His first glimpse of Ivy was when she stepped out of the elevator that morning at her offices two years before. She had walked in to greet them, self-possessed and alluring in her feminine way. She had enthralled him.
When Mathew stared at Callie, Steve could tell she captivated him, whether Mathew acknowledged the depth of his emotions or not. The expression on Mathew’s face with Callie nearby mirrored Steve’s around Ivy.
Chapter 12
Three weeks later with the bulk of the harvest behind them, the whole crew gathered for an outdoor celebratory event near Rick’s tasting room. The October afternoon brightened into a crisp, sunshiny day and Mathew’s heart filled with joy seeing Callie basking in the golden radiance. Everyone who stuck through working on the long days of back-bending work shoved generous cash bonuses in their pockets. A locally sourced caterer laid out a big spread of hearty food under a canopy outside. Rick gave a short speech of appreciation and raised a glass of pinot noir in a toast to the hoped-for success of the vintage.
Every weekday Susannah hurried out after school to help until Callie shooed her into the house to tackle homework. On the weekends, Susannah rubbed the sleep out of her eyes at first light and stayed out most of the day with them. Mathew found Susannah’s seriousness with him troubling. Sometimes she stared at him as if assessing his motives or she might catch his eye with a glimpse and then she looked away quickly. With Steve and Lenny, Susannah reveled in laughing, playing games and joking. How much did she still suffer from the kidnapping? How long before Callie and Susannah could put their years with John Henry into memory’s archives and move forward?
He sauntered over to where Steve talked with Ivy, arriving just as Steve’s cell phone rang. When Steve greeted the former head of the FBI with his nickname of ‘Mule”, Mathew and Ivy rushed to catch up with him as he walked away from the party. Once inside the wine cellar and away from the noise of the festivities, they stopped. Steve put the phone on speaker.
“Mule, did something happen?”
“Sounded like you’re at a party.”
“End of harvest celebration at our neighbor’s place for the work crews.”
“Not to toss ice water on a good time, but you should know about an odd occurrence last night,” the former FBI chief said. “The gravesites of the two Fuentes brothers in Albuquerque were dug up, the caskets were broken into, and individual bones have been stolen. The diggers put back the dirt and turf, still evidence of digging showed.”
Steve’s face clouded over. “DNA testing. Which bones?”
“Their left femurs. Three other graves were disturbed too, likely as a diversionary tactic. We put out a warning to all the genetics labs. My guess is the perp will contract it off the grid. Any thoughts on who might be behind the bone theft?” the Chief asked.
Steve shifted his gaze from Mathew to Ivy.
“The other brother, Cruze, might still be alive. We thought we took him out in Mexico City back in December of 2012, remember? We surmised the man we killed was really Cruze because he disappeared about the same time.
“Don’t we have their DNA samples on file?” asked Steve.
“Yes, but now the U.S. Marshall’s office in Albuquerque has owned up to some mix-up of samples taken in the fourth quarter of 2013 when this Cristo Fuentes and Eduardo Fuentes were killed.”
“One bungle after another. We should exhume all three cadavers and test them ourselves,” Steve said.
“The body from Mexico City was cremated. The case appeared to be closed. We can test the two Fuentes brothers buried in New Mexico. Make sure they are related. I’ve been activated to follow-up on this. You in?” the Chief asked.
Mathew and Ivy both nodded at Steve.
“You can count on The Spook Hills gang,” Steve said firmly. “You should know that twice now Mathew found cigarette butts in strategic spots around our property. One incident back in August and one more recently. The first occurrence came with a man spying on Mathew, who he saw from the distance and chased but didn’t apprehend. We hired a retired agent, Lenny Bruckner, to handle surveillance and security. You remember him?”
“Bruckner? Sure. One of the best SWAT guys at the Bureau. Interesting about someone snooping around your place. I’ll call when we have the DNA results. Tell your squad to be ready.”
