by Sandra Brown
But Oren had barged in here like a fire-breathing evangelical laying out all his transgressions for review, so he wasn’t feeling very obliging toward his friend right now. Anyhow, that’s how he rationalized not sharing everything he knew. Some of it could wait until both had cooled off.
While he’d been processing this, Oren had been looking at him as though waiting for an explanation for his behavior. “I’m a free agent on this case, Oren, remember? You recruited me to help out. So okay, I’m helping out. In my style.”
“Just make sure your ‘style’ helps and doesn’t hurt my case.”
“Look, my tan is beginning to fade. I miss the sound of the surf. I even miss scraping gull shit off my deck. I’d just as soon return to the beach, hang out, go after that shrimper’s sister, and forget you ever came knocking. So if you don’t want my help anymore, please just say so.”
Oren regarded him closely for several moments, then shook his head. “And give you an excellent excuse to go after Lozada alone? Uh-huh. No way.” He stood up, gathered the photographs, and extended them down to Wick. “Want these for your scrapbook?”
“No thanks. The encounter was unremarkable.”
Oren grunted. “You’ve never had an unremarkable encounter with a woman.” He stuffed the pictures back into the envelope, picked up the sack with what remained of the doughnuts, and on his way out, said, “See you this evening. Have a good sleep.”
“Oh, I will.”
He had no intention of sleeping.
Chapter 10
“What’re you havin’, hon?”
Wick closed the laminated menu and looked across the lunch counter at the waitress. They must breed them like this somewhere and ship them all to Texas, he thought. Bleached hair was stacked into an intricate tower. Eyebrows appeared to have been stenciled on with a black crayon. Fluorescent pink lipstick was bleeding into the smoker’s lines radiating from her thin lips, which had formed a wide smile for him.
“What do you recommend?”
“You Baptist or Methodist?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This is Sunday. The Baptist go back to church tonight, so I don’t recommend the Mex’can platter for lunch. Heartburn and gas, ya see. They’re better off stickin’ to the chicken-fried steak, pork chops, or meat loaf. But the Methodist can skip the evenin’ service without fearin’ hellfire and damnation, so they’re fine with hot and spicy.”
“What about us heathens?”
She gave his arm a playful slap. “Had you pegged for one the minute you sauntered in. I said to myself, nobody that good-lookin’ can be a saint.” She propped her hand on her hip. “Anything we got and you want, you can have.”
Winking at her, he said, “I’ll start with the chicken-fried steak.”
“Gravy with that?”
“You bet. Extra on the side.”
“My kinda man. The Sunday plate lunch comes with your choice of strawberry shortcake or banana pudding.”
“Can I let you know?”
“Take all the time you need, sugar.” She glanced at the neon wall clock. “It’s past noon. How ’bout a beer while that steak’s fryin’?”
“Though you’d never ask.”
“If you need anything else, just holler for Crystal. That’s me.”
The Wagon Wheel Café was typical of small-town Texas. Situated two miles off the interstate highway on the outskirts of Dalton, the restaurant served hearty breakfasts twenty-four hours a day. Truckers from everywhere knew the place by name. The coffee was always hot and fresh, the beer always cold. Almost everything on the menu was deep-fried, but you could get a sixteen-ounce T-bone grilled any degree from still mooing to charred.
The restaurant catered to the after-church crowd on Sundays and to the sinners on Saturday nights. The Rotary and Lions Clubs met in its “banquet” room, and adulterous lovers rendezvoused in its gravel parking lot.
The booths were upholstered in red vinyl and each had a mini jukebox linked to the vintage Wurlitzer in the corner, which was bubbling even on this Lord’s day. There was a counter with chrome stools for folks in a hurry or parties of one, like Wick.
Diners seated at the counter had a view into the kitchen—too good a look and it could spoil your appetite. But as the sign outside boasted, “Open Since 1919… And We Ain’t Kilt Nobody Yet.”
