Mad Cow Nightmare (33 page)

Boadie panted back into the trailer. She pushed Darren aside, pronounced Tormey “Dead. He’s garbage now. Serve him right. I seen him once, pawing the boy.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Maggie yelled, finding her voice at last.

“What could I do, anyway? What could anybody do except kill him? I almost did. Now you best get rid of him ‘fore somebody calls the cops.” She glanced about, like she might try to stuff the body into the kitchen trash can or under a bed where it would slowly rot.

Too late for that. Here was The Willmarth, breathing hard, and behind her, Colm Hanna. The farmwoman looked at the body and then at Nola, who was standing there, a scarecrow in the wind, her arms tight around Keeley, like she’d dare anyone to try and take him from her. The shotgun was at her feet. Sure, Maggie thought, and her fingerprints still on it.

“I killed him,” Nola said, her eyes blinking and blinking. “I killed him—I had to. But that’s not why I came. I came to find Keeley. To see you, Mag. Look, I want you to take him. Bring him up, you know?”

“Aw, sweetie,” said Maggie, throwing her arms around Nola and the boy—she could hear the boy whimpering. “You just tell the cops what he done, they’ll let you off. You’ll have Keeley back.”

“Not that easy,” Nola said, twisting her head to look at Colm, “right?”

Colm nodded. “But I know a good lawyer here in town.”

“Not that youngster Franny was complaining about,” said Ruth. “He still hasn’t located her mare.”

“Different guy. Hotshot fellow by the name of Bingham. He’ll help. You’ll live to be with Keeley again.” Colm moved over by the sink, undipped his cell phone. The cops, Maggie thought. The coroner. No one wanted to touch the body; it was like somebody’d thrown up on the floor, everyone stepping around it, not wanting to look, step in it.

Maggie watched Nola gaze at the boy like she wanted to memorize him—what he still looked like as a youth. If she got out, she might be an old lady, Keeley a grown man.

Nola was fingering the cross on Maggie’s neck, though her eyes were on Keeley. “You’re still wearing it,” she said.

It wasn’t Nola’s cross, the one Maggie had been wearing all these years—the police had that one. Maggie had recently bought a new, cheaper one with performance money she’d saved, and had it engraved. “Sure,” she said. “I thought I lost it. But it was in the grass, you know. Here in the pasture.”

“In the swamp, by Ritchie’s body,” The Willmarth said, the first time she’d spoken. Maggie saw a dozen expressions cross the farmer’s face—from horror at the thing on the floor to something that looked like she’d just waked up, was putting things together. Maggie stepped back, ice cubes down her spine. Already a cop had said he was coming to look at Maggie’s shoes—she could hide the one without a heel, but would it help? She supposed he’d want her prints.

How long could she hide her part in it? She couldn’t let Nola take all the blame. She’d blocked it out all these long days. And now the reality of Ritchie’s death was surfacing, like something you flush down the toilet but it keeps coming up.

“It was my cross,” Nola said—almost shouted, like she’d cover up her mistake of mentioning the cross. “I’m the one would’ve lost it.”

“We exchanged crosses when we mixed our blood. I know what you’re thinking,” Maggie said, addressing The Willmarth—feeling breathless, like her lungs weren’t pumping enough air. “But I was wearing Nola’s cross. She’s still got mine.” She pulled the cross out from under her friend’s black shirt, turned it over. “See? It’s got my initials on it.” She was sweating, she stubbed out her cigarette and pulled out another. Darren came over, put an arm around her. She barely felt it she was sweating so hard.

“And we know where you lost yours, Maggie,” The Willmarth said. “The police have the prints from it. The DNA on the reins. They’ll want samples from you. I’m sorry.”

Maggie lit the cigarette with shaky fingers, curled her sandaled toes.

“Why don’t we go up to my house and talk about it?” The Willmarth said. “Darren can stay with the body.”

“But I need Darren!” Maggie cried, reaching for him.

“I’m here, baby,” he said, and squeezed her hand.

“You all go up there. I’ll stay,” Boadie said. “I want to see the garbage dragged off.”

“If you really want to know,” Maggie said, feeling desperate, squinting at The Willmarth, “it was Uncle killed Ritchie. He as much as admitted it to me, yeah, he did. Ritchie knew about a guy Uncle stole money from, and threatened to tell, right, Darren? Threatened to tell what Uncle did to him as a kid. . . .”

