The Devil Went Down to Austin (10 page)

Lopez glanced at Garrett, gave him a friendly smile. "What's your take on it?"

Maia said, "Ballistics."

Lopez snapped his fingers. "Yeah. Knew there was something else. The projectile was pretty mangled—soft bullet, a .380. It was, sorry to say, definitely a .380. Lands and grooves were pretty messed up, but ballistics couldn't rule out that it was fired from Mr.

Navarre's gun."

"And couldn't say for certain that it was," Maia pointed out.

Lopez paused. "You know, you're right, counsellor. I guess you could look at this as good news." He gave Garrett a thumbsup sign. "Good news, Mr. Navarre. Now all we have to do is find the other guy who was roaming the lake at 2:00 A.M. with a .380, and we got this case cracked."

"The shell casing," I said. "You recover it?"

Lopez looked irritated. "You should see the grass stains on the knees of my slacks. All us diligent deputies, rooting around in the dirt. Several acres later, we still have no casing."

"You know that's wrong," Maia said. "You claimed the shot was close range—someone inside the truck cab. And the casing is missing?"

"We looked hard, counsellor. Even sent a diver in the water. If it was anywhere, we would've found it."

"It's like the drugs," Maia said. "You're working this as a crime of passion, argument between friends—it doesn't fit. Somebody picked up that casing. That's the mark of a professional."

"Yeah, well. You or your—what should I say, client or friend? How does this work, you being an attorney from out of state, and all?"

Maia didn't deign to answer. We both knew Lopez would've researched exactly how it worked.

I knew from past interstate cases with Maia, she would be able to handle one case in Texas as a professional courtesy from the state bar—pro bac vice—if it came to formal charges. Before charges, however, Maia's professional status in Texas, and thus the professional courtesy the police had to extend her, was questionable, at best.

"Whether it's client or friend," Maia told Lopez, "depends on your department."

He smiled. "Your friend, then. Mr. Navarre wants to explain things to me, maybe throw a little hard evidence my way, I'd be more than obliged."

The song ended. The Wicked Witch of the Tenth Pew gave Lopez a scowl. Probably she didn't even know Jimmy Doebler. Probably she came to all the Unitarian funerals just to get her dourness fix.

Lopez sat back, spread his fingers out on his knees. The back of his right hand was dimpled with pockmarks, the skin slightly puffy—like he'd been bitten by a snake, numerous times, many years ago. I hoped it had been an unpleasant experience.

The preacher came to the podium, fixed his glasses, and said it was time for a eulogy by one of Jimmy's oldest friends.

He called my brother's name and complete stillness fell over the room. Some of the mourners glanced back in our direction with cold stares. In the front row, W. B. Doebler cleared his throat.

Lopez whispered, "Go on, Mr. Navarre. Your moment to shine."

Garrett didn't move.

More heads started to turn.

Finally Maia said, "Come on. I'll go with you."

She scooted past me, took the back of Garrett's chair, began pushing him toward the front. I'd never seen Garrett allow anyone to push his chair. He considered it an egregious insult. Nevertheless, he sat still, intent, as Maia wheeled him toward the microphone.

In the pew behind me, someone murmured a question to a friend, something that ended with the word murder.

The friend's response was audible: "I were Garrett, I sure as hell wouldn't get up there and give no speech."

I turned. The guys behind me were a couple of innocuous looking Parrot Heads—standard flowery shirts, dayold beards. I'd probably met them before at one of Garrett's parties.

"If you were Garrett," I told them, "you wouldn't have kneecaps I could shoot off if you don't shut up."

I turned back around.

Lopez muttered, "Somebody without a sense of humour might take what you just said the wrong way, Navarre."

Garrett started his eulogy. Maia stood to one side for moral support.

"I know a guy at state ballistics," I told Lopez. "Department of Public Safety. Let me call him—get a second opinion on the projectile."

Lopez laughed quietly. "A second opinion. DPS has a six month turnaround, and you want to use them for a second opinion. Tell you what, you find me some reason to justify that—some damn good reason—then maybe. We go to court—and please God, if you have any leverage with Ms. Lee, assure her that would be a bad thing—then you can hire all the experts you want. As it stands—for the purposes of presenting this case to the DA? I'm afraid not."

