Pecos Valley Rainbow

by Alice Duncan

  As I couldn’t answer her question, I remained silent.

  “I guess that’s it, Annabelle. But it’s freezing cold out there, so you’d best get your coat and scarf and gloves.”

  “Will do. Be right back.”

  So I returned to my room, where I took out the coat I’d worn the previous evening. Ma was right about the cold. Riding in the machine would make me even chillier because of the wind in my face, so I wrapped the scarf around my head, and fetched some gloves that were leather and wouldn’t interfere with my handling of the steering wheel and gear lever.

  Then, after I loaded the Model T, I set out, deciding to visit Phil first and apologize once more for getting him into last night’s muddle.

  Standing behind the counter, he glanced up when the door opened and didn’t appear happy to see me, which caused a spasm in my heart. “Hey, Phil,” I said timidly, holding out the pie as a peace offering.

  “What do you want, Annabelle?” he asked coldly.

  “I don’t want anything, Phil, except to apologize about last night.”

  He took a quick glance around the hardware store. “For God’s sake, keep your voice down! I don’t want the whole world to know we were out after midnight last night. Not that they don’t already, probably,” he added bitterly. “Thanks to you, everybody in town will think we were up to no good.” With a hot glare at me, he said, “And they’d be right, but for the wrong reason.”

  “I’m sorry.” I swallowed hard, hoping I wouldn’t cry. “Here.” I thrust the pie closer to him. “Ma made this for you and Pete and the family. She made a pie for the Calhouns, too, and I have to deliver that one next.”

  “Please thank your mother for all of us.”

  I noticed he didn’t thank me for bringing it. He was really mad at me. So I couldn’t ask him to stand guard at the Calhoun house again. He’d blow his stack. Therefore, the guard would have to be Betty Lou. Betty Lou or nobody. That was a frightening thought, although I was still convinced I might find something in that wretched house that the police had overlooked.

  Was that silly of me? Perhaps. But I’d read tons of books in which folks found stuff overlooked by the legitimate police departments of the world. Heck, Hercule Poirot even found incriminating evidence in twists of paper that had been stuck in a jar on a mantelpiece in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I guess we Americans didn’t go in so much for writing notes on twists of paper, but perhaps Mr. Calhoun had done so. And what about The Purloined Letter? In that story, the evidence had been left in plain sight and missed by everyone!

  Mind you, I don’t think either Agatha Christie or Edgar Allan Poe ever committed murder except on paper. Perhaps they didn’t know the ins and outs of the real, honest-to-goodness murder game. Not that it was a game. Yet the two authors had propounded some great ideas about searching for stuff, and I aimed to put their teachings to the test, provided I could ever get into the Calhoun house when all its inhabitants were sound asleep—except, with luck, Betty Lou.

  “I’ll be sure to thank Ma for you, Phil.” Then, in a burst of self-pity and regret, I pleaded, something I seldom do. “Please don’t be mad at me, Phil. I’m only trying to clear Richard’s good name.”

  “That’s a job for the police, and you know it, Annabelle. If you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’re going to land us both in the muck, and I for one don’t like to be gossiped about.”

  “I don’t, either. And we wouldn’t have been if somebody—not Richard—hadn’t murdered Herschel Calhoun.”

  “It was your idiotic idea to go through their house after midnight that caused us to be caught together, damn it.”

  Oh, boy. Phil was swearing again. And it was all my fault. If I hadn’t begged him to stand guard at the Calhoun place, he wouldn’t have become a topic of gossip and wouldn’t be swearing now. I heaved a sigh.

  “You’re right,” I said at last, feeling about as low as dirt. “I’m sorry I got you caught up in the Calhoun problem. I won’t do it again.”

  His eyebrows soared. “You mean it? You’re really going to give up this harebrained notion of outwitting the cops and solving the crime yourself?”

  “It’s not harebrained! And I don’t expect to outwit the cops. But, by gum, I’m sure going to do my best to clear Richard of any hint of suspicion. Why, there are all sorts of people who might have done it. Why, what about Mr. Tindall and Mr. Contreras!”

  Another frenzied glance around the hardware store preceded Phil’s next whispered statement. “Dammit, will you quit hollering? We’re already in enough trouble. Bandying people’s names around as murder suspects won’t win you any friends, you know!”

