by Ben Rehder
“Not at all,” Marlin replied, wondering whether he should be disappointed or encouraged. “Actually, I guess that makes things easier. Now we can concentrate on Mameli.”
“Right now, I say we concentrate on lunch. You hungry?”
Marlin was surprised. He figured Garza would have wanted to go straight back to the sheriff’s office to monitor the standoff. “Lead the way.”
Garza radioed Darrell Bridges and told the dispatcher where he and Marlin would be for the next hour. Back in Johnson City, Garza pulled into Big Joe’s Restaurant, and the men found a quiet booth in the back. Over chicken-fried steak, they went through the Bert Gammel and Emmett Slaton cases from the beginning, analyzing every detail.
“Still thinking the cases are tied together somehow?” Marlin asked.
“Mameli’s face sure got red when I mentioned Slaton, and he seems to have links to both Slaton and Gammel. Problem is, we’re awful short on motive for either case at the moment. Yeah, the bribery thing seems like a strong possibility, but we need to keep digging.”
“Where?”
Garza gulped some iced tea, then offered a plan. “I’d say we need to reinterview all of the men on the work crews, both Mameli’s and Slaton’s. Especially Red O’Brien and Billy Don Craddock. They work for Slaton, and they were first at the scene at Slaton’s house. Plus, Wylie said they were offering some wild theories about Sal Mameli.”
“Yeah, and Wylie blew ’em off,” Marlin reminded him.
“I know, I know,” Garza said. “Don’t get started on Wylie again. Poor guy’s in bad enough shape as it is.” Garza grabbed the check and glanced at his wristwatch. “Let’s start with Red and see where it gets us. Meanwhile, I’ll send a couple of deputies out to interview some of the others.”
Smedley was slowly going insane. He was sure of it. And if he managed to come out of this with a few marbles still intact, he knew he’d have nightmares about singing farmers for years to come.
Earlier, he’d made an attempt to free himself, but all he’d done was topple the chair with him in it. Now he was lying on his right side, still facing the TV, the headphones still cradling his head. The two rednecks had come in, laughed at his predicament, and left him where he was.
He wondered about his car. Surely it was too damaged to drive. These two goobers must have left it where it was, and, if Smedley had any kind of luck, a cop would spot it and start nosing around.
Smedley was aware of a figure standing over him. It was Red, eating a hamburger. Burger King wrapper. Smedley tried to fight it, but his mouth began salivating and drool ran down his cheek. Red was saying something now, holding the burger out, taunting him. Smedley didn’t have to read lips to know what he was saying: Tell us where the body is, and you’ll get a burger of your own. Smedley eyed the burger, stomach growling, and was afraid he was going to cry.
Suddenly, Red’s expression changed and he set the burger on a desk. He glanced through a window and his eyes got wide.
Garza pulled through the gate to Emmett Slaton’s ranch and followed the driveway toward the house.
“Over there, to the right.” Marlin had spotted a small mobile home tucked in a cedar grove, with a small fleet of brush-clearing machines squatting nearby. Headquarters for Slaton’s business.
Garza steered off the paved driveway and followed a dirt road to the shiny single-wide. As they stepped out of the cruiser, Red O’Brien emerged from the trailer and stood on the steps to the door.
“How you doing, Red?” Garza called.
“Hey there, Sheriff. What brings you out here? Hey, John.”
Marlin nodded a greeting.
Garza squinted into the sun and told Red they were reinterviewing some of the witnesses in the Slaton case. “We’d like to ask you some more questions about Emmett’s disappearance, if you’ve got a few minutes. Wylie mentioned that you had some theories, and I’d like to hear them personally.”
Red was pretty sure he could feel his balls lodged firmly up in his throat. Something was in there in the form of a big lump. His hands had started shaking, so he slipped them into the pockets of his jeans. Now, if he could just control his voice, keep it from wavering all over the place like it normally did when he got shook up. Otherwise, the game warden would spot his nervousness in a heartbeat, because Marlin had seen it firsthand plenty of times.
