Branson Desoto
I glanced back over my shoulder and found Joe concentrating hard on his computer screen, so I decided to vet the file before I alerted him. Grabbing my headphones out of my desk drawer, I plugged them in, then clicked on the first file.
“Hey man,” said an unfamiliar male voice. “You got a light?”
“Sure,” another man said.
I sped up the audio, zooming through worthless chitchat until I heard a man say, “Branson.”
Scaling it back to normal speed, I heard the first man say, “What kind of entertainment do y’all have around here? Got any titty bars?”
The other man laughed, and I would have recognized that laugh anywhere. I’d heard it more times than I could count when Branson would hand me off to a man who’d paid to screw me. Panic swept through me and I struggled to catch my breath as Branson said, “Sure do, man, although it’s gone downhill lately. Big turnover in the girls and the pickin’s are slim, if ya know what I mean.” Then he laughed again.
“Huh, maybe I’ll check it out. You headed there tonight?”
“Nah, my old lady’ll kill me. She used to dance there, and she’ll think I’m goin’ to screw one of the dancers.”
“You can screw ’em?” asked the first guy, who was presumably Neil Franken.
“Well…” Branson said in a sly tone. “What the manager don’t know don’t hurt him.”
There was a long pause, then Franken asked, “So your old lady is a stripper? What’s that like, man? You got a pole in your bedroom?”
He chuckled. “My old lady’s in no shape to be dancin’ on a pole. She’s so high most of the time, she’d fall right off on her ass.”
There was a moment’s pause, then Franken said, “Rumor has it there’s a guy who can sell you a night with a hot blonde with great tits. You know anything about it?”
The blood rushed from my head to my feet, and I grabbed the edge of my desk.
Branson waited a few seconds to answer. “Nope. Don’t know nothing about it.”
“That’s too bad,” Franken said. “I was hopin’ he could hook me up. I got a few thousand bucks and a thing for pretty blondes.”
Branson changed the subject to the weather, and I could see that there was another forty minutes to the recording, so I sped it up again. Franken was buying Branson drink after drink, until Branson’s words were slurred and he was obviously drunk. About five minutes from the end, I heard Franken say in a chipmunk voice, “Man, I’d really like to fuck me a gorgeous blonde.”
I slowed it down to normal speed.
“There’s lots of blondes around here,” Branson said, the words running together. “Go screw one of them.”
“See,” Franken said. “I’ve got this particular one in mind. This seems like a small town. Check out the photo. Maybe you know her.”
“Holy shit,” Branson said. “That’s Neely Kate.”
“Neely Kate, you say. So you know her?”
“Yeah, I used to know her.” He sounded nervous. “But she’s long gone.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Dunno. I’d guess she went back to Arkansas.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled as though he was forcing out the question. “How do you know ’er?”
“A buddy of mine. Maybe you know him.” Another pause. “Pearce Manchester.”
So Franken knew about me before he’d talked to Branson or Beasley. How had he made the connection?
Branson mumbled a bunch of incoherent words, then said, “That’s that guy from Dallas, ain’t it? That oil guy who disappeared.”
“So you do know him?”
“Nah, I don’t know him,” Branson said in a rush. Any fool could have seen he was lying, and I was pretty sure Franken was no fool. “Everybody and their brother knew about that fifty-thousand-dollar reward.”
“His daddy sure does want him back,” Franken said. “Dead or alive.”
“Why would his daddy want him dead? Shit. That’s creepy as fuck.”
“A funeral, man,” Franken said. “He and his wife are beside themselves with grief, even after all this time.”
Neither one of them spoke for several seconds. Then Branson said, “So just out of curiosity… you know, hypothetically…” His tone grew bolder. “What if he’s dead, and what if someone knew where he was buried?”
“Are you askin’ if the reward still stands?” Franken asked. “You bet your ass it does. Happen to know where Pearce Manchester is buried, Branson?”
“Me? Nah… how would I know?” His anxiousness was back. “But I might know someone who does.”
“Really? That would be great. Do you think you could hook me up?”
“He’s pretty shy, but I could probably find out from him and then take you out there myself.”
“That sounds like a deal, buddy. Now about that blonde… I really want to screw her. There might be a finder’s fee for her too.”
“Yeah,” Branson said in a smug tone. “I can find that out for you too.”
The recording ended, and I stared at the screen in horror.
Chapter 16
Something touched my arm and my heart burst out of my chest. Bolting upright in my chair, I shrieked as I spun my chair to the side to face my attacker, punching Joe in the chest. When I realized what I’d done, I jerked my earbuds out of my ears. “Oh my word! I’m sorry!”
He rubbed his left pec as he stood upright. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I called your name twice and you didn’t hear me. What were you listening to?”
I couldn’t bring myself to immediately answer. “Uh…”
“Whatever it was scared the shit out of you. Want to tell me in the car while we head to the diner?”
I nodded, then looked over at Muffy’s bed to call her. “Where’s Muffy?”
Joe’s eyes flicked to the floor at my feet. Muffy was sitting next to me, fully alert as though she was guarding me.
I bent down, scooped her up, then nuzzled my face into her neck. “You’re the best dog ever.”
She licked my face, then looked into my eyes as though she was telling me she wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I almost believed her.
I closed the laptop lid and shoved it into my oversized purse. “We’re bringing this.”
Joe locked up, and once we were in the car and on our way out of the downtown area, Joe asked, “What did you find?”
“An audio recording of Franken talking to Branson Tuesday night.”
He turned to me in shock. “What did he say?”
I took a shaky breath, then said, “I think you should listen to it.”
“Okay.”
Opening the laptop, I rewound the recording to the point where Franken said he wanted to screw a gorgeous blonde. Joe listened in silence, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly the leather squeaked.
When the recording ended, I turned it off and shut the laptop lid.
“Was there a photo of you on the phone?” Joe asked. “Before or somewhere in the Ardmore pics?”
“No,” I choked out.
“He could have deleted it, or he could have found a photo of you online.”
“You mean like Facebook?” I asked.
“Yeah. You don’t post much, but there’s a few photos he could have used.”
“Joe, my profile says I live in Henryetta.”
He pushed out a breath. “Yeah.”
“And Stella stopped by Miss Zelda’s Wednesday afternoon saying they were coming into money, then she left her baby with her last night and she hasn’t come back to get her. She mentioned the coming into money the day after Branson talked to Franken.”
He shot me a glance. “It’s a sure thing, then. They’re comin’ to find you.”
As though I needed any more trouble. “If Franken knew where I was, why contact Branson?”
“I don’t know. To get confirmation that you were who he was looking for? I’m pretty sure Branson gave it to him. Maybe he also wanted to get confirmation Branson was part of it. But how did Franken find out about you or if he told anyone?” Joe gave me a grim look. “As for Branson, Carlisle was going to look into him. We need to tell him about this latest development.”
I frowned. “You want me to tell him?”