Zeph Undercover (23 page)

“Mother,” Zeph said. “Stop. Just stop.”

“Oh, but dear, I would really like to know just how serious you are about this girl. She’s a lovely girl. You must be so proud of her, Lincoln.”

“Of course I am.”

“Now, Zeph. You didn’t answer me about how long—”

“We’ve known each other about six months,” Zeph said between gritted teeth.

“Well, that’s nice, dear. But how in the world have you managed the distance problem?”

Zeph put the dish towel down on the counter. “Mother—”

“Well, you’re so busy that I can’t imagine you coming clear up here every weekend. And you’re always so good about calling me every week and you’ve never once mentioned being here, so I can’t help wondering—”

“We met several times while she was at horse shows,” Zeph said. “And that’s it—”

“I don’t think he wants to talk about it, Elena,” Lincoln interrupted. The amused smile he flashed at her didn’t cover the interest in his eyes. “But I do have to admire your technique. You’ve actually gotten him to answer questions. You’d be amazing in a courtroom.”

“Only if judges allowed non-stop rambling,” Zeph muttered.

“I’ve had to learn. He’s a good boy, but there are always so many girls flocking around him that I have to—”

Lincoln moved closer to her, his head bent as he listened.

Zeph had had enough. He handed the dishtowel to Winn. “Here. You can dry. And chaperone. I’m outta here.”

****

The next morning, Zeph tiptoed down the stairs. With any luck, his mother would still be asleep—

“Good morning, dear,” she called from the kitchen. “Coffee’s ready. Come have a cup with me and we can talk—”

“Sorry, Mother. Gotta meet Allie,” Zeph lied as he rushed—fled—to his car. Did he dare eat at Betty’s? The news would probably get back to Lincoln’s before he’d half finished the meal, and then his mother would have hurt feelings.

He stopped to let a dog cross the street. Now what? Breakfast didn’t seem to be on the menu, too early to go to Allie’s, and no way would he go back to Lincoln’s and sit helplessly while the parents behaved like moon-struck teenagers.

Might as well get some work done. He canvassed the town looking for Rodriguez, to no avail. Seeing Mabel striding down the street toward the library reminded him that she might know. He pulled up beside her. “How about a ride?”

“Sure. Always wanted to ride in one of these fancy cars.” She settled into the seat and looked expectant.

Right. He punched the gas and the Carrera rocketed the two blocks to the municipal parking lot. A skidding stop at the foot of the steps finished the thrill ride and left Mabel smiling.

“How’s it going with Rodriguez?” Zeph asked. “He happy with the stuff you’re learning?”

“I think so. I’d like to be able to help him. He works so hard. He didn’t get back from a job site until late last night, and had a meeting this morning before work…”

Zeph stopped listening. He hadn’t found Rodriguez because the guy wasn’t around. Talking to him had been a good idea. Searching his office sounded like a better one. He had time before he met Allie. He said goodbye to Mabel and took off, careful to let the car do a snarling acceleration and sliding turn onto the street for her benefit.

He could at least drive by the Blanton office.

The parking lot was empty when he got there. He stopped behind the building where his car couldn’t be seen from the road. Any evidence he might find wouldn’t be admissible in court, but he needed a chink in the case, just a little hint, so he’d know where to concentrate his efforts.

Slipping a handkerchief over his hand, he tried the back door. To his surprise, it opened. He shook his head. Small towns. At least this time the small-town attitude worked in his favor.

He stepped inside and looked around the room. This must be where the office work happened. File cabinets lined the walls except for the space occupied by a desk covered with tidy stacks of papers. He glanced at his watch. He couldn’t count on more than half an hour. He picked up a pile of letters and riffled through them but didn’t see anything suspicious. All were inquiries about future work.

The next batch turned out to be invoices, useless by themselves.

What did you expect? A list titled “Jobs We Cheated On”?

