Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip

by Rehder, Ben

  Nicole could see that this guy was a total nutcase. “That’s not always true. You can’t just generalize like that. It’s not fair.”

  “Don’t talk to me about unfair. Vance treated all his woman like shit, and they still couldn’t get enough of him. But take me, a regular nice guy, and they don’t want anything to do with me. That’s not fair.”

  “What did he lie about? Give me an example.”

  “You don’t think he lied?”

  “No, I believe you. I just want to know what he lied about.”

  “I’ll tell you, and then you’ll take off your jeans.”

  She snuck a glance at the front door. Not far, but he’d be right behind her if she made a break for it. Maybe she needed to do just the opposite. Instead of being defensive, go on the offense. “I’m not doing anything,” she said, “as long as you’re holding that letter opener.”

  He pointed it at her. “Without this, you wouldn’t even be listening to me. It’s the only way women like you ever listen to a guy like me—if I make you listen.”

  “You’re generalizing again, David.”

  He nodded at her. “Using my first name. I know what you’re doing.”

  “Tell me what Vance lied about.”

  “Then you’ll take off your jeans?”

  “If you’ll put the opener down. It makes me nervous.” It was important that he believe her.

  He nodded. “Okay, here’s one. There was a woman I was interested in. Vance knew her. She wasn’t…she wasn’t as pretty as you. But I’m not a handsome man, and I know that. My choices are limited. Besides, this woman had something beyond looks. She was…special. I thought maybe she’d go out with me. Vance said he’d set me up. But he ended up sleeping with her himself. Just to piss me off.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that,” she said. He was talking about Jenny Geiger. Pritchard had harassed her because he was jealous—because he was as sick and twisted as they come. “Is that why you did what you did outside her apartment?”

  For the first time, he laughed. “You think I’m talking about Jenny?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Her name was Lucille.”

  Colby hadn’t made any headway by being a smart-ass, so he decided to change his approach: Make friends with the guy.

  “You married?” he asked.

  “Fuck, am I married? Hell no, I’m not married.”

  “Neither am I.”

  George continued reading his magazine.

  “I was almost married once,” Colby said. “I was engaged when I was twenty-four. Didn’t work out.”

  George glared at him. “I look like I give a shit?”

  Colby shrugged. “Just passing the time.”

  “Who’s Lucille?” Nicole asked, trying to buy time.

  Pritchard shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about her. We’re drifting off the subject again.” He held up the letter opener—displaying it for her—then set it back on the end table. He grinned at her, and it was the ugliest thing Nicole had ever seen.

  She wondered if she could handle him. He was pudgy, not very big. But he was demented. An absolute psycho. He’d be stronger because of his sickness.

  He opened his mouth. “Okay, you said that if I—”

  That’s when she rushed straight at him.

  “This girl I was engaged to,” Colby said, laughing, as if he were recalling some sweet memory. “She had a twenty-year-old sister, and man was she hot. Blonde, with this killer body. A little bit of a slut, too. She was always coming on to me, walking around in nothing but a long T-shirt.”

  Colby could tell that George wasn’t reading anymore. He was listening.

  “So one day,” Colby said, “about two months before the wedding, I had to stop by her house to pick up some of the invitations. She was wearing this miniskirt, and I’m telling you, she was looking good. She started flirting and—to be honest—I was having a tough time with it.”

  George lowered the magazine. “What’re you, queer?”

  “Just let me finish the story.”

  “Well, then, tell the damn thing.”

  “All right, take it easy. So we drank a couple of beers, then some tequila, and I start thinking, Shouldn’t I leave now? I mean, I was getting myself into some serious trouble. She was pretty drunk by then, and she says, ‘You sure you’re ready to get married? You ready to have sex with just one woman for the rest of your life?’ I say, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ And she says, ‘Wouldn’t you like to have one last fling?’ Then, she drops her skirt to the floor, takes off her blouse, and walks into the bedroom.”

  Colby shook his head and waited.

