Fortunes of the Dead (32 page)

“What do we need some old barrel horse for?” Bob Winters had looked at Janis over one shoulder and given her a wink.

In spite of having a family bet of two dollars on Dog in the Manger to win, place, or show, the Winters family abandoned the racetrack and trooped to the barn. Dandy was tied outside in the blistering sun. He was fretful and underweight and in serious need of having his hooves trimmed and his teeth floated. Mama stood in the barn doorway with that look on her face that made the rest of the family nervous.

Janis remembers that one of the stable guys asked them their business, and her mother dismissed him with a command to fetch the owner. It was clear that there was something about the horse's flank Mama did not like, and Janis remembers her mother whispering to her father about a
pitchfork
, and
it happens all the time when there are idiots in the mix
. And though her mother had made the comment under her breath, Janis saw a couple of the hands look up. Mama could be very embarrassing, and she was not one to back down.

The owner did finally come out, and Janis had nightmares about him for the next year. He was a skinny man with a bald greasy head, and jeans that were loose and sagging on his butt. He had a napkin around his neck, and something sticky at the edge of his mouth, and he'd dismissed their mother with one terse remark that none of the kids heard. Her mama got that funny little smile that meant somebody was in trouble, and she asked Daddy to take the kids out, and said she would meet them by the car in an hour.

“I'm not going to leave you here, Myra.”

Janis remembers her father's exact tone of voice. And she was glad; she did not want to leave her mother alone in this barn.

But Mama just smiled at him and waited, until he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, begged her not to hurt anybody or bring on any lawsuits, and herded all the kids away. They'd had snow cones, and stood by the car sticking their tongues out to see whose tongue had turned the most blue. Janis had been keyed up and anxious, and got tired of looking at tongues and eating snow cones, and could not seem to be still. So Chris had hoisted her up on his shoulders, and said he could beat Dale to the forsythia bushes even while carrying their sister's fat butt. Janis remembers being so mad at Chris and swatting his behind to get back at him, but it only made him laugh and run faster. Dale beat them by a mile. Nobody could run like Dale.

“You'll get the horse,” Dale told her as they finally stopped to catch their breath. And Chris told her he was psychic and had a feeling that the horse would be coming home with them that day.

Chris and Janis had degenerated into part real, part play fighting with sticks for swords, when Dale grabbed Janis and told her to look.

She would never forget her mother that day—how she had smiled with utter serenity, leading Jim Dandy across the parking lot with nothing but a rope around his neck, because the owner wanted to charge her twenty dollars for a frayed nylon halter, and Mama had said it was in sorry shape and not worth a buck.

Janis remembers catching her breath, and the feeling she had in her stomach. Dandy was sixteen hands, with massive hindquarters and dainty feet, and he was already bringing his head down and going quieter after an hour or less with Myra Winters. How beautiful they were, almost magical, her mother and that horse—Mama wearing that little navy sheath dress and low heels, her hair in a French twist, with sunglasses perched on top of her head. Janis knew then why Daddy called her mother
sprite
.

“Young lady, come over and get your horse. He's bonding with me, and I'm not the one.”

“Well, go on then, Janis,” Dale said. And Chris gave her a nudge. They'd had horses of their own for a while now. It was Janis's turn.

Janis had been careful, walking over with unhurried confidence, coming in from the side. She was going to take her time with this. She was going to do it right.

She spoke to the horse and put a hand on his neck, telling him how beautiful he was in her horse voice, which was a calm voice, a bit matter-of-fact, a bit soothing. Dandy had skittered sideways, and Janis knew he was wary and afraid. She took the lead rope from her mother, who said, matter-of-factly,
Good, Janis
, and Janis had used her fingertips to massage little circles into the horse's neck, just like her mother did with her favorite thoroughbred.

“Looks a little big for a barrel horse,” one of the brothers said. Janis thinks it was Chris.

And her mother had winked. “Riding this boy at a canter will be like sitting in a rocking chair.”

“Lope,” they'd all shouted, because although Mama rode hunt seat and dressage, the rest of the family rode western because it was
for God's sake
, Texas
after all
.

