The Gold Coin

by Eddy Rogers

  “We’ll have to run him down. Anything else? Have you heard of a guy named Matthew Middlecoff?”

  “I can’t think of anything else,” Gloria said. “No, I haven’t heard of Mr. Middlecoff. Rosa?”

  “No. Nada. Oh, we forgot to mention that Mister Carroll came to the house the weekend before Miss Betty died. He usually came here every other weekend.”

  “Interesting. Anything out of the ordinary?”

  Gloria spoke up first. “No, just like usual. Miss Betty and Mister Carroll didn’t seem to be close. I’ll show you the upstairs when we’re done, but Mister Carroll always slept in the bedroom down the hall from Miss Betty’s big bedroom. Miss Betty told us that he snored too loudly, but I never heard him. Every once in a while, Rosa or I would hear the two of them arguing either in the living room or in her bedroom. We were too far away from them to tell what they said. Miss Betty was a strong woman. We figured that the two of them couldn’t agree who the boss, the jefe, was.”

  “Did the arguments get violent? Do you think they were doing something other than arguing, like hitting each other?” Gloria looked around, thinking.

  “I don’t think so. Sometimes the arguments sounded louder than others, but they didn’t last long. I think they argued and then went to their separate rooms.”

  “Do you remember anything they said to each other?”

  Gloria looked down, embarrassed. “I didn’t think we should listen. I’m not sure what they said, but I heard a lot of things that married people should not say to each other. Very personal. They called each other bad names. I can’t remember exactly what.”

  “One final question. Did either of you ever talk to your friends or relatives about Betty or her stash of gold, even casually?”

  “Oh, no,” Gloria said. Rosa nodded her head in agreement. “Miss Betty told us never to talk to anyone about her, the ranch, or her visitors. She told us that even small talk could hurt her safety. So I never talked to anybody about anything other than what the two of us did at the ranch.”

  Satisfied, Bob stood up. Gloria and Rosa automatically got out of their chairs as well. “If there’s nothing else, we can end this for now. Ladies, thanks for agreeing to the interview. You’ve been very helpful. Would you mind showing me and my friends the upstairs?”

  “Sure,” Gloria said.

  The five of us walked up the circular stairs to the bedroom area. The master bedroom, quite large, spanned more than twenty by thirty-five feet, with a king-size bed at one end and a built-in desk and a large table with, oddly, three chairs at the other end. The master bath as well was very large. The outside long wall had French-style doors, with access to a small porch that looked out over the entire valley. Betty had decorated the room with what I’d call feminine stuff, including frilly curtains and bed coverings and girly knick-knacks. A woman’s room.

  On the corner of the far interior wall, the door to Betty’s closet grabbed our interest. We went into the closet. It belonged to a woman of wealth. Plenty of clothes, both dressy and informal. Must have been fifty pairs of shoes. The closet measured fifteen feet by twenty feet, and at the end of the closet, to the left, the metal door stood ajar. The safe room, ten by ten, had nothing in it but two small chairs. On the back wall, a big metal security box with the Austin Security Company sticker and a telephone were mounted at eye level. On the carpeted floor in a corner rested one gold coin. While Bob and I examined the safe room, Larry studied the bedroom, the furnishings and the French doors.

  “We left this room like we found it,” Rosa said. “We’ll take you next to Mister Carroll’s room.”

  We went next to Carroll’s room, at the other end of the upstairs. Beyond the room a stairway appeared, leading down to the kitchen area. His room was substantial too, twenty by twenty, but not as plush or decorated as Betty’s. Nothing significant. Not a place for anyone who planned to live there. More like a hotel room. Johnson only had a few changes of clothes in his closet, “country casual” outfits. Larry wandered around looking in drawers, the closet and the separate small bathroom.

