"Taken care of," Tracy told him.
"You read it?"
"Not yet," I said. "Wanted to hear you out first."
Gibbs nodded. Approvingly, I thought. "He was stabbed three, four times. With a small knife, probably just a ordinary pocketknife. ME thinks the first one was in the neck, of all places. Then the chest twice, maybe three times."
"Wallet?"
"Gone. Got to us a day or so later, some kids who'd found it in a doorway, brought it in thinking there might be a reward. No money. Didn't look like anything else was taken."
"But they left the car."
"And the keys, right there by him. Thing is, he was a while dying. Small knife, like I said, and done quickly, more like punches than stabs. Shouldn't have killed him. But somehow or another, with one of the chest wounds, a major vessel got snagged. Blood wasn't pouring out, but it was coming strong. We found him, he was slumped against the side of the building with shoelaces tied around his thighs. He'd strapped his coat to his chest, by the wound, with his belt."
"He was a nurse, he knew what was happening to him. Trying to keep himself alive until help arrived."
"What the ME figured." Gibbs finished his coffee and glanced into the empty cup. The answer wasn't there. Just like the help Merle had waited for.
"That it?" Tracy said once we'd thanked Gibbs and stepped back into the hallway. Its walls were paved with bulletin boards. "You heading back home?"
I'd filled her in on the situation with Eldon; she knew I was.
"Then maybe you could do the department a favor," she said.
Outside the property and evidence room in the basement, she spoke briefly to the officer in charge, who handed a clipboard across the half door. She signed and passed it to me, along with her pen. Officer Wakoski looked at the signatures, walked away into the maze of ceiling-high shelves, and returned with a package about six inches by nine.
"I'm pretty sure this isn't what Van Zandt had in mind," I said.
"Probably not. But Sam Hamill did." My old friend, now an MPD watch commander. He'd have sent the release through earlier.
The package was wrapped in plain white paper and heavy twine. Originally the knot on the twine had been sealed with wax, as on old letters, but the seal had been broken-when MPD opened it to check contents, I assumed. The front, in arching, thick cursive reminiscent of overdrawn eyebrows, read: FOR ISAIAH.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As I rode back toward home, along the river for a time before swinging inland, I watched a sky like old-time saddle shoes: horizon bright right up to the curving border where all went suddenly dark. It had been a season for storms. I remembered my grandfather's storm cellar, bare earthen walls, doors thick as tables with brackets into which you'd swing a two-by-four to close them, wood shelves sagging beneath the weight of water jugs, canned food, lanterns, and fuel. We'd all go down in there as the winds began, sit listening to them howl. As a kid I always expected the world to be new, fresh, changed all for the better, when we came back up. By the time I was ten or so we had stopped joining Grandad and his new family in the cellar, rode out the winds like modern folk.
Only the insurance lights were on, one on Municipal's side, one on ours, when I pulled in at City Hall. I put Isaiah's package on my desk by a note from June asking me to call her. The J of her signature was drawn leaning to the right, toward the other letters, its crosspiece sheltering them. The exclamation point after Call me was a fat, balloonlike shape with a smiley face below.
"Billy's taken a turn for the worse," she said without preamble upon hearing my voice. "Something about a blood clot, and hemorrhage. Dad's on his way up to Memphis. Doc Oldham went with him. Milly's up there already."
"I'm sorry, June. Are you okay?"
"I guess. Better get off the phone, though. In case Dad or the hospital calls? But one more thing-"
"Okay."
"That detective from Fort Worth? He's still around, asking questions. Did a swing through town first, hit all the stores. Then he drove out to the bars and roadhouses. Dad thought maybe you might want to look into it. 'Since Eldon is nowhere about,' as he said. He left a note for you, top drawer of your desk."
I locked Isaiah's package in our possessions safe, which just about anyone could open with determination and a state-of-the-art nail file, and read the note from Lonnie, which told me, among other things, that Officer Jed Baxter was staying at the Inn-a-While out by the highway. So I got back in the Jeep and made the longish drive.
It's a habit you never quite get rid of. You pull in and sit for a time, watching closely, sizing up activity and positions, before getting out.
Three cars ranging from three to a dozen years old, an SUV with Montana plates, and a beat-to-hell pickup, half Ford, half spare parts, occupied the parking lot, making it a landmark business day for the motel. The number was missing from the door on room 8, but with 7 to the left and 9 to the right, and a Camry with Texas plates out front, I managed to figure it out. The Camry was gold-colored and well used, with stains on the carpet and seats, but all of it clean, none of the usual detritus of fast-food wrappers, sacks, paper cups. Even the boxes in the backseat were neatly stacked.
Jed Baxter didn't look all that surprised when he answered the door in his boxer shorts and T-shirt.
"Sheriff." He backed out of the door to give me room.
A bottle of bourbon stood on the bedside table. From the look of things, the two of them had been keeping close company. The TV was on, one car in pursuit of another against what was all too obviously a back-projected city, volume turned so low it could have been sound from the next room. Baxter had been ironing his pants atop a damp towel on the dresser surface. One leg was folded back on itself, like a cripple's. He unplugged the travel iron and, since he was there by it, snagged his drink.
"You've been rooting around town, asking questions." I'd settled in on the wide window ledge. He sat on the bed. We were maybe a yard apart.
"What we do-right, Sheriff?" He shrugged. "I wasn't trying to hide anything. News in a town this size, it's not likely to gather flies."
"And I'm thinking you knew that; it was part of the plan. Maybe it was the plan."
"Ah. The plan." Baxter held up his empty glass and motioned with its toward the bottle, offering. Why not? Been a long day. He found another plastic cup in the bathroom, half filled it, and brought it over.
"We spoke with your people back in Fort Worth. Seems-"
"I'm on a leave of absence, Sheriff."
"Okay. Not quite the way they put it, but close enough. Explains the lack of a warrant or any other paperwork. You're here, they were careful to point out-a number of times-in no official capacity."
Baxter smiled.
"So," I said.
"So?"
"So it begins to look personal." He took a long sip of his bourbon before responding. "It is, but not the way you think. Back in town I definitely got the feeling that you weren't eager to help."
"I had no information for you."
"Come on, Sheriff. You were just shining me on, didn't even want to talk to me."
"In which case, you acted in a manner that assured I would."
"Yeah, well. I've been doing this a long time. Whatever works."
"What do you have against Eldon Brown?"
Baxter shook his head. "Not him. My concern is Ron Nabors, the detective who nailed him for it and wouldn't hear otherwise. Still won't, for that matter."
"You have reason to believe this Nabors was involved?"
"Laziness and habit, more like."
"But you're looking to what? Take him down?"