Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

understand?”
    Palmer closed his eyes again. “Yeah. I’ve seen it on TV. Do it. Do whatever you have to.”
    Bartlett took a card out of his wallet and read the Miranda warning. Then two questions: “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you? Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me now?” The second question was required by the state of Texas to comply with the Vienna Convention.
    Palmer nodded.
    “What did you say?” Bartlett asked, looking over his shoulder to make sure that Sheila was taking notes. “Sorry, Henry. I didn’t hear you.”
    “Yeah,” Palmer said. “Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I want to talk. Now. Before I—” He swallowed. “Before I die.”
    It happened the way they had it figured, although in Palmer’s version of the story, he hadn’t voluntarily partnered with Hatch. According to Palmer, Hatch had been extorting money from customers for some time, whenever he discovered something he thought the computer owner would feel it necessary to hide. Palmer had found out about his activities by accident and was on the verge of telling Kirk. But Hatch threatened to claim that Palmer had been involved from the beginning, and even though it was a lie, Palmer couldn’t defend himself. Then Hatch offered him a cut of the take if he’d keep his mouth shut. All things considered, Palmer said, it seemed like the thing to do. He took the money. And when the next time came along, he took the money again.
    “I felt bad as hell about it,” he said plaintively. “Believe me, I felt rotten. But I was flat broke. Car needed work. Couldn’t pay my rent. I should’ve told Hatch to go to hell and gone straight to Larry. But about the time I was psyching myself up to do that, Larry found out.”
    “About Hatch? But not about you?”
    “Yeah. He booted Hatch. Gave me orders not to call him for any more jobs, just the way I told you last night.” Palmer coughed, then coughed again, with a grimace of pain. Sheila wondered if he had some broken ribs. “I should have drawn the line at that point. I should have told Hatch that it was game over. If I had, Larry would be alive today. It’s my fault—” More coughing.
    “But instead you and Hatch just reorganized the way you were working,” Bartlett said. “It went on the same, only now Hatch was on theoutside and you were still on the inside, in the shop. He needed you even more, so you asked him for more money. Right? That’s how you got your bike?”
    “Yeah.” A long sigh. “Listen. What I’m telling you—it’s enough to nail Hatch, right? You’re going to arrest him?”
    “What you’re saying implicates Hatch in an ongoing extortion scheme, yes,” Bartlett replied soberly.
    “Good,” Palmer breathed. His face twisted, whether from pain or penance, Sheila couldn’t tell. “But not just for the blackmail—for what he did to Larry. That’s the big thing. Larry threatened to tell you guys what Hatch was doing. So Hatch killed him.” His voice was shrill. “I hope he gets the death penalty.”
    For the moment, Bartlett let it slide. “Did you keep a list of the people Hatch extorted?”
    “Nuh-uh,” Palmer replied. “But Hatch did. He’s a nut for that kind of stuff. He’s got it all on his computer. Who, when, how much, all that stuff. He said maybe we’d go back for more from somebody, if the need arose. Plus, he was working for at least one other computer shop, in San Antonio. I’m pretty sure he was doing the same thing there, because he always seemed to have more money than we were bringing in. Like, he bought that big Dodge Ram and moved out of that junky trailer. So I figure there was more coming in from somewhere.”
    “Tell me about Timms’ computer,” Bartlett prompted.
    There was a silence. “Not much to tell,” Palmer said. “Timms brought it in to get a virus cleaned off. When he handed it over, he asked me if we messed around with the data files. That’s always a dead giveaway that there’s something on there that the customer doesn’t want looked at. So I told him no, and then I called Hatch and took the machine over to his place.”
    “That’s how you managed it? You’d take the computers to him?”
    “After Larry booted him, yeah. Larry was in and out of the shop at all hours, nights, too. So yeah, I took it over there. When Hatch got into it, he found some photos and stuff—kids, he said. That was good, because kid photos are worth more than girlie photos. You