“Maybe you’d better stay here,” I said. “Dove said she was on her way home and that y’all were going out someplace good for dinner.” It was a blatant lie, but I’d let Dove deal with that.

  “I don’t like you getting involved with this,” Gabe said. “You should call Hudson and have him send a detective out.”

  “No,” I said calmly. “She wants to talk to me, not some strange detective. We don’t even know if her meltdown has anything to do with Cal’s death. She’s probably just being . . . a teenager. She and I have talked some about losing our moms so young.” I glanced over at Daddy, whose face still took on a tinge of sadness whenever I mentioned my mother. I smiled at him. “Even when you have great dads, you sometimes just need to talk to a woman.”

  “She has Maggie and Katsy,” Gabe said. “They’re family, or close enough to it.”

  I went up the steps, plopped a hand on each armrest and looked deep into his troubled blue-gray eyes. “Friday, I don’t think this has anything to do with anything except a young girl who is sad and scared because her boyfriend was killed. Probably because of something in his past. Who was it that said the past always follows us?”

  “‘The past is not dead,’ ” Aunt Garnet said. “ ‘In fact, it’s not even past.’ ” She cleared her throat. “Bill Faulkner.”

  I turned and smiled at her, loving the way she said “Bill,” as if she and the famous writer had just eaten biscuits and gravy together that morning. “William Faulkner did have a way with words. Don’t worry, Chief Ortiz. If Jazz tells me something relevant to the case, I’ll call Hud right away.”

  On the drive to Katsy and Maggie’s ranch, I contemplated what Jazz might want to tell me. Did she know about Cal’s troubled past? She must have. Had he truly broken away from his old racist friends? Could a person change so quickly, so completely? My belief in God’s grace told me that yes a person could make a 180-degree change. We had the free will to do so. But humans were fallible. We might want to change, but we are often lured back to the tempting patterns of our pasts. And, sometimes, when we are honestly trying to walk away, our past comes looking for us. William Faulkner was right about that. The things we do and say aren’t ever really finished. If more people understood that would they think twice before doing or saying something cruel? Most of history revealed . . . not often enough.

  Those troubling thoughts accompanied me on my drive down the twisting two-lane highway to the remote Morrison ranch. Their nearest neighbors, the Seavers, trained cutting horses and lived a half mile away. I passed under the bleached wood archway carved with their greatgrandfather’s Circle LM cattle brand and pulled up in front of the wood frame ranch house. It was painted a deep brick red with white window frames and decorative shutters with cutouts of the distinctive bulbous heads of Hereford cattle. Maggie commissioned those shutters a few months ago from one of our co-op’s woodworkers. This was the first time I’d seen them on the house though I’d watched their progress in the woodshop. Maggie waited on the deep front porch.

  “Hey,” I said, coming up the steps. “Is Jazz still incommunicado?”

  Maggie opened the wooden screen door for me. “I’m worried, Benni. She’s so upset and won’t tell me or Katsy a thing. We thought about calling Levi, but we wanted to see if she’d talk to you first. Levi doesn’t look good. I know he’s not getting enough sleep.”

  “Who can blame him?” I said, stepping into their living room. It was decorated with a plush navy sofa, two deep red leather chairs and a bevy of rustic antiques from old California—rusty horseshoes, Spanish-style spurs, a feed-store calendar from the 1920s. A matching red, white and navy Road to Oklahoma quilt hung over the sofa. Their mother had been born and raised outside of Tulsa.

  “Last room at the end.” She gestured toward the long hallway. “The one with the closed door,” she added, her voice weary.

  “Where’s Katsy?” I asked.

  “Feeding the critters. Have you eaten supper yet? We’re barbecuing halibut steaks tonight.”

  “Let’s see how things go with Jazz. If I can talk her out of her lair, maybe it would be better if I headed back home, let you all have some private time to discuss things.”

  “Good luck. I’ll be in the kitchen making a salad.”

