“Square business?”
“Cross my heart.”
“You know you can’t lie on square business?”
“I know. Come on, Lily’s waiting.”
She met them at the door, and the sight of her all tousled and softened by sleep did something to Trent that was so physical he didn’t want to think about it. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem. Now what’s this about?” she asked stifling a yawn.
“Tell you later. I gotta go.” It was either that or stand there contemplating how warm her skin must be.
She stepped aside so that Amari could enter. After he disappeared, she asked quietly, “This isn’t something dangerous you’re going to do, is it?”
“No, but I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Just so it’s not a late-night booty call.”
He smiled. “No. Go back to bed. I’ll pick Amari up when I get back.”
“Okay.” She closed the door softly and was gone. After standing there for a few seconds with his mind focused solely on her, he suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing. Cursing himself he drove off to pick up Malachi.
When they arrived at the Curry place, it looked like every official vehicle in the county was parked in the yard. They spotted cars belonging to the Medical Examiner, the Morgue wagon, a ton of county and state law enforcement cruisers, an EMT ambulance. Uniformed men and women were crawling over the place like ants on powdered donuts.
They got out and walked up to the house. Portable lights had been set up and the area was lit up like a miniature Vegas.
Dalton met them at the porch. The sheriff was in his midfifties but still had the bulk and size of the young man who’d been an all-America linebacker at the University of Kansas back in the seventies. “Thanks for coming.”
“What’s that smell?” Trent asked.
The sheriff gave them a couple of hospital masks.
“What’re these for?”
“Put them on, then come on in and you can see for yourself.”
After following his instructions they followed him inside.
Trent didn’t know what was more shocking, the home’s putrid-smelling, totally demolished interior or the sight of Prell’s lifeless body slumped over Cletus’s back like an old male marionette.
Seeing the way Cletus had the corpse pinned against the wall, Malachi whispered, “Damn.”
Dalton explained, “The problem is we can’t get the hog to move his big ass out of the way.”
Trent looked around and asked through his mask, “Where’s Riley?”
“EMTs are treating him. He’s got a broken collarbone.”
“Cletus again?”
“No, at least not directly. He says he fell down in all this crap.”
Trent didn’t doubt it. He hoped he had another pair of boots in his truck, because no way was he going to be able to wear home the ones he had on his feet now. He continued to be amazed by the destruction. “How’d the house get this way?”
“How about we get the hog out of the way first, then I’ll answer your questions best I can.”
Malachi walked over to Cletus and did his best to ignore the dead Prell and the hog’s stench. “Cletus, you know we don’t get along, never have, but I’m going to give you two choices. Either move, or I shoot you with this,” and he showed him the tranq gun. “You decide.”
What Malachi didn’t tell him was that he was going to be tranqued either way. Officially the hog was a murderer. What the county planned to do with him once he was knocked out wasn’t Malachi’s concern. Even though the hog had rid the world of a certified parasite in Prell, no good deed goes unpunished and Cletus would probably be put down.
Cletus looked at the tranq gun. Being a fan of Animal Planet he’d seen a lot of them, and as Riley would testify later at the trial, Cletus, like most of his kind, was very smart.
Malachi didn’t have to ask twice. Cletus stood up and moved away from the wall. As Prell’s corpse slid to the floor, the hog slowly trotted off in the direction of his special door and exited the house.
Outdoors, Malachi hit Cletus with a couple of tranquilizer darts and the hog went down. The authorities waited until it was safe to move him before using chains and a tow truck’s winch to guide the snoring hog onto a flatbed. After he was secured, the truck rolled out and disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER
23
Genevieve and Marie watched the local morning news reports on Morton Prell’s demise and were stunned by the circumstances surrounding it. They were even more stunned by the conditions shown inside the Curry home. Genevieve couldn’t believe the filthy room was her living room. Hands to her mouth in shock and despair she was rendered speechless by what came across the screen. All of her beautiful things had been demolished. Her furniture lay in pieces. The drapes she’d made herself and hung so proudly were filthy and dangling from rods only partially attached to the walls. The curio cabinet she’d ordered by catalog from California to display the little porcelain figurines she’d inherited from her mother was lying on its side, broken and splintered, as if it had been ordered from the county dump instead. The place was in shambles and so filled with filth that according to the reporter who was wearing a mask to protect his breathing, the Health Department had determined the house to be a public hazard and by week’s end planned to have the place razed. She shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. The lovely home her father had purchased for her as a wedding gift was gone forever all because of Riley and his hog.
The report went on to say that Riley Curry, the hog’s owner, had suffered a broken collarbone and was staying with friends. A hearing to determine the killer hog’s fate would be held later, but Genevieve didn’t care about any of it. All that mattered for her was the grief she felt for the place she’d once called home.
Tamar parked her truck, and when she and Barrett Payne got out they walked slowly into the old cemetery. “My parents and grandparents are buried here.”
“How old is this place?” he asked, looking around at stubby stones weathered away in size and shape by time.
