The Homeplace: A Mystery (8 page)

The sheriff had the microphone in his hand and the truck in reverse. “This is Kendall. On my way. Martinez and Storm are with me.”

Paco followed the sheriff. Marty was in the passenger seat unlocking the patrol car’s shotgun from its bracket. The sheriff stomped on the gas. Red and blue flashing lights pulsed over the four-lane road. An oncoming semitruck hit its brakes, and Kendall swung a hard left in front of it. The back end of his truck swayed with the turn. The breath stopped in Marty’s chest, and Paco skidded the patrol car inches from the semi to keep up with the sheriff.

Two short blocks down, the owner of the liquor store stood on the sidewalk. Behind him, light spilled from the shattered front window of his store. He pointed across the street.

A man in a white T-shirt sat on the curb. He upended a bottle of liquor into his mouth. A deer rifle lay in the gutter at the man’s feet.

Kendall slammed his truck to a stop and stepped out with his pistol leveled at the man. Marty rolled out of his side of the car, jacked a load of buckshot into the shotgun, and flopped over the hood. Paco had his Glock out, moving off to the side.

The drunken man set the bottle on the sidewalk. Marty recognized Jimmy Riley’s father.

God, don’t let him do anythin’ stupid.

“Kick that rifle out into the street,” Kendall barked.

Riley shook his head.

The liquor store’s electric sign buzzed behind him; the father sobbed; and even with the click of the sheriff cocking his forty-five, Marty’s heart pounded louder than everything else.

“I’m gonna tell you one more time, kick that rifle out in the street,” the sheriff shouted again.

Marty clamped his face to the stock of the shotgun and poised his finger over the safety. Do what he says. Please, God, just do what he says.

In a blur, Paco dashed from the shadows. He caught Riley around the neck, and as the two tumbled to the ground, the old deputy’s foot kicked the rifle toward Kendall.

Marty’s instincts jerked the muzzle of the shotgun toward the sky and away from his partner. Kendall jammed his pistol into its holster and snatched handcuffs from his belt.

“My boy’s dead.” Pain filled each sob in the father’s voice. “Dead and bleedin’ all over the ground like a cut calf.”

The lies Cecil had told the town filled Marty’s mind, and he was sick.

*   *   *

Mercy thought she heard a gunshot.

Some hunter taking a chance at deer this close to town?

Birdie would be fit to be tied. Marty, too.

Chase had banged on the door ten minutes ago. She’d make him wait another ten.

Mercy checked her hair in the mirror. Turned her head side to side to be sure her makeup covered those tiny lines near her eyes. A pancake supper in a church basement was as close to high society as Brandon ever got. Mercy wanted to be sure she looked nice. There’d be hunters in camo and orange, farmers in Carhartt overalls, and most of the women would be wearing jeans and sweatshirts.

Mercy would wear jeans, too. The tight Cruel Girl pair the truckers liked to see her in. She’d even caught Jimmy Riley checking out her backside when he stopped by the café to give Dolly a ride home.

Poor boy.

Tomorrow she’d ask the waitresses at the café to give a share of their tips to the boy’s father.

She checked her hair one more time and smoothed the front of the tight cashmere sweater she’d chosen.

It was a shame to hide all that under a jacket.

She opened a prescription pill bottle on the dresser and washed down two with Diet Coke. She shut her eyes as they slid down her throat and knew she’d feel the pills kick in before they got to the church.

Chase banged on the door again.

Five after six.

It was like before. When all her friends envied the banker’s daughter in the nicest house in town. It felt like high school again. Two of the best boys in the county out for her attention. Mercy wanted everyone to know it.

*   *   *

“I found this in his apartment. Thought he could use it.” Marty looked at Jimmy’s father in the back of the patrol car and handed Paco a dirty sweatshirt. “It’s gettin’ cold.” He turned to Sheriff Kendall. “We’ll just keep him overnight and let him sober up. Right?”

“The liquor store owner is pissed. He wants somebody to pay for his window. I think Riley’s gonna hafta stand up in front of a judge and answer for this,” the sheriff said.

“What happened, anyway?”

“Owner says he came in asked for a quart of Bombay gin on credit. He told him no way. Riley came back with his rifle and grabbed a bottle off the shelf. When the owner hollered at him, Riley shot out the window. Then he just walked across the street, sat down, and started drinkin’. That’s when we got here.” Kendall nodded to Paco. “Go ahead, take him on over to Comanche Springs.”

