An Arm and a Leg (8 page)

That look had ensured Hector’s compliance.

And now he was in too deep. If the law found out about his role in this ugly business, Hector would go to prison, leaving his family unprotected.

A man of abiding and optimistic faith, Hector prayed every morning and every night to the Blessed Virgin for intercession. But even as he prayed, he kept his eyes open for the opportunity to quit his dance with the devil. He didn’t doubt for one minute that Our Lady would present such an opportunity when the time was right.

Hector stuffed the last bite of burrito into his mouth. He licked the red chiles’ liquid fire off his fingers, washed his hands, and went back to work.

****

Her morning can-counting ritual completed, Frankie retrieved the business card Nick Rollins had given her. She punched the number into her phone. A woman answered on the fifth ring and identified herself as the dispatch operator for the Colfax County Sheriff’s Department.

“This is Frankie O’Neil. May I speak to Deputy Nick Rollins please?”

“He’s in the field. But if you’ll leave your number and a message, I’ll see that he gets it. He’s good about returning calls.”

“Would you please tell him to call me?” Frankie repeated the number in case the deputy had misplaced it.

“Wait a second, Deputy Pritney just came in. Would you like to speak to her?”

“I think I should speak to Deputy Rollins. He’s the one who’s been working with me.”

“Deputy Pritney and Deputy Rollins work cases together. Hold on, I’ll get her for you.”

After a couple of beats, Pritney’s voice came over the line. “Hello, Miss O’Neil. How can I help you?”

“I was just wondering if there’s anything new in the investigation of my brother’s death.”

“It’s ongoing.” Pritney’s voice was cool, the words crisp. “Have you remembered something?”

What the hell was the attitude about? Frankie could almost sense the statuesque, raven-haired woman rolling her eyes at the phone. “No, I haven’t. But Deputy Rollins told me I could call for updates.”

“Okey dokey. I’ll let Nick know you called.” Pritney’s voice lingered on her partner’s first name, the implied message clear regarding their relationship. “One of us’ll be in touch if anything important comes to light. Bye now.” The deputy hung up with a dismissive click.

Other than Pritney’s physical appearance and suspicious demeanor, Frankie barely remembered her from their sole encounter at Kate’s. Had she committed some kind of chain-of-command
faux pas
by telling the operator she preferred to speak with Deputy Rollins?

She pulled a couple of cans of sugar-free fruit cocktail, pears, and peach slices from the market shelf and slipped them into her shopping cart. She reached for a can of cherry pie filling just as her cell phone rang. She tapped her ear bud and answered.

“Hello, Miss O’Neil,” Nick Rollins said. “Dispatch said you called.”

“Yes. Deputy Pritney said there’s been no progress in the investigation?”

Frankie placed her items onto the conveyor belt at the checkout. The canned fruit was more expensive than she’d realized. She’d have to cut something else from her budget this month. Damn.

A young man she assumed to be a market employee motioned that he would carry the shopping bags to her car. She absently nodded agreement.

“We’ve had no response to the all points,” Rollins was saying. “We questioned the locals, but no one admits to seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary. We haven’t found a weapon or any other evidence that might help find the men you said followed you.”

“The men I said followed us?” Frankie’s voice rose in pitch. Why did everything that came out of the deputy’s mouth irritate her?

Seemingly unaware of the sudden tension in Frankie’s voice, the young man placed the bags in the back seat of Tim’s car. He closed the door, smiled, and raised his hand to his forehead in a mock salute. But instead of returning to the market, he walked to an old banged-up Mercedes parked several spaces away and got in.

“We found footprints around your cabin, so we know at least two people other than the dead hunter spent some time wandering around there—”

“Right.” Cutting off what she knew Rollins was about to say, Frankie’s voice shot from her mouth as if fired from a howitzer. “Like I said…they were waiting for us.”

“Miss O’Neil, it’s hunting season, and your cabin sits right up against federally held land. That’s a popular hunting area.”

“I don’t believe this. Are you really trying to convince me my brother’s death was just some hunting accident, like that other poor man? These guys followed us all the way from Albuquerque. They shot at us and then stood around our cabin waiting for us to show up. Does that sound like an accident?”

