On the Run (14 page)

“But taking their own lives . . . Doesn’t that seem a rather extreme reaction to world events, even if they are scary and troubling?” I asked cautiously.

I didn’t want to turn his thinking toward a different possibility about his parents’ deaths, but I couldn’t abandon my own doubts about the official conclusion. Now I had these additional chinks in the armor of the suicide pact theory: why
hadn’t
Jessie rather than Jock carried it out? And wasn’t it possible the Northcutts feared some specific individual, rather than having generalized fears about a collapsing civilization, that prompted their interest in a guard dog?

“There were things other than world events that affected them too. They were really down on the government after a couple of IRS audits cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they felt they’d been blackballed by Hollywood after they filed a lawsuit against one of the big studios.” He paused thoughtfully, fingers scratching a mosquito bite on his neck. “Although I’ve wondered if it wasn’t so much blackballing as the fact that Westerns went out of style, and there just wasn’t a market for the kind of stuff they wrote.”

“Did they have enemies in Hollywood?”

Unexpectedly he laughed. “Enemies? You better believe it. They never minded climbing over a few backs to get where they wanted to go. Jessie said all being
nice
in Hollywood got you was a ticket to nowhere.”

I stayed silent, hoping he’d reflect on his own words and start thinking about enemies. But he just kept kind of smiling to himself, apparently at memories, and I said, “You mentioned an Oscar?”

“Sometime back in the sixties. Best original screenplay for a Western called
Ride Fast, Die Hard
. It and most of their other old movies still show up on cable or satellite TV occasionally, so they were still bringing in pretty good money.”

I’d never heard of their Oscar winner, although I didn’t mention that fact.

“And then there was my brother Evan’s death years ago. Maybe their paranoia started way back then. He was shot by the police during a confrontation in a stolen car. They were convinced the officer wasn’t justified in shooting him and, when the officer wasn’t prosecuted, that the police and entire justice system were corrupt and rotten. Maybe that was easier than admitting their golden boy was really a rotten little punk.”

A sudden bitterness in his voice jolted me, and an ugly thought reared up. Maybe Frank Northcutt was so willing to accept his parents’ deaths as suicide because he’d helped set up the deaths to look that way. Who better to create a phony suicide note and then identify the signatures as authentic? Maybe he’d nursed an old grudge. Or wanted their assets and figured he had to do something before Jock and Jessie blew everything on emus and guns. And he’d been so quick to emphasize what a poor shot he was.

I instantly squelched that quagmire of suspicion. Frank might not seem broken up about his parents’ deaths, true. Even a bit resentful toward them. But I thought I sensed honest affection for them underneath the grumpy attitude.

I hastily jumped my thoughts in a different direction. “Were the emus part of their survival plans?”

“Oh yeah. According to them, emus were the key to making it through the desperate times. You could eat the meat and eggs. Emu oil would erase your wrinkles and cure your arthritis. No doubt grow hair on a bowling ball too. If some new world order needed hairy bowling balls. You could use the skins for leather to make shoes or clothing. Emus don’t need as much space as other livestock, and they’re more efficient at turning feed into meat than cattle or hogs. All-around wonder birds.”

Frank was obviously not an emu admirer, and he gave a baleful glance toward the toothpick-legged birds standing behind their fence watching us. “The only problem is, their brains are about the size of mini-marshmallows, and one time when they got out it was like trying to round up ping-pong balls bouncing on a concrete floor. They’ll steal your watch if they get a chance. Or peck your ears or your belt buckle. And they kick, you know. Kick forward, and those toenails can rip out something vital before you know it. Stupid birds,” he muttered in rerun.

“They seem rather likeable,” I protested mildly.

“I just hope someone shows up who likes them to the tune of a couple thousand bucks a pair, since that’s what my folks paid for them.”

The price startled me. Expensive meat. Or eggs. Or balm for bowling balls. “Did they plan to raise them commercially?”

“Beats me.” His tone suggested he’d like to see them all between buns at an emu-burger stand.

“You’re hoping to find a buyer for them as soon as possible, then?”

