 
### The Grave on Peckerwood Hill

the Smashwords Edition

of a Leberri Publishing novel

Copyright ©2012 James Gary Vineyard

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. Please don't resell it or give it away.

If you want to share this book, please purchase an additional copy as a gift.

Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Credits

Cover photo courtesy Serif _Premium Image Collection 5_

Editing, formatting and cover design by Harvey Stanbrough

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for Diana, my wife, goddess of love,

muse and inspiration, and patience beyond belief

### The Grave on Peckerwood Hill

James Gary Vineyard

Prologue

December 25, 1963

While his wife and infant son were out of town, Jack Brite spent the afternoon gathering brush from the family's 100-acre farm in West Texas. When the pile was over six feet high, he went to his art studio behind the house and hauled out a newly finished piece: a cube of glass cast to resemble a large block of melting ice on wooden porch steps. A pair of ice tongs hung from the block as if the iceman had vanished the moment it was delivered. A sealed white envelope, clearly visible in the center of the faux ice, displayed in Brite's own handwriting, To Whom It May Concern. There was no way of knowing whether the envelope actually contained a message or was simply an element of the piece.

Shortly before sunset, Brite placed the art object thirty yards away from the brush pile and set a chair atop the mound. He retrieved a bottle of grain alcohol and a pistol from the trunk of his car and climbed up to the chair, his pockets bulging with ammunition. From his perch, he sipped the alcohol and shot out all of the windows of his studio. He poured the remaining liquor into the brush pile and lit it. When the flames became intolerable, he used the pistol on himself.

Jack Brite must have known the envelope in his ice block would foment holy hell. After the bullet hole was discovered in his charred skull, the police insisted on breaking the glass and opening the envelope. But Brite's wife refused to give her consent, and she contacted the family attorney, who obtained an injunction prohibiting the destruction of the sculpture without probable cause that it was relevant to his death. The petition cited Jack's mental instability, history of violence, and constant threats of suicide. But the determinant factor was the piece's importance to the world as his final work.

Mrs. Brite never doubted that her husband's death was self-inflicted. He was as abusive to himself as he was to her. He raved about killing himself each time he got drunk, which was daily. Everyone who knew him understood that the glass-encapsulated envelope was a provocation to pit legal authorities against art lovers, both of whom Jack hated. Artists in Santa Fe and Taos toasted Brite's Christmas prank and bade him good riddance.

A month later, Brite's wife sold the ice piece to a collector for an undisclosed amount of money. It was never exhibited, and no one knew whether the envelope was ever examined.

Chapter 1

Charlie Eastman looked at the silver disk in his hand. The Marks-A-Lot lettering across it was probably a case number. "This is the murder of those boys?"

Tillman nodded. "From the time they sneak off until it happens."

"And it's all on here?"

"It's pretty explicit."

Eastman glanced at his watch. "Look, John, I've got a car and a U-Haul to unload."

Tillman dug into an ecofriendly grocery bag slung over his shoulder and brought out a laptop. "Give me five minutes. All you have to do is sit there."

Eastman scanned the two rows of service ribbons under Tillman's badge. "You shouldn't be discussing this with me, you know."

"You'd watch it if my daddy asked you to.".

Eastman looked at him for a moment, remembering a kid in a Cub Scout uniform decorated with patches. He sat on a cardboard box. "All right. Let's get it over with."

Tillman set the laptop on another box and punched a button.

While it booted up, Eastman said, "Sorry about the mess, but the movers don't show up 'till tomorrow. I had to buy a cot at Walmart this morning."

"You're always welcome at our house."

"I'm fine right here," Eastman said. He put on his glasses while Tillman inserted the disk.

"Now, remember. Noble Goodman's the seventeen year old. Rich family. The ultimate geek. He has the camera. The other kid, Chuy, is just there as his helper, as far as we can tell."

"How old is he?"

"Thirteen. Not in the seventeen year old's peer group, but he's a Spanish speaker, and that's all the older boy cared about. Chuy's family moved up here from the Rio Grande Valley a couple of years ago. The Medinas. Anyway, Noble uses Chuy—used Chuy— as a translator for his so-called documentaries."

"What's there to document on a river bottom in the middle of the night?"

"Good question. Here's a better one. Why did a rich, white kid and poor Mexican boy sneak out of their nice warm houses in the worst ice storm to hit the state in years and end up dead?" Tillman switched off the room light. "Actually, the video's pretty darned good under the circumstances."

When the video began, Tillman punched up the sound and said, "Okay, we start off in Noble Goodman's pickup." He tapped the screen with his finger. "You can see the Goodmans' mailbox in the headlights as Noble pulls onto the highway. That noise in the background is a Dallas radio station giving out weather advisories."

Eastman leaned closer. "The picture looks like it's shot from a patrol car camera."

Tillman nodded. "Mounted right on the dash like the one in my car. He'll take it with him when they get out. This kid's got better equipment than we do. His daddy sees to it. Later, he'll flip on a spotlight and use a tripod, but right now, the dumbass is trying to keep the truck on the road. Look at that sleet."

"The little kid with him?"

"Not yet. You'll see him get in a minute. Okay, here's where he pulls into the Heart Mart. And there—right there—that's Chuy waiting for him inside." Tillman paused it and took a handful of papers out of the laptop case while Eastman studied the motionless boy behind a glass door.

Tillman's finger slid down one of the pages. "Now, after he gets in, they shoot the shit for a while. Mostly about the weather. Then we get to the crazy stuff. I'll goose it up to there."

He fast-forwarded until it cut to an exterior shot that opened with whirling ice specks and relentless wind. The camera swung down to a small boy wearing a plaid hunting cap and a heavy camouflage coat.

On the screen one of the boys said, "Chuy, can you understand what they're saying? Are they speaking Spanish?"

Tillman interjected. "That's Noble talking. Remember, he's running the camera."

"So I gathered."

The little boy fumbled with the cap until he freed an earflap and lifted it. "I can't hear too good, Noble. There's too much wind and stuff."

Still running, the camera moved through the waist-deep chaparral and into a grove of small trees, where Noble Goodman's breathing became audible.

Eastman leaned forward again. "Whoa, John." A pause while Eastman studied the picture. "Where are they?"

"They're cutting through an old peach orchard," Tillman said. He touched the screen. "Noble's switched on the light, so there's a great shot of this twisted-up tree."

"But that's a pear tree, right?"

"Yeah. I guess somebody in the family didn't care for peaches. I located it a couple of days after we found the camera."

"What time's all this happening?"

"Around one in the morning. It was ten degrees out there." Tillman turned up the volume. "Listen for sort of a whirring noise in the background."

"Whirring?"

"Kind of a whine. See what you think."

"What about the voices the older boy asked about earlier? Do we ever hear them?"

Tillman shook his head. "Might never have been any. He was pretty high-strung."

In the next segment, the camera was affixed to a tripod, and a light lit up the flecks of ice slanting across the screen. Noble walked into the frame and stood like a mannequin in a flapping parka. He fumbled with a small notebook and spoke to the camera.

Tillman muted it.

"He's just spouting a bunch of gibberish about UFOs and little gray bastards from Pluto or someplace. He says they've been abducting people for centuries."

"You think that's what he's trying to do? Film a UFO?"

"He never comes out and says it, but I think so."

"The little kid believe in that stuff, too?"

"Lord, no. Chuy was solid as a rock. I'm convinced he was just there for the money Noble paid him."

"Couldn't Noble find a translator his own age?"

"Nobody his own age could stand him. He was an arrogant little shit. His daddy told me Noble paid Chuy twenty bucks a session to talk to the ranch hands."

"About what?"

"Superstitions mostly. You know, black blobs, the evil eye, and so forth."

"And chupacabras?"

Tillman frowned.

"The goatsuckers," Eastman said. "Devils with big red eyes. They drink goats' blood." He made a pair of fangs with two fingers. "Or yours, if they're real thirsty. The wets are scared to death of them."

"That how you learned Spanish? Working the border?"

"No, Granddad made me take it in school. He didn't want me talking Tex-Mex." He nodded at the screen. "What about that notebook Noble keeps coon-fingering?"

"We never found it," Tillman said. "Found the camera in some brush on a cut bank, but that's it. We didn't find the tripod or his backpack, either."

"Keys to the truck?"

"Nope."

"The bodies are still missing, right?"

"Right."

"What about the truck?"

"They left it in an old shed north of where this happened. Nearly all the fingerprints in it were theirs. There were some other prints in hard-to-reach places, but they probably came from whoever put the truck together at the Ford plant. Let's look at the rest of this thing. There's only a couple of minutes left."

After Noble Goodman finished rambling about the paranormal, he smiled like a TV reporter weathering a hurricane, and Chuy said, "Let's go, Noble. I'm freezing."

Noble shielded his eyes from the light and looked at his watch. "Hang in there, Amigo. We'll be home in an hour."

Eastman and Tillman watched the boys work their way through a frozen mesquite thicket. Suddenly Noble said, "What's that?"

In a stage whisper, Chuy said, "Turn off that light!"

The screen went blank.

Tillman said, "We lose the video for a minute, but the sound's still good."

He and Eastman sat in the dark, their faces lit gray by the blank screen until Tillman held up a finger. "You hear that, Charlie?"

Eastman cocked his head. "High tension wires?"

"There's not wire one for miles," Tillman said. "No pumps. No transformers. No nothing. Get ready. Here's where that idiot turns the light back on."

Scrub brush appeared for a few seconds; then there were two metallic snaps, and the camera jumped. The screen went gray again, and sounds of thrashing tree limbs trailed off.

They watched and listened for a while, until Tillman said, "That's it. I must've watched this thing twenty times and I still get the creeps."

Eastman got up and turned on the lights. "It's strange they never made a peep. They didn't scream, and you don't hear anybody running. You're convinced they're dead?"

Tillman nodded. "They're dead. There was blood all the way to the river. That's where the dogs lost the scent."

"Both boys' blood?"

"Yep. Any thoughts?"

"Just one," Eastman said. "I doubt I'll be much help."

Tillman smiled. "I didn't expect immediate results." He ejected the disk and handed it to Eastman. "That copy's yours. Just think about it for a while. Let it kind of mix in with all that valuable experience. If you come up with something, call me. You can't imagine the pressure we're under."

"I can imagine, but don't expect anything."

After Tillman gathered up his things, Eastman followed him out to the sheriff's car and pointed across the brown pasture. "See that windmill? John Wesley Hardin killed a rancher less than a hundred yards from it. He tied him to a fence post and beat him to death over a bet on a horse race, but the jury acquitted him because a hailstorm came through afterwards and nobody could decide whether it was Hardin or the hail that killed him."

"I've heard that story a hundred times," Tillman said.

"Well, what's your opinion?"

"I think Hardin and his friends were mean sons-a-bitches and the jurors were afraid to convict him."

"You're a smart man, John," Eastman said. "I've never told this to a soul, but I've come to believe that Hardin's kind of sadism goes much further than whiskey and faulty brain wiring."

"Like he was possessed or something?"

"Hell, I don't know. But it seems to come from outside of a person. Like an external force that comes and goes in certain spots and drives people to do really bad things."

Tillman looked back at the windmill. "You think there's a force like that here?"

Eastman nodded. "Like a sore that won't heal."

"I don't get it," Tillman said. "Why would you retire and move to a place you think's got the bad mojo?"

Eastman smiled at the word. "Something to do with my genes, I suppose. I was drawn here like a nail to a magnet. Did you know eight of my ancestors were massacred by Indians on this spot? My granddad killed himself with a shotgun in the garden. They said he was depressed."

The look on Tillman's face said he knew.

"I've seen appalling things happen for no reason, none whatsoever," Eastman said. "Like some bad force just sprung up because it was waiting for the right moment."

"Like what happened to the boys?"

"Maybe. In the right place, it takes almost nothing to trigger something really horrible."

"You think they were victims of this force?"

Eastman laughed. "The rumors you've been kind enough not to mention are true. I went out on a medical because I cracked up."

"Come on, Charlie."

"No, seriously. I went nuts. But I had my twenty in, and they offered me a medical so I jumped on it."

Tillman smiled and started the car. "Watch the film again when you're ready. There's no hurry."

"That's what you think, Son," Eastman said and went inside.

Chapter 2

A roadrunner dancing along the fence watched a man in a cowboy hat pissant boxes from a U-Haul to the house. The temperature had dropped with the sun, so Eastman lit all of the burners on the kitchen stove. Dinner was a can of stew with saltines and some Cabernet he'd picked up in town.

When he was in bed, he thought about the documentary a boy unwittingly made of his own death and that of his friend. If he'd known John Tillman was going to drop by for advice about the case, he wouldn't have answered the door. But Tillman was the son of a long-dead friend, and it was only natural that he'd come to Charlie. The thing he regretted most was bringing up his screwball theory of evil. Normal people don't discuss such things outside of church, so Tillman was probably still shaking his head. But the fact remained that the land under him had been the setting for an inordinate amount of tragedy. Nobody would even try to dispute that.

Before he went to sleep, Eastman reminded himself that leaving the job and Austin was the right thing to do. He'd burned bright for a long time, worked a lot of high-profile cases, and built a reputation all over the state. When his mind began to unravel, though, he knew it was time to bow out. He rolled over and saw a thousand stars framed by a curtainless window. It was the first time he had seen stars in years, and he was overwhelmed. He considered praying, but sleep won out.

The next morning, he made coffee and drank it on the front porch, looking at the eighty acres his great-great-grandfather had purchased when Texas was granted statehood. The next generation of Eastmans had registered the first brand in the county and turned the farm into a cattle ranch that suffered more downs than ups, but the original acreage, the home pasture, had stayed in the family to the present. When a cousin living on it called to say it was up for sale, Eastman got into his forty year old Ford Bronco and headed west to buy it. Six weeks later, he moved in.

With nothing to do but wait on the movers, he put on his coat, went outside, and pulled the Bronco up to the porch. He turned up the radio and listened to music while he perused the newspaper. When he found himself scanning the obituaries for people his age, he wadded up the paper. He wanted to clear his head. The shrink had told him to stay busy, that the last thing depressed cops do before killing themselves is kill time. He would drive into town to gas up.

The engine clattered until it warmed up on the hills. On his right, fine cattle grazed in rangeland ringed by a live oak forest. On the left, the land rolled down from the highway toward a pasture bisected by a line of bare-limbed cottonwoods signifying a creek. He was feeling better, and he considered pulling over and hiking down to the creek, but then he glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that the tank was full from yesterday's fill-up. He cursed himself for not remembering the simple act.

He was light-headed, and all he could think of was getting out of the coat. His stomach felt as if he'd swallowed a swarm of bees, and he squirmed and tossed his hat into the back seat. His face was wet when he rolled the window down for a blast of cold air.

He slid the coat halfway down his arms, steadying the steering wheel with his leg. Then, tugging at the end of a sleeve behind his back, he glanced at the mirror and saw a Mercedes emblem so close to his rear bumper that he had a clear view of the driver, an impatient-looking man hunched over the wheel. Doing sixty with both arms pinned to his waist, Eastman felt like Houdini in the water tank.

The road ran straight for a short piece and snaked down the remaining miles into town. The Mercedes honked. Eastman tried to seesaw the coat back up to his shoulders, but the motion of his body jerked the wheel. The Bronco veered across the center stripe and onto the far shoulder. A blast of rocks and debris exploded under him, sending up a brown cloud as the Bronco took out a section of fence. A thicket of saplings approached the windshield, and Eastman stood on the brake pedal and grunted like an animal when he hit them.

The smaller trees yielded to the bumper, but the larger ones deflected the Bronco up, sending Eastman airborne until the right fender brushed a black mass and then stopped in soft earth. Arms still bound, Eastman thought his heart would explode. When he was sure he was intact, he worked himself into a sitting position, freed his arms, and turned off the ignition.

He climbed out of the vehicle and braced himself against it. Finding no blood or broken bones, he examined the Bronco. The saplings had given the grill and headlights a painful countenance, but if cosmetic damage and two blown tires were the extent of it, he was lucky.

Someone yelled, and he spotted a man waving from the top of the embankment. When Eastman waved back, the man started down, shifting his weight like a skier accustomed to the terrain.

"You all right?" the man asked when he was close. He was husky, sunburned, and filthy. He was wearing a leather aviator's cap, the goggles set above his forehead. A beard, mostly red, flowed onto a sleeveless shirt. He laughed. "You took out a hundred feet of fence up there."

"I was trying to take my coat off," Eastman said, wishing he'd had time to come up with something better.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. I been doing shit like that all my life." He extended his hand. "Michael Brite."

Eastman took it. "Charlie Eastman."

"You break anything, Charlie?"

"Just my Bronco."

Brite walked around it and studied a fender. "You must've hit something heavy." He took out his cell phone and offered it. "Want to call somebody?"

"A wrecker, I guess. I just retired and haven't had time to get my own phone."

"You need a ride, too. Where do you live?"

Eastman nodded south. "Just up the road."

"Ever been on a motorcycle?"

"Rode one for a living," Eastman said, getting his hat from the Bronco.

"You raced motorcycles?"

Eastman shook his head. "I was a motor jock for Austin PD a long time ago." He put on the big Stetson.

Brite pointed at the hat. "You're the Ranger that moved here."

"I'm not a Texas Ranger," Eastman said. "I was an investigator for the governor's organized crime unit, but I'm retired now."

Eastman started up to the highway with Brite following.

Brite peeled the aviator's cap off. "You remember me?"

"Yeah, you're the bush pilot," Eastman said, and nodded at Brite's arm. "It hit me when I saw that tattoo."

Brite rubbed it, grinning. "Dirt dauber on a yellow rose. It's kind of famous around here."

"Our unit didn't have time to work weed cases, but I heard about it. A farmer saw a DC-3 land in his wheat field at night, so he jumped in his truck and headed toward it. En route, a man covering his face ran through the farmer's headlights. The runner was so close, the farmer saw a yellow spot on his arm. The plane turned out to be full of weed, and the yellow spot turned out to be on your arm."

Brite grinned. "The Mexicans shorted me on fuel, and I couldn't make the landing point. I nearly died out there."

"How much time did you get?"

"Five to do, but I'm a rehabilitated man. I got a tattoo studio and a bakery. I decorate cakes and do church work... well, not church work per se. I'll do anything that requires artistic ability. Like painting baptistery scenes. You know, the little hot tub up by the pulpit."

"I know what a baptistery is."

"See, when the preacher takes somebody into one to get dipped, they want it to look like a river, and that's where I shine. I just did one for a church in Dallas. I made this big Jesus with his arms out like he's about to blast off, and I set him ass-deep in water. Then I painted a bunch of Taliban-looking guys around him. It even made the news." Brite slapped him on the shoulder. "Guess what happened next. When the county commissioner here saw it on TV, he asked me to do a sculpture for the park. Nothing religious, you understand, but something real special."

"You intend to do it?"

"I've already done it," Brite said. "Are you coming to the Christmas blowout?"

"What blowout?"

"The tree lighting in town."

"I doubt it."

"You have to. My statue's gonna be unveiled."

"A statue of you?"

"Not me. A statue to commemorate the county's agricultural achievements."

"Wild horses couldn't keep me away."

When they reached the highway, Eastman saw his tire tracks running through the mangled fence and down the slope to the lifeless Bronco.

Brite was looking down, too. "You're a lucky man, Eastman. That whole meadow belongs to Austin Blackie."

Eastman shot him a blank look.

"You never heard of Austin Blackie? The meanest rodeo bull there ever was. If old Blackie had caught us on his turf, we'd be dead."

"All that land belongs to one bull?"

"Every acre. And Blackie never forgets a face. Once, in a rodeo, he went crazy and jumped into the stands because he spotted a rider who rode him years before."

"That's some bull. Who owns him?"

Brite's arm circled his head. "Everything you see here belongs to the Pirtle Ranch. The land, the cattle, and the oil."

"And they have only one bull?"

"Many bulls. But Blackie is Ester Pirtle's favorite. She's Red's widow. When Red died, Ester bought Blackie and retired him from rodeoing. The bastard's still worth a fortune in breeding fees." Brite shook his head. "Boy, does she love that bull."

"Then we'd better tell her about the fence," Eastman said. "I'd hate for old Blackie to come looking for me."

Brite scrolled through his phone list. "I don't have her number, so I'll run by and tell her after I drop you off."

He'd left the motorcycle across the highway, hidden from passersby, in a stand of mesquite. It was massive, red, and old, but it started on the first kick and sounded like a bass drum. Brite mounted it and pulled down his goggles. He patted what was left of the seat behind him and Eastman climbed on.

"You're straddling a fine piece of art deco," Brite said over the engine noise. "A '48 Indian Chief." He adjusted something under the seat and let the motorcycle lumbered to the highway while Eastman held onto his hat. On the hardtop, Brite twisted the throttle, and there was thunder.

Chapter 3

After Sunday dinner, Ester Pirtle and her massive mutt, Little Noodle, were alone in her prairie-style mansion on the highest point in Coronado County, Texas. Although Ester's arms were elbow-deep in dishwater, her astral body was floating high in the Andes, exploring the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Soon, she wandered north to the Yucatan peninsula and settled at Chichen Itza, the center for Mayan pilgrimage for a thousand years.

"Those Mayans were something else, Noodle," she said to the sleeping dog. "Way back then, they figured out a calendar that's based on the movement of the moon and stars and all that junk." She paused to consider it. "But a man on the radio said their calendar ends pretty soon. So what happens if I expire before it does? Do I just hang around and haunt this place till Jesus shows up?"

When she realized her digital wristwatch was underwater, she jerked it out and ran cold water over it. Although it was guaranteed to a depth of two hundred meters, poking a watch into soapy water just didn't seem right. She draped it over a ripening avocado to dry off and stared at it. "I'm going crazy, Nood, and we both know it. How many old ladies wear watches that don't have hands?"

She'd bought a runner's watch for two reasons: the face lit up at the touch of a button, and it had an elapsed-time feature. Since her husband Red had died, she hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours at a time, and when she awoke in the dark, her gaze went to the clock radio. Without her glasses, the fuzzy red numbers looked like a tiny galaxy surrounded by ominous gases. But if she held the digital watch up close and squeezed it, the time appeared in squatty black numbers against a nauseatingly green background, and she knew when to tune the radio to Unseen Dimensions, hosted by a man named Bob Shaw broadcasting from Mexico.

Little Noodle was a tawny, independent, overweight Otterhound mix that Red's sister, Lurlene, had dropped off during a lunar eclipse. For a week, Lurlene had begged Ester and Red to look after the freshly weaned pup while she visited friends in Seattle. When they finally gave in, Lurlene brought him to the ranch asleep, unnamed, and wrapped in a folded quilt. When Ester took him, she remembered the eclipse and knew it was an omen.

It was also in the stars that Lurlene soon fell in love with a widower who was ten years younger and who owned a computer company in Seattle. They were married, and Lurlene sent for her belongings. Except the pup.

"What'll we call him?" Ester asked.

Red sipped his scotch and swallowed. "What's wrong with Slick?"

"You call everybody Slick," Ester said, running her hand through the curly locks on the dog's head. "How about Little Noodle?"

He looked at her. "How in God's name did you come up with that?"

"Noodle was the name of a circus horse when I was a kid. A big bay who could count and bow on one knee and give kisses. I never saw him perform, but some other kids told me all about him." She hefted the pup over her head and wiggled him while he squirmed. "I'm calling this boy Little Noodle."

By the first day of fall, Little Noodle had put on thirty pounds, and his nose was crotch-level with a person of average height, which served him well since it was the first thing he went for, regardless of the person's color, creed, or gender. Red and Ester were raising a wooly mammoth on speed.

A few years later, Red hired Ester a maid, but Ester got rid of her as soon as Red passed on. If Ester wanted to rearrange the furniture, she called in one of the ranch hands. If Little Noodle needed a bath, she called in three.

Marion Eugene Pirtle, who preferred to be called Red, was a self-made multimillionaire. Raised in a Dallas orphanage, he learned plumbing in his teens and met Ester when he was sent to unplug a toilet at the schoolhouse where she taught.

Only eighteen, Ester was still in her first year of teaching. She liked Red immediately because he laughed a lot and made her feel happy. Like Red, she was an orphan, but she had been adopted and raised by a farmer and his wife in Coronado County near the Brazos River. Later, when she told him she dreamed of living on the river again, he proposed and promised her the most beautiful ranch on the Brazos.

Red and Ester married and moved to Fort Worth, where they worked hard to start a small plumbing supply company. In the years that followed, the company grew into a chain of stores called Handyman Red, the first do-it-yourself outlets in the state. Every business move that Red made brought them more money. Then, as he promised, he acquired a section of land in Coronado County where the river wound through limestone bluffs in the heart of the state's best cattle land.

The Pirtles loved country life, and Red continued to buy more land with mineral rights. After the oil companies came and wells were pumping night and day, Ester found the time to learn livestock breeding. She also collected art and worthless books.

One summer morning, Red stepped out of his King Ranch Edition Ford pickup to open the gate at the highway and felt his heart squeeze the last drops of blood through arteries that had become occluded by prosperous living. He grabbed his cell phone and told the 9-1-1 operator that a meteor had struck him in the chest. When the emergency attendants arrived, they found Red on all fours, searching for the valuable object that had smacked him. He died before they reached the hospital.

Though Red was gone, the Pirtle enterprises ran as smoothly as they ever had, which confirmed what many had suspected: Ester had been the brains of the outfit. If she and Little Noodle showed up at a cattle auction, they were treated with utmost respect. Most days, Ester read her books. But from midnight until dawn, seven days a week, she listened to Bob Shaw on a portable radio with an earplug, a habit she'd acquired while sleeping with Red.

Bob Shaw and a vast array of his guests hawked new age books and sold everything from aphrodisiacs to survival gear. Shaw called the program Unseen Dimensions, and Ester was one of his biggest fans and a regular caller.

On the fifth anniversary of Red's death, after a bowl of soup for herself and a sandwich for Little Noodle, Ester tidied the kitchen and slipped on a pair of white gloves. The sight of the gloves made Little Noodle whirl like a tornado and bark until she opened the car door and let him in.

She started the Lincoln and squeezed her wristwatch. When Little Noodle heard it chirp, he hopped into the back seat and stared at the back of her head. She buzzed the rear windows down.

"Ready, Nood? she asked, and Little Noodle braced himself. "T minus ten and counting. Nine... eight... seven...." At "One!" Ester started the timer, yanked the shift lever into D, and spun gravel. The big silver shark swam out of the driveway, then straightened for the roller coaster ride to the cattle guard.

Ester and Little Noodle were objects in motion, and she aimed for them to stay that way. She was out to break her own speed record for the six-mile stretch of road from her driveway to Red's grave in the Balm of Gilead Cemetery.

"How we doing on time, Nood?" she yelled as they zoomed down Highway Four, but the dog didn't know or care how they were doing. He just enjoyed poking his big head out of the window and feeling his ears flap. It was Monday's routine.

If Ester got her days mixed up, Little Noodle set her straight. The oafish hound didn't know Monday from Thursday, but over the years, he learned each day's ritual. On certain mornings, Ester drove to town and put envelopes into a metal box through a little door. When she let go of the little door, it clanged loudly enough to make him jump. Then she'd drive to another building and leave him to snooze on the cool leather of the back seat. When she returned, her hair was marked with a smell that made him snort and shake his head. Little Noodle liked these hair-day mornings, but they didn't compare with the trip to the cemetery in the afternoon.

When Ester reached the highway, traffic was light. It was too early for creeping afternoon school buses, so her only concern was running up behind a funeral procession. "If that happens, I'll blow the bastards plum off the road," she grumbled in Little Noodle's direction and gripped the wheel more tightly.

When they hit the dirt road at the Episcopal Church—the five-mile marker—she glanced at the time and smiled.

"Thirty-five seconds to the good, Noodle-boy."

In the final stretch, she took a breath, held the front wheels straight, and let the heavy Lincoln sail between two white pillars at the cemetery's entrance. Then, after a quick left at the litter barrel, she hit the brakes.

Little Noodle heard the watch chirp again and bailed out.

"We did it!" she yelled at the graveyard's largest tombstone. "Hear that, Red? The thrill of victory!"

Billy Poco, the cemetery's caretaker, was eating lunch astride an ancient Farmall tractor. He took the last bite of his sandwich, lifted a Coke from the engine cowling, and started the motor. By the time he pulled up behind Ester's car, she was taking a rake from the trunk. When she saw him, she pumped it in the air victoriously and pointed to her watch.

"Nine seconds under, Billy Boy. My heart's still pounding." She smiled at Red's tombstone. "No offense, Red."

"You scared the daylights out of Noodle," Billy said. "He come through the window before you stopped good."

"He always does," she said. "He makes a beeline for the pond to top off his tank. It takes lots of water to mark all these headstones."

She headed toward the grave with the rake. "How's the dying business, Billy?"

"Never seen anything like it. I done two funerals last week and got another tomorrow."

"That's because most folks around here are as old I am," she said. "Half the county lives in rest homes and the others are waiting to get in." She started to rake, but he stopped her.

"Let me do that," he said.

While he tended the grave, she walked off, clapping her hands and calling the dog. After a minute or two, Billy Poco dropped the rake and went to help her. "I seen him over yonder a minute ago," he said when he caught up. "He may've tooken off after a jackrabbit. I bet if you slam the car door, he'll think you're leaving."

"It's worth a try," she said and headed for the car while Billy Poco climbed up on a tall marker.

"There he is, Miz Pirtle," he yelled. "Back yonder. Digging in the old part."

When she spotted the dust geyser, she headed for it. "That makes me so blooming mad," she said. "He's digging in a new grave."

"That's where Miss Abner's buried," Billy Poco said. "She ain't been there but a week."

When they reached the dog, he was performing like a machine. She grabbed his collar, but it only made him dig harder.

Billy Poco got a grip and yanked him back. "Cottontails must'a burrowed in," he said, trying to control the wheezing dog. "They love that soft dirt."

"If you can keep a hold on Noodle, I'll cover up that hole," she said. "Won't take but a minute."

He held Little Noodle while she knelt beside the hole. She put her face close to the opening, then thrust her arm in and brought it out a soil-covered object. She shook it, then sniffed it.

Billy Poco strained to hold the dog. "What have you got, a baby skunk?"

She held it up. "It's a hat, and there's hair stuck to the band."

"Put it back. It's Miz Abner's," he said. "I smell it from here."

"I don't think so," she said, examining it. "Margaret's hair's been blue for thirty years. This hair is black." She shook the hat until a leather strap with a snap dropped out. She shook it again and a flap dropped. "That's an ear flap, Billy," she said and poked it with her finger. "This is a hunter's cap."

Chapter 4

When the bodies found in the cemetery were officially identified as Noble Goodman and Chuy Medina, the city and county bureaucrats argued about whether to proceed with the annual Christmas festival on Saturday. The matter was settled Friday afternoon at a memorial service for Noble Goodman.

Parents, teachers, and students filled the auditorium, and the overflow was diverted into the gymnasium. Noble's parents, Harvey and Kate Goodman, arrived only minutes before the service began. Kate, in a collar-up gray zippered jacket, black trousers, and white-rimmed sunglasses, more resembled an aging actress than a grieving mother. Harvey, sporting a well-gelled comb-over and stumbling, looked like her drunken horse groom.

The service was brief, with no reference to religion. Noble's science teacher, the town's only self-admitted atheist, read "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and made a few remarks about how the community had been cheated by the boys' deaths. He concluded by saying that it was the wish of the Goodman family that the Christmas festival proceed on schedule, that the Medina family had been consulted and concurred. Lastly, the principal ordered the Fighting Vinegarroons football team and Lady Vinegarroons drill team to wear black armbands at that evening's game to commemorate the loss of their comrades.

Harvey Goodman, whose eyes had been closed throughout the service, bent forward and vomited.

Several miles north of the city, Chuy Medina's family, composed mainly of undocumented immigrants, attended funeral Mass in a crowded 100 year old sanctuary. Afterward, his older brothers drank tequila and swore to avenge him.

* * *

On Saturday at dusk, the music of Red Steagall and the Bunkhouse Boys was booming from the speakers atop the Tabernacle in the city park. The old structure in the center of town had begun as a brush arbor during Prohibition for the purpose of revival meetings, but after a tin roof and cement floor were added, it became known as the Tabernacle. Although it was commonly used for family reunions and weddings, the Christmas festival was the Tabernacle's most significant affair.

Eastman pulled into a parking space.

Brite jabbed his thumb toward the green Suburban in the next space. "Looks like Doc's here."

When Eastman frowned, Brite said, "June Page."

"Last I heard, she married another doctor and was practicing in Dallas," Eastman said.

"Not for long," Brite said. "Her husband took a job at some medical school up north, so Doc divorced him and came home. She opened an office and seems happy as a lark."

"That surprises me," Eastman said. "I figured her for a lifetime of research. Maybe a Nobel Prize or something." He chuckled. "She always smelled like Noxzema."

"Is that good?"

"Better than good. Doc smelled great all the time." His hands began to move. "She had this thick red hair that bounced when she was just listening to you. And, God, was she smart! Doc could do anything... except tolerate me."

They got out and headed toward the unlit Christmas tree. Pirtle Ranch donated a tree each year. This one was a sixty-foot-tall Norway spruce was adorned with 8,462 bulbs, each representing a person in the county. Brite excused himself to prepare for the dedication of his statue while Eastman bought a hot dog from a fireman wearing corduroy reindeer antlers and ate it as he walked the park, ducking limbs pruned by workers with shorter people in mind.

He looked down the pathway at folks having the time of their lives, waiting for someone to flip a switch and make the tree glow red and green. He remembered his own family doing the same. Next to Christmas, the tree lighting was the biggest day of the year.

The odor of horse dung and fajitas wafted through the night air, and Eastman's thoughts went back to red hair and the sweet aroma of skin cream. He wondered what kind of wife Doc would have made. He was certain she would've loved Austin, which always reminded him of San Francisco with a Western flavor and which was full of smart people like her. Plus, there was always plenty to do.

He wandered the grounds for a while, reintroducing himself to people he hadn't seen in years. An elderly man, taller than Eastman, said he'd sent flowers when Eastman had been shot at a Laredo motel twenty years prior. When he noticed the man's hand was a finger short, the old gentleman made light of it, saying he'd left it on a beachhead in France.

The crowd at the Tabernacle sent up a racket that echoed off the courthouse a block away. Eastman saw a flash of light and heard wild applause. When he went to investigate, he found Doc looking through the viewfinder of a camera pointed at three grinning cowboys, each holding a headless goose by the neck. The winners of the annual goose pulling.

He stood in the crowd and watched her shout orders at the cowboys, who turned on command, raising and lowering the dead geese. The years seemed to have had minimal effect on her. Doc's fire was still unfazed in the midst of boneheadedness, and her red fringe still flew. In short, she looked good.

Goose pulling had been a popular event in Coronado County for generations. Each year, ranchers selected one of their cowboys to show off his horseback skills while competing against the best riders from the other ranches. Three geese were killed and their neck feathers plucked clean. Lard was applied to the plucked area, and the geese were hung by their feet from a tree limb. A man on horseback would ride at a full gallop toward a goose hanging at head level. The object was to grab a goose's neck tightly enough to pull its head off while the onlookers yelled, threw gimme caps, and waved their arms to distract the rider. The sport was losing popularity because most Texans viewed it as unwarranted brutality, but the citizens of Coronado County saw it as a charitable event since the winners were awarded the geese.

Doc was unscrewing the camera from the tripod when Eastman walked up. She studied him for a moment. "Good God, one dinosaur lived." When she hugged him, she caught him sniffing her neck and shoved him back. "What's the matter? You got a cold?"

"Oh, Christmas Tree" sounded over the PA system, an alert that the tree was about to be lit, so Eastman helped move her gear near Brite's statue, which looked like a monster slumbering under a canvas tarp. By the time the song ended, Doc was set up and ready.

The tree lights popped on at the bottom and climbed until the last surge of electricity brought a three-foot angel to life at the top. The burly little figure looked more like a gambling-debt collector than a cherub, holding his golden trumpet over his head like a club. The angel's manufacturers had positioned his other hand next to his face to give him the image of proclaiming joyful tidings, but after decades of Christmas tree lightings, his index finger had snapped off, giving the impression that the missing finger was up his nose. In spite of his bad manners and long-dead pigment, the townspeople greatly anticipated the angel, who never failed to bring wild applause.

Since the statue's unveiling was to follow the tree lighting, Doc snapped her photos quickly and put Eastman to work. "See that pickup over there? If we get the camera up high enough, I can shoot the reflection of the lights off the statue."

He followed her to the truck and watched her drop the tailgate with one hand. After she was in, she waved him up.

He climbed up in time to watch a line of carolers snake its way to the shrouded sculpture. As footlights around the hidden object came up, an announcer began to tell of the county's early history of settlers planting corn because it fed both humans and animals and then later, growing peanuts and cotton and raising cattle. A Gregorian chant pulsed in the background while ropes attached to the canvas grew taut. Ratchets clanked as three black-stone surfaces were revealed at the base. Soon, an inscription chiseled into the center stone was visible, and spectators gathered around to read it:

The great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies.

Destroy our farms, and grass will grow in the streets

of every city in the country.

William Jennings Bryant

The rest of Brite's piece was finally visible: three enormous, golden jellybeans floating above the ebony monolith. A web of emerald green strands connected the beans and twisted up toward the sky. Hundreds of eyes squinted in silence, and then there was applause.

"What the heck is it?" Eastman asked Doc.

"Them's peanuts!" a man in overalls announced to the large family around him. "You got to kindly blur your eyes, but that's what they are."

"Fuck me runnin'!" the woman beside him squealed. "Look at it cockeyed, and it's three big goobers!"

The word "goobers" shot through the crowd like electricity, and the excitement returned.

"Gooberhenge!" Doc said. "Brite has created Gooberhenge!"

"Where is Mr. Brite?" a man nearby asked. He looked to be sixty and was tall with seashell ears and heavily sprayed hair. He went up and down on the balls of his feet, waiting for an answer. His eyes did not leave Doc's.

"No idea," Doc told him. "Have you tried the announcer's booth?"

"I will," he said and gave her a business card. "If you spot him, call me and I'll give you a hundred bucks." He pivoted and walked into the crowd.

"Who was that?" Eastman asked.

She shrugged. "Never seen him." She showed him the card with a handwritten phone number and no name. "I don't think he came for the goose pulling."

Chapter 5

June Page, who'd been called Doc since the fifth grade, was one of Herbert Page's two daughters. Redheaded Herb was a doctor of veterinary medicine who was crazy about dogs and cats. In fact, at a time when the livestock market was in peril in Texas and the county was desperate for a large animal vet, he opened the Coronado County Small Animal Hospital.

Herb was a soft-spoken, patient man with a head for the whiskey, a love of astronomy, and a fear of cows. The fact that he was afraid of cows didn't seem to bother him. He informed anyone who snickered about it that Admiral Byrd, who traveled to the Antarctic with three Guernseys, was afraid of them, too.

Shortly after Herb had opened his new clinic, the comely daughter of a wealthy rancher lost control of her daddy's Chevrolet Coupe and broadsided Herb's beloved homemade ambulance, which was parked in front. Six months later they were married, and in the coming years, she gave birth to two red-haired daughters, June and Gristle. June was named after the month of her birth, and Gristle, after Herbert's mother.

Little June was inquisitive and loved spending evenings with her father in his tiny observatory. She looked through his big telescope and, through the cheery fog of inebriation, he taught her the stars. By the time she reached high school, she was so involved with her studies that Herb and Mama worried about her social development. She regarded every course of study with intense interest because she was convinced everything she learned would have great importance at some time in her life. For the most part, she was correct.

Except for her red hair, most people found it hard to believe June's sister, Gristle, was a member of the Page family. Gristle viewed schooling from an entirely different perspective. She couldn't see how anything she was taught in school would have a practical application in her life. For the most part, she too was correct. The only thing that held Gristle's enduring interest was art, which was unfortunate because she possessed no artistic ability whatsoever. She couldn't sketch, sculpt, or paint and she hadn't the patience to learn, but she loved everything about each. Herb and Mama knew that June would become a physician one day, but their picture of Gristle's future was fuzzier, as she spiraled around the black hole of the art world.

Herb died after a series of strokes while June was in medical school, and Gristle graduated from a West Texas university with a degree in art history. The diploma landed her low-paying jobs at a few galleries and finally, when she was approaching forty, she and a couple of friends rented an apartment in New York City and began publishing an art newsletter she called Art World. The publication was barely covering expenses when Gristle's boyfriend, a computer virtuoso, convinced her to publish it online. As an e-magazine, it succeeded beyond her wildest expectations, and Gristle worked seven days a week to make sure it continued to do so. She had never been happier.

Unfortunately, like her father, she began to drink heavily and spells of depression followed. To relieve the depression and boost her energy, she used cocaine and methamphetamine. However, she was bright enough to recognize the cycle; something had to change before her brain leaked blood or she committed suicide.

Since Christmas was only days away, and she hadn't seen her sister in several years, Gristle called Doc and told her she was coming home, that she needed a couple of weeks away from the pressure of work. She left Newark on a red-eye flight thirty minutes before her birthday and arrived in Dallas three-and-a-half hours later—forty years old and drunk.

The bars were closed, and the terminal was as quiet as a morgue when Doc found Gristle asleep in a chair at baggage claim. She shook her sister to half-consciousness and helped her to the car, where Gristle snored through the Christmas lights of downtown Fort Worth and west to where she and Doc grew up.

Doc was not a force to be underestimated. By the time Gristle had sobered up, Doc had worked out a recovery program for her. Gristle ate balanced meals, avoided booze and drugs, and exercised daily.

Two weeks later, the day before she was to return to New York, while Doc was still asleep, Gristle made coffee and decided to go for a run. She couldn't remember a single time in her life when she had been the first up.

Splashes of gray light on the kitchen curtains told her that traffic in town would soon pick up, and she shuddered at the humiliation of being run over by some cedar hacker hauling fence posts. She finished her coffee, rinsed the cup, and jogged off toward the rising sun. In an hour, she was back in the kitchen, breathing heavily and peeling an orange over the garbage can.

When Doc came down in her robe, her expression registered shock. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit! Why are you up?"

Gristle took her by the sleeve and led her to the table. "Sit down. You've got to hear something."

Doc sat, expecting to hear about a death in the family.

Gristle's eyes grew wide. "You know that big statue in the park?"

Doc frowned. "Gooberhenge?"

"I guess. Look, I got up and went for a run. I took my camera because I haven't taken a single picture since I've been here."

"And?"

"And after I rounded the square, I felt so good I decided to extend the run around the park."

"Get to the point. Who died?"

"Nobody. Just listen. It rained just before dawn so there were puddles everywhere. When I got to the far corner of the park, the water was curb to curb. I stopped and was about to go back when I saw the reflection of the statue in it."

"And you broke out laughing."

"No. My heart stopped. I think it really and truly stopped. It scared me."

"Pain on your left side or difficulty breathing?"

Gristle shook her head impatiently. "Nothing like that. Then I realized that everything around me had stopped. There were no cars. No people. No wind. Nothing. It was like time stopped!"

Doc displayed a tolerant smile. "Gris, you're in Podunk, not New York City. Rush hour here is two pickups at the blinking red light."

Gristle got up and began to pace. "Listen to me. When I saw those golden peanuts suspended between me and a wall of blue-black clouds, I was hypnotized. Suddenly, the sun burst out of the clouds like it had been waiting for a cue. It was like something out of a Bible story movie, when golden rays beam down on Moses coming down the mountain."

"An inspirational moment," Doc said.

Gristle nodded. "Only more so, if that makes sense. Then I remembered the camera in my pocket and thought if the sun would just hold it there for a minute, I'd shoot a picture of—"

"The thing."

"Yes. The thing. So I held up the camera and aimed it."

"Yes?"

"Well, then something happened. While I was composing the shot through the little window in the camera, those big shiny peanuts became a blinding crown above the monoliths, all in the foreground of that incredible sky. Doc, I swear I nearly had an orgasm."

Doc squirmed and Gristle continued. "Maybe it's because the little window reduced the image size or something, but when I pressed the—"

"The shutter. Goddamn it, Gris, would you finish the story?"

"Yes, the shutter button. When I pressed it, I felt the energy of the statue collide with the camera." She waited for Doc's reaction, but Doc's head was tilted all the way back. Her eyes were closed, and she was massaging her temples. Without opening her eyes, she asked, "Don't you suppose what you felt was the shutter opening and closing?"

"No. I know what that feels like. This was an impact. Very quick and very smooth. Like a puff of air pushing against me."

"Well, there's your answer. It was a gust of wind."

"No, it was energy! I felt like one of those people watching the first atomic bomb explode in the desert. I'm sure it's what they felt. The energy of an atom splitting."

"You mean the energy of Gooberhenge."

Gristle's hands went to her hips. She didn't appreciate Doc scoffing at her almost-religious experience. "Why do you keep saying Gooberhenge?"

"Because that's what everybody calls the damned thing. Big nuts looming over big black rocks."

Gristle sat. "You know the sculptor, right?"

"Brite? I know him. Mama said he appeared out of nowhere after we left home. His father was supposed to be some famous artist from New Mexico."

Gristle's jaw dropped. "Jack Brite?"

"I guess."

"How can I get in touch with him?"

"Drive west past the city limit sign and look for the nastiest, dirtiest thing on the landscape."

"That's where he lives?"

"No, that's him. He lives in a rundown gas station that serves as his tattoo parlor. Look, honey, Brite's a loser. He was in prison for smuggling drugs."

"Wow, that's even juicier! I'm going to do a story for Art World about this reclusive genius living quietly in Texas, surrounded by peckerwoods and prickly pear. We'll run my photo on the homepage."

"But he's not reclusive, and he's damned sure not living quietly," Doc said. "He defaced a mural in one of those megachurches in Dallas, and there's a spooky-looking process server after him." She smiled. "Brite thinks the guy's a hitman, and nobody's told him differently."

Gristle held up a hand. "Listen to me. Something really big happened today—something truly important—and somehow it involves Mr. Brite, his sculpture, maybe all of us. You wait and see."

Chapter 6

Eastman got out of the rental car and hurried through the downpour to Ester Pirtle's front porch. As soon as he rang the bell, the big dog inside clobbered the door and howled like he was dying.

"Shush, Nood," someone inside said. "Get out of the way."

While Eastman slapped the rain off his coat, the deadbolt slid to one side and the door opened to the end of a short, gold chain. The top half of Easter Pirtle's head appeared sideways in the opening, as if she'd been levitated.

He took off his hat. "I'm Charlie Eastman."

"I figured you were," she said, unlatching the chain. She held the dog by the collar. "You're the Ranger who flew too close to the sun."

"I'm not a Ranger," he said, eyeing Little Noodle as he entered. "That dog bite?"

"Hardly. He just slobbers and eats. Call me Ester, and make yourself at home." She yanked the collar and led the dog down the hallway. "Were you hurt in the wreck?" she asked over her shoulder.

"No, Ma'am, but my car's pretty banged up."

"Then have a seat while I lock this mutt in the kitchen."

While she secured the dog, Eastman hung his hat and coat on a row of horseshoes welded to a branding iron and attached to the wall. The adjacent room appeared to be an office. He stepped in.

Three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookcases surrounded a desk the size of a grand piano. The elevated desk faced a leather couch in the center of the room. On the fourth wall, a glass cabinet full of rifles and shotguns stood beside an oil painting of a buxom nude holding a wine bottle and a tambourine. This room was, no doubt, the late Red Pirtle's study.

Curious about the sort of reading that would interest a plumbing magnate, Eastman went to the books, most of which appeared to be old. He withdrew a volume at random. Artists and Illustrators of the Old West. He opened it. On the flyleaf and inside the cover were handwritten notations. He flipped to the title page. More notes in ink in a different hand. He pulled another book. The Enchanted Wanderer. He found scribbling throughout.

He moved to another bookshelf and selected Kelly Blue. As he opened it, Ester entered, breathing hard. "You need a good dog, Charlie?"

He held up the book. "Your husband read all these?"

She laughed. "Lord, no. Red liked the funny pages and pictures of naked women."

"Then the books are yours?"

She nodded. "I read all the time. I was an English teacher when I met Red."

"But every book I've picked up has been marked in. Isn't that a no-no?"

"For most teachers, I expect. But I collect marginalia. It makes a book more personal. Seems to me, a book that somebody's taken the time to write in should be worth more than a new book. My books not only tell the author's story, they tell me what other readers were thinking while they read it." She took Kelly Blue from him and showed him a page filled with notes and underlinings. "There's more than one story in a book like this."

"I never thought about it that way," he said.

"Nope." She reshelved it. "I don't buy old books that somebody's fussed over to keep them looking new. I'd feel like a chump. If a book's worth a darn, it should look read. If you borrow a book from me, I expect you mark it up." She sat on the couch. "How were the roads coming in?"

"Just wet, but it's supposed to snow."

"That's all we need," she said. "I've got some hands fixing that fence you tore up."

"That's why I'm here, Ester. I came to apologize and pay for the damage."

She smiled and patted the couch. After he was seated, her face became expressionless. "Forget the fence. I want to ask you something."

"Fire away."

"It's important that I locate a man I haven't heard from in a long time, and I was told you were the one who could do it... only if you're of a mind to, of course."

"Who are you trying to find?"

"My brother."

"Did the person who recommended me tell you I had health problems?"

She looked him over. "I was told, but you don't look crazy."

He felt his face reddening. "It's a stress-related issue. That's why I lost control of my car."

She frowned.

"One doctor said I'm bipolar. Another said it's anxiety attacks. The therapy sessions didn't work, and the medications just made things worse. So I retired and I try to avoid stress."

She stood, walked around the desk and sat in the leather throne behind it. Then she reached for a silver picture frame and rotated it so he could see the portrait of a man who looked like Elmer Fudd in a business suit. "Stress is serious business, Charlie. It's what killed this wonderful man. Stress brought on by lawyers and toilets." She turned the picture around again and gazed at it. "But now, I'm the one with stress."

"Looks like you handle it pretty well."

"I have to. I've got heart trouble, same as Red had. But whenever I feel stress coming on, I take two little pills and wash them down with scotch." She tapped her watch. "Ten minutes later, my heart's fine and I'm barefoot in the pasture."

"You're lucky," he said. "Pills and booze make me feel lousy."

She opened the lap drawer and removed a thin manila folder. She laid it on the desk. "Here's something the pills won't help." She patted the folder. "My brother."

He knew what was coming, so he sat back and crossed his legs, buying time to change the subject. "I heard you were the one who found the boys in the cemetery."

She looked up. "The dog did, and it was awful. Why do you suppose they were buried in Margaret Abner's grave?"

He shrugged. "If you want to hide a rock, put it with other rocks."

"I guess so. All that beautiful black hair stuck to Chuy's little cap... it stirred up some pretty strong feelings in me, I can tell you." She twisted a strand of her hair around her finger. "Josh's hair—that's my brother—was curly and black as coal too. Did you know we were orphans?"

"No."

She smiled. "Yep. We were shipped down from New York on the last orphan train in 1929. Ever hear of the orphan trains?"

"I don't think so."

"I'll tell you all about them sometime. But I need your help now. You might say it's urgent."

"Look, Ester," he said. "There're plenty of good investigators who'll jump at the opportunity to work for you."

