Shallow Creek

by Alistair McIntyre

  He didn’t have long to wait. With a slight squeal of the tires, the black car darted from the curb and lurched to a halt next to Brendan. The driver side window slid down, revealing a guy Brendan recognized but couldn’t put a name to.

  “Get in.”

  “My mom taught me not to get into stranger’s cars unless they’ve got candy.”

  Special Agent Casey Spee’s face leaned across the unknown driver from the passenger seat.

  “Get in the fucking car, Mr. Rhodes.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brendan muttered as he honored the request.

  As soon as he closed the rear door, the driver edged the big car into the street. Spee grabbed the radio once they were underway.

  “All units, Tumbleweed is moving to the rendezvous early,” she said into the handset. “Maintain positions and report new movements. Tumbleweed, out.”

  “Cute codename, Casey,” Brendan remarked from the backseat, but Spee didn’t bite.

  The rendezvous point turned out to be the rear lot of an abandoned grocery store. One giant floodlight provided the only illumination for the deteriorating building and the aging dumpsters. The unknown agent driving the car steered in close behind a crooked fence, blocking the view from the street, and put the vehicle in park, leaving the engine running.

  Brendan decided to break the ice.

  “Agent Spee—”

  “What did I tell you?” She twisted furiously in the front seat to confront him. “What the hell did I tell you this morning?”

  “You said I was free to go.”

  “Don’t be a smartass. I told you to leave this to us. Do you want an obstruction of justice charge leveled against you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Brendan said sullenly. Getting chewed out by an angry DEA agent hadn’t been in his plan for the night.

  Spee closed her eyes and consciously inhaled a few deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, the seething fury had subsided, but only slightly.

  “You seem to be on our team, Mr. Rhodes, but you’re really pissing me off here. We’ve got a target under surveillance, and I can’t have you screwing any of this up by hanging around your brother.” Brendan simply nodded, not wanting to commit to anything, especially not without a direct request. Spee sighed before continuing. “We’ve got inside information—”

  “Casey, what are you doing?” the suit next to her demanded.

  “What does it look like?”

  “That you’re showing our hand to a person of interest. The SAC won’t like this.”

  Spee pointed at Brendan. “You think he’s going to back down if I don’t explain we’ve got this under control? If he wanted to help the other team, we wouldn’t have found him trapped in their basement.”

  “We don’t know that,” the other guy snapped out in a harsh whisper.

  “I can hear you, buddy,” Brendan said. “I’m right here.”

  “Shut up, kid.” The agent turned back to Spee. “This is not a good idea.”

  Spee dismissed him. “Despite Special Agent Tyson’s disapproval, I know I can trust you, Mr. Rhodes. And in return for not locking you up, I want you to go home and stay there for a few days. Now might even be a good time to take a trip to the hill country or something. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just don’t want to see your face again close to this investigation.”

  “Okay.”

  Spee shook her head. “Please promise me I don’t have to worry about you anymore.”

  “I’ve got some personal reasons for wanting to take this guy down.”

  “Your sister?” Spee asked. Brendan nodded, more than a little surprised. “Okay, let me tell you about my sister.”

  Before she could say another word, Tyson huffed gruffly and stormed out of the car. The man took a few steps and then leaned against the fence while fumbling with a cigarette and lighter.

  “Just ignore him. He’s had a bad day,” Spee said, watching him go.

  “I thought you said the story about your sister was just part of your cover?”

  “It was part of my cover with you, but not with everyone else,” she explained. “It’s a long story.”

  “A true story?”

  “Yes, a true story. Natalie, my sister, was in fact shot dead during a mugging at the big Exxon on the edge of town.” Her eyes adopted that faraway look that Brendan often saw in Marines recounting tragic tales from combat. “She was only passing through. Wrong place at the wrong time, and all that crap. One witness said the shooter had extensive burn scars on their neck, chest, and arms, poking out from under a ski-mask and wife-beater.”

  Silence stuffed the inside of the car, which still vibrated softly to the beat of the idling engine. After a few moments of obvious introspection, Spee addressed Brendan again, her eyes on fire.

  “That was six months ago. A month ago, I realized the cops weren’t getting anywhere, so I used some vacation time to go see my parents in Indianapolis.”

  “But you came here instead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now the whole posse is here, so I’m guessing you found something out.”

  Spee grit her teeth, flexing the gentle curve of her jaw. “I found out who the shooter was.”

  “Was? Did you kill him?”

  “No, Scott Fisher and one of his goons did that for me when they found out I was onto him. His name was Josh Matthews. You know him?”

  “The name is familiar,” Brendan said, not really sure. “But why kill him?”

  “Because he led back to them.”

  “He was part of the gang?”

  Spee nodded.

  “So what did you do that the police couldn’t? To find this guy, I mean,” Brendan asked.

  The agent turned around in her seat, now looking out through the windshield. Her voice sounded lost in a distant place. “I had to do some things I’m not proud of.” She idly rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Maybe once this is all over, if you still care to know, I’ll tell you over a beer or six.”

