When Blood Cries: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 6) Read online

  We were silent for a minute or two. I couldn’t think of anymore questions and it appeared that she had run out of anything else to offer.

  “Listen, I need to get back to work,” Mina Beth said awkwardly.

  “Here’s my cell number,” I handed her my business card that had only my name and number. Simplicity. “Call me if you think of anything.”

  “Okay,” she said and walked away.

  Sam wolfed down the two cheeseburgers I bought for him and slopped some water. I called Starnes to see what was happening with her. I told her about the two names I’d been given, Jasper Franklin and Bart Ramsey. She knew Ramsey, but had no knowledge of Franklin. She advised me to hold off on Franklin. Said we would find him together. She also told me that I could find Bart Ramsey at the Madison Feed Company. I took that to mean I was to have a little talk with Bart Ramsey on my own.

  The clerk behind the counter was the same one as the other day. The same man who had commented on my height during my earlier visit to the feed store was sitting in the same lawn chair as far as I could tell. There could have been extra lawn chairs in the back with the feed sacks for all I knew. The lawn chair man seemed secure in his position by the pot bellied stove. I guessed that he was Bart Ramsey, but I was wrong.

  “You ain’t shrunk any, that’s for sure,” the lawn chair man said as I approached the clerk behind the counter.

  “Still growing,” I said.

  “That’s scary,” he said.

  “You afraid of tall women?”

  “I ain’t a’feard of any woman,” he said with great disdain as he spit into a coffee can he was holding. Then he grinned at me revealing tobacco juice and some yellow teeth.

  “I just think it’s unnatural for a woman to be as tall as you are,” he added.

  I pondered the implications of his comment.

  “Well, not much we can do about that, is there? I’m looking for Bart Ramsey,” I said as I stared at the old coot in the lawn chair with tobacco juice on his chin. Lovely, just lovely.

  “That would be me,” the clerk said. “That’s my ne’r-do-well brother, Clyde, in the chair there. Forgive his impertinence. He ain’t got no rearin’,” he said and laughed.

  I feigned a smile to Clyde and he tipped his dirty ball cap.

  “I have some follow-up questions regarding your relationship with Abel Gosnell,” I said to Bart.

  “I won’t speak ill of the dead,” he said. “It’s not right.”

  “Wouldn’t ask you to speak of ill of the dead, just answer some questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You and Abel have problems?”

  “Disagreements. He liked sheep, I like cattle. Clyde likes cows, too. Most folks in the county prefer cows. We just tolerate the sheepherders. Hard to reconcile the differences.”

  “What was the nature of your disagreements?” I asked.

  “His damn sheep would get out of his cheap fences and come over onto my land and eat my cows’ grass. Did it more than once.”

  Sounded to me like he was fairly close to speaking ill of the dead.

  “Did it all the time, I reckon,” Clyde the lawn chair man said without being asked.

  “You two have words?” I said to Bart.

  “Lady, Abel and I fussed and fumed and debated most days he came in here. I didn’t care for him one speck.”

  “You kill him?” I said.

  “What if I did?”

  “Then you’ll go to jail and Clyde here will manage the cattle for you as well as your feed store.”

  “Quick. I’ll give you that. I like a person with spunk. I don’t want Clyde managing anything for me,” Bart said.

  Clyde spit his tobacco juice into his coffee can with great force. I refused to turn around to look at him this time. I had seen enough tobacco juice for one day.

  “Hey, I’m sittin’ over here. I can manage your measly bovine in my sleep,” Clyde said.

  “You ain’t managing nothin’ of mine,” Bart answered.

  “So, tell me,” I interrupted, “did you have anything to do with his death?”

  “Why should I talk with you?” Bart asked.

  “You don’t have to talk with me. Starnes Carver, the sheriff will invite you down to her office and you can answer questions there.”

  “Acting-Sheriff. She wasn’t elected to nothing. Hired help, that’s all.”

  “True enough, but she has sufficient authority to arrest you and charge you with murder.”

  “I didn’t care much for the man, but I didn’t kill him,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “You have an alibi for the Friday he disappeared?”

  “You already know I saw him here, sold him some stuff. After I watched him load it into his pickup, I closed up and went home to supper. The wife doesn’t like me to be late for meals.”

  “What about you, Clyde?” I said, turning to face Mr. Lawn Chair himself.

  “Me? Hell, I ain’t got no time to kill nobody. Besides, I wouldn’t want to waste no bullet on a sheep farmer,” he said as he picked up his coffee can from the floor, spit his dark brown juice into it once more, and then smiled at me. Yuck.

  I could have lived a long time without seeing more of that colorful smile from his stained teeth. It took a while before I could erase that image of Clyde smiling at me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Starnes was sitting on the steps of the front porch when I pulled up. Sam bounded out of the Jeep and headed off into the woods across the dirt road from the Carver house. The call of the wild.

  “You okay?” I said and sat down next to her.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “You find a place for your father?” I said.

