Even as I spoke, I knew she was no longer there.
No pressure on my shoulder. I had plenty of room on the seat.
“Wiggins?” Possibly he’d become aware of my marooned state.
No answer.
He always sent a telegram to summon me. But I couldn’t send him a telegram. I tried ESP.
It’s a long way from earth to Heaven.
I’d wanted to be free of Dee. She was overbearing, exasperating, imperious. She’d pushed me here, yanked me there, and now she’d abandoned me.
Where had she gone?
No doubt she was popping around Adelaide, a spirit on the loose, trying to help her adored nephew.
She could at least have had lunch with me. I was hugely hungry. Dee likely wasn’t thinking about food, since she hadn’t appeared. It was being in the world that created appetite.
I brightened. As long as I was in the world . . .
• • •
Lulu’s was just as I remembered, the plate-glass window, the counter on one side, four booths on the other, and every seat taken at the lunch hour. I waited a few minutes and slid onto a vacated stool at the counter. I felt better when I’d ordered a hamburger with a thick slice of cheddar, onions, tomatoes, dill pickles, mayo, fries, and iced tea. In Adelaide, everyone drinks iced tea year-round.
I was midway through my burger when I glanced in the mirror. I wasn’t surprised to spot Johnny Cain and several other patrolmen in a booth. Lulu’s was on Main Street and convenient to City Hall. I noted that he carefully did not look my way. Obviously, he was cutting me slack about my lack of a driver’s license and would be sure not to see the yellow scooter parked outside. I scanned the other booths behind me. My feeling of comfort vanished.
Cole Clanton’s secretary hunched in the third booth. Face pale, eyes huge, hands gesturing, her mouth moved in rapid speech. Three women listened, their food ignored.
I didn’t have to overhear to understand. She was regaling her lunch companions with a blow-by-blow account of Nick Magruder’s fiery appearance at Cole Clanton’s office. Her expressive face told a tale I should have read when Dee and I were there. Cole’s secretary was genuinely frightened.
I took a last bite, but the savor was gone. I’d been so consumed with irritation at Dee and aggravation at Nick, I’d not considered the implications of Nick’s search for Cole Clanton. An obviously agitated and upset Nick was tearing around Adelaide looking for Cole. It was a reversal of fortune. Cole had been furious with Nick on two counts, the lost opportunity to buy the Arnold property and Nick’s revelations about Lisa to Arlene. Now Nick was livid with anger.
What had prompted Nick’s fury?
As Cole Clanton slammed out of the B and B, he’d tossed a taunt at Nick: “I got some business to see to, but I’ll be in touch, Phidippus.”
I’d told Nick to stay with Jan at the B and B.
I placed a bill by the check and slid from the booth, once again ruing my inability to disappear and arrive immediately at the desired destination.
Because, suddenly, I was frightened.
• • •
As soon as I was out of sight of Main Street, I boosted the throttle on the little yellow scooter. I made it in four minutes flat to the B and B, ran the scooter right up to the back porch, braked, killed the engine. In a flash, I pounded up the back steps and hurried inside.
Jan sat at the kitchen table, her hands clasped tightly together. She saw me and jumped to her feet, her round face apprehensive. “Where’s Nick? You have to tell me what’s going on.”
“He’s hunting for Cole.”
She was impatient. “I know that. Nick raced out of here after he talked to Cole.” She gestured at the kitchen table and two mugs of coffee. “We were sitting there, talking. Everything was fun, the way it used to be when we were kids. I felt safe. And happy.” Her voice shook. “When his cell rang, he glanced at it and almost didn’t answer. Oh, I wish he hadn’t. Then he said, and he was cocky, ‘It’s Cole. The little man left in a bad mood. Too damn bad. He said he’d call. I’d blow him off, but he’d tell everybody I was running scared. I’m not afraid of him. Now or ever,’ and he clicked on the phone.”
