by Ben Rehder
CHAPTER 9
“I wish I knew,” Coach Milstead said. “This whole situation really blows my mind.”
Marlin had asked if the coach had any idea who might be firing shots at Sammy Beech during a high-speed chase. They were seated in a pair of matching upholstered chairs around a coffee table in Milstead’s living room. Milstead’s wife, a quiet woman named Jessica, was attending a function at church.
Marlin said, “Did Sammy have any kind of disagreement or argument with any of his teammates? Anyone he didn’t get along with? Even kids on other teams? Fans? Anybody?”
“Nothing that I know about. Sammy was really easygoing and friendly. Everybody liked him.”
“What about the Ecstasy in his system when he died? Any idea who he might’ve gotten that from?”
“No. I had no idea he was into that sort of stuff or I would’ve put a stop to it. I mean, I understand that most boys his age are going to sneak a few beers now and then, but drugs? I have a zero-tolerance policy about that, and so do college coaches. A positive test for drugs at the college level and his career would’ve been over.”
“Who were his best friends? Who did he hang out with?”
Milstead mentioned some names and Marlin wrote them all down. He noticed that many of the boys on the list were the same boys who had taken part in the youth hunt with Sammy a few years earlier at Phil Colby’s ranch.
Then Milstead said, “You want my advice, you need to look outside Blanco County on this.”
“Yeah? Do you have someone specific in mind?”
“No, but—do you know anything about how players like Sammy get recruited?”
“I don’t follow that part of it real close. I played some ball for Southwest Texas State, but I wasn’t quite to Sammy’s level. Didn’t get recruited.”
“You were a walk-on?”
“Yeah.”
“What position?”
“Linebacker.”
“Okay, well, Sammy—as you know, he was as blue chip as they come. He could’ve picked just about any Division One school he wanted. Last I heard, he’d had something like thirty offers.”
“Scholarship offers.”
“Right. Let me back up. Coaches start going after some of these kids young—sometimes as early as their sophomore year, if they show a ton of promise. What a coach wants is for that kid to make a verbal commitment. Of course, my opinion, it’s all sort of a waste of time, because the verbal commitment isn’t binding. The kid can change his mind, and so can the coach, without any kind of penalty.”
“How often does that happen?”
“Often enough. And even when a kid does verbally commit, it used to mean other coaches would respect that decision and back off, but even that has gone by the wayside in the past few years. There is a tremendous amount of competition between schools to get their claws into a kid like Sammy. I mean, you can build an entire offense around a player like him. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about boosters, or even coaches, slipping cash under the table to these kids. Buying them cars, paying their rent, things like that. All illegal.”
“Does that still go on?”
“Some. And lately there have been more street agents around. You familiar with street agents?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“It’s a guy who pretends to be a scout or a trainer, or maybe he’ll even worm his way into some recruit’s inner circle, so he can claim to be a family friend. And then he’ll try to influence which school that kid picks.”
“For a price.”
“Exactly. Scouting is totally legal, but once you start acting as a middleman between a recruit and a school, then it’s crossing the line. It’s hard to prove, though, because the school will say they were only paying the guy to be a scout.”
“Pretty slimy.”
Milstead leaned forward and placed his forearms on his knees. “Winning ballgames is one thing, but recruiting is a game in itself. Schools will try just about anything that gives them an edge. You know about hostesses?”
“I don’t think so,” Marlin replied.
“Most of the big schools have a group of girls—gorgeous young ladies, to be blunt—whose job is to show recruits around when they visit campus. The coaching staff is only allowed to spend so much time with any particular recruit, so these hostesses step up and have a lot of contact with these boys and make sure their needs are taken care of.”
“The hostesses are an official school group?”
“Yep. Usually connected to the admissions office rather than the athletics department, but everybody knows their main task is to take care of recruits.”
“When you say ‘take care of’...”
“Use your imagination. Of course, maybe I’m generalizing, and I’d bet most of the hostesses stick to the job description, and that’s as far as it goes. But there have been some that have offered more than a tour around campus. Which is why a lot of these hostess groups have been disbanded in the past few years. Something that seemed quaint or charming thirty, forty years ago now seems pretty exploitive, doesn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Imagine being seventeen years old, having a dozen legendary football coaches interested in you, and when you show up to campus for a visit, you’re greeted by a couple of the most beautiful young women you’ve ever seen,” Milstead said.
“Hard to resist.”
“Exactly, and sometimes a kid gets swept away by it all and makes a verbal commitment he later regrets. So he ends up changing his mind, like Sammy did. You have to wonder how many people that pissed off. That’s the point I’m making.”
“Did you advise him on all this stuff? His choices?” Marlin asked.
“In hindsight, I wish I’d butted in a little more. Some high school coaches are very protective of their players, and others prefer to stay out of the recruitment process entirely. I guess my style is somewhere in the middle. I let my boys—and their parents—know that I’m happy to give my guidance, if they want it. If not, that’s fine too.”
“I remember that Sammy committed to UMT back in the spring, but I never heard that he changed his mind.”
