A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) (15 page)

The ambulance was gone, off to Riverville Medical. The
sheriff had ringed the shed with yellow police tape, cordoning off for area for the tech guys, who were inside and outside, hunting for anything that would explain what happened to Martin.

Miss Amelia and I stood behind the tape, going over and over how we found him and why we were down there to begin with.

Mama and Bethany weren’t far behind the police cars and the ambulance. After Hunter told them there’d been an accident and he’d be up to the house in a while to talk to them, they left, Mama turning to give me and Miss Amelia a long, pleading look. I gave Mama a smile and a nod, assuring her we’d be all right and that we’d see her in a while. That we’d explain.

As if I could explain anything that was happening.

Juanita and Jessie had gone with the ambulance. They’d come running at the sound of police sirens, too, following the screaming cars down to the place just above the sheds. Shock. Distress. Every emotion possible was written over the women’s faces. And then quiet as they stood beside the stretcher where Martin lay. Juanita clutched his hand. Jessie kept one hand on his legs, under the white sheet, as the EMS rolled him up to the ambulance.

And then they were gone, along with the frantic pace. Men and women moved in to scour the site while Miss Amelia and I stood off to one side, telling our story to Sheriff Higsby and to Hunter again and again . . .

How Martin had been missing since Saturday morning.

“Why didn’t his wife call us sooner?”

She thought he was somewhere on ranch business. With Justin in jail and all . . .

Hunter stood back behind the sheriff, making notes.

“Why did you come down here to look for him?”

We were searching the whole ranch. It was the last place we thought to look . . . The hog . . . The scratches on the door. The moans.

“Could’ve fallen in there.” Sheriff Higsby sniffed and motioned toward the shed. “Hit his head.”

“A blow that severe?” Miss Amelia said. “You really think so?”

“Seen worse.”

“He’s unconscious.”

The sheriff nodded and walked off as if he’d had enough of an old woman who spoke too much good sense.

Miss Amelia moved in close beside me.

“Poor Juanita. All she asked those EMTs was if Martin was going to live.”

“You saw his head, too. So much blood . . .” I shivered. “Too much to look at. Worse than Uncle Amos. What’s going on, Meemaw? What’s happening to all of us?”

Miss Amelia shook her head.

In a few minutes one of the techs, in full white protective suit, down to his booties, came out with something held over his head. He called the sheriff over.

Miss Amelia leaned toward me. “A wrench,” she said and fell into deep thought. “You notice the shape of it?”

I didn’t have a clue.

“Back on the barn wall? One missing from that pegboard. Shaped just like it.”

“That means whoever it was saw Martin going toward the sheds.”

She nodded. “Attacked and almost killed right there. The thing is . . . why?”

We waited as Hunter and the sheriff conferred with the tech. I could see Miss Amelia was anxious to tell them she recognized where that wrench came from, but when she went “Pssst” toward Sheriff Higsby, he only waved a hand in our direction, signaling for us to hold on.

It was Hunter who came over finally. It was Hunter who brought us other news, after hearing Miss Amelia out, nodding along with what she told him. It was Hunter who said, “Found your missing trees, Lindy. Guess Martin was hiding them right there in that shed.”

My trees!

He lowered his voice. “Sorry, but the sheriff thinks you’re all in on this, protecting each other.” He shook his head then looked me straight in the eye. “Not me, Lindy. I know all of you too well. There’s something else going on here. We’ve got to get together. We’ve got to talk—the three of us.”

He nodded toward Miss Amelia. “We need what your grandmother’s got—a deeper way to see what’s going on.”

I took a quick breath. Everything so terrible around us, but at least we had Hunter back. This single part felt good, and familiar. I nodded fast. We’d meet and talk.

My trees
,
I thought again and almost felt happy for a minute, until I realized Martin could have died for those trees.

It was after midnight when Hunter called and I drove out
to meet him where we hoped nobody would see us, out near a bend in the river, where we used to swim as kids, swinging out into the water on a rope, sometimes skinny-dipping because, back then, when our bodies looked almost the same, the one big difference between us was of interest for only a few minutes. Hunter was already there, waiting in his blue Passat. I turned off my lights and sat worrying about how far I could push him, while he got out of his car, opened the door to mine, climbed in, and settled beside me.

“Lindy.” He nodded a nod I felt more than saw.

“Hunter.” I nodded back, not able to keep myself from mocking his formality, but the mood was light for only a minute. The weight of why we were there settled in on us fast.

“Miss Amelia couldn’t come?”

“Sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up. A lot’s happened lately and I figured the two of us could talk first. I’ll pass everything on to her.”

He seemed to nod again. “Gotta tell you. I wish I had your grandmother on my side in this. The sheriff’s on the wrong track. Nothing he’s got against your family. It’s just . . . well . . . you know, since losing Dora, it’s like he’s got to hold on tight to everything, walk the straight and narrow, or he’ll lose all he’s got. I’m just afraid he’s in way over his head. You know, Lindy, this business isn’t like anything we’ve ever handled before. He’s trying to be fair . . . but . . . in this case, I’m coming to think our regular training’s just getting in the way. There’s something so much more . . .”

