Armadillos & Old Lace Read Online Free PDF Page A

pearl-handled Beretta.
    “When I first met you during the campaign,” she said, “I didn’t like you.”
    “Quite understandable,” I said. “I have a certain superficial charm that holds up for about three minutes when I meet people. After that, it’s usually downhill.”
    “I must’ve stayed around for five minutes,” she said, as she reached into her leather briefcase. I readied myself.
    As fate would have it, she only extracted a sheaf of papers, but in her eyes I could still see the Beretta.
    “It was later in the campaign, Richard,” she said, using my Christian name, “that I met you one day in the bank, and thought I saw that you were really a gendeman.”
    “We all make mistakes,” I said.
    “I don’t think I made one,” she said.
    I had become so accustomed to dealing with NYPD types that I almost didn’t realize that this little woman was complimenting me and asking for my help. I didn’t really see how I could help and I wasn’t even sure what the problem was, but I felt a little ashamed about being a smart-ass. Maybe all law enforcement people brought it out in me.
    The waitress came with our orders just as Pat was showing me a map of the Texas Hill Country with four little X’s scattered around a fairly wide area.
    “Each X indicates an isolated location in which one of these old ladies—all of them were widows— lived. And died.”
    I studied the map politely as I cut into my chicken fried steak.
    “The sheriff has listed the deaths as accidental, natural, or suicide. She feels that four deaths in five months does not establish any kind of pattern and I can’t say I really disagree with her about that. Anyway, I don’t have the power to call for a formal investigation.”
    I took a bite of chicken fried steak. It’s an overordered dish in Texas and most of the time it’s nothing you’d want to write home about even if you had a home. I was wondering what Pat was getting at. Did she want me to share her work load? That would’ve taken a lot of nerve after vanquishing me in the election.
    “The first lady drowned in the bathtub near Bandera—”
    “Household accident number 437,” I said.
    “The second burned to death in her home near Pipe Creek.”
    “Did she run back in trying to fetch her pipe?” Pat Knox looked at me with disappointment in her eyes. The look quickly changed to a flat, hard, tail-gunner’s expression.
    “The third death occurred near Mountain Home. The victim was shot with a gun. The weapon was found near the body.”
    “That was the suicide?”
    “You New Yorkers sure don’t miss a beat.” 
    “Hold the weddin’,” I said. “I come from Texas.”
    “You could’ve fooled me.”
    “And it’s no disgrace to come from Texas,” I said. “It’s just a disgrace to have to come back here.” Her Honor laughed briefly. I assured her I was kidding. She continued reading her book of the dead and I continued eating my chicken fried steak which I hoped was dead.
    “The fourth death occurred just outside of town on the road to Ingram. The woman required an oxygen supply and apparently the botde had come disconnected. That’s it.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Now three of the deaths didn’t even occur in this county, so they’re not really my jurisdiction—” 
    “Or mine.”
    “That’s correct. But I’ve talked to other J.P.’s, to members of the families. I’ve conducted my own private investigation—I always do. Crime scenes, blood splatters, photos. I’ve kept records on all of this.”
    I was only half listening now. I was thinking how a handful of deaths of elderly people wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans in crazy old New York. It wouldn’t even make good table conversation. I wondered again why the judge had called me. Did she want to show me how hard the job was and how overworked she was? Was she trying to rub it in that I’d lost the election?
    “Okay, Pat, so what’s all this mean? Put it on a bumper sticker for