Chapter 21
Johnson’s heart sank when he slid to a stop behind Gary Ewell’s lone patrol car.
Ewell was on the ground, his boots and outstretched legs just visible.
A straw hat lay in the grass stubble beside the county road, spattered with blood.
Johnson let the dispatcher know he was on the scene, and that any suspect vehicles had fled, simultaneously flinging open his door—terrified at what he was going to find.
Johnson drew his gun out of habit and scanned the area for other threats.
Here, too, the air was filled with dust. Whoever had done this was long gone.
Johnson holstered his weapon and fell to his knees. He put his fingers to the side of his friend’s neck, checking for a pulse, though he knew there was no need.
Johnson held his dead friend’s hand and stared into the darkness. He ignored Hatcher’s frantic calls for the next full minute.
Worry, no matter how terrified, held a sliver of hope—and in the moment, that was better than the truth.
The phone call from Parker County Dispatch woke D Wayne Cutter from a fitful sleep at a quarter to three.
Lucy stirred and then rolled out to put on a pot of coffee.
He told her to go back to bed, that he didn’t have time to wait, but by the time he’d washed his face, dressed, and snapped the keepers on his gun belt, she met him in her nightgown with a full thermos ready to go.
She tucked it under his arm as he opened the screen door to leave.
He sighed. “It’s the middle of the night. I wish you’d go back to b—”
She glanced up at him. “And I wish you’d hush and take the coffee.”
Cutter lifted the thermos as if in a toast. “I’ll think about you while I drink it.”
She grinned. “That’s right,” she said. “Strong and bitter.”
Cutter opened the screen door again to find the two cur dogs still sleeping just outside. He started to scoot them gently out of the way with the toe of his boot, but Lucy put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Days like this are hard,” she said. “Promise me you’ll be mindful of Lafayette.
Not that you ever get used to it, but you’ve seen more than your share of violence.
Remember, this is new territory for him.
” She stooped down with a breathy groan, kneeling on the throw rug to rub the red dog behind the ears.
It whined happily and stretched out to offer its belly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cutter said.
The yellow cur moved in, scooching closer to get its rightful share of attention. Lucy rubbed both dogs now, cooing softly, the way she’d cooed to Bodie when he was a baby, the way she cooed to their little grandson, Ethan.
Cutter leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “You beat all, Lucy Jane Cutter. Bone-weary though you are, you still find it in you to adopt two hopeless strays.”
“Three,” Lucy said, smiling up at him.
“Okay.” Cutter laughed. “Three, if you count LJ.”
“Oh, dear heart,” Lucy scoffed. “I meant you.”
Cutter ran Code 3—lights and siren—covering the forty miles from his front gate to the scene north of Wizard Wells.
The trip took thirty-four minutes. Sunrise was still hours away, but investigators from Jack and Parker Counties had set up battery powered construction lights to illuminate the scene.
Two DPS Highway Patrol troopers and the Jack County Sheriff were on the scene with Johnson.
Texas Rangers had been notified and were en route.
Johnson met Cutter at his car as he rolled up, weaving as he walked, surely exhausted and moving on autopilot. Massive adrenaline dumps two days in a row took a toll.
“I apologize for getting you out of bed so early.” The poor kid was teetering on the edge of shock.
“No, you did the right thing.” Cutter handed him the thermos of coffee. “Lucy made this for you. Drink some. That’s an order.” He looked through the darkness at the dead Jack County deputy, now covered with a wool blanket. “You knew him, didn’t you?”
“Academy classmate,” Johnson said. “Good guy. He sure as hell didn’t deserve this.”
“It’s rarely about deserving,” Cutter whispered. “Sorry about your friend. Take some time if you need to. The sheriff won’t mind a bit.”
“Hell no,” Johnson said. “It all went down before I got here. If I’d been just a few minutes earlier—” The young deputy gave a shuddering shake of his head and then waved for Cutter to follow him around the dead deputy’s patrol car.
“Anyway, I didn’t call you to cry on your shoulder.
I wanted you to see something firsthand. ”
Cutter was surprised to find that someone, likely Johnson, had laid out a ten-by-twenty rectangle of crime scene tape on the dirt road a few feet north of the body.
“What’s this?”
“I heard what you said about everybody stomping all over the tracks when the armored car robbers wrecked their Crown Vic on Bankhead Road. Thought we should get ahead of that here because I was first on the scene.”
Cutter held his flashlight low to the ground, shining it at an angle across the road so any ridges of tracks would cast shadows and create contrast.
“This is very helpful, LJ,” he said. “Good work. Now, tell me what it is you see.”
“We have dually tire tracks on the roadway,” Johnson said. “Along with some other kind of vehicle. I’m guessing it’s something with a small wheelbase. I made sketches of two distinct sets of tracks in the dust. One looks like a regular cowboy boot. The other, a waffle sole.”
“A jungle boot.” Cutter took out his notebook and flipped it open. “Exactly like the one we saw behind Ray Gene Bryant’s house.”
Johnson’s hand wrapped slowly around the butt of his revolver. His words came hard through clenched teeth. “Whoever robbed that armored truck also murdered my friend. Those bastards are going to pay.”
“Oh,” Cutter said, “They’re gonna pay. It’s one of my rules.”