If Fried Chicken Could Fly (17 page)

I stopped directly in front of his tombstone and pointed at the coin. “What’s that?”

Jerome peered at the coin. “I do believe that’s a gold piece.”

“Why’s it on your tombstone?”

“I don’t know, darlin’. I truly don’t. Like I already told you, I didn’t put it there.” Whatever amusement twinkled in his eyes dimmed when he saw how serious I was.

“I guess what I want to know is was this the sort of thing that was in your buried treasure?”

“I don’t rightly know.” Jerome lifted his hat and swiped back his hair. “I don’t remember, Isabelle. That’s the problem. If I remembered any of it clearly, I would have told Miz where I put things. As I said, I don’t remember much of my life. I lived a long time ago. Even if my memory weren’t spotty, I might have forgotten anyway.”

I caught myself looking at his jawline and the stubborn strength in his chin. I suddenly saw clearly how he had a crooked set to his mouth. I looked away and silently chastised myself. Was I under so much stress that I was noticing things like chins and jawlines on a dead man? What was wrong with me?

I cleared my throat. “I doubt you would have forgotten where you put a treasure, though.”

“Miz said it was like when she bought birthday cards early and hid them and then forgot where.”

A treasure was different than misplaced cards, but there was no point in arguing.

“Gram and Everett were out here the day he was killed. Were they talking to you?”

“No, I talked to Missouri in the morning, in her office, but she told me that she was busy with the cook-off for the next few days, so I roamed around town and tried to remember things. Miz says that’s what I usually do when I first arrive. I didn’t even know about the fire or her arrest until after she’d been taken to the jail that night.”

Maybe she hadn’t been talking to herself. Maybe I’d heard her talking to Jerome, though at the time I hadn’t seen or heard him.

“Have you talked to her much since you got here this time around?”

Jerome nodded. “At her house, but her son, your father, was watching her so closely, that she didn’t say much. She asked if I knew where the treasure was or if I knew who else might be looking for it.”

“And you still don’t?”

“No.”

“There was something taken from the historical archives. Jake isn’t sure what it was. It must have been something very important. It might have been the paper you said you saw in Everett’s office. Can you think of any documents that you created, maybe a map or a diary, that might have given clues as to where you put the treasure?”

“I’m sorry, Isabelle,” Jerome said as he ran his hand through his hair again. “I just don’t know. Ever’ now and then something comes into my mind and I’m trying hard to remember. I’ll let you know the second I do.”

“That has to be frustrating,” I said.

Jerome put his hat back on and shrugged. “It’s what I
know. I’m happy to be here, even if ‘here’ is a little less here than the rest of you. I’m always happy to talk to Miz, and now you.”

“Earlier, you said you had some information about who shot Jake and me?” I said.

“Yep. I walked around on top of those buildings and found a little drop of blood. See, it’s not much, but it’s something. If you can find someone with a cut or a scratch, you might find the shooter.”

“Blood? That’s a good clue, Jerome. You might be right. DNA’s an amazing tool.”

“DNA?”

Of course, he wouldn’t know a thing about DNA. I searched for a way to summarize the last hundred years or so of scientific advancements. “Yes, it’s what we’re made up of. We can match blood to people by testing the DNA. We can tell who the blood came from just by learning its DNA.” It was an awkward explanation but the best I could do.

Jerome whistled. “I’ll be. That’s something. I bet no one gets away with anything anymore.”

“Sadly, no, people still get away with lots, but DNA testing is changing the world.”

“I expect so.”

“Where was the blood?”

“On top of the pool hall, but I think the shooter was moving. They might have started at the end of the block which is the cookie shop, I believe. There could be more blood, but I only saw the one drop.”

“Where exactly?”

“Right on the northwest corner, on the ledge, about a hand’s width from the corner and to the south.”

“Got it. Now I just have to figure out a way to let the police know about it, unless they saw it already.”

“I don’t think they did. I watched that young fella, the one that’s got eyes for you, looking around and I don’t think he saw it.”

“I’ll have to find a way to point it out.”

