Raylan Read online

  “Till we hit the poker trail again,” Harry said. “Jackie’s takin on some guys tomorrow in a big cash game.”

  Raylan touched his coat pocket and said, “Excuse me,” taking out his cell phone and turning away.

  Jackie watched him, telling herself it was a case they were putting him on and he had to leave right now, forget about her walking out of jail, and heard him say, “Come on, you’re kiddin.” He turned his back to them now and stepped away to listen. Come on, you’re kiddin, his voice raised but not much, was all she heard. She watched him fold his cell and come back to stand with her as he told Liz and Harry, “I’m sorry, but that was my job callin.”

  “About the guy who wants to shoot you?” Liz said.

  “Something else,” Raylan said. Then paused, like he was getting around to what he wanted to say. “You don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with Ms. Nevada.”

  Liz said, “I hope you’re not going to cuff our guest. Are you?”

  “I’m not arrestin her,” Raylan said. “There’s something I’d like to talk to her about.”

  Jackie gave Liz a shrug and walked out to the hallway with Raylan.

  “Where we going if you’re not turning me in?”

  “I want to talk to you,” Raylan said. “The first time I came here I said, ‘This’s a sun parlor? I’d like to see what they call the living room.’ Liz told me it’s been a sun parlor for eighty-five years.”

  Jackie stopped. “If you’re not arresting me, where we going?”

  “Forget about Indy,” Raylan said. “I’ll appear at your hearing and tell the court you owed a shylock and was hopin to pay him out of the twenty grand you blew.” Raylan, turned enough to see the Burgoynes watching, said, “Come on,” and they continued walking down the hall, Raylan telling Jackie, “I stopped at Butler and saw your picture in the yearbook. I said to myself, Whatever it was, you didn’t do it.”

  “I have no idea,” Jackie said, “what’s going on.”

  “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 but police tape.” He paused a moment and said, “Hey, you want to come with me? I’ll show you a scene hard to believe.”

  In 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?”

  Police 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 woman 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.

  Boyd 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 walls.

  “I’ll introduce you as the Butler champ.”

  “Butler doesn’t have a competition.”

  “You beat everybody there, don’t you? And we have two of the top names from the women’s poker club here in town, Vanessa Russo and Leanne Lynn, always competitors.”

  Jackie said, “That’s it?”

  “Start playin for a hundred grand, top prize, and we’ll keep the local girls in for a while. Then you go no-limit with the boys.”

  “You’re doing this,” Jackie said, “so you’ll have a video to show at Keeneland.”

  “If it’s any good,” Harry said. “Everything anyone says will be in it. I think that part’ll be better’n the poker. But there’s always suspense when you raise a bet. All you have to do is sit down with the pros and see if you’re any good.”

  He sounded serious. Jackie said, “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  “Course I do. I’m checkin, see if you’re ready. You win, I suspect you’ll be on your own from now on.”

  “And if I lose my bankroll?”

  “We’ll still be buddies,” Harry said, “won’t we?”

  Raylan and Boyd sat at the back end of the suite by a screen that would follow the action: a camera mounted above the poker table, and a young guy with a Sony Handycam, putting it on the players as they came in the suite. Harry, by the bar, introduced the players.

  Harry: “Twice poker world champ Dude Moody, here all the way from Cypress, Texas, to be with us.”

  They watched Dude come away from the bar in his white Stetson, holding a lowball glass of Maker’s Mark. He touched his brim to the camcorder and took a seat. Dude rolling a cigar in his mouth.

  Boyd: “Smokin it too. They don’t allow it he’s on TV. Raylan, did you get a good look at Ms. Conlan?”

  Raylan: “I did. I noticed she was dead. Boyd, how come you’re here?”

  Boyd: “Ms. Conlan invited me. I identified the body and the company had a funeral home come by and pick her up. She was lookin forward to this game.”

  Harry was introducing the Mu’tazz brothers. “My good friends Kwame and Qasim from Saudi Arabia, successful at poker as they are breeding horses.”

  Harry: “And now the ladies. Jackie Nevada, who’s been playin the big boys lately and winning. And Vanessa Russo and Leanne Lynn, local women’s club champs.”

  Vanessa raised her arm in the sleeveless dress and waved to the camera.

  She reached the table and the Mu’tazz brothers were each kissing her hand.

  Boyd: “I believe Vanessa forgot to shave her armpit this morning. You notice some fuzz?”

  Raylan: “Just the one?”

  Boyd: “Far as I can tell. I saw Ms. Conlan’s armpit she’s layin there dead? It was clean as could be. You could see one of her knockers all bloody.”

  Liz, as she joined them: “What was all bloody?”

  Boyd: “Ms. Conlan’s chest.”

  Liz: “I’m so sorry she couldn’t make it.”

  Boyd: “Poker After Dark, you see their hands on the screen, you know what’s goin on. I think this is gonna be boring.”

  Harry: “You want some background music?”

  Vanessa: “You got anything inspires poker?”

  Leanne: “I 1ike it quiet so I can think.”

  Vanessa: “The one turns me on is Taylor Swift.”

  Dude: “That little girl?”