  Brendan had nothing to say to that. Spee put her elbow on the window ledge and rested her head against her hand. “I shot a video of Fisher killing Matthews and used that to convince him to become my CI.”

  “CI?”

  “Criminal informant,” Spee specified. “I played the part of his girlfriend to get close enough to work a deal out. A deal where he gave up your brother as the real boss.”

  “That’s why I saw you at the bar.”

  “That’s why you saw me at the bar.” She suddenly twisted back around to face him. “My sister’s killer is dead, but the shitheads he worked for stole my vengeance. His death has unlocked this drug investigation, and I’ll be damned if your brother walks away from all of this. My sister deserves more than that. Grant’s gang killed her, so he’s going down,” she spat. “So, Mr. Rhodes, this is personal for me, too.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Not too many people do.” Spee heaved a loaded sigh. “She wasn’t a local, so I’m sure nobody around here remembers her.”

  Brendan thought about that for a minute. “Is it weird that the DEA would let you work on a case involving your own sister?” he asked.

  Spee didn’t immediately answer. Brendan could hear the gears grinding between her ears before she spoke. “They don’t know about the video, or the direct connection to Natalie.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive. You just told your boss a guy randomly signed up to be your CI?”

  Spee’s laugh had little humor behind it. “All he knows is that I had a one-night stand with a guy, and that guy saw my badge and freaked, spilling his guts.”

  “Hopefully you didn’t really sleep with that asshole.”

  Spee’s face darkened, ending that particular conversation. Brendan sat quietly and watched Agent Tyson smoke next to the car. What made all these women share their innermost turmoil with him? First Michelle bared her soul, and her body, to him, and then Kim dropped a bomb about almost getting raped, and no
w this chick from the DEA had told him all about the dead sister she blames Grant for. Life would be less complicated if everyone kept their own crap to themselves. Did they think he didn’t have problems, too?

  “Mr. Rhodes, Brendan,” Spee said, reaching out to him with her eyes. “Please just walk away from this. This is serious shit. There was a bloodbath outside town about nine months ago that we’re sure is linked to all of this. We found a bunch of dead guys we suspect were part of the Torres Cartel, and those gentlemen aren’t exactly pushovers, and they were massacred.

  “This isn’t some game, so if not for your own safety, then at least give us room to operate and investigate. We can’t afford to let this case fall apart because you keep intervening.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Brendan said absently, staring at the back of the driver side headrest. “I want this finished, and you’re promising me you’re close to ending it.” He met her gaze. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “You said that earlier.”

  “Well, this time I mean it. I’m not a cop. This isn’t my job.”

  The admission hurt more than he’d thought it would. Accepting failure wasn’t part of his DNA, and now he was going to walk off into the sunset and let someone else take care of his problem. She was probably right, though. What would be the best case outcome for him if he kept pursuing his brother? Killing Grant and then spending twenty years in prison for it?

  “That’s right,” Spee said. “Leave it to us.”

  Brendan nodded and waited while she got out of the car and opened his door. Finally facing the crossroads of whether or not to keep going, he made the difficult choice to let it go. He slid out of the car, ignored the two agents, and skulked off towards the main road.

  As he reached the corner, he glanced back over his shoulder to see Spee watching him stoically beside her unmarked cruiser. The crackle of the radio broke her fixation and she ducked back into the car.

  That was it then. It was over.

  He turned the corner and strolled to the main street, hands dug deep into his pockets. When he reached the intersection, a familiar black Dodge pickup flew around the corner, heading up towards the back of the grocery store. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the truck that had followed him and Kim out to the park the other day, before that whole relationship had failed impressively. Apparently the DEA had kept better tabs on him than he’d thought.

  His sullen march towards his truck progressed unimpeded, but thoughts of Kim and the story she’d entrusted to him plagued him every step of the way.

  Chapter 40

  A loud pounding from downstairs roused Brendan from his fitful sleep. Rubbing his eyes, he rolled over and grabbed the small alarm clock, begging the display to show a reasonable time.

  Two A.M.

  Muffled shouting traveled up the stairs to his room, and the owner of the voice was not happy. Brendan rolled out of bed, pulled on some jeans, and then slipped on a pair of sneakers. Before walking out of the room, he turned and grabbed a clean shirt off a hanger in the closet. As an afterthought, he pocketed his cell phone, which had been charging for the couple of hours he’d slept. He could hear his dad yelling as soon as he cracked the bedroom door open.

  “You have no right to do this,” his father protested. “This is an illegal search and seizure. You just wait till the sheriff hears about this.”

  From the landing at the top of the stairs, Brendan had no view of the front of the house. He quickly descended and made the U-turn that left him on the far side of the living room, looking at a big man wearing a vest with a DEA logo. The man took a break from screaming at his father when his eyes locked onto Brendan.

  “Get him!”

