by K. Gresham
“He did that a lot,” James W. prodded.
“More and more lately,” she said. “Then Elsbeth called.” She leaned forward in her chair. “I’m sorry, James W. You need to be at the hospital.”
“Elsbeth is with Miss Olivia. This is where I need to be.”
“I went downstairs to the garage. On the off-chance that he was there.” She let out a sigh. “Then I was gonna head to the Ice House.”
“But you didn’t have to.”
“No. The van’s motor was running. I heard it before I went in.” Pearl gave a snort. “I felt relieved. Thought it meant Ernie was working.”
“What door did you go in?”
“The office.” She sipped her coffee. “Like always.”
“Was the door open?”
She nodded. “Unlocked.”
“Any sign of struggle?”
“No.” Pearl put down her cup and stared at it for a long moment. “Was it suicide, James W.? The motor running?”
“Did Ernie act like a man who wanted to take his life?” James W. asked.
Pearl considered for a moment and shook her head. “Can’t imagine that.”
“What has his mood been lately?” James W. came up to the table and pulled out the chair beside Matt. “Was he upset about Maeve O’Day bein’ killed on his property?”
“Upset? Mad, more like.” Pearl poured James W. a cup of coffee as he sat down. “Yesterday. At that Yankee.” She offered cream, knowing James W. would accept it.
Matt struggled not to ask some questions of his own, but the sheriff had already told him in this situation a preacher’s job was to listen. Period.
“Anything different about today?” James W. prompted.
“It was normal.” The dryer tone sounded and Pearl pushed away from the table. She walked toward the laundry room. “For Ernie.”
“What does that mean, Pearl?” James W. asked.
“You know Ernie, James W.” Restlessly she opened the dryer door and hauled the load onto its top. She began folding the jeans and hanging work shirts. Matt nodded. In his experience, everyday routine sometimes offered the best solace to those who were in shock.
“He started out with a hangover,” James W. said.
Pearl continued to fold a T-shirt, but she nodded.
“What time did he get home last night?” This question came from Matt, and he immediately felt the sheriff’s disapproval.
“Midnight or so,” Pearl said. Her eyes lit with interest and she turned toward Matt. “Had some interesting things to say about you and that O’Day woman.”
Matt grimaced. “I’ll bet he did.”
“I’m glad you were there for Angie,” Pearl said, a tinge of independence pushing into her tone. “That girl’s been through enough.” She went back to folding but stopped as she picked up an item and stood stock-still.
“Got a problem with your laundry there, Pearl?” James W. pushed away from the table and walked to the mudroom.
“No, no problem,” she mumbled, but James W. held her elbow as she went to return the load to the dryer.
“What’s this?” he asked as he reached over and pulled a cloth from her hand.
Pearl swallowed. “I’m always washing rags from the station.”
“This ain’t no rag.” James W. held it up for Matt to see. “This here’s a bandanna.”
A black bandanna, Matt realized.
“Where’d this come from?” James W. pushed on.
“Really, James W., I don’t know when I picked that up.” Pearl tossed the remainder of the laundry in the dryer and slapped the door shut.
“Mind if I keep this, Pearl?” James W. asked, and handed it to Richard Dube. “What made you go over to the station tonight?” James W. changed his line of questioning. “He’s out late most nights.”
“Elsbeth called looking for him. Right as the ten o’clock news started, I guess.” Pearl returned to the table and sat down. “The storm was real bad. Her cell phone was breaking up something fierce. I got to worrying’ where he might be.”
“Was there any money missin’ from the cash register at the station tonight?”
Pearl, her hands shaking, poured herself another cup of coffee. “Elsbeth told me to check that first off when I called her back, looking for you. As far as I could tell, it was all there. I left work at four this afternoon. Had to run to the grocer’s before making supper.”
“Was Ernie alone when you left the garage?” James W. continued.
“Tom Gibbons was working.”
“Who?” Matt asked.
“High school kid. Been working with Ernie for a coupla years now. Tryin’ to learn how to be a mechanic,” James W. explained.
