Wildburn (A Whicher Series Novella)
Page 3
“Jesus Christ.”
“I'm an hour's drive from Torero. Maybe I'll think of something to tell the judge.”
“You really think?”
“If she has to go in the can tonight, she's better there. They probably have empty cells, single occupancy. I'll do everything I can. But I got due process to serve...”
Across the lot, the door of the Silverado opens.
Juanita's leaning over the driver seat, looking straight at him.
He holds his hand over the cell phone. “What?”
“Somebody tried to call,” she says. “On your radio.”
The marshal glances at the state trooper cruiser. “Butch?”
“Can I talk with Juanita?”
“I'm going to have to call you back.”
Gaines County, TX.
* * *
Two hours later, in Gaines County southwest of Lubbock, the lease road snakes through empty prairie—lights on a drilling rig blinking above the scrub mesquite.
Juanita Jones sits in the glow of the dash. She's slumped forward, hands lost between the folds of dress at her knees.
“You think he'll be here?”
She shakes her head of dark hair.
“He ever mention here?”
“I don't recall.”
“He don't talk about where he's at, where he's working?”
“Why would he?”
“What kind of a relationship y'all have?”
A gas flare bursts orange-yellow above the dark scrub—the tower of the drilling rig caught in the sudden flame.
“He doesn't own me.”
Whicher hooks his thumbs on the steering wheel, tracks the hi-beams washing over the road.
Back at the interstate, the call at the rest stop had been from Sheriff McCoy. One of McCoy's deputies had found a number in Lynch's house—the number for a drilling rig operator out of Corpus Christi.
They'd called the number.
The rig operator told them Lynch was a fluids technician, traveling site to site.
They said he'd be down in Gaines County. Sheriff McCoy could call his counterpart in Gaines—he could call the Highway Patrol, or the FBI. But Whicher was already involved—McCoy said he'd thought of him; Marshals Service had the federal jurisdiction.
Whicher told the sheriff he'd go down, look for Lynch.
No mention of finding Juanita. He stares out at the lights on the rig tower ahead—a skeleton of steel against the arc of night.
Working trucks and SUVs are parked around a cluster of trailers that form the site. Among the tanks and gear and flood lights are the figures of men.
The marshal pulls up at the edge of the clearing.
He stops the truck, twists in his seat.
Reaching in back, he locates a length of chain.
Juanita looks at him. “What're you doing?”
“Put out your wrists.”
She glares at him, pulls away.
“For your sake, you ain't running.” He takes the handcuffs from his belt, attaches the chain. “I have to fix you onto this.”
She presses back in her seat.
He catches hold of one hand, then the other.
She pulls her arms away.
“You think I want this?” He lets go.
Her eyes burn him. She presses back tight to the passenger door of the truck.
“I'm supposed to lock you up. I told your old man I'd help you.”
“I didn't do anything...”
“You skipped out on court.”
She puts her head against the window—stares at the roof liner of the cab.
He takes one of her hands in his—slowly. Snaps a cuff around the wrist, then the other.
He pulls the chain against the D-ring in the floor.
The clock in the dash reads 10:30.
“I'm going in there and see if I can find your boyfriend.”
“He's not my boyfriend.”
Whicher elbows the door of the truck open.
He steps out into the night.
A hundred yards back of the drilling rig, scrub mesquite marks the edge of the cleared ground.
A cherry red Ram pickup is parked, tailgate open. Its front end faces out toward the brush.
Whicher studies the bed of the truck, an oversize tool-chest, a mess of jugs and bottles, scales and pipes.
He steps along the side of the truck to the double cab—looks in through the glass.
The front passenger seat is cranked all the way back. A guy inside laid out flat.
The man's eyes are closed. Dirty-looking fair hair frames his thin face. He's sporting a mustache, wearing a filthy work shirt.
Whicher taps on the window. “Brandon Lynch?”
The man shifts in his seat, turns his head. He slides a hand to the seat lever, cranks it upright, pushes open the door.
“Your name Lynch?”
“What's going on?” The man steps from the truck, face drawn. He runs a hand through his hair.
“Name's Whicher. I'm a Deputy US Marshal. Rig boss told me you'd be back here.”
Lynch rubs a hand beneath his nose—eyes narrow, a glassy blue.
“I need to talk with you. You just came in here—on the site. That right?”
“What of it?”
“Rig supervisor said they pulled you off another site, up to Scurry County. What time you show up here?”
Lynch looks at the marshal. “Why the hell you want to know that?”
The air in the clearing is filled with the sound of diesel engines revving, a heavy knocking, metal on metal.
“Was it sometime last night?”
“I guess.”
“When?”
“I don't know. The middle of the night.”
“You get the call from the company, you haul ass, that how it is?” Whicher looks the man up and down. “You go home first?”
“I came right here.”
“You didn't need nothing? A change of clothes?”
Lynch squints. “I came in three o' clock, maybe.”
“Three o' clock in the morning?”