Paco climbed in the car and pulled away. In the backseat, Riley’s chin rested on his chest. Tears still streaked his face.

“I feel sorry for him,” Marty told the sheriff.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Only thing we can do is catch whoever killed the boy.”

“Sheriff, there’s somethin’ you should know. These were sittin’ on the table in his apartment. I took a picture before I picked ’em up.” Marty held out a box of cartridges he’d tucked into a plastic bag. “Thirty-aught-six. Federal one-fifty grain. You don’t think—”

“Hell, Marty, I don’t want to even think about it.” The sheriff pressed his eyes shut.

Marty thought the man’s shoulders slumped with the weight of the awful day. “Climb in my truck. I’ll give you a lift to the church,” Kendall said.

“If it’s all the same, sir, I’ll walk.”

The sheriff never looked at him. “You do that.”

CHAPTER NINE

In the cool evening air, Chase could almost feel the surge of wind on his face from the speeding trucks on the highway six blocks away. Over the noise, a crack like a distant explosion rolled over Brandon.

Rifle shot? Some hunter making a last try?

The light still shined in Mercy’s bedroom. She liked to keep him waiting. Chase stepped away from the back door and fumbled in his pocket to check his cell phone. Two messages. Neither from Billee. Both from his agent.

Even as Chase retrieved the messages, he knew what they’d say.
Need an answer.
Or,
Have you made up your mind?
Or,
What do I tell San Diego?

Chase didn’t need to decide. Not now. He had thought it would be easy, but being home—seeing Marty, Birdie, and Mercy again—made it harder.

Tell them what I told you to tell them. I’ll make my decision by Monday.

Chase checked the messages again to make sure he hadn’t missed one. But there was nothing from Billee.

From inside the house, stairs creaked. The light in the kitchen flicked on. Then Mercy Saylor opened the mud room door.

A gasp caught in his throat.

A canvas barn coat hung from her shoulders, one arm in its sleeve, the other arm searching to find its place. Her tan sweater stretched tight across her chest with the struggle.

Chase reached in and lifted her jacket to help her find the sleeve.

“You’re a gentleman, Mr. Ford,” she said, and her green eyes sparkled in the light. She turned and stepped closer to him. “The door was unlocked. You could have come in.”

“I tried that one night, and your daddy ran me off.”

“I remember.” She knotted her fingers in his shirtfront.

Chase pulled back when Mercy tugged to move him closer. He looked up at the night above him. “I forgot how clear the skies could be and just how many stars there really are. It’s a nice night, Mercy, let’s walk.”

She pulled tighter on his shirt. “No, drive me to church in that new pickup of yours.”

*   *   *

Birdie eased her truck to the side of the street a block and a half away because the church parking lot was already full.

Damn it. More walking.

She turned sideways, squeezed between two trucks, and checked license plates as she walked to the church. An even number of local and out-of-county vehicles filled the lot. One from Illinois. Birdie would keep her ears up to figure out who the out-of-state hunters were.

She knew she should concern herself with how many hunters had filled their tags and listen for any word of trouble. But she wondered how many thirty-caliber rifles were tucked in cases in the back of those trucks and SUVs, and how many more had been left back at camps. Thirty caliber was the most popular rifle, she guessed. 150-grain bullet wasn’t at all special either. Until the tests came back from the state lab, any one of a hundred rifles could have killed the buffalo. And Jimmy Riley.

And why was Sheriff Turd-Breath so keen on talking to Ray-Ray?

Ray-Ray wasn’t the most balanced fella in the county. But he had no reason to shoot the boy. And she’d thought hard about that. If Birdie had to bet, that Tony Lama boot print she’d found by the missing alfalfa bale meant something.

A group of hunters opened the front door to the church. Laughter spilled out. A tinge of the aroma of warm pancake syrup floated on the cool evening. Birdie could swear she heard sausage sizzling.

Whipped butter, hot syrup, and Grandma Titus’s flapjacks might make a bad day better.

“Hey, Birdie.” Over the noise from the church someone called her name. “Over here.”

She spotted Marty at the corner of the church building. One little boy hung in his arms; another, in a cowboy hat like his dad’s, stood at his side, and Marty held hands with his very pregnant wife. “Birdie, come on. Join us.”

