A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  “You could still settle here. It’s a nice town.”

  “That would be fine if I didn’t have to find a job. I’ll probably go back to East Texas. I have family there. Cousins. I have my fingers crossed that one of them can help me get a job.”

  “Emily told me your husband had a life-insurance policy.”

  Again that mirthless laugh. “Emily thinks she knows more than she actually knows.” Her voice is bitter. “We had to cash in that policy to have money to live on. Damn it!” Her sharp words startle me. She fixes me with a fierce glare. “I tried to convince Lewis to move somewhere like Houston or Dallas, where nobody would have known what happened. Of course information about the lawsuit is in the public record, but it wouldn’t have been in people’s faces. Lewis could have found a group of doctors to work with, but he was too stubborn. He said if we stuck it out, eventually people would let go of it.” She draws a breath and I see that she’s close to tears.

  “So you were short on money and the insurance policy had to go. But your house is up for sale . . .”

  “And mortgaged to the hilt. I’ll be lucky if the sale covers the mortgage.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your daughter the truth?”

  Margaret struggles with her answer, her eyes welling with tears. “I may have been angry with Lewis, but that doesn’t mean I wanted our daughter to hate him. I was hoping if she came here for the holiday that we might be able to piece together some family time. Now . . .”

  My cell phone rings and I see that it’s a Department of Public Safety number.

  “I need to take this,” I say, pushing the button to answer it. “Craddock.”

  “This is David Bagley. The trooper who was out there with you yesterday? Thought you might want to know we found Wilkins’s vehicle.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Somebody spotted it out on the road between Cotton Hill and Burton and thought it was abandoned, so they called the highway patrol.”

  “Did you haul it in?”

  There’s a moment of silence. “Uh, no, we figured you might want to take a look at it at the site before we have it towed away. Somebody went out there and ticketed it so everybody would know it was on record.”

  More likely no one wanted to mess with it on the day before Thanksgiving. But that’s all right, because he’s correct. I do want to examine it where it sits. He gives me the details of where the SUV was found.

  I get up. “Margaret, the troopers found your husband’s SUV. I’m going to go take a look at it.”

  “Where was it?”

  I tell her where it was found. “Do you know if he knew anybody out that way?”

  She shakes her head. “Not that he ever said.”

  “Would you happen to have a spare key in case it’s locked up?”

  She gets a key chain from her purse and pulls off the key to the SUV. “Should I go with you and drive it back here?”

  “No, it’s going to have to be towed somewhere so I can give it a thorough inspection. It’ll take a day or two. Do you have another vehicle?”

  “I have a car in San Antonio. I can get Daniel to take me there to get it.” She’s twisting her hands. “It’s claustrophobic in this house. I want to get out of here for a couple of days, so I might stay overnight. Is that all right?”

  “Of course. Just be sure I can get in touch with you.”

  She drops her head into her hands. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. I can’t stay in the house in San Antonio because the realtor might want to come in and show it. And I can’t afford a hotel.”

  She said Lewis had no friends, and I wonder if she was deserted as well. “Do you have someone you can stay with?”

  “I do, but that would mean having to make small talk and have people fuss over me because of what happened. That doesn’t appeal to me.” She straightens her shoulders. “I’m tired of whining. I’ll come back here. I’ll be fine.”

  It’s late afternoon, and I want to get out to see the SUV before it gets too dark, but there’s the matter of the boat.

  “Margaret, are you aware that your husband had a boat?”

  “You mean like a little fishing boat?”

  “No. I mean like a cabin cruiser.”

  “What? No. What makes you think he had a cabin cruiser? We didn’t have the money for something like that.”

  “According to Dooley Phillips, he did. He won it in a poker game a few months ago.”

  “Are you sure? Wouldn’t he have had to put up money to win something like that? Where did he get that kind of money?”

  I’m not going to tell her that he was willing to bet the very place she’s living in.

