The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense)

by Colleen Thompson

  “Can’t exactly recall it,” Jay said, “but I try to make a habit of securing all my evi—”

  “What?” Wallace asked when Jay stopped abruptly. Anxiety put a tremor in the deputy’s words. “What’re you thinkin’?”

  “I was just wondering,” Jay said, masking his nervousness. “You’d have a copy of those drawer keys, right?”

  Wallace blinked at him. “So you think I took the file? Why the hell would I do that? I was at that meeting. I don’t need any transcript to tell me what went on there. Besides, if I had it, why would I be rooting around your desk drawer looking for it for my mama?”

  “That’s a damned good question.” Unless the file—which Wallace would have been given for the asking—wasn’t what he’d been hunting after all. Jay thought of one piece of evidence his deputy had not seen, though they had discussed it in a general way the week before. Had he been looking for Jay’s copy—left locked up back at the house—of Angie Vanover’s journal? Or was there something else that Wallace hoped to find?

  “You aren’t looking to throw me in the grease with those federal agents, are you?” Jay asked. “Or maybe looking for something you can use to sway the other commissioners to your daddy’s way of thinking?”

  Wallace stiffened, his jaw locking and his hazel eyes turning fierce. “Hell, no, and screw you for even asking—”

  “Come on, Wallace. It’s no secret that you wanted this job. No secret that you’ll have it if I get myself run off. From what I hear, you could use the money.”

  “I was completely loyal to R.C., loyal even though I knew damned well that he was…” Wallace looked away, cutting himself short as he did so.

  “That he was what?” Jay demanded, moving into wallace’s space to stare him down. “What have you told the feds about my uncle?”

  The deputy shrugged and spit out a sullen, “Nothin’.”

  “Saving it for the reporters, are you? Or did Tomlin and Petit ask you not to tell me?”

  When Wallace’s jaw clenched tighter, Jay decided to change tacks. Gesturing toward a chair, he said, “Look, I’m sorry I insulted you. It’s been a rough few weeks.”

  His deputy said nothing, so Jay extended his right hand and looked into the younger man’s face. “Apology accepted?”

  Wallace shook his hand and warned, “Just don’t do that again—accusin’ me like I’m some kind of freakin’ Riggins. I might’ve wanted this job, but I’d be a damned liar if I didn’t admit I’ve been glad that all this Haz-Vestment/Vanover mess didn’t hit the fan on my watch. Then I’d be the one under the feebs’ watchful eye.”

  Jay wondered how much more Wallace knew but wasn’t saying. He gestured toward the peeling box-shaped fridge. “Want a drink?”

  “Not unless you got a six-pack stashed in there.”

  “No way am I keeping alcohol in this office. Not with everybody from my deputy to some damned transcriptnapper to a couple of special agents pawin’ through my stuff. But if you’ll stop by the house later, I’ll be sure to set you up right.”

  Wallace rolled his eyes. “Why? You got some woodwork that needs stainin’? Or is it heavy liftin’ this time?”

  “Nope. I’m all moved in and settled. That house is as finished as it’s gonna get.” Since Dana had left town he’d lost whatever enthusiasm he’d been able to muster for the project.

  “So this invitation’s purely social?” Wallace’s brows rose suspiciously. “It has nothing to do with wanting to pick my brain about old R.C.?”

  Jay didn’t answer, unwilling to insult his deputy a second time.

  “You don’t need to bust open a bottle for me.” Wallace sighed. “He—your uncle R.C.—uh, entertained that Piper-Gold bitch a couple times at his house. I figured she was screwin’ him, and frankly it pissed me off.”

  Shrugging, he added, “She was one fine-lookin’ woman—haven’t seen a set like that since I left New York City. And I, uh, I gotta tell you, I’d hinted more than once I might be open to that sort of visit my own self. Hell, I never knew that she was married.”

  Jay looked at him, disgusted, though he was most disturbed by what Wallace had said about his uncle. Had the old man changed so much after Jay left, or had he always hidden a dark side? Dorothy Hobarth’s words reverberated through his thoughts: “We got our own way of dealing with thieves and liars here in Rimrock. I figured, growing up with old R.C., you’d have known that.”

