A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge Read online

  Alvin takes the horses straight into the barn. I follow and watch him as he looks them over nose to tail, patting them and prodding them and calling them by name. “I want to be sure they’re okay.” When he’s finished he says, “They look fine. Funny that they got out, though. Better make sure that gate is padlocked.”

  And then I remember that Jenny always keeps the gate padlocked. To open the gate, someone would have had to get the padlock off. I wonder if Jenny took it off for some reason and forgot to put it back on.

  By the time we walk out to the street it’s dark. I thank Alvin for his help and run him back over to his daddy’s house in my truck. When I get back home, my repaired knee is starting to swell a little, as it still does some nights when I’ve had an active day. “You’re going to have to put up with me moving around a little longer,” I tell it.

  I take my big flashlight over to Jenny’s and shine it around on the ground near the gate. Over by the house, I catch a glint of steel, and sure enough it’s the lock. It has been sheared open. Must have taken heavy-duty bolt cutters. Seems like a strange bit of mischief. Who would have done something like that? Not kids. Maybe somebody who doesn’t like horses, or maybe doesn’t like Jenny?

  In my garage I locate a couple of spare padlocks and put one at the top and one at the bottom of the gate.

  Back at my house I close up for the night, but the question of the lock nags at me. I’m usually a good sleeper, but tonight I jerk awake a few times, restless, thinking I hear sounds from the horse stable. The third time it happens I get up, ease out the back door, and stand in the yard, eyes straining in the direction of the stable. I don’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary.

  When I go back to bed, I’m wide awake and I lie there remembering the crazy talk today from Jenny’s mamma. Drugs talking. Sometimes when my wife Jeanne was under the influence of the drugs that kept her pain at bay, she would mutter wild ideas. Complaining that people were sitting on her bed or standing by the window when there was no one there. But Vera Sandstone seemed very certain of what she was saying.

  Jenny’s horses are fine this morning. If anything, they look pleased with themselves for their adventure yesterday. The padlocks are still secure. I’ll check them again later in the day.

  I swing by police headquarters to make sure nothing out of the ordinary needs seeing to. The young part-time deputy, Bill Odum, is on duty today. He’s fresh out of the police academy but is a quick learner. He says he’ll keep an eye on things and call me if he needs help. I’m glad I finally got a cell phone. It makes a big difference not having to stick by the telephone.

  I go over to Jenny’s again to check on the gate locks. They’re still in place. There’s a man I don’t recognize sitting in a beat-up old white Chevy outside her house. I’m uneasy about him, but before I can walk over and find out what he’s up to, he fires up the engine and takes off.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sunday Jenny says Vera seems better, so the next morning, with Jenny off at work, I visit Vera in the hospital. As I approach the front entrance a man who looks vaguely familiar is hurrying out the sliding glass doors—he’s a big man with wiry reddish hair peppered with gray. He’s football-player big, but unlike a lot of aging men with his build, he’s kept his muscle tone. From the leathery look of his skin, I’d guess that he works outdoors. I nod to him, but he takes no notice. He pauses at the top of the steps, looks out over the parking lot like he’s surveying his territory, and heads down to the lot. He climbs into a black Lincoln town car and whips out onto the road like he’s got someplace important to be.

  There’s no sign on Vera’s door telling visitors to check in at the desk, so I knock on the door and step in. Vera is propped up on pillows holding a tissue to her eyes that she takes away hastily when she sees me. Her skin is blotchy and her eyes red. She gives me a determined smile that is still lopsided. Her left eye is still droopy, but her color looks better. She has pulled her hair back in a bun and donned a quilted, blue bed jacket. “Wait, don’t tell me. I know who you are. You’re Jenny’s next-door neighbor, Samuel, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes. I came by to see how you’re feeling. Jenny says you’re on the mend. I have to say you’re looking a whole lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”

  She searches my face. “You were here before?”

  “That’s right. The day after you came to the hospital. You don’t remember?”

