Killer Dust (35 page)
Authors: Sarah Andrews
I gave him an embarrassed grimace. “Tell me about your son.”
Frank glanced away. “He’s fine,” he said too quickly. “Growing gangbusters. Great kid.” His voice caught. “A couple challenges. School stuff. But what did he expect, with me for his dad?” Fighting his way out of his emotional logjam, he said, “How long you be in town?”
“Just until tomorrow, I think.”
“You gotta meet him.”
“I’d like that.”
Now his gaze once again dropped to my left hand, from which I had removed the mitten. “You married?” he asked, trying to make it sound like an idle question.
“No.”
“Seeing someone?”
I met his eyes. This was a new Frank, a more blunt and inquiring Frank, not the reclusive soul I had known and had somehow left so long ago. But the turbulence was still there, and the pain, now mixed with new agonies, and the joy his son had brought him. Had all this blown the restraints off his personality? “Yes, I’m seeing someone,” I said, steeling myself for his reaction. “He’s overseas. The Middle East. Military reservist who got called up with this current fracas. You know the pace.”
Frank gave me a compassionate stare.
I couldn’t stand his caring. “I’m doing great, Frank. I’ve been working on my Master’s in geology at the University of Utah. I’ve almost got the coursework done.”
His face brightened. “That’s great, Emmy.”
“Thanks. I’ve been living at Faye’s so I can help with the baby while I go to school.” Realizing that this sounded pretty shiftless for a person my age, I added, “The baby’s dad was killed, and … I figured she needed a friend.”
“Killed?”
I closed my eyes. This wasn’t going well. Each time I
tried to divert the focus of the conversation away from myself, I managed to open another door into a room I did not want to enter. “Tom was an FBI agent,” I said, picking the version of the truth that was easiest to say, and easiest to understand. “He was killed in the line of duty.” This wasn’t precisely accurate: It avoided certain facts, such as that with the baby coming, Tom had left the Bureau so that he wouldn’t have to take on risky projects. That there was “just one more job” that he felt he had to do. That I was with him when he died.
tried to divert the focus of the conversation away from myself, I managed to open another door into a room I did not want to enter. “Tom was an FBI agent,” I said, picking the version of the truth that was easiest to say, and easiest to understand. “He was killed in the line of duty.” This wasn’t precisely accurate: It avoided certain facts, such as that with the baby coming, Tom had left the Bureau so that he wouldn’t have to take on risky projects. That there was “just one more job” that he felt he had to do. That I was with him when he died.
When I opened my eyes, Frank was staring at the baby, his face raw with emotion. He gave Sloane Renee a squeeze, as if she was a life ring cast off a boat in a storm. Kissed her hair. Nuzzled his nose against her scalp. She began to fuss. “Oh, there, there,” he whispered. “There, there. I’m just old Frank. I don’t bite.”
The woman at the counter called his name, and he handed me the baby while he got his sandwich. Back at the table, he ate quickly, taking in huge bites without tasting his food. The coffee he bolted after adding three little tubs of cream. As he slurped it down, he asked, “Where you staying?”
“We’re just down at the Pawnee.”
He nodded. His kind of place, cheap, comfortable, and unpretentious. “I’ll walk you there.”
I said, “Actually, we’re on our way to the museums.”
“My truck’s parked halfway down.”
We loaded up and left the cafeé. I toted the backpack over one shoulder and he carried baby Sloane. A block down the sidewalk, Frank asked, “So your friend has an airplane?”
“Yes, a twin-engine turboprop job, goes like spit. But it’s just been sitting in a tie-down in Florida, and she wants to bring it home to Utah. She worries about corrosion from the sea air. So if ol’ Mr. Krehbeil has the bucks, I guess she’ll be doing some flying again. Or maybe I hope he says no, and she gets reasonable and sells the plane.”
Frank stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “Who’d you say her client is?”
I spun around and slapped my hands over my face in embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I had spilled the client’s name. What was I thinking, that just because Frank never left Wyoming he wasn’t part of the world? “Oh, nobody,” I said lamely. “Just some old geezer who needs some paintings moved.”
The look on Frank’s face was scaring me. “You said, ‘Krehbeil.’ It’s not a common name.”
“Yeah … but you didn’t hear that. She’s supposed to be real discreet about this stuff, you know?
Tell
me you don’t know him! Oh hell, Frank, I thought he was from back east somewhere. It never occurred to me that he might be from here, and that she might be taking the artwork somewhere else!”
