LOW PRESSURE

by BROWN SANDRA

  Van Durbin’s ferret nose was practically twitching. As though composing the opening sentence of his next column, he said, “Moody nailed the wrong man, and that innocent young man died bloody in prison.”

  “You’ve put words in my mouth that I didn’t say, Mr. Van Durbin. If you print that, I’ll demand a retraction and sue your newspaper. I hope to God that justice was served,” he added piously. “However—”

  “There’s that word again. It gives me a hard-on.”

  “If you want an exclusive quote from me, here it is. And this is all I will ever say on the subject: I swear on the heads of my beautiful wife and children that I did my job as prosecutor to the best of my ability, with integrity and a burning desire to see that Susan Lyston got the justice she deserved. I can’t speak to the motives or actions of former detective Dale Moody.”

  “You would have been disappointed.”

  Dent looked over at Bellamy where she sat in the right-hand co-pilot’s seat. She had been quiet throughout most of the flight, and he’d left her to her own thoughts. He figured she was reflecting on her dad’s declining condition and how his death would impact her.

  But obviously he’d somehow factored into her thoughts, and they were compelling enough for her to have put on the headphones so she could share them with him now.

  “Disappointed?”

  “If we’d gone through with it last night, you would have been in for a letdown.”

  “I was let down.”

  “Yes, but not like you would have been if we’d continued.” She faced forward again, but he knew that her mind wasn’t on the view through the cockpit window. “When I described my marriage to you, you remarked on how boring it sounded.”

  “I was being a smart-ass.”

  “Of course you were. But you were right. Except for one thing. My husband wasn’t to blame, I was. Through no fault of his own, he became bored with me.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Why did he get bored with you?”

  “I have issues with intimacy.”

  “With fucking.”

  She winced. “That’s an aspect of it.”

  “What’s the other aspect?”

  She didn’t answer, leading him to believe there was no other aspect, but even if there was, this was the one that had caused her marriage to fail, the one that had caused her to freak out on him last night, so this was the aspect that interested him.

  “What kind of issues?” he asked. “Other than the use of the word. You don’t like it. A lot of people find it offensive, but they still do the deed. So what sent you into orbit last night? I had bad breath? My feet stank?”

  “It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. I’m to blame. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “No, let’s not.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then why’d you bring it up?”

  “To tell you again that I’m sorry it happened.”

  “Apology accepted. Now tell me why I would have been disappointed. Which I think is total bull crap, by the way. But what makes you think I would have been?”

  “Now’s not the time to talk about it.”

  “It’s the perfect time. I’ve got to fly the airplane. So no matter what my reaction is, I can’t act on it. You’re safe to say anything.”

  She wrestled with indecision for nearly half a minute, then said, “When Susan—”

  “Aw, jeez. I had a feeling this was going to come back to her.”

  “Everything comes back to her.”

  “Only because you let it.”

  “We’re discussing this at your insistence. Do you want to continue or not?”

  He motioned for her to continue.

  “The manner in which Susan died left a lot of people thinking that she had it coming. Even if they didn’t say so out loud, it was implied. By the media. The same with close friends. Condolences were sometimes tinged with a reap-what-you-sow undertone. We all sensed it. Daddy, Olivia, Steven, and me.

  “One day during the trial, Allen Strickland’s defense lawyer came right out and stated that if Susan hadn’t been sexually promiscuous, she would still be alive. Rupe Collier objected. He and the defense lawyer got into a shouting match. The judge sternly reprimanded the lawyer, ordered that the comment be stricken from the record, and instructed the jury to disregard it. But the damage had been done.

  “Up till then it had only been an insinuation which we—the family—had publicly ignored. But once it was put into actual words, we could no longer pretend that each of us hadn’t entertained similar thoughts.

  “And owning up to such disloyalty toward Susan was painful for all of us. Olivia broke down and sobbed for hours. Daddy drank heavily that night, and that’s the only time I’ve ever seen him overindulge. Steven withdrew to his room without saying a word to anyone.

  “And I . . .” She paused and took a deep breath. “I also locked myself in my room where, after hours of tearful contemplation, I concluded that the source of all this grief was Susan’s sexuality.

  “She didn’t deserve to die because of it, but none of us would be suffering as we were if she hadn’t given in to sexual impulses. Ergo, they had to be bad. Dirty. Destructive. That’s the conclusion I reached.”

  She smiled wryly. “This at a time when I was going through puberty and beginning to experience the kinds of mysterious and uncontrollable yearnings that had cost Susan her life. I thought I would be destined to end like her if I surrendered to them. Instead I resolved to deny them. I pledged not to become like my sister.”

  A dozen different responses instantly came to his mind, but all were crude, inappropriate, and insulting to Susan. He chose the safer option and kept them to himself.

  “During high school, I developed mad crushes on a few boys and did my fair share of dating, but—to counter Susan and her reputation—I kept my virginity. Through college and young adulthood, I slept with the occasional guy, but I didn’t let myself have fun in bed, so my partners rarely did. As I got older, I got better at the pretense, but men must sense when a woman isn’t really into it.”