She shook her head. "I don't need some jake leg who'll peck on a computer all day. I want somebody who's not afraid to get dirty. I've had you checked out, and you're the one."

He realized she was accustomed to getting her way, so he was direct. "Look, I can't do it. It's that simple."

"Do you know what that bull was worth?"

"What bull?"

"Blackie. The bull you hit."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that when you drove through my fence, you sideswiped an extremely valuable bull."

He replayed the accident in his head as she looked at him. Then he said, "The black thing was Blackie?"

"That was him. When the boys got out there to look at the fence, they found him."

"Dead?"

"Almost. He's at the vet's now."

"Thank God," he said. "I'll pay for the fence and the medical expenses."

"It's not that simple. The vet says Blackie's ruined for life."

"Ruined?"

She nodded. "To put it bluntly, his pecker's broke."

"His—"

"Pecker. Apparently Blackie tried to jump over something to get out of the way and damaged his privates. He's a low-hung son-of-a-gun."

"I see."

"He was worth a fortune in breeding fees. Now, he's worth the price of round steak."

"I'm sorry to say I don't have a fortune, Ester. I spent everything I'd saved."

She withdrew a four-inch-thick expansion file from the desk and held it in her lap, all business.

"These are Blackie's records. Every time he took a cow on a date, I went to the bank." She patted the file. "It's all here." She opened it and put her index finger on a business card stapled to the flap. "This lawyer says he'll put a veterinary surgeon on the witness stand to testify that Blackie's dating days are over."

"You intend to sue me?"

She closed the file and pushed the little folder over to him. "Watch that stress level, Charlie. I'm sure it won't come to a lawsuit."

He thought about it for a moment and then picked up the folder. "Calf rope," he mumbled.

The expression caught her off guard and she chuckled. "Then you'll do it?"

He nodded. "I'll try to come up with something. Might be as simple as a couple of phone calls." He put on his glasses and saw that the folder contained a single sheet of paper.

"That's all I have," she said. "His name is Joshua Lafoon. Went by Josh, of course. No middle name. There are a couple of other things, but the information is old. Do you have a phone?"

"Haven't had time to get one."

"I've got one you can use." She turned and walked away.

Shortly afterward, the racket in the hallway told Eastman the dog was loose, and he got to his feet as Little Noodle exploded into the room. He tried to pet the cavorting animal, but it was like feeding it speed, so he stood motionless and avoided eye contact until Ester showed up with the leash.

"Down, dammit!" she yelled, and the dog spun, a maneuver that brought his tail around like a bullwhip that cracked where Eastman's legs intersected.

Eastman sat again, bent over and rocking, while she dragged the animal away for the second time. When she returned, she offered him a cell phone wrapped in a charging cord.

"Take it," she said. "It's a loaner for the ranch hands."

When he didn't look up, she said, "Are you having a stress attack?"

He shook his head. "I think I got up too fast." He opened the folder and took out his ballpoint. "Do you have a photo of your brother?"

"Just a school picture when he was a teenager."

"Last known address?"

"No earthly idea."

Pain subsiding, he got up. "When was the last time you saw him?"

Her index finger wiggled in the air while she did the math. "If he was fifteen and I was twelve, that would make it 1937."

He clicked the pen and returned it to his pocket. "You haven't seen him in over seventy years?"

"That's about right."

"No contact whatsoever?"

"A few short letters during the war, but no mention of where he was... security reasons probably."

"Which war?"

"World War II."

"If he's your only relative and you haven't heard from him, it's a safe bet he's dead."

"Maybe, but I have to know one way or the other."

He picked up his things and headed for the door. When he looked back, she wasn't smiling.

"One more thing," she said. "It's imperative that you keep me posted on your progress."

He cracked the front door and looked out at the car, where he'd longed to be ever since he'd arrived. The angle of the gray rain had become even greater, and while Eastman put on his coat, Ester said, "Do whatever you need to do. Money's not a problem."

He was ready to run for it. Coat zipped, hat on tight. "Thanks," was all he said when he stepped off the porch and into the torrent.

The car heater started blowing warm air about the time he got into town, and he pulled into the first parking lot he came to. He shut off the engine and let the rain hammer the car while he thought about the events leading up to the mess he was in. He remembered the look on the state attorney general's face when he gave his retirement notice and walked away from an assignment most cops would trade their souls for. A month later, he'd left Austin, pulling a rented trailer, and settled in a community whose residents couldn't wait to leave. Even worse, he'd blown all his savings doing it.

He thought about the accident and the stupid bull and how he'd just become the indentured servant of a crazy woman smitten with a nostalgic longing for her brother. He looked at the folder on the seat beside him and shook his head. A flimsy bit of bullshit worth nothing. He wished he'd gotten up and walked out when she threatened to sue him. For months, every decision he'd made was bad, and things were getting worse by the day.

He felt under the seat and hefted up a suede zippered pouch, then unzipped it and admired the polished pistol that looked more like a fine ornament than a weapon. He gripped it and sighted it at the floor. Then he turned it and brought it close enough to his face that he smelled cleaning solvent. He squinted down barrel and spotted the tip of a copper-jacketed round seated only inches down, waiting to launch like a missile from a silo. When the muzzle touched his lips, he clicked off the safety and slid his thumb across the trigger. His heart pumped wildly, and his pulse throbbed in his ears. Then he smiled. The thought of dying from natural causes while he was killing himself was so absurd that it broke the spell and he laughed. He tossed the pistol onto the floor and started the engine.

He buzzed the windows down and enjoyed the rain and cold until his breathing slowed, and then he took a piece of paper from his hip pocket and unfolded it. He punched a number into the cell phone, determined that this decision wouldn't be a bad one. It went to voicemail.

"Doc, I need to see you as soon as possible.

Chapter 7

She picked up. "Charlie, are you okay?"

He started to hang up. Doc had little tolerance for stupidity and her terrible swift tongue could dissect people like a frog. But he figured he had nothing to lose and told her straight out he'd put his pistol to his face.

She was calm. "And how long ago did this occur?"

"Just now."

"We're you serious or just toying with the idea?"

"Another pound of trigger-pull would've scattered skull fragments all over this rental car."

He thought he heard her draw breath.

"Can you come to the office?"

"When?"

"Now."

"Okay."

"Charlie, are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine now. Things just got a little out of perspective."

"Have they ever gotten out of perspective before?"

"A time or two."

"Maybe I'd better pick you up."

"Thanks, but no need to. I'm on my way."

"Good. When you get here, stay in the car. I've got a couple more patients; then I'll come out and we'll go for a drive."

"Thanks for sparing me the waiting room," he said. "I'm not in the mood for small talk and old magazines."

He parked in the lot across the street from her office and looked at his watch. Eleven o'clock. To bide time, he took the rental agreement from the glove box and read it from beginning to end. By eleven-thirty, he was sleepy, so he tilted the seat back. As he got comfortable, he glanced at the side mirror just in time to see a sheriff's car round the corner. Two more black-and-whites were close behind, so he popped the seat up to watch. When two unmarked cars appeared and sped up to maintain the five-car convoy, he put the rental in reverse and backed up to see where they were headed. Three blocks down the street, turn signals began to flash.

He considered it. There were four people in the third car, all wearing hats except a big man in the back seat. A prisoner, no doubt. And the two investigators' cars close behind meant he was an important prisoner.

He glanced at Doc's office, then down the street as the lead car made its turn. He accelerated out of the clinic's parking lot and caught up as the last vehicle wheeled into the law enforcement facility. The first snowflakes sailed across the windshield as he parked across the street to watch.

The prisoner transport vehicle stopped under the roof of the sally port and doors began opening. A deputy stepped out of the building and held the jail door open while others surrounded the transport vehicle. Soon they removed a sizeable man, dark-skinned with white or gray hair worn in traditional Native American style. His shuffling feet meant he was wearing leg irons. As soon as the prisoner stepped inside the building, Eastman started the car and headed back to Doc's office.

Since the snowflakes were fat and wet and falling fast, he stopped at the front door. In less than a minute, Doc trotted out carrying an environmentally friendly grocery bag and a stethoscope. She got in and began to fish around in the bag.

"I thought I saw you here earlier," she said.

"You did. I had to run down the street for a minute." He glanced at the tote bag. "That's your doctor bag?" he asked as he pulled onto the street.

She withdrew a can of diet cola from it and set it in the cup holder. "It's my lunch. I'd planned to close the office at noon and ride my horse. But the weather sucks and there's another matter that needs addressing. Want to start from the beginning?"

"All right. Two days ago, I went to get gas and wound up in a demolition derby."

"Were you injured?"

"No, but I damaged a cow."

"It was a bull. Ester Pirtle told me all about it." Doc shook a sandwich out of the bag and began to unwrap it. "That bull's a legend, you know." She started to take a bite, but stopped and offered it to him. As soon as he waved it away, she bit off the corner.

A few minutes later, he stopped the car where the highway split and looked at her. She pointed in the direction of the hills, so he followed her instruction and listened to her chew while they climbed. He decided she was probably observing him.

He told her about the auto accident, and when he finished, she was looking out the window, her jaw crushing pimento cheese and bread into paste. Finally she said, "Where'd this friggin' snow come from?"

Her changing the subject told him she wanted more than a story about a fender bender, so he eased into the anxiety attacks that were worsening.

She opened the cola can and raised it toward the windshield. "Pull over there."

He turned into the scenic overlook and stopped at the safety railing.

"Okay," she said, planting her feet on the dash. "You decided to remove your coat on a downhill curve with some asshole a foot off your rear bumper?"

He nodded and she laughed.

"I don't see the humor," he said.

"It's funny because it's the most un-Charlie thing I ever heard. You were the smart tortoise who always won through persistence and common sense, not the madcap hare who pulls a dumb stunt and flips over." She poked his shoulder. "What happened to the smart tortoise?"

"He burned out, I guess." He looked down at his hands. "For every race I won, more hares popped up. It didn't take long to realize my job was as pointless as my life, so I gave up. It was the end of the turtle, and what you see is his shell."

"Is that why you got out of law enforcement?"

"I had to. I'd turned into somebody I didn't like."

She pointed at the zippered pistol case protruding from under the driver's seat. "How many times have you looked down the barrel of that thing?"

"Three. Counting today."

"Are you preoccupied with death?"

"All day long. I've seriously considered writing my own obituary to soften the story the paper runs."

"Think you'll eventually pull the trigger?"

When he didn't answer, she gathered up her bag and got out of the car. She kicked the door shut and motioned for him to follow.

He killed the engine and followed her through the snow to a picnic table, wondering what she was doing. She waited while he cleared away a place for them to sit.

"Now, start over—and no bullshit," she said and held out her arms to watch snowflakes flutter onto her sleeves.

He laid it all out, ending with, "So I picked this place to finish out my life."

"So did I," she said, "after I figured out I wasn't suited for big city life or husbands."

He nodded at the countryside, the colors blurring together in patches of white and quickly morphing into a pallet-knife painting. "All I could think about was living in these hills, where I could read books and play with my cows."

"A home on the range," she said.

"You could say that."

"And you've decided it's not going to work?"

"How can it? I'm insane and broke. Ester wants me to find somebody who's probably dead. And if I don't, she's going to sue me over that bull's prick."

"I think you're depressed, but you aren't insane. You dreamed yourself up a little over-the-rainbow community, and when you escaped to it, the depression was still there. I went through the same thing."

"How'd you handle it?"

"Not well. I thought my career was shot, and knew I wasn't cut out for marriage. I thought I was crazy until I noticed everybody else was leading their own lives of quiet desperation like what's-his-name said. So I began watching how folks interact and concluded that nobody gives a shit about other people's psychological problems unless their behavior becomes antisocial. So I decided to stop giving a shit, too."

"You?"

"That's right. I can't tell you why, but not giving a shit is miraculous thing. It's better than drugs and therapy."

"You're medical advice is for me to stop giving a shit?"

"Freud and Jung didn't phrase it that way, but yes. You can shoot yourself anytime, but why not try to enjoy life until then? I suggest you help Ester find her brother. She'll be happy, and you'll make money. If you're not better soon, I'll refer you to a good psychiatrist. How's that?"

He thought about it and grinned. "I couldn't give less of a shit."

"Now you're talking," she said and flashed a big smile. "Hey, want to start seeing me?"

"Professionally or socially?"

"Name it," she said.

"Definitely socially. I want to hold you and talk about not giving a shit while I sniff your body."

"Now that's what I call rational thinking. Okay, so by the authority vested in me, I pronounce you cured. Oh, one other thing." Her hand went back into the sack. "I want to show you something." She pulled out a phone, poked it a couple of times, and handed it to him.

He looked at the picture on the screen. "That's Brite's statue."

"Yes, it is. On the homepage of Art World, the most prestigious art website on the Net."

"What's it doing there?"

"Because my sister, Gristle, took a snapshot of it and e-mailed it to the editor. He loved it, and they ran a story she wrote about Brite's unrecognized talent." She shook her head. "That statue launched her from blogger to art critic." She took the phone from him, thumbed it again, and handed it back.

Michael Brite, Gooberhenge, 2011, bronze, marble, and steel. Approximately 15' x 12' x 8', installed at the Coronado City Municipal Park, Coronado City, Texas. Photo: Gristle Page.

"Words fail me," he said.

Doc got up, pulled a stethoscope from her coat pocket, and put it on. "Take off your shirt," she ordered.

"You first," he said.

She snickered, then checked the road. "What if a car comes by?"

"Do you give a shit?"

As her blouse came off, he took a deep breath and blew steam as hard as he could through the falling flakes. "Fuck that old turtle."

Chapter 8

The rental car was designed for city driving, so Eastman took the state highway to the Pirtle Ranch rather than the unpaved cut through the hills. Ester Pirtle answered the door in a green and white apron. The dog she'd locked away was scratching madly in some distant part of the house, but by the time they settled in the library, the noise had stopped.

"He'll be snoring in two minutes," she said and offered Eastman the sofa. After he sat and opened his notebook, she took a small photograph from the pocket of the apron and handed it to him. "As far as I know, this is the only picture ever taken of Josh."

It was a faded black and white school photo—a wallet print—of a teenaged boy with tangled black curls and a white shirt. He flipped it over and read Joshua Guttman, Sophomore, 1937.

"It was taken at our school in East Texas after we moved there," she said. "Guttman was the name of the doctor who loaned Josh books. Josh liked him so much, we took his name."

"Your family moved to East Texas during the depression?"

"No. The family didn't move anywhere. Josh and I did."

"I don't follow you."

"My brother and I just up and left. Things didn't work out with the people who'd adopted us, so Josh decided it was time for us to move on. By then, he was fifteen and I was twelve."

"You were just kids."

"Josh was as grown up as any man," she said.

"The Lafoon family never found you?"

"I'm sure they never looked. If they did, we never heard a peep about it."

She sat, too, and put on the somber face he'd seen during his last visit. "You've got to find him," she said. "I want my soul to be at peace when I depart this place of wrath and tears."

"You've included Joshua in your estate?"

"I'm leaving him nothing. I just want to clear up some loose ends before I'm bugled home. Incidentally, nothing we discuss leaves this room."

He nodded.

"All right, remember I mentioned the orphan trains?"

"I read about them on the Internet last night," he said.

She went to the desk, took a larger picture from a drawer, and handed it to him. He recognized it at once from the computer search. Dozens of children standing beside a black locomotive. Behind the locomotive were railroad cars and more children.

"That's a famous picture among us train riders," she said. "I got it from the historical society up in Kansas. Many of the train riders—that's what we were called—were orphans who'd been dumped on the streets of New York."

"You never tried to find the circumstances?"

"I hired a man once, but it was a waste of time. There were over a 150,000 train riders. My brother insisted that we were children of European aristocrats who'd fled Europe for mysterious reasons. He said our real parents would spare no expense finding us and would return us to our rightful stations in life."

"How'd he know that?"

"Actually, he didn't. One day I found a copy of Jed the Poorhouse Boy among his things and read it. That's where he'd gotten the aristocrats idea. But I didn't get mad. He was just giving me something to hope for."

"Why did you leave the Lafoons?"

She chuckled. "They were getting old and had a farm to run. Some orphans were taken in as free labor. Legalized slavery, so to speak."

"They made a little girl work the crop?"

"Gracious, no. I never lifted a finger. I was their little darling. But old man Lafoon hated Josh because he was so darned smart and headstrong. He called Josh his field nigger and wouldn't let him go to school because there was so much work. Josh ate and slept in a tool shed next to the barn. If he complained, the old man beat him and threatened to punish me, too. It's a wonder Josh didn't hate me for it."

"How long did this go on?"

"Until I reached puberty. Then Josh saw the way the old man was eyeing me, and he knew what was coming. One day Josh took me aside and told me to get ready, that we were running away after the Lafoons went to sleep. I imagine the old man was glad to find us gone the next morning."

"But why go to East Texas? Most folks headed west during the Depression."

"That's true. But Josh had read about the oil boom and knew there'd be work there. When a couple of new kids showed up at school, it didn't raise suspicions. We told people our daddy was a roughneck."

"So you settled there."

"Yep. Josh rented us a room, and we enrolled in school. He supported us by cooking for the night crews. I finally went off to the teachers' college and never saw him again." She patted Eastman's knee. "I hope you find him, Charlie. And I think you will, if that's what he wants."

"What does that mean?"

"My brother is unlike any person you've ever met. If you get close to him, he'll feel the ripples in the water."

"Maybe he stayed in Texas."

"The odds are slim to none." She shook her head and, as if talking to herself, mumbled, "Every experience he had here was bad." She looked at Eastman again. "Poor Josh was a mess after the way the old man treated him."

"A mess? You mean unbalanced?"

The word made her uneasy, and a look flashed across her face. "He was an oddball, but not crazy. All these years, I've had the feeling that if something bad happened to me, Josh would somehow appear. He once told me he was my personal angel, that he rode the whirlwind and directed storms around me." She laughed. "That's no more original than Jed the Poorhouse Boy."

She got up. "I'll show you something."

She led him to a smaller room and flipped on the light. Books were stacked from floor to ceiling.

"These were his," she said. "By the time he was fourteen, Josh could answer questions about any of them." Her voice softened. "I bought them from Doctor Guttman's granddaughter a few years ago." She selected a small book and opened it to the flyleaf. Over her shoulder, he saw, in looping cursive, Joseph E. Guttman, MD.

* * *

By late afternoon, the Coronado County Farmers' Market was buzzing with chapped-lipped shoppers, and the wind blew through its tin walls like breath through a harmonica. It sucked rain and animal particulate from the pens out back and spat it toward the Sons of Herman Hall across the street. The veggie browsers, drunk on the dazzling colors of fruit and vegetables, inhaled the reek of pig feces and exhaled Christmas cheer.

Eastman bought chili ingredients from a woman who spoke border Spanish and directed him to a friend on the edge of town who sold homemade tamales. It was dark when he arrived at Doc's house, and she ushered him back to the kitchen.

"Tell me something," he said, lifting the sacks onto the kitchen counter.

"What?"

"This place of wrath and tears—what's it mean?"

She looked at him. "Are you drunk?"

"No. Ester Pirtle said it in a conversation earlier."

"It's from a poem called 'Invictus,'" Doc said. "Two of the lines are, 'Beyond this place of wrath and tears / looms but the horror of the shade.'"

"I should have known it didn't mean anything good," he said.

"I memorized it in high school," she said. "It was written by a man more depressed than you. And that Oklahoma bomber guy—McVeigh?—he gave a copy of it to the warden just before he was executed."

The phone in his pocket buzzed against his money clip and coins. He looked at the incoming number. "It's her," he told Doc before answering it. The conversation lasted only a couple of minutes.

Afterward Doc asked, "So what's her story?"

"She's all upset. Said the police arrested the cemetery maintenance man."

"Billy Poco?"

"That's the name."

"Drunk or fighting?"

"They think he murdered those boys. Ester's convinced it's only because Poco lives on the cemetery property where the bodies were found. She thinks the cops grabbed him to take the heat off themselves."

"What do you think?"

"Beats me," he said. "While I was waiting in front of your office yesterday, I saw five sheriffs' cars transport a prisoner to jail. Five. For one prisoner. That's one bad dude."

"And it was Billy Poco?"

"Big man with long white hair?"

She nodded. "He's Comanche. If somebody told me Billy stole some chickens, it wouldn't surprise me, but he'd never hurt a kid."

"I remember a family of Pocos on the river," he said. "Bootleggers and snagline poachers. That kind of thing."

"Same ones," she said. "His daddy was killed in a gambling house when Billy was little, and his mother took off, leaving his sisters to raise him."

"Ester claims he's retarded."

"He's just slow," Doc said. "A few weeks ago, Billy told everybody he'd seen a unicorn. Maybe he said it to get attention or maybe he dreamed he saw one, but the newspaper got hold of the story and printed it. After that, he became the official village idiot."

"Maybe his mind is going."

"Shoot, he's as sane as most people around here. Ester checks on him every week. She got him the cemetery job, and if he needs medical treatment, she pays for it."

"Has Ester mentioned the orphan trains to you?"

Doc took her time before answering. "It's public knowledge that she's an orphan, so I think I can say yes without creating patient privacy issues."

"Well, she's my client too, so there's privacy stuff I have to respect also... stuff like Joshua." He smiled, waiting for a response.

"Joshua? She's never mentioned anyone named Joshua."

They were both quiet, looking at each other, and then Eastman said, "You're dying to tell me, aren't you?"

She leaned forward. "Look, it's something I think you ought to know. The night after Red Pirtles's funeral, Ester had no one to stay with her. Red's sister had flown home, so Mama spent the night at her place. After they'd had a couple of brandies, Ester mentioned a brother. She never said his name, but she said he was very smart and died a long time ago."

"He died?"

"Died. She said he was buried near here."

Chapter 9

He was sleeping soundly, warm under the covers in Doc's bed, when the sound of her voice over an idling engine woke him. He sat up and lifted the curtain enough to see her standing next to a sheriff's car, talking to the driver. It was dawn, and she looked tired. She wasn't leaving; she was coming home.

While he searched for his clothes, he thought about the previous evening. They'd had two bottles of wine with dinner and had ended up naked in front of the fireplace. He headed downstairs to get dressed.

The front door opened, and Doc entered in time to see him picking up his underwear. Five minutes later, he was making coffee she sat at the table, her stocking feet propped up on the open door of the oven.

"You're about to set your feet on fire," he said.

"I hope so. They've been frozen all night," she said and yawned. "I just looked in the mirror. My right eye looks like a monkey's anus."

"What time did you leave the house?" he asked.

"Right after midnight. The sheriff's dispatcher called. They had a cutting at Chez José's."

"I must've been dead. I didn't hear you leave."

"I didn't leave a note because I thought I'd be gone only a couple of hours. The cutting was no biggie. Two drunks. I stitched one up and they hauled the other one to jail. Never give the finger to a guy with a linoleum cutter."

"Noted."

"But that was the easy part."

He handed her a cup of coffee. "What was the hard part?"

"The hard part was the suicide."

He waited while she sipped it.

"It was McQueenie," she said.

"Who?"

"Steve McQueenie. The detective originally assigned the Goodman–Medina murders. They found him dead in Raj Patel's motel. You never heard of McQueenie?"

He shook his head. "I'd remember that name."

"His real name was Marvin McQueenie, but everybody called him Steve, of course. He was an ex-Houston cop who took a job with the sheriff's department here. He'd battled the bottle all his adult life, and from what I'm told, his wife booted him out. Apparently, it wasn't the first time. Once, while he was working in Houston, he vanished. Had every law enforcement official in the state looking for his body. It turned up in El Paso with a señorita under it."

"When did he check into Raj's motel?"

"Yesterday afternoon. Didn't make any calls from the room, and nobody found his cellphone."

"He eat his gun?"

She rolled her eyes. "He's not like you. He'd never get blood on his clothes. He was a neat freak. There was an empty pill bottle and half a quart of scotch on the nightstand. The pills were painkillers prescribed for his wife. John Tillman says she's a pill head. And don't look at me; I never wrote her a script for anything."

"He leave a note?"

"Nope. He just put out the 'Do Not Disturb' sign and did it. They can say what they like about McQueenie, but he was meticulous about everything. I guess that's why I got along with him. Although he could be a dick."

"Whose medical examiner is handling it?"

"Fort Worth's. Their investigators were tied up when McQueenie's body was discovered, so they asked me to pronounce him. That covers their asses in case somebody complains that he wasn't taken to the emergency room. And since I was already awake, I hung around till the ME's people showed up."

She set her empty cup in front of him, and he went to refill it. When he returned to the table, she was frowning.

"What's the matter?"

"McQueenie had this briefcase," she said. "A real gaudy fucker with his name hand-tooled under a big gold badge. He told me his cop buddies in Houston gave it to him when he left the department."

"What about it?"

"I've never seen him without that briefcase... except tonight."

Chapter 10

"You drove all the way out here to eat your lunch?" Eastman asked when he saw the brown bag cradled in Tillman's arm.

"My wife sent you some homemade tamales," Tillman said, heading for the kitchen. "She figured you could do with a decent meal." He ripped the sack down the side and spread it out on the table like a placemat while Eastman got some paper towels.

"What's the scoop on McQueenie?" Eastman asked.

Tillman looked surprised. "How'd you know about that? The man's not even cold."

"I was at Doc's house last night. She mentioned it when she got home."

"You spent the night at Doc's?"

"Her sister's out of town so I slept in her room."

"Bullshit," Tillman said. "I saw Gristle parked across from Brite's place earlier. Looked like she was taking pictures, but I didn't stop to ask why."

"She wrote a story about Brite and his statue," Eastman said. "Suddenly he's a big deal in the art community."

They ate for a while, and then Eastman asked, "Are you going to tell me about McQueenie or not?"

"Not much to tell. Adiosed himself with pills and booze."

"You feel like it's a righteous suicide?"

Tillman was unfolding the shuck from tamale number two. "Looks like it. McQueenie was a miserable asshole who didn't get along with anybody. Even his wife. She left him, and it sent him over the edge."

"Doc says he was the meticulous type."

"Lord, yes. The kind of guy who'd type up an ops plan to take a dump. He was smart and wrote great reports, but he was also a control freak who drank constantly."

"He drink on the job?"

Tillman laughed. "Who knows? He worked his own hours. Nobody knew when he was on or off the clock. Some mornings he'd stagger in like he'd just left a bar."

"And?"

"The captain would have somebody drive him home."

"That's it?"

"That's it. He and the captain had worked together in Houston, so everybody figured McQueenie had something on him."

"Did the sheriff know about McQueenie's drinking?"

"What sheriff?" Tillman said. "Cody Sipes hasn't set foot in the station in a month. He's the town's football hero who went to the pros for a couple of years. People vote for him like it's a popularity contest. But Cody raises quarter horses; he doesn't want to be bothered with small stuff like running the sheriff's department." Tillman pointed a tamale at Eastman. "The real sheriff is the county commissioner, and he doesn't give a shit about anything but money. The department has become a joke. Nobody trusts anybody, and there's a good reason for it."

They ate quietly for a while, until Eastman said, "You didn't drive all the way out here just to eat my tamales."

"You're right," Tillman said. "My wife found something. She and the kids went to Walmart this morning, and when they got back to the car, there was a briefcase in it."

"Let me guess," Eastman said. "A real gaudy fucker."

Tillman frowned. "No, a real nice one. McQueenie's. It has his Houston badge on it and everything."

"His personal file on the murders in it?"

Tillman nodded. "Handwritten notes, computer disks and photos." He got up, went outside, and returned carrying the briefcase. Eastman shoved the food aside, and Tillman placed the case between them, the big yellow badge facing up.

"Why would McQueenie do this to me?" Tillman asked, staring at it. "We never said ten words to each other."

Eastman ran a finger over McQueenie's badge number. "Maybe he knew it was the last day of his life. He could've done anything he wanted with this stuff, but he trusted you with it."

Tillman smiled. "Everybody in the department knows you bought a place here. McQueenie must've heard that I knew you. He probably figured the first thing I'd do when I saw his briefcase was take it straight to you."

Eastman said nothing, thinking Tillman was probably right.

"So now what?" Tillman said. "This is evidence, you know."

"Right. And you've got to turn it in. But if a man about to kill himself left something for me to find, I'd copy it before I let it out of my sight."

Tillman popped the latches. "I made copies for both of us." He handed Eastman a stack of papers. "Tonight I'll stash the briefcase in the trunk of a CID car," he said. "They'll stumble onto it in a day or two." He stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. "You know I'll lose my job if this gets out."

"My complicity in evidence tampering is not something I intend to brag about," Eastman said, shuffling through the paperwork. He picked out a snapshot of a camouflage-colored case the size of a loaf of bread and examined it front and back. "Who took this?"

Tillman shrugged. "McQueenie, I guess. There's a paragraph in one of those reports about somebody finding a camera bag by the river. McQueenie showed the bag to the boys' families, and they said they'd never seen it. Probably belonged to a reporter. They were swarming like flies out there."

Eastman found more photos of the same bag and held one up. "Must've been a Russian reporter. The lettering on it is Cyrillic."

Tillman took it and studied it. "Probably Russian surplus," he said. "You can buy the stuff on the Internet."

"Mind if I send the photo to a friend?"

"What friend?" Tillman asked.

"An Intel analyst at EPIC. She'll report anything she finds to you since I'm out of the loop now."

"Do it, but if McQueenie thought the bag was important, he would have put it in the property room."

Eastman smiled. "That makes it even more interesting."

Chapter 11

Brite, sipping scotch in the motel garden, was a contented soul. The model he'd been sketching had walked off five minutes after he'd begun, but it made little difference. Although she couldn't, or wouldn't, stand still, he'd looked at her long enough to freeze-frame her every aspect in his far-too-right-sided brain, a gift passed on from his father.

Brite wasn't crazy about the cheap ballpoint pen he found in the parking lot, and he didn't care much for the cheesy paper napkin that was his canvas. The former motel owner had laid out fancy napkins that looked and felt like linen, but Raj Patel, the current owner, considered them extravagant. In fact, Raj considered most things extravagant, including the motel's swimming pool which, after he bought the place, he promptly filled with dirt and farmed year round. Motel guests were surprised to find a diving board in the center of the garden. Raj had left it there so he could sit on it at night with a .22 rifle and snipe rabbits that hopped through the wrought iron fence to steal his crop. But Brite didn't mind Raj's midnight gunshots. Since the dead cop had been found in a room down the hall the previous evening, he'd had the motel to himself.

The metal gate on the fence clanged, and Brite assumed the figure in his peripheral vision was Meena, Raj's wife, coming out to gather cabbage and carrots for dinner.

"Excuse me. Is this the patio?"

Brite looked up at the attractive woman who was staring at the garden and the sixties-era patio furniture, which Raj hadn't deemed extravagant.

"Have a seat," Brite said. "You just check in?"

"No," Gristle said. "I'm just looking around."

She dragged a chair away from his table and began wiping it with a napkin.

"Before you decide to stay, consider this," Brite said. "It's a long way to town, and housekeeping found a dead cop last night. Noise all night long."

"A dead cop here?"

"Not shot or anything. The owner says he ate a handful of pills." He nodded at his scotch bottle. "And chased them with that. You want a drink?"

"Thanks. I gave up liquor."

"Then you're in the right place," Brite said. "They don't serve it. I got mine in town."

"But the neon sign out front says there's a bar here."

"Right. And there's another sign that says they have great steaks, but there aren't any steaks either." Brite aimed the ballpoint at the garden. "Just rabbit food. Raj Patel owns this place, and if Raj doesn't drink, you don't drink. If Raj doesn't eat meat, neither should you. If Raj doesn't do it, it shouldn't be done."

"I understand," she said. "A religious conviction."

"No, he's just an asshole," Brite said. "How about a cup of tea?"

She smiled. "Does Raj drink tea?"

"All day long." He placed a glass ashtray over his sketch in progress and got up. "I'll get it for you."

While he was gone, she set her purse close to Brite's napkin. When he returned with the tea, she was bent over the ashtray, studying his artwork. "May I?" she asked, her thumb and index finger poised near a curled corner.

"Go ahead."

She removed the ashtray and examined the napkin like a lab technician while Brite set a cup and saucer on the table.

"This is absolutely remarkable," she said.

Brite shrugged. "Just a chicken on a napkin."

"But it's a spectacular chicken."

"I had a model, but she wandered off," he said. "A spooky old hen the last owner left behind. She eats bugs in the garden, so the Patels let her stay."

"Does artistic ability run in your family, Mr...?"

Brite thought fast. Any woman mesmerized by a hen sketch was not a traveling saleswoman. "Mudgett," Brite said, giving her a pathetic salute. "Herman Mudgett."

She smiled. "I'm Gristle Page. I believe you know my sister, June."

"Doc's your sister?"

"My older sister," Gristle said. "I manage an art gallery in New York and enjoy a decent reputation as a critic. Frankly, that's why I'm here. I think your work is nothing short of inspirational. I'm not talking about tattoos and cakes. I'm talking about real art."

"How'd you find me?"

"It was easy. I watched your studio until you came home. When you left, I followed you."

"I had to pick up some stuff," Brite muttered. "What do you want?"

She placed her hand on his knee. "I think you're unaware of something exciting that's occurring in the art world at this very moment. Something that began as a supernatural phenomenon. Something that will change both our lives."

"Are you sure you gave up booze?"

"Okay, let me demonstrate." She held the sketch in front of his face. "I'll give you two hundred dollars for this drawing right now."

"Come on," he said and waved it away.

She dug into her purse and took out a wallet. "Make it three hundred." She fanned out the bills. "Do I get the sketch?"

He snatched them and stuffed them into his shirt pocket. "You want a rooster to go with it?"

She shook her head. "Not necessary. Properly framed, this will easily bring a thousand."

Brite's eyebrows arched.

"Thanks to the phenomenon I mentioned," she added.

"What phenomenon?"

"The one that brought me to you." She picked up the cup and sipped. "I'd like to act as your agent. I'm not an artist myself, but I'm well connected to the business end of it."

Brite chuckled. "There's a business end?"

"Yes. But like most artists, you don't care for it. That's why you're in hiding."

Brite leaned closer. "A gang of Christians want me dead. They've hired an assassin."

"Nobody's going to assassinate you. They're going to sue you."

Brite sat back and studied her. "You sure about that?"

"Positive. My sister told me. The man who's hunting you is a process server. You painted the faces of non-believers on their church mural, and they were publicly humiliated."

"I was stoned," Brite said. "Besides, they loved it until a TV reporter called it a prank." He snickered. "They wanted Jesus' disciples and it just so happened Mark Twain was the perfect Peter. Powerful presence, all that wild-ass hair. And Karl Marx for Judas—"

"The lawyer who represents Art World contacted the church. They'll drop the lawsuit if you apologize and correct it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, and you'll get some great press. I'll spin it to make you look like poor Michelangelo versus the mean old pope. Then I'll interview you on Art World's website. You are raw, unbridled talent, Mr. Brite. Photos of your work will be published in the trade magazines. I see a documentary about your life in the near future."

He thought about it, then patted his shirt pocket. "Tell me more about this phenomenon."

"Later. All you need to know right now is that you're about to become the next Jackson Pollock." She got up, took something from her coat pocket, and held it in front of his face.

He took the photo she'd printed from Art World's homepage and beheld her miracle shot of his radiant peanuts. He laughed and poured himself another drink, then raised his glass to her. "It all started with a napkin."

"What are you talking about?"

"You'll see," he said and drank.

Chapter 12

Eastman dragged the barbed wire gate out of the way and held it while Ester Pirtle let the Lincoln roll between two scrawny cedar posts. In the back seat, Little Noodle was vaulting from side to side, barking through the cracked windows. After the car cleared, Eastman pulled the gate back, drew it taut, and secured it with a wire loop.

"Who owns this property?" he asked when he was in the car.

"It's mine," Ester said. "Red bought it for me thirty years ago. A thousand acres, sight unseen. I wanted it, and that was good enough for Red. He never cared about real estate or playing the stock market. He liked monkeying with ideas." When she saw the look on his face, she said, "That's what he called it. Red thought it was miraculous to dream up something, then make it exist. It made him feel like he was pulling a fast one on God. Of course, most of his ideas were about plumbing, so I doubt if God minded too much. Red would think up a gizmo that could unstop your toilet and, in a couple of weeks, you'd see him in one of his dumb TV commercials, wearing a superhero outfit and waving the thing around." She smiled. "Called himself The Drainiac."

The road they were on was no more than a firebreak, and the car bobbed along until they came to a hog-wire fence running up a rise. She buzzed the down the windows, and Little Noodle sprang out like a cuckoo leaving the clock. "What do you think?"

He looked out at acres of burned trees that had never regenerated. "Not what most folks consider prime real estate."

She thumbed behind them. "Years ago, there was water in the ravine we just crossed. Now, the grass burrs will eat you alive." She shook her head. "Hard to believe this was the biggest pecan orchard in the county. Now, it's just acres and acres of—"

"Nothing," he said.

"That's where you're wrong, Charlie," she said and opened her door. As she got out she said, "I want you to see something."

He followed her up the rise until she stopped at the drip line of a starving mesquite. She looked around, then started in the direction of a lopsided cube of sandstone that struck her about the knees when she got to it. She patted it.

"Think you can move this thing without killing yourself?"

"Maybe," he said. "You hide something under it?"

"No, somebody else did."

"Well, I can't wait to find out what it is. You've been priming me for something all morning."

He walked around the stone, shoveling debris away with his boot until there was a clearing big enough to accommodate the rock. He handed her his hat, gripped the corners of the stone and twisted it onto the little clearing. When she returned his hat, he said, "Looks like we've struck dirt."

She snapped off a handful of sage and whisk-broomed the newly exposed ground. "Can you make it out yet?"

"I make out a dirty rock."

"It's a headstone. There's twenty or thirty of them around here."

"You bought a cemetery?"

"That's right. Bet you think I'm crazy."

"Not if you have family here."

"Could be." She swatted at the stone some more. "All right, see if you can read it."

He moved closer, studying the surface, then moved around to the other side.

"I'll give you a little lesson about graveyards, Charlie. In most places, especially the South, Christians are buried with their feet to the east. That's so they can sit up straight and be looking at Jesus on Resurrection Day." She pointed to the horizon. "The Bible says He's coming from thataway."

"Jesus is coming from Fort Worth?"

"Not from Fort Worth, silly. He's supposed to return from the east on the clouds. Or maybe it's with the clouds. Anyway, there's clouds involved. But He's definitely coming from the east. I remember that much."

He took two paces. "Okay, then if I stand over here facing east, I should be able to read the inscription."

"Not with this grave. It's just the opposite."

"I don't get it, Ester. That means the person buried here will sit up with his back to Jesus."

She pointed at him. "That's right. His back will be to Jesus."

"Surely, you didn't buy a thousand acres of burnt trees and diamondbacks because of a backward grave."

She paced around, looking at the ground. "Look at the other headstones. They all face the right direction. Whoever buried the person you're standing on was trying to tell Jesus something."

He put on his glasses and squatted in front of the stone. He raked his palm across it. "Capital I. Capital S. And this looks like a semicolon."

"It's a Bible verse," she said. "Book of Isaiah. Chapter thirteen, verse thirteen."

"I assume you looked it up."

"It says, 'I will make the heavens tremble and the Earth will shake from its place.'"

"Who'd put that on somebody's tombstone?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I can't figure it out. It's a strange graveyard. If my theory's right, this is where they used to bury the undesirables. Folks who were lynched or died in jail without any kin-people."

"Peckerwood Hill," he said.

She looked puzzled.

"That's what convicts in the state prison call the cemetery for unclaimed bodies. Peckerwood Hill."

"Then maybe that's what this is," she said. "A peckerwood's hill. I did some research on the place right after I bought it. Didn't learn much except the family who lived here before the Civil War helped runaway slaves. And since people around here hung abolitionists, there's bound to be some under us."

He was looking down. "Then we're standing on evidence of 150 year old lynchings."

"Could be," she said. "None of the markers have names. Some have initials hen-scratched in sandstone. Some, just a little bois d'arc cross."

He squatted and raked the headstone with the heel of his hand. "This one's good hard rock."

"Yes, it is. And if you don't mind getting more animal doody on your hands, you'll find it's hand-chiseled granite."

He stared at his palms when she continued. "I bought the property in 1970, and the marker was already there. I took a Kodak of it and showed it to the man who made Red's headstone. He didn't know any more about it than I do. That's why I brought you out here. I want you to find out who's down there."

"You think it's your brother," he said.

She started back in the direction of the car. When he caught up, she said, "I need to tell you some things I should've told you at the start. You can wash off that doo-doo with Noodle's water."

The dog was asleep when they reached the car, and Ester crawled into the back seat with him. Eastman drove, and when they were through the gate, she said, "Remember I told you about Josh and me being orphans?"

He nodded.

"And I told you about the Lafoon family and how the old man treated Josh?"

"Uh-huh. And you two ran off."

"Sort of. Now, this next part is hard for me to talk about. It's something I've never told another living soul."

She sat quietly, looking out at the landscape. "When I told you Josh took me away from the Lafoons, it wasn't true. Truth is, the court put him away. Committed him to the insane asylum."

"Because of the old man's abuse?"

"No, he got used to that. He liked living in the shed. He was away from the old man and was free to do whatever he pleased. He could stay up all night and read his books, or sometimes he'd just wander the woods until sunup. Nobody cared as long as he got his work done."

"Then why was he committed?"

"Because he killed the old man." She began to pat the dog. "Shot him dead on the spot. You can imagine how that went over with folks here. Lafoon was a deacon in the church and everybody saw him as a saint with a feeble-minded wife, trying to raise two orphans. Cute little me and an ungrateful misfit of a boy."

"What about the shooting?"

"Well, when Good Christian Lafoon wasn't in town serving the Lord, he was at home drinking liquor. One day in late October, it started raining like nothing you've ever seen. We couldn't do anything but sit and watch it. Lafoon had taken to bathing inside because of the cold and one night after he'd been drinking, he decided it was bath time. So the old woman and I fixed his tub, and when he stripped to get in, he was him staring at me. I was twelve and was beginning to blossom out, so I was keen to the fact that he might try something. I didn't know what to do, so I told them I was going to the tool shed to tell Josh goodnight. As soon as I got to the door, he hollered for me come back, but I made out like I didn't hear him. At first, I didn't let on to Josh what was happening. But after a minute or two, Lafoon was shaking the tool shed door and hollering. So I told Josh."

"What'd he do?"

"Never said a word. Just walked over to the wall and took down a nosebag."

"Nosebag?"

"A feedbag. Like you put oats in and hang around a horse's head. Anyway, Josh ran his hand down inside it about the time the old man kicked the door open and stomped in, still stark naked. At first, I thought he was wearing a pair of black socks, but he'd come across the fall garden, and there was mud up to his knees. When he saw Josh, he covered his privates and told Josh I'd been a bad girl and he was taking me back to the house. But Josh's hand was still in the bag, and he told old Lafoon real calm-like to get out. The next thing I knew, Lafoon grabbed a pair of fire tongs and came at him. When he got close, the nosebag came up, and boom! Lafoon went down and started jerking like a gut-shot deer. Then he pointed up at Josh and said, 'You'll go to Hell for sure.' I begged Josh to run, but he shot Lafoon again. The old man just lay there, trying to stop the red foam coming out of his chest."

Eastman glanced at the mirror and saw that her eyes were closed.

"That was ages ago, but I remember the smell of gun smoke rising out of that nosebag, and I can still see those red bubbles like it just happened."

"But if it was self-defense. Why'd they commit him to a mental hospital?"

"At first, everybody wanted him tried as an adult. There were no papers showing his true age, and the gun had been stolen off a deputy constable's corpse at a funeral home. The DA made it look like old man Lafoon caught Joshua with a stolen pistol, and Josh killed him when he tried to take it from him. There was a big trial."

"But you witnessed the whole thing. What did you say?"

"That's the worst part of all. I didn't say anything. Josh told me to tell the sheriff I was up at the house when it happened. He was afraid people would think I was in on it. I've kept quiet about it all these years."

"What about the old man's wife?"

"She was bad off to begin with, but she started speaking in the unknown tongue and they sent her to live with relatives.

"Which left you by yourself."

"Right. So the town doctor took me in."

"Doctor Guttman?"

She looked at him in the mirror.

"I saw his name in a book in your library."

She smiled. "It was Doctor Guttman. He's the one who saved Josh from Old Sparky, the electric chair. Doctor Guttman told the jury that some of the orphan train riders had it so bad they went crazy. He told how Josh had taken care of me on the streets in New York, then how his genius brain went to pieces from being mistreated. The jury must've believed it because they sent Josh to the bughouse instead of the chair."

"That was the last you saw of him?"

"No, he was released two years later and joined me in East Texas, where I was living with Doctor Guttman's brother and his family. That's the last I saw of him." She lay back. "I'm tired now. It's not easy talking about my brother killing somebody, even if the somebody was up to meanness."

He dropped the subject and punched in an easy-listening radio station. Then he smiled at the idea of working for a woman who had blackmailed him with a bull's pecker, a woman convinced that Jesus would buzz into Texas on a cloud and the dead would sit up to say howdy. All the dead except the unknown soul under the animal doody stone.

Doc had been right. He couldn't wait to see what would happen next.

Chapter 13

"Morning, Corine," Tillman said, peeking in at the county commissioner's dumpy niece, who supervised the Comm Center dispatchers and was the information technology administrator for the department.

She looked up from her crossword puzzle. "How's it hanging, John?"

"Mighty fine," he said and laid his portable radio on her desk. "The dispatcher said you wanted to see me."

"I certainly do. Have you checked your e-mail in the last few days?"

"Actually, I haven't. I got sidetracked by police work."

"Are you aware that Section 12.01 of the General Orders states that all sworn employees are to log onto the computer and read their e-mail at least once during each shift of duty?"

"More bureaucratic bullshit," Tillman said. "Why should I drop everything just to read something that could have been thumb-tacked to the bulletin board?"

"I don't make the rules. I'm just reminding you."

He pointed at the wall clock. "It's shift change, and I have briefing in five minutes. Could you pull them up for me?"

She smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

He pulled a chair up next to hers, and she dangled an empty candy wrapper in front of his face. "Look at this, John. I'm out of Sweetie Nuts."

He took the wrapper and raised an eyebrow at the nutritional facts on the back. "You start clicking, Corine, and I'll get you a dozen of these things."

"Two packs will do." She pointed at the monitor. "There's your mail. Frankly, I've already read it and didn't see anything that interested me."

"You read my mail?"

"It's the price you pay for poking along on the information highway."

"Do I have anything worth knowing about?"

She put a purple nail against the screen. "Some guy at the vehicle repair center croaked, so the flag will be at half-mast. And there's an opening for a crime prevention officer. You'd look good in a dog suit." She squinted at the screen. "Here's one I missed. It's from somebody named Jackson at EPIC. What's EPIC?"

"El Paso Information Center," he said. "It's an office that stores information. Extremely boring stuff."

"It says it's a reply to your inquiry."

Before he could respond, she opened it. "Durn. Just a name and a phone number." She picked up the phone receiver and offered it to him. "Go ahead. Give 'em a call."

"I don't have time, and I know what it's about. A citizen found a camera case down the road from the National Guard armory and thought it might have blown off one of their trucks. I asked EPIC to check with them."

"Unff, that is boring," she said and patted her stomach. "Sweetie Nuts right after briefing?"

"A deal's a deal," Tillman said.

Mel, the owner of Deep in the Heart Mart, was threading wieners onto a glass-encased rotisserie when Tillman approached the register with Corine's candy. He set the packages on the counter and laid down a five.

Mel frowned. "Got anything smaller?"

"You can't break a five?"

"I'd better not. The cedar hackers get paid today. After work, they'll be in here throwing around tens and twenties."

"For God's sake," Tillman muttered, digging out more cash. He nodded to the back of the store. "Can I borrow your office for a minute?"

He shut the door behind him and made the call on Mel's land line so EPIC's number wouldn't appear on the department's cellphone log. He'd repay Mel later.

A woman answered. "Duty agent." She said it with so much authority that Tillman felt like he'd get a spanking if he screwed up.

"Ma'am, this is John Tillman with the Coronado County Sheriff's Department. I need to speak with Angela Jackson."

"I'm Angie Jackson. You must be Charlie's friend." Her voice was pleasant now, the accent maybe from Chicago. He was sure he sounded like a real hayseed to her.

"Charlie and my dad went way back," he said.

"Listen," she said, "I found something I think you'll find interesting. Ready to copy?"

"Go ahead."

"I showed the pictures of your bag to the people down the hall, and they told me it's Russian like you thought."

"Russian surplus?"

"No. It's a handmade case for a scope that mounts on a sniper rifle. The cases were issued to a select group of Soviet military operatives much like our Delta Force or the SEALs."

"Wonder how it ended up here," he muttered, writing as fast as he could.

"A few probably hit the black market after the Soviet Union collapsed," she said. "The scopes used East German optics. The finest money could buy, so they needed special cases to protect them. The people down the hall say there were less than a hundred built, and if you found the rifle with the scope, it would be worth a fortune."

Tillman wanted to ask who the people down the hall were, but he didn't. Whoever they were, they could look at a bag and provide a lesson in military history.

There was some paper shuffling on the other end of the phone line. "Here's the interesting part," Angie said. "One of those scopes came to our attention during an arrest a few weeks ago. First one we've seen in the US."

"Who had it?"

"Undocumented border crossers."

"Wets?" Tillman asked, then wished he'd been more politically correct with someone he'd never met.

"The report says border patrol agents were patrolling an area commonly used for smuggling, about ten miles northeast of Eagle Pass, Texas. Around 4 a.m., the agents spotted two human figures approximately a hundred yards apart, moving north at the same pace. The suspects moved and halted in unison, leading the agents to believe they were traveling together and communicating via electronic devices. Bottom line is, they arrested these guys after one hell of a chase."

"What were they were up to?"

"No idea. But they were in top-notch physical condition. Real commandos in battle dress fatigues. Not your everyday coyotes."

"Probably pistoleros for a drug shipment," Tillman said.

"Maybe. They had a lot of expensive equipment. Gyroscopic binoculars, scrambled walkie-talkies, and a bunch of high-end backpacking stuff."

"But no sniper rifles?"

"None found. Most of these crooks know possession of a firearm enhances the penalty if they're caught."

"But they found a carrying case for one of those scopes?"

"Yes, "and it's identical to yours."

"So where are these commandos now?"

"That's a ticklish subject," she said. "Since they claimed to be Mexican citizens, they were printed, mugged, and deported to Mexico."

"Swell," Tillman said, laying his pen down.

"But get a load of this. After they were deported, their paperwork was routed to us. And when the intel people went over the men's physical descriptions, they saw that both had a tattoo that was recently added to our database."

"What kind of tattoo?"

"The bloody face of a child with its arms extended to heaven. It symbolizes membership in the Huerfanos."

He grabbed his pen. "Spell that."

She spelled it. "It means orphans. It's a paramilitary crime gang based in Central America. Highly organized and well trained."

"Shit," Tillman muttered.

"What is it?"

"I've seen one of those tattoos," he said.

"Seriously? Where?"

"Right here in Coronado County. I just can't put a face with it."

