Chris Rogers's Blog, page 13

Slice of Life Snippet 2

Imagining her sister’s plump, cheerful face twisted with alarm, Dixie felt a twinge of culpability.

“His mom saw the car at four-twenty,” Ryan added. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get home in time to go after it.”

“Ryan, thousands of cars travel that highway. Thousands. We need to call the Highway Patrol.”

“Would we still get the reward?”

“Possibly.” If the mail carrier had indeed spotted the right car, if the Highway Patrol apprehended Thompson before she went to ground, and if they acknowledged that Ryan’s tip led directly to her capture. “But don’t get too excited about collecting. Like I said from the start, it’s a long shot.”

“Wouldn’t be a long shot if you brought her in.”

“First, we’d have to find her. Houston’s a big city.”

“You’d go to the places she’d go. That’s how you said you catch bail jumpers.”

True. People could change locations, jobs, cars, even their appearance, but habits drew them to familiar territory like wild game to a watering hole. Find out two things: who they know, where they go out of habit, and eventually—by burning up phone lines, tire tread and boot leather—you find the skip.

“But all we know about Thompson is that she usually works sales jobs in small towns. Makes me doubt she’d actually come to Houston.” Most recently, the clever twenty-year-old thief had managed a computer store in Tulip, Arkansas—a burg.

“We have small towns. Humble. Seabrook. You live in a small town.”

Richmond, Texas, population thirty-eight thousand, was indeed located on Highway 59, currently Thompson’s route from Nacogdoches. The highway continued south straight through Houston and all the way to the Mexico border, and felony theft, even with no violence attached, would put Thompson on every Texas law officer’s punch list—unless the mail carrier really was the only person who’d spotted the Escort after it left Arkansas.

According to Ryan’s email source in Tulip, the girl had worked there three months, nearly doubling the computer store’s sales. But when the owner strolled through the warehouse, showing inventory to a potential buyer, a casual hand against a row of pricey software and peripherals had sent boxes tumbling like a house of cards.

Empty boxes. Out front, customers stood waiting to pay at an equally empty, and unattended, cash register. Marla Jennae Thompson had fled. Enraged at being ripped off, the owner posted an unusually generous reward for the girl’s capture.

“We could drive to the small towns between Richmond and Nacogdoches,” Ryan coaxed.

The thought of driving anywhere at the moment made Dixie’s butt ache. Her gaze shifted to the calendar. MONDAY: COURT APPEARANCE. Immediately following the weekend she was due to testify against a skip who’d backed into Dixie’s .45 when he tried to hold up a coffee shop for traveling money. But the subject of her immediate interest was penciled on today’s date: DINNER, CHATEAU La FITTE, 8:30. Eighty miles south, but with a promise of sun, fun and sex.

She rubbed a kink in her aching neck. She needed this weekend, dammit.

“Okay, kid. Tomorrow I’ll check small-town stores along the highway for any new hires. Burn up the phone lines instead of tire tread and boot leather.”

“Tomorrow?! Aunt Dix—”

“Traveling up and down the highway is not an option, Ryan.” Her voice sounded harsher than she intended. Usually, she’d move mountains to live up to Ryan’s unshakable faith in her super powers. Thirty-nine and childless, she valued their relationship, had fallen under the twerp’s spell the instant she first held him, scarcely out of his mother’s womb. Her gaze fell on a framed aphorism rendered in needlepoint by her adoptive mother: Years Wrinkle the Skin; Loss Of Enthusiasm Wrinkles the Soul. Dixie shaved the barb from her voice as she added, “Anyway, I’ll be in Galveston tonight.” And all weekend, if she could swing it.

“With Parker?” Ryan’s buffered image on the monitor gave a jerky thumbs-up.

“Of course, with Parker.”

“If you picked me up, we could all drive—”

“Not an option.” Dixie snapped off the monitor, tossed an Astros cap over the tiny camera and began peeling out of her sweaty camp shirt. But she couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering over the WANTED poster again.

Apparently, police had identified two similar crimes in Texas and Georgia; no fingerprint ID yet, but probably the same young woman with different hair color and an alias. Her recent employer, who posted the reward, knew her as Jennae Thompson. Customers liked her, but no one admitted knowing her well. Two footnotes on the reward sheet described her as handy with disguises and an addicted gambler.

Not a lot to go on.

Twenty refreshing minutes later, damp from a shower and wrapped in a terry cloth robe, Dixie snapped the monitor back on. Instead of Ryan’s goofy grin, she saw a full-color photo of Marla Jennae Thompson.

“She’s a hottie,” Ryan commented.

He’d only recently brought girls into their conversations. Dixie wanted to be cool about it, but couldn’t he stay a kid a while longer? She uncovered the camera.

“Jennae Thompson is twenty years old and a three-time felon,” Dixie said pointedly. “Who will very probably waste her best years sitting in a nasty little room with bars.”

The photo slid away, replaced by Ryan’s jerky image, turned solemn. Until now, his computer chase of the accused felon had been about as real as his favorite online game. His next words sounded darkly thoughtful.

“What if she’s innocent?”

“That’s why we have lawyers, judges, and due process.”

“It’s not like she killed someone.”

“Theft is a crime, Ryan. She’ll be arrested—”

“What if she had a really good reason? Would she get off?”

“A good reason to steal?” Dixie studied the girl’s face on the yellow printout. In ten years as a state prosecutor, Dixie’d seen younger criminals, and they never failed to sadden her. She saw in Thompson’s eyes something unexpected, something vulnerable and desperate. Before being adopted at twelve, Dixie’d known plenty of desperate moments that might easily have sent her down a dead-end road if not for the Flannigans’ intervention. Jennae Thompson had progressed from purse snatching at eighteen—arrest but no conviction in her home state of Georgia—to fraud and grand theft. Unless someone intervened now, the girl was destined to do hard time.

