by Anne Hagan
I changed the subject back. “Is there anything odd Brian, that you can remember about that day?”
“No. Aside from the obvious, I mean.”
“No person that just didn’t fit, maybe?”
“No, but then, like I said, I hardly knew several of the people that were there that day and some I didn’t know at all...at least not back then.”
“Do you know anything about the poker games you dad and some of the men that were there used to play?”
“Only what I’ve heard about Mathis probably cheating but, to me, it was all hearsay. Mom wouldn’t let them play poker in her house so I never even saw a game.”
I wondered about that...about how Faye knew all the names of the players if they never played at the Laffertys. I decided to let that slide with Brian and maybe pick Faye’s brain a little more later. Instead I asked him, “Did your father play often?”
“Most of the time they played, I think. He called it his time to ‘blow off steam’. It was a regular game but not every week...at least, I don’t think so.” He pulled an apple out of his lunch box and offered it to me.
I waved it off and asked instead, “Did your mom and dad argue about him losing money playing cards?”
“Not to my knowledge. But then, they didn’t argue much at all, at least not in front of us.” He bit the apple and chewed that a little more slowly than he’d devoured the sandwich and banana.
“Did any of the other Lafferty men play?”
“I’m not really sure but I think dads brother Owen did, from time to time,” he said, confirming what Faye had already told me.
I got the impression Brian knew a little more than he was letting on but he became evasive when I pushed him to try and remember any other names. After that I took a different tack.
“Honestly, I never heard mention of Owen by you or Faye or any of the family before I started looking into this.” I played dumb. “Is he still around? Faye was sort of tight lipped about him.”
Brian shook his head no. “Not as far as I know. I didn’t much care for the man or his boys back in the ‘70s. They were the type of people – him and his family – that didn’t have any more than anybody else to call their own but they always acted like they were better than everybody.”
“I see.” I waited a beat while I thought about whether I should mention going to see Eunice. Finally, I threw caution to the wind.
“One last thing and then I’ll let you get back to work; I went up to see your mom, yesterday...we did I should say. Hannah and the baby went too.”
“She loves babies.”
“Yes, she most certainly does. I admit, I tried to talk to her about all of this. She didn’t seem to really grasp it but she kept mentioning ‘carving’ while we were there. Does that ring any bells for you?”
“No,” he answered with no hesitation. Holding a half eaten apple, he spread his hands. “You probably wasted your time with her. She’s borderline senile these days and she just babbles mostly.”
He seemed genuinely sad about her condition. With that, I wrote Hannah’s dream off as just that; a dream.
Chapter 9
Without trying to track down Owen Lafferty, I figured I’d tapped out on the knowledge I could gain talking to the family members who were present the day Mathis was murdered and, other than a few names I’d gleaned from Faye and a bit of a time line from Brian, I didn’t have much.
Horace Bailey still lived in town. He didn’t know me but I knew him to see him. I figured if he’d talk to me, he might have a little different perspective to offer up, especially where it came to Tanner Mathis.
When I got back into town, I turned off the state route onto the street he lived on. I didn’t have any hoops to go through to find him. He was in his front yard, digging in flower beds, planting what I assumed to be tulip bulbs in advance of winter.
Bailey was sitting on a low stool when I approached him, a walking cane positioned close by. He started to rise when he spotted me but I waved him back down.
“Mr. Bailey?”
“Something I can help you with?”
“I’m Dana...Rossi, sir.” I just got the inkling that saying Dana ‘Crane’ would stir up more trouble than it was worth. I was right.
“I know who you are. You’re that one that runs with Melissa.”
I nodded. “Er, yes.”
“Rossi, you said?”
“It’s actually Rossi-Crane.”
“Changed your name, did you?” He stared at me.
“Yes.” I suppressed a shudder. “We’re, ah, married.”
Bailey seemed to consider that for a minute. “One of my grandson’s is gay. Says he’s married too.” He shook his head. “I just don’t get the whole idea of it but, I don’t imagine you’ve come here to debate me on it?”
Shrugging one shoulder half way, I said, “No sir. I actually wanted to talk to you about oil.”
“Oil?”
“I hear it told you were in the oil drilling business around here, once upon a time.” I smiled as brightly as I could manage.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Right, understood. It’s part of the local history and I’m working on a book that uses part of that history.”
“Like a novel?”
“Yes, more or less.”
He rubbed his hands together briskly to remove some of the dirt from them and then rubbed at the back of his head with one. “I suppose I could answer some of your questions but I really do need to get these bulbs in if you don’t mind talking out here while I work on them.”
“No, not at all. As a matter of fact, if you like, I can help.”
“Aren’t you going to write what we talk about down? Oh wait, you probably have one of them fancy recording things, haven’t you?”
He’d caught me unprepared already. “Uh no,” I said, thinking fast, “I’ve already talked to a few people and I’ve done some research, of course. I’m looking for a little different perspective, is all.”
