Free Hog Heaven by Ben Rehder Page A

bulletin board outside Super S? It’s covered from top to bottom with little homemade ads and posters from landowners offering day leases for pig hunting. Same thing at every convenience store in town. Ads taped in all the windows.”
    Garza smiled. “Supply and demand. The locals are cashing in. What’s the going price?”
    “Generally about a hundred bucks per day, per hunter. But I noticed that the closer the lease is to Grady Beech’s place, the higher the price gets. One of Grady’s neighbors is asking a thousand a day.”
    “Wonder if he’s getting it.”
    “Wouldn’t be surprised. I have to admit, I’m thrilled. Makes my job easier. I must’ve checked a dozen camps last night, and even the dog runners had their hunting licenses. That’s saying something.”
    “Yeah, they don’t want to get busted and ruin their shot at the jackpot. See many dead pigs?”
    “Some, but not as many as I would’ve guessed. Pigs are smart. Suddenly the woods are crawling with people, so the pigs are laying low.”
    Garza shook his head. “How do pigs lay low?”
    “You’d be surprised. They get deep in a cedar break and you’d never even know they’re there. You walk right past ’em. If you manage to shoot one pig, the rest of them hightail it and you won’t see them again.”
    Garza said, “One thing that bothers me about this—I hate to see a bunch of pork go to waste.”
    Marlin said, “Same here, but I learned last night that about half a dozen butchers in the area are offering to cut the pigs up and donate the meat to charity.”
    “Nice.”
    Marlin leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. “I could fall asleep right here.”
    “You should go on home.”
    “I will, but let me bring you up to speed first.” Marlin proceeded to tell Garza everything he’d learned from Coach Milstead the afternoon before.
    When Marlin finished, Garza said, “Interesting. When I spoke to Grady and Leigh Anne yesterday, they didn’t say anything about Sammy switching his commitment to OTU.”
    “Well, it probably didn’t seem relevant. I bet even now it wouldn’t occur to them that backing out of a commitment would put Sammy in any danger. I was skeptical myself, so I asked Milstead to name some incidents where a recruit was beaten up or at least threatened after switching schools. I mean, if these boosters and street agents are as aggressive as they sound, that sort of thing must happen occasionally, or even routinely. Milstead couldn’t come up with any examples.”
    “And of course that means...”
    “We have to consider the possibility anyway. Even though it’s a long shot.”
    “Yep.”
    Marlin rose from the chair. Time to get some sleep. But he asked, “How did Grady take the news, by the way?”
    “I guess about the way you’d expect when you learn that someone chased your son to his death. He got pretty worked up. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anything useful as far as who the pursuer might’ve been. He gave me the go-ahead to check Sammy’s cell phone records, his email accounts, Facebook, all that stuff.”
    “Gonna interview his friends?”
    “Bill and Ernie will handle that today. They’ll go out to the school and pull some of the kids from class.”
    “Did they find any brass yesterday?”
    “They did, but the problem is, they found too damn much. Three handgun shells and a couple of rifle shells—all different calibers.”
    “Okay, so one of those shells could be from the shooter, and the others were already out there from poachers or idiots shooting at road signs or whatever. That kind of thing.”
    “That’s what we’re thinking.”
    “The audio from that video is pretty crummy, but it sure sounds like a handgun to me.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Unless it’s not,” Marlin said.
    “I love a man willing to stand by his opinions.”
    “What caliber were the handgun shells?”
    “A mixed bag,” Garza said. One nine millimeter, one .38, and one .357. I figure we can rule