Blanco County 03 - Flat Crazy (21 page)

“Well done,” Rudi said, her voice sounding much closer than before.

Marlin turned, and Rudi was standing next to him. She reached out and placed a warm hand gently on his cheek. “Thanks for the advice earlier.”

Several years ago, Red had mail-ordered two camouflage hunting caps with small penlights attached to the bills—designed to allow a hunter to keep his hands free for field-dressing a deer after sundown. Red soon realized, however, that if the caps made it easy to gut a deer in the dark, hell, it’d be just as easy to shoot one. So he had tried it out. He’d hide in a tree near his deer feeder, wait till he saw shadowy shapes moving in the moonlight, then flick the light on and open fire. A big ol’ double-aught surprise from his twelve-gauge. Worked like a charm.

Tonight, though, the hunting caps were serving another purpose. While the rain was coming down—in cold sheets now—the lights were helping Red and Billy Don make their way through the woods with the hog trap. Son of a bitch seemed even heavier this time around.

Billy Don wasn’t happy about the whole situation. Every time lightning would flash, Red could see Billy Don across the top of the trap, madder than a … well, madder than a wet three-hundred-pound redneck.

Billy Don dropped his end of the trap. “Damn, Red, let’s take a breather.”

It was raining so hard, Red could barely make out the words. Cold water was spilling off Red’s cap in torrents, running down his neck, under his shirt, and into his Wranglers. A school of guppies could set up house in his Red Wings. His toes were going numb.

“Fifty more yards to the truck,” Red hollered. “Don’t puss out on me now.” Red wasn’t going to let Billy Don’s grumpy mood get him down. No, not now. Things were looking too good for that. The boy had shown them exactly where he’d been seeing the chupacabra—just across the fence line, on a ranch behind his house. Red was familiar with the ranch, owned by some rich guy who drove a fancy imported car. The same guy who was wanted by the law, at least according to the rumors Red had been hearing. The guy’s place didn’t have a gate, just a cattle guard. That meant easy access. All Red and Billy Don had to do was set the trap.

26

MARLIN WOKE AT 3:47
A.M.
with the heater running and a warm body in the bed next to him. Unfortunately, this warm body had a hairy face and bad breath. At some point, Geist had climbed up into the bed with him, probably skittish from the thunderstorms. The dog was snoozing soundly, her snout about two inches from Marlin’s nose.

Wide awake now, watching bolts of white-hot lightning split the sky, Marlin had time to think.

Howell Rogers, the Burnet County game warden, had never called him back. Or if he had, the message had been lost. When Marlin had gotten home, the clock on his VCR was blinking, meaning the power had gone out. And the backup battery in Marlin’s digital answering machine was dead. He’d have to try Howell again in the morning. Jacob Daughdril, too. If this weather kept up, the chopper would be grounded.

Then Marlin thought about Rudi. Intriguing lady. Smart and funny. After caressing his cheek, she’d given him a light kiss on the lips, then pronounced herself officially bushed. Marlin had taken the hint and cleared out.

“You leaving town?” he asked her at the door.

She pondered it for a few seconds. “No, not yet. Hey, I figure if I’m gonna quit, I might as well enjoy a vacation, right?”

She’d given him the number for her cell phone.

The solitary black boar weighed 360 pounds on the hoof and had a thick plate of scar tissue on each shoulder from years of fierce territorial battles. Its tusks were gnarled and chipped from repeated clashes with one particular opponent that was equally large. That hog, however, had not survived the winter, and now the black boar enjoyed dominance in its home range. It roamed the hills unhindered, hunting, scavenging, and breeding at will.

Tonight, as it trampled through the underbrush in the rain, it heard familiar grunts and squeals. Some primitive trigger in the boar’s brain was released, and it knew two of the lesser boars—its own offspring, in fact—had located food.

It found the pair rooting in the dirt around a large stone. The alpha boar charged forward, and the smaller boars gave way and vanished into the night.

Curious, the boar nosed and rooted around the stone, which seemed to be sunk into a hole. An enticing scent wafted up around it. With one powerful flip of its tusks, the boar dislodged the stone and cast it aside. Underneath, a dark pit. The aroma grew stronger.

The hog proceeded snout-first into the hole, but its massive shoulders prevented it from entering. It tried to force its way inside with sheer strength, but the opening was too small.

So it did what was only natural.

It began to dig.

* * *

When Marlin woke again, it was 7:20. He started a pot of coffee, then dialed Howell’s number. Marlin knew Howell and his wife well; they would have been up for several hours by now.