Steve clicked the phone off. They started walking back upstairs and outside. As they emerged into the warm October sunshine, Mathew said, “I better advise Lenny, but otherwise let’s not spoil this gathering by appearing apprehensive.”
He surveyed the surrounding countryside showing the beginnings of fall color. This news from the Chief rattled each of them. Steve and Ivy went back to the gathering while Mathew hustled over to Lenny to take him aside.
“Sorry about this. You need to be on red alert.” With that introduction, he repeated what the Chief had told them.
Lenny put his wine glass down on a nearby table, headed over to the coffee urn, poured a mugful and slipped out to go on patrol. Mathew scanned the crowd, searching for Ivy and Steve. Even though they walked to different groups and listened to the conversations, their body language changed. Each one stood with the alertness of a wild elk in a field sensing an intruder.
He ambled over to where Fred clowned around with some of the other folks. Fred’s performance verged on incredible during his stint as an assistant supervisor. No one kept the day laborers going harder during the long hours. He instructed, encouraged and cajoled. He played peppery music in the afternoons when energy levels tailed off. He coached each group, moving along the rows, making sure only the best bunches went into the big collection cartons and leaving the poorer quality ones to enrich the soil.
This recent case development made Mathew glad this bash marked the crew’s last day. If someone opened fire at them at this festivity, the impact would be disastrous. During the last three weeks, he toiled along with each person here, men and women. Each worker earned his admiration.
Callie walked over to his side to whisper. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll call you later. For now, enjoy this get-together. It means so much to Rick, Sassy and the workers,” Mathew said.
While he saw Callie as his longed-for life partner, he wanted her to need him to become complete. Should he do more to advance their relationship or did love only grow organically? He expected to work on the remainder of the pressing at Rick’s to better understand the process and to see more of Callie. He headed over to Steve.
“You still coming over for crush tomorrow?” Mathew asked Steve.
Steve shook his head in the negative and said, “Think I should get cracking on this latest Fuentes issue. You work here on crush. Growing grapes is more my thing, and I feel a need to hang around Spook Hills.” He paused to let out a big yawn before he continued. “Mind if we sit by the fire to talk over mugs of tea once we’re back home?”
“Sure, then I’ll run into McMinnville to pick up dinners tonight, so Ivy can take some time off from cooking. All the hard labor has trounced each of us. On the Fuentes, if the DNA doesn’t prove out, once again all our lives may be threatened. Even if only Cruze is involved, we should expect some sort of revenge action.”
“Why is he moving against us at such a slow pace?”
“Possible he just found out Cristo and Eduardo died. If so, Cruze will be devastated, angry or both.”
Steve gazed back at him with a doleful expression, then squared his shoulders. His eyes took on an ice-blue quality Mathew recalled from their days at the FBI. “We’ll face the devils and see the case through to resolution.”
That same day, back in Miami, Cruze angled Julio’s boat out of the slip a little after eight in the evening as the sky darkened. He planned to navigate south around the tip of Florida and back up to Boca Grande to drop anchor off the Cayo Costa State Park. Once in Pelican Bay on the northeast side of the island, he anticipated taking the dinghy up to the beach to meet Julio coming over by ferry, carrying a backpack with the femurs of h
is brothers. They would then make their way to Venezuela for the genetic tests, traveling mostly at night.
Cruze had piloted many different yachts and owned at least twenty over the years through their Fuentes Enterprises, using them to move drugs or money from port to port. Boats were his toys. Sleek, fast cruisers and speedboats beckoned to him. In those days, each major new design and model had to be seen and tried out. Now his love of boats clashed with his desire for a simple life although he still read about advances in technology. He helped Julio pick out this speedboat a couple of years ago, selecting this model because the craft was streamlined and swift. When Julio reverted full time to Annetta, she would need a classy though still speedy cruiser amenable to the harbors of the Mediterranean.
