The Texas Ranger (11 page)

There was a long, tense silence. Josette felt worn and wrinkled. The past two days had been so rushed that she'd hardly slept. It was beginning to catch up with her.

He noticed her lack of animation. “We'll go see Mrs. Jennings tomorrow, after the funeral,” he said. “Meanwhile, I'm going to talk to the warden at the state prison.”

“Do you think he'll know who pulled the strings to get Jennings assigned there?” she asked drowsily.

“Not really. But he may have contacts who can find out,” he replied. “This whole thing is fishy. I don't see how a system with so many checks and balances can let a convicted murderer slip through the cracks.”

“Money talks,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

He glanced at her, noticing the new lines in her young face. Her traumatic life was written there. She'd made one error in judgment, and it had tor
mented her ever since. He hadn't helped, with his certainty that she'd tried to frame the local politician's son for rape. He was sorry that he'd helped get the boy off. It was something he wasn't ever going to be able to justify, especially considering the fact that he'd seen her at that party, half naked and cowering and sobbing, so sick and afraid that she wasn't even coherent. He hated his own treatment of her later even more.

“Did you ever find out what the boy gave you at that party when you were fifteen?” he asked, thinking aloud.

“Yes,” she murmured, too drowsy to protest the question. “The forerunner of the date-rape drug.”

He stiffened. “Of all the mistakes I've ever made in my life, I regret helping that boy get off the most. I should have known better.”

“It's all ancient history, Brannon,” she said impassively. “We can't change anything.”

“I wish to God I could,” he said harshly. “I rushed to judgment about you. I've ruined your life.”

“I helped,” she returned without looking at him. “I deliberately left the house at night to go to what I knew would be a wild party. I was rebelling against my stodgy old parents. And guess what? They were right all along. I was too young to handle experienced boys and alcohol and drugs. Because of what I did, their lives were ruined, too. Dad couldn't
keep his job in Jacobsville. We had to move, and he had to take a big cut in salary. They died a lot younger than they probably would have,” she added gruffly. “All because I didn't like having rules when nobody else did.”

His jaw clenched. He felt as guilty about that as she did. She'd been too young to know better, and he'd been a young police officer who was still learning how to size up suspects. He hadn't done a very good job with Josette's assailant.

His hands contracted on the steering wheel. “What I hate most is that if it had been Gretchen, I wouldn't have been so quick to believe him.”

“Your sister had better sense than I did, at the same age,” she mused. “Gretchen was always mature for her age. I guess that was because your mother was ill so much. You lost your father when you were young, didn't you?”

“Yes. We lost him,” he said in an odd tone. “Gretchen looked after our mother when she was in the terminal stages of cancer. I felt bad about that. I was with the FBI then, and working undercover. I couldn't even come home.”

“I never understood why you left the Rangers,” she commented. “You never wanted anything as much as that job, and then just as you were getting promotions, you quit. Just like that.”

“I quit because of you.”

She blinked. Perhaps she was hearing things. “Excuse me?”

“Even though you seemed to be a decent sort of woman, there was always a part of me that thought you'd been lying about the rape—that you were scared and accused the boy to exonerate yourself.” He stopped at a red light, and his eyes under the brim of his hat pinned her face. “Then I made love to you.”

She felt her whole body go hot with the memory. Her face was rigid, but her hands, on the briefcase in her lap, jerked.

“What a revelation that was,” he said curtly. “He couldn't have raped you if he'd tried, not in the condition you were in.”

“Could we not talk about that, please?” she asked tightly, averting her face.

He glared at the traffic light, which was still red. “That was when I knew just how faulty my judgment really was,” he continued, as if she hadn't spoken. “I helped the defense attorney put the final nail in your coffin, when you were the real victim. Everything you suffered, everything your parents suffered, could be laid right at my door. I couldn't live with knowing that. I had to get away.”

“You did a good job of that,” she said stiffly. “You called me names, took me home and walked away. The next time I saw you was in court, at Dale Jennings's trial.” Her expression cooled.

“Then the prosecuting attorney took me apart on the witness stand and branded me a liar.”

