Red doubted that Eddie would befriend a man like Luna. He was a suspicious sort by nature, and that was doubly so when a stranger appeared out of nowhere.
It was most likely that Luna heard Eddie was a trader. And that he had goods that no one else could obtain. His being a prepper, who’d figured out how to protect certain electronics, meant that he had batteries and radios. Night vision goggles and working flashlights. Music players and televisions. And all manner of other things that were virtually unobtainable.
At least in the tiny hamlet of Blanco, Texas.
Heck, he even had a working vehicle. It wasn’t a car or a pickup. It was a four wheel drive utility vehicle. He’d driven it to town on the day he ridiculed the townsfolk for not taking him seriously. And then announced he had goods for sale at premium prices.
His vehicle was nothing fancy. But it got him from one place to another, and was the only working vehicle of any type in the whole town.
No, Eddie wouldn’t make friends with a man like Jesse Luna. But if Luna had the means, Eddie would do business with him in a heartbeat.
If what Luna had told Mrs. Montgomery was true, he was going to visit Eddie on his way out of town. Red hoped that he told Eddie where he was headed, so she could catch him before he got too far away.
And she hoped like hell he didn’t manage to buy Eddie’s vehicle. Bonnie was a fast horse who could manage fifteen miles a day on moderate terrain.
But Bonnie was no match for a quad runner.
She called out as she approached Eddie’s cabin, so as not to surprise him.
Surprising Eddie wasn’t a good idea. He was jittery and jumpy by nature, and had gotten even more so since the blackout.
“Eddie, it’s Red. I’m coming in.”
One of the first things she saw in the yard was Eddie’s quad runner, turned on its side, its engine removed. The engine was spread out in fifty different pieces on two folding tables.
Apparently he no longer had the town’s only operating vehicle.
She dismounted and stood in the middle of the yard.
The place was perfectly calm, and perfectly quiet, save a mockingbird chirping in a nearby tree.
Red called again.
“Eddie, it’s Red. Are you home?”
No answer.
She tied Bonnie to the hitching post in front of the cabin and walked up the steps.
A set of bloody footprints, made with the deep-treaded soles of outdoor boots, greeted her. But they weren’t going the same direction she was. They were headed down the steps, and away from the house.
“Oh, Eddie…”
Her tone was one of sadness more than anything else.
She seemed to sense what she was going to find in the house.
Still, she had to go through the motions, just in case she was wrong.
Even as she drew her sidearm from its holster, she called out once again.
“Eddie, I hope you’re dressed. I’m coming in.”
Eddie’s eyes were the first thing she noticed as she walked through the door. They were aimed in the general direction of the cabin’s door, but did not see her.
They’d never see anything again.
She knew he was dead, and didn’t even bother checking for a pulse. His skin was a ghostly shade of white, his blood having drained all over the floor from the gaping slit in his neck.
Red felt sadness first, then anger.
She looked in the cabin’s back room, though she knew instinctively the killer had gone. She’d seen his footprints.
She wondered what kind of footwear Luna had on when he’d left Mrs. Montgomery’s and whether the prints could be tied back to him.
Then she laughed at her own folly. Blanco’s so-called police chief wouldn’t open up an investigation into a murder that could well implicate himself or close friends of his. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have the first clue about collecting evidence at a crime scene.
Or what to do with it afterwards.
Red muttered under her breath, “Is there no end to what you bastards are capable of?”
Once again, she immediately suspected Luna, and by extension John Savage, for the death of yet another person she cared about.
“Hasn’t there been enough killing? When are you guys gonna stop?”
Once again she wondered what it was all about. What their motive might be. None of it made any sense.
None whatsoever.
Chapter 14
Red looked around the cabin for any clues about what might have transpired that led to Eddie’s death. There were no signs of a struggle. She surmised that Luna grabbed him from behind and slit his throat, probably before he even knew what hit him.
She found that odd. Eddie wasn’t the type to turn his back on a stranger. He was much too paranoid, too cautious, for that.
Red hadn’t been in Eddie’s cabin in a couple of years, when Bonnie lost a shoe not far from there and Red led her to Eddie’s to see if he could replace it. They’d sat in the main room of his cabin that day and talked about the meaning of life.
That was too long ago for Red to be able to tell whether anything was missing.
Luna, if he was heading out of town and looking for transportation, would likely have been upset to find out that Eddie’s quad runner was out of commission.
She wondered what his next step would be.
She walked back outside, careful not to step in the rapidly drying blood on the cabin floor.
It would be somehow… disrespectful, to step in something that was once part of her friend.
Outside, she walked over to the small stable where Eddie kept his two horses, Coke and Pepsi.
They were gone, as was one of the saddles.
Luna was traveling alone, and took the second horse as a backup. Or he was traveling heavy and needed a pack horse.
She hoped he knew what he was doing. Coke was pushing twenty years now, and Pepsi wasn’t far behind him. An inexperienced horseman could run them both into the ground.
