Breeding Ground (30 page)

Jessamine Collins, who'd been a good friend of Alice's, and who ran her house as a B&B, stopped by to see Earl Peabody right before lunch. Alice had sent her a guest on Sunday night, a man named Tyler Babcock who'd grown up with Alice in Virginia. He'd had dinner with Alice Sunday and stayed in Jessamine's B&B Sunday night, then had called Alice Monday morning about nine. Jessamine had heard his side of the conversation, since he'd phoned from the kitchen when she was making breakfast for her other guests.

He'd thanked Alice for talking to him and said that he'd been thinking about what she'd said. That he'd stay on the Cape for now and tell his wife where he was. And he'd call Alice in a few weeks and tell her what he'd decided. He finished the call and left shortly thereafter. Where he was going Jessamine couldn't say, but she did have the address in North Falmouth, Massachusetts he'd left on her guest registry and the license plate of his car.

She gave that to Peabody and went to see Peggy James. She thought Peggy should know about his visit and decide what to tell the family.

Jo heard that from Peggy in the afternoon and wished that Alan were back from Cincinnati. She kept worrying about Spence and Booker, and how they must be taking the news, knowing from her own experience what it'd been like to lose her father and Tom too soon, and not get to say good-bye.

When Jo was walking down her drive to get the mail after dinner, she was thinking about her parents, and the differences between Spencer and Richard Franklin, and
The Death of Ivan Ilych
too – the sense he'd had of being shunned by his family as the cancer got worse, and what her mother might've been feeling when she still knew what was happening.

And then Jo opened the mailbox and found a small white envelope addressed to her in big block letters.

She turned it over. And over again. And opened it up as she walked toward the house.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID

I WILL MAKE YOU PAY

The words were cut from a magazine and glued on heavy paper. And Jo stopped in the middle of the driveway, twenty feet from a cluster of yearlings who were swishing their tails in a cloud of flies, staring soberly at her as her stomach stuck in her throat.

Wednesday, May 23, 1962

Seven hours later, about two o'clock that morning, Toss was awake and restless, lying in bed with the windows open next to him, staring out at the stars and planning his getaway a few hours later when friends were coming to take him fishing up west of Louisville to some other fella's lake – when he thought he heard a car start up somewhere down the lane, almost up to the road.

He grabbed his walker and dropped into his chair and wheeled across to the phone in the front hall and called Buddy at the tenant house. He told him to check the horses in the paddocks and all the barns too.

He sat there, wheeling himself back and forth from the hall to the dining room and into his bedroom, then back again to the hall – till he grabbed the phone after the first ring to keep it from waking Jo.

All the horses seemed fine. There was no sign of any intruder. The only thing that seemed different at all was that way over in the stallion barn, where Tuffian and Sam were stabled during the day, the cabinet in the feed room where they stored medications and first aid supplies – the cabinet door that didn't fit right, that you had to know how to jimmy with – wasn't closed all the way. But that might not mean much. Buddy could've done that himself without noticing it wasn't closed.

Toss thanked him and told him to get some sleep. Then lay awake, thinking about his trip, till it was time to get up.

Excerpt From Jo Grant's Journal:

…I woke up in a cold sweat last night. I was a teenager again, listening to the radio late at night, trying to find out how our boys were doing in Europe. They were talking about the Battle of the Bulge, and reading between the lines like you had to then. I was hoping Tommy was anywhere but there.

I was sitting in the kitchen here, with a fire in the fireplace the only light in the room, when the door suddenly blew open from a big blast of a winter storm driving the snow so it swirled in, piling up on the floor, and on every chair and counter. The fire went out faster than it ever could, with snow lying thick on the logs and the cold in the room freezing my blood.

I sat there anyway, staring at the cold fire – till Mom came in and told me Alan was dead. And I woke up shivering, feeling sick to my stomach.

