The Coaster (13 page)

After a final push away, it occurred to Corny that being taunted by a horse wasn't helping his command presence. “Get this fucking animal away from me!” he shouted at Sarah.

“You move,” Sarah countered with steely calm. “
You're
bothering
him
.” It would have been easy for Corny to move away and that's exactly what he would have done if Sarah hadn't told him to. No way was he doing her bidding.

“Oh, that's right. You're the horse expert. You gals love your horses,” Corny leered. “Rubbing against the saddle gets you off, doesn't it?”

“What do you know about getting a woman off, Dave?” Thankfully, Sarah left me out of this line of inquiry.

But Corny didn't. “If you'd like to know what your husband knows about it, I'd be happy to show you the DVD.”

“I don't need to see it,” Sarah said. “I'm all too familiar with Bob's sexual performance when he's drunk.”

I gave Sarah a hurt look. She ignored it and continued. “I also told Bob your little story about the two of us in college was complete bullshit. I wouldn't let you touch me if you were wearing a full-body condom.”

Corny looked sheepish. “I actually felt kind of bad about that, but I wanted him in the right frame of mind to meet the girls.” He mimed a sad clown face at me. “Forgive me, Bobby?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, it's water under the bridge now. You've got bigger problems. Do you think we'll go away because you've defused the blackmail threat? Blackmail was the easy way for
you
, not for
us
. I was doing you a favor because we're old friends.”

I wiped a fake tear from my eye. “Your concern is touching, Corny.”

“I promised my employers the blackmail would work because I know you.”

“I guess you don't know me as well as you thought.”

“I'm serious. You may not like being blackmailed, Bobby, but believe me, the alternatives are far worse. What do you think happened to your father-in-law?”

Chapter Sixteen

“What are you talking about, Dave?” Sarah asked through gritted teeth.

“Swanson wasn't lying about your father being interested in Sanitol,” Corny said. “He really was.”

Finally, my chance to enlighten everyone. “That's true. But you may not know that shortly before he died, Sam sent an e-mail to Swanson declining the deal.”

“Of course I know that,” Corny sneered. “After Swanson got that e-mail, he tried everything to change Sam's mind, even bribes and veiled threats. But Sam had seen something in the deal he didn't like. He wouldn't be persuaded.”

“That was Dad,” Sarah said. “Even I couldn't get him to change his mind once it was made up.”

I smiled at her. “And you had him wrapped around your little finger.”

“So Swanson knew he was screwed,” Corny said. “He wasn't the better man in this negotiation. As long as Sam was in charge, the deal wouldn't go through.”

“But Swanson couldn't have known the deal would go through if something happened to Sam,” I said. “Sarah's just as smart and tough as her father.”

“Exactly. They needed someone like you in charge of the trust.”

“How could they know my father would name Bob trustee?”

Corny shrugged. “They have ways of getting what they want.”

“And you're one of those ways,” I said.

“That's right, I am. But they have others. Even if they had something to do with you becoming trustee, who would question it? You're Sam's son-in-law. You're a lawyer. You're a respected member of the community, for some reason. Why do you think they picked you?”

How ironic. Hoisted on my own petard. I should have kept my petard locked in my petard safe. But the only way they'll get my petard now is to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Sarah came to my defense. “Swanson and his roving band of Cornies had nothing to do with it. My father chose Bob as trustee because he thought he was the best man for the job.”

“Have it your way,” Corny shrugged. “It doesn't matter. The bottom line is we're all in the same boat. And it is rapidly filling up with water and alligators and piranhas and nasty shit. When that boat goes down, we don't want to be on it.” Corny tucked the Letter of Intent back into his pants. “Now let's go up to the house and figure out what we're going to do.”

Sarah said, “All right,” and started out the barn door. I followed. Corny gave a little bow and said “Age before beauty.” I walked past him toward the door. I was beginning to see that Corny was a complicated man. Deep down, he was actually a pretty good guy, I thought, as he hit me in the back of the head with a shovel.