  After our little tour, Bob called Gus to come to the kitchen. He must have waited for us nearby, since he arrived in less than five minutes. Gus looked like a typical ranch manager — tall at six-four, slender, tanned and muscular. Mid-forties. Light brown hair with little speckles of gray. Clean-cut, and, unlike most ranch people, no facial hair. Thin lips, usually in a smile. Handsome. Reminded me of the Marlboro man. People like Gus always wear starched jeans and a western shirt, with dress cowboy boots. Ranch managers are usually quiet introverts, since they spend most of their time alone. Gus was the exception, especially after three or four beers. I’d met Gus before, right after Betty bought the ranch, and again after Johnson hired me to represent Betty’s estate. When he strolled in, he was affable and relaxed.

  “Hi, John, how are you?” Gus asked me.

  “Pretty well, considering,” I said. I introduced him to Bob and Larry.

  We sat down at the kitchen table, and Bob turned on the video recorder. He began with his standard warning, reading from a card. “This is a standard police department interview, and our protocol requires a special introduction, so I have to read you your Miranda rights, Gus. Here goes: You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to me and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning. If you decide to answer questions now, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time. Gus, do you understand what I have said and are you willing to proceed?

  “Hell,” Gus said. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Everyone connected with Betty is a suspect right now, so don’t be alarmed.”

  “Well, I’m okay with this since I haven’t done anything wrong,” Gus said with gusto.

  Then Bob began with a few softball questions. “I’m making a video of our interview so I can remember what we talked about. Hope you have no objection. Let’s start with a few questions. I can’t understand why anyone would cut a ten-foot hole in your game fence. Why do you think that happened?”

  “No tellin’,” Gus answered. “There are a lot of poachers in the area, and we’ve got a number of exotics on the ranch. On the other hand, that could have been the way Betty’s killer came and went.”

  “Do you have wire cutters that could cut the fence that way?”

  Gus’ tight-lipped answer showed that the question bothered him. “Sure. As a matter of fact, several, ranging from hand cutters to large leveraged ones. We need them to install and repair fences. Nobody but Jake and I know where we keep them in the barn though.” Hauffler smiled. Gus was open, direct.

  “Tell me what you do at the ranch and your relationship with Betty and Carroll.”

  Gus was half slumped in the chair he was sitting in, relaxed. “You got all day? It’ll be a long story but I’ll make it short. Jake and I have been business partners for six years, spending most of our time building fences for people and leasing pastures for hay to sell during the summers. When Betty bought the Lucky Strike, the Alexander estate had already hired us to keep the ranch up, and Betty just kept us on. The Alexander estate had let us move onto the ranch so that we’d be around to discourage poachers and thieves. We converted part of the big western barn into two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living area, and we’ve been staying there for free.

  “Betty wanted the ranch to make enough money to break even. Everyone around here knows that’s impossible, but we try. We’ve got seventy-three head of cattle, pure-bred Brahmas whose calves sell for a premium since Brahmas are known for their fertility. We grow our own hay and maintain the ranch generally. I keep the books on the ranch business, and we still lose slightly more than five grand a month. Jake gets fifteen hundr
ed a month, and I get two thousand because I’m in charge and I’m keeping the books. The two of us take odd jobs like fencing and fertilizing hay fields too. Maintaining the ranch is not a full time job, and what Betty paid us doesn’t go a long way.

  Gus relaxed and slouched in his chair. He took a deep breath. “That’s the business side. Betty wanted to be involved in the ranch business, so every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I had to have breakfast with her in her master suite. Smart lady. I taught her a lot about ranching, keeping up the ranch, and the dollars and cents of ranching. Hard to make a profit, but as you know, keeping the ag exemption on all but the mansion compound tips the scale toward explaining what I do. The agricultural exemption reduces property taxes a huge amount. For her thousand acre ranch, not counting the homestead part, taxes would have been seventy-five dollars an acre without the ag exemption and two-fifty an acre with it. That’s over seventy thousand less in taxes a year.

