No Good Deed (24 page)

‘What problems do you get at night?'

‘Mosquitoes in the summer, which are not only pesky but they carry disease. Coyotes, sometimes. They're not as bad as the dogs, neighborhood dogs, would you believe it? We had them going out at night running in a pack two years ago. Maimed a pregnant mare, and one of our stallions went through a fence after them, tore a tendon. We've spent a
ton
on vet bills, and he's still not right. Which doesn't keep him from his pleasure.' She said it in an offhand way, as if she'd used the phrase many times.

Sonora heard a quiet engine. A pickup truck with the Bisky logo pulled up beside them, and a man in the blue and white of a rent-a-cop stuck his head out the window.

‘Everything okay, Miz Bisky?'

‘Fine, John. We're going to First Barn. Everything all right on the rounds?'

‘Yes, ma'am, everything's fine.'

‘Did Mahan get that fence board fixed – over by the stallion barn, you know the spot?'

‘Oh, yeah, he took care of that first thing this morning.'

‘Good, then. See you tomorrow.'

He nodded. Drove on. Vivian Bisky talked faster when it came to business. Sonora liked her better that way.

Motion sensors activated floodlights as soon as they were within fifty feet of First Barn, which had been painted a deep hunter green, and trimmed in a burnt sienna – the Bisky Farms colors.

This was clearly the show barn, built to impress. The asphalt drive swept past, toward two other barns, further out, both built conventionally in long dormitory-like rectangles. But this barn, First Barn, was shaped like a horseshoe, the roof rising up in a vaulted arch that peaked in an enormous skylight.

Sonora walked into the barn and looked up. She could see the moon and the stars.

Even from the aisleway it was clear that the stalls would be roomy, solid wood to chest level, then evenly spaced bars the rest of the way up. The doors opened halfway, latching on the side to make Dutch windows so the horses could stick their heads out. Each stall had a brass nameplate on the side, a well-oiled leather halter hanging from a peg, and a thick green cotton lead rope. All of the lead ropes were the Bisky shade of hunter green.

A small chalk board outside each stall had notes and a check-mark for every time the horse had been fed, hayed and watered.

Vivian Bisky smiled at Sam, who was staring up into the skylight. ‘Horses are claustrophobic animals, you know. But I think they're happy in here.'

‘I know I would be,' Sam said.

Sonora heard the ring of sincerity in his voice.

‘There's one horse you just
have
to meet.' Bisky led Sam down the clean-swept concrete aisleway.

Sonora stopped to look into a stall.

A mare, crow black, belly swollen and dipping low, stood with her head to the wall, back foot cocked, dozing. Cedar chips had been banked waist high all around the sides of the stall, and were a good foot deep in the center. The water bucket had obviously been scrubbed out that day, and was three-quarters full of clear water. Sonora was impressed. The shavings in Poppin's stall were not more than an inch thick, with no extra at the edges.

No cobwebs in this mare's stall. Hunter green inside, like the outside.

Sonora could hear Sam and Bisky as they made their way down the barn aisle. Vivian almost flirty, Sam quietly questioning. She wondered if there were any coolers in this barn.

She moved quietly, breathed in the smell of horses, fresh bedding, leather tack. It was a surprising thing, how content she felt in a barn full of horses. Caught a glimpse of a horse quietly munching hay from a corner rack.

Had the missing chestnut mare gone from a stall like this one, into the chewed-down, overcrowded pasture of End Point Farm? Had she gone from hay and grain three times a day to fighting for food in a herd of hungry, desperate horses? Had she wound up in a stock trailer like Poppin? Was she in some holding pen at a slaughterhouse, or at the bottom of the pond across from the dump site of Joelle Chauncey's body?

Surely, if they could find the horse, they could find the killer.

The tack room was open a crack, a bar of bright light over the concrete lip. Sonora could hear the faint sound of a radio, playing low. ‘Desperado.' The Eagles.

She pushed the door gently.

The bright lights made her blink after the muted night-time dimness of the barn aisle.

‘Can I help you?'

