Chicken Scratch (The Sisters, Texas Mystery Series Book 1)

by Becki Willis

  “But you try?”

  Her dark eyes were so hopeful, full of desperation but lit, too, with the glimmer of faith; faith in Madison. Not knowing what she was getting herself into, just knowing she had to help, Madison blew out a deep breath.

  “Yes, Mrs. Ngyen. From one mother to another, yes, I will try.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  One of Granny Bert’s favorite sayings was that there was no time like the present. Taking the advice to heart, Madison decided to visit the nail salon that same afternoon. The sooner she could start asking questions, the less guilty she would feel about taking Lucy Ngyen’s money. Madison was not a private investigator, after all, and knew there was little she could do to absolve Don Ngyen. But both mothers were desperate: Lucy to clear her son’s name, and Madison to pay her bills. And so she had accepted the money, and she would do what she could to earn it.

  And if sitting through a pedicure with her daughter, compliments of Lucy Ngyen, was what it took, then so be it. The mischievous thought flitted through Madison’s mind as her feet soaked in the basin at Talk of the Town. Half hair salon, half nail salon, the establishment was the only place in Naomi to be pampered.

  Oddly enough, Don Ngyen’s sister-in-law Katie and Ronny Gleason’s sister-in-law Deanna both worked at the salon. Madison watched for interaction between the two, but she noted that the women were careful to avoid one another.

  Madison struck up a conversation with Katie as the technician worked magic on her feet. Lulled into peaceful relaxation by the massaging chair and the warm footbath, Madison did not trust her memory to make sense of what she learned. Pretending to be texting, she took notes on her phone.

  Ramona Gleason, she learned, came to the salon every Tuesday afternoon. Even though her sister-in-law was often within hearing distance, it never stopped Ramona from complaining about Ronny’s tendency to drink/ Ronny’s fondness for gambling/ Ronny’s lack of sex drive/ Ronny’s snoring/ Ronny’s over-bearing parents. Poor Ronny seldom did anything right in the eyes of his wife. Other men, however, deserved her highest praise. She thought Brash deCordova was the sexiest thing to put on a uniform since Eric Estrada in the 1980’s drama “CHiPs”/ young Cutter Montgomery ran a close second/ she loved to watch Noble Baines bowl from behind/ Jimbo Hadley at the feed store was the sweetest man she had ever known/ Reverend Greer at the Cowboy Church was so sexy she had to quit attending services for fear of sending herself straight to hell with her unclean thoughts/ did anyone know the name of that good looking man fixing fence for Howard Evans? He could mend her fence any day.

  Ramona came every week, rain or shine, whether she needed a service or not. If she did not get a pedicure, she had her nails done. If not her nails, she got a bikini wax. If not a wax treatment, she had her hair trimmed and bleached. She had not missed a single Tuesday in over three years.

  Madison also learned that Ronny had problems with a few people in town. An argument over a missed payment caused the farmer to drop his insurance policy with Marion Keeling’s agency and take his business to the neighboring town of Juliet. After a drunken brawl inside the bowling alley, he was no longer welcome at the local establishment. A similar incident had him banned from high school football games a few years back. And when Katie left the room for a few minutes, the guest beside her murmured something about trouble with the Ngyens over roosters. Madison noted her comment, even though it baffled her.

  Katie Ngyen talked some about her brother-in-law, telling Madison that the twenty-eight-year-old was the only one in their family to attend college. He had a degree in business and every spring prepared income tax returns for most of the people within the Vietnamese community. The rest of the time, he worked in the chicken houses with his father, but his dream was to one day have his own farm. Ronny Gleason promised to sell him his business, but each time Don approached him, the price had gone up. More than once, the men had argued over negotiations, but Katie insisted her brother-in-law was not a violent man. And even if he lost his temper, she said, he would never be capable of murder.

  The visit to the salon did not provide Madison with a wealth of information, but it was a start. Most importantly, it gave her some quality time with her daughter. Bethani played on her cell phone while Maddy gathered information, but there was still ample opportunity for them to visit. The teen shared all the high school gossip and informed her mother of the newest break-ups/ hook ups. In the world of teenagers, Madison knew that relationship statuses changed weekly, sometimes even daily, so it paid to stay informed.

