The Perk (27 page)

"Why not?"

"Trust me—it won't happen. And you don't
want it to happen. So best thing is for you to find no probable cause."

"That's what the examining trial is for—to
determine probable cause."

"No, Judge, it's to keep a lid on this
town. We had this deal worked out for everyone—"

"Except Julio."

"Everyone that counts. But you stuck your
nose where it doesn't belong, so now this town is in your hands. You're
responsible now."

"I'm responsible for seeing that justice is
done."

"
Justice?
You
screw this up and you'll see what justice looks like."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, Judge, the Mexicans know you're not aligned
with the Germans, so if you find no probable cause, they'll believe you."
He smiled. "Heck, this could work out even better than we had planned.
They trust you. Your word could end this."

"Why do they trust me?"

"They know J.B. partnered up with a
Mexican. They figure like father, like son."

"They'll hear Julio's testimony and the deputies'.
Grady won't let his men slant their testimony."

"No, Grady figures he's above it all
now." The D.A. shook his head. "Worst thing that ever happened to
this county, Grady getting rich. Now he can afford to be honest."

"I've read Julio's affidavit and the
deputies' reports—there's probable cause. There's no way I could rule
otherwise."

"There'll be a way."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see Friday morning."

Beck drove out the back parking lot of the courthouse and
turned onto Main Street. Heading east, he crossed streets named Adams, Llano,
Lincoln, Washington, Elk, Lee, Columbus, Olive, Mesquite, and Eagle, names selected
and arranged by the city so the first letters would spell ALL WELCOME.

Just beyond the city limits sign where Heidi's
body had been found, Beck turned south onto Old San Antonio Road. He drove
over Meusebach Creek where it merged into the Pedernales River. Open land lay
before him. He liked that about a small town: you could pull out of your
parking space in downtown, drive five minutes in any direction, and be in the
middle of nowhere. Drive five minutes from downtown Chicago and you're two
blocks away.

He downshifted when the Navigator began the slow
climb up Mt. Alamo, a hill southeast of town that stood twenty-three hundred
feet above sea level. Aubrey lived in Alamo Springs, an old hippie community
atop the hill. Beck turned east onto Alamo Drive and drove over the Bat Cave,
an abandoned narrow-gauge railroad tunnel that was now home to three million
Mexican free-tailed bats. Every evening at dusk the lot of them emerged to forage
the countryside for insects. A distinct advantage of living in Alamo Springs
was that there were few flies to contend with during the summer.

Beck continued past the Alamo Springs General Store & Cafe and turned south onto Apache Road, a dead-end. From that elevation,
the view of the Texas Hill Country went on forever.

The view of the Geisel house was not as good. The
paint on the small frame house seemed lifeless. The grass in the front yard was
brown, as were the plants in the gardens. Weeds snaked a few feet up the side
of the house. The shades were drawn. The house had died with the daughter.

Beck parked and got out, walked past an old Ford
truck, and stepped up onto the porch. He knocked on the door. Aubrey answered
without a second knock.

"Beck, come on in."

Beck stepped past Aubrey and inside the house.
Aubrey was holding the cane in one hand and a beer in the other, and from the
smell of his breath, it wasn't his first of the day.

"Don't you have practice today?"

"I can cuss drunk. Let's go out
back."

Aubrey led Beck through a den with a decor straight
out of a funeral home, through sliding glass doors, and out onto a wood deck.
Beck went over to the rear railing to catch the breeze. It was dry without a
hope of rain.

"Aubrey, you knew about Slade beating up
that boy, getting arrested?"

"Sure."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged. "Because it don't involve
either one of us."

"It damn sure does. You're the coach and
I'm the judge."

"Slade don't answer to me … or to you."

"Oh, he's going to answer to me."

"I don't think so, Beck. Besides, I
thought it was taken care of."

"By whom?"

"Quentin. The D.A."

"You figured Quentin's money had bought
Slade out of this?"

Aubrey shrugged. "That's how things are
done around here."

"Not anymore. Slade's examining trial is
set for Friday morning, nine o'clock, in my court."

"Might be biting off more than you can
chew, Beck. First week on the job, you gonna take on Quentin and the old
Germans?"

