Lorna’s mom, Betty, made hazelnut coffee at 6:00
A.M.
the next morning, and I waited at her kitchen table for the first cup out of the pot. Good kick-start with the plate of eggs Betty slid onto my place mat. Lorna was long gone for the Laurel track by the time I’d awakened again at 5:30.
“Sweetie, you should have that head injury checked out at the Laurel clinic.” Betty knew how to fuss.
“They looked at it last night, said it didn’t need to be stitched.” I looked worse than I felt, my forehead swollen and purple. Thought I’d go to Dimsboro, then to the CID to see Detective Wells. By the time I drove through Pallboro and into the track, my earlier energy had gone south. I felt shaky and knew better than to climb on any horses.
Mello sat on his broken-legged stool in front of Hellish’s stall, wearing a yellow bow tie and a tweed jacket one step up from shabby. “You wants to watch out, Miss Nikki. Felt footsteps on a grave.”
I shuddered, stared at the man.
His hands were folded over his knees, a brown paper bag sat by his feet in the dirt. He saw my glance at the bag. “Rough times. This be medicinal.”
“They’ve probably got Vipe and that Arthur Clements by now.” I made my voice bright and confident. “Cops are on to them. Probably nothing left to be scared of.”
Mello shook his head, swung a hand down and grabbed the bag. Long fingers crinkled back the paper, exposing an amber bottle. He took a swig of liquid and wiped his hand over his mouth. “I afraid for you. Somebody bad. He ain’t finished yet.”
“
He
? Mello, do you know who it is?”
“Wish I did. Indeed, I do.” His hand trembled and reached again for the bottle. “Can’t see him, just knows he’s there, stepping on that grave.”
His words spun me back to the dream. The third man. A shiver shook me from inside. I moved over to Hellish, stroked her neck, grateful for her body heat. Her stall smelled clean. Fresh hay filled her rack. “Thank you, Mello. You’ve been really good to us.”
“I always good to Gallorette.” His words slurred a bit.
I hated to see him drink, but after my misadventure I could understand his desire for the familiar comfort of booze.
Hellish shifted a few times, then spun in a tight circle, squealing. She needed to get out. I led her to a round pen and turned her loose. The enclosure was made of sixfoot-high, heavy wire mesh and filled with deep sand. Hellish bucked and leaped, spun and kicked until her muscles swelled and her veins popped. With her head and tail held high, her nostrils dilated, she looked a picture.
Chocolate hurried toward the pen from the direction of Raymond Marteen’s barn, her eyes glowing, hands clutching some papers. “Looky here.” She radiated enthusiasm, shoved the papers at me.
My hands held a certificate and a brochure from Prince George’s Community College. “I just passed me a high school GED.”
“Chocolate, that’s so cool. You —”
“That ain’t all. Talked to a man at Prince George’s College, and he say I can enroll in marketing and sales. In January.”
I could feel a grin stretching my mouth.
She tossed a look at the arena. “That blond woman we met when they had the food? She in sales, right?”
I nodded.
“How much money she make?”
“Enough to own a Mercedes Roadster.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Chocolate’s black-and-blond braids shook as she nodded her head. “Sales be my speciality.” She pronounced it,
spesh-eee-ality
. “No more Marteen, no more you-know-whatsies.” She held up her palm, and I slapped it. She snatched her papers back, turned and sped off, filled with possibilities.
I put Hellish away, then looked for Mello, but he’d disappeared somewhere, and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. I cranked up my Toyota and headed for Crownsville. I’d have felt almost as optimistic as Chocolate, if they’d caught Vipe and Clements. If I wasn’t pursued by the disembodied voice of a nightmare man.
Detective Wells opened his desk drawer and pulled out my cell phone. I took the molded plastic, staring at it like it might hold answers, slipped it in my pocket and sat in the visitor’s chair. His desk stood against the mint-green wall near the interrogation room they’d shut me in a few weeks earlier. The cool wall color and plush carpet did little to soothe my wariness.
