by Anna Castle
“You said he wasn’t shooting at me.” That trespassing lecture still stung.
Penateka’s lips tilted a mite at one corner. “Dare said that, not me. But we were right about the trespassing. Keep yourself busy in town until we get things sorted out.”
As soon as he left, Perline brought our chicken-frieds with mashed potatoes and cream gravy. Hard core comfort food. We ate like orphans who had been lost in the wilderness for a week. Solving crimes was hard work, but Cracker’s chicken-fried was not only the most delicious in the state of Texas, it had magical soul-restoring properties as well. Every bite made me feel better.
When our plates were clean, we leaned back in our chairs and patted our full tummies. “Oh, man,” Nick said. “That was worth driving out here. This place must be the best kept secret in the state.”
“It’s no secret, honey.” Perline set our plates on the pass-through to the kitchen and poured us more tea. Then she sat down at our table with a hearty sigh. “When Ty gets that spa built and we start getting more people in here, I’m going to have to hire some help.”
“I like the way you say ‘when,’ not ‘if.’”
She gave me a know-it-all look. “I never had a shred of doubt.”
I had only doubted for one night, but I guess that made her the winner in the faith division.
Cracker came out from the kitchen with a Shiner Bock in one hand. He waggled it at Nick by way of an offer. Nick shook his head. Cracker shrugged and joined us with a hearty sigh of his own. His chef’s shirt was unsnapped, revealing a T-shirt that read Everything’s Bigger in Texas. Including T-shirts, since that one must be an XXXXL to cover Cracker’s mighty midsection.
“Perline tells me Hank Roeder’s been cooking up drugs out there on the 3C.” Cracker frowned, his shaggy red eyebrows diving toward his bumpy nose. “I saw a show about it on the TV a while back. That boy hadn’t ought to be bringing that mess into Long County.”
“It’s everywhere,” Nick said. “Anywhere you can hide a lab. More in the country than in the city, because it’s easier to hide the smell.”
“Bad business,” Cracker said. “But I gotta tell you, I’m not all that surprised. Hank’s always fancied himself an outlaw. All that Confederate rebel bull corn.”
Perline said, “If Hank’s bringing drugs into our county, I hope they lock him up and forget where they hid the key. What I want to hear about is Ty. We heard about y’all finding Roger’s car and that frame-up business they found in there. That’s all anybody could talk about last night.”
Nick and I glanced at each other. “You tell,” he said.
“We’re pretty sure Ty didn’t do it. There’s too many holes in the story. But Hank is a strong possible.” I told them the way we’d worked it out, step by step.
“Oh, my heavenly Lord,” Perline said.
“Man, oh, man,” Cracker said. “That is one heck of a tale, though you kinda lost me with that antennae part. You’re telling me old Hank Roeder is sitting up there by his lonesome with one of those laptop computers, sending fake emails to Ty?”
“It wouldn’t have to be a computer,” Nick said. He pulled his Blackberry out of his pocket. “He probably has one of these little beauties.”
He handed it to Cracker, who turned it around, studying it. It looked tiny and strange in his big, rough hands. “I can’t picture Hank with a gadget like this.”
“Oh, he’s got one,” Nick said. “I guarantee it. Every drug dealer on this planet has a smartphone. They have to let their customers know when the goodies are on the way. If he’s got illegal money to spend, he’d buy the fanciest phone he could get.”
Cracker handed the Blackberry back to Nick. “I don’t know. I’m thinking that drug deal could be a whole separate thing from Bainbridge’s death.”
Perline spanked him on the shoulder. “Graham McCrocklin, whose side are you on? We’re trying to save my cousin Ty.”
“I’m on your side, honeybunch, and I always will be. But it doesn’t do us any good to pretend we know something that we don’t.” He took a swig from his Shiner. “I was sort of rooting for Sid Matslar, myself. I never liked that guy. He’s always pushing those small business loans with that greedy gleam in his banker’s eyes. Get us tied up in debt ‘til the bank owns us, right down to the flatware. And everybody says he was having an affair, which is why his wife is divorcing him.”