Lynch angles his head in the direction of the noise. “Rig don't stop, neither do we.”
The marshal glances at the drill tower. “What is it you do?”
“I'm a drilling fluids technician,” Lynch says. “I keep the fluid in check—the mud.”
“That so?”
“Weight has to be right on the hole, else it can blow. They need it fixed I'm here till it's fixed. I live right out my truck.”
“A man was shot to death in your back yard...” Whicher lets the words hang. “Sometime this morning.”
Lynch stares. “You serious?”
“A man name of Tommy Ray Fallon.”
Lynch's eyes go wide. He lets out a stifled choke.
“Do you know him?”
“I never heard of him.”
“He's out of Lubbock.” The marshal takes a pace closer.
Lynch reaches to his shirt pocket—takes out a hard pack of cigarettes.
The knocking sound from the rig is cut with raised voices, men shouting.
Lynch lights up, works the cigarette into a white-hot tip.
“So what do you think?” Whicher says.
“How the hell am I supposed to answer that?”
“You never heard of him?”
Lynch shakes his head.
“How about a girl named Juanita Jones?”
The young man looks into Whicher's face. “I know Juanita.”
“She your girlfriend?”
Lynch puts the cigarette to his mouth.
“How long you known her?”
“Three months. Four.”
The marshal nods
“We're kind of off and on.”
“Does she come see you at your house?”
Lynch takes a hit off the smoke. “I ain't there, hardly.”
“Right. You're working.”
“She has a key.”
Whicher takes a step
to the side, fixing the young man with a look.
Lynch blows smoke out the corner of his mouth.
“She has a key to your house?”
The young man nods.
“How come is that?”
“A lot of the time, I'm not there, nobody's at the place.”
“So you let her stay?”
“I told her she could have a key, come up. I thought maybe she'd be into it...” Lynch holds the marshal's eye.
“Did you know she had a court appearance?”
He flicks ash from the end of his cigarette. “I heard about it.”
“Did you know it was yesterday?”
The young man shakes his head.
“Was she up there today?” Whicher says. “Was she up at your house?”
“I wouldn't know if she was or not,” Lynch says. “I was out working here.”
“Working,” Whicher says. “Hauling ass, part of the night.”
“Call the rig in Scurry,” Lynch says. “They'll tell you.” He pulls at a length of ratty hair.
“You never heard of Tommy Ray Fallon?”
“I told you, no.”
“Well,” says Whicher. “Somehow the man heard of you.”
Juanita Jones sits rigid in the passenger seat.
“Brandon Lynch says you have a key to his house.”
She doesn't answer.
Whicher taps the Chevy bowtie-emblem on the steering wheel. “You going to be like this all night?”
Juanita looks down the hood of the truck, her eyes glazed.
The marshal turns the keys in the ignition. The motor fires.
Out on the bare caliche, the rig is stark, a blaze of light against the night.
“I asked you about a man name of Tommy Ray Fallon.”
She won't look at him.
“Fallon was shot dead,” Whicher says. “At Brandon Lynch's house. A house Lynch says you have a key to.”
He moves the transmission from park into drive.
“I'm no closer to knowing where you been the last twenty-four hours. Or what you've done. I'll tell you something...”
He looks at her.
She meets his eye.
“It ain't about to stay that way.”
Chapter Five
Motley County, TX.
* * *
At the sheriff's department in Torero, outside one of four holding cells, a duty officer name of Pierce fits a key in a plate-steel door, turning the lock on Juanita Jones.
Pierce is a heavy guy, sporting a beard and square-frame glasses. He clips the brass key to a loop on his belt. “Marshal, I got to call this in.”
Whicher checks his watch. “It's near one o'clock in the morning.”
“Sheriff McCoy'll want to know.”
Deputy Pierce starts down the corridor, shoulders bunched.
The marshal follows to a lobby area at the back of main reception.
“Miss Jones failed to show up in court in Lubbock yesterday,” Whicher says. “She voluntarily turned herself in.”
Pierce comes to a halt in the empty lobby space.
“I brought her here as a courtesy,” Whicher says. “Sheriff can talk with her in the morning—she might as well be here, till I can speak with the Lubbock court.”
“If this has something to do with a homicide...” Pierce says.
“There's no evidence for that.”
The deputy adjusts his eye-glasses. “You caught up with Brandon Lynch—sheriff's going to want to know that.”
“Lynch claims he was working. It'll take some time to check it out. Why don't you let the sheriff sleep?”
“He's out with a fire crew,” Pierce says.
Whicher folds his arms across his chest.
The deputy steps from the lobby to a side-office, turning on the light. Reaching for the phone he pushes the door closed with the heel of his boot.
Whicher heads for the main door through a flat arch leading to reception.
So far, Juanita's said practically nothing—he thinks of her, in the cell now. Alone. Defiant.
He steps outside.
In the lot, smoke is heavy in the air.
The town's deserted, nothing moving, all the storefronts dark.
