A Violent End at Blake Ranch (23 page)

It's after seven, and I don't want to disturb people in the evening, but I also don't want to be here all day tomorrow questioning the relatives. I'll call now to find out if any of them will agree to talk to me tonight.

I start with the Shelbys since they have the same last name as Susan. Henry Shelby sounds guarded when I mention Susan's name. “We haven't seen Susan in a long time. I don't know that I'd be able to give you much information that would help you.” I don't want to break the news that Susan is dead over the phone, but it may come to that if I can't persuade him to see me.

“Are you her uncle?”

“Yes, her daddy's brother.”

“And you had a couple of sisters?”

He pauses. “How do you know that?”

I'm beginning to think people in this part of the country have a natural tendency to caution if not downright paranoia. It doesn't seem that threatening for me to know that he has sisters, and yet he's suspicious. “I'm investigating a matter, and I ran across a photo that showed three couples.” I read off the names.

“You know, you say you're a chief of police, but I believe before I say anything more, I need to see some identification and find out what you've got in mind here.”

He suggests that I come by after eight o'clock that evening. “We're fixing to sit down to supper, and we should be done by then.”

I realize that I don't have a place to stay tonight, since I'd planned to go back this afternoon. That was before I discovered Nonie Blake alive and kicking. I stop at a service station and find there's an express motel not too far from where I'll be, so I call and make a reservation for tonight. Then I call Truly Bennett and ask him to look in on the cows tomorrow morning.

Henry Shelby is bald and has a face as stern as a Baptist preacher. After I've shown him my badge and ID, he allows me into his home. His wife, Nancy, a tiny, pinch-faced woman with a helmet of gray hair, is sitting in the living room in front of a television set, tuned to a quiz show, with the sound muted.

They offer a cup of coffee, which I decline, and a chair that looks to be the least comfortable in the room, a wooden chair that doesn't go with the rest of the matching upholstered furniture. I suspect they dragged it in here specifically for my visit, so I wouldn't linger. I wonder if they are always inhospitable, or if they are feeling that way because of the subject matter.

“Now what's this all about?” Shelby says, settling onto the sofa next to his wife.

“I hate to break the news to you, but it looks like Susan Shelby has been killed.”

“Oh, no. That's a shame. What happened? Was she in an accident?” More curious than distressed.

“No, she was visiting the town where I'm chief of police and somebody killed her.”

“She was murdered?” Nancy reaches for her husband's hand. “That's awful. Did you find out who did it?”

“Not yet. I only figured out her identity a few hours ago. One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is to try to get some background on Susan.”

“I don't see how we can be of any help to you,” Shelby says.

“Why is that?”

“We didn't have any kind of relationship with her,” he says.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

He turns to his wife. “What do you think, Mother, five years?” I've always thought it was odd for a man to call his wife “Mother.”

“Oh, longer than that. Celia's been gone that long. That's Susan's mother,” she explains to me.

“Thereabouts anyway,” Henry says.

“I have a photo here and I'd like to see if you can identify her from it.”

Nancy Shelby clutches her neck. “You mean a picture of her dead?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Oh my.”

I pull the photo out of the envelope I've brought and hold it out to them. Nancy clutches her husband's hand and peers at it. “What do you think, Henry?”

“It looks something like her. Like I said, we haven't seen her in quite a while.” They thrust the picture back at me.

“You had more contact with her when her folks were alive?”

“Yes, when she was a youngster we knew her better.”

“Can you tell me if she broke her leg when she was young?”

Henry looks surprised at the question, but he nods. “Fell out of a tree. I guess she was around six. Why is that important?”

“The autopsy mentioned it.”

“Autopsy? Who ordered an autopsy?”

“In a suspicious death, the state is required to do one.”

“I see. This is all very strange. I don't know how we can help you. What else do you need from us?”

“Susan lived close by. Was there a particular reason you weren't friendly?”

“I wouldn't say we weren't friendly,” Henry says. The couple exchanges uncomfortable glances. “We don't have anything in common with her, though, the kind of life she leads.”

“What kind of life do you mean?”

“We're good Christian people, and Susan chose a different path,” Nancy says. “It like to have done her mother in.”

“I don't know quite what you mean.”

“She didn't live a regular life.”

“I see.” There's code here, and maybe it will become clearer as we talk.

“I have a question of my own,” Henry says. “What was she doing in the town you live in? Jarrett Creek, you say? Who was she visiting?”

“Yes, Jarrett Creek. She was visiting the family of the woman she shared a house with, Nonie Blake.”

“What was she doing with them?” Henry says.

This is where it gets a little dicey. “She was posing as her roommate.”

Nancy gives a little laugh. “That makes no sense,” she says, her tone sharp. “Was the roommate there, too?”

“No. Do you know the roommate?”

“We didn't want to meet her. We don't hold with that kind of life.”

It suddenly comes clear what the problem is. “You think they were a couple?”

