“Yeah,” Palmer said. “Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I want to talk. Now. Before I—” He swallowed. “Before I die.”
It happened the way they had it figured, although in Palmer’s version of the story, he hadn’t voluntarily partnered with Hatch. According to Palmer, Hatch had been extorting money from customers for some time, whenever he discovered something he thought the computer owner would feel it necessary to hide. Palmer had found out about his activities by accident and was on the verge of telling Kirk. But Hatch threatened to claim that Palmer had been involved from the beginning, and even though it was a lie, Palmer couldn’t defend himself. Then Hatch offered him a cut of the take if he’d keep his mouth shut. All things considered, Palmer said, it seemed like the thing to do. He took the money. And when the next time came along, he took the money again.
“I felt bad as hell about it,” he said plaintively. “Believe me, I felt rotten. But I was flat broke. Car needed work. Couldn’t pay my rent. I should’ve told Hatch to go to hell and gone straight to Larry. But about the time I was psyching myself up to do that, Larry found out.”
“About Hatch? But not about you?”
“Yeah. He booted Hatch. Gave me orders not to call him for any more jobs, just the way I told you last night.” Palmer coughed, then coughed again, with a grimace of pain. Sheila wondered if he had some broken ribs. “I should have drawn the line at that point. I should have told Hatch that it was game over. If I had, Larry would be alive today. It’s my fault—” More coughing.
“But instead you and Hatch just reorganized the way you were working,” Bartlett said. “It went on the same, only now Hatch was on the outside and you were still on the inside, in the shop. He needed you even more, so you asked him for more money. Right? That’s how you got your bike?”
“Yeah.” A long sigh. “Listen. What I’m telling you—it’s enough to nail Hatch, right? You’re going to arrest him?”
“What you’re saying implicates Hatch in an ongoing extortion scheme, yes,” Bartlett replied soberly.
“Good,” Palmer breathed. His face twisted, whether from pain or penance, Sheila couldn’t tell. “But not just for the blackmail—for what he did to Larry. That’s the big thing. Larry threatened to tell you guys what Hatch was doing. So Hatch killed him.” His voice was shrill. “I hope he gets the death penalty.”
For the moment, Bartlett let it slide. “Did you keep a list of the people Hatch extorted?”
“Nuh-uh,” Palmer replied. “But Hatch did. He’s a nut for that kind of stuff. He’s got it all on his computer. Who, when, how much, all that stuff. He said maybe we’d go back for more from somebody, if the need arose. Plus, he was working for at least one other computer shop, in San Antonio. I’m pretty sure he was doing the same thing there, because he always seemed to have more money than we were bringing in. Like, he bought that big Dodge Ram and moved out of that junky trailer. So I figure there was more coming in from somewhere.”
“Tell me about Timms’ computer,” Bartlett prompted.
There was a silence. “Not much to tell,” Palmer said. “Timms brought it in to get a virus cleaned off. When he handed it over, he asked me if we messed around with the data files. That’s always a dead giveaway that there’s something on there that the customer doesn’t want looked at. So I told him no, and then I called Hatch and took the machine over to his place.”
“That’s how you managed it? You’d take the computers to him?”
“After Larry booted him, yeah. Larry was in and out of the shop at all hours, nights, too. So yeah, I took it over there. When Hatch got into it, he found some photos and stuff—kids, he said. That was good, because kid photos are worth more than girlie photos. You know?”
Sheila, listening, felt sick. But she knew that the statement was an accurate one. If Timms had had a thing for women, rather than children, Hatch would probably have asked for less. Child pornography was a different thing altogether.
“Understand,” Bartlett said. “How was the extortion demand conveyed? Did Hatch telephone Timms? Did you?”
“Hatch always took care of that end of things.” Palmer’s lips stretched back in what could have been either a smile or a grimace of pain. “I guess he figured that way, he wouldn’t have to tell me how much he asked for. Made it easier for him to cream it off the top.”
“I see,” Bartlett said. “Did he tell you how much he thought he’d get from Timms?”
