“Uh.” Stella licked her lips, tasting breath mints and the waxy gloss Noelle had brushed on. “So when I called you from Funzi’s…”
“We got it traced to the lake house right away, and Ogden County responded lights and sirens. They made it in less than ten minutes. I was probably fifteen minutes behind—I gotta tell you, I burned rubber.” Goat blinked hard and a pink flush warmed his cheeks. “It was some kind of mess, Stella. When it went out on the scanner, fire service picked it up, and they came on back. I don’t even know how many paramedics there were. And the coroner, and the crime scene techs—I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What about, you know… the scene in the bedroom?”
“I couldn’t get anywhere close until the EMTs got you and Chrissy on the bus. They had to move the other bodies to get the stretchers in and get you and Chrissy tubed and loaded up. So by the time the first guys on the scene and the paramedics had been in and out of that room, it wasn’t much of a crime scene anymore, if you know what I mean.”
“Was there any sign of Tucker at all?”
“No, except it looks like they had him sleeping in one of the guest rooms. There was some toys, all new stuff , a few new outfits in a drawer—some even still had the tags on. Did you see him in the house at all?”
Stella gave him an edited version of Marie leaving the house with Tucker in her arms, and passed along the few details she’d overheard: the Escalade, the town house.
“I’ll get the word out,” Goat promised, “but she could be anywhere by now.”
“I know,” Stella said sadly. She was silent for a moment, considering how little there was to go on. “Did they retrieve… anything useful?”
Goat wrinkled his forehead. “They took quite a few things out of there. Took ’em forever just to bag and tag it all. They just let me stay as a courtesy, you know, so I couldn’t give you the specifics. Let’s see, there were all the guns. There was a knife… and some sort of sewing implement. I know they’re having a devil of a time trying to figure out what went with who.”
Stella swallowed hard and tried to arrange her face in an expression of confusion. “I just wish I could remember what happened. You know? It’s just all so hazy.”
Goat regarded her solemnly for what seemed like hours. Stella was aware of Noelle standing off to the side, looking from one of them to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. The poor girl was no doubt bewildered.
“So…,” Goat finally said. “Why don’t you just tell me about what you
Stella started to correct him, but that’s when she noticed the eyebrows. Goat’s beautiful expressive eyebrows were tilted askew, which along with his faint grin gave him a rakish expression. As she was trying to puzzle out his meaning, he winked at her.
“In my own car,” she said, and then elaborated, making it up as she went. “Um, from my house. Chrissy took me back to the house after she sprung me from the hospital, and, you know, we just rested the rest of the day. We were getting ready to watch a little TV and I guess I, uh, left the back door open and suddenly there they were. I mean, Chrissy and I didn’t stand a chance.”
“That,” Goat said carefully, “must have been terrifying.”
“You’re telling me. Why, there was nothing to do but go along with them, not make a fuss, them being armed and all.”
“I mean, the weapons they found at the scene… knives and handguns and pistols and I don’t know what-all,” Goat said. “It was just a real wide range of firepower, you know?”
Stella shrugged. “I guess maybe Funzi was a, what do you call it, gun fancier?”
Goat snorted. Okay, that might have been pushing it a little.
“If mine and Chrissy’s prints were to show up on any of those…,” she said carefully.
“Yeah, now, that was a concern of mine, frankly,” Goat said. “But I figure, you all obviously gave them quite a battle, grabbing at everything in sight, who knows what you would have touched? Besides, there was a hell of a lot of matter on everything. It’s not clear whether the evidence is going to give up much in the way of prints.”
Stella swallowed. She remembered trying to hang on to the handle of the rotary cutter with her hands slick with blood. Remembered looking up into the snub barrel of Funzi’s handgun.
“Now the scene in the back yard, that’s sure got everyone scratching their heads.”
“Oh?” Stella said. “Um, what did they find—what happened in the back yard?”
“Well, it’s a puzzler. There was a struggle back there, that’s for sure. Lots of blood trace, though somebody hosed it down. See, there was a fire earlier in the evening, like I mentioned, with the fire department called out and all, just a little structure fire on the back side. It got put out pretty quick. Duty boys barely logged it. But get this, we found Roy Dean Shaw shot dead and stuffed in a landscape box.”
“No kidding,” Stella said faintly. “How on earth, I wonder?”
“I mean, he must have done something to piss off Funzi,” Goat said. “But we just can’t figure what it was. You know? I mean, maybe it was some sort of double-dealing—we got some leads that he was doing work for that outfit. Oh, by the way, there’s a team out at Benning’s now, digging up pieces of a body. Must be somebody else that ticked him off. There’s a thousand things, when you get down to it, that can get you in bad with the boss, you know?”
“I—I just wish I could remember,” Stella said. “I mean, if I could remember what happened after they took us to that house—”
“Yeah, that would sure clear up some things,” Goat said. “But if it ain’t happenin’, it ain’t happenin’. The brain is a mysterious thing.”
“Yeah,” Stella agreed. “Very mysterious.”
“And you know, that wasn’t the only strange thing about today,” Goat said. “I found something real interesting sitting on my doorstep when I went home to take a shower awhile ago.”
Shit! Stella had forgotten all about Patrick. The kid had been laid out on the chaise since the middle of last night. He would have woken up at some point with a hell of a headache, wondering where he was and how he got there.
“Was he—was it—”
“I think somebody left it there by accident,” he continued, ignoring her. “Clearly this thing didn’t belong there. And it was in kinda bad shape. I fixed it up as good as I could, put a fresh shine on it, and took it back to its rightful owner.”
He put extra emphasis on the last words, fixing her with an intent stare.
And then he winked.
And the corner of his mouth twitched.
And under all the layers of gauze and bandages and tape and antiseptic gel, Stella felt a little stirring. A little warmth. A little reminder that there was at least one darn good reason to hurry up and get better.
“And did she… the rightful owner”—Patrick’s mother, it had to be. “Was the owner happy to have this thing back?”
“Yup. I think it’s safe to say she’s gonna take real, real good care of it. Not let it out of her sight, you know?”
Stella tried to absorb what Goat was telling her. He’d been hinting pretty broadly that he was ignoring and willfully misinterpreting the evidence laid out at the Funzi place. That was bad enough. But freeing Patrick had to add up to evidence tampering. Or worse, if he’d told the boy to keep his mouth shut—that might be considered a threat.
Goat was riding straight into a storm without an umbrella.
And he was doing it for her. Her gut flip-flopped over again.
“That trick with the rotary cutter—that was really something,” Goat continued.
“Oh. Uh, now that you mention it, seems like I might have had that on me.”
“Took us a little while to figure out. You know, it has that retractable blade and all. Plus, it was pink. We had to call a gal from Jo-Ann Fabrics up in Fayette to explain that one.”
They stared at each other and then Goat gave a little chuckle. Nothing more than relief, it sounded like, but it was contagious, and Stella couldn’t help joining in, though she had to be careful because of the pain in her
