They smoked. They’d stopped looking at me. I said, “I want the rest.”
So they eyed each other.
Pinky: “Well, I’m broke so what the hell? Gary called the cops. Wanted to get his wife in as much trouble as he could. Get her busted. Knew she didn’t go anywhere without a couple joints in her pocket. I didn’t hear that particular conversation. But after he called ’em, ’bout an hour, the folks stayin’ out at the motel all came down here. They told us they had to get out ’cause, first, there was so much shoutin’ and screamin’ goin down they couldn’t take it, and, second, the cops came, lotsa uniforms, and then plainclothes too, and those guys with the yellow crime tape. Knew somebody was dead.”
They were taking deep drags on their cigarettes to settle their nerves. Three pairs of shifty eyes all aimed at the ground.
I asked how Gary reacted to that. To the sudden crush of new customers who told him someone at the motel was dead.
Stick and Pinky looked to Chuck. He didn’t say anything.
I slid my purse up tight over my shoulder.
Chuck: “Gary? Shit. Why, he smiled ear to ear. He got such a face on him, looked like a pig what found a private lake full up with wet mud.”
Stick and Pink nodded, and then Chuck said, “I believe we have a deal.”
I loosened the grip on my bag. I unzipped. I counted out four bills and passed them over. Then I asked, “Why did Gary give Melody a black eye in the first place?”
They looked at each other. Stick shrugged.
Pinky stuffed her bill into the front pocket of her jeans. “Man, that’s what she wanted to know.”
Chuck: “Came cryin’ to me too. Told me he did it for nothin’.”
And I said to the two men, “Gary would have sacrificed any of you or your friends in there.” I nodded toward the AstroBar. “It was bad luck on James Munter’s part that he happened to walk in the door when he did. Now I have one last question.”
All three gazed into my eyes. They were confused. I’d taken all the fun out of the deal.
“Where can I find Gary?”
* * *
Target practice is an acceptable diversion in Texas and, combined with that, Texans don’t set much store in recycling aluminum cans and glass bottles. The entertainment inherent in shooting them is worth far more than a nickel apiece. And that is how Gary and a few friends were whiling away their Friday night, sitting shoulder to shoulder on beach chairs and firing away. There were six bottles standing on a sawhorse and a lot of spent casings on the ground. None of them was a good shot. They stopped shooting to follow the path of my headlights and watch my car pull into the field. I parked alongside the RV. Not only were the highway lights next to the lot bright enough to shoot by, I would have bet Gary needed black-out curtains to sleep.
Squinting did not help them to identify me. I walked up to Gary in his shooting chair and took off my hat. He jumped to his feet and looked me up and down.
“Hey, FBI, I am impressed by those boots. Got ’em off that ex-con in Gatesville, I’ll bet.”
A friend said, “FBI? Where?”
Gary told him to shut up.
He’d kept up his hair, which was solidly aloft, but he hadn’t showered in a while and he needed a shave. His nails were dirty and his clothes looked slept in.
I said, “Think we can have another chat? I mean, if you’re not angry over the last one.”
He smiled. “I never carry no hard feelings, not my style. Sure we can have a chat.” Then he said to his wide-eyed friends, “Go ahead and enjoy yourselves. Me and the agent are gonna have a chat.”
Their eyes shone in the light.
I followed Gary up the steps of his RV. Once on the threshold, he stopped abruptly and turned. I was on the step below so we were face-to-face, no more than an inch between our bodies.
He smiled. “Make no mind on the mess.” Gary had perfected one of those crooked smiles where only one side of his mouth went up, a semi-sneer somewhere between Elvis and Mick Jagger.
He stepped back, leaving me just enough room to squeeze past him. He didn’t expect me to stop in mid-squeeze, which I did. With my body pressed against his, I looked down into his eyes. I said, “This shouldn’t take long,” and then I moved into his living quarters.
