Eleven Little Piggies (10 page)

‘Not in so many words, but I feel her goodwill and encouragement there.' She gave the small, stoic shrug of the survivor, one she must surely have learned from the unsinkable boat lady. ‘She never knew much English anyway.' The next shrug melded rue and a wince. ‘And my Vietnamese was so spotty . . .' She made a small, rocking motion with her right hand. ‘If I could get her back I would learn more.'

‘Yes,' Doris said. ‘We think of things we'd do better, don't we? I've already got quite a list.'

Their four hands hovered over the tabletop now, the tips of their fingers all but touching.

I hated to break up the party but we had to move along. ‘Mrs Kester, can I ask you . . .'

She turned on me impatiently and cried out, ‘Oh, for God's sake, will you call me Doris? I'm not my mother-in-law!' Then, realizing she had answered politeness with rudeness, she clapped her hand over her mouth and said behind it, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' She took her hand down and put it in her lap, sat up straight like a good kid in school and said, very quietly, ‘I'm a little crazy right now. Please don't take offense.'

‘I won't.' I waited a couple of beats and said, ‘OK to go ahead now?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who called you about the horses on the road?'

‘A sheriff's deputy named . . . I forget. I can get it for you.'

‘We'll get it. Why was he there?'

‘He happened to be patrolling nearby when the truck driver called nine-one-one. The deputy's daughter is one of my students. He recognized my horses.'

‘Tell me how that went. Is there a phone in your bedroom?'

‘Yes. It's on Owen's side and he answered it and I heard him say . . .' So now she'd told me what I wanted to know, whether they were sleeping together. It didn't guarantee amity, but at least I knew separate bedrooms were not a fixed feature of Kester marriages. My attention cut back in as Doris said, ‘. . . so we threw on some clothes and went out in the Jeep.'

‘Who else was out there?'

‘When we got there, just the truck driver and the deputy, but Owen had called Charlie Blaise, our foreman, and told him to roust some of the hands. Pretty soon Charlie came in the pickup with Elmer. Owen said, “Charlie, you and Elmer trade vehicles with me. You take the Jeep and go look for the break in the fence. I'll take the pickup back to the barn and load up supplies to fix it. Soon as you find the break you call me and I'll come where you are – you just stay there and make sure no other horses get out”. He left in the pickup and that's the last time I saw' – her face started that terrible collapse into gray creases again – ‘saw him alive. Highway Patrol got there, and the vet . . . let's see.' She blew a stray hair off her face and thought herself back into the moment. ‘I traded insurance card numbers with the truck driver.

‘Owen called as he drove into the yard, said Charlie had just called him and they'd found the break, so he said he was going to find Maynard and put him to work in the barn, to start the morning feed and watering and get the stalls clean.' She blew her nose. ‘And then he said that he'd take the fencing stuff out to the other two hands and they'd . . . fix the fence?' The last was not a question but came out like one because she was weeping again.

I waited for some time before I asked the top of her head, ‘About what time was that?'

‘Um . . . five-thirty . . . maybe quarter to six?' She had her hands over her face and the tears were coming out through her fingers.

Get her to think, so she'll stop crying. ‘
Doris,' I said urgently, ‘can you stop right there and hold that picture in your mind?'

She took her hands down and looked at me, a little alarmed, like,
What now?

I turned to a fresh sheet of paper in my notebook. ‘I need to figure out where everybody was on your farm that morning, and you're the only one, now, who can help me do that. So can we do that now?'

‘I guess – sure.' Sniffle. ‘Where do you want to start?'

‘Right there at the beginning. It must have been about, what? Four o'clock when you got out to the wreck?'

‘Few minutes after.'

‘Who was with your children while you were out there?'

‘Oh . . . I have a cousin who's divorced. Her husband pretty much just abandoned her after they'd raised a family together . . . long story short, she needed a place to live and I needed help, so she moved into the double-wide and works as my nanny.'

‘OK. Now . . . you were near the gate on the county road . . .'

