Strong Cold Dead

by Jon Land

  Until today.

  A bulletin reached his desk about a potential terrorist attack 1,700 miles away, in Austin, Texas.

  Texas, he mused, thinking of the state for the first time since the real hero of that gunfight against the Hells Angels, five years before, had saved his life.

  The second bulletin changed “potential” to “suspected,” while still offering scant details. Those details arrived an hour later, in a third bulletin that came, encrypted, through the most secure communications channel possible. Beauchamp read it three times, growing colder on each occasion. He put his jacket on before he went in to see the task force commander.

  * * *

  “I understand the severity of the situation,” Captain Claude Baston told him. “And we’re already in close contact with our counterparts in the United States. What I’m not understanding, Sergeant, is why you need to go there.”

  “Because this has happened before, Captain,” Beauchamp said, thinking of what a trapper named Joe Labelle had found when he stumbled into an Inuit village in Nunavut, around eighty-five years before. “And it happened up here.”

  47

  BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS

  “We getting out?” Caitlin asked from the passenger seat of Cort Wesley’s truck.

  A late afternoon thunderstorm had sprung up suddenly from the day’s heat, leaving rain, swept away by the wipers, pooled in the windshield’s corners. Drops dappled the freshly waxed finish on the hood of the truck. A combination of the sun’s return and the hot engine pushed steam up into the air, which drifted off in smokelike clouds.

  “I’m still trying to get my arms wrapped around all this,” he said, hands squeezing the steering wheel, even though the truck was parked, its engine cooling.

  Caitlin had just told him about the contents of the evidence pouch Doc Whatley was currently storing in his desk drawer. She had immediately recognized the silver Miraculous Medal that Dylan never took off, because it had belonged to his mother and had her initials—MT, for Maura Torres—on the back. The medal had been recovered not far from the body of the construction foreman, splattered with the man’s blood.

  “I was already figuring what I’m going to do to those guys who threatened Luke,” Cort Wesley continued. “Don’t know if my arms are big enough to get around this, too.”

  “Neither of us thinks for a minute Dylan had anything to do with that construction worker getting murdered.”

  “Which means somebody’s trying to set him up. Any guesses as to who?”

  “Something’s been bothering me about Ela Nocona from the beginning.”

  “Yeah, my boy sure can pick ’em, can’t he?”

  “Must take after his father.”

  Her quip produced no smile from him. “How long can Doc Whatley keep this under wraps, Ranger?”

  “Keep what under wraps, Cort Wesley?” Caitlin said, waiting for her words to sink in before resuming. “Everything comes back to whatever’s going on inside that reservation.”

  “Speaking of which…” Cort Wesley began, and then explained what had struck him earlier in the day.

  * * *

  What Cort Wesley laid out for her was based on his brief experience working oil rigs, after his father, Boone Masters, had checked into the hospital for the last time.

  “The kind of exploratory drilling they do now goes down really deep,” he explained. “The deeper you go, the harder the pressure, underground being similar to under water in that respect. And that requires piping reinforced and layered with steel casing, to ensure it maintains its structural integrity once you start pushing all that water, sand, and drilling mud down. In a nutshell, none of the piping these boys got piled in their trucks conforms to that basic principle.”

  “Makes sense.” Caitlin nodded, once he’d finished.

  “How’s that, Ranger?”

  “I did some checking into Jackson Whole Mineral, the company that secured the drilling rights for this land. They did that in order to sell off parcels to individual bidders, but it turns out there’s only one bidder listed in the Texas Bureau of Land Management records: an outfit called REPCO, out of New York and North Carolina, owned by a man named Cray Rawls, who’s as dirty as the coal ash he’s got a penchant for dumping in rivers.”

  “And don’t tell me,” Cort Wesley added, “none of the words beginning with R, E, P, C, or O have anything to do with oil.”

  “If they do, it would be a first. The company knows its way around petroleum-based products and all manner of petrochemicals, and chemical products in general, all right, but other than a few limited partnerships, they don’t have any track record with oil whatsoever. Company’s got a pharmaceutical division, a food processing and preservation division, a waste management division, and they ship a whole bunch of stuff I can’t pronounce, with ingredients that would scare the hell out of us, cross-country via freight rail.”

  “But no oil.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “No oil.”

  48

  BALCONES CANYONLANDS, TEXAS

  Dylan sat in the backseat of the truck, both Cort Wesley and Caitlin looking at him from the front.

  “I don’t know how my mom’s medal got there,” he said at last, as if finally finding his voice. “I don’t know, okay?”

  “No, son, it’s not okay,” Cort Wesley snapped, the bands of muscle in his neck telling Caitlin it was all he could do to keep from exploding.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I—”

  “No? What did you mean, exactly?”

  “I kind of passed out last night.”

  “Come again?”

  “I was with Ela. I passed out.”

  “From drinking?”

  “No,” Dylan said, his mouth barely moving.

  “What then?” Cort Wesley asked, dragging the words out of his mouth.

  “I think it was peyote.”

  “Peyote? So you dropped out of college to do a drug known to turn people’s minds to mush?”