Chapter 14

The last box Eastman unpacked contained memorabilia from his office near the capitol building. The most treasured were two shadow boxes, one displaying his Austin PD credentials, the other his Organized Crime Strike Force deputization signed by the governor. The Strike Force operated under the direct control of the governor's office and was composed of twelve hand-picked police investigators from throughout the state and three attorneys from the Texas Attorney General's office. It was the duty of these agents to investigate police corruption and political misconduct. In his hip pocket, Eastman carried his Texas Peace Officer credentials stamped Retired In Good Standing, authorizing him to continue to carry a firearm.

The unpacking done, he propped his feet up and admired the office that had been an extra bedroom for three generations. He pictured his grandfather standing across the room, hammering nails into the walls, and wondered how long it had taken him to build the house alone with no power tools. Then he picked up the notes he'd taken at Ester's ranch and went over them.

Were the records pertaining to Joshua's arrest and commitment still available? Probably, but if he went to the courthouse and started poking around in the archives, it might resurrect the long-dead story of the Lafoon shooting and embarrass Ester. He wouldn't chance it. The lunacy commitment order and Joshua's medical records were, no doubt, stored at the hospital in Austin, and they could be helpful, but the hospital wasn't Joshua's last known address. Ester said he had joined her in New London when she was living with the Guttman family. What if Joshua had stayed in touch with them? Eastman decided he'd go there first and look for Guttman relatives.

He highlighted a route to New London on the map, checked the forecast for tomorrow's weather, then phoned Ester and told her what he planned to do. She seemed pleased and offered him the Lincoln for the Austin trip.

"I'd rather go to New London first," he said. "Maybe spend a couple of days and see if he kept in touch with anybody."

"He didn't," she said. "The only people he knew there were the Guttmans, and they passed away in the eighties."

"Then I'd like to visit the school."

She was silent for moment. Then she said, "Why would you waste all that time when you know the hospital in Austin has tons of information about him?"

"Because New London was the last place he was seen. Most schools keep good records."

She sighed. "There are no school records. I've checked. They burned a long time ago."

"Then we might find an old friend. A buddy he played basketball with. You said he was tall."

"Taller than you, but he hated sports, so you can forget that."

She seemed uncomfortable with the idea of him visiting the place, so he pressed her. "Maybe he belonged to the chess club or worked on the school newspaper. Sometimes people stay in touch with classmates for the rest of their lives."

"Charlie, listen to me. He had no friends in New London. Not one. You'll be wasting your time and mine. So drive down to Austin and see what the hospital's got. I'll have the car serviced this afternoon."

Arguing was pointless, so he thanked her and hung up. Then he had an idea.

Doc's phone went to voicemail, and she called back in five minutes.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked.

"Same thing I do every Saturday, riding my horse."

"You'd better postpone it. They're forecasting heavy rain."

"Are you sure? There's not a cloud in the sky."

"Look, give the horse a rest. Let's take a drive."

"Where?"

"East Texas."

"Why, if it's supposed to rain?"

"To see the pine trees."

Silence. Then, "You're lying, aren't you?"

"Not really," he said. "Ester's brother went to school in a little town out there. I just want to prowl around."

"So it's a business trip?"

"Not officially. I'm going because Ester doesn't want me to. Besides, I'd like to have the pleasure of your company for the day."

"Wouldn't it have been simpler to say that in the first place?"

Chapter 15

When Eastman pulled into Doc's driveway at seven, he saw her wave from the window, and in less than a minute, she was in the car spreading out a road map.

"I thought women were always late," he said, backing onto the street.

"Chauvinistic bullshit. I'm always early."

"You could have invited me in for coffee."

"If we sat down to drink coffee, the next thing you'd do is try to get into my pants."

"You're probably right."

"And I would have gone along with it. Afterward, we'd doze off and we wouldn't get out of here 'till lunchtime."

"Nostradamus had nothing on you," he said as they headed toward the rising sun in Ester's Lincoln. The traffic on I-20 bypassing downtown Fort Worth and Dallas was light, so he set the cruise on seventy, and at ten o'clock they swung south toward Kilgore. Although it was December, the smaller trees still held their autumn colors, which radiated against the dark-brown trunks of the pines. Doc kicked off her shoes and hung her arm out window. Her hand became a sailplane flying above State Highway 42.

"You haven't said ten words since we left," she finally said. "Why'd you even bring me along?"

"I'd rather smell you than listen to you."

She slid across the seat and put her arm around him. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

He told her about the orphan trains and Ester's life on the Lafoon farm and how old man Lafoon met his death in the tool shed. Then he told her about the backward grave.

"Ester would like to believe he's alive," he said. "But she knows he's under that rock."

Doc shook her head. "Who would have dreamed she had such a colorful past?"

"Nobody in Coronado County," he said. "When Red bought her the ranch, they never told anyone she was the sister of the killer orphan, and she wants to keep it that way."

He slowed down at the city limit sign, and Doc asked, "What do you know about this place?"

"When Ester mentioned New London, something clicked, but I couldn't figure out why. She said the school burned and the records were destroyed. That's what threw me."

"There wasn't a fire?"

"Saying there was a fire at the New London school is like saying the Titanic sprang a minor leak. One spring day in 1937, the whole school exploded, and hundreds of kids were killed. Walter Cronkite was working in Dallas at the time. They sent him out here to cover it."

"Where were Ester and Joshua when it happened?"

"Beats me. She's avoided mentioning the explosion, but it was the last year they were together."

They parked in front of the London Tea Room and Museum, located on a landscaped thoroughfare across from a modern school built on the site of the catastrophe. The replacement school was a sprawling two-story structure of Spanish mission architecture and was amazingly similar to the Coronado County Courthouse: a red tile roof, a rippling parapet, and bricks the color of peanut shells.

The Tea Room was a small, dignified restaurant with starched, white tablecloths and a glistening soda-fountain lunch counter. A perfumed museum volunteer in a maroon smock led them to a table at the rear. She recommended the chicken and dumplings and offered them a museum tour when they finished.

In half an hour, the three of them were in the museum, standing in front of an enlarged black-and-white disaster photo. Taken at night, the picture depicted dozens of men scurrying in the foreground amid thirties-era cars and trucks backed up to a mountain of debris. The devastated schoolhouse, illuminated by a pair of oilfield floodlights, stood in the background like the Roman Coliseum under two moons.

"We can officially document over 300 deaths," the volunteer said, looking at it as if it were her first time to see it. "But we know the count was a lot higher. Probably around 400. During the Depression, New London was an oil patch community—a boom town—and the school district was the richest in the nation. School enrollment went from a hundred or so students to over a thousand, just like that." She snapped her fingers. "The oilfield work drew a huge number of families who were down on their luck, and new kids were showing up at school every day. Long after the explosion, we learned some of those families came down to the site and claimed their children's bodies, then left for parts unknown without saying a word. There were deaths we were unaware of for years."

"They probably figured New London was just another dose of bad luck and wanted to get as far away as possible," Doc said.

The volunteer continued. "To make it worse, the enrollment records were destroyed by the explosion."

"Ester was right," Eastman told Doc, causing the volunteer to look at him.

Doc explained. "Our friend, Ester Pirtle, was a student here when it happened, but she was probably Ester Guttman at the time."

"That's what we think," Eastman added. "She's fuzzy about the details, but she lived with the Guttman family."

The volunteer smiled. "There was an oil company doctor named Guttman who helped set up the first aid stations. I've seen his name on a number of records, but I haven't the slightest idea what became of him. If I had to guess, I'd say his family pulled up stakes too, especially if their daughter survived it. I was a little girl when it happened, and it's still hard for me to look at certain things and not see bodies strewn around."

"Ester had an older brother," Eastman said. "He may have been on the school roll as Joshua Guttman or Lafoon. A tall, skinny kid."

The volunteer wetted her lips. "Doctor Guttman had a son named Joshua?"

He knew Doc wouldn't let the volunteer's body language pass without pouncing, so he slid his arm behind her and pinched her. Doc got the message and let the woman continue.

"There might have been a boy named Joshua," the woman said. "I'm honestly not sure."

"What do you mean?" Eastman asked.

"According to some people, a bunch of boys were horsing around before school started. It was a cold spring morning, and they'd come inside the foyer to wait for the bell when a boy they didn't know showed up. Some said he was the half-wit son of a transient family, and some said he was just the opposite, one of those smart, oddball types. Anyway, he hung around the foyer like the rest of them, probably trying to fit in." She frowned. "I think that boy's name was Josh. That's why I was shocked when you mentioned it."

"Probably a coincidence," Eastman said. "There must've been a dozen Joshuas in a school that size. But I'd love to hear what they told you about that particular boy."

"It's really nothing," she said, and shook her finger at him playfully. "I'll tell you if you promise not to make a big conspiracy out of it. Otherwise, you'll have everybody around here mad at me, and I have to live here. Keep in mind, the cause of the explosion was established through extensive investigation."

Doc couldn't wait any longer. "The reason the school blew up is of no concern to us. All we want to do is locate Ester Pirtle's brother. If he's alive, he's an old fart and stands to inherit half of Texas. If he's dead, he gets diddly."

Shock registered on the woman's face and Eastman realized the tour was about to end. "What she means is that Joshua has been missing for a long time, so anything you can tell us will be greatly appreciated. We're not conspiracy nuts. I'm a retired cop and June here owns a pet shop."

"Hamsters and parakeets are my life," Doc said, nodding.

The woman eyed them for a long moment, then continued. "Well, on this particular morning the boys in the foyer had discovered a pipe poking up a few inches out of the floor. They were taking turns stepping on it to see which one of them could made it stay down. They knew it was a gas pipe because the school was full of them. The pipes carried residue gas from the wells to the classroom heaters. It wasn't exactly legal, but it was free and everyone did it."

"So what did this Joshua kid do?" Doc asked. "Did he break it? Did he light it?"

"He didn't do anything," the woman said. "He told them to leave it alone. He told them that if it broke off, gas could collect under the building. Two surviving boys heard him say it."

"Did they ever determine whether the pipe was actually broken?" Eastman asked.

"I was getting to that," the volunteer said. "The boys ran Joshua off for being a spoil sport, then went to class. Eight hours later, you know what happened. The boys swore the pipe was fine when they left it."

"What about them?" Eastman asked. "Are they still alive?"

"Afraid not. They lived through all this," she said, indicating the picture. "But Hitler killed them both in the war. I've always thought it weird."

"Ironic maybe, but not weird," Doc said. "After all, we went to war with Germany."

"Come over here," the volunteer said, and they followed her along a wall covered with letters and remembrances donated by friends and relatives of the long dead. She stopped at what appeared to be a framed telegram. "Take a look at this."

Doc was up on her tiptoes, her face inches from it. She read it aloud. "RCA Radiogram. On the occasion of the terrible explosion at New London, Texas, which took so many young lives, I want to assure your excellency of my and the German people's sincere sympathy. Signed, German Reich's Chancellor, Adolph Hitler." She looked at the volunteer. "I stand corrected. That is weird."

Chapter 16

After the museum tour, Doc snapped a few photos of the new school across the street and the pink granite cenotaph that had been erected in front it—two twenty-foot columns supporting the likenesses of life-size children carrying books and sundry items to two seated teachers. Two hundred and seventy-seven names, grouped by school grades, were inscribed on its base.

"What's next?" she asked, slipping the camera into its padded pouch.

Eastman was staring up at the stone children. "I'd like to stay and interview everybody in town, but if we ask too much too soon, rumors will start flying and these people won't give us the time of day."

When they reached the interstate, Eastman pulled into a truck stop to fill up, and Doc went inside to the restroom. When she returned to the pump island with a sack full of snacks, the Lincoln was gone.

"You lose a tall dude wit' a Lincoln?" said a man standing in front of an ancient pea-green pickup. A foot-tall plastic lizard in a boxing stance served as a hood ornament.

Doc smiled at it.

"That's Godzilla," he said and motioned her over.

When she moved closer, she caught a pair of bloodshot eyes ogling her from under the bill of his cap. There was also the strong odor of alcohol about him.

"Hop in." He thumbed at the truck's cab. "I'll let you pet my puppy."

"No thank you. I'd better find Charlie." She started toward the building.

"He's gittin' a lube job," the man yelled, pointing to the service bays.

She stopped walking, and the words just came out. "A lube job in the middle of fucking nowhere?"

"Hey, don't look at me." He flashed a smile that probably had involved teeth at some point in his life. "He just axe me to tell you."

She found Eastman in the mechanic's bay, standing under the rear of the Lincoln, which was high on the hydraulic lift. A mechanic was looking up at the engine, his back to them, grease gun in one hand and standard-issue red rag in the other.

"Found me," Eastman said, then looked over his shoulder to recheck the mechanic's whereabouts.

Doc set the bag of snacks on a workbench. "Is something wrong with the car?"

He winked and pointed up at the undercarriage. "Just needs a little grease."

She went along. "I'm glad it's nothing serious."

He took her by the arm and pulled her next to him, and then took out his pen and touched an object attached to the front of the gas tank. It was a box, black and shiny, the size of a paperback book. As she strained for a better look, he yanked it hard, and it came off, trailing a yard of wire. He took it to the workbench and positioned himself to block the view of the mechanic, who was scratching the crevice of his butt with the nozzle of the grease gun.

Quietly, he said, "Empty that sack."

She emptied it, and Eastman slid the box into it. "Stay with the car," he said. "When he's finished, pick me up at the car wash."

"Tell me that's not a bomb," Doc said as Eastman walked away with the device. She made small talk with the mechanic, who greased faster with each idiotic question she dreamed up. In five minutes, the car was on the ground.

When Doc pulled the car around the corner, Eastman was inside the car wash in front of a brush that looked like a rolling pin with bristles. He waved her in and signaled her to kill the engine. He motioned her out and handed her a note that told her not to say anything, that he was checking the car for bugs.

He opened the hood and bent into it. He ran his hands over wires and cables. He checked under the dash with a flashlight and looked under the front and rear carpeting. He even took out the back seat. After he had replaced everything, she followed him outside and waited while he washed his hands at a faucet. When he finished, he said, "I was looking for splices and modifications the factory didn't make."

"And?"

"The car's clean," he said, wiping his hands on his pants. "Mind driving?"

"Forget it," she said. "I'm not getting in until I know what you did with the bomb."

"It's not a bomb, it's a rabbit. A tracking device." He got into the passenger side and removed a pair of binoculars from a black canvas bag. He held them in his lap and nodded at the steering wheel.

She got in and started the engine. "Where's the thing?" she asked, making a pair of erect ears with her fingers.

"I'll show you. Pull around to the side of the station."

She did as directed and stopped between the building and a dumpster.

He pointed to the far corner of the property. "See that green pickup?"

Doc grabbed the binoculars. "That's Godzilla Man's truck," she said and scanned the apron. "He's a walking a little dog in the flower bed."

"He's also the new owner of the tracker. I attached it to his bumper while he was in the store."

"Why?"

"Because it transmits a radio signal. Somebody attached it to this car to follow it."

"Someone's been following Ester?" Doc asked.

He shook his head. "Someone's following us. You can follow a car at a safe distance undetected if you know what you're doing."

"But you detected it," she said. "Ergo, the other driver doesn't know what he's doing."

He grinned. "You're smarter than I thought. On the way to New London, I saw a red Mustang in the side view mirror a couple of times. I didn't give it much thought until I saw it again while you were shooting pictures of the school. He was parked a few blocks up the street."

"What happens now that the thing is on Godzilla's truck?"

"We wait for the red Mustang to follow him when he leaves."

"What if it's the cops?"

"It's not cops. You saw the transmitter. It's brand new. He probably bought it at one of those spy stores, and I'll wager this is his first time out with it. There's not a scratch on it. No road tar, no pebble pocks."

"Maybe it's new cop equipment?"

"Not a chance. That thing's a toy powered by flashlight batteries. The police versions work off cell towers and satellites. A cop can eat doughnuts at his desk and track you all over the country. Besides that, this guy's driving a follow car that stands out like a sore thumb. He rented something cool and fast instead of a car nobody would notice."

They watched Godzilla Man load his pup into the truck and dump a twelve-pack into a Styrofoam chest. Then he got in and pulled away, leaving a blue cloud between them and the setting sun.

In less than a minute, the Mustang flew past on the feeder road.

"The game's afoot," Eastman said, and Doc accelerated across the apron to merge with the westbound traffic.

"I don't see him," she said.

"Don't worry," he said. "He's up there. He thinks we're going home."

She made her way over to the fast lane, and in a short time, they were a dozen car lengths behind the Mustang. With the binoculars, Eastman determined that there was only one person in the car, and he jotted down the plate number. When he finished, he said, "Now we sit back and watch."

"But the truck has a full tank of gas," Doc pointed out. "How long do you think Mustang Man will follow the signal before he figures out something's wrong?"

"Shouldn't take long. The guy in the truck's guzzling beer. He'll have to pull over to take a leak soon. And when Mustang Man doesn't see our car, he'll know he's been had."

It was dark when the Mustang finally veered off the interstate.

"Pull to the shoulder and kill the lights," Eastman told her. She did, and they watched as the Mustang's brake lights came on a half-mile ahead.

"There's a rest area up there," he said. "The truck probably pulled in, and our guy's waiting for our car to pull out."

For a minute, they sat at the side of the road in darkness, and then Eastman slung the binoculars over his shoulders and opened the door.

"What are you doing?" she asked, covering the dome light with her hands.

He nodded at the pasture next to the road. "I'm gonna hop that fence and make my way down to the Mustang. I want a look at that guy."

"What about me?"

He took his pistol from the glove compartment and handed it to her butt first. She accepted the gun like it was a hammer or some other tool and wedged the muzzle firmly between the seats.

"You've handled one before," he said.

"I grew up with guns," she said. "My daddy had a room full of them, and I shot and cleaned every one."

"Then keep the doors locked and shoot anybody who tries to get in. Except me, of course. I'll be the one with barbed wire around my nuts."

She watched him make his way through the weeds. When he reached the three-strand fence, he separated the top two wires and stepped through.

She stared into the darkness for a while, hoping Eastman wouldn't fall into a cistern or an irrigation ditch, then turned the radio to a Dallas station playing music from The Nutcracker Suite. It relaxed her until she imagined Eastman at the bottom of an uncovered well, yelling for help while she hummed along with "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy." She turned off the radio and lowered the window, listening for his voice above the howling truck tires. Feeling more vulnerable, she laid the pistol on her lap.

While she resettled into the soft leather, her eyes went to the pistol again and, out of boredom, she picked it up. It wasn't a standard army .45 like she favored. Eastman had made several modifications. For one thing, the thumb safety was ambidextrous, and she clicked it off and on from both sides. Then she pointed it at the dark floorboard and was surprised to see three green dots glowing above the barrel. She'd heard of night sights, but she'd had no idea how bright they were. She swung the pistol up and aimed it at her reflection in the passenger window, then over to the clock, concentrating on the fluidity of movement, like a SWAT officer clearing a room.

"Bam," she whispered. "Blam, blam."

She swung the gun up with a two-handed grip and rested her wrists on the steering wheel, the pistol's gleaming dots dead on the rear of the Mustang parked down the road.

"Pow, motherfucker," she said at the same time its taillights came on. She watched helplessly as the car pulled away and onto the highway. She wondered whether Eastman had seen it leave.

Two thunderous pops shook the window next to her head. She jumped, screamed, and squeezed the trigger. There was an orange flash and a deafening explosion. Her ears rang, and she shook the pistol from her hand. It bounced off the seat and onto the floor. She twisted the ignition key while a man's hand jerked the door handle violently. He yelled and smacked the window again, harder this time, but it didn't shatter.

She twisted the key, slammed the car into gear, and stomped the accelerator. The Lincoln lunged forward, slinging gravel.

"It's me!" Eastman yelled, shining the flashlight beam on his face.

Doc, now several car lengths away, saw a zombie in a cowboy hat dancing in the rearview mirror. As the dust drifted away, the hat and voice connected.

"Charlie," she breathed and threw the car into reverse.

When he saw the backup lights come on and heard the tires spinning, he headed for the weeds. The big car skidded to a stop and she opened the door, mopping tears with her sleeve.

"I'd better drive," he said. She slid over and he got behind the wheel. When he located the pistol, he secured it in his waistband. "You okay?" he asked.

She was looking the other way. "I'm all right, but we've lost the Mustang."

"Good. Let him go."

"I ruined our surveillance, didn't I?"

"Hell, no," he said, trying to make her feel better. "We did what we set out to do. Nobody's hurt and there's no reports to write." He probed the bullet hole in the windshield with his finger. "What's an accidental discharge among friends?"

"What about the Mustang driver?"

"He's probably headed home, feeling like a fool."

"Won't he assume we followed him?"

"I doubt it," he said. "Mickey Brite is not that clever."

Chapter 17

They stopped to eat in Dallas and clattered over Eastman's cattle guard shortly before midnight. He parked in the barn and, while he was padlocking the doors, Doc said, "Remind me why I'm staying at your place."

"Because we were followed by a nut all day. It's safer if you don't go home tonight." He snapped the lock and they started toward the house. "I'll build a fire and we'll sleep like babies."

"But I don't have a toothbrush."

"I've got an extra."

"Or anything to sleep in."

He chuckled and kept walking.

"Oh, I get it. I suppose it'll be even safer if I sleep in the nude. No pajamas to catch fire."

"It's for your own good."

They entered the dark house through the back door. Doc felt for the light switch, but he caught her by the sleeve.

"Don't turn the light on," he said and slipped a flashlight into her hand. "The first thing Brite will do when he gets back is look for us and the car. He'll check your place and mine."

"You didn't mention Ester's place," she said. "You think they're in collusion, don't you?"

"Sure looks like it. How did Brite know I'd be driving her car? Also, the tracker was on it when she gave it to me."

"I think you should call and confront her," Doc said.

"Later," he said. "I'll play along for the time being."

They shut the curtains, built a fire, and slept close to it. When they awoke, the sky was clear and the eastern horizon blushed as they ate breakfast. Afterward, Doc stood at the window watching ducks leave the pond while Eastman got ready for the trip to the state mental hospital. After he was packed, he pulled the Lincoln to the back of the house to pick up Doc and drive her home.

When she was in the car, he saw her looking at the duct tape he'd placed over the hole in the windshield."

"I'll have it fixed in Austin," he said. "Ester won't know the difference."

"When are you coming back?" she asked.

"Depends on the hospital's attitude about old patient records."

After they said goodbye, he headed south on State Highway 16 toward Austin and crossed into Erath County half an hour later. As he passed the county line marker, he wondered how many times he'd driven over the same spot and breathed a sigh of relief to be out of Coronado County, headed for Austin. Today, he felt a twinge of sadness.

The farther he drove, the more uneasy he felt. Brite had followed them for several hundred miles the day before. Maybe the idiot would try again. He began checking the mirror every couple of miles, but he felt foolish, like a meth freak watching for bush-narcs.

South of Comanche, he made a heat run, turning onto a dirt road and driving as fast as he could, forcing anyone following him to try and keep up.

At the crest of the first hill, he stopped suddenly, turned the car around, and killed the engine. He got out, steadied his binoculars across the top of the door, and analyzed the drifting cloud of dust he'd left all the way back to the highway, looking for a second cloud that shouldn't be there. Like a career criminal, he listened for the sound of a light plane or helicopter, but all he heard was the wind rustling the dry grass and the call of a Bobwhite quail in the arroyo below. He and the bird listened patiently for what was not there. It was then that he realized he already missed Doc.

He stopped for ribs at Cooper's Bar-B-Que in Llano, so it was mid-afternoon when he arrived in Austin. He drove directly to the hospital and parked near the main building. The sidewalk leading to the administration building bisected an acre of winter grass and oak trees before splitting to connect with a maze of walkways linking the other buildings. He was greeted at the reception desk by an elderly man he guessed was a volunteer. Eastman told the man the reason for the visit and was given a map of the facility.

The archives were located in the basement of a building that sat at the rear of the property. He went in, removed his hat, and placed it on the counter, brim up.

A voice from somewhere said, "Are you here about family tree information?" It was a man's voice, tinny and flat.

Eastman scanned the room until a head came up over a computer screen like a target at a turkey shoot.

"I'm looking for information concerning someone who was committed by a court in 1935," Eastman said.

"Thirty-five?" The man was young, thin, and bullet headed. He took off his glasses and stepped around to the counter; his eyes locked on Eastman's hat on the counter. He tapped it with a pencil. "You have to be a cop."

"Sort of," Eastman said, offering his hand. "Charlie Eastman."

"Lester Falco," the clerk said, gripping his hand more tightly than he expected.

"Lester, I'm a private investigator hired to find the brother of a lady who lives in Coronado County. Trouble is, she doesn't know whether he's dead or alive. But she's positive he was here back in the thirties."

"And you think he's still here?"

Eastman chuckled. "No. After he was discharged, he went to live with his sister in another part of the state, but he didn't fit in there and just vanished. Since he had no other place to go, I got to wondering whether maybe he came back to this hospital. He was unusually smart, but not likely to win any personality contests."

"So you want to see if he was re-admitted?"

"Yes, sir. Look, Lester, I'm a retired cop. If I was still on the job, I'd walk in here with a subpoena or a court order or something and you'd get me what I need. But now I don't know what I can and can't do. That's where you come in."

"I'll do what I can, Mr. Eastman, but in this hospital, the patient's privacy is protected like nothing you've ever seen. Without the proper paperwork, I can't even confirm that the person was a patient."

Eastman smiled. "I understand. The rule probably goes back to some politician digging up dirt on another politician. I guess I should've called first." He picked up his hat and put it on.

"Bet you were a Texas Ranger," Lester Falco said, pointing a cocked thumb and index finger at Eastman. "Am I right?"

"I was a cop assigned to the governor's office. The Organized Crime Strike Force. Our office was about five miles from here. Back to what I was saying, I've seen prison inmates parole out, then return in a week because they were miserable in the free world. Maybe that's what happened to this kid."

"Could be. Could be. Some people find a home here."

"Look, Lester. There's no question that the boy was here. And, later on, I'll be happy to go through all the legal rigmarole to see the records. But today I just need to know whether he was discharged, then re-admitted. It's very important."

Falco sighed. "I'll see what I can do. Nothing says I can't take a little peek for myself." He stepped around to the computer, wedged the pencil over his ear, and began to click.

"What's the name?"

Eastman laid his hat on the counter again. "Lafoon. Couldn't be many of them."

"Joshua Lafoon?"

"You know the name?"

"I'm not saying yea or nay, but another person was asking about him recently. I couldn't give him any information either."

"The hospital's lucky to have you as an employee, Lester. But surely there's no rule against you describing the guy who was doing the asking."

"I'd describe him as a biker sort of person. Unkempt. Red hair and a beard."

"I shouldn't be surprised, but I am," Eastman said. He waved Falco closer and leaned forward. "Mind if I tell you something I'm not supposed to? It's in the interest of justice."

Falco looked at the big hat on the counter and shook his head.

"If Joshua Lafoon's still alive, he's going to inherit an honest-to-God empire. So I must know if he ran back to this hospital in 1937. If he did, I'll figure out why. Just hop on that computer and work your magic. All I need is a hint."

Falco thought about it, then went to work. He cursed at the first thing that popped up on his monitor and shoved the mouse away. Then he picked up the phone and punched in a five-digit number.

While Eastman pretended to review his notes, he noted that Falco was doing more listening than talking.

"I swear it has nothing to do with genealogy," Falco said to the person on the line. He looked over the monitor at Eastman. "They get that genealogy crap all the time. Makes 'em looney." He covered the mouthpiece. "I can't believe I said that." Shortly, he grabbed a legal pad and began to write. "What was the date of re-admission?" he asked softly.

But Eastman had overheard it and was smiling. He put on his hat, aimed a finger-pistol at Falco, and dropped the hammer. "Much obliged, Lester. Now, I've got to see a man about a bullet hole." As he headed for the door, he heard Falco resume the phone conversation.

"Guess who that was. A Texas Ranger. A Ranger captain."

Chapter 18

Eastman left the hospital anxious to call Doc. She had a vested interest in what he was doing, and he felt she deserved an update. He also wanted to hear her voice.

The setting sun capped Austin's snaggle-toothed skyline with gold, so he parked on the south bank of the Colorado River near the Congress Avenue bridge to enjoy it once more. He punched in Doc's number. The call went to voicemail and he said, "I just left the hospital. Brite had already been there asking about Lafoon. Also, I love you." Halfway home, his phone rang.

Doc sounded riled. "Brite's been there?"

"Yeah. When I get back, I'll hit Ester with it and see how she reacts."

"What about the hospital records?"

"I got lucky. Josh was re-admitted."

"You were right."

"It stands to reason," he said. "He'd just got out of a mental institution and was trying to adjust to a school where nobody liked him. Then everything blew up in his face. Literally. So he ran back to the only safe place he knew."

"Safe? Lunatic asylums were hell holes in those days."

"There must've been something there to draw him back," he said. "I don't know what to make of any of this. Ester's on my case to find the old man and, in the background, she and Brite are trying to sabotage it. It doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't. And I love you too... at least, I think so."

* * *

"The hospital wouldn't show you the records?" Ester asked.

"Nope. They run a tight ship. But as his sister and only kin, you shouldn't have any trouble getting them."

"What about Mr. Brite? Do you think he saw them?"

"No way. That clerk was tough as nails." Eastman almost laughed when he said it.

"How do you know it was Brite?" she asked.

"How many red-headed bikers would ask about a patient named Joshua Lafoon?"

She frowned. "When was he there?"

"Recently is all I know."

Eastman told her he'd caught Brite tracking him with a device attached to her car, omitting the fact that he and Doc had visited New London in it.

"How did Brite know I'd be using your car if you didn't tell him?" he asked.

She looked surprised. "You think I'm in collusion with him?"

"I don't know what to think."

She thought for a moment. "After I talked to you Saturday, I took the car into town to have it serviced. I told the man at the station to go over it good, that you were doing some legal stuff for me and had to go to Austin. Before the day was out, everybody in the county probably knew you'd be driving it."

She's right, he thought. They probably did know. All Brite had to do was wait for the right moment to crawl under the car and snap the gadget on it. "So what did he hope to accomplish by following me?"

"I can't imagine," she said. "And why was he asking about my brother's hospital records?" She looked at him like the schoolteacher she once was. "How would Mister Brite even know my brother's name?"

"No idea," Eastman said. "Could've been something as simple as an old timer mentioning the killer orphan trial in the thirties and Brite overhearing it."

"I don't think so," she said. "Old people around here think Josh's long dead. Red used his influence to spread a story around about Josh's committing suicide in the asylum."

"What if somebody checked out the story?"

"They wouldn't. Red was a hero here, a simple plumber who'd launched the nation's do-it-yourself industry. Everybody'd heard him on the radio. They'd read about him in the paper. He was loved and trusted. If Red told somebody in this Podunk place that somebody died, they were by-God dead."

"Then I'm back at square one," he said.

"Make it square two. You found out Brite's interested enough in Josh to bug my car. Now, go face him with it."

He shook his head. "Not yet. I want him to think he's getting away with whatever he's up to."

As he was leaving, she said, "They tell me you're courting Doc Page."

"That's one way to put it."

"I'm glad. She's smart as a whip and I like her. Too bad she has such awful taste in men."

On the way home, he tried to piece it together. Brite should be enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame instead of following people around. And what about Red Pirtle? Ester said he had been intensely interested in politics. Eastman remembered a photograph in the Pirtles' house that looked to have been taken in the sixties. Red and Lyndon Johnson, sleeves rolled up to their elbows, toilet plungers run through their belts like swords, each with a leg propped up triumphantly on the toilet between them. Something in the photo ran deeper than clowning around. It seemed to be more about success.

He dug out the phone and called Ester.

"Got a pencil and paper?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Get ready to write."

"I'm ready," she said.

"Tomorrow, give one of your ranch hands a few thousand in cash. Have him drive to Fort Worth and buy a used pickup from an individual. Nothing fancy. Preferably a dark color. Then drive it back and park it at Walmart. Tell him to put the key in a wadded up paper sack and pitch it into the bed of the truck like trash. Give me a call when it's done."

When she finished writing, she said, "I'll call you tomorrow."

Before he hung up, he said, "Red would've been proud of you."

Chapter 19

Two shovels, a hatchet, and a pick were cumbersome to manage, but when he slid a claw hammer into the leg-loop of his overalls, Mickey Brite became a one-man marching band, clanking and clanging through the darkness, up the sandy ravine to the little graveyard that was once an orchard.

"I should'a brought along a tuba," he mumbled. "Then I could wake up the whole goddamn state instead of just one county."

A high-resolution camera hung around his neck at the end of a leather guitar strap. It bucked and bounced with each step, missing the sharp tool heads by inches. When it finally ricocheted off a shovel, he cursed and knelt to check it for damage. He squinted up at the anemic slice of moon peeking over the edge of a cloud and shook his head. The Naval Observatory website had practically guaranteed the moon to have 93 percent of the illumination of a full disk. Although he felt the government had screwed him out of the moonlight he desperately needed, he liked the idea of referring to the moon as a disk and made a mental note to call it that from now on.

He reached for the Boy Scout flashlight clipped to his belt, then reconsidered. Waving a light beam around Ester Pirtle's godforsaken cemetery might arouse the attention of deer poachers or airborne game wardens. It might even draw other unwelcome things to the light. He'd use the flashlight and the camera sparingly and only at the proper time, which would be when he was below ground level, looking at whatever was buried there.

Having repositioned the camera to dangle under the bib of his overalls, he gathered up the tools and rattled off again, speculating that he was close to the target location. And since the government moonlight allowed him only twenty feet of visibility, he moved slowly and stepped carefully. If he got lost, he'd have to wait until daylight to find his way back to the rented Mustang. Brite, generously blessed with an eye for color and perspective, had no sense of direction whatsoever, and when he finally came to the rickety fence running uphill to the cemetery, he snickered and picked up his pace.

The little tombstones finally popped up at the top of the hill. He set the tools down, gasping as quietly as possible and wondering how much of the stress was due to poor physical condition and how much to an instinctive fear of the dead. He fished out a cigarette, lit it, and walked the perimeter of the graveyard looking for the grave marker.

When he found it, he went to work with a pick. Digging the compacted earth was harder than he had anticipated, and when the clouds broke and the moon reflected 93 percent illumination, he stopped digging, rested, and tried not to think of himself as a grave robber.

The monotony of digging sent Brite into the meditative state he entered when he sculpted. "I become the dirt. I am the dirt," was his mantra as he switched from pick to shovel, shovel to pick, slinging soil like Michelangelo whacking marble off his David. After an hour, he was standing in a hole only three feet deep. If he wasn't successful by first light, he'd stash the tools in the juniper and hightail it back to the car.

At four feet, the shovel struck an impenetrable mass, and he grabbed the hammer and pecked on it until it resonated. He squatted over it with the flashlight, brushing and scraping with his free hand until he confirmed that it was wood.

He cleared off an area the size of a dinner plate, then expanded it until he was clomping to and fro on plywood thin enough to sag under his weight. Getting the coffin out of the ground by himself was out of the question, so he decided he'd chop into it. He lit another cigarette, rested awhile, and set the camera next to the grave. He grabbed the pick and crawled back into the grave, trying to remember whether tombstones were placed at the head or feet of a stiff. Put off by the thought of smacking a corpse in the face, he selected the end farthest from the stone.

He raised the pick and started down with it, but it froze above his head, as if he'd snagged a low-hanging limb. Then it jerked upward violently, out of his hands, and he came down hard on his knees. He scrambled to his feet, confused. "What the fuck?" he said, looking for the pick. Then a flash hit him like the sun had exploded in his face. At first, he thought he had been shot. He dropped to his knees again. Then he realized there had been no noise. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was in a hole, at the mercy of something. While he rubbed his eyes to clear away a blue spot that wouldn't let him see his own hands, he heard a click.

There was a whistle from the far end of the grave, and he spun toward it. Blinding light hit him again, but it was sustained. A spotlight. He covered his eyes and hunkered in the far corner of the grave.

"Be still," someone said. "Take your hands from your face or your corpse will rot where you're kneeling."

Be still? The son of a bitch had photographed him robbing a grave. Brite stood up, blind. "That's my camera, you asshole."

"The camera's the least of your problems," the voice said, now from behind.

The guy's on the move, Brite thought, then felt cold metal against his neck.

"That's a shotgun, Mr. Brite. If you disappoint me, I'll cut you in two and wipe my ass with your filthy beard."

"I understand," Brite said, not wanting to die in someone else's grave. "What do you want?"

"A better question is, what do you want?"

"I'm looking for Indian stuff. Tomahawks, eagle feathers... shit like that."

There was a chuckle. "You think Lafoon's buried in a war bonnet?"

Charlie fucking Eastman. And the bastard has a shotgun.

"Eastman, if you shoot me, they'll figure it out real quick. Other people know you're looking for Lafoon, too."

"What people?"

"Ester and Doc know for sure. And how about Doc's sister? No telling how many people those broads have told."

"Why did you follow Doc and me to New London?" Eastman asked.

"Because I wanted to know what you were up to."

"Did you find out?"

"Sort of. I never knew about that school blowing up until you drove up there. Lafoon must have been a student."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because it blew up."

"Start from the beginning," Eastman said. "What exactly is your interest in him?"

Brite wanted to make up a story that sounded plausible, but if Eastman caught him lying, he could wind up under the dirt he'd just shoveled.

"Joshua Lafoon is responsible for my father's death," Brite said. "I'm positive of it."

"So you decided to dig him up and spank him?"

"Look, I have to know if he's really dead."

"You followed Ester and me to this cemetery," Eastman said.

"Right. And all I wanted tonight was a look at the stiff. See how tall it is, that kind of thing. Maybe there's personal items on him. I brought some baggies for DNA samples."

"Come out of there," Eastman said.

Out of the grave and exhausted, Brite sat with his back against a headstone and enjoyed not being dead while Eastman sat with the shotgun across his lap.

"Are you gonna tell the cops about this?" Brite asked.

Eastman shrugged. "Grave robbery is a serious charge. It takes a special kind of pervert to drive a pick into somebody's final resting place."

"I'll get serious jail time," Brite said. "These hicks around here hate me."

"And what about your art career?"

Brite took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "The bloggers and trade magazines will crucify me."

Eastman moved closer to him. He took out a handkerchief and began to wipe down the shotgun. "How many times have you followed me?"

"Twice," Brite said, afraid he was about to be butt-stroked. "I hung the bug under Ester's car after you started meeting with her. I figured if I followed either one of you long enough I might get lucky."

Eastman nodded at the grave. "You think Lafoon's buried here?"

"Don't you?"

"No."

"That's bullshit," Brite said, then wished he hadn't.

"Ester owns this cemetery," Eastman said. "If she believed he was here, she would've opened the grave years ago." While Brite was mulling that over, Eastman asked, "Why do you think Lafoon is responsible for your father's death?"

"You ever hear of the Taos Moderns?" Brite asked. "They were a bunch of artists who moved to the mountains in New Mexico to paint and make money. My daddy, Jack Brite, was one. He was a famous painter and sculptor in the forties. That's where I get my art genes. Ever hear of Ernie Blumenschein?"

"Never have."

"Bert Geer Phillips?"

Eastman shook his head.

"Georgia O'Keefe, for God's sake?"

"She draw cow skulls?"

"That's her," Brite said.

"And she was one of those Taos Moderns?"

"No, but she visited them once."

"You'd better get to the point."

"All right. Daddy lived in Taos with these Moderns for a while, but he was a wild-ass drunk and they kicked him out. That's when he moved down to Santa Fe and met Mama. After they set up a studio, the FBI recruited him to spy for the government."

"Makes sense," Eastman said. "Find a drunk who can't even function around his friends and make him an espionage agent."

"I'm serious, Eastman. Think about what was happening in the mid-forties."

"Big bands. Jack Benny."

"In New Mexico, damn it! What was going on up the road from Santa Fe during World War Two? At Los Alamos!"

"They were building the atomic bomb."

"Exactly. Mama says guys in suits started showing up at their art studio. After a while, Daddy would leave with them and be gone for days. Sometimes the suit guys brought foreigners with them. Real intellectuals. They were Los Alamos scientists who loved to talk about art. Before you know it, Daddy was traveling overseas like you and I go the grocery store."

"What's that got to do with this hole in the ground?"

"I'm coming to that. One day, while Daddy was out of the country, a young guy walked into the studio. Claimed to be a big fan of Daddy's work. The guy and Mama got to talking, and he told her he grew up in Texas too. In fact, right here in Coronado County, where Mama's from. He gave Mama a business card that said he was opening a gallery up north and wanted to do a Jack Brite show."

"You know the name on the card?"

"Isaacs... somebody Isaacs."

"Your mother know him?"

"Nope. She said he was real tall. Looked like a scarecrow. Somebody you'd never forget. But he knew too much about this place for his story to be a con job."

Eastman looked into the grave. "Isaacs was Joshua Lafoon?"

Brite got up and began dusting himself off. "I'd stake my life on it. There ain't never been any Isaacs here. I researched it at the courthouse myself. Then I ran across the Lafoon murder trial. A doctor testified that the Lafoon boy never went to school and didn't associate with anybody outside his family. That explains why Mama didn't know him."

"Did your folks ever hear from Isaacs again?"

"I'm not sure. Daddy told my mother Isaacs was a German spy and gave her a pistol. He told her to shoot Isaacs if he ever came back. Said make sure he's dead and walk away, the FBI would take care of it. After the bombs were dropped, Daddy closed the studio and they moved to Texas."

"That's it?"

"Hardly. Later, my daddy's body was found in a pile of ashes behind our house. He was shot with the pistol he gave Mama. There's a lot more to it, but you get the idea."

Eastman jacked the shells from the shotgun and leaned it against the fence. He pitched Brite a bottle of water and watched him guzzle it down.

"Everything I've told you is gospel," Brite said. "Either dime me out for grave robbery or help me find him."

Eastman hung his hat over the muzzle of the gun and motioned Brite to the grave. He put his hand on Brite's shoulder. "Listen, asshole. I couldn't care less about your ridiculous spy yarn. But the remote possibility that Isaacs was the lunatic who burned a schoolhouse full of kids is a different story. Get the pick."

Chapter 20

"Holy shit," Brite said when the flashlight beam entered the hole he chopped in the coffin lid. He stood up. "Guess what. The stiff's wearing earmuffs."

"Get out of the way," Eastman said and eased into the grave with him. He took the flashlight from Brite and gave him the spotlight. After he steadied himself, Eastman nodded and Brite flipped on the bright light. After he studied the bulges on each side of the skull, he took out his pocketknife and opened the longest blade.

"What are you doing?" Brite asked.

"Those earmuff's are metal disks," Eastman said. "They're attached to his head with tape." He bent closer to the coffin. "There's insulated wires attached, but I can't tell where they run."

"Who gives a shit? The guy's dead. Just shoot a couple of pictures and whack off some of that nasty hair."

Eastman ran the knife blade through the brittle tape, and then pried off the disks as if they were attached with Velcro. Afterward, he cut the wires, leaving a few inches, and dangled them under the light.

"Yick," Brite said, looking over Eastman's shoulder. "Looks like hockey pucks."

"They're corroded copper or brass, so I'm guessing they're electrodes."

Brite tried to hold the spotlight steady while Eastman examined them. "Hey, I know what they're for," Brite said. "The old dude had a heart attack and they tried to save him with those things."

"Take another look," Eastman said, moving the flashlight closer to the hole. "He's wearing a coat and tie. Who'd go to the trouble of dressing up a body for burial and not disconnect the medical equipment?" He got on his hands and knees and ran his arm into the hole.

"You're about to grab hold of a rattler," Brite said. "They love caskets."

"Shut up. The wires are joined behind his neck and run down his spine, but I can't tell any more than that." He sat up and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "The back of the skull's stuck to the bottom of the coffin. If you can get the lid off, we'll sit him up."

"I'll get the lid off, but I'm not touching that creepy fucker."

Brite used the pick and hatchet to split the lid from head to foot, stepping gingerly beside the corpse. After he pitched out most of the pieces, Eastman said, "I'll take it from here." He stood over the splinter-covered body, straddling the pelvis, and then he grabbed the coat's lapels and yanked up. The torso ripped away from the wood underneath, and the corpse sat up to face him.

"You're crazier than I thought," Brite said. "You're wrestling with a zombie and loving it."

"I don't like any of this, but it has to be done. Now get behind him."

Brite groaned and lowered himself back into the grave. Eastman shoved the corpse against Brite's legs and followed the wires. "They end here," Eastman said, raising the trouser cuffs to reveal disks attached to the ankles.

Brite nodded at them. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means he was murdered."

"If he was murdered, why would the murderer mark the grave?"

"Because he's in a cemetery," Eastman said. He shoved the body down and rapped the cranium with his knuckles. "We'll start here and work down." He took out his pen and pried open the jaw with it.

"Caramba!" Brite said when he saw a mouthful of gold teeth. "How old do you figure he was?"

"Pretty old. His hair's moldy, but it was white when he died." Eastman took the light from Brite and began to inspect the rest of the body. When he raised the left sleeve, it exposed a wristwatch dangling from the wrist. The watch slid off easily, and he handed it to Brite. Its casing appeared to be of a base metal, the face black, with two inset dials. There was a small button on each side of the stem.

Brite hefted it in his palm a couple of times. "I've never seen a watch like this." He moved the watch into the light. "Looks like it's been in a fire."

"It's been in a coffin that's not waterproof," Eastman said.

"Gimme your knife," Brite said. He used it to scrape cadaver-stained crust off the back of the watch. He turned it over. "The name on the face starts with an H."

"Maybe a Hamilton," Eastman said. "Get pictures of it."

"What for? We've got the watch itself."

Eastman took the watch. "We're going to return this watch to the man's wrist because we're not looters. If it's ever needed, we know where to find it."

"But old Lafoon don't need it."

"This is not Lafoon, you moron."

Eastman ran the light up and down the body. "According to Ester, Joshua Lafoon is taller than I am. This guy wouldn't hit five-seven in a pair of pumps."

"Then who the hell is he?"

"No idea. Must've left his driver's license on the dresser."

"Why is he wearing hockey pucks on his head?"

"Beats me," Eastman said. "Why is he buried backward?"

"Backward? What are you talking about?"

"His feet face the wrong direction. That's why Ester bought this property. She says Jesus will come from behind him on Judgment Day." When he saw the blank look on Brite's face, he said, "Just get the camera. I'll hang onto the hockey pucks."

"Looter," Brite said.

When he was satisfied with the photos, Eastman pulled a tooth from the skull with a pair of pliers and snapped off the last joint of the dead man's left pinky. Then he bagged the specimens with a hair sample and shoved the bag into his pocket.

They shoveled the dirt back into the grave before dawn and scattered leaves and rocks over it. Before leaving, they dragged a heavy limb up from the ravine and laid it across the site.

On the way back, Brite said, "Now that we're partners, what's next? Obviously, you don't intend to tell the law about our little secret."

"What's the rush?" Eastman said. "The man's been dead a long time."

Trudging along, Brite said, "You think Lafoon killed the old guy to make everybody think it's him?"

Eastman shook his head. "If Lafoon's as smart as they say, he would have killed somebody his size and put his name on the stone. Maybe plant some personal effects on the body."

"Then we don't know any more than we did before we dug him up," Brite said.

"We know it's not Lafoon."

"But you still think it's connected, right? I mean, if old lady Pirtle bought this land because of a backward grave, it's clear she thinks it's connected."

"Connected to what?

"I don't have a clue," Brite said. "But it's obvious something's connected to something."

Chapter 21

Forewarned of Little Noodle's proclivity for crotch crunching, Brite followed Eastman down Ester Pirtle's hallway with both hands over his genitals, Little Noodle pirouetting beside him. Eastman, under the guise of etiquette, covered his privates with his hat while Ester ushered them back to the library.

After they sat, Eastman had Brite repeat the story of his mother's visit from a man calling himself Isaacs and explain why Brite had come to believe Isaacs and Lafoon were the same person. When Ester held up a hand, Brite stopped talking.

She looked at Eastman. "Is this why everyone is following everyone? Mr. Brite follows you. Then you follow him to the little cemetery that he knew about because he'd followed you and me to it earlier."

Eastman looked at Brite. "Tell her why you bugged her car."

Brite grinned like a child who'd been forced to apologize for breaking a neighbor's window. He explained that the service station attendant who serviced her Lincoln before Eastman's trip had innocently mentioned it to the coffee crowd at the Heart Mart. Thinking the trip might benefit his search for Isaacs, Brite had attached the device to the car while it was waiting to be picked up. None of it seemed to matter to Ester until he proposed that Isaacs was a Nazi spy who was responsible for the death of Brite's father.

"What about it, Charlie? Was my brother the man called Isaacs? Was he a Nazi?"

"I doubt it," Eastman said. "Sounds like a coincidence."

She sat forward. "Did the dead man have all his fingers?"

"Not after Eastman got through with him," Brite said.

"It was pretty messy down there, so I didn't count them," Eastman said.

"I got a letter from Joshua while he was on a ship," she said. "He said he'd lost this." She wiggled her index finger. "It had to have been the right one since he was right-handed."

Eastman described the body without mentioning the electrodes. It was possible only the killer knew about them. Then Brite brought up the watch, something else Eastman had preferred to withhold.

"Did you bring the watch?" she asked.

"No, but we took pictures of it," Eastman said.

"I told him to take it, Mrs. Pirtle," Brite said. "But Dudley Do-Right called me a looter and put it back on the dead guy's wrist... if you call two chicken bones a wrist."

"We can get the watch anytime," Eastman explained, "but I think we should find out more about it. It's the only clue we've got to his identity."

She thumbed at the computer behind her. "I assume you tried that thing."

"I tried the Internet first. The best I could do was to determine it's a pilot's watch."

"Then what you need's an expert, and I've got just the man," she said. "Tricky Dick. He was an old friend of Red's. A certified horologist. Red called him Tricky Dick because he persuaded Red to give Rolexes to everybody who had political clout. And since Dick sold fine watches, he made a lot of money off Red." She chuckled. "Of course, Red made even more from the politicians he gave them to. Red's watches are all over Washington."

"Where do we find this Tricky dude?" Brite asked.

She dug a notebook out of the desk and flipped through it. Then she tore out a page and offered it to Eastman. "Old Dick lives above his shop on Knox Street in Dallas. You show him those pictures, and he'll tell you all about the watch."

Eastman got up and took the page. Brite got up too, eyeing Little Noodle, who was asleep at Brite's feet.

"One last thing," Eastman said. "How long were you aware of the cemetery before you bought it?"

She looked as though the question pleased her. "My brother showed it to me when we were kids. We even had picnics for my dollies there. The grave didn't appear until Joshua disappeared, though. And of course, I bought it because I felt there was a connection."

"I told you," Brite said.

"You told me what?"

"I told you at the cemetery. Something's connected to something."

* * *

When the old jeweler appeared from the rear of the shop, Eastman remembered a book he had loved as a kid. It was about three billy goats and a troll who lived under a bridge.

"You must be Dick," Eastman said as he laid an envelope containing the photos on the counter.

"I was Dick, but now I'm Richard," the man said without taking his eyes off Eastman's hat. "Has to do with our changing slang. Are you a lawman?"

"No sir," Eastman said. He tapped the envelope. "I'm the one who called you about identifying a watch."

Tricky Richard scooped it up and peeked inside. "You don't have the watch?"

"Just pictures of it."

