Shattered Dreams

by Frank Hayes

  “You know, Virgil, you are a lot older than you look. Hell, you might even be older than me.” Clara stood up again. “Come on. Let’s go for a quick ride before you start looking for lawbreakers.” Before Virgil could respond she was walking out the kitchen door. He caught up with her on the front porch.

  “You sure about this, Clara? I mean, the ground isn’t getting any softer. I mean . . .”

  “Thank you for the concern, Virgil. But if it’s a choice of breaking my neck falling out of bed or off a horse, I’ll take the horse. Besides, I saw old Sugar out in the pasture when I drove in yesterday. I’m more liable to fall off my rocking chair than off her. Let’s go.”

  Twenty minutes later they pulled up to look at the new day from atop the ridgeline Clara had looked at from her bedroom window. “There’s a view I never get tired of looking at.” A slight breeze brushed her gray hair. They sat looking down on the ranch house, along with the collection of barns and outbuildings, as the morning sun drove the last of the shadows away. For an instant as she turned Sugar toward the back country, Virgil lost her gray hair in the brightness of the day. Then he saw only the figure of a young girl cantering ahead.

  Chapter 20

  It wasn’t until early afternoon that Virgil got a chance to reach out to Mr. Jessup. He had gotten bogged down in the mundane work of the office. He couldn’t pass it off to anyone else because he was alone. That was fallout from a successful party. When he got to the office a little after nine, there was no freshly brewed coffee aroma greeting him. Moreover, the first job of the day had to be getting over to Margie’s to pick up the bagged breakfast that was waiting for the sole occupant in one of the holding cells.

  “Here you go, Cecil.” Virgil stood in the space of the opened cell door holding a breakfast tray, waiting for a response from the figure on the bunk. After the second summons there was an indication of life. Cecil Summers sat up and swung his legs around, hitting the floor with his stockinged feet. He was bleary-eyed and looked like he was just coming off a two-week bender. This was not the first breakfast he was about to eat at the county’s expense.

  “Thanks, Sheriff.” He made the response as Virgil set the tray down next to him.

  “You know, Cecil. This situation isn’t going to have a good ending unless you move on. Getting a snoot full then going to your ex-wife’s door banging on it at two o’clock in the morning isn’t the answer. This has been going on much too long.”

  “Was my house for fifteen years.”

  “Was is the operant word here, Cecil. That isn’t likely to change.”

  Rosie came into the office a little after nine. Virgil hadn’t had any success reaching the older Everett Jessup.

  “Virgil, I can’t say when I’ve had a better time at a party. Everything was great. It was one of those nights that I wished would never end. You know, seeing all those people.”

  “You see them all the time,” Virgil replied teasingly.

  “I know, but it was seeing them there all together at the same time. You know what I mean. Your Aunt Clara locked in conversation with your grandfather and Dif. I mean, between the three of them they got about half the history of this county covered in their stories. Then who joins them but Eustace and his wife. I mean, an old Indian whose grandfather was with Cochise, the town’s first librarian, a couple who brought aviation into the skies over Hayward, and for good measure Dif, one of the town’s first deputies and a storyteller who can make up more history than ever really happened. It was fantastic. Wish we could have got it on YouTube. It would have had a thousand hits in the first five minutes.”

  “Yeah, and they all would have come from assisted living facilities, caregivers trying to find something to calm restless patients,” Virgil said.

  “Well, I don’t care what you say. It was a great party and you better send Virginia a huge thank-you.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Rosie. Have to be thinking about that. She did do a great job. Next year I’ll tell her to get it all on video.” Virgil got up slowly from his chair.

  “You leaving?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been trying to reach Mr. Jessup. No luck. Ark told me last night they had to release the body of that young boy to his folks.”

  “You know the parents?”

  “Through Billy Three Hats. The father and Billy were real close. I didn’t know the mother. Billy said they were great with their kids. But in some ways I guess life on the Rez can be a little claustrophobic, especially when you hit those teen years and realize there’s a whole other world beyond the Rez.”

  “Yeah, but the lure is not just for the kids on the Rez, Virgil. Believe it or not, kids growing up in Hayward feel like they are on the Rez. Remember how you told me you couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

  Virgil stood by his desk fingering the rim of his Stetson.

  “Seems like at some point we all think that what’s on the other side of the hill is going to be so much better than what we have. Then when we get there we find out it’s not a whole lot different. The problem is a lot of people get lost along the way before they find that out.”

  “Like your friend’s boy. Probably another casualty of the technology.”

  “How do you mean?” Virgil asked.

  “I think a lot of people these days are living in the virtual world. But they forget it’s not the real world. A lot of the anchors that kept them grounded are gone. All bets are off. People do things, say things to a computer or smartphone that they wouldn’t have said or done in the past to a person.”

  “Don’t think the internet or the virtual world is going to go away, Rosie.”

  “You’re right, but everyone better remember living in a cloud isn’t really living.”

  “With that profound thought, I’m heading down to Roscoe Flats.” Virgil opened the door.

  “Virgil, what about Cecil Summers?”

  Virgil hesitated.

  “Has Elvira sworn out a complaint?”

