Category: Mystery

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Cheerleader, Gymnast, Flautist, Spy

Laying in bed with a broken leg, Jody Anderson recalls the events that have brought her to that moment. Adolescent gymnast … college cheerleader … flute player in the band …

Just how did all this land her in a hospital, her medical bills paid by the Treasury Department?

How did she get from a farm in rural, northern Arkansas to the world of being a domestic spy, bullets flying, bones breaking, and romance?

Now available on Kindle and paperback! Now available on AUDIO!!

To read this story from Bat’s perspective, be sure and purchase “The Nice Guy“, “The Return of the Nice Guy“, “Up to Bat” and “Last at Bat“!

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What the readers are saying …

“I read it and I loved it! Jody feels like someone I really met. Looking forward to more adventures with her and Bat.” ~KD, LA

“I like that you have given Jody her own novel. A very interesting character and I enjoy the relationship with Bat.” ~MM, TX

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Sample Chapters

Prologue

I think my life turned a corner when I was sitting in bed one evening, looking at my leg. I wasn’t looking at the leg in the cast, but at the other one, the one that was—for that moment in time—my “good” leg.

I know some women who are really proud of their legs and other women who are constantly embarrassed by their legs. I don’t believe I have ever been one or the other. I never thought I had the prettiest legs around (or the most athletic, or most shapely), but I never thought they were the worst, either. Physically, I have good qualities and things I’m not thrilled with, but my legs? If asked—and I don’t think anyone ever has—I would probably have just said, “They’re OK.”

I was never quick enough with a glib comment, but if I were, maybe I would have paraphrased Honest Abe and said something like, “They’re long enough to touch the ground.” Or maybe I would have declared, “They get me where I’m going.”

Sitting there in my bed, pillows propping me up from behind and more pillows under what up until so recently had been my “good leg” in that it hadn’t been broken in a long time, my mind began to change. Not just about whether my legs were nice, hot, fat, skinny or ugly, but whether much of what I had held and believed was true.

It started with myself, though. And while I would like to think that I wasn’t so shallow as to be driven entirely by self image, I know my self image was a part of what was wrong with how I thought.

At that moment in time, I had one leg that was in great shape, but broken. The other leg was unbroken, but still a little atrophied from when it had been broken. As I sat there looking at my legs, I realized that the one that appeared to be worse off at the moment might be better off and the one that looked OK actually needed the most work.

As the days went by and I was able to rehabilitate—to force myself to rehabilitate—my focus went entirely to my legs. I was determined that both legs look good—not in a vain, supermodel way I told myself, but in a healthy, in-shape way—and in the process I lost focus on pretty much all else in my life. Still, the idea had crept into my psyche that evening that what appeared right wasn’t necessarily so and, as much effort as I put in to telling myself that truth only applied to my legs, the seed was planted that maybe it described the sum total of me.

To avoid that thought, I threw myself into my work and every workout, every exercise, even what I ate. I read articles on line and in print about the best nutrition for healing a bone break and for building back the muscles after a period of inactivity. I learned exercises I could do at my desk while at work, and more I could do in the evenings while watching TV or whatever. I devoured all the information I could find about the human body and how it heals after trauma …

And ignored pretty much everything I ran across about how the human mind heals after tragedy. I wasn’t interested in the mind. The mind, I told myself, was taking care of itself. It was taking care of itself by looking after the body, by exercising itself with reading and study (about the body, granted), and by putting the trauma of the past behind me.

I told myself I was dealing with the mental and emotional aspect of the tragedy by moving on. “Moving on” meant to me that I never thought of it and quickly changed the subject if anyone else brought it up. It was behind me and wasn’t worth worrying about. The now was what counted, and the future!

The amazing thing about seeds is also the problem with them. As a little girl I used to be fascinated with the way a tree could tear up a sidewalk. Here was this wooden thing that you could damage with an axe (or a bike, if you ran into it, while showing off in front of your sister … or boys), that you could cut up with a saw or burn with fire. And over here you had concrete which didn’t show the least little mark when you crashed your bike into it, that you couldn’t cut with a saw or set fire to. Yet, over time, that tree which had sprung from a tiny little seed—like an acorn—could destroy the sidewalk.

Once the seed got planted in my mind that everything was not as it seemed, it never stopped growing, expanding, working on me. And like the tree whose battle with the sidewalk may take a long time before it can be seen, it was a while until the seed in me grew big enough to no longer be ignored.

In the midst of looking at my legs as if I could will them into better shape or perform some sort of psychic surgery on them, the phone rang. I had a unit right beside my bed, but I didn’t answer it, preferring to let my family be my buffer zone.

A couple moments later, my father stuck his head in the door and said, “It’s him.” His hand was over the mouthpiece, of course.

When I didn’t respond immediately, just gave him a firm countenance that probably looked like I was constipated, he asked, “Shall I tell him you’re busy or to stop calling here or what? How ‘bout I tell him to go jump in the lake?”

I didn’t think of any smart remarks at that moment, saying at the time, “Just tell him I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Think you’ll ever want to talk to him?”

I avoided the subject by looking away and saying, “I’m kind of tired.” I hated lying to my father—or anyone, for that matter—but the seed hadn’t taken root, yet.

As he walked away, I heard my father saying, “She doesn’t feel like talking on the phone just now.” I marveled that my father was more truthful with someone he didn’t like than I was with someone I loved.

Chapter One – Gym

I spent the better part of four years as an only child. I don’t remember those years well, but I do have a few memories of having my parents and my grandparents to myself. I also remember that I spent a lot of time asking my parents for a baby sibling—preferably a sister.

“Be careful what you ask for,” they say.

Caroline Renee Anderson was born a couple months before my fourth birthday and, at the time, I thought I had gotten an early birthday present. She was a real, live, baby doll. The legend in the family is that I couldn’t say her name and called her “Carley”, which is what she was to go by all her life.

I have never been convinced whether I was a “Type A Personality” or a “Type B”, but whatever I am, so is Carley. In fact, whatever I did, Carley did it, too. When we finally got to be adults I came to appreciate what that said about Carley’s feelings for me—or maybe it was just because we spent adulthood in separate states. Until maturity (such as it is), though, Carley and I were constantly at each other’s throats.

No, that’s not true.

We were at each other’s hair. It’s amazing either of us had any hair left by the time we grew up.

The only time we weren’t at each other’s throat/hair, was when we were defending each other. I was horrible to Carley: incredibly bossy, insulting, condescending … but let anyone else give her the least bit of grief and they had me to deal with! She gave back everything I gave—even to coming to my defense against any and all outside agents. There were times when our parents wanted to keep us in separate towns just to have peace in the house, but we would both whine and even cry if we had to sleep apart.

I’m pretty sure we’re the reason our father is bald and Mom is gray.

