Hog Heaven (20 page)

Roy Ballard had to take a calculated risk.

He needed to know whether the person in the white Chevy truck was going to Leigh Anne Beech’s room, and there weren’t many ways to accomplish that.

Since there was no exit from the parking lot back there, he couldn’t pretend to be driving through. The privacy fence would prevent him from being able to see the rear of the motel from the next street over.

That left one viable option: Drive to the rear of the motel and pretend to be another customer. If he’d been thinking, he would’ve actually gone ahead and rented a room himself—providing perfect cover—but it was too late for that now. He would be conspicuous, especially to someone who was having a secret rendezvous with a lover. But the alternative was to give the man time to enter the room, then wait to see which room he exited, which could be overnight, or at least several hours. So Roy decided to take the gamble.

He counted to twenty after the Chevy disappeared from sight, then followed. When he turned the corner, he saw that the Chevy was already parked in a spot right next to Leigh Anne Beech’s BMW. There were no other vehicles back here. Not a one. A man had just emerged from the white truck, and he was about to close the driver’s door. But when he saw Roy’s van rounding the corner, he stopped. He leaned into the truck to get something. Well, to pretend to get something. It was bad acting. The man was stalling. He didn’t want to go into Leigh Anne Beech’s room until he knew that Roy wasn’t a danger.

So Roy went with his plan. Act like he was just another customer. He backed into a spot in front of the room at the near end of the building, a fair distance from the two other vehicles. He did not look in the direction of the Chevy. But in his peripheral vision, Roy could see that the man was still waiting.

Roy got out of the van and popped the rear hatch. Fortunately, he had a gym bag filled with some spare clothes back there. He slung the strap over his shoulder, closed the hatch, and turned toward the room. Just another traveler, checking into his room.

The man was still standing beside the Chevy, with the door open, now pretending to be checking his cell phone.

Roy had worked himself into a tight spot. He had to keep the ruse going. He took a credit card out of his wallet and slipped it into the door slot. Pulled it out and waited for the green light. Didn’t get one, of course. Jiggled the handle. The door remained locked. So Roy went through the steps again. No use. And once more. Jiggled the handle even harder.

He said, “Goddamn it,” just loud enough for the man to hear. Then Roy walked around the corner of the motel, as if he were returning to the front office to get a key that actually worked.

What he really did was simply stand there and wait. Sure enough, in just a few seconds, he heard the closing of the man’s truck door. Half a minute later, he heard the closing of a motel room door.

Okay, so he hadn’t actually seen which room the man had entered, but based on the man’s behavior and where he had parked—and the fact that there were only two vehicles back there—it was obvious the man had just entered Leigh Anne Beech’s room. It looked like Grady Beech was right.

But Roy would need additional evidence.

He waited another five minutes, then he returned to the van and quietly got inside. One of his best video cameras was mounted on a tripod, so now he aimed it toward the front door of Leigh Anne Beech’s room, just a few feet from the BMW’s front bumper. He kept the shot wide, so that it included both vehicles. He started recording. Anyone glancing toward the van, with its tinted windows, wouldn’t notice a thing. The camera could record for hours.

Roy grabbed his laptop and walked to a coffee shop next door to the motel. Might as well be productive while he waited. He’d jotted down the license plate number on the Chevy when it had first entered the motel lot, and in just a few minutes, Roy would have the name of the registered owner, thanks to a website to which he paid a monthly fee. Worth every penny.

A waitress came and took his order—coffee and a slice of apple pie. Before she came back, Roy had the name. Now he just had to wait until the BMW and the Chevy were no longer parked behind the motel.

Dustin Bryant was waiting for the stoplight in Johnson City to turn green when a truck—an old red Ford with dents on every panel and paint missing in spots—pulled up on the driver’s side. The passenger—a huge dude—motioned for Dustin to roll down his window.

The dude looked past Dustin at Gilbert. “Ain’t you the guy that put a thumping on that queer the other night?”

“What’s it to you?” Gilbert replied.

“Hell, don’t get uptight. I just wanna shake your hand, if you’re the guy. We don’t need that type of perverseness around here, that’s for sure. We got family values and such.”

“Yeah, well, you should tell your sheriff that,” Gilbert said. “He’s pretty uptight about it.”

“So you
are
the guy?”

The big man was pushy. The driver—a skinny dude wearing a feed store cap—was leaning forward and watching.