  “Kinda insultin’ that she didn’t see as how a deputy could have all that much influence. Even if I am the county judge’s son.”

  “The way you and your dad argue,” Jay said, “maybe she didn’t figure your good word would cut much ice with him.”

  “Could be. Or maybe she was into old men. Way I understand it, she turned out to be married to that leather-skinned geezer from the TV.” Wallace shuddered. “He had to have twenty years on her at least.”

  Jay snorted. “Must’ve been that banana hammock he was wearing drew her to him.”

  “Only if he was packin’ wads of cash down there,” Wallace shot back with a grin.

  “You said earlier you never saw Goldsmith here in Rimrock. Are you still sure on that count?”

  “I’m sure. And if anybody else around here saw a fellow like that, for sure it would’ve got around.”

  Jay imagined that was so. He also figured a man like Goldsmith, who had a record of small—and big-time grifting that dated back for decades, would be smart enough to keep out of sight.

  Was it possible that jealousy, and not financial motives, had been the catalyst that pushed the scam artist into violence? What if he had caught his wife in bed with Uncle R.C.? Jay imagined the scenario unfolding, pictured the con man shooting R.C., then setting fire to the bed to hide his crime. When Dennis had called to tell Jay what had happened to his uncle, he hadn’t spoken of the condition of the body. And Jay, who’d already been coping with more images of violent death than he could handle, hadn’t pushed for details.

  But it was high time to put that squeamishness behind him, because whether or not he’d known his uncle’s darker side, Jay still owed the man a debt. Far too great a debt to leave to the FBI the solution of what might well have been his murder.

  A thin sliver of moon was rising when the Hunter saw her, her white hair swinging down past her slim waist. Her bare feet barely skimmed the crystals of the dry lake’s surface as she made her way into the dusk-robed desert.

  “Angelina?” he asked, though she was too far away to hear him. Though he could barely hear himself over the sudden thunder of his heartbeat.

  But she turned nonetheless, showing him a smile so cold and feral it shook him to his soul. Lowering his binoculars, he strained his eyes and muttered, “You’re dead. You’re dead. I killed you. You can’t be…Jesus…”

  Something was there, something moving, though it was past the margins of the salt flat. Hands trembling, he once more lifted the field glasses—and laughed at what he saw.

  A trio of pronghorn antelope looked up from their browsing, their delicate ears turned in his direction and their slender legs tensing as they watched him for signs of movement. They must have been drawn by the grasses that had sprouted after last week’s rain, for they rarely traveled so deep into the desert.

  But not so rarely as a woman who had passed beyond death’s borders.

  The Hunter breathed again and took this transformation as a sign, a sign that if he watched carefully, he would see an opportunity to reverse his losses. Perhaps his plans would lead him to the money Angelina must have hidden elsewhere before his shot took her down.

  The authorities had recovered less than fifty thousand, according to his sources. A fraction of the total. A last sting on the ass, but nothing lethal.

  Daunted by its bulk, she had to have been moving it in stages, probably beginning before the new sheriff’s arrival, when she’d have had ample privacy. Though the storm had clearly interrupted her last attempt, he had to concentrate on finding where she’d hidden al
l the rest.

  There was only one person in the world Angelina might have had the chance to tell about it, and he was watching carefully for that woman to come back within his reach. Once he had her, he would use his skinning knife to find out in short order whether her sister had told her the location of the stolen money.

  One way or another, the Hunter was going to get his million from her—as well as his revenge.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Before you trust a man, eat a peck of salt with him.

  —Proverb, anonymous

  Jay’s Suburban bobbed and wallowed as he followed the otherwise deserted road’s power lines into a rutted driveway. He steered between a huge agave’s ring of spear-tipped leaves and a hard-luck patch of creosote to park behind Dorothy Hobarth’s vintage Jeep. Nearby a single-wide mobile home squatted beneath a freestanding gabled roof that someone had built to keep the trailer from cooking like a TV dinner in the sun. In spite of this, heat rose from every surface, making the air swim.

