The Devil Went Down to Austin

Page 13

"I'm Tres Navarre," I said. "Garrett's—"
"I remember."
W.B.'s eyes reminded me of Jimmy's. They had the same look of distant anger, like he was gazing past me, impatient for something to happen on the horizon.
Otherwise, W.B. bore little resemblance to his cousin. He was darkcomplexioned, perfectly groomed, with features one would value in a catalogue model—handsome yet inconspicuous, completely uninteresting, so that you'd notice the clothes rather than the man. He was in his midforties, and radiated a sort of old energy that suggested he was born to be this age. It was impossible to imagine him as a child, or wearing anything but a suit.
"Glad you could make the service," I told him. "I wasn't sure any of the Doeblers would show."
"Criticism?"
"Observation."
He beeped the Infiniti's remote control. The car responded with a perky chirping noise, and the door unlatched itself.
"You saw the crowd," W.B. said. "Jimmy's people. He would've wanted them here more than he wanted his family. He got his wish."
"So Jimmy disowned the Doeblers. Not the other way around."
"I have to go, Mr. Navarre."
W.B. got into the Infiniti, selected the ignition key.
I leaned over him, one elbow on the open door. "I called your Aunt Faye. She seemed to think the family wants Jimmy's murder swept under the rug as soon as possible."
"Would you mind stepping back?"
"What'd you talk to the sheriff about, W.B.?"
He stared at me, evaluating. There wasn't a hair out of place in his part. The interior of his car smelled like Jordan almonds.
"You needn't worry," he told me. "If your brother killed Jimmy, that wouldn't surprise me. Especially not with that woman involved. But neither would I go out of my way to seek justice."
"That woman," I said. "You know Ruby?"
W.B. jammed the key in the ignition. A glowing green circle illuminated around it.
"Mr. Navarre, I came here tonight to set aside my resentment. To say goodbye to my cousin. And I'm leaving here even angrier than before. It hardly matters who killed him.
Jimmy wasted his life. Now you and his selfproclaimed real friends can go have a beer in his honour. It's a damned shame."
"And if the wrong person takes the blame for his murder? That doesn't matter either?"
"Get your arm off my car, Mr. Navarre."
"You know Matthew Pena, don't you? You know what he's capable of."
W.B. picked up his Nokia, dialled a single number with his thumb.
"Deputy Engels," he said into the phone. "Would you call city police for me, please. I'm at the Unitarian church on Airport, having some trouble with an irate man from the memorial. I'd call it harassment, yes."
I stepped away, slammed Doebler's door closed for him.
Without looking at me, W.B. Doebler dropped his phone onto the passenger's seat.
The door locks clicked.
His lights came on in the glare of the setting sun, and the white Infiniti pulled out onto Airport Boulevard.
CHAPTER 12
"I hate crowds," Garrett told me.
We were sitting at a window table in Scholz Bier Garten, drinking German beer that tasted like antifreeze.
A socialite wedding reception had taken over the back patio of Austin's oldest watering hole, leaving attendees of Jimmy Doebler's memorial beer bust to fight it out with the regular customers for the dozen tables and booths that were left in front.
The wedding reception guys drifted around in tuxes, the women in designer dresses.
They didn't coordinate well with the neon beer signs and baseball trophies and the green vinyl booths. I thought they had a disk jockey playing Kinky Friedman tunes on the patio until somebody sneaked a look and told me nope, it was Kinky Friedman playing Kinky Friedman tunes.
At the bar, Maia was having a heated discussion with Matthew Pena—a discussion she'd insisted I stay out of. Sitting on the stool beside her, Dwight Hayes was trying to peel the label off his beer bottle.
"Shouldn't leave without your date," I told Garrett. "Looks like she's still having fun."
Garrett grumbled.
Being down so low in the wheelchair, Garrett creates the illusion of an open space in a crowd. People swarm toward him, see him only at the last second, usually spill beer on his head. One of the tuxedoed gentlemen had almost made that mistake a few minutes ago.
"You're enjoying this," Garrett told me. "You want me punished."
"Just trying to figure out why your brother, who lives seventy five miles away, can't help, and your brother's exgirlfriend, who lives two thousand miles away, can."
"She's better than you," he said.
Leave it to my sibling to craft the most diplomatic response possible.
"She's prettier," he added. "And she knows Pena. She's dealt with him."
"And like you, she's already convinced Pena's the problem."
He glared at me. "You met him today. You don't think so?"
"The guy just tried to kill me once. That doesn't exactly set him apart."
Garrett grunted. "You wonder why I don't invite you up much."
Out on the back patio, Kinky launched into "Asshole from El Paso." Wedding guests and bar patrons milled around, jostling us. Ceiling fans circled lazily, kicking around the smells of chewing tobacco and sausage.
"How did you meet Ruby?" I asked.
Garrett turned his beer in a slow circle. "What does it matter?"
"Just wondering," I said. "If Pena was going to kill somebody at Techsan, if he was trying to force a deal, why kill Jimmy? Why not Ruby or you?"
