Stag Party (Blanco County Mysteries Book 8)

by Ben Rehder

  He had a habit of getting into fistfights, and as large as he was, it was nothing but luck that he hadn’t killed anyone so far. He’d also been busted once for driving under the influence and twice for criminal trespass. All of these arrests had taken place in South Texas—in Webb County, where the other Endicott ranch was located. All had taken place in the seven years since he’d become a legal adult. Marlin wondered whether Aaron Endicott had ever been arrested as a juvenile, but those records weren’t available.

  Marlin was typing up an email for Bobby Garza when the sheriff showed up in his doorway with a mug of coffee in his right hand.

  “What’s up?” Marlin said, in response to the peculiar expression on Garza’s face.

  “Phil Colby called earlier about a guy who came out to his place this morning,” Garza said. “Enormous guy—young, with a bad complexion. Sound familiar?”

  “What’s the story?” Marlin said.

  Garza took a seat in the chair beside Marlin’s desk.

  “According to Colby, Aaron Endicott smacked into his bumper at a gas station in town several days ago. They had words about it, and then Colby intentionally bumped him back as he was leaving. Slammed him pretty hard. Not the wisest course of action, but at least Colby was up front about it.”

  Marlin held his tongue. Whenever there was any interaction between Colby and the sheriff’s department, the situation could become tense or even combative, because Colby had a temper and tended to take matters into his own hands, instead of relying on law enforcement. Obviously, the deputies were not fond of that approach—by Colby or anyone else. Marlin couldn’t blame the deputies for condemning behavior that might lead to vigilantism—and there were times when Marlin would get equally frustrated with Colby—but he also admired his best friend’s self-reliance and his tendency to deal head-on with idiots. Colby didn’t often turn to anyone for help in these situations; he solved the problems himself, and sometimes his solutions were risky or borderline illegal.

  “So Phil figures that’s the end of it,” Garza continued, “until Endicott suddenly shows up this morning. Of course, Colby didn’t know who the guy was—this morning or last week.”

  “What did Endicott want?”

  “Money for a new bumper,” Garza said. Garza took a sip of coffee, then said, “Why are you grinning?”

  “You and I both know Endicott might as well ask Phil to dance naked on the courthouse lawn. That’s more likely than Phil buying the guy a bumper.”

  “Oh, I know,” Garza said. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “I respect Phil. I hope he knows that, and I hope you do, too. But I worry that one of these days he’s going to get in over his head or take things too far. I wouldn’t want that to happen. Fortunately, in this case, for whatever reason, he called it in.”

  “What, because Endicott wouldn’t leave?” Marlin asked.

  “No, he left, but only after Phil pulled out a rifle, at which point Endicott allegedly made a couple of nasty threats. Phil snapped a photo of the guy’s truck as he was leaving. Ernie ran the plates and it came back to Aaron Endicott.”

  “What kind of threats?” Marlin asked.

  “Said he’d take the rifle away and beat Phil to death with it. When that didn’t work, he said he’d find Phil later, unarmed.”

  “Phil has a carry permit. He’s almost always armed.”

  “I know. I’m hoping Endicott isn’t stupid enough to follow through.”

  “Well,” Marlin said, “I’m not betting on that, because it turns out he has a history for that kind of behavior.” He spent a few minutes telling Garza about Aaron Endicott’s criminal record, along with the rumored diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.

  “Is it me,” Garza said, “or does that just sound like a catch-all label for your average, garden-variety asshole?”

  Marlin laughed. “I’ll admit I thought the same thing. But, no, it really is a legitimate disorder.”

  “Is it the same as being a sociopath?” Garza asked.

  “Sort of,” Marlin said. “If I understand correctly, the word ‘sociopath’ isn’t used as an official diagnosis; it’s more of a generic term. Same with ‘psychopath,’ and sometimes those two words—psychopath and sociopath—seem to be used interchangeably.”

  “For people who have antisocial personality disorder?” Garza said.