“That’s the other reason I’m bringing all this up. The timing just seems suspicious to me.”
“How so?” Marlin asked.
“It wasn’t just that Sammy decided he wanted to go to OTU instead of UMT, it was that he announced it on Facebook just a few hours before he died.”
On his way through Johnson City after interviewing Milstead, Marlin spotted a cluster of trucks in the far reaches of the Super S Foods parking lot, out near the highway. Looked like an impromptu party—ten or twelve vehicles in total, with eighteen to twenty men seated on tailgates, leaning against fenders, standing in small groups talking.
Marlin switched lanes and pulled his green government-issued Dodge into the lot. He didn’t recognize any of the trucks, but most of them were small and foreign-made—jacked up, with big tires and four-wheel-drive for off-roading. Some of the trucks had gun racks mounted in the rear windows. Several had light bars on their grills and whip antennas for CB radios on their roofs.
As Marlin got closer, he saw that he didn’t recognize any of the men, either. They appeared to range in age from early twenties to mid-forties, and several of them discreetly held beer cans behind their legs as they noticed Marlin approaching. Some of them didn’t bother hiding their beers, and one man even held his can up in a lazy salute.
Anyone from the city would say this was a rough-looking crew. Redneck all the way. Scruffy. Most of them needed a shave and, in some cases, extensive dental work. A few of the men wore camo, but most were wearing pearl-snap denim shirts and worn-out jeans with Justin Ropers or snake boots. At least half of them had black felt hats on their heads, with a feather tucked in the headband. It was a signature look, and Marlin had already realized who he was dealing with. But the final tip-off was that there was a dog box—basically a big aluminum crate—mounted in the bed of nearly every truck.
Gre
at. Dog runners.
That was the name given to hardcore hunters who used Walker and bluetick hounds, beagles, Jack Russell terriers, and a few other types of working dogs to chase deer in the Pineywoods of East Texas. The dog runners’ bloodlines usually went back many generations to the early settlers along the Neches River. Hunting with dogs was illegal, but it was sometimes hard to prove, because while a hunter couldn’t use dogs to pursue a deer during an active hunt, he could use dogs legally to trail a deer that was already wounded. Except in East Texas. The problem with dog runners was so prevalent, and so concentrated, in that area of the state, it was illegal to even trail a deer with a dog in twenty-two East Texas counties.
These dog runners were obviously here to try to collect the pig bounty, and Marlin wasn’t happy about it. Dog runners were notorious for breaking hunting laws. As far as the dog runners were concerned, they were just carrying on a tradition set by their daddies, and by their daddies before that, and so on. What right did the government have to tell them to quit doing what they had always done? It was their God-given right.
Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a dog to be seen. The types of dogs used to hunt wild pigs would instinctively separate one pig from the herd. That’s not what the hunters would want in this situation. They’d prefer to kill as many pigs as possible, as quickly as possible. So they hadn’t brought any dogs.
Marlin stopped about forty feet away and studied the group. They watched him right back. More accurately, most of them glared right back. A few of them laughed, as someone no doubt had just made some sort of wise-ass remark.
What Marlin needed to do was get out and talk to them. Ask if he could join the party. Be friendly—but make his presence known. Get a good look at their faces. Take note of any names he heard. Sometimes these informal visits went just fine, other times he found himself in the middle of a pack of first-class assholes.
Just as he reached for the door handle, he happened to glance in his rearview mirror. Behind him, on the other side of the parking lot, was a similar cluster of trucks. As he was craning around to look, he saw several more trucks across the highway, parked in front of a convenience store.
He knew right then it was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 10
Another side effect of Adderall—in addition to hives, breathing difficulties, blurred vision, change in sexual ability, irregular heartbeat, fever, anxiety, frequent urination, blistered skin, vomiting, slurred speech, and a host of other unpleasant possibilities—was “new or worsening mental or mood problems.”
Many people would interpret that to mean the user might get depressed, irritable, or even aggressive—and that was true. Dexter Crabtree had experienced all three. But the “mood problems” could also include delusions and hallucinations. Scary stuff. Crabtree couldn’t afford to have either of those.
He wondered: If you had a hallucination, would you know you were hallucinating? Say you walk into your backyard and see a green-and-pink zebra. Would you know it wasn’t real, but still see it? Or would you see it and think it’s completely real? Because it would be better to see it and know it’s not real. Same with a delusion. If you were under the impression that you were the president of the United States, would you know deep down that you really weren’t? On a similar note, if you began to have irrational thoughts, would you be aware that they were irrational, or would you think you were being perfectly reasonable?
For instance, here he was, in the Mercedes with Ryan, not even seven in the morning, driving south at eighty miles per hour to pay a visit to Colton Spillar. The idea was that they would not leave Blanco County until Spillar had changed his mind. Or, to be precise, until he had changed his mind about changing his mind. Dexter had already decided that he would do whatever it took to achieve that goal. Every option was on the table. Financial inducements. Expensive gifts. The promise of a starting position. Verbal coercion, including threats of humiliation. Even physical punishment, although Ryan would have his hands full with a kid as big as Spillar. But Ryan was talented. He could do all sorts of damage to ligaments, tendons, and—
Christ.
