The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,35
when he was in his thirties to help him with the farm, but she took off on him. That was Colt’s mom. Red didn’t have a plug nickel.” Drench frowned, his gaze fixed on the desert beyond his home. “He raised his daughter in a house filled with hate. I worry about that girl quite a bit.”
“So, how does a man with no money have an arsenal of several hundred guns and bulletproof glass?” she asked.
Drench leaned on an elbow and gave Josie a half smile. “I wondered that myself. None of those yahoos he ran around with has that kind of money. Bunch of men with overactive testosterone production, if you ask me. I don’t know where Red got his money, but I’d imagine whoever took off with that batch of guns knows something about his murder.”
“I understand you own the land in front of Red’s. Is that true?”
Drench smiled. “That pissed Red off to no end.”
“He ever try and buy it from you?”
He laughed. “Offered me five times what that land was worth. I wouldn’t take it. He was a fun one to get mad. I never once saw him raise a hand, but he sure could cuss a blue streak. Gladys always said he had the Napoleon complex. I just think life slapped his chops one too many times.”
“Do you rent out the trailer at the bottom of the property?” Josie asked.
“Yep. Kenny Winning. Although his sister’s living there now. He’s a nice-enough kid.”
“Think Kenny had any reason to kill Red? His sister said they hated each other,” Josie said.
Drench smiled again. “That was my fault. I gave that kid land to set his trailer on just to tick Red off. Kenny worked for me for a while doing odd jobs. Handyman stuff. He was a good kid, honest, dependable, but real skittish. Never stayed in one place too long, like he was being chased.” He pointed a finger at Josie. “Come to think of it, that kid was dating Colt for a while. Red’s daughter.”
“How long did they date?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t anything serious. Couple months, maybe.”
“Think he’d have had any reason to kill Red?”
Drench bit his lip. “I can’t imagine it.”
“What do you know about Hack Bloster?”
Drench looked down at the bar and traced the wood grain with his finger. “This is between me and you?”
“Of course.”
“I think he’s a dirty cop. I had my eye on that kid ever since he moved to town. He worked for me, digging wells for about six months. I always had a hard time getting a straight answer out of him. I even told Red to steer clear of him. I told him he was insane for ever letting him join the Gunners. Red thought Bloster would give legitimacy to the group just because he’s a cop. A gun and a badge don’t make you legitimate.”
“You have anything concrete on Bloster? Anything to back up your suspicions?” she asked.
“Nothing but a bad feeling.”
* * *
Pegasus Winning sat on the picnic table under the pecan trees and stared at the tattoo on her forearm: a constant reminder of the man who had sliced her open and left her to bleed on the dirty linoleum floor in their kitchen. The tattoo had been done just a month before he sliced her, a blackbird with a ribbon dangling from its beak. The inscription on the ribbon read, Death do us part. The inscription was his idea, the crow hers.
She stared at the words. He had promised her that day, sitting in a chair beside the table where she lay, her arm strapped down to a rusty surgical table the shop owner had called a relic, that he would love her until “death do us part.” The tattoo artist worked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, occasionally blowing ashes off her arm to clear the work area. She had gone into the shop for the crow and nothing else. “Sing a Song of Sixpence” had been her favorite rhyme as a kid. She had memorized it and in middle school had composed a melody that a boyfriend turned into a rock ballad. She liked that they stole shiny things but nothing of value: tinfoil scraps and screws lying in the gutter.
Her boyfriend, Brock, had told the artist to include the ribbon. He smiled, told her, “My treat.” Brock had looked pleased, so proud of his offer that she smiled, too, and shrugged when the guy gave her