“Maybe she stole stuff so her family could eat,” Ryan suggested.

“Right. Food stamps are too embarrassing, so she robs her employer.”

“He was insured.”

“You mean it’s okay if the insurance company gets ripped off?” Dixie sighed. “The line between right and wrong shouldn’t be so hazy, kid. I’m with you on that part. But once we turn Thompson in, her fate is out of our hands.” Earlier in the year, Ryan had landed in some Internet trouble and lost computer privileges. Dixie’d been the badass aunt who ratted him out to his parents. Ryan hadn’t spoken to her for weeks, and still didn’t believe what he’d done was such a big deal. Maybe it wasn’t. But Dixie’d put away too many offenders who might’ve been saved if someone had ladled good sense into their stubborn brains before they hardened to concrete.

“If we don’t find her and claim the reward, someone else will,” Ryan said, in a voice that lacked conviction.

“Or maybe she’ll zip across the border and vanish. A single white female can find all sorts of trouble in Mexico. She could land in a jail far more sordid than the Harris County lockup.”

“Should we keep looking then?”

“You started this, Ryan. What do you think?” He needed to discover which side of that hazy line he intended to toe. Regardless, Dixie was keeping that dinner date tonight.

“If we catch her, she’ll go back to Arkansas?” Ryan asked.

“Eventually, perhaps, but she’ll be arrested here in Texas, where she’s wanted for an earlier felony.”

“What if she makes it all the way to Mexico? Would you still go after her?”

Three-hundred-thirty-one-point-six miles, providing Jennae Thompson stayed on Highway 59 all the way to the border crossing at Laredo. Five hard hours, even with the Mustang tapping ninety. Then there’d be the trip back, Dixie’s butt numb as a rock, furious prisoner yammering through the steel mesh separating the front and back seats. Smarter to turn her in to the Texas Highway Patrol and let them deal with the transport. In any case, if she wanted to travel with air conditioning, Dixie would have to forgo the Mustang’s speed and take one of the other three vehicles she’d bought cheap from skips with no current need for wheels.

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Slice of Life Snippet 1

PROLOGUE

“Two ripe and ready redheads. How’d I get so lucky?” Leon Stovall tried to sound hip and experienced, to sound like anything but an overweight, slightly drunk, nineteen-year-old virgin.

He copped a feel under the heavy one’s T-shirt. Sharon, wasn’t that her name?

The slighter one teased his zipper down. “Before you go talking about luck, Leon, let’s see the size of your ante.”

“What, right here?” Leon had stood naked in gym showers often enough to know he wasn’t lacking in size, but he’d never shown it to a girl. He glanced at the glaring light bulb swinging from a grimy electrical cord, then at the cluttered shelves, rusted file cabinets, and dusty racks of wine bottles, some probably older than he was. A storage room. “Don’t you have a bedroom in this spooky old shack? Cold as iced shit up here.”

“Not for long,” Sharon whispered, nipping gently at his neck.

She smelled as sweet as fresh mown grass on a sunny afternoon. They’d entered the storage room by sneaking up a narrow back stairway. After loosening his silver belt buckle,

Sharon had pushed him into a lumpy overstuffed chair, the only soft spot in the cramped room. Dust whooshed up around him.

The other girl knelt beside his thighs. What an arm chair was doing crammed here among the wooden crates, Leon couldn’t grasp. To sit and count the wine bottles? He took a long pull from the Bordeaux they’d opened.

“What’s that song? ‘Ninety-nine bottles of wine on the wall …’” Leon bellowed it in his good voice, six years in the choir, four singing solo, and wished he had as much confidence about women as about singing. “‘Ninety-nine bottles of wine—’”

“Shhhhh!” The skinny one batted his arm. “Quiet! Anyway, that song’s about beer, not wine.”

“‘If one of those—’”

Sharon covered his mouth with her soft lips. The skinny girl’s hand slipped into his khakis. Leon squeezed a sizable mound of firm breast, tasted the wine-sweetened mouth, and let everything between his ears go fuzzy.

What a damn lucky day picking up these two, his first driving trip this far west, stopping in that bar, buying a round with his Pick Three winnings, them cozying up like he’s Daddy Warbucks. Well, hell, let’s have some fun!

A smooth warm hand encircled his Johnson, and a buzz of expectation zinged through his belly. Hunching upward to encourage the stroking hand, he thrust his tongue into Sharon’s moist mouth.

After a moment, she whispered, “We’ll be right back.”

“No, c’mon. I’ve got what we need right here in my back pocket. Never leave home without. Just give me a sec.” He reached for his wallet and the plastic pouch—replaced faithfully every six months—that had etched a circle in the worn leather. They couldn’t leave him all hard and ready and not go through with it, could they? Wasn’t there some unwritten rule?

“Put it on, Leon. We’ll be right back.”

“Oh, hell, Sharon. Don’t go.”

She pressed her velvet lips to his. “Have a little patience. You won’t be sorry.”

They’d vanished behind the wine racks—what was back there, anyway? Leon took another drink before easing Big John out of his pants and into the rubber.

He heard a toilet flush. Wouldn’t mind letting go some of what he’d drunk. But what was that other sound? Someone crying? Big, wailing moans.

“Mama!”

Hells bells. That skinny one had looked awful young, maybe too young, but Sharon sure wasn’t old enough to be her mother.

“Oh, Mama. No!”

The misery in the girl’s shriek cut through him.

Leon zipped his pants over his dwindling erection and pushed himself from the chair, unsettling another cloud of dust. He wasn’t one to go looking for trouble, but he couldn’t ignore those sobs. If they were arguing about having sex with him, well, he could straighten that out. Plenty to go around.

He took another swig and tottered toward the sobs. Saw an open door to a lavatory, toilet, and sink. Beside the door, a wine rack pulled away from the wall, exposing a room

behind it—dark, but … hell, they did have a bedroom up here.

