oOo
I sat in the middle because that’s the protocol when a woman and two men are riding in a pickup with a bench seat. My shoulders bumped back and forth between Walt’s and Gus’s as we rumbled down the road. I’d left the keys for Hank’s truck with Etherea and felt fidgety now that there was nothing for me to do — except worry. I hate sitting still when my mind’s racing.
I wished I hadn’t given the Gonzales family so much space after the birth of their twins. I’d just assumed they’d appreciate not being bothered because I’m that way myself, but maybe Hank would have felt more comfortable telling me about his concerns sooner if I’d been more present.
Unless he’d only recently come across the evidence of Skip’s participation in the business. His comments seemed to hint at that — like Hank had been working to put the pieces together and just come to some preliminary conclusions.
I’d spent the past few weeks helping Clarice explore and turn hospitable the derelict mansion we lived in — dusting, vacuuming, polishing and laundry, loads and loads of laundry. Everything about the place was industrial-sized since it was built as the main residence, dormitory-style, for a poor farm and also served time as a nursing home before being shuttered in the 1960s.
It had been a relief to lay low for a while, recover from my brief but terrifying kidnapping experience surrounded by only friendly faces without a drug cartel enforcer in sight. I should have known it was too good to last.
The FBI had promised me that they were watching all the known haunts of Giuseppe Ricardo Solano, otherwise known as Joe. Since no one with a badge had mentioned to me that he’d been spotted, I suspected he’d found a new place to hunker for a while. He’d successfully vanished — for the time being.
This morning’s incident felt different. Joe had sent me a disembodied finger as an early warning. Not exactly subtle. But a drive-by shooting? That was blatant. I’d gotten a good look at the shooter and a decent look at his driver. They didn’t seem concerned about being identified. Maybe they hadn’t counted on any witnesses surviving the assault.
But would Joe wait for a couple weeks and then send this kind of in-your-face message? No, it seemed much more likely that what happened today had been prompted more recently, and probably by Hank’s inquisitive digging through records.
“Punkin,” Gus broke into my thoughts, “don’t know what Hank was up to, but is there any chance the shooting was directed at you?”
It was only because of Gus’s efforts that I’d been found after the kidnapping. He seems to have a vested, strongly paternal interest in me now.
I gave him a weak smile and shrugged.
He grunted and resumed studying the green, tree-packed scenery. A brown sign that said ‘Now entering May County’ flashed by.
I could feel Walt watching me out of the corner of his eye. He probably had as many questions as Gus did but was even better at holding them in. What answers could I give them? I only had questions myself. I leaned into Walt’s shoulder a little bit more and left it at that.
CHAPTER 3
Walt parked across the intersection at Gus’s combo post office and service station, and we jaywalked toward the cordoned-off parking lot. Three sheriff’s department vehicles blocked the road’s shoulder, doors and trunks open. Their corresponding officers were scattered around the scene. Little yellow numbered markers identified the locations where bullets were embedded and casings had fallen. A deputy was boxing up a cast of a tire tread impression that had been left in a muddy spot.
Clarice’s Subaru was inside the crime scene tape. I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Bob stood on the front porch of the general store, watching from a safe — and uncontaminating — distance. He waved us over.
“Any word?” Bob asked. He’d found another shirt and a heavy canvas field coat, but he still looked as though he was shivering, fists shoved in his pockets. The shotgun was no longer in sight — probably tucked away in easy-to-reach safekeeping.
Gus shook his head. “Hank’s still in surgery.”
“Caught the tail end of an old red Ford screaming through the intersection. Was it who I think it was?” Bob’s forehead creased with worry lines.
“Might be. I’ll tell the sheriff,” Gus muttered.
I glanced from Bob to Gus to Walt. They wore the same haggard expressions. “Who?” I blurted.
“We have our share of trouble out here, and those boys are usually part of it,” Bob replied. “Never actually shot anybody before though — that I know of.”
“Howdy.” A stocky man in a dull olive green uniform stumped up the stairs and strolled toward us. Everything about him, from the way he moved to the sloped corners of his eyes resonated with weariness.
He laid a heavy hand on Bob’s shoulder in greeting, then stuck out his right hand to shake with Walt and Gus. “Know these fellas, but haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet.” The hand was thrust my direction.
“Nora Ingram-Sheldon,” I replied, shaking the proffered hand. It was warm and rough and big and gentle.
A smile flickered behind his tired green eyes. The color of the uniform suited him. “Sheriff Desmond Forbes. But you can call me Des the way everybody else does.”
I smiled back and had a momentary flash of apprehension about what he thought of me. There didn’t seem to be too many hyphenated last names in these parts — it had felt like a pretentious flourish when it came out of my mouth. And when I’m under stress, the scar on my upper lip stands out stark white against my skin. So I bit my lip, which makes things worse.
“Gus, I’ll start with you,” Des said. “Inside?” He tipped his head toward the store’s front door.
“Use the office,” Bob offered.
The two men pushed across the threshold, leaving us to our thoughts. We leaned against the railing and watched the measured, deliberate activity in the parking lot. I tried to remember how many bullets I’d heard. There sure were a lot of little yellow markers.
