Джеймс Паттерсон - Texas Outlaw

I pull into the surprisingly busy parking lot. People are filing out of the community center, heading toward their cars. Some of them are dressed up with button-down shirts and bolo ties and sport jackets. A man wearing a tan police uniform with a pistol on one hip and a radio on the other spots me right away and walks over. He probably knows every vehicle in town—and that my truck isn’t from around here.

“I’m John Grady Harris,” he says. “Police chief.”

I open my mouth to introduce myself, but he interrupts me.

“I know who you are. You’re the Texas Ranger we don’t need.”

Chapter 12

WHEN A RANGER reports to a town like this, there are two ways things can go. This isn’t the open-armed welcome, the red-carpet roll. This is the resentful, jealous, resistant reaction of small-town officers who think they can do their job as well as anyone and don’t like the idea of a Ranger coming in and taking the credit.

I want to remain professional. I don’t want to give Chief Harris an indication his comment bothered me.

“Rory Yates,” I say and extend my hand.

When I say my name, he gives me a look of recognition. He knows who I am—the Texas Ranger who stopped the bank robbery. He takes my hand grudgingly.

Harris is in his early thirties, a few years younger than me. He has muscular arms accentuated by his tight short-sleeved uniform. In a lot of rural Texas areas, the police chiefs and sheriffs are good old boys. Big hats and big beer bellies hanging over Texas-shaped belt buckles. Some of them get the job because of who they know, not because they’re qualified. But Harris looks different. He has short-cropped hair, no cowboy hat, and muscles like an amateur weight lifter. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s ex-military.

“There are only two nights a month when this parking lot fills up,” he says. “When the council meets and on bingo night at the senior center.”

I say, “If you didn’t want me to come, Chief, then why am I here?”

“My detective keeps nagging me that there might be more to this than we realize. I called the Rangers to appease her. Don’t worry. I’ll play nice. I’ll cooperate.”

“I appreciate that,” I say, trying to be diplomatic.

“But I know what you’re going to find,” Harris adds. “Susan Snyder died of natural causes. There hasn’t been a murder in Rio Lobo in a decade.”

It’s easy to say there hasn’t been a murder in a decade if you close the book right away on every suspicious death.

“My detective spends her days investigating graffiti and shoplifting,” Harris says. “She’s got a hair up her ass that this might be something more just so she’ll have something else to do.”

I notice he says her and she . I was given the name of a Detective Delgado, but I didn’t realize the detective would be a woman.

“Here she comes now,” the chief says.

A young Latina in well-worn cowboy boots strides toward us from the community center. Her tall, slim body is dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and her dark hair is pulled back from her face in a ponytail that highlights sharp cheekbones. She has a pistol on her hip and the unmistakable no-nonsense air of a cop.

“Ariana Delgado,” she says, extending her hand.

Her arm is muscular and her grip firm. She doesn’t smile.

I introduce myself, and she has a better poker face than her chief does. She shows no hint of recognition at my name.

Even without makeup, she has long, naturally dark eyelashes that most women would kill for. The eyes themselves are intensely big and beautiful, with deep coffee-colored irises. I can’t take my eyes off them—or her.

No, I hadn’t expected Detective Delgado to be a woman—and I damn sure didn’t expect her to be so good-looking.

Chapter 13

AS I STAND talking to Chief Harris and Detective Delgado, I notice a graying man in his late fifties leaving the community center for the Rio Lobo Record building. He’s studying me with the intensity of a reporter on deadline. He’s carrying a small reporter-style notebook in his hand, but with the staff limitations on a local weekly, he might be the editor or even the publisher.

I’m relieved that he doesn’t stop to talk. I’ve always had a frosty relationship with the media.

Harris waves over four other men who are also leaving the community center.

“This is the Texas Ranger you were telling us about,” one of them says.

The men, all good old boys over the age of sixty, introduce themselves as members of the town council. Prominent community members.

Big fish in a little pond.

There’s Fred Meikle, who owns the restaurant Good Gravy and looks like he eats every meal there, with extra gravy. Troy Sanchez, a Mexican American with salt-and-pepper hair and mustache, owns the gas station I passed. Kirk Schuetz is a retired rancher whose son runs the family business now, though his strong handshake and callused hands signal that the oldest of the four could still put in a long day of work. Council chairman Rex Kelly is a redheaded Irishman who runs a construction business in town but doesn’t look like he’s swung a hammer himself in years.

“You had a long drive today,” Fred says to me. “You hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Well, all right, then, let’s all go over to Good Gravy and get this boy some supper.”

“There’s a quorum of you present,” Ariana says to the men.

She’s citing the open-meeting law. If the four of them hang out together outside of a posted place and time, they’ll be violating it. The whole point of the law is to keep elected officials from doing backdoor dealings out of the public eye.

Troy Sanchez looks like an unruly middle schooler who’s just been reprimanded by his teacher. Fred Meikle looks tempted to lecture Ariana on the importance of showing a Texas Ranger some hospitality. His expression says that surely a reasonable Ranger would know she’s making something out of nothing. Schuetz, the rancher, has turned his hateful glare from me to her.

“She’s right,” Rex, the chairman, finally says, breaking the awkwardness. “I’ve got to get home anyway.”

“I’m not hungry,” Schuetz says in a tone that suggests he’d rather go shovel horseshit than eat a meal with the likes of me.

“That leaves two of us,” Fred says. “That ain’t against no laws. Let’s get something to eat. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about our beloved little town.”

Ariana excuses herself, saying she’ll brief me first thing in the morning. She heads toward a motorcycle parked over by the police station, fires up the bike, and rumbles out of the parking lot.

The truth is, I’d rather be sitting down with her and learning about the case than going to dinner with these guys, but sometimes you’ve got to play nice with the locals.

Chapter 14

THERE ISN’T ANY music playing inside Good Gravy, but when we walk into the dining room, the imaginary movie soundtrack scratches to a halt. As a Ranger, I’m used to stares of awe— Holy crap, that’s a Texas Ranger! But the restaurant patrons are locals wordlessly letting a stranger know, We don’t want you in our town.

Fred Meikle leads us to a table by the front window with a RESERVED placard on the checkerboard tablecloth. The restaurant walls are adorned with mule deer mounts and sports memorabilia of various Texas teams, both college and pro. A row of arcade games stands next to the restrooms, where a couple of kids are playing Big Buck Hunter.

When Fred Meikle tells me to order anything I want, on the house, I insist on paying for my meal.

“It’s the Rangers’ rule,” I say, and that seems to alleviate some of his obviously hurt feelings.