Flash Memory: A Lost Hat, Texas, Mystery (The Lost Hat, Texas, Mystery Series Book 2)

by Anna Castle

  Dare or Ty? Ty or Dare? Both men had pretty much the same means and opportunity and both had good reason to hate Roger Bainbridge.

  I remembered how quickly the two of them had come to blows yesterday morning and could imagine either of them getting into a fight with the obnoxious developer. But both Ty and Dare would have called 911 as soon as things went south. They were stand-up guys who took responsibility for their actions. I couldn’t see either one hoisting Roger’s body onto the Gator and burying him on Mt. Keno.

  That part foxed me. What was the point of carrying him up there?

  The guard came to lead me into the visiting area, which had two long rows of faux-wood tables with low plastic dividers down the middle and between each pair of seats. I sat in one of the yellow plastic chairs and waited some more, watching through the glass wall on the cell side. In a few minutes, Ty came striding down the corridor, his head held high, wearing a hot pink jumpsuit with his ankles showing above a pair of black slip-on sneakers.

  He took the seat opposite me and gave me a grateful smile. “Thanks for coming.” He looked terrible, with dark hollows under his eyes and dark stubble on his chin. His thick brown hair looked like he’d combed it with a fork. The pink of the jumpsuit electrified the green of eyes, making them seem manic.

  My heart went out to him. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, all things considered.”

  “Can I bring you anything?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m allowed to have. Books would be nice. A couple of legal pads.”

  “I’ll ask.” Books were the least I could do. I’d bring him half the library, if they’d let me.

  “How’s my dog?”

  “Jake’s fine. He has both me and Tillie waiting on him hand and, er, paw. Don’t worry about him.”

  “I won’t. Thanks. How are you?”

  “Oh, Ty!” I wasn’t the one in the pink jumpsuit. “You look terrible.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I wasn’t expecting company so soon. I’ll shave for you next time.”

  I liked the stubble; that wasn’t the worrisome part. “What’s up with the pink?”

  “The Sheriff of Mason County believes pink uniforms decrease recidivism. The results support him and the trend is spreading.” He glanced down at himself and shook his head. “It certainly convinces me to give up my life of crime.”

  We chuckled a bit. It helped. I caught his eyes. “I talked to Deputy Penateka.”

  “I didn’t do it, Penny.”

  “I believe you.” I tried to keep my voice level and not betray the tiny doubts sprouting in the depths of my mind.

  He held my gaze for a long time. I blinked first.

  He let it go. “I’m not sure they’re looking very hard for the real killer, since they’ve got me to blame.”

  “Penateka said they were waiting for the autopsy and lab results. The theory is that you lost your temper in an argument and things got out of hand.”

  “Never happened.” Ty gave me a look that was half rue and half resistance. “But it’s not beyond the realm of the reasonable, as theories go. I did get into a few fights in high school and small towns have long memories.” He shrugged again. “What can I say? I was a kid with a chip on his shoulder. I have better methods of conflict resolution now.”

  “You fought with Dare yesterday.”

  “Yes, and I take full responsibility.” He held up a hand like a scout taking a pledge. “But remember, at that moment I thought it was my sister under there. My brain wasn’t working right.”

  “Dare’s wasn’t either. He thought it was Diana too, remember? In which case, he had no business even answering that call.”

  “I can’t blame him for that,” Ty said. “He must have been half-crazy with fear, same as me. When it comes to Diana, I guess we both have short fuses.”

  He sounded fair-minded and reasonable, the Ty I knew and loved. No way in hell did he get into a violent altercation, kill a man, and then try to conceal what he’d done. Seeing his calm face, dark circles notwithstanding, and listening to his warm voice, made me feel better than I had all day. I reached a hand across the plastic divider and he gripped it. The contact fortified both of us.

  The guard cleared his throat. “Hands behind the barrier, please.”

  I almost growled at the guy. Couldn’t he give us one measly minute? I sighed and folded my hands on the table. “We need to talk anyway. I’m trying to get a handle on all this so I can help you. At least help manage the rumor mill.” I did a mental run-through of the questions in my backpack. “Penateka said Diana had talked about bringing in her own investor.”

