Another thirty minutes went by and Smedley was dozing off behind the wheel, his head bobbing to his chest every twenty seconds or so. Then, just as he was reaching for the bottle of Big Red, needing a caffeine jolt, he saw Angela Mameli’s car glide into her driveway. He thought he could see the pretty housekeeper-Maria was her name-in the passenger seat.
Finally. Smedley preferred to drop in when Angela and Maria were home. Angela was much nicer than the Mameli men. Sal Mameli could be a real bastard, and that smart-ass son of his wasn’t much better. They always brought up that tired bit about how their taxes paid Smedley’s salary, looking smug about it. But both men seemed to behave a little better when Angela was around. And she sometimes invited him to stay for dinner.
Smedley decided to give Angela a few minutes to get settled before he paid a visit.
Maria sprang from the car in a panic. She was dumbfounded. It almost seemed as if Mrs. Mameli had hit her cat on purpose. Maria knew Mrs. Mameli was a sad, angry woman, but surely she would not take out her emotions on a defenseless animal.
Behind the car, Tuco lay broken and bloody. Maria went to one knee and cradled the cat’s head, but it was obvious there was no life left in him.
“Maria, I’m so sorry!” Mrs. Mameli was behind her, looking over her shoulder. “I meant to hit the brake but I hit the gas. I don’t know what happened. It was all so quick.”
A tear ran down Maria’s cheek.
“You poor thing,” Mrs. Mameli said. “I know that cat meant a lot to you. I feel just awful.” Mrs. Mameli patted Maria’s shoulder, then returned to her car and continued up the driveway.
Alone now, Maria gently lifted the mangled body-and saw something that surprised her: a small tuft of white hair on the cat’s chest. Tuco had no such patch. It was not Tuco!
Maria was momentarily elated, then was washed over with guilt for feeling happy while this innocent animal lay dead in her hands.
Sal placed the steam cleaner in the trunk of his Lincoln and slammed the lid just as the gears of the garage-door opener groaned and the door began to lift. Jeez, that was close, he thought.
The door open now, Sal could see Angela sitting out there in her Mercedes. She made an impatient gesture that said, What’s Vinnie’s car doing in my spot? then killed the engine and climbed out.
Sal planted a fake smile on his face and walked over to greet her, trying to gauge her mood; she had been such a bitch lately. He could already hear her carping about having to park in the driveway, asking why Vinnie had parked in the garage. Sal had a good lie ready: Vinnie was vacuuming the inside of his car and needed to be close to an outlet.
But Angela let him off the hook by speaking first. “What a goddamn day!” she moaned. “Poor Maria, I just ran over her cat.”
Sal looked down the driveway. “You hit her cat?” As far as he was concerned, that was good news. He wondered why he had never thought of that himself.
Angela jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Not to mention, we got company again out on the road.”
Sal’s heart fluttered and his balls shrank to about half their normal size. She was talking about that damn marshal! Even between trials, the Feds still dropped in now and then-usually a whale of a guy named Smedley, who always seemed to show up around dinner time. Angela would usually ask him to stay for a bite, despite Sal’s whispered protests. Did it to piss him off, he figured.
Angela was grabbing shopping bags out of the trunk, asking Sal to give her a hand, but Sal turned and raced into the house. Vinnie had to get his car the hell out of there.
When Smedley pulled up to the house, Mrs. Mameli wasn’t in sight. But Maria was standing in the middle of the driveway, down a ways from the house, looking disoriented. Wait a minute-was that blood on her blouse? Had something happened to Sal, right here under Smedley’s nose? Panic gripped him.
Smedley shoved it into PARK and struggled out of the sedan, his hand fumbling for his revolver under his coat. Then he saw the dead cat at Maria’s feet. What a relief-just a dead cat.
Smedley looked at Maria, who was wiping the tears off her cheeks. “You okay?” he asked.
Maria nodded, wrapping her arms around her torso as if she were cold.
Smedley glanced around for help, maybe Angela or even Sal. Somebody to step in and take care of this poor gal. But they were all alone, standing in silence. Meanwhile, Maria continued to look miserable. Smedley knew he should do what a real man would do: Step up, be gallant, console the damsel in distress. But the problem was, he had always been so awkward around women. Especially beautiful women. He became klutzy and tongue-tied and sweaty and… and, oddly, none of that was happening right now.
Whatever it was, Maria was somehow different. She didn’t look at him with disdain or mockery, as American women did. Her eyes held compassion, even now, with her dead pet lying in front of her. So Smedley swallowed his doubts and walked over to Maria. He gently wrapped an arm around her, this woman he barely knew. She surprised him by pressing her head against his chest and accepting his comfort.
