The Laura Cardinal Novels (48 page)

At that moment the truck jounced into a pothole. Laura felt her heart sink, too. “You mean the brain tumor?”

Shana wiped at her eyes, sniffed, trying to keep the tears at bay. “You know about that, too? You
are
a good detective.”

Laura could understand the sarcasm. It was a coping mechanism—she’d used it herself. Had to, the only female detective in four squads at DPS. Shana reminded her of a kitten, hair standing up on end to make her seem bigger.

“Kellee’s brain tumor was coming back, so she and Dan decided to get married?”

“Well, what would you do?”

Laura tried to picture the situation, put Tom into the middle of it. A few days ago she would have been more level-headed. Now she thought that getting married was exactly what she’d do in a case like that. “I’m sorry,” Laura said. “It’s such—”

“A waste? Oh, yeah. It’s that, for sure!”

Bitter.

Laura realized what a rollercoaster Shana had been on in the space of forty-eight hours. First a wedding, now a funeral. Laura realized it wasn’t so strange that Shana was selling her horse. When faced with a death in the family, people often did something drastic, hoping that by taking action—any action—they could somehow change the dynamics of their broken lives. Laura, herself, had done something similar. She had married Billy Linton a few weeks after her mother and father were killed.

She thought of the parallels between her own life and that of the Yates family. When faced with Kellee’s bad news, Kellee and Dan had decided to get married. Laura wondered if, had Dan and Kellee lived, it would have worked out better than her own hasty marriage had.

Laura recognized the route they were taking. The road they were on passed the north entrance to Cataract Lake before coming to a T-stop at Country Club Road. They turned right, which would lead them past the section of campground where Dan and Kellee were found. Laura noticed that Shana kept her eyes forward, concentrating on the road. Not even a flick of the eyes as the Kaibab National Forest sign marking Cataract Lake flashed by.

Her knuckles white, though, holding the steering wheel in a death grip.

“Shana, do you have to sell your horse now?” Laura asked.

“I want to.”

“How long have you had him?”

“Seven years.”

“How many ribbons have you won on him?”

“I dunno, close to thirty? I almost won a horse trailer once, missed by a fifth of a second.”

“Sounds like he’s been a friend to you.”

Shana looked at her. “How do you know?”

“I had a horse once. She was a friend to me.”

“What happened?”

“The woman who owned her wanted her back.”

“I thought you said you owned her. How could—”

“To tell you the truth, it’s still a sore spot with me. I do know I missed her. She was in many ways my best friend.”

Shana kept staring straight ahead, but her shoulders started heaving. She kept swiping at her nose, but this time the tears came and she couldn’t stop them. “Oh, God, I can’t see!”

She pulled over to the side of the road in a cloud of dust. Laura glanced back and was reassured by the shape in the horse trailer’s front window.

Shana laid her head down on the steering wheel. “He’s gone. I can’t believe he’s gone!”

She held onto the wheel, crying. Hitching breaths, ragged sniffles. Laura had a pack of tissues in her purse and handed them over. Shana blew her nose, gulped. “He … he was my best friend. He was more than a brother.” She swiped at her nose again. “We were twins. I was the older one by two minutes, but he was always my older brother—and now he’s gone. All I have left is Mighty Mouse …” Which started her crying again. At last, tears and snot wiped away, she put the truck in gear and headed out again.

“You could call whoever it is—”

“No. I said I’d come by. Her granddaughter’s there and she wants to ride …”

Laura realized it wasn’t her place to say any more.

The blacktop curved to the left and became Double X Ranch Road, although Laura saw more golf carts than cows. Abruptly, the artificial green of the golf course gave way to fenced meadow. Off to the left was a sprinkling of ranch houses, backdropped by the Bill Williams Mountains.

Shana slowed the truck and turned onto a cinder lane that was little more than two tire ruts. One car-length in from the road was a five-bar gate bracketed by fence posts made from naked tree limbs. Hammered to one of the posts was a metal sign that said UNICORN FARM.

“Can you open the gate?” Shana said. Laura did so, waited for Shana to drive through, then closed it behind her. “Why’s it called Unicorn Farm?” she asked as she got back into the truck.

The girl shrugged. “Mrs. Wingate likes unicorns.”

“Wingate? Any relation to Josh Wingate?”

