Bad Penny (23 page)

Since his suggestions were being met with resistance and he was sick and tired of snapping beans, Carter volunteered to drive over to the home place to make sure the contractors had shut all the windows before they’d left last night. After all their hard work, they didn’t want their remodeling to get rained on.

Cat knew the windows were fine—she and Wilson had checked them all themselves—but if his dad wanted a little while on his own, she wasn’t going to argue.

So she sat on the back porch with a lapful of beans, watching as Carter drove out of the yard.

Wilson was in Austin, picking up feed. It was business as usual.

Life was finally calm and orderly.

For the first time in more years than she could remember, her troubles were finally behind her.

Luis Montoya’s flight from Chihuahua to Nuevo Laredo was rough. He got out of the small commuter plane with his legs shaking and his stomach still in knots. Once or twice he’d feared that they were actually going to crash, though the little plane had only been bouncing in and out of air pockets. Even so, he was glad to be on the ground.

He reclaimed his luggage and headed for airport parking, where he’d left his car. Within the hour, he was on his way to the border.

He had a mental list of questions that needed answering from either the Dallas PD or the American bounty hunters—or both. And before he left,

he would have his answer as to why Cat Dupree made a second trip into Mexico.

Last night Jimmy Franks had been forced to make a decision about his transvestite look. Either he found a new way to disguise himself or he had to get out of Austin altogether. While he was heading through the back streets on his way to find a new ride, he’d come close to getting beat all to hell by a pair of good old boys who’d taken offense at his lipstick, his eyeshadow and his pink silk blouse.

So he’d taken himself to another secondhand shop this morning and come out with two sacks full of gear. He caught a cab and, a short while later, checked into another no-tell motel on the other side of town. Within the hour, the makeup was off his face and he was in the process of cutting his hair. But the scissors he was using were dull, and every time he grabbed up a hank of hair to cut, it pulled like hell and made his eyes water. He’d managed to cut himself once, but it had to be done. His new look called for bald. When he’d finally finished hours later, he dressed in his new garb and gave himself one last look. He was ready to move.

Bald head.

Fake black leather jacket and pants—which, now that he had them on, were making him itch.

Old army boots that were run down at the heels.

Fake swastika tattoo on the back of his neck, and an oversize chain with one end hooked to his belt buckle and the other to the wallet in his back

pocket. Skinhead.

Who would have thought?

Houston would have a fit if he saw him dressed like this.

Then Jimmy shoved his chest forward and lifted his chin, glaring himself down in the mirror.

Damn it, he needed to remember that Houston’s opinion of him didn’t matter anymore.

His older brother should never have abandoned him like he had. It was all Wilson McKay’s fault. If he’d died like he was supposed to the first time, they would both have been long gone. Houston had tried to talk him out of finishing the job, but Jimmy didn’t like being told what to do. Now he’d gone too far to turn back.

With one last look at his new persona, he tossed the room key on the bed and strode off down the street. All he needed now was a ride.

Medical examiner Marge Asher was in the middle of an autopsy on a white male, approximate age thirty-three years old. Even though the victim’s cause of death looked to be a savage beating, in a homicide, an autopsy was standard procedure.

The blood and tissue samples had been sent to the lab. Identification through facial reconstruction or dental records was, in this case, impossible. The man’s face was basically a gelatinous mass, and his extremities looked like they’d been put through a meat grinder, which meant no fingerprints were going to be available, either.

But she had an ace in the hole. A few minutes earlier, she’d pulled a serial number off the dead man’s hip replacement. The ID on the artificial joint was specific to one person only. She made note of the number, including it in her report, and soon after she was done, so she closed him up, posted her findings and sent them through the proper channels, then moved on to the next body waiting for her attention.

Her report wound up on Detective Andy Parker’s desk, but he’d caught two new homicide cases and was in hot pursuit of a man who’d killed his wife of thirty-two years, and disappeared with three million dollars of company money and his best friend’s wife.

Parker came in late the next morning and was nursing a cup of coffee as he went through the papers on his desk. When he got to the coroner’s report on the body tentatively identified as Jimmy Franks, he expected it to be a confirmation. But when he began to read, he realized their murder case had taken an unexpected twist. Yes, someone had been murdered in Jimmy Dale Franks’s motel room, but it wasn’t Jimmy Dale Franks.

“Crap,” he said, and headed for his lieutenant’s office with the paperwork in his hands. He knocked once, then went in without waiting for permission. “We’ve got ourselves a hitch in the Franks murder.”

Lieutenant Jakowski, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the force, had dealt with plenty of hitches in his career, so his response was less than concerned.

“Yeah, like what?” he asked.

Parker laid the report in front of Jakowski.

“We’ve still got a killer on the loose—probably Franks. The vic from the motel was not Jimmy Franks. According to the doctor who put an artificial hip in him five years ago, he was James Martin of Waxahatchee, Texas.”

“I thought we had fingerprints.”

“We did…do. I’m thinking Franks is a lot smarter than we’ve given him credit for. He took that room, left his prints all over the place, then killed himself off, which took the heat off the search. He’s still a loose cannon. Do we notify the press? Should we let that bail bondsman know?”

“What bail bondsman?”

“A few months ago Franks tried to kill a bail bondsman named Wilson McKay in Dallas. He got away and has been on the run ever since. He robbed a Dallas convenience store last week. Killed the clerk and stole her car, the one—”

“Oh yeah…that was found abandoned on the Austin bypass.”

“Right. And since Wilson is at his family home outside Austin, still recovering from the gunshots, there’s a possibility Franks is stalking him.”

