Mad Dog and Englishman: A Mad Dog & Englishman Mystery #1 (Mad Dog & Englishman Series) (14 page)

“Right.”

“You’re here because you’re hiding from your ex-husband whose conviction for sexually molesting his daughter was recently overturned by an appeals court and you’re afraid he means you and your daughter harm.”

“I’m sure of it. You saw him.”

True enough. The muscular little man with the dark complexion might not be the murderer, but he’d threatened to kill, and had obviously been willing and able to hurt this woman. That didn’t prove he was as deadly as she claimed, but it didn’t hurt her case any.

“Tell me about him again.” Clearly, he could parrot what she’d already said the rest of the afternoon, but it wasn’t getting him any fresh information.

“OK,” she sighed. “His real name is Benjamin de la Jolla. Lane’s a name I took to try to keep him from finding us when he got free. Obviously, it didn’t work. He was an aeronautical engineering student at Wichita State working for Bauman Aircraft on the side when I met him. Ben was handsome and charming and good in bed and I married him. He also had this thing about children, a kind of fascination with them that I didn’t think anything about until I found some children’s underwear in his den not long after Heather was born. I still didn’t understand. I didn’t pursue my suspicions until I caught him having sex with our baby daughter. I tried to kill him right then and he damn near killed me before the cops came and I had him arrested. I took her to a specialist and got the proof and had him charged and held with too much bail for him to make. Ben was tried and convicted, but I knew he’d come after me if he ever got out. And I’m terrified of what he might do to Heather, especially after what he’s already done.”

“Where’s he live?”.

“I don’t know. He was held in the old Reformatory at Hutchinson until the appeal. All I know is he started looking for us the minute he got out.”

“Any idea how he managed to follow you here?”

“No. Sorry. I’ve just kept my head down and tried to stay out of touch since he was released.”

“Does he have any ties around here? Can you think of where he might run?”

She shook her head. Bizarre. Someone who might be a madman on the loose in Benteen County at the same moment as the county’s first murder. On the surface, it looked like the two events were unrelated, unless the man’s shoes matched the footprints at Simms’.

“Do you have any reason to think he might know a Reverend Peter Simms in Buffalo Springs, or Elmer Simms, the Reverend’s father, of a rural route of the same town?”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she just shook her head again. “No, I think I’ve heard the Starks mention the Reverend, but I can’t imagine that Ben would know either of them. Even Heather and I don’t know anybody around here but the Starks, your wife and daughter, and the Starks’ hired hands.”

“That reminds me,” the sheriff said. “I should have a word with Cody.”

“I don’t think you’ll find him. He’s lusty enough, but none too brave, as I expect you’ve noticed. He tends to disappear whenever there’s trouble. I think he’s got a hiding place along Sweetwater Creek where he goes to give things time to settle down.”

The sheriff didn’t have time for a search. In fact, he didn’t have time for more questioning of Ellen Lane, though he didn’t like the idea of leaving her there alone either.

“Why don’t you ride into Buffalo Springs with me, Mrs. Lane, just in case your former husband decides to come back?”

“I have a 9 mm in our cabin, Sheriff, and I know how to use it. I can’t take a chance that Heather might come home with no one here to look out for her. As soon as Judy gets back with the girls I’ll drive to Buffalo Springs and come by your office. Besides, the Starks are just off looking at some land a neighbor wants to sell them. They should be back soon, and I’ve seen both of them shoot. We’ll be as safe here as with you.”

The sheriff reluctantly agreed. There was more to this situation than he’d uncovered, but he had a murder investigation that needed his attention and a nut case riding around on a motorcycle looking to kidnap the daughter he might have molested as an infant. The sheriff would have to find time to decipher the puzzle that was Ellen Lane after Benteen County was back under control.

“Tell the Starks I need to talk to them as soon as they get home,” he said, climbing into his Chevy’s cab, “and tell them it’s important.” He still needed to know about that last call from Peter Simms’ phone.

“I’ll do that,” she agreed, “and if I see my ex-husband, I’ll be in touch.”

