by George Wier
I laughed. I couldn't help myself.
“What so funny?” she asked.
“Someone figured it out,” Dusty said. “Looks like they brought us the fellow you've been looking for.”
“Hello, Sam,” she said.
“Hi, Lorraine.”
“I've got a quitclaim deed for you to sign. It's over there on the counter.”
“For what?” Todd said. It took a mental effort on my part not to call him Sam.
“For your portion of the estate. Since Fenner wasn't able to find the original will, I figured I would hedge my bets. Everything has to be legal these days, you know.”
“Did Reece sign one as well?” I asked.
“Of course he did.”
“You were holding a gun on him at the time, weren't you?” Todd said.
“It was a very private moment,” she said. “Too bad you weren't there. I sent you an invitation, but you felt like you had to run. Then again, it's what you always do.”
“I'm not running anymore,” Todd said.
“Oh. Now isn't that darling. You finally decided to be a man. The only problem is, it's way too late for that. After today, you can leave and go be a man somewhere else. Back in Austin, maybe, teaching piano to children.” She smirked and Todd flushed crimson.
“Even if he were to sign it,” Bob said, “it probably requires witnesses. Hell, maybe even a notary.”
“No notary,” Lorraine said. “It's a simple form. I had it drafted by a real law student. It's legal. It does need two witnesses, someone from outside the family. And it looks like we have two and here,” she pointed at me and Bob, “and one to spare,” and she pointed at Dusty.
“I always did like a smart woman,” Dusty said.
“I'd say 'smart' was stretching things a bit,” I said.
“Dusty,” Bob said. “What the hell are you doing? You can't trust this woman. You let her walk all over you back when we were kids. You were like a forlorn hound dog, not worth even shooting, and she was Miss Prissy, from the Bledgrave family, with more money than sense. I thought you'd grown up out of that bullshit.”
Dusty's face sagged and then began turning beet red. He was a physically big man who was used to throwing his weight around, and Bob was treading on thin ice with him.
“Bob, if you weren't my friend, I'd pound you into the dirt.”
“Shut up, Dusty,” Lorraine said. “I'm running this get-together. Sam, the form is over there on the counter,” she pointed ten feet away. “There's even a pen. Just sign it, and we'll let you leave, and you can go back into hiding.”
I looked at Todd. He was shaking. He swallowed hard and said, “No, Lorraine. I'm not signing anything.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Wow. You're really trying, aren't you.” One hand went behind her came back a second later with a pistol. A little Walther PPK. She pointed it at Todd.
“What are you doing, Lorraine?” Dusty said. “Put that thing away.”
“I said shut the hell up, Dusty,” she shouted. Dusty was momentarily stunned. “Now, Todd, has anyone ever pointed a gun at you? Oh wait, I'm forgetting about you and Fenner. About how he once pointed a gun at you. You stood there and wet your pants, didn't you? Why yes, I believe I remember it. I can picture it like it was yesterday. You peed your pants, then. Are you going to now?”
Todd clenched his teeth, but he didn't speak and he didn't move.
“What happened after that?” I asked. “What happened after Fenner pointed the gun at him?”
“The old man tried to take the gun away from him,” Lorraine said. “And that's when it went off. Blew the old son of a bitch to kingdom come, didn't it, Sam?” She laughed, and the sound bounced around the house and echoed back.
“Fenner didn't mean to shoot him, did he?” I said. “It was an accident.”
“Of course it was an accident. Fenner doesn't have the balls to shoot anybody. He never had. He's always been just a small-time punk kid with delusions about how he's going to succeed in life.”
“But you held that over his head,” Bob said. “You knew he was guilt-ridden about the accident every day of his life. You and Sam here both knew. Except I'm sure Sam never threatened to go public with what really happened. But you did. That's how you coerced him into looking for the will that had you in it. The will that you knew must have existed. And then, when it didn't turn up, you held it over his head again and coerced him into signing a quitclaim to the estate.”