  “I didn’t drop out.”

  “But you did peyote, right?”

  Caitlin chimed in when Dylan failed to answer Cort Wesley’s question. “Dylan, you said you passed out. Does that mean you don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember … some things.”

  Caitlin left that part hanging. “I’m saying this because peyote’s known to create fugue states. Lost time, where hours can pass and you have no recollection of what happened or what you did.”

  “I know I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Well,” Cort Wesley said, voice scratchy and raw, “what did you do?”

  “Describe your clothes,” Caitlin told Dylan, before he could answer.

  “Huh?”

  “When you came to this morning, were your clothes dirty, your boots scuffed up? Any blood anywhere on your person?”

  “No to all.”

  “And when did you notice your mother’s medal was missing?”

  “Are you interrogating me?”

  “I’m asking you,” Caitlin told him.

  “Later that morning. I figured it must be back at Ela’s, but I couldn’t find it.”

  Caitlin felt Cort Wesley look across the seat at her. She wished she could jam a hand down his throat, knowing what was coming.

  “Maybe we’re talking to the wrong college dropout here.”

  “What’s that mean?” Dylan asked, rocking forward until his father’s gaze pushed him back against the seat again.

  “That you’ve been used, son. That girl twisted you around her finger and you were too busy thinking with what’s squeezed into those jeans to realize it. Smarten up, will you? When you going to goddamn learn? I guess never, since getting yourself beaten to within an inch of your life didn’t change anything last time.”

  Dylan reached for the door, forgetting that Cort Wesley had locked them after he closed it behind him.

  “How’s it feel to be stuck in a small space, son? Because prison’s what you’d be looking at
right now, if somebody didn’t see fit to do Caitlin a big, fat favor. Notice he didn’t give her back the medal, though. That means this could turn bad in a real quick hurry, unless we get to the bottom of things before somebody on a different wavelength gets the jump on us.”

  Dylan eased himself away from the door. “What else you need from me?” he asked, his words aimed between them.

  Caitlin didn’t hesitate, while remembering her tone again. “Was Ela with you all night?”

  He swallowed hard. “I can’t say for sure, after a time.”

  She didn’t push things on that front, knowing that the peyote had stolen too much of the boy’s memory of last night for him to do her much good at all. Ela could have flown to Mars and back, with Dylan thinking she’d been lying beside him the whole time.

  “There is something…” he began suddenly.

  “Go on,” Caitlin urged, when Dylan seemed hesitant again.

  “The first time we went to visit Ela’s grandfather, I’m pretty sure I saw somebody, or something, in one of those caves that overlooks his property.” Dylan looked toward his father. “Can I go now?”

  Cort Wesley nodded, and this time Dylan worked the door until the lock popped open. He burst out, nearly tumbling to the ground, before making his way back toward Ela and the cousins she called the Lost Boys.

  “That went well,” Cort Wesley managed, trailing Dylan with his eyes the whole time.

  “Know what I think, Cort Wesley?”

  “That we should take a look at those caves ourselves, I’m guessing,” he said, his gaze clinging to his son.

  PART FIVE

  Another tale concerns the noted Texas Rangers. They would wait on the Texas side of the Red River for outlaws and criminals to cross the border into Oklahoma and stop at Brown Springs for water. They would shoot them from across the river, then hurry across and bury them on the spot.

  —Robert F. Turpin, Forgotten Ghost Tales and Legends of the Old West (Grove, Oklahoma: Bob Turpin Publications, 2013)

  49

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  “As I told you on the phone, Ranger, Mr. Jackson has a very busy day,” his assistant/receptionist said the next morning, not bothering to hide her annoyance that Caitlin had showed up even after being told Sam Bob Jackson was unable to see her.

  “I know what you said, ma’am, but there’s something I’d like to show him it’s really in his best interests to see.”

  With that, Caitlin produced an official-looking trifold document and handed it across the desk. The Ranger chopper was still at her disposal, thanks to Jones, and she had left a message on Captain Tepper’s voice mail that she was using it to check out a lead, without elaborating further.

  “That’s a search warrant—blank for now, but I’ve already got an affidavit filled out to get one written for these premises. Oughta shut the office down for, oh, no more than a day, two at most.” She leaned forward in line with the blank document she’d just handed over. “Why don’t you go pay a visit to Mr. Jackson, inside his office, and show that to him?”

  Caitlin laid her palms on the edge of the desk, a clear message that she wasn’t going anywhere until the receptionist complied. Looking more angry than annoyed, the woman shoved her chair backwards and headed down the hall.

  * * *

  “I’m truly sorry, Ranger,” Jackson pronounced, accompanying his assistant back to the reception area. “I was tied up. But I do believe I can make some time for you now.”

  She followed him past the line of smaller offices en route to his spacious one at the end of the hall.

  “I’d appreciate you making this fast,” he said, squeezing his bulbous frame into his oversize desk chair.

  Caitlin took the same chair she had during her first visit. “That depends on how fast you can answer my questions.”

  “I already told you everything I know about that Indian reservation, the last time you were here.”

  “Funny you can make that claim, without knowing what I intend to ask you.”

