Diana Anderson - Entering Southern Country 01 - Famous in a Small Town (10 page)

“Won’t she want to know why I’m inquiring about a duffle bag? What am I supposed to say then?”

He thought a moment. “Tell her the sheriff had asked you about it.”

“The sheriff? Cal knows about this duffle bag?”

“Yes, my son knows. Now will you just find out for me?”

“Sure, but what does the duffle bag look like?”

“It’s just a freakin’ duffle bag. I don’t know … it’s green and was covered in dirt. Okay?”

“She waited a beat and then asked, “Does Cal have this duffle bag?”

“Yes. Now as soon as you find out
anything
let me know.” He hung up.

25

Callie hung up the phone and leaned back on her red, satin pillow. “Hmmm.” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she lay there in thought.

Her satin sheets had felt so exquisite until she had been awakened by Maggie. Everything in her bedroom was comfortable, from the king-sized Martinique bedroom set and chaise lounge to the luxurious white carpet.

She smiled.
I believe I can kill two birds with one stone.
This could possibly be the key that will also open Cal Rayburn’s bedroom door.

She threw back the satin sheet and crawled out of bed. She headed straight for the shower. She’d decided to skip her morning laps in the pool and her usual with Salvador, but if she played her cards right, it’d be worth it.

Later she emerged from her bedroom dressed in a flimsy sundress and four inch strappy sandals. She hurried down the stairs as fast as her feet would go and hoped she didn’t turn an ankle. She grabbed her car keys from a dish on the foyer table.

Maggie poked her head around the corner of the dining room entrance. “Mrs. Wallace? If you’re going somewhere, I thought I ought to remind you that Dr. Wallace is coming home for brunch. He said he had an easy schedule today and wouldn’t be staying long in Memphis this morning.”

“Tell him I have an appointment with my hairdresser,” she called over her shoulder as she grabbed the doorknob. She stopped and turned. “Would you happen to know who Agnes has been calling?”

“Agnes?”

Callie rolled her eyes. “
Raven
. Raven has been making a lot of cell phone calls. Do you know who she’s been calling?”

“No, I don’t pay any mind to who’s calling who.”

“Shoot!” she mumbled.
She just acts way too secretive to me, and I don’t like it.

She opened the door and went out. She climbed down the steps and looked in the driveway. Neither one of her cars were parked there. Puzzled, she thought for a moment and then did a mental head slap. As she hurried over to the garage door, she fumbled in her purse for the remote. She dug it out of the bottom, held it up, and pushed the button.

A wolf whistle came from over the hedges.

She kept her eyes on the garage door. “I don’t have time for you right now, baby. Maybe later.” She scurried into the garage. She glanced at her silver Mercedes and her red BMW and then looked down in her hand.

“Darn! I grabbed the wrong keys.” She hurried over and got into the BMW. “You’ll just have to do.”

26

Cal parked in the Gentrys’ driveway and exited his car. Carl Gentry had one of the few newer doublewide trailers in the area. His wife, Shirley, kept a flowerbed on either side of the front porch. Their healthy garden grew in a plot not far from the front end of the trailer. A satellite TV dish was mounted on a pole at the other end. The front door was opened behind a storm door.

One of the boys peered out and then disappeared. Soon Shirley appeared at the door. She opened it and stepped barefooted out onto the front porch. She wiped her hands on the skirt of her bibbed apron that she wore over a short sleeved blouse and a pair of denim shorts.

“’Mornin’, Sheriff.”

“Mrs. Gentry, how’re you this morning?”

“Fine,” she said as she eyed him. “Why are you out and about so early this mornin’?”

“I came to speak with your boys.”

She let go of her apron. “My boys?” She studied him a moment and then said, “Have they been into mischief?”

“I don’t rightly know, but if you’ll let me speak with them, I’ll find out.”

She hesitated a moment, but kept her eyes on him as she called over her shoulder, “Thomas, Benjamin, Parker, y’all get on out here.”

A few seconds later, Tom appeared at the door, cracked it open, and poked his head out. “Ma’am?”

“I said y’all get on out here. The sheriff needs to have a talk with y’all.”

