East of the Sun

by Trey R. Barker

  Most of those cars and trucks are invisible.

  They came and went and did their thing and no one really ever saw them. Like the truck that had just passed under her balcony, the driver with a soda in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other, a knit cap loose on his head because of the chill in the air. He goes to work every morning, slipping in and out of traffic and no one sees him except those who need to: the guys he works for, or the guys he delivers to, his family. Otherwise, he is invisible.

  “So do we have to do something about Dr. Vernezobre? Buying smuggled drugs?”

  “Well, we don’t really know anything, do we?” Rory’s eyes were downcast. “We have a smuggler telling us that, but he’s a con, been a guest of Texas prisons at least once. Probably more. Works for the Sinaloa cartel. So really, we have the word of a POS and Dr. Vernezobre is high dollar in Zachary City.” She shrugged.

  “Well, the doctor pretty much admitted it.”

  “Yeah, he did. I don’t know, Jace, I really don’t.”

  At the end of the alley, under Jace’s gaze, the white truck turned right toward Midkiff Drive. On the right side, as it was disappearing from view, Jace saw it.

  The logo. Faded and almost impossible to see, but the same giant round shape that she’d seen before.

  And no rear license plate.

  Son of a bitch.

  “That was him.” Pointing down the alley, Jace jumped up and dropped her bottle to the balcony. Beer spilled out and foamed all around her feet. “Damn it. That was him.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” Rory looked at an empty alley.

  “The guy who followed us. That white truck. That was it. That was him . . . driving past my damned apartment.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Rory, he turned right toward Midkiff. We’ll never find him now.”

  Midkiff Drive was one of the larger arteries in Zachary City and, at this hour, it was bursting with traffic. Slipping onto Midkiff was tantamount to a single person slipping into a football stadium during a game.

  Invisible . . . again.

  “Hang on, Jace. How do you know it was him?”

  “When he turned right, I saw the logo. Black outline of what looked like a circle. Old and faded or maybe sort of painted over, I don’t know. Plus, he didn’t have a rear plate.”

  Rory looked down the alley, then up the alley as though he might magically reappear on a geographic loop. But the alley, as forgotten as Gramma always said it was, was quiet and empty.

  “Who are you?” Rory asked, as quiet as the alley.

  “The hell are you following us is what I want to know.” Jace leaned over the railing and stared hard toward the houses and businesses, as though she could see the truck through them. Useless, she knew, but panic ate at her, hot and sharp. How had he found her apartment? “He’s coming after me? Rory, he came to me.”

  Reaching out, softly, Rory hugged Jace and held on until the woman’s shaking stopped. “Yeah, he did, but who cares. He obviously didn’t have balls enough to stop so piss on him. He won’t do anything.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I do. I know bad guys. He had a chance the first time and just now, and he didn’t do anything. He’s a coward. We’ll see him again and—”

  “I don’t want to see him again.”

  “Yes, you do, because every time you see him, that’s one more chance for us to grab him. Plus . . .” She pulled out her cell and dialed. “Mr. Balsamo. How are you this lovely day?” She grinned and nodded at Jace. “I’m sorry to see Manchester United had such a terrible season.”

  Balsamo was an Anglophile who ran the records department at the sheriff’s office. Rory never got tired of giving him grief. Now she laughed.

  “Come on, don’t talk nasty to me. Listen, I need a favor. Huh? Sure, next time I’m there during the day, I’ll come down and let you look at my bum. Can you call your buddies at the court clerk’s office and see if anyone in the county has written a registration ticket for no back plate to a white work truck. I know, I know, and that’s all I can tell you. Check back about six months or so? You funny man.” She kissed the phone and put on a British accent. “Thank you, love.”

  “You think that’ll get us anywhere?”

  Sitting down, Rory shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

  They fell silent for a few minutes, the sounds of industrial Zachary City in their ears. The light-industrial area was just across the railroad tracks from the Sea Spray Inn, and from early morning until deep into the night, it was banging with life. The thump and smash of trucks being loaded and unloaded, of things being made and shipped out via rail to the far corners of everywhere, of things being fixed and broken and refixed and maybe broken again. The smokestacks snorted an assortment: black and tan, white, white tinged with orange, gray. That smoke was one of the economic barometers. Oil and gas production were the cash crops, but those were out in the field. A local company might have twenty producing wells, but they were all over the state, maybe scattered up through Oklahoma and Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. The stacks and their smoke were here and visible. When they painted the wide-open sky, times were good. When the smoke was weak and spotty, when the air was clean and clear and the environment happy, times were rocky.

