Candy Apple Red (10 page)

He was giving me way too much credit. I was an utter fraud. But I didn’t want to derail him at this juncture. If he wanted to reminisce I was all for it. “Bobby was an incredible athlete,” I prompted lightly.

“Yes! Yes, he was.” Cotton’s expression lightened. “He could beat anybody. He was a good kid. You know, he was tagged by his senior class as most likely to succeed? He loved Laura and the kids. There was no reason for it.”

“No.”

“Someone else did those killings. Someone sick.”

“It would take a sick person to kill children, babies,” I agreed cautiously. I didn’t want him to think I was accusing Bobby.

But Cotton was on his own track. “Whoever did it wants Bobby to take the blame. That’s all. That’s why it looks like Bobby took off.”

“So, you think this person attacked Bobby, too? That’s why he never came back?” I was trying to figure out if Cotton really believed this theory or if he was just trying it out on me.

“Yeah.” He nodded several times. “Bobby didn’t hurt them. He couldn’t have. Not my son.”

“Cotton…” We both turned to find Paula Shepherd hovering nearby. Her smile was about as real as my belief in Cotton’s theory. Cotton frowned at her. Clearly he was having a bit of trouble focusing and I suspected he wanted to keep spinning his yarn, hoping someone would buy it. I was more than willing to listen. This was what Tess was paying me for, after all. Spying, listening, and then reporting back.

“When you have a moment? I’d like to run some thoughts by you?”

He flapped a hand at her. “Not today, Paula.”

She studiously avoided looking at me. She was on a mission, as unrelenting as a heat-seeking missile. “But it’s summer. This is the time to market. The most value is right now. Pretty as this is in winter, it’s not the same.”

“Not…now…” There was a definite chill in Cotton’s voice.

Paula’s crimson lips tightened, but she inclined her head and scurried back to a conference with her buddy Brad. They both kept popping up their heads and looking over at us. “You’re selling the island?” I asked.

“Oh, who the hell knows.”

He’d never taken his hand from my elbow and the continued contact began to nettle me. I’m not good with touchy-feely stuff. It makes me feel sticky and uncomfortable no matter what the reason. And even through his pain, I felt something from Cotton, some kind of sexual message. Maybe I was making it up, but I didn’t think so. My mind flitted suddenly to what it would mean to have Murphy’s hand against my skin and my heart lurched.

As if reading my thoughts, Cotton’s fingers squeezed me. “Seen Murphy yet?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Something still there?”

“Nope.” I wondered if I would kill any chance of learning more if I suddenly jerked my arm free.

Cotton moved in closer. His breath heated my cheek.
Good God,
I thought in alarm,
is he going to kiss me?

“It means something, that you like Bobby. It means something to me.”

“It does?” I pulled back as much as humanly possible without shifting the position of my feet.

“A lot of people just blamed him, y’know? The cops…just about everyone. I’m not even sure what Heather thinks. But Bobby was a good kid.”

Say it enough times and you might just believe it.
I pretended to see someone I knew. Waving gently at this mirage, I eased myself away from Cotton’s grip.

“That Murphy?” Cotton twisted around.

“No, someone else.” Heather was standing by, her gaze lasered on me. I pantomimed that I needed to catch up with my unseen friend and headed down one of the pathways away from both Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds.

My rather abrupt strides ended me near the detached garage which was obscured by a circular mound cut into the stone driveway. The mound was thick with several large pine trees and some sorry-looking rhododendrons. Even those like me, who know next to nothing about gardening, could have pointed out the soil wouldn’t be worth shit beneath the pines. The rhodies weren’t suddenly going to get healthier.

The gabled and paned windowed garage jutted at an angle to the rest of the house. If the massive house were to suddenly disappear, the garage would look like a cottage with six vehicle bays. I wondered if there were a guest room inside, but as I cruised near the building I heard distinct canine growling. The hairs on my forearms lifted as well as on the back of my neck. Whatever the building’s purpose, it currently housed the Dobermans. I hoped to hell they wore steel collars and were chained to iron girders. I glanced toward the crowd and viewed a lot of bare, exposed limbs. These were watchdogs. Imagining the scene through their eyes, I saw a feast to be had.

