Cowboy Justice cc-2

by Melissa Cutler

  Whether or not Kate was being malicious on purpose, Rachel couldn’t tell. Either way, Rachel liked her a whole lot less than when she’d walked through the door. “Do I look like the kind of woman who has time to mess around with a cop? There’s barely enough time in the day for me to breathe with all the work I have around the farm.”

  Drumming her fingers on the counter, Kate’s smile grew even wider. Rachel wanted to hit her. Not bad enough that she’d actually let loose with a blow, but it felt really good to visualize her fist making contact with Kate’s cheek.

  “I don’t know about that, Rachel. When a fine figure of a man like Vaughn takes a liking to you, you make time for him.”

  Kate was right about that, even if it didn’t bear admitting. “Kate, you’ve lived in Catcher Creek most of your life. You know better than to believe everything you hear in this town, don’t you?” Her tone had a forced quality to it. She bit her tongue, wishing she had a better poker face.

  Kate shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Rachel counted down from a hundred in her head as she worked to flatten the paper she’d crushed.

  But Kate wasn’t quite done. She leaned clear over the counter and arched a brow. “That’s fine, that you don’t want to talk about it. But would you do me a favor?”

  Oh, boy, this ought to be good. “What?”

  “When Vaughn gets done with you, will you at least give me the courtesy of a heads-up, so I can have a try at roping him in before word gets around that he’s available again?”

  As far as backhanded compliments went, that one had a whole lot of knuckle to it. Rachel ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, working up a response. She should’ve said, He’s available now. Go ahead and take your best shot. But the words wouldn’t come out.

  Instead, something lit up like a flame inside her. It wasn’t plain old jealousy, though. Kate would make a fine match for Vaughn. She was pretty and fun, smart as a whip, and from a good, solid family. There was no toxic history between them, as there was between herself and Vaughn, no deep regrets or blame for grievances suffered.

  But no one could match the raw heat Rachel and Vaughn generated when the two of them came together. Everything else about their lives was incompatible, but not that. Standing there, staring at Kate through slits of eyes, Rachel’s indignation turned her spine to steel. She knew without a doubt that no experience he’d ever have with Kate Parrish or any other woman would compare to the two of them.

  It was that knowledge that made her say, “Then I feel obliged to inform you, Kate—woman to woman—that when I get through with him, ifI ever get through with him, he ain’t gonna be good for much. Not after being ridden that hard for that long. A cowgirl like you should know that. But if you’ve got a thing for sloppy seconds, go ahead and get in line.”

  She unwrinkled the list and slapped it on the counter. “Here’s the supplies I need. I’ll send my foreman to pick them up tomorrow.”

  She left an openmouthed, stupid-faced Kate Parrish gawking at her as she walked away.

  * * *

  From the window next to his desk, Vaughn watched the flow of customers at Erskine’s Barber across the street from the station house as he dialed Gwen’s cell phone. He wasn’t all that certain she’d take his call, but she picked up on the second ring. “Oh. My. God. What are you, my parole officer?”

  Nice manners. “Good morning to you too. How’s my favorite klepto doing?”

  “How dare you treat my illness like it’s some kind of joke.” He rolled his eyes and picked up a pen to doodle with until she finished her tirade. She ranted a bit longer, then ended with, “You don’t think I’ve had enough people making fun of me for it throughout my life? I’ve been through hell, Vaughn.”

  She had a point. High school had been rough on Gwen. Tough to be part of the in crowd when hanging out at someone’s house or attending a party gave her the itch to steal her friends’ parents’ collectibles or silverware. On a memo he’d received on grade school outreach, he colored in the d’s and a’s.“With the way it’s ruined your life and our folks’ lives, trust me, nothing could be less funny.”

  “Got that right,” she muttered, pacified.

  “I didn’t call to pick a fight,” he said, filling in the o’s. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to check up on me.”

  “You and I will have to agree to disagree on that point.” She growled, but he pressed on. “You’re staying home? No shopping or parties?”

  “No, Officer,” she deadpanned. “I’m behaving myself like a good little criminal.”

