by Mark Gimenez
‘Six. I always run at dawn.’
‘I sleep at dawn.’
‘You folks want a cup of coffee?’
‘No, thanks,’ Book said.
‘Sure,’ his intern said. ‘With cream. The real stuff, not the powdered.’
The sheriff cracked a little smile. ‘I’ll get the jail chef right on it.’ Instead, he called out through the open door: ‘Rosa, two coffees. With real cream.’
A hearty laugh came back. Then a voice with a Spanish accent.
‘Real cream? Are you serious?’
‘Run across the street to SqueezeMarfa, they’ll have some.’
Now Spanish words came back, which turned the sheriff’s smile into a chuckle.
‘You folks speak Spanish?’
‘No,’ Book said.
‘Nunh-huh,’ Nadine said.
‘Good.’
It was nine the next morning, and they sat in the sheriff’s office in the county jail across the street from the Presidio County Courthouse. They had arrived without an appointment, but the sheriff had agreed to see them. He greeted them in the lobby then escorted them to his office. When he turned his back, Nadine had whispered to Book, ‘Not gay.’ Her San Francisco skills were not required to render that verdict in Presidio County. Sheriff Munn stood well over six feet tall and outweighed Book by at least fifty pounds; his body appeared as solid as an oak tree, even in middle age. He had thick hair with gray streaks and wore a Western-style uniform, tan cowboy boots, a massive handgun on his hip, and a droopy mustache. He smelled like leather and looked like Wyatt Earp; he called everyone ‘podna.’
‘So, podna, you figure you can do my job better than me?’ the sheriff said.
‘Pardon me?’
The sheriff tossed a newspaper onto the desk in front of Book. It was the latest edition of The Times of Marfa, just out that morning. On the front page was the photo of Book that Sam Walker had taken the day before. The sheriff pointed a gnarly finger at the newspaper.
‘Says you’re a famous law professor, come to Marfa to figure out what happened to the lawyer. Says his death might have something to do with fracking.’
Book had already read the article. The desk clerk at the Paisano had handed the newspaper to Book on his way back up to his room after his morning run, when Book had advised him that they would be staying another night. (He hadn’t yet broken the news to his intern.) His hunch had played out; Sam Walker couldn’t resist a better front-page story than the roller derby. But he picked up the paper anyway and read the article as if for the first time. He then folded the paper and set it on the desk. He looked at the sheriff.
‘Nathan was my student intern four years ago. He wrote me a letter six days ago.’
Book handed Nathan’s letter across the desk to the sheriff just as a Hispanic woman entered with two cups of coffee on a little tray with sugars and real cream. She placed the tray on the desk but eyed Book with suspicion. He held his hands up in mock surrender then pointed at Nadine, who practically dove for the coffee.
The sheriff said, ‘Gracias, Rosa,’ without diverting his eyes from the envelope. He checked the postmark then removed the letter and stroked his mustache and randomly grunted as he read. The sheriff’s office was spacious and manly and filled with weapons. Modern military-style rifles stood in a glass case; vintage Western-style rifles were mounted on the walls next to photos of the sheriff on horseback in calf-roping competitions. A police radio sat on a table behind the sheriff; voices of law enforcement personnel came over sporadically. The sheriff finally looked up from the letter.
‘Pretty serious accusation.’
Book nodded.
‘I reckon he meant Billy Bob Barnett.’
‘Nathan’s only client.’
‘You talk to him? Billy Bob?’
‘I will.’
‘You figure what the lawyer says in this letter might be a motive for murder? Someone who didn’t want that proof made public?’
‘It’s a developing theory.’
‘You got any facts to back it up?’
‘Not yet.’
The sheriff grunted again then eyed the envelope again. ‘Postmarked same day he died.’
‘How do you feel about coincidences?’ Nadine asked.
‘Reckon they happen.’
‘Good.’ She turned to Book. ‘Can we go home now?’
She had been packed and ready to roll when he returned from his run.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow? I’ve got to study for my Crim Law final.’
‘You’re learning criminal law in the real world, Ms. Honeywell.’
