Nuts and Buried (22 page)

It was the lazy part of the early afternoon when we drove through the hills back out toward the game ranch. Still not really hot, but the air was wet, like it picked up half the Gulf and moved it into Texas. I was tired again. Leaning against the seat, closing my eyes from time to time and yawning. I put in a call to Martin Sanchez and we discussed watering and feeding for a while. Any grafting or other biological pairings would be put off until I got back. The thing about Martin was that he was so good with the trees he knew them intuitively. Not trained in any of my work, but he knew what to do without being told. He could look at a tree—see a yellow leaf—and be on the job that minute. As a farm manager, Martin was the best in the business.

Hunter drove in and passed the ranch house, heading instead into the parking places out by the clients' houses. From there we walked back to where the guides stayed and walked in on three of them having their noonday meal. The three, including Earl James, looked up, surprised. Earl recognized
us from the day before and raised a hand in greeting, pointing to the pot of stew on the table and then pointing to a stack of clean white bowls sitting off at the side.

“All had morning hunts,” Earl said after halfway introducing us to the other two, who kept right on eating. “Kind of late eating.”

“Ate already,” Hunter said. “Could you come outside when you're done? Like to ask you just a few more questions.”

“You find out if that killer from Riverville killed this lady here?” he asked as he took a paper napkin to wipe his chin.

Hunter nodded. “That was him.”

“Wow!” Earl exclaimed as he got up. “Wonder what that was all about?”

The other two men nodded toward us as we headed back for the door, taking no interest in what we were talking about or why we were there.

Out in the lane, in front of all the housing, Hunter turned to Earl and asked him to show us where Sally had been shot.

He hesitated a minute, thinking hard while fumbling in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. That found and lighted, he looked off to the hills, eyes closed to slits, for a long minute.

He pointed to a track leading up, disappearing behind huge boulders.

“Have to climb a bit.” He looked down at the sandals I was wearing and shook his head.

“Maybe better you stay here,” he said.

I wasn't about to come this far with Hunter and miss the next thing he was after. I said I'd be fine and followed the two men out across the mowed grass to where the trail began and quickly led upward, between rocks, to bigger rocks.

We were at a flat, open area, when Earl James stopped and pointed to a place just ahead. “That's about it. Wouldn't go any farther,” he said to me. “Rattlers in there. No boots. Shouldn't go.”

I agreed, having forgotten about rattlesnakes. I stopped to
watch as Hunter and Earl moved on a couple of hundred yards and stopped to look around at the higher hills, probably gauging where a shooter would put himself to get the best shot at people crossing this wide, open place between boulders.

I looked up, too. Not that I was expecting to see anything. Couple of years ago, after all. Doubted anybody was lying in wait, hoping for a second shot.

There was no seeing without putting a hand up to shade my eyes. The sun was at its highest. My sunglasses were back in the truck. Still, I caught a flash of something pretty far up in the hills. Probably a bottle left up there. Even mica in the rocks could give off flashes when the sun hit it right. I stood there hoping to see the flash again and maybe tell Hunter about it, when the flash became something like fireworks, or at least a lot brighter. More like an explosion.

Before I could do any real thinking, something hit me and I was down on the ground, putting a hand to my left shoulder and coming away with a palm full of blood. I was damned mad at first and then the pain hit and all I could do was bend over and groan, then try to roll out of the way of another bullet.

I opened one eye and looked up into Hunter's face. Scared. Worried. Saying my name and telling me to stay still, right where I was. He was going after the shooter, he told me. Earl was on his way back to the house to call the sheriff and get an ambulance.

I lay there thinking, This is no fun, and then I kind of passed out and came back when the pain hit again and I was yelling that I wanted a doctor while watching the blood spread down my arm and around the fingers I'd clasped over the hole there.

