Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 01 - Gunfight at Grace Gulch (11 page)

That won’t help her sleep tonight.
I looked out the window at the side of the road. Last night’s rain had loosened dirt and scattered it in red rivulets across the pavement. It shone a rusty red, like dried blood, in the artificial light. I shuddered. “Both Gwen and Suzanne seem genuinely upset by Penn’s death. They responded so differently, though.”

“You could say they stayed in character,” Audie said, turning on the heater. The night air had grown a little chilly. “Suzanne did, at least. I don’t know Gwen all that well.”

“That’s true. Suzanne was as dramatic as usual, whereas Gwen has always been kind of quiet. Her outburst there at the end surprised me.”

“It sounds like there might be dynamite in those papers. I can’t wait to take a look at them.” He glanced at me. “We’ve talked with two of the suspects. Your impressions?”

A car whizzed past us, blaring its horn.

“Keep your eyes on the road.” The reprimand was unnecessary, and I regretted it as soon as the words came out. Audie drove carefully, and the fool that passed us came around the corner too fast. But I needed a moment to gather my thoughts. I wanted to believe in Suzanne’s guilt, maybe because of the way she fawned over Audie and flirted with him before her lover was in the ground. But every motive that applied to her applied equally to Gwen.

“I wonder how long the affair had been going on. That clerk said she saw them last summer. Maybe three, four months?”

“That sounds logical. It started after I came to town. At least that’s what Suzanne said. Here’s a question: Did Gwen know about it?”

“Absolutely! You heard the way she reacted when you brought up Suzanne’s name.”

“Why, darlin’, that was just a tribute to Suzanne’s fine acting skills.” Audie tried a bit of a John Wayne drawl. “I agree. She knew about it,” he continued in his normal voice. “Next question. Was Suzanne his first?”

That stumped me. The citizens of Grace Gulch usually knew everyone else’s business. But I hadn’t heard about Suzanne. “I don’t know. I don’t think he could keep a string of infidelities quiet. He seemed to be a nice enough man, focused on work and family, just like Suzanne said. The kind that keeps a photo of his wife and kids on his desk. He came into my store to buy Gwen a special present for their last anniversary.” Penn had chosen a peignoir set from 1982, the year they had wed.

“When was that?”

I searched my memory. “Last January, I think. After Christmas.” I thought about the timing. “So it was before he took up with Suzanne.”

Audie nodded. “It’s a classic love story. Boy meets girl, or in this case, girl meets boy. Girl loses boy. That’s where the twist comes in. Did one of them decide that murder was a better option than the third act, when girl gets the boy back? In that case, Gwen’s our gal.”

“But what about Suzanne?” I said. “What if she believed Penn’s pack of lies about leaving his wife? Then she discovers that he was stringing her along?”

“Suzanne didn’t murder him. Why are you focusing on her?” Annoyance laced Audie’s words. “It’s not like this was her first disappointment in love. She made some minor headlines when she tried her wings in Hollywood. She came to Oklahoma to escape all that, only, poor thing, she fell right back into the same trap.”

Poor thing, my foot. He sure has a blind spot for such a smart man. Or was I the one with the blind spot? Jealousy bubbled up within me, hot and fierce. What an ugly emotion.
Lord, help me to seek the truth. Not what I want to see.

“What do you think about Gwen, then?”

Audie shrugged his shoulders, a shadowy movement in the dark car. “Maybe. Still waters run deep and all that. I think she was angry enough. But I’m not convinced either one of them did it.”

“Me neither.” I pulled out Audie’s sketch of the area in front of the saloon and peered at it under a passing streetlight. “Can you turn on the overhead light?”

Audie curbed the car and switched on the light. “What is it?”

I studied the placement of the figures. From where Suzanne was standing, it would take an expert marksman to make the shot.

Something, I was sure, she was not.

11

Gaynor has a good stallion, a black beauty, sixteen hands tall, who looks as if he could win any race he entered. I wonder about Patches. I remember the last run and how other horses outran us.

I have lightened the load that he must carry in hopes of increasing his speed. The ride will be long and hard, over several hills and through thick woods. His experience and endurance should serve us well.

Nevertheless, I looked over animals on sale for the land run. I see more claims of “made the ’89 run!” than are credible. Most of them are old nags, not strong enough for the journey.

I will stay with Patches and hope for the best.

Your loving fiancé,

Robert Grace

~

Monday, September 23

Back in Audie’s Focus, I stared into the now-turquoise night. A hint of sunset lingered through a gap in the hills to the west, a thin band of brilliant-hued clouds. A hundred years ago, my great-grandfather might have looked upon the same sight. Didn’t King Solomon say there is nothing new under the sun? I wondered if and how my ancestors dealt with murder and mayhem or if they accepted it as a normal part of pioneer life.

“It’s still fairly early.” Audie’s voice interrupted my reverie. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard: five past eight. “Since we’ve already had dinner, I’d like to take a look at Grace’s papers. How about you?”

“Sure. Do you really think they will hold a clue to Penn’s murder?” They might. 

“Maybe.” Audie grinned. “I confess that I am nosy. I want to read Grace’s side of the story about the infamous land run.”

