Dead in Hog Heaven (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book Three) Read online

  "Look," I insisted, "unless you want me to throw up all over your boots, you better get me a drink of something cold. Better yet, let me go into the bathroom and throw some water on my face."

  "Uh-uh," he grunted with a drawn-out twang, as if he were on to all my wily tricks, "you're not washing that off." He pointed to my blood-spattered hand. "That's evidence and the sheriff's damn well going to see it." But he juggled the gun a bit and dug in his pockets for change, keeping a wary eye on me all the time.

  I found my fear of him quickly changing into a sickening dread for myself. Who would ever believe in my innocence with this jerk as an eyewitness? He was so convinced that his interpretation of what he had seen was the only answer. Which also meant—unless he was one hell of an actor—that he wasn't the killer.

  He dropped coins into the pop machine, and grumbled, "What do you want?"

  "Anything," I said indifferently, still thinking. if Dan Lorenzo hadn't killed Opal, who had? How had they gotten away? Where were they now?

  "Please, Dan, you've got to believe me. I didn't kill Opal. I surprised someone when I went into that horrible room, and whoever it was knocked me down and ran off. Didn't you see him? Or at least hear him?"

  "I didn't see anybody but you." He handed me a cold can and got another for himself. "I saw you headed toward the hog ranch, so I followed you. We got problems with vandals around here."

  I was willing to entertain this new idea—that he hadn't killed Opal—but not completely. I had a bunch of questions I wanted answered, like where had he been when I got to Hog Heaven. On the other hand I didn't want to alarm him, either, just in case I'd been right the first time.

  So I chose my words carefully. "I didn't see you when I got here. Clyde said Opal was expecting me, and took off in his truck. But she wasn't in the house, or the store. Nobody was." I looked at him expectantly, and rolled the cold can around my hot face and neck before I popped it open and downed half without stopping. Mistake. The too-sweet orange drink roiled like a tempest in my uneasy stomach. After a few deep breaths, I prodded some more. "If I'd seen you, I would have told you what I was doing, asked permission."

  "I was in the trailer," he said.

  "The trailer? Clyde and Opal's trailer?"

  "No, mine." There was a nasty, sarcastic edge to his voice. "I live here, you know."

  I figured that. Opal had said he and Ronnie—Oh, no Ronnie Mae, I thought. Ronnie Mae and Opal. Two people I'd barely met, and both were now dead. One in a horrible burst of violence. I couldn't bear to think about Opal, lying up there. But how much worse it must be for this man, one woman his wife, the other his aunt. No wonder the guy was paranoid.

  "I... I'm really sorry about Ronnie Mae," I said with honest, if grudging, remorse. "And now, Opal. It must be awfully hard for you."

  "Yeah." He drew a ragged breath and turned his face away, the first break in his vigilance since our confrontation at the hog ranch.

  I took advantage of his momentary distraction and paced a bit, moving so I could see beyond the store. "Is that where you live?" I asked, indicating the trailer sitting in the weed patch beyond the Bodies'.

  He nodded, and after a pause added, "Ronnie and me were building a little house close to the winter pasture. Now..." He shrugged.

  Maybe that was why the weeds had been allowed to grow, I thought. Two cars were parked close to the trailer's entrance. One a rusted-out junker and the other a dirt-coated dark blue Escort. I could also see the nose of a pickup parked behind the trailer. Had it been there when I arrived? I couldn't remember.

  "So were you in the house when I got here?"

  He turned back to me with narrowed eyes and gave me a speculative look. "I didn't know Opal was expecting you. In fact I didn't know it was you. Like I said, I just saw someone heading up the trail and thought it was a tourist or a vandal and went after you."

  "With a gun." I made it a statement, not a question.

  "Yeah." He drank deeply from his can. "There's a lot of punks around here. They love going out to the country, taking potshots at everything they see."

  "Well, if you had just hollered at me, instead of sneaking around, I'd have—"

  "Sneaking! I wasn't sneaking anywhere." His thin face tightened with belligerence and anger. The rifle barrel which had drooped toward the ground rose again.