“As old as the town. The first colonists came in the fall of 1880. Many of the old families had plots here: the Jeffersons, the Reeds, Sophie Reynolds who’d owned the original Henry Adams Hotel, her common-law husband, Asa. They’re all together in death as they’d been in life.”
The hems of her faded emerald-and-black robes lifted gently with the breeze as they advanced deeper into the field. The longer they walked, the farther back in time they traveled, and as a result the names and dates on the stone markers became more and more difficult to decipher. Some were so battered and worn that whoever was buried beneath them was now lost from memory.
“We’re here to pay homage to her, my great-grandmother, the first Tamar, the woman I’m named for. Today is the one hundred and thirteenth anniversary of her death.”
He looked surprised.
“She was one of the Old Ones. A member of the Black Seminole tribe born in the lush green of Florida, forcibly removed to the hardscrabble land of Indian Territory by a president of a nation that could not keep its word.”
Having been a military man most of his adult life, and having sworn to defend the country in peace and war, he wasn’t sure how he felt about her bitterly worded comment, but if his heritage was intertwined with hers, he guessed he understood. The country had not dealt honorably with the native tribes. “I looked online for more information on the Seminole Long Walk you told me about.”
“What did you learn?”
“That it was led by the great Seminole chiefs Wild Cat and John Horse and that it began in Indian Territory and ended on the Texas-Mexico border.”
“Very good. The grandfather of your great-great-grandfather Dixon took his surname from those chiefs when he came to Indian Territory.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The combined names of Wild Cat and John Horse became your family’s name:
Wildhorse.”
Barrett was amazed. He’d lived his entire life not knowing about his past, but now, after being in Henry Adams, he felt changed and he didn’t know why. It was almost as if knowing his past had altered the way he looked at the world. “Tell me about your grandmother.”
“She’d died in Henry Adams while visiting her son Neil and his wife, Olivia. According to my aunt Teresa, the first Tamar was a woman of magic, song, and wisdom and had the power to walk in her children’s dreams.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter. Her children did and so do I.”
Tamar found the headstone she’d been looking for and bent down to brush away the Kansas dust and bits of detritus that had blown onto it since her last visit. “When the time comes for me to be laid to rest I’m not going to be able to do it here, and neither will my children or grandchildren because the county closed this cemetery down decades ago. It’s a shame.”
She stood up and looked around. “Time will claim it all, anyway, but as long as one July walks this earth, they’ll come here and honor her on the day of her death because it’s tradition, and without it we’ll forget just like everybody else.”
“Is that why you wanted me to come out here with you today?”
“Yes, you need to know how you came to be, Colonel. Tradition.”
Barrett was so moved he didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything as he walked with Tamar back to her truck.
Bernadine was on the phone. She’d promised the Garlands that she’d get busy on the Zoey mystery, but she’d gotten sidetracked, what with the news about Morgan Prell’s death and all the thousand other things on her to-do list. She was on it now, however, and talking with the PI firm she’d hired to do the background checks on the foster parents. Their new mission was to find out everything they could about Zoey Raymond and report back. She also asked that they look into the whereabouts of Crystal’s mother too.
She and the Garlands were in their kitchen. When she ended the call, she said, “Now we wait.”
“I’m still so blown away by all this,” Roni admitted, remembering how pale and small her foster daughter had looked against the big piano. “Be nice if we could hear back quick so we can try and figure out what help she needs.”
“I know,” Bernadine agreed.
Reg added, “The trauma Zoey suffered, whatever it was, had to have been powerful to make her stop talking.”
Bernadine asked, “Do we assume that whatever it was, it happened to her at night?”
Reg shrugged. “Probably, though it’s not a given.”
“How long did she sleep after her concert?”
Roni looked to Reg for verification. “Quite a while. She came downstairs around 10:30. Smiled at me when I asked her if she wanted to eat. She’s sweet as pie. Helped me do some unpacking, helped me load the dishwasher. I just wish she’d talk so we can help her.” The honesty in her face showed how much she cared. “Devon came over and got her a little while ago. They’re playing over at Lily’s.”
Reg heard the emotion in his wife’s voice and wondered if maybe by helping the girl, Roni could be helped as well. Although he and his wife had been prepared to foster Preston, they’d wound up with Zoey instead. Fate? God? He didn’t know, but he did know that she’d been placed in their life for a reason.
“Babe.”
He came back to the present to see Roni waving a hand in front of his face.
“You with us?”
He grinned apologetically. “Sorry. I was out on Jupiter somewhere.”
“I was telling Bernadine about your clinic idea.”
“Yeah. I’d like to set up my practice here. Is there a building I can use?”
“No, but there might be room to do something small scale in the new rec center until we can come up with a permanent space. We can look this evening during the opening and see if any of the rooms would work.”
“I’ve already checked into becoming licensed to practice here. Should know something on that soon.”
Bernadine loved initiative. She stood, pleased. “Okay. I’m going to take off; got a thousand things to do. I’ll keep you in the loop on what the firm finds out on our Zoey. Having you two in her life is going to be good for her.”
“She’s going to be good for us too,” Reg said as they walked her to the door. He gave his wife’s waist a quick hug, and she smiled up in agreement.