  “I don’t think so. She didn’t any of those other times either . . . no order of protection.”

  “Damn.” Virgil leaned against the doorjamb, his frustration obvious. Then he stood up straight, slapping his hat against his leg. “Guess we gotta let him go. No complaint, no way we can hold him.”

  “But, Virgil. He’s done this a few times now. Simon said he was real belligerent this time. Mouthing off big time.”

  “Did he do anything we can charge him on, hit Simon or physically resist arrest?”

  “Let me check.” Rosie rifled through the papers on her desk until she came up with Simon’s report on the incident. Virgil saw her shaking her head as she read it over. Finally, she looked up. “Can’t find anything, just a lot of shooting off his mouth about Elvira not letting him see his kids while she’s running around.”

  “Elvira running around? I think Cecil’s got that a little backward if I remember correctly.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’s that O.J. thing. Tell a lie often enough you start believing it. Elvira should have thrown him back in the tank years ago. Cecil was no great catch to begin with. Guess some women will take any man rather than face life alone.”

  “Maybe Elvira didn’t have a lot of prospects. Anyway, to the problem at hand, let him go,” Virgil said.

  “But, Virgil.”

  Virgil held up his hand.

  “No buts. We can’t keep him. No complaint filed. No charges. We have to let him go. I’m out of here. You can get me on the radio if you need me.” Virgil gave a half wave with his hat and stepped out into the cold sunshine.

  All the way down to Cielo and Roscoe Flats he was thinking about how the law sometimes gets in the way of common sense. He remembered Dif telling him how his father, Sam, would handle someone like Cecil. A little private talk in the parking lot. Then Sam would come through the door into the office, occasionally brushing some dirt off his clothes. On a couple of rare occasions pouring some peroxide over a bruised knuckle or two. Dif said he didn’t say much on
those occasions, but he couldn’t remember a time when he had to have one of those parking lot conversations more than once with the same person. Virgil knew he wasn’t Sam Dalton, but once in a while he wished he was. Then again, he knew that had been a different time in a different world.

  Before heading over to Mr. Jessup, Virgil drove to the sand and gravel company. He knew from Mr. Jessup that his son worked there as an accountant. Beyond that, he now knew from Micah Hayward that Everett Jessup Junior had been in partnership with a man named Michael Stark. A man who not too many months before had ended up in the bottom of a canyon off High Ridge Road. These were the kinds of intersections that always caused the hair on the back of Virgil’s neck to stand up. He parked in the lot, then started down the path toward the office building.

  “Hey, Sheriff. Nothing tastes as good as a free sandwich.” Virgil immediately recognized one of the truckers who he had bought lunch for coming toward him.

  “You looking for another one of those free meals?” Virgil asked.

  “No. My next one will be at home. I’m done for the day. Worked an early shift.”

  “You got far to go?”

  “Only about ten minutes. Just got a place a couple of months back in Mesquite Meadow.”

  “Oh.” Virgil obviously didn’t get the reference.

  “The new development. Company financed it. You work here you don’t have to deal with credit checks, closings or any of that BS. Company takes care of it all. Yeah, we got ourselves a nice little casa. Wife loves it. Well, good seeing you, Sheriff. Thanks again for the lunch.”

  Virgil stood for a moment watching as the man walked away. A few minutes later he was sitting in a reception room waiting for a Human Resources person to show up.

  He didn’t know what he had expected, but he was quite sure this wasn’t it. From the moment he walked through the front door, it was as if he was in any other modern-day corporate environment. If you didn’t look out the window, you could have been in downtown Phoenix or Houston. An atrium stood in the middle of the entry hall on a polished stone floor. Lush plantings with waterfalls trickling through them offered shelter and drink to numerous brightly colored birds. To one side was a desk and a receptionist who offered Virgil a seat then put in a call to an inner office. As he sat and waited, it dawned on him just how out of touch he had been with this part of the county, along with all the changes that had been taking place. This was definitely no pickup truck, dump and deliver operation. He had seen the fleet of trucks lined up in the distance out back waiting to be loaded, and now this. He was thinking of another substation in this area like the one down in Redbud when his train of thought got interrupted.

  “Good afternoon, Sheriff Dalton. How can I help you?”

  The voice attached to the words was no truck driver. Virgil judged her to be in her early thirties, almost as tall as he, ash blond hair pulled into a French twist and two of the bluest eyes he’d seen in a long time. As she extended her hand he noted what looked like a dimple on her left cheek that could have been a small scar.

  “I wanted to speak to you about one of your employees.”

  “In that case why don’t we go to my office?” She opened the door she had come through and Virgil followed her down a long hallway till they reached her office. Again, it could have been an office in the middle of a corporate park or any urban environment. The only thing that gave it away was the window view. Obviously, this annex was far away from that part of the company that was the reason for its existence. The scene outside was of rolling prairie broken by mixed desert vegetation. Random varieties of cactus stood their ground while a steady wind drove some small tumbleweeds toward the far line of buttes that marked the blue-gray perimeter of the horizon. Virgil took the seat in front of Miss Allison, as she had introduced herself.

