Rasp Meadow Crossing

by Kieran York

  “Hertha’s move is of no interest to me. It isn’t difficult for me.”

  Gwen hesitated before saying, “Of course it is. You’re still in love with her.”

  “Last year I spent the year with someone else, and she spent the year with her ex. So nothing is difficult. Nothing at all.”

  “Her professor ex was what Hertha thought she needed to keep the kids, and stay in an area that she mistakenly thought would be good for everyone concerned. And Lyn is a lovely woman, but Royce – she wasn’t the one you are deeply in love with.”

  Standing, Royce went to the door. “I’m not deeply in love with anyone.” She wished that she had followed up her statement with a fact that her heart realized. There would be no woman with whom Royce would ever again be so vulnerable.

  The two older women gave condescending smiles, before waving goodbye to Royce.

  Silence accompanied the sheriff outside to see the German shepherd deputy awaiting her. “Time for a little lunch, Chance. I’m betting there will be a little beef and kibble for you.” Royce knew that Molly was probably expecting them. Molly would have a sandwich, or pasty for Royce, and a delicious treat for Chance.

  Although Gwen and Nadine had not been forthcoming with Royce, she conceded that she might not be entirely forthcoming with herself. That touch of thought stopped Royce in her tracks. As she stepped up onto the sidewalk, she opted to ignore clarification of her emotions. Life is truth. Love may be a superstition.

  She wanted to reach up to blot her eyes dry from the tears that were welling. Yet she didn’t want to remove her sunglasses.

  ***

  Royce had walked to the back alley behind her mother’s bakery. “Wait here, Chance.”

  As she entered she saw Molly preparing lunches. Her assistant, Pearl, was busily serving at the counter filled with locals. Royce inhaled the fragrance of Molly’s specialty pasties. “Smells delicious in here,” Royce commented.

  Molly glanced up into her daughter’s face. “I hope you aren’t still fuming because of us not mentioning Hertha coming back to Timber?”

  “I’m way too busy chasing down suspects to concern myself with that. After I grab lunch, I’m going out to Otis Brull’s cabin. See if he knows anything about Calvin’s murder.”

  “What in the world would Otis have to do with Cal Wagner? They barely spoke.”

  “But they fought. I have it on good authority that last night they had a battle about Cal’s gun.”

  Molly quickly prepared a plate of pasties. Royce slid past her mother and poured herself and her mother each a cup of tea. Molly inquired, “Where’d you hear about those two fightin’?”

  “My confidential informant heard the fight.”

  Molly’s lips lifted into a laugh. “Tell you secret C.I. Plato Wallace hello for me.” Her bemused smile continued.

  Joining in the laughter, Royce commented, “Just don’t let him know you’re on to him. He’s my spy-guy. Anyway he said that the two men were screaming.”

  “Otis is cantankerous. Calvin could be touchy. I ‘spect Cal was still upset about Otis owing money for fixing that gun.”

  “The gun is now in evidence being examined by CBI’s forensics lab.”

  “A couple days ago, Cal was in here for some of my blueberry crumble coffee cake. He could eat two or three pieces at one sitting. He was yelling down the place about years of fixing that gun and not being paid by Otis. Said he was takin’ possession of it. When Otis came by, Cal was going to keep the gun. Claimed he could do that – demand payment and if Otis didn’t pay, he’d own the gun.”

  “According to some it’s worth a great deal. Confidentially, it could be up to a half million.”

  “Otis lives out east in that ramshackle cabin. Hasn’t bought new clothes in decades. And his battered truck is twice as old as your Gran’s car. Why would he live like that if he had access to an expensive gun?”

  “I’m going to ask him, Mom. I’ll let you know. I’m also going to ask him if he killed Cal. My guess is that he didn’t.” Royce looked back at Molly’s inquisitive face. “If it was a fight about the gun, he shot Cal twice in the head with the gun. But then left it behind. The killer wiped prints. If the gun meant so much to Otis, he would have nabbed the gun on the way out.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t Otis, maybe it was someone who didn’t know the gun was worth a fortune.”

