“How deep is it?” I ask.
“Seven feet maybe.”
I dive headfirst, stabbing the water with my hands and sinking down into the cold. I pull up quickly, and when I surface, Ariana and I face each other, treading water and smiling like kids playing hooky from school. With her wet hair slicked back and rivulets of water running down her skin, Ariana looks amazing. We find a slightly shallower section of the river and stand. I can see her bare shoulders and make out the blurry form of her body below the water.
The way she’s looking at me, I feel like I could swim up to her, take her in my arms, and kiss her, and she wouldn’t stop me. She’d kiss me back.
As much as I’m tempted to, I know I shouldn’t.
Can’t.
I lean back and float on top of the water, drifting away from her.
When I right myself again, farther away, she says, “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Amazing.”
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the refreshing chill of the water or how it feels to finally take a break from the case, but my answer works for either. We know we can’t stay in for long. We can’t postpone our responsibilities for the whole day. Even an hour. I’ve had my share of time off since I arrived in town—jamming with the guys, the gig at Lobo Lizard—but the person in Rio Lobo I like spending time with the most is Ariana. And this is the first time we’ve ever done anything fun together, just the two of us.
It feels great.
But it also feels a little inappropriate.
I ask myself how I would feel if Willow was swimming in Nashville’s Cumberland River right now with a handsome man.
“You okay?” she says.
I tell her I am, but she can sense that something is bothering me.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “This was a stupid idea.”
“No,” I say. “I’m glad we did it. Even a Texas Ranger and a police detective deserve a break every now and then.”
We climb out of the water. Ariana abandons her previous modesty, making no request for me to keep my eyes closed. I try not to stare at her, but I can’t help take in an eyeful. Her body is long and slender, muscled and toned. Like a runner or a swimmer.
“Hang on a sec,” I tell her, and I unlock the large storage box in my truck bed.
I dig past the rifles, shotgun, body armor, evidence kit, and other equipment, and I pull out a couple of musty shirts I keep in there in case I ever get dirty in the field. We use them as towels, doing the best we can to dry off before we get dressed. I also have an extra pair of underwear, but I don’t change. It doesn’t feel fair since Ariana has to keep her wet underclothes on.
Before driving away, I reapply the cortisone cream to my hand and fingers.
“I noticed you’ve got a rash,” Ariana says.
“Some kind of allergic reaction from when we were at McCormack’s. You didn’t get anything, did you?”
She shakes her head.
The rash itches like hell. What makes it worse is that it’s on my right hand, which I use constantly, so I’m always re-irritating the red bumps.
Ariana’s bra has made wet spots on her T-shirt, and my underwear has done the same thing to my pants. So as we’re driving back, we open the windows to let the hot air dry our hair and clothes. Ariana has her elbow out the window and a peaceful look on her face as she gazes at the canyon. Her hair is down and whips in the wind.
My heart swells as I look at her, and I can’t help but wonder what a life with her might be like. Willow is amazing, but we spend most of our time eight hundred miles apart. What if Ariana moved out of Rio Lobo and became a Texas Ranger? What would it be like to be with someone who works in law enforcement?
My thoughts are interrupted when we reach the turnoff to the main highway and our phones start buzzing with voice- and text-message alerts. I check my phone and immediately feel guilty when I see a missed call from Willow.
When Ariana looks at her phone, she gasps.
“I got four missed calls from John Grady,” she says. “And he sent a text.”
“What’s it say?”
She holds the phone so I can see.
Where the hell are you? There’s been another murder.
Chapter 49
I PULL THE truck onto the dirt road leading to McCormack’s ranch. Down by the trees, a few hundred yards from the oil derrick, multiple cars are parked, with red and blue lights flashing. Several of McCormack’s black trucks and ATVs are there, and I also recognize Tom Aaron’s Land Cruiser.
“Damn it,” Ariana says. “We’re the last ones here.”
The chief stomps up to the truck and growls, “Where the hell have you two been?”
“Ariana took me down to the open space to see the easement,” I say. “There was no cell service. We told you.”
He looks at Ariana and does a double take at her noticeably damp ponytail.
“Follow me,” he says, and he leads us through the chaos.
This is by far the worst-maintained crime scene I’ve ever been involved in. Harris’s patrol deputies are trying to put up police tape around the perimeter, but McCormack’s men have already stomped through and aren’t respecting police requests to step back. A couple of paramedics stand idly. And Tom Aaron, who shouldn’t have been allowed this close, is right next to the body, holding a handkerchief to his mouth and looking as pale as a sheet.
I spot Carson McCormack and his son near the body, too. Carson looks put out at the inconvenience. Gareth looks bored.
Dale Peters stands back from the group, head down, hat in hand, looking like he either is about to throw up or already has.
I spot a stump about a foot tall, and I step up onto it.
“Listen up!” I shout. “We need everyone who isn’t law enforcement to vacate the scene.”
McCormack’s men seem disappointed.
“Mr. McCormack,” I say, “please take your employees to your ranch and have them stay there until Detective Delgado and I collect your statements.
“Tom,” I say, quieter now, “go home. Your deadline isn’t for a couple of days.”