“Bib gave that information to the D.A.,” he said at once. “He remembered it from early in our friendship, because it had bothered me and I talked about it. But I wouldn't have used it against you. Especially,” he added harshly, “not after what I knew about you. I didn't know they even had knowledge of it until I heard it in court. And then it was too late to stop it.” He noticed that the light was green and put his booted foot down on the accelerator gently. He felt gutted as he remembered the pain he'd felt at the trial. “After the prosecution took you apart on the witness stand, you wouldn't even look at me. I couldn't blame you for that. I'd done enough damage already. Afterward, it was one more reason to get out of San Antonio.”

“You could have stayed,” she said, her voice strained. “My parents and I moved away.”

“Another move, another job, and your father's heart couldn't take it.”

“Life happens, Brannon,” she said wearily. “Maybe if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. My father was fond of saying God always has a reason for things, that He tests us in all sorts of ways—that He even uses other people to do it sometimes. That's why we shouldn't hold grudges, he said.” She shrugged and shifted the
briefcase. “I don't blame you for what happened. Not anymore.”

Which was far more than he deserved. But what she wasn't saying was poignant—that she still cared about him. How could she, after what he'd done?

They were back in the city. He turned onto the street where her hotel was located and pulled up in the courtyard.

“Do you want to go to Jennings's funeral tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied at once. “I'd like to see if I recognize anybody in the crowd.”

He smiled faintly. “That's why I want to go.”

“I figured that. I'll see you…”

“I'll come by for you about one,” he said. “Then we can go out and pick up Holliman.”

She hesitated. Her fingers traced a pattern on the leather surface of her case.

“It's the logical way to do things, Josette,” he said quietly. “We have to work together.”

“I know.” She opened the door. “Okay. I'll be in the lobby at one.”

“Maybe by then, I'll have a new lead, at least.”

She studied him through the open door as she held it in one hand. “I don't have to tell you that it needs someone with influence to accomplish a murder like Dale's.”

“I'm not stupid,” he agreed. His gray eyes narrowed. “Do you carry a piece?”

She glared at him. “No, and I won't. I've got a nice little electronic device in my purse that packs a powerful punch, and I'm no wimp under fire. I'll get by.”

“A gun is safer.”

“Only if you're not afraid of it,” she reminded him. “And I am afraid of guns. You watch your own back, Brannon. I've had a lot of experience taking care of myself.”

“So you have.”

She closed the door and turned to walk into the hotel. He noticed that she smiled at the doorman, who went to open the door for her with a matching smile. Josette had always been like that, gentle and friendly and compassionate. It made him sick to remember his treatment of her.

He pulled out of the driveway and back onto the street. He really should go by the office, but he wanted to talk to the warden of the nearby state prison. He pulled over into a parking spot and used his mobile phone to get the number and dial it. He made an appointment with the warden, who had the afternoon free, before he pulled back out into the street and turned on the road that led to Floresville.

 

Josette went into her hotel room and collapsed on one of the two double beds. She was worn to the bone. A bath was just what she needed, to soothe her aching muscles.

She uncoiled her hair and let it loose. Unfurled, it reached down to her hips in back. It was dark blond, soft, faintly wavy. If only she'd been pretty, too, that hair would have made her like a siren, she theorized. But, then, the only man she'd ever wanted to attract was Brannon, and that door had better stay closed.

She touched her throat and closed her eyes. Even after two years, she could feel Brannon's hard, warm mouth on her throat, working its way down over her collarbone. Her pulse raced. She'd tried so hard to put the painful memories away, but they were tenacious. Josette looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were huge, soft. Her mouth was just faintly swollen. She looked…sensuous.

Josette turned away from the mirror, hating her own responses. Brannon didn't want her. He never had. He had a terrible opinion of her; he'd said himself that she wasn't woman enough for him. Why couldn't she get over him? Despite the men she worked around, there had never been another one who attracted her. No matter how hard she tried to get interested in other nice, single men, there was only one in her heart, despite the misery he'd caused her.

She stripped off her clothing and went into the bathroom to shower. Minutes later, when she came back out, in her bathrobe and rubbing her hair dry, the message light on the phone was blinking.

Josette sat down on the bed and lifted the receiver to call the lobby.

It was the secretary at the D.A.'s office. “Miss Langley?” the pleasant voice asked. “I just wanted to give you this new address for Mrs. Jennings. The social worker found her a nice little apartment out at Pioneer Village near Elmendorf—one of our local retirement complexes.”

