El Gavilan (30 page)

“The first,
Parts Unknown.
How much of that one is made up?”

“He pretty much just changed some names. In terms of fiction, he didn’t have to make up a lot in that one. It was all tied to stuff from his reporting days. The Occam Butcher case was all too real. The killer really came after Chris, and after the women he knew at the time.”

“Oh …” Patricia bit her lip and stroked a wing of hair behind her ear. “Like I said, Chris is scary. But strangely appealing. And I do feel safe around him. Don’t know how Salome lives with him though. The intensity that comes off the guy is exhausting.”

“Salome’s the same way, on her own level,” Tell said. “It’s good they found one another. I don’t expect there are many, if any, others out there for either of them.”

Patricia said, “So you’re inclined to take them up on their offer?”

“Oh, I incline. But for all kinds of reasons, I need to close this case first.”

“How close are you, Tell?”

“We may have turned the corner today. But I can’t say more.”

“I don’t want to know more,” Patricia said. “When are we sending me off?”

“Could do it tonight,” he said.

“No, Tell. Please. It’s Friday night.
Our
night. And you promised to take me to the festival tomorrow.”

“Sunday, then,” Tell said. “I’ll stick as close to you as I can in the meantime.”

Patricia squeezed his hand, then stood and started gathering dishes. He noticed she hadn’t made them drinks. That was some kind of first. As if reading his mind, she said, “I’m two days late now. Did you make it to the pharmacy?”

He smiled and stood and fetched the bag with the drugstore’s logo on the outside. He held up the test kit. “You ready for this?”

She said, “Better question is, are
you
ready for this, Tell Lyon? We were reckless. This wasn’t planned. I mean, I want you to know now, either way this goes, I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, but if I am, I’m not sorry.”

“Understood. I was reckless too.” He kissed her and she took the box from his hand. The familiarity of this scene—this waiting once again on the maybe life-changing verdict of a plastic stick—cut through him. It struck him again how unbalanced their experiences were. This was a moment for Patricia. For him too, of course … but on his side, it was one fraught with memory and loss. He hoped Patricia didn’t sense it.

She pulled on her reading glasses and started reading the enclosed instructions. “You load the dishwasher,” she said. “I’ll go in the bathroom and see about changing our lives.”

FORTY SIX

Tell awakened first, lying there in the dark, watching the light through cracks around the curtains go from blue to red and finally to soft orange-yellow. The mourning doves were calling to one another and he listened to those, his hand straying to Patricia’s bare belly, stroking it.

He remembered Patricia’s face as she came out of the bathroom holding the test device with the little blue minus sign. Her look of sadness pierced him. She had said, “I’m disappointed, frankly. How about you?”

Tell had responded, “Me too, a little. But it will also be good to have time together first. Time for the two of us, I mean. There’ll be plenty of time for children later.”

He had moved to kiss her then, but she showed him her cheek. “Better be careful,” she had said, backing away. “I must really have something—flu or a virus.”

“More likely just nerves,” Tell said. “You’ve been through the ringer these past few days.”

Awaiting the results, they had talked through the door about children. He wondered if it might be a son or a daughter. A son would be new territory for him. But he wasn’t sure a daughter would be the mixed blessing that Patricia had feared out loud it might be. Patricia risked admitting that she feared another little girl would perpetually remind Tell of his lost Claudia. Particularly since, given Patricia’s own ethnic background, the little girl Tell and Patricia might make together would likely have Claudia’s coloring … her dark hair and eyes and whatever similarity of facial features that Tell’s genes mandated. Tell believed it would be okay. Their daughter, if their baby
was
a daughter, would be Patricia’s and his together, apart from Claudia and what he had shared with Marita. He was certain of that and promised Patricia it was so.

But it wasn’t to be, so far as the home-testing kit could be trusted.

He felt the tension of Patricia’s skin change under his fingertips and he knew she had awakened.

Tell checked the clock by the bed. “Really don’t want to go. But I should shower. Have to get over to the festival and walk the grounds before it opens. I’ll have one of my men sit out front while I’m gone. Won’t be gone more than two hours. Then I have a lunch appointment with Able Hawk at your folks’ place. Thought you could ride along with me and maybe visit with your folks while Able and I hash some things out. Then we can head on over to the festival.”

