Ghost Gone Wild (A Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel)

by Hart, Carolyn

  I whirled behind Albert, materialized long enough to mouth, “What time did he call?” and disappeared.

  Dee always took everything in stride. Her expression gave no hint of my momentary presence behind Albert. She asked smoothly, “What time did he call?”

  Albert frowned. “Maybe around ten o’clock. I was on my way to interview a guy who carves pipes out of corncobs. The city desk is big on local stuff.” The words were delivered with the deadpan inflection of a reporter caught up in the downward spiral of local newspapers to irrelevancy.

  “What was Cole’s demeanor on the telephone?”

  Albert’s face squeezed in thought. “Kind of distracted. Something was bugging him. He said he had a couple of things he had to see about, but he said he had Nick Magruder over a barrel and the trading post was going to be a go. That’s the last time I talked to him.”

  This confirmed Cole’s comment to Nick that he had some business to take care of, but he’d be back in touch with Nick. Cole made the phone call overheard by his secretary, telling his listener that he was coming. Possibly he’d used his cell to call Albert when he realized he didn’t have time to drop by the Gazette. Cole had been elusive that day, leading Nick all over town.

  Dee’s lips thinned. Nick’s name popped up in every conversation, and that was no doubt being compiled by Chief Cobb’s officers as they readied a file for the prosecutors. “Why was it important to Mr. Clanton to be able to gain access to the Arnold property?”

  “That’s the site of the original trading post. Cole was working with Rod Holt, the guy who runs the curio shop. They wanted to put up a replica, and that’s where it belonged.”

  “Did historical accuracy matter to Mr. Clanton?”

  There was a flicker of interest in Albert’s eyes. “I wouldn’t have thought so. But once he got involved in the Old Timer Days stuff, you would have thought he wrote the history books.”

  “How did Mr. Clanton become associated with Mr. Holt?”

  I was pleased with Dee. That was the important question.

  Albert’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t know. Cole left the Gazette right after the series ended, and I didn’t see much of him. You’ll have to ask Rod Holt. I’ll get the stuff printed out for you.”

  True to Albert’s promise, a folder awaited Dee at the counter downstairs. She was pushing open the door when running steps sounded behind us.

  Joan Crandall, stringy hair flying, careened around Dee. As the crime reporter plunged outside, she yelled at Dee. “Picked it up on the scanner. Better check in. One eighty-seven. Jolly Roger Haven.”

  Chapter 14

  I grabbed Dee’s elbow. “That’s the trailer park.”

  “What’s one eighty-seven?” Her voice was tense.

  I felt sad and weary. “I suspect that is code for homicide.”

  Dee was shaken. “Lisa?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Dee’s usually strong voice was scarcely audible. “I told her that Cole was shot with his own rifle.”

  I was firm. “You also told her to tell the police if she saw someone near his apartment who might have taken the rifle.”

  Dee glanced down at the folder. “We need to go to the trailer park. Where can I put this?”

  I had an idea. “Wait until there’s no traffic, then disappear and zoom straight up.”

  Dee objected. “I foresee mass hysteria if a manila folder is observed streaking, self-propelled, above Adelaide’s business district.”

  A gust of wind lifted a black trash bag above the street. “Hold on.” I popped to the trash bag and maneuvered it earthward so that the bag’s descent appeared to be the result of the wind. When the bag drooped down near Dee, I explained. “Disappear. You carry the folder. I’ll follow below you and keep the bag rippling. Anyone who looks up will think a gust caught the bag. They’ll never see the folder.”

  We arrived at the stable where Dee and I had spent the night. In only a moment, the folder was secreted beneath a thin mattress on a bunk. We were free to travel and travel fast.

  • • •

  In gathering dusk, a half dozen police cars, roof lights flashing, rimmed the dusty yard around Lisa and Brian’s trailer. Pine trees partially screened the Sanford trailer from neighbors. Residents drawn by the sirens and lights had ventured close to the end of the grove to watch. Men stood with grim faces, arms folded. Women shooed children away from the police cars. Barking dogs, some snarling, excitedly lunged at the ends of tethers.

