Murder Takes to the Hills (15 page)

“What the hell does she care? We spent some money, we tipped her waitress well, we didn’t smear food on the wall. Business is business.”

“What the hell do
you
care? The food is good, and it’s the only show in town, if you don’t count a poisonous diner out on the State road.”

“It pisses me off, that’s all.” I opened the Post Office door with a vengeance and nearly hit Clay Rodman with it, so small were the federal environs.

I began to apologize profusely, but Clay waved me off.

“No harm done! You learn to enter and exit very carefully here. What brings you two abroad so early?”

“Trout,” I replied. “We came to get fishing licenses.”

The postmistress had perforce heard the entire conversation and said, “I guess you want temporary visitor’s, right?”

“I guess we do if they’re good for a week or so.”

“Thirty days. Ten dollars apiece. Going after anything special?”

“Just some trout and—uh, whatever they have in the lake. Does it matter?”

“Not a bit.” She smiled. “Just curious.”

While the postmistress and I transacted our business, Cindy and Clay had moved outdoors and were having an animated conversation when I joined them. Cindy looked excited, and Clay explained.

“I breed Tennessee Walking Horses—you saw some of them earlier, I understand. In the summer, I rent some for riding the trails around here. I, or one of my men, always go with the renters, to make sure nobody gets lost or mistreats one of the horses. Still, I won’t rent out a pregnant mare.
 
I have three of them right now, and this morning I’m taking them up to Crooked Creek Mountain to spend the summer at my sister’s place. You met her son, Tommy,” he added.

Cindy could not stay quiet. “Clay was going to ride one horse and take the other two on a line, but now—
now!
—we can all ride one and his sister will drive us back down here to our car!”

I was thrilled beyond belief. Horses are not only large and strong, they always look as if they know something I don’t.

“Great. I thought you wanted to go fishing.” I could but try.

She waved her hands as if clearing away an entire hive of bees. “Oh, that can wait. We’re going to ride Tennessee walkers! You are in for an experience!”

That’s what I was afraid of.

I had to admit they were beautiful. If they were pregnant, they weren’t showing it yet. They looked sleek and muscular…and high. Clay’s stable man already had one of them saddled and ready. Now he put saddles and bridles on two more and we were as ready as we would ever be.

Clay gave Cindy a knee up, and she swung gracefully onto her mount.

“This is Princess Palomino.” He introduced Cindy’s mare.
 
“She’s bridle-wise and easy-tempered. You lead off, Cindy. We’ll stay in a single line till we get to the private road that goes beside Ken’s place. Slow walk.”

Cindy started slowly for the gate, and Clay cupped his hands to give me a boost. I did something wrong, dragged my foot across the horse’s rump and felt frantically for the right-hand stirrup. Clay came around and literally put my foot in the stirrup. The horse gave me a disgusted look and started after Princess.

“Her name is Ladybird. Stay in the middle,” Clay called after me. I had to stay in the saddle first.

I was a nervous wreck at the traffic on the main road, but fortunately our mounts were not, although I did hear Pride and Joy, Clay’s mare, do a little tap dance when a noisy truck passed us. I didn’t look.

But we reached the turnoff without incident and left the macadam road for the smoothly bulldozed gravel road. We were three abreast now on the gentle slope, and when Clay and Cindy nudged their mounts into a running walk, Ladybird stayed even with them.

Far from being bounced up and down, as I had anticipated. I felt as if I were gliding over a dance floor, yet covering a lot of ground swiftly…and there was nothing frightening about it. I leaned forward and gave Ladybird a couple of pats.

We were on the west side of the mountain, and the sun had not yet cleared its peak, so we were in shade as we looked down on the sun-quilted valley. The air was still cool, but fragrant with laurel. Clay put his finger to his lips and then pointed down to a quiet strip of backwater along the creek. A bear was teaching two cubs to fish. It looked to be a long, wet process, with the cubs swatting happily at every little wavelet. She looked up alertly, but the road curved away at that point, and after a moment, she returned to her patient schooling.

Farther up, a mockingbird claimed his special tree with complex trills and piercingly sweet notes to put most opera stars to shame. And suddenly I understood how people could feel about mountains the way I felt about the sea.

Eventually, and yet too soon, we turned onto a narrow driveway leading to a house and sizeable barn, with a natural meadow behind it and, doubtless the work of years, two terraced truck gardens below it. Three horses and two colts grazed the meadow, and our horses nickered in recognition.

At that moment a car shot from in front of the house and roared down the driveway toward us. I was almost sure it was going to hit us. Automatically I pulled Ladybird to the right and kicked her sides with my heels. It may well have been her own sense of self-preservation, but she reacted with a leap and a scramble up the slope beside us. I was off-balance, but safe, and so were my two companions.

As the car passed, I had recognized Branch’s loutish “associate,” Mickey, behind the wheel. Another person was beside him, crouched low in the seat, and I assumed it was Branch. I was furious. The damn fool could have killed any or all of us, horses included. Clay stared after them, face white with anger.

Cindy was dismounted and stroking Princess’s head. “I think she turned her ankle,” she explained. “She’s limping a bit.”

Clay swore bitterly under his breath. “If one of these mares miscarries, I’ll kill him…and that thug he calls his business associate.”

We led the animals to the barn and into clean, airy stalls. Clay began to examine Princess’s ankle and leg. Cindy found some large towels and tossed me a couple, plus a halter.