"Thanks."
"I mean Jimmy seemed . . . harmless."
Garrett's face turned as bitter as the German beer. "Write that on his fucking gravestone, why don't you?"
He ripped his cork drink coaster in two, threw the halves on the table.
"I guess I didn't mean that," I said.
His eyes were our dad's eyes—steady, scolding, a slowburning fire that said, You best not lie to me, 'cause I know better.
I watched the soccer game playing in triplicate on the TVs above the bar.
Maia's conversation with Matthew Pena didn't appear to be getting any friendlier. The bartender put two margaritas on the rocks in front of her. I wondered if she planned on drinking them both.
"You were going to have to square things with her eventually," Garrett told me. "You know that, little bro."
"My brother the shrink."
"Tell me you're over Maia," he insisted. "Tell me there's been one time since you moved back to Texas you were really convinced. If you listened to me once in a while, dumbass—"
He stopped abruptly. Maia Lee was standing by us now, a margarita in each hand.
"Don't stop insulting him on my account."
She plopped into a chair, shoved the margaritas forward, spilling most of them. Her face was bright red from her encounter with Pena.
"Went that well, huh?" I asked.
Maia crossed her legs at the knee, tugged at the hem of her black linen funeral dress.
Her calves below the hemline were lean and smooth. I didn't notice them at all.
"You can't sell out to Pena," she told Garrett. "You can't give the bastard the pleasure."
The margarita wasn't bad. Cointreau. Probably Cuervo Gold. Maia had called it well.
Then again, I'd taught her.
I took another sip. "What did Pena do to you, Maia?"
Her eyes managed to look ferocious and serene at the same time. Predator cat eyes.
"He didn't do anything."
"Used to be, you had two rules. You didn't defend paedophiles, and you didn't defend anyone you knew in your heart was guilty of murder. Now you're telling me this guy—a guy you defended twice—could be a murderer."
Over at the bar, Dwight Hayes was now arguing with Pena. Pena looked amused—as if he was not used to hearing anything but yes from Dwight Hayes.
Maia spread her fingers on the table, waited long enough to count them. "Ronald Terrence, my wonderful boss. He gave me the job of representing Matthew Pena last year."
"The Menlo Park case," I said. "The guy who ate his shotgun."
She nodded. "It wasn't a hard assignment. There was evidence Pena had harassed the victim, but absolutely nothing to suggest foul play in the shooting itself."
"Harassing like how?"
"Pena sent the victim email threats, spiked them with a virus so they'd crash the victim's system. He made some taunting phone
calls. But the shooting was a suicide. In the end, the police couldn't touch Pena for it. I came away with the feeling that my client was a creep, but not a murderer. I could live with that. Most of my clients are creeps. Then in January, Terrence sent me down to see Pena again. This time it was a little tougher."
"Adrienne Selak."
Maia pressed her fingers on the table, made a silent piano chord. "One of Adrienne's friends came forward. She gave a statement that Pena was violent, that he had threatened Adrienne several times. Adrienne's family pushed the police hard, demanding he be charged. They told the press their daughter's death was no accident, she was a good swimmer, she never drank to excess. Plenty of witnesses on the boat saw Matthew and Adrienne arguing. There was no physical evidence, but the circumstantial case looked bad. Pena's attitude when I interviewed him—he seemed stunned, maybe even griefstricken. But I didn't know. I had my doubts."
"You defended him anyway," I reminded her.
"That was my job. Dwight Hayes' statement was solid. I rounded up other statements from people on the boat who'd seen Adrienne inebriated, clearly not in full control of her faculties. I found some . . . less reputable acquaintances of Adrienne's, people from her past. I got statements about her unstable personality, her drug use, some other things . . . things that would've been embarrassing for her family to hear in court.
I made it clear that I would destroy Adrienne Selak's character in a trial, make it seem highly plausible she'd fallen off that boat, maybe even committed suicide. I would trash the prosecution's lack of physical evidence. Adrienne's family backed off. The police wavered. That's where we left it, as of January. They never filed charges."
"All in a good day's work," I said.
Maia didn't respond.
Garrett nursed his margarita. He was watching Pena and Hayes, who were still having words at the bar. Despite the crowd, the seat Maia had vacated there was still empty.
None of Jimmy Doebler's friends was rushing to fill it.
"Most of what I learned about Matthew Pena," Maia said, "I learned afterward. He tries to destroy people, Tres. It doesn't stop when he gets what he wants. He follows up, pays visits, twists the dagger as much as he can. He toys with people's minds."
"And you found this out ..."
"Because he tried to do it to me."
Before I could respond, Ruby McBride was there, her large friend Clyde Simms in tow.
"Well!" she said. "This must be the happy people's table."
Ruby had shed her white jacket since the memorial service. Her blouse was sleeveless and sheer. She'd wrapped a Cleopatrastyle silver snake armband around her biceps. Versatile outfit—perfect for the woman who needs to hit the singles scene right after her ex husband's funeral and doesn't want the hassle of changing.