Rick Riordan: The Devil went down to Austin

I didn't answer.

"I don't know why your brother failed to mention that he and Jimmy were arguing at dinner, like you told me. It's probably nothing. Just-bad form when the statements don't agree, isn't it? I hate going back later, using WiteOut."

"I know my brother."

Lopez smiled. "Of course you do. Where does he work again- RNI? Oh, no. That's right. He quit that job over a year ago."

Up on the secondfloor walkway, one of the apartment residents waddled out in his jockey shorts and a tattered Waterloo Tshirt. He yelled down to us that his neighbour was throwing his sofa off the back balcony and we should stop him.

Lopez grinned. He told the guy he would have to phone it in to the APD dispatcher.

The guy began cursing at us.

Lopez gave me a wink. "My point is-an okay guy like you, you could help me out a lot, maybe help your brother, too. We could be straight with each other and get this thing resolved. You could give Garrett some advice on how to play it.

If there were hard choices to make, I trust you would make them."

"You want my brother in jail, Lopez?"

He laughed. "They told me you had a sense of humour. That's great. See you around, Mr. Navarre."

Then he climbed into the patrol car.

I watched it back up, disappear around the corner of 24th.

The guy on the second floor kept yelling at me to come stop his neighbour from pitching his furniture off the balcony.

Every day is a love fest when you live at The Friends.

Garrett hadn't hired a maid since my last visit, five months ago.

Fastfood containers littered the kitchen counter. The living room was a tornado zone of paperback novels, electronics parts, CDs, laundry. A dead tequila bottle stuck out from the seat of our father's old leather recliner and the carpet was fuzzy with birdseed from Dickhead the parrot, who scuttled back and forth on the window ledge at the top of the vaulted ceiling.

Garrett sat in the far corner of the room, staring at his twenty oneinch computer monitor.

"Computers get static?" I asked.

The gray fuzzy light made Garrett's face crawl, his eyes hollow.

"Not usually." He slammed the monitor's off button. "I need a drink."

I waited for him to explain the computer problem. Not that I would've understood the explanation, but that was something Garrett always did. This time, he didn't.

I went to the bar, got down his bottle of Herradura Anejo and a couple of moderately clean glasses. "Detective Lopez just got through telling how much you're not a suspect in Jimmy's murder. He was very agreeable about it. I got the feeling he'd let you plea just about any degree of homicide you wanted."

Garrett took the tequila. "Lopez has had a hardon for me for years."

"Really."

"Don't give me that tone-like you assume I'm stoned. Back when Lopez was on patrol, he made a lot of calls to Jimmy's place, had to chew us out for drunkanddisorderly crap. We got into some namecalling. But you know I didn't kill Jimmy. I couldn't."

I drank my Herradura, found it made a pretty bad chaser for garlic bagels. "Lopez gives you credit for mobility-a lot more credit than he's giving our statements."

Garrett shoved his keyboard drawer closed. "Somebody finally believes in me, and it's a homicide cop."

I ran my finger across the kitchen counter, making a cross with a dustless shadow where a picture frame had stood for a long time. I remembered the photograph. It had been the twin of the one in Jimmy's house-Garrett and Jimmy at the seawall in Corpus, a year or so before Garrett's accident.

"W.B. Doebler was at the sheriff's office," I told him. "If the Doeblers start throwing their weight around, demanding action-"

"Fuck W.B. It's a little late for the Doeblers to decide they care about Jimmy."

"You need help, Garrett."

"And I don't recall asking you for any, little bro. I'll make the calls. I'll take care of things."

"What-you're going to buy a bigger gun?"

"Forget it, man. You didn't like the ranch being mortgaged. You ain't going to like the rest of this."

"I didn't drive up here to build a kiln, Garrett. I sure as hell didn't drive up here to sit on the sidelines while they charge you with murder."

Garrett dug out his wallet, pulled a twenty and wadded it up, threw it at me. "Gas money. Sorry I wasted your time."

I counted silently to ten. Every second was one more I succeeded in not putting my fist through my brother's wall.

The downstairs neighbours cranked up their stereo. Nine Inch Nails throbbed through the carpet. Up on the windowsill, the parrot ruffled his feathers.

"Let's try to cooperate," I said. "For Jimmy's sake. You told them you were with me when that shot was fired. Your book was face down on the sleeping bag when I woke up. You were already gone. Where the hell were you?"

Garrett wore last night's cutoffs, and when he shifted, the stub of his right leg peeked through at the end-a pointed nub of flesh like a mole's nose.

"I was sleeping in my van. With the doors locked."

"Why?"

He rubbed his thumb against his forefingers, rolling an imaginary joint. "In Jimmy's house, I woke up in a cold sweat. I have phantom pains and I get these weird dreams-like somebody has been standing over me in my sleep. I would've felt stupid waking you up. I thought Jimmy was sleeping upstairs. So I went to the one place I feel safe and mobile-behind the wheel of my van. I locked myself in, put my gun on the seat next to me, went to sleep. The shot by the water woke me up. What was I going to tell the police? I was afraid of ghosts so I locked myself in my car?"

"It would've been better than lying, Garrett. I'm going to need an explanation for Detective Lopez."

His eyes flared. "You need an explanation. Well, let's just stop the goddamn world.

Let's drop everything and make sure Tres is okay, because my little brother needs an explanation. He needs the ranch. He needs to know where Garrett is twentyfour hours a day. Well, maybe for once, little brother, you ain't going to get everything you need."

The counting wasn't helping anymore. Downstairs, Nine Inch Nails went into their next song, the bass line massaging the soles of my boots.

"Did you see anyone last night?" I asked.

"No."

"You must suspect someone. The banker guy."

"Matthew Pena," Garrett murmured.

There was something in his voice I hadn't heard often-pure hate.

"You think he's capable of murder," I said. "An investment banker?"

Garrett pressed his palms against his eyes. "I don't know."

"What about Jimmy's ex? Ruby McBride?"

He hesitated. "No. No way."

"But?"

Garrett stared at his monitor. "There are reasons I didn't talk to you sooner, little bro.

Not just because I wanted you in the dark."

"I snoop for a living, Garrett. Let me help."

"In all the years Dad was sheriff, do you ever recall me asking him for help?"

"Maybe you should have. He would've done damn near anything if you'd ever called."

"Here it comes, the guilt trip from the good son. Forget it. I don't want you in my problems because I don't want you hurt, man. And believe me, you would get hurt."

I looked at Garrett's clock-Dad's clock. I'd been in Austin twentyfive hours. The ranch was still mortgaged. Jimmy Doebler was dead. My brother's life was falling apart. And he didn't want me involved because I might get hurt.

I set my shot glass on Dad's army locker, which served as Garrett's makeshift coffee table. I stared at Dad's recliner, thought about Dad's old saddle that hung on Garrett's bedroom wall.

Not for the first time, I had to swallow back a comment about hypocrisy. Garrett always insisted I'd been Dad's favourite, the model son, and yet I owned almost nothing of the Sheriff's. Garrett, who had always railed that he wanted nothing to do with our father, lived surrounded by his things.