Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip (14 page)

BUFORD WAS HAVING second thoughts. Hell, he was having third thoughts by this point. Was this the best plan they could come up with? Something about it didn’t feel right.

“I feel like a horse’s ass,” he muttered, with Little Joe lying right beside him. “What kind of clothes are these for a man, anyway?”

“You don’t like camo?” Joe asked.

Buford didn’t answer. He thought he heard the drone of an engine in the distance.

“Camo’s kinda cool,” Joe added. “College kids are wearing it all over the place nowadays. I’m gonna keep mine.”

Buford checked his watch. Not yet four o’clock. They still had plenty of daylight. He looked through the rifle scope one more time. Rock steady and clear as a bell. He could almost read the note they’d taped to the front door. But the rifle itself? It was one of Colby’s, so if it wasn’t sighted in—accurate as hell at two hundred yards—that was Colby’s own fault. They’d stolen it from the man’s gun safe just an hour ago. Joe got a kick out of smashing the glass, wanting to grab a bunch of other weapons, but Buford just wanted to get in, get one decent firearm, and get out. Buford prided himself on being prepared for all sorts of shit, but in this case, he hadn’t foreseen the need for a high-powered rifle. He hadn’t brought one, but now they had a good one. A Sako .270. Made in Finland, of all places. Buford couldn’t imagine what they needed a long-range rifle for in Finland, except maybe target practice on baby seals.

Joe started to say something else, but Buford held up his hand. Yeah, now he could hear it. Definitely an engine. Getting closer.

“It’s gonna work, smooth as a baby’s ass,” Joe whispered. “Just you wait and see. Hell of a lot better’n a paintball gun.”

Phil Colby ran a typical cow-calf operation, with a hundred and fifty brood cows, all Black Angus. Seven bulls got the job done breeding his herd in the spring, and the cows dropped their calves the following winter. Colby would sell the calves the next fall, well after they’d been weaned, wormed, vaccinated, and branded.

Today, he was auctioning some of his older cows, culls that were unlikely to produce in the future. Late last year, he’d debated wintering them, wanting to avoid unnecessary expenses. But he’d had an intuition that prices would be up in the spring, and he’d been right.

Colby had six head in a small pen, ready to load. He worked them through the crowding alley, then through the loading chute and up into the livestock trailer. Everything went smoothly, and just before four o’clock, he was ready to hit the road for Lampasas. Tomorrow’s auction began at sunrise, and check-in for the livestock ended tonight at seven.

He dropped his truck into gear and drove back to the ranch house, wanting to change into a fresh shirt and grab a cold drink for the ride.

He parked out front and hopped from the truck, and as he walked toward the front door he spotted a note taped to the small inset window.

But when he got closer, he was confused by what the note said.

BACK OFF!

That’s all. No signature, no explanation, nothing.

What the hell is this all about?

He didn’t recognize the handwriting. Who would have left this? Someone playing a weird joke?

He pulled the note from the glass, and he was reaching for the doorknob when the window exploded, shards of glass flying everywhere, followed a millisecond later by the roar of a high-powered rifle.

Colby’s entire body flinched, and as he scrambled inside the house to safety
,
he was acutely aware that a bullet had just missed his head by inches.

Blackie climbed into the Dumpster at ten minutes past four, because he knew that the nice clerk—Blackie didn’t remember his name—came on duty at four. The other guy, the one with the earlier shift, he was a hard case, and he chased Blackie away as soon as he saw him. But not the nice one. He was more of a live-and-let-live sort. Even gave Blackie a few bucks one time, asking him not to spend it on booze.

Blackie nearly always found some decent stuff in the Dumpster. Stale bread. Half-eaten doughnuts. Maybe part of a burrito or a slice of pizza. Sometimes he even found things that didn’t come from the store. People dumped their own personal garbage into the Dumpster. Everyday trash usually, but sometimes tattered clothing or old books. Junk like that. Things that could just as easily go to a charity, where they’d do some good.

Today he hit paydirt. With just a little digging, Blackie found a box of old magazines.
People. Time. Popular Mechanics.
Blackie leaned out of the Dumpster and dropped the box into his shopping cart. Yessir, he’d take those back to his tent. Give him something to do with his time. Or maybe trade them for cigarettes.

Next, he rooted around under some cardboard boxes and came up with a gallon jug of Gatorade, still half full with the orange-flavored stuff. He took a long swig, and boy did it taste good, even though it was kind of warm. He replaced the cap and gently dropped the bottle into the cart, next to the magazine box.

