“No one in the family was interested?” Joe asked as she continued to avoid eye contact.
“You want milk or sugar?”
“No.” Gunther didn’t move to take the coffee, letting his question float in the air.
“We talked about it,” she finally conceded, sitting at the table in front of her mug, which she didn’t touch.
He sat opposite her. “What was the gist of that?”
Marie shrugged. “You’re the detective. Look around.”
“It was never discussed further?”
“Nope.”
“About when did all this happen?”
She picked up her mug, but didn’t drink from it. “Maybe half a year ago. Before the snow. More’n half a year ago, I suppose. I don’t remember exactly.”
“And you never saw Gregory again?”
“No.”
“Did Linda?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Who else was around when he came by?”
Marie rolled her eyes. “Who cares? Why do you always do this? Since the day you showed up, it’s been one damn fool question after another. How the hell did you get your job?”
“John Gregory hired the man who killed your son.”
She stared at him, her mouth open, her eyes wide, as if he’d punched her in the stomach, which he supposed he had, in a fashion.
“What?” she finally managed in a whisper.
“That’s why I’m asking these questions.”
Her eyes welled up. “You bastard.”
He stood and leaned forward, propping his hands on the table, looming over her. “How else does anyone get through to you, Marie? We’ve got God knows how many people working on this, trying to find out exactly what you want us to find out, and all you dish out is abuse. Answer the question-please: Who else was around when Gregory came by?”
She impatiently wiped at one eye with the back of her hand. “We all were.” Her voice was flat but under control. She had gotten the message. “It was late in the day. Bobby was back from school, but second milking hadn’t started yet. That man drove up in his car, and I went to find out what he wanted. I thought maybe he’d gotten lost. Once I figured what was what, I handed him to Linda. She took him in for some coffee, like you do for folks, and then she showed him out-maybe a half hour later.”
“No one else talked to him?”
“We all did, a little. After he came back out, Bobby was waiting. He’d seen the car and spread the word, so all the men ended up standing around and yammering about it like twelve-year-olds. I let them be. Waste of time.”
Gunther visualized the scene, having seen its facsimile enough times. “How would you describe Gregory’s attitude?”
“Like I said, full of himself. I hate it when men get that way.”
Joe sat back down on the edge of his seat, leaning forward to better make his point. “Marie, now you know why I’m asking. Was there anything at all that stood out that afternoon?”
She put her fingertips against her temples, her elbows on the table. “I’m not being difficult, I swear to you. But there was nothing to it.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. When she spoke next, half her face was still covered. “Why did he do it, Mr. Gunther? Why did he kill my boy?”
It was the first time he’d ever heard her use his name. He reached out and took one of her wrists. She let him lower her hand until he could squeeze its fingers. “We’ll find that out, Marie. We’re close already. You said Bobby was the one who got everybody interested in the car. Did you pick up on anything going on between Gregory and him, good or bad?”
“Nothing,” she repeated.
He sat back, took a sip of his coffee, studied the children’s art decorating the wall for a moment. “Okay. Different questions, then. You’re going to have to bear with me, though, or I’ll leave right now and spare us both.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Personal. The ones you hate.”
She drew her eyebrows down into a scowl. “Why?”
“Put it together,” he told her. “A complete stranger in a fancy car comes by to list your farm with his firm. You turn him down, but there’s nothing unpleasant about it. In fact, everyone comes out to admire his car before he disappears into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again. That’s your story, right?”
“That’s what happened.”
“Half a year later, he hires a professional arsonist to burn your barn down with everything in it, shortly before he gets murdered himself. You see my point? There’s got to be a connection to something or someone inside this family.”
She nodded without comment.
“All right. Try not to take offense. These are questions only. They don’t necessarily mean anything, but they may suggest some ugly ideas.”
“Get on with it.” A hint of her old edge had returned.
“I asked you a long time ago about how things were in the family. I’ve got a better idea now that I’ve done some digging, especially about Bobby, but how’re relations between Linda and Jeff?”
He hesitated about telling her that he didn’t want another rant against her son-in-law, and so was pleasantly surprised when her response was quiet and measured. “Fine, as far as I know.”
“Linda’s never come to you complaining about how maybe she doesn’t get enough attention from him?”
Marie actually smiled slightly. “If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be a farmer’s wife. That’s one reason women have begun getting out in the fields more, to be with their men. It’s not just feminism and all that political talk. It’s loneliness, too.”
“Is she particularly lonely?”
Marie picked up her coffee and held it in her hands, letting the steam drift by her face. “She’s always been a dreamer, talking about far-off places, wishing she could go there. She used to spend hours reading National Geographic as a child, studying the maps they included sometimes. ‘I’m going to travel, Mama,’ she used to tell me. It didn’t last. She grew out of it, like all kids. And when we did travel, going to Boston or Springfield to shop or see the museums, she didn’t like it much. I think that’s what ended it for her, seeing the reality. We got lost once in Boston and ended up in a bad neighborhood, and she was amazed at how people lived. That time, she even made a fuss about coming back home-couldn’t get here fast enough.”
She paused to take a sip. “I don’t like Jeff Padgett. You know that. But she does, and she always did, since the day Cal took him in like some alley cat.”
“And he’s good to her?”
“He’s never given me any reason to think otherwise. I’m probably the only person on the face of the earth who doesn’t like him.”
Joe paused, not sure he wanted to pursue that. She saved him the choice.
“So why’s that?” she asked in his stead. “Because I’m a bitter, disappointed old woman who can’t stand the idea of people being happy.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but stopped. In fact, she might have been right. He didn’t know her well enough to challenge her.
“Is Linda,” he asked instead, “as enthusiastic about the farm as her husband? When she and I spoke, I thought I picked up on a couple of small things that indicated otherwise.”
Marie shook her head. “Farming’s a funny life. No money, terrible hours, no security. It’s dirty, smelly, and dangerous. Some of the dumbest beasts on earth get to rule your life and kick you out of bed and drive you to ruin. You get stepped on, pushed around, and slapped in the face with shitty tails every day. And that’s not even talkin’ about the regulations and agencies and inspectors and politics. You’ve got the organics and the traditionalists and the nonorganics and GMOs and hybrids and antibiotics and more paperwork than they got trees to make paper. And yet every farmer I know-everyone born to it, at least-understands that this life is why we’re on earth.”
She paused to take a breath before adding, “When you get away from all that crap, and you’re just out there, in a field or working the animals, you feel like the people who did this a thousand years ago.”