Bowled Over (23 page)

His face bleached, and a nerve in his temple leaped.

“Another woman?” Matt said, jolted out of his stunned silence.

“Can we talk about this outside?” Craig said, turning to Jaymie. He headed to the door with Matt asking what was going on from behind them. Craig ignored his partner.

Jaymie followed Craig outside.

The man whirled, his face twisted with anger. “You’ve got nerve, coming to me with your sad story of persecution and…and your gossip! I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing here, but you’d better just leave. Maybe Kathy was right about you after all; you’re a Goody Two-shoes Leighton who thinks everyone owes you a curtsey or a bow and an apology for even living.”

“That’s a load of crap, Craig,” Jaymie said, trying to subdue her quivering. She had brought on this wave of fury and couldn’t now go back on it. “You’re just trying to evade the truth, that you were cheating on Kathy.” Her stomach felt sick. She hated conflict, and here she was confronting a man she had been “enemies” with for years.

But tears oozed from his cold gray eyes. He shook his head. “I won’t talk to you about this,” he said, and strode away.

He roared off in his Chevy, and Jaymie went back into the office. Matt was sitting at his desk, head in his hands. He looked up as she sat across from him.

“What’s going on, Matt?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, an echo of hopelessness in his voice.

“Kathy was convinced that you guys were going to open a branch office in Toledo, and she and Craig were going to manage it. But you guys were calling it off. What happened?”

He shrugged. “It was never the right time for it. I fought it from the beginning, but Kathy was determined. Craig finally came around to my way of thinking, but now I’m wondering why.” He sat back in his chair and glanced over at a picture on his desk. He and a beautiful woman stood, arm in arm, clearly at some kind of official function.

“Is that Lily?”

He nodded.

“She’s lovely.” Jaymie paused, then tackled the matter uppermost in her mind. “Did you know Craig was cheating on Kathy?”

“I don’t know it
now
,” he said, glaring at her. “What, I’m supposed to believe you over my friend of twelve years? I don’t think so.”

She took another tack. “Matt, I heard Kathy threaten you with some kind of hold she had over you. What was that about?”

His expression hardened, his brown eyes hard and angry. “It was about nothing. She was delusional. Kathy Cooper had problems—
deep
problems—and she infected everyone she came near. I would think you’d know that better than anyone.”

“But there seemed to be something there, something she knew. I won’t say a word to anyone, I promise.”

He shook his head. “No wonder you two butted heads. Look, there is nothing there, I swear it. I have nothing to hide. She was delusional, I told you. She misunderstood
something private, and…never mind! I have work to do, so it would be best if you just left.” He shuffled some papers together on his desk.

Jaymie watched him for a moment. He was worried about something, but he was not going to tell her what, despite his assertion that he had nothing to hide. “So you and your girlfriend were at the picnic on the Fourth. I hate to ask, but can I get the basket back sometime?”

“We didn’t even use it. I gave her the basket and was supposed to meet her, but she ended up having to go to some official function in Wolverhampton.”

“So you didn’t stay and watch the fireworks?”

“Not my kind of thing.”

“And you didn’t go to the function in Wolverhampton?”

“She said not to bother. It was going to be boring, and she wouldn’t be able to spend any time with me anyway.”

No discernible alibi, Jaymie thought, afraid to push him harder. She watched his eyes. “So where is the basket?”

“Lily still has it. I’ll make sure she returns it. Now, will you
please
go away? I have a ton of work to do!”

“Okay. All right.” As she walked away, she heard a deep sigh and what sounded like a sob, but when she looked back, Matt appeared immersed in work.

Fourteen

J
AYMIE LEFT
as puzzled, or more so, than she had been when she came. It was strange, an out-of-body experience, to behave that way. But it sure was empowering. It would have been nice if she had actually learned something.

But maybe she had. Matt Laskan had not been with his girlfriend, and had been home alone as far as Jaymie could tell, so he didn’t have an alibi. Craig didn’t want anyone to know about his affair, not even his partner, Matt. And Matt was definitely hiding something, the secret that Kathy had confronted him with and had been holding over his head; if there was no secret, as he claimed, why was he not open about what Kathy was getting at? Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with anything, but she was curious. Hopefully her friend in Port Huron would come up with something.

Jaymie drove out to the country, following Valetta’s instructions, until she came to a sign announcing she was at the lane to the Brougham Spangler Horse Farm. She pulled
in and drove up the lane past a modern, low rambler-style home toward an enclave of barns, drive sheds and a horse ring with paddocks and fenced fields beyond. As she parked the Lexus and reentered the unfiltered, un-air-conditioned world, she thought what a mistake it had been to take Becca’s luxurious car. She couldn’t leave the windows open as she drove because Becca didn’t like dust in her car, so the drive was performed locked in a luxurious, climate-controlled vault. She should have driven her rough-and-tumble van; she would have enjoyed the country air streaming in. It was a truly gorgeous July day, the sun shining, barn swallows diving and soaring overhead, finches singing.

A couple of big dogs—a border collie cross and a shepherd cross—bounded over to her, one barking, but they skidded to a halt at one
tcht!
from a woman over by the training ring. Jaymie walked over to watch the action in the ring, both dogs following, but silently; Dani had a foal at the end of a long leather line. She stood in the middle of the ring and had the horse at a trot, going around in a circle. Jaymie joined a slim woman who stood at the fence, one booted foot up on the bottom rail.

“Hey,” the woman said, as a greeting.

“What’s Dani doing?” Jaymie asked.

