by Paula Boyd
"Yep," Leroy said, warming to his topic. "Got a call over at the office from his old man about an hour ago. Said he was worried about his boy, hadn’t seen or heard from him in days."
That seemed odd since Russell sure hadn’t been trying to hide himself yesterday at the falls. In fact, I got the idea he’d have been perfectly content to stand right beside me, chattering like a chipmunk for the entire ceremony. So, what was going on?
Jerry shot me a quick look to confirm that I’d seen Russell. I nodded and had my mouth open to say so, but Leroy wasn’t ready to yield the floor.
"Yeah, I don’t think the old man believes Russell’s really gone clean. Can’t blame him. I had to arrest Russell three times myself. Sure don’t like doing that, locking up an old friend. He sure got himself into trouble. That last time he was in with some bad dudes. Just a wonder he didn’t get himself killed."
Jerry cleared his throat to postpone Leroy’s wistful recollections. "Do we have anything specific to indicate that he’s not just out fishing or sleeping over at a girlfriend’s?"
Leroy shrugged. "Hard to say. His car’s still there at the pipe yard and the front door to the trailer’s unlocked. Radio’s playing in the bathroom and there’s a half can of beer by the sink. Don’t really see that it means nothing one way or the other, but guess it could."
A fine assessment of the situation, fine indeed. Further fine was the fact that Russell Clements was a potential victim just as I was. "You don’t have a deputy babysitting him, like you do me?" I asked.
Jerry glanced my way, but it was Leroy who piped up with a reply. "I’ll have you know that me and the Redwater po-lice have been watching his place ever since those yearbook pages were pried out of Calvin Holt’s dead hands." He shifted around in the booth as much as his belly would allow. He also tried to puff out his chest, but there wasn’t much room. "We know what we’re doing, Jolene. We ain’t idiots like you always think."
I must admit that I was a little taken aback with Leroy’s quick assumption that I was making fun of the police work on the case. I am not above such things, of course, but the fact that he processed what I said, came to a conclusion and verbalized it was pretty darned amazing. You see, Leroy Harper is not a county deputy because he passed all the tests with flying colors. He wears a badge because his uncle, Calhoon Fletcher, happens to be a highly influential county commissioner in these parts and considers nepotism a religious obligation.
"Actually, Leroy," I said evenly, keeping my smart remarks to myself, "I was really just curious, and maybe a little worried about Russell."
"Oh," Leroy said, slightly disappointed. "Well, I don’t like it when you try to make me look dumb." He paused for a minute, considering his words. "I was hoping you wouldn’t do that anymore."
Yes, well, we could hope. I was thinking of just the right way to tell him that he didn’t need my help to look dumb when Jerry jumped in and spoiled my fun.
"Russell’s been missing since yesterday afternoon," he said, giving me a "be nice to Leroy" look. "We haven’t been able to track him down yet, but we’re working on it."
"After the falls thing?" I asked. Jerry nodded so I took the next logical step. "Did anyone question Russell after Calvin was found? I know there wasn’t a specific reason to other than the pages, I just wondered."
"I’ll double check with Rick, but no, I don’t remember seeing any record of where they talked to Russell."
"Does Mr. Clements know about the yearbook pages?"
Leroy shrugged his hulking shoulders. "I didn’t tell him and he didn’t say, but I suppose he read the newspaper just like everybody else."
"Oh, my, yes, the news article, Kimberlee Fletcher style." Leroy’s hackles went on red alert yet again, but I ignored him and said to Jerry, "Did you see what she wrote about me this time? Impressive indeed. The girl should try writing fiction. No wait, that generally needs to makes sense too."
"Now, just a damn minute," Leroy’s voice boomed.
"Leroy," Jerry said, jumping in before things went further downhill. "Go on back out to the Clements’ pipe yard and drive over to the main house. Talk to Mr. Clements and get all the details you can, specifically when he last saw Russell, time of day, where he was heading, what he was wearing, what frame of mind he seemed in. Make a note of his regular activities, work schedule, places he hangs out, friends he might be with, that type of thing. After you’ve tracked down that information, give me a call on the radio and we’ll meet and go over it."
