Chapter 36
The Parker County Jail cellblock formed a horseshoe off the rest of the Sheriff’s Department offices and kitchen.
Women and the occasional juvenile were housed in one leg, while men took up the other two thirds of the cells.
Males and females were kept separated for the most part, by sight but not sounds.
This was obviously a recipe for raucous conversations and innuendo when there happened to be female prisoners.
Like now.
Pink was taller and, judging from the beating he’d given Cutter, stronger than any of the other forty-seven male inmates presently incarcerated.
Still, the kid was fifteen and, until the courts said otherwise, he was a juvenile.
It wouldn’t look good to march him between the cells on the male side of the block.
Rather than give defense attorneys any ammunition, Cutter had the jailer, a slender man named Gil with boot-leather skin and an ever-present cigarette in the corner of his mouth, lead the way through the female wing with their prisoner, now restrained with a belly chain and leg irons. Johnson brought up the rear.
Scant light from the slit windows ten feet off the floor threw the place in perpetual gloom.
Flaking paint on the iron bars revealed past administrations’ color preference in layers of black, tan, rusty red, and now Chief Smith’s calming avocado.
The greasy essence of the jail kitchen followed them into the cellblock, swirling with the smells of desperation and body odor that hung in the shadows like an old noose.
The jail had always reminded Cutter of the belly of one of the Barbary pirate corsairs he’d read about when he was a boy.
The sole female prisoner was thirty-four-year-old Della Buck, serving the last two weeks of a five-month sentence for stealing a motorcycle that belonged to the county commissioner’s son-in-law.
It came out during her defense that she’d only taken the bike because the son-in-law hadn’t paid what he’d owed for her intimate services.
Sweating on her bunk in nothing but panties and bra, she glanced up from a tattered copy of The Sound and the Fury. Cutter had arrested her half a dozen times, a couple for soliciting, the rest for petty theft.
She brightened as Cutter led the hulking teenager past her cell.
“Ah, D Wayne!” She put the book face down on her thigh. “Nice of you to bring me a present!”
“Behave yourself, Della,” Gil said. “I thought you would have learned your lesson by now.” He lit a fresh cigarette and gave it to her as they walked by.
“I’ll tell you what I learned,” Della said. “I learned not to embarrass a county commissioner in open court.” She stuck the cigarette in her mouth and leaned against the bars, pressing her face as far as it would go to watch the procession.
“Hey honey,” she shouted at Pink. “You like William Faulkner? I can read to you if you want. There’s some nasty stuff in this one!”
Had Pink been any other juvenile prisoner, Cutter might have worried she was going to corrupt the boy. As it was, he worried for Della Buck.
Cutter stopped when they reached the cell. Gil jingled the big ring of keys off his belt. They were only three cells down from Della. Cutter looked up and down the block, considering their options. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not doing this. How many you have in the drunk tank?”
“Two.” Gil nodded, following the idea. “But they’re sober enough to throw in a cell with others. I’ll clear them out, and the kid will have the place to himself up by booking, where I can keep an eye on him.”
Pink rattled the chain on his restraints and glared. “I hope your wife dies soon.”
Cutter ignored him, focusing on Johnson and the jailer. “This has to be by the book.”
Johnson looked at the young giant and shook his head. “Due respect, Boss,” he said. “But I think we’re writing this book as we go along.”
“LJ,” Cutter said. “That may be the wisest thing you’ve ever said.”
The jailer’s radio squawked. “Hey, Gil,” the dispatcher said. “Tell Cutter Bud wants to see him in his office. Pronto.”
Where most men in Bud Langford’s position might decorate their office with shooting trophies and signed eight-by-ten glossies of them standing alongside famous people, the Parker County sheriff had clearly turned his office into a shrine.
There were a few photos of his champion cutting horses and prizewinning shorthorn cattle, even his favorite Australian cattle dog, but standing next to each was his smiling son, the spitting image of Bud Langford—and not too awfully different from LJ.
