Teddy tensed. “Give us a second, please,” he told the man in front of us. Without taking his eyes off him, he whispered back to me, “You sure?”
“Maybe,” I told him. I was certain it was the man who’d come into Sip & Spin. I’d watched that clip of video often enough that I’d recognize him anywhere. I couldn’t prove that he was casing us so he and his friends could toss Tansy’s house, but I had a bad feeling about him. “I think so?”
Teddy took another step in front of me. I used his body as cover to take out my phone. I only had one bar, but it was more coverage than I’d expected this far out of town. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Garzas had erected their own cell phone repeater to improve coverage on their property. I texted Beau, “@ Rawlings Hollow. Robber here?” I hit send before slipping my phone back into my pocket.
While I’d texted Beau, Teddy had been talking, trying to distract the big man. “What are y’all lookin’ for?” His smile was wide and welcoming, but I recognized the stiffness in his shoulders.
The man shrugged. “We just go where we’re told. And we were told no one else was allowed out here.”
“Uh-huh,” Teddy said, affably.
I strained to see around them both. The truck had no distinguishing features or signs advertising a construction company. The trailer and backhoe both sported stickers from a local rental agency. The big man in front of us was dressed in khaki pants and a button-down shirt that had been unbuttoned to reveal a sweat-stained undershirt. Even if he was a crew chief, it didn’t explain why the other men in his crew were dressed more appropriately for a backyard barbeque than for manual labor.
There were plenty of people in Cedar River who would jump at a job clearing a field like this. And most of them had their own equipment better suited for the work. There was no reason to bring in out-of-towners in polo shirts for something like this. “Who hired you?” I asked.
“The town,” he replied in an annoyed voice. “This is Cedar River property. Now, scram, if you know what’s good for you.”
He turned and started to walk away, and I let out a sigh of relief that the confrontation was over.
“Actually,” Teddy said, “this is private property. But y’all would know that if you were hired to, do what exactly?”
The big man stopped in his tracks and turned back around to face us. “What? Nope. You’re mistaken. Look, if you have any questions, you can take it up with the mayor.”
“The mayor?” I asked, my voice raising an octave as a shiver went down my spine. “The dead mayor? The recently murdered mayor?”
Teddy poked me with his elbow, warning me to keep my mouth shut. We were outnumbered and outmatched. Maybe this was one of those times when I should be quiet.
“What? When?” the big man asked, looking genuinely shocked. “Hey, Jimmy, get over here.” The blond man with the bulbous nose joined us. “Tell him what you just told me.”
Up close, I was certain that Jimmy was the same man who’d come into Sip & Spin yesterday afternoon. I wondered if he was the one who’d trashed our house, or if it was some of these other guys. He didn’t seem to recognize me, but then again, I was half hidden by Teddy and overshadowed by a large, friendly cow who was entertaining herself by nibbling on my hair.
“Y’all friends of Mayor Bob?” I asked, reaching over my shoulder to pull my hair out of Buttercup’s mouth. Eww.
The new guy gave an unenthusiastic shrug. “That old so-and-so? I guess you could say that. Convinced the old blowhard to give us a permit to dig here, didn’t we?”
The first man elbowed him. “Bob’s dead.”
“Dead?” Jimmy asked, but he didn’t look surprised. “You don’t say.”
“I do say,” Teddy said. “You claim you’ve got a permit to dig, but this isn’t town property.”
“Sure it is,” Jimmy said.
Teddy shook his head. “No, it’s not.” He pulled out his phone. “I’m just gonna give the rightful owner a shout, have him come down here and sort this all out.” He looked at me. “You got Marcus’s number?”
Before I could reply that I didn’t, the first man scowled. “Marcus? Marcus Best? I should have known he’d try to beat us to it.”
“To what?” I asked.
Jimmy spoke up. “To the treasure, okay?” Neither of us needed to ask what treasure he was referring to. He obviously meant the bank robbery loot. “Let’s cut to the chase. Everybody knows it’s buried somewhere in Cedar River. Bob Bobbert was bragging that he had a map that led right to it.”
