pregnant?” she asked. “Whoa. No wonder he’s been acting so weird.”
“There’s more,” Mindy said to her husband, ignoring her daughter. “Katie is the girl they found dead down by the kill. The one that was in the news?”
Wayne shook his head as if he were checking it for loose wiring. He shook it again. He squinted at Russ. “You think Ethan had something to do with that?”
Russ spread his hands. “Wayne, I don’t know. First step is to get this blood test and see if he could be the baby’s father. Then we’ll take if from there.”
“I’m calling our lawyer,” Wayne said. “I don’t want Ethan leaving this property until I’ve talked to him.” He pivoted to the phone table between the two windows looking out onto the dooryard. Russ heard the slap of the phone book opening.
“Wait a minute,” Mindy said, “wasn’t she killed on Friday? Isn’t that what it said on the news? You saw Ethan on Friday. Remember? We had to come pick him up from that video game place. He couldn’t possibly have . . . he didn’t kill Katie.”
“The girl died sometime after sundown, Mindy. I didn’t see Ethan until well after ten o’clock.” He looked out the windows. The sky was darkening, blue to lavender, masses of pink clouds floating on the icy air. He turned to Hannah, who had lost the gloating look of a younger sister seeing her big brother about to get it from the grown- ups. It was sinking in that Ethan might be in a whole lot more trouble than she had ever imagined. “Hannah, did you tell Ethan I was here when you got your father?”
She nodded. “He said he’d be right down.”
Russ looked up to the barn. It wasn’t dark enough yet to need lights on, but it would be in half an hour or so. He wanted to get this over with. “I guess I’d better walk up there myself.”
“I’ll come with you,” Mindy said, pulling on her jacket. Outside, they crossed the path separating the barn drive from the house driveway and tramped up the well-plowed gravel road. To the northwest, the clouds were dark blue and heavy, rising from behind the mountains in a solid mass. Snow later tonight or tomorrow.
“You can’t tell for sure from a blood test if Ethan’s the father,” Mindy said.
“No. It’s more in the way of eliminating or confirming him as a possibility. If he has the right blood type, they’ll send his sample down to a lab in Albany that can compare his DNA to the baby’s.”
Mindy opened the cattle gate to the barnyard. “If he has the right blood type, what are you going to do?”
“Ask him some questions. He can have a lawyer present. Depending on what he tells me, we’ll go from there.” He stepped carefully, avoiding half-frozen cow patties.
“Ethan!” Mindy called. The road ended at the gaping two-story-high entrance to the old barn. Even in the antiseptic winter air, the smell of manure and hay and machine oil was strong. “Ethan!”
“Maybe you ought to stay out here,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is my son we’re talking about.” Inside, the barn was warm with animal heat. The cows on the left-hand stalls had all been hooked up to their milkers, while the ones on the right waited their turn with bovine patience. The machinery was silent, however, and Ethan was nowhere in sight. The low ceiling was punctuated by four trap doors that Russ could see, leading up to the huge hayloft. The back of his neck felt hot and prickly. Something in the situation read wrong, very wrong.
“Where’s that lead to?” He pointed to the door at the opposite end of the barn.
“The tank room. See where the tubing goes in through the collars on the wall?”
“Anything after that?”
“Storage. We have a machinery shed for our tractors and such, but that’s not connected to the barn. Ethan must be having some problem in the tank room. The pressure valves have been acting up lately. Ethan!”
The tank room door bounced open. Ethan stood framed in the doorway, a big, scared young man with a shotgun pointed straight at Russ.
Russ shoved Mindy into a stall and dove in beside her. “Ethan!” she screamed. The cow sharing the space tried to turn her head around to see what was going on, but her bit chains held her to the feed trough. Mindy jumped up. “Ethan, what are you doing?!?”
Russ yanked her down so hard she hit the floor and lost her breath for a moment. “Shut up, Mindy,” he hissed.
“Get out of here, Mom!”
“Ethan?” Russ said, projecting a calm he didn’t feel into his voice. “Your mother is going to get out of this stall and walk out of the barn. She’ll be alone. Then you and I can talk. Is that okay?”
“I’m not leaving!” Mindy whispered.
“Both of you get out of here!”
“You get out and run to the house and call nine-one-one. Tell them what’s happened. Then keep Wayne and your girl away from here. Let me handle this.”
“You’ll shoot him! You’ll shoot him!”
“What are you doing?” Ethan shouted.
“Mindy, I haven’t fired my gun off the range in over four years, and I don’t intend to start now. Let me talk to the boy.” He raised his voice. “Ethan? Your mom’s coming out of the stall now. Don’t shoot.” He hauled Mindy to the edge of the wooden wall. “Go, goddamnit.”
She stood shakily. “Ethan, please, don’t do this.”
“Get out, Mom. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.” Mindy looked back at Russ.
“Go!” he hissed. “Go, go!” She stumbled back a few steps, moving to the doorway while still facing her son.
