Lethal Lineage (11 page)
By the time I collected Tosca and headed home, the wind had begun blowing in savage intermittent gusts that slammed the side of my Tahoe.
Keith and Josie were sitting at the kitchen table eating the casserole I’d left in the refrigerator with instructions for baking.
“See you found everything OK,” I said.
“Yes, and it’s a good thing,” Keith said. “No eating outside for this jolly little band of workers. Pull up a chair, honey. We’ve left plenty for you.”
“OK. I’m starved.” I put an ample serving of hamburger casserole on my plate, ladled green salad onto one side, and dipped up plenty of green beans. “Well, did you make any progress?”
Keith smiled. “That’s an understatement. I’ve never seen so many persons on such a rant. The majority hate Irwin Deal.”
“I got the same reaction,” Josie said. “Although mine was a little more complicated because I had to convince everyone I wasn’t you. But after they got started it was amazing. And some of their feelings go way back.”
“People don’t get over slights out here. In fact, some of these quarrels go back to the nineteenth century.”
“Wow. If ever a psychologist was needed.”
“Maybe. But they won’t go, I can assure you.”
“I’m going to watch the Royals get smacked,” Keith said, “unless you have other plans for the TV.”
“Masochist,” Josie taunted.
I smiled. “We just need the DVD player. We’ll go upstairs to the sitting room. Josie brought some opera videos.
Tosca
,” I teased, knowing how much he disliked that one.
“Goodbye for sure then. See you much, much later.”
I ate quickly, rinsed the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. Josie and I happily headed up the stairs and plopped down in recliners. Soon we were lost in the ultimate drama, our favorite opera,
Tosca,
the inspiration for her little dog’s name.
The powerful voices filled the room. We forwarded through the intermission and didn’t talk again until after the final scene, which always made me cry. Josie dabbed at her eyes and as usual, I bawled outright. Tosca had been betrayed. She trusted the wrong person and her mistake had caused her lover to be executed by a firing squad. Then she killed herself.
Betrayal, betrayal. Condemned by everyone since the beginning of time.
“Didn’t you bring anything a little happier?”
“No, come to think of it.”
“Tomorrow night let’s see what Keith ordered from Netflix. Likely old westerns or World War Two movies.”
“Have you stopped watching opera, Lottie?”
“Not exactly. But I can’t get Keith interested. I record some of them that are broadcast through PBS and then just watch them by myself.”
“We used to love to do that together.”
The phone rang. It was Sam. “Can you come in? A guy hit a deer with his pickup and I’m on my way over there.”
Damn, damn, damn. It served me right for firing Troy before we had a replacement.
“Of course. I’ll be right in.”
“Trouble?” Josie asked.
“Nothing major, but Sam has to inspect a wreck. So I have to man the phone, just in case.”
“OK. I’m about ready to turn in. Keith and I had a long day.”
“I did too. In fact, it feels like two days. I’ll be back as soon as Sam returns. You’ll probably be asleep so I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
I went upstairs to tell Keith I was leaving. I leaned over just as he leaped to his feet and cheered for a very rare Royals home run.
“You’re the only one I know of that thinks this team will improve.”
He dropped down and pulled me across his lap. “Take it back, witch, before you put a curse on them.” He lightly slapped my butt as I pretended to wriggle away.
“It’s true and you know it.” I sat up and kissed his cheek. “Let me go, brute. I’ve got to go to work.”
“Again? I thought Sam was on duty tonight.”
“He was. Is. He got called out and that leaves me.”
“Haven’t found anyone to take Troy’s place?”
“Nope. At least no one that’s worth a damn.”
He pressed his hands against my face and pulled me toward him. “Just be careful, sweetheart. You still don’t know what’s going on with all this craziness. And Mary’s being poisoned changes everything.”
“I know that. I’ll come straight home after Sam gets back.”
***
Clusters of millers circled and batted against the street lights lining main street. When I got out of the Tahoe, I held onto the door to keep it from being snatched forward by the wind. I closed it and went inside. Sometimes I liked being in the jail at night without Sam around. It gave me a chance to go through old files without arousing his curiosity.
