Bone Dry

Smedley’s heart was beginning to race. It had been-what? — three years since he had held a woman close. He had forgotten how good it felt. He could feel the warmth of her cheek on his chest, the rhythmic cadence of her breathing. And, wait a minute, he could also feel her large breasts pressing against his belly. Oh, God. How could he be such a cad? This woman was in emotional pain and he was thinking about her hooters.

He made a hushing noise, trying to provide solace and take his mind off her anatomy.

Then he realized, with incredible embarrassment, that the little federal agent in his pants had decided that now was a good time for an interrogation.

Maria pulled away from him, and he was waiting for a fierce tongue-lashing, maybe even a slap, certain that she had taken offense at the hardness in his crotch.

But she simply walked around the side of the house and came back a few moments later with a shovel. Jesus-this was worse than he thought. She was going to attack him with a gardening implement! But instead, she asked him a question in Spanish.

Smedley didn’t understand, but at the same time, he knew exactly what she wanted. He nodded, then grabbed the deceased feline by the tail and followed her to the rear of the property.

Sal poked his head out of the garage and saw the agent’s sedan sitting in the middle of the driveway. But no sign of Smedley.

He gave a thumbs-up to Vinnie, who fired up his Camaro, raced out of the garage, whipped around the sedan, and drove off into the dusk.

“Where’s he going in such a hurry?”

Sal jumped. Smedley was standing right beside him now, holding a shovel.

Sal licked his lips nervously. “He’s, ah, just heading into town, gonna see a coupla friends, to….”

He noticed Smedley sniffing the air, catching a whiff of Angela’s dinner. “Whaddaya say?” Sal chirped. “You gonna stay for supper?”

The sunlight was fading as Marlin watched Wylie fashion a small, shallow frame out of cardboard and duct tape. The deputy placed it gently around the footprint, then produced a can of hairspray from the canvas bag he had retrieved from Garza’s patrol car.

“Having a bad hair day?” Marlin grinned, making a genuine attempt to be friendly. Maybe Wylie could be a decent guy if anyone took the time to get to know him, Marlin was thinking. Nobody had given the man much of a welcome, so far.

Wylie shook his head as if he were dealing with a three-year-old. “This helps the plaster hold together better. Something I’m sure they don’t teach at game-warden school.”

Or maybe Wylie is an absolute prick, Marlin thought, revising his theory.

Several other deputies had arrived, along with the county medical examiner, Lem Tucker. Earlier, Wylie had conducted a painstakingly slow search of the area, starting in wide circles that got tighter and tighter. He had found a few tire tracks in a dirt road about three hundred yards from the cedar tree where the killer had sat. The tracks could have been left by the ranch foreman, but Wylie would take casts and compare them to the tires on the foreman’s vehicle.

After Wylie had taken numerous photos, Garza had flipped the body over, revealing an exit wound in the center of Gammel’s back. This seemed to indicate that the bullet had traveled in a line parallel to the ground, rather than in an arc from a long distance. Marlin’s theory that there had been a shooter in the cedar tree looked better every minute.

After the body had been loaded into the M.E.’s van, Garza called Marlin and Wylie aside.

“We’ll wait and see what Lem can tell us, but Wylie, you can get started on other things. We’ll need to talk to the other hunters on the ranch, do some background on Gammel, the usual.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here to say that someone ambushed Gammel. And they did it with a rifle. That says ‘deer hunter’ to me. That’s why I want you to keep Marlin in the loop on this investigation.”

Inwardly, Marlin smiled. It was always up to the chief investigating officer to decide how much involvement a game warden had in a case like this. Garza was asking Wylie to keep Marlin in the inner circles, whether Wylie wanted to or not.

“But Bobby,” Wylie said, “I’m sure I can handle everything-”

“I know you can, Wylie,” Garza cut him off. “You’re an ace with forensics and questioning, and that’s what we need. But you’re new to the area, and Marlin’s been here all his life. He knows every deer hunter in this county and he might be able to turn something up. I’m not saying I want him actively working the case-that’s not his job-but when you approach some of the hunters on the ranch, I want you to take Marlin with you when you can.”

Wylie glared at Marlin. Marlin gave him his best Eat shit smile.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Vinnie drove around for an hour, thinking, trying to come up with a plan. He had picked up a twelve-pack of beer in Johnson City, and was now on his fifth can, desperately trying to steady his nerves. This shit was out of control. He knew his dad was in a rough line of work, but tooling around with a corpse in your trunk?

Vinnie took a long swig of beer.

To be honest, it was kind of exciting. This was way beyond any rush he got from Ecstasy or cocaine. Pure adrenaline, pumping through his heart like water through a hose.

Now, if he could just think of a way to get rid of the body. Man, he wished he’d had time to talk it over with his dad! But that goddamn marshal had showed up. Fat prick, always invading our home, sticking his nose into our business. And he has to pick today of all days?

But back to the business at hand. Vinnie knew he had to think clearly. He couldn’t afford to do something stupid, like toss the body on the side of the road. No, there’d be fibers from inside their home on the corpse, maybe some blood leaking through the tarp into his trunk. So he had to make the body disappear for good, put it somewhere it would never be found.

He considered burning it. Just find a dead-end county road, drench it with gas, and let the evidence drift away in the wind. Sounded okay at first, but there would probably be bones left. Vinnie wasn’t sure, but the Feds could probably get a DNA sample from one little shard. And the teeth, too, could give it away.

He could bury the corpse. Find a large, isolated ranch, cut the lock on the gate, and plant it out in the middle of nowhere. But that had flaws, too. Animals might dig it up. Plus, it was hunting season, and you never knew who might come along. You were always hearing in the news about hunters finding corpses out in the fucking boonies. Anyway, the ground around here was full of big rocks. Vinnie remembered T.J. griping one day about having to dig some fence posts.

T.J.

Vinnie mulled it over, and something came to him now: a good, workable plan. A way to dispose of the old fucker for good-and T.J. could help, without even knowing it. That was the beauty of it. Vinnie thought it through for a few minutes, trying to find the flaws in his scheme, the little screwups that would come back later to bite him in the ass.

But there weren’t any. The more he thought about, the more perfect it seemed.

He aimed his Camaro back toward Johnson City, ready to find a pay phone. This was one call he wasn’t going to make on his cell.

Vinnie had been glad that T.J. was already stoned when he got him on the phone. Vinnie had planned on getting T.J. high before he sprung the idea on him, but he had been able to skip that step.

Now, cruising in the Camaro, Vinnie whipped out a joint and passed it to T.J. wanting to keep him good and loaded so he wouldn’t back out. T.J. had been kind of lukewarm to it at first, then seemed to get excited as they talked.

They had already completed step one of “Operation Porsche,” as Vinnie had called it; they had driven T.J.’s sports car over to Pedernales Reservoir, near the boat ramp, and parked it.

Now Vinnie was driving T.J. to the marina where the Gibbs family kept their boat.

“Man, this is crazy!” T.J. said, but he was smiling, getting off on this wild scheme. “What if something goes