My cell phone buzzed. It was a blocked private number but I answered it anyway. “Isabelle Winston,” I said as I flipped it open.

“Betts, it’s Cliff. You need to come back down to the jail. Right away.”

“What’s wrong? Did something happen to Gram?” My heart leapt to my throat.

“No, it’s Jake. He’s fine, but he’s been hurt. He requested that I call you.”

“Jake? What happened, Cliff?”

“Just come on down. Like I said, he’s fine. Drive carefully, but we’ll see you in a minute.”

“On my way.” I put the phone back into my pocket. “I gotta go. Talk to you later, Jerome. See what you can remember. Come see me this evening if you can.”

“Yes, ma’am. Be careful in that automobile,” Jerome said before he disappeared again.

I ran into the school and told Teddy where I was going. He’d already cleaned up the first layer of gunk in the kitchen. He’d have it spotless in only a few hours. I’d put the right man on the job.

The drive back to town was never long or taxing, and though traffic was light, it felt like this trip took forever. I wouldn’t remember turning off the car or my sprint into the
jail. But I’d forever remember the sight of my best friend as he sat on a chair next to Cliff.

Jake pulled a soda can away from his blackened eye and said, “This might be the only safe place, Betts. I thought you should get down here quickly.”

“Jake, what happened?” I said as I gently touched the puffy skin to the side of his eye.

“I was accosted. Trust me, if I wasn’t so scrappy, it would have been much worse.”

I looked at Cliff whose tight face showed he was just as concerned as I was.

“He wouldn’t let me call the doctor. He just wanted you,” Cliff said.

“Tell her the details,” Gram said from the cell.

“When I went back to my office, I headed directly to the archives,” he began. “Betts, I’ve been locking the door obsessively for many years. Particularly now, when there’s been a murder. Maybe getting shot at shook me up more than I thought, but I must have forgotten about locking them. I came out of the archives and suddenly the world went
bright and then black and then my eye and head hurt. I was on the ground, kind of on my hands and knees, trying to figure out what was going on when whoever hit me in the eye, kicked me in my side.”

“Oh, Jake,” I said.

“The side is fine, believe it or not. I’ll probably be bruised, but not badly.”

“How did you get out of there?”

“My horse,” Jake said.

“Your horse?” I asked. Jake didn’t own a live horse, but Patches was his one and only Palomino stick horse. “Patches?”

“Yeah, somehow I ended up in the corner where she’s always tethered.” Jake smiled, his black eye puffing bigger. “I grabbed her and started swinging with all my might. I couldn’t see right, black spots everywhere, but I kept getting pumped with more adrenaline whenever the stick landed on something solid.”

“So you hit your attacker?”

“A couple times at least, but then…”

“Uh-oh, what?”

“He or she seemed to disappear. I thought I heard a commotion in the back room, so I crawled toward the door that leads to the archives. I still wasn’t seeing right, but I know they left out the back door and once I could see better I realized they took Jerome’s files with them. They’re gone, probably never to be seen again.”

“Could you make out the person at all? Did you get an idea of who it might be?” I asked.

“No. When they were hitting me or when I was hitting at them, I never got a good look, my vision was messed up.
When they were in the back room I was on my hands and knees and the table was mostly in the way, but I think I saw long black pants.”

“Tell her what else you saw, Jake,” Gram said.

“Oh yeah. When they were hitting me, I thought I might have seen red spots on the shoes—random spots and only a few of them. I thought they were just more spots like the black ones in my vision, but Miz, Cliff, and Jim don’t think so.”

“Told ya,” Gram said. She seemed perfectly comfortable in the cell.

“Men or women’s?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Jake said.

“Well, those shoes and those archives are somewhere. We just need to find them. When we do, everything else will surely be solved,” I said, but I knew nothing was that easy. I also wasn’t sure he’d seen real red spots despite how much we all wanted a solid clue to the identity of his attacker.

“Jim’s looking for evidence over at Jake’s building,” Cliff said.

