How much had the old woman seen? In the flickering moonlight, before she grabbed the kids and ducked to the floor, had she gotten a look? It was only an instant that she could have seen anything, but it was a loose end, a cause for worry. Over the subsequent months since the shooting, the question had eaten and rankled. If Maudie had seen enough for a tentative ID, what had she done about it? Gone to the cops? Or, fearing for her own life, sensibly kept her mouth shut? Was there a warrant out complete with name and description, or had she seen no more than the blinding flashes of gunfire?
That night, easing around behind the farmhouse, unlocking the machinery barn and easing the pickup inside, sliding closed the heavy door and stepping into the sleek sports car that stood next to where the pickup was always parked, the shooter had waited for more than an hour, listening for any sound from the road, lounging on the soft leather seat but not daring to play the radio even softly. Then jerking suddenly alert at the sound of the sirens.
How could anyone have called the cops? Martin and Caroline had to be dead, at that close range, or too badly wounded to make any kind of call. And as for Maudie, even if she’d had the presence of mind enough to grab a cell phone, reception out there was dicey; usually there was no way to get through.
It was unlikely anyone else had heard the crash; on the little-used back road there’d been no other cars. The scattered houses and what people called ranches were all set back away from the narrow two-lane, and there hadn’t been a light anywhere; half those houses were summer places, locked up until the weather grew hot, in June.
But someone had called the cops.
Getting out of the sports car, standing at the door listening, she hadn’t heard a sound. The barn seemed safe enough. By the time sheriff’s deputies got around to searching the nearby yards and fields, and got warrants to search inside the houses and outbuildings, the pickup would be dead cold, sitting unused as the vacationing owner had left it weeks earlier. The heavy padlock on the sliding shed door would show only the owner’s fingerprints.
Listening to the sirens and then to the thumping of a helicopter, the shooter had slid the big door open just a crack, to look out into the night. Lights from the gathered cars a mile away were reflected up into the sky in a milky haze, more cars and a hell of a lot sooner than you’d have thought, way out here in the boonies.
The shooter had waited for a couple hours more after the police lights were gone, and the helicopter gone, before opening the door fully, starting the engine of the sports car and pulling out. Had checked, with a flashlight, the garage floor and wiped away the vague tire marks. Sliding the door closed again and locking it, the shooter had headed sedately away into the night, driving slowly and carefully along the country road, flicking the beams to high when there was no car coming, flicking them low again out of courtesy when another vehicle approached.
Passing two oncoming black-and-whites, the shooter lifted a hand from the wheel in the country way of greeting, though probably that gesture would not be seen in the dark car. And all the while swallowing back a rush of adrenaline, trying to control a heart-pounding panic. The two CHPs must be headed to the scene of the wreck, to join whatever sheriff’s units might have remained behind. Maybe looking for shell casings—but they wouldn’t find any. That was the good thing about a revolver: the casings remained in the gun, didn’t scatter all over. Cops would be checking for tire marks, too, but quite a few cars and trucks, locals, used this road in the daytime.
A lot depended now on the old woman. Maybe she’d seen nothing in the blackness, maybe there was nothing to worry about. She’d answer the cops’ questions but have no real information to give them, then go home and mourn for her dead son. The cops would work the case for a while and then, as overloaded as the LAPD was, it would find its way among the cold files and that would be the end of it.
Except, that wasn’t the end, there was more to consider. There would be the funeral, the gathering of friends and family around the old woman, and then the disposition of Caroline’s personal possessions. That was the complication: What had Caroline done with the papers that must be retrieved before this was finished? Or did the old woman have them? If so, what had she done with them? There was no way to know what Caroline and Martin, and Maudie, might have planned between them. Sure as hell, if Caroline had been a threat while alive, she was no better dead. And the same went for Maudie, for Caroline’s soft little mother-in-law.
9
RISING FROM THE bed of crushed petals, Kit peered out at Maudie’s front door. It was closed tight. Everyone was inside, she could hear Ryan’s voice in the kitchen. Pushing out of the bushes, she hurried around to the back, leaped in through an unglazed window of Maudie’s new studio, trotted behind Scotty, who was patching plaster, and in through the open glass slider, onto the pale linoleum.
The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee. Maudie and Ryan sat at the table, and Benny was in Maudie’s lap leaning against her, his mouth smeared with icing. A plate of sweet rolls stood on the table, smelling of cinnamon and honey. The little boy looked paler than usual, his dark eyes still reflecting fear from Maudie’s encounter with the truck.
Maudie’s kitchen was done all in tones of cream and butterscotch. At the far end of the room, pale oak cabinets lined three sides, around a central worktable. Beyond the wide bay windows, a lacy pepper tree framed Maudie’s view of the neighboring houses and the street.
The table stood nearest to Kit just opposite the glass slider. Ryan was still arguing gently with Maudie, trying to get her to call the police. Benny seemed uncomfortable with the exchange, fiddling with his sweet roll, tearing it into little bits. He hardly looked up when Kit padded behind Maudie’s chair, crossed to the open stairway, and leaped up to the fifth step, where Joe and Dulcie sat as still as a pair of statues, elegant porcelain effigies from some upscale antique shop. Dulcie cut her green eyes at Kit, looking disgusted at Maudie’s stubbornness. Kit looked back impatiently, burning to tell them about the invasion and the fish smell, and unable to say a word.
The open stairs faced not only the kitchen but the front entry across a wide tile floor, with the cozy living room to the left. Dulcie twitched her ears at Kit but made no other move as she listened to Ryan’s futile arguing. What was wrong with Maudie, why this reluctance?
“If the police can find the truck,” Ryan was saying, “and arrest the driver, that would get him off the streets. That might keep you safer, until you know what that was about, and the information would help your insurance company when you make the claim.”
“It was an accident,” Maudie said. “It could happen to anyone, the driver wasn’t looking. I don’t intend to make a claim, I don’t want to make trouble.”
Ryan simply looked at Maudie. She seemed about to form a careful reply when the front door opened and David hurried in, breathing hard from his uphill run, his dark sweats hanging limp and damp on his lean frame. His crumpled cap stuck out of his jacket pocket; his short-clipped brown hair was damp with sweat. Snatching the cap, he wiped his forehead with it and ran it over his crew cut. “What happened? I was two blocks away when I heard what sounded like a wreck, and an old truck came barreling past me.”
He sat down, looking at Maudie. “Didn’t you hear it? It must have hit the Lincoln, Mom. There’s a long brown scar along the side.” He looked at Maudie and at Benny. “Are you two all right? You weren’t in the car? What the hell happened?”