The jeweler nodded and took the photos to a desk where he spread them out under a gooseneck lamp. "Is this for insurance purposes?"

"No sir."

"Good," he said, examining them closely in good light. When he had viewed them all, he returned to the counter and handed the envelope back to Eastman. "Well, it appears to be a German pilot's watch. It's hard to say because there are so many replicas on the market."

Brite lit up. "No shit? How old is it?"

"Hard to put a year on it from photographs, but it was a navigational watch used by the Luftwaffe. Other companies made them, but the Hanhart—that's what you have in the pictures—was prized by the Nazi flyboys. Yours is a Hanhart double button, and a ballpark year would be 1939. It's worth a good deal of money, assuming it's a real Flieger Chronograph."

"What's a good deal of money, Richard?" Brite asked.

The man returned to the counter without answering and stopped in front of Brite. "Do you mind if I ask how you came by such a watch?"

Eastman's boot struck Brite's ankle. "A man found it in his basement and showed it to us," Eastman said, watching the jeweler's face take on the same smile as the troll in the book. "That's why it's so crudded up. He claims it was his grandfather's watch."

The troll seemed to be looking straight through Eastman's head. "I've seen jewelry in this condition many times, gentlemen. I know what causes it."

"The man said his basement flooded," Eastman said.

The old man grunted. "Are you buying or selling the watch?"

"I'm not sure," Eastman said, putting the envelope into his pocket. "We just wanted to know what it was."

The smile was back. "I see. And this man—the owner of the watch—didn't tell you his grandfather was a Luftwaffe pilot while you were taking its picture and discussing the purchase?"

Eastman felt the noose tighten. "Actually, he speaks very little English." He glanced at Brite, whose face was reddening, then at Tricky Richard, who had become the stone-faced troll again.

Here it comes, Eastman thought.

"Sir, the owner of the watch was not alive when you took it, was he?"

Brite leaned over the counter. "He was, until he started asking a bunch of fucking questions."

The old man lifted his shirt and showed Brite the butt of a pistol protruding from his waistband. "Good day, boys. Our business is finished."

Outside the shop, Brite said, "Nice old guy," while he waved his middle finger at Tricky Dick through the window.

Eastman slapped him on the back. "Wait'll he meets the third billy goat Gruff."

* * *

"No, I've never known a German aviator," Ester said.

"Then I guess that does it," Eastman said. "I suppose the next step is to call the sheriff's department and report the body."

"Excuse me, partner," Brite said. "If you do that, they'll know we robbed a grave."

"There wasn't any grave robbery," Eastman said. "You dug a hole next to a stone with writing on it. There was nothing on the stone to indicate a human being was buried there. It could have been the grave of someone's cat or a dog. Besides, Ester owns the property. She can dig holes wherever she likes."

"So they won't arrest us?"

"No."

Brite refused to accept it. "But somebody took a man wearing copper earmuffs and covered him with dirt."

"Right. And we just stumbled on to him," Eastman said. "People find bodies all the time and aren't arrested."

"What's this about earmuffs?" Ester said.

Eastman sighed. "They're not earmuffs. There were metal disks attached to the skull."

"Go on."

"There was two more hooked to his legs," Brite said, "with wires running all over the place. They're in the car if you want to have a look."

Eastman wanted to kill Brite, but he nodded for him to get them.

When Brite was gone, Ester said, "When they released Josh from the hospital, he told as how they'd injected him with chemicals that sent him into convulsions." She watched Brite open the trunk and lift out the wiring harness. "But sometimes they used electricity."

"Electroshock therapy," Eastman said.

She was watching Brite and didn't seem to hear Eastman's suggestion. "Josh was just a boy, and they shocked him over and over. He cried when he told me about it. The worst part is, he wasn't insane until they began the treatments."

Brite returned with a cardboard box containing the wiring harness and set it on the coffee table.

"I don't understand," she said when saw the apparatus. "What would this possibly accomplish?"

"I think the hospital records will fill in the blanks," Eastman said.

"Then I'll get a lawyer on it tomorrow," she said.

"How about the letters from Josh?"

"They're in my safe. I'll get them for you. Anything else?"

He smiled. "Did you go to the Christmas tree lighting in town?"

She looked puzzled. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"I just wondered whether you saw Brite's statue."

Brite spoke up. "Gristle Page took a picture of it and now I'm hot stuff."

"Ah, the big peanuts," she said. "I wanted to be there, but friends took me to see The Nutcracker in Dallas."

After they were back on the highway, Brite said, "Eastman, if we're gonna work together, you need to tell me what's going on."

"What are you talking about?"

"Why'd you ask Ester if she went to the tree lighting?"

"Because that night I bumped into a professorly looking old gentleman. Said he knew my granddad and he'd kept up with my career. He even knew when I got shot in Laredo."

"So what? It was in the paper," Brite said.

"He was tall and straight as a pine. I guessed him to be about seventy 'till I got a close look and saw he was a lot older. I forgot all about him until Ester mentioned the finger. Then it came back to me. Very tall. Very old. And a missing a finger."

"Index finger?"

Eastman nodded. "If Ester had been at the tree lighting she would have found herself face to face with Joshua Lafoon."

Chapter 22

Eastman was ready to explode. He couldn't wait to tell Doc about the dead man and inhale Noxzema down to the soles of his feet. That evening they cooked Mexican food in her kitchen, and he told her about the man with the copper earmuffs.

"You're kidding," she said, rummaging through the refrigerator. "Electrodes?"

"Two at his temples and two at his ankles. And he was dressed fit to kill."

"How do you know it's not Lafoon?"

"Because he was at the Christmas festival. I talked to him."

She stared at him, a jar in each hand.

He closed the door for her.

"There's a page missing here," she said.

He described the old man at the tree lighting. "Plus the guy in the grave is too short, and I'm pretty sure he has all his fingers. Ester says Lafoon's missing his right index."

Doc set one of the jars on the table and tried to unscrew the lid from the other. "There must be thousands of old men with missing fingers." She handed him the uncooperative jar.

He twisted off the lid and handed it back. "How many of them are over six foot six?"

"A few, probably." She began to apply logic. "Look, if Lafoon showed up at the Christmas festival, he'd be taking a chance on some other old fart remembering him."

"I doubt it. The adults who were at his trial are probably dead. Besides, he was wearing glasses and one of those little sports car caps."

"What about Ester? If she'd been there, she would have known him, cap and all."

"I thought about that. He must've known she wasn't coming. What really confounds me is why he showed up in the first place."

"Right," she said. "What did he hope to accomplish?"

He smiled. "You were taking pictures that night."

She grabbed his arm. "Holy crap! You're thinking he might be in one of them!"

Doc took off to get the photographs while he spooned honey onto a sopapilla. Before he had eaten it, she was back. She fanned them out on the table like a hand of solitaire and began examining them with a magnifying glass.

"Take a gander at this one, Charlie. It was taken as soon as the tree was lit. Check out the man in the very back. He's a head taller than everyone around him."

He took the glass. "Maybe, but his hand's in the way. Looks like you caught him adjusting his glasses."

"But he's wearing a British flat cap, right?"

"See if you've got a better shot."

She sorted the photos into little piles and sat back. "Okay, what was going on when you met him?"

He thought about it while he took the last bite of the sopapilla. "It was right before the Goose Pulling."

"Aha! That's early in the evening." She grabbed a pile and laid the photos out in rows. He studied them and tapped one with the glass. "Here's our boy."

"Gimme that!" She snatched it. "Hey, his back is turned."

"Right, but it's definitely him. Look at all that white hair."

She pitched the photo onto the table. "Keep looking. I took shitloads of pictures. There's got to be a facial shot."

He laid the glass down. "Don't bet on it."

"What do you mean?"

"Ten bucks says if we find another picture of him, he's scratching his forehead or looking down."

Doc's fingers drummed the table. "None of this makes sense. If he doesn't want to be found, why would he come back to his hometown and mingle with hundreds of people?"

"Beats me."

Her fingers froze. "Oh, my God! He was there to see you!"

"Me?"

"You didn't know him, but he knew you. He even said he'd kept up with you."

"So?"

"If he kept up with you, he knew you'd moved back to Coronado County and his sister would soon have you looking for him. Therefore, he made it a point to find you first."

"Then why not just call me on the phone or walk up and introduce himself? If the guy's as smart as Ester says, he wouldn't need to play a stupid game."

They sat quietly for a while, staring at the photos before Doc spoke. "He was telling you something."

"Telling me what?"

"That he knew Ester would soon have you looking for him. She'd give you the basic information about him. His age, height, and the fact that he had a missing finger. Lafoon simply deduced you'd eventually put it all together and remember the old nine-fingered shit at the Christmas festival." Doc picked up a stack of photos and waved them at him. "And he knew you'd come to me and ask if I had a picture of him."

"And here I am." He shook his head. "That's downright spooky."

"And after we go over every one of these pictures, we still won't know any more about him than we did when we started. Lafoon's telling us—telling you—he doesn't want to be found. He couldn't have made it any clearer."

After they had examined every photograph, they wound up with four shots of Lafoon, all worthless for identification purposes, but in one he'd positioned himself close to the camera. In it, like the others, his face was obscured. Anyone standing near him at the time would have thought he was shielding his eyes from the camera flash. But Doc, with the help of the magnifying glass and her tenacity genes, studied every line and shadow.

Then she smacked her forehead.

"It's a newspaper," she said, holding up the photo. "He's covering his face with a folded newspaper."

"You find that amazing?"

"Definitely," she said. "You can read only part of the headline because Lafoon's hand is covering the rest."

Eastman got out his pen and clicked it. "Read it to me, and I'll find the newspaper that ran it."

She handed him the photo. "You read it."

He took the glass and studied the image. "Looks like a long word. Maybe two." He turned the photograph sideways, and the glass hovered above it until he mumbled, "How about that?"

The eight bold letters that Lafoon left visible for the camera formed a short declarative sentence: FORGET ME.

Chapter 23

When the phone rang, Ester was propped up in bed with a cup of hot chocolate, Unseen Dimensions blaring on the radio to drown out a passing thunderstorm. Little Noodle, beside her, raised his head, then dropped it like a boulder. Ester muted an interview with a caller who claimed to be the Antichrist and grabbed the phone.

Eastman said, "Sorry to bother you this late, but I'd like to drop by."

"It's bad news, isn't it?"

"It's good news. Doc and I were going over her Christmas pictures tonight and found something you might want to take a look at."

"What'd you find?"

"I think your brother's in some of them."

"Then get over here and show me. If you're right, we have to move fast."

When the line went dead, Eastman repeated to Doc what Ester had said.

Doc frowned. "Move fast after all these years? I'd be careful."

* * *

Even in the rain, the drive to the Pirtle ranch should have taken no more than fifteen minutes, but after he turned south at the outskirts of town, he found himself behind a cattle truck doing thirty. He dropped back a couple hundred yards, flicked the radio on, and smiled when he thought about the hard lesson some city people learn while tailgating cattle trucks in the rain.

Ester's porch light came on when he was halfway up the driveway. When he walked in, she stuck her hand out. "Let's see them."

They sat down at the desk in the library and she laid out the photos. "Good God Almighty. Still a scarecrow, poor thing."

"Then it's him?"

Her eyes didn't move. "It's him all right. No two ways about it."

Eastman told her about their brief encounter at the Christmas festival. When he finished, he said, "Looks like I found him before I knew he was missing."

"He found you," she said. "It just took awhile for you to figure it out. But don't feel bad; that's how his mind works." She smiled at the photo of Lafoon with the newspaper. "The next thing is to get in touch with him. I don't care how, but I must talk to him face to face."

"He wants us to forget him. Read the headline."

"Forget that idiotic headline. I can just picture the old fool giggling while he folded up that newspaper." She shook her head. "Imagine, a man his age holding up a sign like some fool at a football game."

"If he was trying to be funny, he's got a weird sense of humor."

"He's got a weird sense of everything," she said, her face serious again. "But I've got to talk to him. There are things that must be settled before one of us dies."

"Will you ask him about that body in your cemetery? Or why Brite is convinced Josh is responsible for his father's death?"

She was staring at him hard.

"Look Ester, I've got a dog in this fight now." He stood and looked down at her. "Your brother's been watching me, and I want to know why."

She didn't respond so he decided to get her attention.

"Maybe you can clear something up. A gangly misfit at the New London School named Joshua disappeared the day of the explosion. A few days later, Joshua Lafoon was readmitted to the state asylum. I'd love to hear what he has to say about that."

She sprang at him like a coiled snake and her hand slammed against his palm, inches from his face. When he released it, she sat back down. She dropped her gaze to the pictures again and then picked them up.

"He didn't mention the explosion in the letters?" Eastman asked.

Her thumb stroked Lafoon's image on the photo. "No."

"But it's tortured you all these years."

"Of course it has," she said.

"He's had over half a century to shove a note into your mailbox saying, 'I'm sorry, it was an accident' or 'I did it, but I was insane' or even 'It wasn't me.' He owes you an explanation."

"What do we do now?" She wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve.

"I'll have to report this to somebody," he said. "Maybe to the Ranger assigned to the New London area. Maybe the FBI. They'll think I'm a conspiracy nut, sure as hell, but it's got to be done."

"But it was such a long time ago."

"There's no statute of limitations on murder. Especially mass murder."

She strained to get up, but she was drained. He took her arm and helped her to her feet.

She said, "I'll get the letters." She left and returned a few minutes later clutching a cigar box. She handed it to him. "Do whatever you like with them. They don't make much sense, and I imagine there's a good reason for it."

* * *

"Boy, was she right," he told Doc. "They don't make sense. Lafoon begins each one with 'Dearest Mother' and signs them, 'Eternal love, Bart.'"

"Bart?"

"Yeah. There're four letters. Two from the US and two from out of the country. The only one with a return address is from Bart Roberts at a PO box. That was 1947, and it was the last."

"Maybe he stuck with that name long enough to leave a paper trail," Doc said.

He shuffled through the letters. "They cover a ten-year span, beginning in 1937. A month after the school blew up."

"Does he mention it?"

"Not specifically. He wrote the first one after he ran back to the hospital. Says he's back, safe from the zombies."

"The people he killed?"

"Who knows? The most interesting thing about the letters is the postmarks. The first is Austin, when he went back to the asylum. But the second is from Austria, and the third's from France, written a few years after the second one."

Doc digested that, then asked, "What would make a kid go from a mental institution in Texas to the other side of the world and back? The Merchant Marines?"

"Maybe. He rambles on in the one from the ship about a friend getting a medal, but there's nothing on the envelopes to indicate the letter's from a serviceman. And the two from Europe never mention where he is or what he's doing."

"Could be censorship," she said. "One of my patients was a high-ranking naval officer in World War II. He said the military faked postmarks to mislead the enemy about where the troops were. What about the fourth letter?"

He showed her the envelope. "It's postmarked Texas City. It's a refining town close to Houston. I used to fish there."

She looked dumbfounded. "You're bullshitting me. Texas City?"

He nodded and waited while Doc thought again. Then she asked, "You're positive about the year?"

He put his finger on the postmark. "Nineteen forty-seven. Clear as day."

"Fuck a duck," she said. "You've got to find this guy."

Chapter 24

The smoke inside the Heart Mart was as thick as the fog outside. Eastman smiled and nodded his way through the farmers, ranchers, and cedar choppers who had stopped to drink coffee and curse the government. It was when he stopped to pour himself a cup that he heard the familiar sound of a woman's voice squeezed through the speaker of a handy-talkie.

Tillman entered through the back door, radio in hand, and Eastman nodded toward a table nearby, where his hat lay on a brown folder.

"You're early," Tillman said.

Eastman handed him a cup and they sat. "It has to do with my superior work ethic," Eastman said.

"That, or you've got nothing to do."

"I've got more to do than I can say grace over."

Tillman flapped a packet of sugar a few times, tore it open, and dumped it in. "Rumor has it you're trying to find old lady Pirtle's brother. Sounds exciting."

Eastman tapped the folder. "It's all right here. Indiana Eastman and the Temple of the Lost Codger."

Tillman chuckled. "The old man's dead or you'd have found him by now."

"It's kind of complicated, but the old boy's as alive as we are." He shoved the folder aside. "You said you wanted to see me."

"Right. You remember a guy named Falco?"

"Falco's the name of the guy who helped me at a hospital recently... Lester Falco."

"That's him. Corine took the call, then pigeon-dropped me with it. He said he was looking for Ranger Eastman. Sounded like a speed freak."

"He's just high strung. He's a records clerk stuck off in a little office. I don't think he gets to talk to people much."

"He asked me to deliver a message." Tillman pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket. "It's in my whoop-out book." He flipped it to pages partitioned with a blue rubber band. "Falco said Ester Pirtle's lawyer served him some legal papers for a patient's records."

"Where are they?"

"The lawyer's mailing them to you. Meanwhile, Falco said the boy you asked about came back to the hospital in April of thirty-seven. He stayed just two days. Said if you need the particulars, call him."

"That's it?"

"I wish it was. I couldn't shut him up. He started telling me about the doctor that discharged the kid. A Doctor Meyer. Apparently, Falco thinks Meyer was a pervert."

Eastman nodded. "Meyer's mentioned in a letter."

Tillman thumbed through the pages and stopped. "Is this boy Ester's brother?"

"Yeah, but keep it to yourself. There's a long story about his commitment."

Tillman lowered his voice. "Anyway, Meyer signed the boy out on a furlough and the kid was never seen again. The next day old Doc Meyer called the hospital and quit. Something about a family matter. Meyer and the boy disappeared and nobody ever heard from either one again. Needless to say, it raised a big stink, the doctor running off with a young boy and all."

Eastman glanced at the folder he'd brought. "Next thing we know, the kid's in Austria."

"Here's something else," Tillman said. "Falco found Doctor Meyer's personnel jacket. He said you'd be asking about it."

"Good man, that Lester."

"Meyer was a German immigrant. Credentials from big-name universities. His specialty was treating depression."

"With EST, no doubt."

Tillman frowned.

"Electroshock therapy. They hooked you up to battery cables and shocked your terrified ass 'till you said you were happy."

"I'd tell them I was happy before they got started," Tillman said, tearing the pages out of the little notebook and handing them over.

Eastman shoved the notes into his pocket. "That explains the earmuffs."

"Earmuffs?"

"There's something I've got to tell you, John. It might take a while."

Tillman looked at his watch. "Let's take a ride."

They went out the back door, and Tillman checked into service. He drove north, up the state highway toward the hills and above the fog.

"Funny thing," Eastman said. "I was happy to learn Ester's brother was alive, but he's become a bit of a problem."

"How's that?"

He filled Tillman in on everything he knew about Joshua Lafoon, beginning with the orphan train ride and ending with the Texas City explosions.

"He was there when the ship blew up?" Tillman asked.

"Two ships," Eastman said. "The Grandcamp and the High Flyer. They were docked next to each other and carrying fertilizer. One caught fire and the rest is history."

"Why'd they park them side by side?"

"It was 1947. Most people didn't know ammonium nitrate was dangerous. Remember, Timothy McVeigh used two and a half tons of the stuff to blow the Oklahoma City federal building to Kingdom Come. The Grandcamp was carrying ten times as much."

"They figure out what started the fire?"

"A cigarette was the best they could come up with. Everybody smoked back then. After the Grandcamp blew, there were fires all over the place. Unfortunately, one of them was aboard the High Flyer next door. It was a one-two punch like the World Trade Center. They identified about 400 bodies, but they found body parts from a bunch more."

Tillman was quiet for a moment, then said, "If the last letter was from Texas City, what makes you think he survived?"

"Because he was at the Christmas festival."

"Last week?"

"Yep. Ester identified him from some pictures Doc took. You can't see his face, but there's some great shots of his hair."

"His hair?"

"It's unusually thick and curly."

"This is getting more screwball by the minute," Tillman said. "Old Lady Pirtle waited seventy years to find a brother that she thinks killed her stepfather."

"He did kill him. The transcript of the trial is in the courthouse."

"So they send him the crazy house, he gets out, and blows up a school?"

Eastman nodded. "Killing hundreds. Ester and Joshua attended that school. And the last time she saw him, he told her to play sick and go home. A few hours later, boom!"

Tillman looked at him. "Why hasn't this stuff made the history books?"

"Nobody's put it together until now. Ester thought Joshua was killed in the school explosion. Ten years later, he resurfaced in Texas City, and she presumed he was killed for the second time. Want to hear more?"

"I want to hear it all," Tillman said, pulling into a roadside park. He parked in front of an historical marker that described an 1868 Indian massacre at that spot.

"Okay," Eastman said. "Let's start with the first letter." He handed it to Tillman. "He sent her that a month after the school blew up."

April 13, 1937

My Dearest Sister,

I am safely in my lair. You would regard this place as Hell, and in some ways it is, but it is a safe Hell, and is my home. I feel as if I have awakened from a nightmare and my life continues as if I never left my room.

I told you about Dr. Meyer. He is the father we deserved but were deprived of through happenstance. If there is a possibility that I will be able to survive outside, he is the instrument that will bring it to bear. He speaks many languages and has promised me fluency in German and French. Weekdays, we play chess. He has a farm in the hills west of Austin where I am allowed to work on Sundays. I suppose I am indebted to old Lafoon for my rigorous agricultural grooming. (Ha! Ha!)

Several months ago, I told Dr. M of my longing to be with you again and he advised against it, warning me of the melancholy I would experience walking among zombies. He reminded me that severe melancholy can turn into unbearable aggression. (It seems the electrical pathways in my brain connect differently than do those of others.) When he predicted my return to the hospital, he was right. My decision to leave in the first place was emotional and catastrophic to say the least. It will never happen again.

You did your best to help me, but the zombies wouldn't allow it. They called down their own tribulation and I feel no pity. I expect to remain here for the rest of my life. In my mind, you are always with me. Without you, I am a quagmire of swarming electrons, a clock running down.

I miss you very much.

P.S. Please do not visit me.

Tillman made a face. "I'm a quagmire of electrons?"

"Doc says the letters were his way of assuring himself that he wasn't totally crazy since he was able to maintain a warm relationship with Ester. But after Texas City, he cut her out of his life entirely."

Tillman looked like he didn't know what to say. "Now what?"

"Hell if I know. Folks in New London won't be thrilled about some outsider stirring things up, but I couldn't just sit on it. I had to tell somebody official. Unfortunately, you were it."

"Me? I can't go back to the station and write a report about something that happened in the thirties. Imagine me calling the New London police and telling them I've developed a suspect in the school explosion." He made a telephone with his thumb and pinky, and his voice went falsetto. "Hi. This is Deputy Tillman out here in Goatfuck, Texas. Thought you guys would like to know that a chap who went to the nuthouse for shooting his daddy was the one who blew up your school. That's right, only seventy-something years ago. No, that's all I know. You can send my letter of commendation to the sheriff's department. Two L's in Tillman."

Chapter 25

When they topped the hill, the gray framework of the Brazos River bridge came into view and Tillman slowed the patrol car. He checked the rearview mirror and let the car roll to a stop, midpoint on the bridge. He reached over and flipped on the overheads.

"How long's it been since you were up here, Charlie?"

"Twenty years, at least. Never was anything here but snapping turtles."

Tillman opened his door and stepped out. "Come on. I'll show you something."

Eastman got out and joined him at the railing. "I hope somebody tells me what's going on."

Tillman pointed at a sun-blanched shelf of rock at a bend downstream. "That's where the boys were killed. Just past those bluffs. The orchard you saw in Noble's movie is on the south bank."

Eastman leaned over the rail in time to see a scrawny branch drift out of the shadow of the bridge, bobbing over little green rapids. "How deep's the water down there?" he asked.

"Six inches to a foot," Tillman said. "We walked it in waders, looking for the bodies."

"Looks deeper than that."

Tillman chuckled. "When we were kids my sister had a little cat that followed her everywhere. One day she was looking for fishing worms and turned over a board that a copperhead lived under. She jumped back, but the cat grabbed it. Naturally, the snake bit the cat and its head swelled up to the size of a cantaloupe and it died. She was all torn up about it and wanted to have a funeral. So Daddy laid some cotton in a pickle jar to make a coffin, and then he crammed the dead cat into it."

"Smart man. Too bad you didn't get his brains."

"Then she decided she wanted a burial at sea like a movie she'd seen, so he drove us to this very spot. Daddy said a few words, saluted the cat, and dropped the jar over the rail. We all leaned over and watched it hit the water. But since the river's more shallow than it looks, the jar busted open. When the cat floated up, it had one paw in the air like it was waving goodbye. We just stood there stunned, watching the cat roll end over end like it was swimming away. Sister was hysterical and Daddy had to carry her home." He poked Eastman with his finger. "It's things like that you never forget."

"I certainly intend to try," Eastman said.

Chapter 26

The two red motorcycles backed up to the porch of Brite's tattoo shop looked like lions guarding the entrance to the Underworld. Eastman recognized Brite's big Indian, but the other bike was new and, no doubt, expensive. From the front, it looked like an angry fire ant. From the side, a fifties sci-fi movie spaceship. But when he saw it from the rear, he noticed there was no license plate on it.

A sign in the window said the studio was closed, but he knocked anyway. Out of habit, he stepped aside and placed his palm against it to feel the vibration of footsteps inside.

The door throbbed. Probably rock and roll, he guessed. He hammered it again and was checking his knuckles for paint chips when it opened. Brite, in his underwear, squinted at him.

"You got company?" Eastman yelled over the music.

"No, I don't have company," Brite said as he reached out and lifted Eastman's sleeve to look at his watch.

Eastman nodded at the new motorcycle. "Then whose is that?"

"It's mine," Brite said. He held the door open and Eastman entered. After he switched the music off, he raked a pile of clothes off a Naugahyde couch.

Eastman sat.

"I gave thirty grand for that bike," Brite said, admiring it from the window. "There's no buyer's tag on it because it ripped off at a hundred and sixty." He smiled. "You forget, I got money coming out both drawer legs."

"Must be nice."

"It's a pain in the ass. Sramana says I have to file taxes quarterly."

"Who?"

"Sramana. Raj's daughter. She does my taxes."

"Raj has a grown daughter?"

"No. She's in the eighth grade. She wants to be a tax lawyer. When I was that age, I wanted to be a wrecker driver."

Eastman showed Brite the hospital records that Ester's lawyer had overnighted and told him about young Joshua Lafoon and Doctor Meyer disappearing together. He found the section containing Meyer's personnel jacket.

"Doctor Karl Meyer was born in Germany. Studied physics at the universities in Kiel and Leipzig. That's probably how he got involved in that electroshock stuff."

"Lemme see that," Brite said, yanking the documents out of his hand. "If Meyer was such hot shit, why'd he leave Germany?"

"Why did he leave? He was probably Jewish, and Hitler was on a rampage."

Brite climbed onto a table that Eastman assumed was related to tattooing and got a pair of glasses from a steel tray. He put them on, and after skimming the documents, he looked up. "The real question is, why'd the guy come to the US? He spoke four languages, and with these credentials, he could've fled to any number of countries."

Until that moment, Eastman had regarded Brite as his antithesis, a bone-lazy, artistically gifted dolt. But now he didn't know what to think. Maybe it was because Brite, wearing bifocals and brandishing papers, looked more like a professor than an artist. Or maybe it was because Brite had scanned the ream of documents in less than a minute and caught something he hadn't. Eastman hated the thought, but maybe Brite was smart.

"You think Meyer's a Jewish name?" Brite asked.

"Sounds kind'a Jewish."

"A lot of German names sound Jewish," Brite said. He held out a page for Eastman to see. "How about this name?"

Eastman looked at the name beside Brite's finger. "Heisenberg? Definitely German, but I don't know about Jewish."

Brite found another. "Hahn. Otto Hahn?"

When Eastman didn't say anything, Brite chuckled. "You beginning to get the picture? No Smiths or Joneses here."

"Of course not," Eastman said. "Meyer listed only Germans because he didn't know any Americans. Look at his employment application. He'd only been in the US a week when they interviewed him."

"I saw it," Brite said, getting up. "If you ask me, Doctor Meyer was a Nazi."

"Just because he had German friends?"

"It's one hell of a coincidence that Meyer's friends became all-stars in the field of nuclear fission," Brite said.

"What are you talking about?"

Brite left the room and came back with a book. He handed it to Eastman.

"The Uranium Club Boys?"

"The book belonged to my daddy," Brite said. "Take it and read it. There's a photo of Otto Hahn in there. He and another German scientist split the atom in 1938. Besides Hahn, you'll find Werner Heisenberg and more of his buddies who wound up at Farm Hall after World War II."

"What are you getting at?" Eastman asked.

"Farm Hall," Brite said. "A mansion in England, near Cambridge. That's where the Allied Forces took the top German scientists after the war." He pointed at the book's title. "They were called Hitler's Uranium Club. Farm Hall was supposed to be a safe house, but it was bugged to hell and back so our intelligence people could hear the scientists talking among themselves. The Germans and Russians were working like hell to build an A-bomb. They had spies in the US."

"Like Meyer?"

"Maybe," Brite said. "But Klaus Fuchs, for sure. He was one of the scientists in the Manhattan Project who passed A-bomb information to spies in Santa Fe."

"And this was proven?"

"It's in the history books. Fuchs was smart, but he was crazy like Lafoon. And they were in Santa Fe at the same time."

Eastman considered it. "Okay, but Meyer was a doctor in a nuthouse a thousand miles from the bomb project. How could that help Hitler?"

"I'm not sure. But we know he was a bona fide psychiatrist with a background in physics. I'm guessing that's how he fell in with the uranium boys."

"They'd been schoolmates?"

Brite smiled. "Exactly. They went to the same universities and studied under the same people. Did you see the paper Meyer published?" He flipped to the reference and read it aloud. "'The Electric Impedance of Homologous and Heterologous Human Brain Tissue.' His experiments on humans probably got him hired as the hospital's chief brain zapper."

Eastman said, "If you're right, the Lafoon boy would have been a godsend for Meyer. He'd been orphaned with his little sister, shipped off to a strange place, and enslaved by a sadist he was forced to kill."

Looking strangely intellectual again, Brite added, "Lafoon was thrown into the idiot tank at fifteen. So by showing the kid a little kindness while modifying his brain with electricity, Meyer shaped him into a killing virtuoso."

Chapter 27

"And that's when Brite gave me this book," Eastman said, his legs dangling from the dropped tailgate of Doc's Suburban. He held it up for her to see. "It's about those atomic bomb scientists in World War II. Until then, I'd have bet money Brite never owned a book. The man's kind of a paradox, don't you think?"

"All I'm thinking about is shoveling this horseshit," Doc said, blotting her forehead with a handkerchief.

He didn't let the remark interfere with the point he was trying to make. "Maybe enigma is a better word. There I was, looking at him, when suddenly I realized Brite is somewhat intelligent. Like he's been bamboozling everybody."

Doc pitched the last spadeful of manure into the trailer, then leaned the shovel against it. "My sister said the same thing a couple of days ago. You know, she's been Brite's agent for only two weeks, and they're already making lots of money."

"So I heard."

"She's never come out and said it, but I think they're in a relationship. When Gristle met him, he was drawing pictures of chickens in Raj Patel's garden. Brite told her he was hiding from a Christian hit man."

Eastman laughed. "What'd she say?"

"She offered to manage his affairs, and he hired her on the spot." Doc shook her head. "She even flew him to New York to introduce him around."

"I'm sure he made a great impression."

"Apparently, he did. She was amazed at the way he conducted himself around cultured people, considering how his life has revolved around tattooing and wedding cake decoration." Doc pulled off her gloves and slid onto the tailgate beside him. "Gristle said he was a perfect gentleman. That's when she brought up his alleged intellect."

"I'm hearing this for the first time," he said.

"That's because Brite is a flake and the thought of him seeing my sister repulses me."

Eastman handed her a water bottle and she twisted off the cap.

"But apparently, the guy's well-read," Doc admitted. "Gristle figures he spent all those years in prison reading." She turned the bottle up and killed half of it.

"What years in prison?" Eastman asked. "John Tillman ran a criminal history on him, and he's never been to prison. He had one misdemeanor arrest for urinating in a public place, and he paid a fine. That was years ago."

"I don't understand. Why would Brite let everyone think he was in prison?"

"Because he's an enigma, like we agreed." ¬

"We didn't agree on anything," Doc said. "You're the one who brought up Brite's mysterious side. I couldn't care less." She nodded toward the open barn door that framed a gentle horse outside, staring in at them. His ears twitched in the warm sunlight. "All I'm interested in is that beautiful animal."

"Thanks a lot," Eastman said and slid off the tailgate. He moved closer to the horse. "What's the matter with his ears?"

"What do you mean?"

"He keeps flicking them."

"Horses do that. He knows we're talking about him." She looked dismayed. "You've never owned a horse?"

"Nope. Just cars and trucks."

"I don't mean for transportation."

"Frankly, I don't care much for horses," Eastman said. "If you're stranded in the desert, a horse will run off and leave you to die. They're mainly for show."

"For show? What about you? You parade around in a cowboy hat and boots, but you don't know the first thing about farming or ranching."

"But I like dogs. Does that mean I can continue to wear the western stuff?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You're bullshitting me, aren't you?"

"A little."

They went up to the house and showered together because Doc was dirty and because Eastman, who had already showered, thought it was an outstanding idea. After they dried off and were getting dressed, he said, "Do you know who Ester Pirtle uses for a vet?"

"Why?"

"Because I'd like to check on old Blackie's health."

"The bull you almost killed?"

"There's a big difference between almost killed and a broke pecker."

"That's correct," Doc said. "She could have written a dead bull off her taxes, but a broken pecker sent you chasing Nazi spies."

He stood silently until she added, "She uses Doctor Mendez on Highway 16."

* * *

Brite walked around the freshly repaired Bronco, eyeballing it from various angles, then stepped up on the front bumper and bounced it. "They did a hell of job on this thing," he said, climbing into the passenger seat.

"They better have," Eastman said, pulling out of Brite's driveway. "It took long enough."

"How does it feel?"

"How does what feel?"

"Everything." Brite began to point at various parts of the Bronco's interior. "The steering, the brakes...."

Eastman shifted into high gear and let the Bronco cruise. He looked squarely at Brite. "Want to know why I asked you to come along?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact. You sounded a might testy on the phone."

"Testy wouldn't touch it," Eastman said as they passed a sign for an upcoming roadside park. "For two cents I'd pull over and kick your ass."

"I've got two cents and plenty of time if that's what you want," Brite said.

When they reached the pulloff, Eastman wheeled up to the first picnic table and got out. He walked around to Brite's door and yanked it open.

Brite looked unperturbed. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Hurry up while there's no traffic," Eastman said, checking the highway.

"What about your hat? You're gonna get blood all over your precious Texas Ranger hat."

Eastman glanced up at the brim and took off the hat.

Brite's hand went out. "Give it here. I'll lay it in the back seat." He accepted the hat and held it as his other hand came up with a small revolver. He placed the muzzle firmly against the crown.

"What are you doing?" Eastman asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I've got a gun, and I'm gonna shoot your fucking hat if you don't step back."

"Give me back my hat," Eastman said. "The governor gave it to me."

"Which governor?"

"What difference does it make?"

"Some governors are better than others. Shitty governor, shitty hat."

"Ann Richards."

"No kidding? This must be a very valuable hat."

"It is to me," Eastman said. "She gave me that hat and a ballpoint pen with the state seal."

"No kidding," Brite said again. "I'm glad you handed me the hat instead of the pen. A hat's a bigger target."

Brite got out of the Bronco slowly, the hat and gun at arm's length. "I know what you're thinking, Eastman." He cocked the pistol. "But if you rush me, I'll make Swiss cheese outta Governor Richards' hat." He proceeded to the far end of the picnic table while Eastman watched helplessly.

Brite nodded at the table. "Sit at the other end."

Eastman moved to the cement bench and sat. "You'll go to jail for this, you know."

"No law against threatening a Stetson, and I have a concealed carry permit for the gun. Notice I haven't pointed it at you or threatened you in any way. Just this beautiful hat... which you can have back when you explain why you've gone crazy."

"I'm not crazy," Eastman said. "I paid a little visit to Ester's vet today. Just before I picked you up."

"Which vet?"

"Doctor Mendez."

"Uh-oh."

"Doctor Mendez said you were the one who brought Austin Blackie to him after the accident."

"Ester asked me to. I used her truck and trailer."

"But Mendez told you the bull would be fine. It was only mild shock. How'd Blackie go from mild shock to a busted cock?"

Brite put the gun away and moved down the table, across from Eastman. "It was my idea." He surrendered the hat. "You were the hot-shot investigator from Austin who could find Lafoon if anybody could, but I knew you weren't about to get involved. So when I rolled up on the accident and saw old Blackie cowering in the weeds, I had a revelation. At first, Ester didn't want to do it. She said only an idiot would fall for a story that lame. But, lucky for us, you didn't know much about peckers."

Brite got up and began to take off his jacket. "You can kick my ass now. I got it coming."

Eastman studied him. "How do I know you're not actually working for Lafoon?"

Brite looked stunned. "Why would you think that?"

Eastman picked up the hat and put it on. "While I was reading that book you gave me, I couldn't shake the feeling I'd overlooked something big."

"Figure out what it was?"

"Every time I look at you, it's like looking at one of those fake buildings on a movie set."

Brite grinned. "Or a Potemkin village?"

Eastman just looked at him.

"Potemkin was a Russian minister who built a village of false fronts. It was a slick trick to impress the empress with her conquests and make himself look like a real stud."

"See?" Eastman said. "You're not the poor, dumb, ex-con you pretend to be."

"I'm not poor, I'm a college graduate, and I'm no ex-con," Brite said. "I'm disappointed you didn't check me out sooner."

"I wasn't feeling well."

Brite chuckled. "Here's how the prison story got started. Remember the farmer seeing a plane land in his field?"

"A plane full of weed," Eastman said. "He saw you run from it."

"It was me all right," Brite said. "But there never was any weed. Not a stem, not a seed."

"What are you saying?

"The weed part was bullshit. The feds created the rumor to cover an embarrassing incident. See, for several years, I was a pilot for a company called Janus Air. Ever hear of it?"

"No."

"Janus was a legitimate airfreight company based in Dallas. Also a contract carrier for the government. It flew anything the government needed flying. Sometimes, it was people. And that night my job was to fly this old Customs-seized plane down to Mexico, pick up a couple of missionaries, and bring them back here to a tiny airport. Before sunup, of course."

"Missionaries?"

"We referred to all passengers as missionaries, although they looked more like mercenaries. But I'd flown missions harder than that one, so it was no big deal. If the Mex-feds caught me, somebody would take care of it. Anyway, I landed on a Mexican farm road marked with a string of light bulbs like you see on a car lot. Then two guys dressed like cowboys came out of the bushes waving at me."

"Let me guess," Eastman said. "They were carrying heavy duffle bags."

Brite shook his head. "No way. We never moved drugs. In fact, those guys had been instructed to stand in the landing lights and strip down before they got aboard. When I saw that they were clean, we took off and flew north over the mountains, straight up the 97th meridian. Things were just peachy 'till the carburetor iced up, and I had to land in a field west of Waco. We all crawled out, but one of the missionaries was hurt and couldn't walk. That's when I got grabbed running away."

"Why run from an empty plane?"

"Had to. While we were moving the hurt guy to the woods, I saw headlights. To make sure the driver saw me instead of them, I took off in the opposite direction."

"The paper said a farmer caught you."

"The so-called farmer was a Mohawk-haired punk and his girlfriend. He was probably getting a knob job in the truck when I landed. Anyway, when I didn't stop running, the kid fired a shotgun out the window, and I hit the dirt."

"You must've been hauling some important passengers."

"I never knew who they were, but a government chopper picked them up before the local cops arrived. The feds sealed the plane's doors with evidence stickers and told everybody I was a notorious smuggler they'd been tracking. The press made heroes out of the cops and Knob Job got his picture in the paper."

"What about you, the notorious smuggler?"

"I did all right. I signed an agreement to keep my mouth shut, and they paid me a lot of money. You've probably been involved in shit like that yourself."

"If I was, you'd be the last person I'd tell."

Brite snickered. "I'm out of the cloak-and-dagger business now. You're looking at an artiste with a blossoming career."

"And the prison story?"

"That's the best part. While everybody thought I was doing time, I was studying art back East. And when I finally came home, I was a folk hero. Robin Hood of the Sherwood weed forest. I got more tattoo business and pussy than I could handle. Go figure."

"Go figure, indeed."

Chapter 28

"I might just puke," Eastman said into the phone.

Tillman said, "Me too, but what can we do? Ester's pissed off everybody within a hundred miles."

"Does anybody know why she did it?"

"I don't," Tillman said. "The deputy that runs the bond desk told me some yellow-tie lawyer walked up and said he wanted to post Billy Poco's bond. Then he shoved a cashier's check in his face."

"A million bucks?"

"Two million bucks," Tillman said. "A million on each charge. There wasn't anything to do but release the bastard. The word was all over town before they could issue Billy's belt and shoestrings back to him."

"I feel sick."

"You said that."

"Okay, let me think for a minute... just plain sick."

* * *

"That cinches it," Eastman said to Doc, who was eating a carob-coated fiber bar. "Ester's lost it. She's really lost it."

"Sounds like you're the one who's lost it," Doc said. She opened a desk drawer and pitched him a small packet. "Pour that in a glass of water and drink it. It'll clean you out."

He pitched it back. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Have your act together when you talk to her. Don't whine. You're the tough cowboy type, remember?"

"But she's letting him stay at her ranch," he said. "The guy was in jail for two murders. What if he cuts her throat and hauls ass?"

"Good grief," Doc said. "I think somebody around here could use a tranquilizer." She got up and got a sample packet from the cabinet. "One of these will make you feel like a new person."

"I don't need laxatives or pills," he said. "You're confusing genuine concern with some kind of anxiety something-or-other."

"Well, I'm not worried about Ester," Doc said, looking worried. She sat back down. "Frankly, I'm glad she got Billy out. He's quite harmless... as long as he's sober."

* * *

"Thanks for coming, Charlie," Ester said and acknowledged Brite with a nod. "Billy's got drunk and climbed up on the big windmill."

"How long's he been up there?" Brite asked as they walked through the house.

"Over an hour. You can probably hear Little Noodle raising Cain out in the pasture. He thinks he treed him."

Soon, the three of them were standing quietly in Ester's solarium at the rear of the house, looking out at the figure hunkered down on the platform high above the pasture. Ester took a pair of opera glasses from a shelf and handed them to Eastman. He lifted them in time to see Little Noodle raise a leg at the mill's ladder.

"You ever see a windmill that big?" she asked.

"Never have," Eastman said, moving the glasses up to Billy Poco on the platform.

"According to Red, it's the biggest in the state," she said. "But I told him, 'So what?' The durned thing's a fake. It was supposed to go on top of one of our outlets in Fort Worth, but Red liked it so much, he kept it here. Billy's done all the maintenance on it since Indians aren't afraid of heights."

"They're not?" Brite asked.

"Who do you think built all those skyscrapers up north? Indians. Shoot, I looked out one day and saw Billy swinging off the tail vane like Errol Flynn. Of course, he was drunk then, too."

"Where'd he get the booze?" Brite asked.

"Probably stumbled onto it," she said. "Red had liquor bottles stashed all over the ranch. One of the hands found one in a toilet tank not two weeks ago. The label was long soaked off, but it was still full of whiskey. I laughed and held it up to Heaven for Red to see. I imagine the old son-of-a-gun was laughing pretty hard, too."

A cloudburst sent Little Noodle galloping back to house, and Eastman and Brite hurried into the kitchen and closed the door. After Ester toweled the dog off and put him away, she joined them at the table.

"That dog can be a pain in the butt," she said, pulling out a chair, "but he's good company for me." She sat and looked at Eastman, who'd hardly said a word since they arrived. "Come on, Charlie, I know you're ready to kill me, but Billy Poco's innocent."

"The police who investigated the murders disagree," Eastman said. "A judge issued a warrant based on a list of facts that says he's probably guilty. Then the police wrote up a criminal complaint and took it to the DA's office. The grand jury listened to all the facts and decided there was plenty of evidence to try him for both murders."

She didn't look happy. "Why bother with a trial? Go get one of Red's rifles and shoot him."

As soon as Eastman's lips parted, Brite's hand went up. "What's done is done, and we're not getting anywhere."

"The first sensible words to leave your mouth," Eastman said and went to the window. He looked at the dark clouds rushing above Billy Poco, who was getting into a red jacket.

Brite, then Ester, joined him at the window.

Ester said, "It looks like he's not coming down. I figured he'd sober up and slink back to the house, but I think he'll jump."

"Jump?" Brite said and hurried back to the solarium. He grabbed the opera glasses.

"He'll kill himself for sure," she said. "I saw the sorrow in his eyes."

"That makes no sense," Eastman said. "You got him a good lawyer. He'll be a free man until he's tried."

She pointed at Billy Poco. "That man worries more about people liking him than anything in the world. Now he thinks everybody hates him. He told me he can't look at himself in the mirror."

"What else did he say?" Eastman asked. "Did he tell you why those bodies were buried a hundred yards from his house?"

"He said he wasn't able to talk about it. He's very emotional."

"Billy Poco never opened his mouth the whole time he was in jail," Eastman said. "Not even to say he was innocent. Don't you think that's a bit strange?"

He left the room, passed Brite in the solarium, and went out through the back door. He headed across the pasture toward the windmill.

When Brite realized what was happening, he pitched the opera glasses onto a wingback chair and hurried after him. "Where're you going?" he yelled.

"To have a little chat," Eastman said. "Go back and see if Ester has a slicker that'll fit me."

"Why are you doing this?"

"You heard what Ester said. If that goofy bastard kills himself, nobody'll ever know what he's hiding."

"The guy's a nut, Eastman."

"No doubt, but he's hiding something."

Brite started for the house. He turned and pointed at the windmill. "You want a raincoat for him, too?"

"No. I want him cold and wet. If he's miserable enough, he'll come down."

As he drew near the mill, Eastman saw Billy Poco watching him, legs swinging from the platform. The man looked bigger than he remembered, his hair whiter and longer as it whipped across his mahogany face.

Eastman took off his hat and waved it. "I'm Charlie. Ester's friend."

White teeth. "You're the Ranger from Austin."

"I used to live in Austin, but I wasn't a Ranger. Just a regular cop. Now I'm retired."

"You still have your gun?"

"I left it at home. Do you have a gun?"

"I got six or seven guns," Billy Poco said. "I shoot good."

"That's good, Billy. Do you have a gun right now?"

Starting up the ladder, he missed Poco's reply because Brite and Little Noodle arrived at the same time, Brite yelling and Little Noodle barking. Eastman stopped climbing, and Brite pitched him a rolled-up slicker. The heft of the bundle and several turns of rope around it told him there something was inside.

"Put it on now," Brite said. "In case things get worse."

Eastman crooked a leg through the ladder to steady himself, and with the platform blocking Billy Poco's view, he unwrapped the slicker that held an engraved Colt Peacemaker, a six-gun popular with outlaws and lawmen of the Old West. Silver initials RP, inlayed in the grips, meant the weapon once belonged to the hard-nosed plumber, who would have been unlikely to surrender his Rolex peacefully to a stranger.

After he saw that it was loaded, Eastman shoved the gun into his waistband and put on the slicker. As he climbed, he began to wonder why Ester had sent a small canon to protect him from the man she'd argued only minutes earlier was harmless.

"I made it, Billy," Eastman said, poking his head up a few feet from where Billy Poco was sitting cross-legged.

"You might fall, too," Billy Poco said, not smiling.

The big wheel, spinning smoothly and steadily, was close enough to reach out and touch. Eastman gripped the nearest tower leg and pulled himself onto the platform as the first drops of rain came down. To avoid looking at the ground, he focused on the ranch house, and then spotted Little Noodle, who'd become an apricot dot zigzagging across the pasture.

When he'd settled into a sitting position, Eastman nodded at the wheel. "I expected it to be a lot noisier. You can hardly hear it."

"You ain't supposed to hear nothing from a windmill but the wind going through it," Billy Poco said. "I keep it greased."

"That's good to know, because the windmill at my place squeaks and squalls all day." Eastman pointed toward the distant hills where lightning forked out of a black sky. "My place is over by that storm. You can probably see the windmill."

Billy Poco's eyes remained on Eastman's. "How come you don't fix it? All it takes is three fingers of grease."

"I don't have any grease and wouldn't know where to put it if I did. I bet you could fix it."

"How can that big hat stay on your head up here?" Billy Poco asked, changing the subject.

"Because I jam it on real hard when it's windy. It takes a little practice, but it'll stay." Eastman rolled his head.

The hat flew into the wheel and made a dozen or so revolutions before it was hurled free. Stunned, he and Billy Poco watched it soar into the winter rye and flip crown over brim until Little Noodle pounced on it like a lion seizing an antelope.

"Drop it, you goddamned idiot!" Eastman yelled, while Little Noodle shook his hat like a struggling varmint and Billy Poco smiled.

"I can't believe that son-of-bitch is eating my 15X beaver," Eastman said. "The governor gave it to me."

Billy Poco snickered. "That hat must'a smelt like beavers. One time I seen Noodle jump dead in the middle of a beaver dam."

Without the hat, Eastman felt the full effect of the weather. "We're about to get soaked," he said. "Think we ought to get down?"

"You go," Billy Poco said. "If it lightnings, the fire'll shoot right through us."

Billy Poco wasn't drunk, Eastman guessed. He doubted that he'd consumed any alcohol at all.

"I can't leave you up here, Billy. How would I feel if lightning struck you? Or you fell?"

Billy Poco glanced at the ground. "I'd rather go live with Jesus and God than people who hate me."

"Don't talk like that. Jesus and God want you to live for a long time."

"Ever'body else don't. They think I kill kids."

"But Jesus and God know the truth, don't they?"

Billy Poco nodded.

"Because they saw every terrible thing that happened."

Billy Poco stared at him for a moment, then slipped his hand into his jacket. Eastman's was already inside the slicker, gripping the Peacemaker.

Billy Poco brought out a square of newspaper, unfolded it, and handed it to him. "God and Jesus know I ain't crazy, either."

Eastman read the story of the unicorn sighting that changed Billy Poco's reputation from town drunk to village idiot. When raindrops struck the paper, he refolded it.

"Mind if I keep this?" Eastman asked.

"What for?"

"Because I believe you."

Billy Poco eyed him. "No you don't."

"Raise your right hand and swear you saw a unicorn."

Billy Poco raised his hand. "I swear I saw a unicorn."

"Swear to Jesus and God?"

"I swear it to Jesus and God."

"Then that settles it. There's a unicorn out there and I intend to find him."

"But how?"

"I have my ways. Remember, I'm the legendary investigator you've heard so much about."

"Are you pulling my leg?"

Eastman raised his hand. "I swear it."

"To Jesus and God?"

He glanced at approaching storm. "Whatever."

"You better not be lying."

Eastman swung his legs through the platform access and stepped onto the ladder. "I'm gonna need your help, Billy. You'll have to show me where the sighting occurred; then we'll have Brite do an artist's rendition of the suspect."

"Suspect," Billy Poco repeated, following him, while Eastman formulated a plan.

The rain was heavy when they reached the ground. As they started across the pasture, a clap of thunder sent them into a trot.

Ester and Brite were waiting at the back door.

"I'm still alive, Miz Pirtle," Billy Poco yelled. "And Jesus and God are happy."

