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

by Anna Castle

  Carson ended his laugh with a sigh and his face grew serious. “That’s why this whole business about Roger Bainbridge is so bad. Apart from the tragedy of a man’s death, of course. That project of Ty’s is exactly what this county needs. He’s got vision, along with the skills and the resources to make things happen.”

  “It will happen. You’ll see.” Saying it out loud helped me believe it. “Ty is innocent and sooner or later, they’re going to find the real culprit.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” He clicked open another picture, looked at it, and then turned back to me. “Any progress on his case?”

  “Not really. Actually, things look pretty grim at the moment. He didn’t get bail, you know.”

  “I heard.”

  “They still haven’t found Roger’s car. That could help us.”

  “Must be full of forensic evidence.” He gave me an encouraging smile, like you’d give a kid with no talent who insisted on staying in the game. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  “It has to be someone who knows the area pretty well.” If I could get him talking about the old days, he might drop some useful clue. “Y’all’s old gang used to play up on Mt. Keno, didn’t you?”

  Carson gave me a knowing look, but chuckled to take the sting out. “Indeed we did. Rangers vs. Banditos was my favorite.” He put one palm on his chest and held up the other in the Boy Scout sign. “I did not kill Roger Bainbridge, Penny. Scout’s Honor. For the record, on the night he died I was schmoozing a potential campaign contributor at the Riverhill Country Club in Kerrville. I must confess I drank a little too much of a very nice Cabernet and ended up spending the night at the club.” He hesitated, then gave a slight shrug. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Bainbridge was getting to be a problem. I had the idea that if he had some competition—someone smarter and more sensitive to local concerns—he might move on to some other county.”

  “That might have worked,” I said. “Roger did seem like a shortcut kind of a guy. And I’m sorry to be so nosy. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Of course you did. It’s common sense to consider anyone familiar with the Hawkins’ ranch. I’m surprised the sheriff isn’t double-checking along those lines. But you know, Penny, that old gang broke up when we graduated from high school. We all went our separate ways.”

  “But people came back. You’re all here in Long County again.”

  “Now that Ty’s back, you mean.” He flipped his left hand in a so-what gesture. “Sid and Hank have been here all along. I was bi-municipal, you might say, between here and Dallas, until my grandfather died. My kids have spent every summer on the ranch since they were born. Both Sid and Hank work for me, so naturally we see each other on an almost daily basis. But it’s not like we get together and play poker every Thursday night. Sid’s got his family; I’ve got mine. Hank’s got his hunting buddies and his Hat Trick girls.” He shook his head at me. “I’m sorry, but you’re on the wrong track. Not that I blame you for trying.”

  “I refuse to believe Ty did it.”

  “That’s the spirit!” He gave me that look adults give teenagers when they know better, but don’t want to squelch your youthful enthusiasm. “Have you talked to his lawyer?”

  “I have.”

  “What’s her plan? I hear she’s well-regarded in Austin legal circles.”

  I hadn’t heard that, but then who would I hear it from? I liked the sound of it, anyway. “She thinks we can generate a reasonable doubt. All we need is one good alternative suspect.”

  Carson’s smile faded. “You’re not thinking about Dare Thompson, I hope.”

  I gave him a sheepish grin. “He’s the obvious first choice. He has an alibi. He was supposedly at a training seminar in Georgia. Ty’s lawyer’s going to follow that up.”

  “Well, I would hate to learn that one our law officers had committed such a terrible crime, but no stone should be left unturned. This is the legal system in action.”

  We contemplated that fact in silence for moment. Our meeting had plainly run its course, but I decided to take my last shot. “The thing is, Carson, I heard a rumor that Sid Matslar might be involved in an affair, and I sort of wondered if it might have been—”

  “Sid and Diana? That’s your theory?” Carson broke into a broad smile that would’ve looked great on his campaign posters. “Ty is doomed. Have you met Sid?”

  “Not yet.”

  He stood up. “Well, let’s go introduce you.”

