The Long Count (4 page)

‘You fight then, did you?’

‘Korea.’ Quarrie looked up at him. ‘Chief, I think your perp was standing right here checking out Ms Gavin through the window. He’s wearing a military boot and the left one’s got a nick in the heel. I can’t say about the right, but the way it’s flexed I’d say those boots have a steel shank running the length of the sole.’ Thumbing back his hat he dropped to his haunches. ‘That means the boots are
second-phase. The eyelets are distinctive in that they’re screened to keep out water, and I can tell you that the cuff is made from nylon. In my day it was canvas but they changed it when they put the shank in.’

‘What’s the shank for?’

‘Punji stake mantraps.’ Quarrie rose to his full height. ‘Stops a grunt getting impaled if he steps on one. The sole is pretty rigid though, and on account of that it makes them much less flexible to walk in.’

Scratching his head the chief took his flashlight back and shone it on the ground himself.

‘You know all that from a couple of footprints?’

‘Sure.’ Quarrie was smiling. ‘Even ants leave tracks in their wake, Chief. I thought everybody knew that.’

The chief had the house keys. Opening the door he reached inside for the light switch. A Chinese-style paper shade clung around the inadequate bulb casting macabre looking shadows on the walls. No door to the living room, just a squared-off archway, Quarrie stood with his hands in his jacket pockets.

The living room looked like a bomb site, furniture thrown over, the table smashed; the cushions had been pulled from the couch.

Every drawer in the cheap bureau had been tossed and the contents tipped on the floor.

‘Somebody looking real hard for something,’ Quarrie said. ‘What’s missing? What did he take?’

The chief pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know. There’s no cash lying around, so if she had any he took that, but there’s jewellery still in the bedroom.’

Quarrie considered the body-shaped outline chalked on the wooden floor. He could see blood drying on a rug, blood on the walls, and more scattered in strings across the front of the bureau. A purse lay among the ruins of the broken table. Inside he found the victim’s driver’s license as well as a check book with a
balance of eighty-seven dollars listed on the accounting slip.

He could tell by the amount of white powder still lying that the lab team had been through here already, but as he moved about the room he was careful just the same.

‘Chief, how many sets of prints did your boys raise?’

‘Seven,’ the chief said. ‘She lived on her own I guess, but this place is a rental.’

‘Seven?’ Quarrie said. ‘That’s a lot of fingerprints, even for rental. How many were fresh, were the lab boys able to tell?’

‘They weren’t absolutely certain, but they reckoned on probably two.’

Quarrie moved from the living room to the hall and bedroom. Again it was turned upside down, the mattress half on the bed and half on the floor, the drawers from the nightstand thrown over. The dressing table was trashed, all the drawers on the floor and their contents scattered. The jewellery box was open and had been rifled but there were some nice pieces lying there so robbery hadn’t been the motive.

‘Are you talking to the NCIC?’ he spoke to the chief where he hovered in the doorway.

‘Up there in Virginia, sure. Teletype of the prints already been wired.’

Quarrie nodded. ‘Do me a favor and ask them to have a copy sent to the Department of Safety in Amarillo.’

Outside again they stood on the porch where Quarrie lighted a cigarette and stared into the rain. He had looked through the rest of the house but found nothing that told him anything other than that whoever killed Mary-Beth Gavin had done it in a violent rage. She ought to have been screaming and somebody should have heard that. If this was Dallas or Houston he might accept the fact that it could have been ignored, but not in a town this small.

Back in the car he asked the chief to drive him over to the railroad depot and they parked close to where the fallen deputy’s body
had been found. Any blood lying had long since been washed away by the rain and there were no traces of footprints or tire marks.

‘Part of his route,’ the chief explained. ‘Michaels patrolled this area every night and he always made a sweep of the depot.’

‘What about trains?’ Quarrie asked him.

The chief shrugged. ‘Nothing till the four-oh-five. Like I told you, it was the engineer that found him.’

Quarrie took a room in a family-run motel a block east of Main Street. There was a phone by the bed and he called Amarillo, leaving a message for Van Hanigan about the incoming teletype. Then he telephoned the ranch.

‘How you doing, kiddo?’ he said when his son came on the line.

