Stag Party (Blanco County Mysteries Book 8)

by Ben Rehder

  “Yeah, I could eat something,” O’Brien said. “Got any Doritos?”

  Marlin couldn’t help thinking, He has the munchies.

  41

  The boy’s name was Liam Andrew Mooney.

  Marlin had that nailed down less than two minutes after running the plate from the Hyundai. Kid lived in Grand Island, Nebraska. A few minutes later, Marlin learned that Liam Andrew Mooney had no criminal record as an adult.

  Weird. Why would a kid with no priors drive all the way to Texas to torch a home owned by a family of semi-famous rednecks?

  Marlin checked residential phone numbers for the last name Mooney in Grand Island. The kid wouldn’t be listed. People his age rarely had landlines. But older relatives? Mom and dad? Good chance of that. Sure enough, he found a Grant A. Mooney—the only Mooney in town.

  Marlin dialed. A woman answered on the second ring.

  They were really doing it. They were really going to California.

  Earlier, when Liam had approached Highway 281, he’d said, “Which way?”

  “What we should’ve done was go west on 473 to start with,” Jessi had said. “But now that we’re here, I think we should go right. South. Get the hell out of Blanco County.”

  This was just after Jessi had finished telling him what the man named Aaron had told her about the murder of the old man. Liam didn’t know what to do about that—if anything—right now. He’d thought about it for about two minutes, and then he’d decided not to think about it, at least for a day or two, because he had much more pressing issues to deal with, like getting away.

  A few minutes after they turned onto 281, they realized they should decide where they were going and the best way to get there.

  “You still up for California?” Jessi said.

  He tried to look like was wasn’t completely overwhelmed by anxiety. “I am if you are.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jessi checked Google Maps and said, “We can either keep going south to San Antonio, then go west on Interstate 10, which will take us all the way to Los Angeles. Or right up here, we can take State Highway 46, which goes through a couple of small towns before it hooks up with Interstate 10. That would be quicker.”

  “Like, a lot quicker?”

  “Maybe thirty minutes or so.”

  Liam said, “I’d rather stay with the traffic on the bigger highways. Blend in with the herd. Just in case they have a description of the car. They’ll be looking for us, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know!” Jessi said.

  She was plainly ecstatic. It was as if he had said, “And tomorrow morning, we’ll fly nonstop with Brad and Angelina in their private jet to Paris.”

  As for Liam’s emotions, well, he wasn’t sure how he felt. Tense and scared, for sure. But underneath that, there was a certain sense of stubborn pride, too, now that they had completed the mission—even if it hadn’t gone exactly as planned. After all, didn’t that entire family of wolf-killing assholes deserve to have their homes burned to the ground? Liam still felt that the answer was yes. He had known all along that sometimes you have to step outside the law—and societal norms—to effect change.

  He had also known that they might get caught, and he had always been prepared for that possibility. In that case, he’d wind up a martyr, like Daniel Andreas San Diego. However...now that they were on the road, after that close call, was it crazy to think they might actually get away with it? Would the cops be able to figure out who they were? Liam wished he’d given a fake name to that man on the Endicott ranch, but even with a real name, would the cops be able to track him down? He couldn’t imagine that they would.

  Liam was so caught up in these thoughts, he almost didn’t hear his phone. A call was coming in, and the ringtone—“Fuck Authority” by Pennywise—always made him cringe. His mother.

  He let it go to voicemail. He couldn’t deal with her shit right now. Liam expected to hear the familiar tone that signaled a waiting voicemail, but seconds passed and it didn’t come. Unusual for his mother to call and not leave a voicemail. Then, nearly a full two minutes later, he heard the tone. That meant his mother had left a very long voicemail.

  His curiosity was piqued and he couldn’t resist listening. Right from the beginning, it was obvious from her tone that something was terribly wrong.

  Liam, it’s Mom...Listen, I just got a call from a game warden in Texas and I’m very concerned right now. Did you go to Texas?... You said you were going to Omaha to visit David, but this game warden said your car was spotted near the scene of a fire in Texas. Somebody set fire to a house and he said they need to speak to you about it, and about some other things that took place... I asked if he thought you did it, but all he would tell me is that they need to talk to you... Honestly, I don’t know what to think right now and I want you to call me as soon as possible and tell me what’s going on. Your dad and I are here for you, honey, no matter what may or may not have happened. If you need help, we’ll do whatever we can. So please call me as soon as you get this message. Are you there? I thought I heard a click... Liam, the game warden said policemen all over the state are looking for you, and that there’s a girl with you. He said her name was Jessi and asked if I knew who that might be, and so I said you used to work with a girl named Jessi, and he figured it must be her, because there aren’t that many girls named Jessi... And that also made me think that you really are down there in Texas, because what are the odds that there would be two kids named Liam and Jessi in a gray Hyundai? I haven’t spoken to your dad about this yet, because I’m hoping there’s some sort of explanation for all this craziness, so I’m going to wait a few minutes before I call him and tell him what’s going on... Can you call me please, honey?

