High Country Fall

CHAPTER 32

Although I had been on an adrenaline high, the margarita brought me down to earth with a bang and suddenly all I wanted was to go to sleep.

“C’mon, shug,” Dwight said when my head drooped against his shoulder. “Time you got to bed.”

“My laptop,” I said. “My guitar.”

“In my car,” said George.

Dwight paid the bill and we walked out together. Every inch of my body hurt and I was so weary that my brain seemed to be fogging over.

“He won’t confess, you know,” I told George as Dwight took my things and stowed them in his truck. “And there’s no hard evidence.”

“Worry about that tomorrow,” Dwight said. He shook George’s hand with great ceremony. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Anytime,” George said, giving Dwight’s shoulder a pat.

Men are sweet the way they bond.

I managed to direct Dwight back to the condo. The twins weren’t due in for another half-hour and he helped me to the bedroom, where he eased my clothes off my sore body. It felt so good to lie down.

“Thank you for coming,” I said formally and then I was gone.

Sometime later—it could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour—I felt a cool ice pack against my temple, but I couldn’t make my eyes open.

When I awoke in the early dawn hours, Dwight was not there beside me. In fact, he hadn’t been there at all. I sat up and was so stiff and achy that it was a true act of will to get out of bed. The doors to both bedrooms were closed. Out in the living room, there was enough light to see that the couch had been opened into a bed and Dwight was there sound asleep. I watched him for several long minutes, filled with turmoil and feeling strangely unsettled by the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Then I turned and went back to bed.

When next I woke, it was to a drizzly gray day. I looked out the window and the horizon was gone, whited out by fog. Only the nearest trees were visible and even they looked like artsy photographs taken through gauze.

Matched my mood.

I smelled bacon and coffee and heard Dwight’s voice mingled with the twins’. The nurse had said ice packs for seventy-two hours, so a hot shower probably wasn’t recommended. Nevertheless, the water seemed to soften and ease my muscles, and by the time I dried off and dressed, I could almost move normally as long as I didn’t push it.

May and June were all over me when I entered the kitchen.

“Omigawd! Your face!”

“I’ve seen it,” I said. “Don’t remind me.”

They touched me gingerly, giving me soft little pats instead of hugs.

“Are you okay?”

“You could have been killed.”

“Should you be up?”

“We were going to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Did you know Jason Barringer?” I asked them.

“Just by reputation,” said June.

“It wasn’t a very good one,” May added quickly.

They seemed to intuit what I was feeling.

“Here, have some coffee,” they said and gave me more reassuring pats.

Dwight eyed the way I was dressed. “You’re not planning on court, are you?”

“Of course I am,” I said firmly. “If someone will drive me, that is. I don’t have a car anymore and I bet there’s no place closer than Asheville to rent one.”

“We’ll work something out,” Dwight told me.

At the courthouse, we both stopped by George Underwood’s office first. I wanted to know what, if anything, was being done about my car. Dwight had promised to retrieve all my personal items from it, including the title and registration. I had already put in a call to my insurance agent back in Colleton County.

“The wrecker’s out there now pulling up the Barringer kid’s truck,” said George. “Soon as I let them know where you want yours hauled, they’ll come back and get it, too.”

When Dwight said he’d take care of it, I didn’t argue.

I left them discussing logistics and went on upstairs, where Mary Kay greeted me with sympathy for my bruised face and coffee for my sore spirits. Everyone knew what had happened and several stopped in chambers to express concern and regret for my ordeal. I thanked them all politely, but it was a relief to get back into the courtroom and have the bailiff call the place to order.

Friday is usually cleanup day for the odds and ends that were delayed earlier in the week, the emergency orders, the documents that need a judge’s signature before they could be put into play. Today was no different. With William Deeck prosecuting, cases moved along at a brisk clip.

I took only a minimum break in midmorning, and Mary Kay came back bringing the freshest gossip. Sunny Osborne had been questioned and had sent for her lawyer. Rumors were starting to circulate about Bobby Ashe, and about Simon Proffitt as well. Deputies had been looking for him for three days now, but he seemed to have vanished.

“They’d be out with search parties except that his truck’s still parked by the Trading Post and his shotgun’s there in his office.”

It all felt very anticlimactic.

Unfortunately for my plans to be finished by lunchtime, we hit a few snags, and when it became clear that there were at least another three hours to go, I adjourned for lunch at twelve-thirty.