  I walked down the hallway past three other bedrooms wondering briefly if Katsy and Levi did get married where they would live—here or in Paso Robles?

  There was no sound coming from behind the closed door. I knocked softly on the knotty-pine door.

  “Jazz, it’s Benni Harper . . .” I cleared my throat. “Uh, Benni Ortiz.”

  She flung the door open, took one look at me and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER 10

  “OH, SWEETIE,” I SAID, ENCIRCLING HER WITH MY ARMS. HER sobs were deep and intense, her shoulder blades as delicate as a kitten’s. Abruptly, she broke away, motioning me into the room. Once I was over the threshold, she locked the door behind us, which seemed a little over the top. And certainly unnecessary. But I cut her slack. She was only a kid and she’d lost someone close to her in a violent way.

  “I really need to talk to you,” Jazz said, giving a small hiccup and wiping her swollen eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Okay,” I said, sitting down on the double bed. “What about?”

  She flopped down next to me. The bed was covered with an old-fashioned chenille bedspread the color of buttered popcorn. The head-board was an off-white Shabby Chic style that someone—likely Jazz or Katsy—had hand-painted with local wildflowers—electric blue columbine, Orangesicle California poppies and school bus yellow wild mustard.

  I took Jazz’s hand. “You are scaring Maggie and Katsy to death.” Inwardly, I flinched at my insensitive word choice. “Anything you tell me, you can tell them.”

  She shook her head, her green eyes welling with tears. “They wouldn’t understand. Maggie and Katsy . . . well, I love them, I do! They are . . . they’re great. Like my sisters. I really, really want Dad to marry Katsy. She’s awesome and Maggie . . . she’s the best. I so, so admire them. But they wouldn’t get this like you do.”

  I scratched my cheek, momentarily confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I’m part white too,” she said fiercely. “People always forget that. It’s like when my mom died, that part of me died too. It’s not fair. When you die, people just forget you.” Her bottom lip started quivering. “Like Cal. Except for me, no one cares that he’s dead.”

  I pressed my lips together, not certain how to answer. So I just squeezed her hand in sympathy.

  She didn’t speak and the expression on her face looked expectant.

  “I understand it’s not fair,” I finally said. “I’m always telling my gramma Dove that things aren’t fair and she just tells me fare is something you pay to ride the bus.” I gave a tentative smile. “Frankly, I wish she’d come up with a new saying.”

  She didn’t return my smile. I knew this wasn’t a joking matter, but I was floundering because I didn’t have any particularly wise words of advice. How could I tell someone almost twenty years younger than me that most of the time I was as confused by people’s actions as she was? Was there really any adequate explanation for why people hate? “I’m so sorry about Cal. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She turned her head, looking out a window that still had the ancient, wavy glass of the original house. It made the olive tree outside the house resemble a surrealist painting. “Maybe I know kind of why he was killed?”

  I let go of her hand and felt my spine stiffen. “What?”

  She continued staring out the window. “The night before he died, we left the fair about nine p.m. It was still really hot so we decided to go swimming at my house.” She started running the palm of her hand across the chenille bedspread’s bumpy pattern. “We swam and then I made us some peanut butter sandwiches. When I was walking out with him to his truck, he said he was thinking about leaving town for a while.” She turned her head to look at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and teary again. “I really, really liked him, Benni. He was not at all what people thought. He wrote poems and songs. Really awesome ones. He listened to me. Not many guys ever do that. They all want . . .” She looked back down at the bedspread. She fanned her hand out, her fingers reminding me of the handprint turkeys kids draw at Thanksgiving. “He and I talked about deep stuff, like how what happens to us as kids makes us the people we are. He doesn’t even remember his mom. His dad died when he was thirteen.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “He spent most of his life living with people he didn’t even know. He lived so many different places before he turned eighteen. Everything he owned fit in a gym bag. Isn’t that just so sad?”

  It was and there was not one thing I could say that would lessen the tragedy of Cal’s short, troubled life.