“Don’t I wish. But that’s one of my problems. Jock and Jessie didn’t exactly put their affairs in pristine order before they decided to . . . do what they did, so it appears that at the moment I can’t dispose of anything. Not the stupid emus, not the Hummer, not this place. I need to find a will, and if I can’t find one, settling the estate may stretch into the next decade. Those birds may die of old age before I can get rid of them.”

I doubted the situation was that bad. Exaggeration and facetiousness were perhaps just Frank’s way of coping with his loss. But I also had to wonder, why
hadn’t
the Northcutts put their affairs in order? They’d worried about food and supplies for future survival. They seemed the type of people who would take orderly care of their final affairs before doing something drastic.

“You’ve talked to a lawyer?”

“That’s one of the reasons I was gone all day. I called my lawyer down home, but he said I’d need someone here in Oklahoma. He gave me a name, and then I had to wait around over in Horton to get in to see the guy. Now I’m looking for a will, maybe a safe-deposit box key, plus papers on this property and all their other assets. About which I know nothing, of course.” Again that simmer of resentment. He stood up abruptly. “So I’d better get at it. Thanks for dinner.”

“Have you made funeral plans yet?”

“One thing Jock and Jessie did do a long time ago was set up a burial plan and buy burial plots next to Evan, so at least that’s taken care of. I’m having the bodies shipped out to California and buried there.”

“You’ll go out there for services, then?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’ll be just a private, no-services burial. I can’t see that it’s going to matter one way or the other to Jock and Jessie.” He gave me an apologetic glance. “I suppose that sounds harsh and uncaring, and I don’t mean it to be. It’s just that things are . . . unsettled. I have to take the kids back to their mother in a few days. We’re trying to buy a new house, and Mikki would like to expand and upgrade her beauty salon. And now there are all these complicated details with the estate.”

The suspicion reared its ugly head again. A wife, an ex-wife, two kids, a new house. Was he in need of big bucks, big bucks he figured he’d inherit if his parents were conveniently out of the way?

He strode off toward the house. I thought he intended to tackle the search for important papers immediately, but a few minutes later I heard noises and saw him trying to wrestle the bloody sofa out the sliding glass door.

He’d grimly gotten it that far by himself, but Abilene and I ran over to help him. Together, keeping our eyes away from the bloodstains and our breath held to avoid the scent, we managed to push the sofa off the deck. Something gave a loud
cr-a-ack
when it hit the ground.

Frank went back inside, dragged out the coffee table and bloodstained tan rug, and dumped them on top the sofa. Then he got a rope from the SUV, wrapped one end around the sofa and the other around the trailer hitch on the SUV. He unceremoniously dragged everything off to an old burn pile over toward the barn.

I could sympathize. I also wouldn’t want the sofa as a bloody reminder only a few feet away if I were staying in the house. But I was relieved that forest fire danger meant he couldn’t immediately set fire to it. Somewhere in the back of my mind was still the thought that the sofa could hold important clues.

Lights went on when Frank went back in the house, and they were still burning when I got up at 2:00 to let Koop in from his nocturnal wanderings.

15

By noon the next day, Frank was still holed up in the house. Despite my concerns about colored blobs on the trees and the strange footprint, Abilene went for a hike in the woods. The emus, making their odd, sometimes plaintive-sounding noises, trailed along the fence, following her as far as they could. I pulled more weeds. I’m not a great gardener, as my garden back on Madison Street would attest, but I get a real satisfaction out of annihilating weeds.

Frank hadn’t mentioned our staying here longer, but neither had he told us to shove off, so I wasn’t inclined to hurry away. I figured that as long as we were here, the Braxtons were less likely to catch up with me, and Abilene’s fondness for the emus would keep her from taking off for parts unknown. But we had to do something about clothes for her. She’d washed everything by hand last evening and wrapped herself in a sheet, sarong style, for bed. The jeans were still damp this morning, but they were all she had to put on.