Jan’s expression was suddenly stricken. “Nick’s face changed as he listened. It was awful. It was like he’d been slammed hard and couldn’t get his breath. I could tell he was looking at a picture. He jumped up and his chair crashed to the floor. He was yelling into the phone, his words coming so fast I could barely understand. He told Cole he was a repulsive, slimy, sick son of a bitch and when he got his hands on him he’d regret ever being born. And then he stood there”—she pointed at the center of the kitchen—“his face red, and yelled, ‘You’d better not. I’m coming for you.’ He clicked off the phone and started for the door. I ran and grabbed his arm and it was rigid as steel. I asked him what was wrong. He looked down at me and shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I can do. I’ll stop him. Somehow.’ He charged out the door and drove away.”
I had been right to be frightened. Something had set Nick off, and if he found Cole there might be serious trouble.
Jan flung out a beseeching hand. “I’ve been crazy ever since he left. And then Rod Holt called and asked for Nick, and when I said he was gone and could I take a message, Rod acted really odd. He said I should tell Nick that Cole Clanton was in an ugly mood and he’d tried to talk Cole out of doing something he might regret, but he hadn’t had any luck. I asked Rod what he was talking about and he said well, it was just a word to the wise, but he didn’t want to get involved and maybe Cole would have second thoughts. He hung up real quick. I called back and he didn’t answer.”
• • •
Rod Holt’s Back Shop was at the tail end of Main Street, a shabby one-story frame building sandwiched between an abandoned storefront and a pawnshop. Plate-glass windows on either side of a rough-hewn wooden door featured assorted memorabilia, spittoons, two worn saddles, stained leather chaps, a stack of lariats, enamel basins, several Winchester rifles, a calico bonnet, empty feed sacks, boots, gun rigs, barbed wire, and branding irons.
A bell clanged loudly as I opened the door. There scarcely appeared to be a free inch of space, only a narrow aisle between walls laden with curiosities ranging from Indian headdresses to old rifles to galvanized iron tubs. I skirted a late-eighteenth-century claw-footed porcelain bathtub to reach a counter that held even more clutter, plus jars of hard candy and beef jerky. Square in the center of the counter was an intricately patterned Indian basket filled with rolled up sheets of thick paper. A hand-lettered sign proclaimed: Treasure Maps. $25 each. Going Fast.
“Hidey.” The drawl was pure Adelaide. “Welcome to the Back Shop. Make yourself to home.”
The lighting from wall-mounted gaslights was fairly dim. It took me a moment to distinguish the lean figure lounging on a wooden chair tilted back against the wall. A nearby horsehair sofa was burdened with two sets of molted antlers, a toy rocking horse, and a late-Victorian wooden toilet seat.
“Mr. Holt?”
The chair clipped to the floor and he stood. In the flicker of gaslights, he was the image of Doc Holliday, thin with smoothly cut, jet-black hair and a sharp-pointed mustache. His long-sleeve, faintly yellowed white shirt, string tie, baggy black trousers, and black boots would have attracted no notice in any saloon in the Old West in the 1880s. Dark eyes studied me as he hooked his thumbs in his pockets and nodded. “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
“I’m Hilda Whitby. I’m representing Nick Magruder.”
A thick dark eyebrow arched. “I heard about Nick setting up to buy the Arnold place. Are you his lawyer?” His long face looked more animated. “That old Arnold place could be redone like the nineteen twenties if he replaced the recent stuff.” He pointed at the claw-footed bathtub. “That would go in an upstairs bath real pretty.”
“I’m not sure about Nick’s plans for the house. I’m here about a different matter. Jan Richey told me you called Nick to warn him ab
out Cole Clanton. She wants to know what Cole is threatening to do.”
He squinted at me, the enthusiasm draining from his face. “It seems to me like maybe Nick might be the right person to tell Jan.” He pulled at his mustache. “If she has to know.” The last was a mumble.
“Nick stormed out of the B and B to hunt for Cole. We can’t find Nick and Jan’s worried. Nick is terribly angry.”
“Right.” Rod’s gaze skittered away. He looked toward a set of antlers, and his face twisted in uncertainty.
“Mr. Holt—”
“Rod. Everybody calls me Rod.”
“If you tried to talk Cole out of a plan, then you know what he intends to do.”
