by Terry Shames
I wake up even earlier than usual Friday morning. A cold, spooky fog is hovering close to the ground when I go down to the pasture to see to my cows. The fog makes everything seem a little unreal. Even the sound of my cattle lowing is flat and tamped down.
When I get back to the house, I’m happy to hear Loretta calling out at my screen door. She’s brought coffee cake and we sit down at the kitchen table to drink a cup of coffee.
“You’ll never guess what’s happened.”
“Spill it,” I say, after I’ve eaten my first mouthful.
“Gabe LoPresto has taken off with that girl from the bank.”
I almost choke on my coffee. “What do you mean, taken off?”
“Apparently the girl didn’t show up for work yesterday morning. Everybody figured she didn’t know the bank would be open as usual. Then this morning she called and said she was off for a few days with Gabe. Can you imagine calling your work and just saying you won’t be in?”
“Did LoPresto tell anybody where he was going?”
“That wasn’t in the information I got. I can tell you that everybody is wondering what’s going on, though. Are they eloping?”
“That’s hardly likely since as far as I know LoPresto is still married.”
Loretta looks like she has more to say but thinks better of it. She sips her coffee and looks around with a critical eye. “Samuel, I haven’t wanted to say anything, but you could use somebody to come in and clean once a week.”
I look around the kitchen. I’m surprised. “I don’t think I need anybody. I’m doing fine. You’ve got higher standards than me, that’s all.”
“How often do you dust?”
“You’ve got somebody in mind who needs a job, don’t you?”
Of course she does. And she says she wants me to let the woman come in one morning a week “because she needs the money.”
“I don’t like the idea of somebody I don’t know coming in here.”
“You’ll get used to it. She’s nice and quiet. She won’t bother you.”
I tell her I’ll think it over.
It seems prudent to change the subject, and I’ve got the perfect subject. “I met the new woman who’s opening the art store downtown.”
“Oh, I heard there was going to be a new store. The owner’s name is Ellen Forester.” Loretta likes to know things, so she trots the name out as if it gives her points. “What does she look like?”
“She’s…” I pause. What does she look like? “I don’t know. She looks good. She’s got brown hair and eyes. Seemed friendly.”
“Samuel, you could be describing a dog. Is she fat? Thin? Does she have a nice smile? What did she say?”
“You’ll see her soon enough. She’s having some work done on the space she’s rented.”
“What kind of work? They just got done renovating that building.”
“I don’t know. Go down there and ask her. She’ll probably be glad somebody is interested.”
Her sigh is long-suffering.
“Okay. No, she’s not fat,” I say. “She’s regular size. And she was very nice, all ten words that she said to me.”
“Like what?”
“She said she’d like to see my art collection.”
She nods. “That makes sense. What kind of art is she going to have in the store?”
“She didn’t say, but she mentioned she was also going to have painting workshops.”
“Workshops? I don’t know who she thinks is going to do that.” Then she catches herself being snippy. “But I suppose we’ll see. I surely hope she succeeds. Ida Ruth told me she’s starting over because she got divorced recently.”
“We didn’t discuss that,” I say. “Listen, I’ve got to get going.” I stand up.
“You didn’t tell me what you found out about what happened to poor Gary Dellmore.”
“That’s going to have to wait for another time.”
“All right, then. I guess you’ve got to keep things under your hat.” She gets up and starts toward the door.
“One thing.” I stop her, and it seems like what I have to say is momentous. “I got myself a cell phone. You want the number?”
“A cell phone. What do you want with that?”
“Since I’m going to be the law around here, people will expect me to be available.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I guess you’re right. But now everybody is going to think you’re at their beck and call night and day.”
I write down the number and she looks at it like it’s written in Sanskrit, but she tucks it into the pocket of her skirt.
Bill Odum is already at the police station when I get there and looks relieved to see me. “This came in,” he says, thrusting a fax at me before I can even sit down.
It’s a preliminary autopsy report from a doctor whose name I don’t recognize, affiliated with the hospital in Bobtail. It says the bullet that killed Gary Dellmore was most likely a .45. I point it out to Odum and say, “You got the caliber right. Only problem is half the people in town have a .45 stashed away somewhere.”
I tell him to pull up a chair next to my desk, and I fill him in on who I talked to yesterday and what I learned. “So,” I wind up, “we know that Dellmore was killed with a .45-caliber weapon, his car is missing, he was playing fast and loose with Jessica Reinhardt down at the office, his daddy was fed up with his behavior, and his wife had every right to be. Plus, Alton Coldwater claims Dellmore had a hand in pushing the city to invest in the water park deal.”
Odum grimaces. “Dellmore didn’t exactly make himself popular. Makes you wonder why a man who has everything acts that way.” He searches my face as if I might have some bright idea I’m not divulging. Suddenly he laughs. “I always got in trouble when I was in police training for making observations like that. They told me if I was so interested in motivation, I ought to study psychology.”
“It always seemed to me that a big part of being a cop is knowing what made people tick,” I say.
“I like that. It suits me.” He rubs his hands together. “How are we going to proceed today?”
