Stag Party (Blanco County Mysteries Book 8)

by Ben Rehder

He stepped closer to Dale’s SUV—and then stopped abruptly. There, on the bumper, was a small, green sticker featuring the logo of the National Weapons Alliance. And now Colby was remembering something. Just a flash, but it came to him. The Ford that had hassled him on Miller Creek Road wasn’t so nondescript after all. Colby had seen that same sticker on the tinted rear window of the Ford as it had squeezed through the cattle guard ahead of him. If he hadn’t seen Dale’s sticker, he wouldn’t have remembered seeing the same sticker on the Ford.

  “You all right?” Dale asked.

  “Hold on a sec,” Colby said, slipping his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He scrolled to the photo he had taken of the rear of Aaron Endicott’s truck after their encounter at the gas station in Johnson City. Colby hadn’t really studied the photograph before. Why would he? After all, he’d only needed the license plate number, so the deputies could identify the owner. Now he looked closer, to see if Endicott’s truck had an NWA sticker on the rear window.

  Marlin and Nicole sat on the back porch as the sun slowly dipped behind the hills. He had a cold bottle of beer in his left hand. Nicole was drinking a glass of white wine. A ceiling fan overhead was creating a nice breeze and keeping the insects at bay. Geist was in the fenced yard, sniffing things she had sniffed a thousand times before, and yet still finding them interesting.

  Marlin and Nicole were simply enjoying each other’s company, without a lot of conversation. But there was an elephant in the room, and Marlin knew Nicole was patiently waiting for him to address it. No point in dragging it out.

  “So...” he said.

  She turned her head slightly to look at him.

  “About our little discussion last night on the way to dinner,” he said.

  She waited.

  “I did some reading,” he said. “For the most part, I didn’t see anything that concerned me too much—except for the fact that occasionally a donor dies from the surgery.”

  She reached over and covered his right hand with her left, but didn’t say anything.

  “It scares me,” he said.

  “Sometimes life is scary,” Nicole said.

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  “There is a risk,” she said. “I’m not going to comfort you into thinking there isn’t.”

  He took a long drink from his bottle. The beer was still refreshingly cold. Geist looked in his direction, gave one bark, and then went back to wandering the fence line, checking to see if anything interesting had appeared in the yard since the last time she’d checked.

  “You know,” he said, “there’s something that just doesn’t add up. You have to figure thousands of people die every day, right? And a whole bunch of them must be registered organ donors. Shouldn’t that take care of the problem? Why is there even a waiting list? Why should live donors have to give away their kidneys?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, too,” Nicole said. “But they can’t use organs from people who die outside of a hospital.”

  Marlin felt the sense of deflation that comes when your perfectly valid opinion turns out to be worthless. All he could say was, “That’s crazy. Why?”

  “Has to do with making sure the organs are suitable for transplant. Even among people who die in the hospital, fewer than two percent of them die in a way that their organs can be used. I can’t remember all the requirements, but they have to be on a ventilator, they have to be brain dead, and they have to—”

  “You know what?” Marlin said. “I don’t need to know the specifics. It’s depressing as hell.”

  “But you’re a registered donor,” Nicole said.

  “Yeah, but I don’t really need to know whether or not they’ll be able to use my parts when I’m gone. I really hope they can, and that’s about as much as I can do about it.”

  “There isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t be lucky to get any part of you,” Nicole said.

  And with that sweet, off-the-cuff remark, Nicole had just won the debate. He didn’t even know how to respond. What she had just said about him was exactly the way he felt about her. Heather would be the most fortunate woman alive to wake each day with a living part of Nicole in her body. Who was he to deny her that opportunity for a new life? And, perhaps more important, who was he to deny Nicole the chance to save a life? He might as well ask her to stop being herself.

  One in three thousand.

  That meant 2,999 out of 3,000 donors survived.

  Billy Don woke at dusk. He stretched, yawned, and said, “What time is it?”

  “Dark thirty,” Red said.

  “Damn, why’d you let me sleep so long? I need to get home. Betty Jean’s gonna be wondering where I am.”

  Truth was, Red was ready to pack it in for the day. Stakeouts were boring as hell, especially on a quiet little road like this one. He had seen no more than six or seven vehicles in the entire time he’d been sitting here. All of them had driven past the Endicotts’ gate without even slowing down.

  Billy Don leaned his head out the passenger window and made a big show of looking up at the sky. He kept at it, craning his head this way and that.

  “What’re you looking for?” Red said.

  “Drones,” Billy Don said.

  Red was about to deliver a scathing retort when he heard a vehicle coming. He waited. A moment later, a Chevy truck came into view.

  “Ain’t that Phil Colby’s pick-up?” Billy Don said.

  Red watched without answering.

  The Chevy slowed, then turned into the Endicotts’ entryway.

  Phil Colby pulled up beside a keypad mounted on a post. A small sign on the post read: VISITORS PRESS 999. He did as it requested, and then waited. Lights discreetly designed into the masonry on either side of the gate shone in his direction.

  Colby had left all of his guns—and any other item that could be considered a weapon—at home. If things went south, he didn’t want to be accused of coming over here to shoot someone.

