He asked, “What have we done, Patricia?”
She smiled, her lips still swollen from their hard kisses. Her black, moist eyes glistened. “We know exactly what we’ve done—just what we wanted to.”
TWENTY FOUR
Able collapsed into his favorite armchair, barefoot, still dressed in his gray uniform pants, but stripped down to a Fraternal Order of Police T-shirt up top. He’d taken a beer from the refrigerator—Pabst—and had snagged a bag of Eagle pretzels. The beer tasted of aluminum. Able thought that Tell Lyon might be onto something with his pricier, glass-bottle Samuel Adams brews.
Able sorted stacks of newspapers he hadn’t gotten to yet; found a copy of the daily with a photo of Thalia on the cover. It was a hastily cropped version of an engagement photograph. Newspaper bastards never discarded any fucking thing. And now they kept it all archived on the damned Web. Nothing ever went away anymore, not ever.
Well, not what you wanted to be gone, anyway. The stuff that mattered? That was lost all too easily.
Already, Able’s late mornings seemed empty.
He cast down the newspaper. No, goddamit, this wasn’t about him or anything he’d lately lost.
Thalia’s little girl, her mother—they were the real living victims.
That was what this was all about now. Finding the one who killed Thalia wouldn’t give the mother and daughter anything back, but they might rest a shade easier knowing the cocksucker who killed theirs no longer breathed their same sweet air.
Able could avenge Thalia’s killing. He could find her killer and kill that son of a bitch back. Hell, it wasn’t even a decision. His commitment to putting the slayer down like a mad dog was a given.
But to see to the mother’s keeping? To give Thalia’s little girl a worthy future? A different fucking challenge. One maybe beyond Able’s grasp; beyond his talents if he truly had any.
He thought again of all those late morning cups of coffee across the counter or table with Thalia.
Well, Able’s mornings were just going to be a sorry and dire fucking prospect. Christ knew Able was acquainted with the like.
He flicked on the television and found he had no patience for Leno’s or Letterman’s Bush-bashing monologues. Not that Able was a W. fan. He found the president woefully lacking stones on the immigration front. Able figured W.’s perspective on illegals had been fundamentally warped from his time playing Texas governor. And Bush had that Mexican nephew in the mix. Able finally settled on his man Lou Dobb’s rerun report—another hard-edged piece on illegal immigration and its monetary effect on the southwestern American working poor. Grist for Able’s blog.
Amos ambled out—shorts and a T-shirt. “I left the computer on and ready for you in the morning, Granddad. Type it all in, then when I get up, I’ll upload it to your blog for you.”
“Appreciate it, Amos.”
“It’s late, Gramps. You should go to bed. Try to get eight hours for once.”
“Been a bastard of a day, Amos, make no mistake on that count. Just need to unwind a bit first. You want a beer?”
“No thanks. I hate the taste from the cans.”
“Me too, lately. Remind me of that, next store trip. We’ll get some of that Sam Adams ale. It comes in glass bottles. Hi-tone stuff.”
Amos smiled. “Sure, Gramps.” He sat down on a short sofa that was starting to look a bit worn. If his grandmother had still been around, Amos knew there would have been new furniture in the house by now. He looked around, remembering the way his grandmother kept things and decided he’d sweep the carpet in the morning. And dust … especially the TV screen. The old man wasn’t good at fending for himself. Amos didn’t know what would happen to his grandfather if he moved out. Amos’s unformed plan was that Able might let Luisa and their child move in with them. The house was big enough. And God knew that it needed a woman’s touch. Amos said, “Anything new on the murder, Granddad?”
Able was pleased his grandson was taking a real interest in his work. He told Amos about how he and his deputies had cleared Shawn O’Hara of suspicion.
Amos nodded, taking it in, proud of the old lawman. “So, you have someone else in your sights? Some other suspect in Thalia’s murder?”
Able grunted, suppressing a belch. In his sheriff’s voice he said, “‘Thalia’? You knew her?”
Amos said, “Her name, it’s all over the news.” At least it wasn’t a direct lie.