“Okay, that's enough,” Lorraine said and motioned with the gun. “Sam, go sign the deed.”
“No,” he said.
“You know what the difference is between me and Fenner?” Lorraine asked. “The only time he ever shot anyone, it was accidentally. But me, I'm going to shoot you purposefully. At the count of three.”
“Lorraine,” Dusty said. “You can't.”
“Watch me. One.”
“If you shoot him,” Dusty said, “I won't protect you anymore.”
“Shut the fuck up, Dusty. Two.”
Every muscle in my body had tightened like a wound-up coil. A coil about to spring loose. The instant before I did, Dusty sprang at her.
As he did, she turned the gun and fired. Dusty went down.
I slammed into Lorraine even as she brought the gun back in my direction, but I was there first. I hit her hard and knocked her into the wall behind her. For a moment I couldn't see or hear anything except for the little lights going on and off all over the universe, and then I realized I'd hit my own head. Someone picked me up and pulled me off of her. I looked down to see that Lorraine's head was partially through the sheet rock of Dusty Singletary's living room wall. Or at least it appeared that way. I couldn't be sure, because for a second there she seemed to have two heads.
I grayed in and out as I sat on the floor. Todd Landry was talking to someone on a phone. He was saying something that I couldn't hear very well. Sometime about an ambulance. Five feet away from me, it looked like Bob was giving the Sheriff a vigorous massage. And then the weirdest thing of all happened. It seemed like he kissed him. I smelled smoke and I wondered what Morgan Freeman was doing right then—whether or not he'd made it to the windmill and gotten something to drink, and how long the road was going back, and when I got there whether I'd figure everything out.
I grayed out again.
When I came to again, someone was hurting me. They were pushing on my head. I felt something cold.
“He'll need an x-ray,” the big woman said. “To rule out concussion. Looks like he's coming to.”
“Ow,” I said.
“Mr. Travis? Can you hear me?”
“You don't have to shout,” I said.
“Good. You can hear me. Do you know what today is?”
“Is it my birthday? Someone bake me a cake?”
“He always talks like that,” a voice said. It sounded like Bob's.
“Is the Sheriff okay?” I asked.
“It's going to be touch and go,” she said. “If he makes it, then Bob saved his life. That was a fine bit of CPR, Bob.”
“Training took over,” he said. “You don't have to think when that happens.”
My vision swam into focus. I was sitting in an easy chair in Dusty's living room. The paramedic held a cold compress to my head with one hand while she took my pulse with the other. Her eyes were glued to the watch on her wrist.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“I stayed here with you,” she said. “My partner took Dusty to the hospital. Stop asking me questions. I'm timing something.”
“Where's Lorraine?” I asked.
“She's handcuffed in my car,” Bob said. “I'm taking her to the hospital to get her checked over. After that, I'm taking her to jail.” He stood over me, appraising the situation.
At that moment, the woman's radio squawked. She released my wrist, grabbed her radio and keyed the mic. “Go ahead.”
“Subject is DOA, County Hospital.” It took a moment for it to sink in with me. DOA means Dead On A
rrival.
I looked up at Bob. His jaw tightened.
“The charge,” he said, “is murder.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The fact of the matter is, all bodies are mortal. I'm not what you would call a deep thinker or a great philosopher. The most use I've ever had for my head has been as a shock absorber. I do believe that we're not our bodies; instead, a body is more like a possession, like your car or your house. In fact, from my point of view, it's exactly like that. But when someone in close proximity to you has lost their body, our tendency is to think of things in more physical terms simply because it's a reminder of our own mortality.
That's what I was thinking as I was wheeled out of the hospital in the obligatory final wheelchair ride. I think they do that more from a legal standpoint than for courtesy. If you were walking out the hospital and fell and hurt yourself, then they could be held liable for it, and ultimately would have to provide further care for nothing.
Hank and Jennifer were waiting for me at the curb.
I got up and Jennifer got out and threw her arms around my neck, kissed my cheek. Then she held the front door open for me as I got inside, and took the back seat for herself.
