The Homeplace: A Mystery (25 page)

“No,
Señora
Mercy.” Hector bobbed his head. “I’ll do what you tell me.”

Mercy felt her shoulders drop. “Hector, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.” She touched the dampness that filled her eyes. “I’m just upset. Dolly and her boyfriend. The Coach. Pop. The fire. Now this storm. What more can happen?”

“I understand,
señora.
”

“I’m so sorry, Hector.” She hung her head.

In the office she put on her gloves, found her purse and the bank deposit bag, and tucked them under her arm. She held the door for Hector and watched him slide the boxes onto the backseat of her mother’s Lincoln.

While he brushed the snow off the car’s windows with an old broom, Mercy climbed in and started the engine.

“Don’t stay too much longer,” she said through the top two inches of the window. “It’s getting bad.” And before she rolled the window up, she added, “Hector, please forgive me for the way I spoke to you.”

“De nada, señora.”

She waited for him to go inside and then turned on the car’s dome light. She tilted down the rearview mirror, checked her makeup, and dabbed fresh lipstick on her lips.

*   *   *

Chase stared into Kendall’s eyes.

Neither man blinked.

Sweat dampened Chase’s palms like in those seconds before the tip-off of a big game. The sight of the burned-over prairie where Dolly had been left, the smell of bloody carpet in Coach’s house, the touch of the prairie breeze while Jimmy lay with the dead buffalo filled his senses. Each pump of his heart echoed off the hallway walls and floor.

They stared at each other for hours or seconds, years or only an instant, until from somewhere far away, a voice broke the spell.

“Sheriff.” It was Doyle, and the man wasn’t far away. He was standing next to them.

“Sheriff.”

With just the bat of an eyelid, Kendall shifted a glance to the state detective. “What is it?”

“Mr. Ford and I have already talked. He was most cooperative. We have witnesses to corroborate his statements. I told him he could go, but he wanted to talk to you.”

Kendall touched the side of his face. The tip of a finger lingered at the scar near his eye. “What is it you want, Ford? Say it, and then you can get out of here.”

“It’s simple. I want to do anything I can to find who killed my sister and my friend.”

Kendall’s face twisted into a cruel grin. “This ain’t a ball game. Even if it was, your best is way behind you.”

Chase swallowed hard. He looked at Doyle. Doyle shook his head and began to gather the spilled clipboard and papers from the floor.

“No matter what Doyle says, I think you know somethin’. Why else would all this happen the first time you show up in Brandon in sixteen years?” He took the clipboard and papers from Doyle. “When I figure it out, I’ll come for you. Just know that.” He looked down at the papers and tipped the top of his head. “Now get out.”

“You’re wrong, Kendall.” Chase fought to keep from screaming. “And I will find out who killed my sister.”

Chase barreled down the hallway, struggling into his jacket, and was reaching for the handle when the door opened. Snow swirled in and Mercy, with a box balanced on her hip, swung the door wide open.

“Now be careful,” she said to two troopers on the concrete steps. Steam rose from the boxes both held in their arms. “It’s beginning to get icy.” Mercy stepped back, propping the door open with her hip. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help. Go on. I’ll hold the door.”

The troopers nodded as they passed Chase, trailing the spicy aroma of beans, chili, and tortillas from the boxes they carried.

“Take those to the gym.” Mercy stepped inside and let the door shut behind her. “Oh, Chase. I didn’t see you.” A smile washed over her face, and snowflakes sparkled in her hair. “C’mon, eat with us. There’s more than enough for everyone.”

She held her box for Chase to take. “You always liked my mother’s burritos.”

Chase didn’t raise his arms. “No, Mercy. Not now.” He glanced back down the hallway to the spot where he’d almost lost it with Kendall. “I gotta go.”

The smile left Mercy’s face. “There’s trouble, isn’t there? You and Kendall?”

Chase nodded. “It’s just best I leave.”

Mercy raised a knee to ease her grip on the box in her hands. “I get it.” She stepped closer to him. “When I’m done here, I’m going back to the café. Come over. I’ll make us both something to eat. It’ll be like old times.”

“I don’t know, Mercy.”

“Please.” Her lip trembled. “Too much has happened today. I don’t want to be alone. Not tonight.” She bit her lip. “Just you and me?”