“Something like this,” he says, almost choking, “I need to write up and put out over the AP wire.”
“Go back to the office, then,” I say. “One of us will call you soon. Me or Ariana or the chief. We’ll tell you everything we can.”
He nods and starts to walk away with McCormack’s men.
Harris gives me a nod as if to say, Thank you.
I whisper to him, “As soon as your men get this area taped off, send one of your guys up to the house to make sure no one leaves.”
He sets off to give the orders.
Finally, Ariana and I approach the body. We’re at the edge of the woods, where the tree growth is thin. A small, old shack stands at the top of an embankment sloping down to the creek.
The body is about ten feet from the shed, slumped against a tree, the head nearly resting on the chest. The wiry man is in a McCormack uniform, but he’s not the burly soldier type. I kneel down and confirm my suspicion.
It’s Skip Barnes.
And he has a bullet hole through his head.
Chapter 50
“MEDICAL EXAMINER’S ON his way to pick up the body,” Harris tells us.
“How far out?”
“I bet he’s still an hour away,” he says. “Maybe more.”
The hole in Skip Barnes’s forehead is about the width of my pinky finger and has emitted a single stream of blood—now dried. The exit hole is about the size of a golf ball, and the back of Skip’s skull is matted with blood, some of which is still wet. Flies buzz and crawl around the face wound, and the body is beginning to stink from the heat.
“The longer he takes to get here,” I say, “the harder his job is going to be.”
I can’t be sure, but I suspect the bullet was a sporting round, not a full metal jacket like Gareth and I were shooting yesterday. A sporting round would mushroom as it passed through the skull, mak
ing a bigger mess on its way out than a full metal jacket bullet, which is designed to pass through and keep on going.
Whatever kind of round it was, it did the trick. Skip Barnes would never tell us what he knew. He’d never work on a truck with Dale Peters again. He’d never visit another Juárez brothel.
“Gareth found him,” Harris says. “He heard a rifle shot and drove an ATV over to the derrick to investigate. During deer season, Gareth uses the derrick as the ultimate tree stand, and apparently poachers sometimes come and try to use it, too.”
He explains that Gareth decided to drive up and down the tree line to see if he could spot anything.
“When he saw the body, he called me,” Harris says and quickly adds, “then I called Ariana.”
“What about the guards at the gate?” Ariana asks. “Did they see anything?”
“I asked the same question,” Harris says. “There weren’t any stationed at the gate at the time. They’re not always there. I know that for a fact.”
“Only when they know a Texas Ranger is on his way,” I say.
I’m still kneeling, and I look at him over my shoulder. We cleared the air this morning—my comment is a cheap shot.
“I thought we moved past that,” he says finally.
“You’re right,” I say, rising to my feet. “Truce.”
Lying at Skip’s feet is an unlit cigarette and a Zippo—as if he was in the act of lighting a smoke when the bullet came. He has a pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of his shirt and a wallet in his pants pocket, but no cell phone that I can see, not on his body or on the ground.
I examine the tree the body is slumped against. Blood—lumpy with brains—is splattered on the wood about five feet off the ground. In the middle of the red stain, a fresh chunk of bark is missing.
“We got lucky,” I say.
The bullet hit the tree, which means we can recover it. Another six inches either way and we probably never would have found it. After going through a skull and slamming into wood, the slug will be mangled as hell, but hopefully it will tell us something important.
I walk to my truck and pull out my evidence kit. I take out a trajectory rod and insert it into the hole in the tree. The rod points directly at the oil derrick. The angle is actually high, pointing over the top of the tower, but that makes sense because the bullet would have dropped over the hundreds of yards it traveled. The actual path of the bullet would have been a slight arc.
“Ariana, can you handle this crime scene?” I say. “I’m going to check out the sniper’s nest.”
Chapter 51
I WALK TO the derrick so I can get a sense of the distance. I pace off four hundred seventeen yards to the base. I might be off by a few yards, but it’s close. Before climbing, I have a good look around. Vines have been scaling the scaffolding for some time, and the weeds underneath are overgrown. I duck beneath a metal beam and walk below the structure. The four legs of the base are about twenty-five feet apart, making it a big area for one person to search.
But I spot something twinkling in the sunlight and look closer to find a rifle shell casing. If Gareth shoots from the derrick with any regularity, there might be more shells around here. But this one, the way it’s sitting on top of the weeds, not down in the dirt, couldn’t have been here long. I take some photographs of its location. Then I slip on a pair of rubber gloves and use an evidence bag to scoop up the shell without ever touching it.
I lift the bag and inspect the casing through the plastic. On the bottom, WINCHESTER 30-06 SPRG is pressed into the metal. If this is the shell to the bullet that killed Skip Barnes, that rules out Gareth’s M24. The bullet itself is the same width as a .308, but the casing is too long to fit his rifle. Still, plenty of rifles shoot a 30-06 round—I have no doubt Gareth owns at least one.
A metal ladder ascends one side of the derrick, and I start to climb. The metal is hot to the touch. I take my time, looking as I go. The ladder is rusted, and I expect it will be difficult to get fingerprints. But if we’re lucky, there will be prints on the shell.