“The way I hear it,” Hank said, “you tried to put your head through a wall.”
“I was putting someone else's head through the wall. The other part of the wall got in the way of my head.”
He put the car in gear. “Where to?”
“Let's go by the Bledgrave house.”
“That's fine.”
“I'm supposed to meet somebody. A couple of folks, in fact.”
During my brief stay at the San Sebastian County Hospital, I got a few questions answered. The first thing was that Reece had been released to home. He was going to be taking it easy for awhile because of the cracked rib from the bullet he'd taken, and from the surgery to remove it. But, he was at least on his feet. Fenner wouldn't be on his feet for months. I'd stopped by to see him, and I could understand him better without a mental translator going in my head. He was going to have some new implants for teeth, but he was learning to talk around the changes that had occurred in his mouth in the meantime. Fenner informed me that Margaret was doing okay for the time being. When her strength was up, she would be moved to a nursing home where she would have proper care, twenty-four hours a day.
Fenner admitted to having the woman tied to the bed. It was the only way he and Reece could control her. She'd had a bad addiction to morphine, and he was weaning her off the stuff with lighter drugs. She'd been out of her mind for the last three years, ever since the death of her husband, Gus. There was an ongoing inquiry from the Adult Protection people as to her treatment, but the way he phrased it, it sounded as though he and Reece may have saved her life. Fenner admitted that he knew all about drugs from his younger years. He knew how to break addictions because he'd had to break his own. Still, the investigation would proceed until all the interviews were done, the doctors had been consulted, and some kind of disposition made for the woman's future, as much of one as she had remaining.
When we pulled up to the house, I got out into the late evening just as the sun was coming down. Hank, Jennifer and M.F. accompanied me up the steps to the house.
Reece answered the door, and ushered us into the living room. Duffie Caperton was already there, waiting for us.
“Is this your girl?” Duffie asked me, rising from her chair.
“Yes, this is Jennifer. Jennifer, this is Ms. Duffie Caperton. She's the Bledgrave family lawyer.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Jennifer said and shook the woman's hand.
“Maybe we should have met at your place,” I said. “Jennifer, Ms. Caperton has a piano that is out of this world. I'd like for you to see it.”
“Do you play?” Duffie asked Jennifer.
“Only a few songs. I've almost perfected Für Elise.”
“I'll bet you're good. Who is that you have there?”
“Oh. This is Morgan Freeman. He's a ferret. He eats ferret chow, hot dogs and breakfast sausages. He's a little devil.”
“She has a menagerie back home, including a snake, a parrot, and a hedgehog, not to mention Franklin, our dog.”
“Well, you may come to my house, but I don't allow animals indoors, so maybe it's best we met over here. If Tinnie was still alive, she wouldn't allow so much as a kitty cat in here. But I think Reece will allow Mr. Freeman.”
Reece nodded. He walked around the perimeter of the room until he found an out-of-the-way chair, and sat down. He wasn't the most sociable fellow I'd ever met.
The three of us sat down.
“I suppose you're interested in where the estate is going?” Duffie asked me.
“It's really none of my business, but I have to admit, I am curious.”
“First let me tell you, Temperance probably told Lorraine once that she was in her will. She used to do that. She used to tell people that she was including them in her will. It was probably the only way she figured to be nice to them. But she never changed her will from when she first drafted it. This was back in the 1990s, when she was finally figured out who was true to her and who wasn't, and that she wasn't going to live forever.”
“Tell him,” Reece said. It was the first thing he'd said since we arrived.
“The estate is much smaller than it used to be. But the bulk of a hundred million is going into a trust to be doled out to Reece and Fenner and Margaret on a monthly basis for the remainder of their lives. The amount for Margaret will be set, however, at a lowered monthly rate. Her needs will be simple, until she...expires. As the various family enterprises continue to thrive, Reece and Fenner's monthly stipend will be increased proportionally. That's the radio station, the funeral home, the real estate, the sugar cane factory, the cotton farms.”
