Till the Cows Come Home (26 page)

A slow burn sizzled in my stomach. I should’ve broken Billy’s neck back in high school, instead of his arm.

Sonny cocked his head and raised the gun even with my chest. “Well, Ms. Crown, if all of your questions have been answered, I’m afraid we have to be going. Pam and I have some cleaning up to do, and some children to save. I’m going to be a hero.”

“Pam?” I said.

She looked at me, sadness and fear pulsing in her eyes.

I lunged toward Sonny, knocking the gun barrel aside with my elbow. It fired by my head, making a sound like two trucks hitting head-on. The echo slammed my eardrums.

I collapsed to the floor, and Sonny swung his foot back to kick me. I shot out my leg, catching the ankle of his still-grounded foot. His leg gave out, and I hooked my foot behind his, pulling as hard as I could. He fell backwards, crashing into the chair, then onto the floor, and the gun went skittering from his hand. I pushed off with my right arm and leg and fell on him just as he was scrambling up. I screamed and body-slammed him onto the floor.

He squirmed onto his back, punching at my face and throat.

I banged his head against the floor. “You.”
Bang
. “Killed.…”
Bang
. “Howie.”
Bang
. He went limp.

I sighed, letting my face fall onto his chest while I caught my breath.

I turned my head to see if Pam was coming after me. She wasn’t. She lay crumpled against the wall, surrounded by a spatter of blood. Lots of it. It came from the hole where her throat used to be. I took a moment to steady myself, then forced myself to move.

Afraid Sonny would wake up, I gritted my teeth and limped behind the desk, where I yanked cords from the surge protector and the back of the computer. I worked as quickly as I could. In a couple of minutes Sonny lay face-down on the linoleum, his ankles tied and pulled up to be connected to his wrists. He was oblivious to it all. I squatted beside him and examined my handiwork. He wasn’t going anywhere soon. Except to jail.

I turned and grabbed the edge of the desk, balancing myself on my knees. The phone was just within reach, and I knocked the receiver off the cradle and drew it toward me. The 911 dispatcher took my call with the usual calm of emergency experts, and I slowly sank to the floor and lay all the way down on my back. I didn’t look at Pam again.

Before long I heard sirens. And I allowed the world to go black.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The hospital room was peaceful, with occasional sounds of nurses going by the door, and random snores from my roommate. The curtain was pulled in between us, and I stared out the darkened window. It was almost dawn.

“Knock, knock.” A nurse peeked around the curtain.

“Vitals
again
?” I said.

“Not this time. There’s a Detective Willard who wants to see you. I told him I’d check if you were awake.”

“I’m awake.”

“So I should send him in?”

“Please.”

Willard came in and sank onto the visitor’s chair. He leaned an elbow on the chair’s arm and rested his chin on his fist. “Sonny Turner’s behind bars. And I don’t care who he gets as his lawyer, I’m never letting him out.”

“You’d better not,” I said. “For his sake.”

Willard met my eyes for a moment, then looked away.

“How’s Brady?” I asked.

“Going to be okay, thanks to you. We’ve confirmed everything we found in the processing plant, so the docs know better how to counteract it. The sick kids had stopped drinking milk, of course, just with the regular clear liquids diet, but the damage the aflatoxin had done was too great for that to cure them completely. Same with the antidote.” He paused. “Now we just pray all these people don’t have permanent liver and kidney damage.”

I remembered seeing that possibility on the aflatoxin web site. “For real?”

“The consequences of long-term exposure.” Anger tightened his face. “Damn them.”

My mind flashed to the image of Pam slumped against the office wall. Perhaps she already was damned. Somehow I couldn’t find it in my heart to be in any way glad about that.

“So how did you check out the DNA sequence?” I asked.

“Woke up a Temple University geneticist. She ran the gene strand through an on-line database that analyzes DNA sequences and compares them to other DNA. The geneticist was pretty skeptical, though. Said it would take millions, if not
billions
, of dollars to perfect such a gene.”

Which Sonny probably had in his wallet on a daily basis.

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” I said.

“Can’t argue with that.” He sighed. “Got a little good news for you.”

“Yeah? I could use some.”

“Hubert Purcell and Marianne Granger are falling all over themselves blaming each other for the sabotage on your farm. Marianne tried to be tight-lipped, but once I told her she was going to be charged with accessory to murder for the aflatoxin poisonings, she started gushing information.”

“Like the manure she had sent pouring from my lagoon.”