  He drew a bouncing line to connect the letters he’d filled in. This next question would make her mad, but no more so than he was for having to ask it. “You’re not using drugs either, are you? You gave me the last of your stash, and you’re not out replenishing your supply, right? Because nothing will get you behind bars faster than—”

  “Oh, gawd. I’m hanging up. Get a life, Vaughn. And leave mine alone.”

  The phone clicked over to dead air.

  “Love you too, sis,” he grumbled, tossing his pen down.

  He swiveled in his chair to stare out the window once more. The parking spots in front of Erskine’s were empty. He watched a few minutes more to be sure he and Dale would be alone, then, after a word to Irene, walked across the road for a haircut.

  Dale Erskine was a bear of a man. Thick in the middle and hairy all around, from his bushy red beard to the back of his hands and neck. The frizzy red hair on his head was in a constant state of crisis, as though he cut it himself using a funhouse mirror. But he was handy enough with other people’s hair, even if he shortchanged Vaughn’s sideburns every time.

  Haircutting expertise was not why he patronized Dale’s shop, one of two in town.

  “Hey, Dale.”

  Dale looked up from sweeping. “Sheriff! Have a seat here. You want the usual today?”

  “Sounds good. I’d like my sideburns longer than last time, if you don’t mind.” Never hurt to ask. One of these years, maybe Dale would heed his instructions.

  He swung a plastic cape over Vaughn’s body. “No problem, man. Long sideburns are hip.”

  Dale set to work, spraying water and combing, keeping busy. Vaughn’s hair was thick and a veritable minefield of cowlicks, but Dale wrangled it into submission easy enough. “How’s the keeping-the-peace business going, Sheriff? Need any help from me?”

  No beating around the bush today. Vaughn liked that. “I’ve got three names for you. Jimmy de Luca, Shawn Henigin, and Elias Baltierra.” He’d bring up Wallace Jr. in good time, but for now, he wanted Dale to concentrate his mind on the other players. The sixties and seventies hadn’t been kind to Dale’s mental capacity, and Vaughn had learned to pace their discussions.

  “Haven’t heard much talk about Jimmy de Luca. His folks run a pawn shop in Tucumcari that’s talked about as being a great place to unload merchandise of questionable origin, if you catch my drift.”

  If Vaughn missed an insinuation that blatant, he’d be the world’s worst sheriff. “I’m with you. What about the others—Baltierra and Henigin?”

  “Elias Baltierra is bad news. He runs product for a drug cowboy across Highway 40.”

  Bingo. He had a hunch Dale would be the right informant for this case. “He’s a supplier for Devil’s Furnace?”

  “Among other places. There’s an element of Santa Fe who appreciate the service.”

  “Who’s the drug cowboy he works for?”

  “Not sure. There’s been whispers of a new player in the county, someone called El Diente.”

  “The Tooth? What kind of nickname is that?”

  Dale shrugged. “I think it’s kind of hip. Like, that’s his trademark. When people mess with him, he takes a tooth. Cool, right? I mean, every businessman needs a trademark.”

  Vaughn’s mind flipped through the past four years’ worth of investigations. A handful of times over the p
ast few years, bodies had been found with missing teeth. Not so surprising for drug addicts and gang members, but Gerald Sorentino had been missing a molar. “What about Shawn Henigin? Did he work for El Diente too?”

  “You don’t have to worry about him. I heard he bit the dust in a car crash a while back.”

  Whoa, now. He watched Dale’s reflection in the mirror, strategizing the best way to coax more information out of him. Time was a tricky topic for Dale, and a while back in his world could mean anything from a few hours to a few years, but Vaughn knew better than to ask him to clarify. He didn’t have the patience to sit through one of Dale’s mind-bending monologues. “Did you hear where the crash took place?”

  “Hard to say.” He buzzed the hair around Vaughn’s right ear.

  “Think harder.”

  “Hmm. Okay, I’ve got it. Down in Chaves County. He drove off a cliff along Hoja Pass.”

  An image of Gerald Sorentino’s flattened, overturned truck at the bottom of Hoja Pass flashed through Vaughn’s mind. Good God. “Hold that thought, Dale. I need to make a call.”

