Dust Devil (47 page)

After
much dilatory searching, Hoag finally produced the key to the cuffs.
But before he could begin removing them from Renzo’s wrists,
the door to the sheriff’s office opened and Sarah stepped
timidly inside.

Startled
at the sight of her, Bubba hurriedly leaped from his chair and strode
toward her solicitously. “Sarah honey. Why aren’t you
over at FYI? I thought you were going to work at least half a day
today. What’s wrong? What’re you doing here?”

She
shrank from him, tried futilely to draw her hands from his, turned
her face from his kiss so his lips brushed her cheek instead,
eliciting a low growl from Renzo. She trembled at the sound, refusing
to look at Renzo. She hadn’t realized he would be present; she
had thought he would be locked up in a cell. She had hoped, too, that
Bubba and J.D. would be gone by now, that she would be able to speak
to Judge Pierce alone—because she had never liked Hoag Laidlaw
and didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

“
I—I
need to talk to the judge. Privately,” she said, stubbornly
pretending not to see the sharp glance of concern, comprehension, and
forbidding that Renzo directed at her. Forrest’s daddy at
least, she thought, wouldn’t be bent or bribed, the way she
suspected the sheriff and his deputy might be.

“
About
what, darlin’?” Bubba inquired, as though to a confused
child. “We’re in the midst of something real important
here, Sarah. Can’t it wait?”

“
No,
it—it has to do with what’s going on here.”

“
Shut
up, Sarah!” Renzo demanded abruptly, a muscle working in his
taut jaw.

“
You’re
the one what’d better shut your damned mouth, boy!” Hoag
retorted, grabbing hold of his wide leather belt and hitching up his
trousers. Then he ran his hands through his thinning hair, preening
as he strutted pompously toward Sarah. “Now, then, missy. If
you’ve got something to say, if you know anything at all about
what happened last night, you’d best spit it out right now.
’Cause, as you appear to have heard, we got us a real nasty
little murder on our hands at the moment—and even if the damned
fool what was killed was only a worthless, dope-peddling black
sonuvabitch, I still got the law to uphold and a job to do.”

Finally,
Sarah managed to pull her hands from Bubba’s, the sheriff’s
disrespectful attitude toward Renzo and bigoted remarks providing
precisely the impetus she needed to collect herself, to remind
herself it didn’t matter what anybody in this town thought of
her when Renzo’s freedom—and perhaps even his very
life—might well be at stake.

“
Well,
then, Sheriff, I guess you’d better get on out and start
beating the bushes again,” she uttered, surprising even herself
by how cool and composed she sounded, so only Renzo sensed how
flustered and frightened she was beneath her now outwardly calm
demeanor. “Because you’ve got the wrong man in custody.”

“
What?”
Hoag snorted, then guffawed loudly with disbelief. “What’re
you talking about, missy? Everybody in town knows that guinea bastard
sitting over there is a killer, that he’s been one ever since
he shoved J.D.’s poor
young
Sonny off that rock out at that old quarry where all your crowd used
to swim as kids. Why, the first thing that frigging wop did when he
come back here was to ride out on that hog of his to the scene of his
crime—and make that very same dive again just as cool as you
please, proving he could do it. I saw him with my own two damned
eyes, missy! And right after Renzo hauled his ass out of the water
was when Lamar Rollins showed up. And the two of ’em was deep
in conversation by the time I got around the quarry to where they was
standing. You should of heard ’em when I confronted ’em.
First, that dago there tried to bribe me. Then he threatened me—said
he was gonna drown me in the quarry, same as he had Sonny—and
then, on top of all that, that uppity nigger, Lamar, had the nerve to
boast to me about his pot fields. So, now, missy. What in the hell
would make you waltz in here and try to tell me I got the wrong man
in custody?”

“
Don’t
answer that, Sarah!” Renzo growled, attempting to rise from his
chair, only to be slammed back down by Dwayne Truett—who was
built like a professional wrestler, the kind who put on ridiculously
absurd shows in the ring, for a crowd that howled with malicious
delight and pretended it was all real fighting, not fake.

“
Because
Lamar Rollins was murdered
last
night,
”
Sarah
replied to Hoag’s question, ignoring Renzo as though he hadn’t
spoken, although she quivered with apprehension at the thought of his
black rage being unleashed on her again. “And so Renzo couldn’t
possibly have done it. You have to let him go, Sheriff.”

“
Sarah...what
are you saying, Sarah?” Bubba’s voice was taut with
emotion and suspicion as he glanced from
her
to Renzo and then back at her again, as though he had begun to grasp
dimly some inkling of where she was headed—and couldn’t
believe it, didn’t
want
to
believe it. “What’ re you trying to tell us, darlin’?”

“
Judge,
please, could I just speak to you privately?” Sarah entreated,
turning to Forrest’s daddy. “I—I really don’t
want any trouble, and I’m afraid there’s going to be
some—”

“
No,
not here, there won’t!” Hoag ostentatiously patted the
big, heavy revolver in the leather holster at his hip. “Not in
my office, I assure you. No-siree-bob. So you go right on ahead,
missy, and speak your piece. And while you’re at it, quit your
damned hemming and hawing around, and get to the point if you’ve
got one! ’Cause either you know something relevant to these
here proceedings or you don’t—and in that case, you’re
wasting our time! Now, which is it?”

