by Ben Rehder
Vinnie had said it, plain as day. But it wasn’t until a few minutes ago that Sal realized what Vinnie had said. Two shells? Sal thought. There shoulda been three.
Cleaning up yesterday, they had been in a rush and they must have missed one. Just the kind of small thing that can really screw you over good. So he had gotten down on his hands and knees and given his den a thorough search.
Nothing.
Except fresh vacuum tracks.
So he had taken the bag out of the Hoover and sifted through it. Came up empty there, too.
That left Maria’s cottage. She had probably found the shell and thought it was some sort of magic trinket. Like the goddamn Indians who sold Manhattan for a handful of baubles and beads. Sal always remembered that phrase from his high-school textbook. Baubles and beads.
Sal was going to ask Vinnie to search Maria’s small house, but the kid had wandered off somewhere again. That meant Sal would have to do it himself, because this was the kind of thing that needed to be taken care of quickly.
So Sal eased Maria’s bedroom door open and stepped inside. In the dim light, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Then, he pawed through the drawers of her bedside table. Nothing there but Spanish-language women’s magazines and various types of lotions and hand creams.
So he turned to her dresser. He sifted through her clothes, spending a little extra time in her lingerie drawer. Where the fuck did all this good stuff come from? he wondered. She had never worn any of this lacy stuff for him. He spied several jewelry boxes on top of her dresser and sorted through those. Nothing but cheap knickknacks.
He turned, looking for another likely place to search. Then he saw something that made his heart thump. It couldn’t be, but it was! Maria’s cat! It was peering out from under the bed, eyeing Sal wickedly. This simply wasn’t possible. Angela had flattened that fucker with her car.
But Sal remembered Aunt Sofia. If she could make goats drop dead, maybe Maria could make a cat come back to life.
Sal whispered, “Good kitty,” and eased backward toward the door, sweat breaking out on his forehead. Had to move slowly now. One wrong move and that cat might spring at him, rip his goddamn throat out. “Good kitty. Uncle Sal is leaving now.”
The cat squirmed out from under the bed and hissed at Sal.
Mary, Mother of God! It was coming for him!
Sal took another step backward-and the evil creature took a stealthy step forward.
Sal’s heart was jackhammering now, slamming against his rib cage. All the deadly men Sal had faced, and now he was about to be slaughtered by a house cat. The devil’s house cat.
“Stay right there, kitty.” Sal could hear his own voice trembling. He fumbled for the doorknob behind him, his palm slick on the brass.
The cat took another small step forward and hissed once more.
Sal jerked the door open, quickly stepped outside, and slammed the door behind him, leaving the horrible beast on the other side.
Oh, Jesus, that was close! Sal leaned against the outside of the door, waiting for his breathing to slow.
Fuck it, he thought. That shell’s not in there-and if it is, that damn cat can have it.
Red kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the cold beer between his legs. It had been another long hard day driving the BrushBusters, and the ice-cold Keystone tasted like some kind of elixir from the gods.
Red drained the can, admired the scenic landscape printed on the label, then tossed it out the window at a speed-limit sign. He grabbed a dirty rag off the seat and wiped some grime off his neck.
“So,” Red said, turning slightly toward Billy Don. “What ya think I oughta say to him?”
Billy Don finished a long slurp of his own beer and belched out, “Who?”
That was one of Billy Don’s favorite conversational tactics: belching words. Red had never been able to master that particular trick himself, so he condemned it as juvenile.
“Slaton, goddammit,” Red said. “Remember? We was gonna swing by his house, talk to him about a raise. I wanna get my geese in a row, lay everything out for him. Question is, should I mention the screwups, maybe make up some good excuses, or just let ’em slide?”
“Hell’s bells, Red. He knows all about them anyway, which is why he ain’t gonna give us no raise. The other day, you thought he was gonna fire us. Now you wanna ask for a raise? Sounds like a shit-brained idea to me.”
Red thought of a handful of good replies, but let them all pass. He drove in silence for a few miles.