  There’s a commotion at the front door, and Daniel comes inside bearing two armloads of groceries. I go help him, closing the door and then taking one of the sacks from him. Margaret follows us into the kitchen. “Why did you buy so much? You’re leaving Saturday.”

  “I figured you would need some things.”

  “Daniel, I have to ask you something,” she says, as she starts taking things out of one of the bags. “Did your daddy ever tell you that he won a boat in a card game?”

  He wheels around and looks at her. “What are you talking about? I didn’t even know he liked boats.”

  “He kept it at Dooley’s marina,” I say.

  “What kind is it?” Daniel asks. “Like, a rowboat? Motorboat?”

  “Bigger than that,” I say. “A cabin cruiser.”

  “Well, good, maybe you can sell it and make some money,” Daniel says to Margaret. “That is, if it’s really his. He’d have papers on it. Did you find papers?”

  “I don’t remember seeing anything like that.”

  I’m aware that it will be dark soon. “Margaret, I need to get on over to look at the SUV. Unless something urgent comes up, I probably won’t talk to you until Friday. If you come across anything you think might be important, though, give me a call.”

  When I get out to my car, the puppy is awake and squirming around. I start to take him out, but it occurs to me that if the kids next door see him, they’ll swarm all over him. I drive down to the end of the road to John Hershel’s place before I let him out.

  After I put the puppy back in the car, I knock on Hershel’s door. When he sees me, he says, “If you’re here about Satch, he’s safe in the house.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’d like to ask a favor,” I say.

  “What’s that?”

  “If you run into your neighbors, ask if anybody has taken in any puppies.”

  “Puppies? What kind of puppies?”

  “Come on out here and I’ll show you.”

  I take him out to my car and show him the wriggly little bundle.

  “He’s a cute dog. Little young to be weaned, isn’t he?”

  “He sure is.” I tell him how I found him. “The vet said it’s possible that somebody found the other pups and took them in. I’d like to know where they are.”

  “I’ll be glad to ask around. Gives me a mission. I take a walk every afternoon with my dog, and we run into a lot of folks.”

  When I start the car, the puppy yips to tell me he’s ready for a meal. I tell him he’ll have to wait a little longer.

  The road to Burton is a two-lane country blacktop off the main highway that winds through rolling hills studded with the occasional farm. It passes through the village of Cotton Hill, which consists of a church; a service station with a country store; and, surprisingly, a new antique store named Old and in the Way, installed in a former roadhouse that had fallen into disrepair.

  In the waning sunlight it’s a peaceful drive. I imagine all the farms full of young people back home for Thanksgiving, the kitchens full of warmth and laughter. If I don’t pay attention, I could start to feel sorry for myself. I remind myself that my nephew, Tom, invited me to spend Thanksgiving with his family, but I declined because I wanted to stay around to spend time with Ellen. That didn’t work out so well.

  Of course I
’m aware that all the families on these farms aren’t reenacting Norman Rockwell scenes. Some of them are probably more like the Wilkins family, people struggling to find common ground and to smooth over differences.

  Past Cotton Hill, I am on the lookout for a rutted road off to the right that Bagley described to me. It’s closer to Burton than it is to Cotton Hill. The ruts are deep and they jostle me and the puppy. I wish I had brought my truck instead of the squad car. A mile in, I come upon Wilkins’s SUV. I wonder why somebody called it in. It isn’t in anybody’s way.

  It’s parked at an angle, sloping toward a deep ditch on the right hand side, bordering on deep woods. The other side of the road is open pasture. By my reckoning the woods are on the backside of the vast wild country to the west of the lake where Wilkins was killed.

  I climb out and walk around the big, white Chevy Suburban, bending to peer at the surrounding area to see if there are any shoe imprints in the dust. The verge it’s parked on is part gravel, part rutted dirt, and doesn’t lend itself to footprints. If there was a struggle here, there’s nothing to indicate it. A few feet back of the rear bumper there’s a tire imprint, but it would be hard to say whether it was made recently. Did someone meet Wilkins here and they drove off together? Was he forced to stop? The tire print could even have been made by the highway patrol or whoever called in the abandoned SUV.

