Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [29]
“She made her own puppets,” I said, sadness weighting my heart. “They were beautiful. I wonder what will happen to them.”
“That’s up to her heir, which appears to be her brother.”
“So you have no leads at all?”
“Not unless she’s got a million-dollar insurance policy and her brother is the beneficiary.”
“Nick would never kill Nora! They were very close.”
Gabe reached over and gave my head a condescending pat.
“He wouldn’t,” I repeated stubbornly, though with less conviction. The longer I was exposed to police work, the less sure I was becoming of my fellow human beings’ basic goodness. But I steadfastly refused to become as cynical as Gabe. Someone in this relationship needed a positive outlook.
“Come here,” Gabe said, pulling me over and tucking me under his arm. “Our bed is not the place I want to discuss my work. Tell me how the meeting with the storytellers went.”
“It was almost a free-for-all when I arrived.” I nuzzled my cheek on his chest hair.
“Why?”
I told him about the argument between Roy and Ash. “I think there’s more history to that fight than the comment about Zar’s stud fees.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, knowing Ash’s reputation, it occurred to me that he might have had a fling at one time with Grace. She and Roy have broke up a few times in the last year, and Grace has enough of a vindictive streak to do something like that if for no other reason than to irritate Roy.”
“Refresh my memory. Grace is . . . ?”
“The woman Roy is living with now. She owns the stables off Laguna Valley Road. You know, behind the redwood Methodist church. It’s where I’ve been riding the last couple of months.”
“I take it Roy and Nora’s divorce wasn’t an amicable parting.”
“Not by any stretch of the imagination. Nora divorced him because he was cheating on her with Grace while their eight-year-old son was dying. You really can’t blame her. That is pretty low.”
“So for revenge, Nora was holding up the divorce proceedings because of the property settlement of some horse.”
“Zar’s more than just some horse. Grace says he’s worth twenty-five thousand dollars. Maybe more.”
Gabe whistled under his breath. “People have been killed for less.”
I scratched his stomach lightly. “I just can’t picture it, though. Roy might be a hothead, but he’d held off this long, and Grace told me last week he and Nora were getting close to an agreement. That’s why they were advertising Zar’s services in the paper. She said they had agreed to split the stud fees until the final details of ownership were worked out.”
“So what about this Ash? With a name like that, it is a good thing he was never a cop.”
“It’s short for Ashley. Ashley Stanhill. He owns that new restaurant on the corner of Alvarez and Elm, near the Art Center. Eudora’s Front Porch. He’s from Mississippi. He’s got a gorgeous accent and that kind of cockiness that a woman wants to hate, but somehow just can’t ’cause it’s so incredibly blatant. He seduces women simply by being so audacious.”
“Oh, really?”
I pulled on his chest hair. “Not me, you jerk. Other women.”
“Ow,” he said, grabbing my hand and pressing it to his chest. “You’re really into inflicting pain today. So, tell me more about the environmental guy you mentioned this afternoon. The political one.”
“Peter Grant. I’ve known him since I was a kid. We were in 4-H together. His parents owned one of the biggest almond orchards in the state. They sold it and moved to San Francisco and he stayed. He’s one of those guys who’s never gotten married, lives for his hobbies and his causes.”
“Which are?”
“In a nutshell? Mountain climbing, scuba diving, zero growth, owls, redwoods and wolves, and whatever new animal or cause is the current