A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge

by Terry Shames

  “I don’t know what you want to talk about,” I say, “but I don’t mind telling you I’m worried about something you might be able to shed some light on.” I describe the nasty little tricks someone has been playing at Jenny’s place, ending up with the attack on Truly Bennett.

  He pulls his tie loose and flings himself back in his chair. “Shed light? I can tell you who is most likely responsible. I tried to warn Jenny this might happen. But she’s so stubborn, she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Is that what you two were arguing about at the hospital?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Tell me who you think is behind the attacks.”

  He sips his coffee, reaches over for a packet of sugar, tears it open, and pours it into the cup. “Ten years ago when Jenny had just started working in the DA’s office, she prosecuted a man by the name of Scott Borland and got him sent away for manufacturing methamphetamine. Recently, his son Jett was in court. Somebody heard him threaten to get even with Jenny for sending his daddy to prison. Scott just got out on parole, and I wouldn’t put it past the two of them to go after Jenny.”

  “You told her this? What was her reaction?”

  “She thinks she can handle every damn thing herself. These are lowlifes, Mr. Craddock. I don’t know whether the son has it in him to do serious harm, but his daddy is a whole different animal.” He turns his coffee cup around and around in his hands as he talks.

  “Letting the horses out was one thing, but like I told you, the situation has been escalating. It’s time I got to the bottom of it.”

  “I hope you can catch Borland. But be careful. He’s a bad number. He’s a lethal combination of mean and stupid. I’m really worried that Jenny doesn’t get how serious it is. When I try to talk to her about it, she blows me off.” He drains the rest of his coffee and stares into the cup, his expression bleak.

  I tell him that Jenny has at least hired a local man to watch the horses at night.

  By now Landreau’s face is full on flushed. “Jenny thinks I’m overreacting, and maybe I am, but I don’t want anything to happen to her or to those horses she’s so crazy about.”

  “That’s two of us. She’s a good friend to me. One more thing. You said the boy, Jett, was in court. I take it he wasn’t convicted.”

  Landreau snorts. “Oh, he wasn’t on trial. He sued one of his neighbors for killing his dog. Dog attacked the neighbor’s daughter. Lucky the man was there and managed to kill the dog before it did any real damage. As it was, the girl had to have twenty stitches in her leg. But that didn’t make any difference to Jett Borland. He sued the guy. Case got thrown out, which probably didn’t improve his temper much.”

  “I’m glad we talked. It gives me something to go on. I’ll try to get some fingerprints off the piece of pipe used to attack Truly Bennett. If the prints belong to either of the Borlands, I’ve got a case for getting them off the street.”

  “If it was the Borlands who attacked him, Bennett is lucky he lived to tell the tale. Both of them are white supremacists.”

  “You have any idea how I can find them?”

  Landreau shakes his head. “But the lawmen from Bobtail will, and be sure to take one of them with you if you go looking for them.”

  “Can you send me over a copy of photos of the father and son so I can get a look at who I’m dealing with?”

  “I brought some with me.” He opens his briefcase and hands me two mug shots. Both Scott and Jett look like TV’s idea of a bad guy. Scott’s teeth are terrible, half of them rotted out, most likely from using meth. His hair is long and stringy, and cold eyes look out from under an overslung brow. Jett has the same chilly eyes and the same low brow, but at least for now his teeth are intact and his hair is only a little shaggy. Now I know what they look like.

  The desk deputy at Bobtail Police Headquarters refers me to Wallace Lyndall, a hound dog–looking man over fifty. He’s wearing black-rimmed glasses and a crew cut that makes him look like a TV character from the ‘60s. At first he’s skeptical of my interest in the Borlands. He’s pretty sure my plan to roust out father and son won’t work for one reason or another. It’s hard to tell whether he genuinely has a problem with the idea of questioning them, or if his personal style simply means saying no first and revising his stance later. But I make it clear that I’m going after them—with or without him.

