Poison Heart (16 page)

When the car was almost on top of her, she leaped forward and clambered onto the hood. Grabbing the windshield wipers with one hand, Claire slammed her other hand onto the glass. Now she had a good view of Patty Jo, who was glaring at her.

The car came to a sudden stop and Claire slid down on the hood, her hands holding tight to the wipers. She didn’t know how long she could hang on.

Then the car backed up. Sliding around, Claire finally lost her hold on the wipers and fell off the car, landing on her side. She jumped up and watched as Patty Jo swerved the car off the road and into a ditch. When Patty Jo tried to go forward again, the car wheels spun and whined beneath her.

Claire jumped into the ditch and pulled open the driver’s door. Patty Jo came tumbling out of the car. She sprawled on the dead leaves in the ditch and swore at Claire.

“Don’t waste your breath, Patty Jo. I’ve heard it all.” Claire reached down, grabbed the older woman’s arm, and pulled her up.

“Get your hands off me!”

“This time you’re not getting away with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Patty Jo seemed to shrink before Claire’s eyes as if she were afraid.
What an act,
Claire thought.
This woman isn’t scared of me. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

“This is your last fire.”

CHAPTER 19

In the movies the villains gave it up easily. Shine a bright light on them, keep them up all night, and they broke, told you everything.

Claire glanced at the sheriff as they drank coffee in his office. She had never seen him look so tired. Nor had she seen him with this much beard stubble before. She hadn’t realized that he was one of those men who had to shave twice a day to keep a clean chin.

It was three-fifteen in the morning. Patty Jo Tilde was sitting in the back room waiting for her lawyer.

Patty Jo had talked to them for three hours, claiming it was just by chance that she had been down the street from Claire’s old house when a candle was lit by the back of the garage, propped up on kerosene-doused rags. She wouldn’t change her story even though they didn’t believe it. No one would believe it. Patty Jo stuck to her claim with the ferocity of a small terrier holding on to a leg bone.

They had tried everything. Claire had been bad cop, the sheriff good cop. Then they had switched as the sheriff got belligerent and Claire tried to calm him down. At the moment they were both drinking coffee simply to stay awake. By constrast, Patty Jo seemed wide awake and had finally insisted on seeing her lawyer about half an hour ago.

The lawyer arrived, clean-shaven and ready for the day. He was dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase. He and the sheriff shook hands, obviously old acquaintances. Then the sheriff introduced Claire.

The lawyer introduced himself. “Joe Pelke.”

They shook hands. Claire wished she were in uniform. She had been wearing an old flannel shirt of Rich’s and jeans when Bridget had called.

“How’d this happen?” the lawyer asked.

“Claire can fill you in.” The sheriff turned to Claire.

“My sister is living in my old house. I’ve moved. She got a strange phone call, a woman saying she knew where she lived. Then last night, as she was putting her baby to bed, she noticed a car parked down the street. Well, you know Fort St. Antoine. There are no strange cars. She called us because it was making her nervous.” Claire looked down at her clothes again. “I told her I’d come by and check it out. When Rich and I got there, a fire had been set back by the garage and Patty Jo Tilde was running away from the scene.”

The sheriff jumped in. “Claire got to the scene just as Patty Jo was leaving. They caught her red-handed. And she still insists it was just a coincidence that she was there. It was nearly midnight. No way it was a coincidence.” The sheriff was getting angry talking about it.

“Why would she do this? Why would she set the fire?” the lawyer asked.

Claire stepped in. “We believe Patty Jo thought she was torching my property. She didn’t know I didn’t live there anymore. My sister moved in last month.”

“Why would she want to burn down your garage?” the lawyer continued.

“We think this isn’t the first fire she has started in the last few weeks. She’s been our main suspect in a series of arson fires. She has taken a dislike to me because I’m the investigator on the cases.”

The lawyer looked Claire over and didn’t say anything. He nodded. “I need to talk to my client.”

The sheriff said, “Talk sense to her, Joe. We’ve got her over a barrel here. Help her see that. It’s a first offense for her. No sense in this going to trial.”

“I’ll talk to her,” the lawyer said.

They let the lawyer into the room where Patty Jo was sequestered. Then the sheriff tipped his head back toward his office, and he and Claire left Joe with his client.

At first Claire and the sheriff didn’t even bother to talk. Then he looked at Claire and shook his head.

“What?” she asked.

“I wish you hadn’t gone to see Patty Jo the other day. Now I’ve got it on record that she filed a complaint about you.”