“You’re the ones who stole the map from Mayor Bob’s office,” I blurted out, realizing that the map must be the large piece of paper spread across the truck’s hood.
“We didn’t steal nothing,” the big man insisted.
“How did you get past Pete Digby?”
“Who?” the man with the bulbous nose asked.
“Pete? The security guard at the town hall?” I clarified.
“When I came in, the front door was unlocked. I didn’t see no security guard, so I headed back to Bob’s office. Look, I swear he was already dead when I got there!”
“What?” the first man turned to him.
“Look, I didn’t want to say anything and freak everyone out,” Jimmy admitted. He turned to him. “Butch, I know, I should have said something sooner.”
Then he addressed us. “We had an appointment that morning, Bob and me. He was going to sell me the map. I’d already paid for it. He told me to meet him in his office on Saturday morning. When I got there, Bob was at his desk, dead. I panicked, okay? I grabbed the map off the wall and took off. I heard someone coming, so I ran out the back door.”
I wondered who he’d heard in the building. Pete Digby? Leanna Lydell-Waite? Marcus Best? Me? “Once you were outside, you tossed the frame in the dumpster and took the map with you,” I guessed.
“I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself,” he said.
Neither would I, if I were running away from the scene of a murder carrying stolen property. “Why didn’t you call the cops when you found the body?” I asked. Jimmy was quickly becoming one of my least favorite people. Even if he hadn’t been the one that broke into my home, if he’d reported Mayor Bob’s death, then I wouldn’t have had to be the one to find him like that.
“You’ve got to believe me, I thought about it. But with Bob dead, how was I gonna get the map? I’d already paid for it, fair and square. It was mine.” He pulled out his phone, logged into Venmo, and showed me a payment from him to Bob Bobbert.
“You paid that much for a map?” Teddy asked, staring at the screen.
Jimmy shrugged and put his phone away. “Like I said, that map was rumored to show where the treasure was, and now it’s mine. Here’s proof. It wasn’t my fault the old man croaked before he could give it to me.”
“He didn’t croak,” I said, correcting him. “He was murdered.”
“He was what?” His face was sunburnt from a long day spent outside, but even so, some of the color drained from it. He looked at Butch. “Did you know this?”
“Did I know this? I didn’t even know the man was dead. You didn’t bother telling me.”
I scanned the destruction of the field. “You dug all of this up because some old map told you to?”
“What can I say?” Jimmy asked. “We had the tip of a lifetime.”
“How exactly was Mayor Bob’s map the clue to unlocking a decades old mystery?” Teddy asked.
“Unfortunately the map alone isn’t enough, as you can see,” Butch replied. He swept an arm at the dozen or so holes in the field, each with a corresponding lump of dirt beside it. “There’s still a piece of the puzzle missing that would pinpoint the search.”
“And you thought that missing piece was in my freezer?” I asked, glaring at him.
“That was your house?” Jimmy asked. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re one of the girls from the record shop.”
“Yeah, I am.” I glared at him.
“Hey, sorry about that,” Butch said. “We got carried away. I’ll pay for any damages.”
“Well?” I asked. I wasn’t about to forgive them anytime soon, but my curiosity was piqued. “What was it? The missing piece of the puzzle?”
Jimmy hung his head. “We didn’t find it. All we know is that the money was hidden at the Bluebonnet Festival fairgrounds.”
“Rawlings Hollow isn’t the fairgrounds,” I corrected them. “You’re digging up the wrong side of town.”
“Actually, Juni”—Teddy interrupted me—“back in the day, it was. The festival didn’t get moved to Cedar River Memorial Park until the year after the robbery.”
“That’s why the map was so special. It pinpoints this field as the old fairgrounds,” Jimmy said. “But as you can see, it’s still a lot of land. We needed the final clue to narrow down the exact burial site.”
“And what made you think the final clue was hidden in my house?” I asked.
“A few years ago, Clint bragged that he had it.”
“Clint?” I felt my breath catch in my throat. “Clint Jessup? You knew my dad?”
“Clint Jessup was your father?” He studied my face. “I don’t see the resemblance.”
