Chapter Thirty
Zavala County, TX.
He'd slept in his own bed a few scant hours. The apartment in Laredo numb and black. He'd showered, changed. Lit out in the pre-dawn silence.
Past the airport, the breakfast joint served him huevos rancheros and refried beans. Corn tortillas. Stewed coffee. He'd finished up and hit the road.
Two hours later parked at the foot of a driveway—the nagging feeling is stronger than ever. A sensation building, same as right before they sent him overseas. A point approaching—fork in the road. Something final set to change.
He stares at the concrete deer grazing in a barren yard.
A station wagon's parked in front of a one-floor house. He walks up to the door, knocks hard. Steps back. Hears a female voice, muffled.
The lock turns, the door starts to open.
Lindy Page is in a bagged-out top and jogging pants. She stares a split second, tries to slam the door shut.
He jams his boot into the gap.
“They let me out already.” She stares at him, eyes shining. “I talked with that lady deputy.”
“You tell me what I need to know,” Whicher says, “and we're done with this.”
She stops pushing, steps out in the yard. “I wish I'd never met him.” She takes a few paces, stands beneath the Mexican white oak.
The marshal follows. “I need to know about Todd.”
She shakes her head.
“He worked up in Chicago one time, were you with him then? He ever talk to you about it?”
Lindy sniffs into her hand.
“Reba Williams told me Todd was working some warehouse. How'd he come by a job like that, all the way up there?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he know a man named Merrill Johnson?”
Her face is blank.
“You really don't want to know who killed Todd?”
She stares at the ground.
“Why'd you run out on me that first day? At the restaurant...”
“I done told you why.”
“You told me law enforcement showed up,” Whicher says. “Was it a blond haired man? Wearing a suit?”
A flicker passes behind her eyes.
“You can’t wash your hands of this, Lindy.”
“I got nothing to say to you.”
Dogs. He remembers the dogs. Three of them, farm dogs, German Shepherds.
He can hear them. Barking, coming. He steps from the truck, into the nearest barn.
The earth underfoot is hard, trampled down. No animals. The farm had no stock. He eyes the standpipe—the place had water, shelter. Isolation. Maybe that was all it needed?
Through the barn’s open doors, he sees Zach Tutton coming through the yard, dogs out in front.
Whicher draws the Glock.
“What's going on?” Zach calls.
The marshal walks to the next-in-line barn.
Straw is on the ground. Electric lights hanging from the roof. He spots a door, crosses to it. The door leads back out to the yard—to a lean-to shelter, a plywood stall, the smell unmistakeable; an outhouse.
Zach Tutton runs around the side of the barn, dogs yelping. “What do you want?” he shouts. “Is this a search?”
Whicher keeps on walking.
“You come with a warrant?”
At the house old man Tutton steps out, length of stick in his hand.
Whicher points at the German Shepherds. “Y'all get them dogs under control.”
The old man moves in, stick raised. He yells at the dogs, “Shut the hell up...”
Zach grabs at the collar on one, the old man snatches it from him, pulling the animal toward the house. “These here is guard dogs...”
“Get 'em in hand.”
The loose dogs scatter.
Zach stares. “You just searched the place. You better have a warrant...”
Old man Tutton kicks the door to the mud room, storming in.
“I came here to talk, is all. Your dogs chased me through the yard.”
Zach spits in the dirt. “Real smart,” he says.
Whicher fits the Glock back in the holster.
“What do you want?”
“You knew Todd Williams.”
“He told me he was...”
“Working as a hunting guide, you told me that already. I want to know about Chicago. What the hell was he doing up there? Don't give me any shit, you must've known about it.”
Zach bugs his eyes. “He got a job, he was working...”
“Thirteen-hundred miles away? He couldn't get a job digging ditches the end of this lane.”
The young man's face is sullen.
“What was he doing? How'd he get the damn thing?”
“I don't know. It was, like, some warehouse job...”
“A warehouse?”
Zach shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “They'd get freight, unload it. Same as his pa done.”
“His pa?”
“He's been dead ten year. But he used to work the railroad.”
Whicher scans the empty farmyard. “What's going on out here, Zach? What do you do all day?”
“The land's all rented...”
“Who do you talk to? All that radio gear of yours?”
“All kinds of people...”
“People in Mexico? People from around here? People coming through the brush?”
Old man Tutton's out of the house now—making straight for Whicher's Chevy. In his hand is a wad of notepaper.
The marshal calls over, “Mister Tutton...”
The man reaches the truck. He stares at the front, writing something on the pad.
Whicher moves to him. “Mister Tutton, what are you doing?”
“License plate.”
“You're writing down my license plate?”
“I want your badge too, your number. Last time you came here, I called a lawyer out to Crystal City.” He squints up from the notepad. “I get your number, I can make a complaint.”
Whicher pushes back the Resistol.
From inside the Chevy is a static burst on an incoming call. He opens up, whips the receiver off the hook. “Whicher...”
“Marshal, this is dispatch at Dimmit County Sheriff. We have a message. Highway Patrol, in Medina County.”
“Medina?”
“San Antonio area.”
“What's the message?”
“They picked up somebody name of Boyd Harris. Sheriff said you'd be wanting to know.”
Jug Line Harris.
“He was running?”
“All I have is they arrested him.”
“Where is he now?”
“Sheriff says he's on his way down here.”