Sketch a Falling Star (8 page)

“This may sound strange to you, but I’m not looking to put his killer in prison. The truth of the matter is that Brian would have gone on hurting and ruining innocent people if he’d lived.”

“If I agree to take on the case, I need you to understand there’s a good chance I won’t succeed in finding what you’re looking for.”

“In other words,” Clarissa summed up, “you doubt you’ll be able to find his killer, since you don’t believe he was murdered.”

Rory nodded. “That being said, I’ll set my bias aside and make every effort to track down his killer if in fact there was one.”

“Fair enough. How much do you require as a retainer to get started?”

Rory spent a minute explaining her fees, and Clarissa insisted on writing her a check on the spot.

“I’ll need you to tell me everything you can about your son’s relationships with the people who were in the canyon with him. Sometimes what seems trivial winds up being pivotal in solving a case.”

Clarissa shook her head. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help. My son didn’t stay in regular contact with me.” She spoke dispassionately, as if she’d sealed the painful emotions in a deep vault a long time ago. “And when I did hear from him, I had to take whatever he told me with the proverbial grain of salt. I don’t think he actually understood the difference between lying and telling the truth.” She paused for a moment as if to gather the strength to continue.

“Something was missing in Brian,” she went on stoically. “I realized it when he was only five. Chances are it was there before then, but I simply refused to see it. No mother wants to accept—” she interrupted herself as two other members of the troupe entered the room. “I guess we’ll have to leave it there for now,” she whispered, popping a demure smile in place as Brett Campbell and Jessica Krueger walked up to them.

If Brett had sustained any injuries in the flood, they were hidden beneath his clothing, but Jessica had a cast on her left forearm, along with a sling to hold it in a neutral position against her body.

Since other reinforcements might not arrive for hours, if at all, Rory took that opportunity to excuse herself and say she’d be in touch. She found Helene sitting on a stone bench just outside the funeral home enjoying a chocolate-covered ice-cream bar from one of the trucks that trolled the streets that time of year. During the half-hour ride home, she let her aunt hold up both ends of the conversation while she thought about Brian Carpenter. Some stones were just better left unturned, and she suspected that what lay beneath his was dark and ugly. Maybe she should have refused to take the case. But it was too late now; her curiosity had already set up shop.

Chapter 8

“I
t’s good to have you and the mutt home.” Zeke grinned, the slash of dimples around his mouth like fissures carved into the planes of his face by time and adversity. He was standing in the backyard with Rory watching Hobo retrieve the tennis ball she’d thrown for him.

Minutes earlier, the marshal had appeared fresh from rehab, causing Rory to literally jump with the surprise of finding him right in front of her. They had to think of a better way for him to announce his arrival when there were no electric lights for him to flicker. On one occasion, he’d tried saying her name, but she’d been just as startled by the unexpected sound of his voice.

Hobo, on the other hand, wasn’t at all taken aback to see his former nemesis pop out of the ether. After Zeke had helped save his life, Hobo had wholeheartedly accepted him into the pack without bias against his lack of flesh and bone. In his worldview, there were no gray areas. You were either good or bad, part of the pack or not.

As soon as Zeke had materialized, he’d requested an update on the events in Page, which Rory provided in great detail, including the fact that Clarissa had hired her and finishing with the strange news that Preston’s name was an alias.

“This case just gets more and more interestin’,” he’d said, almost licking his chops like Hobo at dinner time hoping for a windfall of steak.

Rory had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the image that came to mind. The marshal didn’t have much tolerance for being the butt of jokes.

Hobo dropped the ball at Zeke’s feet with a bark, clearly requesting that he throw it. Chuckling, the marshal focused his energy, scooped up the ball and sent it burning across the yard, causing Rory to wonder if there was any rule against ghosts pitching in the major leagues. She watched Hobo joyfully bound after the ball. Six months earlier, she would have taken all bets against the two “men” in her life ever getting along. Now the three of them were like a family, albeit an unorthodox one. A family complete with arguments and slamming doors. Of course, she was pretty much the only one who slammed them. Zeke generally just disappeared in a huff, and Hobo had to rely on barking his displeasure, since he lacked an opposable thumb.

