Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) (10 page)

“You don’t though. And there’s no reason you should.”

“It’s just that I know so many people in this part of the world. The thought that it could be one of them … well, it’s scary.”

He nodded. “Sometimes the uncertainty is worse than knowing, and it would speed things up to have a name when the sheriff gets here. Do you want to take a look, see if you recognize him?”

I hesitated. No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to see another dead man as long as I lived. But what if it was someone in my family? Half my relatives had stayed in town after the rodeo to listen to the country band scheduled to follow the bull riding or to go to one of the bars for some post-rodeo celebrating. What if this dead guy were one of them? Or even someone like Carl Cress. That wasn’t quite as disturbing. Not that I wanted him dead, of course, but it wasn’t much of a stretch to picture someone wanting to shoot him. And where was Ruby June?

“You’re sure it wasn’t a girl, right?” I asked nervously. I didn’t think I could take seeing my cousin’s dead face in the moonlight.

“I’m positive,” Colin answered. “It’s not Ruby June.”

I wondered how he did that. He had a true gift for remembering people’s names, even people he had not met. Just something else I admired about him.

I thought of something else and felt a little sick. “And the coyotes?”

“They didn’t do anything to him, at least not that I could see. I’m guessing they found him just a couple of minutes before we did. He can’t have been here very long,” he added thoughtfully. I could see his detective’s mind was already beginning to process the scene.

I said, “Okay then. I’ll take a look.”

He rose, leading the way up the slope of the hill rather than straight toward the body. “We can see from over here without disturbing the scene,” he explained as we walked.

I swallowed and followed in his steps, stumbling a little over the uneven ground in spite of the light provided by the flashlight. We walked along the edge of the pit, careful not to step too close to the crumbling edges, until we stood almost directly over the body. From that vantage, I could see the outline of the still form against the pale ground, a shapeless collection of shadow and substance, as lifeless as the refuse that surrounded it. A faint but nasty odor rose from the pit, and I felt my stomach flip-flop. It was a bad place to die.

“Okay, here we are. Just a quick look at the face, see if you recognize him, and then we’ll go back.”

I nodded, although I knew he couldn’t see me. I was finding it unexpectedly difficult to speak.

Colin aimed the beam of the flashlight onto the body, and I drew in a sharp breath. A young man’s face, eyes half open, lips parted as though in surprise, nose swollen and bruised. In death, he looked even younger than he had in life, dishwater hair stirring in the breeze, caressing a white forehead that could no longer feel it. The plaid of his shirt, the same plaid that Kyla had poked just a few hours ago, was now soaked in a dark fluid. Eddy Cranny would never hit or be hit by anyone ever again.

“Jocelyn, are you okay?” Colin asked sharply.

The beam wavered, then dipped away from the body as he turned to grab my arm. A kind gesture, I thought, but unnecessary. I was completely fine. It was true that the scene had taken on an odd sort of unreality, as if I were watching it on a black-and-white television on the far side of a very large room, and it was strangely hard to focus, but I was fine. Just fine.

“Jocelyn?” Colin slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me against his side. “Come on, let’s sit down,” he said, and we returned to the suspect rocks. This time I sat and let him pull me into his arms. After a moment, my head felt clearer.

I drew a shaky breath. “It’s Eddy Cranny. You know, Ruby June’s husband.” I enunciated carefully, feeling a little like a drunk trying hard to appear sober.

“The one who hit her?” he asked. “The same guy you saw dealing at the rodeo?”

I’d told him about that on the way home. One more instance of a name he’d remembered. I nodded, feeling the fabric of his shirt and the beat of his heart against my cheek, steady and reassuring. I wished now that I hadn’t looked.

My thoughts were racing. Who would want poor, stupid Eddy Cranny dead? Or maybe it was easier to ask who didn’t. Carl Cress had punched him in the face, Uncle Kel had held him at gunpoint, and Ruby June had been planning to throw him out. Even Kyla had threatened him. But surely none of them would have wanted Eddy dead. Not dead. Not really. I said as much to Colin, who shrugged.

