Della stirred, then stirred some more until the scoop of whipped cream melted into the mix. “She told me he’s been taking money out of their bank account. When a man starts sneaking money out of the joint checking, it means he’s leaving.”
“Maybe he needed the money to start his outhouse business.”
Della snickered. “Right. I think he invented outhouse excavating and bat caving to cover his disappearances.”
“What about the ring he found? The diamond ring?”
“He probably got it out of a gumball machine at The Stockyard.” Della dropped her chin and peered at Simone through her lashes. “He could have gotten the ring anywhere.”
But...but... Simone glanced at the bar to make sure Whitey was engrossed in the TV, then lowered her voice. “What about Carl and Whitey’s four outhouses?”
“For show, I think. Carl wants everyone to believe he’s pissed at Whitey for not letting him at the outhouses. But I bet he’s as happy as a bat in guano that Whitey’s holding out.”
Carl just couldn’t be such a big fat liar.
What about the fantasy? Why would he have asked Simone to write it for Maggie if he wasn’t trying to patch things up? But he’d never said it was for Maggie. Never.
Oh my God. She had to face the truth here.
The erotic tale Carl had her write was for another woman. Simone had helped him carry on an illicit affair behind Maggie’s back. She was a party to his deception. She was a backstabber. Even if she hadn’t known his real intention.
She’d saved all his emails detailing exactly what he’d wanted. When she got home tonight, she’d review every single one.
“Who’s he running away with?”
Della shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish I did. Lord knows I’ve tried to help Maggie, but I can’t get her hopes up that this isn’t bad, really bad. It’s better she understands now so that when it happens, it isn’t such a terrible surprise.”
“Couldn’t you be wrong, Della?” Simone didn’t know much about Della’s life before Goldstone. In fact, she didn’t know anything. Had Della had a bad marriage in which her husband cheated on her? Was she looking for the worst in all men?
“I know men, sweetie, and I know I’m not wrong. Haven’t you noticed that he’s been losing weight?”
Now that Della mentioned it, Carl might have dropped a few pounds. You noticed the slightest weight loss on a woman, but a man, well, that was harder to distinguish. Now that she thought about it, though, Carl’s clothes did seem to hang more loosely on him. “What does that mean?”
“Cosmopolitan says that when a married man starts losing weight, it’s because he’s got his eye on someone new.”
“Cosmo says that?”
“Yes, Cosmo,” Della said with a reverent lifting of her chin.
“Couldn’t it mean that he got health conscious?”
Della snorted, then looked at the lipstick mark she’d left on her glass. Reaching into the purse she’d plopped on the edge of the table, she pulled out a compact and freshened her lips.
Makeup perfect once more, she said, “You really need to read Cosmo more. You haven’t got the slightest idea how a man’s mind works.”
And Cosmo did? Wasn’t it written by women?
Still, she did have the stomach-dropping sensation that Della and Cosmo might be right.
* * * * *
Brax didn’t find Carl at the county jail, nor did he find Sheriff Elwood Teesdale. After nine p.m., the only person working the county jail was the 911 dispatcher who informed Brax that the sheriff was hot on the trail of a dangerous thief who’d robbed the minimart at gunpoint earlier that evening.
Carl hadn’t shown up at the jail. In fact, Teesdale hadn’t thrown him in the clink for public drunkenness in over a week.
Brax had then taken a quick jaunt up to The Dartboard in Bullhead. No Carl. After driving every street and back road around Goldstone, Brax still hadn’t found Carl’s truck. Nor had he seen or heard evidence of the sheriff’s manhunt, no flashing lights and no sirens. Waiting at a stop sign on the highway, he massaged his temples.
He had the sinking feeling Maggie was right. Carl was bunking down in some floozy’s bedroom.
But Brax couldn’t go home to Maggie’s trailer without Carl in tow. He’d promised.
He had only one hope left. Flood’s End. He’d gone by earlier. Carl’s truck wasn’t there, so he’d driven on. Bartender Doodle, however, might provide other leads he could follow up.