  As we passed through the anteroom, Carson asked his secretary to cut a check for the portraits. We walked down the beige corridor to another office, about half the size of Carson’s, with only one tall window at the back. No chrome toys or artworks livened up this doleful nook. It had been furnished from the same bland catalog as the lobby. A long desk covered by a computer and stacks of file folders filled most of the space.

  “Hey, Sid, I’d like to introduce you to someone.” Carson ushered me through the door.

  A ramshackle bear of a man waddled forward to shake my hand. Now I understood why everyone was so certain Diana had not been having a secret affair with Sid Matslar. He was tall, which was good, but he was also wide; one might say, double-wide. His blue slacks and wrinkled white shirt barely contained his belly, even with the help of red suspenders. He sported a red bow tie, perhaps in an effort to look like an old-fashioned Southern banker. His oversized nose supported thick black nerd glasses.

  He looked like a movie star: Woody Allen meets Orson Welles with a dash of Walter Matthau.

  Carson smiled affably. “Penny, meet Sid Matslar. Sid, this is Penelope Trigg, Lost Hat’s newest entrepreneur.”

  His fleshy grasp encased my hand briefly. “I’ve been meaning to get over to see what you’ve done with your studio. I hear it’s quite a transformation.”

  I recovered my manners. “It is different.”

  The poor guy was such a shambles, his socks didn’t even match.

  Carson said, “Penny wants to know what you were doing on the night Roger Bainbridge died.” He turned to me as if consulting on the details. “Last Wednesday, wasn’t it? She has a theory that it was one of us guys from the old gang.”

  He was having a little too much fun with this. I took the hint.

  Sid, caught totally by surprise, goggled, his mouth opening in a speechless O. He closed it and opened it again once or twice before he managed to get the motor running again. “Roger Bainbridge? Where did I—What was the question?”

  I could identify genuine bewilderment when I saw it. This was not the guy.

  Carson patted Sid on the shoulder. “It’s just a theory and not a very good one. Penny has evidently heard some of the rumors circulating about your divorce and thought you might have been having a secret affair with Diana that went sour.”

  “Oh. Wow.” Sid smiled at me, sadly, shaking his head. “That might have impressed my wife, actually.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It was stupid. I’m just…”

  “She’s turning over every stone,” Carson said. “Trying to help old Ty.”

  “Sure. I wish I could help too.” Sid scratched the back of his neck. “Last Wednesday you say?” He maneuvered his way back into the nest behind the desk, where he pondered the clutter, then shifted a stack of folders to unearth a diary. He flipped back to the previous week, frowning at the pages. “I probably worked late. I usually do, these days. Okay, here it is. Wednesday I was working on the Jameson project.”

  Carson asked, “How’s that going?”

  “Good. Good. We’re almost there. Looks like we’ll be closing on Friday.”

  “Excellent,” Carson said.

  Sid looked up at me. “After work, I would have gone home. I don’t suppose that’s much help to you.” He looked mournful, as though he wished he could tell me he was guilty, but knew no one would believe him.

  “That’s okay.” I had come prepared to make a fool of myself and I had succeeded. “I’m sorry to be so nosy.”

/>   “It’s quite all right, Penny. It’s such terrible thing, nobody can think straight.” Sid shook his large head. “I don’t suppose many people here will miss Bainbridge, but his death is still a tragedy. And for Ty to be in jail? I can’t wrap my mind around it.”

  “None of us can,” Carson said.

  Sid heaved a sigh. “I had high hopes for that spa project. It would be such a great stimulus for the local economy.”

  “It’ll happen,” I said. “You’ll see.” I had one last question. “Did Diana ever talk to you about that project? About a mortgage or something for her half?”

  “She did, actually.” Sid flipped over another page on his diary. “A couple of weeks ago. I took her through the basics of equity loans, though I’m not sure she fully understood her options. She didn’t know what she wanted, really.” He glanced up at Carson again. “I had planned to give Ty a call, with Diana’s permission, of course. We’d love to have a role in that project.”

