Gambling on a Dream (6 page)

Smoke from cigars and cigarettes clung to the air as he looked around until he found Chief. The old Comanche picked up the cards dealt to him and tossed two away. Talon waited on the fringes of the room, drinking his beer, as the man he’d always considered his grandfather played out the game.

Tate Jackson tossed in his cards with a curse. “I’m done.” The big African-American stood and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Louise is gonna kill me if I’m not home by ten.”

Chief gathered up the chips in the center of the table. “More like that wife of yours don’t like you donatin’ your paycheck to my retirement fund.”

Several of the men standing back, watching the game, chuckled. Tate grinned, his white teeth bright against his dark face. “That too. Have a good one, Chief.” He slipped on a warn denim jacket and looked around. “Hope your luck’s better than mine, boys.”

After Tate left, Chief glanced at Talon. He took the chair across from his grandfather. Something in his stark expression must have alerted Chief that Talon wanted to talk and didn’t want an audience.

“Gentlemen, I’d like a word with my grandson.”

A moment later, they were alone, and the old Comanche, who everyone in town called Chief, including his grandchildren, leaned forward over his crossed arms, resting on the table, and waited.

Talon stared at the scuffed table and took a deep breath. No use beating around the bush with Chief. He’d always admired the old man’s no-bullshit personality. “I’m going to Vegas.”

Chief raised a brow. “Thought your sister told you to stay put.”

Talon huffed between his teeth. “I can’t do that. Something’s come up, and I have to go.” He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table. “Please give this to Mom.”

Chief glanced at the white envelope but didn’t pick it up. “Son, I know you don’t have anything to do with the crap that’s goin’ on ’round here, but if you leave, you’ll only make yourself look as guilty as a half-dressed whore at a church picnic.”

Talon tapped his fingers on the table. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that, but if he didn’t leave now, he’d never forgive himself. “Just tell Mom I’m sorry.”

Chief shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “I guess you ain’t gonna tell me why the sudden need for the Vegas vacation.”

Looking down at the table, Talon signed and shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Guess it’s best I don’t know. Then I won’t have to keep track of a bunch of lies.” He shuffled the cards in his hands.

Talon let a small smile touch his lips. Chief might be bursting with curiosity, but he wouldn’t press him to learn his secrets, which was the reason he'd come to his grandfather and hadn’t told anyone else in his family where he was going. He didn’t want to answer questions he wasn’t even sure the answers to.

The door opened behind him and he turned. The smile fell right off his lips. Damn, this was the last thing he needed to deal with right now.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Chet Hendricks ambled into the room like he was John Wayne. “Teaching the boy your bad habits, Chief?”

Talon stood and faced the son-of-a-bitch who’d made his life hell since he was a kid. Surely, Dawn wouldn’t have sent Chet after him. “What do you want, Hendricks?”

Chet shrugged and moved around the outside of the dingy room. “Nothing but finding a murderer and drug dealer.” He faced Talon with a tight-lipped grin that never reached his hard eyes. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Blackwell?”

Talon had more than his share of assholes as arrogant and mean as Hendricks in his life. He glanced at his grandfather. “See you later, Chief.”

Hendricks stepped in front of him as he headed for the door. “Not so fast. I want to know what you and Justin Vaughn were so chummy about. Heard you and he were talking yesterday. We all know he’s a two-bit dealer.”

What the hell was he talking about? Vaughn was the kid he'd bought apples for his horse from. Talon had gone to school with his mother and had always had a soft spot for him because the kid had dealt with the same shit he had to put up with while growing up.

The chair Chief sat on scrapped the floor as if he stood, but Talon didn’t look away from the deputy.

“Unless you are here on official business, Deputy Hendricks, I suggest you leave now, because police harassment is still illegal from what I understand. And I do believe the Constitution guarantees due process and innocence until proven guilty. Besides, you wouldn’t want it said you don’t follow the law to the letter, now would you? That might look bad in your campaign for sheriff.”

It never failed to amaze Talon when his dear ole granddad put away the vernacular of the illiterate Indian cowboy, which most folks in town believed him to be, and reverted to the speech of the college-educated man he was. Of course, when Chief pulled out the big words, it was his way of saying
fuck off
.

