Shake the Trees

by Rod Helmers

  Ellen wound her way back down out of the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, toward a ribbon of blue nestled between startling strips of green. But she wouldn’t reach the Rio Grande or even the irrigated pastures that were sometimes hidden in the early morning mist. She sought the ribbon of gray that separated the brown foothills from the valley. Today she would travel north on I-25. One hour north to Sante Fe Municipal Airport, where a chartered helicopter awaited her arrival.

  CHAPTER 52

  They climbed above the Sante Fe Mountains, the southernmost tip of the Sangre de Cristo Range, skirted around 13,000 foot Truchas Peak, and eventually found the San Luis River as it branched off from the Rio Grande. Then followed it to the northwest. To view her purchase.

  When Ellen added it altogether - the attorneys’ fees including the substantial but unrecorded payments made on her behalf to state officials, the earthwork on the reservoir, and the cost of the property itself - she’d spent nearly 18 million dollars. All on a ranch she had never seen. She’d relied solely on Google Earth and online property tax records. Now it was time to take a look. From a helicopter, instead of a satellite.

  The 45-minute trip over incredibly beautiful high mountain alpine terrain passed quickly. They left the isolation of the highest peaks, and began to descend toward the San Luis River valley and its patchwork of bright green and dusty brown. The irrigated and the non-irrigated. The worthy and the worthless. The life-giving water had been distributed unevenly, and its value was starkly evident. Soon a huge scar on the landscape came into view, and Ellen beamed with satisfaction.

  That her plan would work was obvious. Already the spring melt carried by Canones Creek was being captured by a monstrous hole that had been gouged into the earth. The reservoir would greedily contain the life-giving force that once sustained what lay below. A life-giving and precious resource that would only be released in sporadic and unusable bursts, and then hoarded once again.

  Between the reservoir and the distant San Luis River, the land spread out into huge down-sloping pastures interspersed with trails of tall brown grass. Trails of dead grass that meandered back to Canones Creek - a now dry Canones Creek. Ellen knew that these trails were open hand-dug irrigation ditches. Ditches that were probably dug generations before, but now were useless.

  As they banked over the brown fields, an old white-haired man on horseback suspiciously eyed the big chopper above. Ellen leaned back in her seat and smiled sensuously, enjoying the powerful throbbing vibrations of the loud bird as it continued its sharp turn. Then she signaled the pilot to take her back, and began to consider her schedule for the next day.

  Ellen had set aside the next 24 hours for herself. To be pampered at a world-class resort and spa outside Sante Fe. She’d accomplished a great deal in a short amount of time, and felt entitled to the best. But Ellen was acutely aware of weakness. And not only of weakness in others. She knew how intoxicated she could become with the fine luxuries of touch, smell, and taste, so she would plan her departure now.

  She’d already pulled up the flight plan online, and determined that the American Senior Security jet was scheduled to depart Tampa at 10 p.m. Florida time. The plane would be in the air at least two and a half hours before it over flew the Roswell vicinity, but would gain two hours as it traveled west thru two time zones. So she began to work backwards from 10:30 p.m. She wanted to be in Roswell by 9:30. That meant she would need to leave Albuquerque by 6:30 at the latest.

  So her deadline would be 5:00 tomorrow afternoon. She would leave the resort by five, make the one-hour drive from Sante Fe to Albuquerque, and pick up her passengers around six. She had built in a thirty-minute margin for error. For the unforeseen and unexpected. Any less would be too risky. Any more would be boring. And she didn’t want to spoil the fun.

  Ellen brought the minivan to a skidding stop in front of the Parker house at exactly 6:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon. The garage door was still wide open. Both vehicles were there, but no one was in sight. Ellen stepped out of the minivan, propped the hood open, and walked briskly to the front door and rang the bell. In a few moments, Rob Parker appeared. He looked past Ellen at the minivan. Ellen smiled and looked into the house. The family was eating dinner together. An attractive blonde in her late twenties, a little boy in a high chair, and an older girl in pigtails.

