Before they could continue, Georgia Vann joined them and the conversation steered toward Thanksgiving hunt breakfast. The club needed to borrow utensils.
Crawford avoided Bobby, who did likewise. He told everyone that he and Martha were engaged. To celebrate his good fortune he bought a round of drinks for everyone.
Cody and Jennifer had Perrier as Jennifer told her tale of woe to her sister.
Sarcasm dripping, Cody said, “I’m so glad you’re preparing Mom and me but what’s the deal?”
“No deal.” Jennifer shrugged.
“You might as well tell me now because I’ll find out later and then, li’l Sis, I’ll really be mad. Like I don’t care how long you cry you ain’t gettin’ no help from me.” She sounded like a country-and-western song, which was her intent.
“He’ll say I slept with him.”
“Did you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“For drugs?”
Jennifer reddened. “Not exactly. I liked him. How was I to know he’d turn into such a butthead. When I stopped screwing up and screwing him, he—” She shrugged. “Getting even.”
“Mom and Dad are going to be really embarrassed.” She thought a moment. “Can’t you talk him out of it?”
“How? He got busted in the locker room selling a gram of coke. I can’t get him out of it.”
“Does he still want to go to bed with you?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged again.
“I’m not suggesting you comply but—” She shook her head, trying to come up with solutions. “Has he named other people?”
“Oh yeah. By the time he’s done half of Lee High will be tied and fried. Barbecue.”
“His dad’s a lawyer. I suppose that will help him but it won’t help you or anyone else.” She took in a deep breath. “Let’s talk to Walter. He’s a doctor. He’s smart. Maybe he’ll help us. If nothing else he can testify that you’re making every effort to keep clean.” She put her hand under Jennifer’s elbow, heading her in the direction of Walter.
“There’s one other thing. Dean knows I slept with Fontaine.”
Cody went white. “You idiot.”
CHAPTER 59
The sting of not being chosen to be joint-master faded as Crawford focused on Martha. Winning her back meant a great deal personally and socially.
This euphoria somewhat dissipated when Ben Sidell walked through the office door to announce that the .38 found in the ravine was registered to Crawford Howard.
“Are you accusing me of killing Fontaine Buruss?” Crawford sputtered.
Calmly, deliberately, the sheriff replied, “I am informing you that a thirty-eight registered to you, purchased last June, was the gun that killed Fontaine Buruss.”
Rising from his chair, Crawford said, “I didn’t even know the gun was missing.”
“Where do you usually keep it?” Without being invited to do so, Ben sat down in a chair by the coffee table. He opened his notepad.
“In my trailer.”
“What trailer?”
“My horse trailer.”
“Why would you keep a thirty-eight in your horse trailer? I thought foxhunters didn’t shoot foxes.”
Walking around his desk and leaning against it, facing the sheriff, Crawford, quickly in control of himself, replied, “In case I find a wounded animal. In case there’s an accident in the field. You know, a horse breaks a leg.”
“I see. Then why was the gun in your trailer and not on your person? I’d think you’d notice its disappearance promptly.” His tone was even, his voice deep.
Embarrassed, Crawford folded arms across his chest. “I anticipated being asked to carry the gun but when I wasn’t, I put it in the medicine chest in my trailer.”
“Why would you be asked to carry a gun?”
“One or two staff people usually carry a thirty-eight under their coat or on the small of their back. Just in case.”
“So you bought the gun last June—just in case.”
Crawford’s voice rose. “I thought I would be asked to become joint-master. My rival, as you know, since you’ve questioned everyone, was Fontaine Buruss. Jane Arnold was to have made her decision at opening hunt. However, the death, the murder of Fontaine, convinced her to delay that decision until next season.”
“You’re disappointed?”
“Hell, yes, I’m disappointed but not enough to remove my rival.”
“Why couldn’t you both serve?”
“It would have never worked.”
“Why not?”
“Fontaine was a lightweight. A bullshitter. What he wanted to do was seduce women.”
“I was under the impression he was successful without being joint-master.”
“Sheriff, this is Virginia. We’re both outsiders. It took me a while to realize that M.F.H. behind one’s name ranks right up there with F.F.V. Of course, if you have both you have everything.” He caustically winked.
“Tell me again of your whereabouts during opening hunt. You were unaccounted for for twenty minutes.”
“We went over that.”
“Refresh my memory.” Ben smiled at him, a cold glint in his eye.
“My horse went lame. I turned back. When I reached the small creek, Tinker’s Branch, I was afraid Czapaka would jump it and I didn’t want him to do that if he was lame. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me at first but I picked up his front feet and found a stone. I removed the stone, walked him a bit with me off. He was sound. So I got up and rejoined the group.”
“And no one saw you?”
“No. Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Crawford Howard, I am booking you under suspicion of the murder of Fontaine Buruss. You have the right to remain silent. . . .”
CHAPTER 60
Crawford Howard strolled out of the county jail within four hours thanks to his lawyer, the best money could buy. The bail, set at two hundred thousand dollars, was paid with Crawford waggling his finger at the bailiff saying that the money would be back in his pocket within the month.
No doubt the lawyer was thinking the same thing.
That same afternoon Dean Offendahl named every student at Lee High School who had ever bought drugs with him or done drugs with him. His father had worked out an arrangement whereby if Dean cooperated with the courts he would not be sent to a juvenile detention center.
He also had to name anyone else he knew that sold drugs. Fontaine Buruss’s name was on that list.
As this was immediately before Thanksgiving break, Mr. Offendahl hoped the worst of the gossip would be dissipated by the holiday.
During this time Sister Jane set out small heaps of corn throughout the fixture that would be hunted on Thanksgiving. She also walked deep into the ravine, patiently laying corn and bits of hot dog.
CHAPTER 61
Raising children, not an occupation for the faint of heart, baffled Bobby Franklin. He worked hard, paid the bills, supplied discipline when necessary, spent time with the girls. When they were younger Bobby carted them to horse shows, grooming, cleaning tack, applying that last-minute slap on their boots with a towel when they were mounted. He listened to them rant about unfair judges, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not. He observed them bite their lips so as not to cry when they lost. They also learned to win without undue celebration, as befits a lady.
Neither kid impressed her teachers with intellectual prowess but the physical education teachers thought them both wonderful. He feared the onslaught of adolescence but they sailed along. When Cody began to falter at sixteen he didn’t notice at first. She still competed in horse shows. She wasn’t surly, just diffident. He thought this remoteness a phase. He didn’t recognize that she was struggling until she was in her sophomore year of college. Wrecking her ancient Jeep was the first sign; a report card below the line was the second.
Betty sensed it long before he did. He wondered now if he’d done the right thing. He’d hated his father sticking his nose in his business, probing him about girls, drinking, parties, his future. He thought he was giving his girls room. Sitting before the tiled fireplace, Betty in the wing chair to his right, both daughters on the sofa before him, he had occasion to repent of his laxness. Mr. Offendahl kept the story of drugs at Lee High out of the paper but he couldn’t cut out people’s tongues. Neither Betty nor Bobby was surprised when their phone rang off the hook. Jennifer, horrified, slunk to her room, refusing to come out, declaring she would never go to school again, her life was ruined, et cetera. . . .