Texas Outlaw

by James Patterson

  A handful of businesses includes a small grocery store and only a few restaurants. One is called Good Gravy and looks like your typical Texas greasy spoon. A Taste of Texas seems a little nicer. I also see a Tex-Mex place named Rosalia’s. I pass a well-kept bar called Lobo Lizard. The type of place a town dignitary—or what counts for one here—could enjoy a beer alongside a day laborer or a field worker.

  There’s a motel with an empty parking lot and a lit-up VACANCY sign with a couple of letters burned out. A tiny adobe post office stands next to a gas station with a mechanic’s garage. I spot a couple of churches, both built in the Spanish style of the early settlers. A pharmacy—a little mom-and-pop place, not a chain—stands next to a small medical center with twenty-four-hour urgent care. The public library is located next to a park with some new-looking playground equipment. I spot a newspaper, the Rio Lobo Record, housed in one of the bigger buildings in town.

  I see a McDonald’s, of course, but otherwise the branded world seems to have left the little town alone. The one exception is banks. I count at least five: Wells Fargo, BBVA Compass, Prosperity, PlainsCapital, and Rio Grande Bank and Trust, where Willow and I share an account. There might be more banks than restaurants, which seems odd for a town this size.

  Rio Lobo is small, but it’s clean and well maintained. I spot instances of graffiti on fences but no abandoned eyesores. No vacant lots. The occasional man-made arroyo splits off from the river corridor, feeding irrigation throughout the community. The canals are lined with well-worn dirt walking trails. There are plenty of trees, and the lawns are green. For whatever reason—probably oil—Rio Lobo doesn’t seem as cash-strapped as the typical small Texas town.

  It’s easy to find the police station, which isn’t much bigger than my two-bedroom house. It shares a gravel parking lot with other municipal buildings: a community center, a senior center, the volunteer fire department.

  I pull into the surprisingly busy parking lot. People are filing out of the community center, heading toward their cars. Some of them are dressed up with button-down shirts and bolo ties and sport jackets. A man wearing a tan police uniform with a pistol on one hip and a radio on the other spots me right away and walks over. He probably knows every vehicle in town—and that my truck isn’t from around here.

  “I’m John Grady Harris,” he says. “Police chief.”

  I open my mouth to introduce myself, but he interrupts me.

  “I know who you are. You’re the Texas Ranger we don’t need.”

  Chapter 12

  WHEN A RANGER reports to a town like this, there are two ways things can go. This isn’t the open-armed welcome, the red-carpet roll. This is the resentful, jealous, resistant reaction of small-town officers who think they can do their job as well as anyone and don’t like the idea of a Ranger coming in and taking the credit.

  I want to remain professional. I don’t want to give Chief Harris an indication his comment bothered me.

  “Rory Yates,” I say and extend my hand.

  When I say my name, he gives me a look of recognition. He knows who I am—the Texas Ranger who stopped the bank robbery. He takes my hand grudgingly.

  Harris is in his early thirties, a few years younger than me. He has muscular arms accentuated by his tight short-sleeved uniform. In a lot of rural Texas areas, the police chiefs and sheriffs are good old boys. Big hats and big beer bellies hanging over Texas-shaped belt buckles. Some of them get the job because of who they know, not because they’re qualified. But Harris looks different. He has short-cropped hair, no cowboy hat, and muscles like an amateur weight lifter. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s ex-military.

  “There are only two nights a month when this parking lot fills up,” he says. “When the council meets and on bingo night at the senior center.”

  I say, “If you didn’t want me to come, Chief, then why am I here?”

  “My detective keeps nagging me that there might be more to this than we realize. I called the Rangers to appease her. Don’t worry. I’ll play nice. I’ll cooperate.”

  “I appreciate that,” I say, trying to be diplomatic.

  “But I know what you’re going to find,” Harris adds. “Susan Snyder died of natural causes. There hasn’t been a murder in Rio Lobo in a decade.”

