Long Fall from Heaven. George Wier
Читать онлайн книгу.
shrugged. “There was a lot of speculation that went on back in those days, and a lot of it was whispered. Vague rumors and half-told tales. You dig them up and I believe you’ll be getting somewhere. And now that’s all I’m going to say. I’ve said too damn much as it is.”
“Okay. One last question,” Micah said. “What does Bonaparte Foley have to do with this whole mess?”
“He was the ranger sent down here to put a stop to the killings. By hook or crook.”
“What do you mean, by hook or—”
“That’s how things sometimes worked back then. Foley was supposed to find the guy and make the case on him. But if he couldn’t make a solid case, he was supposed punch his ticket for him.”
“Did he find him?”
The old man laughed a grim little laugh. “Well, the killings stopped and there never was any prosecution, so you figure it out. Now that’s all you’re getting from me.”
“All right,” Micah said, and meant it. “I won’t press you any further.” He opened his wallet and handed the old man the hundred-dollar bill. Homer took it without hesitation. Maybe he’d already forgotten that he’d turned it down.
• • •
When Micah got back to his truck, he found a ticket for illegal parking under one of the wiper blades, flapping in the gulf breeze. On the signature line printed in perfectly legible block letters was the name of the officer who had issued it: Leland Morgan. The son-of-a-bitch even put an exclamation point after his name.
[ 9 ]
Lieutenant Leland Morgan watched Micah Lanscomb as he walked along the beach below the seawall. It was low tide at the moment, and the strip of beach had widened by perhaps a hundred yards. Lanscomb had his boots over his shoulder and seemed to be in no hurry. His patrol uniform was rumpled, his overly-long hair flopped around in the breeze. There was no telling what Boland saw in the guy. How could he trust him so implicitly with his business?
The beach was otherwise deserted at this hour. It was just Lanscomb and the surf. Morgan had to climb back inside his cruiser at one point when Lanscomb disappeared from view past a hotel boardwalk. He drove a quarter of a mile down. He passed the boardwalk and parked opposite the hotel that stood over the water on top of a forest of black pilings. He got out and approached the seawall, walked a few yards on the wide boardwalk, and watched Lanscomb.
Lanscomb had stopped and was looking toward a set of stairs ahead of him that ascended from the beach to the top of the seawall. Morgan waited and fingered his binoculars.
A man came into view from the stairs and sauntered across the sand toward Lanscomb. It was the beachcomber—Underwood.
Underwood approached Lanscomb and the two began talking. Morgan raised his binoculars.
“What are you two dipshits saying?” Morgan whispered under his breath. “Goddammit, I better let her know right away.”
Morgan watched as Lanscomb pulled out his wallet and offered money to Underwood, who appeared to refuse it. Lanscomb then gestured back the way he had come—in the direction of Nell’s.
A shiver went up Morgan’s spine. If they turned, they would certainly see him. At this angle, if he moved, the motion might attract their attention.
Leland Morgan stepped back slowly across the boardwalk until his tailbone encountered the opposite railing. He crouched until only the top of his head could be seen from the vantagepoint of the two men.
At that moment the two turned toward him and began walking.
Morgan waited until they were beneath him, thirty feet down, then stood and walked back to his cruiser. He drove to Nell’s, where Lanscomb’s little security truck was parked illegally by the seawall. He stopped next to the truck and a smile slowly spread across his face.
It took no more than a moment to write the parking citation. He had to fish through his glove box for the pad, though. It had been more than a year since he’d written a ticket. It was something a lieutenant didn’t normally do but technically could. He paused only a moment when he had filled out the form down to the officer’s signature line. Normally, his signature was no more than an illegible scrawl. It was the badge number next to it that the municipal court went by in the event the violator pled not guilty and he’d have to appear before the bench or a jury. Instead, Morgan wrote his name in plain block letters. He wanted Lanscomb to know his place in the scheme of things, and who was putting him there.
The breeze from the Gulf drove the odor of salt spray into his sinuses. He fought the urge to sneeze.
Why the hell was he here in Galveston, so far from Lubbock and home?
Leland Morgan shook his head. For some questions there weren’t any answers.
He placed the ticket under the wiper blade of Lanscomb’s pickup, climbed back into his cruiser and drove away, his spirits beginning to lift for a change.
[ 10 ]
The DPS lab completed the autopsy and sent Jack Pense’s body back to Galveston shortly after noon. C.C. Boland had Jennifer Day clutching his arm when he walked into the Welch and Sons Funeral Home to make the arrangements.
Billy Welch, the owner of half a dozen funeral chapels strung along the Texas Gulf Coast, was there to greet them. Billy’s sleeves were rolled up and he was ready to help. Billy and C.C. had known each other since the two of them were kids in grade school.
Jenny picked out a five-thousand dollar casket, the flowers and the headstone. Billy tried to shave the price downward, knowing it was one of Cueball’s employees, but Cueball glanced at the figures and shook his head.
“What the hell you think you’re trying to do, Billy?”
“What do you mean?” Welch asked.
C.C. sighed and fished out his checkbook. “You’re undercharging me, and you’re doing it on purpose.” Then he wrote a check for a little over seven thousand dollars and never batted an eye. He placed the check in Billy’s hand and Welch sighed deeply.
“Thank you, C.C.,” he said. And meant it.
After the arrangements were made, Billy requested a two-hour window to prep the body for a brief viewing. It would be a closed casket ceremony—this Cueball had known, having already seen the grisly remains at the warehouse—but Jack’s common-law wife hadn’t seen him yet.
During the wait, Cueball took Jenny to a cafeteria a block down from the funeral home and made it a point to get her a cup of coffee and spike it with Irish rum. Business was slow. The two were seated alone in a section away from the listless cafeteria workers. Every time Jenny got her spiked cup of java drank halfway down, C.C. reached across and poured in another dollop of rum from his flask. At her first protestation, Cueball said, “This will stiffen your spine a little. And you’ll need it when you go in and see Jacky.” And so she drank and drank some more. Just about the time Cueball estimated she was feeling no pain, his pager beeped.
Cueball read the number, got up and used the pay phone in the lobby. Micah answered on the first ring.
“Did you know a Texas Ranger by the name of Foley?” Micah sounded perpetually tired.
“Of course I knew him. In fact, I was at his funeral, along with the most of the rangers in the state.”
“Okay. Good.”
“What’s Foley got to do with this?” Cueball asked.
“Uh. Let’s just say I have my sources. Maybe we should be looking for a little more than just Harrison Lynch.”
“Yeah? Who’s your source?”
“It’s—”
“Huh! I already know. It’s Homer Underwood,