He ran his hands over the sealed ebony dashboard, noticing the way the controls glowed a bright blue in the dusky light, wishing only for a futuristic cloaking device to make this vessel the perfect dodge and run vehicle. The coasts and islands of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico offered many places to hide, but a mechanism to shroud the boat in apparent invisibility would be the ultimate evasion tool.
His love of seaworthy vessels dated to his teenage years and watching Miami Vice with its showy Chris-Craft Stinger 390x and the Cabo Rico 38 sailboat. Even though the Miami Vice fellows stood on the other side of the law, his brother Cristo had idolized their image and replicated it in his life, often wearing an Armani jacket draped over a silk T-shirt.
Cruze fancied the boats and used them to escape for a few hours or sometimes days from the drug business. Alone in the Gulf, he forgot about the contraband or money secreted away in hidden compartments and enjoyed the experience of being on the water, relishing the play of sunlight or moonlight on the waves, in the same way that he delighted in the sparkle of glass.
One day he intended to buy a sailing craft and learn to captain it, choosing as large a sailboat as he could pilot solo. All his boats thus far were racy yachts, speedboats, and fishing vessels souped up to outdistance any pursuers. The thought of skimming along on the sparkling blue water powered by his wits, the sails and the wind appealed to him. He wanted to sail with no other purpose than enjoyment, gliding out on the surf and letting the sea spray, the breezes and the storms cleanse his soul.
Late the next morning, Cruze took the backpack containing the two bones from Julio, cradling it in his arms with reverence. A jumble of emotions crowded him as he held these remnants of his brothers.
“Thank you for these. Odd though it may sound to say it, having the bones brings my brothers closer.”
Julio nodded, then jumped back in the small inflatable tender and finagled it around to the left side of the boat. Cruze quickly secured the bag with the bones in the cabin and then rushed up to help Julio raise the tender out of the water to its place upside down over the cabin cover.
“We should get underway,” Julio said, going to the helm and starting up the sleek yacht.
Cruze went to raise the anchor as the motor started. Soon the DNA examination would give him certainty about the fates of his brothers. Their proximity through their femurs brought a fresh wash of memories back to Cruze. His mind drifted to the hours they had spent at the Madrid house, first expanding the structure to make a livable home for Eduardo and converting the finished house into their headquarters.
Those days when they worked together took them away from the frenzy of their drug-based empire, reuniting them as a family. They began to see more of the old Eduardo, mainly on those nights when he brought out an album of old photos they had taken from their mother’s house after her memorial service. They had picked up a picture and recollected the day, occasion or situation, allowing the old snapshots to summon reminiscences and impressions from their youth. Each of them had conjured up different stories, and they had combined those recollections to relive the patchwork of their childhood, back when they were poor, but loved and happy. He supposed the FBI had the photographs now.
Sometimes they reminisced about the days before Annetta became Julio. Back then she made them explode with laughter with her imitations of her parents and other family members. She had a talent for imitating voices, including each of their own and switched from one persona to another without marring her pantomime. Her ability to mimic others contributed to how she became so convincing in her male role as Julio.
Only once did Julio visit them in Madrid. The open space of their property and the adjoining rural area had unnerved him. Julio had mastered slipping away unnoticed in the city. Out in the open dry land of New Mexico, he had felt vulnerable and exposed, without anywhere to disappear. Cruze remembered one night when Julio came into his room and sat in the chair in silence, wrapped in a blanket. He had woken to see him still there in the morning, wafted into slumber with a gun in his lap. Another night Julio had slept down in the basement, curled up in a corner under the long table where Eduardo had his computerized command center.
Whether as Annetta or as Julio, his cousin moved with the lithe grace of a cat, however, he never knew her to purr in contentment. As a child her dynamism had kept her too charged to sit still for long. As an adult Julio was too wary to relax, although he had learned how to sit and how to wait, even though under his exterior calm he was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
At times like this when freed of constraints, Julio did not stand still. As he piloted the boat, he stayed in motion, checking this control and that dial and moving his eyes over the open sea. His movements were purposeful rather than fidgety. With mirrors and TV screens he could see all around the small yacht with minor movements of his head. His restless attention to his surroundings no doubt kept his cousin safe. Even as a child when Annetta, she seemed too wired. The hyper-awareness was natural since he had never known Julio to take narcotics, then or now.
