by Ken Casper
The mystery of Frannie Granger’s disappearance may finally be solved. The forty-seven-year-old Harrison County woman vanished nineteen years ago this spring. Her remains were recently found close to an Indian burial ground near Caddo Lake. She is believed to have been murdered.
Jed closed his eyes, which only intensified the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Nervous sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Inhaling deeply, he opened his eyes and read on:
On March 28th of this year, upon the discovery of human remains obviously not those of a Caddo Indian of the early-nineteenth century, archaeologist Theresa Lang turned the skeleton over to the authorities for identification. This week, comparison with local dental records proved the bones to be those of Frannie Granger, a widow who was housekeeper for various local residents and who provided foster care for unadoptable children in her own home in Uncertain. Granger was well-liked in the community, and her sudden disappearance caused quite a stir. Sheriff Logan Fielder could not be reached for comment. The question remains, who murdered Frannie Granger, and why?
Jed sagged against the chair, his mind slipping back to a time when hope had been dashed, when a part of his life that had always been tenuous at best, was shattered.
Frannie.
He had been one of those unadoptable children. Who else would take in a bastard child? His uncle definitely hadn’t. When Jed’s mother died unexpectedly of an aneurysm, Uncle Walter couldn’t wait to turn his six-year-old nephew over to Frannie Granger, like old clothes tossed to the Salvation Army. She had been Jed’s salvation, too. The close to twelve years he’d lived with her had been good—until the end.
Their last meeting and the violence of his emotions that day would always haunt his fond memories of the petite woman who’d showered him with affection and occasional tough love. He could still see the pain and sadness on her face when he shouted at her that last morning about what he blindly saw as her betrayal.
The crunch of gravel and the sputtering of a sick engine in the driveway outside his window interrupted Jed’s reverie. He looked up and recognized the vehicle instantly. Pushing back his chair, he rose, wended his way around a large globe, past the leather couch and chairs, and walked out into the wide central hallway. Morning sunlight beamed through the glass side panels of the broad front door. He turned the polished brass door handle and stepped out onto the wide, stone porch.
Chapter Three
SILENTLY JED watched Gwyneth Miller alight from her faded-green Land Rover. If the buxom woman in trim khaki pants and yellow blouse was inclined to heat his blood, the car that pulled up immediately behind hers turned it cold. The sedan was newer, shinier and definitely more eye-catching with the red-white-and-blue light bar clamped over the roof. Only one word was stenciled on the door: Sheriff. Involuntarily, Jed’s stomach muscles tightened.
Logan Fielder climbed out of the patrol car, slammed the door harder than was necessary and sauntered around the hood of his vehicle. The lawman had been lean and mean when Jed first encountered him twenty years ago. He hadn’t changed much, nor had his hostility toward Jed.
“Louis,” he said, leaving off the “good morning” part. He tipped his Stetson politely to Gwyn. “Ma’am.”
She gave him a silent, quizzical nod.
“What brings you out here, Sheriff?” Jed asked without warmth.
“I think you know.” He leaned casually against the right fender of the tan-and-white county vehicle. “I see you got the Times.”
Jed glanced down at the newspaper clutched in his hand. He hadn’t realized he’d carried it outside. Forcing a lazy grin, he asked, “Checking up on the newsboy’s delivery record?”
“I’m officially informing you, Louis,” he said without humor, “that I’ve declared the site where that archaeologist woman is digging to be a crime scene. That means it’s off-limits to you, your people and your animals.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Jed acknowledged. He slouched casually on one hip. “When can I collect Frannie’s remains? I want to arrange for a proper burial.”
“Not till the D.A. says you can,” Fielder replied forcefully. “They’re evidence in a murder investigation. I remind you there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
Unwilling to be intimidated by the belligerent tone or the subtle threat it seemed to harbor, Jed commented, “I suppose investigating will be a bit easier now than it was nineteen years ago. At least someone’s found a body for you.”
For a split second, Fielder’s lips pursed, and Jed had the feeling his eyes narrowed behind the mirror-lensed sunglasses.
“I heard you’re planning to retire in a couple of years,” Jed continued conversationally. “Think that’ll give you enough time? Or do you plan on running again for reelection?” He smiled ironically. “I wonder if the slogan I Got Unfinished Business To Tend To will garner many votes.”
Fielder’s ruddy face darkened even further, but he ignored the jab. “I’ll be questioning everyone who gave statements at the time of Granger’s disappearance,” he announced. “That includes you, Louis, so don’t leave town.”
Without bidding farewell to Jed or his visitor, Fielder turned around and climbed back into his patrol car. Again he used undue force to shut the door. Kicking up gravel, he steered around the Land Rover and scrambled down the long driveway to the main road.
Jed emitted a rough, mirthless chuckle.
Gwyn shifted her attention from the departing lawman to the landowner standing a few feet away. Plainly, there was a history between the two men, and just as plainly, they weren’t friends. She might have mixed feelings about Jed Louis, but she’d taken an instant aversion to the sheriff.
“I have the impression you and Sheriff Fielder don’t like each other,” she commented.