  He was right. Darn it. I hated when that happened. I glanced around the store, too, and breathed more easily when I saw the place was empty except for the two of us. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry, my hind leg.” He eyed me keenly. Then he gave me a hideous glower. It took a lot to make Phil look hideous, because he was a very handsome guy, but he managed it that time. “You’re not giving up, are you? You’re going to keep poking and nosing around, aren’t you?”

  “I . . . darn it, Phil, I have to. Chief Vickers is still interested in Richard as a suspect in Mr. Calhoun’s murder.” I sniffed. “He couldn’t think of a good reason for him to kill Herschel, however.”

  “I’m sure he couldn’t. There is no good reason. At least none we know about.” He maintained his scowl, and I instantly took umbrage.

  “Richard MacDougall is no murderer, Phil Gunderson! He had differences with Mr. Calhoun at the bank because Mr. Calhoun was a rotten, sneaky skunk!”

  “Calm down, Annabelle. I’m not saying you’re wrong about that. But, dammit, you are wrong to go butting into things that don’t concern you. And don’t tell me that Richard concerns you, because I know he does. And I’m sure the police will find the real culprit soon.”

  “You do, do you? I wish I could be as certain as you are. But I’m not.”

  He rolled his eyes, and that was it for me. I turned around, huffing, and stomped to the door.

  Phil hollered after me. “You’re not going to go over there again in the middle of the night, are you? Because if you are—”

  I whirled around and hollered back at him. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business, Phil Gunderson. You’ve as much as told me so, besides calling me stupid and careless and I don’t know what else.”

  “Annabelle, if you try to do that again, at least tell me so I can—”

  “Darned if I will! You’ve made your position crystal clear.”

  And before he could yell anything else, I stormed out of the place. Good thing, too, because a clump of chattering men were about to open the door and enter the hardware store. They stopped in their tracks, and one of them—I think it was Mr. Lovelady, but I’m not sure—held the door open for me. My face burned, and I’m sure they stared at me as I stepped down to the street and got into the Ford.

  Life could be awfully darned embarrassing sometimes. I didn’t approve.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Too bad life didn’t care if it embarrassed me or not. I felt the stares of folks as I drove the Model T down Second Street. Huh. You’d think people would have better things to do than gossip about their neighbors. Perhaps I was being the teensiest bit sensitive that day, but I don’t think so. I swear I could hear people tittering behind their hands when I passed them by in the Ford.

  I saw Mae Shenkel and Ruby Bond walking out of Pruitt’s Drug Store. Mae waved and then instantly turned to Ruby and whispered something in her ear. Ruby, who was a very nice person, didn’t laugh, although Mae giggled like mad. Stupid girl—although she sure dressed well. That day she wore a brown suit with a fur collar and a brown cloche hat and she looked like a million bucks. Ruby, who wasn’t as fashion-conscious as her friend, was clad in a sensible frock covered with a heavy coat, and her hat was just your run-of-the-mill head covering. I don’t think the weather got out of the low forties all day long, and I was
glad for my heavy coat and scarf.

  My next duty was to visit the shoe store. I didn’t want to stop and go inside. What I wanted was to keep driving clear out of town and maybe spend the day hiding out at the Bottomless Lakes. They weren’t really bottomless, but they were awfully deep. There were eleven of them, and they’d got their name back in the ’eighties, when some of John Chisum’s cowboys dropped ropes into them to try to discover their depths. They never did, so they thought the water went down forever. It didn’t. What happened was that underground streams and rivers led into the lakes, causing currents underwater that moved the ropes so they couldn’t hit the bottoms of the lakes. Scientists have since discovered all sorts of stuff like that about them. We liked to go out there in the summertime and fish or have picnics.

  That day, I just wanted to go somewhere and hide. How embarrassing to have people snicker about Phil and me! And all we’d been doing was walking together on a couple of streets after dark. Shoot. If it hadn’t been for the rat who’d killed Herschel Calhoun, nobody else would ever have known about our excursion, and Herschel’s murder would be the juiciest topic of the day. But was it? No. It was so much more exciting to gossip about a young couple who’d been found out of doors after midnight. It wouldn’t surprise me if Minnie and Miss Libby made a trip to town just so Miss Libby could berate me for bringing shame on my family. Can you blame me for wanting to run away?