“What about Todd?” Jennifer asked.
“We call him Sam,” Duffie said. “Tinnie loved him, apparently. He's receiving five million dollars in cash.”
“And Lorraine?” I asked.
“She was supposed to receive two million. But if she's convicted of murder, she will go to prison. As the family attorney, I'll make sure she never receives a thin dime.”
“Greed,” I said. “It always comes down to that.”
“I don't understand, dad,” Jennifer said. “Why do people want something that's not theirs? It doesn't make any sense.”
“You're right, honey,” I said. “It doesn't.”
“Let's go collect Todd,” Hank said. “Or 'Sam.' I'm eager to get back home. I got stuff to do.”
“Sure you do,” I said. “Sure you do.”
*****
We stopped by the San Sebastian County Sheriff's Office and met with Bob Ross before leaving town. Todd Landry was there as well, waiting for us.
As we entered the office, this aging accountant and investment counselor, an old demolitions expert, and an eight-year-old little girl with her pet ferret, we saw Bob being sworn in as the Sheriff by a Judge wearing a long, black robe. Bob had his hand on a Bible, and said, “I will.”
The Judge shook his hand, and people were lining up to congratulate him. The three of us—or four, if you count M.F.—were last in line.
“Come on in the office for a minute,” Bob said.
“I'd like to, but we have to head back. My wife is waiting for me, and she probably has a long list of things for me to do.”
“That's why I never married,” Bob said. “I never could get my own lists done, much less somebody else's.”
I held out my hand a final time. “Thank's, Bob, for all your help. Things could have gone completely different. They were already bad, but it could have been worse.”
“You'll be happy to know that Sam made a couple of phone calls, and squared everything up with the Sheriff over in Corinth County.”
“Oh. Delores Clayton, in Elysium. She was awfully upset about the finger.”
“Uh huh. I put in a good word for Sam with her. The finger is being returned for prop
er burial here. When I told her about Lorraine shooting Dusty, she was happy to comply. There will be no charges preferred against Sam for taking the finger.”
“How'd he do it?” I asked.
Bob looked down at Jennifer, then must have thought, What the hell. “He used a cigar cutter. Those things are essentially razor blades. It wouldn't take more than a minute. They were burying the guy, and you never unclasp a dead person's hands and shake them, so no one noticed during the funeral. Sam planned it all out very carefully. Lorraine was waiting for him in Elyisum. While she was asleep, he broke into her car and left the finger. He even wrapped it in gauze and pricked his own finger to make it bloody. Then he tipped off the Sheriff's office. It fooled everybody. Nice piece of work, that.”
“He considers himself a coward. I'd say he's not one. He's just careful.”
“Yeah,” Bob said. “Things could have been worse. And that's why I want to thank you.” He handed me something. I took it and turned it over. It was a Deputy Sheriff's badge.
“What's this?” I asked.
“As far as I'm concerned, you're an honorary Deputy Sheriff for San Sebastian County.”
“Honorary. Hmph. I can carry a badge, but no gun.”
“I'd heard that you didn't like guns.”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“I think you did. Anyway, I don't expect you to use it much. It's mostly for show.”
“I'll keep it in a place of honor.”
“My daddy is an Honorary Texas Ranger,” Jennifer said.
“Well shoot, why didn't you tell me?” Bob asked.
“I'd forgotten.”
EPILOGUE
Julie and I sat in the front row. I turned and looked and did a quick head count.
There were more than a dozen people in the room, all seated. They were well-dressed and sat in quiet dignity. Half of them were my family, the other half close friends and neighbors. Even Penny and Uncle Nat were in attendance, sitting in the back row. I'd arranged it such that if Nat began snoring, Penny was to give him her elbow.
Jennifer entered the room. She wore a white, knee-length dress. There was just the hint of rouge on her cheeks. She stopped in front of the piano and curtsied. I wondered, absently, who'd taught her to do that.