"I hope the hell they are," Eastman said when he saw a hatband near the porch.

Chapter 29

"I don't fault you for fibbing," Doc said. "You saved his life. But what happens when you don't find the unicorn?"

"I never said I'd find it," he told her. "I said I intended to find it. When I don't, he'll still be looking at two murder charges, and it'll be windmill city again."

"Look, bring him to the office tomorrow, and I'll talk to him. Maybe start him on an antidepressant. Meantime, you'd better get a story ready about your quest for the beast. Billy's got an incredible memory."

"I thought of that. I had Brite draw a picture of a unicorn walking through the woods, exactly the way Billy Poco described it. After lunch, I'm driving him out to where he says he saw it."

She smiled. "You think he's innocent, don't you?"

"Let's just say I'm not sure. What he told me on the windmill was almost a dying declaration. He had no reason to lie because he thought he was about to die. But I think he probably knows more than he's telling."

* * *

"Hang on," Eastman said, easing the Bronco into an arroyo layered with reds and browns. When they reached the bottom, he cracked his door and looked down. "Loose ground. How much farther is it?"

Billy Poco nodded ahead. "This gully dog-legs up yonder. Then it's mile or two."

Eastman put the Bronco in four-wheel drive.

"You don't need that," Billy Poco said. "I know where the hard ground is. I'm a Indian, remember?"

"Then get over here and drive. You can be my scout."

They swapped places, and Billy Poco took the Bronco to the far side of the ravine. Then he proceeded cautiously until they passed under an arch of post oak limbs and the gully became a leafy trough running through the woods. He shifted into the higher gears and smiled each time the Bronco fishtailed in the leaves.

"Go over the description one more time," Eastman said.

Looking straight ahead, Billy Poco lifted Brite's sketch from the seat and handed it to him. "I told you. He looks just like that."

Eastman glanced at Brite's cartoon unicorn and thought about how ridiculous the whole thing was. "All right, tell me how big he is."

"He's little."

"The size of a goat?"

"Bigger'n a goat."

"Big as a horse?"

Billy Poco laughed. "Maybe half as big as a horse."

"Just one horn?"

"One horn."

"You're positive?"

Billy Poco made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and placed it at the top of his forehead. "One horn. Right here. It was long and it stuck straight out."

"Think hard, Billy. It was snowing. Things look different in the snow."

Billy Poco took the sketch and glanced at it. He pitched it onto Eastman's lap. "Just like that."

Neither of them spoke until the ravine intersected a creek. Billy Poco stopped and killed the engine.

Eastman got out and walked down to the creek, Billy Poco behind him.

"I was hog hunting when I heard him coming down this creek, Charlie. It sounded like a big old hog moving real slow so I raised my rifle."

"Your rifle have a scope?"

The Indian nodded. "A three-to-nine. I put it on him and watched him for a time. But he winded me and throwed his head up and trotted off."

"How close were you?"

Billy Poco pointed at the Bronco. "That far."

Eastman paced it off. "Thirty yards," he announced. "Plenty close for mythological creature recognition. Did you follow him?"

"I ran down there, but he was gone."

"And you didn't go looking for him?"

"No sir." Billy Poco nodded north. "That's Goodman land he run onto. Harvey Goodman won't let nobody set foot on it."

"Harvey Goodman?"

Billy Poco looked away. "One of the killed boys' daddy."

"The Goodmans must like their privacy," Eastman said.

"But they don't live there. Don't nobody live there."

"Then Mister Goodman probably leases it to hunters," Eastman said.

"That ain't it, either. The land's just Harvey's, and he don't want people messing around on it. That big fence runs all the way to the road."

"Expensive fence," Eastman observed. "The place must be a wildlife refuge."

"Probably."

"But you've never been on it?"

"No sir. I stay out."

"I used to hunt," Eastman said. "It's hard to believe a serious hunter like yourself wouldn't sneak under the fence on occasion... just to look around, of course."

"Not me," Billy Poco said.

"Who'd know?"

Billy Poco looked at the creek again, but he didn't answer.

"What's on the property?" Eastman asked.

"Some falling-down old house is all."

Eastman went to the Bronco and got the binoculars. Then he climbed the bank with Billy Poco following.

Still unable to see past the roll of the weedy pasture, he wandered through the trees, looking up until a wooden platform near the top of an oak caught his eye. "Is that a hunting stand up there?"

"That's where I hunt hogs from," Billy Poco said. "It's made out of two-by-fours."

Eastman grabbed a limb and began to climb. When he was on the platform, he studied the house through the binoculars. It appeared to be a single-story frame built for a large family. The house was old, but the roof over the front porch ran true and the chimney looked sturdy.

A short distance from the back of the house stood a large barn, and beside the barn was a small building that had probably been the tack room. A four-rail fence behind the house formed a large corral.

After Eastman was down from the stand and beating the bark out of his hair, Billy Poco said, "See anything?"

"A bunch of things."

Billy Poco looked away again.

"You told me about a falling-down house, but you didn't mention the other buildings and a cattle pen."

"I forgot."

"You forgot."

"I'm sorry. They're just buildings."

"Doc says you have an incredible memory. But when I come all the way out here to help you, your memory goes haywire. What if I forget about finding the unicorn?" Eastman stared at him long enough to make him fidget, then said, "I want the truth when I ask you a question."

"Yes sir."

Eastman pointed at the platform. "Have you ever shot anything from up there?"

"No sir."

"I didn't think so. The minute I reached it I knew it wasn't for hunting. I couldn't even see the creek. But you'd cleared out the branches on the side that looks straight at the house."

"Yes sir."

"And since it's not easy to haul lumber up to the top of a tree, you must've had a mighty good reason to watch a falling-down old house."

"Yes sir."

"Well?"

"I mean to shoot Harvey Goodman."

Chapter 30

"Of course I know her," Doc said. "Kitty Olds is a worthless little twat who waitresses at the truck stop. They say she draws a little pussycat face on the back of her meal tickets and writes, 'Have a purrrfect day!' under it. I wanted to puke when I heard that."

Doc was getting fired up, so Eastman kept quiet.

"Kitty's probably logged more hours in truck sleepers than the drivers. I've treated her for certain diseases half-a-dozen times. After I was firmly established as her doctor, she started hitting on me for hardcore pain medication and got herself arrested reselling it. It was in the newspaper so there's no doctor-patient confidentiality issue involved here." She paused. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen her around town for awhile."

"Neither has anyone else. Billy Poco thinks Harvey Goodman has something to do with it."

Doc looked stunned. "What's Harvey got to do with it?"

He tapped his wristwatch. "Can we finish this in the car? It'll be dark in an hour."

After they pulled onto the street, he said, "Got the camera?"

She pointed at the case at her feet. "You were saying about Harvey and Kitty?"

"Billy Poco told me Kitty Olds is his wife."

"His wife?"

"He says they're paper-married. Says he loves her very much. 'Crazy for her,' was how he worded it."

"Yick!"

"Billy's convinced Harvey Goodman was diddling Kitty before she vanished. Apparently, they were meeting at an old farmhouse. If we make it by five, you'll have half an hour's worth of light to see it."

* * *

"I'm untying this stupid rope right now!" Doc yelled from the platform in the tree. One end of a yellow rope was tied to her belt, and the rest dangled down to a coil on the ground.

"Leave it on," Eastman yelled back. "You'll need it to pull up the camera."

"Screw the camera. I'm gonna end up in the ER, hog-tied with a yellow lasso."

"I told you to let me do the climbing."

"No way," she said. "I'm in better shape. I lift weights."

"You lift horse turds on Sunday and eat chocolate all week."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just hurry. The sun's going down."

When she was situated on the boards, she dug her cell phone from her pocket and punched in Eastman's number.

When he answered, she said, "I'm ready for the camera."

He tied his end of the cord to the bag and gave it a yank. When the slack disappeared, the bag ascended. In a few minutes, she called back. "I got some good shots."

"Great. Lower the bag and come on down."

"In a minute. I think someone's in the house."

There was silence, then Eastman said, "Take off your blouse. Put it in the bag. And come down now."

"Nice try."

"I'm serious. That white blouse stands out like a neon sign."

She laughed. "My bra and panties are white. Should I take them off?"

"Just get your ass down."

She spoke softly. "I'd swear the curtains to the right of the door were open when I took the first shot. Now they're closed."

"Are you listening? Get down. We'll go over the photos later."

"Of course, it could be the angle of the sun," she said. "The shadows are getting longer."

"Hurry up, dammit."

"Hey, I was right. Someone just left the house. Appears to be a man from the way he carries himself. Looks like he's headed for the barn."

"He's probably got a truck or something in there," Eastman said. "He's probably going to drive up here and find us."

She didn't linger to find out what the man who entered the barn was doing. By the time she was down, Eastman was waiting with the engine running. Camera bag in hand, she jumped in and he took off up the gully toward the highway.

"Why are we running away?" Doc demanded. "We weren't trespassing."

"We're not running away," he said, jamming the shift lever through the gears. "We're leaving so we can't be identified."

"Why?"

"In case I come back."

Doc looked at him. "Just because Billy thinks Harvey is screwing Kitty Olds there?"

"No, because she's missing."

Doc shook her head. "Fifty bucks says she's laid up with some trucker and a freezer bag full of meth."

"Maybe, but the last time Billy saw her, she was with Harvey."

"Billy never confronted her about it?"

"He was afraid she'd leave him."

"That's sad. He built the tree house to watch their trysts?"

"No," he said. "He built it hoping Harvey Goodman would show up alone, and Billy could put a rifle round through his heart."

The Bronco climbed out of the gully as the half-sunken sun inflamed a band of high clouds with all the right colors. In minutes, they were on the blacktop, headed home.

He pulled into Doc's driveway and left the engine running. "Aren't you coming in?" she asked.

"I can't. I've got to have a heart-to-heart with Ester about Billy Poco."

"Tonight?"

"As soon as possible. What if he develops some crazy-ass delusion and kills her? Or Harvey Goodman?"

She sighed. "This will break her heart."

"I'll ask her about that old house, too. Brite says she's the county historian."

"Why are you so worked up over that house?" Doc asked.

He stared at the porch light, thinking about it. "Because the minute I laid eyes on it, I felt awful."

"Awful, like sick?"

"Awful, like something was really wrong."

"It probably reminded you of some spooky movie you saw," Doc offered, scooting closer to him. "I have an idea. Turn the motor off."

When he did, she unzipped his fly and slid her hand in. "Want to talk about that mean old house some more?"

"What house?"

Chapter 31

When he told Ester that Billy Poco was planning to kill Harvey Goodman, she took it better than he expected.

"Well, I've seen the elephant and heard the owl," she said.

"What are you talking about?"

"When I was growing up, an Indian would use that expression to mean he'd seen and done it all, that he could die in peace. I feel like that right now. Nothing surprises me anymore."

"Same here," he said.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"You have to go off Billy's bond. The sooner the better. The man's a time bomb, and if he explodes, he'll hurt somebody and head for the hills. I've seen it before."

She didn't say anything so he continued. "The two million dollars you put up guarantees he'll show up for trial. If he doesn't, you're out two mil."

"All right, tell me what to do."

"You'll sign an affidavit that says you'd like to be released from the assurance of Billy Poco's court appearance. Then you'll testify to the facts at a hearing."

"What'll I say?"

"Just tell the truth."

"And the judge will give my money back?"

"Does the judge wear one of Red's gold watches?"

"No, but Red always endorsed him at election time. That's worth more a lot more."

As he was about to leave, she said, "Does this mean they'll arrest Billy Poco again?"

"No, I'll surrender him. I'm sure I can convince him it's the right thing to do."

"I feel terrible about this," she said. "He hasn't done anything."

"Not yet, but he thinks it's his duty to kill Harvey Goodman."

"His duty?"

"Billy read it in the Bible. Something about killing adulterers. He was going to do it at Harvey's farmhouse."

"Farmhouse? The Goodmans live in a Tudor estate on the edge of town."

After Eastman told her where it was, she said, "I know the place. But I'm surprised to hear Harvey owns it."

"How come? People say you own most of the county, and he owns the rest."

She smiled at the remark and led him to the study. She showed him a finely framed county map hanging under the Texas flag and pointed to a blue squiggle on it.

"There's a full section of farmland right here along Turkey Creek," she said. "Native pecans and oaks grow along the banks, but the rest of it's just rocks and mesquite."

"That's the place," he said.

"Red tried to buy it for me several times, but the owners—a bunch of jaybirds out of Dallas—weren't interested in selling."

"I'm curious," he said. "You've got the best grazing land money can buy. What would you do with that place?"

"I'd burn it."

"Burn?"

"The house and barn. The toolshed. Every blade of grass. Anything that reminded me of old man Lafoon."

* * *

"I've heard the elephant and seen the owl," Eastman told Doc. "Or something like that."

She rolled her eyes.

"It explains why I got the willies when I looked at the place. Ester had described it to me in detail. She said the night of the shooting, the old man came out of the house and ran straight to the shed. There was mud up to his knees because he'd cut through the garden."

"So?"

He picked up the pictures Doc had taken from the platform.

"Look at the fence," he said, and pointed out four parallel lines running from the house to the barn. "This is no cattle pen. The posts are inside the fence. It was built to keep cows out, not hold them in. It's a garden."

"The Lafoon farm," she said.

"According to Ester, the Goodman family has been here since the Civil War. They changed the family name from Guttman to Goodman. That means they were here when the tool shed shooting happened. That farm must've been infamous for a long time. The strange thing is, Harvey must've known Ester wanted to buy it, but he bought it himself and never told her."

"Harvey's not one to let friendship interfere with a business deal," Doc said.

"And get this—he bought it right after Red Pirtle died."

She tapped her chin. "Which implies Red had been standing in the way of Harvey's acquiring the property."

"It's more interesting that Red stood in the way of Ester's getting it," he said.

Doc looked puzzled. "I refuse to believe Handyman Red Pirtle couldn't convince the owners to sell it. His political connections went from the shithouse to the White House. If Red wanted 640 acres of rocks and sagebrush in his own county, nobody could stop him from getting it. Therefore, Red didn't want Ester to have it."

"You're very quick, Doc."

"Thank you."

* * *

After lunch, Eastman sat down with Billy Poco and tried to convince him that shooting Harvey Goodman was not the right thing to do, but Billy, who'd done nothing but read the Bible during his last incarceration, stood firmly on Old Testament law. He pulled a King James version from a garbage bag full of clothing and laid it on the table. Then he licked his finger, flipped to the third chapter of Genesis, and pointed out how a serpent tricked Eve into eating a forbidden fruit, causing the forthcoming human race to be thrown out of whack.

"It's the same with me and Kitty," Billy Poco said, as he described how Harvey Goodman had conned his wife, the cat-face-drawing waitress, into gobbling his fruit.

"I can show you where it says adulterers ought to be stoned," Billy Poco proclaimed, shaking the book at Eastman. "And shooting adulterers is the same as stoning them. You're just using lead for rocks."

Eastman stood up and looked around for his hat, which didn't exist anymore. "There's no talking to you," he said. "You can go back to jail until trial time, or for the rest of your life if you kill Mr. Goodman."

Billy Poco looked like his mind was miles away. "What about the unicorn?"

"What about it?"

"You said you'd find him."

"I said I'd try to find him," Eastman said and sat down again. "Look, if you'll go to the courthouse with Miz Pirtle tomorrow, I'll spend the rest of the week looking for him."

"You promise?"

"Yeah."

"You said that last time," Billy Poco said and slid the Bible over to him. "Hand on the Bible?"

Eastman felt like banging his head on the table, but he put his hand on the Good Book that had Billy Poco's name embossed in gold on the cover. "All right, I promise."

Chapter 32

Little Noodle had polished off his liverwurst and onion sandwich by the time Ester got hers to the table. She set a turkey club in front of Eastman and headed to the other side to sit down. "I don't know why I was so dadblamed nervous over that business to get off Billy's bond. He was in such good spirits, and the judge seemed glad to see him."

"He and the judge go way back, I'm sure."

"It's just sad that going to jail is like going home for Billy."

"He's got a lot of friends there," Eastman said. Feeling the presence of the dog beside him, he pushed his plate back. "How'd your lawyer do?"

"Ross Kaplan's the best in the state. I read about him in a magazine and hired him when Red died. He's not cheap, but he dresses nicely and handles my affairs quietly."

"Kind of strange that I didn't have to go to court," Eastman said. "I'm the only one who could testify to what Billy Poco was planning."

"The way Ross explained it, there's no need in bringing up that rigmarole about Harvey's affair with the girl just because a crazy person believes it. Why ruin a family man's reputation if you don't have to?"

"But Billy's plan to kill Harvey was the reason for you going off his bond."

She smiled. "Ross and the judge had a private talk. Afterward, the judge asked me if I thought Billy Poco was a danger to himself. So I told him about Billy almost jumping off the windmill and all."

"And all?"

"You came out a real hero. I told how a retired Ranger risked his life to talk to Billy while lightning was striking all around. I also told about the oath you took to find Billy's unicorn. The whole time, that little news reporter was writing like crazy."

"I can imagine."

She smiled. "And now, I have a surprise for you."

She left the room with Little Noodle staring at him, and when she returned, she set a six-sided metal container on the table. It was silver, with brass latches.

He picked it up by the fancy handle on top and held it at eye level. "You get this from NASA?"

"I'm not giving out where I got it. But the store's in Dallas, and it cost an arm and a leg. I showed them what was left of your old hat and they found the size."

"You got me a Neiman-Marcus hat?"

"The best money can buy. Nothing could replace a hat from Governor Ann, but this one will make you look like somebody." She took a wooden box from a cabinet and gave it to him. "All you need to go with the hat is this."

When he opened it, he saw the engraved Colt she'd sent with him when he was on the windmill.

He jammed the pistol into his waistband and looked at himself in the reflection of the glass pantry doors. "That's definitely me," he said, and didn't take the hat off until he was home, reading a note that had been shoved under his door.

* * *

"Hey," Gristle Page yelled from the park bench. "You guys remember the story of the blind men and the elephant?"

"Shut up," Brite yelled back. "Grab a diaper and make yourself useful."

She cackled and then read the lettering on the blue box at her feet. "You're actually using diapers?"

Eastman stopped polishing the Gooberhenge statue and walked over to her. "They're all Doc had." He mopped his face with the nappy and went over to Brite, who was rubbing furiously.

He tapped Brite on the shoulder. "Let's do another walk-around."

Brite stopped. "Forget it. Somebody's making fools of us. If anybody did anything to this statue, I'd know it."

"Let me see the note," Gristle said.

Eastman took it out of his pocket and handed it to her.

She read aloud. "'The trail to the Grail begins when you polish the statue.' Sounds like a kid wrote it."

"It's total bullshit," Brite said. "There's no secret message. No etching. No nothing." He seized the soda can from Gristle's hand and sucked down what was left. "I'm out of here," he said, bouncing the can off a trash receptacle. He looked at the dirty diaper in his other hand and threw it as well.

Gristle hung around while Brite headed for the motorcycle. She shrugged at Eastman. "I'll stay and help if you want me to."

"Thanks, but he's right," Eastman said. "When I found the note in the mailbox, I almost tore it up. Then I got to thinking about another childish stunt I saw in a photograph, so I reconsidered."

"I don't understand."

"Have your sister show you the photo," he said as Brite's new motorcycle fired up. "Better hurry. Your knight awaits."

After they were out of sight and the bike's whine died away, Eastman sat down on the bench to rest. Within minutes, the warmth of the sun had radiated through his clothing and into his tired muscles. He stretched out on the bench, diaper box for a pillow, and thought about how dumb he had been to react to an anonymous note. If he were still on the job, he would have shredded the note. Anonymous phone calls and messages were usually retaliatory acts, generated by jealous lovers or parents engaged in child custody battles. One parent stashes drugs in the other's car, then drops a dime. Sometimes the calls were tricks to draw out undercover cops so they could be photographed. Or worse.

As he closed his eyes and drifted into a nap, the image of the statue played like a movie on the backside of his eyelids. The statue's undulating globes floated in front of him, and he was soon adrift among them. It was then that he saw a small rectangle, diving and climbing between the images like a kite. He extended his hand, and the illusive rectangle lit in his palm like a butterfly. There was lettering on it: ANIMAL SHELTER

He sat up and looked at his watch. Half an hour had passed. In his half-asleep state, he stared at the statue from the park bench. Then he got up, walked to it, and saw what they'd missed. A billboard down the street was visible between the giant peanuts. He dug the note out of his pocket, read it again, then cursed himself for his stupidity. He punched Brite's number into his cell phone. "I know what the note means," Eastman said. "Now I need to know the significance of the statue."

"What are you talking about?" Brite asked.

Eastman repeated what he'd said and heard a door close on Brite's end. He figured Gristle was somewhere in Brite's house, and Brite wanted to keep their conversation private.

"Where are you?" Brite asked quietly.

"Still at the park... in front of the statue."

"Then you'll see the significance of the statue right there on the plaque," Brite said. "It commemorates the agricultural something-or-other of our fair county."

"That's bullshit. It has a special meaning to Lafoon and you know it."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because he wrote the note that tricked us into polishing it. We were so busy polishing that we didn't see the animal shelter sign in plain view behind it."

"I'm confused," Brite said.

"I'll explain it sometime. Now what about the statue?"

Brite muttered something, then said, "The statue signifies something a hell of a lot more important than our fucking peanut harvest... but it's gotta stay between us."

"Fine."

"The floating peanuts are just that. Peanuts. But the statue pissed Lafoon off because those peanuts represent sketches on napkins."

"Napkins?"

"See, back in the forties, some of the A-bomb scientists left the secret compound at Los Alamos and drove into Santa Fe on weekends. They'd drink at a certain hotel bar and shoot the shit about sports and so forth, but when the booze kicked in, they'd start talking shop and drawing on the table napkins. Not exactly the smartest thing for a scientist working on a secret project to do with spies lurking everywhere."

"And Lafoon was stealing their napkins?"

"Not him personally. Lafoon had people working for him at the hotel. They got jobs in housekeeping so they could plant bugs and go through the room trash. He also had people at the front desk and waiting tables in the bar. If a scientist came in alone, they'd run a whore at him, hoping to get pictures he'd rather his family didn't see. That type of thing."

"What about the napkins?"

"The napkins are the best part," Brite said. "One night, the main man himself, Oppenheimer, came in with another guy, and the next thing you know they've got their pens out, drawing on napkins. Know what they drew?"

"Peanuts," Eastman said.

"Fuck you."

"You just told me the peanuts represent sketches on napkins."

"They also represent something else. See, when you split an atom, you hit one neutron over the head with the nucleus from another neutron. The one that got hit starts vibrating and stretches into a peanut shape before it splits in two. That's nuclear fission. And that's what was diagramed on the napkins."

"Top secret stuff," Eastman said.

"Hell, no. That's the beauty of it. Lafoon is brilliant, but he wasn't a physicist. And when he got his hands on a stack of napkins with all those formulas and symbols, he thought he had cut a fat hog in the ass. The atomic bomb secret would make him Hitler's hero." He chuckled. "But unbeknownst to Lafoon, the so-called peanut phenomenon had become such common knowledge in nuclear physics that the enemy scientists knew about it. So when Lafoon sold the peanut drawings to them as A-bomb plans, they wanted him dead or their money back. Not good for a master spy's reputation."

"That's it? The statue is an inside spy joke?"

"Right."

"Wait a minute," Eastman said. "How could you possibly know about Oppenheimer and the napkins?"

"Because the man with Oppenheimer that night was my daddy."

"I can't believe my ears," Eastman said.

"Don't take my word for it. Look it up," Brite said. "Straus Whitlock Publishing had commissioned Jack Brite of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to design the cover of a college physics book at the recommendation of his fan and friend, J. Robert Oppenheimer. The peanut sketches became vibrating neutrons on the cover of a book published a year after the bombs were dropped. It's as simple as that. Weird, eh?"

Chapter 33

"Are those kangaroos?" Eastman yelled, pointing across the pasture at the silent, limp-wristed creatures staring at him.

"That's what they are," the big woman shouted back. She approached a golf cart carrying a sack of dog food on each shoulder, and then lifted them off as if they were as light as a feather boa. After she stacked them on the back of the cart, she drove to the corral where Eastman was standing. She patted the passenger seat, and he got aboard.

After they were moving, she nodded at the kangaroos. "We've got a dozen of those damned things. They belonged to a couple of guys who moved here from San Francisco to live the cowboy way. That lasted about a year."

"A year?"

"They found out Coronado County ain't nothing like Brokeback Mountain, and one summer was all they could take. When they moved, they took everything from inside the house and left everything that was outside. All in all, we took in nearly thirty animals. Mostly exotics. Even had a pair of Bactrian camels." She cut her eyes at him. "Them two-humpers you've seen pitchers of. Anyway, we've finally adopted out most of their stock except for those cute little kangaroos. Know how come?"

"How come?"

"Because they smell like death on a bread stick and they'll kick and bite the living shit out of you." She threw her head back and gave a horselaugh that triggered bellowing from some nearby building.

"What the heck was that?" he asked when the noise stopped.

"One of the guests in the livestock barn," she said as she stopped the cart. "He craves attention." She nodded at a wooden building that hadn't tasted paint in years. "Go have a look while I feed my babies."

She watched him get out, ducking to avoid bumping his fine hat against the cart's canopy. "Hey, I bet you're the Ranger that bought the old place off Highway 4."

"It's mine, but I'm not a Texas Ranger," he said. "Name's Charlie Eastman." He shook her hand. "I'm just a city slicker who got sick of hipsters and Austin traffic."

"I'm Beverly, but everybody calls me Bo," she said, pointing to the embroidering over her shirt pocket. "The man at the feed store said you talked some nutcase out of jumping off the water tower."

"It wasn't a water tower. It was just a windmill."

"You should'a let him jump. We got enough crazies running around."

"Maybe so," he said.

She looked him up and down. "You running any beef on your place?"

"Lord, no," Eastman said. "I don't know the first thing about cows. They're just brown things as far as I'm concerned."

"Must be a horse lover."

"I know even less about horses. I never felt worthy of owning one. Same goes for cats."

"You looking for a dog?"

He laughed. "Not at the moment."

"Then if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing at the animal shelter?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "Somebody pointed out your sign in the city park so I thought I'd pay a visit."

She had a strange look on her face. "That sign was a gift from an anonymous donor," she said. "That, and one other thing."

"What?" he asked.

"It's in the barn."

She watched him as he sauntered off to the barn. "Must be the hat," she said and turned the cart toward the barking. "I've never seen anybody look more like a Ranger."

* * *

Snow that wasn't predicted fell after midnight and moved east to become rain for the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The next morning, the hills in Coronado County were paint horses ringing the city, nose to tail.

After breakfast, Eastman drove out to Doc's place and hooked her horse trailer up to the Bronco. Twenty minutes later, Bo held the gate open while he pulled into the animal shelter.

When he was back on the road, he phoned Tillman.

Then Ester Pirtle.

Then Doc.

"It's a surprise," he told Doc. "Meet me at noon. I'll pull up on the lawn between the jail and the courthouse."

"You're gonna get arrested," Doc said.

"Everything will be fine," he said. "And call the newspaper. Tell them to send somebody with a camera."

"Forget it. The paper's not going to send someone unless they know what's going on."

"Wanna bet?" he said. "This week's big story is about a chicken wandering into a funeral service."

* * *

"Better stand back," Eastman told the reporter, a young lady who looked to be in her early twenties. "These things can move at the speed of light."

He turned to the crowd of courthouse workers who had filed across the snow-covered lawn to investigate. "We've gotta be real quiet while Doc Page unloads him," he said. Then he nodded to Doc and she ascended the ramp and unlocked the trailer doors.

Eastman addressed the crowd. "Until recently, unicorns were thought to exist only in the minds of romantics and madmen. And if you were to make the absurd claim of spotting one, people would poke fun and call you an idiot, like you'd said you'd seen a Big Foot or a space alien."

Ester Pirtle, known by all to be a devotee of the paranormal, mounted the ramp and gave him a hug.

"But that's no longer true," he continued. "Because I, who was trusted by the last four governors of this state, not only spotted a unicorn, but have legally taken him to raise."

He spotted Tillman among the spectators, shaking his head.

"But I wasn't the first to see him," Eastman said. He pointed at the prisoners watching from the second floor of the jail. "That honor belongs to Mister Billy Poco, who happened onto him a couple of months before I did." He smiled at the reporter. "The sighting was covered in detail by our fine newspaper."

Doc, inside the trailer, knocked on the wall, and Eastman backed away. She stepped out, holding a lead rope that preceded a waist-high creature resembling a snow-white horse with a single ear, unusually long and pointed at the end like a great horn. A powder-puff of mane at the base of the ear gave him the look of a lovable cartoon character. She led the animal to a steep roll of the snow-covered lawn and stopped him beside it.

Eastman offered him a carrot, and the reporter shot photos of the creature nibbling it.

"What is it?" someone asked.

"The veterinarian who examined him says he's a Mediterranean Miniature Donkey," Eastman answered. "Not common in these parts." He scratched the donkey's cheek. "But this boy's a lot more than that."

"Why?" the reporter asked.

He pointed at the trailer. "For starters, he should be terrified of that thing."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because he almost died in one," Eastman said. He pulled an envelope from inside his coat and handed it to her, then addressed the onlookers once again. "That's a copy of a police report filed two months ago. The driver of a pickup truck was killed when he crossed the interstate median and hit a gravel truck head on. The horse trailer he was towing broke away, rolled across a field, and flipped over in a ravine."

The reporter, skimming the report, looked up. "There's no trailer mentioned here."

"That's right, because the deputies investigating the accident didn't know about it. You have to pull a copy of the supplemental report that was filed a day later to find out about it."

He continued. "The sheriff's department had a traffic fatality on their hands in the middle of the night, and traffic was backed up for miles. To add to the confusion, it was raining like crazy, so no one knew about a trailer and the little donkey inside it... that is, until the driver's wife in Nebraska called the next day. By then, the donkey had climbed out and wandered into the woods, minus an ear and bleeding. The little fellow probably wandered the creek, feeding on the winter oats and rye fields along it."

He pointed at the jail.

"That's when Billy Poco and the donkey crossed paths. By then, the rains had washed off the blood so all Billy saw was a little white creature." He stroked its ear. "With a horn."

The reporter looked up from her scribbling. "Exactly where do you enter the picture?"

"An anonymous person sent me a tip about where to find the animal," Eastman said. "I can't be sure, but I think that person befriended him, and then had him delivered to the animal shelter."

"Why does a little donkey merit a news conference on the courthouse lawn?" the reporter asked.

Eastman looked at the crowd. "Because everybody in this county should know why a grown man who taught himself to read by watching Sesame Street suddenly became their village idiot."

He pointed at the white jump-suited inmates peering out of the windows behind him. "Billy Poco—up there—saw this funny-looking creature roaming the woods in the snow and had no idea what it was. And because of his limited vocabulary, unicorn was the best word he could come up with."

He paused and there was only the sound of pigeons under the courthouse eaves.

"How many of you will go home today and say, 'I saw a one-eared, white, Mediterranean Miniature Donkey'? You'll probably get around to all that, but I guarantee you'll use the u-word to describe him."

Tillman smiled.

"Here's the point," Eastman said. "What Billy Poco saw is standing in front of you. Billy just called it a unicorn instead of saying it looked like a unicorn."

He nodded and Doc started to the trailer with the donkey.

Eastman said, "Now, if this town needs a village idiot, I'm your man. What sane person would swear to a man on a windmill that he'd find a unicorn?" He removed his hat and extended it to the donkey. "But there he is."

Doc winked at him and he replaced the hat.

"Well, that's our little Wild West Show." He looked at the reporter. "Probably doesn't seem like much of a story at the moment, but I promise you it's about to take wing."

Chapter 34

"Big surprise," Tillman said on the phone. "After that show you put on yesterday, Billy Poco sent down a kite with my name on it. It said he wants to talk to you. Unfortunately, somebody tried to make sure I never saw it."

"Then how did you find out about it?" Eastman asked.

"Corine told me about it after briefing this morning. She read about it in somebody's e-mail."

"Any way we can talk to him privately?"

"I already thought of that," Tillman said. "Corine hacked into the jail records and added you to Billy's visitor list. She listed you as a PI working for that attorney, Ross Kaplan."

"What's in this for Corine?"

"You. She's an animal lover, and when she saw your donkey act, she became your biggest fan. She wants to meet you."

"You're lying."

"Swear on a Bible. The only thing Corine loves more than an animal is a man dressed like the Marlboro man."

"You're quite an asshole," Eastman said.

Tillman chuckled. "The jail feeds from eleven to one. I'll have Poco pulled down at one-thirty."

* * *

The interview room looked like all the others Eastman had been in. A table with a Formica top, metal folding chairs, and nothing on four dingy walls to distract from the business at hand.

Tillman escorted Billy Poco into the room. Poco, in a jailhouse jumpsuit and a pair of slides, bent forward and waited for Tillman to remove the cuffs. After Tillman secured them on his Sam Brown belt, he nodded at a chair.

Eastman, at one end of the table, and Billy Poco at the other, looked at each other poker-faced while Tillman dug through a drawer full of legal forms.

"Here it is," Tillman said. He tore off a form titled Statement of Rights: Under Arrest. He wrote his and Eastman's names down as being present at the interview, then shoved it front of Billy Poco and offered him his pen.

"What are you doing?" Billy Poco said.

Tillman pointed to the top of the page. "It's your rights. I've got to read them to you." When Billy Poco rolled his eyes, Tillman said, "I know you know them, but I've got to read them anyway."

"You don't have to," Billy Poco said. "The Supreme Court says that since I been in jail so many times, I already know my rights."

When Eastman chuckled, Tillman tapped his badge with the pen. "This department says I'm to read every prisoner his rights before an interview. So read along or go back to your cell. I don't give a shit."

"Okay," Billy Poco said and took the pen. "But you don't have to curse."

Billy Poco's head rocked back and forth while Tillman read the Miranda Warning, and then he signed under a paragraph stating he understood them, but wanted to waive them.

Tillman took the form and noted the time and date beside Billy Poco's signature. "Okay, gentlemen, let the game begin."

Billy Poco came to life. "You did it, Charlie. I started crying when you showed ever'body that little horse."

"Donkey," Eastman said. "He's at Doc's place protecting her horse for the time being."

"He protects horses?"

"Are you kidding? Donkeys hate coyotes and wolves. If anything comes around at night, that little thing'll make a god-awful noise. And if a rattler slithers up too close, he'll cut it to shreds with those razor-sharp hooves."

Billy Poco glanced at Tillman, then back at Eastman.

"It's okay," Eastman said. "I want John to hear everything you have to say."

Billy Poco shrugged. "All right, there's something I haven't told nobody." He swallowed. "There's this old man Harvey knows. I don't know his name, but Harvey's afraid of him."

"What about him?" Eastman asked.

"I just seen him a time or two."

"Where?"

"At the cemetery. Right after the Goodman boy got killed, Harvey come out with a bunch of flowers. And while he was unloading them, the old man rode up in a fancy pickup with a Meskin driving."

"What color was the truck?" Tillman asked.

"Maroon. I don't know what kind, but it was low to the ground and had one of those bed covers.

Tillman was writing. "Go on."

"Harvey went up to the truck and hollered at the old man. When he did, the driver jumped out and come around and grabbed Harvey by the collar."

"Did you hear what Harvey hollered?" Eastman asked.

Billy Poco shook his head. "It must'a been bad because the driver was about to go upside his head. But the old man motioned him back into the truck."

"What did the driver look like?" Tillman asked.

"Just a regular Meskin," Billy Poco said. He closed his eyes. "Short hair. Kind'a stocky."

"How old?"

"Maybe thirty-five or twenty-five."

Tillman drew a question mark in his notes. "How was he dressed?"

"Long-sleeve shirt and blue jeans."

"Like a ranch hand?" Tillman asked.

"No, like a city boy. Ranch hands don't starch their clothes."

Tillman laid his pen down. "You never said anything about starch."

Eastman interrupted. "But the old man was in charge?"

"Yes sir. When the driver got back in, the old man shook his finger at Harvey and said something before they drove off."

"What did Harvey do afterward?" Tillman asked.

"He sat on the boy's grave and cried."

"You must've been pretty close to see the driver's clothes were starched," Eastman said.

"I was changing out a faucet head maybe fifty yards away."

"With a wrench, I assume?"

Billy Poco nodded. "A regular pipe wrench."

"And you could see the three of them easily."

"I could see the three of them easily," Billy Poco parroted.

"That means they could see you easily, doesn't it?"

It made Billy Poco squirm a little so Eastman sat back and studied him. "Stand up for a minute."

Billy Poco got up.

"You're a big, raw-boned man," Eastman said. "Any fool can see you'd be a tush hog in a street fight. Especially if you had a pipe wrench. So it's strange that nobody paid you any mind."

Billy Poco sat looking at his hands.

Eastman rapped the table. "Look at me."

"Why are you mad, Charlie? Do you think I'm lying?"

"You're leaving something out."

"Like what?"

"Like why you just happened to be there. And why Harvey Goodman wasn't bashful about yelling at the old man in front of you. And why the driver—whose ass you could probably tie in a knot—jumped out and assaulted Harvey right under your nose."

Billy Poco said nothing.

"But no one paid you any mind," Eastman said. "In fact, they carried on like you were part of the family. How do you explain that?"

When Billy Poco didn't answer again, Eastman said, "When I asked you about the old man, you said you'd seen him a time or two."

Billy Poco nodded. "I seen him twice. The second time, I just told you about. The first time he just appeared."

Eastman glanced at Tillman, who was already looking at him.

"It was the night they lit up the town Christmas tree," Billy Poco said. "I borrowed a dog and went coon hunting at three, maybe four in the morning. That's when he appeared."

"While you were hunting?"

"Yes sir. Right there on the creek."

"What was he doing?" Tillman asked.

"Nothing. Just standing there, high on a ledge above me. It scared me to death." Billy Poco nodded at Eastman. "He's taller than you. Maybe seven foot. Standing there in a long black coat with the moon shining on his white hair. I prayed to God he wouldn't swoop down and carry me off."

"Did you talk to him?" Eastman asked.

"Not much. When he seen me looking at him, he asked me if I was lost. I said, 'No sir. I'm after coons.' Then he said I was on private property, so I said I was sorry, that I thought it was government land. He never said another word, so I called the dog and got out of there quick."

"That was it?" Tillman asked.

"That was it and I was glad. When I got up creek, I looked back and he was gone like a demon."

"Have you mentioned this to anyone?" Eastman asked.

Billy Poco nodded. "Later, I told Kitty about him standing up there, his hair all shiny in the moonlight."

"What'd she say?"

"She told me, 'You ever go back, they'll find your dead ass all shiny in the moonlight.'"

Tillman said, "For the record, Billy, where were you hunting at the time?"

Billy Poco frowned at Eastman. "I don't remember. I hunt lots of places."

"That's a load of shit." Tillman tossed his pen on the table. "You're telling us you can't remember where you were when you bumped into a demon?"

"Whoa, boys," Eastman said. He glanced at his watch, then gathered up his coat and hat. "Go back to your cell, Billy. Your memory's gone bad again."

Billy Poco looked wounded, but he kept quiet.

"You lied about the meeting in the cemetery," Eastman said. "If it happened at all, you were part of it. And since we've gotten exactly no place, I'm not wasting another minute."

He slid a note to Tillman and waited for Tillman to turn Billy Poco over to the jail sergeant. Afterward, Tillman walked across the street to the Heart Mart, where Eastman had coffee waiting.

Sliding into the booth, Tillman said, "Until I saw your note, I didn't know what you were doing." He unfolded the note and handed it back: Don't say anything. Meet for coffee.

Eastman said, "He was extremely cautious, but he told us all he could."

"You think he's afraid somebody will kill him?"

"He's probably more worried about Kitty."

Tillman nodded. "I wondered why you didn't press him about her, but I kept my mouth shut."

"I'm sure Billy's grateful. He's been around long enough to know the room was bugged." Eastman nodded at the law enforcement center. "I imagine every word we said is being replayed right now."

"If you knew the room was bugged, why bother to set up the interview?"

Eastman was stirring his coffee with a soda straw. "Because Billy wanted to give us some information without sounding like a snitch. He knows it pisses me off when he leaves things out, so by not telling us who the pickup driver was, means it's important. Same goes for forgetting where he bumped into Lafoon that night. He knew we'd figure it out."

"Have we?"

"Sort of. We need to find out everything we can about the Lafoon farm. Then you've got to ID the driver of that maroon pickup."

"How do I do that without a tag number?" Tillman asked.

"Give it some thought," Eastman said. "Can't be harder than finding a unicorn."

Chapter 35

When Doc finished reading the news story about the unicorn, she said, "I'm very proud of you, Charlie. It takes a lot of courage to make a fool of yourself." She smiled when she looked down at the photo of him feeding the one-eared donkey. "Did I mention how handsome you look in your new hat?"

He came around to her side of the desk and smiled at the picture. "I do look pretty good, don't I?" As she was about to answer, he took off the hat and shoved it onto her head.

Her eyes and ears were suddenly behind a wall of beaver fur and she struggled to get it off. Then she realized he was unbuttoning her blouse.

She grabbed his hand. "Is this why you dropped by?"

"Actually, I came by to borrow your camera, but as long as you're in the mood—"

"Are you out of your mind? I see my first patient in twenty minutes."

"Then we'd better hurry," he said as his other hand went to work.

Hat resting on the back of her head, she finished the unbuttoning herself and locked the door while he sat in a chair, pulling off his boots.

Stepping out of her panties, she said, "Don't think for a moment you're getting my camera. That baby never leaves my side."

"Shut up," he said, pointing to the wall clock. "A naked doctor inspires little confidence."

"I won't be naked," she said, climbing onto the couch. She threw a leg over the back like a porn star and smiled up at him. "I'll be wearing a hat."

Starting for the couch, he froze at the sight of her and breathed in the aroma of Noxzema. "I should've bought a hat like this years ago."

* * *

"You're late," Brite said, swinging the hangar doors open.

"I got tied up at Doc's," Eastman said.

Brite looked down at the aluminum case in Eastman's hand. "See you got it anyway."

"And it wasn't easy," Eastman said. He opened the case and displayed the camera. "Look at this beauty."

Brite's blank stare told him he couldn't appreciate what he was looking at.

"It's a Hasselblad, dummy," Eastman said. "The Mercedes-Benz of cameras. The astronauts use them. Modern cameras are digital, but Doc's uses real film. A real classic. She never lets it out of her sight, but after I explained the situation, she gave in."

"Then let's put it to work," Brite said and headed for the big yellow biplane resting on its tail inside the hangar. He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and began daubing the bottom of its enormous radial engine. "You're gonna fall in love with this bird."

Eastman ran his hand around the rough edges of the prop and walked the length of a wing. "A crop duster?"

"Only briefly. A rancher in Mexico bought her as military surplus and turned her into to a bug sprayer. Unfortunately, he poisoned himself poisoning bugs, so his family sold her to some guy from Kansas who put on wing-walking shows." Brite grinned. "I bought the plane from his widow, who'd also been his pilot."

"If it's killed the last two owners, the thing's cursed," Eastman said.

Brite ignored him. "The first thing I did was rebuild both cockpits and add some radio equipment. We'll be able to talk to each other on the intercom."

Eastman looked at the sludge on Brite's rag and the puddle under the engine. "What about safe?"

"As safe and comfortable as your living room," Brite said. "Except for noise and fumes."

After Brite monkeyed with half a dozen things on the plane, they pushed it into the sunlight and faced it toward a swathe of short brown grass that Eastman figured was a runway.

"Take the rear cockpit," Brite said. "It'll give you a clear shot of the ground." He watched Eastman climb aboard and start to buckle in. "Nervous?" Brite asked.

"Nope," Eastman said and pulled the Colt Peacemaker from his armpit. He pointed it straight up and cocked it. "If you start screwing around up there, I'll bust your head like a ripe tomato."

Brite laughed. "Who'll land the plane?"

"I've flown observer in a hundred surveillances," Eastman said, letting the hammer down and holstering the gun. "I'm sure I can get this junker onto the ground and convince the grand jury I was in fear for my life."

Brite reached into his coveralls and came out with a map. He handed it to Eastman. "Know how to read an air chart?"

Eastman snatched it and opened it. He took out his pen and drew a line from their location to the Lafoon farm, a distance of twenty miles. "The farm's here," he said, drawing a circle the size of a quarter. "We'll make two passes. The first at 2,500 feet so I can get shots of the whole place. Then we'll drop down to a thousand for pictures of the house and outbuildings."

Brite had his own pen and was making notes on the back of his hand.

Eastman looked at the clear sky. "On the second pass—the low one—keep the plane between the sun and the house. Anybody looking up won't be able to see us. Then, bank hard and I'll lean over with the camera."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. Do it as quietly as possible."

"No prob," Brite said. "I'll cut the power and she'll soar like a sailplane."

Brite climbed into the front cockpit while Eastman put on his headphones and adjusted the mike. In minutes, they were at the end of the grass strip, Brite making last-minute checks. When he finished, he released the brakes and the engine roared.

Double wings and 450 horses spinning the big prop launched them into the cool, dry air almost immediately, and in minutes they were 5,000 feet over the snaking Brazos River. When the plane leveled out, Brite brought the throttle back and music came up in the headphones.

Eastman keyed his mike. "ABBA?"

"Damned straight," Brite answered. "The wing-walker's wife was known as Little Chiquita when they performed, so she played this song every time they took off. Sort of a good luck ritual."

Five minutes and twenty-one seconds later, the song ended, and the hills where the creek ran through the pecan trees were visible below. Brite throttled back again and dropped the nose, letting the plane glide down to 2,500 feet. After he leveled it, he said over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, in a few moments, Harvey Goodman's mysterious farm will be visible on the left side of the aircraft."

"Cut the crap," Eastman came back. "Hold her straight and level."

"Roger that. Buckle in tight. It'll be bumpy over these hills."

"I'll be fine. Just fly the plane."

Brite banked to the right while Eastman strained at the safety harness, firing off a dozen photos that he hoped would turn out as well as they looked through the viewfinder.

When they were clear of the area, Brite made a wide circle, setting up for the low pass over the house and barn. Approaching a radio tower set on a hill, he killed the engine.

"I hope you see that tower," Eastman said.

"Of course, I see it. It's my marker."

As the descending plane gained speed, Eastman came out of the safety harness and knelt in the seat, camera ready.

The sound of rushing wind was interrupted by Brite's voice. "I'll give you a three-count before I bank her over."

"Forget the count and bank the goddamned plane. Don't you think I'll know it?"

"Okay," Brite said, craning his neck to keep the plane's hedge-hopping shadow in alignment with the approaching barn.

Eastman braced himself against the right side of the cockpit and readied the camera.

Brite counted anyway. "One... two..."

"Son-of-a-bitch!" was all Eastman got out when the plane rolled left, launching him to the opposite side and nearly out of the cockpit. Upper torso thrashing over the side, the plane's wings almost perpendicular to the ground, he clawed the air, fighting to stay aboard, whimpering between curses. When he finally realized his feet were snagged in the safety harness, he grabbed the rim of the cockpit and held on until Brite righted the plane again and he was able to twist himself back in.

Gasping for breath, he heard the engine restart and felt the surge of power as the plane climbed. Suddenly, the thought of Brite executing another aerobatic maneuver flashed through his mind and he grabbed the harness and held with all his might.

Brite's voice was calm. "Get some good ones?"

"Land the plane, asshole."

"Say again?"

"Land the plane, you fucking moron or I'll shoot you!"

"You airsick?"

"I almost died back there! You banked left instead of right."

"You never said bank right," Brite said. "I banked left to give you a better shot of the house. You wanna go back and reshoot it?"

"With what?" Eastman asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Doc's Hasselblad is probably scattered all over the front yard of that house." Eastman grabbed his armpit and twisted around to look back at the farm. "Next to my gun."

"You dropped the camera and your gun?"

"Yes, dipshit. I wound the camera strap around my wrist and was ready to shoot when you—Know what? Just land the plane."

"Calm down," Brite said. "If they find either one, the people at the house won't know what happened. The film was ruined when the camera busted open."

"Oh, really?" Eastman said, staring at a bleeding finger. "Here's something to consider. The film is stored in a little compartment on the back of the camera, and unless it crashed into solid rock, there's a good chance the pictures are just fine."

"Big deal," Brite said, refusing to be rattled. "They'll just have some great pictures of the farm. Probably think it's some of that aerial shit the game wardens do."

"Think so? Eastman said. "Well, here's some shit the game wardens definitely don't do. First, they don't fly around with film Doc shot in her office."

Silence from Brite's end.

"Second, a game warden's camera wouldn't have photos of Doc's sister sitting on a motorcycle with you." His voice got louder. "And after the game wardens finish shooting pictures of your property, they don't throw the camera down to you."

More silence, then Brite said, "If those people see my picture, they'll know where the aerial stuff came from, and I'm dead meat." What he muttered after that was unintelligible.

"Shut up," Eastman said. "The way I see it, we're all dead meat. After I kill you, Doc's gonna kill me over the camera. And it won't take much for the bad guys to figure out who the camera belongs to, so Doc's dead, too." He looked back toward the farm that was now out of sight, then made another decision that he hoped was better than his previous one.

Chapter 36

When Eastman tried to hand Doc the camera case, which was considerably lighter than the last time she saw it, she turned away.

"Just set it in the other room," she said, ignoring the two pieces of bloody gauze protruding from his nostrils.

Knowing when to keep his mouth shut, he slunk away thankful she didn't open it and see the ghostly impression of the Mercedes-Benz of cameras in the foam padding.

To soften the bad news, Eastman had phoned her as soon as he left the airstrip and told her how he almost lost his life in a heroic lunge to save her camera after Brite pulled one of his boners. To avoid making himself look like an imbecile too, he left out the details, like how he and Brite had shouted threats at each other over the intercom and how they had proceeded to punch each other in the face as soon as they stepped onto terra firma. He also didn't mention feeling like a million bucks after knocking Brite on his ass, then, as he drove away, checking the rearview mirror to see whether his own nose was broken. And he certainly didn't describe Brite's stupid grin when Brite saw what he had done to Eastman's face.

"Look, I'll buy you another Hasselblad," Eastman told her after he'd put the case away. "Ester owes me plenty."

"I'll buy my own camera, thank you," she snapped. "And I'll send you the bill."

He nodded.

"Meanwhile, what do I do if Harvey Goodman calls asking why my camera was scattered all over his farm?"

"No prob," Eastman said, realizing his answer sounded like something Brite would say. "If somebody calls, act surprised. Say it was stolen a week ago. Voila. You're off the hook." He felt even sleazier now and wished he'd kicked Brite in the balls, too.

He came around to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Listen, Tillman and I are going out there tonight. If I walk the route we flew, I'm bound to find the camera."

"And get shot if someone sees you?"

"Nobody'll see me. John's keeping jiggers while I creep on the place."

"What sort of mumbo jumbo is that?"

"It means John will be the lookout while I look for the camera. We'll have radios. The minute I find it, I'll bag it and run. To hell with the gun."

"You dropped your gun too?"

* * *

Tillman, wearing civvies and slumping down in the seat of his wife's Honda, punched the speed-dial on his cell when the Bronco turned into the Walmart parking lot. He saw Eastman's phone rise to his ear.

