The Last Death of Jack Harbin (22 page)

Allie wrenches her arm away and massages it. “I told you I don't know anything!”

Linda puts her hand to her heart. “I promise you won't get into trouble, but you need to tell me if you know more about it.”

Allie backs away, a few steps down the hallway. “You say I won't get into trouble. But I will.”

“Allie, I don't want to scare you, but it's possible your daddy is in trouble. You need to tell anything you know. Please.” Linda has tears in her eyes. Her daughter's eyes widen at the sight.

“It's nothing, really.” She glances over at me and I give her the stern eye. She bites her lower lip and makes a little whimpering noise. “I was just . . . all right, I'll tell you. The night Daddy got beaten up, I sneaked out with Liz.” She swallows and can't look at her mother.

“Okay,” Linda keeps her voice even. “Let's go sit down.” She walks to the sofa and her daughter reluctantly follows. Linda pats the sofa next to her, but the girl shakes her head. Linda looks up at her. “I don't like that you sneaked out. You know that. But I promised I wouldn't get mad, and I won't. I won't ever mention it again. Just tell us what happened.”

“We didn't do anything. Liz had a fight with her grandmother—she lives with Liz and her folks. Liz was really mad. We just walked around.” She sits down in a chair facing her mother and nibbles at her thumbnail.

“It's okay, sweetie. I know you wanted to be a friend. Just . . . next time, please tell me. I promise I'll try to understand.”

I sit down so I can see both of them. “You saw who attacked your dad?” I say.

Allie nods. Her voice is tearful. “I was so scared. I was a block away. Daddy got out of the car. I hid so he wouldn't see me.” She puts her hand to her mouth and gives a little sob. “And then these two men got out of a car across the street. Daddy put his hands up, like he thought they were going to hit him. Like this.” She throws her hands in front of her face. “They grabbed him, one on each side of him, and they all started walking down the street.” The girl is sobbing now.

“Maybe you can get her some water?” I say to Linda.

Linda jumps up and kisses her daughter's forehead. “I'll be right back.”

Allie pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around them as if to make herself as small as possible.

“Did you recognize the men?” I ask her.

She shakes her head.

“They weren't from around here?”

“No!”

Linda comes back with the water and sits down on the arm of the chair next to her daughter and puts her arm around her shoulders.

“Try to remember what they looked like,” I say. “Were they taller or shorter than your dad?”

Allie looks up at Linda. “Mommy, are they going to hurt him again?”

“Sweetie, we don't even know that this has anything to do with where your daddy is right now, but please answer Mr. Craddock's question.”

The girl sips her water. She shivers and nestles up next to her mother. “They were about the same height as Daddy, but not as fat. I don't mean fat,” she glances hastily at her mother. “I mean, just not as big.”

“Can you remember how they were dressed?”

“Just regular.” She cocks her head. “But I remember thinking they looked like they were from the city.”

“What made you think that?”

“They weren't dressed in jeans and T-shirts. They had like the kind of pants men wear to church.”

“Khaki pants?” Linda interjects.

“That's it. And button shirts. Short sleeves, but buttoned up.”

I smile at her. “You're very observant. That helps me a lot. Hair color? Length of hair?”

“I guess it was just regular, because I don't remember anything funny about either one.”

“How about the car they got out of?”

She shrugs. “Just a car. A dark car.”

“You're doing great, Allie. Now, tell me what happened when they walked away. Did you hear anybody say anything?”

“Only Daddy. He said, ‘I did what you wanted.' But I didn't know what he meant.”

“And the men didn't reply?”

“One of them laughed.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “And then they took him down the street.”

“When you say ‘down the street,' what do you mean?”

Linda says, “The street ends about half a block down, and the lots there are overgrown.”

Having to comfort her daughter seems to have given Linda strength. “I need to get Allie settled down. You don't have to stay.” I get up and she walks with me to the door. “We'll be okay,” she says. She thanks me for coming. “It helped me steady myself.”

“Let's talk in the morning. And call me if he comes home, no matter what time it is.”

I walk to my pickup, but I'm not ready to leave just yet. I drive to the end of the block, pull a flashlight out of my glove compartment and get out to look around. I don't see any immediate signs of disturbance, but I'll come back for a better look in the light of day.

In the morning, I go down to the pasture before daylight to take care of my cows. Linda didn't call last night, and I have a feeling I'm going to be working overtime. There's a nice nip in the air. It's just turned October, a time of year when we get some crisp, clear days.

At eight o'clock I phone Linda. She says there's still no word from Boone.

“It's time to get the highway patrol involved.” She says Boone took her old Chevy and gives me a description. I tell her I'll be right over.

I stop on the way to tell Loretta what's going on and ask if she has some coffee cake or rolls I can take over to Linda. She's already been up baking this morning and cuts half a coffee cake for me to take.

