“Well, he’s already told me a little bit, but I know you.” Ned shifted his position, hoping to get easy. “This ain’t a regular disappearance, so what’d you find out?”
“I talked to Willis Allen. We had lunch today at Frenchie’s, and he told me they came up here to buy some land.” Willis Allen ran the Chevrolet dealership and sat on the city council. “Said they intend to buy up enough farms to start up a big ranch, and they had cash with ’em to get people interested. Then they disappeared.”
Ned rubbed his belly and hoped Cody hadn’t noticed. “They ought not have been flashing money around.”
“Well, they did.” Cody said, absently.
Both of the elderly men were surprised. “What?”
“Gave Norm Hopkins five hundred cash of what they called ‘earnest money.’ He said they told him he could keep it, whether they did a deal or not.”
“I never heard of such a thing.” O.C. studied the sheets of rain through the window. “Not giving cash, anyway. Checks makes more sense.”
“They’re trying to close the deals fast, before other folks hear they’re buying and up the prices on their land.” Cody bit his lip, thinking. “Probably would have worked, too, if they hadn’t disappeared. Even if they turn up, the cat’s out of the bag and prices’ll go sky high.”
He stood. “I’ll know more after I’ve had time to make some calls.”
“You been kinda busy learning this business, and hiring that new female deputy,” O.C. kidded. “I’m surprised you found out anything at all so fast.”
Ned shot Cody a glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, and you’re gonna get in trouble at home by hirin’ some gal outta Houston.”
“I hired a deputy named Anna Sloan, and not a gal.”
O.C. chuckled. “Who’da thought about hiring a girl deputy? You might have done better if you hired one who leans toward the fleshy side.”
Cody felt backed into a corner by the two old lawmen. “You two are barkin’ up the wrong tree. She’s a good deputy with five years of solid experience. Hell, I worked with women in ’Nam that made two of most men.”
“And a lot more curves than we’re used to.” Ned gave O.C. a wink. “We don’t need to borrow no trouble. We have enough of our own problems right here in town.”
Cody flicked the switch on the metal table fan sitting on top of the wooden file cabinet. It hummed to life. “You hear something I need to know, O.C.?”
Thankful for the slight breeze as the fan oscillated, the judge tugged the window completely shut and studied the gray town outside. “Nary a thing right now. Y’all find anything new on that dead feller in Center Springs?”
Ned rubbed his scar. “There ain’t much to find. Somebody run over Leland and he’s dead. I don’t know much else to do.”
Cody opened the door. “I know, and it won’t get done standing here talking to you two old farts.”
“You gone to check on that new deputy?”
The sheriff grinned at the judge and flicked his hat toward Ned, sprinkling him with water. “Yep, and to try and solve a disappearance.”
When he was gone, Ned rubbed his head. “That would have made me mad a few years ago. I used to have a temper.”
“You still do.”
“Not so’s you’d notice anymore.”
O.C. laughed and waved toward the door. “Get out of here, and go get that belly checked out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Pepper and I were arguing about music again. The weather had us hemmed up inside and listening to music on Miss Becky’s little plastic GE radio when “Jimmy Mack” came on. I always like the beat of that song, but Pepper started in. “That’s nothing but bubble gum music. You should listen to songs that mean something to our generation.”
“Like what?”
“Like ‘For What It’s Worth,’ or anything by The Rolling Stones or Jefferson Airplane.”
“Uncle Cody calls it long hair music.”
“Hair doesn’t have anything to do with it. It turns me off when they’re always talking about hair.”
A car went by on the highway and slowed. I could tell Pepper was afraid it was John T. coming to get her, but it was only the mailman.
Before we could go any further, Miss Becky came in from the kitchen. “Turn it off is right. Y’all turn off that radio and come with me.”
I was glad for the excuse to do something. “Jimmy Mack” was over, so I clicked the knob and killed The Young Rascals singing “Groovin’.” “What do you want us to do?”
“I need y’all to carry these buckets up to the garden for me.”
“But it’s raining!” Pepper stopped beside the chrome and Formica table. “We’ll get soaked.”
“No, we won’t.” Miss Becky tied a bonnet on her head, then handed one to Pepper. “Put this on. It’s a mist right now, and we need to gather what we can that’s ready.”
Pepper held the homemade head-cover by the long ties like it was a dead rat. “I’m not wearing this ugly thing unless Top wears one too.”
I grabbed one of Grandpa’s stained old work hats from the rack beside the door and plopped it on my head. It was too big, but I knew it would keep the rain off. “I got this.”
Exasperated at arguing with Pepper all the time, Miss Becky took the bonnet back from her and hung it where she kept her aprons, on a little cast-iron rack beside a wall holder full of wooden kitchen matches. “Fine, get your hair wet.”
She handed us the empty galvanized buckets and led the way through the light drizzle. She unwired the gate into the pasture. Grandpa always used two or three strands of bailing wire to hold it shut.