"Where are you?" Eastman said.

"East side. Last row."

They kept the line open until Eastman stopped behind the Honda. Tillman got out carrying a small pink backpack and climbed in with him.

"That your war bag?" Eastman said.

Tillman unzipped it as they started moving. "I stole it from my kid. There's some walkie-talkies and a set of night vision goggles in here. I sneaked them out of the equipment room."

"What'd you tell your wife?

"I just said you and I were going to watch a house for a while. I didn't mention it was Goodman's farm."

They cruised along the front of the property once, looking for signs of life. Half a mile later, Eastman killed the headlights and nosed the Bronco into the gully Billy Poco had showed him. He cruised the gully in the moonlight until they reached a canopy of oaks, and then he put on the night vision goggles and found a thicket big enough to hide the Bronco.

After they were out and walking, he removed the goggles and showed Tillman the game fence that ran from the highway to the creek. He ripped an inch-wide strip from a white handkerchief and tied it to the fence.

"I'll start here," he said, pointing through the fence. "See that flashing red light on the horizon?"

"The radio station tower," Tillman said.

"We flew directly over it and came straight over this spot. Theoretically, if I walk toward the tower, I should step dead in the middle of camera parts and my gun."

"Theoretically," Tillman said. He handed Eastman a walkie-talkie. "Stay on channel 11. It'll be just you and me."

After they set their cell phones to vibrate and tested the radios, Tillman found a sturdy limb and pried the fence up at the bottom while Eastman belly-crawled under and donned the night vision goggles again. When his eyes adjusted to them, he gave Tillman a thumbs up and moved off quickly. Fifty yards into the sagebrush, he was invisible.

Tillman, alone in the silence with nothing to do but wait, selected an oak tree next to the fence and climbed high enough to see the house on the backside of the property and the gate at the highway. Then he nestled himself between two branches and sat like a monkey, trying not to think about how much trouble he'd be in if he was caught doing an illegal sneak-and-peek on private property. If he was lucky, he'd get days off without pay. But if this little operation turned into an action movie, they'd take his badge and gun, and he'd have to go home and see the look on his wife's face when he told her he'd been fired.

The first thing Eastman did when he came to a clearing was yank off the goggles. Of Vietnam-era vintage, they distorted his perception and emitted a high-pitched whine. He fished a compass out of the bag and, under the beam of a squeeze light he held in his teeth, established a heading to the radio tower. If he lost sight of the tower under the trees, the compass would keep him on course.

Searching the ground by moonlight turned out to be easier than he'd expected. He advanced twenty yards at a time, zigzagging as rapidly as possible.

Half an hour later, he came to a boulder the size of a car and climbed up on it. From the top, he saw the dirt road running through the hilly acreage to the house.

He reminded himself to slow down, that he had plenty of time. He'd try the goggles again.

He sat on the edge of the rock facing the house and powered them up. The only light within a mile was a pole-mounted mercury vapor lamp at the rear of the house. He guessed it to be three hundred yards away, and it was as bright as the sun through the goggles. Then he looked back in the direction he'd come.

When the shattered glass caught his eye, he thought he was looking at the lights of a distant city. A teardrop pattern of white points sparkled like diamonds broadcast over the ground and he was gathering up camera parts in less than a minute. Then he dug out the radio and keyed it.

"Jackpot."

"The camera or the gun?" Tillman asked.

"Camera. Shining like diamonds in a goat's ass."

"What shape's it in?"

"It's history. Hasselblads don't glide well."

"What about the film holder?"

"Haven't seen it. The lens is shattered, and the body's under a cedar. I'm trying to get to it."

"Grab it and hightail it. I'll warm up the truck."

"Wait," Eastman said. "We're ahead of schedule. I can find the gun and film, too."

He raked the camera body out with a limb, but the impact had made an accordion of the lens housing. After he scraped the dirt off the focusing knob and corners, he got on his hands and knees and crawled through the brush, looking for the film holder and the gun. After hunting a wide circle, he radioed Tillman.

"No film. No gun."

"Big deal," Tillman said. "The next rain will muddy up them up. It'll be a hundred years before somebody stumbles onto them."

"You're right," Eastman said. "Start the Bronco. I'm headed your way."

"Hang on," Tillman said. "Headlights up at the gate."

Eastman looked back toward the highway and saw the light in the tree tops. He hurried back to the boulder and climbed up, pulling a pair of compact binoculars out of his coat. He keyed the radio while he watched the road.

"It's coming my way," he said. "I'll move up to the road and knock off a tag."

He made his way through the brush at a trot, watching for the approaching vehicle. When he was close to the road, he spotted a rain-cut trench running across it. Certain the vehicle would slow for the trench, he dropped down and lay motionless, allowing the dust he stirred up to settle. When he heard the sound of the engine, he brought the binoculars out again and saw it was a pickup, low-slung with a bed cover.

The headlights lit the brush above him, and music was blaring from the cab. Los Tigres del Norte. A corrida at full volume told him the two occupants were Spanish-speakers, probably young.

He rose in time to see the truck roll over the trench. He read off the plate number to Tillman.

"Description?" Tillman asked.

"A Chevy or GMC low-rider. Occupied two times. Kind of purplish."

"Purplish?"

"Like a baboon's nalgas. It's got to be the truck Billy Poco told us about."

It stopped at the barn, and the passenger climbed out. He swung open the barn doors and the truck pulled in.

Eastman moved up to a cluster of switch grass, knelt, and waited. Five minutes later, he called Tillman. "Something's going on in the barn. They haven't come out."

"I assume you're gonna check it out."

"Right. Just stand by."

"Bullshit," Tillman said. "I'm on my way."

Chapter 37

The noises in the barn tempted Eastman to move closer, but he decided to wait until Tillman arrived. He figured it was time he did something right. Tillman grew up in the country, and it shouldn't take him more than a few minutes to cover the half-mile quietly. Moments later, he jumped when his phone vibrated. He opened it and whispered, "Why aren't you using the radio, dumbass?"

"I don't have a radio, fuzznuts," a female replied.

When Eastman realized it was Doc, he said, "What are you doing up this late?"

"I'm calling to let you know my sister looked at the pictures of Lafoon at the Christmas festival."

"And?"

"She recognized him instantly because of his hair and size. And guess what. He's the owner of the gallery she runs."

It took a moment to soak in. "That's impossible!"

"No, it's him. Gristle says he's missing an index finger, too. He lives in Rhode Island and calls himself Jacob Ziv."

"Jacob who?"

"Ziv. Rhymes with grieve. She says he's filthy rich."

Eastman heard the rustling of leaves behind him and looked around in time to watch an armadillo waddle off. "Can I call you back? I'm rather busy."

"Wait," Doc said. "Don't you think you should call Ester and let her know we've found him?"

"Are you nuts? She's liable to call him, and he'll vanish forever."

"But you work for her. You're obligated to tell her."

"I'm more obligated to the families of the people he's killed. And tell your sister to keep her mouth shut, too."

Doc was quiet, and then she asked, "Have you found my camera?"

"For God's sake, we'll talk about it tomorrow." He lowered his voice. "I'm at the place we discussed."

"The Lafoon farm?"

"Great," was all he could think of to say. The tiny red light atop his radio flashed, and he heard Tillman's muffled voice. He grabbed it with his free hand told Tillman to hang on, told Doc not to worry, then disconnected from her.

When Tillman was close, Eastman spotted him and directed him to his location over the radio.

"What's happening?" Tillman asked, squatting beside him.

"No idea. Sounds like they're working on the truck."

"Kind of late for a tune-up, isn't it?"

"Whatever they're doing won't wait till morning," Eastman said. "We have to consider our options fast."

"What do you mean?"

Before Eastman could answer, an engine fired up, and a tall, thin man carrying a florescent lantern shoved the barn door open. He shouted something incomprehensible as he waved the lantern.

"Shit," Tillman said. "They're about to leave."

"Can you get somebody to roadkill them?" Eastman asked.

"Maybe. Bad Hair Bates patrols this district on deep nights. He's our high-scoring highway interdiction guy."

"Call him now," Eastman said when headlights came on in the barn.

Tillman made the phone call and told Deputy Bates, who was writing a ticket five miles away, that a vehicle of interest was about to appear on Highway 4. Tillman didn't mention the suspicious circumstances, and Bates didn't ask since what's unknown can't be discovered at a hearing.

When Tillman hung up, he said, "Old Bad Hair's in heaven. He'll do a routine traffic stop. After he's ID'd the driver, he'll get a consent to search the truck."

"You mean ask for consent?"

"Whatever," Tillman said. "He's pretty good."

Tillman stood up like he was ready to head for the Bronco, but Eastman grabbed his sleeve.

"What's wrong?" Tillman asked.

"Big mistake to assume what's going to happen," Eastman said. "It's embarrassed me more than once."

"But we know what's going to happen. Those assholes are about to leave."

Headlights appeared in the barn door and moved toward them, the driver negotiating the rough terrain. When the vehicle reached the trench, it slowed and the high beams came on. It was not a pickup truck.

"What the hell?" Tillman said.

Eastman handed him the binoculars.

When he was focused in, he said, "It's a big SUV. Dark color. Windows are tinted so I can't see who's in it."

"Can you read the plate?" Eastman asked.

"No plate on the front. We'll have to wait till they pass."

After the SUV cleared the trench, it shot forward like the driver was late for an appointment.

"Damn," Tillman said. "I couldn't read it for the dust. But it's not a Texas tag."

Tillman got back on the phone and gave Deputy Bates a description of the SUV. When he finished, he and Eastman continued watching the dark barn.

Soon, two men appeared in the door, the taller one still holding the lantern, his stocky companion cradling an assault rifle across his chest. After they closed and locked the barn, they started in the direction of the house.

"Call that patrolman and tell him to use caution," Eastman said. "These boys are armed."

Tillman smiled. "He'll use caution. Bad Hair wears a shoulder holster when he mows his lawn and he carries a Geiger counter in the car in case we're nuked. People say he has guns and ammo stashed all over his property. Of all the people on the force, Bad Hair Bates is the last person you'd want to screw around with."

Chapter 38

Bad Hair Burl Bates, whose auburn sideburns and moustache betrayed a jet-black toupee, sat with his headlights off on the shoulder of the road. He smiled when the SUV cleared the gate and turned toward him on the hard top. The red numbers on the radar unit blinked up to 71, then dropped like a rock when its high beams found the patrol car. Bates, right foot hard to the floor and slinging a rooster tail of gravel, wheeled the Dodge Charger around and onto the highway. He was at one with the universe.

"You dumb, dumb bastard," he said in the direction of the speeding driver. As the gap between them narrowed, he picked up the mike and keyed it. "Eleven-oh-seven traffic."

"Go ahead, Bad," the dispatcher came back.

Under the influence of hi-test fuel and human adrenaline, the 5.7-liter HEMI engine sent the speedometer into triple digits, and he was within a few car lengths in seconds. He flipped a switch, and the rear of the Navigator turned Bad's favorite colors. Red, white, and blue.

"Eleven-oh-seven will be out with a Lincoln Navigator, black in color, bearing Connecticut personal plate Mike Echo Echo Echo Oscar Whiskey. I'm southbound on Four near the old Conoco station."

"Your plate says MEOW?" the dispatcher asked.

"Ten four, but with three E's."

The driver signaled and pulled to the shoulder while Bates hoisted an M-16 from the passenger seat and followed the Navigator to a full stop. He aimed the roof-mounted spotlight at it to blind anyone watching him and stepped out, flashlight in his left hand, right hand on the M-16, which was now slung across his tactical vest. He walked slowly, scanning the windows, ready to vaporize any evildoers who might be waiting to pop up and shoot him from the back seat.

When he reached the rear of the vehicle, he saw that the driver's window was already down and two empty hands were displayed outside for him.

Somebody's been through this before, he thought and stopped at the rear bumper. "Sir, buzz down all of your windows." He was polite, but firm.

One hand withdrew and the windows went down, allowing him a view of the interior. He stepped forward, checking the back and floor spaces while he moved to the driver's window.

"That you, Bad Hair?"

It was a woman's voice, familiar, but that's as far as it went. He put the flashlight straight in her face and saw brown eyes and blonde curls that touched her shoulders. He frowned at her. "Ma'am, could I see your operator's license and proof of insurance?"

"Sure," she said and took them from her purse. She was as polite as he was and offered them with a steady hand.

"Bad Hair, would you tell me what we're doing out here in boonies?"

"Ma'am, I stopped you for exceeding the posted speed limit and failure to dim your headlights to oncoming traffic."

She laughed. "What oncoming traffic?"

"I happened to be oncoming," he said. "I just had my lights off is all. Anyway, you were doing over seventy."

He read out the name on the license. "Catherine Louise Olds?"

"That's me."

"Wait a minute," he said. He opened the driver's door and ran the flashlight beam from her stylish curls to her fashionable shoes. "You're Kitty Olds."

"Meow. Like it says on the license plate," Kitty said with a sunny smile. "This wig gives me a more urban look, don't you think?"

He stepped back and looked at the Navigator. "Where'd this car come from?"

"My boyfriend bought it for me," she said. "The title's in the glove box. Everything's perfectly legal."

"Do I know your boyfriend?"

"No. He's from Connecticut. A horse breeder. We met at the truck stop a while back." The sun in her smile was setting.

"What's his name?"

No hint of a smile now. "Look, Bad Hair, either write me a fuckin' ticket or let me go. I've got a flight to catch at DFW."

"Take just take a second." He headed back to the patrol car; when he was inside, he called Tillman and told him who the driver was.

"I just ran a 28 on the Navigator. It's by-God registered to her at a route and box in Connecticut. She says she's flying someplace, but there ain't a drop of luggage in the car."

Tillman talked to someone in the background, then said, "Bad, the bitch is dirty. She's been inside a barn with two shitbags."

"Probably tricking," Bad Hair said.

"Not this time. Sounded like they were working on a car."

"Very interesting," Bad Hair said. "I'll call you back."

In a few minutes, Tillman's phone rang. "Go ahead."

"Oh shit! Oh shit! We hit pay dirt."

"Dope?"

"Better'n that. Money! And lots of it! There was a trap under the console full of hundreds. Then I peeked in a door panel and it's loaded, too. This fucking thing's a rolling bank vault."

"She give consent?"

"Yep. Signed the form and everything's on tape. She figured a yokel like me wanted to search for roaches in the ashtrays."

"What'd she say about the money?"

"She put on an Academy Awards performance when I found it. Big surprise, almost fainted. Says it's not hers and ain't got a clue how it got there."

"You arrest her?"

"Nope. No law against carrying money. But she's still fucked as a tied dog. With three felony drug convictions, one for sale and two for possession, we got plenty to hold onto the money and the car till we get to the bottom of it. I told her she's free to go, but the car comes with me. She wants to come to the station while we count it."

Tillman laughed. "She knows she'd better get a receipt for every cent. She doesn't want whoever owns it to think she ripped it off. She make any calls?"

"Too smart for that," Bad Hair said. "She knows we'll pull her phone log later."

"Great work, Bad. I'm not far from you," Tillman said, sounding like he was running. "We're almost to the car and should be at your location in ten minutes. Meanwhile, start explaining the conspiracy laws to her. Be vague, but drop a few hints that sound like we know what's going on."

"Do we?"

"Not exactly," Tillman said, breathing hard. "In fact, we don't know shit."

* * *

The headline of Thursday's paper blazoned the suicide of murder suspect Billy Poco, who had hung himself with his jail coveralls. The story under it described the sheriff department's seizure of $1.2 million from hidden compartments in a luxury vehicle driven by Poco's estranged wife, a former area truck stop waitress. Around town, theories abounded about the effect of the second story on the first.

Tillman looked at Eastman. "She never made a single comment about the money. Just sat there while we counted it. Then I gave her a receipt, and that was it."

"She was just following instructions," Eastman said. "If anything went wrong, she was to keep her mouth shut. No calls. No lawyers. Nothing. Currency smugglers know the law as well as we do."

"But there is one thing," Tillman said. "Before she left, I asked about her relationship with Billy Poco, and tears the size of horse turds started rolling down her cheeks. When I explained that he was headed for death row and how much he needed her, she said she wanted to see him."

"She never said why she left him?"

"Not a hint," Tillman said. "Poor old Billy. They found his body two hours after their visit."

Chapter 39

Doc told him five o'clock, but she wasn't at the office, so he gave her a call.

"Where the hell are you?"

Doc said, "Kitty was nervous about coming into town, so I met her behind the old bowling alley."

"She in the car with you now?"

"Right."

"Did she take the battery out of her phone?"

"Yes. I checked it myself when she got here."

"Did you mention anything to her about Tillman and me being at the farm?

"Of course not."

"Good. Did she say why she wants to talk?"

"She'll tell you."

"Does she act like she's high?"

"No. Look, I'm getting tired of answering these—"

"Just so you know," he said, "I won't withhold anything from Tillman. I'm not her lawyer, so nothing's privileged."

Doc sighed. "Are you going to meet us or not?"

He found Doc's Suburban, climbed in the back seat, and introduced himself to Kitty, who was seated up front with Doc. Kitty, disguised in a ball cap worn over a Cleopatra wig, nodded and tried to suppress a smile that gave away a meth mouth.

"Don't let that Stetson fool you," Doc told Kitty to break the ice. "Charlie's not a Texas Ranger. He's a half-assed private eye who rarely knows what he's doing, but I trust him."

"So did Billy," Kitty said. "His sister Margaret read me a letter Billy wrote from jail. It was about Mister Eastman and a donkey."

"My finest case," Eastman said. "Now, what do you want to talk about?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. After the cops found the money, I was so scared that I went to see Billy in jail. He said to find you and tell you everything."

"Are you afraid of the cops or somebody else?"

Her hesitation told him she wasn't accustomed to giving up secrets. Finally she said, "It's some people I know. When I lost their money, they called me a snitch."

"Why? You got stopped for a traffic violation."

"Yeah, but I gave consent to search the car. They figure I did it for a cut of the money."

"They're bluffing," Eastman said. "They don't know what happened, and they have to answer to somebody for the loss. If they were convinced you snitched off their load, you wouldn't be sitting here."

She looked over at Doc, who said, "Listen to him. He knows what he's talking about."

"Who are the people you're afraid of?" Eastman asked.

"I just know them by Cuatro and Cinco," Kitty said.

Doc looked at him. "Four and Five?"

"Sometimes smuggling organizations use code names or numbers around the mules," Eastman said. "The more important you are, the lower your number."

"So Uno would be the head guy?" Doc said.

He nodded and then smiled at Kitty. "You ever meet Dos or Tres?"

She returned the smile. "No, just them two idiots."

"Start from the beginning," he said. "How'd you go from waitressing to moving money?"

"You know Harvey Goodman?"

"Heard of him," he said.

"He's this rich dude who owns the farm where I pick up the money. He also owns the truck stop on I-20."

Doc looked surprised. "I didn't know that."

"Actually, he owns the land it sits on and leases out everything on it. Even the vending machines. You can't do nothing there without his permission. But if there's a legal problem, he claims not to know a thing. He's just the land owner."

"How'd you meet him?" Eastman asked.

"I seen him coming and going, but he never so much as nodded. Then one time I bartended for a high-dollar poker game at the motel, and he showed up drunk with Cuatro."

"Let's hear about Cuatro."

"He's a truck driver." She glanced at Doc again, and then back at Eastman. "I dated him a few times."

"Did you know Cuatro and Harvey Goodman were friends?" Eastman asked.

"Lord, no. You could've knocked me over with a feather. Harvey the millionaire, running around with a Mexican truck driver."

"Cuatro's from Mexico?" he asked.

She nodded. "Him and Cinco are from Juarez."

"How does Cinco fit in?"

"He's their mechanic," Kitty said. "He builds hidden compartments in their cars and trucks."

"What happened the night the money was seized?"

"I was already inside the barn when Cinco and Cuatro got there. They unloaded some suitcases full of money out of the bed of their truck, and Cinco started stashing it in my car."

"What was Cuatro doing?"

She rolled her eyes. "Skitzing his ass off and playing with his woozy."

"His what?" Doc asked.

"An Uzi," Eastman said.

Kitty giggled. "The dumb bastard calls it a woozy. It's really an AR something-or-other. Some hot-shit gun. "

"Cuatro's the dangerous one?"

"Let's put this way," Kitty said. "If somebody had gotten near that barn, he'd've turned their asses to red jelly. He says there's people involved he don't trust."

"Describe these guys," he said.

She closed one eye. "Cuatro's a Capricorn, around thirty. Short, but real muscular, like guys get in the joint. Usually dresses nice. Lizards and pearl buttons."

"And Cinco?"

"He's older. Tall and skinny. Not wimpy skinny, but real lean like a runner. He don't like me being there while he's working, but I stand over him to make sure he don't stash something on me besides money. I won't do no more jail time."

"What about Harvey Goodman? Did he know about the money?"

"I'm sure he did, but if you asked him about it, he'd just say he owns the farm and can't be responsible for what the renters do."

"Cuatro and Cinco rent the place?"

"No, but Harvey says they do to cover his ass."

"What happened after they loaded the money?"

"Cuatro patted me on the butt and said to roll."

"Where'd they tell you to take it?"

"Always the same place. The motel in Moosup."

"Moosup?"

"Moosup, Connecticut. They have me check into a motel on the highway and stay in my room. During the night, somebody picks the car up and gets the money out. The next day, it's back at the motel ready to go again."

"How many trips have you made for them?"

"This one would've been three."

"Who ends up with the money?"

"Fuck if I know. I'm just a driver. I told Cuatro I'd drive money, but not no drugs or wetbacks." She showed Doc her arms. "Haven't done a bump in ages. That's Billy's doing."

"Why did you marry him?" Doc asked.

"I guess because he treated me good. I was ready to quit dope, and he was my ticket out. Then Cuatro and Harvey come along with all that money and—poof—I was gone."

When Doc frowned, Kitty said, "Sorry, Doctor Page, but whores do what whores do."

"Where does the money come from?" Eastman asked.

She shrugged. "Don't know. Don't even want to know."

"How much were they paying you?"

She held up five fingers.

"Five a trip?"

"Yep. I'd never seen five thousand dollars at one time until Cuatro give me that car and a stack of twenties this thick. Billy was a sweet man, but reading the Bible with him at his house in the graveyard ever' night was just too fucking weird. I straight out told him so when I visited him in jail." She looked away. "I wish I hadn't now."

"He was planning to kill Harvey Goodman," Eastman said.

She nodded. "He told me. He said I was the only person he ever loved, and when he thought I was chipping around on him, he went nuts. Now I wish Billy had shot all our asses."

"How well did you get to know Harvey?"

"He give me a ride to the farm to meet Cuatro a couple of times. And once, he loaned me his car to pick up Cuatro because him and Cuatro weren't speaking. Something really bad must have happened because Harvey won't go near the farm anymore."

He sat back and watched her for a moment. "Tell me about the farm."

"Like what?"

"Like what's in the house."

"I never been in the house. Just the barn."

"All right, what's in the barn?"

"Nothing special. It's just a plain barn."

"What nonspecial things are in it?"

"Well, there's old ropes and boards and boxes that look like they're about to fall apart. And there's a big fan like mechanic shops have. That's about it."

"How about laboratory glassware or chemicals?"

"Like for meth? I haven't seen any."

"One more thing," Eastman said. "Have you ever met an old man, unusually tall?"

"Sounds like Viejo," she said. "Cuatro says he's tall as Frankenstein, but I never met him."

"Viejo?" Doc said.

"Means old in Spanish," Eastman said. "It's also a nickname."

"I seen Viejo from a distance once," Kitty said. "He don't drive, so Cuatro picks him up at the airport and drives him around while he's here."

"You know where Viejo lives?"

She shook her head.

"Or how long he stays while he's here?"

"A day or two. That's usually how long Cuatro's out of pocket."

He handed her one of the photos of Jacob Ziv that Doc had printed from the Internet.

"Yep, that's Viejo."

"What have you heard about him?"

"Cuatro says you best not fuck with him."

"Pretty strong talk about an old man."

"He's old, but he ain't feeble. Cuatro said McQueenie found out some stuff about those dead boys and tried to blackmail one of Viejo's people." She looked at Doc. "I'm running my head too much. I better shut up."

Doc looked back at Eastman, and he gave her a small nod.

"Who was the person he was blackmailing?" Doc asked.

"I got no idea," Kitty said. She turned and looked out the window while her fingers drummed the console. "I sure hope that wasn't Viejo's money I lost."

Chapter 40

On the way home, Eastman thought about what Kitty Olds had said. She didn't come clean with everything she was involved in because informants never do. From her point of view, it was up to the cops to prove their cases. But she didn't mind giving up a little dirt on everyone else to protect her own hide. Lafoon was a different story. What she knew about him had to be dragged out of her. Not because she was trying to conceal it; she was simply unaware of his importance. Eastman gave that a lot of thought. Was it possible that Ester, Brite, Doc, Tillman, or even Eastman himself was sitting on bits of critical information that, if pooled, would reveal the jigsaw picture?

When he told Ester Pirtle about it, she volunteered to host a meeting.

"It's a great idea," she said. "We'll be a think tank."

"Right."

"Who all's coming?" she wanted to know.

He listed their names, and she wrote them down. "That's five," she said, sounding eager to get started. "I'll call a caterer."

"I don't think we'll need a caterer. This should be a private meeting."

"Oh, I see. So we can form a secret task force?"

"Kind of."

"Like The Dirty Dozen—each one an expert in a certain field."

"I guess."

"Good. Be here Friday at six."

Friday was a perfect day, clear and windless. Everyone arrived at Ester's ranch within minutes of each other. Doc and Eastman together, Tillman in his wife's Honda, and Brite on his new motorcycle. After they were seated at the dining room table, one of the ranch hands wearing an apron over his work clothes brought in a tray of drinks and drew back the silk taffeta drapes. Another man, closely resembling the first and wearing a pair of heavily-tinted eyeglasses, appeared with a platter of barbecue and placed it on the table. He wore a western shirt with rolled up sleeves, and the soot on his forearms made it evident he was the cook. While the sun threw long shadows across hills, Ester and her four guests sipped and carried on polite conversation.

"A very nice wine," Doc remarked, holding her glass up to the last rays of light.

"John Tillman brought it," Ester said.

"Really? You surprise me, John," Doc said. "I didn't know you were a connoisseur."

"Me neither," Eastman said. "What kind is it?"

"The kind that starts with an M," Tillman said. "It came in the mail."

"I got one, too," Brite said, forking slices of blackened meat onto his plate. "There was a pair of sissy-looking gloves and a scarf with it. I wiped my bike down with the scarf."

"I got the same thing," Eastman said.

Ester laid her hand on Doc's arm. "Did you get a package?"

Doc nodded. "It's expensive stuff, so I thought you sent it."

The look on Ester's face said she didn't.

"What's going on?" Eastman asked.

"I'm not sure," Ester said, "but I know what a bottle of Madeira and gloves mean." She hurried out of the room, leaving them looking at each other. When she returned, she was carrying a book and an unopened parcel. She set the parcel on the table. "Look familiar?" she asked.

"Just like the one I got," Tillman said.

"Yep," said Brite.

"And me," Eastman said.

"Mine came late yesterday," Ester said. "I just didn't get around to opening it." She set it in front of Brite and handed him a knife. While he was cutting into it, she opened the book.

"Pay attention, everybody," she said and patted the title page. "This was written over a hundred years ago by a man named Edward Eggleston. Here, he's writing about social customs in the thirteen original colonies." She opened it, glanced at the text again, and then summarized it: "A bottle of Madeira and gloves were sent to friends and family as a funeral invitation. Often, a scarf was included."

"So who died?" Doc asked, watching Brite pull a bottle from Ester's parcel.

"Nobody died," Eastman said. "It's a prank to unnerve us."

Brite took the book from Ester and looked at the cover. "This is an old book," he said. "Where'd you get it?"

She took it from him and pointed out the name scribbled on the flyleaf. "It belonged to a neighbor when I was a child," she said. "He gave it to my brother."

"Well, there's your merry prankster," Brite said.

The man serving the wine reappeared and reached over Eastman's shoulder to top off Doc's glass. As he poured, Eastman felt two rapid taps against the top of his boot and looked up at Tillman, whose eyes were narrowed on the man's arm.

The tattoo was almost camouflaged by soot. A child's face looking skyward, tears flowing. Eastman glanced at Brite, who wasn't likely to miss a tattoo. Brite nodded that he saw it.

When the glasses had been refilled, Eastman stood. "I'd like to propose a toast. Outside, on the patio."

Doc's soup spoon froze midway to her mouth. "Wouldn't you rather wait until we finish eating?"

"No," he said emphatically. "It won't wait. I am moved by the moment."

"You're moved by the wine," she said, but she got up with everyone else, and they adjourned, wine in hand. He closed the door behind them and motioned them to the far side of the patio, where they gathered around him.

"Listen to me," he said. "We have to cancel the meeting."

"Why?" Ester asked. "You were the one who suggested it."

"We just learned something," Tillman said. "We can't discuss it right now."

"I want to know what's going on," Ester said. "Whatever you learned must've been after you got here."

Tillman gave Eastman a wink and wandered off to the end of the patio nearest the kitchen windows. He leaned on the railing as if he was admiring the view. While he was gone, Eastman explained the tattoo.

"It symbolizes membership in a crime gang," he said softly. "The Huerfanos."

"The what?" Ester said, craning her neck to see what Tillman was up to.

"Huerfanos," Eastman said. "Orphans. A Central American paramilitary group involved in smuggling, kidnapping, and murder. It looks like your man is a member."

"That's nonsense," Ester said. "Adolfo's a loyal worker. He's been with us a long time."

Doc nodded. "I stitched up a dog bite on his hand a couple of years ago."

"That's when Little Noodle bit him," Ester said. "It's those glasses he wears. Little Noodle hates them."

"He wears them all the time?" Eastman asked.

"Yes. He worked on a cattle ranch in his home country and a cow hooked him in the eye. Red felt sorry for him and decided to give him a try."

"Have you seen that tattoo on anyone else?"

She hesitated, then nodded toward the dining room. "His brother, José."

"The other guy?"

She nodded again."

"What's his story?" Brite asked.

"He's not what you'd call a people person. He's quiet and, frankly, I've wondered about him. He gives you the feeling something strange is going on in his head when you talk to him. But he's wonderful with the cattle."

Tillman rejoined them and spoke to Eastman.

"Mister Sunglasses was standing next to the window," he said. "When he saw me, he walked off."

Eastman told everyone, "Let's finish dinner, but don't discuss anything sensitive."

"You're beginning to scare me," Ester said. "I live here, you know."

"You have nothing to worry about," Eastman said. "Remember what your brother told you? He'd watch over you and guide the storms around you."

"That was when we were kids."

"Think back on your life. Didn't you get whatever you wanted?"

"Yes, because Red saw to it."

The meeting broke up after they'd eaten, and Eastman and Doc were the first to leave. When they were on the highway, she asked, "Still thinking about that business with the Madeira?"

"I'm thinking about Red Pirtle."

"Red?"

"How well did you know him?"

"Just socially," she said.

"He wasn't a patient?"

"Lord, no. Red had a big-city specialist for every part of his anatomy. But I did treat him in the emergency room once."

"What for?"

"He thought he was having a heart attack, so Ester brought him in. Turned out to be Holiday Heart, a heart rhythm disturbance associated with heavy drinking. Red was an alkie, you know."

"Ester mentioned he'd take a drink."

"God, yes. You could bump into Red any time of day or night and he would be shit-faced."

He thought for a moment. "Would you say Red was an intelligent person?"

She laughed. "He was a bumbling Neanderthal who couldn't take his eyes off my tits."

"I can't fault him for that, but if the guy was such a dummy, why was he so successful? One day he was unclogging school toilets, and the next day he owned a chain of megastores."

"And oil and livestock," she added.

"You think Ester was the brains behind it?"

Doc shook her head. "Ester's smart in certain ways, but she's certainly not capable of the things Red accomplished."

"Then Red must've had help," he said. "From somebody a lot smarter than he was."

She looked at him. "Lafoon?"

He nodded. "Red Pirtle struck gold the minute he married Ester. All he had to do was follow Lafoon's advice and never tell her about their secret arrangement. Red grows rich and famous, and Ester lives in the lap of luxury."

"You think Red made his fortune illegally?"

"No," he said. "Lafoon probably went to great lengths to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. He wouldn't risk the feds arresting Ester's husband and seizing their assets. Besides, legitimate business is probably child's play for a guy as smart as Lafoon."

"Then why operate outside the law?"

He smiled a little. "Lafoon is the world's oldest kid. The unicorn hunt was fun and games. Polish the statue to find the clue. When you've found it, go to the animal shelter look for the prize. And he does bad things for the same reason. The sheer fun of it."

"So the Madeira is a clue that one of us is going to die?"

"If it is, let's hope it's him."

They were quiet for a while before Doc said, "What puzzles me is how Lafoon can come and go here without fear of bumping into Ester."

"Easy. The tattooed brothers keep him posted on her every move."

"Sounds like you've got him figured out."

"Maybe. I think he's ready to die, but not of old age."

Chapter 41

When Kitty Olds phoned him, the caller ID indicated she was at a coin-operated phone.

"You said call in two days," she said over the traffic in the background.

He pulled a piece of paper out of his hip pocket and looked at it. "The fan. Is it new or old?"

"What fan?"

"The one in the barn. You said there was a fan."

"Oh. It guess it looks more new than old."

"Describe it."

"It's big and black and it's on a platform thing."

"What kind of platform?"

"I don't know. There's a tarp over that part."

"How many blades in the fan?"

"How many blades? Mister Eastman, why would I count the blades of a fan?"

"Just think. Are there two? Four?"

She thought about it. "More'n that. Maybe six or eight. They're cooking off crank in there, aren't they?"

"Could be," he said. "Have they contacted you?"

"Nuh-uh. I haven't heard a peep from nobody. What if they do call me?"

"Act like you're pissed off. Tell them you're in trouble because of something stupid they did."

"What'd they do?"

He tried to think of something without letting her know he and Tillman had seen her leave the barn. "They sent you on a money run in a high-dollar car with out-of-state plates in the middle of the night. That's begging to be pulled over. Tell them they'd better get a good lawyer on it fast because you're not going down in a federal conspiracy case."

"There's a conspiracy case?"

"I can't discuss it," he said. "Just keep me up to date. And always use a payphone."

As soon as he disconnected, he got in the Bronco and drove straight to Brite's house. Brite answered the door in his boxers and a bomber jacket. He was barefooted, holding a flaccid slice of pizza, its topping a tan mosaic.

"We've got to talk," Eastman said, studying the pizza.

"Talk," Brite said, letting him in. Brite led him back to the kitchen, and they sat at a table with what was left of the pizza between them.

Brite nodded at it. "Grab a slice."

Eastman poked the topping with the tip of his finger and studied it. "What the hell is that?"

"Animal Crackers," Brite said and bit into the slice in his hand.

"Thanks, I just ate."

Brite drew a pistol from inside the jacket and laid it on the table next to his plate. "I said grab a slice."

Eastman pushed back from the table, trying to decide if Brite was drunk or stoned. Then he looked down at the Colt Peacemaker. "Hey, that's my pistol."

"Losers weepers," Brite said, grinning.

"Where'd you find it?"

Brite shoved the pistol over to him. "Where do you think?"

Eastman picked it up and turned it over. Aside from a few scratches under the muzzle and trigger guard, the pistol was as clean as it was when Ester had presented it to him. He thumbed the hammer back to half-cock, checked the cylinder, then dry-fired it at Brite's refrigerator.

"No wonder I didn't find it," Eastman said. "You got to the farm before Tillman and I did."

"Of course," Brite said. "I knew it'd take you forever to formulate some exotic plan, so I just rode out there after dark and found the gun. Lucky for you, it landed in soft dirt." Brite pulled six rounds from a coat pocket and dumped them on the table.

"Well, I found the camera," Eastman said, scooping up the big cartridges. "Plus, Tillman and I got a good look at two guys in the barn."

"So did I," Brite said. "One had an AR-15."

Eastman nodded. "They call him Cuatro."

"I know. I heard him make a phone call."

Eastman frowned. "What'd he say?"

"He was yapping about the weather."

"Like some kind of code?"

"No, the forecast."

"In Spanish?"

Brite shook his head. "English. Apparently, Harvey Goodman doesn't speak Spanish."

"How do you know he was talking to Harvey Goodman?"

"He asked for Harvey Goodman, for God's sake."

"Oh," Eastman said. "They were probably worried about the weather since Kitty Olds was driving a load of money up north."

"They were talking about the forecast for here, not up north."

Eastman considered it. "Maybe they're moving another load."

"Whatever it is, think weather."

"Well, there's a big fan in the barn, and if the weather warms up—"

Brite sighed. "It's not a fan. It's the propeller on an airboat. That speed whore, Kitty, was standing next to it."

"How the hell do you know all this?" Eastman asked.

"I was on the back side of the barn, watching through a crack."

"An airboat does make sense," Eastman admitted. "They're fast and travel in shallow water. They can run the river without worrying."

"Worrying about what?" Brite asked.

"I don't know. And it's damned depressing."

Eastman got out his phone and called Tillman. When he told Tillman about the airboat, Tillman said, "If you think they're using an airboat in our river, forget it. There's sandbars a quarter of a mile long and places where canoe paddlers have to portage. Remember the cat's funeral?"

Eastman described the phone conversation between Cuatro and Harvey Goodman and how it revolved around the weather forecast.

"So what?" Tillman said. "By Tuesday, we'll all be talking about the weather. There's an Arctic front coming through. It's supposed to be the worst storm since the Goodman boy and Chuy Medina were killed."

After a slight pause, Eastman said, "When that front comes through, we need to be all over the tattooed brothers."

"What about the Mexicans at the farm? Cuatro and Cinco."

"Them too."

Eastman told Brite about the approaching storm, and then he called Ester Pirtle. In an hour, she pulled up with Little Noodle.

"What's so important?" she asked when she joined Eastman at the table.

"What time do Adolfo and José get off work?"

"About dark this time of year," she said.

"We'd like to watch them. See what they do after hours."

"Well, don't bother on Tuesday or Wednesday. They asked for time off to visit friends."

"Do they know there's a blue norther blowing in?"

"I told Adolfo, but he wasn't worried. He said their SUV can go anywhere." For the first time, suspicion crossed her face. "Come to think of it, seems like they took off during the last icy spell."

"You said they're Central American."

She shrugged. "Some little country down there."

"How do they get along with your Mexican hands?"

She gave him a strange look. "They don't associate with them. They say Mexicans mistreat Central Americans coming north."

"Have you heard of two guys called Cuatro and Cinco?" Brite asked.

"Four and Five?" She frowned. "Who'd name somebody after a number?"

When she was gone, Eastman got a .40 caliber Glock and a box of ammunition from the Bronco's glove box, and then he and Brite went out back. Eastman dug a couple of beer cans out of Brite's trash can and threw them across the yard. He chambered a round and handed it to Brite.

Brite looked puzzled. "What's this?

"What's it look like? I bought it in the parking lot at a gun show." He nodded at the cans, and Brite brought the gun up with a two-handed grip.

"You ever fire a handgun?" Eastman asked while Brite steadied the weapon.

Brite smiled. "How hard can it be?" He squeezed off a round that split the bottom of the closest can. The next shot hit the other one squarely and it jumped into the weeds.

"Exceptional hand to eye coordination is essential to an artist," Brite said. "My sense of timing borders on the supernatural. Comes from tattooing drunk broads and frat boys."

Eastman shoved another loaded magazine into Brite's jacket pocket and walked off. "Hang onto that," he yelled back at him. "There's a good chance you'll need it."

Chapter 42

Kitty Olds walked up to the bulletproof glass at the front counter of the Law Enforcement Center and shoved her driver's license and a certified copy of her marriage license through the opening. The deputy on desk duty glanced at it and asked her what she wanted.

"My husband's shit."

"Who's your husband?"

"It's on the license."

When he saw Billy Poco's name, he walked off and returned with the jail sergeant.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" the sergeant asked.

"Yeah. Like I told your little friend, I want Billy's shit. His wedding ring. His Bible. His money. And the note, if he left one."

"Slow down, Kitty. There wasn't no money or note," the sergeant said. "I know that for a fact."

He left and returned with a heat-sealed plastic bag and some paperwork. He motioned her to a door at the end of the counter. When it buzzed, she went in. The sergeant slit open the plastic bag with a box cutter and emptied Billy Poco's belongings onto a desk. He handed her an inventory sheet and a pen. She signed without checking it, raked everything into a pillowcase from Raj Patel's motel, and left without a word.

The sergeant and deputy watched from a window as she got into a pickup with a paper buyer's tag and drove off. In fifteen minutes, she was back at the motel calling Eastman.

"I did what you told me, Mister Eastman."

He looked at the caller ID. "Why aren't you using the pay phone?"

"Because it's freezing out there."

"Next time, put on a coat," he said. "Did you picked up Billy Poco's property?"

"Yeah. There ain't enough to fill a shoebox, but you're welcome to it."

"When can I see it?"

"Right now if you want to. I borrowed a truck from some dude I met last night. He's still crashed out."

"You got a big trash bag?"

"One I use for laundry. It's black with a yellow drawstring."

"Fine. The car wash on the way into town is closed because of the weather. Pull in and drop the stuff in a garbage can. Somebody will pick it up after you leave."

* * *

"How'd it go?" Eastman asked when Brite killed the motorcycle's engine.

"Nothing to it. A baby could do it," Brite said, pulling off his gloves. He took the plastic sack out of the Indian's saddle bag, and they went inside.

Eastman shook the onto his coffee table, examined them, and set the Bible aside.

Brite picked it up and saw Billy Poco's name on the cover. "You think there's a cryptic message in here?"

"Won't hurt to look."

"Don't you think the cops thought of that?" Brite asked.

"Yeah and they probably x-rayed it. But the fact that it was in his property instead of the evidence room means they didn't find anything."

* * *

Eastman identified himself to the woman who answered the phone and then explained that he had found her number and a Mississippi address on the flyleaf of Billy Poco's Bible.

"He wrote M-A-G next to the number," he said.

"That's me. Mag. I'm his half-sister. He got two. Me and Yolanda. But ain't nobody heard from Yo-Yo since that tycoon blowed New Orleans off in the ocean."

"I was wondering if you received any phone calls or mail from him while he was in jail."

"I don't take no collect calls from jails, but he sent one letter. He spoke highly of you, but the rest don't make no sense."

"Would you mind reading it to me?"

She read the letter, which was mostly an account of Eastman's clearing up the donkey sighting. Then he summarized the Old Testament story of Abraham seconds away from sacrificing his son Isaac when an angel stopped him. The letter ended with a matter-of-fact remark that Billy knew a man who sacrificed his own son without interference.

Chapter 43

The construction worker registering at the front desk of Raj Patel's motel jumped when he heard the pop.

"What the shit?" he said on the way to the window.

"Merely a backfire," Raj said, looking up. He smiled. "This is a very peaceful place, I assure you."

"Somebody run off the road," the man said, holding the curtains open. It brought Raj around the desk and hurrying for the door.

At the far side of the T-intersection, a short block away, a green pickup was visible, cab pitched forward in a culvert, weeds undulating in the wind under the bed.

Raj started for it, the construction worker close behind. Raj picked up the pace, scanning the area for the driver, who could be wandering the area dazed or drunk and fleeing the scene.

When they reached the truck, the engine was running. Raj went to driver's door, the other man to the passenger side.

Raj put his face up to a hole in the window the size of a grapefruit and yelled at the driver lying across the console. He guessed it to be a woman since there was a purse on the floor, its scattered. The upholstery on the passenger door was a red Rorschach blot. Blood was pooled in the seat.

The construction worker yanked on the locked door, but Raj yelled for him to stop. No stranger to crime scenes at the motel, Raj instructed him to back off and wait for the police.

The man pulled out a phone and stood with his back to a utility pole to break the wind while Raj went around and peered through the passenger window. When he heard the mention of an ambulance, Raj said, "Tell them not to injure themselves getting here. This person has no head."

Chapter 44

Eastman and Tillman sat in a booth by the window watching the blue-black wall in the northwestern sky come at them. Severe weather warnings and road closings dominated radio, and television morning traffic was almost nonexistent. Tillman pointed out the yellow buses in the county's vehicle storage lot down the street, meaning school had been cancelled. After the waitress set breakfast on the table and was out of earshot, Eastman said, "Well?"

Tillman sat forward. "One shot, number 1 buck." He placed his finger between his eyebrows. "Boom!"

Eastman frowned at the Heart Mart's new environmentally friendly paper cup holding his coffee and burning his fingers. He sipped quickly and set it down. "They find the empty shell casing?"

"They found nada."

"Pump shotgun," Eastman said. "No need to eject the hull if you hit what you're aiming at."

"They definitely hit what they were aiming at," Tillman said as he bit the fat end off the bacon. "Her head was ground round."

"No witnesses?"

"Not eyewitnesses, but Raj and some construction worker heard the shot and found her. Apparently, Kitty stopped at the stop sign, and the shot came from a vehicle next to her. After she was hit, the truck she was driving rolled across the highway. The construction guy with Raj got a glimpse of a white van or truck crossing the intersection, but we don't know if it's even related."

"I assume you put it over the air anyway."

"Yeah. You know how many white vehicles there are in a thirty-county region?"

"Any surveillance cameras that might have caught it?"

"Cameras? They're lucky to have running water out there."

Eastman looked across the street, up at the second story jail cell where Billy Poco had died. "She was hit straight in the face?"

Tillman nodded. "Like she was looking down the barrel."

"I'm sure she was," Eastman said. "The shooter wanted her to see him pull the trigger."

* * *

Eastman picked up Doc at the office and drove her to the barn to feed and settle the horse for the coming weather. He watched her rub the big roan's neck and listened to her speak softly while the animal stared at the rattling barn doors.

"He hates the wind," she said, stepping out of the stall. "I think it has something to do with not being able to hear predators."

"It probably messes up his 'do," Eastman said, trying to ease her mind. "That horse is more vain than I am."

Doc was quiet when they left, and then she said, "Whose car was Kitty driving?"

"It was a truck. Some Mexican got it at a tote-the-note lot in San Angelo. After the shooting, he vamoosed."

"He was staying in her room?"

"Yeah. She met him in a bar. He wanted what she had, and she wanted wheels."

"Maybe he set her up."

"I doubt it. He would've done her in after they left the bar. I think the bad guys tracked her when she called me from her cellphone, then waited for the right time. It probably solves the mystery of the Madeira funeral invitation."

"What do you intend to do?"

"Find the real reason she was killed. It had to have been more serious than losing money. If a courier loses a load of cash, they're made to work off the loss. I think it was something she didn't want to tell us about."

"Like what?"

"Might be McQueenie's death. I went over every file and photo in his briefcase, and there was nothing that we didn't already know."

"Then why'd McQueenie stash it in John Tillman's car?"

"I don't think he did. I think the person who put it there is the same person who had us polish a statue because the clue wasn't the statue. It was near it."

"I'm confused."

"McQueenie was going through a divorce, and along with his investigative notes, he stored some personal stuff. Utility bills, check stubs, and a handful of miscellaneous papers."

Doc raised an eyebrow.

"There were two deposit slips from a Fort Worth bank," Eastman said. "One for twenty-five grand dated the day after Billy Poco was arrested. The other for thirty grand, the day McQueenie died."

"But if McQueenie was taking money illegally, why would he keep the deposit slips?"

"He wanted someone to find them and connect the dates of deposit to those events."

Doc frowned. "Why?"

"Revenge, in case he was killed."

* * *

Four people in two vehicles weren't nearly enough for a proper stakeout, but Eastman had little choice. He and Brite paired up in a rented Subaru Forrester, and Tillman rode with Bad Hair Burl in Bad Hair's personal vehicle, a Dodge Durango loaded down with gear.

It was Eastman's plan. Two citizens with two cops nearby. They would communicate among themselves with $20 phones Eastman had bought with cash at a Wichita Falls flea market. There was no paperwork and no video cameras to record the transaction. On his way home, he stopped at a convenience store, bought pay-as-you-go phone service cards, and set up bogus accounts using a public library computer.

They would work in two groups. As civilians, he and Brite were unrestricted by rules and regulations and could move freely while the deputies stood by in case enforcement action became necessary.

Bad Hair loved the idea of doing what he considered real police work, but what he loved more was the fact that it was against department regulations.

"I'm definitely in," he said when Tillman mentioned watching José and Adolfo. "I'll burn up some use-it-or-lose-it time. Hey, what's the worst that can happen?"

"We could get our asses shot off," Tillman told him. "We just seized over a million bucks from the Mexicans on Harvey's farm. And Ester's Huerfano brothers are probably connected.

"So what?"

"The Huerfanos are Central American mercenaries, and Cuatro and Cinco are Mexican cartel enforcers."

"Whoopteedoo," Bad Hair said. "They're no different than our home-grown assholes."

"Also we could get fired for working off-duty jobs that conflict with an ongoing investigation," Tillman reminded him.

Bad Hair waved it off. "I've worked for three other departments. I'll find another job."

"And we could get sued."

"Been sued before," Bad Hair said. "If you ain't being sued, you ain't working."

They met at Eastman's place to plan the surveillance. "We have to keep it low key," Eastman said, nodding at the ice forming on the window. "The best thing we've got going for us is the weather. Visibility will be limited, and that's what they're counting on." He held up one of the phones. "If they make the surveillance, crush these into a thousand pieces."

"They won't make us," Bad Hair said. "I found the perfect spot for a sniper hide on Goodman's farm last night."

Eastman and Tillman looked at each other.

Bad Hair continued. "It's a hundred and fifty meters southeast of the barn. That puts you downwind in a norther. No dog's gonna smell you, and nobody'll hear you." He handed Eastman a GPS unit and a hand-drawn map with the coordinates written on it. "There's two ghillie suits in my car. I made 'em out of painters' coveralls and a volleyball net. Stick some twigs and shit in the netting, and they'll be perfect for snow. Somebody could piss on you and never know you're there."

"You went on the farm?" Brite said.

"Damned straight," Bad Hair said to Brite, whom he'd always referred to as the town shitbag. "The hideout's in a thicket with an entrance and exit. You can lay up and observe for days."

"Bad Hair is ex-Special Forces," Tillman explained.

Brite looked doubtful. "What group?"

"Seventh SFG," Bad Hair said. "Operation Just Cause in Panama. Got a Purple Heart out of the deal."

Brite persisted. "In Panama?"

"They dropped us in the jungle at night," Bad Hair said. He cupped a hand and made a falling parachute. "I landed in a tree full of howler monkeys and nearly got my dick bit off."

By late afternoon, the wind was a steady howl around the Subaru, and the rain had turned to sleet. Eastman and Brite parked in the woods on the property adjacent to the old Lafoon farm and waited for darkness.

Tillman and Bad Hair remained ten miles up the highway, on a hill with a view of Ester's home pasture, ready to roll if the Central Americans showed up at the front gate.

After sunset, the road was ice under a layer of sleet, and they hadn't seen another car in an hour. Suddenly, Tillman sat up and grabbed the field glasses. "Headlights."

The big vehicle rolled over the cattle guard at the front gate, switched on a pair of grill-mounted spotlights, and turned north. Tillman panned with it and read off the tag number. "It's a white Excursion with a brush guard and a wench."

