Blood in Tavasci Marsh: A small town police procedural set in the American Southwest (The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series Book 2)

by Lakota Grace

  “What was your daddy’s mood when he left here?”

  “Upbeat. He'd been talking to the real estate folks about selling this place.”

  That would be the one million dollar deal. I knew about it and Shepherd didn't. I had a small moment of triumph until I remembered I’d concealed that bit of information from him, too.

  Janny came out of the bedroom and I transferred the sleeping Aurora into her arms. My forearm stung as it prickled back to life. Janny moved to the door and Ethan rushed to open it for her. Janny said she'd put the little girl to bed and come back to talk to us. Her steps echoed on the porch stairs, then faded.

  “What were your relations with your father?” Shepherd asked.

  Ethan thought for a moment. “They weren't good. I'll be honest with you about that, sir. After Lucas died, things got worse. The old man hit the bottle heavy. He beat the dogs, and I wouldn’t be a party to that. No cause to be mean to God's creatures.”

  “Did you fight?”

  “Some. Nothing serious. You know, pushing back and forth.”

  “Did you kill your father, Ethan?”

  The crucial question. Shepherd didn't need to Mirandize since Ethan wasn't in custody, but would a possible confession stand up in court if he wasn’t? I wasn't sure.

  “No, sir, I didn't.” To my ears, Ethan's statement was definitive and convincing.

  “Anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?”

  “He was my daddy. You find the son-of-a-bitch that killed him or I’ll do it myself.” He clenched his fists so tight that the knuckles whitened.

  “No need to threaten, son. We’ll do our job.” Shepherd turned to me. “Peg, anything?”

  I looked up from my note writing, caught unaware. Shook my head. My time to be included in the interrogation and I couldn't come up with one simple question.

  “Okay, Ethan. You stay close now. We may have some more things to ask you. Peg, give him your business card so he can call.”

  I dug in my pocket and encountered nothing. My cards had melted into a sodden lump in the marsh and I hadn't been in the office to get new ones.

  Shepherd tightened his lips and dug out one of his own. He crossed off his name, scribbled mine in, and handed it to Ethan. “Any concerns, you call Peg. That's what she's there for.”

  I hadn't felt this inept since fourth grade when I missed “intelligent” in the weekly spelling bee. Should have thought ahead, had cards ready, had questions to ask. My ears reddened and humiliation stung my cheeks. I accompanied Ethan to the trailer to bring in Janny. At least I remembered that much, to prevent suspects from talking to each other.

  Shepherd put Janny through the same line of questioning. The only new information for me was that Janny had moved back to the home place. It seemed that her too-ardent suitor had flattened her tires once too often.

  Shepherd scribbled my name on another of his cards and handed it to Janny. He left one for her mother, too. “Peg will be by in the morning, Janny. You just let your mother sleep for now.” Then, “Your daddy was a fine man.”

  The snoozing dogs didn't even glance up as we walked by. Out in the squad car, I expected Shepherd to tear into me for not telling him what I knew about the Nettles, but he didn't. We drove in silence to Mingus.

  He pulled up to my apartment and turned off the engine. “Peg…”

  I froze.

  “You did good tonight. Hard, facing a family like that. Tears are okay, just don't let 'em interfere with business.” He paused. “Some things to settle between us, but they can wait.”

  I didn't know how to respond to that, so I stepped out into the dark night without speaking.

  He rolled down his window as I passed by. “Get some rest. I'll see you at the station later this morning.” He backed out and drove down the street. His brake lights winked at the corner as he turned on to Main and then he was gone.

  Later, when I dropped into bed exhausted, I picked up the alarm clock and peered at its face. If I were lucky, I’d get two hours of sleep before the work day started all over again.

  Cal's Other Wife

  5

  THE NEXT MORNING, Shepherd was in his office sipping tea when I arrived. He looked terrible. I hoped the bags under my eyes didn't match his. But his uniform was starched and pressed and mine wasn’t.

  “Today,” he announced, “I want you and Ben to clean that extra room behind your office. Get all the dust and trash out. When you’re done with that, run some laps in uniform up and down Main Street. Time you shaped up.”

