by Bill Crider
I know that the health gurus say that you can't catch a cold merely by getting your clothes wet or by sitting in a draft or by getting a chill, and I suppose they must be right. I'd gotten wet more often in the last few days than ever before in my life, outside of a bathtub or the Gulf, anyway, and I was still healthy. On the other hand, I had a strong feeling that I was pushing my luck.
While I was trying to walk in a straight line, my thoughts tended to wander a bit. I found myself thinking of Jan again and wondering what her last moments must have been like. It was pure morbidity on my part, but no matter how many times I told myself that I wasn't to blame for her death, I was never completely convinced. Especially considering the dying words of a former friend of mine. I suppose it's barely possible that you can be to blame for things you know nothing about, and if that's true, then I was to blame.
I was as much to blame as Oedipus was, to take a literary example, or that was one way to look at it. Not the most cheerful way, admittedly, but a way.
The good thing about worrying about Fred's dead alligator and everything else that had been happening to me was that I didn't have much spare time to contemplate fate and free will or to feel guilty about something I could do nothing about. I had been doing too much of that for too long a time.
Maybe after this job I would look for something else to do. Painting houses was all right, and the work wasn't difficult, but it gave me too much time to think. Standing in rain-dark swamps with wet blondes holding a rifle on me had the beneficial effect of taking my mind off my other troubles.
I brought myself back to the task at hand. The problem with a rambling mind is that your feet tend to ramble as well, and if that happens, you lose your way.
I had lost mine, as I realized after I'd been walking for far longer than it should have taken me to find the pool with the barrel in it.
I decided to retrace my steps, and then I realized that I should have marked the trail in some way if I ever wanted to find it again. Even a pair of kids as young as Hansel and Gretel had known that. I hoped the Junior Woodchucks didn't hear about this.
Of course I hadn't thought I'd get lost.
It had seemed like a simple thing to spot the road, angle toward it, and meet it at about the place where I'd seen the barrel. That way, nobody would see me coming if there were anyone there, and I would be able to sneak up and spy out the ground before revealing myself.
It was a fine idea.
It would have been even finer if it had worked. The half-forgotten words of Robert Burns flitted through my mind, the ones about mice and men and what often happens to their plans.
I looked around me. There were a lot of trees, all of which looked more or less alike to me. There aren't any trees on GalvestonIsland.
Well, that's an exaggeration. There are palm trees, and even a few others. But damned few. Not enough, anyway, to inspire a young man growing up there to become an amateur botanist in his spare time.
I thought I recognized a pecan tree and an oak, or lots of pecans and lots of oaks. But maybe I was wrong. It didn't make much of a difference, anyway, since I hadn't taken notice of any of the trees I'd been passing in the first place.
If I were Kit Carson or one of those old scouts, I could have looked for footprints, but . . . .
I realized that I could still do that. Thank goodness for muddy ground. It didn't take me long to find places where I'd walked, my feet sinking into the soft ground, and other places where I'd skidded slightly and shoved a fair-sized chunk of earth aside.
I followed my path backward and saw that I'd been making a circle, the classic example of what happens to an unskilled person wandering around in the woods. To be sure it didn't happen again, I went almost all the way back to the Jeep, stopping when I was within sight of it.
Then I followed the ruts. To hell with woodcraft. I wasn't going to get lost again, and if that meant taking a chance on being seen, that was just the way it would have to be. The best I could do was to stay to the side of the ruts, partially concealed in the trees, but never getting so far from the track that I couldn't see it. Even if the wind didn't die down, I would be able to hear a truck coming and have enough time to hide myself before it got to where I was.
As I walked along, I realized that getting lost had served the same purpose as working for Fred: it had taken my mind off other things. It's amazing what a little bit of distraction can do for a person.
After fifteen minutes or so I got to the place where the trees began to thin out. I had to walk in the road when I got to the fence, not feeling like slithering under it or trying to climb between the wires. I knew that if I did either of those things, I'd probably snag my jeans or shirt. Seeing the fence made me feel better, though. I knew that I was going in the right direction. When I'd made the circle, I'd managed to miss the fence entirely, having begun my turning before I ever got to it.
Things in the clearing looked different in the daylight. I could see a kind of a green scum on top of the pool of water I'd waded into, and the water itself seemed almost opaque.
The chemical smell lingered in the air, even with a wind that would have seemed capable of driving it away.
The barrel, on the other hand, was gone.
~ * ~
There were any number of good reasons why the barrel might not be there, I thought.
It could have sunk down beneath the green, greasy water.
It could have dissolved because of the chemicals it contained.
A giant mutant frog could have swallowed it.
Or someone could have come and moved it.
For one reason or another, I favored the latter possibility. The question that remained was, who had moved it? And when? And why? Aside from those things, the only other thing I wanted to know was whether there were any more barrels around.
I started looking. There were a number of places near the water that looked as if they'd been recently disturbed, and it was possible that barrels could be buried there. There was no way I could find out, however. I hadn't brought a shovel, and I wasn't going to dig with my hands.
