Hometown Secrets

by David Bishop

  “You seem to know an awful lot about this stuff, Mr. Wardley.”

  “A guy picks things up, Ms. Benson, if he keeps his eyes and ears open.”

  “What else can you tell me about the town’s house of ill repute?”

  “Not much. Oh, Carlos Molina was a bouncer in the joint, he worked off the books.”

  “The man who was shot?” Linda asked. Dix nodded. “I thought he worked for Cranston, in his feedlot?”

  “Carlos Molina came and went pretty much as he chose. He’d be gone from town for a week or two several times a year. The feedlot job was a front designed to let Cranston deduct Molina’s bouncer pay as a business expense. That arrangement allowed Molina to pay his taxes and participate in Social Security. In short, it gave the appearance that everything was all neat and legal.”

  “That explains it.”

  “What?”

  “The bartender at The Drop told me Carlos often came in for a beer on his way to work. When he was shot he was dressed business casual, not feedlot laborer.”

  “It’s a small town, Carol. There aren’t really any secrets. Well, there are, but not too many, if you pay attention.”

  “Okay, let me try you on something else.” She looked at Dix. He smiled and raised his eyebrows in a bring-it-on kind of way. “Yesterday, while driving around for a couple hours, I passed a house out on a country road. Don’t recall which one. It’s a paved road, the one that takes you to Lake Cranston. Just before you get to the lake, on the lake side of the road is a big farmhouse with a large, paved parking lot. A heavily muscled guy sat on the front porch. There were about eight cars in the lot along with five or so pickup trucks. No farm workers as far as I could see. No field of crops. No corral of livestock or horses. What’s that place about?”

  “That’s the Cranston Casino. Cards, dice games, slots, and bookmaking for the horse and dog tracks as well as the major sports. A few of the girls from their brothel are allowed to hang around. They add pizzazz and are available if approached by customers, but can’t solicit. People who like to turn a card or roll dice for money come from miles around.”

  “Cranston is a veritable sin city of the prairie. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. This stuff has been going on here for generations. Billy currently controls the sheriff and the local judge. I figure Billy gives the sheriff a cut, maybe the judge too, but I’m less certain on that score—a pretty slick operation.”

  “I’m shocked, no, surprised. Let me change the subject, I’m still curious about why you’ve stayed in Cranston. You’ve left for school and the Marines. Do your parents still live here?”

  “Mom and Dad live near my sister in St. Louis. Dad was hesitant to go. He lived his entire life here. I bought him and my sister’s husband season tickets to the NFL Rams games. That swung it. Dad went.”

  “How long have your folks lived in St. Louis?”

  “About five years now. They’re sold on it. Dad’s really into following the Rams and the Cardinals baseball team. They’re happy.”

  “But you’ve never joined them?” she asked, while pointing at him with a rib bone she’d just finished gnawing. She tossed the bone in the bowl Wendy had put on the table for them to share. Dix placed a bone right on top of hers, took a long drink of beer, and licked a couple of his fingers. For what reason was anyone’s guess because as soon as he quit licking he picked up another sauce covered rib. So did Linda.

  “Ex-school teacher and football coach, who now does handyman work to be able to stay in Cranston? On some level, I’m not buying this. Who are you?”

  “I’m just a footloose single man . . . treading water I suppose, waiting for the next inspiration. Until it comes, the handyman work buys what I need.”

  “So what’s keeping you here?”

  “You aren’t relenting on this, are you?”

  Linda shook her head with her eyebrows raised. “It’s time to spill your story, Mr. Wardley, time to fess up.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a woman. Okay? What else could it be? For what other reason do men behave strangely?”

  “Ah, that last question would take too long to answer.” Linda reached over and squeezed Dix’s forearm and smiled. “So, bottom line, there’s a babe in Cranston you can’t live without. That it?”

  “Not exactly. A woman who used to live here and left. Someday she may come back, likely not. Frankly, I’m getting tired of waiting on the off chance she might.”

  “Why hasn’t she come back? Does she know how you feel?”

  “No, she doesn’t. I tried to date her in high school. She had the hots for another fella, a loser in my mind. I didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was. That’s our complete history. Not much, eh?”

  “Maybe she’s learned her lesson. Maybe you should let her know. Do you know where she is now? What’s her name?”

  “I don’t want this to turn into an evening of advice to the lovelorn. To the contrary, you’re a lovely woman with a very pleasant personality, deserving of my full attention.”

  “And I’m meddling more than I have a right to. Okay. I admit it. We’ll leave that subject alone . . . for now.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Cranston plague

  “Thanks for dinner, Dix,” Linda said. “Tonight was the most fun I’ve had since I got off the train.”

  “My pleasure, Carol. I enjoyed your company. But the night’s not over. As you know, I grew up a boy scout where we were taught to walk a girl home. To be sure she gets in safely.”

  “Sure. And we both know boy scouts grow up to become wolves who want to follow the girls inside and put their boots under her bed.”

  “Only by invitation, Ma’am. And, just so you’ll know. That’d be an invitation I’d happily accept. You’re staying at the Frontier, right?”