***

When I came to, Corny was dragging me by my ankles along the dirt floor of the barn while Sarah pounded on his back with her fists and screamed obscenities. I don't think I was ever truly unconscious, more stunned than knocked out. Corny had delivered a glancing blow, like a pool player trying to make a shot at a difficult angle by hitting the outer edge of the ball. He was trying to briefly disable me, not hurt me seriously. Or maybe he just missed.

Corny leaned me up against the trough we use to water the horses and grabbed a chair out of the office and told Sarah to sit on it. Surprisingly, I felt okay. The hangover had been worse.

Corny walked over, lifted me up by the front of the shirt and let the back of my head hang over the water in the trough. “Bobby, I'm just going to give you a little taste of what you can expect if you don't cooperate.” He lowered my head in the water for a few seconds. The water was cool and actually felt pretty good on my wounded head. I didn't choke, although I was a little grossed out because I'm sure the water was full of horse spit. Before it got any worse, Corny pulled me back out. I opened my eyes and saw the reason why. Sarah was yanking his head back by the hair.

Corny turned, picked Sarah up, and slammed her back in the chair. “Once I get your wife under control, I'll continue with Corny's CIA-approved waterboard torture. It's so torturous, they won't even use it on terrorists anymore. But I'm going to use it on you, Bob.”

Corny's first effort didn't count as waterboarding. It was more like fraternity pledge hazing, without the homoerotic undertones. At least in my case. I can't speak for Corny.

But I sure as hell didn't want him to take another crack at it. When Corny said he was going to torture me, he meant it. And if that didn't work, he'd move on to something that would, like hurting my family. He was a true psychopath, willing to do anything to get what he wanted, with no empathy for his victims.

“We're all going to have a nice long chat. But first I need to immobilize the two of you.” Corny started walking around the barn.

“What are you looking for?” Sarah asked.

“Rope. I'm going to tie you to that chair so you don't butt in while I make sure Bobby here has a clear understanding of the situation.”

“You don't need to do that,” Sarah said. “Bob can barely sit up and I'm just a woman.” Yeah, right. And a shark is just a fish. Even I wasn't buying that one.

“
What we have here is a failure to communicate
,” Corny drawled. “This isn't a negotiation. I'm either going to tie you to the chair or shoot you in the kneecap. Your choice.”

“You don't even have a gun,” Sarah scoffed.

Corny reached behind him and pulled a small black handgun from his waistband. I'd seen it before, pointed at my hungover face.

“Corny, put the gun away,” I said. “There's rope in the stall.”

Corny pointed a finger at Sarah. “You stay right where you are. Don't even think about making a run for the house or I'll make a surprise bedcheck on the kiddies.”

Sarah sprang out of the chair “If you so much as go near any of my children, I will kill you.”

I reacted too but could only raise my head a few inches before a wave of nausea hit me and puke came out of my mouth instead of the vicious threats I'd intended. I mentally added vomiting to my concussion checklist. Dizziness, check, headache, check, cartoon birds circling my head, check, vomiting, check.

Corny ignored me and pointed the gun at Sarah. “Sit down. Stay put and you have nothing to worry about.”

Sarah sank back down. Corny tucked the gun in the back of his black jeans, unlatched the stall door, and went in. Rex snorted and shuffled around nervously.

“That's a good boy,” Corny whispered. He eased behind the horse and looked at the wall. “I can't see anything. Where's the rope?”

“Do you have a flashlight?”

“Of course I do. I'm a professional.”

The second Corny switched on his flashlight, Rex went absolutely batshit. He snorted and whinnied and made whatever the hell noises horses make when they're pissed. He smashed the stall door apart with his front legs and kicked back toward the light with his hind legs. A sickening thud rang as hoof met flesh. I heard Corny's body hit the ground. So did Rex. Like an experienced street fighter, he knew the fight wasn't over when the other man went down. You finish him off with your boots. That's what Rex did. He backed up and stomped twice, burst through the splintered door, and pounded out into the night.

