Strong Light of Day

by Jon Land

  Caitlin recalled her grandfather Earl Strong’s tales of his heyday as a Ranger during the oil boom years of the thirties, when big swatches of Texas returned to a virtual frontier mentality. How he’d walked into a bar in search of a suspect, having no idea at all who he was looking for until something they did, something that stood out, gave them away. Sometimes he couldn’t even say what had alerted him, and it often took a while before the revelation struck him.

  That’s what she was hoping for now, listening to some nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her there was something in this office that she was looking at but not really seeing.

  What was she missing?

  It wasn’t on Gribanov’s desk, and she didn’t expect it would be readily accessible on the computer the crime scene technicians had already removed. Besides, the same kind of instincts that once pointed her grandfather in the direction he needed to look were pointing her first at the bare conference table and then at the wall where the historic map of Texas hung. Looked like something you either scored at a yard sale or paid a decent amount for as an authorized reproduction, although this map looked aged and weathered enough to be a genuine antique, likely worth a fortune. In which case, why—

  And then it hit her.

  “Captain Tepper,” she called, poking her head out the door.

  * * *

  Cort Wesley joined her inside Gribanov’s office moments later, followed almost immediately by Captain Tepper.

  “Crime scene tech just gave the security camera in the hall a closer look. Turns out the picture’s frozen up solid. Been that way for hours, maybe on account of somebody sprayed dry ice, Freon, or something on it.”

  “Our killer,” Caitlin ventured. “And I think I know what brought him here. Look around the room and tell me if anything looks wrong to you.”

  “This some kind of test?” Cort Wesley asked, as Tepper snatched a cigarette lighter shaped like a bear from Gribanov’s desk and fired up his Marlboro.

  “Is that a good idea, Captain?”

  “Not if I want to live until next month,” he said, coughing out the initial stream of smoke.

  “I was talking about disturbing evidence.”

  He blew out some more smoke, without incident this time. “Ranger, I’ve been to maybe a thousand crime scenes in my career and never once saw a cigarette lighter shaped like a bear end up a piece of evidence. Matter of fact, I’m thinking about stealing it, since it’ll be a lot harder for you to snatch out of my office than a box of matches.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “Why don’t you give us a hint?” Cort Wesley suggested.

  “Check the walls.”

  “You mean that map over there?” raised Tepper.

  “Anything strike you as odd about it?”

  “You mean, besides the fact it’s older than me?”

  “It’s a glass frame,” Cort Wesley said, moving closer. “But there’s no glass.”

  “Seems strange, doesn’t it?”

  “It sure does,” Tepper followed, approaching the map, too. “Now tell me what I’m supposed to seeing upon it.”

  Cort Wesley moved up to the conference table to view it closer. “There’s nothing there.”

  “You mean, nothing we can see without a little help,” Caitlin said, feeling just as Earl Strong must have before he took down a gunfighter, con man, or criminal in one of those oil boomtowns. “Which we just happen to have on hand.”

  * * *

  Caitlin borrowed a portable ultraviolet light from one of the crime scene techs and returned to Gribanov’s office, closing the door so they had it to themselves. She turned the overhead lighting off and shined the UV beam toward the frontier-era map of Texas.

  “Well, goddamn,” Tepper managed, his Marlboro nearly slipping from his lips.

  39

  EULESS, TEXAS

  The UV light seemed to brighten, illuminating the true purpose of the wall map. Small blue circles had been revealed, scattered through much of the state. Nothing specific or even meaningful at first glance, but that changed quickly.

  “Armand Bayou,” Cort Wesley pointed. “That circle up there is right where Armand Bayou is located.”

  “And that spot there,” Tepper picked up, “is in the area of Austin County—Karl Dakota’s ranch. Can’t say for sure about the others.”

  Tepper scratched at his scalp, forgetting all about the cigarette he was still holding, and scattering ash all about the carpet.

  “Damn,” he said, kicking it aside and gazing up toward the map again. “You wanna tell me what I’m looking at here, Ranger? You wanna tell me what a bunch of dead cattle got to do with those kids who vanished into thin air?”

  “There’s more, Captain,” Caitlin told him. “Check out that circle furthest to the west.”

  Tepper leaned a bit closer, squinting. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Wish I was. That’s where Christoph Russell Ilg’s ranch is located.”

  * * *

  “What was it that son of a bitch said again, while you arrested him?”

  “That he only rustled because the government killed his cattle. Poured acid on them, he said. Sound familiar?”

  “Oh, man,” Tepper groused. “I can feel the winds picking up to gale force now as I stand here. Check your boots, Hurricane, because somehow, some way, you’ve stepped into some crazy, nasty shit again. Know what I wish?”

  “What, Captain?”

  “That there were Texas Rangers somewhere else so other states could share the wealth. Maybe I could trade you for a one-legged cooch near to retirement as I am so I could nap at my desk without being disturbed.”

  “When was the last time you took a nap, D.W.?”

  He pretended to be snoring, snapping alert again with a start. “What was that? Must’ve dozed off. Understandable, given that I slept all of four hours last night.” He looked toward Cort Wesley. “But I’m not too tired to wonder how it is a Russian mobster Mr. Masters bugged on Homeland’s dime is connected to missing kids and dead cattle.”