  George asked, “What the hell’d you do?”

  “I got up and walked right out the front door.”

  George let out a snort of derision. “Goddamn, I knew it. Friggin’ faggot.”

  “I’m not done yet. I stepped outside, and her father—who’s about six-four—is standing there on the porch. He starts laughing and clapping me on the back and says congratulations, I passed his little test. Wanted to take me out for a beer to celebrate.”

  Now George was looking at him again, his eyes in slits. “For real?”

  “Yep.”

  “That son of a bitch. Pretty damn smart.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Colby said. “You know what the moral of the story is?”

  “Hell no. What?”

  “Always keep your condoms in your car.”

  For some reason, Marlin calmed down a little bit when he pulled into David Pritchard’s driveway and spotted Brooks’s car sitting in front of the house.

  Everything had to be okay, right? It was a nice, sunny day. Nothing seemed out of place.

  He and Tatum stepped from the truck.

  Nicole drove one shoulder squarely into Pritchard’s midsection, and she felt the air rush out of his lungs as their bodies collapsed to the floor.

  He grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked her head back. His other hand clenched her exposed throat.

  She was on top of him, clawing at his face, trying to sink her fingers into his eyes.

  “You bitch!” he roared, turning his head side to side to avoid her hands.

  She got hold of an ear and twisted with all her strength.

  The high-pitched scream reminded Nicole of a wounded animal.

  Marlin glanced at Tatum when he heard the scream, and both men scrambled up the front steps.

  Marlin rattled the knob, found it locked, and pounded on the door. “Nicole!”

  “Let’s take it down,” Tatum said.

  Marlin stepped back, raised a foot, and drove the sole of his boot into the door.

  It didn’t give.

  Nicole heard someone yell her name outside—and then there was a pounding on the door—but Pritchard wasn’t giving up.

  He released the hold on her throat and managed to flip her sideways, toppling the end table, and now he was straddling her, trying to cover her face with his hands.

  She was losing strength and knew she couldn’t fight much longer.

  She turned her head sideways to avoid his hands, and she saw the letter opener lying on the carpet.

  As she reached for it, Pritchard’s hands again encircled her neck, throttling her. She couldn’t breathe. The ends of her fingertips danced across the cool metal. It was amazing how quickly the lack of oxygen got to her. She was already fading.

  She pawed at the letter opener, dragging it closer with her fingernails, until she was able to wrap her hand around it.

  Marlin’s third kick did the trick, and the door crashed inward. He burst through the doorway, Tatum right behind him, both with their guns drawn.

  “Two guys were driving out in the country,” George said, “and they saw a sheep with its head stuck in a fence.”

  Colby nodded, feigning interest, even though he’d heard this one a hundred times.

  “So the driver pulls over,” George said, “drops his pants, and star
ts humping that ol’ sheep. The other guy just sits there in the truck, watching. Finally, the first guy finishes up, and he hollers, ‘You want some of this?’ The second guy says, ‘Hell yeah,’ and he runs down and sticks his head in the fence.”

  Colby faked a pretty good laugh, and he thought things were going pretty well. But George suddenly sprang from the couch and said, “Shut up!” He cocked his head, listening. “Someone’s coming.”

  Now Colby could hear a vehicle navigating the rutted road up to the cabin. Then the engine abruptly stopped. It sounded as if somebody had entered the property and parked somewhere between the cabin and the road, maybe a hundred yards away.

  George walked to a window and peered out.

  She was aware that people—who knew how many?—had just burst into the house. She heard a shout.

  Her vision was dimming.

  Pritchard’s flushed, angry face loomed over her, still choking her, and she swung the letter opener toward his torso with as much strength as she could muster.

  She felt it sink in. His grip loosened.

  Then there was a swirl of violence around her—the sound of a fist hammering flesh, a tremendous grunt of pain—and Pritchard was suddenly gone. Just gone. She sucked in as much oxygen as her lungs could hold.

