“We’ll compare notes.”
Brandon climbed out of the Jeep. “Can I talk to you a minute?” he called out to the caretaker.
“Front door?” Walt asked the man, who suddenly looked a little frantic.
“Back patio,” the caretaker said.
That made things easier for Walt-he wouldn’t need an invitation inside.
Walt let himself through a split-rail fence gate and circled behind the house. The back patio was the size of a tennis court and included a hot tub. He was spotted by Boatwright, who made a hand gesture, but it was too late. Walt arrived beneath a twelve-foot green umbrella where the eight men sat around a teak table cluttered with glasses of beer and wine and ashtrays cradling Cuban cigars. Walt spotted the smoking joint as it was whisked from an ashtray and vanished into a hand before being tossed into the grass.
“Gentlemen,” he said.
“Don’t you knock, Sheriff?” asked Marty Boatwright.
“Your caretaker told me where to find you.” Technically, Walt could spin this into an invitation if pressed to do so.
Walt recognized Alex Macdonald, Richie Fabiano, and Vince Wynn, but it was the two-time Cy Young Award winner next to Alex who caused Walt’s throat to tighten. He’d watched him pitch for the Red Sox all through his childhood, and the fact that he was now standing five feet away from him, that the man was looking at him, smiling at him, nearly stopped Walt’s heart. The Sun Valley celebrities-politicians, film stars, pop stars-never affected him in the least. But a two-time Cy Young winner? He nearly had a coronary.
“You know Mandy Halifax, Sheriff?” Wynn asked, having caught the look of astonishment on the sheriff’s face.
To Halifax, Wynn explained, “Our sheriff is a catcher, and captain of a league-winning team. Bats two-eighty-five.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Halifax said.
Walt came around the table and shook the man’s hand, briefly feeling like an eight-year-old, only to realize this hand had been the one that had grabbed the joint off the table.
“Mr. Boatwright, Mr. Wynn, a word in private?” Walt said.
“It’s Marty, Sheriff. These guys call me a lot worse than that, but Marty will do.”
The group enjoyed that. Boatwright had been drinking, as had Wynn. Walt caught a look that transpired between the two; it was a look of coconspirators, causing him to wonder how much he was reading into it, and how much was legitimate. For an instant he saw an Agatha Christie-like plot of the two of them teaming up against Martel Gale, and realized his regular reading consisted of too many of his daughters’ mystery books.
Boatwright struggled to stand. Halifax jumped up to help him out of his chair, and Walt thought how well the action fit with what he knew of the man. Mandy Halifax went beyond legend to sports god. He wished he could think of a way to involve Halifax in the questioning just to spend more time with him.
With Halifax out of his chair, Walt made a point of retrieving the smoldering joint, snuffing it out, and placing it into a glassine evidence bag. He took out a pen and labeled it.
The joviality died around the table.
Boatwright grabbed one of the wine bottles and carried it with him, causing the others to bark with laughter.
“I’d look out for him,” Macdonald shouted to Walt.
Wynn walked side by side with Boatwright and saw him inside to a sunroom off the kitchen. He grabbed a wineglass and returned with it, and Boatwright poured himself a glass of red wine.
“I have a very good hand, Sheriff,” Boatwright said. “First decent hand of the night. You screw up my luck and you’ll be sorry.”
“Marty!” Wynn chided. To Walt, Wynn said, “Marty’s not feeling any pain tonight.”
“Can’t piss but a thimble full,” Boatwright said. “Can’t get a hard-on without riding a goddamn paint shaker. Don’t talk to me about feeling no pain.”
Wynn rolled his eyes, trying to apologize for the man.
“Martel Gale came here to Sun Valley to make amends with you two,” Walt said. “To make amends, not to threaten, not to make any financial claims. We’re in the process of tracking down his communications, and we’re going to find he contacted both of you, or at least your assistants or secretaries, and that could conceivably put you in a bind, so I’m here to let you get out ahead of it.”
“Slow down, Sheriff,” Wynn said, looking as blindsided as Walt had hoped.
