Con Law (26 page)

‘I expect
not.’

‘You’ve been busy, waving that letter all over town, getting shot at. You folks okay?’

‘Just a warning shot.’

‘Figure you got a murder case?’

‘I do.’

‘Figure the killer shot your window out?’

‘I do.’

‘What’re you gonna do about it?’

‘Send the killer a message.’

Sam removed his cap and scratched his head, a sure sign he was thinking.

‘Well, next edition doesn’t come out till next week. You want to send a message today, best to use the radio.’

The Marfa Public Radio station operates out of a small studio in a small storefront befitting the smallest public radio station in America. Its audience totals less than fifteen thousand in the sparsely populated Trans-Pecos. The station’s 100,000-watt signal spans an area of 20,000 square miles extending north of the Davis Mountains and south to the Rio Grande, west to the Blue Origin spaceport and east to Marathon. Hence the station’s tagline: ‘Radio for a Wide Range.’ Nadine Honeywell sanitized the armrests of a chair with wipes then sat in the small reception area and listened to the professor on the radio.

‘A reminder,
folks,’ the host said. ‘It’s April, and we don’t want a repeat of last April’s wildfires, so don’t toss those cigarettes out the window. And the burn ban remains in effect. The land is dry, and the wind is up. If you see smoke, there’s fire, so call it in. Okay, our
Talk at Ten
interview today was scheduled to be Werner von Stueber discussing existentialism and crushed cars in our continuing series on the works of John Chamberlain, but we’re rescheduling Werner for tomorrow morning to make room for a surprise guest, the renowned constitutional law professor from the University of Texas at Austin, John Bookman. We’ve all seen Professor Bookman on national TV discussing the constitutionality of abortion or Obamacare, but he isn’t here to talk about those subjects. He’s here to talk about murder. A murder in Marfa. Professor Book-man, welcome to Marfa.’

‘Thanks for having me on your show on such short notice.’

‘We all know about the terrible death of a local lawyer, Nathan Jones, last week. We thought he died in a tragic automobile accident. But you think otherwise.’

‘He was murdered.’

‘Why do you believe that?’

‘Nathan wrote me a letter and mailed it on April fifth. He died the same day.’

‘Coincidence?’

‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’

‘And what did he say in that letter, Professor?’

‘Nathan said that his client was committing environmental crimes. That his client was contaminating the groundwater out here with his fracking operations.’

‘That’s a pretty serious charge.’

‘It is.’

‘And who is his client?’

‘Billy Bob Barnett.’

Across Highland Avenue, Sam Walker howled in his office.

‘Hot-damn! That’ll sell some papers next week!’

‘So, Professor, you received this letter in Austin before you knew Nathan Jones had died. Why’d you come to Marfa?’

‘Nathan was a former student and my intern four years ago. He asked for my help.’

‘But upon your arrival in Marfa, you learned of his death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Professor, how do you help a dead person?’

‘You find his truth. You give him justice.’

‘And how
do you do that?’

‘You learn about his life, who he was. So I spoke with his wife—’

Brenda Jones sat in her house listening to the professor on the radio. She placed her hands on her belly that held Nathan’s child. She cried.

‘—and his best friend—’

Jimmy John Dale blew blood from his nose onto the handkerchief. He sat among empty beer cans, empty pizza boxes, and loaded guns. Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle with a thirty-round clip … Winchester twelve-gauge pump shotgun … Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum handgun with a heavy load—you couldn’t own too many weapons in his neighborhood on the Mexican side of town just south of the railroad tracks. He adjusted his position in his ratty recliner in the living room of his mobile home. He was saving for the down payment on a small adobe house on the same side of the railroad tracks; no way could he ever afford a home north of the tracks. The voices of the kids playing outside and chattering in Spanish—he often felt as if he were living in the state of Chihuahua instead of the state of Texas—came through the thin exterior wall as clearly as if they were standing next to him and made the hammer in his head pound even harder. They always left their toys and bikes and skateboards scattered about the open space between their trailers. He finished off the Lone Star beer and tossed the can at the trash basket in the adjoining kitchen but missed and thought, Their mama ought to teach those kids how to pick up after themselves.

