Ghost Gone Wild (A Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel) (5 page)

I rinsed the plate and cutlery and placed them in a drainer. There was a thoroughly modern notepad and several pens next to an old wall telephone. I hurried to the table, pulled off several sheets, folded and stuffed them along with a filched pen into the pocket of my slacks. What detective would interview sources without taking notes? I reached the swinging door into the dining area. I started to push it open, then stopped, held the panel slightly ajar, and listened.

“. . . no wonder someone tried to shoot him.” Arlene’s voice was acidulous. “He’s done nothing but cause trouble since he came back. Old Timer Days is the best idea to hit Adelaide in years. Everybody’s behind it, and it’s all because of Cole. What right does Nick have to come back and ruin everything?”

Old Timer Days. This lush, rolling, hilly country had been home first to the Choctaws and, after their removal from Mississippi in 1837, to the Chickasaws. As Congress abrogated many of the promises to Indians, white settlers arrived in the 1890s.

Jan’s reply was sharp. “You’ve been listening to Cole. That’s always a mistake.”

“Cole has every right to be furious.” Arlene’s retort was indignant. “Claire called him this morning and told him that Nick’s buying the property so he can’t build the trading post like she promised. It’s rotten of Nick. He doesn’t care about the Arnold place. All he wants to do is block Cole.”

“Cole can’t possibly care that much about Old Timer Days.” Jan was dismissive. “He knows about as much Oklahoma history as that armadillo who digs up your iris. In fact, I’d bet on the armadillo if I had to choose.”

“You never have liked Cole.”

“With good reason.” Jan’s voice was cool. “He isn’t what you think he is.”

“I know him much better than you do.” Arlene’s voice was soft. “He has a hard time trusting people. He never had much kindness in his life—his dad dead, his mom dumping him on her brother and his family. The last Cole heard she was somewhere in Bolivia. His uncle is a stuffy old jerk. He thinks Cole is flaky, like his mother. Anyway, he needs understanding. He and I have a good time together.”

Jan didn’t answer. She pressed her lips together.

Her mother’s face flushed. “There’s nothing wrong with an older woman and a younger man.”

I dared not linger longer, or they might wonder if I was pilfering the silver. I bustled through the swinging door and ignored the tension in the breakfast nook, though the atmosphere was as heavy as an imminent thunderstorm. Jan pressed her lips together. She made no reply to her mother, but there was very likely no good reply that had come to her mind.

I gave Arlene a swift glance. Undeniably she was a youthful and quite firm late forties, but late forties are late forties. I wasn’t taking undue pleasure in forever being twenty-seven. That would not reflect a generous spirit. “The kitchen is amazing. The plate rack over the butler’s sink is such an excellent Victorian detail.” I slid into my place, pulled out my folded sheets and pen, and looked at them brightly. “It’s been my experience as a detective that authorities are excellent at investigating homicides. But they are not adept at preventing homicides. My job is to protect Mr. Magruder. To do so, it is essential that I speak to everyone who has reason to be angry with him. As I understand the situation, and I have had the opportunity for only a brief talk with Mr. Magruder, he has returned to Adelaide as a very wealthy man and it might be said he came home with an attitude.”

Arlene looked sour. “He can’t wait to tell everyone how rich he is.”

Jan rushed to his defense. “That’s not fair. He’s a success, and he has every right to be proud. The guys who treated him like scum in high school are the ones badmouthing him now.”

I asked quickly, “Such as?”

Arlene’s lips thinned. “I don’t blame them. Nick sneers at anyone who played football. But he hasn’t stopped there. He’s gone out of his way to try to block Cole’s plans for the festival.”

“Cole?”

“Cole Clanton.” Arlene slipped a cell phone out of her pocket, swept her thumb across it several times, held it out to me.

Cole Clanton’s thick brown hair was tousled. His dark eyes looked sleepy. Sensuous lips parted in a half smile, he lounged shirtless on a rumpled bed, propped on one elbow. He looked reckless, sexy, and arrogant.

Arlene gazed at the picture. Desire glowed in her eyes, her lips were parted.

Jan looked away, her expression a mixture of sadness and distaste.

