Lalla Bains 02 - A Dead Red Heart (26 page)

"Let's just leave it and go back inside. Our dinner is getting cold."

He turned away and, hunching his shoulders, clomped down the porch steps. At the last step, he turned back to me, his voice pitched low. "You're doing it again, pulling away from me. If we're ever going to make it together, Lalla, you have to learn to trust me. I'm not taking the ring back. You keep it and think about what I just said."

I didn't say anything to keep him or bring him back. There was no way for me to white-wash the truth and it was breaking my heart. Somewhere along the line Caleb had decided where his loyalties lay, and they weren't with me.

"Where's Caleb?" my dad asked between bites.

"He... he had a call."

My dad snorted. "You two had a fight again? Your mother and I had exactly two arguments in our eighteen years of marriage."

"And look how well that turned out."

The hurt in his eyes shot through me faster and quicker than a bullet through glass. He silently got up and took his dish to the kitchen where I could hear the water running in the sink, the dishes getting the worst end of his temper.

Who was this spiteful woman who would say such things? I'd pushed away one and deeply insulted the other and my world was shattering around me, doing everything possible to destroy my previously happy home. But I was also tugged from two sides: Caleb, who wanted me to report to him so that he could report to Detective Rodney, and Del who wanted me to keep everything from Caleb.

 
I felt my life breaking up, and I had to do something about it before I lost what good sense I had left. I had to find Billy Wayne's killer, and soon, before my entire world went spinning off its axis.

I looked at the hall clock and, taking Jan's advice, dialed Arny's number.

"'Lo?"

"Arny? This is Lalla Bains."

"Lalla? Hey, wha's shakin' pretty lady?"

"I need a ride, please." I was down to this, getting a ride from a love-struck teenager instead of my love interest, or my now royally pissed off father. But then I really couldn't expect any help from either of my men, not after tonight.

I stood on the porch and waited for Arny in the dark. True to his word, he arrived in under an hour. I buckled up, and once again he punched the accelerator, tearing up the gravel as we rounded the corner to the main road.

"Go slow, will you please? I really don't want to get stopped tonight."

"Okay, sorry," he said, easing off the gas. "Gravel is so much more fun than pavement, you know?"

I smiled at his youthful enthusiasm for my gravel. "It was either add gravel, or bump the headliner on all the pot-holes. Serious rad, huh?"

"Yeah, awesome."

"If it makes you happy, you can rad seriously when we come back."

"Uh, no, sorry, it's only when you go from gravel to pavement."

"Whatever. Okay turn here," I said as we came up to the Kansas exit. I pointed out the right-hand turn onto 9th, and then told him to park on J Street next to Mr. Kim's. "You have a cell phone with you?"

"Do bunnies live in trees?"

"Do… all right, I'll take that as a yes. Wait here for me. If I'm not back in half an hour, call this guy," I said, handing him Caleb's number. I got out. "And, lock the doors, Arny. This part of town isn't safe."

He nodded, hit the door lock, turned up the radio and slouched down in his seat.

The closed sign was in the window of Mr. Kim's, but the doorknob easily turned and I stepped into the darkened restaurant. I followed the sound of country western music into the kitchen.

Under a bare bulb, Mr. Kim was slicing scallions with quick, deft motions into piles that he slid into a larger pile to his left. I noticed once again that he was left-handed. He looked up and, knife in mid-air, said, "Ah, Miss Bains. You found your way. Good, good. I am preparing for tomorrow's dishes. Will you have tea?"

The evening was too warm for tea, but it would be rude to refuse. "Yes, thank you."

There was no sign of Grace. "Mr. Kim, is Grace coming?"

"All in good time, Miss Bains," he said. The light from the single bulb over a butcher block cast a cold light that didn't quite reach the corners. I felt a shiver of something pass over me as I looked at the row of knives lying side-by-side on the chopping block.

"In Vietnam, we used to have a man come every day to sharpen our knives. Now I do it."

Mr. Kim walked me out of the kitchen and into the dining room where he set a pot and two cups on a table. He served us both, relaxed and confident with the ritual. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to ask again for Grace, that at any minute she would walk in.

"You are expecting my daughter to be here? I am sorry to tell you that she is gone."

"Where is she, Mr. Kim? I really have to speak with her."

"She has gone to visit relatives in Vietnam."

"What? She can't leave the country, she's a witness."

His gray eyebrows bunched with surprise. "What do you mean... witness? She was not the one who saw ghost in alley."

If this was a surprise to him, then I wasn't going to tell him about Grace's lying at the evidence lot. "She's a witness for another incident."

He waved away my concern. "It is no matter. I convinced her to leave. She's safer out of the country than here where she could end up as a reminder that I should not be talking to police."

I frowned. He'd invited me over to tell me this? I was being played again. "Why are you afraid for Grace? Is it because you know what she's done?"

"My daughter has done nothing to be ashamed of, but Grace is the only child I have left. I will not allow her to become involved with this investigation."

"If you know who murdered Billy Wayne and you're afraid of the police, then why don't you talk to Sheriff Stone. He'll protect you and your daughter."