“I don’t suppose this is yours?” He slid his hand back in the drawer and withdrew the Phillips.
“Yeah, that’s mine. It was . . . ”
Wells held up a hand. ”I don’t want to know.” His drab blue suit jacket hung on a nearby wall hook. Today’s tie, a pale gray edition, featured miniature blue police cars, emblazoned with red roof lights.
“How’d you get the phone?” I asked.
“An officer found it in Clements truck after they pulled the gun out from underneath.” Mention of the gun made him smile. A big smile. “It’s the right caliber. Crime lab’s running a ballistics test. Maybe it’ll match the one used on O’Brien.”
I hoped Vipe or Clements hadn’t closed my fingers around the thing while I dozed in la-la-land. Sickening to think of them watching me, touching me, while I was out of it. And that other man.
“You all right, Miss Latrelle?” Wells’ eyes rested on mine. Curious or concerned?
“You said you know more about this. Is there a third man?”
Wells’ eyes shifted away from me a moment. “Why do you ask about another man? Is there something you want to tell me?”
He was worse than a psychiatrist. “Forget it,” I said, feeling a spark of anger. “I just hope I don’t get hurt because you like to keep stuff to yourself.”
Wells picked up a pencil covered with teeth marks. He jabbed it at me. “You are not a police officer, okay? You don’t need to know everything. Just stay out of trouble.”
I sank back in my chair, the fight ebbing out of me. “So can I have the Laurel security chief call you?”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk to him.”
Trent Davis burst into the room, saw me and stopped. Hesitated a moment, then moved toward us. “They found Clements.”
“Is he here yet?” asked Wells.
Davis’s eyes remained blank, but the muscles in his neck bulged, and I could see the pulse throb from where I sat. “He’s not coming in. He’s dead.”
My fingers white-knuckled the wooden arms of my chair.
“Hell.” Wells shoved his chair back, stood up. “Tell me,” he said, sliding on his suit jacket.
“Somebody slit his throat. Patch of woods behind the Laurel Wal-Mart.
I thought I was going to be sick. “I need a bathroom.”
“Over there.” Wells pointed at a door near the interrogation room. “You going to be alright?”
I nodded, stood up. Took a step and held on to the back of the chair. “Vipe has a knife.”
They stared at me.
“Come on Charlie,” Davis said. “We gotta roll.”
They moved toward the door, Wells turning back to me. “You watch it. Like I said, don’t go anywhere alone, stay at the Doones’. We’ll have a patrol car driving by the next few days.”
In the bathroom I leaned over the sink, throwing cold water on my face. The nausea passed, and I headed for my car and Lorna’s house.
“This is really scary,” said Lorna. We stood just inside the Doones’ front door. That’s as far as we’d gotten since she’d let me in, seen my face, and asked what was going on. “That Vipe’s a nasty dude. What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.” I moved to a brown wing chair and collapsed in it. Closed my eyes, saw Vipe’s knife, and jerked my focus back to the Doones’ living room. Beige carpet, taupe-and-gold patterned curtains. Framed prints of bucolic landscapes on the wall. I kept seeing the knife.
“I should call Offenbach.” I dialed Laurel Park, reached the security chief and brought him up to date.
He was silent a moment. “I know the chief at Crownsville. I’ll talk to him. If it’s going like you say, I’ll notify the stewards myself.”
I thanked him and called Jim.
“Police were swarming all over Clements’ barn this morning,” he said. “He always was a hard case. Brought this on himself.” He paused a beat. “Everybody misses you. Hurry up and come back in.”
“As soon as they let me.”
By 3
P. M.
Lorna and I’d watched two movies, eaten ham and cheese sandwiches and were going stir-crazy.
“I can’t stand this.”
“Who could?” Lorna zapped the TV off with the remote.
“Listen,” I said, “Mello was drunk at 8 o’clock this morning. He may forget to feed Hellish.”