Red took a quick peek at Smedley’s car, twenty yards away under a large tarp. Sweet Jesus, he was glad they’d decided to cover it up last night. With it being all smashed up, Garza and Marlin would likely be kind of curious.
“Well, yeah, I tol’ your deputy all about it,” Red said, trying to keep it brief. “Sal Mameli really had a hard-on to buy Mr. Slaton’s business, but Mr. Slaton didn’t wanna sell. Then one day-I think it was last Sunday-we seen Mameli driving outta here like a bat out of hell.”
Garza nodded. “Tell you what, why don’t we go inside and sit down? So John and I can take a few notes.”
Red felt faint, and his knees almost buckled.
“You all right?” Marlin asked.
Red tried to respond with a grin. “Little bit light-headed. We’re doing some paintin’ in there, and the fumes been gettin’ to me. You mind if we stay out here so I can get some fresh air?”
Someone was outside! Smedley craned his head and could see Billy Don peeking through the blinds. Red was out there talking to whoever it was.
Smedley tried to pull his wrists apart, but they were bound too tightly. He attempted to straighten his body, to break the tape that was securing him to the chair. No luck. Finally, in desperation, he began slamming his head against the floor of the trailer.
“What was that?” Garza asked.
They all could hear some sort of thumping or banging inside the trailer.
Red giggled. “Oh, that? Just Billy Don movin’ some furniture ’round in there. Boy’s clumsy. See, Mr. Slaton asked us to fix the place up a little. I figure, with him gone, it’s the least we can do. You know… in his memory.”
Marlin was fairly certain it wasn’t paint fumes that were affecting Red’s brain. The poacher was obviously nervous-the signs were easy to recognize-and Marlin figured Red and Billy Don had been smoking pot in the trailer. But Marlin didn’t care, as long as Red was willing to talk.
Garza asked a couple of questions about Sal Mameli: Had Red ever met him personally? What was he like? Had he ever heard Mameli threaten Emmett Slaton?
Red didn’t have much to say. Sure, he’d seen Mameli around a few of the bars in town, but he didn’t really know the guy. No-no threats, as far as he knew. Quick, short answers, with plenty of hemming and hawing in between.
Marlin decided to put him at ease. “Red, I’m not sure what y’all are doing in the trailer there, but we need you to concentrate on these questions. Whatever y’all are up to, don’t worry about it.”
Red gestured to himself with one hand, like, Who, me?
Marlin smiled. “We’re not here to break up the party. Tell us what you know, then we’ll be gone and you can get back to your drinking or smoking or whatever you’ve been doing.”
Red glanced from Marlin to Garza. The sheriff nodded in agreement and opened a small notepad.
“I appreciate that,” Red said, and took a deep breath of relief. Suddenly, they saw a more confident, composed Red O’Brien. “The way I figger it,” he whispered, as if eavesdroppers were lurking nearby, “Mameli was pissed that Mr. Slaton wouldn’t sell, so he offed him. You ever met the guy? He’s kind of greasy, if you know what I mean.”
“How so?” Marlin asked.
“Seems like kind of a con man. Always talkin’ fast, tryin’ to get an edge.”
“But is there anything you can tell us, beyond just a hunch?” Garza asked.
Red looked puzzled. “You mean, like, uh, hard evidence?”
“Exactly.”
Red mulled it over. “Can’t think of nothin’.”
Garza abruptly flipped the notebook closed.
�
�Well, he is Eye-talian,” Red offered.
“Oh yeah?” Garza asked with exaggerated suspicion, as if he and Red could unravel this conspiracy together. Marlin had to stifle a laugh.
“Hell, yeah, he is,” Red said, happy to regain an audience. “And I don’t need to tell you how those people are.”
“No, Red, you really don’t,” Marlin said-before Red decided to share his thoughts on Hispanics and Asians, too.
A chirping sound filled the air, and Red flinched. “Take it easy,” Garza said. “Just my cell phone.”
Garza answered the phone, listened for a moment, then handed the phone to Marlin. “Your friend at the lab. He’s got some more news.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Marlin walked over to the cruiser, the phone pressed to his ear. Richard Fanick had been a busy man. He had already lifted some prints from the money in the envelope, and was sharing the results.
