by Ben Rehder
The men chatted for a few minutes about the current deer season. One of the men had taken a ten-point on opening day.
“All right, then,” Marlin said. “Guess you’re done for the night? I’m sure your neighbors could use a break.”
Joe gave an embarrassed smile. “Yeah, sorry ’bout that. Didn’t think the shots’d bother ’em. We’re all done.”
Marlin waved and turned to leave.
“Hey,” Joe called out. “Heard you were the big hero tonight.”
Marlin was always amazed at how fast news traveled through the county. “I wouldn’t say ‘hero’ is the right word,” Marlin replied.
“Well, hell, you walked right in there with Corey holding a gun. Pretty damn brave, if you ask me. So what do you think, John? Think Corey done it? Killed Bert?”
“Can’t really talk about that, Joe.” Marlin said, opening the door to his cruiser. “He’ll get his day in court”
“Well, tell me this, then: Have the deputies figured out where Bert got all that cash?”
Marlin paused for a moment, then closed his truck door and walked back over to Joe.
“What cash are you talking about?”
Marlin and Joe were in the cab of the cruiser now, out of earshot of the other two hunters.
Joe’s eyes were wide. “I figured y’all knew all about that. You hadn’t heard?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Joe rubbed his chin. “Well, I didn’t know Bert real well, but he was a friend of Virgil Talkington’s, and Virgil is a friend of mine. Virgil has this poker game every Friday night, and Bert would sometimes show up over there. Anyway, he was always a penny-ante kind of guy. Never brought much money with him, usually just a big jar of change, and he’d fold every hand unless he knew for sure he had a winner. Man, I’ve seen him throw away three of kind, if you can believe it. To hear Virgil tell it, Bert didn’t have much money to spare. Barely made his mortgage.”
“When did he first join the game?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Coupla years ago. And he didn’t play every time, maybe once every month or two. But then, maybe a year ago, he started showing up with a lot more cash. He’d pull out this big roll of bills and flash it all around, and man, would that get our attention! See, he wasn’t that good of a player and, well…”
Marlin smiled. “Y’all would try to separate him from his money.”
“Well, yeah. He seemed to have plenty of it all of a sudden. Brought expensive cigars for everybody, too. Lots of liquor.”
This didn’t sound like much to Marlin. Maybe Bert got a raise, or an inheritance, or won a few bucks on scratch-off lottery cards. Could be anything.
“But then here’s the other thing,” Joe continued. “One day I was over at Kyle’s place”-Kyle Parker owned a small car lot next to Joe’s office-“and Bert comes in to pick up that Explorer he’s been driving for the last eight or ten months. So I’m sitting there eating lunch, shootin’ the shit with Kyle, while Bert fills out the paperwork. Finally, Bert gets done with the forms, Kyle totals up the price on the car, and-get this-Bert hands it all over in cash. Kyle didn’t even bat an eye, like they had already talked about it or something. Sure, that Explorer was three or four years old, but the price was still something like twelve grand. I mean, shee-yit. You know anybody who carries around that kind of cash?”
Marlin agreed that he didn’t-but, thinking it through, he wasn’t sure it meant anything. Some people have strange saving habits, tucking cash away in a Mason jar or, literally, under the mattress. He’d heard about one little old lady in Blanco who lived as if she were one step above the poorhouse. Then the lady died and the heirs discovered she had been a millionaire, hiding huge sums of cash in coffee cans in her attic.
“Did Bert ever say anything about the money-like where he got it? I mean, you’re all sitting around, drinking a few cold ones, somebody’s bound to ask, right?”
Joe nodded his head vigorously. “Damn right, we asked, but he was all tight-lipped about it. One time, he said he made it on one of those dot-com companies, but he wouldn’t never name which one. None of us believed him. Shoot, Bert didn’t know nothing about no stock that wasn’t runnin’ around on four legs.”
Marlin sat in silence for moment, pondering this new information. Joe tipped his beer can and sucked out the last few drops. “Think that’ll help you any?” he asked.
