by George Wier
Nighttime was coming on, but it was still early yet. Moths darted about the awning lights around us, and the occasional bat dived in for a meal of its own. That's the thing about outdoor fast food places—everybody gets fed. The townsfolk get their hamburgers and hotdogs, the neighborhood stray dogs and cats get a few leftovers from whatever is dropped in the parking lot or handed them by sympathetic carhops, and even the birds and the bats have a meal. God Bless America, hamburgers and apple pie!
We piled back into our vehicles and were off into the gathering darkness.
*****
Lorraine's great aunt was named Temperance Spivey Bledgrave, from a lost age when upright folks with little imagination selected one of the Virtues as a name for their female offspring on the promise that the girl might prove virtuous. In my travels I had never before met a Temperance, but I have run across the occasional Hope, Chastity and even Prudence. Consequently, no one in recorded history has named their kid Sloth, Gluttony, Avarice, Pride or Wrath, to name a few. By all accounts, Temperance (Bledgrave, that is) was dead, not that the virtue itself was ever alive and well, even during Prohibition. I had every hope that I would learn nothing about the estate and the polarized family members squared off, faction against faction, to feud over the remaining scraps. Then again, you know what they say about the nature of hope.
We almost couldn't see the home. It sat on a high, almost vertical hill on the southwest side of town, and was the largest home I had ever seen. The place had a Texas Historical Marker on the street outside, but it was too dark to read it. As I flicked off my headlights, the word “Cotton” seemed to leap out at me. The place was decidedly from an age when Cotton was king, but to my knowledge, its domain was in East and East Central Texas, particularly along the Brazos River bottom.
Lorraine got out and walked over.
“Hank, will you stay with Jennifer while Lorraine and I walk up to the house?”
“I want to go, dad!”
“Nothing doing.”
“I'll stay with her,” Lorraine said from outside my car window.
“I'm sorry, Ms. Sands, but this is my first born. I don't know you all that well, and you had a dismembered finger in your car. No offense.”
“Huh. None taken.”
“Do you have kids?” I asked her.
“No.”
“Then you wouldn't understand. How about it, Hank?”
“We'll sit tight,” he said.
Jennifer deflated.
“You,” I said to her, “chill, and let your chili cheese dog digest. And you can't tell mom about it, either.”
“Duh! Of course not.”
I got out and Lorraine and I started up a concrete stairway, a climb approaching the steepness of the hidden road Frodo and Sam took going into Mordor. For effect, the outdoor lighting at the base of the house cast long shadows upward, and gave the whole place a sinister aspect that I found disquieting.
“Were the Bledgraves related to the Ushers?” I asked as we neared the top.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I think somebody's home,” she said.
“Why's that?”
“I thought I saw a curtain move upstairs.”
“Hmph.”
The front porch was half the size of my own home, and my home is not small. The door had a large brass doorknocker in lieu of a doorbell. Just off the porch to the right, there was a pile of fresh dirt. Someone had been digging, but it didn't appear that anything new had been planted.
“Go ahead,” I said, “but if Frau Blücher answers, I'm out of here and you're on your own.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Lorraine gave three raps with the doorknocker, and a light went on inside two seconds later.
We waited.
A series of scraping sounds, then a rattle of chain was heard. Whoever had lived there believed in locking up tight.
The door swung open and a man stood there.
“Uh. Hello, Reece,” Lorraine said.
“Is that Lorraine?” the man asked.
“Your eyes not working?” she asked. “Of course it's me.”
Reece was a dark-haired man with a smattering of silver in his hair. He looked in need of a good barber—his hair was long and hung down past his over-sized jowls where it curled up at the end. He pushed a lop of it out of his way and squinted.
“I've got night blindness,” he said. “But I think you knew that.”
“I'd forgotten. Have you seen Sam, by any chance?”
“Who's this?” Reece asked, ignoring her question and posing one of his own at the same time.
“I'm Bill Travis. No relation.”
“What?”
