Stranger At My Door (A Murder In Texas)

by Mari Manning

  She jumped up from the sofa and stared down at him. “You think it’s me, don’t you?”

  Definitely hiding something. But what?

  “No. But it could be the intruder from last night.”

  Her face paled, and she began to pace back and forth, circling the bowls on the floor like a test driver. “I came back here to bury my daddy and fix up this house so I could sell it. As soon as I find a buyer, I am leaving Texas for good. That’s my whole story. In the meantime, I’m just mindin’ my own business.”

  “Not exactly.”

  She stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you did make your presence known in town by handing out the flyers.”

  “I made Shira’s presence known.”

  “At your address, and you sure didn’t fool Teke. He had a flyer in his pocket when he was found. He’d written ‘Dinah’s back’ on it. Would he have been familiar with your, uh, stage name?”

  She frowned. “No. But it’s a small town, I guess, and most folks probably knew I was living in L.A. after…after everything. Plus my momma used to do readings, so Mr. Teke probably put two and two together.”

  Rafe tossed out the next question. “Are there others here in town who might have put ‘two and two together?’”

  “Lots of people probably could. The kids I went to school with knew about L.A., and my momma’s friends and the people who knew my daddy would recognize our address and the tarot card thing. I’d say almost half the town. Plus, I’ve been wandering around El Royo for the past week. So people knew I was back.”

  “Why did Teke come here last night?”

  She began to pace again. “He said he wanted a reading. Even paid me for it.”

  Gotcha. “Last night when I broke down the door, you said that you told Teke you didn’t know where the money went. What did you mean? And who did you think I was?”

  Dinah stopped. “I’m being honest here, Rafe. I don’t know anything. Not for sure.”

  It sounded like a surrender. “Why don’t you come on back and have a seat. I’d like you to lay out everything you know or think you know, even if it isn’t for sure.”

  Sidestepping a mixing bowl, she came back to the sofa. “It’s long and complicated. Besides, you probably know some of this already.”

  “If it gets boring, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Well, Mr. Teke and my daddy and two other guys—Gerald Sutton and Lonnie Bigsky—used to play poker every other Friday night.”

  “Just those four.”

  She nodded. “Most of daddy’s other friends were Baptists. Their wives wouldn’t let them gamble. Not that there was much money at stake. Dollar ante, ten-dollar limit.”

  Lonnie Bigsky had been at the park earlier, but Rafe hadn’t seen much of Gerry Sutton since his car accident last year. The talk around town was that Gerry’s legs had been busted up, and he needed a wheelchair. “Doesn’t sound like anyone lost enough to rob an armored truck.”

  “It was never about the money. At least not for Daddy. And Mr. Gerry’s a mean old cuss. He’d have done it just to raise hell. Teke and Lonnie probably went along with it for the money.” She shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure about Teke.”

  “Why’d your daddy do it? After what? Fifteen years on the force to suddenly go to the dark side?”

  “Not really. Some months before the robbery, Daddy arrested the county judge, Warren Flick, for drunk driving. Judge Flick was none too happy. He knocked Daddy down to dispatcher and took away his badge and gun. Daddy was fit to be tied, going on about how he deserved better and such.”

  Rafe wondered what he’d do if Swope turned him in. “So they suspected your daddy was involved in the robbery.”

  “Not right away. When the robbery went down, no one knew what happened. The money just disappeared, and Mr. Lonnie—he was the driver of the armored car—said he couldn’t recall anything about the attack. Then suddenly Mr. Gerry and Mr. Teke came forward and said Daddy told them it was him.”

  “What about Lonnie?”

  “His memory suddenly came back. If it wasn’t for him and the other two, the state couldn’t have made a case against my daddy since the money never turned up.” Her voice shook. “I guess you could say I have a great motive for killing Mr. Teke, if he was murdered.”

  He studied the slender, white hands resting on her lap. Dinah a murderer?

  “Did your daddy ever say anything?”

  “Never said a word. Not in court, not to Momma and me, not to anyone.”

  “What about the money?”