  It’s hard to step into another jurisdiction to rein in someone who is up to no good. If the Borlands lived in Jarrett Creek, I’d most likely have known them my whole life—known their families, their cronies, their past, and what they are up to now. I might even have been able to predict their future with fair accuracy. This is the kind of information I’ll have to get from Lyndall if I can light a fire under him.

  Lyndall says he’s too busy to go off with me this afternoon, so we arrange to meet tomorrow morning to approach the Borlands.

  “I have something else I want to ask you,” I tell him. “You’ve been here at the Bobtail PD a long time?”

  “Over thirty years.”

  “Maybe you remember something about a man who walked out on his family? Howard Sandstone? His wife was a schoolteacher.”

  “That would be Vera Sandstone, who died last week?”

  “That’s right. I’m wondering if they ever filed a missing persons report.”

  He strokes his chin, pondering my question. “I don’t remember the details, but it seems to me it wasn’t his family that reported him missing—it was the guy he worked for. There was something funny about the whole thing, but I’m damned if I remember what happened. Let me look up the file and refresh my memory. I’ll get back to you.”

  After I leave Lyndall, I drive by to scout out the Borland place. According to Lyndall’s information, Borland has moved in with his son since leaving prison. Jett’s house, up on cinder blocks, hasn’t seen a coat of paint since it was built, and the windows are hung with venetian blinds, not one of which is straight. If they use the fireplace, they’re courting asphyxiation, because half the chimney’s bricks are missing. There are at least two unusable cars rusting in the long dirt driveway, and behind them is an old white Chevy that looks an awful lot like the one I saw sitting outside Jenny’s house. I’m tempted to stop in and have a chat with them, but my smarter side prevails. Tomorrow will have to do.

  As I drive slowly by the house, a pair of scroungy dogs come scrabbling out from under the porch and take out after my truck howling and barking, as if they’ve been stung in the backside. I wonder how we’re going to get past them tomorrow.

  I’m on my way home when I get a call from Bill Odum. “We’ve got a problem, Chief. One of Ellen Forester’s neighbors called a half hour ago to say there’s a commotion at her house. Zeke went to see what was going on, and he says it sounds like her ex-husband is tearing up her place.”

  “I’m only ten minutes away. I’ll meet you there. And put in a call to Texas Rangers headquarters. Tell them we may have a hostage situation on our hands.”

  “I don’t think it’s gone that far.” Odum sounds startled.

  “He’s caused enough trouble. It’s time we put some muscle into letting him know we’re not going to tolerate his harassment.”

  CHAPTER 12

  When I drive up to Ellen Forester’s house in my truck, Zeke Dibble is standing outside on the sidewalk next to one of our two patrol cars. “Highway patrol says they can’t send anybody out unless we’re sure somebody’s being held hostage.”

  “That’s okay. We’ll take care of it.”

  Bill Odum arrives, and I wait for him to join us before I ask Zeke to fill us in.

  Zeke hooks a thumb toward the house. “Neighbors next door say the ex drove up and jumped out of the car and banged on Mrs. Forester’s door, yelling out for her. When she opened the door, he forced his way inside. Then they heard him hollering and heard some crashing sounds from inside the house. That’s when they called down to the station. I talked to the neighbors when I got here and asked them to st
ay indoors.”

  “All right, let’s go see if we can settle this amicably,” I say. We all know it isn’t likely. I had a standoff with Seth the first time I met him, when he came to order Gabe LoPresto to stop work on a house LoPresto was renovating for Ellen. The fact that it was Ellen’s place didn’t seem to keep Seth from horning in. And since then we’ve had two other confrontations. I’m not sure what he hopes to get out of creating an uproar. It’s clear that Ellen has no intention of going back to him. If I thought it was love driving him, I’d feel sorry for him, but all I sense is a pure need for power over a woman who finally got up the courage to leave him.