Sam never said anything, but I could feel him watching my every move. I had the authority to look through them, but I would have been hard pressed to come up with a rational explanation for following up on my hunches.
Tonight however, I wanted to check specific information. I was puzzled by Keith’s reaction when he learned that our visiting bishop was a Deal. The family couldn’t be that bad and the Fienes were certainly not exempt from carrying ancient grudges.
I set to work. I was wrong. The Deals were that bad. When they came over to Carlton County at least. Then after Irwin was elected sheriff they seemed content to aggravate the citizens of Copeland County. Records and charges dried up like magic. Clearly they found Irwin much more accommodating than Sam Abbott. The files on the Deals had begun with Sheriff Melvin Dixon when jurisdiction among unorganized counties often overlapped. Then I realized the really old information would be back in my historical society records. Crimes would be listed on ruled pages.
Sam had an entire hanging folder just for this family. I skimmed Dixon’s neat handwriting. James Deal arrested for dragging a dog behind a car. Note at the bottom of the file that the charges had been dismissed because the plaintiff had explained that he was not being cruel.
In fact, just the opposite. He was breaking the dog of chasing cars and from getting killed. He did this by attaching a gunny sack to the bumper and the dog was supposed to attack the sack and be dragged a couple of feet and the dog would learn its lesson and never chase cars again. But dad gum it, in this case, he’d stopped and the dumb dog hadn’t learned a dad gum thing and when he started up again he just honest to god hadn’t noticed he was dragging the dog until Sheriff Dixon pulled him over.
But Sheriff Dixon had written “like hell” at the bottom of the file. Another note that Deal hadn’t even been fined.
Another charge; the local doctor reported the same Deal to the sheriff for spousal abuse. But old “dad-gum-it” had wriggled out of that one too. Another accusation six weeks later. This time the doctor had included pictures: broken ribs, old bruises-some yellowing, some fresh, a black eye, a broken nose, far too many to have come from a single incident.
Jimmy claimed the little woman was getting careless. Going through the change. She backed him up. Saying she found it hard to concentrate sometimes. Hormones.
Classic case of an abused wife too frightened to defend herself. In this case Dixon had written “evil bastard” at the bottom of the file.
Then a bigger folder on when the woman had died. She’d been six months pregnant.
So much for going through the change
, I thought, glancing at the previous entry. Then she’d had a miscarriage and simply bled to death.
It happened far too often in the 1920s. Wintertime. No way to get to town. Phones only worked about half the time. But this time, the doctor had accused him of murder. The sheriff’s report was handwritten and the crossed-out replaced words were a story in themselves. They were heavy, jagged. The hand of an angry man. Dixon wanted a record of all this. Wanted people to know what was going on in the neighboring county.
Charges dismissed for lack of evidence.
This time Sheriff Dixon’s notes were lengthy.
“I tried to tell the judge that the doctor said this woman had been beaten. She’d been pregnant all right. I’ve no doubt she bled to death. When I went out to the house, I asked him where the baby was. He said there wasn’t a baby. Just a blob. And he’d buried it. He ‘didn’t exactly remember where.’”
Just a blob. It probably was, considering the abuse suffered by its mother. And of course he’d just dug a hole and buried it. That’s what people did back in those days. A small farm out in the country. Wasn’t like there was a bevy of nurses in a fancy hospital with a tradition of grieving rituals. No different than women on the trail who had to abandon small babies.
But who was this judge that would ignore such a clear pattern of evil? Sheriff Dixon’s narrative continued.
“Naturally, his cousin, Christopher Deal, decided to drop the case for lack of evidence.”
His cousin! I was beginning to understand Keith’s explosion and his saying I didn’t understand who I was challenging.
There were more folders in the Deal family file and other ones I was curious about. I glanced at the clock. 10:30. Past time for Sam to be back. I rose, paced back and forth, then went to the broom closet and grabbed a dusting cloth and a can of Lemon Pledge and started spraying our desks. A little cleaning would give me something to think about besides crooked judges and a family who seemed to be as populous as tumbleweeds.
I wanted Josie to go home. Where she was safe. I scolded myself for being more like my husband every day. Wanting everyone where I could control what happened to them.