“His mom.”

So this was where Josh Wingate had been going when he saw Dan’s truck.

Up ahead, in a scattering of ponderosa pines, a Wedgwood-blue house topped by a brown shingle roof dreamed in the sun and shadows. The roof stretched down past the house, doing double duty as a porch covering, running all the way across the front. To the right of the house up a slight rise was a long, low building, small square windows running along the side high up—a barn. A few chickens out front, near a triangular chicken coop. The lane branched right and left through a last-gasp riot of sunflowers. They took the right fork toward the house.

A woman stood on a wet flagstone walk out front, watering the flowers bordering the bright green grass fronting the house. Up close the place showed signs of disrepair; a few shingles were missing, the roof was matted with pine needles, and the house paint had faded. The words “genteel poverty” came to mind.

The woman watering the pansies out front was heavyset, her ponytailed blonde hair showing two inches of roots. In shape, she was an apple, not a pear. She wore white Capri pants and a pink T-shirt that swelled around the bulge in her waist.

Shana pulled up and asked Laura to roll down her window. She called out, “Hi, Suzy. Where’s Barb?”

The woman paused to bat an ash from her cigarette. “Down at the barn with those horses again, last I saw.”

Shana put the truck in gear and they drove to the barn. Laura watched Shana, the set of her mouth, her eyes squinched up against something hurtful. Almost said something, but didn’t. Shana was over twenty-one; she had a right to do anything she wanted, even if it appeared she was acting impulsively. For all Laura knew, this wasn’t an impulsive act at all.

Shana got out and walked into the barn, calling out Barbara Wingate’s name.

Laura watched her stalk around the side of the barn. There was a manic quality to her voice. Grief or anger.

Or fear?

It came to Laura all at once, the overwhelming sense that Shana was scared.

Scared of what? It could be as simple as the fact that she was facing her own mortality. Her twin brother, big, handsome, strong—had just been wiped out in an instant. That would scare anybody.

Shana tromped back over to Laura. “She’s not around. I don’t know what she’s doing. She told me she’d be here!”

Moving rapidly into tantrum mode.

Laura caught a movement in the corner of her eye—a figure in the pasture to her left. “Could that be her?” she asked.

Shana followed her gaze. Her face fell into lines of relief. She called and waved. The woman, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, waded toward them through the shin-high grass, followed by three horses.

Judging by Josh Wingate’s age, Barbara Wingate must be at least in her mid-forties, but looked much younger. She wore a gray felt cowboy hat with a flat crown, clapped down over reddish-gold hair pulled back into a ponytail. A few loose strands, torched by the afternoon sun, framed her heart-shaped face. She had a figure that was both slim and generous. She looked like the kind of woman you’d like to share morning coffee with on a sunny deck. Hell, she looked like an
ad
for a woman you’d like to share morning coffee with on a sunny deck.

She stripped the heavy leather gloves from her hands and tucked them into the belt that cinched her small waist. “Shana! How are you doing?” Her voice as melodious and attractive as her person.

“I brought Mighty Mouse.”

As Laura reached over the wire fence to shake Mrs. Wingate’s hand, something crunched underfoot—the wing of a dead raven. Laura stepped back quickly, noting the ants riddling the shiny black carcass, the empty eye socket.

“You’re with the Department of Public Safety?” Mrs. Wingate asked. “Josh told me all about you. He was very impressed with the way you work.”

That caught her off-balance. “Thank you.”

Shana repeated, “I brought Mighty Mouse.”

Barbara Wingate frowned. “You know, Shana, if you don’t want to sell him, we could lease him for a few months. That way, if you change your mind—”

“I won’t change my mind.”

“Well, then, I’ll go get Erin.” She climbed through the fence with desultory grace and walked toward the house.

Shana watched her go. Three ravens dipped and flapped through the clear sky, their wings a rush of air, their voices harsh. Brothers to the dead raven by the fence? Laura said to Shana, “Did you drive up to Vegas with Dan and Kellee?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So it was you, Bobby, Dan, and Kellee?”

“As a matter of fact, I met Bobby there.”

“Who’d you come back with?”

“Bobby. Why? Is it important?”

Laura stifled her disappointment. She’d been hoping Shana had come back with Dan and Kellee. She might have seen something if they’d encountered trouble on the road. “Did anything happen on the way up?”