Was this line of thinking rational? What sort of man does these things, and at what possible personal cost? Obsessed by a goddamn game. Had to win. Whatever it took.
“Want me to call ahead for a hotel?” Ryan asked.
Dexter thought about it. For a long time. Then he said, “Turn around.”
“Really?”
A mile passed.
“Dad?”
“No, don’t.”
“So call ahead for a hotel?”
“Well, we’re not gonna sleep in the car, are we?”
“A hotel in Johnson City?”
“If you want to stay in some fleabag in Johnson City, be my guest.”
“Then, uh, Blanco?”
“Austin, genius. Austin. It’s fifty minutes away. Get a room at the fucking W Hotel in Austin.”
Dexter hadn’t always been so willing to put himself at such great risk. He used to stick with the basic money-under-the-table approach, knowing that if he were to get caught, his world wouldn’t necessarily come crumbling down. People more or less expected those sorts of shenanigans from boosters in college football. Boys will be boys, right?
But these other things he’d been doing in the past few seasons, like yesterday’s little visit with Adrian Lacy? How dumb was that? Crabtree knew he was being an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. It was like watching some character in a TV show making stupid decisions.
Was Adderall to blame? He should stop taking it. He knew that. He could stop anytime, of course, and he would. Soon. In February. Just make it to National Signing Day, when recruits had to commit on paper, with no backing out, and then he could take a breath. Wouldn’t need as much energy.
Maybe by then, with his help, UMT would have landed a team that could win a national championship.
Fuck.
Why couldn’t he stop thinking about college football, even for one goddamn minute?
Marlin poked his head into Bobby Garza’s office doorway at eight-fifteen. The sheriff looked at him and said, “Yikes.”
“Really? That bad?”
“You look like you got about two hours’ sleep.”
“That’s two more than I actually got. Mind if I sit?”
“By all means. You haven’t been home? Darrell told me you had a busy night.”
Darrell Bridges was one of the dispatchers for the sheriff’s department. Between Darrell’s radio calls and the calls directly to Marlin’s cell phone from various area residents, Marlin hadn’t had a moment to catch his breath.
“Yeah, once the shooting started after dark, the calls were pretty much nonstop. But would you believe I didn’t file on a single person last night?”
“No?”
“No road hunters, no trespassers, nothing. And here’s why: You know that big bulletin board outside Super S? It’s covered from top to bottom with little homemade ads and posters from landowners offering day leases for pig hunting. Same thing at every convenience store in town. Ads taped in all the windows.”
Garza smiled. “Supply and demand. The locals are cashing in. What’s the going price?”
“Generally about a hundred bucks per day, per hunter. But I noticed that the closer the lease is to Grady Beech’s place, the higher the price gets. One of Grady’s neighbors is asking a thousand a day.”
“Wonder if he’s getting it.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. I have to admit, I’m thrilled. Makes my job easier. I must’ve checked a dozen camps last night, and even the dog runners had their hunting licenses. That’s saying something.”
“Yeah, they don’t want to get busted and ruin their shot at the jackpot. See many dead pigs?”
“Some, but not as many as I would’ve guessed. Pigs are smart. Suddenly the woods are crawling with people, so the pigs are laying low.”
Garza shook his head. “How do pigs lay low?”
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br /> “You’d be surprised. They get deep in a cedar break and you’d never even know they’re there. You walk right past ’em. If you manage to shoot one pig, the rest of them hightail it and you won’t see them again.”
Garza said, “One thing that bothers me about this—I hate to see a bunch of pork go to waste.”
Marlin said, “Same here, but I learned last night that about half a dozen butchers in the area are offering to cut the pigs up and donate the meat to charity.”
“Nice.”
Marlin leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. “I could fall asleep right here.”
“You should go on home.”
“I will, but let me bring you up to speed first.” Marlin proceeded to tell Garza everything he’d learned from Coach Milstead the afternoon before.
When Marlin finished, Garza said, “Interesting. When I spoke to Grady and Leigh Anne yesterday, they didn’t say anything about Sammy switching his commitment to OTU.”
“Well, it probably didn’t seem relevant. I bet even now it wouldn’t occur to them that backing out of a commitment would put Sammy in any danger. I was skeptical myself, so I asked Milstead to name some incidents where a recruit was beaten up or at least threatened after switching schools. I mean, if these boosters and street agents are as aggressive as they sound, that sort of thing must happen occasionally, or even routinely. Milstead couldn’t come up with any examples.”
“And of course that means...”
“We have to consider the possibility anyway. Even though it’s a long shot.”
“Yep.”
Marlin rose from the chair. Time to get some sleep. But he asked, “How did Grady take the news, by the way?”
“I guess about the way you’d expect when you learn that someone chased your son to his death. He got pretty worked up. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anything useful as far as who the pursuer might’ve been. He gave me the go-ahead to check Sammy’s cell phone records, his email accounts, Facebook, all that stuff.”
“Gonna interview his friends?”