Faithful Unto Death (16 page)

Twenty-one

T
he phone rang at six seventeen. In the morning. That’s too early for calls. I haven’t had my coffee at six seventeen.

Honey’s voice was strangled with tears. I couldn’t understand a single word except, “Bear, Bear!” and that wasn’t helpful.

I took the phone with me into the bathroom and began brushing my teeth while I waited for Honey to calm herself enough to become articulate.

When she finally did, I felt like a toad for being so callous.

“They’ve arrested HD. They’ve arrested my daddy for murdering Graham.”

Annie Laurie said she wanted a larger share of our household income as she was doing triple duty as a wife and mother, an educational program developer, and a preacher’s wife, which, she insists, is a whole different job from being a regular wife.

I gratefully accepted the mega-mug of coffee, milk, and dash of vanilla syrup, and the peanut butter and banana sandwich she was handing over, and said she was welcome to whatever she could squeeze out of the household books; since she kept them, she would know best how much that would be. Baby Bear begged to be taken along, and I promised him a ride as soon as I could manage it.

The police station isn’t but a ten-minute drive. The sandwich was finished and I drank as much from my mega-mug as I could before I got out of the car. HD’s Bentley was parked in a corner of the lot. Someone, Fredrick, I guess, had parked in such a way as to take up two parking spaces. Honey nearly ran into me as the station door swung open.

She wore no makeup and her red hair was pulled straight back from her face. She was wearing yoga capris, a sports top, and sneakers. She had a light jacket tied around her waist. My guess was the call had caught her right before her morning workout.

“Oh, Bear. I can’t stop. Daddy won’t say a word until he’s had his breakfast. I’m off to get him some. Could you sit with him until I get back? Mom couldn’t come. She’s home with a sick headache.”

I said I would. But when I got inside, no one I asked seemed to think it was a good idea for me to go past the public area of the police station. Finally, I called Wanderley on my cell and he had me buzzed in.

In the movies and on TV, police stations are loud, cluttered messy places. Not here. The large room I found myself in was clean and bright and ordered. It was quiet, too. Soft phone conversations and the hum of electronics.

Wanderley poked his head out of an office, acknowledged me, and ducked back in for more hurried words. Neatly uniformed men and women moved in and out of the room doing whatever it was they were doing, quietly and without much drama. The pretty officer with the ponytail recognized me from the Garcia house and gave me a wave. There wasn’t any sign of HD.

Wanderley emerged from the side office with a sheaf of papers in his hands and a grim expression on his face. His grin was gone. His shirt was rumpled and his sleeves were rolled up. There was dried mud on his boots. He didn’t offer to shake hands and he raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“Honey asked me to sit with HD.”

“You can’t do that, Bear. He’ll sit alone until I can be in there with him, and I don’t have time to waste if he won’t talk.”

“Look, Wanderley—” I started.

He put a hand on my wrist.

“Bear? It’s Detective. It’s always Detective Wanderley in here. Understand?”

“Look, I don’t want to second-guess you—”

“You’re going to anyway, right?”

“I’m—”

“You don’t want to second-guess me, but you’re going to. You’re going to ask me why I have that frail old man locked up in an interrogation room. Right?”

“I’m having trouble picturing that poor old man—”

“You are too quick to judge. With the leverage a golf club would give him, Parker isn’t too feeble to brain a man. If he had adequate motive.”

“And, Detective, what motive do you suppose HD could have had to kill his son-in-law?”

“I don’t know.” That came out quick and flat. Wanderley was waiting for me to ask that next question.

“Well, then, why did you go off and arrest an old man with no motive? An old guy so feeble he has a chauffeur to get him around?”

Wanderley turned his back and dropped the stack of papers on a desk.

“He drove himself down here this morning. There’s no chauffeur I’ve noticed. You want to take a look at him?” He looked at me over his shoulder and took off down a hall.

“At HD? Yeah.” I followed.
Take a look at
—that sounded objectifying. I don’t use that word but I know what it means. Also: HD drove here alone?

Wanderley stopped in front of a closed door. He looked through the wired glass of the window, and gestured me forward.

“Can’t I go in? I don’t want to stare at him through—”

“You can’t go in. You want to see him or not? He can’t see you. The glass is one-way.”

I saw a clean, bare room. It held a conference table and six chairs and a vending machine. HD sat in profile at one of the tables. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning. HD was cleanly shaven, dressed in a tailored, dark suit with a blue shirt and a bright red power tie. His cropped white hair was slicked back close to his scalp. HD’s hands were spread out on the table. His index finger was tapping a slow measure; otherwise he was still. He didn’t look around. He didn’t look worried. He looked prepared.

Wanderley touched my shoulder and I stepped back from the window.

“You wanted to know why I arrested an old man with no motive, Bear? I arrested HD Parker because he walked into the station this morning and confessed to the murder of Graham Garcia.”

“No,” I said, “he did not.” But I already believed it. Walking in and confessing like that seemed just like something HD would do, from what I’d seen.

Wanderley looked at me.

“You’re not taking him seriously, are you?” I said. “Wanderley, Detective, from what I’ve seen, HD isn’t entirely—”

“He referenced Ash Robinson.”

I took another step back. Oh no. No, no, no, no.

