by George Wier
“He fished here?” I asked, raising my voice.
“Yep. Good fishing here underneath those pilings. Fish like to stay cool on warm days. They love the shadows. Lots of shadow here.”
We glided close to the structure, which became quite a bit larger than I anticipated. The boardwalk from shore to marina was completely gone, leaving only the stumps of darkened pilings sticking up, not unlike the stubs of teeth in an oldtimer’s mouth. Since there was no access by foot to the shore the structure had likely been free of vagrants and vandals for a very long time.
“Can you get me over by that doorway?” I asked Sarah.
“You’re not planning on going in there, are you?” she asked.
I turned to regard them. She grew conscious of her hand on Perry’s arm and withdrew it slowly.
“I just want to rule it out,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Perry asked.
“Perry,” I said. “You can stay here with Sarah. Ma’am, if you could get me under that open door.”
She pulled a cord and the motor coughed and woke up.
Underneath the dark doorway that stood open to the lake, I stood carefully and peered inside.
Blackness.
“I won’t be five minutes,” I said.
“Watch those timbers,” Sarah said. “This old marina has been standing here like this for thirty years. No telling how rotted everything is.”
“I’ll be. . . thorough,” I said.
Perry steadied the boat with one hand on the underside of the building. I planted both numbed hands at the threshold and leapt up, levering myself in and onto my belly. I smelled it, then: rat droppings. One would assume the place would be free of varmints, but I recalled that rats and other rodents have no problem swimming, and such a structure would be just too attractive for them to pass up.
I gained my feet slowly, turned and looked down to Perry and Sarah. I fished in my pocket for my car keys. On the ring was a mostly unused flashlight, the kind to help you find where to put your key when you’re facing a locked door in the darkness. A bluish light sprang into being and I played it about. Nothing in the room except old, scattered newspapers, dust-laden cardboard box remnants, and lots of rat droppings.
At my feet I saw it. The dust had been disturbed recently by footprints that lead on into the structure.
“I’ve found something,” I called out. “Five minutes.”
I walked forward carefully into the old structure.
*****
A couple of times I nearly went through the floor, but I took my time.
In a small windowless room that I took it to be a former pantry— complete with old shelves and one tin of sardines—I found what I was looking for.
An old chair, now in pieces, a good deal of sliced up rope— new—and dried blood. A great deal of it.
Footprints. Everywhere.
One more scan of the shelves and I found it. A stub of a cigar. And by itself, wadded up and tossed to the back of the wide, dusty shelf, I found a bit of paper. It was a cigar band. I carefully unfolded it and held it up to my light.
Garcia y Vega, it read.
“Walt,” I said. “You son of a bitch.”
*****
A lot can happen, apparently, in five or so minutes.
Back in the boat Sarah and Perry regarded me quietly. Her hand was back on his arm. This time she didn’t bother to withdraw it.
“Bill,” Perry began.
“What is it?”
“We have to tell you something,” Perry said.
“What is it?” I repeated.
“Sarah and I are getting married.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well,” I said, not to be taken aback by the fact that literally anything can happen when you’re not looking, “you’re both over seventeen. Do you feel you know each other well enough?”
“She’s widowed,” Perry said. “No children. I’m divorced. No kids, too. We were born two months apart to the day. Same hospital. That’s enough for me.”
“Well alright,” I said. “Let’s head back.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
A person will do just about anything, given the proper motivation. I had no doubt that Walt Cannon had been there either before, during, or after Phil Burnet had died, or possibly all three. What I wanted to know was why?
“What’d you find, Bill?” Perry asked me as we glided up to the dock at Point Venture.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Tell.”
“A bit of evidence. Possibly nothing.”
“Yeah?” Perry said.
I fished it out of my pocket, showed them.
“That Ranger smokes those,” Perry said. “Walt Cannon. You found that inside that old marina?”
“Yep. And a lot of footprints and some dried blood.”
Perry helped Sarah up onto the dock, then they both turned and looked down at me.
“He—or they—killed Burnet there. But they had to carry him to Barton Creek to dump him.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, knowing he had it right.
“Come on, Bill. I may be a bit soft on women, but I’ve got more than mush upstairs. You can’t kill someone in Lake Travis and then find the body up Barton Creek. The dam. The spillway. He was moved.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” Sarah said.
“Let’s go, Perry,” I said.
“If he’s going, I’m going,” Sarah said.
“Now just a damned minute,” I began.
“Mr. Travis. We’re not letting you up on this dock until you say ‘yes.’ Besides that, Perry wants me to come along.”
I looked from her to him. He nodded.
“Geez louise,” I said. “Fine.”
*****
For the moment the weather had broken. A patch of clear blue opened up in the clouds overhead and rays of golden sunlight streamed through and glistened on the wet grass.
