A Salt and Battery

by Liliana Hart

  “Good call, son,” Coil said, and moved past him.

  Agatha followed behind Coil and her gaze scanned the group of people inside until it landed on Martha. She was sitting in a director’s chair, and there was a brief look of confusion followed immediately by panic as their entourage moved toward her.

  A big bull of a man charged toward them, his face red with fury. “Who are you people? Get out of my production room. We’re getting ready to roll the camera.” He looked around, probably for the security guard, and then said, “If you don’t turn around and walk out of here right now I’m going to throw you out.” He took another step toward Coil and pounded his fist into his open palm.

  “That would be a mistake,” Coil said, showing him his badge. “If I were you I’d sit down over there and shut up before things go south real fast.”

  “Martha Magee,” Agatha called out, moving around Coil so she could be seen. “I gave you the chance to do this the easy way. You’re under arrest for the murder of Rowdy Mustang.”

  “You got a warrant?” another man asked, putting himself between Agatha and Martha.

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” Agatha said. She recognized him as one of the contestants from the previous season, Gaston Boudreaux. In fact, there were several contestants from the previous season, all sitting in directors’ chairs like Martha under lots of lights and green screens.

  Gaston was thick bodied and his arms were covered in dark hair. His permanent five-o’clock shadow obscured a ruddy complexion. He was pure Cajun from the bayou.

  “You a lawyer?” Hank asked, stepping in front of Agatha as Gaston approached her.

  “No, I’m a chef,” Gaston snarled. “But we don’t need the cops harassing innocent people.”

  “Stick to your recipes, or you’ll end up coming with her,” Hank said. “I know the cameras are rolling and you people crave drama, but I don’t think this is the kind of publicity you want. You don’t want to protect a murderer.”

  Agatha noticed Hank shifted his weight and took a step back so there was room to maneuver in case things got physical.

  “Where I come from the cops know better than to cross me,” Gaston warned. “We make our own laws on the bayous.”

  “Maybe you should go back there,” Hank said. “Because in Bell County, bayou boys have to follow the law just like everyone else.”

  Gaston growled. “Next time we meet it’s going to be different. Maybe Rowdy won’t be the only one who gets—”

  “You finish that thought and I’m going to mop up this banquet room with your big mouth,” Hank snarled.

  “Enough of this,” Agatha said, stepping around Hank and heading toward Martha again. “Someone read her her rights.”

  Rodriguez had quietly slipped behind Martha while everyone’s attention was on Hank and Gaston, and she quickly grabbed one of Martha’s wrists and brought her to her feet. Before her mouth finished dropping open, Rodriguez had her in cuffs and was reading her her rights.

  “You can’t do this to me,” Martha said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “I just want the taxpayers to get more bang for their buck,” Agatha said, shrugging. “Now you get to see what the inside of a cell looks like.”

  Martha cried out a desperate plea for someone, anyone, to rescue her. But the others stood frozen, hopes of their season premiere going down in flames.

  “I hate you,” Martha screamed at Agatha. “And I hate your books. You’re a terrible author.”

  Agatha laughed. “You’ve already been told you have the right to remain silent. I’d follow that suggestion if I were you.”

  Chapter Six

  Martha had taken Agatha’s advice on the drive to Rusty Gun—she hadn’t uttered a word. Agatha let Rodriguez take the lead on getting Martha out of her unit and into the station and through the booking process.

  By the time they got Martha into an interview room, she was seething with anger.

  “You can’t keep me here,” Martha said. “I’m going to sue you.”

  “Uh-huh,” Agatha said. “If you don’t want to get arrested you probably shouldn’t kill people.”

  “This is a joke,” she said. “Did the producers put you up to this? This is not in my contract. Take me back to the resort this instant.”

  “No can do,” Agatha said. “Want some water?”

  “Perrier if you have it,” Martha said.

  “You got it,” Agatha said and poured her a little plastic cup of tap water from the pitcher on the table.

  She left the interrogation room and locked the door behind her. The longer they made Martha wait the more rattled she’d be. And if she drank the water she’d probably want to get through the questions as fast as she could.

  Agatha went into Coil’s office where he and Hank waited for her. Rodriguez was monitoring Martha on the monitor in the corner.

  “How are we going to play this?” Coil asked.

  “You think she’s stable enough to question?” Hank asked. “I don’t want to risk a forced confession. She’s in la-la land.”

  “It’ll sink in soon,” Agatha said. “She’s starting to grasp the severity of the situation. Her hands are shaking.”

  They watched Martha pick up the cup of water and some sloshed onto the table.

  “I think we should play it good cop, good cop,” Hank said. “Once she realizes that snapping her fingers won’t summon an army of servants, she’ll need someone to help her hold it together. She might be more talkative if she’s got a sympathetic ear. Especially if this is a lovers’ spat gone wrong.”

  “Do it,” Coil said, ignoring the phone as it started to ring. It had been doing that pretty much nonstop since they’d brought Martha in. Reporters had flooded the phone lines with requests for information, and there were several vans camped in front of the sheriff’s office. They’d been blocking traffic until Coil had sent officers out to put up a barricade for them to park behind.

