Best Kept Secrets (28 page)

"Junior made her take a tranquilizer."

"She's sleeping now." Junior stood up also. "Would you like me to drive you back to town now, Alex? You've got no business being out here at this time of night."

"I wanted her to see her handiwork," Reede said.

"I had nothing to do with it!" she cried.

"Maybe not directly," Angus said sternly, "but this damn fool investigation of yours put things in motion. We've been fighting that loud-mouthed hellfire-and-damnation preacher for years. He was just looking for an excuse to pull a malicious stunt like this. You handed him a golden opportunity."

"I'm sorry if you see it that way, Angus."

The air was thick with tension. No one moved. Even the housekeeper stopped washing empty coffee cups. Finally, Junior stepped forward and took her arm. "Come on. It's getting late."

"I'll take her back," Reede said curtly.

"I don't mind."

"I'm going anyway."

"You'll just harp on what happened here."

"What the hell do you care what I say to her?"

"All right then, you take her home," Junior said testily.

"You're the one who brought her, aren't you?" With that, he turned and left the room.

"'Night, Reede, Alex." An unsmiling Angus followed his son out.

Reede tossed the dregs of his coffee into the sink. "Come on," he ordered her.

Retrieving her coat, she went outside with him and dejectedly climbed into his truck. She wanted to say something to break the dreadful silence, but couldn't bring herself to utter a single word. Reede seemed disinclined to converse.

His eyes remained resolutely on the center stripe of the highway.

Finally, the growing knot of anxiety in her chest got to be too much and she blurted out, "I had nothing to do with what happened tonight."

He merely turned his head and looked at her, his expression one of patent disbelief.

"I think Junior believes me," she cried defensively.

"What the hell does he know? You've dazzled him. He took one look into those baby blues of yours and sank like a rock. He's up to his ass in sentimental bullshit about you being Celina's daughter. He remembers how he used to dote on you and wants to do it again--only in an entirely different way. The toy he wants to give you to play with now doesn't rattle."

"You're disgusting."

"It must have given you a thrill to see us coming close to blows over you."

She ground her teeth. "Think what you want to about my designs on Junior and his on me, but I won't have you thinking I was responsible for the damage done to his ranch tonight."

"You were responsible. You incited Plummet."

"Not intentionally. Plummet got it into his head that I was an answer to his prayers--that God sent me to purge Purcell of sinners, the Mintons, anyone connected to or a proponent of pari-mutuel gambling."

"He's crazier than I thought."

She rubbed her upper arms as though recollections of Plummet gave her chills. "You don't know the half of it. He says God is angry because I haven't locked all of you away. He accused me of fraternizing with the devil, meaning you."

She refrained from telling him the sexual parallels Plummet had drawn.

Reede parked in front of her motel room. The door was still in shambles and standing ajar. "I thought you said you'd take care of that."

"Prop a chair under the doorknob till morning. You'll be all right."

He didn't turn off the Blazer's engine, but let it idle. The police radio crackled with its monotonous static, but there were no transmissions now. The noise was grating on her

nerves.

"I'm sorry about Double Time, Reede. I know how attached to him you were."

His leather jacket made a squeaking sound against the upholstery when he shrugged indifferently. "He was insured."

Alex uttered a small cry of anguish and anger. He wouldn't let her apologize. He wouldn't let her feel sad or sorry because he wouldn't allow himself those emotions. She had witnessed the heartache he had suffered seconds before he put a bullet through the horse's brain. She had heard it when he talked about his father's pathetic funeral.

And that's what Reede couldn't forgive. More than once he had let down his guard and revealed to her that he was a feeling human being after all.

She balled her fists, pressed her wrists together, and thrust them across the console toward him. He looked at her with a dark, questioning frown. "What does that signify?"

"Handcuff me," she said. "Haul me in. Arrest me. Charge me with the crime. You said I was responsible."

"You are," he ground out, his previous rage returning.

"Angus was right. If you hadn't come here and started snooping around, none of this would have happened."