And someone in the bed.

Leon grinned. Playing games?

He glanced at the wine bottle in his hand, nearly empty. Raised it to his lips and poured the mellow liquid into his mouth. He could play games.

With his next step, he saw what all the wailing was about. The wine he’d drunk rose in his gullet like rotted sewage. The bottle slid from his hand.

He stumbled backward through the broken glass. The bloody death in that room had nothing to do with him. Nothing. He should just leave. The house, the town. The state. Keep moving, don’t look back.

Before he could turn away, Leon felt a slice of cold steel at his throat. He choked, gasped, clawed at the pain. He kicked out convulsively. Then he slid to a concrete floor made slippery with his own blood.

*

Run, her brain screamed. Run!

But her knees wanted to fold, her body longed to slump around her leaden feet, curl up and wait to die.

Eyes darting, taking in all the blood, the bodies, her brain shrieked again—and this time she found her voice. “Run!”

A hand clamped over her wrist, bloody and slick.

She yelped, twisted free, and ran … ran … ran …

CHAPTER 1

Friday afternoon

From El Paso, Texas, to Houston is nearly the same distance as driving across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, and Virginia—but West Texas is a damn sight bleaker and dustier. After retrieving a smelly, Bible-quoting bail jumper, Dixie Flannigan pushed the Mustang to triple digits and covered the seven-hundred-odd miles in just under nine hours. Near San Antonio her air conditioner wheezed its final puff of cool air, setting the prisoner to grumbling and allowing the August heat to sap Dixie’s last ounce of give-a-damn.

Sweaty, cranky, but with the accused felon finally handed over to Houston police, she drove the twenty-seven miles home. Under the blessed shade of pecan trees, she shouldered her ready bag through the kitchen door, hell-bent on improving her mood before a dinner date later that night.

Despite feeling like something you’d scrape off your shoe, Dixie couldn’t help smiling. Looking forward to this dinner date had kept her going those last few hours on the road. She kicked the door shut behind her. Skin-prickling shower followed by an icy mug of Shiner Bock …

“Welcome,” her computer greeted saucily. “Check your mailbox.”

“Greetings to you, too,” she groused.

How her teenage nephew had managed to rig the door lock to trigger her on-line message service—with auxiliary speakers in every room—Dixie couldn’t fathom. The imp had also set up video-conferencing.

“Aunt Dix! We got another hit on that Arkansas license plate!”

Dixie kicked off her dusty boots, grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and carried it into the office.

“Hey, kid.” The sight of Ryan’s goofy grin on her computer monitor mellowed her out faster than a six-pack of Shiner. “What’s cooking?”

“A mail carrier in Nacogdoches spotted Thompson’s Ford Escort headed south on Highway Fifty-Nine. She’s gotta be coming here.”

Not a bad bet. Dixie lifted a sheet of pale yellow paper from her printer—she’d forgotten to remove the letterhead stock again. Above the photo of a young woman’s grimly attractive face appeared a single word: WANTED. A paragraph below gave the particulars.

Usually, Dixie focused her bounty hunting skills on rounding up suspects who’d skipped while awaiting trial. But early that morning Ryan had discovered the thirty-thousand-dollar reward for Marla Jennae Thompson posted on the Internet, sparking a dialogue about the suspect’s possible whereabouts as Dixie drove across Texas. His unflagging enthusiasm for pursuing the reward was typical of a thirteen-year-old’s ability to resist reason.

“Ryan, every cop and bounty hunter in East Texas will be watching that highway, with more manpower than—”

“That’s the cool part. Nobody knows but us—and my email bud in Nacogdoches.”

Sure, kid. She sighed sympathetically at the tiny camera her nephew had stationed atop her vintage PC.

“Such a tasty morsel of information will spread faster than hot cane syrup on a short stack.” Dixie gazed out the window, glad to be home, even for a few hours. She peeled off her socks and toed a button on her CD player to start the mellow

riffs of a jazz sax. Then she looked back at her nephew, all cheekbones and scrawny neck in his sudden growth of puberty. “Where did your friend hear it?”

“His mom is the mail carrier who spotted the Escort.”

“Why didn’t she notify the local police?”

“She hates cops. His dad is a cop.”

“But she told her son, who put it on the Internet? Don’t you think cops have access?”

“We’re talking private email, not a post. He’s in with us.”

Dixie’s ears did a double-take. “What do you mean ‘in with us’?”

“A bird dog—like you told me about. When we claim the reward, he and his mom get a split.”

Dixie’s network of bird dogs—law officers and other individuals she counted on to relay information—stretched across most of the fifty states and into Mexico and Canada. Ryan’s online chat groups appeared to be equally handy. But what would the kids’ mothers think about their teenagers tracking a felony suspect, even over the relative safety of the Internet?

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Here Lies a Wicked Man Snippet 10

“Mrs. Peters! How fine—”

“Something smells powerful good in that kitchen, Roxanna. Wish we could put on the feedbag, but Booker here needs to talk to that friend of yours, the one licensed to fly his plane at night. Booker needs to express a package up to the Dallas FedEx.”

“You mean John Lindy.” Well, damn the luck! The only two people through her door didn’t have time to eat.

Unless… she could give them what they needed and land two paying customers at the same time. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see John walk through the door right behind you. He always comes in to eat on Friday night.”

Well, not always. “Let me pour you folks a glass of tea. Then I’ll call John and make sure he’s coming.” As she talked, Roxanna herded the pair toward a table under a ceiling fan.

They looked a bit wilted. The man offered a hand, enfolding Roxanna’s in a strong, warm grip. His steady hazel eyes looked anxious.

“Ms. Larkspur, Booker Krane. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d appreciate your making that call now. It’s important.”

“Well, all right…sure.”

“I’ll pour the iced tea,” Emaline shouted. “I see the pitchers there on the sideboard.”