“So it was a solid match?” Marlin asked. “No doubt at all?”
“Oh, yeah. I got more prints than I know what to do with. Complete latents, partials, you name it. Guy touched nearly every bill in the stack. Just him and Gammel, though. Not the other guy.”
“All right, Richard. This helps me out a lot, and I owe you one for working the weekend.”
“Hey, no problem.”
“Seriously, next time you’re passing through Blanco County, give me a call. I’ll buy you the best barbecue lunch you ever had.”
“It’s a deal.”
Marlin disconnected and turned to Garza. “We gotta go.”
Garza and Marlin sped away in the sheriff’s cruiser-and Red nearly collapsed. He sat on the front steps of the trailer and cradled his head. Damn, that was too close for comfort. Red thanked the Lord that he was blessed with a quick mind and a nimble tongue that helped him avoid trouble. Someone like Billy Don wouldn’t have been able to handle the situation. But Red had played Garza and Marlin like fiddles.
Billy Don poked his head out of the trailer door. “They gone?”
“Yes, they’re gone, no thanks to you. What the hell was you doing in there? Ropin’ a goat?”
“So what’s the plan?”
“We go directly to Judge Hilton and get a warrant,” Garza replied. “I don’t care if we have to chase him down on the golf course. Then the deputies will search Clements’s house, while we go at him again, this time hard.”
Marlin could think of no plausible reason why Clements would have handled Gammel’s money-but if he had, he was obligated by law to tell them about it. Otherwise, he was obstructing an investigation. “You operating on the assumption that he killed Gammel?”
Garza sighed. “I have no idea. But he obviously knows more than he’s telling. The question is, what does he know? And I keep trying to figure out how Sal Mameli is involved-or if he’s involved. Kind of strange that Fanick found his prints on the envelope but not on the money.”
“I suppose Mameli might have handled the envelope during a visit to Gammel’s office. I’m sure they must have met a few times to discuss county projects. It could all be innocent…”
Garza stopped at the one and only traffic light in Johnson City and gave Marlin a glance. “You really believe that?”
Marlin was weighing the question in his mind when he noticed a brown Jeep Cherokee coming the opposite way. Marlin pointed and said, “Isn’t that Clements right there?”
Garza followed Marlin’s gaze. “It sure as hell is. And it isn’t even halftime yet.”
The light changed and the Cherokee pulled through, Clements staring resolutely ahead. Garza waited a few seconds, then swung a U-turn and fell in behind him.
“Guess our plans have changed,” Marlin observed.
“For the time being. Let’s just see what he’s up to.”
Clements continued south on Highway 281, keeping it to the speed limit. When he left the city limits, he edged his speed up to seventy.
“We forgot to give him the standard warning about not leaving town,” Marlin joked.
They caught Clements stealing discreet glances into his rearview mirror, but he did nothing out of the ordinary. Six miles down the road, Clements pulled into a roadside picnic area and came to a stop, Garza and Marlin right behind him.
“What now?” Marlin asked.
“Let’s give him a few minutes.”
Clements continued to sit in his Cherokee, both hands on the wheel, staring out the windshield.
“I’d say the man is trying to make a decision,” Garza said.
“Sure looks that way.”
Garza swung his door open. “Reckon we ought to see if he needs any help with it?”
Marlin popped his own door open. “I’d say that’s the neighborly thing to do.”
Both men exited the cruiser and began walking slowly up to Clements’s vehicle. They could see him watching in the rearview mirror.
“Careful, John. He might be armed.” Garza’s hand was resting on his revolver.
Clements’s chin fell to his chest, like a man defeated. Then he lifted his head, shoved the Cherokee into reverse, and came screaming back toward them. Both men jumped out of the way and the Cherokee slammed into the front end of the cruiser. Clements shifted into DRIVE and burned rubber back onto the highway.
