Murder on the Horizon (5 page)

No response.

Gardner's hand slammed down on a flat surface. “Look at me when I'm talking to you!” Several seconds of silence, then the sergeant said in a low voice, “I don't have time for you, you little punk. And neither do my men. They've got more important things to do than run around looking for you.”

Right
, Gracie thought
. Like it was you who was doing the running around.

“Keep this up and I will arrest you,” Gardner said. “That what you want? You wanna end up in jail? A loser like your old man? Or like his old man? Buncha losers. The lot of ya.”

“Sir!” Baxter said in a loud voice. “My father served in the United States Marines! As a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, he is worthy of your respect!”

Gracie's mouth fell open.

“My grandfather served in the United States Marines! As a veteran of the war in Vietnam, he is worthy of your respect.” A split second later, he tacked on, “Sir!”

“So you
can
talk,” Gardner said. “You listen to me, you little—”

Gracie pushed off the wall and rounded the corner into the squad room.

Cream-colored walls were lined with maps, bulletin boards, cubbyhole in-boxes. A black chalkboard filled an entire wall. A shelf serving as a desk ran along the three remaining walls. In the center of the room sat a twenty-foot-long wooden conference table and chairs. Baxter sat slumped in a chair at the near end of the table, hands deep in the pockets of his pants, angry tears tracking his face, and glaring at Sergeant Gardner.

A foot away, Gardner leaned over him, hands flat on the table.

The hair on the back of Gracie's neck bristled. Everything about the man proclaimed pugnacity. Bully. Six foot two. Red hair buzzed to nonexistent. Beefy, hairless, freckled arms. Barrel chest made even bulkier by the bulletproof vest worn beneath his putty-gray uniform shirt.

When Gracie entered the room, the sergeant looked up, then straightened and growled, “What are you doing here, Kinkaid?”

Gracie set the can of orange soda in front of Baxter, pulled out the chair next to him, and sat down. She mildly folded her hands in front of her on the table, looked up at the sergeant with eyes as wide and innocent as she could manage, and asked, “Doesn't a parent or guardian have to be present during the questioning of a minor?”

Gardner's slits-for-eyes narrowed even further. Then he leaned over so that his mouth was inches from Baxter's blond head. “I don't want to see your face in here again. Do you understand me?”

“Sir. Yes, sir!” Baxter said with such open hatred in his eyes, it frightened Gracie. If only an hour before she hadn't seen the boy completely different, congenial, excited about reading J.K. Rowling and Mark Twain, she, too, would have thought he was nothing but a sullen, bad-tempered little punk on the fast track to prison.

The sergeant picked up a manila file folder lying on the table. “Get him out of here, Kinkaid,” he said. With a final slap on the table with the file, Gardner strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

7

“B
RANDY,
you're a fine girl.” Gracie sang softly along with the radio. “What a good wife you would be.” She edged the Ranger out of the Sheriff's Office parking lot and into traffic on the main boulevard.

She glanced over at Baxter, who sat unmoving in the passenger's seat, staring out the window. Since Sergeant Gardner had left the squad room, the boy hadn't spoken a single word.

The song ended and Gracie turned the radio volume down.

She guided the Ranger around the curve in the boulevard. Through the trees on her left, Timber Lake flashed by, glittering cobalt blue.

Gracie glanced at Baxter again. “They're not all bad, you know?” she ventured.

The boy made no indication he had heard her.

“Law enforcement, I mean. Deputies. Cops. I've worked with them, mostly Sheriff's Department, quite a bit through Search and Rescue. Not that my opinion is that important, but I like, or at least get along with, the vast majority of them.
I understand that you're afraid of cops. I'm not sure why. Maybe your experiences so far haven't been very positive.”

She looked over again to see if she received any response.

The boy didn't move.

“Baxter,” she said. “Sergeant Gardner is a class A jerk. I don't like him either.” She added under her breath, “to put it mildly.” Then to Baxter again: “I'd hate for one experience to taint your view on law enforcement forever. There are some nice ones out there. They're not all the enemy. In fact, most of them aren't.”

Baxter looked at Gracie, then turned back to stare out the window.

“I mean it.”

Gracie punched the radio button away from an ad about erectile dysfunction.

“. . . multiple brush fires,” a male announcer said.

Gracie turned up the volume again.

