The Road to Wrinkle Ranch

by Nick Russell

  The woman looked at her father, her eyes narrowed and said, "Don't make me push it, Daddy. I’m warning you."

  "I said let's take it down a notch," John Lee said sternly.

  "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do when I'm talking to my father?"

  "For one thing, ma'am, I'm a deputy sheriff in this county and you’re here creating a disturbance. I don't know what your problem is, but you either need to calm down or you need to leave. Which is it going to be?"

  "I know him a lot better than you do," Bella said. “He's a liar and a thief and a con man, and he needs to be locked up for his own good!"

  "That's enough of that," Billy said. “Just ignore her, John Lee. She’s mad because she can’t have her way. She wants to stick me away in one of those damn places with the rest of the fossils where I can just dry up and blow away."

  “One way or the other, you need to be locked up someplace," Bella said.

  "All right, enough!"

  The battling father and daughter both turned towards John Lee when he shouted.

  "Bella, is that your car?" John Lee pointed at an unfamiliar white Hyundai in the driveway.

  “It's a rental. I flew in and rented a car before he could get away."

  “I knew I should've left yesterday," Billy said.

  John Lee held up his hand to quiet the old man and said, "I think you need to get in your car and you need to go back to the airport and go back where you came from, Bella."

  "You can't tell me what to do!"

  "Yes, ma'am, I can. You're causing a disturbance and you are not welcome here.”

  “Did you even listen to me? This man…"

  "I'm not telling you again," John Lee said. “Get in your car and leave."

  “You need to lock him up,” she said, jabbing a finger in her father's chest.

  Maddy stepped forward quickly and grabbed the woman's arm, pushing it down. "If you touch him again, it's assault and you’ll go to jail,” she warned.

  "Assault? I didn't assault anyone."

  "Yes, you did," Maddy told her. “Anytime you touch somebody without their permission, it's assault. So back off."

  “I want him arrested," Bella said.

  "The only one getting arrested around here will be you if you don't leave," John Lee said.

  "This isn’t even your property so you can’t tell me what to do."

  Paw Paw and Mama Nell had come out of the house and John Lee looked at them and asked, "Do you guys want her here?"

  "It's really not my business, John Lee," Paw Paw said.

  "Do you want her here or not? Tell me you want her gone and I'll make sure she goes."

  Paw Paw looked at Billy, who said, “I don't want her here."

  "If you don't want her here, we don't either," Paw Paw said.

  "Okay, you heard it, John Lee said. “They want you off the property."

  “I'm telling you right now, you need to arrest him."

  “I have no reason to arrest him,” John Lee said.

  "Yes, you do. I told you he's a thief and he's a…"

  Maddy took the woman firmly by the arm and started marching her towards her rental car. When Bella started to pull away, Maddy said, “Don't try me, lady, or you can add resisting arrest.”

  “What? I’m being arrested?”

  “You’re being removed from the property,” Maddy told her. “This is your last chance, or you will go to jail." When they got to the Hyundai, Maddy opened the door and said, “Get in."

  "I'll be back," Bella shouted.

  “No, you won't," John Lee told her. “You’re being trespassed off this property. If you come back, you're going straight to jail."

  “You go to hell, John Lee Quarrels. And you can go to hell, too, Daddy. You can just go to hell!" She got in the car, slammed the door, and started the engine. Maddy stepped back as she reversed quickly and backed out of the driveway, narrowly missing John Lee's Charger as she went. She took off down the road at a high rate of speed and John Lee was tempted to chase her down for that alone but figured it was just as well to have her gone.

  "Man, I'm so sorry about all this," Billy said. “I apologize, folks."

  "You don't have to apologize for anything at all, Billy," Mama Nell told him, hugging the old man. “You always said Bella was hard to get along with, but I had no idea how bad it was."

  "I love my daughter," Billy said, “but she’s so much like her mother. She wants her way about everything and when she doesn't get it she’ll go to any lengths to make it happen. I better get on down the road to spare you guys any more problems."

