A Dead Red Oleander (The Dead Red Mystery series)

by RP Dahlke

  "You don't have to be mad, Caleb. I told you, Bud is allergic to police."

  "You have a point, but next time will you please give me a heads-up, so I'll know where to collect the body?"

  "Caleb!"

  "Awright, calm down," he said. "Let me look at this. Yeah, I see it, but it's not much of a picture, is it?"

  "It should be enough, Caleb. This has got to be the same man who attempted to kidnap Nancy, and the one I shot in the leg."

  Caleb's humming was testing my nerves. He grunted something that sounded like, "See you later," and didn't even say thank you for the only picture we had of the killer. Jeez, what did a girl have to do to get a thank-you? Someone had to find this guy and it was looking more and more like it might have to be me.

  <><><><><>

  I heard a car and from my upstairs bedroom looked out the window. Not Caleb or Jim Balthrop, and not anyone else I knew, either. I heard the doorbell ring and five seconds later the kitchen door slammed. That would be my dad making an exit for the back forty, where he could avoid any contact with strangers. Farmers, neighbors and friends innately knew to go to the kitchen door at the back of the house.

  Since I was already halfway down the stairs, I yelled at Aunt Mae and Cousin Pearlie to stay put. I would see who was leaning on our doorbell.

  "Can I help you?" I asked because I had my dad's shotgun behind my back.

  Of medium build, sandy-haired, even-featured, he was, I thought, about right for Jack Lee Carton.

  Seeing my grim expression, he removed his sunglasses and smiled, blinding me with his super white, even teeth.

  "You must be Lalla Bains? I'm Joe Netherton." He put his hand into his coat pocket and I brought out the shotgun. He used two fingers to slowly extracted a business card.

  "Most people don't usually think my presence warrants a shotgun, but the day is still young." Seeing that comment didn't break the ice, he said, "I'm with the Modesto Bee. My boss said you might be a little jumpy, what with all that's happened this last week."

  I took his card, but didn't lower the shotgun. Anyone could have a business card made up. "Del Potts still editor for the Modesto Bee?" I asked, knowing full well Del Potts had never been the editor and after last year, he and Jan Bidwell had moved to Chicago where they were working for the Tribune.

  He blinked, then smiled. "No, ma'am. You must be mistaken. Mr. Sutton has been the editor of the Bee since my dad retired a year ago. You want to call and ask? The number's the same as on the card."

  "Won't be necessary because I'm still not talking to you. If you want a statement, please contact Detective Gayle Rodney of the Modesto police."

  He shrugged, and taking a little notebook out of the same inside pocket, started to write it all down. As I was spelling Rodney for him, Pearlie nudged me aside. "Who is it, sugah? Oh, hi there."

  "Joe Netherton," he said, reaching out to capture Pearlie's hand. Pearlie, never one to miss out on meeting a new man. He wasn't exactly Superman, but he wasn't Jimmy Olsen either.

  When he asked her what she could tell him about the pilot's wife arrested for the murder of her husband, Pearlie invited him inside.

  Before I could object, Joe Netherton was sipping ice tea at our kitchen table. I would've excused myself, but decided to stick around in case Pearlie let something slip she shouldn't.

  So far, the conversation stayed on her, where she was and what she'd been doing at the time. Clearly, the newspaper guy was bored, but I wasn't going to jump in and help him out, either.

  Pearlie got to the subject of Mad Dog, and my antenna went on full alert. I put down my ice tea. "What did you say?"

  Annoyed that I was interrupting, she huffed, "Weren't you listening? I was telling Joe here how Mad Dog, er—Robert Schwartz—that's spelled S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z, never would've met that Jack person if he hadn't taken the call in the first place."

  I looked from Pearlie to the newspaper man, who was bouncing his pencil lightly on his notepad pretending indifference.

  I did a Pearlie flick of my fingers to indicate she should continue. "I guess I was daydreaming. Go on, Pearlie."

  Joe flipped his pages back a few and said, "I understand that the dead pilot and his wife were in the witness protection program. Can you verify that, Ms. Bains?"

  "I'd rather not. I can give you the marshal's name and number if you want to try him, but I don't think it's our place to talk about it."

