Nuts and Buried (20 page)

The next day Hunter and I were sharing a piece of Meemaw's pie we'd stolen out of the cooler. We were in the kitchen, laughing because I told him I'd seen Ethelred and she was shaking in her shoes after he'd warned her away from her investigation. When Meemaw came in, her stiff face warned us that something was up and it couldn't be just the stolen pie—though she didn't like people helping themselves to her valuable stock
—“Which I might need on the spur of the moment and here you are, Lindy Blanchard, eating up everything without as much as a ‘by-your-leave.'”

We found out soon enough why Meemaw was mad. And it didn't have to do with me, for once.

“Hear you warned Ethelred away from her investigation.” She stood next to the table, looking down at our guilty faces. She was talking to Hunter, who knew enough to color up.

“Now maybe you'd like to go out there”—she extended a pointy finger back toward the swinging doors to the store—“and tell her I'm not going to be murdered in my bed
because I help the sheriff out from time to time. Poor soul is worried sick I'm going to get myself killed. Think I'm the only one in town who really cares about that silly woman. She knows that and wants me kept alive.”

She stopped and shook that finger at Hunter. “I know you did it just to keep her and Freda quiet, and get their noses out of things. Still, I don't think I can put up with one more minute—”

Hunter, often the object of Meemaw's wrath when we were little and dumb, stuttered out an apology then went right into praise for the pie, which quieted her down enough so she pulled out a chair, sat, and calmed herself.

“What else are you two up to this morning?” She looked from our faces to our pie dishes—clean as a whistle.

“Just came to see you.” Hunter wiped filling from his chin. “Sheriff was wanting to know if you'd go along with me over to Ralston. We're kinda short on men right now.”

“That game ranch where Sally died? That's the only reason you want me to leave my store and go trekkin' with you? You're ‘short on men'?”

Hunter sure knew how to get Meemaw going.

I sat back to watch the fireworks.

“I didn't put that just right.” Hunter slid down in his chair and frowned. “What I meant to say is, the sheriff really needs me to get over there and he's got the other deputies busy checking everywhere he can and . . .” His words trailed off, like he was talking to the floor and forgot what he was saying.

Meemaw waved a hand at him. “Sorry, didn't mean to take out after you, Hunter. That Ethelred's got me going.”

She smiled over at him the way she used to do. One thing with Meemaw, she never could stay mad at people she loved.

“Okay, now . . . What for? Why do you want me to go with you to Ralston?”

“Sheriff Higsby talked to the sheriff up there. The man
said to come on out and go through the file he's got on Sally Wheatley's shooting. We can see if there's a match with the cartridge that killed Eugene or the one that killed Henry Wade. Two different guns. I'm taking both ballistics reports with me. Seems like, if somebody shot Sally on purpose, it's got to be one or the other of the guns we know about. Too much coincidence, that she was killed just like her husband. Can't tell me we've got that many killers around. The sheriff there in Ralston says he still thinks it was an accident, but the man's got an open mind. Wants to get it right.”

“You don't need me to go talk to a sheriff,” Meemaw said.

“Me and Sheriff Higsby thought it might be good to have a woman go along. Kind of look around and see things the way Sally would've seen 'em. You know, keep your eyes and ears open.”

“As I told you, I've got a store to run, Hunter. Glad to help you out, but I don't see how I'd be necessary over to Ralston. Can't help you with guns. I don't own one. Never will. Can't help you with ballistics. Can't help you find the other people on that hunt along with Sally. Can't question the guide who took them out—you're better at that than I am. Can't question people in Ralston if they've seen the man around town. You know, take that sketch along. Maybe go into restaurants. Maybe the bank. Maybe a gas station. Places like that where outsiders go. Could try any hotels or motels in the area. But I don't have the stamina for all that searching. You need somebody younger for that footwork, son.”

“Guess you gave me my playbook right there, Miss Amelia.” Hunter grinned from ear to ear. “Now I'm sorrier than ever you can't go along.”

I saw Meemaw thinking a minute. She had her grandmother face on. Her
“I'm going to fix something for Lindy, who never can seem to fix things right for herself”
face.

“I'll tell you what, take Lindy, here, along. She knows as much as I do about all of this. Let's see what she thinks. Why were the women there to begin with? I never took Sally for a hunter. What was it they were after that day?”

“Sika deer.”

“There in the hills?”

“Yes, ma'am. Rich man's hobby. Those deer cost hunters anywhere from fifteen hundred up.”

