Let the Guilty Pay

by Rick Treon

  I looked up at Jorge’s rig. “And you needed to use this because they’re watching your truck.”

  “Bingo.”

  “What excuse did you give him?”

  He kicked Veronica again. “I didn’t. He posted about the wind-out on Snapchat as soon as he got home, so I knew he’d eventually end up at The Oasis. I drove there and waited for him to go inside.” Paul shook his head. “Maybe someday he’ll learn not to leave his keys in the center console.”

  “And Jameson had already tipped you off that Veronica was planning on coming over to his hotel room.”

  Paul gave Veronica one last kick, sending her disappearing into the ground. “Yep. I was cutting it close, too. But she pulled up in your car about a minute after I got there. The best part is I didn’t even have to go and get her. She recognized the truck and walked right up to my window.”

  That didn’t make sense. “Why didn’t Veronica run as soon as she saw you?”

  “I told her I didn’t do it and I deserved a chance to tell my side of the story.” He looked down into his makeshift grave. “I knew you’d be too tempted to make your story better. And you were more than happy to let me start telling you my life’s story, weren’t you?”

  I jumped up into the truck bed, allowing me to see Veronica. She was in the fetal position, her chest heaving.

  I dug around in the toolbox, picked up the machete, then took a few steps toward the tailgate. “Sounds like I’m caught up. Now let us go. You still have a chance to leave and get away with this.”

  “Hey,” Paul shouted. “Put that down and get the grinder ready like I asked. We’ve got work to do.”

  I gripped the machete tighter and pointed it at him. “Why would I do anything you say? You’re going to kill me no matter what I do.”

  “Look, we both have something to gain by having Veronica dead. And if you help, I know you won’t tell anyone you’ve seen me. Then I’ll disappear.”

  “And if that doesn’t work for me?”

  Paul pulled a black pistol from behind his back and held it at his side.

  45

  The gun was Jorge’s. He hadn’t told me he kept one in a compartment hidden underneath his truck’s stereo, probably because he knew I’d be uncomfortable. Not because I was anti-gun—although I was more likely to hurt myself or my friends than successfully defend myself—but because they were forbidden on the job. And for all my shortcomings and past sins, I was a rule-follower.

  Paul told me the pistol was a last resort. Instead, we would use Jorge’s grinder—the one that didn’t require depressing a button when pulling the trigger, allowing for easier use—and bleach it afterward. Then the grinder and discs would be ditched somewhere in another field, probably a couple states away. Between the distance, the bleach, and the fact that Jorge and I were no longer suspects, there’s no chance law enforcement would find them.

  “I’ll scatter the body parts, too,” Paul said as we changed into old FRs next to black body-sized trash bags. “We’ll take her apart inside the hole, but not bury her here. They’d find her in twenty minutes. But the blood will soak into the ground and be buried deep. I hope their dogs won’t smell it, but if they do, they’ll be digging for at least a day. That’ll be a nice distraction.”

  I turned around to take off my jeans, using my body to shield my hands while I checked my phone. Still no signal. Paul continued explaining the plan as I changed into a pair of work jeans so tight in the thighs I could barely pull them up.

  “I know of a dozen open job sites in Oklahoma and Kansas. I can go out to them in the middle of the night and put an arm here, a leg there, bury them in trenches with pipe already laid in them. The cops’ll never think to look there. But even if they do, the pipeline will be filled back in soon.”

  The plan would work. But if I were to participate, I had a request. “So, I’m not putting the body parts in my car. Even if we split them up into more of these trash bags, I am not risking blood leaking out into my trunk. And there’s no reason to make Jorge a suspect, so I don’t want to use his truck.”

  “Remind me to never let you plan a murder. Before this job started, I had some friends bring me a dually owned by one of my dad’s companies.” Paul zipped up and began putting on a shirt, covering a chest and stomach that matched his arms. “After we cut her up and pack her in the trash bags, we’ll bury everything here for a little bit. I’ll come back in my dually, dig her up, and drive her out of here in that.”