Red was a fair tracker. She’d tracked white tails around Blanco County since she was a young girl. But she knew instinctively that a man like Luna wouldn’t ride on the shoulder of the road, where the soft earth would be easier on the horses. No, he’d ride on the hard pavement.
Sure enough, the two sets of tracks led directly to the blacktop running past Eddie’s cabin, then disappeared.
She mounted up and headed back into town.
Main Street was deserted when she pulled up to the First Bank of Blanco and tied Bonnie to a parking meter.
“You stay here, girl. I’ll be right back.”
Savage was sitting at his desk, looking through a stack of mortgages he was considering foreclosing on. He liked that there was a stipulation in each of the loan agreements that allowed the bank to demand an alternate form of payment should the United States ever default on the mighty dollar.
The dollar was now worthless. The only universally recognized form of currency now was not currency at all, but precious metals and jewels.
After almost a year since the blackout began, he’d already milked the homeowners of most of their valuables. But the bank still held their mortgages, and he was the town’s only banker. As such he held his neighbors’ fate in his grubby, greedy hands.
He was perfectly within his legal rights to swoop in as the banker, foreclosing on half the properties in the county and evicting the homeowners to fend for themselves wherever they could find a roof.
As the town police chief as well, he’d have no problem enforcing the eviction orders, and any complaints or pleas for mercy would fall on his ample but deaf ears.
But he was afraid someone might take it too hard, and given the present state of the world, might retaliate against Savage and think he could get away with it.
There was another way to go.
He could take the high road and go to each of the delinquent homeowners with an olive branch and a settlement offer.
They could conti
nue to live in their homes until they died, and the bank would waive all future mortgage payments. There would be no rent payments either.
However, on the day the last of the mortgage’s co-signees died, the house and the property the house sat on would belong to the First Bank of Blanco.
“Oh,” he’d add, before the homeowners grew too excited about the deal. “You must sign over oil and mineral rights to the property, effective immediately, and continuing on indefinitely until the bank takes over your estate.”
Savage knew instinctively that most of the homeowners would take him up on his offer. Most of them were older residents, whose kids were already grown up and had homes of their own. And further, few of them considered that the earth beneath their feet contained anything of value. Just plain dirt, as far as they knew. So signing over oil and mineral rights would be no problem for them at all.
He was weighing his two options when Red burst through the door.
“Red! What the hell are you doing, charging in here like a crazy woman?”
But then he saw the fire in her eyes and said no more.
“I’ll tell you why I’m here, you son of a bitch. Your man Luna murdered Crazy Eddie. You’re somehow involved. I know it and you know it. And the only reason I haven’t shot you between your beady little eyes is because I can’t prove it.”
“Luna? Who the hell is Luna?”
She used her left arm to sweep the stacks of papers off his expansive desk while pulling her pistol with her right hand.
“How about I take your ‘who’s Luna’ and shove it down your throat?”
“Red, you can’t come in here and talk to me like this. I can arrest you. I’m the law around here now.”
“You haven’t yet seen the day when you’re man enough to arrest me, John. You’d have to go out and deputize a real man to do it, and as soon as you sent him to put me in cuffs he’d turn in his badge. Not because he’s afraid of me, but because he’d know whatever charges you filed on me were bullshit.
“So you go ahead and try. But there’s something else you’d better do first, Mister Lawman. First you better get your fat ass out to Eddie Simms’s cabin to collect his body and start your homicide investigation. And if you don’t issue an arrest warrant for Jesse Luna and send out a posse after him, I’ll personally ride all the way to Austin and get the Texas Rangers on your ass.
“And make sure that nothing happens to Luna after your posse catches up with him. I want to ask him some questions. If he tells me that you were involved in any way in the murders of my family or my father, there ain’t no place on this earth where you can hide. And if Luna somehow gets shot dead during his arrest or falls victim to some kind of accident while he’s in your custody, I’ll take that to mean you couldn’t let him live to tell his tale.
“And then you’d better start running.”
“But Red, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“We’ll see. You just remember what I said.”
She stormed out of the bank and mounted up, then rode at a fast gallop toward Mrs. Montgomery’s boarding house.
John Savage, for all his bluster and bravado, suddenly realized he was sweating profusely. He looked at his hands and noticed they were shaking.
Damn that Luna. Why in hell did he have to go and kill Crazy Eddie? That put Savage in a tenuous position. He couldn’t overlook a murder, and he couldn’t just sweep it under the rug.
But he also couldn’t arrest Jesse Luna either. They were tied too closely, and the county district attorney couldn’t be bought. If Savage did his job and had a strong case against Luna, Luna would tell the DA all he knew.
The only solution was to manufacture evidence to indicate somebody else killed Crazy Eddie. That Luna’s leaving town on the exact same day Eddie died was a coincidence and nothing more.
Savage would find a scapegoat, and somebody would pay a heavy price for killing Crazy Eddie.
But it wouldn’t be Jesse Luna.
Chapter 15
Red dismounted and let Bonnie loose to graze in Mrs. Montgomery’s front yard. She desperately needed to find out where Luna went. Crazy Eddie could no longer tell her. Only one other person could.
