He glanced at my recorder. “Off the record?”
“No promises.” I gestured to the table and the inactive recorder. “I’m not recording, if that makes any difference.” I tried to appear nonthreatening.
“Katy Bonham is her name. Can we change the subject?”
“Why is your friend Katy walking through the lobby with Jeff Clark’s guitar case?” I hadn’t failed to notice the singer’s name in faded but large black letters along the side.
“Because I gave it to her.”
“The question is, Why didn’t you save it for Jeff’s family? What about his daughter?”
His gaze dropped to my phone. “That woman has a right to it.”
“Would you care to explain?”
With the back of his hand, he brushed nonexistent lint from his pants. “Katy is Jeff’s ex-wife.”
The world was a suddenly a minuscule place and shrinking by the second. “You expect me to believe you didn’t know she lived across the street from where Jeff Clark died?”
He had the decency to squirm. “I didn’t know precisely where he died.” He began to drum his fingers on the table. “It never came up.”
I was starting to comprehend what, or rather who, was keeping Ken Price in Broken Boot. They probably held their meetings in his hotel room.
“Why do you think she deserves Clark’s guitar?” I asked.
“The jerk never paid alimony or support. It’s the least I could do.”
“Those children at her house—those Clark’s?”
“What? No.” He crossed his ankle over his knee and pretended to relax into his chair. “Those kids are from her second husband.” His expression changed to one of derision. “No, she’s not currently married, and yes, she needs the money.”
“And the moral support only you can give?” I snapped my head around just to make sure Katy Bonham wasn’t standing behind me . . . again. My understanding of the case was splintering into a dozen pieces. Ken Price was seeing Jeff Clark’s ex, who lived across from Patti Perez, who the sheriff’s office arrested for Jeff’s murder.
As Price’s cheeks flushed again, he snapped his fingers, which made me want to slug him. “Come on. I’m not here to talk about Clark’s marital problems or who has his favorite guitar. Do you have any more questions about the band?”
With an effort, I drew a deep breath and attempted to set aside Price’s officiousness and Katy Bonham’s address, at least until I finished my interview. I reached for the phone but left it untouched. Price would talk more if the recording device stayed off. “If your new act, the Clay Conley Band, depends on the sex appeal and showmanship of one Clay Conley, how are you going to cope with his clinging vine of a fiancée, Britney?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
I lobbed a grenade. “I hear she’s pregnant.”
He froze. Narrowing his eyes, he studied me for several uncomfortable seconds. “That’s what she claims anyway.” I couldn’t get a read on him.
“Uh, you and she . . . You never dated, right?”
He jerked back as if I’d shot him. “Nooo. He can have her—as long as she doesn’t stand in his way to number one on the Billboard country charts.”
I tried another tack. “You ever play cards with Clay and his boys?”
“No, I like to hold on to my money.” He checked the time on his Rolex.
“I understand why you gave the story to that other reporter, but give me something. Tell me about Britney.”
“You’ll leave Katy out of it?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How long have they been together?”
He checked his phone. “Who? Clay and Britney?”
“Who else?” I asked, struggling to hide my impatience.
His smile held a sly malice. “Hard to imagine her with anyone else, right? Actually, she and Clay hit a skid a few months ago, and Jeff stepped into the gap. I found out when he let it slip one night after a few beers.”
“How on God’s green earth did she and Clay stay together?”
“Jeff eventually broke free of that quagmire. He was self-possessed enough to prevent breaking up the band or losing his songwriting partner because of her.”
I was running out of questions. “Why did you allow her to tour with the band?”
“Believe it or not, she caused more theatrics if Clay tried to leave her behind.”
I slid my notebook and pen into my bag. “Thank you for your time.” As soon as I left, I was going to do a thorough background check into Ms. Katy Bonham.
He studied me. “I bet you’d like to know before you retreat that Britney approached me about making Clay a solo act long before Jeff died.”
“Doesn’t surprise me none,” I said, but it did.
“Said I’d be a fool to let another label snatch him up, as he writes all the songs—which is not true.” He frowned, hit a button, lifted the phone to his ear, and listened to a message.
“No?”
“He cowrote most of them.”
“Did you share her request with Dustin Akers?”
With a sigh, he brushed off his pants and stood. “No, and I didn’t tell him about her bright idea to cover her new SUV with a sparkly skin advertising the Clay Conley Band either.”
We laughed.
“I haven’t seen the two of them use any mode of transportation except for their feet,” I said. “Did you let her off easy?”
“I told her I didn’t care how much she paid for it. Her ride was uglier than— How would you Texans put it? Oh yeah. Uglier than sin.” From his wallet, he withdrew a couple of bills and tossed them on the leather-topped coffee table.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to take another sip of tea. Where should I go first? To Lightfoot? To Britney? To Gretchen Cruz?
“Guess our interview is over.”
“Sorry.” How long had I sorted through the to-do list in my mind?
“I need to get back to work.” He set down his teacup and wiped the tips of his fingers on his cloth napkin.
