Give First Place to Murder (15 page)

That brought me to Bryce. The beautiful Bryce Ellis, poor spoiled, vain Bryce, talented, lazy, with one very dangerous habit. If he really took drugs, how long could Irma afford to put up with him? Bryce made me think of Stephanie. She was not an attractive girl, in looks or in personality, so maybe Aunt Mary was right. Her only hold on Bryce was money. Evidently she owned a couple of the horses Bryce trained and showed. According to Susannah, she was trying to talk her parents into buying another, very expensive one. If that didn't happen, how long would Bryce be willing to tolerate Stephanie's possessiveness? She must feel she had a lot of control over him or she wouldn’t have read him the riot act about hiring Rusty. Would she? Maybe she felt her control slipping. Did she think it was her or Rusty—would she kill to keep Bryce? I pictured Stephanie, her obvious obsession with Bryce, and with getting her own way, and decided, yes. Stephanie was a true suspect. But what did I do about it? I could find out where Stephanie was while Bryce was in the ring. I wasn’t sure how I’d go about that, but I’d figure it out.

My thoughts turned to Irma. She’d certainly surrounded herself with an interesting cast. I hoped Wes and Linda were more stable than her barn staff seemed to be. Now there was a pair. Wes, lightly balding, paunchy, with his good ol’ boy attitude and his penchant for pretty women. I was sure he was popular with his beer drinking buddies, but his "pat the little dears on the head but don't take them seriously " attitude was grating to a woman. Linda's reputed efficiency was evidently not enough for her husband. Her plain Iowa farm woman look, no nonsense expression, flat mid-western twang, were not the stuff to keep his eyes fixed firmly at home. I wondered why they stayed together. Maybe she had hidden talents. Anyway, they seemed to be moving horses around the country with ease, which wasn’t a job I’d want to tackle.

The living room clock struck ten. I yawned. I wasn’t going to come up with any answers tonight so I might as well go to bed. I stretched, covered another yawn with my hand and got up when I had another thought. Susannah. Neil. Just how serious were those two? Did I need to worry? Susannah was a woman now, or close, and she was much better prepared to manage her life than I’d been at her age. I had jumped, starry eyed, into marriage with her father, then had closed my eyes to all the brewing problems long after the stars had died out. I didn't want the same thing to happen to Susannah. I wanted her to take her time; there was plenty of it. Neil had ahead of him the dedication vet school demanded and she was a long way from her own scholastic goal. Only, how did I tell her that? Did I need to?

This was getting me nowhere. I picked up my empty glass, brushed the crumbs off the front of my shirt and decided what I really needed was ice cream and my newest library book. I'd let Carolyn Hart transport me to a different state and present me with a whole new set of problems I didn't have to solve.

The answering machine light was blinking when I entered my bedroom. Good. Dan had called. Had he apologized? I felt a little complacent as I punched the button. It was the voice of my latest client, excitedly telling me someone had already shown their house. Wasn't it wonderful?

"Wonderful", I thought as I watched the machine click off. "Absolutely wonderful."

Dan didn't call for three days, but Becky Monahan did. So did Irma.

Becky was delighted to get my message. Or so she said. “I can’t believe you came back to this sleepy little town, Ellen,” she gushed. “If I’d lived in southern California, Newport Beach no less, you wouldn’t have gotten me out with dynamite. Don’t you miss all that? Parties, theater, good restaurants?”

Traffic, parties where your husband’s drunken friends try to paw you, women with nothing to do but have lunch, shop and talk about each other, boredom, traffic. “Not really,” I said, truthfully. “I’ve found a lot to keep me busy.”

“
Right. I heard about you and Dan.”

