Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) (21 page)

“You got it.” I hunched forward to rest my head on his shoulder. He stroked my hair, and I listened to the steady thump of his heart through the thin hospital gown. It was the first time I’d held him feeling as though I had the right, without any pangs of guilt regarding other boyfriends to whom I should but did not want to be loyal. It felt wonderful. Not comfortable, but wonderful. I supposed I really should thank Kyla. Maybe. Sometime.

I was just starting to get a crick in my neck and thinking reluctantly about sitting up, when Kyla burst through the door. She took one look at us and stopped.

“Good God, get a room,” she said.

“We’re
in
a room,” I pointed out, sitting up. “And you could learn to knock.”

She ignored me. “You’re never going to believe this.”

She paused to give us time to think about what we weren’t going to believe. Colin glared at her sourly.

“Could we not believe it some other time?” he asked.

She held our gaze a few seconds longer, letting the silence grow. I often thought she should have pursued an acting career, rather than waste her dramatic instincts on computers. At last she spoke.

“Ruby June is back.”

*   *   *

We left the hospital a half hour later. I was silent as Kyla drove through town, partly because I was thinking, and partly because she continued to describe the chaos at the ranch house when Ruby June returned.

“Pull in there,” I said suddenly, interrupting her.

“Where? Sonic?”

“Yup.”

“You can’t possibly…,” she started.

“Just do it!” I snapped.

She shot me an irritated look, but she slowed and pulled into one of the few empty parking spaces under a tin canopy. A carhop on skates whizzed in front of our bumper with a tray of Styrofoam cups on her way to another vehicle. The clouds had thickened and the temperature had dropped again, making the late afternoon seem even darker and later than it was. The fluorescent lights spilling from the kitchen already seemed brighter than the sky.

Kyla shut off the engine and waited.

“Number two combo with a cherry limeade,” I instructed.

“We’re eating in less than two hours. Gladys was already rolling out biscuits when I left.”

“Fine. Cherry limeade, large tater tots with cheese.”

She shook her head, but rolled down the window and spoke into the intercom anyway.

When she was finished, I turned in my seat so I could see her face. “Start over,” I said. “What exactly did Ruby June say? And none of your dramatic bullshit.”

I could tell she wanted to argue, but something in my face must have changed her mind. She drew a deep breath and thought, then produced a clear summary, minus the flare.

“Eddy had been working for Carl Cress for several months, mostly hauling equipment and livestock around the state. Every once in a while, Carl would have him pick up something that Eddy suspected was illegal, but he went along with it because he needed the money. Recently, Carl expanded into something else—and before you ask, Ruby June was not sure what—and Eddy tried to quit. However, Carl threatened Eddy and told him that he’d have him arrested if he didn’t keep going.”

“Drugs,” I said, thinking of the encounter I’d witnessed beneath the rodeo stands. “It had to be drugs.”

“What else?” agreed Kyla. “Anyway, apparently Eddy was really spooked. After we dropped Ruby June at the house, he returned and told her to lay low for a while.”

“Why didn’t she come to the ranch? There’s no place on earth as safe as that.”

“She was mad at Kel. She didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t opposed to causing him a little grief.”

I shook my head, but reminded myself that Ruby June wasn’t much more than a kid and probably not a very bright one at that.

“At least this means that Kel isn’t the only suspect in Eddy’s murder,” I said.

The sound of wheels on concrete made us look up. A blond carhop wearing the Sonic visor and black pants skated up with our tray. She wore a jeans jacket, but her nose and cheeks were pink with cold. Kyla took our drinks and handed me a hot foil pack containing my tots. I tore it open eagerly.

Kyla gave the girl a dollar as a tip, then quickly closed the window as she skated away. The temperature inside the car was already approaching uncomfortable.

“Can we go now?” she asked.

“In a minute,” I answered. An unformed idea was flitting inside my head, and I was trying to let it get close enough to grab it. “So where did Ruby June go?” I asked idly, mostly to stall.

Kyla paused. “That’s the interesting thing,” she said finally. “She went to T.J.’s.”

“T. J. Knoller? Your T.J.?” I asked with surprise.