  “Nonsense, Billy," Paw Paw said. "We already bought the new brakes for your rig, let's go ahead and put them on. I don't want you driving, as worn down as the ones on there now are. And besides, if she comes back, John Lee will take care of it, won’t you?"

  "If I have to I will," John Lee said. "Hopefully she'll keep on going and it won’t come to that."

  ***

  "Nothing like a little family drama to start the day, is there?"

  "I'm sorry I told her he was here,” John Lee said as he and Maddy drove back into town.

  “I always thought Uncle Billy was exaggerating about how whacked out she is. But that, today, that was bordering on elder abuse, John Lee."

  “I know. I was afraid I was going to have to arrest her."

  “What was all that stuff about him needing to be arrested? She called her own father a thief and a con man."

  "I have no idea," John Lee told her. “I just know that whatever it is that put a bug up her ass, she's sure one pissed off woman."

  "You think she’ll come back?"

  "I don't know," John Lee said. "If she does, I don't have a problem arresting her ass if I have to."

  “Well, let's just hope it doesn't come to that,” Maddy said. John Lee pulled into a driveway, and as they got out of the car the same little spaniel came up to greet them. They walked up on the porch and knocked on the door and a moment later Wanda Coleman jerked it open.

  "I told you, if you came back, I want to have my lawyer here," she said, starting to slam the door closed. John Lee put his hand on the door to stop her and said "If you want a lawyer here, that's entirely up to you, ma'am. We can be sure to schedule that for when your husband's home if you’d like. But we just wanted to return something to you."

  "Return something? What?"

  “This,” Maddy said showing her the wristwatch that Brianna at the hotel had given them the night before. “Apparently you left it someplace."

  Wanda's face went pale and she seemed to teeter on her feet for a second, then she said, "Come on in."

  Chapter 23

  "Please, I'm begging you, you can’t tell my husband about this."

  "We’re not here to make your life more difficult, Mrs. Coleman," Maddy said. "But you have to be straight with us, okay?"

  "I just…," Wanda sat down on the couch and buried her face in her hands, crying.

  They stood there for a moment or two, and then Maddy said, "Tell us what you were doing at that hotel with Lonnie McBride."

  The woman shook her head without looking up and said, "My God, that was the biggest mistake of my life. You don’t know how much I wish it never happened."

  "We all make mistakes, Wanda," Maddy said sitting beside her and putting her hand on the woman's arm. “It doesn't have to be the end of the world."

  The woman looked up and her face was streaked with tears and mascara. "It's the end of the world for me! If Harvey finds out about this, he'll divorce me."

  "He doesn't have to find out about it," Maddy assured her. "But you need to talk to us."

  Wanda hung her head and shook it, saying, “How could I be so damn stupid? How?"

  John Lee sat on a chair across from the couch and said. "Mrs. Coleman… Wanda, we don’t want to destroy your life. But we have to know what happened between you and Lonnie McBride."

  "I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Lonnie. I swe
ar to God I didn't. I'll take a lie detector test or whatever you need me to do. I didn’t have anything to do with it."

  “But you were in that hotel room with him in Ocala, right?" She started to shake her head and Maddy warned, "If you lie to us it's only going to get worse. We saw the video, we know you were there with him. Just get it out, Wanda."

  The woman pulled Kleenex from a box on an end table and wiped her eyes and nose, shaking her head again. "I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I knew it was wrong all along. I knew it and I still did it."

  “Was that the only time you and Lonnie were together that way?"

  She shook her head and said, "No. There was one time before that. I know that sounds awful, and it is.”

  "Tell us about it," Maddy said gently.

  Wanda sighed, dabbed at the corner of her eye again, and said, "You have to understand. Me and Harvey have been married for twelve years. He's a good man. A really good man. But things got stale between us. I don't think it was his fault or my fault. It was just raising kids and working and doing all the things that need to be done. There just wasn’t any time for us. Then one day I looked around and I asked myself what I was doing here? The kids were all in school and I was sitting in this big empty house and I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to do something with my time, so I got a real estate license. That's where I met Lonnie."

