American Blood

by Ben Sanders

  Cohen said, “I can. In fact, I’m imagining it right now.”

  Masters didn’t answer.

  Cohen put his head in the kids’ bedroom, check they were still under, and yes, all was right with the world. He said, “Is Bolt still there?”

  “No, just someone from APD. Alive and breathing, thank god. I’s hoping they were going to tell me good news, like old Cyrus’d taken a .45 on the bridge of the nose or something, you know? Like, taunted bad luck enough, this time it’s finally got him.”

  Cohen felt that little worldly nugget merited some reflection, so he gave it a moment before replying.

  He said, “You got an address or anything?”

  “Yeah, somewhere, let me see. Incident on West Alameda, just up by the river there.”

  And Cohen said, “Shit,” because sure as anything it would be the Marshall boy’s house.

  Masters said, “Everything all right?”

  “I certainly hope so, but I think it warrants some investigating. You planning on coming out? I can meet you.”

  * * *

  Forty minutes later he was out there. Two sheriff’s cruisers in a chevron blocking the road, a long queue of Santa Fe PD cars along each curb. Light bars throwing wild shapes through the woods along the river.

  He parked short of the cordon and got out and took his jacket from the trunk. Dapper in charcoal gray, the Glock slim on his hip. Thirty-five years old, the novelty wasn’t gone: he’d done three years with APD before he joined the feds, and for whatever reason the little dress-up buzz of being in uniform just couldn’t touch the magic of having a marshal’s star on your belt.

  He walked to the driver’s door of one of the roadblock cruisers and opened his jacket, letting the guy see the gun-and-star combo.

  “Masters around?”

  The guy hiked a thumb. “Lieutenant’s up the street. Just head along. Need to sign the log if you want to go in the house.”

  Cohen thanked him and walked on up the street. The door of an unmarked opened and Masters swiveled on the seat and hauled himself out. Fifty or thereabouts, a wide and paunchy guy with a droopy mustache and jowls that took things even further. They shook hands.

  “Lucas, how you doing?”

  “I’m just merry, thank you.”

  Not even a smile. Masters never seemed to get his humor. He said, “Thing’s looking like a circus. Got us and Santa Fe PD, and now you, and APD’s sending some people up as well. Felt like telling them to stay put, give them a call if we need anyone else shot. Jeez.”

  Cohen said, “I did some time with APD, I’ll make them play nice. And you and I always get along, don’t we, Bill?”

  That got a chuckle out of him. Masters said, “Fuck off.” Then: “Heard you had some trouble up in Farmington recently.”

  Cohen said, “Yeah. Couple months back. Not a pretty thing.”

  “So I heard. But glad it all wrapped up for the best.”

  Cohen didn’t answer, hoping to put it to bed. They walked over toward the house, but Masters had some flow now, shootings a subject he could run with: “Heard people discussing it every now and then. Folks like to make the point nineteen’s young to be getting drilled and all, but shit.”

  Masters ran a hand round his jaw, collecting his thoughts. “Evil’s evil, don’t matter what age it is. Makes me want to swap to open-top holster. Looking at a thing like that and you’re clipped in, you don’t have a show. But anyway. I’m sure they’ll make a case study of it over at Glynco.” He laughed. “Call it the LC drawdown, something like that.”

  Cohen said, “Maybe,” because now didn’t seem the occasion to offer his views. Shooting that boy didn’t turn out to be for the best at all. He always found it interesting, these guys like Masters, the way they spoke about things. He got the impression that come the time their own finger was on the trigger they’d be clipping out the news stories and popping them in a scrapbook.

  They walked up the driveway to the garage. A deputy proffered an attendance log and Cohen signed, Masters asking the guy when CSU was due on-scene, the pair of them swapping grumbles about the PD stepping on their toes. Cohen, biting back a smile, almost suggested they get the state police out to cover forensics, make it a full-blown carnival, but there’s only so far you can push a man.

  He said to Masters, “You had a walk-through?”

