The Second Lie (5 page)

"You're becoming more and more like Dad every day. And you're worrying Mom. Have you even been upstairs to see her today?"

Pierce had renovated the house into separate apartments--one for him, one for their mother--on the second and third floors.

And her brother knew she hadn't been up upstairs. She'd come in the back door, which opened into the kitchen.

"What's the matter with her legs?" Sam groused defensively. "They still work, don't they? There's no reason she can't come down here once in a while to see me. She knows I'm going to be here. Every day. Like clockwork." Pierce babied their mother--just as their father had. He thought he was taking care of her, but to Sam, he was simply pandering to their mother's fears. Especially the fear that Sam was incapable of protecting herself.

But that was a twenty-year argument she definitely didn't have time for today.

Pierce folded a long piece of foil over his skewers.

"And how am I like Dad?" she asked when it became fairly clear that he'd relegated her "mother" quip to a "not worthy of response" status. "You're obsessing."

No, she wasn't. Pierce could accuse her of many things--and be at least half-right. But not this time. Obsessing led to mistakes. And in her line of work, a mistake could mean death.

Peter Jones, their father, had found that out the hard way. He'd let a personal tragedy cloud his professional judgment.

"Anyway, is this just a personal observation, or did Mom put you up to it?" Living alone upstairs with too much time on her hands, Grace had perfected the art of worrying.

"We've talked about it, but the observation is mine."

"Just for the sake of clarity, what am I supposedly obsessing over?"

"This idea that there's some big local meth operation. You're using your own resources and time to do unsanctioned investigative work."

"Who told you that?"

"What does it matter who told me? Are you?"

"No." She looked him straight in the eye.

He stared back. Hard. "You swear?"

"I swear."

Not to say she hadn't thought about it. It was something her grandfather would have done. And her dad, too. But times were different now. With the economic hardships Fort County had suffered over the past couple of years, there weren't enough cops to do the sanctioned work, let alone initiate their own investigations. "I'm pulling extra shifts just to cover my normal workload," she told Pierce.

"So what about the shooting?"

That had been seventeen days ago. Why bring it up now? "There was an internal investigation just like there always is when gunfire is involved. Everything cleared just as I knew it would. We followed procedure to a T when it went down that night."

"Have you talked to anyone?"

"Of course. Everyone who asks about it."

"I mean professionally."

She loved Pierce. Her mother, too. But sometimes they drove her crazy.

"I spoke to the county shrink the next day," she said. And then, relenting, added, "And I called Kelly, too."

His eyes narrowed and she knew she'd said too much. Rather than relieving his worries, she'd confirmed that she'd needed a shrink.

"So you are having problems with it."

Shrugging, Sam stuffed her mouth with pork, talking while she chewed. "A little trouble sleeping at first. Insomnia happens sometimes when a gun goes off in your ear while you're in the middle of a phone conversation."

She wasn't sure Pierce could understand a word of what she said with her mouth full.

Just as she'd intended.

She wasn't going to give her brother--or her mother or Kyle--the chance to mess with her head. They didn't understand that her being a cop was a good thing. The right thing.

Unfortunately, they were the three people she was closest to. Just her damned luck.

"Thanks for lunch," she said, grabbing another couple of pieces of meat. "Gotta get back. Tell Mom I said hi and not to worry. I'm directing traffic for a stoplight installation in Milburn today." The tiny village at the west end of Fort County only had one traffic light. Or would have by the end of the afternoon. It had a bar, too. And two churches. And that was it. Not a single gas station or grocery store that could be held up. Or a school for dealing drugs.

Pierce was frowning again. She tended to have that effect on the people in her life.

"The meat was great," she added, because it was true. And because she hated it when her big brother was upset with her, she asked, "Was that the new marinade?"

He didn't smile. "With Worcestershire and vinegar, yeah."

Maybe tomorrow she'd go to Hamacher's for lunch.

Kyle was in the barn with Lillie and the colt, sitting on an upturned feed bucket as he finished off the last of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich his grandpa had made that morning for Kyle to take to school. A familiar figure filled the lighted doorway.

