Flash Memory: A Lost Hat, Texas, Mystery (The Lost Hat, Texas, Mystery Series Book 2)

by Anna Castle

  “What do you think of this, Penny?”

  It took me a couple of seconds to respond. I’d expected everyone to be hard at work on the Hawkins case, not fiddling around with campaign slogans.

  But this fiddler was the sheriff, so I gave him a thumbs-up. “Catchy. Why don’t you email that doc to Tillie, so she can use it on your posters?”

  “Good idea.”

  He’d been the sheriff for umpteen years and had a few more terms left in him. A bona fide people-pleaser, he was the odds-on favorite, according to Marion. He loved his job and was always ready to lend a hand around the county: drive a senior citizen home from the grocery store, speak to a classroom, or lead a cemetery clean-up. He excelled at breaking up bar fights and pacifying battling spouses.

  I let him savor his flyer for another half minute and then said, “I’ve got the crime scene photographs.”

  “Good girl! Let’s go have us a little look-see.” He beckoned me follow him back to his office.

  I peeked into Dare’s window as I passed. He sat hunched over his computer, working on a flyer that read A vote for Thompson is a vote for Security. I wasn’t sure how persuasive that would be in a county where three goats loose in the neighbor’s peach orchard constituted a major crime spree.

  Sheriff Hopper sat behind his polished and nearly empty oak desk. He waved at a chair on the other side. I took the manila envelope with photos, CDs, and invoice out of my backpack and handed it to him. Then I sat down, folded my hands in my lap, and asked, “Has there been any progress on the investigation?”

  The sheriff opened the envelope and slid the contents onto his desk, spreading them out and studying each of the proof sheets before answering. “It’s not like on TV, Penny. These things take time. We sent the body to Austin for the autopsy, and we’re waiting for results to come back from the DPS lab. Soil samples and such. Until we get the facts on the table, there isn’t a whole lot we can do.”

  That didn’t sound good. Last January I’d learned that it could take months for the over-worked state labs to produce results. I scooted forward on my chair and clasped my hands together on his desk in a supplication pose. “I know I don’t have any official standing here, Sheriff, but I’m really worried about Tyler. I’d like to be kept informed about the investigation, if that’s possible.”

  Sheriff Hopper gave me a measuring look, then nodded shortly. “Deputy Penateka is in charge of the Hawkins investigation. You can talk to him about it from time to time, as long as you don’t get in his way.”

  “No, sir. I would never do that.” I might get in his hair, up his nose, and on his back, but definitely not in his way. “Uh—will Deputy Thompson be working on this case?”

  “He will not. That’d be a conflict of interest, Penny. We don’t work that way here. But I don’t have enough men to send him home for the duration. We have other cases. He’ll focus on those.”

  Conflict of interest—a mild way of saying Dare might have done the deed himself. In other circumstances, though, I would want him on the case. He was the senior deputy and took every extra training course he could find, always building his skills. The man liked to learn. I respected that.

  Deputy Penateka had just graduated from the Law Enforcement Academy at Sul Ross, according to the photos lining the hall. I didn’t know much about him, other than that he took himself seriously, looked good in the tan uniform, and was a couple of years younger than Tillie.

  Had he ever worked a homicide case before? I doubted it.

  The sheriff shuffled the photographs and CDs together and stuffed them back into the manila envelope. “Penateka’ll want to see these.” He held out the envelope.

  I took it and walked back across the bullpen to the deputy’s small office. I displayed the envelope and he flicked his fingers to wave me in. I sat in the small armless chair in front of his desk and handed him the package. “These are the photos from the scene.”

  “Let’s have a look.” He gave the whole set a quick scan and then went back to the first page to scrutinize each picture. “These are good. Sharp and clear. Better than I would have done.”

  I politely resisted the urge to say, Well, duh!

  He pulled out a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen and handed them to me. “I’ll need a signed statement from you, Ms. Trigg. Write down what you did and what you yourself personally observed, starting from your arrival at the ranch that morning.”