Perline and I looked at him like he had sprouted antlers. “It was her, not him,” Perline said. “And it wasn’t even a real affair. They’re just sick of each other. Sid’s a nice enough guy, for a banker.”
“Sid’s pretty much the last one on my list,” I said. “Even if he had been working on some kind of secret deal with Diana, I can’t imagine him being so madly in love that he would help her hide a body.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cracker said. He had a mulish look on his face now. “That woman could sweet talk the rattle off a snake.”
“It doesn’t take much to piss off a meth head,” Nick said. “Hank’s the most likely guy. After him, I put my money on the boyfriend, good old Deputy Dawg.”
“Dare,” we all said in unison. Perline gave him a quelling glare.
“Don’t make fun of him,” I said. “He’s the best we’ve got. Besides, he has an iron-clad alibi.”
“Iron-clad, like the Titanic?”
That shut us up for a second.
“We can’t do anything about it, though,” I said. “I can’t call the Federal Whatsis Center in Georgia and ask them if he was really there last week.”
“You can’t,” Nick said, “but the Colonel can. I’ll bet Dad’s got a friend who has a friend who knows somebody. You know how officers scratch each other’s backs.” He twitched his eyebrows at me with that smug look that always made me want to put ice down the back of his shirt. I scooped up a cube with my spoon. He eyed it warily and scooted his chair back a fraction.
Cracker watched us with a wry smile. “I take it you don’t think much of the officer class.”
“Do submarines have screen doors?” Nick asked.
“Army submarines, maybe. See, kid, in the Navy—”
Perline whacked him with her towel. “Hush, you.” She leveled her gaze at Nick. “Around here, we respect the law and our officers. Dare’s the best deputy we’ve ever had.”
“I’m sorry. I take it back. I’m sure he’s a great guy and a terrific officer.” Nick gave Perline his very best please-forgive-me smile. I’d seen it too many times to be susceptible, but she bought it.
I said, “Dare is the most likely Louise, coming back around to the movie theory.”
Nick raised a finger. “Y’all realize you’re casting Thelma and Louise as lesbians, right? Not that I mind, personally.”
Cracker chuckled and they both got quelling glares.
“I’ve never seen anybody be as patient as Dare is with Diana,” Perline said. “Helping her get sober, encouraging her in that new job. He would do anything for her.”
Cracker shook his head. “I’m still rooting for Sid. I doubt Diana is going to marry Dare, not once Ty gets that fancy resort going. Diana likes the good life. She’ll be setting her sights a whole lot higher than a small town deputy living in a trailer on the wrong side of the tracks. Dare must be able to see that himself. He wouldn’t risk his career for her.”
“I’ll call my father to see what he can do about that alibi,” I said, “but I’m not going to hold my breath. Y’all think the email thing is too sophisticated for Hank. I think it’s too artistic for Dare. He knows the best way to keep a crime unsolved is to wipe the fingerprints and leave the body in the car by the side of the road in a big city.”
We sat and nodded at each other, satisfied that we had alternatives, but not knowing which was best.
Perline got up to fetch the pitcher of iced tea. “Y’all want pie? Cracker made chocolate meringue this morning.”
Nick and I sat up straight and put our hands on the table like good children who deserve
d pie. “Is the Pope Catholic?” Nick asked, spoiling the effect.
She went into to the kitchen and came back with generous slices on chilled plates. She and Cracker beamed as we took our first bites and made chocolate ecstasy noises.
“Y’all’re going to make a fortune,” Nick said, winning complete forgiveness from Perline. “Ty’s spa people will climb the walls and hike into town to eat this pie.”
“I can do spa pie too,” Cracker said. “A nice lemon chiffon with chocolate curls on top, so they feel like they’re cheating on their diets.” I couldn’t think of anything more unlikely than this burly man concocting delicate treats for the ultra-fussy. But then, Lost Hat had turned most of my former ideas about country folk upside down.
“If we get to vote,” Perline said, settling back in her chair, “I vote for Carson Caine. He always was a sly kid. He’d say anything to anyone to get what he wanted.”
