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“Get in the cruiser.” Brigman didn’t crack a smile. “I’m taking you home. But Thatcher Jones, I swear this better be the last time I see you on any road in this county.”
The boy walked toward the officer’s car. “You said I could drive the back roads out past County Road 111.”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing you had to cross at least four other county roads and one highway to get this far from your place.”
“You ain’t got no proof of that, Sheriff.” He knotted the sack, tossed it in the pickup bed and climbed into the front passenger seat of the cruiser, hating that it was starting to feel familiar. “You can’t arrest me unless you see me do somethin’.”
“That’s why I’m taking you home.”
Thatcher ran his dirty fingers through even dirtier brown hair. He hadn’t even made it to the Hamilton ranch. Hell, the snakes would probably be six feet long before he could get back. He sighed, knowing Brigman wouldn’t change his mind. “We stopping at the Dairy Queen before you drop me off back home, Sheriff?”
“It’s standard police procedure, kid. Double meat, double cheese.” Brigman started his car. “How’s your mom?”
“She died again last week.”
Brigman glared at him but didn’t say anything.
“She was at the tent revival over the Red into Oklahoma. Preacher pays her a hundred dollars every service to keel over and let the Holy Spirit save her. Not a bad gig. She only gets twenty-five for talking in tongues and fifty for coming in on crutches.”
The sheriff frowned.
“It ain’t against the law, Sheriff.” Thatcher saw it more as a sideshow and his mom did the entertaining. He changed the subject before the sheriff started asking more questions about his mom. “If somebody steals my truck, Sheriff, I’ll have you to blame.”
Brigman smiled. “If they do they won’t be hard to find. They’ll be dead on the road after they open that sack you got in the pickup bed. Bitten by cow chips is an odd way to die.”
They drove in silence all the way to Crossroads. Thatcher figured if he said anything the sheriff would start another lecture. Brigman could lecture the wheels off the fiery chariot.
Just as the lady handed them burgers through the drive-up window, lightning flashed bright and thunder rolled in on the wind. “Storm’s coming in early,” Thatcher said more to himself than the sheriff. He, like most farm folks, lived his life by the weather. It always surprised him that town kids woke up like chickens and headed outside without knowing or caring what was happening in the sky above. If rain or snow started, they took it personally, as if it was their individual plague and not the way of things.
“How about we eat these in my office, son?” Brigman turned toward Main Street.
“Not a bad idea, Sheriff. I seen the way you drive in the rain.”
A few minutes later, they raced the storm to make it into the county offices before they were both soaked.
They moved past Pearly Day’s front desk in the wide foyer to Brigman’s two-room office. Pearly’d gone home and apparently left her candy bowl unguarded.
She was the receptionist for all the offices housed in the two-story building and also passed as the dispatcher in Crossroads. When she left at five she patched all 911 calls to her cell. If anyone had an emergency they didn’t yell “call 911,” they yelled “call Pearly.”
Brigman cleaned off a corner of his desk for Thatcher and set the food in front of him. “I need to check my messages. Go ahead and eat.”
Thatcher attacked his hamburger while the sheriff listened to his messages. Nothing much of interest. A lady’s voice shouted that her dog was missing and she thought someone had stolen it while she was at bingo. A man left a message that he thought the bridge south of Interstate 40 exit near Bailey might flood if it rained more than two inches. Some guy called saying he’d locked his keys in his car and complained that the only locksmith in town wasn’t answering either his office number or his cell.
One call sounded official; it was about drug traffic suspected on the interstate. That was no big news, Thatcher thought, there was drug traffic going on in the back hills where he lived. Folks called the rocky land that snaked along between the canyons and flat farmlands the Breaks. The ground was too uneven to farm more than small plots, too barren to ranch in most spots. But deer and wild sheep lived there along with wild pigs and turkey. And, Thatcher decided, every crazy person in Texas who didn’t want to be bothered. Outlaws had once claimed the place, but now it was populated by deadbeats, old hippies and druggies. If the sheriff even knocked on trailer and cabin doors in his neighborhood he’d need a bus to bring in the wanted.
