Free A Violent End at Blake Ranch by Terry Shames Page A

her. My wife is a good Christian, and she believes in doing good deeds. So I stopped, and my wife asked the young woman where she was headed. She said she needed to get to Jarrett Creek, and I told her we’d be going right through there on our way home and we’d take her where she wanted to go.”
    â€œI appreciate your calling,” I say. “You’re filling in a gap for me. What can you tell me about your experience with her? What was she like?”
    He pauses, as if gathering his thoughts. “Well, sir, she was an unusual type person. My wife asked her who her people were and what brought her to town. She said she was the daughter of the Blakes out north of Jarrett Creek, and that she had been gone for a while and was coming home. But then my wife asked her where she’d been when she was away, and that was the wrong question. She got snippy. She said nobody needed to poke into her business. My wife apologized and said she hadn’t intended to pry, that she was only being friendly. But the woman stayed kind of surly after that. Kept grumbling that people ought to mind their own business. Kind of talking to herself, like.”
    â€œDoesn’t sound like she was appreciative of the help you gave her by giving her a ride.”
    â€œNo, she wasn’t. I didn’t pay much attention myself, but my wife said she didn’t even thank us. Not that we did it for thanks. We store up good works that our Father in heaven will appreciate in due time. But it did seem like she was lacking in manners. Hold on a minute. My wife wants to tell you something.”
    I hear him say, “Don’t go on and on. He’ll be busy.”
    â€œHello?”
    â€œYes ma’am. I appreciate you and your husband calling. What is it you want to add?”
    â€œIt’s a silly thing, but I remember thinking at the time that she was asking for trouble. So when the paper said she was killed . . . what?” I hear her husband whispering to her. “Oh, okay. My husband says I ought to let you go.”
    â€œI’d like to hear what you were going to tell me.”
    â€œIt wasn’t important.”
    â€œMrs. Curtis, you never know when something is going to be important.”
    â€œAll right. What happened was, the girl told us she knew a thing or two about some people’s business, and that people would pay good money for her to keep her mouth shut. I thought to myself, ‘Young lady, you are asking for big trouble.’”
    â€œDid she mention anything specific?”
    â€œNo, like I said, she was hinting around. I don’t mind telling you, it made me nervous. I don’t hold with people talking behind people’s backs. I never heard anybody talk like that before except on TV. I was glad when we saw the last of her. I guess she did get herself into trouble.”
    If Nonie followed through with trying to blackmail somebody, it looks like the family might be off the hook. I wonder who Nonie was referring to, and how she found out incriminating information about them. I’m hoping that in the police file there’s some mention of people she might have had problems with—something to lead me to figure out who she was talking about.
    Ennis Whitehall’s report was never typed up, but he wrote it out in small, neat handwriting that squares with the kind of man I remember him being—precise and unflappable.
    â€œI was called out to the Blake household by Adelaide Blake, who said her son Billy had just saved her younger daughter Charlotte from being hanged by her older sister. Upon arrival, I found Charlotte (eight years of age), traumatized, with rope burns around her neck. The family physician, Doctor Taggart, had been called in and he arrived shortly after I did. I talked to the son, Billy Blake, twelve years old. He seems like a boy with some sense.
    â€œHe described coming into the backyard near their stock tank to find his older