by R.J. Ellory
“Oh, believe me,” Nixon interjected. “People are certainly capable of doing this, and often it’s the people you’d least suspect.”
“I know it’s nothing but intuition at this stage, but my intuition is good. I could be wrong, and I’m more than happy to admit I’m wrong, but I just cannot get the idea out of my head that there’s more to this Clarence Luckman than we think.”
“Detective, we have plenty of circumstantial evidence that Clarence Luckman has been everywhere where these killings have happened.”
“So what happened after he took Walter Milford’s car and left Tucson?”
“What d’you mean, what happened?”
“Where did he go? Who saw him next?”
Koenig smiled. “Look, Detective, I really appreciate your persistence on this, and I appreciate your willingness to help, but this is a very serious multiple homicide case, and you have things to deal with back in Tucson, and you really shouldn’t be out here talking to us about this …”
“I’d just like to know what happened after he left Tucson, that’s all,” Cassidy replied. “If you can tell me that much I’ll be happy. Tell me that and I’ll turn right round and drive back to Tucson.”
Koenig was hesitant, and then he said, “Well, there isn’t any reason not to tell you, Detective. You are involved in this case, albeit within the Tucson city limits, but I don’t see what good it’s going to do you, and you have to understand that we are now dealing with another series of murders, two of which are uncertain as to cause at this time, and a further victim in a hospital here in El Paso with cranial trauma and a broken back who may or may not make it.”
“Uncertain? What do you mean, uncertain?”
“Well, we have to now assume that the other two men who were found dead were not the work of Clarence Luckman.”
“What other two men?”
“Okay,” Koenig said. “I’ll tell you what has happened since Luckman left Tucson, and then you go back and work on the Parselle and Milford cases, okay?”
Cassidy hesitated.
“You have no authority here, Detective,” Koenig said. “The fact that you drove out here three hundred miles in the middle of the night tells me that you are a hard-working and dedicated detective, but you are not a federal officer, and this really is a federal case—”
“Tell me what has happened since Tucson and I’ll go home,” Cassidy said.
“Right. Okay.” Koenig leaned back in his chair. He took a moment to light a cigarette, and then he told Cassidy about the murder of Marlon Juneau east of Deming, the two dead bodies in the car, the discovery of Harvey Warren’s gun beneath, the identification of Clarence Luckman’s prints on that gun, the fact that a report went in to the police from a gas station owner in Deming called Clark Regan about the two bodies, and the subsequent sighting of Clarence Luckman at the diner where the Eckharts had stopped. Koenig went on to detail the discovery of the four dead bodies—Rita McGovern on the highway, Maurice Eckhart, Linda, and Dennis in a burned-out car, and the fact that Margot Eckhart was now in Saint Savior’s Hospital and unlikely to recover sufficiently to confirm or identify anything or anyone.
Cassidy asked for the timeframe they were working with, and it was as Koenig was explaining this that Cassidy stopped him.
“There’s something right there that doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“You mean the fact that Clarence Luckman was supposedly reporting the discovery of the two dead bodies in the car at a gas station at about the same time that he was seen in a diner outside El Paso … and that these two locations are approximately a hundred miles apart?”
“Yes,” Cassidy said. “That couldn’t have happened.”
“And the answer to that question is that it could not have been Clarence Luckman who reported this to the gas station owner. The gas station owner, name of Clark Regan, remembers that there were two people, a teenage girl and a teenage boy. He spoke only to the girl, and could not identify Clarence Luckman from the photo we showed him.”
“But the guy in the diner did identify Clarence Luckman from his picture?”
“No, he didn’t identify him either. But he remembered the Ford Galaxie, and he remembered the Eckharts. We also now have a revolver at the McGovern murder scene that has been identified as having belonged to Sheriff James Wheland from Wellton. That’s where Clarence Luckman and Earl Sheridan carried out the bank robbery.”
“So if the young man who reported the overturned car at the gas station was not Clarence Luckman, then who was he? And who was the girl with him?”
