Murder on the Horizon (7 page)

Standing before Gracie, poised to charge like a bull in front of a matador's cape, was Mrs. Lucas, former neighbor, the bane of Gracie's existence for years, the wife of the valley's most notorious drug dealer, who, thanks in part to Gracie, now sat in jail down the hill awaiting trial.

If possible, the woman looked even worse than the last time Gracie had seen her. Raccoon eyes. Sunken cheeks covered with scabs. Teeth brown at the roots. Dull, dark blonde hair pulled back into a stringy ponytail. Skeletal arms poking out from a loose-fitting black T-shirt. The only thing that hadn't changed was her dirty, yellowed toenails hanging off the ends of her flip-flops.

The woman bounced on the balls of her feet, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Tweaking
, Gracie thought.
Probably meth.
She could prove to be even more volatile, more dangerous than normal. “Nice to see you, too,” she said.

“You called the goddam cops,” Mrs. Lucas snarled in a voice, phlegmy and low register from too many years of too many cigarettes.

Gracie didn't even pretend not to know what she meant. “You shot my dog.”

“'Cuz you called the cops.”

“So you admit you shot her.”

“I ain't admittin' to nothing! You called the fuckin' cops!”

“You shot my dog.”

“Prove it.”

“I followed your tracks.”

“Don't prove nothing. If it did, ya woulda had me arrested.” Tears formed in her deep-set eyes. “They took my kid.”

Gracie had known the county's Child and Family Services removing the Lucas boy from the home was a possibility, even a likelihood. But she had never received confirmation of that happening.

She looked over the shorter woman's shoulder and noticed a crowd of shoppers gathering around in a ragged semicircle. Gracie looked back at the woman in front of her. “I'm truly sorry about that,” she said even though she really wasn't. The child was better off anywhere other than with his methamphetamine-using mother and drug-dealing father. “I'm getting in my truck. And I'm driving away. Have a super day.”

She looked around on the ground for her keys, spotted them behind the front tire, and bent to retrieve them.

Mrs. Lucas head-butted her in the ribs.

Gracie hit the ground again, this time with the other woman on top of her, screaming and kicking with her feet and flailing with her fists.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

It was all Gracie could do to grab the woman's forearms and fend off the blows. When Mrs. Lucas, mouth gaping, aimed her teeth at Gracie's knuckles, she threw the smaller woman off to the side, rolled up onto her knees, and straddled her, pinning her to the ground, hand on her wrists. Enraged, the woman roared even more loudly, kicking Gracie from behind with her knees and trying to buck her off.

Its siren winding down, a Sheriff's Department unit rolled to a stop a few feet from Gracie's head, with a second unit right behind. She looked up as Deputy Montoya, whom Gracie used to refer to as the Cute Deputy because she could never remember his name, emerged from behind the wheel and rounded the front of his unit.

“I can't . . . let her go,” Gracie yelled up to him, out of breath. “She's trying . . . to kill me!”

10

G
RACIE
grabbed a can of beer from the refrigerator, popped it open, threw two Extra Strength Tylenols into her mouth, and swallowed them down with half the beer while standing in the open doorway. She wanted—needed—something stronger, a
lot
stronger. “A triple, no, a quadruple vodka martini. Extra, extra dry. With two of those big, fat olives. Five big, fat olives.” But since she had no vodka, no dry vermouth, and no olives, a Coors Light would have to do. She held the ice-cold can to the grape-sized bump above her eyebrow. Then to her nose. Then her upper lip. “Ow,” she whispered.

It had taken three burly deputies fifteen minutes to fully subdue Mrs. Lucas and secure her, handcuffed and screeching verbal abuses, behind the cage in Montoya's unit. Timber Creek's big story for the week.

“Yes,” Gracie had told Deputy Montoya. “I'm refusing medical attention.”

“You sure? You look a little . . .”

“Rough?”

Montoya smiled, showing a row of straight, very white teeth below the black mustache. “Roughed
up
. You sure you don't want to press charges?”

“No. Yes, I'm sure. No, I don't.” Gracie had looked over to where Mrs. Lucas was using both feet to try to kick out the side window of the Sheriff's unit. “She needs rehab, not a jail cell.”

Gracie closed the door of the refrigerator and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Damn, what a sucky day. And it's only . . .” She looked up at the clock. “Nine fifteen? That's all?” She looked at the beer in her hand. “Oh, what the heck. It's five o'clock in . . . Nairobi.” She downed the rest of the beer, rinsed out the can, and threw it in the recycling container next to the back door.

She grabbed a year-old bag of frozen corn from the freezer and placed it along the right side of her face. Looking over with one eye, she noticed the little red light on the answering machine blinking, and punched Play. “Grace Louise.” Her mother's voice filled the room. “I bought you a ticket.”

“Nooo!”

“First class.”

“Really? First class? She must want me there bad.”

“Out of Ontario. That's the right airport, isn't it? Early Wednesday. Arriving Detroit Metro about ten o'clock. Returning the next afternoon.

“Fast trip.”

“I have your e-mail address somewhere. I'll have them e-mail you the itinerary.” There was a long pause. “Thank you.”

