“Listen to me,” I say. “Whoever is behind this, they’re not playing by the rules. They’re fixing the game in their favor. They didn’t just kill Skip Barnes. They’re getting you out of the picture, too. Who knows what they’ve got in store for me? Something bad is going on in this town. We’ve got to figure it out.”
“It doesn’t feel right to fight the people breaking the law by breaking the law ourselves. Isn’t this the kind of thing that’s gotten you into trouble in the past?”
She’s right. When I started this case, all I wanted to do was follow the rules, investigate the case by the book, be the best Ranger I could be. No cutting corners. No stepping outside the lines of the law.
“You have to solve this case without me, Rory. The right way.”
“The right way to solve this case,” I say, “is with you. You’re the one who suspected foul play from the start. This is your case. I’m just helping you.”
“I’m scared, Rory,” she says, her big eyes full of fear. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m not sure, either,” I say, “but the one thing I know for certain is I can’t let you go to jail for a crime you didn’t commit.”
Chapter 61
I TOSS AND turn all night, hardly sleeping. The rash on my fingers itches, but that’s the least of the reasons for my sleeplessness. I keep thinking about a plan that would allow Ariana to escape arrest—and whether I should actually go through with the plan or not. When I was talking to Ariana in her house, I felt confident that it was the right thing to do. But in the darkness of night, alone with my thoughts, I can’t be sure. Is this just another of my impulsive shoot-first, ask-questions-later solutions? Have I really thought this through?
When the sky starts to turn blue and the sun is on the verge of rising, I’m already up, dressed, and staring out the window at the arroyo and the hills behind Tom and Jessica’s property.
I’m taken for a moment by how beautiful the country here is. This land is different from my hometown—browner, drier, more desolate—but it’s all Texas.
I love this state and the people in it. I don’t want to betray this land I’ve sworn to protect.
I’ve stepped over the line before, not doing things by the book, but I’ve never so blatantly or egregiously broken the law. A Texas Ranger helping a suspected murderer escape from justice—any judge in the state would toss me behind bars and throw away the key.
I consider myself a lawman.
If I go through with this, I’ll be an outlaw.
I walk down the stairs, past Jessica’s berry bushes, and stand at the back gate of their property. Outside, in the peaceful morning air, I watch the sun peeking up from the horizon and igniting the hills in a brilliant gold light.
I pull out my cell phone.
In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve missed several calls from Willow. I know I should call her back, but I don’t want to talk to her right now. I don’t want to lie to her and tell her nothing’s going on. But I don’t want to worry her, either, so I justify silence as the best strategy.
But there is someone I do want to talk to.
“Hey, Dad,” I say when my father picks up. “Did I wake you?”
“Hell no,” he says. “Somebody’s gotta get up and feed the horses.”
He’s delighted to hear from me and wants to know when I’m coming home.
“Not any time soon,” I say, and I tell him I’m having trouble on the case in Rio Lobo.
I don’t get too much into specifics—that might take all day—but I tell him I’m at a crossroads, split between doing what I feel is right and doing what I’m bound to by the law.
My father is quiet for a minute and then he speaks.
“Rory, a Texas Ranger is more than just a government official. More than just a badge and a fancy title. A Texas Ranger is an idea. A higher standard. A Ranger swears an allegiance to Texas. Not just the state government but Texas itself.”
My heart pounds as he puts into words my own thoughts and feelings about the job. It is more than an honor to be a Texas Ranger.
It’s a duty.
“A Texas Ranger isn’t above the law,” Dad adds, “but when the system is broken, when the law isn’t working, you have a duty to do what’s right. You have a duty to this state and its people. You can’t stand idly by and watch a miscarriage of justice. A Texas Ranger is justice.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, my voice choked. “That’s what I needed to hear.”
“I’ll be praying for you, Rory. I love you, Son.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
My throat feels thick. His words inspire me, but they also make me realize the depth of the trouble I’m about to wade into. I’ve never been this far over my head. As I say good-bye to my father, I realize I might never see him again.
Or if I do, it might be through three inches of bulletproof glass in the visiting area of a Texas prison.
Chapter 62
BEFORE HEADING TO the police station for the day, I stop over at Tom and Jessica’s. Tom is drinking coffee in the kitchen, scrolling through the latest news from the El Paso Times on his laptop. Jessica has gone to work already.
He offers me a cup of coffee, but I don’t take it. I don’t even sit down.
“I’ve got a favor to ask,” I say.
“Sure,” he says. “Anything.”
“No,” I say. “A real favor.”
When I explain what it is, he looks as pale as paste.
“That could be dangerous,” he says.
I nod.
“And illegal.”
“You’d have plausible deniability,” I say. “I doubt they could get any charges to stick.”
“That may be,” he says, “but I happen to believe in this.” He points to the decorative sign on the wall. His finger is aimed specifically at the life lesson ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH. “I’m in the business of uncovering the truth, not lying about it. And I’m certainly not in the business of lying to police. Or a jury.”
I think about letting it go, telling him to forget I asked. But I need him. This won’t work without him.