  Fear leapt back, tingling the hairs on my arms. Maybe Dan Lorenzo was a good actor. Caution slid in. I held back the questions. "Okay," I said, "I guess you're right. We shouldn't be talking about this until the sheriff gets here." I sat down on the stoop, wishing Twila and Clyde would come back.

  Once more Dan stood over me in a determined, spread-eagled stance, the rifle butt braced firmly on his hip, the barrel pointed at me. I kept my glance down, my back turned slightly toward him, trying to appear as submissive as possible. I couldn't read the man. If he was going to blow me away there wasn't much I could do about it, but I didn't want it to happen accidentally because I made some kind of threatening action. He took another step closer.

  I set my pop can on the dirt by my feet. The chicken came running over to inspect it. "What's with the chicken?" I asked, desperate for a diversion.

  I didn't think he was going to answer, then finally he said, "It's a pet." His voice sounded distant, as if he'd had to drag his thoughts back from a faraway place. He scuffed some dirt at the bird, and it ran off like a demented thing, in and out under the trucks and around the yard.

  Dan snorted his disgust. "Twila claims it saved her life once. Damned thing's a nuisance. She takes it everywhere she goes."

  But my eyes were on the road. "I think the sheriff's coming," I said, watching the distant speck that fast became an identifiable vehicle. I stood in my eagerness, unable to stop myself even if it proved to be the last moment of my life.

  But Dan was as mesmerized as I, his eyes glued to the moving object, squinting in the sun.

  "Yeah," he said, as the anonymous vehicle gradually took on a brown, squarish shape. "Yeah," he said excitedly, "that's Rusty."

  Even the chicken came to stand quietly by us, neck stretched out watching the approach of the Ford Bronco, one leg raised in preparation for a quick getaway, which it took when the four-wheel drive pulled into Hog Heaven and stopped in front of us.

  Dan stepped forward with a swagger of importance.

  Rusty Metzger opened the door of the Bronco. "Put the gun down, Danny," he ordered, then got out, using the open car door as a shield. "Empty the rifle and stand it against the building."

  Dan looked taken aback, but did as he was told. Only then did Rusty step from behind the Bronco's door and close it. He holstered the drawn handgun he'd held unnoticed at his side.

  "Man," Dan said, putting the ammunition he'd removed from the rifle into the sheriff's upheld palm, "what took you so long?"

  Rusty picked up the rifle, double-checked the breech, leaned it back against the store, then turned to us with a grim look.

  "I found her," Danny said earnestly, jerking his head at me in explanation. "Up at the old hog ranch, she was standing over Opal's body with a bloody knife in her hand."

  "That right?"

  I nodded, suddenly unable to speak, my mouth and throat painfully dry. "I... I..."

  "Man," Dan ranted excitedly, eager to tell his story, "she looked like some kind of maniac. Ready to gut me with that knife."

  The sheriff ignored my pathetic croak of denial, as well as Dan's raving. His eyes swept the grounds, buildings, trucks, taking in everything. "Where's Twila? Clyde?"

  "With the body," Dan told him. "That's the knife, right over there." He pointed to the blade and walked over to it.

  "I see it. Don't touch it," Rusty said as Dan bent, intending to pick it up. At his words, the chicken ran out from under Clyde's truck, as if to protect a prized possession, but veered off toward Rusty when it saw him.

  "Hi, Sugar," he said, bending to scratch at her feathers. "Nobody put you in a pot yet?" He turned to Dan. "You got a key
to the store?"

  "Yeah." Dan fished in his pocket.

  Rusty put the rifle inside the door and motioned Dan to lock it, while he walked several paces away and spoke quietly into a hand-held radio. He hooked the radio back onto his belt and retrieved a duffel bag and camera from the Bronco's front seat. After taking several pictures of the knife, he carefully picked it up and placed it in a bag.

  He stowed the bag and camera in the duffel and said, "You two come with me," directing us toward the old hog ranch. He kept a few feet behind, as if to keep an eye on us. I'd never felt more like a criminal in my life.

  Twila met us at the edge of the clearing. "It's about time, Rusty," she said. "I've done what I could. Think I've pretty well looked over the area for evidence. Wasn't much of interest to be found. Here's a few things I thought might be important."