Then I was crying and swearing at the same time and so grateful when men rushed up the path with a stretcher. They cut off my blouse—which was okay because I had a new bra on—and did some poking at the wound with something
I figured was to sterilize it, and then I was bound up and on the stretcher and taking a bumpy ride toward a hospital somewhere. I didn't care where. Just wanted to get there and be knocked out so the pain would stop, which happened right away after the EMT gave me a shot in my other arm.

*   *   *

I woke up in a very nice hospital with a very nice and reassuring doctor's face above mine.

“How are you feeling?” the face asked.

I said I felt like hell and wanted to know how I got shot in the shoulder.

He said he couldn't tell me that. The shot was a clean one, he said. “Right through your shoulder. Should be fine. Some bone fragments, but I got them all. Be out of commission for a while, is all.”

I looked around then asked for Hunter when I saw he wasn't in the room.

“The deputy?” the doctor asked.

I nodded until I winced at the pain. Any movement seemed to set my arm on fire.

“He's on his way. Been calling the desk every couple of minutes to see how you are. Should be here soon.”

I relaxed back against the pillow and had to pull my arm—in a sling now—over me.

I was shot, I kept telling myself. What for? Who did it? I wasn't a Wheatley. No value in me to anyone. And then I shut my eyes and fell asleep.

When I awoke the next time, Hunter was sitting in a chair beside my bed. He looked tired and worried. When I opened my eyes, he leaned forward and smiled down at me.

“You've got to learn how to duck, Lindy. You'll never make a cop, standing out there like you've got a target painted on you.”

“I wasn't expecting to get shot. Who's that mad at me?”

He shrugged. “Couldn't find him. I climbed right up to where the shot came from. Got the cartridge, is all. Could have a fingerprint on it. The guy was long gone.”

I took a minute to let the pain settle then asked him, “What the heck, Hunter. Why me?”

“We'll know soon. Unless they've got some maniac here in Ralston, too, it should be the same gun that killed Henry Wade.”

“I'm not a Wheatley. I'm not some Marine sharpshooter who killed the Wheatleys. Why would anyone want to shoot me? You think they were after you? Makes more sense. Go after the cop who is working the case.”

He shrugged. “Don't think it was me he was after. Clean shot, the doctor said. Could have been straight through your head—if that's what the shooter wanted to happen.”

I moaned because I was thinking I had the right not to be brave through this one. All I could think of was how Meemaw would feel when she heard about me getting shot. And after she sent me up here with Hunter. There was going to be a lot of beating of breasts around here.

Reading my mind, as he could always do, Hunter said, “Your mama and grandma and sister and brother are all on their way. I'll tell ya, Miss Amelia's mad as hell. I wouldn't want to be that shooter when we catch him. Got a feeling she'll be taking out her own pistol—if she has one—and putting an end to him—whoever he is.”

“When can I get out of here? Maybe we can beat my family to the punch and get on home.”

I barely got the words out when Bethany burst into the room and rushed to my bed, hands to her cheeks, eyes filled with tears. She moaned as she fell to her knees beside me. I figured, if nothing else, I was going to get a lot of TLC from my family.

“How did this happen? Are you going to be okay? We're all sick about what happened . . .”

Behind Bethany came Meemaw, just about as distraught as Bethany, but in tighter control of herself.

“I should've known, Lindy. They're probably after me. I was supposed to come. That bullet in you should've been—”

“Cut it out, Meemaw.” I used the sternest voice I could come up with before Mama was hugging me and Justin was standing behind her talking to Hunter, demanding to know when he was going to get the man who did this.

And that went on for a half an hour before everybody was kicked out.

The next morning I was released with orders to see my own doctor and not to move the arm any more than I had to. I was happy for the prescription for pain pills. What else could a wounded woman ask for in life except maybe not to be told on the way back to Riverville that the gun that shot her was the same gun that killed Henry Wade. I didn't like being anybody's target, least of all a sharpshooter who would always know where to find me.

And even worse, we never asked Earl about that mysterious lady.

