They drove in silence to the southern border of New Austin, out into the undeveloped wooded area where the New Austin Police Department’s shooting range was located. Shawn slid closer to panic as the chief turned onto the rough-cut road back into the dense woods.
“Stay here,” Tell said.
The cop got out of his SUV and opened the padlock securing the chain that bound two tubular-steel fence arms. Tell pushed back the metal gate halves, got back into his truck and drove through the gate. Then he got out and locked up behind himself.
They bumped along perhaps two hundred yards into the woods before they came to a clearing. The ground was littered with shining and rusted metal jacket casings. In the distance, Shawn saw wooden boards, some with bullet-riddled paper silhouettes of men still secured to them.
Now Shawn was truly close to losing it. If the police chief shot Shawn and buried him out here, Shawn figured he’d never be found. He fidgeted with a cigarette pack—finally stressed enough to break down and buy his own smokes.
Shawn was near manic. Tell said, “Shawn, you’re not going to believe it, but right now, I’m about the best friend you have on earth.”
Tell shut off the engine and they got out of the truck with their coffees. He told Shawn to go ahead and light one up if it might calm him. Tell held the journalist’s coffee while Shawn fired up a cigarette with trembling hands.
They leaned against the front of Tell’s truck, staring off across the shooting range at the bullet-pocked paper silhouettes. “Before this day is over, you’re going to end up arrested and probably charged for rape and murder, Shawn,” Tell said. “There’s no way around that.” Tell looked at him, measuring his reaction. Shawn looked like he might throw up at any second.
“No way to gloss this,” Tell continued. “The county coroner’s office has a positive match on your DNA. The murder victim’s name is Thalia Ruiz—a friend of Able Hawk’s. They found your semen in Thalia’s vagina, rectum and mouth. Coroner asserts you came at least three times inside Thalia. Once is more than enough to take you down all the way, depending on who ends up with you and how hard they press it. And Able? He’s bent on seeking the death penalty for Thalia’s killer. Hell, you heard that straight from Able’s mouth.”
“My DNA?” Shawn was stricken. “How do they know it’s mine? I haven’t given any samples to check against.”
“Actually, you have done just that, Shawn. You can’t get out from under the DNA evidence. A while back, you wrote a story about DNA and its uses in criminal investigations. For your sidebar you let them sample your own. Stuff like that gets in the hands of investigative officials, well, they’re real zealous about keeping it on file. They put you in the CODIS database, Shawn. And that story and your archived sample led straight back to you.”
Shawn was furious. He could feel the heat in his cheeks. His head hurt from the pounding and his jaws were starting to hurt already from gritting his teeth. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered over and over. After a while he said, “Why aren’t we downtown now, Chief? Why aren’t you and your people booking me?”
“Because I have my own questions first, Shawn. And because there is a lot of friction and angling going on behind the scenes regarding jurisdictions and who owns this crime scene and the eventual collar. Able Hawk was friends with this dead woman. He’s hell-bent for leather on a death penalty collar. This other sheriff in Vale County, Pierce, he strikes me as even more bloodthirsty. And there’s a third sheriff, Denton—he could as easily as make claims on you because of where the body was found. Only thing stopping Denton, near as I can tell, is a lack of ambition. I’m not looking to kill anyone, Shawn. But I’m dubious I end up being the one who gets to arrest you or charge you on the murder. All this jockeying to claim the crime scene sets off all kinds of alarms in my head. And it should worry the hell out of you, particularly, Shawn. I’m telling you, you’ll get your fairest shake from me.”
“That DNA evidence,” Shawn said. “You think I’m guilty too. You have to. That being so, how can you arresting me be better than someone else doing it?”
“Oh, you had yourself quite a time with Thalia, Shawn. No denying that. But the coroner also found Rohypnol in her system. Did you slip her the Rope, Shawn?”
“Fuck no! I don’t need that stuff. We were both drunk. Me maybe most of all to sleep with that—reason I didn’t wear a rubber and took her up the ass like that.”
Tell narrowed his eyes.
