by Mark Pryor
But on December 26, a snowy Boxing Day a few months after my sixteenth birthday, the beaters were pressing through Box Wood, with me on the flank and Gary in his place. We were at the midpoint, and so far all the birds had taken off and flown straight and true. Then I heard the familiar flap and squawk of a pheasant closer to me, the crack and rustle as it headed out of the trees, this one sideways instead of forward. Almost immediately it banked toward me, like it was trying to sneak back into the safety of the woods. Gary Glasscock raised his flag and started waving to deter that turn, but the pheasant stayed low and ignored him. I'd waited long enough, buried the image of that man on top of me for too long, and the threads of planning and impulse wound together in an instant, pulling my gun up, swinging it across, and putting a deadly dose of lead shot right into his fat, leering face.
I left out the colorful descriptions when I told this story, but I don't think she bought the mock regret. She knew better.
In the days and weeks that followed Tristan's arrest, I gave several statements to the police and to my boss about what happened and couldn't foresee any problems upsetting Tristan's upcoming trial. Except one Monday afternoon, when I walked past Maureen's office and saw Detective Ledsome inside.
“Hi, Dominic.” She spoke quietly because Maureen was on the phone with someone else.
“Detective. I meant to call you.”
“I told you, I'm married.”
“Funny. It's about my gun. I was hoping to get it back.”
“It's evidence; you can have it after the trial.”
“Why can't you just use photos in the trial? I've done that a million times; you don't need the actual gun.”
“Not my call. Speak to the prosecutor.”
“I will. So, you ever find that money?”
“No. We did find a couple of bags that we think they used to transport the money, though.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the victim, Ambrosio Silva, used a couple of camouflage bags to carry it in. We found two just like them.”
“Where?”
“Did you know Tristan had a storage unit?”
I thought for a moment. “You know, maybe he mentioned it when I moved in. I'm not sure.”
“Well, he does. We found the bags in a filing cabinet, along with a laptop we're processing. And a little box of child porn, to match the sick stuff in his room.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. Locked in a little gun safe, again inside the filing cabinets in his unit.”
I shook my head in disbelief. I'd planted the former, not the latter. Just for the record.
“You know,” she said, “one thing struck me. About the gun.” The timber of her voice changed and set me on edge. “You said in your statement that Bell was trying to get past you, so he could get the gun and shoot you. That's why you were fighting.”
“Right. He threatened to shoot me, yeah.”
“Thing is, when we found it, the gun was unloaded. He put it in your dresser, so he would have known it was empty.”
“I guess.”
“Yeah. Just weird.”
“Maybe he was going to grab it, load it, and shoot me.”
“Seems a slightly drawn out process given the circumstances, plus we didn't find ammo for it in the apartment. None at all.”
“Maybe you didn't look hard enough.” I shrugged and started back to my office. “Or maybe he used it all up on that guy he shot.”
“That's cold, Dominic,” she called after me. “Just plain cold.”
There is such a thing as the perfect crime, and I'll tell you what it is. The perfect crime is one where you get to keep the proceeds. It's one where you get to watch the press and police go into a frenzy because they can't catch you. And it's one where the police eventually get their man. Of course, to be the perfect crime, the man they get has to be (a) guilty and (b) not you. I learned that lesson at a small boarding school in the highlands of Scotland, a simple lesson that played itself out for the first time when I dreamed up a scheme to short-sheet another kid's bed, and my accomplices shouldered all the blame. It was a lesson that stuck.
Just like at my boarding school, once the police and press had their teeth sunk deep into Tristan and the dead Otto, I was all but ignored. The idea of a district attorney's employee and a former cop killing two people in a stagecoach-style robbery was too much for the press. They slathered over every detail, of which I was one. Naturally, I overplayed my hand a few times, but the general impression stuck: I was the guy who'd almost been framed but who'd gone undercover to snare the mastermind behind the plan and captured him in a fight to the death in our apartment. Detective Ledsome never corrected the details I put out there, and occasionally I wondered whether she had a few doubts and was hoping I'd open my mouth a little too wide one day.
The result of my media appearances, which featured the reluctant but always-available-for-an-interview hero, meant that getting gigs in Austin was a cinch. The fact that Gus wasn't around seemed to help on that score because there was no one to complain about the stolen songs I was playing. I had club owners begging me to play and, in fact, they were so desperate they offered to pay me an appearance fee. Once the first had done that, the others had to follow and I, quite literally, laughed all the way to the bank. Even Marley called and, timidly, asked if I could play at his place. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, of course, but instead I said “Sure” and doubled my appearance fee. I hadn't forgiven him, it wasn't that. No, I just hadn't decided on the appropriate punishment for him and, until I did, I figured I should keep him close, nice and grateful and trusting.
The cash from the heist came to slightly under $96,000. When I supplemented it with the music money, I was able to go part-time at the DA's office. I could have gone back to trial court, but I hung on to my gig in the juvenile division because I wanted to keep an eye out for Bobby. Not just because I wanted to keep my hands on his sister, no it was more than that. Bobby and I knew a thing or two about each other, and that knowledge had fostered a mutual, unspoken détente. I liked to remind him of my usefulness by scrubbing his cases, and he was always polite and outwardly grateful. It was in my own interests, of course, not his, that I took risks to keep his record clear, because it's an absolute truth that if you cross paths with a psychopath, you have two choices: either get out of the way entirely, or stay on his good side.
And that lesson, I'm very well aware, applies as much to me as it does to anyone else.
Several people inspired me to write this book, and plenty more helped me put it together. To Juan de Kruyff for the true story that sparked my imagination, a tale told during a wonderful ski vacation several years ago. And to the real girl in a green dress, I don't recall your name and you have no idea that I, or this book, even exist but I hope your life turned around and you are in a better place.
My thanks to Dr. Stephen Thorne and to M. E. Thomas for all the help on the matter of sociopathy and psychopathy, which was absolutely invaluable. To Doug Skolaut and Tim Hoppock of the Austin Police Department for their assistance, filling in the gaps of my knowledge on police procedure and criminal investigations. And thanks to Michelle Pierce and Kevin Lance for their tips on music and how the music business works.
Thanks as always to the publishing professionals in my life, especially Dan Mayer and Jill Maxick, and my agent, Ann Collette. And finally to my wife, Sarah, and the three beautiful people who make us so happy, Nicola, Henry, and Natalie.
Mark Pryor is a former newspaper reporter from England and now a prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, in Austin, Texas.
He is the author of five novels in the Hugo Marston series, which are set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. The first, The Bookseller, was a Library Journal Debut of the Month and was called “unputdownable” by Oprah.com. The sixth is due to be released in 2016. Mark is also the creator of the nationally recognized true-crime blog D. A. Confidential and has appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours and Discovery
Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood.