  He gave the horn two short blasts to alert Dorothy to his arrival. After sucking in a breath of cooled air, Jay shut off his engine and climbed out into the heat. People who didn’t live here assumed that, without humidity, the summers must be bearable. People who didn’t live here should try spending an afternoon inside their ovens and then rethink that opinion.

  As Jay approached the peeling brown front door, a few spent yellow flowers dropped exhausted from a sotol’s spiky stalk and landed amid the narrow, sharp-toothed leaves below. The loss drew a hum of protest from the assembled blue-black bees, a sound nearly lost to the pulsing drone of the mobile home’s swamp cooler and the barking swarm of ill-tempered little dogs inside. He heard small pops as they launched themselves against the inner door with fanatical fervor, their tiny toenails scrabbling against the metal.

  Dorothy’s “girls,” he figured. Maybe she should have warned him about his own balls instead of Max’s.

  “Cut it out, girls. Settle down,” Dorothy told them. But the riot continued unabated until she finally shouted, “Sit. Hush. Now.”

  The barking stopped as if someone had yanked out the yappers’ batteries, and the door opened. Dorothy gestured for him to come in, while beside her three nearly identical fat black-and-white rat terriers sat growling, their lips curled back to show vibrating teeth.

  “Nice smiles,” he commented as he stepped inside a living room paneled in dark wood. Blinded by the abrupt transition, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  “They know how to use ’em, too,” Dorothy assured him with what sounded like parental pride. “Now go lie down, girls.”

  The trio didn’t budge but continued to monitor him closely. Probably looking for a sign of weakness.

  “Sorry. They don’t like men. Don’t know where they get that.”

  Since he didn’t want to spend the next week picking fibers from his work pants out of bite wounds, he resisted the temptation to supply the obvious answer.

  “Want a beer? Or water?” Dorothy invited.

  “Water’d be good, thanks.”

  After reminding the three dogs, “Stay. Hush,” she went into the kitchen, which allowed Jay the opportunity to look around the place. The rust-colored carpeting was dated, but looked clean enough, as did the furnishings and the antique oval mirror that hung from the mounted head of a huge, well-antlered mule deer. A crocheted afghan lay, precisely folded, atop the back of a worn but decent green sofa. A matching chair sat beside a lamp table holding—of all things—a leather-bound edition of the collected works of William Shakespeare. A bookmark sat near the halfway point, and when he looked carefully he saw the wine-red cover was cracked with age and dehydration.

  With Dorothy still rattling around in the kitchen, he picked up the heavy book and allowed it to fall open. To his surprise the pages were heavily marked in red ink, with underlines and handwritten exclamations.

  The play was Hamlet, he saw, and the line most vigorously marked read, Frailty, thy name is woman.

  True! someone, presumably Dorothy, had written, followed by the word, Why?

  Embarrassed to have intruded on her privacy, he closed the book as she came in with his water. Her gaze lingered on his hand until he removed it from the cover.

  “Shakespeare, huh?” he said. “Would’ve figured you more for private-eye stuff, or maybe Westerns.”

  She smiled, revealing a yellowed set of teeth. “Been readin’ on that one since high school. It’s got everythin’ you need right there in one spot. Killin’, sex stuff, people turnin’ on each other. Just like the Good Book.”

  One of the terriers sprang forward, but she smacked it on the snout and snarled, “Down, Ophelia.”

  All three dogs dropped, and Jay took the distraction as an opportunity to shift from chitchat to the reason for his visit. As he cracked open the bottle’s top, he said, “I want to know what you meant by that remark at the post office. The one about my uncle, and how certain things got handled here in Rimrock County.”

  She took a swallow from the longneck beer she’d brought for herself before dropping gracelessly into the chair. She didn’t invite him, but he took the sofa, though the dogs’ growls deepened with his daring.

  “No mystery there, Sheriff,” Dorothy said flatly. “Only that we freeze folks out when they don’t behave. You know, like not speakin’ to ’em when we see ’em. Or not helpin’ out when they have trouble.”

