Edge of Midnight (33 page)

“Anything on his whereabouts during that time period?”

“Yeah. He was away on a camping trip. Somewhere in the wilderness, all by himself.”

“What do you have on Cary Black?”

Osey repeated what he'd put in his report, essentially that she was a friend of the woman in Berkeley that Joe Farmer either killed or didn't kill. Cary Black left California without telling anyone, even her husband, making it look like she was a victim of foul play.
Big search for missing wife of police officer.

“She had to know about the search,” Osey said. “She bought San Francisco and Oakland newspapers. Lots of articles about her disappearance. Her picture all over.”

“You suggesting she planned it? She left home and came here for the express purpose of killing Kelby Oliver?” That said premeditation.

Osey sucked in a breath and let it out on a sigh. “Well, ma'am, I'm not sure. She sure did leave home for some serious reason.” He frowned. “The dead woman was too badly decomposed to tell much, but this Cary Black isn't very big. How'd she get Oliver in the rat hole?”

“Kelby Oliver wasn't very big either. They were roughly the same size.”

“Driver's license says five-two, a hundred and thirty-five pounds. If she was banged on the head—”

Susan looked at him. “What did you say?”

Osey eyed her like maybe she'd get dangerous any second. “A hundred and thirty-five pounds. Cary could have knocked Oliver unconscious first.”

“Before that.”

“Uh…”

“Getting Oliver in the silo.”

“The rat hole?”

“Why did you call it that?”

Osey shrugged. “That's just what we always called that door. It's used to get the grain flowing down, if it's not coming. Every kid who grows up on a farm knows to stay away from silos.”

Susan rubbed her leg again, then reached for the phone. “Hazel, would you please send Ida in.”

*   *   *

Shit,
Ida thought,
oh shit, this is it.
This is where the chief says pack your bags and get the hell out of Dodge. I shot the chief of police, for God's sake. How am I going to get another job with that on my résumé? She hesitated at the doorway when she heard Osey's voice. Had he made a complaint?

Deep breath. Chin up. Get in there.
Ida Rather get it over with.
Osey got up to offer her the chair. Did he think she couldn't take this standing up? She ignored the chair and stood at attention.

“Sit.” Susan couldn't take all that rigid discipline. “Tell me about Cary Black.”

Ida unbent enough to perch on the chair, mentioned the poor eyesight, the fear, the reluctance to call her sister. “Of course, Faye isn't her sister, but I didn't know that when I urged her to call.”

“What did she say about her ordeal with Joe Farmer?”

Ida repeated everything she'd put in her report.

Susan shifted, trying to find a position that would ease the pain in her leg. “Anything you can add?”

“No, ma'am, not really. Except Pearl Wyatt, a neighbor. She was really mad at Kelby, because Pearl wanted to buy the place and she feels Kelby snuck in and stole it away from her. She wanted it for her son. She told me she was so mad she could spit. But nobody would kill over something like that, would they?”

People kill for all kinds of reasons. Susan had known a homicide to result over two quarters.

*   *   *

By the late afternoon, Susan's leg throbbed with such vengeance she propped herself on the crutches and hobbled to the pickup. On the way home, she stopped off at Doctor Eckhard's office to have the wound checked and the bandage changed. China said it was bleeding again and she should stay off of it, gave her another prescription for pain pills, and told her to go home. Wobbling with an unsteady lurch, she climbed back in the pickup and took herself home.

She swallowed pain pills with a gulp of water, oozed herself down on the couch, and floated away on chemically induced sleep. No dreams disturbed her. She slept through the night, woke at five, drank a large glass of water, and basically drifted in and out of sleep all through Wednesday.

When she finally surfaced, at nine o'clock in the evening, she realized her ears weren't crackling.
She could hear!
That called for a celebration. She picked up a handful of CDs and looked through them, but before a decision could be made, the doorbell rang. She let Parkhurst in.

He looked at the CDs in her hand and grimaced. “Bach, I presume.”

“A little Borodin, I think, for a change.”

“Some change,” he said.

