The Homeplace: A Mystery (27 page)

While the car idled, she brushed snow from the windshield. The oldies radio station from Lamar played a song she hadn’t thought of in years. She’d slow danced to that melody with Lincoln Kendall at the Comanche Springs junior prom in 1993. She moved as if she were dancing to the other side of her car, and she could still feel his fingers edging down her rear end while they swayed with the music.

Maybe later tonight he’d want to dance with her again.

The song on the radio confirmed that everything Mercy had planned was what the universe intended. Instead of turning onto the highway, Mercy followed the town streets home. It was only six blocks. Six blocks was about as far apart as anything was in Brandon.

If the two best boys in the county were coming to call, Mercy had to get herself ready. She’d been planning every part of it all day.

She ran her fingers through her hair and tossed her head back. Her giggles flowed out and surprised her, because she hadn’t giggled in years.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Birdie?”

“Hush.” Then, “Over here.”

Her whispered answer pointed Marty to a snow-bent stand of tamaracks near where the cottonwood branches drew patterns against an almost black sky. The kid trooper’s directions had been right on, but the wind and falling snow made following the kid’s tracks as close to reading Braille as Marty ever wanted to get.

He ducked low and wrestled through the heavy branches. Clumps of snow fell free and tumbled around him. Birdie’s muffled curse made him sure that she was only a few feet away.

He stopped and stared into the tangle. Only the flash of teeth as she mouthed the next string of profanity betrayed Birdie’s hiding place. When Marty dropped to his knees, a thorn bit through his jeans and long johns and found the soft patch of skin between his shinbone and kneecap. He winced but never let out a sound, and then propped himself with the stock of the shotgun while he dug the sticker from his leg. He was sure the knee was bleeding, but he bit down on his lip and crawled the last couple yards to where she sat.

“What took you so long?”

“That all you can say?” Marty knew Birdie was happiest when she was unhappy.

“I’m freezin’ my ass off waitin’ for you. And take that stupid mask off.”

She was having a good old time. “Next time pick a place closer to the road to get shot at.” Marty peeled the ski mask from his face.

“Yeah, yeah.” She brushed the snow from her nose. “Got anything to eat?”

Marty tugged a mitten off with his teeth and dug into his coat pocket. “Brought you this.” He handed Birdie a crushed and twisted Slim Jim.

Birdie tore the wrapper away with her teeth. “My nose is so damn cold I can’t smell anything. Is it teriyaki or smoke flavor?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Don’t be so pissy. It’s me that’s been sittin’ in the middle of a blizzard for two hours waitin’ on you.” Birdie bit the end of the meat stick. “Ugh, this thing’s as old as I am.”

“Shut up and tell me what’s goin’ on. Ray-Ray out there somewhere?”

She stuffed the rest of the sausage in her mouth. “No shit, Sherlock, and he knows we’re here, too. I just can’t figure out what he’s up to.” She sniffed in a dribble of snot. “But I know one thing. There’s a reason we’re not both shot dead.”

He shook his head in rhythm with hers. “Lord, it’s cold, Birdie.”

“That it is. Got another Slim Jim?”

*   *   *

Chase sprawled in the pickup’s seat and mashed his eyes shut. The heater blew full force, and from under the edge of his Lakers cap, strands of his hair danced in the warm flow of air.

He’d killed the truck’s lights and parked at the edge of Brandon’s little cemetery. He wanted a place where the quiet would let him sort out all he’d found. The more he searched for an answer, the more he knew he could never climb from what trapped him.

Could the name on Coach’s calendar have something to do with Jimmy’s murder? And Dolly’s? What did Coach find out?

Chase turned down the fan and pulled the zipper on his jacket halfway down his chest. His knee throbbed, and when he tried to untangle his long legs from under the steering wheel, the pain cramped the muscles in his thigh.

A pill.

Just one.

At the bottom of his shaving kit, back at his trailer, he’d hidden a plastic prescription bottle. There were two pills left in the bottle. One would be enough. It would soften the pain in his leg and chase the confusion away. That one pill would let him sleep.

In the morning, the worst of the storm would be past. He’d call his agent. Tell him to accept the broadcasting job in San Diego. And drive away from the homeplace forever.

Even if the red ink had nothing at all to do with the killings, the name would be his secret.

