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Albert checked Facebook again at 9:37 and nothing had changed.
He set the phone on the nightstand and simply stared at the ceiling, wondering how it had all come to this. After all these years, how had his new life—his safe, normal life—come undone so quickly?
He first knew something was odd during the tour on Tuesday. Albert didn’t give many tours nowadays—he was usually too busy with other tasks—but he still enjoyed it, so he squeezed one in when he could. That’s what happened Tuesday.
It was a decent turnout, too, for a cloudy weekday afternoon in November. Eighteen people on the trolley, most of them older folks. Retirees. A middle-aged couple that was speaking German. A couple of young moms with toddlers in tow.
And one guy who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. All by himself. No wife. No kids. No friends. A solo customer. That wasn’t totally unusual, but for a guy that age, it wasn’t typical. Not on a weekday in November. He didn’t look very friendly. Had a noticeable scar on his forehead, as if the skin had been split open vertically above his left eye.
Albert didn’t think much of it, though, until midway through the tour, when they were feeding the camels, and he noticed that the young guy was wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat. Again, that wasn’t unusual at all—there were thousands of Cowboys fans all over Texas—but it reminded Albert of the letter he’d gotten in the mail just the day before.
Zoos are prissons.
That’s what the note had said. Those three words, one misspelled, and nothing else. No return address. But it had been postmarked in Dallas. Yes, Dallas. And now this solo male passenger wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat was here for a tour on a cloudy weekday afternoon in November.
Coincidence? Surely it was.
Or was he a troublemaker of some sort?
Albert convinced himself that he was letting his imagination run wild, so he ignored the Cowboys fan for a while. But then Albert noticed that the young man didn’t seem to be interested in the animals. He seemed, instead, to be studying the layout of the zoo itself—the perimeter fences, the pens, the various buildings and shelters. In fact, he took several photos without any animals in them at all. Why would he do that? It wasn’t as if the zoo was scenic. The animals were the attraction.
So Albert stopped the trolley and played a little game that was always popular with the guests. He asked which town each person was from, and the guest who’d come the farthest would win a $10 credit at the gift shop. One couple was from Fredericksburg. Another was from San Antonio. A young mom with two kids was from Marble Falls.
Albert pointed at the young man with the scar above his eye and smiled. “I guess you’re from Dallas, huh?”
“Yep,” the guy said, and that was all.
“Nice win against the Patriots on Sunday,” Albert said.
“Pretty wild,” the guy said.
“Right down to the wire,” Albert said. “Heck of a kick.”
“I just about had a heart attack!” said an older man in a middle row of the trolley.
“He sure did!” his wife added. “He was screaming like a maniac!”
Everybody else on the trolley laughed—except the Cowboys fan, who didn’t look all that comfortable.
“We’re from Hamburg!” the German woman said.
“Can anybody beat that?” Albert asked.
“That depends,” a retiree said. “Is that farther away than El Paso?”
Everybody laughed again, and Albert had no choice but to move on.
At the time, Albert thought the guy might simply be an animal-rights activist who didn’t like zoos. He’d encountered a handful over the years. The few that actually visited the zoo had left with a grudging respect for the way Albert’s animals were treated.
But looking back at it now, the truth was obvious. The Cowboys fan had been there to make a positive ID on Albert, and to become familiar with the layout of the zoo so he could carry out his mission in the dark. And his mission had nothing to do with the animals.
After Bobby Garza drove away, Marlin stayed right where he was—in his truck in the convenience store parking lot—and quickly scanned an email from Lauren, which included some mind-boggling details about Albert Cortez’s past. Nearly two decades ago, Albert had gone on the run and assumed a new identity after running down a mob boss’s brother. Marlin could only shake his head and set it aside for later.
He called Jo Virgil, a friendly local realtor who’d been born and raised in Blanco County. She’d been in the same class as Marlin in school—an intelligent, witty classmate who excelled in every subject.
She answered on the second ring, saying, “Based on what I’ve been hearing on the news, I know you aren’t shopping for a new home right now.”
“No, ma’am,” Marlin said. “But I am in the market for a favor. A confidential favor.”
“What’s up? I’ll help however I can.”
He told her exactly what he needed, and why. And he didn’t need word getting out, because the last thing he wanted was a team of civilians deciding to conduct their own house-by-house search.
“When do you need it?” she asked.
“I hate to push it, but how about seven o’clock tomorrow morning?”
He heard a beep and saw that another call was coming in—from Red O’Brien. Marlin let it go to voicemail.
“No problem,” Jo Virgil said. “I’ll put them all on a map, so you can visit them in an order that makes sense. If you want.”
“That would be outstanding,” he said. “Oh, I almost forgot. We only want homes that have a garage or barn or shed—someplace a car could be parked. Can you do that?”
