Perfect Touch (13 page)

“Sara and I will stay until you can send someone up here tomorrow,” he said, his voice neutral as it had been from the first word he had spoken. “We're in the main house. Don't know how the weather is in town, but it's raining pretty good up here. If the temperature drops much more, it will snow.”

“I'll send someone up first thing in the morning, but it will be afternoon before they get there. Rain plays hell with that road.”

“No hurry. They're not going anywhere.”

“I'm sorry, Jay. The Solvangs were damn good people.”

“Yes. And they were murdered just the same.”

With savage restraint, he switched over to the home ranch frequency. Henry picked up immediately.

“Inge and Ivar are dead,” Jay said. “Murdered. Tomorrow morning, send the new hands up in a four-wheel rig to . . .”

Sara did her best not to hear the sad details and regrets all over again. Instead, she concentrated on fixing food. The living had to eat in order to take care of the dead. Screaming and crying and cursing wouldn't do anything but waste energy that was necessary to take care of all the details for the dead. And for the survivors.

At least the cows don't have to be milked, with their scheming eyes and shit-covered tails waiting for a chance to smack me in the face.

She shook off the past and concentrated on what she could do in the present.

The rich smell of coffee began to fill the room. It was followed by the tang of gun oil as Jay began cleaning the rifle and the Glock. He knew the Glock wouldn't need it—he'd seen it take a mud bath and come out firing just fine. The rifle was different. It required more care.

In any case, he needed something to do with his hands. Part of him hoped that the murderers would return. He would enjoy getting up
close and physical with the kind of cowards who murdered good people just because they could.

“Cleaning a pistol was part of my training,” Sara said.

“I'll take care of this. But thanks.”

She watched him for a moment—deft fingers, swift, experienced motions—and was glad she was cooking rather than fumbling her way through cleaning a weapon.

A closer survey of the pantry turned up onions, dried peppers, garlic, and cooking oil. The sink had running water. Cold. Apparently the solar panels were out or only generated enough electricity to run the lights. Gritting her teeth, she washed her fingers in well water so cold that it made her hands ache.

Very quickly the smell of chopped onions overcame that of gun oil and coffee. Jay finished with the Glock and set it aside, loaded and ready to go.

Sara handed him a mug of coffee.

“There's canned milk in the pantry,” she said, “along with some sugar. Want either one?”

“No thanks. I'll take it straight up,” he said, reaching for the mug. “Whoa, your hands are freezing. I'll turn on the generator. Water should be hot by the time we do dishes.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “That would be great. I was thinking of having to warm water for dishes and baths and . . .”

He smiled slightly. “Mom felt the same way. She said she'd put up with the racket a generator makes to have hot water at night.”

“Your mother was a wise woman.”

Moments after Jay went out the back door, a diesel generator sputtered, caught, and thundered happily to life. When he came back in, Sara was frying onions and chopping garlic. She opened a can of chili,
looked over at the size of the man who was settling back in to clean the rifle, and opened four more cans, dumping their contents into the big frying pan with the onions.

“Do you want your canned green beans on the side or in the chili?” Sara asked.

“In it works for me. Fewer pans to wash.”

“Good point.”

She added more wood to the fire and went back to stirring. After a few minutes, she tasted and immediately went looking for cayenne pepper. It was in the pantry, along with some other spices she could use.

By the time Jay was done cleaning the pistol, the chili was simmering on the stove. He cleared away the cleaning materials and set out flatware on the small kitchen table where he had worked on the weapons.

Sara cut off thick slices of bread. “Grab a plate and fill it.”

He came up behind her, slid his arms around her waist, and slowly, gently, kissed the side of her neck. “Thank you.”

Her breath stopped. “Opening cans takes no particular talent.”

“I was talking about being you, being what I need.”

She leaned back against him with a long sigh. “I feel so useless.”

“Looking at death, we all feel that way.” He pulled her closer for a moment. “Keep my dinner warm. I'm going to feed the dogs and check that the storage room in Ivar's toolshed isn't leaking on anything important.”

The knife hit the counter with a clang. “The Custers! How could I have forgotten them? We should bring them to the house.”

“If necessary, I'll take care of it.”