  She took a fresh Kleenex and dabbed at her face again. "He was the most handsome man I've ever met. I mean he was like a model or something. And he swept me off my feet, that’s the only way I can say it. When it started it was just joking and light flirting and he made me feel special. Like I was more than just a mother and a housewife. Then one day we were at one of the model homes out at Wildflower Estates and he was showing me around. We got to the master bedroom and… I don't know what happened. We just…. the next thing I knew we were in bed doing it."

  "That was the first time?"

  She nodded her head and said, “A few days later, Lonnie came up with this idea that we needed to go down to Ocala for a seminar. So we did."

  "And your husband didn't know about this?"

  “No. I told him my sister in Lake City was sick and I needed to go take care of her for the night. He had no idea. Him and Cynthia don’t get along, so I knew he wouldn’t call there."

  “What was the seminar about, Wanda?"

  She laughed bitterly and said. "There was no seminar. There never was one. That was just an excuse for us to go away and do the dirty deed without worrying about anybody finding out about us.”

  John Lee looked at Maddy, both of them aware that Roger Bentley had lied to them.

  “I'm not going to say it wasn't good," Wanda said. “I mean, physically it was something I had never experience before. But I woke up the next morning sick to my stomach. I looked over to where Harvey is normally sleeping next to me and it was Lonnie, and I just… I ran to the bathroom and threw up."

  “What happened then?"

  "I thought it must have been something I ate, and Lonnie wanted me to come back to bed. But I looked at him, making a tent under the sheet, and I knew it wasn’t because of any food. I was sick from guilt. I said no, I was too sick. He tried to talk me into, what did he call it? A morning delight or something like that, I don't remember. But when I told him again that I wasn't going to do that and I didn't feel good and needed to go back home, he got mad. He never said a word to me all the way home, and when we got to the office I got out of his car and into mine and went home and he never talked to me again. Not that he had much of a chance because I never went back to that office. I called Roger and told him I quit."

  "Wanda, did you have anything at all to do with Lonnie and Audrey Rittenhouse being killed?"

  "No! Absolutely not. Getting involved with Lonnie was the worst mistake I ever made and I just wanted to put it behind me. There's no way I wanted to have anything to do with him again, and I darned sure wouldn't kill somebody. I don’t know how you could even think that!"

  “There's a saying about hell having no fury like a woman scorned or something like that," John Lee said. "Maybe you were jealous of Lonnie and Audrey? Maybe you felt like she replaced you? Maybe…"

  "No," Wanda said, interrupting him. "I could never do anything like that! I didn't have anything to do with it. I swear I didn’t. I told you, you can hook me up to a lie detector or anything else you need to do. But please, please, don't tell my husband about what happened between me and Lonnie. I’m begging you.”

  Maddy looked at John Lee and shook her head. Unless the woman was a superb liar, neither one of them thought she was involved with what had happened at that railroad crossing.

  "All right," Maddy said, standing up. “As far as we're concerned, if you're telling us the truth, Wanda, this stops here, okay? But I'm warning you, if we find out you’re lying to us about anything, anything at all, we’ll be back. And we won’t be so understanding the next time. Do we understand each other?"

  "You're not going to tell anybody about this?"

  “It's not going to get out," John Lee told her. “Like Deputy Westfall said, as long as you're honest with us, we have no reason to try to do anything to hurt you or your marriage."

  The woman buried her face in her hands, crying again, and said, “Thank you. I promise I've told you everything I know."

  ***

  "I think we need to have another talk with Roger Bentley, don't you?"

  "Yeah, we do," Maddy said. “He knew there wasn't any seminar down there in Ocala and he lied to Darci McBride. Then he lied to us about it."