  “There’s only one person who can tell us that, Captain,” Cort Wesley said, turning toward Caitlin. “And he goes by the name of Jones.”

  Caitlin had fixed her gaze on the map again, switching the UV light back on, remembering something.

  “That circle right around Waco,” she said, shining the light straight at that spot in particular.

  “What about it, Ranger?” Tepper asked her.

  “It doesn’t fit in with the rest. All by itself, situated away from all the others. I’m just wondering—”

  Caitlin’s phone buzzed, interrupting her. She checked the caller ID, moving aside to take the call with UV light switched off again.

  “What you got for me, Doc?” she asked Medical Examiner Frank Whatley.

  “How soon can you get over here?” his craggy, strained voice asked her.

  “I’m outside Dallas, so it’s gonna be a while. This about those cattle we found last night stripped to the bone?”

  “You bet, Ranger. It’s plum crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I don’t think anybody else ever has, either.”

  PART FIVE

  I remember, as a little boy in Kingsville, Texas, the day my mother pointed out a big man leading a horse along the railroad tracks. “Look, Sonny, there’s a Texas Ranger.” I can still hear the awe in her voice.

  —“Dac Crossley and the Texas Rangers,” Oak Tree Press Blog, September 8, 2013

  40

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “This isn’t good,” Madam Caterina said to Guillermo Paz, after turning over the final tarot card, representing Outcome. “Suggests something very ominous.”

  “Like what?” Paz asked, studying the assemblage of cartoonlike figures imprinted on the oversize cards arranged in a neat horizontal line.

  Madam Caterina had flipped them over from left to right, starting with what she called the Present Position, followed by Pres
ent Desires, the Unexpected, the Immediate Future, and finally, the end result, or Outcome she’d just turned. After Paz sat down, she’d had him light a trio of candles to help set the mood, along with the incense that was already burning. It was pleasant, if a bit sour; sage maybe, Paz thought.

  Once the candles were going, Madam Caterina had asked him to shuffle the deck, explaining that the size of the cards and the fact there were seventy-eight of them often made that task difficult. But Paz’s huge yet nimble hands handled the task effortlessly, after which he proceeded to cut the cards on cue.

  “Lay out five in a row,” Madam Caterina instructed.

  Paz did so, all the cards placed face down.

  “Now, pick a card and drag it toward you.”

  That was five cards ago, the interpretation of others temporarily lost with the flipping of a card picturing five male figures holding matching tree branches, without clear sign of what they intended to do with them.

  “The Five of Wands,” Madam Caterina told him.

  “And that’s bad?”

  “Not necessarily, but taken in the context of the other four, I’m concerned. Typically, the Five of Wands suggests an outcome based on struggle and conflict, and the fact that victory may come at a deep personal cost or sacrifice.”

  “That’s nothing new.”

  “Even so,” Madam Caterina said, gazing at the other four cards Paz had flipped, “you must take this card in the context these other four have created, starting with the first.”

  “Representing Present Position,” Paz recalled.

  “And the card in question is the Devil reversed, or upside down,” Madam Caterina nodded, pointing toward the card farthest on the left, which pictured a horned devil with furry legs and clawed feet.

  “That can’t be good.”

  “Well, this card can represent temptation, addiction, and unhappy outcomes.”

  “Like I said.”

  “But your devil is upside down, advising us to look deeper at the situation and suggesting great change is in the offing.”

  “This have anything to do with that strong light you told me about?” Paz interrupted.

  “Let me finish,” Madam Caterina scolded, giving no quarter.

  Paz remembered his first visit to his priest here in San Antonio, how frightened and intimidated the poor man had been by him. But not Madam Caterina. She was the first woman, besides his Texas Ranger, he didn’t scare the hell out of.

  “The Devil reversed,” the psychic said, continuing her reading, “in this case suggests control. You’re feeling you’ve lost some measure of control but will be taking action to regain it.”

  “You said ‘in this case.’ What’s that mean exactly?”

  Madam Caterina pointed to the second card in, picturing a regal woman seated on a throne in the open air, right next to the Devil reversed. Paz thought she looked sad.

  “This,” she told him, “is the Queen of Pentacles. Remember the meaning of the second position?”

  “Present Desires,” Paz recited, a bit sheepishly.

  “And the Queen of Pentacles, like all the court cards, often stands in for an actual person in your life. In that regard, she would represent a woman, likely with dark hair and dark eyes.”

  Paz felt a bit of a chill. “You’re describing my Texas Ranger.”

  “Am I? Interesting, because taken in context here, the Queen of Pentacles suggests that it’s critical that you trust yourself. You may not see things spiritually the way everyone else does, but your belief system works for you, and that’s what’s most important.”

  “And how’s this relate to that Devil card?”

  “Let’s move on to the center card,” Madam Caterina said, already eyeing it.

  “Oh yeah, context…”

  “That’s right.”

  “Whatever that means.…”

  “In this case, it means a new beginning.”

  “Life is full of those,” Paz said to the psychic.