  Ty blew out a lip fart. “She talked, sure. She likes to see how far she can push me.”

  “What would happen to your plans if she did?”

  “It won’t come to that. But okay, if that’s the motive they’re pushing, let’s say it does. Say she takes out a loan and brings in her own partner, or even sells her half of the ranch to someone else.”

  “I can’t believe she’d go that far.”

  “She won’t. But say she does. Then I negotiate with the new guy, even if he’s a sleaze-machine like Roger Bainbridge.” He grimaced at that idea, but shook it off. “Deals are what I do, darlin’. If Diana has to bring in her own white knight to feel like a player, I can live with it. A thing like this is a big deal. A lot of people will get involved over the course of the project.”

  “Bottom line, then. It wouldn’t wipe you out, financially? Scuttle the whole deal?”

  “It would not.” He chuckled. “I’m good at money, darlin’. I may not be great at relationships, but money and me, we get along fine. I went through the tech boom in Austin at warp speed and came out on top after the crash. I’m not going to lose my shirt building a resort on my own property.”

  His confidence rang true. If that flimsy motive was all they had, he’d be out in no time.

  I felt cheered, but Ty’s expression grew somber again. “I’m worried about Diana. I don’t know if anyone’s talked to her. Did Penateka…”

  I shook my head. “He wouldn’t tell me. I kind of don’t think so.”

  “I tried to call her yesterday, but her voice mail was full.”

  “That could mean anything. Or nothing.” I hesitated, wishing for a smooth way to ask the next question, but knowing there wasn’t one. “Do you think she could possibly have had anything to do with Roger’s death?”

  “No way!” Ty’s shout rang against the bare walls, jolting the guard into alert mode. Ty held up both hands in the universal sign for No trouble here, Boss. He gave himself a minute, then said, “I keep seeing that bracelet in my mind’s eye and it scares me, Penny. I’m afraid she might be under there somewhere too.”

  “Oh, my God, Ty! Don’t even think that!” I rejected the horrible idea while simultaneously wondering why I hadn’t already thought of it. Then I remembered why not and the shock leached out of my system. “You’ve heard from her in the past couple of days, remember? She sent you those emails. She’s fine, honey. Her phone’s in her purse with the battery run down and she’s out lounging by some pool somewhere.”

  Hopefully, not in Mexico under an assumed name.

  Ty didn’t seem much reassured, but he said, “You’re right. I hope you’re right. It’s a morbid fantasy.” He tried for a lopsided grin and almost made it. “It’s probably the prison food.”

  “Or the disturbing pink jumpsuit.”

  That got me a small chuckle. “I wish they’d let me have another look at those emails. I might be able to narrow down where they came from. Or my guys at the office could.”

  Ty specialized in security systems and had an office full of reformed hackers at his beck and call. They could make mincemeat out of those messages in no time flat.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.

  “A week ago Wednesday. We had a big argument.” He gave me a wry look. “Do you want the whole statement, Detective Tr
igg?”

  “Actually, I kind of do.” I gave him a sheepish grin. “You wouldn’t believe the rumors flying around out there, and Penateka only lets loose one tidbit at a time. It would help a lot if I could hear the true story in one fell swoop.”

  “One swoop, coming right up.” Ty rubbed his palms together, gazing blankly at the wall, organizing his thoughts. Then he leaned forward on both elbows with his fingers steepled and angled toward me. “This starts last week, Wednesday evening, with me being a hard-ass, twice. First time was with Bainbridge. Diana had insisted I listen to him one last time, so I met him at 331 BBQ around six. He started babbling the usual real estate drivel. Then he implied that he had Diana in some kind of compromising situation and would get what he wanted one way or another.”

  “How is that possible? She’s an adult, single, independent. How could she be compromised?”

  “I don’t know. He might have meant she could be embarrassed, which could mean drugs, drinking, cheating on Dare… Not a disaster, but it would hurt her and others. If he was responsible for anything like that happening, I’d beat the son of a bitch into a—”

  I drew in a sharp breath. “You might want to watch those words.”