  “Just speculation, but I think it was someone who knew the gun was worth a fortune. It’s the kind of gun that is easily traced. Whoever killed Cal realized the gun was valuable. I believe if the killer hadn’t known he or she would have snagged the gun. I’m guessing it wasn’t a robbery attempt, and that the killer knew the gun was a national treasure.”

  “Be careful, Royce,” Molly cautioned. “Like Gran says, peek around the corners for danger.”

  Molly always issued the same warning. She had said those words to her husband, Sheriff Grady Madison, over twenty years ago. Although Royce’s father had always been vigilant, he had been gunned down. Royce was in college at the time. Her major was law enforcement. The loss of her father hadn’t detoured her. Nor would it. She determined that she would probably die the way he did – enforcing the law.

  And she was okay with that.

  ***

  Otis Brull lived the life of a recluse. He stayed at his cabin, with the exception of a few odd jobs he took for supplemental cash. Royce watched the cabin coming into sight. The mountains that surrounded the Brull cabin were splendid. The small structure was one of the original homes built in the area. Although well-cared for, it was weather-beaten.

  She knocked loudly on his door.

  When Otis opened it, he glared at her. “What you want, Sheriff?” His gray scraggly hair and beard was unkempt. His clothing always appeared to have been laundered, but rumpled and worn. It was as though clothing was not an adornment, but rather functional to cover him and protect him from the elements. His craggy face was hardened by both life, and storms. His personality was perhaps even more unflappable.

  “I have a few questions, Otis. I know you were in town last night. And you were in a skirmish with Cal Wagner.”

  “That guy is tryin’ to steal my gun. It belongs to me!” his voice jumped with anger. Impatient to tell his story, he rattled on. His eyes had the look of a solitary man standing his ground. “By God, it’s my gun!”

  Royce believed his answer reflected that he hadn’t heard of Cal’s demise.

  “Last evening when did you arrive at Cal’s?”

  “Just as it was closing. That fella, Luther Sumner was leaving. Cal let me in. Locked up. Took me to his office in the back.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I tell him, I come to pick up my gun. He gets it outta the vault. Asks me about paying for the work he’s done on it. I tell him to put it on my tab. The gun was sittin’ on the corner of the desk. He says that I couldn’t touch it. Says I haven’t paid for my tab for a few years. And it was the day of reckoning. He wants his money. I says I have no money now. He’ll have to wait. He takes out a legal paper and says I gotta sign it – sign over rights to the gun.”

  “That angered you?”

  “Hell yep, it angered me. He says he’d fixed it for free for the last time. Says my bill is over four-thousand. Where the heck would I get four grand?”

  “What did he do then?”

  “Picks up the paper and puts it back in the vault. He tells me I’ll sign it or else. Then he begins to reach for the gun, and I start yelling at him that it’s mine. Well, he says it’s loaded, so I stand back. Didn’t want to get myself blown away.”

  “So when he put it down, you picked it up and you shot him?”

  “Shot him?” Otis was stunned, he leaned back against the door jamb. Gasping, he seemed dazed. “Hell, no I never shot him, nor nobody else.” Words were halting, “I’ve not shot nobody.”

  “He’s dead, Otis. And as far as I can tell, you were the last to see him alive.”

 
; “Dead? Cal’s dead? Maybe it was heart attack.” His vocal pitch raised, “Not dead?”

  “It was two bullets dead center in the back of his skull.”

  Otis leaned forward. “I’m no damned coward. I’da never shot nobody in the back.” He planted his feet defiantly. Scratching his whiskers, he added, “I’m not a killer.”

  “You see how it looks. You were having a fight with him, you were there at the approximate time of the death. You left in a rage out the back door.”

  “He’d locked up the front door. Sure I left out the back. But it wasn’t ‘cause I was hiding. I never murdered him.”

  Someone did, Royce thought to herself. “Who do you think killed him?”

  “Lotsa men hated him. He played around with wives. He cheated them on transactions. Even his kids hated him. And his ex-wife, and wife, they ain’t exactly crazy about him either.”

  “So it would seem. Otis, don’t leave the county.”

  Royce slammed the door of her Ford Interceptor SUV. Looking in the backseat at the lounging Chance, Royce said, “Chance, maybe I should have taken you with me on that interview. You’re way more frightening than I am.”