"Bob Branson, how the hell are you?" Standing, Kyle wiped his fingers on jeans that had already seen a full morning's work and held out his hand. Zodiac was there beside him, wagging her tail.

"Can't complain," the older man said, returning Kyle's vigorous handshake and at the same time reaching down to pet the German shepherd.

Halfway between Kyle and his father in age, Bob had been around for as long as Kyle could remember. He'd also been a lot heavier than he was right now.

"You've lost weight."

The man chuckled, patting his midsection. "I could afford it."

"How's business?"

Ohio was the second largest producer of eggs in the United States, and with more than five hundred thousand dozen shipped per week, Bob's local poultry operation was one of the state's largest. It was also where most of Kyle's feed corn crop ended up. Chickens ate a lot. Thank God.

And, even in a struggling economy, egg consumption hadn't declined.

"Business is good," Bob said, walking over to the stall where Lillie had just begun making a ruckus. She was still a little territorial when it came to her two-week-old son, Rad. The colt stood at the door of the stall, his head tilted curiously toward the new voice. "We've hired a couple of extra hands for city leaf pickup in the fall and have more orders for compost than we're going to be able to fill." Bob rubbed Rad's nose. "He's a good-looking lad," he said. "Right up to your old man's standards."

Kyle's goal was to fill his father's horse barn to capacity, then sell the good-quality quarter horses to families and farms across Ohio, just as his father had done.

"He's a start," Kyle said, though he wasn't sure he planned to sell the colt. Sam had taken a liking to the little guy. Which was why his name was Radiance. And while he could in no way refer to a colt of his by such a ridiculous name, even if Sam had chosen it, he could live with the shortened version.

"Has Grandpa been out to see him?"

"Of course," Kyle said. "I carried him out here the night she foaled. And a couple of times since. Each time he thinks it's the first he's seen the colt. But he knows Lillie."

"It's so hard..." Bob broke off. "Such a shame."

Grandpa was ninety-two. He'd lived a long, good life. Kyle didn't want anyone feeling sorry for either of them.

"So what's up?" He studied his friend. Bob was a busy man. Too busy to stop by just to shoot the breeze.

Bob stared through the large open window at the back of the barn, and Kyle wondered if he was about to tell him he was sick. The man's jeans were hanging on him. And the forearms exposed by his rolled sleeves looked almost emaciated.

God, how long had it been since he'd seen the older man? Six months? A year? Kyle couldn't remember if Bob had been around when he'd stopped by the Branson farm last fall to finalize the details of a corn delivery.

And it wasn't as if the man came by to see Grandpa--which was how Kyle kept up most of his contacts these days.

His grandfather didn't like to leave the farm, and Kyle didn't like to leave Grandpa.

Bob was one of those people who felt uncomfortable seeing Kyle's grandfather in his current state.

Scared was more like it, Kyle figured. And he understood.

"Let's take a walk," Bob said, convincing Kyle that bad news was imminent. Let whatever disease he had be treatable, Kyle offered up by habit, though he was no longer sure anyone was listening.

Except maybe his old man.

"Show me the field."

"The field" was Kyle's experiment. His attempt to grow a hybrid feed corn that would produce double the starch per kernel--and cut in half the amount of corn necessary to produce a gallon of ethanol.

A dream that had become his last-ditch effort to save the farm, his birthright. Not that anyone else knew that.

Kyle had made two big mistakes in his life--both with women--and was in debt up to his throat. Seeing no other way out, he'd spent the last of his savings and hocked the farm on a chance to make a mint on a hybrid crop. If this year's crop didn't show some measure of success, he might have gambled himself right into bankruptcy court.

A five-minute walk later and they were standing in the field. Bob pulled back the shock on a ripe ear of corn, fingering one of the soon-to-be-plump kernels of corn he'd exposed. The man might be a chicken farmer, but he knew corn. And soybeans, too. He grew close to five hundred acres of each.

"One ear per stalk" was all Bob said. One ear was typical for feed corn--unlike it's cousin, sweet corn, which had multiple ears.