“Guess what I’ll do, then,” Red finally said, “is go in there, tell him how much land I’ve cleared in the past few months, mention how many hours I’ve been working, and point out that I haven’t taken a single goddamn sick day yet. Then I’ll say, ‘Sir, considering my commitment to your company, I sure would be appreciable if you could consider giving me a raise. On the other hand, I don’t know about ol’ Billy Don. I don’t think he really wants any extra dough. In fact, he seems to be perfectly happy with the generous garnishments he is now receiving.’”
Billy Don let out a huff, but Red could tell his words had hit home.
A mile later, Billy Don pawed through the ice chest on the floorboard and came out with two dripping beers. He passed one to Red and said, “Well, hell, don’t leave me out.”
Five minutes later, Red wheeled into the entryway of Buckhorn Creek Ranch and parked in front of Emmett Slaton’s massive home. Slaton’s truck wasn’t parked in its usual spot and the porch light was dark.
Damn, Red thought. Got my nerve all worked up and he ain’t even home.
“What we gonna do now?” Billy Don asked.
Red scrounged in his glove box and came up with a matchbook from Chester’s, a topless club in Austin. He scribbled a note on the inside and said, “Tell you what, go stick this in the door and I’ll talk to him about it tonight. Do it over the phone.”
“Go do it yourself,” Billy Don said in a rapid-fire staccato of gastric releases.
“Hell, it was my idea,” Red said. “When you come up with the ideas, you can be the one who’s in charge of things. Now, you want a raise or don’t ya?”
Billy Don grumbled, but climbed out of the truck and proceeded toward the house.
He lumbered up the stairs, took one step on the porch, and his feet shot out from under him. He came crashing back down on the stairs, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood.
Red stuck his head out the window and giggled. “Goddamn-you all right, Billy Don?”
He heard cursing and grunting, then: “I’m stuck like a sumbitch, Red. Come help me outta here.”
Red grabbed a flashlight, walked over, and found Billy Don’s sizable rump wedged in a hole in the staircase.
“I hit something slick as goat shit,” Billy Don groaned. “My back feels like crap. Get me loose, will ya?”
Red stuck out both hands and hauled Billy Don to his feet.
“What the hell did I slip on?” Billy Don whined. “Shine the light up there.”
Red swept the light over the front porch and saw a smeared red streak where Billy Don had lost his footing. There were several other dark-red drops between the stairs and the front door.
Billy Don said, “That looks like blood.”
“I can see it.” Red stepped around the drops and knocked firmly on the door. They waited, but there was no answer.
Billy Don said, “Could be anything. Maybe he shot a deer and hauled it in through here.”
Red stooped and shined the light directly on one of the drops. Definitely blood. “Billy Don, if you shot a deer, would you drag it right into your goddamn living room?”
Billy Don started to answer, but Red cut him off, saying, “Forget I asked. Stupid question.”
Vinnie drove to a pay phone in Johnson City and made a call.
“Yo, T.J. what’s up?”
“Nothing, man. I been meaning to call you, but I was at work. I just got home.”
“Everything co
ol?”
“Man, I was so wasted last night, I can’t believe we did that.”
T.J.’s voice sounded shaky.
Vinnie licked his lips, getting a little nervous. “Don’t turn into a pussy now, dude. Everything will be solid. Did you call the cops yet, report it stolen?”
“That’s the thing, man. I started thinking about it, and I remembered something. The deal is, I got LoJack.”
The word meant nothing to Vinnie. “Shit, bring it over and we’ll smoke it.” He forced a laugh, but T.J. didn’t join in.
“Nah, man, I’m talking about one of those anti-theft deals, you know?”
“What, like a burglar alarm? Fuck, that’s no big deal. Your car is fifty feet underwater. If the thing goes off, it won’t bother nobody but the friggin’ fish.”
“Not an alarm system, it’s worse than that. Goddamn, I was so blitzed, I completely spaced. You’re gonna hate this.”
“What the hell’re you talking about, dude? Just fuckin’ say it.”
T.J. took a breath. “It’s a trackin’ device, you know, like a chip, with satellites and all that shit. So when a car gets stolen, the cops can just log on to a computer or something, and they know exactly where the goddamn car is. Soon as I call it in, they’ll find my car in about two seconds.”
