Portraits and Observations (57 page)

JAKE:
I wasn’t too happy. That’s the fact of that.

The Bureau backed me; we began checking out the life of Robert Hawley Quinn from the year one. But we had to move on tiptoe—the chief was jittery as a killer on Death Row. I wanted a warrant to search the B.Q. Ranch, the houses, the whole property. Denied. He wouldn’t even let me question the man—

TC:
Did Quinn know you suspected him?

JAKE
(snorting): Right off the bat. Someone in the governor’s office tipped him off. Probably the governor himself. And guys in our own
Bureau—they probably told him, too. I don’t trust nobody. Nobody connected with this case.

ADDIE:
The whole town knew before you could say Rumpelstiltskin.

JAKE:
Thanks to Oliver Jaeger.
And
Tom Henry. That’s my fault. Since they had both been on the River Committee, I felt I had to take them into my confidence, discuss Quinn, warn them about the coffins. They both promised me they would keep it confidential. Well, telling them, I might as well have had a town meeting and made a speech.

ADDIE:
At school, one of my little boys raised his hand and said: “My daddy told my mama somebody sent you a coffin, like for the graveyard. Said Mr. Quinn done it.” And I said: “Oh, Bobby, your daddy was just teasing your mama, telling her fairy tales.”

JAKE:
One of Oliver Jaeger’s fairy tales! That bastard called everybody in Christendom. And you say he isn’t crazy?

ADDIE:
You think he’s crazy because he thinks
you’re
crazy. He sincerely believes that you’re mistaken. That you’re persecuting an innocent man. (Still looking at Jake, but addressing me) Oliver would never win any contest, neither for charm nor brains. But he’s a rational man—a gossip, but good-hearted. He’s related to the Quinn family; Bob Quinn is his second cousin. That may be relevant to the violence of his opinions. It’s Oliver’s contention, and one that is shared by most people, that even if some connection exists between the decision of the Blue River Committee and the deaths that have occurred here, why point the finger at Bob Quinn? He’s not the only Blue River rancher that might bear a grievance. What about Walter Forbes? Jim Johanssen? The Throby family. The Millers. The Rileys. Why pick on Bob Quinn? What are the special circumstances that single him out?

JAKE:
He did it.

ADDIE:
Yes, he did. We know that. But you can’t even prove he bought the rattlesnakes. And even if you could—

JAKE:
I’d like a whiskey.

ADDIE:
You shall have it, sir. Anybody else?

JAKE
(after Addie left on her errand): She’s right. We can’t prove he bought the snakes, even though we know he did. See, I always figured those snakes came from a professional source; breeders who breed for the venom—they sell it to medical laboratories. The major suppliers are Florida and Texas, but there are snake farms all across the country. Over the last few years we sent inquiries to most of them—and never received a single reply.

But in my heart I knew those rattlers came from the Lone Star State. It was only logical—why would a man go all the way to Florida when he could find what he wanted more or less next door? Well, as soon as Quinn entered the picture, I decided to zero in on the snake angle—an angle we’d never concentrated on to the degree we should have, mainly because it required personal investigation and traveling expenses. When it comes to getting the chief to spend money—hell, it’s easier to crack walnuts with store-bought teeth. But I know this fellow, an old-time investigator with the Texas Bureau; he owed me a favor. So I sent him some material: pictures of Quinn I’d managed to collect, and photographs of the rattlers themselves—nine of them hanging on a washline after we’d killed them.

TC:
How did you kill them?

JAKE:
Shotguns. Blasted their heads off.

TC:
I killed a rattler once. With a garden hoe.

JAKE:
I don’t think you could’ve killed these bastards with any hoe. Even put a dent in them. The smallest one was seven feet long.

TC:
There were nine snakes. And nine members of the Blue River Committee. Nice quaint coincidence.

