Chance McCall (17 page)

A phone rang, persistently. Probably in the office. It rang…and rang…and rang. Chance blinked, trying to focus on the sound. And while he was concentrating, his eyes closed.

And, thankfully, blessed peace came.

9

Thanks to the
school caretaker, Chance had a name. It was a place to start. Letty McCall must have left tracks somewhere in this town, and a suicide would not easily be forgotten. Twelve years ago it would have to have made the papers. Newspaper people were notorious for being curious, though he couldn’t forget that he might wind up on the wrong side of the law if he asked the wrong questions. He decided on another route.

Maybe the courthouse would have some answers. If Letty McCall had once owned property, there would be records. Finding that property would be a beginning. That was more than he’d had yesterday. Chance resolutely put the word
suicide
out of his thoughts and headed for the diner. Food first, answers later.

He escaped most of the nosy waitress’s questions by asking a lot of his own. It was interesting just what a man could learn by watching people’s expressions when certain names were mentioned. Admitting that he’d visited Charlie Rollins yesterday was easy, and it killed nearly fifteen minutes of his meal time. Dodging the issue of his own name was a different story. It took all of his tact not to tell her to mind her own damn business. It was when he mentioned the name, Letty McCall, that he knew he’d hit pay dirt.

The waitress got a look on her face that could only be described as guilty shock.

“Did you know her?” Chance asked, though he knew what her answer would be.

“Yeah,” she drawled, and tucked a stray lock of hair back underneath a barrette. “I knew her. I worked at the same bar she did a few years back. Sometimes we had the same shift.” She refused to meet Chance’s gaze. “It was a real shock when we heard what she’d gone and done. Killed herself and all. I couldn’t make it to the funeral. I had to work.”

“I suppose her family understood,” Chance said, hoping for a reaction. He got it.

The woman’s face twisted. “She didn’t have no family that I know of ’cept a kid. He run off after the funeral. Never did know what happened to him. If he was anything like her, he’s probably dead or in jail by now.”

Chance’s gut twisted. Some epitaph! And a funeral! This was something he hadn’t even considered. The cemetery was a place to look next if he didn’t get any answers at the courthouse.

“Look,” the waitress said, “I’ve got to get back to work. The boss don’t like it if we socialize too much with the customers.”

Chance looked around the almost empty diner. “Yeah, right. You’d better get back to work.”

She ducked her head and hurried away.

The more he discovered, the less he liked it. And from the little bit he’d learned so far, he didn’t think his family name would be on the social register. In fact, he’d be damned lucky if it wasn’t on a police record somewhere. It was time to go.

It didn’t occur to him that the waitress would mention his interest to her boss, or that he in turn would make a phone call, passing along a message that a stranger was in town asking questions about a woman who’d long since turned to dust. But if it had, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Chance was on a mission.

“Oooh Della, would you look at that long-legged hunk coming in the door. What I wouldn’t give to get him in the back seat of a car.”

“For Pete’s sake, Tamma. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were a tramp. What makes you talk like that? Your husband Jimmy Lee would kill you if he knew you even had thoughts about other men, and you know it.”

Tamma grinned and shuffled papers on her desk. “Want me to wait on him?”

“I’ll do it,” Della said. “Just keep your silly self in that chair and your mouth shut. You hear me?”

Tamma grinned and waggled a finger at the older woman as Chance walked up to the counter.

“What can I do for you?” Della asked. She agreed with Tamma’s opinion of the man on the opposite side of the desk. Only, in her day, they’d called them “real dolls.” And the longer she looked, the more certain she became that she knew this one…from somewhere.

“I need to verify ownership of some property,” he said. “A woman lived here back in the late seventies, early eighties. If she owned property, would you have a record of it, and if so, could you help me find it?”

“If you have a name, I’ll have a record. If she owned property, that is.”

Chance nodded. “I have a name. I just need some help locating the records. That is, if you’re not too busy.”

“I’m not too busy,” Tamma offered. Della turned around and glared at her.

“What’s the name, please?” Della asked. Her pencil was poised above a sheet of notepaper on the counter.

“Letty McCall.”

