Free Falling Hard and Fast by Kylie Brant Page A

Augustine parish to be hung as a horse thief was Thaddeus Rutherford.” She squinted, looked at the ceiling. “He’d have been great-granddaddy of this no-account bunch we have now, I think. Hard to keep the clan straight, but they’re all related, one way or t’other.”
    Intrigued, Zoey leaned forward. “Cage…Sheriff Gauthier seemed to think some people by that name were responsible for shooting at his house last night.”
    â€œNo doubt they were. The Rutherfords are noted for not having a lick of sense between them. That and for being meaner than cornered rats.” She reached for the pitcher and, finding it empty, went to the refrigerator for another. Ignoring Zoey’s protest, she refilled both mugs.
    â€œTell me about it,” Zoey invited. Her tongue felt thick, so she soothed it with another drink of tea.
    Satisfied that she had Zoey’s full interest, Fern leaned back in her chair. “Well, we ain’t had but one murder in the history of the parish. Until this last one, that is.”
    â€œCage said this latest murder probably didn’t happen where the body was found.”
    Fern glared at the interruption, and Zoey sat back meekly. As the woman had warned, she didn’t like to be rushed. The story would be told, but only in her own time, in her own way. “It was the summer of ’60. Carl Rutherford had a real nasty way about him, was known to take a hand to his wifeon a pretty regular occasion when he was liquored up, which is to say fairly often. Vella, that was his wife, she learnt real quick to dodge his fists when she could and keep her mouth closed most other times.” Fern sipped her tea and her eyes took on a faraway look. “Never could figure what made a woman take that kind of treatment from a man. Or what kind of man would dish it out, for that matter.”
    She came back to the present and shook her head. “Makes no never mind, at any rate. Some say that Vella had finally had enough, that she was fixing to run off where the old man would never find her again. Others claim she’d taken up with a door-to-door salesman. But there’s no disputing the facts. Old man Rutherford came home one night earlier than expected and found her packing. Proceeded to knock her around, as was his custom. No one knows what she said to him, but from all accounts he went a little crazy. Pulled his rifle off the rack and shot her dead, right there in the kitchen.”
    Maybe it was a tribute to the woman’s storytelling abilities, but Zoey felt the horror of the act wash over her, as if the murder had happened in the present, rather than before her birth. “What happened?”
    â€œOh, it was a while before what he done came to light. He tried to bury her body in the woods, and act like she was still at home, feeling poorly. She hadn’t gone out much anyway—he’d made sure of that. No telling how long his lies would have worked, if her sister hadn’t started making a fuss about not being able to see her. The law got involved, and eventually the whole story came out.” Her blue eyes bright, Fern leaned forward. “You might find it interesting to know that the judge who sentenced Rutherford to life in prison was the sheriff’s granddaddy.”
    Zoey assimilated that bit of news. History in Charity, it appeared, was a closely woven chain, with past and present intricately linked. She supposed that was common in small towns. She’d yet to see the significance of the woman’s fascinating bits of history, but she didn’t feel as if the afternoon had been wasted. She was feeling entirely too relaxed for that to be said.
    She chose her words carefully. “Well, the story’s interesting, but I can’t see what it has to do with this last murder.”
    â€œIt has everything to do with it,” Fern snapped. “The way I hear it, the sheriff has a whole bunch of Rutherfords locked up