Matt had a hard time picturing Ernie Masterson as a mentor for some high school kid.
“Comes in after school, works through eight. Does cash register for the supper crowd. You know, people heading home from work,” Pearl addressed this again to Matt. “He might’ve been the last one to see. . .” Her eyes clouded over, and she laid her head in her hand.
“That’s enough for now, Pearl. Who can I get to stay with you?” James W. said.
“Elsbeth—” she started to say. “But not with Miss Olivia sick.” She lifted her head and looked around the room as if someone else would appear.
“I can stay here with you,” Matt volunteered.
Her eyes focused on the laundry room for a long moment. “I’ll call somebody,” she said quietly. “You need to be with Miss Olivia.”
Richard Dube closed his notebook and James W. headed for the back door. “You’ve got my cell number, Pearl. Use it if you need me.”
Matt stood and gave her hand one last squeeze. “I’ll be at the hospital with Miss Olivia, Pearl.”
“I appreciate it, Preacher,” Pearl said. She stood. “What about arrangements?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “For the funeral?”
“I’ll call you first thing in the morning. After I hear from the coroner,” James W. assured her.
Pearl nodded. She saw the men to the door and closed it behind them.
“Maybe I shouldn’t leave her alone,” Matt wondered aloud when the three men got outside. His breath froze in the frigid air.
“My guess is she won’t be alone for long. There’re a lot of folks in this town that care for that woman,” James W. answered. He turned to his deputy. “Richard, stay here and set up surveillance on the Sinclair Station.”
Richard shuddered in his jacket, but said, “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be at the hospital. Keep a sharp eye.”
“For what?”
“If anyone comes over. Write down their names.”
Richard nodded, then peeled off to the alley beside the garage.
“You know who wears black bandannas, don’t you?” James W. asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Matt replied. Every employee at the Fire and Ice House was wearing black bandannas in mourning for Maeve O’Day. Pearl Masterson had been laundering a black bandanna, and she’d been obvious in trying to hide it from James W. Matt shook his head. That made things look a little more than suspicious.
Suddenly a spark flew down from overhead. Matt and James W. ducked, then looked up to see what had happened.
A tree branch, heavy with ice from the earlier storm, leaned heavily on the wires that stretched between Ernie’s Sinclair Station and the Fire and Ice House.
“It’s gonna go!” the sheriff hollered as he shoved Matt back.
Sure enough, the limb cracked under the weight of the ice. It split from the trunk and fell to the ground, taking both the power lines with it.
Another spark, followed by a bead of fire, trailed up the lines to the transformer attached to the pole twenty feet ahead of them. Both men jumped at the sound of explosion as the transformer blew.
The lights in the surrounding houses flickered and then went out.
“That’s the power,” James W. said and spat on the ground.
Matt turned his head abru
ptly toward the Wilks Medical Clinic.
“They’ve got a generator, Preacher,” James W. said. “These small electrical co-ops are worthless. We’re used to dealin’ with power outages.” He looked toward the clinic. “Elsbeth ain’t gonna like this one bit.”
“You’ve got paperwork, I imagine,” Matt said. “And utility companies to contact. I’ll stay with Elsbeth and your mother.”
James W. nodded, extended his hand. “I’m obliged to you, Preacher.” He started toward the police station, then stopped. “About what I said in the truck on Sunday . . .”
Matt smiled. “It’s forgotten.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Tom Gibbons
“Mrs. Masterson told us you were working last night.” James W.’s voice was tired as he questioned the teenager who helped out at Ernie’s Sinclair Station after school.
Sheriff James W. had gotten little sleep the night before, but at least he’d had the chance to shower and change clothes. That was a sight better than Matt had fared. He’d spent the night with Elsbeth in the waiting room at the Wilks Medical Clinic. His gray slacks were wrinkled. His blue shirt was stained with coffee. Elsbeth, now allowed to sit in Miss Olivia’s room, had looked as tired as he felt.
