Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek Read online

  He glares at me. “Everybody thinks I played fast and loose with the town’s money, but I really believed in that project out at the lake. I put up a lot of my own money. It wasn’t only the town that lost out; it was me, too. And let me tell you something else: everybody can cry crocodile tears over Gary Dellmore, but if they knew the way he pushed for the deal out at the lake to go through, they might have second thoughts.”

  I thought I could eliminate Rusty Reinhardt as a possible suspect until I heard that his daughter had a public flirtation with Gary Dellmore. No telling what a man will do if he thinks his daughter is being interfered with.

  I track Reinhardt down at his grocery store, the Qwik Mart, the biggest grocery store in town. He’s stocking cans of tomatoes, and as I walk up he hoists another box off the pallet with a grunt. He’s dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, and you wouldn’t guess that he was the owner of the store.

  “Rusty, seems like you could hire somebody a little younger to do this job.”

  “You find somebody, I’ll hire him! Boy walked off the job this morning like he had a whole pack of jobs lined up. They say the economy has gone bad, but these kids think they can get another job just like that.” He wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to have a word with you.”

  “Come on to the back room. I need a break anyway.” He pushes the pallet to the end of the aisle and against the wall.

  I follow him through the swinging metal doors, across a cold concrete floor stacked with boxes of goods, and into a cramped office. He parks himself behind a desk strewn with receipts and bills and points me at the chair facing him.

  “Rusty, I guess you know why I’m here. I have to question everybody who was at the meeting the other night.”

  “You mean to find out if I heard a gunshot?” he says dryly.

  I give him the benefit of a laugh and then continue. “From my end, I can tell you that I overheard Dellmore having an argument with somebody after the meeting. But I didn’t see who it was. You have any idea who he was talking to?”

  Reinhardt frowns and shakes his head. He rears back in his chair and folds his hands over his belly. “I don’t know what I could say to help you. I didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.”

  “You know Dellmore’s car is missing. Did you see it when you left?”

  He thinks it over. “That’s the damnedest thing. You’d think I would have noticed if the car was there, wouldn’t you? Krueger said he saw it, though.”

  “Couple of other things.” I tell him that I ran into Coldwater at the café. “He implied that Gary Dellmore pushed the city’s involvement in the water park investment. Citizens Bank did the loan on that project. Is that right?”

  He ponders my question. “Marietta and I went through the numbers and I think it was Citizens that made the loan. Marietta is the bookkeeper, so she knows more than I do. Coldwater didn’t mention that Dellmore was involved. Bottom line is, Dellmore didn’t force Coldwater to make that investment. I expect Coldwater is looking for somebody to take some of the heat.”

  “There’s one other thing, and it troubles me to have to bring it up. Did your daughter tell you she got in trouble at work because she and Gary Dellmore were carrying on?”

  His face darkens. “She mentioned it, but she said he was just flirting with her—that it was nothing more than that. Needless to say, I was pretty put out with him. After all, he’s her boss, and married besides. But if you’re suggesting I killed Gary Dellmore because he was making improper advances to my daughter, think again. I would happily have horsewhipped him in public, but my daughter said she’d be humiliated if I made a fuss over it.”

  It’s no surprise that, unlike Cookie, Reinhardt put the blame for the flirtation on Gary Dellmore. I need to dig a little deeper and make sure it was only a flirtation and that Dellmore didn’t pursue her after banking hours. “Cookie Travers said Jessica was really upset when she heard that Gary was dead. Do you think there was anything more to their relationship?”

  “What are you suggesting? That my daughter would date a married man?”

  “It wouldn’t be a reflection on your daughter, Rusty. Like you said, he’s her boss, and she might’ve worried that her job was at risk if she didn’t go along with him.”

  He brings his chair forward with a sudden jerk, glaring at me. “My daughter was brought up right. If Dellmore tried anything with her, she would have put a stop to it right off. She knows there’s no job worth a sinful relationship.” He stands up. “I’ve got things to do. Is that all?”

  I rise. “Rusty, you understand I need to clear this up. It’s nothing personal.”

  “I understand. But it’s hard to think of that man putting hands on my daughter and then having you question her morals.”

  He sees me to the door of his office but is still huffy, and we part awkwardly.

  Reinhardt has given me two new perspectives. People have suggested that Alton Coldwater be prosecuted for mishandling the city’s funds. But with Dellmore dead, he can shift the blame. Would he have been desperate enough to murder Dellmore to do that?

  The other thing is that, according to Reinhardt, his daughter made light of her flirtation with Dellmore, while Cookie seemed to think Jessica was partly to blame in the matter. I have a feeling that Jessica Reinhardt isn’t telling her daddy the whole story.

  I’m walking across the parking lot to my truck, not paying attention, and nearly run straight into Sandy LoPresto. She’s a lanky woman with a wide-mouthed smile and a significant bosom. I’ve never seen her dressed like she is today, in a low-cut sweater and a tight skirt just above her knees and high-heeled boots. She has a wild look in her eyes that’s a little dangerous. She glares at me as if I’m partly responsible for her husband running off with Darla Rodriguez.

