Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip

by Rehder, Ben

  Garza: “Rita Sue said Lucas and Stephanie didn’t hang around together. They were just schoolmates.”

  Marlin: “Looks like she might’ve been wrong.”

  Garza clapped his hands once, excited. “Okay, we’ve got a possible link between Lucas and Scofield, and now a possible link between Lucas and Stephanie Waring.”

  Nobody had to point out the possibilities. The allergy medicine tied Lucas to Scofield. The Florida information tied Lucas to Stephanie—possibly together, on the run. It didn’t look good for either of them.

  Tatum: “Let’s get her phone records.”

  Marlin: “I’m already on it. Faxed the subpoena about an hour ago.”

  Garza: “Have you talked to Chuck Hamm?”

  “Well, no, not with this—”

  “Yeah, put that aside for now. Can you talk to Rita Sue again? See if she’s heard anything more. Woman’s nutty enough, she might not let us know if Stephanie calls again.”

  “How about a warrant for Stephanie’s duplex? We still short on probable cause?”

  “Yeah, and I don’t want anything booted on appeal. We can’t jump the gun here. We have to prove that Stephanie and Lucas were more than passing acquaintances. For all we know, Stephanie left her phone over at Scofield’s place, and maybe Lucas grabbed it later. Maybe he’s the one who took it to Florida. Let’s wait for the phone records and see what we can dig up from that.”

  “Sorry to bother you again,” he said when Rita Sue answered the door wearing the same blue housecoat.

  She waved her hand at him in a don’t-be-silly manner. “Come on in. You want some coffee?”

  Marlin stepped inside, the Chihuahua sniffing at his ankles. “No, ma’am, but thank you.”

  “I could make a fresh pot.”

  “Really, I’m fine. I just had a couple of quick questions.”

  Rita Sue motioned for Marlin to sit, and she planted herself in the easy chair again, the dog hopping into her lap. The TV was tuned to a talk show, a man apparently revealing to his wife that he was a closet cross-dresser. Rita Sue reached for the remote and reluctantly turned the set off.

  “Y’all heard from Stephanie yet?” Rita Sue asked, before Marlin could ask the same question.

  “No, ma’am. We were wondering if you had.”

  “Lord, no. Far be it from that girl to remember her mama. ‘Bout knocked my socks off to get a call from her in the first place.”

  “If she does call—”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Don’t just let us know. You need to have her call the sheriff’s department, and tell her it’s extremely important. She needs to call us immediately.”

  “Oh, I will. I saw on the news where y’all found that man’s body. If Stephanie knew him, I can see where you’d need to talk to her. They saying he was killed?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She studied him over her glasses. “Now, y’all don’t think Steph had somethin’ to do with it?”

  “No, not at all. But she might have some information that could really help us out.”

  “What sort of information?”

  “His friends, business partners, that sort of thing.”

  “Steph might be able to help?”

  “That’s exactly right. That’s why it’s so urgent.”

  Rita Sue had an odd twinkle in her eye. “This is sort of exciting, really. Like something out of Murder, She Wrote.”

  Marlin handed her his business card. “This has the number for the sheriff’s department on it.”

  “Yeah, you gave me one last time, remember?” From the pocket of her housecoat she produced one of Marlin’s cards and one of Bobby Garza’s. She waved a scolding finger at him. “I’m not as batty as you think I am.”

  23

  MOST PEOPLE WOULD have called the structure on Wade Morgan’s property a hunting cabin, but considering its present condition, “shack” would have been a more accurate description. Plumbing that no longer worked. Rough pine flooring that sagged under each footstep. No electricity. Rodent droppings everywhere, bugs skittering for cover.

  The furnishings were spartan. In one room, a crude plank table encircled by four chairs, a bookshelf filled with rat-gnawed hunting magazines, a plaid sofa devoid of cushions, and a cheap gun cabinet (empty, just as Colby had expected it to be). In the other room, two sets of metal-framed bunk beds with flimsy foam pads. Mounted on one wall was a row of kitchen cabinets. Beneath the cabinets, two sawhorses supported a drooping half-sheet of plywood, on top of which sat a rusty propane stove.

