“I can’t answer that. Maybe on account of it’s close to his own property.”
“An even better reason to pick a spot farther away.”
“Yeah. See what you mean.”
Messenger said, “You must’ve searched the area up there pretty thoroughly. Find anything at all?”
“Nothing conclusive.”
“Well, we did find the gun,” Espinosa said.
Loes slanted a look at him. Then he shrugged and said, “Yes, we found the murder weapon. Thirty-eight-caliber Ruger Magnum loaded with hollow-points. Evidently it was thrown away into the scrub after the shooting.”
“Hollow-point bullets? Any significance in that?”
“Hell,” Espinosa said, “everybody out here uses ’em.”
“Including you, Sheriff?”
“Watch what you say to me, man. I got no patience left with you.”
Loes said, “Hang on to your temper, Ben.” Then, to Messenger, “No significance. Not under the circumstances.”
“How many times was he shot?”
“Just once. A thirty-eight hollow-point fired at point-blank range does considerable damage.”
“What about fingerprints on the gun?”
“Smudged.”
“I don’t suppose it was registered?”
“Yes. To Mr. Roebuck. According to his wife he kept it in the glove compartment of his car.”
“Then whoever shot him knew him well enough to know that.”
“Or someone he didn’t know found the gun by accident,” Loes said. “Or took it away from him during an argument.”
A few more questions, a tight-lipped warning from Espinosa — “I’ll be seeing you again, Messenger, so you stay where you can be found” — and the two men folded themselves back into the cruiser. Dacy watched it all the way to the gate, shading her eyes against splinters of sunlight that came off the rear window. When Loes made the turn onto the valley road, she turned to Messenger.
“We may’ve just made a mistake, you know.”
“Mistake?”
“Not telling Loes about Billy Draper and Pete Teal.”
“I thought about it,” he said. “But I didn’t want to say anything in front of Espinosa. He thinks I exaggerated what happened at Mackey’s and he’d claim I was trying to shift suspicion. Besides, we don’t have anything definite against them yet.”
“Could be one of them shot John T.”
“Possible, if he was the one who hired them. A falling-out over money or something like that. But I still think the same person killed both Roebucks, and maybe that person is the one who paid Draper and Teal. If I can get a name out of them, then I’ll have something definite to take to Loes.”
“Still fixing to brace those two tonight?”
“I have to, Dacy.”
“Even if it turns out to be a bigger mistake.”
“It won’t.”
“Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right?”
“Sometimes. If it means enough to him.”
“Well, it’s your ass,” she said, thin-lipped. “If you wind up in the hospital or in jail, don’t call me. I had all I can stand of that crap with my ex.”
“I can take care of myself. Don’t worry.”
“I won’t,” she said, and brushed past him and walked away to the stable.
22
Dacy said flatly, “I’m going with you. No arguments.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea...”
“I do. I’m tired of macho bullshit.”
“Macho? That has nothing to do with—”
“Doesn’t it? Male ego, pure and simple. You figure you’re man enough to handle any kind of trouble. Well, you’re dead wrong.”
He said, “I thought you weren’t going to worry about me.”
“Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I’d feel the same about a poor dumb animal that was about to blunder into a nest of scorpions.”
She’d been waiting when he emerged from the trailer at a few minutes past five. Like him, she had spent the afternoon doing chores, though not as compulsively: He’d gone on a nonstop four-hour binge of sawing boards and hammering nails and putting the new pane in the kitchen window, killing time with physical labor. And like him, she’d washed up and changed clothes. She wore an old chambray shirt, one that had probably belonged to her ex-husband, its tails hanging loose over faded jeans. Her hair had been wet-combed and the stubborn curl plastered down. There was little of the strain and fatigue in her eyes that dulled his own, but he sensed the tension in her just the same. He wore his like a badge; hers was all hidden inside.
He said, “There won’t be any trouble. Draper and Teal won’t make a scene in a public place like the casino.”
She laughed, a sound like a coyote bark. “You really are a babe in the desert, you know that? As much shit happens in public places as in private ones in this county. You come on tough to those two boys, you’re liable to wind up a big stain on the floor. And they’d make it look like you’re the one at fault.”
“I wasn’t planning to get tough with them.”
“Sweet-talk ’em into telling you the truth? Appeal to their reasonable sides, man to man?”
“Don’t talk down to me, Dacy.”
“I’m not. Just trying to make you understand that this is my turf and I know it a hell of a lot better than you ever could. I know how to handle men like Draper and Teal. You don’t.”
“Handle them how?”
“That’s my lookout.”
“You want to do all the talking, is that it?”
“What I want,” she said slowly and distinctly, as if she were talking to a younger version of her son, “is for you to let me call the shots. And to keep quiet except to follow my lead. Think you can do that?”
“If it means getting answers.”
“It does. Okay, then? Settled?”
“What about Lonnie? Don’t you want to be here when he decides to come home?”
“What for? We can’t talk about what’s bothering him — you made that clear enough. You’re the one who needs me tonight, not Lonnie.”
Not just tonight and in more ways than one.
“Well?” she said.
He’d already given in. He wouldn’t be much good at this sort of tricky improvisation and she would; wiser for him to play sideman and let her handle the solo. He said, “All right. We’ll do it your way.”
They took the Jeep and rode most of the distance across the valley in silence. Messenger broke it as they neared the Y fork by asking, “Dacy, does it surprise you that Dave Roebuck was the kind of man who’d molest his own daughter?”
Quick sidelong glance. “Back to that subject, are we?”
“Not talking about it won’t make it any less painful.”
“I haven’t been avoiding it. Just brooding on it.”
“And?”
“It surprises me some, yeah. No woman was safe around that bastard, but I never knew him to go after one that wasn’t of legal age.”
“A recent aberration, then. Degenerates can always find a new low to sink to.”
“I reckon. Lonnie was sure it hadn’t gone as far as actual sex? Just fondling?”
“That’s what Tess told him.”
“At least she didn’t have to endure rape before she died. Damn little consolation, but at least that.”
“Did she have any adult friends?”
“You mean somebody she’d confide in?”
“Besides you and Lonnie.”
“No, I don’t think so. Not many people went out there to visit. If she couldn’t bring herself to tell Anna or me, and Lonnie had to practically drag it out of her... no, she didn’t tell anybody else.”
“Roebuck liked to brag. Maybe he told someone.”
“About a thing like that? He’d have been lynched.”
“Let something slip, then. When he was drunk.”