Dead Man Falls

by Paula Boyd

  Dead Man Falls

  The Second Jolene Jackson Mystery

  by

  Paula Boyd

  KINDLE EDITION

  * * * * *

  REVISED EDITION PUBLISHED BY:

  Diomo Books for Kindle on Mobipocket

  Dead Man Falls

  The Second Jolene Jackson Mystery

  Original Copyright © 2000 by Diomo Books

  Revised Edition Copyright © 2011 by Diomo Books

  Original Cover Art by Layna Boyd, Copyright © 2001

  Digital Publication December 2011

  Kindle eBook Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written consent of the copyright owner except that brief excerpts may be quoted for reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, locales or events are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also available in trade paperback at most online retailers and PDF format from the publisher.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author

  Prologue

  "Mr. Holt, isn’t it?"

  He nodded then stepped inside as directed. "I heard about the letter. That’s why I wanted to come over."

  "So you said on the phone."

  As the door closed behind him, Holt peered into the dark interior of the room. "Yes, well, I have this friend--"

  "Who also got a letter?"

  "No, not yet." He shoved his glasses up on his nose and shifted from side to side. "But it still upset her. She doesn’t want to see him." "Ha! You think I do?"

  "No." Holt pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped it across his forehead. "She’s worried he’ll find out about the kid."

  "He probably will. He also won’t live to tell about it."

  Holt dabbed his upper lip then refolded the cloth. "I have to do something to stop this."

  "I’ve thought of nothing else myself."

  "Then you’ll help me?"

  Another bark of laughter. "Actually, you’ll be the one helping me."

  Holt shrugged. "Just so we stop him from coming to town."

  "That’s not possible. If I’d been able to find him, he’d already be dead and you wouldn’t be here."

  "Dead?" Holt croaked. "You...you’ve been trying to find him, to...to kill him?"

  "It’s not a difficult concept."

  Holt slid a foot toward the door and rocked back on his heel. "You can’t be serious. You...you...can’t just walk up and kill somebody."

  "I can." The chuckle ended in a snort. "Unless he kills me first."

  "Oh, God," he said, his hand groping for the doorknob. "I don’t want any part of this."

  "Too late. I have it all planned. You’re going to be my messenger, a fatal fortune teller of sorts."

  He spun and lunged for the door. "No, I’m not."

  The thick end of a wooden bat cracked against Holt’s skull. He stumbled, fell against the door then slid down onto the cool tiled entryway.

  "Yes, you will."

  Chapter 1

  I can’t be sure, of course, but I suspect that for most folks, their mother’s birthday is neither an earth-shaking event nor a life-altering one. Oh, if only it were so for me.

  When the long summer days begin to shorten and the September chill sweeps across my home in Colorado, there are a few things of which I am pretty much certain: the aspens will turn gold, fresh snow will start to fall and Jolene Jackson will find herself back in Kickapoo, Texas--like it or not.

  This last little inevitability occurs because my mother is certain she will die on the spot if I don’t show up for her annual birthday bash at the town’s social center, meaning the local Dairy Queen. She also prefers that I arrive cheerful and perky, but we all know that’s a long shot. I make a good effort, really I do, but a body can only take so much St. Johns wort without becoming comatose.

  Now, I suspect that the correlation between a big to-do at a Dairy Queen some seven hundred miles south of my home and a personal crisis requiring herbal mood enhancers is not readily apparent, so let me explain.

  There are several routine problems associated with my dear mother’s birthday extravaganza. To be sure, Lady Lucille’s whims and antics are enough to give me an annual case of dread as well as ulcers. However, the really big stomach-churner this year is the fact that September isn’t that far removed from July--or my last certifiably painful visit here. The tedious facts and fatalities don’t bear repeating, so I’ll stick to the more generic personal revelations of my unfortunate sojourn.

  To begin with, I found out a whole bunch of things about my seventy-two-year-old mother that I really didn’t need to know. For one, she’s in the market for another boyfriend, the previous one being a dud even before he was murdered in the aforementioned July fiasco. For another, she carries a 9 mm Glock with a laser sight in her purse. Yes, really.

  Both of these things make me a little nervous. Okay, the gun makes me really nervous--twitchy even. Being nearly killed will do that to a person. And no, my mother didn’t shoot me, although I had the feeling she thought about it a time or two. The almost-healed bullet hole in my arm--and the resulting steel pin holding the bone together--was the work of a now-deceased local crazy. But let’s not dwell on past unpleasantries when there are certainly new ones to be had.

  I arrived at my mother’s house in Kickapoo, Texas, around nine p.m., which means I had managed to force myself up, up and away by eight--that would be morning time. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am of the opinion that eight a.m. is a time for sleeping. Ditto for nine. Ten is negotiable.

