by Ben Rehder
They stepped right up to the front door, and Garza didn’t waste any time. He pounded on the door with the cushion of his fist. “Sheriff’s Department! We have a warrant! Open up!”
A light popped on somewhere deep inside the house.
Garza pounded on the door again and repeated his command.
Half a minute passed, and then they heard shuffling behind the door. It opened about four inches. There was a chain dangling from the door to the frame, and Marlin could make out Sal Mameli, wearing pajamas, crutches underneath his arms, peeking through the crack. “What the hell is this?” Mameli said.
Garza held up a sheet of paper. “We’ve got a warrant, Sal. Open up.”
Sal’s mind was buzzing, rocking and reeling in overdrive, and he could barely put together a coherent thought. It was Garza and Marlin and a couple of deputies banging on the door and screaming and yelling and now Garza was holding up a goddamn warrant.
They didn’t give me enough time to get ready for this shit! Without even thinking, Sal slammed his body against the door and it closed with a bang. He let the crutches fall, then he turned and clomped down the hallway on his cast, thinking, The shell, the shell-I’ve got to get to Maria and get that goddamn shell!
Marlin would try to describe the next few minutes in his report the next morning, but as his adrenaline kicked in, he found that the sequence of events unfolded in a fuzzy, almost dreamlike fashion.
Sal was looking at them one second-and the next, the door slammed shut. Garza immediately began kicking at the door, Tatum joining in, and Marlin found himself standing…watching…playing the role of a spectator.
It seemed that it was taking entirely too long, but then the door finally gave, and Garza, Cowan, and Tatum ducked inside, yelling loudly, guns drawn.
Sal opened the top drawer of the hutch to grab the handgun he had placed there just this evening for exactly this kind of thing and…Jesus Christ Almighty, it was gone! Vinnie must have grabbed it. Sal could still hear the cops hammering on the door behind him, and it was sure to give any second. He started to head through the living room to the back door, but then stopped and ducked into the kitchen, suddenly knowing that they would have somebody waiting at the back door. They came out in force, they came out in the middle of the night, so of course they’d have somebody at the back door. But Sal was too smart for that shit and he wasn’t going to fall into their trap. He was going to go through the garage instead.
Marlin was standing on the front porch, jittery, feeling useless, when he saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He took one step back and saw Vinnie Mameli squirming through a window that opened onto the far end of the porch, almost at the corner of the house. Marlin started to move toward him when he noticed the black steel in Vinnie’s hand.
Before Marlin could even yell Freeze! — Vinnie swung the gun at him and fired.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Behind the house, waiting by the back door, Smedley was hoping and praying the operation would go down flawlessly. After all, he was sure to receive a reprimand for failing to report to Austin before the warrant was served. But Maria meant too much to him, and he didn’t want to wait that long. He knew his superiors would want to study the situation, analyze it for a few days. Hell, they might even try to whitewash the entire situation. They certainly didn’t want another black eye for the witness protection program. That’s why this had to go smoothly, without incident.
Then Smedley heard a shot from somewhere near the front of the house. He drew his weapon.
Garza and Tatum were deep within the residence, trying to find Sal, when they heard the gunshot. The acoustics in the big stone house played tricks with the sound, and they couldn’t tell whether the shot came from inside or outside the house. They began a room-to-room search, Garza wondering whether they might find Sal’s corpse, dead from his own hand.
Marlin threw himself to the ground and heard the round ricochet off the stone entry way behind him. He instinctively rolled, anticipating another shot, but it never came. He sprang to his feet and saw that Vinnie had leaped the railing of the porch and was sprinting into the darkness.
Marlin had dropped his gun when he tumbled, and by the time he picked it up and drew his flashlight, Vinnie was out of sight. Marlin glanced through the open front door, unsure whether to remain where he was or go after Vinnie. Garza and the deputies were nowhere to be seen.
He went after Vinnie.
