An Absence of Principal

by Jimmy Patterson

  Don’t I know, Alex thought to herself.

  “Thanks, Gimp. I don’t imagine I’ll be going anywhere for awhile. Thank you again for the ride.”

  “Good day, ma’am,” he said, and drove off toward the Wal-mart a block away from Alex’s apartment. “I’ll be right over there unloading if you need anything else?”

  She walked toward her apartment and noticed immediately it was not as she had left the week before. A front pane of glass had been shattered and the lock on her front door had obviously been tampered with.

  She pushed the door open and walked in with a touch of fear. She did have a gun, and that helped some. Her laptop was gone, and her desk and dresser had been rifled through. In the back corner of her bedroom, which had been otherwise untouched by the intruders, sat a box she had not seen before. She walked to it, kicked off the lid with her foot and inside found something that sent cold chills up and down her spine. Two kilos of cocaine. Written on the side, La Familia de Puente, Aguileres, Argentina. It was the same two kilos she had seen in the back of the truck only hours earlier.

  Whoever was on to her was close. Again. She heard a sound from the front of the apartment and turned in time to see a large man running from her front door. Alex ran to the door for a better look. He was Mexican American. Probably six feet tall, maybe 200 pounds. Big man. She figured she could catch up to him with no trouble but also felt far too drained to take on any new comers at this particular moment. He was so big he could easily overpower her if given the chance. She took off running toward him anyway. As she headed his direction she passed her next door neighbor’s apartment. She took a hurried look inside as she flew by the open door and noticed Michelle, her busy-body friend who had helped her determine someone had been in her apartment after she left to catch her flight to Tulsa. She was lying in a heap on the floor. Alex stopped and ran to her neighbor. She was unconscious. Barely breathing.

  “Michelle. Sweetie. Wake up! Wake up, Michelle! Who did this to you?”

  Michelle was unresponsive. Alex felt for a pulse. It was strong. She had apparently been struck with a good bit of force, but she would live.

  “Michelle! Wake up, sweetie! Who was in here?”

  Michelle began to move sluggishly, groaning and moving her head slowly from side to side. She jumped when she realized someone was holding her. She lashed out, fearing that whoever had hold of her was the person who had tried to kill her.

  “It’s me. Alex. You’re OK? I’ve got you. You’re safe. Who did this to you?”

  “Don’t know. Large Mexican American man. Never seen him before,” Michelle said, struggling to get each word out.

  Alex found Michelle’s cell and called 911, asking for an ambulance and police. The first responders were there in a matter of minutes.

  Lt. David Wheaton, a career Midland cop who had worked his way up from the street to narcotics and finally to lieutenant, was the first officer on the scene. He had never been able to shake free of the thrill of patrol work, and the adrenaline surge that came with moments like these. And he had never gotten over his desire to nab anyone and everyone that had anything to do with narcotics. Cocaine had killed his son, and his daughter was in jail on a methamphetamine possession charge. The same daughter had been three years into a business degree at Texas Tech, happened upon a meth party one night and instantly became addicted. Wheaton was a lot like Alex: he would singlehandedly stop drug traffic in America if he could figure out how.

  Alex explained to the lieutenant what she had been through the last two weeks and in particular the last 48 hours. She desperately needed to get to the courthouse to fill Trask in on all the details.

  Sensing that she was near exhaustion, he told her to go home and clean up, have a cup of coffee, and he’d run her to Trask’s office, or the courthouse, wherever he happened to be.

  “There have been some new developments since you’ve been gone,” Wheaton said. “Doggett was found in Tulsa last night and transported back to Midland by the Sheriff’s Office. He admitted to squealing on Nail with zero evidence, but he also said he didn’t kill Walker. The lawyers have been sorting through it all. Word is, Halfmann just declared a mistrial first thing this morning. Doggett is the same guy who was on all the front pages about nine months ago as being the most honored educator in Midland went through some sort of crisis and he became involved in the narco trade to try to win back some of the family’s money he’d gambled away and spent on a side sweetie. Hooked up with some scum down in South Midland who had ties to Walker. Cootie, they called him.”

  “Did Cootie kill Junior?”

  “Don’t know. May never know. My men went over to pick him up yesterday. He’d been shot, execution style.”

  Alex looked out the window of Michelle’s apartment, deep in thought.

  “That’s it,” she said.

  “What’s it?”

  “Coogan Goodley. Cootie. He didn’t kill Junior Walker. He just got in the way,” Alex said.

  “Then who did?” Wheaton asked her.

  “My husband.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Alex hopped in a quick shower to pull herself together before making her way to Trask’s office with news of what had happened in her absence. A Midland police officer stood outside Alex’s door. She dressed and threw on a quick makeup job, grabbed her purse and tossed in a cell phone she absent-mindedly grabbed, that had been sitting on her vanity.

  “Ready?” the police officer politely said to Alex as she walked out the front door. Alex nodded and was escorted to the squad car by the officer.

  Five minutes later she was at Trask’s office across the street from the Midland County Courthouse. Having been indisposed for the last several days, she wasn’t sure what the day’s schedule held for her boss, who was both relieved and exhilarated to see her when she walked into the office.

