The Killing Game(85)

“Yeah, they didn’t pay. Shame, shame, shame. So Elias kicked their butts right out of there.”

“Did they have a son?”

She screwed up her face, thinking hard, then said brightly, “My grandson!”

“You’re not talking about Caleb?”

She flapped a hand at September. “’Course not. Okay. He had money and he was a flirt.” She slid a sly look September’s way. “I just called him my grandson.”

“Was he Kim’s son?”

“Wha’cha talkin’ about?” She glared at September. “He was the horsey one!”

“The family that had horses?” September asked, trying to follow.

“No! You don’t listen! He came from over there.” She waved an arm out the window, and September wondered if she was thinking she was at Aurora Lane again.

Grace proved her right when she said, “By the lake. Hoity-toity. Y’know?”

“Your grandson—you called him your grandson—came from the Schultz Lake area?”

“He rode horses there.” She closed her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “There were horses around and they rode them across the fields.”

“Was there someone whose name sounded like shoe?”

“No.”

“Or Laser?”

She blinked, clearly lost. “Who are you again?”

“Detective Rafferty. September Rafferty.”

“You ask too many questions.”

September smiled. “You might be right.”

“You ask too many questions! That’s what you did before!” Her face started to turn red. “Get out. Get out of my room!”

September debated asking her a few more, but an explosion was imminent, if it wasn’t already happening. Badge or no badge, she wanted to sidestep dealing with the staff or the Myleses if she could.

“Thank you, Grace,” she said.

“Get out!”

She hurriedly did as she was told, practically racewalking back down the hall. At least she had enough to ask Elias Mamet some further questions about his tenants. And she wasn’t going to let him put her off.

*

Andi turned over in bed and into Luke’s arms. She felt sad and needy and deeply scared but undeniably safer with Luke around . . . and well, better now.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

He was leaning on one elbow, watching her face. She smiled faintly. “Seven?”

“Five-thirty.”

“You sound like you’re getting ready to leave.” She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice. She hoped it sounded like disappointment rather than fear.

“I want to catch up with Thompkins, if I can. Maybe I can call Marjorie. Get some more information.”

“But you plan to come back tonight.”

“I’d like you to go with me. I don’t want you here alone.”

“I can certainly lock the doors.”

“It’s too isolated. It might be better if I tackle Thompkins alone, but I can take you to my office or my apartment, but my office is closer to Laurelton PD.”

“As much as I’d like to see your apartment, I’ll opt for the office.” Feeling his gaze following her as she climbed out of bed, she turned back. “Do I have time for a shower?”

“I need one, too. Maybe we could—”

“Share water? Save the environment?”

He flashed a grin at her and threw back the covers with gusto.

*

September was talking fast into her cell phone. “Mr. Mamet, if you could just take a moment to search your records. I would like the name of the people who owned an RV but leased your rental house from you. Or they purchased the RV before they left your rental. I understand you may have evicted them?”

She held her breath as she pulled into the station. Mamet had answered her call, but he never stayed on the line long. He was retired and she’d been to his home once, but it was about two hours south of Laurelton, and that time he’d practically thrust the list of renters at her and slammed the door in her face.

“RVers,” he said.

“That’s right. RVers. They could possibly be named Kirkendall, Wright, Patten, or Brannigan.” She had the four renters’ names she was focused on down pat.

“Kirkendall,” he spat. And then, “Or Patten. One of ’em.”

“I know I’ve asked you this. But did any of them own a horse, or horses?”

“Look, ma’am,” he said in a warning tone. He never would call her detective. “I already told you, they brought horses in, took horses out, never paid me a dime. That land stretched back to the creek and there’s a gate, then you can go all the way to Schultz Lake on Flinders farmland. You know the Flinders? Owned everything around here, and that big piece of land is just waiting for some greedy developer to chop it up.”

This was more information than she’d gotten in all her phone calls to him. He seemed to like to gripe, so maybe that was a way of cracking open his resistance. “Do you remember the names of any of those horsey people?” She inflicted just a touch of sarcasm on horsey.

He jumped in eagerly this time. “One of ’em, the missus, was a horse nut for sure.” He snorted. “Husband was a beer drinker. Watched lots of sports. Big Raiders fan. He was a plumber, but mostly he was out of work. By choice, ’cause he didn’t much like work, that’s for sure. But the missus had her nose in the air. Thought she was all that and more, but she wasn’t nothin’ much. He knew it and made faces about her behind her back.”