Shawn sensed Tell’s skepticism and said, “We were all over each other, Chief. Obviously you know that from the coroner. But it was all consensual. I didn’t drug her.” He cast down his cigarette butt, stamped it out, then fired up another. “Fuck, you hadn’t gotten between me and Patricia, I wouldn’t have been there with Thalia. I’d have gone home with my girl.”
Shawn didn’t like the look on Tell Lyon’s face after that admission. The journalist said, “Look, Chief, I’m sorry. Patricia and me were at Fusion and things got … prickly. So I picked up this other woman. Truth is, I had the sense even before you two hit if off that Patty and me weren’t going to last. Had the sense she was getting ready to dump me anyway. You just made it easier for her, more enticing to do it now.” He shook his head. “Too bad it was that night, is all. Fuck me harder, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Tell said. “This is about you and that dead woman. You were at the club together, drinking for a while?”
“With her and her roommate, Carmelita, yeah.”
“So there are witnesses who will testify you were drinking together,” Tell said. “Thalia’s drunkenness can be made to look like the effects of the Rope by an attorney. That means DNA and likely the Rohypnol will go against you with a jury. Did you know Thalia Ruiz before the night you met and bedded her?”
Shawn looked at his feet. “No. Like I said, I met her, and her friend. I really wanted the other woman. The girls had come over in Thalia’s car and both were too drunk to drive. We all went back to this apartment in my car. I left her there the next morning, still asleep.”
“Real nice, kid. You took her in every orifice, then slipped off on Thalia without talking, without even a goodbye?”
Shawn looked away from Tell, said raw-voiced, “Yeah. I did that.”
Tell said, “You sure she was alive when you left her, Shawn? After her night with you she hadn’t choked on her own vomit or something?”
Shawn’s eyes flared. “She was fucking fine.”
“Her friend see you leave?”
“No.”
Tell nodded. “That checks with what she told my people,” he said. “She said she never saw you leave. Bad news is, she also didn’t see Thalia leave. For all this Carmelita knows, you and Thalia left together. Few hours later, Thalia’s dead. So you see, you’re an easy lock to buy this one, all the way up, Shawn. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.”
Shawn snarled, “Jesus, shouldn’t I have a lawyer here for this?”
“Actually, I’m the one should have a lawyer here,” Tell said. “I’m taking some real risks here for you.” He shook his head, sipped some more coffee. “You will need a lawyer eventually. Say, by lunchtime. But we’re not having this conversation now, Shawn. This is off the record. We didn’t ever see each other this morning.”
Shawn scowled. “You’re kicking me loose?”
“Not the gift it sounds,” Tell said. “And don’t get stupid ideas about running. A couple of sheriffs who want Thalia’s killer’s collar, they could fall on you big time. And they might issue shoot-to-kill orders if you make them. With the DNA stuff standing against you, and Thalia’s friend’s testimony, bringing you in dead saves court costs. I’m pretty sure Walt Pierce would see it that way.”
Shawn felt freshly sick.
Tell said, “When you had sex with her, did you start out with a condom on? Did you put one on at any point with Thalia?”
“No, we were both drunk, like I said. It was urgent.”
“Sure. Urgent.” Tell s
aid, “Put out your hands, Shawn.”
“I thought you weren’t arresting me.”
“I’m not handcuffing you,” Tell said sourly. “I just want to see your damned hands.”
Shawn held them out. Tell said, “No rings. You ever wear rings?”
“Never.”
“Didn’t expect so. Shawn, this is important. If someone other than me arrests you, you be extra careful not to resist in any way. In anger, don’t go punching any walls. You keep those city hands of yours nice and pink and healthy-looking like they are right now. They take you into custody, you insist that they photograph you naked. And that they get close-ups of your hands.”
“Why?”
“I’ve already said too much.”
“Why are you doing this, Chief?”
“Because I don’t think you killed this woman, Shawn. Partly it’s the way you reacted seeing her body. You’d never have been able to transport her to that field. But I expect I’m going to be nearly alone in that belief. You’re an easy, easy solution for a vicious and terrible crime. You are a convenient—hell, a perfect—scapegoat.”
