“Somebody wanting something more than they ought to. Get you another glass of stout, Mitch?”
“I’m good, thanks. But there is one other thing I need to ask you about. And you have to promise me it won’t get back to Des.”
The old man’s face broke into a grin. “You want my niece’s phone number after all. Sure you do. All it takes is that first whiff of spring to make a man-”
“Rut, I’d never do that to Des. Not my style. Which is not to say I have a style, but that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Was there a time a while back, maybe seven or eight years ago, when there were whispers about a certain girl in town?”
“What sort of a girl, son?”
“A girl who used to party with groups of men out on their boats.”
Rut grew a bit more guarded. “Well, sir, there used to be a bar up on the Post Road called the High Life that always had a couple-two, three-of them kind hanging around. Yankee Doodle Motor Court was right next door. Mighty handy arrangement. But the High Life shut down a good fifteen years ago.”
“Rut, I’m not talking about a pro. At least, not in the usual sense. This was a girl whose own family was making money off of her. She was very young. Too young. And drugs were involved. It’s not a nice story.”
The old postmaster shifted in his chair now, eyeing Mitch with intense suspicion. “Where’s it coming from?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Can you tell me what kind of men were having their way with her?”
“The very best kind, Rut.”
“I believe I’m reading you now,” Rut said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “You’re asking me if there was a teenaged girl here a few years back who was so messed up on drugs that she’d take on anyone, no questions asked.”
“Was there, Rut?”
“I do remember hearing a little something about this,” he conceded, a look of profound sorrow creasing his face. “But you’d better have that glass of stout, Mitch, because you’re absolutely right about one thing. It’s not a nice story.”
CHAPTER 16
“Girl, are you saying you believe Milo Kershaw just stumbled on those cans and bottles?” Yolie asked as they strode toward Eric and Danielle’s weathered red barn. The Kershaw brothers’ van was parked there next to Danielle’s Subaru. “What did you do, see into the man’s soul or something?”
“Or something,” Des said. Although it turned out that she hadn’t broken Milo completely after all. Not according to what Mitch had just reported to her over the phone about Milo and Pete having shared the same mother, Bessie Mosher. Milo had denied any knowledge of the name Mosher.
A wire enclosure adjoined the barn where twenty or so sheep were munching on hay from a trough. Dozens more dozed away on the ground inside the barn itself, which was stacked with bales of hay. A half-dozen new mothers were inside the birthing stalls, their lambs huddled around them for warmth and nourishment. Some of the floppy-eared little lambs had nestled together the same way Des’s stray kittens did, using each other as pillows. Danielle was on her knees in there milking a newborn with a bottle. A pair of middle-school girls were gently bottle-feeding two other lambs, their cheeks flushed with pride.
“Some of them don’t take to their mother right away,” Danielle explained when she spotted Des and Yolie standing there.
“Aren’t they just the sweetest things?” one of the girls cooed, stroking the cuddly little lamb.
“They sure are,” Des said softly, thinking there was absolutely no way she could ever send these adorable lambs off to be slaughtered. She could never farm. “Danielle, Sergeant Snipes and I were looking for Stevie and Donnie.”
“They’re turning over the soil in the east meadow,” Danielle said, kneeling there in her baggy overalls. “Mostly, they just complain a lot. I’ve never seen such a pair of big babies in my life.”
Des thanked her and she and Yolie headed back outside past the chicken house in the direction of the greenhouses. The chickens were roaming around in the yard outside their house of sun-bleached boards and shingles. Within the ramshackle greenhouses, seeds were germinating in seed trays by the hundreds.
“So who do you think left Pete’s haul at the foot of Milo’s driveway?” Yolie asked as they walked, her braids glistening in the slanting sunlight. “His boys?”
“That makes the most sense. Then again, if they were behind all of this you’d think they’d be halfway to Mexico by now, wouldn’t you?”
“Could be they’re more calculating than you give them credit for.”
“Check them out for yourself. Maybe you’ll spot some hidden talent that I haven’t.”
The Kershaw brothers were out in the fieldstone-walled meadow slowly forking heaps of composted chicken manure into the raw, ready planting beds. The air was fragrant with the smell of the manure, the meadow underfoot moist and spongy. Stevie and Donnie were showing the effects of their night of drinking and carrying on. Both were slumped over their forks as they toiled away, their faces ashen, limbs heavy.
“How’s it going, guys?” Des called to them.
“We’re pushing chicken shit is how it’s going,” Stevie responded wearily.
“You’d think a dude with Eric’s money would have one of those earth movers or something,” Donnie grumbled, panting for breath.
“Man doesn’t need no powerized equipment, little brother. He’s got us.”
Donnie leaned against his fork and peered at them, his red-rimmed eyes bleary. “Whoa, I’m seeing double-or I’m tripping.”
“You’re not tripping,” Stevie said, looking Yolie up and down.
“Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Sergeant Yolanda Snipes of the Major Crime Squad. Yolie, give it up for Dorset’s own kings of cruel, the Kershaw boys. That tall stud is Stevie. The hirsute one’s Donnie.”
“What’s hirsute mean?” Donnie demanded.
“I was referencing your beard,” Des said to him.
Stevie wasn’t saying anything. He was too busy ogling Yolie’s super-sized boobage. Actually, both brothers were.
“Yo, I’m up here, guys,” she said to them pleasantly. “Keep going north… here I am. Hi, nice to make eye contact with you.”
“How would you two ladies like to go on a double-date with us some time?” Stevie asked.
Yolie studied him, hands on her hips. “Honey, you don’t mess around with the get-acquainted thing, do you?”
“I’m no good at hiding my feelings,” Stevie said, smirking at her.
“You say that like you are good at something.”
“We don’t look so hot right now. But we clean up real good.”
“Well, I sure believe half of what you just said.”
“Guys, this isn’t a social call. Sergeant Snipes is looking into Pete’s death.”
Stevie fished a cigarette from the pocket of his flannel shirt and passed the pack over to Donnie. They lit their cigarettes in silence, all playfulness gone. They’d retreated into their prison shells.
“Know anything about it?” Yolie asked.
“We heard about it from Eric when we got here,” Stevie replied, his face a blank.
“Did you know the victim?”
“We used to goof on him back in high school.”
“You used to throw rocks at him,” Des said reproachfully.
“We never hurt him or nothing,” Donnie insisted. “Just having fun.”
“I hear you, sure,” Yolie said easily. “Does the name Mosher mean anything to you?”
“Our grandma on the old man’s side was a Mosher,” Stevie said.
