Pious caught up with Quarrie before he left the ranch. The Riviera fully gassed up and ticking over, he was letting the engine warm up.
‘Wanted to get a-hold of you before you-all took off,’ Pious said as he came over from the cottage he shared with his mother and sister. ‘Georgia, Ike Bowen – I made those calls like you wanted and a buddy of mine from the old 2nd Company called me back last night.’
‘What did he say?’ Quarrie was adjusting the straps on his shoulder holsters.
‘Not a whole lot as it goes,’ Pious stated. ‘Not much to say about Ike Bowen except he was a pretty good soldier.’
‘Yeah, well, that part I figured already.’
Pious made an open-handed gesture. ‘That shelter he’s got going underneath the garage: all that stuff backed up in case of a hurricane or whatnot, they reckon he was always one of those survivalist types. As far as the service goes he had something of a reputation as a point man, never missed a booby trap once. A little paranoid maybe, but they said he was pretty tough.’
‘Pious, all tough guys are paranoid. You ought to know that by now.’
Pious cracked a smile. ‘Anyways, there is one thing struck me as a little odd maybe. Back in the day Ike was something of a lady’s man apparently. It wasn’t as if he had a girl in every port or anything, but he did like to fool around.’
At that Quarrie raised an eyebrow. ‘Lady’s man, uh? That don’t seem to square with him living way up there in the grassland all on his lonesome.’
‘No, it don’t,’ Pious agreed. ‘But it might account for his wife leaving out when she did. That feller you mentioned from Oklahoma, he was 82nd with Ike when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor.’ Pious fished in his back pocket for a slip of paper. ‘Sergeant name of Morley. They gave me this address. Came through that little town myself, John Q, after I got out of Leavenworth and found me that grabbling spot.’
Walking around the car he checked the tailpipes where a little moisture was leaking out.
‘Sounds like she’s running OK.’
‘Sweet as a nut; you know how she always is.’
Lifting the hood, Pious checked underneath. ‘So you’re headed back to East Texas again then, are you? What’s up with that? Don’t you have any Rangers over there?’
‘Sure we do, but they’re tied up with all the protests right now.’ Opening the driver’s door Quarrie slipped behind the wheel as Pious settled the hood. ‘Blame it on the students, bud – them or LBJ.’
‘You sure you don’t want me to fly you back over there?’ Pious said. ‘It’d be no trouble.’
Quarrie shook his head. ‘No sir, thank you. I’m going to need wheels when I get there and I already gave Marion County theirs back.’ He cast a glance towards his cottage. ‘What I need is to get quit of the Rangers and find me a sheriff’s job.’
‘James is it you’re thinking about?’
‘No momma around all these years and his dad on the road all the time. You know that can’t be good.’
‘John Q,’ Pious said, ‘if we laid you down and cut you open we’d find the word Ranger stamped right through your marrow. James knows that. He’s always known it and he’s just fine. Got him a black man to learn life’s lessons from, and in this day and age that ain’t any bad thing. You might not be around as much as you’d like but they’s plenty good folks looking out for him – Mama and Eunice, Mrs Feeley and Nolo, not to mention all the other hands. Think on her this way: your son’s got a whole bunch of different influences to study on, and I never knew Mary-Clare, but from all of what you told me, I reckon she’d settle for that.’
Quarrie drove back to Fannin County and the Bowen house. When he got there he found both the Pontiac and the pickup truck parked in the driveway and the trapdoor open in the garage. As he parked the Riviera he saw Isaac peer out the front door. He did not say anything but the expression in his eyes was hollow.
‘You OK?’ Quarrie called. ‘Isaac, are you all right?’
Isaac did not speak. He just stood in the doorway, dressed in his uniform with his tie loose at the collar.
Inside the house Quarrie could see that the furniture had been shunted around, marks in the carpet where the couch had been, the coffee table was standing askew as well as one of the armchairs. The card table was on two legs where it leaned against the bar. The fire was burning, though it was warm outside, and he could see the family photograph lying on the mantelpiece with its glass smashed.
‘What happened here?’ he said. ‘Looks like there’s been a fight.’
Squatting down beside the fire Isaac stared. ‘My brother happened,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
Isaac did not look at him.
‘Isaac, what do you mean your brother happened?’ Quarrie indicated the uniform. ‘You told me you’re done with the service. Why are you dressed like that?’
Getting up, Isaac set the card table back on its legs. ‘I was going to Shreveport,’ he said, ‘on my way to see Dr Beale. He didn’t call, so I thought I’d go over there anyway and figured I’d feel more confident if I was dressed like this. I’ve been in so long I still can’t get my head around being a civilian.’ He looked back. ‘Dad had to have a soldier in the family – did I ever tell you that? It was a given right from when me and Ishmael were kids. There’s always been a Bowen serving, firstborn usually, and I guess with this generation that should’ve been Ish.’
