Outfoxed (29 page)

CHAPTER 59

The sting of not being chosen to be joint-master faded as Crawford focused on Martha. Winning her back meant a great deal personally and socially.

This euphoria somewhat dissipated when Ben Sidell walked through the office door to announce that the .38 found in the ravine was registered to Crawford Howard.

“Are you accusing me of killing Fontaine Buruss?” Crawford sputtered.

Calmly, deliberately, the sheriff replied, “I am informing you that a thirty-eight registered to you, purchased last June, was the gun that killed Fontaine Buruss.”

Rising from his chair, Crawford said, “I didn't even know the gun was missing.”

“Where do you usually keep it?” Without being invited to do so, Ben sat down in a chair by the coffee table. He opened his notepad.

“In my trailer.”

“What trailer?”

“My horse trailer.”

“Why would you keep a thirty-eight in your horse trailer? I thought foxhunters didn't shoot foxes.”

Walking around his desk and leaning against it, facing the sheriff, Crawford, quickly in control of himself, replied, “In case I find a wounded animal. In case there's an accident in the field. You know, a horse breaks a leg.”

“I see. Then why was the gun in your trailer and not on your person? I'd think you'd notice its disappearance promptly.” His tone was even, his voice deep.

Embarrassed, Crawford folded arms across his chest. “I anticipated being asked to carry the gun but when I wasn't, I put it in the medicine chest in my trailer.”

“Why would you be asked to carry a gun?”

“One or two staff people usually carry a thirty-eight under their coat or on the small of their back. Just in case.”

“So you bought the gun last June—just in case.”

Crawford's voice rose. “I thought I would be asked to become joint-master. My rival, as you know, since you've questioned everyone, was Fontaine Buruss. Jane Arnold was to have made her decision at opening hunt. However, the death, the murder of Fontaine, convinced her to delay that decision until next season.”

“You're disappointed?”

“Hell, yes, I'm disappointed but not enough to remove my rival.”

“Why couldn't you both serve?”

“It would have never worked.”

“Why not?”

“Fontaine was a lightweight. A bullshitter. What he wanted to do was seduce women.”

“I was under the impression he was successful without being joint-master.”

“Sheriff, this is Virginia. We're both outsiders. It took me a while to realize that M.F.H. behind one's name ranks right up there with F.F.V. Of course, if you have both you have everything.” He caustically winked.

“Tell me again of your whereabouts during opening hunt. You were unaccounted for for twenty minutes.”

“We went over that.”

“Refresh my memory.” Ben smiled at him, a cold glint in his eye.

“My horse went lame. I turned back. When I reached the small creek, Tinker's Branch, I was afraid Czapaka would jump it and I didn't want him to do that if he was lame. I don't know why it didn't occur to me at first but I picked up his front feet and found a stone. I removed the stone, walked him a bit with me off. He was sound. So I got up and rejoined the group.”

“And no one saw you?”

“No. Not that I know of, anyway.”

“Crawford Howard, I am booking you under suspicion of the murder of Fontaine Buruss. You have the right to remain silent. . . .”

CHAPTER 60

Crawford Howard strolled out of the county jail within four hours thanks to his lawyer, the best money could buy. The bail, set at two hundred thousand dollars, was paid with Crawford waggling his finger at the bailiff saying that the money would be back in his pocket within the month.

No doubt the lawyer was thinking the same thing.

That same afternoon Dean Offendahl named every student at Lee High School who had ever bought drugs with him or done drugs with him. His father had worked out an arrangement whereby if Dean cooperated with the courts he would not be sent to a juvenile detention center.

He also had to name anyone else he knew that sold drugs. Fontaine Buruss's name was on that list.

As this was immediately before Thanksgiving break, Mr. Offendahl hoped the worst of the gossip would be dissipated by the holiday.

During this time Sister Jane set out small heaps of corn throughout the fixture that would be hunted on Thanksgiving. She also walked deep into the ravine, patiently laying corn and bits of hot dog.

