Day of the Delphi

by Jon Land

  “I’ve got to see for myself.”

  Farlowe nodded reluctantly and tucked an arm over Kristen’s shoulder to lead her on. An ambulance had backed up to the river’s edge. Its rear door was open and two attendants were dragging a dolly across the rocky shoreline to where a black body bag lay. Two pairs of highway patrolmen looked on, overseeing the process emotionlessly.

  “Afternoon, Duncan,” one of them greeted when they saw Farlowe approach.

  Farlowe tipped his cap. The ambulance attendants were lifting the body bag up onto the dolly.

  “Mind if I have a look at that first?”

  One of the patrolmen nodded. The other looked at Kristen.

  “This might be a relative,” Farlowe explained.

  Kristen slid by Farlowe as one of the attendants unzipped the body bag a third of the way. She gasped, then sank to her knees on the wet rocks. Farlowe supported her from behind. She was wheezing. Her chest hammered as she heaved for breath.

  “David,” she cried. “Oh, God, David!”

  Farlowe nodded at the closer pair of highway patrolmen, who backed off a bit. One of the attendants had started to zip the bag up again when Kristen shot out a hand to his arm and stopped him.

  “No!” she screamed, pulling herself back to her feet. She grimaced as she moved closer to the corpse. She took a longer look this time and began trembling horribly. David’s face was blank and milk white. His eyes were bulging. His mouth hung grotesquely open and seemed twisted to the side.

  But worst of all was the top of his head. His scalp was dark and raw, missing all but a few stray patches of hair.

  “Look at him!” she heard herself scream. “Look at him!”

  That was the last thing she remembered clearly until she was back inside Grand Mesa’s municipal offices. A blanket Farlowe had draped across her shoulders did nothing to ease her shaking. Neither did the hot soup or coffee he made her drink. She had never felt this cold, thought her teeth might break from chattering so hard against each other.

  “You saw the body,” she said halfway through her second cup of coffee.

  “Let it go for a while, little lady.”

  But she couldn’t. “You saw the body.”

  He nodded.

  “H-h-how, how was he killed?”

  “I’m no expert.”

  “How?”

  Farlowe sighed and leaned his chair closer to hers. “Looks to me like he was shot.”

  “What happened to … his head?”

  Farlowe turned away slightly. “Could’ve been after they dropped him in the river. Fish could’ve got to him.”

  “No.”

  He looked her way again. “Little lady, I—”

  “Don’t hold back. Don’t hold anything back. I’ve got to know. Do you hear me? I’ve got to know!”

  Farlowe sighed deeply. “I think he was scalped.”

  Kristen felt faint. “Oh, my God …”

  The cup dropped from her hand and burst on the floor. Coffee splashed upward. Farlowe stopped her from falling, enveloped her in his embrace.

  “Easy now, easy.”

  But the pain had taken hold and wouldn’t let go, everything hitting her at once. Her brother was dead. She would never see him again. He had been murdered; no, more than murdered—violated. How could anyone have done this to him? How?

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Farlowe said softly. “I was wrong.”

  Kristen pulled back from his grasp, rage and resolve battling sorrow over her features. “No, you were right.”

  Farlowe’s eyes filled with concern. “Leave it be, little lady. Let the professionals sort everything out.”

  “I am a professional, Sheriff,” Kristen told him, “by Washington standards, anyway. My brother saw something at Miravo that got him killed. Miravo is Washington’s business.” She paused and held his stare. “And I’m making David’s murder mine.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The limousine deposited Samuel Jackson Dodd in front of the Grand Hyatt on H Street for his hastily called press conference Saturday afternoon. The press was getting used to these precision fits of fancy; every time there was something on Dodd’s mind, he’d summon them together. Originally only a few reporters had shown up, with no representatives from television among them. Now an hour’s notice was enough to pack a room, with all major networks represented.

  Dodd had thrown the limousine’s door open before it had come to a complete halt. He lunged out and approached the Hyatt entrance, leaving his private security detail to catch up. He glided through the door, a tall, elegant figure in a medium gray suit. He moved like a wide receiver in the open field, slipping by gawking onlookers with a handshake fast enough to make them wonder if they’d felt it. His face was an amazingly close likeness to the one pictured on brochure covers and picket signs all over the country. The ever-present smile exuded warmth and confidence. This man could do anything, in point of fact had done pretty much everything already.

  His security detail caught up in time to usher him down the first of three escalators, past a bubbling indoor fountain pool where a piano player worked the keys on an islet built into the center. Dodd hurried down the final two escalators to the Hyatt’s lowest level, where the press had squeezed itself inside the Franklin Square Room. Some of the participants from television were still setting up and turned their pace frantic when Dodd entered. Camera lights blazed. Video cameras whirled. Samuel Jackson Dodd strode to the front of the room, where a large-screen television and VCR were waiting.

  “There’s something I want you all to see,” he announced by way of introduction.

  Without further explanation, Dodd switched the VCR and television on and signaled for the room’s lights to be dimmed. Instantly a picture of screaming protesters filled the screen. They thrust picket signs high into the air, as they surged forward toward a closed gate fortified with riot police on the other side. The camera focused on one of the signs. It read simply LIFE!

