The Winter Widow (25 page)

“I've never known her to,” Parkhurst said.

She frowned, shook her head, wandered back through the kitchen. When Parkhurst opened the door, the cats swooped out. The sky had turned a lighter gray, with a pinkish line across the horizon. Buttermilk screamed and crashed inside the barn.

She stared at Parkhurst, then, with a quick intake of breath, ran to the barn and shoved open the door. Buttermilk, eyes wild, screamed and reared, banged front hooves against the stall.

“What the hell—” he began.

“Stay here.” As she moved slowly toward the horse, she spoke softly. The old mare bared long yellow teeth, snaked out her neck and snapped with a wicked clack. Susan ducked aside. Still murmuring softly, she reached out to unlatch the door, then stood well back.

Buttermilk, snorting and stomping, bumped open the door and came out, eyes rolling with fear. Parkhurst scrambled out of her way. In an ungainly trot, she headed outside.

Susan went into the stall, throat tight with a brassy taste. Thin daylight barely penetrated the deep shadows. Sophie lay below the manger, crumpled inside the long black overcoat, her face parchment white, head resting in a sticky puddle of blood.

“Oh, Sophie,” Susan whispered and knelt beside the old woman.

“Shit!” Parkhurst said, and took off running.

CHAPTER TWENTY

SHE yanked off a glove and laid her fingertips against the old woman's throat, just under the point of the jaw. Oh Lord, oh Lord, she couldn't find a pulse; her hands were so cold she couldn't feel anything. God dammit, Sophie, don't you dare be dead!

She blew on her fingertips, massaged them and flexed her hands, then tried again. Nothing. Shit! Wait, no wait. Oh God, please. Yes, yes. A faint thread fluttered beneath her fingers.

Letting out a long sigh, she scrambled to her feet and sprinted for the barn door. Parkhurst handed her a quilt. “Ambulance on the way,” he said. The rosy flush of dawn poured light through the doorway, and as she knelt in the soiled straw, she saw evidence the horse, panicked by the smell of blood, had trampled on the old woman. How much damage had those big hooves caused? Was anything left unbroken inside that black overcoat?

“Hold on,” she muttered, helping Parkhurst spread the quilt over Sophie. “They're coming.” Gently, she tucked the quilt around Sophie's shoulders.

What had happened? Judging from the amount of blood under her head, Sophie obviously had a severe head injury. Had she fallen or been knocked down by the horse and struck her head? Or was it only meant to look that way?

The cats had come to watch and sat in a row in the doorway, the sun behind them creating cartoon-cat shadows.

Sophie moaned; her eyelids fluttered and she moved her hands.

“Just lie still, it'll be all right. Lie still.”

Sophie opened her eyes and stared at Susan with sharp awareness. “What time is it?” she said clearly.

“A little after seven.”

“Headache.” Sophie fought at the quilt, trying to free her hands. “Have to get up. Feed the cats. Have to—”

“Don't try to move.” Susan took the agitated hands from under the quilt to still them. “You've had an accident.” Where the hell was the ambulance?

“Accident.” Sophie's voice grew faint. “No … not…”

“What happened?”

“Pain … pain … hit…”

“Someone hit you?”

Sophie's eyes closed. “Brenner. I don't— Brenner?”

“Brenner hit you?” Susan asked urgently, wondering if she should be asking anything at all.

“Hurt…”

“Who hurt you, Sophie?”

The old woman's eyelids flickered open, eyes unfocused and unseeing, then closed and she moved her head, moaned. “Old sins,” she mumbled, “old sins,” and lapsed again into unconsciousness.

Susan looked up at Parkhurst as she felt for a pulse, dreadfully afraid the thin flutter was gone. Hearing the wail of a siren, she muttered, “About time.” Parkhurst hurried out and she followed more slowly.

The ambulance roared toward the barn and a young paramedic leaped out before it fishtailed to a stop with a scatter of gravel. He raced to the rear and had the stretcher ready by the time the driver flung open his door and jumped down. Parkhurst pointed and they sped past her to the stall.

They ran knowledgeable hands over the old woman, lifted her carefully and strapped her on the stretcher.

“Is she still alive?” Susan asked as they rolled Sophie from the barn.

