Hometown Secrets

by David Bishop

  “A hundred feet ain’t all that far, Judge. Did you mean a hundred yards?”

  “Billy’s office is less than a hundred yards from Vera’s home so I can’t practically make it that far. It’ll need to be a hundred feet. Maybe I’ll go two hundred. I’ll warn Billy not to violate it or he’ll find his bail revoked and his butt in one of your cells.”

  “I understand, Judge.”

  “Does Billy getting out on bail change your plans regarding his brothel?”

  “No, Sir. Like you said, ‘it’s about time.’ For my money, prostitution should be legal, but it’s not and so I’m shutting it down.’ For the time being, the Feds have shut the casino, arresting Creswell. I plan to see the casino doesn’t reopen anywhere in my jurisdiction.”

  “That’s good to hear. It’s nice to call you Sheriff Blackstone and mean it with respect.”

  “Thank you, Judge.”

  “You’ve got a support group now, so keep standing tall.”

  * * *

  That afternoon, Judge Austin agreed to the bail suggested by Billy’s attorney from Kansas City. The county D.A. had no valid objection to the bail, and the defense attorney didn’t object to the restraining order with respect to Vera Cunningham. Billy was on the street by three in the afternoon. After several beers in The Drop, he went to his office in the bank. He was there when he received the call telling him the sheriff had closed his brothel, arresting no one.

  * * *

  After changing for bed, Martha Cranston went downstairs and mixed a small pitcher of martinis. She drank the first one down before leaving the bar. The second she drank standing at the glass door looking out into the night. She emptied the pitcher into her glass and headed upstairs to her bedroom.

  “Don’t turn on the light.” The voice came to her from the darkest corner of her bedroom. “I mean you no harm. I’m here to help.”

  “Who are you?” Martha clutched her robe to her bosom, the lower portion parting to each side.

  “Not important.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To help you and the people of Cranston. You’re in no danger from me.”

  “Why should you care what happens to me or this God-forsaken town?”

  “I have my reasons. Beyond that, it’s not important.”

  Martha asked, “Okay if I turn on a light?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Please sit down.”

  Martha turned toward her bed. Her second step veered off. She sat in a hard chair at a writing table, in the moonlight cutting through the horizontal blinds. She pulled the skirt of her robe over her crossed legs. The bodice of her robe slid off one shoulder to reveal the strap on her nightgown.

  The dark outline of a man moved to her bed and sat down.

  “What’s this about?” She asked, tugging her robe back over the crest of her shoulder.

  “I put the medical report on your husband on your car seat. As I see it, you have good reason to want your husband dead. If you do, I’ll kill him for you. However, you have the means to unshackle this town if you determine that to be more important than seeing your husband dead.”

  “I can do nothing. Billy and I have a prenuptial agreement. I own nothing. Control nothing. It’s all his.”

  “I expect that will change in due course.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Death of Cranston, Kansas

  SATURDAY

  “Mr. Cranston is dead! Holy bejesus, he’s dead.”

  Sheriff Blackstone didn’t fully understand anything else of what was being said to him over his phone.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Roger. Ah, Roger . . . Hell, I can’t even think of my last name. I’m the janitor over here at the bank building, have been for nearly twenty years. Your cell phone is on a list of numbers Mr. Cranston keeps on his desk. I seen it here for years.”

  “Roger. Roger. Calm down. Where are you now?”

  “I’m in Mr. Cranston’s office.”

  “How do you know Mr. Cranston is dead?”

  “He’s dead. That’s all. The man is dead, Billy Cranston, by God. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Roger, is he breathing?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Do you know how to tell?”

  “I know he’s got a big-ass hole in his head and his blood is everywhere but inside him. Hell, I’m standing in it right now. I know a gun is on the floor next to his desk.”

  “Are you calling on his desk phone?”

  “Yes sir, I is. Like I tol’ ya, your number’s right here so I done picked up the phone. Holy shit, Sheriff, what should I do?”