She looked up into his eyes and Smedley felt his heart flutter. She was so vulnerable and beautiful, with soulful brown eyes, high, sculpted cheekbones, and skin as smooth and creamy as a Hershey bar.
Maria said something to him in Spanish. He didn’t understand a word, so he just said, “There, there, everything will be all right.” It sounded corny to him, but she placed her head back on his chest.
Smedley’s heart was beginning to race. It had been-what? — three years since he had held a woman close. He had forgotten how good it felt. He could feel the warmth of her cheek on his chest, the rhythmic cadence of her breathing. And, wait a minute, he could also feel her large breasts pressing against his belly. Oh, God. How could he be such a cad? This woman was in emotional pain and he was thinking about her hooters.
He made a hushing noise, trying to provide solace and take his mind off her anatomy.
Then he realized, with incredible embarrassment, that the little federal agent in his pants had decided that now was a good time for an interrogation.
Maria pulled away from him, and he was waiting for a fierce tongue-lashing, maybe even a slap, certain that she had taken offense at the hardness in his crotch.
But she simply walked around the side of the house and came back a few moments later with a shovel. Jesus-this was worse than he thought. She was going to attack him with a gardening implement! But instead, she asked him a question in Spanish.
Smedley didn’t understand, but at the same time, he knew exactly what she wanted. He nodded, then grabbed the deceased feline by the tail and followed her to the rear of the property.
Sal poked his head out of the garage and saw the agent’s sedan sitting in the middle of the driveway. But no sign of Smedley.
He gave a thumbs-up to Vinnie, who fired up his Camaro, raced out of the garage, whipped around the sedan, and drove off into the dusk.
“Where’s he going in such a hurry?”
Sal jumped. Smedley was standing right beside him now, holding a shovel.
Sal licked his lips nervously. “He’s, ah, just heading into town, gonna see a coupla friends, to….”
He noticed Smedley sniffing the air, catching a whiff of Angela’s dinner. “Whaddaya say?” Sal chirped. “You gonna stay for supper?”
The sunlight was fading as Marlin watched Wylie fashion a small, shallow frame out of cardboard and duct tape. The deputy placed it gently around the footprint, then produced a can of hairspray from the canvas bag he had retrieved from Garza’s patrol car.
“Having a bad hair day?” Marlin grinned, making a genuine attempt to be friendly. Maybe Wylie could be a decent guy if anyone took the time to get to know him, Marlin was thinking. Nobody had given the man much of a welcome, so far.
Wylie shook his head as if he were dealing with a three-year-old. “This helps the plaster hold together better. Something I’m sure they don’t teach at game-warden school.”
Or maybe Wylie is an absolute prick, Marlin thought, revising his theory.
Several other deputies had arrived, along with the county medical examiner, Lem Tucker. Earlier, Wylie had conducted a painstakingly slow search of the area, starting in wide circles that got tighter and tighter. He had found a few tire tracks in a dirt road about three hundred yards from the cedar tree where the killer had sat. The tracks could have been left by the ranch foreman, but Wylie would take casts and compare them to the tires on the foreman’s vehicle.
After Wylie had taken numerous photos, Garza had flipped the body over, revealing an exit wound in the center of Gammel’s back. This seemed to indicate that the bullet had traveled in a line parallel to the ground, rather than in an arc from a long distance. Marlin’s theory that there had been a shooter in the cedar tree looked better every minute.
After the body had been loaded into the M.E.’s van, Garza called Marlin and Wylie aside.
“We’ll wait and see what Lem can tell us, but Wylie, you can get started on other things. We’ll need to talk to the other hunters on the ranch, do some background on Gammel, the usual.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here to say that someone ambushed Gammel. And they did it with a rifle. That says ‘deer hunter’ to me. That’s why I want you to keep Marlin in the loop on this investigation.”
Inwardly, Marlin smiled. It was always up to the chief investigating officer to decide how much involvement a game warden had in a case like this. Garza was asking Wylie to keep Marlin in the inner circles, whether Wylie wanted to or not.
“But Bobby,” Wylie said, “I’m sure I can handle everything-”
“I know you can, Wylie,” Garza cut him off. “You’re an ace with forensics and questioning, and that’s what we need. But you’re new to the area, and Marlin’s been here all his life. He knows every deer hunter in this county and he might be able to turn something up. I’m not saying I want him actively working the case-that’s not his job-but when you approach some of the hunters on the ranch, I want you to take Marlin with you when you can.”
Wylie glared at Marlin. Marlin gave him his best Eat shit smile.