“You’re not going alone.” Lorna set her hands on her hips, gave me her fierce look.
“How ’bout we go right now, before it gets dark?”
We were out the door in two seconds, on the road in about five. We zipped down Route197, turned onto 301 and stopped. Dump trucks, school busses, 18-wheelers, endless cars inching along the choked highway. No choice but to join them.
* * *
“Well, that was the ride from Hell,” I said, exiting the miserable highway at a crawl and accelerating into Pallboro. As we zoomed over the bridge and turned into Dimsboro, a bank of dark clouds rolled toward us from the west, blocking the sun.
“It’s getting dark.” An uneasy prickle stirred me.
“That damned traffic,” Lorna said, glancing up at the heavy clouds flattening into a solid lid overhead. “And we’re just off daylight-saving time. I forgot how early the sun goes down.”
“Let’s feed and get out.” I grabbed my cell phone, hurried from the car, heading for Hellish. A stiffening breeze, sighing beneath the cloud bank, blew bits of trash and rolled a discarded beer can along the gravel lot near my feet.
Lorna, hustling alongside, suddenly stopped, her eyes scanning the grounds. “Where is everybody?”
Dimsboro looked like a western movie when the bad guys ride into town — everything silent, deserted. Did the locals hide behind locked doors and barred windows? A few cars lay parked down by Bubba’s and Marteen’s, but not a soul was in sight, no bustle, no boogie. We stood still a moment, listening. “Let’s do it and get out of Dodge.” I tugged the sleeve of Lorna’s jacket. We ran the short distance to my barn. No sign of Mello. Hellish saw us coming and sounded a “feed me” nicker. We bustled around, throwing grain in her bucket, freshening her water, giving her stall a quick pick-and-clean, tossing fresh straw down and hay up into her rack. We were brushing stray chaff from our clothes when Lorna froze.
A ghost of movement flickered at Vipe’s barn. The thin boy stared at us from the aisle way. He stepped out from under the dark overhanging roof into the gray light. His arms were rigid against his sides, his eyes wide and frightened.
“Maybe you should call the cops,” said Lorna.
I slid my phone from my pocket. Before I flipped it open the thing started ringing and pulsing. We both jumped backward. I took a breath, looked at the caller ID. Old lady Garner . . .
“Martha?”
“Nikki?” Her raspy voice sounded tentative. “Jim just called me. I want to apologize, the way I treated you.”
“Forget it, Martha. You didn’t know.” I could hear the click of a lighter, her mouth pulling smoke into her lungs.
“But I shouldn’t have . . .”
”Martha, don’t worry about it. Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.”
“Did Janet LeGrange have an insurance policy on that horse? The one that died?”
A long exhale. “Sure, honey. She’s the one found me my policy.”
“On Gildy?”
“Yeah. She put me in touch with that smoothie Reed. He handled both our policies.”
“
Clay
Reed?”
Lorna fidgeted, left foot to right foot, her hands making urgent hurry-up signals. “That’s the one,” said Martha.
“But we talked about Clay. I asked about your policy. You never mentioned his name.”
“You must not have asked.”
I all but bit my tongue not to scream at her. Took a breath. “He’s a scam artist, Martha. Please tell me you didn’t buy that horse he was trying to sell you.”
“No. Not after you warned me about him.”
Martha started coughing in my ear. I held the phone away while she struggled to subdue it. Down the way, the thin boy suddenly spun and started running from Vipe’s barn.
“We got to get out of here,” Lorna hissed, flicking an urgent glance at my car.
“Nikki, there’s something else you should know.” Martha’s voice, sounding tinny from the cell’s earpiece.
I rushed the phone back in place. “What?”
“Clay. He’s the agent bought the horse for Janet. The one that died.”
Jesus Christ
. A Dark Mountain bay. “Martha I can’t talk now. I’ll call you back.” I pressed the end button, punched 911.
