The Grid

by Harry Hunsicker

  Her weight was hard to determine because of the jacket, but I had the impression of someone who was fit, weight proportionate to her height. Her legs appeared toned underneath the jeans she’d been wearing. No eye color because of the glasses. Her hair was brown or black, again hard to tell because it had been wet. She’d gotten into a Buick LaCrosse with dealer tags.

  Moreno stopped me at that point. “Do you know anybody named Debbie Wilson?” She rattled off an address in downtown Dallas, an expensive high-rise apartment.

  I thought for a moment and then shook my head.

  “A person with that particular name and address purchased that Buick LaCrosse the week before.”

  “What about the Monte Carlo?”

  Moreno didn’t say anything, a puzzled expression on her face.

  I told her about the tip from the feds, the drunk who’d gotten his Chevrolet stolen from a VFW hall on the interstate. I told her that I’d interviewed a very unreliable witness, an alcoholic in his seventies who’d seen a woman wearing a rain poncho and a Cowboys cap in the car. How he’d said the woman gave the impression of being rich.

  “A rich girl, huh?” Moreno got a far-off look on her face.

  “My takeaway, too,” I said. “The way she carried herself, her tone of voice. The TravelTimes Inn wasn’t her usual lodging choice. She was used to the finer things in life.”

  Moreno paced the room.

  “I sent an e-mail about all this to my contact at the Texas Rangers.”

  “Typical.” She shook her head. “That never made it to anybody in the field. Where was the VFW hall?”

  I told her.

  “That’s next door to where we found the LaCrosse.” She yanked her cell from her belt, tapped out a message.

  The door opened, and a man in his fifties stepped into my room without knocking. He wore a dark suit and carried a briefcase in one hand, a cell pressed to his ear with the other. He nodded hello but continued his phone conversation.

  “He’s with Homeland Security.” Moreno lowered her voice to a whisper and continued to fiddle with her cell. “We can talk later, but I’ve got one more question now.”

  The door opened again. No one came in, but I could hear voices in the hall. The feds weren’t going to be stalled any longer.

  Moreno held the phone for me to look at. “I managed to take a picture of Debbie Wilson’s ‘friend’ who was staying at her apartment.”

  The image on the screen was that of a woman in her thirties walking down a hallway. She was attractive with shoulder-length hair the color of chestnuts. Her body was fit, evidenced by the tight workout clothes she was wearing.

  Moreno said, “Is this the woman you saw leaving the motel?”

  My vision tunneled and my throat got tight. If that wasn’t the same person, it was her sister. The long, thin nose, the jutting jaw.

  I nodded.

  “You sure?”

  “Sure enough. Who is she?”

  “No idea. The apartment’s been vacated.”

  “Agent Cantrell?” The man in the dark suit stood at the foot of the bed. “Are you ready to begin your debriefing?”

  I didn’t reply. Too much going on in my concussed skull to answer that question right then.

  The man looked at Moreno. “We’ll need the room cleared for the interview.”

  Moreno stared at him for a moment and then left.

  - CHAPTER FIFTY -

  Three people in my room, sitting in folding chairs at the foot of my bed.

  The man in his fifties, Harris, an investigator with Homeland.

  A much younger guy in an ill-fitting gray suit. Operating a video recorder mounted on a tripod, the lens aimed at me.

  And a fortysomething woman dressed like Whitney Holbrook had been on the first day we’d met—dark skirt and matching jacket, white blouse, minimal makeup. She identified herself as an FBI agent, no name given. She was carrying a thick briefcase.

  Harris asked how I was feeling and then the basics—name, address, job description, et cetera. When he finished with the preliminaries, I said, “Tell me about Whitney Holbrook. How is she?”

  Harris and the FBI agent exchanged glances.

  “Agent Holbrook was wearing a bulletproof vest but took four rounds to the chest,” Harris said. “She fell off the deck when the guy in the chair exploded. Hit her noggin pretty hard.”

  The second blow to the head in only a few minutes.

  “I want to see her.”

  “Maybe later. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover right now.” He pulled a yellow pad from his briefcase. “Walk us through the day of the attack.”

  I told them everything that I remembered in as much detail as possible. Picking up Whitney at the motel. Going to breakfast at the diner. Eric Faulkner arriving.

  At the mention of Faulkner’s name, the FBI agent and Harris retreated to a corner of the room and had a whispered conversation. About a minute later, they returned and sat back down.

  Harris said, “Mr. Faulkner’s state of mind. Give me your impressions.”

  “He appeared agitated.”

  “Agitated how?”

  “Agitated that someone had almost killed one of his geese that lays the golden eggs.”

  “You’re referring to the attack on the Black Valley substation?” the FBI agent asked.

  “Does he have any other geese?” I said.

  They both stared at me, their expressions blank, uncomprehending.

  “Yes,” I said. “I was talking about the attack on Black Valley.”

  Harris scribbled some notes.

  The FBI agent said, “Did Faulkner give any hints that he might know who was responsible?”

  I pondered the question, remembering our conversation. After a moment, I said, “No. Not in the least.”

  Harris said, “Keep going. You finished breakfast and . . .”

