Jace thought as Rory dashed around a slow-moving oil-field supply truck. Her eye caught the rearview mirror again. Jace took a quick look but didn’t see anything. “Well, what about people who came in around the time of death?”
“Which was?”
Jace shrugged. “I don’t know. I came on at eleven, we shook the cell and that probably took half an hour. Started the search then. Searched for fifteen or twenty before we found him. Blood was tacky but not dry. So anyone in after ten thirty? What time do the night people come in?”
“Court clerks at seven, janitors usually about eight. Never seen anyone come in as late as ten thirty except during election season when polling judges are in and out. Hang on.”
He hummed again while Rory bounced back and forth between the two lanes. They passed Johnny’s Barbeque. Some of the taller office buildings crowded them, then thinned out for the squat low buildings of food joints and check-cashing places.
“Cruz came in last night,” Kemp said. “About ten thirty.”
Something tickled the back of Jace’s brain. “Why him?”
“Uh . . . incident report says one of the janitors got sick or something. Didn’t need an ambo. I guess Cruz was in the jail so he went over.”
“Okay, thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother at all. Good copping is what it is. Von Holton hasn’t called me yet.” He chuckled. “Later.”
She hung up. “Cruz was in about ten thirty last night. He was at the jail and a janitor had some kind of medical issue so he went over.”
“Well, part of being a good cop is running down all the possibilities, even if they don’t pan out.” Rory frowned. “I guess I’m wondering how someone got into Bobby’s cell to plant the pig blood. And who.”
Planted blood had been an absurd thing for Kerr to say, or so Jace had thought until Jakob said it was pig’s blood.
“But why clean it up?” Jace asked. “Why not just spread it all over the cell and leave it?”
“If you leave it, Bobby sees it right away, as soon as he gets back to his cell. Calls us and we know it’s a set-up because he’s been out mopping whatever.”
The killer, Jace realized, had needed time to build his case against Inmate Bobby. There had to be sufficient time for the right stories to go into the right ears. “Whole thing is overkill. Why put all that blood in there in the first place? It’s too—”
Theatrical, she was going to say, but the word hung up in her throat.
“Jace?”
“Nothing.”
Dr. Vernezobre had said he loved a good theatrical flourish, but Jace couldn’t see him involved with whatever the hell this was. Plus, he never visited the jail as far as Jace knew. But he’d known both doctors, two of their names were on Shelby’s list, and all three of their names kept resurfacing, like sharks hiding beneath placid water before suddenly splashing violently into view.
“It’s got to do with the doctors,” Jace said. “I keep hearing their names, and it’s always about drugs. Cheap drugs, illegal drugs, drugs in the jail, drugs for poor people.”
Rory looked in the rearview mirror again. “Remember how nervous Wrubel was when he came to see us after Mercer?”
Jace remembered the nervous looking around, the sweat on his forehead in spite of the winter chill. “So?”
“Ever wonder why? We were talking about Cruz and the contracts and drugs for inmates and then—” Rory stopped, frowning, and looked at Jace. Then again at the rearview mirror.
“Rory? Then what?”
“Then you mentioned doctors selling drugs to johnnies.”
“Yeah? And?”
Rory swallowed. “Maybe we were wrong. About the drugs. About all of it.”
“I’m not following.”
“I’ve never believed Wrubel was selling drugs. Maybe self-medicating—he had a lot of issues eating at him—but not selling. But what’d we keep hearing, over and over? Selling selling selling. Like a freakin’ political ad.”
“A smear.”
Rory nodded. “Trying to convince us he was a bad boy. Everybody who told us that heard it from the same source.”
Jace sucked in a breath. “Dr. Cruz.”
“Seems like.”
Jace sat back heavily in the car, let the miles whir past her in a smear of a midmorning, colorless winter sun. There was no vibrancy in the colors, no earnestness. Everything was washed to a dull yellow, like the color of old paper, bleached by time and the disinterest of winter.