CHAPTER 61

Raising children, not an occupation for the faint of heart, baffled Bobby Franklin. He worked hard, paid the bills, supplied discipline when necessary, spent time with the girls. When they were younger Bobby carted them to horse shows, grooming, cleaning tack, applying that last-minute slap on their boots with a towel when they were mounted. He listened to them rant about unfair judges, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not. He observed them bite their lips so as not to cry when they lost. They also learned to win without undue celebration, as befits a lady.

Neither kid impressed her teachers with intellectual prowess but the physical education teachers thought them both wonderful. He feared the onslaught of adolescence but they sailed along. When Cody began to falter at sixteen he didn't notice at first. She still competed in horse shows. She wasn't surly, just diffident. He thought this remoteness a phase. He didn't recognize that she was struggling until she was in her sophomore year of college. Wrecking her ancient Jeep was the first sign; a report card below the line was the second.

Betty sensed it long before he did. He wondered now if he'd done the right thing. He'd hated his father sticking his nose in his business, probing him about girls, drinking, parties, his future. He thought he was giving his girls room. Sitting before the tiled fireplace, Betty in the wing chair to his right, both daughters on the sofa before him, he had occasion to repent of his laxness. Mr. Offendahl kept the story of drugs at Lee High out of the paper but he couldn't cut out people's tongues. Neither Betty nor Bobby was surprised when their phone rang off the hook. Jennifer, horrified, slunk to her room, refusing to come out, declaring she would never go to school again, her life was ruined, et cetera. . . .

Cody, upset but levelheaded, drove over the minute her mother called this Tuesday night. Jennifer, dragged from her room, curled up on the sofa, rested against her big sister, arm around her.

“What I'm trying to understand is why neither of you talked to your mother or me. I can't change what happened. You can't. We're all going to have to live with this for the rest of our lives.”

“I'm getting out. Send me to school somewhere else,” Jennifer begged.

“No.” Betty stepped in. “The stories will catch up with you no matter where you go. You'll face the music now and put it behind you.”

“I have no life.” Jennifer's chin wobbled.

“Rada.” Cody squeezed her. Rada meant Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, a phrase the kids used when anyone was being overly dramatic.

“It's true.” Jennifer flared. “My life is ruined! You at least have Doug.”

“I have to live with my past the same as you. Stop this damned whining, Jen.”

“Girls.” Betty's voice was low, redolent with authority.

The two shut up.

Bobby spoke. “I'm here to apologize to you. I spent too much time running the business. I know that now. If I'd been paying more attention I might have noticed, I hope, anyway. But I'm here now and we're going to get this straightened out. We can't run to rehab every time something goes wrong, and I can't afford it anyway.”

“Dad, I'm paying my bills.” Cody felt guilty that she'd wasted her father's money in the past.

“For which we're grateful,” Betty replied. “But let's get to the bottom of this. Your father and I aren't perfect parents. We thought by sharing riding with you that we were together, a family together, but we missed emotional clues. You've both told us that you drank because everyone else was drinking. I'm taking the words ‘everyone else' with a grain of salt. However, we were young once. We remember the pressure to fit in, to be part of a group. I even understand the drugs. It can't be that much different from drinking. Someone says, ‘Here, this will make you feel good,' and you do it. What I can't understand is Dean Offendahl's allegations. Jennifer, you've locked your door and cried in your room for over forty-eight hours. I assume there's no liquid left in your system.” A wry smile crossed her full lips. “So let's get this out and over with. Why?”

“I won't go to bed with him anymore.”

“She's right.” Cody backed her.

“You shouldn't have gone to bed with him in the first place.” Bobby smacked the arm of his chair.

Betty shot him a dirty look. “That won't help.” She returned her gaze to Jennifer. “Let's use the defense ‘diminished judgment.' I believe that. I even understand sleeping with a boy in high school. It happens.”

“Did you?” Jennifer hoped her mother had, of course.

“No.”

“I did.” Cody smiled at Jennifer. “Not my best move.”