Leroy heaved himself up out of the booth. "Yes, sir," he said, seeming rather proud to have an official task, particularly one that was so nicely laid out for him. He gave me a quick "see-how-important-I-am" look. "I’ll get right on it, boss."
I barely had time for a sigh of relief at Leroy’s departure, when I noticed a man in a cowboy hat moseying into the restaurant. By the time I had figured out who the man was, Jerry had too and was on his way over to the counter. Being a friendly sort myself, I followed along to say hello--and perhaps find out why an old cowboy who’d roped a body in Redwater yesterday was visiting the Kickapoo DQ today.
Cowboy was dressed pretty much the same as before, jeans, western shirt--both clean and pressed--and a gray cowboy hat that was neither of those things. A thick thatch of gray-white hair hung down from beneath the hat. I’d seen him expertly rope a bobbing dead body in the river without even thinking about it, yet there was something about him that still pulled up just shy of fully authentic.
With leathered workingman’s hands, Cowboy counted out change for the cup of coffee steaming on the counter in front of him. It had nothing to do with my cowboy verification criteria, but I could never see how anybody could drink scalding coffee when it was a hundred-plus degrees outside. I drink warm things to warm up, cold things to cool down. I’m funny that way, I guess.
"Pardon me," Jerry said, stepping up beside the cowboy. "I never had a chance to thank you for your assistance yesterday. I’m Jerry Parker, Bowman County Sheriff."
Cowboy turned and they shook hands, but he didn’t smile, didn’t frown, just gave a quick nod and stood there looking at Jerry. Then at me. "Glad to be of service, Sheriff. Ma’am."
He hadn’t been of service to me, thank you very much. I couldn’t find an obvious reason why the guy rubbed me the wrong way, but he definitely did--and it slammed me into defensive mode instantly.
"You live around here?" Jerry asked casually.
"Used to."
"Still have family in these parts?"
"No."
Obviously, Cowboy was not going to volunteer any information on his own. Jolene to the rescue. "So you just came to town for the big celebration?"
"No."
This was about as productive as watching grass grow, but I gave it another shot. "Just drove in to see the new falls?"
He stared at me, a long eerie stare that made me want to break eye contact and run far, far away.
"I was sleeping in the back of the truck when you took my rope."
Okay, enough. Unassuming, wily detective type I am not. I had no seemingly dumb questions that would elicit reams of useful information, and since Jerry would likely frown on my shaking the old guy until his dentures rattled, I tried the straightforward approach. "So, who are you and why were you at the falls?"
Predictably, Jerry frowned, but he didn’t offer any apologies. He wanted to know the answers to my questions just as much as I did.
"Name’s Red," Cowboy said, then took a sip of coffee. "Up from Abilene."
"On the way to..." I prompted.
We stood there in long silence, waiting for him to elaborate. "I’m meeting a friend."
Oh, for crying out loud, if I’d had a badge I’d have arrested the man for being deliberately obtuse. He was obviously hiding something and I wanted to know what, not to mention why. Jerry must have noticed my fuse shortening because he stepped forward a little and said, "Did the Redwater Falls officers talk with you yesterday?"
Red nodded towa
rd me. "She’s the only one I talked to. Needed my rope back."
Yes, well, we were all real clear on the rope thing by now, but that was about all we were clear on. He wasn’t going to admit why he was in town or why he was sleeping in his truck at the falls ceremony. But by golly we knew he had a thing for his rope.
Speaking of which, where did he go after he got it back? Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t recall seeing him again. If he was in such a hurry to leave, why had he come there in the first place? And even more curious, why was he still hanging around, in Kickapoo, no less?
Jerry took out a business card and wrote on the back, then handed it to Red the Cowboy. "Stop by the police department in Redwater. Ask for Detective Richard Rankin. They need to talk to you right away. I can arrange a ride if you need it."
"No. I’ll head over there in a little while. Got a few stops to make around here first."
