by Ben Rehder
It was the same logo Red had seen on Endicott products. Not that he was much of an Endicott customer. Their products cost too damn much, especially after they’d hit it big with the reality show. Red didn’t need any of that high-dollar crap to kill a deer or a pig. He had something else instead: skills. Well, skills, and a willingness to ignore most game laws.
26
Liam followed the county road for another mile or so, and the paved surface gave way to gravel. A half-mile after that, the road dead-ended at a rusty aluminum gate posted with an ominous hand-painted sign:
PRIVATE PROPRETY
NO TRESSPASSING
NO HUNTING
WE MIGHT SHOOT BACK
He had no choice but to turn around. He did, but then he stopped in the road, with the rusty gate behind him.
“Let’s give it a few minutes,” Liam said. “Let those guys in the truck get wherever they’re going.”
Jessi nodded. They were quiet for a moment. Then Jessi said, “It’s pretty around here. The hills. So different than Nebraska.”
“You don’t think Nebraska is pretty?”
“What’s pretty about it?”
He should just do it now. Admit he’d lost his nerve. Scrap the plan. Come up with an alternative.
She reached over and placed a hand on his thigh. Nothing sexual about it. Just a girl showing affection. She had her head back against the headrest, and she turned to face him.
“You know what we should do after this?” she said.
“Huh?”
“Go out to California.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why California?”
“Why not? Better than going back home, don’t you think?”
It was a crazy idea and he knew it. They didn’t have jobs. They didn’t have much money. He was maxing out his credit cards. What about their families? What would they say? Liam could manage to keep his parents in the dark long enough to come down to Texas, complete the mission, and go back home, without them knowing he’d been gone. But if he and Jessi went to California after that, then he’d have to come clean and let them know where he really was. They’d flip out. What the hell are you doing in California?
“That sounds pretty cool,” Liam said.
“Really? You’d do it?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Cool. Then I say we go get the camo clothes, get the gasoline, burn their fucking house down, then hit the road. We could be halfway to—”
But right then they both saw the old red Ford truck coming in their direction. Liam gave the Hyundai some gas and started moving again.
“They’ll just think we turned around because we’re lost,” Liam said. “Be cool.”
“These kids must be lost,” Red said.
“Nebraska plates,” Billy Don said as the Hyundai got closer. “Damn. They is lost. See if they need any help.”
Red began to brake, one hand out the window, signaling that he wanted the kid driving the Hyundai to stop.
“Fuck,” Liam said, but he already realized that this was a fantastic break. “It’ll seem weird if I don’t stop.”
He touched the brake and came to a halt, driver’s door to driver’s door beside the truck.
“How y’all doin’?” the driver said. “Y’all are a long way from Nebraska. You lost?”
Liam had encountered plenty of rednecks back home, but he wasn’t sure they quite compared with this guy. His accent was laughable—almost painful to hear. He was wearing a feed-store cap and sported a week’s worth of stubble on his chin and cheeks. His passenger was enormous. Not fat, and not muscular, but somewhere in between. Just huge. Scary.
“Yeah,” Liam said, “but we figured out where we went wrong. We’re okay.”
“What’re y’all looking for?” the driver asked.
Liam started to answer, but Jessi spoke up first.
“Somebody told us there was a beautiful little creek somewhere off this road, but we’ve been driving around, and we did see a creek, over on that other road, but it seems like almost every little road around here crosses a creek, and they’re all beautiful, so I think we’ve seen all the creeks we need to see for today, but thanks for your help, and y’all have a nice day.”
She was squeezing Liam’s thigh repeatedly—meaning Go, go, go—so he did go, giving the rednecks a friendly wave as he drove away.
“Was that a little weird?” Red said, watching the gray Hyundai get smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror.
“Nebraska,” Billy Don said, by way of an explanation.
“See all the tattoos up and down that kid’s arm?”
“Yep,” Billy Don said. “That’s called a ‘sleeve.’”
“Pretty stupid looking, if you ask me,” Red said.
“I didn’t,” Billy Don said.
“There it is again. That attitude.”
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”
Red shrugged, then turned his truck around. “Let’s go get some supplies,” he said, “and then we’ll get set up.”
One in three thousand.
The thought kept running through Marlin’s mind. He was seated at the conference table at the sheriff’s department with Bobby Garza and Bill Tatum, having a discussion, but he was distracted.
One in three thousand.
“At this point,” Garza said, “I’m not sure how to proceed. Bill, I know you’re still busy with other cases, but I wanted you here for this conversation to see if you can offer any brilliant ideas. Right now, the Endicotts are stonewalling us. Their attorney hasn’t called me back yet, and he might not call at all. Ernie got all of their phone records, and there was nothing out of the ordinary there. Ron Rosen was the only one who ever called Harley’s number.”
“That includes Aaron?” Marlin asked.
“Yep,” Garza said, and he quickly told Tatum about the encounter Garza and Marlin had had with Aaron Endicott, as well as the details Marlin had uncovered about Aaron’s alleged personality disorder.