I could give you a lot of facts about my childhood that would be true but would tell you very little about me or my growing up. I had some great grandparents on my mother’s side but never knew my father’s parents very well—owing to something in his life they were mildly disapproving of. I could tell tales of growing up in northern Arkansas in a rural setting, of chasing fireflies with my sister, of trying to tell people we had seen a bear, of just being a little girl. I went to school, I went to church, I went to camp. It would all be pretty typical, very true, and very unremarkable.

It wouldn’t, however, be about me. In my mind and (probably) in the minds of those who knew me, my life began in the autumn of my eighth year when my mom enrolled me in a six weeks course of gymnastics to see if I liked it. Liked it? I loved it. Gymnastics became my reason for existence.

I was attending a private Christian school back then. Even though neither I nor my family really had much interest in the religious aspect of the school, it had been chosen because it provided the best education in the area and better discipline than the public school. And I didn’t mind the Bible classes, just treated them as an extra Social Studies class.

The gymnastics class was held in the gym of my school, which was more of a bonus than I—as a child—realized, for it meant that my parents didn’t have to ferry me around to too many different places … except matches and competitions and stuff like that.

When I started gymnastics, so did Carley. I didn’t mind too much because we were in different groups and, once home, it gave me someone to talk shop and even practice a bit with who knew what I was doing.

I tried to talk shop to Mom, but she had never been around gymnastics until she enrolled us in that class and was behind the learning curve on the terminology. Looking back, I know now that my mother knew a lot more than I gave her credit for, but at that age I had the usual disdain for age and wisdom. At least, I hope it’s usual and I wasn’t just a stand-alone jerk.

The rule for the gymnastics team was that a C+ average be maintained at all times, but my parents demanded an A average of me if I wanted to continue. So my life revolved around school and gymnastics—and I only paid attention to my school work because it was my ticket to the gym. The teachers thought I was a model student, but I really didn’t give a hang about any of those classes.

Well, maybe speech, once I got to take it. I liked that class—and maybe English—because I have always been fascinated by the power of words. It was just a hobby—with gymnastics as a vocation—but it held my interest more than most other courses. I was good in math and history, but the bug never bit me for either. Music was always somewhat fun, but I never thought I had any special gift for it.

In junior high I was encouraged to go out for cheerleading, but I responded in much the same way as a fine painter might when asked to letter the neighbor’s garden markers. I saw cheerleading as beneath someone of my skills and was—looking back—pretty haughty in my dismissal.

I, I was sure, was on my way to bigger things. There was no doubt in my mind I was going to be an Olympic gymnast. In my more magnanimous moods, I pictured myself and Carley as making theU.S.team together and being on the covers of magazines and cereal boxes. With our auburn hair (inherited from mom before we made hers go the aforementioned grey), I pictured us wearing blue and white outfits and a headline above us that broadcast, “Red, white and blue!” I pictured gold to be included in that color scheme, too.

Superficially, I had some of the makings of a top gymnast. For one, I was never going to be tall, having topped out at5 foot3 by seventh grade and never getting any taller. I had strong legs and great balance. And I had drive.

Off the mats, I was quite the girly-girl, not the least bit of tomboyishness to be seen. I liked having my hair curled and I wore dresses and I never got in fights with anyone (except Carley). I didn’t rough house on the playground. I talked boys with the other girls, but didn’t slug them like the other girls (I’m talking about elementary, here).

Put me on the mats, though, and I was all focus. I did the exercises without complaining, listened to my coaches, and was determined to win every time I went out there. They said I was a fierce competitor, but I think that sounds wrong. I never had it in to hurt anyone else or really to even beat the other girls. I just assumed that if I did what I was capable of, I would win. In my mind, I was never beaten. I lost now and then, but it was always because of my own slip-up, not because someone else did better than I did.

Humility was not one of my strong suits. I probably didn’t even have a humility card in my deck. As least not when it came to gymnastics. I think deep down I knew I had weaknesses in the rest of life, but I didnt really care about those things. If they didn’t contribute to my Olympic dreams, I didn’t think they were worth much of my time.

Every day after school, I was in the gym until they kicked me out. Weekends we were at meets and in the summer I went off to gymnastics camp. I usually went to church camp with kids from school, too, but I spent most of the time with other girls who were interested in gymnastics doing tumbling runs and finding surfaces that could double as balance beams.

What I didn’t realize through all this—and didn’t really catch on to until I was well into adulthood—was that I had pretty much preempted my parents’ life, especially my mother’s. We didn’t take vacations like a normal family, because if I didn’t have a meet, then I had practice. When I didn’t have a meet or practice, which was rare, we were saving up for the next meet or some new piece of equipment I was going to need. For many of those years I harbored a latent grudge against my father because it didn’t seem like he was around, but the reason for that was that he was working extra hours to pay for all this.

Times two.

Carley was just as involved as I was and, considering she started sooner, was probably better than I was (not that I would have admitted it at the time).

If asked, we probably would have told a surveyor we were Christians, but the reality is that we were Gymnasts, for it was our real religion. The fact that we schooled and trained at a Christian private school meant no more to me than if the most convenient place to train had been a Zoroastrian monastery. I was there for the gym and put up with the rest.

Like all gymnasts, I had the occasional injury. Most of them were just minor strains, pulls and sprains, but in sixth grade I did break a bone in my hand that hampered me for several months. The crazy thing was, I could never remember when exactly I broke it. At the end of a practice one day I just mentioned to my mother that my hand hurt, so we put some ice on it, then when it didn’t feel better after a couple days Mom practically had to force me to go to the doctor. He couldn’t put me in a cast, but he wrapped it up that day and gave me strict orders to stay off of it for four weeks. I could still do a lot of things, but being prevented from anything was pure misery for me. Looking back, it probably wasn’t as miserable for me as I made it for my family.

Once healed, I was back at it full tilt. I was winning meets all over northernArkansasand, by my sophomore year of high school, I was already being watched by coaches from several major colleges. While I was still attending the same private school, I was competing in meets both for the school and as an “at large” athlete—a term I found very funny for a girl of 5-3—at competitions that featured mostly public school students.

Sophomore year I won best all-round in the Arkansas Association of Private Schools (AAPS) and placed second in the largest non-school meet in the state. I had worked hard and I was convinced everything was paying off. I had excellent grades—which I didn’t care about except that they kept me tumbling—though I was learning that good grades really impressed the college coaches. I wasn’t above dropping my grade point average into conversation if I thought it would help my gymnastics career.

My right elbow had bothered me some that year, but not a whole lot. Just enough that I was always aware of it, but not so much that I told anyone. Bright, huh? After the all-state meet, I mentioned it to my mom, who quickly got me a doctor’s appointment. In theory, I had some time off before I would be gearing up for my junior year and, if I had to take some time off to let something heal, that was the time.