  Two guys clad in full SWAT gear charged around their leader and rushed Brendan. Fighting the instinct to lash out at the pair, he held his tongue, knelt down, and put his hands over his head. Judging by the way everyone was acting, he assumed this was what they wanted.

  Sure enough, they wrestled his hands down, yanked them up behind his back hard enough to lift him to his feet, and then cuffed him tightly enough to cut into his flesh. As their commander strode towards him, having waited until Brendan was properly restrained, Brendan started to wonder what the hell his brother had done to him this time.

  “Brendan Rhodes, you are under arrest in connection with the disappearance of Special Agents Casey Spee and Mario Tyson,” the DEA guy said, his face less than an inch from Brendan’s. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you.”

  Brendan caught a glimpse of his mother breaking down in hysterics in the doorway to her bedroom. When his dad moved to comfort her, one of the SWAT guys made to motion him back, but good ol’ dad slapped the man’s hands away and pushed past to get to his wife, who’d crumpled in a heap on the floor. Brendan twitched involuntarily as the anger consumed him. In response, one of the men holding him drove the butt of his rifle into his side. His lungs emptied in an instant, leaving him on his knees, bent double and gasping for air.

  “Stay down!”

  “That all you got?” Brendan said, trying to suppress the convulsions in his chest.

  “Bring him,” the leader snapped before turning quickly and power walking his way out of the house.

  The goons in black forced Brendan up and prodded him onward as he continued to cough uncontrollably, still reeling from the strike. Shame stung him deeper than the butt of the rifle as he shuffled past his wailing mother, who lay inconsolable in her husband’s arms. Darryl Rhodes’ eyes narrowed when he shifted his gaze from his wife to his son. Brendan refused to break the demoralizing stare until his escorts shoved him on.

  Outside stood the SWAT truck and a couple of cruisers, lights flashing. They’d been so kind as to leave their sirens off, but Brendan could see his parents’ neighbors watching from their lawns up and down the street. Just once he would’ve liked to not cause his parents so much grief. An unknown agent popped open the back door to one car and the SWAT guys guided Brendan into the backseat.

  The car in front pulled away from the curb and Brendan’s vehicle followed suit. He shifted in his seat to see the SWAT truck sticking close behind. This was a hell of an escort, so obviously something huge had happened, but Brendan was damned if he knew the secret that everyone else seemed in on.

  “What happened to Agent Spee?” he asked the two strangers transporting him to what he assumed was the sheriff’s office.

  Neither man acknowledged him.

  “Do I file the claim for my broken ribs with the DEA’s insurance, or the sheriff’s?”

  And still nothing. These were pros, federal agents with explicit instructions not to talk to their quarry, not sheriff’s deputies like the punks who’d transported him from the hospital to the police station yesterday. How the hell had he ended up in the back of a police car for the third time in twenty-four hours?

  As the journey wore on, Brendan’s meager two hours of sleep started to catch up to him. Despite the awkward position of sitting with his hands behind his back, his head still drooped forward of its own accord. Suddenly hands were on him and dragging him from the backseat. He processed all of this just in time to force his feet out in front of him, otherwise he’d have face-planted into the sidewalk outside the sheriff’s office.

  His entourage cleared a couple of gawking deputies from the entryway and led Brendan to the same damn interview room that Spee had interrogated him in the previous morning. Once they had him situated in the familiar uncomfortable chair, everyone left except for the lead agent.

  “I’m Special Agent Norman, and—”

  “Nice vest. Worried I’ll shoot you?”

  “I’ll ask the questions here.” The guy slammed his palms onto the same table Casey had used before.

  “Do you guys take acting lessons for this, or does it come naturally?”

  The man l
eaned closer, his heavy breathing the only noise in the otherwise silent room. Rancid breath from overdosing on dense coffee filled Brendan’s nostrils. The agent balled his hands into white-knuckled fists on top of the table. When Brendan refused to break eye contact, the guy stood straight up.

  “What happened after Spee and Tyson picked you up last night?” he asked.

  “Spee chewed me out for getting in her way and then sent me home.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I walked to my truck and drove home,” Brendan said, his fatigue setting in again after all the excitement. “Why? What happened?”

  The man cracked his knuckles impressively and folded his arms while he stood before Brendan. “You are the last known individual to see my agents alive, so I’d like to know what the hell happened.”

  Brendan ground his teeth before responding. “When I was walking away, a black Dodge pickup flew by me, heading back up to where Spee was parked,” he said. “You know, behind that old grocery store.”

  Norman stared at him for a moment, and then nodded to the invisible observers hiding behind the one-way mirror on the wall. “I think we both know who’s probably involved here.”

  “Yup, and it ain’t me.”

  “Do you have any idea where my agents would be taken?”

  Norman was now calmly composed on the outside, but his voice cracked slightly. Brendan understood. If Grant had captured the agents three hours ago, every minute counted now.

  “Check all the property listings under my name, since that’s the trick they used with the farm.”

  “We’re already looking into your holdings, and any property owned by any of your family.” He briefly ground his palms against his temples. “Can you tell me anything useful?”