A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge (9 page)

She returns carrying a medium-sized brown dog of uncertain breed. The dog is trembling in her arms and gives a half-hearted bark in my direction. “It's okay, Frazier,” she says. “Good boy. Samuel won't hurt you.” She sits down and puts the dog on the floor, where it huddles next to her leg panting, glaring at me.

“Rescue dog?” I say.

“Sort of. When my next-door neighbor died last year, I said I'd take the dog.” She strokes its head. “Seth was furious. Believe it or not, that was the last straw. I thought if he can't even be kind to a poor dog, what hope is there for me?”

I don't reply for a minute as I survey the damage that's been done. There's a smashed lamp, a small end table lying on its side, and a broken cup and saucer on the carpet in a puddle of coffee. There are several photos lying on the floor next to an overturned chair. The coffee table is at an odd angle, as if it's been yanked around.

“What's going to happen to Seth?” she says. She's not looking at me but at the dog, who's still trembling.

“Look at what Seth has done,” I say. “He forced his way in here against your will—that's assault—and then resisted arrest. I don't understand why you won't get a restraining order against him.”

She rubs her forehead. “I just can't. My children would have a fit. They're barely speaking to me as it is.”

“Where are your kids?”

“My daughter lives in New York, and my son lives in Houston. He's at the University of Houston getting his MBA.”

“Have you told them the way he's been treating you?”

She shakes her head. “I didn't want to bring them into it. Like I said, he didn't behave like this in the past.”

“How did they react to your divorce?”

Her voice is so quiet I can hardly hear her. “My daughter is furious, and my son Nathan thinks I've lost my mind.”

I've been standing at the entrance to the room, not wanting to spook her, but now I walk over and right the upended chair. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Of course not.” She starts to rise. “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

I gesture for her to stay seated. “Tell me if I'm wrong. Your kids were used to you always going along with your husband, always letting him have his way, never wanting to rock the boat.”

She doesn't respond, so I continue. “And something made you take a hard look at things and decide you didn't want to keep doing that.”

She nods.

“You're not the first person I know who made that decision.” For a short time, when Jeanne was in her early fifties, I thought she was going to do the same. She told me she was restless and felt like she gave in to me too often and she wanted the freedom to do other things. We began to make some bargains and ended up with our marriage being stronger than ever, but that's not always what happens.

“You're right. Seth always put himself first. I felt my life slipping away, never doing what I really wanted to do.” Now she does look at me with a tired smile. “I actually thought he'd understand. I knew we were simply going through the motions in our marriage. I thought he probably felt the same way.” She gestures to the mess he's made. “You can see how wrong I was.”

“Has he gotten violent before—I mean, since you told him you were leaving?”

She hesitates, pink flaring in her cheeks. “Once. He pushed me down. I think he was as shocked as I was.”

She rises abruptly. “Anyway. The whole thing makes me feel so sordid. You can't imagine how embarrassed I am.”

I get up, too. “I'll take you up on that coffee. You really do need to figure out how you're going to handle this. I can keep him in jail overnight, but unless you're willing to press charges, after that I'll have to turn him loose. Something tells me he's not ready to give up.”

She throws her hands up to stop me. “No, I will most certainly not press charges.”

I follow her into the kitchen, where she starts brewing a pot of drip coffee. “But the restraining order? Can I talk you into that?”

“I'll have to look into it before I make a decision.”

I have to turn my attention to the high school prom next weekend. I don't remember it being such a big deal when I was in high school about a hundred years ago, but now the plans would rival a gubernatorial inauguration, with the pre-party and the prom and the after party.

This afternoon I have a meeting with the students in the gymnasium to warn them to behave themselves. The principal talked me into it. I wonder if the students can sense how half-hearted my efforts are at issuing the warnings. I know they're not listening anyway. No matter what I say, there will be a few students who sneak alcohol, and a few who refuse to adhere to the rules. But they can't get away with much. If the NSA took lessons from the school PTA ladies, they'd learn a thing or two about security.

CHAPTER 13

Before I leave for Bobtail to meet Lyndall the next morning I release Ellen's ex with a warning. He gives me a good bit of surly lip. I phone Ellen to tell her he's out and to nudge her one more time to look into a restraining order. But she's unmoved.

The Borland place is ominously quiet when Lyndall and I arrive. I expected the dogs to set up a fuss, but the dogs aren't around, and apparently no one else is either. Wallace Lyndall sounds almost satisfied when he says, “Those boys aren't here. If we're lucky, they've gone for good.”

It's not likely, since the old clunker cars are still sitting in the yard. Only the beat-up Chevy is missing. I get a mental picture of Scott and Jett Borland in the front seat with their dogs hanging out the back windows, barreling down the highway looking for trouble.

I knock on the front door and call out to them, but there's no answer. Just for kicks I try to open the door, but it's locked. I trudge around the back of the house, Lyndall following me, grumbling to himself. The backyard is filled with trash; they seem to be big on takeout and favor McDonald's and Arby's. Pizza boxes, beer and soda cans, and empty whiskey bottles are piled up in a corner of the yard near the fence.

“Either of the Borlands married?” I say.

Lyndall has his hands on his hips, surveying the backyard as if he's thinking of cleaning up. “Scott Borland has a wife, but I don't know offhand where she's at. I'll have to see if I can find out. Jett, has a girlfriend who stays in an apartment in town. We might get some information out of her, I guess.”