  “Wouldn’t we, though?” Carson smiled all around. “Maybe we still will. Let’s set up a meeting with Ty when his avenging angel here gets him out of jail.”

  Enough, already! I could have sunk right through the beige carpet. “Look, Mr. Matslar—”

  “Please, call me Sid.”

  “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that you had anything to do with any of this. I’m grasping at straws here.”

  “I’d do the same in your shoes.” He walked us to the door and handed me a card. “And listen, if you ever need a small business loan to tide you over a rough patch or expand your operation, we have lots of expertise with businesses that have seasonal ebbs and flows like yours. Come on by and talk to me sometime. I’ll fix you up with a great deal.”

  Chapter 16

  Wednesday at eleven o’clock, I gathered my courage and optimism, what little I had left of both, and hiked on over to the Law Enforcement Center to visit Ty. I’d spent most of yesterday afternoon choosing and tweaking photographs to show him, but the guard wouldn’t let me bring anything in. Doubtless he feared Ty would be so inflamed by the beauty of the great outdoors, he would make a break for it by holding a print to the guard’s throat.

  Paper cuts can be very painful, you know.

  Ty looked puffy-eyed, like a man spending a lot of time sleeping. “Thanks for coming, Penny. The days get pretty long in here.”

  “No license plates to make? No cotton to chop?”

  “I wish. I could use the exercise.”

  “I’ve got some great pictures to show you next week, when you get out.”

  That earned me a rueful grin. “That’s optimism, isn’t it? I vaguely remember what that feels like. You must have good news.”

  “Not exactly. I have been meeting new people, though. Meeting them and insulting them and thereby making a great fool of myself.”

  I told him about my visit to the bank and about wrecking Tillie’s marriage. Ty assured me that they’d work things out and laughed at the idea of Sid as a suspect. He liked taking the role of Comforter and Advisor; it suited him so much better than Wrongfully Accused and Powerless Victim.

  He studied my face for a long while in silence, as though he planned to paint it from memory. “Don’t give up on me, Penny.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And don’t give up on my project either. Get out there and shoot the southeast pasture, like we planned. We need to document that zone before I get the cedar cleared.”

  “I’m on it.” If the sheriff’s department would let me back out there. Heck with it. I’d go anyway. Ty needed to know his life could still move forward.

  I worked the conversation around to the gossip at DeGroot’s. “The new Internet guy, Peter Schmidzinsky, sounded absolutely positive those emails came from Diana’s account, from within your Lazy H domain, if that’s the right way to put it.”

  “I understand you.” He shrugged. “It’s no surprise that Diana’s mail came from her account. Where else would it come from?”

  “Not just Diana’s—the ones from Roger too.”

  That put a wrinkle in his forehead. “They think Diana sent those? That makes no sense. They were signed ‘Roger,’ with his business links in the signature.”

  “Not from her, like she wrote them. Schmidzinsky said they originated from her account. They were spooked.”

  “Spoofed?”

  “That’s it!”

  “That makes even less sense, Penny. What’s the alleged point of this?”

  “One idea is that Diana sent them, to make it look like Roger was still alive.”

  “No.” Ty had started his head at the word ‘Diana.’ “That’s not within her scope.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Not for me or for someone like your brother, but for someone like Diana or you, who doesn’t pay attention to how things work—”

  “Hey!”

  “Computer things, darlin’. No slight intended. You could do it, but you’d need guidance. There’s probably a step-by-step out there somewhere, but it’s definitely not her style.” He thought about it for a moment. “Hacking Diana’s account would be a piece of cake for anyone who knows her. Her login is ‘lady_di’—same as her license plates—and her password is probably ‘malibu.’ That was her horse, growing up. She loved that animal more than she loved me and Dad. She rode him in competitions all over the county in high school, so pretty much everyone knows the name.”

  “That should help widen the pool.” And make it deeper around Ty’s ankles.