  Still no response. He pressed 999 again.

  After thirty more seconds, a woman’s voice came from the speaker, saying, “May I help you?”

  “My name is Phil Colby. I need to have a discussion with Aaron Endicott.”

  A pause.

  Then she said, “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

  “Phil Colby.”

  “Who are you with?”

  “It’s just me.”

  “I mean, what company or agency?”

  Colby struggled to maintain a calm demeanor.

  “I’m a rancher. I work for myself.”

  “And what is this regarding?”

  “It’s regarding my need to have a discussion with Aaron Endicott.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Endicott isn’t available at the moment. May I give him a message?”

  Colby tapped the top of the steering wheel. He wasn’t surprised it was going this way. Maybe that was for the better. “Okay, sure,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Caroline, sir.”

  “Thanks, Caroline. I’m sorry if I sound short. I’m sure you don’t need the attitude. If you could please just tell Aaron Endicott that I enjoyed our little drag race today, and the next time I see him, he should stop and say hello. In the meantime, let him know I’ll be gunning for him.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t catch that last part.”

  “I’ll be gunning for him.” Colby was grinning when he said it. “Can you give him that message? I would really appreciate it.”

  The calls had started coming into the sheriff’s department immediately after Garza had contacted the media, and the phone continued ringing well into the night.

  Most of the calls were a waste of time. Several callers were under the mistaken assumption that the sheriff was seeking tips or advice on how to go about the investigation, rather than specific information that might help solve the case.

  “What you need to do,” one man said, “is talk to the dead
guy’s neighbors. See if they know anything. And his family members. Oh, does he have an ex-wife?”

  Another said, “You should try some of the techniques they use on CSI. That’s some pretty amazing stuff. Y’all done that yet?”

  One caller insisted that Harley Frizzell had run Chicago’s largest prostitution ring back in the sixties and seventies, and he’d been killed by an aging former hooker who was owed more than a hundred thousand dollars in back pay. The dispatcher who took the call didn’t bother mentioning that Harley had never lived outside Blanco County.

  One particularly helpful woman called to say that, on the afternoon before it was announced that Harley had been killed, she’d been driving north on Towhead Valley Road when a big black Ford truck went rumbling past her, going way too fast, almost hitting her head-on. No, she didn’t get a look at the driver. No, she didn’t get a license plate number. There wasn’t time for that, and why would she? She didn’t know a crime had been committed. Besides, she’d been lucky she hadn’t been killed! The dispatcher asked: Did this happen north or south of the Klett Ranch Road intersection? South, the caller said. What time? Oh, about four in the afternoon. No, she hadn’t seen which way the truck had turned when it had reached Highway 290. Yes, she was positive it was a Ford. She had grown up in the country and knew one brand of truck from another. The incident had really shaken her up, but she hadn’t thought much about it until she’d heard that the sheriff was looking for information—even information that might seem trivial. She didn’t really care about the reward, and she’d prefer to remain anonymous. No, she didn’t want to leave any contact information.

  30

  Sissy Endicott placed her cell phone on the nightstand in the glow of the alarm clock, then rested her head on the pillow.

  “That was perfect,” Ron Rosen said, reaching over to place a comforting palm on her flat belly.

  “It’s official,” Sissy said. “I am the worst sister ever. A traitor.”

  “Oh, come on. You know it’s for the best. Even without this Harley Frizzell mess, we’ve been needing to do something about Aaron for a very long time.”

  “So why not implicate him in a murder? That seems reasonable.” She tended to lean heavily on sarcasm, and Rosen had always found that annoying.

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “Okay, be totally honest. Haven’t you always figured the day would come when Aaron would kill someone?”

  “Maybe, but he hasn’t killed anyone.” Now she was using that tone of voice that suggested Rosen was a simpleton. As much as he hated that tone, he always put up with it. He was a patient man.

  But he couldn’t resist saying, “You want the cops to figure out what really happened?”

  Yeah, that shut her mouth. For the moment. She let out a sigh, though, to let him know that she was not happy with the situation.

  What a damn brat.

  She was rich, beautiful, and famous—adored by millions—and that was never enough. Same with the other Endicotts. They were always bitching about one thing or another. Could be something as insignificant as a cold cup of coffee or a stale donut in the Monday morning meeting. Or it could be something as large as the stock market or the latest Supreme Court ruling.

  Jesus H. Christ, when it came to politics, these people were incapable of anything but relentless, self-centered whining. They didn’t seem to understand that in a nation with more than 300 million people, not everyone gets exactly what they want. Sometimes you had to compromise. Most reasonable people understood this. But not the Endicotts. They were like the kid in the sandbox who wants all the toys.

  Even though they routinely boasted that we lived in the greatest country on Earth—because that’s how God wanted it—you wouldn’t know it from all their griping, grousing, pissing, and moaning about every possible issue under the sun. It was a wide-ranging and exhaustive list:

  Muslims.

  Gay people.

  Transgender people.

  Bisexual people.

  People who have sex before marriage.

  Food stamp recipients.

  Soccer players.

