Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) Read Free Page A

wrong. Did you sleep with Jack?"
    It seemed a logical question under the circumstances, but it inflamed Joanna. "No," she half screamed, "I did not, and I didn't want to, either."
    "Okay, okay," I said pacifically. "So what's wrong?"
    Her own anger seemed to help Joanna regain some control. She sat up straighter and swallowed the next sob. "No, I didn't sleep with him," she said forcefully, "and I didn't shoot him, either."
    "Shoot him? Did he treat you that badly?"
    Joanna gave me a sideways look out of wet eyes. "You don't understand, Gail. Jack Hollister's dead-and they think I killed him."

 
    THREE
    “ Dead?" I repeated stupidly. "Jack's dead? How?"
    "Someone shot him. Oh God." Joanna sank back with a sound that was half a choke, half another sob. "It's too much."
    "Come on, Joanna." I gave her shoulders a hard squeeze. "Pull yourself together. If you don't tell me what happened, I can't help. Talk, don't cry. Why is it too much? Surely nobody really thinks you killed him?"
    My mind was roving wildly now, trying to imagine any sort of circumstance that would lead to Joanna shooting Jack Hollister, but none seemed possible. I couldn't really believe Jack had been shot; he simply wasn't the kind of person to be the victim of violent crime.
    Joanna was talking, finally; I tried to focus in on her words ... "It's Todd, really, not Jack."
    I'd missed something here. "Todd? Todd is the person who's shot? Not Jack?"
    "No, no. Todd's the reason it's too much."
    Joanna seemed to have recovered some of her composure-maybe she'd sobbed the hysteria out of her system. She kept talking, anyway, and slowly the whole sad story of Todd began to emerge.
    Todd was Todd Texiera, apparently, a cowboy on the biggest ranch in Joanna's part of the foothills, and the apple of every Merced County woman's eye. To hear Joanna tell it, anyway. Joanna had met him on a call out to the Hacienda Ranch, and he'd obviously charmed the socks off of her.
    The socks and everything else, in short order, it appeared. No matter that Joanna seemed to know he'd already loved and left a dozen other women she was acquainted with, she'd hopped right into bed with him, sure that this time it was different.
    Only, of course, it wasn't, and Todd Texiera had left her as he'd left everybody else. About a month ago, it seemed. Left her and proved entirely resistant first to demands and then pleas that he move back in and "work it out." Joanna had been desperate.
    Little by little I glimpsed the demeaning straits to which she'd reduced herself. She'd tried to dress more fetchingly to get his attention, she'd invented numerous imaginary reasons for calls out to the Hacienda Ranch, she'd called him constantly. All of which he'd ignored.
    He was always pleasant, Joanna said, and sometimes he'd tease her, just the way he used to, so she was sure the feeling was still there.
    Fat chance, I thought but didn't say. I recognized Todd Texiera's type from her description and I would have bet my life savings he already had another girl in tow and had no intention of returning to Joanna.
    "What about Jack?" I prodded gently.
    I'd suspected her interest in Jack had been along the lines of a rich boyfriend, possibly even a rich husband, but it seemed I was wrong. Joanna had wanted to acquire Jack out of an even less noble motivation-she wanted to make Todd Texiera jealous.
    "Everybody knows Jack Hollister," she said. "I thought maybe Todd would find out I was dating him."
    It was a pathetically revealing statement, and I cringed for her. Not to mention I was sure it wouldn't have worked. The Todd Texiera types were not susceptible to that sort of game playing. They were the ones who intended to hold all the strings.
    "And now you say Jack's been shot and they think it was you? Who are they? The police?"
    "Yes." Joanna looked like she was ready to cry again; talking about Todd had calmed her, talking about Jack's murder seemed to do the reverse.
    "Come on," I urged her, "tell me what