Strange how we dream. How real they can seem, and how terrifying. How they mix the past, and the present, and the future in ways that seem true and ordained…

T
oss got picked up at six that morning by three of his friends, who promised Jo faithfully that they'd take good care of him and not let him do too much. But she could see the wistful wildness in their eyes – the old-men-on-a-rampage look that meant a little bourbon and too many cigarettes and old stories getting told in the woods while fish fried on a fire.

She wished Toss well, though, and waved as they drove off, having seen how much he needed to get away and not feel like an invalid being watched over by a woman.

She smiled to herself and threw a stick for Emmy, then thought about the letter and felt cold, suddenly, even in the heat that was gathering all around her as the dew dried and the sun climbed above the edge of the East.

She sighed and walked back inside, making Emmy – who tried to rush through the door ahead of her – wait, and stay, and be polite, and then come when she was called.

At least she'd be seeing Alan for dinner. He didn't know about Alice,
or
the letter, and she wanted to hear what he thought she should do.

Tara was there too, crouching in Jo's head, no matter what she was doing. Because she knew what she'd done to Tara in more detail than Tara did. And as she worked on the design for the lab at Equine Pharmaceuticals, she saw the look on Tara's face again, as she'd leaned against Spencer at Keeneland – gloating, preening, doing the kind of women's one-ups-manship another woman can recognize with her eyes closed from the scent at fifty feet.

And that meant that shortly before nine, Jo gave up any pretense of thinking about anything else, and called Betsy, Tara's aunt, and asked if she'd be willing to find out what Tara did on Monday. If she was at work all day, and home Monday night.

Betsy called Tara's mom, and called Jo back before ten. As far as Tara's mom knew, Tara had been at work till five, and was definitely home at six-fifteen, when she'd called Tara's house to speak to Gigi.

Jo called Alice's neighbor, Mary Treeter too, and described Tara's car, and asked if she'd seen it anywhere near Alice's home on Monday.

Mary hadn't seen it, but said that since Alice's house was set way back from Midway's main street and had acres of woods behind it that belonged to the farm that backed up to their land, she might not have been able to. There were three side streets that dead-ended on the right side of those woods, so someone could park on one of those and make their way through the woods to Alice's backyard without being easy to see.

Jo called Peggy James too and asked if Tara was at work on Monday, and got the same answer – there till five, as far as Peggy knew. And she hadn't seen her car anywhere near Alice Franklin's.

Jo didn't find anything else that linked Tara to Alice the day she died, but she couldn't let it alone. She did research on White Hall, and talked to Buddy about business, and worked with Emmy on “sit-and-stay”, but kept thinking about what Tara must've been feeling after Spencer dumped her.

Because Spencer makes her previous quarry, at least the ones she had kids with, look like no competition at all.

No, Spence gave her the best chance she's had of getting taken care of and feeling like someone important. That's the way I think she'd see him anyway. Though he wouldn't at all. So anyone who influenced him to walk away would be someone she'd want to make pay. And that would be me for sure – if she's figured that out.

Which means Earl Peabody needs to see the letter. I don't know that Tara sent it. I've got no evidence that she hurt Alice. It could've been Richard. It could've been Michael. Or maybe even the artist from her past. Though none of that makes much sense. At least not to me.

So why's the salt in the refrigerator? And where'd I put the milk?

It was in the cabinet where the salt should've been, and Jo laughed, and told herself to pay attention. Then phoned the sheriff's office, and was told they'd have him call her as soon as he was free.

Peggy went through that day too in what felt to her like a fog – answering more questions from Earl Peabody (whom she'd known since she was ten), who departed from strict police procedure and told her he'd talked to the painter on Cape Cod and had more or less eliminated him from further consideration. She thought about anything she might have overlooked too. And worried about Spencer and Booker, who were due back at six, trying to figure out what she could do to help. She watched Richard go-and-come from talking to Earl again, shakier when he got back than when he'd left the office.