“She’s on the last step of breaking a foal to halter.” The woman glanced over at Jaymie and perhaps felt her puzzlement. “Horses don’t naturally take to a halter and bridle, so it’s best to start early, get them used to it long before they’re ready for a saddle. This one’s a new colt, Chester, and he looks good, so we want to train him up right and early. Emma Spangler,” she finished, putting out her hand. “And you are…?”

“Jaymie Leighton.”

The other woman nodded. “I’ve heard of you. Dani said she ran into you at the feed store the day before Kathy was killed.”

Jaymie nodded. “That’s what I want to talk to Dani about.”

“This has been real hard on her.” She slanted a serious glance over at Jaymie. “You’re not going to upset her, are you?”

“I’m hoping, as Kathy’s friend, she can tell me about anything that was bothering Kathy lately, so I don’t know,” Jaymie said, honestly.

“Okay. I appreciate the truth.”

They watched for a while. Dani was so wholly engaged in her task, she didn’t even notice Jaymie until she finally relaxed and walked the foal, a pretty reddish brown animal, to the ring gate.

“That was beautiful,” Emma said.

Dani came over, kissed Emma soundly and smiled broadly. “Isn’t he perfection?” She petted the colt’s white-blazed nose. “We’ve got ourselves a winner.”

Jaymie felt the shock of the intimacy of that kiss, but didn’t want to show it. Dani Brougham was gay. It didn’t matter a jot, but what shocked her most was that Kathy must have known that, and yet Dani was her best friend. She hadn’t thought Kathy would be tolerant, much less accepting, of the couple. It saddened her that she hadn’t known
that
Kathy in adulthood, the one who was clearly a good and loyal friend.

Dani was watching her when she looked back up.

She knows I’m shocked,
Jaymie thought,
but not why
. It was not the kind of thing she could explain, so she just moved on. “You were Kathy’s best friend,” she said. “I wanted to say how sorry I am about her death.”

Dani nodded, her expression stoic. “I understand you found her.”

“It was terrible,” Jaymie said. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

Dani nodded.

“I’ll take Chester,” Emma said gently, touching Dani’s shoulder. “You two go on up to the house. There’s coffee made and some carrot cake I just finished frosting.”

Dani led the way to the back door and down into a rec room. She said she had to wash the ring dust off her, but told Jaymie to go ahead and have a seat while she headed upstairs.

The rec room was big, maybe twenty-five feet long, and cool. There was a fireplace in the corner, and there were comfortable couches and chairs in a seating area at one end. The walls were adorned with ribbons, framed photos and a shelf that held trophies dating all the way from the 1980s to earlier this same year. Most had Dani’s name on them, but some had Emma’s. There was a framed newspaper clipping with a photo of a grinning youngster in pigtails holding up a ribbon. Under it, it said, “Danielle Brougham, age twelve, and her half-Arabian, Leon, bring home a first in the Michigan Youth Equitation Trials.”

Passion: Dani had found hers early, but Jaymie was a late bloomer in every sense of the word, and was just now discovering an ardor for vintage kitchenware and old recipes. It was a sad, sad thing that Kathy, who had shown an early enthusiasm for health care and helping others, had not been able to follow through. Perhaps if she had lived, she still might have.

Jaymie sat on the sofa and thought about what she wanted to discuss with Dani. She wanted to know what Dani thought of the relationships in Kathy’s life, with her husband, sister
and the grandfather of her nephew. And what about Matt Laskan? Did Dani know if there was anyone else who would want Kathy dead? But the woman was going to have questions about her own motives, and Jaymie had to be prepared for that.

Finally Dani came down the stairs with two mugs and some carrot cake on a plain wood tray. “I didn’t know how you take your coffee, so I brought sugar and milk.”

“Great.” Jaymie fixed her coffee, and sat back, eyeing the generous hunks of carrot cake on a platter.

“Take a piece,” Dani said, grabbing a sizable chunk and a napkin for herself.

Jaymie did, and took a bite, closing her eyes in ecstasy. “I have to get this recipe,” she mumbled, enjoying the subtle spice flavor and the chopped pecans. “Yum!”

They finished their cake in silence; then, as Jaymie licked icing off her fingers, Dani said, “I’ll get Emma to give you the recipe.”

“How long have you two been together?”

“Seven years.”

“How’d you meet?”

“Horse show. She was a barrel racer and was looking for a trainer for a new horse she was thinking of buying.”

“How did you meet Kathy?” Jaymie asked.

“I came in to Laskan Cooper to have my accounts done. About five years ago, I guess. When Kathy found out I had horses, she wanted to know all about it, and she came out to ride. She was inexperienced, but she loved horses, you could tell. If she’d had more time, she could have become a good rider. We became friends.”

“I’ve known her almost my whole life,” Jaymie said.

“You’re the last person I would have expected to see here,” Dani said, her voice husky with emotions she was
trying to defeat. “You and she didn’t get along, exactly, from what I understand from Kylie.”

“We were the best of friends, once.”

“What happened?”

“What’s sad is, I didn’t know what happened to end our friendship until just a couple of days ago. Apparently someone at our high school thought it would be funny to tell her that I said something unforgivable about her.” Jaymie hung her head, feeling the searing awfulness of the words that must have pierced Kathy to the core. “Something really awful and personal. Someone told her that I said, to a guy she liked, that she smelled like pigs, her family smelled like pigs and their whole house smelled like pigs. It went around the school as some kind of great joke, and the guy never talked to her again.” Jaymie shook her head. “I could never say something like that. Never! But she apparently believed that I said it, without even asking me about it. She never told me why she was angry, so I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t…didn’t say it.” Jaymie shook her head and looked into Dani’s eyes. “Why did she believe I’d say a thing like that?”