"Can't afford to share the nutrients."

"I thought soaking the seeds was going to increase the starch."

"That's the idea. And if this works, I'll be able to maintain one ear per stalk with double starch. That's still double output."

"Right." Bob checked another couple of ears. "And you aren't going to get a true comparison reading unless you're taking one-eared corn up against one-eared corn, since that's the standard for ethanol corn."

"So what do you think?" Kyle's father had thought Kyle was crazy when he'd first talked about his "schemes" back in high school. As Kyle remembered it, Bob hadn't been as skeptical.

"I think you might be on to something." The older man straightened. "I'll be waiting to hear how they test out. And in the meantime, make damned sure you keep this stuff away from my chickens!"

"Yes, sir." Kyle nodded, his expression serious, though he knew Bob wasn't the least bit worried that Kyle would mix in the experimental crop with the regular feed corn he also grew.

Such a mistake, if it did happen, could be catastrophic.

"I plant and harvest them a week or two apart," Kyle added. "The crop that pays the bills comes first."

Turning, he and Bob headed back up the row to the dirt road that led to the barn, Zodiac at their heels. "I thought you should know that Viola and I are divorcing."

Kyle's scuffed work boots didn't miss a beat. His heart did. "What happened?"

His own mother had died before Kyle was old enough to remember her, and Viola Branson had partially taken her place.

"Me, that's what happened," Bob said. "I screwed up. Took a risk I shouldn't have. Got in too deep to stop myself in spite of Viola's many pleas. Thank God nothing I did hurt the business or my family's finances. Viola stood it as long as she could and then she left me. I got the papers earlier this week. My biggest regret is how much I hurt that girl, Kyle. I love her."

Kyle's thoughts scrambled with a hundred questions he knew he would never ask. "Where is she?"

"At Shauna's." The oldest of their three daughters. Not a place of her own.

"Maybe you still have a chance, then. As long as you've gotten out of whatever it was you were into." Horses? Tables? Women? "Maybe she'll come home."

"Nope. I'm not contesting it. She'll have her divorce by the end of next month."

"You're not fighting for her? After thirty years together?"

"Nope. I don't trust myself not to hurt her again."

What the hell was going on? But Bob's business was his own. He'd tell Kyle what he wanted him to know. Still, Kyle had one more question he needed to ask.

"Is there someone else?"

"Nope," Bob said again, his voice curiously flat. "Never has been. Since I first set eyes on Viola, she's been the only girl for me."

"Does she know that?"

"Yeah."

"And it doesn't make a difference?"

"Sometimes love just isn't enough."

Bob's words stopped the flow of Kyle's thoughts. He understood. Bob must have known he would.

Love hadn't been enough to get him and Sam to the church.

"Nope, and I'll never replace her, either," Bob was saying, almost to himself, as they approached the horse barn.

Kyle got that, too.

He wondered if Bob had any idea how much pain was coming.

Chandler, Ohio
Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I loved to skate. In-line skate, that is. When I was on skates, I felt strong. I could fly through the wind--be free. It was also my time for reflection and sometimes, as with so much in life, that which served me well was also the bane of my existence.

Tonight, that was the case. It was a glorious summer evening. The sun had been shining all day and was slowly disappearing in the west, leaving a trail of vivid reds and oranges and golds in its wake. Humidity was low. And the eighty-two-degree temperature hardly felt warm as the wind resistance my speed was creating lightly breezed against my skin.

I was on one of my favorite routes--an old railroad track that had been paved to make a bike/skate/running path that ran through four counties. The section I flew over wound through farm country, mostly cornfields, with stalks that were shoulder-high in places. Those same stalks would soon be taller than me. From spring planting until fall harvesting, I skated by, witnessing birth, growth and death. All in a few short months.

It kind of put my human existence in perspective. Add some time to the mix--several decades, I hoped--and that would be the pattern of my life, too. All of our lives. Just that simple. Birth, growth and death. And a new spring would come with fresh seedlings. New birth. New growth. And next fall, another death.