Chapter 13
Early the next day, Steve called the Chief who still lived in the D.C. area. In case some super-hacker penetrated the Bureau’s multi-layered security or information on them otherwise leaked, they set up a consulting firm in California to bill their time and expenses for the Spook Hills gang using pseudonyms. A regular Bureau squad was investigating the gravesite bone robberies. Steve read their updates and then reviewed the files on the Fuentes case from the preceding years. He knew the files well, having entered much of the information himself.
For a break Steve walked out to speak to Lenny about any help he needed and to discuss with him who to bring in. Fred and Lenny stood together in the barn cleaning the pruning and cultivating equipment. Lenny agreed he needed assistance on patrols if the work went on for months.
After walking with Lenny over to the door, Steve asked in a low tone, “How about training Fred’s father?”
Lenny slid his eyes over to Fred as he contemplated the suggestion. “Federico? We clipped together during harvest. He’s a good worker. He’ll need to help out with what I do over at Rick’s too. I like the idea.”
Steve nodded and walked into the barn to be closer to the workbench. “Fred, are you comfortable with having your dad here full time, at least for the next few months?” Steve asked.
“Si. Without work, we worry about my papá. Concerned he go back to drinking. This way I keep an eye on him,” Fred replied as he put the pruning shears down that he sharpened. His face grew happy when he said, “He is now like when I was a boy. He talks more, and he is fun again. No way do I want him to, what do you say, jump off the truck?”
“Fall off the wagon – same thing,” Steve said.
“Okay if I call him?”
“Let me contact him first. What’s his phone number?”
As Steve walked back to the house, he dialed Fred’s father. Once Federico was signed on, Steve planned to call Lenny with the news and send a text to Mathew since he was working on crush over at Rick’s. Steve respected Federico for carrying the burden of alcoholism by remaining abstemious after he went through a sobriety program a little over a year ago.
After completing his calls, S
teve and Ivy reviewed the Fuentes case materials from their laptops down in the library they used as an office. He explained the structure of the FBI’s case file system named Sentinel.
“How about I go through the inventory from the New Mexico house?” Ivy offered.
“Good with me,” Steve said, knowing Ivy would comb through the list carefully.
Steve requested a comparative photo test of the brothers on all passports recorded for travel in or out of the United States under any name since the last time they did a similar run the prior year. If any brothers remained alive, by this time they might have altered their appearances. Nonetheless, he wanted to examine the obvious possibilities first.
“Steve, some old photographs and other memorabilia weren’t scanned. Can we get images of them? Ivy asked. “They found them in a box in Eduardo’s bedroom closet.”
“Bingo! Those photos may help us. Good find, Ivy. I’ll order up the scanning on a priority basis. By the way, did they find any keys such as for safety deposit boxes or what might be access codes?”
“None I see so far.”
Steve liked being back at work. Judging by her intensity, Ivy did too. He recalled their work on the Fuentes case last year when the house was under construction. They had set-up folding tables out in the barn with room for six of them. The warm autumn breezes had blown through the big barn doors when they were slid back, making their working conditions pleasant. He remembered he had worked standing up part of the time to relieve the pain from a gunshot wound in his butt while he and Ivy had healed from the attack on them ordered by the brothers.
One downside to working in the library was a lack of exposure to natural light or fresh wafts of air. By design, the room was nestled into the bank underneath the upper floor of the house with books on three sides and the front open to the downstairs games room. They viewed the outdoors, but they did not benefit from any cross ventilation. Ivy might agree to move their desks out closer to the windows.
New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) Page 12