A Violent End at Blake Ranch

by Terry Shames

  “You’re going to have to answer these questions, if not with me, then with the Texas Rangers, and you may find they aren’t as reasonable as I am.”

  She takes a deep breath. Her face has done that eerie thing of becoming neutral, as if seconds ago she wasn’t raving. She says, “Charlotte doesn’t remember what I was afraid she’d tell?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “But she’s working on it.”

  “Let me know when she figures it out,” she says. “I’d love to know what she comes up with.”

  It’s not a good idea to take an instant dislike to somebody who you’re going to ask for help, but sometimes it happens that way.

  “Duke Rogers,” the cop says, not bothering to take his hands out of his back pockets to shake mine. He also doesn’t give me his title. Furthermore he’s slovenly, with his shirt-straining belly hanging over his pants like he’s due to give birth at any moment. If I’m not mistaken, he didn’t shave this morning and maybe didn’t comb his gray-streaked longish hair in the past week. The duty officer called back to ask Rogers to come to the front desk and talk to me; it took ten minutes for him to shamble out here.

  I introduce myself, and there’s no appreciable change in his attitude when he finds out I’m chief of police in another town.

  “What do you need?” His voice sounds like crushed gravel.

  “I’m looking into something that happened a long time ago in this part of the state. A couple of bank robberies.”

  “You’ll have to get that information out of state archives,” he says.

  “What I’m hoping for is to talk to someone who was around back then who might remember what happened.”

  He blinks at me and then wheels on the duty officer. “You called me out for this? What made you think I’d know anything about what this man wants?”

  I have to keep my anger in check. “This man,” he said, as if I’m some bored citizen off the street who has no business asking for his valuable time.

  “I asked to talk to somebody who’d been around a while,” I say. “Thought maybe I might get a line on a cop who might have handled the case back then.”

  “How long ago are we talking?”

  “Fifty years, give or take.”

  He puts his little finger in his ear and digs around. “Anybody who was around back then . . . got to be in his late seventies, early eighties. That’s pushing it.”

  An hour later I’m knocking on the door of a modest little house a couple of blocks away from Jacksonville Lake. There’s an old pickup and a boat in the oyster-shell driveway.

  “You Craddock?” The retired cop is near eighty years old but bright-eyed and easy in his skin.

  “That’s right. I guess I’ve found the right place.”

  “Hubert Styron.” We shake hands, and he invites me into the living room.

  Although the place is tidy, like mine it’s slipping around the edges, and I suspect he’s a widower like me. He confirms it, and we commiserate lightly. He brings out coffee and apologizes for not having any sweets on hand. “I’ve got a little diabetes and if I keep sweets around, I’ll eat them.”

  “The coffee is perfect,” I say.

  “Now what is it you want to ask about?”

  “Like I told Officer Rogers, this goes back a long way. I want to know if you remember a bank robber by the name of Aaron Cousins?”

  He frowns. “Name does sound familiar, but . . .”

  “He was shot and killed while committing a bank robbery.”

  Memory flashes bright in Styron’s eyes, and he snaps his fingers. “Hell yes, I remember that. Not that I was involved in the shootout or anything, but it brought quite a bit of attention.”

  “Do you remember how it went down?”

  He takes a sip of coffee and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “As I recall, somebody—a citizen—saw Cousins’s car parked at the side of the bank. Cousins had left it running, and the guy thought it looked suspicious. We’d had a string of bank robberies in the area and I guess he was on the alert. I saw the car later. It was all shot up with bullets. It was an old jalopy—a Ford, I think it was.”

  “You’ve got a heck of a memory.”

  “Not always. I was new to the force, so it made quite an impression on me.”

  “You said string of bank robberies? I didn’t read anything about more than one robbery in the report about his death.”

  “At the time, there was nothing to tie him to the other robberies. But they stopped after he was killed. I remember the officer responsible got grief for killing him instead of wounding him. The feds wanted to question him.”

  “Did Cousins have a partner?”

  Styron raises his eyebrows. “Now you’re asking too much. I know he was the only one killed, but whether anybody else was involved, I don’t know.”

  “I expect his widow went through a lot?”

  “Poor woman. She was a pretty little thing. She moved away after a while. Couldn’t take the gossip. I remember Cousins was a war veteran who had been in trouble before he enlisted. She swore she thought he’d turned things around.”

  “These other robberies. How much money are we talking, total?”

  “Pretty fair amount. There were five of them and he got anywhere from twenty thousand to fifty thousand dollars in each one.”

  CHAPTER 29

  It’s past midnight when I get home, and Frazier greets me as if he was pretty sure he’d never see me again. There’s a note from Loretta. I had asked her to stop in and feed the animals for me.

  “That’s a cute little dog. I stayed with him until my bedtime. He seemed so sad to be left alone. Zelda was fine. P.S. I’m busy early tomorrow, so I don’t know if I’ll get to the baking.” That brings me up short. Not that I mind if Loretta doesn’t bring baked goods, but it’s unusual for her not to bake. I wonder what she’s up to.

