Texas Fierce (The Tylers of Texas 4)
* * *
That night she drove to the hotel and shut herself into the phone booth with a handful of quarters. With a shaking hand, she lifted the receiver, inserted some coins, and placed a call to the Rimrock.
Jasper answered on the second ring.
“Jasper, this is Susan Rutledge. I know you might not want to talk to me—”
“You know right,” he drawled. “If you hadn’t let Bull steal you from Ferg, he might not be in this godawful mess.”
“I want to help him,” she said. “I can pay for a lawyer, a good one.”
“You know Bull wouldn’t stand for that. Anyway, he’s got a decent lawyer, one the court gave him.”
“Fine.” Susan took a deep breath. “Jasper, maybe you can’t say a lot. But please tell me one thing. Every instinct in my body tells me that Ferg is lying and Bull didn’t do this. Am I right?”
“Yup.”
“So you know what really happened.”
“I didn’t see it, but I know what Bull told me, and I believe him.”
“So why don’t you tell the sheriff the truth?”
“Because Bull ordered me not to. And because nobody would believe me—just like they wouldn’t believe Bull.”
“Can’t you tell me more?”
“Not over the phone,” Jasper said. Susan could only hope it was a veiled invitation.
“I’m coming,” she said. “There’s no way I can stay with the Prescotts. Will you let me stay at the Rimrock?”
“I will . . . for Bull.”
By the time Susan ended the call, she knew what she had to do. At home she packed a bag, wrote a note to her parents, who were at a charity dinner, and left by the back door. Minutes later she was in her Mustang, headed for the Interstate.
It was time to grow up.
* * *
Bull’s court-appointed lawyer, Ned Purvis, had retired from active practice six years ago. But he still helped out when the court was shorthanded and needed a defense attorney. It kept him sharp, he liked to say. And there was nothing like a good murder trial to get the old juices flowing. Nearsighted and troubled by arthritis, he walked with a slight limp. In a movie, he might’ve been played by Walter Brennan.
Bull hadn
’t planned to tell him about Rose. But after Purvis assured him that lawyer–client privilege was inviolate and that he’d need the whole story to serve as his defense, Bull came clean, revealing everything.
“So a fourteen-year-old orphan girl shot Ham Prescott and you took her out of the country to protect her.” Purvis shook his head. “I believe you. Nobody would make up such a crazy story. But it wouldn’t hold up worth a damn in court. The prosecution would push the idea that the girl saw you kill Ham, and you got her out of the good old U.S. of A. to keep her from testifying—or maybe even killed her, too.”
“I’ve thought of that.” Bull sat on a straight-backed chair, wearing an ugly black-and-white-striped prisoner’s jumpsuit. His wrists were handcuffed to the table in the interrogation room of the Blanco County jail. His arraignment, where he would enter a not guilty plea, was hours away. He had never felt more wretched in his life, but he couldn’t give up his freedom and let Ferg destroy everything he’d fought for.
“I want to leave Rose out of this,” Bull said. “If I get off on the basis of her guilt, it would make her a fugitive for the rest of her life. Besides, bringing her up would only complicate our case.”
“So you’re saying that you’d admit to killing Ham yourself, even if it wasn’t true?”
“Rose shot Ham in self-defense. If I’d been in her place, I would’ve done exactly the same thing.”
“Hold on an all-fired minute while I get this straight. You told me that Ham killed her grandfather—and that you used that information to control him. That’s extortion and obstruction of justice. I can see why you wouldn’t want it brought up in trial. But the basic question is this: Did Rose shoot Ham for revenge, or because he was a threat to her?”
“The revenge part doesn’t make any difference. Ham was walking toward the house with a pistol in his hand. I saw it myself. I knew he was capable of killing. So did Rose. Whoever shot him, it was self-defense, pure and simple.”