"I wrote that bastard a ticket," Bad Hair said when he saw it. He dropped the Durango into gear and fished a handy-talkie out of the console. He handed it to Tillman. "Call Records and see if he paid it."

The spotlights on the Excursion lit up both sides of the road a mile ahead, so Bad Hair hung back, driving without headlights on a road he'd patrolled for years. As they neared the farm, the Excursion's spotlights went off and the brake lights came on.

Tillman called Eastman and told him.

"Nice work," Eastman said. "Let's get this over with."

Chapter 45

Bad Hair was right. It was the perfect spot to hide: a feral hog wallow in a mesquite cluster atop a rise. The wild—but clever—hogs had rooted up their lair during the summer, leaving a curtain of brush between themselves and the human habitat below. There were two small archways on the backside where they were able to trot in and out unseen. Eastman and Brite, wearing the white ghillie suits, scooped the snow out of the pig-made depressions, zipped themselves up in sleeping bags, and settled in.

Peering through the brush with the night vision scope, Eastman watched the Excursion pull up to the front of the dark farmhouse. José got out of the passenger side and went in without knocking. The mercury vapor light in the garden went black. Adolfo turned the Excursion around and headed back to the state highway.

"Follow Adolfo when he hits the hardtop, but keep it loose," Eastman said over the phone.

"Will do," Tillman said. "And guess what? We got a related computer hit on their vehicle. Seems Bad Hair wrote José up for speeding and he no-showed his court date. Know why? Because a federal warrant was issued for him right after the ticket was written."

"What for?"

"Reentry into the US after deportation. We can grab his ass anytime we feel like it."

* * *

The Excursion turned south onto the hardtop, and Adolfo flipped on the spotlights.

When Bad Hair saw the white halo appear above it, he said, "That guy ain't too swift if he's up to no good. You can see that thing for miles."

"Probably can't see the road," Tillman said while they cruised without lights again. "He lost an eye and wears sunglasses day and night."

Bad Hair nodded. "Good to know. He's probably helpless after dark."

The spots went off, and the Excursion doglegged through a tiny community. When it reached the interstate, Adolfo pulled into the truck stop.

Icing roads had turned the parking lot into a sea of big rigs, some idling, some sitting silently. Tillman and Bad Hair parked on an elevation up the highway and watched with binoculars while Adolfo cruised the lot.

"Bastard's looking for something," Bad Hair said.

"Or somebody. That's Harvey Goodman's Mercedes at the back fence."

Bad Hair swung the glasses over to it. "Motor's running. You can see the exhaust."

The Excursion stopped, and a short man in an overcoat got out of the Mercedes and climbed in with Adolfo.

"Old Harv, himself," Tillman said.

Within seconds, a pickup appeared from the back side of the motel, rolling the fence line.

"Company," Bad Hair said when it parked next to the other two vehicles.

Tillman grinned. "That's the truck Poco told us about. Why's Cuatro out on a night like this?"

* * *

Eastman felt the phone vibrate and punched it. "What?"

"We've got us a quorum," Tillman said, and he described the rendezvous.

"Stay with Harvey no matter what happens," Eastman said. "He's there for a reason." He felt a tap on his back and looked at Brite, who was pointing in the direction of the farmhouse. Through the scope, Eastman watched José heading for the barn on foot, a backpack dangling from his hand, a rifle slung on his shoulder.

"That the AR-15?" Brite asked.

Eastman studied it. "No. The stock's boxy and the barrel's longer. Got a telescopic sight too." He handed Brite the night scope.

"Serious rifle," Brite said when he found José. "That's a tactical suppressor on the barrel."

"A what?"

"Tactical suppressor. It reduces the sound signature so you can't tell where the shot came from. It also decreases muzzle flash to preserve the shooter's night vision if he has to take a second shot."

Eastman turned on his side and spoke to the lump of snow beside him. "Where did you learn that stuff?"

"I listen when people talk," Brite said.

"What people sit around talking about tactical suppressors?"

"The missionaries I transported," Brite said. "When they talked, I paid attention... unlike some people I know."

After José entered the barn and closed the doors, Brite peeled off his sleeping bag and stood.

"What are you doing?" Eastman asked, looking up at him, thinking he looked like Bigfoot in the ghillie suit.

"I'm moving around to the back of the barn," Brite said as he slid a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun from his backpack. It looked to be twenty inches in overall length, and it had a guitar-strap sling.

"It's a felony to possess that thing," Eastman said when he saw it.

"They gotta catch me with it," Brite said, shaking buckshot shells from a leather pouch and filling his pockets.

"It also has no range."

Brite shrugged. "I plan to get up close and personal."

"You plan to get killed is what you plan to get. You forget we're missing a player."

"Who?"

"Cinco. He's not with the group at the truck stop, and we haven't seen him here."

"That's because he's not here," Brite said. "The house and barn were dark 'till José turned the lights on."

"Get back in that sleeping bag," Eastman ordered. "Remember what happened to those kids?"

"I remember," Brite said, crawling through one of the hog doors. "That's why I'm moving up closer."

Eastman hesitated, then dropped the night scope into his bag. "Wait up, asshole. I'm coming too."

Chapter 46

Harvey Goodman sat in the Excursion wearing a three-quarter length lambskin coat and a Bavarian Alpine hat with a tassel on the back. Adolfo didn't speak, and Harvey didn't acknowledge his existence while he kneaded his hands at a dash vent. They sat silently, Harvey scanning the parking lot, Adolfo frowning at the fluttering tassel, until the phone in Adolfo's pocket made a noise like a marimba. He took it out and put it to his ear.

"Where are you?" Adolfo asked. He glanced at Harvey and switched to Spanish, which made Harvey curse under his breath. After listening to the speaker on the other end of the line, Adolfo said, "Ta bueno," and disconnected.

"Less than an hour," he told Harvey. "But I need to see the money first."

"Don't worry," Harvey said. "You'll see it."

Adolfo smiled. "I'm not worried. You and your Mexican friends are responsible for the money. But if I don't see it, my brother and I will call this thing off."

"Who put you schmendricks in charge?"

"Viejo did," Adolfo said. He held out his phone. "Call him."

Harvey pushed it away.

"Viejo says you're making bad decisions," Adolfo said.

"I'm making bad decisions? You people killed my son."

"Huerfanos do not harm children. Your friends, the Mexicans, killed him. Remember? I told you there were intruders and suggested we leave, but you told the Mexicans to kill them."

"For God's sake, I thought somebody was about to rip us off! I couldn't they see they were kids!"

"Mexican gangsters don't verify their targets because they don't care," Adolfo said. "It was a big mistake to get them involved without Viejo's knowledge."

"It was expedient," Harvey said. "The Mexicans control the smuggling routes through their country. Besides, I thought you people were pretty much the same."

Adolfo ignored it. "Then you had the puta kill a policeman."

Harvey took off his hat and daubed his comb-over with a handkerchief. "What else could I do? When McQueenie found out what happened to the boys, he squeezed me for every dollar he could get."

"He found out because the puta told him," Adolfo said, staring at him until they locked eyes. "Then you lost Viejo's money by using her again."

"Look, she'd driven money before and the old man said move it fast."

"Fast doesn't mean carelessly," Adolfo said. "I had to kill her because she was talking to the Ranger."

"So what? You can bet your ass she didn't tell him about the shit she slipped McQueenie."

"Four deaths in one month," Adolfo said. "Two boys, a policeman, and a whore." He nodded in the direction of the hills. "Not a good thing in a peaceful place."

"Are you through?"

"Yes. Until I see the money."

Adolfo tilted his seat back and watched the sleet streak through the floodlights on the parking lot. Finally, Harvey jerked the door handle and got out. He waddled across the ice-coated asphalt to Cuatro's pickup. They spoke for less than a minute at the driver's door. When he was back with Adolfo, Harvey nodded at the motel. "The money's in a room. You can pull out some random stacks, but there's no time to count it all."

Adolfo nodded.

Harvey added, "But I have to pat you down first."

They entered the room with Harvey's key. The tall Mexican was sitting at a table on the far side of the room. Visitors didn't surprise him. A Heckler & Koch pistol lay in front of him, next to a machine the size of a coffeemaker. The extension screwed onto the pistol's barrel was not a flash suppressor. It was a silencer. Two large pull-behind suitcases stood beside him, handles extended upward.

Harvey went to the table. "Ever use a money counter?" he asked Adolfo.

"Women count our money," Adolfo said.

Harvey jerked his head for Cinco to get up. Cinco picked up the pistol and moved aside while Harvey sat and pulled one of the suitcases close to him. He snapped it open and removed a banded stack of bills. He motioned for Adolfo to come closer and then flipped a switch, making a digital display appear. "This thing's magic," Harvey said. "It has magnetic ink detection, UV, and infrared. It counts 1500 bills a minute and kicks out counterfeits."

"I hope you purchased the extended warranty," Adolfo said, removing the sunglasses. He pitched them onto the bed as he stepped around Cinco, who was watching Harvey's demonstration. When Adolfo was behind Cinco, he unbuckled his belt, and slid the buckle off. He seized Cinco by the hair and jerked straight back as the hand with the buckle knife appeared at Cinco's throat. He pulled the serrated blade in deep, and the Heckler & Koch hit the carpet. Adolfo guided Cinco's thrashing body to the floor and picked up the gun.

Harvey leapt to his feet with his hands in the air.

"Lower your hands, Harvey," Adolfo said, retrieving his sunglasses. "We're not making a movie."

Harvey did as he was told, watching Cinco bleed-out.

"He's killed your son," Adolfo said and offered Harvey the gun. "Kill him before he dies."

Harvey shook his head and dropped into the chair.

Adolfo turned off the desk lamp and unlocked the patio door. He opened it and nodded at the parking lot. "The one out there called Cuatro killed the little boy."

"I hope you kill him, too," Harvey said.

Adolfo slid the door shut. He walked to the bed, pulled the case off a pillow, and spread it over Cinco's face. After he fired through the pillowcase, blood appeared at the bullet hole and he checked the legs of his pants for splatter. He pointed the pistol at Harvey. "Do you understand why you are going to die?"

Harvey nodded and closed his eyes. "I couldn't do it myself."

"Then it works out for all of us," Adolfo said and shot him in the head and chest.

Adolfo washed his hands, hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the front door, and toweled off what he'd touched. He rolled the suitcases out to the Excursion through the patio. When Cuatro saw him loading them into the rear, he pulled up and buzzed his window down.

Adolfo smiled at him. "The money looks good. Your brother and Harvey Goodman will stay in the room until the package arrives. Then you and I are to take it to the river."

Cuatro frowned and lifted his phone from the cup holder on the console. While he punched in a number, Adolfo slid the pistol from under his jacket. He stepped close to the window and shot Cuatro through the ear.

* * *

"Short conversation," Bad Hair said when Adolfo walked away from the maroon pickup.

"Certainly was," Tillman said, looking through the field glasses. "I got no idea what they're up to."

"What about the suitcases?" Bad Hair asked when Adolfo got into the Excursion. "Shouldn't we stay with them?"

"Nope. Charlie said stay with Harvey. His car's still running, so he's bound to come out sometime."

Tillman and Bad Hair settled back and prepared to eat the sandwiches they'd brought, as Adolfo pulled onto the highway and headed east.

* * *

Eastman and Brite were on the back side of the rise, moving slowly to blend in with the blowing brush. When the farmhouse blocked the view of the barn, Brite headed for it.

Eastman grabbed his sleeve, but Brite yanked himself free and kept walking.

"Are you nuts?" Eastman hissed.

"It won't hurt to take a quick peek."

"At it or in it?" Eastman asked, knowing what Brite had in mind.

"Look, if it's unlocked we go in. But if it's locked, we go around to the barn. We're not common burglars."

"No, we're trespassers," Eastman said. "But if we go in, we become burglars, and they can kill us and get off scot-free."

"Bummer," Brite said, stepping onto the porch.

When he tried the door, it opened and his Boy Scout flashlight came on, the lens partially blacked out with duct tape. Eastman stood watch while Brite walked the room. Finally, the light stopped on bookshelves, and Brite called Eastman over.

"Check this out," Brite said. "A whole row of Karl May."

"Who?"

"Karl fucking May. Hitler's favorite writer. He wrote American westerns and was a phony cowboy like you."

"So what's the big deal about him?"

"What's the big deal?" Brite asked. "You think these cartel boys curl up by the fire and read Karl May in German?"

"The books probably belonged to the family who built the house."

"Bullshit," Brite said, running a hand across the spines. "These books belong to Lafoon."

Eastman's phone vibrated, and he listened to Tillman chew and talk. When Tillman told him about the suitcases and Adolfo's short conversation with Cuatro, Eastman said, "Get your asses down there. Drive by the pickup. If Cuatro's not sitting up, check it for a body."

The chewing stopped. "Don't even think that."

Bad Hair flicked on the Durango's high beams as he and Tillman cruised the back side of the motel. The truck's wipers were still working against the snow, and it was evident that there was no one behind the wheel.

Bad Hair stopped and Tillman went to look. He returned out of breath.

"What's the matter?" Bad Hair asked.

"He's doorknob dead, and Adolfo's boot tracks are still fresh. We just witnessed a murder."

"Then we better start checking motel rooms," Bad Hair said. "Old Harvey's probably not feeling good either."

"To hell with Harvey," Tillman said. "Let's get out of here. Somebody could walk out any second."

Bad Hair looked back at the truck. "If someone does, it probably won't be Harvey Goodman."

Chapter 47

"Somebody let the air out of Cuatro?" Brite asked, still rummaging through the house. "What's wrong with that?"

"You don't understand," Eastman said. "It really complicates things for Tillman and Bad Hair."

"I'll bet. They sat there with their thumbs inserted while one asshole killed another, and they don't have a clue about what to do." He looked at Eastman. "Well, what about Harvey?"

"No idea."

"No idea?" Brite said. "Harvey and Adolfo go inside. Then Adolfo comes out alone with two suitcases and kills the first dude he sees. I'm not a trained investigator like you, but I suspect foul play."

"Look, we both know it was a rip-off," Eastman said. "But we've got to keep Tillman and Bad Hair out of it. On the other hand, we can't just sit on the information. What if somebody's in the motel hurt?"

* * *

"Twenty-Four Seven."

"This the truck stop on Twenty?"

"Yes, it is, but we're booked solid."

"I don't need a room. I just want to pass something on to you."

"Better pass it on quick, pardner. I'm real busy."

"There's a guy in a maroon pickup behind the motel. He's dead as a mackerel."

"What do you mean?

"I mean he's no longer among the living."

"He died?"

"That's how being dead works."

"And he's back there now?"

"Unless somebody stole his truck with him in it."

"Sir, you need to call 9-1-1."

"I'm not calling shit. I told you about it, and that's as far it goes."

"Wait. Don't hang up. Did you see it happen?"

"No, a little bird told me some dope dealer smoked the guy and left in a white Ford Excursion. Harvey Goodman's involved and could be bleeding all over one of your piss-stained carpets."

Bad Hair disconnected and looked at Tillman. "How'd I do?"

"Sounded just like Bogart," Tillman said.

A fat security guard with a five-cell flashlight appeared at the back of the motel. He shuffled through the snow and peered into the truck's open window. In seconds, he was on the phone.

"We better haul ass," Bad Hair said.

"No. Flip on the department radio," Tillman said. "We have to be sure he calls it in."

They listened until the dispatcher asked for an available patrol car to take a call at the truck stop. A two-man unit assisting a motorist nearby took it and was told to check for a deceased person behind the motel. The dispatcher also told them to check for a deceased or injured person in one of the rooms. One of the deputies advised they were en route.

Tillman nodded at Bad Hair. "Feel free to haul ass. This place is about to turn into a cop convention."

* * *

Eastman and Brite were in the kitchen when they heard it. It started as a low-pitched hum and climbed to a whine. Eastman pulled back a curtain and saw that the barn door was open.

"That a power saw?" Brite asked.

"I don't think so. Maybe José cranked up the air boat."

"Air boats are a lot louder than that," Brite said. "I crossed Caddo Lake in one."

"What if you muffled the sound?" Eastman asked. "Cinco's a mechanical whiz. Maybe he modified it."

Brite shrugged. "You'd lose some horsepower, but I guess it could be done." He clicked off the flashlight. "One way to find out."

They left the house and circled around to a bois d'arc hedgerow behind the barn. The whine grew louder and they stopped in a gap between the trees. A spotlight swept the countryside, and they dove into the brush.

From their vantage point, the spotlight emanated from a cloud of churning snow, swinging to and fro while the levitating craft came at them. They lay flat until the machine cleared the gap and angled off toward the creek.

Eastman sat up and watched it glide down the grade, blasting snow and loose particles from beneath it. When Brite finally sat up, Eastman slapped his shoulder. "Know what that is?" he yelled.

"Obviously, a hovercraft," Brite said.

"Nope, it's a flying saucer. That's Noble Goodman's flying saucer."

* * *

When Eastman notified Tillman and Bad Hair that the hovercraft had launched into the creek and was headed in the direction of the interstate, Bad Hair spun the Durango around.

"You want me to have some units intercept it at the highway?" Tillman asked. "Bad and I are too far away."

"Hell no," Eastman said. "What if Adolfo's already handed the suitcases off, and José's not holding anything? The last thing we want is to hit them empty-handed."

"But we've got shitloads of PC to arrest Adolfo for murder," Tillman said, sounding frustrated. "And we can pop his brother for the warrant."

"What about Lafoon?" Eastman said. "He'll get away clean, and all you'll have are his flunkies."

"But we haven't seen Lafoon," Tillman said, his voice growing louder. "The son-of-a-bitch's probably sitting by his fireplace in Rhode Island."

"He's here," Eastman said. "He wouldn't miss this for anything."

Chapter 48

Eastman's personal cellphone vibrated against his butt. It buzzed him twice more while he yanked off a glove and dug it out of his pocket.

"Mind telling me what the hell is going on?" Doc asked.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" The truck stop motel looks like the Gettysburg battlefield. I'm up to my ass in dead people. Harvey Goodman has an exit wound in his head you could shove a roll of quarters through."

He was taken aback. "If they're dead, why are you there?"

"The sheriff's department asked me to stand by. They're searching the place room to room for injured people."

She waited for an explanation, so he said, "I'm a little vague on the particulars, but it smacks of a drug rip-off. The dead guy in the truck is Cuatro, the hot-headed Mexican that Kitty told us about. He must've been there for protection."

"Then he did a pretty shitty job of it," she said. "There's a money counting machine in the motel room, but no money. There's also some lanky Hispanic guy lying a few feet away. His throat looks like the Grand Canyon, and his head's resting on his brains."

"What about Harvey?"

"Harvey's seated in front of the machine, staring heavenward."

After a pause, Eastman said, "That explains why nobody saw Cinco tonight."

"What?"

"The lanky guy has to be Cinco. Cuatro's partner."

"What about those tattooed guys who work for Ester?" Doc said. "Are they involved?"

"Definitely. The one with the sunglasses did a number on everybody and left with two suitcases. In short, Ester's Central Americans killed Harvey and the Mexicans."

"Shouldn't you be telling this to the cops?"

"They'll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, you haven't heard a word I said."

"What are you going to do?"

"Wing it, I guess. Brite and I are staying here at the farm."

"What about Tillman and Bad Hair Bates?"

"Never heard of them."

* * *

Eastman and Brite went up to the barn to duck out of the wind and watch for the hovercraft or the Excursion. The blizzard would obliterate their footprints in minutes, and the barn was where they'd seen the most activity. They sat in the dark on a wooden box by the door while Eastman told Brite about the carnage in the motel room.

Brite chuckled.

"You find that amusing?"

"Actually, it is," Brite said. "The Huerfano boys have officially pissed in Lafoon's mouthwash." He held up a clenched fist. "An in-your-face act of betrayal. They have his money and probably the MacGuffin."

"The what?"

"MacGuffin. The thing the money's for."

Eastman frowned in the direction of the house and got the binoculars from his bag.

"What is it?" Brite asked.

"A light."

"Where?"

He handed the glasses to Brite. "Back of the house. That little yellow streak."

Brite glassed the house and grunted. "You think it was on when we were inside?"

"Maybe. It's a big house. We didn't go back that far."

"I don't think it was on," Brite said. He nodded toward the hedgerow. "We'd have seen it from down there."

"Are you sure?"

"Not really."

They retraced their path to the house, then proceeded to the window where they'd seen the light. Brite stopped short of the yellow spilling through a space between a pulled shade and the window sill.

"Let me check it," Eastman whispered. "I've got a mirror in my bag."

Brite gave him the finger without turning around and peeked in by sighting down the barrel of the Glock.

"Good God!" Brite whispered and stepped aside.

The source of the light was a gooseneck lamp on a footstool. Its domed shade was twisted to throw light onto an egg-shaped object in the center of the room.

"Don't tell me that's a peanut," Eastman said.

"Looks like a big testicle," Brite said. "A seven-footer." He pointed into the room. "That's an eight-foot ceiling."

"A sculpture?" Eastman asked.

"Has to be. It's mostly copper wire woven around mechanical parts. Like a big metal hornet's nest." Brite put his face to the window screen. "Actually, it's an impressive piece."

"Reminds me of those fancy Russian eggs," Eastman said.

Brite slapped him on the back. "Very good," he said. "A Fabergé egg." His head bobbed back and forth. "We gotta get a look at that thing."

They moved through the dark house using Eastman's Mini Maglite, first through the living room, and then down a hallway past two bedrooms until they came to a closed door. They stopped and listened.

Brite looked at Eastman, pointed to his own nose, and sniffed the air. Eastman nodded that he smelled it too.

"Smells like an electric train," Eastman whispered.

Brite rotated the doorknob and cracked the door an inch. He looked at Eastman and held up one finger. Then two.

Eastman drew his pistol and nodded. Brite shoved the door open to the wall, and Eastman went through first, clearing the left side of the room with the Peacemaker. Brite went right, the Glock scanning the area around the object.

"Son-of-a-bitch," Brite said, reaching toward the object.

"Don't touch him! You'll fry your ass!"

The man inside sat in a cockpit, his upper torso bent forward by the weight of a white helmet secured to his head with a nylon strap. Four wires on each side of the helmet connected it to an instrument panel. Gray curls of wet hair flowed out of the helmet and stuck to his neck. His body was skinny and old, and he wore only white knit boxer shorts. His wrists were secured to metal armrests with a loop of adhesive tape, his bare feet flat on a metal plate. The machine hummed and smelled like a hundred electric trains. They stared until a hand twitched.

"He's alive!" Eastman said. "Shut it off!"

"How?" Brite said, moving around the machine.

"Find a switch! Kill the power!"

Brite yanked down the curtain, slid out the wooden rod, and rammed it into the cockpit. He whacked the switches on the instrument panel, but the needles in the gauges held their positions.

Eastman pulled off a rubber boot and ran his hand into it. He punched two insulated wires running up from the floor to the base of the machine, but they held. Then he lay on the floor and placed the muzzle of the big pistol against the thickest wire.

Brite covered his ears when he saw what was happening.

The shot severed the wire, and Eastman recocked the pistol. He fired twice more and got up. "Shit. I think I'm deaf," he said and began reloading.

Brite uncovered his ears and rechecked the instrument panel. "You killed it," he said.

Eastman tested an armrest by tapping the back of his finger against it, then the seat. When he felt nothing, he reached in, unbuckled the helmet, and slid it off. Then he lifted the man's chin and saw the face of the old man at the Christmas festival.

Lafoon's face was long and bony, the pallor gray, the skin nearly blue. Unshaven for days, his cheeks and neck were grainy, and a hawk-beak nose leaked clear fluid that strung down to his leg. His right index finger was missing.

"Satan himself," Brite said, putting the Glock to Lafoon's head. "I can do the world a huge favor, and the cops'll think the Mexicans did it."

Eastman shoved the gun aside and got out his knife. He cut the tape on Lafoon's wrists and had Brite help lift him from the machine. They laid him on his back on the floor, and Eastman watched him breathe for a minute before he called Doc.

After he quickly explained, he asked, "What now?"

"Call 9-1-1," she said. "He needs an ambulance."

"Forget it. If the Huerfanos see emergency lights here, they'll disappear forever."

"Then describe his condition."

"He's unconscious and has some burns on his wrists and ankles."

"But his breathing's okay?"

"I guess. For somebody that old."

"Heart rate?"

"Real slow. I think he's cooked."

"Not necessarily," she said. "Watch him. If he stops breathing, you'll have to start CPR."

Eastman sighed. "I'm not that crazy about keeping him alive."

"Then put some shaving cream on the burns and keep him warm until I get there."

"Don't even think about coming out here," he said. "Those guys could show up any minute."

She didn't answer, so he said, "Wait to hear from me. Understand?"

"Whatever you say."

He got out of the ghillie suit and spread it on the floor. He rolled Lafoon onto it and dragged him to the bed. After he pulled him into the bed, he found a can of shaving cream in the bathroom and Brite watched him smear it over the burns.

"You're making a big mistake," Brite said.

"For once, you might be right."

Chapter 49

Brite went to the living room to watch the road to the house. Through the door behind him, the kitchen window framed the barn, and he watched that too.

Meanwhile, Eastman kept an eye on the hedgerow and the creek from the bedroom window while he monitored Lafoon's vital signs. Wrapped in the quilt with his legs elevated on pillows, Lafoon's breathing deepened, and guttural sounds resonated from the bed.

"The noises don't mean much," Doc explained on the phone. "His head's probably a fireworks display. Tell me more about that contraption you found him in."

He described it as best as he could. "It's too complicated to be an execution chamber. An electric chair needs two things: juice and an on–off switch."

"It doesn't sound like electroconvulsive therapy," she said. "Might be some form of transcranial stimulation."

"Transcranial what?" Eastman asked, his boots propped up on the windowsill.

"Stimulation," Lafoon said softly.

Eastman came to his feet, expecting to see Brite, but Lafoon coughed.

"You hear that?" Eastman said into the phone. "Lafoon said something."

"Good," Doc said. "If his brain's stimulated, he'll talk your ear off."

He laid the phone on the bed next to Lafoon's head so she could hear, then pulled the chair up and tapped the quilt.

"Hey, Lafoon. Can you hear me?"

His breathing halted. "Yes."

"Are you in pain?"

"I cannot feel my limbs."

"You'll be fine. We'll get you to a hospital."

"No. I'm dying."

"You're not dying. You're already better."

"Where are the others?" Lafoon asked.

"Some are dead. Some are out of pocket."

"Is Harvey dead?"

"Yes."

"The Mexicans?"

"They're dead, too. Adolfo killed them and took two suitcases."

"He has the money," Lafoon said. "Now he needs the spear."

"Spear? I don't get it." There was no response so he picked up the phone. "You hear that?"

"Did he say spear?" Doc asked.

"Yeah. He said Adolfo's got his money and needs a spear."

* * *

José throttled down and switched off the hovercraft's light when he rounded the bend at the limestone ledges. When he was under the bridge, he turned and gave the craft all 120 horses, threading it between the cement pilings and up onto the riverbank. He shut it off and climbed out with the rifle and the backpack. He looked at his watch and, in less than a minute, his brother stopped the Excursion on the bridge.

José climbed up onto the bridge, slipped into the Excursion, and placed the rifle in the rear storage area behind the suitcases. He covered it with a blanket. Then the brothers drove to a rest area on the interstate and parked. Adolfo's phone rang. He gave the caller directions until a long-bed dump truck angled off the interstate and found them.

It was an old truck, the bed piled with sand like a hundred others working the glazed roads. Some were state sanding trucks slinging sand with rear-mounted blades, but the rest were standard dumpers owned by private contractors on call who were paid by the load to release their cargo onto hills and bridges by inclining the dump bed.

The truck driver climbed into the back seat of the Excursion, and Adolfo reached over the seat to shake his hand. "Buenos noches, Siete. Good to see you."

"I am happy to hear it," the trucker said. "We were told you do not like Mexicans."

"A stupid lie," Adolfo said. He thumbed back at the dump truck. "Ocho is with you?"

He smiled. "Number eight is always behind seven."

Adolfo told him about the suitcases, and Siete pulled one into the seat beside him. He opened it and looked over the money. He pulled the second suitcase and did the same. When he was finished, he told Adolfo to tap the brakes four times. When Ocho saw it, he crawled behind the steering wheel, and the truck's lights came on.

They discussed the worsening border wars as both vehicles merged onto the vacated interstate while José, slouched in the seat, watched the side-view mirror for unwanted company. Adolfo turned onto a farm road and drove several miles before they stopped at the river bridge. A pair of lights went off a mile behind the dump truck, and José held two fingers in his lap to warn Adolfo.

Adolfo nodded without looking at him.

Siete got out and unlatched the dump bed gate. He walked beside the truck, monitoring the sand flow as Ocho drove it across the icy bridge. The truck made a K-turn at the far end and headed back in the oncoming lane, where Adolfo was waiting.

Adolfo's phone rang, and he answered it. He listened for a moment, then turned to see a compact sedan appear from behind him, tire chains jangling. The window came down, and a woman in a nurse's uniform asked Adolfo if things were all right.

Adolfo nodded at the truck on the bridge and told her he was the sanding crew's foreman. When the bridge was clear, he smiled and waved her on.

"What did that broad want?" Siete asked when the dump truck pulled up beside him.

"She wanted me," Adolfo said, "but I told her I was busy."

Siete laughed and looked around. "Where is your brother?"

Adolfo ignored him. "Where is the package?"

Siete led him to the tilted bed. He shined a flashlight on a blue tarp-wrapped bundle lashed to the floor with bungee netting.

"Show it to me," Adolfo said.

Siete leveled the bed and climbed in. Shortly, he peered over the side, holding a piece of PVC pipe that was longer than he was tall.

"What the hell is in here?" Seite asked. "They never tell us."

"Open it," Adolfo said.

He unscrewed one of the caps and slid out a wooden shaft with one end sealed in clear plastic wrap. He shook the shaft and war whooped like an Indian.

Adolfo didn't smile. He nodded and waved him down.

Siete slid the spear back into the tube and passed it down to Adolfo, then climbed down and called Ocho out of the truck.

Ocho was wearing coveralls, reminding Adolfo of a picture he'd seen of Lou Costello.

"I am wondering." Ocho said, his chipmunk cheeks rising and falling as they walked to the Excursion. "Why does Viejo want a spear?"

"It belonged to a famous man," Adolfo said. "It was stolen from a museum in Europe and smuggled to South America many years ago. A Mafia don in New York thinks whoever possesses the spear becomes invincible. He is paying Viejo much more than your fee for delivering it."

Siete apologized and asked to see the money again. When Adolfo frowned, Siete reminded him that he had lost sight of the suitcases while they were dumping the sand and couldn't risk a switch for counterfeit bills.

"It is now a required business practice," Siete explained. "If we lose the money, cartel soldiers will cut off our faces and sew them onto fútbols."

Adolfo said he understood and got the suitcases. He placed them in front of the Excursion, out of sight of the vehicle sitting in darkness up the road.

While Siete and Ocho were on their knees riffling the bills, Adolfo took the spear from the tube and removed the plastic wrap. He rotated the gold and silver inlaid head in one of the headlights.

"Banditos are robbing loads on this side of the border now," Adolfo said. "Are you sure you weren't followed?"

"Absolutamente," Seite said. "Our eyes are always looking."

Adolfo stood the spear against the Excursion's bumper guard and removed his glasses. He slid them into his coat pocket and pulled the H&K from the small of his back. He circled around to Siete who was latching a suitcase.

"Then who followed us here?" Adolfo asked.

When Siete straightened to look, Adolfo shot him in the face. Ocho looked up with an open mouth and Adolfo waved the pistol's muzzle at him, telling him to move back, that he didn't want blood on the money.

Ocho crawled away from the suitcase like a crab, and Adolfo said, "How many are in the car?"

"Three," Ocho said. "They are watching for the police."

"They are watching for your signal," Adolfo said. "They came to kill us and take the money and the spear."

He killed Ocho and turned off the headlights. He collected their wallets, closed the suitcases, and rolled them to the bridge. Then he got the spear and caressed its head as if it were a woman.

He loaded the suitcases and spear into the hovercraft and started the engine. While it warmed up, he returned to the dump truck with a five-gallon gasoline can and backed the truck across both lanes of the bridge. He doused the cab with gas, and then poured the rest over the bodies of Siete and Ocho. He torched it all off and looked up the road, waiting for headlights to come on. When they did, he hurried under the bridge.

The eighties-era van came fishtailing toward the flames and slid to a stop behind the Excursion. Three figures jumped out with short-barreled rifles and separated. While they moved about, weapons up and ready, Adolfo sat in the hovercraft holding his phone.

José stepped onto the dark highway and estimated the distance to the fires as 400 yards. He sat down above where he guessed the center stripe to be and popped out the legs of the bipod attached to the barrel of the Accuracy International AWM rifle, the acronym indicating an Arctic Warfare Magnum. Then he stretched himself flat behind the weapon and watched the men through the Schmidt & Bender riflescope. The bulk of their upper bodies meant they wore military-style body armor, probably equipped with chicken plates, steel or ceramic slabs to protect their vital organs.

A carefully placed .338 Lapua Magnum bullet pierced the first robber's armor just above the back plate when he paused near the burning truck. He jerked and collapsed onto the highway.

José bolted up another round.

The second robber, scanning the surrounding darkness for the source of the shot, took cover beside the Excursion, his body perfectly profiled by the firelight. When his hands came up to shade his eyes, a 250-grain bullet ripped through his armpit at 2,400 feet per second, shattering everything inside his rib cage.

The surviving robber fled into an adjacent field and snaked his way back to the van in a run.

The engine cranked, and José watched the driver's wild movements through the windows as the van turned around. He bolted the rifle again and listened to tires laboring for traction as the vehicle came at him without lights.

He inhaled and released his breath slowly, crosshairs inches above the steering wheel. He touched off the shot and dragged the rifle to the side of the road. The van sped past him and drifted right. The brake lights did not come on when it left the road and bucked down into the bar ditch.

Out of habit, José picked up the empty cartridges and dropped them into his pocket. He walked to the overturned van and waited for its front tire to spin down, then went to the shattered windshield and squatted in front of it.

He saw what the glass fragments had done to the driver's face and used a flashlight to locate the bullet hole in his throat.

He walked down the highway toward the bridge, carrying the rifle as casually as he would on a squirrel hunt. He took one last look at the Excursion as he started down to the river.

He stepped into the hovercraft with Adolfo, and the two of them began to move down river.

Adolfo looked at him. "Todos muertos?"

José nodded. "Todos."

Chapter 50

Lafoon slept for a while in the dimly lit bedroom. When his eyes opened, he found Eastman looking at him.

"What's this about a spear?" Eastman asked, touching the Record function on his phone. "You said Adolfo needed a spear."

Lafoon yawned. "Longinus' spear. The Holy Lance."

"What?"

"Longinus. The Roman centurion who pierced Jesus' side with a spear while he was on the cross. Surely you've heard the story."

"We probably read it in Sunday school when I was a kid," Eastman said. "All this ruckus is over a spear?"

"Yes."

"The one that killed Jesus?"

"Correct."

"That's kind of hard to believe."

"What you believe is irrelevant," Lafoon said. "Longinus was a trusted soldier. But his eyesight began to fail, so Pontius Pilate gave him a simple task. Stand guard at the crucifixion."

"Sounds like he did more than stand guard if he killed Jesus."

Lafoon sighed and closed his eyes. "You imbecile, Jesus was in agony. Longinus ended his life out of mercy. Accounts of the incident say blood and water ran down the lance and into Longinus' eyes. His eyesight was instantly restored by the blood, and he became a believer. Now, do you see what's happening tonight?"

"This has something to do with Adolfo's eyes?"

"Bravo," Lafoon said. "Adolfo was a trusted soldier who is going blind."

"I thought a cow hooked him."

"No. He was diagnosed with a degenerative ocular condition. He believes traces of Jesus' blood on the lance will heal him."

"Do you believe it?"

"Don't be silly," Lafoon said. "But kings and emperors were convinced. The Holy Roman Empire regarded the lance more highly than the Holy Grail. Hitler said he felt its power when he was near it in Austria. He seized it, and then lost the war when the Allies retook it. He shot himself that very day. The spear is incredibly valuable."

"Which is where you come in."

"I have a buyer eagerly awaiting it." Lafoon said. "But somehow Adolfo learned of the spear's power and became obsessed with having it for himself."

"And the money?"

"The money is nowhere close to the value of the spear."

Eastman propped his feet on the windowsill. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because neither of us will live to see the sun rise. Ask whatever you like."

Eastman thought for a moment. "All right. It's kind'a funny that the spear that killed Jesus would wind up in West Texas."

"I selected the destination for good reasons," Lafoon said.

"Reasons related to the murder of two boys?"

"Yes, but I had nothing to do with it. Harvey Goodman killed them. He recruited a pair of cartel enforcers from Mexico and instructed them to kill the intruders that night. Because no one knew who the intruders were, the Huerfano brothers opposed it and told Harvey to postpone the operation. But out of greed and stupidity, Harvey told the Mexican, Cuatro, to eliminate all possible witnesses. Thus, he ordered the death of his own son and another child."

"But Cuatro was seen driving you around afterward," Eastman said.

"Harvey denied ordering the murders, so I told him to meet me at his son's grave. Then I made Cuatro drive me to the cemetery to confront him. When Harvey had the audacity to stand above the body of his own son and repeat the lie, Cuatro got out and attempted to strangle him. I stopped him because Billy Poco was watching."

"Why was Billy there?"

"He was watching Harvey. Billy had married a prostitute and suspected her of having an affair with Harvey. His presence that day was a childish attempt at keeping an eye on Harvey."

"That's all?"

"That's all. Harvey knew Billy was suspicious of him, but he didn't dare tell him his wife had gotten herself involved in something much more serious than extramarital copulation."

"So you knew Billy was watching this farm."

"Of course. I tried to keep him away to protect him. One night, I heard a hound bay and figured Billy was on the property. I put on a black overcoat and crept down to the creek. I climbed upon a limestone shelf and waited, and when he saw me, I put on a melodramatic Dracula performance. I don't think he ever set foot on the place again." Lafoon managed a smile. "That's when he built the tree house. Tragically, his gullibility made him easy prey for Harvey."

"And Harvey framed him for the murders?"

"Yes. Harvey had been acting irrationally. He and the whore were addicted to a powerful form of methamphetamine the Mexicans sold. After the two boys were killed, Harvey had her distract Billy from the cemetery while the Mexicans buried them in a shallow grave. Later, after she got off the drug, she went to Detective McQueenie seeking clemency in exchange for her testimony. She told him everything."

"But instead of arresting Harvey," Eastman said, "McQueenie began blackmailing him."

"Your friend Tillman is a smart young man," Lafoon said. "I knew he'd take McQueenie's briefcase to you."

Eastman nodded. "I wasted a lot of time going over McQueenie's notes before I saw the deposit slips stuffed in his checkbook cover."

Lafoon continued. "To stop the blackmail, Harvey convinced the girl that McQueenie was at a motel with his money. Harvey forced her to seduce and drug McQueenie by threatening to have Billy Poco killed. She complied, believing the drug Harvey gave her was only sleep-inducing. I killed in my younger years, but I never authorized any of this. It broke my sister's heart when Billy Poco was arrested, and killing the policeman was completely unnecessary."

"Then why involve a loser like Harvey in your operation?"

"Harvey was on the verge of bankruptcy, so I tossed him a bone now and then... as a favor to his grandfather who saved me from the electric chair."

"Doctor Guttman?"

"The Guttman name was changed to Goodman during the war," Lafoon said. "Doctor Guttman was a compassionate Jew who taught me to read. He was also the only person to testify in my defense. While I was incarcerated, he sent my sister to live with his brother's family in New London. I loved the man like a father."

Eastman sat silently, listening to the wind rattle the window.

Lafoon said, "Mister Eastman, I collect and sell art. My galleries are legitimate businesses. But private collectors pay incredible sums of tax-free money for looted relics they can never publicly display. Even better, despots and wealthy criminals buy what they believe to be sacred objects for power and protection. And I just happen to have storehouses of them."

"Like the spear?"

"Exactly. I part with a piece when the right fool comes along."

"Well, it looks like Adolfo and his brother have terminated your scam."

"They have set about to terminate me," Lafoon said. "You are witnessing a coup d'état."

* * *

Eastman heard the sirens in the background before he heard Tillman's voice on the phone.

"We're at the river bridge north of town," Tillman yelled into the throwaway phone. "Five more bodies, a burning truck, and a shot-up van. The Excursion's parked next to two guys burned to greasy spots."

"You think it's Adolfo and Jose?"

"We can't be sure it's them, but Adolfo was seen here. A nurse driving home stopped while the truck was sanding the bridge. She spoke with a man in dark glasses who claimed to be the foreman. She described Adolfo to a tee. When she got home, she saw the glow of the fires from her house and called it in. Looks like the sanding crew was involved in the dope deal."

"This isn't about dope," Eastman said. "Adolfo's after a spear called the Holy Lance. He's going blind and thinks the blood on it will cure him."

"What the hell?"

"I'll explain later. Give me some more details."

"Well, there's the two crispy critters I told you about, and two more shot through body armor. You catch that? Through body armor, avoiding the chicken plates. And the van driver was shot while the van was moving. Large caliber round. Gotta be a sniper rifle."

"Is the bridge still open?" Eastman asked.

"No, the firefighters closed it because of structure damage."

"Check under it now," Eastman said. "See if the hovercraft's there."

Tillman found Bad Hair warming his hands near the burning truck tires. They both went down the embankment to the underside of the bridge. The sheltered portion of the riverbank between the pilings had suffered only a light dusting of snow.

"It was parked her right here," Bad Hair said, running his flashlight over the ground. "This big oval is where the thing sat down."

"Both of them were here," Tillman said and squatted next to hiking boot tracks. He pointed out another set. "Cowboy boots with dogging heels. Like the ones beside Cuatro's truck at the motel. These parallel lines are from the wheels on the suitcases. Seems Adolfo and José are alive and well."

Tillman called the dispatcher to see how much time had elapsed since the nurse reported the fires and then called to warn Eastman that the Huerfanos could show up at the farm at any moment.

He and Bad Hair hurried back to the car. When he mentioned the spear to Bad Hair, Bad Hair nodded.

"They call it the Holy Lance," Bad Hair said, starting the engine. "Whoever has it can use its power for good or evil."

"Then let's go get it," Tillman said. "Maybe it has the power to find us employment."

* * *

Eastman got up and went to the window. The dry arctic air behind the front had shoved the storm south, and the moon lit the glazed panorama. He stared at the dark tool shed and tried to imagine a boy living in it alone.

"What are you doing?" Lafoon asked.

Eastman turned. "Just looking. I once told John Tillman that evil occupies this area. I told him it fades in and out, but it's always around." He smiled. "I'm as crazy as you are."

"Far from it," Lafoon said. "You're more perceptive than I imagined. Evil exists in varying strengths and on many levels. It infected my psyche the moment I shot the sadist who tried to rape my sister. I'd never experienced such exhilaration... the joy of retaliatory anger."

"Did you kill the man in the grave Ester showed me?"

"Doctor Meyer? Yes, but not out of revenge. Senile dementia had loosened his tongue so it was necessary to euthanize him. He said he understood so we put on formal attire and drank champagne before he stepped into the chair."

"You bury him?"

"Yes, I did. Personally."

"Your sister says he's buried backward."

Lafoon's eyebrows furrowed. "Backward? I'd laugh if I could. I'm a genius, Eastman, but I'm not an undertaker."

"What's the story on the chair we found you in?"

"Built it myself. Meyer built a primitive prototype while I was in the asylum. His was the Wright Brothers' Flyer and mine, a starship. It took years to perfect."

"Then you've owned this farm for a long time."

"Bought it in sixty-three," Lafoon said. "I was living in Havana when the US and Russia began moving missiles and warships around. The media called it the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it was simple chess, and I pocketed a fortune from both their intelligence services. Afterward, I returned to Texas."

"Why Texas?"

"After the crisis, the Cubans contracted me to do reconnaissance on a parade route through Dallas with the airport as its starting point."

"How'd you know the route?" Eastman asked.

"Simple. The newspaper published it. I merely walked it and found businesses that were hiring blue collar workers."

"Businesses in tall buildings?"

"Bingo," Lafoon said. "The Cubans selected the book depository because it was located on a turn that a motorcade would have to negotiate slowly. After the big event, I had Red Pirtle buy this farm and title it to a fictitious corporation. I stayed here until things calmed down."

Lafoon smiled again. "Here's a bit of trivia. I met Lee Oswald once. In New Orleans. Unfortunately, a drunk woman took a Polaroid of us and gave it to Jack Brite, your friend's father. He sealed it in a glass sculpture that I bought for a fortune, then destroyed." Lafoon looked agitated. "Let's discuss something else."

"All right. What about your shock treatments?"

"The treatments are not shock. They're a blend of static and current electricity focused on deep brain circuitry within a rotating magnetic field. When I was committed to the asylum, Meyer increased my mental abilities tenfold with his prototype chair. The hospital accused him of using me as a guinea pig, and we left for Austria. Meyer recruited for the Reich, and I became the youngest chess master in Europe. I performed public exhibitions and published two chess magazines."

"Because of the chair?"

Lafoon nodded. "To oversimplify it, the chair is a link to the consciousness of the universe. I see the beginning and end of things simultaneously. It's science pushed past the point of science fiction. I not only think many moves ahead, but many games ahead."

Lafoon shivered and his eyes closed, but Eastman shook him. "Don't die yet," he said.

"What?"

"The school explosion. What happened?"

Lafoon snorted, his eyes still closed. "What happened? Bullies tormented me daily and I saw an opportunity to end it. Allow an ignitable gas to collect under them and wait."

"So you broke a pipe and killed hundreds of kids."

"No. The bullies broke the pipe, then went off to class like nothing had happened. I'd warned them, so the innocent blood was on their hands." Lafoon sniffed the air. "But I loved the smell of frying bullies. I had become the destroyer of worlds, as Oppenheimer put it, and was just getting warmed up."

"After the war, you got a job on the docks in Texas City using the name Bart Roberts."

"Black Bart Roberts has been my favorite pirate since childhood."

"And you blew the place to smithereens."

"With diesel fuel and a five-cent cigar," Lafoon said. "Keep it simple, stupid."

"But why, if the war had ended?"

"The war never ended for me. Unfortunately, the explosions were a waste of time. The government wrote them off as accidental. Yo ho ho," he whispered and stopped breathing.

Eastman shut off the recorder and leaned over to look for life in Lafoon's half-open eyes. His carotid pulse was negligible, and his legs twitched once under the quilt.

Chapter 51

Eastman found Brite still watching the road from the living room. The warm house had driven him out of his ghillie suit, and it lay in a ball on the couch. The Glock hung in his hip pocket.

Brite looked around. "You left Lafoon alone?"

"He blew a fuse or something. I think he's dead."

"Any last words?"

"Yo ho ho."

"Cute," Brite said, resuming the watch.

"I need you to do something."

"What."

"Go over these books again. See if there's something about a spear called the Holy Lance. Or Spear of Destiny. Anything to do with a spear. Lafoon said Adolfo and José are on a killing spree because of one."

"How come?"

"It's a holy relic, and they want it."

Brite rolled his eyes. "Why would they want a spear? They've got what they want. Money."

"Then why'd they just kill five more guys at the bridge?"

Brite stared at him.

Eastman turned and headed for the hallway. "I'll explain later. Look for the book."

He returned to the bedroom and sat into the chair between Lafoon and the window. Before he could get comfortable, Brite appeared in the doorway with a book in each hand. Eastman gave him the hush sign, got up, and took the books. He glanced at the covers. One was about Nazi plunder and the other about the spear itself. He escorted Brite down the hallway in silence.

When they were in the living room, Brite said, "Know where they were?" He patted the coffee table. "Here. In plain sight."

Eastman frowned. "It's beginning to make sense. Lafoon left them out because he wanted Adolfo to read about the spear."

"What are you talking about?"

"Lafoon used the suitcases of money and the magic spear as bait. The bastard tricked Adolfo and José into killing everybody linked to him."

"But they tried to kill Lafoon in the chair."

"I doubt it. Why not just shoot him and bury him under a rock? Lafoon was bound to the chair with adhesive tape. Ten bucks says he could have gotten out of it."

Brite looked puzzled. "He staged it?"

"The old man knew we'd figure out they were making their moves when the weather was at its worst. He also knew we'd be watching them when the storm came through."

"So what did the chair business accomplish?" Brite asked.

"Beats me, but something tells me we've been snookered."

Eastman looked at the hallway door, and then hurried for the bedroom. Halfway down the hall, frigid air hit him.

* * *

Tillman caught it on the first ring. He listened and said, "Escaped?"

"I'm an idiot," Eastman said. "I thought he was dying so I left him alone for a minute. When I got back, he was gone."

"Stay in the house," Tillman said. "Every swinging dick with a tin badge is looking for Adolfo and José. I called the FBI, and they're sending a chopper to the farm."

"FBI? This isn't about al-Qaeda. It's about a magic spear."

"I didn't know who to call, so I just told them we're in a war with a bunch of foreigners."

Eastman disconnected and joined Brite. They stood in the snow, looking down at bare feet tracks that ran from the bedroom window toward the barn. Brite handed him the pieces of tape that had bound Lafoon to the chair.

"He put petroleum jelly on the sticky side," Brite said. "What now? Stay or check the barn?"

"We stay right here. Lafoon's jerking us around like puppets. All we've got is two peashooters and a shotgun. If there's a rifle in the barn, he'll kill us before we're halfway there."

A light swung over the property and flashed against the barn: high beams bumping toward the house.

Eastman boosted the shorter Brite through the bedroom window to avoid being seen at the door and followed him in. They set the house lights to the way José had left them and peeked through the curtains.

The vehicle stopped up the road, then proceeded in a slow roll. A row of roof spots came on and lit up the snow like high noon.

"Shit, man," Brite said, shielding his eyes. "What are they doing?"

"They're checking things out."

Brite looked back at the barn. "What do we do if they snatch Lafoon and take off?"

"We sit tight and let the cops handle it."

"No way," Brite said. "You're not letting that bastard escape again."

The vehicle pulled up to the front porch. The driver, barely visible behind the glare of the lights, stepped out, the engine still running.

Eastman unscrewed the living room light bulb from its fixture, while Brite hurried out the back door with the shotgun.

The passenger got out, and two people entered the house. The taller one found the light switch and flicked it in vain.

"Freeze or die!" Eastman yelled. "On the floor!"

When Brite heard it, he charged the SUV, his breath trailing like a comet's tail. He jammed the sawed-off through the grill guard and fired both barrels into the radiator, then dove into the snow and rolled up against the porch.

"You all right?" Eastman yelled from the front door.

Brite got up, breaking the gun over to reload. "I'm fine," he said. He pointed at the steam jetting from the grill. "But those assholes ain't going anywhere."

"That's unfortunate," Eastman said over the baritone barking of a dog. "You just killed Ester's car."

Doc came up from the floor cursing, but Ester was more concerned with Little Noodle's welfare than hearing the rest of them yell about who was the biggest moron. After the shouting died down, Ester brought the dog in and shut him in a bedroom. When she found Eastman, she removed the high school photo of Lafoon from her purse and showed it to him. "You're positive the man you talked to was Josh?"