A color portrait of the young man in his Marine Corps uniform took center stage on the shelf behind a desk cluttered with case files and correspondence.
Langford’s sweat-stained straw hat sat upside down beside his inbox rather than on the hat hook by the door. He’d been interrupted on his way out.
James Reed, the Parker County district attorney, stood by the window along with Chief Smith. Sheriff Langford leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his belly.
Reed was compactly built with perfect weatherman hair and a polished face that looked like he shaved at least once an hour.
“Jim.” Cutter nodded to the DA and then looked to the sheriff. “LJ’s in the hall. Mind if he—”
Langford flicked a hand. “Get your ass in here, LJ,” he said, quiet but clear, at the volume of a seasoned stockman.
Johnson took up a position against the wall, but Cutter motioned him front and center. “You were as much a part of this as anyone,” he said.
Chief Smith leaned against the filing cabinet.
“Wanted to let you know, some boys runnin’ dirt bikes found the copper Buick LeSabre half submerged in a stock tank outside of Peaster,” he said. “Fire Department pulled it out while y’all were at the hospital.”
“It’s a long shot,” Cutter said. “But we’ll need to look for prints.”
“Texas Rangers are taking care of that as we speak,” Smith said. “Duvall has a big-ass scar on his right thumb. With any luck, they’ll find a match.”
“We better pray that they find something,” Reed said.
Cutter cocked his head to the side. “That sounds an awful lot like you don’t think we have enough to nail these guys.”
“Jim’s always going to want more,” Langford said before the lawyer could answer. ”Dissatisfaction is in his genes.” The sheriff swiveled his chair to face the district attorney. “Go ahead. Tell them what you just told me.”
“It’s still early days, mind you,” Reed said. “But if we can get the evidence to support it, I’m looking to charge Richard Pink as an adult.”
LJ smashed a fist into his open hand. “Yes!” he whispered.
“I thought you might go that route,” Cutter said.
The sheriff eyed Reed. “And the death penalty’s back on the menu, right?”
“It’s a possibility as of last year,” Reed said. “Gregg v. Georgia reinstated it. But if—and it’s a mighty large if—you get me a tight case, I’ll seek capital punishment for Allen Duvall.”
“That ain’t right,” Smith said. “I say if Duvall gets a date with Old Sparky, so should Mr. Pink. That boy’s old enough to know better.
Robbery and … Good Lord above, what’s the body count now?
Half a dozen? They cut Sue Bryant, would have killed her had Ray Gene not shown up.
Hell, what they did to that poor Foster woman should be plenty.
And Pink’s the one who had the box cutter! ”
“No way,” Reed said. “Not a chance in hell. Sending a fifteen-year-old to the electric chair is a bridge too far, even for a Parker County jury. I’m not going to roll the dice on that one. And anyway, taking the death penalty off the table makes me look downright compassionate.”
“They did kill the driver,” Johnson offered. “He was their man on the inside.”
“He was,” Cutter said. “But I’m not sure they killed him.”
Langford swiveled his chair toward Cutter now and gave him what everyone at the Sheriff’s Office called the eye.
“Care to elaborate on that, D Wayne?”
“There’s a good chance Foster shot the driver—”
“What?” The DA’s shiny forehead wrinkled like he’d just eaten something bitter. “Why the hell would one guard shoot another? Are you saying they were both inside men? Or did Foster force him to pull over?”
“No,” Cutter said. “LJ’s right. From what we learned at the Show Pony, Watts was their inside man. I think Foster was just new to the job, scared out of his wits and trying to maneuver the shotgun inside the cab—then boom.”
The chief deputy sighed. “You’re saying Foster murdered Watts?”
“Don’t know if I’d call it murder,” Cutter said.
“But the evidence suggests Foster shot him. There’s a spent 12-gauge shell on the floorboard of the passenger seat.
It tracks that Foster fired while he was still inside the truck, then racked in another round before he jumped out.