  “Mom, how long are we going to be stuck here?” Bethani asked once they were back in the car and headed home.

  “You mean at the railroad crossing?”

  “No, Mom, I mean this boring town. Correction. These boring towns.” She put emphasis on the plural distinction. “Even together, they hardly make a blimp on the radar.”

  “I wish you would try to like it here, honey. It’s not really so bad, is it?” Madison looked over at her daughter with a hopeful expression, practically willing her to agree.

  “Well, let me see,” the teen said, using her fingers to keep track of her assessment. Her newly polished toenails were on full display in the front windshield, feet shoved atop the dash while they waited for the train to pass. “There is no mall here. No decent stores to even shop in. Just a couple of antique shops, an old lady dress shop, and a thrift store. And what the heck is a Five and Dime?” She continued on, not waiting for an answer. “There’s not a single place here to buy an i-Phone. There are zero places for entertainment, other than the bowling alley. The sidewalks roll up promptly at eight p.m. There is no choir at school. There-”

  “Hang on, let me have a chance for rebuttal. There is a perfectly nice mall in College Station, less than an hour from here. Even back home, traffic made it at least half that to the nearest mall. And there are several stores here, just not many that sell the kind of clothes and shoes you like to wear. A Five and Dime is like a dollar store before inflation, although believe me, Uncle Jubal does not sell a single thing in that store for a dime. You have an Android, so you don’t need an i-Phone store. There is also a rodeo arena for entertainment and a sporting goods store with an indoor gun range. And since when were you interested in being in the choir?”

  The teen shrugged, reluctant to back down so easily. “It’s always nice to have options. The school also does not have a tennis court, a swimming pool, or a Debate Club.”

  “You don’t play tennis, your old school did not have a pool, and you should check into starting a Debate Club, as you would be excellent at arguing. But, did you know, that The Sisters Fighting Cotton Kings hold claim to one Heisman trophy winner, two professional football players, and a three-time state championship ladies basketball team?”

  Clearly unimpressed, the teen rolled her eyes. “How could I not? There are huge signs all over campus, repeating the claims with pathetic regularity. There’s even a bronze statue of that Heisman trophy guy.”

  “Tug Montgomery,” her mother confirmed with a nod.

  “Hey, there’s a really hot guy who drives around with a weird looking machine and a dog in the back of his flatbed truck. His name is Montgomery. Any relation?”

  The crossing arms were going up, allowing access across the railroad tracks once again. Madison put the SUV back into gear and proceeded into the town of Juliet. “His son, Cutter.”

  “That’s another thing,” the girl complained. “What’s with all the hokey names around here? Cutter. Billy Bob. Bubba Ray. Earl Ray. Two of my friends have grandmas or great grandmas named Dolly Mac and Lerlene. Seriously, Lerlene?”

  “Hey, that’s your great, great aunt. Who’s the friend?”

  “Sara Hamilton. And I use the term ‘friend’ loosely. She’s a girl in my Algebra class.”

  Madison did a quick genealogy review in her head. “I think she’s my second cousin Darrel’s daughter. So is she nice?”

  “She’s okay, I guess.”

  “You c
ould invite her over sometime.”

  “Yeah, and there’s another thing. I live with my great grandmother. The house always smells like BenGay. And I share a bedroom with my mother. Not exactly a fun sleep-over destination.”

  “You gotta admit, though, Granny Bert is pretty cool,” Madison said with a smile.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that. But still…” The teen pulled her feet from the dash and took on a sullen expression.

  “Aw, honey, I know the last couple of months have been rough for you.”

  “You think? I’ve lost my entire world, Mom! My father, my home, my friends. You have no idea what it’s like!”

  “Yeah, honey, I kinda do,” Madison chided softly. “That was my home, too, you know. My friends. And my husband.”