I wondered what she’d heard, but it wasn’t a subject I wanted to pursue. “Actually, Becky, I wanted to ask you something.” I described the pirate and asked if she could help me find him. “You know, his name, address, that kind of thing.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m planning this party,” I lied, “and I thought, you know, if he’s not too expensive…“

“
I’ll see what I can find out,” she promised, “but, Ellen, I don’t see how you could have run into him why out by the horse barns. All our roving entertainers are told to stay by the main exhibits or by the mid-way. They’re never supposed to be by the livestock at all. If this guy was there, I’ll have to put that in his record, in case we think about hiring him again. I’ll call you.”

So! The pirate wasn’t supposed to be by the barns. He just happened to be there when Rusty was killed. Coincidence? I didn’t think so. However, I was going to need a lot more before I confronted Dan. Whom I hadn’t heard from. Damn.

The phone rang. It was Irma.

"How's the mare?" was the first thing I asked her.

"So far so good. If she can get through the next couple of days without doing something silly, well, we'll see."

I wanted to ask her what silly thing a horse could do confined in a horse hospital, but Irma was tuned into something else.

"I need to talk to you about selling my horse hauling business. Ed Brady keeps at me and I don't know what to do. He wants to buy the business and the land, but I'm not sure I want to sell the land. Bud always said, never sell your land, and we've had this place a long time, it's all paid for. I just don't know.”

"But you want to sell him the business? The vans and everything?"

"I’m thinking about it. Wes keeps telling me not to be a fool, that I'm making good money with them running it. I guess that's true. Ed wants me to carry some kind of a note, says that will be better income. Suppose something happens and he can't pay? Then what do I do? Or suppose he moves all the trucks somewhere else? Could he do that?"

I didn't see why not, but my knowledge was much too vague to give Irma an answer. I settled for a suggestion.

"Irma, you know Bo Chutsky, don't you?"

"A little. Bud used to be in Rotary with him."

That was no surprise. Half the men in town were in Rotary.

"I think you need to talk to him. Bo knows all about this kind of stuff and I'm just learning. Want me to talk to him for you?"

I hated to turn down Irma's business, but I was positive I wouldn't know what to do with it if I got it.

The relief in Irma's voice matched my own. "Oh, will you? But you'll still help me too, won't you?"

I was flattered, I had to admit, and only too glad to reassure Irma I wouldn't desert her. Besides, I knew Bo liked nothing better than to "teach." Which meant he’d direct and I’d do all the boring paper work, but I didn't mind. I’d never sold a business and it could be interesting. Besides, it would keep me up to date on any new developments in the Rusty situation.

We set up the meeting for Thursday morning and I almost missed it. I had a call to show my relocation listing to a young family moving into town and they only had that morning open. Not the kind of thing you turn down. They were interested, very interested. I took them over to one of our local lenders and left them there, going over figures and the horrendous list of documents needed to get a loan. I returned to our office about eleven thirty to find Irma and Bo finishing up the details.

“
How’d it go?”

Bo grunted.

“
Great,” Irma said. “Bo helped me a lot. Ellen, you were an angel to suggest this.”

“
Thank you.” I wanted to know what Bo had told her, if she had made a decision, if I needed to go back out to the ranch. I didn’t get the chance.

“
I’ve got to go.” She grabbed up a file folder full of papers. “I’ll talk to you in a few days, Bo. See you, Ellen.”

I watched her out the door, then turned to see if I could get any information out of my broker. Not a chance. Bo was getting ready to go to lunch, his most important appointment for the day.

I’d known Bo Chutsky all my life. My father had also attended Rotary. Bo had watched me grow up and I had watched him grow wide. There wasn't a belt made that would fit around his waistline and the stretch on his suspenders kept you from standing directly in front of him. But he was one of the smartest and best informed real estate brokers I’d ever known. Bo had several codes he lived by. One was that real estate was a serious business; you were dealing with the most expensive purchase most people would ever make and you better get it right. Another was "least said, soonest mended."

"How did it go?" I asked again

"Fine." He barely looked up from examining blue prints of some kind.

"What does that mean?"

"Means fine."

"But what did you tell Irma to do?"