"So," I said, seeing my proverbial window of opportunity about to shuffle out the door. "Who are you going to see?" Yes, it was nosy and pushy and inappropriate, but it was also my last chance. "I might know them."
He looked me square in the eye. "You probably do." He paused, still staring at me. "Everybody knows everybody around here." Then, he turned on his heel and ambled out the front door.
As he pulled away in his beater truck, I said, "He was ready to crack. You should have let me rough him up a little."
Jerry smiled and motioned back toward our booth. "Maybe next time."
We slid back into our seats and sipped on our drinks for a few seconds, both still trying to make some kind of sense out of Cowboy Red. Unsurprisingly, I spoke first. "You really think his name is Red?"
"I’m thinking a lot of things right now, but I’ll have a full name of whoever owns that truck after I run the license plates."
I’d seen the truck parked in front of the glass door and had memorized the plate number myself just in case. I wasn’t going to admit that to Mr. Sheriff since he might think I was a little too interested in doing his job for him, having carried most of the non-conversation with the old cowboy guy.
Jerry held up his wrist, tapped the face of his watch and slid out of the booth. "Your twenty minutes was up about an hour ago."
It had to end sooner or later, I supposed, but I was not excited about returning to the designated detention center and even less so about parting company with Jerry. I had really enjoyed just being with him--before Leroy and Cowboy interfered.
I took a long sip of tea and glanced over at the queen and her court. My mother would not be thrilled that the party was over, but I didn’t see why that had to be my personal problem. I smiled up at Jerry who was standing by the table waiting. "Okay, you’ve been a good sport. I guess you better tell Lucille it’s time to go while I pay the tab."
He did not reward me with a return smile, just bent his head and stared at the floor, apparently fascinated by the mottled brown indoor-outdoor carpeting. He was most likely thinking he’d rather face down armed terrorists than tell my mother her party was over. I felt the same way, which was why I scooted from the booth and hurried up to the counter before he could catch me.
Clerk Shanna and her ponytail were flipping around over by the drive-through window, but after she handed out an armload of drinks she headed back toward me. "I’ve got your ticket all figured up," she said. She pulled a wad of papers from her pocket, but instead of shuffling through them for my ticket, she turned the whole batch toward me. Apparently the inch-thick stack was my "ticket." "Everybody sure seemed to have a good time," she said, real sweet-like.
"Oh, yeah, they sure did." I smiled, a teeth-grinding, muscle-twitching kind of smile. It was either that or cry. Not many people can spend $148.96 on ice cream.
I handed her a hundred and a fifty. She handed me back a one and four pennies then set four large to-go sacks on the table. The heartening smell of chicken baskets wafted up through the white bags and I could just see those little golden strips, the tub of cream gravy, big slices of Texas toast, and pile of crispy salt-covered fries.
I smiled in earnest this time. Mother had ordered me some real food! I had skipped the cake and frozen treats in favor of private time with Jerry, so I was a little on the hungry side and the fried chicken strips smelled heavenly. Say what you will about anything else around here, but the chicken baskets are, as my daddy always said, "fine eating."
"Your iced teas are in this bag," Shanna said, pointing to one of the sacks. "And I put in an extra cup of ice for you just like Miz Jackson asked."
Oh, wow, extra ice, too! To take with me! I smiled even wider and felt a little catch in my throat. "She’s something, isn’t she?"
Clerk Shanna’s ponytail bobbed cautiously. "She sure is."
Enough said. I took another twenty and a ten from my billfold then slid them across the counter to her. "Thanks for everything. I’m afraid there’s going to be a pretty big mess back there. I hope this will take care of it."
"Oh, gosh, you don’t have to do that, but yeah, that’d be great. My mom’s not real happy about me working here, but this’ll show her." She slipped the money in her pocket. "Don’t you worry about a thing."