  “Now?” I hadn’t been expecting an essay exam. I would have prepared. They probably sprung it on you on purpose, so you wouldn’t have time to cook up a lie.

  “No time like the present. You can use an interrogation room, if you like.”

  “This is fine.” I settled back in my chair and wrote, starting from leaving my house in the dark early morning and ending with Ty being driven off in handcuffs. It didn’t take long. I wrote quickly, not trying to be clever. Just the facts, ma’am. I signed the bottom of the last page with a flourish and handed the pad back to him.

  Penateka flipped through the pages, raising one dark eyebrow near the end where I gave my version of Ty’s arrest. I thought they’d jumped the gun, handcuffing a man who had obviously made a simple mistake in judgement and posed no threat to anyone. A little dust on the sheriff’s butt, which, yes, meant an affront to the dignity of the office—thank you, Carson Caine—but still did not constitute a threat to society.

  I was diplomatic about it, though. I managed not to use words like “brain-damaged” or “outrageous.”

  The deputy was diplomatic too and kept his comments to himself. “We’ve got your prints on file already, Ms. Trigg. I just have a couple other questions.” He put my statement in a folder and turned to a fresh sheet of the legal pad. “Have either you or Tyler cut yourselves or gotten a bad scrape while you’ve been out in that Gator recently?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think I’d remember cutting myself. I can’t swear to Ty’s condition, but I doubt it. Why?”

  “We found smears of blood on the mat in the flatbed. We won’t get the DNA analysis back from the lab for weeks, but I thought I’d try to rule out it’s being one of y’all’s.”

  “You think it’s Roger Bainbridge’s.”

  “Seems likely. The perpetrator would’ve had to get the body up there somehow. It’s quite a distance from the house.”

  “Was he killed at the Hawkins’ house?”

  “That hasn’t been determined.”

  “Have you even looked?”

  Penateka’s black eyes narrowed. “I spent a good hour turning that house inside out, Ms. Trigg.”

  And it still hadn’t been determined? Good news, maybe, depending on how the deed had been done. There might be ways to kill somebody that didn’t make a mess, like poisoning. The thought of Ty or Diana cold-bloodedly poisoning a man sent a chill down my spine. Or maybe it was the air-conditioning—this building was freezing cold.

  Then I remembered the trolls at the supermarket saying Dr. Ladsworth had examined the body. “How did he die? Has that been determined?”

  “The preliminary examination indicates blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”

  I tried for a mental image of Ty sneaking up behind Roger with a baseball bat, but couldn’t get there. “Ty’s not the kind of guy who would hit a person from behind.”

  Penateka held up a long finger. “First place, nobody seems like that kind of guy until they do it. Second place, that’s probably not what happened. He had bruises on his face too.”

  “Like somebody hit him?”

  He nodded. “The working theory is that the perpetrator struck him with sufficient force to throw him against something hard enough to crack his skull. The nature of the wound suggests a stone surface.”

  “Sounds like he got into a fight.”

  Penateka tilted his head, but didn’t answer.

  I closed my eyes and did a mental walkabout of the house, reviewing the surfaces. “There aren’t any
stone walls or floors in Ty’s house, except around the fireplace.”

  “I did manage to notice that, Ms. Trigg.”

  “Hey, but there’s that wall up on Mt. Keno! Maybe he was killed up there.” Then my brain caught up with my mouth. “Oh, but then why would there be blood in the Gator?”

  The deputy crooked a half smile. “We went back up there after the moon set and sprayed the whole wall with Luminol, but no luck.”

  “Well, there’s a limestone cliff around the spring, if you count natural walls.” I didn’t know how this could help Ty, but I couldn’t stop trying. “And that old house on the ranch across the dirt road looks like it’s made of limestone.”

  Penateka granted me a thin smile. “The whole state of Texas is made of limestone. There isn’t enough Luminol in the world to test every location. We’ll have to find another way to narrow it down.”