Cocking his head, he narrowed his eyes in an attitude of bemusement. “We’ve never been real close,” he replied in obvious understatement. “I don’t imagine he’s very happy about having to reopen a two-decades-old case. People might think he botched it the first time.”
“Did he?”
All humor drained from his face. “Frannie’s dead.”
Gwyn’s eyes widened. The statement was blunt but not cold. Who was this woman he referred to by her first name? A relative? A friend? Could she have been his mother? The blank expression on his face didn’t tell her much.
“Fielder never even figured that out,” Jed added.
According to the press account, the woman disappeared without a trace. Even if the authorities had concluded she was dead, there probably wasn’t much they could do without a corpse.
“He apparently doesn’t have a very high regard for you, either,” she muttered.
Jed chuckled, but it seemed more a release of tension than enjoyment of something funny. “Why are you here?” he asked, ending that line of discussion. “Has a commode backed up, or did the roof leak last night?”
She took a deep breath. He was still angry with her for what he perceived as her siding with Tessa Lang. In fact, the suggestion to seek a court order had been a passing comment, one of many offered in commiserating with the doctoral candidate over a missed opportunity. Now that the archaeologist had found a murder victim on his property, he had one more reason to be resentful. Gwyn had to admit she’d handled both incidents poorly, but she wasn’t about to apologize. As far as she was concerned, she hadn’t done anything illegal or immoral.
“I wondered if you’d seen the story in the paper.”
He flashed the folded Times. “Obviously, I have.”
She gazed at him for a second, at the square jaw and cleft chin, the black hair and icy blue eyes. Too bad she couldn’t take a step back to their first meeting. Maybe if she’d been more forthcoming then, he wouldn’t be so hostile now. She sighed. What was done was done.
“I told you no good woul
d come of your interference,” he continued. “Thanks to you and Ms. Lang, I’ve not only lost the use of valuable pastureland, but I’ll have strangers traipsing all over the place, upsetting my animals—and yours. The next thing I can probably expect is for the representative from some high-and-mighty-sounding federal agency I’ve never heard of to tell me they’re confiscating my land under some arcane national regulation I haven’t heard of.”
Not a word of sympathy for the dead woman, she noted. “Mr. Louis, I think you’re exaggerating.”
“Am I?” He slipped his fingers into the slash pockets of his western-cut tan trousers. “I’ve seen how bureaucracies work, Ms. Miller. They’re devoted to rules, not the people the rules were designed to help or protect.” He took a deep breath. When he spoke this time, his voice was very low and infinitely sad. “Thanks to you, I’ll also have to relive a tragedy I thought I’d put behind me.”
“I had no idea Tessa Lang’s excavation would be so disruptive,” Gwyn said to justify herself. “She certainly didn’t expect to find the remains of a murder victim. I just hope justice can be done for the poor woman.”
“So do I,” he snapped. “Frannie Granger was a good woman who deserved to live a long happy life.”
The force of his statement surprised her. She wanted to know more, but first she had to mend some fences.
After folding her lips between her teeth and taking a deep breath, she said, “Mr. Louis, I owe you an apology. I should have told you my harness horses were miniatures.” The admission drew no immediate reaction, forcing her to go on. “It was clear you thought they were normal size.”
He locked eyes with her. “Why didn’t you?”
“I guess I was afraid you’d refuse to lease me the grazing land I needed.” It distressed her to realize she’d acted like a typical Miller, manipulating him into giving her what she wanted.
He drew in a deep breath, then let it out again. “Ms. Miller, I don’t see much point in miniature horses or miniature anything, for that matter, but I had pastureland to lease. Unless your animals threatened it or my other livestock, I had no reason to turn down a paying customer.”
“I am sorry,” Gwyn assured him. “I should have realized that. Do you think we might be able to get back on a first-name basis? Being addressed all the time as Ms. Miller makes me feel like a Boston matriarch.”
He raised an eyebrow. Her accent certainly betrayed her Yankee origin, but matriarch? Hardly. Matriarchs had silver-blue hair and cobwebs of wrinkles, not shimmering auburn tresses and flawlessly smooth skin.
“Okay, Gwyn.” His chuckle this time was one of genuine humor. “I’m about to have my second cup of coffee. If you have time, perhaps you’d care to join me. Since my most convenient field is about to be tracked all over, we better decide how we’re going to deal with this new situation.”
With a welcoming gesture, he swept his arm, then followed her through the wide front door.
Gwyn had admired the classic antebellum plantation house the first time she’d seen it from the road. Two and a half stories high, with six massive Ionic columns across its front and a red tile roof with several small dormers, Beaumarais sat on a hill overlooking Caddo Lake. On her one and only visit inside, she hadn’t gone beyond the small room off to the left of the central breezeway—a room that, in her estimation, hadn’t suited its owner at all. It was fussy and feminine with its antique Victorian settees and fiddle backs. This time he led her down the white wainscoted hallway past an elegant staircase to another door on the left.
“This is the morning room,” he announced as he allowed her to precede him inside.
The walls were painted forest green, but the room was far from dark. The finely milled woodwork was glossy white and one entire wall was composed of floor-to-ceiling French windows that filled the interior space with bright morning sunlight.