I shivered and hugged my arms across my body. “You can go,” I whispered to Walt. “It’s going to be a long time. The boys—”
His brows drew together in a scowl. But after a long moment, he squeezed my arm and nodded.
When he rolled past in Bertha — the name I’d christened his battleship of a beater white pickup with — his face was sharp and strained and white through the driver’s window. I gave him a little wave.
“You want to wait inside?” Bob asked. “It’s warmer in there. Got a bentwood rocking chair on display that you can try out.”
I nodded my thanks and followed him into the store. The whole place smells like apples on the verge of turning into cider. A little spicy and dusty and sour with a hint of floor wax and leather. The door to the office behind the cash register was closed tight, just the faintest murmur of voices escaping.
The rocking chair was positioned between a pile of rag rugs and a stack of boxed copper-bottomed cookware sets. Everything you could possibly need — all under one roof. I sank into the chair, leaned back and closed my eyes.
I scratched at my stiff shirt where Hank’s blood had seeped through the opening in my jacket. Getting married, my happily ever after — it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Nora?” A deep voice.
My eyes flew open. The sheriff.
“Your turn.” He stretched out a hand and helped me out of the chair. “Long day, huh?”
“For you too,” I replied.
He studied the tip of his sturdy boot as it tapped slowly on the floor. He sighed and brought his eyes up to hold mine. “We’ve released your car. I’d like you to come in to the office. Think we could talk more comfortably there. I make a mean cup of coffee.”
What could I say? I nodded acquiescence.
Outside, a deputy lifted the crime scene tape and waved me onto the county road. Sheriff Forbes pulled in front of me in a white Jeep Grand Cherokee with a light bar and led the way to the May County Sheriff’s Office.
Which turned out to be a lean-to type bump stuck to the side of the May County Fire District #1 station — a pole barn with three gigantic garage doors, all closed. The coffee the sheriff had offered was actually produced with fire department equipment — in the narrow galley kitchen at the back of the bigger building which we accessed through a cutout doorway that hadn’t yet seen a finish carpenter.
“Classy joint,” Des said from behind his raised mug. He must have noticed my gawking. “Tax base being what it is—” he shrugged and led the way back to his tiny office where the Sheetrock was taped and mudded, but no paint graced the walls.
Once we were settled — surprisingly comfortably — in worn, padded rolling chairs, Des leaned back and laced his fingers together across his midsection. “So you have a federal security detail. You happen to be the only person in my county with that distinction.” His tone of voice was neutral. I couldn’t tell if he was accusing me of bringing trouble to his jurisdiction or just making a basic observation.
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
Des spread his palms and shook his head. “Sounds to me like you need it. Just made it a little tricky for me to stake my claim on this investigation since you were present at the scene. But it’s strictly a local matter. Unfortunately, I know these boys inside out.”
“Why does everyone keep calling them boys?” I blurted. “I saw them, and they surely aren’t.”
Des ran his fingertips along his brows, pressing them out, but they immediately re-buckled into tense arches. “Because they’re not men in the best sense of the word. Hooligans, rednecks, rabble-rousers, whatever. But they crossed a line today. Tell me what you saw.”
So I did. I started with the first bullet whizzing by my head and ended with the moment I noticed that Hank’s chest had a hole in it. The whole event only took a couple minutes, and my telling of it was just as short. “What are their names?” I finished.
Des eyed me, but I think he knew I’d easily get the answer from someone else if he didn’t divulge it. “Waylon Darrow and Travis Heppner. They’re cousins.”
“Which one was the shooter?”
Des pursed his lips and tipped back in his chair. He was going to clam up on me.
I leaned over the desk and poked the paper he’d been taking notes on. “The one with the collar-length, straight brown hair and flat nose, skinny arms and a tattooed band around his right wrist. The one who was leaning out the window with the gun in his hand. What’s his name?” My voice rose higher than I meant it to.
Des frowned, but he relented. “That’d be Waylon.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and shifted back into my seat.
Des pitched forward, the worry that seemed to trace his face back in full force. He stabbed a forefinger at me. “Don’t go anywhere near him. You understand? He’s not exactly chivalrous.”
His eyes bore into mine, and I knew exactly what he meant. I nodded.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked.
“Not at home. And since I have a deputy parked in his driveway, probably won’t be coming home for a while.”
“Motive?” I watched Des closely for hesitation, but his expression was frank and placid when he stretched down to a file drawer and pulled it open despite its screeching objections. He had no piles of any kind on top of his desk — in fact, the whole office was almost obsessively tidy. He probably had to be continuously organized just to be able to fit in here, let alone do any deep thinking.
“I called out to the freight terminal, and Lee faxed over their exit interview records.” Des shuffled through a clipped stack of papers and removed two which he spun toward me. “Weren’t the most productive workers. Lee hired Waylon on the recommendation of Travis, and he quickly regretted both. Said it’s lots harder to get rid of bad employees than to find good ones.”
I studied the papers. They offered a small severance payment for termination. It’s a technique for getting people to be more agreeable about being fired. If they sign the paper, they get an extra check. If they don’t, they get escorted off the property anyway. I’ve used it myself. It can help prevent disgruntled destruction or theft of company property on the employee’s way out — sometimes.