With another gentle squeeze, he released her. She turned quickly and hugged him back.

“I'll bank the fire and meet you at the toolshed,” she said.

“You don't—”

“I need to check the paintings,” she interrupted, looking up at him. “And I should be smacked for not doing it sooner.”

“You'll have to walk past the bodies to get to the paintings,” he said.

His eyes were dark and bleak and made her wish that she could put light back into them. But she couldn't. Only time could.

“Then I'll walk past them,” she said evenly.

A single look at Sara's face told Jay that arguing was a waste of time. “There's a flashlight in the drawer to the right of the sink and cleaning rags under the sink. Soak them with the pine cleaner and throw in some ammonia. Stuff the rags in a covered pot and bring it with you.”

She gave him an odd look.

“I put a tarp over the bodies,” he said. “It takes chemicals to cover the smell.”

She lifted her chin.
It can't smell worse than pulling that dead calf did.
“I'll be at the toolshed in five minutes.”

Without a word he stepped away from her. He rummaged in the cupboard, found two bowls, and filled them with kibble from the pantry. Then he stepped out into the rainy twilight and shut the door behind him.

I
T TOOK SARA
less than five minutes to get to the boathouse, but Jay was already there, waiting for her. Lightfoot waved his tail at her once, then returned to guarding the small outbuilding, watching from the open door of the boathouse. Rain came down steadily, coldly. She could see her breath between the drops.

The instant Jay opened the door to Ivar's retreat, she reached for the small pot she carried. The pungent smell made her cough and all but stunned her nose, covering the smell of death. She followed him inside, walking in his wet boot prints, fighting her gag reflex.

Throwing up doesn't help. It just makes you weaker, and the job still has to be done after you've cleaned up your own mess.

She kept repeating the words from her childhood as she followed Jay through the room that stank of death.

The overhead light showed only the ragged blue tarp draped over
the bodies. Blood reached beyond the tarp. Quickly she looked away, fighting herself until her stomach stopped trying to crawl up her throat.

Ahead of her were walls and counters of neatly arranged tools. She concentrated on their patterns and was grateful she hadn't eaten recently.

“The junk room is over there,” he said, pointing with the flashlight. “We'll go along the outside of the wall so if we leave any tracks, they won't be confused with any the killers left. Don't touch anything with bare fingers.”

She swallowed hard again, took another sniff from the pot, and breathed through her mouth. And she carefully didn't think about the tarp. With quick steps she went through the door of the junk room, used her elbow to turn on the light, and stepped aside for him.

“May I look in the boxes?” she asked. “I can put on my mittens.”

“Good idea.” He tucked the flashlight under his arm, took his riding gloves out of his jacket, and pulled them on before he shut the door.

She breathed out in relief at having a closed door between her and the bodies. Carefully she circled the pile of odds and ends in the center of the floor in order to examine the first packing crate. It had been carelessly opened. The splintered boards and random nails looked like they had been wrenched out and thrown aside.

Though the overhead light was barely adequate, she could see that every slot in the first crate held an unframed painting on the original canvas stretcher or particleboard, whichever Custer had used. No sign of water damage on the wood or on the floor beneath.

“Can we take them to the house?” she asked.

“Not without messing up the death scene even more.”

“Then I'll photograph each one, front and back,” she said, taking
her phone from her jacket. “If you hold them for me, it will go quicker.”

He went to the box she had been working over and gently pulled out a painting. Her breath came in at the beauty and energy of the work emerging from the dusty crate. She took several images in succession.

And she tried very hard not to think about the incredible cultural treasure she was recording. There would be time later to exclaim and laugh and soak in the paintings, letting them soothe the ugliness of murder.

“Over, please,” she said.

The back of the canvas held a few scribbled notes—time, place, title.

“Is this Custer's handwriting?” she asked.

“Think so.”

“Okay. Next,” she said.

He pulled out another painting for her to photograph.

Very quickly they worked out a rhythm of removing, digitizing front and back, replacing, and removing another painting. Not all of them were Custers. Apparently JD—or his wife—sometimes had purchased other painters.

Sara had to force herself not to linger over paintings only a few people had ever seen.

“How many paintings in that last carton?” she asked.

“Nine.”