The girl was college age, with the angular thinness one gets from missing meals rather than dieting. Barns were full of them – young girls trying to juggle school, tight budgets and a passion for horses. She was flipping through a battered biology book propped up on a worktable that held cleaning supplies – leather balm, glycerine soap, Byck's leather polish, a worn toothbrush with a yellow handle, and stained cotton rags.

‘I'm looking for a cooler,' Sonora said. Nothing like the truth.

‘Sure, there should be one back here.' The girl got up, went into the next room, flipped on a light. ‘This okay?'

The blanket was hunter green, worn but clean, folded in a neat square that showed the Bisky Farms logo in what Sonora was sure would be the lower right-hand side when she unfolded it to double-check.

‘Thanks,' she said.

The girl settled back down with her book. ‘If you need anything else just let me know.'

Sonora headed back out into the barn aisleway. Sometimes all you had to do was ask.

Chapter Forty-One

It was a dark time, a silent time.

All the lights in the house were off, even the porch lights and the ones out back that Sonora usually left on for security. She lay in bed, bundled in a ratty blue blanket that was as familiar as it was soft and worn. She thought of Joelle Chauncey on the autopsy table and felt cold. She had gotten up and put on a pair of thick white cotton socks, brand-new ones. She loved new socks. But she was still cold.

The weather was turning, fall into winter. Tim would be needing a heavier coat, Heather too, probably. Did she need to buy a blanket for her horse?

She had yet to seriously tell the kids about Poppin. They hadn't listened at dinner and she thought it might be just as well. She might sell him. Best to keep this new horse to herself till she made up her mind.

She had been reading in Joelle's diary again that night. More of the same. It had been a mistake to go back through those pages. She had struggled to keep her eyes open, but as soon as she'd turned out the lights she could think only of Joelle, her need for a mother, the daily hurts that were the lot of teenagers.

What had happened to Joelle's mother?

Sonora closed her eyes. Opened them. Two hours ago she had come in dog tired from Bisky Farms. She had drunk half a beer, but it had upset her stomach, and the alcohol had not put her to sleep.

She'd been turning the ceiling fan off and on, off and on, hoping that being cold and bundling in blankets would help her sleep. But she kept getting too cold, even with the socks, and Clampett, unable to sleep with her constant activity, had jumped off the bed and burrowed underneath with his secret cache of stolen socks and mangled stuffed animals.

He was snoring. Maybe she should eat dog food; it certainly worked for Clampett.

Her mind went back to her horse, Poppin, and she could not quell that feeling in the pit of her stomach. What the hell was she going to do with a horse? Talk about your big animals.

And where was Joelle's horse? Was the animal alive? Sold to slaughter? Hidden away? Gone west with the night?

The panic was coming, a tightness in the chest, and she'd gone from cold to hot, sweat filming the back of her neck at the hairline. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, hung her head. Took a couple of deep breaths.

She went to the closet, rummaged in the pile of clothes at the bottom till she found her favorite sweatpants, pulled them on over the silk boxers she'd charged to her account at Victoria's Secret. Put on a jog bra and a loose black sweatshirt. She could not stand to wear anything tight when she had this panicky feeling.

Sonora tied her hair in a high ponytail, breathing with relief as it left her neck bare. She splashed water on her face. Looked in the mirror. Dark shadows beneath her eyes and a look of wide-eyed panic.

Definitely going crazy.

She padded downstairs, heard Clampett groan. She walked softly, careful not to wake Heather and Tim. Which became a moot point when she rounded the corner and saw the flickering light in the living room.

They were playing a video game, Heather in her oversized football jersey – Go Bengals – and Tim, barefooted and shirtless with goose bumps on his arms, jeans riding low under his green plaid boxers.

Sonora sat on the couch and curled up in a blanket before they saw her. ‘Turn it off.' Her voice was quiet but with the underlying steel of a very offended parent.

Tim and Heather exchanged panicked looks – Sonora was not sure whether their desperation came from being caught, or being forced to abandon the game just when they'd defeated something called Gendermaye, thus acquiring a ticket to the City of Golden Tents.

The game went off without protest from the children, and Sonora was assured of her authority, a good feeling. The television screen went a vibrant shade of blue that mean it was in between – movies, cable, video games.

