Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip (17 page)

Colby glared at him. “You were watching all that shit, weren’t you?”

Marlin shrugged. “I had no idea what was going to happen.”

Colby looked at him with suspicion.

“Really,” Marlin said.

Colby shook his head.

“Garza doesn’t want me working the case,” Marlin said. “I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you.” A truck pulled up from behind, and Marlin waved him around. “Look, just climb in, will you?”

After a few seconds, Colby opened the door and settled into the passenger seat. Marlin hit the gas and headed toward Miller Creek Loop.

The crisp spring air whipped through the open windows of the truck as both men rode in silence.

Colby finally said, “Those guys are so far off base it’s not even funny.”

“I know, Phil. I know. But they’ve gotta check everything out.”

“Total bullshit.”

“Give it time.”

“Time? It’s a waste of goddamn time.”

Another mile went by.

“The best thing you can do is answer their questions,” Marlin said.

“Not a fucking chance.” Colby hadn’t cooled down, not even a little.

“Right or wrong,” Marlin said, “when a suspect asks for a lawyer, well, it looks like…”

Colby snapped his head around. “Like what? Like I’m guilty?”

“That’s what gets into some people’s heads.”

“Into your head?”

“Nope.”

Colby ran both hands over his scalp in frustration. “Oh, man, this is such an amazing crock of shit. Yeah, so I didn’t like Scofield. The man was an asshole, and plenty of people hated his guts. Why did they zero in on me?”

Marlin kept his voice low and measured, hoping to bring some calm to the conversation. “The incident at the courthouse. That doesn’t look good for you.”

“That was months ago.”

Marlin followed the twisting road past a ranch called Selah, where a man with a vision had single-handedly redefined modern habitat-restoration techniques. Selah was five thousand acres of thriving grasslands and wooded canyons, an ecosystem as healthy as any in the state. On most days, the drive along this narrow, pitted blacktop instilled in Marlin an overwhelming sense of serenity. Not today.

“The tire tracks, too,” he said. “That’s a problem.”

“I get my tires at Save-Mart in Marble Falls,” Colby said. “Just like half the people in this county.”

“Yeah
,
I know, and you didn’t even mention that back there.”

“Are you defending them?”

Marlin could feel a small pool of anger welling in his gut. “I don’t have to defend them, Phil. They’re cops, and they’re doing their jobs. End of story.”

Marlin slowed and steered through the gate to the Circle S Ranch, just as he had done a thousand times before.

“Doing their jobs like a couple of Nazis,” Colby muttered.

“Goddamn, just take it easy,” Marlin snapped, and immediately regretted it.

“Yeah
,
okay,” Colby said, full of sarcasm. “I’ll just take it easy until I wind up in Huntsville. How’s that? I’ll just take it easy and let these local pinheads screw up the rest of my life.”

Marlin clamped his jaw tight and said nothing. Neither man spoke as Marlin followed the rugged caliche road to the front of Colby’s house.

“Go ahead and ask me,” Colby said.

“Ask you what?”

“Oh, come on. You know you want to ask. Was I over at Scofield’s house? Are those my tire tracks they found?”

Marlin came to a stop and put the truck in park. “Phil, I—”

“Just ask!”

Marlin couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Okay, tell me, then, if it’s so damn important to you. Were you over there or not?”

It was as if someone flicked a switch that controlled the emotion in Colby’s face. The anger drained out immediately, replaced by an expression of such profound disappointment that Marlin felt himself cringe.

Colby stepped out of the truck without another word.

“Hey!” Marlin called after him. “Hey, Phil!”

Colby said something without turning. Marlin couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like “Have fun in San Antone.”

“HEY, LUKE!”

Lucas turned and saw Rob and Fiona trundling after him as he walked down Duval Street. When they caught him, they were both short of breath.

“We couldn’t just let you leave,” Rob huffed.

“Not without an ID,” Fiona gasped. “How are you going to write checks? How are you going to use credit cards?”

“We wondered if you might need a few bucks.”

“To help you get home.”

“That way your vacation won’t be spoiled.”

