The Crush (40 page)

Following a short silence, a voice came to him from the other side of the wall. "Threadgill?"

It wasn't Lozada. Lozada had refined his voice into a low-pitched purr. This one had the nasal intonation of a Texas native.

"Identify yourself."

The man stepped from behind the wall into the opening.

Wick's hands tensed around the pistol and kept it aimed at head level. Toby Robbins raised his hands. "Whoa, cowboy."

His easygoing manner didn't faze Wick.

Cops had died when fooled by that. "What the hell are you doing sneaking around in the dark?"

"I could ask you the same thing, couldn't I? But since you're the one with the firearm, I'll be pleased to answer first. If you'll direct that thing somewhere else."

"Not until I hear why you're in Rennie's barn."

"I was checking on things."

"You gotta do better than that."

"Heard one of her horses got a nasty scratch from a bobcat."

"Who told you?"

"Game warden. I came to check it out, see if I ought to call the vet."

"At this time of night?"

Toby Robbins glanced toward the eastern horizon where by now the sky was blushing pink.

"It's practically lunchtime."

Wick glanced toward the gate. It was closed and locked, no vehicle parked beyond it. "How'd you get here?"

"Walked."

He looked down at the man's feet. He was wearing athletic shoes rather than cowboy boots.

Robbins tapped the left side of his chest.

"The cardiologist recommends at least three miles a day. That's about a round trip between our place and Rennie's. I like to get the miles in before it gets too hot."

Reluctantly Wick lowered the pistol and stuffed it into the waistband of his jeans. Or would have if they'd been buttoned. Hurriedly he did up his fly with one hand. "You know, Robbins, I ought to go ahead and shoot you just for being stupid. Why didn't you call first? Or turn on a light, for godsake?"

"The light switch is in the tack closet.

It was locked. Rennie keeps an extra key above the door. I was looking for it when I heard you. Didn't know it was you. Thought it might be another bobcat."

Wick eyed the older man distrustfully. He didn't think he was lying, he just wasn't telling the whole truth. "Rennie told me she put antiseptic on the scratch and thought it would heal up in a day or two. If she had thought the horse needed a vet, she would have called one."

"Doesn't hurt to get a second opinion."

Robbins turned and reentered the barn.

Despite his bare feet, Wick followed. As long as he stayed in the center aisle he would be okay. As stables went, Rennie's was as clean as an operating room.

Robbins went straight to the tack closet and ran his hand along the top of the doorjamb. He came away with a key. He unlocked the closet door, reached inside, and, an instant later, the overhead lights came on.

Paying no attention to Wick, he entered a stall, speaking softly to the mare as he moved in behind her. He located the scratch on the horse's rear leg, then hunkered down to examine it more closely.

When he'd finished, he left the stall, moving around Wick as though he were an inanimate object. He returned to the closet, switched off the lights, locked the closet door, and replaced the key where he'd found it.

Wick fell into step behind him. When they got outside, he said, "That scratched mare wasn't your only reason for coming over here this morning, was it?"

The older man stopped and turned. He gave Wick a look that could've scoured off paint, then he moved to the corral fence and leaned against it.

For the longest time he kept his back to Wick and focused on the sunrise. Eventually he fished a small pouch of tobacco and rolling papers from the pocket of his plaid shirt that had white pearl snaps in lieu of buttons.

He spoke to Wick over his wide shoulder.

"Smoke?"

"Sure."

Chapter 27

Robbins shook tobacco from the cloth pouch onto the strip of paper and carefully passed it to Wick, who tapped the tobacco into a straight line down the center of the paper, moistened the edge of it with his tongue, then tightly rolled it into a cigarette.

Robbins watched him with interest. Wick figured that by knowing how to roll his own he had elevated the cattleman's opinion of him. In the older man's eyes he had adequately performed a rite of passage.

Wick silently thanked the high school friend who'd taught him the skill by rolling joints-until Joe found out. After the beating he'd taken from Joe, he had decided that smoking anything was bad for his health.

Robbins rolled his own smoke. He struck a match and lit Wick's first, then his own. Their eyes met above the glare of the match. "This another of your cardiologist's recommendations?"

Robbins inhaled deeply. "Don't tell my wife."

It was damn strong tobacco. It stung Wick's lips, tongue, and throat, but he smoked it anyway, pretending to be a pro at it. "You weren't surprised to see me here."

"The game warden told me Rennie had company. I figured it was you."

"Why?"

Robbins shrugged and concentrated on his smoking.

"You came here this morning to check on Rennie, didn't you? See if she was okay."

"Something like that."

"Why would you think I'd harm her?"

The older man looked off into the distance for a moment before his unnerving gaze resettled on Wick. "You might not mean to."

Wick still resented the man's implication.

"Rennie's a grown woman. She doesn't need a guardian. She can take care of herself."

"She's fragile."

Wick laughed, which caused him to choke on the strong smoke. To hell with this. He ground out the cigarette against a fence post. "Fragile isn't a word I would free-associate with Rennie Newton."

"Goes to show how ignorant you are then, doesn't it?"

"Look, Robbins, you don't know me from shit.

You don't know anything about me. So don't go making snap judgments about me, okay? Not that I give a flying--"

"I knew her daddy."

The curt interruption silenced Wick.

Robbins was giving him a look that said Shut up and listen. He backed down.

Robbins said, "Before I inherited this place from my folks, I lived in Dalton and did some work for T. Dan. He was a mean cuss."