JAKE:
Bill, my Texas friend, he’s a determined guy; he covered Texas from border to border, spent most of his vacation visiting snake farms, talking to the breeders. Now, about a month ago, he called
and said he thought he had located my party: a Mrs. Garcia, a Tex-Mex lady who owned a snake farm near Nogales. That’s about a ten-hour drive from here. If you’re driving a State car and doing ninety miles an hour. Bill promised to meet me there.

Addie went with me. We drove overnight, and had breakfast with Bill at a Holiday Inn. Then we visited Mrs. Garcia. Some of these snake farms are tourist attractions; but her place was nothing like that—it was way off the highway, and quite a small operation. But she sure had some impressive specimens. All the time we were there she kept hauling out these huge rattlers, wrapping them around her neck, her arms: laughing; she had almost solid gold teeth. At first I thought she was a man; she was built like Pancho Villa, and she was wearing cowboy britches with a zipper fly.

She had a cataract in one eye; and the other didn’t look too sharp. But she wasn’t hesitant about identifying Quinn’s picture. She said he had visited her place in either June or July 1970 (the Robertses died 5 September 1970), and that he had been accompanied by a young Mexican; they arrived in a small truck with a Mexican license plate. She said she never spoke to Quinn; according to her, he never said a word—simply listened while she dealt with the Mexican. She said it was not her policy to question a customer as to his reasons for purchasing her merchandise; but, she told us, the Mexican volunteered the information—he wanted a dozen adult rattlers to use in a religious ceremony. That didn’t surprise her; she said people often bought snakes for ritualistic usage. But the Mexican wanted her to guarantee that the snakes he bought would attack and kill a bull weighing a thousand pounds. She said yes, that was possible—provided the snakes had been injected with a drug, an amphetamine stimulant, before being put in contact with the bull.

She showed him how to do it, with Quinn observing. She showed
us, too. She used a pole, about twice the length of a riding crop and limber as a willow wand; it had a leather loop attached to the end of it. She caught the head of the snake in the loop, dangled him in the air, and jabbed a syringe into the belly. She let the Mexican run a few practice sessions; he did just fine.

TC:
Had she ever seen the Mexican before?

JAKE:
No. I asked her to describe him, and she described any border-town Mexicali Rose between twenty and thirty. He paid her; she packed the snakes in individual containers, and away they went.

Mrs. Garcia was a very obliging lady. Very cooperative. Until we asked her the important question: would she give us a sworn affidavit that Robert Hawley Quinn was one of two men who had bought a dozen rattlesnakes from her on a certain summer day in 1970? She sure turned sour then. Said she wouldn’t sign nothing.

I told her those snakes had been used to murder two people. You should have seen her face then. She walked in the house and locked the doors and pulled down the shades.

TC:
An affidavit from her. That wouldn’t have carried much legal weight.

JAKE:
It would have been something to confront him with: an opening gambit. More than likely, it was the Mexican who put the snakes into Roberts’ car; of course, Quinn hired him to do it. Know what? I’ll bet that Mexican is dead, buried out there on the lone prairie. Courtesy of Mr. Quinn.

TC:
But surely, somewhere in Quinn’s history, there must be something to indicate that he was capable of psychotic violence?

JAKE:
The gentleman was well acquainted with homicide.

The Quinns are one of the oldest families here. Bob Quinn is the eldest of three brothers. They all own a share of the B.Q. Ranch, but he’s the boss.

ADDIE:
No, his wife’s the boss. He married his first cousin, Juanita Quinn. Her mother was Spanish, and she has the temper of a hot tamale. Their first child died in childbirth, and she refused to ever have another. It’s generally known, though, that Bob Quinn does have children. By another woman in another town.

JAKE:
He was a war hero. A colonel in the Marines during the Second World War. He never refers to it himself, but to hear other people tell it, Bob Quinn single-handedly slaughtered more Japanese than the Hiroshima bomb.

But right after the war he did a little killing that wasn’t quite so patriotic. Late one night he called the sheriff to come out to the B.Q. Ranch and collect a couple of corpses. He claimed he’d caught two men rustling cattle and had shot them dead. That was his tale, and nobody challenged it, at least not publicly. But the truth is those two guys weren’t cattle rustlers; they were gamblers from Denver and Quinn owed them a stack of money. They’d traveled down to B.Q. for a promised payoff. What they got was a load of buckshot.

