by David Bishop
“Not important. I’d just hate to see whoever the shooter was get caught.”
“What about you? We both know you often take such matters into your own hands.”
“I would have if Martha had said she wanted him dead. The man earned that bullet. Delivery was overdue. But it wasn’t me. Not this time.”
“The sheriff has reasoned that Billy’s world was coming apart,” Linda said. “His wife was about to divorce him. The feds arrested his illegal resident, Creswell. His whorehouse and casino were closed. The judge and sheriff were no longer in his pocket. Billy knew that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put his Humpty Dumpty back together again. The sheriff will file it away once the coroner gives him a suicide verdict.”
Ryan smiled. “Yeah, it was real convenient everything happening pretty much all at once like it did. It’s helpful that no one laments the passing of Billy Cranston. There are no screams for justice or retribution. No search for answers. The town is filled with a silent its-about-time attitude. Now it’s all about waiting for the dust to settle.”
“I know we’ve got you to thank for . . . how did you put it? ‘All that happening almost at one time.’”
“Not important. Your hometown will soon be what you want it to be.”
“I don’t know about that. Billy’s death has left the town in a real mess.”
“The mess won’t last.”
Linda leaned over to take a drink from the water glass she put on the nightstand beside her bed. Then she raised the sheet again to keep it over her nipples.
“Billy is dead,” she said. “He owned the corporations that controlled several major businesses and much of the downtown property. Who the hell gets all that? There are no male heirs and his prenuptial with Martha prevents her from getting anything.”
“It’ll all shake out, Lin. My guess is that Martha will get control of the corporations that own the town buildings and the Cranston businesses.”
“How do you see that happening?” Linda asked.
“It’ll be up to court, but the chauvinistic prenup probably will be set aside as against public policy. Besides, where else could it go? Martha’s his wife. He has no children. In the end the court can’t comply with the prenup since there are no other living Cranston males. That’s why Billy desperately wanted a son. Give it some time. It should all be fine.”
* * *
“Hello, Ms. Caruthers. I’m Linda’s friend. I was about to leave town and thought we should talk before I go. May I come in?”
Hildy stepped to the side and waved Ryan in. “So you’re Linda’s friend, the one who provided the tape recordings.”
“You’re a wise old broad, aren’t you?”
Hildy laughed. “I won’t ask your name, but would you like a cup of coffee.”
“Black, if it’s made. You brew a wonderful Hawaiian blend.”
Hildy stood still for a minute, looking closely at Ryan’s eyes, then nodded her head slightly. “You delivered my groceries a week or so ago, didn’t you? You looked different then.”
“You’re a wise old broad, aren’t you?”
She grinned and set a cup of black coffee in front of him. “That would explain your knowing what kind of coffee I make. But mostly I remember because you delivered the wrong toilet paper.”
“What was wrong with the toilet paper?”
“I prefer one-ply. You brought me two-ply. That stuffs like trying to wipe while wearing an oven mitt.”
Ryan laughed; he also noticed the wrinkles around Hildy’s eyes. “I didn’t put your order together. I paid the delivery boy twenty dollars to let me bring it up. I wanted to meet you.”
Hildy pushed a bowl of bananas toward Ryan. He shook her off. “I want to thank you,” she said. “We wouldn’t have been able to free our town without you getting those tapes and, I suspect, arranging some of the, shall we say, fortuitous events that brought Billy’s house down around his head.”
“With respect to anything I did, it was my pleasure, ma’am. Linda is a really special friend. As I said, it’s time for me to leave town, but, before I go, will you do something for me? It won’t take you more than a few minutes.”
“I owe you, so in all likelihood I will. But it’ll have to wait a few minutes.” Hildy raised her own cup. “The doctors have grudgingly okayed my having one cup a day. I like to drink it while it’s still hot. I use it to start my morning.”
Ryan reached into his pocket and took out a plastic bag. “Take this and put your black flats, the gray pants and the top you wore with them. I’ll take those along with the gloves you wore. Oh, and your can of black shoe polish and any brush and rags you used when you last polished those black shoes.”
“I don’t polish any of my shoes, ever. Not anymore.”
“Okay, then just the other things. No polish.”
“Why do you want them?”
“I know you sometimes met with Billy in his office. I figure that’s how you learned he kept his handgun in his corner bar, but that’s not important. I removed your shoe tracks, and my own, from his carpet. There was a smudge of black polish on the side of the leg on his chair, and a snag of thread on a rough corner of his desk. I removed both of them, but we should get rid of the items I asked for to be sure there wasn’t something I missed at the scene. I really didn’t have a great deal of time there.”
Hildy shrugged. “Thank you, but it’s of no great concern. I’ll be joining Mr. Caruthers in the not too distant future. He’s waiting. I’m ready, now that the people of my town have been freed.”
“You’re wrong. It matters. Billy was the man behind most everything wrong in Cranston. For so many who live here, you’re the symbol of what’s always been right. You’ll be able to speak to the issues, to what needs to be done. People’ll trust what you say. Your image shouldn’t be tarnished.”
