Premeditated Marriage, page 7
He heard the sound of a vehicle coming up behind him and moved over to the edge of the highway as the car slowed, then stopped. He turned, already knowing who it was.
“Need a ride, Gus?” Emmett Graham asked as he rolled down the passenger-side window. What a coincidence that Emmett had come along at just the right moment again.
Augustus glanced back at Larkin & Sons Gas and Garage, thought he glimpsed Charlie’s small form just beyond the sun-glazed glass of the office window, thought he felt her gaze on him.
It seemed the woman wanted him on foot—and under the watchful eye of Emmett Graham. He just didn’t know why she was trying to keep him in town. It was almost as if she was daring him to catch her.
“As a matter of fact, I could use a ride,” he said, climbing into Emmett’s car, no longer sure who was the hunter—and who was the prey.
Chapter Seven
Augustus found Rickie Moss working at the local sawmill just north of town. Emmett had been more than happy to drive him, just as Augustus had suspected he would be. And Augustus liked the idea that Charlie would know what he’d been doing. She’d know he was after her. Let her run scared. For a while.
Huge piles of tree-length logs were stacked like straws in piles around a small shack and lean-to. Augustus walked toward the buzz of a saw under the lean-to. Snow melted, dripping from the roof into several large puddles around the edifice. The air smelled of fresh-cut wood.
Two men were running long boards through the blade, cutting the wood into two-by-fours. Another two were stacking them onto the back of a flatbed.
“Rickie Moss?” Augustus yelled over the ripping whine of the blade.
One of the men on the saw motioned to a stacker to take his place. The man jumped down from the raised floor of the lean-to and walked toward him.
Rickie Moss had once been a good-looking man, the kind of man Charlie Larkin might have been attracted to. But now a hideous scar carved across one cheek from the corner of his left eye to below his chin ravaged his face.
“I’m Rickie,” the man said sourly. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Charlie Larkin,” Augustus said.
Rickie Moss jerked back as if he’d been smacked. His eyes narrowed. “What about Charlie?”
“Any chance we could get away from that saw?” he asked as the blade ripped through another long board. “I’ll make it worth your while.” He flashed the sawmill worker a fifty.
Rickie glanced to the crew for a moment, then nodded and headed for the small shack. He shoved open the door and entered. Augustus followed.
There was just enough room inside for a man to turn around but not much more. Papers were strewn across a desk made from a broken sheet of plywood. A stool, the black vinyl cushion cracked, stuffing leaking out, was pulled up to the high desk, which also held a coffeemaker and a miniature microwave. The place smelled of stale coffee and nuked cabbage. But it was quieter.
“Yeah?” Rickie said impatiently.
“I understand you used to be Charlie’s boyfriend,” he said, leaping right in.
Rickie just stared at him, waiting.
“Is she the reason you have that scar?”
The question got a response out of him.
“What the hell is this about?” Rickie demanded.
“Information. I’m investigating that drowning up at Freeze Out Lake.”
Ricky didn’t seem surprised to hear this. Augustus was pretty sure that was the kind of story Trudi would have told anyone who would listen to her.
Augustus laid the fifty on top of the papers on the desk. “Why do bad things happen to men who’re interested in Charlie Larkin?”
Rickie looked from him to the fifty and back up. “I don’t know.”
“What happened to you?” He dropped another fifty on top of the first.
Rickie shook his head. “Didn’t Trudi tell you?”
“No. She just told me to talk to you.” Augustus figured Trudi had broken the ice for him. Rickie didn’t seem like the type who would have given him the time of day otherwise.
“I only went out with Charlie once. It was years ago. It wasn’t even much of a date. I bought her a burger at the Pinecone, then we went for a ride.” He met Augustus’s gaze. “Up to Freeze Out Lake.”
Augustus tried not to show his surprise.
“We drank a couple of beers, necked a little.” He shrugged. “I got out of the car to take a leak and something attacked me.”