“Thanks for the interview,” I said with sincerity. I wasn’t sure why he’d shared so much confidential information with me in the first place. My guess was he either thought it didn’t matter what I printed in a paper with such a modest readership or he enjoyed the gossip. If the latter was the case, would he turn around and share our conversation with Britney and Clay, or Jeff’s ex-wife, Katy?
With a smile, he slipped his hands in his pockets. “Go do your reporter thing. I can see your fingers twitching.”
“And I thought you wouldn’t notice.”
His eyes registered my attempt at humor. “Don’t forget.” He pointed a finger close to my face. “You owe me.”
Before I could argue that I didn’t owe him anything other than a positive mention if and when I ever wrote a story again with his name in it, he stepped into the lobby elevator and was gone.
Chapter 21
Wednesday was uneventful and Thursday’s lunch shift was downright exhausting. Neither Camille nor Lily had shown up, which meant a long day serving and busing tables at Milagro. As a result, I was eagerly awaiting the opening of the Rising Star Contest that evening. Much to my delight, Uncle Eddie had asked me to be one of the judges. I parked around back, crossed through the Two Boots kitchen, and entered the green room—the same one that the Jeff Clark Band used as a dressing room only a week earlier. Determined not to get the heebie-jeebies, I changed into my last calico dress, matching prairie bonnet, and white apron.
I walked to the door and took a final look around, remembering that fateful night Patti and I heard Jeff and Clay arguing outside this very room. Had their fight been over a song? Money? Or something else?
“Take it back,” Clay had hollered. My guess was that Jeff Clark s
aid something insulting about the other man’s fiancée, good ole Britney.
I made my way through the crowd and settled in at the judges’ table. The Rising Star Contest committee had selected ten finalists from the video auditions submitted via YouTube, and then recruited three judges for the live contest. I was proud of Uncle Eddie; he’d come up with a great way to promote local artists while raising money to keep the power and lights on, not to mention keeping pear cider and Revolver beer in the coolers.
First up was a teenage boy whose hands trembled so hard, I thought he was going to run off the stage and cry. With the crowd’s support, he made it to the chorus and then sailed smoothly, if flatly, from there on out.
The other judges and I consulted, wrote down his score, and added positive comments on the bottom of his scorecard like Never give up on your dreams and Keep on trucking. Bubba insisted both sayings were popular in his childhood home in Africa.
The next three contestants made me want to follow them on social media and join their fan club. If I had to guess, I’d say they were from either Austin or Nashville.
After writing down their scores and adding my comments, I prepared myself for the next contestant. As the stage crew set up her microphone and stool, my stomach soured. Live from Patti’s neighborhood and the lobby of the Cogburn Hotel . . . Jeff Clark’s ex-wife.
Now I understood her hurry to find Jeff’s guitar. With her back to the audience, she removed her ex-husband’s instrument from its case; she then turned to the crowd with a nervous smile and took her seat on the stool provided. The lights lowered, the crowd hushed, and she started to play. She began with one chord and stayed on it for far too long. We judges shot a glance at each other.
“She only knows one chord,” Bubba said in my ear.
She had tenacity, I had to give her that. She kept singing her original song, something about second chances, but instead of changing her fingerings to match the chord changes, her fingers remained glued to the same strings.
I pulled Bubba’s arm to bring his ear down to my level. “She’s never played guitar, or I’m a gourmet chef,” I said.
He nodded in agreement. “And we know that is definitely not true.”
How had she made it into the show? Had Ken Price pulled some strings? And if so, why?
We compared our score sheets. Her name was printed bold as brass on each one in the same hand. The lights came up, a Stevie Ray Vaughan recording started playing over the speakers, and the intermission began.
As customers made their way to the bar, I spotted Deputy Lightfoot standing at the back of the room, surveying the crowd. I hopped over a row of seats and almost kissed the floor, but I made it past the throng.
“That woman up there was Jeff Clark’s ex.”
He took me by the arm and pulled me into a secluded hallway away from the din of folks gabbing and placing their orders. “Are you positive?”
I nodded. “Ken Price pointed her out at the hotel, but only after I spotted her hurrying through the lobby with Jeff Clark’s guitar case. It was weird. I think there’s something going on between those two.”
“If she is Clark’s ex, what is she doing with his guitar?”
“I asked Price that very question, and he tried to act as if Jeff owed it to her as an alimony payment.”
“She can’t play,” Lightfoot said with a shake of his head.
I pointed to my chest. “Look at me and pay close attention. This is me, sharing vital information with you.”
“Humph.”
“And I expect you to return the favor.”
“Okay,” he said, leaning away.
“Her name is Katy Bonham.”
“Jeff’s ex?”
“I said so, didn’t I? And guess where she lives?” I didn’t wait for his response. “Across the street from Patti.”
Slapping his hands together, the stalwart deputy stomped his boot as if striking up the band for a country line dance. “I had a feeling I was missing something.”
An announcement blasted over the loudspeakers, asking the crowd to return to their seats.