*   *   *

The first gaps showed in the storm clouds. The snow came slower, and it fell straight to the ground, not carried on the wind like before. Marty could see farther out onto the prairie, and the dark, charcoal-colored shadows turned gray. Far out, away from the trees and brush, the untracked snow sparkled as if some giant had let a thousand dirty diamonds trickle from his fingers.

“Why would Ray-Ray kill those people?” Marty whispered to Birdie.

“What makes you think he did?”

“Why else has he been hidin’ out?” Marty’s teeth chattered. “Why shoot at the trooper?”

Birdie shook her head. “He’s probably got another one of his wild hairs up his—” She stopped. Drops of melted snow hung on the very tips of her eyelashes, and when she blinked they rolled down her cheeks like tears. “You really think he did it?”

“He’s always talking about wantin’ to be left alone. How nobody can tell him what to do. He hates you and me up one side and down the other just ’cause we work for the government. Most around here thinks he’s a little crazy, but harmless.” Marty strained to see something, anything that would show where Ray-Ray was hiding. “Maybe he’s been out there, big-time crazy all along, and somethin’ finally set him off. Maybe he ran into Jimmy and Dolly after they left the Ford place. Saw what they was up to and thought it was up to him to punish them. You know how he thumps the Bible.”

“I don’t think so.” Birdie hung her head. “But…”

“But what?”

“We gotta do somethin’.” She touched his arm for the first time since he’d found her. “We gotta do somethin’ now.”

“Maybe we can.” Marty’s eyes strained into darkness. “Look. Out there, do you see it?”

*   *   *

Snow high enough to cover the bottom strand of fence wire covered the fields along the highway. Drifts, knife-edge sharp, hid mailboxes and snaked up the sides of pickups and tractors parked beside farmhouses. Here and there moonlight found the cracks in the stacks of gray clouds and reflected off the new snow in an eerie brightness.

Kendall stared through the windshield of his truck, not sure if the storm had blown past or was preparing for its next punch. The digital thermometer on his dashboard showed
0°.

He gripped the steering wheel tighter as a burst of wind-whipped flakes skated across the icy road in lights from his pickup, like angry ghosts seeking souls to haunt.

He fumbled for the cell phone on the console, scrolled to Jody Rose’s number, and pushed Send.

Jody sat in the passenger seat of the TV van, two car lengths ahead of him. The cameraman hovered over the steering wheel. She picked up on the first ring. “We heard on our scanner that something’s happening and decided to follow. What’s going on?”

“Ray-Ray took a shot at a state trooper and that woman game warden. We’re sending every trooper and anybody I can spare to help out. Do what I say. You follow ’em, but if they hightail it after Ray-Ray, stay back. I mean it. There’s liable to be shootin’, but you’ll have your story.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I owe you.”

Lights on the police radio flashed.

“You can settle up later. Maybe even later tonight.” Kendall licked his lips. “I got a call comin’ in.”

He hit a button on the radio, and Arlene’s voice filled the cab. “Sheriff, a semi laid over in the ditch about twenty miles west of Brandon. I guess it’s real bad. Ambulance’s on the way. The trooper at the scene says he found somethin’ you need to see.”

“Send someone else. You know what we got goin’ on here.”

“The trooper said the truck was runnin’ under forged DOT papers.…”

“That’s their business, not ours.”

“I tried to tell him that, but he said he’s sure it’s one of the truckers they’ve been after. Said you need to see what he found. He said that twice.”

Kendall tipped his hat back. The line of troopers’ cars and department vehicles ahead of him turned off the highway onto the county road that led to the Butt Notch. The TV van with Jody Rose followed.

He tapped his brakes. “Damn it all.” He flipped on his flashing lights. “Arlene, tell ’em I’m on my way, and tell ’em that this better be good.” Kendall gave his truck all the gas he dared and headed west on the highway.

*   *   *

With every second the night sky grew brighter, and with every second the temperature dropped colder.

“Birdie.” Marty hoped the word didn’t freeze solid, drop to the ground, and shatter into a thousand pieces. “Birdie, look out there, maybe fifty yards, side of the hill, where that big tree toppled over. See it? Maybe two-thirds of the way up. Just to the south of where those dead branches kinda fan out.”

