When Night Falls (4 page)

“It’s been a year—”

Uma’s hand rested on her throat, on the pulse. “I know, but I just feel myself stirring inside as if something is going to happen. I felt that way the night she was shot—that cold, still feeling, waiting—I felt that way when my mother passed and my baby…I’d better go.”

Shelly’s hand smoothed the tendrils of Uma’s hair back from her face. “You’re very sensitive to others, and caring. You watch everyone’s lives pass beneath your office window, there in your father’s house. You know more about this town than anyone, and if Mitchell is here to heal, he’ll be asking questions of you. Just don’t get hurt, okay?”

Later, as Uma walked past Mitchell’s house, she noted him sitting on the front porch steps. He rose and walked toward her, towering over her in the shadows, the stubble on his face darker now, his appearance tough and dangerous.

Something quivered within her briefly, stirred and settled.

“I’ll walk you home,” he said slowly, the moonlight creating a silvery outline around his dark waves and broad shoulders.

She remembered a boy, lean and serious, and devastating when he smiled—but Mitchell-the-adult hadn’t smiled. Did he ever? “I’m almost there. It’s just next door.”

He walked quietly, slowly beside her. “What happened with Everett? Or do you mind my asking?”

She shrugged lightly, long having dealt with the love that had always been more friend than lover. “We were comfortable together. We still are. But after our baby—Christina Louise was her name—died, so did I, just a little. I thought Everett should have more than what I’d become. I’m happy with my life now. It fills me, but it isn’t right for him…we’re here.”

Mitchell scanned the white two-story house shrouded by towering oaks. Then he nodded and turned, leaving her alone in the night.

He disturbed her, her senses rustling, whispering. Why? Was it the past? Or the trouble he could bring with him?

“I read your article in the newspaper about Bonnie and Clyde’s visit here in Madrid. I suppose writing things like that keeps you busy, since you’re not married anymore. Shelly called me this morning. She knew I’d be upset, and I am. I couldn’t believe that Mitchell-person would actually return to the scene of his crimes. I hope this isn’t another one of her fantasies. She’s been in another world since Lauren died. She can’t remember anything now…is it true? Is Mitchell really back?”

In Uma’s office Pearl stalked through the quiet shadows, her dyed hair gleaming, the cream linen suit reflecting her expensive taste. Pearl shoved her fingers through the heavy mass, preening before she sat in the single overstuffed easy chair. “I just came from the beauty shop and you haven’t said anything about my hair. Some friend
you
are. Walter loves this Rita Hayworth style on me. Jessie has finally gotten the shade right.”

Uma leaned back and saved the computer file on the travel brochure Everett had requested. The resort was new and up
scale and sprawling, and Everett wanted her to go with him to sample it. She couldn’t do anything to encourage him, though the thought of the luxurious spa treatments were tempting.

Pearl looked around Uma’s small office, the white sheer curtains at the windows buffering the bright morning. “I remember sitting here when your mother was alive. She wouldn’t have liked you going over there to welcome that Mitchell-person. Your father told me about that when I called this morning. How could you, Uma? You know he’s here to make trouble. There’s no way the Warrens could do anything else.”

Uma watched Pearl smooth her skirt, a town matron out to protect Madrid’s social class from infiltration of the “lower element.” “Mitchell and Roman might have had a little teenage trouble, but they were never convicted—”

Pearl held up one perfectly manicured finger, and the soft light in Uma’s office caught the huge diamond wedding ring, sending a brilliant pattern onto the seafoam colored wall. “Only because their father was friendly with the deputy at the time—Lonny. Fred Warren should have been put in jail and they should have been put in reform school. You never did say you liked my hair.”

The penalty of an enduring friendship was to pay homage to Shelly’s vanity. Uma often wondered whether, if they had met afresh, they’d have been friends. But childhood bonds had only strengthened through the years; their lives were tangled, and in her way, Pearl needed them. Always quiet and composed and capable to the public, Shelly could speak freely to Uma, Lauren, and Shelly.