  “Asheville. Eventide Nursing Home and Assisted Living. They started the paperwork on him this afternoon. Decent enough place, just… this is hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hope I’m doing right by him.”

  “Two ways of looking at it,” I said. “One view is through the eyes of the heart. I think that’s where the pain is. The other view is through the eyes of the brain. Different view from that angle and less pain.”

  “Some days he seems so … normal, like himself.”

  “I’ve had to introduce myself to him everyday I’ve been here, sometimes two and three times,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You know that’s not normal.”

  “I know.”

  “How many times has he asked you who you are?” I said to her.

  She turned and stared at me. There was no emotion showing but her eyes penetrated mine.

  “You heard that, did you?” she said.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t ease-dropping. It’s a small house.”

  “Yeah. It’s only happened that once. That was bad enough, I can tell you that.”

  “He’ll receive the care he needs at the place in Asheville. You have to trust them.”

  “That’s the hard part. They don’t love him like I do.”

  “They don’t know him yet.”

  “They won’t love him like I do even after they get to know him.”

  “Probably,” I said. “But, if it’s an honest place, they’ll take good care of him. It’s in their best interest.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Profit.”

  “That makes me feel really good.”

  “I do what I can,” I said. “Is he inside?”

  “Yeah,” she said as she stood. “I have to go fix us some grub. You wanna help?”

  “At your beck and call,” I said.

  “What are you good at fixing?”

  “I can set the table and fill the glasses with liquid.”

  “Wow. A regular Susie Homemaker.”

  We finished eating and then cleaned up the dishes and the kitchen. I only had to tell Spud Carver who I was three times during the meal. He did, however, remember Sam. That was a surprise to both Starnes and me. While Spud and Sam watched some shows on the television, Sta
rnes and I sat in her bedroom discussing my interviews from the day. Sam was guarding the front door to keep Mr. Carver from wandering the hills of McAdams County if he got tired of watching TV shows. Short attention span.

  “Doesn’t sound like we have too many good leads at this point,” Starnes said.

  “It’s the way most of my cases run. I feel at home in my ignorance.”

  “This is not my thing, you know. I deal with evidence, not people. I follow the evidence. The facts. The tangible stuff I can do, you know, hands-on. I don’t like having to ask questions, listen carefully, and try to figure out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

  “Everyone lies, just remember that.”

  “I don’t want to remember that. Evidence does not lie. I want evidence.”

  “Yeah, you lab rats are like that. I follow the people around until someone cracks or tries to crack me.”

  “Lab rats?”

  “Okay, nerds. Which do you prefer?” I said.

  “How about intelligentsia?” she said.

  “In your dreams. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I like you lab people. I benefit from your study and research as well as your careful perusing of the evidence; but, I generally have to bother people a lot in my line of work before someone does something really dumb,” I said.

  “Dumber than trying to get away with murder?” she asked.

  “Well, you have a point there. But dumb in the sense that I generally irritate them and they make the kind of mistake that helps me figure out who did what to whom.”

  “You irritate anyone today?”

  “I generally irritate someone every day.”

  “Anyone in particular related to this investigation?” she said.

  “Bart and Clyde Ramsey,” I said.

  “That takes no effort from what I’ve heard and can recall about those two from when I was growing up here. They were always into something. Did you have a chance to bother Mina Beth Cody?”

  “She gave me the Jasper Franklin lead. Outside of that, nothing but distraught tears,” I said.

  “Genuine?” Starnes asked.

  “Hard to read. Could be genuine, but then again, people don’t have to use their words to lie do they?”

  “What about Cain Gosnell, you piss him off as well?”

  “A little. He wasn’t all that forthcoming with me, but he’s carrying a heavy attitude of something. Grudge against the world maybe,” I said.

  “He’s been like that since we were in high school together. He’s a year or two younger, but he was always in fights, always in trouble with teachers and the principal, suspended on a regular basis. Small wonder the man isn’t already incarcerated and serving time for something somewhere,” Starnes said.

  “So why isn’t he?” I asked.

  “He got married.”

  “That doesn’t generally slow down the latent criminals,” I said.

  “It did him. They began dating after I graduated. She moved here from over in Unicoi County, Tennessee. Came from a small town called Erwin. I think he was smitten by her. Anyway, he changed dramatically his last year in high school. They got married the day after they graduated and I think their first child was born that summer. The dark cloud lifted.”

  “Smitten?” I said.

  “Yeah. He fell hard. Seemed to change him.”

  “They didn’t waste any time with children,” I said.

  “Got a running start.”

  “She have a name?”

  “Name?”

  “The one who smited him,” I said.

  “Lucinda Frieda Bradshaw,” Starnes said.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Why?”

  “You know her full name,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Most people remember first names, sometimes last names, but not usually the full given name.”

  “We’re kin. The Bradshaws and the Carvers go way back,” Starnes said.

  “You two close?” I asked.

