The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan

by Rick Riordan

  The deputy started to follow but DeLeon stopped him. "That's okay."

  The restroom door closed.

  DeLeon leaned against the vending machine and let her posture deteriorate, her weariness have its way. She rubbed her eyes, then the back of her neck. Finally she focused her bloodshot eyes on me. "Your job is to be silent."

  "Not my best role."

  "You visited the Brandons, didn't you? Saw that little kid and his mom?"

  "I did."

  "It shows in your eyes when you look at him. The anger. Tone it down."

  I hadn't even realized it until she said it, but she was right. Two minutes in Zeta Sanchez's company had eroded any doubt that the man was a murderer, that he could have walked with smugness bordering on stupidity into Aaron Brandon's home in Alamo Heights, plugged him twice with a .45, and walked out, expecting complete impunity. Looking into Sanchez's face, I stopped wondering about motive and connections and possible frame-ups. The man was loosely packaged, industrial-grade violence.

  When I thought about the sheet cave in Michael Brandon's room, about Ines Brandon's tears, I wanted to wipe that little smile off what was left of Sanchez's face.

  The door of the restroom opened. Sanchez came out. He looked around uncertainly, like he himself couldn't believe he hadn't tried to make a break for it. DeLeon clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "I didn't hear water running."

  Sanchez took a moment to focus on her and register the comment. "What?"

  "You didn't wash your hands."

  The hardness in his eyes diluted with confusion. "What?"

  DeLeon sighed, looked at me, then back at Sanchez like a mother with strained patience. "I might have to shake your hand later, Anthony, and I know where it's been. Go back and wash your hands."

  He stared at DeLeon, then at the bathroom door. Then he went back in. This time we heard water running. The shudder of pipes as the faucet shut off. The printing-press sound of the towel roll dispenser being pulled down to fresh cloth. Our deputy guard looked at the floor, shook his head, muttered something about a waste of time.

  Sanchez came back out. He showed DeLeon his clean hands, the webbing between his fingers still glistening with water and soap foam. He looked at DeLeon with intense curiosity, as if he was really interested in what she'd say. "Okay." She started to lead us back down the hall, then stopped abruptly, turned back, and almost ran into Sanchez. "You want a Snickers?"

  Sanchez hesitated, shook his head cautiously.

  "No?" DeLeon looked at me with the same question, but her eyes were giving me a dead courtesy, an act. I shook my head.

  She tried again with Sanchez. "Peanuts? M&M's? You got to be hungry."

  Sanchez wavered. "Peanuts."

  DeLeon held out her hand to the deputy and tapped her fingertips against her palm. The deputy grumbled, then fished around in his pockets until he came up with some quarters. DeLeon bought Sanchez some peanuts.

  We walked back down the hall and into the homicide division. As we passed Hernandez's office a new, calmer conversation was taking place inside — Hernandez, Kelsey, Canright. The three men's eyes fixed on us like sniper sites as we walked past. They noticed the peanuts.

  When we got to the interrogation room, DeLeon waved Sanchez and me inside. She told the deputy to stay by the door.

  The room was the size of a closet, walls painted the same homicide gray as outside. There were two hardwood chairs and a little desk with a computer terminal, some manila folder files, a tape recorder. Zeta Sanchez sat in one chair. At DeLeon's insistence I took the other, next to the terminal. My chair had one leg that was slightly shorter than the others. When I moved it went bimp-bump like a wooden heartbeat.

  Sanchez strained his wrists against the plastic cuffs, trying to get some circulation. With difficulty he opened his peanuts and emptied the bag into his mouth.

  DeLeon reached over and punched RECORD on the cassette machine. She gave today's date and all of our names, then leaned back against the door frame.

  "So, where were we?"

  Sanchez chewed his peanuts. DeLeon hugged the elbows of her khaki coat, pushing the side of one red pump against the tile floor. I found myself shifting in my uneven chair. Bimp-bump.

  Finally Sanchez swallowed. He crumpled his peanut bag, let it drop. "We weren't nowhere."

  DeLeon nodded. "That's right. You know who this is here, Anthony?" Sanchez avoided looking at me.

  DeLeon waited.

  When Sanchez finally met my eyes I tried to suppress any emotion. I went blank, the way I do in tai chi, forcing my thoughts to sink into my diaphragm. Sanchez's eyes were gold. They had an unreal quality to them — a brilliant and completely merciless sheen. I suddenly understood why his old boss Jeremiah would've gifted this man a gold-plated .45.