Was Dr. Cruz the man behind the curtain, pulling the levers and strings? Why? What could he possibly get out of Wrubel’s or Inmate Bobby’s death?
“No, no, we heard it from Kerr, too,” Jace said.
“Kerr . . . who works as a medical trusty and who told us he was going to get a job with Cruz Medical once his sentence is done? That Kerr? And let’s not forget about our truck in Rooster County. Weed and H and all the rest, but also knock-off pharma. Trade up, driver to dealer, and stumble across Dr. Vernezobre and Doc Wrubel.”
When Rory looked in the mirror again, Jace looked, too.
“Sooooo . . . remember how I’m Tony Stewart?”
The white work truck was about a block behind them. When Rory changed lanes randomly, it did, too, though a few seconds slower.
“Son of a bitch.” Jace banged a hand against the dash.
“I am getting so tired of this punk. Eat my dust, asshole.”
Rory hammered down the accelerator and the Monte Carlo jumped forward.
Jace should be scared, she realized. This guy, who’d followed her and been at the Sea Spray and who knew where else, was behind her again. She should be scared but the only thing she tasted on her tongue was anger.
And violence.
Rory ground her teeth together. Her eyes were narrowed and her breath tight through her nose. One hand was on the wheel while the other was clenched to a tight fist in her lap. She sped up and traffic began to slip behind them. More than a few drivers gave them angry glares. She rocked in and out of lanes and put some distance between them and the truck.
The truck kept with them.
The Monte Carlo hugged the inside lane of Big Spring Street. It was two lanes either direction but in the next block or so it would widen. Still two lanes but with a gigantic turn lane. Between where they were and Alley B’s, which was on the edge of Zachary City, the turn lane was almost two lanes wide.
Rory shot the car toward that turn lane.
Traffic was always heavy, but this was Zachary City’s rush hour, when a majority of the city’s 125,000 people went to work. Many of them filled Big Spring Street to get through downtown to the northern outskirts and the professional office parks.
The truck was still with them, the driver yanking his wheel left and right, trying to keep up with them.
The Monte Carlo dashed around a tandem semi with oil pumpjacks painted on the side. The driver honked loud and long. She maneuvered the car left and slid into the turn lane. One block up, a car sat, waiting to turn.
“Rory.”
“I got it.”
Jace looked at the driver in the truck, trying to commit his face to memory. He bobbed side to side, his face plainly showing panic.
At the last second, as though playing chicken with the turning car, Rory yanked the wheel right and came back into a traveling lane. The other driver started screaming and hitting his hands off the steering wheel.
Behind them, the truck was lost to sight, behind a wall of metal; semis and oil hands’ trucks, which were almost uniformly huge, crew-cab pickups.
“Dangit,” Rory said. “Come on, catch up.”
“You want him to catch up?”
“There you are. Come to Mama.” She eased back into the travel lane and slowed down a hair.
The truck roared up, directly behind them now.
Ahead of them, traffic emptied out as they reached the edge of Zachary City. To their right was the strip mall that housed Alley B’s. Just beyond that mal
l was the Zachary City minor-league baseball field.
After that, seemingly an afterthought to the current development, was the original Zachary City cemetery. Closed decades ago, it was still open to visitors, but had only one way in or out. Metal and brick fencing surrounded it while 125-year-old trees hid the entire thing from the sight of passing drivers.
Rory blasted in, taking the corners fast enough that the rear end of her Monte Carlo fishtailed. She flipped the wheel and hit the brakes to straighten out on the main drive of the cemetery. It was paved and she left trails of rubber dancing behind them as the truck entered.
At the edge of the cemetery, the road turned right but Rory went left onto a maintenance track that was gravel and weeds. Dust spewed up behind the car and it fishtailed again, driving over a couple of flat stones.
“Rory.”
“I know, I know. They’re dead; they won’t notice.”
