Bone Dry

“Well, fuck.” Sal leaned toward the end table and grabbed the cordless phone off its charging base. “Yeah?”

“Sal?”

“Who’s dis?”

“Is this Sal Mameli?”

Sal paused. He didn’t like unidentified callers. If one of his former colleagues ever managed to track him down, Sal figured he might receive a call like this one. And this guy here sounded like he was speaking carefully, trying to disguise his voice. But he didn’t sound like a Jersey boy; more like some local yokel. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Sal said. “Depends on what you want.”

There was no answer, and Sal began to hang up. Then the caller finally responded. “I saw what you did with the body.”

Sal’s jaw dropped and his heart flopped like a fish on a dock gasping for air. He let a few seconds pass while he tried to get his shit together. Then he spoke again, trying to sound casual-and a little angry. “What the hell are you talking about? Who is dis?”

“I saw it, Sal. I saw where you put the body.”

Sal managed to give a small laugh, one that he thought sounded believable. “Yeah, you keep saying dat, but which fucking body are you talking about? Jimmy Hoffa? Amelia Earhart? Who?”

Sal heard the caller take a breath, as if he were about to answer, but then the line went dead. Sal stared at the receiver, as if he could look through miles of telephone line and get a clear view of the man who had just called.

“Think it’ll work?” Billy Don asked around a mouthful of beef jerky.

Red had just climbed back into his battered red truck after using a pay phone. Damn right, a pay phone. Red had seen enough of those criminal-type shows on TV to know better than to use his own phone. Never knew who might be listening in, who might trace the call. Plus there was regular old Caller ID. “He sounded pretty shook up,” Red said. “Acted like he wasn’t, but I could hear it in his voice. Guy was about to drop a load in his britches.”

“So you still think it was him?”

Red nodded and scowled. “That’s what I been tellin’ ya, ain’t it? Now pass me a beer.” Billy Don dug into the ice chest on the floorboard and came up with a cold one. They had stopped by the grocery store earlier and stocked up on drinks, jerky, chips, donuts, and other snacks. Red figured it might be a long night, so he wanted to be prepared.

Red was kind of pissed that Billy Don kept asking him that question: So, you think it was him? Well, damn, of course he did, and he had already listed all the reasons why.

First, Sal Mameli had what the cops called a motive. That meant he had a reason to kill Mr. Slaton. Mameli had been trying to buy up all the brush-clearing businesses in Blanco County, Slaton’s included. But ol’ Emmett-from what Red had gathered-wasn’t playing ball. Red imagined that had pissed Sal off pretty good.

Second, Red and Billy Don had seen Sal Mameli driving away from Slaton’s house in a huff, just a couple of days before Slaton disappeared. Coincidence? Hell no. So not only did Mameli have a motive, he seemed to be hacked off at Mr. Slaton, too. Red had mentioned all of this to that deputy named Wylie, the cocky son of a bitch, but the guy didn’t pay much attention.

And fourth, Mameli just seemed like one of those… whatchamacallits- a wiseguy. A man that’s connected to the mob. No telling whether Mameli really was in the mob-and Red doubted it since the guy lived in Blanco County, about as far from mafia country as you can get. But that didn’t mean Mameli couldn’t be just one of your garden-variety criminals. And hell, everybody knew that your average Eye-talian American was nothing but a street thug. From what Red could tell, watching cable TV shows, the wops who made it into the mafia were just the ones with the biggest balls, the ones willing to take the biggest chances. But none of them-whether they were in the mob or not-could be trusted. Oh, sure, you had a few exceptions to the rule. Real Italian heroes, like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Sal Mameli wasn’t sophisticated like those guys. No, Mameli was a greaseball, and he practically had murderer written on his face. But it seemed like Red was the only person who had figured that out.

Red cranked the ignition and looked over at Billy Don, who had already made a sizable dent in their food supply. “Goddamn, Billy Don, take it easy, will ya? That stuff might have to last awhile.”

Billy Don belched and blew the expelled gas in Red’s direction. “What now, Red?”

Red rolled down the window as he steered his truck out onto Highway 281. “Now we play a little cat and mouse.”

Billy Don nodded seriously.

Red said, “Hey, Billy Don. Who the hell is Jimmy Hoffa?”

Sal Mameli had nothing to do with the death of the deer hunter, Bert Gammel. Smedley kept telling himself that as he munched a bag of honey-roasted peanuts. The sheriff had seemed confident that he had the right man, and that’s why the suspect had taken a hostage. It all made perfect sense. Right?

Likewise, there was nothing to indicate that Mameli had anything to do with Emmett Slaton’s disappearance, either. But Smedley was having a tough time convincing himself of that, too. A quick background check had shown that Slaton owned a number of businesses, including the largest brush-clearing company in the county. And it wasn’t long ago that Sal had gone into that business himself. Way too much of a coincidence. It gave Smedley an uneasy feeling in his gut, worse than a large pizza with extra jalapenos.

That’s why Smedley was once again sitting in his unmarked sedan, staking out the Mameli house. And that’s why he was considering talking to the higher-ups in Austin, asking for a wiretap. That would be a big step, but Smedley thought it was warranted. In spite of what Sal Mameli had accused the U.S. Marshals Service of in the past (mostly because he was a paranoid son of a bitch), they had never tapped his phone since he had joined the program. They had had no legal reason to do so. But now…

Smedley’s train of thought was broken as he saw a flashlight bobbing down the Mameli driveway. It might be Angela coming to get the mail or something. He had seen her and Maria pull in about an hour ago, right at sunset. As the figure crossed the street and approached his car, Smedley got a lump in his throat. It was Maria! Smedley quickly ran his tongue over his teeth to remove the peanut residue.

Maria leaned down to his window and said, “Hola.”

“Hola, Maria,” Smedley replied, feeling like a freshman in Spanish class.

Maria said something else that Smedley couldn’t understand, but he was pretty sure he heard the word comida in there somewhere. He shrugged and said, “No comprendo.”

In the moonlight, he could see Maria’s beautiful smile. She said, “You like dinner?”

Ah, now he got it. Angela must have sent Maria out to invite Smedley to supper. Smedley nodded and extracted himself from the sedan.

Unexpectedly, Maria grabbed his hand and began walking back up the driveway. Smedley tried not to read anything into it. Maybe hand-holding was just a common courtesy in Guatemala. He tried to focus instead on the wonderful evening. Crickets were chirping, there were plenty of stars in the sky, the temperature was in the upper sixties. But when Maria strolled right past the Mamelis’ house and continued to her small cottage behind the garage, Smedley broke into a sweat.

Marlin picked up a hamburger in Dripping Springs on the way home from the lab in Austin. The lab technician, a quiet man named Richard Fanick, had promised to work overtime on the evidence Marlin had found. Fanick had said he might be able to pick up some latent prints on the plastic bag, but the manila envelope was a little more iffy because it had been sealed within the plastic bag. The humidity in the bag might have degraded any existing prints.

Now all Marlin could do was wait.

He had stopped by the sheriff’s office on the way out of town and nothing had changed: Jack Corey was still holed up with Wylie Smith and wasn’t coming out anytime soon. Garza had frowned when Marlin mentioned Corey’s on-air announcement earlier in the day. Marlin felt it was a clear indication that Wylie was to blame for the standoff;