Leo didn’t take my advice. Instead of packing up the kids and getting out of town, he had contacted someone at SAPD who put him in touch with Detective Ochoa. Ochoa and her staff wasted no time combing through the computer disks and getting warrants issued for the men on camera, who included an assortment of local politicians, policemen, and one former state congressman from El Paso. There were raids taking place all over the city based on the videos. The FBI was in the process of tracking down the rest of the girls who were scattered across Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Many of the girls came from Mexico, but there were others like Maya. The Dragon didn’t discriminate. It was the biggest sex trafficking bust in years. The agent in charge said I’d done them a favor. I told her I didn’t do it for them.
Outside, the sky was gray and overcast and the temperature hovered near fifty. Not cold, but a pleasant reminder of the season. I had Ochoa drive the back roads through Boerne and Sisterdale. A few oak and maple trees along the highway added orange and yellow hues to the fall scene, but the mesquite trees still clung to their yellow-green foliage. They were always the last to lose their leaves. If all went well, I’d be in a deer blind for opening day and enjoying Sergeant Vera’s company.
Ochoa had changed and showered since the shootout in the hangar. Her hair smelled of lavender soap with a hint of perfume. Her shoulder-length hair was curled, and she wore faded Wrangler jeans with cowboy boots. Her badge and pistol hung from a turquoise belt that matched her short leather jacket.
“Are you studying me?” she asked.
“I was wondering why you didn’t let the Fredericksburg police take care of Mike Bauer,” I said.
“Why let them have all the fun?”
“So, you like taking down the bad guys?”
“Especially perverts like Bauer,” she said.
“What about the arrests in San Antonio? Aren’t you missing out on them?”
“I know my team will take care of business in SA. I was a little worried about Officer Zeller. When I talked to him on the phone, he sounded hesitant.”
“He didn’t believe the evidence?”
“Let’s just say he was less than enthusiastic.”
“You could’ve called the sheriff.”
“I did. And the DPS. I’m having Mr. Bauer transported back to San Antonio. That’s where the crime took place. That’s where he’ll stand trial.”
“What about his son?”
“That’s up to the judge. We didn’t find any drugs on him, and he’s still seventeen.”
“I have a recommendation.”
“Join the Marines?” she asked.
“Why not? His football career is over. Everybody needs a second chance.”
“He’ll end up like you.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
She laughed and gazed out her driver’s side window.
The farm fields were plowed under and ready for winter. Stacks of hay stood under bright blue tarps. I unrolled my window a few inches to get a breath of air mixed with fresh hay and cedar trees.
“You love this country, don’t you?” she said.
“It’s in my blood.”
She slowed down for a closer look at a ten-point whitetail deer standing just inside the barbwire fence.
“You won’t see him in a couple of weeks.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Hunting season is coming.”
“You would shoot that beautiful animal?” she asked.
“Honoring my pioneer ancestors.”
She laughed while she passed a rancher on a John Deere tractor pulling a flatbed trailer stacked with hay. It was a pleasant, spontaneous laugh that was genuine and down to earth.
“Why else did you come out here with me?” I asked. “The sheriff and the DPS would have done their job, even if Zeller was reluctant to make an arrest.”
She studied my face. “Don’t get any ideas about us.”
I raised my one good hand. “I don’t get ideas. I’m a country boy, remember?”
Her face turned serious. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Fischer.”
We pulled into town, and I directed her toward Mike Bauer’s winery. There were three state trooper SUVs in the parking lot along with the sheriff’s pickup and two local police cruisers. Officer Zeller stood by one of the cruisers. He had a kolache in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
“Hey, Les,” I said when I got out of the Crown Vic.
“Hey, yourself,” he said, licking the powdered sugar from his fingers. “What’re you doing here?”
“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”
“My town. My jurisdiction. What’s with the sling?”
“I got a little banged up,” I said.
“Not surprised.”
Ochoa stepped between us. “I’m Detective Ochoa,” she said. “We spoke on the phone.”
Zeller held out his sticky hand.
Ochoa didn’t take it.
“The sheriff’s inside with Mike,” he said and pointed toward the front entrance.
I turned to follow Ochoa inside.
“Not you,” Zeller said. “Just the detective.”
Ochoa hustled inside and left me with Les.
“No hard feelings,” I said.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“What?” I said.
“Your mom’s in there with Mike.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know. I had hoped she’d gone back to Colorado. “Why should that bother me?”