Then he found something else, and for a second he didn’t know what it was. He’d never actually held one in his hand before. Just a small, black, rectangular object. Hard plastic, rounded corners. Then he realized it was designed to unfold, so he unfolded it. Well, hot damn. It was a phone, that’s what it was. One of those portable jobs. He remembered they were calling them cell phones nowadays. He saw people using these things all the time. Like when Blackie stood at an intersection, holding a sign, asking for spare change, a lot of the drivers sat there, waiting on the light, yakking on their phones. Eyes straight ahead, a good reason to act like they didn’t even see Blackie. Too damn busy and important talking on their phones.

The thing was all lit up now, ever since Blackie opened it. Almost like it was asking him to dial it. But there was nobody to call. Blackie’s brother back in Indianapolis, if he was still alive, wouldn’t want to hear from him. What had it been, nineteen years? There was nobody else, either. Everybody Blackie ran around with, well, they damn sure didn’t have phones.

Blackie decided he’d trade it, too. Then something else occurred to him. Whoever owned this phone was probably looking for it. They were bound to call their own number eventually. And they’d probably offer a pretty good reward to get it back.

“Hell of a shot,” Joe muttered, both of them still hunkered down between some cedar trees.

“It did the job,” Buford replied, satisfied with himself.

Originally, Joe had asked if he could do the shooting, but Buford had decided against it. He figured Joe might’ve ended up shooting Colby in the leg or something on purpose, just out of pure spite.

Now the plan was to watch the house for a while. If Colby tried to leave, or if he showed his face in a window, Buford would lob another round at him. Get the man good and freaked out. Let him know they weren’t fucking around.

The house had a few large, well-trimmed live oaks around it, but no cedar or other brush to block the view. Behind the house, the ground sloped upward to a ridgeline, which could be seen easily over the rooftop. So even if Colby made a run out the back door, they could spot him. Besides, Buford figured, if Colby was scared enough to bolt, that would mean their plan had worked.

Next, they’d just call him up and tell him exactly what they wanted.

“You gonna take out his truck before we leave?” Joe asked.

“That’s what I said.”

“An engine shot?” Joe was getting excited. “Blast one right through the block?”

Colby slammed the door behind him and went straight to the nearest phone.

The line was dead.

He ran to his den and immediately saw more broken glass. His gun cabinet was a wreck. He reached through the empty doorframe and grabbed a Winchester .30-06. From the lower cabinet he grabbed a box of ammo and a pair of 20x60 binoculars.

Staying low, he made his way to the master bedroom. Here he would have a good view out the front of the house. Chances were, whoever had fired the shot was on the edge of the brush line a couple hundred yards away.

He lowered himself to the floor and crept to the window, where he raised the miniblind about six inches—just enough that he’d be able to stick the barrel out the window and still see through the rifle scope. He was lucky; the window itself was already open.

He raised the binoculars and began to scan the trees in the distance. The problem was, there were any number of places where the shooter could be hiding. And if he was wearing camo, or standing in the shadows, Colby would have very little chance of spotting him. Unless he moved. Same thing was true in deer hunting. When a deer’s instincts told it to hold still, it could blend in with the scenery so well a hunter might walk within ten feet of it. But when the deer decided to make a run for it, that’s when it seemed to suddenly materialize out of thin air.

So Colby continuously swept the binoculars back and forth, looking for the motion that would be the dead giveaway.

He waited, but nothing moved. So he waited some more. After twenty long minutes, Colby finally decided that the shooter had taken off.

Then another shot rang out.

“You hit the tire,” Joe said, sounding disappointed. “Did you mean to hit the tire? I thought you was gonna hit the engine.”

“This is better,” Buford replied. “We’ll know for sure he’s out of commission.” He worked the bolt on the Sako and chambered another round. It was one fine-shooting piece of iron. Accurate as hell.
Take out two tires,
he thought.
Then it’ll take more than a spare to get him back on the road.

He swung the scope onto the back tire, held it steady, and squeezed the trigger.

Boom!

The tire flattened on the ground, easy as pie.

Buford chambered another one, more out of habit than anything else. He figured he’d done enough damage. He was turning toward Joe, about to tell him it was time to vamoose, when he heard Colby’s first shot.

He’d never know for certain, but he was pretty damn sure he heard the whine of the bullet passing about an inch from his left ear. He thought he felt a slight puff of air.