“Something or someone?”
Rickie shook his head. “I was hit from behind and I woke up with this.” He ran a finger down the length of the scar.
“Where was Charlie during all this?”
Rickie picked up a pencil from the desk and turned it in his fingers. “In the car. She said she got worried and came looking for me. She’s the one who found me and got me to the doctor.”
“You believe her?”
He dropped the pencil and picked up the fifties, taking his time to fold them and put them into his flannel shirt pocket. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re scared of her.”
Rickie smiled. “A little thing like her? Now what kind of man would that make me?”
“Possibly a smart one?”
“I have to get back to work,” Rickie said but didn’t move.
“Are you trying to tell me that every man she’s dated met with an accident?” Augustus asked. “Like maybe there’s a curse on her?” He realized he was only half joking.
Rickie shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “I just know what happened to T.J. when he tried to date her. And then to me. Maybe she dated at college and didn’t have any problems.”
“T. J. Blue?” Augustus asked.
Rickie nodded.
“I thought he was Quinn’s best friend?”
“Quinn was dead and Charlie—well, Charlie is a fine-looking woman,” Rickie said.
She was a lot more than that, Augustus thought. “What happened to T.J.?”
“One date and his trailer burned down. He barely got out with his life.” Rickie shook his head. “All I know is that no one around here is fool enough to get within twenty feet of her.” He raised an eyebrow.
Augustus shook his head. “Don’t look at me.”
Rickie laughed. “Smart man.”
T. J. BLUE WORKED at a small wild-game processing plant north of town during hunting season, according to Emmett, who offered to drive Gus.
Augustus realized he was even starting to think of himself as “Gus” now, and he had Charlie to blame for that.
T.J. was standing on the frosty concrete floor beside a carcass-covered metal table, feeding strips of moose meat into a commercial-size meat grinder when Gus walked in. The freezer-cold air smelled of suet and sweat, the sound of the grinder echoing in the refrigerator-like room.
Blond with blue eyes, T. J. Blue wore a white butcher’s smock splattered with blood and bits of dried red meat over winter clothes, his massive hands clad in gloves that had probably once been white.
Next to him, a dark-haired young woman sliced pieces of meat from a carcass with a knife. She glanced at Gus, her gaze hanging on him just long enough to make him pretty sure she knew who he was. T.J. gave him only a passing glance and kept dropping meat and chunks of suet into the grinder.
“Got a minute?” Gus yelled over the growl of the grinder.
T. J. Blue shot him a look that said Gus would be damn lucky to get a second out of him.
To Gus’s surprise, the woman reached over and shut off the grinder. “Why don’t you take a break,” she said to T.J.
He gave her a dirty look. “If I need a break, I’ll let you know, Earlene,” he growled, but jerked off his gloves, threw them down, then turned and headed toward a door at the back.
“Break room’s back there,” Earlene said and flopped the carcass over and picked up her knife.
Gus watched her trim meat from the carcass with obvious skill, before he followed T.J. through the door into the break room at the back of the plant. The room was warmer than the meat shop, but not by much.
T.J. poured himself a cup of coffee, then turned to look at Gus with obvious irritation. “I know who you are, but I don’t have anything to say to you.”
So much of getting people to talk to you was making them think you had the right to know what they had to tell you. “Then you don’t think Charlie murdered Quinn,” Gus said.
T.J. jerked back in surprise. “I don’t think about Charlie Larkin at all.”
Gus didn’t believe that for a minute. “You don’t seem to like her.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The way you left the café last night. Tell me about Charlie Larkin,” Gus pushed. “Tell me why you and every other male in this town with any sense is afraid of her.”
A muscle jumped in T. J. Blue’s jaw. “I have nothing to say to you.” He threw the coffee into the sink, slammed down the cup and left Gus standing alone in the break room wondering for the first time about Charlie’s motive.
