“Sheriff called this morning,” she said. “Your daddy’s pretty tore up about Kip. Been on the phone to Kip’s daddy in Montana a couple of times already this morning.”
I sat down on the porch swing. She draped the towel over her shoulder and sat next to me. I leaned my head against her soft shoulder and stared out over the front yard grass. Dew still sparkled in the morning sunlight like little pieces of melting ice.
“I didn’t know where else to bring Wade,” I said. “I was there at the Frio last night. Everything’s such a big mess.”
“Best you tell me about it so we know what we’re up against.”
When I’d almost finished, the wooden screen door opened, and Isaac came out. He carried two mugs of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.
“Kind of chilly out here,” he said, handing them to us.
“Thank you, Isaac,” Dove said, smiling up at him. The glow on her face froze my heart for a second, and I turned away, cupping my hands around the warm mug and inhaling its steamy sweetness. It worried me to watch her allow herself to become so vulnerable. She had to know Isaac would leave after he found out who killed his granddaughter.
As I sipped my hot chocolate, Dove filled Isaac in on what I’d told her. He glanced at me every so often, his big, creased face solemn and emotionless. When she finished, he asked me, “What is your opinion on it, Benni?”
I looked at him over my mug. “I don’t think Wade did it. He certainly could win awards for being a stupid jerk, but he’s not a killer.”
“I agree,” Dove said. “I’ve known that boy since he was too small to spit. He wouldn’t attack a helpless man.”
Isaac nodded, satisfied. “Then we have to find out who did it.”
“I know,” I said.
“Just you be careful,” Dove said to me, setting down her mug. “The good Lord has surely protected you before, but he might be gettin‘ a bit weary of pulling you out of scrapes.”
“I’ll watch out for her, Dove,” Isaac said.
“I’ll hold you to that promise,” Dove said. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m perfectly capable of looking out for myself.” My comment set both of them to chuckling.
“I am!” I protested.
We were haggling that point when we were interrupted by the arrival of Gabe driving his dad’s old Chevy pickup. He came up the steps, his face in his professional cop mask. He nodded at Isaac and bent down and kissed Dove on the cheek.
“Buenos dias, abuelita. Cómo estas?”
“Ain’t pushing up daisies yet, grandson. You’re looking a bit thin. Isn’t my granddaughter feeding you right?” She turned and wagged a finger at me. I smiled weakly, knowing what she was trying to do, bring a bit of lightness to the tension between Gabe and me.
“Don’t blame her,” Gabe said, glancing over at me. “I’m a big boy and could follow a recipe if I wanted to.”
The front door opened, and Wade stepped out, his raspy voice saying, “Hey, Dove, there any way I can sweet talk you into fixing some bacon and eggs for a hungry cowboy who would sure appreciate—” He stopped when he saw Gabe.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Dove said, standing up.
“No, abuelita,” Gabe said, laying a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down gently. “After what Mr. Harper has put everyone through in the last twenty-four hours, it wouldn’t hurt him to miss a meal. He can just wait until you fix lunch for the rest of the help.”
Wade sucked on the toothpick in his mouth, his eyes narrowing. The white scar under his left ear started turning pink. I stood up, recognizing the sign that he was about to explode.
“I’ll fix you something to eat, Wade,” I said, trying to avert a fight and realizing the minute the words were out of my mouth that they would only make things worse.
“No, you won’t.” Gabe said the words slowly and deliberately.
Wade spit out his toothpick and grinned slowly at me. “You letting him get away with that, blondie? Shoot, it’s bad enough you’re sleeping with Pancho here. You gonna let him tell you when you can take a piss, too?”
A strangled sound came from Gabe’s diaphragm, and before any of us could react, Gabe grabbed Wade by the shirt-front and pulled him off the porch. He landed two punches before Wade recouped and swung back, connecting just below Gabe’s left eye.
“Stop it!” I screamed, running down the porch steps toward them.
Dove grabbed a broom and followed me. She poked at the two men rolling on the ground.
“You boys quit it now!” she yelled, sticking them with the bristles.