  "This is Dr. Navarre," DeLeon said. "He's the new English professor out at UTSA, replacing Aaron Brandon. I want you to apologize to him."

  "You want me to what?"

  "Navarre thinks you want to kill him. He's been losing sleep over it. Guy's an English prof — figures you scared one of his predecessors to death already, blasted the second one. He figures you've got a thing against UTSA and now you've got it in for him."

  Sanchez's eyes drifted up to the ceiling. The thin beard line around his jaw, trimmed under his chin, looked like some kind of black bird. He had a scar across his neck that I hadn't noticed before — a beige line the texture of jute. His smile started to re-form. He tried to control it, then broke out in a laugh.

  He looked at both of us, sharing his cold mirth. "Say what?"

  "Apologize for scaring him so bad," DeLeon said. "That's all. Tell him it's okay."

  Sanchez shook his head, grinning in a dazed kind of way. "You want me to say I'm sorry. For a bastard I didn't kill."

  "You want a lawyer present yet?" DeLeon asked.

  "I don't want nothing."

  "Just checking. Apologize, Anthony."

  He laughed, looked at her for several seconds to see if she would keep the straight face. She did. That just amused him more. He looked at me and his golden eyes sparkled. "Yeah, man. Sorry."

  He bent over, the laugh bordering on the hysterical now. He shook for a while, wiped his eyes with the backs of his bound hands.

  I sat perfectly still.

  "That's fine," DeLeon told him. "Now let's see if we can clear away some of these details, just so Professor Navarre feels better. We've agreed that you didn't kill Aaron Brandon, right?"

  Sanchez sat up, laughed a little more.

  "Right?"

  He nodded.

  "Okay. So last night we found a .45 three blocks away from Brandon's house, stuck in a drainage ditch. We got a match to the bullets that killed Aaron Brandon. The gun has one of your thumbprints just inside the revolver chamber. We got a witness who saw you coming out of the Brandons' house the night of the murder, after she heard two shots..."

  DeLeon shook her head, like she was annoyed with the evidence, then looked at Sanchez for help. "You make sense of any of that, seeing as you didn't kill anybody?"

  His gold eyes kept their amusement. "Nobody saw me there, 'cause I wasn't. You plant a gun, say it's mine — I can't do shit about that."

  "It was a revolver, Anthony. A gold-plated revolver."

  Sanchez's face darkened. "You fuckers couldn't—"

  He stopped himself.

  DeLeon waited. "We fuckers couldn't what, Anthony — have that revolver? The one you killed Jeremiah Brandon with six years ago? And why would that be?"

  No answer.

  DeLeon stepped over to the table and grabbed a folder, slid a piece of paper out of it and dropped it onto Sanchez's crotch.

  "I was wondering why you came back now, Anthony, why you waited so long — at least now we got the answer to that. How was prison in Mexico?"

  Sanchez looked down at the discharge document. I could read the words Nuevo Leon, Sistema Penitenciario Federal, Mexican state seals on either side. "I show you sometime," Sa
nchez offered to DeLeon.

  "That throat-slitting just about heal, did it? I hear the other guy looked even worse."

  Sanchez just smiled.

  DeLeon retrieved the paper with two fingers, slid it back into the folder, and tossed it onto the table. "Why'd you go to Hector Mara's, Anthony?"

  Sanchez licked his lips. "We're friends, man. Old compadres."

  "And relatives. Oh, sorry. Ex-relatives. I mean, until that little thing between your wife and Jeremiah Brandon. What was her name — Sandra? What is that legally, when your wife skips town because she's been sleeping with your boss, then you go and kill the boss? Does that constitute a legal divorce?"

  Sanchez's neck muscles worked into knots, but he said nothing.

  "You knew we'd be looking for you, Anthony, right? Even before you killed Aaron. Why stay with your old buddy Hector, visit your old hangouts, talk to old friends like you've been doing? Why keep such a high profile?"

  "Just wanted to settle some things, man. That's all."

  "Like killing the Brandons?"

  Sanchez didn't respond.