  But I didn’t. I pulled the Ford to a stop in front of Chewling’s Shoes, grabbed the package destined to be delivered there, and climbed the steps to the boardwalk. I still felt like two cents or less when I opened the door to the store and walked in.

  Wouldn’t you know it? There, having her feet stuffed into a pair of shoes by Mr. Meeks, sat Josephine Contreras. Blast! Of course, she might not have heard the news about Phil and me yet. Herschel’s murder was of much greater import than the supposed love life of two young people.

  I should have known better.

  “Annabelle Blue!” she cried in great delight. “I hear you and your gentleman friend were out canoodling when you found another body.”

  “We weren’t canoodling,” I muttered, furious. Maybe I should ask the chief to look harder at Armando Contreras when it came to the murders. Not that the chief would do anything I asked of him. “We were out for a walk because I couldn’t sleep. I almost fell on top of the body.” I shuddered, remembering.

  Firman Meeks glanced up at me. “How unpleasant for you, Miss Blue.”

  “It was. Very unpleasant.”

  “I swear, Annabelle, I’ve never known anyone who finds bodies the way you do,” said Josephine with a laugh.

  “I’ve only found two of them. And I didn’t want to find either one of them.”

  “I thought you found a body last summer,” said Josephine. She would.

  “Yes, and that was horrid too,” I snapped. “Here’s Mr. Chewling’s order, Mr. Meeks. I’m making deliveries today because Pa’s out of town.”

  The man rose to his feet and took the bundle I held. “Thank you, Miss Blue.” He turned to Josephine. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Contreras? Why don’t you walk a little in those shoes and see how they feel while I take these to the back room.”

  “All right,” said Josephine. She eagerly rose from the chair and showed me a foot wearing the exact same patent-leather pump I’d seen and liked not a week ago in this very store. “What do you think, Annabelle? Do you think they’ll look good at the church’s Christmas dance?”

  Josephine and Armando belonged to the Roman Catholic Church in town, and their church was always holding dances and stuff. We Methodists had covered-dish suppers. I wondered if Phil would ask me to go to the Catholics’ dance in December or if he’d still be mad at me by then. “I like them a lot, Josephine. In fact, I was looking at that pair last week.”

  “Ah, yes. I recall your interest in those shoes, Miss Blue.”

  I swear I jumped a foot. I hadn’t heard Mr. Meeks enter the room. He sneaked around like a slithery snake.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said with a ferrety smile. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, although it wasn’t. I turned back to Josephine “Yes. I do like those shoes. If you get them, I guess I’ll have to get something else. We can’t be seen in the same pair of shoes, can we?”

  “I don’t know why not,” she said, although she wasn’t really paying attention. She was occupied in looking at her feet in the little mirror Mr. Chewling had placed on the floor. The shoes were very pretty, and they looked good on her feet. As for me, I’d just wear my Sunday shoes to the Christmas dance. We Blues didn’t buy a new pair of shoes for every occasion. We were thrifty that way.

  “Did your mother decide about the slippers, Miss Blue?” asked Mr. Meeks.

  “Not yet. She’s still thinking about them. I think she thinks they might be too expensive.”

  “Well, for what you’d be getting, that’s not a bad price.”

  “You’re probably right. Ma’s just not used to spending a lot of money on slippers.”

  Josephine came back over to the row of seats and plunked herself down, focusing the attention of Mr. Meeks on her. “Well, I think I’m going to buy these. Mando will be furious, but that’s just too bad. I haven’t had a new pair of shoes in forever.”

  “They’re awfully pretty, Josephine. But I have to go now. Deliveries to make, you know.”

  “Take care, Annabelle. Don’t find any more bodies, all right?”

  “I’ll try not to,” I muttered, heading for the door.

  Well. That had been an embarrassing experience. The whole blasted town was probably talking about Phil and me. But I still had to go to the Calhouns’ house and the butcher’s shop. Perhaps I’d be able to corner Betty Lou at the Calhoun place and ask her to leave the window open for me again that night. All these late nights were going to wear me out pretty darned quickly, so the sooner I got the onerous task of searching Mr. Calhoun’s office over with, the better.