  “Can I help you?” Rob Parker asked.

  “I hope so,” Ellen answered breathlessly and nodded toward the minivan. “My car is doing really weird things and keeps like surging and then dying, and, of course, my cell phone battery just died. I need to call my husband.” She looked at the man with a mix of embarrassment and helplessness.

  Parker smiled with understanding. “Sure, step inside and I’ll get you my cell.”

  Rob Parker turned and began to walk down a hall. Ellen smiled at the still seated blonde, and quickly followed. Parker sensed or heard Ellen and began to turn, but before he could do so she reached out with the Taser and made contact with his midsection. The high voltage jolt scrambled the signals from his brain, and he fell to the hall floor with enough noise that Susie Parker heard the commotion.

  “Rob? Is everything okay?” Susie Parker called out with mild concern.

  “I think you better come here,” Ellen answered calmly.

  Susie Parker walked briskly around the corner and brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh my god, Rob! What happened?” Then she ran to him and kneeled down.

  “This happened.” Ellen showed Susie Parker the Taser.

  “What?”

  Ellen brought her index finger to her lips. “If you care about your children, you need to shut up right now. And listen.”

  “Is he okay? Is he . . .” A confused and mounting panic had begun to set in.

  “No, he’s not dead,” Ellen answered derisively. “He’s unconscious. But this can stop his heart cold. Is that what you want me to do?”

  Susie began to cry. “No! Please don’t hurt us.”

  Rob Parker began to moan.

  “See, I told you. He’s regaining consciousness. But he won’t regain motor control for another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “What do you want?” Susie blubbered.

  “Knock it off,” Ellen responded angrily. Then nodded toward the dining room. “It’s up to you whether they live or die.” And then she nodded toward the figure on the floor. “And whether he lives or dies. It’s up to you. So knock it off.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Susie sniffled.

  “Do you have a land line?”

  Susie shook her head. “Just cell phones.”

  “Bring them here right now. And close the god-damn garage door.” Ellen ordered.

  Susie returned in a moment with a purse in one hand and a cell phone in the other. “Here’s Rob’s.” Then she rummaged through her purse. “And here’s mine.”

  Ellen took the phones. “Now put the kids in your minivan. And give them this. Double the maximum dosage for their age and weight.” Ellen pulled a small bottle from her pocket and handed it to Susie.

  Susie looked at the bottle. “Liquid Benadryl? You want me to drug my children?”

  “Listen to me, you nitwit little housewife. This isn’t one of your soap operas. This is real. Shut them up with that, or I’ll shut them up with this.” Ellen nodded at the Taser. “I can’t deal with whining children.”

  Susie began to cry again, but quickly regained her composure. “Okay. I will.”

  Ellen followed Susie into the garage and watched as she loaded her children into the van. The toddler made a face when she used the syringe-type applicator to give him the liquid Benadryl, and the little girl argued. But eventually the task was complete.

  “Now what?” Susie asked more boldly.

  “Go outside. Use the front door. Put the hood down on my minivan and get my bags. A roller and a laptop. Act normally and don’t do anything stupid. Remember. It’s all up to you.”

  Susie returned with the bags in record time, and Ellen n
odded toward the back of the minivan. After her bags were loaded, Ellen spoke with cold detachment. “I need to talk to hubby before we leave. Are you coming?”

  Susie checked the toddler’s car seat and gave the now frightened five-year old stern instructions to stay in the minivan, and followed Ellen back into the house. Although he was now clearly aware of everything happening around him, Rob Parker still had not regained control of his major muscle groups. He looked up at Ellen with huge and frightened eyes.

  Ellen spoke in a detached but stern cadence. “In a few moments you’ll regain control of your large muscle groups. You’ll be fine - just sore. Now listen to me carefully. You’re going to go to work just like normal. And you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do. If you don’t, I swear to god that you will never see your wife and children again. Do we understand each other?”

  A tear formed in Rob Parker’s left eye, and rolled down his cheek. He was barely able to nod his head. Ellen laid his cell phone beside him.