The cemetery was filled with thousands of graves, each in neatly lined sections, just as neatly lettered with signs. Many of the stones were flat but most were odes to settler families and stunningly successful oil wildcatters or ranchers who’d run ten thousand head. They stood tall, almost phallic in their symbolism, and every time the car grabbed a pothole or large rock and slid one way or the other, Jace was sure they’d slam into one.
The truck had to slow for the turn, but managed it. It came on fast as Rory whipped around another turn and brought them eventually back to the main road, this time headed for the exit.
She slowed for a split second, letting the truck catch them just a little, before she stood on the brakes and put the Monte Carlo into a power slide. They stopped broadside across the main road.
The truck was closer than Jace realized and it swerved to avoid them. It yawed left in a spray of dust, rumbled over a couple of flat headstones. Tools and cans bounced around in the truck’s bed.
Rory jumped out of her car and headed for the still-moving truck.
The truck drifted left and bumped through some bushes. Bits of brown and dead yellow caught in the grill. The driver yanked the wheel hard back in the opposite direction and the truck swerved to the right, smashing into a headstone. It cracked through the deceased’s name and fell backward as the truck came to a stop.
“Get out,” Rory yelled, running to the truck and pulling the Glock from her waistband. “Get out now.”
The driver raised his hands, his face as pale as a winter moon. Rory jerked the door open and yanked him out, throwing him to the ground. She shoved a knee in his back and twisted his right arm around behind him.
“Don’t shoot. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“Shut up.”
“Please, don’t shoot—”
“Shut up.” Rory gave a yank to his arm and he squealed. “Just stop talking. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Silence hit the cemetery hard, like the volume suddenly muted on a TV. It ricocheted around, bouncing off the headstones and trees, losing its power as it came back at them. Eventually, the silence was peaceful and calm, what Jace imagined it to be normally.
Slowly, her skin hot with sweat and her head on fire with fear and anger, Jace walked to the driver and stood over him. “Who are you?”
He said nothing.
“She asked you a question.” Rory yanked his arm.
“Ouch. And you told me not to say anything.”
“Well, now you can talk. Who are you?”
“They call me Ty.”
“That’s not what I asked you, dumbass. I asked who you were.” Rory yanked his arm again. This time he winced but made no sound. “He’s toughening up, Jace . . . excuse me, Deputy Salome.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re cops. That don’t scare me.”
“Really.”
“Why are you following us?” Jace asked. Her hands shook and anger sat heavy in her throat. “Why the hell were you at my house?”
“This is an illegal search,” he said.
Rory grinned. “You idiot, this isn’t an illegal search, it’s a . . . eh . . . maybe semi-legal detainment. When I go through your truck, that’ll be an illegal search.”
“You ain’t going through my truck.”
“Why are you watching us? Why were you at my house? Why’d you follow us the other day?”
He laughed. “I’ve watched you a lot more than that. Saw you outside the jail one day, too.”
“Sounds like a stalking confession to me.” Rory grinned. “This really is an easy job when they’re so stupid.”
“Yeah, I’m the stupid one. You fucking bitches have no idea what kind of shitcan you opened.”
Jace went to her knees, put her face right next to his, spoke through clenched teeth. “What’s your problem?”
He chuckled. “I ain’t talking to you.”
“So tell me this, Einstein,” Rory said. “What were you going to do with us when you caught us?”
“Caught you? If he’d wanted you caught, you’d have been caught.”
“He who?”
“Kiss my ass.”
“Who?” Jace was on the edge of that precipice again. She wanted to yell and shake him, maybe to head butt him, to make him tell her everything.
“I ain’t telling you that, idiot.”
“Idiot?” Jace scooted close enough that she could see her spittle covering the distance between them. “We’re the idiots? You’re driving a truck that will tell us everything and we’re the idiots? That VIN’ll tell me exactly who you are.”
He smirked. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
“Jace, in my glove box is a pair of cuffs.”
A few minutes later, they had him cuffed and Rory was on the phone with dispatch, running the VIN because the truck had no plates. She stared at the guy while she listened.
