Bone Dry (Blanco County Mysteries)

by Ben Rehder

  Heads turned and looked at neighbors, and a woman holding a toddler meekly raised her hand. “What are we supposed to do for water? I mean, if we don’t clear the brush.”

  “Well, I’d like to suggest a combination of two things: conservation and rainwater collection. Now, by ‘conservation,’ I don’t mean anything drastic. Just take shorter showers. Cut the water off when you’re brushing your teeth or shaving. Water your lawn by hand instead of with a sprinkler. Stuff like that. It’s amazing how fast the gallons you save can add up.

  “And secondly, harvesting rainwater. Some residents in this county already have elaborate systems that provide all the household water they need. I saw one home over off Miller Creek Loop that had two enormous cisterns that probably hold ten thousand gallons each. That’ll last a pretty long time between rainshowers.”

  A middle-aged man held up his hand and remarked that that kind of system was very expensive.

  Inga nodded her head slowly. “Yeah, you’re right, they can be pricey. Most systems pay for themselves in the long run, though. And you don’t necessarily have to do anything that elaborate. You could simply attach a hundred-gallon barrel to your rain gutter and use it to water your garden. You don’t need a pump, a filter, anything like that.”

  An elderly woman—Marlin recognized her as a retired biology teacher from the high school—stood up. “What are this bird’s chances if we quit cutting cedar? Won’t it die out anyway? If they’re already having a rough go of it with plenty of cedars still around, it sounds like they’ll be in pretty bad shape regardless of what we do.”

  Inga nodded. “The only answer is, nobody knows for sure. Sometimes, it’s easy to pinpoint the reason why a species becomes endangered. It’s usually something like hunting pressure or habitat destruction. But here, the red-necked sapsucker is almost extinct and that’s regardless of the brush-clearing. But what we do know for sure is, if all the cedar is cleared, they will definitely vanish. And in my opinion—”

  She was interrupted by a muttered comment from another person in the crowd. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Please stand up and join the discussion.”

  A large dark-haired man in a well-tailored suit stood up. “I don’t see what the problem is,” he said, waving his hands emphatically. “I mean, one little bird? Fuhget about it. How important is dat? We gonna hold up progress for dat?”

  Marlin couldn’t remember the man’s name, but he had seen him around town. A new guy, only in Johnson City for a couple of years. The guy had a thick accent, something like Robert De Niro’s in his gangster pictures.

  “I appreciate your comment, sir.” Inga said. She cocked her head and gave him a momentary stare. “I believe we’ve met before. May I have your name?”

  The man looked around warily, then said, “Salvatore Mameli.”

  Now Marlin remembered. He had caught a Vinnie Mameli—no doubt this guy’s son—four-wheeling in the park a few months back. Had given him and his friend, T.J. Gibbs, a citation.

  “Thank you, Mr. Mameli. I understand your attitude, but it’s not really a matter of progress. We’re not holding up something as important as a housing development or a shopping center.”

  Marlin wasn’t sure if anybody caught Inga’s sarcasm in that last remark. She seemed to have her hackles up a little now.

  “Ya don’t think it’s holding up progress, huh?” Mameli said. “Let me ask ya somethin’. Without water, how’s the county gonna grow? How we gonna build homes for our families, hospitals, new schools for our kids, things like dat? Gotta have water for all dese things. Don’t tell me you think dis bird, dis sapsucker, is more important than our kids’ futures?”

  The crowd waited silently for Inga’s reply, some people nodding their heads in agreement with Mameli. She gave a patient smile and said, “No, of course I don’t think that. I just believe there’s a sensible answer that will allow us to do both—to live comfortably and save the sapsucker.”

