Biggie and the Devil Diet - By Nancy Bell Page 0,39

know, since a good number of folks in town work out at that plant."

The ranger nodded, then tried to get Biggie back on track. "But what do you think about Laura?"

"I'm getting to that," Biggie said. "Ollie sent out letters to the editor and posted signs all over town. She started raising chickens herself just to give them good homes. After a while, people started making fun of her and calling that big house of hers Cluckingham Palace."

"So what happened to her?" the ranger couldn't help asking.

"Her husband finally sent her off to a sanitarium. She had gone completely off her head. That's what happens sometimes when people go overboard."

"And you think Laura's done that?"

"Could be," Biggie said. "It's getting late. Who's next on your list?"

Ranger Upchurch went to the door and called in Abner Putnam. He looked even more upset than Laura had. He sat down at the table and mopped his brow with a blue bandanna.

"I understand you and Rex were pretty close," the ranger said.

"We were buddies." Abner frowned.

"So you were good friends."

"Oh, sure, the best of friends. I would have laid down my life for old Rex— and he'd have done the same for me. We'd been together for, let me see, going on thirty years now."

"Do you know anybody here who would have wanted him dead?"

Abner looked shocked. "Wanted Rex dead? Who would want that?"

"Apparently somebody did," Biggie said softly.

"Okay." The ranger picked up the tape recorder and looked at it, then set it back down. "Suppose you just tell us what you were doing this evening."

"Sure. I spent the afternoon helping Hamp vaccinate the horses. After that, I went to the bunkhouse to take a shower and change clothes. Then I came up here to the house."

"And?"

"I came in through the back door to find out what Josefina was cooking for supper. She was making tamales, so I sat at the table and helped her roll them up— you know, spread the shucks with masa dough then put in the meat and all." He looked at the ranger who nodded. "After we got 'um tied into bundles and on the stove to steam, I got me and her a beer out of the icebox, and we had just sat down when Rosebud walked in."

"What time was that?"

"Sundown. Around six-thirty, I reckon."

"And you were all still sitting there when the shots were fired?"

"Yeah, but we didn't hear the shots. The kitchen's too far away from the bedroom wing. But when the lights went out, I went right straight to the breaker box to check on it."

"Right. And where is the breaker box?"

"In a piss-poor place, if you ask me. 'Scuse me, Miss Biggie. Some fool mounted the thing on the wall outside by the patio. I checked the box and found that the switch had been intentionally turned off."

"How could you tell?" Biggie wanted to know.

"Easy. You see, if the thing trips from an overload or some such thing, the switches only move over halfway, but when somebody turns it off manually, it goes all the way over."

The ranger nodded like he understood.

Biggie opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. She stood up. "Well, it's late, and J.R. has school tomorrow."

"Then go," Ranger Upchurch said. "I'll drop by the house tomorrow to get Rosebud's statement."

14

So who do you think done it?" Willie Mae asked after we got home and were all sitting around the kitchen table eating chili and drinking cocoa.

"No idea," Biggie said. "Jeremy Polk is the logical suspect since he was with him at the time— only he was shot, too."

"Bad?" Willie Mae got up and poured more cocoa all around.

"No. The bullet just grazed his ear."

"Who all was in the living room when the lights went out?" Rosebud asked. "Seems to me none of them could of done it."

"Let me see," Biggie said. "Grace and Babe and Rob— us, of course. And Stacie had taken Laura into the study. I guess that clears all of them."

"Well, Abner and Josefina were settin' right there in the kitchen with me." Rosebud stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing his ankles. "Reckon that clears them."

"That leaves Hamp or one of the girls," I said.

"Not necessarily," Biggie said. "It wouldn't have to be someone connected with the ranch. Anyone could have crept up to the house and shot through the window. And since the breaker box was on the outside, they could have shut the power down, too."

"Biggie," I said, "the