I figured it was just a mild sprain, maybe stress from all my working out, and thought some time off (which, in my mind, was a couple weeks—max) would help. So I consented to going to the doctor just to humor my mom. The doctor checked me over and seemed to be of an opinion similar to mine, but he sent me in for an x-ray on my arm anyway. It turned out there were some tiny little cartilage chips in my elbow region that were the culprits. He scheduled me for surgery, dad’s insurance paid for it, and I thought my life was over because my elbow was immobilized for four weeks, and then restricted to limited use for four more weeks after that. That meant I was going to just barely make it in time for the beginning of the next season, but I determined that I would work my legs and my left arm during the first four weeks, then follow the instructions to the letter for the right arm. I told myself this would, in the long run, make me a better gymnast.

Carley, meanwhile, was excelling at gymnastics and—at eleven years old—was at or beyond where I had been at eleven. We pushed each other until … well, you might say we pushed each other raw. When we weren’t hugging each other and congratulating each other on a successful routine, we were shouting at each other and, sometimes, even coming to blows. How our parents stayed together with all the stress Carley and I put on them I don’t know to this day.

I spent one of my four weeks of convalescence at church camp, and another at band camp. One of my coaches, back in seventh grade, had said that I needed to find an outlet that had nothing to do with gymnastics. I thought it was a crazy suggestion, but I took everything she said as gospel. I think she tried to steer me into painting, but I had absolutely no artistic talent. At church camp that summer, though, I got to be friends with a girl who played the flute and she taught me a few notes. I decided I liked it and, when I got home, asked the school if I could borrow a flute from the band supplies and then signed up for lessons.

I was only ever a mediocre flute player, but I discovered I liked it. I hadn’t taken it up specifically to drive my parents or sister nuts, but I think I did. I discovered that my favorite way to study for a test was to sit on my bed, with all my notes arrayed before me, and play my flute. Then, when I would go in to the test, I would hum the tunes I’d been playing in my head and the answers would come right to me. In high school, I tried out for the band and eventually made first chair flute. I still say I was mediocre, but I was accurate. What I mean is: there are flute players (as with any instrument) who can really bring a flare to their instrument. I couldn’t necessarily do that, but I could read the music and play it—exactly as written, granted, but I could play it. No improvisational skills whatsoever. This made me a wash at jazz band, but a success for the concert band.

Classes, gymnastics, then an evening playing my flute while I studied. I had so few social skills I was the kid the nerds made fun of.

About the only other thing I ever did was shoot guns. Not that I would have ranked it up there with gymnastics as far as an interest, but my father had started taking me to the gun range when I was twelve. With all the time I invested in gymnastics—which involved myself, my mother, and Carley—I think my father was feeling a little left out. So he determined that he was going to “do something” with each of his girls. Carley he took fishing and me he took shooting.

I did enjoy the time with my father—and in retrospect wished I had paid more attention to him and let him know I appreciated it—but my mind was mostly on gymnastics or school. Still, at least twice a month my father would take me over to the gun club where he had been a member most of his life and he would teach me how to shoot. I was never more than passable with a rifle—for what reason I have no idea—but I could, as my father said, “shoot the lights out of anything” with a pistol.

I came to prefer a “nice little” semi-automatic Ruger he had purchased over all other guns, but was also proficient with an old west style Colt .45 that had belonged to his grandfather. For a brief period I tried to use his .357 Magnum but it was just too much gun for my strength—even as I got older. Balanced on the shooting range table I could fire it accurately, but I could never do well just holding it free and, so, would go back to the Ruger. Some of the other members of the gun club used to try to encourage me to enter some shooting competitions but—as much as I liked to compete in other things—I liked keeping shooting as just a fun activity with my father. My father never pushed me and I got the impression it was because he felt the same way.

Junior year, I did really well in the fall meets and led my school to a state championship in women’s gymnastics. By the spring semester, though, my right arm started hurting again and my left was beginning to mirror it. I tried to tough it out, but I finished up third in the all-round for the AAPS. After I got past the tears—not from the pain, but from losing—I told my mom maybe I needed to go to the doctor sooner so that I would have more time to recover for my senior year. I was sure scholarships were in my future and was still holding out hope for the Olympic team.

I went to the doctor thinking he’d just “scope” my elbows and tell me to lay off things for another eight weeks. I figured I would keep working my legs and maybe even do a second week of band camp—focusing on the marching aspect. I even toyed with the idea of taking the youth minister at our church (we spent so much time there during the week we’d started showing up on Sundays, too) up on the offer to work at church camp but couldn’t figure what I would do with both arms in braces.

For years, I could remember nothing of the week after the visit to the doctor. I was not just in a funk, my world and vision had gone black. I look back and I’m really glad I didn’t wreck my car or take up alcohol or something.

We had gone to the same doctor as the year before, but after looking at the x-rays he had sent us to a specialist in Little Rock. There, after another round of x-rays and anMRI, the doctor came to where my mother and I were sitting in a little room and she pulled up a chair in front of me.

She held out some papers with pictures on them and, circling some little bitty dots that appeared near my elbow, said, “Jody, I’m afraid you have what’s technically called ‘Panners Disease’, though it’s commonly known as ‘Little Leaguer’s elbow’ or ‘tennis elbow.’”

I breathed a sigh of relief and concluded, “So I just rest it and it’ll heal up, right?”

The doctor looked at my mother, then at me, and pointing to the little dots she had circled said, “These are pieces of cartilage, Jody—“

“That’s what I had last year,” I injected, figuring I was about to embark on another 8 week layover in my life plans.

The doctor, a too-early-matronly, middle-aged woman with long hair tied back in a pony tail, shook her head and said, “It’s not that simple. We can clean this up—and I would recommend that you let us do just that—but your right elbow may never be at one hundred percent again. You are one in a million, Jody,” she told me with a forced smile.

“Meaning?”

“Your left elbow is on the same path, which is something almost never seen: for one person to get this in more than one joint. Now, it’s not a guarantee that your left elbow has Panners Disease, but it looks to me like it is heading that way. If we do no surgery, besides the pain, your elbows might start locking up on you.”

The mental imagery of that happening made me cringe—and I noticed my mother having the same reaction. “And what would have to be done to unlock them?”

The doctor hesitated, as if formulating her words, then said somewhat cautiously, “It might never happen. But if it did, the most likely scenario is that you would be doing something in gymnastics where there’s a lot of stress—a routine, for instance—and you would straighten your arm and not be able to bend it.”

“Stuck straight out?” I asked, really recoiling at that imagery.

“I don’t mean straight out. It’s like,” she demonstrated with her own arm, “I hold my arm out and it locks in this position. Then, I can bend it a little, maybe a couple degrees, but that’s it. At that point—see, one of the big problems is that if that happens, a person usually panics. Really, all you’re going to need to do for—say, ninety percent of the time—is just try your best to relax as you bring your elbow back to a completely straight position. Most of the time, you’ll be able to bend it normally again after that.”

“And the other ten percent?” my mother asked, worry thick in her voice.