  He strode out the front door with the vinyl cape still around his neck, fishing his phone out of his pocket as he walked. “Stratis, it’s Cooper. I need you to check on a couple things for me in Chaves County. A car crash on Hoja Pass that would’ve happened in the last day or two. Dale thinks that’s how Shawn Henigin met his end.”

  “At Hoja Pass? You mean like . . .”

  “Yeah, same place as Gerald Sorentino died. If Chaves County confirms the car crash, ask them if the deceased is missing a tooth.”

  “Like Gerald was,” Stratis added.

  “Exactly. According to Dale, there’s a new dealer in town who goes by the street name El Diente. He might be the link between the criminal activity on the Sorentinos’ farm and Wallace Jr. I’m going to pump Dale for more information, then I’ll get back to the office to tell you the rest of it and figure out where we go from here.”

  Dale was standing as Vaughn left him, buzzers and comb in hand, looking unperturbed. “Did I do good with that information?”

  “For sure. Like you always do.” He waited a few beats to allow Dale to get back on track with the haircut, then asked, “Was Shawn Henigin running drugs for El Diente too?”

  “Maybe. He was buds with Baltierra. They were here for haircuts once with Wallace Meyer’s son, Junior.”

  Good boy, Dale. His idea for the haircut was getting bigger and bigger. “Tell me more about that.”

  “Well, uh, okay. Baltierra takes a number three attachment on the buzzers for his haircut—”

  “I don’t care about their haircuts. Did they say anything interesting while they were here?”

  He pressed the buzzers to Vaughn’s right sideburn and buzzed it clean off. “Right on. I dig you now. They were asking me questions about the dude ranch out there on the Sorentino land. Shawn was telling a story about taking his girl there for an overnight stay.”

  Vaughn nearly leapt from the chair. He twisted to look Dale in the eye. “What did you say?”

  “He said he took his girl there. Him and Junior laughed about it real hard, about how the Sorentino place was nothing like a real farm. More like a tourist trap. So I told him, what did you expect from a dude ranch? And Shawn said, at least the food was good.”

  Vaughn swabbed a hand over his face. One of the shooters had spent the night in Rachel’s house. Holy mother of God. The cape around his neck closed in, suffocating him. He ran a finger between the plastic wrapper and his neck, trying to breathe. “When were they here? Last week, last month?”

  Either oblivious or unconcerned about Vaughn’s state of disturbance, Dale came around the side of the chair and buzzed his left sideburn. “You know, time is weird, man. What’s to say we’re not living the same day over and over again. Like right now, I look out the window, and the street looks the same as it did yesterday. Or maybe it really wasn’t yesterday. Maybe yesterday is really tomorrow—Hey!”

  Vaughn clamped a hand over Dale’s wrist. “Dale, listen to me. Do you know where Elias Baltierra is right now? This is important.”

  He scratched his head like it might loosen up his memory as it had earlier. “Hmmm. I knew you’d ask that, as soon as you got that crazy look in your eye. I haven’t seen him since he was in here with Shawn and Junior. I s’pose you could ask Junior.”

  “I’ll do that,” Vaughn said, his mind distant, trying to fit puzzle pieces together that didn’t seem to even be from the same puzzle, much less match up.

  Dale set the buzzers aside in favor of scissors and a comb. Vaughn blinked falling bits of hair away from his eyes.

  “Speaking of Sorentino Farm,” Dale said. “Charlene Delgado says you and Rachel Sorentino are an item.”

  Vaughn grunted. Hard to care about Charlene blabbing rumors of Vaughn’s private life when a dangerous criminal who’d shot at Rachel and may have connections to the death of her father was still at large. And he couldn’t even go to the place in his head that would allow him to accept that Shawn Henigin had spent the night in her house.

  Dale rattled on. “I asked Rachel out a few years back. She’s a classy lady. When she declined my offer, she was real sweet about it. Said she wasn’t in the market for a relationship, but thank you anyway. Guess she changed her tune, eh? Hard for a guy like me to compete with the sheriff.” He gave Vaughn’s shoulder a good-natured nudge with his elbow.

  “Are we done here?” Vaughn asked.

  “Near abouts. Let me get the hairs on your neck.” He unbuttoned the cape and Vaughn took his first deep breath since the Sorentino name was brought into the conversation.

