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

by Anna Castle

  “You must be one quick cookie.” He looked more concerned than aggravated now.

  “All State Girls’ Champion, hurdles, two years in a row.”

  He tucked his chin, impressed. The other guys made admiring sounds.

  What is it about men and sports? I gained a few points on their credibility scale just for being faster than a half dozen other teenage girls over a decade ago.

  What the heck. If it saved me another lecture on respecting the rules, I’d take it.

  “Looks like Ben Senior’s getting too old to keep up with things on his own,” the sheriff said. “We’ll have to get a caretaker out here to mind the fences while Hawkins—” He broke off. He and Dare both shot me worried glances, and then they all turned together to study the gate.

  Is in prison, he’d been about to say. I heard the murmur of the deputies’ voices behind me, as though they were far away and under water. They seemed to be taking this new find as evidence against him already.

  A smoke gray Land Rover with tinted windows and a 3C logo on the doors stopped in front of the gate. Carson got out with a large ring of keys in his hand. He looked tired, like he’d had enough troublesome revelations. I felt the same way.

  “Sorry it took me so long. I had to ask Skip which key to use. We don’t use this gate much.” He thumbed through the keys, selected a small steel one, and clicked open the lock. “It’s not as sticky as I would’ve expected.”

  “Who has keys to this gate?” Sheriff Hopper asked.

  “Well,” Carson said, “there’s this ring hangs in the office. Hank has a key, I believe. He uses that old building up there to store deer corn and other hunting supplies.”

  “Nobody else? Former employees? Neighbors?”

  “Neighbors!” Carson snapped his fingers. “Now that you mention it, I believe the Hawkins have a key, or they used to. In case one of their animals got through the fence somewhere, or one of ours got onto their spread. You know, emergency access.”

  The sheriff glanced at me briefly as he turned to his deputy. “Freshwater, whyn’t you trot over there and have a look around. Mr. Caine, could we borrow that key?”

  Carson worked it free of the crowded ring and handed it over after a moment of hesitation. “At the risk of sounding argumentative, Sheriff, don’t you need a warrant to search Ty’s property?”

  “Since we don’t yet know where Bainbridge was killed, the whole of the Lazy H is considered a crime scene. So no, sir, we do not.” The sheriff grinned. “But you’re right to ask. We do things by the book in Long County.”

  Freshwater took the key, got back in his vehicle, drove a few yards, and turned in to the Lazy H entrance. I had the sinking feeling he would find that key hanging on a nail in a shed somewhere.

  “What happens if he finds it?” I asked. “Having a key doesn’t prove Ty’s the one that used it.”

  “One step at a time, Penny.” Sheriff Hopper smiled at me in a kindly way that raised the fine hairs on the back of my neck. That advice only made sense when you knew where you were going.

  Another sheriff’s department SUV pulled up and two guys in uniforms got out, lugging a couple of cases. The crime scene team had arrived. “Let’s get busy,” the sheriff said.

  We all trooped up the road, the sheriff leading, Carson and me trailing behind. Neither of us had any further contribution to make, but we felt we had a moral right to watch. Besides, we were curious and they hadn’t told us to go away.

  We walked down the road in silence to the curve under Stone House Hill. And there it was, a shiny expanse of red metal, glinting darkly in the lowering light. Without the run-for-your-life adrenaline blurring my vision, I could clearly see the sheen of window glass.

  The SUV lay nose down in a shallow gully under the scrub oaks, close to a towering cliff face of limestone boulders blocking the view from the county road. Cut branches had been spread around the sides and back in an effort to conceal it, but some of them had slipped, toppled by animals or the wind. The rear third of the passenger side was now plainly visible from the ranch road and the pasture where I’d been working.

  Dare shook his head, anger hardening his glare. “Y’all should’ve seen that when you searched this side of the Hawkins place.”

  “Must’ve been better covered back then,” Penateka said, unruffled.

  Dare paced a little way around the bend in the road, sighting in every direction from where the car lay, plainly intending to press his point. Penateka ignored him. He stepped over to the place where the car had gone off the road and stood with his hands on his trim hips, studying the scene. He’d probably been taught to review the general layout, establishing the context, before diving into the details.