  She glanced at him, but, again, he prudently said nothing.

  “My husband never questioned my reserve, before or after we married, although he felt it. I never turned him down, but I wasn’t, hmm, adventurous. Maybe he hoped he could eventually overcome whatever hang-ups were keeping me from enjoying him as I should. But it never happened, and I suppose he tired of trying to force it. Losing our baby was just the last of his disappointments in me.”

  A few seconds elapsed, then she looked over at him. “There. Now that you know, you should feel better about last night. It had nothing to do with you or your technique.”

  He waited until he was certain that she was finished, then he said, “Let me get this straight. At twelve years old, you made this stupid pledge to deny your own sexuality, and you’ve spent the past eighteen years trying to uphold that vow?”

  “No, Dent,” she said sadly. “I’ve spent eighteen years trying to break it.”

  Chapter 22

  By turns, Ray was enraged and nervous.

  The man at the airfield had made a fool of him.

  He must’ve looked real stupid to the old codger, when he’d thought he was being so clever.

  He was aware of his limitations. In high school, he’d been told he read below a second-grade level. That was okay. He could live with that. But it stung deep to be exposed as a complete imbecile.

  By now Dent and Bellamy would have heard the story of how he’d walked—charged—right into the carefully laid trap. Ray imagined the old man wiping tears from his eyes, slapping his knee with hilarity as he told them, “He came running in here and stabbed a slab of rubber. What a jackass.”

  They would have had a good laugh at his expense. Instead of being scared of him, they’d regard him as a clumsy buffoon. The thought of that infuriated him. Mostly, though, he was mad at himself. He hadn’t done Allen proud.

  He needed
to fix that.

  And that was what made him nervous, because he wasn’t sure what he should do next.

  Once he’d put some distance between him and the airfield, he’d switched his truck’s license plates with those of another pickup he found at a twenty-four-hour Walmart. He’d put on a straw cowboy hat so that his near-bald head wouldn’t be so noticeable. He’d swapped out his leather vest for a shirt with long sleeves that would cover up his snake tattoo. The old man couldn’t have seen it because it had been too dark inside the hangar, but Dent Carter might have noticed it when he jumped him at the IHOP. It made Ray easily identifiable.

  He hated having to cover it. Like some people felt about wearing a cross on a chain around their neck, or carrying a rabbit’s foot for good luck, Ray believed that his snake tattoo gave him special powers. He felt stronger and smarter every time he looked at it or touched it.

  Afraid to stay in his apartment in case the police came looking for him there, he’d driven around all day, no destination in mind, never stopping for long, just keeping on the move. All the same, he felt trapped, like things were closing in on him.

  But by damn, he couldn’t get caught until Bellamy Price was dead. So anything he did now had to count, and it had to count big. He must be bold.

  “Take the bull by the horns.” That was what Allen would advise.

  With his brother’s words of wisdom echoing inside his head, he took the next exit off I-35 and made a U-turn beneath the overpass, reentering the freeway in the northbound lanes.

  He knew what he had to do, and it didn’t have to be fancy.

  Feeling much more confident now, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and placed his exposed left arm in the open window of his truck, practically daring anyone to mess with him.

  Right off, Gall sensed the tension between Dent and Bellamy.

  No sooner had her toe touched the tarmac than she excused herself to call her stepmother. Gall watched her enter the hangar, then turned to Dent, who was coming down the steps of the airplane.

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine.”

  Gall patted the side of the airplane. “This puppy practically flies herself, doesn’t she?”

  “No airplane flies itself.”

  “Just saying.”

  “You’ve said it. I’d be crazy not to hire on with this guy.”

  “As I said, I’m just saying.” Gall motioned toward the hangar. “What’s with her?”

  “Bellamy?”

  “No, the Queen of Sheba. Who do you think?”

  Dent glanced in her direction. “The news from Houston isn’t good.”

  “That explains it.” After a beat, he asked, “What’s with you?”

  “With me? Nothing.”

  “Something.”

  Dent took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m tired, is all.”

  “Pull my other leg.”

  “All right.” He folded down the stems of his glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. “I’m tired of your questions.” He started for the hangar. “Got any coffee?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Yeah, and it always sucks.”

  “You’ve never complained before.”

  “I’m too nice.”

  Gall harrumphed. “Nice you ain’t.”

  Dent muttered, “So I’ve recently been told.”

  “She’s not making it with you, is she?”

  Dent stopped and came around, his eyes throwing daggers.

  Gall took his cigar from his mouth and shook his head with bafflement. “This ain’t like you, Ace.”

  “Don’t go thinking I’ve lost my touch. She says no, it’s her problem.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “A woman says no, it ain’t like you to give a flip.”

  Dent opened his mouth, but closed it before saying anything. Then he started toward the hangar again.

  Gall said, “I’ll brew you a fresh pot.”

  Dent called back, “I’ll brew it myself.”

  By the time Gall had secured the senator’s airplane and rejoined them, Dent was foisting a mug of steaming coffee onto Bellamy. Using both hands, she took the oversized mug, looked into it, but didn’t drink from it.

  “How’s your daddy?” Gall asked.

