Firebreak: A Mystery (18 page)

She drew the curtains closed to block out the streetlight and turned on the bedside lamp by Billy’s side of the bed. She picked up his cell phone and turned it on. She checked for text messages out of habit, but she was certain there wouldn’t be any. His hands were too big and cumbersome to use the keypad. She checked for voicemails and found none. Finally, she scrolled through his received and missed calls, recognizing every one of the numbers, her disappointment now complete. Like so many times before, she cleared the screen and shut off his phone, setting it back down and grabbing from her purse the Xanax that would finally allow her to sleep.

FIFTEEN

By the time Otto arrived, at eight o’clock, Josie had delivered two chocolate doughnuts from the gas station to the middle of his desk, made coffee, and run Ferris Sinclair through NCIC to discover his address was indeed in Presidio. Otto smiled when he got to his desk and saw his treat.

Josie was on the phone with Junior Daggy, a local real estate agent who knew almost every parcel of land in far west Texas and enough gossip to put most informants to shame.

“His name’s Ferris Sinclair,” Josie said, and read Junior his address.

“Oh, sure. That’s the old Winferd station house. The railroad conductor had a stop-off house there. Somebody bought it years ago, fixed it up, and then sold it. Real cute place. Nice tall ceilings.”

Josie cut him off. “You think Ferris owns it?”

He whistled into the phone. “Oh, yeah. He paid a pretty penny for that little gem.”

“Do you know Ferris?”

“I know who he is. That’s about it.”

Josie thanked Junior for the information and shared it with Otto. While he ate his pastry Josie called the Presidio County Sheriff’s Office and asked for Deputy Susan Spears. Presidio was a small town located thirty miles southeast of Artemis. Josie had known Susan for years and knew she had a good handle on the locals. Now in her late fifties, she was called Grandma by half the kids in Presidio. She had a big heart for cast-off kids. She had started an intramural sports league that allowed all kids equal playing time about ten years ago and it had grown so large that she had people visit from all over Texas who wanted to start similar programs.

“You heard of a guy named Ferris Sinclair?” Josie asked her.

“Looks like a weasel?”

Josie laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him. I hear he lives in the Winferd station house.”

“That’s him. Yep, I know him.”

“How so?”

“He’s made several complaints. Someone’s always harassing him. I swear to you, he called one night because people were calling him names. I was like, come on, this ain’t grade school. You’re a grown man. If you don’t like these people quit hanging around the bar. Pick a different place to drink your beer.”

“Why were they calling him names?”

“Probably because of his smart mouth. He said some guys were calling him gay and hassling him. He wanted me to charge them with a hate crime.”

“Anything come of it?”

“No. He wanted me to understand he wasn’t gay. He was emphatic about that. But they
thought
he was gay, said hateful things, and so they should be charged with a hate crime.”

“Seriously?”

“I know. There’s plenty of hate crime out there to deal with. This just wasn’t it.”

“Can you give me a physical description?”

“Late twenties. Tall. I think some of the women think he’s a looker. He’s got these pinched features, narrow face, thin body. He just reminds me of a weasel. I can take about anybody but a whiner, and that’s Ferris. I wanted to tell him to grow a pair.”

“He ever get in any trouble himself?”

“Nope. He causing trouble in Artemis?”

“I’m not sure. I hear he hangs around Billy Nix, with Billy and the Outlaws?”

“That doesn’t surprise me. He seems to want people to notice him.”

“Would you do me a favor this morning?”

“Sure. Name it.”

“Would you drive by his house and see if he’s there? If he is, I’ll drive over and talk to him. The only phone number I can find for him goes immediately to voicemail when I call.”

“You bet. I’ll give you a call back before lunch.”

Josie hung up and told Otto about her conversation with Susan. “I’ll follow up on Ferris as soon as I hear back from her.”

Otto nodded and pointed toward the conference table. “You see the note Marta left you?”

Sitting on top of the Nixes’ laptop was a note that said, “Still need to check the e-mail. I didn’t get that far. Too busy. Took a car full of drunks to jail. What a night.”