“Then maybe it was the drugs after all instead of something personal. You know, from your description, I was picturing a small-time pot dealer, but we’ve heard rumors about some pretty large scale drug gangs moving into Texas. Los Zetas, for one. Once they get a foothold somewhere, violence and murder are never far behind.”

This was even harder to believe. “A drug gang in Sand Creek? And one so desperate they would hire Eddy?”

“You’re right, it doesn’t seem all that likely.” Colin clicked the flashlight off to save the battery. “Well, there’s one bit of good news anyway.”

“What?” I asked.

“The police will definitely start looking for Ruby June now.”

Chapter 3

CRIME AND CRITTERS

The next morning, Kyla flopped down beside me on the porch swing, making the rickety wood creak and sway alarmingly. As usual, she looked crisp and fresh, wearing a turquoise jacket and matching flats. I had no idea why she thought those shoes were appropriate for a ranch and was already hoping she’d step in something nasty, which made me simultaneously ashamed of myself and unrepentantly defiant. It was Thanksgiving morning, the sky was sunny, the light breeze was no more than a whisper, and the air was warming nicely. It should have been such a glorious day, but nothing was turning out as planned. I was in a foul mood and didn’t care who knew it.

“I was just talking to Aunt Elaine. I can’t believe all the excitement you had here last night,” Kyla said.

“Yes, very exciting. Next time I’ll go out with the hot rich guy, and you can find the corpse,” I said sourly.

She lifted one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Touchy. You know I didn’t mean it that way. Besides, I seem to recall that you were with your own personal hot guy.”

I didn’t answer. As I’d predicted, Will had returned last night with a truckload of my relatives who’d done their very best to invade the crime scene. At one point, I’d thought Colin was going to have to draw his gun on them, which would at least have been fun to watch. However, they finally saw reason and settled down, then began reminiscing about Eddy and the things he’d done as a kid, which eventually made me start crying. Fortunately, about that time Sheriff Bob had arrived and insisted that we go back to the house. Sheriff Bob had followed us within half an hour to ask questions, but Colin had not returned at all. I waited until well after midnight, but eventually gave up and went to bed myself. Now it was morning, his Jeep was missing, and I had no idea where he was. Had he eventually returned to his wretched motel room in town or was he still out at the caliche pit?

After a long moment, I noticed that Kyla was staring at me as though waiting for an answer to something.

“So how was your evening with T.J.?” I asked, knowing that no matter what else was on her mind, she’d be willing to talk about herself.

She gave a smile that I uncharitably thought of as smug. “Better than average. He is really very charming.”

“Charming?” I asked.

“Very.”

“Meaning he wanted to talk about you?”

“Meaning he wanted to talk about many subjects. Me, of course, but also about himself and his ranch. I had no idea that running a ranch was so complicated. You can’t begin to imagine what he has to do just to keep his head above water.”

“So all these years of watching Kel and Elaine run cattle and goats and a summer dude camp and a winter hunting camp and growing every possible kind of cash crop didn’t give you an inkling?”

“Oh yeah,” she said wonderingly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I never really thought about why they were going to all that trouble. I just figured they liked it. Anyway, T.J.’s basically doing the same things, only instead of running a dude outfit during the summer, he keeps the hunting camp going all the time.”

“Hunting season’s only in the fall and what, a couple of weeks in the spring?” I pointed out. “He can’t keep it going all the time.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. He imports exotics. They’re always in season.”

“What do you mean, exotics?”

“Animals that aren’t native. Different types of deer and other animals. You know, like from Africa.”

“Africa? Wait, you mean like kudu?” For the first time, I recalled the strange animal we’d seen just before we’d found Eddy.

She looked at me blankly. “I have no idea what that is. I mean like big deer with funny looking antlers. Things like that.”

“And what, these hunters come and shoot the animals in their pens?” I asked.

“No, don’t be an idiot. T.J. says he gets a lot of flack from people who don’t understand. The animals are loose and wild. He says it’s no different than it would be hunting them in Africa. People just don’t have to travel so far.”

“How does he keep them from running away then?”

“I asked that same thing. Eight-foot-high fences,” she answered.

“So just a bigger pen,” I said.

She shrugged, refusing to be provoked. “He’s got four thousand acres. That’s a damn big pen.”

