Joe Lansdale - Devil Red

“Shit,” Leonard said. “I was hoping someone else had done the work and we’d be through after today.”

“Actually, that vampire business opened the gate,” Marvin said. “Gave me an idea of who to contact on the force over there. Once I knew stuff they didn’t, they were more forthcoming with things I didn’t know. They figured they might as well tell me. The case was cold to them. So, I hate to give you guys a compliment, but you did good. It’s the way it works in the detective business: The more you know, the more others are willing to tell you.”

Marvin returned the notes to the table and leaned back in his chair. His chair was much better than ours. It was comfy and had wheels on it. “Mini didn’t have true friends because her personality was a little strange. That’s why she latched onto the vampire business, got in with that crowd.”

“She was pretty,” I said. “I could tell that in the photo. A little still, a little pale, and way too dead, but no discernible ants or maggots or signs of rot, still pretty until the bloating. Usually, pretty girls are popular. When they’re alive, anyway.”

“She was popular with some in a certain way,” Marvin said.

“Local hole punch?” I said.

“Yep,” Marvin said. “According to Will Turner, a retired cop I talked to, guy who actually interviewed Mini first, after Godzilla did the chop and suck thing. He got the impression that Mini was trying to fit in. Boys liked her for the drawer shuckin’ part, but not for too much else.”

“If only she could have yodeled,” Leonard said.

“You are a heartless sonofabitch,” I said.

“I was thinkin’ she and her buddies killin’ that drunk frat rat was the heartless part,” Leonard said. “And as a reward, her mother wins eight million dollars for buying a two-dollar ticket. What’s up with that?”

“Bought the ticket at a filling station,” Marvin said. “When she got some of the money, she went out to get drunk in celebration, leaving her husband home with a glass of milk and a bologna sandwich. She got so drunk she fell asleep in her car on the railroad track.”

“I see this coming,” Leonard said.

“She didn’t,” Marvin said. “A train knocked her ass about two miles down the track and into some woods and into a sink of water. Next morning they found the car. Someone finally saw the roof of the car sticking out of the water, shining in the sunlight. She turned out to have a car engine stuck up her ass. But the good news, my contact said, was the air bag opened.”

“That technology,” I said, “it’s somethin’.”

“I presume the husband inherits?” Leonard said.

Marvin shook his head. “Nope. Mini’s mother, Twilla, bought herself a new car and a hairdo and about three thousand dollars’ worth of duds on credit, then went to a lawyer and made a will. She left it to her daughter should anything happen to her. This was two weeks before Mini was found dead. Little later, Twilla got hit by the train. Not long after, the daughter and the boyfriend bit it.”

“Was anyone next in line for the money after Mini?” I asked.

“The animal shelter,” Marvin said. “She liked cats. Not dogs, just cats.”

“Prejudice is an ugly thing,” Leonard said.

“Bert, her husband, wasn’t completely left out. He got ten thousand. But that had to bite his butt. Him with ten thousand and the cats with almost eight million dollars. That buys a lot of catnip.”

“So Bert could have a grudge,” I said.

“I guess the cats are looking over their shoulders,” Leonard said.

“Cops looked into him,” Marvin said, “up one side and down another. They couldn’t find anything that led them to think he was involved or did anything himself. But it’s a motive. I don’t know how it would connect to the other girls, but maybe he was trying to make it look like the murders were connected with what Godzilla and the girls had done. According to what I got here in my notes, Bert wasn’t big enough or tough enough to do much but give Sharon’s cats to the animal shelter. That was about the extent of his mean as far as the cops can see. Still, we won’t take him off the suspect list.”

“June might have a place on that list too,” Leonard said. “I don’t know how much I buy the ‘she really loved her brother’ bit. She didn’t like the idea that he might get that inheritance instead of her. She had the money to make a hit, and if Mini was there when it was set up, so be it. Not that June needs the inheritance, but the ones who don’t need it are often the ones who want more of it.”

“All right,” Marvin said. “June’s on the list too.”

“Do you think it’s odd that Mini’s mom made out a will right after getting the money?” I said.

“Not really,” Marvin said. “She was old enough to think about it. Maybe she finally felt motherly and thought if anything happened to her, Mini would get it and she would check out making up for not being the best mom in the world. And if Mini died, well, there was the animal shelter. The husband did hire a lawyer on contingency to try and pry the money from the fuzzy little paws of all those desperate kitties. I don’t know how that worked out. But there’s nothing about Bert that has to mean murder. And the mother, well, I figure too much alcohol and a big case of the stupids did her in.”

I glanced over at Leonard and his deerstalker. I turned to Marvin. “Do you come across many murders where a fella didn’t like his best friend’s hat?”

“No,” Marvin said, looking at Leonard, “but I can understand the impulse.”

Marvin gave us some contact information for people we might want to talk to, and I folded that up and put it in my coat pocket. We left when his sandwich arrived. We knew when we weren’t wanted.

At my place we fried up some egg sandwiches and sat on the couch and turned so we could look at each other. Leonard had finally taken off the deerstalker, so it was easier to do.

We decided we had to see Mini’s stepdad, Bert. I called the cell number we had for him. The phone rang awhile, but finally he answered.

I told him we were investigating his stepdaughter’s murder, that the mother of Mini’s boyfriend had hired us, and could we meet up with him.

“Can’t we just talk over the phone?” he said.

“I suppose, but we’d rather do it in person.”

“Not anything I can tell you, and since I don’t know you, I ain’t wantin’ you to come out to the house.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve had threats.”

“Threats?” I asked.

“That’s all I’ll say about it.”

“Look, I don’t know about the threats, but we’re on the up-and-up. What say we meet someplace public? We’ll buy you lunch.”

“Made a sandwich already.”

“Well,” I said, “how about just meeting you in town?”

He was silent for so long I thought the connection was broken. But just when I was about to give up, he said, “I’m going out to the auction barn, catch me there.”

“Not sure what you look like.”

“Call my goddamn cell, man. Use your head. When you get there, call me.”

On the way out to the auction barn, I said, “He sounds paranoid.”

“Doesn’t mean someone’s not after him,” Leonard said.

“Take off the hat, Leonard. Where we’re going is cowboy country. You going in there looking like that, you’re asking for trouble. Only thing missing is a purse.”

“This is anything but effeminate,” he said. “In Merry Ole England they wore these to hunt deer. Real men. Real guns. Real deer. And this hat.”

“Deer probably laughed themselves to death.”

When we got out to the auction barn, the parking lot was full of pickups and trailers and everything smelled like animal shit; it was so thick you almost had to climb over the reek to get to the auction barn.