That was how it started and we went on that way, through the arrival of the vet, the highway patrol, the disposal unit that came to haul the dead horses away. She gave me the name of her vet, detailed for me the identities and functions of the many hands that spilled out of the house and other buildings as the sun came up and the commotion built. I drew one diagram after another, with icons for farm buildings and fences, and stick figures for people which I put wherever she told me to, with names and functions noted. Before long we had a kind of graphic novelette showing the Kester farm organization as it moved through that morning, ‘that crazy morning', she kept saying.

The craziest part, I thought, was that when Rosie found her in her kitchen, near noon, she was forming dough into loaves of bread.

‘How in hell,' I asked her, ‘did you find time to start a batch of bread? I should think it would be the last thing . . .' Thanks to my wife, the skilful cook who often greases my lucky chin with home-made goodies, I know a little something about baking: bread-making takes time.

‘I didn't,' she said. ‘Aggie, my morning cook, mixes a batch when she starts work, so it's ready for me to make up and bake before lunch. With all that was going on, I never thought to tell her to skip it. By the time I got up to the house it had been rising so long it was about to spill out of the pan. I had to deal with it right then or throw it out, it's a firm rule on our place – and family has to set the best example.' She showed us her severe face. ‘If it's humanly possible, we never let anything go to waste.'

I bookmarked that place in the video – it summed up her world-view rather neatly, I thought. Crying over dead horses was permissible for a short time, but no excuse for letting good bread dough go to waste.

I had begun to agree with Rosie and Ray – this woman was a straight arrow. Like all investigators I have a sensitive bullshit meter, but it wasn't ringing any bells – she seemed fiercely loyal to her husband, proud of his farming methods, and until this calamity caught up with her, more content with her life than most people, though she admitted it wasn't always easy.

‘And the farm's doing very well lately, Ethan said.'

‘Yes. It keeps us hopping – there's a big crew to pay every month, and we're still paying down the mortgage on River Farm. We moved the entire dairy operation to the neighboring farm we bought ten years ago, and remodeled its farmhouse into dormitory housing for the crews. Not cheap, but housing cuts down on turnover. And Dairy Farm grows enough grain to feed all the animals. So Home Farm's planted entirely in corn now, the best cash crop you can have these days.'

Thanks to the demand for corn created by ethanol, she said, and the ‘greatly improved' milk production they were getting from their blooded dairy herd, the operation had been very profitable the last three years. ‘So I was looking forward to taking my best horses to some shows next spring. If Star Bet showed as well as I expected him to, I intended to sell him for top dollar and raise my training rates on the school.'

‘Is that what Owen wanted too?' Winnie asked her.

Doris's cheeks did a jittery dance, threatening to turn back into those terrible hills and valleys. But she pulled herself back from the brink and said, ‘Owen just wanted what he'd always wanted – to keep on farming.'

‘He liked the life?'

‘Loved it – the life, the work, the seasons . . . the crops and the animals . . . he wasn't like so many farmers now, looking to cash out while the good times last. Good years and bad, Owen said, farmers have the best life. “I don't want to sell out”, he always said, “what would I change this life for?”'

My bullshit bell was dinging a little now – their life on this high-speed farm sounded a little too perfect. ‘You and Owen didn't find that working together put extra stress on the marriage?'

She shrugged it right off. ‘All farm couples work together. We knew that going in.'

‘Well, but . . . I understood there were some issues about your wanting your own shares in the corporation.'

‘Oh, that.' She smiled grimly. ‘The help's been talking, huh? The whole family was in on that fight and I guess it did get pretty noisy in spots.'

‘But it's settled to your satisfaction?'

‘Sure. Owen's folks are old school: the man has to be the boss, period. My folks were the same way so when I came here as a bride I just went along with whatever the men decided. But when we bought Halfway for a dairy farm and Ethan started talking about having a corporation for tax purposes, I decided it was time to look out for myself. Everybody was shocked at first, but I made my points and now . . . she won't say so, but even my mother-in-law likes having her own shares.'

‘And your husband was OK with it?'

