The Rotten Rancher (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 16)

by Frank W. Butterfield

The deputy grinned and shook his head. "Maybe one or two of the kids would be tall enough. But none of them have your build, so they'd still look like they were walking around in their dad's old clothes. Any idea as to why someone would do this?"

  I said, "The only thing I can imagine is someone who has some sort of, well..." I couldn't find the right word.

  "Fascination?" asked Carter.

  I nodded. "Maybe."

  Right then, there was a knock at the front door. A voice called out, "Forrester? You in there?"

  The deputy walked out of the room and made his way to the front door. I heard him say, "Took you long enough, Hollis." Their voices faded as they moved outside.

  I looked up at Carter and shook my head. "Why the hell are we always buying clothes wherever we go?"

  Putting his arms around me, he pulled me in close and said, "I dunno, son."

  . . .

  About an hour later, the men in white coats had removed the body. Hollis, the man who dusted for fingerprints, and the photographer had driven back to Carmel together. Mr. Hughes, however, was still handcuffed to the deputy's car.

  We were all gathered by where Mr. Hughes was sitting. The deputy asked me, "Do you remember telling Mr. and Mrs. Hughes to not go inside?" He was looking at me.

  I shrugged. "I might have. But it was real windy. They probably didn't hear me."

  Forrester nodded slowly. He looked over at the bearded man. "Well, Frank, I guess I'll have to let you go for lack of evidence." Taking out his key, he began to unlock the cuff. "I doubt the district attorney will be able to make a case if the key witness isn't sure."

  Frank Hughes stood up and moved over to his wife. He rubbed his wrist and said, "Fair enough."

  The deputy looked at us. "What's your plan?"

  Before I could say anything, Carter said, "We're going for a drive down the coast while there's no fog. And we'll be at the Hide-A-Way Motel for the night."

  Nodding, Forrester looked at Mrs. Hughes. "Now, Roberta, I know you like for things to be nice and tidy, but I want you to stay away from the house. I'm declaring it an active crime scene." Looking at us, he added, "That goes for you two, as well."

  I shrugged. "There's nothing in there that belongs to us, anyway."

  Mrs. Hughes glanced over at me with a frown on her face but didn't say anything. I wondered what that meant.

  "Fine. Stay at the Hide-A-Way for the time being. And, if you would, please stay in the area for another couple of days. I can't make you stay, but it would be a big help if you would."

  I nodded. "Of course."

  "What about your father?" asked Mrs. Hughes. "Shouldn't someone tell him about this?"

  "Yes," said Carter. "We'll take care of that. Where's the nearest payphone?"

  Mrs. Hughes said, "There's a restaurant about a mile south on the right. Place called Rocky Point. They have one there."

  I smiled. "Good. I'm starving."

  "You can always come up to our place. Roberta's a real good cook." Forrester, Carter, and I all looked over at Frank Hughes at the same time.

  I smiled and started to reply but Carter beat me to it. "That's mighty kind of you, Mr. Hughes. Maybe we can get a rain check?"

  The man nodded. I thought I saw a small wave of relief pass over his face.

  His wife said, "That'll be fine. We'll look forward to it."

  Chapter 7

  Rocky Point Restaurant

  Roosevelt Highway

  Saturday, November 12, 1955

  Half past 1 in the afternoon

  I pushed back my plate and sighed contentedly. I'd had some kind of fried fish and it had been tasty. Carter was almost done with his steak, a big rib-eye that had been cooked to shoe leather, just like he liked it.

  The joint was pretty full. It was a beautiful day and perfect for a drive. From the sounds of the conversations around us, most folks were from Monterey and Carmel. There was one table that seemed to be having a good time. Carter thought they might be French, but wasn't sure.

  As I looked through the windows and out over the ocean, I said, "I wonder if we could convince Mrs. Hughes to let my father build a new house in that spot."

  Carter pushed back his plate and took a long drink from a bottle of Burgie. I looked over at him and found myself drawn in by his green eyes. Whether it was a trick of the light, or something else, they were shining right at me.

  "You keep that up, Chief, and we may have to go back to the motel."

