No Help From Austin: Red: Book 5

by Darrell Maloney

  Savage would most likely send him away, for fear he was up to something. That his visit was some kind of trick to rob him.

  But he underestimated Savage’s greed.

  It turned out Savage was chomping at the bits to get a look at the treasure they’d dug up. He’d been thinking about it night and day. Fantasizing about what it might contain.

  He was tired of waiting.

  “I’ll be ready. Knock three times. Then pause and knock twice.”

  Jesse smiled.

  “Okay. We’ll see you then.”

  Savage smiled as well. It was the first time he’d done so in days.

  He was finally going to get a look at some of his buried treasure. In his fantasies, just this one batch might be worth a million dollars or more. And there were plenty of other burial sites to dig up as well.

  Jesse walked quickly off the boardwalk in front of the bank and onto Main Street, where he was joined by Luis.

  “How’d it go?” Luis asked.

  “Good. He’ll meet with us sometime after midnight.”

  “So where do we go now?”

  “We go to the boarding house and buy ourselves some supper. And we tell everybody within earshot that Savage is a son of a bitch. That we went to the bank to make a withdrawal and we practically had to beg him to get our own money.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Luis nodded toward a lone figure, walking toward them from a block away.

  He didn’t look like much.

  Average height, a bit on the slim side, wearing blue jeans and a wrinkled blue button-down shirt. A leather hat, not quite the cowboy style but close, covered the top of his head, but did nothing to conceal his jet-black shoulder-length hair.

  He carried two holstered pistols, one on each side. That was a bit unusual, but not necessarily intimidating. It could have been an effort to look more dangerous than he actually was.

  As the space between the three men narrowed Luis asked, “Ever seen him before?”

  “No, never. Probably a highway tramp looking for a place to spend the night.”

  The greeting was friendly enough, the stranger asking, “I’m looking for a man named Savage. Do you know where he lives?”

  Jesse could have been accommodating and suggested to the man he continue up the street and to pound on the bank’s door.

  Instead, he answered the man’s question quite literally.

  “Yes,” he said. “Go this way another three blocks. It’s the only three story house at the intersection. In fact, the only one in the whole town. You can’t miss it.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “No problem.”

  After the man walked away Luis chuckled. “That did him a boatload full of good.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Still think he’s a highway tramp?”

  “Looking for Savage? Probably not.”

  “What do you think he wants with Savage?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s looking for a job as a bank teller or a sandwich chaser.

  “Either way his being here don’t affect us or what we have to do. I say to hell with him, whoever he is.”

  The brothers went on to the boarding house, where they gave Mrs. M one of the tiny silver ingots they’d gotten from Savage a couple of weeks before.

  It got her attention quickly. Most of her guests were racking up bills which would never be paid.

  “We pay our bills. And we do it in advance. We’ve found the service is better that way.”

  “I treat all my guests the same, whether they pay up front or not.”

  “I meant no offense, ma’am. I’m used to dealing with hardened men, not refined ladies such as yourself. If I come across a bit gruff I apologize.”

  “I accept your apology, Mr. Martinez, and you are welcome here, whether you pay in advance or pay me later.”

  “We’d like to start a tab. We’d like to leave the ingot with you and have you credit our tab with it. When we run out we’ll give you another one.”

  “Fair enough, sir. What can we get you tonight?”

  “We’d like to start off with a couple of steaks. Medium rare for my brother here, chicken fried for me.”

  -42-

  Jacob was trying to hurry, before he lost his light.

  He’d seen an oil lantern on the coffee table in the living room downstairs. But carrying a lantern while searching through John Savage’s house would be a pain in the neck.

  And it would take a lot longer.

  It had been Lilly’s idea to search for evidence of his crimes while he was holed up at the bank.

  “He’s probably already destroyed it,” Jacob argued. “He’d be stupid beyond belief to hold on to evidence that could help convict him of murder.”

  Lilly had countered, “Hell, Jacob. We already know he’s dumber than a door knob. He’s proved it time and time again. He’s made an enemy of Red Poston. And of all the people in the world, I can’t think of anybody else I’d want to be not mad at me. He knew up front that Red’s a wolverine. She’ll never give up. Making an enemy of her was the stupidest thing he’s ever done.

  “And don’t forget, he kept the burned truck as a souvenir. A frickin’ souvenir. Who does that? Has a little boy murdered and then saves one of his toys as a souvenir?”

  “Okay, I’m convinced. But exactly what are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Anything that looks like it might be tied to the murders. I don’t know what it might be, but I’m pretty sure we’ll know it when we see it.”

  Most of her words were lost on him. He’d stopped listening after the first sentence.

  “I’m sorry… go back. Did you just call me honey?”

  “Don’t get the big head, Jacob. I call everybody honey. If you don’t want me to, I’ll call you something else instead. Bonehead is a good one… dirt bag, maybe… how about Dufus?”

  “No. I kinda like the way you call me honey.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I do. Call me honey whenever you want.”