Realizing
then that there was no help for it, that the sheriff was bound and
determined to hear what she had to say, Sarah took a deep breath and
went on in a rush, before her courage could desert her. “I’m
trying to tell you Renzo couldn’t have murdered anybody last
night. Because he was with me..
..all
night.
”
She
emphasized the last words, flushing scarlet at the admission. “He
never left until this afternoon.”

“
What?”
Bubba cried, stunned, stricken, even though he had sensed in his
heart of hearts that this was what was coming. “No, that’s
a lie! Tell me that’s a lie, Sarah, goddamn it!”

But
before she or anybody else could speak, the front door opened, and
Alex—to whom she had given stringent
instructions
to wait outside in the Jeep—stepped anxiously into the
sheriff’s office. At the sight of her son, Sarah didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry, knew only that his timing couldn’t
have been more ironic—or apropos. It had somehow been so all
day, she reflected idly.

“
Mom?
You took so long....Is everything all right?”

“
Well,
now, that explains a great deal, which I confess has mystified me for
many a long year.” J.D., who had until now been strangely
silent, spoke, his blue eyes sparking with fascinated interest and
comprehension as they flicked alertly from Alex’s tanned face
to Renzo’s dark visage.

“
Yeah,
well, you always were quicker on the uptake than Bubba and the rest
of these clowns, old man,” Renzo drawled insolently. “So,
Bubba, I guess now you know my taste in women—what it is and
what it always was!”

Understanding
suddenly dawned in everybody’s eyes then. And that was when all
hell broke loose. With a fierce, strangled cry of outrage and hatred,
Bubba sprang from Sarah’s side, grabbing for Renzo’s
throat. But Renzo had clearly been expecting this and was prepared
for it. In one swift, smooth movement, he rolled from his chair to
the floor, bringing his hands down and under his legs as he did so.
In moments, he was on his feet, his cuffed hands now in front of him,
so he could defend himself against Bubba. As they had all those years
ago on the commons, the two men went at it vehemently, fists and
elbows pummeling, feet hooking and kicking, chairs roughly shoved
aside and skidding wildly across the floor.

“
Bubba!
Here, Bubba! Stop this right now!” J.D. roared, cursing
mightily.

“
Punch
him in the nose, Dad!” Alex shouted with glee, and he would
have run to his father’s aid had Sarah not hastily seized him,
hauling him back by the collar.

“
Hoag...this
isn’t going to look real good for any of us—especially if
it ever winds up being brought out in a courtroom,” Judge
Pierce declared, moving to a comer, distancing himself from everybody
present. “You’d best do something, Hoag.”

But
for all his big talk earlier, the sheriff was useless himself,
jumping up and down excitedly and bawling like a stuck pig, “Well,
hell’s bells, Dwayne, you fool! Don’t just stand there
like a complete dumb shit! Get in there and break that up, goddamn
it!”

At
that, drawing his nightstick, Deputy Truett waded into the melee, to
try to put a halt to it, only to find himself the recipient of a hail
of violent blows from both sides, which sent him reeling. As Dwayne
staggered back, Bubba jerked the nightstick from the deputy’s
hands and hit him hard over the head with it, so Dwayne slid slowly
down the wall, coldcocked. Then, weapon held at the ready, Bubba took
after Renzo with it. By now, Sarah’s nerves were so shot that,
to her utter mortification, she was suddenly gripped by such a wild,
crazy urge to laugh hysterically at the entire scene that it was all
she could do to restrain herself. She couldn’t remember the
last time she had witnessed such pandemonium. It was, she thought
dully in some dark corner of her mind, unreal, like something out of
a movie—except that there was nothing funny about the deadly
seriousness that etched both Renzo’s and Bubba’s faces.

Plainly,
the two men meant to kill each other. Renzo’s nose was bleeding
profusely, and one of Bubba’s brows was gashed open on the
ridge, his eye even now bruising and swelling shut. But despite that
Renzo’s hands were cuffed and Bubba had possession of the
nightstick, the latter was clearly getting the worst of the fight,
Renzo using his feet in a fashion that made Sarah think he must,
during his years away from her, have studied some form of martial
arts or something. The way he moved reminded her of the combatants on
Alex’s Street Fighters and Mortal Kombat games. Bubba had boxed
in college and still did at the local gym—a dubious, rundown
old place not far from the university. But Sarah remembered Alex
telling her once that a kickboxer could take a regular boxer every
time, because boxers didn’t know how to use their feet.
Apparently, that evaluation was true.

“
Hoag,
if you can’t handle so much as a frigging brawl, you aren’t
going to be winning any more elections in this town—and that’s
for damned sure!” J.D. bellowed, his steely blue eyes flashing
sparks.

“
J.D.,”
the sheriff whined plaintively. “What in the hell do you expect
me to do? For Christ’s sake! You saw what happened to Dwayne!
Oh, shit!”

Renzo
had somehow managed to grab the nightstick from Bubba and had
broadsided him in the stomach with it, so Bubba was now doubled over.
But before Renzo could bring the weapon crashing down on Bubba’s
head, Hoag finally moved into action. Drawing his revolver, he fired
it wildly at the ceiling, which rained plaster at the impact.
Everybody in the room froze at the unexpected blast.

“
Now,
you better toss that nightstick aside, boy,” the sheriff
ordered Renzo angrily. “Or the next thing I shoot is gonna be
you! Bubba? Hey, Bubba, you all right?”

“
Yeah,
fine,” Bubba muttered between gritted teeth as, clutching his
abdomen, he stumbled to one of the overturned chairs, righted it and
sat down, panting hard.