Lorna stared open-mouthed down the shedrow. “We’re screwed.”
A man had materialized around the barn’s corner, moving rapidly toward us along the aisle, one hand holding a revolver, a pleasant smile on his lips.
That handsome smile, that pretty-boy face. Clay.
“Nikki, I’ve been looking for you.”
I pressed the send button on my phone. Clay leaned in, whipping my hand with the pistol. A jolt of pain. The cell flew to the dirt, as adrenalin shot through me.
Lorna yelped as Farino rounded the same corner and jogged toward us.
“Jack, good,” Clay said. “Could use your help here.”
Farino nodded, never taking his eyes off us. “What do you need?”
Clay turned to answer. I grabbed Hellish’s pitchfork and rammed the tongs into the small of his back. He staggered forward, dropping his gun, and Farino punched him in the jaw.
What the hell?
Tougher than his smooth cover, Clay refused to go down. He lunged at Farino. I grabbed Clay’s gun from the dirt, while the two men grunted, punched, and kicked. Farino fell. Clay stood over him, hands on his knees, gasping for breath.
“Stop it,” I screamed. I held the gun in both hands, trying to keep it steady. Lorna stood wooden with fear to my right.
Clay straightened, took a step toward me. “Nikki, I’d never hurt you.” That velvet voice.
“Stop. I swear I’ll shoot you.”
Farino’s predatory eyes fastened on me. “Don’t let him sucker you in again, Nikki.”
The gun wavered back and forth between them. As if from far away, I heard Lorna’s shallow panting breath, the filly’s restless hooves churning up straw. Memory flashed through my head — Farino’s quiet hands on Hellish, her willing acceptance. Mello liking him. I turned the gun on Clay.
“You’d never shoot me,” he said, then rushed me.
“Sure I would.” My fingers squeezed the trigger. Loud noise, acrid smoke, sharp jolt in my hand. Clay kept coming, leapt on me, knocking me down. I heard Lorna screaming.
“You missed.” Clay’s words breathed in my ear. Not his usual sugary tones, an ugly whisper. The one from my nightmare. He grabbed for the gun, fingers closing around my wrist, twisting, loosening my hand’s grip on the revolver.
Sirens wailed in the distance, the sound growing closer. Clay’s head whipped toward it. I snatched the gun with my other hand, cracked it against Clay’s head. Rolled from underneath him, and scooted backward. When my scrabbling hand felt the barn wall, I shoved my back against it, sitting in the dirt, supporting the gun on my knees.
A bunch of Prince George’s County squad cars tore into Dimsboro. The first one came to a skidding halt, facing us. Two police officers flung the doors open, crouching behind them, weapons drawn.
One called to me, “Ma’am? Set the gun down. Move away from it.”
No
. I clutched the gun like a lifeline. Must not have hit Clay hard enough. He sat up, pressing fingers to his scalp where I’d cracked him. Farino stayed on the ground, raising his hands into the air. Lorna sat in the gravel, head down, arms wrapped around her knees. Her red hair hid her face. I could hear her crying.
An unmarked car flew into the lot spraying dirt and gravel from its wheels. The driver circled the police vehicles and pulled up next to the cop yelling at me to put the gun down. Detective Davis unfolded himself from one side and Wells stepped out the other. They hustled over to the agitated county officer, saying something I couldn’t hear. Davis and the Prince George’s cop hurried toward us. I recognized the policeman from the arena. Wells hustled over to Farino.
“Nikki,” said Davis, “this is officer duCellier. Has a warrant for Mr. Reed. If you’ll hand me that gun, he’d like to make an arrest.” duCellier pulled a set of cuffs, locked them onto Clay’s wrists.
“What about him?” I stared at Farino.
“Jack? Don’t worry about him.” A smile lit Davis’s face, warmed those jaded eyes. His voice dropped. “He’s not even homicide. Officer Farino’s with vice. Undercover.”