Oh-my-fucking-Jesus-Mary-Mother-of-God! Vinnie was suddenly very hot. His heart began to pound, and his palms became damp. The earth began to shimmy and he grabbed the pay phone for support.
“You there, man?” T.J. was talking, but to Vinnie, the voice sounded distant, fuzzy, like a poor signal on an A.M. radio station.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Be cool… gotta think for a second.” Bowel-loosening fear was squirming into Vinnie’s guts, and he tried desperately to ignore it, to stay cool and think clearly. There had to be a way out of this fucking mess. There always was. “Did you call the cops yet?”
“No, man, you already asked me that.”
“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Good. Whatever you do, don’t call them yet!”
“Goddamn, Vinnie, I ain’t stupid.”
Vinnie felt a throbbing in his temples. He took a large breath, all that his lungs could hold. “It’s underwater, man. Gotta be fifty feet. You think it’s still working?”
“Yeah, dude. I checked the brochure that came with it. Fuckin’ thing’s watertight.”
“Okay, okay, no big deal. Where’s your old man?”
“Back in Austin. He left Monday.”
“Good. That means we’ve got some time. Nobody knows your car is gone but us.”
“Man, I been thinking. Even if they found the car in the lake, how would they know we did it? It coulda still been stolen and dumped there, you know? Cops’d think maybe some punks nabbed it, took it for a joyride, and just sunk it for kicks.”
Vinnie thought it over. T.J. was pretty smart, and he was probably right. But Vinnie had to convince him otherwise because of Slaton’s corpse. “Yeah, but all it would take is one goddamn witness to say he saw you in your boat last night, or saw me drivin’ the Porsche into the park. Then we’d be screwed, man, totally screwed. And what about fingerprints? If some kids stole it and dumped it, the cops would expect to find prints. No, we gotta make sure they don’t find it. It’s the only way to cover our asses for sure.”
“Yeah, I guess….”
“Listen to me, T.J. Don’t even think about callin’ it in. You don’t want to go to fuckin’ jail, do you?”
“Hell no!”
“Then just give me a little time, goddammit. I’ll think of something.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thursday morning, Marlin was on patrol when he heard Wylie Smith calling for him over the radio. The deputy wanted to meet “to talk a few things over.” Fifteen minutes later, Marlin was waiting in the empty parking lot of a dance hall called the River Palace when Wylie wheeled up beside him, his driver’s door next to Marlin’s.
The first thing Marlin noticed was that Wylie had a black eye.
Marlin gave him a nod and Wylie, without a greeting, said, “D’you hear about the mess from last night?”
“No, what’s up?”
“Got a call from a man named Red O’Brien, said he worked for this old guy Emmett Slaton. Cutting down cedar. Anyway, so him and this other guy, Billy Don Craddock, stop by Slaton’s house last night and find blood all over the front porch.” Wylie gave Marlin a serious look, like, Welcome to the big city, boy. “Slaton’s truck’s gone, nobody’s home. The front door was unlocked, so O’Brien walks right into the house-all over my goddamn crime scene-and dials nine-one-one. What a dick.”
“And?” Marlin wondered why the deputy was telling him all this. It wasn’t like they were buddies.
Wylie shook his head. “More blood inside. All over the bed, inside the goddamn bathroom sink, on the carpet, a trail leading right out the front door. And by the time we get there, these two backward assholes have been tromping all over the place. They had plenty of their own wild theories about what had happened, too, like they were gonna solve the whole damn thing for me. I could barely shut this guy Red up. I swear, if being a redneck was against the law, those guys would get a life sentence.”
Marlin knew Wylie was expecting a smile on that line, but he didn’t give him one. The deputy was awfully talkative all of a sudden-with sort of a We’re in this thing together attitude.
“Anyway, Slaton’s nowhere in sight,” Wylie continued, “so I seal the house off and get to work. But other than the blood, I can’t find shit. No forced entry, no signs of struggle. I was up all night and didn’t get anywhere. The old man just vanished. The only thing: Curtis was on patrol last night and spotted Slaton’s truck in the Save-Mart parking lot, locked up tight. More blood in there, too, but nothing else to go on.”