Probably wants someone to help with the rug rats. Damn him.

She crossed the lot a half step faster than before, held out her arms, and took the little boy from Marty.

“Don’t be teachin’ these little buckaroos any of your bad words, Birdie,” Marty told her with a smile.

“Like they haven’t heard it from you already.” She stopped a choice curse and nodded to Marty’s wife. “How you doin’, Deb? Feelin’ okay?”

Marty bent over and pressed his ear to where his wife’s sweatshirt stretched tight over her bulging belly. “Deb says this here cowpoke is kickin’ up a storm tonight.”

Deb patted her husband’s head. “Marty, the doctor said this one’s a girl.”

“What’s he know?” Marty tucked his other son under his arm, as if he were carrying a football. “Let’s get somethin’ to eat.”

“Wait for us.” It was Chase and Mercy.

Mercy’s arm wrapped around Chase’s. When they stepped up to the others, Mercy tilted her face until the top of her head rested just below Chase’s shoulder.

Birdie thought she saw Chase pull away just a bit.

“Deb,” Marty said as he wrestled to keep his oldest boy under his arm, “I told you about these folks. I believe it’s the first time me, Birdie, Chase, and Mercy have been together since high school. Tonight will be like old times. Let’s go in and eat and tell stories about each other ’til they throw us out.”

Marty took Deb’s hand. Mercy pulled closer to Chase, and they all walked to the church’s front door.

Just like old times. Mercy was up front with Chase and Marty, and Birdie was two steps behind. Marty’s little boy rested his head on Birdie’s shoulder and fought to keep his eyes open.

The light from the open door brushed over the dirt path from the parking lot. Birdie’s breath stopped. She wanted to bend down and look closer, but with a child in her arms she couldn’t. In the dust, just where her friends had walked, was a boot print about the same size as the one she’d found in the alfalfa field. The Tony Lama logo showed clearly in the mark from the heel.

Birdie heard the click of boot heels on the church stairs.

“I like your boots, Deb,” Mercy said. “Are they new?”

Oh, shit.

*   *   *

Townsfolk and hunters sat at rows of folding tables placed end-to-end in the church basement. The clamor of kitchen noises and conversation echoed off the worn tile floor and painted cement walls. The smell of pancakes dripped like warm syrup from the air.

Chase could feel every head in the place turn when he walked into the room.

“That’s him,” was whispered in hushed tones at every table.

Chase’s shoulders slouched and his head hung in the practiced manner he’d grown used to when he didn’t want to be recognized in airports or restaurants or all the other places where he wanted to be just like all the others. At six feet seven, he always got noticed. Some recognized the tall man with blond hair and remembered his championship series with the Lakers. Even more remembered his picture on the magazine covers with Billee.

He wondered which one the folks in Brandon thought of.

The ladies in the church kitchen whispered to one another as they piled flapjacks and sausage on his paper plate. Farmers nodded as he followed Mercy to the end of the long line of tables. Some tipped their heads and told the younger men at tables, “Six-Gun Ford was as good as they come, until…”

Chase hated that word. And more than the word, he hated the way so many said it.

He and Mercy took metal folding chairs across the table from Marty and his wife. Birdie and Marty’s boys settled in next to Deb. Marty sloshed warm syrup on his pile of pancakes until it dribbled from the edge of his plate and made sticky rivers on the paper table cloth.

“Doesn’t get much better than this.” He shoveled a forkful into his mouth. “You’re sure bein’ quiet, Birdie.”

Birdie smeared butter and doused syrup on the boys’ pancakes. “Wore out. I had a long day.”

“Yeah, we all did,” Marty said between mouthfuls.

Chase asked, “Any news yet about…”

Marty washed down the pancakes with a swallow of coffee. “Last I heard we’re waiting for the forensics from the state. That might take a couple of days. Still haven’t talked with Coach. He’s supposed to be on the bus comin’ back from Limon. Don’t know just what he could add.” He took another gulp of coffee. “There’s the sheriff now. He might know somethin’.”

Chase turned. Kendall Lincoln—big hat, bigger gun, badge and all—walked down the church steps. He touched the brim of his hat when he saw Mercy. His jaw muscles tightened when he spotted Chase beside her. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and leaned a shoulder against the wall.