  Paul was more calculating than I could’ve imagined. He’d been planning this since testing for the job. He’d known he’d kill Sylvia from the moment he met her at the strip club.

  “So, your girl told me what happened twenty years ago,” he said. “But she didn’t tell me why you killed poor Miss Foster.”

  I didn’t want to answer. But if I was going to get Veronica and myself out of there alive, I knew I had to keep Paul happy. In my experience, the best way to do that was to get people talking about how smart they are. “I want to hear how you figured out Sylvia was working for the FBI.”

  “That was easy.” Paul slipped on a pair of gloves. “She was terrible at lap dances. Plus, she was too interested in me that night. Then when she asked me if she could come work with me, I knew she wasn’t really a stripper. Now hurry up and get your shirt on.”

  I was stalling, which Paul had picked up on. But I was also enjoying the cool weather, goosebumps feeling like millions of tiny rewards for busting my ass in the heat all summer. If this was going to be my last day of freedom, I was going to enjoy the little things.

  “So why agree to bring her out with us? You could’ve never returned her calls and left her shit out of luck.”

  “If there’s one thing I learned in prison, it’s that if someone is gunning for you, they’re going to keep coming until you confront them head-on.”

  Prison. How did Paul know Sylvia wasn’t trying to get close to him for something that happened while he was there? “I still don’t understand how you knew she was with the FBI and looking for information on your dad.”

  Paul jumped into the hole and kicked Veronica again. “Just by listening to her talk. Sylvia was way too smart to be mixed up with anyone I had a beef with when I was locked up. She used words I’d never heard, and I got pretty literate by reading books in the pen.”

  He pulled his gloves off and tossed them up to me. “Go get me that new pair in the backseat,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to use a pair with Jorge’s DNA all over them, just in case. Speaking of books, you got some brass balls, going all-in on framing Butch. That’s some elaborate shit.”

  “Yeah, well, he killed my sister.” I turned to walk to the pickup. “So, you were saying you knew she was too smart to be connected to anyone you had a problem with in prison.”

  “Yeah. When I ruled out anyone from that part of my life, there was only one other reason anyone would want to work on a fucking oil pipeline just to get close to me. The FBI has been trying to get enough evidence to arrest my dad since before I left for college.”

  I tossed him the gloves. It felt like Paul had accepted the fact I was in on this with him. Time to see if I was right.

  “So, are we going to do this?”

  Paul checked an imaginary watch. “As soon as you get that grinder ready.”

  Since Paul had the experience cutting with the grinder, he would be the one to use it on Veronica, who began screaming again through the duct tape.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Aren’t you going to kill her first?”

  “Why use more than one tool? Just makes it easier to get caught. I’ll start with cutting her throat like I did Sylvia, only this time I’m not using that piece of shit baby grinder of hers, so I can keep going until her head comes off.”

  “Won’t the disc break?”

  “Well, you just found four in the toolbox. And I’m going to wear your face shield for protection. Which reminds me, I need you to bring me your face shield, too.”

  During
my first job site orientation, Jorge and I had to watch five hours of safety videos as required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. When my eyes wandered during a particularly boring part of the instruction, a poster on the back wall caught my attention. It showed a close-up of a man’s face. Coming out of his right cheek was half of a disc, the text underneath the photo warning us not to use a grinder without a face shield.

  “Good idea.”

  I finished reassembling the grinder, plugged it into the extension cord connected to the welding machine, and laid it on the tailgate next to the machete. I dug in the cab and emerged wearing the hardhat and shield, started Jorge’s machine to power the grinder, and gathered the tools. I took off the hardhat and tossed it down to Paul, then knelt beside the hole, which was just over five feet deep. He put on the hardhat and turned to Veronica, who began screaming through the duct tape and writhing in the dirt.

