Sketcher in the Rye: (24 page)

Chapter 30

Stowing the handful of seeds in her pocket, Rory dove behind the burlap sacks, crouching as low as possible, but still ready to leap up and over the side of the truck if it became necessary. She held her breath, expecting to hear one of the men shout that he'd seen someone on the truck. But the alert was never sounded. The laughter of the men died down, followed by a brief round of good-byes. Then a single set of footsteps approached the pickup—Luke, no doubt. Rory heard the tailgate groan and clang shut, after which the truck shuddered briefly as he jumped aboard. He closed the door and started the engine.

Okay, it could have been worse, she told herself. All she had to do now was endure a rough ride back to Harper Farms in the bed of the truck. She'd have to leave her mother's car where she'd parked it and call someone to come fetch her, but for the moment, none of that mattered. The most dangerous part of her mission was over.

“Luke, wait,” Kevin yelled, sprinting up to the truck.

What was happening? she wondered. She'd been as still as a statue. If they hadn't seen her when she'd taken cover, how had they spotted her now? The truck started to move forward, nearly knocking her off balance.

“Wait,” Kevin shouted again. Luke must have finally heard him, because the truck bucked to a stop. This time Rory was prepared for it and braced herself. She heard Kevin trot past the side of the truck and up to the cab, but she couldn't hear what he and Luke were saying over all the engine noise. A minute later, Luke put the truck in gear, and Rory heaved a sigh of relief. Then she sneezed.

She must have inhaled some little fibers when she was cutting into the burlap. But worrying about the why of it was a lot like closing the barn door when the horses were already in the next county. The only question that mattered was, how well had the engine noise camouflaged the sneeze? The answer wasn't long in coming. The truck stopped again. Seconds later the tailgate was opened, and the truck bed bounced as someone jumped on. Rory pulled the gun out of her pocket, clicking off the safety in one fluid motion. But Luke was on her before she could even fire a warning shot. Spewing profanities, he caught her forearm in a vice-like grip and wrenched the .45 out of her hand. By the time he'd hauled her to her feet, his Greenbrier coconspirators had caught up to the truck again. They were definitely not pleased to see her either.

Luke handed her down to Kevin. “I should have known she was going to be trouble,” he said, jumping down after her.

“I thought you had everything under control,” Roger Underwood snapped. “Who is she anyway?”

“Rory McCain—she's the PI my dad hired.”

“Way to go, Luke,” Kevin said, with a nasty curl to his upper lip. He was holding Rory with her arms pinned behind her back. If he pulled any tighter, they would pop out of their sockets.

“Let go of me,” she said, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. “There are three of you, and you've got my gun. What are you afraid of?” The odds were clearly in their favor. Although she might have successfully taken on one adversary, maybe even two, she knew that three was probably beyond her ability. Where was a ghost when you needed one?

“She's right,” Luke said, training the gun on her, “she's not going anywhere. Let her be.”

Kevin's eyes narrowed. “Yeah? Who died and made you king?”

Rory was in too much pain to wait for the rest of their little power struggle to play out. She lifted her foot and stomped down hard on Kevin's instep. He howled and released her. “You're going to regret that,” he muttered.

“Roger,” Luke said, “you ought to check her for other weapons or a phone.”

“I should have thought of that myself,” Roger said, stepping over to her. He patted her down and came away with her phone, flashlight and keys.

“You know she's a liability now that she's seen us,” Kevin said sullenly. “And it's all thanks to this jerk.”

Luke didn't reply, but his jaw clenched as if he was holding himself back from punching the sarcasm out of Kevin's mouth, along with his teeth.

“You need to keep it together, son,” Roger warned him. “Finger-pointing solves nothing.”

Neither does compounding a crime like property damage with kidnapping, assault or murder, Rory wanted to interject, but she decided this wasn't the best time to irritate anyone.

“Then what do you propose we do with her now?” Kevin came back. “We can't just let her go.”

