The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(91)

"The prick admit to anything himself?"

"He said he helped Sandra Mara change her name, then he threatened to give her up to keep Aaron from suing for the business a few years back. He says her brother Hector came to see him soon after that, intending to strong-arm him into silence, but they came to terms, decided to strike up a little business. Del admitted that there'd been some smack going through RideWorks, but he pinned the whole idea on Hector. He denied any knowledge of his brother's murder. Or Mara's."

"Del's lying."

"You can put that into past tense."

"What?"

"You can put Del in past tense."

My eyelids felt heavy, so I closed them. "How?"

"We didn't detain him overnight," Ana said. "Big mistake."

I thought about a big galoot in a loud shirt, gorilla hair, block face. I tried to remember why I'd hated his guts, but all I could picture was Del's look of pleasure when he spoke about well-constructed merry-go-rounds.

"Del went home about three in the morning Sunday," DeLeon said. "Walked inside and caught two rounds in the chest."

"Like his brother."

"Except a .357, this time. Silencer. Like Mara and Berton. Del's neighbors, of course, saw and heard nothing."

"And the killer's still out there."

"Where's your friend Ines?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't her."

"You are going to bring her in."

"I didn't say I had her."

"Don't insult my intelligence, Navarre."

I rubbed my temples. "Give me some time, okay?"

"Time. Oh, is that all."

A quake started and it took me more than a minute to remember that I no longer lived in California — that it wasn't the ground trembling but me. I heard DeLeon say, "Go ahead and rest."

She put a quilt over me, lifted my feet back into her lap.

"Do me a favor," I said.

"Yes?"

"Don't disappear while I'm asleep. People keep disappearing on me."

And she didn't.

Sometime later, I opened my eyes in a haze and she was still there — pensive and beautiful, staring into the fireplace, Ralph's letter in her hand.

FORTY-EIGHT

I woke up flinching to the popcorn sound of distant gunfire — the ping of bullets on metal somewhere out in the fields.

A block of sunlight was glowing on my quilt. Ana DeLeon stood over me, snapping her Glock 23 into her Sam Browne holster. She'd changed into business clothes — blazer and skirt and immaculate white silk blouse.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Your friend Deputy Gerson. That odd man, Mr. Diliberto. They're practicing on your target range."

"Since when does a line of beer cans constitute a target range?"

Ana checked her gun, straightened her blazer over it. "You want me to call them back in? I need to get to town. I'm already late."

"That's okay. Good luck with Rey Feo's murderer."

Ana's eyebrows knit together. "What?"

I was hazy about how much I had told her the night before, or even if it was the night before when we'd talked, so I recounted my conversation Saturday with the bartender at the Poco Mas. I told her that the old man had seen Hector Mara arguing several weeks ago with a heavyset, dark-haired Anglo, a man Hector had derisively referred to as Rey Feo.

"It was Del," I said. "Zeta Sanchez had just gotten back into town. Del and Hector were meeting to figure out what to do."

DeLeon looked at the Army Corps of Engineers' map of Sabinal above the mantel. She seemed to be tracing the elevation lines, trying to separate them.

"Ana?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. It's just — something Kelsey told me once. It rang a bell there for a second..."

Another round of gunfire crackled in the fields.

"Be careful when you go back. Chich knew you had Del. He knew exactly what Del was telling you. Chich has somebody in the department feeding him information."

Ana was silent.

"Kelsey was vice," I said, unnecessarily.

"Tres, he's my partner."

"As soon as you got into Chich's life, Chich was on the phone to Kelsey."

"Look, Kelsey may not be the best partner, but—"

"Ana, just tell me you'll be careful."

She hesitated, then slowly reconstructed her smile. "You're one to give advice. You sure you don't want me to get your friends?"

"Let the boys have their fun with the beer cans."

She kept her eyes on me a few seconds longer.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. You're going to be okay, is all. I'm glad for that."

"You make it sound like a good-bye."

DeLeon came over and gave me a swift kiss on the lips. Then she was gone. I listened to her car engine start, the sound of gravel pinging under her wheels as she drove off.

After a few minutes I sat up, waited for the black spots to clear, then tried to stand. I felt like I'd just dismounted from an unfriendly bull. I looked down at the black socks and Wild Turkey T-shirt.

"No," I decided.