  Paul flipped the face shield down and, without looking back at me, reached out his hand.

  46

  I thought the machete would be more effective. When Paul made the mistake of blindly holding out his arm, expecting me to be a good helper and hand him the murder weapon, I reached behind my back and pulled the blade from my waistband.

  But the machete was dull and my swing too timid. The blade hit Paul’s forearm bone with a sickening thud, but I’d expected it to slice through like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

  I reached back to take another swing. As I tried to guillotine Paul’s wrist, I felt a strong grip on my ankle, followed by the pain of small rocks and prairie brush digging into my back. Paul pulled at my left leg to drag me down. I used my free hand and reached for something to slow my descent, but all I could hook was the extension cord. The grinder and I went tumbling.

  Paul kicked me in the side of the head and grabbed my right wrist to take away the machete. Though I was stronger, he had leverage and the use of two hands. He pried the handle out of my grip as he kicked me repeatedly in the gut. I rolled with the momentum and pain, and my elbow grazed the cutting disc. I grabbed the grinder with one hand, positioned my thumb and index finger, and rolled back toward Paul, blindly swinging as I pulled the trigger.

  Paul dodged the arc of my arm—except for his ankle, which took a second to slow the advance of the disc. Paul’s shriek rose above the exhaust of the welding machine and startled me.

  He still brought the machete down, but it wasn’t hard for me to dodge. Paul dropped the blade when it hit the ground and used both hands to tug at the grinder, which was now attached to his ankle as the cutting disc dug into his bone. I pulled the trigger again, but the disc was lodged too firmly. The disc didn’t spin, but the grinder did and we both lost our grip as it whipped around his foot.

  Paul remained doubled over, holding his lame leg. I scrambled toward the machete and secured it before standing and facing Paul. He’d stopped screaming and broke the disc at its center, removing the grinder but leaving part of the disc sticking out of his blood-soaked jeans.

  Paul reached behind his back and pulled the pistol from his waistband.

  “Enough of this shit,” he yelled. “I should’ve killed you before we even started this fucking job.”

  I raised the machete and prepared to bull rush him, but something wasn’t right. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “You think you and Butch are even, don’t you? You think putting him on Death Row is the right punishment for the accident that killed your sister. But what about taking Summer away from him? You two aren’t even close to even. But you will be.”

  Paul aimed the pistol at me. I closed my eyes.

  47

  The moment you wait for certain death is not like the movies would have us believe. I didn’t see a montage of my life. I saw no visions of a future I wouldn’t live. My brain was still in the present, trying to process what Paul had just said. He’d wanted to kill me from the moment we reconnected at the strip club. And for what? Retribution on Butch Heller’s behalf?

  I was still searching for the missing piece of information when I heard the click.

  The gun hadn’t fired. I opened my eyes to find Paul panicking. He must’ve thought Jorge kept one in the chamber. I charged at Paul, let out what I’m sure was a ridiculous-sounding primal scream, and began hacking at his arm. When he dropped the gun, I changed my target and brought the machete down on his neck.

  Paul fell after the second swing. He quit making noise after the fourth.

  I dropped the blade and let my right arm dangle in exhaustion. I tried through labored breaths to ask if Veronica was okay, but then realized she still had silver tape over her mouth. I peeled it away as gently as I could, though she still whimpered.

  “How bad are you hurt?” I asked.

  “No broken bones as far as I can tell. Except a few ribs.”

  I knelt beside her and struggled to rip the duct tape from around her knees. Paul had gone around her legs at least three times, and I wasn’t making much progress. I felt in my pockets for a knife I knew wasn’t there. “Listen, I’m going to go get that machete,” I told Veronica, “but it’s just to cut you loose, okay?”

  She nodded. The machete did the job, and I motioned to the zip ties around her feet. She nodded again, and I used the tip of the blade to cut the black plastic. She rolled over so I could cut the ties around her hands, too.