  “What?” I asked, not believing my ears.

  “You heard me.” He wasn’t kidding.

  Maybe it was my lack of sleep or maybe the tone of his voice, but I’d reached my limit. If I only held a pair of deuces to his royal flush, I'd still call in this poker game. I put my hands on my hips and glared. “I don't notice you running the streets much. How's your shape?”

  The tea mug stopped half way to his lips. He set it down slowly.

  The resentments I’d been stockpiling exploded into the tense air. “Another thing, why introduce me as your subordinate? I'm a deputy, just like you. And my being a Family Liaison Officer? Who gave you authority to change my title? The last time I looked, you weren't even a Field Sergeant, much less a Captain.”

  “You done?” His jaw set.

  I shoved my own jaw out a half inch. “Are you?”

  He lobbed a final one over the net. “Your uniform's wrinkled. You modern women above ironing?”

  I didn't need this. “Look, I'm a deputy doing my job. Maybe you should do yours, instead of—”

  He pushed an envelope my direction. “This came for you from Dr. Westcott, the counselor. Add anger management to your session topics.” He smiled tightly. “I'll have your official appointment as Family Liaison Officer by day's end. Count on it.”

  I crushed the envelope in my fist, turned on my heel and left his office. To prove my even temper, I refrained from giving him the finger of doom. Ben, our office assistant, mimed a high five as I swept by. I slammed my office door and dropped into my chair, still adrenalin-charged. Then I ripped the envelope open. I crashed to earth. Inside was a billing statement from the counseling office, $50.00 for a “no show” charge. In the commotion of finding Cal Nettle's body, I'd missed my appointment with Dr. Westcott.

  I intended to reschedule right away, but then Ben knocked at my door and handed me a pink message slip. Janny Nettle wanted me to phone. She was up early, probably hadn’t gotten much more sleep than us. Counseling could wait. I dialed her cell number.

  “Hi, Peg. Thanks for calling back. And thanks for coming out last night. It meant a lot to Momma.”

  “Hard for you Janny, to lose your father that way. Again my sympathies. What can I do for you this morning?”

  “Three things, actually. First, I called Howard. He's coming home soon as he can get time off work. Then, Momma wants you to visit later today, too.” Her organized voice ticked off the requests, almost as though it was a way to stave off grief.

  I wondered if I could be that dispassionate if something happened to HT or my mother, even as lost as she was in her dementia. It would be an agony for me, but perhaps Janny felt different about her father.

  “Then, I talked to Darbie,” she continued. “Can you go see her?”

  Darbie Granger, Cal's other wife. “Is she aware of your father's death?”

  “I called her early this morning after you left,” Janny said. “Darbie used to be my best friend. She still is, but living with Momma curtails my social life some. Darbie’s at home now if you want to call her.” She gave me Darbie's phone number and hung up.

  I called Darbie and got directions to her trailer. She sounded young and upset. “I'll be here all day,” she said. “Don't have much else to do with the baby coming.”

  Funny how these things work out. I’d planned to avoid Shepherd after our argument, but I needed wheels. I walked the short steps to his office and knocked on th
e door. At his grunt, I opened it and walked in. “Going out to interview Darbie Granger. Need to use the SUV.”

  He didn’t say a word, just tossed me the keys.

  “I'll brief you when I return.”

  He gave me a level stare and returned to his cup of tea, unresolved business cleaving the air between us like a butcher knife.

  My breath fogged the air as I walked out to the SUV. Cold this morning, with a chance of snow flurries by week's end. Winter weather here would be nothing like the ice storms in Tennessee, but slick mountain roads could be challenging, no matter where they were.

  Halloween was coming, and the shop windows already displayed holiday decorations as I drove down Main Street. Hopefully, storms would hold off until after the Spook Night Festival, that last-of-season income boost for the store owners.

  I swung the SUV around the curves and bends leading out of Mingus and down the hill to Cottonwood. I stopped at the mini mart there and got a Diet Coke, lots of ice. Then I crunched the ice, piece by piece on the way out to Darbie’s as I replayed the argument with Shepherd. No one could be that inflexible, surely. On the other hand, he’d had thirty years of practice.