Chapter Seventeen

Like most grazing animals, horses are generally not aggressive. They're prey, not predators. Because they don't have to hunt and kill their food, their first instinct is flight, not fight. Their response to danger is to run away. Thank God for that because if they knew what they were capable of, they would never serve their human masters again. Fortunately, horses don't know they're practically superheroes. They can run forty miles an hour. They're three-quarters of a ton of pure muscle. They have steel shoes nailed to their feet. Yet they allow little girls to order them around like slaves. For a treat they get a measly sugar cube. As Corny found out, an angry stallion in a confined area can really do some damage.

Sarah rushed over and helped me to my feet. Corny had to be at least unconscious, but we were careful in our approach to the stall. I find it ridiculous when the potential victim in a book or movie gains the upper hand and immediately blows it by being too cocky. In real life, fear doesn't go away. You don't suddenly turn into James Bond after a minor victory.

We peered around the corner of the stall. It was immediately clear that Corny was not lying in wait to dupe us. The elbow and hand of his right arm were absolutely crushed. If he survived this, no way that arm would ever work again. He also had a hoofprint right in the middle of his forehead. His head was caved in. His gun was lying in the dirt. He wouldn't be using it anytime soon, but just in case, I grabbed it and threw it out of reach.

Rex's initial kick must have killed Corny instantly. The stomping destroyed his arm, but he wouldn't have felt that, not when his forehead could now be used as a cupholder.

I retched my guts out next to the stall. I don't think this one was due to the concussion because Sarah joined me and no one had hit her in the head with a shovel. After the purge, I felt better, relieved that the danger was over. Maybe horses
can
sense evil.

Max came over and started lapping up my pile of vomit, which is reason number 5,762 to never let a dog lick your face. The worse something smells, the more a dog wants to put it in his mouth.

Sarah looked at me. “Should we call an ambulance?”

“No.” I spat to get the taste of bile out of my mouth. “No point. He's dead.”

“Call the police?”

“Let's think this through before we do anything.”

“Bob, a man is dead,” Sarah said. “It's some kind of crime if we don't call the police. Obstructing justice or something.”

“You're probably right. But—”

“Probably? Didn't you go to law school?”

“I was twenty-three years old. I wasn't planning to be a criminal defense attorney. I was more concerned with whether the cops could legally search my car for dope at a traffic stop.”

“Can they?”

“Only if they have probable cause. Why?”

“I wanted to see if you learned
anything
.”

“Look, the legalities here are the least of our worries. We're in a shitload of trouble. We've got to do whatever's best for us.”

“But isn't that the police? Tell them everything, Bob. They'll protect us.”

“Will they? What can we tell them? Corny's been blackmailing me and now he's dead?”

“They won't think you killed him. Rex did. Obviously.”

“Even if they believe our story, we'll be tied up with bullshit for days.”

Sarah considered that. “But what can we do with him?”

“I'll bury him somewhere on the farm.”

“But what if somebody finds the body? Nobody will believe us then.”

“It'll be me at risk. I won't even tell you where I put him. I didn't kill him, so all I'm guilty of is hiding the body. If the cops ever dig him up, the hoofprint in his skull is pretty convincing evidence in my defense.”

“But how will you explain hiding the body?” Sarah asked.

“The guy tried to kill me, he has friends who might want revenge, I was scared, not thinking clearly. Whatever, I might be guilty of something, but I won't go to jail.”

“Good point about his friends. Won't they come looking for him?”

“I doubt it. From the way Corny talked, he was off-mission tonight. The last thing he wanted was Swanson to know he was having trouble with me. Corny assured Swanson he could handle me. He came over tonight to do just that. He wouldn't have told anybody.”

“But what if he did?”