“How many T.J.s do you know? And he’s not mine. But yes, that one.”

“But why?”

“I didn’t ask. Elaine was pretty shocked, though. You know, I think you might have had a point when you said they’d pitch a fit if they found out I’d gone out with him. I swear she was madder at Ruby June for going to him than she was about Ruby June hiding from us.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. This is the beginning of a feud that has the potential to make the Hatfields and McCoys look like a sorority girl tiff if someone doesn’t do something soon. But why would Ruby June think she could go there? Does she even know T.J.?”

“Like you said, everyone here knows everyone. And I guess Eddy’d been doing some work for T.J., too.”

“Do you think she has a crush on him?”

One of Kyla’s perfect eyebrows flicked upward. “Probably. He’s a fine-looking man. And he’s rich.”

“Pretty much the opposite of Eddy in every possible way,” I said. “And very unlikely to spill her secret location to her family.”

“Exactly.”

“You okay about it?” I asked her.

She did not take offense. “I doubt he feels the same about her. For one thing, he was out with me on Wednesday night. Seems like he would have been home with her if they had some kind of thing going. My guess is that he saw it as a chance to help Ruby June while sticking it to Kel. I have no idea why, but T.J. must really hate Kel.”

“You don’t believe the whole ‘it’s just business’ argument?”

“I did at first. But after today at the track…” She took one of my cheese-covered tots. “I mean, why would he accuse Kel like that if he wasn’t trying to get him for some other reason? It’s like you said, half the men in the county are deer hunters. Why specifically go after Kel?”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes.

“Who knows about Ruby June?” I asked.

“Us and the sheriff. Elaine called him right away so they wouldn’t be wasting any more time on the search. He was going to come out this evening to question her, for whatever reason. Guess she’s in trouble for causing a manhunt.”

“More likely it’s because she’s a person of interest in Eddy’s murder. They always take a hard look at the spouse.” I considered for a moment. “So Sheriff Bob is going out to our place. Good. Let’s make a stop on the way back.”

“A stop where?”

“I want to talk to Eddy’s family before they hear that Ruby June is back.”

“Good God, why? I remember them from Ruby June’s wedding. Yes, they walked upright, but their resemblance to humans ended there.”

“Look, I know they’re horrible people, especially Mr. Cranny, but at least they kept their violence in the privacy of their own home. They were okay in public.”

“But why would you want to talk with them?”

“Think about what has happened since we got here,” I said, trying to get my own thoughts in line. “And think about where we are. This is a nice town.”

At this, she snorted, but I went on.

“No, I mean it. You might not want to live here, and probably for all the reasons that it is a nice town, but a lot of people do. People know each other. This is the kind of place where your mechanic is married to your second cousin. The butcher knows your aunt and remembers how she likes her steaks cut. The ladies get together for luncheons and garden clubs and the men go hunting or to Kiwanis meetings or whatever it is men do. Sure, there’s always a few stinkers like the Crannys and Carl Cress, but not many. So … in the space of one long weekend, what has happened?”

Now I had her attention. She took another of my tots and then a sip of my limeade. I suppressed the urge to slap her hand.

“A whole lot of really strange shit?” she asked.

“Exactly. Ruby June goes missing, Eddy gets into a fight with Carl then gets murdered. Colin gets mugged on the road, the jockey who helped him gets shot and almost killed, Carl Cress gets murdered…”

“So what’s your point? Other than it’s a whole lot of really bad things in this supposedly nice town, what do all those things have to do with each other?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. There has to be a connection, but I can’t see what it is.”

“What if there isn’t? What if these are all pretty much random and it’s just coincidence that it all happened this weekend? Maybe Carl killed Eddy and then killed himself because he was afraid he’d get caught. After all, someone else killing him in his own pickup seems pretty farfetched. And maybe some big-time gambler decided that T.J.’s horse just could not be allowed to win that stupid race. And maybe … Wait, what else happened?”

“Colin,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah. And maybe that was just some random jerk who saw an easy way to get cash for drugs or gambling. The holidays make people go crazy.” Kyla ate the last two tots. “Let’s go back. It’s getting cold here.”

