Something Borrowed, Something Bleu (10 page)

_____

Even better than fresh garden tomatoes, Dad, in a fit of culinary experimentation, had created a beautiful platter of zucchini carpaccio: paper-thin rounds of the summer squash in overlapping layers, sprinkled with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then topped with parsley, shaved Parmesan, and a scattering of finely chopped pecans.
“What a good idea for using up the glut of zucchini,” I said. “There aren’t nearly enough recipes for it this time of year.” It had also been a terrific acidic accompaniment to the sweet corn and predictable tang of barbecued chicken.
Dessert was light: fresh peaches and mixed berries tossed with a sweet balsamic vinaigrette. We were just digging in when something nudged my bare foot.
Craning to look under the table, I saw Kitty Wampus looking at me expectantly.
“You don’t like fruit,” I said to him. “You like turkey sandwiches, remember?”
Then I felt the movement and saw something lying on the concrete next to my heel. I shrieked and jumped up, scrambling away from the table.
“Wampus! Bad cat.
Bad
cat.”
Of course, by now everyone was looking under the table.
Dad laughed. “It’s just a vole. He’s not a bad cat; he’s just a cat. They all do that.”
“All cats do not drop half-dead rodents on my feet!”
Meghan said. “It means he likes you best.”
“Great.” I shuddered. “Next he’ll leave a rat on my pillow. The one where he likes to sleep and
shed
.” I sighed. “I miss Brodie.”
Kelly gently scooped up the little creature. “This guy’ll be okay. I’ll put him out by the garden.”
“Thank you,” my mother said.
Kitty Wampus watched Kelly walk away with the vole. Probably noting where to retrieve it later.
Anna Belle had been uncharacteristically quiet, especially in light of my news about Joe’s murder. I sat back down and asked her, “Is everything all right?”
She exchanged glances with Dad. Even though it was brief, the look was pregnant with meaning. Neither of then said anything.
Oh, no. Now what?
Meghan, bless her heart, picked up on it. “Kelly, it’s a beautiful evening and I could use a walk. Erin, come with us. You can show us that park down the street.”
“No, thanks,” Erin said. “I’m done with dinner. Can I go inside and read?”
“Um, sure,” Meghan said.
Without another word, Erin rose and went inside.
But Kelly stood with alacrity, always ready to spend some time alone with Meghan. They went around to the front of the house, and I turned back to Dad and Anna Belle.
Raised my eyebrows and waited.
Finally, Dad said, “One of those articles struck a note with me last night, but I didn’t realize why until I was meditating this morning.”
Eager, I leaned forward. “Which one?”
“The one about the girl who died of hypothermia.”
“Did Bobby Lee know her?” I could hardly keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Well, maybe,” he said.
I made an impatient noise.
My mother spoke for the first time. “The girl belonged to a cult your brother was interested in.”
I blinked. “What?”
Dad said, “It wasn’t really a cult.”
“Yes, it was,” Anna Belle said. The muscles around her eyes and lips tightened, and she looked about ten years older.
“Bobby Lee was … involved … a
cult
? Since
when
?” I squeaked, flabbergasted. “No one ever told me any of this.” I flapped my hands. “My brother joined a cult?”

“Of course he didn’t
join a cult,” Anna Belle said. “We wouldn’t let him.”
“It wasn’t a cult.” Dad sounded exasperated. “There was a pastor who had a little place outside of town. Called it Rancho Sueńo. Sometimes he’d let kids—teenagers—stay there. Runaways, recovering addicts, abuse victims, like that.”
“Kids,” Anna Belle said. “Who were probably from good homes and wouldn’t have run away at all if it weren’t for the persuasive powers of Mr. Dunner et al. He went door-to-door. Targeting teenagers.”
Dad explained. “I think most of the kids that the pastor—his name was Ogden Dunner—helped were referred by his church members. But he came to our house once. He was working the neighborhood, spreading the word—you know how it is.”
I nodded. “Saving the masses, one doorbell at a time.”
“Bobby Lee was home. He let him in. Your mother came home to find them in the kitchen talking like old friends.”
Oh, dear. That wouldn’t have gone over well with my mother.
“He was trying to lure my son into his cult.”
My father leaned forward. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Anna Belle. It. Wasn’t. A. Cult.”
