Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [117]
He picked up the phone and handed it to me. “Call her and see what she wants.”
“I bet she knows we went out to see Eva Knoll,” I said, staring at the phone he held out. “She probably had us followed or she has a contact out there.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Call her.”
After finding it in my Rolodex, I punched her number with a shaking finger.
“We need to talk,” she said again. “Can you come out now?”
“Right now?” I asked, looking at the detective. He nodded yes.
“Yes,” she said. “But alone. I will only talk to you alone. I mean it.”
I hesitated, then said, “I’ll be there in about a half hour.”
“Fine.” She hung up without saying good-bye.
“I’ll drive,” Detective Hudson said, starting for the door.
“She said she’d only talk to me,” I called after him.
He stopped at the doorway and slowly turned around. “I will not let you go out there alone.”
“But what if this is our only chance to get a confession out of her? Can’t you put a wire on me or something? Park around the corner and come if I need help.”
His face tightened. “This isn’t television, Benni. If you got hurt, I’d never forgive myself. Not to mention your husband would kill me. Probably after he cut off my balls.”
I grabbed up my purse and snapped. “Fine, come along. It’ll probably screw up any chance of her telling us anything, but far be it from me to endanger your masculine appendages.” Deep inside, I knew he was right. But I also knew that Cappy most likely wouldn’t admit to a thing with him standing next to me.
When we drove the long, twisting entry road to the ranch, we didn’t see one solitary sign of life; the ranch was eerily empty. Even the wine-tasting room had only one car parked in front. Though Wednesday was not a busy day, tourist-wise, I expected to see some activity, a vineyard worker, a groom, or somebody walking around or working. We passed the stables where the hot walkers stood still, the chains swinging gently in the breeze, the training track and corrals clean and empty. I rolled down my window, catching a strong whiff of horse, but not a single nicker came over the breeze to shatter the immense silence.
We pulled up to the house and walked up the front steps. Detective Hudson rang the doorbell once, and ten seconds later Cappy answered the door. She was dressed in slightly dirt-stained blue jeans and a pale blue, snap-button Western shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her brown, muscled forearms looked as dangerous as a man’s.
“I said I’d only talk to Benni,” she said, her gray eyes flat as steel.
“Don’t blame her,” he said. “I wouldn’t let her come alone.”
“Sit in the foyer, then,” she said, pointing at a parson’s bench. “Come into my study,” she said over her shoulder as she strode across the glossy floor toward her office.
Detective Hudson hesitated.
“I’ll be fine,” I said in a low voice. “You’ll be right out here.”
“I don’t like this,” he answered.
“We don’t have a choice,” I said.
“She’s right,” Cappy called from her office.
He glared in Cappy’s direction and sat down on the parson’s bench.
Inside her office, she was already sitting behind her desk, under her mother’s Churn Dash quilt. “Please shut the office door,” she said.
I did as she asked, then stood there, waiting. Calm down, I told my nervous stomach. Nothing’s going to happen. She’s not a killer and even if she was, she’s not going to pull a gun on you with Detective Hudson sitting right outside the door. Besides, he’s just a yell away and he’s armed and experienced at confrontations like this.
“Please, sit down,” she said, her voice amicable, as if all I was there for was to do a little horse trading or perhaps sell her a good load of timothy hay.
I sat down in one of the green leather chairs that Detective Hudson had used the night of Giles’s murder.
“Would you like a drink? I’ve got some bourbon here in my desk.”
I mutely shook my head.
“Okay, then,” Cappy said. “Let’s get down to business so we can get