Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (3 page)

Joanna seemed to have recovered some of her composure-maybe she'd sobbed the hysteria out of her system. She kept talking, anyway, and slowly the whole sad story of Todd began to emerge.

Todd was Todd Texiera, apparently, a cowboy on the biggest ranch in Joanna's part of the foothills, and the apple of every Merced County woman's eye. To hear Joanna tell it, anyway. Joanna had met him on a call out to the Hacienda Ranch, and he'd obviously charmed the socks off of her.

The socks and everything else, in short order, it appeared. No matter that Joanna seemed to know he'd already loved and left a dozen other women she was acquainted with, she'd hopped right into bed with him, sure that this time it was different.

Only, of course, it wasn't, and Todd Texiera had left her as he'd left everybody else. About a month ago, it seemed. Left her and proved entirely resistant first to demands and then pleas that he move back in and "work it out." Joanna had been desperate.

Little by little I glimpsed the demeaning straits to which she'd reduced herself. She'd tried to dress more fetchingly to get his attention, she'd invented numerous imaginary reasons for calls out to the Hacienda Ranch, she'd called him constantly. All of which he'd ignored.

He was always pleasant, Joanna said, and sometimes he'd tease her, just the way he used to, so she was sure the feeling was still there.

Fat chance, I thought but didn't say. I recognized Todd Texiera's type from her description and I would have bet my life savings he already had another girl in tow and had no intention of returning to Joanna.

"What about Jack?" I prodded gently.

I'd suspected her interest in Jack had been along the lines of a rich boyfriend, possibly even a rich husband, but it seemed I was wrong. Joanna had wanted to acquire Jack out of an even less noble motivation-she wanted to make Todd Texiera jealous.

"Everybody knows Jack Hollister," she said. "I thought maybe Todd would find out I was dating him."

It was a pathetically revealing statement, and I cringed for her. Not to mention I was sure it wouldn't have worked. The Todd Texiera types were not susceptible to that sort of game playing. They were the ones who intended to hold all the strings.

"And now you say Jack's been shot and they think it was you? Who are they? The police?"

"Yes." Joanna looked like she was ready to cry again; talking about Todd had calmed her, talking about Jack's murder seemed to do the reverse.

"Come on," I urged her, "tell me what happened, so I can help." If that's possible, I added to myself.

"We went to dinner," she began, obediently composing herself with an obvious effort, "at this place called Nevada Bill's."

It
was a combination restaurant, dance hall, and casino, it seemed, small, and relatively elegant. It
was also a multiroom sort of an affair---card rooms here, barroom there, slot machines over there-with a balcony overlooking Lake Tahoe. Sometime in the latter part of the evening, after they had finished dinner and were gambling, Joanna had lost track of Jack.

"I just wandered around looking for him for a while; I wasn't particularly worried. Then it got later, and I started hunting for him. I couldn't find
him
anywhere and it was late and I was tired. I thought he'd found some other woman and ditched me." Joanna choked back another short sob. The imagined rejection still rankled, apparently.

"I finally decided I'd better call a taxi and go back to the hotel. Then I realized I'd lost my purse. I hunted through the whole place again, this time for the purse, though I kept an eye out for Jack, too. I didn't see either one. I had some money stuffed in my pocket to gamble with, so I had enough for the cab. I asked the man at the front desk to call me if anyone turned in my purse and gave him my name and room number here. Then I left.

"The next thing I know is the phone is ringing at six this morning and it's the cops. They told me Jack had been shot; they found his body in the lake, they said. And my purse was out there on the deck they think he fell from."

"Have they been here?" I asked her.

"Not yet. They told me on the phone to stay in my room and a detective would be here to talk to me. After I hung up" Joanna looked at me appealingly-"I just couldn't stand it. My whole life is falling apart."

It
made sense in a way. Todd Texiera had probably been Joanna's first lover. Who knew what irrational impulse had led her to choose a lethal charmer, but it was clear the result had been devastating. Balanced as she was on the fragile edge of control and desperation, the notion that she might be a murder suspect really was too much.

"Washoe County Sheriff's Department." The voice on the other side of the door was quiet and unaggressive, as was the knock, but we both jumped as guiltily as co-conspirators and stared at each other. Joanna's eyes were wide with fright, and her disheveled appearance was exactly what I might have imagined the perpetrator of a violent crime would look like the morning after. She had, I supposed, a motive of sorts. Distraught over Todd Texiera, she propositioned Jack on the rebound and was rejected. Hell hath no fury, etc.

All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I looked from Joanna to the door. Too late to have her change into some clothes, too late to warn her to say nothing about her disastrous love affair. With a whispered "Just answer the questions," I got up and opened the door.

The man who stood in the hallway met my eyes and said, "Ms. Lund?"

"No, I'm her friend."

He looked less than pleased for the merest fraction of a second, then said, "Detective Claude Holmquist."

"Dr. McCarthy," I answered firmly. "Dr. Lund is waiting for you." I laid a little extra emphasis on the "doctor" as I held the door open for him, thinking that this was going to be easier than I'd expected.

Detective Claude Holmquist was not an intimidating man. Small and narrow framed, he looked to be about forty-five, with a receding hair line and a Nordic face. In Joanna those Scandinavian genes had produced a snow-queenesque beauty; in this man they'd created a rabbitish look-his long nose, almost lashless pale eyes, and thinning, faded hair were innocuous at best.

Joanna faced him with more composure than I'd expected; she still looked red-eyed and distressed, but her demeanor was calm. I crossed my fingers it would stay that way.

In response to quiet questions from the detective, Joanna retold the story I'd just heard. The man gave no sign, either verbally or in his facial responses or body language, of what he thought. Unaggressive neutrality was the only quality he displayed. I began to revise my first impression.

