by Rick Reed
“So why are you here?” Sanchez asked. “Do you think this guy is here again?”
Jack said, “I’m not sure where he is right at this minute, but I know where he’s going to be. I’m going to get him. I thought you might want to come?”
“Come where?”
“Bisbee, Arizona. If you’re coming, we need to leave tonight. Now.” Jack hoped Sanchez would come with him, but he could see the man didn’t have it in him.
“Why there?”
“Angelina told me something interesting,” Jack said. “Cody’s from Tucson, but he was living in Bisbee. That’s where his family was slaughtered. His wife and daughter are buried just outside of Bisbee. One of the last entries in his diary talked about going home.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” Sanchez asked.
“It’s a combination of things, Lou,” Jack said. “I’m close. I’m going to end this.”
Sanchez said, “I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I understand. I’ll let you know what happens.”
Sanchez put a hand on Jack’s arm. “No. You misunderstood me. I don’t think you’ll be going to Bisbee. It’s outside our jurisdiction, Jack. You need to call Toomey. He’ll send another team.”
“Okay. I’ll call Toomey,” Jack lied. Toomey had never explained jurisdictional limits. Jack assumed something like this covered the whole United States. “I’ll call him on my way back to Evansville. You need to get back in there with her. I hope Kim pulls through this. I’ll see you.”
“You’ll be in prison. Or dead,” Sanchez said. “I won’t call Toomey. I didn’t even see you tonight. I’m not going, but you need to take someone with you.”
“Thanks for the advice, Lieutenant,” Jack said and pulled his arm away.
“There you go with that Lieutenant shit again. I would go, you know I would, but Kim...”
Jack gripped Sanchez hand. “If I ever get in a bar fight, I want you and Cutie to back me up.”
“You’re one crazy son of a bitch. You know that?”
“So I’ve heard,” Jack said and walked toward the elevator.
Sanchez called out to him. “Hey. Call Battle.”
Jack waved a goodbye without turning around. He’d already thought of calling Battle. She would want to be there. She was going to get fired anyway, so better to go out guns blazing than give up your gun and go home crying in your Scotch. He pulled out his cellphone and the business card Battle had given him.
Chapter 43
Lieutenant Battle met Jack at the door. She was living in a mobile home. As it turned out, the mobile home was parked on land jointly owned with her sister. Her sister had lived in a small farmhouse a stone’s throw away from the lieutenant.
“Like I told you on the phone, just give me the name and location. No need for both of us going, and excuse me for saying this, but you’ll just get in my way,” she said by way of greeting.
It was well after midnight, the temperatures had dropped into the negative figures, and Battle stood blocking the doorway not inviting Jack inside.
“Not going to happen,” Jack said. “I’ll call and let you know what happened. Or you can watch the news.” He stepped off the little deck and headed toward his car.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said.
Jack turned. “You were going alone.”
“Apology accepted,” Battle said.
Jack asked, “Can I come in and show you what I found? If you’re coming with me, we need to have a plan. And we need to establish some ground rules.”
“You mean like who’s in charge? I outrank you,” she said.
“And I’m a federal agent, plus I know where he’s going.”
Battle opened the door wider and disappeared inside without inviting him in. Jack entered and shut the door. The kitchen and living room were separated by an eat-in counter with three bar stools on the living room side. The furniture was old and worn and didn’t match. Typical yard sale stuff. The counter and the tops of the barstools were covered with stacks of papers and file folders and eight-by-ten glossy photos of the crime scene where her family was slain.
Despite the clutter on the counter, the trailer was neatly made up and smelled of cinnamon. There were half a dozen pictures on the walls of her and her sister, her sister at her swearing-in ceremony being hugged by the niece. The niece as a baby. The niece about Joe’s age, and another one of her as a young teen. No men. No animals. Battle led a simple life. Now it was even simpler. He could relate to being alone. He’d spent the last four years of his life that way. He resisted the urge to excuse himself, go back to the car, and call Katie. Death had a way of making life your priority.