  Putting the bottle down, he folded his arms on the table, leaned in, and said, "That can wait."

  I snorted. "Really?"

  He nodded and tilted his head to the side. "Yes. You have to call your father. And I forbid you to mention building a new house."

  I sat back. "Forbid?" I could feel my dander rising.

  Carter sighed. "No, of course, not. But how about we do one thing at a time, here?"

  I picked up my coffee and took a sip. As the anger subsided, I nodded. "You're right. But..." I wondered if I could get away with what I wanted to say.

  "Yes?" asked Carter with half a grin.

  "To paraphrase Mike,"—he was my first lover and best friend and President of our company—"wouldn't it be best to let me be me?"

  Carter nodded slowly. "Yes. It would." Raising his right hand, he said, "I hereby promise to never, ever attempt to forbid you to do anything."

  I folded my arms and smirked at him. "You'd forbid me to answer the phone with wet hands."

  Carter shook his head. "Nope. That's Gustav's job."

  We both laughed at that.

  . . .

  "Operator, may I help you?"

  "Hi Doreen, this is Nick Williams."

  "Hello, Mr. Williams. I hope you're doing OK after all this mess."

  "Just fine, thanks. I need the long distance operator."

  "Where you calling?"

  "San Francisco."

  "Oh, sure. One moment, please."

  I waited for a couple of seconds. A female voice said, "Long distance."

  "I need to call a number in San Francisco. And I'd like to bill it to a third number."

  "What is the number you're calling?"

  "Prospect 5-2144."

  "And to what number should we bill the call?"

  "In San Francisco, Prospect 7-7777."

  "One moment, please."

  After a few seconds, I heard a couple of clicks and then the line began to ring. After the fifth ring, someone picked up and said, "Hello?"

  "Hi Lettie, it's Nick."

  "Well, hello, Nicholas. How are you?"

  "Fine. How are you?"

  "Oh, we're just fine. You caught us at just the right moment. Your father was about to take me for a drive up to the Muir Woods across the bridge. Seems like the perfect day for a walk in the redwoods. How's the weather down there?"

  "Beautiful. May I speak with my father, please?"

  "Of course. It sounds serious."

  "It is."

  "Well, you and Carter take care of yourselves. Here's your father."

  I waited as they passed the phone.

  "Nicholas?"

  "Hello, Father. How are you?"

  "Fine. What's happened?"

  "One of the local kids died at the house sometime this morning. Carl Mackey."

  He sighed. "I'm sorry to hear that. He's one of the two who deliver firewood and do odd jobs for Mrs. Hughes, correct?"

  "Yes, sir. The sheriff isn't sure exactly what happened but the house has been declared a crime scene. Carter and I have moved up to the Hide-A-Way Motel in Carmel."

  "Yes, of course. Please tell Mrs. O'Keefe hello for us."

  "I will. Father, I have a question for you."

  "Yes?"

  "When did the generator get installed?"

  "Well, it was replaced, if that's what you mean. I seem to remember Mrs. Hughes asking about that in August. I believe she arranged to have an automatic one installed that was automatic."

  "Have you been there since then?"


  "Oh, yes. Hold on, Nicholas." He put his hand over the mouthpiece for a few seconds. "Nicholas?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "We were there with Ed and Louise"—that was Carter's mother and his new stepfather"—about two weeks before their wedding. Right at the end of September. Glorious weekend."

  "And did you have to use the generator that weekend?"

  "Oh, yes. The power is so fickle. It almost always goes out when we're there. I remember it was that Saturday evening. Louise and Lettie were cooking while Ed and I were sitting outside."

  "Any problems with the generator?"

  "No. Why do you ask?"

  "Looks like someone disconnected the vent pipe. It kicked on late last night. Carter and I managed to get out before it got too bad." Since we'd made peace in the last couple of years, I'd tried to be as honest and up front with my father as I could. But, I didn't mind fudging the story of how Carter and I could have easily died. There was no need to worry him about things he couldn't do anything about.

  "And it didn't come loose on its own?"

  "No, sir. It was definitely detached by someone."

  "Who would so such a thing?"

  "That's what the sheriff is looking into. Do you happen to know how long a tank of gas lasts?"