‘I feel safer in a classroom.’
The sheriff took his coffee, poured sugar and cream, and sipped. He addressed Nadine.
‘Good call on the cream.’
Static then a loud voice came across the radio; the sheriff cocked his head that way.
‘Rosa, tell the sheriff we got us a dead Mexican out Ninety past the Aerostat. Looks like he was walking north barefooted, got bit by a rattler. Leg’s swollen up like a damn balloon.’
‘Rosa doubles as the dispatcher,’ the sheriff said.
He reached back and grabbed the mike. He clicked a button.
‘Rusty, I’m in an important meeting with a couple of folks from Austin. I can’t come running out there for a dead Mexican. Rosa’s gonna call Border Patrol, get them to handle it. Their jurisdiction—“Securing America’s Borders,” like their motto says.’
The sheriff smiled, as if at an inside joke.
‘Reporters?’ Rusty said over the radio.
‘What?’ the sheriff said.
‘That Vanity Fair reporter back in town? She’s a cutie.’
‘Vanity Fair reporter? Rusty, get your head out your butt and get to work. After the Border Patrol takes over there, get over to the Randolph spread, see about their rustling complaint. Probably just lost count and not cows.’
The sheriff clicked the button on the mike and exhaled.
‘County pay don’t attract Ph.D.s for deputies.’
He replaced the mike on the table and turned back to Book.
‘I agree the timing’s a mite suspicious, Professor, but we don’t do murder in Marfa. We get calls on dead Mexicans, stranded motorists, stoned artists riding bicycles naked, that sort of thing. Our big crimes are drug busts, shipments coming north across the border—Presidio County stretches all the way south to the Rio Grande. But we don’t get violent crimes like in the cities.’
‘Did you know Nathan Jones?’ Book asked.
‘Nope.’
‘You were at his funeral.’
‘He was a Marfan. One of us. That’s why I was there. That’s why I cared.’
He sipped his coffee.
‘What about you, Professor? Why do you care so much about Nathan Jones?’
‘I owe him.’
The sheriff grunted. ‘Well, I never crossed paths with him. Must not have done criminal defense work.’
‘Oil and gas. Mostly gas.’
‘Lot of that going around these days.’
He drank his coffee.
‘I worked up the accident scene myself, Professor. No signs of foul play. Everything I saw said it was just an accident. So that was my official cause of death: accidental. We get half a dozen of these car crashes every year, main cause of death in Presidio County, right after old age and boredom.’
‘Sheriff, have you ever heard anything about fracking contaminating the groundwater?’
‘Nope. No brown water, no one’s been lighting their tap water on fire like I seen on TV. We still drink the water, don’t need to pay extra to have it served in a bottle.’
He held up his cup of coffee.
‘Tap water.’
Nadine frowned at her coffee cup. The sheriff noticed and half smiled.
‘But environmentalists been crawling all over West Texas, trying to prove up contamination, which would be a pretty serious matter around here.’
&n
bsp; ‘Because of the water?’
‘Because of the jobs. Fracking brought jobs to Marfa, Professor, good jobs for good ol’ boys. When you got a family to feed, you don’t worry about a little arsenic in your drinking water.’
Nadine’s eyes got wide; the sheriff chuckled.
‘Look, Professor, I don’t want to drink frack fluids either, but I’ve never heard anyone complaining about contamination. And trust me, folks would call us—hell, we’re the only thing resembling authority in Presidio County. Damn near four thousand square miles we cover.’
‘Nathan said he had proof.’
‘Find it.’
He replaced the letter inside the envelope and flipped it across the desk to Book.
‘In the meantime, I wouldn’t go waving that letter around town, Professor. You’re threatening a lot of people’s jobs. Folks around here don’t abide outsiders stirring up trouble.’
‘Not the first time I’ve heard that.’
‘I don’t want it to be the last time.’
The two men regarded each other for a long moment.
‘May I see the autopsy report?’ Book asked.
The sheriff grunted again, which apparently was a basic form of communication for him.
‘Well, you see, Professor, there wasn’t enough left to autopsy.’
