Authors: Carlene Thompson
But her instinct had been right. The garden looked sad and dingy, although not neglected. Bethany had been helping Patricia tend to it simply because she couldn’t bear to see what had been such a lovely garden fall to ruin, not because Bethany had any special desire to please Patricia. The statue of Persephone looked especially sad today, Christine thought. According to the Greek myth, the lord of the underworld had drawn her down into a chasm in a chariot pulled by four black steeds. Her
mother, Demeter, the goddess of corn, in her grief turned the world bleak, killing all vegetation. At last Zeus decreed Persephone could return to her mother four months a year, and during these four months Demeter allowed the earth to bloom into summer.
“Apparently you’re still in the underworld,” Christine muttered inanely to the statue, which needed a good bath of bleach to remove mildew and the stains of winter. “I hope you come back soon. This garden is too dismal to bear.”
She jumped in surprise when something stung her ankle. A snake at this time of year? Christine looked down and was shocked to see a wet, mud-covered Pom-Pom dancing around her legs. He tried to nip her again, but she backed away too soon.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” she demanded as if the dog could answer. Patricia always kept Pom-Pom on a leash when she brought him outside. And she never allowed him to get dirty, although even fresh from a trip to the dog groomer he looked like a ragamuffin. Christine was convinced no one with mere earthly talents could improve Pom-Pom’s appearance.
She stooped and touched the top of his matted head. Even his fancy rhinestone collar was caked with mud. “Where’s your mistress, boy?” The dog panted, then turned in a jittery circle. “Where’s Patricia? I’ve never seen you outside without her. Did you manage to break free of her?”
Pom-Pom yipped three times and turned in that frantic circle again. Christine looked at him. Pom-Pom seemed to adore Patricia as she did him. Even if he’d broken free of his leash, which Christine had never known him to do, he wouldn’t have run far from Patricia. He was a colossal yipping, snapping ankle biter, but he displayed such ferocity only around his mistress. He seemed to feel safe
and strong only in her presence. He wouldn’t have left her far behind.
Christine stood up and looked at the French doors at the back of the house. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but one of them stood slightly ajar. Could Pom-Pom have simply escaped and, not being the smartest canine in the country, not been able to find his way back inside? That would be fairly dumb, even for Pom-Pom.
Christine walked toward the house and pushed the door open farther. “Patricia?” she called. “Ames?” No one answered and she stepped inside. Although she had once lived in this house, she had never thought of it as home, had never entered uninvited since she moved away. Pom-Pom followed her, breathing noisily, his muddy paws leaving tracks on the pale carpet. “Patricia? It’s Christine! Are you here?”
Complete silence. Pom-Pom stood beside her, not running in search of his mistress. He had never shown the slightest affection for Christine, so she was certain devotion didn’t rule his actions. The dog simply knew Patricia wasn’t in the house. And neither was Ames. Although he might be angry with Christine, he wouldn’t have let her stand at the door bellowing for him. He would have come to confront her. The house was empty. The cherished, overprotected nitwit of a dog who didn’t know to avoid speeding cars was on the loose. Something was wrong.
They walked back outside. “Okay, Pom-Pom,” Christine said, looking down at the panting, shivering dog. “I know heroics aren’t your forte, but you’re all I have right now. I’m going to follow you. Take me to Patricia.”
Pom-Pom cocked his head, gazing at her with the beady eyes of a crow. “Come on, Pom-Pom, act like the dogs on television and take me to your mistress. I know she’s around here somewhere and I know something isn’t right or you wouldn’t be such a wreck. So do that
wonderful thing dogs do—track a person.
Please
.”
Pom-Pom looked confused, then lifted his leg and drenched a budding purple crocus. Christine closed her eyes, determined not to yell at him. When she’d taken a couple of deep breaths, she focused on him again. This time he turned around twice, yipped shatteringly, then tore away from the house and headed for the acres of damp field lying beyond.
“Great,” Christine muttered. “This just couldn’t be easy, could it?”
She thought about following the dog in the car, then decided that method might completely confuse the less-than-brilliant Pom-Pom. So she tramped after him, wishing she were wearing boots instead of her best black loafers. Halfway between the house and barn, Pom-Pom stopped running and began spinning in agitated circles. Then he dashed back and nipped her ankle.
