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Begrudgingly the dogs obeyed, both curling up in a ratty dog bed tucked near the slider door on the far side of the room where the gold shag carpet was worn thin and didn’t look as if it had recently, if ever, seen a rug shampooer. The house smelled of stale cigarettes and bacon grease.
Ned was seated in a dirty recliner positioned in front of a massive flat screen that nearly blocked the living area from the kitchen. A second recliner sat next to the first, a narrow TV tray separating them. On the tray was a pack of cigarettes, several crumpled paper napkins, and two paper plates, orange grease spots visible, crusts of bread going stale. But the most important thing was the fact that Ned’s right leg had been fitted with an orthopedic walking boot that rested on the footrest of his worn La-Z-Boy.
Montoya asked, “What happened?”
“Broke my damned foot, that’s what happened,” Ned growled.
“And he’s been pissy ever since.” Eileen closed the screen door with a clang of metal.
“Probably needs surgery.” Ned reached onto the TV tray for a pack of Camels, scraped the pack off the tray, and sent it wobbling.
“When did that happen?”
“Yesterday.” He scowled, rubbed the side of his face where three days’ worth of stubble was growing, then he shook out a cigarette and jammed it into his lips.
“Don’t you be smokin’ in here,” his mother warned, and he sent her a look as he grabbed his lighter from the tray and flipped the footrest down, struggling to his feet and almost hopping to the dirty slider.
If Ned was faking his pain and inability to walk, he was doing a damned good job of it, and seemed to wince as he pushed the door open.
As he did, the hounds shot to their feet, barking noisily as they streaked outside, across a sagging deck, and shot past the tumble-down sheds before disappearing into the surrounding thickets. From inside one of the coops, startled chickens clucked and squawked.
“Idiot dogs,” Zavala said, the cigarette jumping in his lips as he talked. “It’s Ma’s fault, if you ask me. She babies ’em. Won’t make ’em behave. They ain’t trained like the huntin’ dogs we had when I was growing up.” He lit up then, and in the flicker of his lighter his face grew haunted, as if walking down that particular memory lane was a dark and twisted road. The lighter clicked closed and he drew in a deep lungful of smoke. He balanced his good hip against a railing that didn’t look as if it would hold his weight.
“So what the hell do you want from me?” Ned asked. “I already talked to that dick-wad Bentz at the church. So what’re you doin’ here harassin’ me? I got nothin’ to hide. Nothin’.”
“Not harassing. Just double-checking,” Montoya said. Then he got into it, asking Zavala about his whereabouts.
According to Zavala he’d either been at work at the church, or here, tending to the place, or, just last night, he’d stopped in at Corky’s, a local bar, for two beers. “You can ask the bartender, that would be Corky hisself. He was tendin’ last night.
“After that, I drove home, here, and that’s when I stepped into a hole out here, dug by either the dog or some critter. Anyway, I knew it was there, but it was dark and I stepped in it, twisted my leg, and busted up my foot in a couple of places. Sheeeit.” He took another drag from his smoke and gazed up at the dark sky where a few stars were just visible.
“Look, man, you gotta believe me. I don’t know nothin’ about what’s goin’ on—them murders. It ain’t me. Just like it wasn’t me before. So, come on, get off my case.”
“Just a few more questions.”
“Yeah, yeah, there’s always a few more, ain’t there?”
Montoya ignored his complaints and brought up Kristi Bentz.
“That one,” Zavala said as smoke streamed out of his nostrils. “She’s a piece of work now, ain’t she? The apple don’t fall far from the tree with her. Nosey little bitch and she got it all wrong, y’know. I never killed no one. You got that.” He glowered as he took a final pull on his cigarette, then dropped it onto the deck and squished the butt with the heel of the boot on his good foot.
“Fuck!” He sucked in his breath at the pain of shifting his weight. “Just what I need is to be laid up. Fuck!” The dogs, still making noise in the darkness, came bounding back, causing the chickens to squawk again.
“Fred! Wilma! Hush!” Zavala yelled as the hounds, toenails scraping against the weathered decking, rushed madly through the still open door where, Montoya noted, Eileen Hebert was loitering as she eavesdropped.
“Anything else you need to know?” Zavala asked, hobbling toward the door as his mother slipped noiselessly toward the far end of the house. “Cuz if there is, you can do what I told yer damned partner to do and talk to my lawyer.”
“Just one thing,” Montoya said. “You advertise on the Internet—Craigslist and through Facebook—that you sell baby alligators.”
He stopped as he reached the slider, steadying himself on the door frame. “That’s right.”
“Anything else? Like other animals—I heard you have chickens.”
“Those are for the eggs. Yeah, I sell what I can, what I catch. Frogs. Turtles, sometimes.” One of the dogs—Fred—came up and looked up expectantly. Zavala leaned over and petted his head, causing Fred’s tail to swipe back and forth. “But I don’t sell puppies,” Zavala said, straightening and stepping gingerly inside. “Hell, I wouldn’t breed those two hounds fer nothin’. Puppies would turn out dumb as shit.”
“What about snakes?” Montoya asked.
“Sure.” Zavala lifted a big shoulder. “If I got one.”