The waiting was almost too much for Smedley. Who the hell had fired that shot? What was going on in there? Was there an officer down? Should he abort the original plan and enter the home?
Then he heard a sound he instantly recognized. The groaning of the garage door as it worked its way up the tracks. They had forgotten about the garage door-and now somebody was coming out through it! The question was, should he go investigate or stay put? He decided he would work his way along the back wall of the house, peek around the corner to the garage, and still keep an eye on the back door.
He stepped gingerly because the area behind the house was rocky and uneven. He tripped a few times, making more noise than he would have liked, then finally arrived at the corner. He stuck his head around to take a look… and had a mere instant to see a shovel coming toward his forehead.
He felt the impact all the way down to his toes.
His knees buckled, but he managed to remain standing. But now he realized his gun hand was empty. Even through the double vision, he could see that the.38 he had borrowed was now in the hands of Sal Mameli, pointed straight at his face.
Then he heard another shot.
Garza and the deputies found the house empty, except for Angela Mameli passed out in the bedroom. Even the two gunshots hadn’t roused her. They headed for the front door to see what the hell was going on outside.
Marlin weaved his way through a thick grove of cedar and oak trees, his flashlight extinguished, following the sounds of Vinnie’s frantic rampage through the brush. Vinnie was in Marlin’s territory now-in the dark, tramping through the woods-maybe twenty or thirty yards away. Take it easy, Marlin thought. It’s just like rounding up a poacher.
Just up ahead, he heard the scratch of a branch against Vinnie’s clothing. It was unmistakable, a sound he had grown up with. Vinnie seemed to have slowed down, too, waiting for a chance to ambush his pursuer.
Groping in the dark, Marlin found the trunk of a large oak tree and stood perfectly still behind it. Then he called out, “Vinnie, give it up!”
The response was another shot, which thumped into the front of the oak tree.
Marlin was breathing heavily now, struggling to remain calm, the pulse pounding in his temples. He took a deep breath-and heard it again. Just a scratch-but that was all he needed.
Marlin wheeled around the tree and fired three quick shots into the dark.
He heard Vinnie Mameli scream.
Smedley wondered if he was dead. He didn’t feel dead. He heard screaming, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t coming from him. He was almost too afraid to open his eyes. But he did. He still had double vision, so he saw two Sal Mamelis rolling on the ground, cupping their groins.
Smedley craned his neck and looked behind him. He couldn’t believe it. It was like something out of a million bad movies he had seen…where someone arrives in the nick of time to save the day.
It was Maria.
She was holding Smedley’s gun.
She had just shot Sal Mameli.
Right in the balls.
Marlin waited a few minutes, until Vinnie Mameli’s groans subsided. Then he knelt low and turned on his flashlight, prepared to dive for cover if necessary. But Vinnie was down, sprawled under the lower boughs of a cedar tree. Marlin carefully stepped toward Vinnie until he was just a few yards away.
He might have seen the final spark of life in Vinnie’s eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. In any case, when he knelt down to check his pulse, there was none. Marlin dropped his head and sighed, and he could feel
his hand shaking as he slid his gun back into its holster.
After a moment, he returned to the house and called through the front door. Tatum responded, but his voice came from outside the house, near the garage. Marlin found Tatum and Cowan standing guard over Sal Mameli, who seemed to be in shock, lying on the ground. Blood saturated the crotch of his pajamas.
“Garza and Smedley?” Marlin asked.
Tatum said, “Garza’s inside, calling for an ambulance. Do we need two?”
“Yeah…but no rush on the second one.”
Tatum nodded. He gestured toward the small cottage behind the house, where every window now glowed with light. “Smedley’s in there, with the housekeeper. Got clocked with a shovel. Bleeding pretty bad.”
Marlin walked to the cottage and stepped inside. It was a small structure, but clean and well-decorated. In the small bedroom, he found Smedley sitting in a chair, the pretty housekeeper holding a towel to his head. She was murmuring to him in Spanish, but Marlin couldn’t pick out any of the words.