The game schedule for the high school football team was taped to the cash register and the civic baseball team’s first-place trophy for ’88 stood next to a dusty jar in which contributions were collected for the local SPCA.
Wick’s beer tasted good after the hot, three-hour drive from Fort Worth. The miles had put him at a safe distance from his friend’s advice against making up his own rules of law enforcement as he went along. To Wick’s way of thinking, proper procedure put a crimp in creative flow. Rules for just about anything were kept in his personal “major pain in the butt” file.
Everything Oren had said was right, of course, but he didn’t dwell on that.
He did justice to the steak, which was fork-tender beneath the crispy breading. He decided on the banana pudding. Crystal poured him a complimentary cup of coffee to go with it.
“First time in Dalton?”
“Yeah. Just passing through.”
“A good place to pass through.”
“Looks like a nice town. Lots of civic pride.” He used his spoon to point at the posters taped to the front windows announcing upcoming local events.
“Oh, I guess it’s as okay as anywhere,” Crystal said. “When I was a kid I was bent on leaving soon as I could, but, you know.” She shrugged philosophically. “Married this sorry-ass because he looked a little like Elvis. He up and left soon’s the third kid came along. Life got in the way of my big plans to seek my fortune somewhere else.”
“So you’ve lived in Dalton your whole life?”
“Ever’ fuckin’ day of it.”
Wick laughed, then took a sip of coffee. “I knew a girl in college who hailed from here. Her name was… hmm… something unusual. Regan? No. Ronnie? Hell, that’s not it either, but something like that.”
“Your age?”
“Thereabout.”
“You don’t mean Rennie Newton, do you?”
“That was it! Rennie. Yeah, Rennie Newton. Did you know her?”
She snorted with disdain. “Was she a good friend of yours?”
“Knew her by sight, that’s all.”
“That’s a surprise.”
“How come?”
“Because Rennie made it her life’s ambition to know every man around.” One of the oily eyebrows arched eloquently. “You were one of the few men that never knew her—if you get my drift.”
He did. But he was having trouble reconciling Crystal’s drift with what he knew of Dr. Rennie Newton the ice maiden. “She got around?”
“That’s a nice way of putting it.”
“What’s the un-nice way?”
That was all the encouragement Crystal needed. She leaned across the counter and spoke softly. “That girl screwed everything in pants and didn’t care who knew it.”
Wick stared at her blankly. “Rennie Newton? She put out?”
“And then some, honey.”
The grin he forced felt stiff. “Son of a gun.”
“The way guys talk among themselves, I would’ve thought you’d know her reputation.”
“Just my rotten luck, I guess.”
Crystal patted his arm consolingly. “You were better off. Believe me.”
“She was bad news, huh?”
“She was an okay little kid. Then about the ninth grade, about the time she blossomed, you might say, she turned bad. Soon as her woman parts started showing up real good, she learned how to use ’em. She just went hog wild. Tore her mama up, the way she slutted around.
“One day I was standing right here behind this very counter filling the ketchup bottles and heard all this racket outside. Rennie came blazing past in the new red Mustang conver
tible her daddy had given her. She was honking her horn and waving to one and all—nekkid as a jaybird. On the top anyway.
“Seems her and some friends were out swimming at the reservoir. Their horseplay got a little rowdy. One of the boys stole the top of Rennie’s swimsuit and wouldn’t give it back, so Rennie said she’d teach him not to mess with her. She told him she was gonna drive straight to his daddy’s insurance office and tattle on him, and damned if that’s not what she did. Went sashaying in there, walked right past a secretary and into that man’s private office. Bold as brass. Wearing nothing but her bikini bottoms and a smile. You ready for more coffee?”
Wick’s mouth had gone dry. “I’ll take another beer.”
Crystal checked on two more customers before bringing him back another long-neck. “Be glad you never got tangled up with that one,” she said. “You married?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“Nope.”
“Why not? You’re sure cute enough.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve always been partial to blue eyes.”