  Chance looked as though she might be smiling.

  Royce was not smiling. She knew the remainder of the afternoon, and into the evening, she would be writing and/or checking reports. She realized there would be an enormous stack of work on her desk. She would call Gran to tell her she would be late getting back to the cabin.

  Later than normal. How could this be, Royce considered. This entire week had been anything but normal.

  Chapter 5

  Throughout the night, Royce’s sleep had been disrupted. It was a weak kind of slumber, with nothing to hang on to. Yet, when morning arrived, Royce realized she was waking from a dream. Hertha’s arms were around her. Holding her tightly. Royce could remember how they would always cling to one another when sleeping. Throughout the nights, they each seemed to know where the other might be. As if the entire night was choreographed by a destiny of touch.

  In her dream, although the women weren’t on horseback, they were together loving and embracing. A wildfire wasn’t endangering them. Royce recalled never wanting to let her go. When she woke, she hated the tug of reality that had returned her to morning.

  Tears began. Chance moved from the foot of the bed to be near the sheriff. Royce massaged her neck. “Good girl,” she commented.

  After a breakfast that was Gran’s gabfest, Royce and Chance left for work. When they arrived, the deputies were waiting. There was a murder case in Timber City. The deputies were all on time, or early. Her meeting was brief. Basics. She did take time for a question and answers session about what was known concerning the murder. That too was brief. There was no prime suspect.

  When she adjourned, and the deputies were dispatched, she motioned for Nick to stay behind. Together they sat in her office. With his finger splaying, Nick combed through his thinning curly dark hair. At forty, his handsomeness and athletic build still charmed the women. His baby blue eyes, however, were meant only for his wife. Beverly Hogan had married the Sheriff’s Office Casanova over a dozen years ago. She playfully teased that he might wear the gun, but she was far more dangerous. She made him laugh, and was not only a great wife, but also a great mom to their children.

  Royce had thought of their relationship, and her relationship with Hertha, as the two best examples of love. The sheriff was glad that the Hogan marriage was still there in working order, as a symbol of love’s survival.

  The silence of a moment ended. Royce said, “Nick, as we thought, this crime is filled with suspects. Unlike some homicides, this is a take your pick killing.”

  “What did Otis Brull say?”

  “Nothing incriminating. He hadn’t heard about the murder.”

  Nick’s eyebrow lifted. “Or so he says.” Nick gave Chance a hug. “So I talked with both Nita and Tony. They corroborated one another’s alibis. Both were at the ranch all evening, and all night. I talked with a few of the ranch hands. When they left the ranch last night about seven, and when they arrived at the ranch this morning at daybreak, both Nita and Tony were there.”

  “Maybe one is protecting the other. Could be that they’re in collusion. After all, they stand to make a great deal of money.” Royce shrugged. “No one’s been excluded. It’s as if anyone could have done it. And would have done it.”

  “From what I gather, Nita has the ranch and Cal’s life insurance policies. Cal wanted her to be taken care of, she said repeatedly.”

  “Nick, I also found out that the prenuptial stipulates if Nita stayed with him three years, it pretty much becomes null and void. Cal and Nita were married three years ago last winter. So it is an opportune time for Cal’s demise.”

  “As for his will, according to Nita, Cal’s son and his daughter get half the business, and the adjoining ranch property. All very convenient if Nita’s prenuptial just kicked in. If Nita and Tony were impatient – it would be a good time. Otherwise why the alibis?” Nick questioned.

  “Good question. From what I gather, no one in the entire family is all that thrilled to be related. Our job is to narrow the field of prospects. My list just keeps adding on. Maybe we’ll get some forensically sound link to one of our suspects.”

  Nick’s eyes blinked as he thought. “The ranch hands inferred that Nita and Tony hate one another big time. After interrogating Nita, I gather that she’d also like to have Tony shot. A couple of the horse-trainers said they were always screaming at each other. She called him a flipping narcissistic brat. He referred to her as the whore.”

  “I’m thinking if they are the perps, they’re only alibiing one another to save one of them.” Royce rubbed the back of her neck.