‘I’m fine, Dad. When you coming home?’

‘Don’t know yet. Fact is it took me all day on the road and I only just got here. You can blame those students you see on the TV. On account of them I’m the only Ranger available to get over this way and that’s a pretty poor state of affairs.’

‘Yes, it is,’ James said.

‘So how was school today? Did you learn anything?’

‘Sure. Miss Munro told us we have to come up with a project on some kind of history.’

‘Did she now? So what’re you thinking of doing?’

‘Well sir, I talked to Pious and he said he’s going to help me.’

Sitting up straighter Quarrie reached for his cigarettes. ‘You-all going to write something about what happened to him? What went on in Korea?’

‘No, sir. I thought about that. I thought about how he saved your life that time too, the story you told Nolo and the others at the fish fry. Pious told me he don’t want that dragged up again, not even for a school project.’

‘So what’re you thinking?’

‘We talked about it and he figured I ought to do something on that train wreck up on the Red?’

‘Did he tell you what it was we found there?’

‘No, sir. What was it?’

Quarrie did not answer. Shaking a cigarette from the pack he rolled the wheel on his Zippo. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘You go ahead and see what you come up with. When you got something I’ll tell you what we found up there and we’ll see if we can’t fit all the pieces together.’

‘OK, Dad,’ the boy said. ‘By the way, I asked Miss Munro about looking stuff up in the newspaper and she said they kept the records on some kind of fish.’

‘Fiche,’ Quarrie corrected with a smile. ‘F-I-C-H-E. It’s a piece of plastic, son. They shrink all the text and pictures down and transfer them onto the plastic. They call it a microfiche, James. What’s the name of the newspaper?’

‘Don’t know yet. I guess I’ll have to ask Pious.’

When he put the phone down Quarrie lay back with his boots crossed at the ankle. Thinking about what James had said he stared at the wall and all he could see was that skull where it hung in the river.

He woke to threads of sunlight creeping around shabby drapes: a grubby motel in Fairview; one street with a supper club, mercantile and bank. Working the heel of his hand into his eyes he climbed out of bed, crossed to the window and eased aside the drape. A handful of vehicles had been parked in the lot last night but only the Buick he had stolen was left.

In the bathroom he splashed cold water over his face. There was a coffee pot and some packages of coffee on the side and he added water from the faucet. While the coffee perked he got dressed. The shotgun was resting against the wall where he had left it and the Model 10 Colt he had taken from the deputy’s holster lay on the nightstand by the bed.

Driving down the street to the mercantile, he went inside and hunted among the shelves till he found a two-foot hacksaw and roll of duct tape.

‘Don’t be cutting yourself now,’ the girl at the counter warned him. ‘That there tape won’t work on a missing finger.’

Back in the motel room he moved the folding luggage rack into the middle of the floor and placed the twelve-gauge shotgun lengthwise across canvas bands. Keeping it steady with his left foot he sawed the barrel off half an inch in front of the magazine. He had no file to square the cut with so he took a wet towel to the burr instead.

Taking up the saw a second time he sectioned the stock so it left only a pistol grip and he bound that carefully with tape. Then he folded the rack once more and set it against the wall by the closet. Sliding the six bullets from the chamber of the Model 10 he
cleaned that with the towel then reloaded and stuffed the pistol in his waistband. He had a few dollars left from the money he had taken from the dead salesman’s wallet but he still had the check book as well.

The bank was not busy, only one customer ahead of him as he waited in line. Filling out a check for a hundred dollars, he passed it across and the teller told him she would have to call the bank in Little Rock to check the account. He waited while she crossed to the manager’s office.

When the teller came back she told him there was actually only sixty-one dollars in the account right now, so he wrote another check for sixty. The woman cashed that and he pocketed the money then walked back out to the car.

Behind the wheel once more he drove out of town, keeping to the speed limit, and headed for the freeway. Driving south he pulled off at the exit for Marshall and stopped at a diner across the road from the library and Army/Navy.

Out front of the station house in Winfield, Quarrie took a good look at the tire tread on one of the department’s cruisers while the driver looked on with a puzzled expression on his face.

‘What you doing there, Sergeant?’ he said.

Quarrie considered the tire: a Goodrich Radial, he memorized the pattern of the tread.

‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘Do all your vehicles carry this make and model of rubber?’

‘I don’t know. I guess so. I really couldn’t say.’

Quarrie squinted at him. ‘Go inside and ask someone for me, would you? It’s important.’

The rain had stopped; the skies much clearer this morning and the sun beat down on the sidewalk. Sweat was beginning to mark
Quarrie’s shirt at the armpits, and already he had his top button undone and his tie stowed in his overnight bag. Leaning against the door of his Riviera he polished the toe of one boot against the back of his leg. A moment later the young officer came out and told him that as far as anybody knew, all their patrol cars had the same tires.

‘Thanks,’ Quarrie said. ‘I got another question for you. Where can I find Henry’s Diner?’

He drove south-east on Route 49 heading for the Louisiana state line and thinking about the four-oh-five to Houston and what Mary-Beth Gavin’s killer had been doing on the depot platform. They had no idea whether he was local or from out of town, but given he had stolen the cruiser Quarrie thought it more likely to be the latter. This morning the chief had called to tell him the victim’s body had been shipped down to Queensboro right after they saw it. Since then the coroner had been on the phone to inform him the head trauma had occurred post-mortem. That only added fuel to Quarrie’s theory that the perp had been looking for something. It seemed clear that he did not find it, and whatever it was it was either still in that house or had never been there at all. Frustration, that’s what the head trauma indicated, and especially now they knew it had happened after the victim was already dead. So who was this guy and what had he wanted from Mary-Beth Gavin?

These were questions had no answers to right now, and his thoughts shifted as the sign came up for Henry’s Diner. He had not had any breakfast, his stomach was rumbling and he turned into the parking lot. Taking off his hat he took a seat at the counter where the waitress poured out a cup of coffee. She looked like she was in her twenties, wearing a white housecoat with the name
Nicole
printed on a plastic tag.

Quarrie ordered some bacon and fried eggs. Adding cream and sugar to his coffee he took a long swallow.

Nicole served another customer and then she returned with the steaming coffee pot.

‘Nicole,’ he said, ‘my name’s Quarrie. I’m a Texas Ranger.’

‘The cruiser,’ she said. ‘You want to know about the Winfield city police car?’

Returning her smile, he nodded. ‘Yes mam, as a matter of fact I do. Was it you that called it in?’

‘Yes it was; yesterday morning, early. There was a Winfield city cop came in and I thought it odd because this is a long way out for those guys.’ Setting the pot back on the warmer she rested her elbows on the counter. ‘It’s not often we see cops from Winfield in here and I didn’t recognize this guy.’

‘Did you talk to him at all?’

Nicole shook her head. ‘No sir, I didn’t. I mean other than to say good morning and ask him what he wanted.’

‘Do you remember what that was?’

‘What he ordered? I don’t know; I’d have to think about it. Maybe some scrambled eggs.’

He smiled again. He nodded. ‘You got a good memory. Tell me, do you recall what he looked like?’

Pursing her lips she looked a little speculative. ‘He wasn’t a real cop, was he?’

‘No, he wasn’t. Do you remember him at all, Nicole?’

She took a moment to think about that. ‘I don’t know, a little maybe, I guess. He was about thirty I’d say. No, actually, I think he was younger. It’s hard to tell when a man’s in uniform. He was younger than you though, if that’s any help.’

‘I’m thirty-six years old,’ Quarrie told her. ‘How much younger than me do you think he was?’

‘Mid-twenties then maybe. He was clean-shaven and I think he had blue eyes. Yeah, blue eyes. They were about the same color as yours.’

‘OK, Nicole, thank you. That’s helpful. Was there anything else you noticed? How did he act? Was there anything that stuck out at all? Anything that caught your attention?’

Nicole shook her head. ‘No sir, nothing odd. He was just like any other customer. He ordered and ate. Then he left.’

‘Were you busy around then? I guess if it was breakfast time you probably were?’

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘right around the time he was in we were a little slow.’

‘The other customers, do you remember any of them?’

‘Sure, I notice most of our customers. I like people – in this job you have to. There was an older couple I’d never seen before. Then there was Willy and Ellis from the breakers’ yard and a handful of regulars I guess. One guy on his own who comes in from time to time: he’s not from around here. I think he’s some kind of salesman.’

