Yeah.
Yeah. Ill take some coffee.
Is he Mexican?
Tell me who you were with.
Had a cut on his head. I couldnt say how bad he was hurt. He could walk.
If you live long enough it will. And I can think of no reason in the world for that no- good to of killed that girl. What did she ever do to him? The truth is I never should of gone up there in the first place. Now they got that Mexican up here in Huntsville for killin that state trooper that he shot him and set his car afire and him in it and I dont believe he done it. But thats what hes goin to get the death penalty for. So what is my obligation there? I think I have sort of waited for all of this to go away somehow or another and of course it aint. I think I knew that when it started. It had that feel to it.
What else did he say to you.
He called the number and Catron answered.
The first one he talked to wanted to know how hed found him. He was a big kid and he sat with his hands folded and looked down at his tennis shoes. They were about a size fourteen and had Left and Right written on the toecaps in purple ink.
How badly was he bleedin?
Catron had called the boy and talked to him and when the boy walked into the cafe he didnt seem particularly worried about anything. He slid into the booth and propped up one foot and sucked at his teeth and looked at Bell.
I dont know. He was bleedin. He had a cut on his head.
There was three boys in it. Nineteen, twenty years old. All of em Mexican. The only one lived was the one in the back seat. Apparently they was passin around a doober and they went through this intersection probably about sixty mile a hour and just T-boned the old boy in the truck. The one in the passenger side of the car, he come through the windscreen head first and crossed the street and landed on a womans porch. She was out puttin some mail in her box and he didnt miss her by much. She set off down the street in her housewrapper and haircurlers just a hollerin. I dont think shes right yet.
Yeah. Somethin like that.
What did you say to him?
Were you afraid of him?
Yeah? I talked to him this mornin and he seemed to me to be about as unfull of it as they come.
The waitress brought the coffee. DeMarco poured about a quarter cup of sugar into his and sat stirring it.
Ill be there in the mornin.
Howre you doin Ed Tom.
How bad was he hurt?
Naw.
What about the other vehicle.
Bell told him about the wreck. Yessir, Catron said. Sure I remember it. There was two boys killed in that wreck. We still aint found the driver of the other vehicle.
Bell watched him. How old a man would you say he was?
Thats all right, Bell said. Hell talk to me. Ive known him for years.
Yeah. I didnt know it at the time.
I think they might of been ostrich.
The kid looked at his shoes. He looked up at Bell. He didnt look like anybody. I mean there wasnt nothin unusual lookin about him. But he didnt look like anybody youd want to mess with. When he said somethin you damn sure listened. There was a bone stickin out under the skin on his arm and he didnt pay no more attention to it than nothin.
I got no idea.
You dont know where things will take you, do you?
He didnt say nothin.
What did he say.
Whats his name?
Was he wearin boots.
What can I do you for.
Like anybody.
In the morning he went to the high school and got some names from DeMarcos teacher.
Of course as it turned out he never come home at all. There was not nothin in them letters to suggest that she had reckoned on that possibility.
A hundred dollars.
What kind of boots.
Not real tall. Sort of medium.
He was medium height. Medium build. Looked like he was in shape. In his mid thirties maybe. Dark hair. Dark brown, I think. I dont know, Sheriff. He looked like anybody.
What happened?
Am I in trouble over this?
I appreciate it.
If I come up there you reckon I could talk to him?
David DeMarco.
Bell raised afinger and the waitress came over and took his order. He looked at the boy.
No.
You know this man had just got done killin a woman two blocks away when he got in that wreck.
Yeah. David give him his shirt. To make a sling for his arm.
I done told you all I know to tell. You seen the report. Thats all I know to tell you.
No. The boys in the car was. Not him.
I wasnt till you showed up. Hell, Sheriff, I knew we shouldnt of took the damn thing. It was a dumb-ass thing to do. I aint goin to set here and say it was Davids idea even if it was. Im big enough to say no.
