Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (26 page)

“Probably. I’ll help change the tire,” he assured her.

“Is there anyone else you can check with? I can tell you numbers for my editor or—”

He took a long swig of beer without answering.

“I mean, maybe I could suggest someone to call.”

“I’m checking what I should do,” he explained as though to a child.

“Oh.” Olivia licked her dry lips. “I see. Your boss.”

“Might say that.” Ernie smiled mirthlessly and put the beer can down on the carpet next to the chair. “Here,” he said, “toss me another Bud.”

Olivia reached for a can. Could she fling it hard enough, and accurately enough, to hit him in the forehead, knock him out? Then grab the rifle, then—

No. She couldn’t.

Besides, she saw Sergeant Rock lift his head lazily from the floor, ears pricking at the mere tiny sound of the can being pulled from the six-pack.

She tossed the can obediently at Ernie’s chest. He caught it one-handed, pulled the tab, and drank.

“What was this guy Colby after?” he asked suddenly. “The one in the picture?”

“He was just a reporter,” Olivia said. “Writing about the plane crash.”

“Writing about that Congressman what’s-his-name?”

“Yeah. And the people on the plane, you know, and their families.”

“Cap’n Corky didn’t have a family any more. Divorced.”

“Oh. But didn’t he have a sister?”

“Oh. Yeah.” A frown crackled fleetingly across his face. “Yeah, a sister.”

“Do, uh, do you have a sister?” Olivia asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a touchy question.

“Nah. There’s just me. Dad died and Mother went off to Florida. Sold me her half of the farm.”

“I see. It’s a nice farm,” Olivia said.

He drank some beer and grinned. A heartening grin, really, his face brightening around his beard like sunshine breaking through clouds. “You ever worked on a farm, Olivia Kerr?”

“Um, no, not worked. Used to visit my uncle.”

“Thought so. See, it’s tough. Chickens, hogs, plowing, harvesting—the whole ball of wax.”

“Yeah. I suppose you’re right. Maybe some people like working outdoors.”

“This weather? They’re crazy.”

Olivia looked out the window and nodded. This conversation was unreal. She was discussing the weather with a guy who might be Dale Colby’s murderer. How had he done it? Rifle, somehow, no doubt, he was a terrific shot. Her van bore witness to that. But there were no bullet holes anywhere in Dale’s den. Nor in Dale, Jerry said. Well, this wasn’t the time to figure how he’d committed that crime. It was time to prevent this one. And preventing it required discussing the weather. So be it. “Yes,” she agreed, “that rain is fierce.”

“Regular monsoon,” he agreed. “Can’t earn a living with this weather going on. Don’t know whether to plant cactus or rice.” He grinned again.

Cactus or rice. He’d made a joke. Olivia tried grinning back. She wasn’t sure if she succeeded or not. “Must be tough. How are the animals doing?”

“They’re like me. They survive.” He finished the second beer, placed the can neatly by the other, laid his hand on the stock of the rifle, and looked at his watch. “I’ll try to phone again.”

“Okay.”

He slung the rifle over his shoulder and started for the phone. “Sarge, watch ’em.”

Instantly, the dog was on the alert again. Not a good idea to try to slip by him in his sleep, Olivia decided. He didn’t wake up like her, slow and muzzy-headed until she’d had her coffee. He was ready in a flash, ready to—to—never mind. The point was, it was definitely not a good idea to try anything unless he was somehow locked up. Maybe, if she could get a solid door between him and her—But she couldn’t reach the front door before Sarge. The arch to the dining room had no doors, and Ernie was in there dialing now. The only other door to this room was straight across from her. Through it she could glimpse a carpeted hall. Bedrooms, maybe, or stairs. But since the dog sat in a direct line between her and that door, it was of no immediate use anyway.

The windows had screens. But even supposing she somehow slashed an opening and escaped, Sarge could then get through too.

So could a bullet.

Maybe whoever Ernie was calling would tell him to let her go. After all, she didn’t really know anything. And Ernie, now lounging against the side of the archway, phone at his ear, thought she knew even less. He’d learned only that she knew he’d known Corky Lewis years ago, and that she was a colleague of Dale Colby’s, who’d been killed. But he didn’t know she’d found the Donovan’s Bar napkin that linked him to Colby’s home. And he didn’t know that Nick and Maggie knew about him.