“Just thought you’d wanna know.”
Zeller pinched the pastry bag from the front seat of his cruiser. He held it out to me. I wasn’t really hungry but took one anyway. I recognized the white bag as coming from the German Bakery. They had the best kolaches in town. He offered it like a peace pipe at an Indian treaty meeting. The Comanche had tobacco. The Fredericksburg police department had kolaches.
“We’re not real close,” I said.
We stood chewing in silence. I wondered if Helen understood that Mike was finished in Fredericksburg. It wasn’t her style to give support when the ones around her needed it. She had left my dad when he was elected sheriff—said she couldn’t stand the long nights at home waiting for a phone call telling her he had been killed. It sounded like a good excuse, but it didn’t explain why she left her son.
“You gonna keep doin’ the private eye thing in San Antonio?” Zeller asked.
“Gotta make a livin’ somehow,” I said. “I like workin’ for myself.”
“What ya gonna do with your grandpa’s place?”
“I’ll keep it as long as I can pay the taxes.”
“That’s good,” he said. “It wouldn’t be the same without a Fischer in town.” He was trying to bury the hatchet. He would never admit that he was wrong, but at least he wasn’t going to arrest me.
“You got a place to go huntin’ this year?” I asked.
Les grinned.
Before he could respond, the posse burst through the winery door. At the same time, a San Antonio news station van pulled into the parking lot. A cameraman jumped out with his camera rolling, followed by a reporter in a long red coat and carefully coiffed TV hair.
Les sprang into action. He had been assigned to crowd control. He held up his hands and instructed them to stay behind the barrier set up thirty feet from the police vehicles.
Mike Bauer lead the posse, his hands cuffed behind his back. A burley state trooper followed. Mike looked as white as the limestone bricks supporting the winery porch. He saw the camera rolling and tried to duck his head. Too late. It was the second time he’d been caught on camera.
Ochoa and two other state troopers followed, along with the county sheriff and one of his deputies. She stood out among the well-fed law enforcement good ol’ boys like a female reporter in an NFL locker room but wasn’t intimidated in the least.
Helen appeared at the
entrance beside Brenda, the teen server who’d tried to push the Bauer wine. Helen put a hand on her shoulder and gave Brenda a little shove just as the news camera swept across the building. She wasn’t protecting her; Helen wanted a solo pose for the camera. She put her hand to her mouth in fake concern. Tears would be next. She was too easy to read.
“Hey, Mike,” I yelled over the commotion.
Mike looked up and saw me. His eyes had lost the bravado of our last visit.
“I’m gonna hang on to the ranch. Thanks for the offer.”
“Fuck you, Fischer! You did this to me,” Mike yelled.
The burly trooper held Mike’s head and guided him into the back seat of the SUV. Zeller answered questions on camera for the news station reporter, putting on a serious expression and clearly enjoying the attention.
Ochoa joined me in the parking lot. “Bastard denied everything. Said you set him up.”
“Does he know about the video?”
“He will soon enough.”
“Nicky,” Helen called from the porch.
“Nicky? You know her?” Ochoa asked.
“No,” I said.
“Nicky, I need to talk to you.” Helen walked off the porch and started across the parking lot toward us.
I opened the driver’s side door of the Crown Vic for Ochoa to get in.
“You just gonna ignore her?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Ochoa got in the car, and I closed her door. Helen caught me before I could get to the passenger side. She studied my sling.
“Did you hurt yourself again?” she asked as if I’d fallen off the swing set.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Did you have anything to do with what happened to Mike?” Helen asked. She was blocking my path to the passenger door in full view of Ochoa.
“Not in the way you think. Mike’s guilty. He’s goin’ to prison.”
Her face fell like a kid who’d lost her ice cream cone in a mud puddle.
“You’ll need to find another sugar daddy,” I said.
“Don’t be cruel. I’m still your mother.” She glanced through the front windshield at Ochoa. “Who’s this?”
“An SAPD detective. She handled the case.”
“Nicky, I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go?”
“No, Helen. There’s nowhere we can go,” I said and stepped around her to the door.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t make me beg.”
I’d heard that line before. It hadn’t worked then, and it wouldn’t work now. I opened the door and got in.
“She’s your mother?” Ochoa asked and started the engine.
Helen stood outside my door holding her hands palms up. Tears streaked her makeup.
