“Yes.”
“Does that happen often with you two?”
“Don’t you start that, Carlo. We’re sensitive enough about what happened.”
Carlo grinned, “I know, I was just jerking your chain.”
Raymond said, “You’re doing a good job of it.”
Carlo held up his hands in surrender, “I’m following the EMS, Buddy and Brandi are going to Alpine this trip. You two coming?”
“We’ll be there after the bodies are taken to the morgue. They’re on their way.”
Chapter 9
The EMS trip to Alpine went fast and smooth, with Buddy driving, and Brandi monitoring Adan. Brandi said, “He’s responding well.”
Buddy said over his shoulder, “Young kid like that, he’s resilient. We’ll have to ask Hunter later on how he was mixed up in those deaths. He should never have been in that boxcar.”
Hunter and Raymond followed behind as they made their way into the City Limits and through town to state road 118, which went by the Big Bend Regional Medical Center.
Ellis and RL listened to much of their traffic on the police scanner in the vehicle. RL noticed Ellis’ face was dark with anger. “What do you think?”
Ellis said, “That damn Kincaid woman is messing up everything. And that kid, we need to fix him before he starts talking.”
They listened to more traffic on the scanner and heard their names as suspects to be found and arrested. “Shit,” RL said.
“Let me make some calls.” Ellis used his phone and called, then said on the phone, “We’re in a mess. Any suggestions?” He listened for several minutes, then said, “Okay, we’ll be waiting.”
RL said, “Who was that?”
“Old man Hart.”
“Did he say what we should do?”
“Yep. We need to go to the Sheriff’s Office and turn ourselves in, say we heard they were looking for us on our scanner, so we’re the law-abiding type and are doing the right thing.”
“The hell you say.”
Ellis winked at RL, “We won’t be there for long. Help’s coming.”
“I hope you’re right.”
They drove to the S.O. and walked inside, where they spotted Carlo. He saw them at the same time, but before he could speak, Ellis said, “We heard you were looking for us. Thought we’d turn ourselves in.”
Carlo processed the two men, and let the jailer take them to a cell, where Ellis and RL reclined on their beds, smiling and smirking.
The jailer, an older man named Curtis, who still looked tough said, “You two think being up on a murder charge is funny? You’re a special kind of stupid.”
“Screw you, old man. We’re innocent until proven guilty. This is America, the U S of A.”
Curtis said, “That’s why you’ll ride the needle.”
Ellis looked hard at the jailer, “I’ll be seeing you around, old man.”
“I might just be the last thing you see. Your meals are coming in about twenty minutes. Enjoy ‘em.”
RL felt his stomach flop. The jailer’s words struck him hard. He said to Ellis, “Man, I don’t want to die.”