Small Town Trouble (17 page)

“I guess seeing you again helped put things in perspective. It’s been coming for a long time.”

Always glad to be helpful. I was really hoping that my name hadn’t come up in their conversation. I already had one peeved husband on my hands. I didn’t need Dickhead
and
Dr. Prickwad fighting over my head on a platter, but I wanted to be sensitive.

“I’m sorry, Amy.” Actually, I wasn’t sorry at all. With the possible exception of his fat checkbook, Dr. Doug Smith had no redeeming qualities that I could decipher. As far as I could see, Amy or just about anybody else was probably better off without him. I even felt sorry for his patients, but I knew it would take Amy some time to let her good fortune sink in. It was a bit too premature to uncork the champagne.

“I’m
so glad
I finally did it,” she said. “Now that I’ve stopped crying, I actually feel like celebrating.” Maybe it wouldn’t take as long as I’d originally thought.

“God,” Amy said, nearly a moan, “what did I ever see in him?

An excellent question, but hey, who was I to judge? I’d walked down a few stupid roads myself in the relationship department when there wasn’t even a sign of a fat checkbook. In fact, it was more than just possible that I was skipping hand-in-hand with Nancy Merit down another rutted, blue highway at that very moment.

“So...” Amy said, trying to take on a cheerier note, “you called?”

This was a really crummy time to lay it on her but, for her own good, Amy had to know.

“I got a very ugly threatening phone call. Actually
we
got a phone call.”

“Oh, shit. From who?”

“Freddy Kruger.”

“Who?”

Apparently, Amy wasn’t a big fan of teen slasher movies. “Someone followed us last night.”

I went on to fill her in completely. I brought her right up to date, including my second fruitless search of the field behind WFOG and the creepy copter.

“A black helicopter?”

“Go figure.”
 

“This just gets weirder all the time.” I heard her light a cigarette. “And it’s really starting to piss me off. My poor brother’s locked up for something he didn’t do, and there’s some serious bullshit going on in Fogerty and nobody but us gives a crap. And, I married a prick.”

She
was
pissed off. “Listen, Amy, I’ve gotta run if I’m going to work in a shower before my meeting with Bud and Larry White.” I did want to look fresh for the boys. “Feel like getting together this evening?”

“I’ll pick you up.”

When I hung up, the pay phone spit my quarter back to me. I mistakenly took this for a sign that my luck was improving. I pocketed the quarter and pushed open the hefty wooden door to the parking lot. I wasn’t ten steps out of Sparkie’s door when I heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes behind me. Before I could turn around or open my mouth to say “Christ on toast,” something cold and heavy and hard thumped me good in the back of head. I saw the blue afternoon horizon fill up with dancing black polka dots and felt my knees go. That was all she wrote.

Chapter 34

When I came to, I thought for a moment that Saint Peter had been replaced by Officer Mike at the pearly gates. This was unsettling all the way around.

“Hey,” Officer Mike said, leaning over me, “You okay?” It sounded like he was talking to me through the Alaska pipeline.

I blinked. Everything, including Officer Mike, was a jot off-kilter and fuzzy as a pair of rearview mirror dice. “I don’t know, am I?”

I felt the back of my head, and it was sticky with blood.

“Just leave it be,” a woman said. I felt female hands applying a compress to the back of my head. It was the waitress. From my supine angle, she had two heads, and they were doing a scarf dance.

Then my brain did some backtracking. It was all coming back to me. I remembered leaving Sparkie’s Lounge and getting clonked severely on the head. I was happy to be alive, but it was not particularly reassuring to find Officer Friendly standing there over me. Unhappily, it was obvious that he could easily have been the clonker.

“D’you see anybody?” Officer Mike asked.

“Nope.” I sat up slowly and waited for the scenery to stop riding the merry-go-round.

Officer Mike eyed me closely. “You didn’t see
anything
?”

“Nada. Just heard the bushes make way for whoever did this.” I pointed to my wound. It wasn’t
you
, was it, fuckhead?