  “Sounds like pretty much everybody in Texas had access to the murder weapon.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “So could you. Did the doctor determine the time of death?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Give me a ballpark, Deputy. More than a week, less than a week…I did help you dig the guy up, remember.”

  Penateka conceded that point with a quirk of the lips. “Don’t quote me, because this is not official, but Doc Ladsworth guessed it had to be at least a week. And so far, we haven’t found anyone who saw Mr. Bainbridge after he was involved in a public altercation with Mr. Hawkins.”

  “The thing at the barbecue place.” I scowled at the carpet. Where had Roger gone after that? Not straight over to Ty’s place to be killed. Ty and Diana had had their argument later that same evening.

  Penateka regarded me for a moment, a touch of sympathy in his dark eyes. He looked so young. I sure hoped he’d aced all his classes. “I understand you don’t want to believe your boyfriend could do such a thing.”

  “I don’t want to and I don’t. There’s too many parts that don’t make sense.”

  “Name some.” He sat back in his chair, ready to listen. He might be a kid, but he seemed willing to do things right. That was all the encouragement I needed.

  “All right.” I got out my memo book and flipped it open. “First and foremost, why would Ty let me wander around up there and let the dog run loose, if he had buried a body inside the one interesting feature in that field?”

  “Could have been arrogance. Some perpetrators enjoy the risk. Or he could have wanted the body to be found by someone else. That’s how most killers get caught, you know—arrogance plus stupidity. They get carried away with their own cleverness.”

  He had a point. I didn’t like it, but he had a point. I still thought my point was stronger. Or sharper, rather, being a point.

  “All right, then,” I said. “What about the motive? Y’all think he murdered Roger because he was manipulating Diana in order to get control of the ranch.” And here we walked straight into a Louis L’Amour novel. “But why bother? I mean, sure, Ty and Diana had their conflicts, but they were working them out. Roger didn’t stand a chance of getting between them, not in the long run.”

  “First place,” Penateka said, “so far, we’re not calling it murder. Hawkins has been charged with manslaughter, which fits our theory of a violent altercation.”

  I shook my head. “No way. Okay, yes, Ty has a temper, and yes, I’m sure he would hold his own in a fight. But with words, not fists. He likes to shake facts in your face. I’ve never seen him do so much as kick a table leg.”

  “You don’t see a man’s temper until he shows it to you. Everybody’s got that trigger, however deep it’s set.”

  That sounded more like personal experience than a quote from a textbook. My estimation of the young deputy rose a notch. I frowned at him, struggling for a fresh argument that didn’t involve Dare or Diana. I wasn’t ready to voice either of those suspicions out loud, not here. I looked at my list of Things to Find Out and asked, “What about those stocking feet? Any clues about the shoes?”

  “The victim had a prior encounter with one of our deputies, having to do with real estate. Deputy Freshwater remembered that Bainbridge was wearing a pair of genuine alligator boots. That’s a very expensive item.”

  “How expensive?” My neighbor sported python boots that had set him back five hundred bucks.

  “Upwards of ten thousand, from what I’ve learned.”

  “For boots?” More than I would pay Tillie in a whole year.

  Penateka’s dark eyes sparkled, the first sign of humor I’d seen. “Some men do admire a fine pair of boots. Item like that won’t stay hidden for long. I put the word out and we’ll keep our eyes peeled. They’ll turn up for sale somewhere sooner or later.” He eyed my memo book. “Are you working my investigation for me?”

  “What investigation?” I closed the book and slipped it into my backpack. Time to go visit Ty. “As far as I can see, y’all think you’ve got your perp all wrapped up and ready to railroad.”

  A dark blush flared on Penateka’s brown cheeks. “I resent that, Ms. Trigg. I’m not going to railroad anybody. There’s not much we can do until the results come back from the labs. Meantime, we’ve got Hawkins on means, motive, and opportunity, with no other suspects in view.”

  “You’re not even looking. You said yourself everybody in the state had the means—a stone surface. Opportunity—that’s whoever could have buried him on that hill, right?”