“Mr. Caruthers and I were both born here. We loved the people, most of whom I had in my classroom over the years. I’m incapable of bringing about world peace or even reforming the U.S. tax code, but I could stop the evil that was killing my hometown. I’ve been ready to do this ever since Mr. Caruthers passed away. You were a godsend to line it all up for me.”
“Justice, dear lady, is often best found without too much interference from the law.”
Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER:
During the year following Linda Darby’s return and Ryan Testler’s departure, Cranston, Kansas, incorporated and became a city. The ballot that included the vote for incorporation also contained the annexation of a significant part of the county which included some residential properties along with dozens of small farms and ranches.
Judge Austin set aside many of the provisions of the marital prenuptial between Billy and Martha Cranston. This allowed Martha, as Billy’s spouse at the time of his death, to inherit his holdings while providing for the other female members of the Cranston family who held minority, non-voting interests in the family corporations. The Cranston home and ranch passed directly to Martha as was decreed in the prenuptial.
Martha Cranston, who reclaimed her maiden name, Rodriguez, took possession of all Cranston investment stocks and bonds in addition to the family home. With the assistance of a court-appointed advisor, she sold most of the downtown commercial properties owned within one of the corporations. After consideration, she chose not to file an action challenging Vera Cunningham’s titled ownership of the two buildings Billy had provided the cash for her to purchase, under the guise of wagers won by Vera in his casino. Martha had one of the family corporations sell Cranston Bank & Trust to a small regional bank chain. The newspaper she donated to the city to run and eventually sell, if it chose to do so. She sold the radio station to a retiring radio executive from Kansas City, who had grown up in Cranston and decided to retire in the area now that Billy’s reign had ended.
One of the corporations Martha retained owned The Drop, and she took over the management of the Inn’s day-to-day operations.
She fired Mud and welcomed Methodists into The Drop and cosponsored several citywide fundraisers with the Stop-By Bistro. This signaled an end to the area’s religious discriminations and favoritisms.
The ballot, which had approved the incorporation and annexation, included an initiative to name the new city Caruthers, Kansas, after its beloved Hildegard Caruthers, retired teacher and first mayor-elect. Her health was failing, yet she trudged on rebuilding and restructuring the city’s institutions and activities, always calling for a straw poll conducted by the city-owned paper before instituting any major reforms.
The new city bought what had been Billy’s casino. The building was converted to a senior center. The acreage became a park, including youth baseball fields, a public swimming pool, and a library. The large home that housed Billy’s brothel was turned into City Hall. The building became a symbol of civic pride, after Hildy explained that having this location populated by politicians was the most similar use to the services provided by its former occupants.
Vera Cunningham sold those two buildings to the city for 75% of their appraised value. She had obtained them with Billy Cranston’s money without mortgages. So, she gained enough to assure the funding of her retirement. She announced, “For now and the foreseeable future I will continue to operate Vera’s Threads.” She anonymously received a package stuffed with twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. An enclosed note read: “Paid on behalf of Billy Cranston, for services rendered in good faith.”
Ryan Testler considered making a try to take Linda away from Dixon Wardley, to take her somewhere and live happily ever after. In the end, he abandoned the idea knowing he was not a man to put down roots and play house—at least not yet. He still had an unsatisfied thirst for more adventure, a desire for more money, and a lust to know more women. Maybe Linda wasn’t the one he wanted. Maybe Maddie Richards, a homicide detective in Phoenix Arizona, he had met last year was right for him. Then again, maybe the right woman was on the road ahead, in his next adventure.
Ryan had disappeared right after speaking with Hildy. Other than Linda and Hildy, no one in the area knew he had been there, or the pivotal role he played in the elimination of Billy Cranston and the creation of Caruthers, Kansas. That was fine with Ryan. As a result of his two secretive withdrawals from the Cranston Casino and one from Billy’s personal safe in his office he added more than three hundred thousand to his retirement fund. The payment sent to Vera Cunningham was part of convincing Linda to accept what he determined to be her cut, one-hundred-thousand dollars.
Within the normally scheduled elections Judge Austin was reelected. The city of Caruthers contracted with the county for the sheriff’s office to provide law enforcement for the city. Dixon Wardley defeated Reginald Blackstone for sheriff. Blackstone left Carruthers and took a job as a uniformed officer in Wichita, Kansas.
Linda Darby sold the home she inherited from her mother and moved in with Dixon Wardley. She took a job with the city to run the newspaper. She and Dix were happy and spoke of marriage. Linda felt she had reached an age where the odds of birthing healthy children had significantly diminished. They discussed marriage, but reached no decision.
They had one unresolved issue. While Linda was happy living in her newly named hometown, Caruthers, Kansas, she still owned and loved her beach house in Sea Crest, Oregon. Between her investments from day trading, which she had continued while in Kansas, and her retirement fund built with the help of Ryan Testler, she had enough for her and Dix to retire. Dix was uncomfortable with the idea of a disproportionate reliance on her assets. Linda was exasperated by Dix’s traditional male point of view on the matter. They were still grappling somewhat with how to resolve that, and the matter weighed on their discussions of marriage.