  “Yes,” Linda said as they started to cross the street toward the hotel. When they got inside, she turned to Dix and eased her spread fingers into the brown hairs generously coating his bare forearm. “Would you like to come up for a while?”

  Dix smiled. She took his hand and led him toward the elevator.

  Just inside her door, she stopped and narrowed her eyes.

  “What is it?” Dix asked, standing directly behind her in the doorway.

  “My room’s been searched.”

  “How can you tell?” They went the rest of the way inside and after closing the door he added, “Everything looks . . . ordinary.”

  “I have a way.”

  She didn’t tell Dix she always left the two zippers slightly unclosed and positioned just back of the left front corner on her bag. The luggage itself, she left on the dresser with the left edge of the case lined up precisely with the edge of the vertical mirror over the dresser.

  “Why do you have a method for telling this sort of thing? Are you some kind of spy or something?”

  “Just a cautious and somewhat suspicious citizen. Particularly here, given my early impression of Mr. Cranston and the way he runs this town.”

  “Is anything missing?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I’m guessing there won’t be. I think the purpose of this visit was to try and learn more about me, not rob me.”

  “Who do you think would do this?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “Your friend, Billy Cranston.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Dixon said, sitting down on the chair that came with the desk-table in Linda’s room.

  “Or the sheriff under orders from Billy.”

  “You’re beginning to figure out how this town works, Missy.”

  She smiled. Dix was a bright and attractive man who made her wonder why she ever saw anything in Pit Bull Billy, even twenty years ago. Of course, then Billy was a wealthy grown man interested in a young woman barely out of high school.

  “Why would they see you as special enough to do this?” he asked.

  “I’m the stranger who arrived the day Molina was shot, a s
tranger who just happened to be in The Drop when it happened. Both the sheriff and Billy Cranston have braced me about why I’m here. If something’s been stolen then I may be wrong, or maybe not. A small burglary could provide cover.”

  “So . . . you need to go through your things and find out. And you don’t need me hanging around while you do that. I understand. Let me get out of your hair. Can we meet for breakfast? My curiosity will be climbing all night.”

  “I’d like that. Can we say, ten? Here at the hotel.”

  “Of course. I hope you’ll get a good night’s sleep . . . despite this.”

  Dix opened the door to leave. She walked over to him and put her open palm on his cheek. “Thanks for understanding. I’d like a rain check for . . . what might’ve happened had this not happened. Okay?”

  “As for understanding, I don’t begin to understand what this is about at all. As for the rain check, absolutely, Ma’am, it’d be my pleasure.”

  He stepped through the door and turned back. After he smiled, she asked, “Can I ask you one more question?”

  He lowered his head and shook it slowly. Then he looked up and nodded. “Sure.”

  “A magic wand kind of question: If you could do any one thing, what would it be?”

  “You mean other than stay here with you tonight?”

  “Yes. I mean other than that.”

  “I’d like to see Cranston become the town I loved as a kid, before I knew of the Cranston plague that threatens everyone and tarnishes everything.” With that he turned, his third step starting him down the stairs to the ground floor.

  An hour later, Linda finished going through her things. Only one item was missing, a ring with a small diamond. She reasoned this meant either the sacking of her room had been a burglary, or someone who wanted it to look like a burglary. She had the rest of the night to decide whether to play dumb or report the crime to Sheriff Blackstone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Attending church doesn’t make a person a Christian any more than standing in water makes them a fish

  WEDNESDAY

  At nine-thirty the next morning, Linda sat alone at a table she’d heard the hotel restaurant staff refer to as a four-top. She came down early to peruse the local paper before Dix arrived at ten.

  A voice came at her from behind. “Hello, Carol.”

  She turned toward the voice. “Hello, Mr. Cranston. To what do I owe this most recent of your morning visits?”

  “Billy, please call me Billy.” When she said nothing, he continued, “Walking past the hotel I saw something shiny lying in the flowerbed out front, turned out to be a ring. I came in for my morning cup of java and to drop the ring off at the hotel’s lost and found. When I saw you, I thought, the hotel’s not full so I’d ask on the off-chance it might be yours.” He extended his arm, the ring in his palm.

  Linda picked it off his hand. “Yes. That’s mine. I wore it yesterday. It must have slipped off my hand. Thank you, Mr. Cranston. Is there anything else?” Billy wrinkled his brow and shook his head. “All right then, thanks again.” She hollered over to the waiter. “Put Mr. Cranston’s coffee on my bill.” She looked back at Billy. “It’s the least I can do. Is there anything else, Mr. Cranston?”

  “Somehow you look familiar to me, Ms. Benson. Have we met?”

  “Usually that pick up line is used on a first meeting, we’ve had several. Has it taken you this long to decide whether or not to make a pass?”

  “I’ve been proceeding cautiously, trying to remember when or where we met.”

  “We have not met. Well, not until that day in The Drop when that poor man was killed. Is there any progress on finding the killer?”

  “None that I’m aware of.”

  “And you likely would be aware, wouldn’t you?”

  Billy smiled and touched the brim of his hat, a tan cowboy model with a coal black hatband. “Have a good day, Ma’am.” Then he walked out.