He grinned slightly then and bobbed his head. “You probably talked to those Quinn’s or, if they would even give you the time of day, the Brietlands. They make all their money in oil ‘round here and they go back a way but it’s a lot different from my view.”
I knelt down beside his stool and picked up the trowel he’d been using. “I’m counting on that. Faye told me a little too but she only knows where her father told her. She’s the one that said I should talk to you, that you’d know a lot more,” I fibbed.
When he didn’t respond right away, I changed the subject back to the tulips. “First, how about you tell me where you want the holes dug and how deep and we’ll go from there?”
“You’ve never done this before?”
“My mom always took care of this sort of stuff when I was growing up.”
He rocked forward and back in his seat a little bit. “My wife did too, God rest her soul. I just keep up with it now because I don’t think the place looks right without them.”
He cleared his throat and pointed at a little mound of dirt right out in front of him. “That’s the last one I did. There’s two rows, a bit staggered, maybe a foot apart, or so. You dig down deep enough to completely cover the bulb you’re putting in plus a couple of inches to keep the cats from being able to dig them up.”
I picked up a bulb, measured it with my eyes and started digging.
“So, what do you want to know from me?”
“How about you tell me how you came to be in the oil business and what you did, for starters.”
“I wasn’t born into it, you understand. My pa was a farmer and my granddad before him. Back in the late ‘50s, when everyone started talking about mineral rights and drilling on their land, Granddad found oil on his. It sort of became a sideline family business...a second bit of income, I guess you could say. He started rolling the money into buying land and putting in new wells. We had to go around and service them, and pump and such.
“And so you got into
it back then,” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder at him. By my reckoning, he had to be in his mid to late seventies.
“Sort of. It was that or farming. Pa was more interested in the farming and I had a brother who’s long gone now who was too. I figured working the wells, I could at least get out and about some. I didn’t take to the work right away but I liked not being under a cow all morning milking or sitting in a tractor for hours on end.”
“So, pardon my nosiness, did you inherit it all when your grandfather passed on, then?” He was quiet for a minute. I didn’t look at him but, instead, concentrated on digging and planting.
“I was so young when we started. Still a teenager and quit school to boot. You didn’t need no diploma to farm or to pump wells. I was 4F for Vietnam so after a few years of it, it kinda sealed my fate.”
“How’s that?”
“Granddad’s stuff would run for a bit then tap out and we’d be on to the next. It wasn’t real steady. Since I didn’t finish my schooling and the Army didn’t want me, it was either back to the farm in the in-between times or pick up work, working for other drillers like the Quinn’s and the Pugh’s.”
Something wasn’t ringing right for me. I had to jump ahead and get to the real reason why I was there. “Faye said you partnered with her dad on some ventures...”
He stopped me right there. “And you want to know where that money came from?”
I looked back around at him and nodded.
“I was only one of the partners and not the one that put up the most, most of the time, you understand. That was Drew. He was always good with money; he just didn’t make enough working for the drillers himself and paying his own bills to front all the money himself.”
It wasn’t till the late ‘60s that I could do much. I finally settled down and got married back in ’66. First time I was married, anyway. She got pregnant and died during childbirth in ’January of 68. The baby didn’t make it either.”
“How horrible! I’m so sorry,” I said as I shuddered.
“It was a long time ago. Anyway, her daddy had a little bit of life insurance for her. He paid to bury them both then gave the rest of the money to me. It wasn’t much, you understand, but it was a start and I tried to make the best of it like her daddy asked me to, then in ’70 my Granddad died. He left dad, me and my brother each some land, some livestock and a couple of wells apiece.”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t have no interest in the land and such. I traded off with those two for their wells. Then I, uh, sold them all while they were still producing something to get myself more of a stake.”
I stopped digging and turned around to face him. “You were looking for the big score?”
“Yeah.”
“Why go in with Drew and...and, whoever, then?”
“Buying land or rights can get expensive. Drilling’s expensive. ‘Didn’t realize all of that when Granddad was footing the bill.” He looked away and then back as he shifted on his stool. “Besides, it’s a risky business. If you weren’t wealthy, you always had partners.” He drew in a deep breath, “And, I’m not too proud of it but, I was a bit of a carouser after losing my wife. I went back to my old ways...drinking and cards and...Anyway, I blew some of my stake money too.”
As I reached for another bulb, I asked him, “So did you partner with Drew a lot?”
“A few times. Him and some others.”
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ I thought. “Faye said her uncle Owen was in on some of it.”
“Yeah, him, sometimes. Not all the times we tried for a score.”
I tapped the bulb lightly against my palm and asked, “How many times did you try?”
“With Drew? Six, maybe seven.” He shook his head.
“No hits?”
“Couple little ones that amounted to maybe a couple of paychecks...one we thought was going to be big but it...it didn’t work out.”
“That the one she said there were four or five of you in on...her dad, you, Owen...”