I followed Perry and Sarah in her car back to Sarah’s home on the opposite side of Point Venture. They got out, came over to me and Perry said they’d just be a minute. I waited until they were both in the house and started my car, intent on driving away, then recalled my promise to a certain gate guard. A broken promise, you might say. No, I couldn’t leave without Perry, and if there was any explaining to do to the gate guard, I’d let Sarah and Perry do it.
“You were going to leave, weren’t you?” Sarah asked as they each opened a door and climbed inside.
“No way, kiddos,” I said. “I promised somebody I’d watch him,” I gestured to Perry.
“The gate guard,” Perry said.
Sarah laughed.
At the gate the guard was waiting.
“Pay your respects?” he asked me, looking in at Perry and then to the back seat at Sarah.
“Yep,” I said.
“Miss Banks,” the guard said. “You know what you’re doing?”
“Mind your own damned business, Bob,” she said.
“Fine. I will.” He looked hard a me. I gave him the slightest of shrugs.
“I still got your license number,” Bob said.
“That’s fine,” I replied, and gunned the motor. Bob moved back before I could run over his foot. I didn’t know why I did that at that moment, but later I found myself blaming him just a little for what happened afterwards. He never should have let us go in there to begin with.
*****
“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.
Perry chimed in before I could answer: “Barton Springs.”
He looked at me for confirmation. I nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s the beginning,” I said.
“The beginning of what?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s what I want to find out.”
“Oh,” she said.
*****
I took the leisurely route back to town, north to one of the main highway
s, then down the long hill into the Colorado Valley and back up again through the winding canyons west of Austin and into town.
The traffic on Mopac Expressway—named such from the old Missouri-Pacific railroad that still functioned and neatly divided that highway—was heavy with going-home traffic, slowing us down to a crawl.
The cleared area of sky had clouded over again and drizzle peppered my windshield. Inside, the conversation had died.
“Why are an insurance agent and an investment counselor investigating a murder?” Sarah asked from the back seat.
“Why indeed,” I said under my breath.
“I’m a bit excited,” she said.
I nodded.
“He doesn’t say much,” she said to Perry.
“I know,” he said.
*****
We got out at Zilker Park, Austin’s main park attraction, and I found myself fondly wishing for Sarah’s old rain slicker.
We made our way along the slick concrete sidewalk and to the rough-hewn steep limestone steps that led down to the creek side.
Barton Creek is spring fed, an underground outlet of the Edwards Aquifer that runs for a hundred miles or more beneath Central Texas. The waters are cold and clean. The springs had been dammed up in the distant past to allow for a large spring-fed swimming pool that remained the same cold sixty-five degrees year-round. During the summer it was Austin’s swimming attraction. During the fall and winter it was deserted except for a few avid swimmers who swam daily, also year-round.
We meandered along the rock-strewn shore down to the canoe stand that stood on the edge of the creek. I’d expected it to be closed. It was. The canoes were all chained up. The caretakers hadn’t bothered to hang out a closed sign.
“Perry, show me where you found him.”
“Uh. Bill. I have to tell you something. It’s not really a big deal.”
“What?”
“I didn’t actually... Well, it wasn’t actually me that first spotted him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Who then?”
“You remember my associate?”
“The slapper?”
He nodded. I laughed.
“Come on, you two,” I said.
*****
The spot was dreadfully apparent. The weeds had been pushed down where the Sheriff’s divers and the coroner’s people had pulled the body out of the creek. There was even a trail where I imagined the body had been dragged up.
I began unbuttoning my shirt.
“What the hell are you doing, Bill?” Perry asked.
“I’m going for a swim. You two want to come along?”
“Man, you’re crazy. There’s no way.”
Sarah laughed. “He may be crazy,” she said. “But he’s going to do it.”
I shucked my shirt and handed it to Perry. Then I toed my shoes off.
“What about your socks?” Perry asked.
“They’re wet anyway.” I handed Perry my wallet. I fished the light from my car keys and handed them over to him.
“How far out was he?” I asked.
“About the middle.”
I looked across the water, noting where a billow of bottom lake-grass touched the surface near the center of the creek. The lake was full of the stuff, but it could be deceiving. I’d been out on the lake plenty enough times to know that the stuff could grow up thirty or more feet from the bottom.
Before anything else could be said on the subject, I dived into the water.
I was instantly very cold.
I surfaced and then stroked toward the middle of the creek.
I turned back to my comrades in crime, gave them a winning smile, took in a great gulp of air, then dived down.
A mere six feet below the surface the water became murky. I kicked my feet frog fashion and swam down into the growing darkness.
I squeezed my penlight between my right thumb and forefinger, expecting it not to work, and a cone of blue light sprang into being. I played it about, saw the bottom another ten feet down, and swam harder.