“You don’t like his wife,” Cracker said, “cuz she won’t come in here and chew the fat with the rest of the gals.”
“Fat! Her? Ha! She hardly comes into town at all. We’re not good enough for Little Miss Dallas High Society Prancey Prance Prance.”
That was quite a title. I’d love to photograph the next contest.
“He has an alibi too,” I said. “He was at a country club in Kerrville Wednesday and Thursday, schmoozing another developer guy.”
“Another one?” Cracker asked. “What’s going on around here?”
“He said it was a potential campaign contributor, a green builder from San Antonio that Carson thought might act as a counterweight to Roger Bainbridge.”
“Set one developer against the other,” Nick said. He mimed a couple of boxing punches. “It might work, if the second guy is bigger and faster than old Roger.”
“More likely they’ll knock the rest of us out of our homes,” Perline said. “I want to change my vote. I think the second guy did it, out of pure greed. I want him to be the one that goes to jail, not my cousin or our best deputy. We don’t need a bunch of rich snobs waltzing around chasing after our land and whining about how countrified we all are.”
“Good enough for me,” Nick said. “The developer did it. Case closed.”
Chapter 22
I let Nick pay for lunch with his platinum credit card. Now he only owed me 999 meals. Alas, he had get back to Austin, so we picked up the dog and walked back to my house.
Nick aimed the clicker at his car and gave me a long look. “It wasn’t the green builder from San Antonio.”
“I know.”
“It might not have been Hank either.”
“I know that too.”
“You got your guy a reasonable doubt, which is more than he had. But it’ll have to go to trial before he’s really in the clear.”
“I know. I do, honestly. The main thing is that now I don’t think he did it. That’s the part that was killing me.”
Nick slung himself into his seat. “Keep your chin up, Penny-lope. And don’t forget to call the parents.”
Jake and I waved him down the street. After the shiny blue sports car turned the corner, I felt disconnected, at loose ends. Restless.
My Kit-Kat clock said five after three. Too late to call the folks in Germany. I’d just had lunch at the diner, I couldn’t do that again today. I could go hang out in a coffee shop for a while, except that—oops! We didn’t have one in Lost Hat. No movie theater either. Also no museums or friends’ studios to hang out in when I didn’t feel like working. I could go shopping for a new outfit, but we didn’t have an Academy Superstore or a Goodwill and besides, I hated shopping.
I couldn’t even go out to Ty’s ranch and do photography, not while Hank the Raider was lurking out there cooking up redneck cocaine.
I stood on the grass in my front yard under the shade of the live oak tree, studying my house, pondering how I’d ended up here. Somehow over the course of this rackety couple of days, I had come to a decision to stick it out, come what may, and put down roots right here in Lost Hat.
My house was a small three-bedroom ranch model, white with brown trim. It had a front porch where I could read the Sunday paper and wave at the neighbors. Great Aunt Sophia had kept it up, so it had a relatively new roof, sound siding, and level gutters. I mowed the lawn and trimmed the box hedges around the foundations as needed.
I’d never owned a house before and had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it was comfortable and it was mine; I could do whatever I wanted with it. On the other hand, I hadn’t had time to do anything, apart from carting most of the knick-knacks up to the second floor of my studio and unpacking my few boxes of clothes. I mostly owned photography stuff, which lived at the studio. I hadn’t done anything to make the house really mine, to make it a place that said “Penelope Trigg, Artist-Entrepreneur, lives here.”
Maybe I should, now that I’d had my little epiphany. I could at least do something about that boring brown trim. How wigged out would the neighbors be if I painted my house turquoise with neon yellow trim?
Pretty darned wigged, more’n likely. But a whole spectrum of colors shone between blah-blah brown and Caribbean bright.
A sudden surge of energy made up my mind. I could at least get some paint chips and ask the hardware guy how to go about it. I walked back to the square to pick up my truck, then drove over to the Benson Hardware Store on 331.