‘Fire got real hot, I expect.’
Book, Nadine, and the sheriff stood in the impound lot on the northern edge of town. The prairie stretched in front of them all the way to the Davis Mountains. Nathan Jones’s pickup truck—or what was left of it—sat before them on the dirt ground. The vehicle had been cut nearly in half and burned down to the steel frame. With Nathan Jones strapped in his seat. Book could hear his screams.
‘Figure he fell asleep.’
‘The rumble strip didn’t wake him?’
Rumble strips ran along the shoulders of most Texas highways, grooves cut into the asphalt that cause a vehicle to vibrate if the driver veers out of his lane. Intended as a safety feature to alert inattentive drivers, they were dangerous to motorcyclists. Book always took care to avoid rumble strips while on the Harley.
‘Apparently not. He must’ve been running ninety, ninety-five. Got sleepy, lost control, ran off the road, slammed into a pump jack on the passenger’s side. Impact split the vehicle, ruptured the gas tank, knocked the pump jack loose. Between the oil and the gas, must’ve been one hell of a fire. Damn lucky the wind was down, or it might’ve burned half the county to dirt.’
The sheriff grunted.
‘Bad way to go,’ he said. ‘Course, there ain’t no good way. I got photos from that night, if you want to see them.’
‘No, thanks.’
Book wanted to remember Nathan Jones as the law student he knew, not as a charred corpse.
‘Where’d this happen?’
‘East of town, north side of Highway Sixty-seven, just past the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center.’
Every evening the hopeful gather at a man-made rock structure nine miles east of Marfa on the south side of Highway 67. When night falls, they stand at the low rock wall and face south. They stare out beyond the runways of the old Marfa Army Air Field and into the dark desert toward the Chinati Mountains, focused on an area known as Mitchell Flat situated between the Marfa and Paisano passes.
They are hoping to see the lights.
Since 1883 when a young cowboy reported seeing mysterious lights between the passes, the ‘Marfa Mystery Lights’ have drawn tourists from around the country to that very spot. A few see the lights—red, green, orange, or yellow balls—hovering above the land, darting back and forth, even giving chase—but most do not. But that does not dissuade more tourists from coming. For ninety years, the mystery lights defined Marfa—until Donald Judd moved to town.
The Viewing Center sits on the south side of Highway 67. Nathan Jones died on the north side. Book slowed the Harley and made a U-turn. They rode slowly along the shoulder until they came to a spot where a wide swath of the tall prairie grass had been scorched bare, as if a wildfire had swept across the land. He stopped and cut the engine.
‘He ran off the road here.’
They got off the Harley and followed the tire tracks across the burnt earth. Small pieces of debris from the vehicle littered the ground. The wind blew strong from Mexico.
‘Veered off at an angle, then the truck slid sideways, hit the pump jack.’
They stood at the pump jack. It had not yet been repaired. Book could play out the scene in his head like a movie, Nathan Jones driving this dark road late at night, getting drowsy, falling asleep then jerking awake when the truck left the smooth asphalt and hit the rough ground, panicking, yanking hard on the wheel, the truck sliding sideways, slamming into the pump jack, exploding into flames … screaming.
‘Nathan Jones died right here.’
The young man who had saved Book’s life had lost his own life at the very spot where Book now stood. They remained quiet for a time. Then Book turned back to the highway. Nathan had come off the road a long way.
‘He must’ve been going really fast.’
‘Like James Dean,’ Nadine said.
Chapter 11
They rode a hundred miles in silence. Nadine didn’t ask to go home or complain that she was hungry. They rode east through Alpine then turned north and descended from the high desert plateau and onto the plains. The mountains disappeared behind them and were soon replaced by pump jacks as they rode above the great Permian Basin oil field where vast Texas fortunes had been made during the boom and lost during the bust. The land lay flat and bare and depressing, inhabited only by cell phone towers and power lines and thousands of black-and-yellow pump jacks, their horse heads bobbing up and down rhythmically, as relentless as the wind but more profitable, ten strokes pumping one barrel of black gold—and at $100 a barrel, it was black gold—up from the depths of the earth. The foul smell of the oil industry clung to the landscape like wet toilet paper. Nadine yelled over the engine noise and the wind.
