At the fireplace, she bent down to check it out. Somehow, a couple of logs were intact inside. They looked real—not the fake kind. She touched one. Real. She guessed the stones had protected the logs. The irony was the one thing that should have burned in the house didn’t while the rest around it did struck her. As she started to pull her hand away, her fingertips brushed the bottom, encountering a ridge.
She wiped the thin layer of ash away, noting the disturbed concrete. Taking the logs from the low grate, she then removed the concrete and realized something was wrong. This wasn’t a normal bottom of a fireplace. Sweeping more ashes away, she revealed loose blocks. After she pried the nearest one up, a safe lay beneath the fireplace flooring.
Five minutes later, she placed a call to the station to inform the chief. One of Officer Hudson’s skills was his ability to open most anything. She hoped he could do this. Why would Ruiz hide something in his fireplace in a safe?
While she waited, she turned from the fireplace and scanned the street. She kept coming back to the three murders in four days. Instinct told her they were somehow connected. But Jane Doe was up close and personal—somehow directed at the unborn child. The second, Ruiz, was up close and personal, but the torture meant so much more. Did the murderer want information or to make Ruiz pay for something? The third was what seemed out of the ordinary. From hundreds of yards away. If it was the same killer, why that method? Was there a reason he didn’t want Carlos to know who was murdering him? It couldn’t be fear. Ruiz, a suspected coyote, was a scary man to cross. Carlos was by all appearances an ordinary person, and if she believed his cousin, not into anything illegal like Ruiz.
There were too many questions and not any answers. Her insides twisted into a knot of frustration. Three days ago she’d been standing here, trying to figure out the same things. Who had the nerve to murder a man like Victor Ruiz? From what they were uncovering about Ruiz, few liked the man but even fewer would have tried to kill him because of his reputation for ruthlessness. Was there someone even more dangerous who had moved into the town?
When Officer Hudson arrived, he went to work on the safe. In due time, he succeeded in opening it. He and Liliana stared down at stacks of one hundred dollar bills—lots of stacks. On top of them was a small ledger.
“This answers what Ruiz was living on,” she murmured and picked up the pad.
“Does that tell you how he got so much money?” Officer Hudson asked as he withdrew the twelve bundles of money— each stack probably ten thousand dollars.
Liliana whistled. “Whatever he was doing, he was doing well.” Flipping the ledger open, she scanned the dates, names, and numbers. One stood out: March 23rd, Crip, $5,000. The day Jane Doe was found.
After a frustrating day getting nowhere on the cases, Cody relished the feel of his horse beneath him. Although he wanted to check out what happened to Carlos’s ten cows—a nagging feeling it was connected somehow to what was going on in Durango—he needed this ride. There was something rejuvenating about being on his gelding in the early morning before the heat built up. He didn’t get to do this nearly enough.
Cody examined the ground then looked back at the small herd grazing not far away in the enclosed field. “Where did the cows get out? This looks intact.”
“Carlos probably repaired the fence,” Liliana said.
“But there are still ten cows gone from the herd. You said Flores had forty cows before his heart attack. Now he has thirty.”
“I know. He didn’t know about where those cows went. I plan on bringing Miguel in to interview again.”
“What if Carlos sold the ten cows for money?”
“Another question is did Carlos see the lights in the field like Señor Flores did? He thought it was kids fooling around. What if it wasn’t? Something else is going on?”
Cody pulled back on his reins and hopped down from his gelding. “I think I know how they are getting out. This is a gate. Not obvious but all a person has to do is unhook the barbwire and the cows or anything else can go through.” Cody pointed to the ground. “See all the tracks here.” He opened the “gate” and swept his gaze over the ground on the other side of the fence. “Obviously this is how the cows left. Let’s see where the tracks lead to. Maybe we’ll find some of the cattle.”
“That was months ago.”
“Maybe. He said only a few cattle were gone. That’s not ten. So something must have happened in between then and now.”
“Who opened this gate?
“Maybe the tracks will lead us to the person.” Cody mounted his gelding.
“You just want to ride your horse.”
He tipped his hat then spurred his mount through the gate. “Yep, ma’am.”
“How about closing this—gate?”
“Go ahead.” Cody slowed his horse and focused his gaze on the ground before him.
Liliana hooked the barbwire back in place and closed the distance between her and Cody in a gallop. “What did you find?”
“Besides tracks from more than a few cattle—feed. Not much but even a little is strange here.”
“Like someone was throwing down a trail for them to follow?”
“Exactly.”
By a stream on the other side, Cody found more feed. He frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Liliana asked.
“The cattle stopped here and fed, but some of them— three—went off this way.” He pointed toward the south. “Let’s go that way.”
“I talked to the ICE agent this morning before we left. Nothing so far on the ID of our Jane Doe.”
“She may not be from Mexico. Just because she wasn’t in any of our databases doesn’t mean she isn’t a U.S. citizen.” Cody pulled back on his reins and studied the hard ground.
“True, but even the face recognition program hasn’t turned up anything in our system, and there hasn’t been a missing person’s report filed for a woman who fits Jane Doe’s description.”