There was floral-upholstered furniture in there, but all of it plus every bit of floor space was littered with empty cans and bottles. Gary and his friends outside had a lot more shooting fun at the ready. Mingled with the cans and bottles were the remains of food stuck to paper plates and plastic forks. I chose the chair covered with the least amount of trash, moved the pile onto the greater heap on the coffee table, and sat down.
I said, “Paper plates are always a good idea when you’ve having a lot of company.”
“That’s what the girls decided. Got to get them back over here, though, so they can bag the stuff and go find a Dumpster.” He swiped the trash off the chair across from me and sat down too. “Like a beer, Agent?”
“Sure.”
He reached over the side and made picnic sounds. There was a tub of ice next to him. He pulled out a bottle of Lone Star and tossed it to me. He got one for himself.
I held the bottle away from me and twisted the top off. It took awhile for the carpet to soak up the geyser of foam. I said, “Have we got a napkin, Gary?”
“We have.”
He got up and went to the kitchen, which was partitioned off from the dining area by a counter covered with pots and pans. He came back out with a stiff, accordioned dishcloth. He handed it to me.
I said, “Don’t the girls know about paper towels?”
“They do. Didn’t get enough. Dumb bitches.”
“How come you’re not at the bar?”
“How come you can’t find Rona Leigh?”
“You’re afraid she’s looking for you?”
“Never know. Got me a few guards. Aim to lay low till she’s caught.”
“How come you’re giving interviews then?”
“Gave interviews the day after the execution, the execution that didn’t take. Figured you’d have her in a hour. Shit. How much you pay for them boots?”
“Six hundred and fifty dollars plus another hundred to rush the order.”
He made a sound of admiration.
I said, “But once I’m home, the only place I’ll be able to wear them is a costume party. Maybe I was too impulsive.”
Gary could recognize an insult. He put his own boots up and into the trash on the coffee table and changed the subject.
“My bar got a lot of publicity. I’m gonna have enough money to expand. I been lettin’ my present establishment go. I got a down payment on a place uptown, paid for by all these newspaper people wantin’ my account of the near miss on Rona Leigh. Dumb asses, let me tell you. I tell them all the same thing. Wouldn’t have to pay me anything if they’d read the first guy’s story. Once Rona Leigh is caught and I tell those reporters I talked to you, they’ll pay me plenty, is what I’m thinkin’. And that is why I’m havin’ this chat with you. So how ’bout you tell me what the hell it is you want from me, FBI.”
I took a swig of freezing-cold beer. “I want to verify a couple of things. Things that could get Rona Leigh a new trial.”
“What new trial?”
“If I find evidence…”
“Evidence ain’t gonna do her a swill a good. When she’s caught, she’s gonna fry. Everyone says so.”
“They don’t fry prisoners anymore, Gary.”
“Yeah. Too bad. I like the expression all the same. When they got rid of the electric chair, they shoulda replaced it with an electric sofa. Kill off four at once. Save the state some money.” He smiled. “New trial? You’re crazy, honey. Me, I’m wishin’ about now that there was no death penalty.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Rona Leigh got nothin’ to lose. If she’s of a mind, she really will come and kill me.”
“But maybe she didn’t kill Melody and James.
Maybe she’s not a killer. Maybe Lloyd killed them by himself.”
“Not what she said when she made her confession.”
“I have never seen a confession I trusted. Her condition—”
“Listen to me, FBI. You can’t spring her. Parole board works on a deadline. It’s passed. Once she’s back in custody, they’ll make themselves scarce. They ain’t about to be woke up at all hours of the night durin’ some killer’s last hours. Rona Leigh’s had her chance, the only one she got comin’. Y’all are wastin’ your time. There ain’t nothin’ I could tell you, because everybody already knows what I done.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Here’s what I mean. Melody was a whore, exactly like what you was insinuatin’ back at the AstroBar. I wanted that bitch Rona Leigh to kill her. Believe me I did. But the thing is, what I wanted I never believed could happen. Not for a minute. Just wishful thinkin’ on my part. Everybody knew that. I wanted maybe another black eye. Maybe a little hair pulled out. Few claw marks.