Hendricks backed up and smirked in a self-satisfied way. “Nice to know you got your whole family protecting you, huh?”

Talon fisted his hands, but common sense kicked him in the ass before he let a punch fly. He glanced back at the envelope still on the table. He had more important things to consider than knocking the head off Chet Hendricks, no matter how damned satisfying that might have been.

“If you’re arresting me, do it. If not, get the hell out of my way.” When Hendricks stepped to the side, he stalked past the deputy and out the door.

* * * *

Dawn pounded on the door of the apartment above a weathered tractor shed at Vaughn’s Farm and Garden Market. “Justin, this is Sheriff Dawn Madison, open up!”

When no response came, she looked over her shoulder at Wyatt. He moved his leather vest away from his shoulder holster and gripped the Colt 45. She took his cue and drew the Glock from her hip holster. With it pointed to the bright morning sky in her right hand, she tried the knob with her left.

The door opened slowly, and Wyatt moved into the dark, rank-smelling interior after he determined the place was clear. He went right into the tiny bedroom; she headed left toward the living space. The action so natural her heart stopped for a split second.

When the stench caused her stomach to churn, Dawn switched to breathing through her mouth. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she scanned the messy room. Beer cans cluttered the tops of an old-fashioned iron sink and an ancient gas stove. Rust splotches pitted the dull white enamel of both.

The door of the 1970s Frigidaire stood open. The light inside flickering over shelves littered with takeout containers and a partial six-pack of Budweiser. A blackened tablespoon, two insulin syringes, and a burned down candle sat on the 1960s era aluminum table. One of the two miss-matched chairs was overturned, and yellowish stuffing poked out of the tears in the sagging greasy couch.

“Aw hell.”

Wyatt’s frustrated voice drew her attention to the doorway into the bedroom. He shoved his Colt into the holster. She rounded the unmade mattress to see what he'd found to make him feel safe enough to put away his gun.

He looked over his shoulder. “Well, we found Vaughn, but I don’t think he’ll be doing any talking.”

The eighteen-year-old lay flat on his back on the putrid carpet, surrounded by dirty clothes. He wore only a pair of filthy boxers. Inches from the bluish fingertips of his right hand lay a wide black piece of rubber and a syringe. Infected track marks darkened the inside of his elbows. But what probably killed him were the three blood-crusted stab wounds in his chest.

His sightless eyes stared at the ceiling, and his normally pale face and the bare skin of his chest had taken on the gray pallor of someone who’d been dead for a while.

She shoved her gun back into her side holster and knelt beside Wyatt. With a long exhale, she said, “You know, the stink when I opened the door should’ve been our first clue. Goddamn.”

Wyatt shook his head and stood. “Looks like the same MO as Larson’s murder.”

“Yeah. Probably killed for the same reason as Chris too. Shouldn’t surprise me. Vaughn’s been a petty dealer and user for years. I thought he was turning his life around after we arrested him in the spring.” She followed Wyatt to his feet, but the action was harder than it should have been. The weight of finding the killer settled squarely on her shoulders. Their only possible lead was literally a dead end. The only suspect was her brother, and she refused to think he had anything to do with this. She unclipped her iPhone from her service belt. “I’ll call it in.”

* * * *

Wyatt was ready to call it a night, and at nine PM, after speaking with Justin’s uncle and aunt, he was finally heading home. He was anxious to find out how Rachel made out at her VA appointment earlier that day.

Yesterday, he’d called her therapist and mentioned that he was afraid she might be having thoughts of hurting herself. He hated doing it, feeling like he was somehow tattling on his baby sister, but damn it all to hell, if she committed suicide, he’d never forgive himself.

“Wyatt, wait up.”

Turning at the voice, he stopped.

Chet Hendricks came out from behind his desk in the communal area of the station and headed toward Wyatt. “I hoped you’d be up for a beer over at the Hardware Bar. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m headed home.” Wyatt dug his truck keys from his jeans pocket. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

Chet shifted his feet and hiked up his service belt. “Actually, no it can’t. It’s about Talon Blackwell.”