“So far.” They slid the stretcher into the ambulance, and one paramedic climbed in beside it.

“Will she make it?” Susan asked the driver.

“I wouldn't give a lot for her chances,” he said and tore off in a spatter of gravel.

No, Susan thought.

“I reported in to George,” Parkhurst said.

She was a little surprised and felt a little guilty that George was already at his desk when it wasn't yet seven o'clock; dear George, no doubt doing work that should be hers.

“He'll put out a pickup on Brenner Niemen, and I told him to tell Osey to get his butt out here.”

*   *   *

SHE headed for home, driving directly into the morning sun; it gave very little warmth, but its glare was blinding. She nudged the heater up another notch. Why had Brenner taken the rifle? For protection? Or to kill somebody else? If that's what he wanted, he'd had plenty of time. The phone call—assuming Sophie made it—came about one-twenty last night and—again assuming Brenner had hit her—he'd had up to six and a half hours. He could be anywhere by now.

Why had he attacked Sophie? He hadn't killed her, only dumped her in the stall to die or let the horse finish her off. Meant to look like an accident? The other two murders had been quick kills; why had he bungled on Sophie? Couldn't bring himself to off his old auntie? It wasn't a sure thing Buttermilk would finish the job, but if they had been a little slower in finding the old woman, Sophie would have been dead.

The air in the enclosed cab had grown toasty warm and thick, with a noxious stench, she suddenly realized, and sniffed cautiously. Strong enough to make her eyes water. Odors of ripe urine and horse manure saturated her clothes. Hurriedly, she rolled down the window and treated her lungs to a gulp of cold air.

At home, she left the pickup in the driveway, went straight upstairs to the bathroom and peeled off her rank clothing, then got under the shower and stood for a long time, luxuriating in the hot water beating down on her. She soaped her body, let the suds rinse off and shampooed her hair.

Leaving the bathroom in clouds of steam, she padded into the bedroom, took a pair of white wool pants from the closet and stepped into them. I've lost weight, she thought, glancing at her reflection in the mirror; the pants hung from her hipbones, and her face seemed different, thinner and harder, a little gaunt, with cheekbones more pronounced. I look older. She grimaced at her image, then put on a pale-blue silk blouse, blow-dried her hair and covered over the ravages of too little sleep with some makeup.

Her eyes were gritty and she was aware of fatigue, but she felt wired. Finally, finally, she was making progress. “You're getting there, kid. I knew you could do it,” she told her reflection, then scooped up her raunchy clothes and went down to the kitchen. Under the sink, she found a plastic bag, bundled in the clothes and set it outside the door. Later she'd drop it at the cleaners.

The kitchen could use some attention: dirty dishes piled haphazardly in the sink, ashtrays heaped with cigarette butts, books and newspapers scattered over the table, dust balls on the floor and spiderwebs on the ceiling. Her mother, if she knew, would be silently disappointed.

She ran water in the teakettle, set it on the stove, then rinsed a cup and spooned in instant coffee. Waiting for the water to boil, she stood at the sink looking out the window. A pair of sparrows flew to the bird feeder, perched a moment, then flew away. She never had filled it. Sorry guys, I won't be around to feed you, I'm going home. Soon. Find Brenner, then thumb my nose at Mayor Bakover and take off.

The teakettle shrieked and she dumped water over the coffee crystals, stirred and carried the cup to the table. She munched on a piece of toast.

Brenner, with his housing development in serious financial difficulty, needed money—according to Lucille's friend Doug McClay, a lot of money. Susan was convinced Brenner had arranged for the toxic-waste dumping and the slaughter of beef. He took money from whoever needed to get rid of waste, gave some to Vic and kept the rest, paid Floyd for freshly killed beef and sold the stuff for a profit. How much would that bring?

Enough to be worthwhile, or he wouldn't have taken the risk. He'd picked his accomplices well: Vic, vicious and amoral, only too pleased to receive money for a useless piece of his land; Floyd, with his skewed sense of being owed, overjoyed at getting back at people who had done him wrong.

Brenner. Lucille believed Brenner had killed Daniel. She had been right. Somehow, Daniel must have found out about Brenner's illegal activities.

