by Ben Rehder
“I’m not going to argue with you about this,” Marlin said, simultaneously reaching out with his right hand to grab the barrel of the man’s rifle. Not a sudden move, but a deliberate move meant to take control of the situation. “I need to see your license, and while you’re getting your wallet, I’ll hold your rifle for you.”
Right now, in this fraction of a second, Marlin knew things could go south in a hurry. The man could resist, and he was so incredibly large, he could easily wrench the rifle from Marlin’s hand. Marlin didn’t have to look in Garza’s direction to know the sheriff had his hand on the butt of his service revolver, prepared to draw and fire immediately.
But, instead, the man released the rifle, and Marlin held it out of the man’s reach, with the barrel pointed toward the ground.
“I know my rights,” the man said. “And you’re not keeping my rifle.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” Marlin said. “You’ll get it back when we’re done here. Now let’s see your license.”
The man remained still.
“Sir?” Marlin said.
“I don’t have a hunting license. This is private property.”
“You still need a hunting license.”
“That’s what the state says. Doesn’t mean it’s right. And as I’ve said, I wasn’t hunting.”
“Why is there blood on your boots?” Marlin said. And there was. Several smears of dried blood.
“That’s old,” the man said.
“From a deer?”
The man remained silent.
“Did you shoot a deer?” Marlin asked. “It’s bow season, but rifle season hasn’t opened yet.”
“I’m not going to answer any more questions.”
“Sir,” Garza said, “we have reasonable suspicion that you’ve been hunting without a license, and that means I need to see your ID. Right now.”
Finally, a trace of emotion played across the man’s face. Anger. Frustration. He was trying to contain it by clenching his teeth. He reached for his wallet, removed his driver’s license, and handed it to Garza.
Garza studied it. “Aaron David Endicott. You’re a member of the Endicott family?”
“Obviously.” The man was staring into the distance.
Marlin didn’t recall that name. When he’d done some quick research on the Endicotts and Endicott Empire, he hadn’t seen any mention of an Aaron Endicott.
“Are your parents Walter and Donna Endicott?” Garza said.
While Marlin listened to the conversation, he moved a few steps away and eased the rifle lever down a couple of inches, to see if there was a round in the chamber. It was empty.
“I’m not required to recite my pedigree for you,” the man said.
“No, sir, you’re not, but we both might have a nicer day if you’d lose the attitude.”
“I’d like my ID back now,” the man said.
“You’ll get it shortly,” Garza said. “Hang tight for a minute.”
He turned and got back into his patrol unit. Garza would radio the dispatcher and run a check on Aaron Endicott to see if he had any warrants—something the sheriff might not have done if Endicott had been more cooperative.
Marlin, meanwhile, was trying to decide if he should file on him for hunting without a license. If he did, he had no doubt Endicott would fight it in court, and claim that he was simply going out for some target practice, or that he was planning to sight in his rifle. And that might actually be true.
He was also keeping a close eye on Endicott, because you just never knew when a belligerent subject was going to suddenly become violent. Hell, sometimes you never knew when a cooperative subject might suddenly become violent.
“Got many feral pigs on this place?” Marlin asked. It was a cheap ploy to see if Aaron might slip up and admit he was hunting. But he didn’t say a word. “How about exotics?” Marlin said. “Bet you’ve got some sika or fallow running around.” No response. The big man was like a statue.
Marlin gave up and waited quietly for a few minutes, until Garza finally stepped from his unit and approached Aaron Endicott. Marlin could tell from Garza’s demeanor that the license had come back clear.
“Is this your current address in Mirando City?” Garza said.
“Yes.”
Garza handed the license back. “So you live down there and not up here?”
“I’ve already answered your question.” Endicott inserted his license back into his wallet and stuck the wallet into his back pocket.
Garza gave Marlin a quick look that meant, Are you going to write him up?
Marlin stepped forward and handed the rifle back to Endicott. “If you’re going to hunt in the future, you need a license.”
“Wasn’t hunting,” Aaron Endicott said.
15
As the sun set, Red and Billy Don sat on the rickety front porch of Red’s mobile home and pondered what they had learned that afternoon. Red suspected, if he was being accurate, that he was the only one really doing any pondering. Billy Don was just sitting there, not thinking about much at all, the same way a dog does. He could keep that behavior up for hours. Just sit and not think. Occasionally Billy Don would lift his beer to his mouth, but that didn’t require a whole bunch of brain cells.
“Think they done it?” Red said.
“Who?” Billy Don said.
“The Endicotts.”
“Done what?”
Red tipped his head back in frustration. How many times had they had conversations just like this one? Would it ever end? Actually, yes, it very well might, when Billy Don got married. Then he and Red wouldn’t spend as much time together. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Truth was, Red didn’t have a lot of friends to choose from. He also didn’t like being alone for long stretches. So maybe he should start trying to be a little more patient with Billy Don.
“Harley had been in touch with the Endicotts,” Red said slowly, and with hardly any irritation in his voice at all. “Far as Sparrow knows, that was the only company that responded to his offer. Don’t that sound like a pretty good lead to you?”
