I wasn't just imagining it: there was affection in the depths of those disconcertingly blue eyes. Damn the six thousand dollars. It wasn't because of Orfeo.
"So let's divert ourselves for another half-hour and then go home and eat. Unless you'd rather pick up a hot dog here. Garry won't mind."
I looked at the snack truck and then at the people milling around. Somehow this place seemed safer than the quiet Dower House for all the gates and the guard dogs.
"Of course, it's damned hot, and the house is air-conditioned. We can leave here anytime. You want to go swimming or something? Come to think of it"-and there was astonishingly enough a shade of apology in Rate's rueful admission-"I don't remember to ask what you'd like to do."
"You don't have to-mind-reader."
He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and evidently the matter was settled, for he suggested that we see what the Hunter Class was doing, all gussied up in pink coats (they must be boiling), breeks, hunting boots, whip, gloves, hat, saddle accessories. They were waiting in the ruthless sun for the judges to check the appointments.
We managed to get some shade from the high hedges in the corner of the hunting meadow, Ring 4. And, watching the contestants stretching their horses over the ground between hurdles, I did manage to forget the omnipresent shadow of fear. I didn't connect the slowly approaching
police car with my involvement, even when it pulled up near us.
"Clery! Hey, Clery."
I didn't react to the name the first time, because I wasn't used to thinking of myself as a Clery.
"Well, if it isn't Bob Erskine," Rafe said, nodding pleasantly to the heavyset police officer who heaved himself out of the back of the sedan. His badge said "Sheriff," and that's how he was introduced to me.
"Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Clery"-he must take lessons from my mother-in-law-"but I've a few questions to ask you."
"Thanks all the same, Bob. You don't need to assign a man to protect Nialla."
"Protect,.." Erskine floundered momentarily. "I'm talking to your wife, Mr. Clery. Are you Irene Nialla Donnelly, otherwise known as Nialla Dunn, and did you reside in San Fernando Valley at Merrymount Estate?…"
The noon-high sun could not thaw the chill that sprang from the pit of my stomach and spread rapidly to my hands and feet.
"I'm not sure I like your tone of voice, Erskine," Rafe said in a dangerously soft one.
I caught Rafe's hand, his fingers contracting around mine, instead of into a fist. I wouldn't let his hand go.
"I was Irene Nialla Donnelly, and I have used the name Nialla Dunn in the show ring," I said quickly. The cold receded rapidly before the anger I felt toward this paunchy bully, sweating in the hot sun. "I did reside in San Fernando. Why?" I felt Rafe relax at the crispness of my counter question.
"Seems like you left without notifying the authorities in charge of investigating a murder."
"I did leave California after my father's murder, that's true. But I also had been thoroughly interrogated by the police and left a signed statement with them. No one told me I couldn't leave the state, and so I'd no idea I was committing any kind of crime or misdemeanor."
"I didn't say you was-"
"You didn't say it," I replied, grabbing Rafe's hand again, and staring back at Erskine without wavering. "But your 'questions' imply it. I know that Detective Lieutenant Michaels has been in touch with you, so you must be aware of the facts."
"Now, there's no reason to get-"
"Isn't there?" I demanded, imbued with unexpected confidence and cool. This man was not one whit different from the disagreeable bullies who had harassed me in California. Only I wasn't a fool any longer. "When you accost me here, at a sports event? If you knew I was Mrs. Clery, then you knew the rest, Sheriff Erskine. Believe me, I am quite willing to cooperate with the authorities. Ask Detective Lieutenant Michaels. But I really do not think that this is the time or the place."
"Doesn't that about cover it, Erskine?" Rafe asked, using that soft dangerous tone. "Or should I ask Korlin to step over here a moment? He's right over there." And Rafe jerked his head back toward Ring 1, where the next class was lined up to enter. "You have more official questions? My wife will answer them, but since she has not broken any law by being the victim of planned accidents and an extortion attempt, the time will be convenient to her and her attorney. Now, good afternoon."
Rafe swung me back toward the ringside and began to comment on the form of the rider then approaching the stone fence in the far corner. I could feel fury in the shadow the Sheriff cast over us. It seemed an age before we heard the car door slam and the squawking of power steering as the auto backed around and bounced away over the rough ground.
"Rafe…"
"Nialla"-and for the first time he sounded impatient with me-"Bob Erskine is an officious oaf, hanging on to his office by the tips of his hairy fingers. Half his precinct is drug-ridden, from the college kids experimenting with electric punch to the upper-income brackets tripping on esoteric compounds. He can't touch the one because the campus goes up like a rocket. He can't touch the others because they consistently buy either him or the judge off. All the fervent puritans in the township and the narks in Mineola are breathing down his neck. But he can't pull that kind of a law-and-order arrogance with me-or you." Then he smiled at me. "You couldn't have answered him better."
"Those answers I have."
I'd felt unusually secure (for me) while I was actually confronting the Sheriff, but now, in reaction to the tension, I needed to find a ladies' room fast.
"The house isn't open," Rafe told me when I asked, "but I know there's a John in the stable. I'll show you."
We were halfway there when Rafe was hailed by the McCormacks. He urged me to go along to the stable-it was only a couple of hundred yards farther up the track.
I found a gay-nineties-style sign of a hand, the index finger pointed toward an open door at the back of the stable. The whimsy amused me. I entered a wide, cobbled passageway with six loose boxes along the right. On the left a double-barn door was barred from the inside, but at the end of the corridor was a second hand-sign pointing to the L of the stable. Two horses stuck their heads out of the stalls to investigate me: a rangy bay and a timorous gray. I made my duties to them, and they whiffled in response.
The John itself was a long narrow room, undoubtedly constructed for another use entirely but now serving as lavatory, kitchenette, and animal dispensary. The toilet was an original, same vintage as the hand signs, complete with upper water tank, pull chain, and golden oak trimmings. I had, as a matter of habit, thrown the bolt on the door, so when the handle rattled, I called out that I'd be only a minute. There was no reply, and I guiltily remembered monopolizing the one good toilet at Sunbury. I completed my use of the facilities and opened the door. To my chagrin, there was no one waiting in the passage way. It might have been a child with a far more urgent need…
Hands grabbed me from behind, fingers pressing into my windpipe with brutal strength, shaking me off my feet so that I fell to my knees, too startled to cry out with what breath remained, too terrified to do more than claw at the hands that were choking me.
"High and mighty, are you?" The words were no more than an anonymous hiss on a garlicky repellent breath. "Think you're safe with high gates and dogs? Too big, are you? Unless you pay up, you'll never be safe!"
I heard another voice, someone calling-calling me?-just as I passed out.
When I came to, I was propped in Bess Tomlinson's lap, her bracelets jangling in my face. Rafe was bending over me; he looked white and strained. My throat felt as if it was torn out, and hurt enough to make me wish it were. I couldn't swallow, and even air hurt in my throat, and I wanted to cry, and the air was stifling.