Her pencil point dug one small hole in the paper and then snapped off at the wood. It was an indication that Chance had, once again, struck nerves. That, plus the fact that her mouth dropped several inches toward her gizzard.

Della looked up, gave Chance a hard, fixed stare, and clamped her mouth shut. She picked up another pencil, wrote the name down, opened a small, swinging gate, and indicated that Chance should follow.

He complied, grinning at the saucy expression on the younger woman’s face as they passed her desk. Chance didn’t have to look back to know that she was ogling him.

“In here,” Della said. “And I need to know exactly what interest you might have in the McCall property?”
As if I don’t already know
, she thought.

“Does that mean there is some?”

“Was she a relative?” Della persisted.

“Does she have to be? Isn’t the information public knowledge?”

Della bit the inside of her lip and fumed. He hadn’t answered one single question she’d asked. In fact, he’d thrown them back at her with some of his own.

She didn’t like being bested. She also never forgot a face, and this man’s face would have been hard to forget. She walked down a long corridor of books, deftly lifted one from the stacks, and dropped it onto a table in front of Chance.

“Should be in here,” she said shortly. “If you have any problems, just yell. We’ll be happy to help you out.” She stomped away.

“Yes, ma’am,” Chance answered, glad to see the last of her. She was too persistent, and she’d given him one of those funny looks. He was beginning to recognize a pattern.

It didn’t take long to find the name, but it only gave the date on which the property had been purchased. He noted that it was around the same time that he’d been born. He jotted it down. He would need a city map. He headed back to Della.

“Excuse me,” he said. Both women looked up. “But how do I find the address? This only gives a date.”

“You’ll need to go to the Administration Building…to the office where taxes are paid. They’ll have an address there.”

Chance nodded. “Well then,” he said, trying to get past her belligerence with a smile, “if you could just furnish me with a map of the city, so that I can locate the Administration Building, I’ll be on my way.”

Tamma jumped to her feet and pushed past Della.

She reached beneath the counter. “Here you go, mister,” she said sweetly. “I have a copy of the city map you can have free of charge. Let me just jot down my…I mean our phone number here in the office…just in case you get lost…or something.” Her eyes danced.

Chance resisted the urge to laugh as she shoved the map across the counter. The phone number glowed in red ink. She wasn’t just obvious, she was blatant. And she didn’t care who knew it. Those kind were trouble with a capital T and exactly what he didn’t need.

“Thanks, ladies,” Chance said. He tipped his hat, and made a dash for the door. He didn’t know which was the more dangerous, the woman with a grudge or the one wearing hot pants.

Della watched him leave. Even his smile was the same. She glared at Tamma, who’d already retreated to her desk. Then she made a run for her own. The pages of the phone book fanned her face as she searched for the name. There! She didn’t hesitate. It had been years since she’d done more than pass the time of day with people like this, but she deserved to know. Della considered it her duty.

The numbers beeped in her ear as she punched them in. The phone rang, three, four, five times, and then was answered.

The voice was the same, and Della guessed that the face hadn’t changed that much either. People like her had money. They didn’t have to age. They just had birthdays.

“Mrs. Oslow? This is Della, down at the Odessa courthouse. You remember me? We lived down the street from you when you were just a little girl. That was before we moved from Midland to Odessa. Well, I just had to call and tell you. I think I just saw a ghost. Do you remember that…”

Chance found the address with little trouble. It also hadn’t taken long to find out that the yearly taxes were up-to-date. But his hopes hit bottom when he pulled up beneath the shade tree across the street and stared blankly at the vacant lot. No house! And the only thing green for blocks and blocks was the lot full of weeds.

“Well hell,” he muttered, “this is just perfect.” He climbed out of his truck and walked across the street, jammed his hands in his pockets, and silently stared at what was left of a concrete block foundation and some porch steps. He supposed he was waiting for a miracle to occur, or at least, a hint of memory to surface.

Nothing happened. A little bit of hope died with the weeds wilting in the lot.

Then a man’s angry voice behind him sent him spinning around. An inexplicable panic spurted through him. A feeling of having been here, standing as he was now, and listening to that same voice yelling at him, calling something…But just as quickly as the memory came, it went.