"I refuse to take the blame for what happened tonight, Reede. It was the act of an unbalanced man and his misled followers. If my investigation hadn't been their catalyst, something else would have been. I've apologized for the horse. What more do you want from me?"

He gave her a sharp look. She withdrew her hands, snatching them back as though they'd been placed too close to the maws of some terrible beast, and she had realized it in the nick of time.

Inside her mouth was the taste of his kiss--whiskey-and tobacco-flavored. As though it were happening again, she felt

the swirling search of his tongue, the possessive pressure of his fingers on her scalp, the solid presence of his thighs against hers.

"You'd better go inside, Counselor." His voice was quiet and husky.

He dropped the truck's transmission into reverse. Alex took his advice and got out.

Twenty-four

Alex groped for the ringing telephone. She answered it on the fifth ring and said groggily, "Hello?"

"Miss Gaither? I didn't wake you, did I? If so, I'm terribly sorry."

Alex shoved hair out of her eyes, licked her dry lips, blinked puffy eyes into focus, and struggled into a sitting position. "No, I was just, uh, doing some, uh, stuff." The nightstand clock said ten o'clock. She'd had no idea she was sleeping that late, but then, it had been almost dawn before she'd gone to bed. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure--"

; "Sarah Jo Minton."

She couldn't hold back her exclamation of surprise. She could name at least a hundred people who might call her

before Sarah Jo Minton would. "Are you ... is everything all right?"

"I'm feeling well, but terribly ashamed for the horrible things I said to you last night."

The confession, spoken so contritely, shocked Alex. "You were understandably upset."

"Would you care to have tea with me this afternoon?"

Maybe she was still asleep, after all, and this was a dream.

Nowadays, people said, "Let's do lunch," or "How 'bout a beer?" or "Let's get together for a drink." No one ever said, "Would you care to have tea?"

"That . . . that sounds nice."

"Good. Three o'clock."

"Where?"

"Why, here at the ranch, of course. I'll look forward to seeing you then, Miss Gaither. Goodbye."

Alex stared at the receiver for several seconds before slowly hanging it up. What in the world had prompted Sarah Jo Minton to invite her to tea?

Dr. Ely Collins's office was probably the most cluttered room Alex had ever been in. It was clean but disorganized, and as unpretentious as the veterinarian.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Dr. Collins.' I "No trouble. I was free this afternoon.

Come on in. Sit

down." He removed a stack of trade journals from the seat of the straight, wooden chair, making it available for Alex.

He sat behind a desk cluttered with mountains of paperwork.

"I wasn't all that surprised to hear from you," he remarked candidly.

"Why?"

"Pat Chastain called and said you'd probably get around to asking me some questions."

"I thought he was out of town."

' 'This was a couple of weeks ago, right after you got here.''

"I see."

Alex had decided to utilize the hours before her appointment with Sarah Jo by questioning the veterinarian. When she'd phoned, he had readily agreed to see her.

"Are you familiar with the murder of Celina Gaither?"

she began, intentionally playing down her personal involvement.

"Sure am. She was a sweet girl. Everybody was sick about it."

"Thank you. It was your father who attended the foaling at the Minton ranch earlier that day, wasn't it?"

"That's right. I took over his practice after he died."

"I'd like some background information. Do you work exclusively for the Mintons?"

"No, I'm not a resident vet. I have a practice. However, I must be honest and tell you that the Mintons give me so much business I could almost work for them exclusively. I'm out there nearly every day."

"It was the same with your father?"

"Yes, but if you're suggesting that I wouldn't rat on the Mintons at the risk of cutting off my meal ticket, you're wrong."

"I didn't mean to imply that."

"This is horse and cattle country. I have to turn down more business than I can accept. I'm an honest man. So was my daddy."

Alex apologized to him a second time, although it had crossed her mind that he might be reluctant to divulge information that would tend to incriminate his well-paying clients.

"Did your father talk to you about Celina's murder?"

"He cried like a baby when he heard that she'd been killed with one of his instruments."

