TheCart Before the Corpse (35 page)

Since we’d duded Heinzie up with red ribbons and rosettes in his mane, we had to do something to dude up Don Qui. He was already annoyed about the stitches in his ear, but we managed to wind red ribbons through his halter and attach a single rosette to his tail without getting stomped, kicked, or butted, then attached a lunge line to his halter to keep him with us, although I didn’t think he would leave Heinzie for an earthquake.

The Mossy Creek children loved all over him. I held my breath, but he accepted the attention with dignity.

As the rides were about to start, I hugged Peggy. “You’ll do fine.”

“No, I won’t,” she said. “Get up on that box and take the reins. Dick’s here to keep you out of trouble.”

After I settled down, I even let Geoff sit on the box beside me while Peggy and Dick drank iced latte in the square. They had taken to one another as soon as they met. “How’d you get out to the farm so fast?” I asked Geoff.

“We were already on our way.” He told me about his interview with Darnell.

“She seemed so nice at the funeral home,” I said.

“Long practice. When we saw that tax notice, we realized she had even more motive than Tom did for getting that carriage back. We figured she might be headed to your place to try to get some money out of you. We were nearly too late.”

“You got her out of her car before it burned,” I said.

“Too close. Next time, leave the detecting to the professionals.”

“What did
I
do? I didn’t figure out she did it until I saw that bruise on her foot and realized she’d been to the hill recently.”

“What would you have done if Don Qui hadn’t taken her out?”

“Tried to reach my gun to shoot her.”

I clucked to Heinzie and moved him around the corner of the square. Don Qui pattered along beside us.

“You’re serious.”

“Damn straight I’m serious. I wasn’t about to leave Peggy alone with her.”

We were now our last tour. Amos and Ida knew how to relax. The kids had been a handful.

I scratched at the stitches that closed the cut on my scalp. My bandaged hands in their heavy driving gloves were starting to burn. I pulled up beside Dick and Peggy to let Amos and Ida out. I’d already acquired appointments with several new students.

“Can you do Memorial Day?” Ida asked as she climbed down.

“The town’ll pay you, of course,” Amos said and dug Ida in the ribs.

She glared at him. “But not much.”

“We’ll see,” I said. Of course we’d do it. I wasn’t certain when
I
had become
we
, but from here on, Peggy was part of the equation.

Peggy and Dick took Heinzie, Don Qui, and the equipage back to the farm, fed and buttoned up for the night, then picked up cheeseburgers and fries for dinner.

Geoff and Amos came by for coffee.

“Imogene just confessed,” Geoff said. “Against her lawyer’s advice. Actually, she seems proud. Said that’ll teach us to ignore old ladies.” He grinned. “She gave me the finger and said, ‘tell
that
to AARP.’”

“Yeah,” Amos said. “She says she’d rather spend her remaining years in prison than in some nursing home where her son and his wife can visit her every Sunday. In prison she can keep them off her visitor’s list.”

“She’s never been in a Georgia women’s prison,” Geoff said.

“Probably won’t ever see the inside of one either,” Amos said. “Her lawyer’s already talking senile dementia, Alzheimer’s, mini-strokes. Diminished capacity. She may wind up in a nursing home after all.”

“Diminished my Aunt Fanny,” Peggy said. “Why did she bury Jacob?”

“She figured the longer the body was buried before it was discovered, the harder it would be to figure the time of death. She must have thought the manure pile would speed up the process,” Amos said.

“She was wrong,” Geoff said. “She ought to watch more CSI.”

“So what happens to Ken and the governor?” Peggy asked.

“If that water report ever sees the light of day, Ken and the governor will swear they weren’t trying to suppress the report. Oh, no.” Amos rolled his eyes. “They merely wanted to clean up their side of the site before they released it. No way did anyone threaten Hiram or offer him a bribe.“

“And the state will go along with this?” Peggy asked.

“You bet.”

“So the governor slides by again, and so does that snake Ken.”

“Not so,” Geoff said. “Either the governor and his cronies will have to clean up the water table and remove the polluted soil, which will cost a bundle. The one thing the Gov hates more than Mossy Creek is losing money on one of his real estate deals.”

“Wait until all the Gov’s buddies take their fancy riding crops to Ken’s backside,” Peggy said with a laugh.

The stitches on my forehead pulled. Since I’d driven Heinzie down that hill without gloves, my blistered fingers felt as though they’d been burned with a blowtorch. I had a big lump on my rear end from a massive penicillin shot and a feverish lump on my shoulder from a tetanus shot.

But I was alive. So were Peggy and Heinzie and Don Qui. “I would kill for a massive shot of morphine,” I said. “The Tylenol definitely does not cut it.”

“What you need is rest,” Peggy said. “We’ll get out of here and leave you alone.”

“I’m sticking around for a couple of days,” Dick said. “You’re going to need help.” He smiled at Peggy. A glowing smile.

Ooooo-kay, was something developing there? Since his wife died, Dick had squired rich, multi-tucked Palm Beach widows around, but nobody serious.

“I’ll send you one of my guys until you hire somebody,” Dick said. “I called Fergus Williams. He’s bringing down his two year olds for you to train
here
. He knows you can’t come up to his place after the show.”

I had forgotten I had a show to manage in less than a week!

“I can handle things while you’re gone,” Peggy said. “If you trust me.”

“I’d trust Benedict Arnold if he said he’d look after the horses while I’m away,” I said. I could feel my eyes drooping.

I saw Peggy give Amos a look. He glanced at Geoff and said, “I’m going out to Ida’s. You gonna come by and finish the reports before you leave tomorrow?”

I jerked awake. Of course he’d leave tomorrow. Geoff lived in Atlanta and worked all over the state. Still, I felt bereft. I thought we were making a connection. Apparently, he didn’t agree. He followed the others. At the door he said, “You plan to stay here, run the place?”

“For now.”

Suddenly, I was back in the full time responsibility business with a vengeance. Instead of running a house, tending to a husband and a child, I was tending to forty acres, and if not a mule, at least a donkey. And I felt good.

I didn’t realize until I came to Mossy Creek how totally alone I had been for as long as I could remember. I didn’t dare love anyone enough so they could hurt me. That included Allie, Vic, and my mother. I had tons of acquaintances. Friends? Not so much. Heck, I didn’t even own a cat!

Geoff strode across to me. “Atlanta’s not that far,” he said. “Try to stay out of trouble.” Then he leaned down, took my face in his hands, kissed me soundly, executed a military turn that would have done a West Point cadet proud, and strode out.

Oh, well. The chances of my seeing Geoff again were slim. What were my chances of running into murder again?

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Sam Garner, who trained my driving horse, Azora, known as Zoe the Tank, to drive, then trained me to drive her. Thanks also to Johanna Wilburn and her good-natured Welsh pony, Classic, who brought me back up to speed after a driving hiatus, and to Beverly Hollingsworth, my driving buddy. Thanks also to the Nashoba Carriage Driving Association and its members for telling me great stories and giving me excellent advice. Everything that I got right is thanks to them. Everything I got wrong is my own fault.

Finally, thanks to the Belles: Debra Dixon, the world’s best editor, Sandra Chastain, Deborah Smith and Martha Shields. Finally, for Maureen Hardegree for keeping me up-to-date on the doings in Mossy Creek.

I had a great time writing
The Cart Before the Corpse
. I hope you have fun reading it.

Lots of love,

Carolyn McSparren

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