Boatwright’s face reddened. His watery eyes dancing, he reached for the wine, but Wynn touched his forearm and stopped him.
“Who wants to go first?” Walt asked.
“You know my situation,” Wynn said.
“Mr. Evers? You want to go that route?”
“It’s not a ‘route,’” Wynn complained.
“Deny it,” Walt said. “Deny that he contacted you.” He looked between both men.
“Martel Gale was a human time bomb,” Boatwright said.
“Shut up, Marty,” Wynn said. “You don’t need to say anything. You’re drunk. You shouldn’t say anything.”
“Was,” Walt said, “as in the past, or in the present?”
“What’s the difference?” Boatwright said, slurring his words. “Trouble is trouble.”
“And how did you react to that trouble?” Walt asked.
“Marty!” Wynn said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Boatwright said to Wynn. “I know. I know.”
“Speaking for myself, I was not contacted by Martel Gale,” Wynn said. “The last time I spoke with him, I think I told you, was just after the sentencing. This is maybe two years ago. And Marty, I’m going to strongly urge you not to say anything. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Boatwright said. He raised his rheumy eyes to Walt. “The hell you looking at?”
“The list server notice was the first I’d heard about Gale in a long time,” Wynn continued, carefully sticking to his original statement.
“Gale showed up here, didn’t he, Mr. Boatwright?” Walt convinced himself he would never have Boatwright as vulnerable again.
“Marty, don’t answer that.”
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Boatwright alone, please, Mr. Wynn.”
“No,” Wynn said. “Not going to happen.”
“Let me explain how this plays out,” Walt said, patting his pocket that contained the joint. “Marijuana in plain view is enough to get drug charges on all of you, so you will be booked into jail. My booking reports are a matter of public record. They’ll be sent to the press tomorrow morning and will be posted on our website. You’ll spend the night at Public Safety, in jail. It’s also likely to win me probable cause to search not only Mr. Boatwright’s home, but yours as well, Mr. Wynn, as I have witnesses to repeated drug use at your residence. So there are a couple ways to play this. I admit it. But you may want to consider just how badly you piss me off before withholding your cooperation.” He looked between the two men, the fight in them gone. “You can stay if you want, but if you play lawyer, you’re out of here. Understood?”
Wynn nodded reluctantly.
“Here’s what we know,” Walt said, controlling the anger he felt. “Martel gets a Get Out of Jail card, and the next week Caroline Vetta goes down hard. Ten days later, Gale himself is dead. It’s either sweet justice or coincidence or incredibly convenient. I’m supposed to figure out which, and for whom. You boys hold some of the answers. And I’m going to have those answers.”
Wynn was too professional to give anything back to Walt. He remained outwardly calm, showing what might have passed for surprise. Boatwright swam in the wine. Walt wasn’t sure he’d even heard him.
“Don’t want to keep my guests waiting,” Boatwright said.
“You did or did not hear from Martel Gale prior to the discovery of his body?” Walt asked.
Boatwright glared at Walt, checked over with a disapproving Wynn, and rolled his eyes back in his head. “Guy was a terror, Sheriff. Sorry he’s dead, but I’m not sorry he’s out of my life.�
��
“I’d like an answer to the question,” Walt said.
“I’m sure you would.”
Walt heard the tinkle of metal coming from the direction of the patio, knew by the sound it was a dog approaching. He turned back expecting to see Boatwright’s dog. But Boatwright didn’t own a dog. It was Beatrice, nosing the carpet, working scents the way she’d been trained. Brandon must have left a car door open or put a window down. There wasn’t much that could keep Bea from Walt, including, apparently, an open door on a patio.
A nosy dog at any time, Bea was locked on a scent. He knew that random-looking yet methodical movement of hers-she was working. He held back his temptation to stop her as her paws tapped out on the stone and she circled the poker table, then made a Bea-line straight for Walt.
But it wasn’t to Walt. Nose to the ground, she sniffed her way directly to Wynn, then hurried to Walt and tapped his hand with her wet nose. She backed up, sat down, and looked up at her master, tail wagging.
