Tillis closed his bedroom door, then flipped the switch that lit an amber-shaded floor lamp in the far corner of the room. Gala sat on the corner of the bed, leaning back with her weight resting on her elbows. She was looking at him with that amused smile he’d been thinking about, while his head was crowded with the tangle of this increasing mess. The floor lamp was an old one, antique perhaps—one Claire had bought and he’d been surprised she’d left behind. It cast a soft glow over the exotic lines of Gala’s face. She had her black hair tied back in a short ponytail that looked casual, but made more of her cheekbones and those oversized brown eyes.
“You always enter a room that way? You’re liable to get yourself killed some day.” She wore cutoff jean shorts, sandals, and a creamy off-white silk blouse.
“You always sit around in the dark like that?” He kept his voice low as he could get it. “The boy’s right outside on the couch.”
“You tuck him in real good? I know you probably did. It’s so like you to think of others.”
“How’d you get in?”
She waved a hand in a vague sweep across the room that encompassed the house. “This crackerbox?”
“Did your basic training include B&E?”
“Let’s see. To be a Ranger you’ve had a minimum of eight years commissioned somewhere in law, and at least four of those with the Department of Public Safety.”
“I was a trooper first, and later an Austin police detective. What’s your point?”
She seemed to be checking his face closely, whether to note that the bruise there had faded quite a bit or not he couldn’t tell.
“Just seems like for someone with your experience, your methods seem a tad strange.”
“You mean my investigative style, or us?”
“The ‘us’ is pretty much a small thing, in light of what’s going on. The ‘us’ isn’t even happening, as long as no one sees us together.”
“Don’t think just because I’m a Ranger that I haven’t been trained to work under covers,” he said, and managed not to grin.
Her head tilted a quarter-inch more to her right. “You think you’re up to dealing with the likes of people like Morgan?”
“I’ve had a bit of experience.”
“With guys like that who have no limits?” She sure didn’t blink much.
“He’s that over the top?”
“Have you ever beaten a woman?”
“At what?”
She had to chuckle at that. Then the smile slipped away. “What are you playing at?”
“You’d better be more clear than that.”
“I can only imagine that this has been a frustrating case for you.” She slid one hand, in what seemed an unconscious gesture, along a taut brown thigh before putting it behind her for support again.
“Frustrating, like how?”
“All this happening in your own back yard, involving people of the community you’ve adopted as your own, yet no one is talking.”
“The not talking’s common to most cases.”
“Then there are at least three deaths, and the natural tendency is to think that they have something to do with each other, when, in fact, they may not. That they were done by the same person, when that’s not a likely, or at least a necessary, conclusion.”
“What’s your point?”
“It took me a while to understand why you’d even want to stake out that pawn shop. Just a few missing pages in the register and rumors of assault weapons being sold at night—there seemed to be nothing to it. Yet it stirred up something.”
Tillis reached up to rub at a fading bruise. “Consider the source. Thirsty hadn’t ever said an original thing in all the time I’d known him. Someone put the words in his mouth.”
“To lead you in the wrong direction.”
“The attempt to burn the place down and to rough me up were supposed to give credence to the lead.”
“Too bad Thirsty isn’t around to explain.”
“Yeah. Too bad.”
“But it did stir things up, like you barging into a poker game.”
“I did do that.”
“Seems to me you’ve tried all the normal investigative steps and realized you needed to do something different here.”
“I don’t think anything I did led to Thirsty being killed, if that’s part of what you’re implying.”
“It’s not. I’m just trying to make sense of some of your fancy footwork here.”
“Maybe I am, too.”
“There’s that.”
“You think I’m bringing a whole new style to Rangering?”
“It’s like it’s still emerging, and not as native to you as it might be. Kind of like some partially-clumsy butterfly wrestling its way out of its chrysalis—the same as learning for the first time to take some things more lightly, to laugh at them, to laugh at yourself.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s cute. I like it, and will probably like it more when it’s all the way grown up.”
“You think I’m really taking some aspects of this whole thing too lightly?”