  Jackson dropped the blank search warrant and it fluttered to his desk, landing in the space between them. “Well, then, by all means, Ranger, ask away.”

  “How is it you secured mineral rights to that Indian reservation for a company that’s never gotten closer to oil than the local gas station?”

  Jackson jerked forward in his chair, the leather making a squishing sound, as if he’d just passed wind. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You secured the mineral rights on behalf of a man named Cray Rawls and his company REPCO.”

  “You understand what confidentiality is, Ranger?”

  “Quite well, sir.”

  “Then you must also understand that I’m not at liberty to share any workings of my business arrangements with my clients. Trust is everything in my line of work.”

  “Is it now, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I don’t like your tone.”

  “It’s been a difficult few days, sir. Maybe you heard about the incident that took place in Austin yesterday.”

  Jackson nodded. “And I’m sure you’re involved.”

  “The Rangers are, yes, sir. If my tone offends you, that’s why. I’ll try to moderate my behavior, and I apologize for any disrespect I’ve shown you. Let’s start with the last time you saw Cray Rawls.”

  “That’s really none of your business, Ranger.”

  Caitlin ignored his comment. “Because I was hoping you could set up a meeting with him for me, and just wanted to make sure I go through the right channels, to avoid any potential misconceptions.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, it occurs to me that you may have represented something about that land that’s not necessarily accurate.”

  Sam Bob Jackson’s jowls seemed to pucker, the lower of his two chins quivering. “That’s a serious allegation, Ranger.”

  “That’s why I called it a possibility and asked you to set up a meeting with Mr. Rawls so we can get things sorted out.” Caitlin held Jackson’s eyes, not bothering to disguise the intent in hers. “I figured this would be the perfect opportunity, given that he’s in Texas right now, according to his office in North Carolina. You flew back here with him from there.”

  “Well, he’s gone.”

  “His private jet isn’t. It’s still parked in the same airfield he landed in. You think he’d go back to North Carolina without his plane?”

  Jackson swallowed hard. “There’s a simple explanation for all this I’m not authorized to share with anyone.”

  “All the more reason to tell Mr. Rawls I’d like to see him while he’s still in town.” Caitlin slapped the knees of her jeans and rose slowly. “Tell you what … why don’t I give you some privacy so you can make that call now?”

  50

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “You know what my brother always said about you, Masters?” Miguel Asuna asked Cort Wesley.

  Asuna’s office was lit too brightly by a big fluorescent fixture that matched the array of lighting in the body shop beyond. It made Cort Wesley want to put on his sunglasses, but he left them in his pocket, to make sure Asuna could see his eyes.

  “What?”

  “That you had the biggest set of balls he ever saw but he could never get a fix on which way they were swinging, like you enjoyed playing both sides.”

  Miguel’s younger brother, Pablo Asuna, had been the only one still waiting when, after four years, Cort Wesley got out of the Walls prison in Huntsville, thanks to an overturned conviction. Back when Cort Wesley was working for the Branca crime family, Miguel Asuna’s body shop had doubled as a chop shop where stolen cars were brought to be disassembled for parts. He’d once heard Asuna boast he could strip a Mercedes in thirty minutes flat.

  Miguel Asuna was twice the size of his dead little brother, and by all accounts he was still living and working on the fringe of the law. As a result, his body shop was filled to the brim, every stall and station taken, with not a single license
plate to be seen. The shop smelled heavily of oil, tire rubber, and sandblasted steel. But the floor looked polished, shiny. A coat of finish over the concrete showed not a single grease stain or tire mark. For obvious reasons, Asuna kept the bay doors closed and, with the air-conditioning switched off, the whole shop had a sauna-like feel, fed by heat lamps switched on to dry paint faster.

  “You mind if we make this fast, amigo?” Asuna resumed.

  “Black Cadillac Escalade, almost brand new, that just had some bodywork done. I’d like to know who owns it.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “You told me to make it fast.”

  Asuna’s eyes flashed and narrowed, as if someone had just shined a bright light into them. “Black Cadillac Escalade,” he repeated, something changing in his tone. “You got a reason why I should spare the effort, the favors this’ll take?”

  “A couple of thugs driving it threatened one of my boys. As in stuck him in the backseat for a little heart-to-heart at knifepoint. They grabbed him out of a McDonald’s in Houston, where he was with his high school soccer team.”

  “Bad hombres, that’s your point.”

  “My son just turned sixteen, Miguel. You do the math.”

  “Tell you what,” Asuna said, hooking his thumbs through the empty belt loops of his grease-splattered overalls, “give me a little time. Get yourself a coffee or something, maybe a doughnut.”

  “I thought you wanted to make this fast.”

  “A half hour work for you, amigo?”

  51

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  No one turned toward Caitlin when she entered the Savarese Fight Fit boxing gym on Austin Street, right in the middle of downtown Houston, hardly raising an eye toward a woman with a badge and a gun.

  “I’m looking for Cray Rawls,” she told a man behind a reception desk, whose ears and nose looked like patchwork quilts of matching scar tissue. “He’s expecting me.”