A Violent End at Blake Ranch

by Terry Shames

  I’m surprised when we open the barn door to see an ancient tractor parked inside, quietly rusting away. It has to have been here for a long, long time. “John, when was the last time this tractor was used?”

  “We never used it,” he says, back with me again. “It was here when we bought the place, and we never got around to getting rid of it. Want me to start it for you?”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  In the heat of the day the interior of the barn is stifling. Light sifts through the dusty, cobwebbed windows in uneven rays that shimmer in the air. The floor of the barn is strewn with remnants of hay and feed from however long ago the Blakes kept livestock. I’ll bet the mice that live here are fat and happy.

  The interior of the barn looks as if nothing has been disturbed for quite a while, which should make it easy to spot anything out of place. Most of the cavernous barn is empty. But at one end of the structure I find a room with gardening implements. There’s a fairly new power mower and a gas can against one wall. A big workbench holds various tools like a hammer, a can of nails, screwdrivers, wrenches, rusted saws, and the like. They aren’t put away in any order but lie scattered on the table as if whoever uses them plops them back down at random.

  The garden tools are propped against the wall in a haphazard manner. There are several hoes—some that almost look like antiques—spades, two axes, different kinds of brooms, and rakes. I take my time looking them over for any traces of blood or to see if any of them look out of place from being wiped down recently. But they all look as if it’s been a long time since they were handled.

  John seems taken by the tools, picking them up and putting them down at random as if they are artifacts from another time and he’s not quite sure what they’re used for.

  I walk the length of the barn for anything I might have missed, but I find nothing that could have been used as a weapon to do the kind of damage the coroner described. I steer John outside, and we walk the perimeter of the barn. I spend a little more time scouting around the outside of the house, poking under the back steps, peering into a rotting wooden box, with John walking patiently beside me. It seems that when he’s in motion he’s calmer.

  I’m pushing my time limit, so I take John back inside. Skeeter is nowhere to be seen. Most likely he’s retreated to his room, glad to give up John’s care to me for a while.

  “I’m hungry,” John announces as soon as we’re inside.

  “I imagine that toast is ready,” I say.

  He follows me into the kitchen. The cold, dry toast is still in the toaster. I open the refrigerator and take out a jar of jelly and put some on the toast. I hand him a piece, which he’s content to nibble on. At one end of the kitchen there’s a door that leads to a utility room. There’s a washer-dryer and laundry items, but nothing in the room that looks like a weapon.

  I can’t think of anywhere else in the house that might hold what I’m looking for, unless the guilty party hid an implement in a bedroom or attic, but I’m not betting on it. It was a wild chance anyway. Most likely the killer got rid of the murder weapon. The possible ways of doing that are endless.

  “Let’s sit down at the table,” I say. “You want something to drink?”

  “Is there any juice?” he says in that eerie way of sounding completely normal.

  In the refrigerator I find some orange juice and pour him a glass. We sit down at the table.

  “John, you had a visitor last week,” I say. “Who was that?”

  “They told me it was Nonie,” he says.

  “Your daughter.”

  “She’s not my daughter,” he says. His voice has become suddenly loud, and he is moving his hands restlessly over the tabletop as if he’s playing the piano.

  “You don’t remember Nonie?”

  “She’s not my daughter,” he repeats, louder, looking at me like I’m the one who has dementia and has failed to understand what he said.

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “Of course I do! Somebody killed her. Serves her right, too.” He rubs his hands across the tops of his thighs, getting more and more agitated.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “She was not a good person. She was a thief.”

  “A thief? What did she steal?”

  Suddenly he becomes still. His eyes narrow, and he gets a crafty look. “I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to find out our secret. You think you’ll get me to talk. But you’re not getting anything out of me.” He makes a lip-zipping gesture.

  “When Nonie was here, did anybody have arguments with her?”

  “I’m not telling you anything.” He makes the lip-zipping gesture again.

  “Hey Daddy, how you doing?”

  Skeeter has come in so quietly that I didn’t hear him.

  “We were having a chat,” I say.

  “Good luck with that,” Skeeter says. “Right, Daddy?”

  In response, John starts rubbing both hands across the top of his head. “My lips are sealed,” he says.

  “You can say whatever you want to,” Skeeter says.

  Suddenly John jumps up. “Where is Adelaide? I need Adelaide. I’m going outside. I’ve got work to do.”

  “No, Daddy, you stay right here,” Skeeter says. But John pushes past Skeeter, knocking him up against the doorframe.

  “Daddy, I’ll be right out there.” Skeeter turns to me. “What did you say to get him riled up?”

  “Asked him about Nonie.”

  “Oh yeah. He didn’t like her. Had it in his mind that she was somebody else. I guess somebody he knew a long time ago and didn’t like. Anyway, I should go catch up to him.”

  On the way home for a late lunch, I stop by headquarters and find that the psychiatrist’s report has been delivered. I want to read it now, so instead of going home for lunch I run over to Town Café and get some enchiladas and bring them back to the office. While I eat, I settle in to read. I glance through the physical exams, which indicate that Nonie had nothing physically wrong with her at the age of fourteen. At 5’5’’ and weighing 120 pounds, she was in the right percentile for her age. She had no broken bones, and her blood tests indicated no physical abnormality. A brain scan was done that also showed no abnormality.