‘What’s that smell?’
‘Money.’
They came upon Odessa from the south; the view was no better from the north, east, or west. The town was nothing more than a glorified oil camp inhabited by one hundred thousand people. Oil fed them, clothed them, transported them, and sheltered them. Oil was their past, their present, and their future. Oil was their hope and their fear. Oil was their life.
‘Yuk.’
‘Don’t say yuk, Ms. Honeywell. That oil subsidizes your education. A lot of those pump jacks belong to UT. The school has made about five billion dollars so far from this field.’
‘Then why do they keep raising my tuition?’
Refineries, low-rent motels, and strip joints occupied both sides of the highway; one sign touted ‘Joe’s Steakhouse and Fabric Free Entertainment.’ Only a few pickup trucks sat in Joe’s parking lot. Either Joe’s steaks were lousy or his sign too subtle for Odessa; the strip joint next door offered ‘Totally Naked Gals,’ and its parking lot was packed. Drilling rigs and casing pipes were stacked high on frontage lots, awaiting the next well hole to be punched into the earth. Eighteen-wheelers and pickup trucks crowded the lanes adjacent to the Harley; tattooed arms hung out the windows and hard-looking men gazed down at them. Book had visited inmates at the state penitentiary on several occasions; these men’s eyes told the same story: they were doing hard time.
‘Why’s the land so bare?’ Nadine asked after they had cleared the city limits.
Much of the land looked like a moonscape. No trees, no brush, no grass. Just gray dirt.
‘Salt water, from the oil wells. Back in the old days, they pumped the salt water into unlined evaporation pits. The salt water seeped into the ground, killed the vegetation. That was thirty or forty years ago. Nothing’s ever grown back, probably never will.’
‘Place makes me want to throw up,’ Nadine said. ‘Why do people live here?’
‘Jobs. When you don’t have a job, you’ll live an
ywhere for a job. Do anything for a job. You hear politicians on TV talking about the working class? This is it, Ms. Honeywell. High school educated workers. Most of their jobs were outsourced overseas for cheap labor, but the oil is here so these jobs are still here.’
‘I don’t want to live here.’
‘You won’t have to. You’re educated. But never forget what these people’s lives are like. Never forget that these people need jobs, too.’
Book accelerated the Harley east on Interstate 20 toward Midland as if trying to keep pace with the train running on the tracks that paralleled the interstate. A vulture circled overhead.
‘Most people make an appointment.’
‘We were in the neighborhood.’
‘You were in Marfa. I get the paper.’
From a distance, the buildings of downtown Midland seemed to pop up out of the prairie like yucca plants. Midland was known for oil and gas and George W. Bush. He had grown up here. When he left the White House for the final time, his first stop back in Texas was Midland; twenty thousand locals turned out to welcome him home. Then George W. retired to Dallas.
Thomas A. Dunn had also grown up in Midland. He left for college and law school at UT then returned home for good. He was now sixty-three years old and the senior partner at The Dunn Law Firm, which employed one hundred thirty lawyers and maintained offices in Midland, Lubbock, Amarillo, and Marfa. From a corner office on the twentieth floor, Tom Dunn oversaw a legal empire that spanned West Texas. He was an oil and gas lawyer, and West Texas was oil and gas country. The Permian Basin covered seventeen counties and seventy-five thousand square miles; an estimated thirty billion barrels remained to be extracted. It was a very good time to be in the oil and gas business. Or a lawyer to the oil and gas business. And Tom Dunn was all business, the kind of lawyer who probably had sex by the billable hour. Book didn’t know Mrs. Dunn, but he felt a twinge of sympathy for her nonetheless.
‘Saw you at Nathan’s funeral,’ he said.
‘He worked for me. Nathan was a good young lawyer, billed his quota every month without complaint.’
‘What’s the quota for young lawyers these days, Mr. Dunn, so I can tell my students?’