  Ty shook his head with a frustrated growl. “You’re right, you’re right. Of course I don’t mean it literally. That guy was pushing me hard, though, and I got mad. I banged my fist on the table and spoke loudly, telling him to stay the hell away from my sister. That’s strike one in the case against me.”

  “Then you went home and argued with Diana.”

  “Not immediately, but yes. She came home an hour or so later. Marion made her work late, catching up on paperwork. I’d been preparing for my meeting in Austin and stupidly insisted on discussing the contract right then and there. I was high-handed, treating her like a kid. It put her back up and she refused to sign. She screamed, ‘Screw you and your contract too!’ and stormed into her room. Five minutes later, she stalked out the front door with a big bag over her shoulder. I heard her drive off and that was that.”

  “Where do you think she went?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? I would’ve expected her to go to Dare’s. Otherwise, honestly? I don’t know. She had a wild crowd in Dallas she used to hang with. A year ago, that’s where she’d go. But those days are behind her, or so I thought.” Worry drew lines down his face. “If I pushed her off the wagon, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “No, no, no, and no again.” I shook my finger at him. I had experience in this area. My brother Nick had a history with drugs and alcohol and my parents had been in and out of sobriety all my life. The Trigg family had a few dark pages of its own. “You can’t push someone off the wagon who isn’t ready to jump. You’re allowed to argue with your family, Ty. It doesn’t make you responsible for everything that happens afterward.”

  He smiled sadly, rejecting my wise counsel. “I’ve always been responsible for Diana. She’s my baby sister.”

  I wouldn’t even try to argue with that. “Okay. She leaves, you go to bed, you get up and you drive to Austin. When did you get the first email from her?”

  “I shot her a text before I went to bed, apologizing for being such an asshole. She texted me back sometime during the night. I don’t remember exactly when.” He shot a dark look at the guard. “Prisoners can’t have phones.”

  “That makes sense for most prisoners. You know, drug dealers, people like that.”

  “I know, I know. Anyway, she texted me back something like, ‘Okay. Luv ya.’ I also found an email in my inbox saying she was sorry too, but we needed to work on my temper and she needed time to think. She said she’d be back in a couple of weeks and we’d sort things out then.”

  “That makes sense to me.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Me too. It’s no more than I deserve. But there’s another message from her, sent not long after the first one, I think. She turned around a hundred and eighty degrees. She ragged on me about my temper and said if I didn’t stop bossing her, she’d find her own ally. She said Roger was ready and willing.”

  I clucked that away. “Flip-flopping is Diana’s specialty. You can’t let it mess with your head.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know that better than anybody. I waited until I got to my office to answer her. Plenty cool. I told her to take all the time she needs, but to please trust my judgement about people a little bit and not get any further involved with Bainbridge. He does not—did not—have her best interests at heart.”

  I thought about how I would react to a note like that from my brother. As crazy as Nick had gotten sometimes in the bad days, I still trusted him more than most people. “That would work for me. I mean, I’d for sure at least consider it.”

  Ty gave me the smile that turns my heart inside out. “Thank you, darlin.’ Your faith means more to me than anything else in this whole mess.”

  “Was that it, then? I thought you got something from her a few days ago.”

  “I did. And this is where things get weird, because I think there was a message from Bainbridge in the mix, dated after they tell me he must have been killed.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Hence the weirdness. I got another message on Sunday, I’m pretty sure, warning me that if I didn’t give Bainbridge a piece of my pie, he might go in with Carson Caine on an airstrip that would be accessed via the road running alongside my property.”

  “An airstrip? Can they even do that?”

  “Sure. It’s expensive, but lots of large ranches have airstrips. That was the first I’d heard of any such idea, though, and I thought I’d done my homework on all this.”

  “Is it a bad thing? Couldn’t your guests use it to fly straight here?”