“Oh, hell.” He sounded aggrieved. “I had a covered wagon about sold to Cole, an honest-to-God wagon I can trace to the Land Run.” The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were opened to settlers at noon on April 22, 1889, and fifty thousand hopeful settlers poured into the area from north, south, east, and west, by buggy, wagon, train, and on horseback. “This wagon left from Purcell. We were dickering when his cell rang.” He turned away, reached up to straighten a pair of spurs hanging from a board.
I moved until I could see a portion of his averted face.
He peered at the spurs as if he’d never seen a pair before.
“I can tell you are uncomfortable.” I spoke soothingly. “If you know what Cole plans to do, I hope you will tell me. Maybe I can do something to prevent a problem.”
He tugged again at his mustache. “I don’t want to be caught in the middle of anything. But I guess I got to say what I know.” He reached over, moved a set of antlers. “You might as well sit down.”
He waited until I perched on the hard-as-a-rock sofa before he settled in the chair. He didn’t look at me, fastening his gaze on an Indian basket. “No way you can’t hear when people talk on a cell. Of course, I only heard Cole’s side, but I knew who he was talking to. Cole kept calling him Phidippus. Everybody knows that story. Long and short of it, women are damned fools sometimes. That’s why I couldn’t tell Jan. I hope she doesn’t ever have to know. I told Cole he was playing with fire. If he puts those pix on Facebook, who knows what Arlene might do?”
Pictures on Facebook. I didn’t have to ask the content of the pictures. Women were damned fools sometimes and Arlene had been proud of having a young lover. “Cole took pictures on his iPhone?” How easy to click and post the photos on his Facebook page. How easy and how devastating.
“Cole got ugly, said it would serve Arlene right if everybody in town saw the photos. But he said they were worth more off the Net than on it. Nick is a sap for Jan, and he’d do what he could to protect Jan’s ma. In exchange for no pix, Nick was going to have to sign a paper saying he’d sell the Arnold house to Cole for a dollar and maybe, if Nick was lucky, Cole would pay him a couple of bucks. Cole held up the phone and laughed like a hyena, and said, ‘I’ll give Nick a call every so often, describe another one of the pix. I’d send them to him one by one, but Phidippus might be shocked. By tonight he’ll be begging me to let him hand over the place.’”
• • •
On the back porch of the B and B, I hesitated. What, if anything, could I share with Jan? I gripped the doorknob. I didn’t want to tell her about the cell phone photos of her mother, but I needed help. She was sure to know the number of Nick’s cell phone. I had to talk to him. Would he agree to meet me? I had a plan. Of course, everything depended upon finding Cole Clanton and the return of Nick’s aunt Dee.
The grip on my arm was just this side of vicious. “I’ve buzzed between this place and downtown so many times I’m dizzy. You’ve got to help me with Nick.”
“You’re back!” I tried to pull away, but a woman who could control eleven hundred pounds of horseflesh wasn’t going to set me free. “Where’ve you been?”
“Trying to stop Nick from his lunacy.” Her deep voice was strained and discouraged.
I yanked free, then with a swipe through the air found her arm and held on tight. Turnabout. “Where is he?”
“Running around town like a madman. He goes from place to place—the library, the basketball court behind the fire station, the pro shop at the golf club, the Gazette. He barges in and asks for Cole with a look on his face that would scare a sumo wrestler. Cole’s not there and Nick paces around like a caged lion and finally flings himself outside again. Then he races back downtown and skulks in the gazebo in the park across the street from City Hall. He waits until he gets a call on his cell and then he bolts off again. The calls seem to come right on the hour.”
I glanced at my watch. I’d picked up a bright pink Timex at Wal-Mart. A quarter to five. I gestured toward the yellow scooter. “I’ll meet you at the gazebo. Pop back and make sure he doesn’t leave.”
• • •
I parked in a small asphalt lot and cut across the park at a slant. I glimpsed portions of the gazebo, but most of the structure was hidden. Old maples and firs surrounded the gazebo, offering shade and the illusion of a remote country glade right in the heart of town. Halfway across the park, I was aware of city employees streaming down the broad white steps of City Hall across the street. A few steps more and I entered a dusky path that curved through the trees like a country lane.