  Bethani twisted enough in the seatbelt to glare at her mother. “Would that be the husband you refused to sleep with for the last two years?” she sneered. “You had separate bedrooms, Mom. And don’t give me that about his snoring. Don’t you think we could hear the two of you arguing? Don’t you think we could hear you yelling at him all the time? You stopped loving him, Mom, a long time before he died!”

  The accusation hung heavy in the air. With a sharp intake of breath, Madison absorbed the verbal blow as her daughter whirled around and stared stonily out the window.

  When she had her emotions under control, Madison spoke up, but her voice was low and raw. “Beth, I know you don’t understand.”

  “Then make me, Mom!” the teen begged. When she looked at her mother, her blue eyes were swimming with tears.

  “I can’t, honey. Because I’m not sure I even understand it myself. Things . . . happen in a marriage. Things change.”

  “So you’re saying all that stuff of about love and forever is just a load of crap?”

  “No.” A frown marred her forehead. “No,” she said more forcefully, needing desperately to believe it herself. “Oh, honey, it’s complicated.”

  “It’s complicated, I’m too young to understand, you’re old and wise and know what’s best, so I should just suck it up and be happy to be here, right? I should forget about my old life in the city and,” sarcasm gave way to a thick country drawl, “dig my roots down deep in this here good ole’ Brazos valley soil, maybe even let it squish between my toes for good measure, embrace these country bumpkins and backwoods hillbillies, and give a deep ‘yee-haw!’, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Bethani Genesis Reynolds, I am ashamed of you! You are a snob!”

  “And you are a hypocrite!” the teen challenged. “I’ve heard you make fun of this town before, Mom. You’ve told us plenty of stories about your uncle who got stuck in an armadillo hole when he was a baby, about how you kids used to climb the water tower for fun on a Saturday night, how a cow wandered into the church at somebody’s wedding and ate half the flowers. That time Granny Bert sent you a newspaper because of some article in it, you laughed for days over some of these things they considered ‘news’ in this town. You said someone ought to pipe in sunshine and introduce them to the twenty-first century. You said there were too many cousins marrying cousins around here and that they needed some fresh blood. Yet suddenly you decide to sell our house in Dallas, move back here with your eighty-year-old grandmother, take a job where you come home reeking worse than death itself, and, on top of it all, you expect us to magically think you’ve drug us off to some cool, exotic place and be happy about it. Not happening, Mom!”

  Madison made no comment as she turned onto Third Street and found herself behind a small procession marching down the road. She knew it was too much to hope that her irate daughter would miss the amusing sight, since it would only cement her perception of the town. Jimbo Hadley and his family were enjoying a nice afternoon stroll around the neighborhood. Billie Kate pulled a child’s red wagon behind her, complete with an infant car seat held in place with bungee straps and duct tape. Their youngest child was perched inside while the other five children walked, each holding a leash in their hands. A menagerie danced at the ends of the ropes: a playful kitten, a fluffy black and white dog, a neatly trimmed goat, a sleek black steer, and a pot-bellied pig. Jimbo led the procession, riding a Shetland pony with an attitude. The man’s long legs draped hilariously low on either side of the pony’s rounded belly, and each time they passed a shrub or a trash can or a car parked along the curb, the pony brushed close, trying to rid itself of its rider.

  Bethani turned to her mother with a triumphant smile, her blue eyes twinkling maliciously. “I rest my case.”

  “There is a perfectly good explanation for the goat and the steer. They are obviously show animals for the Livestock Show, and they’re teaching them to follow a lead rope.” Madison felt the need to defend the scene before them. “Plus, it’s good exercise.”

  “Do you happen to know the kids’ names?” Her gloating tone suggested she did.

  “No.”

  “I do. I go to school with the older two. That’s Buddy Ray and Jimmie Kate. There were hundreds of kids at my school back home. Not a single one of the girls was named Jimmie Kate.”

  “That’s because she was named after both parents, Jim —Jimbo— and Billie Kate.”

  “Oh, well, if the hillbilly names are a family tradition, that makes all the difference,” Bethani said with heavy sarcasm.

  Madison ignored her daughter as she carefully maneuvered around the boy leading the show steer. The youth gave a friendly wave as Madison drove in the middle of the street to avoid them.

