“Did you mention the evidence from the scene?”
“I didn’t get specific yet, because I’m trying to get a warrant to search his truck and his house.” “How’s that going?”
“I wrote it up last night and left it for Judge Hilton, but it could go either way. It’s all circumstantial, I know, but everything points toward Corey. If I can come up with something on the search, then I’ll go for a blood sample. Get some DNA evidence that will nail him good.”
“Unless he’s innocent.”
“What’s that?”
“Unless he’s innocent.”
“Well, yeah,” Wylie said. “Of course.”
On the way to the jail, Marlin stopped at a convenience store and made a quick purchase. Three minutes later, he was checking in with the jailer, leaving his.357 revolver at the desk.
Marlin went into the visitation room, sat at the small, scarred pine table, and waited. Five minutes later, the door leading to the cells opened and Jack Corey walked in, wearing blue jailhouse clothes. His left arm was in a cast.
“Come on in, Jack,” Marlin said. “Grab a chair.”
Corey mumbled a greeting and took a seat. The man looked awful. Dark bags under his eyes. Greasy, unwashed hair. A couple of days’ worth of beard.
After Corey got settled, Marlin asked, “You doing all right, Jack? What happened to your arm?”
Corey eyed him skeptically. “You didn’t hear?”
Marlin shook his head.
“That asshole Wylie nailed me with his nightstick. Fractured my wrist.”
“Before or after you popped him in the eye?”
“After,” Corey admitted grudgingly, staring at the floor. “He deserved it though.”
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
Corey raised his left arm and set it down on the table with a loud
Marlin took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Jack, I have to say, it doesn’t sound like something you’d do. And if you’re not involved, all I can tell you is to sit tight and wait, because we’ve found some things that should help us clear this up. But Jack, if something
Marlin noticed that Corey was still steadily meeting his gaze, a good sign.
“What I’m saying, Jack, is that if something pissed you off enough to lose your head, to do something stupid, now’s the time to come clean and tell us. You know how the prosecutor is. He’s willing to take a plea when a guy owns up to what he did. On the other hand, when a guy clams up and the deputies have to follow the case all the way to the end, for a crime like this…well, things can get kind of rough.”
Corey shook his head. “John, I’m tellin’ ya-you can give me one of those lie-detector tests or whatever, but all it will ever show is that I didn’t do it. I don’t give a damn what Wylie says or what he believes, he’s got the wrong guy. And there ain’t no way I’m gonna confess to something I didn’t do.”
Marlin’s intuition, honed from dealing with hundreds of poachers over the years, told him Corey was telling the truth. Of course, Marlin remembered all too well the times he had been fooled by a good lie.
“Tell me a little bit about your problems with Gammel, the arguments you had at the deer lease.” As he spoke, Marlin pulled an item out of his hip pocket. It was the pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco he had purchased earlier at the store.
“Aw, man, it wasn’t nothin’, really. He shot spikes all the time and threw ’em in the ditch. I thought it was a goddamn waste, and almost called you a couple of times.”
Marlin opened the package and stuffed a small amount of tobacco in his jaw.
“The only time it was really a problem,” Corey said, “was this one time we got into an argument and he took a swing at me. But all the guys were there and can tell you it was his fault, not mine. Even Lester showed up and can tell you what happened.”
Marlin laid the tobacco pouch on the table and noticed Corey eyeing it.
“How come you won’t let Wylie search your house and truck?”
Corey looked confused. “Hell, he can search all he wants. He never asked.”
Marlin was stunned. “He didn’t ask permission?”
“No, but I woulda told him to go right ahead. I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”
Marlin figured Wylie probably had been afraid to show his hand, to let Corey know a search was coming.
“Well, I’ll let him know you said it was okay, then,” Marlin said. He paused and looked around the drab room. “Not exactly the Hyatt, is it? They treating you all right?”
Corey shrugged. “Yeah, no problem. But I need to get back to work. I’m self-employed, and when I don’t work, I don’t get paid.”
“You want anything? Maybe a Coke…” Marlin slid the Red Man toward Corey. Time for the test. Was Corey a tobacco user or not? “Or a chew?”
Corey glanced at the package. “Naw, not right now. Maybe later.”
“All right, Jack,” Marlin said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Marlin had finished dinner and was headed out the door when Bobby Garza called. The sheriff said, “Listen, if you’ve got a minute, I wanted to talk to you about Jack Corey.”
Marlin glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. Inga’s assembly started in fifteen minutes. “What’s up?”
“Well, Wylie is right in the middle of this thing, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts. You talked to Corey this morning?”
“For about fifteen minutes. Went over it with Wylie on the phone.”
“Well, you know how he is. He didn’t share much with me. What was your impression?”
“Corey seemed a little nervous about being arrested, and damn pissed off at Wylie. But to be straight up with you, I think he’s wrong for it. Gut feeling, but I’ve known him for a long time.”
“Yeah, me too, but I never really got close with the guy. You probably know him better since y’all were in the same class.”
“Could be. Anyway, he said that he was more than ready to have his truck and home searched and I told Wylie-”
“That’s where he is as we speak,” Garza cut in. “First thing he did-just a couple of hours ago-was compare the tire prints to Corey’s truck. If you can believe it, Corey had four different brands of tires on that old heap. And one of them looked like a pretty good match. So then Wylie started going though the house, looking through all of Corey’s work boots and hunting boots. He found a pair of Red Wings on the back porch, covered with mud. I hate to say it, but those look like a match, too.”
“That’s a pretty common brand of boot.”
“That’s true,” Garza conceded. “Anyway, we’ll know more when we get the results back from DPS.” The Texas Department of Public Safety performed most of the forensic testing and analysis for smaller law-enforcement agencies throughout the state. Garza said, “We sent the tire, the boots, and the plaster casts down there. Asked ’em to put a rush on it, but we’ll see about that. Those guys are up to their eyeballs around the clock nowadays.”