Much to Matt’s chagrin, her voice was raw from a night of talking.
Miss Olivia’s heart was still too unsteady and the roads too icy for an ambulance to take her to higher care. The doctor had called a consultation with the family after his morning rounds. The consultation that James W. and Matt were now awaiting.
Torn between his duty to his mother and his duty to his office, James W. had asked Richard Dube to pick up Tom Gibbons, the high school employee at Ernie’s Sinclair Station, and bring him to the hospital for an early morning interview.
The power might still be out in the town, but at least the hospital’s small generator was spitting out warmth.
Matt noted the kid’s pale hands were shaking, and his voice was thin. He wasn’t used to talking to the police.
“What time did you leave work?” James W. asked.
“Eight.” Tom Gibbons pulled his Pennzoil baseball cap lower on his brow, thus concealing the last bit of dark brown hair that had peeked out.
“Anything about Ernie make you think he was nervous about somethin’?”
“No.” Tom studied the waiting room’s linoleum floor, enticing Matt to do the same. Gray with pink, black, and white flecks. Blood would probably blend in pretty well on an as-needed basis with the medical center’s floor.
“Ernie do anything out of the ordinary?” James W. asked.
“No.”
James W. ran a tired hand over his face and Matt concealed a smile. The teenager had an instinctual fear of the police. James W. was going to get nowhere with this boy, and James W. knew Matt knew it.
“Preacher, can I have a word?” James W. asked, rising from the green-covered couch.
Matt nodded, and the two went over to the coffee pot in the corner. Matt shook off the sheriff’s offer for a cup with a shudder. He’d drunk enough coffee in the last twenty-four hours to wire most of Austin.
“The kid’s not gonna talk to me.” James W. sighed.
“You’re right.” This time Matt did smile.
“Help me out here, will ya?” James W. was exhausted, and Matt felt immediately contrite. The man’s mother had suffered a life-threatening heart attack, and his friend who might as well have been a member of his family had been murdered.
“Good cop, bad cop?” Matt offered.
James W. looked up in surprise, then nodded. “Guess it figures you’re the good cop.”
The two men turned back to the five-foot-six-inch youth. Tom was in the middle of a growth spurt. His raveled jeans were short, revealing grease-smeared Reeboks. Tom’s jeans had the classic worn hole at the knee that seemed the style of every kid in Wilks. Matt wondered if the teenagers cut the holes in the cloth themselves or if they bought them that way.
“Tom, I’m Pastor Hayden,” Matt said, sitting beside the youth.
Tom scooted over without looking up.
“You’re an important person here, because you may have been the last one to see Ernie alive. Now, we know you didn’t have anything to do with Ernie’s dying, but you might have seen something that would help us figure out who did.”
“I didn’t see nothin’.”
Matt mustered some encouragement that he’d managed to get more than one word out of the boy. “Let us figure that out. Now, what’s a typical night of work for you at the Sinclair Station?”
Tom looked up, and Matt saw he had green eyes and pale skin—so pale the blue of the veins showed through on his eyelids and down his neck. It made Matt wonder the last time the kid had seen a fruit or vegetable on his dinner plate. “What do you do at work?”
“I tend the cash register. We’re self-serve. Sometimes Ernie lets me watch him work on cars, so’s I can learn, but from four to eight we’re pretty busy.”
“So you pretty much talk to everyone who comes to get gas.”
“They’ve gotta pay me, don’t they?” Tom said with a sniff.
“Ernie worked in the garage the whole time you were there?” This the sheriff interjected.
“Yeah.” Tom reverted to the one-word answer.
“So you came in to work at four,” Matt prodded.
“That’s my time. You don’t show up late to work at Ernie’s.”
“He’d let you know his displeasure?” James W. asked.
“He’d yell pretty bad,” Tom agreed.
“Mrs. Masterson was running the cash register until you came.” Matt stuck with what he knew.
Tom nodded.
Matt gave him an encouraging smile. “Who all came in and bought gas last night, Tom?”