  She hesitates. “I’m afraid I don’t. Was I making any sense?”

  “You were fine.”

  We make a little small talk about when she’ll get out of the hospital and how much she imagines her garden has suffered. “Jenny’s a good girl, but she doesn’t know a thing about keeping a garden. Thank goodness I’ve got a sweet neighbor man who looks out for the garden when I can’t do it.”

  “Speaking of Jenny,” I say, “I’d like to ask you about something you said to me when I was here last week.”

  “I was so out of it, there’s no telling what I said.” She gives a strained little laugh. Her expression is wary.

  “You said you think Jenny is in danger. What did you mean?”

  “I said that? I don’t know what was going through my mind. I must have been dreaming.” She blushes. Her hand flutters to her hair, and she glances at the door.

  “You also asked me to look for your husband, Howard.”

  “Now I know I was out of it,” she says. “Howard has been gone a long time. I don’t know why I’d ask you to find him.”

  “And you wanted me to locate his first wife.”

  She starts and her right arm jerks, sending a novel lying next to her spinning to the floor. I notice that her hand is shaking.

  “I’ll get that.” I walk around the bed, pick up the novel, and set it back near her.

  Her eyes dart toward the door again, and as if she has conjured a rescue, the same nurse who chased me out last time flounces in.

  “Vera, is this man bothering you again?” She cocks her head at me as if trying to decide whether I actually constitute a danger to her patient.

  “I’m totally innocent,” I say. “I only stopped by to tell Vera I’m glad she’s feeling better.”

  There’s no mistaking the relief in Vera’s voice. “I’m so glad you came, Samuel. And regarding that matter we were discussing, please don’t mention it to Jenny.” Her look is stern. She was a schoolteacher and sounds like she assumes people will obey when she lays down the law.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Truly, I wish to hell you’d settle down and stop acting like the KKK is coming in to grab you,” I say.

  “Oh, you know how I am. I like to eat home. Simple food.”

  “How much simpler can you get than fried chicken, rice, and beans with cornbread?” I gesture toward his plate. “They even have your pepper sauce.”

  He finally loosens up enough to grin. “You’re right. The pepper sauce fixes it right up.” Truly Bennett is not an old man. He’s several years younger than me, but he has never gotten used to the idea that it’s all right for a black man to sit in Town Café and have a meal. Small towns like Jarrett Creek took a good bit longer than the big cities to come to terms with equal treatment for blacks. Even though Truly went to the local school, which was always integrated, his generation didn’t think to go to the café and make themselves comfortable. The fact that Dilly Bolton, a black man in his forties, is sitting two tables over from us doesn’t ease Truly’s discomfort.

  “Tell me what you were doing in San Antonio last week,” I say. Truly is in demand all over the area because of his sure-handed way with cattle and horses. He’s a little old to break a horse, but he knows how to talk to them and handle them to soften them up so a younger man can get into the saddle. Some people call him a horse whisperer, which irritates him because it’s a silly idea.

  “This man outside San Anton’ had a pasture full of horses—good-looking horses. More than a dozen. Kept them up well, but he never rode them.”


  “What did he keep them for then?”

  Truly laughs and scratches his chin. He knows that feeding and housing a dozen horses that you can’t ride or put to work must be the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. “I asked him that. He said he rescued those horses a few years ago. Can you imagine that? They was wild. He fed them up and gave them a good place to live.”

  “Can’t have been cheap.”

  “No, sir. But in the long run, he’s going to get something out of it. They’ll bring a good price.”

  “Truly, you might have figured I didn’t get you down here to find out what some crazy rancher is doing with his horses.” I tell him about the incident with the padlock being cut and Jenny’s horses getting out. “I want to make sure that kind of nonsense doesn’t happen anymore while Jenny is distracted with her mamma.”

