by Aimée Thurlo
With his small backup .45 in his uniform trouser pocket, Lee walked back into the kitchen and poured himself another glass of blood. He didn’t like it chilled, but that was one of the many compromises he’d learned to make. He was forever bound to this world—searching for peace in a place where no peace existed.
He took a deep swallow, set the glass down, and pushed those thoughts aside. They did no good. Instead, he embraced his loneliness, welcoming it like the old friend it was, and letting that fill the emptiness inside him.
Lee sat back in his chair and read the E-mail message again.
No ID yet on possible witness from Fort Wingate area.
APD officers have been given copies of your sketch.
Any luck from your end?—DL
So Diane hadn’t had any luck searching for Angela through the Albuquerque Police Department and FBI. In his many years Lee had developed some skill as an artist, and he’d made a sketch of the Navajo woman, which had included the light streak in her black hair, for other law-enforcement agencies. When Lee had seen her last she’d been in the form of a cougar—with a knife wound under her eye that Diane had inflicted while defending herself. But Lee was the only law-enforcement officer who had seen Angela in human form up close.
Sketching her had been easy, but looking at the finished image had been one of the most difficult things he’d done in years. Even Diane had noticed and asked him about his reaction. Once he’d reminded her of the old photo she’d seen of him and Annie, she’d understood and never mentioned it again.
Lee stared at the screen, then down at his ring finger, aware of the absence of his wedding band. After Annie had been killed by the skin walkers, he’d hunted them down one by one and destroyed them. He’d worn the ring on his finger throughout as a reminder of his mission—blood retribution.
But his rage and the need for vengeance had nearly destroyed him. That evil had come upon him slowly and silently. Darkness had filled him, making him stronger. In his rage, nothing had touched him. But, in the end, he’d had to make a choice. To give in to hatred and let that drive him or to hold to a vestige of the man he’d once been and fight to even out the score for the ones who, like his Annie, couldn’t fight back. He’d chosen the latter.
His vain attempt back then to live life as a mortal had cost Annie her life. He’d never repeat that mistake again. Even now, more than forty years later, Lee sometimes reached down to feel the empty space where the narrow gold band had once been. Guilt was a bitch, particularly when accompanied by grief.
Lee typed an answer to Diane’s question, admitting that he’d had no luck picking up Angela’s trail either. The real problem was that the woman was being given low priority by law-enforcement people all over the state because they didn’t realize what she really was.
Leaving his computer on, firewall safely in place, Lee went to fix himself a quick meal. Afterward, he’d check his E-mail once more, then go to bed.
It was midafternoon, judging by Lee’s internal clock, when the phone rang, waking him up from a dreamless sleep. He grabbed the phone, nearly pulling the base off the nightstand. The cord, though inconvenient, was preferable to the cordless models that could be monitored all too easily. “Yeah?”
“Officer Hawk?” Lee recognized the voice as belonging to Jan Swenson, day-shift dispatcher at the local state police office.
“Yes, Jan. What’s going on?” Lee sat up, trying to keep the cord from tangling.
“Lieutenant Richmond wants to see you in his office at four today, Officer Hawk,” Jan announced.
“I’m on duty tonight. Any idea what this is about, Jan?” The dispatchers knew everything that went on in the local office, and were usually the people there during the evening and graveyard shifts.
“No, not really,” Jan replied without inflection. “Patrolman Wiley is covering your shift, though, and the lieutenant said to come in wearing street clothes.”
“Okay, Jan. I’ll be there. Bye.” Lee hung up. If Jan didn’t know, it was something out of the ordinary. Someone taking over his shift, coupled with the order to come in wearing civilian clothes, meant that Lieutenant Richmond had some definite plans for his time.
Lee climbed out of bed, took his .45 out from under the pillow, then threw the blanket back over the sheets. Weapon in hand, he took a quick look around the apartment, then headed for the shower.
An hour later Lee arrived at the state police office, which was located in a small strip mall in what was called downtown Las Cruces, not far from the courthouse and the Cruces police station. The office was locked, but Jan, a rail-thin blonde with a small bump in her nose that gave her character, looked up from the front desk and recognized him in spite of his baseball cap and dark sunglasses before he could ring the buzzer. Jan pushed the button under the counter, disengaging the lock.
“Good afternoon, Jan.” Lee smiled as he stepped out of the dangerous radiation others referred to as sunlight.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, Patrolman Hawk.” Jan beamed him a wide smile.
Lee took off his sunglasses and placed them in his shirt pocket. “What can I say? I work nights, you work days.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 3:55 P.M., so Lieutenant Richmond wasn’t going to grumble about his being late.
“Life is conspiring against us, Lee.” Jan scrunched up her nose, teasing as she always did. She gathered up her keys from the desk. With Jan out front, the evening dispatcher must have already arrived.
Lee was still trying to think of a response when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Behind the back wall, the top half consisting of bullet resistant glass, stood Lieutenant Richmond.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Jan,” Lee said, realizing how lame it sounded after he’d said it.
“One of these days you’re not going to be in such a hurry,” Jan replied. “But for now, you’d better not keep him waiting.”
“See you later,” Lee said, then turned and stepped into the inner office.
