by Alice Duncan
I vaguely recalled the two of us voicing similar sentiments the prior month when a couple of murders had taken place. Then again, Rosedale had been violent since its inception. “Face it, Myrtle, we might live in a backwater, but it’s got a bloody history.”
She drew herself up a bit. “Well, I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. Heck, even Mr. Chaves, after whom our county is named, was murdered while he was dining with friends. And don’t forget Pat Garrett. We’re still kind of the Wild West in some ways.”
Myrtle sagged back into her slouch. “I guess so, but I don’t like to think about it. Anyhow, we’re more civilized now than we were then. That was back in the last century, for heaven’s sake.”
“If you say so. Anyhow, Pat Garrett was killed in nineteen-oh-eight.” I really wanted to go back to those papers, but I couldn’t very well tell Myrtle about them. She’d have been shocked and appalled that I’d sneaked into someone’s house and gone through their private belongings. Heck, my actions appalled me, too, but they’d been initiated out of frustration and righteous thinking, so I believed them to be justified. More or less. I know Phil wouldn’t agree.
“Can you take a break?” asked Myrtle. “Or do you have to stay in the store.”
“Ma’s in the kitchen preserving squash right now, and I don’t know where Pa is. Jack’s at school, thank God, but I guess I have to stay here for a while yet. Probably Ma will come out and relieve me for lunch unless Pa comes back before then. Want a pickle?” I waved my half-eaten dill at her.
“No, thanks.” She sighed. “Well, I wish you had more time. I’d like to walk to the library or take a picnic lunch to the river or something, but I guess you’re too busy.”
“I’m sorry, Myrtle. I’d like to do that, too. Especially the picnic lunch thing.” I glanced out the window. “Well, maybe not today. It’s cold and windy out there.”
She sighed again. “I guess so. I’m just sick of the weather and the . . . I don’t know. All the brown, I guess.”
“Maybe we should take a trip to Lincoln one of these days.”
“It’ll have to be come springtime. Pretty soon you won’t be able to ford the rivers for the ice, and the roads will be covered in snow.”
I added a sigh of my own to the atmosphere. “You’re right, of course. I’d really like to visit George in Alhambra one day. I hear California is green all year long.”
“Yes. That’s what it says in all the magazines.”
We stood there together, hunched over the counter, both of us thinking about how nice it would be to visit California, when another customer walked in. I released yet another sigh. “Gotta go back to work, Myrtle. Thanks for stopping by for a chat.”
“We didn’t chat much,” said she as she headed for the door. “Maybe we can go to the flickers one of these days.”
“Good idea. Phil and I saw that Harold Lloyd picture last week. It was fun. If Sonny comes to town, maybe we can all go together.”
She seemed a little brighter after I brought up Sonny Clyde’s name. She even blushed a bit when she said, “He’s coming to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“That should be fun.”
And then I pasted on a smile and greeted the newcomer. “Good morning, Mrs. Jenner. What can we help you with today?”
Darned if the store didn’t remain busy until lunchtime, when Ma, looking flushed and drippy, came in to relieve me of my duties. Poor Ma. She worked so hard.
“I made a sandwich for you, Annabelle. It’s in the kitchen with an apple, and there’s some pie for dessert.”
“Thanks, Ma. I appreciate you making my lunch. You shouldn’t have. You work too hard.”
“If the garden didn’t produce so well, I wouldn’t have to,” she said, and laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t feed it so much chicken pooh.”
I laughed too, grabbed my books and the papers, and walked back to the house. As I ate my sandwich, I looked through the rest of the papers. I discovered that a whole lot of people had grievances against Mr. Calhoun. I was again surprised that he’d kept all the notes condemning him as, and I quote here, a bastard, a villain, a crook, a scoundrel, the devil, a rat and a fool. The note calling him a fool had been written in the same itsy-bitsy, tidy script as the note telling him he didn’t want to do what he was doing.