“I take after my mom,” I said with gritted teeth. My sisters and I all did. It had been a constant source of irritation with my father that he had three kids and not a single one looked like him in the least. We had our mom’s coloring, her face shape, even her eyes—except I inherited his bad eyesight. Lucky me. “And you assumed it was hidden in my house?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be out in plain sight, would it be?” Butch argued.
“The map was,” Teddy pointed out.
The blurt of a police siren interrupted us as two marked sedans and Beau’s familiar pickup raced toward us. As they approached, the scrawny man with the shovel and the one in shorts who’d been in the backhoe jumped in the truck and took off. Butch shouted at them to come back. Jimmy, looking terrified, ran after them. Butch, realizing his crew had deserted him, took off in the other direction, toward Teddy’s house.
The getaway truck hit one of the mounds of dirt they’d left. The truck jerked then dropped, hood first, into one of the holes. The closest police car stopped short behind it. Jayden Holt jumped out and ran around to check on the occupants. She hauled one man out of the hole and clicked handcuffs on his wrists as another uniformed officer pulled the scrawny man out of the other side of the truck.
Jimmy had changed direction when the truck crashed, but on foot, he couldn’t outrun the second police cruiser as it bounced over the field, mowing down bluebonnets with abandon. Realizing it was futile, he gave himself up and was bundled into the back of the police car.
Beau’s truck stopped beside us and he rolled down his window. To my surprise, Marcus Best was seated in the passenger seat beside him. “Is that all of them?” Beau asked.
“Another one took off that way,” Teddy said, gesturing toward where we’d come from.
I turned, expecting to see Butch fleeing into the thicket. Instead, he was walking back toward us. Behind him, Shelton, one of the farmhands, was prodding him along from his ATV. “Y’all lose something?” Shelton called out as they got closer. He pulled up alongside us, and I realized he was brandishing a cattle prod at Butch.
“Thanks, but you can put the cattle prod away,” Beau told him, getting out of his truck. “I’ll handle it from here.”
“How’d you know he was a bad guy?” I asked.
Shelton took off his dusty cowboy hat and let it dangle from his hands as he leaned over the handlebars of the ATV. “Teddy said he needed help rounding up some stray cows. I was on my way when I heard the police sirens and saw this guy running for the hills.” He glanced over at Beau. “I don’t suppose there’s a reward for this fella?”
Beau shook his head. “I don’t suppose there is.”
“Look, you guys, this is all a big misunderstanding,” Butch said. “I’m not a bad guy.”
“Did you break into my house?” I asked.
“Yes, but…” Butch sputtered
“And were you trespassing?” Marcus asked, getting out of the passenger side of the truck. “And destroying my private property?”
“Well, I was, but…”
“And did you run when the police showed up?” Beau asked.
Butch hung his head. “I’m gonna need a lawyer, aren’t I?”
Beau grinned at him. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. While we’re at it, I might as well go through the rest.” He handcuffed Butch as he cited his Miranda rights. When he was done, he glanced at me. “What am I gonna do with you, Junebug?”
“What? I didn’t do anything,” I protested.
Careful to avoid the holes in the field, the police cruisers returned to where we stood. One of the officers loaded Butch into the back of the cruiser next to Jimmy.
Teddy turned to Beau. “That Jimmy guy says he bought it fair and square, but he admitted to taking the map out of Mayor Bob’s office after the mayor died. He and Butch both confessed to breaking into Tansy and Juni’s house. Didn’t speak with the other two, but they were both digging when we got here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in on the break-in, too.”
Beau pursed his lips. “Take them to the station,” he said told the other cops. “I’ll meet you back there.”
As they took off toward town. I saw something fluttering out of the corner of my eye and looked up to see Buttercup eating Mayor Bob’s map. “Give me that,” I told her, and pulled the map out of her mouth. It was missing a small chunk out of the bottom but was otherwise intact.
“I’ll take her,” Shelton offered, getting off the ATV.
“You’re not going to use the cattle prod on Buttercup, are you?” I asked.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Shelton said. He took a coil of rope off the back of the ATV, and tied it around the cow’s neck.
