A Violent End at Blake Ranch (15 page)

“Oh, come on,” I say. “We have blacks and Hispanics who are friends with everybody in town.”

“True. But that doesn't mean a newcomer isn't going to be suspect because of the color of her skin as much as for the fact that she's a stranger.”

She asks me how the investigation is going, and I admit I'm revving the engine but not going anywhere.

“I ought to be working on it this weekend, but the manager of Rollingwood isn't in on the weekend, the pond can't be drained until next week, and we're waiting for word on Billy Blake's activities.”

“You need a break anyway. It'll be good to hit it fresh.”

Although I don't want to admit it, I know she's right.

“I'm as nervous as a kid starting first grade,” Jenny says, as she wheels into the parking lot at the Quick Mart. The lot is crowded, this being Saturday. “All right, let's get this over with.”

Inside the front door, I walk over and grab a shopping cart and say in a teacherly voice, “We call this a shopping cart. We use it to contain our purchases. For times when you are making only a few purchases, you can use those fine plastic shopping baskets stacked over there.” I point.

She laughs. “Don't be a smart aleck.”

We stop first at the meat section. I select a package of stew meat and toss it into the cart.

“How do you know how much to buy?” she says.

“For two people, you buy about a pound of meat if you want leftovers, less if you don't.”

She looks at the packet of meat as if it might leap up and smack her in the face. “You've got a little bit more than a pound there.”

This may be harder than I thought. I explain that it isn't an exact science. “If you have a recipe, you can fudge here and there. The way I make beef stew doesn't need a recipe.”

“I might be more comfortable if I had a recipe I could look at and follow precisely.”

“Then you've got the wrong chef,” I say.

We proceed to buy carrots and potatoes, me having to explain that it's a matter of proportion and you have to use eyeball judgment. I also explain that it helps to be able to imagine what something might taste like. “For example, I like a little green bell pepper in my beef stew. Some people might not like it.”

“I like it,” she says. “Do you think Will would like it?”

“I have no idea. You're the one dating him.”

She looks daggers at me.

We buy an onion and bell pepper and a can of tomatoes. I figure she'll be better off with a can of beef broth than with making broth, so we put that in the cart. “Are you going to have a salad, too?” I ask.

“Do you think I should?” Her forehead is beaded with perspiration, despite the fact that it's cold in the store. I'd laugh if it weren't so pitiful.

“I don't know what kind of eater Will is,” I say.

“Neither do I!” she says, flinging her hands up.

“You said you'd been out to eat with him. What did he order?”

She looks at me like I've completely gone off the rails. “I don't know. I'm not interested in what people eat, so I didn't pay any attention.” She peers at the contents of the cart. “Maybe I'd better forget this whole thing. I can go buy some enchiladas at Town Café and serve them with cheese and crackers and that will be the end of it.”

“Oh, no,” I say. “We've gotten this far and we're going to see this project through to the end.”

She groans. “Let's get on with it then. And I like salad, so let's get some salad kind of stuff.”

By the time we get back to her place, Jenny is quiet and grim. She pulls items out of the sack and puts them on the counter haphazardly. “I'd rather prosecute an axe murderer than do this again,” she says.

It usually takes me a short time to throw together a beef stew, but having to explain every step takes most of the afternoon. I take pity on her and peel the vegetables myself, but I have to answer a pack of questions, like “How come you peel the vegetables? How come you peel the carrots and potatoes and not the bell pepper? Does the peel taste bad?” and “How do you know how big to chop up the vegetables and meat?”

But eventually beef stew is bubbling on the stove, and the salad greens have been washed and put in the refrigerator in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, which I've had to fetch from my house. I've also had to go back a few times for herbs and for a bottle of salad dressing, since I forgot that she has absolutely nothing in her kitchen cabinets.

I leave her with strict written instructions on how and when to proceed and with the admonition to call me if she has any questions. As I walk out of her house, I'm chuckling to myself. I picture her running off to the bedroom to call me surreptitiously numerous times and Will wondering what the heck she's up to.

The lesson took longer than I thought it would, and it's late afternoon. I call Ellen Forester and ask her if she'd like to go with me to get some Mexican food for dinner. I know she'll get a kick out of hearing about my session with Jenny, and I'm interested to hear her thoughts on the new cop. Any excuse to spend a little time with her will do.

The restaurant is crowded on a Saturday night, and we have to wait for a while. I turn down the owner's offer to slip us in early, me being chief of police. I don't need to hurry the evening along. I like being with Ellen, and while we wait I describe Jenny's incompetence in the kitchen.

“You shouldn't make fun of her,” Ellen says. “I guess if a woman doesn't learn to cook from her mother, she's at a disadvantage.”

“Now let me ask you something,” I say. “Isn't that a sexist thing to say? What about a man? Is he at a disadvantage if his mother doesn't teach him to cook?”

“Or his father?” she says.

“Oh, right.”

She smiles up at me. I'd be hard-pressed to say why, but she looks prettier than usual tonight. She's wearing a dress that I think of as summery, maybe because it's got some kind of abstract flowers on it. And she smells good when she's up close.

“I never heard you use the term ‘sexism' before,” she says. “What brought that up?”

I tell her about the woman coming to mix things up in the police department, and I'm worried that she won't be favorably impressed with the state of our headquarters.

“Let me ask you this,” Ellen says. “Can you imagine a man coming in who likes things organized and tidy, and who wants the place to look nicer?”

I let the question sink in. “I see what you mean.”