“Terrain's hilly?”

“Some rolling country. Lots of big rocks.”

“How many acres? You know?”

“Not exactly. Maybe a couple thousand.”

Meemaw shook her head. “Who'd mistake Sally for a deer? Wasn't she standing in a group of people?”

Hunter shrugged. “Wild shot. Some of those folks don't know a shotgun from a hockey stick.”

“I'm glad you're going. Show that sketch of Henry Wade around at the wildlife ranch, too, while you're there. See if anybody saw him on the hunt.”

“Showed it to Elizabeth,” Hunter said. “Never saw him before. Didn't even remember him from the wedding party. Said it must've been the caterers she hired brought him along.”

Meemaw shrugged. “Doesn't hurt to ask around Ralston. Maybe he was a hired hand out there at the game ranch.”

“And maybe you should go after all, Meemaw,” I protested. “You've got all the questions. I don't know what I'd even be looking for. And,” I stopped to put in a slight complaint, “maybe I don't like being second choice.”

“Hush,” was all Meemaw said, giving me one of her narrow-eyed looks that told me she wasn't going to take any back talk.

I knew what she was doing. I think Hunter knew, too. I pretended to reconsider. We all sat there nodding, acting like we thought it was a great idea for me and Hunter to go
off for a day or so together, catching a couple of murderers and righting a few wrongs along the way.

A couple of days. A couple of days alone to talk. I sure was willing to help out. I'd take a look around the game ranch. I'd tell Hunter what I thought and make my grandmother proud. I couldn't help but think
“chip off the old block”
and then tried to get the pictures out of my head: Meemaw, like me, with some wild man, riding toward danger in a truck. Staying in a cheap motel with her wild man . . .

“Okay.” Meemaw thumped her hands on the table. “Now, I've got a couple more questions. If I'm treading where I shouldn't be going, you let me know.”

Hunter nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Did you get fingerprints from Henry Wade's gun?”

“Yes, ma'am. All of 'em Wade's.”

“What about that gun expert you brought in to go over Eugene's collection? He find anything missing?”

Hunter shook his head.

“Anybody help with who could've come to that back door to shoot Eugene?”

“Still asking. Trying to find out if somebody was supposed to take a tray out to 'im and if one was sent. Chantal didn't remember.”

“Maybe there was no tray.”

We all looked at each other.

“But didn't somebody mention Eugene saying there was a tray coming out to him?”

We let it pass.

“Any follow-up on that stuff Elizabeth was saying? I mean, about Eugene being sorry he'd married Jeannie?” Meemaw asked.

Hunter shook his head. “Just the opposite. Friends I talked to said he was happier than he's been since Sally died.”

We were all thinking hard.

“Maybe the killer switched guns to make it look like Wade killed Eugene,” Meemaw said after a while. “But with only Wade's fingerprints on the gun, his body found miles from the boardinghouse, and Lydia Hornbeck hovering around that house of hers, no stranger's going to get by her dragging a dead body, and no stranger's gonna wander in and out with a rifle in his hands. I'd say it's Henry Wade's gun all right.”

“So we have Eugene's killer. Wade. Now here comes another killer.”

“Looks like it,” Meemaw said.

“And no clue as to a motive for this whole thing.”

“You've got to dig as deep as you can into Wade's background, Hunter. You talk to the relatives who came for the body?”

“Yes, ma'am. Said he was a bragger. Came back to El Paso from time to time only to show off all the money he had on him. They didn't know much else—like where the money came from. Told them he was some kind of ‘soldier of fortune' or something like that. I got the impression nobody liked him much. His brother and uncle came for him. Didn't see a lot of sadness. We tried to get a photograph of him. Nobody even had one.”

“What I figured,” Meemaw sighed. “Some people choose ugly paths.”

She thought some more. “Soldier of fortune—fancy name for a hired gun. So who would be after the Wheatleys? And why? They're pretty prominent folks in Texas. Eugene always struck me as a nice man, despite the money. Elizabeth's too worried about her social standing to do anything that would make her look bad. Who'd want any of them dead, let alone all of them?”

Meemaw shook her head after a while. “'Fraid I'm not much help, Hunter. Got to be tied to whoever killed Henry Wade. Or not. Could be he was just an evil man and somebody
else he did dirt to killed him. I suppose you've got to take another look at Billy. Hate to say it, but I've got to admit—maybe for his sister's sake he'd do away with Henry Wade. But I just know he had nothing to do with Eugene's death.”