“Not much choice, have I? You already bought the ticket.”

“This means a lot to . . . well, to me.”

Setting the corn aside, Gracie drew her laptop out of her day pack sitting on the kitchen chair, set it up on the table, and checked her calendar. “Move stuff around a little. Get Allen to cover. Again. But I guess that'll work.”

While she was on the laptop, she opened her e-mail and wrote a cursory note to Rob:
Congratulations on your
upcoming nuptials.
Typed in,
Love, Gracie.
Backspaced over that and typed instead,
Really. I'm happy for you.
Signed off with just,
Gracie
.

She placed the cursor over the Send button. Hesitated. Exited the document without saving it and closed the laptop.

Stripping off her clothes, she hung the uniform shirt and pants on hangers in the mudroom with gaiters tucked into hiking boots neatly below, ready for the next callout. She donned sweatpants and T-shirt fresh from the dryer.

Back in the kitchen, she stood in the middle of the floor feeling pent-up and jittery, yet at the same time drained, the aftermath of that morning's double dose of adrenaline. Every part of her body seemed to hurt—knees, elbows, nose, eyebrow, wrists, ribs. “Even my hair. I want to talk to Ralphie.” She dialed Ralph's number. As she listened to it ring on the other end of the line she wondered if he was screening his calls, refusing to pick up when he saw it was Gracie calling.

The answering machine picked up. After the beep, she said, “Hi. It's me,” forcing herself to sound upbeat. “You'll never believe what happened to me already this morning. Well, maybe you would. Um . . . I wanted to let you know I'm going to be gone for a couple of days. Wednesday and Thursday. Flying to Detroit. My . . . um . . . stepfather . . . the asshole with the cigar, remember? Anyway, he's pretty sick. Dying, as a matter of fact. My mom bought my ticket. Going first class! Woo-hoo! Anyway, I'll be unavailable for a search for those days. And . . . um . . . I wanted to talk to you about the training next weekend. So, give me a call when you can. Please.” She almost hung up, then added, “I hate you being mad at me. I miss you.”

She disconnected and walked out through the living room sliding glass door and out onto the deck, where Minnie stood waiting, tail wagging.

In the shadow on the western side of the house, the air was as crisp and cool as spring snowmelt. Gracie lay down on the chaise longue and contemplated the panorama laid
out before her—a mosaic of green dotted with brown overlaid with a cloudless blue sky. With relief, she noticed there was still no ominous plume of smoke from what had been officially named the Shady Oak Fire rising up over the mountains to the southwest.

“So Rob is getting married,” she said, laying her head back and closing her eyes. He was out of her life. For good. Somehow the thought left her with a gaping hole in her chest and a heavy lump of bread dough in her stomach at the same time.

What right, really, did she have to be angry or upset or anything with him for marrying someone else? She answered her own question aloud. “None. Nada. Zero. El zippo.” He had asked her. She had said no. He had moved on to someone else. “Really, really fast.”

Gracie lifted her head and noticed Minnie standing at the railing, head through the slats, looking down and wagging her tail.

She pushed herself to her feet and walked over to lean her elbows on the railing above the dog and looked down to the street below.

John and Acacia were walking up the road, the girl skipping ahead of her grandfather.

“Good morning!” Gracie called down to the pair.

Acacia looked up and waved. “Hi, Gracie!”

“Good morning,” John said with no accompanying wave or smile.

“Someone is watching you and wagging her tail. Acacia, would you be willing to give a little dog a second chance? I think Minnie would really like to be friends.”

The girl looked back at her grandfather, then back up at Gracie. “Okay.”

“Oh, good. I'll bring her down to the end of our driveway so you can be properly introduced.”

By the time John and Acacia rounded the sharp curve in the road and reached the bottom of the driveway, Gracie was
standing there with Minnie, leashed and on “sit” and “stay,” the end of the dog's tail brushing a semicircle of asphalt clean.

With John watching and a little coaxing from Gracie, Acacia reached out and petted Minnie's head. Within two minutes, the girl was sitting on the driveway with her arm around the dog, who was wriggling with happiness.

John eyed the lumps and bruises on Gracie's face. “You run into a door or something?”

“Something like that.”

“We're having burgers on the grill for dinner,” Acacia said.

Happy to change the subject, Gracie said, “That sounds like fun.”

“Can you come over?” Acacia looked up at her grandfather. “Can she come over, Oompah?”

“No, that's okay,” Gracie said quickly.

“Please?”

“Sure,” John said, giving Gracie a sidelong look that belied his words. “Why not?”

At exactly one minute to six that evening, Gracie pushed the doorbell of the Robinson bungalow, holding Minnie on her leash and arms laden with store-bought potato salad and a bottle from her cold stash of Alice White Chardonnay.

With appreciation, she marveled again at the complete transformation the house had undergone in the past few months and the most recent addition—an American flag hanging from a black pole tipped with a gold eagle, its wings outstretched.

