CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I decided I wanted a real meal for supper that evening, but I also decided I didn’t want to stay in town. I picked up the phone and dialed Carla’s cell number. “Let’s go over to Nacogdoches tonight for Italian,” I said as soon as she answered.

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“I don’t care if it is or not. Me and Charlie Morton killed a guy this afternoon, and I want some company.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. “God, Bo! Who?”

“That Paul Arno character. Haven’t you heard about it?”

“Don’t you ever look at the schedule? I’m off today. I’ve been home all afternoon with the TV and radio off and the house phone unplugged. Soft music on the stereo and housecleaning. Sometimes I just have to get away from all the craziness.”

“Well, today I’ve been in the middle of the craziness. Pick you up about seven?”

“Sure, Bo. If you need me.”

“Dammit, I’m beginning to suspect I’ll always need you.”

I hung up the phone and muttered to myself, “Now why in the hell did I go and say something like that?”

No fool like an old fool.

*   *   *

Carla wore a pair of black slacks and a simple blouse of coarse gray silk. Besides her gold watch, she wore no jewelry except for a single strand of creamy pearls that contrasted with the tanned skin of her neck and made her look edible. I felt myself sinking even deeper.

My favorite restaurant in Nacogdoches is Auntie Pasta’s, a great Italian joint down by the railroad tracks in an old building that was built back in 1892 as the first refrigerated warehouse west of the Mississippi. We had just ordered and gotten a glass of Chianti when an old friend named Ben Ruggles appeared at our table. Ben was one of those rare football coaches who had real brains. Besides coaching the backfield at Sequoya High School for years, he’d taught accounting and business law. He was tall and not overly bulky, as befitted a man who’d been a star fullback at Texas A&M many years earlier. Ben had short gray hair and a face that was full of good humor.

“Sit down, Ben,” I said, pointing to a chair. “You know Carla, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “But I’ve just got a minute or two. I’m with some friends and I need to get back to our table.”

“Sure. What’s on your mind?”

“Amanda Twiller’s murder.”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Ben Ruggles was not the sort of man to engage in idle gossip. If he had something to say, it would be worth hearing. “Go on,” I said.

“As you probably know, I’ve been working part-time at the Pak-a-Sak for about a year.”

“I’d heard that,” I said. “I also heard that you and Zorn had become buddies, which surprised me.”

He shook his head. “Emmet and I aren’t really friends. We could have been, but he tries too damn hard to impress, and I can’t stand that. I also got tired of listening to his stories about his love life, and I told him off and quit three days ago.”

“How did you happen to be working for him in the first place?”

“I was in there buying some beer one day not long after I retired, and the two of us got to talking. He told me that he knew I’d taught accounting and asked me to help out with the bookkeeping. I was a little bored with retirement and knew I could always use some extra money. So I signed on as assistant manager.”

“Is it a good business?” I asked.

“It makes him a decent living. It could be a great business if he’d stay there and take care of things. The beer companies are always offering specials where you can buy fifty or more cases of a popular brand cheap enough to double your margin, but he would never let me make the decisions on things like that. He was always off chasing women or hanging around in these country-and-western clubs.”

“He does like the ladies,” I said.

“The Casanova of the soap opera set.”

Carla laughed. “Doesn’t sound like you have much regard for the man, Ben,” she said.

“In a way I feel sorry for him. It’s like he’s always onstage trying to make a big splash, but I finally got tired of hearing his conquest stories. I think the truth is that he doesn’t really care all that much about women beyond bedding them and having a good looker on his arm to bolster his ego. But as far as really enjoying their company?” He shook his head. “The man just doesn’t get it.”

“Did he ever say anything about Amanda Twiller?” I asked. “I mean beyond the obvious.”

“Oh, yeah. I heard all about it.”

“How in the hell did the two of them ever meet, anyway?” I asked.

He smiled. “There’s a sad irony in that, Bo.”

“What do you mean?”

“Reverend Twiller got caught up in this return-to-authentic-Christian-practices movement. As you probably know, up until after the Civil War everybody used real wine in communion. Then came Carrie Nation and the temperance movement, and most of the Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians switched to grape juice. In the last few years a lot of congregations have gone back to real wine and unleavened bread because that’s what the early church used. Twiller must have delegated the wine buying to his wife because she came in one morning asking questions about what kind of wine would be suitable. She was a fine-looking woman, and Emmet battened on to her like Velcro. After that, nature took its course.”

“Did he ever mention anything about Amanda Twiller having a prescription drug addiction?”

He shook his head. “No, but I’d heard rumors and Emmet bragged to me a couple of times about being able to get drugs without a prescription. I know for a fact that he used some mild amphetamines every now and then. He always claimed they improved his performance in the bedroom.”

“Can you remember anything else that he might have said about her?” I asked.

“A couple of days before she was killed they had a little tiff right there in the store. After she left he was really steamed and said something he probably shouldn’t have said.”

“Which was?”

“ ‘That bitch knows too much about my business.’ ”

“Yeah?”

“Right. And I didn’t get the feeling that he was talking about the store, either.”