  “Yeah, like collecting rainwater,” Mameli said, plenty of mockery in his voice. “So you got a guy like dis here….” He placed his hand on a man next to him in the audience. “He’s spent maybe five, six grand digging a well, building a pump-house, but you want him to forget all dat and catch the few measly drops dat happen to fall out of the sky instead. What’s he supposed to do when summer rolls around? Say it’s July, August, and dere ain’t been any rain in weeks. He’s suppose to go outside and, what, do a rain dance every time he wants to take a shower?” The guy actually started doing a jig, patting his hand over his mouth, doing an Indian chant that was straight out of a 1950s B movie. People chuckled right along with him.

  Marlin felt the momentum starting to shift, the audience starting to get behind this obnoxious clown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The weight belt around Vinnie’s waist took him down nice and slow—and Vinnie descended into a world he had never experienced before. All sounds disappeared, except for his own rhythmic breathing, loud in his ears. Sounded like goddamn Darth Vader or something. It was an eerie world down here, almost claustrophobic.

  Using a waterproof spotlight, Vinnie could see much better than he had expected, maybe seventy or eighty feet. There wasn’t much to see at first. Just water and more water, with millions of tiny particles floating in it, reflecting the light. Vinnie wondered if all that stuff was maybe fish crap. Fuckin’ gross. He’d have to take a nice long shower when he got home.

  After half a minute, Vinnie was no longer sure he was going any deeper. There was no way to tell, no landmarks to gauge his descent. Then his light swept the skeletal remains of trees reaching up from the lake bottom. Damn, he hadn’t counted on any trees! He used the flippers to kick gently, to stop his descent, while he untied the line around his waist. Last thing he needed was to get tangled around a bunch of branches, get stuck down there in a panic, air running out. T.J. might freak out a little when the rope went slack, but screw him, he’d have to deal with it.

  Free of the line now, Vinnie swam parallel to the treetops and began his search for the sunken Porsche. He and T.J. had agreed that they were damn close to the original location. But it could be fifty or a hundred feet off in any direction. This could take awhile.

  In the stands, Marlin saw another man rise to his feet, not far from Mameli. Marlin had no problem remembering this guy, because his sneer was operating at full strength.

  “There’s no reason to be a jackass.” Tommy Peabody spat the words out with venom, and Mameli halted his clumsy Indian dance. The room went silent except for a few hushed murmurs.

  The two men locked eyes for a moment and the audience watched with rapt attention. Finally, Mameli smirked, put his hand against his chest, and said, “Me? You callin’ me a jackass?”

  “If the horseshoe fits.”

  That got several nervous giggles, the crowd treating it as a good-natured joke, like: Okay, you boys have had your fun, now let’s settle down and get back to business. But Peabody was standing up straighter now, looking a little more confident, ready for action.

  Phil Colby leaned over to Marlin and said, “Interesting little show.” Marlin nodded, glancing around for a cop. Surely a couple of the deputies must be here, but he didn’t see any. With Bert Gammel murdered and Emmett Slaton missing, maybe they couldn’t spare the manpower.

  Mameli straightened his tie and said, “Well, you’re a tree-hugging hump—whaddaya think of dat?”

  Marlin was on the edge of his seat now, ready to wade in and break this thing up if it got physical. He could practically smell the testosterone in the air, could feel the cloak of embarrassment that settles over a crowd when two grown men behave like schoolchildren.

  Peabody furrowed his brow, an exaggerated look of confusion. “I’d be offended, but frankly, I’m not even sure what that means,” he said, a few diehards still laughing, egging on this sneering little man. Several people in the bleachers, though, were rising, starting to leave.

  “Uh, gentlemen...” It was Inga, stil
l on the microphone, holding her hands up in a placating gesture, trying to rein this thing in. “There’s no reason to—”

  But Mameli pointed at her and spoke over her amplified words. “She’s the jackass, if ya want my opinion. Her and all her bird-loving friends, including you. Oh yeah, I seen youse two runnin’ around town together. I know you’re in dis thing together. Well, screw both of you,” he said, pointing back at Peabody now.