You’ve proven that you have the skills and instincts needed for this assignment, Lee. And, fortunately, there hasn’t been any press coverage of you that includes your photograph, so you’re not likely to be recognized, unless it’s by someone you’ve issued a citation to. But let me put this another way—I’m tagging you for the job ’cause there’s no one else I can send,” Richmond said.
Lee had an almost photographic memory, one of the useful side effects of being a nightwalker. The image of the two dead officers at the crime scene he and Diane had been flown to examine outside Shiprock almost ten days ago was vivid, especially their multiple wounds from more than one weapon.
“So let’s see if I got this right. These officers were attempting to infiltrate a smuggling operation. Considering the Navajo connection, and the fact that the trail seems to begin somewhere in Mexico, the motives that come to mind are peyote, pot, or illegal aliens—the kind who come across the border, not arrive in spaceships. The politically correct term keeps changing, so I can’t remember what to call them anymore.”
He paused, but Richmond didn’t comment. “Come on. There’s gotta be more to it than that.”
“The smuggling involves the illegal importation of Mexican turquoise and other gems tones used in making Southwest jewelry. Probably silver as well. We believe the stuff’s being smuggled to Albuquerque, then distributed to jewelry makers in the middle Rio Grande and Four Corners area,” Richmond replied. “The smuggling cuts into the legitimate wholesale markets and the volume of traffic means that big moneys involved.”
“And in order to protect their profits, whoever’s behind it is willing to risk the heat brought on by killing two police officers,” Lee said thoughtfully. “They must be pulling in some serious cash. What else do you have on this investigation that’ll help me out?”
Richmond handed Lee a file. “We’ve gotten nowhere since the two officers were killed—which is the main reason we need a new strategy. The Navajo officer was posing
as a jewelry maker, assembling beadwork and stringing, mounting stones and whatever else it is they do. He’d made a living at that before joining the tribal police. Our own man, Sergeant Archuleta, had been posing as a jewelry dealer, and made contact with a silversmith in Gallup who’d promised to introduce Archuleta to his supplier—a company calling itself Silver Eagle. But Archuleta was unable to file a report of that meeting before his body was discovered.”
“What about the Gallup contact?” Lee skimmed the report, looking for details.
“He can’t be found, and nobody seems to know anyone by the name Archuleta gave. It might have been an alias,” Richmond said. “The Navajo officer was going with Archuleta to meet the Silver Eagle rep and examine some quality Mexican turquoise. We know that much from his reports.”
Lee noted something in the folder. “A lot of the independent suppliers and silversmiths deal in cash. I see that these officers had around three thousand bucks between them and the money was missing when their bodies were found. How do we know that these officers weren’t just robbery victims who were set up?” Lee asked.
“We don’t, but the case they were working on makes it highly probable that there’s a tie between the Silver Eagle and their deaths. The Silver Eagle operation seems to be very well organized—but they’re not listed anywhere in state or local records. Officially, Silver Eagle doesn’t exist. We’ve had officers all across the state working on this, but we haven’t had any luck intercepting jewelry-making contraband,” Richmond said. “And, of course, until we know how the goods are being smuggled in from Mexico, we won’t be able to break up the operation.”
“How did the smuggling operation get uncovered in the first place?” Lee asked.
“Some of the wholesalers found out that while their sales were dropping, shops and vendors were actually buying more and more jewelry from the silversmiths, and most of the new pieces sold contained turquoise that didn’t come from mines in the U.S.”
“How could they tell?”
“Stones vary in color and half a dozen other ways depending on their origins,” he answered, then continued. “Eventually a few of the silversmiths began talking up the great deals they’d been getting on Mexican and South American turquoise and silver, but refused to reveal their source,” Richmond answered. “We did a little more digging, and Silver Eagle was the name that kept cropping up.”
“So what’s the plan? We find out how to infiltrate the Silver Eagle, then work our way backwards to the smugglers? I could go undercover as a silversmith. I’ve picked up on a few skills over the years,” Lee said.
He’d learned silversmithing, one of many occupations he’d had after becoming a nightwalker, back in the late sixties when he’d been living on the Arizona side of the Navajo Nation near Teec Nos Pos. But he’d never paid much attention to where the turquoise came from as long as he could get matching stones. He’d called himself Lawrence Johnson then, Lee recalled.
“That kind of knowledge will be useful to you. Here’s the plan. Well give you a partner from a federal agency so we can cut across state lines—preferably someone with wholesale and retail sales experience. We’ll set the two of you up as a new wholesale supplier and have you start undercutting the Silver Eagle operation right away. You’ll be the salesman, contacting the silversmiths, most of whom are independent contractors working out of their own homes and shops. Once Silver Eagle starts losing business, you should get their attention. They’ll probably make a move to either buy you out or close you down. At that point, you sell out your partner and get inside the Silver Eagle operation. We want names, details of the smuggling operation, and we need to know who killed our undercover people.”
“Are the Mexican authorities part of the investigation or are they working with the smugglers? They must have some idea where the stones are coming from. I know a lot of the turquoise mines are small family operations.”
Richmond shrugged. “The possibility of corruption is there. That’s why no agencies in Mexico have been contacted.”