  I read the conclusion of the report, which echoes the letter Buckley wrote. And then I tackle the meat of the evaluation. Buckley describes Nonie Blake as “intelligent, coherent, and with well-organized thought processes.” She’s also “skittish, anxious, and provocative in her speech.” After a few sessions, he speculates:

  She exhibits narcissistic thinking, in which she is the hero of her own story. I believe she is enjoying the attention that her actions brought her and seems to have little understanding of the consequences of what she did to her sister. She exhibits no interest in her sister’s well-being and still blames her brother for stopping her from doing “what she needed to do.” When I suggested to her that she may have to spend some time in a juvenile detention facility, she was quite surprised. She seems not to understand that her actions could seem abhorrent to others.

  She is dismissive of her family and describes them as “fools.” In one conversation she indicated that there were things about the family that she could tell me that they wouldn’t want known, but she refused to elaborate. She insisted, however, that she did not endure any sexual or physical abuse from her family or anyone else.

  She also described her teachers and the townspeople as fools, saying she should not have been “forced” to live in a small town, that her parents had the means to live in a more cosmopolitan environment, which would have suited her better. She describes her classmates and their parents as “simpletons.” In particular she said several times that she could “put one over on any of them.” When I asked what she meant, she indicated that she had “found out things” that people wouldn’t want aired in public. Again, she refused to elaborate, saying that she had ways of “finding out things.”

  I hesita
te to attach the label “sociopath” to a fourteen-year-old, but I admit that this girl has attributes that tend in that direction. But I also wonder from what she described if there is a toxic family situation that has pushed her into a state of disequilibrium. Therefore, I recommend that she be evaluated more thoroughly in a mental facility where she can be observed over time.

  It’s a frustrating document with its hints of things that Nonie knew. At the time, it must have seemed no more than “tall talk” from a troubled girl. I have to see it differently—as a hint that she knew things that might have gotten her killed. And I’m no closer to finding out what those things are.

  And there’s another thing about the report that interests me. Adelaide said that the doctor indicated that Nonie was bipolar. There’s nothing in his report like that. I wonder if he told Adelaide that because he didn’t want to suggest the more chilling possibility that Nonie was truly disturbed; possibly a sociopath.

  The last thing I do before I head home is phone Luke Schoppe, the Texas Ranger who theoretically is in charge of investigating the murder. I ask him to arrange to have the Blakes’ pond drained.

  “That’s expensive,” he says.

  “It’s got to be done. I haven’t had any luck finding the murder weapon.”

  “All right. I’ll let you know.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “It’ll be Monday at least.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Back home, Loretta is sitting outside on my porch waiting for me.

  “It must have been some funeral for it to take all day,” she grumbles. “What took you so long?”

  I settle into the rocking chair next to her. “I hate to disappoint you, but it was pretty tame as funerals go.”

  “Who all was at the funeral home?”

  I fill her in as best I can, but I’m restless and I don’t feel much like indulging her curiosity. I keep thinking about John Blake and his focus on not telling secrets. I don’t know if that’s some manifestation of his dementia or if there’s something he really has in his mind that pertains to Nonie’s death. Coupled with Nonie’s claims that the family had some kind of secret they wouldn’t want known, I can’t help thinking there’s something to his ravings.

  “Getting information out of you is like pulling teeth,” Loretta says. “I can tell your mind is somewhere else. I’ll be better off talking to my ladies. It beats me how you think you can figure out who killed Nonie Blake when you don’t pay attention to the details.”

  “Different details,” I say. But maybe not. Maybe I’m missing a detail that’s staring me right in the face. Again I have that uncanny feeling of being past my prime. I’m not used to the feeling and I don’t like it.

  I’m saved from having to pursue those thoughts any further by my cell phone ringing.

  Loretta jumps and puts a hand to her heart. “I’ll never get used to having people’s phones ring in their pockets.”

  I see that the call is from Nelda Havranek, and I hold up a finger to tell Loretta to wait. Nelda says that Kimberley has gone back to Houston and I can come over anytime.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to Loretta. “I have to go. You’re probably right. One of your ladies can describe the finer points of the funeral to you.”

  Nelda Havranek lives only a few blocks away from me. If it weren’t so hot, I’d probably walk over there. But it is, and I don’t.

  When she opens the door, cool air drifts out. I don’t normally care much for air-conditioning, but in late August, I’m glad for it. It’s still over a hundred degrees outside.

  “Let me bring you some iced tea,” she says. “You want sugar in it?”

  Time was, nobody asked that. All tea was sweetened to a saturation point, but times have changed. I tell her I’ll take a little sugar.

  She’s back in a few minutes and sets the tea down with a plate of cookies that don’t stand up to Lottie Raines’s cookies, at least visually.

  “Now what can I do for you?” She smiles pleasantly. Even her smile seems efficient.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with your ex-husband.”