She stuck the CD in the player, turned the volume low, and went to the kitchen for two glasses of orange juice with ice. She gave one to Parkhurst. He sat on the floor, back propped against the hearth, legs straight out. She slouched in a corner of the couch, pillows stacked behind her, closed her eyes, and listened to the nocturne from String Quartet no. 2.

“We still haven't found Mitch Black,” he said. “Anybody who takes such precautions to keep his whereabouts unknown has got to have something to hide.”

“No doubt, but he didn't arrive until Wednesday, August twenty-seventh. Kelby died on Monday the eighteenth.”

Parkhurst raised an eyebrow. “You know what day she died? Even Doc Fisher doesn't know that. Okay, if Mitch Black didn't kill her, what about Faye Turney? She's rich now.”

“She didn't do it.”

“Okay. We still have Faye's no-good husband. He's rubbing his hands together at the thought of putting them on all that money.”

“Not him either.”

“I strongly doubt Pearl Wyatt shoved Kelby in the silo in a fit of pique because Kelby bought the house. Which brings us back to Cary Black.”

“Cary got here on Wednesday the twentieth. Kelby was killed on Monday.”

“There you go with Monday again. Why are you so sure she was killed on Monday?”

 

42

“So what's with Monday?” Parkhurst said.

Susan captured an ice cube and crunched down. “I think it went like this: Kelby Oliver had a stalker. We know now it was Joe Farmer. He terrified her. He sent notes, innocent words with an underlying flavor of menace, left messages on her answering machine, turned up wherever she went, followed her, overtly threatened when nobody could overhear. Said what happened to his daughter would happen to her. She fled, bought a house without even seeing it, and came here. She hid away, seldom went out.”

“Yeah, so?”

“On Monday she was outside when she saw a man with a shotgun.”

“If she was holed up in the house, what was she doing outside?”

“I don't know. But for some reason she went out…”

*   *   *

… and lugged the cardboard box to the barn, stashed it on a shelf in the small officelike room, and dusted her hands on the seat of her jeans. Why, Kelby wondered, had she agreed to this? The entire morning cleaning the guest room and getting it ready for Arlette's friend, she'd felt serious misgivings. She didn't know this Cary Black and she certainly didn't like the woman knowing where she was. What if this Cary let slip to a friend or relative that she was here living with Kelby?

It was a mistake, it was a mistake, it was a mistake. Kelby knew it. By letting Cary come, the danger doubled. Now two people knew where she was. Tucking in her yellow T-shirt, she went from the dim light of the barn out to bright sunshine. She blinked.

Man with a shotgun! He raised the gun. Boom! She ran.

Boom! She raced to the open shed that sheltered a tractor. Ducking inside, she crouched by one large wheel. How had he found her? Slowly she rose, peered around the side of the shed. The harsh sunlight was dazzling. Shot pinged against metal.

“Got ya!”

She ran, stumbled, recovered, kept running. Lungs on fire, breath coming in short gasps, heart hammering, she pounded toward the cornfield. The wind picked up. The great stalks rustled like a live thing just coming awake. Was he hiding in there? Stalks eight feet high. She'd never see him.

Sweat stung her eyes. She swiped the back of a wrist across her face, stumbled again. Heat lightning flickered in the distance. Heavy smell of dust and corn mingled with the sweet scent of flowers.

At the last second she shot off to the right and ran along the flagstone path toward the cottonwood trees. Slipping on fallen leaves, she skidded around a tree and squatted, leaning against the trunk, trying to quiet her breathing. Leaves blew in her face. She pawed at her hair to get it out of her eyes.

Ears straining, she waited. Where was he? She heard the crackle of dry leaves. A footfall. Faint. To her right. She froze, strained to see. The wind sighed, the cottonwood trees murmured back. Carefully, she rose, waited.

Boom! She took off, hoped she wouldn't fall. The air was alive with sound, whispering grasses, swaying leaves, creaking branches. Hearing a thud, she whirled. Behind her! Coming closer! A scream bubbled in her throat. “What do you want?”

He raised the shotgun.

She pulled out more speed. Fighting hard for air, she pushed on. Relentless footfalls behind her crunching on dry leaves. Coming closer. Closer. She heard his breath laboring through his lungs.