“Well, whatever it was, it certainly piqued your brother’s interest for a while, along with Joe and Tabby’s,” she said. “They should have all been busy with college, learning how to make something of themselves in the world. But Bobby Lee had to take a year off after high school, work in a print shop, for heaven’s sake. And Joe had decided not to go to school at all. Got a construction job and moved out on his own. Tabby was the only one taking classes, and they didn’t take up nearly enough of her time, in my opinion.”
I stood up and began pacing back and forth on the patio. “So Tabby and Joe were involved with this God Rancho place, too?”
My mother’s lips pressed together. “Rancho Sueńo. Dream Ranch. They certainly spent a lot of time out there for a while.”
“Celeste Atwood mentioned that Tabby and Bobby Lee might not have been getting along. Was this before or after that started?”
She sat back in her patio chair. “Before. I think Joe Bines came between them later. If anyone deserved getting murdered, he did.”
“Anna Belle!”
She waved her hand in the air. “Oh, I don’t mean it. But I’d always wondered what happened between Bobby Lee and Tabby. He never had a chance to tell me.”
“So this Rancho Sueńo thing was earlier?”
My mother said, “Your brother’s involvement? Oh yes. At least six months before. We caught wind of it, and sat down with Bobby Lee. Had a long talk with him and convinced him not to go back there.”
“We forbade him to go.” A layer of sarcasm underscored my father’s words.
“And he obeyed?” I didn’t know whether to be more surprised that Bobby Lee was involved with Rancho Sueńo or that my parents had thought he’d do what they told him.
“Of course he did,” Anna Belle said.
“Probably not,” Dad said.
She glared at him.
“What?” he said. “I’m only stating the obvious. We brought them both up to make their own decisions.”
“It was that girl,” she said. “If he kept going despite our express wishes, if he defied us like that, then it was because of that girl.”
“The one who died?” I asked.
She looked startled. “Of course not. I’m talking about Tabitha Atwood.”
“Oh. Then what does the dead girl have to do with Bobby Lee?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Anna Belle crossed her arms. “Nothing at all. She fell in the Cache la Poudre River where it ran through the Dunner property.”
I looked at my dad.
He shrugged his shoulders. “The only reason we brought it up at all is because it was something that happened around the time of your brother’s death. Of all those articles—and I checked the newspapers from around then again, and those were the only items that caught my attention, too—that was the only one even remotely related to Bobby Lee. And I do mean remotely. This town isn’t that big—more of a two or three degrees of separation thing than the usual six.”
Anna Belle scowled at both of us.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “It was messy then, and it’s messy now. But we’ll figure it out.”
“If,” my father said, and we both looked at him. “If there is something to figure out. It’s possible we’ll never know why Bobby Lee made the choice he did.”
Choice.
I was sure my expression echoed Anna Belle’s. She said, “Don’t make a big deal out of nothing. Your brother was smart, and he understood what that pastor was all about. I don’t care what your father says—” She shot him a pointed look. “—but Bobby Lee wasn’t taken in.”
“I agree,” Dad said. “I don’t think he went because of Pastor Dunner. But it’s possible Tabby did. And he cared for her. A lot. He may have continued to go out to the Ranch without our knowledge out of concern for her.”
Anna Belle closed her eyes. “Of course, Calvin. You’re right.” She opened them again, directing her gaze at me. “If he went against our wishes, it was for her sake.”
“Is that why you accused her of killing him? At the funeral?”
She ran a palm over her face. “I don’t know.”
“We weren’t thinking about any connection to Rancho Sueńo,” my dad said. His bitterness shouldn’t have surprised me, but I’d already grown used to his new aplomb. “And now it may be too late to find out.” He took a deep breath. “We have to be content with the idea that we might never know.”
I smiled at him, encouraging him to let go, let it be, be happy.
Omm
and all that stuff.
But I wasn’t about to be content with that, and from the look on my mother’s face, neither was she. Tomorrow I’d make another trip out to the dairy to see what I could see.
In the meantime, I had to go call Barr and tell him I’d found another dead body. He wouldn’t be happy.
Not happy at all.

_____

Wednesday morning I showed up bright and early at the Sheriff’s Department, itching to talk to Inspector Schumaker. Wouldn’t it just figure, then, that he’d make me wait almost half an hour before summoning me from the little waiting area by the front door.
He led me to a conference room. A long utilitarian table surrounded by molded plastic chairs dominated the middle of the room. The air felt muggy and smelled of carpet shampoo. The gray walls imposed a subdued atmosphere, as did the tinted window film that muted the sunlight coming in from the east.