“I just drove down Main Street and saw my yard man, Dozer, sitting right on the same bench with Mitchell. There they were, having coffee, seeing who could shave the longest wood curls, pretty as you please. Mitchell looks like he’s been
through hard times—probably prison. I want you to keep your distance from him, Uma. You’ve got a soft heart and just don’t see the evil in anyone.”

Uma ached for the trust that her parents had torn away from her as a child. “Pearl, don’t get all worked up.”

Pearl threw up her hands. “Worked up?
Worked up?
He’s living in Lauren’s house. He bought it and the old garage back on Maloney Street, and he bought back the old ranch, what there is left of it. Now, don’t you just wonder where a Warren would get money like that? He’s back here to stir up trouble. I told my girls to stay clear away from him. It’s a good thing they’re at Walter’s sister in Connecticut and then leaving for their private school in September. I don’t want them exposed to his kind.”

Tired of Pearl’s ranting, Uma changed the subject. “Your hair is the best I’ve seen it. I really do think it looks like Rita Hayworth’s.”

Pearl’s blue eyes widened with pleasure. “You think so? You think Walter will like it?”

“Yes, I do.”
Walter
. Nothing Pearl did was good enough for Walter. Uma studied the cardinals in the garden’s bird bath and wondered if Pearl would ever recognize his sly, insidious abuse, the way he demeaned her. Maybe that was why it was so easy to serve her compliments, to try to build her self-esteem.

Immediately brightened, Pearl stood and smoothed her skirt. “I have to go. I’m hosting the bridge club this afternoon. Walter is thinking of running for mayor in the next election, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help him. Now, Uma, I want your promise that you won’t speak to Mitchell. Leave it to me to find out what he’s doing here. And Everett won’t like it one bit that you went to Mitchell’s house. Don’t tell him.”

“Everett and I are friends, Pearl. He’ll understand…and I love that shade of nail polish. What is it?” Uma asked, to distract her.

Pearl blinked and stared at her hands. She smiled brilliantly as she did when complimented. “Delicate Bondage. Oh, not that Walter and I are into that sort of thing, that’s just the name of the polish. I’d better go. I have so much to do today. I’m planning to take the girls on a shopping trip to New York soon, before boarding school starts. There’s nothing around here that’s suitable for their private school. And I have to have that chat with Dozer. You really should get a suitable office, one with modern furniture and not just some old bedroom.”

“I’ll think about it.” But she wouldn’t. Right here was where she learned the past from her grandmother, where she had become “the keeper.”
Some people are uppity, but if they knew their family’s history, they might be taken down a notch or two
, Grandma had said.
No sense in hurting people, but it’s only right that someone know the truth they’d rather hide
.

“You do that. You know I only want the best for my best friend, and Shelly, of course. You’re all I have of Lauren.”

Tears shimmered in Pearl’s eyes. “I miss her awfully. Walter says the murderer will never be found—probably just some city hoodlum out to make points with his gang.”

Pearl’s vanity and lack of sensitivity sometimes gave way unexpectedly to the childhood friend Uma cherished. In her way, Pearl was helpless and sweet, and their lives were finely, intricately woven together.

After Pearl had gone, Uma tried to concentrate on creating Everett’s travel brochure.

Instead, she thought of Mitchell, of the darkness lurking around him, the coldness she sensed inside him.

And then she knew he’d come back to close the past, to watch and relearn through a man’s eyes. He’d come to heal.

Uma smiled in the shadows of her office, the colors soft and smooth around her, the fresh flowers from her garden scenting the room.

She drew comfort from the gentle, whispering memories
of her mother and grandmother in the same room. Here, she was
safe
.

“I’ll dress how I want, go where I want, and if you don’t like it, I’m moving out. There are plenty of places I can stay—or go,” Dani stated stubbornly in Shelly’s small, neat living room. The sound system slammed loud hard rock music into the deadly space between Shelly and her daughter.

