“Sheriff, is there something I can help you with?”
“Maybe. Who takes care of your personal finances?”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “My accountant, James Wrigley, but Angus took care of all the correspondence with him.”
“Would you mind calling him?”
“James?”
“Yeah, give him a call.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“Let him know that Angus will no longer be involved in handling matters concerning your finances from now on and see what he says.”
She nodded, turned away, and headed toward the hallway. “His number is in the study.” She glanced over her shoulder.
He followed her into the study and waited by the desk. She looked up the number and placed the call.
“James Wrigley, please. This is Suzanne Rayburn.” A few seconds later, she said, “James? I wanted to let you know that Angus and I are separated. He will no longer be involved—” She was quiet as she listened. “Thank you.” She slowly lowered the receiver and cradled it.
“Suzanne? Are you okay?” Cal stepped closer.
She blinked several times, looked at him, and said, “Yes, I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “Angus fired him a few months ago.”
“Does my father own a gun?”
“Yes, he kept it in the safe.”
“Would you happen to know what kind of gun?”
“A handgun, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what kind.”
“I’m sure he probably took it with him when he moved out,” Cal said.
“I’ll check.” She walked around the desk, took a painting down from the wall, and set it on the floor. After she had unlocked the safe, she went through the contents. She shook her head and looked at Cal. “It’s not here and neither is our emergency money.”
“Call the bank.”
She nodded.
“Suzanne?” Raven stepped in the doorway. She saw Cal and froze.
He turned toward her.
“Raven,” Suzanne said, while trying to locate the phone number on her desk. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Raven nodded and stepped out of view. Cal walked to the doorway and saw her going down the hallway.
“Raven?”
She stopped and turned.
He walked down the hall and stood in front of her. “I want to apologize for detaining you, and … the way I had you detained.”
She nodded. “I understand … I think.”
“It doesn’t matter now, as your mom has skipped town with the money anyway. I guess word leaked out about the duffle bag full of money. I don’t know how she could have found out about it. Unless …”
“Cal, I didn’t say a word.”
“I know you didn’t. She got into the safe by seducing one the nightshift deputies. There was a lot of joking going on within the department, and I think that’s where the leak originated.” He lowered his head. “And truth is, the first time I arrested you … well, I didn’t want you to leave, and it’s before I found out—”
“I know.”
“You do?” He looked back at her.
She nodded.
“This is awkward to say the least.”
She smiled but didn’t say anything.
“So, you’re leaving?”
“Yes, I’ve got a flight out late this afternoon.”
“I’m sure you’re homesick.”
“Oh, yes! I miss …” Her eyes stayed on his a long moment. “I miss being home.”
“Cal?” Suzanne called from the door of the study.
He turned. “I’ll be right there.” He looked back. Raven was gone.
73
Late that afternoon, Suzanne came through the door of the sheriff’s department with Cal following.
“You can wait in my office,” Cal said. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
She walked out of the lobby and down the hallway.
Cal stepped over to Justin’s desk. “No sign of Lupe?”
Justin shook his head. “If she’s at her apartment, she’s not answering her door.”
“Call my father, and tell him we have a lead on his stolen property and need him to come down here.”
Justin gave Cal a questioning look. “We do?”
Cal grabbed a slip of paper, jotted down the number, and handed to it to him.
“Did something happen while I was asleep?” Justin asked.
“Yes,” Cal said as he headed for the hallway.
“Uh, sir?”
“Yeah, “Cal called back over his shoulder.
“Imogene’s out. She met bail.”
Cal stopped at the hallway, looked back, and said, “When my father get’s here, give me a heads up before sending him into my office, and I want you stationed outside the door after he goes inside. Just in case there’s a problem.”
“Sure.” Justin watched him disappear around the corner. He looked down at the slip of paper and then made the call.
Just as Cal expected, sixteen minutes later, Justin called him, and then Angus barreled through Cal’s door. After he entered and closed the door, he did a double take when he saw Suzanne in a chair off to one side of the room.
He pointed a finger at her and looked at Cal. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“Filing charges against you.”
He dropped his hand to his side and eyed both of them. “For what?”
“Embezzlement.”
The room fell silent. Suzanne and Cal watched him while he mulled it over.
Angus shook his head. “You can’t prove I embezzled anything. Judge Walker is a friend of mine. We get together at the club for a friendly game of poker once a month. He’s not going to take anybody’s word over mine.”
“Well,” Cal said, “the D.A. talked Judge Walker into signing off on an arrest warrant for you an hour ago.” Cal stood up. “Angus Rayburn, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain—”
“Son, you aren’t arresting me.” Angus turned on his heel went toward the door. He grabbed the knob and opened it. Justin stood in his way on the other side.
When Angus turned around, Cal was right in front of him. Angus pointed a finger in his face. “You’re no son of mine.”
“I honestly wish that were true.”
With anger in his eyes, Angus looked at Suzanne. “You’ll regret this.” He looked back at Cal. “Consider yourself dead to me.”