  “Just a quickie. I didn’t actually hear that Mr. Bolt was part of this, but there was another feller he goes around with that got mentioned.”

  He flattened his tie on his chest and fussed with the knot. “Think it was speculated that where there’s the one, there could be the other. Which makes sense.”

  Cohen nodded and didn’t answer. He stood in the open garage door with his hands on his hips and his jacket pushed back, taking it all in. He said, “Heard anything more from APD?”

  “Yeah, spoke to Martinez, don’t know if you know him. Sounds like a funny one: off-duty detective of theirs was up here wanting to question the owner about something or other. Guy’s not home, so she has a bit of a look around, three guys grab her, take her inside, hold her at gunpoint.”

  “One of them being Bolt’s friend?”

  “Yeah, the Rojas feller, plus two other guys. Anyway. They hold her awhile. Then one of them goes off outside and apparently she hears this gunfire out on the street, couple of rounds I think, and the guys holding her just skedaddle.” He snapped his fingers to underline the effect. “Another minute and the owner, the guy she’d come to talk to in the first place, runs in packing a fucking pump-action shotgun, and sets her loose.”

  Cohen looked at the floor as he pondered all that and then he said, “Sounds like quite the evening.”

  Masters said, “I’d say it’s that plus a little more.” He shook his head. “Shit.”

  An internal door into the house stood open. Cohen brushed past sheriff’s deputies and stepped through to the entry hall. Faint smell of weed somewhere, but it all seemed neat and tidy, no real sign someone had been held captive.

  Masters followed, saying, “Guy obviously leads a busy life, got APD chasing him on one thing, these other guys coming in on the other front.”

  They stopped in the kitchen.

  Masters said, “I’d say if you’ve got guys after you prepared to hold a police detective at gunpoint, you’re into something fairly hair-raising.”

  Cohen nodded slowly. He eased open a cupboard with his boot toe and saw the bin hiding there. He stood on the pedal and noticed bloodied cable ties. He said, “I was just mullin’ on a very similar thought.”

  Masters didn’t answer.

  Cohen said, “Where’s the APD cop they were holding?”

  “She’s here. One of my guys is talking to her.”

  Cohen nodded. “How come SFPD’s been pushed out of it?”

  “They haven’t, I’m just taking lead.” He winked. “Looked like a scary one, so they wanted the pros on it.”

  Cohen said, “How’d you get in the house?”

  “Garage door was open. First response just came straight in. Some rubber and broken glass out on the street, but the PD guys’ve parked all over it. But come have a look at the living room. All these boxes here. Looks like stolen goods or something.”

  Cohen drifted through after him and did a circuit, nothing seeming to pique his interest. He moved back to the kitchen. He said, “Believe he actually rents this out. I’d say it’s the tenant’s.”

  Finally showing his hand.

  Masters glanced at him. “How’d you know that?”

  Cohen said, “I’ve met him. Owner, I mean.”

  “What, through the marshals?”

  Cohen nodded. “Yeah. Through the marshals.”

  Masters said, “Well thanks for sharing. Better late than never, I suppose.”

  “Maybe I’m only just rememberin’.”

  Masters said, “Yeah, like hell.” He chewed on it a moment and said, “Not some ten-most-wanted fugitive or something, is he?”

 
; “Not to my knowledge.”

  “So how do you know him?”

  “Just through a thing.”

  “A thing.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Trying to sound final, avoid the WITSEC subject, but Masters kept at it. “Must’ve been quite the situation, needing input from the likes of yourself.” Tongue only slightly in his cheek.

  Cohen nodded, mouth downturned a little at the edges. He said, “Bill, I do believe I’ll concur wholly with that.”

  He looked around a final time before walking back toward the entry.

  Masters said, “So what’s his background?” Not about to give up easily.

  Cohen didn’t answer.

  “This some witness protection thing?”

  “No comment.”

  “Well that’s as good as a yes, isn’t it?”

  Cohen shrugged. “Ain’t at liberty to say.” He stood in the front door and looked out, quietly pleased he’d had a question that warranted the phrase. “Other than that I reckon he’s come from the sort of life that’d make him tough to mess with. Evidenced by what you’ve just told me.”

