by R. P. Dahlke
Right. Get some sleep. My life had been threatened by murderous kidnappers, and Caleb drops the idea on me that maybe Marshal Bathrop hasn’t told him everything, and then leaves. What was going on? Did Nancy know?
I couldn’t possibly wait until morning to ask her, so after brushing my teeth I clicked on the light from floor lamp next to her cot. Two shots of scotch, and the girl was dead to the world. Her hand and a leg were hanging off the edge and there was some drool on the corner of her open mouth. In the harsh light of the floor lamp she looked like a corpse.
I don’t know why I did it or what I would do with it, but I got out my cell phone and took a picture of her. Should I show it to Pearlie? It would certainly cheer my cousin to see her competition looking this bad. No, that didn’t seem fair. Not when Pearlie had her grandmother and Mad Dog. Nancy had no one. I would leave that nest of vipers alone, and put the cell in my purse.
Over her snores, I called her name again, and lucky for me, she rolled over to her other side, the snoring stopped, and I finally went to sleep.
Chapter Nine:
With a career as an ag-pilot, I seldom slept beyond four or five, and that included winters as well as summers—it was all the same to me. The only time I was likely to sleep in was if I was satiated from a nice long leisurely night with Caleb. Those nights had been few and far between. I rolled out of bed, overtired, cranky, and edgy. Something told me I was going to remain like this until my wedding night.
I took out the cell and stared at the image I’d taken of Nancy last night, her hair hanging over her deathly white face, her arm dangling over the cot. Dead to the world. I wasn’t sure how or when it might be useful, but I e-mailed it to my computer, then deleted it off my cell, and tucked my latest round of self-pity back where it should be—deep inside along with all the other obsessive anxieties that caused me not to sleep at night.
On the other side of the wall, I heard the muted voices of my Aunt Mae and Pearlie talking. Pearlie said something and Aunt Mae let out a squawk. Then footsteps pounded to my door.
“Told you she’d be awake,” said Aunt Mae, opening the door enough to slip inside. Pearlie shrugged her shoulders as if to apologize for her inability to hold on to her granny.
Without the wig and makeup, the wispy, white hair was a striking contrast to her finely sculptured bones and her attractive wide mouth. She sat down on the bedspread, and taking my hand in hers, said, “You brave, brave girl.”
“Well, I don’t know—”
“Of course you are! And to think I slept through the whole thing. Those sleeping pills, you know. Was it awful, my darling girl?”
“Well—uh—”
“You only winged the bastard?”
I opened my mouth to say I was aiming for his balls, but she beat me to it. “I’m sorry. Lalla dear, I don’t mean to criticize. You haven’t handled a pistol in years, and when are you going to get the chance to practice? Certainly not here in liberal-land California. We’ll do something about that. A little practice with some tin cans should improve your aim—in case he comes back.”
“Well—”
“I just wish it could’ve been me instead of you, poor lamb. ’Course I’m a mite rusty. I haven’t shot a man in ten years or so.”
Ten years? I was hoping her math or her memory was off, but then I should be so lucky to have her eyesight at ninety. Twenty years ago it was a thieving poacher she’d finally cornered while he was loading up one of her prize yearlings. The time before that was husband number two, or was it number three? Buckshot and a quick divorce. It was always heartwarming to think that my great-aunt Mae and I had so much in common.
Pearlie patted her grandmother on the shoulder. “We should let her and Nancy get dressed,” she said, nodding as Nancy stood up, groaned, and head in hands, lurched for the bathroom.
Aunt Mae tsked. “Hung over? Liquor won’t fix that poor girl’s problems. Breakfast. That’s what she needs. Pearlie will fix it, won’t you, darlin’?”
Aunt Mae and Pearlie left me to pull on last night’s clothes, and as they passed by the bathroom, I heard Pearlie stop and rap on the door. “Pancakes and sausage in fifteen minutes!”
Pearlie laughed at her ability to start up another round of retching. Her granny scolded her, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Pearlie simply couldn’t resist.