“Fifty-six paintings, total. Fifty of them Custers.”
And not one of them a portrait.
She lifted the lid from the pot and breathed in a whiff. “Incredible.”

He didn't ask if she was referring to the paintings.

She coughed and covered the pot. “What's in those cardboard cartons along the wall over there? Custer was careless with his work. He could have stacked smaller paintings in the cartons.”

“I'll find out.”

Jay went to the first carton and carefully slit the wide tape sealing the box. “Looks like papers.” He reached in and flipped through random stacks. “Old records kept by Inge.”

The next two boxes were the same.

“Keep going. Please,” Sara said.

The fourth carton held Custer's papers. So did the fifth. The sixth one held field studies he had painted on everything from canvas to particleboard, with a few even painted on cardboard.

No portraits.

Beautiful plein air studies, yes.

People? No.

“Can we take these with us now?” Though her voice was even, her eyes pleaded.

“We have to walk out anyway. I don't see any harm in carrying three boxes that the jackals didn't even bother to open.”

Breath rushed out of her. “Thank you. Papers in cardboard are much more vulnerable than oil paintings in special wooden crates. I know the cardboard boxes have been safe for however many years, but . . .” She shrugged, unable to explain.

“I understand. Too much has been lost as it is.” He closed the three cartons of Custer's papers and paintings and picked them up, two under one arm and one under the other. “Take the lid off the pot and leave it. The deputy will thank us.”

She put the open pot on top of a bench, switched on her flashlight, and led the way back to the main house. The fresh air was staggeringly beautiful. The rain hadn't changed, except maybe to get colder. It certainly seemed frigid to her.

I'm just tired and . . . hungry.

Once the smell had vanished, Sara's normal healthy appetite had returned with a vengeance. She would have been embarrassed, but a farm girl learned young that death and hunger were a part of life.

The house mudroom was warmer than the outdoors, but not by much.

“I'll put the boxes in the den,” Jay said, “and bring in some more wood. The bin here is nearly empty.”

Sara shook the rain off her jacket and headed for the woodstove. The fact that it was barely warm told her how much time they had spent with the paintings. Her stomach was also registering a nearly continuous, rumbling complaint. A glance at her watch made her realize that it had been too long since they had last eaten. Quickly she went to work on the fire.

“Dinner will be hot in fifteen minutes or we can eat it cold now,” she said as he headed back to the mudroom.

“Make it half an hour,” he said, snagging his cold mug of coffee and downing it in three long gulps. “We need wood.”

Even more, I need to pound on something.

But he didn't say anything about that. She had been a good partner. If she was managing to think of something besides murder, he didn't want to remind her.

The chili was bubbling fragrantly on the stove. The coffee was hot. Sara's stomach rumbled continuously. The rhythmic sound of chopping outside was like the sound of the generator. Relentless. She had heard Jay working even over the sounds of her meal preparation and the noisy generator.

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

What is he, a machine?

Chop.

Chop.

Well, I'm not. I need food.

She poured a mug of coffee, put on her jacket, and headed out to lure him away from the woodpile. Rain and wood smoke from the stove blended in the cold air. Pulling her jacket closer, she turned the corner of the house.

And stopped.

Jay's back was to her, muscles bunching and releasing as the ax rose and fell, wood all but exploding apart. He kicked pieces aside and lifted the next section of log into place.

He didn't have his jacket on, or even long sleeves. He didn't need them. Steam rose steadily from his white T-shirt, mixing with the rain. The work lantern he had hung on the eaves threw every line and curve of his body into sharp relief beneath the nearly transparent cotton.

Sara bobbled the coffee mug and barely held on to it. And she stared at him, compelled by his grace and his sheer, mesmerizing power.

I'd like to rub myself all over that fine male body.

The pile of split wood was knee deep around Jay before he stopped to wipe sweat from his eyes.

“Mind sharing that coffee?” he turned and asked.

She unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth and cleared her throat. “You can have anything you want.”

Some of the hard lines on his face shifted into a crooked smile. “Anything, huh? I'll keep it in mind. But right now I'll settle for some coffee.”

She tried not to stare at his body as she handed over the mug. Not
looking wasn't really possible. The hair on his chest was like smoke against his soaked T-shirt. His jaw was highlighted by dark stubble.