  Same as a nature photographer.

  Carson and I took up positions at a discreet distance. His light brown eyes shone gold in the evening light. “I kept thinking they’d find the car under a highway in San Antonio or Dallas and the guy’d turn out to be some hot-headed husband Bainbridge had…” He cut that off with a sigh. “Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “I don’t either.” But I did know. I just didn’t want to be thinking it.

  They would find the gate key in Ty’s shed and draw a straight line from it to this car, adding another strike against Ty. He’d be in jail until his trial now. No way would the judge let him out at the preliminary hearing. Even if Courtney could make a good case for involuntary manslaughter, the jury would be sickened by the sneaky covering-up.

  I felt a little sick myself.

  The sheriff’s phone buzzed. He swiped the screen and said, “Yep. Uh-huh. Good work. Come on back.” He put the phone back in his pants pocket and said, “Freshwater found the key, all right. And a small axe with leaf matter still stuck to the blade. He’s bagged both items to print back at the station.”

  Dare came back to stand between the sheriff and us civilians. He pointed his thumb at the sky. “The roof is clearly visible. If we’d had a helicopter, we’d’ve found it Day One.”

  The sheriff smiled. “Try selling that to the commissioners.” He shot a wry glance at Carson, who made a who-me grimace.

  “I hope this doesn’t happen often enough to justify that kind of expense.” Carson’s voice was light, but tension around his eyes betrayed anger. I couldn’t blame him. Somebody had made free with his property to cover up an ugly death. Somebody he’d grown up with. Somebody he’d trusted.

  Somebody I’d trusted too. Hard as I tried to tell myself other stories, my faith crumbled a little with each new discovery.

  One of the crime scene guys opened a case, rummaged around in it, and said, “Dang it, Dave, where’s the camera?” The other guy went over and rummaged through the other case, both bickering all the while in low voices they must have thought we couldn’t hear.

  Penateka watched them with his tongue poked into his cheek. Then he turned to me and jerked his chin at the camera around my neck. I’d brought it just in case. “You up for it?”

  I nodded and moved out of the observer zone and into the crime scene. We fell easily into our old routine. Penateka pointed at what he wanted and I snapped two or three shots from slightly different angles. The other guys lifted the branches away, setting them in a neat stack on the other side of the road. The sheriff, Dare, and Carson stood together and watched.

  The passenger’s side was free of brush, since it would only be visible to someone crazy enough to scramble down the pile of boulders. Nobody ever would. There might as well be a sign hanging over it saying, “Here There Be Rattlesnakes.” Apparently snakes are not curious creatures, because they stayed inside their snake holes, to my huge relief.

  We started with an overview, working around the car, opening each door and assessing the contents we could see. Penateka opened the passenger side front door with his gloved hand and gave a low whistle at the tan leather upholstery. The stuff looked expensive, even in the glare of my flash. The darker tan carpet still showed the stripes of a vacuum cleaner. A Bigf
oot air freshener hung from the mirror, but its pine scent failed to mask the stink of rotten organic matter.

  Penateka and I glanced at each other. “Might as well get the worst over with.”

  We went around to the back. Penateka lifted the rear door and gave a little grunt. Everyone moved closer to observe the rumpled towel, once white, but now heavily streaked with red, and the dark stain soaked into the carpet. Otherwise, the cargo zone was empty; plenty of room for a man with his knees folded up to his chest.

  I took a few pictures, letting the flash blind me. Then Penateka directed the crime scene guys to bag the towel and the carpet and beckoned me to do the rest of the car.

  He opened the back door, took a long look, and then stood back. I snapped pictures of a black plastic file box, a black hanging clothes bag, and a brown leather briefcase. Then I took a nice photograph of a pair of fancy-looking cowboy boots sitting on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

  Penateka picked up one of them, holding it by the heel so I could get a good shot. “Guess we found that missing footwear.”

  “Why would anyone steal his boots?”