  John Marlin was kneeling beside her now, speaking in soft tones, asking if she was okay.

  31

  “I’D SAY THIS looks like a pretty good spot,” Red said. “What do y’all think?”

  “It’s fine,” Lucy snarled, starting to lose her patience with these two boneheads. She couldn’t help thinking, If Vance was still alive, I wouldn’t have to be dealing with all this shit. Lucy had had a soft spot for Vance right from the start—ever since she’d met him at his father’s place. There was something about the man. Charisma, raw sexuality, something. God rest his soul, he was a hell of a guy. Liked to party, too, and once he got started, look out! Hornier than a billy goat.

  The other cool thing was, she and Vance had thought alike. When he got booted from that hunting club, he had realized—with a little nudging from Lucy—that it was an opportunity, not a setback.

  It happened when they were in bed together, and Vance started going off again, mad as hell, badmouthing Chuck Hamm, Lance Longley, and all the others. Then he said something about “that pervert Herzog.”

  “Who?”

  “That senator they got in their pockets.”

  “What about him?”

  Vance laughed. “We had a meeting at his office one day—this was last fall—and, well, I ended up getting to know his secretary a little bit. Anyway, what she told me is, Herzog likes to be spanked.”

  Lucy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She propped herself up on her elbows, a scheme already forming in her head “Spanked?”

  “Yep.”

  “This guy got any money?”

  There was a pause—just a short one—as Vance figured out what Lucy was driving at. “Hell yeah,” he said. “Tons of it.”

  It took them no more than a minute to decide that the esteemed senator deserved to have a few candid photographs taken. Wouldn’t the guy be willing to shell out a big wad of cash to keep those photos from the media? Damn right he would.

  Then Lucy had one of those rare moments when a decent scam blossoms into something so brilliant, it has the potential to become a classic. The kind of con job that has early retirement written all over it. “This senator does things for your hunting buddies, right?” she asked.

  Vance snorted. “Writes the laws just the way they want ‘em.”

  “Okay, good. So what would happen—this is just an idea—if we asked each of them to kick in some cash, too?”

  Vance mulled it over. “That’s a tough one. They’d probably just throw Herzog to the wolves and wait for his replacement.”

  Lucy shook her head. “But not if we don’t ask for money right off the bat. What if we ask for something else instead? Like some sort of ridiculous change in the hunting laws, something that would screw all of them up real good. Then, by the time we tell them we’re willing to settle for money, Christ, they’ll be relieved?

  She had never seen Vance get so excited.

  “How we gonna do it?”

  “Just tail him till we catch him fooling around.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing fancy. Drop some pictures in the mail, follow it up with a phone call.”

  But Vance was nervous, talking about how powerful his hunting buddies were, asking what would happen if they figured out who was doing the blackmailing. “What if they trace the call?”

  “How they gonna do that?”

  “What about caller ID?”

  “There’s a code you can use to block it. Nobody knows who’s calling.”

  “But come on, the phone company would know. They could get them to tell.”

  “Jeez, relax. We’ll call from a pay phone.”

  Vance was still uneasy. “Man, all it would take is one person saying they saw me using that phone and I’d be dead meat.”

  “Then hell, drive to Austin if you’re that worried. Use a pay phone there.”

  Then that mischievous smile of his creased his face. “I got something better. I know a jerk who absolutely hates high-fencers. I’ll call from his house. If they manage to trace the call—well, this guy deserves whatever they do to him. I win either way.”

  “Fine,” Lucy said. She didn’t give a rat’s ass where he called from.

  So they’d mailed the photos, Vance had snuck into the guy’s house to make the phone call, and that was as far as it got before Vance was killed. The truth was, Vance’s death scared the snot out of her. Maybe the men in that hunting club really were as powerful as Vance had said. Lucy figured she wasn’t in any danger—slim chance that anybody could connect her to the photographs—but she didn’t want to push her luck. Forget the negatives, just get the cash.