The stranger who went by the name of Sloan.
She found Mrs. Montgomery in the kitchen, washing the dinner dishes.
“Oh, hello my dear. Twice in one day. This is really unprecedented. Are you back for more of my cookies?”
Red hugged the old woman and said, “You knew that once I had a couple of those things I wouldn’t be able to stay away.”
“Well, help yourself, dear. They’re in the cookie jar right there on the corner of the counter.”
Red went to the jar, which was appropriately shaped as a pink pig.
She jumped when she lifted the pig’s head and he oinked.
“What the…?”
Mrs. Montgomery laughed.
“Oh, that’s a reminder to old folks like me that anything we eat that looks like a cookie goes straight to our waistline. But you won’t have to worry about such things for many years. My goodness, I wish I could go back to the days when I had a figure like yours.”
“But how did you get it to work? After the blackout, I mean…”
“Oh, Eddie was kind enough to give me a few batteries when I bought the generator from him. He charged me way too much for the generator, and I told him so. But it turned out he was a pretty nice man. He threw in the batteries for my pig there and for my flashlights, and told me he’d give me a lifetime warranty for the generator at no additional cost. He said anytime the generator needed work, as long as I live, all I have to do is tell him. He said he’d be Johnny-on-the-spot and come right out and fix it for me.”
“You’re right, Mrs. M. He’s been a wonderful guy for as long as I’ve known him. But what happens if he dies before you do?”
“Oh, that’ll never happen, dear. He’s thirty years younger than me, and doesn’t have a bad ticker like I do.”
“Mrs. M., I’m afraid that Eddie’s been murdered.”
The old woman’s face turned an ashen color and she dropped her dish cloth onto the floor.
“Oh my God, sweet child. Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you. As good as your cookies are, they weren’t really the thing that called me back here. I went to see Eddie to find out where Jesse Luna went. But I’m afraid that Luna murdered him. Now I need to ask the same question of one of your other guests.”
“Mr. Sloan?”
“Yes, ma’am. How did you know? Were the two of them close associates?”
“My goodness, I don’t think so. At least, I never saw them together at any time. But Mr. Sloan… he’s the only other one of my boarders besides Mr. Luna who gave me the willies. I just got the sense that both of them were bad men, and both had things they were hiding.”
“Where can I find Mr. Sloan?”
“If he’s not in the parlor watching tonight’s movie, he’s probably in his room. Room 4, at the top of the stairs.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Red started toward the stairs.
Mrs. Montgomery called after her.
“Oh, and Red…”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Please be careful.”
Red climbed the stairs, stood in front of Sloan’s room and rapped on the door.
There was no answer.
She muttered to herself, “Oh, crap. Don’t tell me you’ve lit out too.”
She knocked again.
Still no answer.
“Can I help you?”
Red turned to see a tall thin man walking down the hallway toward her. He had a white towel wrapped around his waist and was wearing bedroom slippers. In his hand he was carrying a can of shaving cream and a razor.
“Sorry,” he continued. The residents have to share bathrooms. Males up here, women downstairs. We don’t see a lot of dames up here.”
Red shook her head. Did he reall
y just say, “Dames?”
“I’m here to talk to you about Jesse Luna.”
“Who?”
“Look Mister, I don’t know you from Adam. I don’t know what you’re capable of. But I know what I’m capable of when I’m pissed off and want something. And I’m pissed off and want something. So we can do this like two adults, in a civil manner. Or I can show you the side of me that everybody in town runs away from. Your choice.”
“I’ll talk to you, but not out here in the hall. Are you brave enough to come into my room?”
“I’m not afraid of you, Mister. If that’s what it takes to get my answers, lead the way.”
Sloan turned the knob and walked into his room. Red thought it odd he hadn’t locked it, but then again it was a respectable place. Mrs. Montgomery usually did a pretty good job of screening prospective boarders.
Usually, but obviously not always.
“I wish I had some coffee to offer you, young lady.”
“My name is Red, and I don’t drink coffee.”
“I know your name. You’re the daughter of that guy who had the heart attack not long ago.”
“Yeah, we’ll go with that for now, just to avoid an argument. What do you know about Jesse Luna?”
“I know you don’t want to tangle with him.”
“I suspect I’ve tangled with worse.”
“That may be true. But I doubt it.”
“What brings you to town, Mr. Sloan?”
“Just passing through on my way west. Had some blisters on my feet and needed to let them heal before I continued my walk. Thought this was such a nice town I might stay awhile.”
“Any truth to the rumor you work for John Savage?”
“Who?”
“The banker. Fat man. Looks a little like John Wayne in his last years. But lacking in the Duke’s integrity.”
“Sounds like you don’t like the man.”
“No, not much.”
“No. I don’t work for him. I don’t work for anybody.”
“You must be a rich man, to be able to travel across the state without a job.”
“I had some money set aside to finance my trip.”
Too Tough To Tame: Red: Book 2 Page 5