A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) (14 page)

I liked the Sanchez house better than ours because it was
the place where my great-grandparents started. Mama told the story of Daddy’s grandmother refusing to leave after her husband built the new house. The one we lived in now. That woman was attached to this tall, square white house with brown shutters. I could see why she loved it. For the solidness of it, how it sat two stories high in a land of hunkered-down houses. How the rooms were divided equally, all of about the same size, same height, like magic boxes stuck together. Nothing showy about the old house. It just was, like the people who came to Texas to create lives from dirt and trees.

I liked to think I had a lot of my great-grandmother in me, someone whose sense of place was a secret we hugged inside us, hung on to as tightly as we could.

When the Sanchez family first came to Rancho en el Colorado, twenty-two years ago, the house was assigned to the man who was foreman then. It took a few years, but Martin worked hard, and when the job was open, he stepped right in—with Daddy’s help. Now the family had been in this fine old house a long time, almost as far back as I could remember.

On each of the ten tall steps leading up to the porch, Juanita, Martin’s wife, had placed a pot of bright red geraniums. At one end of the porch a yellow rose, climbing up a white trellis, bloomed thicker than I’d ever seen a rose bloom. In the shade of the wide porch roof, the old green swing moved in the arid heat, which felt like pins stinging on my skin.

It all made me feel sad, as if I were looking out from old eyes and mourning what used to be. Not anything I really knew, just a child’s view of history.

Juanita Sanchez came to the door. Like Jessie, who’d been my friend for a long time now, Juanita was small-structured, almost tiny, with dark hair that looked today as if it hadn’t been combed. Unusual in this neat little woman who created tidy spaces around her.

She asked us in, keeping her head bowed and a fist clenched at her chest as she led us into the living room, where Jessie sat at a large, round, lace-covered mahogany table that took up the entire center of the room.

“We ran into Hunter, out at the twins’ ranch,” I started to say.

Jessie nodded and got up, hurrying around to hug first Miss Amelia and then me. She motioned for us to sit down at the table always set for guests with a vase of artificial white lilies at the center of the lace cloth, teacups turned over in their saucers, spoons tucked beside them.

Juanita, who hadn’t said much, quickly offered iced coffee or sweet tea. When we both shook our heads, she sat and laid her hands out, a workingwoman’s hands with short, stubby fingers and wrinkled knuckles.

“Where’s Martin?” Miss Amelia came right out and asked.

“He hasn’t come home since yesterday morning,” Juanita blurted out. “I thought he would call by now.”

She took the tissue Jessie handed her. She blew her nose and sniffed. “I didn’t want to talk to the police. Martin would get mad at me. But Hunter was here. He knows something . . .”

“Knows what, Juanita?”

She shook her head.

I turned to Jessie.

She was looking even more like her mother today. Younger, finer-featured, but just as worried and pale. “Everybody in town knows what my father thought of Amos, how he threatened to kill him if he ever came near me again. It was an awful time for all of us. I was stupid, thinking I could change Amos. Make him into the man he should have been. But my father never hurt anybody. He didn’t kill your uncle, Lindy.”

I nodded, agreeing. A loyal man, I could see him wanting to deflect suspicion away from Justin. Martin would think that was what he had to do for Jake.

Juanita shook her head. “He would never have killed Amos. That was in the past. Jessie’s fine—”

“No, Mama,” Jessie interrupted, then looked away from her mother, to Miss Amelia. “I’m not fine. Amos called me when he came back to town. He wanted to see me. He said he was sorry. I said no, I wouldn’t see him, but how his voice made me ache. I knew he was in trouble, not doing well. I tell you honestly, I wanted to turn the clock back and tell him to come over, that I still loved him . . .” She closed her eyes. “But I knew better. I couldn’t get that woman out of my mind—the one he took up with. So I told him no, I never could see him again. But then I made the mistake of telling Papa that Amos called me. Papa was livid. I tried to calm him but he went to see Amos at the Conways’. He—”

Juanita drew in a long, startled breath. “He didn’t say a word to me.”

“I know,” Jessie said. “And, Mama, he threatened to kill Amos if he came near me again. I’ll never say that to the police, but Miss Amelia and Lindy have to know. It is their grandson and their brother sitting in jail for this crime.”

“Did Amos see Finula Prentiss again?” I asked because I had no one else to ask.

