The Last King of Texas - Rick Riordan (17 page)

"I did."

"It shows in your eyes when you look at him. The
anger. Tone it down."

I hadn't even realized it until she said it, but she
was right. Two minutes in Zeta Sanchez's company had eroded any doubt
that the man was a murderer, that he could have walked with smugness
bordering on stupidity into Aaron Brandon's home in Alamo Heights,
plugged him twice with a .45, and walked out, expecting complete
impunity. Looking into Sanchez's face, I stopped wondering about
motive and connections and possible frame-ups. The man was loosely
packaged, industrial-grade violence.

When I thought about the sheet cave in Michael
Brandon's room, about Ines Brandon's tears, I wanted to wipe that
little smile off what was left of Sanchez's face.

The door of the restroom opened. Sanchez came out. He
looked around uncertainly, like he himself couldn't believe he hadn't
tried to make a break for it. DeLeon clucked her tongue
disapprovingly. "I didn't hear water running."

Sanchez took a moment to focus on her and register
the comment. "What?"

"You didn't wash your hands."

The hardness in his eyes diluted with confusion.
"What?"

DeLeon sighed, looked at me, then back at Sanchez
like a mother with strained patience. "I might have to shake
your hand later, Anthony, and I know where it's been. Go back and
wash your hands."

He stared at DeLeon, then at the bathroom door. Then
he went back in. This time we heard water running. The shudder of
pipes as the faucet shut off. The printing-press sound of the towel
roll dispenser being pulled down to fresh cloth. Our deputy guard
looked at the floor, shook his head, muttered something about a waste
of time.

Sanchez came back out. He showed DeLeon his clean
hands, the webbing between his fingers still glistening with water
and soap foam. He looked at DeLeon with intense curiosity, as if he
was really interested in what she'd say. "Okay." She
started to lead us back down the hall, then stopped abruptly, turned
back, and almost ran into Sanchez. "You want a Snickers?"

Sanchez hesitated, shook his head cautiously.

"No?" DeLeon looked at me with the same
question, but her eyes were giving me a dead courtesy, an act. I
shook my head.

She tried again with Sanchez. "Peanuts? M&M's?
You got to be hungry."

Sanchez wavered. "Peanuts."

DeLeon held out her hand to the deputy and tapped her
fingertips against her palm. The deputy grumbled, then fished around
in his pockets until he came up with some quarters. DeLeon bought
Sanchez some peanuts.

We walked back down the hall and into the homicide
division. As we passed Hernandez's office a new, calmer conversation
was taking place inside — Hernandez, Kelsey, Canright. The three
men's eyes fixed on us like sniper sites as we walked past. They
noticed the peanuts.

When we got to the interrogation room, DeLeon waved
Sanchez and me inside. She told the deputy to stay by the door.

The room was the size of a closet, walls painted the
same homicide gray as outside. There were two hardwood chairs and a
little desk with a computer terminal, some manila folder files, a
tape recorder. Zeta Sanchez sat in one chair. At DeLeon's insistence
I took the other, next to the terminal. My chair had one leg that was
slightly shorter than the others. When I moved it went bimp-bump like
a wooden heartbeat.

Sanchez strained his wrists against the plastic
cuffs, trying to get some circulation. With difficulty he opened his
peanuts and emptied the bag into his mouth.

DeLeon reached over and punched RECORD on the
cassette machine. She gave today's date and all of our names, then
leaned back against the door frame.

"So, where were we?"

Sanchez chewed his peanuts. DeLeon hugged the elbows
of her khaki coat, pushing the side of one red pump against the tile
floor. I found myself shifting in my uneven chair. Bimp-bump.

Finally Sanchez swallowed. He crumpled his peanut
bag, let it drop. "We weren't nowhere."

DeLeon nodded. "That's right. You know who this
is here, Anthony?" Sanchez avoided looking at me.

DeLeon waited.