She smiled comfortingly and said, “More like nine and a half percent. In those cases, the locked up person—you, in this case—would hold the arm out straight and, with the other arm, try to rotate the stuck arm very gently back and forth. A few moments of that and you’ll bend like normal again.”

“And that half a percent?” I asked timidly, worried what horrible thing might be left for the “lucky few”.

The doctor smiled and said, “Honestly? It’s probably less than that. But in those cases, you might need to seek a doctor’s help. That’s rare, though. I once had a patient have this happen to his son and I was able to walk him through unlocking it over the phone.”

“Seriously?” my mother asked, mortified at that idea. (And I wasn’t thrilled.)

“That was his reaction,” the doctor replied with a friendly laugh. “But it was actually very simple and it almost never comes up.”

“So what do we do?” my mother asked, seeing that I was dumbfounded.

The doctor took a deep breath, then said, “I recommend the surgery. And then, I recommend that you give up gymnastics, Miss Anderson.”

The rest of the visit and several days after that are a complete blank for me. Two weeks later, when school was out, I had the surgery on my right arm. I went to church camp and cried and prayed and nothing changed, so after band camp I had the surgery on my left arm and then I went home and threw all my gymnastics stuff in the trash—even the trophies and ribbons. My mother had seen all this and—I was to find out later—had fished it all out of the trash, boxed it up, and presented it to me later (a couple years later) when she heard me lamenting having thrown it away.

I lay in my bed that evening, having already made it clear to my parents that I wanted to be alone. Carley was either slow on the uptake or refused the notices because she came into my room and, without saying a word, lay down on my right side, put her head on my shoulder and cried with me. When we stopped crying we just lay there like that, not a single word spoken until our mom found us laying side by side in the morning—still in the clothes of the day before. I hugged Carley with my good arm, told her she was the best sister ever, and vowed to never fight with her again.

I kept the pledge for almost two whole days.

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The Nice Guy (a Bat Garrett novel)

Bat Garrett was just a novice private investigator with big dreams when he was approached by two men from the Home Agency-a secretive government body-to go on a mission. On the mission, his dreams seem to come true as he is surrounded by beautiful women, intrigue and danger. The dream turns into a nightmare when the first woman tries to kill him, the second one turns out to just be a plant and the third woman-the one he has to marry-can’t stand the sight of him. As Bat tries to uncover the secret behind an apparent drug ring and the possibility that he’s just someone’s patsy, he also has to come face to face with the one trial he’s spent his life trying to avoid: growing up.

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Order today on Kindle or in paperback!

To read more about Bat (and Jody), be sure and pick up the next book in the series “The Return of the Nice Guy“!

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Reading Sample

I was in what was then the only non-smoking pool hall in Dallas-if not in the world-and about to sink the seven ball when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Tapping someone on the shoulder in a pool hall-when they’re setting up for a shot, no less-is not usually a wise move. Even in the higher class establishments, there’s still just a bit of the pool hall mentality lingering in the air. This particular tap hadn’t been one of those light, “excuse me” taps, but a hard, insistent tap.

Thinking it might only be a case of someone accidentally bumping into me, though, I turned around affably and asked, “Excuse me?”

Staring me in the face was a vaguely familiar, unshaven mug of a man. He looked mad enough to chew barbed wire and spit nails. His teeth made me think he might have even tried it once upon a time.

He stood about an inch below my six foot, but he would have made two of me in girth. He wore the outfit of a mechanic and something about those coveralls from “Jimbo’s Transmissions” reinforced the idea that I knew the guy from somewhere. On the other hand, I was relatively sure I had never met him before. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered the smell.

“Your name Garrett?” he asked in a gruff, demanding voice.

“Yeah,” I replied cautiously. I had never had any work done at Jimbo’s Transmissions, so I couldn’t imagine what this guy would want me for.

“You the private detective?”

“Yeah,” again, cautiously.

I noticed the pool cue he was holding in his left hand just as he swung it at me. I ducked just in time and the cue splintered as it smashed into a post just to my right. I took the momentary disorientation he was experiencing as a result of missing me to put the post between us. He recovered quickly and tried to take another swing at me, but it was again blocked by the post. I knew that tactic could only last so long, though, so I looked for my next point of defense.

“You mind telling me what this is all about?” I asked hurriedly, retreating to the far side of the pool table. I held my own cue up as if it were a sword and tried to parry his blows. Fortunately, he wasn’t any better at fencing than me and the blows didn’t land on anything except the table. I was hoping someone from management was watching because I didn’t want to have to pay for the gashes in the felt.

“You know what it’s about!” he shouted, a rage pouring out of him like I hadn’t seen since I rode my bicycle through Mrs. McClarty’s petunia garden in third grade.

“I promise you I don’t! But if you’ll tell me what it is that has you so worked up, I swear I’ll do whatever I can to rectify the situation.”

“I’ll rectify you! You lousy, worm-eaten shutter-bug!”

“Shutterbug?” I mumbled, more to myself than to him. As an errant swing of his pool cue smashed the three-bulb light over the pool table, a light went on in my own head and I suddenly said, “You’re Mister Watkins, aren’t you?”

“Got that right, punk. And you better stay away from me and my wife, you hear?”

“Stay away? Your lawyer hired me!”

“What?” he asked, still swinging but obviously befuddled.

“Isn’t your lawyer Randolph Shertz? Of Shertz and Osborne?”

“Yeah … ” The swings of the pool cue definitely had less power behind them. The last one had only broken one bulb.

“Randolph Shertz hired me to trail your wife and find out who she was seeing. I followed her and took some pictures. This afternoon I’m supposed to deliver them to Shertz and be paid.”

Watkins reached into the pocket of his once-blue coveralls and pulled out a dirty brown envelope. He tossed it across the table to me, then asked, “These the pictures you took?”

Before I even had the envelope open, I replied, “Nobody’s seen the pictures I took, ‘cept me. I just developed them this morning. Well, me and the folks at the one-hour photo place. And my next door neighbor. He saw ‘em because a couple of the pictures were of his cat.”

I pulled some photos out of the envelope and took a look at them. They were pictures of Mister Watkins kissing-making out, really-with a young blonde woman who definitely wasn’t Mrs. Watkins. I had never met the wife of this wonderful couple, but I had followed her enough for four nights to know what she looked like. The woman in these pictures definitely wasn’t the woman I had been following. This woman had a figure while Mrs. Watkins was, basically, round. I looked up from the photos to Mister Watkins and asked, “Who is this?”

“A friend,” he replied, as if suddenly realizing that his whole appearance in the pool hall that afternoon was, at best, ill-conceived.

“Must be a good friend,” I commented.

“You didn’t take those?” he asked, a little bit of hope that I did take them showing through in his voice. He was suddenly realizing that, if I didn’t take them, then someone else entirely knew about his tryst and he had just told me about it for no reason.

“No, not my work. How did you get the idea that I had?”