  As soon as Mameli had made the remark about Inga, Marlin could see people throughout the crowd reacting with distaste, shaking their heads. Using body language to say, Pardner, you just crossed the line. Now Sal’s coarse language brought glares and angry mutterings.

  When the crowd quieted down, Peabody spoke again: “You, sir, are not only a ridiculous boor, you are a rapist of the Earth.”

  Mameli spread his hands wide. “Yeah? Well, what the hell ya gonna do about it?”

  Peabody’s voice rose. “I’m gonna shut you down. One way or another, I’m going to stop your carnage!”

  Mameli grabbed his crotch with both hands and said, “I got your carnage right here!”

  Peabody cocked his head toward the ceiling, hands on his hips, muttering to himself, as if he were trying to summon his patience. Mameli defiantly glared his way. Marlin rose now, with the sense that it was about to get messy. He could hear Phil saying something to him, but Marlin was making his way toward the floor, keeping an eye on the two men.

  Before Marlin’s feet hit the tiles, Peabody let out a growl and rushed along the bleachers toward the large Italian.

  Women screamed.

  People piled out of the bleachers, tumbling, jumping, to get out of the way.

  Vinnie got lucky. After only six or seven minutes, he spotted the Porsche, already coated with a thin layer of brown goo. Give it another month or so and the car would be practically invisible, blending right in with the bottom of the lake, tucked between a couple of oaks.

  Vinnie let the weight belt pull him down to the car, just a small kick here and there, until he felt his flippers sink into the muck beside the driver’s door.

  Bending low, flooding the interior of the car with light, Vinnie saw Emmett Slaton staring back at him, his face green and bloated. Slaton was floating off the seat, his arms levitating in front of him, reaching for the dashboard, as if the Porsche had just gone over a large bump in the road.

  Vinnie eased the driver’s door open, keeping an eye on the corpse. Couldn’t have ol’ Emmett floating past him, rising to the surface. That would sure kill T.J.’s buzz quick.

  Now the important thing: finding the LoJack. T.J. had said it was small, about the size of a deck of cards, Velcroed under the dash, right below the steering wheel.

  Vinnie reached under, fumbled around for a few seconds, and... Hell yes! There it was! He grabbed the LoJack firmly and tugged it loose from the Velcro. He examined it under the light. Damn thing looked harmless, but it would have sent him to fucking Huntsville, sitting in a cold, dirty prison cell. He unzipped a pocket in his wetsuit and shoved the LoJack inside.

  Inside his mask, Vinnie grinned. See there? Every problem has a solution. All you gotta do is think it through, use your goddamn brains. And your balls sometimes, too. His father would be proud—if only Vinnie could tell him how his son had risen to meet this challenge.

  Now there was only one more detail to take care of. He hated to do it, but this whole LoJack mess had made him realize it was a necessary step. Vinnie had wrestled with the idea for a while, trying to think of other options, but he had decided it was for the best. A smart man leaves no witnesses behind.

  The love of a good woman was worth doing battle over. At least that’s how Thomas Peabody had felt thirty seconds ago, defending Inga’s honor, trading verbal barbs with Salvatore Mameli. Inga and Peabody had done their research and knew exactly who this Mameli character was: a land-clearer, a rabid destroyer of wildlife habitat, the kind of man who made Peabody fighting mad. But now, as he charged toward Mameli—who was looking larger and meaner as Peabody got closer—Peabody wondered about the wisdom of it all.

  Would this be the act that finally drew Inga to him? Would this gesture force her to recognize his integrity, his loyalty to the cause, his bravery in the face of daunting odds? Would she become infatuated with his courage, his willingness to defend the defenseless?

  Or would she simply think he was a moron?

  Peabody realized he would have to ponder these issues later, because right now, Mameli’s meaty right fist was coming toward his face.

  Vinnie finally emerged to the surface twenty yards from the boat.