  Truly takes his time answering. He mops up the last of his beans with the last of the cornbread. He’s a slow eater. I’ve long since finished up my enchiladas. “Chief Craddock, I know you don’t think horses are smart, but if something doesn’t seem right to them they’ll make enough of a fuss to alert you.”

  “They wandered up the street when somebody left the gate open. I don’t know how smart that is.”

  He nods. “They will wander, but like you say, they didn’t go far.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And you haven’t mentioned this problem to Ms. Sandstone?”

  “I don’t want to. She has enough to worry about with her mother in the hospital.”

  “I hear that.” He nods several times. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll get me a bedroll and sleep in the barn nights until things settle down.”

  “Come on, Truly, you don’t need to do that. We’re too old to sleep on the ground.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  We laugh. That’s as close to humor as Truly gets. “The problem is, I don’t want Jenny to find you there. Then I’d have to tell her what’s going on. I don’t want to worry her if I don’t have to.”

  “Put it out of your mind. I’ll get down there after dark and be up and out before daylight.”

  “You know I’m going to insist on paying you for your time.”

  “No, sir. You’re incurring no debt to me. Never have, never will.” When I was chief the first time around, I saved Truly from spending the rest of his life in jail, and he’s never forgotten it. He stands and picks up his hat. It’d be a contest to decide which of us has a shabbier hat. “Let me know when you think the danger has passed.”

  I’m following Truly out the door when Gabe LoPresto steps up to us. “Samuel, you got a minute?” Ever since Gabe went off on a tear with a young girl and got his ego whipped, he’s been less blustery.

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I want to mention something to you. I saw Ellen Forester’s husband in town a couple of days ago. He behaving himself?”

  Ellen moved into town recently and opened an art gallery and workshop where she teaches art. The business is thriving. Who would have guessed there were so many would-be artists in a small town? The only problem is her ex-husband keeps showing up and hounding her to “stop her foolishness” and move back to Houston where they used to live. He can’t seem to accept that she divorced him, and he seems to think if he puts up enough of a fuss, she’ll relent. Both LoPresto and I have had a couple of dust-ups with him. LoPresto’s construction company renovated the house Ellen bought, and the ex-husband had threatened him and his workers more than once.

  “As far as I know,” I say, “Ellen hasn’t complained, but you know how she is.” Stubborn is what I mean. And determined to be brave. You had to admire a woman like that. Makes you want to protect her. “I’ll stop by and make sure everything’s okay.”

  “There’s one more thing.” He looks like a cat that’s been at the cream. “If you know anybody looking for a construction job, send them my way.”

  I can’t resist wanting to know more since he looks so pleased with himself. “Any particular reason?”

  “I’m going to make a big announcement before too long. Can’t spill the beans yet, though.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “She’s gone.”

  At the hollow sound in Jenny’s voice on the phone, I sit bolt up in bed. It’s 5:30 a.m. “Jenny?”

  “Mamma’s gone. She died an hour ago.” She draws a shaky breath. “Can you come?”

  “She was so much better when I saw her.”

  “Just come.”

  It’s late April and there should be some cool air so early in the morning, but it’s already in the 80s. I’m unlocking the gate to Jenny’s yard when I see Truly Bennett walking toward me, holding his bedroll. “Chief, what are you doing here? Can’t sleep?”

  I tell him about the call from Jenny and ask him to take care of my cows.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. Seems like Ms. Sandstone was a good daughter, spending all that time with her mamma.”

  At the hospital Jenny is in the hallway talking to a doctor, a dusky-skinned man who looks to be East Indian. Jenny looks spent, but she’s dry-eyed and seems to have gone to some trouble with her appearance. Her hair is pulled back and she has makeup on. When she sees me, she puts a hand to her mouth and struggles to maintain some dignity.

  The doctor turns my way and looks at me with kind eyes. “I’m Dr. Patel. Are you a friend of the family?”

  “My neighbor,” Jenny says. “And friend.”