“Sure can,” Jo said. “That’ll narrow it down quite a bit and make your search easier.”
“Can you include homes that have already sold but aren’t occupied yet?” Marlin asked.
“Sure. Want me to include homes for lease, too?”
“Yes, please. Good idea.”
“How big of an area?”
“I’d say a three-mile radius from the center of town.”
“Will do.”
“Very much appreciated,” Marlin said. “And there’s one other thing. I hate to ask.”
“Ask. Please.”
“Can you include the names and phone numbers of the homeowners and the listing agents? We might need permission to search some of the houses. Phone numbers would make things a lot easier.”
“You can’t just search? With a girl missing like that?”
“Not without a warrant or permission.”
“Okay, well, I’ll definitely include all that. Won’t be a problem at all. Most of those homes are gonna have key boxes on the door, so I’ll get the codes, too. That way you won’t have to kick any doors down.”
“Excellent idea. You are awesome.”
“Good luck tonight. I hope you find her soon and you don’t even need this map.”
“That would be great.”
They disconnected and Marlin saw that Red O’Brien had left a lengthy voicemail. He had also received a text message from Tracy Lavelle.
Kevin the kudu just came home! No more missing animals!
Marlin replied: Thanks for letting me know. Glad to hear it.
Then he listened to the voicemail.
Hey, it’s Red O’Brien. I need to report a guy who shot two bullets through my windshield earlier tonight, and the back glass, too, which is gonna cost me a hell of a lot of money, and I figure that’s gotta be illegal, right? Then he just took off. We went looking for him, but no luck. Anyways, I know Garza and all of them guys are busy with that manhunt right now, but you’re kind of a cop, so I figured you might could help me out with this thing.
Marlin couldn’t help but laugh. Kind of a cop. O’Brien always had a knack for making offensive remarks, without intending to. He just didn’t know any better. It could be humorous—in small doses. Marlin would call him back to let him know that his problem would have to wait until tomorrow, or maybe later. But Marlin continued listening to the message.
The thing is, there’s more to it than just the damage to my truck. This guy Garrett—well, it’s kind of a weird situation, and I can tell you more when you get here, but it turns out they thought he killed his own daddy up in Michigan. Shoved him right off a roof, ’cause he was cheating on his mom—the daddy was, not Garrett—even though he denies it, but the cops up there didn’t necessarily buy it, from what we can tell, although they didn’t have enough to charge him. And now he’s been out roaming the country ever since, and we picked him up hitchhiking yesterday morning, which was Billy Don’s dumb idea. One of many.
Marlin had been drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel—and noting that the voicemail wasn’t even halfway done—but he couldn’t help but be a little amused by this strange tale.
So I was kind of suspicious of him from the start, because what’re the odds his daddy would fall off a roof a minute or two after telling Garrett he was divorcing his mom? That’s a hell of a coincidence, doncha think? But how do you prove a thing like that without a witness, is what I was wondering, because I don’t think there’s a good way to do it. So then he was staying at my place overnight—I’m talking about Garrett, not his daddy—and it turns out he had a handgun in his backpack.
Okay, now it was getting even more interesting.
Yeah, okay, I peeked and I saw it, but since the backpack was in my house, I figure that’s okay, right? Of course, you know I’m a big supporter of our God-given gun rights, and if I was hitchhiking around the country like some kinda hobo, you can bet I’d carry a gun, too. I asked him about the gun later, using a clever cover story, and he said he found it, which is kind of weird, just finding a handgun on the side of the highway. But then he started getting his stories crossed about where he’d been so far. When we picked him up on 32, about a mile or so east of 281, he said he’d been going south on 281 earlier in the morning, but he stopped and turned around when he saw all the cop cars parked near the zoo.
A hitchhiker with a gun near the zoo yesterday morning? Now Marlin was listening intently.
He said that was as far south as he’d ever gone in his life, that spot right there on 281 where he turned around, but then, earlier tonight, when I was asking him about his gun, he said he’d found it down near San Antonio. When I reminded him what he told us earlier—that he’d never been that far south—he got all flustered and said he meant Stephenville, not San Antonio, and if that don’t sound like a buncha bullshit, what does? I mean, I’m not necessarily saying he shot that dude at the zoo, but if he’s innocent, why did he get all worked up? At a minimum, I’m wondering if maybe he found the murder weapon and didn’t want to admit it. So I kept pushing, asking all kinds of smart questions, which only made him mad, and he said I was calling him a liar, and before you know it, he says he’s hitting the road, but before he left, he decided to bust a couple of rounds through my windshield. We looked around for the shells, but we ain’t found ’em nowhere. Guess he mighta picked ’em up. I figured you’d want to know all this, so call me back. I’d like to see the little sumbitch go to jail for what he done.
Marlin called him back.