He stopped, unable to put the rest into words.

I agreed though I truly understood nothing. “Why were my trees in that shed? That’s one thing. Was that what Martin was looking for? Did he somehow know they were there? Or did he stumble on them and whoever did this to him? And why were the trees spared in the first place, only to be left behind? What’s going on, Hunter? If the trees were here all along . . .”

I looked at him but could see only the smallest glint of his eyes, shining in the moonlight reflecting off the river.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it, Lindy?” he said. “What were they doing in that shed if somebody who’s not with your ranch did all that damage, and killed Amos? What I’m saying is it seems to me the only reason for saving those trees was to make sure you still had stock to work with. Or make it look like somebody from the ranch maybe used all that destruction to cover one thing—Amos’s murder.”

“We know it’s not us, Hunter.”

“I know that. But stick with me here. Getting these trees returned kind of puts you back in business, your research can go ahead where you left off.”

“I’ll still be behind but . . . you’re right, I guess. At least I’ve got something to start with. The trees are more advanced than the seedlings. When can I get the trees back? A few more days without care and I’m not sure they’ll make it.”

“Evidence,” he said.

“Of what? Being trees?” I shot back.

“You tell me what to do and I’ll see to it they get the care they need. Get them released to you as soon as I can.”

We didn’t say anything for a while. Then I had to ask. Had to get information from him. It was what Miss Amelia would have done if she’d been there. I’d told myself, before coming to meet Hunter, that I would just think the way my grandmother thought. Get to the heart of things.

“Hunter.” I looked directly over at him. “What was on Amos’s body that made the sheriff think Justin killed him? My grandmother and I can’t fight what’s happening without knowing what we’re up against.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. “I don’t know,” he said then stopped. “I want to help you but . . .”

“What if I offered something we found? Like a trade?”

He was quiet again. “You’ve got something you didn’t tell me about? How’s that supposed to help find—”

I cut through his umbrage. “A trade. And after this I’ll tell you whenever we find anything you need to know. Is that a deal?”

Finally he simply said, “A deal.”

“And you tell us whatever you’ve got?”

Again he agreed.

I took a deep breath. “We found a letter from a woman named Virginia in Amos’s room over at the Conways’.”

I quieted his sputter. “It was after you already searched. In a boot, down under the sole.”

“I’ll need to take it. Could be valuable evidence. So where’s it from? What’s it about?”

“A letter. No envelope. This Virginia talked about having a package Amos gave her. She talked about him following the ‘program.’ Miss Amelia and I think that’s Alcoholics Anonymous. We’ve been trying to find out which city he was in at the time. Where he went to meetings. Things like that.”

“Chauncey twins told me Amos didn’t leave a forwarding address,” he said. “Makes it hard to know.”

“Talking with the police doesn’t sit well with the Chauncey twins. What they told us was they had something that came for him after he left. They claim they’ve still got it. But you know the girls, arguing back and forth about who had the thing last. I’m just hoping they come up with it.”

“I’ll need to see that, too,” he said. “Whatever it is.”

“And the Virginia letter, I’ll get it from Miss Amelia or have her drop it off right away. But . . . if we’re to go on turning over what we find to you, you have to trust us, too. This isn’t San Antonio or Dallas. You don’t have the resources of a big city and we don’t have the information you’ve got.”

“Geez.” He wiped a hand over his bare head. “There’s my friend Justin sitting in jail and likely to stay there until Ben Fordyce gets him a bail hearing. Now Martin—a man I’ve known as long as I can remember.”

“If you’ll just let us help you,” I said, and waited for him to stick to our bargain. “And you help us.”

He cleared his throat, looked off, then spoke as if to the air. “Justin sure was proud of that belt buckle of his—with the Blanchard crest . . .”

“Daddy gave it to him when he started work in the groves. But what has—”

Hunter stopped me. “That’s it.”

“What? That Justin’s got a personalized belt buckle? Like two thirds of the men in Riverville?”

“Always wears it.”

“Not recently . . .”

“Seen enough to seem like it’s every day.”

“He’s proud of the family, and the ranch.”

Hunter nodded. “That’s what we found on Amos. Like the buckle was torn from the leather. Amos still had it in his hand.”

“What?” I said. “That’s it? It was only a few days ago I asked him why he wasn’t wearing Daddy’s buckle anymore. He said he hadn’t been wearing it for weeks, the belt broke out in the groves. He picked up the pieces and stuck them in a drawer in the big barn.” I leaned closer to make sure Hunter understood. “He hasn’t been wearing that buckle in almost a month, Hunter. Anybody could have taken it from the barn at any time.”

“Somebody like Martin?”

“Don’t be silly. You know Martin better than that.”

“So does everybody in town, Lindy. But the way it’s looking . . . Justin. Martin. Could’ve been either one.”

I tamped my anger down. We needed Hunter. And he needed us. There’d be a time, somewhere in the future, when I could tell him how he made me feel.

And time, in that future, for him to air his complaints about Miss Amelia and me keeping evidence from him. Plenty of time. Right now, all we had was one another.