  I continued. Whitney driving to San Saba. The two dead guards. The explosion of the towers. Whitney running the Suburban into the ditch, hitting her head. How I drove the rest of the way.

  Harris said, “How did you know to go to the lake house?”

  “A hunch.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Harris and the FBI agent glanced at each other. The guy running the video recorder fiddled with the settings.

  “You feel like talking about what happened next?” Harris asked. “We can take a break if you want.”

  “Let’s get it over with.”

  He nodded, and I told them about entering the house, seeing Price Anderson tied to a chair, encountering the two suspects—the small man in the skullcap and the guy with the crazy eyes. Whitney busting in right as my finger was tightening on the trigger.

  “Do you know an individual named Elias King?” Harris asked.

  I shook my head.

  “How about a man named Frank King?”

  “The guy from East Texas?” I asked. “The King of the Red River?”

  “Yeah.” Harris nodded. “That’s the one.”

  Everybody knew who Frank King was, one of the richest men in the state when he died. He’d amassed a fortune in real estate, timber, banking, and oil. Supposedly, he’d gotten his start after World War II running cigarettes and moonshine back and forth across the Arkansas state line.

  “I know who he was,” I said. “Most people in Texas do. But I never had any dealings with the man.”

  The FBI agent pulled a manila folder from her briefcase. The folder was the size of the Houston phone book, if there still was such a thing.

  “This is what the bureau has on Frank King,” she said. “A summary, actually. The files themselves take up two cabinets.”

  “So he was dirty,” I said.

  “Filthy.” She nodded. “A murderer and a thug. Whitewashed everything with money, became so-called le
git when he strong-armed his way into controlling a bank.”

  “The revolver that Alfie Washington shot you with,” Harris said. “It was used in several killings in northeast Texas in the 1970s and ’80s.”

  I remembered the e-mail from the Texas Rangers several days before, the message about the unsolved murder from 1991. Bowie County. A man who owned a bar and was believed to be involved in gambling and prostitution.

  The FBI agent continued. “Frank King was a suspect in all of them.”

  “No witnesses of course,” Harris said. “Because even as an old man, he ran that part of the world with an iron fist.”

  “So how did that same gun end up killing my deputy?”

  “Elias King was Frank’s grandson,” Harris said.

  “I’m not following.”

  “Elias was the second terrorist in the attack on San Saba,” Harris said. “The guy Whitney Holbrook shot on the deck of the lake house.”

  Crazy Eyes. With the thick black hair and the pointed nose.

  I could actually feel my jaw drop open.

  “Elias King was a felon,” he said. “Manslaughter. Killed a guy in a bar fight. Used a broken beer bottle on his throat.”

  “That makes no sense.” I shook my head. “The grandson of a mobster goes terrorist? How . . . why?”

  “Good question,” Harris said. “We’re still trying to connect the dots on that particular angle.”

  No one spoke for a few moments.

  “All the money in the world, trust funds out the ass.” The FBI agent looked out the window. “And he ends up a hood who likes to make shit go boom-boom.”

  “Maybe it’s genetic,” Harris said. “Who knows?”

  More silence. Harris and the FBI agent flipped through their respective yellow pads.

  “There’s an outlier in the bell curve, though,” I said.

  They looked at me.

  “So Frank King kills a bunch of people with that Python. Then his grandson inherits the weapon and gives it to Alfie Washington, who puts a couple rounds into my bulletproof vest.”

  Harris nodded.

  “My deputy’s killer had the same gun,” I said. “And a woman using the alias Debbie Wilson and/or SarahSmiles left the scene, got into a Buick LaCrosse.”

  The FBI agent sighed loudly.

  “I’ve been in law enforcement for almost twenty-five years,” I said. “I know the difference between a white woman in her thirties and a black cross-dresser barely out of high school.”

  The FBI agent began to pack up her stuff.

  “There was no woman, Cantrell.” Harris shook his head. “That case is closed. You need to move on.”

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE -

  Sarah watches the man get out of bed.

  He is in his twenties and naked. Fit as only someone that age can be. A flat belly, muscular arms ringed with tattoos that look like barbed wire, hair thick and brown.

  “Damn, lady.” He picks up his underwear from the floor. “You fuck like Jenna Jameson.”

  “You ever done it with a porn star?”

  He shakes his head. “But I’ve seen her plenty on the Internet.”

  Sarah crooks her index finger at him. “Come back to bed.”

  “I got work to do.” He steps into his boxer shorts.

  “I’ll give you the day off.” She giggles. “Then I’ll get you off.”

  The young man’s name is Ronnie or Donny; she can’t remember which. He’s an assistant manager for the landscape company Sarah’s husband has hired to redo one of the side yards.

  It is midmorning and they are in the master suite of the house on Strait Lane.

  Other than Walden, Sarah has never had an encounter at home before. But since the death of her brother and the closing of the investigation into the murder of the deputy—the man she knew briefly as RockyRoad35—she has loosened her rules.

  She is SarahSmiles after all. She is invincible.

  And more than a little tipsy, she realizes as she swings her legs out of the bed and picks up a hand mirror on the nightstand. A small mound of cocaine rests in the center of the mirror.