  "Fair enough. Then can you tell me why Nancy Treat was staying here, and not her own house?"

  Oh, boy. This kid was smarter than he looked. Assuming I wanted to at least appear cooperative, he went with a question he knew I might answer. I ran through several scenarios before I settled on the pity ploy.

  "Since he was our pilot, my dad and I decided she shouldn't be alone so soon after her husband's death."

  Pearlie anxiously wriggled in her chair. I figured she was dying to add that my dad also objected to Nancy staying with us, and how Nancy might've killed her husband when she injected him with a lethal poison.

  Joe Netherton glanced her way but continued to talk to me. "So you had no idea that gangsters might show up and try to kidnap her?"

  I held up my hands in mock horror. "Gangsters! Oh, good heavens, no. It was a home invasion robbery. Things like that happen these days, but this guy got more than he bargained for." I leaned over, glanced at his notes, and changed the subject. "I'm sure your readers would be more interested in my upcoming wedding to Sheriff Caleb Stone. My cousin Pearlie and my great-aunt are here for the party."

  "Yes, ma'am, and congratulations on your impending nuptials. If I may ask one last question, I'll get out of your hair."

  I waited, feeling the sweat starting to leak through my shirt. Would he ask me something that would once again embarrass my family or corrupt Caleb's investigation?

  I was hoping my voice didn't quiver when I answered. "Yes?"

  "If there weren't any reports of a gunshot victim in any of the local hospitals, do you think the second intruder is dead, or is he out there waiting for his chance to come back and try again?"

  I shot out of my chair. "I shot him in the leg! If there is a next time I'll aim higher."

  Pearlie did one of her grandmother's snorts. "If you're thinkin' he's going to get the draw on us Bains women, better think again. My grandmother and I are crack-shots and Lalla here ain't so bad, either. Would you like to see the pistol I keep loaded and handy?"

  "Uh, no, thank you," he said, standing, putting his notebook into a pocket.

  "Then I'll see you out," Pearlie said.

  I waited in the kitchen while Pearlie saw him to the front door. Crap! He knew about the second intruder. So much for keeping the press from knowing there had been two of them. I dropped into the chair and wondered if Pearlie had it right about Mad Dog—he'd taken a call from Jack Lee Carton? If that were true, then he wasn't a stranger who randomly picked Mad Dog to help him find his ol' buddy, Dewey Treat aka Arthur Einstein. Pearlie had to have had it right. She may look like a ditsy blonde, but my cousin could quote verbatim most conversations. It went with what I knew of Mad Dog, that he would spin a story into something that fit his purposes. He'd either lied to the police, or he'd lied to Pearlie. Either way, I'd have to take this to Caleb, and soon.

  Pearlie came back into the kitchen with a big grin on her face. "How'd I do, Cuz?"

  "I guess you did okay."

  Pearlie rolled her eyes. "I did better than okay. I didn't tell him a thing about Nancy and Arthur being in the witness protection program. Granny always says the less a stranger knows about your business, the better. You can thank me now."

  "Uh-huh." I was thinking the less Pearlie knew about Nancy the better. I was glad now that I'd kept to my promise not to tell her about Nancy being the target of her godfather's partners. "I haven't heard from Jim Balthrop as to when the hearing's set for bail. I'd better go call Caleb."

  As I climbed the stairs, Pearlie called up to me, "If she gets bail, she's not comin
g back here, is she?"

  I paused in my climb and looked over my shoulder. "Oh, I don't know. One good turn deserves another, don't you think?"

  Chapter Fifteen:

  I called Caleb and asked about Nancy's bail.

  "Sorry, sweetheart. The hearing just finished, and it went like we thought. The judge will not be granting her bail."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Did Jim Balthrop find out any more from the aero-ag flight school and Burdell Smith?"

  "Why're you asking? They've all been cleared. He checked alibis, interviewed the employees, everything."

  "Just asking. Um, on another subject, I don't want to get Mad Dog in trouble for something he didn't do, but Pearlie seems to think he took a call from that Jack Lee Carton before he met him at Bud's Bar. If that's so, it might be that Mad Dog was simply enjoying an opportunity to expose Arthur or—"

  "Or, as much as you hate to say it about your pilot, he turned in Arthur for a reward?"

