Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

the Palo Duro Canyon. That’s the sort of territory I’d be looking for. ’Bout sixty mile west of here.”

I thanked him and left. In my mirror I could see him watching me with his hands on his hips. I knew he was amused.

I followed his advice and drove to Texola. Texola was like Wheeler, only more so. There was a grid pattern of roads with nothing between them except the odd house or a shed, or sometimes a farm. I found Ted’s place easy enough. It was a big wooden barn that had things painted on it in red and white paint, like “wheel change” and “oil.”

I pulled off the road and killed the engine. An old guy in overalls came out of the shed, wiping his hands on a cloth that seemed to be making his hands dirtier than they were. He was staring at my car.

“Hi, are you Ted?”

He studied my face as though the question amused him and said, “Nice car.”

“Thanks. I need to hire a truck for a few days, a Jeep or a pickup.”

“Foreign. They din’t make that in Dee-troit!” He laughed like he’d cracked a real funny joke. I chuckled and said a little more forcefully, “Can I rent a truck from you?”

“Sure y’can.” He turned and started to walk away. “Long as you don’t lose the darn thing. Don’t know how you can lose a darn truck. Big as Texas.”

I followed him into the cool shade of the barn structure. There was a Ford pickup and next to it a Dodge RAM.

“I got them insured, but that don’t mean you can just take off with ’em. Still puts m’darn premium up, don’it?”

“I’m not planning to make off with your truck, Ted. I just want to hire it for a day or two.”

He nodded past me at my car. “Whatcha fixin’ to do with your car?”

I hadn’t thought it through. I’d had some vague notion of coming out again with Dehan. He said, “I can take it for ya. I done that before, but then you gotta bring me back, aintcha?”

“Clean her up. Check the oil. I’ll come back for it this evening.”

He shrugged. “Suit yerself. I won’t do nothin’ fancy. It’s a foreign car, ain’it?”

There was no paperwork involved, as long as I paid cash and promised to bring the truck back. I did both and five minutes later I was driving west along the I-40 toward Amarillo. I drove for about an hour, and then in Donley County, I turned left onto the State Highway 70. As the farmer at Shamrock had suggested, this was a lot more promising. The short distance had made a difference. The landscape was parched. The earth was brown turning to a dirty, desiccated gray. And as I headed south on route 70, the terrain to my right—to the west—began to fall away into valleys and deep hollows.

It was promising, but it was also vast. It was going to take time—time I didn’t have a lot of. I drove for about fifteen minutes without seeing any paths to the right or left that tempted me to explore. Eventually I came to Hardwick and the Greenbelt reservoir. There was a kind of trailer park down there with dirt tracks running off in all directions around the lake. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring every one of them. I discovered that they all led to the same place. Nowhere.

By six o’clock I was beat, and I headed back to the Route 66 Inn. I picked up Dehan and took her to collect my Jaguar. When we got back and I had showered ten hours of sweat and dust off my body, she strolled into my room without knocking and sat on my bed. Fortunately I had most of my clothes on.

“Get dressed, Sensei. I’m taking you out to dinner. This town has a place called Big Vern’s Steak House, with its own brand beer. You realize we may have died and gone to Texas?”

She had a point.

Nineteen

It was probably the best steak I had ever eaten in my life, and it kept Dehan intensely quiet for a full fifteen minutes. When she’d finished, she sat back, licked her lips, and said, “That right there was not a steak. That was an experience. Moments like that make life worthwhile.” I smiled. She didn’t. “I’m serious.”

She drained her beer and waved the empty glass at the waitress. While she waited for a refill, she said, “Now, are you going to tell me why we are looking for Mick’s car here?”

I sucked my teeth and sighed. “What did you find out about Maria’s movements that day?”

“That would be a no, then.”

“My answer depends somewhat on yours.”

The waitress appeared with glowing teeth and hair and placed a beer in front of Dehan, who studied it for a while.

“Not a whole lot. No ballads were written about her. Nobody seems to remember much about her at all. Except the manageress at the hotel remembered her because of the whole fight thing. She said Maria did something next day that surprised her.”

“She left town midmorning while Mick was still in the county lockup? Asked where she could hire a car?”

Dehan made a funny little jerk with her head and closed her eyes, like she had three or four different questions and didn’t know which one to ask first. There was a smile too, but not a very amused one. In the end, she said, “What… like… how…?”

“Lucky guess. What did the woman tell her—Texola?”

She shrugged. “I could just go back to New York and take up sewing.”

“Don’t be silly. Who would I show off to, then?”

She studied my face while I studied the tablecloth.

“Okay, Stone, you’re a clever man, there is no denying that. But suddenly