"Dr. Collins positively identified the murder weapon as his scalpel?"

"There was never any question. Mama had given him that set of sterling silver instruments for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. They had his initials engraved on the handles.

That scalpel was his, all right. What he couldn't get over is that he'd been careless enough to lose it."

Alex scooted to the edge of her chair. "It would be unlike Him to be careless with that scalpel if it was an engraved gift from his wife, wouldn't it?"

He scratched his cheek. "Daddy treasured those things--

kept them in a velvet-lined box. I never could figure out how that scalpel fell out of his bag, except that the mare had everyone's attention that day. In all the commotion, I guess it just got jostled out."

"You were there?"

"I figured you already knew that. I'd gone along to observe and assist if Daddy needed me. 'Course, Reede was there, too. He had helped in other births."

"Reede was there?"

"All day."

' 'Did your father ever leave him alone with his black bag?''

Ely Collins gnawed the inside of his cheek. She could tell he didn't want to answer. "Daddy could have and wouldn't have given it a second thought," he said finally, "but don't get the notion I'm accusing Reede."

"No, of course not. Who else was in the stable that day?"

"Well, now, let's see." He tugged on his lower lip while he thought back. "Just about everybody, at one time or another--Angus, Junior, Reede, all the stable hands and gal lop boys."

"Pasty Hickam."

"Sure. Everybody at the ranch was pulling for that mare Even Stacey Wallace stopped by. As I recall, she'd just gotten back from a trip to the coast."

Everything inside Alex went still. She worked hard at keeping her expression impassive. "Did she stay long?"

"Who, Stacey? No. Said she had to go home and unpack."

"What about Gooney Bud? Was he around?"

"He meandered everywhere. I don't remember seeing him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there."

"If you didn't see him, weren't you surprised when he turned up with the scalpel covered with Celina's blood?"

"Not really. Daddy hadn't noticed it was missing until they found it on Gooney Bud. We believed what they said

--that it had fallen out of Daddy's bag, that Gooney Bud had seen it, picked it up, and killed your mother with it."

"But it's conceivable that someone, in the midst of all the confusion and concern for the mare and her foal, sneaked it out of your father's bag."

"Conceivable, sure."

He admitted it with reluctance because it implicated the men he worked for. Alex remembered how concerned he'd been the night before, over Reede's racehorse. Ely Collins was a friend to all three suspects. Alex had forced him to divide his loyalties between his own integrity and the men who made hand-tooled Lucchese boots affordable. The task was unpalatable, but necessary.

She stood up to leave and extended the doctor her hand.

He shook it, and she said good-bye. "Oh, one more thing, Dr. Collins. Would you mind if I looked at the scalpel?"

He was taken aback. "I wouldn't mind at all, if I had it."

"You don't?"

"No." ,

"Your mother?"

"She never got it back."

"Even after Gooney Bud was incarcerated?"

"She and Daddy didn't press too hard to get it back because of what had happened with it."

"You mean, it's still floating around somewhere?"

"I don't know what happened to it."

The Minton ranch was a beehive of activity. Cleanup crews 4pae sorting through debris and hauling it away. Fire in-were picking through the charred lumber and insulation, searching for clues into the origin of the fire.

3 Around the house, a sandblasting crew was erasing the apocalyptic messages spray-painted on the stone walls. The window openings were being measured for replacement glass.

Reede was in the thick of it, serving in several capacities at once. He was unshaven and unclean; he looked like he'd personally sifted through soot and ash searching for clues. His shirttail was out and unbuttoned; the sleeves had been rolled up. He was hatless, but was wearing leather work gloves.

He spotted Alex as she alighted from her car, but before he could speak, he was summoned by a fire inspector. "You might want to take a look at this, Sheriff."

Reede made an about-face and walked toward barn number two. Alex followed him. "A rock? What the hell does a rock

; have to do with the fire?" Reede was asking when she approached.

% The fireman scratched his head through his Houston Astros baseball cap. "Looks to me like the fire was an accident.