CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Yeah, we’re both project managers,” Clements said, “but we really don’t work together-uh,
Marlin wiped his brow. It was humid as hell today, the temperature in the low eighties. Not a cloud in the sky. “But I’m sure you had a lot more interaction with Bert than the rest of the staff.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Then let me ask you: Did you notice anything unusual about Bert’s behavior in the last few months? Any changes in his lifestyle?”
Clements’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “How do you mean?”
“Ever see Gammel with any large amounts of cash? Maybe whipping out a roll of bills to pay for lunch?”
Clements took a long drag on his cigarette and stared at the horizon. He finally exhaled and said, “You know, he did seem to have a little more money lately. Not that he was rolling in it or anything, from what I saw, but I know he wasn’t griping about bills as much as he used to. And he bought that Explorer a while back.”
“Any idea where he would have gotten the money?”
Clements rubbed a hand over his scalp. “No idea. Sorry.”
Marlin felt as if he were groping in the dark. It was obvious that something strange had been going on with Gammel, but the facts remained elusive. Marlin was used to questioning poachers, who were relatively easy to figure out. Their motives were clear and their methods of operation rarely changed. This murder investigation, on the other hand, was like trying to grab a wisp of smoke.
Marlin tried a new tack. “Did he ever mention any run-ins with anybody? Maybe some bad blood with somebody else in town?”
“All that comes to mind about that is his feud with Jack Corey. He mentioned it a few times to a bunch of us in the coffee room.” Clements sucked on his cigarette again. “I know Corey seems all easygoing and everything, but if you ask me, Corey’s got a temper. At least from the things Bert told us. He said Corey pulled a knife on him once, out at the deer lease.”
Marlin remembered what Lester Higgs had said about that incident: that Corey hadn’t actually pulled a knife, but had been using it to field-dress a deer.
“And now with this thing at the Sheriff’s Department…” Clements continued. “This whole mess is a damn shame. Bert Gammel was a good man.”
There was a bright yellow sticker on Bert Gammel’s front door:
It was a run-down two-bedroom house, maybe forty years old, with cedar siding and a sagging roof. Marlin used the key Garza had given him and stepped inside. The front door opened into the living room, a small area with nothing but a ratty couch, a worn end table, and an old console TV-the big wooden kind they used to make. Nearly as old as the house, Marlin guessed.
Marlin stood for a moment, just looking and listening. He could hear water dripping somewhere, the refrigerator humming in the kitchen. The place smelled kind of funny.
He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find, so he began with a casual tour through the house. He discovered something right off the bat: Bert Gammel was a world-class slob. Crusty dishes were piled in the kitchen sink, the bathtub was pocked with mildew, and the sheets on his bed looked like they might just crawl away. Beer cans and fast-food wrappers were strewn on stained carpets throughout the house. The tiny spare bedroom looked to be a makeshift office, with a rusty metal desk against the wall, but clutter had taken over. Two old bicycles. A disassembled lawn-mower that was leaking oil. A dozen boxes filled with old clothes. Six boxes of
Marlin was no neat freak, but he had no idea how a man could live like this. Coming home to a hovel like this would be depressing. And what about bringing a woman over? Either Gammel never did, or the kind of woman he brought home didn’t care.
Marlin checked his watch-ten-fifteen-then began a slow, methodical search of the contents of the house. He knew he was covering ground the deputies had already covered. But maybe they had missed something. By the time they searched, their minds already had been on Jack Corey. They had their man, and they had plenty of evidence to back it up. So they might have gotten a little sloppy.
As two hours passed, Marlin’s optimism faded. He had found some financial records in the metal desk, including a few months’ worth of bank statements, but nothing that shed any light on Gammel’s windfall. Marlin had spotted a pull-down ladder that led to the attic. Nothing up there but spiderwebs and rat droppings.
This just wasn’t adding up. Gammel, according to witnesses, had always lived from paycheck to paycheck. Then, suddenly, he was rolling in dough. Surely there would be some kind of records-if the money was legitimate. And if the money wasn’t legitimate, Gammel must have been dealing drugs or burglarizing houses or something.
Or bribes. Maybe he was taking bribes.
The thought struck Marlin out of nowhere. Gammel supervised large building projects for the county. Plenty of private contractors would want that kind of business, enough to pony up some cash to secure the contract. It was nothing new: People in Gammel’s position were bribed all the time. But Marlin had never heard of it happening in Blanco County. That was the kind of thing that happened on the East Coast, where mob bosses ruled the building industries with an iron fist. Try to bribe someone in Blanco County and they’d look at you like you were naked in church.
But still, it was worth checking into.
The standoff was seventeen hours old now, and Bobby Garza was starting to get nervous. Jack Corey’s behavior was becoming somewhat erratic, probably due to lack of sleep. Early this morning, they’d heard him in there shouting, apparently at Wylie; none of the deputies could make out what he was saying. But when they called him on the phone, he seemed reasonably collected. Not friendly, but not delusional or irrational, either.
Garza figured Corey’s exhaustion was both a blessing and a curse. If he nodded off, Wylie might be able to slip away or get control of the gun. On the other hand, Corey might become agitated, excitable, or violent. Garza decided to stick with the current plan, which was simply to wait. Sooner or later, Corey would realize it was hopeless and give up. That was the optimist in Garza talking. The other side of his brain knew that Corey could kill Wylie-or turn the gun on himself. And the blood would be on Garza’s hands. People would question his choices for the rest of his career.
At sunrise, some of the local volunteer firefighters had shown up with big thermoses of coffee, breakfast rolls, even hot eggs and bacon. Then they had erected a large canopy to give Garza and the deputies some shade. It was going to be a hot one for November. Texas weather could sneak up on you: cool and balmy one day, warm and muggy the next.
Most of the deputies were dozing in their cars or patrolling the perimeter, keeping curious locals and reporters away from the building. Garza was sitting in a chair under the canopy, his eyelids drooping, when he heard: “Sheriff Garza?”
He looked up to see an obese, friendly-looking man wearing a rumpled tan-colored suit. Garza figured him for media-probably radio, based on his looks. “I’m sorry, I have no comment at the moment,” Garza said, rising. “And you’re not supposed to be back here-”