“They really nailed you, honey,” the waitress said.

“Probably kids,” he said. “Looks like they got your purse.”

“I didn’t have a purse.” I hadn’t carried a purse since high school. I checked all of my pockets feeling pretty confident I’d find everything intact. “Nothing missing.”

 
Officer Mike seemed to consider this for moment, then he shrugged. “The ambulance is tied up on a bad wreck out on the highway. I’ll run you over to the county hospital.”

When pigs fly. “I think I’ll be ok.”

“You should see a doctor,” Officer Mike said, hands on his hips.

When someone says doctor to me, it is amazing how fast I feel better, especially when that someone is possibly a homicidal maniac. If Officer Mike thought for a micro second I was going to get into a car with him, he was dreaming in Disney colors.

“What time is it?” I asked. I didn’t wear a watch either.

Officer Mike checked his manly, fake-gold wristwatch. “Just past three.”

So much for my shower and freshening up. “I gotta go.” I pushed myself to my feet. I was shaky all right, but I felt okay. Besides I was late for a very important meeting.

“You need to fill out a report,” he said.

“It’ll have to wait.”

Officer Mike took my arm. His beady, dark eyes fixed on mine. “You sure you’re ok?”

Without too much ceremony, I took my arm back. “I’m sure, but thanks for your concern.”

I hopped in the Toyota and started it up. I glanced over my shoulder as I backed up. I could almost see straight.

“Don’t forget about the report,” Officer Mike called out as I wheeled out of Sparkie’s lot. The waitress waved good-bye to me with the bloody towel.

I spared no horses on the way over to Bud Upton’s office. Under normal circumstances, it was about a ten-minute drive from Sparkie’s Lounge. I made it in under five.

I pulled into the lot behind the Fogerty Professional Building and took a spot marked reserved. I took it to mean reserved for me.

The professional building was a tidy, two-story brick building on Main Street situated directly across from the county jail. Scenic. From Bud’s office window, I could probably wave to Rick Rod Delozier in his cell.

My head throbbed and I felt like I could easily toss my lunch at any point as I hoofed it up the steps to the second floor and made my way down the hall to Bud’s office. Bud’s door was the last one on the left. His secretary was just hanging up the phone when I blew in.

“I’m here,” I said, out of breath. I tried to brush some hair over the crusted bloody spot on the back of my head. I had no idea how bad the wound looked.

Bud’s secretary had a strange look on her face. “Are you
okay
?”

Apparently, I had no idea how bad I looked. “I’m fine.”

I could tell that she didn’t believe me. That was okay. I didn’t believe me either. She picked up the phone again. “I’ll let Mr. Upton know you’re here.”

“Thanks.” I fought the reoccurring urge to spew on my shoes and all over Bud Upton’s baby-blue carpet. I tried to deep breathe without calling too much more attention to myself. This was not an easy thing to do.

She hung up. “You can go right in.” I thanked her again and headed down the short hallway to Bud’s office. I gave a quick knock and opened the door.

“Great,” Bud said, “you’re here.” Bud stood to greet me. “Kim, I’d like you to meet Larry White.”

To quote the famous American, Gomer Pyle,
surprise, surprise, surprise.
The mystery man, Larry White, was none other than the cowboy I’d seen having lunch at Sparkie’s with the mayor.

“Kim Claypoole,” I said, shaking his mammoth, outstretched hand. It felt like a weathered catcher’s mitt. “I’m here on my mother’s behalf. Nice to meet you,” whoever you are.

I don’t think he recognized me from Sparkie’s. If he did, he was a fine actor. “Likewise,” he said in a booming, lower-octave voice. He sounded like the bass singer for the Oak Ridge Boys. He didn’t look as friendly as the Oak Ridge Boys, however.
 

“Shall we?” Bud motioned for us to take seats on the other side of his desk. Larry White pulled up the cushy office chair to my right, and I took the seat nearest the door so I could keep the back of my battered head out of plain view. It was also closer to the bathroom.

