Starr County Line Read online

“Where’s Sadie?” he asked.

  “She ain’t comin in today, Sheriff, it’s her birthday remember?”

  JD nodded. “Well, your coffee tastes like shit, Roe.”

  He set the cup down and picked up the phone. He dialed the number for the DA’s office and sat on the corner of his desk.

  “Mornin, Liz,” he said. “Where’s he at? All right.”

  He waited and looked at the ceiling tiles. Three of them were water damaged and sagging from a leak in the air conditioner. He pointed to them and Roe nodded dutifully.

  “I gotta set here for too much longer,” he said to Roe, “I’m just gonna hang up on the sonofabitch…oh, mornin to you, Arnold.”

  He listened.

  “Yep. He’s settin right down the hall from me. Where’d you think he’d be?”

  He listened some more. His face began to contort a bit.

  “Turn him over? To who?” he asked.

  He listened some more.

  “The Feds?” he asked. “What about Frank Boles?”

  He looked up and closed his eyes and held the phone away from his ear. He listened again. After a short spell, he put the receiver in the cradle.

  He looked at Roe.

  “DA says we gotta turn him over to the Feds,” he told him. “They’ll be along in a few days and we are to remand him into their custody.”

  Roe looked astonished. “What about Boles?” he asked.

  “Arnold says once the Feds are done with him, he’ll see what he can do,” JD told him.

  “That’s better than nothin,” Roe said.

  “I wouldn’t go a holdin your breath,” JD said. “We ain’t got nothin but circumstantial evidence and no eyewitnesses. Any lawyer north of Corpus could get them charges dismissed before the coffee got cold.”

  He took another sip from his cup and swallowed.

  “Bullshit,” he uttered.

  He walked down the hall to the jail cells, his boot heels pounding the old tiles. He could hear the man he’d arrested for the murder of Frank Boles snoring on the cot as he opened the hallway door quietly. He stood in front of the bars, just watching the young man for a moment. He lifted his boot to his knee and stomped it hard on the concrete. The man jumped in his sleep and flipped out onto the floor.

  “Mornin,” JD said.

  The prisoner glared up at him from the cold concrete.

  “I’m guessin you’re Miguel Terlingua,” JD told him, folding his arms across his chest. “Wanted for questioning in the murder of a Agualeguas police chief in 1973 and the accompanying arson committed on the police station.”

  Miguel said nothing. He sat on his cot with his back to JD.

  “Since you ain’t denyin it, Miguel,” JD went on, “Lemme tell you what’s what. I just got off the phone with the district attorney in Rio Grande City. He says I gotta turn you over to the Feds. They seem to be particularly interested in you. Now I don’t like that, on account I know you killed Frank Boles, but I can’t charge you without makin a fool outta myself and I try hard as I can to avoid that if at all possible.”

  Miguel stood and walked to the wall, stopping very close to it for a moment before turning around.

  “I didn’t kill your man,” he said in a quiet voice.

  JD turned to grab a metal folding chair and sat.

  “You didn’t kill Frank Boles,” JD said.

  “No,” Miguel told him.

  “Gun on you, same type that killed him, ten grand in your pocket, settin on his couch, you didn’t kill him,” JD said.

  “No,” Miguel said again.

  “You kill that old boy down in Agualeguas?” JD asked.

  Miguel said nothing.

  “All right then, if you didn’t kill Boles, who did?” JD asked.

  Miguel remained silent. JD looked at his boots. He let out a heavy sigh and shook his head.

  “You think of something before the DEA gets here,” JD told him, “I’ll be settin up front.”

  Miguel just smirked at him and laughed

  “What’s so funny, boy,” JD asked.

  “You are,” Miguel said. “Look at you. Old man. You’re in an hourglass that’s been turned upside down, you just don’t know it. The sands are slipping through beneath your feet and pretty soon, there won’t be any time left. “

  He lay back down on the cot and closed his eyes.

  Roe was waiting for him in the lobby when he returned from his visit with Miguel.

  “What’d he say?” Roe asked.

  “He says he didn’t kill Boles,” JD answered.

  “Well if he didn’t, who did?” Roe asked.

  “I asked him that very thing,” JD told him.