Willard managed a small smile. “And Hubert will be paying a hefty fine for letting your herd loose the other night. I did find his fingerprints on the lock you left out for me.”

I closed my eyes, exhaustion reminding me of its presence.

I heard Willard stand, and I looked up at him. “One more thing I don’t understand.”

“Just one?”

“For now. Why was it just our borough? Why no other towns?”

He sat down again. “Sonny paid off the two Rockefeller drivers that delivered to all the milk markets in town. Every gallon of your milk went directly to local shelves. If someone from out of town bought a gallon here now and then, they’d never know the difference. It was those of us who bought here on a regular basis that felt the effects, since the symptoms only started showing up after months of ingestion.”

My stomach turned. I still couldn’t grasp that it was my milk that had sickened an entire population. Had killed people. “Sounds like an iffy process.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t matter to them, apparently. The whole thing was pretty much of an experiment. An experiment that worked far too well.”

I closed my eyes, this time to shut out the world.

Willard stood again, but I could feel him hovering by the bed. “I’m real sorry about Pam.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t open my eyes. “Me, too.”

A few hours later I woke up with my arm and ribs throbbing. After pounding the nurse button and getting a hit of morphine, I tried to down my breakfast. Thankfully, the phone rang in the middle of my scrambled eggs. I got it on the third ring, my body not happy about the twisting, and had to catch my breath before answering.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Stella.”

“Zach. How are you?”

“Okay, I guess.”

I waited, not sure what to say.

Zach spoke again. “I, uh, know it wasn’t your fault about Gus.”

“Thanks, bud.”

More silence.

“I’m sorry I was so mad at you.”

A smile made my forehead stitches ache. “Forget about it, Zach. It’s over. How are you feeling?”

“Much better.”

“Really?”

“Mom keeps saying I have color back in my cheeks.”

“That’s great. Mallory?”

“Bossing me around.”

I laughed. “Glad to hear it.”

“Anyway, Mom said I needed to call and let you know. Seems like…we’re going to be okay.”

“Yes, Zach. We are.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him what health problems he could face in the future. He was a teen-ager. Tomorrow wasn’t important. “You tell your mom thanks—”

“She wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you soon.”

“Stella?”

“Hey, Belle.”

She was quiet for a second. “I feel really stupid.”

“No need to.”

“When I saw Pam arrive I thought you’d be taken care of for a bit. I never heard anything over the vacuum cleaner.”

“Belle, it’s okay.”

“You could’ve been
killed
.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“No. No, you weren’t.”

We had a moment of silence.

“Well,” she finally said, “at least now you’ll go home to a clean house.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Pam’s dad sold out to a developer the very next day. Last I heard he bought a one-way ticket to Florida.

I sat on the side steps of my house staring at the barn, trying to decide how I could possibly go on doing what I’d done every day I could remember. Instead of a haven of family and hard work, my farm had now adopted an aura of tragedy. Howie—
oh, Howie
—had died because he tried to save it. Toby and the other boy died because they drank its product. Pam died because she had used it for evil. Who knew how many other people would be permanently affected.

I watched yet another vehicle drive down my lane and disappear. The county waste truck had emptied my feed barn of every kernel of grain in sight. They would be back later to empty my silo. I had already contacted a local granary that had never bought grain from Jude, and they would be coming to replace what I’d lost. The granaries that had bought grain from him were being cleaned out, as well, even though the amount of toxic grain would’ve been too small to affect anyone once it got mixed in with all the other. But the government wasn’t taking any chances.

When I had gotten home from the hospital that morning, I had to run off several reporters wanting to tape interviews, then went on a slow tour of the farm, trying desperately not to cry at everything that reminded me of Howie. Marty was almost finished milking my cows. Carla—who had heard the news and made a sudden change to another company’s milk—was performing an impromptu herd check. And there was a message on my answering machine from Brigham Bergey, my brand-new lawyer. I called him back immediately, and he gave me the first good news I’d had since Nick had first walked into my office.

But I couldn’t let myself think about Nick.

Bergey had convinced the insurance home office I was entitled to the money for my heifer barn. Once Marianne confessed, there wasn’t much more the company could do. But despite his success with the heifer barn, he wasn’t sure the insurance company would pay for the grain I’d lost. There seemed to be some clause denying me coverage for any act of war or terrorism, and they viewed it as such. Cheap bastards.

I heard a cow moo in the paddock and had something else to be thankful for. The cows were completely unaware of what had happened around them. Carla said she couldn’t see anything to tell her they’d been harmed. If they had been momentarily affected, they had adjusted or forgotten by now. Blissful ignorance.