A little bluebird fluttered out of the hay barn and landed on the top strand of bob-wire not ten feet away. Miss Becky stopped. “Why, ain’t they the prettiest little things you ever saw?”
Pepper was still sulled up, so she didn’t say anything. I liked the bird’s bright color. “That’uns a different kind of blue.”
“It’d be prettier if we had the sun.”
We filed through the gate. I gave one wire a quick twist to keep it closed. The little bird watched with interest. I trotted past the chicken house to catch up, following a lane Grandpa cut through the grass from the gate to the garden, a little over a hundred yards away. I was glad for the lane, because our pants would have been soaked to the knees in the tall grass.
About the time we reached the old caved-in storm cellar that had been there since the 1920s, the bluebird fluttered past and sat on one of the wet boards sticking up out of the ground. We stopped again, because it was so close.
Pepper felt for the part on top of her head, making sure it was straight, then she adjusted her hair held in place by a braided cloth headband. “That bird’s crazy.”
“It’s not a bit afraid.” Miss Becky smiled and led off again. We stopped at the gate leading into the garden, waiting again while she untwisted two more strands of bailing wire. It was more than Pepper could take.
“Why don’t Grandpa put a good latch on these and be done with it?”
“Wouldn’t do no good.” Miss Becky worked at the next wire. “He’d wire it up again the next time he took a notion the cows might get out.”
“Some day I’m gonna make enough money to buy this place and I think I’ll burn it down.” She’d been mean-mouthing Center Springs for the past year or so, wanting to live somewhere else.
“Why, Pepper, that’s a horrible thing to say.”
Pepper frowned at the ground while Miss Becky twisted the wire. I knelt down to tie my sneaker, and was shocked when the little bird lit on my knee. I didn’t move a muscle. “Miss Becky, looky here.”
She put a hand on her face. “My lands. I never saw such a thing.”
Pepper snorted. “A wild animal acting like that, it’s probably sick with hydrophobia.”
“Bird
s don’t get rabies.”
The bluebird fluttered to a bush growing up in the garden fence, and before I could stand back up, it came back to my knee. “It’s not afraid.”
“That sure is something.” Miss Becky fiddled with the bonnet tie under her chin. “Wonder what’s got into that little thing?”
I noticed something was tangled around his leg and wrapped around his toes. “It has something on its foot.”
“Catch it. See if you can get it off.”
I thought she was crazy, but the bird held still while I lowered Grandpa’s hat over it and reached underneath to get a soft grip. With the bluebird in hand, I found a tangled mass of long animal hair around the leg that had been there so long it was cutting into the flesh.
“I think this is horse hair, or from a cow’s tail.” I carried it to Miss Becky.
“Poor little thing.” She reached into her apron pocket for a tiny pair of pointed scissors. “Hold her still.”
“What makes you think that bird’s a she?”
“I don’t, Pepper, but I reckon I call most birds a she if I don’t know what they are.” While I held the bluebird upside down, she carefully snipped at the hairs wrapped around its leg and toes. Even Pepper was interested, and drew close as the last bits fell away, revealing the raw skin underneath.
“All right. Turn her loose.”
I released the bird and we watched it fly to a nearby bush. Satisfied that life was back to normal, it disappeared into the hay barn.
“That was the dandgest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Miss Becky gave Pepper the eye, knowing that if she hadn’t been there, my cousin’s language would have been much stronger.
To save her, I stepped in. “I’ve never seen those little scissors before.”
She returned them to her apron pocket. “I dreamed I needed them to cut one of you kids free, so I knew the good Lord was telling me something. That’s why I put them in my pocket this morning.”
“But you don’t have our Poisoned Gift.” I kinda wished Pepper wasn’t with us, because I’d had another one the night before. I wanted to talk to Miss Becky about it, and knew that in the mood Pepper was in, she’d make fun of me and I’d get mad.
She handed the buckets back to us as the drizzle became a light shower. “Dreams aren’t always bad.”
That one was. Mama and Dad had died in a car wreck and I came to live with Miss Becky and Grandpa. I seldom dreamed about them, but in this one, I walked into Dad’s bedroom to find him alive again and asleep on his side. Mom was yelling for me to be careful. I stepped close to the bed and Dad swung his fist so close I felt the wind in my dream. “Don’t stop her, son, she has to go!”
I screamed and woke up.
Miss Becky went through the gate and stopped at the first row as the rain sprinkled our clothes and puddled between the rows of late-season peas.
“Damned bird,” Pepper whispered. “If we hadn’t wasted time with that thing, we’d be halfway through.”
I felt good about helping the bluebird. “I love it here.”
“I don’t.” Pepper put down her bucket and picked a handful of peas. She spoke softly. “It won’t be long ’till I call this place Splitsville.
Chapter Sixteen
Cody went downstairs to find Deputy Anna Sloan sitting at his desk. She was on the phone and wiggled her fingers in a wave. “Yes ma’am, I understand. You said they had cash with them? How much?”