<><><><>
I was getting coffee when my dad walked into the kitchen, pushing his shirttail into his pants, his white, flyaway hair uncombed, and his eyes bleary from lack of sleep.
Aunt Mae sniffed at his disheveled appearance. “You sure you don’t want to go upstairs and try again, Noah?”
“I’m as dressed as I’ll ever be and you’re not my mama, thank you very much,” he groused, then smiled at the steaming pile of pancakes and peach preserves stacked up on the kitchen table alongside the sausage.
“Pearlie, I do believe you’ve outdone yourself this morning. And considering last night’s fiasco, I’m glad to have a hearty meal before I spend the rest of my day repairing a broken window.”
Aunt Mae sniffed at the napkin stuck into the neck of his shirt, but that didn’t keep him from throwing himself into his breakfast.
I really should have Pearlie move in with my dad, I thought. She could take the scary out of him.
The phone rang, which normally would send my dad into a ripping line about how he couldn’t get any peace with the phone ringing all day long. However, he was remarkably silent on the subject. Instead, he pushed back his chair, readjusted his belt to a bigger hole, and said, “I think Bruce and I better get a walk in before I tackle the broken window.”
Pearlie was looking better to me every day.
I scooted back my chair and answered the wall phone. It was Caleb. “You have an appointment with Detective Rodney at ten today. You and Nancy want to come by my office first? Marshal Balthrop is here and he’s asked to see her.”
I interpreted his words to mean that something was afoot and I was going to get to listen in, ’cause Caleb knew better than to exclude me. My chest swelled with pride. Though I wasn’t exactly a member of the police force, I was an asset, and a good partner to his investigation—at least that’s what I told myself. “We’ll be there at nine-thirty sharp. No problem.”
Nancy got as far as the kitchen door, turned an unspeakable shade of green, did an about-face, and took off for the stairs. I could tell that she made it to the bathroom, because I heard the toilet flush. I got some crackers out of the cupboard and went up to see if I could get her presentable before we had to leave for town.
“What most people don’t know is,” I said, wiping her face with a cold rag, “the secret to drowning your sorrows in drink isn’t the booze, it’s the hangover. From where you sit, hugging that toilet bowl, last night doesn’t look so bad now, does it? See? I can tell you feel better already.”
She grabbed the edge of the toilet and heaved until the bowl echoed with her sobs.
“Okay, maybe not just yet. But Marshal Balthrop is waiting for us at Caleb’s office so we better get moving.”
She wiped her mouth. “Jim’s in Modesto? Today?” Her red-rimmed eyes widened and she staggered to her feet to look in the mirror. Shaken by her reflection, she started crying again.
I patted her shoulder again. “You look pretty pitiful right now, but you’re young enough that you won’t look so bad in another hour. So, first things first.” I turned the shower on and helped her strip down.
It took all of an hour before she was clear-headed and no longer laying claim to the only toilet in the house. Juanita was still in Bakersfield, so it was up to me to see that the bathroom got a complete scrub down and once again smelling like a bowl full of cherries.
<><><><>
Caleb was waiting for us outside his office. He greeted me with a tight nod and took Nancy’s elbow and ushered her into his office. The marshal stood up. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. There was also a tension between the two men, a disagreement
, or something that was putting them on edge.
Caleb indicated a seating arrangement that included Nancy next to him and Marshal Balthrop on the other side of the table. Jim ignored Caleb and seated himself next to Nancy.
I looked from Caleb to Jim Balthrop to Nancy.
Nancy touched the marshal lightly on his wrist. The gesture melted his glower by a few degrees. Neither of them noticed when Caleb tipped an eyebrow in my direction that said, You were right. He is sweet on her. I answered with a quick nod.
“What is it, Jim?” she asked. “You can tell me. Did I poison Arthur with that oleander after all?”
He patted her hand. “Don’t worry about that damn oleander anymore, will you? We have a bigger problem. I spent most of last night going over everything this case had, and I think it’s time you told them your relationship with your godfather.”
