A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) (8 page)

The doorbell rang again at eight o’clock the next morning.
I felt as if I had just shut my eyes. My bedside clock was blurry. The bell rang again. I groaned and threw an arm across my eyes. “Go away,” I moaned.

It all hit me. All the horror ahead of us.
My poor trees . . .
I wished I’d been smarter, put chips in all my trees, the way they did in dogs. But when would I ever have expected my trees to be stolen—let alone destroyed? Awful.

“Lindy!”

Meemaw called me from downstairs. If I ignored her, I wouldn’t have to get up and I wouldn’t have to face whatever it was we were going to have to face again today. Something awful . . .

“Lindy! Get down here. The sheriff’s come to arrest your brother.”

I was out of bed and throwing a ratty old bathrobe on, then down the stairs and into chaos. Mama was yelling at the sheriff through the screen.

“You get out of here.” Her voice was filled with anger. “Yer not taking Justin anywhere.”

Miss Amelia tried to calm Mama with a hand on her arm. Bethany stood against a wall, both fists knotted at her mouth, eyes panicked. Justin stumbled down the stairs from the back of the house, behind me. When Mama saw him, she yelled for him to get back upstairs. “Call Ben!” she hollered. “Don’t come down here, Justin.”

But of course, Justin did just that. Straight to the front door, where he held it open for Sheriff Higsby to come in.

“Sheriff.” He nodded to the man. “What can we do for you? Kinda early to come calling, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know what was going on though I figured Mama was all upset about something bad happening. Miss Amelia frowned hard at the sheriff, who took up a lot of space in the front hall, with his guns and big chest and badge and belt and shoes that looked like the feet on a statue over in the park.

Sheriff Higsby shoved his large sunglasses up on his wide forehead. His broad face was set and official looking. Hunter was behind him, looking off toward the groves turning golden in the first light. From Hunter’s set and unhappy face, I knew whatever was ahead wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Sheriff Higsby dipped his head, greeting us solemnly one by one. His sunglasses fell down his nose, which disconcerted him and his official dignity. He fumbled them back up to the top of his head.

“Justin Blanchard,” the sheriff said, looking over Justin’s head, avoiding looking at any of us.

“Right here, Sheriff,” he said, pushing his arms into a white cotton T-shirt as he spoke. His hair stuck up, uncombed. His belt hung half in and half out of the pant loops.

“Would you step out to the verandah, Justin?”

“I’m not even . . . well . . . could I finish getting my clothes on?”

“No need. This isn’t a social call.”

“You arresting me, Sheriff?”

Sheriff Higsby took a deep breath and looked away again. How uncomfortable we all were. All this official business nobody wanted to be a part of. I looked out at Hunter, who was avoiding me. Sheriff Higsby’s face had gone bright red. Mama was quiet now, tears running down her cheeks. Miss Amelia’d turned to solid rock. Bethany cried. I stood there feeling betrayed and mad and bursting with pent-up fear with no place to go with it.

“Hunter here’s gonna read you your rights.”

Miss Amelia shook herself and put her arms around Mama. “What the devil do you think you’re doin,’ Willard?” she demanded of the sheriff, this grown man she’d known since he was in his teens, a man she’d stood up for when he’d once been arrested for drunk driving after his wife, Dora, died.

“Sorry, Miss Amelia. Gotta do my job.”

“You, too, Hunter?” I eyed my friend. Hunter’s face flamed up into his hairline. He said nothing.

“What’re you arresting me for?” Justin demanded.

“First-degree murder,” the sheriff said. “The murder of Amos Blanchard.”

“That’s crazy! I didn’t murder Uncle Amos and you know it. I wasn’t even there . . .”

“Stand still.” The sheriff turned Justin and cuffed him as Hunter, in a low, sad voice, read his friend his rights.

We closed in tighter around Justin, who stood with his hands cuffed behind his back as his old friend intoned his legal rights.

“Damn right he’s getting an attorney.” Mama spoke up, her hand on her boy’s shoulder. “I’m callin’ Ben Fordyce right now. He’ll have ’im outta there before you get him locked up.”

Sheriff Higsby lowered his head. “You do what you have to do, ma’am. I’m doing what I have to do, too. Doubt it’ll do much good. Murder one means no bond ’til there’s a hearing. Judge’ll decide.”

“Least let the boy get his boots,” Miss Amelia demanded, freezing the men in place with a voice everyone who’d ever had a grandmother recognized. Bethany ran back into the house and brought Justin his boots.

“Hunter?” I looked out at him. I saw him swallow hard before he turned to face me. “What’s going on? You know Justin didn’t do that to Amos.”

Hunter opened his mouth a time or two then shook his head and went off beside Justin, leading him carefully out to the waiting police car.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Sheriff,” Miss Amelia yelled after the man. “How long you known the Blanchards? All your life?”

She threw her hands in the air, wordless, tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. Bethany put her arms around Meemaw and held on tight while I stood apart, separate from the women in my family. They were suffering. They were good women. All I felt was rage, and a need to do something, anything. Most of all, I wanted to get my hands on whoever was trying to destroy our family. At that moment, all I wanted to do was hurt somebody.

“Being processed,” Reggie Crystal, the officer behind the
high mahogany counter at the Riverville Police, told us when we got into town, a half hour behind the sheriff and Justin.

“You all wait over there.” Reggie pointed to a row of hard folding chairs set against the far wall. “Don’t know if you can see him or not. Interrogation takes a lot of time.”

