On the Run (13 page)

“You better take a look at what I got here. Cleo or Badger could take care of you real good, way out here in the boonies.”

Curiosity got me, and I followed him to the rear of the pickup. He jumped up beside a crate, opened the door, and grabbed the collar of the creature that lunged out. I should have guessed what was in there, considering the T-shirt.

“This here’s Cleo.”

Cleo was all white, slick haired, heavy bodied as a tank, her head short and thick, a faint rim of pink around her eyes. I know one shouldn’t judge by appearances, which probably goes for dogs as well as people, but Cleo looked as if she could take on anything up to and including the size of the Hummer. And would relish the chance to do so.

“Is she . . . uh . . . trained?” I asked warily, since it seemed to take an iron-armed grip on the heavy leather collar to restrain her.

“Gentle as a kitten till she gits the signal to attack,” he said proudly. I shoved my hands behind my back, wary of unintentional signals. “I heard the Northcutts were lookin’ for a guard dog, but I couldn’t git their phone number. So I decided just to drive on out, since I was up from Hugo delivering a dog to some other folks.”

“I don’t think we’ll be needing—”

“Or if you’d prefer a male, Badger’s a humdinger. Bigger too. But a little more money.”

“No, don’t bother to get him out,” I said hastily. “We really don’t need a guard dog of any size. You don’t know why the Northcutts wanted one, I suppose?”

He looked around at the encircling forest. “Pretty isolated out here. Lot of weirdos on the loose. Though in these times, the biggest dangers ain’t lurkin’ in the woods, are they? They’re sittin’ back there in Washington, D of C, pullin’ down their fat salaries and takin’ away our rights.” He nodded knowingly. “Man’s got an opinion that don’t suit ’em, he’s in danger.”

“Oh,” I said, a bit taken aback by this ominous outlook on civilization. “Well, thanks for coming, Mr. . . . ?”

“Riger. Simon Riger.”

“If the Northcutts’ son is interested in a dog, I’ll tell him to get in touch with you, Mr. Riger.”

He reached in a rear pocket for his wallet and handed me a card that revealed only his name and phone number. He shoved Cleo back in the cage and swung over the side of the pickup and into the cab with surprising agility.

“Did you have anyone specific in mind when you asked about someone killing the Northcutts?” I asked. “An enemy or someone with whom they’d had differences you’d heard about?”

“I met a guy they had workin’ for them, odd name . . .”

“Ute?”

“Yeah, he was the one said they were thinkin’ about a guard dog. Seemed like a nice guy. Maybe he’d know somethin’.”

A nice guy. Perhaps “nice,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. “Ute doesn’t seem to be around anymore.”

“That so?” Simon Riger turned the key, and the pickup issued a snort and rumble accompanied by a blast of black smoke. I backed away as he wheeled the battered vehicle around.

“Don’t take no Confederate bills,” he yelled with unexpected cheerfulness and a departing wave. “At least not yet.”

He took off, leaving me mildly perplexed and standing in a cloud of billowing dust. Abilene came out of the emus’ shed. I wasn’t certain if she’d been deliberately hiding, perhaps because of self-consciousness about the black eyes and bruises, or just busy in there.

“Who was that?”

“A Mr. Simon Riger. He wanted to sell us a pit bull guard dog. She looked mean enough to chew up nails and spit out tacks.”

Abilene frowned after the departing pickup. “They can be really nice dogs, unless some idiot gets hold of them and teaches them to fight or attack.”

“Is that so?” I murmured. I wasn’t convinced of that, but I was convinced tenderhearted Abilene could find good in any of God’s creatures.

Frank Northcutt finally returned about 5:30. I was pulling weeds in some scraggly flower beds at the edge of the yard. His shoulders slumped with weariness. Impulsively I asked if he’d like to join us for dinner.

“It’ll just be chili and corn bread from the freezer, but it will save you having to fix something.”

“Sounds good,” he said instantly. The lines in his forehead relaxed a fraction. “Just let me go in and clean up first, okay?”

I’d invited him because he looked as if his spirits needed propping up, but I had to admit to an ulterior motive as well. I wanted to find out what had happened with Sgt. Dole and the medical examiner, and Frank’s reaction to their conclusions.

14

Frank showed up at the motor home twenty minutes later, package of Sara Lee cheesecake in hand. “I found this in the freezer. I think all you have to do is thaw it out.”