Tom eased the door open and stepped out, Ben followed, and then Parker. They lowered their heads and their eyes cut back and forth to each other, to their mother, and then to Cal. They lined up in a row with the youngest next to their mother. He latched onto her apron and leaned against her.

“Okay, Sheriff,” Shirley said. “The church bus’ll be along any minute, so you might want to hurry up about it.”

Cal nodded at her and looked at the boys. “I need to ask y’all some important questions. I’ve been investigating the Neals’ case and think y’all might be able to help me.”

Ben cut his eyes to Tom and then looked down at the porch. Tom lowered his head too. Parker’s eyes filled with tears. Cal watched one slide down his cheek.

“Your pa said that y’all were spooked in the woods the other day when y’all were trying to get that sledge hammer back to Virgil.”

Tom mumbled something.

“Speak up, boy. The sheriff can’t understand your mumbling.” Shirley tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear as she watched Tom.

Ben jerked his head up and blurted, “We didn’t kill no one. Honest we didn’t. He was already dead.”

Tom frowned at Ben. “Dang it, Ben, we promised each other not …” Tom’s face turned red. He looked up at Cal.

“Who was dead?” Shirley’s eyes widened.

Cal raised his hand for her to hush. “Boys, I don’t think y’all killed anyone, but I think y’all know something that might help me find out who did.” He looked at each of them. “Well?”

Tom swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “We was walkin’ through the woods and came upon a man.”

Ben looked at Tom. “You don’t know if it was a man or not.”

Tom scrunched his face at his brother. “It was so a man. He had a big hand, and women don’t have hands that big.”

“Okay, okay, guys, just one at a time,” Cal said as he looked back at Tom. “Tom, go ahead and tell me what you saw.”

“Well,” he said and took a breath. His eyes darted back and forth in thought. “We were walkin’ through the woods, just talkin’ about one thing or another, when we came upon a hand stickin’ up out of the dirt. We weren’t for sure if it was real or not, ‘cause it was gray. I got to thinkin’ it could be one of them aliens. You know, they call ‘em grays?”

Cal nodded.

“We seen it on TV.”

“Go on,” Cal said.

“So Ben and Parker … well, they got scared and—”

“I wasn’t scared!” Ben said.

“Me either!” Parker said.

“Boy’s hush. Let Tom tell his story, and then y’all can tell yours,” Cal said.

“Well, I wanted to protect them … my brothers,” He nodded toward them and then looked back at Cal. “So I took the sledge hammer and hit that hand. It broke slap off his arm and went sailing through the woods. And when he didn’t move, we all ran back home as fast as we could.”

Shirley eyes widened, and Cal raised an eyebrow.

“Is that what happened?” Cal asked as he looked at Ben and Parker.

The other two boys nodded.

“I was scared,” Parker said in a quiet voice. “It could still be out there.”

Shirley patted his shoulder.

“Where was this … hand?” Cal asked.

“It was stickin’ outta the ground.” Tom looked beyond Cal and pointed across the road.

Cal turned and looked in that direction. He lifted his gaze to the sky above the tree line where the buzzards circled.

27

Callie had knocked and rang the doorbell several times. She stood on Cal’s front porch on tiptoe and tried to peek in through the window on his front door. She couldn’t get high enough to see. Frustrated, she walked to the nearest window beside a porch swing and peered inside. She couldn’t see well through the lace panels that hung over his window.

“Lace panels? Bachelors don’t have lace panels … unless he’s … .” She thought a moment and then shook off the thought. She scanned the area of the porch. She saw a flowerpot below a window at the other end of the porch. She walked across the way, squatted, and lifted it.

Nothing.
“Hmmm. Where would he keep a spare key?”

“Looking for something?” a female voice came from the sidewalk.

Callie’s head popped up. A woman climbed the steps. Callie stood up and turned toward her.

“Why, Mrs. Wallace,” Janie said, “fancy meeting you here,” When she stepped onto the porch, she turned toward Callie.

Callie ran her hands over the front skirt of her dress as she walked toward the steps. “I was looking for Cal … I mean the sheriff.”

“Well, you won’t find him under the flowerpot.”