  Invisible.

  In other words, when things were invisible, when there was no smoke . . . the situation was bad.

  “What are you thinking about? Since you tend to massively overthink everything. The chase? The white truck? What?”

  Jace shook her head. “Wasn’t overthinking anything.”

  “Oh, you totally were, but you tell the story however you want.”

  “I was thinking about invisibility.”

  “Again with your big words.”

  A series of knocks boomed through the apartment. “Jace? Answer the damned door. I know you’ve got that freak in there with you.” More booms. “Get her ass out here.”

  A second later, Shelby barged in. “Had to call me, huh? I give you the info so you can make the arrest and I don’t have any paperwork and you call me anyway. I tell you I’m old and tired and you call me anyway.” He trudged through Jace’s apartment and sat heavily on the balcony between the women. “The two superstars.”

  “Yes. Yes, we are,” Rory said.

  “Beer? Instead of Skittles? You’re always eating candy. You sick or something?”

  Candy? Jace frowned. Shelby’s mentioning of candy rang a distant bell in her head.

  Rory pleasantly gave him her middle finger.

  “Good enough. So got another beer?”

  “Uh . . . Shelby? We have to work tonight.” Jace glanced at her watch. “I need to get to bed soon for a nap.”

  “Bah. That can wait.” He tossed them some computer printouts. “So Mr. Bustillo was surprisingly cooperative. He gave us a few people, I assume no better than low level since he’s scared to death of the Sinaloas. So I then spend, like, days and days tracking down a couple of those low-level people and wha’d’a I get?”

  “Bupkis?” Rory asked.

  “That would have made my day easier. No. Turns out one of the names is actually a dealer and that dealer gave us more than a few of his customers. Guy name of William Milner. Street name Billy Milly. Turns out Billy Milly has been convicted in Texas before . . . twice, in fact . . . and he’s got a warrant outta Bexar County for distribution. Had a little problem in San Antonio. So he’s extremely eager to work off some of the debt he suddenly incurred last night, along with a little of the San Antonio debt. He’s ready to deal up and down the food chain.”

  Rory smiled and nodded and handed Shelby her beer.

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes, Miss Salome, it is very good.” Shelby knocked back the last of it and handed the bottle to Rory. “A dead soldier. Time to breathe life into a new one.”

  With a laugh, Rory headed for the kitchen. “Aren’t you still on duty?”

  “Taking some personal
time.”

  “Is that what they call it?”

  Shelby gave Rory a middle finger. “Seems Mister Billy Milly has some friends in Mexico and New Mexico and Chicago that he’s willing to name for our friends at DEA and DHS, but he’s also willing to hand over his customers to Force Chrome and the Zachary and Rooster and Midland and Ector and Bexar County sheriff’s offices.”

  Jace whistled. “Wow, that’s quite a haul.”

  Rory handed him a beer. “A new soldier, General.”

  Shelby pointed at the list he’d handed Rory. “So what I wonder from you guys is how many of his customers do you know from the jail. Who might be workable?”

  “If you have their dealer, what else can you work?”

  He grinned. “There is always something to work, Jace. Always something else to discover. ’S just like working in the jail: wheels within wheels within wheels. Most junkies don’t work and if they do, we’re not talking about high-paying jobs. So how do they feed their habits?”

  “Burglary. Theft.”

  He nodded. “So if I can work the junkies, maybe I can clear cases.” He sighed. “Or give those cases to people who aren’t as old and tired and—”

  “Crotchety,” Rory said.

  “I was going to say curmudgeonly, but okay.” Shelby took a long pull from the beer.

  On the first few pages, there were no names she recognized. But on the fourth page, Jace’s gaze stopped. She pointed out a name to Rory.

  “Damn.” Rory looked at Shelby.

  “Who?”

  “A friend of mine. Dr. Vernezobre.” Looking at Jace, she said, “We sort of heard his name from Bustillo, and there’ve been rumors for years.”

  Rumors you alluded to yesterday when we spoke to him, Jace thought.

  “Yeah . . . well, your friend’s a bad boy.” Shelby finished the beer in just a few swallows, grabbed another beer in the kitchen, and popped the top.