I eagerly accepted the frozen package. My best friend Thea and I had enjoyed many a Sara Lee cheesecake back on Madison Street in Missouri. “Thank you. I didn’t have anything planned for dessert.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the stuff in the house,” he said after I motioned him to a seat on the sofa and handed him a glass of iced tea. “The freezers are full, the cupboards are overflowing, there’s enough food and toilet tissue in there for two people to hole up for a year.” He paused. “Of course, that’s probably what Jock and Jessie had in mind.”

“Can’t you just take the food home and use it?”

“Some of it, I suppose. The store-bought stuff. But there’s a lot of unidentified meat and other unlabeled packages in there. Mikki would have a fit if I dumped all that on her.”

“Did your father hunt?”

“I don’t think so. But Jessie may have taken it up. She had a bow and arrow that looked as if it could bring down an elephant. And she was gung-ho on the idea of living off the land. Some of the packages in the freezer may be emu meat.” In a disgruntled tone he added, “Considering what they paid for those dumb birds, the meat should be worth thirty or forty bucks a pound.”

The dinette could seat four people, but anything over two put your elbows in each other’s ribs, so we ate outside. I offered a blessing, but I resisted asking nosy questions about Frank’s day. The cheesecake was a perfect ending for the spicy meal, lusciously cool and creamy. Afterward, Abilene gathered up the dishes and took them inside to wash.

“Well, I’ve got a lot to do, so I guess I’d better get at it.” Frank put his hands on his knees as if he were going to stand up, but he didn’t move. I sensed a reluctance to get at it, whatever “it” was.

“You didn’t have any problem finding Sgt. Dole?” I asked.

“He’s stationed over in Horton, where the courthouse and jail and medical examiner and everyone are located. The sheriff’s department doesn’t keep anyone stationed out in Dulcy.” He sighed. “It’s been a hard day,” he added on a weary note.

“We’ll be glad to do whatever we can to help.”

“I had to identify the bodies.” His throat moved in a convulsive swallow, and he sounded a little dazed. I’d had to identify a body once, so I knew the dazed feeling. “Though I don’t think there was ever any doubt about who they were. Just one of those formalities, I suppose.”

“Sgt. Dole told you about the . . . circumstances of the deaths?”

Frank nodded. “He showed me the note. A double suicide. Although, technically, they call it a homicide/suicide. At least now we don’t have to worry about some maniac killer running around loose. He said I can get the gun back later, though I’m not sure I want it. He gave me Jessie’s earrings and wedding ring.”

“You recognized your parents’ signatures on the note?”

“They’re easy enough to recognize. Jock’s never was readable. Looks like the graph of a wild day in the stock market. Jessie always put those little triangular dots over the
i
in her name, though her signature was the only place she ever used them.”

Small distinctions in the handwriting of each parent that made them easy to identify. And also might not be difficult to fake? But I kept the thought to myself. Frank apparently had no reservations about the official findings on the deaths, and, as Sgt. Dole had pointed out, there was nothing at all to suggest that this wasn’t exactly what it looked like: a suicide pact.

Nothing except my suspicions. And Abilene’s. Both of which, I had to admit, were founded more on old mystery plots than concrete evidence. Although there was also a not-quite-definable ripple of what my good friend Magnolia from back on Madison Street would call “vibes.” Vibes that raised questions.

“Was what they did totally unexpected? A complete surprise to you?” I explored lightly.

“A total shock, that’s for sure.” Koop came around and sniffed at Frank’s shoe. Frank casually put out a hand to stroke the cat’s back, and Koop suddenly shot into the air like a fur ball version of a champagne cork. He hissed and spit, flipped a somersault, and shot into hiding under the motor home.

“What’s with him?” Frank asked, obviously astonished. He inspected his hand for damage.

“Do you smoke? Koop has kind of a thing about smokers.”

“Apparently he doesn’t give credit if you’re trying to quit,” Frank muttered, obviously not appreciative of Koop’s inclination toward instant judgment.

“No, I guess not.” I couldn’t see any scratches on his hand.

“That was about how Jock and Jessie felt about smoking too. I didn’t smoke until Mikki and I got married, and, the way they carried on, you’d have thought I’d taken up axe murder as a hobby.”

“Were either of them having health problems?”

“I don’t think so. I was up one weekend last winter when Jock was cutting wood for the fireplace, and even at his age he could out-chop me.”

