Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek: A Samuel Craddock Mystery (Samuel Craddock Mysteries)
Read Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek: A Samuel Craddock Mystery (Samuel Craddock Mysteries) Online
Authors: Terry Shames
Published 2014 by Seventh Street Books
®
, an imprint of Prometheus Books
Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek
. Copyright © 2014 by Terry Shames. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
Cover image © Media Bakery
Back cover image © PhotoDisc
Cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Shames, Terry
Dead broke in Jarrett Creek : a Samuel Craddock mystery / by Terry Shames.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-61614-996-3 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-61614-997-0 (ebook)
1. Ex-police officers—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.
3. Mystery fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.H35425D43 2014
813’.6—dc23
2014016019
Printed in the United States of America
A Killing at Cotton Hill
The Last Death of Jack Harbin
To my incomparable sister, Sherry
Some people’s brains shift into high gear after they climb into bed, and they end up spending the night hashing out their problems. I go on the philosophy that if there’s something you can do to take care of a problem, get up and do it. Otherwise, put it out of your mind—it’ll still be there in the morning. It’s a philosophy that served me well when my wife Jeanne was dying of cancer.
I spend a couple of minutes lying in bed wondering how I could have handled tonight’s meeting better and if there’s anything to be done about it now, decide there isn’t, and the next thing I know Mrs. Summerville’s rooster next door is announcing the approach of dawn.
Problems usually seem more manageable in the daylight, but not this morning. While I go through my usual routine feeding and checking on my twenty head of Herefords down in the pasture behind my house, my thoughts bounce between the uproar at last night’s meeting and the financial problems that are sinking Jarrett Creek. At least there’s one positive development. Monday one of my yearlings looked to be developing pinkeye, so I dosed him good with antibiotics, and today the eye is clear.
I hope it isn’t my imagination that when I walk back up to the house my knee seems a little less stiff this morning, despite the cold weather that has our part of Texas in its grip. I try to remind myself to do the exercises the physical therapist assigned me after my surgery, but it doesn’t always reach the top of my priority list.
I’ve just brewed a second pot of coffee when Loretta Singletary raps on the screen door and scoots inside. I can already smell the offering she’s bringing. Loretta bakes every morning and then spreads the goodies around town like she’s intent on fattening us up. I tear off the foil and see four plump sweet buns oozing with dark berries. “What is this, dewberries?”
“I took some out of the freezer. I figured everybody could use a reminder that summer will come around eventually.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
“I can’t stay this morning. I’ve got the ladies’ auxiliary, but I want to come back later and hear about last night’s meeting.”
“Free-for-all is more like it.”
“Samuel, don’t tease me. I’ve got to get out of here.”
I go out on the porch to see her off, biting into one of the pastries while I stand there. Loretta has no sooner turned down the sidewalk toward her house, when a big Chevy Suburban slides to a stop at the curb. The passenger window glides down and Rusty Reinhardt, our mayor for the past six months, leans over to holler at me. “Chief, I need you to come with me. Something bad has happened.”
I grab my hat and jacket, put some coffee in a thermos, and bring along the roll I was eating and one for Reinhardt. Only when I’m climbing into his truck do I realize that it didn’t occur to me to bring my cane. That’s good news. The doctor told me the knee he fixed up is healing exactly the way it ought to, but it seems to be taking a long time.
Reinhardt waves away the roll I offer him and roars away from the curb. He’s a hefty man with a barrel chest. He wears a big, fluffy mustache that makes him look like Deputy Dawg. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, but I see by the set of his jaw that he’s upset. “I have bad news and really bad news.”
“What’s up?”
“Gary Dellmore was murdered last night.” His voice is pinched.
It takes a few seconds for his words to sink in. “We just saw him last night! What happened?”
“Lon Carter found him lying outside the American Legion Hall. Somebody had shot him.”
“Shot him! I’ll be damned. He must have stayed behind after everybody else left the meeting.” Shaken, I stare out the front window, thinking about how things unfolded last night and wondering how something like this could have happened.
Reinhardt convened an emergency meeting last night to discuss how Jarrett Creek is going to pay for a police force now that the town is flat broke. We can only pay for a couple of part-time officers. Reinhardt put me in charge of the meeting and planned to maneuver matters so that someone would suggest that I take over as chief for now, since I don’t need a salary. I told him I’d go along with it. Due to a successful conclusion to an incident when I was chief of police a good number of years ago, the town still thinks of me as the best lawman they ever had. Some people still call me “Chief.”
Reinhardt didn’t want to railroad the idea through because everybody has had enough of that kind of strong-arming from the former mayor. He planned to be subtle. But the meeting never got that far. Gary Dellmore was determined to take over the proceedings and run the meeting his way. Dellmore’s daddy owns Citizens Bank, and because Gary is the heir apparent, he seems to think he has the right to dictate how things are done in town. He ruffled a lot of feathers last night. I don’t want to believe it, but it’s possible he went too far with somebody and that’s how he ended up dead. “How did you find out about Dellmore?”
“I was at the police station when Lon called. I figured I’d better go over to the American Legion Hall and see if there’s anything I can do. I swung by your place hoping to find you home so I could get you to come with me.”
“What was Carter doing at the hall so early this morning?”
“I didn’t ask him. He said he found Dellmore around the side of the building.” Reinhardt rolls his shoulders like he’s trying to release tension.
Reinhardt is driving faster than he ought to. I watch houses slip by. In this bleak time a few weeks after Christmas, it’s hard to believe there will ever be green in the landscape again. Everything is gray and brown—the grass dead from nights of hard freeze, the post oaks and pecans bare of all except curled brown leaves. Even the houses look like they’ve gone gray.
“What were you doing down at the police station?”
“James Harley Krueger called me first thing this morning to meet him at the station.” Krueger is the acting chief of police while the current chief, Rodell Skinner, is off drying out his system from the burden of drinking a case of beer a day. Rumor has it that his liver is not recovering as well as it has in his past rehab stints.
There’s something funny in Reinhardt’s voice and I turn to look at him. He’s got the wheel of the Suburban in a death grip. That’s unusual for him. He’s a mild-mannered guy. “What did James Harley want?”
“That’s the second part of the bad news. He and the other two full-time deputies resigned first thing this morning. They heard they were going to be laid off because the town is broke, and they decided not to wait. I figure they were hoping to shock us into finding money somewhere and begging them to stay on.”