Firebreak: A Mystery (17 page)

“Why doesn’t Brenda deal with him?”

“She’s tried! I’ve heard her tell him she’s saving a seat when Billy and the Outlaws are getting ready to take the stage, but Ferris laughs it off. Sits next to her anyway. It’s just bizarre.” Hank’s expression changed, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s this about?”

“I’m just collecting information right now. Do you have any idea where I can find Ferris?”

“He lives in Presidio. That’s all I know.”

“Does he ever stay with Billy and Brenda? At their home?”

Hank pulled air in between his teeth and gave her a look as if that idea was a stretch for him to believe. “I can’t imagine Brenda would allow that.”

*   *   *

Josie imagined dusk as the time when the dust and drama of the day, worn down by the unrelenting sun, settled over the desert. Mentally, the sun took a toll on people. The heat of high noon in the desert was like no other, and when the sun tipped over the edge of the horizon the relief was physical and emotional. Driving home, she noticed the orange fade on the horizon and she sighed with relief as she pulled onto Schenck Road.

Josie pulled her jeep into the driveway and found Chester already waiting for her on the front porch. He typically waited to leave Dell’s barn until he heard her engine as she came down the road. He was a large dog, weighing about eighty-five pounds, with the typical coloring and ears of a bloodhound, but he had a gallop that reminded her of a horse. She wouldn’t have imagined that a bloodhound who spent half his time outdoors with his nose to the ground could run with such grace.

She got out of the car smiling. He stood on the edge of the porch wagging his whole body in delight, but he refused to come down the steps to greet her. As much as he wanted a pat on the head from Josie, he wanted his evening bone and a nap on his rug even more. He was a dog of habit, and when Josie’s schedule became too messed up with work, it made him irritable.

After scratching his ears and nuzzling his neck she stood to unlock the front door and found a piece of notebook paper taped to the sidelight window.

She pulled the paper off and read: “Supper’s on the stove. Corn bread. Beans been cooking all day. See you when you get here. —Dell”

She sighed and smiled. She missed Dell. She had been selfish and unreasonable the other night when she found the woman in his house. If Dell had found love, then good for him; it was well deserved.

Josie hung her gun belt in the pantry and followed Chester into the living room, all part of the nightly ritual. She watched as he lay down on his rug and turned expectant eyes up to her. She set a rawhide chew between his front paws and he continued to stare at her until she said, “Well, go ahead,” and then he picked it up and spent the next ten minutes chewing excitedly like a kid with a piece of bubble gum. She’d grown up with dogs and cats, most of them strays, but none of them had a personality like Chester’s.

After she changed into shorts and a T-shirt, she and the dog walked to Dell’s house at 7:00. It was still ninety-five degrees out, but the hard edge of the heat had dissipated and a slight breeze made it a comfortable walk.

She stepped onto the front porch and knocked on the screen door. This time she waited for him to yell, “Come in.” Chester beat her through the door and ran into the kitchen with his paws scrabbling against the wood floor. Dell laughed like Chester was a long-lost grandchild instead of the dog that spent every afternoon following him around the ranch.

Dell had been sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. He pitched his glasses onto the table and went to the stove to dish up the bean soup.

He opened the pot and steam billowed up. “That’s got some flavor in it. A ham hock and onions and peppers and a shot of butter and mashed beans for substance.” He whistled like he was looking at a pretty girl.

Josie joined him at the stove and watched as he dished up the soup. “It smells like heaven.”

“I thought maybe you disowned me after the other night,” he said.

“I’d never disown you. You’re my best friend.”

“Me and the dog.”

They carried their soup to the table, where a plate of corn bread was sitting. Halfway through dinner and small talk, Dell said, “Tell me about your dead body.”

“How’d you hear about the body?”

“Otto said you had a homicide.”

“When did you talk to him?” she asked.

He glanced up from his soup, his eyes bright.

“He called you, didn’t he? That’s what dinner is about. He told you to babysit me tonight. Didn’t he?”

“I ran into him in town. He said he thought you were still feeling blue since Dillon left. How can you fault a man for watching out for your well-being?”