“I’d like you to find out more about the outfit that went broke out at the lake. See if they had any hard feelings about the way Dellmore handled the financial end of things. You know how to locate them?”
“I’ll ask Marietta Bryant. She must know something, since she’s the city administrator.”
Oscar Grant doesn’t open the Two Dog Bar until ten a.m., but I go around back and find him next to his truck wrestling a keg onto a dolly. I hold the backdoor while he wheels the dolly inside and follow him in, noticing that the floor seems to be tilting more than I remembered.
“Oscar, if this building leans any more, one of these nights it’s going to tip right over.”
Oscar looks around like he hasn’t noticed the state of the building. He moved here and bought the bar from the previous owner a dozen years ago. I know he’s divorced and has a daughter, but he’s close with his private life. He runs a tight ship, though. He lets people act up just so far before he runs them out of the Two Dog. “I suppose I ought to get some work done on the building. But I have to win the lottery before it comes to that.”
“You play the lottery?” He sells lottery tickets and alcohol, and since I rarely see him drink, I suspect he doesn’t indulge in gambling much, either.
“No, come to think of it, I guess I don’t. So that eliminates the possibility of me winning.” He snorts, the closest I’ve ever seen to him laughing. “You didn’t come here to inspect my building. Let me make some coffee and you can tell me what you want.”
Coffee in hand, I sit down at the bar. “I want your take on this business with Gary Dellmore. You hear things at the bar. Did you ever hear anybody say they carried a grudge against him, anything like that?”
Oscar takes his time, pouring enough sugar into his cup so that the spoon could stand up on its own, and then stirring while he contemplates my question. “I don’t really attract
a banking clientele here. But I’ve been keeping company with a woman who told me something a while back—I don’t know if it’s of any use, but it did have to do with Dellmore.” He frowns and keeps on stirring.
“What did she say?”
“She said Dellmore bragged to her that he was making a lot of money in this water park deal. She didn’t get any details because she wasn’t particularly interested in Jarrett Creek’s water park. But she said he acted like it was a big secret, and she wondered why a banker would need to keep his part of a banking deal secret.”
“Who’s this woman you’re dating and how did she know Dellmore?”
He grins. “I don’t know that you’d call it dating. We don’t go out on dates and I don’t see her that often. She lives over in Bobtail. She’s a nurse. She doesn’t know Dellmore. She said he was in the hospital having a little procedure done and they got to talking when he was still a little loopy from the anesthesia. She said a lot of people blab all kinds of things when they’re coming out of anesthesia. I’m pretty sure she shouldn’t have told me. She probably never figured I would have occasion to pass the information on to anybody. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather nobody knew where you heard it.”
“I can’t think of a reason anybody would need to know.” Or even if the information is relevant.
Now that I know Dellmore was killed with a .45, I have to ask everybody I talk to if they own one, even though I may not get the truth. When I ask Oscar, he reaches under the bar and pulls out a shotgun I’ve seen him brandish a couple of times. “This 12-gauge is all I need. Makes people nervous when they see a shotgun staring at them.”
I’m not due to meet Bill Odum back at headquarters for another hour, so I have time to corner Slate McClusky. I hope I don’t run into Angel again, but when I ring the doorbell, there’s no answer at all.
I’m turning to leave when a horn toots. Truly Bennett pulls to the curb and climbs out of his pickup, which is even older than mine. Truly and I go way back to when I was chief of police and got him out of some trouble. He is widely respected in the county for his ability to deal with livestock. If there’s such a thing as a cow whisperer, it’s Truly. Cattlemen often hire him to move their cows to auction or to help buy stock. He’s a good judge of cows and seems to know instinctively if there’s something wrong with one. When I had to be away for several days for knee surgery, I left Truly in charge of my cows and didn’t worry about them for one minute.
“Good to see you, Chief Craddock. What are you up to?”
“I guess you heard they’ve got me back at work.”
“I did hear that. Seems it’s all to the good for the rest of us.”
After we shake hands he goes around to the back of his pickup and lowers the tailgate. He takes out a ladder and lays it on the sidewalk.
“You heard that Gary Dellmore was murdered?” I say.
“Yes, sir. I didn’t know Mr. Dellmore, but then I don’t have a lot of use for banks.” He continues to work as we talk, pulling out paint cans, brushes, and tarps and setting them on the sidewalk.
“What are you up to?”
“You know I do a little painting on the side when the cattle business is slow, and Mr. McClusky hired me to repaint the east side of his house while they’re gone.” He points to the house. “The east side always gets a lot stronger sunlight and needs painting a little more often.”
“Gone? When are they leaving?”
“Nobody was here when I got here this morning, so I guess they already left.”
“Do you know where they were going?”
He scratches his head. “I’m not sure. He hired me last week and said they’d be out of here by today and I should get started.”
“Did he say how long he’d be gone?”
“No, sir.”
Now why didn’t Angel tell me yesterday that she and Slate were leaving today? I don’t know whether it’s suspicious or if she was simply careless.
Truly grins as I help him with the last of the cans. “Looks like that operation you had turned out okay. You’re moving around pretty good.”