“Take her into the office and tie her up. I need time to think without you yammering at me. Give him the gun, Luke.”

“Don't do it,” Rory said, with more authority than she had any right to feel in her present situation. “You know in your gut you shouldn't trust him with the gun.”

“You shut up,” Roger barked at her. He wrested the weapon from Luke's hand and passed it to his son.

Kevin's mood appeared to lighten now that he was in charge of the .45. “What am I going to tie her up with?” he asked.

“I have something you can use,” Luke said, walking back to the cab of the truck. He leaned inside, and when he stepped away, he was holding a length of cord. “My dad's a real Boy Scout,” he said with a sour laugh. “Every vehicle he owns is equipped with stuff he thinks he might need someday.” He handed the cord to Kevin. “It's kind of poetic that his thoughtfulness is helping us.”

Kevin stuck the muzzle of the gun into Rory's back and marched her toward the office. Once they were inside, he ordered her into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Then he just stood there for a while looking perplexed.

“You've got quite a dilemma,” she said in an understanding tone. “Your father doesn't think ahead much, does he? How does he expect you to tie me up and keep the gun on me at the same time?”

“Yeah,” Kevin mumbled. “He thinks he's the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he isn't.”

“I guess you could set the gun down while you're tying me.”

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other as if he was considering her suggestion.

“I'm sure you're not worried about me overpowering you,” she said.

“You got that right,” he said standing a little taller. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd flexed a bicep for her benefit.

“One thing's for sure though—your father's not going to be pleased when he comes in and finds me sitting here all untied like this.”

Kevin chewed on his lower lip as he considered his options. They were both so focused on their thoughts that they jumped when the office door flew open, and Luke stalked in. Rory could tell from the expression on Kevin's face that he was relieved it wasn't Roger.

“Your dad wants you,” Luke said. “Give me the gun. I'll take over here.”

“Why—where is he?”

“Over at the barn.”

“Yeah, okay,” Kevin mumbled, turning to go.

“Hey, the gun,” Luke reminded him.

Kevin didn't seem at all happy about relinquishing the weapon, but he handed it over and left the office.

“You have to get out of here,” Luke said, once Kevin was out of earshot. “Get out of here and wait for me in my truck.” Rory was too startled to react immediately. She stood up, still trying to process what he'd said. Why should she trust him? What if Roger had decided to let her go with just a threat to kill her if she went to the police? What if Luke was the one who'd decided she had to be killed tonight? For all she knew, he was the one who'd murdered Matthew. A second murder would hardly matter to him.

“Hey—I don't have time for this,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out the door with him. “
Go! Now!
” He pushed her in the direction of the pickup as he took off toward the barn. Action is always better than inaction, a voice piped up in her head. Rory started running. The truck was still parked a good forty yards away, where Luke had left it when her sneeze had changed the course of her life. She couldn't run any faster, but she had the nightmarish sensation that she was hardly moving at all. That a bullet from the .45 would slam into her back at any moment. Then she heard Kevin cursing at the top of his lungs, followed by the sounds of a bare-fisted fight. She didn't glance behind her. It would only slow her down. She'd cast her die with Luke. She just hoped it wasn't her last bad decision

When she reached the truck, she jumped into the passenger seat and locked the doors. Too bad she didn't know how to hotwire a car. She wouldn't have thought twice about leaving the whole lot of them behind. She watched for Luke out her side window. Hugging herself and shivering, she was aware for the first time that night just how cold she was. Cold inside and out.

“Are you okay?” The voice came from the driver's seat. Rory knew that voice. A wave of relief washed over her as she turned to find the marshal behind the wheel. “Rory, are you okay?” he demanded.

“Yes . . . yes, I'm fine,” she said trying to bring order to her reeling thoughts. She really wouldn't have minded a brief pause in the action. She was beginning to feel shell-shocked.

“How did you know?”

“I thought we gave up wonderin' about that months ago,” he said impatiently. “A better question would be, why didn't you let me know what was goin' to happen tonight?”