“Smedley, you all right?”
Neither of them even looked his way.
A cat emerged from somewhere and began to rub against Marlin’s leg. A black bird in a cage bobbed up and down on its perch, chirping, probably thinking it was morning already. Marlin looked away, and then looked back at the bird. It looked…familiar.
Marlin stood there awkwardly for a moment, watching Smedley and the housekeeper gaze into each other’s eyes, then he turned and left them alone.
Sheriff Bobby Garza finally decided to accept assistance from an outside agency. An investigative team from the Department of Public Safety converged on the Mameli house within hours. When Marlin spoke to Garza on Monday afternoon, the sheriff was exhausted but confident.
A.35-caliber shell had been found on the housekeeper’s necklace, just as Poindexter had said. Three bullet holes pocked the walls of Sal’s den. One.35-caliber bullet, still in good condition, had been extracted from a stud. Luminol revealed the presence of blood in many locations around the room, with a large concentration in one particular area on the carpet. This, Garza figured, was where Emmett Slaton had died.
Monday evening, Marlin drove Inga to the Mamelis’ house. She would be leaving in the morning, going back to Minnesota, where Thomas Peabody would be buried. Inga had been crushed by the news of her friend’s death, and Marlin hoped he could lift her spirits a little. He had warned her that he hadn’t gotten a good look at the bird, and he was pretty sure it didn’t have a red band on the back of its neck.
That seemed to excite her. “The males don’t have that band when they’re young. It appears when they mature sexually.” Inga started talking about the possibilities-the opportunity to initiate a captive-breeding program-if only the bird turned out to be a male. Marlin was worried that she was in for a letdown.
He pulled around the house and parked by the garage, next to one lone van from the DPS. The investigation was obviously wrapping up.
He put his truck in PARK and sat for a moment. “I’m sorry it had to end up this way,” he said. “With your friend….”
She smiled, then leaned over and gave him a hug. Marlin held her tight for several moments.
“Well,” she said, wiping her eyes, “let’s go see what we have.”
They walked to the small cottage, and Marlin ducked under the yellow tape while Inga waited behind it. A moment later, Marlin emerged carrying the birdcage.
As he got closer, Inga’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, John,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
Billy Don and Red were watching the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, sucking back a few cold ones, but Billy Don felt like he was sitting in a funeral home. It was just that depressing. Billy Don hated to see Red feeling so low.
The day had actually started out pretty well. This morning, they had met with Smedley-who turned out to be a federal marshal after all! It had looked like they were in hot water up to their necks, but Smedley and Billy Don had shared a box of Twinkies and Smedley decided not to file charges.
Then the cops called, and Red found out he wasn’t responsible for killing that little guy on the tree-cutter. The man’s neck had been broken when he’d crashed into the trailer. Didn’t have a single bullet wound.
But right after that, Red received some awful news from Emmett Slaton’s lawyer, Harold Cannon. Turns out Mr. Slaton didn’t have insurance on any of the tree-cutters. Cannon said the old man was so rich, he hadn’t needed insurance.
That’s why Red was moping over there, pissed off that his brand-new business had gone up in smoke last night. He wasn’t even a vice president of anything anymore.
“Red, you want another beer?” Billy Don asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” Red said.
Damn, the man was downright glum. Billy Don pulled two beers from the cooler sitting next to his recliner and tossed one to Red. “What say I go in there and whip up some of my world-famous nachos? With extry jalapenos like you like ’em?”
“Whatever.”
Billy Don came back fifteen minutes later with a cookie sheet loaded with tortilla chips that had been covered with refried beans, melted cheese, jalapenos, and sour cream. Billy Don started wolfing them down, and Red finally ate a few himself. That was a little bit of progress.
The game was a scoreless tie, and Billy Don was starting to get a little bored. He raised his arm and examined the cast around his left wrist. “Red, let me ask you somethin’,” he said. “Why do they call this stuff ‘plaster of Paris’? You think it’s all made in Paris?”