Wasnt with nobody.
He said that we didnt know what he looked like. He give David a hundred dollar bill.
The boy shook his head.
WHEN HE WALKED IN the house the phone was ringing. Sheriff Bell, he said. He made his way to the sideboard and picked up the phone. Sheriff Bell, he said.
Theres a report we have here that is flagged with your name. It has to do with a woman named Carla Jean Moss that was murdered here back in March.
It was all just weird. Them boys in the car was dead. Am I in trouble over this?
No sir, you dont. I think I learned somethin from it. If thats any use to you.
What I wanted to talk to you about was the man that walked away from that wreck. I wonder if theres anything that comes to mind about him. Anything you might remember.
You think he might of died?
Expensive boots.
Wasnt with nobody.
On the report you said he was maybe in his late thirties.
The boy shook his head. I dont know, he said. I cant speak for David.
HE SAID I WAS BEIN hard on myself Said it was a sign of old age. Tryin to set things right. I guess theres some truth to that. But it aint the whole truth. I agreed with him that there wasnt a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it dont last long. I waited for him to smile but he didnt. I said well, thats pretty cold. And he said it was no colder than what the facts called for. So that was all therewas about that. I knew what hed say anyways, bless his heart. You care about people you try and lighten their load for em. Even when its self- ordained. The other thing that was on my mind I never even got around to but I believe it to be related because I believe that whatever you do in your life it will get back to you.
I dont know. It looked like his arm was broke.
Who were you with.
Did he threaten you?
I aint braggin.
One way to find out.
Ive still got that medal of course. It come in a fancy purple box with a ribbon and all. It was in my bureau for years and then one day I took it out and put it in the drawer in the livin room table where I wouldnt have to look at it. Not that I ever looked at it, but it was there. Harold didnt get no medal. He just come home in a wooden box. And I dont believe they had Gold Star mothers in the First World War but if they had of Aunt Carolyn would not of got one of them either since he was not her natural son. But she should of. She never got his war pension neither.
We cut him loose.
What did he look like? Was he Mexican?
Bell studied him. The boy sucked his teeth. He picked up the coffee mug and sipped the coffee and set it down again.
You know how many people hes killed?
Theres somethin you all aint tellin me.
Bell told him. Cook listened. Then he gave him a number. It was the investigator of the accident. Roger Catron. Let me call him first. Hell talk to you.
Like I was fixin to get drug into somethin where the road back was goin to be a pretty long one.
The boy shook his head. Naw, he said. He looked around the room.
What did he say?
You aint goin to help me, are you?
The neighbor there who called in the report, he said there was two of you.
The boy looked around the lunchroom. He looked almost in tears. If I had it to do over again Id do it different. I know that.
Aunt Carolyns letters to Harold. The reason she had them letters was that he had saved em. She was the one raised him and she was the same as his mother. Them letters was dogeared and tore and covered with mud and I dont know what all. The thing about them letters. Well for one thing you could tell they were just country people. I dont think hed ever been out of Irion County, let alone the State of Texas. But the thing about them letters was you could tell that the world she was plannin on him comin back to was not ever goin to be here. Easy to see now. Sixty some years on. But they just had no notion at all. You can say you like it or you dont like it but it dont change nothin. Ive told my deputies more than once that you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there aint nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. Its just a aggravation. And the truth is I dont have no more idea of the world that is brewin out there than what Harold did.
Bell leaned back. He turned the saltcellar a half turn on the tabletop. Then he turned it back again.
Nothin. I asked him was he all right.
I thought if I lived my life in the strictest way I knew how then I would not ever again have a thing that would eat on me thataway. I said that I was twenty-one years old and I was entitled to one mistake, particularly if I could learn from it and become the sort of man I had it in my mind to be. Well, I was wrong about all of that. Now I aim to quit and a good part of it is just knowin that I wont be called on to hunt this man. I reckon hes a man. So you could say to me that I aint changed a bit and I dont know that I would even have a argument about that. Thirty-six years. Thats a painful thing to know.