I didn't blame myself for lack of foresight. How was I to know that the barrel would be gone? To me, it had seemed a simple matter of going back and retrieving it.
I walked around the marshy area, looking for an open hole, a place where the barrels hadn't been covered yet, if there were any more of them there at all. I didn't see anything like what I was looking for.
It was time to go wading again, I supposed. There was nothing else left, except to dig with my hands, and I still didn't want to do that. I'd just have to splash out into the water and see if the barrel had sunk, or if there were any others.
I thought about snakes and quicksand, wished that I hadn't, and waded into the pool.
I found a barrel almost immediately, by the simple method of bumping into it. I jumped about a foot out of the water, thinking I'd hit an alligator, but I recovered quickly and pulled the barrel to the surface. It was unmarked. So was the second one I found.
Two were enough. I suspected that if I found others, they would also be unmarked. I'd been lucky enough to spot the one marked with the Wessey Gas colors the night before, though there might be others buried nearby, and now it was gone.
I slopped out of the pool, wondering what kind of terrible destructive and corrosive chemicals had leaked into the marsh and then been transported onto my body by the water. I hadn't noticed any tadpoles or minnows swimming around. I told myself that the water was too dark, and I just hadn't been able to see them beneath the surface.
I stood on a relatively dry patch of ground, letting the water drain down my pants legs and out of my shoes. Where in hell had that marked barrel gone?
It wasn't in the pool, or I would have found it.
Fred hadn't taken it, and I hadn't. I could vouch for us.
That left Brenda Stone. She had been there when I was after it, and she had probably seen what I was going for. I couldn't vouch for her.
On the other hand, I didn't think she'd taken the barrel. I'd talked pretty straight to her, and I'd believed her when she said she'd keep quiet about what happened. I didn't think she would have returned for the barrel.
She wouldn't be the first person who'd ever told me a lie and made me believe it, however, or who had fooled me by doing something I hadn't expected. I'd have to talk to her again.
Keeping off to the side of the ruts, I sloshed back to the Jeep.
~ * ~
Brenda Stone looked a lot better when she was clean and dry, and the shadows were back in her blue eyes again. Even knowing what I did about her, I had a few thoughts that I'm sure her husband wouldn't have appreciated.
"I didn't say anything to anybody," she told me. "Really. I promised, and I didn't say a word."
I had managed to get most of the mud off my shoes, and my clothes were practically dry. I was sitting on a small sofa with deep cushions, and I kept sinking farther and farther into them.
"Think about it," I said. "You've been to see Perry today, I'm sure."
"Yes," she said. "I've been to see him."
She looked away from me, but I didn't know whether she did so to hide a lie or because she was embarrassed at what I knew about her and Zach Holt, a secret that I was virtually certain she hadn't shared with Perry, no matter what his suspicions might have been.
"You must have talked about something," I said.
"Well, we talked about how he didn't like jail and how it wasn't right for him to be there."
"What's his bond set for? Maybe we can get him bailed out."
"It's fifty thousand dollars. Perry says that's too much and that we oughtn't to put it up. The lawyer's trying to get it reduced, but Perry says jail's not as bad as getting gouged for money by a bondsman."
He might change his mind after a few more days, but whatever he decided was fine with me. It was his life.
"Has the lawyer found out what kind of evidence they've got to justify holding him?" I said.
The shadows in her eyes deepened. "It's a gun."
"A gun?" I said. Nobody at the jail had mentioned a gun to me.
"They say they found it behind the seat in his pickup. It's a pistol, but Perry says it's not his."
"When did this happen?"
"Yesterday afternoon, I guess. Before they were going to let him out."
That seemed very convenient to me. "Who found the pistol?"
"I don't know," she said. "I think the lawyer said it was that Deputy. Jackson."
What a surprise, I thought. "And Perry says the pistol's not his?"
"He says not. I know I've never seen him with one, and he never told me he had one." She looked at me directly this time. "You can help him, can't you?"
A few looks from her like that one, and I'd be offering to take Zach Holt's place and carry her away from all this.
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe the gun isn't the one that was used in the murders. They'll have to get ballistics tests run on it before they know."
"That's what they're doing now, the lawyer says. He says they've sent the gun to Houston. Perry says it's not his gun in the first place, and he doesn't care what the tests say." She shook her head. "I don't see how all of this got so complicated."
I didn't either. The pistol would make good evidence if it turned out to be the murder weapon, and I had a strong feeling that it would. Perry Stone was getting wrapped up very tightly in a web that he wasn't going to be able to escape from easily.
"What about fingerprints?" I said. "Were there any prints on the gun?"
"I don't know. Perry didn't say."
"Maybe not then. That's a good sign."
"Why?"
"Perry can say they planted the gun in his truck. A jury might not believe him, but if his prints aren't on the gun, no one can prove who put it there." I had my own thoughts on that subject, but I didn't voice them.
"Oh," she said, ducking her head.
Her hair fell forward over her shoulders. She was a very attractive woman, and I found myself hoping that she and Perry could work things out. It was really none of my business, but I hoped it anyway.