"I did not lie to the police, Miss Bains. I cannot identify the person at the end of the alley, other than that the person was tall and that they wore a uniform. I know this because the sun was going down and something on his clothing glittered. The police wear brass buttons on their uniforms, do they not? And wouldn't you think that a policeman would come to investigate? I thought the police in this country were always eager to investigate."

"So, someone thinks you might be able to identify them, even though you've told the police you couldn't." So Del and Brad were right. It was a cop that killed Billy Wayne. There were, however, still questions to ask Grace. "How long ago did she leave?"

He shrugged, his face now a stoic mask. "By now, she is in Vietnam with relatives."

"What about you, Mr. Kim? Who will keep you safe if you won't talk about what you saw?"

"I am able to take care of myself, Miss Bains. I would suggest that you stay away from potential trouble and allow your fiancé
 
to protect you."

Halfway home, I asked to use Arny's cell phone. He handed it to me and asked, "Where's yours?"

"It's at the drycleaners," I said, too weary to offer the explanation that it had been checked for bugs and was still at Caleb's waiting for me to pick it up.

"Talk all you want. I've got evenings free, weekends too."

"Do you have your mother's, that is, Jan's number?"

"Hit number eighty-seven," and he added, "what can I say? I know a lot of people."

Jan picked up. "Speak."

"Jan, can you find out if someone has left the country?"

"You mean, Grace Kim? There's already an APB out for her, but I'll check airports to Vietnam. Call me in an hour, tops. I should have an answer for you then."

"Any luck getting the heart doctor to talk?"

"Too soon." She hung up.

Defeat on all sides. Grace was now out of the country and there was no way to connect with my growing theory that someone associated with the other heart recipient might have a reason to want Billy Wayne dead.

I handed him back the phone. He smiled and said, "She's not big on phone conversation, but give her a glass of Chardonnay and you can't get the woman to shut up."

"I can't imagine what it must be like for you, having a biological parent you've just now met. You like her, don't you?"

"Jan? Sure I do. Wanna get a beer before I take you home?"

"Like I really need to add your underage drinking to my growing rap sheet?"

Arny simply grinned. "Some other time, then."

The next day was all work, and it wasn't until the sun was completely gone that I was able to take a stroll along the perimeter of our property where I could kick dirt clods and think.

Deciding to pilfer a couple of peaches from the neighbor's orchard I picked my way over the warm, fragrant earth and under dense, shadowed trees. I was surprised to see most of the fruit lying on the ground, rotting. Which meant one of two things: the price of peaches was so bad that they weren't worth picking, or the owner had sold his property to developers. That's when I saw the sign near the road:
For Sale
.

No one could afford to farm small acreage these days, at least not on this side of Modesto. Between housing developments and the new school at the end of our runway we were being edged out of our own neighborhood.

I gazed lovingly at the dusky outline of Ag-Cats, the water truck, the three Ford trucks we used for business, and in the blink of an eye saw it all disappear.

We'd have to move our operation. Maybe partner with Haley's on the Westside, or better yet, move the whole outfit further south to Merced. No, that wasn't going to work; Merced was taken. What was I thinking? The Aero-Ag business in California was already divided up as tight as it could be, and this season could be our last.

Maybe it was time for me to look up the owner of that lot across from our landing strip, see if some kind of compromise couldn't be worked out to give us some breathing room for at least a few more seasons.

Leaving the peaches in the sink for our housekeeper and a note for my dad, I traded the Caddy's keys for the anonymity of our old farm truck and drove to the flattened acreage where the land was leveled and waiting for a construction crew to start building a new charter school.

I parked, got out and walked the property looking for a sign or anything that would tell me who the owner might be. I found it face down in the dirt; a small hand-lettered sign that at one time had been stapled onto two sticks. I turned it over and read the words,
Imagine Charter School. Coming Soon.
I wrote down the phone number on the back of my hand.

Since my cell was still with Caleb, I drove home and used the office phone. I dialed the number and a woman answered.

"Margrave Aero Ag service."

I hung up. As my daddy would say,
Well, if that don't beat all.

I left the office and went back to the house. A note from my dad on the hallway table said he was out with Mrs. Hosmer.

I smiled as I hit the code for perimeter security and locked the door behind me. I climbed the stairs, still smiling.

Karma had finally tilted its wheels to my side of the road.

Chapter twenty-four:

I'd gone to sleep the night before with happy thoughts of doing something that would help save our business, but then why did I wake up thinking of Roxanne's words to me: "What would you do if it had been your brother who'd lost his chance at a heart transplant because it went to a convicted felon?"

The very real emotion of what that kind of pain would do hit me in a crush to the chest. The tragic loss of my brother had been harder on me than my mentally ill mother's suicide. What would I do? Would I, could I, be so obsessed, I would hunt down the convicted felon, in this case Billy Wayne, in order to exact my own bent form of justice?

With mixed feelings, I dressed and went downstairs and into the kitchen. Juanita was whisking batter for pancakes and my dad was sipping a cup of coffee and mashing eggs into his toast.

"Is that tofu on your toast, or are you off your low cholesterol diet?"

"What're you, the food police? I get two eggs a week, miss nosy-butt."