“That's what I was thinking, too. At least to rule him out.”

“Tell you something.” Meemaw looked from Hunter to me and back. “This thing is getting to the point where I can't tell up from down. I'd say, knowing human beings the way I do, if Henry Wade killed Eugene, there was nothing personal about it.”

“Then why didn't Henry Wade get right out of town? Why hang around, waiting to get shot?” I asked.

“If he was a hired killer, I'd say he was either waiting to get paid or he had another job to do. Sharpshooter, eh. Looks like both killers were that—only a single shot each. Guess it's gonna take more time and shoe leather. That right, Hunter?” She smiled big at him.

“Right you are, Miss Amelia.”

“So best you two get going over there to Ralston. Get that answer on the bullet. It's important to know if the same gun that killed Eugene killed Sally. Jeannie wasn't in the picture when Sally was killed so that lets her whole family out as to being involved. Can't see Billy—who was incarcerated when Sally was killed, or his mother—who wouldn't have the money to hire a hit man anyway—doing that. And unless one of 'em's a fortune-teller, how could they know Eugene would ever marry Jeannie?

“You two get going. See what you can find at the game ranch.”

I ran upstairs and threw a few things into an overnight bag while Hunter went home to do the same. I stopped to look at myself in the bathroom mirror, running a brush through my hair and winding it into a ponytail that came out standing up like a fountain on top—the way little girls wear their hair. I checked my lipstick, wiped a smudge off
my teeth, and looked into my eyes. “Maybe this whole thing is dishonest,” I told myself. “You're not going along to investigate a murder and you know it.”

Myself answered, “So what?”

And I was off.

We took my truck. There wasn't an extra patrol in town. We tussled over who was going to drive with the loser, me, muttering and promising dire consequences. Hunter said he'd drive until he got tired. A few hours. Be there before noon.

It was already feeling comfortable, the way we always were together. It was almost easy to forget why we were going to Ralston, forget there were murderers in Riverville, and pretend the world was back to being a nice place.

First thing I said to Hunter as we drove out of town was, “You really wanted to take Meemaw instead of me?”

He looked over from the driver's seat. His exasperation was clear. “Bein' polite. Your grandmother's got a brain like a steel trap. Good thing you got other things going for you.”

“Pig.” I hit him with the folder I was looking through.

“This shouldn't take more than a day or two, at most,” he said after a while.

“Have you got an expense account or are we staying at the Bide-A-Wee down in some wash?”

“Brought a tent,” he said, then laughed, taking it back.

“I don't want bedbugs.”

“Won't be no bedbugs where we're going. Sheriff invited us to stay with him.”

“What kind of fun will that be?”

He gave me a hard look. “You along on a murder investigation or out for fun?”

“Of course, an investigation.” I really was ashamed of myself.

“Kidding,” he said. “Got us a reservation at a big hotel outside Austin. You see a bedbug there, I'll sue 'em.”

It hit me then that there was no big dog riding shotgun. “What'd you do with Flasher? You didn't ask Finula to watch him, did you?”

“Heck no. Not with those late hours of hers. The new deputy took him. Said he likes dogs. I'm hoping they get attached and I'll be rid of 'im.”

Hunter drove until we stopped near Round Rock at lunchtime. New Orleans food, and the best seafood in the county. After that he was sleepy and I drove up into the hills, where the road dropped and climbed and rain gauges in the washes showed nothing but dry ground.

Next thing we were in Ralston. I woke up Hunter to let him drive because I didn't know where I was going, though the town was small—a lot of the false-fronted stores hung with
FOR SALE
signs.

Hunter wiped his eyes as he sat up. “So soon? Good job, Lindy.”

The wildlife ranch was about thirty miles farther north, but he wanted to stop in and talk to the sheriff before we headed out.

“Department should be right here on Main Street somewhere.” He peered out the windshield, into the midday sun, looking down the wide street with only a few cars pulled into parking places. Some of the stores had wide-open doors—since it was in the low eighties. Not into summer heat yet.

“If I can't find it, I'll just stop and ask.”

“Or call him,” I suggested, always opting for the easiest way to do anything.

I pulled out the sketch from the folder Hunter handed me earlier. Those cold eyes. I knew I'd gotten them right. They
gave me chills, just looking at them, even with the man dead. I really hoped we'd find something that would clear up everything, tie the murders together, end this once and for all. Nothing felt normal to me anymore, not my work, not my up and down relationship with Hunter, not even my relationships with my family. It was all skewed. I hadn't asked about Sally's sister before then. Was she still around? Was Hunter still her protector?