  Flanked by Zeke and Bill Odum, I knock on the door, not expecting an answer, but I hear footsteps and the door crashes open. Seth Forester is a big man, and his rage makes him look larger. His neck is bulging and his face crimson.

  Behind me Bill Odum says, “Whew” under his breath.

  “What do you want?” Forester thunders.

  “I’d like to have a word with Ellen,” I say in as calm a manner as I can, given that I’d like to yank the man out of the house and march him down the steps. Tarring and feathering always seemed like an extreme punishment to me, but at the moment it seems like a fair way to handle this man.

  “A word with Ellen?” He mimics me.

  “If it’s not too much trouble. I’d like to make sure everything’s okay.”

  “Everything is fine and dandy,” he snarls. He starts to close the door. I may have several years on him, but my reaction time is still pretty quick. I slam my hand into the door. He’s not expecting it, and it shoves him backward. “What the hell?”

  I put my hand on my gun, which makes him notice that I’m armed. I seldom feel the need to have a gun, but this is one of those times. “Get Ellen out here,” I say.

  Forester twists his head to the side and yells, “Ellen! You’ve got company!”

  Ellen approaches the door, but hangs back, eyeing her ex-husband. Her face is dead white.

  Forester says, “Tell this phony lawman that everything is fine and that we don’t need his help.”

  “Ellen, I’d like a word with you out here on the porch,” I say before she can make some excuse. “Sir, I want you to step back.”

  “Ellen, tell him.” There’s no mistaking the threat in his voice.

  She eases past him onto the porch. She looks like a whipped dog.

  “Tell the truth,” I say.

  She swallows. “Thank you for coming.” She looks at the man whom she divorced not that long ago, and something passes across her face. It’s as if she is taking a few seconds to relive their history—the good as well as the bad. “Seth has been tearing things up and I want him out of here.” Her voice is almost a whisper.

  Forester’s fists clench. “For Christ’s sake! What is wrong with you? If you’d just answer my phone calls, I wouldn’t have to come and find out what’s going on in this godforsaken hole.”

  I turn to Zeke Dibble. “Take her to the street,” I say.

  “Ma’am,” Dibble says, “it’s best if you come with me.”

  “She’s not going anywhere!” Before they’ve gotten three steps, Forester charges out of the house and grabs Zeke Dibble by the arm.

  I haven’t seen Dibble in action much, and I’m gratified when he slams his hand down across Seth Forester’s arm. “Get your hands off me!”

  I step behind Forester and grab his other arm and yank it behind him. It’s a futile gesture. The man is bull-strong and he snatches it away. But by this time Bill Odum has stepped up. He puts one hand on his weapon and the other on Seth Forester’s chest. “You need to get yourself under control,” he says. I like the quiet authority in his voice. Odum told me that at the police academy they warned him that he was too interested in the psychology side of law enforcement, but his words have a better effect than a confrontational tone would have. Forester takes a step backward.

  Neighbors are starting to come out of their houses. It’s time to put a stop to this right now. “I don’t know where you think your aggressive behavior is going to get you,” I say, “but if you don’t settle down right now it’s going to get you a night in jail.”

  Forester mutters something I don’t get, but I let it go. But then he repeats it, louder. “Just try taking me to jail, you two-bit hick.”

  By now Dibble has taken Ellen to the street. She’s standing by the car, head down, arms hugged to herself. Nobody should have to put up with this humiliation. I yank the cuffs off my belt and say, “Put your hands behind your back.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Forester says.

  “Don’t count on it. I’m taking you in to give you the opportunity to rethink your situation.”

  “You are going to have yourself one hell of a lawsuit on your hands. And if I understand it, this town can’t afford anything like that.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I say. My heart is pounding as I slip the cuffs onto him. I don’t remember when I’ve been this angry.

  No matter how much control Forester thinks he has over the situation, he realizes he’s outnumbered and he lets himself be escorted into Odum’s police car. Ellen looks distressed seeing what’s happening, and I send her back into her house before she has a chance to protest. I don’t think I can stand it if she starts defending this bully.

