R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 03 - A Dead Red Oleander

by R. P. Dahlke

  Caleb gasped and pulled me up into his arms into a tight hug. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We got him early this morning. Here, sit down, put your head between your knees. Aunt Mae, would you get her something cold to drink?”

  She laid a cool wet cloth across the back of my neck. When I sat up again, she handed me a water glass full of something that smelled suspiciously like whiskey. “Drink this. After what you girls have been through, you need it.”

  Pearlie opted for the coffee pot and sat down to chafe my cold hands in hers. “Come on, don’t go all girly on me now.”

  I gulped down half of the whiskey, choked, coughed, and finally came up for air.

  Caleb went back to lean against the counter and explained. “We had Bud’s Place staked out since yesterday. We found him around three a.m., trying to jimmy the door to get inside.”

  I’d talked to Caleb last night a little after that hour and he didn’t say anything about a stakeout. What had happened to all that give and take we were working on? Oh yes, none on my part. “That’s—that’s good news, then. We were worried about Bud.”

  “Yes, I thought you’d be happy to hear it.” Did his words hold an undercurrent of sarcasm? I couldn’t tell. “We’ve had the bar, Bud, and his home under surveillance since you sent me that cell phone image.”

  “And you’re sure it’s the same guy?”

  He swirled the contents of his coffee cup and poured the dregs into the sink. “He was driving the white Cadillac Escalade, same license plate.”

  I looked at Pearlie, seeing in her eyes the same thing I was thinking. We were both sure he had ditched that Cadillac.

  My silent interaction with Pearlie seemed to annoy Caleb. “Yes, the marshal and I talked, though I’m sorry to say it’s been hell to pay trying to keep you in our sights.”

  “I’m sorry, Caleb. It started out innocently enough. Pearlie wanted to tail Mad Dog so she could find out if he was cheating on her.”

  Pearlie did a double take at my boldfaced lie.

  “Just a minute,” he said, taking out his cell and answering a call. “This could be important.”

  She shrugged as if to say, If you say so.

  Caleb was eyeing the two of us while he listened to the speaker on the other end. “Yes, Jim. What? Damn. How? You’ll let me know, won’t you?”

  Caleb looked around at us as if counting our good luck. “That was Jim Balthrop. Looks like someone got to Mad Dog’s wife.”

  “She’s dead?” I asked, feeling sick at having to feign surprise. Finding her dead was the reason we doubled our efforts to get home.

  “Jim said there was evidence of a struggle, and it looked like her head struck a corner of the kitchen counter, but the medical examiner will have to determine the exact cause of death.”

  “But you do have the right guy now, don’t you?”

  “Yes, and his fake Las Vegas ID. We’ve run his prints and he’s got plenty of priors, so yes, he’s our man.”

  “Will he talk?” I asked, hoping if he did it would finally vindicate Nancy’s story that she hadn’t murdered her husband.

  “Not yet. He doesn’t look like much, but most of these professional hit men don’t.”

  “Then Nancy will be released, won’t she?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be just a matter of another day and she’ll be out.”

  My dad walked into the kitchen, tucking in his shirt-tail. Since news of Burdell Smith’s death, he’d kept to himself, only coming out of his room to eat and walk his goat. “How’s Mad Dog doing?”

  I was pleased to see he was able to think of someone living instead of mourning the dead. Maybe he was coming around.

  “He’ll be fine,” Pearlie said, beaming. “And when he comes home, I’m gonna see to his recuperation.”

  Aunt Mae’s brows shot up into the bangs of her wig. “Well. We’ll have to see. We have the wedding, you know.”

  Caleb and I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes together in over a week. Did he still want to marry me? I knew I still wanted to marry him. We might have some unresolved issues but that didn’t mean I didn’t love him, and I thought, I hoped, he still loved me.

  Caleb pushed off from the counter. “I have to go back to work.”

  “I’ll see you out,” I said, following him out of the kitchen, down the hallway, through the front door, and then to the porch. Without so much as a backward glance, he got into his cruiser and drove away.

  Pearlie put her hand on my shoulder. “I shouldn’t have thrown those cell phones out the window.”