“Let’s go to my house then.” I had driven that day, in case I needed to shop or make deliveries.

Deliveries. I had intended to bring Suzanne’s costume home tonight, make the needed repairs, and return it to her tomorrow. Oh, well. Audie’s blind spot where she was concerned, bothered me more than I cared to admit. Did he consider me too provincial—the Okie I was, in fact—in my attitude about Suzanne’s affair with Penn? Maybe he imbibed the live-and-let-live philosophy of the theatrical community.

I couldn’t. I knew as well as the next person that it only took one sin, any sin, to separate one from God, and that He extended His grace to everyone equally. But from a human perspective, the excesses common among the Hollywood crowd sickened me.

Families mattered. As frustrating as Dad, Dina, and Jenna could be, they were always there, the foundation of my life. An adulterer might laugh family values in the face. I wondered about Audie’s background. What roots did the man I had come to know over the past few months grow from? What about his father? I tried to imagine Audie in twenty-five years’ time. Thin, fair hair would grow lighter as gray replaced the blond locks. Those piercing blue eyes diminished by spectacles, or maybe still shining thanks to laser surgery. Laughter lines on his forehead. He would age well.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Audie said.

“Oh, I was thinking about. . .family history and stuff like that.” I was glad the dark hid the blush coloring my cheeks. I didn’t want to confess my image of him as an older man. “Tell me about your family.”

“My parents are both living. They’re still together, a blessing in this day and age.”

“Any siblings?”

Audie shook his head. “But tons of cousins. Both of my parents came from large families.”

An only child. Even worse than dealing with Jenna and Dina.

“It wasn’t so bad. I used to make up plays to entertain myself,” Audie said as if reading my mind. “I got to play all the parts.”

We turned the corner to my house.

“Speaking of plays. I hope we discover the information Hardy used to write about the land run in Grace’s papers.” He sounded so cheerful, I suspected that he was mentally rubbing his hands together.

Audie pulled his Focus to the curb in front of my house, cutting off further discussion. I walked straight in. Even after the murder last weekend, I hadn’t bothered with locking my door. After all, the murderer hadn’t come after me. Audie entered behind me and headed for the kitchen.

“Give me a minute to change into something from this century,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”

The sound of china rattling and water splashing followed me as I dashed upstairs. I wormed my way out of the walking dress I had worn for the day and looked for something more comfortable. Not my sweats. Audie had never seen me at my worst, and tonight was no time to start. Instead, I chose a simple white blouse and navy blue slacks, with a pink cardigan for warmth. I let my hair out of the bun and pulled it back with a hair clip and added reading glasses I had purchased at the supermarket for a few dollars. I needed them for historic papers like the Grace documents with their faded and spidery handwriting, often cramped to fit the maximum numbers of words on a page.

By the time I made it downstairs, Audie had brewed a pot of tea—apple cinnamon, by the scent—and cut up one of the Granny Smiths that I kept in a basket on the table. He moved efficiently, apple peels and cores already disposed, a new roll of paper towels hanging on a vertical towel rack. I hadn’t expected my dreams of us working side by side in my kitchen to come true so soon.

A small avalanche of envelopes waited in the center of the table.

“Your gal Friday, reporting for duty.” I grinned at him.

“Aye, aye, Dr. Watson. Come and join me.” Audie looked at me and smiled in appreciation, as if I had dressed for a night at the opera. “I was trying to put the letters in chronological order, but it’s slowgoing.”

I picked up one of the envelopes. A shiver passed through me. I held living history in my hands. A bold black script addressed each envelope to a Miss Mary Langston in Abilene, Kansas. The postmarks, barely legible over the claret-colored two-cent stamps, ranged from Dodge City to various places in Texas. “The Chisholm Trail,” I said.

“Wasn’t Grace a cowboy before he settled down to ranch life?”

“I believe so.”

“What about Gaynor?”

“Oh, he was a farmer. Another aspect of their feud—farmer vs. rancher.”

We divided the pile between us. Pieces of paper as thin as parchment fell into my hands and opened the door to another way of life. I could almost breathe in the dust—well, that hadn’t changed much, had it? And feel Grace’s faithful pony Patches beneath me. These were the letters of a man deeply in love with his fiancée, a dreamer. Reading his tender expressions of love made me feel like a voyeur.

“I wish I could pick a posy of thistle and lace to bring to you. The day the land is mine, I will bring you flowers every day, if you like.” Oh, to have someone love me like that. I looked again at the plate with apple slices, now reduced to two thin pieces. It was the kind of thoughtful thing that Bob Grace might have done for his Mary. His practical concerns about the dangers of childbirth and the harsh realities of pioneer life also touched me.

“He mentions Gaynor.” Audie looked up from the letter he was reading. “He knew they were both going to make the run for the same piece of land. And it sounds like Gaynor had the better horse. Bigger, at any rate.”

“So the feud started before the actual race. If there was a race, if Grace actually did make the run and wasn’t a ‘Sooner’ who camped out on the land ahead of time, like Gaynor always claimed.”

