Brothers in Blood, page 25
Stepping up to the tombstone, I read the inscription:
Cody William Tanner
Beloved Son and Brother
b August 8, 1934
d June 4, 1964
Jubal looked over his shoulder, taking in the rest of the cemetery. “I like it here,” he said. “Quiet. You can almost hear the worms crawling around. Five generations of Tanners are buried here.” He paused and regarded the Tanner patch of tombstones. “But I don’t know. I’m not crazy about worms having a field day in my carcass. Know what I mean?”
“Exactly.”
Jubal squinted at the moon as its light etched shadows in his face. “You know, I want them to cremate me and then have some airplane spread my ashes over my land.” He looked at me. “Sort of like a full circle, know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, then tried and failed to suppress a smile.
“What’s funny about that?” He spoke quietly, more curious than hurt.
“Nothing. Not a thing.” I shook my head. “It just made me think. I’ve always figured I’d want my ashes mixed with limestone and used to paint the third-base line at Wrigley Field.”
Jubal chuckled, then looked up at the moon again. “It’s gonna be a clear day tomorrow.” He moved his right hand, and I saw that in addition to gripping the hat, it also held a .38 special.
“Tell me,” I said, “how’d you break out of jail?”
“Oh, that,” he said as though I’d asked him how he worked a simple card trick. “After that lawyer went to find Moore, I told the cop outside the door I had to use the can. I don’t know. He didn’t have his gun out or anything. When he stepped back to let me out of that little interrogation room, I just pulled him in and got the hell out of there. I slammed the door shut and I guess it locked. He was hollering, but those walls in the room are concrete. Guess his voice didn’t carry too far. I just walked out like I wasn’t in any hurry. Nobody stopped me. Didn’t even look at me twice.” He paused, took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. “They’d picked me up in town, coming out of McDonald’s. You know, the one by the station. My truck was still there. Really no big deal.”
I pictured Gene Moore, red-faced, eyes bulging, but couldn’t savor the image for long. Jubal looked down at the gun, lying dark and dull in his hand. “I was gonna use this.” He paused and added, “Still might.”
“That’s no answer, Jubal.”
He waved off my protest. “Who’s looking for answers? I just want some quiet.” Dropping the gun to his side, he said, “Thing is, you know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t know that I’ve got the guts.” “That’s not what it takes.”
“Sure it is.” He turned back to his brother’s grave and nudged a clump of grass with the toe of his boot. “Funny. In the end, he’s the one with the guts.”
“I don’t get it. Why does your family equate everything that defines what a person is with either violence or conquest?” After a moment, he turned to me, confused. “For God’s sake, Jubal, we’re practically into the twenty-first century. If the Tanner family were running the globe, we’d have blown ourselves to hell and gone a long time ago.”
He shrugged as though maybe that wasn’t a bad idea.
“I mean, no offense to Cody, but people have lived with worse things happening to them, you know.”
“Now, you listen here.” He stepped toward me, angry.
“He had choices. But what did he do? He chose the only option that he figured his family would understand.” I paused, waiting for an outburst. When none came, I added, “You guys are anachronisms. Pure and simple.”
“What?”
“You’re living in the wrong century.”
Jubal snorted. “That’s for goddamned sure.” He put on his hat, pushing it back on his forehead. Then he lowered himself into a crouch over his brother’s grave. He cradled the gun, almost lovingly, as though he were reading the answers in it.
“Yeah, I guess that’s the way you people deal with things, isn’t it? You either blow out your brains or someone else’s. Shit, it sure beats facing the music.”
He shook his head and laughed softly. “There’s something I didn’t mention this afternoon,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Cody knew about Brig and JoEllen.”
“How?” I figured I knew the answer, had known there was something like this at the bottom of all the hate. But I had to hear it from him.
“I told him.”
“Why?”
He sighed deeply and began to clear away some dead leaves from his brother’s grave. “You know, I thought maybe it’d help if he knew. After JoEllen died, he just seemed so close to the edge, like he thought he’d driven her to it. I was afraid he’d go right after her. Figured if he knew it wasn’t him, if he knew she did herself in because of Brig, well, maybe he’d quit blaming himself.”
“And start blaming Brig.”
“I don’t know. I thought at the time I was doing the right thing, but now … I don’t know. Don’t know anything anymore. Nothing. All I know is that this mess is where it’s all going to end up.”
“Did you kill Gayle?”
Without looking up, he answered, “I’m afraid so.” “I don’t believe you.”
He took his time standing up, and when he faced me again, I saw that he was smiling. In the moon’s glow he looked slightly deranged. “I know. Why’d you think I hired you? You talk about anacro … whatever. You know what you are? You’re worse. You put your money on the bandy-legged horse ‘cause you feel sorry for him. You think you’re this tough-ass detective with these great instincts. You’re as bad as me, only different.”
“I hope there’s no charge for the evaluation.” He waved me off in disgust.
“How could you have killed her if someone spotted you in the grocery store?”
I waited one minute, then two. He straightened slowly. “I hired someone to do it. My first mistake. She wasn’t supposed to die, and she never would have if I’d handled it myself.”
