Hayburner (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (24 page)

"Try me."

"They both have records."

"Of what?"

 
I could hear the smile in Jeri's voice. "Arson."

TWENTY-THREE

“Shit. Both of them. I don't believe it." I was shocked.

"Well, you must have suspected something," Jeri said. "You told me to run their records."

"I heard about Hans' animal rights past," I said. "But John Romero. I had no idea."

"It's true. Hans Schmidt was indicted as part of a group that burned down a barn and a lab at a research facility. John Romero's story is a little more complicated."

"So what is it?"

"He was a juvenile," Jeri said, "and the records are supposed to be sealed, but in a case like this, where there's a real need to know, I was able to pull a few strings. So this isn't common knowledge."

"All right."

"John Romero was known to have set two wildfires as a teenager. The story's a strange one. It seems his mother had three children, all boys, by three different men. She was never married and she had no steady source of income; apparently she raised these three kids more or less on the street."

"She was homeless?"

"That's right."

"Around here?”

"No. In Southern California. Anyway, our boy John was the oldest son and at a certain point in his teens, he was apparently more or less running wild. Literally. He stole food for his mother and brothers, and from what I understand, he also hunted for it."

"Hunted?"

"That's right. He snared rabbits and quail; he even shot deer with a bow and arrow."

"In Southern California?"

"In the hills," Jeri said. "He claims the fires he started were accidents. They were campfires that got out of hand. He says he was cooking food for his family."

"Wow."

"Yeah. The arresting officers didn't entirely buy this explanation, but they couldn't disprove it. And he was a juvenile. And, obviously, in a tough spot. His probation officer helped him to make a new start, and as we know, he went on to college and vet school, and he's been clean ever since. So the records were sealed."

"Geez." I was thinking of John Romero's dark, sulky glare, and my shrink's words about men and their mothers. "What was his mother like?" I asked Jeri.

"A total loser. Arrested numerous times for prostitution, drug use, and vagrancy."

"I'm amazed she could hang onto the kids."

"She didn't, in the end. The younger two were put in foster homes, eventually."

"Poor kids," I said. Inwardly I was adding two plus two and coming up with big, flashing danger signs. Bad mother, arson record, obvious hostility to women, my God. And a hunter.

"Got to go," Jeri said. "Just thought I'd check in. How are you?"

"Not so good. My ears ring, my head hurts, and I'm dizzy." I thought about telling Jeri about the footprint and my fear, but rejected the idea. If Blue had a hard time believing me, Jeri would think I was crazy for sure.

I hung up the phone after Jeri promised to stay in touch, and recounted what I'd learned to Blue.

"Do you think John Romero hit you?" he asked.

I closed my eyes. My head spun; in the whirling darkness I tried to find a face. I thought of John Romero. There was nothing. Not the faintest vestige of an image. Nothing. I thought of Hans. Still nothing. But my mind kept circling back to John. John and his hostility.

"What are you seeing?" Blue asked.

"Nothing. I try, and I have the sense there's something there, but no image will come. I just keep thinking about John."

"Anything special about him?"

"No. But there's something. Something I'm forgetting. Damn. This is so frustrating."

"Come on," Blue said. "Don't get stuck. Maybe a little food will jog your memory." Taking my hand, he pulled me gently to my feet. "Let's go eat pizza."

I held back. "Blue, I don't exactly know how to put this, but I'm scared to go out in the other room and turn on the light. Anyone who's outside can see in so clearly."

Blue gave me a long, steady look. "Stormy, I'm here with you. Anyone who wants to get to you will have to kill me first. And I'm not that easy to kill."

"A bullet would do it," I retorted.

"Sure," Blue said easily. Glancing at my gun on the bedside table, he grinned. "Then you'll have the advantage."

"It's not funny," I protested.

"I know," he said soothingly. "But do you really want to keep hiding in your room?"

"No," I admitted, "I guess I don't."

"Then, here we go." Pulling me to him, he brushed my hair with his lips, and led me out the bedroom door.

Plied with pizza and kisses, how could I resist? I went with Blue, but the fear remained. I glanced nervously at the dark windows for the rest of the evening, and lying next to Blue in bed, I could feel fear curled in my gut, as surely as Roey was curled by my feet.

Someone was hunting me.

I awoke to fear; Blue's presence couldn't dispel it. All morning long, through coffee, breakfast, and chores, I struggled with my anxiety, which seemed to take the form of endless questions. Who was after me? Why couldn't I remember? What in the hell was I going to do?

As I leaned on the arena fence and watched Blue lope Danny, my one thought was how to avoid being left alone. Danny carried Blue smoothly and obediently; the colt slid to a perfect stop when Blue said whoa. I should have been happy. Instead I stayed obsessed with my own inner turmoil. The constant headache and din in my ears seemed part of this extreme whole-body panic. I jumped as my eye caught a bright red car driving up my driveway.

Clay, I realized a second later. Clay Bishop, driving his red Porsche. My overwhelming anxiety was instantly replaced by a new nervousness. How would Clay and Blue deal with each other?

Blue was just unsaddling Danny and looked a question my way.

"Clay Bishop," I said briefly.

Blue nodded and led Danny off to his pen. Clay parked his car and got out.

"Hi, Gail" Clay's easy smile was smoothly in place. Staring after the departing forms of Blue and Danny, he said, "Your new horse?"

"That's right."

"And your new boyfriend?"