Koenig shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“And if it wasn’t Luckman at the gas station, and yet Luckman was the one who had Harvey Warren’s gun, then how did that gun end up beneath that car such a short way from the gas station?”
“Again, we don’t know yet.”
“Seems to me that Luckman doesn’t have that much of a problem with being identified by the weapons he’s using. If he did have then he wouldn’t have left Sheriff Wheland’s gun at the McGovern scene.”
Koenig leaned forward. He smiled genuinely, and shook his head. “Detective Cassidy, you have a discerning and rapid sense of logic. I only wish that there were more federal people as smart as you. You are asking precisely the questions we are asking, and we don’t have answers to all of them. All we have to date are seven known victims, and the two further attacks from Tucson. Additionally we have Margot Eckhart in the hospital, and—inexplicably—we have two dead men in a car east of Deming with a handgun under the vehicle, said handgun having come from the convenience store in Marana. That’s what we have. What we think is that Clarence Luckman is either here in El Paso, or has now left El Paso in Rita McGovern’s station wagon, and he’s continuing southeast along the I-10 toward Fort Hancock and Van Horn. After Van Horn the highway joins the I-20, which goes on to Odessa, then on to Fort Worth and Dallas, whereas the I-10 carries on to San Antonio and Houston. The farther he goes the less likely we are to find him. The bigger the city he reaches, again the less likely we are to find him. If he decides to go south and gets into Mexico there is a strong likelihood that we will never find him. Those are the facts and the suppositions. Those are the scenarios we have, and also the scenarios we are trying to avoid. We have the sheriffs of pretty much every county within a three-hundred-mile radius working with us, we have continuous bulletins on the televisions and the radio, we have photographs of Luckman being distributed to every gas station and convenience store along the interstate and connecting highways. We have hundreds of men at our disposal, and we are using every single one of them in the most effective and efficient way we can to locate this individual before he kills anyone else, so—”
“So I should be on my way home?”
“With respect, Detective, yes, you should be on your way home.”
“I know, and I’m grateful for your time. It seems that you have every base covered.”
“We hope so, Detective. You appreciate what we’re dealing with as well as anyone, and you know how these things can sometimes succeed or fail based on the smallest detail.”
Cassidy rose from the chair. “I appreciate your time, gentlemen,” he said, “and I wish you all success.” He shook hands with both Garth Nixon and Ron Koenig, and Nixon showed him out.
“Not the last we’ve heard of him,” Koenig said as Nixon shut the door. “Good man. Would be good to have him come work with us.”
“Ask him,” Nixon suggested.
“Next time I see him I might just do that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Clay and Bailey rose early, there was little to eat, and with empty stomachs they departed the Travelers’ Rest and headed out toward the highway. Bailey said nothing as they walked. Clay’s thoughts were all questions and no answers, and yet later—had he tried to recall those questions—he would not have been able to.
Within an hour they caught a ride heading away from El Paso on the I-10.
&nbs
p; The driver’s name was Emanuel Smith. He wore a shirt that was already dirty back when Coolidge was president, over it a black vest that was all shiny with grease around the pockets. “Smithy,” he said. “Just call me Smithy. No one but my ma called me Emanuel and she’s been dead these fifteen years, and hell she was crazy anyway.” He laughed from the base of his gut and his whole body seemed to shudder with the effect. “Hell kind of name is Emanuel? Like callin’ a kid Abednego or Ham or something. Crazy shit if you ask me. Darn crazy shit.”
The pickup was wide, and they sat up front together.
“Can take you as far as Sierra Blanca,” Smithy said. “Eighty some miles. Shouldn’t take much more ’an about a coupla hours if we don’t get no trouble.” He reached forward and caressed the dashboard. “She’s a good ol’ girl, but a little temperamental, you know? Like all women.”
Clay glanced at Bailey. Bailey smiled.
“Either o’ you pair drive?”
“No, sir,” Clay replied.
“Then we won’t be sharing the workload, will we?”