Marlin had no idea. “I don’t know, Joe. I really don’t know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Marlin headed back to Johnson City, his dashboard clock telling him it was nearly four A.M. Driving through the cool night air, his window down, Marlin contemplated what Joe Biggs had told him.
Okay, so Bert Gammel had been throwing a lot of money around. Big deal. Didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the murder. And if it did, it didn’t rule out Jack Corey. Hell, it might implicate him even more. Corey was already at odds with Gammel. The cash could have pushed him over the edge. On the other hand, if Corey had been after the money, why would he ambush Gammel out at the deer lease? Didn’t make a lot of sense. In fact, why even murder him? It seemed only natural that Corey would have tried breaking into Gammel’s house to find the cash.
Another strange thing: Wylie hadn’t said anything about Gammel’s surplus of cash-or if he had, word hadn’t reached Marlin. The likely answer was that Wylie had been so focused on investigating Corey, he hadn’t done much digging into Gammel’s affairs. Wylie had seemed convinced of Corey’s guilt from the beginning, so he probably hadn’t questioned enough people in Gammel’s circles. The spotlight had been on Corey right from the beginning-because of Lester Higgs’s account of the troubles between Corey and Gammel. Something like that could easily send an overzealous detective off in the wrong direction.
The long and short of it: Marlin wanted to talk to Garza about Joe’s story. Maybe Garza and the deputies already knew about the cash and had followed that trail to a logical conclusion. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Marlin was wide-awake now, so he figured he might as well swing by the sheriff’s office and see what was going on. Maybe Corey had come to his senses by now. Or he could have fallen asleep, allowing Wylie to sneak out. This thing couldn’t go on forever.
Marlin tuned his stereo to an all-news AM station out of Austin.
“… at a press conference earlier this evening outside the sheriff’s office. Blanco County sheriff Bobby Garza cautioned local citizens not to expect a quick resolution to the standoff.”
Marlin recognized Garza’s voice:
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure the safety of the officer involved, but the truth is, this could take some time. It’s a delicate situation and we intend to handle it with the greatest of care.”
The reporter continued:
“At this point, the man involved in the standoff has been identified as Jack Albert Corey, a resident of Johnson City arrested yesterday evening for assaulting the very officer now held hostage. Stay tuned to KNOW for further updates.”
Marlin found Sheriff Bobby Garza sitting in his patrol car, eyes closed, a cup of steaming coffee perched on the dashboard.
Marlin looked through the passenger-side window. “Wake up, cowboy.”
Garza swiveled his head Marlin’s way. “Wake up, my ass. I’ve got a headache that would floor a mule.”
“And eyes like two pissholes in a snowbank.” Marlin said. “You know, I hear four out of five doctors recommend Excedrin for hostage situations.” He climbed inside and nodded toward the squat building forty yards away. “What’s the latest?”
Garza shook his head and took a sip of coffee. “Corey told Darrell to get the hell out about an hour ago.” Darrell Bridges was the dispatcher who had remained inside the sheriff’s office. “That was fine with me,” Garza said, “because by then I had a couple of the phone guys tapping into the lines from outside. So now we can take calls without interrupting nine-one-one service. And we don’t really need the radio at this
point. We can still talk car to car.”
“So Corey has the run of the entire office now?”
“Yep, and he’s covered up all the windows so we can’t see inside. Pretty smart move, really. But at least he’s talking to us now.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got Tatum acting as negotiator. He’s doing a pretty fair job. Taking things one step at a time.” Bill Tatum was one of the deputies-a man Marlin liked and respected. Hopefully, Jack Corey felt the same way. “Corey damn sure isn’t talkin’ about coming out yet, though. All Tatum’s managed to do is twist his arm a little. Corey wants some food in there but we’re refusing it until he gives us something in return.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we know he ain’t gonna give up Wylie, so I asked him for Wylie’s gun belt. I want to take away that extra ammo. Later on, he’ll want something else, and I’ll ask for a bullet out of the gun. You just keep picking away at what they’ve got. I’ve read that sometimes you can get them down to just a bullet or two that way.”
