A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge (16 page)

“Did he say why she didn't want him there?”

“No, just that she wouldn't like it.”

“Did you ever meet either of them—Jenny or Vera?”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn't have minded meeting his mamma, but he said there was no sense in it because she was under his sister's spell. And as for the sister, I figured it was best if I didn't meet her, because I'd have been likely to give her a piece of my mind.”

“How did Eddie find out his mamma was sick?”

She gives me a blank look. “I don't know. Maybe she had somebody call from the hospital.”

“Eddie was married once before, wasn't he?”

“Yes, and would you believe it, me and his first wife are friends. She lives down at the end of the row here.” She inclines her head to the end of the apartments.

“You two okay living so close to one another?”

She smirks. “Everybody always says that. Marlene is good people. Me and her get along fine. We work together at the hospital. She's an LPN, and I work in the dining room. For a while after we met, I didn't even know that her and Eddie had been married. We got to talking one day and figured it out. We had a good laugh over it.”

“I wouldn't mind talking to her.”

Joyce calls Marlene for me, but she says she's working late. I'll have to come back later in the week if I want to talk to her. From my car, I call Eddie to set up a meeting with him, but the phone goes straight to his messages.

When I get home in the late afternoon, I call Loretta to see how things went with Jenny.

“She seems awful depressed to me. I don't blame her. First her mamma dies and then she gets injured with somebody forcing her off the road.”

I plan to go over and see Jenny, but first I check in at headquarters. Bill Odum says things have been okay. “But Jim Krueger wants you to call him. He says there are more prom issues.”

Krueger tells me the idea of the wine party for the parents was well received. “They decided to shut the prom down at two a.m. So those kids who said they were going to boycott have decided to come. But now we have the problem of what kind of mischief they'll get up to after two o'clock in the morning.”

“Jim, leave that to the police. We'll be out at the usual spots. We'll get through it again this year.”

By the usual spots I mean the dam road and a couple of country roads that attract kids who have had too much to drink and think it's a fine idea to show off their ability to drive. We don't arrest them; we take their keys and drive everybody home.

When I get home from work, I eat a bite of dinner, giving Jenny a chance to recover from a day's worth of company before I call and ask if I can drop by. She says to come on over. Her voice sounds funny. When I walk in the front door, I find her lying on the sofa in her living room with an almost empty bottle of wine on the coffee table nearby.

“You sure it's a good idea to be drinking that much if you're on pain meds?” I ask.

She snorts. “Now don't you start, too. I've had it with people telling me what to do. If those ladies who were here today were doctors, there wouldn't be any sick people left. They know how to cure everything, including a missing spleen.”

I had planned to talk to her about what happened with her brother yesterday, but with as much as she's had to drink, I don't know that it's a good idea. “Mind if I join you?”

“If you bring another bottle.”

Ignoring that, I go and get a wineglass out of her cabinet and pour the last of the bottle of wine for myself. I sit down, not looking at her because I expect she's glaring at me.

“I'm serious,” she says. “I want you to bring out another bottle of wine. That bottle was only half full and I need some more.”

“If it was only half full, how come the cork and corkscrew were out on the cabinet?”

“Just bring me another bottle of wine and stop making a federal case out of it.”

“I'm not going to let you kill yourself simply because you're mad at your brother.”

“I don't want to talk about that.”

“Neither do I. You're too drunk to talk about it with any kind of sense.”

“I'm not drunk. And even if I were stone-cold sober, I'm still not going to talk about Eddie.” She pulls herself upright, wincing.

I get up. “Do you need me to help you get to bed?”

“I can make it on my own.”

“Have you talked to Alvin Carter? I told him he should be riding your horses since you're not going to be able to for a while.”

Her face flushes. “I appreciate what you've done to keep my horses safe, but don't use that as ammunition against me.”

“Jenny, that wasn't my intention. I'm just trying to change the subject.”

“Sorry,” she mutters. She heaves herself to her feet and sways unsteadily. I edge closer, ready to catch her if she starts to fall. She glares at me. “Walk with me down the hall, if you will.”

It's the only admission I'm going to get that she could use the help. I take her arm and lead her down to her bedroom. She sits on the edge of the bed. “I'll be all right now. I've got everything right here.”

I nod at the phone. “You've got the phone right there, too. Call me if you need anything.”

CHAPTER 21

“I swear, every year it gets worse. Everybody is going crazy because of the prom.” Loretta is standing in my kitchen with her hands on her hips, looking exasperated. Ever since she got back from her trip with her son, nothing that goes on in town seems to suit her.

“It's a small town, Loretta. You have to expect kids to get worked up. There's not much to do around here.”

“You can say that again. But it's gotten ridiculous. Girls tearing up the road between here and Bobtail, here and San Antonio, and here and Houston, looking for the perfect dress—a dress they'll never wear again and won't remember a year from now.”

“You were complaining yourself that you couldn't find anything to wear around here. In a couple of years that mall will be in and the girls will go there.”

Loretta gives me a withering look. “You don't buy prom dresses at an outlet mall.”

