Рита Браун - Whisker Of Evil

“Does she have venereal disease?” BoomBoom, a good horsewoman, knew venereal diseases could be passed from stallion to mare and vice versa.

“No. She had a small tear here on the outside of her vagina and it got infected. She’s a fine, healthy mare. To be on the safe side, give her SMZ and just swab her in the mornings and the evenings. Keep it clean. The flies are the main problem.”

BoomBoom tolerated bugs, as she had no choice. “I looked her over when she came on back. I didn’t see any blood.”

“You know horses. They find more ways to injure themselves. She could have gotten caught up in thorns. Who knows, but she’ll be fine.”

Fair wrote up the call, walked to his truck, and pulled out a jar of SMZ since BoomBoom had only a few left. Most horsemen keep antibiotics in the barn, as well as some tranquilizers. If an animal is hurt, one often needs to keep them quiet, depending on the injury; hence the tranquilizer.

“Pug Harper couldn’t find his ass with both hands.” BoomBoom laughed. “You should have seen him trying to tend to the P.O.” BoomBoom, knowing Harry, cut to the chase. “Does she know what she’s going to do? When we all paid her a call, she seemed fine. You know, I think this is the best thing to happen to her. She needs something that will use her mind. She’s way too bright to be filling mail slots.”

“You’re right.” Fair washed his hands in the barn sink.

BoomBoom handed him a towel. “This is your chance. She’s been more affectionate around you. She spends more time with you. Go for it.”

He dried his hands, exhaled deeply. “Do you really think so?”

“She needs you.”

“She won’t marry me because she’s out of a job. She has too much pride.”

“She needs you.” BoomBoom restated the obvious. “She needs your strength, comfort, thoughts about her future. It’s not about money. We all know she won’t take a nickel. That’s her fatal flaw. She has to learn to receive. When she called for help on the shed, I thought that was a huge breakthrough.”

He considered this as he folded the towel, placing it on the rack. “Guess it was.”

“She’s changing.” BoomBoom smiled. “We’re all changing. That’s life.”

“Boom, there are people in this county who haven’t had a new thought in thirty years and don’t want one.”

“And we might pass and repass them, but we aren’t spending time with them, are we? You have to grow. It’s life’s imperative. Grow or die. Harry’s growing. This is the best thing that’s happened to her. Make it the best thing that’s happened to you.”

“Sometimes you surprise me.”

“Sometimes I surprise myself.” The beautiful blonde laughed. “Fair, I care about you. And for all of my strained relationship with Harry, which improved so much after we were trapped last winter down at U-Hall,” she said, “I care about her. We’ve been together since we were children, all of us, and we’ll be together when we’re old like Miranda, Big Mim, Jim, Tracy. I’m coming to grips with the fact that we’re a generation. It’s kind of like being in a regiment.”

He laughed. “Yeah, it is.”

“You and I had a lot of fun together, but it was the wrong time. And you know the truth?” Her eyebrows raised. “I’m a consumer when it comes to men. Good as you are, well, I’m not going to settle down, and I think that shocked you. You weren’t ready to settle down, anyway. We’re pushed into it by society. No one should ever think about starting a relationship until one year after a divorce, I swear.”

“Do you think you’ll ever marry again?”

“When Kelly died, I mourned him. But you know the truth? The truth I never told anyone? If he’d lived I would have divorced him, the controlling son of a bitch.” She said this without rancor. “I don’t want any man telling me what to do.”

“Neither does Harry.”

“You don’t tell her what to do, you suggest. You know how to handle Harry, when you think about it.”

He laughed. “I think she knows how to handle me. A lot of times she knows what I’m going to do before I do it.”

“Listen to me, as an old friend, this is your chance.”

He leaned down—although not very far, because BoomBoom was six feet tall and he was six five—and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a special lady.”

33

B lood was lightly splattered over the windshield of the white Jeep.

When Deputy Cooper arrived, the motor was still running.

Jerome Stoltfus slumped to the side of the steering wheel. He had been shot in the back of the head, the bullet exiting through his forehead and out the front windshield.

Cynthia double-checked her watch. Ten twenty-one P.M., Wednesday night, June 23. She pulled on thin latex gloves and felt for a pulse in Jerome’s neck. None, which she expected. The body was cool but not yet cold.

She peeled off the gloves, walked over to Little Mim. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Little Mim’s face was bone white.

“Excuse me while I call Rick. Then I’ll ask you a few questions and you can go home.”

“Coop, you do whatever you have to do,” Little Mim, who was shocked but in control, replied.

Cooper punched in to the dispatcher. “Get me the sheriff. Wake him up if he’s asleep.”

Within minutes she heard the familiar voice. “Better be good.”

“Jerome Stoltfus. Shot through the back of the head. Yellow Mountain Road, about two miles from the entrance to Rose Hill.”

“Be right there.”

Cooper returned to Little Mim. “Did you see any other cars?”

“No. Nothing. I was coming back from Aunt Tally’s and I noticed the Jeep pulled off the road. I slowed because I knew it was Animal Control, and I wondered if Jerome was picking up an injured animal since I couldn’t see him. So I pulled up behind and walked to the embankment, but I still didn’t see him. That’s when I looked in the car. And that’s when I called the sheriff’s department. I knew he was dead the second I saw him.”

“It’s a shock to see someone like that.” Cooper was genuinely sympathetic.

“Yes, it is,” Little Mim answered slowly, “but what went through my head was, ‘Who got him first?’ I mean, everyone was furious with him.”

34

C oroner Tom Yancy bent over Jerome Stoltfus at twelve-thirty Thursday morning.

He had gotten out of bed and rushed down to meet Sheriff Shaw. The two men had worked together for over fifteen years. If Rick called him at midnight it was important.

Wearing a lab coat, Rick observed closely as Yancy inspected the wound.

“A great deal of damage to the skull.” He pointed to what was left of Jerome’s face on the right side. “See the angle? The gun was held in the right hand, placed snug against the base of the skull—look at these powder burns—and fired upward at this angle. The bullet emerged above the right eye and pretty much took out that side of the head. Death was instantaneous. Did you find the bullet? Large-enough caliber to do this—thirty-eight, forty-five more likely.”

“No. Cooper’s back where Jerome was found. Wasn’t on the hood of the car or in front of it. She’s good. If it’s there, she’ll find it.”

“Hmm.”

Rick nodded, as he knew what Yancy was thinking. “Our perp could have picked it up. It’s a possibility.”

“Mm-hmm. He’d be a lucky devil, but he’s been lucky so far.”