“What?”

“Anything unusual.”

“What, like someone was following us? You think whoever—No. At least
I
didn’t notice anything.”

“No one cut you off in traffic, anything like that?”

“No.”

Laura sighed. It had been a long shot. “You don’t know of anyone who disliked Dan or Kellee?”

“I told you before, Dan was liked by everybody. Except for that one guy a long time ago.”

It also appeared that Shana didn’t know any more. “What about Kellee? Was there anybody you know of who didn’t like her?”

“God, I dunno. To tell you the truth, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Kellee.”

“You didn’t like her?”

Shana hiked her shoulders, stared sullenly out at the pasture. “Got a cigarette?”

“Sorry.”

“Figures.” She continued staring out at the pasture and the mountains beyond.

Laura had exhausted this line of questioning. She wouldn’t get anything else out of Shana. So she ignored Shana’s cold shoulder, ignored the stink of the sun-warmed raven carcass, and watched the horses.

They were Thoroughbreds. One of them had a knee the size of a honeydew melon, but all of them were well-conformed, beautiful to Laura’s eye.

“What’s the story with him?” she asked Shana, nodding to the horse with the bad knee.

“Mrs. Wingate takes in retired racehorses and tries to find them homes. She puts photos of them up on the Internet.”

“That’s good of her.”

“Yeah. She’s a pretty cool person. She works with little kids, too, ones that have problems. She gives them riding lessons. You should see it; it’s really kind of cool.”

“Will she do that with Mighty Mouse?”

“Probably not. He’s pretty hair-trigger. Not a beginner’s horse.” Her voice held a certain pride. “She’s going to save him for her granddaughter.”

“Erin.”

“Uh-huh.”

A screen door slammed and two figures emerged from under the porch. Barbara and a thin girl Laura guessed to be eight or nine years old came toward them.

Laura was surprised that the girl—Erin—hung back. When faced with the prospect of a new horse, most girls that age would be excited to the point of hyperactive.

Erin was very slight, and there was a strained look to her eyes.

“Is Erin sick?” she asked Shana.

“Uh-huh. I think she’s got mono.”

“Mono?”

“Or it could be something else. I don’t really know.”

It was clear she didn’t really care either.

Barbara Wingate stopped, looked back, said something to the girl, who hurried up. Barbara rewarding her with a beatific smile.

Laura stood off to the side while Shana backed Mighty Mouse down the ramp and tied him to the trailer. Apparently, Shana was making a clean sweep; she pulled out a saddle, bridle, and dumped a pile of grooming equipment on the ground, as if she couldn’t wait to be rid of them.

She stripped off the shipping bandages and saddled Mighty Mouse. Laura watched Barbara Wingate and her granddaughter. Erin stood there listlessly, as if she were watching a TV program she wasn’t much interested in. Barbara Wingate’s hand touched Erin’s back—offering comfort? When Shana was done, Barbara leaned down and said something softly to Erin. Erin nodded. Barbara helped the girl into the saddle.

It was clear Erin knew how to ride. She dutifully trotted Mighty Mouse up the dirt road a ways and loped back, easily able to pull him up. She circled him one way and then the other, neck-reining him. Mighty Mouse looked like a million dollars.

Glancing at Shana, Laura saw the pained expression, tears glittering in her eyes.

Erin looked at Barbara for permission, then slid down to the ground and led Mighty Mouse over to them. “Nice horse,” she said. But her voice was flat.

She started to cough.

Her grandmother squatted down next to her. “Erin, do you want to go inside now, Honey?”

“I’m okay.”

She didn’t sound okay.

Shana checked her watch. “I’ve got to go.”

Barbara dug into her jeans pocket and handed Shana a check. Laura caught the amount: over twelve hundred dollars. Shana tucked the check into her own jeans pocket and walked briskly for the truck. “Where do you want the trailer?”

Laura and Barbara Wingate exchanged looks. Sadness in the woman’s green eyes, the lines around them wrinkling in sympathy. “Go ahead and back it up next to the barn,” she said.

“Are you coming?” Shana yelled to Laura. “Or do you want to walk home?”

Laura said the usual, “it was nice meeting you, hope Erin enjoys Mighty Mouse,” then got into the truck.