Roxanna started toward the telephone beside the cash register, changed her mind, and veered instead to the phone in her tiny office. She dialed John Lindy’s number. On the sixth ring, Lindy rumbled a fierce, “Hello!”

He sounded vexed, so Roxanna dropped a purr in her voice.

“John, were you by any chance planning to stop at the inn tonight for some of my pot roast and creamed potatoes? I have a customer for you if you do.”

“Well, now, Miss Roxy.” Lindy’s voice turned to syrup. “I hadn’t planned on driving in, but seeing it’s you asking…”

Roxanna ignored the suggestive hook Lindy dangled at the end of his sentence.

“John, this fellow needs something delivered to Dallas tonight. He’s in a hurry, and weren’t you telling me last weekend that business had fallen off?”

“Flying makes money even when business is lousy.” His voice slurred. Roxanna hoped it wasn’t from drinking. “I’d planned to wind down tonight with a Chuck Norris film, but roast beef does sound better than Spam sandwiches. Now if you were to sweeten that offer some…”

“A slice of fresh peach pie ought to sweeten it.” That wasn’t at all what Lindy meant, but Roxanna put on her best dumb-redhead act. “On the house, of course.”

“Time I fly to Dallas and back, you’ll be closed, and there’ll be a whole lot of Friday night left. Maybe we could watch Chuck Norris together.”

“Well-l-l…” Not a chance, but Lindy could dream.

“You tell your customer fellow I’ll be along shortly.”

Roxanna hung up, appalled that she would stoop so low to sell a few dinners. She’d never go out with Lindy, but she had learned a long time ago how to set a man’s libido to humming like a tuning fork. She’d thought she left the talent behind her, in the dirt where it belonged.

Booker Krane had said the trip was important. Maybe he was a doctor, shipping some kind of rare serum to a dying patient. Thinking about it like that made her feel a shade less grimy. As she retraced her steps down the short hall, Roxanna heard a buzz of voices. She entered the dining room to find nearly every chair filled. Booker Krane was showing a couple to a table while Emaline scurried around with tea pitchers, filling glasses.

Lord, where had all the customers come from? How would she ever get them all served at once? “Be careful what you wish for,” Aunt Jane often said. “It might come crashing down on your head.” Good food served cold was almost as worthless as bad food.

Roxanna took a deep, heart-thumping breath. First things first. She spotted a table where the glasses were already filled and strode toward it, smiling brightly and greeting everyone she passed, letting people know she’d be right back to take their orders. Most folks, she’d found, remained patient as long as they felt included.

Booker Krane ushered yet another family to a table as Roxanna sped toward the kitchen, order pad full. Now, if she could only remember which food went to which table. Luckily, her menu was short, not too many items to mix up. “But every dish a gem,” she’d told a woman who complained about the limited selection. If that was the only complaint tonight, it’d be a blessing.

Roxanna sniffed… something was burning.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man Snippet 9

Roxanna adjusted the mini-blinds and stepped back to study the effect. Slivers of fading sunlight reflected on the ceiling, where the whup-whup-whup of a fan put her in mind of a thatch-roofed tropical cabin. Nice, but not the effect she wanted. Not Masonville.

She tilted the blinds toward the polished oak floor with its oval braided rug. Taking a box of matches from her apron, she decided candlelight would suffice. She lit candles on each table, swept one last admiring glance around the room, fluffed her hair in the antique mirror and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN. The Masonville Bed and Brunch dining room was ready to serve.

She sure hoped a few people in town were ready to eat out tonight.

Pushing aside the lace curtain that draped the sidelight, she peeked at the parking area and walkway. Townsfolk were not lining the street.

She’d made such a nice roast. A turkey salad with honey-lime dressing. Dilled tomatoes. Butter-crust rolls. Fresh peach pie with homemade ice cream. Most of it would keep until tomorrow, but many more days with expenses higher than income and she’d have to close the doors before she was truly, completely open. Two of the bedrooms upstairs were ready for overnight guests. The other three would have to wait until she made enough profit to finish refurbishing.

She wished the inn fronted the square, so people would notice it when they popped into Cappie’s Drugs for Tylenol or Thea’s Beauty Shoppe for a trim. Many folks in town weren’t yet aware that the old house had been turned into an inn with dining facilities. The ones who had noticed her posters and fliers probably ate out only on special occasions. Not like the city, where busy people dined in restaurants nearly every night. August was the worst month of the year for special occasions—no holidays.

There had to be something she could do to bring people in.

She stepped into the kitchen and peeked out the back window, which opened on the square. One of her hand-painted signs was mounted on the fence. Nobody seemed to be aware of it. Plenty of people walking around the square could become aware if they’d only turn their heads and pay attention.

Something… had to be done. If folks could smell the wonderful aromas in this kitchen—

Roxanna studied the table fan she used when the kitchen heat became unbearable. She studied the window. She studied the butter-crust rolls and thought about the delicious smells that always permeated the air near a bakery.

She clicked the oven on, adjusted the temperature, then set a pan of freshly baked rolls on the sill and opened the window. Turning the fan to blow across the tops of the rolls, she imagined people passing on the square, getting a whiff of that wonderful hot-bread aroma. How could they resist it?

Then she popped another pan into the oven to bake. If that didn’t bring people in, she might have to try a lasso trick she’d used in her former life.

Watching the door, Roxanna resisted an urge to bite her fingernails. Minutes passed, then more minutes. And more.

The door opened.

Emaline Peters, from Lakeside Estates, entered with a tall Texas hunk Roxanna remembered meeting once before. Smoothing her white apron over her long green gingham skirt, she swept toward them flashing her glad-to-meet-you smile.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man Snippet 8

“Not many people in a fit of anger would snatch up a bow and let an arrow fly. Even fewer would hit their target.”

“Why a fit of anger? Why not cold, premeditated murder?”

