Best Kept Secrets (29 page)

What I mean is, whoever done all this was using something

, like a slingshot to knock out the windows and such."

"Like David going up against Goliath," Alex murmured.

Reede's lips narrowed as he nodded in agreement.

The fireman said, "My guess is that this-here rock went flying, landed in one of the vents on the roof of the stable, and shorted out some of the wiring. That's what caused your fire.''

"You don't think it was deliberately set?"

The investigator frowned. "Naw, I can't rightly say it looks

- that way. If I was gonna start a fire, I'd've pitched a Molotov

; cocktail or shot a flaming arrow." His frown reversed itself into a silly grin. "I wouldn't've throwed no rock."

Reede bounced the heavy rock in his palm. "Thanks.''

I After the fireman ambled away, Reede said to Alex, "So much for holding Plummet on an arson charge."

Because the day was unseasonably warm, Reede smelted salty and sweaty, but it wasn't an offensive odor. In fact, she liked it. His dense chest hair fanned out over the upper part of his torso and funneled to a narrow line that disappeared into his belt. Up close she could see that perspiration had made it damp and curly. It whorled over the muscles and around his nipples, which the cooling breeze had drawn erect.

Noticing that made her warm inside. She raised her eyes to his face. A bead of sweat trickled from beneath his loose, windblown hair and ran into his eyebrow. She curbed the temptation to catch it on her fingertip. His day-old beard went well with the grime and sweat on his face.

It was an effort for her to keep her mind on business.

"Have you arrested Plummet?"

"We tried," he said. "He's vanished."

"His family?"

"They're all at home, looking guilty as hell, but playing dumb about the preacher's whereabouts. I'm not worried about it. He won't go far. We'll run down the roster of his congregation. Somebody's hiding him. He'll surface sooner or later."

"When he does, I'd like to be mere when you question him."

He tossed the rock to the ground. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to have tea with Sarah Jo." In response to his incredulous expression, she said, "Her idea, not mine."

"Well, have fun," he said sardonically. He turned his back on her and sauntered toward the barn.

Angus was standing on the porch of the house, feet widespread, overseeing the activity. As she approached, she tried not to let her apprehension show. She wasn't certain how she would be received.

"You're right on time," he said.

So, he knew she was expected. "Hello, Angus."

"Punctuality is a virtue. So's having guts. You've got 'em, little lady." He nodded his approval. "It took guts for you show your face around here today." He appraised her squinted eyes. "In that respect, you're a lot like your

'mama. She was no shrinking violet."

? "No?"

He chuckled. "I saw her hold her own with those two hellions--Reede and Junior--many a time."

His chuckles faded into silent smiles of fond remembrance as he contemplated the horizon. "If she'd lived, she'd've become quite a woman." His eyes came back to Alex.

; "She'd've been like you, I guess. If I'd ever had a daughter, I'd have wanted her to be like you."

Discomfited by the unexpected statement, she said, "I apologize for being even remotely connected to this, Angus."

She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all the damage.

"I hope Reede finds whoever did it. I hope they're prosecuted and convicted."

"Yeah, so do I. Most of it I can overlook." He glanced down at the broken window glass on the porch.' 'But that was a terrible waste of good horseflesh. I hate like hell that Reede I lost him. He took pride in saving up enough to buy him.''

"He seemed extremely upset," Alex said, turning to watch as Reede went to his truck and spoke into the radio transmitter.

"More like enraged. He's as jealous as a mama bear when it comes to anything that belongs to him. It's understandable, I guess, considering how he grew up. Didn't have a pot to piss in, not even anybody to look out for him. Lived on hand

;

me-downs and handouts. Once you've been a scavenger in aider to survive, I reckon it's a tough habit to break. He's mean and testy 'cause at times his life depended on it."

Junior breezed through the front door then, beaming his famous smile. He was in an inappropriately jovial mood. Unlike

~ Reede and Angus, his clothes were spotless. If he'd ever broken a sweat, one couldn't tell it by looking at him now.

After greeting Alex warmly, he said, "Y'all wouldn't be?

lieve the telephone conversation I just had. One of the owners called to check on her mare mat's in foal. Bad news travels fast in racehorse circles," he informed Alex.