  “Let’s not exclude Emma,” Nick added. “I ran into her earlier this morning. She has the bitch gene. Even Cal said that she hated him for leaving her mother. A hypothetical question, but suppose Emma was tired of being ignored by her father. And she killed him.”

  “Emma isn’t the killer type, but most killers aren’t a type at all,” Royce closed her eyes for a moment. “Add Otis to the mix – who knows. It could be X. A drifter. Employees. Maybe one of fellas out at the ranch,” Royce suggested.

  Nick stood. “There doesn’t seem to be any animosity with the workers. They saw Cal as a good old boy who paid them in cash.” Nick walked to the window and scanned the trees that surrounded the courthouse. “I’m not sure if Luther is still in the country. But he could be a suspect for anything.”

  “Otis said that Luther was leaving the gun shop just as he was going in. But Luther could have circled around, waited for Otis to leave, and then he killed Cal.”

  “What would his motive have been?”

  Royce rapidly indexed her memory. “Luther did hang out with Cal when he was in town years ago. When Yancy was sheriff, the brothers frequented the gun shop. I always suspected that guns went missing from the evidence vault. They could have all been in cahoots. Then Luther and Yancy were sent to prison, and the loss of weapons discontinued. I put safeguards on the evidence room, and the guns stopped going missing.”

  “If it was dirty, Luther would be there. So now that he’s been sprung from prison, maybe he’s trying to get business going with Wagner Guns.” His eyes narrowed. “Royce, I have a bad feeling about Luther.”

  “I have to wonder about everyone.” Royce stretched. “We missed the wife. Grace.”

  “Grace might have finally allowed her hatred of Cal to boil over. Woman scorned,” Nick said with an eye roll.

  “Nick, when I was talking to Gran this morning at breakfast, she said Grace was upset because Nita and Cal were planning a cruise this autumn. Grace was moaning to everyone while she was in line at the market. Gran said she must have a microphone in her bra because she was so loud.”

  Nick chuckled. “That’s Mrs. Madison! I think your grandmother would have made a hell of an investigator. Grace might have wanted to send Cal on a permanent
cruise.”

  Laughing, Royce tossed the roster clipboard across the desk. “Let’s roll. I’m going on a search for Luther. I wouldn’t mind locking him up for something while he’s here.”

  “He’s just passing through. Yancy’s funeral. But if he were involved, he’s had a decade behind bars to learn how to be dirty with less chance of getting caught.”

  Royce placed the Stetson on her head. “Good thing for us that Luther was never a quick study.”

  ***

  The first place she would look for Luther was one of his yesteryear hangouts. The Bell Ringer was one of his haunts. Many Timber City folks frequented the tavern. It still had the Western frontier feel to its wooden floors. The oak and brass bar was original, dating back to mid-eighteen-hundreds. Named for its antique bell that was rung every morning at two o’clock AM, The Bell Ringer was also a hit with tourists. It had flavor and texture, they often said.

  Royce scanned the bar. She saw no sign of Luther Sumner. She motioned to proprietor Faye Arnall. Faye had decided a year ago to dye the gray from her hair. Her wild mop of rusty colored hair decorated the top of the mid-fifty-year old woman’s head. Her pretty face with green eyes, and a lush, highly colored mouth, welcomed customers to her bar. Most of them enjoyed seeing her lean over the counter, with her bosoms exploding from her low-cut blouses.

  Faye placed a cup of coffee on the bar. “Here you go, Sheriff.”

  “I’m just dropping by to see if you know where Luther might be.”

  “He’s staying over at the Eagle Inn. Since he’s a felon, he doesn’t come in the barroom. He was upstairs with me after Yancy’s funeral. Then he went back to the Eagle Inn.”

  “I wasn’t certain that Luther would return,” Royce stated.

  “Me too. Yanc and he had bad blood. They never were much like brothers. Anyway, Luther came in from Dallas. He’s been down in Texas a couple years now and seems to like it.”

  “That’s good,” Royce said with what she hoped was not too much enthusiasm that Luther was not going to be relocating to Timber County. “Look, I’m sorry for your loss. I know you loved Yancy,” Royce murmured. “Yancy did some good a time or two.” She tried to sound positive about the recently deceased man.