Never figured
he’d live with the Mexicans, but it was all he could afford; and besides, the Mexicans couldn’t even afford to live on the Mexican side of town now, so they were selling out to Anglos who couldn’t afford to live on the Anglo side of town, which was now just a suburb of New York City. Goddamn queer artists. But hell, unless he wanted to live the rest of his life alone, he’d probably have to marry a Mexican girl. All the white girls, they get the hell out of town after high school, most for college, the others for a job in the city or a man with a job in the city. They don’t come back. That’d be a hell of a thing, having a Mexican mother-in-law.

The mother next door started yelling at the kids in Spanish, so Jimmy John turned up the radio and searched for his Advil.

‘—and learned that she had been followed around town—’

‘By whom?’

‘She didn’t know. So I talked to the sheriff—’

Presidio County Sheriff Brady Munn sat in his office with his cowboy boots kicked up on his desk and Deputy Shirley practicing her fast draw against an imaginary gunslinger. He sighed and shook his head. A niece pretending to be a deputy and a professor pretending to be a detective.

‘Should’ve been a cattle rancher,’ he said to himself.

‘—and went out to the accident scene. I visited Nathan’s senior partner in Midland. And I met Billy Bob Barnett.’

‘You showed them Nathan’s letter?’

‘Yes. They all denied any knowledge of Nathan’s allegations. I had concluded that his death was just a tragic accident, as you said, until last night.’

‘What happened last night?’

‘Someone shot out our window at the Paisano.’

‘The killer?’

‘Who else?’

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘No. My
intern was scared.’

‘But not you?’

‘I’ve been through this sort of thing before.’

‘I bet you have. So, Professor, why did you want to come on the radio today?’

‘Because I have a message for Nathan’s killer.’

‘Which is?’

‘I’m coming for you. I will find you. And I will bring you to justice. For Nathan.’

In the Marfa City Hall, Mayor Ward Weaver sighed as if he had lost a real-estate commission. He might have; he just didn’t know it yet.

‘Hell’s bells, a murder in Marfa. Talk like that, he’s gonna scare off all the homosexuals.’

Carla Kent drove her old ’96 Ford pickup truck south on Highway 17 from Fort Davis. The windows were down, and the radio was on. The professor, he didn’t understand West Texas anymore than those New York artists did. Difference was, they were just insulting the locals with their art and public displays of their sexual preferences; they weren’t calling them murderers. Locals out here don’t take kindly to such remarks. And they carry guns.

‘There’s a murderer in Marfa,’ the professor said on the radio. ‘And I’m going to find him.’

In his office two blocks north on Highland, Billy Bob Barnett grabbed the radio and hurled it against the far wall. He hadn’t been that pissed-off since his third ex-wife got the ski lodge in Aspen. His pulled out his little pill box and swallowed a blood pressure pill. He blew his nose into a handkerchief then pointed a finger at the two football-players-turned-bodyguards sitting across the desk from him.

‘Follow him. Don’t let
him out of your sight.’

*   *   *

‘Goddamnit, Roscoe, Bookman’s on the radio out here calling my biggest client a murderer!’

Like most successful lawyers who gave lots of money to judges and their alma maters, Tom Dunn demanded preferential treatment at the courthouse and the law school. So, upon hearing the professor on Marfa Public Radio, he picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for the dean of the UT law school.

‘You represent a murderer?’ Dean Roscoe Chambers said.

‘
What?
No. He’s in the oil and gas business. But your professor’s calling him a murderer.’

‘Oh. What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Call him back to Austin. Get him off our fuckin’ backs out here.’

‘He’s tenured, Tom. Which means unless he engages in sexual relations with a freshman, there’s nothing I can do to him.’

‘College freshman?’

‘High
school. And he’s a celebrity. The press loves him. He makes for a good story, that Indiana Jones stuff. What I’m saying is, he’s untouchable.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’m thinking you didn’t make any friends in Marfa,’ Nadine said.

‘Wasn’t trying to.’

‘What were you trying to do?’

‘Ratchet up the pressure on the killer.’

‘That sounds dangerous.’

‘It can be.’

He held the door to The Get Go open for his intern then followed her inside. The Get Go is an organic grocery store started by the woman behind Maiya’s restaurant. It’s located on the southeast side of Marfa, catty-cornered from a group of crumbling adobes that appear more like a rundown motel. The structures seemed unfit for human occupancy, but Latinos still occupied the homes.

