A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge (24 page)

Fogarty lives between Bobtail and Jarrett Creek, on a nice piece of land with several trees and a small creek running through the front yard. “This is a handsome place,” I say, when he comes to the front door. He gets his nickname honestly, with a thick head of curly gray hair that would please a poodle.

“Built it myself. My wife says it's getting a little big for us with the kids gone, but I told her they're going to have to take me out of here feet first. I'm not building another house, and I wouldn't be satisfied with anybody else's work. I told her if she has to leave, I'll get me a new wife.” He laughs heartily.

“I heard that,” a voice says from somewhere in another room. “One of these days you're going to regret it.”

He grins at me. His wife appears around the door. She's a plump little dumpling, a contrast to his lean build. But it's clear the way they look at each other that they've got a solid marriage. For a second I feel the pinch of Jeanne being gone. “This is my wife Linda,” Fogarty says and tells her who I am.

“Let me get you two a beer,” she says. “Go on out on the back deck.”

“Yes, boss,” he says and winks at me.

The back deck is on the shady side of the house. The backyard dips down to a gentle slope with lots of trees. “Beautiful property,” I say.

Fogarty is a talker, and while we wait for the beer he tells me how he came to buy this piece of land and how long it took him to build the house. Usually I'd be impatient to get on with questioning him, but I've had a hard few days and I'm glad to let him chatter.

Eventually we have beer and tortilla chips on the table between us, and Fogarty asks what I can do for him.

“Hope your memory works well.” I ask him if he remembers Howard Sandstone and his son Eddie.

“Of course I remember them. I remember one of them with a little more fondness than the other. Howard was a hardworking man, a decent man. His son was a little more problematic. Kid had a good line of b.s. but didn't always back it up with his actions.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“Well, Eddie would tell you how hard he was going to work, but then he'd leave a little early or call in sick or give somebody a little trouble. His dad on the other hand could be counted on. At least until he skipped out.”

“You were Howard Sandstone's foreman and you reported him missing.”

“I did, because it didn't seem like him. But to tell the truth, I was one of the few that wasn't totally surprised when he disappeared.” He takes a sip of his beer, sets it down, and hunches forward with his hands on his knees. “The morning he left he called and asked me for a ride to work. He said his car was out of commission. When I picked him up he seemed agitated. I assumed he was annoyed because of the car and I told him I didn't mind picking him up, not to be upset about it. He said that wasn't what he was upset about. It was a family thing.”

“He didn't tell you what it was about?”

Curly grimaces. “I don't like to pry in people's business. You work around people all day and you hear things, but I keep out of it.”

“You never heard anything from him after he left?”

He shakes his head.

“You remember anything else?”

He takes a sip of beer and eats a chip while he considers. “There was one thing, although it doesn't amount to much. I asked if his son needed a ride to work that morning, too, and he said Eddie was driving his own car. I thought at the time it was odd that he wouldn't bring his daddy, but I let it slide. With Howard saying he was upset about a family matter, I figured they might have had a falling-out or something.”

“Did you take Howard home that night, too?”

“Yep, took him home, too. I seem to recall he was a little calmer by then. Hard physical work will do that, you know.”

“How come you remember all the details?”

“Because I had worked with Howard a long time and I counted on him in particular. It was during a week when we were pouring concrete. There were four or five slabs and they have to be handled right— the forms have to be removed at the right time. Too soon and the ‘crete can sag. Too late, and it's hard to get the forms off without damaging it. Howard was good at judging the timing, and I left it to him to take care of it. Without him, I had to go over and handle it myself. I wasn't too happy about that.”

CHAPTER 30

Midmorning the next day I hear from Wallace Lyndall. “You know I told you it wouldn't be long before we got something on Scott Borland?”

“Yeah?”

“The fingerprints on that pipe used to attack your man Bennett came back a match.”

“Why would anybody be that stupid?”

“As you know, criminals aren't necessarily the PhD type. I'm going out there to make the arrest. You want to join me?”