Watkins was shifting his feet and absently fumbling with the broken end of his pool cue when he finally replied, “I was looking for the checkbook when I stumbled across some of my wife’s files and found that she had been seeing my lawyer. I wondered why. Then, I ran across your name on one of the sheets and it said you were a private eye. When I got them pictures, I figured Shertz must have hired you on her behalf to trail me and find out if I was cheating on my wife.”

“Well, I didn’t take these pictures.” I went over to my jacket, which was hanging on a near-by hat tree, and pulled an envelope out of the righthand pocket. I tossed it to Watkins and said, “These are the pictures I took. See? I have a much better sense of composition and style.”

He pulled out the photos and a strange smile appeared on his face as he flipped through them. I knew what was in those pictures and was wondering what a husband would find amusing about them.

“I’ll be dogged,” he remarked. “So she was cheating on me while I was cheating on her. Who’d’a thought?”

I was puzzled and asked, “You didn’t know your wife was cheating on you?”

“Not a clue,” Watkins replied. He smiled a gapped grin and asked, holding up one of the pictures of his wife, “If you were married to that, would you ever suspect her of cheating?”

“I think I’d rather not answer that.”

Watkins shrugged and muttered something like, “No matter.” He seemed to be taking it awfully calm, but that may have been because he had just been caught with his own coveralls down.

I was talking mostly to myself when I asked, “Then why did Shertz hire me to take photographs of your wife? I don’t get it.”

“Huh?” he looked up from the pictures as if he hadn’t been listening.

“Your wife goes to Shertz to start divorce proceedings. Shertz, it would seem, hires a private detective to catch you in the act of infidelity; a job that is done quite well. So, why would he also hire me to trail his client and catch her cheating?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. It seems like his best bet would have been to make his client come out looking virtuous while you look like a jackrabbit. But, as long as I get paid …” I pointed to the contents of his hands and said, “Can I have my photos back?”

“Uh, sure.” He handed them across the table and picked up the photos that had heated him up and sent him after me in the first place. Then, much to my surprise, he extended his hand across the table and said, “Sorry about trying to brain you with the pool cue.”

“It’s all right,” I told him, shaking his burly hand. “I’d have probably been more upset if you had been successful.”

“I was just all worked up when I thought you were going to blackmail me. I’ve been through that before.”

As much as I would have liked to know what he meant by that, I was already thinking along other lines. My brow furrowed with confusion, I asked, “But you aren’t that upset now that you know she was cheating on you?”

“Well, you know what they say: turnabout is fair play.”

“In bowling, maybe. But this is a marriage you’re talking about.”

“Eh,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand, “It wasn’t much of a marriage.”

The attitude was completely incomprehensible to me, but suddenly, I had a pretty clear idea about why his marriage wasn’t working.

“I guess I better go back to work.” He said it like it was just the most natural thing to do; like this sort of thing happened on all his lunch breaks. “Reckon I ought to give Shertz a call on my coffee break and find out when the divorce proceedings will start.” He laughed good-naturedly and added, “Them lawyers. They sure play both ends against the middle, don’t they?”

He left without further ado. Me, I just stood there with my pictures of Mrs. Watkins and the butcher. I got to thinking that-if I’d had any idea the marriage had such casual views of fidelity-I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. Rather than skulking around and taking pictures from house-tops and rose bushes, I probably could have just asked Mrs. Watkins and her paramour to pose for me. I cast one more glance at the ugly couple-now even more distasteful to me since I knew more of the story-then shoved the pictures into my pocket.

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Shoot-Out at the Federal Courthouse

Was it just a simple murder of a man passing through, or is there a larger plot afoot? Ira “Doc” Pearson is on the case, if he can survive it.

Published by Outlaws Publishing and available on ebook (in many formats) and in paperback!

Ira “Doc” Pearson is brought to an almost-dead body found beside the road. Before the man can reveal who his killer was, he expires, leaving Ira to uncover the mystery. And Ira doesn’t even know the identity of the dead man!

Meanwhile, someone is bringing in a lot of toughs to Van Bendt, TX, and the surrounding towns. Someone who has deep enough pockets to keep them paid, under controlled, and even satisfied with imported “working women.” Is someone just reopening one of the nearby gold or silver mines, or setting up a corridor for trafficking stolen goods across the border? Or does someone have imperial designs much bigger than that?

Can Dr. Ira Pearson, former Texas Ranger, uncover and even thwart the plot?

And don’t forget to read Six Men Dead and The Anson Parker War and The Body in the Floor!

…

Sample Chapter

“He was like that when I found him, Doc.” Wandy Mitchell was squatting near the man who lay in the dirt, his neck at a seemingly impossible angle and a fresh bullet wound in his back. Wandy, himself, was a stout man of middle age, a family man, and known as a decent worker when sober.

The doctor reached out with expert hands and checked for a pulse. To his own surprise, he said, “This man is still alive!”

“I wasn’t sure,” Wandy mumbled. “But I, um, I had heard you should’na move a feller with a neck injury like that.”

“That is correct. Still, this man is alive. See if one of you can fetch me a buckboard. And a plank at least as long as this man is that we can use to put him in the buckboard.”

“Hawthorn has a buckboard,” someone in the small crowd that was gathering commented before the sound of scrambling feet indicated they were rushing to fulfill the doctor’s order.

“I seen a plank over by that barn yonder. C’mon Red, let’s go see is it long enough.” More feet moved out after that.

Erstwhile Texas Ranger Ira Pearson, now the town doctor in Van Bendt, Texas, was kneeling over the body. It did look at first glance as if the man’s neck were broken. If so, Ira wondered, what was the best treatment? He was likely paralyzed from the neck down, and would be for life—whatever life were left to him. Would he be better off living or dead? Ira knew that wasn’t his call to make, but it was a question he couldn’t help but asking.

Still, how was the man alive at all? A broken neck, a bullet wound that if it wasn’t right through the heart or spine could not have missed either by much. If this man lived another minute, it would be a miracle, Ira thought.

“Anyone know this man?” he asked, without looking up. There were several responses, all in the negative. Out of long habit, Ira glanced at the crowd now and then as he examined the man on the ground.

As Ira did his best to make sure the man’s breathing was unobstructed, he gave a quick glance to the man himself. Mid- to late-twenties, Ira guessed. Unremarkable features but with the latest hair style. Large mustache, carefully trimmed and waxed at the ends. His clothes were nice but showed some wear. The jacket he wore was something of an odd cut, shorter on the sides than most local men wore—almost like some of vaqueros from south of the border, but not quite.

The plank was soon there and Ira instructed the men how to position it and the man while Ira held the man’s neck and head as immobile as possible. Shortly after they had him on the plank, Wandy was there with the buckboard. Enlisting even more people—for at least one woman pitched in—they gently moved the man into the buckboard while Ira continued to brace the man’s neck with his own hands. Once the man was in the buckboard, Ira instructed, “Wandy, let’s get this man to my office. Don’t stop for anything, but drive as if you were transporting the baby Jesus himself.”