  “What’d he say then?” Roe asked.

  “He started talkin philosophy so I left him to it,” JD said. “I’m headin out. I’ll holler at you.”

  He walked out and fired up the Blazer. He took his Magnum out and flipped the cylinder open. He swapped speed loads more for superstitious reasons than anything else. He unlocked the shotgun on the dash. He kept feeling like there was a line drawn somewhere in front of him and he was inexorably being pushed slowly across it. He put the Blazer in reverse and backed out on the street and headed for Lyle Forsythe’s house.

  “Pink,” he called on the radio, “meet me at Lyle’s. I’m gonna need a tow on that blue Ford.”

  Lyle Forsythe was puttering around on his front porch when he heard the engine noise of the Blazer as it rumbled up the road. He spit into the scrub brush that squared up the front of the house. He reached inside the door and brought out a Greener double-barrel shotgun, standing it against the side of the post opposite the driveway so it could not be seen. He wasn’t fond of visitors.

  He watched the Blazer bounce up the old asphalt drive and waved and tried to smile. JD got out and Lyle noticed the safety strap over JD’s big Magnum was undone.

  “How do, Sheriff?” he said.

  “Lyle,” JD replied.

  “What can I do you for?” Lyle asked.

  “Thought I’d come out and visit,” JD answered.

  JD put his hands on his hips and looked at the trees and the house, nodding his head every couple of seconds.

  “You look to be prosperin, Lyle,” he said.

  Lyle tried to be coy. “I’m doin okay, I guess, Sheriff.”

  “Got you a new roof, I see,” JD said.

  “Few months back, yeah. Wind blowed up a side of it, had to replace it,” Lyle offered.

  “Looks nice,” JD said. Lyle nodded his head.

  “That why you come out, Sheriff,” he said, “to ask me about my roof?”

  “Where’d you get the money, Lyle?” JD asked.

  “What money?” Lyle countered.

  “The money for your new roof,” JD said.

  “My aunt Myrtle passed, Sheriff, and she left me a little,” Lyle said.

  “Worked out good then I guess,” JD said. “Myrtle leave you enough for a roof and a truck?”

  “Come again, Sheriff?” Lyle asked.

  “I heard you got you a new Ford,” JD said. Lyle positioned himself near the post with the shotgun just inches away from his right hand.

  “Where’s it at?” JD asked.

  “It’s out back, Sheriff,” he told him. “It broke down a couple days ago, gotta get someone over here to fix it.”

  “Damn, already broke down?” JD asked. “Mind if take a look?”

  “Guess not,” Lyle said. “You some kinda shadetree mechanic or somethin?”

  “Hell no,” JD laughed, “but you never know. Could be you’re just outta gas or somethin.”

  JD walked towards the side of the house and as he did, Lyle grabbed the shotgun and swung it up to waist level and aimed it at him.

  “That’s far enough, Sheriff,” he told him.

  JD froze in his tracks, his right hand hovering over the Magnum.

  “Give over that gun, JD,” Lyle ordered.

  JD gave him a pitying look. “Lyle,” he said, “
I know you’re in trouble. This ain’t gonna make it any better.”

  “No,” Lyle said, “you got it backwards. You’re the one in trouble. Now drop that gunbelt.”

  JD stood perfectly still, like a statue.

  “This ain’t the way to go, Lyle, you know it ain’t,” he told him. “You’re just makin it worse. I know you’re thinkin you’re gonna go get that dope and get the money, but you ain’t. It ain’t even there anymore. You need to think about what you’re doin. You need to think about them boys that’s a lookin for you. What they’re gonna do when they find out you ain’t got their dope or that money.”

  He could see Lyle starting to shake. He’d locked his knees, he guessed, and would probably soon pass out. If he was lucky. If he wasn’t, he’d have to kill this man he’d seen in town a handful of times in the last ten years and knew almost nothing about.

  “Now, Lyle,” he went on, “if there’s any place you could be where you’d be safe, it’s with me. I can help you and we’ll sort this all out. You got a wife and a daughter, and you need to think about them.”

  There were tears in Lyle’s eyes.