The temperature was drifting down into the sixties. I reached the edge of the trees. Nick stood in the gazebo, body tense, shoulders bunched, hands in fists. He was bare-armed in the same ratty polo he’d worn that morning. His age-whitened Levi’s sagged on his hips. The dark stubble on his cheeks was heavier. Despite his disreputable appearance, I saw rock-hard determination in his face.
“Nick.”
At my call, he swung toward me. He made a gesture of impatience. “I don’t have time to talk to you.” He looked at his watch. “Get lost.”
I walked up the gazebo steps. “What makes you think Cole will show up this time?”
Expressions slid over his face—surprise, irritation, uncertainty, and an underlying anger bubbling hot as lava. “How’d you know?”
“By this time”—my voice was dry—“practically everybody in town has heard you’re hunting for Cole Clanton like a sheriff after a horse thief.”
“Do they know why?” He barely managed to push out the question.
“Not unless you’ve told them.”
“Not me. But Cole can’t resist twisting the knife. He called Arlene, told her what he’d do if I didn’t cooperate. He called Jan. I’ll make him pay for that. Damn him, I don’t care about the Arnold place. He can have it. But he’s got to shut up. Who’s he going to tell next?”
“We can stop him. But you have to do exactly as I say.”
A hot whisper buzzed in my ear. “Get to the point.”
I turned toward the sound and snarled, “If you’ll resist micromanaging for a half second, I will.”
Nick’s head jerked, too. He stared at the empty space next to me, made a strangled sound. “Lady, I don’t have time for you to act like Aunt Dee’s lurking around.”
His cell phone rang. Although, to be accurate, the summons wasn’t a ring. Rather, quarter notes on the backbeat of a snare drum played with brushes.
An ordinary ring should be good enough for anyone. I have never found making oneself seem special an attractive quality.
Holding the cell in his right hand, Nick glanced at the caller ID. His face hardened.
The call must have been from Cole Clanton.
I grabbed Nick’s right arm. “Dee, catch his other hand.”
Nick’s strangled yelp and panicked stare at his left arm indicated Dee, for once, had followed instructions.
I talked fast, knowing we had only seconds. “Don’t let Cole butt you around. Tell him this is the last call you’re taking. Take charge. Tell him you’ll meet him with a written and signed promise to sell the property to him for one dollar. Answer it now.” I let go of his right arm.
He lifted the cell phone. “Nick.” He spoke through stiff lips, his gaze fastened on his left a
rm.
I frantically tried to figure a location that would satisfy my requirements for the vanquishing of Cole Clanton, then realized the gazebo was perfect. “Tell him nine o’clock tonight. Here at the gazebo.” The gazebo was downtown, and there were cars up and down the streets. I doubted Cole Clanton harbored any fear of Phidippus, but he may have heard about the threats Nick had been flinging around Adelaide. In that event, the choice should be reassuring. Critical to my plan, however, was the gazebo’s isolation in the center of town, hidden from view by the encircling trees. On a chilly October evening, the likelihood of anyone visiting the gazebo was fairly remote.
Nick’s voice was thin. “I’m not chasing around town anymore, Cole. I won’t answer if you call again. I’ll have the paper for you tonight. Nine o’clock. The gazebo.”
I reached over and clicked off the phone.
Nick gave another yelp. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving Arlene.”
The cell rang again. “Don’t answer. Shut up and listen.”
“Do as she says.” Dee’s voice brooked no disagreement.
His head jerked to the left. He tried to move his arm and made little progress. “Aunt Dee?” His voice cracked.
“If she were more capable, you would never have known I was here. Nick, dear, do as she says. Possibly she has a good idea.” There was no conviction in Dee’s tone.
I was hot. “If she had any character, I wouldn’t have to involve her. But I can’t disappear and she can. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter 7
Nick got out of his car behind the B and B.
I parked the scooter beside the back steps. It was chilly now that the day was waning. I’d wear my new thick black cardigan this evening.
Ghost Gone Wild (A Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel) Page 10