“My godfather?” Nancy blanched. “Why? Is it going to be important?”
“Tell them everything, and I’ll fill in the blanks. Go on.”
She looked at me and then at Caleb. “The truth is my godfather was a gay man living a double life. His wife might as well have been a cardboard cutout, his sons were adopted, and he had a boyfriend he kept in an apartment on the other side of town.”
I said, “Does this involve some sort of blackmail?”
“Yes, but not because he was gay.”
Jim cut in. “We pieced most of her godfather’s background together after the fact. But this is what we know so far: after a brief stint in the Army he went AWOL and disappeared. His family was wealthy, so he could’ve slipped across the border and gone anywhere. He resurfaced twelve years later with a new identity. And with money funneled to him through his family’s lawyers, he was able to buy a small hotel/casino.”
“My godfather’s secret identity made him the perfect patsy for a takeover by his unscrupulous partners. He got a much needed infusion of cash, and they got the perfect setup to launder their money. But I had to go and tell him the truth.” Nancy slumped in her chair, biting on a cuticle.
“So they used his secret life to control his casino, but why is this relevant now?” I asked.
Jim answered for Nancy. “There’s more. Tell them, Nancy.”
“My godfather was still alive when they took him to the hospital, and he needed a blood transfusion. His wife was frantic that I get there in time to donate blood, and of course I rushed to the hospital—he was the nearest thing I had to family. I knew this was out of character for her, but sometimes tragedies like this bring people together, you know? He died as they were taking my blood. At the funeral, she was back to her cold, distant self, which only made me feel guiltier. If only I hadn’t told him what his partners were up to.
“Then when the boys were in that horrible car accident, I went to the hospital to see her. One of the boys was still alive and I offered to donate blood again, but she just pushed me away. They both died, and then she committed suicide.”
Jim cleared his throat. “The boys were adopted, but they could take a universal blood donor. Nancy and her godfather were AB negative.”
Caleb said, “I take it AB negative is rare?”
“Yes,” Jim said, “and most people can accept blood platelets for surgery, but for a major blood loss, the AB negative people need the same type blood for a transfusion.”
I stared at Nancy, remembering our conversation about her mom and a cold speculum. “You had the same blood type because your godfather was your mom’s sperm donor!”
“Yes, and Jim was adamant that this remain a secret until my godfather’s partners were convicted.”
“If I could discover the connection between Nancy and her godfather,” Jim said, “so could they.”
I mentally tallied the bodies. Except for a biological daughter, his family members were all dead. “Then Nancy is her godfather’s only living heir?”
“Unless they can get to her.”
“So last night’s kidnapping was the real deal. They intend to kill her, too.”
Nancy sighed. “I don’t think my godfather ever considered how ruthless these men were.”
“Jim,” I asked, “even without Arthur, don’t you have enough to prove these guys murdered her godfather to hide their money laundering?”
“Arthur’s testimony was critical to the case. The charges now have been dropped for lack of evidence. Of course, if we could find this Jack Lee Carton guy, get him to roll on his bosses, we’d have the proof we need to put them away for life.”
Nancy sighed. “It was my fault that my godfather was murdered, not Arthur’s.”
“That’s not true, Nancy,” Jim said. “These men have a long history of criminal activity, and your godfather and his family would’ve been eliminated at some point. They got to Arthur at the barbeque and planned to kidnap you, thinking you would be easy pickings. Thank God Lalla proved them wrong.” He looked and me. “You’re a real scrapper, Miss Bains, and I have no doubt that the man they sent to get Nancy is now fully aware of that fact. Not that it will keep him from continuing to try, but I think it would be best if Nancy and I were in a motel where I can protect her.”
“Then she’s back in the program?” I asked.
Jim scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I tried, but that’s not the way they work. It’s so much bureaucratic bullshit, and she still needs protection, so I’m taking some vacation time. I can’t, I won’t, leave her alone to be kidnapped and killed.”
Nancy swallowed, unable to hold back her tears. “Jim, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help, but I don’t want you going out on a limb for me.”