I wasn’t alone by the garage. An older man wearing a pair of pants that rode halfway up his chest and whose weather-beaten skin was brick red nodded to me then cocked his head where the low rumble of warning came from behind the garage bays. “Sound mean, don’t they?” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to test them.”

He looked me up and down. He didn’t seem like he belonged at this high-falutin’ Lake Chinook event, but then neither, probably, did I.

There was an untidy pile of slate to one side of the garage next to an upturned rowboat. He pushed a toe at the slate pieces, frowning. “I had a mean dog once,” he revealed. “His name was Beezlebub. We called him Beez. He bit the postman clean through the back of his leg. Had to put him down. He was no good.”

“Hmmm…” I glanced down at the ground, wondering if my destiny was to bounce from one unwanted tete-a-tete to another.

“I’m Grant Wemberly,” he said, holding out a heavily veined hand. His grip was surprisingly strong. “Guess you’d call me the caretaker around here. Or groundskeeper. I just do whatever needs to be done.” He eyed me harshly from beneath a pair of bushy gray-white brows. He could have been anywhere from sixty to eighty-five, maybe older. “You buy a ticket to come see the place?”

I nodded.

“Well, you don’t look like the others. Guess you came to see where he lived.”

“Who?” I asked automatically.

“Cotton’s son.”

“Oh…well…” I didn’t really know how to respond. Maybe I should have dressed up more. Grant Wemberly seemed to think we were compadres or something.

“When someone’s no good, you put ’em down. That’s what they oughtta do with that Reynolds boy when they find him, but you know he’ll go to trial with some hoity-toity lawyer and plead insanity and gum up the whole procedure.” He grimaced and ran a hand through thinning, but still healthy-looking grayish hair. “Years’ll go by. His daddy’ll spend all his money trying to save him, but he’s unsaveable. Tomcats kill kittens. It’s a law of nature, but it don’t mean they’re likable. They’re mean. Shriveled up little hearts. They’re killers.”

I stood by in disbelief. I was pretty sure I could count him out as a representative for PETA. “What about the Dobermans?”

“Oh, them’s watchdogs. Been trained to run off trespassers.” He shook his head. “Kids know they’re here, but they just keep comin’. Running around the island. Damn fools.”

“Like the Coma Kid?” I put in. He grated on me and I found myself wanting to argue with him.

Grant snorted. “If he was here, the dogs sure didn’t chase him off. Betty was at the vet overnight. Surgery on her leg. Benny’s no good without her. Told the police the same when they asked.”

“The police were here?”

He said darkly, “Easy to blame someone else for your own kid’s stupidity, but whatever happened to that boy, he wasn’t chased by the dogs. Family wanted to sue is my bet.”

Grant was just loads of fun. I glanced over at Cotton. Heather’s arm was linked tightly through his while he chatted up a member of the catering staff. I wondered if I should feel jealous that he’d moved from me to someone else so quickly. I could see Heather’s tension. The Creamsicle net rose was quivering.

Grant Wemberly followed my gaze. “What do you think about what he done?”

“Cotton? Oh. Bobby. It’s beyond reprehensible. Unthinkable.”

“Against nature,” he agreed with a slow nod. “Men kill men. Sometimes they kill women or women kill men. But men and women don’t kill their own kids. That’s for tomcats and the psychos.”

The Dobermans broke into more deep-chested growls which caught me up short. I glanced behind me and saw Craig Cuddahy coming around the backside of a huge lavender hydrangea bush that nearly touched the roof of the garage on the west end. He stopped short at the sound, looking alarmed.

Grant said nothing, but I assured Craig, “They’re inside the building.”

“It sounds like a death pack of ’em,” he said, sidling up to me as if for protection.

“Just two,” Grant grumbled as he ambled off. He stayed on the periphery of the grounds, not the party, a member of the team that made up Estate Reynolds.