“Look, we should talk about this in person. I could either make a trip in to town or we could meet somewhere.”

Frankie forced herself to take a deep breath so she wouldn’t shout her next words into the deputy’s ear. “I’ll be in Eagle Nest tomorrow to return Kate’s clothes.”

“I’ll be in that area as well, maybe we could meet at the café.”

“Fine. I’ll see you at noon.” Frankie tapped the ear bud off and climbed into Tim’s car, where she sat staring through the windshield. Was it possible she’d been wrong? Could Tim’s death really have been an accident?

One of Frankie’s psychology professors had said that memories are malleable and fluid things, designed to help in the struggle for survival rather than for absolute verity. As subjective products of the mind, memories can metamorphose over time, depending upon need and the chemicals firing in the brain of the one doing the remembering. Was her memory of Tim’s death an artifact of her brain functioning in panic stricken, self-preservation mode? Could her mind have manufactured the voices at the cabin? Had she spent several terror-filled hours running through the forest like a mad woman for no reason?

Running through the forest like a mad woman
—the words pounded through her head.

What was happening to her? Only a few days ago she’d been looking forward to starting a new life in her new home. And now her life had turned into something out of a horror movie.

With shaking hands and trembling fingers, she started the car.

****

Larry watched Frankie pull out of the market parking lot. He tugged his phone free from his pocket, punched in a number and held the phone against his ear.

“Hullo?” Mel said at the other end of the line.

“Where are you?”

“On my way back to the farm.”

“Why have you been following me?”

“I wasn’t following you.” Mel’s emphasis on the last word caught Larry’s attention.

“Really? Then if you’re not following me, who are you following? Because I keep seeing you everywhere I go.”

“I figured I could help you keep track of the sister.” Mel let go with one of the twisted, little-girl giggles Larry hated. “When you brought the Chevy back to the farm you seemed pretty tense. You know, like you were kind of, I don’t know…it got me to worrying, that’s all.”

Larry grunted. “Right. You don’t need to worry about me. You ought to be worrying about what we’re going to do if O’Neil’s sister finds Bellamy’s shit.”

“What can she do? She won’t know what to do with it even if she does find it.”

“See, now that’s the kind of thinking that could put us away for the rest of our lives. All she has to do is show that stuff to the law. They’ll connect the dots from there.”

Unbroken static on the line indicated Mel was considering Larry’s words.

“And don’t think Bellamy will jump in to help us,” Larry added. “The law won’t mess with him. He’s got piles of money, as well as friends in high places.”

“You know something funny? I don’t even remember pulling the trigger.”

“I know.” Larry blew out a long breath. “I don’t hold it against you. It’s just the way your brain’s wired. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of things just like I always do.” Larry broke the connection.

Mel’s inability to control his impulses was a growing problem. He’d nearly got them both killed by skimming money from their boss in Amarillo, and he’d always been quick tempered. Quick on the attack. But lately he’d been doing crap that didn’t make sense. Stupid crap, for no reason.

And now it all came down to that O’Neil bitch. Larry had plans for his life. And he had good ideas, ideas that were going to make him rich. She could destroy it all in five minutes. Yessiree, Miss Frankie O’Neil was the real problem here.

Larry started his car and drove out of the parking lot.

Chapter Ten

Once home from the market, Frankie dodged an ambush by a grumbling Collette and pulled groceries from her bags. Finding no space in her pantry, she stashed the canned fruit in her hall closet beside a fifty pound bag of cat food. She scooted the wire hangers to the far left of the closet for another few feet of space.

“At this rate, I’ll have to add on a room,” she said to Collette.

The cat answered with a drawn out yowl.

“Right. Enough idle chatter. Food coming up.”

While Frankie scooped food into the cat’s dish, her mind went over her strange conversations with deputies Pritney and Rollins. Where Pritney had brushed her off, Rollins had sounded concerned—like he was taking her seriously. That was at least worth something.

