Dorothy Garlock (25 page)

“You've been thinking about this for a while? ”

“Yeah. Wages are good here, but what good are they if you can't settle someplace and put your feet down? We've been on the move since we left home. I'd like to have my own bed to sleep in, eat at my own table — ”

“Have your own woman? ”

“I've thought of it, but haven't found the right one yet.”

“How about Laura Hopper? ”

“I'm not sure I want a woman who's so damn beautiful. I'd have to lock her up to keep men away from her.”

“It isn't her fault that she's pretty.”

“No, it isn't. I want to love the woman I take for a wife like Evan loves Julie and like Corbin Appleby loves his Annabel.”

“If you got to know Laura, you might fall for her in spite of the fact that she's so sinfully pretty.”

“We can't go home for a while, maybe months. Meanwhile, I need a job. One of us at the hotel during the day is enough.”

“Jill won't leave here as long as her aunt needs her, so we're stuck here for a while.”

“I'm still going to write to Evan and ask him to look around.” Joe steered the car around the corner and pulled up alongside the Iumberyard.

“Are you still wanting a partner? ”Thad made no move to get out of the car.

“I've thought of asking you. It would take quite a bit of land to support two families.”

“You're going to have one? ”

“A family? Damn right. Someday. I need kids to take care of me in my old age.”

“Our combined money should buy a pretty good chunk, especially if I can get another job helping to put out a fire.”

“We don't need money that bad, ”Joe said sternly. “That was a fool thing for you to do.”

“How so? I knew what I was doing.”

“You could have been blown to smithereens and I'd have lost a partner.”

“I wasn't going to let that happen if I could help it. Lord, I've been looking out for you for so long, I don't think you can hack it by yourself, ”Thad teased.

“Horsecock! Who took care of you when you got fired for telling the boss he was a stupid asshole and if shit were brains he'd be governor? ”

Thad laughed. “I'd forgotten about that.”

“Let's see what Evan comes up with. Who knows, I might be looking at your ugly face every day for the next forty years.”

Joe got out of the car and reached for the tub.

Chapter 17

L
AURA WAS NERVOUS ABOUT THE EVENING AHEAD.
She had been scolding herself all day for not being more forceful and telling Hunter Westfall not to come back.

Her mother was upset with her and rightfully so.

“What were you thinking of? He's coming here for one reason only. He knows we're as poor as Job's turkey and he thinks to buy his way into your bed.”

“Then he'll be disappointed.”

“That murdered woman had been staying with him. No decent single man has a woman who isn't a relative come stay with him. Some say she was a whore. It's what folks will think of you if you're seen with him.”

“I'll know it isn't true and so will you.”

“It'll hurt your chances of getting a decent man.”

“I don't want a man, Mama. I've told you that.”

“It isn't natural for a woman to live her life alone.”

“I'm not alone. I have you and Mary Pat.”

“I worry about what will happen to you when I'm gone. I won't always be here.”

“None of us will, Mama. I hope to live long enough to see Mary Pat on her own. It's all I ask.”

“I don't want him in the house.”

“I'll talk to him on the porch and tell him not to come back.”

“Lordy mercy. There are times when I wish you were ugly as a mud fence.”

Laura laughed, stretched her mouth with her thumbs, crossed her eyes and wiggled her fingers. “Like this? ”

Mrs. Cole couldn't help but smile at her daughter's antics. “Jill's brother is a nice-looking man. He's kind and as sweet as he can be. He carried Mrs. Byers to the kitchen so she could visit with Radna while she worked. He would know how to treat a decent girl. Why don't you set your cap for him? Laws honey, you could have any man in this town. All you'd have to do is beckon.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me? ”

“No. You've got to be careful and not make the same mistake you made with Bradley.”

“He raped me, Mama. But I'm not sorry. I got Mary Pat out of it.”

“I know, honey. I'm sorry I brought it up. I'm worried about Hunter Westfall coming here. He's not a marrying man, just takes his pleasure from women and doesn't give a hoot and a holler about any of them. Every single woman in town and some of the married ones have been after him.”