I notice a trail leading off beyond the back of the property through weeds and underbrush to a thicket of trees and bushes. If I were inclined to cook up some meth, I'd probably do it in a shack a good ways behind the house in a hidden area just like that one. But without a warrant, I'm not setting foot anywhere near the trail.

Back at Bobtail police headquarters, I ask Lyndall if he had a chance to look into the matter of Howard Sandstone's disappearance.

“Come on back to my desk,” he says. “I have the file there.”

It's a thin file. I take it to a vacant desk and read the notes. As Lyndall recalled, it was Sandstone's boss, Larry (Curly) Fogarty, who reported him missing. Sandstone was working as a carpenter on a crew with Fogarty, building a subdivision out west of town. The officer who took the report left notes about his follow-up interviews. The notes say that Sandstone called Fogarty the day before he disappeared and asked for a ride to work because his car was out of commission. Fogarty reported that Sandstone seemed upset and had something on his mind.

Fogarty also told the officer that there had been some talk of Sandstone having a flirtation with a local woman, and some people speculated that he had planned to run off with her. But apparently she was still around. The deputy then interviewed Vera Sandstone, who also said her husband had been upset and that she thought he'd gone off somewhere to cool down.

The notes continued, “I asked her if he'd ever gone off like that before, and she replied that he had not, but there'd been some trouble at home and he was angry. I knew she was referring to the son, who'd been in some trouble. She seemed to think her husband would come back when he'd had time to reflect. I asked if she knew whether her husband had been seeing another woman. She insisted that he was faithful.”

There's a note dated a week later that says Mr. Sandstone's car went missing the same evening that he did and had not yet turned up. Mrs. Sandstone said she had contacted her husband's mother (father deceased) and his brother, but neither had heard from him. “Decision: Texas Highway Patrol will be on the lookout for Sandstone's car, but with no evidence of a crime being committed, there will be no further action from the Bobtail PD.”

By now Lyndall is gone, so I ask at the front desk if it's possible to talk to the officer who took down the information in Howard Sandstone's file.

When I tell him the name of the officer, the deputy says, “He's long gone. He must have been on the cusp of retirement when he wrote that report. I never met him, but I think he died quite a while back.”

So I have to make do with the cursory report that was done at the time. I can understand why the police didn't make too much of it, but I can't understand why Vera Sandstone didn't push them to find her husband. Does it have something to do with his first wife? There's no mention of her in any of the notes on his disappearance. From what I've seen in the file, I'm beginning to see my chances of finding Howard Sandstone recede. I'll try some national databases, but if he went to any trouble to hide, changed his name, for example, I don't see a lot of promise for tracking him down.

Before I leave the police station, I give Will Landreau a call and tell him we struck out locating the Borlands. “Maybe they've run out of steam anyway,” I say. “From the look of the place, they're not the kind of people to focus much on a task.”

“I hope you're right.” He sounds distracted, and I start to tell him I'll be in touch when he says, “Craddock, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How do you think Jenny is doing?”

“You were at her mamma's funeral. Did you talk to her?” I say.

“Not much. She had a lot of people to tend to.”

“I don't know how well you know Jenny, but she and her mamma were pretty close. Stands to reason she's upset. I'd give her time. Any particular reason you're asking?”

He sighs. “Just work stuff. I'd hate for her work to slip.” And then in a rush, he tells the real truth. “I guess I'm selfish. I want the old Jenny back.”

I don't tell him, but from what I've seen I'm not sure the old Jenny is coming back anytime soon.

Jenny calls me later in the day and says she's spending the night at her house tonight and wants me to come over. When I arrive, bearing a pot of soup, we sit at her little dining table and talk like everything is back to normal. After a while we take the bottle of wine we were sharing into the living room and get comfortable.

“I am so glad to get back home. You know how I loved my mamma, but I believe she kept every damn thing any kid ever gave her—including the Teacher's Day cards. If I see one more card with a picture of an apple for the teacher on it, I'll set fire to her place.”

“How much longer do you think it's going to take to finish?”

“It's going slower than I hoped. People keep dropping by. They want to chat. I don't have the heart to tell them that I would rather not talk—I want to get this over with.”

“Why not leave it for a week or so until you've had a chance to settle down from losing your mamma?”

Her reaction is oddly curt. “I can't do that. I need to get it done fast.” Her face has that strained look again, like I've crossed an invisible line.

“You planning to sell the place?”

“I haven't decided. Mamma owned it free and clear, so I don't have to make a decision right away.” She jumps up and says, “Look at that. We've gone through a whole bottle of wine. I'll get another one.”

I start to protest, but she scoots out of the room. I'm surprised the bottle is gone. It doesn't seem to me like I've drunk much more than a glass.

I wonder if I ought to tell Jenny that I've tried to find her daddy and my efforts have come to nothing, but she's been stirred up too much lately. I'll wait until things return to normal before I bring it up. There's no hurry.

It occurs to me later that it's curious that Jenny has inherited the house and its contents. Vera's neighbor said that Eddie was the apple of his mother's eye. So why didn't she leave any of it to him?

CHAPTER 14

The next morning I go over to the Jarrett Creek High School and meet with principal Jim Krueger to review plans for the end of the school year. Every year he wants to discuss the best way to handle the inevitable rowdy behavior that accompanies senior day, the prom, and then graduation day itself.

I'm only half paying attention. My mind keeps drifting back to Jenny. She was drinking a lot last night. Why does she get so wrought up at any mention of her brother? I haven't given any more thought to how Eddie knew Vera was in the hospital. Did Vera ask someone to call him? If she did, she must have had a relationship with him. She must not have had the same problem with him that Jenny does.