The chill from outside raced up his spine, and Chase bit down on his lip.

Mercy’s eyes pleaded.

Chase thought he saw a warmth he needed. “Yeah. Okay, I’ll be there.”

“Good, I’ll park out front. When you see Mom’s car, you’ll know I’m back.” She pushed by him, and the clack of her cowboy boots echoed from the tile floor.

*   *   *

Through the front windows of Town Pump, Cecil watched the State Patrol car pull out onto the snowy highway. After he waved goodbye to the trooper who had dropped him off, Cecil went to the coolers at the back of the store. He took a twelve-pack of Bud from the bottom of the shelf, tore open the cardboard, and pulled out a can.

“Hey, you gonna pay for that?” Diana called from the counter.

Cecil popped the tab and guzzled half the can. “Bite me.” And he finished the rest.

“Asshole,” she said, and gave him the finger.

He dropped the empty can between the potato chip bags on the top shelf of one of the gondolas, plucked another can from the box, and pushed through the door to the back room. Cecil went to his locker and spun the combination on the lock. He upended the can and tossed the empty on the floor.

Under a stack of dog-eared
Hustler
magazines on the bottom shelf of his locker, Cecil found what he was looking for. He tucked the bundle into the front of his jeans, pulled his sweatshirt down over it, and started his third can of Bud as he went out the back door.

*   *   *

Kendall sat down at a table with Mercy.

“I saved this for you.” She pushed a plate loaded with tamales, frijoles, and tortillas across the table. “Your deputies and the troopers ate up all the burritos. I hid some pie, though. Lemon still your favorite?”

Kendall nodded.

Mercy smiled. “You’re worn out, aren’t you?”

“Long day. Now this storm. I’m gonna send folks home, and we’ll start over in the morning.” Kendall lifted a forkful of tamales to his mouth. “Umm, good, Mercy. Tastes just like your mama’s.”

“What about—what’s his name—Doyle?”

“He says he’s gonna stay and work through the night. I don’t know what else he thinks he can do.”

“Has he found anything?”

“You know I can’t say anything specific, Mercy.” He stuffed another forkful in his mouth. “He’s a worker, that one. He pours over the interview manuscripts and the coroner reports. Then studies the pictures they took where Birdie found the hay bales used to lure in the buffalo. He’s sees something he wants to remember and types it into some computer program he’s got. Then studies some more.”

“So, it must be useful?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s good at what he does. No doubt about that. When he figures it out, I’m gonna swoop in and arrest the killer.” He smiled and reached for a napkin to wipe his chin. “That’s why I asked for Doyle. He’s a strange one, but he’s good.”

He swiped a tortilla through the remains on his plate and stuffed it in his mouth. “Now, how about that pie?”

Mercy came back with the slice. “Will you drive home to Comanche Springs tonight?”

“Naw, I rented a room at the motel. I told that reporter girl I’ll give her a statement for the ten o’clock news, and then I’ll turn in.” Kendall thought of Jody Rose and hoped he’d read the invitation correctly in the way she’d talked to him in his truck.

Mercy reached across the table and laid her hand on top of his. It was warm and soft. He shifted on the hard plastic chair.

“Lincoln, I don’t want to be alone tonight. I’m going to take the dishes back to the café.” She trailed the tips of her fingernails over his arm. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked. I keep a bottle of scotch in my desk. It’ll be like old times.”

Two offers in one night? Two pretty women. Who was he to say no?

Paco Martinez burst into the room. “Sheriff?”

“What is it?”

“We just got a call from that trooper you sent with Birdie. Somebody took a shot at ’em.”

*   *   *

The night sky above the high school churned with snowflakes captured in the yellow glow of the second-floor windows. The glimmer from the signs at Town Pump added color, and some flakes seemed to sparkle with reds and blues and oranges. Chase hustled around Mercy’s car and across the parking lot to his truck. Falling snow filled the tracks Mercy’s cowboy boots had left just minutes before.

Chase climbed in, slammed the door shut, and cranked the engine. Cold air funneled up from the vents and bit through his coat until great shivers shook his shoulders and stung his core. He banged both fists on the steering wheel.

