Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip (15 page)

“Yeah? How does that impact on this? We’re not investigating Phil, we’re looking for—”

“He’s a suspect, John. At the moment, anyway.”

“A suspect in
what?”
Somehow Marlin knew what was coming.

“Travis County just called me thirty minutes ago. Vance Scofield didn’t die in the flood. He was dead before he went in the water.”

BUFORD WAS SLEEPING hard when his cell phone rang. He sat up, fumbling for the phone on the nightstand, answering before it went to voicemail. “Yeah?”

“What in the hell are you doing?” a voice growled on the other end.

Here we go,
he thought.

“Uncle Chuck. Damn. What time is it?”

“Six-thirty in the morning, son. Rise and shine and answer one fucking question for me: Have you put a name to this blackmailer yet?”

“Yes, sir,” Buford said proudly. “That part was easy. Guy’s name is—”

“Phil Colby.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“You know him?”

“Hell yeah, I know him. He sued a guy I know about a high fence. Real pain in the balls.”

“How was I supposed to know you knew him?”

Uncle Chuck didn’t answer, and Buford knew he’d made his point.

“Besides,” Buford said, “what difference would it have made? I still gotta go after the guy, right?”

“Damn right you gotta go after him, but I don’t want another supreme fuckup like you got into last night. I heard all about it.”

Buford had figured word would get around. Blanco County was a small place, tongues wagging every morning at the coffee shop. And with Uncle Chuck knowing who Phil Colby was, it must have been pretty easy to figure out what the shooting was all about.

“Just puttin’ a scare into him,” Buford said, glancing over at Joe. Still sleeping. Something smelled bad. The room was stuffy and hot.

“Don’t sound like it worked all that good,” Hamm said. “I hear he came after you loaded for bear. I’m thinking y’all mighta underestimated this guy. Word is, deputies found some blood. We got a problem?”

“Nothing to worry about. I got it all under control.”

The old man snorted. “I think you better run the whole mess past me. If this thing’s getting out of hand—”

“No, sir, it ain’t. It’s all part of the plan.” And Buford explained what had happened so far. He told him how they had posed as hunters two days ago, and Little Joe had searched Colby’s house. Then he told him about yesterday—how they had started with reconnaissance in the morning, cruising Miller Creek Loop, looking for a place to stash the car. They’d pulled into an overgrown driveway and found a neglected hunting cabin way back in the trees. Later, in the afternoon, they parked behind the cabin and hiked onto Colby’s place, then they got into position and simply waited. Everything had gone smoothly—until Colby fired back.

Buford could hear Uncle Chuck let out a small groan of impatience. “So you’re thinking—what?—he’ll freak out and turn the photos over?”

“That pretty much sums it up.” Looking back on the plan now, Buford knew it made him and Little Joe sound like rank amateurs. Emphasis on the word “rank.” Damn, something smelled bad.

Uncle Chuck took a long pause. “I’d say you boys screwed the pooch on this one.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I’ll work something out. I always do.” Buford kept it short and to the point, not wanting to get into a discussion with his bullheaded uncle. He looked over at Joe again and saw that the bandage around his partner’s lower torso was soaked through with blood. Not a good sign.

“He’ll be ready for you now,” his uncle said. “He knows we know who he is.”

“Let me deal with it.” Buford didn’t want the old man nosing into all the specifics.

“Well, keep me in the loop.”

Little Joe’s color was way off.

“You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Buford said. “Just give it a little time.”

Buford stood up in the small space between the two beds, looking down on Joe now. He pulled the covers back, and the smell got worse. The kind of odor that comes from bowels letting loose.

“Here’s what you oughta do…” Uncle Chuck said, but Buford folded the phone, ending the call.

He placed a hand against Joe’s cheek.
Aw, Christ.
Stone cold.

Red woke up Friday morning feeling like a new man, with a hardy resolve to quit drinking completely. Then he decided, heck, there was no reason to go overboard, so he made a silent vow to cut back a whole bunch. Or if nothing else, he was going to keep a bottle of aspirin handy on his nightstand. Right about then, before Red could even shower, Lucy showed up fifteen minutes early. She was carrying a bag filled with all the fixings for Bloody Marys.