  "Yes," I answered sheepishly.

  Once again, Caleb's response was terse, but at least he agreed to check. After a few minutes, he called back and said Mad Dog's statement said he met the guy in the bar. "But if he's lying, we need to have another talk."

  I knew Mad Dog. If he lied, the last thing he'd do was fess up to the lie now. "You're not going to get him to change his story on this, Caleb."

  The other end of the line was ominously silent.

  Unable to tolerate dead air, I rushed in to fill it. "At the worst, he's guilty of poor judgment, and it wouldn't be fair to drag him in when it was probably nothing."

  Still no response from Caleb.

  "You there?"

  "Yes, I'm still here, listening to you make excuses for Mad Dog. If you think you can do better than professionally trained investigators, you're out of your league, again."

  "Okay, I won't. I promise. But Caleb—aren't you just the teensiest bit interested in knowing how this Jack Lee Carton connected the dots to get to Mad Dog?"

  "Lalla, sweetheart, do you realize how many people are presently working this case? Jim Balthrop and whoever he can wrangle into helping him from his office, most of Modesto homicide, and don't forget the extra man hours I'm putting in, and the twenty-four-hour patrol on your place. We don't need you cornering a nervous witness… that is, unless you intend to shoot Mad Dog in the leg too."

  "Don't worry. I have no interest in wrestling with Mad Dog for information that is probably wrong anyway."

  Another bout of silence. "I'll do this much; I'll ask him to come in and verify his story. We'll go over it until he tells me the truth. I'll let you know."

  He hung up before I could thank him. I was thinking it was time for me to act on my earlier notion, the one that if Caleb knew about, might mean the end of our relationship. Someone from Sacramento, either at the aero-ag flight school, or, I hated to think it, Burdell Smith, had leaked Arthur's whereabouts to the Las Vegas partners. And there was no one better suited to ask those questions than me.

  I found my family in the kitchen and told them the news, that Nancy would not be getting bail and that I was going into town to see her at the county jail. Then I would do some chores and come home.

  My cousin looked appropriately subdued, my Aunt Mae looked perplexed, and my dad just shrugged his shoulders and went back to eating his eggs.

  As I put my hand on the back door, he asked, "You going to be home for supper?"

  "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

  "How about Marshal Balthrop? With Nancy in jail, will he be coming back?"

  "I think so." None of us had heard from the marshal, but his equipment and his kit bag were still in the TV room.

  "Then how many should I plan on for supper?" Pearlie asked.

  Caleb would want to come out again, if for no other reason than to see what I'd been up to today, and if Pearlie was cooking we could probably count on seeing Mad Dog at the table again. "Six of us? Yeah, plan for six."

  That settled, I headed for the barn, where I kept the Cadillac under a tarp.

  Pearlie came through the open doors wearing a peony-flowered sundress and carrying her purse.

  "Let me help you with that." She put down the purse and picked up a corner on the tarp.

  "Sure," I said, surprised at the unexpected visit. So far, she'd shown absolutely no interest in spending time with Nancy, and certainly not since the girl was residing in the county jail.

  She rolled her end of the cover until it met up with mine. "I want to go with you."

  My eyebrows went up. "To see Nancy?"

  "I thought I'd go along for the ride. We can get some lunch after."

  This would not do. "You'd be bored waiting." I turned away to secure the tarp and shove it into the trunk.

  She stuck out her chin. "I won't be bored."

  I pulled out my last card. "I'm seeing Caleb this afternoon, and that's not for mixed company."

  She mulled that over for a minute, then picked up her purse and opened the passenger door. "You're not going to see Nancy or spend the afternoon in bed with your fiancé, and you can forget about leaving me behind."

  "So where do you think I'm going?"

  "I'm not a Bains woman for nothing, you know. It's what I said about Mad Dog, ain't it? Yeah, thought so. I told you Mad Dog took a call from that Jack person, and now you're wonderin' if Mad Dog is innocent after all. But you can't confirm it, and since Mad Dog is your employee, you're headed for somewhere to talk to someone who might know, and I reckon I should go with you."