"Anyway, she had this high, falsetto voice and was saying,

'My poor baby must have been scared out of her wits.' I reassured her that the mare was in another barn, but she kept me on the phone for half an hour, making me swear that her baby and her baby's baby were okay."

He had imitated the woman's warbling, soprano voice.

Angus and Alex were laughing. Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Alex caught Reede watching them. He was standing perfectly still, and, though it was too far away to tell, she was certain he didn't like what he saw. His resentment seemed to ride the airwaves until they struck her with near-palpable force.

"I'd better go inside or I'll be late for tea," she told the men.

Junior laid a hand on her shoulder. "Mother wants to make amends for her outburst last night. She was tickled pink when you accepted her invitation. She's looking forward to seeing you."

1

Twenty-five

Lupe took her coat and led her upstairs. The maid paused outside a door and gave it a soft tap.

"Come in."

Lupe swung the door open, but didn't go in. Taking that as her cue, Alex stepped across the threshold into a room that could have been a movie set. Her remark was spontaneous and genuine. "What a beautiful room!"

"Thank you. I like it." Sarah Jo looked beyond Alex's shoulder. "Close the door, please, Lupe. You know I can't that draft, and the racket those workers are making is deplorable. Bring up the tea tray right away."

"Yes, ma'am." The housekeeper withdrew, leaving them Alex stood near the door, feeling self-conscious in her low-suede boots and long wool skirt. There was nothing

; wrong with her totally black ensemble, but it seemed glaringly modern and out of place in this ultrafeminine Victorian room, which smelled like a perfumery.

Her hostess looked as right in the setting as a whirling ballerina in a musical jewelry box. The ruffles along the neckline of her white blouse were duplicated around her slender wrists. She was wearing a soft beige skirt that fanned out around her where she sat on a robin's egg-blue damask divan near the window. The afternoon sunlight created a halo around her hair.

"Come in and sit down." She motioned toward a dainty chair near her.

Usually poised, Alex felt gauche as she crossed the carpeted floor. "Thank you for inviting me. This was a very good idea."

"It was mandatory that I apologize as soon as possible for what I said to you last night."

"Never mind. It's forgotten." Junior and Angus seemed to have forgiven her for the unwitting role she had played in the act of vandalism. In return, she could be forgiving toward Sarah Jo.

Curious, she took in her surroundings. "This truly is a lovely room. Did you decorate it yourself?"

Sarah Jo offered a laugh as frail as the hand she raised to her throat to fiddle with the ruffles. "My, yes. I wouldn't let one of those dreadful decorators inside my house. Actually, I copied my room back home item by item, as closely as I could. Angus says it's too fussy."

Alex searched discreetly for something masculine, a shred of evidence that a man had been inside the room. There was none. As though reading her mind, Sarah Jo said, "He keeps his things in another room, through there." Alex followed the direction of her gaze to a closed door.

"Come in, Lupe," Sarah Jo said at the housekeeper's soft knock. "Here's our tea."

While Lupe was arranging the silver service on the tea table, Alex asked conversationally, "You mentioned home, Mrs. Minton. Kentucky, right?"

"Yes, horse country. Hunt country. I loved it so."

Her wistful gaze drifted toward the window. The panorama didn't offer much to please the eyes, just miles of dun-colored earth, until it blurred into the horizon. They watched a tumbleweed roll across the stone patio and land in the swimming pool. The landscaping around it was as dead and brown as a cotton field after harvest.

"It's so barren here. I miss the green. Of course, we have acres of irrigated pasture for the horses, but somehow, it's not the same." Her head came back around slowly and she thanked the maid with a nod. Lupe withdrew. "How do you take your tea?"

"Lemon and sugar, please. One lump."

Sarah Jo practiced the ritual that Alex thought had died two generations ago. She did it meticulously. Her pale, translucent hands moved fluidly. Alex realized then why the custom had died in contemporary America. No one would have the time.

"Sandwich? Cucumber and cream cheese."

"Then, by all means," Alex replied with a smile.

Sarah Jo also added two tea cakes to the small plate before passing it to Alex, who had spread a lacy napkin over her lap. "Thank you."