Callie stopped in front of Janie. She squinted at her. “I know he’s not under the flowerpot.”

“Did you try knocking on the door?”

Callie looked toward the street and then back at Janie. “I’ll catch him at his office.” She hurried down the steps, got into her car, and sped away. She glanced in the review mirror. “Bitch.”

She drove out of the quiet subdivision and headed down Main Street toward the sheriff’s office. She arrived a few minutes later and entered the building. She approached a desk and read the name plate, Deputy Justin Ledet, but he wasn’t at his desk. She looked around the room. Nobody was in the lobby.

“Hello?” she called out.

“Hold on. I’ll be with you in a sec,” someone called out from down the hallway.

She fidgeted as she looked around the room. She noticed two large posters on the wall and walked over to them. She looked over the America’s Most Wanted poster. That baffled her. She had thought that was only made up for TV drama. She looked at the FBI’s Most Wanted poster.

“Wow!” She scanned each one until she came to the next to the last one. “He looks familiar.”

“May I help you?”

She spun around, pointed over her shoulder at the poster, and opened her mouth to say something but was taken aback. She eyed the deputy a moment.
Hello, handsome!
“Have we met? ‘Cause if we have, I’m sure I would remember you.”

He looked at her a few seconds, and then shook his head, and said, “Nope! What is it you need, Miss?”

She looked at his name tag pinned to the shirt of his uniform. “Deputy Ledet?”

“At your service.” He nodded. “Now, how can I help you, ma’am?”

She giggled, but inside she fumed. “Ma’am? I’m far from being that old.” She studied him and then said, “Ledet, is that French?”

“Yes’m.”

“You’ve got a bit of an accent.”

“I’m from Houma, Louisiana. Now, you’ve never told me what you needed. I’ve got some work I need to tend to.”

She smiled. “Of course. I just love your accent. Anyway, I was looking for the sheriff. Is he in?”

“He should be along shortly, if you want to wait.”

Another deputy, who wore a headset, entered and walked over to a desk across the room.

She needed to find the ladies’ room. She sighed. “I’ll wait.” She glanced around the room. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”

He pointed toward the hallway. “Go straight down that hallway there, and it’s at the end on the right.”

As she sashayed away, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled, and gave him a finger wave. She eyed each door as she made her way down the hall.

She returned several minutes later to find the lobby empty. She sat down in a chair near a window and crossed her legs. She wiggled her foot and looked around the room. After five minutes, she stood up, walked over to the hallway, and looked down the length of it. She glanced around behind her and then took off down the hallway for Cal’s office. She reached for the door handle and tried to open it.

Locked!
“Crap!” Her shoulders slumped. She tried each door up and down the hallway. All were locked. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Who keeps the sheriff’s Department locked up tighter than Dick’s hatband? You’d think there was something in here to steal or … something.” She thought a moment while her teeth worked on her bottom lip.

She turned on her heel and left the building. She climbed in her car, squealed the tires as she backed out, and left rubber when she drove away.

She arrived home ten minutes later and parked the car in the driveway. She took note that Ted wasn’t home yet.

She exited her car, looked around, and spotted Salvador by the sprinkler system. She took off around the house and came up behind him. She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. She shoved him backwards. He lost his balance and landed on his backside.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he stared up at her.

She hiked up her skirt and sat astride him.

28

The noon temperature had hit the hundred degree mark. Not a breeze was blowing. The heat index felt like one hundred and ten in the woods. Sweat ran down Cal’s back, and his shirt was drenched. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand and then placed his hands on his hips. The M.E. and his assistants lifted the body out of the shallow grave and placed it into the body bag.

Every inch of the area had been sifted through. The hand that the Gentry boys had talked about had been recovered.

He didn’t recognize the victim and neither had any of the deputies. All they could hope for were dental records, fingerprints, or someone to come forward about a missing person. All the M.E. could tell him was the victim was male, approximately five foot, ten inches, black hair, and brown eyes, possibly Hispanic, and had been dead for at least three days.

Justin stepped up beside Cal. “Don’t make any sense. First a bloodbath in the Neals’ home, and now this poor guy got his brains blown out.” He shook his head.