Booker shook his head. In a big city newspaper, he’d scarcely notice the term, but in a retirement community of fewer than a thousand homes, murder took on different proportions. Someone you passed on the road or the lake or the golf course, schmoozed with at the lodge, counted as a neighbor if not a friend…was a killer. The thought chilled him. He hadn’t mentioned to the sheriff that he’d seen Ms. Larkspur that morning, rushing away from the same area where they’d found the arrow shaft. She might’ve come from farther down the road, of course, but what had she been doing in Lakeside Estates so early? Her bed-and-breakfast inn was nine miles away, a heck of a long jog.

He scooped up the package and clicked off the light. Outside, Emaline waved him toward her Jeep Wrangler. “We’ll make it faster if I drive.”

“I hope that’s only because you know where we’re going.”

“Right now we’re going to the Masonville Bed and Brunch. While I drive, you call Roxanna and find out the fellow’s name.”

“The guy with the Cessna? I thought you knew him.”

“Roxanna knows him. Heard her talking to him last time I stopped at the inn for dinner.”

“So this could be a wild goose chase! We should’ve called.”

“Don’t get your drawers in a knot. It’ll work out.”

The thought of dinner made Booker’s stomach rumble. He’d skipped two meals today, and had eaten his biscuits-and-coffee breakfast way before dawn. The thought of seeing the innkeeper again awakened a different appetite, along with his curiosity. “Does Roxanna own property at Lakeside?”

“If she did, it’d be up for sale. She dumps every penny she can wangle into that business. Never met a woman more determined to make a go of it. Now, Booker, you’re not going to embarrass me, are you?”

“Embarrass you? How?”

“I know how silly men can get around a woman like that.”

“Woman like what?” He squirmed on the Wrangler’s seat. Roxanna was the sort of woman that brought out a man’s randy nature.

“Booker Krane, it’s all right to be dumb, but don’t make a career of it.”

“You left me back at the last turn, Emaline. What sort of woman is Roxanna, besides being easy on the eyes and a heck of a good cook?”

“If you don’t know, it’s not for me to say. I never give away other people’s secrets.”

“Since when?”

Emaline skewered him with a scowl. He scowled right back. She steered too wide on a sharp curve, bumping hard on the gravel shoulder before reclaiming the blacktop. Booker’s head smacked the Wrangler’s roll bar.

“You did that on purpose!” When she didn’t respond, he figured she hadn’t intended it but didn’t mind taking credit.

They rode in silence, Booker deciding to ignore her aggressive driving and enjoy the gentle hills of Grammon county. Situated roughly a hundred and thirty miles from three major metropolitan areas, Houston, Austin, and Dallas-Ft. Worth, between the West Texas plains and the East Texas Big Thicket, Grammon offered everything a rebellious city-dweller could want: clean air, well-stocked lakes and plenty of shade trees. The rapidly setting sun washed the landscape with strong contrasts of light and shadow. Brahman and Beefeater cattle lazed behind long stretches of rail fence. Booker’s mind played with the notion of cattle as a subject for his next photo project, until Emaline jarred his thoughts to a less enjoyable topic.

“Why are you single, Booker? You’re smart, ambitious and presentable enough. Seems to me you’d make a good catch.”

“You’d have to ask my ex-wife about that.”

“Venus in Virgo. Husbands like you get all wrapped up in work and don’t give a wife what she needs.”

“Lauren had everything plastic could buy.”

“Since when did money make a happy marriage?”

“All marriages are happy, Emaline. It’s living together that gets tedious.” Come to think of it, tedious didn’t go nearly far enough in describing life with Lauren. “That woman woke up every morning and sharpened her tongue.”

“Nothing wrong with speaking your mind. I do, and I lived with my husband thirty-two years, happy every minute.”

“I’m sure you were.” Emaline’s husband wasn’t around to comment on his own happiness, but Booker didn’t feel crass enough to mention it.

“Everybody needs a mate, Booker Krane. There are some things in life you can’t blame on weather, the government or the zodiac. You could do a lot worse than Roxanna.”

“I’ve only met the woman once, when I stopped at the inn for lunch.” He’d never quite gotten over that first look, though, the sassy walk, the heart-shaped face, the way she tossed that tumble of auburn hair. “She does have a nice profile.” Al-l-l-l the way dow-w-wn.

“Marrying a woman for her looks is like buying a house for the paint.”

“Marrying? Emaline, I’ve met the woman ONCE.”

“Too bad she’s got that big honker.”

“I wouldn’t call it big. Substantial, maybe. Proud.”

“The girl could drown in a tea glass.”

“Thirty seconds ago you were marrying us.” Anyway, he liked Roxanna’s face. Her whole face.

Emaline shot him a look. Even in the feeble waning light he knew it was her sly I’ve-got-a-secret glance. “If you think Roxanna looks good in person, you ought to see her pictures.”

Snippet 7 Here Lies a Wicked Man

Caught with her mouth open, Emaline stared down at the little man like a great crane eyeing a waterbug. Before she could speak, one of the deputies hurried to the pier.

“We’ve found something, Sheriff. I think you’ll want to see it, maybe take a picture before we bag it.”

Booker picked up his tripod and followed Emaline on Ringhoffer’s heels. They circled the house to a shady inlet where cattails sprouted at the water’s edge. Ringhoffer used his pointer to gently nudge aside the thick vegetation and reveal the officer’s prize: a round stick edged with red and brown feathers.

“Looks like the tail end of an arrow,” Booker said, testing the ground for a place to set the tripod.

“Exactly,” Ringhoffer murmured triumphantly.

Caught among the foliage, the arrow shaft floated in the shadows near the lake bank.

“Betcha a nickel,” Emaline shouted, “the pointy end of that thing is stuck in Chuck Fowler’s chest.”