“Of course, it could be we’re chasing a dead end,” Garza said. “Maybe the Endicotts had nothing to do with it at all. Maybe it was random. Say some door-to-door salesman comes along and they get into an argument. Something like that.”
“No other suspects?” Tatum asked.
“Nope.”
“Have you interviewed all the neighbors?” Tatum asked.
“Ernie did. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. And none of the neighbors themselves had a motive, as far as we know. No bad blood, no property disputes. No feuds.”
“Maybe we should offer a reward for information,” Tatum said. “We haven’t tried that in a long time.”
“We don’t usually have the budget for it,” Garza said, “but we might be able to put something together. Good idea, Bill.”
Marlin looked down at his coffee mug.
One in three thousand.
Marlin had spent a few minutes doing some reading online that morning, and he’d learned that kidney donation was remarkably safe and had no significant ongoing impact on the donor’s life. But there was one statistic that alarmed him. As with any major surgery, there were risks, and in the case of kidney donation, one in three thousand donors died. The website described that mortality rate as “exceedingly rare.” It didn’t sound exceedingly rare to Marlin. People willingly plunked down cash for tickets to lotteries, knowing the odds of winning were one in 25 million. Now that was exceedingly rare. But one in three thousand?
“John?” Garza said.
The sheriff had said something else that Marlin had missed. “Sorry, what?”
“Parks & Wildlife has that Operation Game Thief tip line. Is that effective?”
“Well, that line isn’t generally for one particular case, it’s to report poaching in general. When we do ask for help with a certain case, it gets quite a few calls, most of them worthless. But all it takes is one.”
“So it’s solved some cases?”
“I
t has. One time I talked to the woman who works that phone line, and she said people see or hear things they don’t think are important, so they’re reluctant to call. They don’t want to waste our time with something that’s probably nothing. But when they learn there’s a reward involved, then they’ll call. The thing to do, when you contact the media, is stress that we want people to call. No detail is too small.”
“Let’s do that, then,” Garza said. “I’ll see how much we can scrounge up for a reward, and then we’ll—”
There was a light rap on the door to the conference room, and Darrell Bridges, the dispatcher, stuck his head in. “Bobby, I hate to interrupt, but there’s a man named Ron Rosen up front to see you.”
“Ron Rosen is here?” The surprise was obvious in Garza’s voice.
“Yes, and he said you’d want to see him.”
“He’s right about that,” Garza said. “Go ahead and bring him back, please.”
“That’s a problem,” Liam said, after they’d left the old Ford truck behind. “A big problem.”
“Why?” Jessi said.
“If we start the fire now, and then it makes the news—which it obviously will—they’ll be asking if anybody saw anything. Those two dudes will remember seeing us. They’ll remember we’re from Nebraska. They’ll remember I have tattoos, and that we’re driving a gray Hyundai, and that there was a beautiful girl in the passenger seat.”
With a nice rack, he thought. The rednecks would’ve definitely noticed the rack. Any guy would’ve noticed the rack.
“So what are you saying?” Jessi asked. “What are we supposed to do? Give up?”
She said it with such dripping disdain, there was no way Liam could say yes, that’s exactly what they needed to do. Give up. Chuck it all. Just go back to the motel room and have sex, over and over, because what could be more fulfilling than that? Who would need anything more out of life?
“No, but we need to wait at least one more day,” he said.
“I swear,” Jessi said, shaking her head.
“What?”
“At first I thought it was my imagination, but you’ve been acting like you don’t want to do this anymore.”
“No, I do!” Liam insisted. “That’s crazy. Why would you say that?”
“You keep changing the plan. Postponing it.”
“Well, God,” Liam said, “I want to do it—that was the whole point of our trip, right?—but I don’t want to get caught. Can you blame me? We need to be careful. That means we take our time and do it right.”
She still looked doubtful.
So Liam said, “Oh, hell, yes, I want to do it. I can’t wait to do it. In fact, the reason I want to postpone it—and make sure we get away with it—is so we can start planning our second mission.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Another mission?”
“What, you think we should stop at just one? When there are so many other good targets? I bet we could find a good target for another mission in California.”
Damn it! Why the hell was he saying these things? It was like he couldn’t control his mouth.
Her hand was on his thigh again. “I’m sorry, I totally read you wrong. I had no idea you were thinking that far ahead.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I tend to think long term. But that means we need to be careful in the short term. So we need to hold off on this until tomorrow. Agreed?”
Now she leaned over and began to nuzzle his neck. She breathed hot air into his ear. “Agreed,” she said.
Gravel began to rattle in the right-hand wheel wells and he had to jerk the car back onto the pavement.
27
Phil Colby pulled left out of his driveway, onto Miller Creek Road, towing an empty gooseneck trailer. He had a one-hour drive ahead of him to pick up a load of hay near Kerrville. Between the gasoline and the cost of the hay itself, he’d be spending a small fortune this morning.
It was getting harder and harder for a rancher to keep his head above water nowadays. Most ranchers had done what Colby had done—open the ranch up for hunting, to earn the extra income. Without it, Colby would have been close to bankruptcy several times.