Battle sat on one end of the sofa and patted beside her. “Sit down. I don’t bite.”
Jack sat and took Coyote’s journal from his pocket.
“So that’s the diary you told me about on the phone?”
“This is his confession,” Jack said. “Every crime he’s committed, from beating illegal immigrants and dumping them on the Mexican side of the border, to the murders and slaughters here.”
Battle held the notebook like it was a snake that might bite her. “Confession to the café? He say what he did to my sister and Benny? Benny’s my niece. Bernice.”
“And to several hundred others. There’s enough in there to get him the death penalty a hundred times over,” Jack said. “The victims will get justice.”
“Justice. Huh,” Battle mouthed the words. “Will justice bring them back?”
“Will what you’re planning to do to him bring them back?” Jack asked. “We need to get on the same page here, Lieutenant. I need to know if you can’t control your feelings. I need to know if I can trust you.”
“Let me look at the damn thing,” Battle said, and Jack handed over the diary.
Jack had the report on her sister’s and niece’s murders, courtesy of Sanchez. He was beginning to question the wisdom of bringing her into this, but he needed a partner with nothing to lose. That described her. That was why he couldn’t bring Bigfoot along.
Battle read the diary without talking. Jack waited to answer questions, but she never asked. He closed his eyes knowing he had a very long drive ahead, and must have drifted off because the next thing he knew Battle was kicking the bottom of his foot.
“Coffee’s on the stove, milk’s in the refrigerator, sugar and spoons on the counter. I rinsed out some paper Hardees cups with lids. They’ll have to do. Let’s get going.”
It was three in the morning. Jack said, “Good morning back at you.” He rose and filled a coffee-stained paper cup with fresh black coffee, fitted the lid on, and noticed it had lipstick on it. Oh well.
Battle was stuffing a gun bag with extra ammo and gear. On top of this she put a wicked hunting knife that was bigger than a Marine KaBar and smaller than a machete, but not by much.
Battle had the physique of a basketball player, tall, not a pound of extra weight, toned, giving the impression of a tensed spring. She wore tight-fitting blue jeans, and had layered a brown wool shirt over a gray long john top. She had on sensible winter boots laced to mid-calf. She pulled a hand-tooled leather belt from the bag, threaded it through the waistband of her jeans, securing the 3-way holster that held her Glock 9mm, handcuff case, knife sheath, and double ammo pouch. She slipped the knife in the sheath, zipped the gun bag, and pulled on a loose-fitting Carhartt jacket.
“All that’s missing is Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Jack said.
Battle said, “Wipe the drool off your mouth, get your stuff, and let’s do this.”
Jack checked his Glock and put it back in its holster. He had two extra magazines of .45 caliber ammo in his coat pocket. If he needed more firepower, he had the shotgun in the car. He grabbed his coffee and was ready. They took Jack’s Crown Vic, thinking that if they ran into any law enfo
rcement obstacles, the Crown Vic looked more like an official vehicle than her Jeep. They stopped at a Shell station just outside St. Louis. Jack gassed up while Battle went inside and bought some provisions.
From there they drove five hours, covering three hundred and ninety-five miles, without talking. “Pit stop,” Jack said, and took the exit to Broken Arrow in Oklahoma. They did their business, gassed up, and headed toward Interstate 44 West. On their way out of town they passed a sign that said, “Leaving Broken Arrow” and “Mayor Craig Thurmond.” Underneath was another sign depicting locked seat belts. An occupied police car sat off the road near the sign. On the other side of the underpass, an Oklahoma State Police vehicle was stationed.
“Friendly little place,” Jack said.
Battle finally broke her silence. “You always talk this much?”
Jack laughed out loud. “You always this quiet?”
“When I’m thinking. Deciding,” she said.
Jack said nothing.