Beyond them, spring growth had the oak and elm trees blooming in soft-green pastels. Past a stand of darker pines, along the irregular shore of Caddo Lake, ubiquitous azaleas, both wild and cultivated, were glorious in their various shades of white, pink, coral, magenta and every tint in between. Their brilliant colors contrasted sharply with the smoky-gray Spanish moss that draped the cone-based cypress trees like dull tinsel. Through the screens of the open windows, Gwyn caught the delicate scent of wild rose and the heady sweetness of hyacinth.
“This view is breathtaking.” Gwyn gazed out, her heart pitter-patting at the beauty of the world before her. “It’s like . . . like . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Like the beginning of time,” he suggested.
She spun around, surprised by his observation, but it was exactly right. “You like this room, don’t you?”
“It’s one of my favorites,” he admitted.
“And the others?”
“There’s only one other. The library. I’ll show it to you later.”
Two rooms, she thought. One filled with nature, the other with books. She liked what that said about the man.
A tall, fine-featured black woman in a simple gray-and-white uniform came through a side door.
“June, this is Ms. Miller.”
She nodded a greeting, which Gwyn returned.
“Will you bring us coffee, please.”
“Yes, Mr. Jed. Right away.” The woman turned and left the room.
He held a cushioned, white wicker chair for her at a matching glass-topped table.
“Jed, I know none of this is any of my business, but can you tell me what’s going on? Who was Frannie Granger? Why was she killed? And why is the sheriff so hostile?”
Jed was torn. He liked to think he saw sincerity in her alluring blue eyes, genuine concern on her part that he might be in serious trouble. After all these years, he was surprised to realize he actually wanted to talk about what happened so long ago. However, if he was in the mood for reminiscing, he should probably call Riley Gray, his lawyer. He and Riley had grown up and gone to school together. They’d stayed good friends over the years. But Riley wasn’t here now. This woman was. He knew he shouldn’t confide in her. After all, a man could lose himself in those beautiful blue eyes of hers.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
Chapter Four
JUNE RETURNED carrying a tray. She set it down on a side table and presented Gwyn and Jed with large cups and saucers, bread plates, a dish of butter curls, another of preserves and a white linen napkin-lined basket of still-warm croissants. After pouring their coffee and being thanked by Jed, she quietly left the room.
“This looks and smells wonderful,” Gwyn said, suddenly uncomfortable, not with the elegance, but with the man sitting across from her. She studied his hands. For all their size and strength, there was tension in them. Their calmness seemed a facade.
He smiled wanly but made no comment. Stealing a surreptitious glance at him as she broke open one of the crispy pastries, she found only thoughtful introspection.
“Frannie Granger was my foster mother,” he said at last.
“Foster mother?” Not adoptive mother or stepmother. It didn’t seem to fit. Wealthy, socially prestigious families might have nannies and tutors to bring up their children, but they didn’t give them to foster parents. Unless she’d been misinformed about his inheriting Beaumarais. Perhaps he’d purchased it.
“My own mother died when I was six—”
“I’m sorry. And your father?”
“He was killed a couple of years earlier. In a car accident,” Jed added. “My nearest relative was my Uncle Walter, this was his place. Beaumarais has been in the Louis family for 150 years. Unfortunately he was middle-aged, a confirmed bachelor and not at all suited to bringing up a young boy.”
Gwyn sipped her coffee. “Not suited?” she asked over the cup’s rim. “In what way?”
Jed chuckled. “Aside
from the fact he had no interest in doing so, he was lazy and tightfisted. He sold off most of the antiques in this house, as well as several unattached pieces of land, rather than work for a living. He piously attended church every Sunday, made a big deal about giving small contributions to charity, and the rest of the time forgot the greatest commandment of all.”
Gwyn raised an eyebrow, her butter knife poised over the end of a flaky croissant. “Love thy neighbor as thyself?”
“Or thy family.” The mild humor of a minute earlier had receded.
“So he was a hypocrite,” she concluded. It wasn’t exactly a rare breed.
“He and my mother didn’t get along. He disapproved of her lifestyle and didn’t hesitate to ostracize her for it.”
Gwyn might have told him every family had its black sheep, nonconformists who didn’t toe the mark, were disappointments or refused to fit the mold. In a sense, she matched all those descriptions. “So he hired this Frannie Granger to look after you.”
“More like shoved me off on her,” Jed corrected her. “Still, I can’t complain. Everything I’ve achieved I owe to her.”
More than thirty years had passed since he’d been abandoned, but Gwyn sensed a smoldering hurt still lingered behind his words. She’d been told by one of the locals that Jed was thirty-seven and unmarried. Gossip didn’t suggest, however, that he was anything like his uncle. There had apparently been a few women in his life, but he’d handled the affairs discreetly.
“So you didn’t grow up in this house?”
He shook his head and sipped coffee. Not the chicory blend he’d brewed for himself before June arrived that morning but a rich Colombian roast.
Gwyneth Miller suited this room, he decided. She was beautiful, but she was also at ease in its quiet elegance. Not everyone was. As she helped herself to the cream June had put out, he was struck by the natural, inbred grace of her movements—grace that was mesmerizing and uncomfortably erotic.