All of this seemed to have started with Quinn Simonson. Was it possible she felt guilty about Quinn’s death and hurt men who wanted to date her as some sort of warped penance? Or was it payback? Trudi said the night Quinn died Charlie had just found out that Earlene was carrying Quinn’s baby. That would tick off most any woman. Gus wondered if Charlie had been mad enough to kill? And if she had, had she just gone on hurting men, killing the less fortunate ones?
“Get what you needed, Gus?” Emmett asked as he drove back to town.
Augustus watched the dense dark pines flicker past. “How long have you lived here?”
“All my life,” the old man said proudly. “Born and raised. Can’t find a nicer little town to settle down in. Graham’s General Store has been in that very spot for almost a hundred years. My father opened it back when this part of the country was nothing but wilderness.”
As far as Gus was concerned it was still wilderness.
“At one time in its history, this town was booming,” Emmett was saying. “But the mines closed, the logging industry went to pot, people moved on. Times change.”
Gus couldn’t imagine a lifetime here.
“It’s busier in the summers,” Emmett continued. “Fly fishermen, tourists up here for Glacier and Yellowstone Parks, people looking for back roads, looking for another, more simple time and place. That’s Utopia.”
Emmett stopped in front of Murphy’s. “Is there anywhere else I can give you a ride to, Gus?”
“No thanks,” he said as he got out of the car. “Don’t you have a store to run?
Emmett laughed. “This time of year it’s a little slow, so my wife would just as soon I wasn’t underfoot.” He winked at Gus. “Truth is, she’s really the boss. Just let me know if I can be of any help, Gus,” he said, then glanced at his watch. “The lunch special at the café is tuna melt. You might want to beat the rush.”
“Thanks.” He smiled to himself as he watched Emmett drive off. Beat the rush. But his smile faded as he saw Emmett pull into one of the gas pumps at Larkin’s. Charlie came out. Emmett didn’t need gas. Gus had seen the gauge. It was on Full.
After a moment of obvious discussion, he saw Charlie glance down the highway in his direction. He waved and walked toward the café. He’d pass on the tuna melt, but he could use a cheeseburger and fries. At the very least, maybe Trudi would be working. He’d just bet she’d know where he could find Phil Simonson this time of the day.
THE PINECONE CAFÉ was nearly empty when Charlie came in a few minutes after one. Jenny Simonson was sitting alone in the back booth. She looked nervous as she glanced out at the street and Charlie wondered if she’d told Forest they were having lunch together.
“Hi,” Charlie said, more glad to see her than Jenny could ever know. She slid into the booth across from her once–best friend, wanting desperately to feel that old connection, needing it now more than ever.
“Hi.” Jenny’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You look great!” It wasn’t quite true. Jenny had changed over the years. She was thinner, her face drawn, making her dark eyes seem too large. Her once long, beautiful dark hair had been cut to her chin. It hung straight, all the shine gone from it—just like her eyes. Either marriage to Forest Simonson had aged her or motherhood had.
“So do you,” Jenny said, a clear lie. Charlie had been having trouble sleeping since Josh’s body was found. Actually long before that.
“So how is Skye?” Charlie asked. “Shoot, she must be how old by now?”
Jenny flushed and Charlie could have kicked herself for bringing up Skye’s age although everyone in the county knew Jenny and Forest had had to get married right out of high school. Right after Quinn’s death. “She’s almost seven.”
In the silence that hung between them, Trudi bopped up to give them menus. Helen was busy in the back washing the lunch dishes, but had waved as Charlie came in.
“I’ve missed you,” Charlie said, hoping to find even a little of what she and Jenny had once shared in this almost stranger sitting across from her now.
Jenny nodded, looking uncomfortable, and glanced again to the street. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“Forest doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” Charlie said, feeling sick at the realization.
Jenny’s gaze jerked back to her in surprise, the first honest reaction Charlie had gotten out of her.