“You know her?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Amos told me he knew what she did to me, that she came into the library and told me she was pregnant by him. That she said he was going to marry her and not me. I told him that. He said that was why he left town. It was all a lie he couldn’t prove. But how could I believe him?”

“He could’ve waited. Babies don’t take more than nine months.”

She shrugged. “He said he was afraid she might trick him with another man’s baby.”

“Did he say where he went after he left Riverville?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He said only that he was clean. Not drinking. But”—she shrugged—“how could I believe even that? I couldn’t trust him. That’s what I told my father. I would never marry Amos Blanchard. You don’t build a life on lies and cruelty.”

“Maybe this Finula would know where he went.”

“There was never a baby. I talked to people who knew her.” She leaned back in her chair. “Imagine. Never a baby. What kind of woman lies about such a thing?”

“She works at the Barking Coyote, doesn’t she?”

Jessie shook her head. “I think she’s just a regular there. Black hair as black as a dark alley. Skinny. She drives a blue Mustang. That’s what I saw outside the library. I never talked to her again but people told me things.”

Juanita moaned slightly and slumped back in her seat. Jessie was up, her arms around her mother. “This is so hard on Mama. She thinks my father is trying to help Justin. That’s when it started. Justin called from jail Saturday afternoon. He asked my father to do something for him. Of course, my father ran right out of the house . . .”

“We haven’t seen Martin since then.” Juanita hung on to her daughter. “It was something about the barns. But I don’t know what. That’s all I heard. Martin said the police had been going through them Friday night. He didn’t know what they were looking for. When I thought about it, after Martin left the house, I told myself it was only ranch business. You know, like don’t forget to get that mower ready, or the sprayers, or order something. That’s what I thought. Business. And Justin was afraid he wouldn’t get to do something so Martin went right out.”

“What time?”

Juanita shrugged. “About three o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

I looked over at Miss Amelia. “We’d better get out to the barns. Just in case . . .”

Juanita put a hand, holding a white handkerchief, to her mouth. Her dark eyes were huge. “You don’t think somebody . . . not like they did to Amos?”

I shook my head. “He’s probably still looking for whatever Justin asked him to search for. Or taking care of what had to be done.”

“But it’s been so long,” Juanita said. I knew she was hoping we’d hand her an answer. Not understanding anything myself, I had nothing to offer.

I looked over to Miss Amelia. “Let’s get out there. If you’re up to—”

She stopped me with a look.

“I’ve been out to the barns and didn’t see anything. But I ran through. I didn’t want to leave the phone,” Jessie said. “In the middle of all of this, I was supposed to give a party for Sophie Landsdorf last night. She’s leaving the library tomorrow. I bought her a gift at the Nut House, because she’s going back to Montana, where she came from. Everything was canceled.”

“We’ll only be a half hour or so.” Miss Amelia stood and stretched, then rearranged her Sunday top over her white slacks, which already didn’t look as sparkling white as they had before.

“Stay with your mother,” she said to Jessie. “Martin probably isn’t anywhere on the ranch by now, but we’ll stop back, no matter what we find.”

We were up and out to my pickup before Juanita and Jessie could complain about being left behind. And before they could think what I was thinking: It didn’t take almost twenty-four hours to go through our barns.

We found no one in any of the large, echoing barns. Miss
Amelia led me staunchly around huge mowers and benches laden with spare parts, then out into the washing, separating, and packing barn, then a storage barn—one leading to the other.

“Yoo-hoo!”
Miss Amelia would stop, from time to time, to call, a hand cupped to her mouth. “Martin!”

“Where is everybody?” I looked around, perplexed.

“Sunday,” Miss Amelia said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Justin always had somebody here. This time of year it’s so critical. Spraying especially.”

Miss Amelia shook her head. “Why hasn’t Emma called the men? With Justin in jail and Martin nowhere around, you’d think—”

“Maybe she doesn’t know that Martin’s missing.” I felt obliged to stand up for my mama. Even to my grandmother.

“She would have called him by now. Just to check.”

“Unless Justin told her Martin was doing something for him.”

She lifted a full eyebrow at me, her pale eyes narrowing. “The trees can’t be abandoned like this. You know that better than anybody. Call Emma. Tell her what’s going on and tell her about Martin, if she doesn’t already know. Somebody’s got to do something.”

I agreed something had to be done and went outside to the barn, where I could get a cell signal. I called her.