  Red climbed out from the driver’s side, and Lucy followed after him, telling him to hurry up and unload the safe.

  Both ambulances were gone now. Nicole hadn’t wanted one, but Marlin and Tatum had insisted on it. The EMTs had checked her over, then agreed that she should have her neck examined. She had given Marlin a weary smile, squeezing his hand firmly before she climbed through the rear doors.

  “I’ll see you at the hospital,” Marlin said.

  “Good,” she replied.

  Good. Yes. Yes, it was.

  Now Marlin and Tatum were sitting on David Pritchard’s front steps, stunned by what had just taken place.

  “Hell of a job,” Tatum said, for the fourth time.

  Marlin looked at the knuckles on his right hand. Swollen and red, but he didn’t think anything was broken. Except maybe Pritchard’s skull. “What now?” he asked.

  Tatum pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. “We’ll get a warrant for his place and see what we can find. But I think I’ll hold off on that until tomorrow.”

  “What for?”

  Tatum grinned at him. “Because I think Brooks deserves to lead the search.”

  Marlin nodded. “I think that’s a hell of an idea.”

  Colby could hear voices in the distance.

  George turned and pointed a long finger at him. “You don’t make one fucking sound, you hear?”

  Sitting on the floor, Colby made a gesture with his hands: Who, me?

  “If you do, those people out there are dead. You understand that? It’ll be on your conscience.”

  Colby was truthful in his reply. “I won’t say a thing, I promise. Just don’t shoot anybody.”

  George snuck another peek from the edge of the window. “Who the fuck is out there?”

  He moved toward the front door.

  Red couldn’t remember ever feeling as excited as he did right at that very moment. This was a bigger rush than poaching!

  Now the safe was on the ground, nestled in some tall weeds, the door facing up toward the sky.

  He used a piece of d
uct tape to strap the stick of dynamite to the handle.

  He glanced at Lucy and Billy Don, who were hiding behind the truck, thirty yards away.

  “Get on with it!” Lucy hissed.

  Colby didn’t know what would happen next, but he sure didn’t expect a blast so loud it would shake the small cabin like a doll-house.

  “Jesus Christ!” George said, flinching. He had the door cracked about six inches, and he was peering through the opening. Colby was watching.

  Please step outside, George.

  Colby was edging toward the plank against the wall. Please step outside, just far a moment. Colby was willing it to happen.

  He reached toward the plank, getting ready, and the chain around his arm dragged across the wooden floor, as loud as hail on a metal roof.

  George still had his back to Colby. He didn’t turn around.

  Colby slipped his fumbling fingers around the plank’s protruding nail.

  Then it happened. George opened the door wider and stepped outside.

  Colby swung the hinged plank upward and peered into the hole.

  Red staggered up to the safe, his ears ringing, and looked past the jagged metal into the interior.

  What he saw was…

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  No, wait. There was something. One small envelope, blackened and tattered.

  Billy Don and Lucy were at his side now.

  “I can’t believe it!” Lucy screamed. And she let out a wail that pierced Red’s soul.

  “Let’s get outta here!” Billy Don said.

  Red could hardly hear him.

  Lucy was moaning now, and cussing Vance Scofield with all the rage of a drunken sailor.

  “Let’s go!” Billy Don pleaded.

  Red grabbed the envelope and headed for the truck. Then he stopped, pulled his shirt off, and turned to wipe the safe clean of fingerprints.

  It was there. The old Krag was in the hiding spot. Colby stretched—and the damn chain wasn’t long enough for him to reach the rifle’s rusty barrel.

  Standing on the porch, watching through the trees, Buford was having a tough time figuring out what the hell was going on. First, these rednecks come bouncing up the road in a junked-out truck. Okay, fine. Then they unload what appears to be a safe. Getting interesting. Then the one skinny little dude straps a stick of dynamite to the door and blows it sky high. They all rush up and gather round, then there’s a bunch of hollering and shouting, followed by all three of them piling back into the truck and flinging gravel on their way out.