“Who’d you hire?”
He ignored the question.
“Why would you deprive yourself of the pleasure of seeing your brother die?”
He frowned and shrugged. “Not that big a deal. Bottom line’s the same anyway.” Sighing deeply he added, “Just so long as he’s dead.”
“But he’s not.”
“I know.”
“So why not try again? Where’s that famous Tanner persistence?”
Shrugging, he didn’t hurry to answer. Finally he said, “Not so easy now. He’s expecting something.”
“Why now?” I nodded toward Cody’s grave. “Why not thirty years ago?”
“I was younger then. But the years pass and things add up.” He regarded me for a moment, then added, “He took everything I ever had. Everything I ever wanted. You understand?”
“What about your family. Did he take them too?”
He looked away.
“Who you protecting, Jubal?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Did Moore tell you where they found that rifle?” He didn’t answer.
“I’ve got a feeling that’s the one that Dworski and Melissa found in your barn.”
“Missy?” Staring at his brother’s tombstone, he barely whispered her name.
“Who are you covering for, Jubal?”
He turned and confronted me, gun pointed at my head. “Don’t—”
The gunshot came like a blast out of the dark, and the bullet came so close to my neck, I could feel the breeze. Jubal spun backwards and went down. As I began to turn, expecting to come face-to-face with a rescue effort, a second shot took a chunk of bark off the oak. I hit the ground. So much for the cavalry theory.
23
JUBAL COUGHED AND stirred, then started to raise himself up on his left elbow. I pushed him back down. “What the …” His voice cracked.
“You okay?”
He responded with a noncommittal grunt.
“Welcome to the duck shoot.” I squinted into the distance and could make out only shadows, none of them moving.
We were sheltered on one side by the oak, but that left the other three wide open. The clouds moved steadily toward the moon, but it would be several minutes before I could count on darkness.
“Who the hell is out there?” Jubal touched his left hand to his right shoulder. I assumed he’d been hit but couldn’t tell how bad.
“You tell me. You’re the one with all the friends.” As I studied the shadows, I thought one of them moved. “Give me your gun,” I whispered, holding out my hand.
He started to hand it over, then stopped. “Where’s yours?”
“At home.”
“At home?”
“Look, Jubal, I was on my way to a cemetery, not the gunfight at OK Corral.”
Snorting his disgust, Jubal eased his weight off his right arm and took the gun with his left hand. “You think I’m handing this over, you’re dumber than I figured.”
I calculated the odds of making it to Jubal’s truck while remaining in cover, then glanced up at the clouds again. Almost there. “As soon as that cloud blots out the moon, let’s try to get to your truck. You got the keys?”
As an answer, he rolled over on his left side. “Hold on.” As he dug for the keys, I heard a twig pop about twenty feet beyond the tree. Before Jubal could protest, I snatched the gun out of his hand and twisted toward the noise, firing off a round. I didn’t expect to hit anything, just hoped whoever was stalking us would back off and we could buy a couple minutes. At first it seemed to work. I didn’t hear anyone running away, but he wasn’t coming any closer either.
“That was real smart,” Jubal said as I settled back down next to him.
“What?”
“You just used up all our ammo.”
“What?”
“I was gonna blow my brains out, what the hell do I need two bullets for?”
“You’ve only got one bullet in here?”
“Don’t have any now.” He paused and added, “I don’t like to load my weapons unless I’m planning to use them.”
“That’s … that’s. Shit.” I pounded my forehead against the cool grass. “You got more in the truck?”
“Yeah, in the glove box, but we’re a long ways from there.”
“You got a better idea?”
Jubal didn’t answer, but he handed me the keys. They felt slippery. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll get to the truck, load the gun, and start blasting away. You use the cover to get there. All you have to do is jump in.” No response. “You up to that?”
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. How do you know where he is to shoot at him?”
“All right. Let’s hear from the critic.”
He muttered something under his breath.
The cloud bank edged its way in front of the moon. I estimated we were thirty feet from the truck and there were no tombstones to use as cover. Half the moon was gone now.
“You do what you gotta do, just quit trying to rescue men who want to sleep.”
Three excruciatingly long minutes later, we lost the rest of the moon’s light. It was like somebody flipped a switch. The cloud made it difficult for our assailant to see us, but it worked the other way too. God, it was dark. We were out in the middle of the country—the city’s glow never reached this far. I could barely make out the hulk of Jubal’s truck, and I had no idea where our friend was. But once I opened the truck’s door, he’d know exactly where I was. The truck bed was covered by a cap, which would provide some protection … if I could get there.
“Is the truck unlocked?”
He grunted something that sounded more like yes than no.
“Can I get to the back from the cab?”
Another affirmative. “There’s a window.”
“Could I fit through it?”
“I guess. It’s a slider.”