  "Twila, for God's sake, this is a crime scene. You shouldn't touch anything."

  She held out her hand. Dan jostled Rusty in his eagerness to see the items in her palm.

  "Stand back," Rusty snapped at him.

  He did, but not before he got a close look at her meager collection of tarnished brass casings, an old squashed shotgun shell, and a slender piece of bright pink ribbon. If he'd been worried before about what she'd found, he seemed unconcerned now.

  "Where in hell did you find these things?" Rusty asked, fishing a brown envelope from the duffel.

  "I think this pink ribbon is from Opal's T-shirt," Twila said, unconcerned by his anger. "You know she makes them herself, decorates them with all kinds of things. Yvonne Sullivan sells them in that shop of hers."

  "And you found it where?" he snapped.

  "Over there by that stack of planks. No wait, that's where I found those shell casings." She eyed the brass casings in her palm. "They're pretty tarnished, aren't they? Probably been there a while. From a .22."

  "I'm aware of that." He held the envelope open for her.

  "Well, whatever," she said, completely unruffled. "They were in the area and I thought you'd want to see them." She dropped them in the envelope.

  "And the ribbon?" Rusty prodded. "Where did you find the ribbon?"

  "Well," she said slowly, scrunching her face up in an uncharacteristic expression of concentrated bewilderment, "if I found the shells by the planks, then I must have found the ribbon over there," she pointed to the first crumbling doorway.

  "You couldn't have," I said. Surely I would have noticed such an incongruous thing as a piece of bright silk lying in the dirt. What was she doing? Planting evidence as well as destroying it?

  Chapter 8

  They all turned to look at me with varying degrees of hostility. "I would have seen it," I said, sounding defensive. "I spent several minutes examining that old stucco work. I would have noticed a piece of pink ribbon. You must be mistaken."

  "I know where I found it, young lady," Twila said, outraged that I dared question her. The sheriff said nothing, just moved everyone forward. Dan gave me one of those smug looks, as if a point had been made, and for one horrible minute I wondered if they were all in on it. Dan and Twila. The sheriff? It was possible, I thought wearily. How would I know? What did I know about these people? But surely not Clyde. He couldn't have had a part in his wife's death.

  I hung back, not wanting to get any closer. Clyde sat in the doorway of the room where Opal lay. His head was down, and his hands hung limply between his knees.

  "You all right, Clyde?" Rusty asked.

  "She's dead. I didn't think... Why would anybody kill her?"

  The sheriff stepped past him into the room, and in a moment we heard the click of the camera. The strobes flashed eerily in the shadowy interior. Clyde hauled himself up onto his feet.

  "Did you touch the body?" Rusty asked from within.

  "No," the old man said. "Well, I straightened her clothes a bit, and... and brushed her hair out of her..." He broke into sobs.

  Rusty appeared again out of the dimness and put a consoling arm around Clyde's shoulder.

  Twila was at the end of the building, hunkered down, peering at the ground.

  "Whatever you're doing," Rusty barked at her, "don't."

  "I'm just trying to help," she said.

  "Do I have to remind you again that this is a crime scene? Do not touch anything else. Move over to that tree, Twila, and stand there."

  "Humph," she snorted, "you're getting pretty high and mighty." But she did as he said, scuffing at something on the ground in the process. I wondered if she and her chicken were true soul mates, or if she had found something she didn't want the sheriff to see.

  Rusty took Clyde Bodie solicitously by the elbow. "Clyde, I know this is hard on you, but I want you to go over there next to Twila and sit on that log until I'm finished. Do not move. Do not touch anything. Enough damage has been done here as it is." Then he motioned to Dan. "Come in here." The two stepped into the dim room, their words lost in the sound of more vehicles pulling into the Hog Heaven lot. Reinforcements for the sheriff, I figured.

  Then it was my turn. Rusty stepped across the lintel, wiped his forehead with his sleeve and rolled his shoulders wearily. Dan followed and shot me a quick glance of satisfaction.

  Rusty pointed Dan to a spot where he was to stay and beckoned to me. "Ms. Barlow, Thea."