I hate it when people tell me not to worry as it generally means I should. Something about the verbalization of that phrase causes all kinds of cosmic reactions for me and they are never the positive variety. But I’d known it was coming anyway. Even before the clerk had said the magic words, I’d already sensed more bad things in the works. The sense of impending doom is common for me when I’m here, so I’ve learned to ignore that level of angst. This was different. And I couldn’t pass off the gurgling in my stomach as just lust for chicken either. Something bad was going to happen. I could feel it.
Jerry held the door for me as I carried the sacks out into the thick hot air--not nearly as hot as July, but darned hot enough.
Deputy Max was behind us, trying to herd Mother out the door with only limited success.
I stopped in front of Jerry’s truck, still standing in the shade of the building, and watched the traffic on the highway for a minute. "I hope Leroy finds Russell."
Jerry pulled his keys from his pocket and jangled them. "Me, too, but I bet you have a more specific reason."
I shook my head. "No." Just a feeling. "He was gone from his house--and his father was worried about him--before I saw him at the falls. That doesn’t make sense."
"Maybe when Leroy gets back from talking to Mr. Clements, we’ll have more answers about that."
Somehow I doubted it.
Chapter 11
Sheriff Parker called in Cowboy Red’s license plate number from Mother’s kitchen phone and found out pretty quickly that the truck was registered to a Reddan White with a rural route address in Abilene. Red White. And blue? I still had to wonder if he’d made it up.
Jerry and I sat at the kitchen table while Mother supposedly rested in her room. I didn’t for a second think she was napping. More likely she was making a list of the people who hadn’t shown up at her party and would forever pay for the oversight. Deputy Max had been relegated to outside watchdog, likely a punishment of sorts for his part in the supermarket caper.
Whatever the reasons we were alone, I was grateful for a few more private moments with Jerry. I would have much preferred to be discussing where we were going for dinner rather than the details of an ongoing murder investigation, but Cowboy’s reappearance today raised some warning flags that I was trying hard to define.
"I think I know what it is about Red White that bothers me," I said. "Aside from his name, that is."
Jerry leaned back in the chair and managed to appear slightly interested. "And what would that be?"
"Well, for one, he doesn’t talk like a cowboy."
That got a little chuckle out of him. "Okay, Jolene, just what do cowboys talk like, and why doesn’t Red measure up?"
I couldn’t decide if he was being serious or sarcastic so I decided to play it straight. "Well, he doesn’t say much
and he speaks in very short sentences. Okay, that’s not really it either. Maybe it’s more the way he said things. Not your regular good ol’ boy talk."
Jerry raised an eyebrow.
I rubbed my hands across my face. "Okay, I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something about him that’s not right. He’s just not completely who he seems to be. I’d bet on it."
"I’ll agree with that, but I think it’s more what he didn’t say than what he did. We know there’s something he’s not telling us."
"Several somethings, all of them suspicious, more so because he won’t answer direct questions."
Jerry nodded. "You may have picked his truck at random for the rope, but he was at the park for a reason, and it wasn’t to see the grand opening of the falls."
"Exactly. And why did he slip away yesterday and then show up today, in Kickapoo where we were? Coincidence or planned?"
"That’s what we need to find out, Jolene. Rick’s got the information on him now, we’ll see what turns up."
"I don’t guess you could have just hauled him into Redwater for a little questioning." As soon as the words slipped out, I realized what it sounded like. "Hey, I’m not second-guessing what you did, or saying you should have done something differently, I’m just curious."
"Sure, I could have forced him to go to Redwater, but I didn’t see that it would help much. This way, I gave him a choice. I told him the detectives wanted to get his statement on what he remembered from the incident. Nothing fussy, just a simple statement. If he shows, we’ll get answers. If he doesn’t, it might be because he’s hiding something."
"In the meantime, he could leave town."
"He could," Jerry said, shrugging. "But if he was going to leave, why isn’t he already gone?"
"He’s probably hanging around just to toy with us. Don’t killers do that sometimes, stand on the sidelines and pretend to be helpful witnesses?"
Jerry rubbed his chin, probably to hide a chuckle, or so it appeared. "You think Red White’s our killer?"