Afraid she’d get hurt, I pulled her back and commanded, “Go get Daddy!” As she scurried toward the barn, I edged closer to the men, thinking if I could somehow get between them, they’d come to their senses and stop. Gabe knocked Wade to the ground and landed a kick in his stomach. Wade grunted, rolled in a ball, and laid still a moment.
“C‘mon, pendejo, c’mon,” Gabe taunted him. “You’ve been wanting this. Let’s go.”
Wade bounded up with a roar.
I saw my chance. For a split second, there were about three feet between them, and I started to dart between them. Abruptly I felt my feet lose connection with solid ground. A strong arm locked itself around my waist, and I felt myself moving backward.
“No use both you and Gabe sporting a shiner,” Isaac’s voice rumbled in my ear. “Better let the boys haggle this one out.”
“Lemme go,” I said, swinging my feet in the air, feeling ridiculous. “I’ve got to stop them before someone gets hurt.”
He set me down on the top step of the porch, keeping a firm hand around my upper arm to hold me back. “Benni, I haven’t been here long, but even I can see this has been brewing for a while. Let them get it out of their systems.”
Involuntarily I flinched every time a fist connected with skin. The minutes felt like an hour before Daddy and a couple of his friends came running from the barn. It took another few minutes before they pried the panting and cursing men apart.
“Land sake’s alive,” Dove said, taking charge. She glared at both of them. “I ought to whip your butts for acting the fools that you are. You!” She pointed at Wade, who looked at the ground like a dog caught peeing on the carpet, wiping his bleeding mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. “Already in enough trouble to drown ten bulls and you’re bucking for more. Ben, take him out to the barn and clean him up.”
She turned to Gabe. “And you!” Gabe attempted a smile, his face trying to form itself into his charming, little-boy-caught-playing-hooky look. His already blackening eye, swollen lip, and torn sweater kind of blew the charming part. She wasn’t buying that scam anyway. “You!” she repeated. “The chief of police fighting like a common hood. You should be ashamed. What kind of example is this for all those young police officers? What would the citizens of San Celina think?” Then she stepped up to him, looked into his bright blue eyes, and shot the clincher. “What would your mother think?”
Before he could answer, she said, “Get into the kitchen, and we’ll get you cleaned up. I ought to make you pull weeds in the garden for the rest of the day like I used to my boys when they fought, but I reckon that they’ll be needing you down at the police station, though heaven knows how you can be takin‘ care of the crime in a city when you can’t even keep your own fists to yourself.” He followed her meekly, not answering any of her scolding.
I watched the screen door slam behind them. “I guess I don’t need to lecture him on this particular incident.”
Isaac laughed heartily. “No, I’d say your grandmother pretty well has that covered.”
I sat down on the top step. With a groan, he joined me.
I picked at the toe of my boot. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. They’re acting like a couple of teenagers. Wade I can understand. He’s never been able to control himself, but Gabe should know better. What in the world is he going to gain out of fighting Wade?”
Isaac answered in a soft voice, “Benni, honey, Wade wasn’t the man he was fighting.”
I looked over at him, surprised silent. “Oh,” I finally said.
“So, what are your plans for today, partner?” he asked, wisely changing the subject.
“I have to get down to the museum to check on things, that’s for sure. I’ve been neglecting my job big time. I suspect, though, that some of the people in the co-op are involved somehow, so maybe I can find out if any of them were at the Frio last night and saw anything significant. But first I think I’ll go by the Frio and see if the people working there know anything. I’ll use the excuse of looking for Wade’s hat. He said he lost it sometime last night.”
Isaac nodded. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that the police finally released the key to Shelby’s apartment to me. I’m going over today to look around. Maybe something will turn up there.”
“Need any help?” I touched his hand lightly with my fingertips. Seeing her things had to be hard for him.
“Not right now,” he said, his expression growing distant. “Perhaps later.”
I didn’t answer, and we sat in a companionable silence for a few minutes. Deep inside the house, we could still hear Dove’s voice wrangling at Gabe, tender then scolding, then tender again. She had a real soft spot for my husband, but he wouldn’t be hearing the end of this one for a long time.