“Sometimes that happens.”
“Sad that no one is missing this woman. Who was the father of her baby? Why hasn’t he come forward?”
“Do you think there’s a connection between Carlos and Jane Doe? Does Victor Ruiz fit in to their murders somehow?” Cody set his gelding in a steady walk as they trailed the hoofprints of some cows from Carlos’s property.
“I haven’t found an obvious connection between Ruiz and Carlos.”
“So let’s start looking for a less obvious one.”
“Who is Carlos Salazar? What do we know about the man?
“Only what Miguel has told us. Very little. I’m having Officer Hudson see what he can track down in New Mexico.” Liliana guided her mare through the opening in the rocks that led into a narrow canyon adjacent to Carlos’s ranch.
Cody followed her through. “Whose land is this? Part of Cesar Álvarez’s ranch?”
“Without a map, I’m not sure, but I think so.” A film of perspiration coated her forehead. She removed her cowboy hat and ran the back of her hand across her brow.
“Hey, I think I see some cows halfway down this canyon.” Cody set his gelding into a gallop.
Liliana scanned the cliffs hemming them in. Goosebumps flashed up her arms and encompassed her whole body even though the sun had baked the landscape in hot temperatures, unusual for the last few days of March.
She increased her mare’s gait until she caught up with Cody ten yards from three cows grazing on some lush vegetation ringing a spring. “No wonder they didn’t come home. They found food, water, and freedom.”
“I’m not sure freedom means that much to them, but food and water are important. And we still don’t know how they got out.”
“Why didn’t Carlos let someone know he was losing cattle?”
“There are some in Durango who would rather not approach the police—they take care of problems themselves.”
“Like Mr. Martinez?”
“Yes. The other day when I tried to interview the children again, Mrs. Marti
nez sat between them with her arms around each one. If they started to say something, she pressed them close to her. Both Maria and Pedro couldn’t remember anything.”
Cody took his hat off and waved it at the cattle, using his horse to urge them toward the canyon opening. “I’ve encountered that before. Don’t people realize we’re here to help them—protect them?”
“That hasn’t always been the case in some of these people’s lives. They have discovered street justice often works better than the judicial court system.” Liliana helped in keeping the cattle moving forward. Goosebumps still covered her. She didn’t like this place.
Cody came to a halt at the end of the canyon and twisted around in the saddle to stare back the way they came. “I did discover there is a cartel in Mexico with the evil eye as its symbol. It’s meant to strike fear in the people who encounter it. They wear a tattoo on their right forearm. The problem is that that cartel isn’t one in northern Mexico. At least not yet.”
“Another player in the game? Great.” After having two tires slashed a couple of days ago, Liliana couldn’t shake the sensation she was being watched. She rubbed her hand up her left arm, forcibly trying to rid herself of the goosebumps. The chill clung to her like the sweat to her forehead earlier.
“It seems we have more questions than answers.”
“I’ll be interested in seeing what that whole letter from Anna said. What little I could read at the crime scene indicated a love letter, but Miguel didn’t say anything to us about a love interest for Carlos. If they were so close, you would think Miguel would know that. In fact, he couldn’t tell us anything about an Anna in Carlos’s life.”
“The more we discover, the more I think Miguel isn’t telling us everything.”
“Which warrants us bringing him back down to the station.” Liliana spurred her mare faster. There was something about the box canyon that had given her the creeps.
Lunch in hand, Kyle spied an empty table in the courtyard at the high school and hurried toward it. After taking a seat, he dug into his pizza, starved because he’d dragged his feet getting dressed, missed breakfast, and literally had to run to catch the school bus. A quick survey of the area reinforced his anger at his dad. Mostly unfamiliar kids were clustered in small groups talking with one another. Seeing a few familiar ones from his classes, all engrossed in their friends, churned his feeling of loneliness.
I hate Durango. I hate this school. I hate my dad.
He fumbled in his backpack and pulled out his notebook. When he opened it, he saw the calendar for March. He put an X through Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Three days down and too many to go. The twenty-ninth on the page mocked him. School didn’t end for two months.
“Hi.” Manny, the office aide from Monday, sat across from him. “I saw you by yourself over here and thought I’d come invite you to join us.”
“Us?” His anger at his situation still coursing through him, Kyle gripped his pencil.
“It’s not easy being the new kid.” Manny tossed his head toward a group of six students a couple of tables away.
A white teen from his English class waved. The others looked like a gathering of the United Nations. Kyle stuffed his notebook into his backpack and rose. “Sorry. I’ve still got to go to the library.” Taking a huge bite of his pizza, he started for the large trash can and tossed the half-eaten lunch into it.
As he walked away from Manny, he sensed gazes boring into his back. He found a quiet place, leaned against the brick wall, and began texting a friend in Houston. He’d better not be stuck here too long. Somehow, he had to get back to Houston and civilization.
“I saw you blow off Manny back there.”
Kyle lifted his head, ready to defend himself if he needed to. His hand clenched around his cell phone as he stared into the face of a guy in his history class. “You’re Aaron.”
