Wildburn (A Whicher Series Novella)

by John Stonehouse

  “They may still indict for missing court,” says Lopez.

  “Have you spoken with your client,” Whicher says, “about anything else?”

  She picks up a pen, clicks it. “About Torero?”

  “Butch called you?”

  “Mister Jones and I have spoken.”

  “About the homicide at the house?”

  “That conversation is privileged,” Lopez says. “In the meantime, the judge is ordering a move to the county detention center.”

  Juanita looks up, suddenly. “Please,” she says, eyes locked on Whicher's. “Don't let them send me to jail.”

  The marshal shifts in the cramped plastic seat.

  Juanita presses one hand over the other. “I had nothing to do with it. I swear to God...”

  The attorney clears her throat. “What's your business here, marshal?”

  “This afternoon, I interviewed the owner of the house in Torero.”

  Juanita stares.

  Lopez turns the pages of a yellow legal pad, searching a scrawl of lines. Her pen stops. “Brandon Lynch...”

  “Right,” Whicher says. “Lynch is working at a temporary drill site in Gaines County. He can't leave the site, on account of his job.”

  The attorney lets her gaze settle on the marshal's face.

  “He claims he has witnesses to being on the site in Gaines from around three in the morning, the day before yesterday. Before that time he was on a rig in Scurry County. He says he went straight from one site to the other.”

  “Meaning what?” says Lopez.

  “Meaning he claims to have an alibi—he couldn't have been at the house.”

  “It couldn't have been him?”

  “There's a gap in the timing,” Whicher says.

  “Go on.” Lopez taps the pen on the pad.

  “He says he left the site in Scurry, slept a couple hours at a truck stop in Lamesa. And then drove straight over to the next site, in Gaines.”

  The attorney writes fast on the yellow pad. “Are you investigating my client over this?”

  “Brandon Lynch says she has a set of keys to the house.”

  Lopez leans back from the desk—the slightest blanche to her face.

  “I never asked him for keys...” Juanita says. Her voice breaks off.

  “Is there a time of death yet on the victim?” Lopez says.

  “Estimated sometime yesterday morning.”

  “Sometime?”

  Whicher nods. “A neighbor thinks they heard a gun shot, around eight.”

  “We need time of death,” the attorney says.

  “Lynch was on the site in Gaines at eight. Witnesses to prove it.”

  “Who has the body now?”

  “Motley Coroner.”

  “We need an accurate time of death.” Lopez presses her lips together, eyebrows arched.

  “I took a phone call from the Motley Sheriff's Office,” Whicher says. “After I got done with Brandon Lynch.”

  Juanita tenses, runs both hands through her mass of thick, dark hair. Folds of blue coverall hang from her slender arms.

  “The sheriff's office have a witness sighting,” Whicher says. “A car seen in Lynch's yard around the time in question. An '81 Camaro. Lynch drives a Ram pickup.”

  Lopez's eyes cut to Juanita.

  “They reckon they traced it. To a vehicle here in Lubbock.” Whicher stops. He sits back heavy in the chair.

  Juanita's mouth is open.

  “The name on the title is Zamora,” Whicher says. “Emilio Zamora.”

  “I was with him...” Juanita's voice is a whisper.

  “Wait, with who?” Lopez says.

  “The night before last, I was with Emilio.” Juanita's eyes dart around the room.

  Whicher leans toward the metal desk. “How come Zamora's car was in Lynch's yard? Did you ask him to go there?”

  “Marshal?”

  “Or was it you?”

  The defense attorney holds up the pen.

  “Was it Zamora? Are you trying to protect him?”

  “I think this might be time to stop the interview,” Lopez says.

  “What for? She has her attorney present.”

  Juanita shakes her head from side to side.

  Whicher takes off the Resistol. “I agreed to find you...”

  “No, no, no...” Her voice is tight in her throat.

  “Your father asked me, I told him I would.”

  Evelyn Lopez stands.

