ten

“Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

“I saw the Clydesdales in a parade once. Does that count?”

Kurt Robinson snickered. “Not exactly.” Taking hold of the saddle horn, he swung his leg over Sugar’s back and dismounted. “Here. Climb up here and I’ll give you a riding lesson.”

Death backed up a couple of steps. “Actually, I just need to talk to you.”

Robinson sighed. “I know. We can talk while you ride.”

“Why do you want me to sit on your horse? And have you asked the horse how he feels about it?”

“Sugar doesn’t mind. He’s a good guy. Riding is good therapy. It can help you with trust and confidence issues, develop muscles … it’s just a good thing.” The Army vet ran one hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Look, man. This is what I do. I don’t know what else to do now.”

And Death had been there, that point where you don’t know what the hell to do, so you do the only thing you know. He reached out one hand and tentatively petted the big gray horse on its nose. It nuzzled him, turning its head to press its forehead against his palm.

He took a breath and stepped forward. “Okay, so how do I get on this thing?”

“You’re on the left side, so that’s okay. You always mount a horse from the left. Gather the reins in your left hand, grab the saddle horn, put your left foot in the stirrup, and swing yourself up.”

Death gathered the reins and grabbed the saddle horn as instructed. He was a tall man, but even so the stirrup was knee-high and it was awkward getting his foot up. He got his foot in it and hopped around on his right foot, trying to find his balance and get into a good position to haul himself up.

Robinson steadied him with a hand on his back. “If you’re having trouble, you can climb the fence and mount or we can get you something else to stand on. We deal with a lot of people with a lot of physical challenges. There are ways to work around them.”

“I’m not physically challenged,” Death huffed, out of breath.

“Sure you’re not.”

Death glowered at the other man, took as deep a breath as he was able, and hauled himself up. He paused, standing with his left foot in the stirrup and leaning over Sugar’s back, until he caught his breath again, then shifted his body around and got his right leg over so that he was sitting up in the saddle.

“See?”

Robinson walked around the horse and put Death’s right foot into the other stirrup.

“Good job,” he said. “You can let up the death-grip on that saddle horn any time now.”

“Ha, ha.” Death relaxed his grip on the saddle horn and sat back in the saddle, feeling out his balance. When he felt marginally secure, he released the saddle horn and sat there holding the bunched reins and feeling vulnerable and stupid. “Now what do I do?”

“Just relax. Hold the reins loosely in your left hand. I’m going to walk him around a bit so you can get the feeling for motion.”

Death tensed up, gripping the reins tighter and holding the horse with his knees. “I don’t think he likes me sitting on him. I wouldn’t like him sitting on me. Probably I should get down now and give him a break.”

“Don’t worry. If he didn’t want you riding him, you’d be on your ass in the dust by now.” Robinson smacked Death’s leg with the back of his hand. “Relax.”

He took hold of Sugar’s bridle and got him moving slowly around the yard. The big animal made for a rocking platform, moving with a gentle rhythm that reminded Death of being on board a ship. He did begin to relax then, settling into the rhythm.

“See? I told you. That’s not so bad now, is it?”

“Nobody likes someone who goes around saying ‘I told you so.’”

“That doesn’t make me wrong. It just makes me unpopular.”

Death rode along in silence for a few yards. “I need you to tell me about Dexter Wallace,” he said finally.

Robinson’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know anything,” he said.

“You gotta know something. He’s one of your best friends, right? Driving around with a guy who’s about to get murdered. That’s the kind of thing that best friends tend to gossip about.”

“Dex wouldn’t kill anybody!”

“That’s what you said about Tony.”

“Neither of them would! Look, I know Dex looks like this big bad biker dude, but he’s just a giant teddy bear. He has a family. He’s got a three-year-old daughter who has him wrapped around her little pinky finger.”

“Man, just stop, all right? Just stop walking for a minute and turn around and look at me.”

Robinson stopped the horse and half turned to shoot Death a resentful glare.

“Where’s Dex now?” Death asked.

“In police custody. They picked him up at home and took him in for questioning.”

“When did you find out that he was the one who drove Jones out here on the morning of the murder?”

“When the police showed up again today, looking for him. I didn’t know. I swear to you. What I think … I think he didn’t even know who Jones was. Just some guy who asked him for a ride. Dex would do that. Give a ride to a stranger, I mean. It doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the guy winding up dead.”

Death sighed. “I’m on your side, okay? I’m trying to help you. But I can’t do that if you’re not going to level with me.”

“I am levelling with you!”

“No, you’re not. You’re being honest when you say that you don’t think he even knew who Jones was and that Dex would give a stranger a ride. But you’re lying when you say that the first you heard of it is from the police today.”

“I swear—”

“Don’t. Okay? Just don’t. Don’t lie to me and swear you’re telling the truth. There are tells. When someone is remembering something, they look to their left and down. When they’re trying to remember something, they look to their left and up. When they’re telling something from their imagination, a story or a lie, they look down and to the right.”

Robinson sighed and deflated.

“I want to help you,” Death said again. “I just need you to level with me. If you’re really not involved and you really believe your friends are not involved, then tell me what you know so I can try to figure out what did happen.”

Robinson turned away, shook the horse’s bridle, and started leading him toward the trees. Death considered the questionable wisdom of calling someone a liar while they were controlling the large, unpredictable animal you were sitting on.

There was a picnic table under the trees at the edge of the woods and Robinson drew to a stop. He took the reins from Death and looped them loosely over a branch.

“Can you get down on your own or do you need help?”

