Chapter 41
THE FIELDS AROUND me start to spin. I put my hand on my truck to keep from falling over. Creasy is talking, but I can’t hear much of what he’s saying. His voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.
I was talking to Patty just last night. I remember her sad eyes and the way she wondered if she would ever find love.
Now she never would.
“You’re sure it’s the same killer?” I ask, my voice choked and barely recognizable.
“Looks like it,” Creasy says. “Same MO. She was killed in her own home. Multiple gunshot wounds.”
I hang up and jump into my truck. Dad and Willow look at me with concern, but I don’t say anything to them. I stomp on the gas and leave them wrapped in a curtain of dust.
I drive to Patty’s house, my body operating the truck while my mind is elsewhere, swimming in a whirlpool of shock.
The scene is exactly like the one at Anne’s house and is crowded with police cars, crime scene technicians, and at least a dozen uniformed officers.
Just like Anne, Patty lived in a somewhat remote, rural location. The kind of place where multiple guns could go off without attracting attention from neighbors.
At the door, the same patrolman who had to restrain me at Anne’s funeral tries to stop me from entering the house. I grab the cop’s wrist, twist it, and send the patrolman to his knees.
I storm into the house and, like before, freeze when I come to the threshold of the living room.
Patty is lying facedown in a red oil slick.
My vision starts to darken, like every source of light is losing its power at the same moment. I am seconds away from passing out, and I realize I’ve forgotten to breathe.
Several patrolmen grab me and haul me backward. I don’t resist, instead concentrating on breathing and staying conscious. Outside, the officers throw me down onto the ground. Someone puts a knee in my back. Another person pulls my pistol out of its holster. They pin my arms behind my back.
“Should we cuff him?” one of them asks.
“No,” I hear someone say. “But put him in the back of a cruiser and keep him there until I’m ready to talk to him.”
It’s Purvis’s voice.
Rough hands drag me to a police car and shove me inside. I curl into a fetal ball on the back seat, my mind a maelstrom of images and thoughts.
Patty.
Anne.
Blood.
So much blood.
I’m not sure how long I lie there before I sit up and yank on the door handle. It’s locked. I pound on the glass, yell.
“Let me out!” I shout. “I have to find who did this!”
Purvis approaches the car, but instead of opening the back door for me, he opens the front and slides into the driver’s seat. He looks over his shoulder at me. A cage of metal mesh separates us.
“Rory, you’re going to have to calm down,” Purvis says. “You’re becoming unglued.”
“Can you seriously blame me right now?” I snap. “Someone is killing the people I love. You need to check on Sara Beth. She was with Patty last night.”
“And where were you?” Purvis says.
“At the Pale Horse,” I say. “Patty and Sara Beth were both there.”
“When did you last see Patty?” Purvis says. “Because I know all about the relationship you had with Patty. And right now, you’re the only person who’s dated both of these dead women.”
Chapter 42
AFTER I ANSWER all of Purvis’s questions and get swabbed for gunshot residue—again—the police give me back my gun and tell me I’m free to go.
For now.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” Purvis says, pointing his finger at me like he’s scolding a schoolboy. “This is capital murder now. Whoever is responsible is going to be sent to Huntsville for lethal injection. If you’re involved, Yates, I’ll be standing in the audience when they shoot poison into your veins.”
“Whoever is responsible is laughing at you right now,” I tell him.
“All right, I’ll bite,” says Purvis. “Who else was there last night?”
I think. My mind is such a hurricane that concentrating on anything is difficult. I remember going out into the parking lot with Willow. Sara Beth was taking Jake home. Patty was still inside.
With Cal Richards.
Chapter 43
I URGE PURVIS to formally request assistance from the Texas Ranger Division, but he dismisses the idea.
“If you’re any example of the kind of help I’d get, then we’re better off investigating this on our own.”
I drive off and call Sara Beth from the truck.
When she answers, she’s crying. “Is it true?” she says.
“I’m afraid so,” I tell her.
“What the hell is going on, Rory?”
I caution her to be careful. She needs to stay away from Cal and try not to be alone with anyone.
“Even if it isn’t Cal,” I say, “the killer is probably someone you know.”
Now, sitting in my truck, I have a decision to make: I can either trust that the local cops will figure out who the killer is, or I can break the rules again and investigate these crimes myself. I’ve been fiddling around in the investigation from the start, but now I need to be all in or all out. It’s one thing to ask Freddy for updates; it’s another thing entirely to start interviewing witnesses. If I step out of my truck and go into the Pale Horse to start asking questions, I’ll be crossing the line I’ve been teetering over since Anne was killed.
It can’t be a coincidence that both victims are my exes. Sara Beth could be in danger. Maybe Willow, depending on how much the killer knows.
And would the killer stop there?
What about my mother and father? Are they safe? Or my brothers?
What about my little nephew Beau? Or Jake’s new baby?
How far is this killer willing to go to hurt me?
I imagine seeing more people in my life murdered one by one—each person shot with six bullets.