  It’s easy to say there hasn’t been a murder in a decade if you close the book right away on every suspicious death.

  “My detective spends her days investigating graffiti and shoplifting,” Harris says. “She’s got a hair up her ass that this might be something more just so she’ll have something else to do.”

  I notice he says her and she. I was given the name of a Detective Delgado, but I didn’t realize the detective would be a woman.

  “Here she comes now,” the chief says.

  A young Latina in well-worn cowboy boots strides toward us from the community center. Her tall, slim body is dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and her dark hair is pulled back from her face in a ponytail that highlights sharp cheekbones. She has a pistol on her hip and the unmistakable no-nonsense air of a cop.

  “Ariana Delgado,” she says, extending her hand.

  Her arm is muscular and her grip firm. She doesn’t smile.

  I introduce myself, and she has a better poker face than her chief does. She shows no hint of recognition at my name.

  Even without makeup, she has long, naturally dark eyelashes that most women would kill for. The eyes themselves are intensely big and beautiful, with deep coffee-colored irises. I can’t take my eyes off them—or her.

  No, I hadn’t expected Detective Delgado to be a woman—and I damn sure didn’t expect her to be so good-looking.

  Chapter 13

  AS I STAND talking to Chief Harris and Detective Delgado, I notice a graying man in his late fifties leaving the community center for the Rio Lobo Record building. He’s studying me with the intensity of a reporter on deadline. He’s carrying a small reporter-style notebook in his hand, but with the staff limitations on a local weekly, he might be the editor or even the publisher.

  I’m relieved that he doesn’t stop to talk. I’ve always had a frosty relationship with the media.

  Harris waves over four other men who are also leaving the community center.

  “This is the Texas Ranger you were telling us about,” one of them says.

  The men, all good old boys over the age of sixty, introduce themselves as members of the town council. Prominent community members.

  Big fish in a little pond.

  There’s Fred Meikle, who owns the restaurant Good Gravy and looks like he eats every meal there, with extra gravy. Troy Sanchez, a Mexican American with salt-and-pepper hair and mustache, owns the gas station I passed. Kirk Schuetz is a retired rancher whose son runs the family business now, though his strong handshake and callused hands signal that the oldest of the four could still put in a long day of work. Council chairman Rex Kelly is a redheaded Irishman who runs a construction business in town but doesn’t look like he’s swung a hammer himself in years.

  “You had a long drive today,” Fred says to me. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  “Well, all right, then, let’s all go over to Good Gravy and get this boy some supper.”

  “There’s a quorum of you present,” Ariana says to the men.

  She’s citing the open-meeting law. If the four of them hang out together outside of a posted place and time, they’ll be violating it. The whole point of the law is to keep elected officials from doing backdoor dealings out of the public eye.

  Troy Sanchez looks like an unruly middle schooler who’s just been reprimanded by his teacher. Fred Meikle looks tempted to lecture Ariana on the importance of showing a Texas Ranger some hospitality. His expression says that surely a reasonable Ranger would know she’s making something out of nothing. Schuetz, the rancher, has turned his hateful glare from me to her.

  “She’s right,” Rex, the chairman, finally says, breaking the awkwardness. “
I’ve got to get home anyway.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Schuetz says in a tone that suggests he’d rather go shovel horseshit than eat a meal with the likes of me.

  “That leaves two of us,” Fred says. “That ain’t against no laws. Let’s get something to eat. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about our beloved little town.”

  Ariana excuses herself, saying she’ll brief me first thing in the morning. She heads toward a motorcycle parked over by the police station, fires up the bike, and rumbles out of the parking lot.

  The truth is, I’d rather be sitting down with her and learning about the case than going to dinner with these guys, but sometimes you’ve got to play nice with the locals.