“What’s your business here, mister?” the man asked.

The man approaching was a stranger. Chance saw evidence of too many beers hanging over his belly as the man hopped the curb and stopped. He was big and heavy. He wore jeans a size too small, a T-shirt that could have used a washing, and a week’s worth of whiskers.

“I was told that this was the McCall property,” Chance said, watching the man’s face closely. He got a reaction, but it was not what he’d expected.

“What’s left of it,” the man said. “What’s it to you?”

“Just trying to locate some relatives, that’s all.”

The man nodded. “Don’t know why you’re lookin’,” he drawled. “I got too damned many to suit me.” He jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder at the gaggle of kids playing in the yard across the street. “More than half them brats is mine, along with an out-of-work brother-in-law, and my old lady’s mother. Shit! I oughta just light a shuck for parts unknown. Know what I mean?”

Chance shrugged. This was getting him nowhere. “So, you lived here long? Do you remember the McCalls?”

“Hell yes! How could you forget someone as hot as that bitch? She was up for grabs for anyone with the dough. I’da took her up on it myself, ’cept for the fact that we lived across the damned street. Can’t exactly get a piece on the side with your old lady a’watchin’. Know what I mean?”

Chance’s fury burned hot. It took everything he had not to shove his fist in the man’s beefy mouth. But starting a fight wouldn’t get him answers, and he might wind up in jail. It was a bad plan. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets and stared down at the cracked sidewalk. Maybe if he didn’t have to look at the son-of-a-bitch, he wouldn’t have to hit him.

“Can’t say as I do,” Chance answered. “Not married myself.”

“Smart man,” he replied. “Say, I didn’t get your name.”

Chance remained silent. He turned and stared at the overgrown lot. “What happened to the house?”

The man didn’t seem to notice that his question never got an answer. His eyes lit up. “Oowee, that was one hell of an excitin’ night, I can tell you.”

Chance waited. The man hitched at his low-riding jeans, scratched an armpit, and walked toward the lot to kick at a stone.

“It was after midnight. I’ll never forget. The McCall woman wadn’t cold in the ground. She’d gone and killed herself a few days before.” He turned to get Chance’s reaction. There was none.

When Chance made no comment, the man continued with relish. “One of my kids was cryin’. Hell, one’s always cryin’. Anyways, it woke me up. And the fire made it bright as day outside. The fire trucks was turnin’ the corner when I run out on the porch. I figgered that damned McCall kid was still inside.”

Kid! Somehow Chance knew the rest of the story before the man finished. But he had to hear.

“They sifted the ashes for two days before it dawned on me that the snot-nosed bugger’d had a pickup truck. And it was gone. It just stood to reason that he’d left in it, doncha’ see? I called the cops myself.”

Chance’s belly twisted again. Cops! Please, God, he hadn’t been running from them.

“But,” the man continued, “they’d done already figgered that out. The kid’s boss, a man named Charlie Rollins who owned a gas station a couple a’ blocks over, had cleared his name and told the cops that he figgered the boy just left town due to sadness or some such shit. Personally, I think he lit a shuck because there wadn’t nothin’ left to stay for. His old lady was dead and buried. Know what I mean?”

A flash of heat! Adrenaline spiked through him as his feet pounded on pavement! Fire snaked through windows and exploded in a shower of glass and debris. Red and yellow tongues of hell licked greedily at dry timbers
.

Chance blinked slowly and took a deep breath. The images came and went so quickly, he knew that absorbing their meaning was next to impossible. He had to get away.

“Well, thanks all the same.” He headed back across the street for his truck.

“Say! I didn’t get your name,” the man called.

Chance just waved and drove away, certain that the man was still staring. He was also certain that he’d stirred up another set of ghosts.

Dinner at the The Barn Door was a solemn affair. Ordinarily he would have enjoyed the thick, juicy steak and baked potato. Ordering from the menu had been difficult. It had more choices than the Triple T had horses. But, by the time the food had arrived, his appetite had disappeared. He’d never liked eating alone, and what he was trying to digest along with his food was causing him grief.