Under the Boardwalk (19 page)

She shook her head.

"You have another theory, Hallie. Come on, spill it."

"I could be totally off," she said. "I don't want to plant suggestions in your head. What do you think it means?"

He sat down on a bale of alfalfa and went over the page again. She paced back and forth, feet crunching on the dry straw. When he finished reading through both sides again, he turned the page over several times, as if reading the margin notes again. "Aha," he said thoughtfully.

She stopped her pacing and faced him. "Aha?"

He set the paper on the hay bale next to him, then stood up and grabbed the empty bucket. He walked over to a water tap in the wall, and she followed.

"At the time, I wouldn't have noticed if the coroner had said they were bitten by a tsetse fly," he said, half to himself. "I was pretty out of it. I had been off in my first year of college, thinking I was going to be a doctor and live up to some predetermined plan I'd gotten in my head when I was a little kid. I thought I was so grown-up. Then all of a sudden I get this call to come back, and my whole life turned upside-down."

He turned on the tap. The stream hit the metal bucket with a clatter. They silently watched the water reach the rim and slosh over, then he turned off the tap.

He carried the bucket back to the stall and hung it from a hook in the corner. "My mom was a doctor," he went on. "My dad ran the rancho. The younger kids would take over the family legacy, I would follow my mother into medicine. Everything seemed settled. I went off to college thinking I'd always have El Pajaro to come back to—but that it wasn't my responsibility. All of a sudden, there was nobody left except the kids, and somebody needed to take care of them."

He sat back down on the hay bale. "It was a bad time. I'd lost both my parents, and it hit me all of a sudden how alone I was. I felt like the floor had been knocked out from under me. But Jen and I got married, like we'd originally planned to do when I finished college. We were both looking for someone to lean on, I guess. We thought we were going to be the perfect couple with a ready-made family."

She hadn't even known he'd been married. "Why did you get divorced?" Hallie asked, then blushed. "Not that it's any of my business," she added.

He smiled at her. "She dumped me." He cocked his head and looked at her thoughtfully. "She was a lot like you in some ways."

"And she left you?" Hallie blurted out.

Kyle laughed out loud. "Hard to believe, isn't it? I mean, I'm so
perfect
and all." He said sarcastically. "But we had some problems." He looked at Hallie with a trace of a smile on his lips, and a look in his eyes that Hallie couldn't quite identify. "Yeah," he said softly. "You're a lot alike."

He picked up the paper again and looked it over. "Murder's a strong word, Hallie." He said it quietly.

She walked over and stood in front of him. "But you reached the same conclusion I did—as they did. It's the only logical explanation."

"The only logical conclusion?" Kyle leaned over, elbows on knees, and stared at the page. "It can't be the only conclusion. But if it is true... who would want to kill them?"

"Who?" Didn't he see?

The tone of her voice made him look up. "What?" She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. "Oh no," he said. "I know what you're thinking but.... No. Tom's family."

"That's what Tom said," she said. "He said he wouldn't hurt his own family. But what other explanation is there?"

Kyle put his head in his hands. "The whole thing's crazy. I just can't believe Tom could...." He stopped.

"Commit murder?" Hallie whispered.

Kyle looked at her. She could see the sorrow in his eyes. "We don't know that."

"But you can't just ignore this."

"No. I can't. But what am I going to do?" he whispered to himself.

She handed him the phone. "Call the police, of course," she said. "What else can you do?"

He took the phone and set it on the hay bale next to him. He shook his head. "Not yet—not yet," he repeated when she started to protest. "Listen. This is a small town—and Tom, for all his faults, proven and alleged, is still family. I can't publicly accuse him of murdering my parents and doing who knows what to Windy and Zac just because of a note scribbled on an old newspaper."

"But you can't just let it go." She felt sick to her stomach. A parent abuses a child—
Keep it in the family
. A husband beats his wife—
Don't tell outsiders.
That was what people always said about this sort of thing. It's just a little family murder, sweep it under the rug.

"What's the matter?" Kyle asked her. She realized she'd been staring angrily at him, tears in her eyes. Kyle jumped up and came to put his arms around her. She shied away. "What is it?"

She brushed away the tears. "Just because he's family doesn't mean you can overlook a murder," she said roughly. "It's never okay to hurt people."

He took her hands in his, cradling them together in his palms. "I'm not overlooking anything," he said softly. He lifted her hands and brushed his lips against their scarred backs. "No one has the right to hurt anyone else—being family is no excuse." He wrapped his arms around her, and this time she didn't shy away. "If Tom had something to with my parents' deaths, I'll make sure he's locked up for life. And if he did anything to my kids—" He paused and took a deep breath. He pulled back to look her in the eye. "I'm not trying to protect a criminal, Hallie. But if I accuse Tom and I'm wrong, it'll destroy him. I can't do that."

Hallie heard a nickering outside the stall. She pulled away from him and brushed away her tears, then turned to where Poky leaned against the barred entrance to the stall.

Kyle sat back down on the hay bale.

Hallie gestured to Poky. "Should I let her in?"

Kyle nodded.

Hallie lifted the bar so Poky could get through the opening. The mare trotted past her, then stood waiting at the feed rack in the corner.

"She's hungry. Can I feed her?" Hallie asked.

Kyle smiled wanly. "She's a little pig." He pointed to a barrel outside the stall. "Go for it."

Hallie scooped out some grain and dumped it into the feed rack, then picked up a brush and began grooming the mare while she ate. Hallie stood on tiptoes to run the brush along Poky's back. "A
little
pig?" she asked.