  "This won't work, having you along. I'm going to see people who are connected with my family's business. It could get dicey, asking questions that they won't want to answer, and I will be discreet."

  She unshouldered her leather purse and patted the bottom zippered compartment that held her weapon. "I can be discreet. Besides," she said, eyeing the long line of my vintage red caddy, "I'll bet a tank of gas for this sucker that Mad Dog's innocent, and to prove it I'll buy the gas in advance. If you find out he's a liar, I'll just have to deal with it."

  "Okay, just so we're clear on this. You're going along with an open mind, right?"

  She nodded.

  "Then I suppose you'll want to be completely satisfied as to who is telling the truth, even if it means Mad Dog's in the thick of it?"

  "You got that right, Cuz."

  "Okay, get in the car."

  During the two-hour drive to Sacramento, I explained to Pearlie why Mad Dog might have lied to the police.

  Pearlie sniffed. "Well, of course he wanted to expose Arthur as a fraud. He already told me that. Don't you think you're overreacting just a bit? He said you get a little crazy when things don't go your way."

  "What're you talking about?"

  "You didn't believe him when he found out one of your pilots was pill-popping and flying."

  "I wasn't pleased to find I had an addict flying for us, but when Mad Dog brought it to my attention, I fired the kid." Pearlie was right, of course, I was now hyper alert to any potential scandal that might involve our family. "It is in my best interest to clear Mad Dog from the investigation. He is, after all, my last full-time employee."

  "I can do this, and I won't tell Mad Dog, either. I'm good with secrets and money, ask anybody."

  Her granny had confirmed the good-with-money part, but I still had my doubts about her ability to keep secrets, especially if it included juicy gossip that finally tipped Mad Dog into her lap.

  "All right. Then I'll tell you something you don't know. Nancy can't stay in WitSec, but the Las Vegas partners have found out that her godfather is also her biological father. She had no tie to his estate, wasn't in his will, but she still could inherit."

  "But not if she's in prison for murder, right? I saw that on TV. So if she gets off, she'll be rich?"

  Now I regretted telling her. "Can't you let go of your jealousy for one minute and see she's no threat to you?"

  "I got it, Lalla. I was just askin'. Can't they arrest these guys?"


  Okay, maybe I was overreacting again. "They were indicted, but with Arthur dead the case fell apart, and now the police have no one but Nancy for a suspect, which is almost as good as if she had been killed along with Arthur. I need to find the person who sold Arthur out, and I'd really rather it be someone besides Mad Dog."

  "Makes two of us. What else?"

  "It could be someone with a grudge, or willing to turn Arthur in for a reward. Jim Balthrop says that most of the candidates for WitSec are pond scum. Mad Dog may have thought he was doing everyone a favor bringing his new friend to my party, but I doubt he stopped to think it through to the end—Arthur dead and Nancy charged for his murder. This Jack guy had some help finding Mad Dog. Think about it—short, skinny, asthmatic, heart murmur, and diabetic is not someone I'd likely hire to fly for us, even if we were short-handed. But Dewey Treat, motorcycle-riding tough-guy ag pilot with a clean physical is another story.

  "I think Arthur shared his secret with someone he thought he could trust. And, just so you know, Pearlie, it wasn't Nancy. She's the perfect example of someone who should stay in WitSec."

  "I saw that on TV once. The wife couldn't stand to be separated from her family, and called home. She ended up in a vat of lye."

  "Nancy didn't fake that kidnapping attempt."

  Pearlie looked at me. We were both remembering how gingerly Nancy held a gun in her hands, her almost morbid fear of weapons.

  Pearlie reluctantly nodded. "Guess not."

  The rest of the drive was blissfully silent.

  <><><><>

  We parked next to the outbuildings at the flight school. I made some noises about her waiting in the car.

  "Oh, come on," she said, hopping out, "this will be fun."

  I knocked at a door marked Office, but when no one answered, Pearlie pushed me inside and closed the door behind us.

  "This ain't much better'n your office," she said, noting the dusty furniture and paperwork piled up on the desk, chairs and boxes in the corners. "If I thought y'all were going to stay in business another year, I could do something with that place."

  "Too little, too late," I said, opening a door that went into a closet. The next one was the bathroom, thankfully unoccupied.