  “Not like this. The Ace of Swords calls on us to not be afraid to make a leap if it’s in our best interests. You have a good idea already of what must be done. The hard part is the doing of it.”

  “Not for me.”

  “It might be different this time. The way you flipped the card tells me it may have originally been reversed and, that being the case, you must be leery of being drawn into a battle that is not of your making. The sequencing suggests it lies elsewhere.”

  “With the Queen of Pentacles maybe?” Paz raised, thinking of Caitlin Strong.

  “Taken with the Devil reversed, I’d say someone confronting a great dilemma or, more likely, a great enemy, especially in the context of the fourth card here,” Madam Caterina said, pointing at it.

  Paz recalled its title easily from memory. “The Chariot. Right side up.”

  “The Chariot is one of the most complex cards to define. On its most basic level, it’s about getting what you want. It implies war, a struggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory over enemies, obstacles, nature, the uncertainties inside you. But there is a great deal more to it. The charioteer wears emblems of the sun, yet the sign behind this card is Cancer, the moon. The chariot is all about motion, and yet it is often shown as stationary.”

  “So,” Paz surmised, “if the sun represents that strong light…”

  “The moon suggests it will shine somehow at night. That’s symbolic of an enemy that can’t be seen.”

  “As in invisible?”

  “More like out of sight. Hiding from view. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “It will,” Paz said, assuredly. “And when placed in the context of the Outcome card here?”

  “The Wheel of Fortune.”

  “You said that wasn’t good.”

  “Because it represents something that stands beyond the realm of our understanding and control. Notice that the Wheel of Fortune hovers in the clouds, showing that you can try to reach it but that you can never fully understand it. That indicates some change, a dramatic change from the established order, is not only likely to happen, it is certain to happen, and soon.”

  Paz nodded. “‘Are these the shadows of things that will be, or things that may be?’”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a line from A Christmas Carol, a question Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Future. I read the book a whole bunch of times as a boy. First book I ever read in English. My first priest gave it to me.”

  “Flip the next card,” Madam Caterina told him.

  Paz did, revealing the Hierophant figure, a holy man holding a cross in a vague position of prayer.

  “This priest was your teacher—”

  “I watched him murdered in the street for trying to help kids like me. We discussed that last time, remember?”

  “Stop interrupting me,” Madam Caterina ordered. “I was going to say his death was his final lesson to you, setting you unalterably on the road to the man you are now.”

  “That question Scrooge posed,” Paz said to her. “The ghost from the future never answered it. You haven’t answered it either.”

  “The future isn’t set. If it was, people like me wouldn’t exist to warn people about it.”

  “So whatever this thing is that’s beyond our understanding and control…”

  “You can defeat it. That’s what the entire context of this reading suggests. A battle against a great foe you can defeat … but not alone.” Madam Caterina pointed toward the second card again. “The Queen of Pentacles.”

  “My Texas Ranger.”

  “Flip another card.”

  Paz snared one between a pair of thick fingers and turned it over.

  “Justice,” Madam Caterina noted.

  41

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Standing on the sidewalk outside Madam Caterina’s office, Guillermo Paz realized he felt hot, his skin so superheated that he could barely stand the sun and retreated into the shadows. A trio of Hispanic gangbangers wearing tight tank t
ops to show off muscles likely primed behind bars, bandanas tied around their bald skulls, moved into the street to avoid coming anywhere near him, but Paz ignored them anyway.

  Paz couldn’t get Madam Caterina’s tarot reading out of his mind, how spot-on it had seemed to be.

  Change, a dramatic change from the established order, is not only likely to happen, it is certain to happen, and soon.

  Paz had been feeling that for a while now, but it was the clarity supplied by the psychic’s next words that had put him on edge, concerning the Chariot card in particular.

  The moon suggests it will shine somehow at night. That’s symbolic of an enemy that can’t be seen.… Hiding from view.

  What did that mean exactly? Who was this new enemy he was going to be facing alongside his Texas Ranger?

  Paz found himself distinctly unnerved, offered just enough glimpse of the future to fear what was coming. Violence and danger bothered him not at all; they were the things upon which he thrived. But the unknown was something else again. The unknown set him sweating and roasting inside his skin, like it was an extra layer he wished he could strip off.

  Thinking of that reminded him he’d forgotten to pay Madam Caterina before taking his leave. That’s how much her reading of the tarot cards had unsettled him. So Paz retraced his steps from the shadows, back through the sun. He rang the buzzer, and then knocked on the door when she still didn’t answer.

  Paz thought about simply paying when he came for his next session, but he felt himself opening the door and entering the tiny reception area rich with the smell of incense. He didn’t announce himself for fear of disturbing another client’s reading and resolved to retrace his steps if it turned out he was interrupting. And then he heard an accented voice that told him he was indeed doing just that.

  “You’re late with your fees, senora, two months late. We can’t have that, eh? If we’re going to keep the neighborhood safe. That takes resources. You understand.”

  Paz moved through the beaded curtain, leaving the beads clacking against each other as he entered Madam Caterina’s reading room. The three gangbangers he’d glimpsed outside were facing her from the other side of the table. The now-flickering candles sat between Madam Caterina and them, as if this was a session instead of a shakedown.