by Terry Shames
At the end of the day, Lyndall and I go back to his office, where Sheriff Hedges is waiting.
“We have to talk to Estelle Cruz’s family and find out if we can get dental records or a DNA sample to make a positive ID,” Hedges says. “You know where I can find them?”
I tell him that Estelle’s sister works at the pharmacy downtown. As soon as I leave his office I go to talk to her. I feel better telling Graciella myself that we may have found what happened to her sister all those years ago, rather than leaving it to someone she doesn’t know.
Her reaction is muted, as you would expect after so many years of not knowing. “I think about poor Mamma wanting to know why Estelle didn’t come and see her when she was sick. I don’t know how we could have known, though.”
“Remember, they still have to identify her. It may not be Estelle.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t believe that.”
“No, not really. The sheriff will be asking you for some DNA or dental records . . .”
“I have a box at home with her old things in it from when we sold the house after my daddy died. If there’s anything like dental records, it will be in there. We’ll have to see about DNA.”
The Bobtail police will investigate the crime, but that doesn’t mean I can let go of it. I have questions plaguing me. This whole thing started when Vera Sandstone told me she wanted me to find two missing people. She also said she was worried for Jenny’s safety. If she had never brought up either of these things, no one would ever have found Estelle’s body. Did she have an idea that Eddie had done away with Estelle? And that brings me to Howard. Did she think Eddie had something to do with his disappearance as well?
The Bobtail police will wait until they have an ID in hand before they start their investigation. But I don’t have to wait for that. And the first thing I want to know is if Eddie really was gone when his wife disappeared, like he says he was. Where was he, and is there anybody to corroborate his story?
CHAPTER 35
Eddie Sandstone agrees to meet me at Vera’s house. I had forgotten that Nate Holloway was going to move everything out, and it’s already done. Eddie is stunned.
“What the hell?” he says. “Jenny didn’t even leave me a lawn chair to sit in. I thought she was still recovering from the accident.”
We’re standing on the back deck looking out a Vera’s garden, which is drooping without anyone to care for it.
“She hired someone to move things out. She didn’t want to waste time. We could go to a coffee shop and talk, if you’d like.”
“No, let’s sit on the back steps here.”
When I was driving over, it occurred to me that it was stupid to meet Eddie and confront him with what we found yesterday if no one knew where I was. Suppose he gets violent on me? I called Wallace Lyndall and told him my plans. He said he didn’t think the sheriff would approve, but that he wasn’t going to tattle on me.
“Now what did you get me over here for?” Eddie asks.
“I have a question to ask you. It’s about your first wife.”
“Marlene?”
“No, I’m talking about Estelle.”
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed his flinch. “Estelle! I haven’t thought about her in years. What about her?”
“At the time she left, you told people that you were out of town and when you got back she was gone. Can you tell me where you were?”
Color flares along his neck. “I was in Austin taking care of some business. What difference does it make?”
“Can anybody vouch for that?”
He looks outraged. “That was a helluva long time ago. How am I supposed to know whether anybody remembers seeing me back then? Why do you want to know?”
“There’s been a body found in the backyard of the property you and Estelle lived in after you got married.”
Eddie’s mouth falls slack and he pales. “What? Who found it? What were they doing digging around there? Have they identified the body?”
“Not yet, but it would be a big coincidence for some other woman to be killed and buried in the backyard the same time your wife disappeared.”
The red flush has reached his face. “I’ll be damned. How was she killed?” Then he lets out a bark of laughter. “Wait a minute. I know what this is about.” He gets up and walks down the steps into the backyard and turns to face me.
I don’t know what he’s talking about, so I need to tread carefully. “What do you think it’s about?”
He shakes his head, his mouth twisting. “After Estelle left, Jenny got this idea that I had done away with her.”
“You mean killed her? What would make her think something like that?”
“Jenny was always making up stories about me. She put it into Mamma’s head, too. Is that what happened? You told Jenny there’d been a body found and she said she thought I killed Estelle?”
What happened is that Jenny told me she was away at college during this time, so I ignore the question. “If it is your wife, how do you think she died?”
He walks around a few paces, thinking, and then comes back to stand in front me. “I don’t really want to say what I think.”
An odd statement. “You understand why I’m asking if anybody can vouch for your story that you were in Austin when she supposedly left?”
“You think I killed Estelle. That’s crazy. I didn’t have any reason to kill her. I loved her.” He has moved to stand over me, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
“Did you make any attempt to find her?”
“Of course I did. I called her sister and asked if she’d heard from her.”
“Graciella says that you told her Estelle had gone to Lubbock. What made you think that?”
“She left me a note!” He slams his hand down into his fist, agitated. “She said something like it was a mistake for us to get married and she was leaving. Said she was going to Lubbock and not to try to find her.”
“You know why she said she thought it was mistake to marry you?”
“We had a big argument. I was going hunting and she didn’t want me to go. That’s why I was in Austin, to firm up plans for the hunting trip. When I found the note, I thought she’d just gotten mad and gone off for a while. Never occurred to me that she wouldn’t come back.”