“Oh, Lindy. I’m so glad to hear from you.” Mama’s voice was filled with worry. “Mike Longway called again. He’s coming over. I told him I can’t find the old co-op books. And anyway, why would Jake have them? He says Jake had all of them. That he took them home with him before he was killed. But, Lindy, Earline Simmons was treasurer back then and she says she doesn’t remember giving them to Jake. Or maybe Chastity was treasurer by that time. I don’t remember myself. Mike says old Sam Hickok is making a fuss about missing money and needs to look at the old books. A lot of money, Mike says. Over fifty thousand dollars Jake had set aside when he ran the co-op. It was for a new advertising campaign he wanted to start. Nationwide, it was supposed to be. A new slogan promoting Texas pecans. Sam’s saying the money’s just gone. Not even entered in the books they’ve got now. I don’t like the way he’s insisting, Lindy. Like maybe Jake had something to do with it.”

“Mama. Calm down. You know there’s no possibility Daddy did anything like that. He didn’t need money . . .”

“Well, we were having a tough time that year . . .”

“Would he steal money from the co-op?”

“Never on your life,” she said, sounding more like the woman I knew.

“There. It’s been five years since Daddy died. For goodness’ sakes, Mama! Where’ve the books been all this time? And why wasn’t anybody looking for the money before now?”

“Who knows? I’m not understanding any of this.”

“Then don’t worry about it. They’ll figure it out. Somebody’s bookkeeping error.” I hesitated a brief minute. “I called to tell you about Martin Sanchez.”

“He back? I gotta talk to him. Justin told me to have him call all the men in. Gotta dig deeper drainage ditches.”

“He’s not back.”

“Where’d the man get to? Justin told me he asked Martin to do something for him. Something important. He wouldn’t say what, just said it wouldn’t take Martin long and that he’d take over everything as soon as he was finished with this other thing. I took that to mean . . .

“Oh, Lord . . .” She moaned in my ear. “I’ve got Bethany here in tears, waiting to hear back from that newscaster. Mike’s on his way over. Martin’s gone, who knows where? I’ll tell you, Lindy. I feel like I’m just holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. What next?”

“Me and Meemaw are out at the barns now. We’ll see if we can find anything that’ll tell us where Martin went.”

“I’ll start calling the men myself. Guess I’m running things for a while. Tell Miss Amelia not to worry, I won’t let anything happen to our trees. We’re going to have to work out the irrigation. Damned drought. I don’t know what’s ahead, Lindy. Just don’t know.”

I promised to call her as soon as we heard from Martin.

Back inside the barn, Miss Amelia stood next to one of the workbenches, fingering the handle of a greasy wrench.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “If Martin went to the Conways and threatened Amos, Harry might have heard about it. You know Harry. Always on the side of the angels. Maybe he went to the sheriff, thinking he was helping us. Like Ethelred Tomroy, thinking she was helping. Could be he got the sheriff looking at Martin. Maybe took him in to the station.”

She hesitated. “That’s good for Justin, but so unfair. I know Justin wouldn’t have a hand in throwing Martin to the wolves.”

She thought hard a long while. “All we can hope is that Martin’s got better sense than to offer himself up as a sacrifice for Justin. Like take off and hide somewhere, trying to throw the sheriff off. He’s got to know no Blanchard would want that.”

She lifted the greasy wrench again, her face deep in worry. After a few minutes, she wiped her hand on a rag hanging at the front of the bench then looked up at the wallboard behind the table, where someone had drawn the design of each wrench—for hanging and for knowing if one of them was missing.

“Must be so the men don’t lose the tools,” she said, pointing to the designs. There were two places empty. She picked up the single wrench left on the table and held it in front of the two empty outlines. “This one goes right here,” she said. “Leaves one empty. Whoever didn’t bother putting that one back will sure hear about it from Martin. He’s as finicky about his tools as I am about my baking pans. Kind of makes me think Martin hasn’t been around in a while. I mean, if there were men here yesterday and he saw this . . .”

I smiled halfheartedly, having no stomach for any concern beyond where Justin had sent Martin.

“Well.” Miss Amelia wiped her hand again and stepped away from the table, her good shoes sticking slightly to the cement floor. “Nobody out here. I think we should get back into town.”

“What about those sheds down by the river?” I asked.