I pull into the gravel lot at the Pale Horse. There are a handful of cars in the lot, including Willow’s pickup, but the bar is mostly dead. It’s midafternoon, and it will still be a few hours before patrons begin coming in for happy hour.
I sit in the car for a moment, taking deep breaths.
Then I call Ted Creasy.
“Is Corgan Guthrie still in jail?”
“Yep,” Creasy says. “That’s the first thing I checked when I found out about Patty.”
“Could it be another Guthrie?” I ask.
“Could be, I guess. But I doubt it. That’s a big family, and they’re all fuckups. But now that Wyatt’s dead, ain’t none of them seem capable of killing except Corgan. I’d say the Guthries are pretty low on the suspect list now.”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “Depending on how you look at it, there’s either a million names on that list or only one: Cal Richards.”
“Now, Rory,” Creasy says. “Don’t you go doing anything stupid. You know you can’t investigate this case. The locals haven’t asked for our assistance, and even if they did, you’re the last one we’d assign to the case.”
“I know,” I say.
“Sometimes the line between being a lawman and an outlaw might seem thin,” Creasy says. “But there is a line. And it ain’t blurry.”
“I know,” I repeat, and hang up.
I open the door of the truck and walk toward the Pale Horse, crossing the line my boss just told me not to.
Chapter 44
INSIDE, DARREN IS behind the bar, chatting with Willow, who is sitting on a stool and sipping a soda.
Darren looks up at me with weary, sad eyes.
“I just got off the phone with the police,” Darren says. “I’m sorry, Rory. This is just awful.”
Willow puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. I apologize for ditching her at the gun range and she shakes her head dismissively.
“Don’t be ri
diculous,” she says. “No apology necessary.”
Darren slides a draft in front of me, but I don’t drink it.
“I need to know what happened after I left the bar last night,” I say.
“Patty left with Cal,” Darren says. “I just told that detective the same thing.”
I think for a few seconds.
“You don’t have a surveillance camera in the parking lot, do you?”
“No,” Darren says, “but the truck stop next door does.”
I rise. Before I go, I tell Willow she needs to be cautious.
“Someone is killing off my girlfriends,” I say.
“Am I your girlfriend now?” she says with the wry smile I’ve grown accustomed to.
“I just…Everybody should be careful now,” I say. “Please be careful.”
Willow says, “I’m always careful. You be careful.”
I walk from the bar to the truck stop. It’s an overcast day, with a milky-gray haze across the sky. My boots crunch the gravel. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it pulsing in my chest.
My phone rings. I sees that it’s my mother, checking on me, and I ignore the call and turn the phone to vibrate.
I’m not wearing my usual Rangers getup, but my gun is fastened to my hip, so when I ask the truck stop manager to show me the surveillance tapes, the man recognizes me as law enforcement and obliges.
In a back room, the manager finds the place on the recording that roughly corresponds with the time Patty and Cal left the bar. The manager fast-forwards for a few seconds and then plays the recording.
In the grainy black-and-white image, two figures appear in the distance where the bar is located. They get closer and closer, and it’s easy to see that they are Cal and Patty.
They are smiling. Patty is laughing. They look like a couple on a first date.
Cal opens the passenger door of his semi and holds his hand out to help Patty climb aboard. A real fucking gentleman.
Then Cal goes around to the other side, fires up the big engine, and the truck rumbles off, out of view of the camera.
My blood is on fire.
I floor the pedal on my way over to Anne’s house. Cal’s semi is not parked in the driveway. I get out of my truck, go to the front of the house, and cup my hands around my eyes and try to look inside a window. I go around to the side of the house and do the same.
The carpet has been torn up in the living room, but there’s still a stain on the plywood underneath. The walls have been scrubbed so hard the paint is coming off.
I check the doors and find them all locked. I consider kicking down a door, knowing that whatever evidence I find would be inadmissible.
But I need to find out if it’s Cal who’s doing this. If I follow the rules, someone else could die.
I go to the back of the house, look around to make sure I’m alone, and position my body to kick the door in.
In the silence, I hear the sound of my phone buzzing.
I check it. The call is coming from Jake. I send the call to voicemail, but then I see that I’ve missed three more calls. Another call from my mother and two from my brother Chris.
I give the phone a voice command to call Jake.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jake says, breathing hard. “Dad collapsed. He’s in an ambulance headed to the hospital right now.”
I tell him that I’ll be right there.
When I hang up the phone, I hesitate for a second, looking at the door I was about to kick in.
There’s evidence on the other side of the door. I’m sure of it.
But it will have to wait.
Chapter 45
DAD IS UNCONSCIOUS.
There is an oxygen tube connected to his nose, an IV sticking out of his arm, a wire taped to his chest to monitor his heartbeat, and a clamp on his finger to measure the oxygen in his blood.
His skin is the color of ash. Every wrinkle, every age spot, stands out under the harsh light of the hospital room. I can just make out the slight rising and falling of his chest. Otherwise, he looks dead.