A half hour later I park in the lot behind the Bobtail Police Department and find Lyndall waiting in his squad car for me.

The Borland place looks deserted again as we drive up, but then the dogs come scrambling out from under the porch, hollering. I'm surprised when Lyndall speaks sharply to them and they promptly turn tail and go back under there. They crouch there, eyeing us, but they stay put.

No one answers the front door, but this time we have cause to search the place thoroughly, which means we can follow the path worn through the weeds in the vacant field behind the house into the thicket beyond. Before, I suspected that Borland might have a meth lab back there, but we didn't have a legal reason to follow my instinct. This time, we're within rights.

We've gone about twenty steps into the high, yellowed weeds when I hold out my hand to stop Lyndall and point to a wisp of smoke coming from the stand of trees. The air is dead-still, and the column of black smoke is shooting straight up, with particles of something flying up into the air surrounding it.

“Uh-oh,” Lyndall says. “That doesn't look right.”

A few seconds later we hear yelling from the vicinity of the smoke, and a door slams. Scott and Jett Borland come charging toward us through the trees. Behind us, I hear the dogs yelping. The Borlands barely make it out of the tree line and into the clearing when it feels like all the air is sucked out of the surroundings and all sound and sights pause for a few seconds. Then in a rush I see the Borlands sprawl forward just before I feel the force of the explosion hit me. We're far enough away that it doesn't bring us down, but I stagger back and the vegetation momentarily sways toward us. Bits of debris swirl in the air through a cloud of shimmering dust.

“Let's get back,” Lyndall yells. “This air could be toxic.” We turn and hightail it back the way we came and around the front of the house. The dogs are hollering and run around like the explosion has disoriented them. Lyndall sends them back under the porch.

From a distance, I hear one of the Borlands crying out in pain. I start to go back to help, but Lyndall grabs my arm. “You can't go back there. No telling what kind of chemicals are spewing out of that cloud.”

He's right. I don't know what kind of residue there might be from such an explosion, but the air is filled with acrid smoke.

I hear sirens off in the distance. Whichever Borland is hurt is still yelling, but Lyndall and I stay put. When the firefighters arrive, they'll have the right equipment to deal with the blaze and the injuries. I walk to the end of the house and peer around into the vacant lot. The trees beyond the lot have caught fire, and burning branches are falling into the weeds. One of the Borlands is trying to drag the other one to safety.

Lyndall sees them, too.

“We've got to help,” I say.

“Well, hell,” Lyndall says, “You're right.” We take off our shirts and wrap them around our heads, covering our noses, and run toward the two men. Scott is dragging his unconscious son, whose hair and clothing are badly singed. Scott is hurt too, burned patches blistering on his arms and back.

“Get on up to the house,” I yell to him. “We'll take care of Jett.” The fire is hot, and the trees crackle and pop as they burn. Lyndall and I grab Jett's arms and drag him.

When we get to the front of the house, we lay Jett down and I hurry out to the street to flag down the fire trucks. They come barreling into the yard, men leaping out before the trucks are fully stopped. The dogs seem to be thoroughly cowed and stay under the porch, whimpering.

“What happened?” a firefighter says.

“Meth lab,” Lyndall says.

“Ah, shit!” He runs to the back of the truck and starts hauling out gas masks. Another one runs out to the street, looking in both directions. He comes running back. “I don't see any fireplugs,” he says. “We'll have to get up close and use what's in the tanks.” He jumps back into the truck, and the others step up onto the side of it and hold on as he steers behind the house and starts across the vacant lot. The other truck follows. They get as close as they dare before they stop and get to work.

One of the men has stayed behind to tend to Jett Borland. He's conscious now and is moaning. A few seconds later an EMS truck arrives, and two men take over working on Jett. The firefighter runs to join his crew.

“Any way I can help?” I call out as he sprints away.

“Yeah! Stay out of the way,” he calls back.