  Jay frowned, knowing bullshit when he heard it. “Backing down’s not like you. You’re known for calling ’em the way you see ’em.”

  Her mouth tightened, and she put down the beer to clean her glasses on the tail of her federal-blue work shirt.

  “You aren’t scared of me, are you?” he asked. “Because you don’t have to worry—”

  She gave a little bark of laughter that had her terriers popping up and yapping. Once she silenced the unholy trio, she shook her head and told him, “I’m scared of no man. It’s just…you’ve been away a long time. Probably picked up a few strange ideas.”

  “I tried to,” he admitted before attempting to appease her. “But there’s no place in the world like Devil’s Claw. In the Dallas PD they’ve got heads of this, departments of that, and activists and lawyers squalling if you so much as color outside the lines.”

  “Damn lawyers,” she droned. “First day one sets up shop here, I’m packing up my girls and heading into the backcountry.”

  Despite the growling delivery, terror glittered in her eyes, as dark and sharp as chips of onyx. Jay recognized it instantly, had seen it in the mirror of his apartment after he’d left the hospital.

  Was he as irrational as this woman, as in danger of turning into another eccentric desert hermit? Dana’s words filled his mind: “You’re far from a lost cause, Jay. There’s still time for you to get whatever help you need to put yourself back on track…”

  He cleared his throat, buying a moment to get his head back in the game. “What I’m saying, Dorothy, is that we both know Devil’s Claw’s run by a different set of rules than your ordinary town. Just the way you operate by a different set of rules than an ordinary woman.”

  Her lower lip dropped, and behind the horn-rimmed glasses something changed in her eyes in the split second before her gaze fixed onto the TV’s blank screen.

  He was on the verge of apologizing when she ran her fingers through her graying hair and muttered, “Too bad ’Stelle could never get that.”

  But Jay didn’t want to step into the minefield of the twin sisters’ years-long grudge. So once again he tried to steer her back on course. “How’d my uncle run things? I’ll need to know to do my job, keep people out here happy the way he did.”

  She blinked hard, then downed another swig of beer. “He’d just run some of the lowlifes outta town when it was needful, that’s all. You know, drug smugglers, men whose women turned up with one too many black eyes or busted lips, and thieves. Goddamn, but that man always hated the kind that feel entitled to what
ever they can cart off.”

  “How’d he manage to get rid of ’em?”

  She shrugged. “Him and a few others used to pay a visit, suggest the fella might be happier somewhere else. If he didn’t take the hint, an old-fashioned ass-whippin’ was in order. And if he squawked too much about that, well…devil’s Claw don’t have no hydrants, if you get my meanin’.”

  “They burned them out? Set fire to their houses?” Unable to keep still, Jay stood and started pacing. When one of the terriers snarled and made for his leg, he ordered, “Down.”

  The dog wheeled and slunk out of the room, closely followed by the others.

  “You’ve gone and hurt the Weird Sisters’ feelings. They’ll hold a grudge for sure now.”

  Jay didn’t give a damn about that, not with long-forgotten memories from his teen years rising like the undead. Of an unlucky “fall” that had cost a drunken bully most of his teeth before he slunk out of town. Of a burning bungalow whose flames had lit the night sky, killing one of the two hippie squatters who had lived there. A tragic accident, everyone had called it, though no one had been too sorry to see the dead man’s old lady pack their ancient van and go.

  Jay’s stomach knotted. The uncle he’d looked up to—and belatedly learned to love—had been no more than a whitewashed facade over a dark reality.

  “My uncle R.C. died in a fire,” he reminded Dorothy. “Didn’t anyone ever wonder about that, considering? Who were these other men who helped him? After he was hired was Wallace in on it, too?”

  She shook her head. “Lord, not that one. That sawed-off little peacock was always too busy starin’ into mirrors and workin’ on lines for high school plays to pay much attention when he was younger. And then he went off to make a fool of himself in New York City.”

  She pronounced the name with the same contempt hellfire-and-brimstone preachers reserved for sermons featuring Sodom and Gomorrah.