  In spite of the disagreeable early morning departure time, I usually drive down rather than fly. Redwater Falls does have an airport--of sorts--and you can eventually get there from Denver, but it is neither easy nor cheap. Besides, driving my own car gives me the illusion that I have control over something. Once I enter the twilight zone, aka Kickapoo, Texas, even that is iffy.

  After unloading my one duffel bag and chatting semi-amicably with my mother, I found myself collapsed on the couch in front of the television--just in time for the local news. Yippee.

  My mother perched herself on the edge of a new grape-colored velvet chair, her gaze intent on the TV screen. The initial news bites that are supposed to keep you watching through the upcoming commercials were definitely doing their job. "This is the biggest thing that’s happened around here since the tornado of eighty-three," she said enthusiastically. Lucille shook her head and clucked her tongue. "I don’t much care
for that new girl. She spends more time prissing for the camera than she does giving the news."

  Please, no, not the "You'd have been good at that if" speech. I rubbed my road-weary eyes, tucked a stray wave of auburn hair behind my ear and pretended she hadn’t said a word. A yawn and stretch emphasized the point.

  It is no secret that Lucille Jackson has always wanted to see her only child in the limelight--onstage, front and center in one way or another. Forty-three years of waiting--and nagging--about it have been hard on her. She’d initially hoped to be a stage mom on the beauty pageant and/or fashion model circuit. Unfortunately, my non-anorexic five-foot-four-inch body--not to mention my budding feminist attitude--put me at a decided disadvantage in both categories.

  Once, in a weak teenage moment, I agreed to participate in the regional high school all-star Greenbelt Bowl--as a potential queen, not a fullback. Suffice it to say that my comment to the judges about moving the pageant proceedings to the feedlot down the road where we could have us a real meat show did not secure me a rhinestone crown--or an amused mother. She didn’t even attempt to get over it until I got that journalism scholarship to UT, which spawned a whole new set of maternal dreams. I blew those all to hell, too, of course, but she did have a few brief moments of almost-glory.

  To this day Mother has held firm in her belief that I would have made a lovely television news anchor had I not squandered my potential and my journalism degree by running off to Denver, marrying an idiot (I’d give her that one) and starting that silly little card company. It may be silly to her, but it gives me a silly little income that allows me to drop everything and run to Texas on her every little whim or incarceration--whichever comes first.

  Now, I do make a serious effort to try to please my mother--witness my current whereabouts--but living here is above and beyond the call of duty. Besides, I doubt any self-respecting Redwater station would have ever hired me anyway. I hadn’t been meek and mild in high school, and I was less so after finishing at the University of Texas in Austin. Geographically speaking, Redwater Falls is nowhere near Austin. Philosophically, we’re talking different galaxies. Redwater is, however, about ten minutes north of where I grew up in Kickapoo, and is the "big" town in these parts, meaning its population bloomed to about one hundred thousand thirty years ago and has stayed pretty much the same ever since.

  "There it is!" Lucille exclaimed, springing forward in her chair. She waggled a purple acrylic nail at the television screen, her bespangled wrist tinkling like chimes in a breeze. As she wiggled this way and that to punctuate her enthusiasm, her rhinestone-studded sweatshirt shot flashes of light across the room like a disco ball. "Would you just look at that! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you about. There’s our new waterfall!"

  She sounded very excited about something, but I wasn’t exactly sure what. Did she really say waterfall? I blinked a few times and tried to focus my eyes on the fleeting image of what looked like a large wall of Volkswagen-sized rocks. "A what?"

  "Oh, my," Lucille gasped, her attention still riveted to the screen. "Oh, for heaven’s sake. Whatever will they do? Why, this is just awful!" A gold glittery slipper stomped the floor. "Oh, well, hmmm, fire hoses, that could work, wonderful idea."

  Huh? Fire hoses? I scooted myself semi-upright on the couch and made a feeble attempt at paying attention to what the painted lady with the really big cyclone-proof red hair was saying. I suppose I’m also obligated to mention the spandex and cleavage as well, but don’t ask me to explain it. This is heavy-duty Bible Belt country, but that belt’s known for missing a loop or two when it’s convenient.

  I was sorely tempted to climb upon my high horse and examine the moral juxtaposition of luscious lips and bulging boobs selling news to the conservative Christian crowd, but since that particular horse has a tendency to run away with me, I reined myself in and focused on what anchor-babe was actually saying. Mother’s running dialog filled in the blanks and I pieced together enough details to determine that the wall of rocks I had just seen was a newly erected waterfall.