Yes, the sheriff thought. That would be nice. He fired up the Chevy and aimed it for the county seat.

***

Since they’d left Hutch at least two hours earlier than she’d originally planned, Judy English decided to go home to Buffalo Springs before taking Heather number two back to the ranch. That would give her a chance to fix herself and the girls sandwiches, and quell her raging appetite before she did something stupid like going by the Buffalo Burger Drive Inn for a triple cheese burger and a banana split, the kind of meal that might go directly from her mouth to her thighs and spoil the look of her new camisole. Besides, it would give Ellen and Heather Lane a little extra time away from each other. Judy was experienced enough, both as a mom and a teacher, to know when parents and children had been spending too much time together. The two Heathers had obviously hit it off. Her plan would benefit them as well.

Judy decided not to pull into the yard. That way she wouldn’t have to deal with the gate and worry about keeping the dog from getting out. Or make him move. Boris, the German Shepherd Englishman insisted she keep as a combination guardian and playmate for Heather, was sprawled in the driveway sleeping the sleep of a dog who works the night shift.

She pulled up at the curb and reached down to pop the trunk as the two Heathers bailed out like a pair of skydivers intent on the intricate aerial ballet they had to perform before getting back to Earth. Around giggles and whispers, and with a complex system of gestures that would have profoundly shocked Judy, Heather English had persuaded Heather Lane to show her one of the rubbers she now carried “just in case.” They headed for the privacy of her bedroom where Judy couldn’t witness her daughter’s terror, delight, and amazement when she discovered how big the thing was. They were at the front door fumbling with the lock when they heard the voice and saw the shadowy figure who’d been hidden from the street by the trellis of morning glories that were Judy’s pride and joy.

“Heather,” the voice said.

Both girls turned toward the muscular little man with the dark complexion and the hypodermic needle in his right hand. He seemed surprised at seeing two of them, especially since their builds, features, eyes, and hair, even to the way it was cut—short as practical for a small-town tomboy and short as a disguise for a daughter in hiding—forged a resemblance identical enough for twins.

“Heather?” he said again, though this time it was obviously a question.

One Heather had been taught to fear strange men, taught to remain quiet when making a noise didn’t offer immediate salvation. The other was home, in a town where she knew everybody and everybody knew her. Her father was sheriff and her dog, Boris, was only a few feet away.

“Yes,” Heather English said.

***

“Whoa, Sheriff. We must be paying you too much if you can afford a truck like that.”

The sheriff was coming out of the Texaco after settling for his gasoline and the repair of his flat. The tire had picked up a piece of rusty barbed wire but had taken a patch and the sheriff was feeling lucky that he didn’t have to buy a new one. It made the 350’s expensive thirst for fuel less painful than it might have been. The farmer who’d made the joking comment worked about three sections out the Stark’s way. While he didn’t live too high on the hog, most folks seemed to think he owned enough hogs, and other profitable investments, to pretty well live however he wanted.

“Yeah. Five years of payments and it’s all mine, which means you’ve got to re-elect me to at least one more term.”

“Don’t worry, Sheriff. If the citizens fire you I can always use some extra help around harvest.”

“Mighty kind of you,” the sheriff observed. He’d been in contact with the office by radio for long enough to know he had time to stop to deal with the tire and top up his tank on the way in. No more disasters had struck the county since he’d spoken to Mrs. Kraus from the Starks’. The only new information he had was confirmation from French that Tommy Simms was not at home in Crawford and could probably be reached in care of his custom cutting crew of traveling harvesters, thought to be somewhere in central Oklahoma. That, and the fact that Wynn’s professor checked out and Wynn was seeing to the retrieval of his car personally, and therefore staying out from underfoot.

The farmer started to pass the sheriff on his way to pay for his own purchase, then turned at the last minute with another question. “Oh, by the way, that nephew of yours find his way to Judy’s?”

“Nephew?” the sheriff asked.

