Hog Heaven (22 page)

Grady shook his head, confused. What had he just heard?

How could I have known that Sammy would run into a pig?

Oh, Lord. The son of a bitch. Milstead was the one. He’d been chasing Sammy that night. He was responsible for Sammy’s death. He’d just admitted it.

The coach must’ve seen the puzzlement on Grady’s face.

“You didn’t know?” Milstead said.

Grady started to squeeze the trigger, feeling the resistance, knowing that just another half-pound of pressure might be enough. It was the greatest temptation he had ever experienced in his life. Vengeance for Sammy.

“I don’t understand,” Milstead said.

“I was talking about the fact that you’ve been sleeping with my wife, you enormous asshole.”

Milstead blinked. “Oh.”

Neither man spoke for several seconds. Grady hadn’t heard sirens yet, but he guessed the deputies would drive silently so as not to alert him.

Grady said, “I want so badly to shoot you. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life.”

Milstead was cringing. “Please, Grady, let me explain. Don’t shoot me. Please.”

“Start talking.”

Milstead took full advantage of the opportunity to ward off death, even for a few minutes. “A booster paid me some money to steer Sammy toward UMT. I know it was wrong, but I gave some of that money to Sammy. That’s why he verbally committed to them. It’s the only time I’ve ever done anything like that, I swear. And I’ll never do it again. Oh, my God, I screwed up. I’m so sorry.”

He was sobbing now.

“How much money?” Grady asked.

“Twenty thousand.”

“How much did you give Sammy?”

“Five thousand.”

“You know what that means, Kurt? Not only did you corrupt my son and put his football career in jeopardy, you gave him the money to buy the motorcycle he was riding when he died.”

Milstead didn’t reply. What could he say?

Grady thought he might’ve heard a noise outside the closed door. Maybe it was Cliff, or maybe it was the cops. Or maybe he hadn’t heard anything. The lock on the door was a deadbolt, which was better than a knob lock, but even a deadbolt wouldn’t keep out a team of deputies if they decided to bust the door down. Grady knew he didn’t have much time.

“Why did you chase him?” he asked.

Milstead was starting to show some relief in his eyes—like he was thinking he might get out of this alive, if he kept talking.

“I saw what Sammy had said on Facebook—that he was switching to OTU—so I sent him a message. Had him meet me at the school.”

“The cops didn’t find that message.”

“I deleted it later.”

“Did you know that Sammy was drunk? He’d been at a party.”

“I know, but he seemed okay. I swear. If I’d known he was drunk, I wouldn’t have let him drive.”

“So what happened?”

“We argued. I told him that if he switched to Oklahoma Tech, I’d have to give the entire twenty thousand back to the booster, and I didn’t have it anymore. I’d already spent it.”

“On what?”

Milstead appeared sheepish. “My truck.”

Grady resisted another strong urge to shoot. “What was the booster’s name?”

Milstead hesitated. “Can’t we keep him out of this?”

“His name!”

“Okay. Okay. It was Dexter Crabtree.”

Grady blinked.
Dexter Crabtree?
“The football player?”

“Yeah.”

This story was almost too crazy for words. “Okay, continue,” Grady said.

“With what?”

“You said you argued with Sammy. Where was this?”

“Right outside, in the parking lot. I tried to be reasonable. I wanted him to switch back to UMT, but he wouldn’t. He was just so... headstrong. Then he said if I kept pressuring him, he was going to tell everybody what I’d done. I don’t blame him, Grady. I really don’t. That was a pretty smart way to get me off his back. But it also would have ruined me. I’d never coach again. All because I’d made one little mistake.”

“It wasn’t a little mistake, you moron.”

“No, you’re right. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What happened next?”

“He took off on his motorcycle,” Milstead said.

“And you chased him.”

Milstead nodded.

“And you decided it would be a good idea to fire a gun at him.”

Milstead was afraid to answer. He stalled. Then he said, “Not
at
him, Grady. You have to believe me. I fired at the side of the road. I never meant for him to get hurt. I was just trying to scare him.”

Grady didn’t respond.

Milstead said, “He didn’t scare easily, I’ll tell you that. He was a tough kid.”

“He wasn’t a kid, he was a man. More of a man than you’ll ever be.”

Milstead nodded. “God help me, that’s true. It really is.”

“And when my son died—right in front of you—you drove off and left him there.”

Milstead was cupping his face in his hands. “I couldn’t do anything for him. He was already gone.”

Grady pointed the gun away from Milstead. He had to, because he knew if he kept aiming at him, he couldn’t resist the urge to shoot.

“You are a pathetic excuse for a human being,” Grady said.

“I know I am, Grady. I know.”