  What made said waterfall unique--in addition to the manmade part--was its location, which was above and beside the lazy river rather than actually in it. Consequently, water didn’t flow over the carefully placed rocks naturally, (No, I was not even a little surprised.) and high-powered pumps were required to move water up and over the falls then back into the river. And there was the problem. The pumps weren’t going to be ready for the big opening ceremony tomorrow, thus the clever fire truck option. Firefighters with high-pressure hoses would be situated at the top the falls, ready to shoot water over the edge so, as they say, the show could go on. Clever.

  I also managed to discover that the big falls dedication was part of the city’s sesquicentennial celebration, meaning they were having a big party because the town has been in existence for a really long time. More specifically, it had been 125 years since the first luckless travelers’ mule died and they got stranded here for life--or so one might suspect. I wisely kept my ugly thoughts to myself as Lucille does not find my little asides humorous, and in fact gets rather testy when I say anything the least little bit untoward about her revered hometowns--yes, she claims them both.

  Of course, this is home to me, too, and I was embarrassed to admit that in my eighteen years of growing up here, never once had I wondered if Redwater Falls actually had a falls. I also never wondered if Mineral Wells had any wells, if you could really "see more" in Seymour, or if Holliday was like a...well, you get the idea.

  "So, is this an old falls they’re making bigger, or a new falls they added just to go with the name?"

  "Well, Jolene," Mother said, rather snotty-like, tipping up her aquiline nose for emphasis. "I’m certain there was a falls around here when Redwater was first settled, but where it was or was not located is beside the point. What’s important is that we’ve got one now and everybody in the whole world will know where it is."

  Indeed. No doubt travel agents worldwide were fast at work setting up week-long tours at this very moment. I smiled. "That sounds great."

  She did not return my smile, just pointed the remote at the TV and clicked it off. "The new falls is built right off the main highway so as to be a showpiece for those coming into town from the north. It’s really quite nice, of national landmark quality. I can’t wait for you to see it."

  See it? Why would I want to see it? My stomach gurgled, accompanied by an all-too-familiar queasy feeling. That crash course in self-preservation back in July taught me a healthy respect for my internal early warning system and I intended to pay attention. "I’ll see the falls one of these days, Mother. I’m sure it’s very nice, but I’ll just wait until the big crowds die down, you know I just hate crowds."

  Lucille stood and patted her fluffed but sturdy pinkish hair. Since I’d last seen her, she’d done a little tweaking to the color of her trademark bouffant and I didn’t much like it, not that I was stupid enough to say so.

  She gave me a sly glance. "I rather expected you’d want to go to the celebration tomorrow. All of your old friends will be there."

  Uh huh, and that was another problem. There was only one old friend I cared anything at all about seeing, and she very well knew which one that was.

  "Jerry Don Parker’s going to be there," she said, right on cue.

  I’d seen it coming, but the statement still hit me like a punch to the gut. If the truth be told--and I’d darn well prefer it wasn’t--I had been looking forward to getting down here so I could see Jerry again.

  Obviously, she knew that and was now using it to get me to do what she wanted. I could turn my back on a 125-year historic event and the unveiling of a brand-new fake waterfall, but I couldn’t turn my back on my old high school sweetheart--or so she thought.

  "Sure, Jerry will probably be there, along with ninety-nine thousand other people," I said, putting a little bravado and swagger in my voice. "I’m also sure he’ll have his kids with him."

  Jerry’s childre
n were eight and eleven, good-looking, polite and all around well-behaved. And I didn’t want to deal with them.

  You see, I’ve already raised my brood. Yes, I mean raised, like on a farm, in a barn, with the pigs, and so on. Jerry’s children, however, are being reared by his sweet ex-wife Amy. He has a good ten years left on his parental sentence, whereas my debts are almost paid off. My little darlings are exactly where kids should be--living in another state with others of their kind.

  Okay, I’m kidding. I love my children dearly. We three weathered some tough times together and have moved to the stage where we’re almost friends. Matt and Sarah are great people. Both are honor students at college and I’m very proud of them. They’re proud of me too, particularly when they need money.

  "Hey, how about my kids, Mother? You haven’t asked about them," I said, deftly steering the conversation away from Jerry. "You probably don’t know it, but this semester at college has been tough."

  Lucille sighed dramatically. "I just talked to them both this morning, Jolene. My little angels are doing just wonderfully and you very well know it."

  Yes, I knew it. I knew a lot of things, like the fact that Lucille called her grandchildren often, which was just peachy, but what kind of peeved me was that they called her just as frequently. Weren’t eighteen and twenty year-olds supposed to be preoccupied with themselves and never call unless they wanted something? Sort of seemed to work that way with me.

  I didn’t much like where that train of thought was headed so I stood up, ready to retreat to my old bedroom.

  "You know," Lucille said, lilting her voice to snag my attention. "Merline’s cousin over in Bowman City said it’s just a crime the way women are throwing themselves at that Jerry Don Parker these days."