It was past noon, and Nadine hadn’t eaten in four hours, so they had stopped at The Get Go on their way to Brenda Jones’s house. They didn’t have time for a sit-down lunch, and Book refused to eat fast food. The small store’s shelves were stocked like the Whole Foods in Austin.

‘I’ll
meet you at the checkout,’ Book said.

They split up aisles. There were vegan and ethnic selections, gourmet dog food, and the
New York Times
. Book walked down the wine and beer aisle. There was a wide selection of international wines and beers, and in a cooler, cheeses—Gouda and goat and brie. He ran into Agent Angel Acosta holding cheese in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

‘Hello, Professor. I enjoyed your radio interview.’

‘You’re probably the only person in town who did.’

Agent Acosta shook his head. ‘A murder in Marfa. You working with the sheriff?’

‘Trying to.’

‘He’s a good man. An honest cop.’

‘Good to know.’

‘Professor—be careful.’

Book met his intern at the checkout counter. Book had chosen protein bars, granola bars, and bottled water; Nadine had chosen potato chips, an ice cream bar, and a bottle of root beer. At least they were organic.

‘Do you have Twinkies or moon pies?’ she asked the clerk.

The clerk laughed. ‘A Twinkie? No. They stopped making them.’

‘
What? When?
’

‘Hostess went under a year ago.’

‘It wasn’t on Twitter. OMG. What about Sno Balls?’

The clerk shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

‘I thought this is a grocery store.’

‘It’s an organic grocery store. Means natural foods. There’s nothing natural in a Twinkie or a Sno Ball.’

The clerk turned to the cash register; Nadine made a face at her. Book paid, and they stepped outside and to the Harley. Agent Acosta drove off in a late-model convertible. He waved, and Book waved back. Nadine dug into the potato chips; he ate a protein bar.

‘I know
what the connection is,’ his intern said, ‘between Nathan, his death, the art, fracking, and Billy Bob.’

‘What?’

‘Not what. Who.’

‘Okay. Who?’

‘That Carla girl.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s in the middle of every conflict in Marfa.’

‘She’s an environmentalist. That’s what they do.’

‘There’s something more.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know that. But we didn’t have this much conflict in San Francisco, and people there fight over everything. Difference is, people there like homosexuals.’

Nadine pointed at the old adobes across the intersection. On one wall graffiti had been painted:
Fuck U ChiNazis
.

‘That’s what we call the homosexuals,’ Jimmy John said. ‘The artists. ’Cause of that Chinati deal out there.’

Book and Nadine had ridden over to Nathan Jones’s house to meet Brenda. Jimmy John Dale was already there and drinking a beer. Or finishing off a six-pack.

‘The Chinati Foundation at the fort? Where Judd’s boxes are exhibited?’

‘Yeah. At first we called the whole bunch of ’em “Chinatis.” Then they took over Marfa, started running the place like they owned it, trying to turn it into another New York City, so we started calling them “ChiNazis.” Hell, even the Mexicans hate ’em. First time in the history of Marfa, Anglos and Mexicans are on the same side fighting the same enemy. The homosexuals, they brought us together.’

‘Why?’

‘They’ve
run up the real-estate prices, locals can’t afford homes no more, they got their high-dollar restaurants we can’t afford, they got their organic grocery store we can’t afford, and now they’re starting their own private school we can’t afford. They look down their noses at us locals, figure we’re all dumb-asses lucky to find our way home at night—hell, least we’re not a buncha goddamn queers!’

‘Jimmy John!’

Brenda Jones gave him a stern look. His expression eased.

‘Sorry.’

‘That the friction the mayor mentioned?’ Book asked.

Jimmy John laughed. ‘Friction? That’s funny. More like open warfare, Professor.’

‘Over gays in town who pay too much to eat out?’

Jimmy John drank his beer.

‘Aw, hell, that stuff just graveled us. But when they started protesting the fracking, they crossed the line with the locals. They’re spending a couple hundred bucks to eat French food, but they’re happy for us to starve. They come down here and take over our town, now they want to take our jobs. They don’t understand, Professor—fracking gave us jobs, and we ain’t giving ’em up just ’cause they’re worried about a little pollution.’