“He talks like that,” Lorraine said. “Just ignore it. Can we come in?”
“Depends,” Reece said.
“On what?” I asked.
“Bill. Let me do the talking. Uh, well, Reece. You used to push me in the swing. Do you remember that?”
“You made me push you, and when I wouldn't, you cried to Tinnie.”
“And Tinnie would be your Aunt Temperance?” I asked.
“Seriously,” Reece said, “who the hell is this?”
“Grandmother, actually,” Lorraine replied. “Well, Reece, it's so good to see you. How's Fenner doing these days? I haven't seen the two of you in...what? Thirty years?”
“Too short a time,” Reece said.
“Thanks for inviting us in,” I said and stepped forward. Reece moved out of the way and Lorraine followed.
The foyer was...a foyer; all varnished wood at least a century old, with a grand stairway with gnarled newel posts, and the requisite escalator chair. In the dim light of the chandelier, a seven foot tall by four foot wide oil painting of a young Temperance Spivey Bledgrave was the centerpiece of the west wall, if not the entire house. The young woman in the painting wore a light blue taffeta dress and a smirk that would have sent potential suitors running for their lives and made the family accountants break out the red ink in apathy. I'd met women like that before, and either found myself loving or loathing them—there never seemed to be much middle ground in between.
“What do you want, Lorraine?” Reece asked.
“Hello!” she called. “Fenner!”
“Fenner's not here. Stop shouting, please.”
“Why?” I asked. “Would she disturb somebody?”
“I'm looking for Sam,” Lorraine said. “In fact, Mr. Travis is looking for Sam as well. Has anybody seen him?”
Lorraine started forward into the main part of the house when a man stepped out. I would have taken in far more of the details about him except that he had what looked to be a nine millimeter pistol pointed at her.
When I moved slowly towards where she stopped, he turned to point it at me.
“You can't push your way in here and expect a warm welcome,” the man said.
“Fenner?” I asked. The man holding the gun was about Reece's age—mid- to late-fifties, silver in his hair but instead of long and lanky he sported a buzz cut. He looked big, tough, and mean. He wore a five o'clock shadow that was closer to midnight, and appeared so worn and leathery that I could've struck a match on his lips.
“Yeah,” Lorraine stated. “Fenner, put the gun away. You aren't going to shoot me.”
The gun tracked back towards her, and then Fenner pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Guns are quiet when they're not in service. Fenner's gun while employed for its intended work was damned loud.
For no more than an instant I thought that Lorraine might have been hit—she swayed on her feet, but didn't go down. You can't get shot at point-blank range and not go down. I don't care if the bullet passes through flesh without hitting any bones or organs and passes cleanly out the other side; there's still the impact, and that translates as foot-pounds of force spread out over the area hit. But she kept her feet, and instead the polished wood newel post of the stairway behind
her and to her right seemed to blossom fresh, unvarnished wood as if it were some kind of cheap carnival magic trick.
“You take another step, Lorraine, you're dead,” Fenner said.
She didn't.
“Tough guy with a gun,” I stated quietly. “Very impressive.”
“What does that mean?” Fenner asked.
I glanced at Reece, and saw that he was a bit shocked, but was coming out of it. He was hesitant to move. This was, apparently, not his ball game. He was neither referee, coach, or one of the players. I read all that on his face in an instant. The room had grown redolent with the odor of burned powder, and my ears continued to ring.
“It means that when one resorts to force and violence, he has admitted that he was the first to run out of ideas. That's an old Chinese proverb.”
“And just who the hell are you, Professor?”
“He's Bill Travis,” Reece said.
“Shut up, Reece,” Fenner rejoined. “I don't suppose you checked his I.D. or anything.”
“Well, no.”
“Then you don't know who he is.”
At that moment a car door slammed outside. It was a distant sound, but unmistakable. I didn't react, but it didn't make any difference. Reece moved to the curtains by the door and pushed them to the side and looked out.
“I can't see down there. I hate the way this house was built.”