After logging in to the Nixes’ computer, Josie scrolled through e-mails and discovered it was almost all to and from Brenda and dealt primarily with band business. There were several old e-mails from a woman named Patty who seemed to be her sister or family of some kind, filling Brenda in on her father’s liver cancer. Brenda’s responses were curt, obviously wanting the facts, not the emotions.

Almost two hours later Josie had skimmed through every e-mail in the system and found nothing of consequence. She did, however, figure Brenda earned her money as manager for the band. She spent an enormous amount of time cultivating contacts, setting up shows, and pitching different executives at several big houses for interviews and demos. Josie also discovered that the rumors were true: the Gennett deal looked as if it might come through, and not just for Billy but for the whole band.

Josie opened Internet Explorer and found that the search history had been cleared just two weeks ago, which led her to believe that either Brenda or Billy was hiding something from the other. It obviously wasn’t a public computer, so why go to the trouble? Josie checked the sites that the Nixes had left opened in tabs: an online music store, a blog for country bands, a forum for guitar players where Billy was a member but had never posted anything, and a Budweiser site that explained the rules for a “Battle of the Bands” playoff in Los Angeles next month.

Next, she checked out searches that had been performed on Google. The first site to catch her attention was searched less than twenty-four hours before the Nixes had evacuated: mayoclinic.org. She clicked on the link in the recently searched history and was taken to a page titled
DISEASES AND CONDITIONS: HIV/AIDS
. Another twelve Google searches led to similar sites; three searches led to links that dealt specifically with symptoms. Josie turned her chair to Otto. “Come check this out.”

Josie clicked through the links in the order that they had been searched. She learned that someone started with a vague search about HIV, then progressed specifically to symptoms, testing, and life expectancy. The searches were conducted between the hours of 10:45 p.m. and 11:57 p.m., on Saturday, the night before the evacuation.

Otto rolled his chair back from Josie’s desk. “One of the Nixes has a healthy curiosity about a disease, or maybe Billy’s worried he has HIV?”

“Might give Billy a motive for murder,” she said. “He found out somebody gave him HIV and decided to get even.”

Otto frowned. “Strange coincidence that Susan said Ferris wanted her to press charges against the guys that called him gay at the bar.”

“Hmm. Maybe Billy and Ferris had a secret affair going on and one of them passed along HIV to the other one.”

Otto narrowed his eyes at her like he was trying to follow her logic. “I don’t know. Hard-core country singer, married, having an affair with a guy Susan described as looking like a weasel?”

Josie shrugged. “Just because you’re hard-core country doesn’t mean you can’t be gay.”

Otto gave her skeptical look.

Josie studied Otto for a moment. “The relationship and HIV diagnosis might give Brenda a motive too.”

“How so?”

“If you found out your wife was HIV positive, you’d probably want to kill the person who gave it to her too,” she said. “Hypothetically speaking.”

Otto cocked his head and smirked. “Hard to imagine Delores with HIV.”

“Okay, you get my point.”

“I do,” he said. “The interview with Ferris Sinclair should be a doozy.”

*   *   *

Susan called Josie back on her cell phone just before lunch. “I drove by Ferris’s house. I don’t think he’s been there in a couple days. I found mail in his box postmarked back to Monday.”

“Thanks, Susan. I appreciate you looking. One more question. You ever hear any gossip about Ferris being HIV positive?”

“Oh, that’s not good. From the bar-scene gossip around town, I hear he’s pretty promiscuous. I haven’t heard anything about HIV though. Want me to check around?”

“I’d appreciate it. He may be a homicide victim in a fire that took place at the Nixes’ home during the evacuation. The fire that came through Sunday night. That’s premature on my part, but let me know if you hear anything.”

“Wow. Homicide. Burned in the fire? Or killed by other means?”

“Both. The victim was killed first, then intentionally burned. Ferris is a pretty big leap though.”

“I’ll ask around and get back with you.”

As Josie hung up the phone Lou buzzed her from downstairs. “Pete Beckett is here to see you.”

Otto raised his eyebrows. “Who’s Pete?”

Her face grew red. “He’s my friend from high school. The smoke jumper.”

“Why the funny look?” he asked.

Josie played it off as nothing. “That’s the problem with cops. You’re too suspicious. I’ll be right back.”

She went downstairs and saw Pete waiting by the front desk of the PD, chatting with Lou.

