| |
At 8:45, Marlin was on his way to the Chandler Place apartment complex when he got a text from Nicole.
Good Morning America just ran video of you at the zoo. You’re going national, you big stud.
He replied, Maybe it’s time to get an agent.
She sent a laughing face.
Two minutes later, Marlin got a call from Rance Powell, a rancher who owned several hundred acres to the west of the exotic zoo.
“I just saw something I ain’t never seen before, but I cain’t tell you what it was,” Powell said.
“An animal from the zoo?” Marlin said.
“I hope so, or my vision is going.”
“Is it still there?”
“Nope. It run off. It might still be over there in the brush somewhere.”
“What did it look like?”
“Well, it was some kind of big goat or sheep or something. I’m talking big, like the size of a small cow. Probably four or five hundred pounds.”
“What color was it?”
“Kinda tan or light brown, with some white stripes running down from its backbone and across its rib cage. And it had long spiral-shaped horns. I wasn’t about to mess with it.”
“That’s a greater kudu,” Marlin said.
“If you say so.”
“It’s an antelope from Africa. His name is Kevin.”
“He’s got a name?”
“And just a friendly reminder, but you shouldn’t shoot it.”
“Dang it,” Powell said, laughing. “I was already picturing it on my wall, but then I remembered you saying it was a state jail felony and I figured I wouldn’t look good in an orange jumpsuit.”
“It’s not a good look for anybody,” Marlin said. “If you see it again, will you call me?”
“Sure will. I’ve never been over to that zoo. Are the animals tame or what?”
“More or less, but don’t get too close. It might be kind of rattled at this point. Don’t approach it or lasso it or anything like that.”
“Can I give it a stern lecture?”
“If it will listen.”
“I got a little one-acre pen and I might be able to lure him into that.”
“That would work.”
“Will it eat corn or cattle cubes?”
“Probably either one. Call me anytime, day or night, okay?”
“You got it.”
“And let me give you the number of a woman named Tracy Lavelle, the assistant zookeeper. Can you call her after this and let her know you saw it? That’s the last loose animal.”
“You bet. Happy to do it.”
“She might want to come over to your place and look around.”
“No problem.”
They finished their call, and fifteen minutes later, Marlin pulled into the Chandler Place apartment complex, where he found the parking lot mostly empty. Apparently most of the residents had already left for work or school.
The complex consisted of two long parallel rows of buildings, with Bryce Cauley’s unit in the center building of the westernmost row.
Marlin had checked Bryce Cauley’s criminal history earlier and found that Cauley had pled guilty to a class-A misdemeanor in connection with his arrest for possession of a controlled substance eleven months earlier. No felony. He could possess a firearm. And there was still the chance that Bryce had had nothing to do with any of the incidents at Darren Meyer’s ranch.
Bryce’s driver’s license photo had confirmed that he was not the man who’d pointed the rifle at Marlin yesterday. Could he have been the person driving the white truck? Probably not, considering that none of the fingerprints lifted during processing matched Bryce’s, whose prints were definitely in the system.
Marlin parked and got out of his truck. As he was walking toward the complex, he stopped for a moment. There on the rear window of a silver BMW coupe was a small sticker for Safari Adventure. What were the odds of that?
He turned and went back to his truck. Got on the radio and asked Darrell, the dispatcher, to run the plate.
A moment later, Darrell said, “Comes back to a 2019 BMW M2 registered to Rory Grafmiller. Negative twenty-nine.”
So the vehicle wasn’t stolen and the owner had no warrants. Marlin didn’t recognize the name. Was Grafmiller a zoo employee? Or simply an enthusiastic supporter?
He sent a text to Bobby Garza and Lauren Gilchrist. Know the name Rory Grafmiller?
Lauren replied within thirty seconds. Yes. Will call you shortly.
Marlin waited. His phone rang one minute later.
Lauren said, “He’s a tour guide at the zoo and had a run-in with Albert Cortez on Tuesday morning. Albert sent him home after that. Where are you seeing that name?”
Lauren was already up to speed on the events that had occurred at Darren Meyer’s ranch, so Marlin quickly explained that Bryce Cauley and Rory Grafmiller both lived at the Chandler Place apartments.
“Could be a coincidence,” Marlin said.
“Sure it could,” Lauren said.
“Am I crazy, or are you a tad bit skeptical?”
She laughed. Lauren understood they had no reason—yet—to conclude that the trespassing poacher on Meyer’s ranch was involved with anything that had happened at the zoo. Same with the person driving the white truck, whether it was the same person or someone else. But she’d always been the type to follow her instinct, and more often than not, she was right.
“Plenty of places to live around Blanco County,” Lauren said. “What’re the odds that Meyer’s nephew is neighbors with a zoo employee?”
“Yeah, raises some questions, but I still don’t even know if Bryce Cauley was on the ranch. If I can ID the man with the rifle, I might get somewhere. Or if I can talk to Bryce and get his side of it.”
“I’ll bet you lunch there’s a connection somehow,” Lauren said.
“I’ll take that bet, mostly because we haven’t had lunch in a while.”
“Yeah, what’s the deal? You ducking me?”
“Every chance I get.”
“Smart aleck,” Lauren said. “I’m gonna win this bet and rub it in your face.”
