Splintered Bones (3 page)

She was watching me, waiting for a reaction of shock and horror. It was all I could do not to oblige her. She was a cunning and manipulative young girl, and one filled with anger and hatred. Lee had not been exaggerating when she said someone needed to keep an eye on Kip. My stomach in knots, I walked past her without comment.

T
he barn smelled
of leather and cedar, reminding me of my childhood riding lessons. I had just begun to jump when my folks were killed in an automobile accident.

Kip led me into the biggest of the barns. A central aisle split two rows of stalls. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, we were greeted by soft nickers and neighs. Glancing at Kip, I saw that she was unmoved. She walked past the stalls without ever once looking at any of the magnificent animals.

Down the aisle a half dozen yards, an older man was mucking out an empty stall. He gave me a long, intense look.

"It's okay, Roscoe, I'm going to be staying with her for a day or two. She's a friend of Mother's. Through her efforts, Mother and all the horses will be saved." Kip didn't bother to hide her contempt for me.

"Miss Kip, don't act thataway," Roscoe said, leaning on his rake. "I know you're hurtin', but so is Miss Lee."

"At least
Father's
out of his misery." Kip stalked away, leaving me to follow or not.

"This is a sad place," Roscoe said to me. "Miss Kip's not bad, she's just messed up. Got plenty of cause to be, if you ask me."

I did want to ask him a few questions, but Kip called me down the aisle. "The records are in there," she said, pointing. "The file cabinet. Alphabetical order." She picked up a manure fork and headed toward a stall. "I have chores to do."

"Kip, I think it would be okay if you let it slide today. Maybe you should go and put some of your things together."

Her laughter was loud and brittle. "Not around here. Nothing interferes with chores and duties and responsibilities. Water, muck, turn out, ride, transport, hay, rake, bush hog, paint." She nearly spat each word, but a slant of sunlight coming through a stall window caught the glint of a tear in her eye. "My question is this. Where did Mother find the time to bash his brains out? There's always so much work to be done." She turned and walked past me.

The prospect of Kip was so daunting, I wondered if I could come up with Lee's bond myself. Maybe Tinkie would chip in some cash. I sighed and went into the office to begin my search.

Lee's medical file was two inches thick and right where she said it would be. I leafed through it. Over the last three years, there were at least fifty trips to the
Sunflower
County
emergency room or to private physicians in the region. Flipping through the dates, I saw that Kemper's attacks against Lee had grown increasingly frequent. And vicious. I was still troubled by the lack of physical marks on Lee's back. The beating she'd described as preceding Kemper's death would have been severe enough to leave some kind of injury, and there was solid medical evidence that he'd hurt her in the past. Why hadn't she filed charges against him long ago?

The medical records would prove Kemper's history as an abuser, but I was still troubled by the fact that Lee had lied about Kemper hitting her the night he was murdered. Why was she lying? More important, was Coleman aware of her lies?

I was so caught up in my reading that I didn't hear anyone enter the office. I sensed him before I saw him; there was that vague tingle that comes when someone is staring at you. I turned around. A man was leaning against the wall, one booted foot crossed over the other. His arms were crossed, too. It was obvious he was waiting me out.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"A good question. Why don't you answer it?" He righted himself without seeming to move a muscle. Arms still crossed, he walked up to me. He had light eyes that took me in, head to toe.

"You're not one of the ladies who come to ride. You're not a relative, and you're not media. So, who are you?"

"Sarah Booth Delaney," I said. "I'm a friend of Lee's." I closed the file and pulled it into my lap. "So, who are you?" He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a cotton shirt streaked with dirt. His movements blended grace and confidence, yet he wasn't what I might have expected at Swift Level.

"Bradford Lynch, but most folks call me Bud. I'm the trainer here at Swift Level."

I had never seen a man hold himself so quiet and yet so poised for action. "So you're the live-on-the-premises trainer?" I asked.

His smile was slow. "What are you, some kind of plainclothes detective?" He once again took in my jeans and camp shirt. "I remember when female cops used to look like linebackers."

"You're very good at answering a question with a question. Where's your place?"

He pointed to a staircase across the aisle. "Loft apartment."

"Were you here last night?" I asked.

"Are you viewing me as the murderer or just an accomplice? Is this the time I should confess how much I wanted him dead?"

His flip attitude was getting under my skin. "You don't have to answer my questions, but Sheriff Peters will get answers from you. It might be better if I heard them first." I looked up to see Kip standing in the doorway. The expression on her face was impossible to read. She was staring at Bud Lynch's back.

As if he sensed her, he turned around. "Kip, are you okay?"

She stifled a sob and turned and ran.

Bud started after her, and I was right behind him.

Kip pounded through the barn aisle, with Bud gaining on her. "Kip!" He called her name. "Hold up a minute."

"Go to hell!" she shouted over her shoulder.

He was about to reach out and catch her when I saw the wooden rake handle slide out of a stall door. Bud's long legs tangled with the wooden handle and he went down hard.

Rolling, he came up on his feet. For a second he stood in the barn aisle, panting, then he turned to Roscoe. "Old man--" His voice was filled with anger, then he glanced back at me. Slowly he dusted off the front of his jeans.

"Leave her alone," Roscoe said. "She's been through enough, and you and your tramp've been little help."

Bud started to say something else, but instead he turned and walked back to me. "It's been a pleasure, but I've got to get some horses worked. We've got shows coming up, important shows. With Lee in jail and Kip gone, I'll have to work all the horses."

"Where--" I started. "How did you know--"

"I overheard Kip tell Roscoe." He called back down the barn aisle to the old man. "Roscoe, the shavings are ready to be picked up. You need to go get them. Now!"