  On the other hand, maybe I should leave the investigation in the hands of the police. After all, Rosedale at night was kind of a frightening place, being so dark and all. Tonight would be another moonless one, and since I’d irritated Phil beyond all patience, there’d be only one flashlight to light my way. I remembered all those lumpy shadows everywhere and shuddered.

  But no. Annabelle Blue was no coward, whatever else she might be. Too bad, that, but if I left everything up to Chief Vickers and his crew, I wasn’t sure what might happen. So I’d just have to go it alone. The thought held absolutely no appeal whatsoever. It was a glum Annabelle Blue who drove our Model T up Lee Avenue that crisp autumn day.

  There were cars, buggies and wagons parked all around the Calhouns’ house, and ladies were entering with dishes and leaving empty-handed. It was always the women of the house who made these sympathy calls. Men weren’t required—or desired, would be my guess—although friends of the deceased’s children were acceptable, as witnessed during the last time I’d been here. In the daytime, I mean. At least I didn’t have to row to the place today.

  Another day for condolence calls on the same grieving family—and it had been my own personal screech of horror that had told them about the reason for today’s calls. Bah. I didn’t want to go in there.

  This time I expected the family, what was left of it, was actually sorry to have lost another of its members. Herschel wasn’t my kind of guy, from everything I’d heard about him, but his mother must have loved him, and maybe even his sister. I had to park way down the block and walk quite a ways, but that was all right. I lifted the pie from the seat and joined a couple of ladies walking toward the Calhoun place, all of us carrying foodstuffs of various kinds. I knew them both, of course, and braced myself. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “Annabelle Blue, I don’t know why you keep finding dead bodies,” said Mrs. O’Dell. She’s the one who’d been looking for her chickens the day after the storm. “I’m
sure your family is terribly upset.”

  “Yes. We all are. Finding another body was no fun, I can tell you.”

  “You do make a habit of that sort of thing,” her companion, Mrs. Lovelady, said.

  “Not on purpose,” I said, miffed.

  Mrs. O’Dell tutted and shook her finger at me in a playful way. “You oughtn’t be out at night with Phil Gunderson, either, dear. You know how people talk.”

  I sure did, and she was one of the worst gossips in town. Lucky me for running into her right off the bat. “We weren’t doing anything untoward, Mrs. O’Dell. I was upset about everything that’s been going on lately, and Phil was kind enough to walk with me.”

  “Oh, I believe you, dear, and I’m sure Mrs. Lovelady does, too”—Mrs. Lovelady confirmed this assumption by nodding her head—“but you never know about other folks in town.” She giggled, and I decided then and there that giggles didn’t sound right coming from middle-aged ladies.

  “Well, anyone who’d believe Phil Gunderson would do anything improper doesn’t know him. And anyone who’d think I’d do anything improper doesn’t know me.” And I stomped up the steps of the Calhoun place and knocked on the door for all three of us. Curse it, why couldn’t people mind their own business?

  A rattled-looking Betty Lou Jarvis opened the door. She brightened some when she saw me. “Oh, Annabelle! I’m so glad you came today.” Completely ignoring Mrs. O’Dell and Mrs. Lovelady, who had to carry their covered dishes into the house themselves, Betty Lou grabbed my arm and yanked me along to the kitchen. “Annabelle, tell me. Exactly what happened last night? I had the window unlocked and was expecting you to show up maybe about twelve-thirty or one, when all of a sudden I heard somebody screaming fit to kill, and then all heck broke loose. I could hardly believe it when they told me Herschel had been killed.”

  I set Ma’s squash pie down on a table that was already nearly covered from end to end with covered dishes, cakes, pies, biscuits, jars of pickles and preserves, and just about every other edible you could imagine. After taking a glance around and finding we were alone in the kitchen, I whispered, “Lordy, Betty Lou, it was terrible. Phil came with me to stand guard. You know, in case anybody showed up or anything, but the instant I turned to go to the back of the house, I tripped over Herschel’s body.” Covering my face with my hands, I whimpered. “It was just awful. I never want to find another body again as long as I live. Why, I almost fell on top of him, and if I’d done that, I’d have . . . oh, mercy.”