“Should I keep this quiet?” she says.

“No need to. Somebody might know something. If you hear anything you think is important, call me out at Boone and Linda's.”

I park in the Eldridges' driveway behind a brand new Taurus with dealer plates. Looks like Eldridge didn't waste any time replacing the motorcycle. The Taurus is a surprising choice for Boone, though, not as showy as his usual rides.

Dark circles under her eyes tell me Linda hasn't slept much. But she has made the effort to put on makeup and is dressed in a skirt and blouse. She's grateful for the coffee cake. “When Jimbo gets up, he'll be starving and I don't think I'm up to cooking this morning.”

Allie comes into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, her eyes bleary with sleep. “Did Daddy come home?”

“No, and you need to get ready for church.”

Allie screws her face up. “We can't go to church with Daddy missing.”

“That's exactly why we need to go to church, to pray for him.”

Her tone leaves no room for argument. Allie stomps out.

I tell Linda I'll be back later to look in on her. I've got a few people I want to call on before they go off to church. But first I go back down to the end of the street. In daylight, I see that the lots down here aren't deep, but they are overgrown. Ten minutes of poking around doesn't turn up anything that might tell me more about what happened when Eldridge was beaten up.

Despite what Allie said about the two men, I haven't abandoned the idea that Boone's disappearance might mean he's the victim of a nasty prank by football players who weren't happy with Boone taking the quarterback out for the fourth quarter.

I don't like having to confront Louis Cardoza's father, especially first thing on Sunday morning. Hector Cardoza is a hard-working man, but he's also a hardheaded man who takes everything personally. He owns the beer distributorship for the county, and he has gotten huffy with just about everybody he distributes to. Oscar Grant down at the Two Dog Bar got so aggravated with him that he stopped having Hector deliver his beer, and instead picks it up himself from a warehouse in Houston every month.

From the way Hector is dressed when he answers the door, in baggy shorts and a ripped T-shirt, I'm pretty sure he's not a church-going man. “Samuel, what can I do for you?” Suspicion hoods his eyes.

“I'm here to talk to Louis, if he's up.”

“My boys are both up. I don't hold with kids sleeping half the day. But I need to know what this is about.”

He keeps me standing on the porch. “I need to know if Louis and some of the players might have been involved in a prank having to do with Coach Eldridge.”

“My boys don't do pranks.”

“Hector, Louis is a leader on the team. Even if he wasn't personally involved, he might know something about it.”

I'm hanging onto my temper by a thread. Cardoza sizes me up, trying to see how far he can go. Then he sticks his head back into his house. “Louis, get out here.”

Louis is dressed in jeans and a bright, white T-shirt. His hands are stuck in his back pockets, but as he approaches us, he pulls them out and lets them hang by his side. He tries to read his daddy's expression, then hopes to find more in mine. “Yes sir?”

“Mr. Craddock needs to ask you a question. I don't need to tell you that I want the truth.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes sir.” His cheeks flare up red.

“Son, have you gotten wind of any prank involving Coach Eldridge?”

“Like what?”

His daddy's voice is like a whip. “Like anything!”

“No sir, not at all.”

“What's this about?” Cardoza says.

“Coach is missing. Left yesterday morning and didn't come home.”

“And you think my son has something to do with that?” His voice jumps a couple of decibels.

“Hector, I don't know your son. I only know he's the quarterback, and that a lot of people were upset when he was kept out of the game against Bobtail and again last Friday night. I thought maybe some kids decided to take Boone for a ride and make him walk home. Kid stuff.”

Louis's face is bright red now. “No, sir. Nobody would do anything like that. I mean, if they did, I don't know anything about it.”

“Can you think of anybody who might have been madder than anybody else about what coach did?”

“If I was you,” Cardoza's voice cuts ice, “I'd look to that blowhard LoPresto and his gang. They're mighty quick to talk about retribution when the coach makes decisions they don't like.”

“I'll talk to Gabe. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Mr. Craddock?”

Cardoza frowns at his son.

“Yes, Louis?”

“Will you let me know if you find coach? He's the coach, and he's fair. If he kept me out, he had his reasons. I'm not mad.” The boy's father would do well to take some lessons from his son.

As I haul myself into my truck, I hear sirens out on the highway. I have no reason to believe it has to do with Boone Eldridge, but it makes me nervous anyway.

By now I'll have to wait until church is over to talk to people, so I swing by the Eldridge place to see if Boone's car has shown up. When I get there, a highway patrolman is sitting in his car in front of the house. In his fifties, he's got his hat tipped way back on his head, and is listening to a country and western station on the radio.

He climbs out of his car to greet me. He's a bigger man than he looked sitting inside, with a paunch that looks like he's carrying a bowling ball inside his shirt. I introduce myself and tell him Linda called me last night when Eldridge didn't come home and I told her to call the highway patrol.