“No. But I’ve never heard of a Texas Ranger doing anything covert. You seem to have an unorthodox approach, and I do mean the investigative procedure.”
“Now you’re starting to sound a lot like Lieutenant Comber. Isn’t it kind of early for an expert opinion from you?”
“Do you think all this is happening by accident? That every few years this area winds up and just goes nuts?”
“I haven’t landed on someone to take the fall, if that’s what you mean.”
“Does the boy know anything?” She glanced around the room, rubbed one hand across the bedspread. He was glad he’d made the bed that morning.
“No.”
“He’s knows about the diamonds, and what Thirsty thought was in that box.”
“But he knows all Thirsty got was dog bones. Old Spikeroy.”
“Why do you let those two kids run around picking away, then?”
“What would you prefer I do, book them for not sharing their adolescent ideas? Your colleague, Esbeth, told me once when I was working on another case that everybody has to learn, sometimes their own way, and at their own pace.”
“You’ve really taken to living in a small town like this, haven’t you?”
“What about you? You think you could ever learn to?”
Gala sighed, but her Mona Lisa smile wasn’t full of despair, and her eyes caught the amber glow of the light and seemed to glitter. “Don’t talk anymore,” she said. “You’re going to need your strength.” She started to unbutton her blouse.
* * * * *
Tillis woke and there was an empty, warm space in the bed beside him. He could still smell her and feel the smooth softness of her skin that contrasted with her firm muscularity. Outside his bedroom door, he could hear young Donnie Spurlock up and stirring around in the kitchen, making coffee or doing something than made enough noise to cause Tillis to push off the covers and head for the shower.
When he got out to the kitchen, Donnie was frying country ham. That, and a pot of fresh coffee filled the kitchen with smells that should have reminded Tillis of Claire, but didn’t. He sat at the table in front of one of the two place-settings Donnie had already put on the table. It would have worried him if Donnie had set places for three. He must not have heard Gala come and go. The woman moved like a cat.
Donnie set a plate of eggs, with an oversized piece of thick Texas toast and a slice of the ham, in front of Tillis. He glanced at the badge already pinned in place on Tillis’ shirt.
The Ranger reached for his fork. “You’re going to make someone a good wife, Donnie.”
Donnie looked across the table at him, with the eyes-open-wide, honest stare that was part of his heritage, and said, “I used to fix for Dad, and I kinda miss that.”
The boy went to pick up his fork, but hesitated, wrestling with a lump in his throat while looking down at his plate.
Tillis was sorry he’d asked. They ate in silence, and he had Donnie just leave the dishes in the sink to soak instead of doing them right then like he wanted. Tillis leaned on the counter until Donnie stopped futzing around at the sink and stared at him.
“I’ve been taking it kind of easy on you, Donnie, trying to respect the fact you just lost a father.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Are you ready to tell me anything now?”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say.”
“Too much has happened for me or the other law enforcement people to roll with that.”
“Am I guilty of anything?”
Tillis started to say something, then stopped himself. Instead, he said, “We need to get into town and let the sheriff have another turn asking you questions.”
On the ride into Fearing, Tillis glanced at the boy, who sat with shoulders square and staring straight ahead, as if going to an inquisition. Tillis said, “You know, Logan Rainey’s my best friend. His daughter’s like the niece I never had. All this blows over, you’re going to marry Karyn, aren’t you? Make an honest woman of her?”
Donnie’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he turned to look at Tillis. He just couldn’t help himself. “We never . . . I mean, well, I shouldn’t have even of said that.”
Tillis kept himself from laughing, but only barely. Donnie was a virgin. There was something about the reticence of a boy who wouldn’t tell the law anything he didn’t have to, when it came to helping them solve his father’s murder, but he would open his heart and tell this most revealing and intimate thing on himself. As Eldon might say, it was enough to make a cat laugh.
He was just pulling into the slower, bunched traffic at the edge of Fearing when he glanced over at Donnie. “I know you’ve got some kind of agenda about your dad. But any ideas about home-style justice you have ought to go out the window. You may not care what happens to you, but what if something happens to Karyn?”