  In spite of being so tired from my long day, traveling to and from Tyler and squeezing as much into the day as I could, I can’t fall asleep. I play the interview with Hubert Styron over in my head. He said there was no evidence that Aaron Cousins carried out the string of other robberies that ended with his death, but it makes sense that he did. And if so, I suspect that he managed to stash away the stolen money and only told his wife Lilah where it was. In fact, I wonder if it’s possible that Lilah Cousins was his accomplice. Not that I’d ever have a way of finding out.

  If she did know where the money was, Lilah did the smart thing. Instead of making use of it right away, she moved to Jarrett Creek and established herself in a quiet life. Was it the smart thing, or was she terrified that someone would find out? Did she ever use any of it, or was she too afraid to, and she kept it to pass on to Adelaide?

  Whether she was clever or scared, eventually Lilah must have told Adelaide about the money. And more time passed before Adelaide’s family felt safe enough to spend it. But why did they wait so long? At some point the statute of limitations would have kicked in. None of them could have been prosecuted for the robbery. I suspect I know the answer: I think the banks could have sued them to get the money back. But I have to look up the legal details to be sure.

  Whatever way it happened, they kept quiet because they wanted that money. They didn’t want to have to pay any of it back. It was pure greed that kept them quiet. What nags at me is how it affected them. In their fear of being discovered, the whole family closed inward. They may have plenty of money, but they’ve never really enjoyed it.

  If I’m right, and Aaron Cousins was responsible for those bank robberies, and the Blake family has been living on the money knowing it was illegally obtained, they would have done most anything to keep it secret. Would that include murder? Nonie Blake denied that she knew anything about the money. But once again I’m reminded that the doctor at Rollingwood warned me that Nonie was an accomplished liar. And she’s not the only one in the Blake family you could say that about.

  The next morning I’m cranky and creaky until I get to the pasture
for my morning session with my cows. Yesterday I left so early I didn’t get down to the pasture, and I arranged for Truly Bennett to look in on the cattle. It’s amazing what a few days of good food and lack of stress will do for an animal. The three straggler cows I took in look like different beasts. They are alert and already putting a little meat on their bones. One of them pushes past the others to greet me, and it’s clear to me that he’s ready to join the herd. Truly found no evidence of any medical problems, so I open the gate and let her out, shooing the other two back in the pen. If I’m not mistaken they look outraged at being held back, but another day of separation won’t hurt them.

  Even the bull looks more interested in his surroundings. He bellows once when he sees me. The whole visit cheers me up considerably.

  When I get back to the house, the phone is ringing. It’s Ellen. “How’s your daughter?” I ask.

  “She’s much better, but still a little shaky. We’ve had a chance to talk—really talk, about Seth and some other things on her mind. I don’t want to leave her quite yet. Can you stand Frazier one more day?”

  “You know, if you stay gone too long, you may not get him back.”

  “I knew you’d like him if you got to know him.”

  “It wasn’t me I was worried about.” I tell her that Zelda unexpectedly accepted the dog, and she laughs. I’m glad to hear her laugh. Last time I talked to her, she sounded distressed.

  As Loretta warned, she didn’t make it by this morning, so I take a couple of cinnamon rolls out of the freezer and stick them in my toaster oven on low.

  Frazier has been giving me a baleful look ever since I walked out to the pasture without him this morning. I’m not quite ready to trust him not to bark at the cows and stir them up. I should have left him with Maria and Zeke yesterday instead of keeping him cooped up here all day. “You’ll get plenty of company today,” I say.

  Regarding Susan Shelby’s death, I have an idea now about the why of it. Somehow—most likely through Nonie herself—Susan found out that the family money was tainted. Susan decided to blackmail the family and get some of that money. But I wonder why Nonie didn’t try to squeeze money out of her family herself.

  Now that I have an idea of what happened, I have to figure out the who and the how. Where is the murder weapon? I can’t help thinking that if I knew what it was I would have a better idea of who killed Susan. We drained the pond and found nothing but a rusted tricycle, a BB gun, a lot of small kids’ toys, and a couple of small animal carcasses.

  At headquarters, I can tell right away that Maria Trevino, like Frazier, is put out with me. She greets Frazier readily enough, but her demeanor toward me is frosty. I suspect she’s mad that I went off to Tyler without her. And she’s probably right—I should have taken her with me. It’s not right to start somebody on a trail and then leave them behind. But I’m used to working alone. The fact is we don’t really have enough staff to partner up on things. Not routine things anyway, but a murder is hardly routine.

  “Maria, I have to apologize for rushing off yesterday without you.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she says. Huffy.

  “That’s right, but I want you to know it was nothing personal. Now, here’s what I’d like you to do this morning.” I get up and pick up one of the boxes of files left behind by Rodell Skinner from when he was chief of police. “I want you to start going through these files and familiarize yourself with them, and then file them in the cabinets we’ve got here.”

  She looks over at the cabinets with narrowed eyes. “I might have known it would come to this.”

  “Come to what?”

  “That I’d be nothing but a glorified secretary.”