“Clarissa claims her son had a lot of enemies,” Rory said. “She’s absolutely convinced one of them used the flood to conceal his murder.”

“So I’m not the only one who thinks fate might have had a helpin’ hand that day.”

“Which doesn’t automatically make you right,” Rory pointed out. “Clarissa could be crazy as a loon.”

“You’ve seen evidence to that effect?”

“You mean during my one and only conversation with her? Not really, but we didn’t talk for more than a few minutes and not under the best of circumstances. Her son’s casket was only a few feet away.”

When Hobo returned with the ball, he dropped it in front of Rory as if he were making an effort to be fair and alternate between them. As she bent to pick it up, she heard the house phone ring. She’d forgotten to take the handset out with her and had to run inside to answer it. She knew Zeke would be all right without her as long as it wasn’t for more than five or six minutes. After that he’d be snapped back into the house as though he were tethered to a temperamental bungee cord. If that happened she could depend on his grousing about it for days. In spite of how hard he’d tried to push that particular envelope, he hadn’t met with any real success. His ability to travel or stay outside the house without Rory seemed to be an immutable boundary, and Rory prayed it would stay that way.

She made it back outside just under the wire to find Zeke talking to Eloise Bowman. For a quiet neighborhood, things could sure change in the blink of an eye. Warning Zeke about the latest addition to their neighborhood had been the next topic on Rory’s agenda, but Eloise had beaten her to it. From what Rory could tell as she flew out the kitchen door, so far things were under control. They might have been any two neighbors in any American town who’d stopped to chat on a lovely spring day. But, of course, they weren’t. One of them was a ghost, and the other a stroke victim with extrasensory abilities.

Eloise looked somewhat more presentable than she had the day Rory first met her. The tufts of white hair had been combed flat against her head as if someone had tried to tame them into a style but eventually gave up and settled for making them neat. She was wearing shapeless, green polyester pants with a purple tee shirt tucked into the elastic waistband, like a toddler who’d insisted on dressing herself and didn’t know how to coordinate colors. This time her feet weren’t bare but clad in sneakers. Given her proclivity for escaping from the Bowman house, it seemed to Rory that another type of footwear might make better sense.

As she came up beside Eloise she heard her saying, “You need to learn how to forgive yourself, Ezekiel.” Her words were solemn, nothing little-girl-like in her tone. This was the Eloise who’d warned Rory about the impending trouble on her trip. Bad timing squared.

Zeke’s jaw was clenched so hard that Rory imagined she could hear the sound of teeth grinding on teeth. Aware of it or not, Eloise had shot an arrow straight into the darkest corner of his soul—a place Rory had been tiptoeing around for months. She sent him a silent plea not to vanish into thin air out of anger. The last thing Eloise needed was more fodder for her addled brain.

“Eloise, what a nice surprise,” Rory said brightly, hoping to diffuse the situation. “Does your family know you’ve gone out for a walk?”

“I like to walk,” Eloise replied, back to her happy-go-lucky self. She picked up the ball Hobo had dropped at her feet when he’d come to sniff out her intentions. “Can I throw it for him?”

“I’m sure he’d like that. Did you tell anyone you were leaving?” she tried again.

Eloise clapped her hands when Hobo caught the ball and brought it triumphantly back to her.

“I had a dog when I was eight,” she said. “His name was Arnold. No, wait; that was the cat’s name.” Her forehead rippled with the effort of rummaging around for the right memory.

Rory took her by the hand. “Why don’t I walk you home? Hobo has to go in and take a nap now anyway.”

“Are you going inside too, Marshal?” Eloise asked as Rory started to lead her away.

