by Anna Castle
Pillars could be toppled by a scandal and there was that business about the airstrip. Although that gave Ty a better motive than anybody else. I leaned back in the booth, tapping my pen on the paper.
Perline leaned back on her side, watching the pen go up and down with her arms crossed over her chest. After a minute, she caught my gaze and held it. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
What were the odds? “I don’t know.”
“I’m thinking about Thelma and Louise.”
“Oh, my God!” I sat up straight and pointed the pen at her. “That is exactly what I was thinking, except I didn’t realize I was thinking exactly that!”
She cocked her head at me and I backed up a bit. “I mean, I’ve been thinking of the possibility that Diana killed Roger—by accident, like maybe he came on too strong or something. But I hadn’t thought of the movie connection.”
“It fits, don’t you think?” She nodded to answer for me. “I wouldn’t put date rape past old Roger Dodger. He was not a man who liked to hear the word, ‘No.’”
“Yeah. And Diana’s no shrinking violet. She’d fight back. The thing I’m wondering though is if she’s strong enough. Could she hoist a guy onto the bed of the Gator?”
“Oh, sure!” Perline flapped her hand at me. “She grew up on a ranch. And she’s a horse lover. She was in lots of events in high school and for a few years after. I’ve seen her toss a bale of hay onto a truck. Roger would’ve weighed more than a small bale, but if she had the need, she could get it done.”
We nodded at each other for a moment, working along the same track. Then Perline said, “She’d more likely get help. That would be her style.”
“Enter Louise. But which of the old flames would she call? If she were in serious trouble, don’t you think she’d go to Dare?”
“She’d go to Ty first.”
“She’d just had a big fight with Ty.”
Perline tsked. “Besides, he’d make her call the cops. He’s always been a stickler.”
“He’d make a lousy Louise,” I agreed. “On the other hand, Dare is the cops.”
“But he loves her so much. He’d do almost anything for her…” Perline frowned and started shaking her head. “I don’t know, Penny. I can’t quite see Dare as Louise. Ben would be better. Dare is too cool.”
“Louise was cool, right up to the end. Desperate, but totally cool. That’s how she kept it together for so long. Let’s hope nobody drives anybody off any cliffs.”
Chapter 10
Jake woke me at sunrise on Sunday morning, wanting to go out. I stood on the concrete back steps in my bare feet and shorty pajamas, looking at the sky and savoring the morning breeze. It was as close to cool as it gets in the summer and my neighbor’s old-fashioned honeysuckle sweetened the faint breeze. I had planned to spend the day at the studio slaving away at a hot computer, but that could wait until afternoon. Right now I wanted to get out for a ramble.
I also had an urge to go back to Ty’s ranch, to try to figure out what could have happened. The hilltop might be officially off-limits, but on Sunday morning, bright and early? Nobody else would be out there. I could do a little reconnoitering and then Jake and I could have a long run on the ranch roads.
We were suited up and out the door in fifteen minutes flat. I stopped by the studio to grab my camera bag. One more stop at the gas station on 88 for coffee and breakfast tacos and we were on the road.
A word to the wise: don’t feed dogs tacos inside the car. They don’t understand the tortilla component and the results are not attractive.
The gate at the entrance to the Lazy H hung open. The cops should’ve locked it, but then I remembered that Mr. Jernigan Sr. had to get in there to look after his cows. Yellow crime scene tape made the sagging front porch seem almost festive. Ty’s BMW stood next to his beat-up ranch truck in the otherwise empty yard.
Jake stuck his head out the window as we drove past the turn to the house and whined. I felt like whining myself. “Not today, buddy.”
The vehicles that had come and gone over the last two days had driven ruts into the field on top of Mt. Keno. More crime scene tape wrapped all the way around the stone enclosure. They must buy the stuff by the trainload.
I stood on the highest part of the hill under the windmill, turning slowly in a circle, trying to imagine what had happened. The official theory played pretty well.