“Yeah.” Able took another sip of beer and made a sour face. “No, I got nobody else yet. No other person of fuckin’ interest, to use the jargon of the day.” He hefted his beer can. “But ’tween me and Chief Lyon, we’ll get my Thalia justice. Lyon, heh. I suspect that bastard Lyon’s sharper than even he knows. You could do a hell of a lot worse than him for a first skipper.”
Amos’s cell phone rang.
“Your mystery girl?” Able arched an eyebrow.
“That’s right,” Amos said, backing toward his room.
“Tellin’ you, Amos, you don’t introduce me soon, boy, I’m gonna sleuth your ass come the weekend.”
Amos smiled, backing into his bedroom. He closed the door and said, “Luisa? What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“Amos! Sheriff Pierce is here!”
“What?”
“Sheriff Walt Pierce, he came with a … a …”
“Subpoena? A search warrant?”
“Sí. Yes. A search warrant.”
“Where are you now, Luisa?”
“Outside, at the corner, by the mailbox.”
“Good. Stay out of their way, Lu. Just stay out of their way, and maybe you’ll get by.”
“They’re in her bedroom now. They put Thalia’s sheets and pillowcases in bags. They’re searching her drawers now. Took her unwashed laundry.”
“Trace evidence search,” Amos said. “Looking for clues that might identify who killed her.”
“She never had a man in this house!” He could hear Luisa’s anger in her voice.
“I’m just saying what they’re looking for—Pierce, I mean.”
“And his men, about six of them,” Luisa said. “And the corner.”
“Coroner,” Amos corrected her. “Just stay out of their way and they may not think to ask you for papers. Maybe not figure out you’re not legal.”
“I will. I’m scared, Amos.”
“Call me when they leave, Luisa.” He set his cell phone to “vibrate” so his grandfather wouldn’t hear when she called back.
THEN
Marita proposed marriage to Tell. And she didn’t want to wait.
Tell didn’t require much thought before saying yes.
His superior had already told Tell that he’d identified him as “a comer.” Said he’d be recommending Tell for promotion at the first opportunity. Professionally, Tell’s future seemed assured.
Except:
Tell said, “I don’t qualify for vacation yet, so any honeymoon …”
“We’ll squeeze it in on a weekend,” Marita said, looking up into his eyes. “Then we’ll do it right, bigger, later.”
TWENTY FIVE
Half awake, Tell had a sense of Patricia leaving, then returning. Then her mouth was on his mouth again, but minty. Opening his eyes, he said, “You cheated, woman.”
“So go brush your teeth, Tell. I won’t peek at you getting there.” Her bedroom was already flooded with morning light. He wished it were darker.
“My toothbrush is several doors down,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow. She had brushed the tangles from her black hair. He stroked her bare shoulder. He said, “My God, you wake up beautiful.”
She smiled and said, “Use my toothbrush, Tell. And don’t play squeamish at that prospect, not after the things we did last night.”
She smiled again, watching as he padded to the bathroom.
He heard music. He called from the bathroom, “What’s that song, Patricia?”
“You had your tunes last night. My music this time. ‘Calling All Angels,’ b
y Jane Siberry.”
“I like it.”
“Good answer.”
“Patricia—eyes elsewhere,” he said, but she watched him return naked to her bed.
“Six A.M.,” she said. “Still early. Still enough time.” She lifted the blankets and he slid in next to her. Smiling, moving half-atop him, she closed the covers over them. Her hair tickled his chest as she kissed his breastbone … his neck and then chin. His mouth. “Mm, minty,” she said.
She straddled him, breasts firm against his chest and her black hair a curtain around his face. She said, “I hope you’re not sorry for last night.”
“Not a bit.”
Her mouth was on his again. He could hear the mourning doves outside, their cooing some strange counterpoint to Jane Siberry’s song. He felt her hand on him, guiding him; her weight settling on him. “You better not have other plans tonight,” she said breathily, moaning as their bodies were joined.
“I don’t have other plans any night,” he said.
