Rattlesnake

by Andy Maslen

  Gabriel looked deep into the detective’s dark brown eyes. She was hiding something. It was there in the minute changes to her pupils and the blood flow to her eyelids. He changed tack.

  “Forgive me, please. I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I know you’re doing all you can. Can I share a secret with you?”

  Casamayor shrugged.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Vinnie and I made a pact with each other. Look.” He held out his right thumb so that the pad was towards her. “See the scar?”

  She peered at the skin.

  “That?” she asked, touching a place on the pad.

  “That. Blood brothers. We swore to each other we’d investigate if either of us died anywhere except our own beds. That’s why I’m here and why I’m being nosy.”

  “That’s very,” she paused, “very admirable. And believe me, I really hope you find out what happened. But like I said, it’s not my case anymore. It’s out of my hands.”

  Terri-Ann touched the detective lightly on the arm.

  “I’m sorry, Val, but if it isn’t your case anymore, can you tell us who’s in charge now?”

  Casamayor shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. The captain didn’t share that with me.”

  “Can you find out?” Gabriel asked.

  She was clearly torn. He noticed the way she looked down at her knees rather than at him or Terri-Ann. She was worrying away at her wedding ring again, as if she could twist it clear of the joint.

  “I’ll try, OK? No promises.”

  17

  Help From an Unexpected Quarter

  SUN was streaming through the slit in the curtains and falling across the rumpled sheet of Gabriel’s bed. The man himself was kneeling on the carpet at the end of the bed, eyes closed, hands together as if in prayer. He had been there for fifteen minutes, unmoving, focused on his breathing, which had slowed to just two breaths a minute. As they had been in Hong Kong, in the garden, his toes were bent under, like a sprinter on his blocks, and had passed through the state of pain into a sensation Gabriel had named the cold heat. Very uncomfortable, and alternately burning and then icy cold. His phone bleeped softy, signalling the end of his meditation. He leaned forwards onto his palms, and hissed out air through his teeth as his toes unfolded and blood rushed to fill the compressed veins, arteries and capillaries. He remained there, forehead to the floor, for two minutes, before springing upright and heading for the shower.

  Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, he headed downstairs, following his nose to the kitchen. The kitchen clock said 8.30.

  “Well, good morning, sleepy head!” Terri-Ann said from the stove.

  “It’s not that late is it?”

  “Maybe not for a rich man with property in Hong Kong, but ’round these parts we like to get started on the day a little earlier than this.” She smiled. “But I guess we can cut you a little slack seeing as it’s your first full day in Texas. You want some bacon and eggs?”

  Sitting at the table, eating a plateful of eggs sprinkled with chopped chipotle chillies, and a mound of bacon, Gabriel looked up from his plate. Terri-Ann was pushing her food around with her fork. Her face was drawn and there were dark patches under her eyes. He gestured at her food with his own fork.

  “You should eat that. You need to stay strong.”

  “I know. My dad told me the same thing last time he was over.”

  “He’s right. When I was training in the Paras – that’s the Parachute Regiment – if anyone fainted on parade the first thing the sergeant major asked us was, ‘Have you had your breakfast?’ If they had, it was off to the medical officer. If they hadn’t he gave them a choice: fifty press-ups or two laps of the field.”

  “OK, well I guess I don’t want Sergeant Major Wolfe on my case, so I’d better eat.”

  Gabriel was gratified to see that she did start eating. He paced himself to her bites of food, and they finished their breakfasts together.

  When the dishwasher was loaded and he’d poured them each a fresh cup of coffee, Gabriel sat back down beside Terri-Ann.

  “Did they tell you where they found him?” he asked, in as gentle a voice as he could manage.

  She shook her head.

  “Not really. Just that it was in the desert.”

  Gabriel pursed his lips.

  “That’s where I’ll start then.”

  “Well I hope you’re not doing anything for the next twenty years because that’s a big place to go searching in.”

  “Sorry. I mean, I need to find out where they found him first, then I’ll go and take a look.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Did you see how Detective Casamayor looked when she was talking to us yesterday?”

