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“Hey,” Ben said, standing in the doorway and looking down on him from a small wooden landing that was four stairs up.
Hendrix felt even more uncomfortable when Ben smiled. He could easily see how Ellen’s former driller might assume he’d come to offer him a job. And since Fetterman and Truesdale were the only two water well outfits in the region, he knew it probably wasn’t going to be easy for Ben to find work—not in the same field. “Hey,” Hendrix replied.
Delia appeared behind her boyfriend, and Hendrix recognized her. She worked at the drive-through coffee stand on Grove Street, he realized. Like Ben, she was quite a bit younger than he was, so he’d just never known her name.
“What’s going on?” Hendrix asked.
“Nothing much. We’re just hanging out,” Ben replied as Delia peered around him. “What’s going on with you?”
Hendrix sighed. He’d been planning to do this quickly and quietly. He’d already checked Jay’s tires and Jay’s wife’s tires. He didn’t believe they’d sabotaged their own well, but he didn’t want to be searching for the owner of a particular tire if the picture in his possession corresponded with a vehicle that had good reason to be out there. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” he said, “but someone poured concrete down the well Ellen drilled on Monday and Tuesday—out at the Haslem property. Whoever it was also spray-painted something rather...unflattering about her on the old chicken coop. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
The open and eager expression on Ben’s face quickly shifted to dark and closed. “No. Why would I?”
“You weren’t happy when she let you go. I feel bad about that, by the way, because I’m sort of to blame.”
“Is that why you helped her drill it?”
So Ben had heard, too. It stood to reason. He would know she couldn’t drill something like that alone. No doubt he’d been interested enough to ask around, and the answer was out there. “That’s exactly why I helped her drill it. And I’m not happy that someone damaged it.”
“You think it was me...” Ben said.
“I want to be sure it wasn’t,” Hendrix clarified.
Ben used the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his forehead. “Itwasn’t,” he insisted. “I’m pissed off at Ellen. I admit that. She didn’t have to leave me high and dry. But I didn’t vandalize anything.”
“I don’t even think we were in town,” Delia piped up.
Ellen had mentioned that Ben had gone to a wedding in Utah. “When’d you get back from the wedding?”
“Not until Tuesday, late.” She spoke as if that should cover it, but that wasn’t the case at all.
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly when the incident occurred,” he told her.
“Doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “I’d know if Ben did something like that. I was with him all night. I’ve been with him every minute since we left for Salt Lake.”
Hendrix lifted his phone to show them the picture of the tire imprint. “Then you won’t mind if I compare the tires on your truck to this photograph?”
“There’s no need,” Ben said. “Like Delia just told you, I didn’t do it.”
“Then why not allow me to eliminate you using this?” Hendrix asked.
“Maybe you should,” Delia muttered to Ben. “I mean...why not? There’s no way it could match because it wasn’t you.”
“I don’t care,” he told her. “I don’t have to let him. He’s not the fucking police.”
“Why are you the one who’s checking?” Delia asked.
“And why are you suddenly so keen to help Ellen?” Ben chimed in. “I thought the two of you were sworn enemies.”
Hendrix wasn’t going to go into that. He decided to stick to the reason he’d come and ignore the rest. “Rocko told Ellen it was someone with a Fetterman Well Services logo on the door.”
“So... Rocko’s blaming you?” Ben said.
“Or my aunt or uncle. One of us.”
“He’s just trying to make sure he doesn’t get blamed,” Delia told Ben, pointing to Hendrix.
Ben scowled at her. “I’m glad you’re concerned for him, but I don’t want to get blamed, either!”