“I kinda figured you didn’t have any horseradish,” she said, lining up all the ingredients on Red’s kitchen countertop. She’d marched right into the trailer, Red following behind in a T-shirt and a pair of dirty denim shorts.

“You figured right,” he said, watching her work, running a hand through his matted hair, trying to make himself presentable.

Lucy was looking as good today as she had on Wednesday night, wearing black sweatpants and a shirt with a picture of Jeff Gordon on it. Red judged her to be about five-seven, going about one-fifty. Perfect. He liked a woman he could hold on to.

She opened a cabinet and found two plastic cups with the Austin Wranglers logo on them. She peered into the cups and made a face, then shrugged and placed them on the counter.

“We’ll need three of those,” Red said.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Billy Don’s here already? I only saw one truck outside.”

“He ain’t got a vehicle.”

“You’re shitting me. How’d he get here?”

“Well, uh, he kinda lives here. He’s still sleeping.”

She stopped what she was doing and turned around, grinning. “Aw, ain’t that cute. Two precious boys setting up house together.”

She giggled, so Red glared at her, and that only made it worse. She went back to mixing up each concoction: a healthy dose of vodka, a splash of tomato juice, a blob of Tabasco and Worcestershire, followed by the horseradish, some salt, and a blast of pepper. Then she jammed a stalk of celery into each drink and handed one to Red. He couldn’t remember ever holding a beverage so exotic. He tasted it, and the vodka brought tears to his eyes.

Lucy moved in close and quietly said, “You and Billy Don live here together, but you’ve got your own bedroom, right?”

Red nodded, feeling a sneeze coming on from the pepper.

“That’s good,” she said, strutting her way into the living room, speaking over her shoulder. “You never can tell when you might need a little privacy.”

Red’s eyes got wide.

The first thing Buford had done was panic. He’d gathered up his gear, wiped down every surface that might hold one of his prints, and hauled ass, leaving Little Joe right where he’d died. Sure, Buford would be letting Uncle Chuck down—giving up on the job like that—but some things are more important. Like staying the hell out of prison.

He’d been fifty miles up Highway 281 when he realized something. Little Joe had signed for the motel room, not Buford. Buford hadn’t even set foot in the office. There was nothing to connect Buford to Joe on this. There were no prints on Colby’s rifle, no prints in Colby’s house. In short, no reason to run.
Hell, boy,
he’d told himself,
just calm down and think things through.

So he turned around and drove back to Johnson City. This time, though, instead of parking right in front of the room, he parked around back. Didn’t need some busybody describing the car later.

Inside the room, he stripped off all his clothes—to keep them clean—and dragged Joe to the bathroom. Then he flopped the stiffening corpse into the tub.

Buford got dressed again and poked his head out the door for a look-see. Lucky thing was, the ice machine was right around the corner. He grabbed the trashcan, which was much bigger than the ice bucket, and got to work. It took a dozen trips, but twenty minutes later, Joe was buried under a foot of cubes.

Next, Buford called the front office, changing his voice a tad without sounding obvious about it. “I want to book my room for three more days…That’s right, till Monday…Just use that credit card I gave you when I checked in…Okay, thanks. Oh, one more thing. Let’s put a hold on the maid service…Yeah, no service at all. I’ll take care of it myself…No, I won’t even need fresh towels. No service at all…Yeah, thanks.”

Buford hung up and remembered to wipe off the handset. No prints anywhere, because he might not be back. He’d told them three days, but that was just a cushion.

Hell, he might be ready to leave in three hours. Because he was going back to see Phil Colby again.

And this time, he wasn’t fucking around.

Phil Colby and Bobby Garza entered the interview room at ten o’clock, and Marlin was watching from behind the one-way glass. He could tell from Colby’s body language that he was tense, maybe a little angry, and the questions hadn’t even begun yet. In fact, Colby had no idea what was in store.

Marlin hadn’t talked to him since the night before, when Garza had revealed the findings of Scofield’s autopsy. There were several times, lying awake in the middle of the night, when Marlin had wanted to call Colby and talk it through, but he decided it was best to keep out of it for now, as Garza had asked. Another thought had occurred to Marlin at about four in the morning. There was another person who needed to be looked at closely. A man who had become very angry at Scofield because of a dead white-tailed buck.