“No, sir.”
“Either o’ you pair had breakfast?”
“No, not yet,” Clay replied. “We were going to keep on walking until we found somewhere.”
“And then I came along and spoiled the plan,” Smithy said with a smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna be arrivin’ at hungry real soon. I think it’d be a good thing to stop and take something. Then we can do a flat straight run to Sierra Blanca.” He tugged a pocket watch from his vest. “It’s just after eight. Say we stop for half an hour someplace, we’re back on the road by quarter to nine … hell, we could be there by eleven or eleven thirty. How does that suit you for an arrangement?”
“Suits us just fine,” Clay said, and settled back.
Not five minutes passed before Smithy went from friendly banter to curious inquisition.
“You don’t fool me for a minute,” he said when Bailey hesitated over their names. “You ain’t brother and sister. I seen the likes of you too many times to know you for anything other than what you is. Runaways, right? You got troublesome folks or drunkards or some such, and you figured that whatever was out here was better than back there.”
Neither Clay nor Bailey replied.
Smithy nodded sagely, and then he smiled. “Hell, you don’t need to worry about me. I been runnin’ away from somethin’ or other my whole darn life.” He laughed coarsely. “If it weren’t a mother or father then it was a wife or a mistress or a pissed husband with a loaded gun.” He paused and shook his head. “Got a boy up there in Blanca. Twenty-five years old, talks like he ain’t through kindergarten, crazy as a shithouse rat. Don’t know what the hell to do with him but struggle on. Shee-it. But you keep on going, you know? Sometimes you work hard at something solely to prove you can do it. Only person who needs to know is yourself. But it is hard, I’ll say that much …”
Smithy’s voice trailed away. Clay looked at Bailey. Her expression said everything. They hadn’t been picked up out of pity or sympathy or decent human kindness. They’d been picked up because Emanuel Smith was the loneliest man in the world.
“Sometimes wonder if I haven’t had my fill of regular folks.” Smithy looked at Clay. He half-closed his eyes as if to more closely discern his thoughts. “Know what I mean, son? Kind of folks who figure that life is all about going to church and feeling guilty, that there ain’t no derivation of pleasure until you’re dead and gone to heaven. Always reminding people how sinful they are. Doing what they need to make everyone else as miserable and anxious as themselves. Can’t abide such attitudes. All high and mighty.”
Smithy reached forward and took a pack of cigarettes from beneath the dash. He lit one awkwardly, releasing the steering wheel with both hands for just a moment.
He went on talking, his words issuing from amidst a cloud of smoke. “No one ever did anything worth anything in this world by coloring inside the lines. That’s a fact. It’s always harder to be good. Honesty is a tougher road. Wears you out sometimes. Sometimes people take a tough road because they’re too mule-dumb to quit. Others take a tough road ’cause they know it’s right and they got a good heart. All they ever had, all they ever will have is a good heart. Maybe people like us are destined to want but never get. Some peoples’ lives are like that, I guess. Empty, you know? Like a balloon.”
“I know what you mean,” Bailey interjected. “I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Smith.”
Smithy looked sideways at her, the expression on his face like he was about to tell her that she knew nothing. Hell, how could she? There wasn’t nothing to her. She was just a slip of a girl and could never have experienced anything even close to what he had. But he didn’t. He looked at her, and then he nodded his head and said, “Yes, my dear, I think you do.”
“It’s not been easy,” she said. “We want to get to Eldorado in Texas, and then we’re going to make some decisions about what to do.”
“Sounds as good a place as any,” Smithy said. “Shame I ain’t goin’ there myself, otherwise we’d be travelin’ companions all the way.”
“Sierra Blanca will be just fine,” she said.
“And whatever trouble you’ve had back home,” he said. “You just look at the things you like and squint your eyes so the rest goes blurry. See what you want to see. Don’t see nothin’ else. Sometimes it feels like life is there to teach you as many things about hurting as it can. That may be true. You can experience all the trouble you want, but that don’t mean you have to spend all your time thinking about it. Bad memories have long shadows. Spend the rest of your life inside of them and you never get warm.”