“You got my message, huh?” Howell said.

“No, actually, I had some trouble with my answering machine.”

“Well, hell, you’re a damn psychic. You should know exactly what I said.”

“How’s that?”

“Tell me something, smart boy. How in the hell did you know I’d lost a decoy in that burglary?”

Marlin mulled it all over as he drove.

Even if Marlin did find a decoy on Kyle Dawson’s ranch, it wouldn’t do much for the case, just as Tatum had pointed out earlier. It could’ve been Dawson who pulled the scam, or Duke Waldrip. In fact,
both
of them could have orchestrated it, with only one of them being involved in the murder. What mattered was finding out where Searcy had gone when he returned to Blanco County after discovering he’d been ripped off. Who had he come to see? That was the blank that needed to be filled in. But with Dawson missing and Waldrip stonewalling, that was a tall order to fill.

Marlin wouldn’t even have been pondering the whole matter if he hadn’t found himself with some unexpected time on his hands. The rain, combined with last night’s news broadcast, appeared to have put a serious dent in the enthusiasm of the chupacabra crowd. Driving through town, Marlin noticed a marked decrease in the amount of traffic. Parking lots were no longer full. There were no crowds at the convenience stores. Darrell, the dispatcher, hadn’t reported any trespassing calls. Maybe the buzz was dying down.

But something is still running loose.

He was worried that whatever had attacked Beulah Summerall’s dog on Friday night might be something more dangerous than a jackal. On one hand, he kept wondering whether he should alert the public. On the other, he didn’t want to cause panic unnecessarily. And he’d already seen how quickly the public’s collective imagination could go wild. He’d decided it would be best to wait until the forensics came back. Then he’d know what he was dealing with, assuming the animal hadn’t been captured or killed by then. Via the news broadcast, Marlin had warned the public to leave the animal alone—but that was chiefly a ploy to minimize trespassing calls and other mischief. If a rancher saw another jackal, for instance, and shot it dead, Marlin would have no problem with that. In fact, it might be the best thing that could happen.

Meanwhile, Jacob Daughdril had, as Marlin expected, declined to fly in the current weather. At the moment, there was a break in the rain, but more was on the way. Weather radar showed a second line of powerful thunderstorms trailing the first.

So Marlin had decided to give it a shot by truck. He’d drive the roads of Dawson’s ranch and see what there was to see.

Mike Hung said something in Chinese that Marty Hoffenhauser couldn’t understand. But judging from the way his eyes were bulging, he was quite pleased. Hung took the massive trophy in his small hands and gazed at it in awe.

“Yes. Velly good.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Marty said. “Listen, Mike, we’ve got a big day ahead of us. Wanda is gonna be here in a little while, and we’ve got a couple more treats in store for you, too. We’ve hired some additional talent. Other actresses.”

Mike’s face was like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

“I want you to be ready to—”

But once again, Mike Hung was up and gone. Seconds later, Marty could hear the drone of the saber saw inside the small trailer.

Marty walked to the hangar, inspected the set, and sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee. Three industrial-size space heaters were humming away, slowly raising the temperature in the cavernous structure. He thumbed through a copy of the local newspaper, enjoying a rare moment of solitude.

A few minutes later, Tony, Marty’s sound technician, wandered over and joined him. “What’s going on, chief?”

Marty was about to tell him what was in store for today. Marty’s mood was upbeat, his biggest star was ready, willing, and extremely able, and the whole damn crew was about to make adult-video history.

That’s when he heard a horrific scream … followed by shouting. Then a longer scream.

“The hell was that?” Tony asked.

Marty stood just as Bill, the cameraman, came racing into the hangar. “Jesus, Marty, you better come have a look at this!”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Mike, man. He’s got some kind of saw blade sticking out of his eye!”

“Heads up, Bubba, we got company,” Billy Don said.

Red peeked at his rearview mirror and saw the game warden, John Marlin, thirty yards off his rear bumper. Of all the shitty luck.

Red gave a small wave through the back window, but Marlin didn’t wave back.

“What now?” Billy Don asked.

“Gimme a minute. For now, hold this.” Red passed him the half-finished beer he’d just been drinking. Maybe it was God’s way of telling them they shouldn’t crack the first cold one before noon.

They were on Flat Creek Road, heading toward Kyle Dawson’s place. The rain had slackened, and Red wanted to use the opportunity to check the trap. Last night, they’d simply ignored the sheriff’s sign at the ranch entrance, which warned people to stay out. Couldn’t do that again, not with Marlin on his ass.