Arlene spoke with energy, oblivious to Jan’s discomfort. “Cole’s amazing. Everybody’s excited about the upcoming festival. He has wonderful ideas.” Arlene gestured around the room, her gaze settling on a glass-paned china cabinet filled with Victorian bric-a-brac, ruby red lusters, paperweights, papier-mâché trays, small statues, china vases, crystal boxes, silver goblets. “We’ll serve a Victorian tea every afternoon, and we’re selling tickets for a Ladies’ Book Society meeting, and everyone will wear eighteen-nineties dresses. We’ll have a review of
The Light that Failed
by Rudyard Kipling. It was published in eighteen ninety, a couple of years after the trading post was built. The Strand Shoppe has picked up twenty or thirty dresses discarded by a costume shop in New York, and the dresses will be for rent with a percentage of the rental going to the festival fund. The Chickasaw Nation Dance Troupe will give a special program at the lake amphitheater, and tickets are selling like wildfire. Bud Hotchkiss has a restored stagecoach and he’s going to take groups for rides. Rod Holt, who runs an Old West store, plans to sell replicas of Oklahoma treasure maps. The festival will get a percentage of the profits. And if Nick hadn’t messed everything up, Cole was going to put up a replica of the original trading post, but that’s all off now. Nick’s going to buy the place from Claire Arnold.”

I looked up from my sheet of paper. “How did Nick block the trading post?”

“Money.” Arlene’s tone was dry. “Claire was willing to let Cole set up the trading post, but Nick told her he would buy only if Claire refuses to let Cole come on the land. Nick offered her a lot more than the place is worth, so of course she agreed. Cole’s really upset. Claire told Cole this morning that she’d changed her mind about participating in the festival. It’s really hateful of Nick. It wouldn’t hurt anything to let Cole put up the replica. Nick did it out of spite.”

Jan shrugged. “Nick has the money. If that’s how he wants to spend it, it’s his business. Anyway, I’ll be glad when someone buys that place and fixes it up. It was bad enough when Gabe Arnold was alive, but the shrubbery’s even thicker now. At least the gates aren’t locked anymore and the dogs are gone. Gabe had two German shepherds, and nobody dared ever touch foot inside those walls.” Jan looked toward me. “Mom’s yard is gorgeous, daylilies and roses and grass like velvet. To have that eyesore next door is hideous.”

I was puzzled. “Did Nick grow up there?” I distinctly remember his saying that he’d grown up next door to Jan.

Arlene shook her head. “The Arnold house is on one side,” she pointed over her shoulder. “The Magruder house is on the other side.”

I made quick notes, but losing out on a place to set up a replica of an old trading post didn’t sound like an A-rated motive for murder. I was ready to move on. Sex is a much better motive than a disappointed event planner. I didn’t want to compound Nick’s difficulties with Jan. Perhaps I could give Nick a boost with Jan but get the information I needed. “Mr. Magruder was irritated tonight when a young woman named Lisa showed up uninvited.”

“Lisa Sanford.” Jan paused. “Uninvited?” Her tone was slightly breathless.

“Absolutely. He hadn’t called her and he wasn’t interested in having her at the house. Then her husband arrived. He thought Lisa was involved with Mr. Magruder. I diverted Mr. Sanford by pretending that Mr. Magruder and I were a couple.”

Jan’s eyes scoured me.

I made every effort to appear as inoffensive and sisterly as possible. “Mr. Magruder was offended—”

“You got that right.” Nick strode into the kitchen. He glanced at Arlene. “Front door wasn’t locked. Since I’m a guest, I thought it was okay if I came on in.” He bit off his words. His thin, unshaven face was taut and his eyes had a flinty glint. “Offended puts it a lot nicer than I would. In fact, I am pretty damn pissed off. I’m playing my drums tonight, having fun, and everything goes to hell. You come”—he pointed at me with an accusing finger and not a shade of warmth, which should have been reassuring for Jan, but didn’t augur well for a cooperative effort—“I’ve got blood on my head, Aunt Dee’s screwing with my life, there’s a bullet hole in my wall, Jan rushes off because the town tramp blows in through absolutely”—he glared at Jan—“no fault of mine. Lisa claims I called her on my cell. I didn’t. But,” and he sounded morose, “a little while ago I checked, and damned if there weren’t calls to Lisa and Brian and Cole. I didn’t make those calls. Somebody must have taken my cell from my car and used it and then thrown it back in the car tonight.” He sighed. “At least Cole didn’t show up. But Lisa’s sad-sack husband barrels up mad as a stuck pig, and, to top it all off, one of the cops—Ed Loeffler—is an old buddy of Cole Clanton’s, and he all but calls me a liar.”

I was shocked. “Didn’t he see the slug in the wall?”