The next few days were quiet. The pain was almost gone—great pain pills—unless I moved my arm too much. Which I tried not to do. I was in something like a happy fog, willing to let Hunter and the sheriff go after whoever shot me. I wasn't afraid, having convinced myself it was all a mistake. That shot came from a long way off. Took me for somebody else or it was a poacher after a big sika. If it was a person they wanted, it had to be Jeannie—though why they'd think she'd be out there was beyond me. But a lot of things were beyond me right then and that's the way I wanted it to stay.

I did make sure Meemaw called the girls to warn them to be on the lookout and Elizabeth, too. She and Jeannie were the only Wheatleys left, and this whole thing seemed aimed at the family. Miranda said she'd put a gun by every window and door and be ready for anybody who came looking for trouble. It was a lot of the Old West mentality, but awfully reassuring.

Meemaw wouldn't pass on phone calls or let anybody in who came to see me, except Jessie and Martin and Hunter. Jessie and Martin found me in my greenhouse, making notes on some of the seedlings in my yellow pods and feeling very happy to be back home and back to work and not thinking . . . much . . . about some dude taking a shot at me.

Jessie, ever colorful and ever worried about me and having a few hard curses to settle the shooter's hash, had something to say about the man who'd been to the library earlier, asking about the Blanchards and me in particular.

“They were back at The Squirrel the other morning,” she said. “Elizabeth and that man she's been going around with. Took a picture of 'em with my cell phone when they weren't looking. Showed it to our summer intern. She said he was definitely the man who was asking about all you Blanchards. Funny, how he'd come in like that. If he came to town to meet you, why didn't he know about your work already?”

I shrugged. “Maybe just curious. Who knows? Kind of a snob, like Elizabeth. Maybe he wanted to see if I was worth his time or not.”

Jessie shrugged. Martin got down to business: what he'd been doing with the trees in the test grove, water reduction according to my notes, stuff like that.

“You find my notebook yet?”

He shook his head. “Can't think of anything, but that man who was out there. That man from Switzerland or wherever it was. Nobody else was ever there without you. I'm always careful about that.”

“Peter Franklin. Turns out you're right. He called the journal I was supposed write the article for and offered one of his own—same thing I'm doing. I don't know what's with that man, but I settled him. Told him the trees died. Notebook was useless now. He won't be writing any articles any more than I will.”

Meemaw didn't tell me Peter'd been calling for me, leaving only the message that it was urgent and I should get back to him as soon as possible. Hunter told me that. I told her I'd been an invalid long enough—three days—and I wanted my cell phone back, which she gave me then watched as I scrolled through calls from just about everybody in town, as well as people I knew at Texas A&M. After she left to get back to the store, I hit the two calls from Peter Franklin and was pulled up short. That wasn't the phone number I had for him. It wasn't a phone number I had for anybody. Beginning with 011-254 and then nine more numbers.

Crazy. I called my cell phone carrier and asked about a number like that.

“Give me the whole number, ma'am, and I'll help you out.”

When I did, the woman took a minute to look it up and come back to me.

“Ma'am. That's Mombasa, Kenya, Africa. You might not want to call from your cell phone. Your plan doesn't include that kind of service.”

I was too astounded—
a phone call from Africa?—
to complain about my service plan as I usually did. How the heck did Peter Franklin get over there so fast? I just talked to him. What? A couple of days ago? I thanked the helpful lady and hung up.

I got up, showered, dressed, then went down to pull Meemaw away from a group of women complaining about rude teenagers in the park. They forgot their complaints and made a fuss over me for about ten minutes.

When I got Meemaw alone in the kitchen, after being scolded for walking around too much, I told her those phone calls she'd been dodging were from Africa. “Now that's funny. I mean, who gets wrong numbers from Africa?”

“Nobody, Meemaw. It takes some doing to call there at all.”