  “I’d be pissed at my travel agent if I were you,” Colby said. “This couldn’t possibly be the room you reserved.”

  George responded by shoving Colby roughly into one of the chairs. The duct tape appeared again, and soon Colby’s arms and legs were securely wrapped to the wooden frame. His arms were still behind his back, and he wasn’t looking forward to the discomfort to come.

  George sank low into the sofa, his knees even with his shoulders. “Everything’s a big joke to you, huh?”

  Colby decided it was time to make a play, “Yeah, and you know what the funniest thing is? I’m supposed to have dinner with a friend of mine tonight.”

  “So what?”

  “When I don’t show, he’s gonna wonder where I am.”

  “He’ll think you forgot.”

  “Maybe. But then he’ll call me again tomorrow. After that, he’ll probably come by my house to see what’s going on. Because we’re best friends. Grew up together. Like brothers.”

  That seemed to lodge a good-sized thorn into old George’s brain. “You’re a lying sack of shit,” he said, but without much conviction.

  Colby ignored him. “Then he’ll start asking around town. ‘Anybody seen Phil?’ He’ll call some of my other friends, my family And they’ll all start to wonder: Just where in the hell did Phil go? And the cops? Boy, they’ll really want to figure it out. Wanna know why?”

  George didn’t answer.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Colby continued. “You might’ve heard about that guy they found in the river. Vance Scofield? Well, it turns out poor Vance didn’t drown, somebody killed him. And the weird part is, somehow the cops got it in their heads that I did it. That’s right. Little ol’ me. So they’re gonna be real interested when it looks like I left town all of a sudden.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “People are gonna be talking about it all over the county. ‘Did you hear about Phil Colby? He’s on the run from the law!’ It’ll be big excitement for these parts. A genuine fugitive. Cops’ll put out an APB, get word to the highway patrol, send out flyers with my picture on it. And it’s all gonna happen because of missing one dinner with a friend.”

  George was glaring at him hard now, trying to read his face. Colby gave him time to chew on it all. After a minute, Colby said, “Then—and this is the capper—I’m supposed to waltz right into the bank on Monday morning, like nothing happened, and get into my safe-deposit box? We try that, the cops’ll be there before I even get my key into the slot. And that—that is funny.”

  George rose from the couch and towered over Colby, his jaw clenched. Colby was prepared for it, but he still felt the sting when George backhanded him across the face.

  They were back on the road again, driving north, and Stephanie didn’t know if she was riding with a murderer or not.

  This is what she knew for certain about last Sunday:

  It started with a phone conversation that morning. She called Vance’s number—and a woman answered.

  “Is Vance there?” Stephanie asked, not jumping to conclusions just yet. Wanted to make sure she had dialed correctly before she got royally pissed. Again.

  “He can’t come to the phone right now.” The woman sounded sluggish, like she was lying in bed.

  “Who is this?” Now Stephanie was starting to feel the heat of anger creeping up her neck.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Just get Vance on
the phone.”

  “Can’t. He’s in the shower.”

  “Well, get him out.”

  Stephanie could hear the woman sucking on a cigarette. “Let me guess. You’re his girlfriend.”

  “None of your damn business!”

  “Hey, don’t take it out on me, sugar. He told me he didn’t have one.”

  Stephanie slammed the phone down and smashed the heel of her hand against the wall hard enough to break the plaster. Christ, what was she thinking? She’d talked about marrying that asshole!

  When Lucas came home for lunch that day, he sensed that something was wrong. She told him what had happened, and by the time she was done, she was bawling, making an idiot of herself over a jerk who made promises he never kept.

  Lucas had heard it all before, and he usually responded with all sorts of empathy, and then a single question: “How long’re you gonna let him treat you like this, Steph?”

  But not this time. Instead, he rubbed both hands over his face and let out a groan of anger. Then he turned for the front door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Gonna go talk to that son of a bitch.”