The neon sign atop the Flood’s End called to him. Amidst trailers like hulks in the darkness and the occasional telephone pole outlined against the sky, that glaring neon sign was a beacon to a thirsty traveler. Which hit home the other reason the Flood’s End beckoned. Simone had said she was meeting Della.
Simone was the drink and he was the one thirsting for her. As a panacea for his troubles, she was infinitely superior to downing a glass of whiskey.
His eye on the guiding neon light, Brax pulled into the lot outside the Flood’s End. Cheers pounded out through the open door, and as he stepped onto the porch, he could make out the fuzzy outline of a sports announcer on the TV above the bar and Simone at a table against the right wall.
The cheering ended abruptly as Brax passed through the door. Eight pairs of eyes surveyed him until one set blinked. Whitey. He recognized a few of the other faces from his sojourns around town, but could associate no names. Whitey mumbled something, perhaps a greeting.
Doodle slapped his hand on the bar. “The brother-in-law. Sorry, son, I forgot your name, but come on in. We’re watching the world cricket match. Take a seat.”
Only two remained. Brax chose the stool closest to the exit, the one separated from the rest by the bartender’s escape hatch.
“What’ll you have, boy?”
Brax pointed to the drinks on Simone’s table. “I’ll have one of those.”
Doodle cackled, leaned closer and said under cover of another hooting for the cricket team, “Well, now. Which one? Simone’s as sweet as apple pie and baseball. But Della, she’s more like the apple the snake offered Eve.”
Whoa. That was a pretty damning statement. “Why don’t you like her?”
Doodle vigorously shook his head, his tight white curls springing in all directions. “Love her. Heart of gold. But she’s a born politician, and big state governor or small town mayor, they all make promises they can’t keep. Only really good thing she’s done is get all us residents our own burial plot in the Goldstone Cemetery. For free. All we have to do is pay to get the hole dug.”
That was certainly a rousing recommendation.
Doodle tapped his arm. “Don’t let on I ever said that.”
Which part? “Our secret. Even torture won’t get it out of me.” Of course, everyone at the bar probably heard all the old man said. “Now back to the original topic, I wasn’t referring to the ladies, but to the drinks on their table. Care to make up another batch of the stuff?”
Doodle reared back. “You can’t have a froufrou drink like that. Those are only for ladies.”
Brax knocked the side of his head. “What was I thinking? Beautiful ladies scramble my brain. A beer is what I meant to say. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”
Doodle poured and slid the glass down the bar into Brax’s waiting hand. Then he followed it with a damp cloth sopping up the trail of liquid from the bottom of the frosty mug.
Used to the regulars, Doodle obviously preferred talking up the newcomer, since he didn’t leave after depositing the beer. “Brax. I remember the name now.”
“Right.” Brax took the opportunity to ask about Carl. “You seen my brother-in-law this evening?”
Doodle shook his head and mimed a frown. “Ain’t seen him since you two were here on Sunday.”
Brax had hoped, but he hadn’t actually believed finding Carl would be that easy.
“He have another fight with Maggie?”
Brax neither confirmed nor denied. “I’m out looking for a dri
nking buddy.” Which seemed as good an explanation as any.
“Well, after you finish your beer, check on over at the jail. Carl sometimes sleeps off his fights over there. Leastwise, Teesdale might have seen him somewhere.”
“I was trying to locate the sheriff. He likely to stop by?”
The sound of a siren took up its banshee wail, growing louder as if the pursuit car was headed straight for the Flood’s End.
Blue and red stripes flashed across the walls and patrons, then the siren cut, the engine died, and the lights were doused.
“Looks like ya found the sheriff.”
Chapter Ten
Doodle fished a bottle of Heineken from somewhere deep beneath the bar, opened it, then tilted a frost-laden mug and poured with a minimum of foam. He slapped both the mug and the bottle onto the bar.
“Doodle, you’re a god come down from Olympus to save the parched throat of a lowly sheriff,” Teesdale said as he reached for his nectar of the Gods.
“Sheriff, a good man deserves the best a poor bartender can offer.” Doodle leaned on the counter.