That word “interrogation” froze my skin. It sounded like a bad murder movie, or one of those true crime TV shows where the suspect is left alone for a while to beat his head on the table, then confess, and sign anything.

“We’ll wait all right.” Miss Amelia shook her finger at Reggie, who looked down at his computer like a chastised kid. “And you boys better just hurry it up. We got a right to see Justin. Go tell that to the sheriff.”

She made a scoot motion with her hand and Reggie was out of his chair and through a swinging door to the inner offices and cells like a man on a sacred mission.

He was back pretty fast, a hangdog look on his face.

“Sorry, Miss Amelia. Like I said, takes time. The sheriff’ll be out . . .”

Ben Fordyce came striding in like a lone cowboy riding to the rescue in his custom-made cowboy hat, custom-made boots that must have cost a fortune, and an Eastern business suit caught somewhere in the middle of all that pure Texas.

Ben Fordyce had been the family attorney for the last ten years. Ever since he came to Riverville, after a bad marriage and a worse breakup with his partners in a New York law firm. He’d come to town right after my grandfather’s best friend and family attorney for more years than I could count, Harold Marshall, died. New lawyers in Riverville don’t get much business at first. It was that thing about being an old resident; that thing about taking thirty or more years to be trusted by the town folk. But after Ben helped Daddy with a land grant problem, they became friends and Ben became the family lawyer. With Daddy behind him, Ben started doing better than most lawyers could expect in twenty-five years or more. It was Daddy’s backing that got even the Pecan Co-op to bring their legal work to Ben.

He was a thin man with a fringe of graying blond hair sticking out from under his white hat. He took off the hat and nodded to each of us, saying a “Good morning” before pulling a chair up next to Mama, setting his briefcase down beside him, and looking sadly at each of us in turn. “Sorry for your troubles,” he said, meaning it. “Good thing your Father’s not here to see this. He’d be tearing this building apart, brick by brick, arresting Justin the way they did.”

“Can’t you get him out of here, Ben?” Mama begged, her face wet with tears. She took a swipe at her nose with her sleeve. Miss Amelia pulled out a tissue and handed it to her.

“It’s gonna take a little patience, Emma,” Ben said, his gentle face saying how sorry he was for not bringing better news. “Let me get inside there and talk to the sheriff. I’ll see what’s happening.”

He got up and went over to talk to Reggie. There were a few heated words before Ben blustered on past him, through the swinging doors, and into the back toward the cells.

I felt something like relief. Ben was our cavalry. After Daddy died, he’d been at the ranch every day being Mama’s champion, and hugging the rest of us when the trying to be brave got to be too much.

The fifteen minutes Ben was gone felt like an hour. He came out and sat back down. He leaned in close, whispering, “Doubt if they’ll be keeping Justin long. At least not here. Probably go over to Columbus. Court’s there. I’d like to get him out on bail before then, but to tell you the truth . . .” He looked hard at Mama and the rest of us, as if assessing how much we could take. “Well, let me do my best. But if he’s moved, don’t worry. It’s about process from here on in. Like gettin’ caught up in a washin’ machine—can’t get out until it’s done. Might be just as well anyway, havin’ Justin outta Riverville. People get worked up and they don’t know a thing about what’s happened and then they get talkin’, and before you know it, you got hotheaded fools deciding they know more about justice . . .”

“People won’t believe Justin did this.” Miss Amelia looked shocked. “At least I hope our friends won’t.”

“I want him out of jail,” Mama said through tight lips. “You understand, Ben? I want my son out of here and I want this settled.”

“Means we gotta find out who did that to Amos, Emma. Doubt the sheriff here is gonna put too much effort into looking, now that he’s got Justin.”

“Hunter won’t be a part of anything like that,” I said as I tried to keep a lid on my festering anger. “He’ll keep goin’ . . .”

“Wasn’t he there this morning, Lindy?” Mama turned on me, her eyes flashing. “Wasn’t he the one read Justin his rights?”

“That’s his job, Mama.”

Miss Amelia bent forward, her back stiff. “What I’m thinking is, we’ve gotta get a plan together. Just us.” She dropped her voice into ice water. “If you can’t rely on family, you got nobody.”

Ben stood. “I’ll be busy here awhile. Seems they found some evidence near Amos’s body. Something that implicates Justin. That’s all the sheriff would tell me.”

“Oh, Lord.” Mama leaned toward her mother. “That’s not even possible.”

Ben nodded hard at her. “Let me get going on filing papers and talkin’ to Justin. Are you waiting here? Or do you want me to call later at the house?”

“What do you think?” Mama pulled her leather shoulder bag around to the front of her. “I’m not going anywhere ’til they let me see my son.”

Ben turned to me. “And, Lindy, I’d say trust Hunter to be fair. No matter what it looks like, I think Hunter Austen is on our side. Probably—if push comes to shove—he’d put you before his job. Just try not to push him too far, Lindy. He loves law enforcement, but a woman can have a strange hold on a man. Remember that. It’s a power some women know all too well. Just don’t judge him harshly, and don’t ask for more than he can give.”

I took that in and was ready to go after Ben. “I’m going to do whatever I have to do to find out who did that to Uncle Amos. Don’t tell me not to judge a man who’s been a friend all my life. If Hunter turns against us, well—if it’s true a woman’s got power over a man, then I’m using that power. Using it to get my brother out of here. Nothing’s going to stop me asking for Hunter’s help. And nothing will ever make me forgive him if he turns me down.”

Ben, bowed a little in the face of my outrage, got up and walked toward Sheriff Higsby, who’d just come through the swinging doors.