  Chapter 14

  THERE ISN’T ANY music playing inside Good Gravy, but when we walk into the dining room, the imaginary movie soundtrack scratches to a halt. As a Ranger, I’m used to stares of awe—Holy crap, that’s a Texas Ranger! But the restaurant patrons are locals wordlessly letting a stranger know, We don’t want you in our town.

  Fred Meikle leads us to a table by the front window with a RESERVED placard on the checkerboard tablecloth. The restaurant walls are adorned with mule deer mounts and sports memorabilia of various Texas teams, both college and pro. A row of arcade games stands next to the restrooms, where a couple of kids are playing Big Buck Hunter.

  When Fred Meikle tells me to order anything I want, on the house, I insist on paying for my meal.

  “It’s the Rangers’ rule,” I say, and that seems to alleviate some of his obviously hurt feelings.

  They all order beer, but I drink a Dr Pepper. I don’t want to get too chummy with these guys.

  Over dinner, Troy and Fred talk almost nonstop about Rio Lobo. The chief sits quietly and eats a plate of barbecue ribs while they chatter on and on—about the star high school quarterback, a Main Street sidewalk repair, the local market’s overpriced groceries—never once mentioning the reason I’m here.

  The woman who died was also a member of the town council.

  Before I question them about the dead woman, I need to gather my own facts. Besides, I don’t want Ariana—who single-handedly brought me here—to think I’m going behind her back. I don’t want to do anything to piss her off.

  At least not yet.

  One of the most difficult tasks of being a Ranger is determining how you fit into any particular investigation. As we range across the state, every place is a little different. Sometimes you’ll co-lead an investigation with a local detective. Sometimes they want you to pretty much take over. I find it best to proceed with a little bit of caution until I get a sense of what they need and what I can do.

  As we’re finishing dinner, Troy says, “I’m sorry Carson couldn’t come out to meet you, but he’s out of town on business.”

  Who is Carson? I think.

  “Mr. McCormack,” Harris says, as if to clarify.

  I really do need to do some homework about this town and this case.

  I say good night to the men and thank them for their hospitality. I tell the chief that I’ll see him tomorrow. Then I climb into my truck and drive two blocks down the street to the empty motel. I choose the room farthest from the road.

  I pull off my boots and stretch out on the bed. When people think of the life of a Texas Ranger, they probably don’t think of the lonely nights in crappy motels.

  I pick up the John Grisham novel I brought and try to clear my head by reading. But something is bothering me, something I saw in town, so I put my boots back on and climb into my truck. I drive up and down Main Street, looking more closely at the signage.

  McCORMACK COMMUNITY PARK, reads a sign in the park next to the library. The football and baseball fields are called McCormack Sports Complex. The urgent care is housed in the McCormack Medical Center.

  His name is everywhere, but not on any actual business. There’s no McCormack’s Garage, no McCormack Café. Only community-type properties, the kind that might not get built without sizable donations.

  Who the hell is this Carson McCormack?

  Chapter 15

  I GET MY answer when I wake up in the morning. There’s a copy of the Rio Lobo Record on the welcome mat. I sit on the porch in front of the room and drink a cup of instant coffee and flip through the paper.

  The main story—under the byline of Tom Aaron—is about a planned addition for the library, passed unanimously at yesterday’s town council meeting. Apparently this was a pet project of Susan Snyder’s, and Fred Meikle is quoted as saying that the new wing should be called the Susan Snyder Children’s Library in her honor.

  There’s another small story from the meeting, below the fold, that mentions Carson McCormack, owner of McCormack Oil. That’s why everything in town is named after him. He’s an oil baron—probably the richest guy in town, and the biggest community fundraising donor.

  Tom Aaron’s article states that McCormack asked the town council for an easement to drive his oil tanker trucks through the southern part of the town’s jurisdiction. There was no opposition from the public, and the decision passed unanimously as well. The town council probably figured they owed it to the guy.

  After skimming through the paper, I drive, not walk, over to the police station, in case I need my truck later. I arrive promptly at eight o’clock. Ariana’s Harley-Davidson Sportster is already there. When I enter the lobby, she comes out to meet me, wearing jeans and a T-shirt like she was the day before—and looking just as beautiful.