When Abilene returned from her hike she reported seeing more colored blobs, plus several deer, but no more footprints. She got out mayo and a can of tuna to make sandwiches for lunch, and I went over to the house and knocked on the frame of the sliding glass door. Frank had it and all the windows open, giving the place a much-needed airing out. He opened the door with a sandwich in one hand.

“I was just going to ask if you’d like to join us for lunch, but I see you’re already eating.”

He waved the sandwich. “Canned corned beef. There are two cases of it. And two more of sardines. Unfortunately, Mikki hates ’em both.”

“Are you making progress on finding what you need?”

“I’ve been going through the mess on the dining room table. The only thing useful I’ve found so far is a folder on the Hummer. Nothing on this property or other assets. Some old script contracts may come in handy, but most of the stuff seems to be research material and plot and character notes. It looks as if they intended to get away from Westerns and try a contemporary or maybe even futuristic adventure.”

That apparently didn’t strike him as significant, but it did me. They were hard at work on some exciting new idea, and they interrupted it to kill themselves? Another chink in the suicide classification.

Frank looked at his watch. “I was hoping to start home tomorrow, but the way things are going I’m not going to make it. Mikki will not be a happy camper.”

“I won’t keep you then. I hope you find what you need.”

“Yeah. Me too. What I did find is that the basement is full of more food and enough supplies to outfit an excursion to outer space. My estimate that there was enough food here to last them for a year was about two years low.”

I decided this was as good a time as any to get bold. “Are you thinking about what you’ll do with this place until you can sell it? Abilene and I are available for caretaking, if you need someone.”

He gave me a hesitant look. I saw myself as he undoubtedly saw me: one hundred pounds of five foot one LOL with possum-gray hair, wrinkles, and polyester slacks. I wished I could get down and show him a few one-armed pushups like tough guy Jack Palance did at the Academy Awards one year, but since that was out of the question I decided to appeal to him on the basis of money. “We’d be willing to do it very reasonably.”

“You wouldn’t mind being way out here all by yourselves?”

No, but . . . “You mentioned once that your folks had called 911 a couple of times. Do you know why?”

“One time the emus got out, and all that was left of one of them was some feathers and bones out in the woods. They were convinced some conspiracy of emu rustlers did it, but I figured someone just sneaked in and let the dumb birds out as a prank. Or maybe they managed to get the gate open on their own. They’re sneaky,” he muttered, as if the birds may have craftily plotted their own escape. Which hardly went along with being “dumb,” but I didn’t point out the discrepancy.

“Anyway, I figured a coyote or mountain lion or something got that one. Jock and Jessie finally had to hire some guy to come in and use a net to capture the last two running around out there. I don’t know what their other 911 call was about. Actually, I think the ranch is a fairly safe place. You aren’t going to get transients wandering through.”

“We saw an odd footprint out in the woods,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘odd’?”

“Barefoot.”

I expected Frank to be disturbed by the idea of a shoeless stranger skulking around, but he shrugged it off. “Could be Jock or Jessie’s track. No telling what kind of survival games they were playing out there. When civilization collapses, you can’t count on rushing to the nearest Wal-Mart and buying shoes, you know. You’ve gotta be ready to rough it.”

Frank’s explanation of the barefoot print was not totally out of reason, given the Northcutts’ peculiarities, though his tone was facetious again.

“We both like it here. And Abilene is very good with the emus. Which, considering their value,” I reminded him, “need good care so they don’t get out and have something happen to them.”

“Yeah, right. Those stupid birds.” He frowned, but he got off that familiar sidetrack long enough to ask, “She’s, what? Your granddaughter?”

I was tempted to say she was. Abilene and I hadn’t known each other long, but already I had the feeling that if I’d had a choice in granddaughters, she’d have been mine. But, as usual, my aversion to untruths got in the way. “No, we’re just friends.”

“Was she recently in an accident or something?”

Yes, Abilene had been in both an accident and an “or something,” but I just said yes without elaborating.

“Well, let me think about it. I probably can’t risk leaving the place totally untended.”

That sounded as if he was looking at Abilene and me as a last resort, but I didn’t mind being a last resort if we could get the job.