Dani’s dyed black hair, styled in short, straight peaks, matched the black T-shirt, tight black jeans, and heavy eye makeup. With one leg slung over an easy chair, her boot thumping the wall, Dani sat in the chair Shelly had salvaged from the church sale and reupholstered. “You don’t love me anyway. It’s not like you wanted me, or anything. I’m just the aftereffect of when you were my age and running around—”

“I did not run around. I loved your father. You’re a part of him,” Shelly stated, her heart aching for her daughter. Dani was hurt early, when Shelly’s grandparents refused to see her, to acknowledge her. Even now, her grandmother wouldn’t look at her—“the bastard child of Satan.”

“Yeah, right. You loved him so much, you won’t even tell me who he is. And like he stuck around to be a parent.”

“He didn’t know.
I
didn’t know when he left.”

Dani shook her head. “Mom, don’t hand me this bull. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—you ran around and I might end up the same way—that’s what your old lady said.”

“
She’s your grandmother. Don’t call her that
.”

“So when’s she ever been in my life? When’s she ever recognized me as her granddaughter?” Dani demanded hotly. “Well, I’m not going to end up like you, slaving at other people’s houses every day, cleaning toilet bowls, and washing and ironing shirts at night, scrimping for every dime—”

“It’s good, honest work. You could try a little of it. Or at least finish school.”

“It’s a waste of time. I want to live and have fun. You did—”

“Dani, I was not hopping from bed to bed, and I’d better not find out that you—”

Dani leaped to her feet and slammed down the fashion magazine she’d been clutching. “Or?
Or?
What will you do? Kick me out? Maybe that would suit me.”

Despite her tough talk, there were tears in Dani’s eyes, and Shelly’s heart wept for her. “I’m sorry you grew up without a father, honey. I’m sorry my parents were cruel. But I love you so much and only want the best for you.”

“Sure. That’s why you won’t tell me or anyone else who he is. I have a right to know my own father’s name.” Dani was sobbing now, a teenager battling growing up and life and her love for her mother. “Face it, Mom. I’m just like you. Only I’m not ever getting caught with a baby I didn’t want.”

“
I wanted you. I wanted you with every bit of my heart
.”

Dani dashed her tears away, leaving rough black smudges across her face. The color of her eyes was dark, rich amber now, the same as Roman’s. “Sure. It wasn’t easy being stuck with a kid in this town, was it? Boy, I just can’t wait to get out of here.”

After Dani stormed into her bedroom, slamming and locking the door, Shelly felt as if her strength was gone, too. She sank into the chair Dani had been sitting in and picked up the magazine from the floor, automatically replacing it on the stack of others.

How could she explain that night to her daughter, all the depth of tenderness that had given her the most precious gift of her life?

How could she share the intimate details of seventeen-year-old Roman begging her to go with him? Of her choice to remain in Madrid, the safety she’d always known?

She wiped away her tears and studied her broad working
hands. They were rough now, despite hand creams and plastic gloves, the veins pronounced. She would do anything to protect her daughter, and Roman’s name would only launch Dani’s search for him.

He hadn’t been safe back then, and he’d already been sexually skilled and “fast with women.” He probably wasn’t safe now, either, and Shelly didn’t want her daughter hurt.

Dani was like Roman—rebellious, passionate, and headstrong. If the two should ever meet, they’d either clash or bond. Either way, Shelly would be the loser.

If they ever met, she wondered how long it would be before either one of them added times and birth dates together and discovered the truth
.

D
ozer’s gnarled fingers shook as he tried to open the lock on the chain tethering the old Warren garage on Maloney Street. “Locked it because no one was watching it, and the owner who bought it at auction lives away from here. He didn’t care what happened to it. I keep my lawn mowers in here, the sprays and fertilizers and what-not. I’m going to sell my business pretty soon, so you don’t have to worry about this junk bein’ here no more.”