“I know who you’re talking about now. Isn’t he the guy that went into the

stock pond after his fiancée? The woman who got caught in the tornado?” “Yeah, that’s him.”

“Crap,” Jakowski muttered. “We got ourselves a local hero who’s under the belief that his shooter is dead. Hell yes, let him know. Don’t notify the press, though. If you do, it will just alert Franks that we’re on to him again.”

“Yes, sir,” Parker said, and started to leave. “Wait!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Double-check the findings before you make that call. We’ve already fucked up once. I don’t want it happening again.”

“Are you telling me to doubt Marge Asher’s report?”

“I’m just telling you to make sure of your facts before you call McKay.”

“Fine, but I’m not calling Marge. If you want her to recheck anything, you call her. I don’t have the balls to stand up to that woman.”

Jakowski sighed. “I’m not sure I do, either.” “Well it’s your call.”

Jakowski frowned. “Just check what you can on your own. You don’t have to go through the M.E.’s office to verify stuff, damn it. Do I have to tell you everything?”

“No, sir. I’m on it.”

“Good. Let me know when you’ve finished. I’ll make the call to McKay myself.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Yeah. It’s why I make the big bucks, right?”

Parker laughed. They both knew that people who went into law enforcement sure didn’t do it for the money.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Shut the door on your way out,” Jakowski added.

Parker made sure not to slam it; then he was off to check what he could before the story got changed.

Fourteen

Jimmy Franks was strutting like a bad boy. He had bad-boy clothes. Badboy attitude. Badass gun in his jacket. But he still needed a car, and now he had the perfect plan to get one.

For the better part of the morning he’d been watching the north side of a

mall parking lot, noticing that most of the employees parked at the back edge, either at the request of the bosses, who probably wanted the closer parking spaces left for paying customers, or because they didn’t want their own vehicles exposed to constant dings by parking too close to someone else. All he had to do was wait until someone drove up alone. If the car looked presentable, it was his.

By the time he’d decided on how he would do it, he didn’t have long to wait.

About thirty minutes later a young woman wheeled off the access road into the parking lot in her small gray Honda and headed right toward where he was standing. He stepped farther behind the shrubs bordering the lot and waited for her to park.

When she got out of the car and went to the rear of the vehicle to pop the trunk, he made his move.

“Hey, honey, need some help?” he asked.

Surprised by his unexpected appearance, she jumped. “Oh, my goodness…you scared me to—”

Jimmy knocked her cold, then stuffed her inside the trunk. He gave the parking lot a quick glance, making sure he’d been unobserved, then got in the car and drove away.

He’d thought about killing her outright; then, for no reason, after he’d seen her up close, he’d changed his mind. Maybe it was because she’d been

smiling at him when he decked her.

Whatever the reason, he decided to just dump her in some isolated place on his way out of town. He’d seen an old junkyard earlier, so he when he reached the area, he drove around to the back and pulled up to where a piece of the picket fence was missing. He sat for a moment, making sure no one was around, then popped the trunk and felt for her pulse. She was still alive. Whether she stayed that way was going to be up to her. Within moments, he dragged her through the hole in the fence and rolled her beneath the stripped and rusted body of a ’56 Chevy.

“1956…I hear that was a good year,” he said, laughing at his own joke as he jumped back into the car and drove away.

He had a general idea of where the McKay ranch was located. Now all he had to do was find it.

When the contractor began applying varnish to the woodwork, Cat was evicted from the house.

“Sorry, Mrs. McKay, but these fumes aren’t healthy for someone in your condition,” he said.

“But the windows are open, and I was going to—” Wilson stuck his head around the corner. “Out. Now.”

Cat thought about arguing, then decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, she’d

never been pregnant before. For all she knew, they were right. “Okay, okay. I’m going back to the house now, then.”

“Good idea,” Wilson said. “I’ll be along later. They’re setting the countertops, and I told the guys I’d help carry them inside. They’re heavy as hell.”

“You’re the one who decided on granite,” Cat said. “I know, I know. But you’re gonna love it.”

Cat grinned. “Oh, I already love it. The stuff is gorgeous. Just don’t drop it on your foot.”

He made a face at her, then disappeared, leaving her to make her way back to the house alone. She never would have admitted it, but on a scale of one to ten, her energy level was barely a four.

When she got back to the house, Dorothy came out to meet her. “Hi, honey. How’s it going?”

“Super. Everything is going to be so pretty. I still can’t believe all this is happening.”

“Like what?” Dorothy asked.

Cat shrugged. “You know…everything. I’ve gone from the biggest loner in

Dallas to listening for the sound of one man’s footsteps. That house is just amazing. Truthfully, I’m so psyched about living there, I can hardly wait. I haven’t had a real home in so long that I’d just about forgotten what the word even meant. Add a baby to all that, and I’m still pinching myself.”

Dorothy laughed. “I see what you mean. Well, just so you know, Carter and I consider you a real jewel and the smartest thing Wilson Lee has ever done.”

Cat laughed.

Dorothy patted Cat’s cheek, then frowned. “You look pale. Why don’t you try to get in a nap before lunch?”

“I was going to help you,” Cat said. “You can help later.”

“You talked me into it,” Cat said, and headed for the bedroom, unaware that Dorothy was right behind her.

“Hey, I promise I was going to mind. You don’t have to check up on me,” she said.

Dorothy frowned. “I’m not checking up on you. I’m fussing. I always fussed when my kids were sick. You don’t get to cheat me out of another chance. Now kick off those boots and get comfy.”