  Terri-Ann looked up and to the left – remembering.

  “She looked uncomfortable. She was having trouble making eye contact.”

  “So I think she might be willing to share some intel with me. Even if it’s unofficial.”

  Terri-Ann had her mouth open to speak when the doorbell rang. Frowning, she rose to her feet, checking her watch.

  Gabriel stayed seated. He sensed he wouldn’t need to ask Terri-Ann for the detective’s cell number. He heard her open the front door. And he recognised the voice of the woman standing on the threshold. He stood, waiting for the two women to return to the kitchen.

  “Gabriel, it’s Val again. She says she has something for you,” Terri-Ann said.

  Casamayor sat down at the table across from Gabriel and nodded as Terri-Ann asked if she wanted coffee. She had a brown leather briefcase slung over her shoulder on a strap. She shrugged it off, fiddled with the combination lock and lifted the lid. When she closed it again she was holding a pale-green card folder, which appeared to contain a dozen or so sheets of paper.

  “This is a copy of the file on Vincent’s death,” she said, glancing first at Gabriel, then at Terri-Ann. “It’s pretty thin, I’m afraid. My captain kinda jumped on me before I got very far with the investigation.”

  Gabriel took the file from her and placed it beside his coffee mug.

  “I’m guessing it isn’t standard SAPD protocol to share files like this with civilians?”

  She shook her head. But unlike the previous day she had no problem making eye contact with either Gabriel or Terri-Ann.

  “I’m going out on a limb doing this. It could cost me my gold shield if anyone in the department found out, but—”

  “You don’t have to worry, Val,” Gabriel said. “I know how to keep secrets.”

  “Me too,” Terri-Ann said. “And thank you. Can you tell us why your boss has taken you off the case?”

  “Nope. But he had a real twitchy look when he was telling me it was moving to another team. In my experience that usually means politics.”

  “Politics?” Gabriel asked, thinking back over his decidedly mixed run dealing with politicians.

  “Not, like, politics-politics. I mean departmental stuff. I was in LA before coming out here. We used to call it high jingo. Just, you know, be careful with that.” She jerked her chin at the folder. “I have a feeling wherever it leads isn’t going to be a ton of fun.”

  “That’s OK,” Gabriel said. “I’m not really here for the fun.”

  After the detective had left, and they’d listened to the rumble of her Crown Vic’s tired old V8 diminish as she drove back to Headquarters, Gabriel looked at Terri-Ann, then opened the file. She walked round the table to sit next to him and leaned closer, peering down at the documents he was spreading out onto the table. He caught a brief whisper of soap, or maybe shampoo, a light scent that reminded him of one of the flowering shrubs in his garden in Hong Kong.

  Laid out before them were four documents.

  A stapled set of three pages headed AUTOPSY REPORT.

  A single sheet headed VICTIM.

  A colour printout from Google maps with a red pushpin icon in the centre and a biro heading scrawled across the top: LOCATION OF BODY plus a
handwritten GPS reference.

  A sheaf of stapled pages headed PRELIMINARY FORENSICS.

  Terri-Ann reached for the first of these documents. Gabriel drew in a breath as he saw her slim fingers close on its lower edge.

  “Are you sure you want to read that?” he asked.

  She looked at him, so close he could see flecks of brighter blue in her grey-blue irises.

  “We were married for seventeen years. I want to know what happened to my husband, Gabriel.”

  Then she picked up the papers. As she read, he watched her, the other documents lying untouched between them. A lone tear welled from the corner of her right eye, followed by its sister from the left; they tracked across the downy skin of her cheeks before dropping onto the pale-blue chambray of her shirt, where they darkened the fabric in small circles. Several minutes passed. She put the report down.

  Gabriel waited, listening to the clock ticking on the wall, and feeling his pulse in his throat, elevated beyond its normal sixty beats per minute to something approaching seventy.