“. . . just before four p.m. yesterday afternoon, west of the community of Shady Oak. Officials are investigating whether the fires, started within a quarter mile and hours of each other, are related in any way.”

“Shady Oak,” Gracie said aloud. Picturing the map of the area in her head, she mentally calculated that the fire was miles away on the other side of the valley's southern mountain range.

Still, she leaned over and looked out the window. There was no smoke visible above the mountain ridgeline. Not even haze. The sky was a clear, perfect cerulean blue.

She sat back in the seat again, glanced over at Baxter, then back at the road. “I need ice cream,” she said suddenly and made a U-turn in the middle of the boulevard.

That got the boy's attention. He looked over at her. “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

“We're getting ice cream.”

“Why?”

“We need a reason?”

Gracie swung the Ranger into the entrance of the Dairy Queen.

“I don't think I'm supposed to have it. Ice cream,” Baxter said.

Gracie swooped around into the drive-through line and stopped behind a banana-yellow Volkswagen Beetle. “Why not?”

A shoulder lifted. “I dunno.”

Gracie glanced over at Baxter. “Ever been to Dairy Queen?”

“No.”

“Well, then, it's about time.” At his face, she added, “You can have anything you want. It'll be our secret.”

A car horn drew her attention to a white Subaru station wagon driving past. Acacia smiled from the passenger's window, waving both hands.

Gracie tooted the truck horn and waved back. “Hi, Acacia,” she called out the open window.

Baxter craned his neck to watch the Subaru turn out of the parking lot onto the main boulevard, then he swung his head around toward Gracie. “You know those . . . ?” He used a racial slur that made Gracie sputter, “Do . . . I know those . . .
what
?”

The boy repeated the word. “I heard some new ones had moved into the valley.”

The yellow Volkswagen crept forward. Gracie lifted her foot from the brake and let the Ranger inch ahead. “Baxter, that's not a good word. You should never use it. Never call anyone that.”

“Everyone calls 'em that.”

“Everyone who?”

“My dad. My grandpop. Uncle Win. It's in
Tom Sawyer
.”

Gracie cleared her throat, buying herself a little time. Choosing her words very carefully, she said, “Well, without getting into a literary discussion about Mark Twain's use of
the word”—she took in a deep breath—“I think it's wrong to use it nowadays. Or ever. Very wrong.”

“Why?”

“Well, that's difficult to answer in something shorter than a book.” She thought for a moment, mentally sifting through a litany of ethnic epithets. Finally, she said, “It depersonalizes. Denigrates. Do you know what that means?

“No.”

“Words or labels like that make, or try to make, people less than they are, less than human.”

“Oh.” He turned to look out the window again.

“A better word to use would be
black
. Or
African American
.”

Another shrug. “Okay.”

*   *   *

THE RANGER TURNED
right onto Oak Street. Gracie leaned forward to peer at the house numbers. “Your grandma's is 1058, right?”

“That's Gran's house up there,” Baxter said, pointing several houses up the block. “The green one.”

The house was an undistinguished cracker box with gray wood showing through patches of weather-beaten forest green paint. The bowed front porch held a lone rocking chair and a bedraggled potted fern. The yard itself was bare dirt and rocks adorned with a few scrubby piñon pines.

Gracie pulled to a stop behind an old, rusted-out blue Honda Civic parked on the side of the street. When she shoved the truck into Park, Baxter made no move to open the door. Instead, he sat staring down at the empty container from the Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard Treat in his hands.

“I can take your empty cup,” Gracie offered. She took it and stuffed it into the plastic grocery sack serving as a litter bag. She peered into his face. “You okay?”

No answer.

“I'm sorry, Baxter. Sergeant Gardner shouldn't have said the things he did about your dad. That was mean and uncalled for.”

Several seconds passed, then Baxter looked up at Gracie. “But it's true.”

“Well, I don't—”

“My dad
is
a loser!” Baxter yelled. “And so's my grandpop! They're both sons of bitches!”

“Baxter.”

“That's what Gran calls 'em. That's why she doesn't live with them anymore. And why she doesn't want me to live with them anymore either. She wants me to live with her. She wants to adopt me. But they all say no.”

“They?”