He makes Michelangelo's
David
look like a boy. It would take Rodin to capture Jay's raw male power.

“Coffee?” he reminded her, but his eyes were gleaming with inner laughter.

“I spent years in art classes looking at the male form,” she said, giving him the coffee. “Yours is—Oh my. I'm trying to think of words when all I want to do is . . . shut up. Yeah, that would be a really fine idea. Shutting up right now.”

She turned to go back into the house.

He snagged her by her jacket collar, pulled her back, and gave her a coffee-flavored kiss.

“Thanks,” he said when he lifted his head.

“For the coffee?”

“For taking my bad mood and turning it into something else.”

“My pleasure. Dinner's ready.”

He didn't point out that dinner wasn't all that was ready. “I'll have my knees under the table in ten minutes.”

“Don't hurry on my account,” she said, appreciating him with her eyes all over again.

“I've never taken a woman in a cold rain. Right now, taking you is sounding like a really good idea.”

Her head snapped up so that she could see his face. “You mean it.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Try me on a warm night, rain optional,” she said, then bolted for the house before he could stop her.

He was still laughing when she shut the door.

Feeling much better herself, she set plates out to warm on top of an
upside-down frying pan on the stove. She stirred the chili, checked the fire again, and decided that she would do a quick survey of the contents of the boxes in the den. She poured herself a mug of coffee and sipped gingerly at the hot liquid as she walked to the den.

“Where to start?” she said under her breath, eyeing the cartons.

She went to the first carton of papers and rifled through, looking for intact notebooks or good sketch paper with drawings. She didn't find any. It looked like half the papers had been ripped from someone's notebook or torn off a writing pad. Most had doodles or sketches. Quite a few were caricatures.

Custer had a wicked, cruel eye. I doubt that anybody paid him for a caricature. Belted him with a fist wrapped around a roll of nickels, more likely.

The generator's background rumble stopped suddenly. The mudroom door opened and closed, followed by footsteps going up the stairway off the living room.

She wondered if Jay was wearing his soaked T-shirt or if he had already stripped it off.

Focus,
she told herself sternly.
And not on sex.

The shower came on. Her thoughts strayed—and stuck on what he must look like naked with hot water pouring over him. She shook herself. Hard.

Focus.

It had never been so difficult.

The next box held field studies and miscellaneous papers, often Custer's notes to himself on some aspect of the painting he had in mind.

Awesome.

People eat up this sort of personal history with a spoon. I'm really hoping a lot of these studies can be matched to the paintings Jay has. And if one of the field studies is of
Wyoming Spring,
I'll dance naked in the snow.

Alone,
she added hastily.
No audience.

With another mental smack to her wandering attention, she bent down to the third box. More papers, doodles, and sketches that could have been an end in themselves or a means to new paintings. There was no way to tell unless some of them matched up with existing paintings.

“Want to shower before you eat?” Jay asked.

Sara choked back a shriek. He was even quieter in his bare feet.

“Shower?” she asked blankly, staring at his feet.

She had never considered a man's feet one way or the other, but his looked strong and . . . edible.

“Maybe I should eat first,” she said, dragging her gaze away from the floor and craning her head to meet his eyes. “I'm really hungry.”

“Then let's eat,” he said as she came out of her crouched position over the boxes.

“Don't get your hopes up. All but one can was vegetarian chili,” she said, standing and stretching. “I considered going after King Kobe, but it was raining really hard.”

“I thought about it, too. Decided to work out my mad on the wood, instead.”

“Ah, well. I can always open the canned beef I found.”

He shuddered. “No thanks. JD loved that crap, creamed on toast. I'd rather eat corral scrapings.”

“Makes two of us. My grandfather used to call it SOS.”

“Shit on a shingle?”

She nodded as they headed into the kitchen. “Somehow, it never sounded appealing to me, so I stuck with peanut butter on my toast.”

Jay put the pot of chili on the table and held out her chair for her. “Smart girl.”

She grinned up at him, then served him a heaping plate of chili. He sat and waited for her to pick up her fork.

“Eat,” she said. “There's plenty for seconds, so I'm not worried about you getting a head start.”