But one car did pull into the parking lot—the truck belonging to the old rancher, Jerry Boam.
Why?
Landry couldn’t think of a reason. Boam’s truck was fine—no flat tire, no problem with the engine. The convenience store was abandoned. There was nothing to stop for.
Something else bothered him.
The name “Jerry Boam,” sounded made-up—a play on words. Jeroboam was another word for a double magnum of wine.
Landry wondered if Boam had come up with the name on the spur of the moment, or if he’d thought it up ahead of time. He looked down at the thin, glossy paper, a minimagazine like Awake, the tract Jehovah’s Witnesses left stuck into the screen door when the inhabitant inevitably didn’t answer.
If anyone would have the persistence to find someone, it would be the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If Landry was to be found, it stood to reason the one person most likely to find him would be a Jehovah’s Witness. Or the next best thing: a religious person. Landry wasn’t sure what sect Jerry Boam belonged to, but the man had sure enough figured out there was someone parked behind that tree.
Landry flicked through the four paper-thin pages, mostly illustrations and one Bible story. The story was a familiar one: Jesus turning water into wine.
When he was a boy, he’d attended an informal Bible school at Santa Anita, mainly because his mother wanted to keep him out of trouble and there was no church nearby that had a catechism class he could attend. The school, started by the racetrack chaplain, was an informal gathering. He attended with the other children who grew up on the backstretch—the children of grooms, exercise riders, trainers, the people who worked the grandstand and the gates—a community built around the racetrack.
Landry knew his Bible stories well enough.
He read the passage in the magazine.
“When the wine was gone, Jesus’s mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’ Nearby stood six stone water jars . . .”
“‘Fill the jars with water,’ He said, and so they filled them to the brim.”
“And Jesus turned the water into wine.”
Landry could hear Jerry Boam’s voice, soft and measured, like voices were in the west. “You be sure to read it, now, there’s nothing like God’s Word to set you straight on the path.”
Boam spoke to him, but Landry recalled that he had actually been looking beyond him, squinting against the sunlight, peering into the desert.
Landry had seen that look before. Not in the pale blue eyes of an old rancher, but in the eyes of his buddies in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were always horizons to scan, and eyes to scan them. Fighters were constantly looking for trouble, constantly taking in data—a sweep of desert here, a palm grove there. Looking for something out of the ordinary: a movement where there should be no movement. A shadow where there should be no shadow.
Landry had waited by the Circle K for a day and a half, but Jolie’d never appeared. The only person who did appear was the old rancher, who had shown up on the first day.
Be sure to read that now, there’s nothing like God’s Word to set you straight on the path.
Landry could hear his voice. Yes, it was a voice of the west, but it also sounded like the voice of a man who was trying to be quiet. Trying to keep his voice down. Landry pictured Boam. The way he looked around, the way he looked into the desert, the way he kept his voice down. Conversational, yes, but quiet.
Maybe he was worried that someone was listening in. Maybe he was worried about a parabolic mic.
It was time to change vehicles again. Although Landry had ditched the landscaper sign, the van had spent some time in The Satellite INN parking lot, long enough for someone to remember it. Better safe than sorry; he couldn’t take the chance that someone might link the van to him. He drove out of Branch to the next town, Lunaria, New Mexico, which was smaller and poorer but still had car dealers. He decided on another car no one would look at twice, a 2004 crimson Suzuki Forenza with a three-thousand-dollar price tag. He traded the blue van—sans the Landscaping legend on the sides—and made three hundred bucks on the deal.
Landry was still dressed like a guy on vacation: the long shorts, a T-shirt, running shoes, sunglasses. He’d dyed his hair reddish-blond. He’d also grown some stubble, which he shaped into a goatee-in-training. Landry did the “Dad on vacation” very well.
He was a dad who was just scraping by, driving an eleven-year-old Suzuki Forenza. Everything about him said white bread—your average Joe.
He’d paid cash for the Forenza, told the car salesman he’d got the cash from his credit union. He showed one of his false IDs, a driver’s license for Barry Westerlin. He’d retired Chris Keeley, buried him in a little patch of desert out on a lonesome dirt road between the two towns, toasting him with a bottle of Fat Tire beer.
After that he drove back the way he had come and looked for the winery on the outskirts of Branch. He’d driven past it on the way out of town. The Wildcat Red Winery was a one-story territorial-style building facing the road. Burnt-adobe brick, arches in the front. Probably built in the 1970s. Beyond it sprawled acres of staked vines on the yellow-brown land.
There were no cars out front. Landry wondered if a winery in these parts could succeed. He parked the Forenza, got out, and walked inside. A bell rang as the glass door opened.
The place simulated a wine cellar. Dark and dank-smelling, plenty of wine barrels with display glasses and bottles on top, walls of cubbyholes for wines to lie flat, and a counter in the back. There was also a cooler for white wines, beer, and sandwiches.
Landry looked around, picked out a nice pinot noir, and walked to the counter. No one else was in the store, so he had the full attention of the guy manning the cash register.