  “Sandy, how are you doing?”

  “How do you think I’m doing?”

  “Probably not too happy at the moment.”

  “I imagine you’re like every other man in town, wishing he could be in Gabe’s shoes screwing around with that little hussy.”

  I hold up my hands. “Don’t look at me! That’s the last thing I need.”

  “You’re the only one then.” Sandy comes by her feisty disposition honestly. Her dad, Carl Filson, always had a ready temper.

  As wound up as she is, I know it’s best for me not to tangle with her. “What do your kids have to say?” Her kids are both in their thirties. Their son is a dentist who lives in Bobtail with his family. The daughter has proven to be something of scholar. She’s getting her PhD at the University of Houston.

  “They think Gabe has gone off his rocker. I told them I’m ignoring him, and they should too.”

  I almost laugh when she says she’s ignoring Gabe. Sandy has been stalking Gabe since they split up. She sits outside the little house he rents and follows him to his girlfriend’s place, sometimes sitting in the parking lot if Gabe takes Darla out to eat.

  “I assume you at least talk to Gabe.”

  She casts a critical eye at her bright-red fingernails. “Our conversations are strictly business. And if his friends had any respect for me, theirs would be, too.”

  Her glare at me is so intense that I have to tamp down an impulse to take a couple of steps back.

  “Well, I hope things work out.” I tip my hat and scoot out of there.

  Cookie Travers gives me Jessica Reinhardt’s address and tells me she rents a house with another girl. When I arrive at the house, Jessica comes to her door barefoot, wearing baggy sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Her face is blotchy and her eyes red and weepy. Her limp hair is pushed behind her ears.

  “Why do you want to talk to me?” Her voice is dull and hopeless.

  “I understand that you worked for Gary Dellmore. I’m hoping you might be able to give me a little background.”

  She shrugs. “Come on in.”

  The living room is a girl’s lair, the coffee table strewn w
ith fashion magazines and dirty dishes. An open box of cookies sits next to paraphernalia for doing nails. Jessica plops onto the sofa, reaches over, and closes a bottle of nail polish. The TV is turned to a soap opera, and she grabs the remote and turns it down.

  “What do you want to know?”

  I take a saggy armchair near her. I suspect most of the furniture is cast-offs from the girls’ families. “Tell me what Gary was like as a boss.”

  Her eyes fill with tears. “I could never imagine a nicer boss. He was so wonderful.”

  “Cookie Travers said you had a problem with him.”

  “What? I didn’t have any problem at all! He was really sweet to me.”

  “But there was a question of him harassing you?”

  Outrage wipes away her pain. “That’s ridiculous! Cookie seems to think she’s my mother. Gary didn’t harass me. So what if he paid attention to me? I don’t see what the big deal was.”

  “Cookie told you that your behavior wasn’t suitable for the office, though.”

  Her eyes widen. “God! I can’t believe she told you that. She’s such a frustrated old maid.”

  “Did you and Gary see each other outside of work?”

  Her eyes are suddenly guarded. “No. I mean… like, okay, once, but nothing happened.”

  She doesn’t even realize how inappropriate it was for Dellmore to see her outside work. He had at least twenty-five years on her and was married to boot. “Did he come here?”

  She presses her knuckles to her mouth and nods.

  “Did you invite him or did he show up?” I keep my voice gentle.

  She starts to chew a nail and then grabs it away from her mouth with her other hand. “I don’t want to get Gary in trouble.”

  He can’t be in any worse trouble. “He came by here?”

  She nods.

  “He was friendly.”

  “Yes, he was so sweet.” Her lips are trembling. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “What did you two talk about when he was here?”

  “Nothing. Work. He asked me if I was happy at work, if I liked it there. He was always interested in what I had to say.” She sits forward, eager to convince me of his good intentions. “He liked to kid around, you know? He made me feel… valued.” In that moment, I see what appealed to Dellmore. Animated, her face is pretty, her blue eyes round and innocent.

  “I have to ask you: Were the two of you involved sexually?”

  She jerks back as if I’ve slapped her. “No!”

  “When you talked, did he seem worried about anything?”

  The momentary light in her eyes flickers out. She shakes her head. “No, and… he wouldn’t have told me anyway. We just goofed around. My roommate was in her room, so…”

  I can’t help thinking she was lucky her roommate was here.

  She glances over at the TV screen. The sound is muted. On the screen a man and woman are standing too close together for real life, and by the look of it they are angry with each other.

  “Did Gary flirt with other girls at the bank?”

  Jessica pulls her attention back away from the TV. “He was friendly to everybody. Everybody liked him.”

  Somebody didn’t. “Were you jealous of him flirting?”

  She picks at her nails, catches herself again, and balls her hands into fists. “Why would I be jealous? It wasn’t like we were dating or anything… like, you know, he was married.”

  Marietta Bryant is walking out the door when I pull up at Grange Realty. “I’ve got to drive out to look at a lot ten miles outside of town. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll talk on the way?” I’ve never seen her dressed anyway but “up.” Today she’s wearing a white blouse with the collar turned up and a modest black skirt and high heels. She always wears gold jewelry: chains and small button earrings.