“I’ve . . . we’ve talked about that. All I want to do is find out what happened. She wants to help me with that. I know you think I’m meddling, but that’s just the way it’s gotta be with me. Okay?”
“You’re taking risks, with your life and hers—ones you may not understand. Two people died at your house. If you think this is the kind of situation where the police will put up a protective ring around you and your home, you misjudge the area where you live. Those kind of resources aren’t available.” He didn’t add that neither were the skill levels in towns this size. If someone wanted to get someone, that person usually could.
“That Walters woman told us the same thing. But it hasn’t stopped us.”
“Esbeth is helping you with this?”
Donnie’s innocent face was twisted into a sour-taste look. “She’s someone I misjudged. I thought she was our friend.”
“Sounds like you’ve still got her wrong. But that’s not new. Don’t be too quick to form an opinion about that feisty old gal. She’s a lot smarter than you can imagine.”
“Smart’s not the issue.”
“You think she betrayed your trust, yours and Karyn’s?” It was hard to drive and look at Donnie, but Tillis knew that the slender thread of getting this boy to talk involved the trust of as much eye contact as he could manage.
Donnie made a small noise low in his throat.
Tillis said, “You may find she’s a lot more on top of things than you imagined. I took her a little lightly once myself, but no more. You’ve got to remember that she has teaching deep in her blood. She’s not so worried about your short-term opinion of her. She’s focused on how you’ll come out in the long run. I was fooled by her, and then I learned a bit myself. You may not know where, but let me tell you, that old gal is headed somewhere.”
Donnie said, “It’s just that with Mr. Rainey down on me, I could’ve used a friend.”
“I know Logan’d never bring this up, and maybe he’s never even told Karyn. But he was more than a friend back when I needed it. This’s back before you were born, to a time you might not understand, but your Uncle Hugh would. He was in Korea too. Our outfit took quite a hammering once, and the only one not injured real bad was Logan. He got us out, one by one, then made the copter wait and went back in and brought out even the ones who didn’t make it. He came within an ace of getting the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he didn’t because there was only one witness who’d been conscious, and that was me.”
“I don’t know how his being some kind of war hero’s supposed to make me like him more, after the way he’s been to me.”
“I’m not trying to help you like him, just to understand him more.”
Donnie just nodded. He was quiet the rest of the way to the Sheriff’s Department office.
When they were buzzed inside, Tillis led the way and saw Eldon back at his desk, not doing paperwork, but sitting on the corner of the desk and watching them come in while he talked on the phone. Logan, in uniform, with his daughter Karyn on another straight-backed chair beside him, sat beside the sheriff’s desk. Logan nodded to Tillis, but ignored Donnie. Tillis could tell from his tone that Eldon was probably talking with one of the many journalists to call, though he was barking at everyone by now. When the media has someone kill one of their own, every J-school grad with a pen, camera, or microphone within spitting distance will be down on an area.
Eldon finally wrapped up and banged the receiver back onto its hook. He glared at Tillis. “I’ve had deputies out all night bothering the two most influential families in the county . . .”
That would be the Hoels and Granites, Tillis figured. He noticed how the Spurlock clan had faded to a third-rate power, now that Denny was dead.
“. . . and I have alibis on one set of heavies, but can’t even find the two Granite boys. I’ve called out every deputy I could,” he glanced over at Gala, “the ones I could find, anyway, and we still haven’t treed that pair. It’s been a madhouse here all night, and with a crew that couldn’t track an elephant in four feet of snow. Now I’ve heard from just about every S.O.B. in the fifth estate today, including Herb Hoel twice.”
“I think you might mean fourth estate,” Tillis said.
“You apparently aren’t familiar with the way Thirsty went about it. Everyone in town knew he’d been known to drink more’n he could walk with. Now, to hear it, the man’s a saint. I knew that low-life was going to cause me problems someday.”
“By getting himself killed?”
“It don’t exactly clean up my plate now, does it?”
Tillis glanced at Logan. This wasn’t very confident talk in front of Donnie, or Karyn either, for that matter.
“What say we get started with the talks you wanted to have with Donnie and Karyn here?” Tillis nodded toward the back, where a small interrogation room was wedged between the front offices and the back holding cells.