  “Uh… okay.”

  She smiled.

  So did he.

  A new romance was born.

  But they had more important things to worry about.

  “We’d better hurry, before we lose the light. You take the upstairs. I’ll do the ground floor and the basement.”

  It was late afternoon.

  The sun was starting its daily dip in the western sky. It would soon turn the sky a wide range of orange and red hues.

  Sunsets in Texas are the prettiest in the world. And despite all the turmoil Blanco suffered in recent months, its residents still enjoyed a front row seat each evening.

  As Jacob and Lilly finished up their search and met in the kitchen, the Martinez brothers conversed with a nondescript man on Main Street. He was looking for a man named Savage.

  They didn’t talk long. Just long enough to point the stranger in the general direction of Savage’s house.

  As the stranger walked in their direction, Lilly shared her find with Jacob.

  “Look what I found,” she breathlessly told him.

  She held up a zip-lock plastic bag. Inside the bag were two unused syringes.

  And a tiny glass vial containing a clear liquid.

  On a manufacturer’s label were the words:

  ZARZAPINE, DDC

  Not for use with human patients

  POISON

  Jacob whistled beneath his breath.

  “But that’s not all. Look over there on the counter.”

  Jacob walked over and picked up a fireproof security box, not much bigger than the toaster next to it.

  “Look at the bottom.”

  He turned over the box and whistled again.

  Engraved on the bottom were the words:

  PROPERTY OF BUTCH POSTON

  BLANCO, TEXAS

  He examined the box as best he could in the diminishing light.

  “The lock has a bunch of scratches arou
nd it. It looks like he tried to break into it but was unsuccessful. I wonder what’s inside.”

  “I don’t know. We’ll give it to Red and let her decide whether to break it open. She may know where the key is. Did you have any luck?”

  “Oh, yes indeed I did.”

  He took the backpack off his back and pulled out two sticks of dynamite.

  “These were upstairs in a spare bedroom. The room was completely empty, not even any furniture. I almost didn’t search it, but decided to go in and take a quick look around. These were on the shelf in the closet.”

  “Wow.”

  “But wait. That’s not all.”

  He reached back into the bag and pulled out a box of blasting caps. Several were missing.

  “You wanted evidence. It appears we have evidence.”

  “Yep. Now let’s get out of here.”

  The pair slipped quietly out the back door and walked through an adjacent field to get to the street where Butch Poston built his house twenty four years before.

  As they walked, Colton knocked on Savage’s front door.

  There was no answer.

  He knocked again and got the same response.

  Colton didn’t know beans about John Savage. All he had was a name and an occupation: town banker.

  For all Colton knew, Savage was an outstanding pillar of the community. Except that he wanted someone killed. But that wasn’t necessarily unusual. Mayors and judges and police commissioners often hated people bad enough to have others kill them.

  Colton had no idea that John Savage was a scared little rabbit, cowering in a bank several blocks away terrified someone was going to do him in.

  For all Colton knew, he was the toast of the town, a man who enjoyed the nightlife and was somewhere at a cocktail party.

  But he’d come home eventually.

  Colton spread out beneath an elm tree and watched the stars as he drifted off to sleep.

  He’d knock again in the morning.

  -43-

  They’d debated, the two of them, about the evidence they found in Savage’s house.

  Jacob wanted to show it to Red immediately.

  Lilly was hesitant.

  “You saw what seeing Rusty’s toy truck did to her,” she said. “She’s just now starting to recover. I’m afraid seeing this stuff will cause her to relapse.”

  “But only Red can decide whether to break open that box. I want to see what’s inside it. I think it’s possible Red’s dad had something on Savage. Maybe evidence of other crimes he committed. I mean, why else would he steal a lock box from his victim’s home? To do that would be totally stupid. I mean, what if the Texas Ranger had found that instead of us? That alone would have been enough to convict him.”

  “Sorry to tell you this, honey. But your desire to see what’s in that lock box doesn’t trump our need to protect Red from further harm. We need to make damn sure she’s strong enough to see this stuff before we show it to her.”

  “Okay. Keep calling me honey and I’ll give into you every single time.”

  “Jacob, how old are you?”

  He swallowed hard, then lied.

  “Nineteen. Why?”

  “You realize I’m twenty five, right?”

  “So?”

  “So I’m too old for you.”

  “I like old women. The older the better.”

  “Well, that’s good news. And I just happen to like younger men. So we’re a perfect match for one another.”

  Both heads turned to see Beth walk into the room. The words were hers, not Lilly’s.

  “Hi Beth,” Lilly told the older woman. “You can have him if you want him. He’s a bit high strung for my tastes.”

  Lilly winked at her.

  “Oh, goody,” Beth replied. “A young man who can sweep me off my feet and knock my socks off.”

  “Let’s get Beth’s opinion. Let her be the deciding vote.”

  “I’ve been listening to you debate this from the other room. I vote with Lilly. There’s nothing to be gained by rushing to show this to Red. And a lot to lose if she’s not strong enough to take it.”