“Well, got to be a wrong number. I saw Peter Franklin walking past with Elizabeth just this morning. Guess you better ignore it.”

So I confessed all the trouble I'd been having with the good Dr. Franklin and watched as her face settled into steely-eyed anger. “Why, that thieving rattler. I never heard of such a thing. Here I thought scientists were so far above anything underhanded.”

She sputtered until I put my hands up and told her that the editor at
Propagation
was looking into Dr. Franklin's bona fides for me.

“You think some other Dr. Franklin's trying to get ahold of you?”

I shrugged. Who knew what was going to happen now?

“Then you better call the man back. I'd do it right now, you ask me. Maybe there's two by the same name. Common enough: Peter Franklin.”

We agreed and she followed me upstairs so I could use my landline instead of the cell. I let the phone ring a long time and then called back again since there'd been no message machine on the other end.

This time a man answered. It was a deep and slow “Hello.” He said it again and then asked who was calling. The accent was American.

“Dr. Peter Franklin?”

“Yes, that's me.”

“I'm Lindy Blanchard, calling you from Texas.”

“Ah, yes, I called you twice. A woman there told me you'd been shot and couldn't come to the phone. I thought it was a bad joke—being Texas, and all.”

“No joke, Doctor. I was out of commission for a couple of days. I just got your number.”

“The editor of
Propagation
called me.”

“I'm glad he found you. There might still be some mistake.”

“I am the only Dr. Peter Franklin either of us could find listed anywhere. I'm the only one from Harvard. I don't know who this other man is. The editor is still trying to track him down. I never offered that journal an article on pecan propagation. That isn't what I'm working on. This has really perplexed me. Do you think I should come to Texas and meet this man? I mean, my reputation is at stake here.”

“I don't know. I was the one preparing the article. It seems Dr. Franklin offered the magazine one on the same subject. And that was after he came to my greenhouse. When he left, a valuable notebook was missing.”

“Terrible thing, a scientist being such a knave. Not me, you know now. I'm doing something like your work, but on species here in Africa, which are dying out. I've been away from civilization for about eight years. The work is too important to spend time bragging. But I didn't expect another scientist to usurp my name and reputation. That's against the law.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Would you have any idea how to stop him?”

“I think he's stopped already.”

“If he isn't, and you think I should come to Texas . . . well, keep my number. Please. And I'll call
Propagation
back. I'm grateful to the man. Who knows what might have happened . . .”

I promised I'd call if it was necessary. The man hung up much happier than he'd been earlier.

Meemaw and I sat at my kitchen table looking at each other with our eyes wide. Finally Meemaw shook her head. “Lord, Lord, what's going on in Riverville? It's like a mini New York City, so much lawlessness.”

“We've only got a few bad apples. Seems like this Dr. Peter Franklin, or whoever he is, is one of them.”

“Well, I'd say you get on the phone with Hunter and tell him about all this.”

She got up to go back to the Nut House but turned at the top of the stairway. “You know what, Lindy? I'm thinking this Peter Franklin might not be wanting you to let people know he's a fraud. Seems like he smells money here. He's always with Elizabeth. You knowing he's a fraud could have set him off, warning you to keep your mouth shut. Don't you think?”

“You mean the reason I was shot?”

She nodded. “Shot by somebody who had to be pretty darned good with a rifle, you ask me. If he'd wanted you dead, I'd say you'd be dead now. Somebody who wanted you out of commission for a while.”

I was catching on. “Another possible murderer, you think?”

“No,” she said. “Not another one.”

“Should we call Elizabeth and warn her? He's fooling her, too.”

“You know what, Lindy? Let's call the sheriff and Hunter. We gotta talk to them. I think there are some things we better do real fast now. Don't want word to get out to anybody or that man will be gone—Elizabeth's money or no money.”

“I see what you mean. If he's an imposter, we've got to find out who he really is.”

“And what he came to Riverville for.”

“And if he has any connection to the Wheatleys.”