Tell
me you don’t know him! Oh hell, Frank, I thought he was from back east somewhere. It never occurred to me that he might be from here, and that she might be taking the artwork somewhere else!”
Frank’s face tightened further. “If he’s any relation to the Krehbeils I’m thinking … well, you don’t want to get mixed up with that bunch, Em.”
“No, wait! I’m sure he’s from somewhere back east. The contact was some guy Faye knew in college, and this is his dad or something.”
He shook his head. “You know there’s a lot of fancy people from the East who come out here for the summer, especially that artsy set. The Krehbeils got a hobby ranch outside of town here, up beyond the reservoir.”
I winced, realizing how thoroughly I had stepped in it. “Old money?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Yeah, if you mean the guys who have it didn’t make it. Miz Krehbeil was in her eighties, and the place goes back a generation or two.”
“What do you mean,
was
in her eighties?”
was
in her eighties?”
Frank looked both ways and lowered his voice before he said, “She died a few months ago.”
I didn’t understand his clandestine behavior.
“That’s not unusual for someone in her eighties, is it?”
Frank had begun to hunch his shoulders like he always did when he was half mad and half worried. “No, but
there’s rumors that everything wasn’t quite right.”
there’s rumors that everything wasn’t quite right.”
“It must be a different Krehbeil.”
Frank hugged the baby more tightly with one hand and reached out the other to cup my elbow. “Em, this isn’t good. I know you. You wind up right in the middle of every fight that’s going down. It’s an instinct of yours.”
Sloane had picked up on the tones of our voices and was beginning to fuss. I reached out and took her into my arms, shaking my head vehemently. “No way, Frank. I was a headstrong little twit when I worked around here, but I’ve grown up a lot, I swear it. Hey, this little baby here has taught me a lot about being responsible and covering my butt. It’s Faye that’s out chasing trouble this time, not me. And the job won’t go through anyway. Even if the old guy does want her to do it, he won’t pay enough to cover the avgas it would take to fly the plane, let alone what it would take to make the plane legal to fly. It has to go through its annual airworthiness check, and there are always expensive repairs, and Faye’s annual FAA flight review to fly commercially is overdue. She’s kidding herself. She doesn’t even have a current medical clearance. Hasn’t flown since she was seven months pregnant.”
Frank’s scowl deepened. “She was flying an airplane at seven months?”
“That’s another part of why your pal here was a preemie.” On cue, the baby broke into a full bawling cry. We had arrived at his truck as we began to argue, and had stopped walking. “I’d better keep moving, rock her to sleep,” I said.
“Here … I’ll bounce her,” he said.
“Just put her in the backpack, please.” I didn’t like to be hard on Frank, but it really bothered me when Sloane got tweaked, and I wanted to be alone with my inadequacy. In the months since Sloane Renee had been born, I had held her for hours every day, trying to walk off her colic, trying to get her to sleep so Faye could, too. And since the introduction of solid foods, I had given her at least half of the feedings. I knew her every mood and every dimple,
knew what made her smile and what made her cry, or knew these things as well as anyone did, but that did not make her mine, and she at times like this, she let me know it. “I’m sorry. I think just walking quietly is the best thing, with as few distractions as possible.”
knew what made her smile and what made her cry, or knew these things as well as anyone did, but that did not make her mine, and she at times like this, she let me know it. “I’m sorry. I think just walking quietly is the best thing, with as few distractions as possible.”
“Then I’ll stop by later,” he told me, and to Sloane he said, “You’re a lucky baby. Auntie Emmy’s a very good mom.” He gave me a look of longing. He turned. He started to walk away, but turned back. “I … I’m not sure I’ve made it clear about the Krehbeils. There’s really been some talk, Em.”
“See you,” I said, a bit more forcibly than was necessary. I turned also, and headed resolutely toward the museums. I felt like a prize also-ran. Here was a fine man who was wonderful with children, and I had left him.
One block farther along, I heard him call to me again. I spun around to hear what he was saying. A passing truck swallowed his words, but they sounded like, “Take care.” A common enough phrase, and yet the look on his face said that it was less a wish than a warning.
KILLER DUST
Copyright © 2003 by Sarah Andrews Brown.
Excerpt from
Earth Colors
© 2004 by Sarah Andrews Brown.
Earth Colors
© 2004 by Sarah Andrews Brown.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781466818057
First eBook Edition : April 2012
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002031889
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / February 2003
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / March 2004
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / March 2004
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