“I can do it,” Death said. He grabbed the saddle horn in both hands again, stood in the left stirrup, and awkwardly pulled his right leg up and over Sugar’s back. He lowered himself until he was leaning against the horse’s side with his right toes touching the ground and his left foot still stuck in the stirrup, and then faltered, trying to catch his balance and figure out how to get his foot loose.

Robinson came up behind him and caught him, supporting him and slipping the stirrup off.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “falling actually isn’t the most efficient way to dismount.”

“You hush.” Death went over to the picnic table and dropped gratefully into the inanimate seat. Robinson took the bench across from him and the two men regarded one another over the expanse of wood.

“So tell me about Dexter. What happened? Really?”

“What I said, mostly.” Robinson put his elbows on the table and leaned his head in his hands. “Zahra was a Muslim. They lived up in the city and she belonged to a mosque there, but they spent a lot of time down here after Tony got out of the hospital, and when she died, this is where he wanted her buried. I don’t know how much you know about Muslim funeral customs?”

“A little,” Death said. “Burial is supposed to take place before the following sundown, right? And don’t they take place outdoors?”

“Yeah. There are other details, but mostly it consists of prayer. Not really that different from Christian ceremonies, I think. You pray for the dead and you pray for the living. Anyway, the main thing is the time constraint. Zahra was killed at night. She was on her way home from some kind of candle party or something and she got broadsided by a drunk driver. Tony was falling apart. Dex and I got with her imam and contacted the local churches in this area and cobbled together a plan.

“The members of her mosque met up in the city that morning and prepared her body for burial, then we transported it down here, to the Episcopal Church because it’s the closest to the city cemetery. We had a Christian memorial service there in the afternoon, then the pallbearers carried her up the street to the cemetery just before sundown and the funeral took place there.”

“That sounds like a reasonable plan.”

“That’s what we thought. We weren’t counting on Tyler Jones and his Church of the Army of Christ. And I’m using ‘church’ there ironically.”

“They showed up to protest, right?”

“Yeah. We had no idea they were coming. I don’t even know how they found out about it.” Robinson laughed bitterly. “Except I do now, don’t I? Augustus Jones had ‘infiltrated’ the mosque posing as a magazine reporter. He must have called and told them.”

“What happened?”

“It was a madhouse. The Episcopal Church is on private property and they were able to keep them back, but the street and the cemetery are public. Normally when a group like that plans a protest at a funeral or such, volunteers show up to form a barricade. But this all happened so fast, with the accident and then having to plan the funeral immediately, we never even considered asking for help. We saw them outside the church. There were a lot of military personnel there, so we put the Muslims in the middle and the Army on the outside, but Tyler Jones and his people were right there. We’re carrying this poor woman’s body to the cemetery and they’re waving signs in our faces and spitting and shouting that God hates us and that Zahra was burning in hell. We’re soldiers, man. Soldiers fight. You know how it is. Things got heated and there were some clashes between the protesters and the mourners. I mean, what did they expect?”

“And that’s when Tony hit Tyler Jones and threatened him? Walking between the church and the cemetery?”

“He didn’t so much hit him. He shoved him away and Jones fell down. And he didn’t exactly threaten him, either.”

“What did he do?”

“He just asked him how he’d feel if it were someone he loved who was dead.”

Death hooked his fingers in the space between the boards on the top of the picnic table and leaned back, looking up. The leaves were still mostly green, just a few yellow and brown among them, but there were fewer now than there had been just a week ago. The sky beyond them was a brilliant blue with a few fluffy, high-flying clouds. He sat up and drew his gaze back to Kurt Robinson.

“That’s a perfectly normal thing to say, but you have to admit it sounds a bit ominous in retrospect, when you realize Jones’ son wound up dead in Tony’s car the next day.”

“Yes, I know. And I know why they think Tony killed him. But I also know Tony and he’s not a killer.”

“You still haven’t told me about Dexter and why he brought August Jones here in the first place.”

“Man, it’s like I said. Jones showed up at the mosque that morning and wanted a ride down for the funeral. He was posing as a magazine writer. We thought he was a magazine writer.” Robinson laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “He said he wanted to do a human interest article on how members of the two different faiths came together during a time of grief.”

Death considered. “So Dexter gave him a ride. But that gas station is between here and town. Did he bring him out here?”

“Yeah, a bunch of us met out here. Jones came along, said he wanted to do some interviews. Dex gave him a ride out and then he and I and the other pallbearers had to leave early to meet the body at the church. Jones said he’d catch a ride with someone else and honestly, I forgot all about him. I never thought a thing about him. Even after they found Tony with his body, I didn’t know that’s who it had been. Not until one of the news stories reported that he’d been posing as a reporter to infiltrate the mosque and they showed a picture of him with some of the members. Dex saw the same report and called me. That’s when we decided it was probably best to just not say anything.”

“Not the smartest decision you’ve ever made,” Death said.

“We didn’t have anything to do with him.”

“But you knew where he was and what he was doing the day he got killed. Not speaking up makes it look like you’re covering for someone.”

“We’re not!”

Death sighed and shook his head. “Okay, so just tell me this: when and where did you see him last?”

“I last saw him just before we left for the church, about three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Where?”

The picnic table they were sitting at was made of metal and weathered oak, with broad, thick gray planks forming the benches and the eating surface. Kurt Robinson reached out and rapped his knuckles on the wood.

“He was here,” he said. “Right here at this table. He was sitting there, just where you’re sitting, talking on his phone.”