“Not me and not Jill.”

“She walked off with him Saturday night.”

“Radna said she did it to prove to Thad she'd do as she pleased.” Laura giggled like the young girl she was. “Radna thinks Jill's in love with Thad.”

“It was nice of him to fix the pen and a sand pile for Mary Pat.”

“Mary Pat's stuck on him and squeals every time she sees him.”

“You like him, don't you? You could beat Jill's time with him if you set your mind to it.”

“I wouldn't do such a thing, Mama! Heavens! You wouldn't want me to.”

“You're right, honey, I wouldn't.” Mrs. Cole hung the wet dish towel on the handle of the oven door. “I've got to iron the lawman's shirts tonight so I can take them back in the morning.”

“I wish he'd catch the monster who killed that woman.”

“Some think it was Hunter Westfall.”

“If the sheriff thought that, Mr. Westfall would be in jail.”

“When he gets here, I'll be right here in the kitchen with your daddy's old shotgun. If he makes one false move, he'll get both barrels.”

The ironing board had a permanent position in Mrs. Cole's kitchen. She cleared it off and set up the iron. Earlier she had sprinkled the shirts with water, rolled them tightly and placed them in the ironing basket.

Laura filled a bucket from the water tap in the kitchen.

“I'll put this in the washtub on the porch and let Mary Pat splash in it for a while before I put her to bed.”

“When is Mr. Big Shot coming? ”

“I suspect about dark. Don't worry, Mama. He won't stay long.”

Hunter Westfall had spent most of the morning in his office going over figures for the amusement park while the electric fan on the floor stirred the hot, dry air.

Earlier he had heard from the sheriff that the decision had been made to bury Carsie's body immediately. When and if the head was found, the sheriff explained, the coffin would have to be dug up and opened.

Hunter had gone home to fetch Dinah and Casper for the short graveside service. The three of them were the only people in town who had known her. The sheriff, Officer Hurt and the young officer he had brought up from the city also attended.

Hunter had a brief conversation with the three officers after the burial. They told him that there had been no new developments in the search for Carsie's killer.

“Watch yourself, ”Sheriff Page warned. “Someone is spreading the rumor that you're the killer.”

“What's the basis of the rumor? You've checked out my movements on the night in question.”

“The rumor is that the colored folks who work for you are lying and that you were away most of the night.”

“Do they think Miss Jones lied about me being with her? Plenty of people saw me on the street. If they think Dinah and Casper are lying, they don't know them very well. Who's behind the rumors? I'll have a talk with him. Better yet, I'll have him talk to Dinah and Casper.”

“My advice is to stay away from him. You'd just be stirring the pot.”

“Can't you at least tell me who started the talk? ”

“I see no harm in that. It's public knowledge. Lloyd Madison is keeping the talk going. I've no way of knowing who started it, but I suspect it was him.” The sheriff explained to the other two officers that Madison was one of the two attorneys in town.

“I'm not surprised, ”Hunter said. “He's been against everything that I've tried to do for the town since the day he came here.”

“Had you known him before? ”

“No. Never saw him. I'd remember it if I did. He's breeding discontent among the workers by telling them that the oil companies are taking advantage of them and the ranchers in the area. He doesn't stop to think that the oil companies create the jobs for those who are spending money in town.”

“If he's the man with the blood-red mark on his face, he was at the soda fountain in the drugstore talking about the big operators paying slave wages to the workers and how the oil companies are destroying the land.” The young officer spoke for the first time.

“That isn't true, ”Hunter said quickly. “We pay the same wages as the companies in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and as for destroying the land — the ranchers lease to us because they want the money.”

“Did he know who you were, Jelly? ”Hurt asked the young officer.

“I'm sure he did. He was on the hotel porch when we left this morning. I got the feeling he was talking for my benefit.”

“Do as you please about talking to Madison, Mr. West-fall, ”Sheriff Page said. “But if I were you, I'd avoid him as much as possible. He's a smooth talker, the kind who can stir up folks against you. A bunch of liquored-up roustabouts can get pretty ugly, pretty quick.”