Dix spoke of possibly not running for reelection as county sheriff and, instead, going back to the high school as a teacher and football coach. This would allow them to spend summers at Linda’s Oregon beach house. They bundled that decision along with whether or not to marry and leave them unsettled for now.
THE END
On the following pages is an excerpt from The Woman, the first Linda Darby novel in which Linda and Ryan Testler engaged in a great adventure and a torrid romance.
After that excerpt I’ve also included a sneak peek into Who Murdered Garson Talmadge, the first in the highly acclaimed Matt Kile Mystery Series which currently includes four stories with more to follow.
Thank you for reading Hometown Secrets, the second story in the Linda Darby series. Please share any comments you have with the author by email to [email protected]
Note to Readers
I would love to hear from you now that you have finishing reading the story. I can be reached by email at [email protected]. Please, no attachments, I won’t open them. I promise to personally reply to all emails from readers. You invested some money and many hours reading my story, I would enjoy hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to reply.
Information on all my other books can be found at www.davidbishopbooks.com. The titles of all my currently released novels and the working titles for some of my future stories are shown at the front of this novel.
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Turn the page to begin reading the excerpt from the first Linda Darby/Ryan Testler story: The Woman.
Turn the page to begin reading the excerpt from
The First Lady's Second Man.
1
Linda Darby sat in the sand beside a crop of sea grass. Her squirming widened the cavity in the sand made by her simple act of sitting. She felt uneasy, restless, and didn’t understand why. Her life seemed somewhat settled, but not fully. That wouldn’t happen until she resolved her long-distance relationship with Dixon Wardley.
As for Ryan Testler, he was history. She could never accept a long-term loving relationship with a man in his line of work. Although, without his talent at what he did, Linda would have been murdered two years ago.
She eased down to lie on her back, the sun-warmed grit probed her bare shoulders, and took away the cool the wind had brought to her legs. Overhead, the grayed clouds moved with a sloth-like slowness. A high reddish-orange hue smeared around the gorged clouds, waiting for that sudden moment when they would throw down their rain. The sun seemed to dissolve into the sea, and the coming twilight cloaked her like a caressing blanket. Linda was unable to see the wind-pulled sand, but it was there. She could taste it. The waves were another matter. Ambient light sparked the caps as they tore free for a short ride on the wind.
When the mist chilled her seaward cheek, she rose and walked back to her condo, climbed the eight steps, and settled into a chair outside her beach facing bedroom. From her somewhat elevated deck she could see the finer sand silently scrambling over its heavier brethren.
After another hour slid by, the rain seemed imminent, and she went in to shower away the lingerie-thin coat her body carried back from the beach.
#
The morning woke her as it always did. She kept the horizontal blinds beside her bed parted, the window open just a smidge. The morning sun crept in, teasing her and caressing her eyelids. The coolness drawn into her nostrils.
An exhilarating beach run usually began Linda’s day, but her uneasiness immediately returned. It wasn’t the uncertainty of Dix. She had been pondering that man for some time. No, she just felt odd. Off. A formless fear piggybacked on her physical sluggishness. Normally, running helped shake off any doldrums or the aftereffects of the drinks she enjoyed some nights while ogling the local hunks at Millie’s Sea Grog. Last night she stayed home, her feelings more gloom than malaise.
Commonly, after running, Linda focused her refreshed energy on her day-trading stock portfolio. She went to her computer and tried to steel herself against distractions, but
couldn’t stay with it. The surface of the ocean remained unfriendly. The pockets of calmer water were dotted with the black nub noses of seals peeking out before their next dive in pursuit of food or frolic.
Last night, at eight her time, ten his time, she’d called Dix. He was out and didn’t call back. As a result, Linda tossed and turned more than slept. Decision time was at hand, but she didn’t yet know what that decision would be. When speaking with Dix, she wanted to run to him. When alone, she was flooded with reasons why the branches of their lives might not graft well.
Why does life have to be so damn complicated? I’ll be thirty-nine this year and all the stuff I thought I’d figured out at twenty is now a jumbled mess. Is everybody’s life so emotionally scattered, or just mine?
Dix taught school and coached football in their hometown of Caruthers, Kansas, a schedule that didn’t leave him much time to visit Linda in Sea Crest, Oregon. She could, maybe should, go to him more often. She hadn’t returned to Kansas in over six months, a span of time during which Dix had not traveled to see her, either.
It’s harder for him to come during the school year. Day trading provides me the freedom he doesn’t have, so what’s my excuse?
Maybe, down deep, where erratic thoughts incubate into clear thinking, their affair was diluting into a warm memory. Dix wanted them to live in Caruthers. Linda stubbornly clung to her love of her beach condo and the idyllic town of Sea Crest, Oregon. She knew enough people, was independent, and had privacy.