Billy Don didn’t say anything. He was too busy fooling around with something he’d pulled from his shirt pocket. Red couldn’t see very well in the dim light.
“You know what we gotta do, don’t you?” Red said.
“Huh?”
“Take a closer look at the Endicotts,” Red said.
There had been a time when Red would’ve been reluctant to propose the idea that one of the Endicotts might be a killer, because he had been a big fan when their show had first premiered. He had watched several episodes of Endicott Empire before the satellite company discovered his illegal hook-up, and it had appeared to him that the Endicotts were a respectable family that was determined to defend traditional American values. But then something had occurred to Red, and the more he thought about it, the more it ate away at him.
The Endicotts were just like him.
Or, more accurately, he was just like them. He liked to hunt and fish and drink cold beer. He enjoyed eating barbecue and swimming in cattle tanks and chewing tobacco. He frequently pointed out to friends—and anybody else who would listen—that our great country was being jeopardized by non-Christians and socialists and illegal aliens and whatnot.
So why did the Endicotts end up getting a TV show and he didn’t? It was luck, plain and simple. Red realized there wasn’t much use in getting jealous about it—but he couldn’t help himself. There was nothing special about the Endicotts, and he began to hold their success against them.
People liked to talk about how the Endicotts were rednecks, but Red wondered if they might be faking the whole thing. Acting. And if they were actual rednecks, Red figured he and Billy Don were even redneckier than the Endicotts were.
In fact, if the show’s producers ditched the Endicotts and followed Red and Billy Don around instead, it just might be the most entertaining show ever made. Imagine, for instance, if there had been cameras rolling last week wh
en Red loudly passed gas at the Dairy Queen. Every customer in the dining room had turned and looked, and Red had pointed at Billy Don—like, He did it!—which had cracked everybody up. That was just one example of the high jinks and shenanigans that would ensue if Red had his own show.
Speaking of Billy Don, Red was brought back to the moment, there on his porch, by a surprising sight. Billy Don had just struck a lighter and lifted it toward an object in his mouth. He was smoking a cigarette. Wait a second. That smell. It wasn’t a regular cigarette.
“Where did you get that?” Red said, knowing full well where he had gotten it.
“Sparrow gave it to me as we was leaving. She gave me a bunch of ’em. She’s one nice lady.”
Red didn’t know what to think of that. Billy Don becoming a pothead? Weird. And Sparrow didn’t give anything to Red. Did that mean she liked Billy Don better than she liked Red? That made him sort of sad, that his old babysitter preferred this big, dumb cedar chopper she had only just met and had never even seen in Garanimals.
“This gonna be a regular habit?” Red asked.
Billy Don was holding in a hit, and when he finally exhaled, he didn’t cough this time. “Doubt it. Kinda fun, though. Want a hit?”
Billy Don held the joint toward Red, with the tip glowing.
Red opened his mouth to reject the offer, but what came out was, “Sure. Why the hell not?”
Red grabbed the joint, and as he took a long, deep, lung-burning hit, Billy Don said, “Don’t see why you’re wasting your time, Red. If the cops really thought you done it, don’t you think they’d be hassling you more?”
Marlin was in bed, the TV tuned to Letterman, while Nicole lay next to him, surfing with her iPad, staying awake later than she normally did. She was doing some sort of research. Marlin figured she’d share if she wanted to. Geist, Marlin’s pit bull, snored gently on her pillow in the corner of the bedroom.
Marlin had spent some time online himself a few hours earlier. He’d quickly learned that there wasn’t much information about Aaron Endicott on the Web. He’d checked TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, E! Online, and various other Hollywood gossip sites, and they said nothing about Aaron. Zilch. Not one mention. Marlin figured that made sense, since Aaron wasn’t included in the cast of Endicott Empire.
Marlin and Garza, of course, had immediately wondered why that was, after they’d had their encounter with Aaron. Until then, they hadn’t even been aware that he existed. But why leave Aaron off the show? There was the obvious answer—that Aaron was a little bit odd. And angry. And stubborn. But did he behave that way all the time, or only when interacting with cops?
Marlin had dug a little deeper online and eventually found some mentions of Aaron in various comment threads on YouTube.
Hey, did you know there’s another brother that isn’t on the show?
Yeah, I heard that but I didn’t know if it was true.
Then, on a fan forum devoted to Endicott Empire, he found some interesting comments in a post dated from the previous year.
Txbowhunter77 had written: y’all know anything about the brother aaron?
HillWilliam said: He was left off the show because hes a nutcase.
Libertyordeath: Jeez, dude, get all judgemental will ya.
RangerEd: I went to high school with Aaron and he was a problem child, druggie, busted several times, always getting in fights, and later I heard he had something called antisocial personalty disorder.
Was that true or just a rumor? Antisocial personality disorder, as Marlin learned, was pretty much what it sounded like. The Mayo Clinic website said, “People with antisocial personality disorder typically have no regard for right and wrong and often disregard the rights, wishes and feelings of others.” And the description went on from there: “treat others either harshly or with callous indifference...may lie, behave violently or impulsively.”
Lovely.