Ty and Di had had their fight and she left. Then Roger Bainbridge turned up, maybe after a few more drinks, wanting to press his case. Ty wouldn’t let him in the house, so they argued outside. Things got hot, fists flew, and Roger ended up on the ground with a cracked skull. Ty panicked and decided to hide the body. The Gator was handy and burying him on the ranch would’ve seemed obvious.
That’s where the theory fell apart. Ty knew this ranch better than anyone. He knew where he planned to build cabins and trails. Surely he would have chosen someplace better than the site of the future yoga pavilion and sunset observation lounge.
Why here? The view was spectacular. I wouldn’t mind being buried up here, after dying a natural death at a ripe old age. But its attractions made it a bad choice for hiding a body, especially given the abundant alternatives.
Miles of empty countryside stretched to the north and west, where only a couple of narrow ranch roads wound away into the hillscape. To the south across 1625, I could see the half-finished house on the Matslar property. Somebody was home. A car sat in the driveway.
Maybe Roger had gone to visit Sid. Maybe he’d met Diana somewhere and they’d gone together. She could’ve called Roger or Sid on her way out, looking for a sympathetic ear. Maybe Roger, still angry himself, tried to rape her. She and/or Sid struck back and then they decided to hide the body, etcetera, etcetera, as before.
The whole facade of that house was limestone. Sid could’ve sent Diana out of harm’s way and waited until Ty left for Austin the next morning. Then he’d’ve had acres of time to do as he pleased on the Lazy H.
Penateka should be looking at Sid Matslar on grounds of pure proximity.
Once proximity entered the frame, they should also take a long look at the old stone house on the 3C to the east. Carson Caine’s ranch. That place sang to me in its splendid isolation. Ty told me they used to hang out there back in the day, to smoke pot and cigarettes.
Maybe Diana had gone there to think and mope—or even better, to drink and dope. She’d been sober for about a year. I knew from my parents’ experience that sobriety anniversaries were tough. Maybe the stress of the argument had driven her off the wagon and she’d gone up there to console herself with a bottle of tequila. She could’ve called her secret lover and told him to meet her there. Maybe Roger had been with the secret lover and had tagged along.
My maybes were radically out-running my facts. I decided to sneak over and take a peek at that house. If it was filled to the rafters with bags of deer corn, I could shake it out of my head and move on. On the other hand, if there were empty bottles strewn around a big feather bed, I might have myself another clue.
I could at least walk as far as the fence and check out the Gatorability of the terrain. A girl could look at a fence, couldn’t she?
I let Jake off the leash and headed down the deer track on the east side of Mt. Keno. My running shoes got soaked in the dew as I waded through the ankle-high grass at the bottom. I stood at the juncture of the two fences, hesitating about crossing onto the 3C. What would I say if someone caught me?
I fiddled with my lens cap. I could say I was taking pictures for Ty and I wanted to get a comprehensive shot of Mt. Keno. The only way to do that was from the top of Stone House Hill.
Trespassing was illegal. A good girl would never do such a thing. I generally thought of myself as a good girl, but I was also a curious girl. A curious girl with a camera, all alone out here in the perfect morning light.
As I dithered, I saw a flash of tawny tail disappearing into the scrub oaks on the other side of the road. Jake, h
aving no conflict between curiosity and the law, wriggled under the fence and took off after the leaping animal at full speed.
Well, now I had to go after my dog, didn’t I?
I clambered over the fence at the T-junction where it was the sturdiest and walked around the bend. I wasn’t really worried about Jake. He knew his way around this country better than I did. The 3C was loaded with exotic game animals for whom barbed wire fences were no obstacle. They roamed at will. This must be a regular sport for him.
I strode along the road, enjoying the peace of the morning, wishing I had a jolly photography song to hum. Somebody should write one. Bird-watching and nature photography were rapidly catching up to hunting and fishing as major recreational activities in Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine ran a monthly article about digital photography, right in there with the reviews of fishing rods and the hunting forecasts.