A woman answered the door. Slender and long limbed, she would have been taller than Gracie if she hadn't been sitting in a wheelchair. One side of her face drooped as if smudged. Her hair was silver, cut short in a neat, no-fuss bob. A long pink linen dress covered her legs. She wore neatly tied white Keds on her feet. “You must be Gracie,” she said with a smile.

“Yes. Vivian?”

“That's me. Come in. Come in.” The woman reached forward to unlatch the door, then, with the flip of a little
switch at her fingertips, rolled out of the way for Gracie to walk through and into the living room.

The hand Vivian held out was chocolate brown and warm, like her eyes.

“I'm pleased to meet you finally,” Vivian said in a voice that was low and mellow with the hint of a Southern drawl.

No doubt the source of Acacia's good manners
, Gracie thought.

Those same good manners prevented her from mentioning the lumps and bruises on Gracie's face. “And this must be Minnie,” Vivian said, reaching down to stoke the dog's head with her fingertips. “I know someone who's going to be ecstatic to see you. She's talked of nothing else since she got home.” Although her words were somewhat slurred, the woman spoke with the careful diction of a schoolteacher.

Gracie turned around and surveyed the living room. Polished wood floors, matching love seat and chairs, television set, shelves with books.

Vivian rolled past her into the middle of the room. “Well, come on in,” she said, eyes twinkling. “We don't bite.”

Gracie laughed. “No. It's just the last time I saw this room . . .” The last time she had seen the room, it was a drug dealer's lair, the foulest, filthiest house she had ever seen, furnished with guns and ammunition, with a booby trap for a welcome mat. “Let's just say, it's hard to believe it's the same house. It's beautiful.”

“Why, thank you, Gracie. We got the house for a song, mind you. John did much of the work himself. He's very proud of it.”

“As he should be.” Gracie held out the wine and potato salad. “These . . . are for you. Nothing fancy.”

“They're perfect.” Vivian patted her knees. “I have a built-in table.” With the bottle and plastic container on her lap, she swung the chair around and rolled out of the room and down the hallway. “John and Acacia are out back.”

Gracie followed Vivian past two bedrooms, a tiny
bathroom, and into the kitchen. New countertops and floor, crisp double-cell shades on the windows, walls and cupboards freshly painted white, new white refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and sink. The entire house down to the width of the doorways had all been efficiently redesigned and reconstructed with great care, everything raised, lowered, widened, or removed for someone in a wheelchair.

Vivian wheeled out the back door and down a ramp into the backyard, a work in progress with sawhorses and wood planks, a wheelbarrow and piles of gravel.

Near the back door sat a pint-sized picnic table covered with a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth and set with white plastic plates and utensils. Standing at a propane grill, wearing a chef's apron that said,
KISS THE COOK
, John acknowledged Gracie's appearance with a lifting of the spatula and returned to flipping burgers.

John's cool reception didn't particularly bother Gracie. Aloofness or even animosity with no previous emotional investment on her part rolled off her back. Until he made it hers, whatever was going on with John was his problem.

“Minnie!” Acacia cried. Dressed in bright yellow, with pigtails bouncing, the girl ran over, ball in hand, and accepted the leash from Gracie. For the rest of the evening, girl and dog were inseparable.

During a meal of hamburgers accompanied by corn on the cob, baked beans, and the potato salad, the conversation was light, general, during which Gracie learned that, three years before, Vivian's twenty-six-year career of teaching high school had been cut short by a stroke. Also that Acacia was the only child of their youngest daughter, living with her grandparents for a year, an experiment to see how she fared in an environment less urban than Pasadena. Sensitive, art and nature loving, the girl seemed, so far, to be thriving in the mountains.

As Vivian scooped Neapolitan ice cream into paper bowls, she asked, “So this Search and Rescue work is your job?”

“No, that's all volunteer,” Gracie said. “I work as the manager of a residential camp, Camp Ponderosa. On the west end of the valley. You should come visit sometime. It's beautiful. Lots of big trees with its own little lake.”

“That would be lovely. Wouldn't it, John?”

Her husband gave a noncommittal grunt and dug his spoon into his bowl of ice cream.

“Volunteerism is a noble and necessary thing,” Vivian said.

Gracie winced. “I don't think of it as noble.”

Vivian gave her a look. “Don't kid yourself, child. Isn't some of what you do dangerous?”

“Sometimes. But you know what the job entails when you sign up for it. We train often and hard. Rescuer safety is always the number one priority.”

“What types of things do you do?”

“We search for lost kids, mountain bikers, hikers, downed airplanes, vehicles over the sides. We also help with evacuations. If the Shady Oak Fire comes up to the valley, we'll help with that.”

“Lord forbid,” Vivian said. “You think that will happen?”

“There's really no way to tell right now. It's always a possibility.”

“Something to think about, John,” Vivian said.

No response from her husband.

“It's always good to think ahead of time about having to evacuate,” Gracie said as a gentle suggestion. “What you would or wouldn't take.”

“My, yes, I suppose it is,” Vivian said.

“Because I don't trust myself to remember everything in the moment of crisis,” Gracie said, “I keep a list on the refrigerator. If I have only five minutes to get out, what would I grab? If I had fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes. Two hours.”