  Stephanie couldn’t count how many times in that next hour she wanted to pick up the phone. She wasn’t even sure which one of them she wanted to call—Vance or Lucas. The truth was, she loved Vance, in spite of all his faults. Besides, over time, couldn’t he fix those faults? Can’t people change if they want to bad enough? If not, why do we have rehab clinics and Alcoholics Anonymous and makeover TV shows? Sometimes people can better themselves, she was sure of it. She held out hope for Vance, and for them as a couple.

  But then there was Lucas. Such a sweet guy, and he made her laugh all the time. It wasn’t but the second or third time they’d hung out together that she started to suspect he was in love with her. Unlike a lot of other guys, he wasn’t all over her, pressuring her, asking for things she wasn’t ready to give. He understood her, and God, when had that ever happened before? They were quickly best friends, and then it became more than that one night when they’d both had too much to drink.

  She counted it as a one-time slip, but then it happened again. And again. It made her feel guilty, but Lucas was giving her things Vance was too selfish to offer. When Lucas had suggested moving in with her, she was firm: If you do, we’re just going to be friends, she insisted. No more than that.

  Because she didn’t love him. She just didn’t feel that way. She asked herself why—pondered it for hours, in fact—and finally decided there was only one answer: You can’t force yourself to love someone, no matter how perfect for you they might be. And then it dawned on her that Vance might’ve reached the same conclusion.

  When Lucas finally got back to their duplex, more than an hour later, the anger—or something else—had drawn all the blood out of his face. “He wasn’t home,” he said, shaking his head. “Either that, or he wouldn’t answer the door.”

  Fine. As far as she was concerned, Vance could stay holed up in his house until hell froze over. Stephanie decided to get drunk. Numb the pain, and say good-bye to Vance once and for all. Who needs that asshole, right?

  She pulled out the blender and whipped up a wicked batch of margaritas, Lucas egging her on. After the second pitcher, they switched to kamikazes. That was when Lucas said, “Wanna get back at him?”

  At that point—hammered and still mad as a hornet—Stephanie said, “You got something in mind?”

  A grin flashed across Lucas’s lips, and for an instant he looked positively evil. “Let’s steal the Corvette.”

  She remembered thinking that was an excellent idea.

  Now, riding in the Honda, she realized how stupid this whole trip had been. She turned to Lucas, who was glancing in the rearview mirror every thirty seconds. “Vance was good to you, you know?”

  “Yeah, only because he was getting something out of it, too.”

  “But you were making good money.”

  “I know it, Steph, but how much fun do you think it is to clean fucking houses?”

  Stephanie could understand that attitude. She wouldn’t like that particular job herself. When Vance had a home that he was about to put up for sale, it usually needed a good cleaning from top to bottom, sometimes some minor repairs, some lawn care. Vance had been offering that work to Lucas, strictly cash, off the books, and Stephanie thought it was a nice thing for Vance to do.

  It made her mad that Lucas couldn’t see how generous it was.

  “You said you could explain what happened on Sunday,” she said. “I’d sure as hell like to hear it.”

  As a reserve deputy, Homer Griggs didn’t get much in the way of pay, but he enjoyed the job just the same. Felt good to carry a badge and a gun. Hell of a lot more exciting than selling funeral arrangements, which is what he did full-time.

  Yes sir, this job had its moments. Arrested a naked lady at a biker party one time. Halfway to the station, she kicked one of the rear windows out with her bare feet. Another time, he pulled a water moccasin out of an old lady’s toilet during a drought. And there was the drunk guy who tried to parachute off the water tower—may he rest in peace. Homer had even got shot once. It was a BB gun, but he didn’t always share that part of the story.

  He didn’t expect this current call to be nearly as eventful. A woman named Donnelle Parker had called to say her ex-husband had been harassing her. Wanted a deputy to come out and talk about it. Didn’t want to explain it over the phone. Truth was, it was a letdown. While the full-time deputies got to conduct a genuine murder investigation, Homer had to stick his nose into a domestic dispute. Ex-husband wasn’t even on the premises, so there wasn’t likely to be much action. That’s the way it went sometimes.

