CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I had no intention of letting the girl tip off Kimball because of late-blooming second thoughts. Which meant that she would stay in custody at least another day. I called the interfaith group like I’d promised, and they sent a representative down to the courthouse to begin the process of working with her. I also assured her that there was no need to drop the reckless endangerment charge because it had never been filed. We saw to it that she got a good lunch from the Texan Café, and by early afternoon she’d perked up and started to act like a human being again. I think she was even beginning to see the possibility of life after Scott. I hoped she’d make it into the ranks of the decent and the productive, and I told her so. But I had seen too much in my years as sheriff to have much confidence that she would.

I had phone calls to make and details to attend to, but in midmorning I stopped to have a cup of coffee and a donut with Linda.

“That was a very creative interpretation of the state enhancement statute you gave that little fool,” she said. “I’ve never heard anything quite like it before.”

“She was Mirandaized and didn’t ask for a lawyer. I don’t see that it’s my duty to explain every little nuance of the law with gilt-edged accuracy. Besides, it scared her into giving Scott Kimball up, and when she did that she made the right move for herself and her kid. Can you imagine raising a child around that boy?”

She shook her head. “She’s sure scared of dykes, isn’t she?”

I snapped my fingers. “That reminds me to make a note to Maylene. I want to have her draw up one of those fancy citizens commendation certificates from the sheriff’s department.”

“You don’t give many of those out, do you?”

“No, I do not. I strongly believe that they should be something more than a PR move.”

“I just remember two in the five years I’ve worked for you. Who’s this one for?”

“Lulu Wilson. And I’m going to personally send her a big ham at Christmas time.”

“Lulu? What did she do?”

I grinned and sipped my coffee. “That’s another of those stories too harsh for your young and tender ears.”

“Damn it, Bo,” she seethed. “You can be such an asshole sometimes!”

Just then Toby came in and took the other chair opposite my desk. “How about telling us how you made Scott Kimball for this mess?” he asked. “I thought nobody had seen him in town.”

“Two things. For one, Danny Kettle has a source who says that the coke was stolen from Zorn just like we thought, and that it was Scott who got it. At the time he told me the story, I didn’t believe it because Scott hadn’t been seen in town in months. But the last time I talked to Doyle Raynes’s aunt, she told me that Doyle was gay. Did either of you know that?”

They both shook their heads.

“But you both remember what Scott looks like, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Linda said.

“When Parker Raynes’s told me about Doyle being a homosexual, my mind flashed back to the other day when I was out at Willa’s house. She showed me two studio portraits she had made of her boys a few years ago and it all started to fall into place for me.”

“I fail to see your point,” Toby said. “What have his looks got to do with it?”

“I get it,” Linda said.

“I don’t,” Toby said.

“He and his brother Hamilton were two of the best-looking guys this town ever produced,” Linda said. “I had a terrific crush on Hamilton at one time even though he was three years younger than me.”

Toby shrugged. “Okay. I’m willing to take your word for it, but what does this have to do with Doyle Raynes? Do you think something was going on between them?”

“I feel sure of it,” I said. “I think Doyle was in love with Scott, and Scott was jerking him around every which way. Walter Durbin told me he thought Doyle was protecting somebody.”

“Isn’t this kinda off the wall?” Linda asked. “I mean, girls were always nuts about Scott, and he has the reputation of being quite the little stud hoss. And then there’s this Newland girl.”

“Not at all,” I said. “There was a juvenile case similar to this that he was involved in the year he was a junior in high school. The records were sealed by the judge’s order, but I knew what happened because I did the investigation. Do either of you remember a kid named Jimmy Dale Webster?”

“I’ve heard the name,” Toby said. “But I was in the army at the time.”

“I do,” Linda said. “He killed himself.”

“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” I said. “It was eventually ruled a suicide, but I had my doubts even back then, and I really have my doubts today. You see, Jimmy was in the closet, and he and Scott did a string of burglaries together. Scott was the instigator of the whole thing, and he was using poor Jimmy’s homosexuality to control him.”

“You mean he was letting Jimmy blow him, don’t you?” Linda asked.

I laughed. “I was going to phrase it a little more delicately, but yes, they were having sex. Scott took the male role, as you might expect. Jimmy Dale copped to the whole thing. Jimmy’s dad was a retired air force officer, and at the time he owned a security company that had contracts spread out over three or four counties. Since his clients were the only ones hit, it was obvious what was happening. I leaned on Jimmy pretty hard, and he confessed. The windup of the thing was that both boys got probation because of their age.”

“But why would Scott kill him if they were already caught?” Toby asked.

“Revenge. He was mad as hell that Jimmy had revealed their affair. I knew about it, the judge knew, the prosecutor knew, Walter Durbin and Dud Malone knew because they represented the two boys.”

“I can see that,” Toby said. “For lots of people, queer is queer and it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re pitching or catching. Most black folks are that way.”

“So you’re convinced Scott was doing the same thing with Doyle Raynes?” Linda asked.

“I’d almost bet my life on it. I think Scott killed Amanda Twiller and made Doyle help him dump the body. You see, I always had a problem with Arno as her killer because a pro like him would have gotten her off somewhere and shot her and left the body where it fell. Then there’s another thing. Agent Hotchkiss and I have thought from the first that somebody was sending a message by dumping the body right out in public like that, and I know for a fact that Scott hates me and he hates this town. So…”

“What possible motive could he have had?” Toby asked.

“Either somebody paid him to do it, or the three of them were together and something got out of hand. It could have been unpremeditated. Amanda Twiller and Doyle were both known dopers, and I feel sure Scott isn’t averse to trying a little of whatever came along. Put three unstable people together with a bottle of whisky and some drugs late at night, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.”

“What about Willa?” Linda asked. “Do we need to go see her?”