  “Told you,” Lilly said to Jacob with a little girl’s glee.

  She stuck out her tongue at him.

  He couldn’t help but laugh.

  Beth, though, maintained a very serious posture.

  “Am I the only one who sees something very fishy about this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean as much as I hate to admit it, Jacob is right.”

  Jacob was confused.

  “Wait a minute. I thought you said you agreed with her.”

  “Yes. I agree with her that Red’s still too fragile to see this stuff. I meant you were right that Savage would be crazy to hang on to it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I mean, you could be right about the lock box. Maybe Butch had something on him and Savage was looking for it to get it back.”

  “Okay… so?”

  “And the dynamite and blasting caps. And the Zarzapine too, for that matter. Savage didn’t actually commit the murders. He didn’t have the guts to get his hands dirty. He paid others to actually do the deed.”

  “And again… so?”

  “So why would he have the leftover dynamite? What good would leftover Zarzapine do him? If he was too cowardly to use those weapons the first time, he certainly wouldn’t use them later.”

  “Again… so?”

  Lilly stepped in.

  “Beth, I think what Jacob is very clumsily trying to ask is, what on earth are you driving at?”

  Beth asked her own question, of Jacob.

  “When you found that burned truck on Savage’s mantle, did he actually admit to putting it there?”

  “No. He didn’t say anything. He just turned white as a ghost and appeared to be in shock. Why?”

  “I’m just entertaining another possibility, that’s all.”

  Lilly said, “You think it’s just too convenient for all this evidence to be left in Savage’s house. That it was just too easy for us to find all this stuff that points to Savage as the killer.”

  “Exactly. The whole town knows Savage has been holed up in the bank since Red went after Luna. Savage wasn’t going back to his house, and was therefore unlikely to stumble across this stuff himself.

  “And since everyone assumed that Red would kill him at some point, everyone knew at some point his house would be searched after his death.

  “And that somebody would find this stuff and use it to support Savage’s guilt.”

  “So,” Lilly asked. “You think that Savage didn’t put this stuff in there. You think it was planted by someone else. To make Savage look like he was the only killer. Like he did the whole thing himself.”

  “Exactly. I think the evidence wasn’t just made to make Savage appear guilty. I think it was also planted to exonerate one of his co-conspirators.”

  “But who?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Luna, before he left town. Or maybe Sloan, before he left town. Maybe they were hoping it was going to be discovered before Red came after them, so she’d think Savage did the whole thing and settle for killing just him.”

  “Interesting. But you don’t think Savage is innocent, do you?”

  “Oh, no. I believe Red when she says Savage bankrolled the whole thing. And it makes sense. After all, Luna or Sloan wouldn’t have anything to gain by doing the murders, unless Savage was paying them.

  “I’m just throwing something against the wall to see if it sticks, that’s all. I’m just saying that the reason Savage turned white and went into shock when he saw the truck might not have been because he was afraid.

  “Maybe it was because he was just as surprised it was there as Red was.”

  -44-

  Jesse had been absolutely right about the heavy cloud cover.

  The clouds never blew over, never dissipated. They were thick enough to block the light from the moon and the stars.

&n
bsp; And since the street lights no longer worked it seemed the perfect night to sneak around relatively unseen.

  It was a bit past two a.m. when Jesse knocked on the bank’s door.

  Three times. Then he paused for a couple of seconds and knocked twice more.

  From the inside of the bank came a frightened voice.

  “Who’s out there?”

  “Jesse and Luis Martinez.”

  The brothers heard a slide bolt being unlocked, then keys jingling.

  The door sprang open and Savage stepped aside so they could enter.

  “Hurry, hurry,” he pleaded, and slammed the door shut again as soon as they were clear of it.

  Then he wasted no time in relocking it.

  “Come over to my desk so we can see what we’ve got.”

  At the desk, Jesse unzipped one of the backpacks and dumped the contents unceremoniously into a pile.

  Luis followed suit, and neither brother failed to notice the look of surprise on the banker’s face.

  Both were certain he hadn’t expected to see so much of the treasure. And that seemed to confirm their suspicion he had absolutely nothing to do with burying it.

  Savage’s jaw dropped.

  “It’s… it’s beautiful,” he stammered. “The way it glistens and sparkles in the candle light.”

  He picked up a small brown envelope. The look on his face was unmistakable, and was an unspoken question:

  “What in heck is this?”

  He ripped open the envelope and poured its contents into his hand.

  His eyes grew even wider as he saw what had to be a hundred thousand dollars or better in loose diamonds.

  Jesse and Luis looked at each other but didn’t say a word.

  They were waiting for Savage to pull out an inventory list and start going thorough the pile, item by item, and checking each one off his list.

  When Savage failed to do so, they both had the same thought. They should have siphoned off the good stuff before they came in and brought him the leftovers.

  They now knew that Savage didn’t bury the loot himself.

  That meant he possessed a map which told of where the rest of the treasure was located.