“I admit when I agreed to come on this trip I was hoping to gut the bastard’s carcass and put his head on my wall.”
Jack said, “And yet you seem so laid-back.”
She finally grinned. “You’re not going to get in my way, are you?”
“No,” Jack said.
“Liar,” Battle said. “I’ll play by the rules if Coyote does. He seems to be proud of that stupid name.”
“Don’t underestimate him, Lieutenant Battle. He got that name for a reason,” Jack said and told her about the cases in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. The body count was nearing two hundred and fifty innocent souls, two of them being law enforcement, and one a nun.
With the exception of gas stops, it was silent in the car for the next several hours until they saw the exit for Amarillo. They’d been on the road ten hours. Jack said, “We need gas again. I saw a sign for a Hyatt near the interstate if you want to stop and get some rest?”
“I want to push on. I’ll drive for a while, and you can rest. You can spell me again when we get close,” Battle said.
“I’ve been up a while. You can drive after we get gas.” Jack took the exit. “It’s at least another ten or eleven hours to Bisbee. I doubt he’s driving straight through.” Jack didn’t believe that when he said it. He believed Coyote was insane. He probably didn’t need sleep. He probably thrived on deprivation and hate.
“Let’s take turns, Jack,” she said. “When we get to Bisbee, we’ll see what’s what. If he’s there, we don’t want to miss our chance. If he’s not, we can watch for him. Maybe set a Coyote trap.” She had said it without mirth.
Jack said, “Why don’t I go ahead and drive for the next few hours, and you get some sleep and not think about ways to kill this guy. I don’t need you half-alert when we get there. Emotions will screw you up. I know.”
“I can’t do that,” she said. “But I’ll try to sleep for a bit.”
Jack found a gas station. He gassed up and went inside. He bought several bottles of Gatorade, water, and two black coffees. The sausage biscuits in the display case were cold, but he bought six. They needed to eat something besides power bars and candy.
When he came back to the car, Battle’s seat was leaned back, her eyes were closed, and she was snoring like a wooly mammoth. The diary was in her lap. He put the bag of biscuits and Gatorade on the back floorboard and the coffees in the front holder. She needed sleep.
* * * *
While Jack was pumping gas, Coyote passed the exit to Amarillo and continued west. He’d stopped an hour earlier, gassed up, and bought another notebook. He would have preferred a spiral-bound one, but beggars can’t be choosers. He’d sat in the Taco Bell attached to the gas station and ate half a dozen tacos. He’d bought four burritos to go and an extra-large coffee. The food was pretty good. With some real food in his stomach, he seemed to be thinking clearer. His anger had abated. Best of all, he had a plan.
He would talk with his source in Bisbee. He needed to be sure Miles would never talk to Murphy or anyone else about their project. He shouldn’t have to worry; after all, Miles was partly to blame for all of this and complicit in the first killing. He was the one who had located the illegal who killed Coyote’s wife and daughter. And Miles was complicit in destroying evidence that would have put all three of them, Coyote, Hank, and Miles, away for life. Because Miles was a coward, afraid of being discovered as corrupt, he agreed to feed Coyote whatever information he needed for his missions. Including locating and rerouting the drivers to meet him.
He’d felt nothing for the killing of Hank Brown, his ex-partner. The traitor was a true disappointment. Both Coyote and Miles had tried to warn Hank that he was going down a dark path, but greed and a misguided sense of “freedom for all” had consumed the man. Now Cody and Miles were the two left standing from the original trio.
The three of them had graduated together from FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and worked for Border Patrol. Hank and Cody patrolled the border while Miles, ever the social climber, worked his way up the ladder to an inside job. Miles never wanted to get his hands dirty. He preferred to stay in an office far from the action, play at the intelligence game. Coyote had known guys like this in the Army. Sometimes their intelligence was dead on, sometimes it led troops into an ambush. Intelligence was an oxymoron. Maybe what he was doing now wasn’t any more intelligent or sane. He knew he’d never stop the influx of illegal immigrants. It was like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon.
