Murder Takes a Break (30 page)

 
I was playing the injured hero part to the hilt, limping around like a buzzard with a broken talon.
 
I'd had more stitches than Dino, so I felt I had to seem more wounded.
 
It wasn't exactly the macho approach, but it seemed to be working.
 
So I smiled at Cathy's remark.

"She didn't mean that in a good way," Evelyn said, seeing my face.
 
"She meant that you two are crazy.
 
You should be ashamed of yourself, Tru, shooting a helpless young man like that.
 
And you —" She looked at Dino "— you should get a real job and stay out of trouble."

We were at Dino's house, but for a wonder the TV wasn't on and we were able to talk without having to shout over the rantings of the exercise guy.
 
I was drinking a Big Red straight from the bottle.
 
Dino was having a little Wild Turkey and water, while Cathy and Evelyn were drinking some kind of white wine.
 
Evelyn had brought it.
 
Dino doesn't keep white wine in the house.
 
He thinks it's even worse than Big Red.

There was a small artificial Christmas tree in one corner of the room. Dino hadn't set it up, of course; Evelyn had.
 
It was even decorated with lights and balls, and there were a few presents under it.
 
I'd snooped around it a little, being a detective, after all, and there was one with my name on it.
 
I had no idea what it could be, although I'd shaken it a time or two.

"I was thinking about asking Dino to go to work for me," I told Evelyn.
 
"But I'm not sure I could trust him."

Dino looked hurt.
 
"When have I ever lied to you?" he asked.

I didn't even bother to answer.

"I helped you crack the Kirbo case, didn't I?" he asked.

"Hindered me is more like it.
 
If you'd told me about Sharon sooner, you might have saved me some trouble.
 
Her, too.
 
I would have been a lot more careful with Chad Peavy."

I wasn't absolutely sure that was the truth, but it sounded like the right thing to say.
 
If there was any irony in the situation, I didn't see it.

"The one you should have been careful with was that cop, Lattner" Dino said.
 
"I always told you that you shouldn't go to the cops."

In that case, he'd been right.
 
And calling the cops had been someone else's mistake, too.
 
Henry J.'s.
 
Along with Dino and Big Al, he was the last person in the world I would have expected to call the police, but that's what he'd done.
 
He thought he had a good reason, however.

On the night of the party it had been Chad, not Randall, who'd slipped the GHB into Kelly Davis' drink.
 
Randall had been too drunk to do much of anything and hadn't even known what was going on.
 
Kelly had had a bad reaction to the GHB, and after only about an hour had slipped into a coma.
 
Then she'd stopped breathing altogether.

Chad had panicked and told Henry J., who was there to provide whatever the kids needed for a good time — liquor, drugs, and probably even barbecued ribs if anyone had asked for them — as long as someone could pay.

Henry J. had called Lattner, who was Big Al's tame cop.
 
He was the one who'd called her at the Hurricane Club and tried to blame me and Dino for Henry J.'s death.
  
That was why the call had arrived so late; Lattner hadn't been able to get to a safe phone to make it.

When Lattner arrived at the party, Henry J. had sent everyone away except for Chad and Randall.
 
When Lattner found out that the dead girl was his own niece, who had actually spoken with him on the phone that very afternoon, he went berserk.

Chad blamed Randall for everything, Henry J. went along with him, and Randall was too out of it to defend himself.
 
Lattner had begun hitting him.
 
Randall fell down, and Lattner kicked him in the head.
 
The kick was probably what killed him, but we'd never know for sure.
 
His body was somewhere in the Gulf, and unlike Kelly Davis's it hadn't washed up where it could be found.

Henry J. had called Big Al, who had come to the house with a friend who had a boat.
 
The two of them took care of the bodies, though not very well.
 
Apparently they hadn't weighted Kelly Davis's carefully.
 
We'd never know for sure, since Big Al claimed that she hadn't been involved, and the friend was currently sailing somewhere on the blue waters off the coast of Mexico.
 
Or so Big Al said.
 
I had a feeling he wouldn't be showing up in Galveston again, no matter where he was.

While the bodies were being taken care of, Chad started working on a story about what had happened to Randall.
 
He and Henry J. had originally planned some story about how Randall and the Davis girl had met at the party and run away together, but the sudden reappearance of her body had ruined that one.
 
So Chad just told everyone that Randall had disappeared.

Lattner had gotten himself assigned to the Kirbo case so he could keep things covered up, and he'd been pretty successful.
 
The only other kid that Chad had met at the party was Patrick Mullen, and Lattner had talked to him to make sure he didn't know enough to hurt anyone.
 
He'd also assured him that there was no need for him to worry about things, that the investigation was going just fine.

When I started poking into things, everyone got worried, but Chad was the one who'd panicked.
 
Again.
 
He wasn't a professional like the others, and he'd decided that he'd eliminate the witnesses.

He and his father had taken a handgun class together, and they were both licensed to carry.
 
So Chad was thoroughly familiar with his .38.
 
He'd tried for Sharon, taken out Henry J., and missed on Patrick Mullen, who'd been visiting his grandmother in Pasadena.
 
He was a lucky guy, that time at least.