“Why do you think it was me?” Gilbert asked.

“We heard it was a tall redheaded guy. Someone that don’t live around here. Figured that was you. Y’all got dog boxes in the back, so I figure you’re from East Texas.”

The light changed, but there wasn’t a vehicle behind either truck, so Dustin stayed where he was.

“Well, I ain’t saying nothin’ either way,” Gilbert said, “but I can say if I was the guy, I wouldn’t have no regrets about what I done.”

Now the big man looked puzzled. “So... wait. You saying you did or didn’t do it?”

Gilbert laughed. “You ain’t too swift, are ya?”

The light turned red again.

The man’s expression changed to a scowl. “Ain’t no reason to get nasty.”

The driver said, “Of course he’s the guy, Billy Don. But he can’t admit it, because someone might tell the cops.”

“Bravo,” Gilbert said. “You musta been the valedictorian of your class.”

“Well, fuck you too, buddy,” the driver said.

“Back at ya,” Gilbert said.

Billy Don said, “If you’re gonna mouth off, why don’t y’all pull over and say it to my face?”

Dustin was so sick of this. Everywhere they went, Gilbert created trouble.

“Get bent,” Gilbert said.

Billy Don pointed a meaty finger at Gilbert. “Listen, you gangly sumbitch. That guy you beat up was a friend of mine. That means you got a serious ass-kicking coming your way.”

“A friend? Ain’t that sweet. You one of his butt buddies?”

“One of his what?” Billy Don asked.

“What about you?” Gilbert said, addressing the driver. “You a rump ranger, too? Bet y’all have some nice three-ways, huh?”

Now the big passenger was red-faced and fuming, and he began to paw for the handle to open the truck door.

The light turned green and Dustin stomped on the gas. The red Ford tried to keep up, but it wasn’t long before Dustin couldn’t see it in the rearview mirror.

Roy gave it three hours, just to be safe. He finished his pie and his coffee, then he browsed through several of the quaint little shops along Main Street. When he returned to the motel and peeked around the corner to the rear lot, the BMW and the Chevy were both gone.

He went straight to his van, got in, and drove to a Sonic Drive-In less than a mile away. He ordered a Dr Pepper and a burger, and while he waited, he reviewed the video from the motel.

About an hour and a half after he’d started the recording, Leigh Anne Beech had exited the motel room by herself, hurried to her car, and drove away. Ten minutes later, the man from the Chevy had emerged. Roy was finally getting a good look at him. His hair was slicked back, wet from a shower. Decent-looking guy. Some might even say handsome. Mid-forties. Apparently Leigh Anne liked older men. The man glanced toward Roy’s van, then climbed into the Chevy and drove away. Didn’t take a genius to know what had happened in that motel room.

“Sir your fee linno, Kay?”

What? What did that mean?

Ryan was speaking gibberish. Dexter Crabtree could not understand his own son. It was unsettling.

“Huh?”

“Sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Oh. Yeah. I feel fine.”

“Yule ookalit tulpail.”

What the hell? Dexter played it back in his mind. Then he got it.
You look a little pale.

They were in Ryan’s car, driving, and for a moment, Dexter couldn’t remember where they were going. It was almost like an alcoholic blackout. Suddenly he’s in the car, and he can’t remember why. But he kept quiet, thinking, until it came to him. The rental car. They were going to pick up Dexter’s rental car. A Mercedes CLS500. Not nearly as nice as his own, but it would have to do for the time being, until the insurance company agreed that his car was long gone.

Dexter had a to-do list:

Get the rental car.

Go to the bank and get cash.

Box the cash up and send it to Vera Spillar, overnight express.

Had to stay sharp and get it done, without any mistakes—but the fog in his brain was almost too much to bear. He wanted to blame it on the hydrocodone, but he knew better. He knew what the problem really was.

Two Adderall tablets weren’t cutting it anymore. Not even close. It was time to admit that. Truth was, even three tablets weren’t getting the job done. The last few times Dexter Crabtree had stuffed, he’d gone with four tablets. That did the trick, but just barely. Was it time to go with five? Or even six? Was that what it would take to give him that edge again? That mental clarity?

“Jew breengyer dry verslie since?”

Dexter couldn’t stand this much longer. Something was seriously wrong inside his brain. He was having to translate everything that Ryan said to him.

