by Ben Rehder
“Armando?” It was Grace, the owner of the shop, suddenly at his elbow. He’d been too preoccupied to even notice she’d come into the back room.
“Yes?”
“That’s lovely.”
“Thank you.”
“But... which customer is it for?”
“Uh, the anniversary party this evening.”
“Honey, those are supposed to be yellow roses.”
“Oh, lord. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be silly. We have plenty of time to get another arrangement ready.”
It was only a small mistake, but Armando had always prided himself on his meticulous attention to details. He had to clear his head and get his concentration back. Now it was obvious what he had to do. Confess to Sharon. Admit what he’d done. Then, in the future, avoid Red O’Brien at all costs.
Dexter Crabtree was in the process of stuffing Adderall—in the privacy of a filthy gas station bathroom stall, slacks hanging from a hook on the door—and he couldn’t help gloating a bit. Clever what he’d done—the way he’d outfoxed Vera Spillar.
Giving her half of each hundred-dollar bill was absolutely brilliant. Just like Crabtree had said, she’d gotten half up front. Of course, that half was worthless without the other half. So she’d have to follow through with her side of the deal—or get nothing. Crabtree had seen that little trick in various movies over the years and had always wanted to use it himself. The only risk was that his half of the money would also be worthless if Vera Spillar didn’t come through, or if Colton refused to do what she asked him to do. Fine. Crabtree could afford the gamble.
As soon as Colton Spillar announced that he was renewing his verbal commitment to the University of Middle Texas, that would be that. There would be no more opportunities for him to change his mind. He’d reached his limit—and there most certainly was one. Unspoken, but it was there. Most college coaches could understand how Colton might be lured away from his original commitment by a program as prestigious as OTU’s. And they could understand how Colton might start to feel guilty later and switch back to his first commitment, to keep his word. But if he attempted to switch yet again, to OTU or anyone else, he’d be seen as a recruit who couldn’t be trusted. A serial waffler. Coaches were patient, and they didn’t mind stealing recruits from one another, but some of them had started drawing a line in the sand about all this switching around. They didn’t want to waste time chasing a player who had about as much loyalty as a ten-dollar hooker.
Now all Crabtree had to do was wait.
Wait for the tweet—directly from Colton, or from one of the various media outlets that kept Crabtree up to date. And as luck would have it, just as he was pulling up his slacks, his cell phone emitted the alert for an incoming tweet. He pulled his pants up to his waist and—in a burst of giddy anticipation—yanked his phone from his front pocket.
That’s when it happened.
He bobbled his phone. Clumsy. In too much of a hurry. The phone practically leapt from his hands, as if it had a mind of its own. Crabtree was already buzzing from the Adderall, but now his heartbeat jumped up a level, because in that fraction of a second while his phone was in midair, he knew exactly where it was going to end up.
And it did.
It landed in the toilet with a sickening splash.
The alert sounded again, but now it warbled from beneath several foamy inches of stagnant yellow pisswater. Crabtree hadn’t flushed the toilet when he had come into the stall, and it appeared none of the previous ten occupants had bothered to flush, either. Crabtree simply stood there and watched until the alert stopped sounding and the screen on his phone went dark.
Fuck.
He couldn’t just leave his phone in there. It was the most important thing he owned. It was loaded with all his important contacts—information that he hadn’t backed up as frequently as he should have. It was his electronic lifeline to the world of college football. He didn’t care about the actual phone, which was probably ruined, but maybe he could salvage the SIM card.
The good news was, he had Latex gloves.
He removed a glove from his pants pocket and tugged it on to his right hand, focusing on the fact that he was pretty sure urine was sterile. He had read that somewhere. So what he was about to do was gross, yes, but probably not dangerous. Then again, the bowl itself was crusted with all sorts of disgusting particles and remnants he’d rather not even contemplate. So, on second thought, there had to be billions of germs colonizing that water.
Think positive. He had a glove. The same kind surgeons wore. The germs were irrelevant.
He pulled the glove as high as possible up his wrist, then he slowly lowered his hand below the rim until it touched the surface of the water. He paused. Then he lowered it farther. He could feel the warmth of the water enveloping his fingers and creeping upward on his palm.
But he wasn’t able to touch the phone yet.
He went a little deeper and his fingertips finally brushed the phone, but he couldn’t actually grip or grab it. Ever so slowly, he lowered his hand a bit more, hoping to use two fingers like pincers. Still couldn’t get it. Meanwhile, the level of the water was past the heel of his hand and almost to the lip of the glove.
He heard someone outside, trying to turn the locked doorknob. Then a light knock. “Dad?”
Ryan, wondering what was taking so long.
“Just a minute, goddammit!”
Crabtree reached still deeper, his eyes focused on the phone, and the way his two fingers could almost grasp it, clutching at it, so close, only to have it slip away each time, and then he reached too far, and the pisswater poured into his glove like water over the transom of a sinking rowboat.