“Yep. I tried to get you after class to see if you wanted to eat with me and the guys, but you were gone.”
“Hungry. Didn’t want to spend all my time standing in line waiting for something to eat.”
“You threw most of your pizza away.”
“Guess I lost my appetite.”
“Know what you mean. Manny can do that to me. Don’t care for him and his buddies. Why don’t you join us?”
Kyle looked around and didn’t see anyone except a group of girls by the doors going into the building. “Where?”
Aaron walked in the opposite direction from the doors, gesturing back at Kyle who still leaned against the wall. “This way. Our own private place.”
Around the corner and behind some tall bushes stood a small gathering of four others besides Aaron—all white. When Kyle saw the teens, he sighed. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he found a few friends until he returned to Houston. One way or another he would be going back there before school started next year.
I paced from one end of my living room to the other. I don’t like the fact a little girl saw me kill Anna. So that noise I heard wasn’t the wind blowing through the open window. It was Maria Martinez.
What to do?
I can’t hurt her. She’s innocent. So far she doesn’t remember anything. She probably didn’t see my face. I had my hat on.
But what if she does start remembering something important? What do I do?
I’ll decide that if it happens. The police have no idea who killed those people. I want to keep it that way. I have work to do in Durango.
I’m still in control.
Early Friday, Liliana sat across from Miguel, who drummed his fingers on the top of the table in the interview room. Studying some notes to give him some time to stew, she pulled her own thoughts together about how she would handle this questioning. She’d discovered Miguel had volunteered to go to San Antonio for his boss on Tuesday and then Wednesday and Thursday he’d taken off to arrange Carlos’s burial in Mexico where the family was from originally. She’d been at his house first thing this morning to make sure he didn’t disappear again today.
She’d only had one cup of coffee. Taking a sip of her caffeine-laden drink, she looked up at Miguel. “Why didn’t you tell us about the missing cattle at Carlos’s?”
“What’s there to tell? A few wander off from time to time.”
“Did Carlos ever tell you about seeing lights in the field behind his house at night?”
“No,” he clipped out, his fingers striking the table moving faster.
The sound distracted her for a moment after spending a restless night trying to sleep. But the three murders kept flying through her mind like a ping-pong ball in a fierce game. “Did he ever have to fix the fence?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me the day-to-day activities he did at the ranch.”
“What did he talk about? You two were friends, cousins.”
Miguel ceased his drumming and slid his hand off the table. “Just guy stuff. Nothing important.”
“Why didn’t you tell Señor Flores about the missing cattle?”
“In case you don’t know, he isn’t doing too well. I didn’t want to give him anything to be concerned about. It happened a couple of times. Cows are dumb animals. They don’t always want to stay where you want them to. What’s missing cattle have to do with Carlos’s murder?”
“Maybe someone was shopping for his dinner and taking one from time to time. Maybe Carlos caught him and the man killed him. We can’t rule anything unusual out.”
Miguel snorted. “It was a few cattle. Certainly nothing to kill him over.”
“I’ve seen people kill for less.” Liliana spread the re-created letter from Anna that the state lab had faxed to Cody out on the table before Miguel. “Tell us about Anna.”
The third victim’s cousin stared at the sheet then raised his head. “Anna? We’ve been over this the other day. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
She studied the man for a long moment, almost ready to believe him except that his eye twitched, then his gaze slid away to a spot behi
nd Liliana. “You don’t know anything about Carlos having a girlfriend?”
“My cousin dated many women. I guess one could have been called Anna. And that lady could have written him a letter.” He centered his full attention on her. “Is this why you had to see me again? A woman? What’s she got to do with Carlos’s murder?”
“We don’t know if she has anything to do with it, but this is a copy of a letter found on Carlos when he was shot. We want to get a good picture of the man who was murdered. It helps us find his killer. You want us to find his killer, don’t you?”
“Sí.”
“Carlos never mentioned anyone named Anna?”
Miguel shrugged. “Not that I recall.”
“When we checked out Carlos’s house, it looked like he was expecting to entertain. Who? Anna? You? Someone else?”
Miguel’s mouth tightened. “Who’s standing behind that mirror?” He pointed to the two-way one behind Liliana.
“Ranger Jackson.”
“I feel like I’m the criminal here. Carlos was familia. We were like hermanos.” Miguel rose. “So unless you’re going to charge me with something, my lunch hour is over and I need to get back to work.”
“So Carlos never mentioned anyone named Anna?”
Her question halted the man reaching for the handle. “I thought I already answered that earlier.” Anger reinforced each word with steel.
“Just checking for the record, because if we discover you lied in a murder investigation, charges could be brought against you.”
Both of his dark bushy eyebrows shot up. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Anna is a common name. I guess Carlos could have mentioned someone by that name. He talked about a lot of women. He’s a ladies’ man.”
“Okay. Then write down the names of the women you remember him talking about.” Liliana slid a sheet of paper toward the end of the table near Miguel.
He glared at it then made a production out of checking the clock on the wall. “You going to pay me for lost wages?”
Shattered Silence: Men of the Texas Rangers Series #2 Page 10