  “Probably, but it would do more harm than good, Penny. Planes are noisy. Some days you’d be able to smell the exhaust fumes. The strips and the roads serving them scar the landscape and spoil that sense of escape from the modern world I’m aiming for. Depending on where Caine wanted to put it, it could significantly alter my plans.”

  I flapped it away with one hand. “It sounds bogus to me. Roger probably made it up to yank your chain.”

  Ty caught my eyes, his face dead serious. “While lying two feet underground?”

  I blinked, backing up mentally. “You got that message Sunday?”

  “I think so. And it gets worse. I got another one Wednesday, I think, supposedly forwarding a message from Bainbridge, asking for a meeting at my earliest convenience. He wanted to take me up to Mt. Keno and show me exactly where the road and the airstrip would go.”

  “Wait a minute. This past Wednesday? You mean two days before we uncovered his week-old body?”

  We stared at each other while the clock ticked loudly over the door and the guard gazed blankly at the wall. Seconds passed, many of them. Finally, I said, “Somebody’s messing with your head.”

  “And we know it isn’t Roger Bainbridge.”

  “Would Diana—”

  Ty held up his hands, surrendering. “Yesterday, I would have said, ‘No way.’ Today? I don’t know what to think.”

  “Maybe your lawyer can get access to Diana’s email account and have a look.”

  “She can get into mine,” Ty said. “We can start with that.”

  “You’ve remembered it wrong. That’s all. We don’t need to get all buggity-buggity until we have some actual facts.”

  My inimitable prose stylings had their usual effect. Ty chuckled, mustering something like a smile. “Sound advice, Penelope. But you know how I hate to wait.”

  “I know.” I shared that attitude. My brain was already sniffing out ways to get my nose into Ty’s inbox.

  He detected my intention. “Don’t even think about it, Penny. You’ll get in trouble and you might contaminate the evidence.”

  I grumbled at him, but had to concede the main point.

  The guard walked over and clapped Ty on the shoulder. “Time to go, Hawkins.”

  Ty st
ood up and pointed at me. “You keep working on my project, Ms. Trigg. Get started on that southeast pasture. I’ll be out on bail before you know it and I expect to see some photographs.”

  “I will.” I didn’t mention that I would also be searching for alternative suspects, but once again, he read my mind.

  He shook the pointing finger. “Don’t do anything reckless. And share whatever you find out with my lawyer. I’ll send her over to your studio when she’s done here on Monday.”

  She? “Shouldn’t you have a local lawyer? Someone who knows everybody?”

  “I don’t know any of the locals well enough to trust them with this.”

  “Are you sure you can trust this one?”

  “Absolutely.” He grinned. “She’s my ex.”

  Chapter 9

  I left the Law Enforcement Center feeling wrung out and hungry, with too many contradictory ideas tumbling around in my brain. I decided to go to the cafe on the square for a late lunch. Perline, the proprietress, was Ty’s cousin. I might get some family history as a side dish. She and I were on friendly terms. We’d bartered fifty meals for a spiffy website, so I ate there every other day.

  The Pearl Inn was your basic small town diner in terms of hours, location, and menu. The interior decor, on the other hand, was unique. Graham “Cracker” McCrocklin, a former Navy cook, had always dreamed of retiring to Tahiti. So when he married Perline and settled in Lost Hat—a good three hundred and fifty miles from the coast—she’d done up the cafe as a Tahitian fantasy.

  The walls were painted aquamarine with nets, sea shells, plastic fish, and nautical instruments hanging everywhere, even from the sky-blue ceiling. A mural of a ship sailing into a tropical harbor covered one whole wall. A sailor who resembled Cracker stood in the prow grinning at a native girl in a hula skirt who looked a lot like Perline.

  The lunch rush had come and gone, apart from a couple of men lingering over coffee at a table by the front window. Good. I didn’t want a re-run of my grocery store experience.

  I slid into my favorite booth at the back and studied the two-page menu. Perline came swinging out of the kitchen doors with a bus tub in her arms and started clearing tables. A petite woman with a plush figure, she colored her brown hair with too much red, balancing it out with blue shadow over her light brown eyes.