  “I’m sure you know because of privacy laws I’m limited in what I can talk about regarding employees, but I’ll help you as much as I can.” Virgil nodded. “Could you give me the employee’s name?”

  “Jessup . . . Everett Jessup.”

  She quickly typed the name into the computer on her desk. A minute later she asked Virgil if he was sure about the name and the spelling. After he repeated the name along with the spelling, she entered it again into her computer. “What exactly does Mr. Jessup do?” she asked.

  “As far as I know, he is an accountant,” Virgil said.

  “That explains it. He is a contract employee. We don’t have our own in-house accounting department. That’s why his name is not coming up. We contract it out. There’s been some discussion of changing that, but as of yet . . .” She left the thought unfinished as she went back to the computer. “I have to open a different file. Ah, yes, here it is. I remember . . . it was too bad. He was a nice man.” She sat back in her chair. “Stark and Jessup, we had contracted with them the last four or five years. I don’t think I ever met Mr. Jessup more than two or three times, but Mr. Stark, Michael, was a very nice man.”

  “Was?” Virgil repeated.

  “Yes. He died in a car accident right after last year’s audit and filing. About seven or eight months ago.”

  “What about Mr. Jessup?”

  She looked again at her computer screen.

  “I don’t know. There’s nothing in here about him. Maybe he is just doing . . . handling small accounts. We were probably the largest client they had.”

  “Isn’t it kind of strange using a small firm for an operation this big?” Virgil asked.

  “You know, I never really thought about it. They were already on board when I came here four years ago right after Mr. Zambrano took over the business. Maybe there was a personal connection.”

  “Well, it sure looks like business is booming,” Virgil said.

  “Oh, yes. These last few years have been unbelievable.”

  “And yet the company continued with this small accounting firm,” Virgil repeated.

  “Yes. But like I said, maybe there was a personal connection. You would have to speak to Mr. Zambrano about that. This is not a publicly held company. He pretty much makes all the corporate decisions.”

  “Does he oversee the housing development also? I think it’s called Mesquite Meadows?”

  “As far as I know, but that’s a separate entity. I mean, as far as the accounting aspect. I believe Mr. Stark handled everything for sand and gravel while Mr. Jessup took care of the housing development.”

  Virgil stood up.

  “Thank you for your time, Miss Allison.” He extended his hand.

  “It’s Jessica, I hope I’ve been helpful.” Virgil nodded. “I’ll walk out with you. Need to stretch a little.” They walked together down the hall. She walked with him through the lobby out into the cold.

  “Well, thanks again,” Virgil said. “You better get inside. It’s cold out here and you don’t even have a jacket.”

  “I’m fine. It feels good to me.”

  “Well, Miss Allison . . .”

  “My friends call me Jessie. Maybe I’ll see you out in the Lazy Dog some night.” Virgil hesitated before stepping onto the path to the parking lot. “I saw you there one night. You were with some friends. One of them sang that night. You seemed to be having a great time.” Virgil smiled, remembering the night along with the good time. It seemed a long time ago.

  “Yes. That was a good night. I’d like to have another night like that.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll meet up, Sheriff.”

  “That would be nice. By the way, Sheriff’s not my name. It’s Virgil.” He reached out and took her hand in his. A couple of minutes later as he was walking to his car, he was thinking a man could drown in those blue eyes.

  Chapter 21

  Virgil was still looking into those blue eyes when he drove the long driveway to Everett Jessup’s house. There was no sign of the horse in the pasture along the driveway, or the Jersey cow and her calf for that matter. Virgil thought it a little odd that on a nice day like this they would be shut up in the barn, especi
ally since the best part of the day, considering the time of year, was just about gone. He had stopped at the same gas station and gotten a sandwich along with a drink, as he had on his last trip down to Cielo. He took the last drink from his cup as the engine quieted outside of Mr. Jessup’s house. Now that the winter sun was slipping toward the horizon, the day was fast getting colder.

  As soon as he stepped out of the vehicle, he buttoned up his jacket. He called out at the same time but there was no response from inside or out. He went to the front door and knocked. All was quiet. After a few more vigorous knocks and callouts he walked back to his vehicle. He stood for a moment or two looking around, trying to figure out his next move.

  He’d had no luck calling from the office earlier when he was trying to reach Mr. Jessup. Now that he was here, for all intents it looked like he was still just spinning his wheels. Of course, he hadn’t had contact in a while, so the old man could be anywhere. He thought about checking in the café across the road from the driveway, but he was reluctant to call attention to his presence. At the last moment, as on his last visit, he decided to check out the barn. Maybe Virgil thought, Mr. Jessup had corralled the horse and the cow because he was going to be away for most of the day.

  As soon as he opened the barn door, he knew that was not the case. Everett Jessup was lying in a pool of his own blood in the dim light on the floor, right alongside the casket he had almost finished. Virgil rushed to the old man and turned him gently on his back. He had been beaten so badly Virgil almost didn’t recognize him. Detecting no response or sign of life, Virgil got to his feet, the smell of blood heavy in the closed-up barn. He threw both barn doors wide open, letting in the daylight along with the cold while sucking some of that cold air into his lungs.