Champagne for Buzzards (13 page)

I told myself it was just my imagination but that didn't stop the fear.

“I hate this,” I whispered to the night. “I won't have this.” Anger washed over me, a brief reprieve from fear. “Not again.” Self-doubt kicked in. Had I really heard something? Easy to say but I didn't reach out and turn on the light to banish the threatening shadows. There was no safety in the light but there was no security in the dark. The sweat drying along my body brought chills.

There it was again. Now I knew what it was, the sound of a footfall on bare wood. It wasn't my imagination. Someone was out there in the hall.

Shivering in icy panic I slid to the edge of the bed and watched the doorknob turn.

“Dad?” My quivering voice begged to be reassured. In the open door I could only make out a man's shadow, backlit by a light from the hall.

“Yeah,” Tully acknowledged. “Just checking, go to sleep, sweet pea,” the old familiar endearment. “Goodnight.”

“You too, Dad,” I forced myself to say. “Sleep well.” A soft laugh, “Old men don't sleep. We only nap.” The door closed and I heard him move on.

Hungry for the security I can never find, vulnerable and shaking with fear, I drew the damp sheet around me and huddled down. There was no refuge in the dark, even with my father standing watch. There would be no more sleep for me, no way to turn off the adrenaline and turn on happy thoughts, just as there is no way to ever make myself feel truly safe again.

In the morning I was tired and cranky from too little sleep and angry at the whole world because my nightmares had returned. I was in the barn with Marley, leading the horses out to the paddock, when Sheriff Hozen arrived.

“Is this the horse that bites?” he asked, staying well away from Joey.

Boomer had told the sheriff about our meeting. What did that mean? My trouble antennae went up, seeking out bad news. “Joey only bites people who deserve it.”

Sheriff Hozen laughed and reached out to rub Joey's nose. Joey peeled back his lips and snapped. Sheriff Hozen jerked his hand away.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?” Joey danced sideways in a semicircle and pulled away from me. I took hold of his halter.

“Lovey called. Howie hasn't showed up anywhere since he left to come here yesterday. We don't usually get involved until an adult has been gone forty-eight hours. He hasn't been out of touch that long. A man has a right to a little fun without the sheriff looking for him.”

“The man's been gone for twenty-four hours, which sounds pretty serious to me, and you're laughing. I think his daughter has a right to be worried.”

He kept on grinning, “A man wouldn't necessarily tell his daughter all his little secrets.”

“One man has already been murdered on your watch and now another man is missing. Maybe it's time you did something besides make jokes. Goodbye, Sheriff.” I turned away from him before I did something crazy, like bite him myself.

“Hey, wait a minute,” the sheriff shouted. “I need some information here.”

When I stopped to reply, Joey danced around to face me, trying to toss his head. I held on tightly and talked to the sheriff over my shoulder. “I have no idea where Howard Sweet is, but I can only hope he is alive and well and not in the need of help because if he's waiting on you…well, let's just hope he's all right.” My annoyance at the sheriff communicated itself to Joey and he settled down. It would only be temporary.

Marley walked out of the barn leading a little mare who was about to drop her first foal in two weeks. The sheriff swung his arm wide and shouted, “Now you wait here…” His arm struck the little mare. She squealed and danced while Marley cursed at the sheriff. The Baptists hadn't been as successful at reforming Marley as I'd thought.

“Sheriff Hozen, if you have anything further to say to me, please go wait on the porch until we're finished here.” If I'd been cranky before the sheriff arrived I was nearly homicidal now.

“Knock it off,” I snarled at Joey, who'd decided to see if I was paying attention. Joey recognized a creature nastier than himself and walked along beside me like a show horse.

The sheriff didn't choose to wait. He tore out of the yard with tires churning out gravel.

I was surprised by an idea. Howie had said that everyone was in the Gater Hole on Friday night. Did that include Sheriff Red Hozen? Maybe the reason Red Hozen didn't seem to be hunting Lucan's murderer was because he already knew who it was. Maybe he was the killer.