  She holds out the drugs. “You want one for the road?”

  The man stares at the coke, face indecisive. Finally he shakes his head.

  “That’s bad shit,” he says. “A little goes a long way.”

  Sarah chops up a line with her American Express Black Card, just a short one. She snorts it with a cocktail straw. A moment later, everything hums pleasantly.

  She puts the mirror down. Snakes one hand up the leg of Ronnie/Donny’s underwear, cups his balls.

  “You sure you don’t want to come back to bed?” She pouts.

  The man closes his eyes, sways a little.

  Sarah can feel him grow erect again. She smiles.

  After a moment, he pushes her hand away and steps back, reaching for his clothes on the sofa.

  “I told you. I gotta get back to work.”

  The AC is turned down low, and there’s a fire in the fireplace despite the temperature outside. The glow from the flames provides the only illumination in the room.

  Sarah stands. She is naked. In the mirror across the room, she sees her body glistening in the dim light.

  The yellowish-purple bruise on her arm from where the dyke hit her with the tire iron is nearly healed. She looks good and she knows it.

  “Aw, c’mon, Donny.” She steps toward him. “Just one more time. Then you can go back to work.”

  The man slips into his pants. “My name is Ronnie.”

  “Whatever.” Sarah rubs her nose. “Just get back in bed.”

  Ronnie puts on his shirt. Grabs shoes and socks from the floor.

  Sarah is incensed. The coke burns the back of her throat, and her stomach feels upset from the bottle of wine she’s had this morning.

  “If you don’t get back in bed, Ronnie/Donny or whatever the fuck your name is, I’ll have your ass fired so fast you’ll end up in another time zone.”

  Ronnie backs away from her, shoes in hand.

  Sarah is shaking. Anger clouds her vision. People don’t tell her no. She is her grandfather’s offspring; this lesson was learned at his knee.

  She flings open the drawer of her nightstand, grabs the Ruger.

  Ronnie says, “W-what the hell are you doing?”

  Sarah aims the gun at his chest but doesn’t answer. What is her plan? Is she going to rob him? Or just make him taste the fear?

  The young man jerks open the bedroom door and dashes out on bare feet, his shirt half buttoned.

  Sarah runs after him, naked, gun in hand.

  He disappears around a corner. Footsteps echo through the cavernous living room.

  Sarah stops. At the end of the hall, by the archway leading to the rest of the house, stand Rosa and Walden.

  Rosa is carrying a stack of towels. Walden is empty-handed. They both stare at her, mouths agape.

  Sarah lowers the Ruger. “What the hell are you two looking at?”

  Her voice is ragged, hoarse.

  Neither of her employees speaks.

  Sarah realizes she is completely naked. Her body is coated in sweat. She tastes blood in the back of her throat.

  She staggers back into the bedroom, slams the door and locks it.

  There’s more wine and more coke waiting for her, lots more.

  Fuck Rosa and fuck Walden and fuck Ronnie/Donny. She doesn’t need them or anybody. She is SarahSmiles. She sits on the bed and chops up another line, ignoring the tears streaming down her cheeks and the blood dripping from her nose.

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO -

  Harris, his FBI colleague, and their video-camera operator left.

  The doctor came in a few minutes later and said that if I promised to take it easy, he would release me
. I promised and went to take a shower.

  When I was finished, I put on a robe and exited the bathroom.

  The first thing I saw was the Texas Ranger, Moreno, sitting on the foot of my bed and holding Elizabeth, my daughter.

  “Crap,” I said. “The hallucinations are back.”

  “What are you talking about?” Piper was on the far side of the room.

  I blinked several times, swung my head back and forth between her and the child.

  “Your wife and I met in the hallway,” Moreno said.

  “We’re not married.” Piper stared out the window.

  Moreno patted my daughter’s knee. “Cute little kid you’ve got here.”

  “Yes, she is.” I took the child from Moreno’s lap, held her close. A feeling of peace and well-being came over me. Elizabeth squirmed and tried to grab my nose.

  “I got you some clothes.” Piper turned around, held up a paper sack. “And a gun.”

  My duty weapon was with the crime-scene techs investigating the shooting at the lake house.

  “You were here earlier,” I said. “I thought that was a dream. How’d you get past the guards?”

  “Really?” Piper rolled her eyes. “You’d ask me that?”

  I didn’t say anything. I should have known better.

  Piper Westlake was the most self-sufficient person I had ever met. She’d knowingly walked into firefights that would have left a Navy SEAL running the other way. Getting into a guarded hospital room was nothing, a stretching exercise before a race.

  She tossed the sack on the bed, and I handed her Elizabeth.

  “Cleo Fain,” Moreno said. “You know who that is?”

  “The serial killer.” I nodded.

  “She liked sorority girls, if I remember right,” Piper said. “There were a bunch of BOLOs out on her in the last year or so.”

  “You’re a cop, too?” Moreno said.

  “Dallas PD most recently.” Piper paused. “It’s complicated.”

  “What about Cleo Fain?” I said.

  “She’s in custody, a hospital in Dallas. Wants to make a deal in exchange for info on a woman who assaulted her on the side of the highway.”