Cal reached for him. Angus fisted his hands and took a swing. Cal leaned his upper body back out of his reach. From behind Angus, Justin grabbed him. Angus bent over, lifted Justin off his feet, and spun him around as he tried to get through the doorway. Cal tried to grab Angus’ arm. Angus growled as he threw Justin off his back and onto the floor. Angus barreled out of the office with Cal at his heels. Cal tackled him, and they both hit the floor.
The dispatcher jumped up, tossed his headset aside, and rounded his desk. Justin got to his feet and hurried into the lobby. Cal wrestled with Angus as he tried to get the handcuffs on him. The two deputies helped restrain him.
Cal cuffed him, stood up, and took a step back. The dispatcher and Justin lifted Angus off the floor and onto his feet.
Angus’ eyes were bloodshot with anger. His face was red, and his whole body shook. He looked at Cal and said through gritted teeth, “I’ll get out of this, and when I do, you and that bitch in there will pay. Now, I want my lawyer.”
74
“Would you like a beverage?” the flight attendant asked.
Raven looked up from her notepad, smiled, and shook her head. “No, thank you.”
As soon as she’d taken her seat on the plane, she had taken a notepad and pen out of her purse to work on her next novel. At least, she had tried to work. She couldn’t focus, because of what Ted had showed her earlier that morning. Her life would never be the same again. All of the lies and deception over the years was beyond her scope of understanding. And Cal—poor Cal, she knew he would never forgive her. And
could she blame him? She pressed her lips together. Even she was guilty by omission.
Well, he’ll know in a few days.
She had at least a few days before he would find out. There would be lots of questions. Maybe he’d have her mother in custody by then. She had some questions that she wanted answered as well.
She had found out from Suzanne that Angus had stolen from her over the past several months. Raven didn’t understand how such a fine woman could end up with such a wretched man. And what it must be like for Cal to have to be the one to arrest his own father.
She thought back to her high school days. Cal’s mother had always seemed nice, but Raven couldn’t remember if Cal had ever mentioned his father to her back then. She had never asked either, but why would she, when she had never had a relationship with the people she had lived with? She’d been so conditioned to that life that she had assumed that others lived somewhat similar lives, so the thought had never occurred to her. The only positive family relationships she’d ever seen were on sitcoms on television, and she knew that they were pure fiction. The wonderful, hardworking fathers and the sweet kindhearted mothers and all were doting parents, loving their precious children. When she was a little girl, she used to fantasize about what it’d be like to have parents like that, but as she grew older she realized that there was no such thing. To come home from school to the smell of home baked cookies instead of beer and cigarette smoke, to hear questions of, ‘how was your day?’, ‘would you like to have a friend over this weekend?’, or ‘would you like to come sit in the kitchen with me while I cook supper?’, instead of ‘get the dishes done and supper started before Virgil comes home.’, ‘don’t even ask me if you can go on the field trip at school, I don’t have the money to blow on stupid shit like that.’, or ‘get out of my face, can’t you see I’m on the phone?’.
When Raven was twelve years old, she had caught pneumonia that winter. She’d had a head cold and had come home from school to find the front door locked. Her mother was in her bedroom entertaining her latest lover. Raven had sat on the front porch until it had started to sleet. With her books in hand, she looked around the perimeter of the house for shelter. She didn’t dare knock on the door. She tried the car doors to her mother’s car and her lover’s car. They were all locked. She went to the well house and crawled inside. She’d stayed humped over and shivered for what seemed hours. She hadn’t heard the guest leave but was jolted awake when her mother yelled her name. She crawled out of the well house, grabbed her books, and headed toward the trailer for what she knew would be a painful encounter. Sure enough, when she entered, her mother backhanded her all the way to her bedroom. She was angry because Raven hadn’t answered the first time when she had called her name. After her mother was satisfied, she went into her own bedroom, but had left instructions for Raven to clean herself up, and get in the kitchen, and start supper. Raven had washed the blood from her busted lip and leaned her head back to try to stop her nose bleed. After she had it under control, she went into the kitchen to start supper.
She had been standing at the kitchen cabinet next to the refrigerator, peeling potatoes when Virgil had come home. He walked in the door and headed straight for the refrigerator. He grabbed a beer, eyed her, and laughed. “Looks like you pissed your momma off again.” He then looked on the stove. “Why ain’t supper ready?” She told him that she had a head cold and didn’t feel well, but would have it ready soon. He looked her over and said, “Liar! Ain’t a blasted thing wrong with you.” He stepped over to her and yanked her around to face him. He looked down at her blouse, his eyes landed on her budding breasts. She glanced down and then tried to cover herself with her arms. He yanked her arms down. “Well, what have we here?”
Raven looked up from her notepad and shivered at the memory.
She had run away that night, after he’d hurt her. She’d bundled up and had taken a heavy quilt and stayed in the woods. The next day, Virgil had found her. He had taken her to the hospital and threatened her to an inch of her life if she ever told anyone what he’d done. She had been admitted and stayed there for six days. Doctor’s and nurses had questioned her, but she refused to talk. She knew if she did, he’d kill her, and if he didn’t, her mother would.