  "Why, yes. It's about five hours. That night, the power went out at 5. The generator stopped working at 10, or a little after. We all sat outside under the stars for a while longer and then retired for the evening."

  I knew he was going to hang up on me when I said what I was thinking, but I said it anyway. "Now, Father, there are only two bedrooms in that house."

  "Yes?" His voice was tense but he was still on the line. Maybe he'd changed more than I'd realized.

  "And you let Louise and—"

  The line went dead before I could finish.

  . . .

  Once we were on the road, heading further south, I filled Carter in on what my father had said. When I got to the end of the conversation, he took his eyes off the twisting road for a moment and said, "You shouldn't tease your father like that. He's come a long way." He paused. "On the other hand, if you hadn't said that, he might've thought you were still full of carbon monoxide." He grinned.

  I nodded. "That's part of our father-son thing, right? I curse like a sailor, sleep in his father's bed with my husband, and am generally a blot on the good name of Williams."

  Carter snorted at that. "I didn't think Williams, at least your part of it, had ever been a good name."

  I nodded. "You're right. Not since 1850 when my great-grandfather came around the horn from Wales and made his way up to above Placerville, found all that gold, and screwed his partners out of their share."

  "What happened to those partners?" asked Carter.

  I shrugged. "I've never heard. And, remember, that kind of story was the sort of thing my grandfather and Uncle Paul liked to tell about their father. Who knows if any of it is true." I looked out at the ocean. "Besides, you're the one who read the book about him. What'd the author say?" Carter had found a privately published book about the Gold Rush and had given it to my father for Christmas in '53. It had a chapter all about my great-grandfather, Gruffydd Williams. His name had been changed to Griffith after he'd arrived in San Francisco. Most everyone who'd known him had called him Griff.

  Carter said, "That book was a real disappointment. I think whoever wrote it was trying to suck up to the 1909 social register. There wasn't any real history in it. Just a lot of rigmarole about how brave they'd been. That sorta thing."

  "It was published after the earthquake?"

  Carter nodded. "Yeah. There was even a list of mansions that had been built by Forty-Niners that had burned in the fire."

  "What'd it say about our pile of rocks?"

  "That the interior had been gutted but the exterior remained. I still don't understand why, in the photographs of Nob Hill from after the fire, you can never see it."

  I shrugged. "Maybe it's always behind the Flood Mansion."

  Carter nodded. "That might be it. They always seemed to take the same shot of that building from the corner of California and Mason. Our house could be behind it."

  Chapter 8

  Home of Henry Miller

  Saturday, November 12, 1955

  A quarter until 5 in the afternoon

  We'd stopped at a store in the town of Big Sur, which was primarily comprised of just the post office and the store. The man there, who went by the name Ronald and was tall with a scraggly beard, had told us how to find Mr. Miller's house and had suggested we take him some groceries. We'd loaded up the trunk with whatever the man had suggested. I'd carried two bottles of French champagne on my lap to keep them as still as possible. The man had pulled them out at the last minute. "I save these for when I know Henry can afford to buy them. When he sees them, you'll be his best friends. He may live up here now and be poor as a church mouse, but he talks about France all the time."

  . . .

  "Who the hell are you two and how'd you get that thing up this hill?" That was Henry Miller. He was a lot shorter and thinner than I'd expected. Carter grinned down at Mr. Miller and said, "Downshifting."

  "No, I meant over all those holes in the road."

  "Very carefully."

  Mr. Miller put his hand over his eyes to shade them from the afternoon sun and looked up at Carter. "You're a tall one. Now, why do I think I know you?"

  Carter shrugged and then said, "We brought you groceries."

  Offering up a toothsome grin, Mr. Miller said, "Well, why didn't you say so? Come on in, boys."

  We both grabbed a box from the trunk and followed him inside the house. It wasn't much more than a cabin but it was at the top of a ridge and the views were breathtaking.

  The house was furnished with all sorts of jumbled pieces. Some things looked newer than others but nothing matched.