  “You don’t bury boots as fine as these, Ms. Trigg. Genuine alligator. Ten thousand dollars, remember?”

  I couldn’t begin to fathom that, but I did know one thing. “Ty wouldn’t keep those, Detective. No matter how much they’re worth. That’s more like something Hank Roeder would do.”

  “Which might be what Hawkins is trying to suggest.”

  I pressed my lips together. He had a point. “Let’s see what’s up front.”

  “One thing first.” He motioned away so he could reach in and open the briefcase. “Ha,” he said, as he extracted a black cellphone. He swiped a few times, tapped a few times, and then said, “Huh.”

  He walked past me over to the sheriff’s group. “Mr. Caine? Can you verify that this is your number?” He showed Carson the phone without letting him touch it.

  “Yes, that’s mine.”

  The sheriff asked. “What’d’ya got?”

  Penateka showed him the phone. “The last three calls were made to the same number, which Mr. Caine confirms is his.” He turned the tiny screen back his way so he could read the data. “The last two were between 10:30 and 12:00 on the night Bainbridge met his death. Each of those lasted only a couple of seconds. The third lasted a couple of minutes and took place at 7:23 p.m.”

  Everyone turned to Carson, who looked surprised. “Oh, that’s right. I do remember that call. Bainbridge wanted to discuss his ridiculous idea for an airstrip again. I’d already turned it down once, but he didn’t seem to understand the word ‘no.’ He wanted to set up a meeting, but frankly, he sounded more than a little drunk and I put him off.” He grimaced apologetically at the sheriff. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I should have remembered that call sooner.”

  “Easy enough to forget. It couldn’t have made much of an impression on you at the time. Do you remember anything about the other two?”

  Carson drew in a breath, shaking his head. “No. Sorry again. But if they were that brief, he must have gotten voice mail and hung up. My phone would have been turned off at that hour.” He flashed a smile. “My wife has a strict no-work policy during family time. I don’t remember noticing those missed calls…” He pulled out his own phone and fiddled with it. “No, I’m sorry. My recent calls only go back to the seventeenth.”

  Sheriff Hopper said, “It doesn’t matter. At least this helps us narrow down the time of death. Had to’ve been after that last call, unless—” He cut himself off with a quick glance at me.

  Carson opened his mouth to say something, but then shook his head and focused on his boots. They were nice boots, a supple brown with fine tooling across the toe. Nothing like Roger’s alligator marvels, but still nice.

  I understood. Those last calls established the time of death only if Roger had made them. If they’d been made by someone else, meaning the person who had perhaps just finished burying him, they didn’t do much narrowing. Roger had left the barbecue place not long after seven.

  Under that interpretation, what they mainly did was make sure Carson’s phone number stood out bright and clear. Like a big highlighter, underscoring the location of the vehicle. “Look, look,” it said. “This here is all the work of Carson Caine.”

  A loud horn blasted the cavalry charge, making us all jump. “What the devil?” Sheriff Hopper glared at the car.

  One of the crime scene techs was half-sitting in the front seat, caught in a guilty cringe with his fingerprint brush poised over the steering wheel. “Sorry, Sheriff,” he called, but in half a minute the charge sounded again.

  The sheriff folded his arms across his chest. “If you boys can’t examine that vehicle without making Tom fools of yourselves, you let me know and I’ll find someone who can.”

  A chorus of meek voices answered, “Yes, sir.”

  The sheriff returned his attention to the cellphone. “Anything else of interest there?”

  “I’ll log the rest of the calls from that day when I get back to my desk,” Penateka said. “Looks like there’s some papers in the passenger seat.”

  He opened the door and I took some pictures. A manila folder labeled “3C” lay on the smooth leather. Penateka removed the folder, revealing a dark gray arrowhead about three inches long. I took a couple of pictures of it, my heart sinking.

  For two seconds, I considered withholding my tidbit of information, but knew it wouldn’t help. “That’s Ty’s, I think. He keeps it in his desk drawer. He told me he found it on Mt. Keno years ago.”