  Linda reasoned that Billy Cranston had just let her know he was behind the searching of her room in a way that would prevent her from accusing him of anything. Conversely, if she hadn’t discovered someone had rummaged her things, for all she knew he had just found a ring she had inadvertently dropped. Outwardly, she would play it that way. Inwardly, she knew better.

  A few minutes later, Dix walked through the western style, double swinging front door. “Good morning, Carol. So, what’s the verdict?” He sat down and leaned toward her. “Your room?” He added with the inflection of a question, his voice low.

  “A ring was missing. Billy Cranston just returned it a few minutes ago.”

  Dix motioned for some coffee. “What?” He remained close. “Cranston told you he searched your room and took the ring?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “I’m confused. You got the ring back. He gave it to you. What else could it mean?”

  “He claimed he saw it outside next to the sidewalk. He came into the hotel to turn it in. When he saw me, he asked on the chance it might be mine.”

  “Cranston wouldn’t steal your ring,” Dix said, keeping his voice low, “no need to.”

  The waitress brought Dix coffee, placing it on a napkin she had taken from the pocket in the front of her denim half-apron. She warmed up Linda’s coffee and put two menus on the table.

  “Just toast for me, wheat, buttered, please.”

  “English muffin,” Dix said, “with some of your wonderful apple butter, and a half of cantaloupe.”

  When the waitress left, Linda said, “I agree, Billy would have no reason to steal my ring. Then again, he could’ve taken it to make it look like a robbery.”

  “Possible. He also could have sent someone up there to hopefully learn more about you. That someone took it for the reason you said. And Billy chose to return it. You think he wanted you to know he was behind it?”

  “I do. I could have that wrong, but that’s my take.”

  “All I can say is, over the years I’ve had plenty of reason to hate Billy Cranston, but none any greater than his interrupting our time last night.”

  The waitress brought their toast and muffin.

  “We’ll have to find another chance to get together.” Linda put her hand on Dix’s upper arm, letting her fingernails crawl underneath and inside the snug sleeve on his polo style shirt. His arm was quite firm. Her lips eased into a grin. “Pick up where we left off.”

  Linda noticed Dix moving his eyes lower on her person, but he quickly brought them back to her face and spoke in a soft voice. “What you got going on today?”

  “Nothing really, I’ll look for a quiet place by the lake to read. See some more of the country around here. I love the old houses, the farms and small ranches. I can see why lots of people hang around here their whole lives. Once you get used to the smell from the feedlot. Maybe I’ll stop in at the Cranston Casino.”

  “You want some company? No, wait a minute, I can’t. I promised myself I’d finish a job today.”

  “A handyman job?”

  “Yeah, I’m rebuilding a porch on a house several blocks out. The landing needed all new boards and one roof support needs to be replaced to take out some sag. A good part of it is done. I should wrap it up today.”

  “That’s quite a change from teaching math and coaching football.”

  “Billy hoped I’d leave town after he ran me off the teaching job. This work keeps me around. Boys in small towns learn how to turn a buck a variety of ways.”

  “Ah, yes, the mysterious woman for whom you wait.”

  “You could put it that way,” he said, offering nothing more about why or the identity of the woman. “How about tonight?” When she looked unsure what he meant, he added, “Our getting together again.”

  After bobbing and weaving her head a bit, she said, “Sure. Unfinished business, I’m game.”

  He looked at her with his head lowered some to meet his coffee cup. “Let’s try my place this time, a little less public. I’ll throw some burgers on the grill and ch
ill some beer. I couldn’t sleep last night so I got up and made a batch of coleslaw. We can have that too. Sound okay?”

  “Sounds like a great night. How do I get to your place?”

  “I should finish that porch by mid-afternoon. I’ll pick you up here at the hotel.” He stood. “Six-thirty, okay?”

  “I’ll be ready. Meet you in the lobby.”

  Dix walked out, stopping in the doorway to look back. He touched the brim of his hat with two fingers, a casual salute motion like a cowboy in an old movie. Only difference, he wore a baseball cap rather than a black Stetson.

  Nobody’s perfect.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon Linda drove to her mother’s home. She expected that Billy Cranston or the sheriff, on Billy’s order, had someone watching her. She played it like the place, on passing, for some reason tugged at her interest. Over the last couple days she had intentionally stopped to look at more than a dozen old houses and family farms, a few of those, like her mother’s, were not lived in. She drove on by about a hundred yards and then slowed and backed up. Stopping in front, she stayed in the driver’s seat for a couple minutes, with the motor running, then backed up a bit more and pulled into the driveway. Not really a driveway, more a gravel covered path that led to a single carport.

  It’s been graveled as long as I can remember, Linda thought. We never had a real garage, only the barn where Mother kept her car, when she had one.

  She sat there staring at a big tree out back, more precisely a couple of boards trapped in the crotch of the big limbs, part of the floor of her tree-house. That little room had been a private place for her in her pre-and-early teen years. She often shared it with Vera. A cubbyhole crowded with memories, where she had escaped her mother’s constant complaining about men for little more than just being men.