They both had such honest and open faces, and their gesture was so kind, Lucas felt guilty for being short with them in the bar.

“Guys, that is really nice,” Lucas said. “But I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely positive?”

“You could call it a loan.”

“Yeah, pay us back if you want.”

“Or not. It doesn’t matter.”

Lucas was starting to like this annoying couple. They reminded him of people back home, where strangers could become friends in a matter of minutes.

“Really, I appreciate it, but I’m all set.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” Rob said, “we’re staying at the Happy Clam.”

“Nice little place,” Fiona chimed in, “but nothing too fancy.”

“Clean sheets.”

“Plenty of hot water.”

“Just give us a call.”

“Or come see us.”

“Where are you staying, Luke?”

“Someplace close?”

Lucas waved vaguely to the east and said he’d forgotten the name of the motel. Then he thanked them again and continued on his way.

“Hey, Luke!” Rob called out again.

Lucas turned. Now they were back to being pests. Maybe he should take their money.

“Smile!” Rob called. He was holding a small camera, and he snapped a picture of Lucas.

“For our scrapbook!” Fiona said.

Lucas gave them one last wave and quickly lost himself in the crowd.

Colby closed the front door behind him and waited until he heard Marlin drive away. He knew he shouldn’t have made that last remark, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d never been that angry before in his life.

He plopped into a living room chair and sat without moving for fifteen minutes, taking deep breaths, letting his mind settle down.

A cold beer. That’s what he needed. Maybe several.

He stood and made his way to the darkened kitchen. He turned on the lights, and he heard a voice say, “I think you and me need to have a long talk.”

Colby turned and saw a man sitting at the table. Baby blue suit. Stetson. The man who had presented himself as an interested hunter had a bottle of beer in his left hand. His right hand covered a revolver that rested on the tabletop.

“Mr. Jones,” Colby said, “come on in and make yourself at home. Oh, wait, you already have.”

Jones—which was obviously not his real name unless the guy was a total moron—raised the gun and pointed it at Colby. “Have a seat, Phil.”

“I prefer to stand. Sitting is hell on my hemorrhoids.”

Jones gave a slight smile, but there was steel in his voice. “Have a fucking seat. Now.” Colby moved toward the table, and Jones said, “Uh-uh. Not at the table. Right there, on the floor.”

Colby quickly pondered his options. There were knives in the drawers, but what good was a knife against a .38? And speaking of guns, Colby kicked himself for not carrying one himself. He was licensed to do just that, but he had figured they might not like him bringing it to the sheriff’s office. For the moment, that left two possibilities: Run like hell and hope this guy was a poor shot. Or sit down. He sat.

“Very good,” Jones said, nodding. “A wise man makes wise choices, Phil, and I think you just made a good one. Trust me.”

Colby couldn’t help but let out a small snort at that.

Jones ignored it. “I’m gonna tell you how this is gonna go, Phil, and I want to be absolutely clear on it just so there’s no confusion. So here’s the deal. I’m fixing to ask you a question, and you’re immediately gonna answer me. No lies, no bullshit, and no reason for me to put a slug in your forehead. ‘Cause believe me, I’m prepared to do that. In fact, it really don’t make much difference to me either way. The only thing on the plus side is, I get paid more if you give me what I want. You follow me?”

“Sounds fairly straightforward to me,” Colby said, thinking,
What the hell does this guy want?

“Good, then,” Jones said. “We have an understanding. But I should tell you—I’m not gonna ask twice. You get one answer, and one answer only. We clear?”

Colby rubbed a finger on the linoleum floor. “Look at all this waxy buildup. I’m not much of a housekeeper, to be honest.”

Jones pulled the hammer back on the .38. “Are…we…clear?”

Colby shrugged. “Yeah, sure, we’re clear.”

“Okay, then. Here we go. The big question. Where are the negatives?”

Colby hadn’t known what to expect. Maybe a question about Vance Scofield, because, after all, who the hell was this guy? Some lunatic Scofield’s buddies had sent? Some nutcase who, like the deputies, thought, Colby was a killer? But what was this about negatives?