Claire felt ready to explode. She took a sip of coffee, which tasted as tired as she was, and said, “I had to go see her. Fire investigation, remember? Plus, I think it will work to our advantage. It goes to motive.”

“Damn, I hope you’re right.” The sheriff rolled his shoulders, stretching. “But you didn’t actually see her with the stuff. You didn’t see her light the candle, and she didn’t have anything on her when you caught her.”

“Yes, but we caught her on the scene as the fire started. What do we need, photos? She was the only person in the vicinity. The fire was lit. Rich was there too, and my sister. There is no way she’s getting out of this.”

“Couldn’t even pull a print off that candle. That’s bad luck. What next?”

“Don’t let her age or demeanor throw you. We follow procedure. She talks to her lawyer. I hope he straightens her out and convinces her that she needs to plead, and she tells us what happened. But either way, she’s arrested, she goes to jail. I go home. So do you. Tomorrow we get a search warrant for her house and barn. The good doctor goes in with me and we figure the whole thing out. We charge her with at least one count of arson, and maybe four.”

The sheriff rubbed his scruffy chin. “You’re right.”

Claire shook her head. “She can wear a person down. Let’s go pay another visit to her. See if her lawyer has made her see reason.”

They walked down the hallway and then punched in the code for the jail cell. Although they had an interview room outside of the jail block, they had interviewed her inside. Often it made a bigger impression on someone if they were taken directly into the jail.

Pelke looked up as they entered the room and gave them a weary shake of the head. Patty Jo ignored them. Claire couldn’t stand to think about what Patty Jo had tried to do. Her sister and her young niece might have been dead right now if the garage fire had jumped to the house.

The lawyer said, “Mrs. Tilde is adamant. She says she had nothing to do with the fire. She says she was driving by, noticed the fire, and stopped to see what was happening.”

“Oh, this is a new twist,” Claire said. “She’s lying.”

Patty Jo screamed at Claire, “It’s all your fault. You’ve got it in for me.”

Something snapped in Claire. She stood and shouted right in Patty Jo’s face. “You’re not getting away with this.”

The sheriff grabbed Claire by the shoulder and pulled her back while the lawyer placed a restraining hand on Patty Jo’s arm.

Claire slumped. The sheriff let go of her. She walked out of the room and leaned against the smooth walls of the jail hallway. As her anger washed through her, she started to shake.

The sheriff came and stood next to her, not looking at her. “You’re tired. You need to go home.”

“I’m sorry.” Claire felt ashamed. “She’s getting to me.”

The sheriff nodded. “You’ve done what you can do.” He turned and put an arm over her shoulder on the wall and leaned in close to Claire. She could see his tired eyes as he said, “She’s not worth it. You saved your sister.”

“What’s she going to do next time?” Claire asked.

“We’ll see to it that there’s no next time.”

The lawyer walked out and said, “I think my client needs to go home. We can do a signature bond.”

The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t believe that will be sufficient. She’s going to jail, and we’re going home to bed.”

Pelke looked at both of them. “She’s an old woman. Are you sure you want to book her?”

The sheriff spoke clearly in his rough voice. “She had no trouble wandering around my deputy’s property at midnight—a time when most decent folk are in bed. I don’t see that it should bother her to sleep on a cot in a jail cell. She needs to know that the one action leads to the other. I don’t care how old she is.”

Margaret slept for a few hours, then tried to stay in bed, hoping she would fall back asleep. But at four in the morning, she gave up and crawled out of bed. In the kitchen, she put on a pot of coffee. She looked out the window and saw that Mark’s car was still gone.

He hadn’t come home last night. She wasn’t sure where he had gone. He hadn’t even called. She hoped he had fallen asleep in the car outside some bar and would wander home when he woke up.

She felt as though a wild animal were living inside Mark and slowly taking over his soul. He was turning into someone she didn’t know anymore. Sometimes despair did that to a person—turned them subhuman, made them cease to believe in anything. What was it worth to have a soul if there was no god?

She had tried to love him out of it, but what Mark couldn’t stand was how unfair it was to her. If he had been the one attacked, defeated, he could have been comforted. But he thought he should be able to defend her from evil. When he couldn’t, he gave in to total despair. She saw it in his shoulders, in the way he carried himself around the farm these days. He looked as if he were carrying a hundred-pound feed sack in his arms and couldn’t find a place to put it down.