“That's nice,” Josette said warmly. “I was worried about her at the mission. She's not really able to take care of herself…”

“That's just what the social worker said” came the reply. “She's very happy at her new address. Have you got a pen and paper?”

“Yes. Right here.” She fumbled for them in her purse. “Okay.” She wrote down the address as the woman dictated it. “Has she got a phone?”

“Not yet,” the secretary said. “But her neighbor, Mrs. Danton, said she'd be glad to take messages for her. Here's the number.” She gave that to Josette, too.

“Thanks,” Josette told her. “Brannon and I are going with her brother to the funeral tomorrow. I'll phone Mrs. Danton tonight and ask her to ask Mrs. Jennings if she'd like us to pick her up, too, since she hasn't got any way to go. Her brother was upset because he hadn't heard from her.”

“Mr. Holliman? Oh, yes, Grier in our office is a veritable ongoing documentary of his life. It seems
that Mr. Holliman was
the
Texas Ranger around these parts in the fifties and sixties.”

“I'd love to hear about him,” Josette said, smiling to herself. “Thanks for the information.”

“My pleasure. See you.”

Josette hung up and put the pad in her purse. She was already thinking ahead to tomorrow. She hadn't really wanted to go to Dale's funeral. It wasn't that long ago that she'd lost her parents, both of them within just two years. But it went with the job. She was just going to have to face it.

T
he warden of the Wayne Correctional Institute near Floresville was a heavyset, taciturn man named Don Harris. He offered Brannon a chair, crossed his hands neatly on his desk and let Brannon tell him what he wanted.

He pushed a button on his intercom. “Jessie, get me the file on Dale Jennings and bring it in here, would you?”

“Sir, you can pull it up on your computer,” she began.

“Oh. Oh, so I can. Never mind.” He hung up, disconcerted as he turned to the computer on the side of his desk and punched in information with two fingers. “Hate these damned things,” he muttered. “One day somebody will pull the plug and shut down civilization.”

Brannon chuckled heartily. “I couldn't agree more. That's why I keep hard copy of every case file I've got, no matter what the experts tell me about zip files and hard-drive backups.”

The warden smiled, the first warm expression Brannon had seen on the man's face since he walked in. “Good for you.” He looked at the screen. “Yes, here it is. Jennings was transferred down here two weeks ago from the state prison in Austin…”

“State prison in Austin?” Brannon shot to his feet, went around the desk and looked over the warden's shoulder, with a murmured apology.

There it was on the screen—Jennings's file. Except that it had been altered. It didn't show a murder conviction. According to the file, Jennings was in for a battery charge, serving a one-year sentence in a state prison.

“That's been altered,” he told the warden flatly. “Jennings was serving time for felony murder. He was in federal prison in Austin, not a state facility. The charge that's showing is an old one, from his teens. He got probation for it.”

The warden looked sick. “You mean, I let a convicted murderer out on a trustee work detail?”

Brannon touched his shoulder lightly. “Not your fault,” he said reassuringly. “The files were obviously doctored. Jennings's escape was carefully arranged. Apparently we're up against a computer hacker as well as a crafty assassin,” he added curtly.

“I'll lose my pension,” the warden was murmuring.

“Oh, no, you won't,” Brannon told him. “I'm working for Simon Hart, the state attorney general. I'll make sure he knows the situation. You can't possibly keep up personally with several hundred inmate histories. It's not your fault.”

“It's my prison,” Harris said harshly. “I should be able to do it.”

“None of us are superhuman,” Brannon said. “I'd like hard copy of that file, if you don't mind.”

“I can do that, at least,” Harris said, crestfallen. He pushed the button to print out the file and rose to get it from a tray across the room. He waited for it to finish, and collected the pages into a new file folder, presenting them to Brannon. “Get the person who did this,” he said.

“See that?” Brannon asked, indicating his Ranger badge. “We never quit.”

The warden managed a smile. “Thanks.”

“We're all doing the job. Thank you.”

He took his file and left.

 

The sun was out for Jennings's funeral. It was a warm day, and there wasn't much traffic as Josette sat beside Brannon, with a mothball-scented Holliman seated in the back, as Brannon pulled up at the cemetary minutes before Jennings's funeral.