Truth was, Marlin hadn’t socialized much with Lauren one-on-one when she’d first started working at the sheriff’s office, if for no reason other than to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Many people in Blanco County knew about their history, and he didn’t want to provide fodder for gossip. Lauren, on the other hand, was never concerned about such things. She would’ve laughed if he’d told her his concerns.
“Fair enough,” Marlin said. “What’s the story on Grafmiller?”
“He was kind of dodgy in his interview yesterday, and then he lawyered up,” Lauren said. “Convenient that his mother is Cassandra Grafmiller.”
“Ah. I was wondering about that last name.”
“She said her son has no interest in talking to us any further because he thought we were trying to pin something on him. Tracy Lavelle said Rory has a temper and isn’t a great fit at the zoo, whereas he said she is basically a know-it-all with a superior attitude. We’ve talked to maybe eight or nine employees and they all back Tracy—every one of them. He’s the one with the problem, not her.”
“What was the run-in with Albert?” Marlin asked.
“Rory was late to work, which is apparently a habit, so Albert called him on it. Later, Tracy saw Rory getting a little rough with an antelope, so she told Albert, and when Albert asked Rory about it, it got heated.”
“Any sign of Albert?” Marlin asked.
“Nothing. Hate to say it, but I figure he’s either dead or on the run. If he’s on the run, well, that doesn’t look good. Still no hits on his debit and credit cards, so I’m guessing there won’t be any.”
“And no ID on the victim?”
“Nope. If we don’t nail it down soon, we’ll get a sketch drawn up and send that out to other agencies in Texas. Hoping to hear from Lem real soon about cause of death.”
Right then, the door opened to Bryce Cauley’s apartment. Cauley stepped out and locked the door behind him.
“Okay, great,” Marlin said. “Right now I’ve got my eyeballs on Bryce Cauley, so I’m gonna let you go.”
“Good luck,” Lauren said.
“Thanks.”
“And don’t get hit by a truck or anything like that, okay?” Lauren said. “You’re gonna owe me lunch.”
“Oh, but I’m the smart aleck?” Marlin said.
Red woke again at 9:17.
He got up, opened his bedroom door, and stood there for a moment in nothing but some elastic-banded gym shorts.
“Billy Don?”
Nothing.
“Garrett?”
Nobody home.
Red walked to the kitchen at the other end of the trailer.
Empty. He didn’t even smell coffee. What a bummer.
But he did see a note on the dinette table. Good to see that Billy Don was still following Red’s “no texts before nine o’clock” rule. Of course, that rule didn’t apply to Mandy, especially if she was sending one of those special photos he liked so much.
Red stepped over and picked up the note.
Went to town for brekfast tacos. Back in 45 minutes. Will bring you a cupple.
That showed Billy Don’s typical sloppy thinking. Red didn’t know what time they’d left, so how could he know when 45 minutes had passed?
Red dropped the note back onto the table and headed back down the long hallway.
As he was passing the spare bedroom with Garrett’s things in it, Red stopped.
He stood in the doorway and just looked.
There was Garrett’s backpack, resting on the futon that folded out into a bed.
Ten seconds passed.
Red was wondering exactly what was in that backpack, just like he’d wondered when they’d picked Garrett up on the side of the road. But Red no longer thought there might be drugs or booze or scabies medication in there. Maybe there was a big roll of cash. Or maybe not. Garrett was essentially homeless, so Red had a hard time picturing a guy like that carrying an ATM card, but maybe he did.
Which brought up an important question: Had Garrett already received the $400,000 in life insurance, or would the insurance company wait until the police closed the case? Red had no idea how that worked, but Red figured an insurance company would use any excuse to hold on to that money for as long as possible, stalling until a judge or somebody ordered them to release it. Greedy bastards. Almost as bad as banks.
But if Garrett had already received the $400,000, why was he living like a vagrant? Who would choose to do that? And why? Red knew that even if he somehow ended up dead broke, he wouldn’t be homeless. Well, technically, maybe he would, meaning he might not own a home, but he wouldn’t be sleeping under a bridge or in the woods, taking a dump behind a tree. He’d sleep on friends’ couches at first, and then he’d find some kind of job working for a wealthy rancher who had some little shack or cabin where Red could bunk. And then he’d work damn hard to get his life—
Damn it, he was getting sidetracked.
None of that mattered right now.
The backpack. That’s what mattered.
It was so calm and quiet in the trailer, all alone like this. He could pop in there, take a peek, and never get caught. If Billy Don and Garrett came back, Red would hear Billy Don’s old Ranchero bouncing up the driveway, and he’d have plenty of time to clear out.
Red stepped slowly into the spare bedroom and stood by the futon. He studied the backpack for a few seconds, noting the way it was resting on the blanket, because he’d need to put it back exactly the way he’d found it.
He reached down and unzipped it. Looked inside. There were a couple of T-shirts on top. Then some socks. Some underwear. None of it folded, just shoved in there. Red pulled it all out of the backpack, glad the items were clean, because Garrett had asked to do a load of laundry last night. Still, it felt a little weird handling some other dude’s skivvies.
He dug deeper and found a little sleeve of saltine crackers, a can of tuna, and a granola bar.
Then he found a small zippered bag that would be perfect for holding a bunch of cash, but it contained various toiletries—a disposable razor, toothbrush, deodorant, and things like that.
Then, digging to the bottom, he saw the butt of a handgun.