There was no sign of Dwight downstairs, so I took the elevator back up to the first level and walked along Cedar Gap’s pristine Main Street down to the Tea Room. The fog or cloud or whatever it was had retreated from the higher peaks, but the lower elevations were still swathed in white and the damp air definitely held a touch of coming winter.

As usual, there was a line, but by now Carla Ledwig was so used to my walking in and out of the kitchen that she just gave me a wave and kept on with her hostess duties.

“You should have called,” said June. “We’d have brought you lunch.”

“I need to walk,” I said. “It helps with the stiffness.”

I watched them fix me a salad, then said, “Is Simon Proffitt your landlord?”

“Where on earth did you get that idea?” asked May, not quite meeting my eyes.

“Something Carla’s mother said Tuesday. She said she was glad her husband hadn’t known about this business venture because he couldn’t stand Simon Proffitt.”

“Well, yeah,” May admitted. “It’s his building.”

“Did you know that he’s been missing ever since Captain Underwood asked him to come in and answer some questions about his threats against Ledwig and Osborne?”

“Simon didn’t kill them,” said June. “The sheriff and the DA are just looking for somebody to hang it on now that they don’t have Danny anymore.”

I held up placating hands before they could gather a good head of protective steam for the Trading Post’s elderly proprietor.

“It’s not official yet, but he doesn’t have to worry. They know it wasn’t him.”

“Really?”

“He’s a feisty old guy, isn’t he?” I asked. “Bark worse than his bite?”

“Exactly!” said May. “He’s really a sweetie, Deborah, and at his age, he doesn’t need to be hounded by deputies.”

“At his age, wherever he is, don’t you think he’d probably be more comfortable in his own bed?” I cast a jaundiced eye toward the pressed tin ceiling, beyond which lay nothing but spiders and mice and dirty old junk were one inclined to believe what they’d told me yesterday.

They both looked at me sheepishly, but before they could blitz me with more twinspeak, Carla came through the door with a dazed expression on her face. “I just heard someone say that Sunny Osborne killed Dad! She and Mom play tennis together. Why would she kill my dad? Was she sleeping with him?”

By the time I adjourned court for the week, the buzz was all over town, and George confirmed it for me when I stopped by his office and found Dwight there.

“It was like you thought,” he said. “Ledwig arranged for Osborne to be tested down in Winston back in August and the tests indicated the onset of early dementia. That’s when he planned the merger so that he could maximize his holdings. The way his condition was deteriorating, he knew he wouldn’t have time to liquidate everything himself and he’d have had to take a huge loss with the economy so soft right now. The easiest thing was just to stick it to the Ashes. When Ledwig heard about the merger, he called Osborne and told him to cancel it or he’d tell Bobby Ashe. Osborne was in such despair that Sunny went over to Ledwig’s the next day to try to persuade him to keep quiet. When he wouldn’t back off …”

“Sunny told you all this?” I asked. “Her attorney let her?”

“He couldn’t stop her once I laid it all out. All she cares about right now is helping us build a case against Bobby Ashe for killing her husband. She’s still trying to protect him.”

“What about Ashe?”

“Claims he didn’t have a clue, doesn’t know what Sunny’s talking about, and, on the advice of counsel, has nothing more to say.”

I shook my head. “He’s going to get away with it, isn’t he?”

“Unless we can find someone who saw him follow Osborne out onto that terrace Monday night, we don’t have a real case. No fingerprints on the candleholder. No proof that he knew what Osborne had done to him.” George gave an exasperated sigh. “Sloppy work on our part. We should’ve confiscated the shoes and clothes he was wearing that night, checked them for blood spatters. There’s another search team up there right now, but he’s had four days to dispose of anything incriminating.”

“Tough luck,” Dwight said sympathetically.

As Dwight and I stood to go, I hesitated. “Jason Barringer. Is he from around here?”

“Louisville, Kentucky. We couldn’t get hold of his parents till late and they’re driving over today.” George looked at his watch. “Should be getting in anytime now.”

“Do they have to be told how he died?” I asked. “I mean, yes, of course, they have to know he lost control when his truck hit a deer, but do they have to know why he was up there? It’s bad enough to lose a son without hearing he tried to kill somebody.”

George nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll pass the word,” he promised.