  “That’s easy. Go outside in the hallway. Don’t let anyone inside his office. I’ll be there as quick as I can. You understand?”

  “Okay, Sheriff. I’ll do it. Okay.” The line went dead.

  Reggie jerked on his boots, stuck his arms into his shirt, strapped on his holster, and headed out the front door of his house, tucking in his shirt as he went.

  * * *

  By noon, the Cranston family doctor, also contracted with the county as its part-time coroner, had removed Billy’s body and arranged for it to be transported to the authorities in Wichita for an autopsy.

  Like Roger said, Billy had a big-ass hole in his head. Sheriff Blackstone assumed the 57-caliber magnum he found on the floor beside Billy’s chair, a gun the sheriff knew Billy owned and kept in a drawer in his corner bar, was the weapon used to bore that big-ass hole in Billy’s head. Roger’s bloody footprints led from the desk out into the hallway.

  Before the doc left with Billy’s remains, word had spread throughout town and beyond. Everywhere Sheriff Reggie went people turned silent and didn’t move as soon as they saw him. He went into The Drop to get a shot of bourbon, where, like the rest of the town had, Mud stopped and stared as he entered.

  “How’s things, Mud?”

  “I’m busy as hell. I haven’t heard shit from Sam, my gimpy dishwasher. He just didn’t come in. He’s four hours late so I guess he’s just another in a long line of no-accounts.”

  “I guess that’s how it is with that class of workers. Have you called him?”

  “Don’t have a number. Billy hired him, and agreed to pay him cash so he’d take less than minimum wage. We have no application or personnel file on him.”

  “I guess you’ll need to hire someone else.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t be sure we’re even going to stay open. Now that Billy’s dead and all.”

  The sheriff nodded. Mud poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass and set it in front of the sheriff. “What are we going to do?”

  Reggie threw back the bourbon and waved the glass at Mud who repeated the pour. “I figure you’ll keep on bartending and I’ll keep on sheriffing, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You know what I mean. We worked for Billy and he’s dead.”

  “You work for Billy’s corporation which still owns this place. The corporation didn’t die. For now you have the same employer. If you want to keep your job, keep on doing it just like you are. As for me, I work for the people of Cranston, not for Billy Cranston. And that’s what I plan to keep on doing for as long as I can.”

  “Start doing maybe,” Mud said, correcting the sheriff.

  “I deserved that. Start doing, yeah, that’s right. But don’t go getting high and righteous with me, Mud. You’ve been shoveling Billy’s shit nearly as long as me.”

  After warning Mud to knock off making book in The Drop or he’d be arrested, Reggie walked out. In his car, he put two pieces of gum in his mouth and headed for the Cranston ranch.

  Carlos Molina’s mother answered the ranch house door. After asking about the investigation into her son’s murder, she said Martha Cranston wasn’t at home. She refused to answer any questions, saying, “Ms. Martha is a good woman. My job is not to mix in her life. I just do my work.”

  The sheriff walked out to the corral and exchanged comments with Pablo about Billy’s death
and asked about Martha Cranston.

  “She drove out a couple hours ago.” After the sheriff opened his hands like a preacher, Pablo added, “She don’t tell me her whereabouts. She just drove on out.”

  “You said a couple hours ago, that’d be mid-morning?” Pablo nodded. “Did she go out last night?”

  “Don’t know sheriff. We get up pretty early around here. I’m in bed or close to it by nine most nights.”

  “She have luggage with her?”

  “From what I could see, just her purse slung over her shoulder.”

  Reggie drove by the Catholic Church to see if Martha’s car was in the lot. It wasn’t. He drove back to town, parked on Elm near Second and knocked on the shop door of Vera’s Threads, the closed sign in the window. He’d gone by yesterday, after Billy made bail, to let Vera know he was out of jail and that the judge had issued a restraining order. Now, he needed to ask Vera what he’d gone to ask Martha, her whereabouts when Billy was shot.