All we needed were some tall tales and a ballad and us tree-hugging, nature-loving, pantywaists could be Number One.
The road forked on the other side of the hill. The main branch ran north, probably toward the main house. The narrower track took me right up to the stone house, as I’d expected. This side had an oak door set in a weathered gray frame. I didn’t see any signs of occupation, apart from an old truck with no license plates parked under a couple of skinny live oaks. The hood still shimmered with morning dew.
I didn’t see a padlock on the door. I’d take one little peek and be on my way.
My boots crunched lightly on the caliche gravel as I walked toward the house. I caught a glint of silver in the dust and bent to look. It was a charm, the figure of a man with a bow and arrow.
“I knew it,” I whispered. Diana had come up here, sometime recently enough for that charm not to be buried by wind and rain.
I almost picked it up, but stopped myself. Once I moved it, it lost its value as evidence. Penateka had to see it in place. But what were the odds of my getting him up here?
I couldn’t take it and I couldn’t bring him here, so I did the next best thing. I took a picture of it. It isn’t easy to get establishing context for a charm the size of a dime lying in a road, but I did the best I could. I flopped on my belly in the dust to try to get the base of the house in the background behind the charm.
It would have to do.
I stood up and slapped the dirt off my clothes. Then I heard a chair scrape on the floor inside the house and a raspy voice say, “Something something varmint.”
The road behind me held zero cover, so I sprinted into the woods behind the truck. I ducked into a thicket of sumacs as a guy came out of the house carrying an enormous rifle with a telephoto lens. He wore black from hat to boots with a flame-circled skull on his T-shirt.
Hank Roeder.
He shouldered the rifle, sighted through the lens, and turned in a slow circle, singing “Here, piggy, piggy,” in a low croon.
I backed up as quietly as I could into the thicker brush behind me. I heard something rustle and turned to look. Not a good time for Jake to show his furry face. But the eyes that met mine were not the melting brown ones of a Labrador retriever. They were small and black and set too close to a long bristly snout.
“Oh, shit.”
Caught between a redneck with a rifle and a feral hog. Bring on a hailstorm and my rural Texas nightmare would be complete.
The hog went, “Snort!”
I went, “Eek!”
The great big rifle went, “Boom!”
I took off running as fast as I could, zigzagging through the short trees like they do in the movies. I could hear Hank laughing. “Run, piggy, run!”
The rifle boomed again and a branch cracked off a tree in front of me.
I veered away, scrambling over rocks and around clumps of prickly pear, hoping I wouldn’t step on a snake or turn an ankle. I made it down the west side of the hill and climbed over the fence, scratching my hand on a barb in my frenzy to get back onto the Lazy H. I raced up the deer track, too scared to look behind me to see if Hank was tracking me with his scope.
I made it back to my truck and found Jake lying in the shade, panting. He jumped up when he saw me and danced around my knees. I opened the door and pushed him up onto the seat, fishing my keys out of my pocket and leaping in after him. I hauled out of there, down the hill, past the house, and onto the county road.
“That was a little too exciting for a Sunday morning,” I said to Jake. He licked my ear.
At least I had another suspect: a twitchy, antisocial redneck with a big gun and a short fuse.
Chapter 11
On Monday morning, I studied my list while Jake and I ate breakfast. I had two excellent alternative suspects—Dare Thompson and Hank Roeder—although I had no motive for Hank yet. I couldn’t imagine Diana going to him for help with real estate matters or to cover up a crime. He was the least likely Louise in the bunch.
Dare, on the other hand, had Louise written all over him. He loved Diana enough to do anything for her. Instinct and training would motivate him to defend and protect. He knew the territory, he knew Ty’s schedule, he probably knew Diana’s password and could thus have sent the bogus messages from her account.
He had motive, assuming the Thelma and Louise scenario. He had means, because he was a resident of the state of Texas and thus had access to an infinite supply of limestone rocks. He had opportunity, as far as I knew. Where had he been on the night in question? And which night was that, anyway?