‘What's going on?' she asked. Wondering how many nights this happened while she was working late.

‘I couldn't sleep,' Heather said.

‘She was crying about her hair again, and I was trying to distract her.' Tim smiled, disingenuous. ‘We didn't want to wake you up, man, we know how hard you've been working.'

Sonora studied him. He would be a charming man when he grew up. He would excel as a salesman, politician or attorney.

And Heather had been crying – her cheeks showed tear tracks, dry but unmistakable, and her eyelids were puffy. She had insisted on cutting her waist-length hair short two weeks ago, and was mourning its loss, even though the new chin-length style was perfect for her small, delicate face. Sonora's opinion, which was that the cut was adorable, carried absolutely no weight.

‘I have a surprise,' Sonora said, matter-of-fact. They looked at her, kind of a sideways thing. ‘A good surprise. I bought us a horse.'

Sonora was blaming the night on the full moon. It was almost full, more of an oval than a circle, but good enough. And she hadn't had a family outing with the kids for way too long.

Nobody was sleeping anyway.

She sat on a hay bale and watched Tim and Heather petting the latest addition to their family. Clampett was pressed against her leg, watching the horse like it might explode.

The lights in the barn were achingly bright, here at two o'clock in the morning. It was chilly and breezy, and Sonora wore a knit jacket over her sweatshirt, two pair of socks and her oldest Reeboks. Heather's cheeks were pink, whether from the cold or excitement Sonora could not tell.

The barn had that Christmas morning aura of magic and breathless expectations.

Poppin was, if nothing else, a friendly and curious horse. He had been standing in his stall, head down, hind leg cocked, eyes sleepy, but seemed quite willing to stick his head out the stall door and accept pats in the middle of the night.

‘I can't believe this, Mommy, it's like a dream come true.'

‘Yeah, Heather, but that dream will bite, so step back a little and don't let him put his mouth on you like that.'

Tim grinned. ‘Can I ride him to school tomorrow?'

‘All in due time.' Sonora listened to herself, thinking that she sounded sensible, just like a grown-up, just like her mother. Except it was 2 a.m. and she'd not only bought a horse but was bringing the kids in for a visit in the middle of the night.

Sonora held up a plain white paper bag. ‘Hamburgers, anybody? There's eight left.'

No one answered except Clampett.

They had stopped at White Castle along the way, which was how Sonora had celebrated all important events in her childhood. She was aware that more sophisticated people drank champagne.

Looking back with the eyes of an adult, she thought her mother might have preferred the champagne, or at least food that did not come in square cardboard boxes, but she could not get over the childhood conditioning that White Castle was exciting.

She closed her eyes, conjuring late summer nights, heated pavement, the smell of gasoline fumes. She could see the car headlights haloed by moths and mosquitoes, feel the up-past-bedtime excitement, and she was once again in the back seat of the '56 Buick with her brother Stuart, their legs brown with sun, hands glazed with grime, soles of their feet black from going barefoot on hot, tar-sticky pavement.

Sonora had a sudden and strong sense of her brother, as if he were there in the barn, and not long gone into that not-so-good night. Clampett nudged her knee, and she fed him a hamburger. In the efficient way of large dogs, he ate the box it came in as well.

Chapter Forty-Two

Sonora leaned against the wall of the hallway in the morgue, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee that Sam had just handed her. She took a small sip. A mistake.

Was the ulcer coming back? She hadn't had a twinge in over a year.

Maybe not. Her stomach was often upset this early in the morning if she'd had a pretty sleepless night, like she had last night.

Sam picked a piece of hay out of her hair. ‘What's this?'

‘I had to get up at five a.m. to feed that horse.'

‘Wouldn't McCarty feed it?'

‘Yeah, but I wanted to check on him myself. See if he was okay. Put some more shavings in his stall.' McCarty was going to kill her when he saw how many shavings she'd used, Bisky-inspired, to bed out Poppin's stall. She wondered how much they cost. Figured she'd be finding out soon enough.

‘Was he?'

‘Was who?'

‘The horse, Sonora. Was he okay?'