Waylon’s signature at the bottom of his sheet was a nasty scrawl, but the W was easy enough to pick out. Travis’s signature was childlike with big block letters. But the supervisor’s name underneath both of those was Hank Gonzales’s. They all signed on November 30.
“Lee?” I asked.
“Lee Gomes. Account manager at the terminal. Been there — I don’t know — five, six years.”
“But Hank’s the one who fired these — people.” I couldn’t bring myself to use the word ‘men’ either.
“Yep. When Hank took over operations at the terminal, all the employees except Lee shifted to reporting to him. That’s why Lee thinks the boys might’ve held a grudge against Hank — for letting them go.”
“Looks like he had reason to.” I waved the pages. “And Lee made the same remark to you, about their not actually working.”
“No question they’re troublemakers.” Des captured the pages and tucked them back under the clip. “They’re not afraid to throw a few punches or leave deep tire ruts in the yards of people they have a beef with. But at heart, they’re cowards. This would be the first time one of their scare tactics caused serious bodily harm.”
“Serious bodily harm?” I spluttered. “What do you think this is?” I pointed to my chest covered with dried blood. “Hank could have died. He might yet,” I yelled.
“Which is why we’re processing the scene as though it’s a homicide, just in case,” Des answered in an even tone.
“You are?” I started breathing again.
Des nodded slowly, his weary green eyes unblinking. I got the impression I was being evaluated.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I mean, not okay. None of this is okay.” My voice wobbled, and I squeezed my eyes shut against threatening tears. Rats. I’d held it together until now — of course, I would lose it in front of the sheriff.
“Refill?” Des didn’t wait for an answer, just grabbed my mug and sidled around the desk to the cutout doorway.
When he returned, I was more myself. Although that’s not saying much. I gulped down half the coffee to make sure and scalded my tongue in the process. At least now the tears still in my eyes had a physical cause.
“Travis has a mouthpiece of a mother,” Des continued as though he hadn’t given me a perfectly timed composure break. “She has some sort of cousin-in-law, a noisy, slick-headed city lawyer who likes to make his threats in the form of petty lawsuits. Same family, different methods.” Des smirked as though he was privy to an inside joke. “She’s called in his favors more than once with regard to Travis and Waylon, so I’ll be doing this strictly by the book — which I would anyway.” He angled a squint at me, chin down. It was a question and a command all in one gesture.
I nodded.
“I was briefed on your kidnapping and escape,” Des said.
I flinched at the change in subject and stared at him. I wouldn’t have called it an escape. More like abandonment and fortuitous wandering.
Another little smile flitted across his face. For some reason, I seemed to amuse him. “I’m just saying you have plenty to worry about. This thing with Hank is my problem. You have your own to deal with.”
“Did you know Skip?” I asked.
“That your missing husband?” Des shook his head. “Nope. I grew up here, left straight after high school, spent thirty years in the Army, then thought this’d be a good place to retire.” He smirked again. “Got elected sheriff through no fault of my own a couple years ago. Write-in campaign that surprised the pants offa me.” He shrugged. “So much for whittling and growing roses.”
I chuckled. Those were the very last things I’d imagine Des lavishing his spare time on. I was pretty sure he was joking about his hobbies, but he was so even-keeled it was hard to tell.
The phone
on his desk rang.
“Yeah?” Des said softly into the receiver. He popped a quick glance at me and started taking swift notes on a clean sheet of paper. After a minute, he exhaled audibly. “Right. Thanks, Paul. I’ll pick it up later today.” He hung up.
Des reviewed his notes, filling in a word or two here and there, then turned to me. “Dr. Paul Sanchez — friend of mine who got plenty of experience digging bullets out of people when he was a field surgeon in the Army — just finished operating on Hank. He’s in serious but stable condition, breathing on his own, still under anesthesia but expected to come out of it in a couple hours. They’re getting him situated in a room where his wife and twins can be with him. And Paul saved the bullet for me.” Des raised one brow at me. “Okay?”
I nodded, my eyes leaky again. Everything that had been holding me together — adrenaline probably — melted, and I felt like jelly, a lump in the cushy chair.
“One more loose end before you go,” Des said. “Bodie Ramsay.”
I gulped and tried to look like I didn’t know anything.
Another trace of a smile on Des’s face. “I heard he’s out there with you, at the boys’ camp.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Uh-huh. Just wanted to make sure there are no complaints,” Des said.
I shook my head, which was true. Bodie had been a model student, camper, guest, whatever you wanted to call him. He was woefully behind on his education compared to his estimated age, but Walt had made a plan for him to catch up. I’d never met a meeker or quieter eighteen-or-thereabouts-year-old boy. I assumed that, just like an abused puppy rescued from the pound, it would take a while for his personality to emerge.
“Have you heard any — uh, objections?” I asked.
“You mean from his parents? Nope. Strange family. No one’s sure how many kids they have, but I expect it’s more than they can feed sufficiently. I doubt they mind having one less in their pack.”
“You know about the meth?” I whispered.
It was Des’s turn to press his lips together and nod.
Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 2