Coyote hadn’t been home for—was it four years now? The last time he’d seen Emma, he was on his way to work with Hank. He and Emma had been fighting all day over something. Money mostly. She had spent too much having her hair colored and cut. He cut his own hair and thought spending money just to put some streaks in her hair was crazy, and he told her so. He hadn’t told her how pretty she was. He hadn’t told her he loved her. She had kissed him anyway and told him to be safe.
He’d thought about that many times over the years. Replayed every word, every look, every angry gesture—mostly on his part. He remembered thinking at her graveside that he would have spent all their savings just to take the hurtful words back. He remembered thinking what an odd thought it was to be standing beside the graves of his wife and his little girl thinking about a fight, an argument, over money. He remembered feeling much like he felt every time he thought of it. Little. Low. Angry. Disappointed. Dying inside and wishing he could magically make it different. But he couldn’t. He had said what he’d said, she had kissed him anyway, and he’d left for work that night, never to see them alive again.
He wasn’t a good husband. He wasn’t a good father. He wasn’t even a good man. His family was dead because of him. Dead because he couldn’t protect them. The harsh words he’d said to his wife sat on his heart like a hot stone. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and pushed his feelings aside.
On Interstate 40 he saw a sign declaring “Santa Rosa, One Mile.” He took the cloverleaf and hit Route 66 heading west. He had been through here hundreds of times over the years, and it had changed little in the four years he was gone.
He passed up the Best Western and the LaQuinta Inn where he and Emma and Olivia would stay when they could afford it. His daughter, Olivia, would just about live in the pool at the LaQuinta. He had teased her that if she stayed in any longer she’d grow gills and a tail.
Coming up on his right was a wide flat adobe building that resembled the old mud huts people lived in hundreds of years ago. This one had been fitted with central heating and air, but he remembered the bar really smelled like a bar—cigar smoke, stale puke, and even staler patrons. He needed to make two stops before Bisbee.
He pulled into the dirt lot of the Pecos Bar and Grocery. They carried Foster’s beer. The thermostat on the dash read forty-eight degrees. He shucked his coat, put his Stetson on, and went inside. Two drunks and a bartender. The bartender must have
recognized him when he came in the door. Two six-packs of cold Foster’s were sitting on top of the bar.
“You back to stay?” the bartender asked.
Coyote paid without answering.
“I was real sorry to hear about your family,” the bartender called after him as he left the bar.
Coyote took a deep breath and shoved the bartender’s condolence in the mental box. He wasn’t worried the bartender had recognized him. This wasn’t the kind of place that talked to the cops. It was the kind of place you went to get out of the world.
Santa Rosa was just a spot in the road with two traffic lights. Just before the second traffic light, he stopped at a Phillips 66 gas station and topped the tank off.
Chapter 44
Battle’s cell phone trilled, jerking her awake. She looked at the phone and held the screen so Jack could see. “Should I answer?”
“Let it ring twice. If they hang up, they should call back. That’s when you answer.”
“Your partner?”
“It should be.”
The phone rang twice and stopped.
“You told him you’d be with me. Did you tell him where we’re going?”
Before Jack could answer, his own cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. It was Toomey. He punched a button to end the call, and it rang again. The screen said “ICE QUEEN” this time. He punched the button to end that call as well and turned his ringer off.
“I gave your number to my researcher, too,” Jack said to Battle. “Her name is Angelina Garcia. Find my contacts and put Bigfoot’s and Angelina’s numbers in your phone so you’ll answer.”
“You give my number to your wife, too?” she asked.
“My ex-wife actually. We live together and—well, it’s complicated. She’ll call Bigfoot if she needs something.”
“Bigfoot? Is that what you call your partner?”
“That’s complicated too.”
“What’s your nickname for me?” Battle persisted.