“Said he was gonna ask for twenty thousand. It was a lot, but considering who this guy is—his picture’s always in the paper, ribbon-cuttings and benefits for the women and kids’ shelter, stuff like that—Hatch said we’d get it.” He coughed. “I figure he asked for twenty-five, maybe even thirty. I didn’t want to know.”
“Why not?” Bartlett asked.
Plaintively, Palmer looked up at Bartlett. “Because it was my last job. I was gonna tell Hatch that, and I was gonna tell Larry. I was sick and tired of feeling like something bad was going to happen any minute. But I was scared, because Larry was my cousin and all that. I figured he’d do his best to keep me from being arrested, but I knew he’d tell his mother. And she’d tell my mother. That would be bad, real bad.”
Listening, Sheila shook her head. Palmer hadn’t been afraid of the police. He was scared of his aunt and his mother.
Bartlett spoke. “So you told Hatch you were quitting?”
“Not then. I didn’t get the chance. I put Timms’ computer back in the file cabinet and waited. Hatch talked to Timms, who got really hot when he heard how much Hatch was asking. Hatch said he was going to pay, but I guess Timms changed his mind.” Palmer coughed, hard, a couple of times. “Anyway, when Larry opened up the next morning, the place was trashed. Didn’t take an Einstein to figure out who’d done it.”
“When did you tell Hatch you were quitting?”
Palmer closed his eyes, slowly, as if he were very tired. His voice dropped a notch. “Last night. Late. After I talked to you. He came over to my place.”
“How did he react?”
“He didn’t say much, but his eyes got hard, the way they do when he’s really mad. I told him I knew he’d killed Larry.”
Eyebrows raised, Bartlett glanced at Sheila. “What did he say to that?”
“He laughed. Like a crazy man. Said he didn’t do it, that nobody would believe me.”
“Did you have any evidence?”
There was a moment’s silence. “No,” he said finally. “Not what you’d call evidence. Stuff like fingerprints. But when you told me Larry was dead, I just knew Hatch did it. I figured that Timms went to Larry and told him what was going on, and Larry confronted Hatch about it. That’s when Hatch shot him. I know he had a gun. He showed it to me once.”
“What kind of gun was it?” Bartlett asked.
“A .357 Magnum. He was really impressed with that gun. Took it out to the range. Said it made him feel like he could handle anything.” His voice became bitter. “Big man. Hatch loved the idea of being a big man.”
But the murder weapon hadn’t been a .357, Sheila thought. It had been a smaller .32. Jackie Harmon’s gun. And Harmon had left her fingerprint on the casing of the slug that had killed Kirk.
Palmer swallowed. “So it had to be Hatch, don’t you see? Larry must’ve told him to come over, and he took the gun and—” He began coughing hard, and flecks of blood stained his lips.
Sheila stepped to the door and opened it. Helen Berger was passing through the hallway, and Sheila beckoned. “Coughing up blood,” she said in a low voice. “Not much, but some.”
“You’d better leave, Chief,” Helen said. “I’ll have the doctor look at him.”
Back in the room, Sheila motioned to Bartlett. He nodded.
“I guess that about wraps it up, Henry,” he said. “We may have more questions for you when you’re able to talk longer. When you’re better.”
“I’m not going to get better,” Palmer said, almost defiantly. “I’m going to die.”
> Sheila was walking with Bartlett back to the car when her cell phone chirped. It was China, and she sounded anxious.
“Have you heard anything from the guys?” she asked. “I asked McQuaid to let me know before they crossed the border, but he hasn’t called. I’ve tried to reach him, but I’m not getting any answer. Have you spoken to Blackie?”
Sheila shivered. Two Americans shot. She debated whether to tell China what Helen Berger had said but decided quickly against it. There was nothing she could do at the moment, and the report—if it was true—would just make her more anxious.
“I haven’t talked to him since last night,” Sheila said. “But let’s not worry. I’m sure they’re both okay. They’re just busy.” She forced herself to put a smile in her voice. “You know how focused the two of them can be.”
“I do,” China said with a sigh. “I just wish they’d stop to think about us. Don’t they realize that we’re worrying?” Then she chuckled wryly. “Listen to me. I’m whining. Sorry. I know you’ve got other things on your plate. Caught any crooks today?”
