Two Bits Four Bits (7 page)

I cross-referenced the
most frequently called number first and discovered it was Russell
and Kandy Chilton’s residential phone. Eva had called it twelve
times and had received eight incoming calls from it. It looked like
there might be some basis for rumors about Eva and Russell Chilton.
But it seemed odd that there would be so many calls to and from the
residence, even if the “open marriage” scenario were the case and
Kandy let Russell have a free rein when it came to other
women.

I suddenly had a thought
and pulled out my cell phone. Checking the log of recent calls, I
found the number Kandy had used to phone me the previous day. It
wasn’t the residential number from Eva’s phone bill. The prefix was
different, which indicated it was a cell phone, and scanning Eva’s
bill I noticed the same number listed several times in incoming and
outgoing calls. If Kandy had called me from her personal cell
phone, it meant that Kandy and Eva were well acquainted with each
other. Of course there was also the possibility that Kandy had
called me from Russell’s cell. Either way, it meant that Eva was
close to one or both of the Chiltons. And, it also meant that there
might be some connection between her disappearance and Russell
Chilton’s murder since they happened so close together.

After tracing the rest of
the local landline numbers and finding they led to two restaurants,
four residential listings and the South Commerce branch of Elmore
Bank & Trust, I found phone books for Midland and Odessa and
scanned the prefixes they contained. The prefix on Eva’s
long-distance calls indicated they were to a number in Odessa, but
the phone book didn’t have a phone number
cross-reference.

The library’s selection of
city directories included a five-year old Odessa directory and
looking the number up revealed a listing for West Tex Ent. Grp. I
looked in the directory’s alphabetical listings and found the same
number under a listing for West Texas Entertainment Group. Going
back to the more current phone book, there was no listing for
either of those two names, but by scanning all of the “W” listings
I noticed the same phone number assigned to a company called WTEG,
Inc.

After I’d finished with
the printed directories, I asked one of the librarians for access
to the computer room to see what information the internet would
yield. The Elmore Public Library tightly controlled the access to
free internet, to prevent tax dollars from subsidizing unsavory
activities and the corruption of youth.

Online directories
confirmed the listing for the West Texas Entertainment Group, and
using the public search feature on the Texas State Comptroller’s
website I discovered the registered agent for the company to be
Dayton Clark, with an Odessa post office box for an
address.

West Texas Entertainment
Group didn’t have a website, and a search didn’t bring up any more
hits on the company, but Dayton Clark was an attorney and did have
a site. Apparently his web designer had been eager to pack every
special feature available within the pages of Dayton Clark’s
digital domain. There was music, custom graphics, video segments
and even a slide show that used every available method of cycling
through images, from slow fade to venetian blinds opening to one
image spinning and flying off the page to reveal the next. He
probably should have spent his money on a better
hairpiece.

After I’d gathered as much
information as I could on WTEG and Dayton Clark, I checked the
other phone numbers using the online directories. One of them
traced back to a residence in Dallas with listings under both Frank
Kendricks and Monica Kendricks. Eva’s phone bill showed the same
number in both incoming and outgoing calls over a dozen times the
previous month. One of the numbers showed calls to and from Eva
almost every day, but didn’t show up in any of my searches, which
could have meant it belonged to an unregistered cell phone or was
too new to have a listing in the directories.

The number of the phone
Kandy had called me on traced back to an online listing in her name
only, which could mean that all of those calls Eva made were really
between her and Kandy instead of Russell. It was an interesting
piece of information, but one I decided to keep to myself instead
of asking Kandy to clarify which parties had been talking to each
other so often. Even though I had agreed to look into things, it
didn’t mean I had to apprise her of everything I learned
immediately.

* * * *

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Tuesday morning, after an
early morning solo run, I drove to the Starcher County Sheriff’s
Office to see one of my oldest friends in Elmore. Sheriff Norris
Jackson had been in law enforcement longer than I had, having spent
his career in Elmore while I’d spent mine in Austin. He had started
out with the Elmore Police Department and later moved to the
Sheriff’s Office after getting crossways with one of the former
police chiefs. I could always count on Norris to give me the scoop
on what was really going around town.

Before the receptionist
could speak, I raised my finger to my lips and shushed her, then
tiptoed past her desk to Norris’s open door.

“Where’s the donuts?” he
asked, without looking up from the file he was studying. There was
no sneaking up on Norris.

“I tried to buy some, but
they told me some fat man in a brown uniform had seized them all as
evidence earlier this morning.”

“How in the hell are you,
Budster?” he said, finally rising to shake my hand.

“Good. I’m
good.”

“Back in town for the
reunion? Come home to see what that much gray hair and cellulite
looks like in the same room?”

“That’s right, you weren’t
there, were you? I know most of your own class is on life support
by now, but I thought you might have at least turned up to keep the
peace.”

“I had more important
things to do involving a lake and a boat. I had to teach my
grandson how to fish. Don’t want him growing up like you, without
the skills a man needs to survive.”

“I thought Tyler was only
what, three at the most?”

“It’s never too early to
start learning, although it’s certainly too late for you, my
friend.”

After a few minutes of
good-natured jousting, I finally brought up Russell Chilton’s death
and my role in helping Kandy. I was hoping Norris could fill me in
on some of the background of the players involved.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he
said, standing up and retrieving his cowboy hat from a rack in the
corner. “I could use some coffee and a donut about now.”