  “Widen the pool,” he muttered, catching my untrusting vibe. His brown eyes narrowed. “You think Diana did this, don’t you? And for some bizarre reason she’s trying to set me up.”

  “Not exactly.” I drew in a breath and let it out in a rush. “Do you remember the movie Thelma and Louise?”

  He listened patiently while I laid out the alternatives, only rolling his eyes a few times and managing to suppress most of the snorts and guffaws. He grasped immediately that we had cast him as the Louise.

  When I finished, he ran both hands through his hair and frowned at the table for a moment. Then he said, “Well, your hearts are the right place. But that theory has holes a mile wide. In the first place, Roger wasn’t shot.”

  “That’s a detail.” I made a big circle with my flat palm. “Look at the big picture. The Louise killed the cowboy to protect the Thelma. Then together they evaded the authorities. That’s the main point of connection.”

  “Also nobody went to jail, as I recall. They drove off a cliff, didn’t they? Which—” He stabbed a long finger at me. “Diana would never do, at least not in her custom pink Mustang. She loves that car almost as much as she loved Malibu.”

  “Details, Ty! Details!” This man did not understand the concept of essentials.

  “And they left the body in the parking lot, didn’t they? They didn’t lug it up to the highest hill and bury it with an incriminating bracelet around its wrist.”

  “All right, all right.” I gave up. “Set the movie aside. The main idea is that Roger tried to rape Diana and either you or she punched his lights out and then the two of you buried him and came up with the whole scheme to cover things up and confuse the issue until she gets out of the country and you get off on reasonable doubt.”

  A muscle in his jaw pulsed at the words ‘rape Diana.’ The whole jawline had squared up by the end of my little speech, and his brown eyes had gone flat.

  “You got one part right,” he said. “If that son of a bitch had ever tried to hurt my baby sister, I would’ve punched his lights out. But that’s where the similarities end. If he had cracked his skull, I would’ve called 911 on the spot. Same deal if I came home and found Diana standing over his body. I’d get her the best lawyers in the country and stick with her every step of the way, but I would not help her cover up a death. No way, Penny. Never in a million years. You should know me better than that by now.”

  “I do,” I said, cheeks burning. “I honestly, honestly do.
It’s just, you know, in the interest of exploring all the possibilities. You are really protective of her and if you found her in mid-burial, for example, with the mess already made…”

  “No way. None whatsoever.” He gave a cold look that made me feel like I’d blown it badly; broken something valuable. I hadn’t trusted him all the way and I should have.

  He blinked and looked away for a minute. I caught a glimmer of moisture in his eyes, but he blinked again before he looked back at me. “Those spoofed emails prove that someone is trying to frame me. Why, I have no idea. I don’t have any enemies, that I know of. But hey, if we’re using movies to solve this case, let me throw another one out there. I don’t see any resemblance between me and Susan Sarandon, but this past week I have been feeling a lot like Cary Grant in North by Northwest.”

  “Ooh, good one,” I said. “I can see it. Except weren’t the bad guys chasing Cary Grant because they thought he was a spy or something?” I summoned up a memory of that plot. “They were trying to kill him, not frame him.”

  “Details, Penny! Details!” Ty’s eyes glittered. “Screw Louise. You should be looking for James Mason.”

  Chapter 17

  It had been years since I’d seen North by Northwest. The details were hazy, but the main story was unforgettable: an innocent man being wrongfully persecuted. I silently vowed to stop suspecting Ty, although I still thought Dare or someone could have pulled a Louise out there that night. I couldn’t believe Long County had anyone as persistent and devious as James Mason’s character. You’d have to be awfully damn cold.

  I couldn’t do much to patch things up with Ty, not while he remained behind bars. An hour a day of conversation with no touching wouldn’t do the trick. But I could get back to work on the project and thereby demonstrate my faith in our mutual future. The man wanted the southeast pasture documented and by golly, that was what he would get. I wouldn’t need to go into the house or up on Mt. Keno, so I wouldn’t be crossing any crime scene boundaries.