  The liberal media.

  The liberal university system.

  The liberal scientific community.

  Illegal immigrants.

  Citizens who didn’t speak English.

  Capital gains taxes.

  Foreign aid.

  The war on Christmas.

  The war on Easter.

  Gun laws.

  Separation of church and state.

  Voter fraud.

  The federal government.

  East Coast elites.

  Critical thinkers.

  Aggressive women.

  Unmarried mothers.

  Women who opt to remain childless.

  Women who dress provocatively.

  Women who don’t know when to remain silent.

  Atheists.

  The teaching of evolution in school.

  Textbooks with no mention of Jesus.

  People without the balls to bomb Iran.

  And the president, of course.

  The president was the biggest target of all. But as soon as one of their guys was in office, then they’d claim that anyone who bitched about the president wasn’t a true patriot.

  The most ridiculous and hypocritical part? To hear the Endicotts tell it, it was the wealthy white conservative Christians who were persecuted, condemned, and marginalized every minute of every day. There were times when Rosen didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Just how disconnected from reality were they? Did they really believe that? Even Rosen didn’t know for certain. He saw no point in asking.

  “What if they recorded me?” Sissy said, bringing Rosen back to his current situation.

  “Who? The cops?”

  “Who else?”

  “You changed your voice enough that nobody would recognize it. Besides, they can’t record it. Not when they ask for anonymous tips.”

  He had no idea if that was true or not. Worse case, if they figured out it was her, Rosen would step up and say it was his idea. A PR stunt. Which was totally believable, too. Twenty or thirty years ago, bad publicity was bad publicity. Today any publicity was good publicity.

  “When are you going to call?” Sissy asked.

  That was the deal they’d made. They would both make an anonymous call to the hotline. Two witnesses would carry more weight than one.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, and he meant it.

  Phil Colby awoke abruptly at 3:27 A.M. with the sense that something wasn’t right. Under normal circumstances, he would have lain quietly and waited. Listened for a sound. Maybe looked for a flash of light through a window or around the cracks of his closed bedroom door.

  But these weren’t normal circumstances.

  He slipped from bed, bare feet on carpet, and quickly went into his closet. There was enough ambient light for him to see what he was doing. Leaning in one corner was an old, ratty golf bag with three cheap clubs sticking from the top—just for show. He reached inside the bag, where he had created a new bottom, just one foot below the top lip of the bag. Resting there was his .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic. Fifteen rounds with plenty of knock-down power. He had always figured if he couldn’t get out of trouble with fifteen rounds, additional rounds wouldn’t help.

  Colby stood in the closet for a moment, Glock in hand, and waited.

  Thirty seconds.

  A full minute.

  Nothing but the hum of the air conditioning unit.

  What had woken him? A creaking door? A window opening? Footsteps? He couldn’t remember.

  He moved back into his bedroom and slowly made his way to the closed door. He paused again. Was there somebody on the other side? It was possible, even though Colby had high-quality locks on all his doors and windows. What he didn’t have was a security system. No alarms. No cameras. He didn’t even have a dog.

  Colby was beginning to think it must’ve been a bad dream that had roused him. But he
wouldn’t be able to sleep again unless he checked the house.

  He grabbed the doorknob and eased the door open. Empty hallway.

  He went from room to room, methodically, quietly, on full alert. There was nobody here. Nothing out of place. No open windows or doors.

  He passed through the living room and approached the front door. The porch light was on, but that was a fairly weak bulb. He flipped the switch for the high-intensity floodlights mounted on each corner of the house. The light bathed the wraparound deck. He could see his truck parked in the circular drive, just forty feet away.

  Nothing moved.

  Nothing made a sound.

  Colby flipped the deadbolt, opened the door, and stepped outside. The humidity pressed against him like a warm towel. Again, he paused. He heard crickets and the call of a lone whippoorwill. Traffic on Highway 281 way in the distance. A light breeze through the nearby oak trees.

  False alarm.

  It was understandable. His encounters with Aaron Endicott had made him jumpy. On edge, even in his sleep. It was reasonable to be cautious, but Colby didn’t like being paranoid. He turned to go back inside, and now the light was glancing off the varnished deck at just the right angle.

  He saw footprints leading to his front door.

  Colby dropped to one knee for a closer look at one of the prints. There was no discernable tread pattern. Boots, most likely. Very large boots. Colby estimated them to be size 14 or 15. A large man. A huge man.

  He ran a fingertip through the boot print. It smeared, still moist with dew. The person had walked through the grass and gotten the soles of his boots wet.

  And he had been here just moments ago. He might be hiding in the darkness, watching. He could have a gun. Not much Colby could do about that. He refused to live in fear.

  He contemplated climbing into his truck and driving to the highway, to see if he could spot anyone walking off the ranch. But that would be futile. The trespasser could simply step into the cedars and disappear.

  Colby decided right then that he’d had enough.

  No more games.

  He stepped to the edge of the porch, pointed his Glock at the grass below, and fired three quick rounds. Even though he was braced for the noise, the sudden blasts were jarring. The crickets and the whippoorwill went silent.