When Sanchez finally met my eyes I tried to suppress
any emotion. I went blank, the way I do in tai chi, forcing my
thoughts to sink into my diaphragm. Sanchez's eyes were gold. They
had an unreal quality to them — a brilliant and completely
merciless sheen. I suddenly understood why his old boss Jeremiah
would've gifted this man a gold-plated .45.

"This is Dr. Navarre," DeLeon said. "He's
the new English professor out at UTSA, replacing Aaron Brandon. I
want you to apologize to him."

"You want me to what?"

"Navarre thinks you want to kill him. He's been
losing sleep over it. Guy's an English prof — figures you scared
one of his predecessors to death already, blasted the second one. He
figures you've got a thing against UTSA and now you've got it in for
him."

Sanchez's eyes drifted up to the ceiling. The thin
beard line around his jaw, trimmed under his chin, looked like some
kind of black bird. He had a scar across his neck that I hadn't
noticed before — a beige line the texture of jute. His smile
started to re-form. He tried to control it, then broke out in a
laugh.

He looked at both of us, sharing his cold mirth. "Say
what?"

"Apologize for scaring him so bad," DeLeon
said. "That's all. Tell him it's okay."

Sanchez shook his head, grinning in a dazed kind of
way. "You want me to say I'm sorry. For a bastard I didn't
kill."

"You want a lawyer present yet?" DeLeon
asked.

"I don't want nothing."

"Just checking. Apologize, Anthony."

He laughed, looked at her for several seconds to see
if she would keep the straight face. She did. That just amused him
more. He looked at me and his golden eyes sparkled. "Yeah, man.
Sorry."

He bent over, the laugh bordering on the hysterical
now. He shook for a while, wiped his eyes with the backs of his bound
hands.

I sat perfectly still.

"That's fine," DeLeon told him. "Now
let's see if we can clear away some of these details, just so
Professor Navarre feels better. We've agreed that you didn't kill
Aaron Brandon, right?"

Sanchez sat up, laughed a little more.

"Right?"

He nodded.

"Okay. So last night we found a .45 three blocks
away from Brandon's house, stuck in a drainage ditch. We got a match
to the bullets that killed Aaron Brandon. The gun has one of your
thumbprints just inside the revolver chamber. We got a witness who
saw you coming out of the Brandons' house the night of the murder,
after she heard two shots..."

DeLeon shook her head, like she was annoyed with the
evidence, then looked at Sanchez for help. "You make sense of
any of that, seeing as you didn't kill anybody?"

His gold eyes kept their amusement. "Nobody saw
me there, 'cause I wasn't. You plant a gun, say it's mine — I can't
do shit about that."

"It was a revolver, Anthony. A gold-plated
revolver."

Sanchez's face darkened. "You fuckers couldn't—"

He stopped himself.

DeLeon waited. "We fuckers couldn't what,
Anthony — have that revolver? The one you killed Jeremiah Brandon
with six years ago? And why would that be?"

No answer.

DeLeon stepped over to the table and grabbed a
folder, slid a piece of paper out of it and dropped it onto Sanchez's
crotch.

"I was wondering why you came back now, Anthony,
why you waited so long — at least now we got the answer to that.
How was prison in Mexico?"

Sanchez looked down at the discharge document. I
could read the words Nuevo Leon, Sistema Penitenciario Federal,
Mexican state seals on either side. "I show you sometime,"
Sanchez offered to DeLeon.

"That throat-slitting just about heal, did it? I
hear the other guy looked even worse."

Sanchez just smiled.

DeLeon retrieved the paper with two fingers, slid it
back into the folder, and tossed it onto the table. "Why'd you
go to Hector Mara's, Anthony?"

Sanchez licked his lips. "We're friends, man.
Old compadres."

"And relatives. Oh, sorry. Ex-relatives. I mean,
until that little thing between your wife and Jeremiah Brandon. What
was her name — Sandra? What is that legally, when your wife skips
town because she's been sleeping with your boss, then you go and kill
the boss? Does that constitute a legal divorce?"

Sanchez's neck muscles worked into knots, but he said
nothing.

