Chapter 42
Tony came to pick me up from the hospital on Sunday morning.
I felt silly being wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair, all decked out in camouflage on a Sunday morning. Maybe I was dressed to go to the church in the wild wood. Actually, that’s my favorite kind of church. I was holding my cap in my hands. My head hurt too much to consider wearing it, until the sun blazed into my eyes. I immediately draped the cap loosely over my eyes.
“Thanks, for picking me up, Tony. Sorry you have to miss church to run this errand.”
“No problem, J.W. I’m happy to do it. Your truck is still parked in the lot outside Christine’s apartment; do you feel up to driving?”
“No, I barely got any sleep last night. They kept waking me up to check on me. They really didn’t want me to sleep at all, so much for my plans to enjoy a weekend of solitude in the wilderness. I’m ready for a hot shower, and a nap.”
“At least now you can put all this Walter Farley business behind you.”
“I never wanted it to end like this. I wish he would have made better choices.”
“I know, J.W., me too. He was one twisted off individual. I guess I’ll have to put the Nordstrom case down as ‘unsolved’, even though we both know Walter probably did it.”
“Walter told me he did it.”
Yeah, so you and the women say, but there’s no way to prove it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where is my jacket?”
“What jacket? You mean the camouflage jacket you were wearing in the parking lot? I forgot all about it. I guess it’s still at the crime scene. You weren’t wearing it when we came in.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I last saw it on a chair in Christine’s living room. In one of the pockets of my jacket, is my cell phone. I left it on, in the ‘record memo’ application. Odds are it will have recorded everything that happened in the room, including Walter admitting he killed Nordstrom.”
Tony shook his head.
“I don’t know, J.W. It seems unlikely. Wouldn’t Walter have noticed it?”
“Maybe, maybe not, we’ll see. In the meantime, we should have some pretty interesting video.”
“…Video?”
“Yep, you see, it’s a process of recording events, using a motion picture video camera.”
Tony scowled at me.
“I know what it is, J.W. I just don’t know how there could be a video. There were no cameras in Christine’s apartment. When I asked her, she verified it.”
I reached into my shirt pocket.
“Write this down…” I said, trying to hand him my pen.
“I’m driving, you numbskull. You write it down.”
I chuckled, and it didn’t hurt too badly.
“Tony this pen has a digital video camera built into it. I’ve had it clipped into my shirt pocket, and they didn’t take it away from me. It should have some pretty interesting footage. I’m afraid I don’t have a clear memory of exactly how well I used my body to frame the shots, but there will be something useful there.”
“…No way!”
“Way.”
I spent the rest of Sunday watching football on TV and snoozing, off and on.
Monday morning I arrived at work bright and early, at about ten o’clock. I figured it was pretty early, given the weekend I had.
I was surprised to see Christine at her desk. She wasn’t surprised to see me. She saw me on the monitor as I was exiting the elevator.
I was more surprised to see Mr. Tumescence in the office. He was curled up in my chair, behind my desk.
I raised my eyebrows at Christine.
“I just couldn’t stand the thought of Tummy being boarded with the vet for one more day. I’m staying at a motel that allows pets, but I didn’t expect to see you today, so I brought him with me.”
“I thought I told you to take a few days off, while I recuperate,”
“I know, but somebody has to deal with the phones. Do you plan to recuperate while you work?”
“Uh, I just thought I would come in and check the answering machine.” I fibbed.
“Yeah, right, we have an answering service. Have you seen the news?”
“No, I pretty much only watch football, I watched enough TV yesterday to last me till tonight. Monday night football, you know!”
“…Really? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you watch CNN and the local news. I know you watch movies. I guess you haven’t seen a newspaper either.”
I shook my head, carefully.
Christine shook hers too. “As you may imagine, a SWAT team storming an apartment in Tyler, with shots fired, has gotten a lot of attention.”
“Oh no,” I said.
“Oh yes. You and Tony are famous again. The phone has been ringing off the hook.”
The newspaper told the story of how on a tip from a citizen, the Tyler police SWAT team had stormed an apartment where two area women were being held hostage. In the carefully coordinated rescue, one armed suspect was killed and another seriously wounded. None of the hostages were harmed. The SWAT team was under the command of Detective Lieutenant Tony Escalante of the Tyler Police Department’s Robbery/Homicide Division.
When asked for a comment, Lieutenant Escalante stated, “We are generally pleased at the outcome of this action, though we regret the loss of life.”
The reporter had also learned one of the suspects was a man currently out on bail, awaiting trial on a previous burglary and home invasion charge, possession of controlled substances , and charges related to an assault on a police officer in College Station. The suspect who died was also a suspect in a homicide that had occurred in Tyler, earlier in the year. The citizen who alerted the police was the celebrated local private investigator, John Wesley Tucker.
I was thankful the women had not been named at all in the story.
The next story on the front page, below the fold, was about the noted Tyler oil and gas magnate and entrepreneur, Ted Simpson. He was announcing his intention to run for the office of Governor of the State of Texas.