Accused

TWENTY

Billie Jean was blonde, and Pete was big.

If Scott could obtain their fingerprints and prove they were in the Rawlins house the day Trey was murdered, he could establish (a) motive-Trey was having sex with Pete's seventeen-year-old daughter, (b) means-the knife was in the kitchen drawer, and (c) opportunity-if those were Pete's prints on the counter, that would confirm his presence in the kitchen that day. He could have taken the butcher knife from the drawer and stabbed Trey Rawlins. With that evidence, the D.A. might dismiss the indictment against Rebecca Fenney and ask the grand jury to indict Pete Puckett. So Scott had returned to the tournament the next afternoon to find Pete and Billie Jean Puckett, but he had found Nick Madden instead.

"Look, Legend," Nick was saying into his cell phone, "you gotta play one year at UT then you can go pro, okay? 'One and done,' that's the NBA rule. Hell, you don't even have to go to classes. The tutors will get you through the first semester, then once the season starts, you just play basketball. When the season ends in March, you can bail, wait for the draft… and that big check. Until then, hook 'em horns, baby."

He disconnected and shook his head at Scott.

"High school player."

"He already thinks he's a legend?"

"No, that's his real name. Legend. Kid's six-ten, top basketball prospect in the state, but he doesn't want to play even one year of college ball. Wants to go straight to the pros. He asked me, Mr. Madden, what am I gonna major in? Like he's gonna major in pre-med. I said, pre-NBA. Kid can't balance a checkbook, but he'll be worth fifty million time he's twenty."

Nick was standing by the putting green drinking a beer. It was Saturday, the third round of the tournament.

"Where's Pete?" Scott said.

"Austin. Withdrew, drove home with Billie Jean yesterday."

"He's running scared."

"I guess he's the prime suspect now?"

"He threatened to kill Trey in front of a witness a week before he was murdered. That'd make him the prime suspect."

"They're flying up to New York on Monday, for the Open next week. Don't know why he's wasting his money, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even making the cut. They'll be in San Antonio the week after that."

"I could drive up to his house in Austin tomorrow."

Nick shook his head. "Don't even think about it, Scott."

"Why not?"

"Because Pete's a big hunter." He chuckled. "They did one of those 'Getting to Know the Player' segments on a network broadcast last year, with Pete. Now the other guys, they introduce mama and the kids, give the viewing audience a tour of their mansion and trophy room, their ten-car garage filled with sports cars, that sort of thing. Not Pete. He takes the reporter and cameraman deer hunting on his place, blows Bambi's head clean off, then field dresses the fucking deer on national TV. Takes his big ol' knife and guts that animal like he's slicing a Thanksgiving turkey. Got blood all over him, made me want to throw up."

"Pete's good with a knife, huh?"

Nick's expression turned thoughtful. "Yeah. Real good. Guns, too. You go on his land without an invite, Scott, he's liable to shoot, shovel, and shut up. Safer to wait till San Antonio, at least as safe as it's ever gonna be with Pete."

"You finished with that beer?"

Nick turned the bottle up then said, "I am now."

Scott held a baggie open. Nick looked from his beer bottle to the baggie to Scott.

"You think I killed Trey?"

"No."

"Why do you want my prints?"

"So I can cross you off the suspect list."

Nick dropped the bottle into the baggie.

"You do that."

"Have you ever been arrested, indicted or convicted of a felony?"

"No, Senator, I haven't."

Senator George Armstrong had greeted Scott with a handshake and a criminal background check. They were having dinner at Gaido's, a Galveston landmark because of the blue crab the size of a small car perched atop the roof as if waiting to snag an unsuspecting diner with its huge claws. A sign read "Caught in Galveston Bay."

"Good. Last year I nominated a guy to head up the Drug Enforcement Agency. FBI fingerprinted him, ran a background check, turns out he had been arrested six times back in college, for drugs. Pretty goddamn embarrassing. Like Obama's Treasury Secretary-guy runs the IRS but didn't pay thirty-four thousand in taxes."

Scott followed the maitre d' and the senator-who glad-handed every person of voting age in the place-into the main dining room and over to a table by the window with a nice view of the beach across the seawall. Gaido's was an elegant place featuring wood accents, real tablecloths, waiters in black waistcoats and bowties, and the aroma of fried seafood. Ken Ingram, the senator's aide, had called Scott just as he was leaving the golf tournament and asked him to join the senator for dinner-"And if you want to be a federal judge, you'd better be there." So Scott had braved the big blue crab and entered the restaurant.

"Boy, we took a big hit with Ike," the senator said. "Seventy-five percent of all homes flooded, three billion in damages here on the Island, twenty-nine billion total… but like we say, 'It's an ill wind that blows no good.' "

"What was the good of Hurricane Ike?"

"Destroyed all the public housing on the Island. Our poor folks are gone."

"You're not going to rebuild the public housing?"

"If you build it, they will come… back. If you don't, they won't."

"Where will they live?"

"Somewhere else. Wherever they're living now. Austin, maybe. Bunch of goddamned bleeding heart liberals, I'd like to ship every poor person in Texas to Austin, see how much they care then. See, Scott, the public housing crowd, they were holding the Island back-welfare, drugs, crime, test scores dragging down our school system-just like South Dallas is holding Dallas back. Imagine if one day Dallas woke up and South Dallas was gone. Well, that's what Ike did for us, washed 'em all away. All our problems are gone with the wind… and water. Now we can transform the Island into another Hamptons like we always wanted. A nice place for rich white folks."

"Maybe you could put up a gate on this side of the causeway, make the entire Island a gated community."

The senator frowned. "You know, that's not a bad idea."

"I was joking."

"Oh. Still…"

The senator was rich and white. His hair was gray and perfect. He was in his late fifties and wore slacks and a short-sleeve island shirt. Scott had seen him numerous times on the Sunday morning political talk shows. Senator George Armstrong was handsome, articulate, and a leading voice of the Republican Party. He ordered a gin-and-tonic, folded his hands on the table, and said, "You know, Scott, when Ken told me you were representing your ex-wife who's charged with murdering the man she ran off with, I said exactly the same thing I said when I first heard that McCain picked Palin for his