He bit. Nodding, he said, “Chuck Knox and another guy.”
“Oh, I think I know...weird name.” I paused. “Ugh, I can’t quite remember who Faye said but it reminded me of leather, and she said he died,” I said, turning the knife a little.
He bit again. “Tanner Mathis.”
“Yes, thank you. So five of you that time?”
“We thought we had a real sure thing. The rights cost the moon...for that time, anyway.”
“What happened with that one?”
“It struck huge and pumped like crazy for maybe a month then it slowed down to almost nothing, then...” He shrugged. “It happens.”
“Was that the last well?”
He squirmed on the stool then. “It, uh, it was for me. I was about tapped out of money.”
“What about the other four? When did that Tanner guy die?”
“Owen was done then.”
“And Drew, Tanner and, uh Chuck?”
Instead of answering that question, he continued, “Owen stopped coming around then too.” He wouldn’t look me in the eye.
I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “So, what happened to Tanner?”
“He was murdered...I’d have thought Faye would have told you that.”
“Oh, I see. Wow! Murdered why? By whom?”
Bailey didn’t hesitate. “Who? Your guess is as good as mine. Why? Probably because he cheated at cards one too many times and someone had had it with him.” He said it in a monotone, no venom in his voice.
“Why would Faye have told me about it?”
He rubbed at the back of his head like he had before as he spoke. “It happened at her...at Drew’s house...at her parents house.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Someone stabbed him during Thanksgiving dinner.”
That wasn’t quite how I’d heard it but I tried to keep my face neutral.
“Actually, in the bathroom, and, like I said, nobody knows who did it.”
“Whoa.” I paused for effect then asked, “So you were there?”
“Yeah.”
“But at their house...Do you think any of the Laffertys’ had it in for him?”
He seemed to think about that for several long seconds. I turned away then, back to my digging trying to make him feel a little more at ease.
When he finally spoke again he said, “It was more than 40 years ago, you understand? Back then, they all did except for maybe Drew. I don’t rightly think he could have done it...maybe...but I don’t think so. He was a real gentle sort, most of the time. Every once in a while, he’d blow his stack.”
“Oh, how so?”
He shook his head no. “I won’t speak ill of the dead.”
That pronouncement only seemed to apply to Drew Lafferty though and not to Tanner Mathis as Bailey continued. “The rest of us could have throttled him at any time...lots of people could have,” he continued.
“For cheating at cards?” I played dumb.
“We, uh, had a tradition of playing a pretty high stakes poker game once a month on the Friday night after the monthly oil production checks hit town. Back in the bad old days, you got paid right at the refinery when you tankered the crude in but then the government came in and regulated everything and you started getting a check in the mail every month for all of your well production.”
“The well owners would all head into Zanesville and cash their monthly checks, maybe take the wife shopping or out to eat. They’d come back and pay their partners and all the hands too. The next Friday night after the checks came was their night though, once a month. The bars and pool halls would be busy in all the little towns and villages around here and, uh...we’ll call it illicit, high stakes poker could be found in most back rooms, if you had the right connections.”
“Right here in the village, a group of us guys got up our own game. We moved it round and ‘round the town from house to house, trying to stay ahead of the law. There was a deputy down here back in th
e day trying to make a name for himself, bucking for a crack at running for Sheriff, I’ve always thought. His name, if I recall it correctly, was Alex Ackerman. He found out about the poker and started nosing around a few months before our well...the last well, hit.”
“Mathis always played, every time we played. He wasn’t any better than any of the rest of us money wise, but he won a lot. We all just knew he was cheatin’ we just couldn’t figure out how. Guys were going home, hat in hand, having to tell the wife how much they lost and some of em’ lost big.”
“How big?”
“$100, maybe $200 dollars.”
My mother ran that much through a slot machine in an hour. The look on my face must have told him I didn’t think much of losing those amounts.
Chapter 10
“You gotta understand,” he told her, “In ’72, you felt rich if you were making $10,000, $12,000 a year. ‘Round here, families lived on $300, maybe $500 a month and ate what they could grow or raise. These days, kids make that much working part time, flippin’ burgers in a fast food joint so, in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, $100 was a lot of money. $200 paid your mortgage and the note on your truck.”
“But they were pumping what, 200-300 barrels a day, the guys who hit around here, right?”
“Who told you that? Maybe now, with all that new-fangled fracking equipment, but not back then. Then, coming through all the shale ‘round here, you were lucky to get 70-80 barrels. Further into the region...say over in Pennsylvania, they were probably pulling in the 2-300’s back then.”
“Why, the stuff was only selling for three something a barrel. Eighty barrels a day at that price sounds good on the front end but by the time you paid your transporter, your taxes, fees, repairs...all that nonsense...you were doing better than average but you wasn’t no Rockefeller.”
“So do you think someone figured out how he was cheating at your games or maybe got tired of getting swindled and killed him?”
