Chapter 14 #2
“Hey!” Cutter snapped as the kid rolled down the window. “That thing’s got a strong magnet. Careful of the paint job.”
Cutter punched the gas, opening up the El Camino’s big block 454. He was doing eighty by the time he hit the Interstate.
Johnson took the handheld from his belt. “You want me to ask Dispatch for directions?”
“I know his place,” Cutter said. “I’m out there every eight weeks or so, putting shoes on his horses.”
“You shoe horses for every cop in Parker County?”
“A good many,” Cutter said, honking his horn, weaving in and out of traffic. With no siren and only the minuscule red bubble light on top of his personal car, he was an eighty-mile-an-hour lawsuit waiting to happen. “Why? You got a horse for me to shoe?”
“No,” Johnson said. “I realize you need the money, but I still. … Seems like a tough way to make a living after a long day of work.”
“This?” Cutter chuckled and pushed harder on the gas. “This isn’t work, kid.”
They covered the fifteen miles to the Brock turnoff in a hair under eleven minutes. Ray Bryant’s place was just a couple of miles south of the Interstate.
A departing ambulance met them as they crossed the cattle guard onto the Bryants’ driveway. There were two County patrol units and a Weatherford PD squad car in front of the old farmhouse, along with the Bryants’ personal vehicles.
Sue Bryant sat on a folding chair by her husband’s pickup holding her German shepherd’s leash in one hand and a Mini-14 rifle in the other.
Her right arm was expertly bandaged but already showing signs of bleeding through.
She knew Cutter and his El Camino well from the many visits he’d made to put shoes on her three horses.
He rolled down his window and waved anyway.
People tended to wear blinders when they were under stress.
Her hands full with a very energetic shepherd, Sue used the rifle to gesture at the house.
“They’re about done clearing it,” she said. “Grimes and Villareal from the County are in there with Ray Gene. Sergeant McAllen came out from the PD to help.”
It made perfect sense that WPD Sergeant Gladys McAllen would leave the city limits to check on one of her own.
The youngsters at Weatherford PD called her Ma.
She was barely forty, but she was such a mother hen, the name fit.
One of the handful of female officers in north Texas and the only one in Parker County, she was well-loved and respected by lawmen in every agency—and fiercely protective of her hatchlings.
“You okay, Sue?” Cutter asked.
“Just a scratch,” she said. “Maybe some mild shock …”
He did a double take. “Shock?”
“I’m kidding,” Sue said. “One of the assholes cut me. The EMTs said I needed stitches, but I’m not leaving until I know my house is safe.” Her head snapped up at Cutter, glassy eyes homing in on him. “You’ve had your house burgled?”
“I have not.”
“Well, let me tell you, it sucks.”
She put the rifle across her knees and hugged the dog with her good arm.
Ray Gene came out the front door holding an empty Folgers coffee can.
Sue jumped up from her folding chair, then stomped a foot in the grass. “The bastards better not have stolen our Colorado money!”
“Sorry, hon.” Ray Gene dropped the empty can in the yard. He glanced toward the El Camino. “Thanks for coming, Cutter, but it looks like the guys who did this are long gone. I can’t see that they took anything besides the money.”
“You said they,” Cutter said. “Did you get a look at them?” He picked up a likely piece of wood that had broken off a big juniper tree in the front yard and took out his Barlow.
Leaning against his Chevy, he began to whittle while he listened to everyone’s thoughts.
A lot of good information came out in these little after-action conversations.
“Sue got an up-close look,” Ray Gene said. “Can you describe them, hon?”
“Not really,” Sue said. “One was big and the other was … normal. They were wearing my clothes over their faces.”
“Your clothes?” Johnson said.
“Yes, my clothes,” Sue said, obviously pissed to be asked again. “One of them … the normal-sized one, he had my black baby doll tied up like a mask. Scared the shit outta me when I walked in and saw him. I can’t describe their faces. Believe me, I wish I could.”
“But there are some tracks out back in the mud by the windmill,” Ray Gene offered. “Wouldn’t hurt for you to take a look, Wayne.”
Sue scratched the big German shepherd behind the ears. The dog was perfectly calm among all the uniformed law enforcement. These were his people.
“Lucky you got here when you did, Ray Gene.” Gladys McAllen sucked air through her teeth. “This could have gotten real bad in a hurry with Sue stumbling in on them like that.”
“I think they were waiting on me,” Sue said. “I mean, they searched our house, sure, but they’d covered their faces—”
“Maybe,” Cutter offered.