“Because I didn't know until it happened. And then I didn't have a second to spare.” Even as she said the words, she knew the excuse was lame and would never appease him. But for the moment, it was all she had. “Luke will be back any second,” she warned him.

“All right, but we're not done with this.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” she said as he faded out.

Luke had opened the driver's door. “What did you say?” he asked as he slid behind the wheel. He had a gash on his forehead, some blood on the knuckles of his right hand and no idea how close he'd come to comingling his flesh with pure essence of ghost.

Chapter 31

As he drove, Luke described how he'd knocked Roger Underwood out with a two-by-four lying outside the barn. Then he'd taken his key, dragged him into the barn and locked him inside. Kevin wasn't as easy. He put up quite a fight once he'd realized that the turncoat had turned again. But as it happened, he wasn't much of a fighter. He wound up locked in the barn with his father.

“Why did you do it?” Rory asked.

Luke kept his eyes straight ahead on the road. “Do what? Sabotage Harper's or rescue you?”

“Both.”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me,” she said. It was never enough to just break a case and catch a criminal. The interesting part was the why of it.

He shrugged as if she'd asked him why he preferred the Yankees to the Mets or chocolate ice cream to vanilla. “Payback,” he said, after a minute's thought.

“For what?”

“A childhood of not measuring up to my father's standards.” He didn't say any more, and Rory thought he was done. She could prod him, but she was already dancing on a tightrope, and it wouldn't do to antagonize the guy in charge of the net. In the same way that Luke had decided to save her, he could change his mind again and decide she wasn't worth jail time. “You see, by the time I came along,” Luke went on, apparently needing to vent, “James was already the golden boy, and Lacey was Daddy's little darling. The only position open was for an also-ran.”

Rory wondered if that was true, or if it was simply the way Luke perceived it. “He never scolded or punished your siblings?” she asked, trying to get past the vagueness.

“Yeah, sure. He'd take things away or ground them, but I never once heard him call them ‘stupid' or a ‘screwup.'”

“He called you those things?”

Luke laughed. “When I was seven, I started keeping a list of the ways he put me down. At ten, I was planning how I'd become a lawyer and sue him for psychological abuse. But it wasn't until my teens that I realized it wasn't going to get me what I needed.”

Rory was a little scared to ask what that was. But not scared enough to keep her mouth shut. “What did you need?”

“Payback, like I said.” He was starting to sound irritated. “Payback in the only way he'd understand. I had to hit him in his pocket and keep him up nights worrying about his business.”

“How did Matthew figure into it?” She felt a sharp jab in the ribs and had all she could do not to react. She should have known the marshal would be hanging around.

Luke turned away from the road to glare at her. “He didn't.”

“I mean, how did your father treat him?”

“Like the family pet. My dad can be charitable, even generous, but it's all to make himself feel bigger and the recipient smaller.”

Luke's grudge against his father had clearly grown over time, like certain reptiles that grow to fill the dimensions of their cages. “You weren't worried about Matthew figuring out you were the saboteur?” Rory asked.

“No. He may have been school smart, numbers smart, but when it came to living skills, he was clueless.”

“Then you didn't kill him.” She made sure it sounded like a statement, not a question. In spite of what Zeke might think, she wasn't actually trying to bait Luke into killing her.

“No way. What possible reason would I have for killing the fool?”

“Then the reason you've refused to give an alibi for the night he was murdered is because the alibi would also be incriminating. You were at Greenbrier that night.”

“Give the little lady a prize.” Luke said sardonically. He turned into the parking lot at Harper Farms and brought the truck to a stop.

“What were you doing with the seeds in those sacks?” Rory asked.

“We were switching my dad's shipment of rye seed for a duplicate order infected with blind-seed disease. You can't detect it at this stage. But once the seeds are in the ground and start growing, it spreads like wildfire.” Luke sounded a bit wistful, as if he regretted having to abandon the plan.