“I already have. She says she hasn’t seen him, and that means she hasn’t. All the times I ever had trouble with Scott, she backed me up because she knew I was trying to get him to settle down and be decent. He’ll avoid her because he knows she won’t hide him or lie for him.”

*   *   *

By late afternoon I had assembled my team. It would be a multiagency operation for the simple reason that I didn’t have the available manpower to go it alone. Nor was I inclined to do so. The target house was inside the city limits, which gave the Sequoya Police Department a strong claim on inclusion and so did Hotchkiss. Texas Ranger Don Thornton was working the Doyle Raynes case, and I knew I could count on him. From my own force I picked Linda and Toby, with Otis Tremmel as surveillance and backup.

Clyde Morgan over at the city police assigned one of their best young patrolmen—Herbert Stovall, a graduate of the police academy up at Kilgore Junior College. I was one of the few people in town who knew Stovall’s first name since he’d gone by “Bobo” practically since birth. So we had a Bo, a Bobo, and a Bob, something that gave me a momentary urge to include Bubba Cates just to confuse the media people if anything newsworthy came out of the raid. But I resisted.

I got everybody together in my office in the courthouse. “First order of business,” I said after I had made introductions. “What we have on tap tonight is something we’re almost certain is a big drug buy. I’m sure all of you remember Lester Sipes from the newspapers and TV a few years back. According to Agent Hotchkiss, Sipes is now heavily involved in the cocaine trade. One of our local yokels, a liquor store owner named Emmet Zorn, has been muleing the stuff to Dallas for him. On the most recent shipment Zorn decided to screw Sipes, sell the coke, and then vanish. To that end, he got in touch with a drug dealer in St. Louis who wanted the stuff really bad. This St. Louis guy sent an idiot named Willard Peet down here to arrange the transaction, but when he hit town he couldn’t find Zorn. Peet freaked out when he failed to make contact, and went around asking people about him and insulting folks and in general acting obnoxious until he came to the attention of two of my deputies. They hauled him in, and largely through the encouragement of Chief Deputy Toby Parsons, he was made to see the error of his ways.”

“How did you do that, Toby?” Bobo Stovall asked.

“I appealed to the brother’s sense of racial solidarity.”

“Yeah, right,” Bobo said with a laugh.

“Once Peet saw the light,” I continued, “he ratted out both Zorn and his employer up north. But by this time Zorn had developed a major problem. The cocaine, which is valued in the neighborhood of a million dollars wholesale, had gone missing, and everything points to its having been stolen from Zorn by one of our local bad boys, a young rogue named Scott Kimball.

“I’m sure most of you are familiar with Scott. I’m also sure you realize that my main interest in this affair is nailing him because I think he did both the Twiller and Raynes killings. Yesterday, one of my informants called in a tip that Kimball was at a house over on the north side of town. We raided the place only to find that for some reason, Kimball had bugged out just before we got there. We did apprehend his girlfriend, and she has acknowledged her errors and begun to mend her ways. As a show of good faith, she told us about this drug buy. A second consequence of yesterday’s raid was that a mob-connected hoodlum named Paul Arno crossed on over Jordan. Kimball’s girlfriend told me that Arno was helping Kimball sell something that was supposed to bring him a big chunk of money, so I don’t see how it could be anything else. My take on it is that Kimball had the coke, but no contacts with possible buyers. Arno had the contacts but no coke, so they both must have seen it as a match made in heaven.”

“Aren’t you afraid Kimball will assume the girl tipped us off?” Stovall asked.

“Not really. He’s either going to be there or he isn’t. The girl claims he’s not aware that she knows about it. She heard him and Arno talking when they didn’t know she was listening. We think Kimball owes some heavy gambling debts to some bad people down in Houston, and he’s probably getting a little desperate.”

“There’s something else that makes me think he’ll be there tonight,” Bob Thornton said. “With Arno dead he may not have any way to get in touch with his buyers to reschedule the meeting. So it’s now or never.”

“Who does the house belong to?” Linda asked.

“It’s a rental. One of Kimball’s buddies is the name on the lease, but he hasn’t been in town for two weeks. He left Kimball the key.” I looked around the room. “Any more questions?” I asked.

A shaking of heads.

“Okay,” I said. “The house across the street is also a rental, and it’s empty. I got the key from the owner, and Otis Tremmel is going to go over there in civilian clothes about seven and go in the back door. He’s got binoculars, and there’s a streetlight right in front of the target house. He’ll let us know if and when the people show up.

“Now remember one last thing. Scott Kimball has almost certainly murdered two people that we know about. He was the cause of his only brother’s death, and he never showed a dime’s worth of remorse or guilt over that. Ever since he was a little kid he’s given every indication that he was developing into a stone psychopath. In all probability, the people he’s dealing with on this coke deal are going to be of similar disposition. So I want you to keep in mind that each of you is more important to your families, your community, and to me than any of these people we’ll be going up against. So don’t take any silly chances, and don’t hesitate a second if your life is on the line. I want everybody safe and sound and back down here bitching about the paperwork when it’s all over.”

Bob Thornton raised his hand.

“Go ahead, Bob,” I said.

He turned to face the group. “Folks, Bo is telling you right about that. And something else. Me and him both have been in enough of these old shooting fracases to know they’re no fun. When it comes down to the wire tonight you’re going to be scared shitless. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m going to be scared shitless right along with you. In fact, if you aren’t scared you need to get out of police work because a little fear is an asset to this job. Now go ahead, Bo. I’ve had my say.”

“Thanks, Bob,” I said and looked at my watch. “It’s four-thirty now and we need to meet back here at seven. Go across the street and have a little supper if you want. Or go outside and smoke or whatever. Just be here on time with your flak vests and helmets and all that fancy Dirty Harry gear. Okay?”