"I'm gonna do my job. And that might
affect your plans."

"What plans?"

"Winning state, trading up for a college
job, getting Randi back. If Slade's indicted, you won't win state."

Aubrey limped over to the railing and stared out;
after a moment, he exhaled heavily.

"Hell, that ain't no plan, Beck. That's a
pipe dream. My life ended the day Heidi died. She ain't coming back and Randi
ain't either." He turned to Beck. "You do what you got to do with
Slade. I'd rather put Heidi's killer in prison than win state. Now what do you
know?"

It was now Beck's turn to stare at the distant hills.
Looking south, he could see the path the train had once taken after emerging
from the tunnel; it ran right past Hillingdon Ranch, Alfred Giles' old place. His
grandson now ran the ranch. Beck looked up and gazed into the blue sky; he watched
an eagle ride the currents for a bit, then he turned back to his friend.

"Aubrey, I know it's time to let her go. There's
no chance of ever finding this guy, and even if we did, he was probably a college
kid. It was just an accident, Aubrey."

Aubrey pointed the cane north toward town.

"Giving cocaine to a sixteen-year-old girl,
dumping her in a ditch—that ain't no goddamn accident! He killed her same as
if he stuck a gun to her head and pulled the trigger!" Aubrey stared out into
the distance again and calmed. "You're holding out on me, too, aren't you,
Beck?"

Beck didn't answer. But he wondered if he was
doing Aubrey a favor or himself a favor. Was he telling Aubrey to forget his
daughter so he could forget her, too?

"I want to show you something," Aubrey
said.

He limped back inside the house, and Beck
followed. They walked through the den and down a hall. Aubrey stopped, opened
a door, and hit the light. He entered the room as if he were entering a church.
Beck stepped into a shrine.

The bed was neatly made with a pink comforter
and fluffy pink pillows. Pink shag rugs dotted the wood floor. Framed photos
of Heidi hung on the blue walls and played out her short life: a cute blonde
toddler with her mother and father … a pretty girl about Meggie's age …
a German Fräulein with braided pigtails … an all-American high school
cheerleader … a beauty queen. She looked like Miss America. She did not look like the girl in the crime scene photos or a girl who would have had sex
with two men in one night or a girl who would have snorted enough cocaine to
kill a bull. She did not look like the dead girl in the ditch.

"She was my little princess."

On a shelf next to the bed were trophies, crowns,
and banners from beauty pageants. Peach Blossom Queen. Peach Festival Queen.
Peach Days Queen. Homecoming Queen. County Fair Queen. Rodeo Queen. Farm
Bureau Queen.

"Won every pageant Randi put her in."
Aubrey paused a moment to gather himself. "I tried to rehab the leg.
Once I knew I'd never play again, it was like she lost interest in me … Randi.
She knew I couldn't get her out of this town. From then on, it was like she put
all her chips on Heidi."

Aubrey focused on a photo of Heidi and Randi and wiped his eyes; Beck
averted his and opened the closet door. Inside were the clothes of a
sixteen-year-old girl: cheerleader uniform, dresses, jeans, sneakers, and one
pair of low heels.

"Any of her shoes missing?"

"Hell, Beck, I didn't keep track of her
shoes."

"What about her purses?"

"Those either."

"Why didn't you let her have a cell
phone?"

"Seemed like the kids with phones always got
in trouble, texting and sexting."

"Were you strict on her?"

"Not strict enough, I guess." Aubrey
sat on the bed. "She was a great kid, Beck. Loved to go fishing and
hunting, but she could never bring herself to pull the trigger on a live
animal. I thought she'd always be that girl." He paused and his
shoulders slumped. "When she turned fourteen and her body came in, men on
the street started staring at her. It changed her."

"How?"

"Her world got bigger. She started
thinking maybe her future was out there somewhere and not here in this small
town. That she could have a better life than this." He pulled a
handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. "Other parents, they
were always jealous 'cause she was prettier than their girls. Now I wish Heidi
had been plain. I'd even take ugly. Because I'd still have her. I miss her,
Beck."