  “You ready?” Hank asked.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Agatha said. “I’m definitely not her favorite person right now. Why don’t you start things off, and I’ll follow your lead.”

  The room wasn’t a typical interrogation room. There were no one-way mirrors or high-tech electronics. Just the simple surveillance camera in the corner. It was the size of a closet with industrial gray carpet and white walls. There were three wooden chairs and a solid wooden table in the middle of the room.

  “How are you doing?” Hank asked Martha as he closed the door behind him.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” she said.

  “We’ll make sure someone takes you as soon as we get a few questions answered,” Hank said, taking the chair across from her. Agatha took the seat next to him, but Martha didn’t spare her a glance.

  “Why can’t I go now?” she complained. “That’s inhumane. I’m not a criminal.”

  “That’s what we’re here to get to the bottom of, Martha,” Hank said. “Because things don’t look too good for you right now. Why’d you kill Rowdy Mustang?”

  “What?” she asked. “Are you crazy? I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “The evidence tells a different story,” Hank said. “Why would your fingerprints be all over the murder weapon?”

  “Easy,” she said, her lips pressing tight together. “Because you put them there.”

  Hank laughed. “And how would we have done that?”

  “I don’t know, but cops do stuff like that all the time. You people are so desperate to find who killed Rowdy you’ll pin it on someone like me for the publicity. I bet you like seeing your name in the paper. Or maybe your girlfriend needs a story for her trashy books. Who knows?”

  Agatha felt her blood boil and looked at Hank for the go-ahead to cut in. “I think you’re right, Martha,” she said. “You’re smarter than we thought you were, but you caught us. It makes perfect sense for us to take the rolling pin you used to bash Rowdy’s head in, and while it’s covered in blood we somehow managed to transfer s
everal of your prints on top of the blood, which for morons like us, would make it look like you were right there at the time of death. Gosh, Hank. Maybe we should just let her go and turn ourselves in.”

  The corner of Hank’s mouth twitched in a smile, but he didn’t say anything.

  “You ever take a science class, Martha?” Agatha asked. “A forensics class? Anything like that?”

  Martha just rolled her eyes, but she’d gone pale as Agatha had laid it out for her. “You can’t let her talk to me that way,” she appealed to Hank. “She’s just a lousy writer. What’s she even doing here?”

  “She is a duly commissioned special investigator,” Hank said. “And right now, you’re probably a lot better off talking to her than to me. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need to hear what you have to say. We have the evidence, and you can rot in prison for all I care.”

  Agatha’s eyes went wide, and she hoped Coil wasn’t too mad at them. His plan of taking it easy on Martha had not gone as planned.

  “Were you in love with Rowdy?” Agatha asked.

  Martha looked back and forth between Hank and Agatha, unsure who to respond to. “That’s ridiculous. Rowdy and me? Can you imagine? He was disgusting.”

  Agatha was good at reading people. She had to be for her career. And there was something in Martha’s expression when she denied the affair that made her curious. She went with her gut. “So you’re not having an affair with Rowdy. What about Gaston?”

  Martha stared at her wide eyed, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She licked her lips and said, “We were friends.”

  “Were?” Hank asked.

  “Are,” Martha corrected. “We are friends.”

  “How friendly are you?” Agatha asked.

  “We don’t hang out on the weekends or anything,” she said, not making eye contact. “We got to know each other on the show. The show highlights that stuff. It’s good for ratings.”

  “Uh-huh,” Agatha said. “So maybe you were feeling friendly toward both Gaston and Rowdy, and when things got too hot you decided to kill Rowdy.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” she yelled. “Stop saying that.”

  “Then who did?” Agatha asked. “Who killed Rowdy and left your bloody fingerprints all over the murder weapon?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I was at the book signing that morning. You saw me there. I couldn’t have killed him.” Martha was panicking now, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “A confession is going to make things easier on you,” Hank said. “This is Texas. It’s a death penalty state. You’re going to want to make things easier on yourself. On your family by telling us the truth.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” she said, starting to hyperventilate. “I’ve got to pee, and I’m going to be sick.”

  “We can take a quick break,” Agatha said. “But when you come back, we want the truth.”

  Hank and Agatha let Rodriguez in so she could escort Martha to the restaurant, and they headed back to Coil’s office.

  “So…” Coil said. “That was an interesting and gentle approach. But you’ve got her on the ropes. The only problem is I’m not so sure she’s our killer.”

  “What?” Hank asked.

  “We got the labs back on the blood from the rolling pin,” Coil said. “It’s not a match for Rowdy.”

  “How can that be?” Agatha asked. “Whose blood is it? It’s not like it was a small amount.”

  “Not sure,” Coil said. “The lab is processing as fast as they can, but we’re like every other agency with an open investigation. We’ll have to wait in line.”

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  Coil blew out a breath and propped his boots on his desk. “We keep her for now. We have seventy-two hours with her, and there’s still the issue of her fingerprints on the weapon that killed Rowdy Mustang.”

  “Has Springer finished finding out whose number that was on Rowdy’s phone?” Hank asked.

  “He just sent the name over. Gaston Boudreaux.”