  “He was so excited about getting his GED,” she continued, “and maybe going to college. He loved animals. He wanted to be a veterinarian or learn to make saddles.”

  Her expression was completely guileless, with the faith and hope that I remembered having at her age. It was truly a blessing to have that time in your life when anything seemed possible.

  I let her talk about Cal’s dreams for a few more minutes before I finally broke in. “He sounds like he was a wonderful young man. I’m glad he had you, Jazz. He was lucky.”

  She gave me a surprised look. “Oh, Benni, I was lucky too.”

  “You’re right. And finding out who did this to him would be a wonderful way to honor his life.”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I mean, besides the fact that you kind of understand since you and Gabe are different like Cal and me. You’re friends with that detective. You can tell him what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Why don’t you just tell Detective Hudson yourself?”

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I just don’t want to.”

  I knew this was a traumatic event for her, but it also seemed like she was making things more dramatic than they needed to be. It really wasn’t necessary for me to be the go-between for her and Hud. But if it made her feel better, I supposed it was the least I could do. “Why don’t you just tell me what Cal told you and together we’ll figure out what to do?”

  She leaned close to me, her voice low and urgent. “For one thing, you know he once hung with some people who were kind of skinheads?”

  “Yes, I heard about that. But hadn’t Cal stopped associating with them?”

  She nodded vehemently. “They didn’t like that at all. Especially when they found out about him and me.”

  “How did they find that out?”

  She lifted up her shoulders. “Who knows? People saw us. Maybe someone told them.”

  My first thought was Dodge Burnside. “So, what did they do?”

  “Mostly just called him and said stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Like being a traitor to his own race. They said he’d be sorry for hanging around a half-breed. He was so embarrassed about ever being friends with them. He didn’t want to tell me, but I pried it out of him.” Her nostrils flared. “They said things about my dad and Katsy and Maggie. About what they’d like to do to . . . hurt us. Cal didn’t want to tell me that either, but he said we should know.”

  “Did you tell your dad?”

  “Not yet. Cal told me all this last night. Right before he was . . .” She gave a small sob. “Maybe they killed him! One of them . . . those people who said those horrible things.”

  “Detective Hudson definitely needs to know this.”

  She looked back down at the chenille spread. “There’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “He found out something about someone that wasn’t right.”

  “Something illegal?”

  Her bottom lip quivered slightly. “He wouldn’t tell me. He just said he was going to talk to the person about it, see if they’d stop. If they didn’t, then he’d tell someone because it was the right thing to do.”

  “Someone like the police?”

  She bit her bottom lip, her teeth white against her lips. “I guess.” “Do you have any idea what he saw or who he was talking about?” My insides turn cold. There might be more in danger than any of us realized.

  She shook her head again. “Cal didn’t want me to be involved. He said he would try to make the person stop what they’re doing.” A small sob caught in her throat. “Maybe whoever he talked to killed him?”

  A good possibility, but I didn’t want to panic her. Her emotions were already in high gear. “It would be better if you told the detective all this.”

  “Can’t you tell him? I don’t want to talk to the police again.”

  “I can, but I’m warning you, he will want to talk to you again.” I stood up, pulling down the legs of my Wranglers. “Why didn’t you tell this to the police when they first questioned you?”

  Confusion and regret washed over her face. “I don’t know, I don’t know! I was so scared. And I didn’t want people to think Cal was terrible because he hung out with those guys. Besides Cal was so serious about me not telling anyone. He said he could take care of it. I believed him.”

  Oh, the brazen confidence of the young. The minute that thought came into my mind, I wondered how many times my dad and gramma had thought the same thing about me.

  “I’ll call Detective Hudson,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “But Katsy and Maggie have a right to know if . . .” I stopped, not wanting to actually say it out loud—they had a right to know if their lives were in danger. “You need to tell your dad about this. Tonight.”