  “Right, and maybe some similar disorders. The distinction appears to be that sociopaths are pretty good at disguising what they are, because they lie well. They’re slick. They can screw people over for years, because the victim just can’t believe anyone would be so deceptive and manipulative. Psychopaths, on the other hand, are less subtle. More impulsive and erratic. More likely to be violent. And not very good at covering up who they are, because they simply don’t care what anybody thinks of them.”

  “Gilbert Weems,” Garza said.

  “Exactly,” Marlin said. “Perfect example.”

  Gilbert Weems had been one of the many hunters who had descended on Blanco County recently to try to earn the $50,000 bounty on a wild pig. In a short time, Weems had had trouble with quite a few residents of Blanco County, including Marlin, the sheriff and his deputies, Phil Colby, and a couple of local rednecks. The trouble started when Weems trespassed onto a ranch in search of the pig, then sent a potshot in Marlin’s direction, just for the fun of it.

  Garza tapped a finger on the rim of his coffee mug as they sat quietly for a moment. Then the sheriff said, “Based on everything you just told me, would you agree that Aaron makes a pretty good suspect for killing Harley?”

  “Absolutely. Maybe it wasn’t Jasper and Rosen who talked to Harley about his deer scent. Maybe Aaron was involved.”

  “Or,” Garza said, “maybe Aaron was simply aware of the negotiation with Harley, and he thought, ‘Hey, why pay him any money?’ Maybe he figured if Harley was dead, the Endicott family could use the formula without buying it. Who would know? Who would complain?”

  “It’d be great to get a look at the Endicotts’ financial records,” Marlin said. “Despite appearances, maybe they have cash flow problems. Maybe they couldn’t afford to pay Harley whatever amount he was asking.”

  “If you had to take a wild guess,” Garza said, “what would a deer scent like that be worth?”

  Marlin thought about it. “If it was the scent that brought all those bucks to Harley’s cabin the other day—and I’d say that’s likely, because what else would it have been?—that scent would be worth a whole bunch a money. I mean a bunch.”

  Garza grinned. “You’re ducking the question. How much?”

  “I’m no expert on that sort of thing, but a million or two wouldn’t surprise me—and I’m only talking about the price Harley would want to sell the rights to it. The amount of income it could generate would be a lot more, because just about every hunter on the planet would want a bottle. I bet the manufacturer would have a hard time keeping up with demand.”

  “We never did find anything in Harley’s possessions that looked like a written formula,” Garza said.

  “Probably kept it all in his head.”

  “Meaning it’s long gone?”

  “Unless some lab can break down a sample,” Marlin said. “And I don’t know if that’s even a possibility. I’m no chemist. Obviously, though, the scent has to be in one of those coffee cans or Gatorade bottles you took from the house. The other hurdle is that someone would have to give the lab the go-ahead, legally speaking, and I assume that would depend on what happens with Harley’s estate.”

  “Oh, speaking of which, I bounced some emails with Deborah,” Garza said, referencing the county attorney, “and she said there’s almost zero chance Red O’Brien could lay any sort of claim to the formula—not without more evidence that he and Harley had a partnership. She also said almost everybody has at least one heir, if you work hard enough to figure it out. Harley had no kids and no siblings, so then you go back to his aunts and uncles or cousins and see if they had any kid
s, and you just expand the search wider and wider. Deborah said she’d contact a genealogist about researching Harley’s family tree.”

  “So you never found a will?”

  “Nope. If Harley truly has no heirs, his belongings go to the State.”

  “Meaning nothing will ever get done with Harley’s formula,” Marlin said. “Might as well flush it down the toilet. And that might be for the best.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a product that would give a deer hunter more of an unfair advantage. If that scent always works like it did outside Harley’s place, where’s the challenge? I wouldn’t even see the point of calling it ‘hunting.’”

  “Good point.”

  “Has Ernie heard back from any of the other manufacturers Harley contacted?” Marlin asked.

  “Yeah, and none of them had responded to Harley’s letter yet. A few of them said they were planning to contact him, but they hadn’t gotten around to it. Phone records back that up.”

  “That makes things less complicated,” Marlin said.