So. I went back out there one more time. I walked over that ground and there was very little sign that anything had ever took place there. I picked up a shellcasin or two. That was about it. I stood out there a long time and I thought about things. It was one of them warm days you get in the winter sometimes. A little wind. I still keep thinkin maybe it is somethin about the country. Sort of the way Ellis said. I thought about my family and about him out there in his wheelchair in the old house and it just seemed to me that this country has got a strange kind of history and a damned bloody one too. About anywhere you care to look. I could stand back off and smile about such thoughts as them but I still have em. I dont make excuses for the way I think. Not no more. I talk to my daughter.
I dont know nothin about him.
Bell sat watching him. Then he got up and put on his hat and left.
Boysd been smokin dope. They run a stopsign and hit a brand new Dodge pickup broadside. Totaled it out. The old boy in the pickup he climbed out and just took off up the street. Fore we got there. Truck had been bought in Mexico. Illegal. No EPA or nothin. No registration.
What else.
Yessir.
Sheriff this is Detective Cook with the Odessa police.
It is. Do you think DeMarco learned anything?
How tall was he would you say?
They picked up the murder weapon off of the FBI ballistics database and they traced it down to a boy here in Midland. The boy says he got the gun out of a truck at a accident scene. Just seen it and took it. And I expect thats right. I talked to him. He sold it and it turned up in a convenience store robbery in Shreveport Louisiana. Now the accident where he got the gun, it took place on the same day as the murder did. The man that owned the gun left it in the truck and disappeared and he aint been heard from since. So you can see where this is goin. We dont get a lot of unsolved homicides up here and we damn sure dont like em. Can I ask you what was your interest in the case, Sheriff?
Yessir. I appreciate you callin.
All right.
What did you all do with the boy that took the gun?
Well, hes full of it.
One other thing he said. Youd think a man that had waited eighty some odd years on God to come into his life, well, youd think hed come. If he didnt youd still have to figure that he knew what he was doin. I dont know what other description of God you could have. So what you end up with is that those he has spoke to are the ones that must of needed it the worst. Thats not a easy thing to accept. Particularly as it might apply to someone like Loretta. But then maybe we are all of us lookin through the wrong end of the glass. Always have been.
Yes you are.
Hell, Sheriff. I dont know. He was pretty bloody and all.
You want some coffee?
Well, you know she did. She just wouldnt of said nothin about it to him.
She would be thirty now. Thats all right. I dont care how that sounds. I like talkin to her.
When he asked me why this come up now after so many years I said that it had always been there. That I had just ignored it for the most part. But hes right, it did come up. I think sometimes people would rather have a bad answer about things than no answer at all. When I told it, well it took a shape I would not have guessed it to have and in that way he was right too. It was like a ballplayer told me one time he said that if he had some slight injury and it bothered him a little bit, nagged at him, he generally played better. It kept his mind focused on one thing instead of a hundred. I can understand that.
I look forward to seein you.
I dont think so. He was kindly dark complected is all.
Not that it changes anything.
Call it superstition or whatever you want. I know that over the years I have give her the heart I always wanted for myself and thats all right. Thats why I listen to her. I know Ill always get the best from her. It dont get mixed up with my own ignorance or my own meanness. I know how that sounds and I guess Id have to say that I dont care. I never even told my wife and we dont have a whole lot of secrets from one another. I dont think shed say Im crazy, but some might. Ed Tom? Yeah, they had to swear out a lunacy warrant. I hear theyre feedin him under the door. Thats all right. I listen to what she says and what she says makes good sense. I wish shed say more of it. I can use all the help I can get. Well, thats enough of that.
What?
Will he talk to me?
Id say you could. Im lookin at him on the screen right now.
Yeah. I think he was wearin boots.
Who were you with.
Bell nodded. All right. What did he look like.