  So Homer loaded himself into his private vehicle, stuck the cherry on the roof—just to look official and everything—and drove to the address on the western edge of Johnson City.

  Before Homer even had it parked in the driveway, here came the woman of the house, meeting him outside. She was cute as a button—big old mop of blonde hair teased up on her head, itsy-bitsy white shorts, and Homer’s favorite, a pink tube top. Holding a cigarette in her right hand. Homer couldn’t help but notice the long pink fingernails. Pink bracelet, too. Woman knows how to accessorize, he thought. Homer’s wife was big on accessorizing. Every time she came home from the Save-Mart, she had a new bag of doodads to pin, clasp, dangle, or wear somewhere on her body.

  Homer figured he was lucky that the Chinamen made jewelry so cheap.

  Anyway, this gal Donnelle, she launched right into it, telling him how she’d sent her daughter over to her grandma’s house so the poor little thing wouldn’t hear all this nasty stuff about her daddy. Told Homer all about it. Late-night phone calls with nothing but breathing on the other end. Then a vibrator showed up in a shoebox on her doorstep. Homer felt his cheeks get warm when she explained what a vibrator was. After the vibrator, somebody raided her panty drawer. And now the big prick—Donnelle’s choice of words, not Homer’s—had gone too far. Waaay too far, Donnelle said a couple of times.

  When she showed Homer what she was talking about, he had to agree. It was plumb disgusting, that’s what it was.

  After leaving Rita Sue Metzger’s house, Marlin stopped at a pay phone and dialed Phil Colby’s number. Maybe he was still angry, and if so, fine. But Marlin wanted to let him know, in general terms, that things were looking better by the minute. He couldn’t share the specific developments with him, but he could certainly drop a hint that—for all intents and purposes—Colby was no longer the chief suspect. Marlin’s rationalizing didn’t matter anyway, because Colby didn’t answer. Probably sitting right by the phone, screening his calls.

  Marlin had just climbed back into his truck when Darrell, the dispatcher, radioed and said he had received a fax. Stephanie Waring’s cell phone company had already responded to his subpoena. Marlin had expected to hear something on Monday, or even later in the week, so this was a lucky break.

 
He turned his truck around and drove back to the sheriff’s office. Darrell had the thin document waiting at the front desk, and Marlin quickly retreated with it to his office. It consisted of two pages: a complete record of Stephanie Waring’s incoming and outgoing calls for the preceding thirty days. He focused on the last six days.

  Since Sunday, there had been several incoming calls, including those from the deputies. But none of them had lasted longer than one minute, meaning, Marlin assumed, that they had all been routed into voicemail.

  On the other hand, there had been no outgoing calls at all. Next step, Marlin would call all of the incoming numbers to see if anyone could verify Stephanie’s whereabouts.

  Marlin was reaching for the phone when he noticed a small note on the fax cover sheet:

  Mr. Marlin, perhaps you’d be interested in one of our phone plans. Did you know that you can have two phones, with two different phone numbers, on one calling plan? — N.L.

  What the hell? This guy was too much, trying to sell a wireless service when—

  And then Marlin understood what N. L. was saying. It was a subtle message: Stephanie Waring had two phones on one account. Of course, Marlin hadn’t asked for the records on the second phone because he hadn’t even known it existed. But N. L., the person responding to the subpoena, couldn’t legally share information that hadn’t been requested. So he—or she—had found a clever, though dubious, way to tip Marlin off. Marlin sure wasn’t going to complain.

  He scanned the entire thirty days’ worth of records, and he found more than a dozen incoming calls from a phone number that differed from Stephanie Waring’s by a single digit.

  He dialed it and immediately heard a voicemail greeting:

  Hey, it’s Lucas. Can’t take your call, so leave a message.

  When Marlin entered the small, crowded conference room, it appeared that Garza and his deputies were just finishing up. They’d been pulling boxes from the left side of the room, sorting through them, then moving those boxes to the right. There was a small stack of paperwork on the table—items of interest that had been pulled from Scofield’s belongings—but it didn’t look like much. The atmosphere in the room was bordering on bleak.