I didn’t like suspecting Dare. I wanted to trust the guys with the badges. But he had all the points. Sooner or later, I’d have to bring it up with Penateka and not long after that, I’d have to face Dare with my suspicions. Worrying about that confrontation tied knots in my tummy. If it had to happen, I’d just as soon get to it.
Ty’s arraignment would take place this morning, so I passed on my usual khakis and camo in favor of a pair of eggplant linen pants and a lilac T-shirt with nothing written on it. I slid my feet into my dress-up Birkenstocks and grabbed the crocheted top that my mother made me as a defense against the air-conditioning. That would have to do. My wardrobe didn’t extend to business wear.
I left Jake with Tillie at the studio and walked over to the law enforcement center. So peculiar, all this walking, but they say Texans love their eccentrics. Maybe being out on my feet in the hot sun would endear me to the townsfolk.
A couple of patrol officers occupied the desks in the bullpen this morning. Dare looked up as I came in and beckoned to me. “Morning, Penny. How’s the alternative suspect search going?”
“It’s going.”
“Who’s at the top of the list this morning?”
I drew in a breath. “Well, Deputy Thompson, as a matter of fact, you are.”
I braced myself, but his lips curved into a smile—a good smile, bordering on a grin. He should trot it out more often.
“I wondered if you’d see that. I also wondered if you’d have the brass to tell me.”
“I’ve got brass to spare. Also, once you rule out Ty, which I do, your name pops right up, assuming Diana is somehow involved.”
“I’ll grant the assumption is not unreasonable. What’s your theory? That I killed Roger during a jealous altercation?”
“Something like that. Or Diana killed him accidentally, in self-defense maybe, and called you for help.” I kept the movie theory to myself. I doubted Dare watched chick flicks and had a feeling he’d balk at details like the minor fact that Louise was a waitress, not a deputy sheriff, and had a history that made her distrust the authorities.
“I see,” he said. “And then I packed her off while I buried the body on her ranch, letting her brother take the blame, because that’s certainly what she would want.”
“She might not know. She might be somewhere far away, meditating or whatever she’s doing, completely ignorant of the whole situation. Besides, Ty doesn’t have to be convicted to suit your purposes. All you need is to confuse the issue.”
Dare nodded.
“Not bad, as theories go. You’d make a good detective, if you learned a little discipline.”
Was that a compliment or an insult? I refused to be side-tracked. “You had opportunity. You knew when Ty would be gone. You know the keys to the Gator are kept under the mat. You’re a trained investigator. You could have thought to send those fake emails to throw everybody off the track.”
“Those emails from Roger are a problem, all right. My working theory is that Ty sent them himself.”
That made no sense to me whatsoever. “Can’t you trace them?”
“I’ve asked Peter Schmidzinsky to look into it, but I’m not optimistic. Ty’s in the computer business. He must know all kinds of tricks.”
Which hardly constituted grounds for accusing him of manslaughter. On the other hand, it might play with a jury from Long County; ultimately all that mattered.
“Isn’t it possible that Diana sent them?”
Dare chuckled. “They look legit, as far as I can tell. I doubt Diana has that kind of skill.”
He said her name without the worry that had been wrinkling his brow during the photoshoot. Something had changed. “Have you heard from her?”
“I have. A short note telling me not to worry, that she’s taking a little time to clear her head.”
“And that’s enough for you?”
“It is.” His calm agate eyes met mine. “I trust her.”
I believed him. But while his faith was commendable, his commitment made him the best Louise on my list.
Time to lay my last card on the table. I looked Dare square in the eye. “Now you’re in the catbird seat, able to influence the investigation into a crime you yourself may have committed.”
His eyes crinkled with dry amusement. “I’m glad you feel safe enough with me to accuse me to my face. But I can put your mind at ease. I’ve got an iron-clad alibi.”