“Somebody has to watch out for you.”
Nancy clasped his hand tightly as she searched his face. “Are you sure you want to put your career on the line for a woman who may be charged with murdering her husband?”
He put his hand over hers and looking into her eyes said, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
I looked at my watch. “What if the detective thinks he has enough evidence to arrest Nancy for her husband’s murder?”
Jim kept Nancy’s hand in his. “Neither Caleb nor I believe this meeting with the detective is anything other than another go round with Nancy as a person of interest. And until the final toxicology report comes back, we don’t even know how he was killed. I’ll talk to the detective. See if I can’t make him see beyond his big fat nose.”
Caleb raised a cautionary hand. “Be careful with that, Jim. Don’t let him see you have any personal interest in Nancy, or he’ll use it against you and you won’t get any more information from him.”
I said, “I have to agree, Jim. There’s no reason for Nancy to be stuck in a motel. There’s no safer place for her than at our ranch. The house is surrounded by open land, and between my dad’s shotgun and my Texas relatives, we can keep anyone at bay for as long as needed.”
Caleb said, “I can double the patrol on the ranch.”
Then I had an idea. “And you should stay at our house too, Jim. We’ve got a downstairs TV room with a nice big couch nobody’s using. You’d be our first line of defense. What do you say?”
His eyes went from mine to flicker on Nancy and then back again. “I was going to get a couple of hotel rooms in Modesto for us, but I think you’re right. Your place would be safer than a motel—that is, if your dad doesn’t mind another houseguest.”
“I can assure you, he’ll be glad to have another male at the dinner table.” I was smiling when I said it, but I had no idea how my dad was going to take having another house guest.
I said to Nancy, “With Jim there, we’ll get to the bottom of Arthur’s death, you’ll see.”
“If you say so. Then let’s go meet with the detective.”
Chapter Ten:
On the other side of our neighbor’s peach orchard, someone was burning wood from fall pruning. The gray smoke coiled up to the ceiling of cooler air and trailed lazily towards the south. I sat on the front porch, a glass of i
ce tea in my hand, while I allowed my thoughts to drift along with the smoke.
Yesterday’s meeting with Detective Rodney went as predicted: Rodney blustered and threatened a possible murder charge, but with no concrete evidence, Nancy was once again confirmed as my houseguest.
Caleb and I agreed to keep Nancy’s biological relationship to her godfather a secret unless it became vital to her safety. I’d called home to alert my dad to expect another place at the dinner table for at least a few more nights.
His reaction was silence. Then he asked, “Will he need to sleep in my room?”
“I thought we’d put him in the TV room.”
“Well, of course. He’s a trained U.S. marshal, he’d know the best line of defense against a threat. Then I’ll move back into my bedroom. I’ll keep my shotgun by the open door. No one will get past the two of us.”
I sighed with relief and hung up. Though he would never admit it, I could hear the pride in his voice. He was now part of a SWAT team, and I could envision his chest swelling when he told Shirley he couldn’t spend the night because he had sentry duty.
Light footsteps behind me said my houseguest wasn’t able to nap this afternoon, either. “Want a refill on that ice tea?”
I held up the half-full glass. “How’s Jim settling in?”
While Nancy poured she filled me in. “Jim’s set up a command post in your dad’s TV room, and he’s just finished rigging the exterior of the house for the remote cameras. Nobody’s getting past Jim Balthrop.”
She sat down next to me in one of the two old wicker chairs. “I hope I didn’t keep you awake all night. I’m sorry, but I just don’t seem to be able to sleep anymore.”
“I’ve got some really boring gardening catalogues you can read. Aunt Mae sends them every spring. If you ask, I’ll bet she has some in her suitcase, guaranteed to put you to sleep.”
“Lalla, what do you think my chances are?”
I put down the glass and turned, causing the old wicker chair to complain loudly. “Did you kill Arthur?”
I didn’t think her face could pale any further, but it did.” Of course not. I thought you said you believed me.”