An engine roared into life. That would be Hank, getting my daughter to safety. Knowing him, there was little chance he wouldn't take her somewhere, a few blocks away, maybe, tell her to lock all the doors and not open them for anyone but us, then come running back.
“That must have been the Jehovah's Witnesses,” I said. “Couple of ladies going house to house. If they didn't knock, it was probably because they were intimidated by the doorknocker outside. I know I was.”
“Shut up,” Fenner said.
“Okay,” I replied.
“What are you doing here, Lorraine?”
“Maybe those ladies heard the shot,” she said. “I expect the police will be here in a few minutes.” She sounded nervous and anxious, as if she was on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. Anyone who's been narrowly missed by gunfire in close proximity could attest to how she felt.
“I don't think so,” Fenner said, and waved the gun at us, including Reece in the mix. The look on Reece's face spoke volumes. I knew then that none of this was Reece's idea. He was playing along out of sheer terror with whatever game Fenner had going, and it slowly dawned on me that his effort to get rid of us at the door was more for Lorraine's protection than from spite. “Why don't you folks come on into the parlor, and we'll sit down and have us a little talk.”
*****
The parlor was essentially the living room, and was reminiscent of an overpriced turn of the 20th Century upper-crust bordello, complete with lurid red crushed velvet settees, Queen Anne furniture, real wool carpeting, and iridescent twenty-foot long drapes covering tall windows. It was the kind of room where someone might do in Professor Plum with the candlestick. I would have made a comment if the smell of burnt gunpowder wasn't still in the air. Fenner waved the gun again like a magic wand, and we all took a seat.
It was then that I noticed all the mud tracked across the deep burgundy carpet. In the hallway leading farther into the house, I noticed a pair of shovels leaning against a wall.
“Now,” Fenner said, “Lorraine, you came here looking for Sam? Your cousin, Sam?”
She nodded.
“Why would you think he was here?”
“Because, he...”
“Go on.”
“He was afraid. I've been afraid. He was supposed to meet with me a week ago. Then, when I gave up and was about to leave town, I got arrested. Someone threw a finger in the back seat of my car.”
“A finger?” Reece said. The shock was too real not to be genuine. Whatever it was all about, Reece hadn't a clue.
“She's hoping it wasn't Sam's,” I said.
“I didn't ask you,” Fenner said. “But, since you're talking, I'm asking you now. Who the hell are you?”
“I'm just a guy. My daughter takes piano lessons from Sam. But she knows him as Todd.”
“Does Todd have a last name?” Fenner asked.
I lied quickly. “Santorini.”
“Huh. Todd Santorini. Why does that not ring a bell?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea. By the way, have you found it yet?”
Fenner's face sagged half an inch, but then tightened into a grimace. “Found what?”
“What you've been digging for. You've been digging for days on end, haven't you? Taking it in shifts, wondering who was going to be first to strike pay dirt. I'd say no luck for you.”
“How do you know that?” Reece asked.
“Reece!” Fenner shouted.
“It's easy. You're still here, so it's not been found. I guess old Tinnie liked to hide things, didn't she? It's either a strongbox with the family papers, or it's something like bearer's bonds or stock certificates, or maybe it's just gold and diamonds. Or hell, it could be a map to any one or all of those things. I suppose you've already been to the bank and gotten into the safe deposit boxes. It wasn't there, of course. Yeah, I'd say she was hiding things way back when you three were kids. She sure hid it well, since you haven't found it yet.”
“That's enough,” Fenner said, and he pointed the gun at me. I decided then that I didn't like him very much.
“Well, one other thing,” I said. I couldn't help myself.
“Yeah?”
“The will hasn't been probated. Chances are, it was never filed with the County Clerk. So, the chances are, you're looking for the older will. The one that had you in it, before she cut you out of it.”
“Shut up!” Fenner shouted.
“Right now, you're looking at an Aggravated Kidnapping charge. That's not two-to-ten. It's upwards to life. Maybe you didn't know that.”
“Why aggravated?” Fenner asked.