At first she made a dismissive noise, then stopped to think about it. “Think they’re mostly empty now. What could Martin be doing down there all this time, I can’t imagine, but we might as well take a look while we’re here.”

The two old sheds I was talking about were set on top of the embankment, above the Colorado. Back in my grandfather’s time, they were far enough above the high water mark to be safe from any flood but close enough to where the first trees were planted. The sheds once held equipment, when the ranch was small, before my grandfather built the big barns we had now.

Meemaw and I walked over to the river. It wasn’t far. The late afternoon air was surprisingly cool, washed with the smell of river water and the musty patches of thickets along the banks.

I saw parts of the two roofs, dark and mossy tin, almost lost among an overgrown patch of willow.

I heard the noise first and put out a hand to stop Miss Amelia. “Hogs,” I said and ran to a nearby tree, where I pulled off a dead branch, as large as I could carry. I ran straight down toward the river.

“No, Lindy,” Miss Amelia yelled after me. “They’ll attack you!”

But I was in full trot by then, branch high over my head as I ran. I spotted a single dark hog, long snout rooting around the first of the sheds. I stopped only a minute to look for other hogs. If there was a group of them, and they felt threatened, they’d attack me. I’d heard enough about how people were hurt, even killed, by angry hogs.

I screamed at the dark, pig-eyed face looking up at me, puzzled by what was coming at him down the rise of the bank. He stood right where he was, watching me fly toward him with my wobbly stick overhead.

I stopped just short of the animal. He snorted, as if wondering what the heck I was doing there. We exchanged a look. I knew better than to trust him. The feral hogs were one of the worst problems farmers in south central Texas had to face. From open fields to the piney woods, hogs knew how to live and breed and kill and take care of each other. At Texas A&M, where one of the pharmaceutical professors had discovered a form of birth control for hogs, the only question was: Who’s going to make them take it?

Behind me, Miss Amelia stopped short, searching the ground for any weapon she could get her hands on. When she picked up a little stick, I rolled my eyes at her. Instead of going on the attack, she shouted at the hog: “Go away, ya hear?”

I found small rocks at my feet, picked them up, and pelted the beast. He snuffled and snorted. He shook his head when a stone hit him on the snout. In the waddling way of wild hogs, he finally turned and took off slowly down the embankment, getting lost in the tall weeds at the river’s edge.

“Shouldn’t take on a hog by yourself, Lindy,” Miss Amelia admonished me when she could catch her breath. “Ever.”

“All I could think to do.”

Miss Amelia wasn’t listening. She stared hard at the door to the shed, pointing to long scratches, as if the hog had been butting against it, or scratching at it with his tusks. “Wonder what had him so interested,” she said, walking slowly toward the door, then grasping the knob and turning it. The shed was unlocked.

When Miss Amelia pushed the heavy door inward, something stopped it. The interior was dark. Sticking her head inside as far as it would go, she called back to me that all she could see were shadows.

“Door’s caught on something right here on the ground,” she called over her shoulder.

A deep moan came from inside the building. It wasn’t loud, but it was urgent. Definitely the sound of someone in trouble.

“Help me,” Miss Amelia ordered as she put her shoulder to the doors. “We’ve got to get in there.”

We pushed hard against the old, surprisingly strong, wood. When it opened wider, I slid my body through the opening and then into the dark and moldering room beyond.

Someone was laid out on the floor, a body, half rammed against the inside of the door.

He groaned again. It wasn’t hard to make out the man I’d known for years. I yelled out, “It’s Martin.”

“For heaven’s sakes! What’s wrong with him? He have a heart attack? Pull him out of the way so I can come in. I know CPR, you know.”

I reached down and slipped my hands under the man’s arms. I pulled, eliciting a small grunt from him. I reached back to open the door wider so I could see what happened in there.

Martin’s face was covered with blood. The front of his plaid shirt was wet with it. I had it on my hands. This was no heart attack.

“He’s hurt,” I called out as I wiped my hands down the sides of my jeans. I looked up for Miss Amelia, her head just coming around the open door. She slid in and knelt beside me, at Martin’s side. She took one of his hands in hers and squeezed. He groaned but didn’t open his eyes.

“Get on your phone,” she looked up at me and ordered. “Call Hunter. Tell him we need an ambulance out here immediately. Martin’s been hurt bad. He’s alive, but who knows for how long.”