  Ariana escorts me through the station and introduces me to everyone on duty.

  Liz, a fifty-something woman who works at the dispatch terminal and has a voice like a chain smoker, seems very excited to meet me. She says she heard Willow’s song on the radio and loved it.

  “I hope y’all don’t break up,” she says, giving me a wink. “But if you do, I’m single. You know where to find me.”

  When it comes to the patrol officers, however, the three who are on duty greet me with the same disdain Harris did the night before. The message is clear: We don’t need you here.

  I can see Harris through the glass window of his office. He’s on the telephone, with his boots kicked up on his desk.

  There’s not much to the police station: a single jail cell, a small conference room, a dispatch terminal, and an evidence room that’s not much bigger than a closet. The small supply room houses everything from road flares and traffic cones to a gun safe and bulletproof vests. Ariana’s desk is wedged into a corner next to a kitchenette area with a microwave, mini fridge, and coffeepot.

  The jail cell holds prisoners overnight. Holds longer than twenty-four hours are taken to the sheriff’s office in the county seat. That’s where all the court proceedings happen, even for misdemeanors.

  The department consists of Harris, Ariana, and a handful of patrol officers who work overlapping shifts so at least one person is on the clock from five a.m. to midnight. After midnight, I’m told, all calls go through to the county sheriff’s office.

  Ariana and I head to the conference room, where we can talk privately about the case. Before we close the door, I see across the station that another private conversation—about me—is about to get under way. The three patrol officers are stealing glances my way as they enter Harris’s office. I shake it off. I’m here to do a job, and I aim to do it right, regardless of whether I’m wanted or not.

  I expect the conference room to be converted into a makeshift investigation room, with boxes of paperwork, dry-erase boards, photographs taped to the wall.

  Instead, Ariana pulls out a single, thin file folder.

  The investigation hasn’t even begun.

  Chapter 16

  ARIANA EXPLAINS THAT Susan Snyder was found dead in her home a week ago. The councilwoman appeared to have had an allergic reaction after consuming peanuts. There was a discharged EpiPen on the scene, but it must not have worked. She shows me crime-scene photographs of a woman lying on the floor, her face swollen and purple. I ask for a
picture of Susan Snyder before she died, and Ariana hands me a flyer from her election campaign. The woman I’m looking at is much younger than I expected. The four council members I met last night are all retirement age, but Susan Snyder was in her thirties. She certainly didn’t fit the mold.

  She was pretty, too, with a vibrant smile.

  Ariana explains that a medical examiner from El Paso did the autopsy since the county doesn’t have its own. He listed the cause of death as anaphylactic shock.

  An accident.

  Ariana seems slightly more at ease today. She’s still professional, still guarded, but she’s been asking for help on this case for days and is excited to finally have it. The conference room is hardly bigger than a king-sized mattress, and I can smell her perfume—just a hint of it—in the tight quarters.

  I ask if they know what food she ate, where it came from. Ariana says there was nothing on scene that she could find. No suspicious wrappers. No crumbs. Susan Snyder had dinner that night at A Taste of Texas, but the owners said there’s no way it came from them. They were well aware of her allergy and were always very careful.

  “Besides,” Ariana says, “Susan’s allergy was so severe that she wouldn’t have made it home if she’d eaten peanuts in the restaurant. She lives out of town. Whatever caused the reaction, she ate it at her house.”

  I look through the autopsy report.

  “Did they look in her stomach?” I ask. “I don’t see anything in here about that.”

  She shakes her head and agrees that it seems like an oversight.

  “Where’s the body now?” I ask.

  “Cremated,” Ariana says.

  I give her a hard stare. That seems like an oversight. On her part. It was a mistake to release the body to the family before a comprehensive autopsy was performed—and the report I’m looking at doesn’t seem comprehensive to me.