“One thing now, Janis,” her mother had said, and Janis listened but did not look away from the horse. “Be very careful around this horse when you have a pitchfork. And never let anyone ride him but you.”

And her father had said something under his breath, and her mother had laughed in that low throaty way that made people stare.

“Yes, I know, Bob. And generally I agree that either the horse or the rider should be experienced, but I think this is a good match. I've got a feeling about this horse.”

Janis has sifted through this memory so many times it no longer hurts. But she misses Dandy still, after all these years. How agile he had been—impressing the judges who looked askance at his large muscled rump and thought
good luck
. He was as good as the smaller wiry competitors, and he drew the eye; he was flashy. Janis and Dandy earned purse after purse, until Janis had a secure college fund, not just for herself, but for all the Winters kids.

There are no cars in the parking lot of the welcome center when Edgers's Saturn creeps in, running without lights. It is past midnight. Janis wonders again what it is that Edgers has in mind.

Whatever it is, she is ready. Janis has two guns and four quick loads in the deep pockets of her coat. The killing kit and all of her papers, her computer, are at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain in the stolen truck. Luckily, in Tennessee, guns are as easy to come by as fireworks and fried food, and she'd stopped at a flea market in Pigeon Forge to buy what she needed.

The flea market had the usual selection.

She'd avoided the Lorcin L-22s, which were half-assed pocket plinkers, and inaccurate to boot. Most of them self-destructed anyway, after going through a couple hundred rounds. Janis wasn't big on Lorcin guns, or anything manufactured by Standard Arms, which had picked up where Lorcin left off when they'd gone out of business in '98, but there were so many of them floating around, cheap and available, that they made a good choice for a low-profile murder weapon. She'd settled on a Lorcin L-9 millimeter, after checking to see that the magazine wasn't glitchy, as they sometimes were. She had talked the seller down to forty-seven bucks because in the world of gun buying he would be more likely to remember her if she hadn't tried to negotiate.

She'd come across the Davis P-380 by chance. It wasn't a bad bet for reliability and price, and was a good, rudimentary shooter, common enough if she had to use it. It would be a decent backup gun, always a wise idea when you used a Lorcin. The Davis had cost her seventy-eight bucks. Even with the ammo, she'd spent less than two hundred dollars. It had been a good day—bargain hunting at the flea market, catching a long look at a couple who were actually getting married at a drive-through wedding chapel in Pigeon Forge, just down the road from Sevierville. The area was overflowing with wedding chapels, welcome centers, antique markets, and signs for Dollywood. A strange place, even when you considered how far south it was. They didn't have anything quite like it in Texas that Janis can remember.

The guns are loaded, the Lorcin in the right pocket of the barn coat, the Davis in the left. Janis chews her lip, waiting. The Saturn pulls into a spot along the far left side of the lot. The engine continues to chug for a full ten minutes before it cuts off abruptly and a man gets out of the car. He is wearing black,
secret agent man
, and he goes to the trunk, and takes out a rifle case. Janis, fingering the half-assed Lorcin in her right pocket, is annoyed. She wishes she'd bought a Mack ten.

The man looks around; he is alert, not nervous. Clearly this is Cory Edgers—the height and the air of smug competence give him away. Janis finds the game of murder tag less complex than she expected, finding so many people to be across-the-board lazy, and often enough, not overly bright. She'd expected to be caught early on in the game, but had eventually reached the conclusion that she might get the chance to retire someday.

Janis gets to her feet just as the cop starts up the pathway. She stretches. She has been frozen in position for an hour and a half.

When the target is about two hundred feet away she decides that she'll talk to him first.

He is heading just for the spot behind the trees where she'd found the Almond Joy wrapper. His, she figured. No doubt he'd done a reconnoiter before writing the note.

The cop, like an ex-Eagle Scout, carries the gun properly, broken in the middle, and through the crook of his left arm. Janis takes the Lorcin out of her pocket, right arm draped down her side, waiting for the cop to get closer. She raises the gun, aims, fires.

The bullet hits the cop in the left elbow and passes through the bone. He groans and drops the rifle.