She sipped her tea and pronounced it perfect. The sandwich was only a sliver of crust-trimmed bread, but the filling was cool and creamy. She hoped her stomach wouldn't make a rude noise when it greedily devoured the inadequate portion.

She had slept through breakfast; it had seemed superfluous to eat lunch so soon before teatime.

Starting on one of the tea cakes, she asked, "Have you returned to Kentucky often for visits?"

hostess prepared her own tea and stirred it idly.' 'Only for my parents' funerals."

"I didn't mean to bring up a sad topic."

"I have no family left, except for Angus and Junior. Anyone with character learns to live with losses." She replaced

cup and saucer on the table so carefully that the china didn't even clink. Keeping her head lowered, she looked up Alex from beneath her brows. "Only you haven't, have you?"

Alex returned the uneaten half of the sugar cookie to her plate, knowing intuitively that they had reached the reason behind this invitation to tea. "Haven't what?"

'You haven't learned that it's best to let the dead remain dead."

The lines of battle had been drawn. Alex returned all the tea implements to the silver tray, even the spider-webby napkin from her lap. "Are you referring to my mother?"

' 'Precisely. This investigation of yours has upset my entire household, Miss Gaither."

"I apologize for the inconvenience. The circumstances make it unavoidable."

"Thugs vandalized my property, threatening the health and life of every horse we own or board, thereby our livelihood."

"That was an unfortunate incident. I can't tell you how truly sorry I am for it," Alex said, appealing to the woman to understand.' Ì had nothing to do with it. You must believe that."

Sarah Jo drew a deep breath. The ruffles around her neck quivered with suppressed indignation and dislike. Her hostility was so palpable that Alex wondered again what possible reason she had had for inviting her here. The need to apologize had been a ruse. Apparently, Sarah Jo wanted to vent a long-harbored grudge.

"How much do you know about your mother and her relationships with Junior and Reede Lambert?"

"Only what my grandmother told me, coupled with what I've gathered since talking to people here in Purcell."

"They were like a unit," she said, lapsing into a faint, reflective voice, and Alex realized that she had slipped into her own private world. "A little club unto themselves. You rarely saw one without seeing the other two."

"I've noticed that in candid shots in their high school yearbooks. There are lots of pictures of the three of them."

Alex had pored over the photographs on those glossy pages, looking for clues, anything, that might benefit her investigation.

"I didn't want Junior to get so deeply involved with them,''

Sarah Jo was saying. "Reede was a hoodlum, the son of the town drunk, of all things. And your mother . . . well, there were many reasons why I didn't want him to become attached to her."

"Name one."

"Mainly because of how it was between her and Reede.

I knew Junior would always be her second choice. It galled me that she could even exercise a choice. She wasn't worthy of the right to choose," she said bitterly.

"But Junior adored her, no matter what I said. Just as I feared, he fell in love with her." Suddenly, her eyes focused sharply on her guest. "And I have a sick feeling that he'll fall in love with you, too."

"You're wrong."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll see to it that he does. Reede, too, probably. That would round out the triangle again, wouldn't it? Don't you want to pit them against each other, like she did?"

"No!"

Sarah Jo's eyes narrowed with malice. "Your mother was a tramp."

Up to this point, Alex had carefully controlled her tongue.

But since her hostess was maligning her late mother, she dismissed her manners. "I take exception to that slanderous remark, Mrs. Minton."

Sarah Jo gave a negligent wave of her hand. "No matter.

It's the truth. I knew she was common and coarse the first I met her. Oh, she was pretty, in a lush, flamboyant f. Much like you."

Her eyes moved over Alex critically. Alex was tempted to get up and walk out. The only thing that kept her sitting in that spindly chair was the hope that Sarah Jo would inadvertently

impart some scrap of valuable information.

"Your mother laughed too loud, played too hard, loved too well. Emotions were to her what a bottle of liquor is to a drunkard. She overindulged, and had no control over exhibiting

her feelings."

"She sounds very honest," Alex said with pride. "The world might be better off if people openly expressed what they were feeling." Her words fell on deaf ears.