TC:
Have you ever questioned him about that?

JAKE:
Questioned who?

TC:
Quinn.

JAKE:
Strictly speaking, I’ve never
questioned
him at all.

Just lately, I’ve talked to him plenty. But during the five years I’d been on the case, I’d never met the man. I’d seen him. Knew who he was.

ADDIE:
But now they’re like two peas in a pod. Real buddies.

JAKE:
Addie!

ADDIE:
Oh, Jake. I’m only teasing.

JAKE:
That’s nothing to tease about. It’s been pure torture for me.

ADDIE
(squeezing his hand): I know. I’m sorry.

JAKE:
Looking at him. Listening to him. Laughing at his dirty jokes. I hate him. He hates me. We both know that.

ADDIE:
Let me sweeten you up with another whiskey.

JAKE:
Sit still.

ADDIE:
Perhaps I ought to peek in on Marylee. See if she’s all right.

JAKE:
Sit still.

ADDIE
(glancing out the window): It’s stopped snowing.

JAKE:
The Okay Café is always crowded Monday mornings. After the weekend everybody has to stop by to catch up on the news. Ranchers, businessmen, the sheriff and his gang, people from the courthouse. But on this particular Monday—the Monday after Thanksgiving—the place was packed; guys were squatting on each other’s laps, and everybody was yakking like a bunch of sissy old women.

You can guess what they were yakking about. Thanks to Tom Henry and Oliver Jaeger, who’d spent the weekend spreading the word, saying that guy from the Bureau, that Jake Pepper fella, was accusing Bob Quinn of murder. I sat in my booth pretending not to notice. But I couldn’t help but notice when Bob Quinn himself walked in; you could hear the whole café hold its breath.

He squeezed into a booth next to the sheriff; the sheriff hugged him, and laughed, and let out a cowboy holler. Most of the crowd mimicked him, yelled wahoo, Bob! hiya, Bob! Yessir, the Okay Café was one hundred percent behind Bob Quinn. I had the feeling—
a feeling that even if I could prove dead-certain this man was a murderer many times over, they’d lynch me before I could arrest him.

ADDIE
(pressing a hand to her forehead, as though she had a headache): He’s right. Bob Quinn has the whole town on his side. That’s one reason my sister doesn’t like to hear us talk about it. She says Jake’s wrong, Mr. Quinn’s a fine fellow. It’s her theory that Dr. Parsons was responsible for these crimes, and that’s why he committed suicide.

TC:
But Dr. Parsons was dead long before you received the coffin.

JAKE:
Marylee’s sweet but not too bright. Sorry, Addie, but that’s how it is.

So back to the Okay Café. As I was leaving, the sheriff reached out and grabbed my arm. He’s a fresh Irish bastard. And crooked as the devil’s toes. He said: “Hey, Jake. I wantcha to meet Bob Quinn. Bob, this is Jake Pepper. From the Bureau.” I shook Quinn’s hand. Quinn said: “I heard plenty about you. I hear you’re a chess player. I don’t find too many games. How about us getting together?” I said sure, and he said: “Tomorrow okay? Come by around five. We’ll have a drink and play a couple of games.”

That’s how I started. I went to the B.Q. Ranch the next afternoon. We played for two hours. He’s a better player than I am, but I won often enough to make it interesting. He’s garrulous, he’ll talk about anything: politics, women, sex, trout fishing, bowel movements, his trip to Russia, cattle versus wheat, gin versus vodka, Johnny Carson, his safari in Africa, religion, the Bible, Shakespeare, the genius of General MacArthur, bear hunting, Reno whores versus Las
Vegas whores, the stock market, venereal diseases, cornflakes versus Shredded Wheat, gold versus diamonds, capital punishment (he’s all for it), football, baseball, basketball—
anything
. Anything except why I’m stuck in this town.