Then another shot came. And another.

Things got kind of loose and disorganized after that. Buford was crawling backward on his belly, Joe chattering something at him, wanting to charge the house, Buford saying hell no, and then they finally managed to pull back behind a massive line of brush and hightail it.

Colby was still firing. Buford knew there was no way the man could see them now, but he could feel his butthole tighten with every round.

“Jesus Christ!” Joe shrieked, giggling, sprinting through the trees, apparently amused by the idea he might die of acute lead poisoning at any second. “He keeps it up, he’s gonna melt his damn barrel.”

“Just go!” Buford hollered.

Trailing behind Joe, Buford saw a dark red stain—small, but growing—on the backside of his shirt.

“MAMA, I CAN’T find my frosted blue eye shadow!”

Donnelle Parker was in a tizzy. Here she was, going on her first real date since Bubba moved out, and already she was running late. This fellow was a catch, too. Clayton Bassett. He owned his own backhoe.

“For heaven’s sake, Donnelle, take it easy,” her mother said, bustling down the hallway, her thighs swishing back and forth in rayon pants. Thank goodness Mama had been willing to give up her weekly Bunko night and babysit Britney. She poked her head into the bathroom. “I ain’t never seen you so worked up.”

“But I can’t find my eye shadow!”

“Well, where did you leave it last?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have a problem, would I?”

“Don’t you sass me, young lady.”

“I’m sorry, Mama, but will you just help me look? If I can’t find it I’m gonna have to pick out a whole new outfit. It’s all color coordinated.”

“Why in tarnation are you wearing blue, anyway? It’s wrong for your complexion.”

“Mama! My eye shadow!”

“Okay, simmer down. Where do you keep your makeup?”

“Right here in this drawer.”

Her mother rummaged through various eyeliners, blushes, and mascaras and magically came out with the eye shadow. “Go easy on it, that’s all I’m saying,” she said, then retreated to the living room.

Donnelle spent several minutes getting her face just so, then she hurried to her bedroom to dress. The short black skirt tonight, with the periwinkle V-neck blouse. And the open-toed pumps with the two-inch heels. She’d knock him dead. But first, her undergarments. She had something spicy picked out. It wasn’t as if she was planning on going all the way on the first date, but then, well, you never knew. Damn, it had been
so
long.

She went to her dresser, opened the top drawer, and realized something was missing. Dadgummit, not now. Clayton would be here any minute. She slipped her bathrobe on and raced to the living room.

“Honeybunch, have you been getting into Mommy’s underwear again?”

Donnelle’s five-year-old daughter was sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, watching a strange cartoon that, Donnelle worried, might warp the precious baby’s mind before she even had a chance to enroll in school and do some learning.

“Uh-uh,” Britney said, but her eyes never left the set. Just like her dad, a TV addict. And the stuff she was watching was no better than what he used to watch. The only difference—Britney was eating a bowl of applesauce whereas Bubba used to eat candied peanuts.

“Sweetie, if you did, just tell Mommy so—”

“I said no!”

Donnelle took a deep breath. Her mother was watching the whole spectacle, shaking her head. They’d had some serious debates over the whole discipline issue.

“I wish you wouldn’t use that tone of voice, honey,” Donnelle said. “Haven’t we talked about that?”

No reply.

“Mommy doesn’t like it when you yell like that.”

Still no reply

Donnelle worried at times that she was too lax with Britney, especially since Bubba moved out. Her daughter was going through a stage—Donnelle expected her to sprout horns and a tail any day now—and she wondered if the pending divorce was the cause of it. Like the episode with the panties last week. Britney had gotten angry because her mother wouldn’t let her stay up late, so she had flushed a pair of Donnelle’s red bikinis down the toilet. Clogged the pipes and made a big mess.

“What’s missing now?” her mother asked.

“Pair of leopard-print panties.”

That earned her nothing but a cocked eyebrow.

“Now don’t you start, Mama. I haven’t got time for it.”

She turned her attention back to Britney. “Sugar, I know you like to dress up like a big girl, but you need to stay out of Mommy’s things, okay?”

Like talking to a brick wall. Or Bubba. Donnelle had read some magazines, and she knew that little girls tended to “assert their independence” more when they had an audience. That’s why Britney was ignoring her. Because she was showing off for her grandma.