  “It does,” Garza said. “Back to this Colby thing for a minute. I called Ron Rosen a little while ago, told him what Aaron allegedly did, and asked for Aaron’s phone number. He gave me the same runaround—no questions without going through the lawyer. I pressed and said Aaron would have to refuse the questions himself, so Rosen gave me the number, but Aaron won’t answer. Then I left a message for the lawyer—this guy Ted Weyland—and haven’t heard back.”

  “Big surprise,” Marlin said.

  “Right. Obviously, making death threats is against the law, but I can’t get an arrest warrant based on Phil’s word alone. Which means we’re at a roadblock for the moment.”

  “Did Rosen seemed surprised by the accusation?”

  “Not in the least,” Garza said.

  “Did he explain why Aaron wasn’t at the family interview yesterday?”

  “He said it never crossed his mind to include Aaron because Aaron never takes part in any family events—birthday parties, holidays, that kind of stuff. The way Rosen described the situation—and I could tell that he was trying to be diplomatic—Aaron is an outcast.”

  “You know, I don’t have any trouble believing that.”

  “Me neither,” Garza said. “Who wants the black sheep around?”

  “I guess now we know why Aaron isn’t on the show,” Marlin said. “He’d be unpredictable and disruptive, at a minimum.”

  “Based on the few reality shows I’ve seen, you’d think that would be a bonus,” Garza said. “I’m pretty sure half of those people are psychos anyway.”

  20

  “What we need,” Jessi said quietly, leaning forward, “is some way to make the fire start long after we’re gone. Some way to delay it, like a timer or something. Hey, who was that guy you mentioned in the car?”

  Liam was studying the breakfast menu closely. He was famished. He had been starving when he’d first woken up, and then after he talked Jessi into joining him in bed, he’d burned up even more calories. He was a friggin’ animal, really. That’s what he was.

  “Liam?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who was that guy you talked about? He bombed those buildings?”

  “Oh, yeah. Daniel Andreas San Diego.”

  They were seated at a small table in the corner of a restaurant called Uptown Blanco. It was a nice place, with white tablecloths, glass stemware, and a wall of windows overlooking Main Street, and Liam felt like splurging. Jessi had put him in a great mood. Only problem was, the options would be limited for them at any restaurant in town. After all, there probably weren’t many vegetarians in Blanco, Texas—same as back home in Grand Island.

  There probably weren’t many straight edgers, either, which was why they’d both dressed in very average clothing—to blend in with the locals. Jessi, for instance, was wearing a pink blouse. Not her style at all. And it wasn’t as tight as the tops she normally wore. And she’d done her make-up differently. Toned it down. Frankly, she looked a little boring this way. Liam was wearing a plain black T-shirt instead of his usual black concert shirt. He didn’t have any long-sleeve shirts with him, so his tattoos would just have to show. Couldn’t do anything about that. Surely there were a few guys his age with tattoos in Blanco County.

  “How did he do it?” Jessi asked. “You said the bombs were timed, right? Can we, like, buy a timer at a hardware store or something?”

  “Uh...”

  “Because we’re gonna need a good head start,” Jessi said. “I figure it will take us at least twenty or thirty minutes to hike off the property, get back in the car, and drive back to town. Especially in the dark. I figure we’ll do it in the dark, don’t you? Less chance of being spotted?”

  She was obviously very excited about the prospect of carrying out the plan. Liam, on the other hand, was excited about the prospect of eating breakfast. Soon.

  “I bet we can find some instructions online,” Jessi said. “I mean, you can find anything online, right? A timer should be simple.”

  “Probably, sure. Hey, what’re you gonna have?”

  “Pancakes, I guess.”

  The pancake mix would include eggs, but Jessi and Liam were both lacto-ovo vegetarians, meaning they did not eat beef, pork, poultry, fish, shellfish, or any other kind of animal flesh, but they did eat eggs and dairy products. Liam had always felt that was a sensible, realistic level of vegetarianism, as opposed to lacto-vegetarianism (dairy products were okay, but eggs weren’t) or ovo-vegetarianism (eggs were okay, but dairy products weren’t).