Josie shook her head, her expression incredulous. “Dell, I’m a cop. Have been for years. I can handle a little stress in my life without falling apart.”

“Fine, you badass, what if I just wanted to have dinner with you?”

She laughed. “Badass?”

“Since you brought up the subject of the missing boyfriend, give me an update.”

Avoiding the question, she asked, “You have any beer in the fridge?”

“No beer.” He looked embarrassed. “There’s a half bottle of wine in there that’ll never get drank. It’s all yours.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Just pour yourself a glass and tell me about Dillon. I don’t feel like talking tonight. Tonight I listen.”

Josie convinced Dell to let her clean up while he started a fire outside. She wanted to sit beside the fire and finish the conversation without the face-to-face scrutiny and harsh lights of the kitchen. And Dell never missed an opportunity to sit outside by a fire.

Josie washed up the few dishes and dried them. She opened the cabinets for the plates and bowls and found them as orderly as they had been any other time she had opened a cabinet. Dell was as predictable and stable as anyone she knew, and those two traits alone made him a hero in her eyes. She’d found very few people through the years that she could say that about.

She washed the countertop and found him standing over orange flames with two camp chairs set up. Once they were seated, Josie suffered through half a glass of dry red wine, and then said, “Things are getting better with Dillon. If I didn’t have this nagging guilt that I’d destroyed his life, I’d be okay.” She put her hand up, not wanting a lecture. “But I get it.”

“You were both out of your league, Josie. The only way you two were going to survive is to move on. He’s got way too many nightmares here to do that. And you have too much guilt to ever be able to help him. I’m glad he left. I’m glad for both of you. You’ve been moping around for two months. It’s time to stop it.”

They sat quietly staring at the flames and Josie said nothing.

Dell finally spoke. “Besides, you’ve been such piss-poor company I had to go find a lady friend to talk to.”

Josie grinned. “And? Where’s the lady friend?”

“She’s back in Presidio where she belongs.”

“Dell! You didn’t give her much of a chance, did you?”

“It’s got nothing to do with chances. She didn’t like you, and she didn’t like Chester, and I didn’t like her.”

“You could just go out as friends. Someone to hang out with every once in while.”

“Look. I don’t hang out. I’m not cut out for relationships. I’ve been a bachelor my whole life and I can’t go changing that now. No sense dragging her along for something that won’t work out in the end.”

She smiled. “Every breakup should be so easy.”

“Absolutely. If people’d quit acting like such pansies and have an honest conversation every once in a while, all of humanity would benefit.” Dell extended his legs out in front of him and crossed his arms like he was settling in for a good story. “Now, down to business. Homicide.”

“Okay.” She downed the rest of her wine, shuddered, and set the glass on the ground. “Here’s the basics. When the wildfire blew through Artemis on Sunday, most of the town evacuated. That included Brenda and Billy Nix.”

“The country singer?”

“That’s the one. They left town after stopping in at the Hell-Bent to pick up Billy’s guitar. They claim they left at about six and got to Austin at about one, when they got a drink at a bar and then checked into a hotel a little after two.”

“Easy enough to check, right?”

“They checked into the hotel at about two thirty in the morning. But they used cash at the bar.”

“We all oughta use cash. All this electronic tracking will be this country’s demise. Mark my words.”

“Meanwhile, the fire chief, Doug Free, asked Otto and me to check out the west side of the county. He’d heard some outbuildings were damaged. We drove out to check structures and make sure no one was injured or in need of help. We drove down Prentice Canyon Road, which was the west edge of the fire.”

“The firebreak?”

Josie nodded. “Doug thought it had been the perfect firebreak. By nightfall the wind had died down. By the time the fire hit that north-south road, it had lost fuel. That area of the county is mostly barren desert and clumps of scrub. Strategically, it was a great move on the chief’s part.”

“Don’t the Nixes live on the other side of the road?” Dell asked.

“Exactly. No structures were lost on that side of the road except their house.” Josie paused. “It’s true, there aren’t many structures out there to burn, but from the flyover, it became clear a fire was intentionally set at the house.”

“They set it for the insurance?” Dell asked.