When it dawned on Lattner that Dino and I hadn't killed Henry J., he realized that Chad was on a rampage, and went after him.

So did Big Al, of course.
  
Chad should have thought about the consequences of his actions, but if he'd been the kind to do that, he never would have tried using GHB in the first place.

"How's the cop doing, by the way?" Dino asked.

"He'll be all right," I said.
 
"He lost a lot of blood, but they patched him up.
 
Anyway, he's not a cop anymore."

"Yeah, they don't like to keep guys like him on the force," Dino said.
 
"Sets a bad example.
 
But he's no worse than the rest of them."

I was never going to convince Dino that there were a lot of good law enforcement officers, so I didn't even try.
 
Old prejudices die hard.

"What about the boy?" Cathy asked.

"He's OK," I said.
 
"If he'd had a little more fat on him, he'd be even better.
 
And he wasn't defenseless.
 
He shot me first."

Even though Chad had been trying to kill me, I'd tried to shoot him in the side, avoiding any major organs.
 
He was so lean that there hadn't been much loose skin for the bullet to pass through, and I'd broken one of his ribs.
  
That was the least of his problems, however.
 
He wouldn't be enrolling in Texas Tech again for a long, long time.

"I feel sorry for the Kirbos," Evelyn said.
 
"They seemed like such nice people."

I felt sorry for them, too, especially Janey, who I was afraid was going to have real problems with Tack.
 
He blamed himself for what had happened, and from what Dino had told me, he hadn't reformed.
 
In fact, when they'd returned home, his drinking had gotten suddenly much worse.
 
He hadn't been sober for more than five minutes since we'd told them about Randall.
 
Evelyn had gone with us to talk to them at the Galvez after we found out the truth, since Dino thought having her along might help Janey.
 
I wasn't sure that it had.

"Did you mean what you said about us working together?" Dino asked me.

"We wouldn't be able to get along.
 
You have to be able to trust your partner."

"I trust you.
 
And you can trust me, too.
 
I promise."
 

He smiled toothily and made an attempt to look trustworthy, which was sort of like a panther trying to look like a vegetarian.

"The kind of work I do is mostly pretty boring," I said.
 
"It involves sitting in front of a computer all day."

"That couldn't be much worse than sitting in front of the Home Shopping Channel all day," Evelyn said.

"Hey, I don't just sit."
 
Dino indicated some of his work-out equipment.
 
"I get a lot of exercise.
 
I'd miss that."

"You'd get plenty of exercise on some of the things Tru works on," Cathy told him.
 
"I wish he'd spend more time in front of the computer and a lot less on these jobs you bring him."

I wished it, too.
 
Dino's jobs never seemed to end the way they should.
 
Too many people got hurt.
 
The Peavys, whose son would be in prison.
 
The Kirbos, who would never see their son again.

I'd gotten a call from Kelly Davis's mother, though, to thank me.
 
There's always some good even in the worst things, I suppose.

And then there was Big Al, who'd gotten off again.
 
There was no proof that she'd ever been directly involved in the deaths of Kelly or Randall, or even that she'd aided in the disposal of the bodies.
 
She'd forced her way into the Peavy home, and she'd fired her pistol there, but those were minor things.
 
And she had a very good lawyer.

I drank the last of my Big Red and set the bottle down on Dino's coffee table.

"I have an idea," I said.
 
"Why don't we all go out to eat tonight?"

"Who's buying?" Dino asked.

"My treat," I said.

"Where will we go?" Cathy asked.

"I'd like some Mexican food," I said.
 
"How does that sound?"

"It sounds good to me," Evelyn said.
 

"All right," I said, getting to my feet.
 
"I know this place where they have great enchiladas."

I had limped almost to the door before Dino started yelling.

W
hen I was a child, I thought Galveston Island was one of the most romantic places in Texas.
 
Many years later, I still do, and writing a series of novels about Truman Smith, who's fortunate enough to live there, has been a tremendous pleasure for me.
 
If you've ever visited Galveston, you can surely understand a bit about the fascination the place has for me.
 
If you haven't visited there but you'd like to, you can take a virtual trip any time at all by visiting the city's Web site at http://www.galvestontourism.com.
 
It's a trip you won't regret.

Dead on the Island (Truman Smith, Book 1)

Gator Kill (Truman Smith, Book 2)

When Old Men Die (Truman Smith, Book 3)

The Prairie Chicken Kill (Truman Smith, Book 4) – Coming Soon

Cap'n Bob & Gus from Bill Crider's collection
The
Nighttime is the Right Time

&

Shadder – by Tom Piccirilli – from his collection
Futile Efforts
.

By Bill Crider

Another series character I enjoy is Bill Ferrel, a Hollywood private-eye who's never appeared in a novel.
 
He's been in a number of short stories, however, including this one, which was listed in the “honorable mention” section of a big volume of “the year's best fantasy stories.”
 
I never thought of it as a fantasy, however
.

I think it was S. J. Perelman who said that Hollywood was a dismal industrial town controlled by wealthy hoodlums, or something like that.
 
Maybe he was right.
 
But it seems to me there are just as many rich lunatics as there are rich hoodlums.
 
In fact, the guy who was bellowing at me on the phone was probably both.