No reason to be careful now. Crabtree plunged his hand all the way into the bowl, grabbed the phone, and pulled it out. He hustled over to the sink—feeling the pisswater running down his wrist and forearm—and quickly rinsed the phone off. Amazingly, it was still working.
He checked the incoming tweet, which had indeed come from Colton Spillar. But it had nothing to do with his verbal commitment. It simply said: We’re dedicating the rest of the season to our lost teammate, Sammy Beech.
Crabtree read the tweet twice before the screen went dark again.
CHAPTER 21
Just after six o’clock in the evening, Sheriff Bobby Garza—accompanied by Chief Deputy Bill Tatum—knocked on the door of Room 115 at the Hill Country Inn. The blue GMC truck registered to Dustin Bryant was backed into a spot directly in front of the room.
Garza could hear the sounds of a TV playing loudly inside, but nobody answered the door. Garza knocked again. Now the curtain moved in the window to the right of the door and the TV went quiet. Then the deadbolt lock turned and the door swung open about a foot wide.
One of the Bryant brothers—the one with the goatee—was squinting through the opening. He was wearing jeans, but his torso was bare. His chest was pale and hairless, without much definition, a ring of fat around his waist. His hair lay flat against his skull from wearing a hat earlier in the day. He looked like a man awoken from a nap.
“Yeah?”
“Evening,” Garza said. Friendly. All smiles. “I’m Sheriff Bobby Garza. This is Chief Deputy Bill Tatum. Which one are you—Dustin or Dylan?”
“I’m, uh, Dylan.”
“Good to meet you, Dylan. We need to chat with you a minute. Mind stepping outside?”
“Uh... what’s this about?”
“What’s going on?” said somebody inside the room. And now the other Bryant twin appeared. “Oh.”
“And you’re Dustin,” Garza said. “Great. I’m going to ask both of you to come outside for a few minutes so we can ask a couple of questions.”
“About what?” Dustin asked.
“Yeah, about what?” Dylan echoed. Their voices were nearly identical.
Garza noticed that Dylan’s eyes were darting nervously over to Tatum every few seconds, and Garza could understand why. Tatum was an imposin
g figure. Not tall, but stout, with a weightlifter’s torso and biceps that bulged like grapefruits beneath his uniform.
Before Garza could speak again, he saw the bathroom door swing open at the rear of the small motel room—and out came the tall redheaded man named Gilbert Weems.
“I don’t know what it was,” Marlin said, “but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew something he wasn’t telling.”
“What’s his name again?” Nicole asked.
“Colton Spillar.”
“Mom’s name is Vera?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
They were on opposite ends of the couch, relaxing for a few minutes before figuring out what to do for dinner.
“I answered a call at her place once. This was just a couple of weeks before I switched jobs, if I remember correctly.”
“What was the call about?”
“Drunk live-in boyfriend making a nuisance of himself, which was a regular thing. She’d had enough and wanted him out of there, but he also paid half the bills, so she was going to have a tough time on her own.”
“Did she boot him?”
“She did, yeah. I dropped in on her one time after I went to victim services and it looked like she was getting along okay. Struggling a little, but that was better than living with an abusive jerk.”
“Did you have much interaction with Colton?”
“None. But it could be you’re reading too much into his behavior. He might outweigh you by fifty pounds, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t intimidated by you, especially if Mom’s boyfriend regularly put him down or picked away at his confidence.”
Marlin thought about it. “You might be right.”
“Especially considering the circumstances. You were showing these teenage boys a picture of a beautiful woman and asking if they know her. I imagine that might normally make them a little flustered, but then you add the fact that this woman might have something to do with Sammy’s death.”
“I would’ve sworn he reacted like he recognized her.”
“But it’s a sexy shot, right? Even cropped?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Maybe that’s why he reacted.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Let’s see it.”
“Huh?”
She grinned. “I haven’t seen the photo yet. I’m curious. This woman must be a drop-dead hottie.”
“She’s no Nicole Marlin.”
“Ha. You’re sweet.”
Marlin went out to his truck and came back with the manila envelope. He removed the photo and handed it to Nicole.
“Wow,” she said immediately. “She really is—” He was watching her expression and something suddenly changed. “Hey, wait a minute.” She raised a finger. Her brow was furrowed. Recognition. That’s what he saw on her face.
“We ain’t done nothin’,” Dylan Bryant said.
Weems was now standing behind the Bryant brothers, glaring at Garza and Tatum, and none of the three men had made a move to step outside the motel room. Garza had been careful to check Weems’s hands, which were empty.
“You’re Gilbert Weems?” Garza said.
“That’s the name they give me.”
“I’m going to ask all three of you to come down to the station.”
Neither Bryant brother reacted. They were plainly going to follow Weems’s lead.
Unfortunately, Weems said, “Got a warrant?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Garza said. “We just need to ask y’all a few questions.”
“Sounds like fun, but we’ll pass,” Weems said.
“Won’t take but a few minutes.”