Thatcher watched the sheriff making notes as he finished his burger. Rain pounded the tin porch beyond the office windows, making a tapping sound that was almost musical.
He saw the sheriff open a letter, then smile. It couldn’t have had much written on the one sheet of paper because after a few seconds Brigman folded it up, unlocked his bottom drawer and shoved the letter inside.
Thatcher decided it must be some kind of love note because if it had been a death threat then Brigman wouldn’t have smiled. Only who’d write a man like him a love note?
The sheriff was single and would probably be considered good-looking in a boring, law-abiding kind of way, but Thatcher still didn’t think the note was a love letter. Sheriffs and teachers in a little town were like the royal family. Everyone kept up with them. So maybe the note was a coupon or something.
Brigman glanced up as if he just remembered Thatcher was there. “Your mother will be worried about you. Wish she had a phone.”
Thatcher nodded, but he knew she wouldn’t be worried. His ma had a rule. The minute the first raindrop fell, she started drinking. When he got home, she’d either be passed out or gone. One of her boyfriends worked road construction, so any time it rained was party time for him.
While the sheriff made a few more calls, Thatcher unwrapped the second double-meat, double-cheese burger. After all, greasy hamburgers were no good cold. He’d be doing the sheriff a favor by eating it while it was still warm.
About the time he swallowed the last bite, the main door in the lobby flew open. Thatcher leaned back in his chair far enough to see a man and three kids rushing in past Pearly’s desk.
Brigman stood and stepped out of his office, but Thatcher just kept leaning back, sipping his Coke and watching.
“Sheriff,” the man said, his voice shaking from cold or fright, Thatcher couldn’t tell which. “We’re here to report a murder.”
The three kids, all wet, nodded. One was a boy about eight or ten, the other two were girls, one close to Thatcher’s age.
“Bring the blankets from behind my desk,” the sheriff yelled toward his office.
Thatcher looked around as if Brigman might be ordering someone else into action, but no such luck. He let the front legs of his chair hit the hardwood floor and followed orders.
By the time he got the blankets and made it to the lobby, the man was rattling off a story about how he and his kids were walking the canyon at sunset and came across a body wrapped in what looked like old burlap feed bags.
Thatcher grew wide-eyed when Brigman glanced at him. “Don’t look at me,” he said in a voice so high Thatcher barely recognized his own words. “I’m just collecting cow chips. I didn’t kill nobody.”
The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Pass out the blankets, kid.”
While the man kept talking, Thatcher handed every dripping visitor a blanket. The last one, he opened up and put over the girl who was probably the oldest. She was so wet he could see the outline of her bra.
He tried his best not to look, but failed miserably. Her breasts might be small, but she was definitely old enough to fill out a bra.
“Thank you,” she said when the blanket and his arm went around her.
“You’re welcome,” he answered as he raised his gaze to the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen.
Until that moment, if you’d asked Thatcher Jones if he liked girls, he would have sworn he never would as long as he lived. When you’re the poorest and dumbest kid in school, no one has anything nice to say to you and most girls don’t even look your direction. During grade school he’d been kicked out several times for fighting, but now, since he was no longer in grade school, he’d decided to ignore everyone and skip as many classes as possible.
But this girl just kept smiling at him like nothing was wrong with him.
He didn’t want to move away. “Did you see the body?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “I saw the sack. It had brown spots on it. Blood, I think. My dad didn’t let us get too close.”
Thatcher thought of all the blood he’d seen in his life. He’d killed animals for food since he was six or seven. He’d washed his mother up a few times when one of her “friends” beat her. He’d watched his own blood pour out with every heartbeat once when he’d tumbled out of a tree, but none of that mattered right now.
“I’m sorry you had to see such a thing,” he whispered to the green-eyed girl.
“He was murdered,” she said so low only he could have heard her.