“Craddock.” He sizes me up. “I remember you. Not that we know each other, but I remember hearing your name. You used to be chief of police here and made yourself a little reputation. I thought you'd retired a good while back. Why did the Eldridge woman call you?”

“Our current chief is having some medical problems, and I guess she thought I might be the right person to talk to.”

He laughs. “I'm reading between the lines here, but I expect what you're not telling me is that whoever is in charge with the chief gone is two cards shy of a deck.”

“He's okay; just green. You boys find Boone Eldridge's car?”

“Not yet. I thought I'd come by and ask the wife some questions. By the way, my name is John Ryder.”

We lean against the car. “I've gotten some information from Linda Eldridge,” I tell him, “but it won't hurt for you to ask again. Maybe she'll remember something she left out.” I've been thinking about that missing computer, and I mention it to him.

“Uh, oh. That doesn't sound good. Sounds like maybe he took off under his own steam. Maybe afraid somebody would find something on the computer that he didn't want known. How well do you know him?”

I shake my head. “Just to see him coach.”

“Any rumors about him being into porn? Anything he wouldn't want to have found out?”

“Never heard anything like that.”

“Eldridge. Wait a minute. I'm remembering the team lost to Bobtail this year, didn't it?”

“You have to bring that up?”

He chuckles. “I know a couple of old boys who would have taken him out behind the woodshed after that game. They lost their shirts.”

“They were gambling? On a high school game?”

“Hell yes. Some people will gamble on anything.” He throws his hands up in denial. “Not me. I'm too close with a dollar. I'm about ready to retire and no way I'm risking one red cent.”

“I'm with you on that.” I straighten up. “Not much use me hanging around here. Would you ask Linda to call me if she needs anything?”

“I sure will.”

I head to my truck, but what Ryder said about people gambling on the game sinks in. And my heart sinks with it. I walk back over to where Ryder has already climbed back into his car. He sticks his head out. “What's up?”

“Something I need to mention to you.”

“Get in the car, here. Sun's about to kill me.”

I tell him about the coach's beating at the hands of two strangers. And I tell him about the two men I saw in the stands that at the time I speculated were talent scouts from college.

“I don't like the sound of that,” Ryder says. He thinks about it for a minute. “You say the daughter said Eldridge told them he'd done what they asked?”

“That's the way she remembered it.”

“It's possible he threw that game.”

I stare out the front window at Eldridge's house. “Lord, I don't want to think that. I can't even begin to imagine what the town would do if they thought the coach threw the game.” And I'm thinking about how his poor wife would react if she knew. “I hope there's another explanation.”

But it makes sense. Friday night Eldridge had kept Louis out of the game again. And Linda told me Boone didn't seem all that happy that the boys had won. Before I can get too far on this train of thought, Linda drives up with her two kids. When they get out of the car, Linda is scolding her son. “Your grandma is going to have a fit when she sees how you scuffed up her new car. Now go inside and get a rag and clean it off.” I guess it's not Eldridge's car after all.

Ryder and I climb out of his car and approach the porch. The boy stops when he sees us, mesmerized by Ryder's gun.

“Scoot!” Linda says.

When they are inside, Linda turns to us. “The kids are driving me crazy. They're so upset.” She puts her hand to her mouth as if to hold back the question she wants to ask. But then she blurts out, “Are you here with bad news?” Her eyes are wide with fear. “Have you found Boone?”

“No ma'am. Nothing like that.” Ryder takes off his hat and introduces himself. “I just thought maybe you could help me with a few questions. Mr. Craddock here has filled me in on most of it.”

About then, Ryder's cell phone starts up a racket. “Excuse me just a minute.” He steps away and turns his back.

I walk up onto the porch next to Linda, worried because I hear Ryder's voice, urgent. He comes back holding his hat in his hand. “Ma'am I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to come back later. We have an incident to deal with, and I'm going to have to help get things sorted out.” He flicks his eyes in my direction, eyebrows raised, and I get the idea that he has something to say to me.

“But what about Boone?”

“You know, until he's been gone forty-eight hours, we don't really get too excited, and you shouldn't either.” He meets my eyes and moves towards his car, but then he turns back. “There is one thing, though. Chief Craddock told me your husband was beaten up not too long ago?”

“You think that has something to do with it?”

I chime in. “Ryder told me that there have been people betting on the games and some people lost a lot of money on the game with Bobtail. So I need to ask you something straight out.”

“Anything,” she says.

“You won't like this, but it's got to be asked. Have you ever had the impression that Boone didn't do his best to win a game?”

Linda's eyes search mine, her expression turning furious as she understands what I'm implying. “You're right, I don't like it.” She looks over at Ryder, hovering near the porch. “Are you two suggesting that Boone would deliberately throw a game?”