  My impulse is to embrace Jenny to comfort her, but she isn’t one for physical connection. Even if she were, sometimes it’s hard for a grieving person to let themselves be physically comforted for fear of falling apart and not being able to stop crying. “Jenny, I’m so sorry,” I say.

  She swallows and nods a couple of times, but she doesn’t move toward me, and I know I’ve made the right decision to hold back.

  I introduce myself to Dr. Patel. “What happened? Vera seemed to be doing pretty well.”

  “She was. She was recovering well, but she took a turn for the worse yesterday afternoon. It happens that way sometimes. An undiagnosed infection can overwhelm the system, or perhaps there was another stroke.”

  Although I know he’s right, and I’ve heard the same claim before, something about Vera’s death doesn’t feel right. She was doing well in general, but she seemed upset when I was here yesterday. She’d been crying, and when she said she didn’t remember the things she said to me when I was here before, she seemed almost frightened.

  “Are you planning to do an autopsy?” I ask.

  Patel hesitates. “I had planned to request one.” His glance flits toward Jenny. “It’s really up to the family.”

  Jenny shakes her head. “Do we really need to know every single thing? It’s not like there’s anything to be done now.”

  Jenny may be the most down-to-earth person I know and this doesn’t sound like her. The idea of autopsies makes some people squeamish, as if it violates their loved one. I suspect Jenny wants to protect Vera, even in death.

  “You’re right,” Patel says to Jenny. “We don’t have to know everything. But it could be useful. It adds to the body of knowledge to know why someone who is recovering suddenly succumbs.”

  Jenny turns miserable eyes to me in silent appeal. What I know as a lawman is that Patel could declare the cause of death unknown and therefore invoke an autopsy. But I don’t want to push it. I’d rather Jenny make the decision herself.

  “How soon do you have to know if Jenny decides to okay it?” I ask.

  “The sooner the better, but she has time think it over.” The doctor looks at his watch. “Perhaps we can meet in an hour?”

  We agree to meet him back here. He tells us where the chapel is, and, even though neither Jenny nor I is religious, we go there to have a quiet place to sit and talk. It’s a small room with a cross on the wall at one end. Under the cross is a small table with a Bible on it and a statue of the Virgin Mary, head bowed in prayer. Instead of pews, there are armchairs facing the cross.
We sit down, Jenny sinking into her chair as if she will never get up again.

  “I’m sorry I made you come to the hospital,” Jenny says. “I know you have a lot to do. When it first happened, I thought I was going to fall apart.”

  “It’s no problem for me to be here. Some little old lady may have to wait for me to catch whoever ran through her flowerbed, that’s all.” Being chief of police in Jarrett Creek doesn’t require much in the way of heavy police work. My two deputies can handle most anything that comes around, especially Zeke Dibble, who put in twenty-five years on the force in Houston. He didn’t take to retirement and we hired him part-time.

  Jenny tries to smile. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t believe Mamma’s gone. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “Were you with her when she died?”

  “Thank goodness I was. I never would have forgiven myself if I hadn’t been there.”

  “Tell me the details.”

  Some people assume that a newly bereaved person doesn’t want to discuss the death of someone they were close to. I know from experience that it’s a gift to be able to talk about it while it’s fresh in your mind. It’s a way to bring back the person who died, if only for a few moments.

  Jenny takes a deep breath. “Dr. Patel called me at work late yesterday and told me Mamma was struggling a bit, so I left work and came on over to the hospital. She was restless and seemed not to even see me when I came into the room. That gave me a bad feeling. I knew things weren’t going well.”

  She’s quiet for several seconds, lost in thought.

  “Was she in pain?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But you know what? She seemed sad. Like maybe she knew things weren’t going her way. And as the evening wore on she sank further and further. After a while she started mumbling crazy things. Sometimes she’d be clear, and then she’d seem confused. The nurses kept taking her blood pressure and they kept saying it was normal. They did some blood tests and said the white cells were elevated a little, but nothing alarming. But she just kept sinking.” She shakes her head and wipes away tears.