  Inside the Sanford trailer, there was scarcely room for Chief Cobb, Detective Sergeant Price, and the wiry young man who bent near Lisa’s body on a small blood-drenched sofa. I recognized him as the medical examiner.

  “Same song, second verse.” The young doctor raised a curious eyebrow. “Severed femoral artery. Just like the Clanton kill.”

  Cobb’s heavy face looked dour. “A suspect is being held in that murder.”

  The ME straightened. “Copycat? Was the severed artery released to the media?”

  “No.” Cobb was crisp.

  The ME shrugged. “Word gets around. Anyway, I’ll do an autopsy.”

  “Time of death?”

  The ME turned over his hands. “Takes maybe ten minutes max when the flow isn’t stopped. Could have been half an hour ago. Up to two hours.” He looked around the small quarters. “Blood could have spurted several feet.”

  The chief nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”

  The ME picked up his bag and edged past the bulky chief and the lean detective.

  Cobb stared down at Lisa. “We got a tip on Crime Stoppers that she might have seen someone take Clanton’s rifle from his apartment. Had anyone talked to her?”

  Price pulled out his cell phone, sent a text.

  Cobb noted the disorganized clutter. “Hard to say if somebody searched. I don’t think so. Anyway, someone either came in with her or she let someone inside. There’s no evidence of a break-in. She sat down and the murderer pointed a gun at her leg and fired. Messy, but effective.”

  Price read a text aloud: “Officer Cain went to library at 4:37 p.m. Lisa Sanford had left shortly after 4:00 p.m., said she wasn’t feeling well. Cain proceeded to trailer address. No one appeared to be home and there was no answer to his knock.”

  Cobb jerked his head. “Let’s get out of the way, let the techs get to work.”

  A few feet from the trailer steps, Cobb stopped. “As far as we know, she was last seen at the library. See if you can find out where she went after she left work.” He jerked his head. “Interview the neighbors. See if anyone saw her come home, ditto the husband.” Cobb surveyed the terrain. He pointed at a sandy, rutted lane that curved behind a stand of cane. “Anyone wanting to arrive unseen could park behind that cane, cross the dirt patch, and skirt behind the Pinto to the front steps. Find out what time the husband left work. Like the ME said, she could have been shot as recently as a half hour ago, and that’s about the time he called nine-one-one, right?”

  Again, Price checked his phone. “Call came in at 5:09. Three cars dispatched. First arrived at 5:12. According to Sergeant Pence, husband appeared distraught.”

  Cobb looked across the dusty ground. “And bloody. I’ll see what he says.”

  His face slack and dazed, Brian leaned against the fender of the jacked-up Pinto. Blood streaked his soiled T-shirt and arms. He stared at the open trailer door.

  Chief Cobb strode across the ground, heavy face grim beneath thinning, grizzled black hair, an imposing figure—burly, muscular, and intimidating. He stopped in front of Brian. “Police Chief Sam Cobb.”

  Brian looked at him dully. Tears welled. “Somebody killed Lisa.”

  Cobb’s eyes narrowed, but his next words were quiet, almost gentle. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I got home from work. I guess it was about 5:10. Lisa’s car”—his gaze slid to a very old Honda parked next to the Pinto—“was here. I was glad.”

  “Was she usually here when you arrived home from
work?”

  “Sometimes.” He didn’t meet the chief’s eyes.

  I sensed the chief’s pity for the grieving figure, a young man who looked old—balding, paunchy, never sure when he came home if his wife would be there. Cobb cleared his throat. “This afternoon you came home and went inside?”

  Brian struggled to talk. “I should have known something was wrong. The front door was open and, when I called out, Lisa didn’t answer. I went up the steps, and when I was inside . . .” He turned away, crooked an arm to hide his face. His shoulders shook.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanford.”

  In a moment, Brian lowered his arm. His breathing uneven, he turned back toward the chief.

  Cobb asked quietly, “Do you own a gun, Mr. Sanford?”

  Brian stared at him blankly, then his face worked. “You think I shot Lisa? I never hurt Lisa. Never. She was lying there, all bloody. . . .” His voice quivered.

  The chief spoke reassuringly. “It’s a matter of procedure. If you’ll tell us where you keep your gun, we can be sure it wasn’t the weapon.”