“Nope. It’s a rental. The body we found on the Nixes’ couch was burned before the fire ever crossed that part of the county.”

“Meaning someone set the fire at their house on purpose. To make the murder look like an accident.”

Josie smiled. “You get better and better at this. I should hire you as a consultant.”

“What do you pay?”

“Nothing.”

“Figures. So who put the body on the couch?”

“That’s the question. Sounds like there’s some jealousy among the local bands. A small group of people competing for the stage and the record deals.”

“What’s a body on the Nixes’ couch have to do with that?”

“You want to end someone’s career, what better way to do it,” she said.

Dell narrowed his eyes like he wasn’t buying the explanation.

“Remember that trial last year in El Paso?” she asked. “Some guy hated his divorce attorney so bad that he set him up for murder. He convinced his ex-wife, whom he also hated, to meet him at some office building. It was actually a vacant office. He killed his ex and planted evidence to make it look like the attorney was having an affair with her and killed her. The guy almost got away with it.”

“All right. I get it. Hatred is a hell of a motivator. Wouldn’t the Nixes make more sense though?”

“They’re our primary suspects. But I can’t imagine why you’d choose your own house to murder someone. The man was dead before he was burnt up in the fire. So if they were going to go to the trouble of arranging a body on their couch, why not drive him over to the east side of the fire where things were really cooking? Dump the body. They wouldn’t have lost their home either.”

“They probably thought no one would believe they’d torch their own home. Makes them look less suspicious. Besides,” Dell said, “I don’t know too many people who could stuff a dead body in their car and dump it along a roadside.”

“You don’t hang out with the right people.”

*   *   *

At midnight, Billy Nix quietly rolled out of bed and stood without moving over his wife’s body. He listened to her rhythmic breathing and watched the white sheet rise and fall. Her jaw was slack against the pillow, her face pale and delicate in the dim light cast from the streetlamp outside their motel window. She’d always been a heavy sleeper. Back when they still talked about having kids he teased her about sleeping through the delivery. Now, as he checked on her before sneaking out of the hotel in the middle of the night, the thought of having kids seemed a lifetime away. It wasn’t that she’d be angry that he left, but he didn’t want to disturb her. Even as he stood staring at her, repeating those words inside his head, he knew it was a lie. He didn’t want to explain to her why he couldn’t sleep.

Billy pulled his jeans and shirt and boots off the chair next to the desk and dressed quietly in the bathroom. He went back into the room and felt around on the desk for the pen and motel stationery and took them into the bathroom. He wrote her a quick note saying, “Couldn’t sleep. Went for walk. Love you—Billy.” He left the note on the bedside table and quietly unlocked the door and opened it. He stood outside the room and took a long slow breath, trying to clear the noise from his head. He felt his shirt pocket for the pack and lighter. He tapped the pack of Marlboros, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, watching the red ember flare as he inhaled the smoke, listening to the paper and tobacco sizzle, glad for the familiar sound, for something reliable. He hadn’t slept in days but he couldn’t shut down his thoughts long enough to relax. He thought he might walk down to Mickey’s, just a few blocks away. He knew the bartender. He could hang out for an hour or two and figure out what the hell had gone wrong with his life to make him a suspect in a murder investigation.

*   *   *

Brenda stood at the window watching Billy just five feet from the door, smoking a cigarette, thinking about God only knew what. He’d snuck out of the motel room to stand in front of the window with nothing but a sheer separating him from her view. Part of her wanted to smile at his innocence; another part of her wanted to kill him for his stupidity. Was he really that guileless or was he just not very bright? It was a question Brenda continued to wonder even after twelve years of marriage. If a man was going to sneak out of a motel room, wouldn’t he slip down a side street and get on with his business?

She watched him raise his arm, draw on the cigarette, throw it onto the ground, and twist his boot to extinguish it. And then he walked off, most likely in search of a bar, but she really had no idea anymore. Their life had turned into secrets and veiled conversations whose meanings seemed to be more in what was not said than the embarrassed words they spoke. She watched his handsome backside as he, so utterly confident in his long-legged swagger, walked down the street and disappeared.