Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“Continuing the customer-service policies that your daddy built the business on forty years ago.”

Rupe’s grin widened. “You’re well informed.”

“Your commercials run nonstop on TV.”

“I believe in advertising, in putting yourself out there.” Rupe lightly slugged the man in the shoulder.

“So do I, Mr. Collier. We think alike.”

“Call me Rupe.”

“Pleased to meet you, Rupe. My name’s Rocky Van Durbin.”

Rupe’s stomach plummeted.

The tabloid columnist fished a business card from the breast pocket of his off-the-rack sport jacket and handed it over. Having recognized the man’s name instantly, Rupe realized he’d been cleverly ambushed. But he decided to brazen it out and pretended to read the card.

“New York City? We don’t get many shoppers from way up there. I’m honored.” He pocketed the card with as much nonchalance as he could fake. “If you’re seriously in the market for a new car, Mr. Van Durbin, you couldn’t do better than—”

“No thanks. I’m just looking.”

“Sure, sure,” Rupe said expansively. “Stay for as long as you like. Bob there, who you met out on the lot, will be happy to answer your questions and help you any way he can. But you’ll have to excuse me. Unfortunately, I’m late for an appointment.”

Van Durbin laughed. “I get that a lot.” Then he squinted his ferret eyes. “By people who’re afraid to talk to me.”

He’d practically called Rupe Collier a coward, and Rupe didn’t take the insult lightly. He felt like taking the slimy columnist by his scrawny neck and shaking him till his brains rattled. But he didn’t practice his smile in the mirror every morning for nothing. He managed to keep it intact.

“I enjoy chatting with anybody from the Big Apple. But I’m expected somewhere else soon. Let’s make an appointment—”

Van Durbin cut him off. “Well, see, that’s a problem, Rupe. Because, soon, I gotta be somewhere else, too. Besides…” He socked Rupe in the shoulder as Rupe had done to him. “You practically wrote the book on closing the sale. Long as I’m here? Just a few minutes of your time? How ’bout it?”

Rupe’s smile was growing stiff from keeping it in place. “Why don’t we talk in my office?”

“Great! Thanks.”

Rupe led the way, and, although he maintained his easy-breezy gait to keep up appearances, mostly for Van Durbin himself, he was anything but relaxed.

His unwanted visitor whistled softly when he stepped into Rupe’s inner sanctum. “ Niiiiice . The car business must be good.”

“Can’t complain.”

“My mother, rest her soul, tried to tell me I’d chosen the wrong career path. ‘You can’t make money in journalism.’ She must’ve told me that a thousand times. I reminded her that Hearst had made some serious coin. Murdoch. But”—he sighed—“Mom was right. They were exceptions.”

Trying not to appear overanxious, Rupe said, “How can I help you, Mr. Van Durbin?”

Van Durbin’s attention had already been snagged by the copy of Low Pressure lying on the desk. Rupe gritted his teeth in frustration. He should have gotten rid of the damn thing after he’d read it. At the very least, he shouldn’t have left it in plain sight.

Van Durbin moseyed over to it now and picked it up, then made a production of fanning through the four-hundred-and-something pages. “Now this local gal has done all right in the writing game, hasn’t she? She’s making a killing off this book.”

Rupe was a natural showman, and he had used those innate showmanship skills to full advantage his entire life. He hoped they didn’t fail him now. He moved around the corner of his desk and sat down in his cowhide chair, motioning for Van Durbin to sit in the chair facing him.

“I have a hunch that you didn’t come all the way from New York to talk cars. That book brought you here. I’ll take it a step further and venture that you know I prosecuted the murder case of Susan Lyston, and that’s what you want to talk to me about.”

Van Durbin spread his arms away from his sides. “You caught me red-handed. Can I ask you some questions about your case against Allen Strickland? I’m addressing that aspect of the story in my column tomorrow.”

Bile filled the back of Rupe’s throat, but he tried to appear unflappable. “It was a long time ago. I’ll stretch my memory as best I can.”

“Thanks, Rupe.” Van Durbin produced a small spiral notebook and a yellow pencil dimpled with a disgusting number of teeth marks. “Don’t mind this. I have to write things down or I forget.”

Rupe doubted that. He doubted the bastard ever forgot anything. He was sly, and he was dangerous. Rupe considered calling the dealership’s security guard and having Van Durbin removed from the premises. But then it would appear that he had something to hide. He would also lose all control over what Van Durbin wrote about him.

No, better to stick to the playacting, cooperate, and give the writer something, in the hope that Rupert Collier would be depicted favorably in his column. He began by telling Van Durbin what a fan he was of the media. “You could call me a news junkie. So I’m happy to answer any questions I can. Fire away.”

“Good, good. Let’s start with why you left the DA’s office.”

“That one’s easy. Selling cars pays better. A hell of a lot better. I wouldn’t have an office near this niiiiice at the courthouse.”

Van Durbin chuckled. “You decided that you’d just as well reap the benefits of your daddy’s labor.”

Rupe recognized that for the well-placed dig it was, but he gave a good-natured thumbs-up. “Daddy didn’t raise no stupid children.”

“Right. You would have been a sap to stay in public service.”

That was one of those trick questions, which wasn’t really a question but a statement. Rupe was savvy enough to see the trap. “I serve my community in other ways now.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do.” Van Durbin flashed him an obnoxious grin. “But back then, you were committed to ‘sweeping Travis County’s streets free of the criminal element.’ I cheated. I read that quote somewhere.”

“I performed my job to the best of my ability.”

Van Durbin flipped back several pages of his notepad and read some of the scribbles. “Uh, I jotted down just a coupla things I wanted to ask you about. Oh, here. Was Ms. Price’s book accurate? Strickland was convicted of manslaughter? Not murder?”

“That’s right.”

“Why not murder?”

“I determined that his crime wasn’t premeditated.”

“In other words, he didn’t plan on killing her. She did something that set him off and wound up dying over it.”

Another carefully laid booby trap. “Mr. Van Durbin, surely you’re not suggesting that she ‘asked for it.’”

“No, no, I’d never even imply that.” But his wicked grin belied the denial. “Strickland flew off the handle, killed her in a fit of passion, something like that?”

“If you want a clarification of the difference between the charges of murder and manslaughter, you can go online and access the Texas penal code.”

“Thanks, I might do that. Just so I’m clear in my own mind.” He tapped his temple with the eraser of his pencil. “You and that homicide detective… what was his name?”

“Gosh… who worked that case?” Rupe screwed up his face as though searching his memory. “I can’t remember offhand. I was an ADA, working my patooty off, seventy, eighty hours a week. I was getting thrown cases right and left. A lot of felony cases. Worked with a number of cops, a slew of detectives.”

Van Durbin snapped his fingers. “Moody. Dale Moody.”

What Rupe was thinking was Shitshitshit! , but what he said was, “I think you’re right. I think it was Moody.”