A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  CHAPTER 27

  A few of the dogs we rescued belonged to people who live out in the country and can’t get to the vet’s office for one reason or another, so Maria volunteered to deliver the dogs. When she stops by midmorning, I tell her I’m off for Houston. She offers to keep Dusty while I drive down there.

  “Let me tell you what happened last night after you left.” I describe the boat incident. “You’re going to like this part,” I say. “Guess who the two boys were who were trying to steal the boat?”

  Her eyes narrow. “Not the guys who stole those dogs.”

  “One and the same. And it gets better. Turns out Cal Madigan, the red-headed one, is Jerry Bodine’s stepson.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope. Bodine hired them to retrieve the boat. He told me he thought the boat was still his because he thinks Wilkins cheated at cards and that’s how he won.”

  “That’s what I get for going home on time. I missed all the action. You think he killed Wilkins so he could get the boat back?”

  “That was my first thought, but it seems a little extreme. Why wouldn’t he just threaten to expose Wilkins as a card cheat unless he gave back the boat?”

  “No clue.”

  “I may be gone overnight,” I say.

  “That’s okay. My landlady doesn’t have to know Dusty is at my place. What are you going to be doing in Houston?”

  I tell her about the security firm that bought the dogs.

  “Why don’t you call them instead of driving all that way?”

  “I’ve got a couple of other stops.” I tell her everything I have to do in Houston.

  “You’re right. You may have to spend the night. I think I’m going to have a better time than you today. In fact, I’m enjoying myself.” She’s got two more dogs to deliver, so it does sound like she got the better deal.

  I don’t like to drive in Houston. Seems like overnight the freeways exploded and now getting anywhere involves a dizzying choice of roads that didn’t exist even a year ago and that somebody decided didn’t need signage. The new, brilliant idea for getting people from one spot to another is “flyovers,” freeways that rise suddenly high into the air only to dip down beyond where you wanted to go. Even mapping out where I wanted to go in advance leaves me with sweaty hands and a feeling that I’ve entered the future by the back door.

  My first stop is to see Emily Wilkins. I figured it was best to surprise her at work. I wish I had time to take a look around the Contemporary Arts Museum and see what’s new, but I’m cutting the day short as it is.

  Since I donated a major work a few years ago, I’m a life member of the museum and am always greeted like I’m somebody special. It works to my advantage today, since it means the woman I talk to at the desk sends me right upstairs to Emily’s office. “Don’t let her know I’m here,” I say, putting a twinkle in my eye. “I want to surprise her.”

  “Absolutely,” the woman gushes.

  When I knock on the door, Emily calls out for me to come in. The smile she had ready fades when she sees who it is. She stands up. “Hello, Mr. Craddock. What brings you here?”

  “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Why didn’t you ask them when I was in Jarrett Creek?”

  “You weren’t around a lot during Thanksgiving, and coming to you seemed like a good chance for me to stop by the museum. I haven’t been for a while.”

  “Well, sit down.” She indicates the chair across the desk from her, and when we’re seated says, “What do you want to ask me?” Her manner is softer here in her own surroundings, not so much the spoiled brat.

  “Were you aware that your daddy was doing some big-time gambling?”

  “Daniel told me after you talked to him.”

  “But you didn’t know before that?”

  She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose.”

  “Why is that?”

  She sighs. “He changed a lot in the last couple of years. He became different from the way he was when I was a child. Harder to connect with.”

  “Did you ever talk to him about that?”

  “Oh, goodness no. He wasn’t a man you could have that kind of conversation with. He was fine as long as you didn’t get into the personal. Then he closed down.”

  “Did you think your mamma knew he was gambling?”

  She shrugs. “I doubt it. He shut her down the same way he did Daniel and me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell your mamma that you and your husband were separated?”

  She eyes me with a calculating look. “I’m trying to figure out where this is going. Why is that important?”

  “Your daddy was brutally murdered. Somebody hated him or wanted revenge bad enough to commit an ugly crime. That makes everything important until I figure out what isn’t.”

  “In answer to your question, I didn’t tell my mother that Nelson and I were separated because I didn’t want to get into an argument with her. I had planned to tell her when I visited at Thanksgiving. The opportunity didn’t present itself.”

  “How long have you been separated?”

  “Two months.”

  “Why did you split up?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! How could that possibly be of any interest in investigating my father’s death?”

  “I don’t know your husband at all, but I have to consider the possibility that since he knew you were furious with your father, maybe he killed him in some misguided attempt to win you back.” I kept thinking about how Ellen Forester’s husband became enraged and violent when she left him. Maybe Emily’s husband went off the deep end the same way.

  She sinks back into her chair and laughs. “If you knew Nelson, you’d know how ridiculous that is.”

  “I don’t know Nelson, and that’s why I’m asking you questions. At some point, I may need to talk to him.”

  Her smile is bitter. “Well, you’ll have to go quite a distance to do that. The reason we split up is that he wanted to relocate to Atlanta. I told him I wouldn’t go. He moved there six weeks ago, and as far as I know he hasn’t been back.”