  Ron Rosen was sitting cross-legged beneath a towering pecan tree beside the creek, watching the firefighters as they continued to poke and prod at the still-smoldering rubble that was once Aaron’s house. He didn’t know what they were doing—maybe ensuring that the flames wouldn’t leap up again, or perhaps sifting through the remains for evidence. Rosen wasn’t sure, because he didn’t know the full story yet. Nobody had explained exactly what had happened here this afternoon. Whatever it was, it was damn sure a doozy. One of the deputies had said a couple of kids had committed arson, but Rosen might have misunderstood what he had said. There had been so many sirens. So much chaos.

  “Hey.”

  He startled slightly and turned. Sissy had come up behind him, her movement masked by the gurgling of water over rocks in the creek. Her house was downstream about three hundred yards.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “I called your phone,” she said. “You didn’t answer.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “Signal comes and goes down in this valley,” he said, which was true. It was also true that he had seen her incoming call and ignored it.

  Sissy remained standing beside him, arms crossed tightly, watching the firefighters in the distance.

  “So what happens now?” she said.

  “I got no idea.”

  “This is just fucking crazy,” she said.

  “No argument here.”

  “I hate this shit. But it’s a shame the crew wasn’t here to film it. Can you imagine those ratings?”

  He didn’t say anything. Film it? Good lord.

  “Any word from Ted?” she asked.

  Surely the lawyer was on his way to the sheriff’s office by now to begin attempting to extract Aaron from this latest quagmire. Assuming someone had called Ted. Normally the Endicotts would expect Rosen to take care of a chore like that—but he hadn’t done it. He was tired of doing their damn chores.

  “Don’t know,” Rosen said. “Haven’t heard anything.”

  “So how are we going to spin all of this?” she said.

  Good question. How were they going to spin it? This debacle, like everything else in their lives, had to be handled just right. There had to be a narrative that would work to the Endicotts’ highest advantage. It didn’t ha
ve to be true. It didn’t even necessarily have to paint them in a positive light. It just needed to do as much as possible to create a buzz—to boost ratings and increase sales.

  “Ron?” Sissy said.

  “Huh?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.”

  “You’d better come up with some ideas real fucking fast, because the press are going to be all over us. They’re even pushier than the cops.” He noticed that her twang was gone at the moment. The real Sissy was showing through once again.

  Rosen lifted himself off the ground and said, “Hang on a sec. I’ll be right back.”

  He began walking away. He’d made it ten yards when Sissy called, “Where the hell are you going?”

  He turned, still walking backward. He held up a finger and said, “Just hang on a sec.”

  He continued walking. He heard her say something, but he couldn’t make it out.

  He walked southeasterly, through the trees. Fifty yards. One hundred. A nice, even gait. A peaceful hike through the serene countryside. He never looked back. Perhaps Sissy was staying in place, to wait for his return. Or maybe she was following him. Or maybe she’d returned to her house. It didn’t really matter, did it?

  Up a slight incline, down the other side, and now his little cabin came into view. Not his official residence, which was in L.A., but he lived here most of the time, simply because there was no other practical way to act as the Endicotts’ manager without being on hand around the clock to take care of them like toddlers.

  The question now was: Hadn’t he had enough? He could chuck everything and call it a career. He had enough money set aside that he could retire and live modestly in some small town until a ripe old age.

  Or, as an alternative, he could start over from scratch with a new set of clients. Contrary to popular belief, there were some fairly sane and normal people involved in show business—people who lived without the constant whirlwind of drama and turmoil that seemed to have settled over the Endicotts in the past few years.

  Hey, now he had another idea. He could write a memoir! A no-holds-barred tell-all about the Endicott empire from an insider’s perspective. Sweet Jesus, think of the advance he could get for that. And he probably wouldn’t even have to actually write it. The publisher would hire a ghost writer.

  Fantastic!

  He continued to his cabin, but he didn’t go inside. He had everything he needed in his pockets. Wallet. Car keys. Phone.

  He got into his BMW and followed the two-mile driveway to the highway. After he passed through the gate, he removed the remote-control clicker from his sun visor and tossed it out the window. Wouldn’t need it again.

  When he reached Highway 281, he turned left, north. He had no idea where he was going, and it was the most liberating experience of his life.

  42

  “We’re gonna need gas soon,” Liam said.

  His mother’s voicemail had gutted him. Left him feeling hopeless and afraid. He had thrown his life away. That was the bottom line. And for what? To get laid? To send a message that nobody would hear?

  Jessi, on the other hand, was exhilirated by the fact that they had been identified.

  “Can we get something to eat, too?” she said.

  “How much money you got?”

  “I dunno. Maybe thirty bucks. But I have a credit card, and so do you.”

  “We can’t use those, Jessi. We have to pay cash. We can’t even use our debit cards.”

  “Why not?”

  “The same reason we turned off our cell phones. Because if we use them, they’ll be able to track us.”

  He was hoping to gently steer her toward the same conclusions he’d reached. They had no options.

  “But you have some cash, right?” she said.

  “Forty-one dollars,” he said.