  “Rowdy and Gaston were the semifinalists from last season,” Agatha said.

  “How about we put Martha on ice until tomorrow morning, and bring in Gaston in the morning?” Hank said. “This old boy needs food and sleep. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “You’re plenty young,” Agatha said, smacking his chest. “I think keeping Martha on ice is smart. Maybe she and Gaston are in on it together.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Coil told Hank. “Maybe Gaston will resist arrest.”

  “And I still get tacos,” Hank said. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday

  First thing the next morning, Hank arrived with Coil at the resort, and they waited in Coil’s truck until Deputy James arrived in his marked police vehicle. If Gaston refused to cooperate and they had to arrest him, they’d need the cage in James’s unit to transport the big bayou bully.

  “Why’s Gaston even here?” Hank asked. “He lost last season. He didn’t win a prize or get his own restaurant. You think he was here to see Martha? She said most of the cast wouldn’t be here until next week. Maybe he came early so they could have some alone time.”

  “Or maybe he came to kill Rowdy,” Coil said.

  “There’s James,” Hank said.

  The three of them quickly briefed on their strategy to approach Gaston for questioning, and then made their way back to the Jim Bowie Room where production was continuing without Martha.

  “The show must go on, huh?” Coil asked.

  Hank noticed the little blond girl who’d shown him and Agatha around the hotel the day before while they’d been in wedding mode. “Tabitha,” Hank said.

  “Mr. Davidson,” she said, looking surprised. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

  “Would you mind showing us where we can find Gaston Boudreaux?”

  “Oh,” she squeaked, flushing red.

  “I’m guessing they said not to disturb them,” Hank said. “And I understand you wanting to do your job, but this is an official police investigation and supersedes anything some director may have told you.”

  She bit her lip and said, “You sure about that?”

  “One hundred percent sure,” Hank said.

  “Okay, but please don’t tell them I told you,” she said. “He’s in 407. It’s one of the suites, but it’s not on a private floor like the bigger stars.”

  “Thank you,” Hank said, and they headed to the elevator and rode to the fourth floor. There was a new security guard at the door, and he figured the guy from the day before had probably been fired.

  Coil showed the guard his badge. “We’re here for Gaston Boudreaux. Official police business.”

  “I am not authorized to allow access unless you’re in possession of a warrant,” the guard said.

  “My goal is to get Boudreaux, who happens to be a person of interest in a murder investigation, to come in voluntarily. But I have enough to get an arrest warrant. And I’ll just leave these two officers here to guard this door and make sure you don’t overstep by letting Boudreaux know what’s going on and giving him time to come up with a story or leave all together. And I’ll drive all the way across town and get the judge to sign a warrant, and then I’ll come back and make everyone miserable. And I’ll be sure to let the hotel know that you didn’t cooperate with local law enforcement.”

  “But…”

  Coil held up a finger and said, “And when I do come back with that warrant, I’m going to bring you in with the rest of them to see what’s so important that you felt the need to resist a lawful request for access.”

  “I’ll let you in,” he said. “But they already fired Colton yesterday. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “I’ll talk to the manager and let him know you cooperated,” Coil said.

  The guy nodded and said, “I’m going to take my break.” And then he swiped the access card in the slot by the door and took
off in a hurry toward the elevator.

  “People are acting like these television folks are the Mafia or something,” James said. “I’ve had enough of them showing up and bossing these poor people around.”

  “They’re paying a fortune to be here, and it’s good revenue for the county,” Coil said. “But that doesn’t mean they can get away with murder.”

  The suite was huge—Texas-sized huge. The foyer alone was bigger than most of Hank’s house. He and Coil and James walked across the marble entryway and past the grand piano and a full-sized kitchen to the right. They heard voices before they saw actual people, but then the space opened up into a living area where all the furniture had been pushed against the walls. It didn’t look like any work was going on. There were all eating and drinking and having a grand time. And there was Gaston, the center of attention. It didn’t take long before Gaston’s eyes locked with Hank’s, and the big bull of a man pushed past the people he’d been talking to and charged toward Hank.

  “Here we go,” Hank said.

  “Get out!” Gaston said. “You’re not welcome here. Haven’t you done enough?”

  Hank held up his badge. “Good to see you again. You’re just who we’re looking for.”

  “Oh yeah?” Gaston asked. “Look for this.” He pulled back a meaty fist, but Hank was ready.

  Before Hank could have his nose rearranged he gave Gaston a short jab to the stomach that knocked the big Cajun back a couple of steps, and then Hank followed it up with a punch to the jaw. Gaston’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went down like a tree.

  Hank rubbed his aching hand. It had been a long time since he’d had to throw a punch.

  “Anyone else want to do something stupid and go to jail?” Coil asked.

  No one moved a muscle, and James grunted as he rolled Gaston over onto his belly. He quickly snapped the handcuffs and then he smacked Gaston’s cheeks a couple of times to wake him up. It didn’t work.

  Hank grabbed a pitcher of water and poured it out onto Gaston’s head. The big brawler came to looking dazed and angry. He rolled around on the floor, struggling against the steel cuffs. There’d be only one winner in that battle, and it wouldn’t be Gaston.