by David Bishop
* * *
Linda got back to town just as the town center clock bonged four times. She walked around aimlessly, wandering into a few shops. This got her to her planned destination: Vera’s Threads.
When she stepped inside, Vera and a young somewhat heavyset woman appeared to be staring each other down. The woman stood with her hands on her hips, her feet wide enough apart to stretch her mid-thigh skirt. The “V” formed between her legs large enough to allow a child on a hot day to park his tricycle in the shade. They both looked up. The woman dropped her hands to her sides and narrowed her stance, relaxing the pressure on the fabric of her skirt. She walked out. There were no other customers in the store.
“She looked pissed,” she said to Vera.
“One of the gals who regularly fights with her husband—one of Cranston’s more popular local sports. He’s no good. She came in to rant a little in a safe environment. She loves his rough sex, but not much else.”
While they talked, Linda looked around and picked out a few things.
“Your money’s no good in here,” Vera said, “my treat. I haven’t made anything for you since we were kids.”
“Thank you. But that’s not a good idea. I’ll pay cash. I didn’t bring my checkbook on this trip and I don’t want a credit card receipt that Billy can peruse in the Cranston owned bank.”
Vera said she understood.
While sifting through several tops, Linda casually asked, “What’s the story on Dixon Wardley, he’s certainly grown up well, hasn’t he?”
“Dix’s a stud,” Vera said, “a real man.”
“As I recall, he asked me out back in high school, but I said no.”
“Ever wonder how your life might’ve been different if you’d said yes? That man is the most eligible bachelor in town . . . in the county.”
“Funny how the youthful decisions we make, often for little more than to prove independence from our parents, carry such potential to jerk our lives in directions we never would have imagined.” Linda raised her eyebrows and swung her hips in a suggestive, but not wholly ladylike manner.
“Dix had a big time crush on you in those days,” Vera said through the louvered door of the try-on room Linda had entered. “He still does.”
“Oh that’s romantic, but silly. I mean, that was more than twenty years ago.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re here in part to see if you’ve shaken Billy Cranston out of your bustle. And you’re discarding the notion that Dix may have carried the hots for you over those same years. Most people carry a hunk of their first love with them forever, particularly when they never got the deed done.”
Linda stepped out of the dressing room wearing one of Vera’s tops. “So, you’re saying Dixon Wardley has been carrying a torch for yours truly for twenty years?”
“That’s about it, Lin—oops, Carol. If you ever wondered then about how he would’ve fit as a lover, you wouldn’t have to do much encouraging now.”
“He told me he’s never married?”
“Never even got close, people say. Oh, he’s had some flings, but no one serious. Some men are a one-woman man, just as some women are a one-man woman. I know that’s hard to believe when you think of the alley cat type like Billy Cranston. Men like him want to crawl up the skirt of every woman they pass.”
“Billy ever hit on you?” Linda asked.
“That man knows the contempt I hold for him. But he has said things to me. Not to change the subject, but that top looks delicious on you. I guarantee it will make Dix want to watch you take it off. But back to Billy: he’s aware his wife comes in my shop regularly. His cousin, she’s the head of the local post office, also shops here. His dead brother’s wife used to until she moved away. Still does when she comes back for the annual Cranston Christmas bash.”
“I’ll take this one,” Linda said handing another top to Vera, “along with the other two. Can you put them in a bag with your shop’s name on it? I’d like folks who see me to know I’ve been here. That’s a signal we’ve met. What kind of things has Billy said to you?”
“Sexy stuff, all crap ‘cause he knows he holds no fascination for me. Not after I saw him mistreat you, among others, including his own wife. Now, if Dix came around scratching at my door, that’d be different. That man could have put his boots under my bed any night he wanted. Of course, if you take up with him, then no.”
“Now wait, why should I be able to waltz into town and expect you to step aside from pursuing Dix?”
