I nodded and looked at the wood-framed house next door where Billy Barringer’s mother lived.
A curtain in the front window twitched.
We walked in without knocking and headed to the kitchen. Billy was sitting at the oilcloth-covered table, eating a bowl of blackberry cobbler and ice cream. His hair was dyed a chestnut brown and he was wearing an ill-fitting business suit.
“How did you get here?” I said.
“Does it matter?” He put down his spoon and looked at Nolan. “We haven’t actually met. My name is Billy Reynolds.” He stuck out his hand and gave her the megawatt smile.
Nolan blushed a little and returned the shake.
I pulled out the file. “My guess is that this is the last link to Billy Barringer.”
My friend nodded. “That goes, I’m one hundred percent clear.”
Vivian Barringer banged a spoon against a pot and fiddled with the temperature on the stove.
I moved to where she could see me and said, “You did the switch.”
Vivian stirred the contents of a cast-iron pot.
“Your brother calls from Dallas. Asks for you to arrange for somebody to get the police the two files out of storage in Waco.” I turned to Billy. “How did your cousin die?”
He shook his head. “Rundell’s gone. The matter’s taken care of.”
“You knew where the file was.” I looked at Vivian Carmichael. “Why didn’t you destroy it?”
Neither mother nor son responded, Billy suddenly interested in his bowl of cobbler, Vivian pouring a measure of salt into a pot on the stove.
“My God.” I slapped my forehead. “You were saving the file to keep Billy on the straight and narrow.”
“Hank, let it go.” Billy spoke softly.
Vivian opened her mouth for the first time. “What are you going to do with it?”
I picked up a book of matches lying on the table and walked out the back door. There was an empty concrete birdbath near the house. I lit a match and held it to the bottom of the file. The photographic paper ignited, billowing out black, chemical-smelling smoke. I held on to one end until the flames nipped at my hand, then let it drop into the dry birdbath.
Billy was standing beside me. “Thanks, Hank.”
“Stay clean, Billy. Or I’ll come looking.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The local Starbucks might have been a good location to play office if you were a Web designer or aspiring novelist or drug rep, but it wasn’t the greatest place for a homeless private investigator.
I set up shop in a bar near Love Field called the Time Out Tavern. They opened at eleven every morning, about the time I rolled off the lumpy bed at the extended-stay hotel on Stemmons Freeway.
On the third day back from my last trip to East Texas, I walked in at about noon carrying the Dallas Morning News and two sausage-and-egg burritos. I nodded hello to the small group of day drinkers clustered at the end of the bar by the pool table.
The day promised to be hot and bright, no relief forecast for the September heat wave. Inside, the only illumination came from neon. No windows disturbed the cool, cavelike atmosphere. The bar ran along the left side, running perpendicular to a big-screen televison at the far end of the room.
The bartender had a diet Coke waiting for me. I ate and drank and read the paper. On the second page of the metro section there were a couple of paragraphs about three men from out of town who’d been found killed execution-style in the back room of a gentlemen’s club on the west side of town. Two were Hispanic and thought to be involved in the drug trade, so the incident didn’t rate more prominent placement.
At noon the bartender flipped the satellite from coverage of the Nova Scotian curling championship to the local news.
The lead story was about the new interstate called the Trans Texas Corridor, designed to relieve the pressure on I-35 by running through East Texas. They’d broken ground on another section. A map appeared onscreen. I put down my paper and stared at the television.
“You okay, Hank?” The bartender looked up from his sports page.
“Huh?”
“You were muttering to yourself.”
“Uh . . . just remembered something, that’s all.” I tossed money on the bar and threw away the remains of my lunch before bolting outside.
I got in the Tahoe and headed toward the jail. Tess was in the Dallas County lockup, awaiting arraignment on the murder of the cabdriver. Ten minutes later I parked across the street between a bail bondsman’s office and a liquor store and walked to the visitor entrance.
I pulled a card out of my wallet that said, SANDY MCCORMICK, ATTORNEY AT LAW. The check-in room was all tile and harsh lights and family members milling about. I waited in line patiently and then told the sheriff’s deputy that I was the new court-appointed counsel for inmate Contessa McPherson. I handed him the card, and he tapped the information into his computer.
Thirty minutes later another deputy led me to a room with a table and two chairs, both bolted to the floor. Tess was sitting in one of the chairs, looking small and lost and vulnerable in handcuffs and jail whites.
She looked up when I walked in and said, “Shit.”
I thanked the deputy and shut the door behind him.
“What do you want?” Tess said.
“I think I’ve got it figured out.”
She didn’t reply.
“Vernon Black wanted your parents’ place because that was where the interstate was coming.” I sat down in the other chair.
Tess’s eyes narrowed.
“He got Rundell to threaten them, maybe using you, to sell out.”
No reply.
“Then Rundell turns on him, probably asking for more money, and that’s when Black called me.”
“When I was twelve, my mother went to Austin for the weekend to see her sister.” Tess smiled once, a look that made my blood chill. “It was about midnight when Daddy came into my room.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I told my mom when she got back.” Tess leaned across the table. “She said I was a liar, always had been, and how could I say that about a man that was such a good provider.”
“Tess, I’m sorr—”
“Shut the hell up, Hank. I don’t want pity from anybody, you hear me?”
