Elise crossed her arms. “Sit down if you want. I’d offer you something to drink, but that might encourage you to stay.”
“We’ll get through this as quickly as we can, Elise,” Dross said. She didn’t sit. “The night the Kingbirds were killed, what time did Buck get home?”
“I told you already. Told you a dozen times.”
“Could you tell us again?”
“It was maybe fifteen minutes after Cork left.”
“What time would that have been?”
“Nine fifty, give or take a couple of minutes.”
“What were you doing when he got here?”
“Exactly what I was doing when Cork left. Listening to music and drinking Macallan.” She held up her glass.
“And after Buck got home, what did you do?”
“Went to bed.”
“Anything unusual occur that night?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Once Cork was gone, you didn’t leave the house?”
“Nope.”
“And you’re positive about the time Buck came home?”
“I am so fucking positive. And so fucking tired of being asked.”
“Do you think Buck killed the Kingbirds, Elise? Is that why you’re lying?”
She looked startled by the accusation. “I’m not lying.”
“Elise, we have a witness, someone who’s willing to swear that Buck wasn’t here at ten. Or eleven. Or even midnight.”
Elise gathered herself. “So, our word against his.”
“Hers.”
A slight disturbance ran across her face. “Whatever.”
“We know where Buck was during that time, and it pretty much assures us that he didn’t kill the Kingbirds.”
“Well, there you go.”
“You think it makes no difference that you lied?”
“Sue me.” She took a sip of the drink in her hand.
Simon Rutledge said, “Mrs. Reinhardt, when we first interviewed you, you said you weren’t sorry Alexander Kingbird had been murdered.”
“I’m still not. Like I told you before, he ran the Red Boyz. He’s hiding Lonnie Thunder. You ask me, all the Red Boyz need to be dealt with.”
“By killing them? The way you killed the Kingbirds?”
“Me?” She looked truly shaken.
“When your husband came home, you had a shotgun in the living room, one that had recently been fired. We’ve been told your husband thinks you killed the Kingbirds.”
“Who told you that?”
“The woman he was with from ten thirty until midnight the night the Kingbirds were killed.”
Elise blinked and put her drink down. “That son of a bitch. That goddamn son of a bitch.” She shook her head and huffed a sour little laugh. “All this time I thought he’d killed them, killed them for Kristi. I’d have lied my way into hell for him after that. But there he was, rutting with some whore instead.”
“What were you doing with the shotgun?” Dross said.
At first, Cork wasn’t sure Elise Reinhardt had heard the question. She seemed distant. He wondered if she was imagining Buck “rutting with some whore,” as she’d put it. Finally she focused on the sheriff. “I heard the dogs going crazy in the kennel out back. I thought maybe we had a bear nosing around and I got the shotgun. Turned out to be a cougar. I discharged the shotgun into the air and the thing ran off.”
“Can you prove this?”
Everyone waited. Elise seemed to enjoy the drama of the moment. At last she crooked a finger and said, “This way.”
She led them through the maze of the house to a back door. Outside, the afternoon was waning. Sunlight shattered as it fell through the pines and it hit the ground in pieces. The day was still pleasantly warm. They followed Elise to a fenced-in area that included a kennel and a short run. A couple of gray bird dogs came bounding to greet her. They leaped up, put their paws on the fence, and shoved their noses between the mesh.
“Good boys,” Elise said, and rubbed their muzzles. She walked down the fence line a few yards with the dogs pacing beside her eagerly. “Here.” She pointed toward the ground.
The tracks lay at the center of a large patch of sunlight. They’d been made in the wet dirt around an outside spigot that jutted from the ground and had probably been put there to clean the kennels.
Ed Larson, who’d been quiet so far, said, “Elise, how do we know these tracks were made that night?”
“Never saw a cougar around here before.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Tell you what, Mr. Smartypants. How about you make me prove it?”
Dross said calmly, “Where’s the shotgun, Elise?”
“Locked in the gun case.”
“May we see it?”
She looked exasperated. “Do you really think I killed the Kingbirds?”
“If you didn’t, there’s no reason for us not to see the shotgun, is there?”
She eyed them all as if she finally realized she was surrounded and outnumbered. “Come on.”
She led them back to the house and once again through the maze of Buck Reinhardt’s random construction to a denlike room hung with hunting trophies and with two large mahogany gun cases set against opposite walls. She dug in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small key ring. She unlocked one of the cases, reached in, and lifted out a shotgun, which she handed to Ed Larson.
“Robar,” he said, with real admiration. “Nice piece.”
“Buck had it custom built.”
“Mind if we keep it awhile?”
“Be my guest.”
The cell phone in its leather case on Marsha Dross’s belt began to bleat. “Excuse me,” she said. She stepped away and answered, “Dross.” She listened, then said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She slipped the phone back into place and said to Elise, “You might want to come with me.”
“Yeah? And why’s that?”
“We just got a call, shots fired out on County Road Eighteen, Elise. It looks like Buck was the target.”
“Did they hit him?”
“Apparently not.”
“Too bad.”
“Would you care to come?”
“If he was dead, maybe. Right now, I’d rather finish my drink.”
By the time Dross, Larson, and Cork pulled their vehicles off the road and parked behind the deputy’s cruiser, it was dusk. Simon Rutledge hadn’t come with them. He’d asked Elise if she minded his staying so they could talk a little more. She’d agreed, but only if he had a drink with her. Rutledge had said he could live with that.
On the far side of the road were two trucks from Reinhardt’s Tree Service. One was a big utility truck with a hydraulic bucket for trimming high branches. The other was Buck Reinhardt’s personal pickup, replete with the big rack of lights on top of the cab. Another vehicle was parked there as well, a cruiser from the Yellow Lake Police Department.
Buck was talking with Deputy Cy Borkman, who was taking notes. Dave Reinhardt stood close by. Two men sat on the rear bumper of the bucket truck. One was Adrian Knowles, who wasn’t much more than a kid, though he had a wife and an infant son to support. The other was Cal Richards. Richards was smoking a cigarette. He had his
