man write it all down in his notebook and maybe help him make sense of it. But that was not to be right now, apparently, so Archer instead went over it in his head.
It seemed likely that Jackie and Ernestine had some sort of understanding, and a plan. They had visited Marjorie Pittleman’s home during the storm. That would account for the mud on the car and its tires. He didn’t know if they had gone into the house or not, but Marjorie had said she hadn’t seen Jackie since the time he had been there with her. And from what Marjorie had told him, it was clear that Jackie had not given her the money to repay her father’s debt.
One thing Archer had concluded was that Jackie had cleared out her father’s safe and loaded it into the large trunk of the Nash. And she had done so in the time between Archer’s seeing all the wealth in there, and Jackie and Shaw going out to Tuttle’s home. But now with Manuel telling him what he had, Archer could narrow that time frame down some.
She had arranged to meet her father at her house, probably using that ruse to make sure he wouldn’t be home to stop her and Ernestine from ransacking the man’s safe. But something had gone terribly wrong on that score because Tuttle had not been at Jackie’s; he’d been at his house. But for the life of him, Archer couldn’t fathom why the man hadn’t kept the meeting with his daughter.
Jackie’s emptying the safe and piling it into the Nash’s trunk, at some point, was the only way the imprint of the gold bars and the transfer of the gold dust could have occurred. Then, Jackie and Ernestine had driven over to Marjorie’s that same night. Why had they done that? To hide the loot? But why there? And what was even more confusing, why bother taking the things from the safe in the first place? As her father’s only heir, they would have come to Jackie anyway after his death. And all that oil money on top of it. It just didn’t make any sense.
And in addition to the emptied safe, someone had taken Lucas Tuttle’s life. If Jackie had been the one to steal the items from the safe, she had to have been there that night. So had Jackie killed her father? If so, why?
His thoughts next turned to that last night with Jackie at Ernestine’s house. She had been the one to bring the conversation around to the repayment of the debt, something Archer had admitted to her that he had forgotten about. And she had been the one to suggest the meeting with her father.
She used me. Set me up like the sucker I am.
He rose and was looking out the window when an idea occurred to him. At the same moment, he saw the dull, mustard-colored Hudson Hornet with the brown stripe and chrome side light parked at the curb. He put on his hat, pocketed his knife and flashlight, and rushed out.
He reached the street and ran over to the car, peering in the open window.
Bart Coleman, doughnut in hand, looked back at him, while Deputy Jeb was drinking his coffee and devouring a large, messy pastry.
“What do you want, Archer?” said Bart sharply. “I ain’t seen Shaw to tell him you want to talk to him.”
“That’s why I’m here. He left me a note at the hotel and said to meet him out at Tuttle’s place. Can you give me a ride?”
“We’re working here, Archer,” said an irritated Bart as he wiped a bit of doughnut powder off his mouth. “Hell, can’t you see that?”
“Yeah, I can. Look, um.” He pulled out a five-dollar bill. “How about this for gas? And maybe some more pastries?” he tacked on, eyeing Jeb eating away.
Bart looked at the fiver for a moment before snatching it. “All right, get in.”
Archer climbed into the back seat and Bart pulled away from the curb. He drove fast, and in just under an hour they were at Tuttle’s.
“Don’t see Shaw’s car here,” noted Bart. “He drives a big Buick. Can’t miss it.”
“Yeah, I know. He might not have got here yet. He was coming from somewhere else, he said in the note. I’ll ride back into town with him.”
“Suit yourself.”
Archer climbed out and the squad car drove off fast, trailing vortices of fresh dust in its wake. The recent rains had done nothing apparently