  “They left me,” he told JD.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Lyle,” he replied. “But you know they wouldn’t want you a doin this. Let’s you and me go back into town and talk this over, get it worked out, what do you say.”

  Lyle’s arms wavered a bit, as if he might lower the gun. JD remained stone still, his right hand just an inch over the Magnum. Lyle began to cry.

  “It’s all right, Lyle,” JD said. “It’s all right. Hell, this was just a misunderstanding. We’ll get it all straightened out, you’ll see.”

  Lyle lowered the shotgun butt first to the porch. As he touched the stock to the platform, he dropped to his knees and stuck the barrels up under his chin.

  “God, no, Lyle!” JD shouted, raising his hand as he turned to run to the porch. Lyle pulled the triggers and his lifeless body fell back on the wooden planks. His head was almost completely gone. Spatter covered the porch above him, lead ball shot pockmarking the bloody circular pattern. It dripped down like a soft red rain.

  JD had stopped in his tracks and stood there as if in a trance. The world around him seemed to stop turning. No sounds emanated from the surrounding woods. He blinked slowly, his mouth opened for words that wouldn’t come out. The infection of violence had spread from Boles to Lyle. He could see it fanning out like a wave. He felt like a man in water too deep to swim in. Footsteps in the distance snapped him back to reality and he drew the Magnum and readied himself to fire.

  He thumbed the hammer back, the sound of the easy action settling his nerves. He blinked hard a few times against the sweat. A figure came into view with the sun at his back. He squinted against the glare and rested his index finger against the trigger. He rolled his eyes and eased the hammer down as Roy Pink jogged down the drive, his fat belly jiggling over his pants.

  “Whoa, Sheriff, it’s me, don’t shoot,” he called out.

  “Lord, Roy, I coulda killed you,” he said.

  “You said to come meet you,” Pink told him, “and I came as fast as I could. I heard the shot from up at the road and come a runnin.”

  Pink regarded the headless corpse on the porch in disbelief.

  “Good Lord, you killed Lyle?”

  “No,” JD said, “he killed himself.”

  Pink just stared at the grisly scene, trying to take it in. Blood running down the porch steps, seeping through the cracks to the crawlspace beneath Lyle’s house. Flies already buzzing around. He wanted to vomit and the warm spit filled his mouth.

  “Get on back up to the road, Pink. Call Flores,” JD told him. “Get on back up there now and tell him I said to use the siren and haul ass.”

  Pink wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve. “Yessir,” he whispered, not taking his eyes from Lyle’s corpse.

  “Roy,” JD snapped, “you try to forget about what you saw here today and you do it ever night before you go to bed even though you know you won’t. You just keep tryin, okay.”

  “Yessir,” Pink said, backing away.

  JD holstered the Magnum.

  “Roy,” he called out.

  “Yeah, Sheriff,” Roy answered.

  “Gimme one of them little cigars you smoke,” JD said.

  “Sure,” Pink said. He was white as a sheet. He pulled a cigarillo from his pocket and walked over to JD and gave it to him.

  “You seen a lot of things like this,” Pink said, “in the war, right, Sheriff?”

  JD lit the cigar with a match from a small white book in his pocket. He blew a cloud of smoke and watched it dissipate in the heat.

  “Yeah, Roy,” he said, “but it don’t make em any easier to look at. Go on, call Flores like I told you. Don’t come back for Lyle’s truck til after Flores is gone.”

  He watched Roy Pink walk slowly up the drive, like the Texas sun was making his work boots stick to the ground. The cicadas were already back in full chorus. He walked over to the porch and grabbed Lyle’s shotgun by the barrels and took it to the Blazer and put it in the back. Something picked at him. He felt like he was being watched. He tried to appear nonchalant as he looked over the ground surrounding the house.

  He walked around to the back and found the Ford. The keys were in the ignition. He got in and started it up and listened to the engine for a minute. He pushed hard on the accelerator and listened to the V8 roar. He got out and looked at the passenger side. Paint scratch the size of the one he’d seen on the steel post at Boles’ house just above the right rear fender.

