Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) (17 page)

“For show, I think. Carl wants everyone to
believe he’s pissed at Whitey for not letting him at the outhouses.
But I bet he’s as happy as a bat in guano that Whitey’s holding
out.”

Carl just couldn’t be such a big fat
liar.

What about the fantasy? Why would he have
asked Simone to write it for Maggie if he wasn’t trying to patch
things up? But he’d never said it was for Maggie.
Never
.

Oh my God. She had to face the truth
here.

The erotic tale Carl had her write was for
another woman. Simone had helped him carry on an illicit affair
behind Maggie’s back. She was a party to his deception. She was a
backstabber. Even if she hadn’t known his real intention.

She’d saved all his emails detailing exactly
what he’d wanted. When she got home tonight, she’d review every
single one.

“Who’s he running away with?”

Della shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I did.
Lord knows I’ve tried to help Maggie, but I can’t get her hopes up
that this isn’t bad, really bad. It’s better she understands now so
that when it happens, it isn’t such a terrible surprise.”

“Couldn’t you be wrong, Della?” Simone didn’t
know much about Della’s life before Goldstone. In fact, she didn’t
know anything. Had Della had a bad marriage in which her husband
cheated on her? Was she looking for the worst in all men?

“I know men, sweetie, and I know I’m not
wrong. Haven’t you noticed that he’s been losing weight?”

Now that Della mentioned it, Carl might have
dropped a few pounds. You noticed the slightest weight loss on a
woman, but a man, well, that was harder to distinguish. Now that
she thought about it, though, Carl’s clothes did seem to hang more
loosely on him. “What does that mean?”

“
Cosmopolitan
says that when a married
man starts losing weight, it’s because he’s got his eye on someone
new.”

“
Cosmo
says that?”

“Yes,
Cosmo
,” Della said with a
reverent lifting of her chin.

“Couldn’t it mean that he got health
conscious?”

Della snorted, then looked at the lipstick
mark she’d left on her glass. Reaching into the purse she’d plopped
on the edge of the table, she pulled out a compact and freshened
her lips.

Makeup perfect once more, she said, “You
really need to read
Cosmo
more. You haven’t got the
slightest idea how a man’s mind works.”

And
Cosmo
did? Wasn’t it written by
women?

Still, she did have the stomach-dropping
sensation that Della and
Cosmo
might be right.

* * * * *

Brax didn’t find Carl at the county jail, nor
did he find Sheriff Elwood Teesdale. After nine p.m., the only
person working the county jail was the 911 dispatcher who informed
Brax that the sheriff was hot on the trail of a dangerous thief
who’d robbed the minimart at gunpoint earlier that evening.

Carl hadn’t shown up at the jail. In fact,
Teesdale hadn’t thrown him in the clink for public drunkenness in
over a week.

Brax had then taken a quick jaunt up to The
Dartboard in Bullhead. No Carl. After driving every street and back
road around Goldstone, Brax still hadn’t found Carl’s truck. Nor
had he seen or heard evidence of the sheriff’s manhunt, no flashing
lights and no sirens. Waiting at a stop sign on the highway, he
massaged his temples.

He had the sinking feeling Maggie was right.
Carl was bunking down in some floozy’s bedroom.

But Brax couldn’t go home to Maggie’s trailer
without Carl in tow. He’d promised.

He had only one hope left. Flood’s End. He’d
gone by earlier. Carl’s truck wasn’t there, so he’d driven on.
Bartender Doodle, however, might provide other leads he could
follow up.

The neon sign atop the Flood’s End called to
him. Amidst trailers like hulks in the darkness and the occasional
telephone pole outlined against the sky, that glaring neon sign was
a beacon to a thirsty traveler. Which hit home the other reason the
Flood’s End beckoned. Simone had said she was meeting Della.

Simone was the drink and he was the one
thirsting for her. As a panacea for his troubles, she was
infinitely superior to downing a glass of whiskey.

His eye on the guiding neon light, Brax
pulled into the lot outside the Flood’s End. Cheers pounded out
through the open door, and as he stepped onto the porch, he could
make out the fuzzy outline of a sports announcer on the TV above
the bar and Simone at a table against the right wall.