  Brian rubbed his face. “Oh. I see. Yeah. I have a thirty-eight. Look in the drawer below the cabinet across from the sink.”

  Cobb nodded at Hal Price, who turned and walked swiftly to the trailer.

  Cobb asked quietly, “Is that a drawer with a lock?”

  Brian appeared puzzled. “We don’t have any drawers that lock.”

  “So the gun wasn’t secured.”

  “I didn’t have any reason to lock it up. We don’t have any kids.” Again there was a spasm of pain.

  “You claim your wife was dead when you came home?”

  Brian’s face twisted. “On the sofa. Blood was everywhere. All bloody. Somebody shot her. Just like Cole Clanton.”

  The chief’s brown eyes glinted. “It’s very similar to the attack on Mr. Clanton. How did you know that?”

  “I heard the guys talking. Mickey Barrett’s brother is a cop. He told Mickey there was blood everywhere, that somebody shot Cole in the leg.”

  Cobb’s mouth tightened. I suspected a police officer was due for a conference with the chief. “So you knew Clanton died from a severed femoral artery?”

  Brian blinked. “Fem—what?”

  Cobb let it go. “Your wife and Cole Clanton were lovers at one time.”

  Brian pushed away from the Pinto. “That’s not true. She was just trying to make me jealous. That’s all. She didn’t care about Cole. She told me she didn’t. Where’d you hear that junk?”

  “Information received.” Cobb obviously had paid close attention to Dee’s call to Crime Stoppers.

  “It’s a lie.” But there was misery in Brian’s eyes. “Cole was all over that woman who runs the B and B. Not Lisa.”

  Cobb moved on. “Do you know anyone who had a motive to shoot your wife?”

  Abruptly, Brian’s face hardened. “Maybe. Lisa called me a little while after four. I was edging the back patio at the Raymond house. My cell vibrated, so I turned off the edger. Lisa was excited and told me she had big news.” He pressed his lips together for a moment. “She said maybe our luck had turned. She said she was going to talk turkey to somebody and she didn’t owe Cole anything. I didn’t know what she meant. She said Cole was a rat and he’d riled a lot of people and she’d seen what she’d seen and there ought to be a nice amount of money in it for us and we could leave town and go to Dallas and hunt for jobs there. I started to ask what was going on, but the boss was walking toward me. I told Lisa I had to go and I clicked off and got back to work.”

  Cobb’s face was thoughtful. “We’ll need for you to come to the police station, Mr. Sanford, and give a statement.”

  Brian sagged back against the Pinto. “Yeah. I don’t care. Nothing matters anymore.” He lifted his arm and crooked his elbow, again shielding his face.

  • • •

  It was close on midnight when Chief Cobb closed a folder and leaned back at his desk. “We have sufficient evidence to charge Brian Sanford. According to the neighbors, Sanford and his wife didn’t get along well this past year. According to some neighbors, his car often came creeping in late and they knew he was drunk again, and hers didn’t roll up until midnight. And”—he turned to his computer, opened a file—“the ME says Lisa had a hell of a smack on her jaw and another huge bruise on her abdomen shortly before death.” He saved the file, leaned back in his chair. “There was plenty of trouble between husband and wife. I don’t doubt we can confirm she was involved—or had been—with Cole Clanton. We found a key in a zipped side pocket in her purse. It wasn’t a key to the trailer. We checked, and it opened Clanton’s front door. The most damning piece of evidence is the gun that killed her was a thirty-eight, and Sanford’s gun is missing. He had plenty of time before we got there to throw a gun in that pond or just toss it into the thicket of blackjacks.”

  Hal Price smothered a yawn. “Sanford had time to wash his hands. No GSR residue.” Price’s face wrinkled in thought. “I don’t rank Brian Sanford as brainy, but I don’t think he would be dumb enough to kill his wife with his own gun, even if there is a pond about a hundred yards behind that trailer.”

  “Not dumb. Brokenhearted. Furious. Too mad to think.” The chief pulled open a desk drawer, lifted out a bag of M&M’S, looked at his watch, and shook his head. “Not even M&M’S sound good at midnight. We’ll keep hunting for the gun. Probably it’s the murder weapon or it wouldn’t be missing. But what gets my attention is the MO.”