‘Not at first but he came around. Owen was my best friend, since we were kids. We argued about things when we disagreed – all couples do. But when he saw how much having my own money and my own voting stock mattered to me, he wanted it too.'

She wasn't embarrassed when I asked her about the small pot-growing operation. It was Owen's little peccadillo, she said, and they enjoyed it together. ‘It was just for the two of us – for a little evening whoopee once in a while. We hardly ever go to bars – we're too tired at night to drive into town.'

‘All the Kesters have profited from the recent prosperity?'

‘Yes.'

‘All satisfied with what they were getting?'

‘Oh, for the last few years, it's been smiles all around. Why not? Owen and I did all the work and everybody shared in the rewards. Even Ethan was happy enough with what his shares earned, until this sand mining business came along. Now he keeps saying, “How can you turn your back on three million dollars?”'

‘He really had a bona fide offer for that much?'

‘To start the bidding. Maybe double before we're done.'

‘But you weren't tempted?'

‘No. I've got everything I need here, and I love the wildlife on the Mississippi. I don't want to see sand mines in the flyway.'

‘How about Matt? Does he want to sell?'

‘Oh, well, Matt . . .' She made the same gestures Ethan had made: a shrug and a little hand wave. ‘Matt's easy. He wants his beers in the evening, some dancing and flirting on Saturday nights. Now and then a trip to Vegas, that's about all it takes.' She chuckled.

‘He's not ambitious like his brothers?'

‘Amazing, huh?' She smiled and I saw, briefly, what a blazing beauty she must be when she had things going her way. ‘He's far from perfect, but he does like to laugh.'
She chuckled. ‘I think he'd take the money in a heartbeat if Owen was for it too. But he knew Owen got him back into the family business three years ago – Henry was dead set against taking him back. Said, “I don't care if he begs”. And Ethan declared Matt never did his share of the work, always show-boating around at the fairs and rodeos in the summer, and he left as soon as he saw something he liked better. “Why take him back and let him screw us again?”'

‘My, my. What did he
do
?'

‘I don't know the details. It was before I married Owen. His mother claims it was just teenage irresponsibility. Henry and Ethan seem to think it was more serious than that but they don't want to talk about it.'

‘How's it working out, having him back?'

‘Well, the River Farm isn't very demanding – I mean, two cuttings of hay, three in a good year – how hard can it be? If anything breaks we have to send somebody to fix it; he's hopeless at making repairs. A tree fell on the corner of his house and you'd think the whole thing blew away . . . Owen had to go down and patch the roof.

‘But he offered to help me in the riding school, and he's . . . well, not the greatest teacher I ever saw. He's a bit of a showboat, you know – he'd rather show than explain, so he can't work with beginners; he just intimidates them with dazzling displays of skill. But he is good with horses and the older kids idolize him –especially the girls. The big rodeo star? Whee.

‘He even tries to help Owen sometimes . . .' She started to smile about that but then bit her lip, which had begun to tremble again. ‘Tried, I mean. I keep sliding back into the present tense.' She glanced at her watch for the third time in ten minutes. ‘Speaking of which, can we wind this up pretty soon? I should really get back.'

‘Yes.' I shook her hand. It was firm and dry. ‘You've been very helpful, and given us a good time frame for the investigation. Thank you.'

‘You're welcome.' Standing with her purse strap over her shoulder and her keys in her hand, she said, ‘You understand, we're all just living day to day right now.'

‘Yes.'

‘But before long . . . I expect the family's going to have second thoughts. Ethan and his folks will say I'm not strong and smart enough to manage the farm by myself, and try to take it back from me.'

‘Well, I—'

‘Then Ethan can sell River Farm to the sand miners and his folks will probably sell Home Farm and the dairy to the first developer that offers a decent price. They'll all take the money and run.' She licked her lips. ‘I'll get my share too, of course, but that's not what I want. I can manage the farm all right – but in the long run, I'm not sure I'm strong and smart enough to fight the family on their own turf and win. All I know right now is that I'm going to try. I want my kids to have the good life Owen built for them there.'