And that's when I realize that Scott Borland is not with us. “What the hell? Where's Borland?” I start up the two wooden steps to the front door of the house, but I know Borland has used all the commotion to make his getaway. Sure enough, the place is empty and Borland is nowhere to be found. Lyndall and I look at each other. “Fatherly concern,” I say.

Jett Borland gets loaded into the EMS vehicle and is hauled off to the hospital. Fire trucks from a neighboring county arrive ten minutes later. Because the day is so still, the four units manage to get the fire under control quickly. Lyndall calls headquarters to tell the sheriff what happened, including that we lost Scott Borland in the shuffle. He snickers at something the sheriff says. When he gets off he says, “He's pretty sure that Borland is not smart enough to figure out a way to escape for good. We'll find him.”

“Besides, he's hurt,” I say. “He's going to need some attention. In fact, I have a feeling I know exactly where he'll head.”

We go straight to Donna Mae Borland's place and stop down the street from it. I walk to her trailer and knock on the door. She answers it wearing the same dressing gown she was in the other day. “Now what do you want?” she says.

I tell her what happened and that we're looking for Scott.

“He's not here, and I haven't heard from him.”

“If you see him, ask him why he ran out on Jett. He got hurt during the explosion. He's over at the hospital.”

She snaps to attention and grabs the front of her dressing gown and holds it together. “Why didn't you tell me?” She slams the door in my face, and I go back and get into the car with Lyndall. Five minutes later Donna Mae comes tearing out the door, jumps into her old Pontiac, and roars away. We settle back to wait for Borland. In the distance I hear the roar of bulldozers going about the business of tearing down Bobtail Ridge subdivision.

After forty-five minutes we decide Borland probably isn't going to show. The smoky smell of our clothes and the sour smell that adrenaline left on us drive us out of there, and I head on home to clean up.

CHAPTER 31

“You really think I'm going to be afraid of Scott Borland?” Jenny and I are standing in her kitchen. The bottle of Jack Daniels, or another like it, is sitting open on the counter. Jenny has been drinking, although she isn't as drunk as she has been the last couple of times I've seen her. But tonight the drinking has made her belligerent.

“Jenny, I'm worried that after what happened this afternoon, he'll come after you because he's pissed off.” I'd worry that he'll come after her horses, too, but Truly Bennett is back on the job with Alvin Carter, and they're on guard.

“Let him come,” she says. “I'm sick of people thinking they can bully me.” She has her hands on her hips and is glaring at me.

“At least lock your doors,” I say.

“All right, all right. Is that it?” She hasn't invited me into the living room to sit down. I always come to her back door, but we rarely stop in the kitchen. It's not a place she spends much time in, not liking to cook.

I probably ought to let her alone, but I'm too frustrated to back down now. “There's something else I need to talk to you about,” I say. “Do you know who Estelle Cruz is?”

She frowns. “Name is familiar.”

“Your mamma may have mentioned her a long time ago.”

She has a moment of realization and storms over to pour herself another drink. “How can I convince you to leave me the hell alone about my brother?”

“You knew he was married to this woman?”

Her expression is so angry that I can hardly look at her. “When are you going to get that I try not to think about him, ever. I knew he was married because Mamma told me. She also told me the woman ran out on him. Big surprise.”

Disappeared, like her daddy. It could be coincidence that both these people disappeared from Eddie's life. But I'm beginning to doubt it. And only by pushing Jenny to find out more am I likely to get to the bottom of it.

“When your mamma told me she thought you were in danger, do you think she meant from your brother?”

Jenny opens her mouth and then closes it again, staring at me. Finally she says, “It's possible.”

“Why?”

She's breathing heavily, and for a bare second I think she might haul off and hit me. Her eyes are wild, and she's gripping the glass of whiskey so hard her fingers are white. “You're bringing it all back. Eddie and his goddam friends. Pack of animals. I wish to hell you'd leave it alone.”

There's only one thing I can think of that would put Jenny in such a state after so long a time. “Did your brother assault you?” There, I've said it.