eye if you can't follow a hunch. If I believed in a rational world, maybe I'd still be a cop.'
Travis Lee looked at me as if I were insane, finished his beer, and my cigarette, then said, 'Well, son, call me when you come back to the rational world.' Then he picked up his cowboy hat, set it on his head carefully, and strolled away like a man without a care in the world.
Since I was Phil Thursby's investigator, I didn't have any trouble getting an appointment with Dickie Oates. The prison officials hated Thursby almost as much as they were frightened of him, so they even let me talk to Dickie in a small conference room. Somewhere beneath the hard-ass con who sat down across the table from me, I could see the lanky, snaggle-toothed lop-eared kid with a round, open face that Oates must have been at the time of the Duval killing. But now Oates was all busted knuckles and scars. A crooked nose parted his face, and dark shadows lurked deep in his bright blue eyes. All in all, though, he didn't look too bad for all his years as a guest of the Texas Department of Corrections. But we both knew the real story was worse than his face and body showed.
'So why the hell is Phil Thursby interested in reviving my appeal?' Oates asked, smiling cynically. He didn't have to ask who Phil Thursby was. 'My fuckin' lawyer ain't.'
'Look, Mr. Oates,' I lied as I opened a leather legal-sized notebook, 'we don't know if he's interested or not. Right now. But he has a team of interns who do nothing but read transcripts and old case files. One of them pointed out that there seemed to be something missing in your story.'
'Like what?'
'Why don't you tell me the story,' I suggested, 'and I'll see if it's there.'
For the first time, Oates smiled slightly, scratching at his left eyebrow, where a new scab nestled, then he locked his hands on the table, eager now, hopeful, it seemed, for the first time in a long time.
'Okay,' Oates began, 'so I'm playing pool in this joint with a bunch of my frat bro's, and somebody started bitching about table roll and scratching on the eight ball or some shit. Nothing too loud, just guys mouthing, when this coked-up asshole who said he owned the place threw us out.
'So what the hell, we had words, but we went. I was the last one out the door and stepped around the corner to take a leak between the wall and my pickup, and while I got my pecker in my hand, this fucker slams my face into the rock wall with his forearm. When I turned around, he blasted me good…' Oates touched his crooked nose.
'When I hit the ground, he put the boots to me. Pretty hard. Till some women pulled him off, three or four of them, then one of them helped me to my pickup.'
'What do you remember about that woman?'
'Not much,' Oates said. 'Tall, lots of hair, blond maybe, nearly as fucked up as the guy.'
'What did she say to you?'
'Nothing much,' Oates said. 'Apologized, sort of, called him an asshole. That sort of shit.'
'She suggest payback?'
'Yeah, well, maybe,' Oates said, frowning again. 'Ain't you leading the witness, Counselor?'
'Ain't my problem. Your shotgun, was it in the gun rack?'
'Not a chance, sir,' he answered. 'It was my Daddy's quail gun, and I wouldn't hang it up in a rack like some asshole redneck. I had it in a case behind the seat.' Oates shook his head sadly. 'When that little detail came out in court that was the end of any talk about a manslaughter plea. My lawyer said I was lucky the prosecutor didn't go for first degree. The jury was filled with Gatlin County corporate crackers. They would have given the needle for sure.'
I knew from the courthouse rumors that Steelhammer had a record of coming down hard on college students who came into his county to break the law. Then because I didn't have any other questions, I asked, 'You ever do any cocaine back then?'
'Shit, man, it was Austin,' he grumbled. 'Back in those days ever' third sorority girl had 'I Love Champagne, Cadillacs, and Cocaine Cowboys with Cash' tattooed under her pubic hair.'
'Ever buy any out of Duval's Place?'
'Not me,' he said. 'There was a rumor that the guy who bought for the frat house got his product there. But, hell, I didn't know shit from wild honey in those days.'
Then I wondered, 'This lady you were talking about, she say anything else?'
'Sometimes when I dream about it, man, she does,' Oates said. 'She asked me if I had a gun in my truck.'
'When you dream about it? Spare me the psychological bullshit,' I said. 'I know you've got more time on the couch than a retired hound dog.'
'That couch shit doesn't happen much in the Texas Department of Corrections, man. Not much,' Oates said seriously, refusing to be denied. 'But I dream about that night all the time, almost every night when I can get to sleep, so how the hell am I supposed to remember what really happened? In the dream, most of the time, she calls him over, so I think he's coming after me again, and, man, I was already fucked up. Four cracked ribs, two broken fingers on my right hand, a crushed nut, and my nose, well, it felt like it was touching my ear. So I up and shot the motherfucker when he came after me. Once in the guts, then once in the face.'
'In the face with the second barrel?'
'That's what they said.'
'They said?'
'At the trial.'
'You don't remember?' I asked.
'Not really,' Oates whispered, shaking his head. 'The first shot hurt my hand and my head so much, I don't remember the second one. Hell, for a while it looked like the bastard was gonna pull through, but he already had some kinda sinus infection, and it got into his brain. So that fucked the dog for me.'
'You don't remember anything else about the women?' I asked as I closed the notebook. 'I don't remember a single woman on the witness list.'
'You know how it is. My lawyer couldn't find anybody who admitted they were even there. Not even my friends.' Oates sucked a tooth and shook his head. 'You think you can do anything?'
'All I can do is try,' I said, then handed Oates a card. 'You remember anything about the woman, even dream anything, you call me collect.'
'You mean that?'
'Sure,' I said. 'Sometimes we don't remember things until we're talking about it.'
'Thanks,' Oates said. 'I'll try not to take advantage of the offer.'
'Take care,' I said, resigning myself to collect conversations with Oates.
'Next time, bring in a lungful of smoke,' Oates said quietly. 'Secondhand smoke is the only kind we get in here.'
'Right,' I said, then started to leave. 'How do your parole hearings go?'
'Man,' he said, 'I don't know. I don't have a record out in the world and not much bad time in here, but they treat me like I'm a fuckin' serial killer or something. That snakefucker of a prosecutor has showed up every time.' Then he paused, a sly look flitting across his face. 'You're the dude that killed his brother, ain't you?'
'It was an accident,' I said. 'And they dropped the charges.'
'Those Gatlin County assholes,' he said. 'Those corrupt bastards will find some way to nail you.'
'Maybe not,' I said. But I didn't have any more hope than Dickie Oates did when I left.
When I climbed stiffly into the passenger seat of the El Dorado, Betty turned from behind the wheel and considered me. 'We gotta do something about that back, Milo,' she said. 'Pills and hot tubs don't seem to be doing a bit of good.'
'That's for damn sure,' I said. 'Thanks for taking the time off to drive me over. I don't think I could have made it without you.'
'No problem,' she said quietly, a stiff smile on her face. Then she started the car, saying, 'I didn't take off. I quit. For a while.'
'What?'
'Well, I didn't exactly quit,' she said. 'I just took an unpaid leave.'
'What did they think about that?'
'I sort of own the practice,' she said quietly, 'so I don't much give a shit what they think.'