“Aye-aye,” replied Wandy, starting the buckboard off gently.

To the crowd, Ira said, “I’d appreciate it if some of you would come to my office and help us unload him.” Most of the crowd followed along, on foot, talking lowly as they did. Someone commented that it was like being in a funeral procession for a live person and was quickly shushed.

The man had been found just off the main trail to the north, not so well-traveled as the road to the west that connected the town to El Paso, but with a steady stream of travelers most days. Wandy, from his seat on the wagon, said, “I didn’t see nobody but this feller around, Doc. No horse, neither. How you reckon he got there?”

“Horse probably ran off when the rider was shot,” Ira replied. He was trying to focus on the patient, but his mind kept going to questions along the lines of what Wandy was discussing. “You didn’t see anyone riding off into the distance?”

“Naw, but it was close enough into town that whoever done it could have ducked into or around a building easy enough.”

“There are no powder burns on this man’s clothes,” Ira commented, not really caring whether such information should be disseminated or not. So it could have been a rifle shot from some distance away. Knocks him off his horse and he lands hard, hard on his neck, I mean. It’s a wonder the man is still alive. You check his pockets for any identification, Wandy?”

“Nope. I didn’t touch him. I was riding with Dewey—me and him been doing some work for MacKnight—and we seen this body beside the road. I don’t think Dewey did see him ‘til I pointed him out. When we come closer, I thought about just sending Dewey on to the undertaker. Ain’t that right, Dewey?”

Ira hadn’t realized Dewey was one of the men traveling along until Wandy asked his question. Dewey replied, “That’s right, Doc. I thought o’ coming to the undertaker, too. Couldn’t see no way that man was alive.”

“Did either of you hear a shot?” Ira asked.

“Not me,” Wandy replied, to be echoed by Dewey.

“This man was shot, obviously, and by the amount of blood under him I don’t think it could have been too long before you two showed up. Dewey,” Ira said suddenly, “How do you feel about blood?”

“Huh?”

“Go back to where you found this man and see if you can find the slug. There was blood under him, so the bullet had to have passed all the way through.”

“That’d be the wildest kind of luck, wouldn’t it?” Dewey asked. “I mean, if that bullet passed through this feller, it could be a hunderd feet from the body.”

“Right. Well, get a hold of the Sheriff and Chubby. Maybe they can find it. You’re right: it’d be the wildest kind of luck, but it might help us.”

“I’ll go tell Sheriff Wood,” Dewey said before wheeling his horse in the direction of the Sheriff’s Office. It turned out he needn’t have done so for Ben Wood was waiting for the procession at the doctor’s office.

He, along with the crowd who had walked along, helped Ira get the patient into the doctor’s office and surgery. There, Mina Pearson—Ira’s wife and nurse—was setting out the instruments she anticipated the doctor needing. They got the man onto the operating table, chest up—though with his head still at that odd angle. Ira gave her a thankful nod, thanked the crowd of helpers, then politely ran them out of his surgery. As Ira was washing his hands, Sheriff Wood asked, “Do you know what—”

“I know almost nothing, Sheriff,” Ira replied, hoping not too shortly. “Wandy and Dewey came up on this body—this man—on the northbound trail. They’re the ones you ought to talk to.”

“Right,” Wood responded. An ex-Army officer, he was not used to being brushed off, but he had enough sense to know that—in matters such as this—the doctor needed to put his complete focus on the patient. He wanted to ask more, but turned smartly on his heel and went outside to question the two locals. It was made somewhat difficult by the fact that everyone who helped carry the man—and a few who only walked along—had an opinion they needed to share.

“Who is this?” Mina asked as she began to cut away the man’s coat and vest and shirt.

“No one’s recognized him so far, or admitted they have, anyway,” Ira replied.

“I’ve sure never seen him,” Mina commented in that southern drawl of hers.

The man never woke up before he died.

And Ira Pearson could not figure out how he had lived as long as he did. A broken neck, a shot to the spine. If there were any solace, it was that the man did not appear to have suffered. At least, there were no outward signs of pain or indications that he was even aware of his injuries—or anything.

He was a man of pale skin—that skin which hadn’t been out in the sun, anyway—some sunburned on his face and neck. He wore a western cowboy hat that had seen some wear, but wasn’t worn out. Light brown hair thinning on top, brown eyes. The rounded shape of his head made Ira think of the few men he had met of eastern European descent, but he knew that wasn’t an absolute. Other than that coat, which was differently cut but probably didn’t amount to the category of strange, he was dressed like any other man who might have been riding that part of the range on that day: woolen trousers, shirt and vest off a rack, cowboy boots stamped on the inside as being from the “Boot Top – Odessa”, which might be one place to start. No gun, but fewer and fewer men were wearing them anymore.

There wasn’t much in his pockets. A silver pocket-watch engraved, “With love, Leona,” was the most telling item, though what it told they couldn’t tell right away. A few coins and paper money adding up to seventy-one dollars—not a paltry sum, but if the motive had been robbery the would-be thief had been scared away by the appearance of Wandy and Dewey. A pocket knife of no distinguishing significance. A half-empty packet of smoking tobacco but no sign of a pipe or papers.

Sheriff Wood put out word to the major papers and various law enforcement agencies describing the man and asking for information—no word of his death—but did not carry a lot of hope in the endeavor. There was just a description of his person and his clothes, that he was last seen around far west Texas, and had an acquaintance named Leona. In the meantime, the man was interred in the local cemetery as a “John Doe” and wrapped tightly in oil cloth should the need to exhume him arise. Most of the folks who had helped carry him came to the funeral, as well as the Sheriff, the doctor and his nurse, and a few curiosity seekers who never missed a funeral anyway. The preacher from the church where Ira and Mina attended said the obsequies under a cloudless and hot, west Texas sun.

After the crowd had mostly dispersed, Sheriff Wood asked Ira in a low voice, “You get word to the Rangers?”

“I assumed you had,” Ira replied.

“I did, but, well, I thought they might take more notice if it were to come from you.”

“I can send a wire, but I’m not a Ranger anymore. I think they’re more likely to pay attention to a duly-elected official than me.”

“Maybe.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his now-thinning hair, then said, “Me and Chubby have both been out there. We sure can’t find any sign of the bullet that killed this fellow. You think it’s important?”

“Probably not. If it were some uncommon caliber and we knew of only one man in town who had a rifle like that—but no. Not likely.”

“The best bet,” Mina injected, “Is that someone will see that notice in the paper and realize it’s their cousin or husband who was out this way and hasn’t checked in.” She shrugged, as if embarrassed, and added, “That’s not exactly a ‘good bet’ is it?”

“You’re right, though,” Wood said. “Me and Chubby’s been all over that area out there the last couple days. No sign of an unclaimed horse that might be that man’s ride, no unexplained tracks nearby—well, I mean, it’s right by a major trail. Lots of tracks, but none suspicious. What would the Rangers do in a case like this?” He quickly defended, “I know how to keep peace and diffuse arguments before they turn into fights, but I must admit I know little of investigations.”