  Masters didn’t answer.

  Cohen said, “So. Where are we now?”

  “Well.” Letting his breath out as he said it, trying to sound miffed. “Where we are now is we’ve got a lot of stuff we’ve been told about, but not a lot to actually look at, given no one’s here.”

  A deputy came through from the garage, said to Masters, “Sir, we opened up the Corolla, looks like cocaine or something in the back.”

  Masters looked at Cohen. “Gonna write that off as the tenant’s, too?”

  Cohen said, “I don’t know. I think we can say that at present there’s a bit more to this than meets the eye.”

  A little twitch of a smile lighting up under that mustache and Masters said, “Lucas, I do believe I’ll concur wholly with that.”

  “You spoken to the neighbors?”

  Masters shook his head. “I haven’t. But be my guest.”

  * * *

  He did just that.

  The woman next door was one Ada Lawton, midsixties or so. They spoke outside on her porch, the woman bespectacled and slightly stooped, a rolled issue of Time in her hand for ease of gesturing.

  She said, “Heard the first one maybe nine thirty or something. Gunshot I mean.”

  “Sound like a pistol or something bigger?”

  “Can’t say I know a helluva lot about these things, but to be honest I’d pegged it as something a bit bigger. But I was sitting right there by the window so when I heard the first I thought, Lord, what was that? And I looked out and blam, saw the second shot clear as day.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “Well, there was a great big white car, a really great big thing, in the middle of the road there, and a man with a rifle or something up at his shoulder standing kinda next to it, and I saw him shoot into the side of it. Just the one time mind, but I’d heard the first one. And then.”

  She put a hand on her hip and gazed past him, looking back through the evening. “And then the car just stopped sort of crossways on the walk, and the gun feller was trotting backwards in reverse and fore you knew it he’s gone.” She clicked her fingers.

  Cohen said, “Brave of you to stay at the window like you did.”

  The lady clucked her tongue, bit of a smile showing. “Yeah, well. Better’n cable, and you don’t have to pay.”

  Cohen said, “You recognize the man with the gun?”

  “No, not sure that I did. Dark, mind you.”

  “So what happened after the car stopped? Were you still at the window?”

  “Yeah, still there. Had the cordless with me for the nine-one-one. Guy got out of the car and by the looks of it he was all bloodied down one side. Kinda limping.”

  She gripped her thigh with one hand and took a lock-legged step to demonstrate. She said, “Coupla guys came out the garage. One of them ran off thataways, and the other got in the white car with the injured feller, and then they were off. I stayed on the phone just commentating it all, and I s’pose it was about a minute or so, and then the guy’d done the shooting comes tearing out of the trees, vroom, straight across like that, into the house. And I’m thinking, What the heck? Anyway. Minute later out come two of them, gun feller and this lady, too. And I mean, phwoar. Of all the things you could guess you’d end up watching, this would not be one of them.”

  She chuckled. “But hell. It happened.”

  Cohen was half-turned, looking across at one of the unmarked cars, where a woman was climbing out of the backseat. A plainclothes guy exiting the other side. He said, “It certainly did.”

  He reached in his shirt pocket for a card and passed it to her, just two fingers right on the corner, a smooth little move people sometimes took a liking to.

  He said, “Appreciate it. Anything else, you just give me a call.”

  He winked and doffed a pretend hat, and she seemed to like that just fine. He walked across the street. The woman was talking to the plainclothes, a Santa Fe PD detective he recognized but couldn’t name. He walked over slowly, and by the time he reached her, the cop had moved on.

  Cohen offered a handshake, and backed it up with a smile. “I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Lucas Cohen. Are you the off-duty APD detective I keep hearing about?”

  She took his hand. “I’d say so. Lauren Shore.”

  “You mind if I have a word?”

  She smiled tiredly. “Why not? I’m getting good at it.”

  Cohen laughed. “My car’s just up here. You can even sit in the front this time.”