My brothers and my mom are all there and they’re glaring at me. Their faces are full of worry and confusion as they hover next to Dad, holding his hand. My brothers are seated, hunched over his pallid body, and Mom’s so nervous she’s standing, shifting her weight. The room is silent except for the beeping of the heart monitor and the hissing of the oxygen coming out of the tube.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We got the news about Patty,” Mom says. “He got off the phone, sat down at the table. He was as white as a sheet. Then he just fell over. I thought he was going to die right there on the kitchen floor. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
Dad always liked Patty. He and Mom both wanted me to work things out with her in the wake of my divorce from Anne, and they were sad when I finally broke up with her. But ultimately, they stood behind me when I made my decision.
I can imagine that Dad’s shock was more than the news of Patty’s death. Maybe the bigger contributor here was the combination of both Anne and Patty dying, and what Patty’s death implies. These aren’t just random murders. Someone is targeting people I care about. Anne and Patty are the victims—but it seems I might be the target.
With his weakened immune system, Dad probably couldn’t handle the stress. At least that’s what I hope. I hope it wasn’t a stroke or heart attack.
“What have the doctors told you?” I ask.
“Someone is supposed to be coming to talk to us,” Jake says. “We don’t know a goddamn thing.”
“He woke up for a little while,” Mom says. “He said we needed to talk to you about what’s wrong with him. Then he drifted off again.”
My limbs are trembling. I knew something like this was going to happen. Dad wouldn’t tell anyone his secret. Now I’m stuck delivering the message.
“Dad’s got cancer,” I say. Might as well come out with the news quickly and succinctly.
The air seems to be sucked from the room, as if everyone took a breath at the same time.
“What?” Mom says, genuinely shocked.
“He’s got a tumor in one of his lungs,” I say. “He’s been taking chemotherapy pills to shrink the tumor, but he’s going to need surgery.”
Mom’s legs start to wobble, and she collapses into a chair. She brings a quaking hand to her face.
“He said he had the flu,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“He didn’t want to worry you,” I say. “He said he would tell you when the time was right.”
“But he told you?” Jake says, his voice dripping with contempt.
“He made me promise not to say anything.”
Jake rises to his feet.
“He’s our dad, too, Rory,” Jake snaps, his face as red with anger as it was last night when he drunkenly accosted Cal Richards. “We have a right to know if our father is dying.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Mom rises and rushes out of the room, tears streaming down her cheeks. Chris runs after her, leaving Jake and me alone with our unconscious father.
“I can’t believe you’d withhold something like that,” Jake says.
“Me?” I say. “What are you holding back? Why are you out in bars when you’ve got a new baby at home?”
He stares at me, hurt. Instantly, I feel ashamed for turning this around on him.
“Holly and I aren’t doing so good,” Jake says, his voice soft now, honest. “A baby puts a strain on things. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”
His words feed the flame of my frustration and I almost snap at him. If Anne and I stayed together, if I somehow found a way to make my marriage and my job exist harmoniously in my life, then I probably would have children by now.
His attack was a low blow, but I hold my tongue.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t none of your fucking business, is it?” he spit
s. “I’m not going to hook up with Sara Beth. Even if I wanted to, Sara Beth is in love with you. You’re too busy sniffing around the new bitch in town to notice.”
I bristle at the word bitch.
“Speaking of none of your fucking business,” I growl.
“That’s what I figured,” he says. “You think you can butt into my business, but I have to stay out of yours. Well”—he points to our father—“that is my business, too.”
He storms out, leaving me alone with Dad and the beeping of the monitor.
I pull up a chair so I can sit right next to him. I put his limp hand in mine. I study his face. I want to cry, but I think of what he would do in this situation: he would be strong.
But I’ve never felt so helpless. My hands are tied trying to find the killer. There’s nothing I can do to help my father. I think about praying, but even that seems pointless. Who is listening?
Maybe my father is. He’s unconscious, but maybe he can hear me.
I lean in close to his ear.
“I need you, Dad,” I say. “Don’t you die on me.”
Part Two
Chapter 46
CAL SHIFTS GEAR and plants his foot against the gas pedal, accelerating his semi-truck down Highway 81. He has the stereo cranked, playing “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers Band. Cal is singing along, shouting about how “ain’t nobody gonna catch him, no, ain’t nobody gonna catch the midnight rider.”
Cal has always loved driving the truck. Sitting high in the cab, looking down at the highway like he’s in a low-flying airplane. People think driving a rig is hard, with a dozen gears and a dashboard that looks like an airplane cockpit, but Cal has never thought that. In his big cushioned seat, he’s sitting high above the road, a king on a 560-horsepower throne.
He’s always liked to crank his music and cruise, letting his mind wander while his hands work the big steering wheel.
Tonight, he’s been having trouble letting his mind drift, so he’s had to keep turning the music up louder and louder, singing along—doing whatever he can to distract himself.
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