"Yep." What else was there to say? I looked at Clay through the cacophony in my mind, and wondered what he was here for.

As always, Clay seemed to intuit my thought. "I came to see if you needed help." Looking at Blue, he added, "but I guess I'm not needed."

"That's nice of you," I said. "How'd you hear?"

"Your friend Detective Ward was out at the barn yesterday. She told me what happened."

"Was she investigating?" I asked curiously.

"That, and riding her horse. I think she was killing two birds with one stone." Clay smiled. "She rides that little gelding almost every weekend. He sure is a funny-looking horse."

I smiled, too. "ET, the extra-terrestrial. The name sure fits him, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does. He's got that long skinny neck and those short legs and he's blind in one eye." Clay shook his head. "But he does seem to be as gentle and sweet as they come. Anyway, Jeri was riding him, and she talked to me and Bart and some of the other boarders. She let me know you had a pretty bad concussion. How are you feeling?"

"Not the greatest. I'm hanging in there. I've got a headache."

"I'm sorry to hear that. What happened?"

"What did Jeri tell you?"

"Just that you'd been hit over the head."

"I seem to have caught the arsonist in the act at Judith Rainier's place," I said.

"Really. Did you see him?"

"If I did, I don't remember."

"Wow. If there's anything I can do, let me know." Clay sent a

significant look at Blue, who had put Danny away and was headed back toward us. "Though it looks like you've got it covered."

In another minute the two men were shaking hands. They'd met before, I knew.

"You remember each other?" I said lamely. Mutual nods and polite smiles. Damn, this was awkward. Blue seemed content to stand quietly by my side, and I hadn't a clue what to say next.

Clay took the lead. "I just stopped by to see how Gail was doing," he said. "Mom and Bart send their regards."

"Thank you," I said.

"Take good care," Clay said, seeming to address the comment to Blue and me equally. "I'll see you later." Folding his long, slender body back into the red sports car, he gave us a jaunty smile and a wave and departed.

As he disappeared down the drive, Blue said, "Poor guy."

"Why's that?"

"I've got you, and he doesn't." Blue pulled me to him and gave me a long kiss. "Lucky me."

"I don't know that you're so lucky. Playing nursemaid to a grouchy sick person."

"Stormy, any man who gets to sleep with you is lucky." Blue smiled. "Real lucky."

TWENTY-FOUR

Monday morning I went to the clinic. Blue protested, but I was sure. No way was I spending the day at home alone. Work felt infinitely safer. Blue promised to be back home before me, and seemed to understand my need not to be left alone. I was grateful.

In one short weekend I seemed to have metamorphosed from a reasonably independent, confident woman into an extreme stereotype of a clinging vine. Here I was, begging my man not to leave me alone. It wasn't exactly the version of myself I would have chosen to present to Blue Winter.

Amazingly, he seemed to accept me in this role, even respect me, as though my behavior were perfectly natural under the circumstances. I wondered how I had ever managed to get so lucky.

Now I stood before Jim, doing my best to sound competent and coherent. "I've got a concussion, but I can function," I told him. "It's just a headache."

Jim looked dubious. Since I didn't exactly want to go into what would sound like paranoid delusions, I didn't mention my fear of being alone at home. "You work when you have a headache, don't you?" I added.

"Whatever you think, Gail," Jim said at last. "You're the judge."

"I'll be careful." What I didn't say, as I went out the back door, was that I had another reason to be here. John Romero's pickup had just passed the glass office door, en route to the rear parking lot. I wanted to see John.

That is, I wanted to see John in a safe situation, with plenty of other people around. I also wanted to see him in reasonable privacy, so we could talk. The parking lot seemed ideal.

I exited the office just as John got out of his truck. My heart began thumping as I walked toward him. What would I see, when my eyes met his? The face I'd last seen in Judith's barn?

The moment, when it came, was anticlimactic. John stopped, as I stood in his path, and looked at me. I stared back at him. Those dark, sulky eyes were familiar, yes, but there was no particular jolt of emotional resonance. If my mind knew something about his face, it wasn't telling.

"Hi, John," I said.

"Hello." John regarded me curiously. I wondered if my inner din was somehow audible. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"How did you know?"

"Someone told me."

"Who?"

John gave me an unfriendly look. "Detective Jeri Ward, if you need to know."

"Oh."

"She spent a good part of yesterday picking my brain. I think she thinks I bashed you over the head. And lit a few fires."

"Oh," I said again.

"Is that what you think?"

"Uh," I floundered, startled by his blunt approach.

Once again, I saw a brief flash of some very hot emotion in his eyes.

"If you think that, you're wrong. Both of you. I may not like you, boss, but I'd never hit you over the head." John made as if to walk around me.

"What about the fires?" I said.

"What fires?" He threw it over his shoulder.

"The fires you set when you were a kid."

Slowly, very slowly, John turned back to face me. "How do you know about that?"

I flinched. "I swore not to tell anyone. And I haven't. Not Jim. Not anyone."

"What do you know?"

"That you were arrested for arson as a kid."

A long, long moment of silence. "Did they tell you what happened?"

 
"Not really."

"I never set any fires on purpose," he said. "They were just campfires that got away."

"You were cooking food?"

"That's right. A rabbit I'd snared."

"For dinner?"

John met my eyes. "Yeah. For dinner."

Once again, we stared at each other in silence.

"Your mother-" I began.

"You keep your mouth off my mother, boss. I mean it. I won't put up with it. She did what she could and I do not have to hear shit from you."