“Sounds good,” she said, hoarse from sleep. “Better leave the bathroom door unlocked while you shower, Tell. Just in case I get sick again.”

* * *

Tell waited until Officer Rick Keaton arrived in his squad car to take up post guarding Patricia. He thanked Rick and then made a quick detour to the hospital. Visiting hours hadn’t started yet, but Tell’s badge bought him an audience. Shawn was a pile of bandages. Most of the reporter’s face was obscured by the new dressings covering his just-completed nose job.

Shawn weakly waved a hand in hello. With all the wrappings around Shawn’s head wounds, Tell could really only see his eyes and not enough of the skin and eyebrows around those to know for certain whether Shawn’s gaze was curious or scared or angry.

Tell said, “Hey, Shawn. I’m very sorry for what happened to you. I really am. But this isn’t a social or compassionate call.”

Now Tell thought he saw some uneasiness in Shawn’s suddenly wider eyes. Shawn clacked on the computer keyboard resting on the tray table above his lap. Tell moved in close, crowding Shawn to read what was on the screen. Shawn had typed,
You arrest the ones who did this to me?

“No, not yet,” Tell said. “Able Hawk’s on your case. I’m chasing a murderer. I’m here to be on your case in a different way, Shawn. Ignore my badge now. I’m not here under color of authority. I’m here to tell you if you threaten Patricia again, or if you send her any more notes or e-mails like the last ones, regardless of what your current condition is, I’m going to finish what those Mexican gangbangers started. Do we understand one another?”

After two long seconds of silence, of staring at Shawn’s wide, unblinking, angry eyes, Tell pointed at the laptop. “Do you understand?”

Shawn typed,
Yes.

Tell reached out for Shawn’s chest and the reporter flinched. Tell patted Shawn’s chest. “Hope you feel better soon, Shawn. I surely don’t envy you the climb back.” Tell backed away from the computer screen. “I’ll be having lunch in a bit with Able Hawk, Shawn. I’ll ask him how he’s coming on your case. I’ll tell him you’d appreciate an update on his progress. You just remember to put Patricia out of your mind, because you’ve clearly suffered enough.”

Tell paused at the door and half turned. “One more thing, Shawn. I’ve decided you
did
slip Thalia that Rohypnol. That you set her up for what happened later. That last part was unwitting. But you feeding Thalia that dope, that’s still rape and it’s still fucking evil. That makes you a monster. I mean to see that you pay for that once you get your health back.”

* * *

Tell walked the festival grounds, waving to a few carnies and food-stand operators who were still setting up. New Austin’s mayor, Ernest Rice, called to him. Tell met him in the middle of the midway and shook hands.

“Life going well, Chief?”

“Could be worse,” Tell said.

The mayor said, “Anything we need to talk about, Chief?”

“Not from my direction, Tell said. “From yours?”

“Just give me a quiet festival, Chief. With all the racial tension in town since the Ruiz murder, and that reporter being beaten by those Mexicans, quiet is all I ask.”

“I certainly aim to deliver that, Mayor.”

They shook hands again and Tell wandered the festival grounds a bit longer—the festival grounds that consisted of the ball diamonds fronting the field where Thalia Ruiz was found dead, the parking lot and a few adjacent residential streets. A mobile stage was set up in a corner of the parking lot. A mariachi band was warming up on the stage.

Tell checked his watch. It was time to get Patricia.

* * *

Tell dismissed Rick Keaton from guard duty so that Rick could commence his shift at the festival.

He keyed himself in and Patricia hugged him hard. Tell had let Patricia talk him into a trip to the uniform store a couple of days before. She had picked out khaki pants and shirts, long and short-sleeved—both kinds with epaulets. She’d sewed on the New Austin patches and he’d transferred his insignia and bars and badge from the black uniforms to the tan ones.

“At least this rig will be cooler in this damned heat,” Tell said.

Patricia raised her eyebrows, disappointed. “You don’t like it?”

“I look like a Texas Ranger.”

“I think you look wonderful,” Patricia said. “And it doesn’t come off scary like those black, Nazi-style outfits your crew wears now. Any of your other folks going for the tan option now that you’ve offered it?”

Tell pulled on his second cowboy boot and pulled his pant leg down to cover the cuff of his boot. “All but Billy Davis. He says black is slimming.”

“That’s true up to a point,” Patricia said. “But at some size, you just become a big, black, sweaty wall.”