“Drugs?”

“Jock took some medication to lower his cholesterol, but that’s all. Oh, you didn’t mean that kind of drugs, did you?”

“No.”

“They may have been into the drug scene when they were hot in Hollywood. I think pot and cocaine were the chips-and-dip of their crowd. But they were much too health conscious for anything like that now.”

“Did they seem depressed?”

“No. What they were was . . .” Frank paused, eyebrows drawn into a frown. “Paranoid.”

I immediately wanted to ask more, but he went on before I could think how to phrase a tactful question.

“Is it possible to be surprised and shocked about something, and yet at the same time realize that deep down what you’re feeling is,
This doesn’t really surprise me
”?

I nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I think that’s possible.”

“In one way it strikes me as unbelievable they’d do this. Take their own lives. Kill themselves. Yet in another way, there seems a certain . . . inevitability about it. They were so disillusioned about everything. So suspicious of everyone.” “That’s more or less what their note said.”

“I’m still sorting it all out. I guess I will be for a long time.”

“I’m so sorry.” I paused, not wanting to ask upsetting questions but still curious. “Did the medical examiner determine a time of death?”

“I don’t think he pinned it down exactly. But approximately two to three days before you found the bodies. Apparently the door was unlocked when you arrived?”

I had to explain, then, about how we’d discovered the bodies. I was afraid Frank might be disturbed about our method of entry, but instead he nodded gratefully.

“I’m glad you were concerned enough to go to all that trouble. No telling how long it would have been before the bodies were found if you hadn’t.” He looked off toward the old barn. “I guess the only thing that really surprises me is that Jock was the one who carried it out. I’d have thought Jessie would be more likely. She was . . . the stronger personality. More decisive. And hotter tempered too. I remember them telling how at some script conference, she got mad, piled up all the copies of the script she could grab, and set fire to them with a cigarette lighter. That was back in the days when both of them smoked like chimneys, of course.”

I was rather appalled, but Frank smiled fondly. “She was quite a legend around Hollywood. She was a better shot than Jock too. We target practiced one time I was here, and she could outshoot both of us. Although I have to admit it doesn’t take much to outshoot me.”

We sat there in silence for several minutes. He seemed deep in thought, and I mulled over what he’d said about Jessie and guns. Abilene came out and sat in a chair off to one side. Koop, still keeping a disapproving eye on Frank, jumped in her lap.

Finally I said, “A man came by earlier today. He said he’d heard your parents were interested in buying a guard dog, and he had a couple of pit bulls with him.” On a tentative fishing trip I added, “I’ve been wondering if they were afraid of something. Or someone.”

“Oh, they were afraid, all right. They thought somebody, maybe everybody, was out to get them. More of their nutty paranoia. I’m just glad they hadn’t already bought some ferocious beast, which would have been another problem I’d have to deal with.”

“Are you suggesting . . .” I paused, trying to decide how to phrase this tactfully. “That they may have been . . . mentally disturbed?”

“Oh no, not in any true sense of needing psychiatric help or anything like that. They just thought the worst of . . . everybody. And they took world and national problems very personally.”

“You mean events such as 9-11?”

“Right. They were in New York when it happened. It was actually what pushed them into moving here. If something happened . . . No, in their thinking,
when
something happened, they figured they had a better chance of survival here in the woods than in L.A. But even before that they were all shook up about Y2K. Remember all the doom-and-gloom prophecies about how the world was coming to a screeching standstill when 1999 rolled over into 2000?”

A lot of people were apprehensive then, I remembered, although it hadn’t worried me. I figured it was a man-made dating of time, and I was secure in God’s time line.

“And since 9-11 there have been Afghanistan and Iraq, which I’m sure reaffirmed their fears and suspicions.”

“They thought the country was in danger of attack? Another terrorist strike or maybe even nuclear war?”

He nodded. “At any moment. Virulent disease organisms planted in public water supplies. Destruction of the power supply. Some Star Wars–type attack that would simultaneously destroy every big city in the U.S. Although they worried just as much about our own government, I think. That it was either going to become an all-powerful ‘Big Brother’ controlling every thought and action, or the whole system was going to collapse into anarchy, and it would be every man for himself.” He looked at me and smiled wryly. “I figured they were way off base, but listening to them for a while, you began to think maybe
you’d
better start stockpiling food and guns and ammunition.”