Wyatt glanced toward the glowing glass panel of the office door on the other side of the room. The gold painting and block letters still proclaimed his friend, Zack Cartwright, sheriff, but that office was Dawn’s domain.

“What about Talon?” Wyatt faced Chet.

The deputy’s dark eyes brightened, and his lips twitched as if he was fighting off a smile. “Not here. I’ll tell you at the saloon.” He patted Wyatt’s shoulder with a bony hand. “I think you’ll find this interesting.”

As they moved down the aisle to the back door, with Chet waving and tossing out “good nights” to the other deputies still at work, Wyatt got the feeling he was being herded. He stopped. No one herded him. “I’m not interested in a drink, Chet. If this is about the murders, out with it. Otherwise, I’m going home.”

Chet flattened his lips into a tight line and rubbed the back of his neck. But the displeasure lasted only a second. His half smile was back. “Okay. Here’s what I think. Talon Blackwell is guilty as sin and Dawn knows it. We all know she testified that her brother wasn’t an addict when he was caught and thrown in jail in Amarillo. Well, the evidence suggested otherwise. I looked up the reports. Talon not only was charged with using and possession of cocaine, but three witnesses testified they saw him dealing as well.”

Wyatt needed to look at those reports, but something about considering Talon didn’t sit right with him. “We have no evidence implicating him in either one of these murders.”

Circumstantial evidence was all they had. He’d been a cop too long to fall for the circumstantial. Occasionally, it provided the breadcrumbs through the forest to the real McCoy, but not often enough. Mostly, those breadcrumbs lead to dead ends or nothing at all.

He thought about the responses made by Justin’s uncle during his questioning. Kenny Vaughn mentioned Talon stopping by his farmer’s market on several occasions to buy apples for his stallion, and he would often talk at length with Justin, the last time being Tuesday morning. But Kenny had no idea what those conversations entailed.

Wyatt also knew Talon had always had a soft spot for the underdog. Despite the changes in his old friend, he still believed that part of Talon was there. Justin definitely qualified as someone stuck on the fringes of society, much as Talon himself always had been. Justin’s mother had been a classmate of his and Talon’s and got pregnant when she was seventeen. No one ever knew who his father was and the rumor had been that it was their high school band instructor. She ended up raising the kid on her own until breast cancer had taken her life four years ago, which had been when Justin’s addiction problems started.

Wyatt wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Talon saw Justin as something of a kindred spirit and wanted to help the kid out.

Chet rubbed his neck again. “Look. I know you and Talon were friends, but he’s into some bad shit these days. I think he’s getting rid of his competition.”

“What do you want, Chet?”

Shifting his feet, Chet cleared his throat. “I would like you to campaign for me. We all know Dawn isn’t the right person for sheriff. She’ll run this office as crooked as her father did.”

He narrowed his eyes at the deputy, then slipped his gaze to the others shifting in their chairs, pretending they hadn’t heard. The last thing he wanted was someone like Chet Hendricks in the sheriff’s office. The glow from Dawn’s office door window caught his attention again. Despite all of his bad feelings for her, and hatred of what she had done to him, she was the right choice for sheriff.

As he set his hat on his head, he met Chet’s expectant brown eyes again. “Tom is and was a good man. Yeah, he got a few kids out of trouble now and again, but when it mattered, he shot straight and true. Dawn will make a good sheriff for this town.”

Chet’s too-thin, boney face melted a bit. His was a day past a five o’clock shadow, and some of the scruff was coming in gray to match the patches of nearly white in his dark hair. The man was aging fast and not in a good way. Hard to believe Wyatt and Chet were the same age.

“Are you going to question Blackwell?” Chet put his hands on his skinny hips.

Wyatt reached for the knob of the back door to the parking lot. “Yes, but tomorrow is another day.”

“Is he crazy?” Dawn stood on her parents’ porch and stared at Chief. “Damn it! Is he trying to make himself look as guilty as possible?”

“You know your brother hasn’t done anything wrong.” Her grandfather’s easy tone only served to grate on her nerves as much as the slow motions of his gnarled and age-spotted hands with the paring knife as he skinned an apple. He set the peeled Macintosh into a bowl beside him and picked up another from the basket at his feet. “Why do you think Talon had anything to do with these murders?”