forward and canted her head, and I suddenly realized she hadn't once looked at my face. She crouched down in front of the door and jotted the time of delivery on the index card that stuck from behind the stall's name plaque.

"Maddie," I said softly. "What's wrong?"

The tip of her pen froze above her initials.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," she whispered.

She stood and stared into the stall. As I pivoted her around, she lowered her head and turned away from me. Her thick curls fell forward across her cheek.

I placed my fingertips under her chin and turned her to face me.

An ugly bruise darkened the skin around her right eye. The swelling forced her eyelids closed. She bit her lip and looked back in the stall.

"Bastard." I gritted my teeth. "Where does he live, Maddie? Tell me."

She shook her head. "I'm going home," she whispered. "You've gotta stay here and take care of the horses."

"Maddie, are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No. He didn't mean to do it," she said. "It just happened."

"The hell it did."

"He loves me more than anyone ever has, it's just that . . ." She shrugged and exhaled a shaky breath. "It's nice to be loved, I just don't love him back."

I smoothed her hair off her forehead. "This isn't love, Maddie."

"My whole life," she swallowed and looked me straight in the eye, "all I've ever wanted was for someone to love me." She pulled away and headed for the exit.

"Maddie?"

She kept walking, and in a moment, I heard the farm truck start up and churn through the gravel.