by George Wier
“Yes. Attempted murder.” She said it as pleasantly as if she were saying that the daffodils had started to bloom early this season. “Maybe we should trot across the street and go read the indictment. Says here that the bail is half a million. Do you know if she’s a flight risk?”
“I know next to nothing about her,” I admitted. “I suppose that’s for you to answer.”
“Okay. And what is your name?” she asked.
“Bill Travis. I’m a financial advisor and accountant.”
She smiled and seemed to effervesce for a moment at the news. “Oh that is just the most exciting thing! I would love to do that kind of work! Tell me, does it take a lot of special training?”
“It takes a good deal of college, state examinations and a little training. And then you have to build a practice.”
“Oh. College. I had two years at Sam Houston State back in the nineties. I wonder if that would help?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” I replied. “You said something about going across the street. Want to do that now?”
“Oh sure. But first, about the bond on this. It would be fifty thousand, non-refundable. And that’s if she’s not a flight risk. I mean, if she lives here and has family and friends here in Carter—basically her life has to be here—then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Hmm. I wonder who she tried to kill?”
“I’m willing to bet it will be in the indictment. And your name is?”
“Beatrice Lily, but you can call me Bee, like a little flower buzzer.” Bee lifted her arms and her hands flailed around like little pinwheels while she enjoyed a fit of self-amusement. She’d probably told that bit about the flower buzzer a thousand times.
“Bee,” I said. “You’re refreshingly silly. I think we’re going to get along.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.”
“Shall we?” I turned halfway toward the door.
“Yes,” she said. “We shall!”
*****
Hank was standing with his backside against my car when we came out. Something happened to his features when he saw Bee. It was as if new life was breathed back into him. His face reddened slightly, his chest puffed up a bit, and he stood away from the car suddenly.
“Hank, this is Bee,” I said. “She’s going to help us bail out Penny’s aunt.”
“Hello, Bee,” Hank said, and took her outstretched hand.
I quickly realized that I was not actually standing there, or at least not to the two of them. They were looking into each other’s eyes like long lost lovers.
“It is so very nice to meet you,” he finished.
“And you too,” she stated.
“All right, all right,” I said. “The jail is this way.” I struck out toward the highway, then realized that Hank was coming with us. I turned, while walking backwards and said, “Hank, you might want to lock the car, seeing as what we’re leaving in there.”
He nodded to me, then turned his attention back to Bee. I waited while he locked the doors, then the two of them caught up with me.
I could see the shape of things to come all too clearly.
*****
Before crossing the broad highway between Bee’s bail bond place and the County Criminal Justice Center, we heard the distant roar of a racing engine. Bee snapped a look back in the direction of town and held out her arm.
“Hold a second,” she said.
A black late model Mustang hove into view. He was doing anywhere from seventy-five to ninety, and it was in a forty mile-per-hour zone. I looked across the road to see a Deputy Sheriff’s vehicle preparing to leave the county parking lot and thought that, sure enough, the driver of the Mustang was about to find himself chased-down and arrested or ticketed, or both. Instead, the Mustang flashed past continuing to accelerate. I watched the Sheriff’s deputy across the way as his gaze followed the passing Mustang, then he sedately turned to the right and towards town as if nothing had occurred.
I turned to Bee. “What the hell was that all about?”
“That was Ab.”
“I thought it was Mario Andretti.” Hank said.
Bee laughed. “Yeah. He thinks the whole world is his private speedway.”
“Why didn’t he find himself being chased?” I asked.
“Oh, because. Reasons.” Bee said.
“Reasons?” Hank stated, incredulous. “Huh. Name one. In fact, name the one.”
“Well,” she said, as we stepped across the highway, “I really shouldn’t talk about it, but the fact of the matter is that Abner is the Sheriff’s nephew. He’s a bit of a hothead.”
“Abner, or the Sheriff?” I asked.
“Uh, both.”
I nodded.
We crossed the parking lot and entered the CJ complex. There were half a dozen Hispanic kids running around the main lobby, flitting back and forth between the available seats while bored mothers waited for who-knew-what. Probably it was the main visitation day for the jail.
“We’ve had a big influx of Mexicans lately. Mostly illegals.”
“Uh huh.”
Bee waved to the lady at the window as she approached a side door bearing a placard that read: Authorized Personnel Only. A second later the door buzzed and Bee opened it. I followed her through and into the Sheriff’s Office, with a glance back at Hank, who stopped. Hank turned and grabbed the first available lobby chair close to the door and sat down.
We wound our way through to the back of the place, passing Sheriff’s deputies, county secretaries and the like, until we came to what was clearly the booking counter. One can always recognize a booking counter because it has, 1) a huge book for the logging in and out of prisoners, 2) a fingerprint roller with a deck of blank fingerprint cards next to it, 3) a nearby taped area of floor at which a counter-mounted camera was positioned to take pictures of each incoming prisoner, and 4) a rather bored-looking uniformed jailer—the designated booking officer.
“Hey, Amos,” Bee said.
“Hiya, Bee.” While he was speaking to her, he was definitely looking at me with cool eyes. He was a black man of perhaps thirty years of age. I nodded to him. “What can I help you with?” he asked.