"And you, Dr., uh, McCarthy?" He turned those slightly watery eyes on me. "Can you add anything?"

The question was ambiguous, deliberately so, I supposed. He watched me passively; nothing could have been less threatening than the slight sideways tilt of his head, yet I had the strong impression I needed to choose my words carefully.

"Dr. Lund and I are friends and she called me up here this morning as she was upset-naturally."

No response from the detective.

"I should probably tell you that I knew Jack Hollister, Dr. Hollister, slightly, better than Dr. Lund did. In fact, I introduced them a couple of days ago, here at this convention." Again, no response, just a gentle inclination of Detective Holmquist's chin.

I plugged on. "Jack Hollister is from Santa Cruz, my hometown. He and I are both horse vets, and we both participate in team roping, so I've run into him quite a bit."

"Team roping?"

"It's a sport. A rodeo event. Roping cattle from horseback."

"Ah yes." Claude Holmquist nodded. Again I had no sense what he thought of team roping, of me, of this case, of anything at all. "Why do you think he was killed?"

No inflection in his voice. Just a simple question. I thought about it. "Are we assuming he was murdered, then? It wasn't suicide?"

"Do you have a reason to think he would shoot himself?"

I stared at this man, wondering if he might possibly represent the epitome of the give-no-information-away school of bureaucratic thought.

"No," I said finally, "I have no reason to think he would commit suicide. I was wondering why you seemed to assume he'd been murdered."

Detective Holmquist gave the faintest upward twitch of the lips and said nothing.

Since he clearly wasn't going to tell me what evidence he had, or anything else for that matter, I took a deep breath and tried again. "Okay. As far as I know Jack Hollister had no reason to kill himself or be killed by anyone else. He wasn't the type, if you know what I mean. My first reaction when Joanna told me was, that's impossible. Jack was successful, cheerful, and easy-going; that's the impression he gave, anyway. I didn't know him well enough to know if he had any serious problems under the surface."

Detective Holmquist nodded slightly. We were all quiet. When the silence had lengthened to the point of stiffness and it was apparent Joanna and I were not going to volunteer anything more, he spoke. "I'll take down the names of anyone you think we should be in touch with and then get back to you. Would you two be able to wait here for me?"

It was phrased as a request, but I didn't bother to suggest any other program. The alternative was probably waiting around in some police station.

I gave him the name of Jack's foreman and that of his most current ex-wife, Tara, and left it at that. I couldn't remember, if I'd even known, the names of Jack's previous wives; no doubt the police could discover them.

Detective Holmquist departed with this information and a promise to return shortly and left Joanna and me alone. She was huddled in a straight-backed chair, the hunch of her shoulders and droop of her head conveying her feelings more clearly than any words could have done. She'd remained absolutely silent while the detective had questioned me and she still said nothing, just stared vacantly at the blank gray screen of the silent TV set.

"Joanna," I said tentatively. "Why don't you take a shower and get dressed. You'll feel better."

She shook her head.

I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Joanna, come on. This isn't the end of the world. I know you didn't kill Jack. It will all get straightened out."

"It's easy for you to say." Her voice was a mumble. "Who's going to straighten out the rest of my life?"

"Joanna." I was getting exasperated, tragedy or no tragedy. This new Joanna seemed very unlike the person I had known in vet school, and wasn't someone I found myself liking. I wondered briefly if it was true that we all hit some kind of major life change around the age of thirty, the boundless, somewhat mindless enthusiasm of our twenties smashing against the inexorable wall of mortality. Certainly it was true that several people I had known had changed radically around thirty, some lapsing into what appeared to be inertia and depression, others shifting from freewheeling liberals into aggressive conservatives. Joanna seemed to have changed from a hardheaded career woman into a piece of soggy toast.

Come on, Gail, she's afraid she might be charged with murder, I reminded myself, and tried again to be sympathetic.

"Losing what's his name, Todd, isn't the end of the world, either," I said, I hoped kindly. "We've all been dumped. Life goes on. You've got your work. You'll meet somebody else."

"No, I won't. Todd was the only man I've ever loved, the only man I've ever slept with. Am I supposed to just go ahead and forget him?"

I felt stymied. I'd outgrown this sort of obsessional, I've-got-a-crush-on-somebody-who-doesn't-care-about-me love, or at least I hoped so, but I could still remember what it felt like. It
was at the heart of all the he-done-me-wrong country-western songs, and was certainly not peculiar to Joanna. It was, in fact, the glorified romantic love of novels. I wasn't sure how to say I thought it was stupid.

"Joanna, I know you love this guy, but if he doesn't love you, or doesn't treat you with respect, then I think you ought to shut him right out of your life, no matter what it costs you. Don't kid yourself, it will never work out. Wait till you run into someone who loves you as much as you love him."

My God, I sounded like a second-rate advice columnist. Joanna looked singularly unimpressed. She stared at the blank TV screen and wouldn't look at me.

I tried again. "Okay, I know it sounds stupid, I know you think your life is ruined, but would you please, please just for now forget about Todd Texiera and try to remember anything you can about last night that could help explain what happened to Jack."

"Gail, I don't know. I didn't even know the man. I can't help it if he got himself killed last night. I didn't have anything to do with it, that's all I know." Joanna got up. "I think I will take a shower now."

She brushed past me into the bathroom without a word or a look.

Great, just great. I'd alienated her completely. What the hell was I doing here, anyway? I'd constituted myself Joanna's friend and protector; I was inextricably involved as far as the detective was concerned and for what? For the sake of a woman who was acting like an idiot.

Well, I could hardly abandon her at this point. Still, I felt the need of someone to lean on myself. And there was someone, I realized a second later.