“The Elvis look-alike?”
“Hell, yes. Had ’em bright as headlights. Turns out that’s about all he had goin’ for him.” She gave Wick an experienced appraisal. “But you’re the whole package, honey. I reckon you have to beat the women off with a stick.”
“Naw, I’ve got a nasty temper.”
“I’d take the temper if the baby blues came with it.”
He gave her the abashed aw-shucks-ma’am grin she probably expected. After another sip of beer, he said, “I wonder what happened to her.”
“Rennie?” Crystal used a damp cloth to swipe some spilled sugar off the counter. “I heard she became a doctor. Can you beat that? Don’t know whether to believe it or not. She never came back to Dalton after her folks packed her off to that fancy boarding school up in Dallas. I guess after what happened they wanted to wash their hands of her.”
“Why? What happened?”
Crystal didn’t catch his question. Instead she smiled at an old man who hobbled up to the counter and took one of the stools near Wick’s. He was wearing a plaid cowboy shirt with pearl snap buttons and blue jeans, both starched and ironed as stiff as boards. As he sat down, he removed his straw hat and set it on the counter, crown down—the proper way.
“Hey, Gus. How’s life treatin’ you?”
“Same as yesterday when you asked me.”
“What’chu havin’?”
He looked over at Wick. “Been ordering the same goddamn meal for twenty years and she still asks.”
“Okay, okay,” Crystal said. “Chili cheeseburger and fries,” she called out to the cook, who had been catching a break now that the after-church crowd had thinned.
“And one of those.” Gus nodded toward Wick’s beer.
“Gus is one of our local celebrities,” Crystal told Wick as she uncapped a beer bottle.
“Not so you’d notice,” the old man grumbled. He took the bottle from her and tilted it to his tobacco-stained lips.
“Rodeo bull rider,” Crystal said proudly. “How many years were you a national champion, Gus?”
“A few, I guess.”
She winked at Wick. “He’s modest. He’s got more of those champeen belt buckles than Carter has liver pills.”
“That many broken bones, too.” The old man took another long drink of his beer.
“We were talking about Rennie Newton,” Crystal said. “Remember her, Gus?”
“I may be all bent and broke near in two, but I ain’t brain-dead.” He looked over at Wick again. “Who’re you?”
Wick extended his right hand across the vacant stools separating them. It was like shaking hands with a cactus. “Wick Threadgill. On my way to Amarillo. Killing some time before hitting the road again. Seems I knew one of your local girls.”
Crystal moved down the counter to slap menus in front of two young men who had come in and greeted her by name. When she was out of earshot, Gus turned on his stool toward Wick. “You knew the Newton girl?”
“In college,” he said, hoping that Gus wouldn’t ask which institute of higher learning they had attended.
“You gonna take offense at straightforward man talk?”
“No.”
“Some do these days, you know. Everybody’s gotta be politically correct.”
“Not me.”
The old man nodded, sipped his beer. “That little gal was one of the finest looking two-legged animals I ever clapped eyes on. One of the most spirited, too. ’Course she wouldn’t’ve looked twice at a mangled old fart like me, but when she was racing, everybody stopped to watch. She got the blood of all the young bucks pumping hot and thick.”
“Racing?”
“Barrel racing.”
Barrel racing? The Rennie Newton he knew used a ruler to stack up her magazines. He couldn’t imagine her competing in a rodeo event. “I didn’t know she participated.”
“Hell, yeah, son. Every Saturday night April through July, Dalton holds a local rodeo. Ain’t much of one on a national scale, but to folks around here it’s a pretty big deal. Almost as big as football.
“Anyhow, cowboys would stack up three deep to watch Rennie race. Never showed an ounce of fear. No, sir. I saw her throwed off her horse twice. Both times she got right up, dusted off that saucy butt, climbed right back on.
“The cowboys used to say it was the way she rode that made her thighs so strong.” He winked his crinkled eyelid. “Don’t know myself, as I never had the pleasure of getting between them, but them that did said they ain’t never had it that good.”