Just like his daddy went off and didn’t come back. “Who did she know in Lubbock?”
He throws his hands up. “How am I supposed to know?”
“Do you still have the note?”
“Of course not! I was royally pissed off. I threw it in the trash.”
“Shame you didn’t keep it. You sure it was her handwriting?”
He blinks. “I never thought about it. Why would . . .” His eyes dart back and forth as if he’s calculating. “You think whoever killed her wrote the note?”
I shrug. If there really was a note, it’s long gone. “You have any idea who might have killed her?”
He looks down at his hands and when he speaks, his tone is bleak. “Like I said, I don’t want to say what I think happened.”
“Go ahead. I’m interested to hear your ideas.”
He comes and sits back down. “Let me ask you something. Didn’t it ever occur to you to wonder why my sister was so close to my mamma?” His tone is wheedling.
“Not really. Vera was a nice person. I think mothers and daughters can be close.”
“You might consider that Mamma felt like she needed to keep an eye on Jenny.”
“Why is that?”
He stares at me as if he’s running some things through his mind. “I told you Jenny was always making up stories about me, and she was jealous of me. She was jealous when I married Estelle. I think she knew good and well she’d never find a man herself, so she didn’t want me to be happy with my wife.”
“You think Jenny killed Estelle?”
“All I’m saying is that Jenny had it in for me.”
“That’s not exactly the way
she tells it.”
He studies my face. “Oh, wait a minute. Did Jenny tell you some story about something that happened to her in high school?”
“She might have mentioned something about it.”
He points at me. “That’s exactly what I figured. Look, I don’t know what she told you, but I want you to consider that it didn’t happen the way she said it did.”
“Why don’t you tell me your version.”
“It makes me sick to think about it.” He screws his face up.
“Get it off your chest.”
He gets up and starts pacing on the lawn again, hands shoved into his back pockets. “It was toward the end of school, and myself and two of my friends were celebrating in the living room.”
“Celebrating what?”
“Graduation was coming up. Anyway, I guess Mamma and Daddy were out somewhere. And after a while Jenny came sashaying in and plunked herself down and asked if she could have a beer. I told her I didn’t think she ought to, that she was too young, but she persuaded one of the boys to give her one. After a while she had another one, and before I know it, she was cozying up to one of them. And one thing led to another and they went in the bedroom.”
“By themselves?”
“Yes.”
“Jenny told me you videotaped her having sex.”
“Oh, Jesus! She told you that? I didn’t have any idea she would come up with a story like that. I knew she told Mamma something, but Mamma wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Who did she have sex with?”
“His name was Charlie Cole. My best friend. She flat-out seduced him.”
Convenient that Charlie Cole is dead now so he can’t corroborate the story. “And you didn’t try to stop him?”
“Of course I did!”
“You tell him what he was doing was statutory rape?”
“We were kids. What did we know about that?”
“You said there were two boys there. Who was the other one?”
He puts his hands up to stop me. “These questions are coming thick and fast and I can’t help wondering if maybe I ought a call a halt to it. I didn’t do anything, and I’m beginning to think you’re trying to railroad me.”
“So you’re not going to tell me the name of the second boy who was involved?”
“I don’t think it’s fair. He didn’t do anything. He left before Jenny and Cole went off to the bedroom. Besides, he doesn’t live here anymore and I’ve lost track of him.”
“Let me worry about tracking him down.”
He’s shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to drag him into this. I don’t think it’s right.”
I leave it for now. I have another source I can use to check on the facts. “You’re right, your story is different from Jenny’s. And now you’re telling me you think Jenny might have killed Estelle?”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t know who killed Estelle—if it really is Estelle that you dug up. All I know is that Jenny was always jealous of me, and she didn’t like me being with Estelle. I thought it was because Estelle was Mexican, but pretty soon I figured out that Jenny wouldn’t like me marrying anybody.”
I don’t believe Eddie’s version of what happened, but I he’s got a persuasive way about him. How much do we really know about people? Jenny and I have forged a good friendship, but it’s based on the present—the funny outlook she has on life, her interesting line of chatter, and partly it’s because she’s a convenient friend, living next door. But what do I really know of her? She has never revealed much of her innermost self. Now that I’m questioning so much about her and her family, I have to face facts. Anyone could have bashed in Estelle’s skull—including Jenny.
CHAPTER 36
It turns out that Mike Tolleson, the guy Jenny had a crush on in high school and who supposedly was the recipient of the rape film, is easy to track down. The trouble is he lives in Houston and is an engineer working on a project at NASA. He tells me he works about ten hours a day and doesn’t really have time to talk to me. “What is it you want from me anyway?” I can’t tell if he’s pompous or overworked.
“I need some help on a case I’m working on in Bobtail that involves someone you knew back in high school.”
“High school? I don’t really keep up with anybody from high school.”
“Do you your folks still live in Bobtail?”
“No, they moved to Houston after my sister and I both settled here. Who is it you’re asking about?”