  “He was shot,” Terri-Ann said, eventually. “A nine millimetre, full metal jacket round. And the pathologist says she thinks he fell from a great height. All his bones were broken, Gabriel. All of them!”

  She let out a wail of pain and slumped forwards, her head on her hands. Gabriel had no option but to slide the autopsy report from beneath her head before her tears soaked into the paper. Then he laid his hand on her back, in the space between her shoulder blades. And waited again.

  Her sobs subsided and she straightened, fishing in the pocket of her jeans for a paper tissue. Once she’d blown her nose and wiped her eyes, she turned to look at Gabriel.

  “What the hell happened to him, Gabriel?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the short answer. But this?” he held the ball of his right thumb out to her. “This says I’m going to find out.”

  They read the other documents together, but nothing leapt out.

  When Terri-Ann had re-stacked the thin pile of papers, Gabriel spoke.

  “I’m going to need a few things.”

  She sniffed.

  “Like what?”

  “Transport, for a start. And a gun would be a good idea. Even if it’s just for scaring off wildlife in the desert.”

  She smiled, and the expression immediately transformed her pink-blotched face.

  “Well, that’s something I can remedy right now. Come into the garage.”

  She got up and headed for a door beside the refrigerator.

  On the other side was a double-garage. Its walls were wood-frame, and lined with deep pine shelves, loaded with the usual collection of coloured plastic crates, cardboard cartons and assorted leisure gear, from tennis rackets to kayaks. But what drew Gabriel’s attention was the pair of vehicles parked in the centre. A gleaming, cherry-red pickup on chromed wheels and an all-black, modern coupe that looked as though it had been taking steroids since it rolled off the production line.

  Terri-Ann walked down the length of the black car, her fingertips grazing its muscular flank.

  “Take your pick. Camaro or Ram. This was Vinnie’s pride and joy. Had it painted at a custom shop up in Houston. Cost him a fortune. She’s called Lucille.”

  “I like it. After BB King’s guitar?”

  “No! Vinnie didn’t rate BB on account of him being a Memphis bluesman. He preferred Stevie Ray Vaughan. Lucille was Vinnie’s great aunt.”

  “I stand corrected. It’s a lovely car.”

  “He was proud of her. We used to go for drives, like back when we were teenagers. She’s a lot of fun.”

  Gabriel peered in through the darkened side window.

  “It’s like the Bat Cave in there. I’d love to take her, but for the desert the truck makes more sense, don’t you think?”

  “You’re probably right. Vinnie wouldn’t take her out if it was raining, even.”

  Gabriel walked round the menacing hulk of the Camaro and tried the door of the truck. Up close it was huge, far bigger than the comparable vehicles he’d seen on the roads around Salisbury.

  “It’s open,” Terri-Ann said. But Gabriel was elsewhere. The thought of his old home had set off a flashing chain of unpleasant memories, beginning with the smoking ruin of his old cottage, destroyed by a Javelin guided missile. So many deaths, Gabriel. And all laid at your feet. Because despite what Fariyah says, they were all on you.

  “Gabriel?” she asked, in a worried tone. “You in there somewhere?”

  “Huh?” He looked round. She was standing to his right, her forehead crinkled, eyes searching his.

  “You zoned out for a minute. Everything OK?”

  He put on a smile.

  “Yeah, fine. Sorry.”

  He yanked the door open and climbed into the cab. Terri-Ann smiled up at him then circled the front of the truck and climbed in beside him.

  “So, here we have a 2012 Dodge Ram Big Horn. Four-wheel drive, five-point-seven-litre V8, quad cab,” she twisted in her seat to point to the second row of thickly padded seats, “three-ninety horses under the hood and good for one-twenty top speed.”

  He laughed.

  “Terri-Ann, are you sure you’re an assistant professor of English? I mean, you’re not secretly the star sales manager at San Antonio Dodge?”

  She shrugged.

  “You got me. I also compete in NASCAR races and run a street drag race every other Sunday.”

  Gabriel placed his hands on the steering wheel. The driving position was high and he imagined jouncing over the desert, seeing for miles, far away from the city. The vision appealed. He turned to Terri-Ann.