  The smile shuts off like a faucet. “You’ve come to the wrong place if you want to know how to get in touch with Bruce. I don’t know a thing about him. Don’t want to know.”

  Both mother and daughter have cut off the man of the household, and I wonder what it might have to do with Nonie Blake, if anything. “I hate to press on this. I don’t want to open up old wounds, but can you tell me what turned you so completely against your ex-husband?”

  “Since you’re chief of police, I don’t mind telling you, but I have to have your word that you won’t tell a soul. It’s a secret I’ve kept for many years, and I don’t want to hear it all over town at this late date.”

  “If it’s something illegal, I don’t know that I can give you my word. But if you’re referring to some way he wronged you, nobody will hear it from me.”

  “It’s both, but no charges were filed and it’s all taken care of, so I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you in confidence. Bruce was stealing from the people he worked for here in Jarrett Creek. He’s a CPA who worked for Gabe LoPresto. You know Gabe?”

  I nod. “We’re good friends.”

  “Gabe came here one day and said he needed to talk to Bruce and me. He sat right here in this living room and said he had found out that Bruce had been stealing from him for a long time. He said if Bruce would confess right then and agree to pay back the money, it would go no further. But if he didn’t agree to that, Gabe said he’d call the law and then it would be spread all over town.”

  “Since I never heard anything about it, I assume Bruce agreed.”

  She looks down at her hands. “He didn’t want to at first. But I had known for a while that something was going on. Bruce had been funny. Kind of jumpy. Our marriage wasn’t all it could be, and I thought he was trying to work up the courage to leave me. But as soon as Gabe started talking, I knew that’s what had been bothering Bruce. So after Gabe laid out what he’d found in the books, I worked on Bruce and eventually he confessed.”

  She drops her head with a big sigh that sounds like a half-laugh. “Bruce didn’t make a good thief. The amount he took wasn’t worth the trouble. He only embezzled a couple thousand dollars a year. I’ve often wondered if it was the thrill of being a thief that made him do it. I’ve always worked and we had enough money for our needs plus a little extra to put away, so it wasn’t like we needed the money. We paid Gabe back out of our savings account.”

  “It was good of Gabe to let your husband have a chance to make amends without going to the law.”

  “I’ve been forever grateful to the man, although I can still hardly look him in the face. And there’s no way I could stay married to Bruce after that. It might have been wrong of me to turn our daughter away from him, but eventually when she got old enough to understand and I could trust her to keep it to herself, I told her what he had done. So now you know why I don’t have anything to do with Bruce.”

  “I do understand. And I have a question to ask you. When did the embezzling start?”

  She thinks. “Has to have been over twenty years ago now.”

  “I understand that Nonie Blake babysat a few times for you.”

  She looks puzzled. “Yes, she did. But we didn’t go out much, so she was only here two or three times. Thank goodness. I was fit to be tied when I found out what she had done, thinking it could have been my daughter she got mad at and tried to kill. But what does this have to do with Bruce?”

  “Is there any way Nonie could have found out that Bruce was embezzling money from Gabe’s company?”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “That’s why I need to talk to your husband.”

  Understanding dawns. “You mean you think Nonie was blackmailing him and when she came back here he killed her?” She starts to laugh, but it’s not a laugh of delight. There’s a hard, bitter tinge to it.

  “You
’re laughing. Why is that funny?”

  “It never ends, does it? I mean, he was a thief and a cheat, and after all these years I find out he may have done even worse. I keep waiting for the day everybody in town finds out that he embezzled that money. I’m always afraid that Kimberley will let it slip or that Gabe will think enough time has gone by. I keep thinking I ought to move out of here so I can let go of it. And now this.”

  “Nelda, don’t borrow trouble. It’s likely that Nonie’s death has nothing to do with Bruce. I just have to follow up on it. And I’m going to suggest something else to you, even though you didn’t ask for my advice. You ought to tell people what happened. It’s a long time ago, and people aren’t going to judge you. It’s Bruce who was the thief, not you.”

  She shrugs. “You might be right. But I don’t trust people as much as you do, and I’m not ready to test it out.”

  When I stop in at headquarters, the faxed autopsy report is sitting on my desk. Thankfully it isn’t nearly as long or involved as the psychiatric report I had to wade through. Autopsy reports always make me a little queasy. They’re intimate and cold at the same time. After death, no one knows the dead person’s body more intimately than the doctor who has to cut and poke and weigh and examine. And yet, the doctor may be completely ignorant about the person who lived and breathed in that body.

  I read the general information about the head wound that killed Nonie, and the fact that there wasn’t water in her lungs, which indicates that she was dead before she was thrown into the water. Then I glance over the physical details. A 5’4’’ woman who weighed 135 pounds, brown hair and eyes, et cetera. I find one interesting thing. At some point, Nonie had a broken leg. In the psychiatrist’s report, it was noted that she had no broken bones, which means she has to have broken her leg sometime in the last twenty years. I wonder how that happened in a mental facility. That will be a good question to start off with when I phone Rollingwood on Monday morning.