* * * *

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Norris and I rode around
in his cruiser for an hour and a half while I quizzed him about
Russell Chilton’s reputation and the activities of Benny Shanks.
While our discussion of donuts back at the Sheriff’s Office had
been a standard joke between us, I discovered that Norris was
serious about his need for an afternoon snack. A building I
remembered as D&L Drugs, the only drugstore in Elmore with a
drive-in window, was now operating as a donut shop. The window was
still operable and it made a handy convenience for those patrons
who really needed a donut fix but were too embarrassed, tired,
obese or lazy to get out of the car and walk inside. Norris pulled
through the drive in and ordered two coffees and half a dozen
chocolate glazed donuts.

“Don’t you ever get
anything besides chocolate?”

He looked at me as if I
had gone completely insane.

“Why in the hell would I
want to do something stupid like that? Oh, I forgot. You’ve been
living down there in Austin, where everybody has French crullers or
those croissant things with their eight-dollar
double-fluff-mocha-latte-bullshit drinks that bear no resemblance
to real coffee.”

“Listen, Deputy Dawg,
there wouldn’t be anything wrong with trying a plain glazed donut
once in a while. Or a cinnamon roll. Or maybe one of those with
nuts on top. Just something a little different now and then.
Variety is the spice of life you know.”

Norris just shook his head
and floored the accelerator after refusing his change from the cute
young girl working the window. We were both too busy chewing to say
anything for the next several minutes as we rolled north, through
downtown Elmore and on past the city limits. I finished my first
donut and tried to drink the scalding hot coffee as I gazed out the
window at mesquite bushes and pumpjacks flying past. When Norris
appeared to slow his chewing down enough to carry on a
conversation, I asked about Russell Chilton and whether he appeared
to be involved in any obvious illegal activity.

“I sure haven’t heard
anything about it if he is. However, I have heard he likes to screw
those young things at the bank whenever he can. But I would bet he
was squeaky clean otherwise. Why would a guy who fell into a bank
presidency, plenty of money and a beautiful wife risk it doing
something stupid. Wait, I know, don’t answer that. Greed. Happens
all the time to millionaires and kings.”

I told Norris about
Kandy’s distrust of the Elmore Police Department and he assured me
that it was unwarranted.

“Those fellas may not have
as many resources at their disposal as you did down in Austin, but
they’re pretty sharp and diligent as a damned bulldog. They’re not
going to overlook much, and they certainly won’t bend over
backwards to preserve Russell Chilton’s reputation.”

“As far as Benny Shanks
goes, things haven’t changed a whole lot around here since we were
growing up, except the drugs are different. Benny’s got his fingers
in all kinds of pies around here, including several legitimate
businesses. He still has some dirty dealings, but keeps several
layers of insulation between himself and the street. The legit
stuff includes The Pumpjack Club, a vending machine and videogame
business and an oilfield employment agency called Field
Hands.”

“Oilfield employment
agency? I remember when they’d just walk into The Rig Café in the
morning and announce they needed a hand for the day.”

“Those days are gone, my
friend, along with your youth. I bet you never had to pee in a jar
to get hired on in those days either. We’ve got a business here in
town that does nothing but process drug tests for the oil
companies. And they’re getting rich doing it. Anyhow, Shanks has
ties to a group out of Odessa headed up by a fella named Sandy
Doyle. Benny’s local action includes a few whores he runs out of
A.J.’s Lounge, a little bookmaking operation and most of the
marijuana that moves around here. Sandy Doyle and his bunch control
the crack and meth traffic and help Benny out when the betting
action gets too hot for Benny to cover.”

“Is Benny still buying
beer for the high school kids?”

“Shee-it, most parents
around here buy it for their own damn kids these days, thinking it
will keep them off the streets. But I’ve had to call the coroner
twice in the past five years for kids who got drunk at a party
somebody’s momma and daddy either hosted or knew about.”

“Where would I find Benny
if I wanted to talk to him?”

“If I were you, I’d start
at The Pumpjack Club. He hangs out there even when the place is
closed.”

We were a few miles
outside of town when Norris slowed the car and turned onto a red
dirt road. Dirt roads just like this one criss-crossed the entire
Permian Basin region, leading to the thousands of oil leases that
dotted the landscape. About a quarter-mile off the blacktop the
road topped a small rise and curved to the left down toward a
slow-moving pumpjack flanked by two large rusted steel tanks. We
rolled past the pumpjack and Norris slowed the car as we came to
the top of another low hill.

“I’ve been watching this
place out here,” he said, nodding toward an abandoned farmhouse in
the distance.

“We got a tip that
something was going on. Sounded like maybe they were setting up a
meth lab. I’ve been wanting to look inside, but thought it might be
a better idea to watch the place for a while.”

He turned the car around
in the soft red dirt, and in a few minutes we were on the highway
leading back to Elmore.

“So, who do you think shot
Russell Chilton?” I asked.

Norris scratched his
head.

“Hmmm...Let’s see, now. A
rich guy who is rumored to fool around, gets shot in his own pool
while his wife sleeps so soundly she doesn’t hear the shots outside
her bedroom door. Then, when you talk to her about it, she tells
you not to trust the police, and points you in the direction of one
of the shadiest characters in town, and tries to make her dearly
departed spouse sound like Public Enemy Number One.”

“So, you think Kandy did
it.”

“Let’s just say there’s
more to the story than what she’s giving you. Whether she did it or
somebody else, I don’t know. But I do know that this town just
loves a scandal, and I think this situation is sure shaping up to
be a good one. So, you’re going to be working for Kandy’s defense
team?” His smirk told me what he thought of that idea.

“I’m not working for
anybody. I just told the lady that I’d ask around and see if
anything turned up. And, I’m not planning on keeping anything from
Clemmer and Puckett.”