  Dodd froze the VCR there and spoke again, his figure silhouetted eerily by the glow off the screen. “You know where this is, ladies and gentlemen? San Quentin Prison, where Billy Ray Polk is scheduled to be put to death at dawn tomorrow. The crowd you see here doesn’t want Billy Ray Polk to die. They say death by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.”

  Dodd’s tall figure moved a bit away from the screen’s glare.

  “Cruel and unusual punishment? Did you notice that no one was there to protest what he had done to those two boys? How he tortured them before he killed them, how they begged for their lives and then begged for him to kill them? And there are those in America who don’t want to see him killed. There are those in America who don’t care if no one speaks for those two boys and their rights.”

  Dodd drummed a fist before him in cadence with his words. “Well, I speak for them, and I speak for all the other victims of crimes that go unpunished because our judicial system can’t handle the backlog and police are too hamstrung to even guarantee the case will get that far. The system’s out of control. The system stinks.”

  A soft murmur moved through the crowd of reporters.

  “We’ve got the highest per capita crime rate in the world. Know why? Because somehow, somewhere along the way things got all twisted around in this country. We ended up caring more for the rights of the criminals than the rights of the victims. We’re losing the fight because we’re playing on the wrong side. Things have to change. We’ve got to make crime punishable. We’ve got to make it safe for people to go out of their houses again. The police can’t do it alone. We need a national militia to work alongside them, a federally charged and authorized force to break down the crack houses and break up the gangs.”

  “Mr. Dodd?” came a call from the near darkness of the press gallery.

  “Yes. Over there.”

  “It would seem, sir, that what you’re advocating runs counter to several amendments to the Constitution.”

  “Is that a question,
son?”

  “Only if you choose to respond.”

  “I do,” Dodd said, coming forward toward the questioner.

  “I know all about what the Constitution says and guarantees. I know all about the freedoms on which this country was founded. Like the freedom to be able to walk the street at night without being afraid. The freedom to send a child to school without a pusher on every other corner with his wares carried in a knapsack. Over ninety percent of the laws we live by are over a hundred years old. Laws for a different time, a different age. We need laws for this time, for this age, for today.”

  “Could you give us an example?” a female reporter asked him.

  Dodd moved her way. “We’ve got schools in this country where more guns are carried than lunches. I say a kid who gets caught with a gun should be sent away to a juvenile detention center for a year. No warnings. No second chances.”

  “What about the individual child’s rights?”

  “What about the rights of the other kids in the school?” Dodd shot back at his questioner.

  “Do you think this country has sufficient facilities to incarcerate the number of resulting offenders?”

  “My feeling, son, is that if these kids knew about the punishment in advance, they wouldn’t become offenders.”

  “All the same,” the reporter continued, “many of your platforms seem to advocate wholesale change.”

  “I’m advocating change where it’s needed. I’m advocating change before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” chimed in a new voice.

  “Too late for us who don’t want our society being dominated by the Billy Ray Polks. When are we gonna learn? When are we gonna stop fooling ourselves? This nation’s approaching free-fall and none of the people here in Washington seem to give enough of a damn to do anything about it.”

  “Why are you here?” from a young female reporter.

  “Ma’am?”

  “In Washington, I mean, Mr. Dodd. What brings you to the capital?”

  “I’m still trying to find somebody on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue to listen to what I’ve got to say.”

  The female reporter was still standing. “Are you preparing to run for president?”

  “The next election’s over two years away. I’m not sure the country can wait that long.”

  “What’s the alternative?” raised a network Washington correspondent.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” Dodd shot back, striding about the front of the room with fist pumping. “Better yet, let’s work it out together.” He stopped back at the television screen frozen with the picket sign reading LIFE. “We’ve got everything all screwed up and turned around in this country. For every person who’d hold this sign, there’s another hundred thousand who’d pull the switch on Billy Ray Polk. But where are they? Why do we never hear from them? Lots of them have even given up voting because they don’t believe it makes a difference anymore. People are frustrated. People are angry.”

  “What makes the picketers in front of San Quentin different from the ones who marched on the Capitol yesterday in support of you?” chimed in the voice of a male reporter.

  Dodd turned his way and stopped. The room became dead quiet, except for the whir of camera motor drives.

  “Plenty. The people who support me want to see this country built back up. These,” he said, thrusting an angry hand toward the frozen screen, “want to see it broken down even more than it is. And there’s lots of them out there, more than we can possibly realize. I’m talking about people who’ve just been looking for an excuse to bring this country down, son. I’ve seen them and I’ve felt them. A seamy underbelly that hates everything America is and stands for. They’re just waiting for their chance to do what they’ve always wanted to. And unless we shape up fast, we’re gonna give it to them.”

  A collective murmur slid through the crowd, the reporters wondering if the impenetrable Sam Jack Dodd had at last been caught committing a Perotism.

  “Are you talking about a revolution, sir?”

  “No, I’m talking about random violence,” said Dodd, recovering nicely. “I’m talking about the Los Angeles riots of ’92 on a national scale. Do you think the country is equipped to respond to that? Of course not. So what choice do we have other than to take steps to avoid it?”