  "Hey, Anthony, you know, I'd like to think you weren't stupid. I'd like to think you didn't shoot Aaron Brandon. I really would. I mean it's embarrassing — using a weapon you fucking well know will get traced back to you, ditching it so sloppy, leaving a witness. I'd like to think somebody set you up for this to get you out of circulation — somebody who's been holding on to your gun all this time and found it a lot easier to shoot an English teacher than to shoot you. Tell me that's the way it is, Anthony. Maybe I can help."

  "Fuck you, missy."

  "You're not helping me believe you're smart, Anthony. You shot a cop when we tried to bring you in. Even without the Aaron Brandon murder, you're not making much of a show for brains."

  "I hear that fat fuck Gerson's voice, I'm gonna empty a few clips at him. That's the smart thing."

  DeLeon held up her hands in exasperation. "You're not helping at all, Anthony. Look at Dr. Navarre — he's practically peeing in his pants."

  Sanchez looked at me and we locked eyes a second too long. There was nothing I could do about it. The signal went out. A moment of clear, silent hostility passed between us as hotly charged and unintentional as a thousand-volt arc through a squirrel.

  Detective DeLeon tried to get his attention back. "Yo, Anthony. How did Dr. Brandon get dead with your gun if you didn't kill him?"

  Reluctantly, Sanchez's eyes drifted away from mine. "No mas, missy. That's all I'm saying."

  "You were set up?"

  Sanchez shook his head noncommittally.

  "But you're innocent."

  "Fuckin' A, missy. Por vida."

  "Well shit." She looked at me. "So they're going to put Mr. Sanchez away for murder — but I can't tell you for sure he's the man that killed your predecessor. Might still be somebody out there, laughing their ass off that Mr. Sanchez was willing to take the rap. Sorry, Dr. Navarre. Conclusion of interview."

  She reached over to the machine, punched STOP.

  "That it?" Sanchez asked.

  DeLeon nodded. "Why're you letting them do this to you, Anthony?"

  Sanchez brushed his fingers over the stitches on his busted lip. "I ain't letting nobody do shit." He focused on me again. "So you a professor?"

  "That's right."

  He grinned. "You know how they say, you got blood on your hands once you kill somebody?"

  "I know how they say that. Yeah."

  "Let me see your hands."

  It would've been a mistake to look at DeLeon. Or to hesitate. Never mind that we were in the middle of SAPD with an armed guard outside and Sanchez in plastic cuffs. The moment was dangerous.

  I extended my right hand. Sanchez took it, turned it over, traced my life line. My skin crawled. His thumb was warm and callused and his frayed cuticle scraped against my palm. The fingers of his other hand tightened around my knuckles.

  "It ain't in the hands." His breath smelled of peanuts. "You kill somebody, it shows in your eyes — eyes like you got. You really scared of me, Professor?" He moved quick. Almost too quick. His cuffed hands clamped on my wrist like a vise grip and yanked me down, my face toward his head. If I'd tried to pull back I would've gotten a broken nose. Instead I dropped sideways out of my chair, flipping Sanchez over me in a somersault. He tumbled, slammed into DeLeon's legs, and I back-fisted Sanchez's busted mouth with my free hand as he went down.

  I got up slowly. DeLeon had Sanchez's neck in a lock. The deputy was there, his gun in Zeta's face.

  Sanchez had trouble coughing with his jaw clamped shut. A long string of saliva and blood swung from his lip.

  DeLeon moved away while the guard pulled Sanchez roughly to his feet. Sanchez managed a grin. "Feel good, puhfeffoh? Tell them they ain't getting shit from me, okay? You tell them."

  The guard dragged Sanchez out of the room, the felon's mouth a bloody, smiling piece of wreckage.

  DeLeon sighed wearily as the door clicked closed. She rubbed the side of her face. "Thanks."

  "Thanks?"

  "That was more than they got out of him in twelve hours yesterday. He needed an audience, someone to show off for. For him, that interview was a major success."

  I looked at the back of my hand, where Zeta's saliva was still wet, matting my hair to the skin in dark slick triangles that smelled of peanuts and blood. My skin crawled. I felt as if I'd just gotten a big sloppy lick from a mastiff who could just as easily have ripped my throat out.

  "Happy to help," I told DeLeon.

  NINETEEN

  "You got evidence," Assistant D.A. Canright said. "Solid witness, ballistics, prints. You got a suspect any jury in their right minds would convict. You did great, Ana, okay? Be happy."

  DeLeon did not look happy.