“You won't get away!”

The sudden shout, too near, sliced her with terror. She spurted ahead. His thudding footsteps grew closer. Wait. Car. On the road. She skidded, slipped, put down a hand to save herself and raced into the road, yelling in mad panic. Screaming, she waved her arms in a futile attempt to get help. Her shouts faded along with the sound of the car disappearing. She stopped, beaten, bent, and clutched her stomach, felt as if her lungs would tear.

Finished, done, over. She was tired of running, of hiding. She waited for him to raise the gun and tighten his finger on the trigger. The wind excited the cottonwood trees, tossed the branches. A moment passed before she realized, she couldn't hear him. She looked around. Where was he? Gone? Scared away by the car?

Coughing, lungs grabbing at air, she stared wildly around, unable to believe he'd simply left. Half-stumbling, half-running, wheezing as she tried to breathe, she started back to the house. Call the police.

A triumphant yell. He angled toward her from her right. She spun. Run! Don't look back. Run! Faster! She ran and ran. She stumbled, fell. She rolled and came to a stop at the base of the tall wooden structure. Scrabbling at the panel near the ground, she shoved it up and tumbled inside.

She closed the panel and stood in dim light. Air wheezed in and out through her mouth. Dust stung her eyes and threatened to make her cough. Heart pounding, she pressed her back against the door. Had he seen her go in?

Smells of mold and rust and long unuse. A wall of something, grain of some kind, filled the space in front of her. It was nearly in her face. If she reached out, she could touch it. Claustrophobic panic scratched at her throat.

She listened, trying to hear if he was coming, was trying to get inside. Back hard against the panel door, she heard nothing but the thudding of her heart. Seconds crept by. She stopped taking in great gulps of air and turned her head to put an ear against the door. Not a sound. Was he waiting for her to come out? Would he blast away at the door?

She stood motionless. After a time—she had no idea how long—she was aware of something slithering across her shoes. It stopped. Heavy. Moved slowly. Slithered again. She stared at her feet. A big, thick, black—

Snake! Oh my God, snake! Huge snake! Kicking and stomping, she whirled around, flung her arms, waved her hands. It slid away.

Oh thank God. The damn snake was gone. Had it bitten her? She didn't feel anything. What does a snake bite feel like? Surely you'd feel fangs sinking into your skin.

Wait. What was that? Whispery, slithery sound, trickling. Sinister. Snake coming back? No. The grain. It was moving, shifting …

*   *   *

… and somehow she dislodged the grain. It came down and buried her.” Susan took a sip of juice and swallowed. Halleluiah, no pain.

Parkhurst, skeptical eyebrow raised, rattled the ice in his glass. “And the guy with the shotgun?”

“Monday, Simon Lundstrom got his hands on a shotgun and fired at her.”

“Simon Lundstrom? Whose mind has softened to the point where he's back in World War II keeping us all safe from Nazis?”

“Jen said yellow clothing set him off, had him ranting about yellow-bellied cowards. Kelby was wearing a yellow T-shirt. Osey and Ida both said he yelled about shooting the Nazi rat who escaped down a rat hole.”

“You think he meant Kelby Oliver diving into the silo?”

“I've tried to interrogate him, but it's hopeless. He slips away to the horrors of his incarceration and torture.” She stopped to listen to the end of the Borodin nocturne.

“What are you going to do about Ida?” Parkhurst asked.

“That's a hard one. Next time she might hit some more vital piece of my anatomy.” Susan shrugged. “I could see how she works out and hope she doesn't get anyone killed.”

“You could. Is that what you'll do?”

Before she could respond, the phone rang and she went into her office to answer.

“A hysterical call from Cary Black just came in,” Hazel said. “She said somebody was trying to kill her. The call got cut off or she hung up.”

 

43

Cary leaned against the side of the hospital bed and tried to read the instructions she needed to follow after being released. With the paper nearly against her nose, she moved it into her small spot of sight. The effort made her head ache. She coughed, which made everything ache. Never mind, the nurse had explained it anyway. Mainly, don't take anything except Tylenol. Nothing else, because of the head injury.