* * *
They were still languishing naked in bed. Jane was now singing, “Love is Everything.” It was nearly seven; another late start for Tell. He said, “I’m running out of avenues, Patricia. Able, too. It’s going to take an accident or a fluke to bring this guy in, short of another killing and more clues left. That is, short of some sideways inspiration.” Tell smiled and shook his head. “My cousin, Chris, he has a natural facility for this kind of thing. He’d probably have a suspect already.”
“I thought Chris is a writer.”
“He is, but he tends to run afoul of these things. Then he uses it for source material. He’d be a hell of a cop. Though it’s half-instinctual with him. It’s like he can just seize the thread and run it to its end. He has a gift for detecting human weakness. Chris can always suss out the worst or weakest in a man or woman and see how it drives them. It’s a hell of gift. Or curse. When he’s really on, he’s like a force of nature. Of course he’s not moving under color of authority, and so not bound by evidentiary stipulations. He doesn’t have to act with an eye toward the courts.”
“You sound jealous of him.”
“Mostly of his latitude,” Tell said.
“So call him, maybe. Ask for Chris’s advice?”
Tell couldn’t confide to Patricia he’d already consulted Chris for strategies to help Shawn O’Hara keep his newspaper job. He said, “Chris has a gift for getting justice, but he doesn’t do it by the book. So he’s not going to be much help to me in this case.”
Patricia rolled over on her belly, her right breast pillowed against his chest, her head propped up on one hand. She stroked his lips with her right hand, her fingers softly tracing his mouth and jawline. “A lot of murders go unsolved, Tell, all over the place. Don’t take it personally. And you say Able Hawk is just as stymied as you think you are.”
Tell loved her for that phrasing. He said, “Sure. But Able was also focused on trying to pull Shawn’s ass out of the fire.” Saying Shawn’s name, lying naked in her bed, Tell felt guilty. He checked the clock. Every moment spent in Patricia’s bed was another minute her ex had to spend in jail.
He thought of the Mexican kids he had stopped the night before, the name and phone number that he’d been given by young, scared Richie. Tell said, “You could help me with something else, Patricia. It could be big in its own respect. Or at least useful.”
“Sure, anything. What?”
“Be my operative?”
“Maybe. Sure.” She smiled crookedly. “But I don’t have to dress as a hooker or something, do I?”
He smiled. “No, just make a phone call. But when you do, try to come on more … well, Mexican.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean, like, fresher to the soil this side? Pidgin English?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“I can do that. Funny, you know, it’s only the past year or so I’ve encountered real racism here. I mean, before I open my mouth, I suppose I look Mexican enough, so I’m a target for it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I can handle it. It’s just strange coming this late, is all. What do you need me to do?”
Tell said, “We’ll use my cell phone. It’s blocked so it can’t be traced. You’ll call and ask for a new fake driver’s license. You’ll probably have to promise to pay three hundred dollars. And you’ll agree to meet wherever the man on the other end of the line suggests.”
Now Patricia was a little nervous. “Do I have to keep that meeting?”
“Not at all. God, no. I’ll keep your appointment for you. That’s the whole point.”
“This dangerous? Not to me—I mean to you?”
“No, probably not.” His fingers combed through her raven hair. “But as you mention it, we’re early days yet as lovers”—he smiled at her smile when he used the term—“and I’m a cop. You go into this knowing what I do to make my living, right, Patricia? You can’t spend all your time worrying about me every time I go out the door.”
“The job is you, Tell. I can see that.” She stretched up and kissed him again, slowly, using her tongue. She pulled away, eyes already open, searching his face. “Where’d you leave your cell phone?”
TWENTY SIX
Able sipped his coffee: Not that good.
Father Anthony Ruscilli said, “Why are you here, Sheriff? If memory and rumor serve, you’re a Presbyterian.”
Able frowned. He hadn’t found much use for religion since he lost his wife and daughter. It had been years since he last ventured inside a church. “What I am, is peeved, Father,” Able said.
“Peeved? At what? At whom?”
“Why, at you, Father.”