He smoked his cigarette to the butt and then he flicked it out the window. He smiled kind of knowingly. “I hear it says in the Bible that Jesus will follow you to the end of the road, to the ends of the earth. Tell you something now. Been some places, seen some things that no one—not even the Lamb of God—would have followed me. Far as I’m concerned life is mostly a great number of somethings for pretty much nothing in return. Think that’s how it’s designed so you don’t take what you got for granted. Truth is that when all is said and done, the only thing we end up fearing is time.”
And so he went on. Everything he said seemed to be a judgment, an ultimatum, a handful of words from a sermon about fortitude, resilience, persistence, and unwillingness to quit. His slant was dark, pessimistic, but there was a sober level to it that Bailey found reassuring and practical. Emanuel Smith was a dreamer. He’d watched his dreams die, but that hadn’t changed his belief in the dreams. Like her father. He was dead, but that didn’t mean he’d never lived.
“Tell you now, it’s a hundred percent tough ninety percent of the time, or ninety-five percent tough a hundred percent of the time. They sound the same but they’re not. They’re very different. A man carries his burden in silence. Makes a complaint, well, then he ain’t a man.”
“Mr. Smith?” Bailey asked.
“ ’S up, sweetheart?”
“What happened to your wife?”
“My wife? Which wife would that be then?”
“The one who had your boy?”
“That one? Well, she’s dead, sweetheart. Dead as they get.”
“You miss her?”
“Miss her?” he echoed. He was quiet for a moment. “Try not to, I s’pose, but yes, I miss her.”
“I lost my dad.”
“That’s why you’re running away?”
“That. Some other things.”
Clay listened to her voice. There was something there he hadn’t heard since she’d cried at the side of the road.
“Hell of a young one to be losin’ your father,” Smithy said. “And your ma? Where’s she at?”
“Lost her too.”
Smithy frowned. “You ain’t doin’ so good there, girl. Seems to me you should start takin’ better care of the people around you, save you lose ’em all.”
“You remember what your wife looks like,
Mr. Smith?”
“Sure I do. Hard to forget that.”
Bailey was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again there was a hitch of suppressed emotion in her voice. “I try and remember what he looks like,” she said. “My dad. I try and remember what he looks like, but when his face comes … well, it looks like him but then it kinda doesn’t look like him. Like there’s always something slightly wrong. The shape of his eyes, you know? The shadow around his jaw.”
Smithy smiled. “Well, hell, of course he’s gonna look different now, sweetheart. He’s dead … well, I mean he’s dead in our terms, but every other way you look at it he’s just someplace else. He’s wherever folks go when they die, and they have different air there, or there’s a different light, and that makes ’em look different.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
“How come you’re so sure, Mr. Smith?”
“Well, hell, girl, it’s easy. Every time I think of my wife now she looks pleased to see me, and that didn’t never happen when she was alive.”
He was deadpan for a moment, and then he cracked his face with a smile, and then he started laughing, and Bailey looked at Clay and Clay looked right back at her, and then the pair of them broke up rowdily, and the cab of the pickup was such a ruckus of noise the engine was drowned out.
“You only got two kinds of time in this life,” Smithy said a while later. “Too much or too little. That’s the truth, bare-faced as it gets. Trouble is that most folks is always looking for what’s ahead, what’s in front of them. Gotta pay attention to what’s going on around and about as well. That old thing they say has some truth in it, you know. Never so much joy in the destination as there is in the journey. Something of that nature.”
“You can’t help it though sometimes, can you, Mr. Smith?” Bailey said. “Sometimes you just can’t help thinking that you were born under a bad star and you were just fixed for bad luck the whole of your life.”
Clay heard nothing after bad star. He was looking up ahead at the road, but all he could see was the night sky out through the window as he lay on the floor with his mother. All he could remember were the prayers he made and the fact that they were never heard.