"That seems to be the general consensus."

"He could be a charmer. He had a smile that didn't stop. Came on to you like he was your best friend. A glad-hander and backslapper. But make no mistake, he was always looking out for number one."

"We've all known people like that."

Robbins shook his head. "Not like T. Dan.

He was in a class by himself." He took a last greedy drag on his cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and crushed it out with the toe of his shoe.

The cross-trainers looked incongruous with his cowboy attire, with him. John Wayne in Nikes.

He turned to face the corral and propped his forearms on the top rail of the fence. Wick, hoping to have some light shed on Rennie's secrets, moved to stand beside him and assumed a similar pose. Robbins didn't acknowledge him except to continue talking.

"Rennie was a happy little kid, which is a wonder. T. Dan being her daddy and all."

"What about her mother?"

"Mrs. Newton was a nice lady. She did a lot of charity work, was active in the church. Hosted a big party every Christmas and did the house up real pretty. A Santa Claus handing out candy to the kids. Stuff like that. She kept T. Dan's house running smooth, but she knew her place. She didn't interfere with his life."

Wick got the picture. "But you said Rennie was happy."

Robbins gave one of his rare smiles. "Me and Corinne always felt a little sorry for her.

She tried so hard to please everybody. Skinny as a rail. Towheaded. Eyes bigger than the rest of her face."

They still are, Wick thought.

"Smart as a whip. Polite and knew her manners. Mrs. Newton had seen to that. And she could ride like a pro before she got to grade school." Robbins paused for several moments before saying, "The hell of it was, she thought her daddy hung the moon. She wanted so bad for him to pay attention to her. Everything she did, she did to win T. Dan's notice and approval."

He clasped his hands together and in the faint morning light studied the callused, rough skin on the knuckles of his thumbs. Wick saw that one of his thumbnails was completely dark from a recent bruise. He would likely lose the nail.

"Everybody in Dalton knew T. Dan messed around. It wasn't even a secret from Mrs. Newton. I figure she made her peace with his womanizing early in the marriage.

She bore it with dignity, you might say.

Ignored the gossip as best she could.

Put up a good front.

"But Rennie was just a kid. She didn't understand the way it was supposed to be between a loving man and wife. She didn't know any different, because her parents' marriage had always been the way it was. They were pleasant to one another. Rennie wasn't old enough to realize that the intimacy was missing."

He glanced over at Wick, and Wick knew it was to make sure he was still paying attention. He was getting to the crux of the story.

"Rennie was about twelve, I think. A rough time for a girl, if my wife is any authority on the subject, and she seems to be. Anyhow, Rennie surprised T. Dan in his office one afternoon. Only she was the one who got the surprise."

"There was a woman with him."

"Under him, on the sofa in his office.

Rennie's piano teacher." He paused and stared straight into the new sun. "That was the end of the happy childhood. Rennie wasn't a kid anymore."

Crystal, the waitress in Dalton, had told Wick that Rennie went hog wild about the time her female parts took form. But her emerging sexuality hadn't been the cause of her personality change at puberty. It had been the discovery of her father's adultery.

The rebellion made sense. Probably Mrs. Newton had been having mother-daughter talks with Rennie about sex and morality.

Rennie had caught her father violating the principles her mother was trying to instill. The experience would have been disillusioning, especially since she worshiped her dad.

It was also a catalytic event. Her promiscuity as a teen had been a fitting punishment for her philandering father and for her mother who turned a blind eye to it. The innocent girl had discovered her father in flagrante delicto with her piano teacher, and, as a consequence, became the town slut.

As though following Wick's train of thought, Robbins said, "These days they call it "acting out." So Corinne tells me. I think she heard the term on TV. Whatever they call it, Rennie changed overnight. Became a holy terror. Grades went to the cellar. For the next several years she was out of control.

Nothing in the way of punishment seemed to take.

She defied teachers, anyone with the least bit of authority. T. Dan and Mrs. Newton revoked privileges, but it didn't do any good."

"Her father gave her a red Mustang convertible," Wick said. "I call that sending a child mixed signals."

"She probably blackmailed him into getting her that automobile. Rennie knew she had the upper hand and she exercised it. T. Dan lost his parental authority when she saw him humping her piano teacher. She was on a fast track to hell."

"Until she was sixteen."

Robbins turned his head and looked at him.

"You know about Collier?"

"Some. I know Rennie fatally shot him. She was never charged with a crime. It was never even investigated as a crime. The whole thing was swept under the rug."

"T. Dan." Robbins said it as if the name alone summarized the explanation.

"I can't say my heart bleeds for Raymond Collier," Wick said. "What kind of scumbag has an affair with a sixteen-year-old girl who obviously needed good parenting, strict discipline, and counseling?"

"Don't be too quick to judge him. If Rennie set her cap for a man, she was hard to resist."

Wick's eyes sharpened on Robbins, who shook his head wryly. "No, not me. I was a Dutch uncle to her. I wanted to scold her, knock some sense into her, not bed her. But it was another story with Raymond Collier."

"What was he like?"

"I didn't know him well, but most folks seemed to like him okay. Had a good head for business. That's why T. Dan was partnering with him on a big commercial real estate deal. But he had a weakness."

"Women."

"Not women. Only one. Rennie," the older man said grimly. "He was obsessed with her. Like that James Mason movie."

"Lolita."

"Right. I guess she knew how Collier felt about her. Sensed it, you know, the way women can. She--"

"Why didn't I get the memo for this meeting?"