  She finally lifted her head and looked at him. “The money? Do you honestly believe if I had the money, I’d have come back here?”

  The money from “the Rodeo Robbery” had never been found. A cool quarter million in receipts for the Central Texas Rodeo just floating around out there. Or more likely, rotting in a shallow grave in someone’s backyard. “I was referring to your statement to me.”

  “Teke came to see if I had the robbery money. He said if I did, I was in danger.”

  “From who?”

  “He didn’t say. I figured he was delusional. Thinking someone was following him, then thinking I had the money from the robbery.”

  “Why did he think you had the money?”

  She shrugged. “Well, if you assume my daddy took the money and it was never found, it’s reasonable to think he told someone what he did with it before he died. I guess I’m candidate number one. At least by Mr. Teke’s reckoning.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I told you it was complicated.”

  “If your daddy took the money, and the other poker players, acting as law-abiding citizens, turned him in, why was one of them looking for the money?”

  She tilted her head and offered up a Mona Lisa smile. “Good question, Rafe. Perhaps they weren’t law-abiding citizens. In fact, maybe they were in on it.”

  “But they didn’t get the money.”

  She raised her eyes to the leaky ceiling. “Seems like my daddy didn’t either. But he went to prison, and they’re living free.” She leaned back against the sofa. “I’ve told you everything I know. Now tell me what happened to Mr. Teke.”

  “He was coming home from the Beer Hut last night and fell off the walking bridge in the park. There’s some evidence he may have been pushed.” Only the killer would know about the lethal cut on his neck. His instincts told him to hold that detail back.

  A frown marred her high forehead. “I’ll have to write his daughter a note. Poor Mr. Teke. That’s a terrible way to go.” She grimaced. “Course my daddy died of cancer in prison while Mr. Teke was floating free as a bird.”

  There was a polite rap on the front door.

  “That must be Jamey,” said Dinah.

  Rafe slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood. He wanted to stop in and visit Lonnie and Gerry before any more time passed. See what they’d been up to at the time of the murder. “I better be getting along.”

  The new housekeeper was already in the hallway. “I’ll get it, Miss Dinah.”

  It was a brown-shirted UPS man. “I have a delivery for Dinah Pittman.”

  Dinah stepped forward. “That’s me.”

  She took the box and signed for it.

  “Who’s it from?” Hollyn studied the narrow box.

  Dinah turned the box over. “The Texas Department of Corrections.”

  Chapter Seven

  Was his phone ringing? It couldn’t be. Not on his day off. Not at seven-thirty in the morning. Rafe grabbed a pillow and put it over his head. Through a thick layer of down, the jangle of his 1950s ringtone crashed against his ears. It was ringing. Mierda.

  He felt around on his bedside table until he located his cell. “It’s seven freaking thirty in the morning,” he grumbled.

  Uncowed, Miss Peppie released a string of curses in Spanish. “Is that the way you talk to your mama, Rafael Ernesto Morales? Get up. You are supposed to be at the ranch already
. Your father is setting up the barbecue, and you are not here to help. His own son.”

  Between double shifts this week and the murder, the party had slipped his mind. “And buenas to you, too, Mama. How are you this fine morning?” As if he had to ask. She was in steamroller mode.

  “Don’t try your honey on me. We have a hundred people coming this afternoon. A hundred people who agreed to move their fourth of July to the third of July so you could join us.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “No arguments. They are coming today, and your father needs help.”

  “Can’t the girls help?” Why couldn’t one of his sisters have been a boy? It would have made his life so much simpler.

  “Erica and Ernesta are in the kitchen with me. Esme’s fixing the beans.”

  “Esme’s coming?”

  “No.” Miss Peppie sounded sad. “She’ll stay with the animals when the party starts.”

  Rafe sat up and rubbed his head. Sunlight seeped into his one-room apartment around the edges of his window shades. Through the pale darkness, his discarded clothes reminded him of lifeless bodies. A stack of empty pizza boxes rose from the kitchen counter amid half-filled coffee cups. He closed his eyes, but he was too jacked now to fall back asleep.