  “No change. Still not good.”

  “Sorry.”

  She gave him a bleak smile. “I appreciate your asking.”

  Dent, sipping his coffee, motioned toward his airplane. “Where’d you lay out the dummy?”

  “Behind the left wheel. But the real dummy was that idiot.”

  “You don’t have to be smart to be dangerous,” Dent said. “The man who attacked me has a lot of rage inside him. I felt it. Heard back from the sheriff’s deputy?”

  “He left a voice mail on the hangar phone. It was Ray Strickland, all right. They ran the plates on the pickup. But when a state trooper stopped a small pickup with those plates, it wasn’t Strickland driving. It was a young black woman, college student, dean’s list, works part time at Walmart. No police record, nary a blemish on her good name, and she’d never heard of Strickland.”

  “Ray switched the plates.”

  “Seems like. So they’re looking for a truck with this college kid’s plates now.”

  “Is Ray employed?”

  “At a glass works of some kind out on the east side. According to the deputy, they checked there, and Ray’s foreman said he hasn’t reported to work for several days. Not answering his cell phone. He’s not at his house, either.”

  “Whereabouts unknown,” Dent said.

  “You got it.”

  “No sign of . . . the other?”

  Gall, realizing that Dent was referring to Bellamy’s fan Jerry, cast a look in her direction, but she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. They must’ve been troubling. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes staring vacantly.

  “Naw,” Gall said to Dent. “All the same, you two gotta be careful.”

  “Planning on it.”

  “What else are you planning?”

  “Moody was pretty straightforward with us, but he fell short of making a full confession. He didn’t tell us the thing that might have made a difference in the outcome of the case. We need to talk to Rupe Collier.”

  Gall spat a chunk of cigar to the floor. “It might not mean doodle-dee-squat, but Rupe was on TV today. Caught his show while I was still at my lady’s place.”

  “His show?”

  “He wasn’t hawking cars, but conducting a press conference.”

  “What?” Dent exclaimed.

  Bellamy suddenly came to life. “Talking about what?”

  “About how his face got fucked up. Not in those words, of course. But Ace here can’t hold a candle to how bad Rupe looked.” He gave them a description. “He claimed not to have got a good look at his attacker and was vague about where the assault had taken place, but he played the victim angle up big. You ask me, the timing of this is fishy.”

  “It stinks to high heaven.” Dent turned to Bellamy. “We need to have a heart-to-heart with the former ADA. Do you know where his office is?”

  “His flagship dealership. That’s where I met with him.”

  “He whipped the media into a frenzy during that press conference,” Gall told them. “That car lot is surrounded by reporters hoping to grab another sound bite or two, which Rupe is good at. You couldn’t get anywhere close without them swamping you, too.”

  “That leaves his house,” Bellamy said quietly. When he and Dent turned to her, she added, “I know where he lives.”

  “No wonder you know his address,” Dent said as he turned onto the street. “You hail from the same ritzy neighborhood.”

  The Lystons’ estate where she’d grown up was several streets over. “Don’t hold that against me.”

  “You ever been inside Rupe’s place?”

  She shook her head. “After Stric
kland’s conviction, my parents were invited to his Christmas open house three years in a row. They declined each time, and I guess he and his wife finally got the message, because the invitations stopped coming.”

  Rupert Collier’s limestone house sat on a rise of sprawling lawn with well-tended grass, centuries-old live oak trees, and lush flower beds. Parked at the curb in front of it was an Austin PD squad car.

  Dent asked, “What do you think?”

  “They’re probably here to discourage the media from storming the castle.” She gave it a moment’s thought, then said, “I have an idea. Pull up and get out like we’re expected.”

  He parked at the curb directly behind the police car. As soon as he cut his engine, two officers alighted and approached their car from each side.

  “Your idea doesn’t include jail time, does it?” he asked.

  “I hope not.” She pushed open her car door and got out, smiling brightly at the policemen. “Hello. We’re here to see Mr. Collier.”

  One of the officers said, “Sorry, ma’am. His house is off limits to visitors.”

  “But we have an appointment.”

  “You media?”

  “Hardly,” she said around a light laugh. “We’re personal acquaintances.”

  One officer squinted at her, looking more closely. “Aren’t you the lady who wrote the book?”

  “That’s right. Mr. Collier helped me when I was researching the legal aspects of it.”

  The two officers exchanged a look across the hood of her sedan. The one standing nearer to Dent stared into his face as though trying to see past the dark lenses of his sunglasses so he could determine the reason for the bruises. Dent acted supremely unfazed by the scrutiny.

  Turning back to address her, the cop said, “Mr. Collier didn’t mention to us that he expected anybody this evening.”

  “Well in light of his getting beat up, our appointment might have slipped his mind. Wasn’t that just awful?” She flattened her hand against her chest. “I hope y’all catch the person who assaulted him.”

  “You can bet we will, ma’am.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt of it. In any case, I’m sure Rupe . . . uh, Mr. Collier . . . will want to see us. In fact, he asked for the meeting. I have some vital information for him about Dale Moody and Jim Postlewhite.”