Darren slowly nodded; his face was the color of Maggie’s hair. “And Uncle knew he had a sick cow on his farm. He sent the calves here with me on purpose. He was mad as hell ‘cause I wouldn’t go back to the farm.” When Ruth looked at him, horrified: “I mean, hell,
I
didn’t know till Ritchie come back and told me—
after
the feds took the calves. I swear, I’d never of brought the calves otherwise. No way! I swear it! Never!” He went over to The Willmarth, shook her arm hard, like he’d make her believe him.

“So now Uncle’s got his, and we’re even,” Maggie said, taking a long trembly suck on her cigarette—she needed it to keep her balance. “What do we have to go up to your house for? There’s nothing more to talk about.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, cousins,” Colm said, clipping the cell phone back on his belt. “But Tormey was in the Horizons Bar in Buffalo the night Ritchie was killed. With a dozen witnesses identifying him. New one just came through.” He nodded at The Willmarth and she gave a half smile. They both knew all the time!

Maggie dropped her cigarette stub and Boadie ran to crush it with a slippered foot. “You want to start another fire?” the old lady shouted. She pulled her pig up into her arms. The stupid thing burbled like Boadie was its mother.

A siren shrilled up on Cow Hill Road. Cop cars slowed down, jamming on their brakes, making the turn into the farm. They were coming for Uncle. They were coming for Nola. They were coming maybe for Maggie.

“Wait,” said Nola when The Willmarth started out the door after Colm. She grabbed the farmwoman by the blue sleeve. “Look, I already killed one man. What’s one more?” Her face was like burnt ashes. She was holding on to The Willmarth, as though the farmwoman was the Last Judgment. The farmwoman waited, looked down at the defiant Nola. Her eyes were soft and watery, like she was on Nola’s side.

But she wasn’t, Maggie knew. She was on the side of what happened. You killed somebody and you paid for it. She wouldn’t stop till she knew all the truth, Maggie realized that. It was the way of that woman. Maggie had heard the stories.

“You were both there in the swamp that night,” The Willmarth said, like she was trying to prime the pump, get Nola to talk even as the sirens quit up in the drive, the cops already on their way down to the trailer. “It was only one set of prints on that cross, Maggie. I don’t think they were Nola’s. I mean, we’ll find out.” She glanced at Colm and he nodded. “You were there as well, weren’t you?”

“I was and I—” Maggie began, but Nola interrupted.

“Maggie came to find me,” Nola said, talking fast like somebody’d wound her up. “Mag followed Ritchie back after he went to talk with Darren. Ritchie and I were, like, camping out for a night, lying low, like Ritchie said. He wanted to unload the mare he stole. I was waiting for my chance to escape, but he’d take my clothes with him each time he left. He said he’d kill me if I tried to leave.”

“Yeah, I came,” Maggie broke in, “and Nola was sleeping. She looked so pathetic, curled up like a kid on that miserable mat. You could see the bruises on her arms and neck where he’d hit her.”

You could see something worse, near the scar on her breast, Maggie thought, but couldn’t even think the words.

Everyone was looking at her now, and she went on. “I watched Ritchie awhile, hoping he’d leave a minute so I could grab Nola and run. I saw him polish off a quart, then start on another. He just sat there, drinking. I was furious at Ritchie for doing all that to Nola. I—I lost my temper. I grabbed a stick and ran to hit him with it.”

“I woke,” Nola said, grabbing The Willmarth’s arm, making her turn her eyes from Maggie, “and they were fighting. Ritchie’d got Maggie and dragged her down. He was trying to—”

“Rape me,” Maggie said. “Kill me maybe, I don’t know.”

“He was drunk, sure,” Nola said. “Mag was screaming, trying to fight him off. I went to help—Maggie’s my blood sister. I got the reins off the mare, dropped them round his neck. He was drunk enough not to notice.”

“And we pulled on the reins. Hard,” Maggie said.

“No!” Nola cried. “Not you.
I
pulled. You were on the ground. You just pushed up on him. I choked him with those reins. Not you. It was me.”

Maggie was holding Nola, letting Nola sob into her shoulder. “You know damn well I helped pull those reins,” Maggie whispered into her ear, but Nola only shushed her, pushed her off, pulled her back, and stared hard into her eyes. “
I
killed him,” she said in a fierce hoarse voice that stilled Maggie.
“I
strangled Ritchie.
You
got to take Keeley. Promise to take care of Keeley.”

Maggie felt her lungs filling with breath, her veins with new blood. “I will. You know I will.”

“It was self-defense,” Maggie shouted as the cops arrived and took Nola away in handcuffs—what need was there for handcuffs? “I saw it. Tormey was trying to kill Nola!”