Shaking a cigarette from the pack, she stuck it in her mouth and flicked the lighter, then stared at the tiny flame as a thought struggled through the clutter in her mind. She'd met Brenner in the small parking lot behind an office building. Sophie had snagged somebody's cat and he had released it. Ah, Susan thought, finally realizing what had made her uneasy; such a small thing and of no real importance. After Sophie stomped off, he had walked Susan across the street directly to the pickup; if he hadn't been here for nine years, as he claimed, how had he known what she was driving? He could have been following her. No. She had followed him.

She smoked the cigarette, drank the coffee and added the cup to the pile in the sink.

On her way to the police department, she stopped at the hospital and asked about Sophie. The old woman had concussion, a broken hip, broken ribs, and various abrasions and contusions; her chances were not good. Sam Rivers was still clinging to life. The doctor's tone implied his chances weren't good either.

Hazel, crooning over her spider plants with a long-spouted watering can, looked up when Susan came in. “How's Sophie?”

Susan shook her head. “But she's still alive.”

“We can only hope and pray.” Hazel sighed. “When is it all going to stop?”

“We're getting there,” Susan said sharply.

“Hey, don't snap at me. I'm on your side, remember?”

“Sorry.” Susan took a breath. “Bakover only gave me till the end of the week. But now Sophie's been hurt, I'm afraid he'll snatch back even that.”

“You look like you haven't had any sleep. I'll get you some coffee.” Hazel shoved the watering can in a cabinet, then poured a cup and handed it to her.

She took a sip. “Anything going on?”

“One thing,” Hazel said reluctantly.

“What?”

“The hospital just phoned. Sam Rivers died right after you left.”

Damn. Oh damn. She remembered the fluid movement of the bull as he lowered his head and swept Rivers up on one horn as though he weighed nothing. “Anything else?”

“Helen wants you to call.”

Susan nodded vaguely. She went into her office, tossed her coat over the coatrack and sat at the desk to sort through the trickle of information that had come in about Brenner. Nothing solid so far, but they'd only just begun. The reports of lost dogs, complaints of trespassing and traffic violations, she glanced at and set aside. The one interesting item was a report from Osey, impeccably typed, of his trip to Kansas City to look into Brenner's housing development; it was on the edge of bankruptcy and Lucille Guthman had, indeed, been asking questions.

Susan wondered if Lucille had told any of the people she talked with that she was staying at the Drake Hotel and if one of them passed along the information to Brenner.

The phone at her elbow buzzed. “Captain Dayton on the line,” Hazel said. “Kansas City police.”

“Put him on.”

“Chief Wren, I presume?”

“That is correct, but if it makes you feel any better, you can call me Susan.”

He made a sound like a rusty chain pulled across wood; she assumed it was a laugh. “You have something on Lucille Guthman's murder?”

“Not yet, give us time,” he said. “About that call from Ben. Asking us to check on a Joe Calvin?”

Who the hell was Joe Calvin? “Right,” she said, as though she knew what he was talking about.

“Calvin is working for the Ford dealer, just like Ben thought.”

Why was Parkhurst requesting information about this Calvin person?

“And,” Dayton said, “there is an Emma Lou Pollock living with him.”

“I see.”

“A pleasure doing business with you,” he paused, then added, “Susan.”

So. Vic Pollock had not killed his wife and buried her somewhere; she was alive and well and living with a car salesman in Kansas City. Susan could see ol' Vic, in a fit of drunken rage, going through that wretched house and removing every trace of his runaway wife.

Joe Calvin? She
did
know that name; somewhere she'd run across it. Searching through dusty mental files, she finally remembered where she'd seen it: Lucille's office. Lucille had written an article about him for the newspaper, two months ago, saying Calvin was moving permanently to Kansas City.

*   *   *

IN the late afternoon, the wind started blowing, mildly at first, then building in violence until by five it howled fiercely and beat against the office window. Still nothing about Brenner, no sign of him, no indication where he might have gone.

She drummed impatient fingers against the desktop, shoved back the chair and prowled to the window. She wanted to be moving, doing, out there tracking down the bastard. Dammit, everything was being done that could be done. She had no idea which way the trail led and she'd accomplish nothing by tearing blindly in all directions.