  “Anyway, we got to be friends over time, and almost six months ago she said she was very lonely and needed male companionship, commenting that she understood the time we spent together wasn’t all necessary just for business. We started talking about a lot of other things like local politics and such, and then we started hugging each time I arrived and when I left. And then you can figure out where things went from there. Let’s say I got more than breakfast each time I came to the main house.”

  Bob and I looked at each other, digesting Gus’ surprising admission. Bob frowned. “Did she discuss how she felt about what you two were doing?” Bob asked.

  “Nope. We sort of slid into a physical relationship. She told me that she and her husband had an open relationship. I knew she wasn’t in love with me and she knew I wasn’t in love with her. And I don’t think either of us expected the relationship to go anywhere else. We just enjoyed each other.”

  “Did you ever get into arguments?”

  “Not really. Never over money. She paid me fairly. She had pretty liberal political beliefs, and we argued a little over that since I’m more of a libertarian than anything. Sure, we disagreed at times on expenses for the ranch, but she was the boss, and if she wanted me to buy or pay for something, I did it. I could have saved her a lot of money, but she wanted to go first class on everything—equipment, fencing, technology and feed—so I just went with it.”

  “Did you know that Betty had gold stashed in her house?”

  Gus squirmed in his chair and looked down. “I’m kinda embarrassed about it, really, but on occasion, not only the times we were having a morning delight, she’d go into her closet and come out with a gold coin to give me. Krugerrands mainly, one ounce. I’m just a poor cowboy and don’t know what to do with them. Each one’s worth over a thousand dollars, I’m told. I have eight of them.”

  “Did you ever go into her closet to see where she hid them?”

  “God, no. Never had any business going into her closet.”

  I could tell that Bob was being more aggressive than normal, probably because of Gus telling us about their physical relationship. I knew Bob was very religious and probably didn’t like hearing about one of the Ten Commandments being broken. “Did you ever fight physically?”

  Gus sat up in his chair. “You’re beginning to sound like I might be the one who killed her. Look, Bob, I’ve had a friggin’ ideal life at the ranch and with her. No reason to fight with her or even argue with her. ”

  “Calm down. Naturally you’re a suspect,” Bob said. “We’re talking as friends here. You can understand. I’m just trying to figure out who killed Betty.”

  “Okay, but just don’t look my way. Now I have to deal with Carroll Johnson about ranch operations, and he doesn’t want to spend money like Betty did, so I get in arguments with him the other way. And don’t look Jake’s way, thinking he might be involved. He hardly knew her, and I didn’t tell him about my little get-togethers with Betty.”

  “I understand,” Bob said. “Hey, Gus, don’t get irritated. I’m just doing my job. I have to ask you these questions. Do you or Jake have a pistol?”

  “Yeah, both of us have .32’s. Revolvers. They’re always loaded with shot to kill snakes and critters. Coons and possums can get distemper, or worse, rabies, and on occasion we need to put them out of their misery. We have regular ammo too. Might need to defend ourselves, unlikely that that is. A couple of deer rifles and shotguns too. They’re down at our barn right now, and you can look at them if you want. Haven’t been fired in months.”

  “No need for that. Just wanted to know. That’s all the questions I have. By the way, do you know two other guys we have to talk to? Chuck Blaise or Matthew Middlecoff?”

  “I know Blaise a bit. He came out to the ranch one time, and I met him when Betty was showing him around the ranch in her Polaris ATV. I’d see his car parked at the house from time to time, but I tried to stay away whenever Betty had visitors. Seemed to be a good friend of hers. Not very talkative, but I didn’t have anything in common with him. Betty said he was the preacher at her church. I don’t know the Middlecoff guy.”

  “Okay. Right now you’re off the hook. I’ll let you know if we have any other questions. Thanks for talking to us.”

  Gus’s boots echoed on the kitchen’s marble floor as he walked out.

  4

  We called Jake Saunders and Betty’s son, Paul Scranton. Jake looked like a carbon copy of Gus, but blond and a long stubble of whiskers. He confirmed what Gus had already told us. Jake repeated the story about discovering the cut in the fence and claimed not to have any relationship with Betty. “She was a female, ten or fifteen years older than me and had all that money. We had nothing in common even to talk,” Jake said.