“Dammit, Pom-Pom!” Christine exploded. “We’re on a mission. Or are we? Did Patricia just go someplace, you managed to get out of the house, and now you’re trying to impress me? Well, all you’ve done is piss me off after that last ankle bite.” She paused, looking at the usually cosseted dog, now quivering and covered with drying mud. He looked twice as bad as usual, and usual was bad enough. He suddenly struck her as pathetic, and she asked in a kinder voice, “Are you really so scared you don’t know what you’re doing?”
He appeared to be mulling this over behind his tiny, undoglike eyes; then he was off again, running top speed for the barn and managing to hit every water puddle along the way. If he’s just having fun with me, I’ll kill him, Christine thought as she felt water seeping into her shoes.
As they neared the barn, Christine could have sworn she heard music. Maybe I’m flashing back to yesterday morning and the attack, she thought as a chill rushed over her at
the memory. But she wasn’t hearing anything that sounded faintly like the pounding “Relax.” Pom-Pom stopped. He ran back to her and whined. Christine ignored him and walked forward, intent on the music. It was something classical, now growing louder, the sound soaring. And the horses were kicking their stalls. Hard. Continuously.
I’m going right back to the house, she thought in a panic. I am going into the house and shut the door and not even look at what’s going on in that barn.
As the thought repeated itself, she looked at the securely padlocked double doors. Go back, her mind said. Go back. She stood frozen with indecision until Pom-Pom whined again and shuddered.
Go back!
her mind screamed as her body seemed to move without directions from her brain around the corner of the barn to the narrow side door, which stood open. She paused before the open door.
Go back
. She entered.
The music swelled around her. Although the barn sat far from the house, the music could not long have gone unnoticed. At least five cars passed near the barn each day. Unless their radios were blasting, passengers would have heard the music through the open door. It had undoubtedly drawn Pom-Pom to the spot. It was setting the horses wild.
Christine walked slowly into the dim, cool barn interior, her hand closing over a pen lying in the bottom of her jacket pocket. Consciously she did not consider the pen a weapon. Without thought, though, she snapped off the plastic top to expose the sharp point. A pen was a pathetic weapon, but she might slow down someone with it if she aimed carefully.
A weapon? Slow down someone? She was being crazy. She needed to get back to the safety of the house, away from the awful thing she knew awaited her in the barn. But she couldn’t stop herself.
Christine took three more hesitant steps into the barn and looked up. The music came from the loft. She glanced at the kicking, rolling-eyed horses. “Settle down, you two,” she said gently, more to bolster herself than to calm them. “I’m here. Everything is all right now.”
Her apprehensive gaze shot around the dim first floor interior. Gray light fought its way inside, almost tunneling through the gloom to fall on a heap of clothes at the foot of the ladder—
Christine squinted in the light, which seemed to grow brighter as she focused on the clothes. But they weren’t just clothes.
Patricia lay huddled and broken at the foot of the ladder on the cold concrete floor. In one terrible glance that would imprint itself on her mind forever, Christine saw her bluish face, her blood drying in a little streak running from her mouth, and her blue eyes staring blindly at the horses.
Christine felt as if her heart were plunging to her feet, leaving her weak and light-headed and clinging to consciousness. She closed her eyes, fighting not to faint. “I lied,” she said softly to the horses. “Everything isn’t all right now.”
Later Christine barely remembered the next few minutes. She recalled kneeling by Patricia, feeling for a pulse, making a clumsy and futile attempt at resuscitation, noting with horror that her skin was still warm. Next came a mad run back to the house, Pom-Pom galloping along behind her, abandoning the mistress who’d loved him so dearly. She’d hit the French doors with a bang, so breathless she was on the verge of passing out, cursing herself
for leaving her cell phone in the car. Then a call to 911. Then she sat down on an elegant Queen Anne chair, put her head between her knees, and drew in deep breaths while the wet dog lay on her wet feet, shaking, terrified, and confused.
For many years Christine had been complimented on her cool handling of rough situations. Christine was the strong one, people said. Christine was the capable one. Sometimes they made her sound ten feet tall instead of five-ten. But the last two days had been too much. First the attack on her in the gym, then the phone call, then the rat, and now Patricia dead in the horse barn.