Red grunted and shook his head.
“Because, to me,” Billy Don continued, “that seems kinda dumb. I mean, why ship this shit all the way over from Paris when we could manufacture it right here in the U.S.A.? Damn unpatriotic, if you ask me.”
“It ain’t made in Paris,” Red muttered.
“What was that?”
Red grabbed the remote and turned the volume down a tad. “I said it ain’t made in Paris, you doofus. That’s just a name they give it.”
Billy Don tried to look skeptical. “Aw, come on, Red. Then why would they call it that?”
Red sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Hell if I know, Billy Don,” he said forcefully. “Maybe they named it after the inventor or somethin’.”
“What, like ‘Bob Paris’?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Red said defensively, getting all stirred up now.
“Shee-yit, I don’t think you know what the hell you’re talking about,” Billy Don said.
And that got Red riled. He swung his bandaged leg off the sofa and sat up straight, his jaw flapping ninety miles a minute now, giving it to Billy Don with both barrels. Billy Don wanted to grin, but he did his best to keep a straight face.
EPILOGUE
Susannah Branson, the newspaper reporter, was happy to have another crack at John Marlin. Not just for personal reasons this time, but for professional ones, too. The man was a local hero now-he and the sheriff. The cases they had been involved in were incredible. Front-page stuff. Susannah could envision her stories being picked up by the dailies in Austin, Dallas, Houston…maybe even New York and L.A. This was the kind of exposure that could finally skyrocket her career.
They met at Big Joe’s Restaurant again, took the same booth, and sat down for a quiet interview. It was three o’clock on Thursday, and the restaurant was nearly empty.
“Thanks for meeting me again, John,” Susannah said, giving him her best smile as she removed her tape recorder from her purse. “Sounds like you had a wild week.”
Marlin smiled faintly. “You could say that.”
They talked for nearly an hour about both the Bert Gammel bribery case and the Emmett Slaton homicide. Susannah was getting some magnificent material on tape, but there were still some things Marlin couldn’t discuss. Like the autopsy results on T.J. Gibbs. The police were remaining quiet on that topic-but the buzz was that it wasn’t a drowning after all.
“Tell me about wo
rking with the federal marshal, Smedley Poindexter.”
Marlin proceeded to describe Poindexter as a committed, hardworking agent. “I’ve spent some time with him over the last few days, going over details on the cases, and he’s really a fine man and a dedicated officer. The U.S. Marshals Service is lucky to have him.”
“What about the gossip that he plans to move to Guatemala and open a beachside hotel? With the Mamelis’ housekeeper?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Smedley about that,” Garza said, and Susannah suspected he knew more than he was telling.
“And the other rumor: that you’re thinking about hanging up your game warden’s hat and joining the Blanco County Sheriff’s Department?”
Marlin laughed. “You’ve been talking to Bobby Garza, right?”
“Well,” Susannah played along with his good humor, “you know I can’t reveal my sources. Just passing along what I heard.”
Marlin grabbed his coffee cup but didn’t drink. “Well, to be honest, that’s all it is: gossip.”
“No plans to join the Sheriff’s Department, then?”
“None whatsoever.”
Susannah eyed him, trying to gauge his sincerity. After a few seconds, she was convinced.
“Okay, last question.” She had gotten all the good stuff already. Now she just needed some filler. “Do you have any comment on yesterday’s reading of Emmett Slaton’s will?”
“Sorry, but I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“Oh, well, I guess you have been kind of distracted. It turns out that Slaton was wealthier than a lot of people realized. His lawyer held a press conference yesterday and announced that Mr. Slaton left more than fifty million dollars to the county. And it says here….” She rifled through some papers. “I know I have a transcript of the announcement somewhere. Here we go: The attorney said, ‘The bulk of the money is to be used to renovate and expand the Blanco County Hospital.’ Pretty exciting, huh?”