He hated that Kendall was right.

What could he really do to help find who killed Dolly?

Wisps of warmth teased at the cold truck cab. Chase leaned forward until his forehead rested on the steering wheel.

Just one pill.

Behind his closed eyes he imagined the warmth from a pill chasing the ragged pain from his knee and numbing his thoughts. The pills made it easy not to care.

Not to care about Billee. Or even himself.

Chase lifted his head and flipped the switch for the wipers. They hesitated an instant, broke free from the ice, and swept across the windshield.

Damn Kendall. Damn him, and damn this stupid town. Why did I come back?

Light spilled from the back door of Town Pump, and a bent figure hurried out into the snow. In the headlights of an oncoming semi, the man pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt and clutched a box close to his side. With his free arm he waved for the truck, and its driver pulled over.

The man in the sweatshirt waded through the slush on the roadside and pulled open the passenger door. The man’s head bobbed as he talked to the driver, and then he climbed inside and the truck pulled away.

Whoever it was, he was leaving Brandon.

And Chase should, too.

Chase slipped the truck into gear and rolled onto the highway. The lights of the semi ahead of him touched the place where Dolly had lived.

In a town as small as Brandon, no part was too far from any other.

Once, nothing could make him back down. The challenges on the court fueled him. He vowed to show the people who said he wasn’t good enough how wrong they were. But when his knee crumbled under him, giving up became easy.

Kendall’s mockery thundered in his head and blended with his own doubts.

When the knee wouldn’t let him come back. When Billee was away so long. When the pills took away more than the pain …

Chase made a sharp turn at the next street. He wouldn’t give up this time.

Maybe there was something at Coach’s house the police had missed.

He left his pickup at the end of the block and walked down the alley like he had all those years before—when Coach’s house was a refuge from Big Paul’s rage.

On the south side of the house, where a foot-tall ridge of drifting snow sheltered a bare swatch of earth, Chase spotted the faint impression of a boot track in the dirt. Not a man’s. Maybe a boy’s? He flipped over a flat rock with his foot and picked up the hidden aspirin bottle. When he shook the plastic container, a key rattled inside. He smiled. Coach still left the key for his players now the same way he had sixteen years before, for Chase and Marty.

Chase groped inside his coat for his cell phone, scrolled for Marty’s number, and pressed Send. At his feet, snow began to fill the lines and marks from the boot track.

Call failed
showed on the small screen.

Chase pushed away the police seal on the back door, pressed the key into the lock, and turned the knob.

*   *   *

Marty knew the only place in the county with worse cell reception than the spot along Sandy Creek where Dolly had been found was at the Butt Notch. His phone told him he’d missed a call. He dropped it on the car seat beside him and twisted a knob on the police radio.

No matter. If the department needed him, they’d use the radio.

He tried Chase again. But no luck. Birdie’s phone: the same.

The wind had changed. The storm had blown in from the north. Now it had moved more from the west. Big, wet flakes that froze when they touched the ground replaced the smaller ones. Even with a coat on inside the patrol car, he shivered.

Kendall had told him to head home after he checked with the coroner. Officially, he was off the clock. It didn’t feel like it. How much longer would this day go on? The worst part was still coming.

Telling Chase the body belonged to Dolly.

But they’d found Pop. That was good. The fire was out, though Marty knew that sometime tomorrow, or the next day, Kendall would chew his butt about Connie Mason and the car. He glanced down at the phone and thought he should call Deb to let her know he was okay. If she’d heard about his stunt with the tractor at the Masons’ place, she’d leave bigger teeth marks on his hind end than Kendall could do on his best day. He shook his head. Kendall could fire him, but Deb was stuck with him.

It was probably best the phone had no service. Still, when it was time, he’d take whatever Deb dished out and tell her how sorry he was and that he’d never do something so stupid again, just for the chance to snuggle up with her in their bed.

Especially on a night as cold as this one.

Even with their baby growing inside her, Deb was a beautiful woman, and he didn’t tell her that near enough. One thing was for sure: he loved her and their boys more than he ever thought he’d love anything.

He made the turn on Sandy Creek Road, clicked down the high beams to cut the glare from the oncoming snowflakes, and let the patrol car creep ahead.