“Keep your ear to the ground. Lot of times, someone saw something that they didn’t know they saw, or they don’t remember it until later.” Ira offered a smile as he patted the sheriff on the shoulder and said, “The fun part is sifting through all the people who remember things they just made up or don’t matter in any way to the situation at hand.”

As they parted ways, Ira was reminded of the strange relationship he had with the Sheriff. Ira was a former and well-thought-of Texas Ranger. Ben Wood was a retired army officer used to command. Ira frequently told anyone listening—and himself—that he had no interest in returning to the Ranger fold, but the town still seemed to think of him as “their Ranger” as much as “their doctor”. This rankled Wood, but the sheriff was also smart enough or wise enough to use a good resource when one was available. So while he would have preferred to take on all such matters alone, he knew the value of having a pipeline to the Rangers handy. He was also becoming enough of a politician to keep up appearances of a good relationship with someone the town liked so much.

When Wood was out of hearing range, Mina asked—though still in a quiet voice, “How would you investigate this, if you were still a Ranger?”

“Mostly, I would do just what he’s doing: send out notices and ask questions. There’s always someone who saw something. A dog that barked when it was thought no one was around. A shirt that went missing off a laundry line. The first thing I would probably do—and Ben may be doing it—is to try and find out how that man got where he was. If he were shot from a horse, what happened to the horse? Even if he walked to that point, where did he walk from? We’re assuming he came in from the north, so I’d start asking people up along that way if they had seen him come by. If he were on horseback, then he must have watered his horse somewhere. Was it at a farm or in a community?”

“It’s a cinch he didn’t walk in from the north, not in this weather. And his boots would be worn to a frazzle.” Mina smiled at his enthusiasm and asked, “Do you wish you were still out there, on the trail as it were?”

Ira smiled and replied, “That’s a bit of a loaded question—or the answer is. That aspect of it, the puzzle and the thinking, I liked that. And I liked being on horseback and seeing new horizons.” He leaned over and gently drew her into a kiss before saying, “But then, I really like working with the world’s prettiest nurse, and coming home to her as my wife. And I like—well, I don’t want it to sound like I like to see someone in pain—but I do like it when someone comes in and they don’t know what’s wrong with them and we figure it out—you, me and the patient. You’re good at asking the right questions, you know.”

“I find that interesting, too. Sometimes, I think you should be in a research hospital, or at least in a big city somewhere, helping a lot more people than you do here.”

“If I did that, we couldn’t delay for a few minutes after a funeral and just talk. Shoot, we probably couldn’t even get away to go to the funeral.” As he started his horse toward the office, he added, “I think I have the distinct advantage over a younger man in that I have learned what’s important to me. I get to help people, I get to ride a horse, and—best of all—I have you.”

“Why Doctor,” she said, exaggerating her Alabama accent, “You do go on, don’t you?” She waved in front of her face as if she were holding a paper fan, such as southern women like her grandmother used to do. She remembered her grandmother, still trying to hold on to the “genteel south” long after everything had changed and the image made her shake her head—not with sadness but with a sort of ironic wistfulness for her grandmother.

“You all right?” Ira asked quickly, noticing the look on her face.

She forced a smile and said, “Mostly. Just a brief vision of the past, is all.”

Mina had never really regretted leaving Alabama, for there had been nothing left for her there except the prospect of trying to hold on to a past she had never experienced. She had made—or been given—a wonderful and fulfilling life out in the dry town of Van Bendt, so different from where she had grown up as to seem like something out of one of the more fantastic pulp stories. Still, she did miss her family at times, just not enough to go back.

“Want to go for a ride?” Ira asked as they were closing up shop for the day, the number of people in Van Bendt in need of doctoring having been unusually low that day.

“Always,” Mina replied with a light laugh. “But why do I get the feeling you have something in mind for this ride?”

“I have no idea, Nurse,” he replied as he put on his hat. Locking the door to the office, they went to where their horses were standing in the little corral adjacent and led them past the gate.

The gate closed and latched, they mounted up and—before they had even taken a dozen steps—Mina asked, “We’re going to go look at the scene of the slaying, aren’t we?”

He gave her a mock scowl and replied, “It’s really not a good idea for a Ranger to be this predictable.”

“Good thing you’re not a Ranger anymore,” she laughed in return. “And honestly, I doubt that anyone knows you as well as me, anyway.”

“That is probably true,” he said as they set out.

“What are you hoping to find?” Before he could answer, she quoted in a voice that loosely approximated his bass, “’I’ll know it if I see it.’” Back in her normal voice she asked, “This is one of those moments, isn’t it?”

“If I didn’t love you so much that could get annoying.”

There was still a spot of blood on the sand, which marked where the John Doe had fallen. Ira was surprised no one had covered it in the two days since the presumed murder, if not with intent to do so but just the milling about of people curious to see the site of a murder.

“We’re all assuming murder,” Ira said as he got off his horse. Mina stayed on hers for two reasons: she knew Ira was apt to mount and dismount frequently during such a pursuit and she really enjoyed riding a horse. Side-saddle (like this day) or astride, she really didn’t care, she just like being horseback.

“What else could it be?”

“Hard to say. Might be some scenario where this was self-defense, though that seems unlikely. About all I can rule out is suicide.” Ira stood there, hands on hips, trying to picture exactly how the body had lain. With that in mind, he reoriented himself slightly, trying to guess where the shot had come from. Talking mostly to himself, he said aloud, “The shot hits him square in the back, and goes through on a pretty straight path. The shooter seems to have been on a level with the victim. Was the victim mounted or walking?”

“If he were mounted,” Mina offered, “That makes it harder to tell where the shot came from, doesn’t it? The horse could have bucked him off, or even if he fell right away there’s no telling whether he slumped off to the side of the horse or went tail-over-teakettle over the horse’s head.”

“Right. Still, let’s pick an idea. Say he falls off to the side of the horse—no, I’m thinking the shot slammed him forward, then the horse bucks him off backward and that’s how he broke his neck. Still,” he looked around and said, “There’s just no indication which direction the bullet came from. Since none of us have ever seen him before—at least, no one has come forward who admits it—we assume that he was heading into Van Bendt. He’s shot in the back. He falls forward,” Ira didn’t go all the way to the ground, but pantomimed what it might have looked like.

Then, he shook his head and said, “That wouldn’t explain the broken neck, I don’t think. I’ve been shot in the back and you just fall forward, you don’t break your neck going down.”

“Unless you hit your head on something.”

“That’s true. But there wasn’t a rock nearby that would explain that or an accompanying bump on the head, and there sure weren’t any tracks to indicate the man had been shot somewhere else and dragged over here. There was enough blood pooled under him—and enough still here now—to make me think he was shot right here.”

