“I want to take you out,” Raylan said, “if you’re not playin tonight. You are, I’ll come and watch.”
She said, “Like a date?” Thought for a moment and said, “You know those two girls who were murdered? I’d love to see where it happened.”
“There’s nothin there now butthere no police tape.” He paused a moment and said, “Hey, you want to come with me? I’ll show you a scene hard to believe.”
I n the car now Jackie said, “My first murder scene. I’m excited.”
“It isn’t called a homicide yet,” Raylan said. “I’ll warn you, don’t get too close to this one.”
“Liz said to remind you, I’m a poor college student just trying to get by.”
“Playin poker,” Raylan said. He believed it put her out in the world so their age difference didn’t mean a thing.
“High stakes every evening,” Jackie said. “Hands become a story you’ll be telling weeks later, about a guy who’s trying to scare you out, raises and reraises, going for it. Thirty-odd thousand in the pot when we come to the flop. You know he’ll bet. But I think he’s bluffing. I’ve got two pair, jacks and tens. Either one shows up I’ve got a full house. He bets fifteen thousand. I see him and raise him ten. The poor guy, he’s playing a girl when the truth hits him: he’s about to get cleaned out. There’s an advantage in being the only girl at the table. It makes the guys act cool and want to show off. Harry’s problem, he can’t tell when they’re bluffing. I think they always become quieter, like they’re holding a serious hand.”
Raylan said, “What’s the flop?”
Jackie said, “You haven’t played much hold ’em, have you?”
P olice cars lined the drive, uniformed officers stood around in St. Elizabeth’s lobby, residents watching, asking each other what in the world was going on. A city detective waiting for Raylan took him through the halls to Ms. Culpepper’s room, telling him, “Our response on this was less’n twelve minutes. Anybody in the room when it went down is still in the room.”
Raylan asked him, “What was the weapon? I believe I was told a shotgun.”
“A Remington 870 with a slug barrel, one load fired, one still in the chamber. It belonged to her deceased husband, Otis.”
Raylan said, “They let her keep a loaded shotgun in her room?”
“It’s the first thing we asked. If she didn’t have the slugs hidden, somebody went out and got ’em for her. We haven’t asked about it yet.”
“I was told Boyd Crowder came with Ms. Conlan.”
“That’s right. He brought documents he wanted the old nted thewoman to sign.”
“How about Carol, Ms. Conlan?”
“She’s still lying where she fell, I think blown off her feet. The slug hit her in the chest and messed it up some. Nothing’s hardly been touched. Mr. Crowder says the old woman fired the shotgun under her quilt and it set the quilt afire.”
“Where’s the gun?”
“Being checked for latents.”
“You know Boyd’s prints are on file.”
“We’re already inquiring.”
Raylan turned to Jackie and took her into the room with him.
B oyd was at a window on the other side of Ms. Culpepper in her rocker, a new quilt over her legs, her eyes looking dazed or stoned.
Boyd turned to Raylan saying, “Finally… Man, I’m the one told ’em to get the marshals and ask for Raylan. He’ll tell you I’d never use a shotgun on a woman. Would I?”
“Not ordinarily,” Raylan said. “Boyd, you didn’t shoot her, did you?”
“You ask me that,” Boyd said, “knowin, or soon to find out, I never touched the gun? I gave Marion, bless her heart, some of her medication right afterwards.”
Raylan saw Jackie start to look down at Carol’s body, next to the bed, and turn away quick. He watched her go to Ms. Culpepper and take her hand, crouching down to speak to her, Jackie knowing more about life than any twenty-three-year-old college girl, exposed to the world having Reno for a dad. It seemed to have been a pretty good thing.
Boyd said, “I was at the table gettin out papers for Marion to sign and bam, the quilt catches fire and I see Ms. Conlan fall against the nightstand knockin things over, I believe her soul leavin her body before she hit the floor.”
Raylan said to Boyd, “I bet if I retraced your steps last evening, I’d find myself in a gun shop buyin shells.”
“And I bet a hundred dollars you wouldn’t,” Boyd said.
“You have a wino buy ’em for you?”
Boyd said, “Raylan, leave things lie, all right?”
Raylan motioned for Jackie to come over.
“What’d she tell you?”
“She said if anybody cares,” Jackie said, “God let her blow out that woman’s lights the same as the woman did Otis’s. She said she spoke to God about it and God told her forget it, she’d done all right.”
Jackie gave a shrug looking at Raylan. She watched him step over to Carol’s body lying by the bed, bloody from throat to chest; watched Raylan stoop down and use two fingers to close the woman’s eyelids and crouch there looking at her.
Once he got up he motioned to her and they left the nursing home. He did speak to the city detective again, but was quiet in the car driving away. Jackie waited.
Finally she said, “What’s wrong?”
“I knew her pretty well,” Raylan said. “Enough that I didn’t much care for her. She was the company and did whatever she wanted.”
“But seeing her dead,” Jackie said, “was different.”
“Killed with a shotgun.”
“By an old lady. You think she’ll go to prison?”
“I doubt it. But you don’t know which one to feel sorry for.”
“Indiana they speak Hoosier,” Jackie said. “Come down here you’re in a different country.”
“Coal country,” Raylan said. “Carol’s from West Virginia, she shouldn’t of been surprised.”
Jackie said, “Ms. Culpepper said the company woman came in and told her how nice it was to see her again, and Ms. Culpepper shot her.”
“Being cordial,” Raylan said, “instead of wondering what the hell that was under the blanket. You live down there you get to know people’s ways. You hear Boyd? He said, ‘I never used a shotgun on a woman.’ Carol knew everything but who we are. She was good at sounding West Virginia when she wanted but, I’ll say it again, she didn’t know our ways.” He looked at Jackie and said, “You want to get a beer? It might do you good.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The way Harry set up the poker show-once he decided Raylan and Boyd didn’t have the money and Carol Conlan was no longer available-he’d stage it as a guys-against-girls thing and have it shot professionally on HD video, in his poker suite at home, a Burgoyne Farms Production, with refreshments.
Jackie said, “You want us drinking?”
“Don’t poker players drink when they’re not on TV? I want the atmosphere real. The guys are Kwami and Qasim Mu’tazz, breeders from Saudi Arabia. I know they drink. I got to be careful doing the play-by-play I don’t call them Ike and Mike.” Harry said, “And joining the two Arabians will be Dude Moody, winner of two World Series of Poker championships. If Dude wants to smoke he may. You see him on Poker After Dark he’s rollin a dead cigar in his mouth.”
“And the girls?” Jackie said.
Harry was showing her the poker suite: a well-stocked bar, bookshelves and shots of horses on the paneled