  Her phone rings, and she excuses herself to take the call. She listens for several seconds, during which her face takes on more color. “Thank you for telling me,” she says and hangs up. “Well, well,” she says. “It seems I am to offer to take you to lunch. Why didn’t you tell me you were a donor?”

  “It didn’t seem relevant. And I appreciate the thought, but lunch won’t be necessary. I do have one more question, though. You and your brother both told me the two of you weren’t close. But he’s staying with you?”

  “We may not be close, but he’s still my brother. He needed help getting back on his feet, and it happened that I now have plenty of space for him to stay.”

  “Back on his feet from what?”

  “Last year, Daniel had an automobile accident. Before that he had a small business—a printing business. It took him a long time to recover from the accident, and he couldn’t sustain the business. He asked our folks for help, and Daddy told him he didn’t have any money. Daniel believed him, but I suspected that he had some squirreled away and that he was too selfish to help.”

  Beebee’s Pet Shop is a small store with cages crammed in close to one another. It seems to sell all kinds of animals—not just puppies and kittens, but rabbits and some loud birds. There’s even a section at the back labeled “Reptiles.” It smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in a while.

  “Is Rich here?” I ask the sullen woman at the cash register.

  “Rich who?”

  “You don’t have anybody named Rich who works here?”

  She smirks and looks off as if trying to recall. She’s messing with me. “I don’t believe so. Can I do something for you? You in the market for a pet?”

  “What would someone say if I came in here and told you I was wanting to buy some dogs for medical research?”

  She smirks. “I’d say you’ve come to the wr
ong place. I don’t care for that kind of business. We only sell animals that are intended for pets.”

  Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending time with my pup, or maybe it’s an instinct I have that this is a terrible place, but I have a childish urge to run through the shop and open all the doors and let the puppies and kittens out. There’s nothing I can do about a place like this. I figure that somewhere in the back now, or sometime soon, Rich is waiting to haul dogs off to medical centers to sell and make a quick buck, not caring how terrible it will be for them.

  All I can do is give a weak warning. “Tell Rich that if I ever get wind that he’s selling dogs, I’ll move heaven and earth to see that he goes to jail.”

  “Good luck with that,” she says serenely.

  Midtown Security is not in mid-town Houston. It’s halfway to Conroe, in an industrial park that has all the soul of a concrete bunker. I’m early for my 4:30 appointment, so I drive around looking for any place that might serve coffee. Outside one of the buildings is a sign pointing to Kaffe Korner, which turns out to be better than its name would indicate. I’m able to buy a good cup of coffee and a piece of pecan pie that the girl behind the counter assures me was made this morning.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m shown into the office of a Mr. Hibbard, who has a black eye and a bruise on his jawline. As bulked up as he is, I’m surprised anybody got the better of him.

  “’Scuse my appearance,” he says when I introduce myself. “I know this is going to sound like a complete fabrication, but I stumbled over my own doorstep in the dark last night and almost killed myself. That’s what I get for being lazy and not replacing a light bulb.”

  “It does look like the light bulb won,” I say.

  He chuckles. “That it did. Now what can I do for you? You said you were calling to look at some dogs? We have a whole variety we can get for you.”

  “I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I’m investigating a matter, and I need some information about two dogs you purchased a couple of years ago.”

  He nods. “Let’s see what I can do. We keep real good records. We have to in this business. Tell me what you’re after.”

  I tell him the details of the bill of sale that Hollister told me about.

  “That helps. Let me look in my files.”

  He’s got three full-sized file cabinets in the office, side by side, and he goes to the middle one and thumbs through a bunch of folders. “Here we go. Two cane corsos purchased from Craig Hollister two years ago. They have a good record. What kind of information do you need?”

  “Do you still own the dogs?”

  “We might. We sometimes rent out our guard dogs. And sometimes we sell them.” He flips the page and reads. “From the look of it, we leased these dogs right away, and they’ve been at the same place ever since.”

  “I guess they must have been satisfactory,” I say.

  “We’re always gratified when a dog goes to the right place. I expect you want to know where that is. And I wish I could give you that information, but it’s confidential. The only way I can turn it over is with a search warrant.”

  There’s some advantage to living in a small town where everybody knows you. The judge had signed my request earlier without even looking at it.

  “You’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed the t’s. That’s good. Let me make a copy of this.” He looks down at it. “Oh. Lookie here. The judge is in the same town where the dogs went. Place called Bobtail.”

  CHAPTER 28

  I’m awake too early. I didn’t have the heart to spend the night in Houston last night, so I drove home, stopping on the way for dinner in the midway town of Belleville and arriving home at ten o’clock. Zelda stalked out to meet me, looking worried. She is already tuned in to having the puppy in the house, and I suspect she wanted to know what I’d done with him. I was tempted to call Maria and go get Dusty, but it seemed silly. The rest of the evening Zelda was as restless as I was and kept getting up to look for Dusty. At least I assume that’s what she was doing. Who really knows what a cat thinks? I sat in front of the TV and drank a beer, and tried to push out of my mind what I knew I’d have to confront this morning.