“Nice choice,” the man said, peering at Landry over rectangular half-glasses: far-sighted. He was tall and lanky. Anglo, but his skin was dark as caramel—probably from spending time outdoors. About fifty. He wore a graying ponytail caught up by a leather thong, a work shirt, and jeans. He could have mirrored Landry’s landscaping clothes.
“That’s a nice red. Would you like to try one of ours?” the man asked, wrapping the bottle in butcher paper.
“That would be nice.”
The man poured a sample into a wineglass from the rack behind him.
Landry swished it around in his mouth and looked up at the ceiling, as if weighing a great problem. Then he looked into the man’s eyes and said, “Tres jolie.”
He pushed Jerry Boam’s religious tract across the desk in the man’s direction to gauge his reaction.
The man didn’t react at all. He seemed contemplative.
Landry said, “I’m looking for something a little bit more full-bodied. Slightly impudent, with a penchant for hand-to-hand combat.”
The man still did not react, but continued to stare at him over his half-glasses. No shock, no disgust, no fear or nervousness, no delight. Finally, he said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask me a question, sure. It’s a free country.” Landry knew he sounded schoolmarmish—he just couldn’t stand poor grammar.
But the man smiled, clearly pleased. “Yes, you’re right on that count. May I ask a question. Who’s your favorite saint?”
“Saint?”
“Saint. You know, like Saint Nick. Saint Paul. Saint Peter, Saint—”
Landry smiled. “I’ll take ‘Cyril’ for five hundred, Alex.”
The ponytailed storekeeper’s name was Rand McNally. (He said his parents had a weird sense of humor.) He invited Landry to ride in his 1979 Ford truck, complete with an old camper shell. They drove out of Branch and passed through the smaller town, Lunaria, where Landry had bought the Suzuki Forenza. McNally drove to the outskirts of Lunaria to a neighborhood of cheap tract houses. “She’s here?”
“Hold your horses.”
He stopped just pa
st the driveway. All the houses looked the same. Two floor plans, depending on how many bedrooms. Nineteen seventies construction, fired-adobe walls, long and one story. McNally backed the truck into the covered carport and up to an aluminum fishing boat. It looked to be about ten to twelve feet long, with a small-horsepower tiller-steered outboard engine titled up in back. Landry’s father had owned a boat just like this one. He called it a “car topper.” Landry noticed there were fishing rods, too, already rigged up, along with two tackle boxes—one large, and one small.
McNally expertly backed the trailer hitch to the hitch ball and completed the connection, before climbing back into the truck.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They drove out of town and picked up the highway again. Landry didn’t know the roads around here, but he knew direction. They were heading east, toward Las Cruces. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Want to keep it a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“You’ll like this one.”
“There’s a big lake north of here,” Landry said.
“Sure is.”
They drove in silence for a while.
Landry said, “What do you know about this?”
“This? Not much. Jolie’s a friend, she asked me to help her, so I did.”
“You don’t know who she’s in trouble with?”
“She didn’t tell me. She’s good people, so when she asked for help getting lost, I helped get her lost.”
“You’re used to doing stuff like this?”
“I used to be with an underground group.”
“What kind of underground group?”
“Environmental.”
“Oh. Like burned-down ski resorts? Stuff like that? Ecoterrorism?”
“More like chaining ourselves to trees, but yeah, thirty years ago, that’s what I did.”
“You want to tell me where we’re going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“You think somebody bugged your truck?”
He shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
“I could check it for you.”
“Okay.” He swerved over to the side of the road. Landry had him get out, looked in the places he thought there might be a microphone, but more important, he checked for a transponder.
Nothing. “Anyone notice what you’re doing? Anyone on to you?”
“Honestly? I don’t think so.”
“Good enough.”
At Las Cruces they took I-25 north to the turnoff for Elephant Butte Lake. Rand followed the blacktop down Marina del Sur, where the boats were. There were a lot of them, cheek by jowl in their slips. Shade canopies kept the sun off the docks. There were plenty of docks, slips, and boats. Contrast that with the solid blue of the lake. It was a long lake, hemmed in by biscuit-colored ground—scrub desert, mostly. There was a formation Landry took to be Elephant Butte, wading in the water like a hippo. He could see the white striations along the bottom of the rock and along the shore—the water level was down. Everything in the west was in a state of drought, so it didn’t surprise him.
Landry shaded his eyes against the glitter of sunlight on water. “So she’s here,” he said.
“Yup.” Rand backed the trailer down the ramp to the water. “Figured she’d just be one in the crowd.”
Landry shaded his eyes. “There are houseboats here?”
“Plenty of them. Lots of cruisers, too. There’s a camp store, too, all the comforts of home.” He nodded to the boat. “Get in.”
They headed out into the lake, followed the shoreline on the other side.
Landry spotted the cabin cruiser in a small cove, just around an outcropping of rock. The rock hid the cove from both directions. He grabbed the binoculars.
And there she was.
Chapter 11
Jolie Burke looked the same except for her hair, which had been cut short and colored black.