 

CHAPTER 5

One of the exciting moments in photography for Booker was seeing an image develop on a piece of photo paper. This wasn’t possible in color photography, and now the new digital process took all the fun out of it. On the plus side, it was fast.

He loaded the sheriff’s memory card into the small laser printer. It would spit out all the images long before he finished packaging photos for the magazine and returned from the overnight drop in Bryan-College Station.

Downstairs, his buzzer sounded three quick jabs that he’d begun to recognize. He thumbed the intercom.

“I’m in the computer room, Emaline. What’s up?”

“Thought you were in a hurry to get to FedEx.”

“Which leaves me no time to stand here yammering.”

“Your clock’s wrong. Five minutes till the last pickup in Bryan. FedEx closes at six.”

Booker’s jaw tightened. He’d thought they stayed open until midnight, like the one in Houston. He’d missed his deadline.

His shoulders sagged as if a sack of rocks had settled on them. The moment Pup dragged that body from the lake he should’ve given in to fate and saved himself a whole day of anxiety. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for the business side of commercial photography.

“Booker Krane! Are you dead up there?”

“Might as well be.”

“Well, pay attention. I said there’s a fellow in Masonville who has a single-engine Cessna. He can fly your pictures to the late pickup in Dallas.”

“Why would he do that?” Booker didn’t want to get his hopes up again.

“Why does anyone do anything these days? For money.”

Could it work? He grabbed a tray and began sorting the last of the interior shots.

“Come on up, Emaline. I just have to box these and save everything to a flash drive.” As he worked, slipping the photos into individual sleeves, a sense of pride relaxed his shoulder muscles a tad. He might suck at clock-watching, but he was darn good at the important stuff.

“Whatever possessed you to build a three-story house?” Emaline demanded, panting from her walk up the stairs.

“Figured I could use the exercise.”

“You’ll curse those stairs in a few years. You need an elevator.”

“Here, tuck these into that box there while I sort the last few.” The nine-color ink-jet, a finer quality than the laser printing Sheriff Ringhoffer’s crime scene shots, had shut off.

“How’d you make such a cockeyed mess out of this picture?” Emaline studied a digital image on his monitor.

He’d cued up the throwaway exterior shots but hadn’t stopped to look at them. There’d be plenty of time when he got back. But the photo on the screen gave him a jolt. Skewed off-center, the house stood too far to the left, with only bushes and a section of road in center frame. At the right, a figure streaked along the road.

He recalled now seeing Roxanna Larkspur in her red and blue jogging outfit. The next few frames were the ones he’d shot just before Pup upset the camera.

“That yellow blob near the pier must be Fowler’s shirt,” Emaline said. “The medical examiner in Houston verified Chuck was killed with an arrow.”

“How’d you get the M.E.’s report so fast?”

“He’s a friend of Coroner Birdwell, and I guess having a body shipped from here is more interesting than the ones from his own bailiwick. He dug out the arrow point, abroad-head, used for hunting. What kind of sadistic psycho would kill a man like that?”

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Snippet #6 Here Lies a Wicked Man

Maybe it was the job that sapped him of the energy to make a successful marriage. He enjoyed work, had spent long hours at it until the bullet gave him a less-than-gentle reminder that time could slip away faster than iced tea through a sieve. If he was ever to slow down and smell the catfish, the time was now.

Booker scratched the gnat from his beard and noticed the sheriff glaring impatiently.

“Guess I just like living on the water,” Booker said. “Since I already owned the property, moving here seemed reasonable.” He folded the tripod, carried it to the opposite side of the pier and sighed in grateful relief when he realized the new angle brought him a spot of shade.

“You were involved in that savings and loan mess some years back, weren’t you?” Ringhoffer turned on his heel to face Booker.

“Part of the clean-up process, Sheriff. I didn’t create the mess.”

“I say, put your money in a sock,” Emaline yelled. “Damn sight safer than banks.”

Right, Booker thought. If a thief doesn’t find it and the house doesn’t burn down, you’ll have the same dollar in your sock after twenty years that you had when you put it in, minus inflation, which would bring the value down to about forty-nine cents. But folks who lost money during a bank crisis, and taxpayers who ultimately paid for the insured losses, could put up a good argument for socks.

“I read about you and that fellow who shot himself,” Ringhoffer said. “Never understood how a civilian got involved in a government investigation.”

“Federal investigators had their hands full,” Booker said. “The bank that hired me suffered a backwash of bad press from findings at similar institutions, and the bank’s audit committee wanted to clear the records.”

“Sweep a few items under the rug, so to speak?”

Booker straightened. Am I slave or suspect, Sheriff? Make up your damn mind. He stifled the rising desire to voice his anger and swatted the gnat trying to fly up his nose.

“Does your wife ever play Bingo, sheriff?” Bingo was big in the county, Booker had noticed.

“Sure she does, now and then.”

“Tell the truth,” Emaline piped. “Cora Lee never misses a night. Sits right there across from me playing twenty cards at a lick. Fastest hands at the table.”

“Let’s say your wife hit a winning streak,” Booker suggested. “Over the course of a year, she takes home a few hundred dollars. Maybe she doesn’t mention it to you, the money being her personal winnings, and maybe she’s also been knitting doilies or canning jelly, which she sells at local fairs. Maybe she squirrels away all this cash, planning to surprise you with a trip to Hawaii or some such.”

“Crochets fancy dolls,” Emaline said. “Big bonnets, scrunchy little faces. You see those dolls all over Texas. If you ask me, Cora Lee needs a kid of her own to crochet those dolls for.

Virgo with moon in Pisces, she’ll end up frustrated and twitchy unless you give her a couple of kids to do for, Sheriff.”

Booker took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his neck again. He noticed Ringhoffer’s khaki trousers looked as neatly pressed as they’d been that morning. Maybe little guys had tiny sweat glands.

“Then one day, Sheriff, you find the money sock, and you realize the income had not been included on your tax return. Would you call the IRS first? Or your own accountant?”

