“But who would have killed Marcus—and why?”
“Now, there’s a dilemma,” Coot agreed. “Aaron gets the place, or rather, the management of it and the pay that comes with being boss, even when you’re nonprofit. That means things aren’t going to change much, since Aaron’s been in charge a long time. Marcus never liked being in charge. He liked to be more like a...a shaman walking down from the mountain to impart his words of wisdom and go off on another nature walk. But someone had to be in charge and do the day-to-day work, and that someone was Aaron Bentley. Then, of course, there’s Mama Cheever, as they call her. Sandra Cheever. Why she’s Mama Cheever, I don’t know. Nothing maternal about that woman. More of a drill sergeant type. Schedules are everything to her. She yells at the kids and gets obsessed about upkeep.”
“Why would she want to kill Marcus?”
“He was sloppy? Well, he was. Came in and left his coffee cup wherever, tracked mud into the offices... Ruined her schedules a lot. He’d make an appearance and a whole class might run late.”
“You think that would cause her to kill him?” Dustin asked skeptically.
“No... Just sayin’.”
“What about the students? The clients.”
“The ‘guests,’ you mean?” Coot said dryly. “No. The students come and go. None of ’em that I know of ever had a grudge against the place.”
“Has any kid—or adult, for that matter—ever been kicked out?”
“Nope. Not a one. If there’s problems with a therapist, they just shift people around.”
“How do you know so much about the place?” Dustin asked.
He grinned. “’Cause Marcus was my friend. I’m an old horse-lover from way back. Found a few animals I got him to take. Animals that needed rescuing. There’s a big old Lab-shepherd mix you’ll see around the stables. I found him on the road and Marcus took him in.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dustin told him.
“Thanks. I can see you mean that.”
“So,” Dustin pursued. “If not a student, who?”
Coot shook his head. Delilah was bringing their food. “You’ve heard that old saying?” he muttered. “‘Tell a woman, tele-gram’? Well, it was written for Delilah.”
Delilah arrived at their table, and Coot smiled up at her. “Thank you, Delilah! Looks wonderful.”
“Enjoy!”
She stood there a minute, but they both made a pretense of being fascinated with their chicken potpie.
“More coffee, gentlemen?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” Dustin told her.
She refilled their coffee. Then the family of four apparently needed some directions, and Delilah was distracted.
“I’d say look at those closest to him,” Coot said in a low voice. “Isn’t that what you law types do in situations like this?”
“Usually, yes.”
Coot nodded. “So at the Horse Farm you’ve got two more therapists. You’ve got Mason Garlano. The guy’s great with animals, but too much of a narcissist to be as good with people. I think he’s waiting to be in the right ice cream parlor at the right time and have some Hollywood type ‘discover’ him. He gets some modeling jobs on the side. Mariah Naughton is nice enough. A bit of an edge to her sometimes, as if she believed there’d be more in the world for her.”
“Doesn’t sound like they’d have anything against Marcus, though.”
“No. Then you’re down to the stable managers. Drew Dicksen and Sydney Roux. They’re both decent types, far as I can tell. They run a tight ship there, not easy with the number of animals Marcus was always bringing in. His door was open to any abandoned creature, and I should know, since I brought him a bunch. He’d try to find homes for the cats and dogs, but most of ’em wound up staying at the farm. That meant lots of animals to feed. Lots of housekeeping. Lots of—literally—shit to shovel.”
“So even if you resented him because of the workload or whatever, don’t you think you’d find another line of work before killing a man?” Dustin asked.
“Yeah. There’s the dilemma. Which one would have an agenda? Damned if I know.”
A few minutes later they finished their meals. Coot was insistent that they split the check; he wasn’t taking taxpayer money by letting Dustin pay, he said, but neither was he going to pay more taxes by buying Dustin’s meal.
They rose to leave, setting their money on the table.
About to walk out, Dustin thanked Delilah, who was busy wiping tables, preparing to close for the night. He could honestly tell her the chicken potpie was excellent.
The house was quiet when they returned. But Coot didn’t have any more to say. He started up the stairs to his own room.
“Nice to talk with you, young fellow,” he told Dustin.
“Nice to talk with you, too, sir,” Dustin said politely.