“I thought like you, Benbrook. That it was probably just a couple of kids I could scare away. Besides, if I’d called you, by the time some deputy could’ve showed up they might already have taken off with what they wanted. Nothing personal, Benbrook.”
“No offense taken, Arri. I’ve got two deputies and a lot of ground to cover. Sorry about the damage.”
“That’s no problem. Insurance will cover it. It’s Amanda I’m sorry for.”
“Amanda?” The sheriff frowned uncertainly. He knew the Ramirez’s daughter. Everyone knew everyone in Port Lavaca.
“We’d sort of decided to take the weekend off to go up and visit her brother at A & M.”
“Can’t you still do that?”
“Not really.” Arriaga shook his head, but only slightly because of the pain it produced at the back of his neck. “First off, I don’t feel much like driving right now. More importantly, it’s almost impossible to stuff her wheelchair and accessories into the back of the VW. It wouldn’t be a very comfortable weekend wrestling with that, either for us or Amanda. Anyway, the doctor says no driving for me for a few days. No fishing, either, but I can work on the boat if it doesn’t mean moving around too much.” He glanced apologetically at his wife. “Sorry, querida.”
“That’s alright. Arri. Amanda will understand. The important thing now is for you to get well, and for the sheriff to catch those awful people before they hurt anyone else.”
“We’ll do our best, Wendy. You know that.”
“I know you will, Benbrook. Are you sure you can’t stay for some coffee and muffins?”
“Believe me, I’d like to.” The sheriff shrugged. “What the hell, why not?”
As they started toward the kitchen Amanda hurriedly backed her wheelcahir out of the hallway and rolled into her own room. She was more than just concerned now. At first she’d been terrified for her father. Now she was afraid not just for him but for her mother and herself as well.
If her father was right and the people who’d vandalized their van the previous night weren’t kids, then she had a pretty good idea where they’d come from. She conjured up an image of the bugs and listening devices she’d uncovered, sucking at their privacy. The people on the other end knew everything that went on in the Ramirez household. They knew about the plan to go up to College Station to see her brother. It was clear now that they suspected some sort of collusion between her and her uncle, or else they just wanted his only relatives where they could keep tabs on them. Yes, that made sense.
His only relatives…. She’d read lots of spy novels. Relatives could be used to force someone to do something he didn’t want to do. Threats…. It was getting more and more complicated. She’d never thought of herself and her family as being in danger from the people who were after her Uncle Jake. Everything was changing too quickly for her to adjust to, too fast to anticipate.
Her confidence was beginning to evaporate, her determination to falter. After all, she was only sixteen. Maybe what she’d read in books and seen in movies wasn’t enough to enable her to outguess the sort of people she was up against. Maybe real life was full of nastier surprises than she’d believed possible. Last night was a good example of one.
She sat there in the chair, listening to the faint conversation coming from her parents and the sheriff, and chewed worriedly on her lower lip. She had to tell her Uncle Jake about what had happened. She didn’t want to. It would only worry him more. But he ought to know, should know.
Several passengers turned to look toward the rear of the bus. The old man in the back was twisting awkwardly as he moaned in his sleep, talking to something unseen. Such sights were common enough on transcontinental buses. The passengers gradually returned to their own business. The old man gave no indication of getting violent, and he was obviously no wino. His moans weren’t strong enough to reach to the front of the bus. The driver kept his attention on the road.
The motel wasn’t as accessible as the potash plant outside Phoenix, but Huddy insisted on visiting the exact spot where Pickett had slipped past his people for the second time. An old homily persisted in taunting him: If a man does thee once, it’s his fault. If he does thee twice, it’s thy fault. Huddy felt responsible for the failure. There weren’t going to be any more failures.
The motel manager stared through his office window at the conclave surrounding room twenty-three. When one of the neatly dressed, solemn-visaged men assembled there threw him a warning look he quickly returned to watching the soap opera unspooling on channel ten. He vaguely recalled the last occupant of the room which was attracting so much unusual attention: old man, balding in front, pleasant and friendly. What had he done to attract the notice of such people?
Well, it was none of his business and he wasn’t likely to find anything but trouble by inquiring further. He submerged himself in the maudlin antics onscreen.
On inspection Huddy saw nothing unusual about the motel room. There was the bed where the two hired hands had confronted Pickett. He inspected the bathroom, the window through which the old man had escaped, the cornfield out back. The two locals who’d missed the pick-up stood near the foot of the bed and waited. They seemed competent enough… until Pickett’s name was mentioned. Then they turned surly and reticent.
Feeling slightly self-conscious without knowing why, Huddy sat down on the rumpled bed and listened while Drew spoke.
“I had the town searched half a dozen times. No sign of him. Nobody’s seen him, either.”
“How about the Tucson motels?” Huddy asked.
“Can’t say. If he’s retracing his route he’ll be hard to run down. Our people up there can only do so much, Mr. Huddy. Big-city cops get suspicious when strangers start asking the kinds of questions the police like to reserve for themselves. Even here we’ve had to be damn careful. So it’s possible he could still be here in town.”
“Okay. Keep on it.” Huddy nodded, dismissing Drew. Degrasse and Nichols moved to join him, but Huddy stopped them sharply. “Not you two. I’m not through with you yet.”
They halted irritably. Huddy let them stand there and stew in their own worries while he turned his attention to the two bath towels laid out on the foot of the bed. One supported a tiny mound of threads. They weren’t half as intriguing to Huddy as the disassembled .38 Special that was spread out on the other towel. It looked as if it had been broken down by a small-arms expert. They still hadn’t found the hollow- point shells.
He tapped the barrel. “This just fell apart, you say?”
The locals exchanged a look. Huddy prodded them. “Come on, guys. I know a helluva lot more about this old man and what’s really going down than Drew does. I’m a lot more inclined to believe anything you say than he is. Anything.”
Nichols hesitated, then said quickly, “There wasn’t any doubt about it, sir. The gun just came apart. He did it. The old man. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. I’m not sure I’d want to know how he did it.” He was eyeing the pillows as if Pickett’s ghost might suddenly materialize to give them another demonstration.
“And after that, you panicked.”
“Hey, look …” Degrasse started to protest.
Huddy raised a calming hand. “I’m not criticizing you, just trying to establish a sequence of events. They gun fell to pieces, and you panicked.”
“Okay, so we panicked.” Degrasse still sounded resentful. “You would’ve too, if you’d been there.” Huddy didn’t comment.
“Excuse me.” A very thin young man was leaning through the open doorway.
“What is it?” Huddy was irritated at having been interrupted.
“Well sir, it’s only that…. You are the man from California, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes. Spit it out, man.”
He stepped all the way into the room, eyed the other two men uncertainly. “I was on duty at the far end of the motel last night, when everything went down. Over by the manager’s office.”
“What about it?” Huddy didn’t like people wasting his time, especially now that he had no time to waste.