  He nodded, or at least, he lowered his chin briefly.

  “Well, that gate was hardly ever locked. And Ty was in Austin most of last week.”

  “So he says.”

  “Can’t that be checked?”

  “It’s being checked. I put in a call to the Travis County sheriff yesterday.”

  “All right, then. But the opportunity part could apply to lots of people. There must’ve been half a dozen people out there in the past month. Surveyors, the rangeland restoration guy. And Roger Bainbridge had his nose in everywhere.”

  “We’re aware of that. I got a list of visitors from Hawkins and we’re checking them out, one by one.”

  “Okay, then. That’s good.” I drew in a breath. “Any word from Diana?”

  “Not yet.”

  The clipped tones and compressed lips sent a clear signal to let it drop. I chose to ignore it. “Hasn’t Dare called her?”

  “Deputy Thompson is not a part of this investigation, owing to a conflict of interest.”

  Not an answer, but definitely a closed door. Maybe Ty had called her; somebody must have. The next question ought to be less controversial. “What about Roger’s car? Have you found that? Wouldn’t it tell you something, like where he was actually killed?”

  “It might tell us a lot. Me and Deputy Freshwater spent the better part of Friday afternoon going over the Lazy H with a fine-tooth comb, with no luck. We’ve got a BOLO out, though; it’ll turn up.”

  “Tillie said he drove a Cadillac, a big, red SUV. Sounds like it’d be hard to hide.”

  “Not as hard as you think. There’s a lot of empty country out here. You could push it off a cliff into a canyon and it could lie there for years with nobody the wiser.”

  Sad, but true. The Lazy H was a thousand-acre ranch, about one and a half square miles of jumbled up, scrub-covered, creek-riddled country. The ranch next door was six times as large, and there was a ten-thousand acre wilderness protection area not many miles away. A fit man like Ty could hike five miles down a deserted country highway by the light of the moon in an hour and a half, easy.

  Opportunity gave me nothing. “Looks like it pretty much boils down to motive.”

  “And Hawkins has a good one.” Penateka leveled his gaze at me. “From what we understand, he needed his sister’s full cooperation or his big project would collapse. A lot of time and money down the drain. According to our source, Diana was frustrated with his treatment and had been talking about selling her half to someone else or bringing in her own partner.
Our source said that partner would likely have been Roger Bainbridge, the victim. Hawkins has made no secret of his animosity toward Bainbridge.”

  Could that be true? Diana had been frustrated, for sure; I’d seen it myself, last time we’d all had dinner together. But would she really get into business—or bed—with Roger Bainbridge to spite Ty?

  And who might be this famous source, one might ask if one didn’t already know the answer. Deputy Dare, perhaps? The one with the conflict of interest that was supposed to be keeping him off the case? Not far enough off, apparently.

  Penateka had been watching me assimilate that information. He gave me a tight smile that looked almost like sympathy. “Nobody’s going to railroad Tyler Hawkins, Ms. Trigg, I can promise you that. But we can’t let him go. He’s a wealthy man with powerful connections. He could easily flee the country.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’ll tell you what. You come by and chat with me whenever you like. We have an open door policy here in the Long County Sheriff’s Department. I’ll keep you apprised of our progress and you return the favor by clueing me in on whatever you find out. People might tell you something they wouldn’t share with the authorities.” He gave me a stern look. “Have faith, Ms. Trigg. Justice will prevail.”

  Back to Louis L’Amour country. But I didn’t see a white hat on his head and I couldn’t stop worrying about the black hat sitting in the office across the bullpen. Dare could drop a hint here and an innuendo there, under the cover of guiding his greenhorn colleague through his first big case. Where would that leave Ty?

  Chapter 8

  The officer at the visitation center checked my identification, made me walk through a metal detector, and took my backpack away. Then he pointed me at an empty waiting area where they left me alone for a full half hour. I sat and stewed about my conversation with Deputy Penateka, doubts and worries bubbling up.