After a few miles, when it became obvious that Marlin wasn’t going to pull them over, Red’s nerves settled. “We’ll just mosey on down the road until he pulls over somewhere,” Red said. “Then we’ll give it a couple and head back.”

Billy Don grunted an affirmation.

A minute later, Marlin
did
pull off the road—right into the Macho Bueno Ranch. “Well, shit,” Red said. “There goes
that
plan.”

Bill Tatum hated to admit it, but it was probably time to call in the Texas Rangers. As the investigative branch of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Rangers provided assistance to smaller police forces on an as-needed basis. Unfortunately, with the Searcy investigation at a standstill, the need was quickly becoming apparent.

Tatum had been a deputy in Blanco County for ten years, with eight years in Gillespie County before that. He had no aspirations to become sheriff, and he had supported Bobby Garza wholeheartedly for the two years Garza had been in office. Bobby seemed to handle the politics and tackle the administrative issues with ease, whereas Tatum wanted nothing to do with any of that. Something he did have in common with Garza, though: He wanted the Blanco County Sheriff’s Department to be a capable and highly independent agency. Neither of them wanted to have to call for help when things got nasty. He and Garza agreed that the more forceful and competent the department became, the less crime they’d see.

There was evidence to support their theory, too. In the past decade, the Hill Country had seen a tremendous rise of meth labs in rural areas. Even Blanco County had had its problems. But under Garza’s watch, the number of drug-related crimes had taken a nosedive. Simply put, most of the dealers had either been locked up or run out of the county, and new dealers were afraid to replace them. Why set up shop in Blanco County, where justice was swift, when it’d be easier to ply their trade somewhere else?

Some crimes, though, didn’t respond to this type of approach—or any other. Homicide was one of them. There weren’t many murders in Blanco County to begin with, but when they did occur, they were almost always spontaneous, products of anger, jealousy, or stupidity. The good news was, the lack of planning made these crimes easier to solve. Physical and circumstantial evidence were usually available by the boatload, and it was just a matter of figuring out who and why.

Not always, though. Sometimes you came across a tough nut like the Searcy case. They’d tried every possible tack they could think of—and nothing had panned out.

Tatum had called a meeting of the investigative team this morning, and now, with the room quiet, he bluntly stated his feelings. It might be time to call in reinforcements.

Kyle’s ranch was crawling with deer; that much was certain. But after two hours, Marlin hadn’t spotted any that failed to go on alert as his truck approached. None of them stood motionless in the brush—glassy-eyed and stiff-legged—waiting to be discovered. Granted, Marlin had to stick to the roads or risk getting bogged in the mud, so he couldn’t survey the entire ranch. He’d get a more thorough look when he went up in the chopper. Now, though, as the rain began to fall again, Marlin called it quits and left the ranch.

He wheeled back onto Flat Creek Road and drove east, planning to stop for a late breakfast in Johnson City. As he passed the Waldrips’ driveway, he glanced toward the house and saw a man sitting in the shadows on the covered front porch. He brought his cruiser to a halt.
Worth a shot,
Marlin thought. He reversed and pulled in. Approaching the house, he recognized Gus Waldrip swaying gently in a rocking chair. Marlin parked, stepped from his truck, and climbed the porch steps.

“Gus Waldrip, right?” Marlin asked, buttoning his down vest.

“How ya doing, Sheriff?” Gus said. The guy was all smiles, as if he’d just heard a good joke. Something odd about it, though. Like the guy’d inhaled too many paint fumes. The temperature was in the upper forties and the guy wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

“I’m not the sheriff, Gus; I’m the game warden. John Marlin, remember? We’ve met a couple of times.”

Gus nodded but didn’t answer.

“You been out of town lately?”

“Here and there.”

Marlin gestured toward a second rocking chair on the porch. “Mind if I sit down?”

Gus grinned from ear to ear. “Knock yourself out.”

The voices on the porch woke Duke from his nap on the couch. He cracked the curtains a smidge and saw John Marlin sitting in one of the rockers, just as comfortable as you please. Son of a bitch had made himself right at home. His back wasn’t more than two feet away from the window.

Duke’s heart was picking up speed, so he took a deep breath to calm himself. He knew this moment was bound to happen eventually. They’d get to Gus, ask him all kinds of questions … and Duke would have to sit back and see if his brother could weather the storm. With any luck, Gus would tell the game warden to go fuck himself.

Duke listened in.

“You being gone, you missed a lot of excitement around here, you know that?” Marlin said.

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” Gus said.

Good boy,
thought Duke.