The only thing I could think of he might have done that might label him as a fool was blackmail someone who was dangerous. Who the heck in this hick town of ours was dangerous? I suppose anyone might be, if push came to shove, but it was difficult for me to imagine, say, Micah Tindall having the nerve to shoot one Calhoun man and stab the other one.
So who did that leave? The rest of the initials on the lists, I supposed. I wracked my brain—which was feeling rather feeble that day, due to lack of sleep—and thought I’d come up with names to go with most of the initials. MT was probably Micah Tindall. AC was probably Armando Contreras—although I wasn’t sure why his name was on the list if the story he told me was correct. FM was . . . Firman Meeks? Maybe. RB might be Ronald Burton, a farmer who was known to have had financial troubles in recent years. Farming was an unreliable business at best, especially in Rosedale, where you couldn’t depend on decent rainfall. DC? Who was DC? Donald Colbert? Possible. I’d heard stories about his money problems, too. He’d dropped a bundle trying to get a canal built from the Hondo River to his farm, and the canal idea hadn’t panned out because of our clay-like soil. It was possible Mr. Calhoun had lent him money under the table. And who was the either wealthy or poor GF? For the life of me, I couldn’t think of anyone in town with the initials GF, probably because I was too tired to think clearly.
Anyhow, those columns probably documented loans and payments. According to Pa, sometimes people like Mr. Calhoun would make personal loans to people whom the banks wouldn’t lend to and then charge them extortionate interest. I wouldn’t put it past the late Edgar Calhoun to have attempted to squeeze money out of his fellow citizens, evil person that he’d been.
Piffle. I still wasn’t sure about anything at all, which was moderately frustrating. However, I did know that I had to deliver to Chief Vickers these papers and the note I’d discovered among the leaves in my pocket, and the sooner I did that, the sooner all the scolding I’d get from him would be over.
Therefore, after I finished my lunch and washed my dishes and put them away—darned if I’d make more work for my mother than I had to—I went to the store, which was empty of customers. Ma sat behind the counter, her head resting in her palms, her elbows on the counter, and her eyes shut. My heart suffered a little spasm because she looked so very tired. But I still needed to see the chief.
“Do you mind if I run a quick errand, Ma? I found something in my coat pocket that I think Chief Vickers needs to see.”
She blinked a couple of times, making me think that she might have dozed off for a second, and I felt guilty for waking her up.
“What did you find in your pocket, Annabelle?”
So I showed her the note, which seemed to wake her up instantly. “Good heavens. Whatever does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I must have picked it up when Phil and I found Herschel Calhoun’s body, although I don’t remember doing so. But I was pretty upset and scared, and there were leaves and debris all over the place, so I must have stuffed everything in my pocket when Phil helped me up. I darned near fell on top of Herschel, after all, and what happened afterwards is kind of blurry in my mind.”
Shaking her head, Ma said, “I swear, Annabelle Blue, you can get into more trouble just going for a walk with your gentleman friend than anyone else I know.”
I hung my head. “I know.”
But she told me to go to the police station. “Don’t be gone long,” she said as I headed for the door, wearing the same coat in which I’d found the note.
“I won’t,” said I.
And I wasn’t.
Chapter Seventeen
“What do you me
an, you can’t tell me where you got this folder and these papers, young lady?”
Chief Vickers was very unhappy with me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Darned if I’d tell him I’d been rummaging around in the Calhoun house, who’d let me in, or that Phil had rescued me. Again.
I did tell him which men in town I thought went with which initials, but that was it.
My heart hammered like a maddened woodpecker in my chest, but I stood my ground. Both Betty Lou Jarvis and Phil Gunderson had assisted me the night before, and there was no way I’d give them away. “I just can’t, Chief. I found the note”—I pointed at said note—“in my coat pocket along with a bunch of leaves and twigs. I guess I picked them up after I tripped over Herschel’s body, although I don’t remember doing it.”
“What about the folder containing all these papers?”
I hung my head. “I’m sorry, Chief, but I can’t tell you.”