  There are no farmhouses in sight, so, whatever happened here, there are likely no witnesses. I put on a pair of vinyl gloves from the crime scene kit and try the door handle. The SUV isn’t locked. From what I’ve heard of Wilkins, he seems like the kind of man who would always lock the door of his vehicle. The light is waning, so I fetch a powerful flashlight from my squad car to peer inside. There’s nothing to indicate anything but a peaceful exit from his vehicle.

  I go back to my car for a pair of crime scene booties. I always feel like an idiot putting them on. Until recently I never felt the need for something so fussy, but when Maria Trevino came to the department last year, she brought the fervor of the newly educated and convinced me that it was the right procedure.

  With the booties over my boots, I climb into the front seat of Wilkins’s SUV and take a look from that perspective. Nothing unusual to see.

  I lean over and open the glove compartment and am not altogether surprised to find a weapon—but I am surprised that it’s a serious weapon, a full-size .44 Magnum. I take it out and examine it. This is a gun for someone who is expecting trouble. I sniff it and can tell that it hasn’t been fired recently. Then I take a closer look and can’t help laughing. I’ll have to take it apart to be sure, but if I’m not mistaken this gun has never been fired. Like Wilkins’s boat, this is mostly for show. For a man who is broke, he has expensive tastes.

  Besides some random receipts in the glove box, which I put into a plastic bag, and an empty tote bag stuck up under the passenger seat, the front is clean. Same in the back seat. I open the voluminous trunk and find a half-case of bottled water, a blanket, and an emergency medical supply case. I lock up the vehicle and watch the dusk settle around me as I consider what might have happened here. He didn’t lock up the car. Which means either he expected to come right back, or he wasn’t given the opportunity. The one disappointment is that I don’t see his cell phone. I stash the gun and the bag of receipts into my glove compartment and lock it up. “Just give me a couple more minutes,” I tell the puppy.

  An overgrown path leads off into the woods, and I walk a few yards in, but as soon as I get into the trees, it’s too dark to see anything. I turn on my flashlight, but all I see is trees and brush. For some reason I’m spooked. The woods are too still, or maybe it’s my imagination.

  When I get back to the SUV, I crouch down with the flashlight and shine it around under the vehicle. That’s when I find the cell phone, a big, important-looking one, in the gravel under the inside of the front wheel. I picture somebody grabbing Wilkins and the phone skittering out of his hand.

  When I get back in the car, the puppy lets me know he’s out of patience. I get out the bottle I brought for him, and it doesn’t take him any time to finish it off. Then I take him outside and he does his business. Just as we’re ready to go and he’s settling down, he starts and whimpers, his head turned sharply toward the side window. “What is it, boy?” And then I hear what must have startled him. Far off in the trees somewhere, there are dogs barking.

  I drive the rutted road back to the highway and start to turn back toward home, but since I’m so close to Burton, where the pup’s mother was from, I may as well swing by and see if the people who reported her missing are home. I fish around in the glove box and find the address that Doc England gave me, and enter it into my phone’s GPS.

  The place is past Burton, in a neighborhood of small but well-kept homes. It’s dark when I reach the address, but not so dark that I can’t see the For Rent sign in the yard and the air of abandonment. There are no lights on, and no one comes to the door when I knock. The house next door is lit up, so I go over there and knock. A middle-aged man wearing overalls and a work shirt answers the door.

  “Them people? They upped and moved out of here a week ago. Didn’t give no warning. Nothing.”

  “You know where they went?”

  “I don’t, but my wife might. Darla!” He hollers over his shoulder. A woman wearing a housedress and fuzzy slippers plods into the room.

  “You know where Patrick and Janet went?”

  “Janet said they was going up around Arlington. I think Pat got a job up there. Is everything okay?” she says to me.

  “They lost a dog a while back and I wanted to ask them about it.”