  I hesitated, I didn't want to go into that stifling little room again. I didn't want to see Opal. But I didn't have a choice.

  I took a deep breath and stepped in. I noticed things that I hadn't before, Opal's cane lying against the back wall, a dark strip of leather caught in the fingers of one of her hands. The sheriff's crisp unemotional questions helped.

  "Is this how you remember last seeing the body?"

  Opal now lay on her back, clothes straightened, hands crossed on her breast, as if trying to cover the blood that soaked her loose-fitting top. I shook my head, tears blinding me at the thought of Clyde trying to make his wife more comfortable.

  Finally, I found my voice and began to speak with a strange kind of detached firmness. "No. When I found her she was on her side," I said, indicating how she'd been positioned. "Her legs were kind of sprawled. I couldn't see her face. I... I recognized her by her swollen ankles. There wasn't any blood. I didn't see, or notice the knife. It must have been hidden in the folds of her shirt. I thought she'd fallen and hurt herself, but when I started to kneel beside her someone rushed out from behind the door and shoved me. I fell on the body. Hard. I landed on the knife handle." Instinctively, my hand rubbed at the sore place under my breastbone. "I didn't know that's what it was at the time, just that the wind got knocked out of me and I couldn't breathe." I looked around, trying to remember, but everything seemed jumbled in my mind. The room seemed smaller now. A musty miasma hovered around us, closing in. The odors were unbearable. "Can we get out of here?"

  He didn't answer, but stepped over the lintel and waited for me to follow. I leaned against the building. Twila and Dan watched intently from their assigned spots far enough away that our words wouldn't reach them. Clyde sat staring at the ground.

  "And then?" the sheriff prompted.

  I continued my story. "After I could catch my breath I touched her neck, tried to find a pulse, but I knew... It was then that I heard something outside."

  "What did you hear?"

  "I don't know. Not a big noise. More like a clatter of metal that somebody immediately stilled. It scared the hell out of me. I mean, I'd heard the guy who shoved me running off, and when I heard someone sneaking around out there, I assumed it was him again, the... the murderer coming back to get me, too. I panicked."

  "You panicked," he repeated dryly.

  I couldn't tell if he was mocking me. His look was blandly noncommittal, a far cry from the friendly, if harried, openness he'd shown yesterday. But it stiffened my resolve.

  "No, that's not right," I said. "I didn't panic. It was more like a red alert. I knew someone was right outside the door ready to pounce. I didn't even think about it. I grabbed the knife and
waited for whoever it was."

  "It's not always easy to pull a knife out of a body."

  "I..." but I didn't know how to answer that. I didn't want to tell him about the strange surge of power that had come to my rescue, transforming me into a... a what? I didn't know. I had to think about it. It was too weird. If he thought I was a nut case I wouldn't have a chance. So I said nothing.

  "So you had no problem with the knife?"

  I shook my head, wondering how deep a grave I was digging for myself.

  He gave me a long considering look then said, "Adrenaline does funny things." He consulted his notebook a moment. "What did Dan say when he saw you?"

  The change of subject rattled me. "I... I don't remember that he said anything."

  Rusty raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Didn't he even look surprised?"

  Eager to swing suspicion where it belonged, I was tempted to say, "No, he didn't." But I was more afraid that any deviation from the truth would ultimately seal my doom.

  "I couldn't actually see him," I admitted reluctantly. "He stepped into a shaft of sunlight, and I couldn't distinguish any features. I didn't know who it was until we got outside."

  I recreated the scene for him the best I could, trying to remember the few words that had been spoken, and our exact actions, but the state of my mind at the time—to say nothing about now—didn't make it easy.

  "I believed I was protecting myself from a murderer. I was stunned when he told Clyde I'd murdered Opal. At first I just thought it was a ploy, you know, shift the guilt to someone else."

  "And now?" he asked, picking up on my uncertainty.

  "I don't know," I said wearily. I cupped my face in my hands, digging my fingers into my forehead and temples. "I don't know what to think. He pretty much convinced me that he truly believes I killed her. But if it wasn't him, who did kill Opal? And how did he disappear? Where did he go? I just can't think anymore. None of this makes any sense. All I know is what I told you."