“Should have done it a lot earlier. Stubborn.”
I go next door to find out if anybody knows where the McCluskys have gone. Nobody is home at the big house next door, and the house on the other side has been vacant since Scooter Jefferson died. But across the street Camille Overton is home and invites me in for a cup of coffee. She’s a tall, brisk woman with a ready smile. According to Loretta, Camille is a force in the Baptist Church ladies’ group.
“Usually I’d take you up on the coffee, Camille, but I’m a little pressed for time. Do you have any idea where Angel and Slate have gone?”
She peers across the street. “I don’t have my glasses on. Who is that man in their yard?”
“That’s Truly Bennett. He’s doing some painting for McClusky.”
“Oh, that’s all right then. Angel called me last night. She was supposed to come over this morning, but said she and Slate were going out to the resort for a few days. They left early this morning.”
“Do you happen to know their phone number out there?”
“Yes, I do. Let me get it for you.”
She’s back in a few minutes with a slip of paper with two phone numbers on it. She points to one of the numbers. “That second one is Angel’s cell phone. She said the phone might not be working out at the resort, and if anything comes up I should try both numbers. I keep an eye on the house when they’re not here.”
If Slate and Angel decided just last night that they were going to the resort, why did Slate tell Truly last week that they’d be gone? And why didn’t Slate call me? If it was too late when he got home last night, he could have called this morning.
I try both numbers Camille gave me for the McCluskys, and no one answers either of them. I don’t like it. I decide to drive out to the resort to see if I can catch up with them.
I stop by the station to tell Odum what I’m up to. He jumps up when I walk in. “I was going to call you. I’ve got a problem. My dad called and asked if there was any way I could help him for a couple of hours. I could come back this afternoon.”
“Sure, go on ahead. There’s nothing that can’t wait. Zeke can be on call if anything comes up.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“How did everything go with Marietta?”
“She was out on a real estate appointment, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. The girl down at the office said she’d have Marietta call me when she got back, but then my dad phoned.”
I tell him I’m on my way out to Blanco to see if I can ferret out McClusky.
“Blanco’s a long way.”
“It is. I may be wasting my time, but it doesn’t sit well when somebody tries to avoid me.”
There’s another reason I want to go out there. I’ve never seen McClusky’s resort. I’ve always heard it’s for people with a lot of money, not the kind of thing people around here can afford—and wouldn’t do if they could. When Jarrett Creek folks go hunting, they do it to put meat on the table—and they don’t need to go to a fancy resort to do it. I’d like to get a good look at the place.
Before I leave town, I open up the safe to see what kind of weapons the department has on hand. It’s actually not a bad assortment and it looks like they’ve been kept up. Score one for Rodell. I take out a Colt and load it. I haven’t used a gun for a while, and it’s time I got back into shape with it. Maybe I’ll have time to do a little target practice while I’m out in the country. I leave a note on the front door with my new cell phone number on it, telling anybody who comes by that we’re all tied up this afternoon and to call me only if it’s an emergency.
When I get close to Blanco I start seeing faded signs advertising McClusky’s Wild Range Resort. Slate McClusky ought to consider replacing the signs if he plans to keep up the reputation of having a fine resort, but maybe he wants to emphasize the “country” part of “hill country resort
.” The sign at the turnoff is shot up with bullet holes. It gives me the information that I’ve got a two-mile drive to my destination. I turn onto a rutted dirt road. I don’t know what I was expecting when I headed out to McClusky’s resort, but it was certainly something better than what I am seeing. The road is so rutted that it looks like it’s gone through at least a couple of seasons with no maintenance. I’m forced to slow way down. At first I’m thinking the reason the road is a mess is that McClusky wants to give people who come here the idea that they’re getting a legitimate wild-country experience, but then I notice that the fences are sagging in places. I heard they raise exotic game for sport hunting here—African and Asian antelope and even zebras. It’s a good thing they don’t keep buffalo, because one of those big creatures could charge right through the fence in a couple of places. But soon I realize I’m not seeing any animals at all.
After being jostled around in my truck for ten minutes, I turn onto a paved driveway, and soon an imposing structure comes into view. The main lodge is what you’d call elegant rustic—or at least it used to be. The huge, two-story rock and wood building surrounded by a wide wooden deck has fallen on the rustic side of things. The dark-green trim on the building is faded and chipped and the deck in need of a new coat of paint. The only thing that doesn’t look the worst for wear is a massive rock chimney that suggests there’s a castle-sized fireplace.
A weathered sign over the porch says, “The Big House.” A sign to the left side of the building points to “Spa” in one direction and “Pool” in the other. Off to the right I glimpse wood cabins scattered among the trees.
Somebody went to a lot of expense on the landscaping in the past. It’s now overgrown and weedy. A big flowerbed surrounded by the circular driveway contains a lot of dead stalks. Dead or dying ornamental plants and weeds have taken over the large terra cotta pots on the steps of the Big House entrance.
Slate’s Chevy Tahoe is sitting in front of the main house. I’m about to open the door of my truck when a big man with gorilla arms and a worried expression comes from around back and strides over to me. “We’re closed.”