Not that they could help. She hadn’t told them she was coming here.

Hadn’t told Edgy or Nate yet either.

Hadn’t told the cops about any of it. Damn, that Detective Schreiner would look pretty good right now.

And getting to that phone to call anyone was even less likely than escaping.

She longed to be back doing rewrites on Joanne Little and Patty Hearst.

“It’s Ernie.” He spoke suddenly into the receiver. “I—” There was a brief pause. He kicked at the baseboard. “Look, Rosie, it’s urgent! Just tell me—” He broke off again, glared at the receiver. “Shit.” He ducked into the corner beyond the archway, slammed the phone down, stalked back to the chair, slid the rifle from shoulder to lap again. For a minute he sat with his eyes closed, muscles tense, then slowly relaxed as though willing himself to unwind. He opened his eyes and looked at his dog first. “Good boy, Sarge. Lie down.” When the animal had flopped onto the carpet again, Ernie looked back at Olivia. “Sorry,” he said politely. “We’ll have to wait for a return call. Everybody’s always so busy. Hurry up and wait, you know?”

“Yeah.” She rubbed her palms together nervously. They were damp. “I spend hours waiting for people to call back too.”

He studied her a moment with those opaque dark eyes. “A reporter,” he said. “Suppose you were reporting about me? What would you want to know?”

Hoo boy. A lot of stuff, Ern. Like how’d you manage the locked room? Why’d you do it? Why won’t you let me go? And so on. Olivia stamped down her journalist instincts and said carefully, “Let’s see. You didn’t know Dale Colby, so it wouldn’t be a news article. A feature, maybe. Human-interest story. So I’d probably ask you what it’s like to be a farmer these days.”

“Being a farmer. That’s human interest?”

“Sure. City people want to know because it’s all new to them. Other farmers want to see if you’ve got the same problems they’ve got.”

“Yeah. Money,” said Ernie. “But I got that fixed.”

“Oh?” she said cautiously.

“You see those houses they’re building down at the corner of Vale?”

“Yes.”

“Sold that lot to them about a year ago. Put the money in the bank, get a nice check every quarter. Enough to buy beer, anyway.”

A sizeable check if he kept up his present rate of consumption, she decided. She said brightly, “That’s good. With real estate going up so fast around Mosby, this farm must be more valuable every day.”

“You got it. Just sitting here, it’s valuable. Don’t have to work it at all.”

“So you’re thinking of selling it all?”

“Nah.” He waved an arm toward the window behind Olivia. “See the woods back there?”

She twisted around to peer out. Was the rain easing? Beyond the driveway and rough lawn, the Virginia woods started up abruptly: tall trees, creepers, bushes. Look long enough and one of Colonel Mosby’s men might materialize. She said, “Yeah.”

“I won’t sell the woods. Half this place is woods. Good hunting patch, backs up to the river. Lots of deer. So I’ll sell off lots by the road. Let ’em build their tacky little houses down there. Sarge and I can hang out here, go hunting. No hassles.”

“Sounds great. Have you always liked hunting?”

“Yeah. Eight years old, I remember going out with my old man.” Ernie was looking in her direction but his eyes were focused far away, somewhere back in those woods. “He died when I was in Nam.”

“I’m sorry,” said Olivia.

“They sent me home. I was a short-timer already, only twenty-three days to go. Right out of the jungle into the cold here. Thanksgiving time, you know? Christ.” He glanced at her, at the dining-room arch, at the dog, finally settled on the carpet at his feet. “Thanksgiving. What a farce. Giving thanks—” His face crinkled suddenly in a grimace and Olivia realized he was fighting tears. She tensed. Soothe him somehow. He was unpredictable enough already. Try the weather.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Must have been a jolt, summer to winter like that.”

He recovered himself, his dark eyes dull again. “Fucking Army,” he said. “Buddy dies, they send you back into action next day. No real funeral, no investigation, nothing. Just some damn-fool chaplain bullshitting about how he didn’t die in vain. Crap. And they pin medals on the assholes that ordered them into the wrong place.”