  This morning, however, eggs didn’t sound all that appealing. He wanted something more.

  “The other question,” Jessi said, “is how are we going to claim credit for it and let everybody know why we did it? Do we contact a TV reporter or something? Or send a note to someone important?” Her brow wrinkled. “Hey, what if they don’t believe us? I mean, we’ll have to contact them after the fire, and anybody could do that. Anybody could just call up and take credit for it. But I guess we could contact someone just a few minutes before we do it and say there’s going to be a fire, but don’t tell them exactly where. Then we call them again later and say why we did it. Or do we leave some sort of clue at the scene? A note?”

  “I have an idea,” Liam said, looking at the menu again.

  “Huh?”

  “This’ll sound kind of crazy.”

  Jessi didn’t just smile, she positively beamed. “Ooh, I love crazy. You know that by now. Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay. What if...we order a huge plate of bacon.”

  She looked at him, puzzled, as if he’d just said something in Swahili. “What?”

  “A big ol’ plate of bacon,” Liam said. His mouth was literally flooding with saliva. He had to swallow it down. “Just this once. Can’t you just taste it? When was the last time you had bacon?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I just, uh, yeah. Just a thought.”

  “Liam. No. Forget it. I’m not eating bacon.” The disappointment in her voice was obvious. She looked away, toward the windows, at passersby on the sidewalk.

  He was disappointed, too. He didn’t know why he had this sudden yearning for bacon—it was almost like a primitive carnal desire deep in his very core—but he’d been hoping Jessi felt the same way. Sure, it was morally wrong to eat bacon, no question, but if the pig had already been slaughtered and the bacon was waiting in the kitchen, what was the harm? It wasn’t like he was asking the cook to go out back and kill a hog. Or was he rationalizing? They’d have to replace the bacon he ate with new bacon, so yeah, that was a copout. No way around it.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It was just a crazy urge—don’t know where it came from—and I’m glad you were here to talk me out of it. Thank you. ‘A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.’”

  She looked at him again. Gave him a coy smile. “You’re just full of cravings lately, aren’t you?”

&n
bsp; “Can you blame me?” he said.

  Then, just like that, she was all business again.

  “So what’re we gonna do about a timer?” she said.

  Ron Rosen arranged another family meeting, without the police this time.

  “The sheriff called earlier,” he said. “Apparently, Aaron drove over to some rancher’s house this morning and threatened him. The rancher had to run him off with a rifle.”

  “Well, shit,” Walter said. “What’s that all about?”

  They were all seated in the same spots they had occupied the day before.

  “Some argument at a gas station,” Rosen said. “The usual nonsense. Aaron being Aaron. We all know there doesn’t have to be a reason. Shit just happens.”

  Nobody said anything for a long time. Walter was shaking his head slowly.

  “What did you tell him?” Dirk asked.

  “The sheriff? Same as yesterday—that he should contact Ted. He can’t force Aaron to answer questions, and it sounds as if there weren’t any witnesses, other than the rancher.”

  Dirk didn’t ask anything else. Sissy, too, was sitting quietly. Donna was staring into space, showing all the worry that one would expect from a mother—even the mother of a child who had done nothing but create problems from the day he was born. There was an anguish in her face—a hint of failure—that made Rosen ache for her.

  “What about the rest of us?” Walter said. He was bouncing the tip of the cane on the hardwood floor. That habit drove Ron nuts, but if he ever brought it up, it was likely that Walter would do it even more often. Grumpy old man.

  “What are you asking?” Ron said.

  “Can the sheriff make any of us talk?”

  “About this threat thing or about Harley Frizzell?” Ron said.

  “I don’t know, goddamn it. Either.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rosen said.

  “Is he gonna arrest Aaron?” Dirk asked.

  “I don’t think he can,” Rosen said. “Not enough evidence to get a warrant. But at this point, I need to raise a question. I think there’s a good chance we’ve all been thinking it—so I’ll just put it out there. We all know what Aaron is capable of. We’ve seen it time and time again. Frankly, I’m amazed he’s never been put away for good. The things he—”