  “Call your wife’s cell in thirty minutes. We’ll talk more then. And remember, you’re going to work on time. Just like normal. If you contact the authorities - if I see a red light in my rearview mirror - you know what will happen. And you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself.”

  Ellen motioned Susie Parker toward the garage, but then reconsidered and turned around to speak to Rob Parker once again. “There’s no reason to be a hero here. Someone stole ten kilos of coke from an associate of mine. It’s going to be flown into New Mexico tonight. We want that plane on the ground, and we want to recover what’s ours. If that happens, I promise you that your kids will be in their own beds before sunrise. I promise you that your wife will come home. In twenty-four hours I’ll be six thousand miles away, and I’ll look very different. I have no reason to kill them. I don’t want to kill them. But know this. If you screw with me, so help me god, I will kill them.”

  Sally had prepared a booklet of photos of Elizabeth Ellen Hayes for distribution to everyone involved in the assignment. The Florida driver’s license photo, the federal court system ID photo, the ID photo from the cruise line she’d worked for, the California driver’s license photo from years earlier, the photo Sally took in the café and the photos from the funeral. And then there were several computer-generated variations as well, including several based on Sam’s descriptions of Ellen.

  FDLE agents had been substituted for many of the regular employees at the general aviation terminal. The woman behind the information desk, the fuel attendant, the janitor, and two mechanics were all undercover FDLE. As were several passengers, pilots, and flight attendants. And then there were the hidden agents monitoring the surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition software, and the agents viewing the approaches and the open tarmac with night vision equipment. Of course, everyone was well armed.

  Tillis wore the uniform of a copilot and Sally was dressed as a flight attendant. They accompanied Bubba, Sam, and Sandi to the corporate jet. All five wore bulletproof vests. By 9:50 p.m. they were on the plane, and Sally was checking in with the team. There was nothing to report.

  “I’m gonna fire this baby up and get my clearances,” Bubba announced as he turned to make his way to the cockpit.

  Tillis stood and began to follow, but Bubba shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Tillis. Especially since you got that pretty new outfit and all, but Sam’s my copilot tonight.”

  Tillis turned to Sam with a look of surprise on his face. “You’re a pilot?”

  “I have 70 or 80 hours of single engine time. In a little Cessna 172. But it was a long time ago.” Sam answered.

  “Really?” Sandi asked with doubt in her voice.

  Sam nodded. “When I lived in San Diego.”

  “That’s not exactly time in type. The Citation X is the fastest civilian airplane in the world. It requires a crew of two.” Tillis sounded uptight. Like the cop that he was.

  Bubba produced a huge belly laugh. “Get your panties out of a wad, Tillis. Dang. You’re as tense as a dog shittin’ a peach seed. I‘ll be in the left seat.” Bubba shook his head in mock disgust and slapped Sam on the back. “What will this be, Sam? Lesson number five?”

  “Eight,” Sam answered hesitantly, concerned about the conflict he’d caused.

  “Time flies when you’re havin’ fun,” Bubba responded as he directed Sam to the front of the aircraft. After he’d settled into the soft leather of the seat opposite Sam, Bubba leaned into the aisle and winked at Tillis. “Relax.” Then he nodded at Sally. “And have the girl fix you a drink.”

  Sally gave Bubba the finger. “We stay put until 10:10. Maybe she got caught in traffic.”

  “What traffic? It’s time to piss on this fire and call in the dogs.” Bubba replied.

  “We wait ten more minutes,” Sally ordered.

  Bubba smiled broadly at Sally. “Yes sir, ma’am.” Then he winked at Tillis again. “Tough as woodpecker lips, ain’t she.”

  The Citation X was an eight to twelve seat medium-size business jet, and since the Concorde had been taken out of service, it was indeed the fastest civilian airplane in the world. Thanks to a highly swept back supercritical wing design and two Rolls Royce/Allison turbo-fan engines, the airplane could travel .92 Mach, or 605 miles per hour. It was a complex and unforgiving machine.