Brannon helped Holliman out and escorted the old
gentleman to the graveside, with Josette bringing up the rear.

There weren't a lot of people present, and most of them were law enforcement. Brannon recognized the sheriff, the local police chief, a couple of plainclothes detectives and Mrs. Jennings, in an obviously borrowed black dress. Josette had phoned Mrs. Danton and had her ask Mrs. Jennings if she wanted Brannon to drive her to the funeral. But Mrs. Danton phoned back and told Josette that the sheriff had already offered to transport the little old lady.

It was easy to see that the burial was being paid for by the taxpayers, since Mrs. Jennings very obviously had nothing left after the fire. There was a hole and a coffin, but none of the niceties that would have gone with a proper funeral.

Josette looked at the simple pine coffin and remembered, all too well, her parents' funerals. At least they'd had insurance, so there was a service in church and then a drive to the cemetary for burial. Poor Dale Jennings had only a hole in the ground.

She remembered him, tall and fair and a little cocky, only four years older than she was. His brashness and the abrupt way he had with people made it hard for him to make friends. But Josette had seen through the protective shell to the man underneath. Not that she was blind to his lack of honesty, which was all too apparent. When he'd asked her to a party at Webb's, she'd debated about going.
But Marc Brannon had just walked out on her and her ego was badly bruised. She'd expected Brannon to show up at his friend Bib Webb's party, and that was the only reason she'd accepted Dale's invitation. What a difference there might have been if Brannon had come that night.

She stared at the coffin with sad eyes. It seemed such a waste. If only Dale had stayed in prison. Even if it was for his mother's sake, his own greed had seen him done in by a bullet. Blackmail was repulsive, regardless of the reason, Josette thought. There was a price for such underhanded conduct, and Dale had paid it.

She thought of her father, an honest man who'd never done a thing to hurt any other human being. Then she thought of Dale, in that lonely grave on the outskirts of the cemetery, in a mound of earth that would only be marked by a simple white card in a metal holder with a plastic face. Over the years, it would fade until it was no longer recognizable. And it would be as if Dale Jennings of San Antonio, Texas, had never even been born.

A movement caught her eye, and she watched as Jack Holliman went right to his sister and hugged her close.

“They killed my baby, Jack,” the white-haired old woman said huskily, tears pouring down her lean, pale face. “Shot him down in the street like a dog.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” He patted her back awkwardly.

Two men were standing by the coffin. One, well-groomed and wearing a nice suit, had to be the funeral director. The other, a slight man with thinning hair and about Dale's age, clutched a Bible. The minister, she assumed. Josette noticed the funeral home director looking impatient, and she turned and started moving the elderly couple toward the grave. There wasn't even a tent to shelter silver hair from the blistering sun, or folding chairs to take the weight off arthritic legs.

The coffin was a cheap one, and the service was very brief. The minister was soft-spoken and a little nervous as he spoke about Dale Jennings, whom he said he never met. He read a couple of lines of scripture, endearing himself to Josette when he stumbled over the pronunciation of some of the words. Then he led a prayer, still inarticulate, and folded his Bible against his hip before he walked over to offer his condolences to the elderly people, with the crisp black cover of the Bible held tightly in his hand. A wide gold ring on his little finger caught the sun and sparkled.

That was when Josette noticed that he was dressed very much like Mrs. Jennings and her brother, in clothes which were functional rather than decorative. She realized also that he'd probably offered to conduct the service out of his own generosity rather
than for any monetary concession. She decided that she'd dig into her own purse for that compensation, but she was a minute too late. She saw Brannon pause beside the minister and place a bill gently in his hands. She had to turn away so that Brannon wouldn't see the mist over her eyes. He had a big heart. It was one of so many things she loved about him.

Josette composed herself and turned her attention to the small crowd as Brannon paused to talk to the sheriff. Brannon, too, was looking around for anyone in the small crowd who shouldn't have been there. But it would have been too obvious for the killer to join in.

“Unless you think the sheriff or one of those detectives is the culprit, we're out of luck,” Brannon murmured to her.

“I don't want to get old, and I don't want to die poor,” she said stiffly.

