Rick Riordan: The Devil went down to Austin

Whatever noise he makes can't be heard above the rumble of the train. There's no pain. No blood loss-every artery sealed perfectly against the tracks.

He lies there in shock, staring at the stars. How long-an hour? Two?

How long before this little brother got nervous, decided to give away the secret of where Big Brother goes when he's angry?

And what did he think about as he lay there?

I hope he thought about his good buddy who'd abandoned him, made him fall in love with trains, gave him a few months of freedom that he would now pay for by being immobile, bound to metal wheels-forever. I hope, somewhere inside, he wished his friend had been the one on the tracks.

Because he's waited twenty years for this train. I want him to enjoy the ride.

Coffee and stale garlic bagels at the Travis County Sheriff's Department didn't improve my frame of mind. Neither did twelve hours of waiting rooms, shoe prints, fingerprints, atomic swab absorption tests, and questions from the lead investigator, Victor Lopez, who was convinced he had a sense of humour.

I saw my brother once, from across the homicide office. The betrayed look he gave me made me glad the deputies had separated us.

If Jimmy's exwife made an appearance, I didn't notice her.

The only member of the Doebler clan I spotted was one of Jimmy's cousins from the wealthy branch of the family-Wesley or Waylon, I couldn't remember his name.

Jimmy had introduced us once at a Christmas party, maybe a decade ago. He wore a gray silk suit and three gold rings and a look of professional concern he probably saved for family tragedies and stock devaluations. He spent a few minutes at the opposite end of the room, talking to the sheriff, then gave me a cold glance on his way out.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, I was finally trundled into the backseat of a patrol car next to Detective Lopez and chauffeured toward Garrett's apartment.

We cruised up Lavaca, through West Campus neighbourhoods of white antebellum sorority houses and highrent condominiums. The postrain air steamed with sumac.

Every front yard was strewn with pink and white from blooming crape myrtles.

On Guadalupe across from UT, a cute Asian girl in plaid pants and a tank top was reading a Henry James novel outside Quacken bush's Intergalactic Coffeehouse. Street vendors were selling glass beads and incense in the Renaissance Market. Construction workers were drilling a crater in the middle of 24th Street.

Jimmy's death was expanding inside my rib cage like a nitrogen bubble, but the rest of the world kept right on going. It was enough to make me resent a sunny afternoon in a beautiful city.

The patrol car turned on San Gabriel.

Garrett's apartment building is a threestory redwood box with exterior walkways like a motel. On one side is a $40,000 steelframe handicappedaccess elevator that the landlord recently installed after three years in court. The landlord loves Garrett. Below and on both sides of Garrett's unit are college kids who put up with my brother playing Jimmy Buffett CDs at full volume night and day. The college kids love Garrett. The rest of the building is populated by smalltime drug dealers, angstridden artists and drunks, all of whom spend their time fighting and throwing each other's furniture off the balconies and loving Garrett. The name of the apartment complex is The Friends.

The Carmen Miranda-Garrett's VW safari van with the Caribbean dancing women airbrushed along the sides and the plastic tropical fruit hotglued to the roof-had been returned from the crime scene, special delivery. I guess if I were the Travis County sheriff, I would want to get it away from my crime scene as fast as possible, too.

Parked next to it was my black Ford F150.

"I'll only be a second," Lopez told our driver. "You hang tight."

The deputy glanced in the rearview mirror-shot me a notso veiled fuck you look.

"Whatever you say, sir."

Lopez and I walked toward the apartment complex. Lopez stopped in front of the Carmen Miranda, shook his head in admiration.

"I dig the pineapples," he said.

Lopez's features were satanically pleasant, teaandmilk complexioned, framed by a square jaw and a severe, greasy buzz cut. He had a halfback's build and the eyes of a chess player.

"When does Garrett get released?" I asked.

Lopez feigned surprise. "Should be upstairs right now. Why? You thought we would hold him?"

That was a hook I decided not to bite.

"Don't look so down," Lopez said. "Y'all cooperated beautifully. Now we just got to find who whacked your friend, right?"

I leaned against the back of the van, hating how leaden my eyes felt, hating the odour of smoke in my clothes from last night's fire. "Garrett wouldn't kill Jimmy. Even if he wanted to, his wheelchair

…"

Lopez's eyes glittered. "Sure, Mr. Navarre. According to your statement, there's no way. We're just asking questions, you know? Got to explain those nagging details, like why your brother's gun had been fired. Why there was powder residue on his hand."

"I told you-"

"He shot a statue. Happens every day. And we'll have to explain the fact there was no shell casing at the scene. You know. Just some little details like that."

Lopez was watching me the way a fisherman watches the tide, moving across it with a skeining net.

I said, "He's disabled, Lopez."

"I prefer to think of him as differently abled, don't you? But don't worry-I'm sure we'll find the casing sooner or later. Ballistics has the projectile now-probably find out it was from a completely different gun. Some anonymous killer in the night, I imagine."

"Garrett needs a lawyer."

Lopez bopped his fists together, hotpotato style. " 'Course not, Mr. Navarre. I appreciate y'all's candour. And I promise you: I will nail Jimmy Doebler's killer."

"You treat every case with this much enthusiasm?"

"I knew Jimmy. I liked Jimmy. I used to work patrol out at the lake, knew all the folks out that way."

"And his family has a few gazillion dollars," I added. "Jimmy's cousin was talking to the sheriff today."

A safety valve clicked shut in Lopez's eyes.

"W.B. Doebler isn't my concern." Lopez gave the initials their proper Texas pronunciation, dubyabee. "You know Jimmy, you know he had a pretty shitty life-that family of his, the stuff with his mom, the clinical depression. Seemed like he was finally coming out of it when he got roped into this business deal with your brother."

He let his smile creep back to full intensity. "But hey, that doesn't matter. Jimmy and Garrett were quarrelling, your brother was mad enough to discharge a weapon, I'm sure that's not important."

I looked back at our driver, who was staring at me through the windshield-giving me the look of death.

"Don't mind him," Lopez said. "Some of the guys, they heard about that little accident down in Bexar County, you shooting that deputy. Doesn't play well with the uniforms.

You understand."

"And with you?"

Lopez made a pish sound. "I got no sympathy for bad cops. That asshole was corrupt: you took him down. Good for you. I believe in weeding out the bad, Navarre. Don't care if it's a friend or a relative or what. I hope we're on the same page with that."

I looked up toward Garrett's apartment door.

"I'm on your side, man," Lopez assured me. "I wouldn't want this to get around, but the people I know in San Antonio-they say you're all right. They say when it comes down to a fight, you're a guy who can be counted on to choose the right team."

"I see your point," I said. "We wouldn't want that to get around."

"You got my card." Lopez turned to go, then looked back, as if he'd forgotten something. I hate it when cops do that. "And Navarre? The discrepancies in those statements you and your brother gave us? I'm not thinking much of them. For instance- were you with your brother when you heard the shot or not?"