He glanced out the front window. Nothing moved, so he went back to snooping. After the papers, he turned to the large calendar over the desk. The entire year had notes for jobs done. A heavy black line circled July fourth, the day Blanton had been arrested. The weeks after that didn’t show any change from the first part of summer. He’d expect work to slack off come fall. Instead, in late September, the calendar showed a surprising upswing in work. Jobs that just might be the ones that resulted in complaints, which resulted in the hiring of Frank Fitzgerald, which resulted in Zeph’s presence. He pulled out his camera and snapped a picture of the calendar.

He needed to see the files, and that meant more midnight work, and more arguing with Allie, if she found out. If a partnership wasn’t so close to being reality, he might think about a different job.

The crunch of gravel alerted him. He looked out the window and saw Rodriguez’s truck pull into the lot.

After a quick check to be sure he’d left no traces of his presence, Zeph shot out the back door, pulling it closed behind him, and managed to be leaning against the Carrera by the time Rodriguez parked next to him.

“Señor Granger. An unexpected pleasure. What can I do for you?”

“I had a little time to kill before I meet Allie. Thought I’d drop by and see if you’re hiring at all.”

Surprise lit Rodriguez’s face. “I heard you might move to Stone’s Crossing?”

Zeph shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Just thought I’d ask.”

“I hire sometimes, carpenters, drywall, like that. Rodriguez looked at Zeph’s hands. “I do not think you lay brick. Or dig,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

“Office work?”

“Not office. I do. I have a friend who helps sometimes.”

“Mabel?”

Rodriguez scowled. “Why do you think that?”

“She’s reading up on the construction industry. I thought that might be on your account,” Zeph said. “No insult implied there, amigo.” He prodded with a few more questions, to no avail. “I’d better get going. Thanks anyway.”

When he pulled out on to the road, he looked in the rear view mirror. Rodriguez stood, legs planted, arms crossed, looking as though it would be a cold day in Hell before he left the office unlocked again.

Zeph could handle that.

Chapter 11

After breakfast, Zeph stayed at the clinic with Allie. His visions of a pleasant day of dalliance evaporated with the ringing of the phone. “This is a bad one,” she said. “Horse trailer versus semi. Can you stay here? Edith’s coming by to pick up her cat. Paperwork’s on my desk.” Before he could answer, she’d grabbed her bag and gone.

Zeph settled behind Allie’s desk to review his case notes. With Lincoln off the suspect list, he could concentrate on the remaining contenders: Rodriguez, Mentrine, Bartelett, Wendover. No, not Wendover. “Rodriguez, Mentrine, Bartelett,” he repeated aloud. Maybe if he said it often enough, he’d get a clue. “Bartelett, Mentrine, Rodriguez.” And what about Hunnewill? Maybe all of them were in it together, like
Murder on the Orient Express
. He threw the notes down in disgust just as a red Honda skidded into the drive and stopped crookedly in front of the porch.

A disheveled woman moved clumsily, trying to get out without letting go of something on the seat beside her. He realized that the shit had hit the fan—clinic plus wild-eyed stranger equaled just one thing: emergency.

He ran down the steps to help and discovered the something was a dog. Medium sized, unconscious, wrapped in a blanket. What he could see of it was mostly long hair matted with blood. The front seat looked like a slaughterhouse, and the woman had a hand clamped on the blood-soaked towel that wrapped the dog’s front leg.

“He got hit by a car,” the woman said in a tear-choked voice, and Zeph realized it was Margaret Bartelett. He took the dog—Bongo—and moved toward the clinic door. Her hand slipped on the dog’s leg and Zeph shifted to apply pressure to the wound.

Margaret muttered disjointedly, “His leg…never should have moved...where’s Doctor Allie...going to die...Bill shouldn’t have...women...that white sale...” She didn’t make much sense, but shock made people sound wonky sometimes.

The hot, metallic scent of blood sparked his adrenaline. He kept his hand clamped around the spurting leg and strode up the steps, through the open door, and into the surgery. Shit. What could they do with Allie gone?

The phone had a button clearly labeled, Cell—Emergency. He hit it and the speaker-phone buttons without easing pressure on the wound.

Allie came on the phone. “What’s wrong?”