“Thanks for coming in,” Garza said as he and Colby took seats around the small round table. “You sure you don’t want coffee?”

“Thanks, but let’s just get to it,” Colby replied. “Like I said last night, I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

“No, you’ve done great so far, Phil. We appreciate your patience. You get your truck fixed?”

“It’s over at the shop right now getting new tires.”

“Good. Man’s gotta have his wheels. I guess you didn’t have two spares on hand, huh?”

To Marlin, Garza seemed to be stalling. Why the interest in Colby’s truck?

“Even the one spare I had was flat,” Colby said.

“Listen,” said Garza, “I know we’ve gone over this, but I want you to think hard and see if you can come up with any reason somebody might’ve fired those shots. Any recent run-ins with anybody?” Garza smiled. “You been chasing somebody’s wife?”

“Yeah, you know me, a regular Casanova. But for the record, no.”

Now the door to the interview room opened and Bill Tatum entered, carrying a manila envelope. He sat next to Garza without saying a word. He looked at the sheriff and nodded once.

Garza continued, “Actually, Phil, the other thing I wanted to talk about is Vance Scofield.”

Colby nodded. “If he hadn’t drowned, I would’ve figured he was the one who shot at me. Could be one of his high-fence buddies, though. Is that what y’all are thinking?”

By now, Marlin could feel his face flushing with guilt. Last night, Garza hadn’t told Colby how Scofield had died, and he had asked Marlin to remain silent about it, too, until Garza held a news conference later this morning. So Marlin had had no choice. Now he had to sit back and watch Colby get ambushed.

Bill Tatum quietly said, “That could be a possibility, Phil, but let’s put the shooting aside for a minute. What I need to tell you is, Scofield didn’t drown, he was the victim of a homicide.”

Colby looked from Tatum to Garza and back again. “He was murdered?”

Tatum nodded. Garza didn’t speak.

“How was he killed?”

“Well,” Garza said, “we’re gonna keep that to ourselves for the time being.”

His skull was cracked,
Marlin remembered Garza saying.
Subdural hematoma. The kind of injury that has a lot of anger behind it. Not a drowning, according to the ME. No water in the lungs.
That’s why, at that very minute, Ernie Turpin was returning to Vance Scofield’s house, securing the place in preparation for a more exhaustive search.

“I’m not seeing what this has to do with me,” Colby said. “Am I a suspect or something?” Colby was smiling, but he was starting to stiffen up.

Garza drummed a pencil on the table, and Marlin was familiar enough with the sheriff’s mannerisms to know he was searching for the right words. “Considering the bad blood between the two of y’all, we’re just trying to get a better picture of the situation. All we’re doing right now is trying to rule various people out. That includes you, because you and Scofield had a history.”

Colby leaned forward. “So I
am
a suspect? Oh, come on, Bobby. You’ve gotta be kidding. You know me better than that.”

“Yeah, I do, Phil. But you almost got into a fistfight with the man a few months back. So I’ve gotta ask you some questions. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing my job. It’s just routine.”

Colby now had an expression that Marlin knew all too well. A pained smile that signaled a flaring temper. His voice was getting more belligerent with each statement. “This is ridiculous. You’re wasting your time.”

“Just bear with us, Phil. Will you answer a few questions?”

“Hell yeah, I’ll answer them. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Okay, then, just settle down and let’s get through this. For starters, tell us why you called Vance Scofield last Saturday.”

Colby leaned his head back in exasperation. “I already told your deputy. The fencing crew was working my property line, so I called Vance and told him they’d better stay off my land. It was just a harassment call, I admit it. Besides, he’s got a couple of poachers working on that crew.”

Marlin noticed that Colby referred to Scofield in the present tense, which was a good thing.

“What did Scofield say?”

“He told me to fuck off and hung up.”

“Those were his words?”

“Yes, exactly. He said, ‘Fuck off,’ and hung up on me.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?”

“Right after the call, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. Like I said, I just wanted to get under his skin, and I figured, with a response like that, it must’ve worked.”

“You didn’t decide to drive over to his place, maybe settle this thing once and for all?”

“Hell no.”

“Have you ever been to his ranch?”

“No.”

“Does anybody else ever drive your truck?” Garza asked.

“Nobody drives it but me.”

“So your truck was in your possession and nobody else’s last Saturday?”