  As he swam the short distance, he could see T.J. rise to his feet. “Goddamn, dude, what happened down there?” T.J. hissed, trying to keep his voice quiet on the windless lake. “The rope went slack and I nearly had a damn heart attack!”

  Vinnie grabbed the transom and pulled himself over. “Trees at the bottom of the lake. I had to untie it so I wouldn’t get tangled.”

  “Oh, man, you had me freakin’. Did you get the LoJack?”

  “Hell no,” Vinnie said, his voice thick with mock anger. “I don’t know what the fuck you were talking about, ‘right under the dashboard.’ It wasn’t there, man.”

  T.J. groaned. “Aw, man. It’s right under the steering column, plain as day.”

  Vinnie put his hand to his brow and shook his head, going for a look of frustration. “The steering column? I can’t believe this shit. Man, you told me it was under the passenger’s side.”

  “Dude, I told you three times, it’s right under the driver’s side. Just stuck there with Velcro.”

  Vinnie slumped in one of the seats and let the silence hang in the air for a moment. Then he tossed the scuba mask to Vinnie. “Your turn.”

  “What? What are you talkin’ about?”

  “It’s your turn. You know exactly where it is, so you go down and get it.” “But I don’t know how to work the scuba gear,” T.J. said, his voice shaky.

  “I’ll show you. It’s no big deal. And you’ll have the spotlight. You’re not scared, are you?”

  “Hell, no, gimme a break.” T.J. grabbed the stub of a joint and took a hit. “Hand me those damn flippers,” he said, smoke curling around his face. “I’ll go do it myself.”

  Peabody ducked under Sal’s first punch and wrapped himself around the beefy Italian’s torso. Mameli responded by thumping Peabody several times on the back of his head, a sound Marlin could hear from ten yards away. Mameli then yanked Peabody’s head back by the hair with his left hand and was preparing to land a blow with his right, but his foot slipped between the plank he was standing on and the next bleacher down. Both men collapsed onto the bleacher seats now, Peabody howling in anguish as his hair was pulled tight. Mameli was moaning in agony, too, his right leg dangling unnaturally beneath the bleachers.

  Marlin vaulted up the bleacher steps and started grabbing arms, trying to pry each man loose, hoping to situate himself between the two of them. “Let go! Both of you!” But both men continued grunting and cursing, taking short punches at each other when they got the chance.

  Marlin couldn’t find an opening between them, with Mameli more or less lying on top of Peabody now. So Marlin got behind Mameli and reached around, attempting to loosen Mameli’s grip on Peabody’s stringy hair. That’s when he felt teeth—he wasn’t sure whose—clamping down on the meat of his left forearm. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled, feeling the warm blood begin to flow. With his right hand, he fumbled for the pepper spray on his belt. He found the small canister and popped the cap with his thumb. He couldn’t see around Mameli’s bulky torso, so he just sprayed a powerful blast between the two men, swiveling his wrist back and forth, likely hitting each man squarely in the face.

  The brawl ended immediately as both men cried out and covered their faces.

  Marlin pushed off of Mameli’s back and sat down on the bleachers, winded, cradling his wounded arm.

  Peabody, wiping furiously at his eyes, man
aged to slither out from under Mameli.

  Mameli propped himself on his elbows, prone on the plank floorboard, trying to see through squinted eyes. “My fuckin’ leg! The bastard broke my fuckin’ leg. I can feel it.”

  “You deserved it, you cretin,” Peabody replied, tears streaming down his cheeks from the pepper spray. “You think you can just rape the land and get away with it?”

  “Quiet!” Marlin yelled. He faced the crowd that was gathered below the bleachers, watching. He noticed Inga standing there silently, looking rattled, one hand over her mouth. “Anyone have a cell phone?” Marlin asked. A man Marlin recognized—the uncle of one of the sheriff’s dispatchers—raised his hand. “Mr. Briggs, please call nine-one-one, let ’em know we need an ambulance over here.” The man nodded and began to dial.