Wick grinned, but his fingers had formed a death-grip around his beer bottle.
“But that was cowboy talk,” Gus said with a shrug. “We’re all big liars, so it’s anybody’s guess as to who was talking from experience and who was talking out his ass. I figure a lot more tried than actually got to enjoy. All I know is, that little filly kept T. Dan good and riled, and that was fine by me.”
“T. Dan?”
The old cowboy fixed a rheumy, wary gaze on him. “You didn’t know her at all, did ya?”
“No. Not at all.”
“T. Dan was her daddy. A son of a bitch of the worst sort.”
“What sort is that?”
“Y’all doing all right?” Crystal had returned after preparing cherry Cokes for the two young men at the end of the counter.
Wick said, “Gus was telling me about T. Dan Newton.”
“He hasn’t been dead near long enough to suit most people around here,” she said with a dry laugh.
“What did he do to piss everybody off?”
“Whatever he damn well felt like,” she replied. “Just for example, tell him about your beef with him, Gus.”
The old cowboy finished his beer. “T. Dan hired me to break a horse for him. He was a good horse but a mean bastard. I broke him, trained him, but wound up with a busted anklebone. T. Dan wouldn’t pay for my doctor bill. Said it was my own fool fault that got me hurt. I’m talking about a lousy seventy-five dollars, which was chicken feed to somebody with T. Dan’s bankroll.”
“He was good at making money but bad at making and keeping friends,” Crystal said.
“It sounds like the whole family was rotten to the core,” Wick said.
“If you ask me, the town’s well rid of ’em.” Gus scratched his cheek. “Wouldn’t mind seeing that gal take another spin around those barrels, though. Just thinking about it has got me horny. You got plans tonight, Crystal?”
“In your dreams, old man.”
“What I figured.” With what looked like a painful effort, Gus got off his stool and hobbled over to the juke-box.
Wick finished his beer. “Thanks for everything, Crystal. It’s been great talking to you. You take credit cards?” Before signing the tab, he added a hefty tip and enough for an extra beer. “Uncap another long-neck for Gus. My compliments.”
“He’ll appreciate it. Never kne
w him to turn down a free drink.”
Trying to appear nonchalant, he said, “Earlier you said that Rennie’s parents had sent her to boarding school. What was the final straw for them? Why did they want to get rid of her?”
“Oh, that.” Crystal pushed a slipping bobby pin back into her pile of hair. “She killed a man.”
Chapter 11
“Excuse me?”
“You heard right, Oren. She killed a man.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“When?”
“Don’t know that either.”
“Where are you?”
“Headed back.”
“From?”
“Dalton.”
“You went to Dalton? I thought you were going to bed and sleep the day away.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“How’d you find out that she killed a man?”
“Crystal told me.”
“Am I supposed to know who Crystal is?”
Wick recounted most of his conversation with the waitress in the Wagon Wheel. When he finished, Oren said, “Was she credible, you think?”
“As the FBI. She’s lived there all her life, knows everybody in town. The café is the epicenter of the community. Anyway, why would she lie?”
“To impress you?”
“Well, I was impressed, but I don’t think that’s why Crystal told me.”
“Then for kicks?”
“I don’t think so. She isn’t the type who’d lie for recreation.”
“Well, she’s your friend, not mine. I’ll have to take your word for it. Did she know you’re a cop?”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Jesus,” Oren muttered. “Did she know or not?”
“No.”
“Then why was she divulging all this information to a total stranger?”
“She thought I was cute.”
“Cute?”
“That’s what she said. But I don’t think Gus was all that keen on me.” Wick smiled, imagining Oren silently counting to ten.
Finally he said, “You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
Wick laughed, then repeated almost word for word his conversation with the retired bull rider. “Rennie Newton fanned his embers, but he hated her old man. According to your research, T. Dan Newton was a successful businessman, right?”