She walked by his door about three, carrying a cup of coffee to her desk, wondering what he'd say to Booker when Booker heard from Earl what Richard had been overheard to say to Alice the day she died.

She wouldn't want to be in Richard's shoes. Because Booker could scare the britches off anyone on the rare occasions when he lost his temper, and Peggy would've bet anything he'd lose it over this.

The phone was ringing when she sat down at her desk – an ordinary business call that took her mind off Alice. But when she hung up, and saw Alice's Dictaphone sitting where she'd left it on her credenza, she realized she hadn't given it even a passing thought.

Now she did. And she shut the door. And set it in the center of her desk and carefully plugged it in.

Alice's was one of the newer machines that recorded on a wide gray belt for over an hour at a time. You could record with a handheld microphone control (holding a button down to record, then lifting your finger to turn it off instantly, while you thought what you wanted to say next). You could also set switches on the side of the machine to make it record or play back continuously, which Peggy was about to do.

As she slid the silver stylus (that marked how much had been recorded) back to the beginning of the belt, Peggy told herself not to expect to hear much, since Alice had said she didn't think she'd dictate anything.

Then she stopped and asked herself,
Why's the stylus at the end of the belt if nothing's been recorded?

She flipped the playback switch on the machine, and heard Alice's voice – much too loud to listen to – and turned the volume down.

Alice's voice was followed by another woman's, a voice Peggy recognized the instant she heard it – Tara Kruse's little girl voice, breathy and soft and disturbing.

“We can sit in here and get away from the smell of paint. My office chairs are more comfortable too.”

“Thank you for the coffee, Mrs. Franklin. It was very kind of you to bother.”

“It was no trouble at all.”

“I'm sorry I spilled the other cup.”

“Are you sure yours doesn't taste bitter? Mine does, even with cream and sugar. I drank half the cup before I noticed, but I can make us another pot, if you—”

“No, mine's fine. Thank you.”

“So what can I do for you, Tara?”

“Well, first of all, I want you to know how much I appreciate you seeing me at home. I want to make that real clear right to begin with. You see, I felt like it was important to speak to you before any more time passed, but I felt bad, with you recuperating and all. You're doing alright, are you?”

“I'm fine, thanks. I'm glad you came. I believe we need to talk too.”

“I felt like I had to make sure you're willing for us to keep working together. To keep up the same kind of business relationship we had before, even though Spencer and I have broken our engagement. I need the job, Mrs. Franklin, as you can imagine, since I have to provide for Gigi and all.”

“If your performance continues to be satisfactory, and your attitude is professional, and you and Spencer keep your personal relationship separate from any at the office, I don't see why we can't.”

“Thank you, ma'am. I'll do my best. And I'm sure Spencer will too.”

Nothing was said for several seconds, while a cup was set in a saucer – till Alice spoke again, slower this time, and slightly softer. “Giselle's father does pay child support, doesn't he?”

“He does. When he feels like it. It's not real dependable, and it's not enough to provide the way I want to. I don't want Giselle to suffer the way I did growing up in a broken home.”

“I understand. I'm sure it can't be easy.”

Peggy turned off the Dictaphone and backed it up slightly, because Alice's voice hadn't sounded normal then, and she wanted to make sure she hadn't imagined it – that her voice had gotten slower and maybe a little slurred. Peggy listened again to “I understand. I'm sure it can't be easy.” And knew she hadn't imagined it.

There was no sound except breathing for several seconds, then a chair scraped across the floor, closer to the Dictaphone, it sounded like, because Tara's voice, when it came again, was louder than it had been. “So you think you understand, do you?”

“What did you say?”

“You think you know what it's like for me? Trying to raise Gigi on my own?”

“Well, I know what it's like to try to care for a family when you've got no income at all… when you've invested every cent you ever… imagine you might have… when—”

“You have
no
idea what hand-to-mouth is like! Mrs.
Franklin
. High and mighty Mrs.
Businesswoman
-Franklin.”