Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [81]
“You’ve been too quiet. What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?” he asked when we got back into the truck and headed up the hill toward the cemetery.
“Nothing.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. I was thinking about something, I just didn’t know what it was.
Paso Robles’s cemetery was the second largest in San Celina County. It overlooked the city and the rest of the valley. In the distance, the mountains you had to drive through to get to Bakersfield and Fresno were sharp-etched against the cloudless sky. We divided up the rows and agreed to meet back in front of the adobe-style restrooms when we finished. There was one small funeral going on down near the entrance, but nothing in the areas we would be concentrating on.
I was walking up and down the rows looking for a carving that resembled a lily of the valley, studying marker after marker, going over each Brown family member in my mind—means, motive, opportunity, then trying to imagine each of them coldly shooting Giles. I hated to admit it, but the only one who had all three and who I thought capable of pulling the trigger was Cappy. But would she kill another human being just to protect her horses or her lifestyle? Then again, what about her sisters? JJ had said all the women knew how to shoot. Was I just being naive by assuming that Willow wouldn’t kill for her political career or her granddaughter’s reputation or Etta for the winery, or for that matter, Arcadia out of that age-old reason, jealousy? If Giles fooled around on her as much as people implied, she could have just gotten fed up that night and shot him. Happened all the time. Except it didn’t fit with the conversation I heard or the fact that someone had called the paper and said there would be something “big” happening at Seven Sisters that night. I ruled out Arcadia. If she’d shot him because of his affairs, it made more sense for it to happen at another time, though I was the first to concede that many homicides weren’t planned, but were emotional, spur-of-the-moment acts.
That still left Susa to consider—her peace-loving, hippie persona notwithstanding. What did anyone really know about her? After what JJ said about Giles coming on to her and Bliss, maybe there was something he did that caused their mother to lose her gentle manner for a split second. Though she had spent most of her adult life away living on a commune, she was still raised by Capitola Brown, who would not have allowed shrinking violets to grow on the Seven Sisters ranch. Then there was Chase, certainly capable of pulling the trigger, though, as far as I could see, no reason to. Then again, he was the one left with the cute little tasting room girl in the tight red jeans. Could it have been an argument over something as trivial as who gets her next?
No matter which family member did it, there was no doubt in my mind that Cappy and her sisters were sharp enough and cool enough under pressure to cook up that gun switching scene even with a houseful of guests, including a chief of police. One thing I knew from watching my cousin Emory: Growing up with money often gave you a sense of invincibility, a feeling of entitlement that enabled you to forge ahead when others would hesitate. It could be an endearing trait, like Emory’s pursuit of Elvia, an obnoxious one, like Giles’s cavalier affairs, or a deadly one, like the killing of Giles Norton.
I started down another row, where a monument with a headless angel was laced with scarlet wild fuchsia. GONE HOME stated the simple words on the