“Again I ask, Chief, why are we here?”
“Because I’m trying to get at the truth and arrest the right bastard for murdering this woman. This was overkill, Shawn. Thalia was beaten to death. Kind of thing someone will likely do again, given the chance. The man who killed Thalia hates women.”
“Beaten … that’s why I should protect my hands,” Shawn said, getting it.
Tell said, “Summarizing, here: You were angry at your girlfriend. You figured you two were history, so you decided to ease your disappointment by losing yourself in the arms of another woman. You and Thalia, already both drunk, met and clicked. You took her back to the place of her choosing, fucked her ten ways from Tuesday—all of it unprotected, but mutually enthusiastic sex—then you ungallantly snuck out on her while she was asleep. Left her in her own bed. Alive and unbeaten.”
“That’s it,” Shawn said. “That’s actually the truth.”
Tell said, “Then that is it so far as what you should say. Makes you a heel, but not a killer. Stay to that story, whoever’s custody you end up in. I’ll move ahead looking for an alternative suspect. And yeah, you should find yourself an attorney, Shawn, and I mean now. Given the crime, I’d get myself a woman lawyer if I could find one. Might help you with a jury.”
Shawn stared at the shot-up targets on the other side of the field. “I’m a small-town newspaperman, Lyon. I’m underpaid. What kind of decent counsel can I afford? And I’m probably going to be fired by day’s end. No cash flow at all then.”
Tell said, “On my way over to pick you up, I called my so-called infamous cousin. I asked him to formulate a strategy that would maybe tie his hands if you were his newspaper employee—short-circuit his ability as a manger to terminate you.”
“Yeah? What’d your cousin say?”
“Chris’s first question was whether you’ve drafted a story about Thalia’s murder. Have you?”
“To get it in this Thursday’s paper, I’d need to do that by day’s end.”
“That wasn’t my question, Shawn.”
“I haven’t written a story yet.”
“Were you going to?”
“That wasn’t your question, Tell.”
“I’m just curious.”
“I didn’t know what to do.” Shawn looked down at his feet again. “So I’ve done nothing. What was your cousin’s advice?”
“That you draft a letter to your publisher. Chris says you should tell him or her that you were intimate with a woman who became a murder victim, and, because you had unprotected sex, your DNA links you to her. You should admit that you’re almost certainly apt to become a near-term person of interest and you’re therefore requesting a leave of absence. Use your owed personal, sick and vacation time as you have to, then go on unpaid leave if you’re not yet out from under. You need to do this in the next hour before you can be terminated.”
“Jesus,” Shawn said. “And hell, I can’t go home and do this. I can’t go to my office. Those are the first two places anyone will look for me. How—where—do I write this note?”
Tell said, “I’m going to drop you in front of the public library, Shawn. You use their computers and printers to put your note together. Then you fax and e-mail it from there before you’re picked up. Those time imprints may be important later, Chris said.”
“I’ll be picked up by your force? By you?”
“If you want to go that way, I’ll make my run at being the one to take you into custody, Shawn. Thing to remember is, even if nobody takes you away from me, I can only hold you in city jail for seventy-two hours. Then you go to county jail, under Able Hawk’s watch. Unless we can get you out on bail, first. But I’m not sure that’s the way to go, either.”
“I didn’t kill that woman, Tell.”
“I don’t think you killed her, Shawn. It’s the reason we’re having this discussion that we’re not having.”
* * *
Time was getting on. Tell was still skeptical on the question of rape. He increasingly suspected Shawn had slipped Thalia the drug. But that was for later.
Tell said, “Get in now. I’m going to drive you to the library. Take care of your note and get it off to your publisher. Then sit down with a phone book and start thinking about attorneys. At ten fifteen A.M., I’ll come to the library and quietly escort you out and we’ll take you and book you, kid. Then we’ll let you call that lawyer you’ll have lined up. Not that I’d let him or her press for bail, were I you. Just remember, when I see you again, it’s for the first time this morning. Agreed?”
