“God damn it, Winifred!”
“Who’s there? You better get the hell off my property before I let another one fly.”
“It’s Sheriff Goodman. I’m coming in there and if I don’t hear a gun hit the floor in five seconds, I’m going to come in shooting. Do you hear me?”
Silence.
“Winifred? I’m counting.”
There was a thud and a grunt. “Fine, then.”
I crept into the half-lit building, my aim trained on the two women by the right wall. Winifred was dressed in a checkered housedress. She had stringy, tight curls all over her head, a pipe in her mouth, and a put-out expression on her face. An old rifle lay by her feet. The woman next to her was at least forty years younger and drawn up into herself like a fetus perched on a stool. She had a blond ponytail and round, tear-streaked cheeks. Neither of them posed any threat, but I kept a bead on them just to make a point.
“You shooting at all your visitors now, Winifred?”
She crossed her arms and sniffed at me. “Sure, when they’re sneaking up on me and there’s a murderer on the loose.”
Sighing, I holstered my weapon and fixed a stare on the younger woman. Even though I didn’t recognize her right off, she seemed familiar.
“I got a few questions for you, Mrs. Erickson.” One of the most pressing ones was why these two had just been talking about murder, but I had a feeling I’d get more out of the younger one on her own.
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“No, no. I’ll go.” The woman uncurled herself and was trying to leave when I stepped in her path.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Mary Beth Lund, Sheriff.” She reached out a hand. “Or Mary Beth Reever, you probably remember me as.”
“Sure, sure.” I shook her hand, which seemed strong enough despite her red eyes. “You and your husband moved in with your mom last year, right?”
“Yeah, Mom’s not doing too well and she won’t move off the farm.”
“Lot of stubborn old people out here.” That got a snort out of the one standing next to me.
Mary Beth smiled. “Anyway, we’re just up the road and Winifred’s been so great, always letting me borrow something or stop by to chat.”
“I’ll walk you out, sweetling.” Winifred put her arm around the woman and used her free hand to puff on her pipe. “Del, you can head on up to the house.”
I watched them go, walking slow and talking quiet. There was no reason the two of them couldn’t be friends, but their conversation didn’t sit right at all. You didn’t come talk murder with Winifred Erickson for the hell of it.
I glanced out at the strip of woods on the north side of the property where Winifred shot Lars twelve years ago. I remembered it like it happened that morning, which is always the way it is with killings. They stick to you after everything else falls away.
I found him laid out on his back, shot clean through the side with a .308 Winchester. It was a bad year for coyotes and the Erickson chickens were suffering. Lars had been coming home from the Reevers’ at the same time Winifred was chasing a coyote away from their coop. She told the jury she shot at it and hit Lars by mistake. Even though she inherited a $500,000 life insurance policy and the entire farm, which Lars owned free and clear, unlike most in these parts, the jury still let her off on account of the number of chickens she could prove they lost plus the fact that she shot Lars in the side from a distance. Apparently the jury thought that to want to kill someone, you had to be facing them and up close.
Lars was a regular son of a bitch, always going on about who was cheating him today and raising stinks about every little thing. Most people figured it was on account of losing both his boys so young—one to pneumonia and the other to Vietnam—but for my money Lars was just born like that. Nothing good enough for him. Didn’t think anyone was on his side. Winifred told the jury, as plain and sober from that witness stand as when I found her standing by him, that there’d been nothing she could do to help him. And I think she meant it, except I doubt she was talking about that morning.
“I don’t know a thing about it, so you can save your breath.” Winifred stumped up the porch steps as Mary Beth’s truck kicked up a dust cloud over the driveway.
“What was she crying about?” I nodded in the direction of the road.
“That’s her business.”
“Everything’s my business in a murder investigation.”
“Marital troubles didn’t get the Hoffman girl killed.” Winifred opened the front door and waved me in behind her.
“You must know a lot about it then, if you can say what did or didn’t cause it.”
She poured out a cup of tea that must have gone cold and set the kettle on for another.
“I know as much as the next person about Hattie Hoffman.”
“The barn’s on your property.”
“When’s the last time you think I made it out there? My arthritis wouldn’t let me get halfway.”