But the feeling wouldn’t go away. I looked at the framed picture on my dresser of my mother and father and me as a child. In the picture I had my father’s jaw and reddish-blond hair, just as my illegitimate son, Lucas Smothers, did. Next to my family picture was one of L.Q. Navarro, in his pinstripe suit and ash-gray Stetson, a bottle of Mexican beer in his hand, his Texas Ranger badge on his belt, a dead volcano at his back. L.Q. Navarro, the most loyal and handsome and brave man I ever knew, whom I accidentally killed on a vigilante raid into Coahuila.
I blew out my breath and rubbed the bath towel in my face and dressed by the window, concentrating on the blueness of the sky and the dark, steel-colored rain clouds that were massed on the hills in the distance.
At ten o’clock Wilbur Pickett was arraigned and released on five thousand dollars’ bail. Earl and Peggy Jean had been sitting in the back of the courtroom. Earl got up from his seat and banged loudly on the doors.
When I walked outside he was standing by his maroon Lincoln, in the shade of the oak trees, his anger replaced by an easy smile. Peggy Jean sat inside the car, her elbow propped on the windowsill, her fingertips rubbing one temple.
“Marvin Pomroy owe you favors?” Earl said.
“On the bail? It doesn’t work that way, Earl,” I replied.
“That boy steals a historical relic and three hundred grand and gets released on a five-dime bond? You telling me y’all aren’t working together?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Wilbur’s not going anywhere, either,” I said.
“Did I say he was?” He reached out and pinched me in the ribs.
“Excuse me, but don’t do that again,” I said.
“Whoa,” he said, grinning broadly.
“Earl, I recommend you stop clowning around and gi
ve some serious thought to what you’re doing,” I said.
“Clowning? Trying to recover a six-figure theft?” he said.
“A man named Skyler Doolittle says you cheated him out of that watch in a bouree game. If we go to trial, he’s going to be a witness for the defense. Your accountant, Max Greenbaum, is too.”
“Greenbaum? What’s he got to do with anything?” Earl said.
“Run your bullshit on someone else,” I said.
I walked across the street toward my office. When I looked back, Earl and Peggy Jean were arguing across the top of their car.
Temple Carrol was waiting inside my office.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. She wore a pair of jeans and a silver belt and a yellow cotton pullover.
“We need to find out more about Earl Deitrich’s finances. See if he’s filed an insurance claim,” I said.
“The Deitrichs stoke you up out there?”
“No.”
“Is it true you and Peggy Jean were an item?” She straightened her shoulders, her hands in her back pockets, her eyes not quite focusing on mine.
“I thought we were. I didn’t know a whole lot back then,” I replied.
“Don’t let a prissy buttwipe like Deitrich get to you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Oh, I can see that,” she said.
“I told him the witnesses I’d use against him. Not too cool,” I said.
She kept her expression flat and let her eyes slip off my face.