Sheila laughed—a real laugh this time, completely unforced. “A killer, a hit-and-run driver, a pair of blackmail artists, and a pornographer.” She paused. “There’s some overlap, but that’s the head count.”
“You’re telling me that you found out who killed Larry?” China sounded incredulous.
“Yep,” Sheila said lightly. “Who and why. And we have the killer in custody. Naturally, she’s waiting for her lawyer.”
“Naturally,” China said. “She? She who?”
Sheila and Bartlett had reached the car. “I’ll tell you the whole gory story later, China. I have to go. If you hear what’s going on with the guys, be sure and let me know, will you?” She closed the phone. She wasn’t smiling.
Back at the station, Sheila paused at Connie’s desk. “Any calls for me?” she asked eagerly.
With a grin, Connie handed her the usual bundle of pink slips. “Plenty. And there’s more where those came from.”
Disappointed, Sheila took the slips. “No, I mean personal calls. Did Blackie phone?”
Connie shook her head. “Nope, sorry. Are you expecting a call from him?”
“Just hoping, I guess,” Sheila said. She went into her office, sat down in the oversize chair, and logged on to the Internet. She brought up a search engine and typed in “two Americans shot in Mexico,” with the day’s date. The information flashed on the monitor quickly, and she sat back in her chair, feeling a wave of warm relief wash over her, followed by a quick stab of guilt. It was bad news for somebody’s family, but not for her. The two Americans who had been killed were a pair of truckers in an eighteen-wheeler, ambushed, their rig stolen. The brief story she had clicked on didn’t include names, but the two men were said to be from Oklahoma. Whoever they were, they weren’t Blackie and Mike McQuaid.
But the relief she felt was only temporary, and she picked up her cell phone. Why hadn’t Blackie returned her calls? Where was he?
She was flipping the phone open when it pinged in her hand.
“Hey, hon,” a strong, deep voice said. “It’s me. We’ve got the boy and plane tickets for early tomorrow. Whatever you’ve got going tomorrow night, cancel it. I want you all to myself.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sheila put the bowl of potato salad on the table and stood back. The kitchen in Blackie’s fishing cabin was bright, with white walls, white vinyl floor, and (her contribution) yellow-checked gingham curtains. And while it was small, there was room for four people around the table, as long as they kept their elbows out of their neighbors’ plates.
She surveyed the settings, appreciating the colorful Fiestaware plates—genuine antiques, genuinely worn and scratched by decades of forks and knives—and the green pottery bowl of yellow chrysanthemums in the center, a gift from Blackie, delivered with a kiss that made her smile as she remembered it. Behind her, the fridge hummed cheerfully, a pot of Blackie’s favorite Creole-style baked beans bubbled in the oven, and an apple pie (China’s contribution to their evening meal) waited on the counter. A nicely domestic scene, except that she wasn’t wearing an apron. Gingham curtains and Fiestaware, baked beans and potato salad, yes. Aprons, no. Sheila had never seen an apron she liked. They were either ruffled and frilly or totally masculine, with supposed-to-be-funny jokes printed on them. Neither suited.
“Hey, there they are,” China called from the deck overlooking Canyon Lake. “I can see the boat, just coming into the cove. Wonder if they caught any fish.”
Sheila picked up the binoculars and went outside to look out at the small red-painted fishing boat. Blackie was at the tiller, Rambo beside him, tongue hanging out, looking deliriously happy. McQuaid sat in the bow, holding up a string of good-size fish for them to see.
“Looks like they’ve caught enough for supper—and then some,” she said, and put the binoculars down on the wooden rail. “We won’t have to resort to hot dogs from the freezer.”
China picked up the glasses and looked through them. “Yum,” she said. “Must be some pretty big fish in that lake.”
“Oh, you bet. Blackie caught an eleven-pound largemouth not long ago. Just missed the record.” Sheila smiled. “Me, I don’t have the magic touch. I go out there with him and never catch a single fish. But that really doesn’t matter. It’s lovely out there.”