“Vernon Black’s not gonna get away with it.” I stood up.
“Shit.” Tess laughed. “You couldn’t even take out Billy, a convicted murderer. What the hell you think you’re gonna do to a state senator?”
I moved to the door.
“One thing, Hank.” Tess stood up. “Did you really think Billy is out of the life?”
Vernon Black’s waiting area was vacant except for the same receptionist. Her smile turned to a frown as I ignored her and made my way into the inner sanctum.
“Hey, wait a minute.” She ran after me. “You can’t go in there.”
I pushed open the door to Black’s private office. He was on the phone staring out his window toward downtown. He turned, a surprised look on his face.
I ripped the phone off his desk and threw it across the room.
“What the hell?” He looked bewildered.
“I’m sorry, Senator.” The receptionist stood in the doorway. “I tried to—”
I shut the door in her face.
“Hank, have you lost your mind?” Black stood up, hands on his hips.
“You got in bed with Rundell and Tess just to get her family’s place.”
No reply.
“For a few pieces of silver. All this pain and suffering.” I shook my head. “You’ve got enough money for ten lifetimes.”
“You’ve heard the saying, haven’t you, Hank?” He sat down, the barest trace of a smile on his lips. “Can’t be too rich or too thin.”
I tried to control my breathing.
He laughed. “You can’t prove a thing.”
“You’re right.”
“So get the hell out of here before I call security.”
“It’s a law of physics.” I moved to the door. “For every action, there’s a reaction.”
Vernon Black’s waiting area was vacant except for the same receptionist. Her smile turned to a frown as I ignored her and made my way into the inner sanctum.
“Hey, wait a minute.” She ran after me. “You can’t go in there.”
Delmar was in the backyard, drinking beer and staring at dirt. He looked like I felt, unshaven and tired and empty. He’d been concentrating the last few days on what to do to Larry for shooting up his Bentley. That was better than thinking about other things.
The current plan involved honeybees, piano wire, and raw jalapeños. I wrote down Vernon Black’s name on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. He asked a few questions. I answered. He got excited. I went inside to visit Olson. They had put him in a hospital bed in a room downstairs. The TV was on when I walked in, a nurse sitting by the window, knitting.
I nodded hello. She smiled and said she was going to get some coffee and did I want any. I shook my head and sat down by my friend. I talked to him for a long time, explaining it all. I think he understood. He closed his eyes every now and again, so it was hard to tell.
After a while, I went back outside. Nolan was there, sitting in a lawn chair one down from Delmar.
I sat between them in the big canvas recliner usually occupied by Olson.
“Senator or not,” Delmar said, “he’s going down.”
I shrugged without replying.
“Nolan explained it to me,” he said. “Billy’s mother did the switch.”
“Yep.” I nodded. “Rundell breaks Billy and Charity out, in exchange for Billy’s help in taking over North Texas.”
“Got it so far.” Delmar tilted the beer can back, draining the last drop.
“Billy and Charity were cousins,” I said. “Charity’s dad was Lucas Linville Carmichael, Vivian Carmichael Barringer’s brother. And also a preacher wannabe, a drunk, and a dentist who had treated both of them as children. Lucas calls his sister when the police arrive. He’s worried that his boy might be dead.”
Delmar crushed the empty can in one hand and dropped it on the ground.
Nolan continued my train of thought. “Never occurs to Linville that his sister might be upset or worried that her son might have checked out. The booze had done a number on him by this point.”
“The records are archived in Waco.” Delmar opened another Miller Genuine Draft. “So before the investigators can get there, Billy’s mother switches them.”
“And everything would have been cool,” I said, “except that one of the investigators happened to mention how easy an ID it was since Billy was missing a tooth. Only problem was that Billy had perfect teeth and Charity didn’t.”
“Why didn’t Linville say something?” Delmar asked.
“He was drunk most of the time.” I raised one eyebrow and looked at the pile of crushed cans sitting next to his chair.
“But he knew something was off, so he mentions it to his sister,” Nolan said. “And he tells her he’s kept an extra set of X-rays for his son, like he does for all his kids and he’s sure that it was Charity that died in the fire.”
“I get it now.” Delmar waved me off before I could speak again. “She’s trying to save her baby boy and sees the plan start to come apart because of her brother, so she tells Billy, who tells Jesus Rundell that if his cover gets blown, then there goes the Barringers’ help in taking over.”
“That’s right,” I said. “So Rundell gets his hooks into Carlos, a guy with a gambling problem and also Linville’s assistant at the soup kitchen. He has him steal the file from Linville’s office. Only problem is that Carlos decides to get tricky and hides it at his mother’s apartment.”
We were all silent. After a few minutes Delmar said, “What about the girl? Tess McPherson?”
“Hank gets to sleep with another client.” Nolan spoke before I could. “I never trusted her.”
“She had a thing for bad boys,” I said. “Turns out she was playing me and Billy.”
Nolan turned to Delmar. “What about Olson? Is he gonna be okay.”
“Y’all better hope so.” He got up and went inside. Nolan and I sat for a while without speaking. After a while, she left, too.
An hour later, Delmar came back. He was wearing different clothes now, a dark shirt and pants, nondescript. He carried a duffel bag that clanked when he walked. He asked if I wanted to go with him.
I said yes.
The Next Time You Die Page 25