“Yeah?”

“See that dark spot settin’ down in kind of a bowl in the snow?”

“Uh-huh. Just a rock.”

“You see any other rocks around it?”

“No.” He heard her teeth chatter. “No, they’re covered with snow, shit for brains.”

“Why ain’t that one?”

“Huh?”

“Watch it close.” His belly clenched with the cold. “When the light is right, I think I see a puff of smoke every now and then.”

Icy air threatened the moisture in his eyes. The next seconds turned into a minute. Then two. He dared not blink.

A minute more.

Then he saw it again: grayish smoke, just a wisp, hung for an instant in the grayer moonlight above the dark spot on the white snow.

“See it?” he whispered.

“Think so.” Birdie shifted, and snow crunched around her. “That dirty pecker’s dug him a cave under that dead tree, and he’s sittin’ by a fire while I got icicles growin’ off every part of me. Damn him.”

“He didn’t just dig a cave tonight.”

“Like you said, Ray-Ray’s always rantin’ on how the big, bad government’s gonna take over and do away with anyone that can think for themselves.” White vapor streamed from her wet nostrils. “I got tired of hearin’ it. But he believes it for sure, and I betcha he’s built himself a hideout.” Birdie muffled a cough. “Hell, he could have tunnels dug all over this hillside, he’s that crazy.”

Silence froze in the air around them until Birdie spoke again. “Marty, if those troopers come out after him…”

“Yeah, as riled up as he is, Ray-Ray could think everythin’ he’s been sayin’ is comin’ true.” Marty struggled up to his feet. The bloody spot on his jeans tore away from his skin.

“Where ya think you’re goin’?”

“I gotta do somethin’ before they get here.”

Birdie tried to stand. “I’m comin’ with you.”

“No.” Marty pushed her back down on the snow. “I’ll do this one by myself.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The dress on the bed wasn’t exactly like the one Mercy had worn to the prom. Sixteen years before, other girls had tried to hide their envy, but the sideways glances let Mercy know just how jealous they really were that night.

And the boys looked, too.

That dress had been blue satin. A jade green one lay across Mama’s bed. She’d picked it because it went so well with her eyes.

The clothes she’d worn all day with their smells of stale coffee, bacon grease, and chili from the café had been kicked into a pile in the corner of her mother’s room. Mercy finished the last brushstroke of makeup along her cheekbones. She turned slightly and mugged for the mirror, liking what she saw. Just as in high school, every bit of makeup and each detail of how she would dress had filled her mind since the minute Chase had walked into the café again. She tangled her fingers in her hair and lifted it from her bare shoulders.

No, Chase liked her to wear it down.

Mercy ran a brush through her hair, checking to be sure last night’s touch-up had covered the gray roots. Lacy white underthings would send the wrong message, and black would be too predictable. She’d chosen a color the catalog called dusty rose. The bra had a single clasp, not four like the ones her ex-husband had ridiculed.

Mercy lifted the dress over her head, careful to keep it from smudging her new makeup. She ran the zipper up the side, following the curve of her hips, breathing in as the fabric pulled tight across her stomach, and with a last tug the zipper closed just below her arm.

No need to hurry.

Chase would be early. He always was. With all the trouble in the county, there was no way of knowing when Lincoln Kendall would arrive. But they’d both be there, she had no doubt.

Mercy picked up a pair of shoes that matched her dress, but she slipped into her Tony Lama boots because of the snow and cold outside. She’d change into the green ones at the café. She put on her coat and checked her hair and makeup one more time.

With the candles and perfume in her purse, Mercy added one more thing from the dresser in front of the mirror.

A box of cartridges for her father’s deer rifle.

*   *   *

Snow crunched under the truck’s tires. The noise stirred a soreness hidden in Chase’s brain. Each crackling sound stung like the tremors that had chased the pain through his body the night his knee failed him. Chase slammed the Dodge into four-wheel drive and powered through the drifting snow that had covered his tire tracks on the lane to the cemetery.

The truck bounced onto the pavement. Barely touching the gas, he crept along the streets through Brandon’s small neighborhoods, past the houses where friends had lived, now dark reminders of the many who had fled the small town. He pushed away the thoughts of what he’d seen at Coach’s house. And as much as he tried, the pills in the trailer still teased him.