  “Oh, Pearlie, I’ve been in trouble with Caleb for a lot longer than that. He’ll get over it, he always gets over it. Can’t live without me, told me that when he put this ring on my finger.” I held up the ring on my still black and blue finger. I knew Caleb was still upset that I’d chosen this investigation over the fun of wedding plans. But surely he understood that I wasn’t one to get all fluttery about butter icing on a cake. I tried to turn the diamond band around, thinking I should at least get a manicure before this Saturday, maybe even get a nice hair treatment at a salon. The ring and my swollen finger reminded me of Burdell Smith, and then Jinx. If she’d taken the bribe to hook up Jack to Mad Dog, then did Jack Carton also kill Burdell? And there was still something about the aero-ag school that bothered me.

  My cousin Pearlie was looking more like a concerned relative than the spiteful vixen who had landed at our home just a week ago. “Are you going back to the hospital today?”

  Her smile was wistful. “I will if I can trust you not to get into trouble—at least not until I get back.”

  That got a grin out of me. “You make it sound like it was one big party.”

  “It was! I haven’t had this much excitement in my life since, well, forever.”

  “It couldn’t have been much fun—you had to shoot a man.”

  She winked and cocked a finger at me. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I’m gonna be bored silly sitting in that hospital, waiting for Mad Dog to get better. You’ll call if you there are any updates, okay?”

  Aunt Mae and my dad came out to watch Pearlie leave in the ugly, faded maroon rental.

  Aunt Mae said, “I thought we had a red Mustang.”

  “Pearlie traded it in for the Taurus,” I said.

  My aunt did a double take at my smile. “Really?”

  My dad took Aunt Mae by the arm and led her inside. “You know how girls are; they always have to have the newest thing.”

  I stayed on the porch, looking up at small puffy clouds sailing over our tree tops, traveling east to west towards the Sierras. Beyond the Sierras was Reno, and south of Reno was Las Vegas. Las Vegas, where a small group of men had hired a ruthless and unforgiving killer. Caleb and the marshal were going to work hard to prove the man they had was guilty of murdering Arthur and Burdell Smith. But unless he confessed, or someone found concrete evidence, the character they had in county lock-up would get a few months in county and then be set free. The real killer would never be found. He and his cronies were going to get away with it.

  I called Caleb and asked if I could come see him. He agreed that a discussion was long overdue. There was no avoiding it. I was going to have to take my medicine, but I was hoping with a little contrite groveling, I might get him to tell me if the guy they had in the clink had confessed. If not, maybe I could make a case for revisiting the aero-ag school.

  <><><><>

  I was headed for the front door, my overnight bag in my hand, when my dad poked his head out of the TV room.

  “Where you going?”

  “To Caleb’s.”

  “You have a hundred acres of seed to fly tomorrow.”

  I dropped the bag on the floor. “When did that come in?”

  “I promised Burdell’s family we’d finish his season. Mad Dog had it half finished, the rigging is all set up for the seed, and the bags are next to his airstrip. The job shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  “That’
s good. I’ll fly up there early tomorrow.”

  My dad pulled on his ear, a sure sign he had a problem with my answer. “The Ag-Cat is at Burdell’s place. His helpers have to be picked up, too.”

  There wouldn’t be enough time to go to Caleb’s, talk, have some much needed makeup sex, and expect to get any more than a couple hours of sleep. I hadn’t slept last night, and flying tomorrow on little or no sleep would be dangerous and stupid. “Have you heard anything about Burdell’s funeral?”

  “They haven’t released his body yet,” he said, his voice filled with emotion.

  I reluctantly called Caleb and asked for a rain check.

  He said, “We can’t put this off much longer, Lalla.”

  Noting the tired exasperation in his voice did nothing to help my guilty feelings. “I know. Tomorrow, soon’s I get home. First thing. I promise.”

  <><><><><>

  With my dad’s directions left by the coffee maker, I took the farm truck and drove north to Sacramento. I picked up the two young helpers, who crawled into the truck and promptly fell asleep.