  A touch of alarm made Bethani’s next words sharp. “Mom! Why is that woman running out of her house, holding a broom like a weapon?”

  Sure enough, a short, stocky woman came flying down her walkway, brandishing a broom as she yelled for the family to get off her sidewalk. The only one actually on the sidewalk —which technically belonged to the city, not the woman— was the youngest girl, a cute little redhead with pigtails and a prancing kitten.

  At the woman’s angry outburst, the child snatched up her kitten and jumped off the sidewalk, into the direct path of her brother and his steer. The startled animal bucked and ran, dragging the youth with it until the teenager could get it back under control. In the meantime, the goat jerked free of Jimmie Kate’s hold, and the temperamental pony bolted. Both made a direct flight across the neatly trimmed and manicured lawn of the woman with the broom, trampling flowerbeds and shrubberies as they went.

  Madison had to split her attention between the road and the bucking steer, but a glance in the rear view mirror confirmed that the goat had finally stopped. A particularly lush row of winter snapdragons captured its attention, even as the pony made a beeline toward the lone statue in the yard. Heedless of the man upon its back, the woman with the broom tried to whack the animal across the rump, missed, and sent the stone statue toppling.

  As Madison made a right at the end of the block, Bethani turned completely around in her seat, trying to see what would happen next.

  “Oh my gosh, this is hilarious!” the teen howled. She was laughing so hard that tears streamed down her face. “Go back, Mom, go back! I’ve got to see this!”

  “I will not go back,” Madison huffed, even though she secretly yearned to know how the broom lady would respond to killing her own statue.

  “That- That- That is the funniest thing I have ever seen!”

  “I’m glad you found it amusing.”

  “Maybe-Maybe I was wrong,” the teen hooted, clutching her stomach because she laughed so hard. “Maybe this hick town is more - more amusing than I thought! M-Maybe rodeos are more f-f-fun than I thought!”

  Madison claimed victory where she could find it, pathetic though it was. “See? You just have to keep an open mind and give the towns a chance.”

  “Just -Just wait until I post the video!”

  “You filmed that?” Madison asked incredulously.

  “Of-Of course! And I bet it will go viral by midnight!”

  After the house was quiet for the night, Madison bund
led up in a sweater and went out to the front porch. She lit the chiminea and sipped on a cup of coffee while she waited for the warmth to reach her.

  The argument with Bethani may have ended in laughter, but her daughter’s accusations still stung.

  She had to admit, everything the teen accused her of was true. She had slept in a separate room from her husband. She had stopped loving him. She had made fun of her hometown and many of its residents. She had drug her children back here to the rural community and thrust them into the middle of small town life, expecting them to adjust. But she had no choice. Gray had seen to that.

  But Bethani adored her late father, and Madison would not be the one to destroy the girl’s idealistic image of him. Even when the accusations hurt, Madison would shoulder the blame of their broken marriage. No need to take everything from her children, not when they had lost so much already. Let them keep their pride and their memories, even if they portrayed the lie of a noble father.

  “Thought I heard you out here.” Granny Bert slipped up behind her, wearing a quilt around her shoulders and holding an extra cover out for Madison.

  “Thanks.” She tucked the colorful material around her legs before saying, “I didn’t mean to bother you. I thought you were asleep. I told Blake to keep his music low if he wasn’t going to bed yet.”

  “Nah. I saw his light go out ten minutes ago. I think he’s already asleep.”

  “Bethani pretended to be, but I’m pretty sure she’s still sulking. We had a big fight earlier, before the Hadley rodeo incident.”

  “Heard that Myrna Lewis called the police and filed trespassing charges.” Granny Bert propped the front door open with her foot, reached inside to pull something out, then let it shut softly behind her. As she took the chair beside her granddaughter, she presented a glass of wine for them both. “I think tonight calls for something stronger than decaffeinated coffee.”

  “Mm, perfect.” Madison reached for the red liquid and inhaled its sweet perfume before taking a sip. “So who is this Myrna Lewis? I don’t remember her.”