And she didn’t fall, a voice from far off said. She
didn’t
fall.
Christine’s head jerked up. She expected to see someone standing in front of her speaking. Instead, she saw only an empty room. Her own thoughts seemed to be shouting into her ears.
Patricia did not fall!
“Of course she fell,” she said aloud. Pom-Pom looked up, beady eyes fastened on her face as he tensed. “Why do I keep thinking she didn’t fall? She just went to the barn and . . .”
She frowned. And what? Went up into the loft, put on music, then went back to the loft entrance and stumbled, hurtling down twenty feet?
Yes, Patricia loved the horses. Yes, she visited them nearly every day even if she didn’t ride.
But in all the years Christine had lived in the house, she’d never known of Patricia climbing the ladder into the loft. For one thing, nothing was in the loft except hay, and a hired boy fed the horses. More important, Patricia didn’t like heights. She avoided them unless it was necessary. She wouldn’t have chosen the loft as a place to be alone, much less climbed the ladder while carrying a
boom box from which the music must have been coming.
Patricia had not been alone. Christine was sure of it. She’d gone up to the loft to be with someone who’d brought the boom box, someone she desired to be with enough to swallow her fear of heights and climb that steep ladder.
Filled with anxiety, Christine jumped from her chair and strode to the front door, Pom-Pom at her heels. She saw no police cars or EMS van. She knew traffic was tangled because of the flood, but it seemed she’d called 911 twenty minutes ago. Half of that time was more like it. Against her better judgment, she called Tess’s cell phone number. She felt a desperate need to hear a familiar human voice but got no answer. Just as well, Christine thought. Tess might have insisted on coming over, then gotten in everyone’s way. Finesse was not Tess’s strong point.
Just as she hung up the phone, Christine heard a siren. Pom-Pom went wild, yipping uncontrollably, then dashing up the stairs to the second floor. Christine was glad to see him go. The last thing everyone needed was Pom-Pom underfoot. The EMS van slowed in front of the house, but before it had time to stop, Christine ran outside and called to the driver, “Take Crescent Creek Lane down to the barn. Someone is hurt inside. The side door is open.”
The van sped over the hill without the siren but with lights still flashing. Christine wanted to shut the door, to let the EMS technicians handle everything, to hide inside the house from the ugliness that lay in the barn. But she knew she couldn’t. She wasn’t a child. There would be questions, and she was the only person here to answer them.
She got in her rental car and slowly drove to the barn. A uniformed man and woman were dashing through the barn’s side door. Christine stopped her car, then sat behind
the wheel for a few minutes. She rolled down her window but heard no beautiful music flowing from the barn. The CD had ended, thank God. The horses still kicked in their stalls, though.
Christine glanced in the rearview mirror to see a patrol car pull up behind her. Michael Winter got out and came to the side of her car. She got out.
“I picked up on the nine-one-one call from you,” he said. “Saw the EMS lights down here.”
She nodded. “Patricia’s in the barn. She’s dead.”
He raised his dark eyebrows. “You’re sure.”
“Her face was blue. There was no breath, no pulse.”
“You touched the body?”
“I only tilted her head slightly so I could try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Her lips were still warm. . . .” Christine swallowed hard. “I know I shouldn’t have touched her.”
“You were giving her a chance at life. It’s all right as long as you didn’t move her.”
Christine desperately did not want to enter the barn again, but Michael seemed to expect it. He led the way with her almost dragging her feet behind him. When they got inside, the female paramedic remained kneeling beside Patricia, but the male stood up. “She’s dead,” he said without feeling. “Neck is broken and I’d say a hell of a lot more than that is shattered. Looks like she fell from the loft.” Everyone automatically looked up. “But if it was a simple fall,” the paramedic went on, “I don’t know how she got all this hay on her body.”
“There’s hay in the loft,” Christine said.
The paramedic shook his head. “I’m not a crime scene expert, but there’s something funny about the hay. It doesn’t look like it just tumbled down on her. It looks like it’s been carefully placed on her. Sort of like a blanket.” He shrugged. “I guess that sounds lame.”