Colby tried to appear appropriately meek and submissive as he held up a finger. “Uh…I’m not sure I understand. Did you say negatives?”

Jones’s face was a vivid red. He extended his arm, and now the barrel of the gun was less than five feet from Colby’s head, “I’m warning you. Not another fucking word unless you’re telling me where they are.”

So Colby didn’t say anything.

Jones stared at him. Colby stared back. Ten seconds went by. Then twenty. Colby could hear the clock on the wall ticking.

Jones shifted his weight, the old wooden chair squeaking beneath him. “Well?”

Colby held up his arms in a gesture of helplessness.

“Talk, goddamn it!” Jones screamed, his arm visibly shaking.

“Okay,” Colby said in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Okay, but help me out a little. What’re we talking about here? Prom photos? Graduation? What?”

Jones squeezed and the gun in his hand roared.

“You ready to hear the plan?” Red asked.

He and Billy Don and Lucy were sitting at the small dinette in Red’s kitchen, swilling back their fourth round of Bloody Marys. Red had been holding off on telling Billy Don all the specifics, because the big man was liable to be a problem, but now, with Lucy here, she and Red could sell the plan to Billy Don together. It would be a big help, mostly because Lucy was so much more persuasive than Red was. When words came out of her mouth, they sounded like individual nuggets of unvarnished wisdom and truth. She even made the dishonest part of it sound all right.

Billy Don nodded.

“Okay,” Lucy said, “here’s the deal. Like I said, this old guy Scofield is one of my clients. I go to see him three times a week to give him his shots, make sure he’s taking his medication, that sort of thing. He’s kinda deaf, confused half the time, so he’s a shut-in.”

“Shut in what?” Billy Don asked.

“That means he don’t leave the house. His health ain’t good enough.”

“What’s he got?”

“All kinds of great shit. He’s rich.”

“No, I mean what’s he sick with?”

“Does it really matter? He’s just old, okay? And besides, we’re not really stealing from him. We’re stealing from his son.”

“The dead one?”

“That’s the only one he has.”

“But I don’t—”

“Just let me explain everything first, okay? Then you can ask all your questions.”

Lucy was getting impatient, and Red could understand. “Yeah, let’s just let her lay it all out, Billy Don. It’ll all make sense.”

Billy Don mumbled for Lucy to go ahead.

“So the son, Vance—he comes over to the house several times a week. Maybe more, because all I have to go by is the times he showed up when I was there myself. At first, I thought he was just being a good son and all that, coming to see his dad. But then I started noticing that Vance would only stick around for a few minutes each time, and he’d always go into one of the back bedrooms before he left. He’d just duck in there, close the door, and be back out a couple minutes later. Well, there’s a big walk-in closet in that room, and you wanna guess what’s in that closet?”

The question was directed at Billy Don, so Red didn’t say anything. He already knew what the answer was.

“Dirty magazines?” Billy Don asked, grinning. “That’s what I keep in my closet.”

“That’s a good guess,” Lucy answered. Red could tell she was just being nice so Billy Don would get on board. “But no, what he’s got in there is a safe.”

“A safe? Like a…safe?”

“Yeah. It’s about yea high, maybe three feet square. Heavy as hell.”

“What’s in it?”

“Well, hell, ain’t no way to know for sure. But I think we can safely assume it’s something valuable. Probably money.”

“Cash money?”

“I’m betting so. Let me ask you something. Have you heard about that Rotary Club raffle? They’re giving away that Corvette?”

“Yeah, I think so. Shoulda been a truck, you ask me.”

“You’re probably right. Anyway, I come to learn that Vance was the treasurer for all that. He was in charge of all the money from the ticket sales.” She laughed. “He even tried to sell me a ticket one time. Like I was gonna go for that sucker bet.”

“So you’re thinking he was keeping all the money in the safe.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Billy Don pulled a stalk of celery out of his Bloody Mary and started munching on it, apparently thinking things through. Then he said the one thing Red was afraid he was going to say. “I’m not sure I like it. It’s stealing from charity. They give that money to poor kids and such.”

