A Violent End at Blake Ranch (5 page)

We don't get any more out of Adelaide. I tell her I'll be back in the morning. Schoppe and I go outside. The ambulance is gone, but there's still a highway patrol car in the driveway.

“I asked the highway patrol to have somebody stay here for the night to keep an eye on things,” Schoppe says. He shakes his head. “I don't know that that's necessary. Whatever happened here, I suspect no one else is in danger.”

“I agree, but somebody needs to stay here until I can do a more thorough search of the grounds.”

We walk back to the pond and find a young patrolman walking around. He's slapping at mosquitoes, and I ask him if he'd like some bug repellent. He says he's already sprayed some on him. “It's dark. The bugs will be gone before too long.”

I give him my phone number in case anything comes up.

When Schoppe and I get back to the front of the house, we both start to say something at the same time. “Go ahead,” I say.

He says, “You want to look into this and call me if you have problems?”

“I was going to say I'll be glad to turn this over to you.”

“Why's that? You're usually ready to jump right in.”

“I don't know these people, and I don't have a good handle on what they might be up to.”

“Anybody I assign to it won't know them any better than you do. You know how to investigate a crime.”

“I suppose.”

Schoppe and I go back to when I was chief of police the first time around in Jarrett Creek. At that time I had managed to break a case that involved a bank robbery with a hostage situation, and my reputation has stayed with me. I wonder if he isn't putting more on my ability than I can come through with.

“I'll give it my best,” I say.

“Can't be all that many suspects,” he says.

It's after ten o'clock when I get home. When I sit down to take off my boots it occurs to me that just as there was no reason to assume Nonie was killed in the daytime, there was also no reason to assume she was killed on the property. Maybe somebody lured her out of the house in the night and attacked her while everyone was asleep and then brought her back to dump her in the pond.

The last thing that flits through my mind before I go to sleep is that I don't think the Blakes are being completely honest with me. Too many little things don't make sense.

CHAPTER 4

Loretta is fuming when she pops by first thing the next morning. She usually has a feisty disposition, but I've rarely seen her as angry as she is today. It seems that somebody cut several of her late summer roses in the night.

“They must have needed a nice bouquet for a special occasion,” I say. I can't help teasing her. Seeing her riled up is a sight to behold. Her eyes would set kindling on fire. Her cheeks are bright pink, and she's prowling around my kitchen as if she's looking for trouble. Even my cat, Zelda, has slunk out of sight.

“You're not taking this seriously,” she says. “You're the chief of police. It's your job to protect us citizens. It's not right for somebody to come onto my property and cut those roses. How would they like it if I waltzed into their kitchen and stole a cake they made?”

“I don't think anybody would like that. Listen, I know it's a crime, but I don't know how I'm going to find who did it.”

She narrows her eyes and taps her finger on her lips, speculating. “I don't know either, but I've got half a mind to sit up all night with a BB gun and wait for somebody to come by. Let them get a dose of pellets. Or I'll get Carl Orley to lend me his big dog.” Orley has a Doberman, and I happen to know that Loretta is deathly afraid of it.

“That would be in the category of keeping an eye on the henhouse after the fox has been and gone.”

“Don't make fun of me.” And suddenly she looks like she's going to cry, and I feel bad.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I've got other things on my mind. I guess you heard what happened out at the Blakes'.” Of course she's heard it.

“Oh, my stars, everyone knew it was a bad idea for that girl to come back. Is it true that somebody bashed her head in?” I guess it's her bad mood that makes her sound a little cold-blooded.

“I'm not going to tell you the details right now.”

“A lot of people thought with Nonie coming back Charlotte ought to be sleeping with one eye open. Maybe after a few days she decided she couldn't put up with it.”

“Loretta, all that happened twenty years ago! Think back twenty years ago in your life. Haven't you changed? Haven't we all?”

She gives me a snippy look. “I haven't changed so much that I'd ignore a killer sneaking around my house. If I were to bet, I'd bet on Charlotte.”

“I wouldn't waste my money, if I were you. Do you know the Blakes at all?”

“Not really. They keep to themselves. I don't mean like they think they're better than anybody else. Just that they don't mingle much.”

“Have they always been like that, or did they get standoffish after what happened with Nonie?”

“Always. At least Adelaide was. I might not be the person to ask, because I'm a good bit older than she is. But I don't remember her ever having a lot of good friends. John was friendly enough, but once they got married they kind of holed up out there at their place and kept to themselves.”

“What church do they go to?”

“As far as I know, they don't attend church.”

That explains why they aren't well known. Most social life in town revolves around either gathering at the Town Café for breakfast or lunch, or going to church activities.

“You know John Blake has Parkinson's, and he's a little off in the head.”

“I do know that. But even before he was sick, whenever I ran into him in the past few years he seemed a little strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Like his thoughts were always somewhere else. If you said hello to him, he'd look at you like he didn't know who you were at first. Then he'd speak to you, but it was like he didn't know he was in the same room with other people.”

When I park in front of the Blakes' place, John Blake is out on the front porch by himself, standing with his arms out as if he's blessing an unseen audience. He used to be a tall, substantial man, but now he's thin and a little stooped. I get out of my truck and walk up to him. His hair is sparse and stringy and doesn't look like it has been washed in a while, and he's got at least a three-day growth of beard. He's wearing faded jeans so loose on him that they look like they could fall down anytime and a plain white T-shirt. For all the time the Blake women say they put into taking care of him, he doesn't look well cared for.