“I’ve been here all these years, so has Dix, off and on, and he has never come calling. Nope. Dix set his course for you a long time ago. He sees other women, nothing regular and with no special meaning. At the same time, he knows you and I were like sisters so, being the kind of man he is, I would never be on his bed list.”
“Let’s get back to Billy. Just what kind of things has he said to you?”
“The last time I had to talk to him, he sat in his chair and said, ‘If you wanna talk to me, put that little moneymaker of yours in that there chair. I don’t talk to any woman who’s standing over me, not unless she’s naked and in high heels.’ ”
They spent another few minutes lambasting Billy Cranston for the cur that he is, and then let it go. Linda paid Vera for the three tops. The last one she selected had a low scoop neck and no sleeves, another with an elastic neckline which easily stretched out off her shoulders, and the third with sleeves that came down just below the elbow.
“So, you’ve been married twice?” Vera asked. When Linda nodded, Vera asked, “What was the most annoying thing about your first husband.”
“He kept breathing.”
After sharing a good laugh, Vera asked, “You were kidding weren’t you?”
“Not a bit.”
“So, he was a bad man?”
“I wouldn’t say he was a bad man, but he fell far short of being a good man.”
“Same question. What was hubby number two’s most annoying trait?”
“He slept with his arms outside the covers while I kept mine under the covers. His arms were big and strong. I liked to sleep on my side near the edge of the bed. His arms pinned me in. I felt shrink-wrapped. I could hardly move.” After answering, Linda’s eyes got big, her lips puckered.
“You really loved him didn’t you?”
Linda’s eyes welled up while she nodded. She didn’t say anything for a few moments while she took in a long, slow breath to regain control of her emotions. Then Linda asked Vera why her Christmas catch-up letter each year was postmarked in Wichita.
“I go to Wichita every so many weeks to buy material and thread. If you don’t know, Billy’s cousin, the gal I mentioned, is our town postmaster, or is it postmistress. Rumors persist that Billy can see any mail he wants before it’s trucked out of town. I guess I was just playing it safe. That way I could say whatever without concern of it getting back to Billy. And Billy couldn’t learn where you were from my envelope.”
“I find the whole town kind of eerie. Everything pretty much looks the way I remember it from when I left twenty years ago. What am I not seeing? Has anything changed?”
Vera billowed her cheeks and blew, then wrinkled her brows. “The only change I can think of at the moment is Mrs. Caruthers is no longer teaching in the high school.”
“My God, Hildegard Caruthers. I haven’t thought of her in years. You know, she was a damn fine teacher.”
“We didn’t know it at the time,” Vera said, “but she sure was. Except for some of our super-seniors, I think that old woman taught nearly every person in these parts.” Vera fussed and tidied up around her store while they talked. “Not counting the few who’ve moved here as adults. I’ll bet she still knows every one of us. Likely better than many of us know ourselves.”
A customer came in so Linda returned to looking through the merchandise. Then Vera called Linda over. “Come meet Martha Cranston, Billy’s wife.”
Martha Cranston stood clutching her purse with both hands,
held in front of her like the proverbial fig leaf. As Linda walked toward them, she heard Martha Cranston say, “Vera, I thought we agreed not to talk about, even refer to, my husband.”
“We did, Martha. We surely did. But we don’t get all that many visitors in town so I thought you’d like to meet Carol Benson. She got in the other day, came in on the mid-day.”
“You’re the woman who was in The Drop when Carlos Molina was shot?”
“Yes. Horrid to see,” Linda said. “I guess you knew Mr. Molina, him working at your family’s feedlot and all.”
“I knew Carlos, but not from the feedlot. That’s for damn sure.”
“Oh? I heard he worked there. I must’ve heard wrong.”
“For the record, you didn’t.”
“I don’t understand, Mrs. Cranston.”
“Please, I prefer to be called Martha, not Mrs. Cranston. Actually I prefer Marta, but only my family calls me that. Billy insists I use Martha. As for Carlos, I’ve said too much already.” She took a package from Vera, smiled at Linda, and walked out.