Marlin had gotten to know Emmett Slaton over the years and had chalked him up as one of the good guys. Ornery old coot, but likable. And, of course, Marlin knew Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock well. Two of the worst poachers Marlin had ever come across: Worst-meaning not only did the two rednecks poach whenever they got a chance, but they were also exceedingly bad at it. No wits about them whatsoever. “Sounds like you’ve got your hands full,” Marlin said. It was obvious Wylie had a request to make, and Marlin wasn’t going to be the one to extend the olive branch.
“Yeah, which brings me around to this other thing-Bert Gammel from Tuesday.” Wylie bit his lip and stared out his windshield for a moment. “I talked to all the other hunters on the lease, and they all come across legit, except Jack Corey. Went out to his place first thing yesterday morning. Right off the bat he was giving me lip, telling me all kinds of stories but not really saying anything at all, you know? Guy’s got an anger-management problem, too.”
Marlin pointed at his own eye. “That where you got the shiner?”
Wylie nodded and spit on the ground beneath his window. “I started poking around a little too close to home and the son of a bitch took a jab at me. I’ll tell you what, he won’t be doing that again.”
Marlin raised his eyebrows, giving a quizzical look.
Wylie said, “He’s in lockup right now. I was wondering whether you could stop by, have a nice little chat with him. I’ve been thinking: Maybe it’s true, he’ll open up a little more to a local boy like you.”
Local boy. Damn, Marlin thought, Wylie’s an offensive jerk even when he’s trying to call a truce. Marlin let it slide. “What’s Corey told you so far?”
“Not much. He hunted Monday evening, just like the logbooks say. Didn’t shoot, didn’t see anybody else. Heard some shots at about the same time the foreman said. Thought one of them-the one around sundown-came from Gammel’s direction. But man, when I asked him about his run-ins with Gammel, he sure got tight-lipped fast. Said something like, ‘I didn’t do nothin’. You ain’t makin’ me the fall guy.’
“He didn’t ask for a lawyer?”
Wylie absently drummed on the steering wheel and stared into the horizon. “Well, now,
he mighta said he should probably get a lawyer, but he never specifically asked for one, no.”
Marlin thought: Great. You’ve muddied up the waters and now you want me to clean it up.
Marlin had known Jack Corey since grade school, and they had been on the football team together in high school. Corey was a large, quiet guy, a plumber by trade. As far as Marlin could recall, Corey had never gotten on the wrong side of the law, outside of a few speeding tickets. Just a big guy who liked to drink beer on Saturday night and hunt deer on Sunday.
Marlin remembered something. “After I left, did y’all have any luck finding the slug?”
Wylie grimaced. “No, but not for lack of trying. Damn place is so wooded, it could have ricocheted or fragmented and ended up just about anywhere. From what Lester says, Corey hunts with a thirty-thirty. So I estimated the trajectory based on the drop of that big ol’ heavy bullet and we scoured the area for about two hours. Even went fifty yards further out than my calculations gave me. Nothing. But talk about your needle in a haystack. It’s damn near impossible to find a slug in these kinds of situations. Give me a shoot-out in a building any day, then I’ll find your slug for ya.”
Marlin nodded. A lot was riding on that bullet, and they both knew it. Wylie slipped his cruiser back into DRIVE. “So, if you could talk to Corey this morning, uh, I would appreciate it.”
Marlin noticed that Wylie wouldn’t meet his eyes and seemed almost embarrassed to ask this small favor.
“I’m not expecting you to get a full confession out of him or anything,” Wylie continued. “Just talk to him, see if you can get him to loosen up a little. Otherwise, that boy’s setting himself up as the prime suspect.”
“Did you mention the evidence from the scene?”
“I didn’t get specific yet, because I’m trying to get a warrant to search his truck and his house.” “How’s that going?”
“I wrote it up last night and left it for Judge Hilton, but it could go either way. It’s all circumstantial, I know, but everything points toward Corey. If I can come up with something on the search, then I’ll go for a blood sample. Get some DNA evidence that will nail him good.”