“Have you ever asked Bill Odum if he'd like to have someone come in and clean the place? Has he ever volunteered to clean up? Will you expect this woman to come in and make the coffee? Or to clean the bathroom?”

“Thank goodness I didn't get that far in my thinking,” I say. “Because I suspect I may have gone in that direction before I thought about it.”

She nods, her eyes dancing with humor. “Believe me, I've had enough of a man expecting me to do all the ‘lady' things, and I'm done with it.”

“So you're saying if I start to ask her to do something, I should consider whether I'd ask a man the same thing?”

“Wouldn't hurt.”

They finally tell us our table is ready. Once or twice this evening, I've seen a look of concern flit across her face. After we've ordered I ask her if everything is all right.

“Oh, my son in Dallas sounds unhappy,” she says. “He's had a summer job and I don't think he likes the idea of going back to school. He's used to bringing in some money and he likes it. I think I need to go up there and have a talk with him. I don't want to pry, but I might have to.”

A brilliant idea comes to my mind. “I need to drive up to the Dallas to talk to the people at Rollingwood where Nonie Blake was for the last twenty years. It's near Dallas. We could drive up together. I could leave you with your son and do my business. Maybe we'd stay overnight and go to one of the art museums in Fort Worth.” I like the idea of the art museum. The Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth was one of my wife Jeanne's favorite places, and I haven't been back since she died. It occurs to me that I might not want to be there with Ellen and all the memories it will bring up, but it's too late, I've already mentioned it.

She doesn't jump at the idea the way I thought she would, but she says she'll give it some thought.

Sunday I've arranged with Truly Bennett to drive to Navasota to a cattle auction. A man who keeps a big herd of white-faced Herefords is selling off his whole stock, and we're hoping to buy a couple of good yearlings. I keep my herd at twenty head, plus or minus, but it's always good to infuse some new blood into the lines, and I can sell the extras next spring.

Truly knows more about livestock and horses than anyone, and it's fun to go to an auction with him and have him point out little things that I wouldn't pay attention to. We spend some time when we arrive checking out the cattle, and Truly says the rancher has kept them in top condition. “I appreciate that in a man,” he says. “Some ranchers when they get ready to fold up their business stop paying attention to the stock, and the cattle fall apart pretty fast.”

Normally you can't get Truly to string more than a few words together at a time, but when the subject is cattle, he can get downright chatty.

We're pleasantly surprised to be able to keep up with the bidding on a fine young bull. I've only had the one in my herd for two years, and I usually keep them for three, but Truly says this one looks good and I might as well replace mine now. “It'll take some time to bring this one along so he's ready to breed by next spring.”

At the end of the day, we arrange to have two cows and the bull transported early next week. If I were only buying one, I would have brought a trailer along, but at a big sell-off like this one, there are always some young men trying to make a little money who will transport your cattle as cheaply as you can do it yourself.

CHAPTER 14

On Rollingwood's showy website, you'd think they were describing a five-star resort instead of a mental hospital. There's barely any mention of the residents' mental state. Words like “relaxing,” “soothing,” and “state-of-the-art” are sprinkled liberally throughout. The woman who answers the telephone when I call Monday morning has the voice of an angel. I tell her who I am and what I'm after, and she says she'll be happy to put me through to the director, Mrs. Lannigan.

Mrs. Lannigan is equally delighted to hear from me. “The receptionist said you needed some information. Let me assure you that I'll do everything I can to help you, within legal limits, of course.”

“I'm calling to ask some questions about a patient who was recently released from Rollingwood. Nonie Blake.”

Silence prevails. It reminds me of the silence that the psychiatrist, Richard Buckley, greeted my questions with. “I'm sorry. Can you give me the name again?”

“Winona Blake. She's called Nonie.”

“Can you let me put you on hold for a second?”

The second stretches into several minutes. Just when I think my line might have been dropped, Mrs. Lannigan comes back. “I'm not sure what to tell you,” she says.

“What I'd like is the name of the doctor who evaluated Nonie. And why she was kept there for so long. As I understand . . .”

“Wait. That's not what I mean. What I mean is, I had to look up her name. Winona Blake has not been with us for more than ten years.”

“You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.” Her voice is amused. “It would be unusual for us to simply lose a patient. That's why I couldn't figure out who you were asking about. I've only been director here for five years, so I never knew Winona Blake. Give me a moment to read what it says on the computer file about her release.” She's silent again. “Apparently at age eighteen her family declared her incompetent to handle her own affairs so she was kept here. At some point, she petitioned to have the declaration overturned. Her doctor determined that she was able to function well enough to be in charge of her own affairs, and the declaration was overturned. She left shortly thereafter.”

“Does it say whether the family was informed?”

“There's no reference to that here. She didn't have to inform her family if she didn't want to. I must say I know nothing about the matter, but it's unusual for a family to go to the trouble to have someone declared incompetent after they are of age, and I'd have to refer you to the doctor who signed the order to find out why he agreed.”

“Any idea where she went when she left?”

“There's no forwarding address here.”

I get the name and contact information of the doctor who signed the order declaring Nonie incompetent and for the doctor who released her. When I hang up, I sit and stare out the window for a few minutes. Where the hell had Nonie been all this time? And how come the family didn't know she had left the facility long ago? How come she told them she had only recently been released? And then I realize that regardless of what Nonie told them, they had to have known she had been out a long time because bills from Rollingwood would have stopped coming. At the very least, Adelaide would have known that Nonie was no longer there.