  I took the dusty road to Burdell’s property on King’s Ranch Road, and kept my face averted from the path to the dark pond where Pearlie and I had found his body face-down in the water. I also tried not to think of Pearlie shooting Clark Sullivan, but didn’t have much luck with that.

  I got in no more than half a dozen passes when the wind picked up. It would be a waste of seed to continue. I landed the plane, called the farmer, told him I’d stick around to try again in the afternoon, then called my dad and gave him an update.

  “Weather is changeable, but it’s your call,” he said.

  “I’ll wait around for a few more hours. If I decide to stay I’ll call you.”

  Assured the boys had their lunches, and were okay to hang out in the shade for another hour, I decided to drive over to the aero-ag flight school to see if the owner’s son was still taking personal inventory of his dad’s place.

  <><><><><>

  The office was locked, but a figure slowly moved around in the pole barn. That would be Alvin, the one with the look of a ferret with his sharp little nose and moist brown eyes. My initial evaluation of the man had been off by a mile—it was the other one, Clark Sullivan, who’d sent me in the wrong direction.

  “Miss Bains, isn’t it?” It wasn’t Alvin who greeted me, it was the owner’s son, still in a starched dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  He put aside the shovel he’d been leaning on, and held up his dirty hand to show me he’d have to pass on a friendly handshake. “I heard about Burdell Smith. I’m so very sorry, Miss Bains.”

  For whatever reason, I didn’t explain to him that the ballistics for the bullet in Burdell Smith didn’t match Clark Sullivan’s gun.

  “Did you know Burdell?” I asked.

  “Nope. I guess he didn’t get to enjoy much of his retirement, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t. Is Alvin around?”

  “He was finished with the inventory, so I laid him off.” Seeing me notice the shovel, he said. “My knee has been giving me fits today, and the only thing I could find for a crutch was this,” he said, patting the wooden handle. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”

  I thanked Don Upton and left him to his oily parts and makeshift crutch. Coming to a stop sign at a country intersection, I patted my jeans for my new cell phone, then tore through my purse looking for it. I’d put it in my backpack, hadn’t I? Yes, backpack, not my purse, and the backpack was with my lunch and cell phone in my airplane back at Burdell Smith’s place.

  Exhaustion explained why I was putting things in the wrong places and forgetting details. I stopped looking and sat back. I wanted the cell because I’d forgotten to ask Caleb if the jailbird he had in custody had a gunshot wound on his left leg.

  There was that niggling feeling I was forgetting something, a connection between Clark Sullivan, Nancy’s attempted kidnapping, the leg wound, the… something. Oh, hell, I was just too damn tired.

  Reaching down, I shifted into first, let up on the clutch, pressed the gas pedal, and eased into the empty intersection. That was when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a huge truck coming at me. Too late to get out of his way, I felt the force of the impact and the crunch of metal, the squeal of my truck tires bitterly complaining as my dad’s antique truck was shoved violently sideways.

  The last thing I remembered, before it all went black, was me praying that the puny lapbelt my dad always made me wear, and the heavy iron of his old truck frame, would save my life.

  Chapter Twenty-two:

  There was a smell I couldn’t quite identify. Heavy loam, green plants, and something else that had a sweet, if oily scent.

  My head was pounding an uneven rhythm and my mouth was dry. I put my tongue out to lick my cracked and bleeding lip, and decided that wasn’t a good idea. I opened one eye; the other refused. When I tried to roll out of my uncomfortable position I came to an abrupt halt. One of my arms wasn’t cooperating. With my good eye, I peered up to my wrist. It was shackled with a police-issued metal handcuff. My hand in the cuff was attached to the strut on the bumper under my dad’s truck.

  I also noted that the radiator was leaking fluid. That was the sweet smell. The loamy smell was recently turned soil in a field of cotton. Now how in the hell had I gotten in a field of cotton? Hadn’t I passed some cotton fields between Burdell’s place and the flight school? Then how did I get… oh yeah, that huge truck. It hit me, hard. Not the Escalade; that behemoth was now in police custody. Then who…? My head hurt too much to think about that and besides, I was thirsty.

