“Yeah,” she said simply. “He was looking forward to a good life.”
“No conflict with the way his sister and Jeff got the farm instead of him?”
Marianne looked up, surprised. “Oh, no. That worked out perfect. He thought Jeff was a great farmer.”
She straightened and tossed her tiny snowball underhanded so that it landed without a sound on top of another grave. “Maybe that’s what I noticed about him and his mom. It really drove me crazy. Nothing bothered him-working for his brother-in-law like a hired hand, the Dragon Lady’s bitchiness, being trapped in that house with all those whacked-out people. He totally didn’t get it when I said I’d sooner be dead than move in there.”
A combination of compassion and curiosity about part of her story made Joe bring up a subject he’d avoided until now.
“I was sorry to hear about Rick Frantz.”
She shook her head like a mother dismissing a mischievous pet. “Yeah. What a jerk, huh?”
It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, and confirmed the lack of seriousness she’d claimed concerning the kiss Marie had witnessed.
“You’re not surprised?” he asked.
She turned and tilted her chin toward the fresh hole now filled with Bobby Cutts’s body. “That surprised me. Rick getting shot is right up there with water being wet. Bobby was supposed to find some girl who liked cows as much as he did and make babies with her.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, her face suddenly much older. “Guess that shows you, huh? You done with me?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for your help.”
“No sweat.”
Joe watched Marianne walk unsteadily across the frozen ground in her high-heeled black boots, her hands out to both sides to keep her balance, her bright green fingernails flickering in the sunlight.
“Guess that shows you,” he echoed softly.
Chapter 9
Gunther waited to return to the cutts house until long after the funeral, close to nightfall. He didn’t want to appear as people were still milling about as usual following a service, but he also didn’t want too much time to elapse before asking the family more questions.
He used another approach to the house than he had on the day of the fire. Then he’d come from the south, where the road curved around and delivered him abruptly to the dooryard. The northern reach, however, was entirely different. Cresting a hill not a half mile away, it afforded a view that would have been picture-perfect before the black hole of the burned barn ruined everything. From the rolling fields and clumped trees in the foreground, to the pristine white farmhouse and scattered outbuildings, and finally to the far-distant ski mountain crowning the horizon, it was all so emblematic of Vermont’s touted virtues as to moisten an adman’s eye.
But the cremated remnants of the barn were just as symbolic, as Joe was discovering-not just of the tragedy now crushing its owners but of the broader plights of family dysfunction and grinding economic struggle. If tourists driving by such sylvan centerpieces only knew, he thought, they wouldn’t see the rural life with such dewy-eyed romanticism.
He rode down the hill, pulled off the road, and got out of his car. Marie Cutts appeared at the farmhouse’s front door as if on cue.
“What do you want?” she called out to him, her voice sharp and unpleasant.
“Hi, Mrs. Cutts. Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to ask a few more questions.”
“We’ve done talking to you. You know what to do. Go out and do it.”
He approached the building, walking slowly. “That’s what we’re doing. We have quite a few people working on this, each one of us making sure every detail is covered.”
She glared at him suspiciously. “What’re you saying?”
He smiled slightly. “That my job is making sure I’ve asked all the right questions here.”
She wasn’t buying it. “The right questions? The ones you like the answers to, you mean. My son was slaughtered the same as all those cows, but I’m starting to hear that the police think one of us had something to do with it. What the hell were you thinking, coming to my son’s funeral?”
“I wanted to pay my respects…”
“That’s bullshit. I saw you talking to that whore afterward.”
Jeff Padgett appeared in the doorway behind her and placed his hands on her skinny shoulders. “It’s okay, Mom. Let him come in.”
She shrugged him off violently and pushed by him to leave, saying, “Don’t you tell me what to do. It’s not your place yet.”
Padgett looked at the ground briefly before he slowly straightened and forced a smile. “It’s been very tough on her.”
“I’m sure it’s been tough on you, too,” Gunther said, stepping onto the porch and remembering a similar exchange with Calvin.
“I loved him, but he wasn’t my son.”
“Good point.”
“Who would you like to talk to?” Jeff asked.
“Your wife, actually, if she’s up to it.”
Padgett nodded carefully. “I guess so. She seems a lot better. Got the wind back in her sails-better’n the rest of us.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Yeah,” he admitted wryly. “I’ve seen her do this before when times were tough. First she crashes, then she rallies like a trouper, charging around putting everything right.”
“And then she crashes again?” Joe surmised.
“Not always. I never know. Makes me nervous; we’ve never had anything hit us this bad before.” He paused. “She’s in the kitchen, you want to see her.”
“I do,” Joe said, “but first I was wondering, since you brought it up, what are you and Cal going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” he answered simply. “We’re meeting with the insurance people, then the bank. Guess we’ll know what we’re facing after that.”
Joe slipped by him across the threshold and patted his arm. “Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Gunther walked through to the kitchen door, hoping Marie wouldn’t also be in attendance. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he saw only Linda, the two kids, and Calvin, who was sitting at the dining table reading the funnies to the little girl. Linda was showing her son how to load the dishwasher.
His quiet arrival allowed him to survey the scene unobserved, which, despite its domestic appearance, did strike him as Jeff had implied-a thing of infinite fragility. Cal reminded him of the haunting pictures of Lincoln shortly before his death. His appearance was ravaged by grief and sleeplessness, his eyes dark-rimmed and sunken, surrounded by careworn creases. His voice was soothing and quiet.
Linda, by contrast, was the epitome of brittle cheer, like a lightbulb whose filament was burning dangerously bright. She fussed about, instructing and teasing her son, her voice high-pitched and nervous, her hands fluttering like cornered birds, grasping plates and glasses, then lighting on the boy’s narrow back as she directed him.
As at the service, however, Joe was again struck by her beauty. Even now, dressed in an old flannel shirt and jeans, she was distractingly attractive-slim-hipped, athletic, and graceful, with shoulder-length, thick blond hair that always fell perfectly in place as she moved.
He cleared his throat, causing the four of them to look his way.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just wondering if I could ask Mrs. Padgett a few questions, since we missed each other the first time.”
There was an awkward silence as father and daughter exchanged glances, using body language to determine how to handle the kids.
Cal finally rose and waved young Mike over to join him. “Why don’t we go up to the sugar house and see how Billy’s doing?”
It was the right suggestion. Both children grasped their grandfather’s hands and escorted him from the room, barraging him with eager questions.
With a sad cast to her face, Linda watched them leave. Afterward, she smiled weakly at Joe and pointed to a chair at the dining table. “Would you like some coffee? It’s fresh.”