“Unsaddle Ladybird and replace the bridle with the halter. Next wipe everything dry, including the horse. Then when they’re a little cooler, we’ll water them.” When had she become an expert in the care of horses? When would I ever plumb the depths of this person?

I did all those things as ordered. Clumsily, I admit, but without the least tinge of fear. I had come a long way, Ladybird.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Entering the back door to the kitchen, we met Clay’s sister Sara, coming from another part of the house. Apparently she hadn’t heard our arrival, which was a bit surprising. I noticed that her eyes looked red and wondered if she had a cold—or had been crying…perhaps over her visitors? Clay introduced us and asked for coffee for the three of us. Under happier circumstances, I thought she would be attractive with her light brown hair, eyes to match and good strong features tanned by her outdoor life.

As Sara began making the coffee, Clay could hold his anger back no longer. “Branch and that
effing
pal of his! What the hell were they doing here? Goddamn Mickey damn near killed us all and Princess has hurt her ankle—I’ll strangle them both if she’s seriously injured. Jesus, I bring them up here to be safe from careless summer riders, and before I can get ’em in the pasture we’re all nearly dead!”

“Clay, please. Please just don’t badger me.” Sara had tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking. “Please.”

Cindy and I had already taken chairs at the kitchen table, but I stood up again. “Look, Clay, obviously you and Sara have both had a difficult morning, and don’t need guests while you deal with it. Why don’t Cindy and I just hike on home, and you can bring the car back this afternoon?”

I figured we could walk the couple of miles, mostly downhill, with no great trouble. Of course there was the bear, but hopefully she and her cuties would have gone by now.

“No,” Clay waved me back to my seat. “Please stay. You’re not personally involved in this mess so maybe you can see it more clearly. What’s your opinion?”

“Not complimentary,” I answered. “
Development
schemes like this one are usually a scam. Branch obviously thought he could pay a little cash fee with one hand to get easements from property owners in the area so a road could be put in, leading up the mountain. With the other hand he sold the idea of a vacation community to whatever construction people he’s dealing with. Equally obviously, most of the property owners around here don’t want cheap time-share condos and rickety houses cluttering up their mountain…lots of traffic, destruction of animal habitat, air pollution and total loss of charm. Give ’em two years and they’d have a
Walmart
next door to the Bromfield Inn.”

I nodded my thanks to Sara as she set a mug of coffee in front of me and I took a sip before going on.
 

“The construction people have now spent a bundle on surveying most of the mountain, on engineers to plan where the road could go, where switchbacks will be necessary, how to get power in. They are probably out of cash and can’t get more financing without at least showing that they have access to the development area. They may have to have architects provide models of the whole shebang to ‘prove’ to the state and county that everything is ecologically friendly—which the finished product will not be, anyway. Five will get you ten they’ll have some sort of runoff somewhere that pollutes Crooked Creek and consequently, the lake.”

I took a chance and lit a cigarette. Sara smiled and produced an ashtray, plus her own cigarettes. As an afterthought she reached back and turned on a small exhaust fan over the stove.

“So,” I concluded, “they blame Branch for not coming through. They are now in considerable debt with a cash-flow problem; they are bogged down and don’t know how to rectify it. And they have now sent Mickey along as a ‘closer’ to convince people they had better sign those easements on the dotted line. And I must admit, he is really an intimidating figure.”

“Advantage Construction Company is a
sleazeball
outfit, all right,” Clay agreed. “They are out of Knoxville, but they put up an old-folks complex in Kingsport only about a year ago. The main building now leans at an eight-degree angle, and it’s on level ground, and another building has a swimming pool in the basement, probably from an underground spring. No one is sure.”

We all laughed, and Cindy suggested getting photos of the Kingsport buildings and showing them to property owners on Crooked Creek Mountain.

“It would certainly inspire
me
not to let them build a road across
my
property, much less a housing development nearby that might come sliding down the mountain into my front yard the first time it rained.”

She smiled at her imagery and then added, “Getting a lawyer to represent all, or at least most, of the property owners would be better yet, and I understand you have a couple of good attorneys in town. Actually, it wouldn’t cost much when you divvy it up among the owners.”

“Oh,” I put in, “make sure to have the lawyer’s letter include that any harassment by Mr. McCurry or other parties will be considered illegal trespass and threat of gross bodily harm and any other nifty phrases your lawyer can think up.”

Clay gave his sister a meaningful look. “We should hire these two as landowners’ representatives, Sara. They know how to fight fire with fire.”

Sara responded with a weak smile. “Well, we need all the help we can get. On a day-to-day basis, I usually can handle whatever life hands out. I’ve managed pretty well since Tom Senior died. But something like this comes along…frankly, that Mickey turns me cold with fear.”

I deliberately did not look at Cindy. Instead I asked quietly, “In what way does he get to you, Sara?”

She lit another cigarette with shaky hands. “Just this morning, Branch was trying yet again to get me to sign that damned easement thing. I wouldn’t do it, and finally he was about to leave when that Mickey turned back and said, ‘Well, Ms. Elegant Lady, you and your stubborn neighbors have got us crying the blues right now, but you may do a little crying yourselves down the road.’ I tell you, it went right through me! All I could think of was my darling Tommy and my precious horses. I think I would die if any of them were…hurt.”