Blanco County 04 - Guilt Trip by Rehder Ben

Author:Rehder, Ben [Rehder, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Texas, Murder Mystery, hunting guide, deer hunting, good old boys, Carl Hiaasen, rednecks, Funny mystery, game warden, crime fiction, southern fiction, Rotary Club
Published: 2011-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

18

AFTER PHIL COLBY left the interview room, Marlin entered and sat in the same chair his friend had been using. Bobby Garza was stone-faced. Bill Tatum wouldn’t meet Marlin’s eyes. None of them spoke for several minutes, until Marlin finally said, “I wish y’all would’ve warned me about all that.”

Garza said, “We didn’t even know for sure if we had anything. We wanted to see what Phil would say.”

“But still—”

“Hey, we don’t like this any more than you do, John. We’re his friends, too. Maybe not as close as you are, but friends just the same.”

Tatum murmured something similar.

Marlin said, “I’m surprised you didn’t get a warrant for his house, too.”

Garza and Tatum exchanged glances.

“Let me guess,” Marlin said. “You did try to get a warrant for his house.”

“Yes, we did,” Tatum replied. “Judge Hilton said we didn’t have enough.”

Marlin didn’t know what to think. “I’m having a tough time following your line of thinking, to be honest,” he said. “I mean, why did you compare those tracks to his tires to begin with?”

Tatum softly said, “It had to be checked. We had things pointing at Colby—his problems with Scofield, the phone call he made. When Bobby called and said Scofield was murdered, I knew we’d have to take a look at Phil. If nothing else, to rule him out, like Bobby said.”

Marlin found himself looking for a mental foothold that would allow him to make sense of everything. Surely, the answer was somewhere in the details, the one piece of information that would clear Phil Colby and reveal what had really happened. But it wouldn’t come. “What about the shooting last night? How does that come into play?”

Garza said, “That happened before we even knew Scofield was murdered. Colby might be right—just one of Scofield’s buddies keeping the high-fence feud going.”

Marlin figured that made as much sense as anything else. “So are you looking at other people for this, or just Colby? Have you talked to this guy Chuck Hamm? I told you what Howell Rogers said.”

Garza said, “At this point, we’re looking at everything. Reinterviewing everybody, for starters. We’ll talk to Hamm and the rest of those guys again if we need to, but, well, it just doesn’t look likely, John.”

“From what Howell said, Hamm was angry as hell.”

“Yeah, but that was months ago, and why would he all of a sudden decide to do something about it? Besides, I don’t think Scofield’s been in touch with anybody in that hunting club since then. There weren’t any phone calls in his records.”

“Let me talk to Hamm.”

“Pardon?”

“I want to talk to Hamm.”

Garza and Tatum exchanged a glance. “You’re jumping the gun. We haven’t been through Scofield’s house top to bottom yet, but that’s our next step. Let’s wait and see what we find. I’ve got Henry coming in.”

Henry Jameson was a young and very talented forensics technician who worked for five counties in the central Texas area. The Blanco County budget alone couldn’t handle the expense, so Garza had

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