  I call Maria and tell her I’m back in town, but I need to check on something if she can keep Dusty a little longer. She’s got the late-afternoon shift. “You want me to come along?” she asks. “I can bring Dusty.”

  “No need. I’m following a hunch, and it may not lead anywhere. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

  On the way to Bobtail, I stop by the marina to see Dooley. He’s standing out on the damaged dock. Even seeing him from the back, it’s obvious from the way his legs are planted wide and his arms are crossed tight across his chest that he’s not in the best frame of mind. He’s with a couple of men, and they’re all focused on where a big chunk of the dock is missing. I call out and when he sees me, he waves me over.

  “I see you managed to get the boat pulled out,” I say. I called him yesterday morning and told him we caught the boys who were responsible for the damage, so he could do whatever he wanted to with the boat.

  “We got it back in the slip. I’d like to have a few words with the boys that did this. There’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry too much about that. One of the boys was your friend Jerry Bodine’s stepson.”

  He jerks his baseball cap off and flings it down onto the dock. “That stupid kid. He has caused Jerry nothing but trouble. I don’t know why Jerry puts up with him. I guess when he got married the kid was part of the package.” He picks his hat back up and says, “Hold on a minute while I talk to these guys. They’re fixing to start repairs on the dock.”

  In five minutes he comes back. “At least I know who to dun for the repairs on this place.”

  “You think he’s good for it?”

  He shoves his hands in his back pockets and gazes out over the lake. It’s a gray day and the lake looks like it could be a hundred feet deep and full of dangerous creatures. “He’ll make good on it. Although if I was him, I’d take it out of his stepson’s hide.”

  “Since he was trying to take the boat back on Bodine’s say-so, I don’t think Bodine has much of a beef.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jerry Bodine told, or hired, his stepson to take the boat out of the water and haul it to his place. He claims that he’s the rightful owner since he thinks Lewis Wilkins won the boat by cheating.”

  Dooley’s jaw drops. “Well, I’ll be damned. He never said a word. And why the hell would he think that kid could even get that boat out of the water and onto a trailer? That’s a delicate operation.”

  “I suspect Bodine doesn’t know any more about boats than his stepson does. Maybe he figured it was easy to do. Or, there could be another explanation.”

  “What?”

  “How long ago did Jerry’s father-in-law die?”

  “I don’t know. Nine months ago? Probably longer. Seems like the older I get, the more things speed up. I think something happened a year ago, and I find out it was three years.” He turns to look at me. “Why do you ask?”

  “Bodine sold the business to the employees before he died. Did Bodine and his wife inherit anything?”

  “He never said. He seems to be comfortable. By that I mean rich. This is a funny line of questioning. What do you want to know for?”

  “I’m curious whether Bodine is as rich as he makes out.”

  “He always seemed to have money for the poker games.” I see a light go on. “Wait a minute. Now that you ask, Connie told me something, although it may only be gossip. She told me she heard that Bodine’s wife was mad when her daddy didn’t leave her much. She said it left them hurting financially.”

  “Wonder why he didn’t leave them the business? Did he and Jerry get along?”

  “As far as I know, they did. Maybe he thought he’d done enough for them when he was alive. I thought it was odd that he sold the business to his employee
s. You’d think he’d want to set his family up when he died.”

  “He did leave the boat to them. How much you think that boat is worth?”

  “More than you might think. Two hundred, three hundred thousand. That’s why it was such a big deal that Bodine put it up on that bet.”

  There’s no sign of anybody working at the lawnmower warehouse. The gate is closed up tight. It seems odd to me. It’s Friday, mid-afternoon.

  I want to talk to an employee and was hoping not to run into Jerry Bodine before I get a chance to do that. I drive down to city hall to look up the address of the manufacturing side of the operation. It’s on the southeast side of town. I arrive to see a sprawling bunch of buildings and a busy scene. This is more like it. If I were Bodine, I would have my office here on the pulse of things, instead of at the warehouse.

  I park my car and wander onto the site where trucks are being unloaded. I pause and watch a stocky, middle-aged man with a clipboard check off whatever items are coming in. The way he’s ordering people around, I expect he’s a boss of some kind. When the truck is closed up, I go over and introduce myself and ask if he can spare a minute.

  “I sure can, Chief. But whatever it is, I didn’t do it.” He laughs at his joke.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “Come on inside. It’s cold out here.” He peers off to the north. “Looks like we’re going to get more weather coming in.”

  His office is right inside the building. He introduces himself as G.T. Roberts, foreman of the manufacturing site. “Call me G.T. Let me get us some coffee.”

  He comes back with real mugs, not disposable cups, steaming with coffee. He sits down and gestures for me to sit. I’m struck by how different his office is from Bodine’s. This is a real working office, with a computer and invoices and charts.

  “Okay, what do you need to know?”

  “I understand Chuck Flynn sold this business to the employees. How long ago was that?”

  He looks at the ceiling. “Two years.”