It was the same thing Red had said to Lucy on Wednesday night at the bar. But then she had explained everything to him, and in a weird kind of way, it had all made perfect sense.

“Yeah,” Lucy said to Billy Don, “but they got an insurance policy against theft and that sort of thing. All of them raffles do. A policy issued by the U.S. government.”

Billy Don looked confused. “I didn’t know the guv’mint handled stuff like that. You sure?”

“Damn right they do. It’s the law. Just like bank deposits. Fully insured.”

Red hadn’t known that fact himself until Lucy had informed him of it.

“I don’t know,” Billy Don said. “It still don’t seem right.”

Billy Don wasn’t coming around as quickly as Red had hoped, but he knew Lucy wasn’t done yet.

She said, “You ever take a close look at one of your paychecks, Billy Don?”

“Not really.”

“Well, if you did, you’d see that the IRS takes a big whopping chunk out of it every time. Income taxes, Social Security, Medicare—it’s all lopped right off the top. They take way more than their fair share, and you and me don’t hardly wind up with anything to show for it, do we?”

“Naw, I guess we don’t.”

“Then you got your property taxes, just like Red pays on this fine mobile home, and that’s where some of your rent goes. Those property taxes include school taxes, and you ain’t even got any kids, do ya?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Then why the hell you got to pay school taxes?”

Billy Don scratched his scalp with the stalk of celery, then took another bite. “That’s a damn good question.”

“There’s county taxes, too, which pays for the roads and such, and that don’t seem fair because you ain’t got a car, neither. And if you
did
have a car, they’d slap a tax on you just for driving the damn thing.”

Billy Don looked at Red for confirmation. Red nodded. “I get a bill every year. Plus, they make me get it inspected.”

“And of course there’s a fee for that,” Lucy said. “And don’t forget sales tax. Every time one private individual buys something in a store owned by another private individual, the government sticks its nose in and charges you for it. Does that seem right?”

“Dadgum, no it don’t. Those greedy sumbitches. It ain’t really their affair.”

“Hell no, it ain’t. They tax you coming and they tax you going. Every damn day of your life, including the day you die, there’s a tax for it. They take your hard-earned money away from you, and there’s never been anything you can do about it. Until now. The money in that safe is rightfully yours, Billy Don. We’re not taking it away from the charities, because they got insurance. We’re taking it away from the government, and hell, they practically owe it to you. It’s a rebate on all the money they been conning you out of all these years.”

Billy Don smacked his fist on the tabletop. “I want my damn money back!”

“Okay, then! That’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take it back!”

“But how we gonna get the money out of the safe?”

Lucy held up a finger. “One thing at a time. First, we’ve gotta get the safe out of the house.”

They explained the plan in more detail to Billy Don, and the first question he asked was, “We’re supposed to be plumbers, huh?” He smiled. “We gotta wear pants that show our butt cracks?”

“Just wear what you always wear,” Lucy said. “It ain’t like they got a standard uniform.”

Red said, “When are we gonna do it?”

“I figure this afternoon. Might as well get after it. The bedroom where the safe is—it has its own bathroom. I already told the old man I thought there was a problem with the toilet in there. Yesterday I told him I’d see about getting somebody in to look at it.”

They discussed a few more odds and ends, Lucy coaching them on how to behave, what to say, things like that. To Red, it almost felt like they were getting ready for a school play.

“Speaking of toilets,” Billy Don said. He rose from his chair and steered himself down the hallway to the bathroom. A moment later, Red could clearly hear a stream of urine hitting the water in the toilet.

“Damn, Billy Don, shut the door! We got a lady present.”

Billy Don grunted in reply, and Red heard the door close.

Now the trailer was quiet. Almost too quiet. It was the first time Red and Lucy had been alone since she’d asked him if he had his own bedroom.
You never can tell when you might need a little privacy.
Probably just talk, he figured, but he noticed that she was staring at him now, and it was making him nervous. He looked down at his drink, then back up, and she had a strange look in her eye.