Taking another sip of coffee Quarrie set the cup down. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Nicole, that’s useful. The cop though, when he left out: could you tell which way he was headed?’

‘No sir, I didn’t see. But I remember he left right after that salesman.’

Quarrie ate his breakfast and when he went back outside he considered the floor of the parking lot. The ground hard-baked and covered in dust, it was littered with an assortment of different tire tracks. The rain hadn’t made it this far yet and the coating of dust lay like powder. Leaving his car for a moment, he walked to where the parking lot met the highway and studied the marks at the lip of the asphalt. It took a while to pick it out but finally he spotted a partial tread that had been crossed over by a number of others.

Climbing behind the wheel once more, he reached for his sunglasses and Mary-Clare smiled at him where she sat on the fence at the cabin he still owned in the shadow of the Grand Tetons. Set at the end of a narrow dugway, they’d found it purely by chance when they moved north not long after they were first married.

He let the engine idle for a second or so before selecting a gear and cutting out onto the highway. He drove at a steady forty-five;
one hand on the wheel, he was taking in every ranch and airline road, every single sign that was posted. Spotting one for Henry’s Bathtub his eyes narrowed a fraction. A swimming hole about a mile down the highway, that young cop had mentioned it when he told Quarrie how to get to the diner. He said the bathtub had been named after the old guy who first opened the place, how he always had so much grease on him from flipping hamburgers the only time he ever got really clean was when he went for a dip. Somebody named the swimming hole after him and eventually the county put a sign up.

There was a gravel turnout about fifty yards ahead of the sign for the turn-off to Henry’s Bathtub. Instinctively Quarrie brought the Riviera to a stop and got out. This was just a hunch but that waitress had said the bogus cop had left the diner straight after a guy she thought might be a travelling salesman. Right now Quarrie was wondering just how far the perp thought he’d be able to get driving a Winfield City prowl car. Standing on the edge of the highway he hunted down a cigarette and smoke drifted as he studied the surface of the turnout. No scenic overlook, nowhere for a picnic, this was the kind of spot where people would stop only if they had to adjust something on their vehicle. It was where a trooper might pull someone over.

Stepping closer to where the asphalt gave out he considered the packed gravel, the layer of dust and mess of tire tracks that fouled it. There were quite a few tracks here as there had been at the diner, and it took him a moment to locate it. But there it was: the same tread he had seen at the diner.

Back in the car he rolled down to the turning and eased up just ahead of the cattle guard. From where he sat he could see the same tire tracks marking the dirt beyond the metal grille. He still wore his pistols on his hips and, instinctively, he worked the hammer clips loose. Then he put the Riviera back in gear and rolled across the guard, following the trail for a hundred yards as it snaked
towards a shallow rise. At the top of the rise he halted. Nothing but the flat, gray waters of the swimming hole, fifty yards down the slope to a stubby little bank of mud and rocks where the water was lapping gently. A little breeze in the air, as he got out of the car he could feel it cool on his face where it coasted off the water.

He followed the tire tracks all the way down the hill to the bank where they disappeared. He stood there with his hat in his hand, scrutinizing every inch of dirt where the tires dug deeper with the weight of the car and that told him it had been stationary. He could see the wall of the track where a little dirt had lifted then collapsed again and that indicated the car had moved some after it came to a halt. No reversing marks though: the trail ended there at the water.

As well as the tire tracks he located two sets of footprints, flat-soled shoes on them both, that had to be the perp wearing Officer Michaels’ uniform and whoever it was he had with him. Moving a few paces into the brush, he picked up another set of prints that led back up the trail to the rise. No flat sole now, he recognized not only the pattern of the jungle boot, but also the nick in the heel.

For a moment he stared at the water then went back to his car. Unhooking the radio handset he rested an elbow on the roof.

‘Zero Six calling Marion County sheriff.’

It took a moment before a disembodied voice crackled back. ‘Copy that, Zero Six.’

‘I’m at Henry’s Bathtub, the old swimming hole on Route 49. Need you to put a call in to the police department in Winfield. Tell Chief Billings I think I might’ve found his cruiser.’