The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(39)

"You sound like a homicide cop talking."

"Take it or leave it. What I'm saying, if that case bothers her— if she is down here trying to make some kind of moral amends—her motives are suspect. Her judgment might not be too clear. I'm not sure you should encourage her to represent your brother."

I looked down at my cold eggs, then the phone bill.

"Lopez, why did Jimmy Doebler call you in April?"

"What?"

"April 16. A short call, about five in the afternoon."

Lopez was silent, as if thinking back. "He wanted information— the files on the death of his mother."

"That didn't strike you as strange?"

"Jimmy said he'd been gathering information about his mom, wanted to understand her life. What makes a guy do that? I don't know. Jimmy's past with his mom ain't what you should be worried about, Navarre. It's Jimmy's past with your brother."

"Meaning?"

"The accident. Your brother blamed Jimmy for what happened to him."

I didn't respond.

"Come on, Tres. I've been doing my homework. Jimmy taught your brother how to jump trains. Then Jimmy didn't show up one night, left Garrett on his own, went up to see his mom. Your brother got maimed, didn't speak to Jimmy afterward for what—

years, right?"

"That was a long time ago, Lopez."

"Soured him pretty bad on the Doeblers. Maybe Garrett didn't take out his hostilities at the time, but there's no telling how long somebody's fuse is, or what'll finally set it off.

Ruby McBride, for instance. I suppose you know Garrett and she met at UT? they took some upperdivision math courses together. I suppose you know they were an item before Garrett had his accident."

"Yeah," I lied. "So what?"

"If that was an old wound," Lopez continued, "if Garrett got into business with Ruby and Jimmy after all those years, thinking he was okay, and then Jimmy started to get romantic with Ruby—a lady Garrett used to love . . . You see how it could go?"

"I see where you could put it, Lopez."

"Just tell Garrett I'd welcome a phone call, okay? Be good if he came to me voluntarily.

Maybe we could work something out."

Before I could respond, Lopez had hung up.

I checked my watch, found that my hands were trembling.

I grabbed my tai chi sword and went down the trail to the lake.

The morning was as cool as an oven door, just before the knob is turned to preheat.

I used Jimmy's concrete slab as my workout surface, started with basic stances, ten minutes each. It was therapeutic, getting the sting in my muscles, until I turned north and found myself staring at the unfinished kiln.

The remnants of the barbecue fire were still in the doorway. The little red kiln goddess grinned at me. She didn't seem to mind her left arm being shot off.

After ten years doing tai chi, I still rarely achieve a truly meditative state. This morning was no exception. All the way through the

Yang long form, I tried to push thoughts out of my head, but they kept crowding back again.

I thought about Maia Lee, the way she'd looked on Windy Point with the sun in her hair.

I thought about Matthew Pena and Victor Lopez, trying to decide who was more dangerous.

Mostly I thought about Garrett and Ruby on the deck in the meteor shower—the look of mutual recrimination they'd given each other. If Lopez was right, Garrett and Ruby had known each other as long as Garrett and Jimmy had—since college, at least. And yet, Garrett had never mentioned Ruby's name to me. There were only two explanations I could think of—that the relationship was not important enough to mention, or that the relationship was too important to mention. I wasn't betting on the first.

As I went into my sword set, the sun was coming up full force, turning the lake to metal.

Heat stirred the air, moving through the branches of the cedars with a sound like a distant nest of rattlers.

When I finished, I'd thoroughly soaked the Coral Reefer Tshirt with sweat. The exertion had brought Jimmy Doebler's smell out of the fabric—his copal incense and deodorant, smells I associated with trips to the coast as a child. I promised myself I'd work out in my own damn shirt tomorrow morning.

I sheathed the sword and was about to head back up to the dome, but I found myself staring at the kiln.

I walked over.

The mortar had dried in the bucket, Garrett's trowel embedded in it. The stack of bricks sat nearby, the copper binding snapped and sproinging to four sides as if the bricks had landed on and squashed a metal spider.

Nearby, Jimmy's wooden pottery rack was draped in plastic tarp. Underneath, the shelves were stacked with unfired pots—some red clay, some white clay, all glazed but unfired. They looked ugly that way, like Easter eggs dipped in too many dye pans.

Maybe another day of masonry. Then the gas lines would have to be hooked up. The iron doors would have to be hung.

I shook my head. You're crazy, Navarre.

Then I started up the path.

I knew something was wrong when I saw Robert Johnson on the porch, the front door cracked open. I never leave a door open and I never let Robert Johnson outside.

He looked like he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He was sniffing something on the porch—something gray and glistening.