“Kidnapping of more than one person, and with a deadly weapon. But, Lorraine and I stand up and walk out of here, you two jokers continue your digging, we head home. No harm, no foul.”
“I think he means—” Reece began, but Fenner cut him off.
“I swear to God, Reece. Another word and I'm shooting you and cutting Lorraine in on the deal.” While Fenner was saying this, I noticed the gun had tracked away from me and was pointed at Reece. Reece clammed up.
“I don't know you,” Fenner said to me, and the business end of the gun drifted back my way. I seriously did not like this guy. “Therefore, I don't trust you.”
“Then how long are we going to sit here?” Lorraine asked. “All night? Into tomorrow? Next week?”
“I don't know yet. It's whatever I decide. I'm thinking.”
The doorknocker out front slammed into its panel three times.
“I'll get it,” Reece said.
“No, you won't. I'll get it. You three are coming with me.”
“It's just the Jehovah's Witnesses,” Lorraine said.
Fenner stood and waved the gun around. “Come on.”
*****
At the front door, Fenner made us stand ten feet away where he could see us. He looked through the curtains and said, “It's some old man. I'll get rid of him.”
Fenner opened the door. “What do you want?”
“Pardon me, but would you be interested in purchasing a new pet?” It was Hank's voice, of course.
“No, now get the hell out of here!”
“Wait, see this little fellow?” Morgan Freeman appeared in Hank's hand like a bit of stage prestidigitation. Fenner did a double-take on the creature, and Hank launched Morgan at his face.
Fenner pinwheeled backwards. The gun went off and Reece flew backwards like a discarded sack of potatoes. I launched myself at Fenner, who was bringing his free hand up to either kill Morgan Freeman or divest himself of him. Lorraine screamed. Hank shoved his way in and launched him
self at Fenner as well.
Morgan had his little claws dug into Fenner neck and his teeth had bit down on his nose, which squirted blood—the grownups version of kissy-face. Kissy-face for keeps.
I knocked the gun from Fenner's hand and it hit the polished hardwood floor and skidded away. The same instant that Fenner's free hand groped for Morgan Freeman and began to clamp onto him, Hank delivered an uppercut to Fenner's chin that flung him backwards. Morgan flew straight upward, grappled the chandelier and continued climbing.
Fenner fell backwards, his head connecting loudly with the floor with a sickening thud.
“Man, that's gotta hurt,” I said. “Hank, see to that guy over there. He just got shot. Make sure he's not armed as well.”
Lorraine's shrieks had become sobs.
I knelt down to Fenner and felt for a pulse. He had one, and he was still breathing, unfortunately for him. He was going to be doing a serious stretch in Huntsville if he lived through this.
“Where's Jennifer?” I asked Hank, who was busy examining Reece.
“Three blocks away, west,” he said. “Bullet may have nicked his lung. He'll be in intensive care for awhile. Hell, I should know. The motor's running and the air conditioner is on, and I told her to keep herself locked in until we returned.” You have to admire a guy who can carry on two conversations at once.
“I figured you for blowing up the front half of the house,” I said.
“Thought about it. A fellow can amend his ways, you know.”
“You call the cops?”
“Of course I did.”
At that moment we all heard the sirens.
“You didn't by any chance tell them to send an ambulance.”
Hank laughed. “You're damned right I did. Because after I was through, I knew one was gonna be needed.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
If the scene was confusing in the immediate aftermath of Hank's rescue, it was pandemonium when the local San Sebastian cops arrived. I handed the burly first responder policeman the business card of Sheriff Delores Clayton of Corinth County, and told him that she would verify who we were and what we were doing here. He wanted to know what had happened, and he seemed a bit touchy, as there were too many of us to outright control, so I gave him a quick orientation, including that there was a missing person named Todd Landry, whom “those people” (while pointing at Lorraine, Reece and Fenner) knew as “Sam.” Also, the people who should have been in the house but weren't were named—I snapped my fingers and Lorraine supplied the names—Gus and Margaret.