Ash Robinson was the father of Joan Robinson Hill, a Houston socialite who died under mysterious circumstances in 1969. What is pertinent about the reference is that Ash Robinson, a rich oil baron, believed his son-in-law, Dr. John Hill, was responsible for Joan’s death. He tried to have his son-in-law convicted of murder by omission—failing to provide Joan with proper medical care—but a mistrial was declared. Robinson had also set a detective on his son-in-law, and had discovered that Dr. Hill was having an affair. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Hill was gunned down in the front door of his River Oaks home. Rumors were rife that Robinson had contracted the murder, though he was never charged. It’s a complicated story, and none of the major characters come out of it well. In 1976, Thomas Thompson wrote a book about the case,
Blood and Money
, and it sold four million copies.

I looked through the window again. HD had crossed his arms on the table and was resting his head upon them. He looked calm and tired but he didn’t look crazy. Still . . .

“Wanderley, I’m not sure HD is all there.”

“I’m not, either. But I’m not a mental health expert. Neither are you. And crazy people do sometimes kill people. Or pay to have them killed.”

Wanderley’s eyes were steady on my own.

Honey took forever. I couldn’t imagine where she had gone for that breakfast. There are half a dozen restaurants five minutes from the station.

Sitting outside the interrogation room was the closest I could come to keeping my promise to Honey. I loped out to my car to fetch a paperback, and then sat on the hall floor, my back against the door. L. C. Tyler’s snarky British wit was doing a lot to distract me when Honey finally got back, an hour and thirty-five minutes later.

The bag she clutched was grease-stained and smelled of breakfast sausage.

“Did you drive to Luckenbach for those sausage biscuits?”

“To the Breakfast Klub.” She set the bag on the floor, slipped on her jacket, dropped her car keys in a pocket, and zipped the pocket closed.

“Why aren’t you in there with Daddy?” she asked.

“To the Breakfast Klub downtown? In rush-hour traffic?”

She retrieved her warm, greasy, fragrant bag and leveled a look at me.

“That’s what Daddy wanted, Bear, so that’s what I got. If I tried to make some substitute, we’d be sitting here until tomorrow or until I did get what Daddy wanted, so I skipped all the pleas and arguments and suggestions and drove all the way downtown, asked for Daddy’s special order, which isn’t on the menu, and got back here as fast as I could. Why aren’t you sitting with him?”

L. C. Tyler got put away and I stood up and peeked in the window. It looked like HD was sleeping, head cradled on his arms. His mouth was open.

“Detective Wanderley wouldn’t let me in. Does he know you’re here?”

“I’m sure he does by now. My bag of breakfast got more interested looks than a busty blonde. Someone will have told him.” She tried the door handle but it didn’t open. HD didn’t look up. “Do you know what he’s been saying?”

“He said he killed Graham.”

Big sigh. “That is plain crazy. That’s all it is. Daddy is a good two inches shorter than me. You knew Graham. Could any right thinking person imagine my daddy overpowering Graham? And exactly why would Daddy want Graham dead?”

I said, “Detective Wanderley told me that HD mentioned something about Ash Robinson.”

That hit Honey the way it hit me. Her eyes widened. All the expression and color flowed out of Honey’s face until I was looking through her eyes into anguish and terror.

Wanderley rounded the corner. He had a young man and a woman in her thirties with him. He introduced the woman, who wore plain black slacks and flats, and had her sleeves rolled up, as Detective Cat Dortch. On asking, I found out the Cat was for Caterina. That’s a pretty name but she wasn’t in a pretty business and it was clear that Cat would serve her better as a police detective than her parents’ choice. The man was dressed in a suit and he addressed Honey, his hand outstretched.

“Mrs. Garcia, I’m Jonathon Blake. Mr. Mathis got your message. He’s out of town and won’t be back until tomorrow, maybe the day after, but he sent me to represent your father. I assure you I’m experienced and competent to counsel.”

Honey left his hand out there too long. She was staring into a possibility the young lawyer couldn’t see.

“Walker Wells,” I said, and shook his abandoned hand.

Wanderley gave Honey and me an assessing look and unlocked the door. HD’s head popped up at the sound and he drew a sleeve across his mouth. I started to follow into the room but Wanderley and Dortch both gave me inquiring looks.

“Oh, right,” I said. “Honey, you’ll be fine?”

“No, I won’t,” Honey said. “I want you here with me.”

Dortch shook her head and Wanderley held the door for my exit.

“Daddy.” Honey hadn’t gone to her father. She stood apart, clutching her bag of sausage biscuits. “Daddy, I want Bear here with me,” she said.

HD waved me in.

“I’m not saying a word unless Honey can have her preacher boy.”

Blake broke in. “Mr. Parker, I’m Jonathon Blake, I work for Mr. Mathis. He can’t be here to advise today, so I’m standing in for him and I’d like for the two of us to have a private conference before another word is said.”

HD gave Blake a once-over and a chin jut.

“Nobody asked you to be here. I didn’t call Mathis.”

“Uh, no. Mrs. Garcia called the Mathis home quite early this morning, and I—”

“I guess you’re working for my daughter, then. You want to
advise
Honey, go right on. If I was looking for advice, I’d’ve made the call myself.”

There ensued a thirty-minute argument, Honey and HD against Dortch and Wanderley, Blake trying to be lawyerly with a client who wasn’t looking for his services. I kept my mouth closed and started thinking like Annie Laurie—this was more than I was getting paid for.

HD emptied the bag Honey finally passed over out on the table, found eight Styrofoam containers of sausage biscuits and three tubs of cream gravy. HD countered arguments as he uncapped the gravy tubs and slid sandwiches, plastic forks, and napkins to each of us at the table. Dortch and Wanderley stood behind their chairs, literally talking down to HD. I wasn’t using my mouth for talking so I ate my sausage biscuit and it was good. HD ate two, flooded with gravy, in between stating his position.