“Margaret Bartelett is here with a blood-covered dog.”

“It’s Bongo, Allie,” Margaret said. “He got hit by a car.”

“Tell me what’s bleeding. Does he have other injuries?”

Zeph bent over the dog. “Looks like an artery. Left front leg. He’s unconscious. I don’t see anything else.”

“Okay. You’ll have to clamp the artery. I’ll tell you what to do. Sorry, but there’s no choice.”

“Works for me,” Zeph said, a hint of smile in his voice. “‘Just do it.’”

“Good. Margaret, can you hold pressure on Bongo’s leg?”

Margaret had turned the color of paper, but she stepped to the dog’s side and did it.

“Zeph, you’ll need—” Allie snapped out orders as Zeph washed his hands and put on a lab coat and gloves. Talk about locking the barn door after the horse had gone. He buttoned the coat over his blood-soaked shirt and jeans, pulled on gloves, and got out the supplies as Allie talked.

Instruments at hand, Zeph positioned Margaret to hold her dog while he worked. He cleaned and shaved the area and reached for a sterile clamp.

Margaret turned gray and her knees buckled.

“Don’t faint,” Zeph snapped.

She gripped the edge of the table and steadied, but her hand brushed the clamps and sent them to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Allie demanded.

Zeph explained over Margaret’s soft sobs.

“How are you at sewing?” Allie asked after a pause.

“Quilting champion of my unit. It’s like riding a bicycle.” He hoped.

She talked, he swabbed and stitched, uncertainly for a few moments and then settling into the task, his stitches small and neat.

The sounds coming from Allie’s phone were better ignored. He focused on Bongo with laser intensity.

“How are you doing, Zeph?” Allie asked.

“Almost done.”

“Fine.” She continued with instructions that he didn’t really need.

Zeph set the last stitch and added a bandage. “Okay. All done.”

“I’ll be there in—as soon as I can,” Allie said and clicked off.

Margaret gripped the edge of the table and stared at him with wide, unfocused eyes. “You’ve done this before,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Not on a dog. Let’s get this guy into one of the recovery cages in the next room.” He shifted Bongo to a gurney, wheeled him to an empty cage in the recovery room, and maneuvered him in.

Margaret watched, her breath heaving. “Bongo would have died if you hadn’t been here.”

Zeph sensed an emotional scene in the making. “Let’s wash up and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

She went off to the small bathroom by the kitchen while he washed at the operating room sink and traded his shirt and jeans for clean scrubs. When he got to the kitchen, Margaret sat at the table, her face blank.

“Here you go,” he said when the tea had steeped. “Lots of sugar. You’ve had quite a shock.”

She started, then focused on him and obediently stirred sugar into the cup.

He got her chatting, telling him Bongo stories, until finally she relaxed. He decided to risk pushing her a little. “You said your husband didn’t know Chaz Mentrine, but when I visited his ranch, he was talking about coming to Stone’s Crossing,” he lied. “Wonder why he’d come here?”

Margaret straightened and pursed her lips. “I have no idea,” she said after a pause. “I’ve never heard anyone in town talk about him. Except you, of course.”

“But then, you didn’t know Derek Blanton, did you?”

“No, we’ve only been here four months.” She drank tea, scowling, and her eyes lost focus. Abruptly she set her cup down, stood, and stalked from the room.

This was one weird cookie. He followed her to her car, where she thanked him for the tea, just as though she’d spent the afternoon at a ladies’ party. Her fingers plucked at the blood dried on the front of her blouse, but she didn’t mention Bongo.

She got in the car and drove away, apparently oblivious to the bloodstains on the seat. Zeph shook his head. She looked young for any kind of dementia, but he’d bet that was the problem. Poor Bartelett.

When she’d passed out of sight, he cleaned up the surgery, got a beer, and went to sit on the veranda. Too nervous about his patient to settle, he kept going back to check the dog. Finally, he gave up and pulled a chair next to the cage. Allie found him there, one hand on Bongo monitoring the steady rise and fall of his side.