“How do you know? He could have committed suicide. Folks have done that before, or died in accidents down there in the canyon.”
Her eyes swam in tears. “Do people who die from suicide or accident stuff themselves into sacks?”
Thatcher nodded. “Good point.”
Then the strangest thing happened. Right in the middle of the sheriff calling in backup and Pearly coming in to take statements, and the storm pounding so hard against the north windows that he feared they’d break...right in the middle of it all, the girl reached out and held his hand.
As if she needed him.
As if in all the chaos he was her rock.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Thatcher stood in the drizzle and watched the sheriff working the crime scene. He’d been told, since he’d insisted on coming along, that he had to hold a big light down the trail toward where they found the body. Nothing else. Just hold the light, as though he was nothing more than a lamppost.
The county coroner had come in from Lubbock County to pronounce the dead guy dead. Which Thatcher thought was a bit of overkill. He stood thirty feet away and he could tell the guy was dead.
“I’m going to list the cause of death as undetermined,” the coroner shouted loud enough for Thatcher to hear him.
He thought of yelling down that the huge dent in the burlapped man’s head should be a pretty good hint as to how he died. What was left of his face looked more like the Elephant Man than anyone Thatcher had ever seen.
“Get back in the cruiser,” Brigman yelled as he started up the path.
“Yes, sir,” Thatcher answered without moving. This was far too interesting to crawl back into the car. He wasn’t sure he could do the sheriff’s job, but he decided to check into becoming a coroner. It didn’t look that hard.
As men lifted the body and began the slow journey back up the canyon, Thatcher watched and tried to figure out why someone would leave a body in Ransom Canyon. Wouldn’t any old bar ditch do?
A beefy deputy from Lubbock County stepped up behind him and flashed a beam of light in his face. “What you doing here, kid?”
Thatcher smiled. “I was called in to help with the investigation. What are you doing here, deputy?”
“You’re Thatcher Jones.” The lawman said his name as if he was swearing. “You got anything to do with this?”
“Nope. How about you, Officer Weathers?” Thatcher made a habit of always remembering any lawman he met. When he’d seen the tall deputy once in Brigman’s office, Weathers had been wrestling two drunks and hadn’t had time for an introduction.
About the time Weathers reached for him, the sheriff stepped between them. “You know Thatcher?”
The deputy nodded. “He...”
“Don’t tell me,” Brigman interrupted. “I can already guess and I’ve got my hands full right now.”
Thatcher grinned at the deputy and followed Brigman to his car. Once they were inside, he whispered, “I’m staying in your county from now on, Sheriff—that deputy scares me. I don’t mind cops who come in small, medium and large, but somebody supersized that guy.”
Brigman laughed. “It’s comforting to know you’re selective about where you break the law. Weathers is a good man. Anytime I need him, he’s always got my back.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_ba0e4c1a-a0f5-5887-8bc5-87f0556ef348)
Jubilee
February 24
THE RAIN STARTED an hour before sunset, just as it had the day before, and kept falling until full dark. The land, long dry, didn’t seem to know how to take in all the moisture. Tiny lakes formed for as far as Jubilee could see. Water was suddenly everywhere, if only an inch deep.
She swore a storm had never roared like this one. Lightning so strong she felt the whip of fire in the air. Thunder rumbled, shaking the earth and sky. Nature seemed to be running full blast to tell the world that the months of drought were over.
Jubilee had spent the day listening for the sound of a truck, hoping her boxes of clothes, favorite books and office supplies would arrive today. Since her first year of college she’d always kept a home office. No matter what a mess her world was in, everything had its place in file folders or drawer organizers.
Only between noon and the storm she’d only seen one car, a sheriff’s cruiser, driving down the road in front of her place. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel safer to know her ranch was part of his route or not. Surely very few vehicles headed her way, except the moving truck that was supposed to come today, of course.