  “I’ll jump in the shower and be there in an hour.”

  “You be sure to shave. We want to see your dimples. And wear that blue shirt I gave you for Christmas. You look so handsome in it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you up to, Mama?”

  “I am up to making a nice supper for our third of July party. That’s what I’m up to.”

  “You’re trying to set me up with someone again, aren’t you? What did I tell you about this?”

  “I am not setting you up.”

  “But…” He paused and waited.

  Miss Peppie emitted an indignant huff. “Ernesta has invited a friend to the party. You remember the Vincennes girl? Wonderful family. Enchanting girl. You two will hit it off, and she is very excited to meet you. She’s seen you around town. In your police uniform.”

  He’d been matched with every unattached, “sweet” El Royo girl his mama could dig up. Each year the pool of girls got younger, while he got older. He’d begun to suspect Peppie equated sweet with virginal. There weren’t many virgins over the age of eighteen in El Royo, and none made him forget Sam. None had her spark, her courage, her straight-from-the-shoulder ways, her beauty. Not that it mattered. He was done with strong women.

  “I’m not ready for a relationship. We’ve been through this.”

  “You said you wanted to find a nice girl. This is a nice girl. A sweet girl.”

  “I didn’t mean a nice girl that’s half my age. This is almost cradle-robbing.”

  “She’s eighteen, and you’re thirty-two. That’s only fourteen years. I’m ten years younger than your father, and we’ve had a wonderful life together.”

  “Did it ever occur to you I might want to choose my own dates?”

  “Yes.” Peppie snapped the word through the phone like a flying rubber band. “Three years ago. I’m still waiting.”

  A sharp pain hit his forehead, and he rubbed it. How did she do that?

  “Be here in an hour and don’t forget to wear your blue shirt.”

  He couldn’t face an entire afternoon and night entertaining a tittering woman-child. “Wait.”

  “What is it? Are you okay, Rafe?”

  “Fine.” He rubbed his forehead again. “I’m bringing a date.”

  “You’re bringing a date?” Peppie sounded skeptical.

  “Yup.” Nope. Where was he going to find an unattached girl at four hours notice on a holiday weekend?

  “Who?”

  “It’s a surprise.” Even to him. “I’ll be out this morning to help with the barbecue, then I’ll come back to town to find, er, um, pick up my date.”

  …

  Dinah studied the Texas Department of Corrections box until the edges swam before her eyes.

  Forget about me. Three words, spoken in her daddy’s raspy whisper, had been going round and round in her head for eight years. He’d received his fifteen-year sentence in mute, miserable silence. Then he’d turned around and whispered those words to her as his arms were pulled behind his back and cuffed. He hadn’t needed to instruct his wife. She’d skipped town right after the verdict was read.

  Dinah had tried her damndest to forget about him by leading an aimless life, filled with sin and carelessness. Now Daddy was dead, and his earthly possessions were sealed inside the cardboard box on her dresser. All night she’d let it sit, unwilling to open it or even touch it. Hollyn, curious as a cat, offered to tear it open for her, but Dinah wouldn’t allow it. This duty was hers alone.

  Downstairs, Hollyn scrubbed the breakfast dishes. The water stopped, and Hollyn’s bare feet shuffled across the kitchen floor and into the hall.

  “I’m going to the market, Miss Dinah.”

  Hollyn hadn’t exaggerated about her domestic skills. She was an amazing cook with a talent for stretching a dollar farther than Dinah could see. For a pregnant girl, her energy seemed boundless, and she’d attacked the house with soap, bleach, dust rags, and the old broom until it nearly gleamed. She cleaned out cupboards and moved furniture and beat old rugs hung on the clothesline. Next week, Jamey was bringing a crew to patch the roof. Maybe selling this old place wouldn’t be so hard after all.

  Dinah opened her bedroom door and poked her head out. Hollyn sat on the bottom steps pulling on her shoes.

  “Do you want me to drive you?”

  “It’s a nice day for a walk. I’ll take the wagon with me to carry the bags home.”