  By the time the cup of ice was empty, my calm had returned. Darbie’s trailer was on a dirt road on the edge of town. The cottonwoods had lost their leaves early this year, but plate-sized sycamore leaves still clung to the white branches looming over my vehicle.

  The trailer was an old Airstream, all silver aluminum and curved sides. The front jack was propped on cinder blocks and the wheels were uncovered. Not a permanent home, then. By the side of the door sat two white plastic chairs and a small table. An old border collie rose from a worn rug by the trailer door as I pulled to a stop. He approached my car and gave a half-hearted woof.

  A young woman made awkward by pregnancy leaned on a wobbly side railing as she descended the two fold-down steps at the trailer's front door. “Hush you. Lay back down.”

  The dog looked at its owner and returned to the rug with a deep sigh.

  Darbie Granger extended a soft hand. “Hello, Officer Quincy. Glad to make your acquaintance.”

  She was in her late twenties, medium height and thin except for her pregnancy. Her brown hair hung in casual ringlets to her shoulders. But it was her eyes that drew my attention: The same vivid green as Ruby Mae’s. Cal had noticed that, too, I’d bet. Drawn to what he was missing at home?

  Darbie’s smile lit up a face that might be plain without it. “Come visit with me. It’ll be good to talk to somebody besides my dog.” Her voice sounded lonesome.

  She gestured to the chairs. “We used to sit out here, Cal and me, and watch the sun set through the trees.”

  A rough pottery jug with purple coneflowers and white fleabane decorated the table, and a wind chime in the branches of a mesquite tree mingled with the sound of the river beyond.

  “Nice place,” I commented.

  “Thanks. Cal promised me a real house when the baby came, but now...” She sniffled. “Janny called me. I haven't slept a wink since. Can I get you something? Still have some apricot bars left. Maybe sweet tea or…?”

  I pictured her climbing down those uncertain stairs from the trailer, holding full glasses of tea. Didn’t want her stumbling and hurting herself. “Thanks, I'm fine.” I fished out paper and pen from my pocket. “Mind if I take notes?”

  “If it helps bring Cal's killer to justice.”

  “Can't guarantee that, but we’ll try. Cal was on his way to see you last week?”

  “But he never got here. On my word, I swear he didn't.”

  “And you didn't call to see where he was?” I asked.

  “Cal didn't like me to call. Ruby Mae watched him close, that jealous bitch.”

  “But you worried when he didn't show up?”

  “I was frantic! I texted Janny, but she didn't know where he was, either.”

  “This would have been what day?”

  She stopped to remember. “Monday, I think. That’s trash day for us here. Yes, Monday, I’m sure.”

  That matched what Ethan Nettle had told us. It seemed reasonable on the surface. Or Darbie could be lying about Cal not visiting her that day. Especially if he showed up to tell her that he’d changed his mind and decided to stay in the marriage with Ruby Mae. A jealous woman, even a pregnant one, could murder out of rage and frustration.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Cal,” I said.

  She got a faraway look in her eyes. “He was my hero. He had a reputation for temper, but he never showed that side to me, not once. A musician, did you know that? His guitar over there.” She pointed to an instrument leaned up against the trailer.

  Darbie settled into the telling of her story: How her folks had kicked her out when she sucker-punched her dad after an argument and how Janny found her the bartending job at Rainbow’s Folly. “I rented this trailer with my first paycheck—But you asked about Cal…”

  I nodded. “How long did you know him?”

  “Since Lucas’s death, about four years now. Cal stopped in at the bar where I worked. He'd talk and I'd listen. But then one night he got falling-down drunk. I grabbed his keys and drove him here after work. I figured he could sleep it off before going home. Nothing improper, you understand—I’ve got a pullout couch.” She looked up earnestly.

  “And then?” I asked.

  The words tumbled out of her as if she needed to justify the relationship. “Well, one thing led to another. Cal had a way about him, hard to refuse. He was lonely and I felt sorry for him. I never intended it to come to this, that's for sure.” She smoothed her dress over her belly. “He asked me to get an abortion, but I refused. I told him he had to make it right. And he was going to.”