Mitchell scanned the street, remembering the cars and trucks that once stood outside the old garage, waiting for Fred Warren’s healing touch. He glanced up at the second-story window, a jagged, broken pane mirroring the golden sunlight. That was where, as a boy, he’d taken Grace’s place in managing the garage’s books and discovered he liked business better than ranching. But then, he didn’t like ranching at all, not on a tiny forty-acre ranch where hard work got nothing from the dirt.

At eleven o’clock in the morning, Madrid was quiet; spears of sunlight cut through the shadows of Maloney Street. The city beautification club had not seen fit to treat the street, and the old oaks shading it had littered the ground
with leaves and broken limbs. The drugstore had moved to Main Street, and the old two-story buildings were boarded, the sunlight catching broken windows. An elderly woman carrying her black purse and a small bag of groceries hobbled on thick ankles into a building that had once been the town’s seamstress. His rocking chair braced against the front porch of what used to be the candy shop, a tiny, ancient Native American man smoked a hand-rolled cigarette and watched life move around him.

Just around the corner, where Maloney met Main Street, the buildings were still old, but updated with neon signs and flower boxes. Mitchell inhaled slowly—some of the past was worth keeping, and the rest had been shoved away. What was worth keeping in his life?

“That’s Rosy with Kitty and Bernard Ferris,” Dozer was saying, nodding toward the pot-bellied pig crossing the Main Street intersection. There in the middle of the street, while drivers of trucks and cars waited patiently, the elderly couple stopped to allow a little girl to feed the pig a treat. Rosy was obviously treasured by the tiny woman in a flowing dress and a huge straw hat whose gloved hand rested on the elderly man’s bent arm. Once fed and admired, Rosy swayed to the other side of the street on the leash held by the elderly couple, and traffic began moving slowly.

Mitchell noted the friendly waves between the townspeople. There had been few of those when he was growing up. “Leave your lawn care things as long as you like. I don’t have any plans for the building just now.”

“What about that old place? Heard you bought it, too.”

“No plans for that, either.”

“Well, family things are hard to give up, especially land. Seems strange—you coming back here without a job in sight. People are already talking. Talk is that you might be in the mafia, setting up our town for a hideout. They’re wondering
how you got the money to buy this place, the Howard house, and the old ranch.”

“I’d saved a bit. I’ll manage.” Maybe he
was
hiding out—from life. Mitchell gently took the key from Dozer, inserting it and unwrapping the chain securing the two big sliding doors. When they swung open, the musty scent and memories swirled out around him from the dark belly of the past.

His father’s drunken yells once more tore through the shadows, Roman and him arguing violently.

Dozer’s assortment of mowers occupied the space where cars had been parked. The mechanic’s car lift had been taken. Boards, spotted with dust and littered with rubble, formed the workbench, and a pegboard rose above that. Once it held tools, now it was gray with spiderwebs.

“I sprayed for bugs and put some bait out for rats and mice,” Dozer was saying, smoothing the handles of his new riding mower as if caressing a lover. “That’s another reason to lock it tight, so no kids will come in here and get hurt. We had a murder in town about a year ago—a drive-by that killed poor Ms. Howard, sweet woman. She always used to make me Mama’s recipes when I was sick. I missed my Mama’s cooking and it chippered me right up every time.”

Dozer looked around the gloomy building. “The first place I checked was here in case someone was using it for a hideout. Weren’t no one here. I never saw Ms. Uma get so het up and angry at the law for not finding the killer, for not doing more. She went to Tulsa, went through the mug shots, and even hired a private detective. She’s usually the nicest woman, but then there was pure fire in her. Ms. Lauren was shot down right in front of her and Ms. Pearl. Ms. Pearl came unglued and holed up, afraid to get out, I guess. But not Ms. Uma. She starting hunting that murderer right away.”

It’s your mother in you
, Fred had yelled at Mitchell.
Grace didn’t like good hard work and the land, and neither do you.
One day you’ll turn your back on me, on what my people left to me, and walk away, just like her
.

Mitchell glanced at the stairs that led upward to the office, and the echoes of his dying father’s sobs whispered around him. He remembered the desperation with which Fred had hugged him.
You’re all I’ve got left of her. You and Roman. I loved that woman with all my heart
.