So quiet the water is. So ethereal and still. As a kid I was always mesmerized by the old Jacques Cousteau underwater research adventures they used to show on Sunday evenings when everybody was home from church and the compelling scent of frying chicken wafted through the house. Beneath the water is a menagerie, an unsung world waiting for discovery. Probably, those were Cousteau’s words. But still, in later years I remembered those times, had planned on taking diving classes, but had never found the time. I vowed to do just that in the near future.
Something winked at me from the bottom. Probably an old tin can, I thought, but I swam for it anyway, put my hands out and got it, just as my lungs began telling tales about me out of school.
No time to look at what I had. My light winked out and I swam for the surface.
I arose from a well of inky blackness into the gloaming. Some-where on the way up I dropped my penlight, but I clutched at the metal object, using it to push me further.
About the moment I thought my lungs were going to give out and my lips and mouth betray me by opening to take on water, my head broke the surface.
A cheer met me from the shore.
Air heaved into my lungs. My legs and arms and hands were cold and beginning to hurt, but I felt exhilarated. I felt alive. And then on the heels of that emotion I thought about my wife and suddenly knew she was going to kill me when she found out what I had done. “You what?” I could almost hear her say, but then I banished the thought.
I swam to the shore and Perry and Sarah fished me out. I subdued the urge to pull Perry in and give him a good dunk. He probably wouldn’t have found it funny.
“What you got there, Bill?” Sarah asked.
And then standing there, cold water streaming off of me, I looked down at what lay in my hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You were down there about three minutes,” Sarah said. “Perry and I were about to go in after you.”
“South Pacific pearl divers can hold their breaths for anywhere up to eight minutes,” I said.
They stood close to me, looking down at my hand and at the medallion and the silvery chain hanging from it.
“What the hell is that?” Perry asked.
“‘Hell’ is about right,” I said.
“Huh?” Sarah said. Her brows were furrowed, trying to get a close look. “Looks like a star.”
“Pentagram,” I said. “Either magic or devil worship. Some people would say its all one and the same. I have no way of knowing whether or not this has anything to do with Phil Burnet.”
“Or Ranger Cannon,” Perry said.
“Yeah. Give me that shirt, Perry. I’m freezing.”
I donned the shirt, peeled my socks off and stepped into my shoes. My pants would be a long time drying, particularly given the current weather situation.
“Let’s go back to my office,” I said. “I have a change of clothes there. Also, I need to call my wife.”
With my car heater going full blast we meandered our way through Austin and back north across Town Lake and over to San Antonio Street where a certain investment counselor and a certain insurance agent keep their offices.
I parked beside Penny’s car. She was still there, although she should have left two hours before. The night was coming on as we went in the back door.
“Mr. Travis,” Penny said. “I have several messages for you.”
“Julie called?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. And your friend Deputy Kinsey stopped by. He seemed upset that you weren’t here. I told him you don’t like to carry a cell phone and he got a little upset. You’d better call him.”
“Julie first,” I said. “Penny, you know Perry Reilly.”
She glanced his way, frowned very slightly, then looked Sarah Banks up and down. At that moment I knew that Perry had been hitting on Penny some time in the past.
“This is Perry’s fiancé, Sarah Banks,” I said.
Penny and Sarah shook hands.
<
br /> “Why’d you stay?” I asked Penny.
“Umm, had some extra work to do,” she said, and I suddenly knew the time had gotten away from her while she was writing on her book.
“Okay,” I said. I took the small stack of message slips from Penny’s hand and shuffled through them.
Walt Cannon had called. The message read: “Forget the whole thing.” No return phone number.
I chuckled.
“You can go home now, Penny,” I said. “Thanks for holding down the fort.”
I waited for her to turn and leave, but she stood there.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“Umm. Mr. Travis. It’s pay day.”
“Oh. Damn. The banks are already closed. I’ll write a check and then cash it for you.”
“I already wrote it for you and updated your spreadsheet.” She handed it to me. “You just need to sign it.”
“Miss Penny,” Perry said as I signed the check, “I’d like to hire you out from under Bill.”
She fixed Perry with a stare.
“Not in a million years, Mr. Reilly,” she said.
*****
I closed my office door, locked it, retrieved clean pants, shirts and socks from my closet and donned them. Possibly I wouldn’t catch a cold.
I called Julie and told her I’d be late coming home.
“I knew that,” she said.
“What did Penny tell you?” I asked her.
“That you’re doing something for Walt Cannon. Bill, if you want to play detective, then you need to get a license and a gun.”
There was a little acid in her voice. She didn’t like it when things got going with me. In the past four years I had been shot at, nearly blown up, kidnaped, hunted, hounded, and been through more close scrapes than Troy Aikman had during his entire career as the Dallas Cowboys quarterback.
“Honey,” I said.
“Don’t ‘honey’ me,” she said. “We’ll talk about it later. When you’re done chasing desperadoes, you need to pick up Jessica. She’s got this idea it’s okay for her to wait on line all night for concert tickets.”
