Eleven Little Piggies (12 page)

‘Oh, I like it,' Rosie said. ‘Maybe we can get Jude Law to play Matt? I'll have my people call his people.'

‘Nah,' Clint said, delighted by the distraction, ‘I think Jude's a little past his sell-by date for this part. How about—'

But LeeAnn, who had just answered the ringing phone, put it on hold and said, ‘Mr and Mrs Henry Kester are in the lobby to see Ray Bailey.'

‘Geez,' Andy said, ‘be careful what you wish for, huh?' He asked Ray, who was frowning at the clock, ‘Do I have to set up an interview room or can we just bring them in here?'

‘It's going to run past five o'clock,' Ray said. ‘But I suppose . . .' He looked at me.

‘Oh, hell,' I said, ‘we better grab them while we can get them.'

‘Yeah, bring them in here,' Ray said. ‘We can use my recorder. Andy, you can stay for this? Good. The rest of you,' he shouted above the scraping of chairs as they all got up, ‘remember where we left off and come back here in the morning. Jake, you want to stick around for this, or—'

But then the phone rang again. LeeAnn answered and told me, ‘The chief is back and wants to see you.'

‘Go ahead and start without me,' I said. ‘I'll go see what he wants and come back as soon as I can.'

I went up along the crowded hall, edging past LeeAnn's desk, which had started as a small island a couple of years ago and was growing into an archipelago as we all piled work and messages on her. Noise and foot traffic boiled around Kevin Evjan's office, patient Property Crimes detectives slogging through reports on auto thefts and burglaries.

In the chief's outer office, Lulu's desk didn't even slow me down, since his secretary wasn't due back till tomorrow. The chief wasn't scheduled to be here either, but here he sat with his big, sunburned face lighting up the room.

‘The king of the slopes is back,' I said. ‘Was it good?'

‘My thighs are just raw meat but yes, it was great snow and everybody had a blast.'

‘But you couldn't wait till tomorrow for your homicide fix?'

‘I just stopped to pick up my mail,' he said. ‘But I thought I'd see if you had anything new.' He had phoned in twice. We have plenty of crime in Rutherford but the homicide rate is low. And this case, involving a large and prominent family, had him quite concerned. ‘That Kester farm . . . is the whole thing inside the city limits now? Or just that field where the shooting was?'

‘The whole place is just inside the new city limits, the – ahem – proposed new development we were supposed to feel so good about a couple of years back. The one that was going to bring us those whopping new property taxes as soon as the farmers saw the light and sold out to the developers.'

‘It's going to happen eventually. Soon as the banks quit jacking the economy around and go back to lending money for a living.'

‘Good. Meantime, if the city council starts having heart attacks about the cost of this investigation I hope you'll rub their noses in all those hopes and dreams.'

‘OK. Soon as you're done talking politics can you tell me how far this expensive sleuthing has taken us?'

I told him how the ammo had ruled out the bird hunters, and that the second trip back to the farm had yielded DNA scrapings and some overspray pellets.

‘Aw, shit,' he said. ‘You mean it's one of them?'

‘Well . . . not necessarily but you have to wonder . . .'

‘If a total stranger came along and got into a locked cooler to do the job? Not very much, I don't. Oh, Jesus, this is really going to get ugly now.'

‘I didn't realize . . . are these people friends of yours, Frank?'

‘Friends? No. They're farmers, they still think like farmers no matter what we do to the town boundaries.'

‘Which means?'

‘They don't mingle much with townies. I knew a couple of Kleinschmidts in school but the Kesters were all older or younger than me, and the rest of the family's always been a level or two above my pay grade. No, it's just . . . Hell, these families go back to pioneer times in this county. They've got connections all over the county . . . Wait till you see how many cousins they've got. We're going to have plenty of eyes on this one, Jake. Be careful.'

‘I have been. We'll treat it like any other case, though, right?'

‘Well, of course. By the book. Absolutely. Where are we on it?'

‘Autopsy reports tomorrow but I don't expect any surprises. The man was shot at close range with a high-powered weapon, so there can't be many surprises about cause of death. We'd very much like to find the weapon, of course, but . . . And we've got a ton of interviews to do. We could sure use some help.' I gave him my sincere look.