“Do you remember a family by the name of Sandstone?”
The line is so silent I’m thinking for a minute it’s gone dead. Finally he says, “What do you want with me?”
“It’d be a lot easier if I could talk to you in person.”
I could ask him on the phone if he ever saw a videotape like the one Jenny described, but I want to be able to see him in person. I may be kidding myself, but I think if he’s lying I’ll be able to spot it.
He finally agrees that if I come to his work tomorrow he’ll slip out for a half hour and talk to me.
He meets me at a sandwich place near where he works. We grab a table in the back of the café.
He’s a goofy-looking guy who stoops as if he’s used to being in a position hunching over a computer screen or a microscope. I’ll never know which, because I don’t waste valuable time chatting. I want to get down to business.
“I’ll tell you straight out, I’m here because I’ve got two different versions of a story and I need you to tell me which one is right.”
“Suppose I don’t know anything?”
“That’ll be a different kind of answer.”
He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews patiently.
“Jenny Sandstone told me that you saw a video of an incident that involved her. If that’s true, I’d like you to tell me what’s on the video.”
He swallows, but it looks like he’s trying to swallow a lot more than he was chewing. He puts his sandwich down and takes a drink of his iced tea. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he says. This is why I wanted to see him in person. There’s no question he’s trying to dodge the truth. His cheeks are lit up, and he won’t look at me.
“She told me, so it’s no surprise. I just need to hear your version.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m not one of those men who likes to watch things like that. My wife and I don’t go in for X-rated movies and such.”
“What you’re saying is that the video had sex in it?”
“If you already know what’s on it, why are you asking?”
“I told you, I’m trying to corroborate a story. Who showed you the video?”
“Eddie Sandstone.”
“Why did he show it to you?”
“I don’t know what his purpose was, but I wish he hadn’t.”
“I need you to tell me what you saw on the video.”
He starts to get up. “I have to get back. That’s all I can tell you.”
I grab his arm. “Sit down. It’ll be a lot easier on you if you tell me privately than if I have to get a subpoena. And it’ll be easier on Jenny, too.”
So he tells me. It’s a relief to me to know that Jenny’s story holds up and that Eddie Sandstone is a liar. If he lied about this, I’m pretty sure he’s lied about other things as well. And I’m pretty sure that his wife’s disappearance and his daddy’s disappearance are no coincidence.
I’ve decided to make one more stop while I’m in Houston. Even though Rodell will never know what I’m up to, I feel like I have to honor him by following through with something he said the last time I saw him.
I call to make sure Ellen’s husband, Seth, is in his office today. I stop for coffee at a Starbucks to fortify myself and then locate the office where Forester works. It’s a warehouse-type building large enough to house huge road graders and bulldozers. The offices take up a small portion of the vast structure.
A scrawny clerk directs me to Forester’s office witho
ut asking what my business is. Forester’s office is open to anyone to walk in. The man himself is ensconced behind a massive industrial-grade metal desk covered with piles of papers. At the sound of my footsteps he looks up and freezes. He glances over to another desk that takes up the other side of the room. There’s no one sitting there, and I suspect Forester is as glad as I am that there’s no one to witness our conversation.
“What do you want?” he says. He plunks his beefy arms on the desk and glares at me.
“I’m here to see if we can come to some agreement so I don’t have to keep chasing you out of Jarrett Creek.”
“Maybe if you’d mind your own business that would do the trick.”
“The well-being of people in my town is my business, and I can’t have someone coming in and creating problems.”
Forester’s smile is nasty. “Oh, I get it. You’re making Ellen your business. Well, I can tell you that you aren’t the first man to come sniffing around my wife. And my guess is she took somebody up on it a time or two.”
If I were inclined to escalate the situation, I’d ask him why he’d make such a crude suggestion about a woman he supposedly still loves. Instead, I say, “She isn’t your wife anymore. But that’s beside the point. What I want you to understand is that I keep a peaceful town and you have been disturbing the peace and I want it to stop.”
He gets up, and I’m reminded of how much bigger a man he is than I am—not to mention the ten years I have on him. “You have a lot of nerve coming in here ordering me to stay away from my wife,” he says.
At that moment another large man of forty or so steps into the room. “Excuse me, gents,” he says, “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got to get some blueprints out of my desk.” He is so intent on not looking at us, that it’s pretty clear he has sensed a heavy atmosphere in the room and wants nothing to do with it.
I clap my hat on my head. “That’s okay, I was just leaving. I had a message to deliver and I’ve delivered it.”
I expect I haven’t seen the last of Seth Forester, but at least I’ve put him on notice. The only part of the exchange I didn’t like was his insinuation that the reason I warned him away was because I have designs on Ellen. For the first time, I wonder if I’m fooling myself by thinking I would have done the same for anyone. Would I? I’ve known women who loved to get men into trouble with each other, playing the poor helpless female. I don’t want to think that’s what Ellen Forester is up to, but I don’t know enough about her background to judge that.