For a moment, Walt stood there frozen, looking at his dog, then Wynn’s shoes, then back at his dog. Bea had just spoken to him as surely as if she’d used English, but the code was lost on Boatwright and Wynn. Only Walt and Beatrice understood what had been said. Walt processed the message, his heart thumping in his chest, knowing better than to speak until he knew what to say.
Boatwright and Wynn picked up on the change in Walt. A silence hung among the three, broken only by Bea’s rapid panting, and the sound of male voices coming from the patio.
“I don’t like dogs,” Boatwright finally said. “Get that thing out of my home.”
“Mr. Wynn,” Walt said, his voice eerily calm. “I wonder if I might have a look at your shoes?”
“What?” Wynn said, looking down at his hand-sewn Italian loafers.
“Your shoes.”
“No,” he said, taken aback. “What for?”
In his limited dealings with Wynn, Walt saw panic flash across the man’s face for the first time. It didn’t last long, but it had been there. “I’d like a look at your shoes, if I might.”
“You might not,” Wynn said, eyeing the dog. He gathered his wits. “You have a search warrant, Sheriff?”
“Based on the possession of marijuana, I can get one if I need one. It’s your call. We went over that.” He directed this to Boatwright, assuming the man would find the idea of jail and a crime scene team in his home repugnant.
No one spoke.
Walt broke the silence. “I should be able to have them back to you in a day. No more.”
“You want to take my shoes?” Wynn said, clarifying. “Are you out of your mind? I’m supposed to go home, what, barefoot? What the hell, Sheriff?”
“Two days at most,” Walt said.
He met eyes with Wynn, impressed with the man’s ability to so quickly dismiss the panic. He saw now only contempt and irritability, the hallmarks of a professional negotiator.
“I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.”
Walt winced. “Have it your way.” He reached for his radio’s mike clip.
“Vince,” Boatwright said, “I’m not leaving that hand on the table. And I’m not putting up with some goddamned night in jail. Give the man your shoes.”
“Can’t do that, Marty,” Wynn said.
“I’ll loan you some slippers to get you home.”
Wynn’s pained expression told Walt plenty. Walt had jammed him up and both men knew it. Walt was going to have the man’s shoes.
“I will keep everyone here,” Walt explained, “and separated, until the warrant is issued and the crime scene unit is in place. The CS unit drives up from Meridian, just FYI. And they won’t begin that drive until sometime after nine a.m.”
Boatwright said sternly, “Give the man the shoes, Vince. Don’t be an asshole. That’s Mandy Halifax out there. He’s a guest in my home.”
The two men locked into a staring contest, Wynn clearly considering his diminishing options. He could anger Boatwright and make Walt jump through the warrant hoop, and still end up surrendering the shoes, or he could give them up now.
“That dog had no business being in your house,” Wynn explained to the drunken Boatwright.
Walt felt a shiver. How, exactly, had Beatrice escaped the Jeep? It crossed his mind that it might not have been accidental, in which case Bea sniffing out blood evidence could be questioned in a court of law. He kept his mouth shut.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” Boatwright told Wynn. “You’re not listening to me. These men are my guests. This is my home. Give the man the goddamned shoes.”
The frustration and anger on Wynn’s face gave way to resignation and he kicked off the loafers. But he was not a happy man.
Back in the Jeep, now driving through town, Walt finally dared to voice what had been bothering him. Beatrice stood partially between them, front paws on the cup holders.
“Tommy, you understand how I approach this work?”
“Sheriff?”
“We don’t invent evidence. We don’t spin the truth. Not in my office.”
“Not sure what you mean.”
“I never want one of my deputies lying for me, giving false testimony.”
“Sheriff?”
“So I’m not going to ask you, because I don’t want the answer.” Walt reached over and rubbed Beatrice’s head.
Brandon looked from the dog to the sheriff. “Okay. Got it.”
“You should have checked with me before trying something like that, Tommy.”
“Got it.”
“It was brilliant, mind you,” Walt said. “But the courts would take a dim view of it.”