‘I know. Damn shame we're short-handed right now. Maybe Kevin could lend a hand?'

‘Don't start, Frank.' Kevin and Ray barely manage to get along under the same roof. Having them on the same case is my worst nightmare.

‘OK.' He got up, stifling a groan over his creaking joints. ‘I promised Sheila I wouldn't get stuck down here. My kids are suffering buyer's remorse about all the homework they didn't get done on ski vacation. They're saying, “Now we have to study over Thanksgiving break!” like that was child abuse. Plus a ski trip for five produces a pile of dirty underwear you would not believe. See you tomorrow.' He stomped out carrying an armload of mail. In McCafferty's world, massive workloads are always just around the corner.

I heard a woman's voice as I approached the space around Ray's conference table. It's not really a room, just a wide spot in the hall that developed when we jury-rigged new work spaces to expand the detective crews. It's like a water hole in the desert: everybody's drawn to it.

‘We thought we should come on in today and explain that Matty can't get here till tomorrow. River Farm keeps him
so
busy.' The voice was sunny and pleasant, delivered with a little extra sweetener, like somebody addressing the Ladies' Aid Society at a church supper.

‘Matty's been our manager out there ever since we bought that place. Which is, my goodness, three years ago this month, isn't it, Dad?' Mrs Kester was seated at the oblong conference table, a smallish lady with a soft face. She wore a blue print dress that sagged at the neck, gray hair in a timid perm and what I would guess were her second-best oxfords. ‘This week's Thanksgiving, isn't it? And that's when Matty came back, three years ago, just before Thanksgiving. It was quite a sacrifice for him to quit the rodeo circuit – he was winning all the time – but he did it for us, because we needed him to manage River Farm.'

‘Managing, is that what you call what he does?' The answering rumble came from the powerful-looking man seated beside her, across from Ray. He had strong arms and a beautiful thatch of thick white hair that made his head look even bigger than it was. ‘Yeah, I think it was around Thanksgiving. Why don't you tell it like it was? He came back needing a job so we put him to work. He hasn't broken anything yet that couldn't be fixed, so yes, I guess we're still calling him the manager.'

‘Now, now,' she said, nudging his elbow. ‘Always so critical.' She treated Ray to a little head-shake and a rueful smile. ‘I think I should have had girls,' she said. ‘Maybe there'd be less fighting.'

‘Anyway,' her husband said, ‘probably these fellas don't need to know our whole family history, do you think?'

‘No, but they do need to understand that you and Ethan always talk as if Matty isn't worth anything. Just because he isn't as good at farming and tinkering as you are. He can ride rings around the two of you and sing and play the guitar – can you do that? I always have to stand up for Matty,' she told the detectives in front of her, ‘and then they both say he's a mama's boy. But Owen, that sweet boy' – she dabbed her eyes with an embroidered hankie – ‘didn't mind looking after Matty a little. My Owen. He was always willing to do things to please me.'

‘All this psychology stuff gives me a pain,' Henry Kester said. ‘Listen,' he looked into Ray's eyes and then into Andy's, making sure he had their attention, ‘all three boys worked on the farm growing up. I made sure everybody did his share. Then Owen stayed home while the other two went off and did their thing, as they say. For the last few years, now that the money's rolling in, everybody's back on board. Nothing complicated about it – the other two finally saw which side their bread was buttered on. But what's that got to do with the problem?'

‘What problem?' She blinked at him.

‘What happened to Owen?' he demanded. He slapped the table. ‘Pay attention, for God's sake!'

‘That's what we want to ask you,' Ray said quickly. ‘Who had any reason to want Owen out of the way?'

‘Why, nobody,' Mrs Kester said. ‘My goodness, what a question. Owen's always been our dearest boy . . . the easiest one of the three to raise. Ever-ready, we used to call him. Always ready to lend a hand . . . even after he started going out with the pushy Kleinschmidt girl, he was still my main helper.'

‘Mr Kester?'