"Nothing." The tone in his voice said, ‘you’re bothering me.’

"You told her to do nothing?" My tone was incredulous, but I couldn’t help it.

"Yep. Not yet anyway."

"Why?" I was starting to feel exasperated.

"Because I need more information." He looked up at me. "Pricing the land is easy, but Irma's not sure she wants to sell it. Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with her. Which leaves us the business to look at, and Irma doesn't have the books. I need an inventory list, a current P&L, the last couple of years IRS returns, monthly income statements. I need expenses. I need information. So I sent her home to get it."

He pushed at the blue prints lying on his desk with a fat finger. "Seems all Irma knows any more is what she pays those two, and how much she pulls out of the business every month. She's not too sure about that. I don't know. Seems to me..." He looked up at me again and I could see his mouth close down on his words, "that I need more information. Irma's coming back next week, after the Santa Barbara horse show they're all going to. How'd your showing go?"

What Santa Barbara horse show? Who was going? Certainly not Susannah.

Bo checked his watch and pushed his chair back, waited only long enough for me to tell him I thought I was going to write an offer that afternoon. He nodded approvingly and reminded me to make sure my people got a professional home inspector. Don’t forget to ask the seller to pay for a Home Protection policy, he cautioned, then asked a couple of questions designed to make sure I had correctly explained the first time home buyer loan my young clients wanted. Satisfied I wouldn’t let them get in over their heads, or make a fool of myself, he lumbered slowly toward the door. I watched him, wondering again why Irma seemed to know so little about her own business, and why no one had mentioned anything about another horse show. Vowing to have a talk with Susannah that night and do a little law--laying down, tactfully but firmly, I went back to my desk.

I just sat down when the phone rang. It was Dan. The surge of pleasure I felt surprised me, and I didn't want to analyze why.

"Hi." Was there a hint of hesitation in that greeting?.

"Hi." I tried to sound offhand.

"Want to try lunch again?" There was no doubt about the hesitation.

"I think I can manage that. The Yum Yum?"

"Of course. Ten minutes, OK? Don't be late, I'm starving." There was no mistaking the relief, mixed with what sounded like happiness.

"Me late? I'll beat you there." I didn’t mind that I sounded happy too.

"Not a chance." The phone went dead.

I smiled as I hung up. Dan was going to win this one. The day was much too nice to rush a walk through our lovely park. Besides, I was suddenly feeling a tiny bit euphoric. I paused to watch a couple of little boys weigh the pleasures of wading in the fountain against the possible consequences, then took a second to feel the sun as it made its way through the leaves of the trees. A pang of nostalgia pricked as I stood for a moment looking up the steps leading up to our century old brick library. Our small, dark, and now empty library. Our soon to be a local history museum library. The new large, light, airy library was directly across the street. I made a mental note to pick up a new book before going home that evening, and pushed open the door to the Yum Yum.

It was packed. There was Dan, holding down our regular table.

"You're late," he told me, smiling.

"Mm," was my only comment, but I smiled at him too before looking around. Bo was easily spotted, blue prints by his chair, talking to the mayor, two of the city councilmen and a man I had never seen before. I wondered what he had up his sleeve now, but was distracted by Ruthie. A harassed Ruthie, frizzy hair in more disarray than usual.

"Can't believe how busy we are." She set an iced tea in front of me. "The special, Ellen?"

I glanced toward the blackboard, but it was effectively blocked by a large woman in plaid shorts.

"What is it?"

"Chicken pot pie."

"No thanks. Do you have...?"

"Salad? Sure. Chef OK? Thousand island?" She was gone.

I laughed. "I guess it’s fine. Bet you're having the pot pie."

"I ordered the low fat version but they're out."

"Right. Thanks for ordering me the iced tea."

"I wish I could take credit, but that was Ruthie's idea."

I nodded, looked up at Dan, at blue eyes that smiled, and I smiled back.