She had them in the binocs. Anchor already pulled up and the boat drifting a little. She was positioned at the console, ready to take off if she needed to.
McNally produced a flag—a denuded branch from a creosote bush, a blue pair of Jockey shorts tied to the top.
Landry mentioned to McNally that his grasp of high tech was mind-boggling.
Jolie dropped the binocs to her chest and shaded her eyes. Then waved.
He missed her long, golden-brown hair, usually pulled into a ponytail or bun, but otherwise, she was the same Jolie. She wore shorts, boat shoes, and a square-necked embroidered peasant top, the kind you got from Mexico.
The white-and-black Bayliner cabin cruiser had a swept-back aerodynamic design. It looked new. It was about thirty-five feet from stem to stern. The Bayliner would make a good drug-running boat. He wondered who owned it. They came to and tied up.
The boat’s name was written in dark red cursive near the bow: Texas Red.
Landry said to Rand, “This your boat?”
“Belongs to a friend of mine.”
“Texas Red. Great name.” He added, “Won a Breeders’ Cup race.”
The boat rocked gently as they stepped onto the gunwale. Jolie wasn’t a hugger and neither was he, but they hugged, anyway. He could feel her slender body mold against him, more slender than she used to be.
She stood back, holding his hands, and gave him a solemn look, then broke into a smile like a sunrise.
He felt his own heart respond.
She gave him a quick tour. The cockpit up top was spacious. You could call it stylish. Down below Jolie walked them through the boat—the galley with its small dining area, two berth beds, the head, even a wide-screen TV.
“It’s about half and half, getting reception out here,” she said.
At first glance, she looked like a party girl, but Landry knew it was just the look she’d adopted to stay under the radar. Anyone who took a second look would see the quiet strength underneath the painted exterior.
They sat down at the dinette. Rand remained standing. He seemed to be debating whether to leave them to talk alone, or to stay. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”
Jolie nodded to him.
Landry realized it had been a year since he’d seen her. They’d been lovers then. As much as two independent people could be lovers.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Three people broke into my house,” Jolie said. “One of them was my boss.”
“The sheriff?”
She recounted events. From the members of her own department—including Sheriff Waldrup himself—breaking into her house, to her escape, to ditching her car in the barn. She told him about the moment she realized that Jace Denboer and the sheriff’s office were on the same team.
“Looking back, I know I was capable of handling this on my own, but I thought of you. I thought I could use the backup.”
“You did all right on your own,” Landry said.
“Yes, but we’re far from done.”
It left the two of them together, elbows on the table. “You know what sheriff’s offices and police departments are doing all over the country, don’t you?” Jolie said. “They’re seizing assets.”
Landry nodded. It was a common practice.
“I have no problem with seizing assets from drug dealers, but somewhere along the line, here in Branch, the sheriff’s office decided to go after innocent people. Or at least people who should be presumed innocent.”
“The new deputy, Dan Atwood, seized the wrong car from the wrong guy.”
There were plenty of horror stories, many of them in New Mexico. Police departments that used any excuse to claim a “civil asset forfeiture.”
Originally, the purpose had been to bring down the untouchable drug dealers and members of organized crime. But now that many counties
were strapped financially, more and more jurisdictions divvied up spoils of war—mostly cars. It didn’t matter if you were a drug dealer or a shoplifter, if they could take your high-ticket item legally, they did. Some departments kept the swag for higher-ups, targeting desired items.
Say, if you wanted a Corvette.
Just go ahead and place your order. Good luck to the person who got ticketed in a traffic stop and lost his car. Once it was gone, it was gone.
“So who did he take the car from?”
“Jace Denboer. Jace Denboer’s 2015 Camaro.”
Jace Denboer. Landry remembered the cops talking at the donut shop. The kid’s father owned the town and the county. Taking the kid’s Camaro was a major infraction.
“I can see why the kid—the deputy—got confused,” Jolie said. “He sees them doing this, day in and day out, targeting people with nice cars, nice homes. These are wealthy, influential people. I’ve never been in on those ‘after-school’ meetings—where Branch’s finest divvy up the spoils—but I know what goes on. You wouldn’t think there was much money in this town, but there are plenty of people who live on the outskirts, plenty of people with money. Some are retired executives, enjoying their place in the sun.”
“They have lawyers, don’t they?”
“Yes, but there’s also intimidation. Threats.”
“Threats?”
“And blackmail. The sheriff’s department chooses their victims carefully. What with all the bureaucracy, promises, time stretching out over months or even years, a lot of people just give up. Hard to believe, but they do.”
“Okay . . . so what happened after Atwood took the car?”
“It was worked out. Within the hour. They turned the tow truck around in the street, they worked so quick to get the car back to Jace. But a week later Dan Atwood was gone.”
“Is he still gone?”
“No.”
“Where is he?” Although Landry was sure he knew.
“A worker found a body in a bean field—what was left of a body. They had the teeth, though. There was DNA.”
Spectre Black Page 10