“That’d be hard to say.”
Clintok leaned in. “What’s hard about it?”
“Ah, boss?” Swallowing deeply enough to be audible, Easy stepped out a little. “Sorry, but I heard you trying to remember. The day Cochise needed his foreleg wrapped, wasn’t that the same day we started working on the tack? Cleaning, repairing. You ended up staying, working with me on that till damn near six o’clock. We cracked open a beer after that, being done for the day. I don’t think I headed out myself till close to seven, and you were still here. Wanted to check Cochise’s leg before you went on home. I remember pretty clear on it.”
Callen held Easy’s eyes another moment. “Maybe it was.”
“I’m pretty clear on it. Is that what you wanted to know, Deputy?”
Clintok angled toward him. “Are you lying to me? It’s a serious offense to lie to a police officer.”
“Why would I do that?” Easy backed off a step. “I’m just saying what you asked about. How we were here till about seven—it was nice to sit and have a beer after a long day—and then I went on home.”
“Go on back, Easy,” Callen told him.
“Okay, boss, just trying to help.”
“How come you don’t have all that shit he just spread on your fucking phone, Skinner?”
“I’ve got my schedule, and I was off at four. Sometimes things need to be done, or I want to get them done, and I stay later. I don’t note having a beer with one of my men down on my calendar. If that answers your questions, I’ve got horses to take care of.”
“Two women dead, Skinner. Two since you came back here. Maybe I’ll do some checking back in California, find more.”
“You spend your time as you see fit, Deputy. I’ll do the same.”
Callen led the horse into the shelter, carefully removed its blanket, then rested his tightly fisted hands on the withers. Another ten seconds, he figured—likely no more than five—he’d have used those fists.
He wouldn’t have been capable of holding back longer.
Now he forced himself to relax those fists as he heard Clintok’s engine roar to life, heard him drive off, spitting gravel from his tires.
He had the boy to thank for sparing him what would’ve been an ugly brawl. But …
“You didn’t have to do that, Easy.”
“I was just giving my recollection. We had all that tack to get to.”
“We started on the tack a couple days after that. You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t know as I do.” Easy looked over the horses’ backs. The stubborn set to his jaw loosened under Callen’s steady stare. “Maybe I do now that I think on it, but I didn’t like the way he came at you, boss. I didn’t like how he talked, or how he looked. I swear he wanted to pull out his sidearm, draw down on you. I swear. I didn’t want to see him give you trouble, that’s all.”
“I appreciate it. I do. But next time—and with Clintok there’s always a next time—don’t. There’s no point in you walking into his sights. He’s had me there since we were boys, and it’s never going to change.”
“Some people get born with a mean streak, I reckon. Was he talking about that girl who went missing? Is he saying she’s dead?”
“That’s how it sounded to me.”
“Holy hell, Cal.” Easy let out a long breath as he ran a soft brush over the mare. “Holy hell. That’s terrible. That ain’t right. But he’s got to be stupid thinking you’d do something like that.”
“Like I said, I’ve been in his sights a long time. Sooner or later, he’d like to have an excuse to pull the trigger.”
Sooner or later, Callen thought, he might get pushed into giving him one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
— 2012 —
Esther scrubbed the bathroom, top to bottom, as she did every other day.
Cleanliness was godliness.
Her hands, red, raw, and cracked from years of hot water and harsh soaps, burned some as she dunked the scrub brush in the bucket. Her knees ached; her back pinged and popped.
She barely noticed.
She took such pride in the white linoleum floor, in the shine she worked out of the faucets and knobs in the sink and the shower.
She sang while she worked, her voice as young and strong and pretty as she’d once been.
When she finished there, she’d sweep and scrub the rest of the house, and when Sir came, he’d be pleased with her.
He’d built it for her, hadn’t he, even said how she’d earned it. And he warned her, as she was weak-minded and lazy, he could take it away again if she didn’t show it—and him—the proper respect.
He’d even let her hang a flower-print curtain to separate the bathroom from the rest of the house.
The rest consisted of an eight-by-ten-foot space that held a twin bed, a rusted iron pole lamp with a torn shade, the chair he’d hauled from her room in the basement, a counter formed out of birch logs and plywood, a shower rod that served as her closet.
Unfinished drywall covered the walls; a brown braided rug, frayed at the edges, spread over the subflooring. She had two cupboards, one for the plastic dishes, one for foodstuffs, and a cold box for keeping perishables.
Best of all, she had a window. It was small, and high up at the ceiling, but she got light when the sun shined, could see the sky, and the night stars.
When she stood on the bed, she could see more. A few trees, the mountains—or a hint of them.
The space was smaller than the room in the basement, but she’d wept with gratitude when Sir had brought her to it, told her she would live there now.
She no longer wore the leg irons, though Sir had bolted them to the wall to remind her what he’d need to do if she angered him.
She tried hard not to anger him.
Here, in what was a palace to her, she could heat water on the hot plate and make her own tea, or open up a can and cook soup.
In the season, he’d even let her out to work the vegetable garden. Of course, he had to tether her, lest she wander off and get lost or mauled by a bear.
She had to work at first light or at night with the dog chained, as he was watching her, but she prized those hours in the air, with her hands in the dirt, planting or weeding.
Once or twice she thought she’d heard a child calling or crying, and another time—maybe more than another time—she was certain she heard somebody call for help. But Sir said it was birds, and to get about her work.
Sir provided for himself and his own, he liked to say, with chickens in the coop, the milk cow in the pen, the horse in the paddock.
The garden served an important role in providing, and a woman worked the earth and tended its fruit. Just as a woman was to be planted and bear fruit.
She’d had three more children, all girls, as well as two miscarriages and a boy, stillborn.
The girls he took away, and though she’d wept for each precious one, she let herself forget. Then the boy. She’d felt such joy, such hope, then such shock and grief.
Sir said it was God’s wrath on her, a punishment for her evil ways, the curse of Eve.
Holding that still form, that lifeless child, like a pale blue doll, she knew Sir spoke truth.