They were alone again when Linda said, “Her arm was badly bruised. And, I think, she had makeup over a shiner that’s mostly healed. Had she been attacked?”
“Only by her husband,” Vera said.
“Billy beats his wife?”
“Quite often. You were very wise to get away from that man.”
“If a man ever did that to me, I’d drop his ass in a deep hole.”
Vera invited Linda to share some leftovers from her fridge for dinner. While they gathered the food they continued talking.
Vera said, “Martha once said to me, ‘when I first married Billy I would have followed him into Hell. Now I’d prefer he move there without me.’ She sometimes dreams of killing him.”
“Why does she stay with him?”
“As you saw, Martha is a bit plump. Graduating from high school was as far as she went in school and she barely squeezed through that. No real skills to support herself. She is somewhat captive not only to Billy’s domineering manner, but to his lifestyle which provides whatever she needs.”
“Nice, not counting the beatings, that is.”
“And not mentioning the verbal abuse and his womanizing.”
“Not to pick on the woman, but she looked as if she’d been drinking?”
“Only on the days that end in ‘Y.”
“She struck me as a very unhappy woman.”
“You got that right,” Vera said. “Now, before Martha came in we were talking about Hildegard Caruthers.”
“Did Mrs. Caruthers die?”
“No. Her husband died. He was some years older. After forty-five years of teaching here, she was fully vested in the state teachers’ retirement fund, so she retired when he passed. She lives upstairs over the pharmacy. She and her husband owned that building free and clear, now she does. It’s one of the few buildings in the heart of town that isn’t owned by the Cranstons. A concession Billy’s papa made many years ago to get Mr. Caruthers to set up his druggist business in Cranston. The current druggist pays rent to her. That rental income, social security, and her teacher’s pension keep her quite comfortable. She seems to be in good health, although, I rarely see her. She has her groceries delivered. Now and again I notice her sitting in her window over the drugstore and we wave. From there she can watch pretty much whatever goes on in town, at least in the center of it. I think that’s her main activity, keeping track, in a fashion, of everyone she helped raise.”
“I’d love to see her after all these years. So many things in Cranston look different through my eyes as an adult rather than as a teen. I’m guessing Ms. Caruthers would as well.”
“Just be careful, some people in town think she’s a witch. Mostly that comes from a couple of nasty women she flunked in school.”
Chapter Nine
On some level Billy recognized something about me
TUESDAY
A tapping on the window woke Linda before her alarm went off, a hard, continuing tapping. She was not on the ground floor and her room had no balcony. She could only imagine handfuls of gravel thrown by mischievous children. She pushed aside the drape to see hailstones big enough to be recognizable in the air hurdling toward the window of her hotel room. She had fallen asleep to the whistle of a hard wind and woke up to a hailstorm—welcome home sarcastically pecked out in Morse code.
By nine, the weather had mercifully backed off to a light rain. She entered the hotel coffee shop a few minutes later. Like the morning before, Billy Cranston walked up to her table. He apologized for having been rude the prior morning, and asked if he could sit down, offering breakfast on the house.
Linda knew Cranston was not the kind of man to be polite in his town unless he was manipulating. She motioned for him to sit, more out of curiosity than for the complimentary eats.
“May I say that’s a lovely outfit you’re wearing this morning, Ms. Benson.”
“Thank you. It’s new. I found it yesterday in one of your local shops. Business was slow, which gave me the opportunity to chat with the owner. Vera . . . I forget her last name. Nice lady. We talked about getting together for drinks or perhaps dinner.
“Cunningham. Ah, Vera’s last name is Cunningham. Then you’ll be staying around town a while longer?”
“I think so. The murder has me fascinated. I like your town. Of course, I hope there are no more homicides.”