Gala came into the department office, and she said to Eldon, “You’ve got television trucks pulling up and a couple of guys in rental cars who look like the kind of reporters who are on really good budgets. I’d say you have about an hour or less before you’ve got to face them. You want to set up a conference or take them one by one all day?”
“Conference,” Eldon snapped. He looked at Donnie and Karyn. “We’ll have to make this quick.” To Tillis he said, “You’re lucky you’ve got the Lute to speak to the press on behalf of the Rangers. Which reminds me, he’s called twice already, trying to talk with you. Did you knock your phone off the hook, or something?”
“Maybe. Any more people get killed out here, and it’ll be the Captain talking and Comber’ll be out here busting my chops to wrap this up,” Tillis said. “Maybe I’d better skip this séance and get over to the Granite place.”
“I’ve got Rudy over there staked out now. He’ll let us know if anything stirs. You’ll get your chance to take a lap in that pool soon enough.”
“You really think Rudy’ll find them? Or handle them if he does?”
“I think he has less chance than a grasshopper in a chicken yard. But I’ve gotta use what I’ve got.”
Gala went over to use one of the other phones. Eldon pushed himself up off the corner of the desk and stood upright, brushing some crumbs off the top of one pant leg.
Esbeth had been turned to the dispatch desk, talking into the phone. When she hung up and spun her chair around, Tillis saw the way Donnie looked at her. Karyn’s look was less bitter, but wasn’t cheerful. It was Esbeth’s expression that most surprised Tillis. She managed a smile, but it was forced, and he’d seen the brief flash of pain first, when she caught the two kids’ attitude toward her.
“Come on.” Eldon waved a hand for Donnie to follow him. “And you’d better have something solid to share this time.”
“I don’t,” Donnie said.
Eldon whirled and said, “You mean to tell me you don’t have the foggiest idea why a reporter’d be killed digging a hole under your own front porch?”
Tillis tried to catch Eldon’s eye, to steer him and the rest of the conversation into the interrogation room where it belonged.
Donnie’s head hung a bit, and he shook it.
Esbeth cleared her throat, then spoke for the first time. “Maybe you’d better tell them about the journal.”
* * * * *
A flat, hard wind was blowing in from the west with uncharacteristic energy, kicking up red dust devils of dirt across the Granite ranch and making the wooden house creak. Selma watched a cone of the reddish dirt lift and then settle, like some miniature cyclone trying to get up the nerve to get bigger.
She turned and there they were. They’d come in the back way. Rocky, thick and slightly slumped, carrying a paper sack and showing no more expression than the bumper on a truck, while Stone had the beginning of a nervous grin that didn’t quite show his dimple.
Rocky stopped and leaned in the door jamb, trying to look relaxed and unconcerned. Stone sat down on the couch and clutched a red can of Tecate beer in both hands. He looked more pensive.
“Where the hell have you pissants been? Do you know every lawman in this county is poking around looking for you two?”
“We had to loop around the back of the spread and come in that way. Rudy’s out front in one of those sheriff’s cars parked up about half a mile. It was nothing to dodge him,” Stone said.
Rocky said, “We got you something you might want.”
He walked over and dropped the sack onto her lap. It made a small thump. He went back to lean against the door jamb.
Selma opened the sack and looked in. “Well, shit.”
She looked up at them. Stone had made it all the way to a grin now, though it had a touch of sheepishness to it.
“Just what the hell were you lunkheads thinking?”
“A minute ago it was pissants,” Stone said. “Which is it gonna be? Lunkheads or pissants?” He ran the fingers of one hand through his blond hair and swept it into place at the back, where it covered his collar.
“You can be the pissant and he can be the lunkhead, for all I care.” Selma pointed to one, then the other, and felt the flush of color shooting up the sides of her neck. Rocky was staring off past her out the window, where the wind was still kicking up. “You listening to me?”
“I hear you.” Of the two of them, he was least like Slim, maybe more like his famous grandpa who’d once terrorized the valley. But there had been stark cleverness in those earlier Granites, a fox-like cunning. Neither of these boys seemed bright enough to hit the floor if they fell out of bed.