That frown on his face again. Olivia said hastily, “Yeah, the Army must be pretty unfeeling.”

He seemed amused. “Not at all. Civilian stateside dies, it’s oh dearie me, young fella, why don’t you go home early, have some turkey. Crazy business.”

“Yeah. Crazy business,” she agreed cautiously. The stateside civilian had been his dad, after all. But in the tight comradeship of war, a buddy’s death would be more immediate, more threatening. If her own dad died she knew she would grieve for years. But Dale’s death had left her not so much with sorrow as with an urgent sense of unfinished business, of validating his life and her own by carrying on his projects, by avenging his death.

And boy had she ever muffed it.

Ernie was looking glumly out the window down the driveway. The rain was definitely letting up, she saw, the darkest of the clouds scudding away. The people on the TV were shrieking in their small low-volume voices, clapping their hands. Someone must have won one of the all-American prizes.

Okay. Be logical. The best chance for escape was for Ernie’s boss to tell him to let her go. But she needed a backup plan. The truck, she decided. Try to get the truck keys. And padding. People who trained attack dogs wore padding against the fangs. Maybe she could snatch up the slipcover as she left. Bundle herself thickly. But all these plans required getting the rifle as well as the truck keys.

And he might have another rifle. Hunters usually did.

Ernie stirred restlessly. To keep him occupied until the mysterious boss rang back, she sought desperately for a safe topic of conversation. “Does your mother like Florida?”

“Oh, yeah.” He looked back out the window. “She’s got a sister there. And we weren’t getting along too well, her and me. She thought I was drinking too much.” He snorted. “But if I didn’t drink she thought I yelled too much.”

“Well,” said Olivia. Couldn’t respond to that. She returned to the earlier topic. “I’m glad she likes Florida. I was there once, just on vacation. The ocean is great. The beach.”

“Yeah. The beach is all right. Even in Nam the beach was great.”

“Yeah. I like beaches. I was just over at Bethany Beach, uh, yesterday.” Could that be right? Was it really only twenty-four hours ago that they’d been playing volleyball, splashing in the sea?

“Haven’t been there. Rehoboth, once.” He wasn’t paying much attention to this dumb conversation either, glancing back and forth from the window to the archway where the phone lurked.

Sergeant Rock bounced to his feet, quivering, as the phone shrilled at last. Ernie hoisted the rifle to his shoulder and strode toward the arch. He didn’t forget to tell Sergeant Rock, “Watch ’em.”

“Hello?” Olivia heard him say. “Yeah. Oh, hi, Mitch…  Okay. I’m doing okay.” There was a pause. Was this Mitch the one he was waiting for? Why wasn’t Ernie saying anything about her? He said, “Okay, I get the idea. Why all the buildup? … Yeah, okay, I know you won’t… Oh, Christ!” A thump of Ernie’s boots. Sarge’s ears twitched. “You didn’t… yeah, yeah, okay, I know you won’t. They don’t have my name? Well, don’t tell the fuckers anything! I’ll get back to you, okay?”

The receiver slammed down and Ernie bounded into the room, fury twisting his bearded face. “You little shit!” he screamed. It was the most terrible voice Olivia had ever heard. “You called the cops on me!”

“No, no, I didn’t!” she exclaimed, cringing.

“Shut up!” He smacked her across the jaw. A fantail of pain flared from her cheek through her skull.

“No! I didn’t! Someone else did!” she sobbed. She’d crumpled sideways, burying her face in the sofa, arms over her head, waiting for the fists, the fangs, the bullets.

“Someone else? Down, Sarge. Like who else?”

There was something salty in her mouth but she forced herself to think through the haze of pain. This Mitch had told him something about cops. Who could have told the cops? Nick or Maggie or Jerry? The bartender? But the cops didn’t know Ernie Grant’s name, it appeared. Nick or Maggie or Jerry or the bartender would have told the name. So who else was there? “The sister?” she gasped into the sofa cushion. “Maybe Corky Lewis’s sister?”

“Jesus. Jesus, that’s it.” Ernie stepped back a pace. “Mitch said they were asking about him. Asking about his friends. Must have been the sister.”