Weems stepped between the Bryant brothers and put one hand on the edge of the door, as if preparing to close it. Weems was knowledgeable enough on the law to know he wasn’t obligated to step outside or to answer a single question. “Said we’ll pass.”
Garza gave up on Weems and looked at Dylan Bryant. “Where were y’all yesterday evening around sundown?”
“We—
“He ain’t got to answer that,” Weems said.
Garza said. “It’s an easy question. What’s the problem?”
“Ain’t no problem.”
“Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”
“Don’t really matter, does it? It’s always some bullshit deal with guys like you,” Weems said.
Garza could feel his pulse picking up.
Bill Tatum said, “Somebody fired a couple of rounds at a state game warden yesterday. Y’all know anything about that?”
“No, but that sounds like a pretty good time. Was he hit?”
“No, he wasn’t,” Tatum said.
“Then you know it wasn’t none of us. We all know how to shoot. Don’t think we’d miss anything as big as a game warden. The question is, do you need a hunting license to shoot a game warden?”
Weems was grinning. Hoping to draw a reaction. Just as cocky and arrogant as Sheriff Sharp had described.
Garza turned to Dustin Bryant. “This is your truck behind me, right? Big diesel?”
“Yeah. So what?” Dustin said.
“The shooter yesterday hopped into a diesel.”
“Lot of diesels around,” Dustin said.
“True enough. But how many of them have dog boxes in the back?”
“Plenty.”
“Maybe in East Texas, but not around here. How many are occupied by a passenger at least six-four or six-five?”
“How tall are you, Gilbert?” Tatum asked.
“I’m five foot eighteen.”
“Clever. Six-six, huh?”
“You must’ve gone to college to figure it out that quick.”
“The county is crawling with people right now, but I can’t recall seeing anyone else as tall as you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure I look like a giant to a short little guy like you.”
Garza could see a trace of irritation on Tatum’s face, but nothing to worry about. The chief deputy wouldn’t be baited by Weems’s weak insult.
Tatum said, “The warden said the shooter had red hair. Wait, that’s not exactly right. Orange hair.”
“Dang, that’s a freaky coincidence,” Weems said. “My hair is kind of orange.”
“That’s true,” Tatum said.
“No wonder you think it was me.”
“Was it?”
“I think we’re done for today,” Weems said. “Time to go drink some beer and maybe get laid. Hey, do either of y’all have a sister?”
Garza said, “We will catch the shooter. I guarantee that.”
“Yeah, well, good luck.” Weems closed the door.
“Hey, Dustin,” Garza said through the door. “You give me a call at the station if you want to stay out of trouble. You, too, Dylan. Don’t let your buddy Gilbert drag you into a bad situation.”
Nicole recognized the woman—that was clear—but she was trying to place her.
“You know her?” Marlin asked.
Nicole held her hand up, meaning Be quiet and let me think.
Marlin waited, while Nicole continued to study the photo.
“Damn it,” she said. “Almost.”
He could tell that it was one of those frustrating moments when the answer was dancing just on the edge of her memory.
He waited some more.
And then he saw her expression change again. A big smile. She had it.
“Wait right here,” she said, rising off the couch.
“Do you—”
“Just a sec!”
She came back in half a minute with her iPad. He’d given it to her the previous Christmas. She sat down again and began to type something.
“I can’t remember her name, but...” she said.
“You know who she is?” He was getting excited.
“Yes. Hold on.”
He could see that Nicole was doing a Google search. She followed a link and studied the page. Shook her head. Followed another link. Then another.
“Got her!” she said.
“The name?”
“Yes.”
Nicole typed in another search. She got a long string of results, but instead of following one of those links, she clicked on the “Images” tab instead. Dozens of small thumbnail photos filled the screen—all of the same woman. The woman in Sammy Beech’s photo.
CHAPTER 22
“Her name is Aleksandra Babikova,” Marlin said into his cell phone. “She played volleyball for the Russian Olympic team, then went pro for a few years.”
Garza didn’t reply.
“You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I just don’t know what to say. The woman in Sammy’s photo is a former Russian volleyball player?”
“Yep.”
“I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t that. You’re sure of this?”
“Google her name and you’ll see. She also did some modeling and acting, overseas and here in the States. That’s how Nicole recognized her—from one of the movies she was in. She played the sexy Russian spy.”
“Big stretch.”
“Yeah, right,” Marlin said.
“Aleksandra Babikova.”
“That’s it.”
“Name doesn’t ring any bells at all.”
“Didn’t for me, either. Not like she was a big star, but she had her moment in the sun.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Garza said.
“Huh?”
“That this is a dead end. Waste of time.”
“Could be, but I should add that she lives in Dallas now. I saw something about that on the web, then checked to see if she has a Texas driver’s license. She does. Seems a little coincidental that she lives in Texas, and Sammy Beech happened to have a photo of her on his phone.”
“How long has she lived here?” Garza asked.
“Don’t know.”