The cheering ended abruptly as Brax passed
through the door. Eight pairs of eyes surveyed him until one set
blinked. Whitey. He recognized a few of the other faces from his
sojourns around town, but could associate no names. Whitey mumbled
something, perhaps a greeting.

Doodle slapped his hand on the bar. “The
brother-in-law. Sorry, son, I forgot your name, but come on in.
We’re watching the world cricket match. Take a seat.”

Only two remained. Brax chose the stool
closest to the exit, the one separated from the rest by the
bartender’s escape hatch.

“What’ll you have, boy?”

Brax pointed to the drinks on Simone’s table.
“I’ll have one of those.”

Doodle cackled, leaned closer and said under
cover of another hooting for the cricket team, “Well, now. Which
one? Simone’s as sweet as apple pie and baseball. But Della, she’s
more like the apple the snake offered Eve.”

Whoa. That was a pretty damning statement.
“Why don’t you like her?”

Doodle vigorously shook his head, his tight
white curls springing in all directions. “Love her. Heart of gold.
But she’s a born politician, and big state governor or small town
mayor, they all make promises they can’t keep. Only really good
thing she’s done is get all us residents our own burial plot in the
Goldstone Cemetery. For free. All we have to do is pay to get the
hole dug.”

That was certainly a rousing
recommendation.

Doodle tapped his arm. “Don’t let on I ever
said that.”

Which part? “Our secret. Even torture won’t
get it out of me.” Of course, everyone at the bar probably heard
all the old man said. “Now back to the original topic, I wasn’t
referring to the ladies, but to the drinks on their table. Care to
make up another batch of the stuff?”

Doodle reared back. “You can’t have a
froufrou drink like that. Those are only for ladies.”

Brax knocked the side of his head. “What was
I thinking? Beautiful ladies scramble my brain. A beer is what I
meant to say. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”

Doodle poured and slid the glass down the bar
into Brax’s waiting hand. Then he followed it with a damp cloth
sopping up the trail of liquid from the bottom of the frosty
mug.

Used to the regulars, Doodle obviously
preferred talking up the newcomer, since he didn’t leave after
depositing the beer. “Brax. I remember the name now.”

“Right.” Brax took the opportunity to ask
about Carl. “You seen my brother-in-law this evening?”

Doodle shook his head and mimed a frown.
“Ain’t seen him since you two were here on Sunday.”

Brax had hoped, but he hadn’t actually
believed finding Carl would be that easy.

“He have another fight with Maggie?”

Brax neither confirmed nor denied. “I’m out
looking for a drinking buddy.” Which seemed as good an explanation
as any.

“Well, after you finish your beer, check on
over at the jail. Carl sometimes sleeps off his fights over there.
Leastwise, Teesdale might have seen him somewhere.”

“I was trying to locate the sheriff. He
likely to stop by?”

The sound of a siren took up its banshee
wail, growing louder as if the pursuit car was headed straight for
the Flood’s End.

Blue and red stripes flashed across the walls
and patrons, then the siren cut, the engine died, and the lights
were doused.

“Looks like ya found the sheriff.”

Chapter Ten

Doodle fished a bottle of Heineken from
somewhere deep beneath the bar, opened it, then tilted a
frost-laden mug and poured with a minimum of foam. He slapped both
the mug and the bottle onto the bar.

“Doodle, you’re a god come down from Olympus
to save the parched throat of a lowly sheriff,” Teesdale said as he
reached for his
nectar of the Gods
.

“Sheriff, a good man deserves the best a poor
bartender can offer.” Doodle leaned on the counter.

Sheriff Elwood Teesdale downed half the
glass, sighed with his eyes closed, then poured the remainder of
the bottle. He waved a hand. “Gentleman, as you were. Just put on
the siren so you’d know to clear out all the illegal nose candy
before I descended.”

A hush had fallen when the sheriff pulled his
wailing cruiser into the lot. Now a few laughed, and all went back
to watching the cricket match.

“Simone. Mayor. Don’t mind me.” Teesdale
tipped his Smokey the Bear hat to the ladies, then tossed it on a
nearby table. A day’s wear in Goldstone’s heat had mashed his hair
in a ring around his head. He kicked a chair out with his foot and
sat with his back to the wall nearest the door.

“Tough night, Sheriff?”