"You knew we'd be looking for you, Anthony,
right? Even before you killed Aaron. Why stay with your old buddy
Hector, visit your old hangouts, talk to old friends like you've been
doing? Why keep such a high profile?"

"Just wanted to settle some things, man. That's
all."

"Like killing the Brandons?"

Sanchez didn't respond.

"Hey, Anthony, you know, I'd like to think you
weren't stupid. I'd like to think you didn't shoot Aaron Brandon. I
really would. I mean it's embarrassing — using a weapon you fucking
well know will get traced back to you, ditching it so sloppy, leaving
a witness. I'd like to think somebody set you up for this to get you
out of circulation — somebody who's been holding on to your gun all
this time and found it a lot easier to shoot an English teacher than
to shoot you. Tell me that's the way it is, Anthony. Maybe I can
help."

"Fuck you, missy."

"You're not helping me believe you're smart,
Anthony. You shot a cop when we tried to bring you in. Even without
the Aaron Brandon murder, you're not making much of a show for
brains."

"I hear that fat fuck Gerson's voice, I'm gonna
empty a few clips at him. That's the smart thing."

DeLeon held up her hands in exasperation. "You're
not helping at all, Anthony. Look at Dr. Navarre — he's practically
peeing in his pants."

Sanchez looked at me and we locked eyes a second too
long. There was nothing I could do about it. The signal went out. A
moment of clear, silent hostility passed between us as hotly charged
and unintentional as a thousand-volt arc through a squirrel.

Detective DeLeon tried to get his attention back.
"Yo, Anthony. How did Dr. Brandon get dead with your gun if you
didn't kill him?"

Reluctantly, Sanchez's eyes drifted away from mine.
"No mas, missy. That's all I'm saying."

"You were set up?"

Sanchez shook his head noncommittally.

"But you're innocent."

"Fuckin' A, missy. Por vida."

"Well shit." She looked at me. "So
they're going to put Mr. Sanchez away for murder — but I can't tell
you for sure he's the man that killed your predecessor. Might still
be somebody out there, laughing their ass off that Mr. Sanchez was
willing to take the rap. Sorry, Dr. Navarre. Conclusion of
interview."

She reached over to the machine, punched STOP.

"That it?" Sanchez asked.

DeLeon nodded. "Why're you letting them do this
to you, Anthony?"

Sanchez brushed his fingers over the stitches on his
busted lip. "I ain't letting nobody do shit." He focused on
me again. "So you a professor?"

"That's right."

He grinned. "You know how they say, you got
blood on your hands once you kill somebody?"

"I know how they say that. Yeah."

"Let me see your hands."

It would've been a mistake to look at DeLeon. Or to
hesitate. Never mind that we were in the middle of SAPD with an armed
guard outside and Sanchez in plastic cuffs. The moment was dangerous.

I extended my right hand. Sanchez took it, turned it
over, traced my life line. My skin crawled. His thumb was warm and
callused and his frayed cuticle scraped against my palm. The fingers
of his other hand tightened around my knuckles.

"It ain't in the hands." His breath smelled
of peanuts. "You kill somebody, it shows in your eyes — eyes
like you got. You really scared of me, Professor?" He moved
quick. Almost too quick. His cuffed hands clamped on my wrist like a
vise grip and yanked me down, my face toward his head. If I'd tried
to pull back I would've gotten a broken nose. Instead I dropped
sideways out of my chair, flipping Sanchez over me in a somersault.
He tumbled, slammed into DeLeon's legs, and I back-fisted Sanchez's
busted mouth with my free hand as he went down.

I got up slowly. DeLeon had Sanchez's neck in a lock.
The deputy was there, his gun in Zeta's face.

Sanchez had trouble coughing with his jaw clamped
shut. A long string of saliva and blood swung from his lip.

DeLeon moved away while the guard pulled Sanchez
roughly to his feet. Sanchez managed a grin. "Feel good,
puhfeffoh? Tell them they ain't getting shit from me, okay? You tell
them."