  Vanessa: “She’ll pack a stadium.”

  Dude: I don’t mind Brad Paisley, he change his name he wouldn’t sound queer. Him and Kenny Chesney’d swap names they’d have it right.”

  Vanessa: “What’re you talkin about?”

  Dude: “That Zellweger girl was married to him a week and walked out.”

  Harry: “Why don’t we get the cards in the air?”

  Boyd: “Dude don’t find Kenny to his taste. That Vanessa, she looks like she’d make a meal of Taylor Swift. How old you think she is, her twenties?”

  Liz: “They’re all young, the girls. Would anyone like a drink?”

  Raylan: “Not yet, thanks.”

  Boyd: “You know how to make a Sazerac?”

  Liz: “With my eyes closed.”

  Boyd, to Raylan: “Your girlfriend hasn’t said a word.”

  Raylan: “She’s waitin on everybody to shut up.”

  Vanessa, to Dude, who’s coming from the bar with another bourbon: “You gonna drink all night?”

  Dude: “When I’m playin women I do.”

  Leanne: “All the talkin, I can’t concentrate.”

  Dude: “Honey, we haven’t started yet.” To Harry: “What’s the blind?”

  Harry: “How about four and six hundred?”

  Dude: “We playin in the schoolyard? Bump it up some.”

  Vanessa: “You’re dumber’n you look, sittin there with your cowboy hat on. I read you like a book, you and your bracelet. What’re you gonna do after, go round up the herd? You guys and your hats.”

  Boyd, to Raylan: “She see yours yet?”

  Raylan: “I’m keepin it hid.”

  Liz: “They gonna play or not?”

  Raylan: “Bet you a buck they don’t turn a card.”

  Dude: “A man wears a hat it becomes part of him.”

  Vanessa: “Cover up your bald head, less you’re wearing a hairpiece.”

  Dude removes his Stetson to show Vanessa a full head of dark hair. He leans toward her at the table. “There a few strands of gray—but go on, pull on it, stick your nose in my hair and satisfy yourself it’s all mine.” Dude straightens. “I see you got kinda pink hair now. Any your other hair pink?”

  Vanessa: “I can’t sit here and look at you no more. You are so fucking out of it. You win cause you bet enough nobody can call. That got you the bracelet?”

  Dude: “A pair. Honey, the boys I play all got enough to call my bets. Give me a seven-deuce down and I’ll beat you playin for anything you want.”

  Vanessa: “You’re a big-mouth stuck on yourself—”

  Dude: “Sometimes.”

  Vanessa: “You prob’ly think Lady Gaga’s a chick from outer space.”

  Dude: “You mean wearin raw meat on your body makes you an alien? I thought it just made you un-hygenic.”

  Vanessa, staring at Dude with cold eyes: “Why don’t you throw that stinky cigar away and get your yellow teeth cleaned? I don’t think I can look at you no more.”

  Dude: “If we’re gonna continue exchangin pleasantries why don’t we forget the whole thing? Less you want to put all you brought on one game.” He waited.
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  He watches Vanessa and Leanne put their heads together for a moment. Now they both get up from the table and walk out of the poker suite.

  Boyd, to Raylan, both sipping Sazeracs: “You called it, partner. No poker this evenin for the young ladies.”

  Liz: “Jackie’s still sitting there.”

  Raylan: “She wants to play, foolin with her chips, but doesn’t say a word.”

  Dude: “I’ll tell you what. Let’s see if we can be polite to one another and wrap this up.” To Jackie: “What’s the most you ever lost?”

  Jackie: “At one time? Twenty grand.”

  Dude: “You piss it away?”

  Jackie: “I got mad.”

  Dude: “Finally met some players, huh?”

  Jackie: “Cigar smokers. I lost my cool but got it back, in case you’re wondering.”

  Dude, reaching over to pat her shoulder: “Let’s see how far bein spunky gets you.”

  The hired dealer in his vest and bow tie finally sat down at the table and dealt each player two cards down.

  Jackie peeks at her hole cards: an ace and a seven.

  Dude: “Hundred thousand to open,” and throws in his chips. “If that’s okay with you people.”

  Jackie and the Saudis see the bet, the Saudis quiet, not looking happy this evening.

  The dealer burns the top card and deals the flop: an ace, five, four.

  Jackie now has her pair.

  Dude throws in chips, betting another hundred thousand.

  The Saudis fold and leave the table. Done with this nonsense.

  Jackie sees the Dude’s bet.

  Dealer: “Pot’s six hundred forty thousand.” He deals the next card, the turn, an eight of hearts on the board.

  Dude: “I’m gonna leave it up to Miss Spunky. See where she’s at.”

  Jackie: “A hundred thousand.”

  Dude stares at her before adding chips to the pile on the table.

  Dealer: “Pot’s eight hundred forty thousand.” He then deals the river card face up on the table. “An ace of clubs.”

  Dude: “Well, hey, we both got aces paired. You got a good kicker under there?”

  Jackie: “Bet and find out.”

  Dude: “I do, I don’t see you got enough to call. Hon, I don’t want to take any more your lunch money.”