Marlin grinned. “Pretty smart. But why is Tatum negotiating instead of you?”
“For starters, he’s taken a couple of courses on hostage situations. I’ve only taken one. Never thought I’d need it. I mean, how often do we come up against something like this? Shit like this just doesn’t happen out here. It’d be like asking the folks in Kansas to have emergency plans for a hurricane.
“And the other thing; one of the few things I do know-the top cop is never supposed to be the negotiator. Otherwise, Corey would expect immediate answers to his demands. He’d be like, ‘Why can’t you do this for me? You’re the sheriff.’ This way, Tatum can string things along, tell Corey he needs to check with me and get back to him.”
“Not to be ignorant, but what does that accomplish?” Garza stopped for a moment to listen to some radio traffic. One of the deputies at the door wanted a bathroom break.
“You’re supposed to drag these things out as long as you can,” he said. “Supposedly, the longer it lasts, the less chance there is of someone getting hurt. The perp is supposed to come to his senses, so they tell you to stall all you can. Unless someone’s in immediate danger. Then all bets are off.”
The men sat in silence for a moment, and Marlin noticed the scene was eerily quiet. It was amazing, really. The better part of the Blanco County Sheriff’s Department was figuratively handcuffed, held at bay by the whims of the hapless redneck inside.
Marlin spoke up: “What about the DNA test? Can’t the lab speed it up, let us know if Corey’s a match or not?”
“You’d think so, but I guess they got cops all over the state asking for rush jobs. That’s just business as usual. They told me six days.”
Marlin sighed in frustration. “But, Christ, we’ve got a real situation here.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Oh, speaking of test results, did you hear? The blood all over Emmett Slaton’s house wasn’t human.”
Marlin had forgotten-for the last few hours anyway-about the disappearance of the old rancher. “Then what the hell was it?”
“Animal of some sort, but the tests don’t tell us which. They just show that the blood’s not human.”
“What do you make of that?”
Garza made a passive, palms-up gesture. “Got me. But I’m taking it as a good sign, for now. We never found his dog, so maybe it ran off injured and Slaton’s been looking for it. ’Course, that doesn’t explain Slaton’s truck at the Save-Mart. Anyway, we’ll see what the boys can come up with. All the deputies who aren’t here are either working on Slaton or looking for your boy Peabody.”
Marlin waited for a gibe that didn’t come.
“I’m pushing everybody to the limit as it is,” Garza said. “Everyone’s on the clock, and most of them have been on duty since yesterday morning. If something doesn’t shake loose pretty soon on that Slaton mess-and this one here-I’m gonna have to call in the Rangers.”
The Texas Rangers, a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, were available to smaller law-enforcement entities on an as-needed basis. But Marlin knew Garza prided himself on running an independent department.
Marlin mentioned what he’d just learned from Joe Biggs about Bert Gammel. When he was done, Garza tilted his head to one side and blew out a breath. “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. A lot of cash, huh?”
“Enough to buy a Ford Explorer a couple years old, according to Joe.”
Garza gave Marlin a sidelong glance. “You up for playing detective a little longer?”
Marlin didn’t really know how he felt about it, but he knew the Sheriff’s Department already had its hands full. He’d have to make a few calls to game wardens in neighboring counties, asking them to help pick up the slack on poaching calls in Blanco County. “What the hell,” he finally said.
“That’s my boy,” Garza smiled.
They talked it over and agreed that Garza would secure subpoenas first thing in the morning so Marlin could check into Gammel’s financial affairs at the local banks. Apparently, a couple of deputies had already searched Gammel’s home-including the only financial records they could find: his checkbook-and nothing had raised a red flag. Marlin would have to look a little deeper.
“After the banks, you might want to talk to his friends and coworkers,” Garza said, with a pained look on his face. “Wylie obviously didn’t cover those bases very good.”