Before he could walk away, I put a hand on his forearm. "Where were you last night?" I fell into step beside him as he walked back to the office.

He faced me before answering. "I wasn't alone. All night."

"I'm sure you have witnesses to corroborate that?"

"One very satisfied witness."

"Cute," I replied, about to lose my patience with him. "I'll need that name."

He paced the room; then his gaze finally caught mine and held firm. "Are you really a friend of Lee's?"

I nodded. "I've known her since we were six."

With that answer, his entire mocking demeanor changed. "Kemper was a cruel bastard. He should have suffered a lot more. There were better ways to handle it."

I filed that away for further thought. "When did you hear of his death?"

"Lee told me this morning. She'd already called the sheriff." He raised his eyebrows. "Messy."

His eyes were gray, with tiny flecks of golden brown around the irises. Holding my gaze wasn't a problem for him. "Can you say in court that you saw Kemper abuse Lee?" I asked.

He hesitated. "I never saw him hit her. The bastard was too smart for that. Lee would never admit that he was the cause of her injuries. At least not to me." His jaw tightened. "She knew I'd fix him."

I filed that away. "Did you see or hear anything last night that might bear on this case?" I pressed.

He shook his head.

I remembered the old man cleaning the stall. "What about Roscoe? Do you think he might have witnessed something?"

"No, I don't think so," Bud said. "Roscoe's old, and he can't half remember what he's supposed to do. You can ask him, though, when he gets back from the sawmill. Should be about an hour."

I didn't have time to wait. "I'll be in touch."

He tipped an imaginary hat in a gesture that was more
Texas
than
Virginia
. I finally placed his twang.

"How long have you been here, Bud?"

"Going on a year. Hard to imagine a cowhand training jumpers, but I seem to have a knack for it. Truth is, horses just like to do what I ask."

Somehow I didn't think it was only horses that were eager to do his bidding.

3

Kip dropped her duffel bag on the floor of the bedroom
that was to be hers. She touched the eyelet canopy that Aunt LouLane had loved. "Sort of prissy."

"You'll learn to live with it." I wanted to ask her about Bud Lynch, but later would be better.

"Why don't you fix this place up more?" she asked, going to the window and looking out. "I'll bet it was really beautiful once."

It was the first seminice thing I'd heard pass her lips. "It was, before my folks were killed." She turned to see if I was trying to set her up. "Car accident. I was just about your age." I hadn't realized it until that moment. "Lately, money has been kind of short."

"Money." She turned to look back out the window. "It doesn't matter how much there is, it's never enough, and it's the only thing in life that matters." Turning around abruptly, she gave me an innocent look. "Did you know you can hire a hit man for four hundred dollars, cash?"

"Really," I said, forcing my voice to show no surprise. I was wise to her tactics, but I was also concerned. Violence was a recurring theme in everything she said. "Where?"

She waved a hand. "It isn't hard to find one, if you know where to look."

"And you would know?" I said with just a pinch of skepticism.

"I'm an excellent researcher," she said, completely unruffled. "Four hundred dollars. Of course, it's a local hit. But then, the target is just as dead, isn't he? Or she."

She refused to look at me as she talked and I wondered if she was deliberately trying to scare me. She walked around the bedroom, dragging her fingers along the eyelet bedspread. "Kids my age are killing people all the time now." She suddenly threw herself backward on the bed. "I'd like to be alone," she said. "I need to think."

I closed the door and went to my room on the other side of the house. Kip would bear watching. Careful watching. Lee had not exaggerated that need.

Kip had brought her boom box and a crate full of CDs. I wasn't familiar with a single artist or song, and I was anticipating the worst. As I closed my door, I found Jitty standing behind it like a naughty child caught eavesdropping.

"How long?" she demanded.

"Until Lee gets out of jail."

"That could be months!"

"I'm aware of that." Stepping over some clothes on the floor, I flung myself onto my bed. I heard this strange thumping and leaned down to find my red tic hound, Sweetie Pie, stuck under the bed. The only thing able to move was her tail, which was wagging furiously. She was wedged in. "How do you do that?" I leaned over further, grabbed her back legs, and pulled her out.

"What you gone do with a teenager in the house for months? You can't stand your own company for more than two hours in a row." She gave Sweetie Pie a disdainful eye. The only animal Jitty wanted in the house was a man.

"I don't know." I also didn't want to argue with her. Kip wasn't exactly my idea of fun, but she was here, and here she'd stay until Lee could get her.

"She talks dangerous," Jitty said. "Is she?"

"I don't know." Kip worried me. She didn't make threats, exactly. She'd dreamed of burning the horses and had researched finding a hit man. While not exactly what I would consider normal teen behavior, it was a far cry from actual violence. She'd also just lost her father, and her mother was in jail for murder. "I remember when my folks were killed. I was so angry. Everyone said it was an accident. They said it was a tragedy. I only knew that the
two
people I loved most in the world had been taken from me. Aunt LouLane ..." I felt a rush of gratitude for my old-maid aunt. "She tried hard and she put up with a lot. I guess in some ways I was a bit like Kip."

"She walked the floor many a night worried about you," Jitty agreed.

"There's probably room for a little acting out in Kip's life right now."

"All the same, I'd keep a close eye on her," Jitty said. She pointed to the bedroom door. "Maybe you should lock it."

I shook my head. "She troubles me, but she's just a kid."

"Right," Jitty said. "Does the name Menendez mean anything to you?"

"Stop it," I whispered to her. She was spooking me.