He chuffed out an irritated breath. “You don’t want to incriminate someone else, is that it?”
I kept my mouth shut, something I seldom do, but I felt a mighty obligation to Betty Lou and Phil, so I did it that day.
“Criminy, Miss Annabelle, you’re putting me on the spot here, you know.”
My head lifted at that news. “What do you mean?”
He shook the papers at me. “How the devil do you expect me to use these if it comes to a trial for murder if I don’t know where they came from? For all I know, a competent defense attorney will accuse you of forging them all.”
I felt my eyes go round. “He couldn’t! I didn’t!”
“I’m sure you didn’t, but the law’s the law, young lady, and you’re obstructing it by refusing to tell me where you got this stuff. Do you understand that?”
Did I? Oh, brother, how’d I get myself into this mess? I said, “Yes. I think so. But I still can’t tell you.”
“You’re tying my hands, Annabelle. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I guess so,” I said miserably. Then it occurred to me that if someone were actually arrested for murder based on the information contained in those papers, both Betty Lou and Phil would undoubtedly speak up for me, so I said, “If it comes to a trial, I’ll be able to tell you exactly how I came by that folder.”
The chief squinted at me. He was so annoyed, his face was brick red. “Well . . .”
“Listen, Chief Vickers. I just can’t tell you now where or how I got it, but . . . well, I’m sure I’ll be able to if the matter goes to trial. I’m . . . well, I’m really sure of it.” Heck, even if Betty Lou refused to ’fess up, Phil certainly would. He always helped me out, even when he didn’t want to. Witness the prior night’s adventure. If you could call it an adventure. It wasn’t the kind I was thinking of when I’d said I wanted an adventure or two before I got married, that’s for sure.
“Go on home, Miss Annabelle. I’ll go through these papers and think about ’em.”
“Thank you, Chief. And . . . well, I’m sorry I didn’t get the note to you sooner, but I didn’t find it in my pocket until last night.”
He nodded, a grim set to his jaw. “And then you conveniently found the folder containing the rest of the papers. I see.”
Deciding it would be better to keep mum about the folder from then on, I merely nodded. “Thanks, Chief. I’ll be at the store if you need me.” And I scrammed out of there as fast as I could.
Hurrying back to Blue’s, I passed Chewling’s Shoes and glanced in at the window to see Firman Meeks putting a shoe on Mrs. Lovelady’s foot. Hmm. Maybe after work, I’d just pop into the shoe store and ask Firman Meeks flat out if Mr. Calhoun had tried to blackmail him. He probably wouldn’t tell me, but there was no harm in asking, was there?
Ma had dozed off again by the time I reached the store, and I felt guilty about being such an awful daughter to two such wonderful people. My parents deserved better than to have a daughter who sneaked out of the house at night to do illegal things.
I stiffened my spine. They might not mind if my midnight escapades cleared their son-in-law of a charge of murder. I held that thought close to my heart as I pushed the door to the store open. Years earlier we had hung a couple of bells on the door so we could hear whenever anyone entered the store. When she heard the bells, Ma jumped a little on the stool and lifted her head. The little potbellied stove on one side of the store was giving out enough heat to keep the outside chill from freezing those of us who worked in the store, although Ma had her sweater on.
“I think you ought to go back home and take a nap, Ma. You look exhausted.”
She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “I am exhausted. It’s from working in all that heat in the kitchen. But I got the squash put up at last.”
“I’m glad. You work too hard.”
“It’s probably silly to preserve all that food, but I still think it might help out some family during the winter months. These past couple of years have been quite hard on a lot of folks.”
I thought about the initials heading those columns Mr. Calhoun had written down, and a surge of hatred toward the dead man flared in my chest. Unchristian, I know, but there you go. I’m no saint, unlike my mother. I decided to tell her so. “You’re a saint, Ma.”
She laughed as she slid off the stool. “Thanks, Annabelle. You only wish your mother was a saint.”
“But you are.”
She gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “If you say so, dear. I hope you don’t mind if I leave you in the store again. I’m going to fix a pork roast for dinner and have to get it started.”
“I love pork roast.”
“Me, too. And so does your father.”
I noticed she didn’t mention whether or not Jack liked pork roast, leading me to believe she didn’t much care what her youngest liked or didn’t like. Jack was in such disfavor with our parents, it made me glad. And yes, I know that was small-minded, but you don’t know Jack. Anyhow, she left me alone in the store and went back home to work some more. I don’t know how she did everything she did and remained on her feet at the end of the day.
The rest of the afternoon was almost as busy as the beginning of the day had been. I was surprised when, along about three-thirty, Phil walked through the front door, tinkling the bell, his boots sounding hard clunks on our old wooden floor.
A little nervously, I said, “Hey, Phil.”
“Hey, Annabelle.” He walked over to the counter, and I braced myself.
With an edginess to my voice, I asked, “Did you come here to scold me some more?”
He frowned. “No. But I did come to see if you did the right thing. Did you take that folder to the chief?”
“Yes,” said I, relieved to be telling the truth. “But I didn’t say a single thing about you or Betty Lou.”
“No? Did you tell him how you got the folder?”
“Good Lord, no! Jeez, Phil, I’m not crazy.”
“No? You could have fooled me.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“It’s not very nice to rummage around in other people’s houses, either.”
“But I found what I went there for. Well . . . you did, anyway.”
“Huh. You’re only lucky we didn’t get caught.”
I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t do it. “You’re right. I’m so glad to be rid of that folder.” Then I decided to tell him another truth, as hard as it was to do so. “The chief told me that unless I can prove where I got the folder, a competent defense attorney would get it kicked out of court.”
“Of course.”
I stared at him. “Of course? What do you mean ‘of course’?”
He shrugged. “I think it’s called the chain of evidence or something like that. You can’t just spring a bunch of papers or whatever on a courtroom and expect everyone to take your word that they’re what you say they are. If anyone’s arrested for the murders, you’re going to have to confess to where and how you got that folder, Annabelle, and then pray like fir
e that a judge will believe you.”
I stared at him some more. “You’re kidding.”
He rolled his eyes. “Cripes, Annabelle, do you ever think through some of the nutty things you do?”
Burying my head in my hands, I moaned a little. “Evidently not. Oh, Lordy, Phil, I was so hoping those papers would clear Richard once and for all.” Lifting my head, I told him what the papers contained in the folder had said, including the threats against Mr. Calhoun’s person. “Surely there are samples of the man’s handwriting at the bank or at his house or something, aren’t there? Nobody can accuse me of forging them if they can prove the handwriting is his, can they? And maybe the people whose initials appear on the lists, too.”
“I have no idea. But if you’re right, a whole lot of people in town won’t thank you for exposing their dealings with Calhoun.”
“Oh, shoot.” Talk about depressing. All that work and fear and walking after dark in the pitch-black night, and all my efforts—and Betty Lou’s and Phil’s—might come to naught. I couldn’t stand thinking about it.
“I just stopped in to see if you were all right,” said Phil then.
Floored, I said, “You mean you still care what happens to me?”
His gaze paid a visit to the ceiling. “For crumb’s sake, Annabelle, you’re my girl. Yes, I care what happens to you. I don’t like it that you’re always getting yourself into trouble—”
“I am not! I saved your life last month, if you’ll recall!” I had, too, but that’s another story.
“I know it, and I appreciate it. But you still take terrible risks.”
“They weren’t all that terrible.” Feeble, Annabelle Blue. Extremely feeble.
He gave me a look that told me exactly what he thought of my comment, which was approximately the same thing I thought of it. “You could have been arrested for breaking and entering,” he said, his voice flat. “If that’s not a risk, I don’t know a risk when I see it.”
“But . . . but I didn’t break anything. Betty Lou opened the window for me.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “For that matter, I could have been arrested, too.”