“And that’s not all I’ve got.” I grinned. “Clay claims he wasn’t at the poker game all night. Did you know there was a poker game?”
“Sure. He was playing at Pecos Pete’s.”
“Says he left the game to get more cigarettes at one o’clock in the morning—said he was gone for forty-five minutes.”
“Aren’t you one of the judges?” He gestured toward the stage.
“I still have a minute. But—and here’s the important part—the bartender says Clay was at the table all night, but Britney left at twelve thirty, not him. Why would he lie?”
“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe they both left the table at different times.”
The dance hall lights blinked their final warning. I had to make this fast. “The neighbors—”
“—said someone hit the trash cans at Patti’s around twelve thirty.”
The head judge craned his neck until he found me and then began to wave frantically.
“Don’t leave,” I whispered. “I have more.”
Impatiently, I sat through the last five acts. The final act, an older woman from Arizona, was clearly the winner. Her original song displayed both her beautiful guitar playing and her humorous but poignant lyrics.
We marked our ballots and passed them to the end of the row so that the committee could tally the results with painstaking accuracy. Then my phone started to vibrate, nearly shaking my glass of Dr Pepper off the end of the judges’ table before I could catch it. I checked the screen and found a text message from an unknown number. I didn’t hesitate. It read, Jason says he didn’t see anything.
My bubble burst so fast, my head nearly spun from disappointment. All the information I’d collected was rubbish.
After we awarded the Arizonian the cash prize, I thanked the judges on Uncle Eddie’s behalf. I searched through the crowd for Lightfoot and thought of my best friend, Patti Perez, Broken Boot’s only Goth Princess. I had no doubt she would’ve won if she’d been free to compete.
Then it struck me. That was how Katy Bonham, Jeff’s ex, had slipped into the competition. She’d stolen Patti’s place. My stomach soured as I thought about Goth Girl sitting in jail, desperate for hope, while that neophyte stood on stage in her place.
I eventually found Lightfoot outside in his cruiser. I knocked on the window and gestured for him to roll it down. “So, Clay didn’t leave the table the night of the murder—got it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you said.”
“And he was willing to cover for Britney. Are you going to interview her?”
“No need.”
“Why not, Sheriff Lightfoot? Fill me in.”
“According to the coroner, Jeff wasn’t killed at twelve thirty in the morning—more like five,” Lightfoot said.
“Well, dad gum.” I shared with him the text message I’d received from Victoria Pappas, Patti’s next-door neighbor.
“What’s that mean?” he asked.
“It means my theory’s been shot to H-E-double-toothpicks and back.”
He said, “What was Jeff Clark’s ex-wife’s name again?”
“Katy Bonham. You know, she very well could’ve walked across the street when no one was looking and banged him over the head with Patti’s Fender out of pure jealousy.”
“That’s a theory.” He shifted his gaze to his smartphone.
“Do you have to look so disinterested?”
“Don’t worry. Your information was helpful. It confirmed what I already knew: that Clay Conley lies, and so does that Ken Price character.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard him tell your uncle that Katy Bonham was going to be a star, and she’d put Two Boots on the map if he let her play.”
&n
bsp; “Enough said.” Perhaps Price planned to whisk Katy and her children off to Los Angeles, and perhaps time would flow backwards so that she and Jeff Clark would never have divorced. For her sake, I hoped it was the latter.
Chapter 22
On weekends, the population of Broken Boot had one thing on their minds: West Texas football. No one cared that the only cowboys in sight were those that rode American quarter horses and wore ropers. The Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans had their place: the flat-screen on Sunday and Monday nights.
The Broken Boot community lapped up local football like thirsty dogs. Folks who loved the pigskin could worship it on Friday nights by going to the local high school games, and on Saturdays by supporting the West Texas University Armadillos, who occasionally played on Thursdays for broadcast on the smaller sports cable networks.
Since I’d been home, Ryan had harangued, begged, and attempted to shame me into attending one of his games, quite unsuccessfully too, until this week. Obviously, I wasn’t a huge fan of football and guys in weird uniforms. But it was Ryan, and he had come through by giving me the tip about the Land Rover.
Saturday, I needed a break from part-time journalism, which had managed to increase my anxiety without paying my bills. I worked the lunch shift, walked my dog, squeezed him into his West Texas tee, and loaded up the car with his necessities and an old bleacher cushion Uncle Eddie no longer used.
“Jo Jo,” Uncle Eddie called from the foot of my apartment stairs.
“Yo,” I answered, gathering our water bottles and locking the door.
“Ride with me and Mami.” Uncle Eddie never missed a game.
“Who?”
Lenny and I met him at the bottom of the stairs. He grabbed the small cooler from my hand and headed for the back door. “Mami is insisting on coming with us.”
“What’d you do this time?” His mother hated football and compared sitting in the bleachers to working in the fields all day, picking chile peppers.
“Wasn’t me. This has something to do with one of her cockamamie dreams.”
The Good, the Bad and the Guacamole Page 25