She had learned how to suppress her emotions during that time of her life, and it wasn’t until she’d met Pastor Higgins and his wife in Oxford that she had learned how to allow herself to feel again and to trust again.
Raven had left a lot out of her novel, Shattered Lives. Some things she couldn’t begin to write. Returning to Cypress had let her know that she was beyond what had happened to her as a child and teenager, but only the love of her Savior had filled that void.
75
“I hate pumping gas,” Callie said as she stuck the nozzle in to fuel the car.
She tapped her foot and glanced around the parking lot while she waited. The parking lot was not well lit and sat off the side of a two lane highway sixty miles south of Cypress. The beer, bait, and tackle store had signs taped to the windows advertizing—beer, bait, and tackle—and buy one Snicker’s candy bar and get one free. Next to the store was a small motel and on the other side of the store was a bar with a few cars and several motorcycles parked in front.
The motel’s marquee light flashed ‘Vacancy’. She could see why. The doors, from one end of the building to the other, were spaced about eight feet apart from each other. Through the shades over the office, she could see a flickering light from a television screen.
The sign over the bar read Sullivan’s Bar and Grill. The weathered wooden front porch ran from one end to the other. Posts supporting the roof of the porch were roughly hewn from trees and gave it the appearance of an old time saloon. Neon beer signs hung in the darkened windows. The steady sound of a bass guitar thumped.
Her attention was brought back to the gas pump when it shut off.
“That was fast.” She eyed the pump. “Five gallons!” She looked at the store and then back at the pump. She groaned.
She took out the nozzle and hooked it on the pump. At the rumbling of tailpipes, she turned and looked toward the saloon. She watched a biker get off his Harley, remove his helmet, and head inside the bar. Music grew loud as he entered and then muffled when the door closed.
The aroma of grilled meat drifted across the parking lot. Callie’s stomach growled. She attached the gas cap and turned to go back into the store and complain about the gas pump when a different kind of rumbling came from the west. She turned her head and looked. Lightning flickered from a large thunderhead in the distance. A moment later it rumbled again.
I can’t drive in rain, especially at night. She looked at the bar again. And I don’t like being alone in a thunderstorm.
She opened the car door and slipped into the driver’s seat. She reached into her purse, took out her cell phone, and turned it on. She noticed that she had several missed calls and all from a number she didn’t recognize. She looked up her location on the GPS app. She was a hundred miles from a decent motel. She looked back at the thunderhead. It was fast approaching.
Crap!
She glanced over her shoulder at the motel a moment and sighed.
Thirteen minutes later she was in the cramped room. A full sized bed with a lumpy mattress sat across from the door. Beside the door was a small dresser with a mirror. A box shaped television sat on top of the small dresser. The bathroom door had to be closed before she could sit on the toilet. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and something else unpleasant that she couldn’t identify.
She changed her clothes and shoes and then applied her makeup. She went into the bedroom, scooted the television over, and looked at herself in the mirror over the dresser. She adjusted her tight mini skirt and the low neckline of her skimpy top and then smiled at herself.
“I should have gone redheaded a long time ago.” She pursed her lips and blew herself a kiss. She grabbed her purse, took the duct tape out, and tossed it on the bed, and then headed o
ut the door.
A minute later, she stood in the doorway of the bar, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness. She walked over to the bar, leaned up against it, and looked around the room. Several bikers were lined up on bar stools with a beer in front of them. Southern rock came from a jukebox against a wall across the room. A large rebel flag hung on the wall behind the bar.
The sleeves of the bartender’s faded denim shirt had been cut off and were frayed, and revealed his large biceps that were covered with tattoos. His head was shaved, and he wore a goatee.
He took a long drag from his cigarette and set it in an ashtray. He stepped over and gave her a long look. “What’ll you have?”
She batted her eyelashes at him and smiled. “Cosmopolitan.”
“Budweiser, Bud Light, or Wild Turkey, lady. We don’t do mixed drinks. You wanna shot, a beer, or both?”
She curled her upper lip. “Wild Turkey? Is that the best you’ve got?”
He didn’t respond but gave her a steady look.
“Okay … Bud Light.”
“Can, bottle, or draft?”
“Draft.”
He poured her beer and slid the overflowing mug in front of her. The foamy liquid sloshed out onto her hand. She looked up at him.
He tilted his head at her. “You needin’ something else?”
She squinted at him, lifted her hand, and licked off the beer.
He held out his hand.
“What?” she asked.
“We don’t run up tabs in here.”
“Oh.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a five dollar bill. She handed to him. “Keep the change.”
Without a thank you, he took the five, and put into the register, and then pocked the change. He picked up a bar rag and began to wipe an area of the bar.
She didn’t like the way he treated her. Nobody treated Callie Wallace like that. She eyed him and thought that she could teach him a thing or two. When she got through with him, he’d be licking the soles of her shoes and begging for more.
“Do y’all serve food?” she asked.
Diana Anderson - Entering Southern Country 01 - Famous in a Small Town Page 22