  “There are only three boxes left here. There were six to start with. Who do you think took care of that? It was me and Zeke and Bill Odum. You won’t be putting in any time the rest of us haven’t put in. And besides, looking through those reports will help you learn the nature of Jarrett Creek.”

  She nods, but the set of her jaw is stubborn. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Did I do something wrong the other day when I went with you to the Blake ranch? Did I step out of line?”

  “Of course not. You think that’s why I didn’t take you along yesterday?”

  “I wondered.”

  “Put it out of your mind.” I scratch my head, unsure how much to say. “The fact is, I’m not used to having enough manpower—and womanpower—to have the luxury of bringing somebody along on a case.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  I sigh. From her tone I suspect that she might get it, but she doesn’t want to show it. I don’t blame her for being eager and ambitious. In fact, I admire her for it. But Jarrett Creek is a tough place to contain so much energy to succeed. There isn’t that much to do in a small town. Maybe that’s why they sent her here, to get her used to the idea that police work isn’t an exciting endeavor every single day. Most days it’s piddling work, accented with a little spice now and then.

  She’s not done with me. I see the speculation in her eyes. “I want to ask you something else.”

  “Don’t be afraid to ask anything, ever. You ought to know by now I’m not going to bite you.”

  She nods. “I’ve been thinking about the weapon. Has anybody looked around the property? Somebody might have thrown it away, or even buried it.”

  “I looked close to the house, but I haven’t sent anyone to go farther out. It’s a big property.”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but nothing came of the dredging. And somebody had plenty of time to take the weapon somewhere and bury it or throw it where they thought it wouldn’t be found.”

  “Or to take it to the lake and throw it in, or drive pretty much anywhere with it and throw it away,” I say.

  She’s watching me closely. “In the academy they told us that criminals are lazy, and that most of them aren’t as smart as they think they are. I think it’s worth a look around the property.”

  “Can’t hurt,” I say. “If you want to put off this filing and search for the weapon, it’s all right with me. But don’t get heat stroke. And look out for snakes.”

  She flips her hand at me as if to say snakes don’t worry her. She can’t hide the sparkle in her eyes at the prospect of some real investigation.

  “I’m going out to talk to the Blakes about having the coffin dug up and moved. You can follow me out there, and I’ll tell them you’ll be walking the property.”

  She waits while I call the medical examiner’s office and tell them that Susan Shelby’s family wants the coffin dug up and transported to Tyler.

  “Who’s going to pay for all this?” T. J. says.

  I’m an old hand at this bureaucratic nonsense. “Who do you think ought to pay?”

  “The Blakes misidentified the corpse, so maybe it ought to fall to them.”

  “I’ll pass it by them and see what they say. They’re already going to be out the money for the coffin. They got top of the line, and Susan Shelby’s relatives are going to balk at the cost.”

  “That’s up to those folks. Let them hash it out.”

  Now it falls to me to go back out to the Blake ranch and present them with a bill for retrieval and transportation of a coffin. I would feel sorry for them, except that they are the ones who claimed it was Nonie, even when they knew in their hearts it wasn’t her.

  “I suppose I see their point,” Adelaide says. “We should bear the expense of digging up the box and sending it to her family since we’re the ones who made the mistake.”

  We’re sitting in the kitchen, and Adelaide is coaxing John to eat. “All of a sudden he’s off his feed. I swear if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  It looks to me like he’s enjoying refusing the food because of the attention it earns him.

  “I sure would like to know what Susan Shelby was doing here,” I say.

  “So would I,” Adelaide says. “John, no
w if you don’t want me to feed you like a baby, you need to eat.”

  “Would you?” I say. “You mean you don’t know why she was here? I think you might have some idea.”

  At the tone of my voice she jerks her head to look at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got a theory. Let me run it by you. I think Susan found out a family secret that you didn’t want anybody to know—especially the law.”

  She puts the spoon down. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  “Then let me clarify. I’m talking about money. The money you and John took to Les Moffitt to invest all those years ago wasn’t a paltry sum. And I don’t believe it was money that your mamma squirreled away. I think it’s money your daddy got from robbing banks.”

  She laughs, but it’s a nervous sound. “Where did you get an idea like that? I don’t understand why you don’t believe that money came from my mamma. I told you she was frugal and worked hard and put money by. She said she didn’t want me to ever have to worry about money the way she did.”

  “Adelaide, I know what kind of work your mamma did, and there’s no way she could have put enough money by for you and John to buy this ranch and raise a family of four and never have to work, much less pour it into investments. And I know John’s family didn’t have enough to account for that either.”

  Adelaide is totally focused on me. John has picked up the spoon and started eating applesauce. “I don’t care what you think you know. My mamma left me a little money, and I’m eternally grateful for it.”

  Maybe she’s telling the truth as she knows it. Maybe I’m wrong, and Lilah never told her where the money came from and she actually believed it was her mother’s savings.

  “Let me go at this a different way. You’ve had a long time to speculate. Do you have any idea why Nonie wanted to . . .” I look at John. He’s got his head cocked like an owl watching me. “Why she tried to hurt Charlotte?”

  Adelaide is shaking. “Why would you ask me that? What good can come of it?”