Queenie, fully recovered from Sonny’s kick except for the bump on her head, started to bark, and a car pulled up the drive. A glance told me it was Abe’s Camry. I turned my head away, looking out at the fields. I took in my lush green acres, soon to be barren, stripped and sanitized by the EPA. Abe’s car got closer, but I ignored it. I didn’t think I would be able to stomach the pity that would surely be in Missy’s eyes.

The car stopped and a car door slammed. Just one. I took another peek and saw Abe standing by the sedan, gazing at me over the top of it. No one was in the passenger seat. I tried to read his face. He had attempted to visit me in the hospital, but the nurses had acted as much like guards as caregivers. Willard had been the only person allowed in.

Gravel crunched under Abe’s feet as he made his way to where I was sitting. He paused when he got to me, then sat on the step. We stayed that way for several minutes, silent, staring toward the barn.

“How’s Jude?” I finally asked.

“Not good. Marianne’s locked up, at least for now, and who knows what will happen if she gets out? Belle and Jethro insisted Jude come and stay with them for a little while. He fought it, but you know how they are. God, I’m sorry about all that, Stella.”

“And I’m sorry for the little baby that’s going to be born into all of it.”

We lapsed into silence again, and did more staring.

“Queenie bust through that screen door?” he asked.

“The night of the fire. I’ll get around to fixing it someday.”

More silence. More staring.

“Where—” I said.

“I—” he said.

We both stopped.

“You first,” we both said.

I gestured at him to go and he picked up a stick and started turning it around in his hands.

“I decided to move back in with Ma for a while.”

I glanced at him, and he flushed. I didn’t say anything.

“I figured with all that happened you could use a little help around here. Might as well be me. And it seems Rockefeller has an opening for an accountant.”

I stared even harder at the barn, trying to digest what he was saying. “I can’t see Missy and Ma getting along in that close quarters.”

Abe threw the stick into the driveway. “Missy’s already back in New York.”

I looked at him. He jumped up and stood, his back to me. His shoulders rose, hesitated, fell. “She seemed to think I had the woman I loved right here at home. Said she’s giving me some time to figure out what my heart is telling me.”

I sat, stunned.

Abe turned around. “I thought about that for a while. Finally decided she was right. No matter how stubborn you are, or hard-headed, or downright bitchy, you seem to be the woman I want.”

I stood up as abruptly as I was able and limped into the house, where I leaned on the counter, my head against a cupboard. I looked out of the window and saw Abe standing with his back to me again, rubbing his eyes. I splashed some water on my face and dried it off with a paper towel, then went back out and stood on the top step.

Abe lifted his head, but kept his back to me. “I guess with Nick around that kind of complicates things, but I feel like a teen-ager with all our arguing. I won’t get in the way if he’s who you need right now.”

“Nick’s gone.” I tried to ignore the pain those words caused.

Abe stuffed his hands in his pockets and slowly turned to look at me.

I crossed my arms and looked down at my feet, at the barn, anywhere but him. “He’s been gone since before my accident.”

We stood like that for what seemed like an hour but was probably only a few seconds.

“So where are we?” he asked.

I closed my eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know, Abe. What we’re talking about would change everything.”

“And that would be bad?”

“I’m not ready. Too much has changed. I’m already starting new.”

“So why not try it now? Make it part of the new life?” He took his hands out of his pockets and walked up to me, but I backed away, wrapping my arms around myself. He looked at me for a long time, studying my face.

“I’ll be around to help,” he said. “Whether you want me to or not.”

I took a deep breath. “I think you should go now, Abe.”

His face reflected disappointment, but he was going to have to get used to it, if he expected too much, too fast.

“I’ll be calling,” he said.

I nodded.

He took a last look at my face and walked across the yard to his car. He opened his door, then stopped. “Know how long I’m going to be here for you, Stella?”

I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming, but not wanting to hear it if Howie wasn’t there to say it.

“I’ll be with you till the cows come home.”

He got into his car, turned it around, and drove out the lane, not looking back. I sat down on the steps and held out my hand to Queenie.

“C’mere, girl.” She trotted over and sat, leaning on my knees. I worked my fingers into her coat until I felt the warmth of her skin.

“Oh, Queenie,” I said. “I miss him.”

She rolled her eyes to look up at me, and I rubbed the silky hair on her nose. I knew I should get up and do something productive, but also knew I didn’t have the strength. I leaned over and nuzzled my face into Queenie’s fur.

And I wept.