Presenting the case to the DA.

"Matthew Pena," I said. "You investigate him?"

"We are not stupid, Tres. We have already been scolded by your friend Ms. Lee on that very point. Yes, Mr. Pena seems to be slightly less docile than your average maneating tiger. Yes, he is the subject of an open homicide investigation in San Francisco. He also has a solid alibi for the night in question. He was on the Internet."

I stared at him. "You're joking."

"He was in a video conference with clients, some of the AccuShield execs, back in Cupertino. Lasted into the wee hours. I've made calls. I've seen the computer logs. It checks out."

"This guy's a hightech mogul. You're going to accept the Internet as an alibi?"

"Welcome to the millennium, Navarre."

"There have to be ways logs could be faked, timed, dubbed, something."

Lopez smiled. "You're suggesting that AccuShield, a multibillion dollar corporation, is an accessory to the murder of a programmer? You think I should arrest the CEO, maybe? The entire board?"

"Wouldn't want to do that," I said. "That would mean bringing in the Feds. And you don't want to give up this murder investigation for anything, do you?"

His reaction wasn't much, just a little tightness in his jaw, but I'd succeeded in hitting a nerve.

Garrett kept talking about his parties with Jimmy, their road trips. Nothing about Techsan. Nothing about their many past arguments. Maia stood behind him, the silent sentinel. Ruby McBride was watching her with curiosity.

Then Garrett's voice stopped mideulogy. Another sudden hush fell over the chapel.

Garrett was staring at the front entrance, his note cards forgotten in his hands.

Matthew Pena and Dwight Hayes stood at the back of the aisle, looking for a place to sit.

Dwight Hayes didn't look much better than he had two hours ago. His offgreen tie was knotted so the skinny end was longer than the fat end.

Pena was dressed like an ontherise businessman, and I knew what the crowd would be thinking— Here's another of Jimmy's rich relatives. Then I glanced at W.B. Doebler, who was studying Matthew Pena with more than a little apprehension.

I wasn't sure what W.B.'s expression meant, but one thing was clear. He knew Pena.

Garrett's hesitation in the eulogy probably wasn't as long as I imagined.

Pena and Hayes found seats and sank out of sight behind some Parrot Heads.

Garrett continued talking.

I looked at Detective Lopez, but Lopez was no longer there. He was squeezing over the legs of five or six people to get out the far side of the pew. When he got to the exit he paused, glanced in Pena's direction, then at me.

I gave him a questioning look. He winked, then was gone. Probably gone to change into his Batman suit.

I tried to listen to the rest of Garrett's eulogy, but my eyes kept drifting to Maia Lee—the black shoulder straps of her dress, the way her hair curved around her ear. I looked away and happened to lock eyes with Ruby McBride, who smiled.

I refocused on Garrett.

When I looked back at Ruby a second later, she was still studying me—not in an unfriendly way. More like amused.

She turned back toward Garrett and kept that little smile on her face the whole time my brother was describing what a great fellow her murdered exhusband had been.

"W.B.," I called.

He was three steps away from his white Infiniti, his Nokia in one hand, his alarm deactivator in the other.

Another ninety seconds—if I'd waited for Maia and Garrett, or pushed my way out of the chapel a little less rudely—W.B. would've been gone.

"I'm Tres Navarre," I said. "Garrett's—"

"I remember."

W.B.'s eyes reminded me of Jimmy's. They had the same look of distant anger, like he was gazing past me, impatient for something to happen on the horizon.

Otherwise, W.B. bore little resemblance to his cousin. He was darkcomplexioned, perfectly groomed, with features one would value in a catalogue model—handsome yet inconspicuous, completely uninteresting, so that you'd notice the clothes rather than the man. He was in his midforties, and radiated a sort of old energy that suggested he was born to be this age. It was impossible to imagine him as a child, or wearing anything but a suit.

"Glad you could make the service," I told him. "I wasn't sure any of the Doeblers would show."

"Criticism?"

"Observation."

He beeped the Infiniti's remote control. The car responded with a perky chirping noise, and the door unlatched itself.

"You saw the crowd," W.B. said. "Jimmy's people. He would've wanted them here more than he wanted his family. He got his wish."

"So Jimmy disowned the Doeblers. Not the other way around."