“You can save your breath for the trial, lady,” one of the cops said, and lifted a grizzled eyebrow at The Willmarth.

If looks could kill, Maggie thought, The Willmarth’s would. “You be careful of her,” the farmwoman told the cop, “she’s had a hard time. She’s been through more than most of us in a lifetime.” She turned to Nola. “We’ll be in to see you. We’ll put up a fight for you. But get that test, in the hospital. That’s paramount. Get the test. I’ll see that she does,” she told the group after the door slammed behind Nola and the cops. “We’ll all pray she comes out clean… Now how about coffee, up in my kitchen?”

Maggie heard Keeley, who’d gone behind the screen. He was sobbing, funny little sobs, like an engine trying to start up but not catching on. She’d bring the boy with her, he was hers now. Well, for the time being anyhow. He was the child she couldn’t seem to conceive, even though she’d thrown away the pills.

“Come on, love,” she said. “The Willmarth’s got hot chocolate. And Darren, bring your beer. We’ll have a gig to celebrate Nola’s return. Tomorrow, Keel, we’ll go see your mom.”

She led the boy out the back door of the trailer. She didn’t want him to see the coroner, who was bending over the uncle’s body, pronouncing him dead of a gunshot wound to anyone who would listen. Which, in the end, was only Boadie and the pig.

“Garbage,” Boadie said, “take the garbage away.”

Chapter Twenty-four

The feds were coming for Ruth’s cows in twenty-four hours: the call came the next morning from the state veterinarian. Ruth wasn’t surprised; she’d expected it. She held the dead phone numbly in her hand, its buzzing as senseless as what was happening to her cows. Darren, Liz, and Boadie were back in the barn after breakfast; they’d spent the night upstairs—the trailer was wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. The cops had taken the shotgun, and Boadie complained loudly. What was she going to use against the feds?

What, indeed, Ruth thought. Most likely the agents would bring in armed men. It seemed a lost cause. “Tell the neighbors not to come,” she warned Sharon when her daughter appeared, “dying” for coffee. “Someone will get hurt if they try to keep the agents out.”

“Uh-huh,” said Sharon, which meant “I’m listening but not listening.”

“I mean it,” Ruth said, and sat in the kitchen rocker, resigned to her fate. She was drinking a cup of Irish coffee Colm had brewed: coffee, whipped cream, honey, and Colm’s “moonshine whiskey.” She and Darren had finished the milking, got Boadie and Liz out of the house with a promise to stay away from the trailer—a promise they probably wouldn’t keep. Now she just wanted to sit here and gestate, sink slowly into some kind of oblivion, a self-administered tranquillizer.

“Uh-huh,” Sharon said again, and ran out to the barn with a full cup of coffee. Black coffee, she emphasized, “none of that lethal stuff you’re drinking, Mother.”

A moment later Sharon’s head popped back in. “I meant to tell you, Mother. That Leafmiller woman called. There are three conditions you’ll have to meet when they come tomorrow. You ready for them?”

Ruth grunted. She was never ready, but guessed she’d have to listen.

“Number one,” Sharon said. “Make a five-foot-wide path to lead the cows through to the truck.”

“Mmm.”

“Number two: no llamas.”

“Ha! They’re afraid they’ll get spit on.”

“Right. Their nice starched shirts. Number three: no third parties. Which translated, means no demonstrators—no opposition.”

“Just what I told you, Sharon, remember?”

“Sure. And number four—”

“You said three conditions.”

“Well I forgot. There are four. Number four: no media. No reporters. No embarrassment for the feds. They want this swept under the rug as quick as possible.”

“Sounds familiar,” Ruth said. “Okay. You run along now. Your coffee’s getting cold.”

There were still unanswered questions, Ruth thought as she sat alone and sipped the moonshine coffee. She had to think about the murder—it would take her mind off all those conditions. Although cows and murder were somehow linked, weren’t they? The travellers coming, the suspect calves from Tormey Leary, the sick woman, Nola, and her possible CJD. And then Ruth’s own farm pronounced unclean. The plague. The fear and superstition and hate at the heart of it. ...

Had Ritchie really been in the swamp when he accosted Maggie? Why would he be? How had his body ended up there? How much of a part had Maggie actually played? Would the judge believe Nola if she claimed she’d done the killing alone? In any event, Maggie had to be considered an accomplice. What would happen to Keeley?

Footsteps ran lightly down the back stairs and there was Maggie, in the red and yellow skirt and halter top she’d worn the night before. “Sit down,” Ruth said, and blurted out her questions.