“But Rona Leigh or Lloyd or whoever goes and kills Melody. Maybe Melody deserved more than a hair-pullin’, maybe not. But the thing is, it don’t matter ’cause she went and got herself killed and Rona Leigh was right there, whether she swung the ax or not. So she deserves to die for what happened to Melody.”
“Spending her life in prison wouldn’t be punishment enough for her?”
“If she’da crippled Melody, maybe. Put out her eye. Slit her face. Made her ugly. But the two a them meant to kill her. When you use a ax, you ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie, you know what I’m sayin’? Melody’s dead. So, an eye for an eye. I figure my Melody wants me to see her dead. You ready for another cold one, honey?”
“I am.”
He tossed me a can this time. Drops of water splashed the front of my shirt.
I cracked it and then I said to him, “Gary, I think you’re leaving something out.”
“What might that be?”
“James Munter. An innocent bystander. Didn’t even know Melody was your wife. Or anyone else’s wife, for that matter.”
He searched around the tub and came up with another beer for himself. He drank half of it in one swallow. “Shit. I admit I was a selfish bastard there. But like I said, I didn’t think anybody’d get killed.”
“Gary, why do you insist to people that Rona Leigh swung the ax even if Lloyd maybe did it on his own?”
“Because Rona Leigh was a pig.”
“Like Melody?”
He looked up from the bottle. “That’s right.”
“Deep down, you feel Melody got what she deserved, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Deep down, I do.”
“But you wish none of it had happened?”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen. Not the killin’. Those Christians you been seein’ on the TV? Ones want Rona Leigh saved? They’re a bunch of liars. They don’t care about a killer findin’ Jesus. What they like is to see some sex fiend who turns herself back into a virgin. Don’t matter none what the sex fiend did, which was primarily to kill another sex fiend. They only took pity because Rona Leigh will never have sex again. She’s married but still, she’ll stay a virgin.
“That’s the kind of person they want to save. A born-again virgin. Jesus said to the prostitute, ‘Go and sin no more.’ But people who got a head on their shoulders, the governor and the parole board and the like, they know once a sex fiend always a sex fiend. They recognize it. A sex fiend will contaminate you. Turn you to dirt. Best to get rid a them. Never met a man went to a hooker who didn’t want to kill the slut right after.”
“Is that so?”
“Ask ’em.”
“I will. But I’ll have to think of a delicate way to say to a man who’s paid for sex, Did you want to kill her right after?”
“No, I meant ask the whores. They got the broken jaws to show you how close the dudes come to killin’ ’em. FBI, I’m the real Christian here. And I’m goin’ to heaven.”
“What is heaven to you?”
“You know what heaven is.”
“Since we come from different parts of the country, maybe we were taught different things about what heaven is.”
“I don’t know what they teach you back east, but here there’s just the one Bible and the Bible tells us what heaven is. Heaven is a place where everybody’s happy. You get to see all the people who died before you. Grandparents and so on.”
“And then what?”
“I already told you.”
“I’m sorry, I forgot what you said.”
“Everybody gets to be happy.”
Time to surprise him while he was feeling like a heaven-bound Christian. “Gary, you knew about the money, didn’t you?”
He looked down at his beer, patted his hair a bit, and then his eyes came back to me. “I did. Still, the truth is, I didn’t put it all together till I got the news Melody was dead. When people came to the bar that night said somebody might be dead, my first thought which I couldn’t help was, Piss and shit! If it’s Melody, I am one rich cowboy.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Which?”
“That it wasn’t before Melody was dead, not right after, that you thought about being a rich cowboy.”
“FBI, I ain’t gonna let you rile me this time around. I got a good conscience. I told you, I’m goin’ to heaven. The Lord ain’t leavin’ me to starve out on a dry range, you can be sure a that.”
“You figure you can fool the Lord with your lies?”