"I have to go, Mr. Navarre."

W.B. got into the Infiniti, selected the ignition key.

I leaned over him, one elbow on the open door. "I called your Aunt Faye. She seemed to think the family wants Jimmy's murder swept under the rug as soon as possible."

"Would you mind stepping back?"

"What'd you talk to the sheriff about, W.B.?"

He stared at me, evaluating. There wasn't a hair out of place in his part. The interior of his car smelled like Jordan almonds.

"You needn't worry," he told me. "If your brother killed Jimmy, that wouldn't surprise me. Especially not with that woman involved. But neither would I go out of my way to seek justice."

"That woman," I said. "You know Ruby?"

W.B. jammed the key in the ignition. A glowing green circle illuminated around it.

"Mr. Navarre, I came here tonight to set aside my resentment. To say goodbye to my cousin. And I'm leaving here even angrier than before. It hardly matters who killed him.

Jimmy wasted his life. Now you and his selfproclaimed real friends can go have a beer in his honour. It's a damned shame."

"And if the wrong person takes the blame for his murder? That doesn't matter either?"

"Get your arm off my car, Mr. Navarre."

"You know Matthew Pena, don't you? You know what he's capable of."

W.B. picked up his Nokia, dialled a single number with his thumb.

"Deputy Engels," he said into the phone. "Would you call city police for me, please. I'm at the Unitarian church on Airport, having some trouble with an irate man from the memorial. I'd call it harassment, yes."

I stepped away, slammed Doebler's door closed for him.

Without looking at me, W.B. Doebler dropped his phone onto the passenger's seat.

The door locks clicked.

His lights came on in the glare of the setting sun, and the white Infiniti pulled out onto Airport Boulevard.

"I hate crowds," Garrett told me.

We were sitting at a window table in Scholz Bier Garten, drinking German beer that tasted like antifreeze.

A socialite wedding reception had taken over the back patio of Austin's oldest watering hole, leaving attendees of Jimmy Doebler's memorial beer bust to fight it out with the regular customers for the dozen tables and booths that were left in front.

The wedding reception guys drifted around in tuxes, the women in designer dresses.

They didn't coordinate well with the neon beer signs and baseball trophies and the green vinyl booths. I thought they had a disk jockey playing Kinky Friedman tunes on the patio until somebody sneaked a look and told me nope, it was Kinky Friedman playing Kinky Friedman tunes.

At the bar, Maia was having a heated discussion with Matthew Pena—a discussion she'd insisted I stay out of. Sitting on the stool beside her, Dwight Hayes was trying to peel the label off his beer bottle.

"Shouldn't leave without your date," I told Garrett. "Looks like she's still having fun."

Garrett grumbled.

Being down so low in the wheelchair, Garrett creates the illusion of an open space in a crowd. People swarm toward him, see him only at the last second, usually spill beer on his head. One of the tuxedoed gentlemen had almost made that mistake a few minutes ago.

"You're enjoying this," Garrett told me. "You want me punished."

"Just trying to figure out why your brother, who lives seventy five miles away, can't help, and your brother's exgirlfriend, who lives two thousand miles away, can."

"She's better than you," he said.

Leave it to my sibling to craft the most diplomatic response possible.

"She's prettier," he added. "And she knows Pena. She's dealt with him."

"And like you, she's already convinced Pena's the problem."

He glared at me. "You met him today. You don't think so?"

"The guy just tried to kill me once. That doesn't exactly set him apart."

Garrett grunted. "You wonder why I don't invite you up much."

Out on the back patio, Kinky launched into "Asshole from El Paso." Wedding guests and bar patrons milled around, jostling us. Ceiling fans circled lazily, kicking around the smells of chewing tobacco and sausage.

"How did you meet Ruby?" I asked.

Garrett turned his beer in a slow circle. "What does it matter?"

"Just wondering," I said. "If Pena was going to kill somebody at Techsan, if he was trying to force a deal, why kill Jimmy? Why not Ruby or you?"

"Thanks."

"I mean Jimmy seemed . . . harmless."

Garrett's face turned as bitter as the German beer. "Write that on his fucking gravestone, why don't you?"

He ripped his cork drink coaster in two, threw the halves on the table.