Bone Dry (Blanco County Mysteries)

by Ben Rehder

  Strangely, Marlin felt a sense of closure. He could report to Garza now, tell him that all avenues had been investigated, and then put all this bullshit behind him.

  “Ready when you are,” Colby said, draining the last of his drink.

  Both men were in the truck, Marlin about to turn the key, when they heard a familiar sound. It was the clattering of a deer feeder as it slung dried corn for three or four seconds, then went silent.

  Marlin looked at Colby, who simply grinned. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Marlin asked.

  “That a cold beer sounds good?”

  Marlin swatted Colby across the arm. “No, you dumb-ass. That nobody checked inside Gammel’s deer feeder.”

  “Damn, I bet you’re right.”

  Marlin maneuvered his truck through the brush and found the feeder in a small clearing fifty yards from Gammel’s deer blind. The ground beneath it had been worn grassless from the hooves, paws, and claws of all types of wildlife looking for an easy meal.

  It was a fairly typical feeder: a battery-operated motor and spinning plate attached to the bottom of a 55-gallon barrel that rested on three metal legs. Eight feet tall, from top to bottom. A drum like that could hold six bags of deer corn weighing a total of three hundred pounds.

  Marlin backed his truck up to the barrel, donned a pair of latex gloves, then stood on the rail of his truck bed. Judging by the dust on the feeder lid, Marlin guessed that it hadn’t been disturbed in quite some time. He removed the O-shaped locking ring that clamped the lid to the barrel, then removed the lid itself. He peered down into the feeder.

  Deer corn has to be kept dry. If a little moisture builds up inside the feeder, a crusty cake of corn plugs the funnel at the bottom of the barrel. The spinning plate will rotate, but no corn will be thrown. That’s why feeders are designed to be watertight. The corn—and anything else in there—is fairly safe from the weather.

  And there was more in this feeder than just corn. Looking down into the barrel, Marlin could see a small bit of clear plastic jutting out of the feed.

  “I’ve got something here “

  He reached down, grabbed the edge of the plastic, and gently pulled. Up came a large Ziploc bag. Inside the plastic bag was a lumpy manila envelope, a small one, maybe six inches by nine. On it, in ink, were the initials B.G.

  Marlin hopped down onto the bed of his truck, went to one knee, and placed the plastic bag on the floor. As Colby watched over his shoulder, Marlin eased the Ziploc open, slid the envelope out, and lifted the unsealed flap. The envelope was filled with cash.

  Marlin felt invigorated by his discovery—for about ten seconds. Then he realized it didn’t really change anything. They had an envelope with nearly three thousand dollars in it, but it didn’t tell Marlin where Bert Gammel had gotten the money or why he had been so secretive about it. And it didn’t bring Marlin any closer to proving—or disproving—Jack Corey’s guilt.

  Back in the truck now, driving off the ranch, Colby said, “What ya think Garza’s gonna say?”

  “I imagine he’ll be glad we found the cash... but we already knew it had to be tucked away somewhere. For all we know, Corey mighta known that Gammel kept his stash somewhere on the deer lease, but he just couldn’t find it after he killed him.”

  “It was still pretty smart of you, if you want my opinion. You figured out something that nobody else had. Not Wylie Smith, that’s for sure.”

  Marlin gazed out the window at the passing scenery, gently sloping hills thick with cedars, elms, and half a dozen different types of oak trees. “On the other hand,” Marlin added, buoyed by Colby’s remarks, “I can at least send this stuff to the lab in Austin and see if they can tell us anything. You never know—” Marlin stopped speaking in midsentence. Something on his police radio had caught his ear.

  He turned up the volume and was startled to hear the voice of Jack Corey. Marlin remembered that Corey had the run of the sheriff’s office now, and was apparently broadcasting from the dispatcher’s radio. Marlin pulled to the side of the road as Corey’s plaintive drawl came over the airways:

  “... and I understand why you might think it was me. But you gotta remember that things aren’t always what they look like. Take your boy Wylie here, for instance. I told y’all he held a gun to my head, but did anyone believe me? Hell, no. Well, screw it.…just listen to this goddamn tape before y’all make up your minds.”

  Marlin heard Corey fumbling with the microphone, and then the hiss of an audiotape. Corey’s voice came on first:

  “At least tell me why you pointed your gun at my head. Don’t you know a man can’t think straight in a position like that?... Well?”

  Then Wylie’s answer…

  “Okay, I’m sorry about that. I really am. But when I’m investigating a guy for murder, and I feel like I have some solid evidence, I tend to go at him pretty hard. It’s just my style. Let’s say, worst-case scenario, you confess to the murder but you didn’t really do it. We’d know that, because you wouldn’t be able to tell us specifics about the crime scene. And if you did do it—the gun is just my way of speeding things up a little.”

  The radio went silent, and all Marlin could think to say was: “Way to go, Corey.”