Rocky pushed away from the door jamb and began to rub his back against the corner. With his thick slightly-hunched muscularity, his cropped, short hair, and his dark furriness, it made him more than a little like a bear.
“Well, hell,” he said. “He was digging and it looked like he knew what he was doing.”
“You finished him off over dog bones?”
“We thought it was the diamonds. And I didn’t mean to hit so hard, but he had a head like a robin’s egg, all brittle-like.”
“And we did get you what you wanted. He’d been holding out on you.” Stone lifted the can. It was empty, but he was using it to spit tobacco into.
She slid the leather journal out of the paper bag without looking at it. She clutched it in both hands and let the paper sack fall to the floor. “Oh, hell, you two just don’t get it, do you? You’re as worthless as Democrats.”
“Hey, now. Lunkhead and pissant is one thing. Democrat is another whole thing altogether.” His face matched the mocking tone in his voice.
“Shut up. Both of you. Can’t you see I’m not kidding around here? We’ve got to think.”
“Sheriff Eldon’s nothing you can’t handle. He’s gonna be tied up with these film-at-eleven guys, buzzing around in their little satellite vans.”
“I’m not worried about him, or even that Ranger. It’s Morgan.”
“You were gonna cut him in before; just show him the damn thing. See what he can make of it.”
“If someone clever like Thirsty couldn’t get to those diamonds using this,” she waved the journal, “what makes you think any of us can? I need time. Don’t you see, I never was gonna cut him in on nothing. We can shake off the law, but I don’t fancy dealing with Morgan, once he knows I’ve got the journal. He’s almost certainly planning to cut us out, just like I was him. Morgan’s as clever as he is mean, and I don’t mind telling you he’s a worry now that there’s just the two of us. I was the one brought Thirsty into that mix just for a bit of insurance.”
“And it looks like Thirsty was trying to do to both of you,” Stone said, but she ignored him.
It was quiet inside the house, and she could hear the wind outside scratching and rasping at the sides of the house.
“We could always do for Morgan,” Rocky said.
“Yeah, like before?” She didn’t mask her own mocking tone.
“Except we got something different this time, something he don’t know about.”
“What’s that?”
“Jim Eddy Fisher.”
“What about him?”
“He’s ticked off at Morgan. Maybe we might could use that.”
Selma looked down at the journal. The leather was scratched with lines of wear, and the hinges crackled with age. “No,” she said, “I’m not sending you boys that direction again. You’re gonna have to get out of town and lay low for a while. Don’t worry about Eldon, either. I said I can handle him.”
“But we’d have the element of surprise with Morgan,” Stone said.
She sighed and looked up at them. “Knowing Morgan, I think you’d best throw out any notion of surprising him at anything.”
* * * * *
“I want you to repeat what you just said.” Eldon glared at Esbeth.
She had her back up too, and snapped when she spoke. “You heard me. I suggested he tell you about the journal. He’s right over there. Don’t yell in my direction.”
Eldon turned to Donnie. “Well?”
The boy couldn’t avoid looking right at the sheriff, but his lips became a thinner line. “No. I’d rather not.”
Whatever had been building up in Sheriff Eldon Watkins through all this so far shot the rest of the way, and he exploded. His face went red and he spun to shout, “Gala, get that front door locked and don’t let another sonuvabitch in here.”
“Hey,” Logan said, though Tillis was sure Karyn had heard him say worse.
“Tillis, tell Donnie here whether or not I can book him for obstructing justice.” Eldon was glaring at Esbeth while he spoke.
“He can.” Tillis couldn’t remember when he’d seen Eldon so animated, even including the time spent losing money at cards.
“And tell him whether I will,” Eldon snapped.
“Almost certainly.”
“And that goes for you too, Esbeth,” Eldon said.
Her eyes popped open wider, but, for the moment, she had nothing to say.
“She’ll tell you like she told us both a number of times, that if she gives you the answers, you won’t learn anything,” Tillis said.