  The scene in Billy’s office looked like suicide, but then the sheriff had never handled the scene of a suicide and only one homicide, the shooting of Carlos Molina. He decided he would proceed as if Billy’s death could be either until the coroner in Wichita made a ruling.

  He knocked again, and waited. He went around to the side door upstairs and to the backdoor off the alley. At each he knocked and waited and tried the knobs. All were locked and none got a response.

  He drove back to town and parked in front of the Frontier Hotel. He went inside and asked at the counter if Linda Darby was in her room. Since Katie Lynn Darby’s will was read, most everyone in town now knew that Carol Benson was old lady Darby’s daughter, Linda.

  “Miss Benson, I mean Miss Darby walked out of the hotel about two hours ago.”

  The sheriff made mental note that Linda left the hotel about the same time as Martha Cranston drove off the Cranston ranch. The sheriff checked the hotel lot and found the rental car Linda had been driving. She was on foot.

  Outside the hotel, Sheriff Blackstone stood for a minute. The palm of his right hand, as it often did, rested on top his holstered Glock semi-automatic pistol. He heard his name called out. After looking around and seeing no one, he noticed Linda Darby heading across the street, toward him.

  “Hello, Sheriff Blackstone. Are you looking for me?”

  “Yes. Sort of, actually, I headed out to talk with you, Vera, and Mrs. Martha Cranston. So far I haven’t found any of you.”

  “Then I’ve got good news, Sheriff. You’ve just found all three of us. Vera’s still pretty banged up, but we’re all upstairs at Hildy’s place.” Linda turned and pointed above the pharmacy. “We saw you. Why don’t you come on up. You can talk with all of us without having to run us down one by one.”

  “Thank you, but no. I should speak to each of you alone.”

  “That’s up to you, Sheriff. But I think we all know pretty much the same thing. We were together last night, here at Hildy’s. She doesn’t go out much so here’s easy for her. Anyway, we were all here. We ate together and spent the evening playing cards. That broke up late, a little after midnight. We got together again today after the word spread about Billy having taken his life. We’ve been talking about what all this means to the town. It’s really going be a mess.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is definitely a real corker of a mess. A mess I just may have gotten started by blabbing to you and your friend the other night, when the three of us talked in my kitchen.”

  “From what I hear, Billy committed suicide. Should that initial opinion hold up, I doubt that discussion you just referred to will ever be brought up again. I know my friend holds that view, as I do. Still, we understand you have your duty to do and fully expect you will meet that duty.”

  “Ma’am . . . Linda, I want you to know there was a time when Billy didn’t control me. One day I did him a favor for some cash. As time went along I did another. Then, one day, he offered me the badge. I took it and kept doing the favors, eventually I just started taking orders.”

  Linda softened her stance and eased her facial expression as the sheriff went on. “Your friend, the wires you had me hooked up to, and all that shit. Well, it made me see things for what they were. What I had become, where I was headed. I can’t exactly say thank you, but, well, it was the kind of thing I needed. I guess. Although, I doubt I’ll ever eat another carrot.”

  He laughed. Linda reached up and put her hand on his neck.

  The sheriff wrinkled up his forehead and bobbed his head a few times. “What the hell. Why don’t I just go on over to Hildy’s with you now. It’ll be easier that way.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Blackstone pulled into his driveway that night well after dark, after having separately interviewed Linda Darby, Vera Cunningham, and Martha Cranston in the home of Hildegard Caruthers. The four women had, apparently, all been together during the hours the Wichita coroner estimated to have included the death of Billy Cranston. Frankly, Reggie was happy the man was dead. He’d done Billy’s bidding far too often for far too long. Looked the other way while crimes were committed that benefitted Billy Cranston. Sheriff Blackstone had taken his cut of Billy’s shenanigans, his payoffs, and he wasn’t about to return that money. There’s noble and then there’s stupid.

  The other women in the Cranston family: the wife of Billy’s dead brother and his two sisters each owned a small number of nonvoting shares in each of the Cranston corporations. Billy owned 100% of the voting shares and a majority of all the combined voting and nonvoting shares.