  How long have I been here? What time is it?

  Wait a minute. Why’re you asking all this dumb stuff when the real question is, who handcuffed you to a truck and left you here?

  I wriggled and pushed with my feet, but still couldn’t get enough purchase to move up enough to see the watch on my left wrist. I gave up and lay back down looking to the west. It was maybe three or four in the afternoon. Surely by now my dad had tried to call my cell. My cell. It was in my backpack. I’d left the two local boys at Burdell’s while I took the thirty-minute drive to the flight school around ten. I left the flight school around eleven after a short visit with the owner’s son. They must be wondering, everyone must be wondering where I was by now, but who would think to look for me down here in a cotton field?

  I was wishing for help, water, a key, a cell phone. A nice cold Pepsi would do.

  At the distant whine of a single engine airplane I tried to scoot out far enough to see if it was looking for me, but it passed high over the field and kept on flying north.

  The field sat below the road, probably on an old riverbank, and unless someone made an effort, I didn’t think they’d see the truck.

  About the time I was thinking I might have to be here all night, I heard a car slowly rolling to a stop. A door slammed and clods of dirt rolled down hill towards where I waited. For a moment, my heart picked up. Friend or foe? Was this the killer back to finish me off, or had help arrived at last?

  Tan pants with a blue stripe down the leg and black brogues said California Highway Patrol. His knees popped when he squatted. He removed his hat, his eyes followed the handcuffed wrist down to the woman with cotton balls in her hair lying under an old Ford truck.

  “Lalla Bains,” I croaked to the officer, then flinched at the pain those two words caused my split lip.

  “Lalla Bains?” he said, looking a little closer at what couldn’t possibly match the picture he must’ve been given of me. “We’ve been scouring the county for a plane crash, not a car wreck. Let me get you out of these cuffs, and I’ll call for an ambulance.”

  “No amb’lance, pease. Jus’ wawer.”

  He nodded at my feeble efforts to communicate, and hitching up his pants, he took a little key off his belt, gently removed my wrist, and slowly lowered it to the ground. “Your eye is swollen shut and I see some
bruising on your cheekbone. Do you think anything is broken, miss?”

  I rubbed the wrist and moved my shoulders around. “B’uised shou’der, tha’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. Can you tell me who assaulted you, miss?”

  I put a hand up to feel the swollen eye. “Accident.”

  He made a sound like he didn’t believe me. “How about the person who handcuffed you to the truck?”

  I had been lying here for several hours trying to figure that out, and why he hadn’t finished me off when he could. Of course, I could’ve died of dehydration before anyone actually found me.

  Maybe I should shut up and thank my lucky stars. As Pearlie said, nothing for this guy has gone right. That got me to smile, which hurt my lip all over again. I was dehydrated and exhausted and becoming hysterical.

  “Miss Bains? You all right?”

  “Yeah, sorry, an’ no I don’ know who cuffed me to the truck.”

  “Then I’ll get you that water.”

  When he came back he twisted off the cap of a plastic bottle and handed it to me. “I called it in and the EMTs are on their way. Sorry, Miss Bains, but it’s SOP for us. I told them your situation, and based on your injuries, you can drink the water, but we’re to wait for them to pull you out. Then it’s their call as to clear you for home or a hospital.”

  I accepted the water bottle and as I drank, he squatted down on his haunches, his long arms hanging over his knees. “You know, we don’t usually start looking for missing persons in the first twenty-four hours but the sheriff in your county was very persuasive.”

  Caleb must’ve been beside himself with worry, and I’d treated him so badly it was a wonder he didn’t completely write me off.

  “And your cousin has been combing the area for hours. She flew over the field and saw the truck, insisted we take a look. Glad we did.”

  My eye, the one that would open, filled with tears and my heart swelled with pride at the determination of both Caleb and Pearlie.

  When he saw that I’d finished the water, he took the empty bottle and said, “They’re here.”

  In another couple of minutes, two EMTs squatted down next to the truck. After putting a neck brace on me, they told me how they were going to pull me out. I nodded and gritted my teeth for the extraction.