“Moon’s coming up,” Brandon said. “Gonna be full in a couple days.”
“Nothing prettier,” Walt said.
“She’s a good dog.”
“She is.”
Beatrice’s tail started thumping. She knew they were talking about her.
“But she doesn’t open car doors,” Walt said.
Nothing but the whine of the tire rubber.
“You want me to talk to Gail about how to handle things, I will.”
“I shouldn’t have dumped that on you.”
“True story.”
“I’ll handle it,” Walt said.
“Appreciate that, Sheriff.”
Walt craned his neck to get a look through the windshield at the moon growing over the edge of the mountaintops. “Nothing prettier.”
28
“Drop me off near Grumpie’s,” Brandon said.
“Because?” Walt asked.
“I got a call while you were inside. From Bonehead.”
The public knew “Bonehead” Miller as a colorful bartender at Ketchum’s local hamburger haunt. The sheriff’s office knew him as a two-time offender now working off the public service hours of his sentence acting as a criminal informant, a CI.
“Concerning?”
“Drop me off and I’ll let you know.”
If one of his daughters had spoken to him with that tone Walt would have chided her, and he considered doing so now because once that contempt for authority crept into a department, it was hard to weed out. But his relationship with Brandon demanded special handling, something everyone in the office had come to understand. How far he allowed Brandon to stray, and how hard Brandon pushed, would ultimately determine the deputy’s longevity with the office, and quite possibly Walt’s career, for he was beginning to sense that if a real challenge were to come at the ballot box it would come from within his own ranks. Who better than a young, experienced Marlboro Man like Tommy Brandon? He mused at the irony that someday Gail might end up the sheriff’s wife for a second time, and wondered if she would be the one to push her lover to stage the challenge.
Brandon had street cred like few of Walt’s other deputies. People warmed to him easily and he to them. He regularly turned arrests and even convictions into criminal informants for the office. Most of the rumors and hard information came through either Brandon o
r Eve Sanchez. As he watched Brandon swagger across Warm Springs Road and cut around to the back of the clapboard shack that was Grumpie’s, he wondered if by being this information conduit, Brandon didn’t possess too much power, wondering what, if anything, he might do about it.
Brandon sent a text message and waited by the putrid dumpster behind the burger joint, the garbage smoldering in the summer heat.
Bonehead Miller was aptly named for his protruding forehead and deep-set eyes. His dirty blond, shoulder-length hair was tucked up under a Cardinals baseball cap. He wore a soiled apron over a sleeveless undershirt, showing off some faded tattoos. He had one silver tooth-all the rest chipped-and a goatee and soul patch that looked like a wire brush for an outdoor grill.
There were no introductions. He handed Brandon a cheeseburger with catsup, pickles, pepperoncini, and Swiss wrapped in butcher paper, and Brandon ate as Bonehead talked.
“So I’m on the clock, right?”
“Mmm,” Brandon answered, using his finger to catch a drip.
“You’ll like this. I expect you to knock a couple hours off for this one.”
Bonehead always expected more than he would receive.
“Of course,” Brandon said through the food, lying. You’ll get what I think it’s worth, asshole, he was thinking. Twice in for drugs was all-in for drugs as far as he was concerned. He had no room in his world for the Bonehead Millers.
“There’s this guy been in here a couple times and I asked around with my buddies and he’s pretty much making the rounds far as I can tell. Rat fuck of a guy. Makes me look like fucking Donald Trump. Smells bad. A woodsman. I heard you were looking for a woodsman, a meth cooker. I hear right?”
“Keep… talking,” Brandon said with his mouth full, savoring the best burger in town. It was half gone.
“Looks like Tom Hanks in that one where he’s washed onto that island.”
“Cast Away,” Brandon said.
“That’s the one. Comes in here smelling like piss and woodsmoke, orders a burger and beer, and lays down a hun. Wouldn’t have thought nothing of it but Raven over at the Chute happens to mention some moron laying down a Franklin for a beer and we get to talking and it’s gotta be the same asshole.”
In Harm's Way Page 18