“Hey, John, what are you up to?”

I'm reminded of what Loretta said about John's thoughts always being elsewhere, because he looks startled, as if he wasn't even aware that I'd driven up. “Ho!” he says. His voice is gravelly. “Who is that?”

“Samuel Craddock. I haven't seen you in a while.”

A crafty look comes to his eye. “You're the big chief,” he says. At least he's got some mental capacity; although for all I know he thinks I'm part of a Native American tribe.

“Is Charlotte around?”

The screen door opens and Charlotte comes out. “There you are, Daddy. I wondered where you'd run off to. Hello, Chief Craddock. You been having a chat with Daddy?”

“I just got here.”

“Sneaked up on me,” Blake says. “I'm surrounded.”

“Why don't we all come inside,” Charlotte says. “It's hot out here and it's time for you to take some medicine.”

“I don't like medicine,” he says to me.

“Nobody does,” I say. “But sometimes you have to take it.”

He nods and strokes his chin. “I suppose you're right.” He shuffles inside as she holds the door open for him.

Charlotte shoots me a grateful look. I follow her inside, and she turns and says quietly, “Could be you kept us from a showdown over the medication.”

“I tell you what,” I say. “Why don't you take care of him while I go in the back and tell the patrolman he can leave. Then let's meet back on the porch and we can talk in private.”

I tell the patrolman he can go. He tells me everything was quiet last night. “Except for the mosquitoes at daybreak. I think I killed at least a thousand.”

I settle in the same chair I sat in last night when I was talking to Skeeter. I'm glad the porch has an overhang to keep the sun off; otherwise the heat would be unbearable. I hear raised voices inside before Charlotte comes out and eases herself down into the other wicker chair. “Sometimes it's such an ordeal to get him to take his medicine. He has it in his mind that we're poisoning him.” She looks less haggard this morning.

“Doc Taggart seemed to think your daddy would be better off in a facility.”

“Then let Doc Taggart pay for it,” she says dryly. Then she sighs. “I shouldn't say that. It's not the money. Mamma won't hear of it. I've tried to convince her, but she's determined to keep him here at home.” She shakes her head. “But you didn't come here to talk about Daddy.”

“That's right. I'm opening an investigation into your sister's death, so I need to ask you to go into more detail about her stay here.”

She cocks her head at me. “You sound awfully official. I guess it's true then, Nonie didn't fall, hit her head on a rock, fall into the pond, and drown. I was hoping it was all a bad dream.”

“No, it's real. I need some answers from you.”

“I thought that man who was here with the Texas Rangers last night was going to investigate.”

“It's officially his job, but he asked me to get started on the case.”

“That's all right with me. I'd rather talk to you anyway.”

“Good. I'd like you to describe to me how things went after Nonie got home. The more specific you can be, the better. Starting with how you found out she'd be coming home. You said your mamma didn't tell you.”

She sniffs and looks off in the distance. Like her mother, she's stuck with a long face, a pointed nose, and thin lips that make her look like she'd be sharp-tempered.

“The first I saw of her she was standing on the front porch with a suitcase in her hand. She asked to talk to Mamma. I asked what she wanted, and she said, ‘I'm your sister, Nonie. You didn't hear I was coming back?' I almost fainted. She said she had come on a bus to Bobtail, and from the bus station she got somebody to bring her home.”

“Charlotte, I find it hard to imagine that the institution would simply let Nonie out and send her on her way without an escort or having some way to be sure she would be all right. You know how she got here from the bus station in Bobtail?”

“She said a couple saw her standing on the curb outside the station and they asked her if she wanted a ride. They were coming out this way, and they said it wasn't a problem to let her off here.”

“She seemed okay with that?”

“Yes, she was very matter-of-fact.”

“Did anybody call the facility to be sure she hadn't walked out on her own?”

“It did occur to me at first. But then I figured if she walked out with a suitcase, they couldn't have missed her, and if they'd done a bed check and she was gone, they would have called. And then, of course, later Mamma told me she knew Nonie was coming back. She just didn't know when.”

“Did Nonie have any papers from the doctor?”

“If she did, I never saw them. Maybe she gave them to Mamma.”

“What was the family's reaction to her coming back?”

“Like I told you last night, I had wanted her to come home for a long time, so as far as I was concerned, she belonged here.”

“You're a liar!” John Blake's voice booms out the front door. We both look around, startled.

Charlotte grimaces “Daddy, come on out here.”

“I'm staying right where I am.”

“All right, then keep quiet.” Her voice is mild.

“Not if you're telling lies.”

She throws her hands up, gets up, and walks inside. “Where's Mamma?”

“Where's Mamma,” he mocks her.

“Mother!” Charlotte calls. When there's no reply she tells me she'll be right back, and I hear her go up the stairs. In a minute she comes down with Adelaide, who insists that John go back up with her. Her voice is as harsh as Charlotte's was smooth.

“Sorry about that,” Charlotte says when she comes back out. “He gets these things in his head.”

“I understand. I was asking you to describe everyone's reaction when Nonie got home. She and Skeeter seemed to have gotten along. How about the rest of you?”

“It was mixed. Daddy didn't like having her here. He doesn't like change, and we tried to keep her out of his way. I knew it would be okay once he got used to her.”

“And Trey? By the way, where is Trey?”