"With Perry telling you all this, I guess you didn't have time to talk to him much about last night," I said.
"No, not really." She looked away.
"But you probably told him a little."
"Just a little." Her gaze went past me and out the window at my back, out into the fields across the road.
"How much?"
"I told him that I heard some cars down there and saw some lights." She looked back at me. "I told him that I got scared and wished he was at home. That's all."
"You're sure?"
She stood up. Her body was stiff, and the blue eyes sparked. A flush rose up her neck and spread over her face. Her voice rose almost to a shout.
"What did you want me to say? That I went down there looking for the men who killed Zach? That I wanted to kill them because they'd murdered the man I slept with?"
Her anger surprised me, coming as it did so suddenly and withoug warning. She had been sitting quietly, almost submissively, until the anger had broken through.
"That's not what I meant," I said. "I meant, did you tell him about seeing anything down there. You could have investigated the lights and seen something."
"I didn't, though. I told him that I locked all the doors and thought about how I needed him here at home."
She sat back down, her anger gone as quickly as it had come. Her voice sank, and the flush faded from her cheeks. I almost doubted that I'd seen it, though I knew I had.
"And you didn't say anything to anyone else?"
"No. I haven't even seen anyone else. What difference does it make, anyway?"
"None," I said. "I was just wondering."
I was still wondering when I left. The only thing to do now was to talk about it to Perry, and I had to do that without revealing what had happened between me and his wife. I had threatened to tell him that the rumors about Zach Holt were true, but I would never really do that.
At least I didn't think I would. There might come a time when my scruples would relax enough to allow it, but I didn't think it would be any time soon.
It wasn't that I thought so much of Brenda Stone. She was beautiful, almost, but that didn't really have any influence on me. It was just that I felt sorry for her husband, and maybe what had happened would change both him and her enough for them to have a chance together if I could help get Perry out of jail. It wouldn't be much of a chance, given Brenda's past actions, but it was a chance of some kind.
I wondered about Brenda. Her sudden anger, the way she had flared up with no warning, bothered me. It was the kind of thing that could result in thoughtless and even dangerous action, given the right circumstances.
What if she had visited Zach Holt, and his wife had discovered them?
What if she had gone to Holt's house to confront him and demand that he take her away from all this swampland and that he do it immediately? And what if he had refused?
If there had been a gun handy, she might very well have used it. Her anger at me had been that strong. And if Holt's wife had walked in, well, too bad for her, too.
But why would Brenda Stone have killed and skinned an alligator on Fred Benton's place? There was no reason that I could think of, but it didn't necessarily follow that the same person was guilty of both crimes.
I pointed Fred's jeep in the direction of the county jail. I hadn't gone far when I saw another vehicle in the distance, headed my way.
When it got close, I could see that it was a jacked-up black pickup truck, with the word FORD stretched across the hood.
I got a chill just looking at it, but it didn't swerve over into my lane and crush me as I thought it might. It simply rumbled on by, towering over my much smaller Jeep.
As it passed me by, I looked up at the driver's window. Today it was rolled down, and through it I saw the unsmiling face of Deputy Norman Jackson.
&nb
sp; 14
Perry Stone looked a lot worse than he had the first time I'd seen him. His face was drawn, and his hair was dirty. He kept his head down when he talked, and his voice was low. All his confidence was gone.
"They say they got the evidence on me," he said. "I don't know how they could. I never had a pistol in my truck. I don't know where it came from."
"What about your alibi?" I said. "All those friends who're going to stand up for you?"
"The Laws say they're lyin'. They say I got them to lie." He shook his head slowly, never looking up. He didn't say that his friends hadn't lied.
A few days in jail had changed him. Before, he'd looked like a man who could kill. Now, he looked like he'd been broken. Before, I would have been afraid to tell him about Brenda. Now, he looked as if the news wouldn't even register with him. He was too sunk in the misery of his current situation.
"Anybody been in to talk with you today?" I said. "Anybody who could help?"
"Brenda came in. She needs me at home. I wish they'd let me out of here so I could go and take care of her."
"Anybody come in after that?"
He still didn't look at me. "My daddy came in. He's real mad about the whole thing. Him and Mama know I didn't kill nobody, but they can't do a thing about it."
"Nobody else? Your lawyer?"
He raised his head slowly, as if it hurt him to move it. "What do you want to know for?"
It wasn't a real show of interest, but it was better than nothing.
"It might help me to know," I said. "Something's happened that I want to find out about."
"What?"
"I don't want to tell you that," I said. "It might not even be important, and it's nothing to pin your hopes on."
"Then why do you keep askin' about who's been in to see me?"
I didn't answer him. "Just tell me who else."
"Nobody."
I was disappointed that no one but his family had been in, but maybe it was possible that Perry's father had moved the barrel. I could ask him. And of course it was also possible that someone had moved it without being told that Fred and I had been there to see it. Someone could have noticed it and decided to move it for no reason other than the fact that it was marked and therefore potentially incriminating.