“Most everybody in Wilks,” Tom said with a shrug. “It was swamped. Everybody was tankin’ up before that ice storm.”
“Did anyone go in and talk to Ernie during your shift last night?”
“No . . .”
Matt and James W. looked at each other. There was something there. Tom’s answer was less assured. “Did Ernie come out and talk to anyone?”
Tom squirmed in his seat. “Not durin’ my shift,” he said finally.
“I guess you know you’d be in big trouble for holdin’ somethin’ back, Tom.” James W. said, hauling both hands to rest authoritatively on his belt.
Tom nodded, but kept his mouth firmly closed.
“You’d be impedin’ an official investigation. If you’re hidin’ any evidence, you might even be considered an accessory to a crime.”
Tom swallowed audibly but kept his head down. James W. looked at Matt and nodded.
“Now, Sheriff, you can see this boy isn’t a criminal. He just doesn’t want to be a snitch.”
Tom looked up hopefully at Matt, and Matt could see plainly that he was on the right tack.
“I’m the only one in my family workin’ right now,” Tom blurted out.
“Ernie’s dead, son,” James W. said quietly. “He can’t fire you.”
“Is that what you’re frightened of, Tom? Getting fired?” Matt pressed.
Tom puffed out his chin, and Matt saw three strands of wiry black hair jutting from below his lip. He wondered if Tom had started shaving yet. “I ain’t afraid of nothin’.”
Matt decided then and there that Tom Gibbons was scared of just about everything.
“What time did you leave last night?” James W. continued.
“A little after eight. I locked the front door and came through the garage to tell Ernie I was leavin’.”
“What was Ernie doing?”
“He was workin’ on some old van. I said I was goin’. He said, ‘Bye.’ That was it.”
Matt was trying to figure out how things worked. “So anyone who bought gas after you left had to go to the garage and pay Ernie.”
“Yep. We don’t have those fancy pay-at-the-pump things like they’ve got in Austin.”
> James W. shook his head. “I’ll be talkin’ to you more about this, Tom.”
“Yessir.” The youth jumped to his feet as he realized he’d been dismissed.
“Tell you what, Tom,” Matt stood and pulled out his wallet. “If you think of anything else, give me a call.” He handed over his card. “Why don’t you head down to Callie Mae’s Cafe and buy yourself a sandwich.”
Tom looked eagerly at the ten-dollar bill that Matt handed him and nodded. “Thanks.”
Matt and James W. watched him leave.
“What’s he afraid of?” James W. wondered aloud. “Even if he saw Ernie doin’ somethin’ wrong, Tom couldn’t get in trouble now.”
“Maybe he’s not afraid of Ernie.” Matt sat back down.
“Who else, then?” James W. demanded.
“Perhaps the murderer.”
James W. nodded. “You’ve got a point, Preacher.” He looked at his watch. “Holy—” He jumped to his feet. “It’s almost nine o’clock. I’ve got a peck of things I’ve got to be doin’. When’s that doctor comin’?”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Matt stood.
“I’ve gotta talk to the coroner, get the county records contacted.” James W. shook his head. “It’s all official business, Reverend, but I—” James W. paused. “Actually there is something that needs doing, but it’s a little beneath your station.”
“Name it, James W. I’ll be happy to do whatever you need.”
The sheriff looked sheepish, and Matt almost grinned. “Could you go over to the mansion and walk my mamma’s dog?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Take a Walk
Five minutes later, Matt Hayden crossed the square to Miss Olivia’s mansion. “Of course, I’ll walk your Mamma’s dog.” His breath puffed in the crisp air, and his smile was broad at the memory of James W.’s blush when the sheriff had made his request.
As instructed, Matt went around to the back of the Wilks mansion and entered through the kitchen. He still was amazed that folks in Wilks didn’t lock their doors. He let Miss Olivia’s Havanese out, then looked around. Since James W. was back at the clinic and no one else was anywhere to be seen, Matt allowed himself the privilege of a full-fledged belly laugh.