“It’s okay. I understand.” Jenny had made her choice when she’d married Forest, married into a family that had made hating Charlie Larkin into a religion because of Quinn’s death. Fortunately, few people listened to the Simonsons’ rantings and ravings or Charlie would be behind bars by now.
Jenny shook her head, tears in her eyes. “He’s my husband.”
Charlie nodded and reached across the table to squeeze her hand, realizing the courage it had taken Jenny to come here. “I know. This must be very hard for you. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this.”
“What? Have lunch?” Jenny said, pulling back her hand as she busied herself looking for a tissue in her purse. She sounded angry and upset. “I should be able to have lunch with anyone I want to. It’s just that Forest—” She looked up, fresh tears flooded her eyes.
Charlie nodded. “Lunch was a bad idea. I’m sorry.”
Jenny seemed to be fighting tears and losing the battle. She stumbled to her feet. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said and rushed out of the café.
Charlie sat staring down at the menus, shaking inside, wanting to go after Jenny, wanting to confront Forest and the rest of the Simonsons, wanting to just sit in the booth and cry.
“She coming back?” Trudi asked, standing over Charlie, her obvious curiosity about killing her.
“She just remembered that she left her oven on,” Charlie said dispassionately.
Trudi smirked. “That’s too bad.”
Charlie reined in her emotions and looked at Trudi, wondering what had happened last night in Augustus T. Riley’s cabin at Murphy’s. It was better than thinking about Jenny and everything that had been lost between them.
“So what are you going to have?” Trudi asked.
“Get us both a bowl of the soup,” Helen said, slipping into the booth across from Charlie. Charlie started to tell her the last thing she wanted right now was food, but Helen cut her off. “You have to eat and you know my seafood bisque is to die for.”
Poor choice of words. But Charlie appreciated the sentiment. She smiled at Helen, grateful for friends like her.
“Don’t let those Simonsons get to you,” Helen said. “They’re all a spineless bunch. If Jenny hadn’t gotten pregnant, she’d never have married the likes of Forest Simonson and everyone in town knows it.”
Trudi slid a couple of bowls of seafood bisque onto the table and a handful of crackers in plastic sleeves. “You want anything else?”
Helen waved her away. “I swear, sometimes I wonder why I keep that girl on.”
They both knew why. Finding anyone who’d stay in Utopia and work was getting harder and harder as the older residents moved to Arizona and the younger ones moved to someplace that had a real video store.
“Are you okay?” Helen asked after she’d insisted Charlie eat some of her soup.
Charlie nodded, although she was far from okay. The soup could have been water for her ability to taste it.
“He was in for lunch,” Helen said after a moment as if wanting to get all the bad news over with. “He got directions to Phil Simonson’s place from Trudi.”
Charlie nodded again, wondering if anything would surprise her at this point. Outside, the snow had melted off the black pavement. The gutters ran full with the runoff. Only a few patches of snow remained in the shade of the buildings and in the trees as the day warmed back to normal temperatures.
“What does he want?” Helen asked quietly.
Charlie shook her head, afraid she knew exactly what he wanted.
“I can give you the name of a private investigator I hired once out of Missoula. He got the goods on Frank.” Frank was one of Helen’s husbands. Charlie couldn’t remember which.
But the last thing she wanted to do was involve a private investigator. “Let me do some digging on my own first.”
Helen wrote down the investigator’s name on her napkin. “Don’t wait too long.”
She took the napkin, her gaze locking with Helen’s for a long moment. How much did Helen suspect? “Thanks.”
Chapter Eight
Phil Simonson lived a short walk back in the pines in an A-frame cabin. He’d been a logger, Trudi had said, until he’d gotten hurt four years ago. Now he lived on disability and what he could make as a chain-saw artist.
Gus followed the buzz of a saw around to the back of the house.
Standing in a pile of wood chips and sawdust was a short, stocky man, bucking a chain saw. Before him, a large piece of log was being chewed into the shape of a bear.
