“Is she still mad at me?” Skye warily circled the pile of greasy parts.
He shrugged.
It was the kind of response she had been getting from him all her life. His refusal to communicate at a personal level drove her to say things for their shock value alone.
“Do you think someone in the family killed Grandma?” Skye said abruptly.
He shrugged again. It took a lot more than words to make Jed react.
“Almost every one of them has a motive.” Skye stepped back as Jed’s tool slipped and oil sprayed outward.
“Any proof?” Jed tightened a bolt and wiped it with a dirty cloth.
“Not really.” Skye steered the subject away from her lack of evidence and continued in the same vein. “I was wondering about Uncle Dante. Is he a good farmer?”
Jed was silent, finally wiping his hands on the rag and sticking them in his overall pockets. “Can’t really say. Has different ideas than me or Emmett.”
“Oh?”
“Emmett and me, we pretty much agree on most things. You know, do ’em the way it worked before.” Jed looked at Skye. “Dante likes to try new stuff.”
“Is that bad?” Skye’s knowledge of farming was surprisingly limited for having grown up in the country.
“Sometimes. Depends if they work or not.” Jed flipped over the snowblower.
“And were his new methods successful?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“Has he bought a lot of new machinery lately?” Skye knew that a simple tractor could cost more than fifty-five thousand dollars.
“Yeah, he likes new equipment. Likes things to be shiny and bright.”
Skye pictured her father’s machinery. Most of it was decades old, and one would be hard-pressed to tell what color it had started out, but it all ran as if brand-new, thanks to Jed’s talent as a mechanic. She knew her father kept Emmett’s equipment running too, but she couldn’t recall Dante ever asking for help.
“Do you think maybe Uncle Dante was skimming a little off the top of the Leofanti trust?”
Jed took out his pocketknife and started to clean his nails. “You best leave that idea alone.”
“Why?” Her tone sharpened.
“ ’Cause none of his sisters wants to go down that road.”
“Oh, so they know.”
“Nah, but they don’t want to know either.” Jed finished with his fingernails and replaced the knife in his pocket.
Skye was stumped as to where to go from that point. To buy some time to think she asked a question she had always been curious about. “Why do you farm, Dad?”
At first she didn’t think he was going to answer. “ ’Cause I like bein’ my own boss and doin’ what I want when I want.” Jed pulled the bill of his International Harvester gimme cap down over his eyes.
She nodded thoughtfully. It was a feeling she could relate to. Jed was gathering his tools and wiping them down. Silences never seemed to bother him. She admired that trait even though she found it difficult to deal with at times.
“Does Uncle Dante make a good living from his land?” Maybe her mother and aunts didn’t want to know what Dante was up to, but she still did.
Jed lifted his cap and scratched his head. “Well, now, the last couple of years have been tough for us all. Not enough rain for growing and too much for harvesting.”
“Has he had to sell anything off?”
“That would never happen. Selling land is against his religion.”
“I’ll bet he was upset then when it looked like some of Grandma’s land would have to be sold to take care of her.” Skye watched as her father coaxed life out of the decrepit snowblower’s engine.
“Yeah, he was fit to be tied. Said no way were they selling his heritage.”
It was nearly five when Skye parked the Buick in her driveway. She grabbed her tote bag from the backseat and started up the sidewalk toward her cottage.
Blood. There was blood everywhere. Skye had never seen so much blood.
Skye stood transfixed on the sidewalk. Splashes of crimson decorated her door. BITCH was written in four-foot letters across the white siding.
Her eyes frantically searched the surrounding area. I have got to get a cell phone.
She backed slowly to the car, and after gaining the safety of the front seat, locked all the doors. Her heart was beating twice its usual pace and sweat poured down her face and puddled under her arms.
Inconsequential thoughts kept crowding into her mind, while the movie projector in her brain insisted on replaying the scene over and over, at different speeds, as she put the Buick in gear and tore out of the driveway.
At the police station her mother took one look at Skye and ran around the counter. She gathered Skye into her arms. “What happened? You’re as pale as milk.”
Skye took a deep breath and realized she was going to vomit. Pushing her mother away, she raced for the bathroom. She could hear May and Wally talking outside the door as she washed her face, rinsed out her mouth, and scrubbed at the front of her blouse.
“I’m okay,” she reassured them as she made her way out of the ladies’ room.
May popped the top on a can of ginger ale before handing it to Skye. “Now, tell us what happened to you.”
Wally held a chair and guided Skye into it. “Yes, what in the hell is going on?”
It took her several tries before she was finally able to explain.
The chief’s face turned magenta and the pencil he was holding snapped. “This is going to stop right now. I will not have you harassed like this.”
May held one of Skye’s hands, patting it. “Wally will take care of it. Don’t you worry.”
Skye smiled weakly. “Thanks, guys.” Turning her eyes on the chief, she said, “It has to be either Hap Doozier or Leroy Yoder. The Underwood guy who’s with the survivalist group camping behind Grandma Leofanti’s land went back to Michigan.”
“How do you know that?”
Shit, I promised Wally not to investigate by myself. He’s been so cooperative too. Hope he understands my reasoning. She looked into his angry face and said, “Well, you told me you had talked to that group and didn’t think they were involved, but I needed to check them out myself. After all, they’re right there, cheek by jowl with my grandmother’s property.”
“So you went out there on your own?” A vein popped out on Wally’s forehead.
“I had to go alone. I went as the Scumble River Elementary School psychologist checking on Perry Underwood. They’d know that wasn’t true if I had the chief of police with me.”
“And did you find out anything I hadn’t?” His voice was dangerously quiet.
“No, but Sarge did say he’d ask around for me.” Skye smiled. “He was very nice. I wasn’t in any danger.”
“Sarge, as you call him, has a record a mile long. Much of it for assaults against women and minorities.”
“Oh.” Skye looked down at her clasped hands. “I guess I made a mistake.”
“I’m very disappointed in you. I thought we had mutual trust and respect. But I see you’ve been using me.”
“No—”
“There’s nothing more to say. I told you that betrayal was the one thing I couldn’t forgive. First Darleen and now you.” He slammed his notepad shut and stood up. “Wait here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To do my job.”
While she waited, Skye kept an ear cocked for the chief’s infrequent radio reports, and started drawing up a chronological list of events. Anything to take her mind off Wally’s words. She felt numb now, and knew that later the hurt would be unbearable.
The first time his voice interrupted her thoughts, he related that there was no sign of a break-in at her cottage or any clues to the perpetrator’s identity.
Meanwhile, Skye had composed two columns. One for murder-related activities and one for pranks. The slashed tires and broken windows were definitely annoyances. The other events were lined up neatly on the other side. This latest incident had a question mark.