  “Is that the story now?” Carson’s voice held a bitter edge. “In point of fact, I’m the one that found it, when we were, oh…must have been about thirteen. Ty claimed it as belonging to Hawkins land. We kept it up on Mt. Keno under a rock.”

  The sheriff asked, “How did it come into Bainbridge’s possession?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen that thing in years.” Carson smiled sadly. “We used it for oath-taking, all the way through high school. We’d say, ‘I swear by the arrow that I will take Charlene to the prom,’ or whatever the great deed was supposed to be. Maybe Ty gave it to Roger as a promise of some sort?”

  Deputy Penateka said, “More likely Hawkins put it here to implicate you.”

  Carson frowned. “It’s a little obscure, don’t you think?”

  Penateka shrugged. “He didn’t have much time and he might not have been thinking clearly. He had to come up with something to supply a motive for you. Maybe this was the best he could do.”

  “Doesn’t seem up to Ty’s standards,” Carson said. “Although, since there’s no conceivable connection between me and Bainbridge, I suppose he had to improvise.”

  They all shot glances at me again, perhaps checking for signs of impending hysteria. I calmly placed the camera in front of my face and took another picture. Something not unlike hysteria bubbled up in my chest, but these guys weren’t the ones I wanted to rail at. My mind boggled at the extent of Ty’s deceptions.

  Get that pasture documented, he’d said. I want a complete record, from fence to shining fence. He might as well have added, And wait until you see the fun surprise I left for you to find, when the time was right.

  Whose idea had it been for me to do sunrise shots on Mt. Keno last Friday? Mine? Or Ty’s? I couldn’t remember. But how convenient for me to be there with my camera equipment when Ty brought Jake up and let him nose around.

  He’d given me the clue himself. Look for James Mason, he’d said. A criminal mastermind, not a couple of scared women improvising on the run. He’d been controlling the timeline from the outset, deciding what would be discovered when.

  He’d played me like a grand piano. A Symphony in Stupidity.

  He’d overplayed his anger at the scene though, or underestimated Dare’s temper. He’d gotten arrested, limiting his ability to direct the rest of the drama he’d staged. Lucky for him, he had me to run around and turn up his cleverly planted clues
on schedule.

  “What’s in the folder?” the sheriff asked, in an oddly gentle tone.

  Penateka opened it on his gloved left palm and flipped through its contents. I spotted a sheet of yellow paper. That caught his attention too. He slid it out and put it on top to show it to the others.

  Dare got out his phone and found a flashlight app. Very handy. We gathered around the cool glow to examine the hand-drawn map of the Lazy H, showing the major features and roads. The neat labels were in Ty’s handwriting. Someone else had drawn bold lines across the northwest corner, with the word “airstrip” penciled down the middle. Ty had written over it, “Compete or collaborate?!”

  I could hear him saying the words, his voice dripping with sarcasm, his meaning plain. How dare this buffoon threaten me with such nonsense! Then my disloyal brain produced another reading, turning the threat around. Watch out, Bainbridge! I can screw you before you screw me.

  Which was it? I didn’t know how to decide anymore.

  Dare said, “That’s Hawkins’ handwriting, except for that one word there.” He moved the light over the striped lines.

  “Is Ty thinking of building an airstrip out here?” the sheriff asked.

  “No,” Dare and I answered together.

  Dare picked it up. “Ty hates the idea. He told Bainbridge there was no way he’d allow such a thing to be built on his property. That strip there’s on Diana’s half, but of course she’d never do anything that big without his approval.”

  “Bainbridge tried to get me interested in the scheme,” Carson said. “I turned him down too. Planes are noisy, smelly, and expensive.”

  The sheriff grunted his agreement. “So, what’s the idea here? That Bainbridge threatened to build on Hawkins’ spread instead of yours and you got into an argument about that and killed him?”

  “That doesn’t make much sense to me,” Carson said. “All I had to do was say no, which is actually what I did.”

  Dare said, “It would threaten Ty’s plans, though, if he believed it.”

  “That reinforces the motive we had before,” Penateka said. “I’d say this set up here pretty well seals the deal.”