“She pulls that, we’re going to be without her services as a dispatcher.” Eldon swung toward her, almost knocking into Gala, who was coming over to be closer after locking up. Eldon pointed a stubby finger at Esbeth. “The whole point of me hiring you, Esbeth, was so that you can’t stonewall me. Now, tell me what you have. You can use small words, or large. I just want it, and I want it now.”
She hesitated, then said, “You know what they say, that sometimes you have to be careful of what you wish for. Some of this stuff you know and could have chimed in a bit about earlier yourself.”
Tillis enjoyed the way she was looking at the sheriff. Though Eldon said, “Now don’t get your tail up over your back. Just tell me what you know. Someone around here’s going to start the talking, and it might as well be someone on this staff.” He glared at the young Spurlock boy.
Esbeth poured some coffee from her Thermos into her mug. Gala sat on the other corner of the desk on which Tillis sat. Their eyes connected for a brief second. Tillis, though, caught Logan’s expression as he saw her look at him. Logan’s head rocked back a half inch as he stared toward Tillis, then Gala. He’d been Tillis’ friend too long to miss anything.
“It seems this town has a history, and a messy one, that goes all the way back to the valley, to what I’ll call the gold fever days,” Esbeth said.
“There wasn’t any gold,” Eldon said.
“You going to listen, or butt in every other sentence?” Esbeth fixed him with a look that would’ve made any schoolboy squirm. Eldon just waved for her to go on.
“There wasn’t a mine, but people didn’t know that, and whatever normal greed there is in a place got out of hand. This was down in the valley days. People were killed. When all those folk were forced to move up on top of the hill, and I’m speaking mostly of Granites and Hoels, they came into contact with the Spurlocks.”
Donnie jerked upright in his chair. But Eldon held a hand toward him. “You had your chance, son. Keep a cork in it until she’s finished.”
“The natural, feuding clannishness of those valley people just got a fresh infusion when the Spurlocks joined the mix, and some already-touchy chemistry got a tad livelier.”
“Who told you all this bullwash?” Donnie Spurlock was on his feet and Tillis hopped over to go calm him, but Karyn beat him to it and got the boy back into his chair.
Tillis was thinking that there seemed to be some significant holes in the story Esbeth had chosen to skip over in her Reader’s Digest version. But Donnie seemed to know exactly what she was talking about.
Logan folded his arms across his chest, and pink spots stood out on his cheeks, but he didn’t say anything.
“Most of this is stuff I’ve pieced together, and some of it’s conjecture, so no one need put a lot of stock in it. But it makes a first step toward explaining some of what’s going on around here.” Esbeth scanned the faces of the others. “Is it all right if I get on with it?”
“Please do.” Eldon didn’t look as cordial as he managed to sound.
“The rumor that lit the fuse was that Hank Spurlock had started to find diamonds in the area, but he wasn’t saying where. This was at the same time Old Bill Hoel was grousing about the land he’d been given to replace what was taken from him on the valley floor. He said the new land wasn’t working for him. The grass wasn’t as good, and the labor costs of providing water and hay were ruining him. He was trying to sell. The leap of faith some people made was that the diamonds were on Bill Hoel’s spread, because there he was whining away, and then suddenly Bill quit squawking.”
The phone started ringing, but Eldon waved for Esbeth to ignore it and go on with her story. Someone started ringing the buzzer outside too, but they all ignored that.
“The Granites had, in their time-accustomed way, been trying to horn in on Hank Spurlock. They started putting the same kind of pressure on Old Bill Hoel and his people. The tension built up from at least three directions. That’s when some real fighting broke out, with Hoel and Granite corpses making up most of the dead count. Then the fighting stopped, and almost as quickly any talk about diamonds went away. It didn’t hurt during the hush-up that Herb Hoel was running the only newspaper in town. Somewhere during all the confusion Hank Spurlock also came up missing.”
“I’d be careful where you’re going with this,” Eldon cautioned.
“I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’m done talking, for now.” She reached for her mug and took a sip.
“That’s it?” Logan said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “I’ve had cafeteria coffee stronger’n that.”