Mitchell rubbed the ache in his chest, the tightness clenching his heart. Then he turned and walked out into the sunlight, breathing heavily, fighting the storms in him.

Later, as Mitchell stood on the old ranch, the hot dry wind carried more dark memories—
Hell, no, you can’t have a bicycle. Those are for city boys, and they cost too much. Warren men ride horses
, Fred had said harshly.
Just like your mother, always wanting things that cost too much
.

The old windmill turned silently, and the crows peered down at him, feathers blue black in the bright sunlight.

Mitchell noted the padlock on the old garage. It was rusted, but relatively new, gleaming in the hot sunlight. He remembered the relentless sun, the hours spent trying to eke a living from the worn-out earth.

He might as well see it all today, chew on it, and settle what he could. Mitchell lifted a broken crowbar from the rusted debris against the garage, placed it into the lock, and pushed. The lock held firm, but the metal plate holding it broke free from the weathered wood.

He pried open the old sliding door. From the shadows, a rat scurried past him and Mitchell used the crowbar to swipe away cobwebs. A heavy stench curled out into the fresh air.

The car filled the shadows, a big, powerful Chevrolet hardtop, dusty and laced with cobwebs.

The slice of sunlight bit through the space between weathered boards and skittered across the dusty windshield. Mitchell eased through the shadows and, disturbed, a bird fluttered out into the daylight.

In the driver’s seat, head back against the seat, yawning with bared teeth and eyeless sockets, was a skeleton.

“The town has been quiet since you Warrens left—up until that shooting last year,” the investigator said as the crime team worked within the perimeter of the yellow crime-scene tape around the garage.

Mitchell watched the men carry the black body bag to the ambulance. He recognized several of those who’d collected in a crowd nearby. Older, they were the people who’d expected the worst from him, the son of Fred Warren. They reminded him briefly of vultures waiting to pounce, waiting to destroy.

He smiled at them. Mitchell had learned a thing or two in the tough business world, and one of them was to smile in the worst times. Let them wonder what was behind that smile. He was here to stay until it suited him to leave. He’d been driven from town once, and it wasn’t happening again.

He smiled briefly at Lonny James, the current police chief, who’d been a deputy at the time of the ranch fire. With skin the color of his Cherokee ancestors, heavy jowls, and a good-sized belly, the beefy mountain of a man was a longtime friend of Fred’s; Lonny did more than his share in keeping the boys and Fred out of legal trouble—and right now, from his meaningful look at Mitchell, the police chief wasn’t appreciating the “city boy” invasion.

“Don’t leave town,” the investigator was saying as he snapped his notebook closed.

Mitchell recognized the prick of suspicion lifting the hairs on his nape. “Am I a suspect?”

The man’s smile was cold and professional. “Someone had to put that bullet hole in his head. Just don’t make any plans to leave Madrid, okay?”

Mitchell didn’t like the swelling anger within him. In the old days, the Warrens were accused of any misdeed, and that
still chafed. “I just got here last night. The coroner suspects this murder is almost a year old.”

“Just stay put, sir.”

He moved away and Lonny spat a high-flying perfect arc into the hard-baked ground. “Dufus there had to run his little toy siren through town. It lit up all the dogs and when they howl, I get phone calls. Oswald Page just turned sixty-five and he was pretty upset last time the deputy used his siren and the dogs howled. Oswald’s Viagra had just kicked in. Man, I do not want to listen to him harp on that again, or Mrs. Puckett worried about the invasion of space aliens. And I was up at midnight, listening to Myrtle Hawthorne scream about Edgar MacDougal’s peeing off his back porch. After I got done calming her down, I felt I had to do Edgar justice and peed off my own back porch. Irma thinks Ralphie, our little Chihuahua, is turning her rose bushes brown anyway.”

Lonny gathered up spit and sailed another high-gleaming arc into the air. “I been running some buffalo on your place, hope you don’t mind. Their instincts tell them this is an old run. It was hard keeping them off.”