The sheriff’s chin jutted. “That money’s not like real income.”

“The IRS would argue the point. From every nickel earned above the personal exemption allowance, whatever the source, Uncle Sam expects his percentage.”

Ringhoffer’s polar-chip eyes leveled at Booker. “What’s my wife’s Bingo got to do with you causing a man to shoot himself in the head? A man who hired you, as you say, to help him out of a jam?”

“The bank’s audit committee hired me. What I found was a chief financial officer operating much like your wife earning a few bucks at Bingo or the county fair, only he was playing with federally insured depositor funds in the range of millions.”

“Pluto in Scorpio,” Emaline shouted. “Whole dang economic industry went through a transformation when Pluto traipsed through Scorpio. Power structures overthrown—”

“Stop that!” Ringhoffer’s silver pointer sliced the air, snapping leaves off an overhanging branch and striking the wooden pier near his shoe. “Stop spouting that nonsense when sensible men are trying to talk sensibly.”

Booker’s astonishment nearly lost him his footing. The sheriff had raised his voice.

By the Book now.

Here Lies a Wicked Man Snippet #5

Booker bracketed three more shots. One floor to go. Downstairs, in the living room, he stole a quick look across the lake. The sheriff was climbing into his car. At any moment he’d knock on Booker’s door.

“How about buying me some time, Emaline? Go outside and tell Ringhoffer I’m indisposed. Heaving up breakfast after spending all that time over the body.”

“I hope you plan to do your civic duty, Booker. Ringhoffer needs help with this murder. He’s only been sheriff six months, and the biggest crimes in Grammon County till now have been poaching and shoplifting.”

“What makes you think I’d know how to investigate a murder?”

“Wasn’t Houston the murder capital of the world a few years back?”

“A few decades ago, maybe. My area was white-collar crime, not murder. I had nothing to do with people killing one another.” Actually, Booker had spent enough years as an accountant to pass the CPA exam before realizing he couldn’t stand the boredom of sorting numbers all day. He’d joined a national security firm, received special training from the Secret Service, and later provided personal security for a former Texas governor—which mostly meant carrying suitcases and chauffeuring. A friend suggested Booker’s assorted skills would earn a lot more money if he offered special investigation services to banks and investment firms. His friend had been right.

Booker had quit that sort of work for good reason. He wanted to enjoy a long, full life, especially the simple, important moments. Shooting a few rolls of film for the sheriff was fine—after all, Booker was now a county resident and didn’t mind doing his part. But he wanted no further dealings with murder.

“The reason we hire peace officers, Emaline, is so the rest of us can go about our business knowing the law is being upheld.”

“Nonsense. You’ve got a Mercury-Sun conjunction in Scorpio. You’re a natural snoop.”

Booker looked up. “How do you know that?”

“Saw your birth date on your driver’s license when you registered at the Pro Shop. Ran your horoscope on the company computer.”

“And you call me a snoop?” He moved a reflector to highlight the side of a vase. “Anyway, Sheriff Ringhoffer hasn’t asked me for help.”

“Of course he hasn’t. Still thinks you’re a suspect.”

Booker scowled at her. “Then he really does need help.”

Booker noticed his father’s portrait hung crooked on the far wall. The hanger nail had worked loose. He banged it tighter with his shoe heel, straightened the picture and started over.

Naturally it’d be Brad Senior’s portrait that jarred out of square. His mother’s and his son Bradley’s hung right alongside, straight as ever. Booker and his father got crosswise with each other at every opportunity.

Was that how boys everywhere got along with their dads? Certainly seemed to be true of Chuck Fowler and son Jeremy, to hear Emaline tell it, and Emaline knew more truths about more people than anyone else at Lakeside.

Booker peered through the viewfinder again as a car rumbled to a stop in the driveway, and his dad’s picture fell off the wall again, face down on the carpet. When he picked it up, he saw the glass had cracked. Easy to buy new glass, but for now he’d have to yank the hook out of the wall or hang something else there to maintain the balance. He spied a small painting, moved it, assessed the result and decided it’d have to do.

Hearing another car on the gravel road, Booker scurried to finish the last two frames then stood back and decided he was satisfied. The exterior photos would show the unique structure, each of the three floors turned at a different angle to the lake. Brass hardware dressed up the rustic siding. A natural stone wall and redwood decking curved around the lake to the pier. Added to the compositions of four houses he’d already photographed, this spread should give the Southern Affairs editor plenty to choose from.

But he hoped the sheriff’s inspection of his pier wouldn’t eat away the whole afternoon. He still had to upload the digital images, develop the Hasselblad film and drive it to FedEx before the clock gavel struck five, or his new career would be as dead as Fowler…

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Snippet #4 from Here Lies a Wicked Man

Pup barked, aware he was being discussed. He strained at the bungee cord that secured his collar to a tree.

“Take some pictures of the dog, too,” Ringhoffer added.

Booker envisioned his photo spread in Southern Affairs vanishing faster than a snow cone in the August sun. “With all respect, Sheriff, I have my own work to finish. Don’t you have a crime scene unit that can do this?”

Ringhoffer smiled grimly. “That’s what the city boys would have, all right. Not enough crime in Grammon County to justify a ‘crime scene’ unit.” Making it sound as improbable as a local space shuttle. “Around these parts, Mr. Krane, we make do. Responsible citizens lend a hand when called upon.”

With a sigh, Booker knelt close to the body’s slimy shoulder for a tight shot. He switched to a macro lens for better definition of the tear. It wasn’t a rip, he noticed, nor the sort of three-cornered tear that might come from snagging a branch, but a small, clean-edged cut.

“Chuck Fowler was a damn good swimmer,” Emaline shouted. “Good all-around sportsman. Can’t believe he’d drown in a calm lake. Wicked enough to deserve drowning, all right, but Chuck kept himself in shape. Triple Capricorn—”

“Triple what?” Ringhoffer said.