Aubrey stood and limped around the room, removed
photos from the wall, and used his shirttail to wipe dust from each. And Beck
thought of J.B.: Had he walked into Beck's room every day for the last twenty-four
years and dusted his trophies?

"I left her room just like it was, so I'd remember
her like this. The way she was." He reached up and touched his
daughter's image. "But I don't. I remember her lying on that slab at the
morgue in Austin. That's how I remember my daughter, Beck."

Four years, nine months, and two days before,
Aubrey's life had stopped, suspended in time as if the hands of all the clocks
in the world had frozen in place, just as Beck's life had stopped the day Annie
had died eight and a half months ago. Beck didn't keep a calendar because he
had only life to blame for his wife's death. Aubrey had a human being—someone,
somewhere out there.

"Aubrey, leaving her room like this, maybe
that's not healthy."

"
Healthy?
Like eating vegetables?" He waved the cane around the room. "Look
around, Beck. This is all I got left of her." He limped to the door, but
stopped. "Beck, you don't owe me."

Beck's eyes fell to the cane and stayed there a
moment. Then he looked up and pointed at a photo on the wall. Another girl
was in it with Heidi.

"Who's the girl?"

"Kim Krause. They were best friends.
She's Claude's daughter. He still owns the gas station on West Main. She works
the desk."

The Gillespie County Courthouse marks the boundary between
East and West Main Street. To the east are the "Three Magic Blocks."
The 1.5 million tourists who visit Fredericksburg each year park their cars on East Main Street, shop at the stores on the Three Magic Blocks, then get back into their
cars and drive home. Few tourists venture west of the courthouse. There was no
magic on West Main Street.

The Krause Gas Station was located on West Main Street.

Beck drove west down Main Street past the
courthouse. He crossed Crockett, Orange, Milam, Edison, Bowie, Acorn, Cherry,
and Kay Streets, the first letters of which spelled COME BACK. He drove past
dilapidated homes and abandoned gas stations, the Zion Lutheran Church and the old Catholic convent, the Amish Market and the shuttered Knopp & Metzger
Department Store where his mother had taken him shopping as a boy, a health
food store, and the Choo Choo Trolley Patio Shop.

The Krause station sat on the south side across
from the Texas Pawn Shop just before the Y, where Main Street ended and split into
Highway 290 West, the road to El Paso, and Highway 87 North, the road to Amarillo. Claude Krause repaired old cars in the old garage; Kim Krause watched the pumps
from the desk inside and took the money. Krause's was not a pay-at-the-pump
place.

But Claude Krause was
sitting behind the desk and downing a Dinkel Acker beer when Beck walked in. It
was 12:01
P.M.
Claude
said he never drank before noon. He also said that Kim had gone home to watch
her favorite soap; home was an old frame house just behind the gas station.
Beck now weaved around a dozen junk cars Claude was dismantling for the parts
and a pile of tread-worn tires and walked across a dirt yard shaded by wide oak
trees. He stepped up onto the creaky porch and knocked on the screen door.

Claude obviously enjoyed repairing old cars more
than his old home; white paint was peeling from the siding and black paint from
the wood trim. The Krause house made Aubrey's look new. Beck could hear a TV
through the screen door. A young woman smoking a cigarette appeared and spoke
through the screen like an inmate conversing with her lawyer.

"Yeah?"

"Kim?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm Judge Hardin." Beck hoped his
official title might encourage Kim to cooperate. "I'd like to talk to you
about Heidi."

If Kim was Heidi's age, she'd be twenty now; she
looked thirty. She shrugged and pushed open the screen door.

"You scared me, wearing that suit looking
like the undertaker. Come on in."

"Is your mother home?"

Kim exhaled smoke. "She left us a long
time ago."

Beck didn't think it wise for a judge to be
alone in the house with a twenty-year-old girl, so he said, "Let's sit out
here on the porch."

"Suit yourself."

Kim came outside and plopped down on the top step.
She was blonde and blue-eyed like Heidi, but she didn't look like Heidi. She
was wearing a black tube top and cut-off jean shorts. She was a bit
overweight, and she was barefoot. Beck took off his coat and sat next to her.