“Don’t go anywhere.” I patted Jubal on the back and began crawling toward the truck. It was impossible not to make some noise, and I’d only gone ten feet when the first shot came, missing me by only a couple feet. That motivated me to cover the rest of the distance as fast and as low to the ground as possible. Two more shots were near misses before I made it around the far side of the truck. The door stuck at first, and I cursed under my breath, thinking Jubal had locked it after all, then I yanked hard and it gave, opening with such force I almost knocked myself over. Two bullets shattered the windshield and I climbed in, pulled the door shut behind me, and jammed my palm against the glove box lock. It didn’t give. I pushed it with my thumb. Damn. The sonofabitch had locked it. Shit. The door took another hit, then another. I shoved the sliding window open and dove through. Well, it was somewhat less clean than a dive, and I had to suck my gut in to work my torso through. My legs were still flailing behind me when he started shooting through the door. I somersaulted onto the truck bed.
He fired two shots before stopping, paused for about thirty seconds, then put another two through the door. I crawled the length of the truck and found the cap’s handle. Holding my breath, I turned it and pushed it up and open, praying the whole while that Jubal oiled the hinges every now and then. It lifted without a sound. Getting out without the truck bobbing was another problem. It was dead still outside, almost like the night was waiting for something. I felt around the truck bed and found a box filled with stiff brushes and curved metal objects. Horse paraphernalia, no doubt. I gripped a brush, aimed at the window I’d wormed my way through, and lobbed it into the cab. While he fired into the door again, I lowered myself out over the truck’s flap. I eased down slowly, so the truck didn’t give much. Then I waited. After almost two minutes, I heard the click of the door latch. By the time the light went on in the empty cab, I was right behind him with Jubal’s gun at his ear.
More than anything, it was his height that gave him away—his height and the smell of smoke and stale beer that rose off him.
“God damn you, Erdman.” I pressed the barrel into the back of his ear and reached around him for the magnum he’d tried to do me in with. He hesitated a moment before releasing it. “Wise move,” I said in congratulations, pocketing Jubal’s empty gun. I wondered if he’d gotten here on his own, then figured it wasn’t likely he’d level with me anyway. If he was with anyone, it was probably Artie. We’d hear him coming.
“Jubal,” I hollered. “Jubal, you got any rope?” I pushed Erdman’s face down on the driver’s seat and twisted his arm behind him. Then I found the headlights knob and pulled it on.
Gravel crunched, and Jubal staggered into view. He was squinting into the headlights and gripping his shoulder. “Who you got there?”
“Your buddy, the vet.”
“Erdman, you piece of shit.”
“He knows about the horse, Tanner.” Erdman’s voice was muffled by the seat.
Jubal snorted. “You dumb sonofabitch.”
“You got any rope, Jubal?”
He hesitated, taking a moment to sneer at the back of Erdman’s head, then walked past me to the back of the truck. His jacket’s shoulder was torn and there appeared to be some blood, but I couldn’t tell how bad he’d been hit. “You okay, Jubal?”
“I’ll live,” he muttered, apparently none too pleased with the prospect.
I heard him rummaging around in the truck for a minute; then he returned with a couple yards of good, strong rope. While Jubal held the gun, I looped Erdman’s arms through the steering wheel and bound his wrists together good and tight. All the activity had skewed Erdman’s rug so that it resembled a badly placed squirrel pelt. He wet his lips nervously as he watched Jubal with the gun. Finally he said, “Tanner, are you nuts? This guy knows about the horse. It gets out and you’ve had it. You want that asshole brother of yours to win?”
“Shut up, Erdman.” I sensed where he was going with this and wanted to cut him off before he got much further.
He kept going. “Brig Tanner’s spent his whole life making an ass out of you. You know it. He knows it. The whole goddamned town knows it. If it gets out about Kessler and your part in it, you can kiss the horse business good-bye. You’re finished. He wins big time. The game’s over.”
Jubal was watching him, listening. But the magnum was still pointed at Erdman.
“Jubal,” I said, “what’re you listening to this guy for? He just shot you.”
“It was a mistake.” Erdman was quick on the uptake. “I was aiming for this troublemaker.” He nodded at me, and his toupee slipped another inch.
“Yeah, right. And when you clubbed Jubal in the parking lot on St. Patrick’s Day, who were you aiming for then?”
He kept talking to Jubal. “I don’t know what this guy’s talking about.” He was pulling at the rope that bound him to the car. “What about Brig? Is he gonna keep making you the laughingstock of Abel County?” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “And what about that daughter of yours?”
Jubal cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “What about her?”
“Don’t listen, Jubal. Give me the gun.” I took a step toward him, but he backed off and flashed me a look that kept me from moving any closer.
Erdman smiled and licked his lips. “With Brig’s taste for those young things, kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Especially when that young thing belongs to his brother. Oh my. How sweet it is.”
I took him by the collar and slammed him up against the steering wheel. “Don’t listen to this garbage he’s spouting, Jubal.”
“You know what I’m talking about.” Erdman’s face was inches from mine and I could smell the beer on his breath. “Why don’t you ask that daughter of yours why she spends so much time at Will Tanner’s office?” He paused long enough to gauge Jubal’s reaction. His smile grew, baring long, crooked teeth. “Didn’t know about that, did you?”
I released Erdman and turned to Jubal. “Don’t listen to this idiot. You know better.” I extended my hand. “Give me the gun and let’s get out of here.”
Jubal stared at me for a full minute before he said, “Give me your keys.”