  “If you had something to do with the murder of Tommy Ray Fallon, I can't protect you.”

  The attorney's eyes drill him.“You and I need to step outside.”

  The corridor is empty, Lopez stands in its center—Whicher puts his back to the door of the interview room.

  “How well do you know my client's father?”

  “We were in the army together.”

  “If you're a friend of the family there may be a conflict here.”

  “The law says not.”

  Lopez puts her head on one side.

  “I can investigate, even if I were related.”

  “Strictly speaking...”

  “You know it's true,” Whicher says.

  “Law enforcement recommends against it.”

  The marshal looks at her a long moment.

  Lopez folds her arms across the front of her suit. “A defense attorney would use that to question credibility. To claim a prosecution had been compromised.”

  “So, think about that.”

  She holds his look.

  “Who's defense attorney here?”

  “I am,” she says.

  “So, think it over.”

  A frown creases her brow. “You mean—you want that?”

  He doesn't reply.

  “You're telling me that's what you want?” She screws up her face. “You want to put that in my locker?”

  “I'm not telling you a damn thing, ma'am.” Whicher straightens his hat.

  She stares.

  “You got that? All I want is to step back in that interview room.”

  Lopez's face is blank.

  “Let's hear what Juanita has to say.”

  “I borrowed Emilio's car.”

  “You borrowed it?”

  “Yesterday morning,” Juanita says. “I was going to stay at Brandon's house. Just for a while.”

  “Emilio didn't mind that?”

  “He didn't know, I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him where I was going.”

  At the metal desk, Evelyn Lopez writes fast on the legal pad.

  “Did Brandon Lynch know you'd be turning up,” Whicher says, “at his house?”

  “He said it was okay.”

  “You called him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You spoke to him, when?”

  “I don't know, the night before.”

  “Do you know where he was, where Lynch was, when you spoke with him?”

  “At a rig. He was out at a rig, he said he wouldn't be home, but I could stay.”

  The marshal pauses, waits for the attorney to finish writing a line. “You ever do that before, stay there?”

  Juanita looks at him. “No.”

  “Not ever? But you had a key?”

  “I've been to the house. He wanted me to stay, to have a key...”

  “So, you left Lubbock,” the marshal says. “Yesterday morning. You turned up at Lynch's place in Torero. Then what?”

  “I found him.” She leans forward, wraps her arms around her sides.

  “Him?”

  “Tommy Ray.” Her voice closes in her throat.

  “He was there when you got there?”

  “He was laying there, just laying in the yard...”

  “Describe it, tell me what happened.”

  She twists the arm of the coverall between her fingers. “I got to the house. I went in.”

  “Which door?”

  “The front door.” Juanita falls silent a moment, staring at the wall.

  Lopez l
ooks up from the legal pad.

  Juanita swallows. “I was there an hour,” she says. “Just sitting on the couch. Sick inside. About this whole court thing, feeling like I needed to throw up.” Her eyes go wide. “I went in the kitchen, to get a drink of water. I looked out of the window, I saw him.”

  “Fallon?”

  She nods.

  “What did you do?”

  She shivers, despite the heat in the cramped room.

  Lopez looks at her. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

  Juanita nods. “I went out...I opened the back door.”

  “It wasn't locked?” Whicher says.

  “It was locked, but there's a key in the door.”

  “You unlocked the door and went outside?”

  “It wouldn't open—not completely. It hit against...”

  “Against the body?”

  She takes a breath.

  “But you managed to get out? Did you know who it was?”

  She shuts her eyes. A tear starts down the side of her cheek.

  “Did you know it was Tommy Ray Fallon?”

  She folds forward, eyes screwed tight, wraps her arms around her knees. Her body heaves, her breath comes in a choking sob.

  Whicher stares at his friend's daughter, curled in the seat. Fights the urge to reach out, as she sits doubled. Rocks and weeps.