  The kitchen was mostly one wall at the end of the living area. Moving some dishes from the small counter to the sink, he said, "You'll have to pardon the mess. My wife, Eve, is up in Monterey for a few days. So, I've been lazy about keeping the place straight." He suddenly snapped the fingers of his right hand, turned, and pointed at me. "You're that Williams kid from San Francisco, ain't you?"

  I nodded as I put the box on the counter. "Yes, sir."

  Waving his hand at me, he said, "Lay off that bourgeois stuff. Call me Henry." Putting his hands on his hips, he looked me up and down and nodded. "You're a lot more than what I thought you'd be."

  I shrugged. I had no idea what he meant. "Call me Nick."

  "Sure, sure." He looked up at Carter and then back at me with a lecherous grin. "That's some mountain you got there with you. I bet the two of you can really go at it. Am I right?"

  Carter and I both blushed, neither of us replying.

  He waved at us. "Sorry. I'm embarrassing you. I've never swung your way. Never had the inclination even though I've tried to imagine what it might be like." He shook his head. "Never could get my head around it. Or my cock, neither, doncha know." He looked out the door. "You got more stuff in that little blue thingamajig or is that it?"

  Carter said, "We have a couple more things."

  "Fine, fine. You two go out there, talk among yourselves about the dirty old man in the house, and then come back in when you're ready." He pointed at me. "But, be sure to come back. I've got a thing or two I wanna tell you, Nick."

  . . .

  After we unloaded the rest of the groceries, brought in the champagne, and had a toast, Henry suggested that Carter move the car back down to the end of the road.

  "Unless you're in a hurry. You don't wanna have to drive down in the dark is all I'm sayin'"

  Carter nodded, drained his glass, and headed back outside. As the car fired up, Henry said, "Have a seat, kid. I've got somethin' on my mind and I wanna get it off my mind before your big ape gets back from down the hill."

  I nodded and carefully sat on a chair that looked a little wobbly. Henry sat a
t the kitchen table that also appeared to double as a desk. Along with a couple of heavily waxed-over crystal candlesticks, it was covered with stacks of books, opened letters, and fountain pens.

  Leaning forward in his chair, he looked at me for a long moment. "This kid from San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg, sat right there, in that very chair, about a month or so ago. He's a queer, like you, doncha know." Waving his hands, he added, "He's real artsy, too. He read me some of his stuff." Shaking his head from side to side, as if he was considering whether it was good stuff or not, Henry continued, "It was good. Gets to the heart of the problem in this country, doncha know. People are too concerned with acquiring things and not nearly concerned enough with the basics, like good food"—he lifted his champagne glass and tilted it towards me—"and nature and fuckin'."

  I nodded. I had no idea who he was talking about, but I knew how to wait and to listen, so I did.

  "He came down here on the suggestion of his buddy, Jack Kerouac,"—I knew who he was since he'd written a book both Carter and I had read called On The Road—"who I've been writing to for a few years. That one's a good kid. He's got a few screws loose, doncha know. But I like him. Never met him, though." He poured himself more champagne from the open bottle and offered it to me. I stood up, walked over, and let him drain the last of the bottle into my glass.

  As I sat back down, he ran his hand over his face. "Anyway, this Ginsberg kid, he told me about you. How you stood up to George Hearst. He sent me a couple of newspaper clippings. Real interesting stuff, doncha know." He had another long drink. "So, I've been thinking about you for a couple of weeks. Wondering what it's like to zip around the world with so much freedom." He sat back and crossed his arms. "You probably have no idea how much you have. Those other queers, they have to be careful not to get caught. It's a crying shame. And, for what? For nothing." He stopped for a moment. "I don't understand why it's a crime. Ain't nothing wrong with what any of you is doin'." He drained his glass. "Not to my way of thinkin', doncha know."

  I nodded and took a long drink. I wondered where he was going with all that.

  "So, I sit here up on the mountain and I look out and I see nature at its finest. Most people around here, all they talk about is the fog or the cold." He grinned. "Or the cold fog." He laughed. "But me? I look forward to every day. The weather around here is never boring, that's for sure. And don't let anyone tell you they can predict the weather on the Big Sur. No one can. The Sur is gonna do what it's gonna do and no one can do anything about it, doncha know."