“Grandpop. My dad. Mom Michelle. And—”

The front door of the house opened and a woman stepped out to the edge of the porch, shading her eyes with a hand and peering at the truck. Wearing long silver hair pulled back from her face, a denim shirt, and ankle-length patchwork peasant skirt with leather sandals, she was, Gracie guessed, in her early sixties.

“That's my gran,” Baxter said, pushing open the door. “I gotta go.”

“I'll come and say hi,” Gracie said, pushing her own door open.

“Hi, Gran,” Baxter called as he jumped down from the truck. “It's me.”

At the sound of the boy's voice, the woman was off the front porch and running across the yard, arms held wide open, a look of pure joy on her face.

She dropped to her knees in the dirt and threw her arms around the boy. “Don't ever do this to me again. I was so worried about you!”

“Sorry, Gran,” Baxter mumbled. He pulled away and gestured back toward Gracie. “This is Gracie. She's on Search and Rescue.”

The woman looked up and saw Gracie standing at the edge
of the yard. She pushed herself to her feet and crossed the dirt, both hands outstretched. “Thank you,” she said, taking Gracie's hands and shaking them both. “Thank you so, so very much.”

Gracie smiled back at her. “You're welcome, Mrs. . . . Edwards?”

“Oh, please. Call me Sharon.” Behind a hand, she whispered, “Changing it back to my maiden name.” She gestured back toward the house. “Would you like to—”

The sound of squealing tires drew everyone's eyes back down the street to a dark green pickup truck roaring toward them.

“It's my dad!” Baxter yelled. Grabbing up his backpack, he sprinted toward the house.

The pickup left the road, bumped up into the yard, and skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust, blocking Baxter's way.

The boy changed direction, heading for the trees at the side of the yard.

The driver erupted from the truck. Gracie's brain registered only snippets of information. Shaved head. White shirt. Red suspenders. Bared teeth.

“Lee!” Sharon screamed, running across the yard in an attempt to intercept the man. “No!”

Lee easily caught up with his son. “You stupid goddam little sissy girl!” he yelled. He drew back a hand to slap the boy.

“Stop!” Sharon screamed, pushing in between Lee and Baxter.

The blow meant for the boy landed on the side of the woman's head and she fell to her knees.

Gracie yelled and jumped forward.

“No!” Baxter pummeled his father with his fists.

Lee lifted the boy up by the shoulders of his jacket and shook him like a rag doll. “Your stupid stunts is gonna bust us!”

Gracie leapt right onto the man's back, threw her arms
around his neck, and hauled back with all her strength. “Let! Go!”

She made no more impression than a flea. Lee swung an elbow back, catching her in the face.

Pain. And a burst of white light.

Gracie dropped and fell back full-length onto the ground.

“I hate you!” Baxter screamed. “You're a loser! I hate you!”

“You goddam—” Lee yelled, lunging after the boy.

“Lee, stop!” Sharon screamed, pushing herself up from the ground.

Head whirling, Gracie sat up. She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. In a daze, she stared at the bloody smear, then over to where Sharon was crouched over Baxter, shielding him with her body.

“Stop protecting him!” Lee grabbed Sharon's arm and pulled her away. “Time he acted like a man!”

Gracie put a hand on the ground and tried to stand up. Her world reeled. She sat back down.

She was only vaguely aware of a second man, as big as a bear, running across the dirt.

“Get him outta here, Win!” Sharon screamed. “Or I'm callin' the police!”

From behind, Win grabbed ahold of Lee's arms and dragged him back across the yard.

Lee fought to free himself, growling like a cornered wolverine.

“Goddammit, Lee!” Win said in an incongruously high voice. “Cut it out! We gotta get. Your ma's gonna call the cops.” With one arm across Lee's chest, the huge man lifted him completely off the ground, walked back across the yard to the truck, and practically threw him into the passenger's seat, slamming the door. Then he walked around to the driver's seat and climbed inside.

The engine revved. Wheels spun. Dirt and gravel sprayed. Tires screeched on pavement. The truck sped off and disappeared around the corner.

Gracie sat in the dirt, head hanging. Blood dripped from her nose, bright red flowers in the fawn-colored dirt.

The sound of Baxter crying drew her eyes up and across the yard to where Sharon was on her knees beside the boy, arms around his body, voice soft, comforting.

A Steller's jay squawked a ruckus from a pine branch somewhere above her head.

Gracie looked back down at her blood puddling in the dirt. “What the hell just happened?”