"And the moon could be mouse bait."
"You have a dark outlook."
"Supported every day in the street. The other night a thirty-six-year-old man knifed his mom and dad because they wouldn't give him money for a bottle of wine. That's the real world, Garrett. We're our own worst nightmares." He chuckled. "You're lucky this time. You don't have anything weird. No vampires, no werewolves, no witches, no sorcerers, no dead gods trying to come back to life. None of the stuff you usually stumble into."
I snorted. Those things aren't on every street corner, but they're part of the world. Everybody brushes against them eventually. They didn't impress me, though I was happy not to deal with them.
I said, "I could have seen a ghost."
"A what?"
"A ghost. I keep seeing a woman that nobody admits is there. That nobody else sees. Unless they're pulling my leg. Which they probably are."
"Or you're crazy. She's a gorgeous blonde, right?"
"A blonde. Not bad."
"You're daydreaming out loud in your eyes. Your wishful thinking has gotten to you."
"Maybe. I'll know before I'm done. There was something else I wanted but it escapes me now."
"Must not have been important."
"Probably not. I'd better get back out there."
"You take some equipment? Hate to think of you up to your ears in killers with nothing but your teeth and toenails."
"I've got a trick or two."
He grunted. "You always do. Don't turn your back on anybody."
"I won't."
As I started to close the door, he asked, "What's the daughter look like?"
"Early twenties. A looker but not a talker. Spoiled rotten, probably."
He looked thoughtful, then shrugged, got up, dropped down and started doing more push-ups. I shut the door. I can't stand seeing a man abuse himself.
12
I headed south feeling smug. I knew my Morley Dotes. Curiosity would get him. He'd push his end beyond what I'd hired him to do. He'd go fishing amongst his contacts. If there was something going on involving the Stantnors, he'd find out.
The smugness disappeared after I walked out South Gate.
That's when the drizzle started. That's when I started cussing myself for my distrust of horses. Hell, if I couldn't ride, I could hire a coach. I had a client. I could charge it to expenses. Expenses are wonderfully flexible—especially if the client fails the attitude test.
I got some wet before I reached my destination.
Odd. Most of those big country places have names. The Maples. Windward. Sometimes something that doesn't make any sense, like Brittany Stone. But this one could have been a squatter's hut. The Stantnor place. Ancient family seat and museum but not enough of a home for anybody to give it a name.
I was still a quarter mile off when Jennifer Stantnor flew out the front door, headed toward me. She hadn't put a wrap on. Peters came after her, gaining but not looking like he was trying to catch her.
They reached me at the same time. Jennifer looked irked that Peters had come. Peters looked exasperated at her. I did my best to look puzzled, which isn't hard. That's where I am most of the time. I raised an eyebrow way up. It's one of my best tricks. Jennifer just stood there, panting. Peters, less winded despite being almost three times her age, said, "There's been a hunting accident."
I kept a straight face. "Oh?"
"Let's get in out of the rain."
I looked at the girl. I think she wanted to talk. Grimly, she said, "I don't think it was an accident."
It probably wasn't, if someone had gotten killed. But I didn't say that. I just grunted.
Peters talked while we walked. "We've had trouble with poachers. There are deer on the grounds. A fair herd."
Jennifer interjected, "We put out feed. We don't take many."
"Three all last year," Peters said. "Peasants... The animals make easy targets. They're not so wary here. The past month we've had six intrusions. That we know of."
Jennifer said, "Dad gets more upset about the trespassing than the poaching. He has a thing about boundaries. Like they're lines of steel."
"After the last incident," Peters said, as we climbed the steps to the house, "the General ordered regular patrols. He wanted someone caught and an example made. Today Kaid, Hawkes, Tyler, and Snake had the duty. Hawkes apparently caught somebody in the act. He sounded his hunting horn."
Jennifer said, "When the others got there, he was on the ground with an arrow in him. A gutted deer was hanging in a tree fifty feet away."
"Interesting. And sad. But why tell me? Sounds like something you people can handle."
Jennifer looked puzzled. Peters said, "This is going to sound silly. You're the only scout around here. All these lifers and none of them can follow a trail."
"Oh." Maybe. "It's been years. And I wasn't that good." I recalled my stumbling around during a few recent cases.
"Mediocre is better than what the rest of us are." Peters looked at Chain, who was headed our way. "How is he?"
"I don't think he'll make it. He needs a surgeon."
"You know the old man. No doctors in the house."
"We can't move him without killing him."
Jennifer snapped, "Get a doctor! My father doesn't have to know. He never comes out of his room."
"Dellwood will tell him."
"I'll handle Dellwood."
"Go," Peters told Chain, and Chain got his carcass moving.
I said, "I take it Hawkes is still alive."
"He's fighting."
"Can I talk to him?"
"He's out. Way out. Not much chance he'll come around unless Chain gets a cutter in time."
"Show me where it happened before the rain wipes out the sign."
I got to ride. Lucky me. The horse was hospitable all the way out, but I knew it had heard of me through the grapevine those monsters have. It grinned when it heard my name. It was waiting for a chance.
It was a good ride out. The Stantnors had a lot of land. We didn't talk much. I took in the countryside, getting the lay, the landmarks. I might need to know them.
I'd developed the habit young. It was my apparent knack for knowing my way around that got me volunteered as a scout when the real Sexton vanished.
"Looks like Snake came back out," Peters said as we crossed a rise and came to the scene.
I saw a man under an oak near a hanging animal carcass. "Sarge, I never knew any of these guys when I was in. Did any of them know Sexton?"
He looked at me funny. "I don't think so."
I dismounted, tied the reins to an oak sapling. My mount got a forlorn look. "Thought I'd just drop them and you'd scurry when I turned my back, didn't you?"
"What?" Peters asked.
"Talking to the horse. I talk to horses. They make more sense than people."
"Snake, this is Mike Sexton. Scouted for me in the islands. You probably heard he's here."
Snake grunted. He looked me over. I returned the favor.
If Chain had gone to seed, this one had gone a step beyond. His hair hadn't been cut since he'd gotten out. His beard was a bramble patch. He didn't change clothes or bathe very often. His pants were covered with curious colored stains. He said, "I heard."
"You found anything?"
Snake grunted. It sounded negative.
I looked at the carcass. Wasn't much to it. "Kind of puny, isn't it?"
"Fawn," Snake said. "Just lost its spots."
Yes. A little rusty, Garrett. Why would a poacher take a fawn? If he was after the meat and the herd wasn't spooky, he'd go for a bigger kill. I gave the carcass a closer look.
It was ten years since I'd done my own butchering, but this job looked amateurish. Like it had been done by someone who'd seen animals butchered but who hadn't ever done it himself.