And what about Howie's disappearance? Did he know where Howie was? Did the man in charge of the investigation already know everything there was to know about Lucan's death, either because he killed Lucan or he knew who did? Was that what was happening here?

Something was going on. There was no sense of urgency. Red Hozen had a different agenda. In truth, it was some unknown man out in the brush who seemed to worry him. Why?

Someone knew what had happened. But who? Perhaps the man in the woods knew the answer to all my questions.

At breakfast I told Ziggy and Tully about the plans for the day. “Marley and I are going to measure up the living room, God knows why, but Martha Stewart here thinks it's important.”

“I'll help you do that measuring if you want,” Uncle Ziggy told Marley. “Sherri,” he rocked uneasily in his chair, giving me an apologetic look before he stumbled on. “Well, I just think it would go better with you and me, Marley.”

“That's putting it nicely,” Marley added.

“You afraid of the sight of blood, Uncle Ziggy?” I asked.

He gave a huff of laughter. “Just no need to find out, is there?”

I was so happy to be off the hook for that chore, I was already leaving the kitchen. Marley yelled after me. “What he's saying in a nice way is you're useless.”

“I'm getting groceries,” I said and beat it out of the house before they could come up with another job.

As I backed Marley's blue Neon out of the drive shed Tully came around the side of the house and waved. “Marley needs more paint,” he explained as he opened the door.

Tully edged by the rack of
National Enquirers
. “I'm going to the Good Spirits and get myself a little good spirit,” he told me.

“You don't want to help pay for these groceries first, seeing how you're going to be eating most of them?”

“Nope. It's just great to have a daughter who's as successful as you, bringing in the big money in her fancy restaurant.” He pulled a couple of candy bars from the display and threw them in the cart. “Does my heart proud.”

“Not to mention your wallet.” Tully was walking. “Freeloader,” I called after him. Didn't even slow him down.

I was pushing the cart out the door of the grocery store when a black pickup, raised high on oversized tires, pulled into the parking lot. It was coming fast with no concern for pedestrians. I held back, waiting for it to flash by but instead it stopped in front of me. The whole truck throbbed with rap music. The dark tinted window slid down and there was Boomer Breslau. He started to say something but I spun the cart to the right, in the direction he came from, and where he couldn't follow. Whatever trash he was disgorging was lost in the noise of the music. He roared off behind me. I didn't look around.

Leaning over to put a twelve pack into the Neon's trunk, I felt a hand clamp onto my ass. I straightened fast and shot away from the hand, swinging around to face Boomer Breslau. He laughed and reached inside the trunk of the Neon, pulled a can of beer out of its plastic circle and popped the ring. Leaning on the trunk opening with his right hand, he tipped up the can, drinking deeply. Then he wiped the back of his mouth with the hand holding the beer can and said, “Here we are again.” He was smiling like he'd just won double jeopardy, maybe thinking I should be real glad to see him.

“You sure are pretty and feisty. I like feisty women. Makes it all the sweeter when they give it up.” Another swig of beer. “And you will give it up. I can do some mighty interesting things.” He wagged his tongue at me.

The problem with men like Boomer is they suffer from selective deafness. You have to get their attention if you want to talk to them.

I slammed the trunk lid shut on his hand, leaning hard on the lid. His eyes widened in shock and pain and he bellowed like a bull. I had his attention now.

I leaned a little harder. “Listen up, little boy. I don't care if you can stick your head up your ass and whistle Dixie — you touch me again and I'll show you a few things that will teach you to keep your hands and the rest of your anatomy to yourself…those pieces you have left.”

He was melting to his knees in pain, his eyes tearing up, so he wasn't really up to adding anything to the conversation.

“Now, why don't you run along home before you really start to piss me off?” I stepped back, putting the car between us to be out of range of a flying fist, while he scrambled to lift the trunk and pull out his hand.

There was blood, lots of it. He held his right hand with his left, staring at it as if he wasn't sure all the fingers were still there. His disbelief turned to rage and it was touch and go if he was going to come after me or give into the pain and run for help. “You stupid bitch,” he howled.