“Hey! What the hell do you know about it? You don’t even know what heaven is. Fuck you, FBI. So why don’t you get outa here and go outside and have a little fun with my boys out there. ’Cause maybe they might like to have a little fun with you.”
As I walked by him, he tried to grab my leg but missed.
Outside, my car had four flat tires. Shot out. Gary’s friends sat in the beach chairs watching me.
I walked over to them and stood behind the guy in the center of the row. I placed my gun one inch from his ear. I fired six times and shattered all the bottles. My weapon is very powerful, a real loud retort.
I came around to the front of the line of chairs, my weapon still in my hand. I raised it. “Whose pickup back there?”
None of them answered.
“Whose?” I yelled and pointed the gun into the face of the guy still holding his ear.
He pointed with his free hand. “Him.” Guy on the end.
I pointed the gun anew. “Give me the keys.”
He said, “What?”
I shouted, “Give me the goddamn keys.”
He dug them out of his pocket.
I borrowed his truck for the night.
A local FBI agent saw to switching vehicles back around the next day. My car was still in the vacant lot, but Gary’s RV was gone.
13
Back in the hotel I had a message. Delby. Call her back. After hours, if necessary. Call her at home no matter what time.
This had to be good.
First I said, “How did you find me?”
First she said, “What time is it?”
“Two-ten.”
“Oh. Wasn’t easy. Joe told me.”
“How the hell did he know?”
“Scary, isn’t it? Ask him. That’s if he’s still talkin’ to you. Pissed. Said you’d hung up on him.”
“I thought he’d understand.”
“Did. But figures you should have called him back by now.”
“I intend to.”
“How you sleepin’, boss?”
“Like a rock.”
“That’s ’cause you’re happy.” The excitement in her voice had raised its usual melody several notches.
“So what’s the scoop, Delby?”
“Scoop bein’ the right word. Boss, you know the advice you gave me about insomnia? Took it.”
She needed to stop for air. As if she were hyperventilating. I was very calm. “You taped D
an Rather?”
“Not quite. I decided to watch QV-whatever-it-is. Shopping channel. They’re on twenty-four hours. About an hour ago I maybe found out who can tell you where that mission is.”
“Say what?”
“Stop now.”
“Delby. Who?”
“The CEO of the shopping channel. Tonight they were showing bedroom furniture. The QV-something people were trying to get viewers to buy something in the middle of the night, like a bed. Figure insomniacs might get the notion a new bed would help. So they’re showing this bed, saying it was hand-carved, blah-blah-blah. I’m admiring these beautiful white linens on it and I’m saying to myself, Now all this is damn familiar. I paid closer attention. Man, it looked a lot like Rona Leigh’s bed, the one Auerbach showed us. So I turn up the volume. Saleslady says the furniture was made by the Shakers. She didn’t say it was Shaker furniture, she said it was made by them. I figured you’d want to go right to the top, so here’s the phone number of the shopping-channel CEO.”
I don’t know how she does it.
She said, “Meanwhile, the TV woke up my baby. I’m putting her on the phone. Tell her to go back to bed. She’ll listen to you.”
I told the child to look out the window and if the moon had gone to bed then she should too. That was the rule.
Delby took the phone. “Thanks, Poppy, she went to the window and now she’s headed for her room. So we’re even.”
The CEO of the shopping channel was just as excited as Delby had been. He told me I was the first FBI agent he’d ever spoken with, so I shouldn’t apologize that it was the middle of the night. He couldn’t wait to tell all his friends. He offered to give me every single thing I might see on his shopping network at a discount.
I said I didn’t need anything right then but to fax me all he had available on the Shaker furniture makers.
He said, “Hey, no problem. When do you need it?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
I was sure he was going to tell me he’d have to get his mom’s permission.
Then he said, “Sure. I can do that. Okay, then. But I should notify these clients of your request, right? It’s only fair, I think. I mean, I like to—”
Love Her Madly Page 23
