I spend an hour eating and talking with Rita. She regales me with stories of her many conquests and bemoans the fact that she can’t stand the man she’s dating now, a personal injury lawyer named Steve Willis. When I ask her why she’s with him, she gives me an answer that’s pure Rita: “He’s loaded, and he’s hung like a horse.”
She’s funny, down-to-earth, and beautiful, but as she starts on her fourth glass of wine, her eyes begin to glaze over and her speech becomes slurred. The change is sudden, and it isn’t attractive.
“So whaddaya gonna do with this stuff?” she asks.
“What stuff do you mean?” I’m wondering whether there’s a sexual connotation to what she’s saying. There usually is.
“This stuff I brought you.”
“I’m sorry, Rita. I can’t tell you.”
“Well, I hope you nail his hide to the side of the barn with it. He’s a fucking pervert, you know.”
“No. I don’t know. And would you please keep your voice down?”
“Ooooohhh.” She giggles. “Ssshhhhhh!”
“Come on, Rita. Let’s get out of here.”
I pay the tab and manage to walk her out before anything too embarrassing happens. She begins to hiccup.
“You can’t drive,” I say.
“Sure I can.”
“No, you can’t. I’ll take you home. Can Steve bring you up here to pick up your car tomorrow?”
“The lazy bastard will probably pay somebody to pick it up,” she says. “He’s got more money than sense, you know.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“But he’s got a fantastic schlong. Oops, wait just a second, sweetie. I almost forgot.”
She stumbles across the parking lot toward her car, a sharp little Chrysler Crossfire convertible that I’m sure she’s earned. I hear a beep, and the trunk pops open. She reaches in and pulls out a brown paper bag, then makes her way back toward me. I help her into my truck and pull out of the parking lot.
“I sealed every-” A hiccup catches Rita’s breath.
“I sealed everything in plastic Baggies and labeled it, just like you asked me to.”
“Thanks.”
I take the bag from her hand and put it in the glove compartment. She slides across the seat, cuddles up next to me, and puts her head on my shoulder.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she says. She hiccups again, and within thirty seconds, she’s fast asleep.
50
Bates is waiting for me at six the next morning at the Waffle House near Boones Creek. It’s still dark outside as I carry the paper bag into the restaurant and set it down on the table in front of him.
“How’d you do it?” Bates says as he opens the bag and peers inside.
“I took advantage of an old friend.”
“Everything’s labeled?”
“Just like the doctor ordered. How’d it go with Ramirez?”
“It was an excellent adventure, Brother Dillard, a truly excellent adventure. I got to ride in a helicopter and carry an assault rifle. Reminded me of the old days. And I gotta tell you, I have a whole new respect for them federal boys. They know what they’re doing.”
“So Ramirez was there?”
“He was there, all right. Got himself shot right off the bat.”
“Shot? Is he dead?”
“Nah, he ain’t dead, but I guaran- damn-tee you he wishes he was. I’ve never seen an interrogation quite like the one ol’ Rider did yesterday. I don’t think you would have approved.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Let’s just say Ramirez’s constitutional rights weren’t given a whole lot of consideration. We hit ’em right at dawn. Come screaming in there like something out of Apocalypse Now. Rider heads straight for Ramirez, but Ramirez is stupid enough to point a gun at him, so Rider blows a chunk out of his leg with this sawed-off scattergun he’s carrying. We get things settled down, and one of the guys patches up Ramirez’s leg, but he doesn’t give him anything for pain. They load six Mexicans and a bunch of agents up in a Huey, and then everybody climbs into one of the Black Hawks and takes off. The only ones left on the ground are the pilot who’s flying our chopper, me, Rider, another agent, named Lucas, and Ramirez. They’ve already got Ramirez cuffed, but they drag him over to this little tree, sit him up against it, and recuff his hands around the tree trunk. Then they put another set of cuffs around his ankles and go to work on him. Rider starts asking him questions, and if he didn’t like the answer, Lucas would stomp on Ramirez’s wound. I swear, Dillard, they had me believing they were gonna kill that ol’ boy right then and there. Ramirez must have believed it, too, because he sure did start talking.”
“What did he say about Hannah?”
“Stinnett comes to him at the jail about a week before she was killed and tells him he needs a job done. Stinnett says someone in the DA’s office, a very wealthy man with some serious political connections, has gotten this girl pregnant, and now she’s blackmailing him. He tells Ramirez that if he’ll see to it that this girl is taken care of, the murder charge against him will be dismissed. So Ramirez puts Stinnett in touch with this other Mexican who works for Ramirez, a man named Arturo Gutierrez. Gutierrez gets the word out and hooks up with the biker, and Hannah winds up dead.”
“Who was it? Who paid the money?”
“He said Stinnett didn’t tell him-just that it was somebody from the DA’s office. And, believe me, if he’d known, he’d have told.”
“So you can ask Stinnett.”
“That’s a bit of a problem.”
“Why?”
“Stinnett’s dead. Ramirez shot him in the face.”
“He admitted that?”
“Damn straight. Rider and Lucas had his mind right.”
I think about the day Ramirez tried to get me to dismiss the murder charge against him. If he already had some kind of deal in place with Stinnett’s connection at the office, why would he try to strong-arm me? Then I remember the way Stinnett looked after we went outside. Ramirez had surprised him, maybe tried to double-cross him. I ask Bates about it.
“My guess is he didn’t trust Stinnett,” Bates says, “so he tried to get you to let him out by telling you he knew where she was and who wanted her killed. He was lying.”
“And then Mooney lets him out a week after he fires me.”
“Exactly. But we don’t know whether Mooney paid for the contract, whether he did somebody a favor or maybe got paid for letting Ramirez out, or whether he really thought the case wasn’t strong enough.”
“The case was strong enough, Leon.”
“What we’ve got in this bag here will go a long way toward giving us some answers. The pathologist was able to get a DNA sample from the embryo. I was worried that Hannah might have been too far along in the decomposition…”
He chokes up briefly, which surprises me. But then I realize Bates actually witnessed the inhuman way Hannah was discarded. He’s poured his soul into this case, and he and his informant climbed down into the abandoned mine shaft and carried her battered and rotting body back up to the light. It’s become personal.
He coughs a couple of times, then continues. “If one of the samples in this bag matches the baby, somebody’s going to have a lot of explaining to do. So what do you have for me?”
“A couple of coffee cups from the trash can in Mooney’s office, and a soft drink can from Tanner’s desk. I hope Tanner didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“He may not have. Even if it turns out he’s the father, Hannah could have been trying to blackmail his daddy.”
“Hannah wouldn’t have blackmailed anybody. There’s no way.”
“You’re sure about that. You knew her so well that you can say that without any doubt.”
“I’m sure.”
Bates drains his coffee, stands, and picks up the bag off the table.
“We’ll see, Brother Dillard. I’ll let you know what the lab boys say as soon as I can.”
51
An hour later I’m back at home, sitting on the edge of the bed, cleaning Caroline’s wound. She’d barely spoken to me after my clandestine dinner with Rita, and she hasn’t said a word to me this morning.