I wasn't too worried about him beating the crap out of me. Over his shoulder I saw Tully pulling the neck of a whiskey bottle out of a plastic bag. If Boomer moved towards me he was going to have a real bad headache to go with his very sore hand.

“You no good bitch.”

Tully waited. I waited. It was up to Boomer how it ended. Boomer snarled “bitch” once more and sloped off at a jog with his hand clasped tenderly to his chest.

While we watched him go Tully asked, “He goin' be a problem?”

“Him? Naw.”

I went back to loading the groceries into the Neon. My hands were shaking and my insides were crumbling. It wasn't fear of Boomer that was giving me the shakes as much as the shock of my own violence, the hate and anger and rage roiling up inside of me.

Tending bar, there's lots of flirting, innuendo and give and take…only natural, and I always enjoy the banter, but these days I turn real ugly at the least sign of a man stepping over the line. In my head that line is pretty clear, but I was becoming more and more quick off the mark to point it out to anyone who wasn't as aware of it as I was.

I'd been sexually assaulted as a young girl, and survived being stalked and kidnapped by a psychopath as an adult, so now sexually aggressive men surely brought out the worst in me. I was turning into a raving maniac, responding with more violence than the original transgression.

One day I was going to go too far. Or one day I was going to push back at the wrong guy. I knew it as sure as I knew night followed day. It was a great big black dog slinking towards me. The question yet to be answered was, was Boomer Breslau the one? Was he the mad dog who would go for my throat?

Even though I'd told Tully that Boomer wasn't going to be a problem, we both knew I was lying. Sooner or later Boomer was coming after me, coming to put me in my place. He wasn't going to back off and he wasn't going to let it lie.

I needed to start taking precautions right that moment and not wait until it happened.

I looked around real good before pulling out of the lot, kept an eye on the rearview as I turned left and drove along Main Street. Tully was watching the side mirror, but trying not to show it.

“You want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

“I was leaning over putting the groceries in the trunk when he grabbed my ass.”

“Thata do it.”

“I swear to God if I'd had a gun, I would have used it.”

“Time we got you a new one.”

I tried to laugh. “Best not. We both know how that's worked out in the past and Boomer's probably in too much pain to come for his revenge.”

“That won't last. He'll come another day.”

“By then I'll be gone.”

But Tully was right. There was only one way back to the ranch, one way in and one way out, a road that I was going to travel every time I left Riverwood, a road that Boomer would be traveling too. He'd be watching.

Boomer and I were going to meet up sooner or later, and more likely sooner. When we did, when we met again, it would just depend how crazy he was, or maybe it would depend on how crazy I was, how it came out.

Either way it wasn't over yet — not nearly.

Marley didn't give me any time to fret about Boomer. She had a plan. By four o'clock all the painting was done and the red velvet drapes were up. We were all as pleased as punch with ourselves.

The phone rang. Marley was closest to it so she picked it up but I reached for it when I saw her eyes grow round and her mouth open in shock.

When I put the receiver to my ear, filth spewed out at me. I hit End and set the phone down.

“What?” Tully asked.

“Boomer,” I replied.

“He was saying—” Marley began. “Well…” she couldn't finish. She looked at me in alarm, her freckles standing out like a rash on her pale face.

“He was describing in lurid detail what he was going to do to me,” I finished for Marley. “That boy has quite an imagination.”

Marley covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, “Oh Sherri, what are we going to do?”

“He's all mouth,” I told her. “Forget him.” But we both knew we weren't going to forget that call anytime soon. “Come on, let's get rid of all the paint junk and then I'll make us a great dinner.”

While Marley and I cleared up, Tully and Uncle Ziggy held down the porch…at least I thought they were, but when I went out to water the flowers, the two of them had disappeared on me.

I was sitting on the railing and still thinking about watering the flowers, when my mobile rang. Was Boomer going to become a real pain in the ass? I was unlikely to get any help from the sheriff, and getting a new number was going to be another hassle. How bad was it going to be? “Shit,” I said and picked the phone up off the wicker table. But it was Clay. “So what exciting thing are you doing?” he asked. I walked down the steps and sank down onto the last one. “Well, at the moment I'm watching a whole mob of ants devour a palmetto bug.”