  Best he could make sense of it was Lyle had at least been at the scene. That didn’t mean he’d murdered Boles and the more he thought it about the more unlikely it seemed. Nothing added up. Two dead men and three trash bags full of dope and one smart-mouthed Mexican in his jail. All that equals is a hatful of shit, he thought. He put the truck in gear and pulled it around to the front of the house and parked and got out. He stepped gingerly over Lyle’s body and went inside.

  Lyle had a new RC ColorTrak console TV in the corner. He’d seen the ad for it in the Examiner. Walt’s Appliances, $368. A small card covered in dust on top of it read “Welcome home, sweetheart.” The set wasn’t even plugged in. He walked to the back bedroom. Lyle’s bed unmade, clothes all over the floor. He looked in his daughter’s room. The bed was made, but there was a distinctive smell of sweat and body odor in the air, mingled with some kind of cologne. Someone had slept here recently. He didn’t know what to make of that. Whoever it was had left nothing behind in the room. That feeling crept over him again, like someone was studying him.

  He stood in front of the closet door for a long time, wondering whether or not he should open it. There wasn’t a sound in the house. He stood there a moment longer but didn’t open the door. He tried not to think about his reasons why. They seemed to dig down very deep, into something he didn’t feel like he completely understood.

  He walked back outside and waited for Flores under the shade of an ash tree. He watched a trail of ants move up and down the trunk. They were carrying cicada wings. He watched Flores pull into the drive twenty minutes later and park the county coroner’s van. The engine block sizzled as the condensation from the AC dripped on it.

  “You’re gettin a flat, Flores,” JD told him as he got out of the van. Flores stopped to look at the front left tire, which was running low on air. He nodded his head and opened the passenger door for his son to get out. His son was a short, stocky young man in his twenties.

  “Anthony,” JD said.

  “Sheriff,” Anthony replied.

  He watched the pair work. They took photographs of the body. They took photographs of the blood on the patio ceiling. They measured the body. They lifted Lyle carefully as if he were made of porcelain and laid him in a black zipper bag. They placed him on a gurney and rolled him to the back of the van.

  “When you goin back to school, Anthony?” JD called out.

  The young
man stopped and turned around.

  “Can’t go back,” he told him. “We don’t have enough money.”

  JD frowned. He watched father and son ease the gurney into the cargo space and get in the van and drive up to the road and head into Pinto. He stood in the yard alone and tried to remember the last time he’d seen Lyle and actually visited with him. He couldn’t recall when that was.

  He tried to picture the man’s estranged wife and daughter, but he could not. He wondered if they’d ever know what happened to Lyle. What they would say when they found out what really became of him. How they would feel about their decision to leave. Maybe they knew about Lyle already and that’s why they left. Don’t matter much now, he thought to himself.

  He rolled the yellow tape around the porch posts and got in the Blazer to drive home.

  JD sat across from her at the small table in the kitchen without speaking. He’d not said a word for two hours. He picked at his food, took a bite and set the fork back down. He hung his head for a moment. She wore a sad look as she regarded him.

  “JD, ain’t you gonna even talk to me?” she asked.

  He let the question settle and tried to figure out what to say.

  “Ange, I don’t know what’s happening,” he said.

  “What are you talkin about, JD?” she asked.

  He got up and took the bottle of bourbon out of the cabinet.

  “Lord,” she said, as she got up to follow him to the living room. He flipped on the window unit and sat in the La-Z-Boy recliner. He took a long drink of whiskey and rested his head against the cushion.

  “I don’t think I’m a very good sheriff,” he said pitifully.

  She sat on the arm of the chair and took the bottle from him.

  “You’re the best sheriff this town could have watchin over it, JD McKinnon,” she told him. “There ain’t no one could do a better job than you. Roe looks up to you like you was his daddy. The county loves you. They’ve elected you in a landslide two times.”

  He took the bottle back and took another long drink.

  “Frank Boles was killed yesterday. He had a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of dope in his attic. I got a Mexican in jail, had ten grand on him when we picked him up, was just settin on Boles’ couch with a .45 in his waistband when Roe walked in on him. Roe coulda been killed. Today, Lyle Forsythe blew his own head off when I started askin too many questions about how he got his new roof and his new truck. I’m tellin you, Ange, I don’t know what’s goin on around here no more.”