I felt Ochoa’s stare on the back of my neck along with my own guilt. I knew I was opening a can of worms when I unrolled the window. “Come by the ranch next week. We’ll talk.”
Helen reached for the window. “Thank you, Nicky. I wanted to—”
I rolled the window up and turned to Ochoa. “You goin’ back to San Antonio now?”
“Yeah, but I’ll drop you off if you want.”
“Why don’t you come out to the ranch? I can show you Grandpa’s Cessna 172.”
Her face turned serious. “I told you not to start something you can’t finish. I have a little boy who is the love of my life.”
“Does he like to ride horses?”
She studied me for a full minute before she smiled. “All right, Fischer. Show me the plane.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
I stopped in Helmut’s driveway. Maya got out to open the gate. She walked past the iron cowboy kneeling in front of the large cross. He seemed to be saying a prayer for her as she unhooked the latch. She paused for a long moment to study her grandfather’s barren hay pasture and the hills beyond covered with dark green live oak trees. Woodsmoke rose from the single-story ranch house. Another norther had swept down from Canada while she was in the hospital in San Antonio and dropped the temperature into the thirties. Good news for the deer hunters whose season started in a few days.
The cold air put color in Maya’s brown cheeks. Luckily, the drugs she’d been given hadn’t done lasting physical damage. It would take her some time to get over the mental aspects of the ordeal. The fact that she wanted to go back to her grandpa’s ranch in rural Gillespie County said a lot about her. She wanted to start over. It wasn’t going to be easy. No one understood that more than Maya. Ochoa had suggested a rehab facility. She knew of one in Bastrop County, east of Austin. They took girls under nineteen who had been rescued from thugs like Russell Stevens. They had a charter school and provided counseling to help the girls recover. Maya wanted to give her grandfather’s ranch a try first.
I drove through the open gate and waited for Maya to hop back in the cab.
“You have my number,” I said. “Diana left you hers too.”
She was silent on the drive to the house. Helmut had wanted to visit her in the hospital, but I told him to wait and give Maya time to recover. I wanted her to be sure of her decision before Helmut saw her again. I wasn’t going to force her to live with her grandfather. I parked facing the front porch and reached over to open the door. Maya touched my arm.
“Wait.” She studied the worn porch that had held up generations of the Geisler family. I thought she was having second thoughts.
Helmut held the front curtain back and peeked out. I’d known him all my life and had never seen him get particularly sentimental, but I thought I saw a tear in his eye as he gazed at his granddaughter. Maya had changed him.
“Do you want to leave?” I asked her. Helmut Geisler’s ranch was about as far from urban San Antonio or Southern California as she could get.
Helmut stepped out the door with his silver Stetson cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and his felt-lined brush jacket buttoned to his chin. He was the nineteenth century, and she was the twenty-first.
Maya squeezed my arm. “No. I want to stay. Thank you for not giving up on me.” She leaned over the console and kissed me on the cheek. “I won’t forget what you did.” For the first time, her face was full of hope and determination.
“Come in out of the cold,” Helmut called from the porch.
Maya smiled. She jumped out of the pickup, ran up the steps, and into her grandpa’s arms.
THE END
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Coming Soon…
Last Rodeo (Fall 2020)
A rodeo cowboy turns up dead at the San Antonio rodeo clutching an empty snuff can inscribed with Nick Fischer’s name and a pocket full of painkillers. Was it a cry for help—the young cowboy was a veteran—or was it an accusation? Nick finds himself on the wrong side of the law, again, as he struggles to find the answers that will clear his name and catch a killer before it’s too late.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my daughter Ruby and sister MaryAlice, who continue to chide and encourage me through the writing process, and Gus, my friend and guide to the Alamo City. Also, I would like to thank my editor, Lisa Gilliam, for her continued patience and guidance. Prost!
The historical events mentioned in this book are derived from three main sources of historical research: A Fate Worse Than Death: Indian Captivities in the West, 1830-1885, by Gregory Michno and Susan Michno; Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker; and
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne.
I would also like to acknowledge Pastor Joseph A. Travers and his organization, Saved In America, for being true heroes in the battle to rescue trafficked and exploited children. If you know someone in need of their services or would like to donate to the organization, contact SavedInAmerica.org.
About the Author
George Lee Miller is a former cowboy, Navy corpsman, and theater director who splits his time between teaching at a local college and writing the next Nick Fischer adventure. He currently lives with his Labrador retriever in Central Texas.
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