“What’s that mean, Wayne?” Sue said. “Maybe?”
“Maybe they were waiting for you,” he said. “Maybe you surprised them, and they grabbed the closest thing they could find to cover their faces—like your gown. Any idea what they were looking for?”
A white Cadillac turned up the driveway before either Bryant could answer.
“Looks like you have company,” Johnson said. The dog paid no attention to the visitor.
“Mr. Bierschenk,” Ray Gene said. “Our neighbor. Retired Tarrant County district judge.”
An older man dressed like he was heading out to play a round of golf climbed out of the vehicle, clutching a rolled magazine in his hand.
He tipped his ballcap. “Afternoon, Ray Gene, Sue.” He stared long and hard at her arm. “You okay, child?”
“I’m fine,” Sue said. “Just a little cut.”
Ray Gene gave him a nod. “Judge.” He took a moment to introduce the officers present.
“I assumed from all the squad cars that those two yayhoos tried to rob you.”
“You saw them?” Ray Gene said.
“I did, hoofing it across the back pasture. Figured they were up to no good. They crashed through the briars along the fence like the devil was on their heels. Got in a black pickup truck, a dually, I think. I did see that much. I tried to telephone you but just got a busy signal.”
“Yeah,” Ray Gene said. “They yanked the phone off the wall. Did you recognize them?”
“No,” Bierschenk said. “Wish I would have gotten a better look. I’d guess one was just under six feet tall, judging him in relation to your four-strand barbed-wire fence.
Hard to guess his age, fiftyish maybe. He wasn’t quite as spry as the younger one.
I never got a good look at his face. He had it covered up with something. ”
“A mask?” Sergeant McAllen asked.
The judge shook his head. “Not a mask. More like he was holding something to it, like a T-shirt or something, like he might have been injured.”
“I told you I got him,” Sue whispered to her husband.
“A younger one, Judge?” Cutter said, looking up from his whittling.
“The other one was definitely younger,” Bierschenk said. “And big. A veritable giant. That one turned around several times to look over his shoulder while he ran, likely to make sure his older partner was keeping up with him.”
“Think you’d be able to identify him?” Cutter asked.
“I believe I could. He looked like …” Bierschenk tapped the rolled magazine against the side of his head in thought. “It’s on the tip of my brain. You know, the actor who played Samson Posey in The Dirty Dozen.”
“Clint Walker,” Sue Bryant said. “That man can rob my house any day of the week.”
“Cheyenne Bodie,” Cutter said under his breath.
“That’s it,” the judge said.
Johnson cleared his throat, holding up his metal trucker’s clipboard.
Cutter gave him a nod.
“Did he look anything like this?” Johnson displayed the pencil sketch that Horton Granger had drawn at the Show Pony.
“Uncanny,” Mr. Bierschenk said. “That’s the guy.”
Ray Gene leaned in for a closer look.
“I’ve never seen him before,” he said. “Who is it?”
Cutter closed his Barlow by snapping the back of the blade against his slacks and then used the folded knife to tip back his straw hat. “No idea,” he said. “But he’s one of the suspects in the armored car robbery. Folks at the Show Pony call him the Man Cub.”
“No shit?” Bryant said.
“The Show Pony …” Deputy Grimes gave a Cheshire cat grin like he had fond memories of the place.
“How about you and Villareal go poke around the back roads to the south?” Cutter said. “See if you can scare up a black dually.”
“Do you need any more from me?” Bierschenk asked.
Bryant looked at Cutter, who shook his head. “Thanks for stopping by. Just call if you think of anything else.”
“Of course. Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed Bryant the magazine. “Your TV Guide got put in my mailbox by mistake.”
“Why would this Man Cub come here, to our house?” Ray Gene asked after the judge had driven away.
“I find myself wondering the same thing,” Cutter said. “You were first on the scene of the armored truck, right?”
“Correct,” Bryant said. “I was on my way to work when I heard you put out the robbery call on the radio.”
“Was Mr. Foster conscious when you got to the scene?”
“He was,” Bryant said. “I found him in that dry creek bed, hiding in the grass.”
“Did he say anything to you? Maybe pass along some information?”
“Not really,” Bryant said. “Everything he told me is in my report. I gave it to Deputy Garza the day of.”
“Right,” Cutter said. “There are a lot of moving parts here. I want to be sure I’ve got it all straight in my head. You have to admit it’s odd that our mystery Man Cub came looking for something at your house.”