My fingers sweat inside my gloves, which makes the itching worse as I climb. I try to ignore the discomfort.
When I get to the top, I pull myself onto a small metal platform that runs around the edges of the structure. It’s about eight feet from corner to corner but the path around is only a few feet wide. A metal mesh railing runs around the outside, giving me some minor sense of safety, but in the center of the derrick the platform is wide open, a straight drop to the ground, where the drilling machinery would go if they were using the derrick to bore into the earth.
I feel unsteady on my feet. Eighty feet might not seem that high from the ground, but once I’m up here, the whole world looks different. I can see for what seems like miles: the ranch house, the tank yard, and fields and fields of pump jacks. Everything looks small, like someone built miniature replicas for a model train display.
Standing this high, looking around, I get a strange feeling. I don’t think McCormack built this scaffolding for decoration. Nor do I think they put it up so Gareth could have the ultimate tree stand, as Harris described it.
I get the odd feeling they erected it for security. From here, a sharpshooter like Gareth would have a clear shot along a huge stretch of fence line. The ranch house is probably around a thousand yards away, which I’ve seen for myself is well within Gareth’s range. The tank yard is farther away, probably two thousand yards, but someone like Gareth could conceivably make a shot from that distance.
And the tower is located along the ribbon of vegetation that runs clear through McCormack’s property, making it accessible. Or escapable.
The question is why they might have fortified their property. Has Gareth really positioned the tower according to his military-trained brain? Or is there a verified threat?
Oil is valuable, but it’s not a commodity that thieves can easily steal.
I visually retrace the road that Ariana and I drove in on yesterday. If Gareth had been here instead of on the range, he could have easily put us in his crosshairs. He could have put a bullet through my brain before I even heard the shot.
From this vantage point, I look over the crime scene. I grab binoculars from an outside pocket of my evidence kit, and through them, I clearly see the body of Skip Barnes, as well as Ariana and Harris searching the scene for evidence.
I’m anxious to climb down from the unshaded metal emitting heat like a cast-iron radiator. But I kneel and then lie prone, as a sniper would, on top of the hot platform. Whoever it was—Gareth or maybe one of his men—would have been hidden mostly from view by the metal mesh railing.
That’s where something else catches my eye. A long strand of dark hair hangs from the metal mesh, as if it became snagged when someone was in this very position.
I rise to my knees and take out another evidence bag, then insert the hair inside. I hold it up in the light, looking at the strand, now curled inside the plastic.
The strand looks like the long hair Gareth McCormack keeps tied back in a ponytail.
Chapter 52
IT’S AFTER DARK when I pull up in front of Tom and Jessica’s house. The light in the garage is on, and I see Tom tinkering with his Mustang.
“You okay?” I say as I approach.
He nods, but he looks upset. Tom picks up an open can of Texas Lager from the workbench and offers me a fresh one. The radio is tuned to a classic country station, and an old Ronnie Milsap song is playing.
“Get your article sent off to the Associated Press?” I ask, cracking my beer.
He nods again, leans against the fender. His hands are dirty with car grease.
“I don’t know how you get used to it,” he says. “I feel like I’ve had a heck of a long day, but I only had to write about it. You have to figure out who did it.”
“It’s not an easy job,” I say, “but someone’s got to do it. Just like your job.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll admit to having had my share of conflicts wi
th the press, but people need to be informed.”
Jessica comes out in a nightgown and puts an arm around Tom. “You ready to come in?” she says.
He finishes the last of his beer and pulls down the garage door. The lawn chairs from the other night are still sitting out, and I tell them I’m going to relax for a few minutes and finish my beer.
I’m alone, perched at the edge of Jessica’s garden, listening to the chirp of insects. The sky is full of stars, bright and beautiful. Sitting here is peaceful, but it’s hard for me to enjoy it. My fingers itch, for one, like there are fire ants crawling over my skin. More than that, though, there’s simply a lot on my mind.
After the medical examiner arrived, Ariana and I went on to the ranch house and interviewed Carson and Gareth McCormack. Gareth had a smug expression on his face the whole time. We didn’t tell him we had a strand of hair, the bullet casing, or the bullet slug itself recovered from a tree. I’m not sure he would’ve been so self-assured if he’d known.
He consented to be swabbed for DNA and gunshot residue. And he showed us his gun collection, which took up an entire room of the house, every wall covered in corkboard and displaying rifles, shotguns, handguns, military rifles, muzzleloaders, crossbows, compound bows, and everything else you could think of. There were a few items—two machine guns, a short-barreled shotgun, some suppressors—that require a permit to own, but he had the proper paperwork.
In the stockpile were a Remington Model 783 and a Winchester Model 70, both of which will fire a 30-06 round. McCormack agreed to let us take those so we could compare the rounds fired. Every rifle barrel has lands and grooves that leave unique markings on a bullet, kind of like a fingerprint, and as long as the slug from the tree isn’t too mangled, we’ll know if either of Gareth’s guns fired the bullet. He agreed to let us take the guns so readily that I’m sure neither of them will result in a positive match. Which means that if it was him, he used another gun he’s not sharing.
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