  “As I live and breathe,” Trask said. “What on earth happened to you? Are you all right?” Trask noticed her bruises and the self-made sling that held her injured arm.

  Alex gave Trask the condensed version of what she had been through in the last several days. Even so, he was incredulous, in near total disbelief, but even more so he was amazed that Alex was still alive.

  “Who do you think killed Junior Walker?” Trask asked her.

  For the first time to Trask, Alex insinuated her husband in the killing.

  “What kind of evidence do you have?”

  “Right now I’m afraid mostly it’s just supposition, but I’ll piece it together before long,” Alex assured him.

  “We’ve got to have more than a hunch, even a good one,” Garrison said.

  “Isn’t that why OPD pulled over and arrested Tony Nail? Because they thought he did it after Doggett’s bogus implication?” she said.

  “Doggett is back, by the way,” Trask said. “Came clean. Had a redemption moment. Admitted he set Tony up, admitted his gambling addiction, his affair, his doing a drug deal with Junior Walker and Coogan Goodley. But he swears he had nothing to do with Walker’s death. And we know he didn’t have anything to do with Goodley’s death because Goodley was found dead last night while Doggett was in protective custody. So …”

  “Wait,” Alex said.

  “What is it?” Trask asked.

  “Nail was in custody, too. Both of them were locked up when Goodley turned up dead, right?”

  “Yeah, but it coulda been any number of scumbags who offed Goodley. He was a street dealer.”

  “Yes, but these guys play by a different set of rules than you and I,” Alex said. “Goodley worked for Walker, right? Now both of them are dead. Whoever Walker worked for didn’t get his sixty grand from Doggett. Doggett kept the money and has even turned it over. But Doggett maintains his innocence in Walker’s murder. So now Goodley turns up dead and Doggett is in protective custody which to me
clears Doggett in Walker’s death.”

  “Why?” Trask asked. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Two weeks ago I was kidnapped and in the last forty-eight hours someone has tried to kill me twice. My husband has been involved in both of those attempts. He knows I was on the path of the cocaine, and when I left home, he was not a happy man, Garrison.”

  “Keep going,” Trask said.

  “I had always questioned his business principles, even before our marriage started to go bad,” Alex said. “In the weeks before I left, he made some business decisions that were ethically questionable at best. I looked at the phone bill before I left the house to go to Argentina. There were three pages of calls to and from a cell number that I traced to Juarez.”

  “But that doesn’t implicate him in Junior Walker’s murder. Why would he kill Junior Walker?”

  “Pierce was Walker’s boss.”

  “Too small-world scenario, Alex. Impossible.”

  “Most all of the drug traffic into and out of Midland-Odessa originates in Juarez.”

  “But there are hundreds of narco-terrorists and their henchmen in Juarez. How can it be that your husband is the one responsible for Walker’s death?”

  Alex excused herself and reached for the phone in her purse, realizing before she answered it that it wasn’t her phone; her phone was out in the middle of the Far West Texas desert somewhere.

  “Yes?” she said as she opened the phone.

  A chill went through her as an instantly recognizable voice sounded on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m a little concerned about our daughter,” Pierce said.

  Tears filled Alex’s eyes.

  “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

  The phone went dead.

  “Pierce?”

  From his office in downtown Fort Worth, Pierce Wallace nodded and the two large men picked up the little girl and headed to the roof of the First National Bank. The two men and the little girl boarded a helicopter bound for a remote area of Taylor County. Wallace used his phone camera to capture his daughter being whisked away on one of the choppers. It was a video that might come in handy soon enough.

  Five minutes later, a second helicopter with Pierce Wallace would follow.

  Within an hour, the two military-grade helicopters touched down softly amid the brambles and mesquite north of Abilene.

  The little girl was hurried off safely, carried into a spacious ranch house and nestled onto a couch in a large living area. The ranch house belonged to Pierce. It was one of several that made up his empire, an empire assembled by dirty money collected through killings, narcotics deals, prostitution, and his interest in a small casino in Southeast New Mexico.

  Wallace had so many of these real estate holdings that it would be literally impossible for Alex to investigate where her daughter was, even if Pierce gave her a hint. His Taylor County ranch was the largest of his holdings, but he also had ranch land in Midland, Scurry, Mitchell, Glasscock, Tom Green and Runnels counties. Wallace was a child of West Texas. That he had grown to own property in seven of its counties was a dream since he was young.

  An hour after his helicopter landed, he set in motion the next phase of his plan.

  “E…l b…o…l…e…r…o,” he texted the cell phone that had been left on Alex’s vanity in her apartment, and that she was now carrying.

  It was all a game to Pierce. Since his wife had made the decision to leave him, he wanted to join in on the fun. He had the resources to do it, and he was just angry enough with her to make her life miserable. With his contacts, he played her like a shell game, moving his men around, scaring her but never intentionally hurting her, and making her just suspicious enough to keep her on her toes. The way Pierce saw it, he was keeping her alert and constantly on the lookout for trouble that was sure to come. That’s at least the way he justified his sick game.