  “Oh my, yes. They lost Princess. She was a pretty dog, but a little skittish. It broke Janet’s heart. The dog was pregnant and Janet worried over her.”

  I’m not going to tell them what happened to the pup’s mother, but I take out my card and hand it to the man. “If you happen to hear from them, would you have them give me a call? I have a question for them. We’ve had some other dogs disappear.”

  “Sure. But I don’t expect to hear from them,” the man says. “They was renters and they seemed to have itchy feet. Nice enough, but not somebody you get close to.”

  On my way back, I stop by Margaret Wilkins’s place. Daniel answers the door. I tell him I found his dad’s cell phone and that I want Margaret’s permission to examine it. She readily gives permission, and I ask if she has a charger, since the phone is out of juice. She brings me one. “What do you think could be on it?” she asks.

  “Could be nothing, but I need to find out.” What would be nice is if there was a call from someone who was planning to meet him just before he disappeared, but that would be too easy.

  Back home I feed the pup and take him outside. Despite how much I like him, I resolve to take him back to Doc England on Friday. I simply don’t have the time to put into raising a puppy.

  It’s early-morning hours and for a minute I can’t figure out what woke me. When I come full awake, I realize it’s the puppy whimpering. I haul him outside, then bring him back to his bed, but the second I turn out the light he starts up again. I get up and give him something to eat, but he doesn’t seem interested. I hold him for a minute, wondering if he’s got something wrong with him, but he seems happy enough when I’m holding him. I put him back in the box and he squeaks some more.

  Finally I get up and put him on the bed. He settles right in next to me and goes to sleep. I know it’s a bad idea. I really do. But I need to get to sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  Thanksgiving Day dawns bright and clear. I stretch before I remember that the puppy is on the bed with me. He’s down near my feet and only wakes up when I start moving around. We eat breakfast together—him with his bottle of goat milk, and me some toast and coffee. I take him down to the pasture when I go to check on my cows. First I set him down on the ground, but then worry that if he wanders into the pen he could get trampled underfoot, so I put him in a pan that I use
to scoop feed. It’s a little taller than he is, so he can’t jump out, although he immediately starts trying.

  When I get back, there are two messages on my phone—one from Ellen and one from Jenny. I check Jenny’s message. She says, “Will is in charge of the meal, but he wondered if you’d come over early and help him cook. I’ll be acting like a lady of leisure.”

  I call her back and she says to come over at one o’clock. “Will and I are going for a ride first.” Who would have guessed that Jenny, who loves her horses, would be lucky enough to find a beau who also likes to ride?

  I’m putting off calling Ellen, but that’s foolish, so finally I make the call. She answers right away. “Samuel, I’m glad you called me back. I was afraid you were mad at me.”

  I’m not mad, I am puzzled; but I don’t want to get into it on the phone. “I’m fine. It’s been busy.”

  “I didn’t mean to sneak off that way . . .” Her voice trails away.

  “You didn’t sneak off. You wrote a note. If you hadn’t, that would be a different story.”

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” She sounds plaintive.

  I tell her I’m going over to Jenny’s. I’ve resolved not to ask her any questions about her family. I don’t want to know where she is staying or any other details. “How’s Frazier?”

  As soon as I ask, I’m aware of how lame the question sounds, and the only reason I ask it is because I’ve been so dog-oriented the last couple of days.

  She sighs. “I should have left him with you. I forgot how much . . .” And then she pauses. I know what she meant to say.

  “You forgot that your ex-husband doesn’t like Frazier.” And Frazier is terrified of Seth.

  “Yes, but Seth is trying to be nice to him.”

  I should tell her about the puppy, but it’ll be gone when she gets back anyway.

  I’m finding it hard to talk to her since I don’t want to bring up family matters or the puppy. She seems to be having no better luck than I am. We limp to a close in our conversation. She says she’ll be back Sunday. “I’m glad I came, because I’m getting to be with the kids.”