She listened, using one finger to absently move her pillbox uniform hat in a tiny circle on the nearly empty desk. Cody hung his wet Stetson on the hat tree and shifted uncertainly. He wanted to work through the growing stack of papers on the corner of the desk, but couldn’t ask her to get up while she was on the phone. Hands in his pockets, he walked to the window and stared at the wet parking lot.
As she talked, he heard genuine concern in her voice. It was refreshing to have someone on staff who could relate to women in the course of an investigation. She filled a hole that was evident the day he took office. He needed to break up the men’s club.
Judge O.C. Rains convinced the city council to appoint Cody Parker as interim sheriff after Sheriff Griffin’s betrayal and death, knowing full well that come election time in May, Cody would be a shoe-in for the job. Cody in turn put the ex-sheriff’s driver, Deputy White, back on the street before wading through dozens of applications to find someone with good investigative skills.
Anna’s was the only one that stood out in a pile of applications filled out by men. He knew that hiring a woman was breaking dangerous ground, but he needed someone with experience in detail work to dig through facts and information to solve cases.
Anna came highly recommended from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department in Houston where she’d broken half a dozen cases that stalled for one reason or another. When Cody asked her over the phone why she wanted to leave a promising career in the big city, she chuckled. “I’m tired of the humidity. It makes my hair swell.”
Cody laughed. “All right. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” He hung up and went straight home that night to talk it over with his redheaded wife, Norma Faye.
It was full dark when he arrived. She was setting the table after he washed up and joined her in the kitchen. “What would you think if I hired a woman deputy?”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s not hard to look at in the mugshot she sent with her application.”
“Why a woman?”
“Because y’all pay more attention to the little details that men miss. I have enough hairy-legged boys to do most of the work, but I need somebody who’ll stay at it until they catch what the rest don’t see or think about.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because folks will talk for one thing, especially after the way we got together. Even though we’re married and she ain’t my type, some will wonder what I’m up to since she’s the first female deputy we’ll ever have in the department.”
Norma Faye stopped setting the table. “When you first started talking about needing people, I thought you were hiring a secretary, or someone else for dispatch. I never thought of a woman deputy.”
“See? We may be riding alone sometimes. We might work nights. I may talk about her a lot, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea or to feel uncomfortable. I don’t care about anybody but you.”
“Idiot.” She gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll never be jealous, but you watch yourself with everyone else.”
Relieved, Cody sat down to eat. “I’m crazy about you.”
“I know.”
Anna’s tone dropped on the phone as she sympathized with the person on the other end of the line. “We’ll do our best, but right now the investigation hasn’t turned up anything that’ll tell us where they are. I’ll call you again in a day or two. All right, bye.” She hung up and realized where she was. “Oh! Sorry.” She hopped up and came around the desk.
“Don’t worry about it.” They traded places and Cody settled into the chair. He slid her little hat toward the edge. “Who was that? You find anything out?”
“Not a thing.” She unconsciously smoothed her skirt. “That was the Dallas police. All they have is background information. Those missing businessmen drove out a few days ago. They were at the motel here in town one minute and vanished the next. The night manager said he remembers seeing their car pass by about dark and turn toward town, but that’s all we know right now.”
“They have family?”
“I’m sure they do, but they weren’t married. Dallas is handling that end.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’m going over to the Ramada Inn and start there. Maybe I’ll get an idea of where they might have gone or who might have seen them if I drive around.”
“All right, let me know if you find anything out.”
She secured the hat with a bobby pin. “Sure thing. Tootles.”
The radio crackled. “Sheriff Parker, come in.”
He lifted the handset. “Right here, John.”
“Sheriff, we have a situation on the square.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s some kids out there having a demonstration.”
“In the rain?”
“Yep. I was driving past and saw ’em sittin’ out there under umbrellas, holding signs about Viet Nam and peace this and peace that. I prob’ly don’t need to handle thissun alone. They all look like you, not me.”
It was John’s way of saying they were white kids. Cody grinned at the rain as it fell harder. He checked the clock and saw it was six o’clock. “How many are there?”
“A dozen or so high school kids, but there are a couple of older ones, too. Probably the ones that thunk it all up. We gonna do something about it?”
“Nope. Go on home, John, and tell Rachel howdy. If they want to have a sit-in out in the rain, then let ’em. They’ll give up before long.”
Chapter Seventeen
“John T. West is for sure after us.”
A shiver ran down Pepper’s spine. “I was afraid of that.”
Rain dripped off the eaves of the Baptist church not twenty yards from Cale’s house. “He was asking around about you.”
In his living room, Cale checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening in on their phone conversation. He spoke softly, because his own daddy sometimes had ears like a bird dog. He was pretty sure the reverend was in the church with a couple of ladies planning the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Sammy Dollins was there and heard John T. ask how many grandkids your granddaddy had.”
Sitting at the telephone table in Miss Becky’s living room, Pepper cupped the mouthpiece and barely whispered, even though her grandmother was outside, sweeping off the porch. “Maybe it’s our imaginations. We didn’t see anything but them going past.”
Dark Places Page 7