His shotgun was found in the grass with one live round still in the chamber and two in the tube, indicating he fired one time. ”
“Interesting theory,” Reed said. “And a pile of horseshit that I’d appreciate you keeping to yourself. Duvall and Pink need to get what they deserve.”
“I want them to get what they deserve,” Cutter said. “They, we, all of us, deserve the truth.”
“Well, aren’t you just awfully damned noble,” Reed said, sneering.
“I hate to break it to you, Deputy Cutter, but the only truth that matters in court is one that I can prove. We have three murdered armored car personnel. One of them lived long enough to give us general descriptions of the assailants and at least one of their vehicles. If Foster shot their inside man, he deserves a medal.”
Cutter didn’t argue. It was his job to present the facts.
“I need to demonstrate to the jury there was premeditation in order to get Duvall the death penalty. I have to show they planned to kill everyone in that truck from the jump.”
“Do you, Jim?” Langford mused. “I’m having a hard time seeing what else you need here.
You have these bastards for murder during the commission of a robbery.
That’s a capital offense right there. This premeditation crap is just bolstering.
Tire-track evidence puts them at the scene of the Ewell boy’s murder in Jack County.
And you can get them for cutting Trina Foster to pieces.
Torture feels pretty damned premeditated to me.
Good Lord, man, any one of those things alone should be enough for a Parker County jury to dispense with the electric chair and string them up from an oak tree on the courthouse square. ”
“Due respect, Sheriff,” the DA said. “But just because you see it all so clearly doesn’t mean a jury will.
Everyone in this office has been in enough courtrooms to know what I mean.
Even the smart jurors only listen to a third of the evidence presented.
The rest of the time they’re thinking about their own shitty lives or how to get into the panties of the hot juror two chairs down.
If I present evidence that confuses them, it’s game over for the case, especially when we’re dealing with a fifteen-year-old being tried as an adult.
You can bet the defense attorney will play the poor baby’s age card every chance he gets. ”
A pained expression creased Cutter’s face.
“How is any of this confusing?”
“What does it matter who pulled the trigger on Watts?” Reed said. “He was shot during an armed robbery.”
“It matters because it’s what the evidence tells us,” Cutter said, as if it was all so simple.
The district attorney wheeled. “I’m not sure you’re the one who should be schooling me about what the evidence shows. You’ve shot three men over the course of three days. Killed two of them. Talk about premeditated—”
Sheriff Langford rocked forward in his squeaky chair with such speed and force it sounded like a gunshot. “How many men have you killed, Jim?”
The prosecutor recoiled.
“What?”
“Simple question,” Langford said. “How many?”
“W … well, I haven’t killed any.”
“There you go,” Langford said. “I have killed my share. Each of them deserved it, and I would kill them again given the same set of circumstances. But that does not mean I take any of their deaths lightly. Do me a favor and don’t throw around talk of body counts with so much ease when you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Makes you look like an idiot.”
Reed gathered his case files and turned toward the door. “Just get all your ducks in a row, gentlemen. I’m not going to make an ass of myself in open court.”
“Shut the door, LJ,” Langford said after the DA had gone.
“Is it just me,” Johnson said, “or does it seem like the district attorney was making an ass of himself already?”
“Easy to forget that most of them are only temporarily on our side,” Cutter said.
Johnson scrunched up his face. “Temporarily?”
“Lawyers are master arguers,” Cutter said. “Most—not all, but a good many—are happy to debate either side of the V with equal gusto.”
“The V?”
“Texas v. Duvall,” Cutter said. “Jim Reed would be every bit as happy to represent Duvall as he is arguing for the prosecution. It’s not so much about justice to him as it’s about the intricacies of the law.”
“And winning,” LJ said.
“Yep,” Cutter said.
Chief Smith gave a low chuckle. “You know the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?”
Johnson shook his head.
“One’s a scum-sucking bottom dweller,” Smith said, eyes gleaming. “And the other one’s a fish.”
“That’ll do, Roger,” the sheriff said. “Jim Reed is not an asshole because he’s a lawyer. He’s an asshole who happens to be a lawyer.”