“I don't want any trouble with Madison, never have. He's got a chip on his shoulder where I'm concerned and I'll be damned if I know why. I'm surprised he hasn't blamed me for burning down his house.” Hunter drew a paper from his pocket. “I've made a list of things I knew Miss Bakken had with her: clothes, jewelry, a mirror and brush set I had given to her and the make of the suitcase. It was a dark tapestry with brass fixtures.”

“Was the jewelry valuable? ”

“Some of it was. Miss Bakken had some wealthy friends.”

Back in his office, while working on the figures, Hunter thought briefly about the conversation with the officers, then the memory of Laura Hopper's lovely violet eyes and the promise of seeing her again wreaked havoc on his concentration.

He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, considered his life up to now and realized that the things that really mattered were missing. The only family he had ever known had been his mother, who, he guessed, had loved him in her own peculiar way.

As far as he knew, she had never had a lasting relationship — not even with the father he had known for a short time. Men had floated in and out of her life, just as women now floated in and out of his. Although not fabulously wealthy, he and his mother had been well fixed because of the money his mother had inherited from her father.

Life had been easy for Hunter. He had not had to work his way through school, as had some of his classmates. He had enlisted in the army when he was eighteen, but the war was over before he finished his training. He went back to college. After graduation, he left school with a healthy bank account he had inherited when his mother died in a boating accident.

Striking out on his own, he discovered that he had a shrewd business head and that making money was an exciting hobby. That and sexual gratification had been his life up to now.

In his entire life he had never known a closeness with anyone other than Dinah and Casper. They had been with his mother and then with him after she died. In the past he'd had glimpses of family life when he let himself be friends with classmates, and later with some of his employees. He often felt a twinge of envy when observing the devotion of wives and children but dismissed the feeling.

He hadn't fully realized what was missing in his life …until now.

Since Carsie's death, he had come face-to-face with his own mortality. Sitting at his desk, staring out the window, Hunter suddenly had a fierce yearning to see Laura again, talk to her, learn what she liked and what she didn't like and have her know him as a man. He wanted to share her dreams for the future and have her know his.

Instinctively he knew that she was a woman who would love a man for himself alone and not for what he could give her. He longed for the kind of love he had only read about in the classics.

Hunter got up from his desk and, with a nod toward the two employees in the office, put on his hat and went out the door.

“What's got into him? ”the bookkeeper asked.

“He's got a lot on his mind. The murder of that woman has knocked the props from under him.”

“Do you think he did it? ”

“No. I'd stake my life on it, ”Perry Reade said forcefully.

“The talk is that he did.”

“I don't care about the talk! I've worked for him for six years. He hasn't even shot a jackrabbit. His one weakness, that I can see, is that he likes to screw women. Hell, there isn't a man in town who doesn't like to do that. The difference is that Hunter has the money to buy that pleasure. If he hadn't wanted Carsie Bakken anymore, he would have sent her on her way as he has done the others.”

“The town is getting stirred up. The killer had better be found soon or there could be a lynching.”

“Mistah Hunter, what yo doin 'home dis early? I ain't even started yo dinner.”

“That's all right, Dinah. It's too hot for a heavy dinner. How about a sandwich and a cold glass of tea in about an hour? I'll turn on the fan in my room and lie down for a while.”

Hunter went up the stairs. Instead of going to his room, he opened the door to the room Carsie had used. The fragrance of her perfume still hung in the hot air. Rather than bringing forth the image of luscious breasts, a soft belly and a triangle of soft tight curls as it usually did, it made him slightly nauseated. He went quickly to the windows and opened them. He propped the door open with a chair, then went down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the water to fill the large clawfoot bathtub.

After shedding his clothes, he stepped into the tub and began to scrub. He didn't understand this sudden desire to cleanse himself. In fact, it was more than a desire. It was a need, and he was compelled to satisfy it. He just knew he had to wash away as much filth from his life as possible before he called on Laura. After scrubbing every inch of his body, he washed his hair, then sat in the water, thinking.