Death in the Distillery (10 page)

When I left Hawkins' cabin, I noticed the lights were off
in Tom Seldes' place. I decided to let him wait until tomorrow. Besides, I needed some time to go over my notes.
As usual, some contradictions had popped up, such as the
color of the missing girl's blouse. Jackson claimed it was
white; Hawkins said red. And no one knew exactly who
took the tractor from the garage.

I had an uneasy feeling that the words "accidental death"
on the death certificate might be subject to a re-evaluation.
All of a sudden, a few curious holes were appearing in the
accident theory.

I wasn't trying to build a murder case, but the fact was
just about everyone I interviewed had a reason to kill Emmett Patterson. Mary Tucker most of all, because Emmett
got her daughter pregnant and caused the miscarriage.
Hawkins was next in my book because of money. Then
Runnels, because Emmett was a punk, which wasn't much of a reason for murder, although given the right set of circumstances, it was more than sufficient.

Last came Alonzo Jackson, the Master Distiller, Emeritus, who simply and unequivocally, disliked the man.

I grunted. Good thing it was an accident. If it had been
murder, there was a handful of people who could step to
the front of the line.

Hey, as far as I knew, maybe the aliens whacked the
guy.

The lights were still on in the maintenance barn, so I
pulled up and went inside. A morbid curiosity impelled me
to take a closer look at the tractor and discs that had done
the job on Patterson.

The brightly lit barn was so large that five high school
gymnasiums could have fit inside, a sad indictment of the
expensive accouterments of business versus those of education. On the other hand, it was cleaner than my apartment, an ironic indictment of gainful labor versus sloth and
indifference.

The company vehicles, trucks, pickups, and farm implements shone like they had just been given a coat of wax. I
had to admit, Runnels took good care of the equipment. I
glanced around. He was nowhere to be seen. I circled the
tractor and cringed when I imagined Emmett falling off the
seat, straight down in the path of the circular blades.

I paused at the rear of the tractor and stared up at the
seat. That's where he had been sitting. According to Sergeant Howard, the tractor bounced over the ditch, causing
the drunken Patterson to fall from the seat.

I crossed the room to the discs and tried to figure out
just where he might have struck the frame, suffering the
blow that knocked him unconscious. I ran my hand over
the heavy frame, a sturdy web of square steel bars supporting the X-shaped rows of discs. I stared at the huge
implement, and at the same time I had the strangest feeling
I had just forgotten the punchline for a joke.

"Find what you're looking for?"

I jerked around. David Runnels stood staring at me, his
bulldog face showing no expression. "Nope. Just looking.
Hope you don't mind. I'd been over talking to Claude Hawkins and saw the lights on in here. I just wanted a closeup
look at what killed Emmett." I glanced at the discs. I
rubbed the back of my neck as the feeling I was missing
something swept over me again. But what?

Runnels bristled. "Don't blame my machines. Emmett
killed Emmett. Around dangerous tools, a man's got to be
careful. He wasn't. No one's fault but Emmett's." He
turned to the door. "I'm shutting down for the night. Anything else?"

Reluctantly, I turned away from the discs. "No, thanks.
See you later."

He grunted.

"Oh, hey. Yeah. One question."

"What?" Runnels pursed his lips and knit his heavy
brows. "What question?"

"Hawkins claims he didn't take the tractor out yesterday.
I probably misunderstood, but I thought you said he did."

Runnels stared at me as if he had no idea who I was.
"Huh?"

"Yeah. Hawkins says he didn't take the tractor out."

His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared. "You calling
me a liar?"

His burst of anger surprised me. "No. Just telling you
what I was told."

My explanation seemed to mollify him.

I wanted to drop the issue to keep from irritating the
man again. Guys with alien connections unnerve me, but I
had to know the truth. "Was he lying to me, Mr. Runnels?"

He snorted. "I don't know. You best check with old
Tom."

"Seldes? Why?"

"He's the one what told me Hawkins took out the tractor."

Another puncture in the accident theory. "I see. Sure." I waved and stepped back. "I'll see him tomorrow. Good
night."

He grunted.

I grunted back.

During the drive back to my apartment, I went back over
the events of the day. The day? It seemed like I'd been on
this case a month. I always talked aloud to myself about
my cases while I drove, a habit that more than once brought
puzzled glances from other drivers, who figured they had
just spotted some manic-schizoid asking himself questions
and then gleefully answering them.

But the process worked for me. I guess you could say I
was more of an audio learner. Connections came easier for
me by hearing than reading. All through college, I read
assignments aloud. Drove my roommate, Harold Landry,
nuts. Maybe that's why the sneaky cretin stole Carrie Jean
away from me. Revenge, although he probably came out
on the short end.

So, there I was, driving down the dark, narrow road with
the distant lights of Austin lighting the bellies of a bank of
slow moving clouds, jabbering away to myself and blinking
at the set of bright lights following me. Too close.

I came up with a few questions for which I wanted some
answers. Patterson's expensive tastes, for one. Where did
the money come from? The truth about who took out the
tractor, for another. And whatever was nagging me about
the discs, for a third.

And finally, I muttered to myself, glaring in the rearview
mirror, I wanted to know why the bozo in the car behind
was tailgating me. That's how Bubba picks a fight in Texas,
by tailgating. I swung onto the shoulder and slammed on
the brakes.

I jumped out of the pickup and, tire tool in hand,
stomped back to the black car that pulled up behind me.
As usual, I would pattern my behavior on the size of the person who climbed out of the vehicle. I could be mean,
or I could be charming.

I caught my breath and jerked to a halt as the stand-in
for Godzilla unfolded from the luxury car.

"Charming" was the word of the day.