“You have a prisoner. Her name is Tanya Holdridge. I’d like to evaluate her. See if I should pay her bond.”
“Shoot,” Amos said. “Holdridge?” He took a step down and tapped on a computer keyboard. The entry pulled up and his eyes widened. “You mean the Tasker woman? Well shit, Miss Bee. I don’t know that you can do that.”
“Bond’s been set, hasn’t it?” I asked.
Amos frowned at me, then turned to Bee. “Yeah,” he said, as if it had been Bee who’d asked it. “It’s been set. But I don’t know that the Sheriff is gonna like it. Maybe I should call him.”
Bee turned half a tick in my direction and hesitated.
I read Amos’s name tag before speaking: “Mr. Kepner, if it would be all right with you, could you just let Miss Bee see her for a minute? Then, if she passes muster, maybe we could get the lady bonded out of jail. Once she’s gone, then someone could mention it to the Sheriff.”
Amos visibly stiffened.
“All I’m saying is, it seems to me that the court did set a bond. Judge always trumps Sheriff, as you know. Afterwards, well, it’s all just procedure.”
Amos nodded slowly, then chuckled. “You ain’t from around here, are ya, Mister?”
“Austin,” I said.
He continued nodding to himself. All-wise, All-knowing Amos Kepner.
“But I don’t have to be from here to know how it works, at least legally,” I said.
“Okay,” he said to Bee, “I’ll bring her up and you can have five minutes in the room over there,” he pointed.
“Why thank you, Amos.” Bee said. “That’ll be mighty fine.”
And then he walked away from the counter.
CHAPTER THREE
M y first meeting with Tanya Holdridge was her being led into the small interview room. There were no windows, the rec
essed fluorescent lighting overhead would give anyone a headache after no more than fifteen minutes, and the room was the color of banana pudding that had gone bad—an off-yellow yellow bordering on yellow. There was a desk with two chairs.
She was likely in her early fifties—about my own age, I would say—and she was a dirty dishwater blond with razor-thin lips, hazel eyes that knew all too much but wasn’t going to say a damned word about it, and an irksome frown between her practically drawn-on eyebrows. Even in the jailhouse orange jumpsuit she was pretty, and filled it out in all the right ways for a woman, but she took my measure, made some kind of snap judgment about me, and must have decided that I was mostly harmless, because she favored me with no more than a single word as her wrists were unlaced by Amos: “What?”
I laughed. “Who’d you try to kill?”
She glanced from me to Bee and then back again. “You’re Penny’s boss, aren’t you? Travis?”
“She made partner, actually. It seems like she’s more my boss now. She must have told you I was coming.”
Amos gave me a mock-salute with two fingers to his eyebrow, then retreated from the room, as if to say, “This circus is all yours.”
“That’s right,” Tanya said. “She’s a smart girl. She knows not to come back here. I told her to stay in Austin, where it was safer for her.”
“Because you’re a Tasker, right?” I asked.
“What do you know about it?” she asked me.
“Nothing. I know absolutely nothing.”
“Uh huh,” she said, the doubt clear in her voice.
“I’m here to ask you a few questions,” Bee said to Tanya, “and then see if I can get you bailed out.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt Sheriff Simon is going to let that happen,” Tanya said.
“Who’d you try to kill?” I asked her again, and took the chair opposite her, as if this was my interview.
“It didn’t try to kill anybody. If I’d wanted to kill someone, they’d be deader than three-day old horseshit.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think horseshit tends to live on for awhile. You’re part of the Trinity Trio. What does that mean?”
“Penny told you that. It’s bullshit.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what does it mean?”
“Three of us went to Trinity University back in the early 1980s. Me, Loraine Simon, and Millie Carswell. Each of us married...influential men. My late husband was one of those: Billy Tasker. He was something of a desperado.”
“You said Loraine Simon. Any relation to the Sheriff Simon you just told us about?”
“His wife,” Tanya said.
“And your late husband was not exactly loved, locally, huh?”
“Are you kidding me? Everybody loved Billy. This town is so full of Baptists who drink, dance, whore and smoke pot that they needed someone like Billy to keep their habits going for them. Billy owned the Smudge Pot.”
“What’s a Smudge Pot?” I asked.
“Local watering hole,” Bee said.
“A bar two miles past the town limit,” Tanya said, as if Bee had never answered the question for her. “Watered-down drinks, young prostitutes, back-room gambling, dances on Friday and Saturday night. But they killed him a long time ago and closed the place down. I opened it back up last month, and there’s been a hew and cry ever since, which is why I’m in here. The real reason, that is.”
“Hmph,” I said. “Okay. So, I have a very important question for you, Tanya. And by the way, you can call me Bill.”
“What is it, Bill?”
“Who’d you try—I mean, who are they saying—you tried to kill?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. That,” Bee said.
“They’re saying that I tried to kill Senator Carswell.”
“Carswell,” I replied. “That was one of the other names. One of the Trinity Trio.”
“You do have a memory,” Tanya said. “Yes. Millie is the Senator’s wife.”
