The Devil Went Down to Austin Read Online Free PDF Page A

Department didn't improve my frame of mind. Neither did twelve hours of waiting rooms, shoe prints, fingerprints, atomic swab absorption tests, and questions from the lead investigator, Victor Lopez, who was convinced he had a sense of humour.
    I saw my brother once, from across the homicide office. The betrayed look he gave me made me glad the deputies had separated us.

    If Jimmy's exwife made an appearance, I didn't notice her.
    The only member of the Doebler clan I spotted was one of Jimmy's cousins from the wealthy branch of the family—Wesley or Waylon, I couldn't remember his name.
    Jimmy had introduced us once at a Christmas party, maybe a decade ago. He wore a gray silk suit and three gold rings and a look of professional concern he probably saved for family tragedies and stock devaluations. He spent a few minutes at the opposite end of the room, talking to the sheriff, then gave me a cold glance on his way out.
    At 4:30 in the afternoon, I was finally trundled into the backseat of a patrol car next to Detective Lopez and chauffeured toward Garrett's apartment.
    We cruised up Lavaca, through West Campus neighbourhoods of white antebellum sorority houses and highrent condominiums. The postrain air steamed with sumac.
    Every front yard was strewn with pink and white from blooming crape myrtles.
    On Guadalupe across from UT, a cute Asian girl in plaid pants and a tank top was reading a Henry James novel outside Quacken bush's Intergalactic Coffeehouse. Street vendors were selling glass beads and incense in the Renaissance Market. Construction workers were drilling a crater in the middle of 24th Street.
    Jimmy's death was expanding inside my rib cage like a nitrogen bubble, but the rest of the world kept right on going. It was enough to make me resent a sunny afternoon in a beautiful city.
    The patrol car turned on San Gabriel.
    Garrett's apartment building is a threestory redwood box with exterior walkways like a motel. On one side is a $40,000 steelframe handicappedaccess elevator that the landlord recently installed after three years in court. The landlord loves Garrett. Below and on both sides of Garrett's unit are college kids who put up with my brother playing Jimmy Buffett CDs at full volume night and day. The college kids love Garrett. The rest of the building is populated by smalltime drug dealers, angstridden artists and drunks, all of whom spend their time fighting and throwing each other's furniture off the balconies and loving Garrett. The name of the apartment complex is The Friends.
    The Carmen Miranda—Garrett's VW safari van with the Caribbean dancing women airbrushed along the sides and the plastic tropical fruit hotglued to the roof—had been returned from the crime scene, special delivery. I guess if I were the Travis County sheriff, I would want to get it away from my crime scene as fast as possible, too.
    Parked next to it was my black Ford F150.
    "I'll only be a second," Lopez told our driver. "You hang tight."
    The deputy glanced in the rearview mirror—shot me a notso veiled fuck you look.
    "Whatever you say, sir."
    Lopez and I walked toward the apartment complex. Lopez stopped in front of the Carmen Miranda, shook his head in admiration.
    "I dig the pineapples," he said.
    Lopez's features were satanically pleasant, teaandmilk complexioned, framed by a square jaw and a severe, greasy buzz cut. He had a halfback's build and the eyes of a chess player.
    "When does Garrett get released?" I asked.
    Lopez feigned surprise. "Should be upstairs right now. Why? You thought we would hold him?"
    That was a hook I decided not to bite.
    "Don't look so down," Lopez said. "Y'all cooperated beautifully. Now we just got to find who whacked your friend, right?"

    I leaned against the back of the van, hating how leaden my eyes felt, hating the odour of smoke in my clothes from last night's fire. "Garrett wouldn't kill Jimmy. Even if he wanted to, his wheelchair ..."
    Lopez's eyes glittered. "Sure, Mr. Navarre.