  Phil Colby gave a low whistle. “Now, that’s an interesting development, wouldn’t you say?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  On Friday evening, Sal was sitting in the living room, his bum leg in front of him on an ottoman. Twenty-four hours since that skinny little tree-hugging bastard had broken Sal’s leg, and he was finally figuring out how to manage the pain. This codeine was pretty good stuff—you just had to watch out how much you took, that’s all. Sal had figured that out real fucking quick. It took the edge off the pain, but if you got a little too aggressive with it—say, like popping three pills instead of one—you’d find yourself in la-la land, chasing imaginary wildebeests, wearing a loincloth, all from the comfort of your own bed.

  But a pill and a half worked just right, holding the pain at bay without putting Sal into a stupor. Last night had been a wild ride, one weird-ass dream after another. Stranger than any of the trips he experienced as a young punk, when he had occasionally indulged in a few of the drugs that members of his crew were selling. Kind of fun, but you had to keep a handle on that shit. Couldn’t overdo it. Sal sometimes wondered if Vinnie ever took any drugs, but he figured Vinnie was smarter than that.

  Speaking of Vinnie, Sal vaguely remembered talking to him earlier in the day, asking him to take care of some things. Sal couldn’t remember exactly what he had asked him to do, but what the hell. Vinnie knew what to do. Didn’t have to spell things out for him anymore. That was the good thing about having a son. You could teach him things, help him learn a few of the basics in life. Like throwing a curveball. Changing the oil in your car. Busting a guy’s kneecaps.

  Sal and the family had already eaten dinner, and Angela was doing something in the bedroom now. That’s the way it was: If Sal was in his den, Angela would be in the living room. If Sal came into the living room, Angela would find a reason to go to the bedroom. Sal knew that Angela was pissed off at him about the whole Maria thing (who, by the way, he hadn’t humped in several days, thank you very much), but he was noticing lately that she didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. That’s one angry woman, who can’t stand the sight of her own husband. What the fuck were you gonna do?

  Sal was flipping through the channels, not a goddamn thing to watch on TV, when the phone rang.

  “Angela, you got dat?” he yelled.

  No answer. The phone rang again.

  “Angela! Maria!” Where the hell was everybody?

  It rang again.

  “Well, fuck.” Sal leaned toward the end table and grabbed the cordless phone off its charging base. “Yeah?”

  “Sal?”

  “Who’s dis?”

  “Is this Sal Mameli?”

  Sal paused. He didn’t like unidentified callers. If one of his forme
r colleagues ever managed to track him down, Sal figured he might receive a call like this one. And this guy here sounded like he was speaking carefully, trying to disguise his voice. But he didn’t sound like a Jersey boy; more like some local yokel. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Sal said. “Depends on what you want.”

  There was no answer, and Sal began to hang up. Then the caller finally responded. “I saw what you did with the body.”

  Sal’s jaw dropped and his heart flopped like a fish on a dock gasping for air. He let a few seconds pass while he tried to get his shit together. Then he spoke again, trying to sound casual—and a little angry. “What the hell are you talking about? Who is dis?”

  “I saw it, Sal. I saw where you put the body.”

  Sal managed to give a small laugh, one that he thought sounded believable. “Yeah, you keep saying dat, but which fucking body are you talking about? Jimmy Hoffa? Amelia Earhart? Who?”

  Sal heard the caller take a breath, as if he were about to answer, but then the line went dead. Sal stared at the receiver, as if he could look through miles of telephone line and get a clear view of the man who had just called.

  “Think it’ll work?” Billy Don asked around a mouthful of beef jerky.

  Red had just climbed back into his battered red truck after using a pay phone. Damn right, a pay phone. Red had seen enough of those criminal-type shows on TV to know better than to use his own phone. Never knew who might be listening in, who might trace the call. Plus there was regular old Caller ID. “He sounded pretty shook up,” Red said. “Acted like he wasn’t, but I could hear it in his voice. Guy was about to drop a load in his britches.”

  “So you still think it was him?”

  Red nodded and scowled. “That’s what I been tellin’ ya, ain’t it? Now pass me a beer.” Billy Don dug into the ice chest on the floorboard and came up with a cold one. They had stopped by the grocery store earlier and stocked up on drinks, jerky, chips, donuts, and other snacks. Red figured it might be a long night, so he wanted to be prepared.

  Red was kind of pissed that Billy Don kept asking him that question: So, you think it was him? Well, damn, of course he did, and he had already listed all the reasons why.

  First, Sal Mameli had what the cops called a motive. That meant he had a reason to kill Mr. Slaton. Mameli had been trying to buy up all the brush-clearing businesses in Blanco County, Slaton’s included. But ol’ Emmett—from what Red had gathered—wasn’t playing ball. Red imagined that had pissed Sal off pretty good.

  Second, Red and Billy Don had seen Sal Mameli driving away from Slaton’s house in a huff, just a couple of days before Slaton disappeared. Coincidence? Hell no. So not only did Mameli have a motive, he seemed to be hacked off at Mr. Slaton, too. Red had mentioned all of this to that deputy named Wylie, the cocky son of a bitch, but the guy didn’t pay much attention.