Kyle didn't answer. Hallie peeked under the mare's neck, and saw that he was reading through the paper once again.

He caught her looking at him. "It seems too much to believe. Tom's an alcoholic, he's neglected the business, and I keep kicking myself for not keeping a closer eye on him and on the place—and the kids have been bugging me about that since they started working there this summer. They're convinced the place is a gold mine and we've let it fall apart. I can't argue with any of that, and I can't say that Tom's not partly responsible for that. But we're talking about something else here. It's one thing to say Tom's irresponsible, that he's let the place fall apart while he nurses his daily hangovers. Even to suggest he'd embezzle money isn't out of the question—he's sure been acting guilty about something.

"But hurting Windy and Zac goes
way
beyond laziness or greed. And killing my parents? I just can't accept that Tom could be involved in anything like that."

He looked at her. "Okay, maybe I'm being dumb. I tend to think people are good. It's hard for me to accept the idea of deliberate cruelty."

"It happens," she said.

He sat up. "I know, Hallie. I really do. But this"—he waved the paper in the air—"could all be coincidence, you know," he said. "I need some proof. Maybe I'll go back to the park later tonight and keep an eye on Tom." He smiled wanly. "I've seen the
Maltese Falcon
—how hard can it be to tail somebody?"

"We could be wrong," she said, but she didn't believe it.

"We're talking cold-blooded murder here," Kyle said quietly. "I've always believed my parents died for nothing—that stupid park. But to think it could be murder.... I can't think about it anymore." He put his head in his hands and sat there.

Poky munched obliviously on the grain. Hallie ran her hand over the mare's flank.

"Easy there, girl." The mare sidled over to let her past.

Hallie began to groom her again. She worked her way down the mare's left side from nose to tail. Her hands ached, but it was a good ache. It felt good to use her hands for something useful, to feel the fur of the animal beneath the brush, to hear the snuffling as the mare ate, the soft, warm breath as she ducked under her neck and went to the other side.

She glanced over at Kyle. He hadn't moved. "I used to love the barn at the Carlysle ranch," she said. "It was as big as this one, and I'd go out every afternoon after school and help Pops groom the horses."

"Pops?" he asked.

"Yeah. The Carlysle ranch was the foster home I told you about." He looked away again, but she kept talking. "Pops was Mr. Carlysle—the one who taught me to carve toys. See, I used to stop at the toy store every time we were in town just to look at the toy horses. I wanted one of those little horses, and I couldn't have it, of course. So he told me one day he'd teach me how to make my own. He made a game out of it."

She patted the mare's neck. "I missed that place when I left. I felt connected to it, part of something for the only time in my life."

"Like the Madrigals have always been here," Kyle mumbled. "I just don't get it."

"Kyle—"

"Go on," he said. "Tell me more. It's working, really."

"Working?" She peeked under Poky's neck to see him.

"Getting my mind off things." He smiled faintly at her.

"I didn't realize I was that transparent," she muttered.

"As glass," he said. "Go on. So you learned to carve at the ranch."

She blushed, then started grooming again. "Let's see, my first carving was a fat little shetland pony that lived at the ranch. I made a lot more over the years. I used to go to the racetrack while Dave was at work. It was my little secret—you know how some people sneak out to the track to gamble, and don't want anybody to know? Well, I'd sneak out to watch the horses. I'd make sketches of them—Dave had told me to give up my drawing, but I figured what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. I guess when he accused me of sneaking around I kind of figured he was right. I was sneaking around, but not with another man. Just doing what I wanted to do when his back was turned."

Kyle watched her work on the mare. Her hands were stiff, but she seemed to have forgotten that as she groomed and petted Poky. The old mare ate up the attention, nuzzling her and leaning toward the brush. Hallie seemed totally absorbed by what she was doing, as if for once she wasn't self-conscious about her hands.

"I loved all animals," she continued, seeming to be half talking to him, and half to herself. "I'd go to the animal shelter just to pet the stray cats and dogs. I'd draw them and cry because I couldn't take any of them home. Dave said I had him, I didn't need a pet to fuss over that would take attention away from him. But my favorite place was the racetrack. I'd watch the thoroughbreds and sketch them, and then at home I'd carve them out. The carvings are all gone now, all except the gray mare you've seen—Dave overlooked that one somehow."

"Overlooked it?" Kyle asked.

She jumped, then stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. What was she hiding? "You were telling me about the racetrack," he prompted.

She went back to currying the mare, though he could see her attention obviously wasn't on her work. The mare stomped her foot impatiently when Hallie absentmindedly ran the comb the wrong way. "Sorry, girl," she mumbled.

"There's something about the young thoroughbreds, so full of energy and life," she continued. "I never got tired of watching them."

"Of course you didn't," Kyle said.

She came around from Poky's far side to see him. "What?"

"If you don't get tired of doing something, it's probably important to you."

"Don't tell me, my mission in life."

He smiled. "You don't have to sound so sarcastic."

"Sorry. That's all right for you, but not me."

"Why not?"

She turned away, but this time he went after her and turned her to face him, her back against the mare, her hands pressed against his chest in a vain attempt to push him away. "Why not?" he repeated. "Why do you deny what you know is true?"

"Let me go!" all of a sudden she was shouting, and he could see the tears in her eyes. She pounded his chest with her fists.

He stifled a grunt. "Well, one thing's certain. You can use your hands when you want to."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tease you." He stroked her hair.

"Life's not fair." When she spoke, her breath felt warm against his shirt.

"That's right."