  "Sure sounds like it to me,” John Lee said, putting the Charger in reverse and backing out of the Coleman driveway.

  ***

  Roger Bentley was on the phone when they walked into his office. He frowned and held up one finger to indicate he needed them to wait. They sat down in chairs across from his desk, deliberately in his space. He ended his discussion and hung up the phone. "You're back again?"

  "Yes, sir, we are,” John Lee said. “When people lie to us, we always come back to talk to them again."

  "What do you mean? I never lied to you about anything,” Bentley said, sounding offended and shaking his head.

  “Yeah, you did," Maddy said. "You knew there was never any seminar down in Ocala, didn't you? You were just covering Lonnie McBride's ass when his wife found out he was down there with another woman."

  "I don't have to sit here and listen to this,” Bentley said, starting to get up from his chair. “Get out of my office right now.”

  "Sit down," John Lee ordered. “You do have to listen to this, and you’d better start telling us the truth. Because if you don't, I’ll arrest you for interfering with a police investigation."

  "I have no idea what…"

  "Stop the bullshit," John Lee said. "We were down at the hotel in Ocala yesterday. We've got a video of Lonnie and Wanda Coleman checking into a room. And we checked with the hotel and there was no seminar of any kind scheduled there. None. I also talked to two people I know in the real estate business and nobody ever heard of a seminar down there on those dates. So, do you want to start telling us the truth now, or would you rather we arrest you?"

  "Do I need an attorney?"

  "I don't know, do you? Did you have anything to do with Lonnie McBride and Audrey Rittenhouse’s deaths?"

  "Absolutely not! Yeah, I covered for Lonnie when Darci called about that trip down to Ocala. But I swear to God I didn't know anything about it before that. A couple of hours after she called me, Lonnie was on the phone, telling me he had screwed up and he needed me to cover for him. What else was I going to do?"

  "You could have been honest with her," Maddy suggested.

  "I told you I don’t get involved in my employees’ lives."

  "You don't get involved, but you will lie to cover up when one of them is cheating on his wife, right? Not just cheating but doing it with another one of your employees."

  Bentley sighed heavily and said, "Loo
k, Wanda was a nobody, and she wasn't the first one."

  "And that made it okay for her and Lonnie to cheat on their spouses and bump uglies together?"

  "No, that's not what I'm saying," Bentley said. "I don't know what Lonnie even saw in her. I mean, she's okay looking but she's not…"

  “Not Audrey Rittenhouse? That was more his style, right?"

  "I swear on my mother's grave, I didn't know anything about Lonnie and Audrey, I mean it. I would've put a stop to that, one way or the other."

  “Why?"

  "Because she was the competition, because…"

  "It was okay for him to have an affair with somebody from this office, but not somebody from another office? Is that what you’re telling me?"

  “What do you guys want from me?"

  "You can start with the truth," Maddy suggested.

  “All right. Lonnie was a great salesman, but he was a horn dog. No question about that. Wanda or Audrey, whoever. They weren’t the first. There was another gal here in the office for a while. I knew something was going on there, but it didn't last long."

  "Who was this other woman?"

  “Michelle Owens. She was another Wanda. Another mom with her kids off to school and nothing to do all day so she thought she was going to make it big in the real estate business. She never took a listing and never sold a house. She was only here a little while."

  “But she was here long enough for her and Lonnie to get together?"

  “The only reason I knew about it was because I came back to the office one night to pick up some paperwork that I needed to file at the title company the next morning. Lonnie's car was out front and the place was dark. I unlocked the door and came in and they were in the back room. He came out zipping up his pants and a minute later she came out. It was just an uncomfortable moment."

  “And you didn't say anything to him or discipline them about that?"

  "Like I said…"

  "I know," Maddy said, "you don't get involved in your employees' personal lives.”

  "What can I say?"

  “It doesn’t much matter what you say at this point, “John Lee said. “Because so far you haven’t given us any reason to believe you anyway.”