“I haven’t seen anything about that yet.”

We continued reading. Audie chuckled. “He describes the land as a ‘piece of Eden.’ I confess that’s not what jumped to my mind when I decided to move to Oklahoma.” He must have seen the hurt expression on my face, because he hastened to add, “But first impressions can be deceiving. I was expecting flat fields of waving grain, not trees as thick as a primeval forest on the way in and out of town. Or the constant rise and fall of the back roads.”

“People don’t always realize how diverse Oklahoma is. The high plains start in western Oklahoma. Texas, too. Eastern Oklahoma is very green.” I started another letter. “It appears that Mary Grace did her part to make it a garden. Maybe she planted some of the pecan trees that thrive here.”

“I did see a reference to peach and apple trees. Were there really so many people eager to make the run?”

“Usually about three times as many people showed up as there were potential homesteads. I’ve often wondered what happened to the others. Some of them sold everything just to reach for their dreams.”

“Grace writes about that.”

We continued reading in silence without finding anything. I opened the last envelope, dated September 19, 1891. I blinked and read it again. I will do whatever I must to secure land for our future.

“I’ve found it.” My voice trembled. “It looks like Gaynor was right. Grace planned to be on the land before the run.”

“What?” Audie’s brows shot up.

I handed the thin sheet to Audie.

“I am ready to cheat. . .I have found a cave where I can hide. . .” He read the words out loud. “Gaynor was right all along.” He sounded disappointed. “It’s hard to believe Grace would put his plan on paper. Wasn’t it illegal?”

I shrugged. “Why not? He was mailing the letter to someone who wouldn’t receive it until after the deed was done. And he shared everything with Mary.” My mind reeled with the implications. “But this is not the story Penn wrote for the reenactment. He used the traditional story, Grace’s revisionist history. Why? Did he ever discuss it with you?”

Audie shook his head. “He said he had found some interesting information in the letters that he intended to use. I got the feeling that his journalistic interest was aroused, and I expected to see a complete report in last weekend’s edition of the
Herald
. He had unearthed some photos from around the time of the land run. But he didn’t print the story.”

Possibilities raced through my mind. Suzanne said Penn was working on a big story. In Grace Gulch, no story would interest people more than the possible overturn of our sacred history. Didn’t she also say that he was working on some get-rich-quick scheme?

An ugly thought crossed my mind. No one took Grace Gulch’s history more seriously than Mayor Ron. And his name, the one I had considered the least likely and the most laughable, appeared on our list of suspects.

“Tell me about the newspapers,” Audie said. “I’m guessing that Grace and Gaynor each started a paper back in the day.”

“Yes.” My voice sounded hoarse to my ears. “Gaynor named his paper after the famous educator Sequoyah, the one who invented the Cherokee alphabet. Grace laughed at that, said that Grace Gulch lay on former Sac-Fox land, not Cherokee, and started up the
Herald
.” I thinned my lips in a smile. “In anything short of a world war, they were very partisan. Now, if you are a Grace, you take your news to the
Herald
;
but if you’re a Gaynor, you go to the
Sequoian
.”

“And if you’re neither?”

“I put ads in both papers.”

Audie laughed. “Even so, it was probably in Penn’s best interests to stick to the traditional story of the land run. Anything else and Mayor Ron might run him out of town.”

I didn’t dare to voice my own suspicions. That’s all I had to go on, really, a suspicion, a whiff of an idea, no more substantial than smoke. What if Penn showed the letters to the mayor in an effort to blackmail him? Mayor Ron would do
anything to protect the Grace family name—but did that include murder?

“I like your mayor.”

So did I. Mayor Ron had the support of everyone except the most rabid Gaynors.

“I couldn’t believe his office, the first time I saw it. All that memorabilia from different cities named Grace. North Dakota, Idaho—”

“Even New Zealand. He jokes about retiring there.” I hoped my suspicions were unfounded, but now that they had lodged in my mind, I felt compelled to investigate the possibility. Weariness washed over me, and I wanted to lay my head on the table. It had been a long day. I folded the offending letter and stuffed it back in the envelope.

Audie followed my example, refolding thin sheets of letter paper and tucking them inside envelopes. “There is one more thing I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Let me make more tea.” I didn’t really want the beverage, but my tumultuous thoughts needed a chance to subside. What did he want to talk about? Persuade me to drop the investigation? Back out of helping me? Ask for Jenna’s phone number?
The kettle took a minute to reheat while I rinsed out our mugs. No more sugar for me tonight, I decided. I would take my orange spice tea black.

By the time I finished fixing the tea, Audie had tidied up the letters and moved them to the small escritoire that I kept in my kitchen.

He stirred in a teaspoon of sugar and took a sip. “I wanted to talk to you about Suzanne.”

My heart plummetted. He’s interested in her. I knew it.

“I’ve been praying for her. I try to pray for everyone involved with the theater. But I’ll redouble my efforts now. I had no idea that she was so unhappy.”

“Pray for her?” I echoed his words in a high-pitched squeal. “Oh, of course.” Here I was feeling jealous, and Audie was getting all spiritual and high-minded on me.