“Now that's exciting,” Clay said.

“Damn right. The action never stops out here. I can see why you love it.”

“Did you ride Joey today?”

I had no intention of going out in the back of beyond and letting Joey dump me in Boomer's or the swampman's lap. The thought made me shiver. The guys in the woods could stay in the woods and I'd stay in the house.

“Nope and it's all Marley's fault. She's had us all getting ready for the furniture coming tomorrow.”

“What's to do? I thought Laura had redecorated, thought everything was done except for bringing in the furniture. She charged me enough. What's left?”

“Measuring and stuff.” I turned the conversation to Howard Sweet. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

“Not a clue,” Clay said and then added, “maybe Howie knows something about Lucan's death.”

“Perhaps no one will ever be held accountable for Lucan's death. Years from now it will be one of those pieces about unsolved crimes they put in the Sunday supplement on a slow weekend. In the Gator Hole the locals will talk about the murder of one man and the disappearance of another to entertain newcomers and give that tired town an aura of mystery.”

“Well, you're downright depressing, aren't you?”

“Yeah. I don't think much is happening. Sherriff Hozen has his own agenda and he doesn't think Howie's disappearance has anything to do with the murder.”

“Maybe you should go back into Jacaranda until this is settled, until they arrest someone for Lucan's murder.”

“What? And miss all the action what with the bugs and things, which is, by the way, the only action I'm seeing these days.”

This led to a more interesting conversation. We were just getting to the best bits when Tully and Ziggy drove in.

“I have to go, Clay. Looks like Tully's been in a little accident. The driver's side fender of Tully's truck is crumpled. I'm surprised the front wheels are still working. I'll call you back.”

The passenger door screeched open on the rusted truck and Uncle Ziggy lumbered out. He was looking real worried and holding onto the door of the truck while keeping an eye on me as if he might want to bolt right back in. Tully followed Uncle Ziggy out the passenger door. Tully pulled the door out of Ziggy's hand and slammed it shut. He headed for the porch, not a care in the world. There was a large red welt on his forehead with a small cut at the center.

While he was sauntering past me I asked, “Little problem?” “Not hardly,” Tully said, patting my shoulder. He climbed the steps and went on into the house.

Uncle Ziggy came warily forward, staring at me like I was a rabid dog.

“You might as well tell me now and save yourself some bother,” I advised him. “What's he done?”

“Ask him.”

“I'd rather ask you.”

“Oh, it ain't fair,” he wailed. “You always pick on me, it just ain't fair, you should ask Tully, he's your pa, don't always be asking me things, and then Tully, he get's all upset with me, then no one's happy with me, why you always picking on me?” I had to smile. “Just tell me and get it over with.”

“Well,” he took off his peaked cap and scrubbed his forehead with it. “Just tell me.”

“Don't suppose you'll give me any peace 'til I do.”

“That's a given.”

“Well, Tully wanted to speak to that young man you had a little problem with, so's we just waited for him at the end of their lane, didn't have to wait too long either, and when he came out, well, old Tully, he just puts the young bastard in the ditch and then he tells him, he says, ‘You have trouble with one of us, boy, you have trouble with all of us. You may be able to take my daughter, wouldn't bet on it though, and you may even be able to take me, but that leaves this big bugger here, he's gonna finish you. He's gonna wipe you out.'” Uncle Ziggy settled the cap back on his head. “Then Tully just kind of slammed the little bastard's head back, the way you do, you know, and said, ‘So just remember, what you do to one of us, you do to all of us and if one of us is left standing, that's the one that's going to kill you. You got to take us all out or leave us all alone,' that's all Old Tully had to say, only told the sorry piece of shit the truth, maybe he could take you two, but not me, no way, not ever, now I suppose you goin' to be mad with both Tully and me.” He gave the cap another tug, waiting for the ax to fall.

“So how did Boomer's hand look?”

“Like he broke some fingers, all wrapped up and everything, won't be writing no bad checks anytime soon.”

“You think there's any chance of getting Tully to go to the hospital with me?”

“T'ain't hardly likely.” And it wasn't.