CHAPTER SEVEN

Toby and Sheila and I went back to the courthouse while Billy Don hauled Doyle Raynes out to the jail for booking. Otis Tremmel had more forensics training than anybody else on the force, myself included. I had him stay on the scene to meet the DPS team.

Caddo County had built a new jail the year before on the north side of town, but we hadn’t finished moving our whole operation into our new offices. When Amanda Twiller was murdered, the sheriff’s department itself was still housed in the basement of the courthouse, just as it had been for decades. Until the previous May, the jail had also been in the basement, but it had long ago become inadequate.

There had been an advantage to having the jail close to the courthouse because the sheriff is responsible for delivering prisoners to the court for arraignments and trials. Since there was no suitable place downtown to build a new “detention facility,” as they are now called, the county located it on the edge of town and bought a van to transport prisoners. Before the end of the year, my office was scheduled to be moved to the new building, but even this was not the best of all possible arrangements. I was expected to provide security for the court. In view of the number of courthouse shootings in the last few years, this was not an unreasonable requirement. The problem was that I didn’t have enough deputies to station two at the courthouse during office hours and still have the manpower I needed to do everything else I was expected to do.

The air was hot and oppressive when we got out of the Suburban, and the whole square looked like it needed a bath. Most of the cars parked around the square held a fine layer of dust, and the windows of the stores across the street were greasy and dull.

“I’m going to the library to write and file my story about the arrest,” Sheila said. “Do you still want me to come by tonight, or have I worn out my welcome?”

“Yeah, but I may be a little late. Still got your key?”

“Sure.”

“Good. If I’m not there, you just go on in and make yourself at home. Fix yourself a sandwich or something, and have a drink.”

I washed my hands and face and went upstairs and got more cheese and crackers and a Coke. Somewhere along the way I was going to need to get something more substantial to eat, but that could wait. I’d had plenty of practice missing meals in almost thirty years on this job. As I came through the outer office I motioned Toby into my inner sanctum and shut the door. I took a long pull of my Coke and kicked my boots off my tired feet and flopped down in my big desk chair. Sighing, I looked up longingly at my Browning Superposed hanging in the gun rack and remembered that I’d rolled out of bed that morning planning to go out to the gun club for a couple rounds of sporting clays this afternoon.

“What now?” Toby asked.

“Call Billy Don and tell him that when he gets done at the jail I want the two of you to go get Emmet Zorn and bring him down here. I want to know what he was doing with that Raynes kid last night.”

“Okay,” he said with a grin. “That sounds like fun.”

*   *   *

Mercifully, after Toby left I managed to get in some time on the computer working on my budget and other paperwork. I was interrupted when he knocked on the door to announce that he and Billy Don had their quarry outside.

Zorn came through the door and I motioned for him to take a seat across from my desk. I noticed that he had a new toothpick installed in his mouth, this one red. He’d also changed his tie. The current one was dark gray with a clasp of faux gold with a big piece of green plastic that was meant to pass for jade but didn’t. He was also a bit more subdued than he had been that morning. A sheriff’s office can have that effect on a man.

“Then I guess you want me to make that statement we talked about earlier,” he said.

I shook my head. “Not right now. At the moment I need a couple of answers.”

“What?”

“A little while ago we arrested a boy named Doyle Raynes for Amanda Twiller’s murder.”

That seemed to surprise him. “That’s a shame,” he said. “I always thought Doyle was a good kid. Do you really think he did it?”

“At this point it sure looks like it. And you and I have a problem.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I have a reliable witness who saw you and Doyle with Mrs. Twiller at the Pak-a-Sak about two-thirty last night.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything about that without a lawyer.”

“That’s certainly your right, but if you were to tell me what the three of you did after you left the store we might be able to clear this up without involving any attorneys.”

He thought it over for a few seconds. “Okay. I pulled something stupid. I may have committed a liquor violation. It was after legal hours, and Doyle wanted to buy a bottle of whisky. So I went in the store and got it for him, but I wouldn’t let him pay me. I just gave it to him. Is that a violation?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I said. “It would have been if you sold it, but it really makes no difference since I’m more interested in the Twiller murder than hanging some chickenshit misdemeanor on you. How did you get to the store? I thought you told me earlier you left the Sawmill with some other people.”

“I did,” he said. “They dropped me off at home. My car was there.”

“I don’t guess you’d mind giving me their names, then?”

“It was a buddy of mine named Wayne Pierce and his girlfriend. He lives in Henderson.”

“The girlfriend’s name?”

“Chelsea something or other. I don’t remember. Wayne runs a landscaping company up there. You can find him without any trouble.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ve got you at home by eleven or so. How did you come to be back at the Pak-a-Sak at two-thirty?”

“Doyle called about two and wanted a bottle. He said he’d come by and pick me up. Instead I told him I’d meet him at the store.”

“So you claim you got out of bed or whatever and came down here to break the law in the early hours of the morning to accommodate a screwup like Doyle Raynes? I’m not sure that makes much sense to me.”

“Like I told you, I thought he was a good kid. He helps me out around the store some, and I kinda took an interest in him. Besides, I was still up, anyway.”

“There’s one little problem with that. Doyle’s aunt told me that he borrowed twenty bucks from her right before he left at ten. He said he wanted it to buy some whisky with, but you claim he didn’t call you until two. What were they doing all that time?”

“Man, I don’t have any idea. Maybe over to somebody’s house or something. I wasn’t with them.”

“Okay, do you know where they went when they left?”

“Beats me,” he said. “Some place to fuck, probably.”

I felt my face harden. I don’t like the word, and I certainly didn’t like to hear it used in reference to a woman who had just been murdered. “Oh? What makes you say that?”

“Doyle had some pills, and she’d do anybody for a few pills. She’d gotten that bad.”

I’d had enough of him for the moment. “You can go,” I said.

“I need somebody to take me home.”

“In a minute. Just wait in the outer office.”

Toby pushed the door shut behind him. “Now what do you make of that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “What’s your take on him?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t got one yet. What do you want to do with the man?”

I rose and put my hat on my head. “Take him on home. We’ve got nothing to hold him on. And send somebody up to Henderson in the morning and ask this Wayne Pierce guy about Zorn’s story. You might run Pierce through the DPS computer too. And have somebody check him out with the cops up there in Rusk County.”

“Tonight?” Toby asked. “We’re shorthanded this evening.”

“Just leave a note on Maylene’s desk and tell her to have somebody do it in the morning.”

“Anything else?”

I shook my head. “Now I got to go eat or drop.”