“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You, the Sheriff’s wife...”
“Loraine.”
“Right. And the Senator’s wife...”
“Millie.”
“Right. You three are the Trinity Trio.”
She nodded.
“And your husband—deceased husband—ran the town’s crime element?”
“No. Yes. I mean, not really. The Senator Jack Carswell and Sheriff Paul Simon—”
“Of Simon and Garfunkel?” Bee asked, and chuckled.
“No,” Tanya said. “That’s just his name. Paul can’t carry a tune in a bucket. They still run the crime in this town. Except they do it like they’re legitimate.”
“How do they run the crime?” I asked. I was starting to get a headache.
“Jack Carswell runs guns and sells them through the Sheriff’s Department, which is also responsible for all the murder-for-hire in these parts.”
“Huh. That’s a hell of an accusation,” I said. “Is there any proof of that? Have you considered gathering evidence and going to the Texas Rangers? Or possibly the press?”
“More cops? Are you kidding me? And the media? Those are the second and third oldest professions right there.”
I stood slowly.
“Your face changed,” Tanya said.
The room was cool, and overly so. But still, I felt beads of sweat pop out on my forehead and along my spine.
“Mrs. Holdridge,” I said.
“It’s Ms. I took back my maiden name after Billy was killed.”
“Fine,” I said. “Ms. Holdridge, I think it would be better if you remained in jail. I have a phone call or two to make. Someone will want to come retrieve you and interview you all over again.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bee said. “I thought you wanted her sprung from jail.”
“Right now you’re a Fourth of July sparkler running around in a dynamite storage shed. If you are let out of jail, you’ll probably get yourself killed.”
“Don’t you understand anything I’ve been telling you, Mr. Travis? I mean, Bill? I’m already dead.”
“Do you think you can continue breathing the next twenty-four hours?”
“In jail? Well, so long as no one thinks anything is going to upset the apple cart, I should be okay.”
“You need to stay where I can find you, or one of my friends can find you. And in jail is as good a place as any.”
“Who are your friends?” she asked.
“The Governor of Texas and the Texas Rangers.”
“You know Governor Sandoval?” Bee asked.
“I do. He owes me a favor or two.”
I opened the door and went out. Bee followed me.
Outside, Amos gave us a quizzical look.
“No, Mr. Kepner,” I said. “I’m not bailing her out.”
“Flight risk,” Bee added, to reassure him.
Amos Kepner visibly relaxed. “I’ll get her back to her cell, then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Business as usual. We’ll show ourselves out.”
*****
When we stepped out into the main waiting room, Hank stood up. “Where is she?”
“Wait till we get outside,” I said quietly.
Once we were walking across the parking lot, I informed Hank of the strange conversation we’d had in the interview room.
He whistled. “Sounds like she’s lots of trouble.”
“Potentially.”
He smiled. “I like those kind of women.”
Bee socked him in the shoulder. “I thought you liked women like me. All quiet passion, and stuff.”
“I like you, too. Don’t get me wrong. This is not so boring a trip after all. What are we doing next? Are we going to see the County Judge or something?”
“Not even,” I said. “We’re going to get a bite to eat. Bee, do you have a safe in your office?”
“Of course I do.”
“I’d like to store something in it, if that’s oka
y. And if I call you and ask you to bail our Tanya, can you go and do that? I mean, at a moment’s notice?”
“Yeah. I figure I can do that.”
“Good. Then, in payment for those services, if you’ll recommend a really good restaurant, then Hank here will pick up the tab for our dinner.”
“A date, then?” she asked.
Hank frowned.
“That’s right,” I said. “With me as chaperone. Meanwhile, I have some calls to make.”
CHAPTER FOUR
A fter stashing the fifty-thousand in Bee’s safe—and she hurriedly wrote me out a receipt for the money so that if something happened to her, I’d still be able to get it back—I stepped outside while she got herself ready to go.
I called the Texas Rangers barracks in Austin and requested to talk to Captain Rodgers, the man who had replaced my friend Walter Cannon upon his retirement. After a brief explanation, Rodgers informed me that he was putting me on active duty and moving me from Honorary to Special Ranger status. He was also dispatching Ranger Gray Holland to interview Mrs. Holdridge at the jail, and that I was to keep an ear out for his phone call once he got to town. Additionally, he wanted me to wear my badge and a gun where it could be seen.
I started to tell him that I didn’t have a gun with me, but Hank, standing across from me shook his head, reached back of his waistband and brought out small pistol and handed it to me. I took it and nodded my thanks to him. I ended up simply acknowledging the Ranger Captain and thanking him.
“You want me to call Sandoval?” he asked.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“I could walk next door and simply tell him that you’re on this one, Bill. I wouldn’t mind it a bit. That county over there has been a thorn in my side for a long time. I often wondered why Walt never cleaned it out, but I think he was always too busy chasing Mexican drug kingpins.”
“That would be Walt,” I said.
Bee stepped out the front door of the Bail Bonds office, and turned and locked it.
“Okay, Captain Rodgers, I’ve gotta run.”
“Take care, Bill. Give me an update by tomorrow at this time, will ya?”