Did that explain Aaron Endicott’s obstinate behavior? Marlin could think of a dozen people he knew personally who, at least occasionally, had no regard for right or wrong, or who treated others harshly. Hell, he behaved that way himself every now and then. Didn’t everybody?
He realized that Nicole had just said something, but he had dozed off.
“Hmm?”
“Guess how many people are on waiting lists for organ donation in the United States?”
“I have no idea.”
“More than a hundred thousand people in the U.S. Good lord.”
Okay, then. Heather’s situation. That’s what Nicole was researching, which wasn’t surprising. Trying to help. Being an advocate, on her own time, because this particular assistance had nothing to do with victim services.
Nicole had given Marlin a brief update on Heather that afternoon. She had been battling kidney disease for years. It had slowly progressed, as it usually did, and she’d just started dialysis on a regular basis two years ago when her husband was killed by a drunk driver. An uninsured drunk driver.
Heather and her son Jared had been covered by her husband’s insurance policy through his employer, but they were dropped, possibly illegally, after he died. An Austin attorney had filed suit on her behalf, but that could take years to come to fruition, and she very well could lose. Or she could be dead by then. That was the part left unspoken.
In the meantime, Heather was on Medicare—it was Medicare, not Medicaid, that covered kidney dialysis and transplant—and it was debatable as to whether she was receiving the level of healthcare she had been receiving beforehand. Which was a problem, because now she needed a transplant. Soon.
It occurred to Red in a flash of unsettling mental clarity that Billy Don was right. It was odd that the cops weren’t hassling him. And Red had just figured out the reason.
Oh my god! It was so obvious!
Even though Billy Don was blathering on about something at that particular moment—Red set his beer down on the railing and went scurrying down the wooden porch steps.
“Red?” Billy Don called after him. “You all right?”
Moving as quietly as possible, Red hustled along the dirt path leading down toward the road in front of his trailer. When he reached the road, he came to an abrupt halt. He stood perfectly still for at least ten seconds. Looked left. Looked right. The sun had fully set now, and because he lived several miles outside town, away from the lights and traffic, it was good and dark. But he could see. He realized that his vision had been enhanced by the marijuana. He didn’t understand how that could be true, and yet it was. His hearing, too. He was the goddamn Six Million Dollar Man. His senses were razor sharp.
But he couldn’t detect anything odd or out of place.
He didn’t see anything that concerned him. Didn’t hear anything. Didn’t even smell anything.
Damn, they were good. So good that they could escape his heightened perceptive abilities.
Now he could hear Billy Don trundling down the path to join him. Red stayed where he was.
Billy Don came up behind him and said, “What in the hell? You totally freaked me out.”
“Hold still for a minute,” Red said, raising one hand for silence.
Billy Don didn’t move, but he was wheezing from the trip down the hill.
“Stop breathing so loud,” Red said.
Billy Don covered his mouth with his hand, but it didn’t make much difference.
Red stepped out onto the paved road and simply stood, his ears perked for any foreign sound. Still nothing. He didn’t even hear any of his neighbors, but the closest one lived more than a hundred yards away.
“Have you totally lost it?” Billy Don said.
“Nope,” Red said quietly.
“Then what’s going on? Tell me.”
“They have me under surveillance.”
“They what?” Billy Don whispered. “Who?”
“The cops,” Red said. “They have me under surveillance.”
Billy Don released a breath he had been holding and started laughing. “Oh,
jeez. You dumb sumbitch. You’re paranoid.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“It’s the weed, man. Made you paranoid. It’ll go away.”
“Just because I’m paranoid, that doesn’t mean they’re not watching me.” Red had picked up that wisdom from a bumper sticker.
“You’d better get your shit together,” Billy Don said. “We got that roofing job tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, I’ll be ready,” Red said. “Business as usual. That’ll confuse ’em.”
Billy Don just chuckled and turned back toward the trailer.
Typical.
Billy Don was one of those people who just didn’t see the possibilities. The deceit. The treachery. Like when Red had mentioned Scott Adams, the cartoonist, who’d said the stock market was rigged. Billy Don had scoffed at that. And now this. As if the cops couldn’t be watching? Or they wouldn’t be watching? Like they wouldn’t use all sorts of oppressive tactics to railroad an innocent man? Sad that Billy Don was one of the many people who needed to wake up and see what was going on in this country. He was one of the masses. The sheeple.
“They’re out there,” Red said quietly to himself. He was sure of it. He could feel them watching. It was eerie.
He realized suddenly that he would kill for a bag of Cheetos.
16
The remote control wasn’t working. Jessi was standing right in front of the TV, thumbing the buttons, but it plainly wasn’t working.
“Guess it needs new batteries,” she said.
Liam, sitting on the edge of his bed, knew it was time to finally get down to business. So he said, “Yeah, probably. Listen, Jessi, I, uh—”
Now she was bending over to push the buttons on the front of the TV itself, still wearing those shorts, and Liam lost his train of thought for a moment. He knew he was pitiful. He knew it. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted so badly to reach out and grab a handful of—
“This okay?” she said.
She’d found some program on MTV she liked. Liam had never seen it, but he didn’t care.