Ray Benson, the owner of the store, called, “Howdy, Penny,” as I walked in the door. I had been in here a lot when I was fixing up the studio. He told me about the paint preparation steps, listed the supplies I would need, and offered to rent me a sander. He thought I should paint the whole house, since it had been a good ten years.
Another upside to small town living. Nobody at a big box store knows how old your paint is. Plus Ray never gave me any of that “little lady” malarkey. He knew I was handy; most artists are. We use a lot of tools in unusual ways in art school.
I went to the paint department at the back of the store and fell into a Technicolor dream. Did I want to go tropical with hot pinks and ice blues? Or perhaps something more sophisticated, like sage greens, burgundies, and mustards? My brain whirled, trying colors on the house in my mind’s eye, when I smelled stale smoke and sour sweat and heard a gravelly voice in my ear.
“Look out, look out! Big black bull’s a’coming.”
I froze, stiff as a possum cornered by the family dog. Hank! I didn’t dare look at him. Ray’s voice talking on the phone sounded a thousand miles away.
Hank chuckled and I unfroze enough to take a step backward, bumping my heel against the paint chip display. I held the color brochures in front of me, as though I could defend myself with good taste.
I screwed up my courage and took a peek. Hank’s close-set eyes were bright—too bright. The dilated pupils and the bloodshot whites reminded me of that feral hog. No doubt his bite would be every bit as nasty. He held a case of Sterno cans under one arm.
“Shoo!” I said. It came out in a whisper.
Hank recoiled, curling his fingers in front of his scraggly moustache. “Ooh! I’m so scared!” He leered at me. “You got balls, girl. I’ll give you that. But you need to learn to mind your own business. I thought old Blackberry’d teach you that lesson, but you’re one zippy little bunny.”
He took a step closer and I leaned back into the display, trying not to tremble visibly. But he was a hunter. He could smell my fear as clearly as I smelled the cigarettes on his skin.
“I’m a wily coyote and I eat bunnies for breakfast. Best you remember that when you’re out there with that nosey camera of yours.”
“How’s it coming, Penny?” Ray’s friendly voice melted my fear. I met Hank’s eyes and summoned a tense smile. He chuckled and slipped around the corner.
I stood in front of the paint display, shuffling color cards aimlessly with shaking fingers, waiting to hear him pay for his Sterno and leave.
The front door chimed. I made my way to the front of the store. “T
hat guy gives me the creeps,” I told Ray, as I paid for my house-washing soap and sandpaper. “He snuck up and scared me.”
“Hank?” Ray chuckled as he bagged my stuff. “He’s an odd duck, all right. He was probably just flirting with you.”
Why did people keep saying that? The day I thought Hank Roeder was flirting with me was the day I’d start wearing a burka.
“I wish he’d get rid of that Confederate flag, though,” Ray said. “Gives people the wrong impression of us. I keep telling him the Hill Country counties voted against secession, but he’s not interested in the real history.”
I took my purchases and went home. I put on a pair of old gym shorts and my oldest T-shirt and found a pair of blown-out running shoes in the back of the closet. Add a ball cap and sunscreen and I was ready to rumble.
I got out the big ladder and started in the front, scraping loose paint, banging in the odd nail, scrubbing the siding and trim with a weak soap solution. Good, hard, physical labor tires the body, loosening mental knots and washing away the frustrations of the week. I felt safe outside in plain view of my neighbors, although for a while I kept getting a prickly feeling that made me look up and down the street for a black pick-up with red flame decals.
Hank Roeder had put the bull in my pasture. Every time I thought of it, I got so steamed I had to climb down from the ladder and run the hose over my head. I could have been killed! Worst of all, that son of a bitch had made me afraid to go out and do the job that I loved best.
At least now I knew Ben hadn’t done it. Somehow, in time, I’d find a way to persuade him and Tillie to forgive me.
When I took my supper break, I called Deputy Penateka and told him about the Sterno. He said, “We’re working on it, Penny,” and advised me to stick close to home in the meantime. I asked him how long a meantime was in Long County and he said there was some hang-up about the warrant.