I point to the two messages HAVE COURAGE and HELP OTHERS.
“Ariana needs your help, Tom. You said you wanted to get to the bottom of the trouble in Rio Lobo. This is the way. I need you to be brave here.”
He runs his hands through his hair, thinking hard about what I’m asking him to do. Finally, he nods and says, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“This is the right thing to do,” I say. “Even if it isn’t legal.”
He tries to force a grin. “Tell that to Jessica when she’s bringing me pecan pies in prison.”
Chapter 63
WHEN I GET to the station, the chief and I eye each other suspiciously. Both of us try to look busy—him in his office, me in the makeshift investigation room—but no further work can be done until we get word from the crime lab. I kill time until late morning and then tell the chief I’m heading out to eat some lunch.
I step into Rosalia’s—which I’ve determined is not only the least expensive restaurant in town but also the best—and I spot Alex Hartley, back from El Paso, sitting alone and reading an issue of Texas Football. I planned to push off a second interview with him until Ariana’s situation is resolved, but seeing him here, I can’t help myself.
I sit down across from him without invitation.
“Ranger,” he says, looking uncomfortable.
“You lied to me,” I say, loud enough for other patrons to hear. “Either you cut the bullshit or I’m going to arrest your ass right here.” I lean in closer to him. “You’re worried about your reputation in this town. When I walk you down Main Street in handcuffs, what do you think that will do to your reputation?”
“Okay,” he says, putting his hands up. “I’m sorry.” He looks around at all the eyes on us. “Can we go outside?”
Out in bright sunlight, with the heat coming up off the blacktop parking lot, I say, “You’ve got erectile dys
function. You didn’t want people to know, so Susan was nice enough to act like an on-again, off-again girlfriend. Right?”
“I’ve got diabetes,” he says. “Pretty bad. Most people don’t even know that.”
“You were the one who reported McCormack’s trucks going through the open space. Why did you do that?”
“I noticed them is all. Why? Does that have something to do with her death?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” I say.
He stares off down the street. A car goes by and the driver waves to him. That’s how it is for the football coach in a Texas town. Everyone knows you.
“Look,” he says, contrite. “I’m sorry I wasn’t forthcoming. I didn’t have anything to do with Susan’s death, so I didn’t figure it would hurt to lie about my personal details. I swear to God.”
The irony isn’t lost on me that earlier this morning I was asking someone devoted to the truth to lie and now I’m asking someone comfortable with lying to finally tell the truth.
I have a flash of memory from when I saw him outside Lobo Lizard the night I played there with Walt and Dale.
“What were you doing that night at Lobo Lizard?” I say. “I came outside and you and that other fella looked like you’d been caught with your hands in the cookie jar.”
He lets out a long exhale, as if resigning himself to honesty.
“I was buying pot.”
“Pot?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I buy marijuana for my diabetes. It helps with the pain. I’ve got a prescription, but there aren’t any dispensaries around here.”
He tells me he doesn’t like to use it at his house. There’s no telling who might stop by—assistant coaches, his principal, some of his players—and he doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s a stoner getting high all the time. He drives out into the open space and uses his vape pen in solitude. That’s when he spotted McCormack’s trucks, which he didn’t think were supposed to drive through there, and he mentioned it in passing to Susan.
I could arrest him for his admission of buying marijuana—as well as obstructing justice by lying to me—but I’ve got bigger problems on my plate. And what’s he really guilty of? Worrying too much about what people think of him.
“The last guy to pretend he had a relationship with Susan Snyder ended up dead,” I say to him. “So don’t go keeping any more secrets from me.”
I head back toward the restaurant, but before I make it through the door, I get a call from Liz at the dispatch desk.
“Come on back. Chief says he’s got the lab results.”
I climb into my truck. Before starting the engine, I send two text messages from my burner phone. One to Tom Aaron. One to Ariana Delgado. With those two texts, I’m now breaking the law.
It’s official.
I’m an outlaw.
Even if no one knows it yet.
Chapter 64
I WALK INTO his office without a word. He doesn’t tell me the results, just hands the papers to me so I can see for myself. I scan the reports without sitting down.
There’s no equivocation about what the tests revealed, nothing inconclusive.
Everything points to Ariana.
The 30-06 round that passed through Skip Barnes’s head was fired from Ariana’s M1 Garand. The hair strand I took from the top of the oil derrick is also a genetic match for Ariana. With her fingerprints on the shell casing, that makes three significant pieces of forensic evidence that all point to Ariana as the shooter who killed Skip Barnes.
I set the papers down on Harris’s desk. He stares at me. I know he’s ready for me to argue. He’s known since we found the gun that this moment would come, and I’d argue until I was blue in the face that this is a setup.
Instead, I take a different tactic.
“Do you really think she did it?” I say, my voice as calm and submissive as I can make it.
The tension in his posture seems to lessen.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But what would you do if this wasn’t Ariana? If this was someone you didn’t know?”
I act like I’m thinking about his question. I sit down in the chair across from his desk, and he does the same on the other side.