  And fourth, Mameli just seemed like one of those... whatchamacallits—a wiseguy. A man that’s connected to the mob. No telling whether Mameli really was in the mob—and Red doubted it since the guy lived in Blanco County, about as far from mafia country as you can get. But that didn’t mean Mameli couldn’t be just one of your garden-variety criminals. And hell, everybody knew that your average Eye-talian American was nothing but a street thug. From what Red could tell, watching cable TV shows, the wops who made it into the mafia were just the ones with the biggest balls, the ones willing to take the biggest chances. But none of them—whether they were in the mob or not—could be trusted. Oh, sure, you had a few exceptions to the rule. Real Italian heroes, like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Sal Mameli wasn’t sophisticated like those guys. No, Mameli was a greaseball, and he practically had murderer written on his face. But it seemed like Red was the only person who had figured that out.

  Red cranked the ignition and looked over at Billy Don, who had already made a sizable dent in their food supply. “Goddamn, Billy Don, take it easy, will ya? That stuff might have to last awhile.”

  Billy Don belched and blew the expelled gas in Red’s direction. “What now, Red?”

  Red rolled down the window as he steered his truck out onto Highway 281. “Now we play a little cat and mouse.”

  Billy Don nodded seriously.

  Red said, “Hey, Billy Don. Who the hell is Jimmy Hoffa?”

  Sal Mameli had nothing to do with the death of the deer hunter, Bert Gammel. Smedley kept telling himself that as he munched a bag of honey-roasted peanuts. The sheriff had seemed confident that he had the right man, and that’s why the suspect had taken a hostage. It all made perfect sense. Right?

  Likewise, there was nothing to indicate that Mameli had anything to do with Emmett Slaton’s disappearance, either. But Smedley was having a tough time convincing himself of that, too. A quick background check had shown that Slaton owned a number of businesses, including the largest brush-clearing company in the county. And it wasn’t long ago that Sal had gone into that business himself. Way too much of a coincidence. It gave Smedley an uneasy feeling in his gut, worse than a large pizza with extra jalapeños.

  That’s why Smedley was once again sitting in his unmarked sedan, staking out the Mameli house. And that’s why he was considering talking to the higher-ups in Austin, asking for a wiretap. That would be a big step, but Smedley thought it was warranted. In spite of what Sal Mameli had accused the U.S. Marshals Service of in the past (mostly because he was a paranoid son of a bitch), they had never tapped his phone since he had joined the program. They had had no legal reason to do so. But now…

  Smedley’s train of thought was broken as he saw a flashlight bobbing down the Mameli driveway. It might be Angela coming to get the mail or something. He had seen her and Maria pull in about an hour ago, right at sunset. As the figure crossed the street and approached his car, Smedley got a lump in his throat. It was Maria! Smedley quickly ran his tongue over his teeth to remove the peanut residue.

  Maria leaned down to his window and said, “Hola.”

  “Hola, Maria,” Smedley replied, feeling like a freshman in Spanish class.

  Maria said something else that Smedley couldn’t understand, but he was pretty sure he heard the word comida in there somewhere. He shrugged and said, “No comprendo.”

  In the moonlight, he could see Maria’s beautiful smile. She said, “You like dinner?”

  Ah, now he got it. Angela must have sent Maria out to invite Smedley to supper. Smedley nodded and extracted himself from the sedan.

  Unexpectedly, Maria grabbed his hand and began walking back up the driveway. Smedley tried not to read anything into it. Maybe hand-holding was just a common courtesy in Guatemala. He tried to focus instead on the wonderful evening. Crickets were chirping, there were plenty of stars in the sky, the temperature was in the upper sixties. But when Maria strolled right past the Mamelis’ house and continued to her small cottage behind the garage, Smedley broke into a sweat.

  Marlin picked up a hamburger in Dripping Springs on the way home from the lab in Austin. The lab technician, a quiet man named Richard Fanick, had promised to work overtime on the evidence Marlin had found. Fanick had said he might be able to pick up some latent prints on the plastic bag, but the manila envelope was a little more iffy because it had been sealed within the plastic bag. The humidity in the bag might have degraded any existing prints.

  Now all Marlin could do was wait.

  He had stopped by the sheriff’s office on the way out of town and nothing had changed: Jack Corey was still holed up with Wylie Smith and wasn’t coming out anytime soon. Garza had frowned when Marlin mentioned Corey’s on-air announcement earlier in the day. Marlin felt it was a clear indication that Wylie was to blame for the standoff; Garza wasn’t so sure.

  “For all we know, Corey might have been holding a gun to Wylie’s head this time,” Garza had said. “So that recording he made doesn’t prove anything.”

  Also, as Marlin had expected, Garza didn’t say much about the new evidence from Gammel’s deer feeder. “Hellu
va job, John,” Garza said. “Let’s just wait and see if it tells us anything.”

  Driving in the dark now, Marlin continued west on Highway 290 and turned right on 281. Six miles to the north, he approached the edges of Johnson City, where a sign proudly proclaimed: HOME TOWN OF LYNDON B. JOHNSON.