Thomas Peabody sat in his hiding spot in the woods and surveyed the house. It was a long time until nightfall-several hours before he could take action-but he had patience. Oh, yes, he was a patient man indeed. He had waited a painfully long time to be in this position, and he wasn’t going to ruin it by acting prematurely. His entire relationship with Inga was at stake. Soon he would be transformed in her eyes. Saving her from the attacker in the motel room had created a chink in her emotional armor-he had seen it in her eyes and felt it in her embrace. She was almost ready to become his soul mate; he was certain of it. Now he merely needed to define himself for her, once and for all. Then she would realize they were destined for each other.
As Marlin and Garza sprinted back to the cruiser, Marlin heard a hissing sound and noticed green fluid puddling under the front bumper. They hopped in and screeched onto the highway, lights flashing and siren blaring. Garza grabbed the mike and called for backup.
“He took out your radiator,” Marlin said, one hand braced against the dashboard as they gained speed.
“I saw,” Garza replied.
The speedometer was quickly up to ninety. A half-mile ahead, Clements’s Cherokee came into view-stuck behind several vehicles in the left lane and a semi carrying a mobile home in the right lane. Seconds later, Garza was on Clements’s bumper.
The drivers in the left lane began to drop their speed as they heard the siren… as did the driver of the big rig. Now the cruiser and the Cherokee were caught behind a cluster of traffic going fifty. Then Clements saw his chance: He nosed up mere inches from the semi and cut sharply left, almost clipping the front fender of a station wagon. The driver of the wagon tapped the brakes, slowing Garza, as Clements accelerated in the fast lane, gaining a few hundred yards on the cruiser. Finally, the wagon pulled to the right behind the semi, and Garza had a clear path.
“Road narrows,” Marlin reminded him.
Garza nodded. The two southbound lanes merged to one, with a meager shoulder on the side. The cruiser crested a hill, and now they could see another semi carrying the other half of the double-wide mobile home. Clements was already on its tail, weaving left and right, trying to pass. Oncoming drivers blared their horns and swerved right as Clements tried to see around the semi.
Marlin smelled something burning and leaned to see the temperature indicator on the dashboard. Pegged on H. “Car can’t take much more,” he said.
Garza was riding Clements’s bumper now, speed at sixty, and Marlin wondered if the sheriff was going to attempt the PIT maneuver-a move where the pursuing car nudges the rear quarter-panel of the lead car, causing it to spin out. The answer was clear when Garza found a lull in the traffic and pulled into the oncoming lane, edging up to
the Cherokee.
Steam poured out from under the hood and Marlin knew the cruiser didn’t have much longer. He craned his neck and looked back-but there were no other deputies in sight yet to continue the chase.
Just as Garza was about to use his right front fender to tap the Cherokee behind the left rear wheel, Clements jerked the Jeep onto the shoulder and began slipping past the semi on the right, picking up speed. The three vehicles were approaching a long leftward curve now, and Garza eased into the left lane to see if he could pass the semi. The road was clear for several hundred yards-except for a broken-down truck on the right shoulder, directly in Clements’s path. With the way the road curved, and the semi’s large load, Marlin knew Clements couldn’t see what lay ahead.
Garza and the driver of the semi both spotted the imminent disaster and reacted: Garza pushed firmly on his brakes and put some distance between the cruiser and the semi. The semi began to drift over into the left lane to give Clements a chance to see the truck in his path.
But it was simply too late-and Clements was going too fast now.
He finally spotted the truck and tried to accelerate and cut back in front of the semi. He almost made it, but he clipped the rear of the broken-down truck in an explosion of glass, and began to spin. The rotating Cherokee careened across the highway, bounced off a guardrail, and finally came to a stop in the middle of the highway.
But now Clements was sitting broadside in the path of the semi.
The driver was standing on his brakes, leaving trails of black rubber. Marlin winced: He could see Clements’s terrified face as the semi closed in on the driver’s-side door.
The semi finally began to lose its momentum and drop some speed. It was traveling no more than five miles an hour when it thumped into the Cherokee and pushed it for ten yards down the highway. But the sight of that massive metal grille closing in on him made Maynard Clements pass out cold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
By the time Marlin and Garza arrived at Blanco County Hospital, deputies were executing a search warrant on Clements’s home and property.