“Under ordinary circumstances,” I say, “I would arrest her. This is enough evidence to keep her in jail while we try to fill in the gaps in the investigation.”
If Ariana is arrested, it’s not as if the work on the case would be finished. We would need to look for witnesses, conduct interviews, continue looking for evidence. Ariana said she went for a run that morning. We would need to find witnesses who could contradict her statement—or verify it. This is a small town. Someone probably saw her running. Or, if she did drive out to McCormack’s ranch, then someone probably saw her in a vehicle.
If this was anyone but Ariana, I would assume the person is guilty based on the evidence we already have. I would continue to work to make sure the case is as solid as possible. But I would like to think that if I found holes in the case, if witnesses did claim to see her running on the arroyo, I wouldn’t ignore the possibility that Ariana might be innocent. I wouldn’t cherry-pick my facts and use only the ones that support a case against a suspect.
I explain all this to Harris as clearly as I can, how I would ordinarily arrest the suspect at this point because I would be confident that our continued investigation would not weaken our case, only make it stronger.
“In this case,” I say to Harris, “I feel certain that once we really dig into this thing, we’ll find holes. We’ll find problems. We’ll get to the bottom of the setup. We’re going to end up letting her go. So let’s just skip the part where we look like jackasses a week from now or a month from now. Let’s refrain from making a bad arrest.”
To Harris’s credit, he doesn’t get angry with me. We talk about this like two professionals, weighing the pros and cons, discussing what the best next step is. In the end, he finds the flaw in my argument. Essentially, I’m saying that if this was anyone else, I would arrest the person, and the only reason I don’t want to arrest Ariana is that I know, in my heart, that she didn’t do it, despite all evidence to the contrary.
“Do you hear yourself, Rory?” he says. “We can’t just ignore the facts and say, ‘Oh, but I know her. She would never do this.’ I don’t like the idea of arresting her any more than you do. She’s my detective, for Christ’s sake. But we can’t let her walk around free when everything points to her being a murderer.”
“All right,” I say. “But before we go arrest her, Chief, let me make a promise to you. I know this is a setup. You’re either a pawn or a participant. If it turns out you’re a pawn, that’s forgivable, I guess, but it means you’re inept as a police chief. If it turns out she’s innocent—and it will turn out she’s innocent—then you’re signing your own fate. When the smoke clears on this thing, no one in Rio Lobo will ever trust you again.”
He’s simmering mad, but I don’t stop. All amiability between us is gone.
“That’s the best you can hope for,” I say. “If you turn out to be a participant—and therefore corrupt—I’ll make sure you live in prison until you’re a very old man.”
He glares at me.
“A month from now,” I say, “you’re going to be either out of a job or in jail.”
“You Texas Rangers,” he snarls. “You don’t know what it’s like to maintain the peace in a town like this, to earn the respect of the people. You bounce from place to place, acting like you’re better than everyone. But this is my town, not yours. I was here long before you showed up, and I’ll be chief of police here long after you’re gone.”
“We’ll see,” I say.
“Yes, we will.”
We sit in silence, the hostility between us heating the room like a furnace.
“Okay,” I say finally, rising out of my seat, “let’s go arrest our girl. We’ll do it together.”
This was an argument I was never going to win. But I knew that going in. It wasn’t my
real intention to persuade Harris. What I was really doing was stalling.
Giving Tom and Ariana some time.
Hopefully it was enough.
Chapter 65
ARIANA PEEKS BETWEEN the blinds at the police car sitting in front of her house. The officer behind the wheel is Hank Humphreys, a young kid and nice enough guy. He and Ariana have always been friendly to each other, but he’ll arrest her in a heartbeat if that’s what John Grady Harris wants.
If she snuck out the back door, she might be able to make it, but she doubts it. Hank has his window rolled down, and even if he couldn’t see her, he might hear her. Her back door always squeaks, and the fence gate at the rear of the lot is even worse.
Rory told her to wait for the distraction.
Whatever that is going to be.
She spots Tom Aaron walking up the street with a reporter’s notebook in hand. He heads toward the police car, and Hank Humphreys steps out. Tom holds his notebook in front of him, ready to write. Ariana can’t tell what’s being said, but she can get the gist from their actions. Tom is asking Hank questions, which the officer is refusing to answer.
This is it, she thinks. This is the distraction.
She heads toward the back of the house and eases out the door. It squeaks, but she doesn’t think Hank notices—she can hear him in a heated discussion with Tom. At the back of her property is a short wooden fence, separating her yard from the arroyo. She’s afraid to open the gate—it’s even more noisy—so she puts one hand on a post and vaults over it, landing deftly in the dirt path on the other side.
She walks quickly down the trail. The water in the ditch next to her is brown and slow-moving. When she gets to a point where she can see around her house, she spots Tom and Hank talking furiously.
“So you are not denying that Detective Delgado is a suspect in the murder of Skip Barnes?” Tom says, sounding more aggressive in the interview than she’s ever heard him.
“I ain’t denying nothing,” Hank says, flustered. “I ain’t confirming nothing neither. I’m saying you need to talk to Chief Harris.”
Texas Outlaw Page 15