  “You talk guns the same way you talk cars?”

  18

  A Dead Man's Weapons

  TERRI-Ann got out of the Dodge and walked around the front of the truck to a sheet-steel cabinet mounted on the rear wall of the garage. Gabriel followed. The cabinet was painted olive green, about five feet tall by three across and maybe ten inches deep. Double doors, secured by a heavy-duty brass padlock with a gleaming, chromed steel shackle. Terri-Ann pulled a bunch of keys from her jeans pocket, selected one and undid the padlock with a silky click. Removing the padlock from the hasp, she opened the doors back on themselves.

  Gabriel whistled in appreciation of the mini-armoury within. He recognised each of the long and short guns but yielded to Terri-Ann the owner’s privilege of explaining what Vinnie had amassed.

  “You have a part-time job at San Antonio Sporting Goods as well?” he asked, aiming for a playful tone. Keeping it light.

  “Yes, siree!” she answered, playing along and broadening her accent until she sounded like a backwoods gun nut. “OK, then. Here we have everything you need for huntin’, target shootin’ and home defence. Y’all got your Remington 870 pump-action shotgun. Your Mossberg Patriot bolt-action hunting rifle chambered for thirty-ought-six Springfield. Nice little Smith & Wesson AR15 semi-auto rifle. All good for huntin’ or puttin’ the willies up any fool rash enough to come onto your property uninvited. Then there’s the shorts. There’s a sweet Glock 17, made of plastic, but the real deal when it comes to reliability and stopping power. If y’all wanna buy American, here’s a Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum. And place of honour goes to this baby.” She pointed at an oversized, tiger-striped handgun. “IMI Desert Eagle chambered for .50 Action Express. Be careful; she bites.”

  Having delivered herself of this final line, she burst out laughing. Gabriel joined in, out of genuine humour, but mingled in was a sense of relief. That she could still laugh, after what had only so recently happened, spoke volumes of her resilience and strength. Yes, she’d be grieving for months or even years to come. But she hadn’t plunged down a black hole of depression. That was good.

  “You’re a regular Annie Oakley,” he finally said.

  “That’s funny, my daddy used to call me that when we went hunting. He taught me to shoot when I was a little girl. Said I had to respect guns even if I never intended to own one. But I was a pret
ty good shot. I guess I caught the shooting bug.”

  “So are any of these yours?”

  “The Mossberg’s mine. Vinnie and I used to go hunting sometimes when he was on leave. And now I’m on my own,” she paused, and sighed. “Well, I guess maybe I’ll sleep a little easier knowing I can defend myself. I also have a Ruger LC9 in my nightstand.”

  Gabriel reached for the Glock. He’d never choose a revolver over a pistol, even though there were people who swore by them. It all came down to capacity: the extra rounds pistols could carry always did it for him. Boxes of ammunition for all the guns were stacked neatly in the bottom section of the cabinet. He selected a carton of Winchester 9 x 19mm Luger full metal jacket rounds and took it, and the Glock, to a workbench. He thumbed the magazine release switch and dropped the magazine into his left hand. He pushed seventeen rounds into the magazine, inserted it into the grip and racked the slide to chamber a round. Then he dropped out the magazine again and topped it off with an eighteenth round.

  Terri-Ann stood silently by his shoulder watching his practised hands load the pistol. Then she reached across his chest and gently took it from him. She turned away from him and aimed at the far wall of the garage, though he noticed she kept her right index finger straight across the outside of the trigger guard.

  “I’d like to find the guy who shot my husband and put one of these right between his eyes,” she said in a quiet, level voice. She gave the gun back to him and he laid it on the workbench, muzzle pointing at the wall. “You should take the Mossberg too if you’re going out in the desert. There are some pretty big predators out there.”

  “Animal or human?”

  She frowned.

  “Animal, I guess. Why would they be human?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know. But it’s odd the way the police department are messing around with the investigation, and that makes me think about people being the biggest threat, not animals.”