“Everyone’s going inside,
right
?” Rory glared at him when he didn’t immediately respond.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be goin’ inside,” he grumbled, “seein’ as how I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

“W
hat were you thinking?” Rory demanded when she returned from escorting Eloise home. “You should have vanished the second you saw her heading this way. She’s not exactly quick on her feet, and I’m sure that at her age her eyesight isn’t great either.”

Zeke was sitting on the third riser of the staircase. She could hear Hobo in the kitchen noisily lapping water from his bowl. Zeke must have “pushed” the door open to let him in.

“I was thinkin’ I’d be neighborly and practice my conversation skills,” Zeke said hotly, as if to let Rory know that he wasn’t the defendant here. “But that woman knew my name before I had a chance to introduce myself. You should’ve cleared it with me before you started advertisin’ my presence.”

Rory swallowed her not-so-righteous indignation. “I didn’t tell anyone about you,” she said. “I met her the day I left for Arizona, and she already knew who you were. If neither of us told her, then she must have some kind of psychic ability.”

“Ain’t that just dandy,” he muttered.

Rory repeated what Doug Bowman had said about his mother’s stroke, along with the fact that no one actually believed the strange stories she’d been coming up with ever since then.

“So for now at least I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

“Be that as it may, I refuse to have any more to do with her,” Zeke announced with finality. He rose and came down the steps to Rory. “I don’t want you around her either.”

Rory was about to back away as she usually did when they were in tight quarters. She’d never come in contact with Zeke, and she had no desire to find out what such an ectoplasmic experience might be like. Some things were better left to the imagination. But this time she stopped herself and stood her ground. She didn’t want Zeke to interpret her withdrawing as a sign of backing down and obeying. He didn’t get to decide who she could or couldn’t see. It was a good thing she’d never been conscripted into the military. She would have made one lousy soldier.

Even if she’d wanted to comply with his order, it would have been difficult to do. They lived on the same block, and in spite of the Bowmans’ efforts to keep their matriarch under lock and key, she seemed to be channeling Houdini.

“You were with her for less than five minutes, Marshal. Why do you find her so threatening?” Rory asked, knocking the fight back into his court.

“Threatening? I’ll have you know, Aurora, that there ain’t a soul on this earth who’s ever scared me. I just don’t cotton to folks who can read my mind. It’s unnatural.”

“You know I don’t like being called ‘Aurora’,” she reminded him. It had been awhile since he’d used her full given name, and it was clear he was doing it now just to irritate her.

“I know,” he said, a smile cracking his stony expression. “I’m fairly sure that’s why I find it so charmin’.”

“Really?” She shrugged. “Well, that’s fine, because I’ve decided I don’t care anymore.” She made the statement out of pure pique, but as she said the words, she realized they were actually true. “You have my blessing to call me ‘Aurora’ whenever you like.” She watched the smile desert him, leaving bewilderment in its wake. She could even feel a subtle shift in the balance of power that was always seesawing between them. When she’d told him she hated the name, she’d basically handed him a weapon with which to needle her. Disarming him was so simple—why on earth hadn’t she thought of it months ago?

“Now,” she went on, since he still seemed at a loss for words, “regardless of whether or not I have your permission to see my aunt Helene, I have an appointment with her in a few minutes, and I fully intend to keep it.”

1878

The New Mexico Territory

M
arshal Ezekiel Drummond made his way to the Albuquerque blacksmith’s shop on legs that threatened to give out at any moment. When he’d been brought in to Dr. Walter Abbott more dead than alive, his horse had been taken to the smithy, where it was stabled to await the marshal’s eventual recovery or demise. Although still weak from the gunshot that had nearly killed him, Drummond had insisted on leaving his sickbed within hours of regaining consciousness. To his way of thinking, he had no choice. Too many days had already passed, and once again, the unthinkable had happened. While he’d lain senseless in bed, another young girl had been abducted. He knew without a doubt that John Trask was responsible. Only one question remained—was she still alive, or had Trask already killed her?