Джеймс Паттерсон - Texas Outlaw

We question him for a while longer, with the camera back on, but he honestly doesn’t seem like our guy. I can’t figure out what he’d gain by poisoning Susan Snyder. He’s right—it wouldn’t hurt his reputation one bit if people found out he was sleeping with her. In fact, I suspect everyone already knew.

As we’re walking Alex Hartley out the door, I spot a black truck in the parking lot with the same lettering on the door as the one I saw last night.

A man in jeans and a blue work shirt steps out and heads our way.

“I’m Skip Barnes,” he says to us. “Chief said you wanted to talk to me.”

Skip Barnes—the other name on our suspects list. He’d been dating Susan Snyder on and off, too. He’s the one who went out with her the night before she died.

We bring him into the conference room, the closest thing this police station has to an interrogation room. We ask if we can record the interview, and he consents.

He looks nervous, a sharp contrast to the football coach. Skip fidgets and asks if he can smoke a cigarette. When we tell him he can’t, he squirms in his seat even more. We go through some softball questions—how did they meet, how long had they been dating—and we get pretty much the same impression as we did from Alex Hartley. They’d dated for a few months, going out every couple of weeks.

“Did you ask her out or did she ask you?” I say.

“I asked her,” he says. “Look, she’s got a reputation. She don’t go out with every guy who asks. But if she thinks you’re cute or whatever, she’ll go out with you. I figured it was worth a shot, and lo and behold, she said yes.”

Skip is more forthcoming with information about their sex life.

“Hell yeah, we had sex,” he says. “That was the point. She didn’t want nothing serious. She just wanted a good fuck every now and then.”

It’s hard to understand what Susan Snyder would have seen in the guy. He wasn’t the good-looking jock type that Alex was. He was wiry, with a ruddy complexion and greasy hair. His teeth were yellow from smoking.

“Most of the time,” he says, “we just skipped dinner and met up at her house.”

He seems looser now, bragging about his sexual exploits.

“But you went out to dinner the night she died,” I say. “Her treat.”

“Was it?”

“We got the receipt from the restaurant.”

“Yeah, I guess she paid.”

“And did you go back to her house that night?”

“No.”

“But you said that was the whole point. ‘She just wanted a good fuck every now and then.’ That’s what you said. But on this night, you had a romantic dinner—crab legs, steak, wine, a nice dessert. All that and no sex afterward?”

Skip twists in his seat like a fish at the end of a hook. I can’t tell exactly what he’s hiding, but there’s something he doesn’t want us to know.

Chapter 21

“I DIDN’T FEEL like it,” Skip says.

“You didn’t feel like it?” I say. “What man doesn’t want to have sex with an attractive woman?”

“I mean she didn’t feel like it. I mean…”

He freezes for a minute.

“I didn’t kill her,” he says, and the fear in his voice that we would think he did makes this seem like the most honest statement he’s made since coming in.

Ariana steps in, playing the good cop. “Skip, we’re just trying to get a clear picture of what Susan did that night. We want to get all the facts. Can you help us do that?”

He opens his mouth to say something, then he stands up out of his chair.

“Y’all are trying to twist things around,” he says, angry. “I ain’t talking anymore without a lawyer.” Then, hesitantly, he says, “Am I free to go?”

I rise and approach him.

“You may leave. You are not under arrest. We will reschedule once you’ve consulted with a lawyer.”

He nods with a jerk, as if to say, You’re damn right I’m free to go .

“Skip,” I say, getting closer to him. He backs up against the wall, but in this tiny room, there’s nowhere else for him to go. “Don’t you dare think about leaving town. I don’t care if you had anything to do with Susan Snyder’s death or not. If you leave without talking to us again, that’s obstruction of justice, and I will move heaven and earth to find you.”

Skip looks like he believes me.

After he leaves, Ariana and I watch the truck pull out of the parking lot, clearly in a hurry, driving at least fifteen miles over the speed limit. The license plate says MC 9.

“I thought he was going to piss his pants there for a minute,” Ariana says.

She cracks a smile, and we have a good laugh together. It’s nice to see her laughing. She’s a pretty woman when she’s stone serious, but when she looks happy, she’s absolutely stunning.

“What do you make of Skip?” she asks. “You think he had something to do with it?”

“Honestly, no. But he’s hiding something.”

“That’s the way I feel.”

I don’t think either of the guys we interviewed today is our man, but that’s just a hunch, and I’m certainly not ready to cross either of them off our suspects list. Alex seemed to genuinely like Susan Snyder. And Skip doesn’t seem quite bright enough to concoct a plan to poison her.

“That truck Skip was driving,” I ask Ariana, “do all McCormack’s employees drive them?”

“Yes. There are at least a dozen of them.”

Skip was driving one with an MC 9 license plate. I pull out my phone and look at the photos I took last night. In one of the pics, I can make out the plate: MC 1.

“You know who drives this one?” I ask, showing her the picture.

“Why?” When she senses I might not tell her, she says, “I’ve been open with you about everything. Don’t keep anything from me.”

I tell her I saw the black truck driving by several times last night and thought maybe I was being watched. Now that I know there are multiple trucks that look the same, I can’t be sure it was MC 1 that drove by each time.

“Carson McCormack’s son, Gareth, drives MC 1,” Ariana tells me.

“Tell me about him,” I say, picturing a sixteen-year-old kid spoiled by Daddy’s money.

“Ex-military,” she says. “Army Ranger. Sniper. Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumor is he has a dozen confirmed kills.”

My eyes widen. That certainly isn’t what I was expecting. “Do you think he had anything to do with Susan Snyder’s death?”

“I have no idea,” she says, glancing, as she often does, toward the door to make sure no one is listening. “But he and the chief are pals.”

“Could be why Susan Snyder didn’t want you to tell him.”

“Maybe.”

I can tell by the look on her face that she’s skeptical.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

“Honestly, I bet it was him, driving up and down, getting a good look at you. But I doubt it had anything to do with Susan Snyder. If he murdered her, he’d be keeping a lower profile.”

“So why was he spying on me?”

“Gareth McCormack is the alpha dog in these parts,” she says. “Even the chief, who’s about as tough a guy as you’ll find, doesn’t measure up. I think Gareth McCormack heard a Texas Ranger is in town and he’s sniffing around to see if you’re any threat to him.”

Chapter 22

THAT EVENING, I’M back on the porch of my motel room, but instead of plucking my Fender, I’ve got Susan Snyder’s case file in my hands. Tonight, I’ve brought out my pistol and set it on the chair next to me, covered by my cowboy hat. I’m probably being paranoid, but Ariana’s words about Gareth McCormack have me on edge.

As the alpha dog, he can come sniffing around all he likes. But if he wants to try to mark his territory, I’ll be ready.