The eighty-two-hundred-acre reservoir had been built on the Guadalupe River west of Pecan Springs in the late 1950s, after decades of serious downstream flooding. The lake supplied water to local communities and a small amount of hydroelectric power to the grid, as well as swimming, boating, and fishing to people and habitat to fish and wildlife. But it was still no guarantee of protection from floods. A couple of years before, after a week of heavy rains, the lake had overtopped the spillway and gouged a remarkable mile-long, fifty-feet-deep gorge out of the limestone rock below the dam, exposing rock strata a hundred million years old and revealing ancient fossils and dinosaur tracks. Sadly, a number of people had been killed in the flash flood.
But the lake and the river were threatened, both by region-wide drought and upstream pollutants and by increasing demands for water by thirsty communities in the rapidly developing counties north and east of San Antonio. A national conservation group had named the Guadalupe River as one of the ten most endangered rivers in the United States, in part because of plans to divert water from the lake and river for industrial and residential use. Every time Sheila looked across the blue lake cupped serenely in the folds of green hills, she thought about the fierce competition for the life-supporting resource it provided and wondered what lay ahead.
Beside her, China was chuckling. “Please tell me that the guys are going to clean all those fish—and not in the kitchen. Right?”
“They’re not allowed to bring a single fish up those stairs unless it’s cleaned,” Sheila said, pointing down to the wooden steps that led from the cabin to the dock. “That’s the rule. My rule. It’s hard enough to keep things shipshape around here without having to scrub fish guts out of the sink or sweep fish scales off the floor.”
China laughed. “Good rule, Smart Cookie. You’re a woman after my own heart.” She leaned her elbows on the railing, her chin propped in one hand. “It’s beautiful out here,” she said, musing, “even though it’s beginning to feel like winter’s on the way. Thanksgiving will be here before we know it.”
Sheila knew that the live oaks on the slope below would stay green all winter, until their new crop of leaves appeared in the spring. But there had already been a couple of light frosts and the hackberry and cedar elms had lost most of their leaves. When she looked down, Sheila could see the dock through the leafless branches. In the summer, it was screened by a small forest of green trees. Since the cabin was also set back from the twisting gravel road, out of sight of the neighbors, it still seemed very isolated. Not true, of course. Residential development almost completely encircled the lake.
“I love this
place,” she replied. “I just wish Blackie and I could get out here more often. Nice that you and Mike can be here with us, too,” she added, thinking that now that their husbands were working together, she and China might see more of each other.
But then again, maybe not. China’s business kept her busy, and now that she had two children, her life was crowded with family activities. And Sheila often felt that she didn’t have a spare minute for herself—or Blackie.
That was her biggest challenge, now that they were married. Making time for the two of them, together. Making time for their marriage. Making the marriage work. She smiled to herself, thinking of what Maude Porterfield had said to her and Blackie before their wedding ceremony. “Gotta grab hard and hold on tight when the going gets rough. Only way to get through the bad times. Grab hard, hold on, and don’t let go, no matter what.”
“I’m glad we could come, too—by ourselves,” China said. “It was nice of Mom to invite the kids to the ranch for the weekend.” She glanced back at the kitchen. “Two more around that little table, and we’d be in one another’s laps. And to tell the truth, I wanted McQuaid to myself for a day or two. I don’t mind telling you that I was pretty spooked about that Mexico trip, especially when I heard that those two truckers were shot south of Juárez.”
As things had turned out, of course, Blackie and McQuaid had not gone to Mexico. Blackie had gotten a tip that led them to a small house in the crowded Hispanic neighborhood of Segundo Barrio, where they had found the boy. His mother had heard that agents on both sides of the border were on the lookout for the child, who had been fingerprinted after the mom had made an earlier unsuccessful abduction attempt. If she tried to take him across at the official checkpoints, he would be easily identified and returned to his father.
So the mother had left the child with a family friend and gone across the border alone. She was trying to make arrangements with a coyote—a man who smuggled undocumented immigrants from Mexico into the U.S.—to smuggle her son into Mexico, using a route that would avoid border checkpoints and nosy border agents. She would be taking a terrible risk, for the coyotes were notoriously unreliable, often leaving their charges to die alone in the desert.
Cat's Claw Page 27