Well, not if he was with me. Hmmm . . .

“What happened to Sally's sister after the memorial? Just asking.”

He looked over to smile at me. “Gone back home. But we're in touch, in case you were worried about it. She wants to know what we find out here. You know she's always said Sally's death wasn't an accident.”

“I know. And I'm glad she's in the loop. Who knows? Maybe I'll get to know her better, since I liked Sally so much. Or not . . .” I added, being honest with myself.

“Nothing to worry about, Lindy. If that's your problem. She's engaged and busy and there's nothing going on between us.”

“Who said I was worried?”

Probably remembering when I burst in on the two of them at The Squirrel, he rolled his eyes at me.

And that was enough of that subject.

Hunter pointed toward a low building with a hard-to-see sign out front. It was just off the main drag. Evidently the sheriff wasn't advertising for business.

Hunter and I were welcomed by Sheriff Winston Homer in true Texas style. He was a big man with a big hat and a big smile. The men shook hands. I got a hug that felt like being wrapped in cotton. We nodded to the other deputy sitting at a desk and then went back with Sheriff Homer to his office. He talked all the way, saying he'd like to show us around Ralston, if we had the time, and maybe have us over for
supper. He was sizing us up—probably wondering what I was doing there with a sheriff's deputy. Too polite to ask, he just kept welcoming me to town and then ordered tacos from a local restaurant even though we told him we'd already eaten.

I figured it might take a little longer than I thought to get down to business in Ralston. Then I figured that wasn't all bad. People sometimes worked out a lot of problems just by talking and eating. Folks, after all, did need to get to know one another before jumping into murder.

*   *   *

When we headed out to the wildlife ranch with Sheriff Homer, we were full enough of tacos and beans to burst wide open. We had a copy of everything in Sally Wheatley's file. The sheriff had Hunter's ballistics reports sent out immediately to a lab near Austin for comparison with the bullet that killed her.

“Hear back in a couple of hours, unless something else bumps us down a notch or two. Our man knew you was coming. Should settle that much—if somebody's after those Wheatleys or not.”

We went out in the sheriff's car, driving over ninety on some pretty curvy roads, and up and down some pretty serious hills. Thirty miles flew—literally, with live and craggy dead oaks speeding past my backseat window—beyond the metal grate—like crazy Halloween decorations. We pulled down into a valley, stopping in front of a low wooden ranch house sitting out in the sun, surrounded by bushes and dry earth. All around were the sides of steep wooded and rocky hills, and dry two tracks leading up at different angles, in different places.

The game ranch looked about like I'd expected it to look. Not real overdone, but nowhere nearing shabby. The people who came here to hunt had money. They expected things to be kind of easy on them. Hunting meant trekking up into
the hills until a guide pointed to some grazing animal and then BANG! and the hunter was out fifteen hundred or more.

After Jim Wardell, the ranch manager, came out and shook hands all around, we headed back to where a row of fancy bunkhouses stood with a blackened stone fire pit in front, and then on beyond to another row of low buildings—not fancy at all.

“This is where the guides stay,” Jim turned to say as he toed his well-used cowboy boots into the dusty earth. “Figured you'd want to talk to Earl James. He's the one took the Wheatley group out that day.”

He led us through a low doorway into a large room with a long, handmade table standing at the middle. A kitchen opened off at one end; a long hallway at another. Jim Wardell went on down the hall, his boots making a hollow thump as he walked. He came back with a thin man in old jeans and old boots you couldn't tell, to save your life, what the original color had been. The man had to be in his fifties—or sixties—or seventies. Who knew? Face wrinkled like a bad prune. Eyes squinting as if he never came indoors. When we were introduced, Earl stuck out a hard-used hand to take ours, hitting me with a very respectful, “Ma'am.

“Hear you wanna talk about that day back when the woman got shot.” Earl's voice was wispy—like he'd had that one cigarette too many. He turned to cough, then back to us.

He gave me and Hunter a one-eyed, sidewise look and took a seat at the table, where we all sat down.

Hunter agreed, that's what we were there for.

“Couple a years now. Don't know as I remember all that much about it.”

I pulled the sketch of Henry Wade from the folder and slid it across the table.

“Who's this?” Earl squinted up at us.

“A man shot down in Riverville.”

“What's he got to do with anything? Don't mind my asking.”