“I want to know what Fontaine Buruss had to do with this.” Bobby kept calm although if Fontaine were alive he'd kill him.

Cody spoke first, partly to spare Jennifer and partly to give her time to organize her thoughts. “I needed money so I offered to ride Keepsake, the new horse Fontaine was trying. He'd come around the barn when I was working the horse and hey, he was sexy.” Noting the raised eyebrows of her father, she murmured, “Dad, he was.”

“He was.” Betty corroborated her daughter's judgment.

“We did drugs. He'd give me extra money if I'd braid, a lot extra, really. He bought me new breeches, a saddle. Big stuff. I liked him but I didn't love him and after a while I realized I was just another bird. Flying in and out. I also realized I was pretty messed up and I missed Doug. Dad, I know you aren't crazy about Doug—”

Bobby cut in. “He's a fine young man. My concerns were social and I was wrong. I was wrong and I'm sorry.”

Her father's repentance touched Cody. She wasn't accustomed to Bobby admitting error. “It's okay, Dad. We'll put that behind us, too.”

“Didn't you think about Sorrel?” Betty asked.

“No. Mom, when you're doing drugs you don't think about anybody but yourself. Besides, he'd cheated on her so many times I didn't see that one more affair was going to break her heart. He made the marriage vow; I didn't.” She held out her palms upturned. “But I was wrong. I'm telling you what I thought at the time. People can rationalize anything, can't they?”

“World War Two proved that beyond a doubt.” Bobby put his fingertips together. “What happened when you left Fontaine? Or did you leave Fontaine?”

“Nothing.” Cody shrugged. “It wasn't a blowup. It's not like we were in love or even that emotional. We had fun. That's the best way to describe it. I had Jennifer drop me at the bar—” She thought a moment. “Maybe that second Saturday in October, I think. Anyway, Doug was there and I wanted him back. If he'd have me. Maybe I needed Fontaine to really love Doug. God, it's messy.” She sighed. “I needed help. I still need help. I think I'll be going to AA and NA meetings and drug recovery meetings for the rest of my life. I don't think I can do it alone and”—she wanted to make her parents feel better—“you can only do so much. It takes a drunk to understand a drunk.”

“Then how did Jennifer get into this mess with Fontaine?” Betty was more worried than she let on.

“I'd go over to the barn to help Cody.” Jennifer sat up. “He'd be around, laughing, joking. He'd let me work Gunpowder. What a neat horse. He'd let me snort a line or two.”

“But how did Dean Offendahl know this? I'm missing something.” Betty bore down.

“I'd collect money from Dean and some of the others and buy coke from Fontaine. He had good coke. I didn't take Dean over there.”

“But you told him who was selling you the drugs?” Bobby rested his chin on his fingertips.

“Bragging, in passing—how did you tell him?” Betty pressed.

“Kind of, uh—threw it off.”

“Why is he saying you slept with Fontaine?”

“Mom, he's making that up. He's trying to get people's attention off of him. He thinks this is going to hurt me.”

Clearly Dean's stories about Jennifer sleeping with Fontaine are what truly upset the young woman. It's one thing to sleep with a boy your own age but at seventeen to sleep with a man of Fontaine's years, that grossed out her classmates.

“I guess it did. You've been in your room for two days,” her mother curtly replied.

“It's pretty rad.” Cody defended Jennifer.

“Radical? I think it's close to the mark. I'm still taking the ‘diminished judgment' tack and if Jennifer was over there at Fontaine's stable, the coke was pure or good or whatever it is, she gets high, he gets high, it's not an impossible thought no matter how disgusting it is to me. And not so much that I'm disgusted with you, Jennifer, although I'm not proud. I'm disgusted with Fontaine. He took advantage of you, both of you.” Betty's eyes blazed.

“I'm over twenty-one,” Cody flatly said. “I knew what I was doing.”