Bud folded his hands professionally. “Kim, would you like a glass of water or something? You look...overheated.”

Water sounded like a good idea. Bud buzzed his secretary, and she promptly brought in a pitcher of iced water and three glasses. Bud poured drinks all around. The water helped. My brain felt like it might actually come on duty at any time.

“Well,” Bud said, setting the pitcher back on the tray, “here we are.” Bud Upton, The Great Facilitator.

Larry White clapped his hands together. “May I begin?”

“Please do,” Bud said.

White turned in his chair and locked his smoky-blue eyes on me. They were more smoke than blue. “Ms. Claypoole, I’m the kind of guy who gets right down to the nitty gritty.” His lip curled up into a weird little smile. “I want that WFOG property. Now you tell me what it’ll take to get it.”

He was the nitty gritty type all right, but I could get nitty gritty, too. I leaned back in my chair. “What’s the attraction, Mr. White? And it is
Mr. White
, isn’t it?”

Bud squirmed in his big attorney’s chair.

It was deadly quiet. The cowboy looked me over good. I felt a cold jolt of fear travel the length of my spine, but I tried not to let it show.

“That’s correct,” he said. “
And,
although it’s really none of your business, I’d be happy to tell you my plans for the land if that might help to move things along here.”

“It might,” I said like a real hard-ass.

Bud Upton squirmed again. He shot me a warning glance and refilled his water glass.

“Actually,” Larry White said, “I’m gonna raise buffalo. I’ve looked high and low for the right property, and this is the absolute perfect spot for a buffalo ranch.”

“A buffalo ranch?” If this guy thought he could buffalo me with that one, he had another thing coming.

“Buffalo’s good meat. Healthy, too. Demand for it’s gonna go way up.”

“I had buffalo once,” Bud said. “Tasted pretty good.”

It was my turn to shoot Bud an ugly glance.

“It’s a heck of a lot tastier than most of the beef you’ll get these days,” said White, “and that’s a fact.”

I was willing to bet that he had yet to come up with a certified fact. My hunch was that Larry White was lying about more than his name.

“I think I’ll stick with beef,” I said.

White stared at me like I was birdshit on his boot. Purposefully, he licked his lips. “Ms. Claypoole, I anticipated your reluctance. I’m prepared to double my offer.”

Bud’s head shot up. “A half-million dollars?”

“That’s right, son and I can write the check here and now.”

Bud turned to me. He looked like he might explode. “Well, Kim?”

It could have been the blow to the head I’d suffered. A half-million dollars was certainly nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it was far better than even what the doctor had ordered for Evelyn’s critically ill financial portfolio, but I just couldn’t do it with so much left unclear. It was clear that we were being bought off for some as of yet unknown reason and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how, but I had a sneaking suspicion that Larry White stood to gain something greater. Besides, I still wasn’t willing to totally dismiss the notion that somehow, he might be hooked into the murders.

“Sorry, no deal.”

Bud’s mouth dropped open a little. White’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened considerably. I could tell he was having trouble trying to decide whether to play it cool or just pull out his six-gun and shoot me dead.

Finally he picked up his black Stetson from the chair next to him. He set if firmly on his head, staring me down in the process. “I don’t give up easily, Ms. Claypoole. We will work this out.” He stood up, all six-and–a-half feet of him. “Good day, folks.” He tipped his hat and closed the door behind him.

“You do realize that you just turned down a half-million dollars?” Bud looked like he’d been hit by bus.

“Don’t remind me,” I backed out of his office door, attempting to hide my war injury and amscray. “I’ll be in touch.” I left him sitting there with his mouth open.

“Have a nice day,” I said to his secretary as I hit the front entrance. Before the door closed completely behind me, I heard her gasp, probably at the sight of the back of my bashed-in head. From the lousy way it was beginning to feel, I’ll bet it looked
real
nasty.