  The sleek jet had been in the air for almost an hour, and had traveled over 500 statute miles. For most of that time, Tillis sat silently in the darkness, staring out the window. Finally, Sally took the seat next to him.

  “She’s not going to be there either, is she? In Sante Fe?” Sally asked.

  Tillis shrugged.

  “No bullshit. What do you think?”

  “I think she’s too smart.”

  Sally looked disappointed. Beaten.

  Tillis offered a consoling frown. “I’ve been wrong before.”

  “I’m not bummed because of what you said. I’m bummed because I agree with you.”

  The two sat in silence as the big Rolls Royce engines droned. Tillis stared thoughtfully out the window for several more minutes. Then began to speak.

  “She’s incredibly talented. She could have gone far. Been anything she wanted to be.”

  “Ellen? Elizabeth? Whichever.”

  Tillis nodded, and stared out the window for several more seconds before he spoke gain. “The neurotic and the psychotic are ubiquitous.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m a cop, remember? What’s your point?”

  “Only a few of them act out their compensatory fantasies. Put society at risk. That’s where we come in. We’re the garbage collectors. It’s sad.”

  “Geez. Sorry I asked.” Sally moaned.

  “I’m convinced that a great deal of criminal behavior not rooted in poverty or drug abuse is attributable to some type of childhood trauma. Emotional trauma. That’s what makes it sad.”

  “I thought you were a Republican?”

  “I didn’t say the cause excuses the behavior. Causality isn’t necessarily excusatory. It usually isn’t.”

  “Where the hell is all of this coming from?” Sally asked with open hands and upturned palms.

  Tillis nodded toward the front of the airplane.

  “Bubba?”

  Tillis nodded. “And not just during childhood. During extended adolescence as well. When the psyche is still vulnerable. Fragile.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  Tillis nodded again. “And Dr. Bob, based on what Sam told me about his background.”

  “What about Marc Mason?”

  “Who knows what we’d discover about his childhood and adolescence if we dug deep enough.”

  “Then again, maybe some people are just plain greedy. His Honor for example.” Sally countered.

  Tillis nodded in agreement. “Can I ask you a personal question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “Okay,” Sally agreed reluctantly.

  “What’s the worst emotional scar you suffered during
childhood or adolescence?”

  Sally stared at the ceiling for a few moments. “Getting dumped by the captain of the football team.”

  Tillis smiled. “Me too.”

  “You were dumped by the captain of the football team?” Sally asked loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  Tillis scowled. “I meant I had a great childhood as well.”

  Sally smiled. “I know what you meant.”

  “I visit there whenever I need to. When what we do crowds out every shred of innocence from our adult lives. Because there’s no real pain there. It’s a safe place. It’s my anchor.”

  “I never thought of it like that.” Sally responded thoughtfully.

  “We’re the lucky ones, Sally. We’re the lucky ones.”

  “I know. I know we are, Tillis.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Ellen placed an online order for a large veggie pizza from the Roswell Pizza Hut, and then politely instructed Susie Parker to take her two children into the bathroom when the delivery person arrived. Susie nodded obediently.

  The Stockholm syndrome hadn’t taken hold prematurely. Susie Parker had listened to the quite rational conversation Ellen had with her husband on the way down from Albuquerque, and then Ellen let her talk to Rob. He was cooperating fully. She agreed to do the same. Let the drug dealers fight their own battles. Susie now had but one goal: to leave the Roswell Motel 6 with two tired but healthy children when the night was over.

  Soon the expected knock rattled the door, and Susie swiftly moved to the bathroom with her children. Ellen opened the door and was greeted by a familiar adolescent face.

  “Good evening, ma’am. How are you this tonight?”

  “I’m fine. Would you put that on the table while I find my bag?”

  The young man walked past Ellen and began to remove the cardboard container from its insulated carrier. Ellen grabbed her bag and reached inside. “I’m so impolite. I never asked your name.”