  “By steps, you mean—”

  “I mean setting things right and setting them right now. We need a system that works. We need a country that works. No more gridlock. No more compromising principles in favor of politics.”

  “Spoken like a candidate for president, Mr. Dodd.”

  At that, Sam Jack Dodd flashed the famous boyish grin that had become his trademark. “Too bad this isn’t an election year, son, isn’t it?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Yeah, I remember him,” the Gainesville, Texas deputy told Johnny Wareagle late Saturday afternoon.

  Johnny took the picture of Will Shortfeather back from his outstretched hand.

  “He was here about two weeks ago, stirring up a nest of unpleasant memories,” the deputy continued, the tone of his voice indicating he was in no mood to rehash them either. “Was another deputy who talked to him.”

  “He came to ask about a man named Traggeo.”

  The deputy nodded.

  “What happened in your town? What did Traggeo do here?”

  “Was a little over a year ago. Got into a fight with four men in our local bar,” the deputy explained. “It didn’t last long. One of them’s dead. Two are still in the hospital. One of ’em be lucky if he keeps one of his eyes. The other can’t talk anymore on account of something happened to his throat. And the thing is they were tough guys, toughest this town had to offer anyway. It was almost like your friend knew that, like he went looking for them.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “But you know him.”

  “I … know him.”

  “And what he did don’t surprise you.”

  “No.”

  The deputy looked angry. “Your friend picked the fight. Four on one and he started it. Witnesses claim he was drunk.”

  “That was probably the only thing that kept him from killing all of them.”

  The deputy eyed Johnny briefly before resuming. “Somebody cracked him over the head with a bottle. Me and two other deputies get there and he’s still doing damage. Bar was closed for over a week to handle the repairs. We walk in and he’s got his hands on the head of the guy he almost blinded and is tearing at his hair, like he’s trying to rip off his scalp. Whooping it up the whole time. I think he was smiling.” The deputy’s gaze became one of suspicion. “He’s one of you, isn’t he, an Indian?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Looked it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “We drew our guns, told him to get his hands up. When he didn’t, I shot him in the shoulder. Slowed him down enough for us to get the cuffs on him. Son of a bitch pleabargained the charges down to manslaughter two or something, self-defense. Accepted the five years. He smiled through that, too.”

  “You mean he’s in jail?”

  “Huntsville State Penitentiary, far as I know, with four more years left on his sentence.”

  McCracken shifted uneasily in his seat. Just over a day had passed since he had left Miami, and now, thanks to the files found in Bill Carlisle’s locker and information uncovered by Sal Belamo, he was on his way back.

  “Any luck finding Johnny?” Blaine had asked Sal at the outset of that conversation.

  “Nothing, boss. Seems to have made himself scarce, and that’s no easy trick for the big fella. You ask me, boss, what you’re after down there, be a good idea I come along in his place.”

  “Love to have you, Sal, but I need you to track down H. William Carlisle again, and my feeling is that he won’t be as easy to find this time.”

  “Why’s it so important we find him?”

  “Because some of the files marked with yellow roses stretch
up to 1980, even though Carlisle supposedly dropped out in 1978. Makes me think he may have decided to stick around for a while, after all, at least on the periphery. That means Carlisle might know a hell of a lot more than he told me about who’s going after the government.”

  “Got something here that might help in that regard,” Belamo followed. “I just got a make on two sets of those prints you faxed me from Miami of the shooters at Cocowalk. Belonged to a couple of big old bad dudes who were part of a group called the Midnight Riders way back in the sixties. Ever hear of them?”

  “I wasn’t around much in the sixties, Sal.”

  “You didn’t miss much, let me tell you. Anyway, the Midnight Riders were made up of nuts even the Weather Underground and Students for a Democratic Society couldn’t control, what became known as the lunatic fringe. The Riders advocated a full-scale revolution. Enough people listened to keep gas in their engines. Their leader was one very mean bastard named Arlo Cleese.”

  “Cleese … His file was one of those inside the locker, Sal, yellow rose and all.”

  “Just the kind of dude Carlisle’s committee and the Trilat would have loved to see out of the way.”

  “Only they couldn’t pull Yellow Rose off, and now maybe Cleese is back with a vengeance. Fits right into what Daniels hinted at and Bill Carlisle alluded to.”

  “Say Cleese has been buying his gear from the Alvarezes, boss,” Belamo picked up. “Sounds like you showed up at the Coconut Grove when he was trying to cover his trail.”

  “But he left me with a trail to follow in the process, didn’t he? Tap into Alvarez’s line and maybe I can trace the arms shipments that went Cleese’s way. Follow them all the way to the top.”

  To accomplish that Blaine was returning to Miami to retrace the steps that had led him first to Vincente Ventanna and then to Carlos Alvarez at Cocowalk in the minutes prior to the battle that had virtually destroyed the mall.

  “Can I get you something to drink, sir?”

  “Club soda,” McCracken said to the stewardess in the A-300 Airbus’s first-class section. “With a twist.”

  She smiled and moved back toward the galley.