He crosses to the Silverado, stands at the cab. Takes out his cell, keys a number.
The call picks up.
“Leanne?”
Her breath rustles against the phone.
“I wake you? You alright?” He stares at the long brick side of the sheriff's department.
“I'm fine.”
“How's Lori?”
“She's asleep.”
The marshal pictures his daughter, sees her lying in her room, six years old.
“Where are you?”
“Torero,” he says. “Out east of Lubbock.”
“Did you find Juanita?”
“I found her.”
“Is she okay? Does Butch know?”
“He knows.”
Somewhere in the distance, the rumble of a train carries in the wind. Whicher listens to the clack of rails, the low, droning hum of an engine.
“Is she in trouble?”
“Maybe. I have to take her to court tomorrow.”
“What are you doing in Torero?”
“I had to bring her to the jail here.”
“East of Lubbock?” Leanne says. “Isn't that where they're having all the fires?”
“You know about that?”
“Some of us are home...we watch the news.”
Whicher leans against the cab.
“Are you going to sleep in the truck?”
“I can get a room.”
“You do that. And come back safe.”
“I know, Leanne.”
He hears the kiss she blows.
“I'll talk to you in the morning...”
She clicks off the call.
The marshal tugs at the collar of his shirt—unfastening the button at his throat.
He pulls on the neck-tie, opens up the Silverado. The scent of Juanita is strong inside—citrus shampoo, a faded musk perfume.
He sits behind the wheel, pictures Brandon Lynch, filthy—the rig in Gaines.
Last guy a father would want for his daughter was a guy like that. Always away, part of a dangerous world. Injuries common, fatalities not unknown.
Rig life was a wild life. It was fit for wild men—jailbirds among them.
A thought hits him as he rolls the neck-tie, slips it in the pocket of his jacket.
Maybe Lynch was known to law enforcement. Maybe Brandon Lynch had a sheet?
Inside the sheriff's department, in an unused office, Whicher sits staring into a computer screen.
The database at Marshals Service Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, shows nothing.
There's no record on Brandon Lynch. No prior criminal conviction.
Whicher thinks of him; an incomer, a relative unknown in town. He had a house he couldn't sell, in a place he had no connection with. A job that kept him mainly away.
From the next-but-one room he hears the sound of Deputy Pierce moving about.
Pierce had opened him up an office, logged him onto the system. Since then, nothing. He was tight-lipped, deflecting any question.
The marshal's cell phone rings. He picks it up off the desk.
Butch's name is on the screen. “I'm in Torero,” Whicher says.
“What's going on?”
“We're at the sheriff's department.”
“Is she talking?”
“Listen,” Whicher says. “I found Brandon Lynch...”
“She'll talk if I come down there.”
“Lynch was at a drill site, in Gaines County. He says he was working there, three hours away. But he told me Juanita has a key to the house—his house in Torero. Did you know that?”
“I'm coming down...”
“Her prints will be all over. I need to know exactly where she was, at what time.”
“I called everybody I could think t
o call,” Butch says. “After I spoke with you...”
Whicher catches the tone in his friend's voice.
“I spoke with a girl named Maureen Carter—that worked with Juanita, when she was first in Lubbock. They worked together in a burger joint. She says Juanita did know Fallon.”
Whicher pushes his seat away from the desk.
“She says she knew him, before she knew Lynch.”
“Juanita knew Tommy Ray Fallon?”
“I can't believe I'm telling you this...”
“Whatever you know, I need to know about it, Butch.”
“I'm setting out now.”
“Out of Amarillo?”
“It'll take me two hours. You going to be there?”
The marshal stares at dry dirt on the side of his boots. “Yeah,” he tells the man. “Yeah, I'm going to be there.”
Outside the office window, a set of headlights sweep onto the lot.
Whicher checks his watch—it's too soon for Butch, just gone two o' clock in the morning.
He crosses to the window, pulls back the slats on the blind.
Sheriff McCoy is getting out from a Chevy Tahoe Police Pursuit Vehicle.
The marshal turns from the window, picks the Resistol from off of the desk.
He puts on the hat, steps out into the lobby.
Deputy Pierce is emerging from the side-office.
“Your boss is headed in,” Whicher says.
A light flicks on in main reception.
McCoy enters, wearing a uniform shirt, a pair of jeans, brown Western boots.
He's shorter-looking, with no hat. “The fire crew got bumped east,” he says to Pierce. “Up around Cee Vee.”
“Did they put in a secondary line?”
McCoy nods. He runs a hand through a head of silver-gray hair. “The way the wind is, they got to watch for blowups.”
“The two-day report came in,” Pierce says. “Wind's set to remain high. It ain't looking real good.”
The sheriff looks at Whicher. “I heard you caught up with Brandon Lynch?”
“You heard right.”
“You want to step into my office?”
McCoy turns from the lobby.
Whicher follows him into a large room, lined with framed certificates, photographs of department personnel.
“Take a seat, marshal.”
Whicher pulls out a leather-backed chair.