“Yeah, as I was heading to town I come across this young fellow sitting by the side of the road on his motorcycle studying a map. Stopped and asked could I help him find someplace and he showed me a picture of your daughter and asked me where she was staying. Took one look and I knew it was Heather. Figured she’d be at her mother’s place, so that’s where I directed him. Ain’t that hard to find. I was surprised a relative of yours would get lost around here that easy.”.

“Nephew? He give you a name?” The sheriff was beginning to connect the dark man from Sourdough to the guy with the pictures at Bertha’s. He suddenly knew who the man on the motorcycle was, but not where his Heather fit in. Ellen Lane hadn’t mentioned that their daughters looked surprisingly alike.

“No. I took him to be from your side of the family though, given his complexion.”

“Short, muscular guy, blue polo shirt and tan slacks?”

“Then you’ve seen him? He found the place all right? I was afraid he might have missed them since Judy was just turning off the highway toward her place as I was coming into town.”

“Sweet Jesus!” The sheriff said. Judy was back early and a knife wielding maniac might have located her and both Heathers.

The flip side of the Chevy’s thirst for fuel was how quickly it got him out of the Texaco and on his way to the sleepy neighborhood where he and Judy had disagreed over almost everything, except their daughter, who, for reasons that were completely beyond him, could be in extreme danger.

***

The sun was noticeably lower. Its light streamed across the floor of the corridor in the jail and made Wynn’s positioning of chairs to aid his earlier interrogation of Professor Bowen belatedly effective. Elsewhere in Benteen County, the day was moving to the frenzied pulse of the sheriff’s muddled investigation or Mrs. Kraus’ efforts to meet the incessant demands of telephone, radio, and gossips. Back in the jail, however, time flowed at a different pace, syrup-slow as shadows lengthened and the old clock on the wall across from the cells seemed to pause forever between swings of its brass pendulum.

It was hot and still back there, as it was across the county. The atmosphere was heavy, so thick with humidity that objects just across the room seemed less sharply outlined than normal. Neil Bowen longed to get out of there and, technically, there was no longer any reason he couldn’t. Until the now apologetic deputy returned with his car, however, he didn’t have anyplace else to go. Finding himself in the middle of a murder investigation, a stranger whose skin color had been enough to make him a prime suspect of local law enforcement, he was in no rush to explore the community and test the racial attitudes of any other citizens. One near lynching a day was enough.

He’d spent a few minutes out in the Sheriff’s Office, but it was obvious he was just in the way. The two middle-aged women occupying the only available chairs that weren’t behind desks had seemed to watch him with more than a hint of suspicion. He had hardly felt welcome and so he’d wandered back into the jail where the only man in the county to actually befriend him was spending a quiet afternoon contemplating the ceiling from a bunk in a rear corner cell. He didn’t understand what the big fellow was doing back there but he obviously wasn’t locked up and it was comforting to stay in the vicinity of a man who had come to his rescue once, and, if necessary, might again.

“Feels like tornado weather,” Bowen ventured.

“I looked outside a little while ago,” Mad Dog replied, “while you were up front. Not a cloud in the sky. It’s unnatural.”

“I’ve come to think that unnatural is the natural state of Kansas weather,” the professor laughed. “I’m no longer surprised when it snows in May or bakes in January.”

Mad Dog rolled over and sat on the side of the bunk, apparently willing to chat. “Yeah, but when the wind stops blowing….”

“Well, yes,” Bowen agreed. “I’ll have to admit, I can’t remember the last time it was still like this all day. Not since I took the job here and moved from East Tennessee State.”.

“What brings you to Benteen County, Doc?” Mad Dog inquired.

“Well, I believe I mentioned that I hold the Benjamin Singleton endowed chair of history at Fort Hays State. Do you happen to know who Mr. Singleton was, Mr. Mad Dog?”

“Just Mad Dog, no mister to it. I assumed he was a benefactor of the college, but since I don’t know any Singletons in this neck of the woods, I’d guess I’m wrong and you weren’t dropping by to see about funding new scholarships.”