Janis frowns. She was aiming for the shoulder. On the other hand, the cop was moving, albeit slowly, and it is very dark. The force of the bullet causes him to turn and face her, giving Janis a quick window of opportunity where he is vulnerable. She closes one eye and fires again. The second slug slams into the cop's abdominal cavity and he drops like a rock.

Janis bites her bottom lip. It is a fine line to walk, trying to keep him alive and conscious for a short amount of time, but making sure he can't use the rifle. Better he winds up dead and quiet, than talkative and able to shoot. Janis errs on the side of caution.

She checks once over her shoulder. If Curly Girl is in the car, she's sitting tight. Janis is pretty sure he is alone, and she walks over to look at him.

She takes the rifle before she even looks at the cop, checks the load, snaps the weapon together, and aims it at the cop, who is crumpled sideways and still. Janis nudges him with the muzzle of the rifle, but he does not move. She takes the butt of the rifle and thumps him hard in the spot where blood gushes from the stomach wound. He groans but does not move. He is unconscious, likely in shock, and can't be counted on to wake up soon, if ever.

Janis shrugs. She fires two more times, obliterating the cop's face. She is close enough to be hit by spatter. She steps back into the trees and watches his car—a crappy Saturn. If Curly Girl is there, she's still not coming out. Janis gives it fifteen minutes, then pockets her gun, sets the rifle down, and drags Edgers back into the woods. He is heavy, and the position puts an awkward strain on her back. She can't do anything much about the blood trail, but with the body out of sight she might get a few extra hours give or take, before the body is found.

Janis checks the cop's pockets, taking the wallet and the cell phone. She straightens up, takes a minute to look around, see if she's left anything behind that she shouldn't. The cop's right eye is still intact, but rests an inch away from the socket. She has put an eye back into a socket once before, helping Bones Jones see to a couple of team ropers who'd gotten into a bar fight with three Argentine tourists. Jones, ostensibly the resident rodeo vet, required to be on site by Pro Rodeo animal welfare rules and regs, has a sideline business of treating patients who don't care to have their gunshot wounds reported by the local ER, or who simply have no health insurance. There are a growing number of clients in the second category, and Janis was the vet's second pair of hands. She was good with the animals, even the human ones. Sometimes she was the first pair of hands when Jones lost the ongoing wrestling match with Jack Daniel's.

Car keys, Janis thinks, and goes back through the cop's jacket, finding them in a pocket she missed.

She walks down the pathway to the Saturn. She is tired and unhappy. She needs to track Curly Girl down—the last person who knows Janis is Rodeo. She doesn't have much time—not with Rugger dead, and what is left of the cop lying at the edge of the woods. She needs to disappear.

Janis keeps a hand on the Lorcin, preparing to fire right through the fabric if Curly Girl really is in the car. She is exposed as she approaches, but she is short on time, and she doesn't think the girl is there.

The front seat of the Saturn is empty save for a neatly folded map and a pair of cop sunglasses. A quick check of the backseat reveals handcuffs, a straitjacket, and ankle cuffs. Edgers had been making plans. Bringing her in? Playing supercop?

Janis shrugs. She'll never know. But Edgers has brought a lot of hardware, and she feels flattered.

It takes less than an hour to get back to the truck. Traffic is threadbare, and the highway is easy to cross. Janis is relieved to settle into the front seat, turn on the engine and the heater, lock the doors. She stows the rifle in the back section of the extended cab, covering it with a blanket. She unfolds the half-eaten bag of M&Ms, sucking the candy coating off one by one while she takes out the cop's cell phone and spends over twenty frustrating minutes of trial and error before she can access his messages.

“Babe? It's me. I'm halfway there, hon, and I just realized I left the directions at home. I'm sorry …” A girlish laugh. “I think I can find my way to the house, but I'm not sure I remember which exit. Is it Emory Valley Road or Raccoon Valley? Give me a call, studly, and let me know. Good hunting, by the way. I'll be waiting for you at the Dairy Queen by the exit. I'll be the cute one drinking Cherry Coke.”