  I was sitting at a desk about fifteen feet away, pretending I wasn't paying attention and still needed to be there with the ice pack on my hand. Lieutenant Hernandez had met my eyes several times, but I think he was already so disgusted with me he'd stopped caring.

  DeLeon said, "I want to follow up."

  Canright ran skinny white fingers through his red hair, shot a look at Hernandez. "Am I not being clear? Ana, honey, am I not being clear?"

  "My last name is DeLeon."

  Canright made a cup with his hands. "This guy shot an innocent man in his home, Ana. A college professor, husband, father. Then he shot a cop. I don't need a 'why' to nail his ass in court. You took him down. Your first homicide case — you did great. Now it's mine."

  "Let me explain it another way, sir." DeLeon took her notepad and pen from her overcoat. She wrote as she said, "I'm. Not. Done. Honey."

  She underlined the words, tore off the sheet, and tried to tuck it into Canright's coat.

  The ADA stepped back, brushing her hand away. "All right, Ana. That's it. That's it."

  "Mr. Canright—"

  "Detective," Hernandez intervened. "You're up for cold-case duty. Starting Monday we rotate you in for three months. Between now and then you should get some rest."

  "Lieutenant—"

  Hernandez turned toward Kelsey, who was leaning against a nearby partition. "Take care of what Mr. Canright needs for court. Follow up."

  Kelsey smiled. "My pleasure." He drifted back toward his cubicle. Canright nodded with dry approval. He turned to say something else to DeLeon, probably something appeasing.

  Lieutenant Hernandez said, "Good-bye, Mr. Canright. We'll keep you apprised."

  Canright closed his mouth, nodded. When he got to the doorway he couldn't stand it. He turned and called, "You did an excellent job, Ana, honey. I mean that."

  The homicide office sucked up the sound of his voice. Everything returned to quiet neutral gray as soon as the door swung closed.

  DeLeon crumpled her note and dropped it at Hernandez's feet.

  "Ana," Hernandez said, "they want a quick resolution. They smell blood. You're a district attorney, you don't see a two-plus-two case like this and beat your hea
d against a wall trying to figure out how you can make it come up five."

  "God damn it, Lieutenant—"

  "You don't wait for the media to tear you apart for inaction. You prosecute."

  "It's incomplete. Canright knows it. You know it."

  "It's open-and-shut. Even if it wasn't — you really want to fight for a douche bag like Sanchez?"

  She turned to go.

  Hernandez said, "Wait."

  DeLeon looked back at him icily.

  "Between now and Monday, you get no new cases. I stand by what I said — Monday it's the cold squad, before then it's some rest. That doesn't preclude wrapping up your present caseload. As long as it's low-key and quick. Not too taxing on you. I want you fresh for Monday. You understand me?"

  The intensity in DeLeon's eyes eased up a bit. "Yes, sir."

  "Discreet. Low-key. Nothing that might give Mr. Canright apoplexy."

  DeLeon allowed herself a tired smile. "I understand, Lieutenant."

  As DeLeon walked away, Hernandez looked around to see who was watching. He met my eyes again, pretended he hadn't, then returned to his office.

  I found DeLeon's cubicle at the end of the room, next to one of the sergeants' offices. The sergeant was apparently on vacation. His glass door was closed, the lights off, a woodcut GONE FISHIN' sign hung over the shade.

  DeLeon was sitting in her task chair, the Lands' End trench coat shed over it like melted Swiss, her pumps kicked onto the carpet. She stared momentarily at something taped to her computer screen, then bent forward and buried her face in her forearms.

  I leaned against the side of her cubicle.

  The back of DeLeon's red dress had unzipped itself about an inch at the collar. Three tiny lines of soft hair ran down her neck from the sharp wedge-cut, like jet trails.

  "Buy you some dinner?" I asked.

  She opened the top eye and peered at me wearily. "Don't you ever go away?"

  She sat up, rubbed her eyes, then refocused on the thing taped to her monitor. It was a Polaroid of a stuffed longhorn doll — Bevo, the UT mascot. An anonymous white male hand was holding the muzzle of a .38 against its head. A little handwritten sign under the longhorn's chin said please MOMMY BRING THEM DOUGHNUTS OR THEY'LL VENTILATE ME!! The writing was intentionally childlike and the bull's goofy cartoon grin didn't fit his predicament. On top of DeLeon's monitor, a circle of dust-free space marked the spot where the longhorn had probably sat.