“Ms. Reynolds, have a seat. I’ve got your statement all typed up.”
I settled my slightly bruised posterior in one of the charcoal-colored chairs and placed my empty latte cup on the table.
In the chair opposite, Schumaker looked up at me from under his brows. His forehead was already shiny with perspiration. “Check this carefully. Very carefully. If anything is off, or if there’s something you’ve remembered overnight, you be sure and tell me, all right?”
“Of course,” I said and reached for the pages he held.
He pulled them back from my grasp.
“Any changes at this point I’ll put down as an earlier case of miscommunication. Understand?”
I sat back. “Inspector, just what are you getting at?”
He held my gaze for a long moment. “This statement, as it stands, gives Tabitha Bines a thorough alibi.”
“Okay.”
“If it turns out that she left for a while, and you don’t tell us?”
“Yes,” I prompted.
“Well, it would be like you were lying about her being there. In effect, Ms. Reynolds, you would be considered an accessory to murder if it turns out she killed her husband and you, um, misrepresented her whereabouts in this statement.”
That kind of made my breakfast bacon and eggs do a flip flop. I wracked my brain, trying to remember whether Tabby left at all during our milk culture lesson.
No, but I had. Only a few minutes, though, spent in the bathroom to freshen up after she’d bathed my cuts with alcohol. It hadn’t been long enough for Tabby to slip out, certainly not enough for her to kill Joe, had it? No. Still, the thought that I might somehow be prosecuted …
Then I remembered her reaction to finding Joe dead, the look of horror on her face. I just didn’t think she was that good an actress.
“I was in the bathroom for about three minutes,” I said to Schumaker. “It would be great if I could check your accuracy, though.”
He frowned at my implication that he might have written something down incorrectly, but he handed me the statement. “Add your potty break to the bottom of the last page and initial it.”
I perused the pages carefully, taking a long time to make sure it was absolutely accurate. It was. I added a sentence, signed it with the pen he gave me and pushed it back across the table.
He sighed and gave the slightest shake of his head as he looked down at my scrawled signature.
“If I didn’t give her an alibi, would you arrest her?”
Suspicion crossed his face.
I held up my palm to him. “No, I’m not changing my mind. But I don’t know Tabby that well, nor Joe, and I was just wondering why she’d be a suspect in his murder.”
“Wives are always suspect.”
I thought of my upcoming nuptials. Barr would be delighted to hear that. Of course, as a police detective, he’d no doubt agree.
Schumaker withdrew a handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his face. Today it was dark blue. He folded it carefully before replacing it. “Besides, anyone married to Joe Bines would have ample motive to kill him.”
Surprised that he’d make a statement like that to a civilian, especially someone involved with the case, I asked, “Why?”
He considered me. “Joe had what you might call a relationship with law enforcement. Real troublemaker: fights, gambling, a little low level drug dealing for a while. Tabby was wild when she was younger, especially right after your brother died, but she settled down and flew straight once they started up that dairy and she had that little girl.”
“Sounds like Joe had a lot of people who might have wanted to kill him.”
Schumaker cocked his head to one side. “I’ve checked on your background, too. Apparently you’ve had some success bringing a criminal or two to justice.”
Tamping down a smile, I said, “There have been a few situations.”
He snorted. “So I hear. Talked to Sergeant Zahn, up there in Cadyville where you’re from.”
I winced. “Great. I can’t believe you’re talking to me at all after that.”
He grinned. “You’d be surprised. He seems to really respect you.”
My eyebrows climbed up my forehead.
“Of course, he doesn’t like how you get in his way.” Schumaker leaned forward. “Now, you’re not going to get in my way, are you?”
I shook my head. “Of course not. I just want to find out what was going on with my brother.”
“Uh huh. And there’s no chance that Joe Bines’ former relationship with your brother is anything I have to worry about?”
“Worry about?”
“I’m not going to find out you have a motive to kill him, am I?”
I shook my head again. “No sir. I haven’t seen Joe for almost two decades.”
“I’ll take you at your word,” he said. “For now.”
“You never told me why you think Tabby would kill Joe.”
“And I’m not going to. This is you not getting in my way.”
I allowed a tiny smile. “Okay, okay. But will you tell me something else?”
He barked a short, humorless laugh. “Probably not.”