“Yeah,” Crabtree replied. “I brought my driver’s license.”

Marlin stopped in Hamilton, Texas, for a go-cup of coffee, but other than that he drove straight through to Dallas, making good time, hitting the outskirts before five o’clock, which, unfortunately, put him in the middle of rush hour. What a mess. Sometimes he forgot what life was like in big cities.

He crept along in bumper-to-bumper traffic toward the address he had for Aleksandra Babikova, which he knew from Googling was a unit in a loft complex near the campus of Southern Methodist University, just outside the municipality of University Park. Nice place to live, according to the website. Real nice. Health club. Olympic-size rooftop pool. Twenty-four-hour security team. If Aleksandra Babikova was still a resident, she was paying nearly three grand a month in rent, based on the prices Marlin had seen online. Whatever it was she did for a living, she must do damn well. That, or she had managed to turn her fifteen minutes of fame into a decent amount of money a few years back. Maybe she got royalties or something for that movie she’d been in. Marlin didn’t know how it worked.

He finally reached the loft complex—an impressive four-story building in what was obviously one of the nicest areas of the city. Everything was clean and well maintained. He pulled in and found a guest parking spot easily enough.

He entered through the double glass doors and immediately came face to face with a guard behind a long counter at a reception area. Younger guy. Thirties. Neatly clipped black hair. Wearing a blue blazer adorned with the logo for the loft tower. A small sign written in ornate script read:
All Visitors Must Sign In.
Past the counter, to the left, was a bank of two elevators.

The man, wearing a telephone headset, offered a big smile. “Good evening, sir. May I help you?”

Marlin gave him a smile right back. “I would appreciate that. I’m here to see Aleksandra Babikova.”

The smile cooled off a bit. Nothing dramatic, but there was definitely a change in the guard’s demeanor.

“Miss Babikova?” the man asked. He seemed to be eyeing Marlin up and down. “Is she expecting you?”

Excellent
, Marlin thought. Now he knew he had the right address. “No, she’s not.”

“I’ll check to see if she is here. Whom may I say is visiting?”

“My name is John Marlin.”

“Is this professional or personal?”

That was an odd and rather pushy question to ask, but maybe it was because Marlin was in uniform.

One of the elevators dinged and the doors opened. A second security guard, wearing an identical blue blazer, stepped out.

“Uh, professional,” Marlin said. “She doesn’t know me, but it’s important that I speak to her.”

Another small change in demeanor. The man’s smile warmed up again. Now Marlin realized what was going on with the guard. He got his hackles up when he thought the visit might be personal, but relaxed when he learned it was professional.

“May I tell her what it pertains to?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Oh. Okay. One moment, please.” The guard pressed a button on a console and focused on nothing in particular.

Now the second guard—another young guy, but with blond hair—had reached the reception area. He walked behind the counter, took a seat in a rolling chair, and began to type on a keyboard in front of a computer.

Marlin waited.

Several moments later, the first guard said, “Good evening, Miss Babikova, it’s James at the front desk.”

At the mention of “Miss Babikova,” the blond guard stole a discreet glance at Marlin, who almost had to laugh. These two guys were so hung up on Aleksandra Babikova, they couldn’t resist checking out any man who came to see her. Maybe they were jealous or simply curious. Or James was jealous and the blond guy was curious.

James said, “His name is John Marlin and he appears to be a...” He looked at Marlin.

“Game warden from central Texas.”

“A game warden from central Texas,” James said into the phone. Pause. “Yes, that’s right. A game warden.” Pause. “From central Texas.”

The blond guy was openly staring now. When Marlin looked at him, he smiled and said, “How ya doing?”

Marlin nodded a greeting and turned back toward James. He expected James to say something like, “Miss Babikova is wondering what this is about,” but instead he punched a button on the console, ending the call, and said, “She’ll be right down.”

“That means ten or fifteen minutes,” the blond guy said, grinning.

The dark-haired guard scowled at him, but the blond guy didn’t notice.

Grady Beech agreed to meet Roy in the parking lot of the Super S in Johnson City. This was after Beech had asked, on the phone earlier, if Roy had learned anything.

“Yeah, I have,” Roy replied. “We should talk in person.”

Beech didn’t respond right away, but Roy could hear him breathing. Then Beech said, “I was right, huh? Otherwise you’d say you hadn’t learned anything yet.”