A thunk outside. I peered out the glass in the front door. A wood planter had blown over. The shallow-rooted dried little fir pointed due north like the needle on a compass. Nothing loose left for the wind to blow away, I decided. But perhaps a storm was brewing.
Maybe. Even though I’d lived in Western Kansas for eight years I still couldn’t tell the difference between signs of sure enough storms and clouds that were just kidding.
But clouds could be motionless, as innocent as a bowl of marshmellows, and there would be an ominous feel to the air. When this occurred I was jumpy and couldn’t concentrate. I started at sounds. Snapped at Keith if he was unfortunate enough to be working inside and just generally acted like a first-class bitch.
I stood by the window and saw headlights approach. A rack of lights on top. Sam. I put up the Pledge and made sure the file was closed and peered out the glass pane of the front door.
Then a car sped up the side street and made a right turn toward the jail. A man leaned out and I dove for the floor. Gunshots shattered the front window. Too stunned to move, I stared at the shards of glass lying all around.
The driver raced away. I got to my feet and went to the door and waved at Sam to let him know I was all right. Sam accelerated right after the car. But I could have told him that his old pickup was no match for whatever the men were driving. He might as well have given chase in a horse and buggy.
About five minutes later Sam came back. He rushed through the door, where I waited, my gun drawn and both a shotgun and rifle leaning against the desk.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. He just shot out the window. Who were they?”
“Don’t know. I was coming from the east and the driver blew right past me at the intersection going north. Then I saw the other man leaning out the window and realized he’d taken a shot at you. Saw you wave so I knew he’d missed. I didn’t even manage to get a license plate.”
“Everyone knows my Tahoe even if I don’t have lights on top. And this is the sheriff’s office! They had to know I was here.” Shaken, I sat down. “But they only aimed at the windows. They wanted to scare me. And did.”
I held out my hands and watched the tremors like they belonged to someone foreign. Sam stared and I tucked them under my thighs.
“Goddamn Lottie. Goddamn it all to hell. What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
Furious, I jumped to my feet. “I have not gotten myself into anything. When some homicidal maniac goes on a rampage, it’s not my fault.”
“Shit.” He took off his hat and ran his hand over his thinning hair. “Goddamn, Lottie. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean…well, goddamn it, it’s just that…”
“I’m going home. I was supposed to stay here until you got back. You’re back and I’m out of here.” I shrugged on my jacket, grabbed my purse, and left.
***
The lights were all on when I got back to the farm. Keith met me at the door. Josie stood behind him in a chenille bathrobe. Her hair was down. She had obviously been in bed.
“So Sam called?” I came through the mud room.
“Yes.” Keith reached for me and pressed me against his solid body. I closed my eyes.
Josie went to the kitchen and walked over to the stove. “I’ll heat milk for cocoa. I think we need it to steady our nerves.”
Tears filled my eyes. “That bigoted old bastard blamed me because someone tried to shoot me,” I whispered to my husband. “Blamed me! Like I had brought this all on myself.”
He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. “Want a real drink? Or tea? Or Josie’s cocoa?”
“Not a drink. The cocoa. Better for my stomach.”
We sat around the table and I began trembling again. Keith was oddly quiet while I told them both every last detail.
“And you don’t have a clue as to who it was?”
“None. It all happened so fast. After I realized I’d been shot at, I got up and ran for my guns.”
“And if Sam hadn’t come along, they would have been through that door in a second,” Keith said. His voice was flat, harsh. “And it’s hard telling what might have happened.”
“They were aiming at the window. They used a shotgun, not a rifle. Maybe they just wanted to scare me.”
A sharp look. That’s all it took for me to close my mouth. They might have been capable of more. I might be wrong and Keith might be right.
“OK you two,” he said. “Here’s the way it’s going to be. I don’t care how liberated you think you are. I don’t care how competent or how brave or anything else. You don’t have the right to deprive me or your families or all your people or your community or anyone else of your life. Your
life.
This is your life we’re talking about here. Your
life
. Don’t either one of you get that? Josie, you nearly got yourself killed last fall, and Lottie you’re coming in at a close second.”