“If you want to be treated like a big girl,” Donnelle said, “you need to act like one. Now tell me where you put—”

That’s when Britney dug her spoon deep into the applesauce and flung it at Donnelle. A thick gooey wad caught her right in the cheek, ruining her makeup.

Britney giggled and began to roll on the floor.

Mama said, “I’d give her a good swat for that, if I was you.”

The doorbell rang.

Donnelle wanted to cry.

She never did find her panties.

John Marlin returned to the sheriff’s department in the early evening, ready to take care of a few things in his office and then head home.

As soon as he stepped through the glass door, Darrell said, “Phil Colby was just here. Somebody took some shots at him.”

Marlin stopped in his tracks. “Do what?”

“Yeah, he came riding up on an ATV. Busted in here hollering about someone shooting up his house and his truck. Said he fired back and thinks he hit somebody. He found blood.”

“But Colby’s okay?”

“Madder’n hell, but yeah.”

“Why didn’t you radio me?” Marlin snapped.

“I was about to.”

“Where is everybody now?”

“They all just left.”

“Where to?”

“Back to Colby’s place.”

Darrell kept talking, coming around the counter, but Marlin didn’t hear much of it as he busted through the doors and hopped back into his truck.

They were back in the motel room now, and Little Joe said for the tenth time, “I never even felt it. Never felt the damn thing.”

“That’s how it works sometimes,” Buford said, though he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of that himself.

Joe was tough, he’d proven that much. When he’d pulled his shirt off in the Caddy, they’d both seen a small hole low on his gut, on the right side, about six inches over from his belly button. A couple more inches and the bullet would’ve missed entirely. Of course, a couple more inches upward, through the lung or the liver, and Joe’d be lying dead on Colby’s ranch.

The exit wound wasn’t quite so tidy—ragged, ugly, about the size of a quarter—and it had Buford concerned.

“Think I need a doctor?” Joe asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

“It’s not bleeding much,” Buford pointed out. Y
eah, but it could be bleeding bad inside,
he thought. “Let’s just wait and see.” He’d never say it out loud, but Buford couldn’t take Joe to a hospital. Not with a gunshot wound. That kind of thing meant an automatic call to the cops.

“Let’s just get a bandage on it,” Buford said, trying to sound upbeat. “Looks like it went clean through without hitting anything major. Day or two and you’ll be good as new.”

Joe didn’t look so sure.

When Marlin arrived at Colby’s place, just before sundown, he wondered if he’d find a scene reminiscent of the OK Corral. But all he saw was Nicole Brooks, alone, stringing yellow crime-scene tape around Phil’s truck and the empty trailer behind it. The other deputies and Colby were nowhere to be seen.

Brooks gestured west, toward the brush line and the orange-bottomed clouds on the horizon. “He’s showing Ernie and Bill where he found the blood. A rifle, too, laying in the cedars. But it probably won’t do much good, since Colby says it’s one of his own.”

“Where’s Garza?”

“He went home earlier today. His kid’s still pretty sick, and I think he was pretty out of it, too.”

Marlin nodded. “Any idea what happened?”

She wrapped the tape around a small oak tree, then tied it fast. “Guess we don’t really need tape out here,” she said, “but maybe it’ll keep the cattle away.” She smiled at Marlin, and he tried to smile back, feeling a bit awkward about it.

Brooks continued, “Colby says he loaded some cows around four o’clock, then stopped at the house before leaving town. He found a note taped to his front door. We’ve got it bagged, but I can tell you what it says: ‘Back off.’”

“Back off?”

“Yep
.
That’s all. And darn the luck, whoever left it forgot to sign his name. So Colby’s standing at the door, wondering what the note means, when a shot takes out the glass window in the door. He ducks inside and grabs a rifle of his own.”

“Why didn’t he call it in?” Marlin asked. He hoped there was a good reason, because he could too easily picture Phil trying to handle the situation himself.

“Says the phone wasn’t working, and it wasn’t, because somebody had opened the box on the side of the house and unplugged the line. So Colby sets up in the bedroom, watching out the window. After about twenty minutes, the shooter takes out his tires. Colby’s watching, and he sees movement out in the trees, so he returns fire. Says he shot something like fourteen times. He had to reload in between.”

Fourteen times?

“I don’t blame him,” Marlin said.

Brooks had a noncommittal expression on her face. “No. No, I don’t, either. Then he waited another hour, hoping somebody might’ve heard all the shots and called it in. Guess nobody did. So he starts holding up a baseball hat in front of the window, seeing if the guy’ll take a shot at it. Keeps doing that off and on at different windows, and finally decides the guy’s gone. Waits another thirty minutes, just to be safe, then goes outside and has a look around.”