“Any chance someone broke his neck somewhere else, then brought him here and shot him?” Mina queried.

“I’d stake everything I know about bullets and anatomy to say that shot came from a longer distance away than someone just standing over the body.” He went over to his saddlebags and pulled out a small spade he had carried in there for time out of mind, going back to his earliest days with the Rangers. He started digging where the blood stain was and soon got below the distance the blood had seeped. As he dug, he chopped up the dirt a bit to make sure he didn’t miss anything withal.

Mina, meanwhile, was walking her horse in a slow, ever-widening circle, to see if she could see anything—though she didn’t know what she was looking for, either. She was several yards away when Ira told her, “I’m not finding a bullet, which is consistent with my theory.”

“How far into the soil can a bullet go after passing through a body?”

“I don’t know for sure, but hard ground like this, and no further than from a man’s hand to the ground, I wouldn’t think it would be very far. I’m sure not seeing any indication at all that a bullet passed through this soil.”

Mina made her way to a clump of rocks and ocotillo, saying as much to herself as Ira, “This would be a good place to hide. Provide a level field of fire—maybe even if John Doe were on horseback.”

“Maybe, but being in among rocks will also echo the sound. I can’t figure our man was shot too long before Wandy and Dewey came along. Why didn’t they hear a shot?”

Mina was still on her horse, peering among the rocks in hopes of seeing a shell but wary about getting down for a cool spot in the shade of a rock would be an excellent hiding place for rattlers as well as snipers. She offered, “How sober were they?”

“Good question, but I don’t remember seeing anything that made me wonder at the time.”

“Smoke’s Livery isn’t too far away. If he’s got a good rhythm going while he beats out a shoe, could that noise drown out the sound of a bullet?”

“Maybe. Like you say: he gets a rhythm going when he’s hammering. If the shooter times his shot to that rhythm, it might be hard to distinguish a gunshot from one of his dings. ‘Specially depending on the distance the listener was away from the shot.”

“Aren’t there things you can put on your gun to make it quieter?”

“Silencers?” Ira called back, for she was several yards away by that time. “They’re not as effective as the stories would make you believe. They can also altar the accuracy of the gun and it sure looked to me like whoever shot our man was an expert marksman.”

Walking around in a widening circle of his own, he commented, “Presumably, someone shoots this man in the back with a rifle. Then runs up and break his neck just to make sure? Then he’s got to get away before Dewey or Wandy see him.”

“Why do you assume it’s a man? Women can pull guns on men as easily as other men.”

He gave her a sardonic smile, for the first time they had met she had been holding a gun on him, then said, “Take a pretty strong woman to break a man’s neck like that. There may be women who could do it, but not many, I wager.”

“Would provide a strong motive, though,” she said as she rode back closer to him. At his puzzled look, she said, “Jealousy. Infidelity. Maybe she pulls the trigger and her lover or husband steps over and snaps his neck just to make sure.”

“You have a scary imagination, Nurse.”

“Comes from being married to a Ranger,” she replied. Then, “Are you sure his neck was broken? I mean, did you actually cut into his neck and find the broken bone—or bones?”

“No, but you saw how he was laying—”

“And he was still breathing. I remember this man that lived near me in Houston. Sweet man, probably in his fifties or so—not really old. Anyway, there was something wrong with his neck and he was always walking around looking like he was watching his feet. If you spoke to him and he wanted to reply, if he wanted to see your face he had to move his whole upper torso. What would cause that?”

“Something wrong with the musculature in his neck, I suppose. I’ve seen that before once. Read about it, too. I suppose that’s possible, ‘specially the way he seemed to be breathing just fine.”

“Man like that, he’s going to have a hard time seeing an attacker.”

“Another good point.” He stopped and looked around again, focusing on the rocks Mina had ridden among, as he said, “Still, someone wanted this man dead, and succeeded. Why? Was it a robbery but the assailant hadn’t counted on Wandy coming up just then? Was there some other reason to want this man dead?”

“There’s always a reason,” she countered. At his surprised look, she said, “You’ve been around long enough to know that if someone gets it in their mind to kill another human bein’, they’ll think of a reason. It may be a weak reason to everyone else, but it works in their mind. And like you and the sheriff were saying: a lot of men have been killed for less than seventy dollars.”

Ira nodded and added, “Or if whoever did it had some reason to think John Doe had more than seventy dollars on him.”

Mina snapped her fingers and asked, “What if he did? We looked closely at the neck so I think we would have seen if there were marks where some sort of valuable necklace had been yanked away. But what if he were wearing a valuable ring, or a bracelet of some sort?”

“A bracelet? On a man?” Ira challenged dubiously.

“Some men do. It’s not common, but some do. Or what about a money belt? How long would it take to pull one of those off?”

“A money belt plus seventy dollars in his pocket?”

“Sure. The seventy might be his own but he’s carrying a large sum for someone else in—say! What if it weren’t money? What if the man had a paper on him of some value? A land deed, or a bank certificate or something like that. If the killer knew where it’s being carried, like in his vest pocket, it might take no time to snatch it and run.”

Ira nodded, saying, “That makes as much sense as anything. Still, they had to be quick. Make the kill, grab the papers, run.”

“Not if it’s a local person,” Mina told him. At another of his puzzled looks, she said, “You were telling me how quickly the crowd gathered. Where’d they come from? You didn’t see them when you rode up but seconds later they’re there. If people can come up that quickly, someone can disappear as quickly, right? Or what if it were someone in the crowd? They perform the murder, hide behind a rock or something when they hear Wandy and Dewey, then when they see the crowd they just act like part of it. That would also give them a chance to see if the sentiments of the crowd are leaning one way or another—or if someone saw something.”

“It would be chancy, but this sure looks like cold-blooded murder and someone that cool might have the nerve to stand in a crowd like that.” He shook his head and said, “I saw everyone in the crowd that day. No strangers, other than the dead man.”

“We don’t know the hearts of our fellow townspeople,” she pointed out.

“You’re getting scary again.”

“Not necessarily. And I’m still not saying that murder is good or justified, but who knows what was in the killer’s mind? Maybe he knew John Doe, or knew of him, and somehow was convinced he had to kill him before he got to town. Maybe it goes back to something a long time ago.”

“John Doe wasn’t that old—”

“He wouldn’t have to be. Maybe he was just the emissary for someone else, or the son of someone our local man knew. Maybe he killed John Doe thinking it was the man he fought with back in the war or even further back.”

Ira nodded again, saying, “You’re right. I mean, I don’t know that your scenario is right, but you’re right that we should come up with as many possibilities as we can think of, based on the facts on hand, then start eliminating them.”

“A diagnosis, then?”

“Exactly, Nurse.”

“Y’know, Doc, other wives get called ‘Honey-Pie’ or ‘Sweetie.’”

“Ah yes, but are those other wives as loved and respected as you are by your husband?”

“All right, I suppose it was your turn to make an excellent point.”