  Price nodded. “Like the ME said: same song, second verse. The intent both times was to make sure the victim didn’t survive. There’s another important point that could go either way for Brian. We didn’t find Lisa’s cell phone in her purse. Brian claims she told him she was going to talk turkey to someone and that she mentioned Cole and said she thought she knew something worth some money. If that’s true, it seems pretty likely she called the murderer to set up a meeting. The murderer shot her and took her cell to hide the fact of her phone call. But maybe the only call she made was to Brian, and she told him she’d seen him going into Cole’s apartment and knew what he’d done.”

  The chief rubbed eyes reddened by fatigue. “If that’s the case, Brian has to be smarter than we think and in control of his emotions. And if he killed her because of Cole’s rifle”—a heavy sigh—“we have the wrong man in jail for Cole’s murder.” The chief reached up, turned off his goosenecked lamp. “We’ve talked until my brain feels like cheese. Maybe I’m a damn fool just to hold him and not go ahead with an arraignment. Right now it looks bad for him, but we’re going to keep looking.” He stopped, turned the lamp on. “Let me check one more thing. . . .” He flipped through a red folder. “Yeah. Here it is. Johnny Cain and Ed Loeffler talked to people at Clanton’s apartment house. They got descriptions of people knocking on Clanton’s apartment Wednesday afternoon that fit Lisa Sanford, Nick Magruder, and Arlene Richey. We didn’t find Lisa to interview her. Nick’s lawyered up. As for Arlene Richey”—he drew an orange folder close, flipped it open—“she told Cain and Loeffler she didn’t go to Clanton’s apartment Wednesday and nobody can prove she did.” His face tightened in a frown. “Have you turned up anything about this so-called Officer Augusta?”

  Uh-oh. Arlene obviously had mentioned the visit by Dee, probably saying she’d already talked to the police and she wanted them to stop bothering her.

  “Nada.” Price turned his hands palms up. “Richey insisted this tall blonde officer talked to her. And she swears she wasn’t at City Park Wednesday night. We’ll need a search warrant to check her shoes to see if there’s a match with that partial woman’s shoe print.”

  Cobb slapped the folder shut. “Richey’s lying about Clanton’s apartment. Clanton’s next-door neighbor—Mrs. Billiemae Oldham—saw her, along with Magruder and Lisa Sanford. The only other person she says came upstairs was a pizza deliveryman. She didn’t see the pizza guy leave. Lisa and Nick went past her door and neither was carrying anything. Richey went by
about two o’clock. Ditto—she didn’t seem to be carrying anything. Of course, the rifle could have been relayed out of a window to the ground with a rope. It could have been done, but, once again, we’d be talking lots of smarts.”

  Price quirked an eyebrow. “If these two crimes are connected, the murderer thinks plenty fast.”

  The chief nodded. “Or maybe there’s a way into Clanton’s apartment that doesn’t pass the nosy neighbor’s door. If someone came to Clanton’s apartment to take a rifle with the intent of shooting him Wednesday night, that person would have been damn careful not to be seen. Tomorrow, check it out, see if there’s access to the apartment other than from the hall. But”—and he pointed in the general direction of the cells—“who are we looking for? We’re supposed to have Clanton’s killer in jail.”

  • • •

  Morning sunlight streamed into the double-wide trailer at the horse farm. Dee found a package of frozen waffles, some canned blueberries, and—horrors—canned orange juice and instant coffee.

  Our breakfast was makeshift, but edible. I don’t mean to sound critical, but Heavenly food is Heavenly. Bobby Mac was no doubt enjoying eggs Benedict, country smoked ham and red-eye gravy, grits with pepper cheese, and fresh orange juice.

  However, Dee had also found frozen brownies and, after a zap in the microwave, the aroma was marvelous. The taste, while not quite divine, was plenty good enough. If a brownie after breakfast seems a trifle decadent, remember that “seize the moment” is a nice creed at any time. I was comfortable in a snazzy Pointelle openwork orange cotton sweater with an adorable cowl neckline and dark brown trousers with boot-cut legs and low brown boots. Even Dee had unbent enough to appear. She was elegant in a white blouse, gray jodhpurs, and, of course, high riding boots.