“The worst of my life, Doodle. Needed a nip
to calm the old nerves.” He held up his hand, showing off a case of
the shakes as bad as any thirty-year alkie would have.

Sheriff Teesdale was your average Joe.
Average height, average weight, average number of lines etched into
his face for a man somewhere close to his midforties. Brown hair a
medium shade cut to a medium length, it was neither a buzz cut nor
touched his collar. He bore no distinguishing characteristics, and
his voice held no distinctive inflection. His looks were those of a
man no one noticed in a crowd or the kind over which neighbors
exclaimed,
He always seemed so ordinary
, when the police
uncovered his wife’s body buried in his backyard.

Brax had never bought the
ordinary
explanation, but he had to admit, Teesdale was the personification
of the term.

Doodle cupped his hand over his mouth and
said to Brax, “Sheriff likes to unload after a bad one. Ask him,
cop to cop. It’ll do him a world of good.”

Brax understood the need to unload, though
he’d never been one to do it. As ranking officer in his department,
he didn’t unload with his subordinates. Bad for morale as well as
for maintaining discipline. Nor had burdening his wife with his job
stress been an option. That cut his choices down to none.

Until recently, he’d never had the need.

Doodle flapped a hand in his direction. “This
is Carl’s brother-in-law.”

“Heard all about you, Sheriff Braxton.”
Teesdale stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles.
“Sorry. I’m sure you came here to get away from shoptalk.”

“Not a problem, Sheriff. But I did stop by to
see you earlier. Wondering if you’ve seen Carl lately.”

Teesdale scratched his head. “Can’t say that
I have.”

“Maggie thought maybe he’d been by to visit
you.”

“Nope.” Teesdale flicked a piece of lint from
the brim of his hat. “Hasn’t visited for at least a week or
more.”

That was it. Brax himself would need to spend
the night in jail so he didn’t have to face his sister.

“So do tell, Sheriff. What was all the fuss
about?” Doodle was obviously bored with the topic of Carl.

The sheriff shook his head soberly. “It was a
desperate situation, Doodle. More than half a dozen times, I
thought I was a goner.”

The man was a born storyteller, relating the
tale with the-fish-was-really-this-big exaggeration.

Doodle pointed the remote and lowered the
TV’s volume. The boys grumbled and groused. “You can see, ya don’t
have to hear, too. Sheriff, sorry for their bad manners. Go
on.”

“Well, Doodle, I’ll tell you. Jody was damn
lucky to escape with her life. That woman’s fast on her feet, thank
God, or we’d have been cataloging blood spatter on the walls from
now until Christmas.”

“Jody’s the clerk over at the minimart,”
Doodle muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “and that woman
couldn’t move fast if her ass was on fire.”

“He made her lie down on the floor, and she
had the good sense to let him take as much merchandise as he
wanted,” Teesdale went on. “Nothing good comes of facing down a man
with a gun over a few material things. Especially when they belong
to your boss.”

Simone sipped at her drink, watching
Teesdale, and Della twisted in her seat. The bar boys had even
tuned out cricket. Brax figured knocking over the local minimart
was the most infamous crime Goldstone’s sheriff ever saw, and the
man was playing up to his audience for all he was worth.

“Then she called you?” Doodle prompted.

“At the time, I was surveying the landscape
out my office window.” Which meant he hadn’t been doing a damn
thing. “The perp exited with his bootie. Couldn’t see his face in
the gloom.”

“He had a jump on you, then, didn’t he,
Sheriff?”

“That he did, Doodle. But I tracked him.”

“From his shoe prints?”

“No. Something much more damning.” The
sheriff paused for effect. “Twinkie wrappers. Every twenty yards or
so. See, I stopped long enough with Jody to find out exactly what
the desperado was after. Stole the entire display of Twinkies. Ten
boxes. Followed the trail right to the brigand’s front door.”

“Amazing detective work, Sheriff.”

Teesdale nodded in acceptance of the
accolades. “Took years of training, and a lot of psychological
know-how. See, I deduced it had to be someone who loved Twinkies. I
further surmised that Mud Killian, who buys a box of Twinkies at
least every other day, was the most likely suspect.”

Doodle did another aside explanation for
Brax. “Mud’s Mama Killian’s youngest. He’s twenty-one, but a might
tetched in the head.”