Bone Dry

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Feel like taking a ride?” Marlin asked. He was at a pay phone in Johnson City. One of these days, he’d break down and buy a cell phone. But for now, the department didn’t require it and he didn’t want one. What was the point? If something was really urgent, they could reach him on the radio. If it wasn’t important, he’d rather not take the call anyway.

“Where to?” Phil Colby replied.

“The Hawley place.”

“Swing on by,” Colby said and hung up. Marlin smiled. His best friend was like that: always up for an impromptu ride in the country, no questions asked. Sheriff Garza wouldn’t be too thrilled if he knew Colby was tagging along, but Marlin was feeling lost and needed someone to brainstorm with.

Thirty minutes later, Marlin and Colby found the gate unlocked, as Lester Higgs had said it would be, and Marlin steered his truck onto the Hawley Ranch.

On the ride over, Marlin had brought Colby up to date on the Jack Corey fiasco, including Marlin’s reluctant entry into the world of homicide investigation. He described Gammel’s mysterious supply of cash, then detailed his search of Gammel’s house and his discussions with Jose Sanchez and Maynard Clements. This, Marlin said, would be his final effort: One last visit to the crime scene, a search for anything the deputies might have overlooked. After that, Marlin would have to pack it in, because there was really nothing more he could do for Jack Corey. Marlin was feeling a little silly, actually, like he was wasting his own time. Here he was, trying to find evidence that would clear Corey, when it was becoming more and more obvious that Corey was guilty.

But that’s up to a jury to decide, Marlin reminded himself. An investigation is only about finding evidence. It was up to the district attorney, and then the jury, to decide what the evidence showed.

Marlin followed the dirt road to the southern end of the property and stopped his cruiser in the same place he had parked three days ago. Gammel’s Ford Explorer was gone now, probably at the crime lab in Austin.

Marlin killed the engine and both men climbed out. It was quiet here, only a few birds chirping in the trees, no wind to rustle the leaves in nearby Spanish oaks. A few weeks from now, those leaves would turn a brilliant ruby- red and begin to drop from their branches. For now, they merely sagged in the unseasonable heat.

Colby surveyed the wooded area. “So…what exactly are we looking for?”

Marlin shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

Colby smiled in return. “That’s what I figured.”

Marlin decided they should do another ground search, starting at the killer’s hiding spot in the cedar trees. Native grasses, dry from the drought, crunched under their feet as they tramped through the brush. After fifteen minutes, they tried the same thing around Gammel’s deer blind. All they found were the footprints of the dozen or so men who had reported to the crime scene on Tuesday.

“Strike one,” Colby said. “Nothing doing on the ground search. What’s next, Mannix?”

Marlin thought it over for a few minutes, then said: “Corey hunts with a thirty-thirty… and the deputies looked for a heavy bullet that drops quickly. Wylie says they even looked beyond where a thirty-thirty might drop, but…”

“They mighta been slackin’ a little?” Colby interjected.

Marlin nodded. “Let’s take a look around, thinking in terms of, say, a two-seventy. Something with a fast bullet and a much flatter trajectory.”

Marlin led Colby to the cedar trees where the killer had hidden himself. They crouched down and got a clear view of the ladder to the blind, giving themselves a visual line-of-flight for the fatal round.

Colby spoke up. “See that one small tree back there, directly behind the ladder? — I think it’s a mountain laurel. About a hundred yards past the blind?”

“Yep.”

“That looks like the right path to me.”

Marlin agreed, and they hiked to the mountain laurel. From there, they proceeded farther back into the brush, attempting to follow the path the bullet might have taken. It quickly became obvious that what Wylie had said was true: The area was just too heavily treed to expect success, no matter how accurately you calculated the trajectory. And, of course, the bullet had passed through Bert Gammel’s body, and there was no telling how that might have affected its flight.

Still, the men combed the woods for thirty minutes, but to no avail. No telltale sign of splintered wood or any gouge in the underlying soil.

“Strike two,” Colby muttered.

Marlin gave him a glare. “You’re doing wonderful things for my confidence.”

Colby shrugged. “Sorry, but it’d be a damn miracle if we found that round out here. Anyone tried a metal detector?”

Marlin blew out a heavy sigh. “Won’t find lead. The brass casing, sure, but not the round itself.”

“Okay, then. What’s next?”

Marlin nodded toward Gammel’s deer blind, and they walked to the towering structure. Like most blinds, it was simply a wooden box on metal legs, with a welded ladder that led to a small door on one side.

“Cover me, hoss, I’m going in,” Marlin deadpanned, and made his way up the twelve-foot ladder. He popped the eye-hook on the door and swung it open. He had expected to see at least a few of the items typically found in a deer blind: a chair, for starters, along with some empty soft-drink cans, a jug of water, perhaps some food wrappers, or maybe a couple of hunting magazines. But it was completely empty. Of course it is, Marlin thought, realizing his oversight. Everything that had been in there would have been taken to the crime lab, too. It appeared the deputies had even stripped the carpet from the floor of the blind, leaving a rough coat of dried adhesive on the plywood subfloor. Marlin didn’t even bother climbing into the blind, because there was simply nothing to inspect.

“See anything?” Colby called from below.

“Yeah, I got a severed head up here. Go get me a plastic bag, will ya?”

Colby chuckled. “I take that to mean ‘strike three.’”

“Would you shut up with the-”

“Okay, okay. We’ll call it a foul ball.”

Marlin descended, and they retreated to his truck, where they pulled soft drinks from a small ice chest Marlin had filled earlier in the morning. They lowered the tailgate and took a seat.

“This po-leece work sure gives a man a powerful thirst,” Colby said, and guzzled from a Dr Pepper.

“Don’t it?” Marlin replied. He sipped from his own drink and surveyed the woods around him. “You got any bright ideas?”

Colby cocked his head to one side, thinking. “You could always beat a confession out of him. That’s how some of those big-city cops do it on TV.”

“What if he didn’t do it?”

“Well, I guess you’d figure that out by the time you were finished, huh?”

Marlin rolled his eyes.

“Hey, man, I’m just kiddin’,” Colby said. “This thing sure has you uptight.”

“Something just isn’t right with all this,” Marlin said. “But I can’t figure out what the hell it is.” He finished his drink in silence, then stood and tossed the can into the interior of his truck. “Well, so much for this, then. You ready to head back?” he asked. Marlin had given it his best shot, tried to spot something that had eluded the deputies, but had come up with nothing. Probably because there was nothing to find. Jack Corey had shot Bert Gammel and was desperately trying to convince someone-anyone, really-that he hadn’t done it. It was typical behavior for a lawbreaker. No matter what the evidence suggested, guilty men would profess their innocence until the end. It was as if they believed their sacred word should override the forensic science that pointed an accusing finger their way.