“I don't think you did but I think he knew
exactly
what he was doing. Getting beautiful girls ripshit—isn't that the word, ripshit—and then taking you to bed. Goddammit, I wish I'd shot him, the sorry son of a bitch!” Bobby jumped up from his chair, pacing in front of the fireplace. “But the fact remains that he is dead. And I expect Sheriff Sidell will cruise around to us soon enough.”

“Why?” Jennifer thought this was strange.

“Because either of you could have killed him in a rage—from a sheriff's point of view. You do drugs, you leave him or maybe he leaves you. Who knows how that will fall out. You're angry on two counts: He dumped you and no more drugs.”

“That's not true!” Jennifer shouted.

“I didn't say it was.” Her father coolly studied her. “But I'm trying to see this with a sheriff's eyes. Right now neither of you looks too good.”

“Jennifer wouldn't kill anybody,” Cody passionately replied. “You know that. She made a mistake.”

“Did you know?” Betty's heart was pounding inside and she didn't know why. She was more afraid than when she'd fetched Doug from the bear.

“Not until the end.” Cody lowered her voice. “I just never thought Fontaine would do something like that.”

“You went to bed with him. Presumably you knew what kind of man he was.” Bobby's sympathy was running thin.

“I'm older than Jennifer. Going to bed with an underage girl is statutory rape, isn't it? I never thought he'd do something like that.”

“He knew he was safe.” Bobby grabbed the mantelpiece. “He knew neither one of you would ever tell because he was your candy man. He could do whatever he wanted and he did.”

“Dad, he was never ugly. He was fun.” Jennifer thought she was relieving her father's distress. “He wasn't a mean kind of guy.”

“Let's set motivation aside.” Betty returned to her original question to Cody. “What did you do when you knew, and how did you know about Jennifer and Fontaine?”

“At first I half suspected but like I said, I couldn't believe he'd do something like that. When Jennifer skipped school that one day and came to me, I asked her. She said yes.”

“And?” Betty stared at her.

“I told her to stop.”

“Did you?” Betty focused on Jennifer.

“Yeah. I went to rehab. I never got the chance to go back, I guess. I mean I didn't even talk to him until opening hunt. Hi. That was it. So yeah, I stopped.”

“Do you think Fontaine bribed your little sister with drugs to get even with you?” Bobby felt sick to his stomach.

As distressed as her father, Cody replied, “I don't know. I don't think so but then again I didn't think he'd seduce Jennifer in the first place. He could have done it to get back at me. Anything's possible.”

“Did you tell him to stop?”

Cody exhaled. “Mom, I went over to his stable to pick up my tack. I didn't want to ride for him anymore. I wanted to put everything in my place, since I was going into rehab. He drove in just as I was driving out. He rolled down the window of his Jag and I told him to stay away from Jennifer.”

“What did he do?” Bobby stepped away from the fireplace toward Cody.

“Nothing. He rolled his window back up.” She shrugged. “Nothing.”

Jennifer, crying again, asked, “Does this mean I can't go to Thanksgiving hunt?”

Bobby and Betty looked at each other and then at Jennifer.

“No.” Bobby said. “It doesn't mean that. We're better off doing the things we usually do. It's worse to hide.”

“People will laugh at me.” Jennifer sniffled.

“Get it over with.” Cody didn't relish the spectacle either. “Let them laugh and get it out of their systems. After a while they'll be bored with it.”

“I can't go back to school.”

“You can and you will. Ignore Dean Offendahl. His father was an ass to protect him. The only way you learn about life is to pay for your mistakes. If you don't pay, believe me, there's a much bigger bill waiting for you down the road. Pay up, Jennifer. Hold your head up and just keep walking.”

“That's easy for you to say, Dad,” she sniped.

“Not so easy. Crawford Howard came into the shop and called you two coke whores,” he fired right back at her. “And you aren't the only person in the world, Jennifer Franklin. I've got feelings, too. So does your mother. We're in this together; let's think together.”

“He called us that?” Cody was outraged.

“If that asshole says one word to me in the hunt field, there will be two murders. I'll commit mine right in front of God and everybody!” Bobby exploded.