‘I have no idea,' Henry said, shaking his head. ‘He didn't do any of the things that usually get the young guys in trouble. Didn't go in bars much, or get into fights or gamble. Didn't chase girls, even – he was always with Doris, from when they were kids. It really beats me. You're sure it wasn't an accident?'

‘Of course he's not sure,' Mrs Kester said. ‘Somebody made a mistake somewhere, I keep telling you that. There wasn't a mean bone in Owen's body – who'd want to hurt him? I mean, think about it. Even after she tricked him into marrying her, letting herself get pregnant like that, he never said one word of complaint against Doris.' She looked around the table, soliciting our support. ‘Barrel racing, really.'
She rolled her eyes up
.
‘
Showing off.
'

‘His body was moved,' Ray said, over her head to Henry, ‘from where it was shot to where we found it.'

‘Now how in the world,' Henry Kester said, ‘could you possibly know that?'

Ray and I looked at each other, alarmed by how much he didn't know. Ethan had identified Owen's body Saturday morning in the field, so his parents had been spared the trip to the morgue. But what did this family talk about when they were all together? The parents didn't seem to have the current information.

Ray took a deep breath, trying to think how to say it. ‘There wasn't any . . . He has a big gunshot wound in the middle of his belly with a bigger exit wound in back, but there was hardly any blood in the snow under him.' It all came out in a rush and then he sat back, looking as if he felt personally responsible for this outrage.

But he wasn't ready to talk about the second trip to the walk-in cooler just yet, apparently. Just as well, since Henry Kester, who had wanted to know how we knew, now looked as if he might not survive hearing the details. He must have been coping by not thinking about what had been done to his son's body. Now he shrank in front of us, became older and quieter.

‘This time of the year,' his wife was going on, staying afloat by not listening to a word we said, ‘there's hunters all over this county, and some of them don't know the first thing about safety rules. I always say they should have to pass a test to get their license renewed. Oh, yes, you always shush me when I say that,' she accused her husband, who had his hand off the table, shushing her, ‘but now look what's happened to Owen.'

‘Anna Carrie,' Henry said, ‘will you please, for once . . .'

Becoming agitated, twitchy and red-faced, his wife began to collapse toward her husband's side, complaining. ‘I knew I shouldn't come out today, I can feel one of my headaches coming on . . . I don't feel the least bit good, Henry. You best take me home.'

The big man looked at Ray, shrugged helplessly, and said, ‘I better do it. She gets spells.' He got up, supporting his wife, and added: ‘OK if I come back later? I need to hear, uh, the rest.'

‘Sure,' Ray said. ‘Any time tomorrow. Um . . .' They looked so frail, tottering there, as if many years had passed since they came to this table fifteen minutes ago. Ray tipped his head briefly toward Andy and said, ‘We'll show you the way out.'

Andy stepped to Mrs Kester's other side, and her elbow dropped into his hand with practiced ease. She might regret having no girls, but she had adapted very well to having more than one man around to fuss over her. Her face was buried in the hankie now. Together, the two big men led and half-carried her out through the lobby and into the elevator.

It was just past five o'clock. In spite of all that had happened I was only going to be a little bit late picking up Ben. I said, ‘Let's re-cap this in the morning, OK?' Ray nodded, looking fagged. Hardly able to believe my luck, I sprinted down the front stairs and into the parking lot. I hummed a vague, abstracted tune as I pulled my red pickup into traffic. What day was this? I felt as scattered as grass seed on a lawn.

Our babysitter, Maxine Daly, was my foster mother for the best nine years of my childhood. I'd never have left her house willingly, but HHS took me away when they discovered that Maxine's husband sometimes swiped my aid allotment to support his need for binge drinking.

My social worker found us sitting hungry and cold on the couch one day, wrapped in a blanket while Maxine read to me and her blind daughter Patty. Years of good eating have erased the habitual hunger pangs that dogged me through high school, but I can still recite some of the poems she taught us. ‘Oh Tiber, father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray . . .'

Maxine's wardrobe is the best she can pick off the rack at Goodwill, and her hairdo usually looks as if it might have been left in the yard overnight. Children trust her instinctively and are never wrong. Next to my wife, she's my favorite woman in the world to spend time with. She has a hard life but she's fun to be around.