Colby was about to dial Marlin—see if they could meet up for that lunch they’d missed two days earlier—when he saw movement in his rearview mirror. A vehicle was coming up behind him. Fast. A black Ford.
Take it easy, Colby thought. There are a lot of black Ford trucks on the road.
The truck came within ten feet of the rear of Colby’s trailer and then had no choice but to ease off the gas. Colby was trying to see the driver’s face clearly, but he couldn’t. Too much light reflecting off the Ford’s windshield.
Is it Aaron Endicott? No way to tell for sure.
Colby kept his Chevy moving at a steady 30 miles per hour. That was plenty fast on this narrow, winding county road with no paved shoulders. There were places so tight, two vehicles had to take care passing each other.
The Ford continued tailgating, and it was starting to piss Colby off. Why did people have to be such impatient assholes? Where was Colby supposed to go? Was he supposed to pull over on a grassy spot and let this jerk pass? Even if he could, now he’d decided that he wouldn’t. Let the guy tail him for three miles, all the way into Johnson City.
Except that wasn’t going to happen.
Colby turned a sharp 90-degree corner to the right, and the road opened up to a straightaway. The Ford immediately gunned it and began to swoop around Colby’s Chevy.
“What can we do for you today, Mr. Rosen?” Garza asked.
Darrell had escorted the Endicotts’ manager into the conference room, and now Rosen was seated at the long, rectangular table with Garza, Tatum, and Marlin.
“First off,” Rosen said, “you need to know that the Endicotts don’t know I’m here. Neither does Ted. He’s their attorney.”
“We remember,” Garza said.
“Okay, cool,” Rosen said. “So...what I’d like to do is speak to you confidentially.”
“About what?”
“About this Harley Frizzell situation.”
“Something on your mind?” Garza asked.
“I’ve been thinking it through, and I feel like I need to tell you something. Because, you know, it’s the right thing to do, regardless of what Ted said. I felt bad when he said we shouldn’t answer questions. I guess that’s the standard lawyer response, but that put all of you in a bad spot. Stonewalling the cops doesn’t do anybody any good.”
“We appreciate that,” Garza asked. “What is it you want to share?”
His tone was inquisitive, without being pushy or aggressive. Marlin noticed that the sheriff hadn’t addressed Rosen’s request for confidentiality. But even if Garza had promised that the information would remain confidential, he wouldn’t have had to keep that promise. Cops could lie to obtain information, assuming the lies wouldn’t make an innocent person confess to a crime he did not commit. For instance, a cop might tell a suspect that he had been picked out in a line-up, when he actually had not. Here, it was impossible to promise confidentiality—and mean it—without knowing what Rosen was about to reveal.
Fortunately, Rosen didn’t seem to notice that his request hadn’t been granted. He was sitting up straight. Not nervous, but not fully relaxed. “I realize a lot of people think small-town cops aren’t always on top of things. But after talking to y’all the other day, I know that’s not true. Y’all are quick on the uptake. So kudos for that.”
“We appreciate your confidence,” Garza said, smiling. Marlin knew him well enough to hear the slight sarcasm, but Rosen probably didn’t pick up on it.
Rosen said, “And so I bet you’ve already been checking up on Aaron. Like, you know he exists and you’re aware of his record. You’ve gotten that far, right?”
Garza said, “Well, I’m afraid we can’t discuss any specific details of the investigation with you, Mr. Rosen. Is there something you need to tell us about Aaron?”
Rosen puffed his che
eks as he exhaled a long breath. This was difficult for him. Or he wanted everyone in the room to think it was.
“Well, I just know this,” Rosen said. “Aaron—God love him—has some problems. I’m sure you know this. He can be violent, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Out at the ranch, he mostly keeps to himself, which suits everyone just fine. Walter and Donna would never say this in a million years, but he is a constant source of stress and, like, regret in their lives. One time Walter had too much bourbon and told me he wished Aaron had never been born. It was heartbreaking to hear a father say that, but I can’t blame him. Who wants a child that shows no sign of love and constantly turns your life upside down? It’s been hard for them.”
“I can imagine,” Garza said.
“So that’s some background for you,” Rosen said. “And then there’s this. When Jasper and I went over to Harley Frizzell’s house to make an offer on the deer scent, I’m pretty sure I saw Aaron’s truck following behind at us one point. The only thing I can figure out in hindsight—assuming it was Aaron—is that he wanted to know where Harley lived. I hate to say it, but there it is.”
Garza nodded. “Okay, but why would Aaron want to know that, in your opinion?”
Rosen gave him a rueful smile. “You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you? Okay, I will. The truth is, I can’t help suspecting that Aaron had something to do with that old man’s death.”
Rosen paused again, obviously anticipating more questions, so Garza obliged him, saying, “You aren’t sure it was Aaron behind you?”
“Nope. Whoever it was, they lingered way back. But it was a black Ford F350, I know that much. Sure looked like Aaron’s truck.”
Garza said, “Does Aaron regularly take part in family business meetings? Does he actively participate in the business or the show?”