“You probably just described Bill later this afternoon,” Tell said. “His shift at the festival runs two to ten. Oven hours.”

“And your shift, Tell?”

“Once you’re out of harm’s way, I go all day Sunday,” he said. “Wanted to give my folks at least one day off this weekend.”

“So you take me to Chris for protection tonight?”

“No, still plan on that early Sunday morning,” Tell said. “No way I’m letting go of you tonight. Especially not looking like you do now. I don’t want to leave this room.”

Patricia was wearing a white cotton dress that bared her shoulders and emphasized her dark hair, which she had gathered up.

She kissed Tell and said, “
Now
I can put on my lipstick.” He kissed the back of her long, tanned neck while she did that. She said, “I’m gonna look like a clown, if you keep making me crazy doing that.”

* * *

Tell, Able and Billy were gathered around a table at Señor Augustin’s. Patricia was sitting across the dining room in a booth with her parents. She sensed Tell watching her and glanced over and smiled. Able said, “God, but she’s lovely, your Patricia.”

Billy said, “She surely is that.” Then he said, “Hey, fellas, to the topic of this meeting. I’m going to say up front, I’ve had no great ideas about next moves on this Strider mess.”

Able, sour-faced, said, “Confess that I’m similarly stymied. Tell? It’s up to you, Chief.”

Tell shrugged. “My nature favors rushing in where smarter angels like you two fear to tread. It’s always my impulse. And sometimes my undoing. It’s cost me before. And now I have something to lose again.”

Able’s gaze drifted back to Patricia, thinking of Tell’s lost wife and child. “Yes, you surely do,” Able agreed. “It’s a wise man knows his weaknesses. So what then?”

Tell said, “I’m going to be alone for a couple of days starting tomorrow morning. Patricia will be safely out of the way. So I propose a two-pronged strategy.”

Able—officially off duty—sipped his Texas margarita on the rocks. “Already I’m not liking the drift of this. So what’s your too intrepid plan that I’m going to reject, Tell?”

“Billy here is chatting acquaintances with one of Walt Pierce’s young guys—Tom Winch, a new dude with a conscience.” Tell sipped his iced tea. He nodded at Billy Davis. “Billy, if you can arrange it, tonight, ideally, I’d like you to take your friend out for a drink or something. Commiserate with him. Bitch about your respective bosses. Draw Tom out on the subject of Strider. Then, if the mood seems right, confide that I’m looking at Luke Strider for Thalia’s murder. Without getting too specific about the exact nature of the evidence—because we don’t want Walt or Luke going looking for their own copy of the film and learning how little we actually have—let slip about that tape I have of Luke dumping the body. We’ll see if doing that we can provoke a response from Luke. Something spastic, I hope. Maybe make Luke do something archly stupid. Force him to make a mistake we can use to our advantage.”

“And paint a big-ass target on your back doing it, Tell,” Able said. “I don’t fucking like it. Not a bit. It’s sloppy and unpredictable. You can’t point a snake, son.”

“Patricia will be safe enough.”

“But
you
won’t be safe, Tell,” Able said. “Just what fool morning, exactly, did you wake up and fancy yourself of a sudden bulletproof?”

“I’ll be very careful,” Tell said. “I really don’t want to die, and particularly not now.”

“I’ll have every deputy I can spare having your back,” Able said. “That’s what’s going to happen,
if
we go down this road. And my instincts are all against doing that.”

Tell said, “Can you make this happen, Billy?”

“I gotta work the festival tonight,” Billy said, shrugging. “Otherwise, well, Saturday nights, we have this bunch of us who get together.” Billy looked a little queasy. But he was also three-quarters of the way through a “mucho grande burrito,” overstuffed with
carne asada
sirloin. As tribute for finishing the out-sized entrée, Señor Augustin’s awarded the successful with a complimentary serving of fried ice cream. It was a little like rewarding a binge drinker with a beer keg. Billy sipped his third Cherry Coke and said, “I’m seeing a friend of Tom’s new wife Cheryl-Ann’s, lately. Four of us and another couple get together Saturday nights for Pictionary.”

Billy’s head was down as he confessed that last and Tell was grateful that his officer missed the eye-rolling his admission prompted on the part of Able Hawk. “Long about nine,” Bill continued, “things kind of split off. Us guys end up on the porch with beers.”