‘Isaac,’ Quarrie looked at the fragments of broken glass that seemed to float in the strings of the rug. ‘You said you went to Shreveport. What happened?’
‘Nothing, I never made it.’ Isaac shook his head. ‘Fact is I only got as far as the H-E-B in Paris. Went in to take a leak and I swear …’ His voice seemed to fail him suddenly.
‘What?’ Quarrie said.
Isaac stared into space. ‘I thought I saw my brother. I thought I caught sight of Ishmael standing at the door, but when I looked I couldn’t find him, not inside the store or out in the parking lot.’ He worked the heel of a hand through his hair. ‘Gave me one hell of a shock because I’d already resigned myself to the fact he was killed in that fire. But he wasn’t. Ishmael didn’t die in the fire; he was there at the grocery store.’
Arms folded, Quarrie stared.
‘I figured he’d come here so I drove on back.’ Isaac gestured to the way the furniture had been shifted. ‘He must’ve made it ahead of me though, because this is how I found the place. Like you said just now, it looks for all the world like someone had a fight, and Ishmael fights with himself.’
He sat down heavily in a chair. In the kitchen doorway Quarrie stood with his arms still folded. Isaac not looking at him, he was staring into the fire. Warm in the room, Quarrie slipped off his jacket and sat on the couch with his holsters pouched against the walls of his chest.
‘Isaac,’ he said. ‘Why I’m here – there’s something I have to tell you, something you’re not going to like.’
Isaac snorted. ‘I swear to God, there’s nothing you can say that’ll piss me off any more than I am right now.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Quarrie said.
Taking a moment, he drew a breath. ‘I’ve been working down in Marion County. I told you, on account of a couple of murders?’
Isaac nodded.
‘One of them was a woman called Mary-Beth Gavin and she used to work at Trinity Hospital. She ran the office down there but took off right after the fire.’ Quarrie was quiet for a moment before he went on. ‘The thing of it is the National Crime Information Center has picked up on a set of fingerprints. That’s the forensics department the FBI put together, and they discovered that the prints found in Mary-Beth’s house match a set from a motel room in Fairview, as well the sawn-off barrel of a shotgun. The same prints were also found at a Baptist mission cottage in Marshall, Texas, where a young maid was murdered. I’m sorry, bud, but another set were recovered from right here at your daddy’s house.’
As if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was being told, Isaac stared out of half-closed eyes.
‘The lab team from the sheriff’s department,’ Quarrie went on. ‘They sent all the prints they recovered back east, but they didn’t know about Marion County. The NCIC picked up the match and sent a teletype to my captain in Amarillo.’
Isaac lifted a palm. ‘So what’re you telling me? What does all that mean?’
‘It means that the coroner got it wrong. Isaac, whoever it was killed those other folk, they murdered your dad as well.’
Isaac was trembling where he sat. Eyes closed tightly, his lips no more than a scar against the pallid shades of his face. He did not say anything; he just sat there with his hands clasped in his lap. And then he looked up.
‘John Q,’ he said. ‘You remember how I told you that whoever it was killed him they came in through the garage?’
Quarrie nodded.
‘You told me that wasn’t possible.’
‘It isn’t, not unless they knew how to open that panel.’
Together they went downstairs to the study where Isaac sat in his father’s chair. His expression haunted, he studied the confines of the room then swivelled the chair all the way around. For a moment he stared at Quarrie then turned back to the wall where he opened the panel.
‘That is how they got in,’ he said. ‘And they didn’t need to have a gun because there were plenty already here. Nobody came knocking on the door, John Q. Nobody forced Dad down the stairs.’
Closing the panel again he cast a glance towards the study door. ‘There.’ He pointed. ‘He was standing behind the door. He had the twenty-two from the cabinet and Dad didn’t know he was there. He came down to do some paperwork or something and he didn’t turn on the overhead light. He hated that light, always said it was way too bright, couldn’t figure why he ever put it in.’ Reaching across the desk he switched on the lamp. ‘He wouldn’t have known that anyone was there, not till he was sat right here.’
He got to his feet and hovered for a second then paced the width of the room. Features taut, he opened the door to the basement passage and stood in the shadows it cast. ‘He was right here.’ Again he pointed. ‘Dad was at the desk and he stepped out from behind the door.’ Crossing the floor once more he walked around the desk and paused by the side of the chair. Briefly he looked at Quarrie. Then he formed the shape of a pistol with his thumb and index finger and pointed at the empty chair.
Quarrie considered him carefully. ‘Isaac,’ he said. ‘What’re you telling me?’
He saw Isaac swallow. His saw his Adam’s apple working up and down.
‘Ishmael,’ Isaac said. ‘It was my brother with the gun down here.’