Even though she’d gone through her can counting ritual for the day, she felt compelled to repeat it. With guilt and self-censoring thoughts leapfrogging through her mind, she touched each can, package and box three times. She added a few more times for good measure, until the tightness in her neck loosened and the agitation singing along her nerves calmed a bit.

She put the kettle on, pulled a tin of tea from her pantry, and got a mug from the cupboard. The answering machine’s blinking light caught her attention. One blink.

She pressed the playback button and listened to the recorded voice of her boss Pastor Dan reiterating kind words of sympathy and suggesting she take more time off if needed.

She called the church office and expressed her gratitude for her boss’s offer, then called various choir members and instrumentalists to ensure the music would be covered for the next two Sunday services. Having one less thing to worry about, she heaved a sigh of relief.

Frankie walked to the mailbox beside her driveway and pulled out today’s offerings. She sauntered back to the house, rifling through flyers and sales junk to find one piece of actual mail—a letter from Collette’s owner. She tore open the envelope.

Short and direct, the letter said her friend had met and married his soul mate while passing through Jackson Hole. He was in love; life was short; blah, blah, blah. The words at the bottom of the page, however, got Frankie’s undivided attention:
The cat is my gift to you. Enjoy.

“Oh no you don’t.” Frankie punched a number into her phone. But after one ring, a recorded voice announced she had reached a non-working number.

“Great.” She glared up at Collette, who was perched in her favorite spot on top of the new six-foot high bookcase in the den. “We need to come to an understanding, at least until I can find you a new home.”

The cat returned Frankie’s gaze. Their eyes locked, and a struggle of wills ensued. Frankie was first to blink. “Don’t let that go to your head.” The memory of Mom Blatney’s scolding words hung in the air. “I make the rules. My house, my rules.”

Collette licked her lipless chops, stretched, yawned and closed her eyes. The gentle rumble of kitty snoring filled the room.

****

The next morning Frankie made a list of things she had to do to finalize her brother’s affairs. A self-professed minimalist, Tim had lived alone. And unlike so many people Frankie knew, Tim had shown no interest in acquiring what he called
stuff
. He didn’t own any of the latest electronic toys, even if he could have afforded them—which he couldn’t. At least not yet. Instead, he’d purchased a used laptop out of sheer necessity while in medical school, and only recently broken down and bought a prepaid cell phone. As a result, the to-do list was heartrendingly short.

In the absence of a credit history at the time her brother moved into his apartment, Frankie had cosigned his lease agreement. She retrieved her copy of the document from her files and jotted down the number for his landlord.

“I’m glad to hear from you,” the landlord said. “I was going to call you this afternoon. Sorry about Tim. He was a good tenant, always paid his rent on time.” The man cleared his throat. “When do you think you could come get his things?”

“I guess I didn’t realize there was a rush.”

“Technically, there’s not. Tim’s paid up through the end of this month. I told the police as much when they came and searched the place a few days ago. But I have a potential renter who wants to look it over this weekend.”

“Of course you do.” Frankie struggled to keep her voice steady. “But as you say, Tim was paid up through the end of the month.”

“Sorry.” The landlord cleared his throat again. “But life goes on. I would have called Tim’s brother, but I don’t have a number for him.”

“Tim’s brother?” Frankie sat bolt upright in the chair.

“Yeah, he showed up a day or so, you know, after the police searched the apartment…said he needed to take a shower and pick out some clothes for Tim’s funeral. I let him and his friend in. They seemed like nice guys.”

“I’m Tim’s only living relative. I don’t know who you let into the apartment, but neither of them was a family member.”

“Umm.” The landlord stammered something unintelligible. “Oh man, I’m sorry about that. You want I should go check the place out to make sure nothing’s missing?”

“No, I’ll be right over.”

The landlord mumbled something again.

“Excuse me?”

“I said so you’ll clean out the apartment this afternoon?”

“As I said, I’ll be over in twenty minutes.” Frankie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And please don’t let anyone else in before I get there.”

She grabbed her bag and Tim’s key ring, and headed for the door. Like snow flurries, new questions swirled in her mind, her focus so intense she didn’t remember the drive to Tim’s apartment.