  A minute later and she was seated next to him, elbow on the sill and her head on her knuckles. The windshield view was all blues and reds, seemed to have her in a trance.

  Cohen broke the spell: “Sounds like quite the evening you had.”

  “Yeah. I prefer them a bit quieter, have to admit.” She rubbed a wrist, and he thought of those bloody cable ties. She said, “What’s the marshal’s interest in all this?”

  Cohen said, “Cyrus Bolt’s known to us.”

  “How so?”

  “Kind of a long story.” Which it wasn’t, but in general he preferred listening to sharing.

  She said, “I’ve got time.”

  Cohen dropped the visor and looked at his shadowed self in the little mirror, and then raised it again. He said, “Cyrus did time over in Beaumont for trafficking. He’s out on supervised release but he ain’t been filing his reports, so there’s a warrant out on him.”

  She folded her arms, leaned against her door. “That’s not a very long story.”

  Cohen smiled. “There’s some subplots I omitted.”

  “Such as?”

  Cohen rocked his head. “There’s a bit of stuff no one’s managed to hang on him. Coupla ICE guys got drilled near the border shortly before he went inside, got some hearsay it was him and Troy Rojas. Don’t know how much you know about old Cyrus, but he’s got an ex living up in Lubbock. Sent a coupla deputies out to visit with her, see if she’d got word recently, pair of them ended up shot, stone dead. Neighbor found them in the yard. This was two, three months back.” He hitched his gun round so he could settle in the seat. “Texas man myself actually, so it pains me especially.”

  “Wasn’t the wife that shot them?”

  Cohen shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it was. Takes a special breed to be killing people where they stand, and I’d say Mrs. Bolt isn’t one of them, though I’m sure she’s a fierce lady. Plus she was actually out of town.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Cohen said, “Anyway. You could say that knowin’ what I do about Cyrus, there’s a special place in my heart for the man, in that I’d like to see him with a bullet between his eyes.” He touched his forehead to mark the spot. “But anyhow. I understand you didn’t actually see him?”

  She raked her hair back, and he could see her hands were shaking.

  Cohen said, “I’d offer you s
ome coffee, if I had any. Sometimes on the long days my Mrs. Cohen sends me out with a little thermos, take a hit if I need it.”

  Shore turned her head on the rest and smiled at him. “I didn’t see Bolt, just Troy Rojas.”

  “They normally come as a pair, or so I’m told.”

  She nodded, still looking at him. “I think Bolt might be dead.”

  Cohen hadn’t seen that one coming. He said, “How’d you conclude that?”

  She nodded toward the house. “You hear what went on tonight?”

  “I’d say I got the gist of it.”

  “You know about the occupant?”

  Cohen nodded. “I do know about Marshall. Quite the boy.”

  She glanced at him suddenly, like this was some fresh angle. “What have the marshals got to do with him?”

  “Oh. This’n that.”

  “Is he WITSEC?”

  “I can’t comment.”

  She watched him a while. He wasn’t used to getting such scrutiny to one side of the face. He counted off the seconds in his head, studying the light show. At five she said, “That sounds like a yes to me.”

  Cohen didn’t answer.

  She said, “Are the feds after him?”

  “I don’t know about feds in general, but I’m certainly not.”

  Shore said, “I think he might have killed Bolt.”

  Thinking back on what he knew of the man, it didn’t strike Cohen as an unlikely prospect. At length he said, “Well, until I’ve got a warrant from a U.S. federal court saying I need to go after him, then I don’t care what he does. Just prefer he get some less dangerous pursuits.”

  Shore took all that onboard with a slow nod. She said, “So who are you out here for? Marshall or Bolt?”

  The car was fogging up. Cohen turned the key and dropped his window an inch. He said, “They’re both official business. I want Bolt in handcuffs and Marshall out of trouble.”

  “Might’ve left it late. Far as the trouble part goes.”

  Cohen rubbed his jaw. He had a trim little beard he was cultivating, coupled to his hair by a pair of neat sideburns. He said, “I suspect you’re right. Where’d you last see him?”