  Chapter Eleven

  Torero, Motley County, TX.

  * * *

  The lane is deserted, old cars and trucks parked beneath the live oak among the scant collection of houses.

  Whicher walks a curving path over sun-scorched grass to where the road loops around, giving out to hard packed gravel.

  He stops in front of a wood-frame house. Beyond a garage attached to the side, he can see the crown of a pecan tree—the tree in back of Brandon Lynch's place.

  He crosses the burnt-dry lawn, knocks hard at the door. A hot wind blows white dust along the lane.

  From inside is a sound—a woman's voice, footsteps approaching.

  The door opens, Miss Bonnier looks out from the hall.

  At her waist is a cotton apron, she touches the graying hair at her temple. “Marshal.”

  “Ma'am.”

  She looks at him, dish towel balled up into her hand. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  The smell of baking drifts from the kitchen—stewed fruit, spice, hot sugar.

  “Would you mind if I took a look out back in your yard?”

  The woman gestures with her head.

  Whicher follows her inside, into the house—along a hall, into an over-heated kitchen. The back door is open letting in air.

  “Plum cobbler,” Miss Bonnier says.

  “Smells good...”

  “Do you want me to show you where I was—when I saw the body?”

  “Ma'am, if you wouldn't mind.”

  She leads him out into the yard, toward the panel fence. “I don't make it my business to look in on my neighbor.”

  “No, ma'am.”

  She stops, straightens, lifts her head a fraction. “I was raking up leaves, with the drought and all. And this wind. I happened to look in that direction...”

  Over the fence is a clear view all the way to the back door of Lynch's house.

  “Was it you called 911?” Whicher says.

  “I called.”

  “And you went over?”

  “I walked over, I went around the side of the house. I didn't touch anything.”

  “You said you heard a noise, yesterday?”

  She nods.

  “In the morning? You said you thought it might have been a shot?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Where were you when you heard it?”

  “I was inside.”

  “Not out here?”

  “I was in the kitchen.”

  The marshal looks back toward Miss Bonnier's property. “The door was open? Like now?”

  She thinks about it. Shakes her head.

  “How about a window?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  “Did you get a sense where it came from?”

  She looks at him. “It came from somewhere outside.”

  The house is twenty yards from the fence, there's maybe thirty yards more to the back door of Lynch's place. “Are you familiar with the sound of gunfire?”

  “Say again?”

  “Do you shoot? Do you own a gun?”

  “No,” she says. “But I've heard shots...”

  “What kind of sound was it?”

  “A bang.”

  “Like a boom? A slap?”

  “I don't know, just a bang.”

  “One sound, a single sound?”

  She nods.

  “Around eight?”

  “Like I told the sheriff.”

  From over the fence Whicher hears a vehicle approaching.

  A Chevy Tahoe PPV pulls into view at the side of Lynch's house.

  Inside Brandon Lynch's kitchen, Whicher stands by the back door, Sheriff McCoy in the center of the room.

  McCoy's face is slack, tired-looking, an oily sheen on his skin. He puts the back of a hand to his eye.

  “Something wrong?” Whicher says.

  “Smoke. They put in a back-burn off of ninety-four this afternoon. But the wind's too damn strong.”

  Whicher nods.

  “I got a bunch of smoke in my eyes.” The sheriff looks at him.

  “Your crime scene guy get done here? I want to open up the door.” The marshal reaches into the pocket of his suit, takes out a blue latex glove, slips it onto his hand.

  “Why's that?”

  “I just want to take a look.”

  “Alright,” the sheriff nods. “Go ahead.”

  Whicher turns the key in the back door.

  “What's happening with Miss Jones?” McCoy says.

  “She's at the Lubbock court.”

  “She get to talking any?”

  The marshal doesn't answer, he pushes open the back door—picturing Juanita—imagining the door bumping up to Fallon on the ground.

  Out in the yard there's blood in the dirt, a dark pool.

