Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?We busted a Mexican with tar and three grand in cash on him. I think he might be a mule working for Ouzel Flagler. That?s the third one we arrested this month.?

At the rear of the house was a paintless picnic table with an umbrella set in the center of it. She put the charcoal and the food on the table and slipped the flats of her hands in her back pockets and looked at Hackberry?s barn and poplar trees and vegetable garden bursting with Big Boy tomatoes. Her handcuffs were drawn through the back of her belt, the tip of a braided blackjack protruding from her side pocket. He waited for her to continue, but she didn?t.

?Let?s have it, Pam,? he said.

?Isaac Clawson was at the office an hour ago. He wants to track as much pig flop into your life as he can, Hack.?

?Who cares??

?You?re too nice. People blindside you.?

?You?re going to protect me??

She turned around and fixed her eyes on him. ?Maybe somebody should.?

He pressed a dent out of the crown of his hat with his thumb and replaced it on his head, a smile at the corner of his mouth, one eye a little more narrow than the other. ?You got a cold drink in that bag??

?Yes, sir,? she replied.

He cracked open the Coca-Cola she?d brought and took a long swallow. It was ice-cold and hurt his throat, but he continued to swallow, his gaze directed at two blue jays in his mulberry tree. He could feel Pam?s eyes on the side of his face. He lowered the bottle from his mouth. ?You?re a good lady,? he said.

Her face seemed to go soft in the shade, like a flower in late afternoon. Then he heard a voice, one as clear as the sound of the birds in the trees: Don?t say any more.

She folded her arms across her breasts. ?You got any charcoal lighter?? she said.

?Insid

e the toolshed,? he replied.

The moment had passed, the way a kitchen match can flare and burn and die inside one?s chest. He went back to work in his garden, and Pam started a fire in his grill and covered the picnic table with a cloth and began laying out sausage links and buns and paper plates and plastic forks.

Twenty minutes later, Isaac Clawson?s government car came up the driveway. Hackberry walked to the gate, rolling up the cuff on one sleeve, touching his sunglasses in his pocket, not looking directly at Clawson, his expression neutral, his back turned to Pam. Clawson?s rimless octagonal glasses were wobbling with light, his shaved head polished and gleaming, the cranial indentations ridged with bone. His eyes shifted off Hackberry?s face and focused on Pam, who was turning sausages on the grill inside a patch of shade.

?You work at home sometimes?? he said to Hackberry.

?What?s the nature of your errand, sir?? Hackberry said.

?Errand??

?Want to join us in a hot dog??

?No, I want a man in custody for the murder of Junior Vogel.? With two fingers, Clawson pulled a color photo out of his shirt pocket. ?You know this guy??

The photo had not been taken in a booking room and looked like one used for employee identification. The man in the photo had wide-set eyes, an upper lip that was too close to the nose, and a full orange beard, one that a nautical man might wear.

?Who is he?? Hackberry asked.

?His name is Liam Eriksson. Yesterday he and a woman tried to cash Pete Flores?s disability check at an auto-title loan place in San Antonio. They?d both been drinking. When the clerk went in back with the check, they took off. The surveillance camera got them both on tape. We got Eriksson?s thumbprint off the counter. Eriksson had gotten a library card with Flores?s name on it.?

?How much was the check for??

?Three hundred and fifty-six bucks.?

?He linked himself to incriminating evidence from a homicide scene for three hundred and fifty-six dollars??

?Who said any of these guys are smart? There?re just more of them than there are of us. You haven?t made a press release indicating Vogel?s death was a homicide??

?Not yet.?