“I’m not asking any of you to think anything, or believe anything. I’m just saying some of the things that led to where we are.”
“But what was all that about the journal?” Eldon frowned at Tillis.
“Don’t say anything, Esbeth, please.” Donnie was half out of his chair before Gala helped push him back down.
Esbeth tried to smile his way, but didn’t hit it. She said to Eldon, “The Spurlocks kept a journal. It’s missing, and I think Thirsty had opportunity to come up with it.”
“But where is it now?”
“Look, you’re pumping all this out of me against my will. I didn’t say this bread was all the way baked. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be sharing any of this.”
“You think whoever killed Thirsty has it now?” Tillis asked.
She nodded.
Eldon looked as puzzled as the others. “But who do you think killed Denny?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Thirsty?” Gala said.
“You’ve got two guys at the scene there. That’s as much as I know.”
Tillis let out a breath. “And Hugh?”
“I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
Eldon shook his head. “Well, I’m sure as bob-wire not going to open any press conference with any of that.”
“You can do what suits you. Now, are you going to book me for obstructing justice over that little bit of dribble I’ve gathered?”
Eldon shook his head reluctantly.
“The same should go for Donnie too,” Tillis said. “He was only doing research.”
“Diving to the bottom of the lake in a thunderstorm was research?”
“But they did you a favor and found a body.”
“You think that’s a favor?”
“Come on, Eldon. It took a lot of courage to make that dive, and to keep trying to dig up something about his father.”
“We don’t want vigilantism.”
“And that’s not what you’re getting. Everyone has a right to find out about a family member. I’m not saying he has to be so bullheaded about not telling us everything he thinks he knows. But I can’t see how he’s obstructing anything now.”
While he spoke, Tillis watched Logan. Whatever was on Logan’s face slowed him. “Anyway, you’ve got a press conference and I’ve got to pitch in with your deputies to find the couple of thugs who Logan saw near Thirsty’s body.” He caught another glance from Gala and was sorry that Logan seemed to be taking it in as well.
“If it’s all right with all you, I’d better get back to work too,” Esbeth said. She turned around toward her desk and reached for the phone just as it started ringing again.
Eldon waved for Donnie to follow, and he and Gala went off toward the interrogation room.
Logan stood and tugged at his uniform pants until they slid down over his boot tops.
Tillis could almost feel the crackle of angry electricity coming from him. He rose and went to the far side of the room, so Esbeth and Karyn wouldn’t have to hear whatever it was Logan looked ready to unload.
“I suppose you like that little sonuvabitch because he’s like you.”
“I haven’t thought about it,” Tillis said.
“You went to bat for him, when you know how I feel about him.”
“I just don’t know why you feel that way.”
“And you probably never will.”
“What do you care if he puts himself in danger?”
“I don’t. But there’s Karyn.”
“Well, even if my standing up for him a little bit was wrong, Karyn’s still an adult.”
“Maybe you’re too busy pumping that Spic deputy to know how anyone else feels.”
“There’s no call for that.”
Logan stepped closer, until his intense jarhead face was almost touching Tillis’. “Then don’t you try to talk about something you know nothing about.”
* * * * *
“Where the hell you going?” Rocky said. He sat low in the passenger seat of the truck with a straw Western hat tilted forward, covering most of his face, so no one on the street could make him.
“Jim Eddy lives out this way.” Stone had taken as many back streets as possible when they passed through the town, and now was steering them along a two-lane road that wove out through some pretty chaparral-strangled hillside country.
“Momma ain’t gonna be happy.” Rocky took the hat off and tossed it back into the extended cab now that they were out of town.
“She’s never too happy, or maybe you haven’t noticed that. Get me one of those pieces from the glove box. Keep the Magnum for yourself, if you like.”
“How do you still feel about that time Morgan took us?”
“He was just lucky.”
“Lucky, hell. He took us apart like a rotten willow stump.”
“What you think this time?”
“We need two things. One’s the element of surprise.”
“What’s the other?”
“Jim Eddy. Remember? You do want another go at this fancy gambler, don’t you?”
“Nothing could be better, and . . . we do owe him, owe him large.”