“Should I call the police to come here?” Rory said, “or do you want to drive down to the precinct?” Not the easiest question to ask someone who still had your gun and might have a change of heart at any moment.

Luke heaved a weary sigh. “Tell them to come here.” There was a hollowness to his voice, as if the events of the night had left him emotionally scooped out. “And let my father know you found his Benedict Arnold. Hey, let everyone know. Call the news services.” His mouth twisted into a malevolent smile. “Why spare my father the embarrassment of having a criminal in the family?”

“Uh, one problem,” Rory said. “Roger took my phone.”

Luke pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Don't you just love irony?”

“You should probably give back my .45 before the police get here,” she said. He handed it over to her. “One last thing,” she said, her finger poised to make the call.

“Why did I rescue you?”

She nodded.

“It turns out I'm not a murderer. Who knew?”

***

Rory was wiped out by the time she and Hobo finally crawled into bed close to two a.m. After hearing a well-expurgated account of the evening's festivities, her parents had insisted on helping out by rescuing their sedan from the side of the road. Helene was drafted to drive Rory home from Harper Farms. At first, Rory had insisted she'd just call a taxi, but her mother pointed out that Helene would feel left out of the excitement if she did that. Rory relented. Her aunt arrived twenty minutes later with her winter coat over her pajamas, a slash of red lipstick on her mouth and her usual high spirits. On the ride home, she pumped Rory with questions. But Rory, who'd already run through everything with the police, was so exhausted she had a hard time remembering exactly what she'd told her parents. There was always a chance they'd compare notes.

Strangely enough, Zeke hadn't shown up to continue their discussion as he'd threatened. Now that she thought about it, he hadn't been around much lately. That usually meant he was irritated with her or upset about something. But at this hour, on this particular night, she was happy to let sleeping ghosts lie or sulk or whatever he happened to be doing.

The next morning, the phone woke her at six o'clock. When she answered it, all she heard were two people arguing in the background. She was about to hang up and try to go back to sleep when she heard her name.

“Rory? Rory? Hello? Are you there?” It was Eloise.

She debated hanging up anyway and then felt bad about the impulse. It wasn't poor Eloise's fault if spirits kept plaguing her with their messages. “Hi, I'm here,” she said, trying to sound awake and pleasant.

Olga was apparently still trying to grab the phone away from her charge, because Eloise's voice kept getting lower, then louder, then lower again. It took a while before she managed to get a full sentence out that Rory could understand. “Did you ask your mother about the Bible?” Eloise asked, her voice distraught from her struggle with Olga or from dealing with a difficult spirit or both.

“I forgot,” Rory had to admit. “I'm sorry.” She didn't bother trying to explain how upside down her life had been lately. It wasn't something Eloise would understand or care about. “I promise to ask her today.”

Suddenly Olga was on the line, apologizing in an odd mixture of Polish and English, with a little Spanish thrown in, a crazy quilt of languages. Rory assured her it was okay in English and Spanish. She didn't know any Polish, but given the way things were going in her life, maybe she ought to learn some.

By the time she got off the phone, she'd crossed sleep off her agenda. It seemed that Hobo had as well. He jumped off the bed, stretched his legs and gave his fur a thorough shaking. They went downstairs together, Rory to make coffee and wait for a reasonable time to call her mother, and Hobo to water the plants and conduct his morning inspection of the backyard.

When Rory had her mother on the line, she asked how the packing was going and if she'd found any other interesting things in the attic.

Arlene laughed. “You and I seem to be on the same wavelength. I keep meaning to tell you about the Bible I found. It has a list of names going back generations with the dates they were born, got married and died. It's fascinating.”

“I'd love to see it,” Rory said. Especially since Eloise and her spirit pal were making such a big fuss about it.

“I'll drop it off with you the next time I'm headed in your direction. That way it will be safe from the moving men.”