Bernadine sensed they had a good marriage. “I will see you all later at the opening.”
“We’ll be there.”
With a wave of good-bye, Bernadine made the short walk back to her place.
The new recreation center was a big hit. Everyone invited, including some of the local dignitaries from surrounding towns oohed and ahhed over the amenities like the video game room, the pool, and the galley kitchen with its stainless-steel appliances. There was an indoor gym with an adjoining weight room that Barrett Payne seemed particularly taken with but scared the sedentary Preston to death when the colonel looked his way and smiled. There were two large meeting rooms, one of which had already been booked by the Black Farmers Association for its monthly gathering next week. The other would serve as a temporary classroom for the Henry Adams private school until a real building could be built next spring.
A tour of the media room was given to show off its state-of-the art big-screen projection system and its fifty stadium seats. A lot of money and thought had gone into the design and construction of the beautiful facility and it showed.
As Trent stood by the wall and watched the crowd milling about, he was having second thoughts about the whole foster parent thing. After having lived a solitary life, having a sidekick was taking some getting used to. Especially a sidekick with a gift for asking questions. Granted, a questioning mind was a good mind, but Amari was making him nuts, and this was only the what, second week? He assumed that when school opened, Marie would give the questioning mind plenty to do, but until then Trent had to learn to adjust.
“So who’s that man over there looking like Guy Smiley?”
For a moment, Trent was confused.
Amari seeing it, repeated questioningly, “Guy Smiley? Sesame Street.”
“Oh, okay. You mean the one talking to Bernadine with all the hair and teeth.”
“Yep, him.”
“That’s Digby Kettle. He’s a car dealer down in Hays.” Trent nodded a greeting to one of the construction workers and his wife as they passed by. Bernadine had especially asked that the men and women who’d built the place be invited to join the celebration.
Amari sipped his punch and asked, “What the hell kind of name is Digby Kettle?”
“Stop cussing.”
“Sorry.”
Trent gave him a look and then shook his head. He was convinced that some kind of way the ancestors had put Malachi’s genes into the boy. He reminded Trent so much of his father it scared him to death. “Digby’s a Mennonite.”
“What the—heck is a Mennonite?”
Trent was pleased to hear the self-check. “They’re a religious group from Europe. First people to plant winter wheat in this area back in the Pioneer days, and before you ask me about winter wheat, how about we look this stuff up on the computer when we get home? That way you can get answers to all of your questions.”
Amari sipped again, shrugged, and said, “Sure, that’d be nice, but I can’t read.”
With that he strolled off into the crowd, leaving the stunned and wide-eyed Trent behind.
Amari kept walking until he got outside. He found Preston sitting at one of the picnic tables. “Hey, man. What are you doing out here?”
“Avoiding the Marine Corps.”
Amari sat on the tabletop, “Why?”
“I think he’s going to make me start exercising.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I got asthma. I could die,” he said.
“I don’t see Ms. Bernadine letting him kill you, so I think you
’ll be okay.”
Preston looked up into Amari’s face. “The colonel’s crazy. Woke me up so early the first morning it was still dark. Then turned on that damned reveille when I wouldn’t get up. Stuff was so loud it gave me a hearing loss.”
“What’s a reveille?”
“That wake-up tune the army guys play on the horn.” Preston vocalized the familiar notes.
Amari nodded. “Okay. I know which one you’re talking about.”
“So, why’d you come out here?” Preston asked. He’d noticed how pensive Amari appeared to be.
“Trent wants me to look up some stuff on the computer.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It is when you can’t read.”
“Damn,” Preston replied, looking at Amari with sympathy.
“I know. Hey, you know how it is. Nine hundred different schools, new teachers, never catching up, kids laughing, so I gave up. I know my ABCs, and little words, but a computer? Please.”
“And I have the opposite problem.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m smart. Scary smart. My IQ is probably higher than everybody’s in this town.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, well, in my old schools I caught a lot of teasing about it, so I stopped showing it. People think you’re wack when you know stuff. I can help you with your reading if you want. Not trying to get in your business or anything.”
“I know, thanks, but I’m okay. Made it this far, but I promise I won’t tell anybody about your big brain.”
Preston smiled, “Same here for you.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Think Tamar will let us have more ice cream?”
Amari grinned. “I don’t know, but let’s ask.” He scrambled off the table, and they bounded to the door.
Back inside, Genevieve was behind the punch bowl and had just handed Zoey and Devon a second cup when she saw Riley come in. She’d heard from Tamar that he was staying with somebody over in Franklin.
As the children moved on, she scanned him up and down. Someone had replaced the ridiculously large bandage he’d been wearing the last time she’s seen him with one that appeared to be professionally applied. His arm was in a real sling and he looked tired, worn, and old. She supposed the whole mess with Cletus was wearing on him, not to mention having no place to stay now that the house was going to be bulldozed. In many ways she felt sorry for him and in many ways she still loved him, but she was tired too. Tired of being ignored about what mattered to her, tired of catering to the windmill dreams. She was sixty years old and on the downslope of life, was it wrong for her to want more?