  She raised her left hand to display a silver band cast in a Celtic knot with a small red stone in the center. “See this promise ring? We said our vows to each other, and that's all that counts. I was the love of his life.”

  I'd heard that tale before. But the knight didn't always ride up on his white horse to save the day. Sometimes he bolted the other direction.

  “How did you and Cal get along?” I asked.

  Her green eyes narrowed. “You asking if I hurt him?”

  “Did you?”

  “How could you even think such a thing! We had our little spats like any couple, but nothing serious. He took care of me, and I loved him, as hard as I could. I'd never turn against Cal like his family did.”

  “His family?”

  “Ruby Mae, I mean.”

  “They argued?”

  “She's a horrible woman. Cal detested her, that's why he chose me.” She crossed her arms tightly. “Ruby Mae's spite rules her miserable life. She's capable of anything.”

  “Such as?”

  Darbie took a deep breath. “One time Ruby Mae caught Cal making a cradle for little Cal, Jr. She smashed it with a sledgehammer, right down to kindling and then burned it. I was heartbroken. She had no cause to do that.”

  Seemed reasonable to me. Ruby Mae struck me as the type of mother who put her own children before all others. She’d seen the new baby as a rival to her own. “Anything else?”

  Darbie sniffed. “Cal refused to ruin our time together talking about that vile person.”

  “Where did you and Cal go when you dated?”

  She looked down. “We really didn't go anywhere. Ruby Mae wouldn't allow that. She’d find out—this is a small town—and I didn’t want to get Cal in trouble. I just fixed him dinner here. That man did love my lemon meringue pie. We’d sit and talk. One thing led to another.” She blushed.

  Convenient for Cal Nettle, lonely for Darbie Granger. But this trailer was a long way from the wetlands where we’d found his body. “You ever visit Tavasci Marsh?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Nasty swampy place. Gave me the creeps. Full of mosquitoes.”

  Gave her the creeps when? How'd she know that if she hadn't been there? I hadn't noticed any flying insects when I'd been sitting
on that beaver lodge. Maybe they'd already flown south before winter settled in. Smart bugs.

  “You working?” I asked.

  “Not for the last month or so,” she said. “Terrible backaches. Cal was so sweet. He'd rub my feet and put a cold cloth on my forehead. He promised once the home place sold we’d leave this ugly old town, move someplace nice like Lake Tahoe. That Ruby Mae, always messing things up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Never mind, I didn't mean anything. I can't be losing my temper like that.” She stroked her belly. “It's bad for Cal, Jr.”

  “What about Cal's grown children?” I asked, persisting. There was an undercurrent, just below the surface, of untold secrets and half lies.

  “Howard hasn't been around for a while, least I haven't seen him. I had a crush on Howard once, did you know? And then I ended up with his father. Funny how things sort out. And then Cal and Janny had their falling out.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “They argued?”

  “A lot of blame flying back and forth when poor Lucas was killed and Janny’s little baby girl was crippled. I don't blame Janny one little bit if she got mad at her daddy. She never talks about it, and I don't bring it up. But girlfriends stand behind each other.”

  And tell untruths and invent alibis where none exist? I filed the thought away. “What about the younger son, Ethan?”

  “Cal was so wonderful, I don't understand why Ethan would pick a fight with him. But yes, they argued,” she admitted.

  “Anybody else?” I asked. “What about someone outside the family that might wish Cal ill?”

  She thought a moment. “Cal ran moonshine whiskey for a while. Of course, that was before we met—I’d never have anything to do with that. But he associated with some rough people then. Talk to Otis Stroud, that’s Ruby Mae’s brother. He lives out there, takes care of the machinery on the place. As close to a man-friend as Cal had.”

  I gave her a card and offered my arm when she rose. She laughed. “Don't be silly. I'm not helpless.”

  Not helpless. I'd remember that statement.

  Darbie slowly mounted the front steps, and the old dog lumbered after her into the trailer.