“But the shooter’s long gone.”

“Looks that way.”

“What about the rifle he found? You said it was one of his?”

“Yeah, someone busted into his gun case. The front door was unlocked. Used Colby’s own weapon to shoot at him. At least, that’s what it looks like.”

“Tell me he didn’t touch it.”

“Nope, left it where it was.”

The sun had dropped well below the horizon now, and darkness was setting in. Marlin thought he saw a flashlight through the trees. He decided to wait for Colby and the deputies to return, rather than walking out to them, because he didn’t want to compromise the scene they were working. He faced Brooks. “You need any help with anything?”

“I was about to see if I could round up one of these slugs,” she said, nodding toward the two flat tires. “Then we’re gonna dust his house. You mind starting on the telephone box? See if they might’ve left some prints?”

“Not at all. I’ll get after it.” He turned to retrieve his evidence kit from his truck, but stopped after a few steps. He faced Brooks again. “Listen, about our conversation yesterday—”

“My overactive imagination,” Brooks said. “I shouldn’t have even said anything.”

He nodded. “I just don’t want you to have the wrong idea.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Yeah, okay.”

They both heard footsteps approaching. Phil Colby, alone. Even in the twilight, Marlin could tell from the set of his best friend’s jaw that Colby still hadn’t completely calmed down.

“You believe this shit?” Colby asked, looking at Marlin. “You’ve heard the whole story?”

“The basics, yeah. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Goddamn lucky is what I am.”

Marlin looked back at Brooks, just a dim figure in the dark now, but she had removed her flashlight and was crawling under Colby’s truck to look for lead.

“I found two drops of blood, John,” Colby said. “Not much, but they’re looking for more. Whoever it was, I hit him.”

“This is crazy,” Colby said. He’d been oddly quiet so far. He was holding a flashlight while Marlin dusted the telephone box on the side of the house. The area surrounding the box was cedar planking, and the rough texture of the wood wouldn’t hold any collectible prints.

“You get a look at the guy?” Marlin asked.

“Not really. Jesus. All I saw was a guy in camo running through the brush.” Colby was too agitated to stand still, and he was doing a poor job holding the light steady. “It’s one of those high-fencers, that’s my guess.”

Marlin didn’t respond. He wasn’t having any luck finding prints. He hadn’t expected to.

Colby said, “What’s the name of that hunting club Scofield belonged to? The Wallhangers or some crap like that? None of those guys like me, that’s for sure.”

Marlin still didn’t reply

“But shooting at me—that’s completely out of line, don’t you think?”

“Of course it is. But we don’t know who it was yet.”

“I feel like driving my truck through every high fence in the county. Just tear the shit out of them.”

Marlin shook his head. “You gotta remember, Phil, they have a right to build those fences. You keep harassing them about it and you won’t do anything but get yourself in trouble. You lost the court case, remember?”

“Hell yes, I remember,” Colby said, raising his voice. “You don’t have to remind me. But this…I can’t even tell you how pissed I am. That first shot missed me by inches.”

Marlin finished with the telephone box, finding nothing.

“You’re not saying much,” Colby muttered.

Marlin took a breath, his cheeks getting hot. “I’m working the case, Phil. Just take it easy and let us do our jobs.”

He walked around the house toward his truck, leaving Colby standing in the dark.

An hour later, things had changed dramatically, and Marlin was confused. He was sitting in his truck, simply waiting, when Bobby Garza arrived. The sheriff parked his car and climbed into the passenger side of the truck.

“You feeling all right?” Marlin asked.

“A little rough around the edges, but I’ll be okay.”

“How’s your boy?”

“I think he’s about over it. Where is everybody?”

“In the house, looking for prints.”

“Colby?”

“Still talking to Bill. Going through the whole story again, I think. I’m not real sure, to be honest, because when I started to go inside, Bill said it might be better if I waited out here for you.” It was that one small request by the senior deputy that had set off alarm bells for Marlin. Something critical had happened, but he didn’t know what. He was being left out of the loop. He tried to gauge the sheriff’s expression, but it was difficult in the dim light.

“What’s going on, Bobby?”

Garza took too long to answer. “I called Bill on his cell phone and told him you probably shouldn’t work the case. Colby is your best friend.”