last sound they heard was the kicking up off loose gravel when the rusted out pickup finally caught the pavement and squealed tires up the highway.
"I don't have a clue," her father commented as he turned his attention back to his dead bull.
Roth Jacobs could tell in a single sidewise glance that Olin had the same estimation of what happened in his barn the night before. A half-ton Brahma killed in its stall with no apparent motive and a weapon that spilled no blood. "Do you have any idea who might have wanted to do this? Was there anyone who might be angry with you for putting them off your land? I'm thinking maybe a hunter, somebody who'd have no more of a problem killing a cow than a bear. Anybody come to mind?"
"Bull, deputy. Bull!" Jacobs wasn't sure whether the rancher was correcting the gender of the animal or simply responding that it had nothing to do with disgruntled poachers. Olin Sykes removed his hat and wiped his balding pate with the back of his shirtsleeve. "Hunter? No, I can't think of anyone. You're assuming that I made somebody mad enough that they trespassed onto my property. My land's marked clearly enough and the damn fences are electrified. If they got jolted, it was their fault for not reading the English language. The only one with that problem just left here in a big hurry."
"Jealousy, now there's a reason for you." Sykes narrowed his eyes and nodded his head with suspicion. "Everybody around here knows that Percy was the best stud for hire in Harrison and Marion counties. I get top dollar for passing on his pedigree, his bloodlines to other ranchers. He was getting old, though, poor fellow. He'd been with just about every cow worth having in a forty-mile radius. No reason to do this. His days of siring were just about over."
The deputy glanced up at Miranda, who shrugged her shoulders before excusing herself to go look after her four year-old daughter. "How do you mean?" Roth asked, turning his attention back to the elder Sykes. He never pretended to know anything about cattle, and knew that to profess any more now would only hurt any investigation he hoped to attempt. This was not a murder, at least not a homicide, in spite of the old man's urgency.
"Not an expert in bovines either, Jacobs?" Olin stood, raising himself to his full five-foot seven inches as he stretched his back and his knees popped. "No self-respecting bull will return to the same cow. Ever. Even if his age wasn't an issue, there was hardly a reason to do this. All I can think of is that somebody wanted him out of the way. That leaves only other ranchers with stud bulls. Percy's ribbon days were over and he was ready for pasture. No, anyone who'd do such a thing would have to be another rancher with a bone to pick with me. This was personal, deputy, and I want you to find out who did it."
"Anyone in particular you might have offended?" Roth asked as he jotted down his report.
Olin laughed, wincing as he rotated a cramped arm at the arthritic shoulder. "Son, I've been at this business over fifty years, man and boy. In all that time, I never let anyone get the upper hand on me, whether they were better than me or not. I always convinced folks in these parts that my bulls were the ones to beat.
"Looks like somebody believed you," Jacobs commented as he closed the pad and nodded toward the dead Brahma. Bottle flies reflected blue and green in the early morning sun as they buzzed the open sores. The bloodless wounds. It didn't make any sense as to why the bull went down so easily, let alone how it was killed. There was no sound, nothing to alert the rancher. This wasn't over, because Sykes wasn't about to let it alone. In Roth's estimation, there could only be one suspect and one motive for killing a stud bull about to lose his value. As much as he hated to do it, the Jefferson deputy had one question left for the distraught rancher.
"Mr. Sykes, did you have this bull insured?"
Olin gaped open mouthed at the thinly veiled accusation. "What, you're asking me if I did this for the money? Sure, I had a policy on him, but prize bulls aren't moneymakers like winning racehorses. In his condition and age, I'd be lucky to get fifteen grand for him now, and that's only if they don't blame me like you just did. Don't you understand? I get nothing if I kill my own bull!"
Roth Jacobs stood and put the report book back in his pocket as Sykes calmed himself.
"Look, I was afraid you might think I did this, what with the locked barn door and me not hearing anything so violent in the dead of night on my own ranch. I swear to you, I didn't do this and Miranda's not covering for me. If you can figure out how this happened, whether you think I could manage it or anybody else, I'd be much obliged."