  “You had me fooled,” she said after standing. “I really thought you were going to help him kill me.”

  I’d considered it. What person in my situation wouldn’t have? But when I saw the machete was still out of Jorge’s toolbox, I knew I had a fighting chance.

  “Hey,” Veronica said, “could you drop that thing, please?”

  “Oh, sorry,” I dropped the blade beside my feet. “But yeah, I had to be convincing enough for Paul to let his guard down.”

  Her gaze shifted past me to his body. I turned to follow it.

  “What should we do with him?” I asked.

  I stared at Paul’s neck. I’d gotten about halfway through, and his head was lying crooked. He died facing us, his eyes open. Even in his last moment Paul looked angry.

  “We shouldn’t hide the body,” Veronica said. “Then those Texas Rangers will keep looking and keep digging into everything.” She motioned around the hole we were in. “No pun intended.”

  “Like I always say, honesty is the best policy.”

  Veronica stared at me until I realized what I’d said.

  “Since then, I mean.”

  Veronica started crossing her arms but stopped and reached for her ribs.

  “I’ll never convince you that I’m a good person, will I? Even though I saved your life.”

  “I’ll consider it a start.”

  I had to take what I could get and move on. “So, we’re agreed: we tell Walker and let the chips fall where they may.”

  I helped her out of the pit, and we started walking to Jorge’s truck. She took a few steps on her own. I walked up next to her and put her arm over my shoulder when it became obvious the pain wouldn’t allow her to hike alone.

  I knew it was selfish, but I had to see if Veronica could help make sense of what just happened. “Were you able to hear what Paul said right before he tried to shoot me? That stuff about me and Butch Heller not being even?”

  She nodded. “He told me all about that, bragging about how he could tell me everything since I was about to be dead. He was a narcissistic asshole to the bitter end.” She winced and we stopped walking. “I probably should’ve put it together yesterday when I read that Paul did his time at the Polunsky Unit. That’s also where they hold Death Row inmates. Hell, I’ve been there half a dozen times to see Butch.”

  I’d been there a few times, too, nervous each time I would somehow see Heller. “But Butch was segregated on Death Row.”

  “Paul was a cocky, violent prick. He got in fights and was eventually sent to Ad-Seg. Normal inmates have their own solitary cells separate from Death
Row, but Paul Schuhmacher was never considered a normal inmate. At that point his dad was either a state senator or congressman, so Paul only got the best of the best. And at the Polunsky Unit, that meant his solitary was on Death Row, per the warden.”

  “So, when Paul realized he was on the same block as Heller, he reached out through the guards.”

  Veronica shook her head. “Butch reached out to Paul. Butch really did find religion on the inside, and he wanted to help straighten Paul out. They had some kind of falling out right before the murder. Paul didn’t give me any details on that, but he said they bribed the guards and got notes to each other for years out there. Paul told me Butch became more of a father figure than his own dad.” Her pain seemed to disappear for a moment and a smile emerged on her dusty face. “Butch had a way of doing that.”

  I motioned up the hill, and we resumed our climb. As we walked, I tried filling in the rest of the blanks. I couldn’t. “I get that Heller told Paul that I killed Summer, and Paul wanted to kill me for it. But I still don’t understand how Heller found out I killed Summer.”

  Veronica groaned as her bare foot slipped in a patch of loose dirt. “That was me. After I figured it out, I visited Butch. I was nineteen. It was about a month before he was supposed to be executed the first time. Butch told me later he called Paul from Huntsville right before it was about to happen. Well, he called Paul’s father—he had that number memorized—and he conferenced Paul in. That must be when Butch told Paul you killed Summer.”

  As soon as Veronica said it, I remembered reading about the call in her story. “Paul’s planning wasn’t for Sylvia,” I said. “He was always going to kill me.”

  Veronica was tearing up from the pain and fell to her knees on the side of the hill. I sat down beside her and asked if she wanted me to go ahead and try calling for help.