The journalist nodded, looking like a lost kid. “Thanks for helping me like this, Tell.”
Tell opened the passenger door. He said to Shawn, “Like I said, this vicious bastard who killed Thalia will likely do it again. I need to focus on catching him. You’re no more than a goddamn distraction.”
Tell started the engine and got his truck in gear, driving back out toward the gate.
Shawn gestured at the paper sack on the seat between them. “She made a couple of those for me a time back,” he said.
Not quite so much bitterness in his voice, now, Tell thought.
Shawn asked, “Patricia put you up to this? To helping me, I mean?”
“She doesn’t even know you’re about to be a suspect,” Tell said. “I told you, this meeting between us is secret.”
When Tell got out of his truck this time to open and reshut the gate, he took his car keys with him—worried Shawn might panic and try to run.
As they pulled back onto the road, they drove past a billboard dominated by two narrowed, piercing gray eyes: “El Gavilan is watching!”
SIXTEEN
Tell received double takes from the librarians. One of them—fortyish, slender and handsome—said, “Is there some trouble, Officer?”
“No trouble,” Tell said, smiling. “I’m new to town and a reader. Actually have a crime novelist in the family. You have a pretty good crime fiction section?”
The librarian smiled back. “Pretty good. I handle acquisitions, and it’s nearly all that I read.”
“Then I’ll try to get back in a day or so to get a card,” he said. “For now I’ll look around.”
Tell strode toward the computer carousels at the back of the library, behind the stacks. Shawn was sitting in a corner stall. He appeared a short step from slipping into a fugue state. He looked up at Tell with wide, wild eyes. Shawn’s hands fidgeted with an empty cigarette pack. Tell asked, “You doing okay?”
Shawn said, “Guess it’s time, huh?”
“It is.” Tell sat down beside the flustered reporter. “You get your letters off okay?”
“Yeah. Publisher sent me back an e-mail receipt. No answer, but at least I know he’s seen my note and I’m not fired yet.”
The publisher was probably busy calling his lawyer. Tell said, “We should get going now, Shawn. Get you i
n my custody before someone else can lay hands on you.”
Shawn sighed and stood, looking pale. “You going to handcuff me, Chief?”
“No,” Tell said. “We walk out of here together, like we’re going to a late breakfast or something. You got any pets or anything like that needs looking after back at your place, Shawn?”
“Uh, no.”
“Got an attorney in mind?”
“Yeah.”
“You can call him, or her, from my office.”
“Her.” Shawn had decided Lyon was right about the importance of having a woman represent him in court if it came to that. “And thanks for doing it this way, Chief.” Shawn tossed his empty cigarette pack in the trash receptacle on the way out the library door. “Think we could stop and get a carton of cigarettes on the way? Maybe something to read?”
Tell looked at him sourly and said, “Why not?” They’d do their shopping, Tell figured, then he’d read the kid his rights.
* * *
A shadow fell across Tell’s desk. Able Hawk was looming over him.
Tell said, “Hey, Able.”
“Hey there, Tell.” Able took off his mirrored sunglasses. He nodded at Tell. “You take a walk with me?”
“Surely.”
On his way out, Tell paused at Billy Davis’s desk. Billy was dunking a Bismarck in his coffee. Tell said, “Any trouble, I’m on my cell phone—stay off the damn radios.”
Able Hawk nodded approvingly. “I’m the same way. Especially with anything related to this case. Damned police scanners are the bane of my existence.”
“We’ll go out the back way into the alley,” Tell said.
“Just in case some flunky of Walt Pierce’s is watching out front?”
“You called it.”
The sheriff said, smiling crookedly, “How’d you get first word on that DNA?”
Tell shrugged. “I leaned hard on the coroner, so don’t blame him. I really stepped into him, Able.”
“I guess to save face I’ll choose to believe your kind damn lie, Tell. So far as Shawn goes for the killing, I’m not buyin’ that poon-hound scribbler for the murder. Not even a little,” Able said. “He was tied up with us all morning. He couldn’t have dumped her body. And not weak-stomached as he is, either.”
El Gavilan Page 10