"I'll do my best, Olin. In the meantime, this is an investigation and that bull is evidence. Don't get any fool ideas of destroying it until I can get somebody out here to take a closer look at the carcass. I'd be curious to know what happened to all the blood and if that's all it's missing. Okay?"
Old man Sykes agreed, reminding the sheriff's deputy that there wasn't much time and inviting him to stay for lunch. Miranda was cooking blackened catfish, scratch biscuits and dirty rice with red bean gravy, and would love for him to stay. Passing on the offer of a meal, Jacobs asked the rancher why he was in such a hurry.
"Percy will be ripe in a day or two, and with Ramirez gone It'll take that long to find somebody else to help me get him out of here. I really don't want to look at him until then, let alone smell him. There's a meatpacking plant run by a friend midway between Jefferson and Marshall. Any problem if I call him to take Percy to the cooler while you figure out who did this to him?"
Jacobs got the name and the number of the man who ran the plant, but only gave the go ahead once he found out that it was still in his jurisdiction. The last thing he wanted was for Sykes to pull a fast one and start over with a fresh but ignorant sheriff's office. He declined a second invitation to stay and have something to eat, in spite of her father's assertion that Miranda would be broken-hearted that he turned her down.
Roth thanked the rancher for his time and asked Sykes to pass along his apologies to Miranda. Under the circumstances, he considered staying for a meal a conflict of interest, now that both Olin and his daughter were potential suspects in a possible fraud. He would leave it to the insurance company to decide whether its owners staged the death of the bull for the insurance money. If not them, then how or why was as big a mystery as by whom.
Jacobs removed his hat and club, dropping them both to the passenger seat of the squad car as he got in and started the engine. Olin stood at the door to his barn, while Miranda Sykes wiped her hands on a dishcloth, half-hidden by the screen door to the house. She turned away as the deputy circled the Plymouth around in the yard and headed back up the moss-shaded drive back to the highway. Nothing personal, but part of the reason he left New Orleans in the first place were the bad memories of a failed marriage.
He was so committed to his career, five years of working nights in the French Quarter, that one morning he went home and his childhood sweetheart just wasn't there. She'd taken their three year-old son and went back home to Baton Rogue and filed for divorce. The last thing he wanted or needed in his life at that moment was yet another reminder of his past. No, it was better this way, he decided.
The deputy was no more than six miles out from Caddo Lake at the edge of the Big Cypress Bayou on 134 headed west when he passed Jeremy Borjon going in the opposite direction. He had to be headed to the Sykes place. Borjon was the editor and publisher of Jefferson's only newspaper, a weekly called The Jefferson Observer.
The National Enquirer was more like it. In a small east Texas town, as in any around the country where little happened of real importance, gossip and sensationalism were the order of the day. The Observer's goal was the same as any grocery store tabloid; to sell papers. Unlike the aisle rags, there was little need to make anything up. News traveled fast along the party lines and back porches of the sleepy little community.
Still, it was only 10:30 in the morning and Roth was certain he had gotten the first call. Olin could have placed another with the newspaper to help his cause in getting reimbursed for his loss, but why? Jorge spoke only broken English
and would not have been compensated for carrying any tales on his employer. Not to mention alerting the IMS to his illegal alien status. Who then?
Miranda…
She was probably upset with him for not paying her any more attention than he had over the course of his time in Jefferson. Refusing to break bread with the Sykes while he was out there probably didn't help. The timing just wasn't right for Borjon to know about the killing and be out there so soon. Somebody had to tip him off in the last hour. The editor-in-chief was never one to wait on a story to come to him. These thoughts swirled around the strange circumstances of the bull's death. The backlash from covering the story and putting it in the paper would certainly interfere with his investigation.
Tuesday. Jacobs checked his calendar watch to be sure. That gave him four days until the latest edition hit the stands, on Friday morning. Jeremy laughingly claimed that it gave the townsfolk something to do over the weekend. Maybe he was right. At any rate, Roth considered contacting the Observer publisher after he returned from interviewing Olin and his daughter. The county magistrate could issue a gag order, but the two, as he understood it, were old fishing buddies. No help there.
The