Where There's Smoke

Janellen reacted quickly. “Mama explained why she threw out your flowers, Key. They made her sneeze. She must have been allergic to them.”

“Yeah, she must have been.”

He didn’t believe it for a minute. Earlier in the week, vainly looking for a way to make peace with Jody, he’d brought her a bouquet. Janellen had arranged the flowers for him in a vase and placed it on the dresser in Jody’s bedroom while she was out with Maydale.

The next morning, he’d found the flowers in the garbage can outside the back door. It wasn’t so much that she’d thrown them out that had rankled him, but that she hadn’t even acknowledged them until he presented her with the wilted evidence and asked for an explanation.

Calmly, coldly, she’d told him the bouquet had given her hay fever. She hadn’t said that they were pretty and that it was a pity she couldn’t enjoy them. She hadn’t thanked him for the gesture.

Not that he wanted or needed her thanks. He would survive without it. It just made him damn mad that she thought him stupid enough to accept her lame excuse for rebuffing a gift from him. Rather than give her the satisfaction of seeing him hurt and angry, he acted as nonchalant now as he had that morning he’d tossed the bouquet back into the trash can.

Jody broke another lengthy silence. “How’s the new man doing?”

Janellen practically dropped her coffee cup. It clattered noisily against the saucer. “He… he’s doing fine. I think he’s going to work out well.”

“I still haven’t seen his references.”

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting to bring them home. But his supervisor reports that he’s doing the job well. He’s never late and is very conscientious. He gets along with the other men. Doesn’t make trouble. I’ve had no complaints.”

“I still can’t figure why Muley up and quit without giving notice.”

Janellen had told Key the circumstances of Muley’s severance but had asked him not to tell Jody. Her reaction to a trusted employee turning thief was likely to be volatile and a threat to her high blood pressure. Key had agreed.

He also knew that Bowie Cato was an ex-con who’d barely had time to lose his prison pallor. Even before Janellen introduced them, Key had seen him at The Palm. Hap had given him the scoop on Cato.

Key nursed no prejudice against former inmates. He’d spent a few days in an Italian jail himself a few years back. Cato was friendly but not ingratiating. He kept to himself, did his job, and avoided trouble. That could not be said of very many men who didn’t have prison records.

Jody’s viewpoint on social reform wasn’t exactly liberal. She had a low tolerance for mistakes. She wouldn’t welcome having an ex-con on the payroll, so the less she knew about Cato’s background, the better for everybody. Muley was gone; Janellen had found a qualified replacement. That was the bare-bones story they’d given her. But apparently Jody smelled a rat. This wasn’t the first time she’d broached the subject.

Key kept his expression impassive and hoped Janellen would do the same. But lying didn’t come easily to her. Under her mother’s incisive stare, she fidgeted with her silverware.

“Cato isn’t from around here?”

“No, Mama. He grew up in West Texas.”

“You don’t know who his people are?”

“I think they’re deceased.”

“Is he married?”

“Single.”

Jody continued staring at her daughter as she puffed on her cigarette. After what seemed an endless silence, Janellen glanced nervously at Key. “Key’s met him. He thought he was all right.”

Damn! He didn’t want to get caught in the cross fire. But he went to his sister’s rescue. “He’s a nice guy.”

“So’s Santy Claus. That doesn’t mean he knows an oil well from his asshole.”

Janellen flinched at her mother’s crude phraseology. “Bowie knows a lot about oil, Mama. He’s worked in the business since he was a boy.”

As long as he’d already been drawn into it, Key furthered his sister’s cause. “Cato is doing his job. Janellen likes him and so do the other men. What more could you want?” He knew, of course, what his mother wanted: Jody wanted to be young, healthy, and strong; she wanted to be at the controls of Tackett Oil and Gas and resented Janellen’s hiring an employee without consulting her. If she’d hired a reincarnation of H. L. Hunt, Jody wouldn’t have liked him.

“He’s been on the payroll for… what, Janellen, two weeks?”

“That’s right.”

“And he hasn’t caused a single mishap,” he continued. “So it looks to me like Janellen made a sound business decision.”