  The sheriff wondered who the man had been who terrorized and interrogated him in his own home. Linda Darby knew, but unless the coroner ruled Billy’s death was a homicide he would leave that lie. If, on the other hand, Billy was murdered then Reggie would put his money on that mystery man. Or, he thought, maybe Billy’s wife, Martha Cranston. God knew she had cause. Then again, maybe the shooter was Vera. Reggie wouldn’t blame Vera if she killed Billy after the way he beat her. As for Linda Darby, who the hell knew? Did she come back to Cranston only for the reading of her mother’s will or also to kill Billy Cranston? There was no one in Cranston who Reggie figured was disappointed that Billy Cranston had died, no matter how it had happened or who had pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  So, which one of you did it?

  SUNDAY

  Linda woke early on Sunday morning to find the elderly dishwasher from The Drop sitting next to her bed. The sun sliding in around her drapes provided enough light to report that night had ended.

  “Good morning, Love,” he said.

  “Damn it, Ryan. I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Be in my room without my knowing it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s disconcerting to find someone in your room when you think you’re alone. It’s startling, particularly when you don’t look like you. I didn’t realize you were the dishwasher in The Drop.”

  “Pretty good disguise eh? You had two chances to recognize me. You didn’t.”

  “I’ll bet you got a kick out of that. You brought me a coke, and picked up my dishes with me not recognizing you.”

  “I did, yeah. I confess, a little inside humor. However, I appreciated you starting to come to my aid when Billy pushed by me that day in The Drop. I had to play the role and appear unsteady. You’re a classy lady.”

  “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

  “We need to discuss the death of Billy Cranston. If we were seen together, some people might wonder why you’re meeting with the dishwasher from The Drop. That’s why I’m here in your room.”

  “You didn’t bring coffee and donuts this time?”

  Ryan smiled. “No time. Sorry.”

  Linda sat up in bed, pulling her bedding up near her shoulders. Then she let the sheet sag down to the point where it settled. She didn’t mind teasing Ryan some. In fact, she enjoyed it. But she was in an ongoing sexual relationship with Dix and
her monogamous mindset discouraged her having two lovers at the same time.

  His eyes went to her half covered breasts before he asked, “Which one of your gal pals killed Billy?”

  Linda pulled her hands into fists, bunching up the blanket. “None of them, we were all together.”

  “It’s one thing to lie to the sheriff, but to me? I’m disappointed you would do that.”

  “Okay. We were not together. How did you know?”

  Ryan stood and tugged closed the slight gap in the drapes which had become obvious with the rising sun. “I was watching you to be sure Billy didn’t come after you once he learned you were Linda Darby. That’s why I failed to see him go after Vera.”

  “What makes you think one of us did it?”

  “No one else makes sense. Maybe Dixon Wardley, but I highly doubt it. He lacks Martha’s or Vera’s justification. As for Martha, I offered to kill him for her. She said no. She’s more interested in helping straighten out the town. She wants to live here and knows that the Cranston name is hated.”

  “It could have been someone else, somebody with a festering anger that has stayed out of the fray.”

  “Not important. The man deserved to die. I tip my hat to whoever pulled the trigger.”

  “Why don’t you think Dix could do it? He was a Marine, a U.S. Deputy Marshal.”

  “He never really advanced past being in training for the Marshal’s office, but in the end Dixon is a bit too naïve. He still thinks that things like this should work the way the system says they should work. ‘Truth, justice, and the American way,’ isn’t that the Superman slogan? You know what I mean.”

  “The official position is we ladies were all together. As for Dix, I spoke to him after Billy’s death. He had been with his neighbor, Dr. Washington, who stopped by his place to check on the condition of Dix’s wounds. They had barbeque, talked about the old days when they played ball together and the doc’s gig at the hospital. I later called Dr. Washington to thank him for caring for Dix. While we were on the phone I was able to confirm that Washington was with Dix when Billy died.”