  She dropped her head, studying her bare feet. Her toenails were painted a bright glittery purple. “I’ll call him right now.” She looked back up at me. “Could you tell Maggie and Katsy?”

  I went back into the kitchen where Maggie was chopping tomatoes. Their fresh, sweet, earthy scent floated across the room. A tomato-mayonnaise sandwich eaten in front of my own television sounded so good right now.

  Katsy stood scrubbing her hands in the deep farm kitchen sink. Their kitchen, one of the first rooms they’d renovated in the old ranch house, had natural pine cabinets with glass doors and pale speckled granite countertops. The pure white walls set off their collection of colorful, odd-sized folk art paintings with an emphasis on dogs, horses and cows. The paintings lit up the room with color. Bess and Harry lay on the braided rag rug in front of the back door.

  “Houston,” I said, folding my arms across my chest and leaning against the kitchen threshold, “we have a problem.”

  “Obviously,” Katsy said, not turning around, “but is the problem one we can solve?”

  I repeated my conversation with Jazz. Katsy and Maggie listened intently, their faces shiny with perspiration. Unlike Jazz, I don’t think they much cared about Cal’s love of poetry or his tenuous dreams of becoming a veterinarian or a saddlemaker.

  “She’s safer out here,” Katsy said flatly. “We have shotguns and Bess and Harry will discourage anyone who would think half a second about breaking in.”

  I didn’t want to contradict her, but I was afraid that being so far out in the country might be less safe. It would take law enforcement at least a half hour, maybe longer, to get here once they were called. Then again, this was their home. Their mother had leased the ranch for years and when she died, her life insurance enabled Katsy and Maggie to put a down payment and obtain a mortgage. I knew these two well. They were ranch-tough women who could take care of themselves. They would never let anyone run them off their own property.

  “I told her she should talk to her dad,” I said. “She’s calling Levi now.”

  He and the Morrison women could decide whether Jazz should stay here or go back home. That was certainly not something they needed my input on.

  “How about some supper?” Maggie said, holding up a halibut steak.

  “Thanks, but I need to hit the road. I’ll call Hud and tell him what Jazz told me. Guess we’ll just have to wait for what comes next.”

  Maggie walked me out to my truck, Harry trotting beside us. Though it was almost eight o’clock and the sun had dipped below the treetops, the temperature was still in the nineties. Harry’s tongue was rock-star long, dripping with saliva. I looked forward to my truck’s icy air-conditioning.

  “What’s on your schedule for tomorrow?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m not on the list to help anyone, but Dove will likely drop Aunt Garnet in my lap again so I guess I’ll see what she wants to do.”

  “It’s back to real work for me. Gabe has a packed day.” She made a face. “I hate Mondays.”

  “I’ll let you know what Hud says.” I leaned over and hugged her hard. “Be safe, Maggie. Don’t try to do this alone.”

  She hugged me back. “Don’t you worry, Benni. Katsy and I have no desire to be martyrs.” Her tone was light, but I could hear the tension underneath, like a buzzing electrical line.

  I pulled out my cell phone. No bars. “Could you call the chief and let him know I’m on my way home?”

  “You bet, girlfriend.”

  Gabe and Scout weren’t there when I walked into the living room, but I checked the answering machine. Gabe had listened to Maggie’s message. A note on the pad next to the phone said they went for a quick walk. It was fifteen degrees cooler in San Celina, a relief after the North County’s heat. I grabbed a Coke out of the refrigerator and dialed Hud’s home phone number.

  “Hud? It’s Benni.” I flopped down on the sofa and took a drag from my Coke.

  “Hey, ranch girl. What’s up?”

  “I just got back from the Morrison ranch. Jazz is staying there.”

  “Yes?”

  For the second time, I repeated Jazz’s story.

  After I finished, he waited a few seconds before commenting. “That is interesting, but there’s really nothing that helps us. He saw something?”

  “I know it’s vague.”

  “Just a little.”

  “How much did you investigate that group he was involved with?”