Marlin nodded.
Garza grinned and said, “Man, it would look so good.” He waved a hand across Marlin’s left biceps, as if reading an imaginary patch on his arm. “Blanco County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Here we go again,” Marlin said as he climbed out of the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Handcuffs were nothing new to Thomas Peabody. He had been shackled several times before, and had even managed to extricate himself from the infernal devices on a couple of occasions. Those were pleasant memories. It was always amusing to see the puzzled expressions on the officers’ faces (oppressive pigs!) when Peabody managed to slip his delicate hands free.
But this time, the cuffs were just too restrictive. Yes, he had been successful at “walking through” the cuffs backwards (the benefits of yoga were wonderful, indeed), so now his hands were cuffed in front of him. But there was simply no hope of slipping his hands through the metal manacles. The game warden had been too perturbed when he had clamped them on Peabody’s wrists, and Peabody could feel them biting into his skin ever since. Therefore, Peabody would have to be a bit more resourceful. In time, he’d find a way out of this puzzle, and then he could proceed with the more urgent task of shutting down Sal Mameli, just as he had threatened to do. In truth, Peabody regretted making such a bold statement in front of Inga. But he had, and now he must live up to it.
He surveyed his surroundings and wrinkled his nose in disgust. He was in a stable, complete with a gassy old horse. The hayloft where he had slept last night was fairly comfortable, but the foul-and quite audible-emissions from the horse’s hind end had wreaked havoc with his sinuses. All things considered, however, he had been fortunate to stumble across a structure this accommodating. After all, he was a fugitive now. A wanted man. An escapee. He thought it sounded quite romantic, actually, and wondered if Inga, wherever she was at the moment, was impressed with his new status. Perhaps he would become a man of some renown, like Robin Hood or one of the Three Musketeers. A hero for the common man; a strident force for good in the battle against evil.
He let loose a violent sneeze, which brought him back to reality. He’d have to contemplate his place in folklore later, after he found a way out of his current predicament. He was filthy and hungry, a forlorn soul straight out of a Dickens novel.
Peabody carefully descended the ladder from the hayloft. The horse stared from its stall with unconcerned eyes and broke wind. Peabody scowled at the horse, got no noticeable response, and was thankful the neighboring stall was empty: Twice the gas would certainly make the s
table uninhabitable.
The only other structure in the stable was a small closet in one corner. Peeking in, Peabody saw a saddle hanging on the wall and a pair of rough-woven blankets on a shelf. There were also a couple of brushes and several oddly shaped metal implements-items that had something to do with riding this malodorous beast, Peabody assumed. No hand tools to be seen.
Even if he found some sort of useful tool, how was he to operate it? This quandary would require quite a bit of thought, he knew. But never fear: The brain is the most powerful tool of all, and he owned a dexterous one.
Weighing his options, Peabody turned to the peculiar contraption squatting just inside the stable doors. It looked like a golf cart on steroids, with four large knobby tires and HONDA painted on what seemed to be the gas tank. Not quite a motorcycle, but related to one. Peabody had no experience with such vehicles. Unfortunately, it appeared that he would have to look elsewhere for salvation.
Peabody strode to the wooden double doors of the stable and peered outside. Just a few minutes past sunrise, he surmised. Forty yards away stood a shambling old house with a rusty truck parked in front.
Then he heard a noise, the low growl of a motor. A few seconds later, another truck, a newer model, bounced its way up the driveway and stopped next to the first. A lanky gentleman in overalls and no undershirt climbed out and proceeded into the house.
Peabody was nervous now. He eased the door closed and focused on the decision at hand: Should he try to slip away undetected, or wait until the occupants of the house left the vicinity? Peabody was pondering the possibilities when the choice was made for him.
He heard two voices coming his way-a man and a woman, giggling. Peabody quickly scrambled back up the ladder into the hayloft, finding refuge just as the door to the stable swung open.
“-and we could get caught,” the woman said. “Frank is sleeping right on the couch.”