“Still, even if he can get hunters all year ’round, I’m surprised that he makes enough for it to be worth all the costs,” I said. “I mean, importing animals, putting up the extra-tall fences, and all that must be pretty expensive.”

She nodded. “It is. But do you know how much hunters pay for some of the animals?”

“No.”

“Guess.”

I just sighed. “How am I supposed to guess? I don’t even know what a regular hunting weekend costs.”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“Yup. He’s got three different kinds of antelope that are worth fifteen thousand. He has a bunch more in the three to eight thousand dollar range.”

I looked at her with disbelief. “You can buy a car for that. Who would pay that much for a dead deer?”

“They don’t pay for the dead deer. They pay to make the deer dead. There’s a difference.”

“A nice distinction,” I said. “Honestly, does that sound like fifteen thousand dollars worth of fun to you?”

“Well, maybe not, but then I don’t care about trophy hunting. I do like shooting, though. I’d definitely go on a hunt to see what it was like.”

I just looked at her. Not once in all the years that we’d visited the ranch had she risen at dawn to join the deer hunters, and the one time she’d gone dove hunting, she’d moaned about the heat and ragweed until Kel, with admirable self-control, had driven her back to the house instead of slapping duct tape across her lips. On the other hand, she did like shooting and was more than skilled at most of the weaponry you could find on a ranch.

Now I said, “You mean you’d go on a hunt to see what T.J. was like.”

She just laughed. “Now there’s a trophy I could get into. You have to admit he’s gorgeous.”

“He wouldn’t break mirrors, but he’s not exactly Hugh Jackman.”

Her blue eyes flashed with irritation, and she looked away. “Well, I guess that means you won’t be trying to steal him away from me.”

I was not the one with a history of stealing boyfriends, I thought, remembering a certain incident from our high school days that had almost destroyed our friendship before it began. Still, that was a long time ago, and I decided to let it go. Maybe Kyla really did have more of the hunter in her than I’d realized.

With an effort, I changed the subject. “Exotic hunting, horse racing … what else does T.J. do?”

She relaxed and smiled a little too brightly, obviously not in the mood to fight and glad I hadn’t taken up the gauntlet. “Real estate investments. He’s one of the major investors in the racetrack. And by the way, we’re invited to come watch the race in his box.”

“Seriously?”

Kyla said, “Yup. I told him we would, of course, although I admit that was before I’d heard about Eddy getting killed and all. Still, you don’t think all that should keep us from going to the race, do you?”

In spite of my worries about the murder and Ruby June, the thought of seeing the race from a box sounded intriguing, like something from the Kentucky Derby or the Grand National. Then with a pang, I remembered the pending lawsuit.

“Well if the murder doesn’t, then Kel sure will. Remember the archenemy thing? We can’t watch from T.J.’s box—Kel would have a fit.”

“Kel isn’t the boss of me,” she said with a grin. “Besides, I don’t see how he’ll find out if you don’t tell him.”

“I won’t need to tell him. Everyone knows everything about everybody in Sand Creek. You can bet someone will be telling him that you were with T.J. at the dance before the day is out. There’s no way you can sit in his box at the races without the whole town knowing.”

She looked outraged. “Why would anyone care? What business is it of theirs anyway?”

I just shrugged. “They care. For goodness sakes, they’re sending someone from the newspaper to interview Uncle Herman about turning ninety-five. They know their neighbors. They’re interested. In a way it’s kind of nice.”

She sat for a moment, looking disgruntled. “Well, I still don’t see why we shouldn’t go to the races tomorrow, do you?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t even know what’s going on today. I mean, we’re supposed to be having Thanksgiving dinner, but nobody seems to be in the mood. I asked Aunt Elaine if she’d like us to leave altogether, but she doesn’t. In fact, she begged us to stay and help out.”

“Help out with what? You know I can’t cook.”

“Not cook. Help with
your
relatives,” I said, stressing the possessive and making a gesture with my chin.

She followed my gaze to where a group of boys ranging in ages from about four to ten were swarming around the pecan trees looking for late pecans. Every few seconds, one of them would pounce on something, examine it, and then chuck it at another kid.