  Dibble assures me that they won’t have any trouble getting Forester into a cell. “With his hands cuffed behind his back, he isn’t going to do much of anything.”

  As soon as they drive away, I head to the front door, which Ellen has left standing open. I call out to tell her that I’m coming inside. She’s sitting in her living room on the sofa, bent over with her head in her hands. She looks up when she hears my footsteps. “He wasn’t always this way,” she says.

  “People change.” I’m in no mood to hear her make excuses for him.

  Somewhere in the house there’s a dog yapping frantically. I glance in that direction.

  She jumps up. “Poor Frazier. I had to put him in the utility room while Seth was here. Seth hates him and the feeling is mutual. I’ll go get him.”

  She returns carrying a medium-sized brown dog of uncertain breed. The dog is trembling in her arms and gives a half-hearted bark in my direction. “It’s okay, Frazier,” she says. “Good boy. Samuel won’t hurt you.” She sits down and puts the dog on the floor, where it huddles next to her leg panting, glaring at me.

  “Rescue dog?” I say.

  “Sort of. When my next-door neighbor died last year, I said I’d take the dog.” She strokes its head. “Seth was furious. Believe it or not, that was the last straw. I thought if he can’t even be kind to a poor dog, what hope is there for me?”

  I don’t reply for a minute as I survey the damage that’s been done. There’s a smashed lamp, a small end table lying on its side, and a broken cup and saucer on the carpet in a puddle of coffee. There are several photos lying on the floor next to an overturned chair. The coffee table is at an odd angle, as if it’s been yanked around.

  “What’s going to happen to Seth?” she says. She’s not looking at me but at the dog, who’s still trembling.

  “Look at what Seth has done,” I say. “He forced his way in here against your will—that’s assault—and then resisted arrest. I don’t understand why you won’t get a restraining order against him.”

  She rubs her forehead. “I just can’t. My children would have a fit. They’re barely speaking to me as it is.”

  “Where are your kids?”

  “My daughter lives in New York, and my son lives in Houston. He’s at the University of Houston getting his MBA.”

  “Have you told them the way he’s been treating you?”

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to bring them into it. Like I said, he didn’t behave like this in the past.”

  “How did they react to your divorce?”

  Her voice is so quiet I can hardly hear her. “My daughter is furious, and my son
Nathan thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

  I’ve been standing at the entrance to the room, not wanting to spook her, but now I walk over and right the upended chair. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Of course not.” She starts to rise. “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

  I gesture for her to stay seated. “Tell me if I’m wrong. Your kids were used to you always going along with your husband, always letting him have his way, never wanting to rock the boat.”

  She doesn’t respond, so I continue. “And something made you take a hard look at things and decide you didn’t want to keep doing that.”

  She nods.

  “You’re not the first person I know who made that decision.” For a short time, when Jeanne was in her early fifties, I thought she was going to do the same. She told me she was restless and felt like she gave in to me too often and she wanted the freedom to do other things. We began to make some bargains and ended up with our marriage being stronger than ever, but that’s not always what happens.

  “You’re right. Seth always put himself first. I felt my life slipping away, never doing what I really wanted to do.” Now she does look at me with a tired smile. “I actually thought he’d understand. I knew we were simply going through the motions in our marriage. I thought he probably felt the same way.” She gestures to the mess he’s made. “You can see how wrong I was.”

  “Has he gotten violent before—I mean, since you told him you were leaving?”

  She hesitates, pink flaring in her cheeks. “Once. He pushed me down. I think he was as shocked as I was.”

  She rises abruptly. “Anyway. The whole thing makes me feel so sordid. You can’t imagine how embarrassed I am.”

  I get up, too. “I’ll take you up on that coffee. You really do need to figure out how you’re going to handle this. I can keep him in jail overnight, but unless you’re willing to press charges, after that I’ll have to turn him loose. Something tells me he’s not ready to give up.”