  That’s the way Pierce’s grand plan began — simply enough. She had angered him, sure, but he never wanted her dead — until she had outwitted him one too many times; until she had survived and not come crawling back to him, pleading for his protection. Had he known she had been raped in a box car in Central Mexico, he would have never approved and would have likely ordered the offender be killed for his actions.

  When Alex was still a step or two ahead of him following her kidnap, Pierce’s anger was cranked up several notches. He didn’t like the idea of being outwitted by a woman. Much less by his wife. Before he knew it, his deadly game turned into an obsession to kill her. She had caused enough trouble and he was done with her. When Alex survived a kidnapping and two direct attempts on her life, taking out three of his men in the process, just killing her was no longer enough to satisfy his sick end game.

  His “el bolero” text was followed by a more menacing message: “Come alone. Or the kid dies.”

  When Trask returned to his office following a conference with Midkiff and Halfmann about the latest information on Pierce Wallace and the death of Coogan Goodley, he found Alex sitting in his office, a blank stare on her face. He had begun to doubt her objectives again only moments earlier. What sane woman would care anything about tracing the travels of two kilograms of cocaine? Why would anyone put their life on the line like that, and leave behind a young daughter? Trask was not just confused. He was beyond skepticism. He was about to begin officially grilling her, and she had very little wiggle room left.

  “Alex, your story, leaving your daughter, your husband, your life, to chase some cocaine around the most dangerous parts of the world, only to end up in my office to help me in a case that it’s increasingly apparent that you knew about all along … I’m having some trouble with all this. I hope you can clear up my confusion.”

  “My husband is a bad man, Garrison. And I don’t blame you for having suspicions about me,” Alex said, holding up the cell phone for Trask to see. “He just texted me on this phone that I guess he had someone leave when my apartment was broken into. Now I know why he left it. He knew I would be without one, if by chance I survived, but he still wanted to have contact with me.”

  Garrison had by now become as skeptical as he could be.

  “He’s taken our daughter to one of his ranch estates. El Bolero, he calls it. It’s in Taylor County somewhere near Abilene. When I get back, I’ll explain everything to you. I’m not sure if everything is clear to me even, but I will do my best to sort this all out for you and for the authorities.”

  Alex was shaking as she gave Trask the information. She had barely been back in Midland for an hour.

  “We have a lot of resources available to us. Whatever you need—”

  Trask’s cell phone rang and he looked down to see the call was coming from Judge Halfmann’s office.

  “I have to take this, hold on; we’ll figure this out,” he turned to the phone. “Hello?”

  “Garrison, Judge Halfmann here,” he said. “Just got a phone call from Midland police. They just found a suicide note in Coogan Goodley’s apartment.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “We have to get some law enforcement help to Taylor County. Fast,” Trask said, the note of urgency in his voice obvious.

  “What do you have for me?” Sheriff Trainor asked.

  “Alex just got a phone call,” Trask said. “Pierce Wallace has taken their daughter to one of his ranch houses, a place they named El Bolero, in Taylor County. She didn’t say any more, just left. I’m sure she’s headed there now.”

  “I’ll make a couple of calls, see if we can find out where Wallace’s place is. That’s big country. Lots of ranchers. But good law enforcement people. They’ll know something.”

  Two hours later, Alex pulled off the Anson Highway north of Abilene and made the 15-mile trek down the dirt road to El Bolero. It was as remote a location as anything she had seen this side of th
e border. That’s the way Pierce wanted it. Alex figured the farther out he thought he was, the longer it would take law enforcement to find him. It would give him that much more time to fortify his surroundings in case of a threat.

  She shut the car door and walked to the front of the house slowly. Alone. Just like Pierce had demanded in his text. The one he sent with the video of Carly being loaded inside one of his helicopters.

  Suddenly, the front door flew open and out ran her daughter.

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” the girl screamed. It had been too long since the two had seen each other.

  Pierce followed the little girl out the door. He did not exhibit nearly the same level of excitement when he saw Alex. The look on his face said it all.

  “Welcome,” he said, bitterness hanging from his voice. “Please, come in.”

  Alex thought momentarily about turning and running away with her Carly and driving to safety. The two of them could be in the car in seconds. But Alex knew safety wasn’t that easy. Pierce was probably armed and he had the place covered with his narco-terrorist killers who were trained down on her, awaiting their boss’s nod. The only choice with which she was left was to go inside the house as he welcomed her.

  It just appeared that Pierce was the only other person at El Bolero that day. But Alex knew he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be so careless. She was armed with a service revolver and he knew that. There were men at the ranch house hiding. Inside and out.

  Pierce snapped his fingers and out walked one of his men. He was a big, bronze-skinned man, and he stood at the ready.

  “Take the child, will you Juan Roberto? Put her in her playroom, and keep an eye on her. If she needs anything, get it. If I need anything from you, I’ll let you know.”

  It was all Alex could do to not jump up out of her chair. She was mortified at the thought that one of her husband’s amoral thugs was with her daughter.