"It was him," Eastman said. "He's a million years older, but that's him."

"And he's all right?"

"Hell if I know. I thought he was dead." He shrugged. "And then he was gone."

"Did he know I was coming to see him?"

"Nobody knew," Eastman said, glaring at Doc. "I ordered Doc to stay away."

"Ordered?" Doc said, her finger inches from his face. "That's some of your man shit." Her finger dropped to his chest, and she poked him. "The fact is, Ester's brother needed medical attention fast, and I called her. She picked me up in the Land Rover, and the next thing we know, you almost killed us."

"But I've never seen that car," he said.

"Me neither," Brite added.

"Red used it for hunting," Ester explained. "It's not registered to drive on the highway, so the hands use it to pull bogged-down cows out of the stock ponds. It's got a winch and four-wheel drive, so when Doc called me about Josh, I offered to pick her up."

Eastman took them back to the bedroom and showed them where Lafoon had made his deathbed confession before bolting.

Doc nodded at the barn. "You think he's still in there?"

Ester shook her head. "He's wherever you think he isn't. He'll outfox you every time."

Doc looked around. "Well, he sure isn't here."

"Then that's where I'd start looking," Ester said.

"You people are wasting time," Brite said and stomped down the hall while everybody else was trying to outthink Lafoon.

"Is Mr. Brite coming back?" Ester asked.

Eastman nodded at Brite's Glock and the shotgun on the bed. "He'll be back. He wouldn't leave without those."

* * *

Tillman looked at Bad Hair. "You know the river better than I do. Have they had time to make it back to the farm?"

"The Ninja boys? I'd say plenty."

Tillman leaned over and looked at the speedometer. "We're only doing twenty-five?"

"That's it. Unless you think you can push us out of a canyon."

"We've got no choice," Tillman said. "Goose it."

Bad Hair pushed it to the limit. He was the best driver in the department, having proved it in a dozen high-speed pursuits, but moments later a doe and a yearling appeared on the highway, staring at them. Tillman and Bad Hair flashed between the animals and into an oat field, stuck up to the doors.

* * *

"Ever see anything like it?" Eastman asked when he showed Lafoon's supercharged chair to Doc and Ester.

The look on Ester's face told him she hadn't.

Doc paced around the device with her hands on her hips. She examined the helmet and the instrument panel, then got down and peered under it.

"You shot out the wiring?" she asked.

"Had to. Nothing else worked."

"Where's his power source?"

He shrugged. "The light pole out back, I guess."

Doc sighed. "Tell me exactly what he said about the power."

"He said this thing uses a blend of current and static electricity in a magnetic field. I assumed it was the same juice that runs the toaster and refrigerator."

"That's AC. Alternating current," she said. "If it uses a blend, he's got some sophisticated equipment somewhere." She tapped her chin. "That would explain his burns. Blistering is a side effect of high DC voltage in electrotherapy."

"But if he thought we were coming, why'd he even get in the damned thing?" Eastman asked.

"Charging himself up for the final battle," she said.

"Or this is one big setup," Ester said.

Eastman said, "If it is, there's one detail he didn't count on."

"What's that?"

"You being here."

She smiled. "That's exactly what he was counting on. He knew if I thought he was dying, I'd come immediately."

* * *

Brite walked half a mile up the creek until he found what he was looking for: a grove of Spanish oaks. The eighty-foot trees, native to the opposite side of the state, had caught his eye during the low flyover because they towered above the surrounding vegetation. He figured someone, probably westward-moving settlers, had planted them with the hope of harvesting valuable lumber. He walked among them until he found boot tracks, then followed them to a mound of camouflage netting weighted down with branches.

He guessed the tallest part of the mound to be the hovercraft's propeller housing. He ran his hand through the net until he felt engine heat. Then he called Eastman.

"You are about to die," Eastman said. "José's probably got the crosshairs on your garden gnome belly right now."

"You don't scare me," Brite said, running to the nearest tree for cover.

"The Huerfanos are around here someplace or we'd have seen them leave," Eastman said.

"Well, they're not down here, and I'm looking at two sets of footprints heading up toward the barn. Anybody seen the Excursion?"

"They abandoned it next to two burned bodies. They want everybody to think they're dead. Adolfo would've killed a nurse who saw him, but he needed someone to put him at the shooting scene."

Brite was quiet.

"Don't even think about it," Eastman said. "You follow those tracks, and you're a dead man."

Chapter 52

Brite had gone AWOL, so Eastman cracked the blinds and posted Doc to watch the road. He resumed his watch in the dark bedroom and began to tell Ester how he and Brite had found Lafoon. He queued the recording on his phone and was about to play it for her when an orange glow appeared in the window. He grabbed the field glasses and saw a fiery cloud in the trees on the northeast corner of the property. "Say it isn't so," he mumbled.

"What's the matter?" Ester asked.

"Something's burning."

She got up and looked out. "What on Earth?"

"A boat's my guess."

"What's a boat doing down there? That creek's never been more'n ankle deep."

"It's a special boat that floats on air. Adolfo and José killed some people and used it to get away."

"Doc said Harvey Goodman was killed in the fracas," she said.

"Yeah. He needed money so he threw in with a bad bunch."

"Then it serves him right," she said. "Red used to say if you play with doody, you're bound to get some on you." She picked up his cell phone and looked at it. "Was my brother involved?"

He nodded. "It's on the recording. He tricked Adolfo and José into stealing something and killing all the witnesses."

"What'd they steal, somebody's dope?"

He dreaded telling her. "The spear that killed Jesus."

She looked dumbfounded. "My Jesus? Or some Mexican named Jesus?"

He pointed at the ceiling. "The one who's coming on the clouds... or with the clouds."

"That's the craziest thing I ever heard!"

"I know. Me too."

She sat, looking disgusted. "What would anybody want with something that killed the Savior? Are they devil worshipers?"

"No, Adolfo's going blind. He thinks Jesus' blood on the spearhead will cure him."

They sat in silence for a while, and then Eastman said, "Look, I don't know what to believe anymore, except that eight men were killed tonight, and the only reason I'm positive of that is because there are eight bodies to prove it."

She peered out again. "Why would José and Adolfo burn their boat?"

"They wouldn't," he said. "It would attract attention."

He took the phone from her and pressed a button. When Brite answered, Eastman said, "I really wish you hadn't torched the hovercraft."

"Sorry," Brite said. "Had to make sure nobody got away."

"We'd be better off if they had."

"Relax. Tillman and G.I. Joe ought to roll up anytime."

"Afraid not," Eastman said. "They wrecked out."

"They hurt?"

"No, but we're about to be."

"Then, by God, it's O.K. Corral time," Brite said.

Eastman glanced at the shotgun and pistol lying next to him. "Hate to tell you, Wyatt, but you forgot your shootin' irons."

Brite ignored him. "If this fire doesn't stir 'em up, I'll burn the goddamn barn."

"That won't be necessary," someone on Brite's end said. The voice was calm. "The phone, por favor."

* * *

Doc's eyes widened. "They've got Brite?"

Eastman nodded.

"Then he's shit outta luck," Ester said. When they looked at her, she said, "Another plumbers' expression."

Eastman picked up Brite's guns. "Why would he leave without these?"

"I think he wanted us to have them," Ester said.

"Then he's nuts," he said. "After they bleed him for information, they'll kill him."

"What about us?" Ester said.

"They'll kill us, too."

"Like at the Alamo?"

He nodded. "And they'll do it soon."

Ester put on her all-business face, the same look she'd donned when she'd threatened him with the lawsuit. "How do we stand on firepower?"

"On the light side," he said, pitching the shotgun and pistol onto the bed. He pulled the Peacemaker, opened the loading gate, and checked all six primers. He looked up at Doc. "Who knew this would turn into a war? Brite and I were relying on Tillman and Bad Hair for the enforcement end of it. We were just here to observe."

"Then observe this," Doc said and opened her coat.

He saw a glint of blue steel in a pancake holster before she covered it.

"Daddy's army .45," she said. "We're better off than you think."

"You any good with that thing?" he asked.

"Good enough to blow a grown man to Christ. I cleaned it and I have two extra magazines." She frowned. "Why'd you call Brite Wyatt?"

"He said it was O.K. Corral time. But only three people died at the O.K. Corral. Tonight, eight are already dead and we're just getting started."

He picked up the shotgun and broke it open. There was shiny brass in both barrels, so he snapped it shut and sat down. "Keep the house dark, and don't stand in the windows. We'll get a phone call shortly. When I answer it, don't make a sound."

It came sooner that he expected. The little phone buzzed, and Brite's number appeared on the ID. He hit the green button and said, "Okay, Amigo, where do we go from here?"

"Am I speaking with the Ranger?"

Eastman was certain it was Adolfo. He waited before responding, listening for background noises like he knew Adolfo was also doing. "I'm not a Ranger."

"But you are the man with the big hat, no?"

"I have a sizeable hat, yes."

"Then I am accusing you of stealing valuable items and setting fire to our property."

"Cut the bullshit, Adolfo. This farm belongs to Harvey Goodman, one of the men you just killed. There were witnesses who watched you shoot Cuatro behind the motel. So be prepared for a warm welcome when the police arrive."

"I suggest you send them elsewhere or they will find your body beside your friend's."

"That pendejo is not my friend. Besides, I'm sure he's already dead."

"What value is a dead man? Do you wish to speak with him?"

"Forget him. I want to talk to Viejo."

"Who?"

"Lafoon. Jacob Ziv. Viejo. Whatever you call El Jefe."

"No one is my boss," Adolfo said.

"Listen, you tell Viejo the only person in the world who cares about him is standing beside me and must talk to him. It's a matter of life and death."

It sounded as if Adolfo covered the mouthpiece, and Eastman heard a muffled voice before the connection broke.

"What's going on?" Doc asked.

"Brite's screwed and so are we," he said. "The bridge was damaged so the police have to go thirty miles out of the way on ice to get here. We can't stay and we can't leave."

"What about the FBI helicopter?"

"Forget it. They have to get a team to it, and then fly all the way out here. We're looking at two hours, minimum."

For some reason, Eastman couldn't get the chair out of his head. Since Doc had insisted that the contraption required sophisticated equipment, he wanted another look at it. Ester found some aluminum foil and tape, and they blacked out the window in the room that held the chair. Then he pried up the floorboards under it with a framing hammer from the kitchen closet and shined his flashlight into the hole.

"Had to be," he said, looking up at Ester. "There's another room down there."

He got the gooseneck lamp, straightened the neck, and lowered it the length of its cord. Then he lay on the floor, looking down.

The room below was long and narrow; he was viewing it from one end. Electrical equipment had been installed on both sides of an aisle running the length. Directly under him, computer monitors and other electronic devices winked and blinked on countertops. At the far end of the room, two motors the size of kitchen stoves squatted on the floor like dead black frogs.

"Hey, Doc," he called out. "I found the electric train smell."

His head was in the hole when she got there, so she dropped down for a look.

"He set up his own power company in the basement," she said.

"This house doesn't have a basement," Ester said. "I used to live here, remember?"

He twisted the cord and rotated the dangling lamp. "It's not a basement," he said. "It's a mobile home. The bastard buried a mobile home under the garden."

"There's a door at the far end," Doc said. "There could be more than one mobile home."

"We need a ladder," he said.

He walked the house room to room, watching the windows while Doc and Ester searched for something with which he could lower himself. Doc found an air compressor in the storeroom and detached the hose. It looked strong enough to support Eastman's weight and reach the countertop below. He tied it to Lafoon's chair and dropped the rest into the lab. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and was about to slide down when the phone vibrated.

"My sister is in the house?" Lafoon asked, sounding agitated.

"It was her idea," Eastman said. "When she heard you were dying, she jumped in Red's Land Rover and came immediately."

"What does she want?"

"To see you, naturally."

"A meeting isn't possible."

"Why not? You've taken care of her all these years. Don't abandon her now."

Doc hurried into the room and ripped a sheet of aluminum foil from the window. She tapped the glass, pointing at Ester stepping daintily across the garden, the messenger bag over her shoulder.

He grabbed Doc's arm and yanked her away from the window. A rifle round shattered the pane, and the report roared through the hills.

"Tell them to hold their fire!" Eastman yelled into the phone. "Ester's in the garden!"

Lafoon cursed before disconnecting.

Doc crouched in the corner, her face buried in her hands.

Eastman rushed to her. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," she said. She removed her hands, and Eastman saw a blood-speckled crescent from her cheek to the collar of her coat. "Just glass fragments, but my eyes are okay."

"We've gotta get out of here," he said.

"What about Ester?"

"She'll be fine. Lafoon won't let anything happen to her."

He helped Doc to her feet and led her to the hole in the floor. She looked down. "The mobile home?"

"No other options," he said.

"What about the dog?"

"Shit." He made his way to the room where Little Noodle lay stretched across the bed. When the door opened, the big dog's tail swatted the headboard, and he sprang to the floor. Eastman rushed to the front door, opened it, and stepped back as the dog charged past him and into the night.

Doc waited, pistol drawn and ready to drop anything that appeared in the window, while Eastman slid down the air hose. When he gave her the word, she holstered the gun and slid into his arms.

Chapter 53

By flashlight, Eastman and Doc maneuvered between the machines that powered Lafoon's starship chair. When they reached the door, he found the light switch and yanked the door lever.

Doc was right. A second mobile home butted up against the first, and they went in, his flashlight riding under the shotgun barrels, sweeping the room. She held onto his belt while they wove their way between crates and cartons shelved floor to ceiling. When they got to the end of the second room, Doc felt the light switch and threw it. They stared at what was obviously a warehouse.

"We've got to keep moving," he told her. "There's bound to be an exit."

"Hang on," she said, wandering the shelves, looking at hand-numbered labels. She stopped and patted a box big enough to hold a car tire and said, "Open it."

"What for?"

"Don't you think we should know what that screwball is hiding?"

"You're right," he said and took out his pocketknife. "Maybe it's something we can use."

He heaved it to the floor, then opened one end and withdrew an object in plastic bubble wrapping. When he peeled it away, there was a painting in a gilded frame. "Crap," he said when he saw it. "Art."

"Very old art," Doc said, her fingertips barely touching the brush strokes.

"Put it back; it's Nazi plunder," he said.

"One more," she said, grabbing a small wooden box set upon a short marble pedestal. She handed it to him, and he ran the knife blade into the top and popped it open.

"Thing's heavy," he said, handing it to her. "I hope to hell it's a grenade."

The thing inside was wrapped in oilcloth bound with a leather strand. She took the knife and cut the strand, then unwrapped the oilcloth.

"A rock?" he said, watching her study it.

"Yes, it's marble."

"So, what's the big deal?"

She looked up at him. "It's sculptured. It's a penis."

"You're kidding."

"I'm a doctor. I've seen a lot of penises, and I'm telling you, this is one."

"I don't like talking about this," he said.

She tried to hand it to him. "See for yourself."

He shook his head. "The only penis I'm touching is mine."

"Well, I'm taking it," she said. "If I die, I want somebody to wonder why there's one in my pocket."

* * *

Brite lay on a workbench in the toolshed, arms above him, handcuffed to a log chain hanging from a rafter. He stared at the ceiling with his good eye, trying to guess what had prompted the gunshot he'd heard and why Lafoon had hurried outside.

He began to go over the events that had gotten him into this mess. The Huerfanos had reacted exactly as he'd expected when he set the hovercraft ablaze. José came up at his back while he was behind the tree, talking to Eastman on the phone. The muzzle of a rifle touched Brite's shoulder, and when he spun around, feigning surprise, José politely took the phone and searched him as expertly as a twenty-year police veteran. Then José held him at gunpoint and pitched Brite a pair of handcuffs. Brite cuffed himself in front while José scrolled through his call log.

"Who were you talking to?" José asked.

"The Lone Ranger," Brite said. "But I never got a chance to thank him."

The rifle butt came around, and Brite went down. He felt warm blood in his left eye, and he scooped up a handful of snow with his cuffed hands and pressed it to the cut. José ordered him up and, by the time they got to the barn, the eye was swollen shut.

Adolfo met them, carrying an AK-47. He pointed to the floor and Brite sat, noting that the AK was the real thing, not some street gang knockoff. Brite watched as Adolfo snapped the selector switch down two clicks with his thumb, bypassing the fully automatic setting to select semiautomatic fire.

Guy keeps a cool head, Brite thought. No jamming the safety down with his fist like nervous mujahideen. One shot per trigger pull was plenty for what Adolfo had in mind.

"Look at me, not the weapon," Adolfo said.

"Yes Sir," Brite said, trying to sound contrite.

"Who is in the house?"

"Charlie Eastman."

Adolfo stared at him, waiting.

"Charlie Eastman?" Brite repeated. "The annoying asshole in the shit-kicker costume?"

"I heard you the first time," Adolfo said. "He is alone?"

Brite nodded.

"What about the old woman? Her Land Rover is here."

"Oh, you mean Ester. I didn't count her because she's a harmless old lady. I thought you were just assessing your threats."

Adolfo frowned. "What do you know of assessing threats?"

Brite shrugged. "Just a phrase I picked up."

There was a voice somewhere in the barn, and Adolfo walked away, leaving Brite with José. When Adolfo returned, they led Brite into the windowless tool shed, laid him on the workbench, and cuffed his wrists to an iron ring at the end of a chain above him. Then José and Adolfo left.

Lafoon entered wearing a polished wool overcoat and a black fedora. He removed the hat and ducked a Coleman lantern that was burning near Brite. He straightened to his full height. It was the first time Brite had seen him upright, and his heart beat faster when the old man's lantern-lit face loomed over him.

"Sit up," Lafoon ordered.

Brite maneuvered himself into a sitting position, his cuffed hands floating beside his face. He felt the need to say something and nodded at Lafoon's overcoat. "Nice outfit."

"Thank you," Lafoon said, and hung the fedora on a nail. "A hot shower and fresh clothing works wonders."

"Where'd you find a shower?" Brite asked, without thinking.

There was a knock, and Lafoon glanced at the door. Adolfo stepped in and handed him Brite's phone with a note. After Adolfo was gone, Lafoon looked at the note, then down at Brite.

"Ester is here?"

"Yes Sir," Brite said, realizing how much her presence had complicated matters. "She said it brought back old memories."

Lafoon grunted, then began to work the phone. "My sister is in the house?" he asked the person who answered. Brite knew that person was Eastman, whom he prayed wouldn't say anything that would rile the seven-foot zombie.

Lafoon walked away with the phone to his ear and muttered a couple of short sentences while Brite strained to hear. Then there was a high-powered rifle shot and Lafoon said, "Goddamn it!" He threw the phone down, crushed it with his foot, and hurried into the garden.

So much for not riling the zombie, Brite thought. I'm history.

* * *

Tillman and Bad Hair saw the orange dot of a burning hovercraft when they reached the top of Medicine Mountain, a mile from where they had abandoned the car. Geologically, the formation only qualified as a sizeable hill that had been a ceremonial site for Comanches, but tonight it was an obstacle on a cross-country race to the farm.

"Whoa up," Tillman said as he came out of his backpack. He dropped it and sat on it. "I gotta get my breath."

Bad Hair, humping a pack of his own and a .308 Bushmaster Carbine, walked back and helped him up. "Come on, buddy; it's all downhill from here, and there's people depending on us."

Tillman nodded and got up. He re-slung the pack, and they resumed the trek, both huffing, until Bad Hair halted. "You hear that?"

"A limb cracked," Tillman said. "We got a lot of ice."

"That wasn't no limb," Bad Hair said. "Limbs don't echo for miles. It was a rifle shot. Time to gird up our loins."

"Gird up what? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Our loins. It's from the Old Testament," Bad Hair said. "It means pull up your drawers, the shit's about to hit the fan."

When they reached the bottom of the hill, Tillman hurried off toward the creek bank—an easier, more direct route to the farm, but Bad Hair cleared his throat.

Tillman stopped and turned. "What?"

"They're not stupid, you know," Bad Hair said. "They'll be watching that creek and the road to the house. If we stay quiet and stick to the thickets, we might get lucky and come up where they don't expect it."

"Then lead on," Tillman said. "This is the moment you were born for."

"On the other hand," Bad Hair added, "they might be smart enough to know cops would avoid the creek and road. If that's the case—"

"If that's the case, what?"

"Well, just gird up your loins, that's all."

* * *

Lafoon spotted Ester and gestured for her to go back. If she saw him, she paid him no mind, and he cursed again. He turned to the tree line on his right, yelled an order in Spanish, and made an "X" over his head with his arms.

When he reached her, she was crying. He grabbed her and held her. He felt her arms around him and realized he was crying, too. He slipped the messenger bag from her shoulder and carried it as he walked her back to the toolshed.

When they entered, she saw Brite manacled like a prisoner in a medieval prison, his face swollen and bloody. She froze and looked up at Lafoon. "Why?"

"A matter of necessity," Lafoon said.

She took the messenger bag from Lafoon and removed a packet of facial tissues as she approached Brite. When she reached up to blot his eye, Lafoon glowered at him. "Better not, Ester," Brite whispered.

"Get away from him," Lafoon said. "He's been hunting me for years."

"I've been hunting you too," she said, putting the tissues away. She moved close enough to touch Lafoon. "I never doubted that you were still alive. I loved Red Pirtle, but I knew he couldn't tie his own shoelaces without your help."

"And you lived like a princess in a fairy tale," Lafoon said. "Was that so dreadful?"

"It became dreadful when I realized you were behind unspeakable acts." The messenger bag came up, and she shoved it against his chest. "It's time for the tale to end."

He glanced at it and smiled. "I presume we don't live happily ever after."

"We don't live at all. Old sins cast long shadows." She pulled the trigger, and the blast rocked him back. He watched scarlet fluid foam out of the hole in his lung and dropped to his knees without losing the smile.

She dropped the bag, and they both stared at it.

"It all started with that smell," he said.

"I remember," she said. "Gun smoke in a slaughterhouse. I wish the old man had killed us."

He fell back and lay looking up at her, his teeth bloody. "Kill yourself quickly or be infected," he said, and he died.

"The handcuff key," Brite said.

Her search of Lafoon's pockets turned up nothing, so Brite nodded at the tools hanging on a wall. "The cross peen hammer."

She took it down and slid it into his hands. He ran the handle through the iron ring and pulled himself up until he was standing on the bench. He chopped the rafter into shreds with the peen side of the hammer's head and jerked the chain off. Then he came off the bench, took the pistol from her and slid it into his waistband. He positioned the short chain linking the cuffs over the horn of a farrier's anvil, and she struck it repeatedly with the hammer until it broke.

She collapsed, her fists balled against her chest.

"What's the matter?" Brite asked.

"Heart," she said.

"I didn't know," he said and laid her back, away from the red pool around Lafoon.

She waved him away. "You heard him. Let me die quickly."

Shortly afterward, she stopped breathing, and he began CPR. He continued until he heard a noise in the barn, then pulled the pistol and took cover behind the anvil stand.

Eastman burst into the shed, the shotgun shouldered. When he saw bodies on the floor, his fingers dropped to the twin triggers as he threw down on Brite.

"Friendly!" Brite yelled and dropped the pistol.

Doc covered Eastman with her pistol while he moved around for a clean shot at Brite.

"Kick me that pistol and talk fast," Eastman told him.

Eastman looked quickly around the shed while Brite recounted what happened. The pieces seemed to fit. There was Brite's battered eye, the hammer and the splintered rafter, the chain on the floor, the separated cuffs around Brite's wrists, and the pistol Brite claimed Ester had used on Lafoon. Brite's crushed phone lay in Lafoon's blood.

"What about it, Doc?" Eastman asked "You believe him?"

She was on the floor examining Ester's body, tears running through the crescent on her face. "There's no visible trauma, but we won't know the cause of death until autopsy. Ester had a serious heart condition. It's certainly plausible that emotional shock and physical exertion were enough to kill her."

"Go figure," Brite said, gazing at Lafoon's body. "All these years she hunted him to blow him away." He looked up at Eastman. "When I couldn't find him, we got you."

Eastman lowered the shotgun and motioned for Brite to get up. "Why'd you yell 'friendly' when I came in?"

"Just something I picked up from The History Channel."

Chapter 54

Eastman found a Navajo saddle blanket in the barn and covered Ester's body. The three of them stood looking down at the tiny mound a few feet from Lafoon.

Brite broke the silence. "How'd you two get to the shed without getting killed?"

"Lafoon buried three mobile homes under the garden," Doc explained. "They form a tunnel that runs to the barn. There's a lab, a storeroom, and his emergency living quarters."

"Storeroom?"

She pulled the marble sculpture from her pocket and handed it to him. "It's full of art relics."

Brite held it up to the lantern. "There are more of these?"

"No idea," she said. "It freaked Charlie out, so we left."

He shook it in Eastman's face. "Do you know what this thing's worth?"

"I don't care," Eastman said, shoving it away. "It's a dick, for crying out loud."

"It was knocked off a statue by papal proclamation," Brite said. "Five hundred years ago, some pope got worried that the dongs on the statues in the Vatican museum were offensive, so he ordered them chiseled off. There's a bunch of these things squirreled away someplace."

Eastman's phone buzzed.

"I've been calling you every five minutes," Tillman said. "Your phone goes straight to voicemail."

"Doc and I were underground," Eastman said. "No cell signal."

"Doc's there?"

"Long story. Where are you?"

"Low-crawling in the brush," Tillman said. "Where's José and Adolfo?"

"Out there someplace. One of them nearly killed Doc. If I can draw more fire, we can work out the point of origin."

Eastman handed Brite the shotgun and told him to take care of Doc. Her face reddened at the implication that she couldn't care for herself, but he left before she could reply. He ran to a stall in the rear of the barn, rolled away the feed trough where he and Doc had exited the tunnel, and went down the ladder. He hurried through the mobile homes, turning on every light. He grabbed an aluminum ladder from the storeroom and shoved it up through the hole in the floor under Lafoon's chair. When he saw the wooden curtain rod, he came out of his coat and ran it through a sleeve. He waved the coat across the window, waiting for another sniper's round.

"We never fire at unverified targets," the man behind him said. "But if you show your face, José will put a big hole between your eyes."

The man in sunglasses held a large-frame semiautomatic pistol, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. Eastman considered reaching for the Peacemaker but knew Adolfo could kill him before he touched it.

"Turn around, please," Adolfo said.

He complied, and Adolfo disarmed him.

"Where is the old woman?" Adolfo asked.

Eastman glanced at the hole, thinking he caught a glimpse of a shadow. It gave him an idea. "She's hiding below," he said. "That shot through the window scared her."

"Call her."

"She can't hear me. She's in another room."

"There are more rooms?"

Eastman nodded. "There's a storeroom attached to the lab under us."

"Viejo has a storeroom?"

"It's just a bunch of junk."

"Why would he hide junk?"

"Because he's crazy, in case you haven't noticed."

"Tell me about this junk."

"It's counterfeit relics. Crap he uses to con people. Wood from Noah's ark. Nails from the Holy Cross. A couple of Holy Grails. Swords, spears, stuff like that."

"There are spears?"

"Lord, yes. A whole box."

Adolfo was silent, so Eastman added, "Made in China, of course. The shipping label's still on it."

Adolfo produced a rectangle of paper from his hip pocket and tossed it at Eastman's feet. Eastman picked it up and saw that it was a photograph of the Holy Spear, probably torn from one of the books Lafoon left on the coffee table.

Eastman slapped it with the back of his hand. "Same damned thing," he said. "Cheesy gold plating and ten bucks worth of silver. Probably look good over somebody's fireplace if the light's bad."

"Show me," Adolfo said, waving the pistol at the hole in the floor. "The spears and the old lady."

Eastman started for the hole and Adolfo said, "Lie on the floor when you reach the bottom. ¿Me entiendes?"

"I understand."

The pistol was pointed at him as he went down the ladder, so Eastman stretched out on the floor and listened to Adolfo phone his brother. After Adolfo told José what he was doing, he descended into the lab with the agility of an acrobat. When he was down, he kicked the sole of Eastman's boot and motioned for him to get up.

They proceeded to the storage room. Eastman tried to imagine what he'd say when he couldn't come up with a box of spears. He'd have to wander around tearing into containers, stalling until Adolfo stumbled or there was an act of God, preferably an earthquake. Otherwise, hand-to-hand combat was his only option, and he imagined the physically fit commando could take him.

When they reached the door to the storeroom, Eastman opened it. The lights had been turned off.

"Where are the lights?" Adolfo asked.

"The switch is at the other end."

Adolfo pulled a compact flashlight from his pocket and thumbed it on. "Move slowly," he said, nudging Eastman forward.

Eastman started down the narrow walkway, Adolfo's light roving over everything around them. As they neared an intersecting aisle, Adolfo gripped the back of Eastman's collar and jammed the pistol between his shoulder blades.

"What's wrong?" Eastman asked in a loud voice, hoping if Brite was close enough to hear, he would come up with something more creative than blindsiding Adolfo. Adolfo's demise would be good, but Eastman was certain to become collateral damage.

"No surprises," Adolfo said.

"I hate surprises too," Eastman said louder.

The rest of the trip to the light switch was uneventful, and he clicked on the lights. Two Marks-A-Lot lettered signs were taped to the wall. One read SWORDS, the other SPEARS. Arrows drawn under the words pointed in opposite directions.

I'm dead, he thought. This is straight out of a cartoon.

Adolfo stared quizzically at signs. "Spears," he chose, like a game show contestant.

Eastman had no idea what Brite had in mind, but it was obvious he'd been eavesdropping when Eastman had dreamed up the Chinese spears story.

"Greek or Roman spears?" he asked.

"Roman."

"Roman, it is," Eastman said. He began to make his way along the wall, looking for another goofy cue and ready to run, hit the floor, or die. "The Romans are back here, as I recall."

They bypassed a string of large boxes against the wall, none of which were long enough to contain spears. Then Adolfo pointed down at a box. It was long and bore a shipping label with hand-drawn Chinese characters that Brite probably had tattooed on many a drunk.

"Here they are," Eastman said. Then he spotted a hand-printed sentence at the bottom, the words too small for Adolfo's poor eyesight: open near big blue box—hit floor! Eastman tore off the document, placing his thumb over the shipper's declaration of : Steel Shelving. He dragged the box of shelves to the blue box and fumbled with the cardboard lid until Adolfo said, "Tear it open."

He ripped open the lid.

Adolfo stepped closer, removing the sunglasses for a better look at the flat gray shelves. "¿Que es esto?"

There was a thump in the blue box, and twin barrels protruded through a flap cut in the side. Eastman went to the floor. Three shots sounded in the span of a second.

The first load of buckshot struck Adolfo in the lower abdomen; the second went higher on recoil and took off most of his jaw. The pistol and sunglasses hit the floor before Adolfo did.

Eastman sat up and saw a monster that had been Adolfo grabbing for the pistol, wailing in agony, and spraying blood with every breath. When he touched the weapon, Eastman stomped his hand.

He pulled the Peacemaker from Adolfo's waist and cocked it in a single movement. Point blank, the .45 Long Colt bullet burst Adolfo's skull like a water balloon.

Eastman wiped the gore off his face with his sleeve while he wrenched the AK away from Adolfo's body.

He heard another thump and Brite rose like a jack-in-the-box in slow motion. He was pale and struggling to stand. Blood was seeping through the right shoulder of his coat.

"You're shot," Eastman said.

Brite sighed. "Ever think of going into medicine?"

* * *

Back in the toolshed, Eastman sent Doc to the underground living quarters, where Brite lay on the bed. She examined him and fashioned ice packs out of frozen food from Lafoon's freezer.

"What's the verdict?" Brite asked.

"You're still alive, so the bullet missed your lungs," she said. "It shattered your collar bone and exited above a shoulder blade."

"Where's Eastman?" he asked.

"The toolshed. He has a plan."

Eastman's plan was to call José on Adolfo's phone and tell him Adolfo was dead. José wouldn't doubt him since he knew Adolfo would never give up his phone to Eastman.

Then one of three things would happen. José would seek him out for revenge, try to escape, or do both.

José answered. "Bueno."

"How's it hanging, vato?" Eastman asked. The silence that followed told him José was rechecking the caller ID.

"Who are you?" José asked.

"Charlie Eastman. The handsome guy you served the barbecue to."

"Where is my brother?"

"Barbecuing in hell."

Silence again. Eastman said, "Here's a one-time offer. Give up now. You didn't kill those boys and tonight's casualties were worthless assholes. I can almost guarantee you a life sentence. Your other option is dying here like an animal."

"Where do I go for this surrender?" José asked, sounding more arrogant than interested.

"Walk to the toolshed, unarmed."

"If I do, someone will kill me."

"We will kill you if you don't."

Eastman had looped a rope under Lafoon's arms. He used a pulley to raise his body near the front door. Then he positioned the lantern so José could identify Lafoon through the rifle scope when the door opened. He tied a cord to the door handle and took cover behind the anvil.

He pulled the door open, the phone still to his ear.

After a few seconds, José said, "Viejo is dead?"

"He's got all the symptoms," Eastman said.

José sent a .338 round through the center of Lafoon's chest. It exited on his right upper back.

"It is now official," José said. "Viejo is dead."

Eastman disconnected and kicked the door shut. He grabbed the lantern and found where the bullet hit the wall. He drew an imaginary line from the exit wound in Lafoon's back to the hole in the wall and called Tillman again.

"You okay?" Tillman asked.

"Fine. The bullet went through Lafoon like a paper doll. Shot came from the direction of the house."

Tillman swung the night scope from the woods to the house. "Nothing outside. He has to be inside."

* * *

José hurried back to Lafoon's treatment room. He spotted the ladder Adolfo had told him about and slid down it, squeezing the side rails with his feet and holding the rifle like an infant. While he pulled off his boots, he said a prayer, asking that he find his brother alive. Then he crept through the lab in his sock feet, panning with the rifle as he moved toward the storeroom. When he reached the door, he placed his ear against it, then cracked it.

The lights were on and the smell of gunpowder lingered. He drew a breath and entered. It took him less than a minute to find Adolfo's body.

* * *

Brite's head came off the pillow, looking toward the storeroom. "You hear that?"

Doc nodded. "Somebody screamed. I hope it wasn't Charlie."

"It wasn't," he assured her. "We'd have heard shots first. Eastman has Adolfo's AK."

"Then who?"

"José, more'n likely. He either won the lottery or found his headless brother."

"What do you suggest we do?" Doc asked matter-of-factly.

"Leave the back way and find Eastman. You'll be all right."

She drew the pistol. "I'm not leaving you here."

"Ever shot anybody?"

She shook her head.

"Then give me that piece and lock the door, fast."

It was the first time she had heard authority in Brite's voice. She placed the gun in his good hand, dropped her spare ammo next to him, and ran to the door. She slid the steel bolt into the doorframe as quietly as possible.

The door shook, and she jumped back. The man on the other side beat on it and shouted in Spanish.

Brite told her to stand clear. When she did, he raised the .45 and put a round a foot above the handle and seven more across the door in rapid succession.

The assault on the other side stopped and she looked at Brite. "I think you hit him."

"You see any light where the bullets hit?" Brite asked.

"No."

"Then this ain't half over," he said. He held up one of the full magazines. "These fat-ass bullets can't penetrate it. You should get out now."

"I'm here for the duration," she said.

Without taking his eyes off the door, he ejected the empty magazine and propped the pistol upside down against his body. One-handed, he shoved a fresh magazine into the butt until it clicked in place, then raised the weapon and released the slide.

After a minute of silence, they heard metal against metal. A pry bar worked its way into the room between the door and the frame.

Brite said, "Hit the floor."

Instead, she ran to the door, grabbed the bar, and held onto it as tightly as she could. Panicked, she looked back at Brite, who had gotten up and then collapsed.

She let go of the bar and slapped the lights off just before the door broke open.

A wild man stormed in, ready to put the rifle to use. The light from the doorway fell on Brite lying on the floor and José brought the rifle up.

In the darkest corner of the room, Eastman cleared his throat and the rifle barrel swung toward him.

Doc grabbed José's hair from behind and pummeled his head with the marble phallus while he fought to keep the rifle.

"Turn him loose!" Eastman yelled.

She hit the floor, and the AK-47 lit up the room. José's body flew apart while everything around him turned red and wet.

Doc crawled back to the body and hammered it until Eastman caught her arm and lifted her to her feet.

Chapter 55

Eastman, Tillman, and Bad Hair stood back, far away from the churning four-blade main rotor, while Doc and the medical crew secured Brite to a gurney in the air ambulance. Doc climbed out and waved to the pilot, and the Bell 412 Special Performance chopper lifted from a clearing near the creek where Brite had burned the hovercraft.

When she reached the trio standing among the smorgasbord of emergency vehicles that had finally arrived, Eastman looked puzzled. "You're not going to the hospital with him?"

"No need to," she said. "There's a doctor on board, and Brite's conscious." She touched the abrasions on her face and smiled. "The bastard told me to go heal myself."

A black-and-white with snow chains rolled up behind them, its blinding light bar unremarkable among a dozen others. A state trooper climbed out with a roll of yellow tape and a toolbox. He nodded politely as he rushed past to join the other troopers and deputies in the house.

Tillman looked at the eastern horizon, then at his watch. "Don't you think it's weird? The medevac chopper has come and gone, and we're still waiting on the FBI."

"Medevac crews are ready to fly at a moment's notice," Eastman said. "How often does the Feeb's rescue team get called out?"

Bad Hair was staring up at the hole in the heavens where the helicopter had vanished. "Depressing," he said.

"What's depressing?" Tillman asked.

"You and I should have stayed home. Except for watching Adolfo cap Cuatro in the parking lot, we were wherever the action wasn't. All we got was a pair of froze asses."

"And a bunch of explaining to do."

"Before they fire us?"

"Or indict us."

The engine on a trooper's car was still running and Eastman tried the driver's door. It was unlocked, so he waved the group into it.

As they enjoyed the warmth, Little Noodle materialized like a furry genie in the headlights, methodically marking tires. Doc got out and clapped her hands. When the dog saw her and the open door, he leaped in.

* * *

Gunplay and a trail of bodies in Texas meant television ratings. By sunup, salivating reporters were demanding information. Helicopters were hovering above the motel, the river bridge, and Lafoon's farm, while news vans claimed their territories. Initially assumed they were mixed up in a turf war among drug smugglers, law enforcement officials announced they had been unable to link drugs to the carnage.

Finally, an FBI spokesman tentatively identified one of the decedents as Jacob Ziv, a prominent art dealer and collector from Newport, Rhode Island. During questioning, the agent admitted that a cache of museum pieces believed to be World War II plunder had been discovered in a tunnel. He refused to comment further until the authenticity of the pieces had been verified. He described Ziv as a long-time person of interest in an international smuggling investigation, but when questioned about why the Bureau had not been able indict him, the agent cited lack of evidence. The spear was never mentioned.

Interest in the case intensified when it was revealed that Ester Pirtle, widow of do-it-yourself plumbing pioneer Handyman Red Pirtle, had died as well, probably of stress-related causes during the rampage. Rather than revealing her relationship to Ziv, law enforcement officials said Ester had possibly been kidnapped by two of her undocumented ranch hands.

Within a few hours after Eastman had given a written statement, Pirtle family attorney Ross Kaplan arrived by private plane to protect Pirtle interests and to offer Eastman free counsel.

"Thanks, but I don't need a lawyer," Eastman said when Kaplan appeared at the sheriff's department. "They were good shootings."

"I'm sure they were," Kaplan said. "I'm here because Ester called me a few days ago. She told me about the approaching storm and said you and she were about to meet her brother. She gave me strict instructions to take care of you afterward. I was under the impression she knew what was coming."

* * *

It took days to unravel the gunfight. The relics found in Lafoon's storeroom were seized by the FBI, and a team of Interpol experts were called in to identify and return the pieces to their lawful owners. The US Attorney's office showed no interest in a gang war without prosecutable survivors, so the investigation was left to local authorities.

The murders of Noble Goodman and Chuy Medina were cleared by Eastman's statement and grand jury testimony. The recording of Lafoon's account of Harvey Goodman's ordering the death of his son was corroborated by phone records reflecting calls, at the time of the murders, to and from Mexican cartel member Emilio Longoria-Sanchez, also known as Numero Cuatro. The fact that the boys' bodies were discovered in the cemetery Billy Poco cared for further corroborated Lafoon's story.

The most compelling testimony came from Doc. She'd delivered three of the grand jurors' babies and was treating others for various medical conditions.

"What's this about that old man blowing up a school?" asked the grand juror Doc had diagnosed with herpes.

"I'm aware of his so-called confession," Doc said. "But I also saw the electrical contraption the man used to alter his brain. I don't know how much damage he incurred."

"You think he just dreamed it up?"

"I have no idea," Doc said. "The school he attended did explode in 1937, but it was thoroughly investigated and found to be the result of a spark from a power tool igniting a natural gas leak. To say that the explosion was retaliation from bullying seems farfetched, in my opinion. It would appeal only to conspiracy theorists and reopen wounds in a wonderful community."

A potbellied mechanic who maintained Doc's car and suffered periodic bouts with shingles sat forward. "What about that ship business in Texas City? My great-uncle was kilt in it."

Doc said, "As you know, Mister Lafoon or Ziv or whatever he was known by, claimed he started the fire with a cigar. He said he was using the name of a famous pirate called Black Bart. But how will we ever know whether it was true or sheer fantasy?"

"And the JFK business?"

"The tragedies he confessed to became more and more farfetched as he drifted in and out of consciousness. But the information was passed on to the FBI anyway, to do with as they wish."

"One last thing," someone said. "The old man claimed this whole mess was over the spear used to kill Jesus. He said one of Ester's ranch hands thought the spear could fix his eyesight. Can you shed any light on that?"

"Ester Pirtle drove me to the farm to treat the man's electrical burns," Doc said. "I never saw a spear and, to my knowledge, one was never found. Mister Lafoon collected art and stolen war relics. He was a successful businessman, but he was known to everyone as the strangest duck they'd ever met."

After she was dismissed, Doc thought about Adolfo's quest for the lance and the suitcases of money Eastman told her about. Then she remembered that while they were securing Brite to the gurney, one of the flight crew members had left the chopper for a short time. She had thought it was a bit unusual because Brite needed immediate transport, but she guessed the man probably stepped out to heed nature's call in the woods. When he climbed aboard again, he was out of breath. Then he patted Brite's leg and smiled at him.

The grand jury exonerated Eastman, unanimously agreeing that Ester's hired hands had gotten what they had coming. Shooting Adolfo and José was not only justifiable, but praiseworthy. They also reached a consensus that the dead Yankee art dealer was a thief and a nut who shot himself when he was cornered, and that was the end of the matter.

Ultimately, no one was fired or indicted. Tillman and Bad Hair Bates cooperated fully with the department's investigation. They maintained that they had been asked to work off-duty jobs for the Pirtle Ranch Corporation, assisting private investigator Charles Eastman as he conducted a surveillance of two of Ester Pirtle's ranch hands whom Eastman suspected of participating in a smuggling operation. Tillman stated that during the surveillance, he and Deputy Bates discovered the existence of a federal warrant for one of the men and were attempting to locate and arrest him.

Because Tillman and Bates's names were mentioned on national news coverage, they became local celebrities. As punishment for working unapproved off-duty employment, they received verbal reprimands.

Chapter 56

Doc awoke and squinted at the sunlight leaking through the break in the drapery. She felt the warm body against her backside and enjoyed it for a minute or two. Finally, she turned over and saw Eastman smiling at her.

"Do I smell coffee?" she asked.

"Nose like a bloodhound," he said and sat up. He lifted a mug from the table beside the bed and handed it to her.

She took a couple of sips and reached over him to set it back. "What time's your appointment?"

He checked the clock radio, and then slid his arm under her and rolled her on top of him. "We've got an hour. Get the Noxzema."

"Not so fast, cowpoker. It's Saturday, and we've got the rest of the day when you get back."

She dismounted and he sat up.

"Crap," he said. "I've never heard of a high-dollar lawyer working weekends. They usually have flunkies handle such things."

"Ross is different. He won't leave the Pirtle ranch until he knows everything's just so. Ester said he's the most fastidious person she'd ever met."

"What could a fastidious person possibly want with me?"

"Maybe he wants to hire your services."

"What services? All I do is stand around looking western."

"Then it might have something to do with Brite," she said, getting up. She looked around for her bathrobe and spotted it hanging beside his hat in the hallway. "You asshole," she said, heading for it naked. "You moved my robe for a cheap thrill."

"I'm kind of fastidious myself," he said.

Putting it on, she said, "I understand the suitcases never turned up."

"That's true. The feds polygraphed Tillman and Bad Hair about them. They passed with flying colors."

"And the Holy Lance?"

"If anybody saw it, they didn't live to tell about it."

"What about Brite?" she asked. "How do we know he didn't take the money and the spear?"

"We don't. The feds say they'd like to talk to him about it."

"Talk to him? With two suitcases of money and a priceless relic missing?"

"Look, Brite saved my ass, and I don't care what happened to Lafoon's money. As far as the spear's concerned, if Brite has it, it's probably in good hands."

She wasn't about to drop the matter. "The hospital said Brite vanished mysteriously."

"He probably just walked out."

"He didn't walk out. He needed help to sit up. And what about that business with the ambulance?"

"What about it?"

"Don't you get it?" she said. "He was transported in a helicopter, but a ground ambulance delivered him to the ER. Why didn't the chopper land on the heliport?"

"Maybe there wasn't room," he said. "We'd had a major ice storm. What if more choppers were waiting to land there?"

"They weren't. I checked with the ER."

"What are you getting at?"

"Brite arrived mysteriously. He left mysteriously. Somebody came in and wheeled him out unnoticed."

"Good. I hope they keep him."

* * *

Ross Kaplan answered the door in a coat and tie.

Eastman shook his hand as he entered. "You're duded up awful early, Ross."

"I'm always duded up," Kaplan said without expression.

"What exactly is our business?" Eastman asked, following him into Red Pirtle's study.

Kaplan lifted a large ring of keys off the desk and handed it to him. Eastman was about to ask about them, but Kaplan was already shoving a folder at him.

"Tell me that's not about a bull's dingus," Eastman said.

"It isn't. It's a list of things Ester knew you'd need."

"For what?"

Kaplan nodded at the key ring in Eastman's hand. "Those are the keys to main house, the gates, and all the vehicles that belong to the estate. There are many other assets, but we'll go into that later."

"She wanted me to be the caretaker?"

Kaplan finally smiled. "No, she wanted you to be the owner. All of this and much more is about to become yours."

While Eastman stared at the key ring, Kaplan produced an envelope from inside his coat. "I almost forgot. Here's a list of items required for maintenance of the dog. His meals, the vet, his likes and dislikes, et cetera."

"Dog?"

Kaplan was still smiling when he got the leash from the closet, coiled it, and shoved it into Eastman's coat pocket. "You'll get full details when you hear the stipulation."

* * *

The late afternoon sun warmed their faces while they scaled the towering faux windmill Red Pirtle had built, but couldn't bear to part with.

"I'm a fool for letting you talk me into this," Doc said.

"You climbed up to Billy Poco's tree house," Eastman said. "What's the difference?"

"Thirty more feet," she said, looking down. "This is certain death."

"Eyes front," he said. "Don't think about it."

He climbed onto the platform and helped her through the access hole. "You know, Billy Poco used to swing off the tail of this thing," he said.

"You've told me that a dozen times," she said, holding his arm in a death grip.

After they were settled, he took off his hat and swept the landscape with it, the white limestone bluffs along the river still visible in the shadows. "Just look at that. I feel like an angel looking over his territory."

"It is your territory. She left you every bit of it."

He put his arm around her. "With a little persuasion from you, according to my fastidious attorney."

"Ester thought of this ranch as a living thing," Doc said. "She couldn't stand the thought of developers carving it up into weekend getaways. She had no family, so she asked me what I thought about leaving it to you. I told her it was a great idea. It was nice of her to ask me, but that business with Billy Poco and the unicorn had already sold her on you." She smiled. "Next thing you know, ol' Jed's a millionaire."

He chuckled. "It's weird when you think about it. One day, I'm so down and out I want to die. So what does Ester do? She conspires with Brite to trick me with a broke bull pecker. Then you come along and save Brite and me with a broke statue pecker. I think I'll call this the Broke Pecker Ranch."

She nodded at the majestic old ranch house. "Did the lawyer tell you how much you're worth?"

"He said it's more than my brain can handle in one sitting."

"So what's next?"

"A couple of things. I'm backing Tillman for sheriff in the next election. He's a family man, he's honest, and everybody likes him." He pointed south. "And I'm turning my old place into a state-of-the-art animal shelter. Bo's agreed to run it. She loves animals and used to do PR for some oil company. She says all I have to do is ride in on horseback once a year and get my picture taken handing her a check. I imagine I'd better take some riding lessons."

He leaned back against one of the timbers, propped up his leg, and hung his hat over his knee. They sat for a while, enjoying the sunset, and then he looked at her. "There's something I want to ask you."

"The answer's no."

"What?"

"You were going to propose."

"But we love each other. You're happy here. You've got your practice and I'm a rich sumbitch. It's the perfect formula."

"It's the perfect storm. Those are reasons not to get married. You're happy. I'm happy. So why can't we just let it be? We can love each other without turning a wonderful relationship into a business deal." When she saw his disappointment, she said, "The truth is, I'm scared of marriage, Charlie. I've tried it, remember?"

He looked out at the cattle that dotted the landscape, every head bowed. "I guess that leaves me all alone in my home on the range with a bunch of crapping cows and two unicorns."

She looked at him.

"I'm getting the little guy a girlfriend," he said. "They'll have free run of the place."

"What about Little Noodle?" she asked, pointing down at the big dog lying in the grass, looking up at them. "He could use a friend."

"I'm his friend, according to the will. And I don't want two of those things."

She whistled, and the dog sat up. She yanked the hat off Eastman's knee and sailed it toward the house.

Eastman watched Little Noodle go long like a wide receiver, then break left without taking his eyes off the prize. The instant the brim touched the winter rye, four paws pinned it and the fight was on.

"Do it, boy!" Doc yelled and pointed at the heavens. "Make Ester proud!"

Eastman sat patiently while the dog named after a circus pony shredded his hat. "Call Neiman's," he said. "Tell them to send me a dozen more."

Ends

About the Author

J.G. Vineyard is a fifth-generation Texan. He began a career in law enforcement in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as an investigator in the Criminal Intelligence Division of the Department of Public Safety at DFW Airport. He transferred to the Dallas Organized Crime Task Force (Metro Squad) in1981 and spent nine years there. From 1990 until 2007, he was assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas Field Division Office, Enforcement Group 2 (a smuggling unit). Over the years, he accumulated numerous awards from law enforcement agencies and was an instructor at several area police academies including the Dallas Sheriff's Department, Dallas Police Department, Regional Police Academy in Arlington, Texas, and DEA's training programs. During that time, he also taught courses in international smuggling at the American Airlines academy. He holds a Master Peace Officers certificate and is a graduate of DEA's Drug Unit Commanders Academy in Quantico, Virginia. From the other side of his brain, he has written a full-length comedy stage play called Moby And Dick, which was a semi-finalist in a statewide playwriting competition, and a one-act play called Tap The Brakes, Elvis. He belongs to a local playwrights' forum and Mystery Writers of America.