  “How about the car?” McCoy says. “The Camaro?”

  Whicher stares out across the yard. “It belongs to a friend.” He takes a pace outside, squats, studies the flattened earth.

  “A friend?” McCoy says. “The guy on the title?”

  Whicher nods. “Emilio Zamora.”

  “Meaning what exactly? That he was out here?”

  “Or she was. Or the both of 'em were.” Whicher stands, steps back inside the house.

  McCoy hooks a thumb into his gun belt. “Well, what the hell are you doing about it?”

  Whicher pushes the door closed with a gloved hand. “Juanita says she drove up.”

  “She tell you that?”

  “She says she borrowed the car.” The marshal leans against the kitchen sink. “And something else—she's admitting knowing Fallon.”

  “She knew Tommy Ray Fallon?”

  “Way it seems.”

  The sheriff squints, cocks his head. He takes off his hat, runs a finger around the leather band.

  “I want a gun shot residue test,” Whicher says.

  “What for? Way this thing's looking, you 'bout got it figured out.”

  “I want a gun shot residue test on Juanita Jones.”

  “You think she shot him?”

  Whicher looks at the sheriff. “I think you do.”

  For a moment neither man speaks.

  Whicher turns, looks out of the kitchen window at the wind blowing dust in the yard. “We need the time of death on Fallon.”

  “Coroners Office called today,” McCoy says. “They're working on it. They say the M.E. dug part of a slug out of the victim.”

  “A bullet frag?”

  “They say it looks like a .22.”

  The marshal looks the sheriff up and down. “They get rifling marks?”

  “Some.”

 
; Whicher reaches in his jacket for the notepad.

  “They say it's likely a pistol round, a semi-automatic.”

  The marshal writes down the detail.

  McCoy shifts from one boot to another. “Why a gun shot residue test?”

  “Maybe I got it wrong,” Whicher says. “Maybe she shot him.”

  “You think it's going to rule her out?”

  “She's in a holding cell at the Lubbock courthouse,” Whicher says. “They bagged her clothes. We can go ahead and test.”

  “If nothing shows up, that don't prove she didn't do it.”

  “You can get it off your skin,” Whicher says. “It'd still be on her clothes.”

  “How about if she changed?”

  “I don't reckon she changed, sheriff.”

  “You don't know that,” McCoy says. “You don't know if she did or she didn't.”

  “Why admit to being here?”

  The sheriff whips his hat from his side. He claps it down on his head.

  “If she shot him,” Whicher says, “why admit being here, why admit a thing?”

  “How in hell should I know that?”

  “She could've said it was Zamora. She would've tried to hide it—if she came here, if she fired the shot.”

  The sheriff lets out a long breath. “Let me see if I got this straight.” He rubs a hand against his running eye. “Juanita Jones admits being here?”

  Whicher nods.

  “She was here, she's a bail skip. And Tommy Ray Fallon was a bounty hunter. Am I right so far?”

  “Circumstantial.”

  “When I saw her this morning, she wouldn't say a damn thing, between you and her old man. Now you're telling me she admits knowing the deceased?”

  “She says so.”

  “Y'all have an attorney present for that? Is it on record?”

  “It's not a crime,” Whicher says. “Knowing a man.”

  “You don't think any of this amounts to nothing?” The sheriff folds his arms across his shirt.

  “How about if Lynch knew him, too?” Whicher says. “Fallon and Lynch. They could've known each other.”

  “Brandon Lynch was on a drill site,” McCoy says, “a hundred eighty miles away.”

  “There's time he can't account for.”

  Sheriff McCoy studies the bare kitchen wall. “I got to tell you something,” he says, finally. “I'm thinking to call the FBI on this one. Maybe somebody else should be investigating.”

  “I'm running this,” Whicher says.

  “Lynch is getting off the rig, tonight,” McCoy says. “He called up, Deputy Pierce spoke with him—reckons he'll be done by ten. He's demanding access to the house.”