“Don't look at me,” he returned, shifting his gaze to Holliman. “I expect I'll end up packed in mothballs like that suit Holliman's wearing, greeting visitors with a shotgun and spending the hour before I eat trying to remember where I put my false teeth.”

“Oh, that was wicked,” she said softly, trying not to smile. It wasn't an occasion for humor.

“Notice the minister isn't standing too close to him,” he pointed out. “The smell of the mothballs
is overpowering.” He looked down at her with concern she didn't see. “This must be rough for you.”

Her gaze flew up to his. It embarrassed her that he knew. She moved one shoulder in her neat black suit. That and a navy blue one were the only clothes she'd packed, besides her gown and robe. There wasn't much of a choice of outfits.

“You've lost your parents, too,” she pointed out.

“With more distance between their deaths, though,” he replied. His face was hard as he looked toward the grave. “And I didn't care that my father died.”

She'd never heard him mention his father, in all the time she'd known him. She remembered a few low whispers around Jacobsville, that the Brannon kids had a tough life, but she'd assumed it was because their mother was widowed and sick a lot.

“Didn't you love him?” she asked involuntarily.

“No.”

A single word, endowed with more sarcasm and bitterness than he might have realized.

She waited, but he didn't say another word. The minister moved on and he went to escort the old people back to the truck.

“We'll drive you to your apartment, Mrs. Jennings, and save the sheriff a trip,” he told her, revealing that he knew how she'd arrived.

The sheriff thanked him and made their goodbyes, along with the detectives. Brannon helped the old
people into the truck and got in beside Josette. Minutes later, they disembarked at the small efficiency apartment the social worker had found for Mrs. Jennings just off the Floresville road near Elmendorf.

“It ain't much,” she said wearily as she pulled out her key. “But it's a roof over my head.”

She unlocked the door and invited them inside. “I'll make some coffee.”

“No, you won't,” Josette said. She drew Brannon to one side and slipped him a ten-dollar bill. “Would you go get them a bucket of chicken and the fixings, and some cups of coffee?”

He pushed the money back into her hand and closed her fingers around it. “You're still a sucker for lost causes,” he said huskily. “I'll get the chicken, and the coffee. You see what you can find out from her. Back in a minute.”

She watched him go with a sense of breathlessness. He still got to her. It was disturbing.

She sat down on the sofa next to Mrs. Jennings and passed her a tissue. The old woman had been very dignified and quiet at the funeral, but it was all catching up with her now. She dissolved into tears. Mr. Holliman was trying his best not to be affected by it, sitting stoically in his chair until his sister calmed down.

“He was good to me,” she told Josette in a husky
old voice. “No matter what else he did, he was a good son.”

“He didn't kill anyone, Mrs. Jennings, least of all Henry Garner,” Josette said firmly, and with conviction. “I never doubted that for an instant. I just couldn't convince anyone else, with so much evidence against him.”

“He never had no blackjack,” the old woman said harshly. “Never liked physical violence at all.”

“No, he didn't,” Holliman added firmly. “I couldn't even teach the boy to shoot a gun. He was scared of them.”

“I know he did some bad things, Miss Langley,” Mrs. Jennings continued, wiping her nose with the tissue, “but he wouldn't hurt an old man.”

“I'm certain of that,” Josette replied. She leaned forward. “Mrs. Jennings, did Dale ever leave a package with you, something he wanted you to put up and keep for him?”

Old man Holliman shifted in his chair. Mrs. Jennings frowned, brushing at her mouth, and avoided Josette's eyes. “He did once say he had something that needed a safe place. But he never brought it to me,” she said.

“Did he say what he did with it?” Josette continued, warming to her subject.

“No. He just said that woman wanted it.”

“Woman?” Josette asked quickly. “What woman?”

“Don't know much about her,” the older woman told her. “He mentioned her once or twice, said she was helping him with this new job he'd got. He thought she was real special, but he wouldn't bring her to see me, even when I asked. He said she was real shy, you see. He was talking about marrying her, but he said he didn't have enough money to suit her. He was always talking about getting enough to make her happy. He said she wanted him to keep that package in a real safe place. She wanted him to let her keep it, but he wouldn't give it to her. He said she'd be in danger if she had it. I asked,” she added, glancing at Josette, “but he wouldn't tell me what it was.”