“No, I want to go to the Cranny’s house,” I said stubbornly. “They won’t know Ruby June is back, and we can tell them we’re still looking for her if we need an excuse. Eddy might have told them something, and I want to know what it is. Gimme my keys and switch with me. I’ll drive, you can navigate.”

*   *   *

The Cranny house was a double-wide trailer sitting in the middle of a half acre of mostly unmowed weeds and abandoned auto parts. However, someone was making a gallant if misguided effort nearer the front door. The grass around a walkway of broken concrete squares was carefully trimmed, and under the windows sat a few containers that would hold flowers when the weather warmed up again. Even now, purple pansies fluttered apathetically in the center of the largest, waiting for the first hard freeze to put them out of their misery. Beside the planters, a large plywood cutout resembling a very large woman’s polka-dotted backside completed the picture. Someone had cunningly stapled a string of twinkle lights along her skirt in acknowledgment of the festive Christmas season.

The open doors of a tin portable at the back of the lot revealed a red car on blocks being tended by a weedy man in overalls. I glanced at Kyla, who shrugged, then led the way around the side of the house.

We stopped just outside the shed doors. The man looked up with a wary expression. He was younger than I’d thought, probably not even twenty-five, but he already wore an air of apathy and desperation like a seasoned pro. I scanned his face for any resemblance to Eddy and found it in the close set watery eyes and hollow cheeks. I guessed he was Eddy’s brother, and I wondered if he was the one who’d been mean to Eddy, which wasn’t hard to believe. Of all the words that could be used to describe this man—and they included a long list beginning with “weasel”—“nice” was not one that sprang to mind. I knew kids like him from my high school classes. My fellow teachers and I spent endless hours wracking our brains about how to, if not exactly educate them, then at least provide them with enough rudimentary reading skills to help while away the long hours in prison. Keeping them from making some other kid’s life miserable was an ongoing challenge.

“Who are you?” he asked, running his eyes over us with deliberate slowness and flicking his cigarette onto the dirt. He probably imagined that he looked like an arrogant James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause
, whereas he actually looked more like a horny and bad-tempered Barney Fife.

“Beautiful Mustang,” I said, careful to keep my eyes on the vehicle and not on the man. “’Sixty-seven?”

He frowned and glanced at the car. “’Sixty-eight,” he corrected.

“V-eight?”

“Damn straight,” he answered, then produced a little bark of laughter at the unintentional rhyme.

I could feel Kyla’s incredulous eyes boring into the back of my skull. While it was true I was fuzzy on most automotive topics—and by fuzzy I mean that I needed to look in the user manual to figure out where the spare tire was kept—my brother Will had been obsessed with classic cars, and the ultimate object of his obsession had been the Mustang. Short of duct taping his mouth closed, it had been impossible not to pick up some of his incessant ravings on the topic.

“I’m Ruby June’s cousin, Jocelyn Shore.” I didn’t introduce Kyla, mostly because I didn’t want him to say anything to her that might make her try to snap him like a twig. “I wanted to stop by for a couple of reasons. The first, of course, is to say how sorry I am for your loss.”

A little furrow appeared between the close-set eyes, and he suddenly seemed very interested in something in the dirt at his feet. “Yeah.”

“Eddy was a nice kid,” I said, and who knew, it might even have been true. Well hidden, but true.

He nodded but said nothing. He studied the pile of empty beer cans that overflowed the top of a rusted oil drum that apparently acted as a recycle bin.

I waited. As a teacher, I’d learned early that the value of silence can’t be overestimated. It drives most people crazy, and they’ll do and say almost anything to fill the gap. It also gives the quiet types a chance to formulate their thoughts, and I could almost hear the rusty gears of this man’s brain begin turning. I could also hear Kyla shifting from one foot to another behind me, and I silently willed her to keep quiet.

At last he said, “Most people didn’t know Eddy. No one else has come by to say sorry. You should probably talk to our ma.”

“I would be glad to. But actually, I’d like to talk to you. You’re his brother, and I expect he talked to you about things he didn’t tell your mother.”

A faint smile flickered across his face. “Lucky for her,” he said.