“He looked at the hole, walked over to the window, looked at the ripped screen, turned around and asked me where I was when the shot occurred. I told him I was standing by the wet bar. He got a sneer on his face that looked like a Mafia hit man’s, and said, ‘I don’t think so. If you were standing there,’ and he jabbed a finger, ‘you’d be dead.’ He rocked back on his heels like a gunslinger in a saloon door, and said in this menacing growl, ‘There’s a law against falsely reporting a crime.’ I told him I thought there was also a law against somebody shooting at a man when he’s in his living room. He said, ‘Yeah, if it happened.’”

“Didn’t he do anything?” Oh, if only I could pop to the police department unseen, a ghost on the warpath. But here I was, stuck.

“Oh, sure. He took pictures, wore plastic gloves, eased the slug out, put it in what he called a collection bag. Then he asked me if I was trying to get rumors started about some crazy sniper and ruin Old Timer Days. That’s when I got the picture. Ed didn’t buy the idea that somebody tried to shoot me. He thought I faked it to scare people away this weekend.” He rubbed his cheek. “He’s a buddy of Brian Sanford, too. I guess Brian had unloaded about me. Johnny Cain was the other cop. He’s a good guy. He never called me Phidippus.”

“Was Ed a football player with Cole?”

“Yeah.” The answer was short.

“You don’t like any of the football players.”

His voice curdled with loathing. “You got that right.”

I gave him a cool look. “So you came home to settle scores and used your money to keep Cole off the Arnold property and pretended you were interested in Brian’s wife to make him miserable even though you didn’t care for her.” I was sorry to add to Nick’s difficulties with Jan, but his actions were what they were.

Nick’s stubbled cheeks flushed. “I didn’t hire you to preach at me. If Cole wants to have his little celebration on that land, let him scare up the money to buy it. A man can do what he likes with his own property.” His bony jaw jutted.

Arlene’s voice was hot. “If he got the money, and you know he doesn’t have any way to raise it or get a loan, you’d just double your offer.”

His grin was ferocious. “You bet I would. As for Lisa, I sure wouldn’t have gone with her except everybody knows she runs around on Brian. Everybody but him. She’s been sneaking around with Cole Clanton for a couple of years.”

Arlene’s chair jolted back. She came to her feet. She trembled, eyes wide, lips parted. Her breaths came shallowly. “You’re making that up. Cole wouldn’t have anything to do with someone like her.”

As obtuse as most men, Nick clutched his main point like a caveman with a spear. “You’ve got to be kidding, Arlene. Everybody in town knows about Lisa and Cole. I saw them at the casino a couple of nights ago. I was talking to some guys, and they said room seven at the Roadhouse Inn is called the L and C Special.”

Arlene’s face crumpled. She moved leadenly across the floor, her back rigid. In a moment, there was a clattering sound as she started up the stairs, faster and faster.

Nick stood with his mouth open. He looked at Jan. “What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t think you’d understand. Just like you didn’t care that Lisa might be fooled by you. I’d heard people say they’d seen you with her, and I didn’t believe it. I guess I should have known. All you care about is getting back at people.” Jan’s gaze was steely. “I’ll get the keys for you and Miss, uh, Ms. Whitby.” She moved fast, hurrying past him, out to the hall and back again in a flash, carrying two old-fashioned metal keys on rings with dangling trinkets. She handed me the key with a pink ceramic heart. “You’re in the Sweetheart Room. At the top of the stairs, turn right and go to the last door. Breakfast is served from seven to nine.” She thrust a ring with a plastic arrow quiver at Nick. “Good night.” She turned to move swiftly toward the hall.

“Hey, Jan. Wait a minute.” He took a step after her.

She kept on going and spoke over her shoulder. “The Powwow Room. Top of the stairs, third door on your left.” Then she was gone.

Nick stopped and looked miserable. “What’d I do wrong?”

“Possibly everything. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But quickly, before I go up, who else have you infuriated since your return?”

He lifted his bony shoulders in a shrug, let them fall. “How should I know?” He avoided my eyes.

I wasn’t about ready to accept his evasion. “You know.”

He looked so hangdog, I felt sorry for him.

“Nick, you came home with a bunch of grudges and you didn’t see past getting some payback. You forgot”—Wiggins would be proud of my tact—“that kicking a bumblebee nest can get you stung. It’s up to me to swat the bumblebee. As soon as I know the person who tried to shoot you, you can make amends with everyone else. That will impress Jan.”

I’d tugged the right string. He looked hopeful and eager. “You think so?”

“A very good chance. The sooner I find your attacker, the sooner you can set everything right.” Though I rather doubted Arlene’s faith in Cole Clanton could be restored. “So, who else is mad at you besides Cole Clanton and Lisa and Brian Sanford?”