“Could someone in our department or the Navajo police have tipped Silver Eagle off about our undercover officers?”
“Anything is possible. That’s why we’re keeping a tight lid on this. We’re using resources with deep pockets that can’t be tracked back to either PD.”
“Sounds like the FBI. Who am I working with?”
“Agent Diane Lopez. It’s your lucky day.”
CHAPTER 4
ee left his police cruiser at the office, driving away in a faded silver SUV fresh off the Las Cruces PD impound lot. He stopped by his apartment for extra clothes, backup weapons, and extra sunblock, then got onto the closest on-ramp for I-25 and headed north. The drive would take three and a half hours, give or take.
The thought of working with Diane again was both a blessing and a curse. She was an excellent investigator, smart, reliable, good in a fight, and totally trustworthy—something he couldn’t say about anyone else in this world.
Although he still felt guilty thinking about any other woman besides Annie in a romantic way, he couldn’t deny that he cared about Diane—far more than he should. He just wasn’t ready to get emotionally involved with anyone who’d grow old right before his eyes, someone vulnerable to threats that he could shake off or avoid, whether that came from disease, injury, or the forces of evil that stalked him relentlessly. He’d done that once already, with disastrous results. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Lee was scheduled to meet Diane at her Albuquerque office. As he was coming into the city from the west, down Nine Mile Hill, his cell phone rang. He grabbed the receiver on its second ring.
“Lee, it’s Diane,” came the familiar voice. “If we’re going to be working undercover, I don’t want to risk us being seen together around the Bureau office. It should be safe and all that, but you never know. Come to my new apartment instead. It’s north of Academy.” After discovering that he hadn’t received the card she’d sent him before he left Las Cruces, she gave him the directions.
Diane never stayed in one place long. It was a precaution Lee also took routinely. Although inconvenient, it beat the hell out of waking up dead some morning.
When Lee arrived at the apartment complex, close to I-25 on the north side of the city, he parked in a visitor’s slot beneath a large carport. The facility had outdoor lights, shielded so that they wouldn’t glare into residential windows.
An old woman in a housecoat was walking a small white terrier down one of the sidewalks, but other than that the grounds were vacant. It was too late for day workers to be coming home from the day shift, and probably a little early for others to be coming back from dinner or dates. Noting the numbers on the apartment walls, he quickly found Diane’s place. A dark shape beside one of the curtains on the second floor moved out of view, confirming to him that someone was at home and had seen him arrive.
He climbed up a gentle flight of stairs and knocked twice.
“Hi. Saw you pull up.” Diane opened the door, stepping back behind the door to let him in. She was wearing knit slacks, a white V-neck sweater, and sensible shoes. He also noticed that she had her duty weapon at her waist. With a strand of light brown hair over her big, beautiful eyes, she reminded him of Jennifer Lopez, only much more dangerous.
A fast glance took in her living room and dining area. Diane’s apartment was dimly lit except over the small, round wooden kitchen table, where there were papers and books scattered about. The TV/VCR combo was tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel with the latest updates scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Six cardboard boxes full of miscellaneous books were stacked beside a half-constructed particle-board shelf unit. A small sofa with a trunk in front of it, an end table with a lamp, and an overstuffed chair made up the rest of the furnishings.
“Glad we’re working together again—officially. Sounds like this one’s a high-risk op,” she said, inviting him to take a seat on the sofa.
“Did you volunteer, or were you
drafted like me?” he asked.
“This is Logan’s first time out as an SAC and he wants the assignment to become permanent. Getting me out of the office where there’s a chance I’d be meeting some of the Washington suits is all part of his game plan.”
“He can hear your footsteps?”
“More like my fingernails clawing at that glass ceiling,” she said with a wry smile. “But let’s get down to business. Too damn many of our people have been killed in the past few months and I’m beginning to get really pissed off about this trend.” Diane cleared away some of the papers on her table, then sat down across from him.
“Shall we get down to it then?” Lee said. “Our first step has to be setting up our business and getting the attention of the Navajo silversmiths.”
“Here are some business cards and our letterheads.” She reached over to the counter and handed them to him. “I had some experience working in a jewelry shop in Old Town when I was going to UNM and I’ve been boning up on the wholesale jewelry-supply operation. Logan mentioned that you had some silversmithing experience?”
“Just one of several careers I followed in the years after my ‘death’ The work allowed me to blend in among the Dineh, the Navajo people, during a more stable phase of my life.” His voice must have betrayed him, because Diane picked up on it immediately.
“Back when you were married?” she asked.
Lee nodded. “It allowed me to work at home, indoors and out of the sun.”
Diane allowed the silence to stretch for a few moments, then continued. “Part of our cover is that we’ve been holding other jobs until recently when we decided to go into the business together. We’re newbies. That’ll cut us some slack if we screw up.”
“I learned silversmithing when I was a teen, then ran off and enlisted. After that, I got a job as a security guard. How’s that?”
“I had a retail job in California, then moved back. We met at a bar in Albuquerque, hit it off, and decided to pool my money and your knowledge of jewelry making. You’re going to be the buyer, right?” Diane asked.