“That’s fine. Someone may as well get the use of it.” Mitchell watched a late-model dark green Toyota come to stop a distance away. Uma burst from the passenger side, running toward the garage. Everett followed more slowly, his expression one of concern.

They were a good match, Mitchell thought, both with the same gentile background, and he wondered what had gone wrong—they seemed to care about each other.

Mitchell allowed the hard grip of Uma’s fingers on his forearm, her eyes searching his. “Mitchell? Is it true? Do they think this is the car?”

“She identified the car in the drive-by shooting last year,” Mitchell said to the investigator. He noted how Everett, no longer a boy, and dressed in a white business shirt and slacks, came to place his arm protectively around Uma. With black
hair and blue eyes, he was well bred and successful in his travel agency, according to Dozer. They suited each other, and Mitchell looked away. He didn’t know why, but the image of them together nettled him.

But Uma was ducking under the yellow crime-scene tape, hurrying toward the garage. She stopped suddenly as if frozen in place, her hand over her mouth. The hot wind tugged at her long dress, pressing it against her slender body, causing the hem to flutter at her ankles.

Everett and the investigator moved at the same time, and Mitchell settled back to study Uma and Everett. She leaned against him slightly, his arm around her again as the investigator spoke to her and she nodded quickly. Clearly, Everett knew how to comfort her, and Mitchell wondered when he had ever given a woman as much. Comfort wasn’t a thing he’d learned in Warren 101 class.

While Everett helped Uma back to the car, the investigator returned to Mitchell. “I’d like to continue this discussion at the police station. Would you mind coming with me?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“We’d appreciate your cooperation for this investigation,” the man said. “It seems you don’t have exactly a good past with the people here in Madrid. There was a fire some years ago, right here, and your father died. You could have your reasons for coming back. I’d like to talk with you about that.”

Mitchell inhaled slowly and thought that things really hadn’t changed in eighteen years—

The interview in the police station was intense and pointed—with a suspicion that Mitchell had come back to settle old scores and that he’d been in Madrid when the shooter was killed. Mitchell slowly traced the rim of his coffee cup with his finger. “If I were you, I’d check out those bullet holes on the windmill to see if they match the body’s.”

“Windmill?” The investigator looked blank.

Lonny looked up at the ceiling and rocked on his heels.
His too-innocent expression said he’d noted the bullet holes, but the city boy had a few things to learn about treating a small town police chief nicely.

“Dufus” picked up his cell phone and quickly punched the keys. “Seth? Get someone up on that old windmill and check out the bullet holes. Get back with me right away and send one of the paddles to ballistics.”

“Your boy better have a receipt handy,” Lonny stated quietly. “That’s personal property.”

Dufus snorted, as if anyone would care about an old windmill.

Mitchell hadn’t come to Madrid to be pushed. He jotted down names and addresses, then stood, tossing the pencil onto the pad. “I never met Pete Jones. I wasn’t in Madrid until yesterday. I liked Lauren Howard when we were teenagers, and I remember her fondly. I had nothing to do with her murder or the man found in the car. These are my references, where I lived, my employer for the last ten years. This is my attorney in Seattle.”

He gave Dufus time to recognize the law firm before continuing, “What I want to make clear to you is that I will not tolerate slander, or the public release of any personal information. I want to settle into this community with as little problem as possible. What I did before coming here is my business. Research all you want, but you do not have my permission to release anything about my life, that I was a top manager for Rogers Building and Supply. I am in Madrid on personal business—basically, I’m retired. That’s all anyone here needs to know.”

The investigator leaned forward, eyes narrowed, picking at details, ready to pounce. “And that personal business is?”

Mitchell wasn’t letting anyone know that he wasn’t exactly certain what he was doing in Madrid, but trying to make some sense of his life. He stood slowly and nodded to Lonny. “I’ll call my attorney and tell him to give you what you need.
Meanwhile, I’m not going anywhere. But I will not tolerate slander, suspicions, or the release of any information on my private life.”