  Felt like an hour passed by the time Dale finished. Vaughn tossed him forty dollars. “Thanks for the cut and the conversation, Dale.”

  “Come around anytime, Sheriff. I’m happy to help keep the peace.”

  Back in the station house, he swung by Stratis’s desk. “What did you find out?”

  “Chaves County confirmed. Late last night, a body was found in a car that crashed off the I-70, right off Hoja Pass where your informant told us to look. The description matched Henigin, so they sent pictures. We’ll need family for an official ID, but it’s him.”

  “Any drugs or alcohol in the vehicle?”

  “No. Car was clean except for the body.”

  “Evidence of foul play?” If the vehicle had been tampered with, it might be weeks before the forensic lab could determine that, but it was worth asking anyway. Especially in an unidentifiable car that had been wiped clean of prints.

  “Nothing they could determine at the scene. His skull was a mess, teeth included, so it’ll take a formal autopsy to determine if any teeth were ripped out prior to the accident. The initial finding was that the accident was caused by steering mechanism failure. The steering gear bolts were sheered off, and I know you get what that means.”

  Vaughn’s gut twisted. Everyone in his department, save Nathan Binderman, who transferred in after the fact, was intimately aware of every detail of Rachel’s father’s car crash. From day one of investigating the crash, he and Stratis had suspected foul play, but had no other evidence to support their gut-level instinct—until now. “It means it’s time to take a second look at Gerald Sorentino’s closed case file.” He released a weary exhale. “Has the Chaves County Sheriff’s Department heard of this El Diente guy?”

  Stratis tipped back in his chair and joined his hands behind his head. “No, but his name came up in another conversation I had today with a border patrol buddy of mine. Last week his team seized a shipment of AR-15 rifles near the border, and the serial numbers match up with those recovered in the torched truck Kirby and Molina found. The two men who were arrested squealed, said they worked for a man named El Diente.”

  Why was a drug dealer terrorizing Rachel’s family, and how had Gerald Sorentino been involved? The Parillas Valley shootout case was unraveling into too many threads to hold on to all at once, with each passing day bringing more qu
estions than answers.

  Kirby and Reyes were on double duty at the hospital guarding Meyer Jr., which left either Stratis or Molina to chase the lead with the arrested drug runners, and Molina was fresh off the graveyard shift. Not only that, but he needed a third person at Rachel’s farm, now that the ranch house needed to be processed for evidence of Henigin’s purported visit. Despite his goal of keeping Stratis away from Rachel, he had no choice but to bring Stratis with him to process evidence on her farm.

  “I’ll send Molina to the state pen to interview those gun runners. Maybe we can get a better handle on El Diente’s business plan and how it involves Wallace Meyer Jr. and his associates.”

  “That was my thought, but both squealers got themselves killed in a prison yard fight,” Stratis said.

  “Well, hell. That was fast.”

  “You could say that again. Border Patrol’s e-mailing me a copy of their interview notes. Did Dale Erskine have anything interesting to share with you?”

  Vaughn dropped into the chair facing Stratis’s desk. “As a matter of fact, he did. Which is why I need you at the Sorentino Farm in an hour to process evidence.”

  Stratis picked up a pen with both hands and rolled it between his fingers, avoiding Vaughn’s eyes. “I’m sure Rachel Sorentino would rather see you than me.”

  Vaughn ran his tongue over his teeth. They were back to that, were they? Tired of Stratis’s passive aggressive bullshit, he had half a mind to drag Stratis into his office to hash it out, but now wasn’t the time.

  He stood, glancing behind him, to where Irene was pretending to read her Bible while she listened in. “Don’t you worry, I’ll be there too. In the meantime, get on the horn with other departments across the state. El Diente just became the most wanted man in New Mexico.” He leaned over Stratis’s desk and added in a low voice, “Consider this fair warning that if you ever again talk to a victim of a crime like you did to Rachel Sorentino yesterday, be prepared to look for work elsewhere. Are we clear?”

  Stratis’s jaw rippled. His eyes glinted with disgust. “Then you can consider this fair warning that I’m putting my name in the hat for sheriff come the November elections.”