“Found a gun in his room. Bullet matched the bullet that killed Eugene Wheatley, the man out here hunting with his wife when she was killed.”

He nodded and took another look at the sketch.

“Can't say as I know him. He wasn't on the hunt with those people. Had Mr. Wheatley; his wife—the one what got killed; his sister; a couple of friends. That's all I remember. And this man here wasn't with 'em.”

Hunter went on to ask him about the hunt: Anything unusual? People seem relaxed? No trouble going on? Took them out to a new place or one he usually took folks up to?

All the answers added up to nothing out of the way about that day.

“And then you heard a shot?” Hunter asked.

He shrugged. “Heard lots a shots that day. Some of those folks weren't experienced hunters. Tell you the truth, only one of those women knew one end of a gun from the other.”

“Any other groups out at the same time? Could the bullet that killed Sally Wheatley have come from them?”

He shook his head. “Only group out that day. I always figured it was some poacher. What else? Mr. Wardell will tell you. Checked all the guns people were using. The men and one woman had their own they'd brung with 'em. Other women used some we had. No bullet matched the cartridge we found.”

Hunter leaned forward, resting on his forearms. He was getting down to business. “I know for a fact that guides notice a lot of things about the people they take up into the hills. And I know that guides listen to what folks say between themselves. And I know that guides like some of 'em and don't like others. What I'm askin' now is, give me your thoughts on that group.”

Earl lowered his head in thought. After a couple of long minutes, he turned aging blue eyes up toward Hunter. “Liked 'em all well enough. That Eugene Wheatley was a fine fellow. Don't think his wife liked hunting much, but she was being a good sport. That sister—well, you coulda led her off to a hangin' and I wouldn't've stopped you.”

“Why?”

“Mouth on'er that ran like a rabbit. Kind of nasty to the wife. You know what I mean? The way some of those ladies look down their noses and make fun like they wasn't really makin' fun and nobody should take offense? Even I could see what she was up to and felt sorry for that poor wife.”

“What happened after the shooting?”

“All hell broke loose, is what happened. The shot woman was down on the ground. The husband was kneeling next to her, yellin' out her name.”

“What about the sister?”

He thought again. “Seemed upset, like everybody else. Won't fault her for that. Seemed to care.”

“You remember the other folks on that hunt?”

He shrugged, took a pack of Camels out of his pocket and a book of matches. He lit a cigarette, pulled in a long breath, and let the smoke out in the air over our heads.

“Think there was two other men and their wives.”

“Anything about them?”

He thought, pursed his lips, took another drag on his cigarette, and then shook his head.

“Just people. A lot of joking. I remember that. Women teasing the men about what bad shots they were. Don't think any of those women, except the sister, took as much as one shot right up to the time that Sally Wheatley got killed.”

“What did the women look like?” I asked.

Again he thought awhile. “I remember them bein' in their thirties, I'd say. Older than Wheatley's wife. She was a
young, pretty thing. Real nice. The others—well, they acted like most rich women. Like they got to show off. You know what I mean? Like they got to be seen and heard so no other woman sneaks up and steals their husband. Always thought, women like that, pretty sad, you ask me.”

I had to smile at this gentle, perceptive cowboy.

That was all we got out of Earl. Jim Wardell, walking back up to his place with us, wasn't much more help except he had a record of everyone on that hunt—names and addresses. For his own benefit, he told us. In case of any trouble—like there was.

We looked over the names: Tom and Maud Fritchey; George and Winifred Tillis. Names I kind of recognized. Maybe they were at the costume party. I couldn't have told you which ones they were.

Hunter copied the names and contact info into his notebook.

“Have to talk to them,” he said. “Don't know where any of this is going to lead.”

We said good-bye to Jim Wardell just as a couple of Jeeps filled with men came up the dusty drive. I figured it was the next hunt coming in.

Back at the sheriff's office, Winston Homer called the forensics lab over near Austin but was told he wouldn't have the results before morning. Hunter made arrangements to check back in the morning and we were on our own.

Taking a page from Meemaw's book, I wanted to hit a few of the stores in Ralston, check out if anybody in town had ever seen Henry Wade around. I wanted to take the sketch into the bank—see if Henry Wade cashed any checks there. Maybe ask at the two barbecue places I'd seen on either end of town. I was thinking about where most people go. Maybe the local saloon. We'd have to check all those out. Maybe a market—there was a small one along the six
blocks of what you could call their downtown. Since it was getting on into the afternoon, we figured this would be a good time to catch people out and about.