  “First cousins.”

  “I take it that Cain and Lucinda are no longer together.”

  “Separated at least two years, I think. I heard that the divorce was finalized last year sometime.”

  “How long were they together?”

  “Long enough for three children,” Starnes said.

  “Well, considering how fast they had the first one, that doesn’t suggest they were married too long.”

  “Eighteen years, I think. Yeah, that sounds about right. Stayed together nearly seventeen years.”

  “What happened?”

  “An affair,” Starnes said.

  “He hook up with someone around here?”

  “No. She had the affair.”

  “Oh. I take it then that while they were ostensibly happily married for what, seventeen years, give or take, the dark cloud lifted from Cain Gosnell. Now it’s back.”

  “You could say that. He was moody and all; but, wow, he loved that woman. I think he still does, but … I don’t know. It’s a dark kind of love, if you ask me.”

  “She have the affair with anyone involved in this case?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  “Abel Gosnell.”

  “Why are you just now telling me this?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I didn’t know to ask,” I said.

  “Some sleuth you are,” she almost smiled.

  “This is what we investigators refer to as a significant clue. You know, since it goes to motive.”

  “Well, it’s what we mountain people refer to as life, or, in the vernacular of stuff happens.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  By mid-afternoon the next day Starnes had signed away Spud Carver’s life, admitted him into the Eventide Nursing Home and Assisted Living facility in North Asheville, listened to him beg her not to leave him at that horrible place, and had found a bar in downtown Asheville where she could drown her misery. I was with her through the entire ordeal. I felt some of the pain no doubt she felt. Friends.

  “I hate myself,” she said as she swallowed the shot of straight vodka.

  “Is that good?” I asked as I nodded at the empty shot glass she had just put down with considerable force on the table in front of us.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Just curious, that’s all. I always thought it best to mix vodka with something,” I said.

  “Depends on your goal.”

  “And your goal would be?”

  “I want to pass out and have you carry me to the car and dispose of the body somewhere between here and home.”

  “I could dump you in the spot where we found Abel Gosnell. It took us less than two weeks to find him. And we were tenacious. I doubt if anyone else would be quite as diligent in searching for you.”

  “Thanks for that vote of confidence. I think we need a better spot than that. I can show you an old quarry,” she said.

  “Not if you’re passed out,” I countered.

  “Point. Let me tell you where it is now while I can remember.”

  “Won’t do any good. I’d get lost,” I said.

  “Not much of a friend,” she said.

  “I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah, you’re such a big help … telling me I’m drinking wrong.”

  “My bartender training.”

  “And when was that?”

  “During my first year on the Norfolk police force.”

  “School or sitting on the bar stool?”

  “Bar stool.”

  “The occasion?”

  “Killed a man.”

  “Bad stuff, huh?”

  “Bad enough to learn about several kinds of drinks from my bartender.”

  “And now you give advice on what to drink,” she said.

  “Friendly suggestions.”

  “What kind of friend are you?” she said.

  “I’m not drinking.”

 
“Yeah. What kind of friend is that?”

  “The kind that will get you home safely. Designated driver, I think they call it.”

  “I don’t want to get home safely,” she said.

  “I got that part.”

  “So drink with me.”

  “Not today.”

  She raised her shot glass to the waitress who was wiping off the table next to us.

  “Another one, lady,” she said loudly.

  “One more and we go.”

  “I can still see you,” Starnes said.

  “I know. I want you walking out of this place. I don’t want to carry you.”

  “Some friend you are.”

  “It’ll look bad for the sheriff of McAdams County to be carried out of a bar in Asheville. Our luck some kid would take a selfie and post it, or some reporter would just happen to come along at the right moment and we would stumble into her.”

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “So leave me alone. Or drink with me.”

  “Not this time.”

  “I don’t like you,” Starnes said.

  “I can live with that.”

  The waitress brought Starnes her final shot of vodka. Starnes smiled a meaningless smile at the waitress, downed her drink quickly, and raised her glass once again to signal the waitress.

  The waitress looked over and I shook my head.

  “Let’s go, Starnes,” I said.

  I stood, took her by the arm and she willingly walked out of the bar with me. She was staggering, so I figured she didn’t do much drinking after only three shots of vodka. Most people who drink casually can hold more than that. I figured that Starnes was new to this drinking game.

  She fussed at me all the way back to the house. She was high and not really herself. I felt for her and what she had done that day. I secretly hoped that I would never have to do such a thing to my mother. Selfish hope, I know. Some pain in life I think we all want to avoid. Give me the pain of a bullet anytime over what Starnes was going through at the moment.

  I put her to bed and listened to her fuss for a long time. I enjoyed about as much as I could, so I left the room and stayed away for several minutes. My hope was that she would go to sleep and redeem herself in the morning. Ten minutes passed and I checked on her just to make sure she wasn’t into something that might hurt her. She could have hidden a bottle of whiskey just for this occasion.