“Whatever for?”
“These Spanish sermons—they piss me off.”
The priest wagged a finger. “You, of all people, know the situation, Sheriff—the throngs of Spanish-only-speaking immigrants among us. More come every day. Most, perhaps 85 percent, are Catholic. This is outreach. They’re owed the services of the church too.”
Able sighed. “Yeah. I’m sure that’s so, Padre. But they’re not ‘immigrants,’ to use your word. They’re illegals.”
“But they are here, Sheriff.”
“And they should at very least try to assimilate, Father. Muy pronto. You offerin’ these well-meaning but misguided Spanish-only sermons, it’s cosseting their weakness.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Sheriff Hawk.”
“Then I’ll spell it out for you, Padre, in English. You mollycoddle them, Father. You undercut their assimilation by giving ’em a little piece of home here. Better to teach them English. Tough love. Tend to their souls in our lingo. These little Mexican environs are poppin’ up all over my county and I hate it. It’s especially true on the West Side of New Austin. Little Mexican worlds where the signage is in Spanish. Where Spanish is the dominant language. Hell, it’s the only language. The McDonald’s on the West Side has a fucking menu in Spanish. There’s a Spanish-language shelf in the library now. And Spanish-only story hours offered for illegal tykes. And now we have these ‘English-as-second-a-language’ standards foisted on us by bleeding-heart school honchos. That’s dragging down our test scores and threatening to push our school district into state receivership. And not speakin’ English is actually getting these poor bastards killed these days.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” Fr. Ruscilli said, impatience in his voice. “I’ve read your blog. I read about the recent fire.”
“Count yourself lucky you can read it, Father. Unlike these illegals you’re catering to.”
The priest shrugged and smiled. “I’m simply easing their transition, Sheriff.”
“Bullshit. You’re slowing that transition, Father. More likely, aborting it.”
“I think we’re finished here now, Sheriff Hawk. I will continue to do what I should do—what I’m charged with doing. We both have our obligations.”
Able Hawk stared at the bleary eyed priest. Able had already concluded the priest was a profoun
d alcoholic. Able said, “Well, Father, then in the same spirit, I’m going to do what I should do—what I’m charged with doing.”
“And what is that, Sheriff?”
“I’m going to take advantage of your convenient consolidation of all these Spanish-only-speaking illegals and stage a mass arrest. No fuckin’ pun intended.”
The priest exploded. “The church is sanctuary! What you threaten is monstrous!”
“What I propose is the law,” Able said. “And your sanctuary doesn’t extend to your parking lot, or to your city- and TIF-funded fucking access road back to the rest of my county. Coming or going, I’ll arrest ’em just fine along that path, Father. And rest easy—I’ll recognize your cooperation in said ‘mass arrest’ on my blog, which is now up to fifteen hundred hits a day, and thank you, or your absentee landlord, very much.” Able gestured at the empty cavern around them.
Able pushed his coffee cup aside and stood up. He smiled and said, “Sanctuary sure enough ain’t what it used to be. But then what is, these days, eh?”
The Horton County sheriff picked up his hat and put it on; fished his sunglasses from his breast pocket. “Now you best try and stay off my radar, you fucking degenerate,” Able said. “I’ve been researching you, Padre. You try anything on the kids here like you did in your past post, and I get wind of it, well, I’m going to go medieval on your ass—Spanish Inquisition-style, if you get my drift. And that vow doesn’t preclude me ‘outing’ you on my Web site in advance of any possible sin, should I stray into a dark and heady mood. I’ve found retaliating first to pay dividends, more often than not.”
THEN
Military brat.
A time-worn phrase, Shawn balked at the term. Military brat conjured images of baby boomers—sons and daughters of World War II– and Korea-era vets. But Shawn’s father’s age was such he had no war to claim as his own. He never served “in country,” if that was the right dumb-ass phrase for it. Jeff O’Hara was one of those lucky few who floated a military career without ever facing combat. Too young for Vietnam and too old for Desert Storm. Jeff had never faced fire outside of training exercises.
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