“Want to rendezvous later on, then?” Isaac asked. “Compare notes?”
“Sure. How about Blind Harry’s at five o‘clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
I left without confronting Gabe or my ex-brother-in-law again, not because I was mad, but because I was just plain tired of the intense emotions surrounding both of them. I wanted to tackle the problem of finding out who killed Shelby and Kip, and emotions only made logical thinking harder. There had to be a connection between those two, more than just the fact that they were sleeping together. Though jealousy had certainly been a motive more times than not in murders, this time it just didn’t feel like that to me. I was so deep into trying to find a connection between them that I almost missed the turnoff to Santa Flora. Wade’s hat. And a chance to question any of the workers.
The drive to the Frio Saloon was much more pleasant in the late-morning sunshine. The air was clear and cool, tempting me to roll down my window to inhale its dusky, wet earth smell and catch the last hint of early morning fires from the small ranches along the twisting road. I stopped at a tiny local grocery store at the fork to Lake Santa Flora to get a cup of coffee. A rusty cowbell announced my entry. I was pleasantly surprised to find Greer sipping from a paper cup and shooting the breeze with a tough-looking biker chick arranging a shipment of cigarettes behind the counter.
“Benni Harper!” Greer said. “What in tarnation are you doing here?”
“Hi, Greer,” I said and walked over to the serve-yourself coffee machine. “I’m fortifying myself before going out to the Frio to look for Wade’s hat.” I finished doctoring up my coffee and walked over to them. “It just occurred to me I probably should have called first. Do you happen to know if they’re open this early?”
She glanced down at her man-sized watch. “It’s past eleven, so I’d say you’re safe. Someone will probably be there. They’re open Wednesday through Sunday now for lunch.” She sipped her coffee. “Why are you getting Wade’s hat?”
“Were you at the Frio last night?” I knew that Greer, living only a few miles away, sometimes dropped in at the saloon. A lot of the artists who lived around Santa Flora, known for its cheap house rentals, frequented the Frio since it was the only place in the area that stayed open past nine o‘clock. Many artists lived on odd time schedules that didn’t conform to Santa Flora’s Mayberry-like customs.
“Yes, for a little while,” she said, twirling her drink in her cup. “But I must have left before Wade got there. I heard what happened to that young hand of your dad’s, though. Sorry to hear it.”
“Yeah.” I sipped my coffee. It tasted thick and sludgy with a bitter aftertaste. It hit my empty stomach like a hard, warm baseball. “They questioned Wade and, from what I hear, Bobby Sanchez, too. I guess he was there last night.”
Greer nodded. “I did see the fight between Bobby and Kip, if you want to call what they did fighting. More yelling than fists. Me and Olivia and Parker had a good laugh over it. Didn’t see the one with your brother-in-law.”
So both Parker and Olivia were there last night. I hadn’t seen them, but with that crowd, that was understandable. “What were Bobby and Kip fighting about?”
She turned her palms up and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Don’t know, but I’m assuming it had something to do with those pictures Shelby took of Bobby.”
“You know about those?”
“Everyone knows about them. At least, everyone at the co-op. Olivia’s not one to suffer in silence.”
I looked back down into the dark coffee. My stomach gurgled a warning, and I knew I’d better not drink anything stronger than water before I could get some food into me. I tossed the almost-full cup into the trash and paid the biker chick fifty cents. “Well, I have a million things to do today. I guess I’ll see you at the mayor’s house tonight.”
Greer winked at me. “Wouldn’t miss Mrs. Mayor’s flavored fish eggs for anything in the world. I’m thinking about smuggling some out and going fishing up at Lake Santa Flora the next day.”
I smiled. “I heard some of that stuff cost twenty-four dollars an ounce. At that price you’d better hook a solid gold trout.”
At the Frio Saloon I had to pound on the door for a few minutes before someone answered.