  “All right, then. Call me if you get tired.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Dinah. Do you want anything special for supper?”

  Dinah shot her a rueful smile. “Something easy on the stomach. I’m about to open Daddy’s box.”

  Disappointment furrowed Hollyn’s forehead. “I was curious, too.”

  “I have to do this alone, honey lamb. I’m sorry.”

  Hollyn shrugged. “Well, I better go before it gets too hot.”

  Dinah retreated to her room and flopped on the bed. Her momma, a fervent believer in all the astrological arts, had painted stars, planets and galaxies on the dark blue walls and ceiling just as they’d appeared the clear November night Dinah was born. “Dinah’s lucky stars,” she’d called them. Dinah studied the pale gold dots sprayed across the ceiling. Somewhere in that bright constellation, an outlier had lurked, fated to tear apart the Pittman family.

  She pulled herself together and sat up. It was useless to seek answers to her life on a bedroom ceiling, and even the real stars were just bright bits of gas and fire and rock. They had no power over her life.

  She set the box on her lap and rubbed her hand across the smooth cardboard surface, feeling nothing of her daddy, not his pain or even his love. But she couldn’t conquer her foreboding that something in this package hadn’t died with him.

  The hell with it. She found the tear strip and pulled. Zip. Okay. The bandage was off, so to speak. Time to inspect the wound.

  “Come on out, Dinah Pittman.” A harsh male voice cut through the morning bird song and distant hum of traffic.

  Dinah abandoned the box and peered out her bedroom window. An electric scooter was parked on her front path. A familiar figure clutched the handlebars. Gerry Sutton.

  “What do you want, Mr. Gerry?”

  Gerry looked up, scrunching up his eyes as he tried to make out where her voice was coming from. “Come on out, Dinah, so I can talk to you.”

  “Go away.” If she talked to Gerry, and someone threw him over the footbridge in the park, she would be following her daddy into a Texas prison.

  “I’ll sit here all day.” He reached into a wire basket and waved a gallon water jug and a bag of potato chips. “I knew you’d be stubborn.”

  Gerry was hands down the smartest and most influential of the
poker players. He ran the local insurance company and was the founder and president of the El Royo Historical Society. On weekends, her daddy had moonlighted for him at the society’s modest museum, playing security guard and guide during visiting hours. Dinah had never understood why people came to see the meager exhibits, which consisted mainly of photographs and musty clothing, indecipherable letters and old pocket change. The main attraction was a cannon from the First World War, which sat outside the front door beside the flagpole. Typical small-town fare.

  “I’m cursed, Mr. Gerry. I don’t want you to end up like Mr. Teke.”

  His pale blue eyes studied her. “Nonsense. Teke was a drunk.”

  “He was not.”

  “Stop caterwauling at me and get down here.”

  “Fine, but then you have to leave.”

  He took a swig of water from his jug. “I’m waiting.”

  When she emerged from the house, Gerry was munching on potato chips. He didn’t offer to share. “It’s about time, girl.”

  “What do you want, Mr. Gerry? You are not welcome around here. Not after what you did.”

  Gerry put down the potato chips. His red hair had faded to a mousy gray, and deep chasms lined his freckled cheeks, but his body hadn’t lost its lean boyishness, even if his legs didn’t work anymore. Apparently his hair-trigger temper hadn’t been lost in the accident either.

  “Don’t you sass me, girl.” He pointed at the For Sale sign poking from her front lawn. “And get rid of that thing.”

  “Why would I? I’m fixing to sell this place.” She wasn’t taking any bullshit from Gerry Sutton. Not after he’d hung her daddy out to dry.

  “Stupid girl. The money’s in the house.”

  Not another one. “I thought you were smart. The cops searched this place inside and out. Even pulled up the floors.”

  “Did you look in the backyard?”

  “Well, now, Mr. Gerry, if you think the money’s buried out back, grab yourself a shovel and get busy. You have my permission.”

  “There’s no need to sass me.” He set down the chips and took a long pull from the water jug. “What about Ben. Did he say anything to you before he died?”