“Thanks, Shelton,” Teddy said. “Don’t worry about the ATV. I’ll take care of it.” Shelton nodded and settled his dusty hat back on his head before leading Buttercup away. “Let me get this straight,” Teddy said to me. “You get upset at the thought of him using a cattle prod on a cow, but you had no qualms about him pointing it at Butch?”
“Buttercup didn’t break into my house and turn it inside out,” I said. “Sorry if she’s a troublemaker.”
“Oh please. I like troublemakers.” Teddy bumped my shoulder with his. “Besides, if she hadn’t wandered away from the herd, we never would have found the guys who broke into your house.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. Then something in the field glinted in the waning light, catching my eye. I walked over to where the metal detector lay. Next to it in the dirt was a paperweight with a bluebonnet suspended in it. I held it up. “This is the paperweight that went missing from Mayor Bob’s office,” I said.
“How’d you know about the missing paperweight?” Beau asked, appearing beside me with his hand outstretched. I gave him the paperweight. “I didn’t tell you about it.” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t think I want to know.”
“Uncle Calvin might have mentioned it to me,” I said. It was hard to remember what I had and hadn’t shared with Beau. It would probably be easier if I was more open with him in the first place, but that would introduce a whole separate set of complications.
“How’s your uncle wrapped up in all this?” Beau asked, his eyes narrowing.
“He’s not,” I said hastily, as the complications I’d been worrying about reared their ugly head. My first priority was protecting my family. Beau’s was solving the crime. Sometimes that put us at odds. “Faye mentioned it was missing, too. And Marcus might have, also.” I looked over at him and he shrugged, neither confirming nor denying my story. “So many people were talking about this paperweight and this map, I can’t keep track.” I rolled up the map Buttercup had been chewing on and passed it to Beau.
I turned my attention to Marcus. “You never intended to put a car lot on Rawlings Hollow, did you?”
“I told you I didn’t,” he said.
“Not exactly. You just changed the subject when I asked. So why did you buy it?”
He shrugged. “Why do you think?” He glanced over at the torn-up field. “There’s a fortune buried out here, somewhere. I was going to wait until after bluebonnet season was over to start excavating, but I guess Butch and his boys did me a favor. At least now I know a few places that the treasure ain’t.”
“Sounds like you know a lot more about this than you’ve been telling me, Juni,” Beau said, sounding disappointed. “You can fill me in while I give you a lift back to town.” He opened the passenger door of his truck and held it for me.
I glanced over at Teddy. “Go ahead, I’ll see you later,” he told me.
“Okay,” I replied. I climbed into Beau’s truck and scooted over to the center of the bench seat to leave room for Marcus next to me.
“You promised you were gonna stay out of trouble,” Beau commented as he started the truck.
It suddenly felt very crowded in the cab. “I was just checking on Buttercup.”
“Those men could have been dangerous,” Beau said.
“They could have been,” I agreed. “But no one got hurt.” They had broken into my house and trashed Rawlings Hollow. I was glad they were in custody. Maybe under different circumstances I would have been more nervous confronting them, but I had Teddy by my side and I knew that Beau was on his way.
“Your mom would have my hide if anything happened to you on my land,” Marcus added.
“You’re not gonna tell her, are you?” I asked. “I’d hate to worry her.”
Marcus grinned at me. “Sorry, but I don’t keep secrets from Bea.” He patted my knee. “Don’t worry about it, I’m sure she’ll be happy just to have you back home safe and sound.”
“You don’t know her mother very well if you think that,” Beau mumbled.
I turned my attention to Beau. “I hope you don’t mind that I texted you.”
Beau looked surprised. “Why would I mind?”
“The other day, you gave me a hard time about calling you instead of 911.”
“I was teasing you, Junebug. You can call me anytime.”
I squirmed in my seat. There was no way to sit without pressing up against either Marcus or Beau. I chose Beau. “Thanks for responding so quickly. I wasn’t sure the text would go through. Reception is sketchy out here.”
“Yup.” Beau took one hand off the wheel and draped it over my shoulder. “Guess you got lucky this time.”
I thought about it. He was right. After a rough couple of days, things were finally looking up. The ride smoothed out as we hit the paved road, and I felt relief that the worst was behind us.