  She drives a big SUV that she has to hoist herself up into, and she looks like a doll behind the wheel. “My husband usually drives this. It’s a gas hog and he had to drive to Houston today, so he took my Toyota.” She says she’s gotten used to the big car. She and her husband live on a little farm on the outskirts of town and they need a big car to haul things around in.

  I tell her it’s hard for me to imagine her mucking around on a farm. She turns sparkling eyes to me. “Oh, I can wear jeans and a sweatshirt with the best of them. But mucking around? Forget it! I told my husband when we got married that I wasn’t doing anything that would break my nails.” The glee in her eyes tells me she’s probably teasing.

  She’s equal to the task of driving the SUV, wheeling out of the lot like it’s a sports car. We head across the railroad tracks and into pastureland studded with the occasional rustic home. Before we’ve gone half a mile, her cell phone chirps. She glances at it, pushes a button, and slips it back into the holder between the seats like a gunslinger.

  It’s relaxing to be in the passenger seat for a change, and Marietta points out various lots for sale and talks up plans people have for upgrading the area.

  I ask her the same thing I asked Reinhardt. Did she hear or see anything suspicious when she left the night of the meeting?

  “It seems like I’m always in a rush, and that night I left there like I was driving to a fire. I had to meet a client and sign some papers before it got too late. There could have been twenty extra cars there, or none at all, and I wouldn’t have paid any attention.”

  “Fair enough. Now let me ask you something. Did you see this thing coming with Alton Coldwater?”

  She glances over at me. She’s driving fast, but she knows what she’s doing. “No way I could have. I only got my hands on the books a few months ago and by then the damage was done. Alton kept dancing around, putting Rusty and me off until Rusty insisted he turn over the books. When I got them in front of me, I realized why he was reluctant.”

  She slows down and turns onto a gravel road. There’s a lot of scrub brush here and few trees, but farther up the road I see a stand of post oak.

  “Anyway, I tried juggling numbers every way I could, but last month I had to tell Rusty the town was going under.”

  “Some people think we should be charging Coldwater with a crime,” I say. “What do you think?”

  The road is rough, so she slows down. She glances over at me again. “We could probably make a case that he was negligent, but nobody has the heart for it. What good would it do? It’s not like Alton is rolling in money. Do you really want to see him go to jail?”

  “I guess not. But I want to know why Coldwater put the town’s money in such a cock-eyed idea as a water park.”

  She slows down and pulls over to the side of the road, then puts the car in idle. Turning to face me, she says, “That was my first question, but it’s pretty clear what happened. When tax revenues got so bad, he was looking for a way to make some money.”

  “Why did he think a water park would help? Seems to me it was a big gamble.”

  “The only thing I can think is that Alton was running scared and he ignored the risk because the possible returns seemed big enough to take care of our problems.”

  “Whose idea was it? And how did he persuade the city council to go along with it?”

  “I don’t really know. You’ll have to ask Alton.”

  “Can you tell me who handled the sale of the land?”

  “I did. I’ve got all the contracts back at the office, if you want to see them. Now let me look at this property so we can get on back. I’ve got an appointment in a little while.”

  She takes a hand-drawn map out of the side pocket of the door and studies it. “I think that’s the gate right there.” She points a hundred feet up the road and slowly pulls up to it. “We’ll see if the combination I have opens this lock.” She hops out before I can offer and within minutes she swings the gate open. When she drives through, I get out to close the gate, glad I don’t have to favor my knee like I used to.

  We drive down a rutted road. “Would you look at that!” She points to the right of the car
. “These oil companies come in here like they own the whole world. They drill test wells and say they’re going to put in roads and clean up after themselves. And they leave a big mess.”

  I wouldn’t call it a big mess, but there is a pile of scrap metal and PVC pipe. And the road is not much of an improvement over bare ground.

  “What do you think of this acreage?” she says. She tells me it’s thirty acres that’s never been farmed or had cattle run on it.

  There are a lot of trees on the land, and it would take some clearing if somebody wanted to use it. “I don’t know why somebody would want it,” I say. “You sure wouldn’t be able to feed cattle on it. Goats, maybe. And it’s pretty far from town.”

  “My thinking exactly.” We get out and walk around. The soil around these parts has a lot of clay in it, not the best soil for farming. To put in any kind of crop at all, you’d have to haul rocks out and supplement the soil. After fifteen minutes she says she’s seen all she needs to see. “The old man who owned this died last year. I expect the son will be disappointed that it isn’t going to be worth as much as he thought.”

  “I thought there were going to be some homes put in out here. That could make it worth something.”

  “Could be.” She smiles. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Are you holding out on the seller?”

  Now she laughs. “Everybody thinks we realtors have something up our sleeve. For ten years or more I’ve heard rumors that a development is going to be built out here, and nothing has come of it yet. It goes to show you, everybody’s always trying to make something out of nothing.”

  When we’re back in the car and on our way, I say, “I have one more question about the water park. It seems to me the state would have to okay something like that. Did you run across any information about permits or licenses?”