Leaning on the hood of Rory’s car, he began to fidget. He looked around the cemetery. He pulled away from Jace just a bit.
Jace released his arm. “Do it,” she whispered. “I haven’t had a good foot chase in two . . . three days.” She pointed at her ear, no longer bandaged, but scabbed. “The guy who did that is in federal custody.” She pointed to the bandages on her cheek and neck from Kerr in the tunnel. “That guy’s going down for attempted murder of a peace officer.”
“Dougie? Bullshit.” The guy spat. “Dougie ain’t got the balls for that.”
Jace stared at him. “You know Kerr?”
The guy shrugged. “I been around.”
“Around the Zach County jail?”
His eyes darted away and he sniffed. “Arrest me if you gotta, but you got no case. I was here to see my mama. You and that freak blocked me in and attacked me for no reason.”
Rory sauntered over. “So you get that truck from your boss? Looks like a work truck to me.”
“I ain’t telling you shit.”
“Good.” Rory winked. “Makes it easier for me that way.”
Uncertainty flitted over the man’s face. “Meaning?”
“Well, no plates, the VIN comes back to a little old man in Kermit, Texas; last legit registration was nearly ten years ago. So as far as I can tell, you’re driving a stolen truck.”
“Stolen? I bought that fucking thing from a guy five years ago. It’s mine.”
“Okay, so where’s the registration? Or title?”
His face became stone.
Rory grinned. “Possession of stolen vehicle it is, then. No more nice afternoon drives for you, homie.” She looked at Jace. “No name, but I’d guess he’s Ty Campbell . . . who got a ticket for no registration from DPS just a couple of weeks ago, according to Balsamo. He’s been down a few times.”
“He’s also good, good friends with Mr. Dougie Kerr.” Jace walked over to his truck. It was an old Chevy, rusted through in most places and Jace wondered what held it together. She noticed a brown stain that had leaked out of the bed. It had run between the truck and the bumper.
Hershey’s.
The lab tech’s words.
; . . . sometimes brown is chocolate, sometimes it’s feces, sometimes it’s dried blood.
“Rory?” Jace looked into the bed. “Rory?”
“Yeah?”
When Rory came over, she looked in the truck bed and whistled. “Isn’t that interesting.”
Near the bed of the truck were bits and pieces of a mutilated pig.
CHAPTER 35
They never made Alley B’s that morning.
After Zachary police arrived, two officers in shiny black Chargers festooned with all manner of strobes and emergency lights, and hauled the man away for possession of a stolen truck, Jace asked Rory to take her home.
Now, two hours after a short nap, Jace was edgy and unable to sleep. The dream had awakened her again, but this time with music that her dream-self thought she recognized but that her waking-self couldn’t quite hum. That was new, yet another piece that might explain the dream to her, or detritus that meant nothing.
She went to Preacher’s room. On the way there, she saw Gramma walking along the second-floor walkway. When the woman looked up and saw Jace, she smiled, then immediately scowled.
“Gramma?”
The woman stopped, her hands clenched to fists. “Damn it.”
“You okay? What are you doing? Let me help.” Jace assumed Gramma was in the middle of her daily hotel chores.
“No. I don’t need your help, Jace. Thank you.” The thanks was an obvious afterthought. Breathing deeply, Gramma turned away. She sniffed and wiped her face and then looked out over the parking lot. “Two bandages? Your cheek and your neck? And wasn’t your ear bandaged just a few days ago?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, well, the nothing on your cheek is bleeding.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and tossed it to Jace.
Surprised, feeling the heat of Gramma’s angry stare more than pain from the wounds, Jace pressed the handkerchief to her cheek and came away with a tiny spill of blood. “No big deal. Just a thing at work.”
“Right.”
Gramma already hated what Jace did. It was a bad job, warehousing people, and the violence was ever-present.
“Happened with your Mama like that. Just a thing at work.”
“Work didn’t get her, Gramma; a drunk driver did.”
East of the Sun Page 23