I hadn’t known Cliff as a police officer for very long, but what I’d seen so far made me think he might be pretty good at his job. But his concern for Jake, and perhaps the rest of us, was showing a potential chink in the armor he probably hoped he’d created. Though he and Jake hadn’t kept in touch, they had once been pretty good friends. He was concerned and might not be able to keep a professional distance in this case. I was glad Jim was the one looking for evidence.

“Betts, you need to be careful,” Jake said. “You’ve been looking into the treasure, too. Someone might think you know more than you do.”

“Treasure? What treasure?” Cliff said.

“I’m sorry, Betts, it might be rotten of me to do it this way but the police need to know. I wanted to know you were safe and I wanted us both to tell them. I don’t know if Everett was looking for the treasure, Cliff, but he’d been researching Jerome Cowbender,” Jake said as he put the soda can back to his eye.

“What’s going on?” Cliff said.

“Gram, you want to tell him?” I asked.

“I have nothing to say.”

“I don’t know much, but I have my own suspicions,” I began.

“I’m all ears,” Cliff said.

Without Gram’s corroborating what I said and without Jerome Cowbender’s presence, the story sounded weak and potentially made-up. There was the coin on the tombstone and the fact that Gram had only implied that she and Everett “might” have been looking for the treasure. I couldn’t say anything about Jerome or Jerome’s conversation with Gram or the fact that he himself didn’t remember—not yet, anyway—where he’d hidden it. As I told Cliff what I was able to, I sensed his doubt, but at least he tried to act interested.

“Is the coin still on the tombstone?”

“It was a little bit ago,” I said.

“I’ll let Jim know.”

“Thanks.”

“Am I done here, Cliff?” Jake asked.

“I have your statement, but where do you want to go?”

“I want to go home.”

“Will you feel safe there, Jake?” I asked. “Do you want to stay with me?”

“I doubt I’ll feel safe anywhere for a while, but I want to go home. I want my own bed. I’ll take precautions.” He stood, his legs steadier than I would have predicted. “You be safe, too, Betts. You might want to consider staying with your parents or…” He looked at Cliff briefly. “Well, just be careful.”

“I will.”

Jim pushed through the front doors. He glanced at the group and nodded at Jake. “I didn’t find much of anything, but I might have gotten a fingerprint.”

“I’m going home, Jim. I’d like to get some rest.”

“I’ll take you. Come on, we’ll get your bike.”

Jake sighed but didn’t argue further. When they left, the office felt a lot emptier. Jake wasn’t a big man, but his personality tended to take up a lot of space.

“I’m about done here, Betts. Can I help you get home? Are we still on for eight?” Cliff asked quietly.

My wide eyes probably didn’t hide the fact that he’d surprised me with the reminder. We were going to have coffee and pie at Bunny’s. Suddenly, that seemed like the wrong thing to do. It seemed too jovial for the serious turn of events. But it was something that we needed to get out of the way. Besides, maybe I could use the opportunity to get some information out of him. Maybe he and Jim knew more than they were sharing.

“I can get home. Thanks. Sure. Absolutely. I’ll be at Bunny’s.”

“Good.”

“You two making a date?” Gram said with a smile to her voice. She was having far too much fun for someone behind bars.

“Gram,” I said.

Cliff said nothing.

Despite her teasing, it wasn’t easy to leave with Gram still locked up. After Cliff confirmed our meeting (I wasn’t going to call it a date), I checked on Teddy at the school and left him with the order to keep the doors locked. It was starting to get dark, but I made sure the gold coin was still on the tombstone—it was—and drove back to Bunny’s.

I parked in front of the 1950s retro-style diner. It was the one building in Broken Rope that didn’t hearken back to the Old West. Bunny’s parents had built the diner in 1954. Broken Rope’s tourist-destination status didn’t hit until the 1970s. Now there were specific building ordinances that had to be followed if you wanted to build something new or remodel something within the town limits. Structures had to meet current safety standards while at the same time keeping the Old West theme. Since Gram’s school was right outside the town’s historic border, she wasn’t required to follow the ordinances, but she had made sure that the only modern touches in her building were on the inside in the form of the appliances.