If only she were feeling better herself. If only this weren’t happening when she felt as though she didn’t know herself anymore. If she were in better shape, she could help him with his burden. Maybe she needed to try a little harder.

His car pulled into the driveway. The sun wasn’t up yet. He sat in the car for a few moments, looking like he might fall asleep.

Mark got out of the car and slammed the car door so hard that it sounded like a gong. Margaret jumped. His tantrums scared her, but his anger had never been turned on her. More often he turned it on himself. Inanimate objects received his blows. Once he had broken his hand by smashing it into a wall.

He never hurt the goats. He treated them like children. But she worried about the damage he was doing to himself. All she knew was he was a good man and she loved him. She didn’t think the drinking helped him at these times.

She went to the cupboard and pulled out some flour and a big mixing bowl. Then she grabbed a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator and stirred up some pancake batter.

When he walked into the house, the griddle was hot.

“You want some pancakes?” she asked.

He nodded, showing no surprise at seeing her up. He sank into the chair he always sat in, at the head of the table.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at her.

“Why?” she asked.

“For doing this to you.”

“Well, stop.”

He lifted his head. “I wish I could.”

Margaret poured in three pancakes and watched the bubbles push up in the batter. “What?”

“I can’t stand it, Margaret. I’ve let you down. I should have made sure about the will. I should have stopped all this from happening. Patty Jo has won, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“And there’s nothing you could have done. We didn’t know how bad she was.”

Margaret flipped the pancakes. Mark seemed to shrink in front of her eyes. She worried she would lose him in some way.

Mark didn’t say anything. He sat staring out the window. He looked like he had been beaten up, his shoulders slumped over, his face darkened from fatigue. His attitude wore her out as much as what Patty Jo was doing to them.

She took the spatula, scooped up one of the pancakes, and, without thinking, threw it at Mark. The pancake hit him right in the face. He jumped and stared at her.

She yelled, “Stop this, Mark. You’ve got to stop acting so defeated. If you keep on like this, then Patty Jo will really have won.”

Meg hummed a nonsense tune as she fed the pheasants. If she sat really still, the pheasants forgot she was there and would walk all around her, eating their food. She would watch them, and after a while she would turn into a pheasant, her skin growing long, colorful feathers.
Metamorphosis.
She liked that word. Long and intricate.

Rich leaned in the barn door. “Want to go get apples?”

In a nanosecond, she changed back into a girl kneeling on the floor of the barn. “Great idea.” She looked at the house. “What about Mom?”

“She needs to sleep. She got in real late last night. Run and get a jacket. Leave a note for your mom telling her we’ll be back for lunch.”

Meg did as she was asked, then jumped into the truck next to him and they drove to the top of the bluff.

Meg loved to do errands with Rich. He was easily coerced. For example, if they drove by a Dairy Queen, he always thought a dip cone sounded like a good idea. He had the good qualities of a dad and the easiness of an indulgent uncle. Plus, she could talk to him.

She asked him the question she had been saving for such a private moment. “Rich, when did you have your first girlfriend?”

“You mean your mom?”

Why did grown-ups do that? Act as if kids couldn’t stand the thought of the adults having a life before the kid existed. “No, I know better than that. I know you were married before. Seriously.”

“Oh, seriously. Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I remember I liked Jane Goody in third grade.”

“Your first date?”

“Oh, sometime in high school. Samantha Lundgren. I think I even took her to the prom one year.”

“If you liked a girl, how did you let her know?”

“What are all these questions about?”

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“Can’t promise that, but I probably won’t.”

“Well, I thought this one kid liked me, but now he’s treating me mean.”

Rich wondered what he would think of Meg if he were twelve—too cute and too smart, probably. “That’s too bad.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you like him?”

Meg thought for a moment. “I like him when he’s nice to me.”

“That makes sense. Well, if you want to try something, you might do one clear thing to let him know you like him, that you think he’s special. If that doesn’t work, forget about him.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. What do you think would get the message across?”

Meg paused again, then asked, “What if I gave him a copy of my favorite CD?”

Rich grimaced. “That would be like bribing him.”

“What if I paid a lot of attention to him? Like really listened to him, asked him questions?”

“That might work.”

When they got to the apple orchard, they were handed a basket and told to walk out to the farthest row behind the barn. Rich carried the basket. The trees in the orchard were pruned so that the branches were close to the ground, easy to pick from. The apples glistened in the sun, and Meg imagined she could smell them, a sweet, tangy fragrance that made her want to chomp into one.