A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge (3 page)

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.

“Your mamma was in her mid-seventies. She had a long life.”

“It should have been longer.” Suddenly Jenny smiles. “She was scared she'd be a burden to me if she got too old. I told her she'd never be a burden.”

“You were lucky to have a good mother like that.”

Jenny nods. We've had a lot of good talks, and she understands that my situation was the opposite. My mamma was a difficult woman, and when she became ill at the end of her life, she resented all the well people around her and anything they tried to do for her. Jeanne and I took good care of her in circumstances where a lot of people would have left her alone.

“You said she was talking crazy. What kind of things was she saying?”

“She kept telling me to find my daddy. I don't think she ever talked like that—not to me, anyway. And she kept telling me to be careful and take care of myself.” She starts to cry again, tears slipping down her cheeks. “That's the way she was, always worrying about me instead of herself.”

“She asked me to find your daddy, too.”

“I don't know what she was thinking. Poor thing.”

I decide to plunge in. “There was something else, too. She wanted me to find your daddy's first wife?”

Jenny sits bolt upright. “What? What first wife? My daddy wasn't married before. Like I said, she was talking crazy.”

“What do you think about the autopsy?”

“I don't know.”

“What would your mamma have wanted?”

Jenny ponders for a few seconds and begins to nod. She squares her shoulders, and her eyes lose some of their misery. “That's exactly the right question to ask. You're right. She was an educator through and through. She would want her death to be used to teach somebody something, and she would have fussed at me for dragging my feet.” She stands up. “Let's go talk to the doctor.”

Half a dozen people are huddled near the nurses' station and they all turn toward Jenny when we walk up. Wilson Landreau, the man Jenny was arguing with at the hospital last week, is here. He walks up to us and says, “The nurse said you were in the chapel and we wanted to give you time to be alone.” He casts a curious look at me.

“Thank you, Will.” Jenny grabs his hand for a brief moment, and he puts his hand on top of hers.

Two elderly women and a couple move to Jenny's side, murmuring their condolences. One of the women, rail thin and with sharp features, says, “Jennifer, I don't know what I'm going to do without your mamma. She was my best friend for forty years. It's going to take its toll on me.”