Page 83 of Backtrack

“You poor kid,” he said. “You have no idea what a whirlwind of shit is about to spin you out of control. Oh, you think you know, but you are miles off in your assessment. What you said back there at Sunshine Lake, you were right about that. I didn’t want to shoot an unarmed teenager. Well, sir, things change once you’re in jail. Considering the gravity of your crimes, you’ll stand trial as an adult. I have zero doubt of that. There’s a better-than-average chance the district attorney will go for the death penalty.”

Pink sat there and stared, seething but saying nothing.

“You think your partner’s going to cover for you?” Cutter asked. “Allen Duvall is a man falling off a cliff, clawing at thin air trying to save himself. He’s probably dropping you in the grease right now.” Cutter let his chair tip forward and drove his index finger into the table to make his point, grimacing at the pain in his ribs. “He will do anything and everything he can think of to keep from having a date with Old Sparky.”

“You want us both dead,” Pink said.

Cutter sighed. “I don’tnotwant you dead.”

Pink’s face twisted into a smirk. “That would work out really great for you, wouldn’t it? Anyone who knows anything about what you done, dead and buried.” He leaned forward, eyes locked on Cutter, massive shoulders slightly hunched, as if he was about to shuck off the restraints and pounce. “I’m gonna outlive your tired old wife. I can guarantee you th—”

LJ slammed a hand down on the table.

“You shut your piehole!”

It was the first sound he’d made since the click of hitting the Record button. Even Pink was taken aback.

Cutter gave the other deputy a wan smile and then gestured at Pink with the tip of his pocketknife. “It’s okay, LJ. He’s just a stupid kid.”

That seemed to touch Pink off more than anything.

He tried to stand, rattling the chain on his handcuffs against the eyebolt in the table.

“You’re the one ended up with the diamonds! You!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “Either you stole them from Millner when you murdered him or …” He nodded emphatically, as if a better ideahad just occurred to him. “… or … or … I don’t know for sure how, but you have them. I know that for a fact!” Pink fell back in his chair, relaxing his hands and shaking his head. “You’re crooked. More crooked than me. At least I admit what I am. You’re making people think you’re some kind of hero with your poor sick wife. Well boohoo-hoo.” He hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the table in disgust. “You killed my friend.”

“I did.” Cutter sighed. “Killed him graveyard dead. And with what you’ve just told me, I believe we can make a case that gets the State of Texas to do the same for you and Allen Duvall.”

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 herintimate services.

Sweating on her bunk in nothing but panties and bra, she glanced up from a tattered copy ofThe 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.”