  Scranton was a different case. A weird dude. Several tattoos on each upper arm. Dark complexion, dark eyes and long, dark brown hair. He was vertically challenged, as they say, five-five, with effeminate mannerisms. Scranton didn’t look a bit like his mother. Very average looking, even homely. He had a large, flat nose and pasty skin. He appeared very thin, to the point of looking emaciated. I didn’t want to judge him on the front end, but druggies often looked anorexic. He walked nervously into the kitchen, especially when he saw the video recording set-up.

  Bob read him his Miranda rights. This time Bob started with an explanation for the warning, noting that everyone was a suspect in the as-yet unsolved murder. That made Scranton even more nervous. “As you might expect,” Scranton volunteered, “I’m very upset and troubled over my mother’s death. She was everything to me, but she disapproved of my lifestyle. The reason she let me live here was that I’m almost penniless. You see, I’m an artist. I’m happy to show you my paintings. But as with most artists, I have a hard time making ends meet. I don’t know what I’ll do if Mr. Johnson kicks me off the ranch. I don’t have any money and I have nowhere to go.” Bob must have appreciated that I’d kept the provisions of Betty’s will and codicils confidential.

  “Let’s start from the beginning,” Bob said. “Where were you the night of your mother’s death?”

  “Where I almost always am, in my home and studio. I didn’t work that night, so I was watching television. I enjoy old movies.” As he talked, I noticed that his teeth were dark and short. Either Scranton wasn’t taking care of himself, or more probable, meth was at work on his choppers.

  “Did your mother and you ever argue?” I sensed that Bob didn’t like Paul.

  “A little. More than a little. She didn’t approve of my lifestyle, as I said, and told me that I needed to get a real job and move on. I knew she was right, but I’m comfy where I am. I get enough cash from working three days a week in the art gallery on the square in Wimberley to buy food and necessities. I spend most of my time painting, and the gallery sells my work on consignment. It’s a pleasant life.”

  “I mean did you ever get into violent arguments. Do you own a pistol?”

  “Heavens no, on both counts. I don
’t even know how to shoot a gun. Never have had one.”

  “How often did you go to the big house to visit her?”

  “She almost always came to my place, I guess to check up on me and see how I kept my pad. Once in a while we’d have supper and watch TV — always an old movie she liked — but we hadn’t really done much of that in the past three or four months. I guess she was busy.”

  “Were you familiar with the layout in her bedroom and the so-called safe room?”

  “Hmm. I never went to her bedroom and have never heard of a safe room.”

  “Did you know she collected diamonds and precious metals?”

  “No, she never shared that sort of thing with me.”

  “Okay, that’ll be all. Thanks for answering my questions,” Bob said rather grumpily.

  “Mister Mariner,” Scranton said, “What’s going to happen to me after Mother’s estate is settled? Will I have to move? Did she leave me anything?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give you details, but yes, she did leave you a portion of her estate, and it could be a substantial amount. Please keep that confidential.”

  “Oh, good. Mom did love me after all.” With that Scranton left.

  “I’ve gotta get back to the office now,” Bob said, turning toward me. “Help me with the video equipment and we’ll call it a day. Doesn’t look like we should keep either Saunders or Scranton on our suspect list. No motive in either case. Scranton’s a problem for us police, but not for this one I’d guess. We should get the autopsy report back next week, and then I want to talk to Johnson. At headquarters. Should be interesting hearing what he knows about Betty and the way she lived.”

  And with that we were done. As the three of us were standing by our cars to say our goodbyes, Larry said, “His bedroom was interesting. No personal items, no nothing. Just a couple of changes of clothes. Carroll Johnson has always been a short-term guest here.” So far, Betty, Carroll and Paul came on as three of the oddest people I’d known. I wondered what the others would be like.