Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [71]
I watched her move through the tall grass until she crossed the creek and rode up into a stand of oak trees. She appeared small and defenseless atop such a large animal, but I knew that was only an illusion. She was an expert horsewoman and, more importantly, hated to lose. I had no doubt she’d take first place in her event on Sunday.
After grooming Tony and putting him on the hot walker, I told Grace’s stable hand, Kyle, to let Grace know exactly what I’d done with Tony. Roy’s specially equipped farrier truck was gone, so I assumed he was out on a job. I decided to drop by the museum one more time on the chance that there might be more fires between the artists that needed tamping out. Though I loved the special festivals and programs we put on four or five times a year at the museum, I dreaded the inevitable clashes between the co-op members. The whispered topic of the day was, of course, the news of Nora’s secret job.
I spent the next few hours putting the finishing touches on my opening speech interspersed with people drifting into my office, asking me if I’d heard and giving me their two cents on Nora Cooper’s motivation. A story had started circulating about her being killed because of the last column she wrote. If they found the column, they’d find the killer. As intriguing as that speculation was, it was exactly that. We’d most likely never know what was in that column since all her computer disks were missing. That, apparently, was one piece of information that the Tribune didn’t know. More than one person tried to pry out of me what the police had found when they searched her place, but I was determined that no one was going to find out anything by looking at my face. To avoid more questions, I left for the library to pick up the check.
Once there, I headed straight for Nick’s office, purposely ignoring the library employees’ questioning faces. He sat at a computer typing words and symbols I assumed somehow correlated with the books on the shelves.
“Hey, guy, how’re you doing?” I sank down into the office chair next to his cluttered desk. He punched a few more keys, then swung his chair around to face me. His eyes were still red-rimmed, but the whites seemed a little clearer today.
“Okay, I guess. I’m letting my staff work the front desk for a few days while I hide in here.” He ran his hand over his face. “That newspaper article has everyone gawking at me like I’m a sideshow freak.”
“Did you know?” I asked, then instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry, that’s really none of my business.”
“It’s all right.” He leaned back in his chair. “I think I suspected, but she never came right out and said. I knew she wrote that art column for the Freedom Press and that she and Will Henry were pretty tight. I guess I was sort of hoping all the time she spent there was just the beginning of a romance or something. She needed something to get her mind off Joey’s death and getting revenge on Roy and Grace. We argued about it a lot, her getting on with her life. It seems like the last six months that’s all we did was argue. But she would never listen to me. I was just her little brother. She was acting crazy in so many ways, wandering around Central Park after dark, following Roy and his girlfriend until they called the cops on her, hanging out in bars over by the interstate.” Bitterness flickered in his eyes. “What could I do? All I wanted was for her to be happy. But it seemed like she was doing everything she could to avoid it, like it was some penance she had to pay.”
I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment. “Maybe we can’t help people in that kind of pain. Maybe the best thing to do is just be there when they need us.” Good advice, I told myself. Why does it sound so logical and easy when you’re giving it to someone else?
“And what if they never need anyone? Are we supposed to just sit there and let them destroy themselves without even trying to help?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, thinking how