She knew full well she held no carryover interest in Billy Cranston. She had known that the instant she first saw him in The Drop. His boorish pushy manner had turned her off. Her core certainly no longer vibrated when he came near. She could only imagine that in her youth she was drawn to his access to things she never had while growing up. His capacity to go, or to do, as well as to buy, without first having to count his pennies.
After breakfast, Billy thanked her for the company and left.
Linda felt that on some level Billy had recognized something about her. During breakfast she had kept her eyes on his and was certain he got up knowing no more than when he sat down.
After breakfast she went out to her rental car. She had expected to see dents from the hail, but other than being wet from the rain, the car was unfazed. An hour later, the rain clouds had cleared out. She drove past a country house she had passed the day before. The place had a fairly large parking lot that held about a dozen cars and several pickup trucks. There was a man on the porch sitting in a rocker facing the lot, a large black man, not a rural farm worker. He swung his head to the side following each car that drove by, his dreads swinging around the way a tetherball circles a pole. The motion not only allowed him a quick look at the passing traffic, but also kept flies off his locks. The entire scene seemed as out of place as a city slicker wearing bib overalls at a country hoedown.
She continued wandering this way and that until she found herself driving past her mother’s home, the one she would inherit. Assuming she was still being observed, she approached the property in a way which suggests a chance drive-by. The place looked pretty much as she remembered. The small front yard had been recently mowed. Weeds were starting to attack her mother’s rose beds. The place looked a bit foreboding, not Bates Motel eerie, but not much more inviting. Right then she decided to definitely sell it after obtaining the deed.
* * *
At eleven, Sheriff Blackstone walked into Billy Cranston’s office above the Cranston Bank & Trust. After the sheriff fixed himself a branch-water and bourbon, Billy raised an empty glass so Blackstone made a fresh scotch and water for Billy.
“I took another look around out at your burned up barn. I found this right where the fire chief told me the blaze started.” The sheriff passed a small blackened item to Billy.
After turning the item over in his hand, Billy looked up at the sheriff. “It’s a lighter, Reggie, a freaking lighter.”
The sheriff displayed one of those facial expressions we take on when we can’t find the words to confirm the obvious. “I’m guessing
the arsonist dropped it in the act of lighting the hay piled up at the back of your barn, then, with the fire growing, he had to skedaddle without it before he was seen.”
Billy got up and went to the bar. “Okay. So what?” He used a damp cloth to wipe the black from the lighter off his hand. “You got any idea how many smokers work on the ranch and at the feedlot?”
“This ain’t no blue-collar worker’s cheap-ass lighter, Billy. There’s only a couple stores in town that sell nice lighters. Maybe one of them will remember who bought it. Then again, the person who dropped it could have had it for years or picked it up out of town. Still, it’s more than we had. I oughta let it play out.”
Billy carefully picked up the lighter and tossed it across his desk toward the sheriff who picked it up. “All right, Mr. Investigator. Now, let’s turn our attention to this Benson dame. What have you found out?”
“She drove out of town in a rental an hour or so ago. I’ve got people keeping a loose watch on her.”
“I had breakfast with her again this morning and I’m more convinced than ever. She’s been here before or I’ve run across her somehow.” Billy gulped the last of his drink, got up and again returned to the small bar. “You ready for another?”
The sheriff chugged his glass empty. “Sure, same, on ice.”
While Billy poured their drinks, the sheriff asked, “I saw your car in town late last night, anything wrong?”
“Nothing. Just having a late quickie with truf—Jasmine.”
“She’s that young black woman with the small waist and big ass who works in your bank, right?”
“That’s her.”
Billy handed the sheriff his drink, who asked, “What did you start to call her? You stopped yourself and used her formal name.”
“This isn’t to get out. Understood?” Sheriff Blackstone nodded. Billy continued. “I call her Truffles. To be more precise, she’s my chocolate truffle with a soft, creamy center.”
The two men clinked glasses while chuckling and each took a drink.
“Boss, you think you should be rolling around with a black chick? It’s no secret you want a son, but you don’t want no breed, do ya?”