  “Can’t we stop at an ATM?” she said.

  “That would be the same as using it at a store,” he said. “They’d track it.”

  More than three hours had passed since Liam’s mother had left the first voicemail. She had left two more after that—before Liam realized they needed to shut off their cell phones.

  They had followed Highway 281 to San Antonio and gone west on Interstate 10. Now they were about twenty miles east of a town called Ozona.

  “We have less than a quarter tank,” Liam said, pushing the conversation forward.

  “Then let’s stop and fill up. We have enough for that.”

  “Then what? What about food? Where will we sleep?”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” she said.

  She was resisting the obvious. Reality hadn’t set in for her yet, the way it had for him.

  “They’re going to spot us eventually,” Liam said. “We’ll never make it to California.”

  “How do you know? The police are idiots.”

  “They’ll be looking for a gray Hyundai, and some cop will see us and pull us over. It’s inevitable.”

  “Dude, we haven’t seen a single cop so far,” Jessi said.

  “Yeah, but how long will that luck last?”

  “It will last as long as it lasts,” Jessi said. “No use in worrying about it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Besides, what can we do?”

  Liam knew what they could do—and what they should do. It was smart and sensible and it was probably the best way to minimize the impact this escapade would have on the remainder of their lives. So he said, “You can’t think of anything we should do at this point?”

  “Yeah, I can think of one thing.”

  “What?”

  “We could steal the license plates off another gray Hyundai. That’ll throw ’em off.”

  She was looking at him—waiting for a reaction.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said.

  “Why not? You have something else in mind?”

  He looked in the rearview mirror. He kept expecting to see a police car right behind him.

  “Dude, you obviously have something on your mind. Just spit it out.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I do have an idea. It might not be the wildest and most exciting course of action, but—”

  “Just say it.”

  “I think we should turn ourselves in.”

  She didn’t say anything, so he looked over at her. She was shaking her head, a disgusted expression on her face. “That,” she said, “is the lamest thing you’ve ever said. Give up? Really?”

  “Jessi,” he said. “What other alternatives do we have? We don’t have enough money.”

  “Fuck that!” Jessi said. “Totally fuck that!”

  “Then what do you suggest?” he said.

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’m open to alternatives,” Liam said, because he knew there were none. Nothing logical, anyway. He wasn’t going to mug anyone or rob a liquor store. He didn’t even have a weapon.

  Jessi still didn’t say anything.

  So Liam let her stew.

  Finally, a mile later, she said, “If we turn ourselves in, we’ll look like losers. It’ll look like we caved. You think Daniel Andreas San Diego would be a legend if he’d turned himself in? At a minimum, we have to make them catch us.”

  Liam wasn’t sure whether or not he agreed with that assessment, but he didn’t get much time to think about it. The Hyundai crested a small rise, and just on the other side, a state highway patrol unit was parked in the median, facing this direction. Liam’s heart lurched. Was the cop running radar? Or was he watching for them?

  “Oh, crap,” Liam said.

  “Be cool,” Jessi said.

  “We’re toast.”

  “Maybe not.”

  They weren’t speeding. The cop had no reason to pull them over. Liam passed the marked unit, then kept an eye on it in his left-hand mirror. A few seconds passed. Then the trooper hit his emergency lights, made a U-turn, and came after the Hyundai.

  Liam began to tense up. And hyperventilate. In mere seconds, the trooper was right o
n his bumper. Liam’s heart was racing. His vision was patchy, as if he were about to faint. Jessi said something, but Liam didn’t catch it.

  He pulled to the shoulder and began to slow down. Jessi was yelling now—telling him to keep going. That was crazy. He wasn’t going to do it. They’d never outrun a cop. And there would be more cops coming. Now Jessi was unbuckling her seatbelt, setting off a dinging alarm.

  Liam was coasting, almost to a stop, and before he knew what was happening, Jessi opened her door and hopped from the car, stumbling at first, and then running across the grassy area between the highway and the access road.

  “Jessi!”

  She was long gone. Now the Hyundai was stopped.

  Liam checked the rearview mirror and saw the trooper emerging from his unit with his hand on the butt of his gun.

  Then Liam heard the blare of a horn from a vehicle on the access road, followed closely by the sound of tires screeching on pavement.

  Then a thud. A horrible, heartbreaking, hideous thud.

  Jessi. Oh, Jessi.

  Marlin wouldn’t have guessed it was possible, but Nicole made him momentarily forget the day’s events by telling him she had spoken to the transplant coordinator earlier that afternoon. She only mentioned it in passing, because she was much more concerned with hearing the details about the shootout on the Endicott ranch.

  It was just past seven in the evening and Marlin had gotten home a few minutes earlier. He had already given her most of the high points.

  “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is what Phil Colby was doing outside the Endicotts’ gate.”

  Marlin was leaning against the kitchen counter, a cold bottle of Miller nearby. She was standing directly in front of him, as if blocking his path—not going to let him go until she was satisfied that he was okay—not just physically, but mentally. She knew what kind of stress an armed confrontation can cause.