“We can't say for sure,” Henry says. “We didn't pry. But we thought the whole setup was strange. I mean that she decided to let that woman live with her. We didn't think it was a good idea. The woman had been in a mental hospital for trying to kill her sister.”

“I sure wouldn't want to live with somebody like that,” Nancy says.

“How did you find that out?”

“Susan's mother told me, that's how.” Henry speaks sharply. “Celia was scared to death that Susan would be killed in her sleep.”

“As I understand it, Susan had spent time in the mental institution, too.”

Henry shifts uncomfortably. “It wasn't the same thing,” he says firmly.

“I understand Susan was sent to Rollingwood because she tried to kill herself, is that right?”

Henry rears back in his chair. “Who told you that? She was there because she attacked somebody in school. She claimed the girl hit her first, but witnesses said Susan did all the attacking.” Interesting. Was Nonie lying when she told me Susan had tried to kill herself—or did Susan lie to Nonie?

Nancy chimes in, “If one of our kids had done something like that, they wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week. They would have had to deal with Henry.” She nods at her husband.

“That's right,” he says. “And they would have had to come straight home from school for the rest of the year. We didn't put up with any shenanigans. Not like Celia. Instead of punishing Susan, Celia decided to send her to that Rollingwood place where they'd fuss over her and ask her about her feelings.” His face is getting red, and his voice has risen.

“Daddy, there's no need for you to get all riled up.” Nancy leans over and pats her husband's knee. “Say what you want,” she says to me. “But Henry's right. Our kids knew better than to cause trouble.”

Despite Henry's assessment of Rollingwood, I suspect Celia didn't send her there to be coddled but to avoid having her sent to a juvenile detainment center.

“Do you know if she ever had problems with anybody after she got out of school?”

Again a look passes between the Shelbys. “Different kind of a problem,” Henry says. “Celia told me that there was somebody stalking Susan for a while.”

“Stalking her? You mean following her?”

“All I know is what her mamma told me. She said this woman claimed that Susan borrowed money from her and never paid it back and that she was bound and determined to get Susan to pay up.”

“What finally happened?”

“Celia paid her off. Said she didn't think for one minute that the woman was telling the truth, but she was afraid the woman would hurt Susan.”

“You don't happen to know the name of this woman, do you?”

Henry shakes his head. “Wouldn't remember it even if she'd told me. But I'll tell you one thing—the same thing I told Celia. I didn't doubt for one minute that Susan borrowed that money. She was always careless with money and seemed to think the world owed her a living.”

I get a tingling echo of Skeeter's assessment that Nonie, or rather Susan, seemed to think she was “owed.”

“She did all right for herself, though,” I say. “I understand she owned a couple of properties.”

“That came from Celia and Dusty, her folks. They were hardworking people. They put money away for their old age. Shame neither one of them lived long enough to enjoy it.”

“Susan was the only child?”

“Yes. Celia wanted more kids but couldn't have any and that's why she spoiled Susan.”

“Do you know if Susan has stayed in touch with any of her other relatives?”

“If she kept up with anyone, it would be my sister Louise,” he says. “She and Susan got along better because her ways are a little more free-thinking than mine.”

Now I have to approach the delicate part of the conversation. “There is a matter that her relatives are going to have to deal with.”

“What's that?”

No matter how many times I've rehearsed this in my head, I haven't figured out a good way to say it. I explain that the body was misidentified and subsequently buried in the cemetery in Jarrett Creek.

“What do you mean, misidentified?”

“Nonie Blake's family identified the body as Nonie.”

Both of them speak at once. “Who are these people? What's wrong with them? How could they not know if it was their own relative?”

“They hadn't seen Nonie in twenty years, and the two women looked something alike.”

The next morning I go to see Louise Kellen, Susan's aunt. She lives in a small house on a tree-lined street with several older, eccentric residences. This one looks like it could be a gnome's house, with little stone sculptures in the front yard surrounded by a wild overgrowth of greenery.

The room Louise shows me into couldn't be any more different from her brother's house. The walls are painted in bright colors and covered with art posters and quirky paintings and family photos. The furniture is a comfortable mish-mash of wicker and cushions.

“She was an unsettled child,” Louise says. She's dressed in a long colorful skirt and a kind of lacy black blouse and big hoop earrings that make her look like a gypsy or a throwback to the '60s. Her hair is long and liberally sprinkled with gray, but her eyes are lively and her wrinkles are smile wrinkles rather than the kind you get from pouting. “I always thought it would have been better if I had been Susan's mother. Celia didn't seem to know what to do with her, although goodness knows she tried. She and Dusty.”

“Henry said she got in trouble in school—attacked someone—and that's why she was sent to Rollingwood.”

“That's right. I wasn't living here at the time. My husband and I lived out near San Francisco, and when he passed away I moved back.”

“Did Celia ever talk to you about the attack?”

“I didn't ask, because it didn't matter what really happened, she always stuck up for Susan. She would have told me it was the other person's fault, no matter what.”