I've just taken a bite of the coffee cake she brought over, and I have to wait until I've swallowed it before I can reply. “And why not?”

“Prom dresses have to be special. The things you buy at an outlet mall are overstocks and last year's stuff. No girl wants that.”

Loretta usually makes a fuss over how much girls spend on their clothes, but I think I'd better not bring that up. Nor do I bring up that the few times I've been at the high school the last couple of weeks it seems like the boys are hanging around on the school grounds after school looking like the world around them has suddenly tilted, leaving them off balance. The girls have gone crazy, and the boys don't know how to react. Any man could tell them that there's no help for it. It's going to be that way for a few years to come, until they get some experience behind them.

Remembering Jenny's complaint that she was always an ugly duckling in high school, I say, “Are there any girls you know who are wanting for a date?”

She blinks at me like I've asked her for the key to hieroglyphics. “What in the world has gotten into you? What kind of a question is that?”

“I saw something on TV about girls who feel like wallflowers in high school, and it affects them for years to come,” I say.

“Then that program you saw was outdated. Things have changed. These days half the girls go to the prom in a group instead of with dates. If you want my opinion, I think it's better that way.”

“What about the ones left out of the groups?”

“Well, I don't know.” Her tone is exasperated. But then she frowns. “That's not entirely true. I did hear that the little McGregor girl was having some trouble. She's not popular with the girls or the boys, and her mamma said she was upset because she didn't have anybody to go to the prom with.”

“Seems a shame. What do you do about something like that?”

“There's no reason you should know any of this, but Judy Holt, the English teacher—all the girls love her—got a couple of the girls together and talked to them about it, and they said they didn't even know Carrie McGregor wanted to go to the prom and they'd be glad to include her.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Does that make you feel any better?”

“I don't know why you should take that tone with me. What's wrong with me taking an interest?”

She throws her hands up. “Nothing's wrong with it. I never heard you talk like that is all.”

I've barely sat down at my desk at work when Wallace Lyndall calls me up. “Scott Borland is back in town. I went by there this morning before work and the car was in the yard and the door was open. I didn't bother them.”

“Thanks for keeping me posted. I'll go on over there in a while.”

“You want me to go with you?”

I tell him I'll stop by and pick him up on my way, but that it will be an hour before I can get to Bobtail. First I have to soothe Jim Krueger's rattled nerves one more time. Now it seems that a few of the hard-shelled Baptists are up in arms because of the wine-tasting event. They say that if the kids know their parents are drinking wine, they'll want to do it, too. As if they miraculously wouldn't have any interest in alcohol if their parents didn't lead the way.

I call Loretta and ask her if she has any bright ideas. She's not much of a drinker, and doesn't like it if people drink too much, but she's not a nut on the subject. “I hate to say it, but they're right,” she says. “Whatever possessed Emily Ford to have a wine tasting anyway—especially the night of the prom?”

She's exasperated when I tell her it was sort of my idea. “There's no help for it, then. Somebody needs to tell the Baptists that it's not everybody else's jobs to keep their kids from drinking.”

I call Emily Ford and she laughs at the problem. “I don't know who's behind all this complaining, but they might be interested to know that Patsy Thompson was one of the first people to sign up. She's a big Baptist, but she seems to think that if Jesus drank wine, she can, too. Anyway, it's too late. They're just going to have to gripe.” Every time I have a conversation with Emily Ford, I like her better.

Jim Krueger isn't comforted by what I have to say, but he agrees with me that it's too late to change anything now.

“And it's only teachers chaperoning the kids?” I say.

“It was supposed to be, but a couple of the parents insisted that they still wanted to have a hand in it, and I gave in. Lord, I'm tired of fighting these battles every year.”

“Better you than me,” I say.

The door of the Borland's house is still standing open, and Scott Borland himself is sitting on the steps outside with his shirt off, drinking a beer. Several empty cans are scattered at his feet. It's not quite eleven o'clock, which seems a little early to be drinking beer. When Wallace Lyndall and I get out of my squad car and walk over to him, he stays put, scratching his hairy belly.

“Morning, Scott,” Lyndall says.

He tips his beer can at Lyndall. “And to you, too, Officer. What brings you out here?”

Lyndall introduces me. “Chief Craddock has a little mystery on his hands and thought maybe you could shed light on it.”

“I'm more than happy to help you lawmen solve your problems,” Borland says. He seems relaxed for a man who's guilty of something.

“You know a lawyer by the name of Jenny Sandstone?” I ask.

“Know her! I not only know her, I hate her guts. Why do you ask?”

“There've been a couple of incidents at her place that I thought you might know something about.”

Borland sets his beer down, stands up, belches, and makes his way down the two steps, watching his feet carefully, as if they might make a false move. Some men who have spent ten years in prison use the time to beef up their muscles and come out looking like somebody out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. But Scott Borland's muscles are slack. He's not heavy, but his belly and chest sag, and his arms look scrawny. Up close, his beery breath could knock you down. “You're asking about something that went on at Jenny Sandstone's house? I was hoping you would ask me something I knew something about. Or had some interest in.”