Booker wished the sheriff hadn’t asked. Emaline could go on for hours spinning out the brand of logic she based on the sun, moon and stars.

“Capricorn. Has Mars in Scorpio, too. Patriarchal bastard, king of his castle and all that nonsense. Believed in keeping his wife barefoot and handcuffed to her wifely duties while he played around on the side. With Pluto squared—”

“Tell me about this argument with his son last Sunday. I suppose that would be Aaron Fowler, works at the Chevy dealership in Bryan?” The sheriff’s gentle voice hushed to a murmur as he guided Emaline aside.

“Nope, not Aaron! Some days Aaron plays better golf than his dad. It was Jeremy, the younger boy.”

Ringhoffer said something Booker couldn’t hear. Having finished the close-ups of the body, he positioned the tripod for the lake shots.

“Truth is,” Emaline said, “It surprised me to see Jeremy on the golf course at all. That boy’s a Pisces—all deep and dreamy. Goes to school in College Station, keeps an apartment there during summer break and spends his spare time working in community theater. Rarely visits Lakeside; even on the weekends his folks drive up from Houston.”

Zooming in on the pier, Booker hoped the sheriff wouldn’t insist they drive around the lake and photograph it close up. He snapped three shots of Pup then removed the memory card and checked his watch. The panicky part of his mind told him to hustle.

“Chuck and his wife live down in Houston,” Emaline was saying. “Come up to Lakeside on weekends. Jeremy must’ve dropped by for a visit, then Chuck talked him into playing a round while Sarabelle attended Sunday morning church.”

“Sarabelle, that’s the wife?” Ringhoffer tucked the pointer under his arm like a swagger stick.

“Mousey little schoolteacher. Double Libra with Pisces—”

“What about Luther? You said he didn’t show up for work this morning.”

“Luther?” Emaline hooted. “The man’s a lay-about, but he’s got nothing to do with Fowler ending up in the lake.”

“Where is he now?”

“Better be cleaning up the driving range. I roused him after I called you, told him to get down to the Pro Shop and cancel my morning classes.”

“Sheriff, here are your photographs,” Booker said, handing Ringhoffer the memory card. “I need to head home now and finish the job I’d started when Pup made his unfortunate discovery. Afterward, if I can be of any additional help—”

“You have a photo printer at your house, Mr. Krane?”

“A small laser printer.”

“You can save me a forty-minute drive. I need a print of each picture you took.”

Booker gritted his teeth to keep profanities from slipping out. The number of photos on the memory card would exhaust his ink supply. A drugstore could do a faster, cheaper job of it. Arguing with small men, however, always made him feel foolish. In high school, a splendid target for every short angry guy spoiling for a fight, Booker had learned early on that his best response was to shut his mouth and act dumb. Like now. With one hand he could likely pick up the sheriff and throttle him, but that would only waste the precious time he had left. And get him arrested.

No way, though, could he keep the flush of frustration from rising in his face. “Sheriff, I’ll have your prints ready tomorrow,” he said evenly. “That’s the best I can do. Where should I deliver them?”

“The best you can do?” Ringhoffer’s soft voice filled with steel shards. Neck rigid, feet planted wide, only the angle of his ice blue eyes acknowledged the comical difference in their height. “Mr. Krane. Bradley Carter Krane Junior, as I recall from news write-ups. The county appreciates your help, a seasoned, sophisticated detective such as yourself. I… appreciate… your help. You might be thinking I’m out of my league here, and you’d be right. Yes, sir. We don’t get many bodies washing up on our lake banks.”

The twitch of Ringhoffer’s lips gave away the hurt of admitting his lack of experience. Booker’s regard for the man rose a notch. “Sheriff, after I finish the job I’m shooting—”

“Tomorrow will be fine. Deliver the prints to the county courthouse in Grammon, and naturally you’ll be reimbursed for expenses.” The sheriff compressed the pointer down to pen size and dropped it in his pocket. “Now, help me roll the body over, Mr. Krane, so you can photograph the back view. Then we’ll take your camera around to that pier of yours and see if we can figure out exactly how the body got there.”

Snippet #3 from Here Lies a Wicked Man

GOD WAS IN A STINGY MOOD THE DAY HE MADE Sheriff Wesley Ringhoffer, Booker decided. On the tired side of thirty, the sheriff stood roughly five-six in his elevated boots, gleaming Colt revolver hanging nearly to his kneecap. Shock of red hair, beakish nose, stiff military strut—fill his pockets with rocks and he might weigh in at a hundred and forty. Booker wondered why he didn’t carry a gun more suitable to his size, but was smart enough not to wonder out loud.

“Shoot the body,” the sheriff said quietly.

Booker had seen the sheriff around and had heard tales of Ringhoffer’s rigid enforcement of Grammon County temperance laws. This was the first time they’d met. A shame the encounter couldn’t have been less irksome. In Booker’s experience, it made sense to stay on the agreeable side of the law.

“That’s not Chuck,” Emaline shouted, pointing at the lumpy form Pup had dragged from the lake. “That’s not even human. Some kind of early Halloween prank made up to scare little kids.”

Terrible enough to scare big, strapping, middle-aged men, Booker thought. In months to come, the monstrosity would likely pop up in his dreams, all ooze and lake rot and waxy, bloated fat. But it was human, all right. He didn’t want to think about that.

He’d pushed Death aside some months ago, when the doctor talked of long-term convalescence. “Hogwash,” Booker had insisted. Yet riding home from the hospital, he wondered if the bullet was a nudge from God. Later, he decided it was only fear that’d goosed him, fear that life might suddenly stop before he’d finally begun to live. Anyway, God had better things to do than concern Himself with one aging corporate investigator.

Now, seeing the Reaper’s work in this sleepy community set Booker’s repaired heart to painfully thumping.