At the time, Roy couldn’t think of a reason to hold back. The man was going to learn the truth sooner or later. So Roy said, “Yeah, you were. I’m sorry to tell you that.”

Another silence. Then Beech said, “You got video? Pictures?”

“Video.”

And Beech had let out a long, sad sigh. Roy expected Beech to immediately ask for details—Who was Leigh Anne cheating with? Where? When?—because that’s exactly what Roy would’ve done—but instead, Beech had asked Roy to meet him at the Super S.

So they’d set up a time, and now Beech opened the passenger door of Roy’s Caravan and climbed in. They didn’t shake hands or exchange any sort of greeting. Beech simply gave Roy a rueful grin and said, “Sucks to be right.”

“Yeah, I imagine so. Wish I had better news.”

“Me, too. It’s disappointing, more than anything. Just so damn disappointing. I realize there’s an age difference, but I always hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.”

Roy waited, then said, “I know you don’t know me well, and I’m no expert on this type of situation, but I’m willing to bet you’ll look back on this someday and realize that it was all for the best. Maybe a little bad news now will lead to something better than you ever imagined.”

“One can hope, huh?”

Roy shrugged. “You never know.”

“I appreciate that.”

They were parked to the far right side of the parking lot, closer to the Dollar General and the Subway. Plenty of privacy over here.

“Okay, well,” Beech said, “I guess we should take a look at this video.”

Roy had contemplated whether he should insist that Beech wait a day or two before viewing it. Roy didn’t want Beech to learn the identify of Leigh Anne’s lover, then get angry and do something stupid or impulsive. But Beech didn’t appear volatile. Instead, he seemed defeated and resigned—like he’d been expecting this outcome, and had already come to terms with it.

So Roy opened his laptop and played the video. Beech watched with a grim face as Leigh Anne emerged from the motel room. Roy fast-forwarded, and then the man exited the room a few minutes later. Simple as that. Roy closed his laptop.

“You know that guy?” he asked.

Grady Beech shook his head.

“You sure?” Roy thought he’d seen a trace of surprise or recognition cross Beech’s face when the man had appeared.

“Never seen him before. Doesn’t really matter who it is, does it?”

The blond guard was right. It was a full twenty minutes before the elevator dinged and Aleksandra Babikova appeared. And when she did, she stepped into the lobby with the same self-possessed flair of a top actor stepping from a limo onto the red carpet at an awards presentation.

She was even more beautiful than any of the online photos had captured. Possibly the most eye-catching woman Marlin had ever seen in person. She was dressed in a dark blue skirt that reached mid-thigh, heels, and a white silk blouse with a deep V neckline. She turned to face him but remained where she was, expecting him to move toward her. He did.

“Miss Babikova?” he said as he approached, extending a hand.

“Yes?” She shook his hand. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning, either. Her expression showed nothing except perhaps the faintest trace of curiosity. He had been wondering all along whether Tatyana had alerted Aleksandra that a game warden was looking for her, but if she had, Aleksandra wasn’t showing any signs of it.

Her eyes were incredibly blue. Mesmerizing. She had to be close to six feet tall, and she was wearing heels, so her eyes were almost level with his.

“My name is John Marlin. I’m a game warden in Blanco County, west of Austin. Can we talk for a few minutes?”

“For what is this regarding?”

Marlin had no doubt that the two guards at the reception area were doing their best to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“I just need to ask you a couple of routine questions, and it would probably be best if we could speak somewhere more private. I noticed a Starbucks on the corner...”

She was studying the badge on his chest and the patch on his arm. “A game warden. Is this not a deputy of the deers and fishes?”

“Well...” He laughed. “Sort of. We enforce hunting and fishing laws, yes, but other kinds of laws, too. I help the sheriff in my county with many different investigations.”

“Interesting.”

“It can be.”

“But mysterious, yes? You mention no details. What you investigate now is large secret?”

“Not at all. I’d be happy to tell you more. Just, uh, not here.”

She didn’t say anything right away. Instead, she was looking him in the eye. Holding his gaze. And now a slight smile slowly played across her lips. Whether she intended it or not, it was one of the most seductive things Marlin had ever seen.

In a low voice that the guards probably couldn’t hear, Aleksandra Babikova said, “Perhaps we should maintain this conversation into my apartment.”