“He didn't. I know Corny. He would never have shown any weakness. That means Swanson didn't know he was coming here and won't know why he's missing.”

“How does that help us?”

“I don't know. But it's the one advantage we have. We need to figure something out before Swanson gives up on Corny and moves on to plan B, whatever that is.”

***

We keep an old pickup outside the barn for hauling firewood and hay and bags of feed and the constant sloppy work that comes with owning a horse farm. It's a mess, but I didn't think Corny would mind. It sits out in the elements and we never clean it out or wash it, but I thought I might have to make an exception later tonight.

I backed the truck into the barn and parked it with the tailgate flush to the opening of Rex's stall. The door was splintered—Rex had busted right through it—but Sarah had managed to prop it open so we wouldn't have to lift Corny over the wooden plank that was still intact along the bottom. I put his watch cap back on his head. With his forehead covered, Corny looked like he could have been sleeping. Sleeping after a horrible industrial accident that mangled his arm beyond recognition. I dragged him by his feet and angled him so he was perpendicular to the length of the truck and then I lowered the tailgate. He was wearing an all-black high-performance athletic shoe.
The new Nike Nightstalker. Make sure your approach to her bedroom window is perfectly silent.

I didn't really expect fingerprints to be an issue, but neither one of us wanted to touch him with our bare hands anyway, so we were wearing work gloves. I guess they could get Corny's DNA on them, so I should probably dispose of them afterwards. As you might guess, I had no plan for that. Can you burn work gloves? Would they leave an obvious glove-shaped skeleton in the ashes? Should I toss them in a dumpster on the way to work? I could see every option blowing up in my face. A bloody glove would fall out of the trash when the garbage men picked it up or I'd be spotted prowling suspiciously around the dumpster behind McDonald's. I was a nervous wreck and I didn't even kill the guy. It was surprising, given my level of competence in other areas of my life, but it was beginning to appear that I was not a world-class criminal.

I could hardly bear to touch Corny's mangled limb. If I tried to lift him by his arms, it might come off entirely. So I folded his arms across his chest like a woman covering her naked breasts when you accidentally walk into the wrong locker room at the country club, and tried to lift him by his shoulders. I'll admit I dropped him a few times. I was finally able to wrestle him into the bed of the truck by lifting him by the turtleneck. My body was now a virtual forest of incriminating fibers, but as far as I could tell I avoided direct contact with any blood.

I shut the tailgate and tossed Corny's black-ops flashlight in there with him. I decided to keep the gun. There was a chance we were going to be receiving some more visitors in the very near future and even though I was more likely to shoot myself in the foot than shoot a bad guy, I might be glad I had it. I was the exact guy the gun nuts always talked about who didn't have time for any goddamn five-day waiting period. In five days, I might as well have my neighborhood Guns-R-Us store FedEx my new gun right to my gravesite.

I jumped back down out of the truck. Sarah was already hosing off the area where Corny's body had been. “Clean up the blood as well as you can,” I said. “Use bleach if we have it. That seems to stymie the techs on TV. But leave the damage to the stall for now. If someone does find blood later, we can say it's from the horse when he broke through.”

“Some of it may be his blood. We should probably look for him. He could be hurt.”

“I don't want you involved in any of this. You shouldn't be out wandering around the property in the middle of the night. If any of this ever comes out, you need to be able to say you were asleep the whole time.”

“I'm not afraid to take the rap right along with you.”

“I know. But for now, let's keep one of us out of jail to raise the children.” Truthfully, I'd be the better parent to take care of the kids. And Sarah would probably do better in prison.

“You're probably right,” Sarah said.

“Once you've got the blood cleaned up, just put everything in a trash bag, turn off all the lights, and go to bed. I'll dispose of the body and then I'll find Rex. Okay?”

Sarah came over and kissed me. She was holding a bloody rag and wearing rubber gloves. It was like making out with Hannibal Lecter.