“We don’t open till eleven-thirty,” the buck-toothed, gray-haired woman said. She pointed with a chipped crimson nail to a hand-printed sign next to the door.
“I just need to look through the lost and found box for a hat,” I said.
She gave me a hesitant look, then said, “Well, come on, then.”
Wade’s hat was sitting on top of the almost full paste-board box next to the bandstand. It was smashed a bit on the crown, but otherwise in pretty good shape. Out of curiosity, I idly poked through the rest of the items—sunglasses; jewelry; hats, cheap plastic wallets; a red, fuzzy stuffed bear, a harmonica. There was even a single black patent leather boot whose story I wasn’t sure I wanted—or needed—to know.
“Find what you was looking for?” the woman asked. She was filling the dimestore salt and pepper shakers from huge, restaurant supply—size containers. Her white bar towel apron was clean, but stained pink and pale gold in front.
I held up Wade’s hat. “Yeah, thanks.” I started to walk out, then turned back to the woman. “Were you working last night?”
She picked up a salt shaker, studied it with the slow, careful movements of a person with a hangover or too little sleep. “Why?”
I walked back over to her. “I was just wondering if you saw the fight last night?”
“Which one?”
Good question. “Uh, both, I guess.”
She set the salt shaker down and parked her hands on her bony hips. “Look, I know who you are. Tony told me the whole story about your brother-in-law, and I saw you come get him last night. Like I told the cops this morning, all I saw was that guy you was dragging outta here argue with the young cowboy who got himself killed. A couple of the regulars told them to take it outside, and they did. Then you came and picked the older cowboy up. That’s all I know.” She wiped the backs of her hands on her towel-apron. “That’s all I want to know.”
“What about the first fight?”
“Between the guy that got killed and the Mexican guy?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged and picked up the blue container of Morton salt. “There was some yelling, and one of the bouncers told them to take it outside. I never saw any blows inside here. The blond cowboy came back ‘bout a half hour later, but I never saw the Mexican the rest of the night.” She looked at me with bulbous,
bloodshot eyes. “ ’Course, that don’t mean he didn’t come back or that he wasn’t waiting for the blond dude outside somewhere. Seen it happen before. Reckon I’ll see it again.”
“Well, thanks,” I said, not knowing what else I could ask her that could possibly help Wade. All I had so far was that Parker and Olivia had been here and that possibly Bobby could have ambushed Kip later. I wondered if the bar lady had told the police the same thing she told me.
I started to walk toward the door when the lady called, “Wait.” She motioned at me to come back. “I have a question for you. You know that girl who was killed? The one who took pictures?”
I nodded.
“She was a real nice girl. She used to come here all the time when she was out taking pictures. Sometimes that cowboy who was killed was with her. Sometimes she was alone. She always left a good tip and always asked after my dogs. I have three dachshunds.” The woman stared down at her chipped nails. “I told the police everything I knew. Everything I just told you, but if your brother-in-law did it, I hope they put him away for good. Electric chair good.”
“He didn’t,” I said coldly and turned my back on her.
“For good,” she called after me.
It took a few minutes for the sick feeling in my stomach to subside before I started the truck. Though, next to Gabe, he was the last person I felt like seeing right then, I decided to take Wade his hat. He’d probably be working outside with Daddy all day and need the protection. But, I firmly told myself, if Gabe is still there, you are driving right on by. I wasn’t ready to talk about what happened between him and Wade. There was no doubt that Wade had provoked Gabe, and it would have taken a saint not to have reacted. There was also no doubt that before I handed Wade his hat, he was going to get a large piece of my mind. What I had to say to Gabe would take a little more contemplation.
Fortunately Gabe’s truck was gone, and the front yard was empty and quiet. I walked around to the back of the house and headed straight for the barn. Wade was alone inside, cleaning tack—something Daddy always made me, my Uncle Arnie, and many of his young ranch hands do to make us contemplate the sin of thoughtless anger. The Ramsey Ranch was known for having the cleanest tack in the county. In the background, KCOW played softly on an old red plastic radio—Terry Clark crooned “Poor, poor, pitiful me.”
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