Jubilee never realized how little she had worth moving. The old pots and pans she’d had since her freshman year in college had gone to Goodwill a year ago when she moved in with David and he had a fully stocked kitchen. He’d furnished every room of their apartment except for one table. The used dining table she’d bought fit perfectly in the corner. It was so wobbly she had to prop it up with a book under one corner, but he’d thought it rustic.
When she’d left Washington, it simply went to the trash.
In the end, she’d had fewer than a dozen boxes to move.
The memories of a life she’d thought mattered lingered in the shadows of her mind like gray ghosts. If she could have she would have tossed them out, as well. How could she have lived twenty-six years and had so little worth keeping? For the five years since college, nothing mattered but her job, and in the end, it didn’t really matter, either.
She was one of those people whose name could be wiped off the whiteboard of life and no one would notice. David hadn’t called since he moved out months ago. Her parents hadn’t bothered to check to see if she’d made it safely to Texas. If she disappeared, there would be no one to fill out a missing person report.
Jubilee guessed if she’d been able to mark her growth with lines on a doorframe, her chart would be heading down, not up. When she’d left what she’d thought would be a brilliant career, not one person had dropped by to shake her hand. No farewell cake. Not even a card.
As she stood in the doorway of her great-grandfather’s house that was now her only home, she wondered if things could get much worse. The man she’d hired as foreman on the place had said at breakfast—cereal and milk—that he’d finish moving in today and they’d walk the land tomorrow. But, with the downpour turning everything to mud, she doubted they’d be able to start for a week.
Not that it mattered. She’d planned her last life and look how it had crumbled. Why bother to plan this one?
Maybe she should take the opposite of her mother’s parting advice and go goalless for a while. She had forty thousand dollars in her bank account plus what she’d inherited. She could coast, at least for a while. Maybe she’d simply wait until a goal bumped into her for a change.
She had no idea what she was doing out here in Texas. For all she knew the foreman, Charley Collins, was the local serial killer. He might not have stolen her card; murder might be his thing. Think about it, Jub, she almost said aloud. What are the chances that the man delivering groceries and working at the local bar knows how to run a farm? Correction, he’d called it a ranch.
He did have his own horse, though. She had no idea if that was good or bad. What was a guy doing with a horse when he lived over a bar? Logic probably wasn’t his strong suit. He was easy on the eyes, though. The kind of guy who broke every heart he passed.
Only not hers. Three of her four serious boyfriends had told her she didn’t have a heart. Majority vote.
After breakfast, her new foreman disappeared for most of the day, then drove up midafternoon with his pickup full of boxes. He was pulling a trailer filled with a huge horse and a cute pony.
Since she had nothing else to do, Jubilee interrupted her breakdown long enough to watch him move into the little house by the corral. He had an easy way of moving, like a man comfortable in his own body.
She’d thought of going outside to stare at him or even help, but all her clothes were three wearings past dirty. The man in worn boots and a patched shirt had actually frowned when she’d greeted him at breakfast wearing a clean pair of old Levy’s socks and one of his long-sleeved shirts tied at her waist. Just to be proper she used a pair of her great-grandfather’s brand new boxer shorts as her shorts.
Charley looked as though he’d never seen the fashion.
She’d tried to explain that almost everything she owned was packed, but she doubted he’d like her navy suits any better. Three pairs of jeans and half a dozen tops were all the casual clothes she owned. And they were spotted with drippings from meals on the road or wrinkled beyond wearing.
Tomorrow morning she planned to ask him to turn on the water to the washer out back. Levy probably turned it off every month after he used it, and who knew where the dryer had run off to? Jubilee had a faint memory of the old guy hanging his laundry on a line somewhere.
She’d watched Charley unhitch his trailer and park it beside the barn, and then he’d left again just before the rain started. Jubilee finally moved out on the porch and studied the storm. At this point in her day of doing nothing, she wasn’t sure her life was afloat. No career. No friends. No family who would speak to her.
She wasn’t even sure if this ranch was a blessing or a curse. If she hadn’t inherited it, she would have had to pull herself up and start over. Now, she could just hide out for a while.
