Red giggled. “Oh, that? Just Billy Don movin’ some furniture ’round in there. Boy’s clumsy. See, Mr. Slaton asked us to fix the place up a little. I figure, with him gone, it’s the least we can do. You know… in his memory.”
Marlin was fairly certain it wasn’t paint fumes that were affecting Red’s brain. The poacher was obviously nervous-the signs were easy to recognize-and Marlin figured Red and Billy Don had been smoking pot in the trailer. But Marlin didn’t care, as long as Red was willing to talk.
Garza asked a couple of questions about Sal Mameli: Had Red ever met him personally? What was he like? Had he ever heard Mameli threaten Emmett Slaton?
Red didn’t have much to say. Sure, he’d seen Mameli around a few of the bars in town, but he didn’t really know the guy. No-no threats, as far as he knew. Quick, short answers, with plenty of hemming and hawing in between.
Marlin decided to put him at ease. “Red, I’m not sure what y’all are doing in the trailer there, but we need you to concentrate on these questions. Whatever y’all are up to, don’t worry about it.”
Red gestured to himself with one hand, like, Who, me?
Marlin smiled. “We’re not here to break up the party. Tell us what you know, then we’ll be gone and you can get back to your drinking or smoking or whatever you’ve been doing.”
Red glanced from Marlin to Garza. The sheriff nodded in agreement and opened a small notepad.
“I appreciate that,” Red said, and took a deep breath of relief. Suddenly, they saw a more confident, composed Red O’Brien. “The way I figger it,” he whispered, as if eavesdroppers were lurking nearby, “Mameli was pissed that Mr. Slaton wouldn’t sell, so he offed him. You ever met the guy? He’s kind of greasy, if you know what I mean.”
“How so?” Marlin asked.
“Seems like kind of a con man. Always talkin’ fast, tryin’ to get an edge.”
“But is there anything you can tell us, beyond just a hunch?” Garza asked.
Red looked puzzled. “You mean, like, uh, hard evidence?”
“Exactly.”
Red mulled it over. “Can’t think of nothin’.”
Garza abruptly flipped the notebook closed.
“Well, he is Eye-talian,” Red offered.
“Oh yeah?” Garza asked with exaggerated suspicion, as if he and Red could unravel this conspiracy together. Marlin had to stifle a laugh.
“Hell, yeah, he is,” Red said, happy to regain an audience. “And I don’t need to tell you how those people are.”
“No, Red, you really don’t,” Marlin said-before Red decided to share his thoughts on Hispanics and Asians, too.
A chirping sound filled the air, and Red flinched. “Take it easy,” Garza said. “Just my cell phone.”
Garza answered the phone, listened for a moment, then handed the phone to Marlin. “Your friend at the lab. He’s got some more news.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Marlin walked over to the cruiser, the phone pressed to his ear. Richard Fanick had been a busy man. He had already lifted some prints from the money in the envelope, and was sharing the results.
“So it was a solid match?” Marlin asked. “No doubt at all?”
“Oh, yeah. I got more prints than I know what to do with. Complete latents, partials, you name it. Guy touched nearly every bill in the stack. Just him and Gammel, though. Not the other guy.”
“All right, Richard. This helps me out a lot, and I owe you one for working the weekend.”
“Hey, no problem.”
“Seriously, next time you’re passing through Blanco County, give me a call. I’ll buy you the best barbecue lunch you ever had.”
“It’s a deal.”
Marlin disconnected and turned to Garza. “We gotta go.”
Garza and Marlin sped away in the sheriff’s cruiser-and Red nearly collapsed. He sat on the front steps of the trailer and cradled his head. Damn, that was too close for comfort. Red thanked the Lord that he was blessed with a quick mind and a nimble tongue that helped him avoid trouble. Someone like Billy Don wouldn’t have been able to handle the situation. But Red had played Garza and Marlin like fiddles.
Billy Don poked his head out of the trailer door. “They gone?”
“Yes, they’re gone, no thanks to you. What the hell was you doing in there? Ropin’ a goat?”
“So what’s the plan?”
“We go directly to Judge Hilton and get a warrant,” Garza replied. “I don’t care if we have to chase him down on the golf course. Then the deputies will search Clements’s house, while we go at him again, this time hard.”
Marlin could think of no plausible reason why Clements would have handled Gammel’s money-but if he had, he was obligated by law to tell them about it. Otherwise, he was obstructing an investigation. “You operating on the assumption that he killed Gammel?”
Garza sighed. “I have no idea. But he obviously knows more than he’s telling. The question is, what does he know? And I keep trying to figure out how Sal Mameli is involved-or if he’s involved. Kind of strange that Fanick found his prints on the envelope but not on the money.”
“I suppose Mameli might have handled the envelope during a visit to Gammel’s office. I’m sure they must have met a few times to discuss county projects. It could all be innocent…”
Garza stopped at the one and only traffic light in Johnson City and gave Marlin a glance. “You really believe that?”
Marlin was weighing the question in his mind when he noticed a brown Jeep Cherokee coming the opposite way. Marlin pointed and said, “Isn’t that Clements right there?”
Garza followed Marlin’s gaze. “It sure as hell is. And it isn’t even halftime yet.”
The light changed and the Cherokee pulled through, Clements staring resolutely ahead. Garza waited a few seconds, then swung a U-turn and fell in behind him.
“Guess our plans have changed,” Marlin observed.
“For the time being. Let’s just see what he’s up to.”
Clements continued south on Highway 281, keeping it to the speed limit. When he left the city limits, he edged his speed up to seventy.
“We forgot to give him the standard warning about not leaving town,” Marlin joked.
They caught Clements stealing discreet glances into his rearview mirror, but he did nothing out of the ordinary. Six miles down the road, Clements pulled into a roadside picnic area and came to a stop, Garza and Marlin right behind him.
“What now?” Marlin asked.
“Let’s give him a few minutes.”
Clements continued to sit in his Cherokee, both hands on the wheel, staring out the windshield.
“I’d say the man is trying to make a decision,” Garza said.
“Sure looks that way.”
Garza swung his door open. “Reckon we ought to see if he needs any help with it?”
Marlin popped his own door open. “I’d say that’s the neighborly thing to do.”
Both men exited the cruiser and began walking slowly up to Clements’s vehicle. They could see him watching in the rearview mirror.
“Careful, John. He might be armed.” Garza’s hand was resting on his revolver.
Clements’s chin fell to his chest, like a man defeated. Then he lifted his head, shoved the Cherokee into reverse, and came screaming back toward them. Both men jumped out of the way and the Cherokee slammed into the front end of the cruiser. Clements shifted into DRIVE and burned rubber back onto the highway.
Thomas Peabody sat in his hiding spot in the woods and surveyed the house. It was a long time until nightfall-several hours before he could take action-but he had patience. Oh, yes, he was a patient man indeed. He had waited a painfully long time to be in this position, and he wasn’t going to ruin it by acting prematurely. His entire relationship with Inga was at stake. Soon he would be transformed in her eyes. Saving her from the attacker in the motel room had created a chink in her emotional armor-he had seen it in her eyes and felt it in her embrace. She was almost ready to become his soul mate; he was certain of it. Now he merely needed to define himself for her, once and for all. Then she would realize they were destined for each other.