Sheriff Elwood Teesdale downed half the glass, sighed with his eyes closed, then poured the remainder of the bottle. He waved a hand. “Gentleman, as you were. Just put on the siren so you’d know to clear out all the illegal nose candy before I descended.”
A hush had fallen when the sheriff pulled his wailing cruiser into the lot. Now a few laughed, and all went back to watching the cricket match.
“Simone. Mayor. Don’t mind me.” Teesdale tipped his Smokey the Bear hat to the ladies, then tossed it on a nearby table. A day’s wear in Goldstone’s heat had mashed his hair in a ring around his head. He kicked a chair out with his foot and sat with his back to the wall nearest the door.
“Tough night, Sheriff?”
“The worst of my life, Doodle. Needed a nip to calm the old nerves.” He held up his hand, showing off a case of the shakes as bad as any thirty-year alkie would have.
Sheriff Teesdale was your average Joe. Average height, average weight, average number of lines etched into his face for a man somewhere close to his midforties. Brown hair a medium shade cut to a medium length, it was neither a buzz cut nor touched his collar. He bore no distinguishing characteristics, and his voice held no distinctive inflection. His looks were those of a man no one noticed in a crowd or the kind over which neighbors exclaimed, He always seemed so ordinary, when the police uncovered his wife’s body buried in his backyard.
Brax had never bought the ordinary explanation, but he had to admit, Teesdale was the personification of the term.
Doodle cupped his hand over his mouth and said to Brax, “Sheriff likes to unload after a bad one. Ask him, cop to cop. It’ll do him a world of good.”
Brax understood the need to unload, though he’d never been one to do it. As ranking officer in his department, he didn’t unload with his subordinates. Bad for morale as well as for maintaining discipline. Nor had burdening his wife with his job stress been an option. That cut his choices down to none.
Until recently, he’d never had the need.
Doodle flapped a hand in his direction. “This is Carl’s brother-in-law.”
“Heard all about you, Sheriff Braxton.” Teesdale stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Sorry. I’m sure you came here to get away from shoptalk.”
“Not a problem, Sheriff. But I did stop by to see you earlier. Wondering if you’ve seen Carl lately.”
Teesdale scratched his head. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Maggie thought maybe he’d been by to visit you.”
“Nope.” Teesdale flicked a piece of lint from the brim of his hat. “Hasn’t visited for at least a week or more.”
That was it. Brax himself would need to spend the night in jail so he didn’t have to face his sister.
“So do tell, Sheriff. What was all the fuss about?” Doodle was obviously bored with the topic of Carl.
The sheriff shook his head soberly. “It was a desperate situation, Doodle. More than half a dozen times, I thought I was a goner.”
The man was a born storyteller, relating the tale with the-fish-was-really-this-big exaggeration.
Doodle pointed the remote and lowered the TV’s volume. The boys grumbled and groused. “You can see, ya don’t have to hear, too. Sheriff, sorry for their bad manners. Go on.”
“Well, Doodle, I’ll tell you. Jody was damn lucky to escape with her life. That woman’s fast on her feet, thank God, or we’d have been cataloging blood spatter on the walls from now until Christmas.”
“Jody’s the clerk over at the minimart,” Doodle muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “and that woman couldn’t move fast if her ass was on fire.”
“He made her lie down on the floor, and she had the good sense to let him take as much merchandise as he wanted,” Teesdale went on. “Nothing good comes of facing down a man with a gun over a few material things. Especially when they belong to your boss.”
Simone sipped at her drink, watching Teesdale, and Della twisted in her seat. The bar boys had even tuned out cricket. Brax figured knocking over the local minimart was the most infamous crime Goldstone’s sheriff ever saw, and the man was playing up to his audience for all he was worth.
“Then she called you?” Doodle prompted.
“At the time, I was surveying the landscape out my office window.” Which meant he hadn’t been doing a damn thing. “The perp exited with his bootie. Couldn’t see his face in the gloom.”
“He had a jump on you, then, didn’t he, Sheriff?”
“That he did, Doodle. But I tracked him.”
“From his shoe prints?”