“Bobby?” Marlin said. He was in his truck, back on the highway, talking to Garza along the way. The cell phone connection wasn’t great. He probably should have called before he’d left the outskirts of Dallas, but he wasn’t comfortable talking and navigating the heavy traffic at the same time.

“John, good timing,” Garza said. “Major development going on down here.” The sheriff sounded rushed and distracted.

“What’s up?”

“We’re on our way to the high school. Apparently Grady Beech is holding Kurt Milstead at gunpoint, and I have no idea why.”

“You will in a minute. Aleksandra Babikova is a hired gun of sorts. She gets paid to entice players like Sammy to pick a particular school.”

“Entice how?”

“I didn’t dig too deep on that—didn’t want to scare her into silence—but I assume it was mostly a peep show, hence that photo on Sammy’s phone. She said she didn’t have sex with any of them.”

“Do you buy it?”

“I do.”

“Think she slipped them any money?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“What did she say about Sammy?”

“That she met with him on the day before he died, and he said Milstead gave him a lot of cash to commit to UMT.”

A pause. Then Garza said, “Damn.”

“I’m guessing a booster paid Milstead to influence Sammy, and Milstead used some of that cash to do it.”

“Jesus. So when Sammy changed his mind, Milstead was pissed.”

“Exactly. Which makes him a good candidate for being the person who was chasing Sammy that night.”

“I have about thirty seconds. How would Grady have learned all this?”

“No idea. Maybe he found a note or something in Sammy’s belongings. Does it matter at this point?”

“Probably not. I gotta go. I’ll call you later. Good job.”

Phil Colby was on his way to Marlin’s house—a casual drop-in visit to make sure Nicole was okay—when he spotted the dog runners’ truck in the parking lot at El Charro. He drove past, resisting the urge, but he couldn’t help himself, and he turned around.

When he’d found his smashed mailbox and gate keypad earlier in the day, he’d known immediately who’d done it. No question in his mind at all. He hadn’t reported it. What was the use? This was a man suspected of taking potshots at a state peace officer and assaulting a civilian, so a charge for destruction of property was meaningless.

Colby pulled around the side of the restaurant, backed into a parking spot, and waited. And the more he thought about, the more comfortable he became with what he was about to do—because afterward, John and Nicole Marlin would be the last people on Gilbert Weems’s mind.

“Does Leigh Anne know about any of this?” Grady asked.

“No, nothing,” Milstead replied. “None of it.”

“She didn’t know about the money you gave Sammy?”

“Absolutely not. I didn’t tell a soul—not even my wife. Leigh Anne wouldn’t cover something like that up. She
loved
Sammy.”

Those words stabbed Grady in the heart. Leigh Anne did love Sammy. Grady knew that. But there had been a time when he’d wondered what kind of love it was. For several weeks, he had wondered if the two people he loved most were betraying him. Turns out it was only one.

Grady could think of dozens more questions related to the affair—
When did it start? How often did you meet? How could both of you do something like that?
—but in light of what Grady had just learned, Leigh Anne’s cheating was all but irrelevant. Grady honestly didn’t care about the answers to those questions.

Mostly, Grady was just tired. Emotionally drained. He wanted to go somewhere far away, all by himself, and forget all of this. Start over. But that wasn’t going to happen—at least not anytime soon.

Grady kept his eyes on Milstead, but he turned his head slightly toward the door behind him. “Who’s out there?”

Tatum looked at Garza with an expression that said,
Do we answer?

Garza wasn’t sure whether they should. That would give up the element of surprise. On the other hand, it was usually advisable to make contact with a hostage taker as soon as possible. He’d learned that several years earlier, when a murder suspect had taken a Blanco County deputy hostage inside the sheriff’s department. He’d also learned that it was sometimes best to trust your instincts.

“It’s Bobby Garza,” he called out.

“And who else?”

“Bill Tatum,” Garza replied. He didn’t mention that every available law-enforcement officer in the area had responded, which was standard during an active-shooter situation, especially on school grounds. Garza said, “What’s going on in there?”

“Kurt Milstead is about to come through that door. Would you do me a favor and shoot him for me?” Before Garza could reply, Grady Beech said, “That’s just a joke, but you can take it seriously if you want. He’s a piece of garbage, but I’m going to let him go anyway. Then I’m gonna need about ten minutes to myself. You promise to give me that, Bobby?”

When someone says they are about to release a hostage, you say yes to just about anything. That would leave Beech alone in the office with no more hostages. When Garza and Tatum had first arrived, the assistant coach had stated that he’d been keeping an eye on the office door the entire time. So there couldn’t be anyone in there except Beech and Milstead.