Cuddahy had dipped into the champagne far more than I had. His face was red, his tie disheveled and he spoke very clearly, enunciating each word carefully as only an accomplished drunk can manage. I thought about when I’d first seen him at Foster’s. He’d seemed so different, so in control of himself and delighted in finding this little corner of the world. But tonight he’d crossed into another level of alcohol consumption. Hey, I’ve been there. It’s not a complete crime. I just sensed he might be doing it on a much more regular basis than was healthy.

It took all my wiles to rid myself of him. I tried to walk away but he dogged me, whining all the way. The hours had passed and the trio of musicians were packing their instruments into cases. The waiters were spending more time clearing up leftover dishes than offering more champagne and goodies.

The rain suddenly fell in a curtain, sending the surprised guests scurrying for cover. I used the time to escape from Cuddahy, slipping inside the house and zigzagging through several rooms. My antennae caught the sound of Murphy’s voice saying his good-byes. I turned in time to see him shaking hands with Cotton. From my point of view I couldn’t tell how they felt about each other. For one blinding moment Murphy looked my way. He lifted a hand in good-bye. I did the same. After he was gone I realized my mouth was spit dry and I felt like I’d been put through the wringer.

Cuddahy managed to catch up with Paula Shepherd’s partner, Brad, who also seemed to be trying to ease himself away. Cuddahy had barely noticed the silent encounter, so intent was he on his own path. “This isn’t the only property in Lake Chinook. It’s the only one that matters,” Cuddahy practically yelled at him.

Lorraine Bluebell’s white-streaked hair came into my line of vision. Brad answered as he was backing away, “If you divided it up, you could put four, five houses on it easily. Maybe more.”

“Are you kidding?” Lorraine’s back stiffened. “There aren’t many pieces like this. I’d never break it up.”

Cuddahy regarded her pityingly. “You don’t really know about development.”

“I know about arrested development,” she leveled at him, and I silently cheered her as I slipped further inside the house. I was tiptoeing like a thief for some reason. Catching myself, I walked with more purpose. Small clusters of people, in twos and threes, were roaming the rooms and hallways. I kept to myself and was almost home free when I ran straight into Heather.

“Hey,” she said breathlessly. “The damn rain showed up early!”

“But it was a nice party,” I said. “Really a beautiful setting.”

She looked me up and down. I’d sensed earlier that she was bugged with the attention Cotton had given me, but my sincere words melted her. “Thank you. I’m so glad you came.”

She made me feel like a heel.

“Maybe I’ll see you around…like at Foster’s?” she said.

“Maybe,” I agreed. Female bonding…who knew?

The rain began to taper off and the crowd surged toward the door. I snuck away, wanting a last look around the house. I’m not sure why. But if Tess wanted information on Cotton, I figured I might as well push this until the end.

I found myself in Cotton’s study. The bookshelves were natural cherry and the massive desk was painted black and then antiqued to make it look much older than it undoubtedly was. There was an equally massive black leather surface protector covering its surface. No errant papers littered the area. A phone in a dull pewter color sat beside a framed photo. I looked, expecting exactly what I saw: a photo of Bobby. There were no pictures of Laura or the children. Bobby was staring at the camera. He had Cotton’s dark brown eyes and his hair was a thick mahogany, possibly Cotton’s original color. Or maybe Tess’s. Who knew how long she’d been a blonde. There were lines beside Bobby’s mouth. He looked like a guy who might have a temper.

But maybe I was just making Bobby the villain. He could laugh, too, I remembered. I’d seen him throw back his head and holler with amusement. It took me a moment to pick through the rubble of my brain but I finally came up with the source of his amusement. Murphy had stepped in dog shit and the smelly stuff had collected in all the little crevices of his waffled hiking boot. Murphy had been good-natured about it, but I knew Bobby’s laughter bugged him. The smell of dog feces was in the car with us on the way home and it took Murphy a long, long while over the utility sink to rid himself of the stinky glop.

Bobby hadn’t been the greatest guy even before the murder of his family, despite his father’s recollections. I shook my head. I just didn’t get him. Sure, he wasn’t great, but heinous? I wouldn’t have believed it once. Now, I accepted it as fact.