“No. Something much more damning.” The sheriff paused for effect. “Twinkie wrappers. Every twenty yards or so. See, I stopped long enough with Jody to find out exactly what the desperado was after. Stole the entire display of Twinkies. Ten boxes. Followed the trail right to the brigand’s front door.”
“Amazing detective work, Sheriff.”
Teesdale nodded in acceptance of the accolades. “Took years of training, and a lot of psychological know-how. See, I deduced it had to be someone who loved Twinkies. I further surmised that Mud Killian, who buys a box of Twinkies at least every other day, was the most likely suspect.”
Doodle did another aside explanation for Brax. “Mud’s Mama Killian’s youngest. He’s twenty-one, but a might tetched in the head.”
“So when Mud opened his front door, I was prepared to register every bit of evidence. The first thing I noted was the Twinkie cream on his upper lip. Gave me probable cause to search the premises. And there they were, in the middle of the kitchen counter. Nine boxes of Twinkies. He’d eaten one box, which I verified by counting the number of Twinkie wrappers I’d collected while hot on his trial. I impounded the rest.”
“Damn, Sheriff. Good work.”
“Thank you, Doodle. But are you truly aware of the implications here?”
“No, sir. Maybe you should tell us.”
Teesdale uncrossed his ankles and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “Remember the Twinkie defense?”
“The Twinkie defense?”
“That fellow over in San Francisco who shot the mayor because he OD’d on Twinkies? Don’t tell me you don’t remember. The case was landmark.”
“Sheriff, can’t say that I—”
Teesdale whipped out a hand. “Don’t say another word, Doodle. I’m shocked and dismayed. But since you don’t remember, I’ll explain. Mud Killian could have OD’d on those Twinkies and wiped out the entire town. He had the arsenal to do it.”
Doodle slapped his hands to his cheeks. “Sheriff, you’re a saint. Thank the Lord for providing you to us.”
“Don’t mention it. It was my duty, and I couldn’t have done otherwise.”
“What’s gonna happen to Mud?”
“The heinousness of this crime deserves the stiffest of punishments. I did what I had to do. I confiscated his cache of s
quirt guns. Then I informed his mama.”
Doodle’s breath wheezed out. “Holy Christ, Sheriff.”
Teesdale did the sign of the cross over his chest. “I know, I know. Mama Killian’s retribution is too terrible to imagine. I figure I’ll take a ride over there tomorrow and make sure she hasn’t staked him out over an anthill for longer than twelve hours.” He drained the last of his beer, then smacked his lips. “Delicious brew, Doodle.”
“Have another, Sheriff. On the house. Can’t do enough for the man who saved the entire town.”
Teesdale rose to his feet and plopped his hat on his head. “Thanks for the generous offer. But for now, folks, I gotta turn in. The wife’ll be worrying herself sick over me, and I have a busy day tomorrow, what with all those dastardly criminals to incarcerate and Mama Killian to subdue.” He put a hand over his heart. “Better make sure I remember my nitroglycerine, just in case. The old ticker may give out in the face of Mama’s wrath.”
Teesdale tipped his hat. “Night, Doodle. Night, Simone, Mayor.” He turned, encompassing the assembly at the bar. “Gentlemen.” Then he gave a nod to Brax. “Nice to meet ya, Sheriff. Drop by for a little shoptalk anytime.”
“If you see Carl, send him home ASAP.”
“Will do. Like Little Bo Peep’s sheep.” Teesdale saluted, then left.
If the sheriff hadn’t seemed quite so tickled with himself, Brax would have felt for him. The humiliation of capturing criminals like Mud Killian was a cop’s nightmare, a job reserved for screwups who couldn’t make it in a big city department. Hell, Teesdale wouldn’t make it in Brax’s county department.
Still, tracking a Twinkie thief was a sight better than working a good friend’s murder case.
* * * * *
“Simone. Mayor.” Brax stepped up to their table and all those butterflies she’d gotten when he walked in came back for another rally in her tummy.
“We’d ask you to join us, but it’s past my bedtime.” Della tipped her arm to look at her watch. “Will you look at that? It’s after eleven.” She jumped up, grabbed her purse, hugging it to her chest as if she thought Brax might suddenly stare at her breasts.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 13