After Rory got off the phone, she threw a load of towels into the washing machine. Somehow laundry was always at the bottom of her “to do” list. It was the chore most likely to be postponed at crunch time, which lately seemed to be every day. But this time it had reached such a critical mass that she wouldn't be able to take a shower if she didn't wash some towels. She was still in the laundry room when Zeke blinked the lights and appeared in the doorway.

“I'll be in the kitchen,” he said flatly. The laundry room was too tight a space for them to occupy comfortably at the same time. Rory watched him walk away. She'd seen no light in his eyes, and there was no spring to his step. Something was definitely preying on his mind. She started the washing machine and followed him into the kitchen. He was seated at the table, staring off into space. Hobo had taken up his position under the table in case food was in the offing. She took a seat across from the marshal. “What's up?” she asked, hoping he'd volunteer whatever was troubling him.

He turned his eyes to her. “I was wonderin' what happened when the police got there last night.”

“I was surprised you didn't stay to find out.”

“I was tired,” he said dismissively.

Rory wondered why he was so tired when he hadn't done much of anything lately. Had he taken on another gig? Was he moonlighting—haunting another house somewhere? She promised herself she'd get to the bottom of it today, but first things first. “Well, Luke confessed to everything,” she began, “including where he'd locked up his collaborators. His folks arrived right after the police. Ellen was all weepy. Gil was beet-red angry. I thought he was going to have a stroke or a heart attack. For someone who told me from day one that a member of his family might be involved, he seemed completely unprepared for it.”

“Where does that leave us with Matthew's murder? Now that Luke has an alibi, there's no one left.”

“I know,” Rory said. “I keep going over it in my head. We must have missed something.”

“Or someone lied when they vouched for a suspect's whereabouts that night.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “We did miss someone. When we visited Anya that first time, she mentioned Matthew's best friend was coming down from Boston for the funeral. Frank . . . Frank Leone.”

“Did she say anything about him or his recent relationship with Matthew? Any red flags?”

“No, or I would have remembered him a lot sooner.”

“At the very least, he may be able to give us a different look at Matthew. Everything we have so far comes from Anya or the Harper clan. I'm guessin' Frank knows a heap about that family, includin' stuff they'd never tell outsiders like us.”

“It's definitely worth a call,” she agreed, leaving the table to grab the house phone from its base, along with the list of names and numbers Anya had given her. She brought it all back to the table with her. “Hang out while I do this?” She was still determined to find out what was bothering him, even if she had to drag or nag it out of him. But she wanted to speak to Frank first.

Zeke ran his hand through his hair as if he couldn't make up his mind. “All right,” he said finally.

Number in hand, she punched it in and hit the speaker button so she wouldn't have to repeat everything to Zeke afterward. When Frank answered, Rory explained who she was and why she was calling. His tone went from polite to short and guarded in under two seconds. “I can't talk now, Ms. McCain. I'm at work.”

“What would be a good time for me to try you again?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he said. “I'm busy tonight and tomorrow night.”

“Do you have a lunch hour?”

“I work through lunch.”

“This is important.”

“It might seem that way to you, but unless you can bring Matthew back from the dead, I have no interest in your mission. Excuse me now; I have to get back to work.” With those words, he hung up.

“He's involved somehow,” Rory said, putting the phone down. “I'm not saying he killed Matthew, but he knows who did.”

“His attitude sure changed as soon as you introduced yourself. Sounds like a man who's got somethin' to hide. A man who thought he'd dodged the bullet till you called.”

“Well, I'll tell you one thing,” she said, setting the phone back on its base. “I'm not going to play phone tag with him. I'll be on the first train up there as soon as I get a few things here squared away.”

“I'll see you there.”

She was about to get moving when she remembered there was still one topic on her agenda. “Zeke, hold on a minute,” she said, turning back to him. “Neither of us is going anywhere until you tell me what's been bugging you.”

“There's no time for that now, but I promise you'll be the first to know when I'm ready to talk about it.” He was gone before she could protest.

“This isn't over!” she shouted, waking Hobo, who jumped up with such a start that he banged his head on the underside of the table.