فصل 14 - بخش 01

14

Statement of Ms Willow Rainwater [July 13th, 11:40 AM, interviewed by Detective Ralph Anderson]

Rainwater: Go on and admit it, Detective – I’m the least willowy Willow you ever saw.

Detective Anderson: Your size isn’t at issue here, Ms Rainwater. We’re here to discuss—

Rainwater: Oh yeah, it is, you just don’t know it. My size is why I was out there. There are ten, maybe twelve cabs waiting around at that panty palace by eleven o’clock most nights, and I’m the only woman. Why? Because none of the customers try to hit on me, no matter how drunk they are. I could have played left tackle back in high school, if they let women on their football team. And hey, half those guys don’t even realize I’m a gal when they get in my cab, and many still don’t know when they get out of it. Which is just hunky-dunky with me. Only thought you might want to know what I was doing there.

Detective Anderson: Okay, thanks.

Rainwater: But this wasn’t eleven, this was about eight thirty.

Detective Anderson: On the night of Tuesday, July 10th.

Rainwater: That’s right. Weeknights are slow all over town since the oil patch more or less dried up. A lot of the drivers just hang around the garage, shooting the shit and playing poker and telling dirty stories, but I got no use for any of that, so I’m apt to go out to the Flint Hotel or the Holiday Inn or the Doubletree. Or I go out to Gentlemen, Please. They got a cab-stand there, you know, for those who haven’t drunk themselves stupid enough to try driving home, and if I get there early, I’m usually first in line. Second or third at worst. I sit there and read on my Kindle while I wait for a fare. Hard to read a regular book once it gets dark, but the Kindle’s just fine. Great fucking invention, if you’ll pardon me for lapsing into my Native American tongue for a minute.

Detective Anderson: If you could tell me—

Rainwater: I am telling you, but I’ve got my own way of telling, been this way since I was in rompers, so be quiet. I know what you want, and I’ll give it to you. Here and in court, too. Then, when they send that kid-murdering sonofabitch to hell, I’ll put on my buckskins and my feathers and goofy-dance until I drop. We straight?

Detective Anderson: We are.

Rainwater: That night, early as it was, I was the only cab. I didn’t see him go in. I got a theory about that, and I’ll bet you five dollars I’m right. I don’t think he went in to see the pussy-prancers. I think he turned up before I arrived – maybe just before – and just went in to call a cab.

Detective Anderson: You would have won that bet, Ms Rainwater. Your dispatcher—

Rainwater: Clint Ellenquist was on dispatch Tuesday night.

Detective Anderson: That’s correct. Mr Ellenquist told the caller to check the cab-stand in the parking lot, and a cab would be there soon, if not already. That call was logged at eight forty.

Rainwater: Sounds about right. So he comes out, right over to my cab—

Detective Anderson: Can you tell me what he was wearing?

Rainwater: Bluejeans and a nice button-up shirt. The jeans were faded, but clean. Hard to tell under those arc-sodium parking lot lights, but I think the shirt was yellow. Oh, and his belt had a fancy buckle – a horse’s head. Rodeo shit. Until he bent down, I thought he was probably just another Oilpatch Pete who somehow held onto his job when the price of crude went to hell, or a construction worker. Then I saw it was Terry Maitland.

Detective Anderson: You’re sure of that.

Rainwater: Hand to God. The lights in that parking lot are bright as day. They keep it that way to discourage muggings and fistfights and drug deals. Because their clientele is such a bunch of gentlemen, you know. Also, I coach Prairie League basketball down at the YMCA. Those teams are coed, but they’re mostly boys. Maitland used to come down – not every Saturday, but a lot of ’em – and sit on the bleachers with the parents and watch the kids play. He told me he was scouting talent for City League baseball, said you could tell a kid with natural defensive talent by watching ’em play hoops, and like a fool I believed him. He was probably sitting there and trying to decide which one he’d like to cornhole. Judging them the way men judge women in a bar. Fucking pervo deviant asshole. Scouting talent, my wide Indian ass!

Detective Anderson: When he came to your cab, did you tell him you recognized him?

Rainwater: Oh yeah. Discretion may be somebody’s middle name, but it ain’t mine. I say, ‘Hey there, Terry, does your wife know where you are tonight?’ And he says, ‘I had a spot of business to do.’ And I say, ‘Would your spot of business have involved a lap dance?’ And he says, ‘You should call in and tell your dispatcher I’m all set.’ So I say, ‘I’ll do that. Are we headed home, Coach T?’ And he says, ‘Not at all, ma’am. Drive me to Dubrow. The train station.’ I say, ‘That’s gonna be a forty-dollar fare.’ And he says, ‘Make it in time for me to catch the train to Dallas, and I’ll tip you twenty.’ So I say, ‘Jump in and hold onto your jock, Coach, here we go.’

Detective Anderson: So you drove him to the Amtrak station in Dubrow?

Rainwater: I did indeed. Got him there in plenty of time to catch the night train to Dallas–Fort Worth.

Detective Anderson: Did you make conversation with him on the way? I ask because you seem like the conversational type.

Rainwater: Oh, I am! My tongue runs like a supermarket conveyor belt on payday. Just ask anybody. I started by asking him about the City League Tourney, were they gonna beat the Bears, and he said, ‘I expect good things.’ Like getting an answer from a Magic 8 Ball, right? I bet he was thinking about what he’d done, and making a quick getaway. Stuff like that must put a hole in your small talk. My question for you, Detective, is why the hell did he come back to FC? Why didn’t he run all the way across Texas and down to Old Meh-hee-co?

Detective Anderson: What else did he say?

Rainwater: Not much. He said he was going to try and catch a nap. He closed his eyes, but I think he was faking. I think he might have been peeking at me, like maybe he was thinking of trying something. I wish he had. And I wish I’d known then what I know now, about what he done. I would have pulled him out of my cab and tore off his plumbing. I ain’t lying.

Detective Anderson: And when you got to the Amtrak station?

Rainwater: I pulled up to the drop-off and he tossed three twenties on the front seat. I started to tell him to say hello to his wife, hut he was already gone. Did he also go into Gentlemen to change his clothes in the men’s room? Because there was blood on them?

Detective Anderson: I’m going to put six pictures of six different men down in front of you, Ms Rainwater. They all look similar, so take your t—

Rainwater: Don’t bother. That’s him right there. That’s Maitland. Go get him, and I hope he resists arrest. Save the taxpayers a piece of change.