Godzilla's double was so enormous, he didn't walk. He
lumbered. I stood motionless in the glare of the headlights,
the tire tool burning a hole in my hand. I decided now
was the appropriate time to employ my charm. I gently
eased the tire tool out of sight behind my back and sidestepped to get away from the glare of the headlights. "Anything wrong?" It was a deferential statement that wouldn't
irritate anyone, I hoped. "You were following mighty close."

The guy had to be seven feet tall, but his bulk was counterpointed by his hand-tailored suit, which I could tell was
expensive even in the light of the headlights. I had no idea
what brand, but it wasn't Sears. He paused, looked down
at me like a T-Rex measuring how far he would have to
bob his head to snap up his next meal. From the peripheral
glare of the headlights, I made out a square face that looked
like a chunk of chipped granite-square, solid, with no
distinguishing features other than a couple of fissures for
eyes, a square knob for a nose, and a third crevice that was
probably his mouth.

He came right to the point. "Mr. O'Banion wants you
should come see him." He spoke in a measured rumble
without a trace of inflection.

I glanced at the car. A Lexus. I remembered the black
vehicle at the distillery, then later, outside my apartment. "O'Banion? Danny O'Banion?" Which was a stupid question because I only knew one O'Banion.

Godzilla nodded.

Danny O'Banion was Austin's resident mobster. That
was the talk, although nothing had ever been pinned on
Danny. No one really knew his ties or connections. There
was a lot of talk, a lot of speculation about the Mafia, Cosa
Nostra, the Chinese Triad, the Mexican Mafia. At local
bars, bordellos, game rooms, it was O'Banion this,
O'Banion that. As far as I knew, all talk. Nothing else.

But Danny and I had a history, back in the eleventh grade
when we scrambled through a few scrapes together. Then
Danny left school before his senior year. Naturally, we
drifted apart, but those months during our junior year
bonded us. I ran into him at one of the annual football
games between my alma mater, UT, and Oklahoma up in
Dallas one year. We hit each other on the shoulder, lied a
little, sipped from his silver flask a lot, and then went our
separate ways.

"Where is he?"

Godzilla pointed his finger at me. It was the size of a
link of sausage. "You follow me."

"Lead on, McDuff." I turned back to my pickup, but a
huge hand grabbed my shoulder and turned me back
around. I felt like my shoulder was caught in a vise. I would
have sworn I heard the rotor in my shoulder shatter.

"My name ain't McDuff. They call me Huey."

I held up my free hand in a gesture of apology. "Sorry.
Huey. I meant, you go. Me follow."

He grunted and released my shoulder. He climbed in the
Lexus.

Huey led me over a couple of back roads before turning
onto another highway that led to Lake Travis. Danny's
abrupt appearance puzzled me. What did he have in mind?
A class reunion? I doubted that very seriously. He wouldn't
have had Huey tailing me for the last twenty-four hours
just to announce a gala get-together. The only other reason had to be the death of Emmett Patterson. And that made
even less sense.

Traffic was typical for a Monday night, miles and miles
of Texans jammed bumper to bumper, speeding up, slowing down, darting in and out, pushing the seventy-mile-perhour speed limit to eighty.

The mindset of Texas drivers is to follow as closely as
possible, and regardless of speed, never leave enough room
for another vehicle to slip into, or they will. And finally,
with the cold resolve of a western gunfighter, Texas drivers
abhor turn signals, believing there is no sense in giving the
guy behind some clue as to your next move.

Huey must not have been a native-born Texan for the
right blinker on the Lexus flashed, and the black vehicle
turned onto a narrow, one-lane road that wound up one of
the hills overlooking Lake Travis. Ahead, car lights flashed.
I looked around, searching for a house, for anything, but
all I saw was a forest of stunted oak and cedar growing out
of chalky-white limestone. A perfect spot for a kiss on the
lips.

The brake lights of the Lexus lit the night with a red
glare as Huey stopped just past the parked car, obviously
intending for me to stop beside the vehicle at the side of
the road.

I braked to a halt and rolled down my window. Danny
O'Banion grinned up at me from the window of his car.
"Long time since Dallas, Tony."

"Ten years, Danny." I glanced around the dark countryside. Below us, the highway looked like two strings of
Christmas lights, all white. "I sort of figured on a fancier
place for our reunion than out here in the middle of nowhere."

He laughed, that same old infectious Danny O'Banion
laugh that had a disarming charm on everyone. "Sorry, but
I need the privacy."

"For what? This isn't where I get my kiss on the lips, is it?" I was clearly puzzled as to the reason for such a clandestine meeting.

He chuckled. "You watch too many movies. No, it's
about the guy at the distillery who got himself killed." Before I could reply, Danny continued. "Look, Tony. It's a
long story, and I'm not going to bore you with it. I know
the old lady hired you to investigate it. To come up with
independent proof that it was an accident. Bottom line for
me-was it an accident?"

I studied the cherubic face looking up at me from the
other vehicle. I suppressed a rush of irritation. "Come on,
Danny. What's it to you?"

His grin faded. "Just say I'm curious."

"No." I shook my head. "You pulled me out here with
no explanation. You want to know if Patterson's death was
an accident. Be realistic. For you to go to all this trouble,
it has to be something besides mere curiosity."

"Yeah." He chuckled. "Look, I don't blame you for wondering, but honest, old friend, I got my reasons. They're
another whole story. You wouldn't be interested."

Which was a polite way of telling me to stick my nose
somewhere else, which also brought up another question.
Just what was Danny O'Banion's involvement with the distillery?

He continued. "A favor, Tony. That's all I'm asking."

As usual, his irrepressible charm swayed me. He was the
sort you couldn't help liking, that little boy demeanor.
"What the heck. You just want to know if it was an accident or not?"