Well, all I could do was try. “Do you remember someone named Ogden Dunner? He had a place east of town he called Rancho Sueńo?”
Schumaker grew still. “Why are you asking?”
I considered. Took a leap of faith. “There was a death out there, just before my brother killed himself. A girl fell in the river. It was November. She died on the way to the hospital.”
His gaze never wavered from mine. I went on. “The newspaper didn’t say anything more than that, but my parents told me that at one time Bobby Lee was … attracted to Rancho Sueńo. My mother called it a cult.”
“Bah.”
Obviously Schumaker agreed with my father’s assessment of Pastor Dunner’s activities.
“They also said Tabby and Joe spent a lot of time there.”
“Is that so? Hmmm. Well, I haven’t looked at that one for quite a while. The case has been closed a long time.”
“Closed?” I asked. “So it was open at one point.”
He hesitated then said, “They’re all open, until they’re not.”
“What exactly happened?”
The silence stretched between us as he reflected on what to tell me—if anything. Finally, he spoke. “According to Dunner, that night his son—name’s Ray—and some other kids went down to the river.”
I scooted to the front of my chair. “How many kids?”
“Five, including the girl who died.”
“You talked with them?”
“Talked to Ray. Two of the witnesses got scared. They were runaways to start with and took off. The names they gave Dunner led nowhere. Pretty sure they were fake. The other witness, a girl, came forward.”
“Was it Tabby Atwood?”
He looked confused. “No. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Who was it then?”
“I’ll say it again: wrong tree, Ms. Reynolds.”
Feeling like a pit bull, I came at it from another direction. “This all happened pretty late at night, didn’t it?”
The handkerchief came out again. “Said they were communing with nature.”
I snorted.
Inspector Schumaker nodded. “More likely they were partying.”
“Would Dunner have allowed that?”
He tucked the handkerchief away. “The pastor was already asleep.”
Hmm. “The newspaper said that the girl fell in, and then someone saved her. They didn’t say who, though, only that she was still alive when they got her out, then she died on the way to the hospital.”
“We were having a cold snap,” he said. “It was bitter outside, had been for nearly a week. Some of the river was iced up.”
“Not a place I’d choose to ‘commune with nature.’”
He looked his agreement at me. “The girl’s name was Gwen Miller. It sounds like you’ve read the newspaper account of what happened, so you probably already know that.”
In fact, I’d read it again that morning before leaving the house. “It also said she lived in Spring Creek. Was she a runaway?”
Schumaker shook his head. “Friend of the family. Dunner himself brought her in to the emergency room. It wasn’t fast enough to save her, though.”
“And there was an investigation.”
“Of course. They concluded it was an accident.”
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t buy that?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t my case, but I have no reason to doubt the conclusion. Dunner closed up Rancho Sueńo after it all happened and moved to town. Said the press coverage brought a lot of negative attention to what he was doing.”
“And what was he doing?”
“From what we could tell? Occasionally providing a safe place for kids in unfortunate circumstances to catch their breath. It wasn’t a formal nonprofit organization or anything. He just opened his home to them when they showed up. Sometimes there’d be half a dozen in the house, sometimes none.” He leaned back, balancing on two legs of the chair, and laced his fingers over his abdomen. “We never found anything illegal, or even untoward. And believe me, we checked. Anytime kids are involved we take a look at the supervising adults.”
I laid the well-worn copy of my brother’s final missive that I’d been carrying for two days now on the conference table and sat back in my chair. Bracing myself, I forced out the words: “Do you think Bobby Lee had anything to do with what happened that night?”
He glanced down at the letter, but didn’t touch it. “No.”
Relief whooshed through me.
Wariness mixed with regret crossed his face. “I looked back through our files—and the city police files as well—after you showed me the letter yesterday. It certainly does imply he and Tabby might have been involved in something … unlawful.”
I realized I was holding my breath.
“According to all accounts, he wasn’t out at Rancho Sueńo the night Gwen Miller fell in the river. In fact, there’s a note in the file that he hadn’t been there for almost six months.”
The small smile came to my face automatically. Anna Belle would be delighted to know that.
“However, there is a case that’s still open from that time.”
My attention snapped back to Inspector Schumaker.
“A hit-and-run death. Guy on a bike, that same night.”
That had been one of the other articles I’d printed out. I hunched around the instant knot of dread that settled in my stomach.
“Ms. Reynolds, what kind of vehicle did your brother drive?”