“Hey, Josie! I wanted to stop in before we take off.”

Josie smiled and pointed outside, not wanting to have a personal conversation in front of Lou. They walked outside and Josie saw the two vans that the smoke jumpers had traveled in parked in front of the courthouse across the street.

Pete’s face was animated, his big brown eyes wide. “We just got a call to head back to Montana. Just wanted to stop and say bye.”

“I owe you one, Pete. The skydiving was amazing. I think you have a winner with the jump therapy.”

He grinned. “See? Old Pete’s not as crazy as everybody thought all those years.”

“You’re as sane as anyone I know. You be safe out there,” she said.

Josie reached out and they hugged for a long moment. He finally pulled away and ran for the van. She watched as they pulled out and the driver blasted the horn in a final good-bye.

*   *   *

When Josie reached the top of the stairs she heard Otto talking on the phone. By the time she entered the office he was hanging up, his forehead creased with worry lines.

“Susan just called back,” Otto said. “She was talking about Ferris to one of the other young deputies in the office who knew Ferris from hanging out at the bars. She told him that there was a victim burned in the fire and that we were concerned that it might be Ferris. Susan mentioned getting a warrant for the apartment and so on. Anyway, the deputy starts telling Susan about Ferris. He said Ferris was always telling stories about his life, most of which the guy figured were lies. Ferris told the deputy he was in the army right after high school and the deputy told Ferris he wasn’t tough enough for the army. Ferris opened up his mouth and showed his teeth. Said the U.S. Army capped five of his back teeth with silver crowns. The deputy remembers him saying, who else but Uncle Sam would screw up somebody’s mouth like this? The deputy brought it up thinking it might help ID the body.”

Josie raised her eyebrows in recognition. “Good! We can check the fire victim’s teeth for identification.”

“Better than good. Remember I said Cowan checked out the victim’s teeth to get a basic estimate on his age?”

“We may have just identified our victim,” she said.

Otto rolled his chair around to face his desk and called Cowan. After a brief conversation he hung up and turned back to Josie with a smile. “Get this. I asked him if there was anything unusual he noticed when he examined the victim’s teeth. Cowan said, ‘Somebody butchered the guy’s mouth. He’s got five crowns.’”

“Excellent. Will you follow up with Susan to get contact information for Ferris’s family? And can you get started on a full search warrant for his house and a subpoena for his medical records?”

“We could confirm his identity by tomorrow with dental records,” he said.

Josie pointed to the laptop sitting on the table. “Okay. Walk through this with me. Let’s suppose Ferris is HIV positive. He’s staying the night at the Nixes’ house. Maybe one of them sees his medication. Brenda hates him. She’s searching through his bag for something to convince Billy that Ferris is bad news. Instead, she finds drugs she’s never heard of. She goes on the Internet and discovers Ferris is being treated for HIV and reads up on it. She starts thinking about the band’s big recording contract and decides this kid is trouble. He’s terrible for the band’s image.”

“Let’s go back to the idea that Billy and Ferris are having an affair. We’ve heard from several sources that Ferris is infatuated with Billy. Maybe Billy was infatuated too. Maybe Brenda began to suspect that Billy and Ferris had something going on. She wanted Ferris out of the equation before he ruined their marriage.”

Otto said, “There’s a fire raging through West Texas and she thinks, This is my chance. She convinces Billy to go get his guitar at the Hell-Bent to set their alibi. They go back to the house where they’ve told Ferris to wait. Maybe they told him to wait there and they’d come back and pick him up after they ran their errands.”

Josie took the story back up. “Brenda convinces Billy that Ferris has to die before he ruins their marriage and Billy’s plan for becoming a star. They get into the house and Brenda uses the stun gun on him. He drops to the floor and Billy kills him. Strangles him? He’s big enough to choke a man out. Then they lay him on the couch, start the fire, and take off for Austin. Let him burn to death to make it look accidental.”

“That works. There’s motive, means, and opportunity,” he said, ticking each word off on his fingers. “I’m not sure how plausible it is, but it works.”

“We need the dental records. We need to know for sure how he was killed. And we need to know how the fire was started.” Josie sat down at her desk. “I’d sure like to talk to the Nixes. Think there’s any chance we could get them in here again?”