  Rory got defensive. “He’s a good man. Gets pills as cheap as he can and gives them free to poor people.” She gave Shelby a long look. “Is there anything we can do about this?”

  “You asking me to lose evidence of a crime?”

  Jace thought about it. “Has there been a crime? A name on a computer that belongs to a dealer? Could be your dealer had some medical problems. I’m not sure there’s a crime anywhere to be found.”

  Shelby grinned again and Jace liked the grin. It was lopsided and toothy, but warm with a hint of mischief. “Trust me. The man’s been buying black market for thirty years. Hell, I think even the circuit judges know him. If I charged him, the DA wouldn’t prosecute and if he did, the judge would toss the case and even if the judge didn’t toss the case, I guarantee you most everyone on the jury would know someone he helped. They’d acquit. Don’t worry about him.” Shelby winked. “Plus, seeing as how he knows some of the mopes in the county, he’s helped us from time to time.”

  “Good.” Jace thought of Preacher. The old man’s body ached in more places than Jace’s body had and Preacher was as down and out as anyone Jace had ever known. For years, Preacher had gotten his painkillers from back-alley dealers and that was the best he could afford. Yeah, he was breaking the law and yeah, she knew it, but she didn’t care. The world wasn’t black and white and neither should the law be. The letter of the law shouldn’t crush the spirit of justice, as freaking corny and clichéd as that sounded in her head.

  “Anyone else?” Shelby quaffed half the new beer in a single swig.

  At the top of the fifth page, Rory frowned. “Well, lookit here.”

  “Who’s that?” Shelby asked.

  “Dr. Wrubel.”

  Shelby’s eyes bugged. “What?” He grabbed the sheaf of pages. “Holy shit. I gave the list a quick look, didn’t see his name. So you’re telling me Dr. Wrubel, who was killed in the Zachary County Jail, was a drug addict?”

  Jace took a deep breath. “Why am I thinking about candy?”

  “ ’Cause you’re about half crazy.” Rory looked at Shelby. “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been hearing. Maybe dealing, too. Hell, probably dealing.”

  “I saw Kerr in the hallway a few nights ago,” Jace said. “He told me that if we wanted to stop drugs coming in, we shouldn’t focus on inmates so much. He said we should focus higher up the food chain. His exact words.”

  Shelby stared at her. “And why was he telling you that?”

  Jace felt hot blood flood her cheeks. “Well, I was trying to find out if he knew if Wrubel was selling but I didn’t want to say Wrubel’s name if I was wrong. He said look slightly higher up the food chain but he wouldn’t give me any names.” They said nothing, just stared at her. “So I asked him if he’d help me put a notch in my belt so I could move up.”

  Rory grinned. “You did not. Put a notch in your belt?”

  “You played him?”

  Jace squirmed under the gazes. “Well . . . yeah, I guess I did. I was just trying to get information.”

  Shelby raised his beer. “Cheers to the newbie worm. Well done.”

  Rory laughed and slapped Jace’s knee. “Damn, you’re good. Played both Kerr and Mercer. Getting good at this, worm.” Rory suddenly looked shocked. “Damn it, I’m not sure how much longer I can call you worm.”

  “How about never? Does never work for you?”

  “Lemme think . . . uh . . . no.” Rory’s smile disappeared. “What if Wrubel’s not an addict? What if he was buying drugs on the cheap like Vernezobre?”

  Shelby rubbed his bristled cheek. “Could be, but if he were buying on the cheap, like Vernezobre, was he buying for Vernezobre? That doesn’t make sense because Vernezobre can buy his own and I don’t think Wrubel had his own practice, did he?”

  “Maybe as a sideline?” Jace said.

  “Or buying for the jail? Maximize profit?”

  Jace frowned. “He and Dr. Cruz argued about missing meds. So maybe he’s taking from the pharmacy and then replacing them?”

  Shelby shook his head. “Too risky. Why do that when he can just take the smuggled meds? Not have to worry about getting them into the jail. A sideline? That could be a maybe.” Taking back the printouts, Shelby stood and yawned. “Again, thanks for calling me after I told you explicitly I wasn’t interested.”

  “You’re always interested, General.”

  With a grin he winked. “True that. Always working it. All of us had a great night so . . . here’s to me and my master plan.” He saluted the ladies and left.

  They sat for a while, silent, and let the sounds of the afternoon come to them. A touch of warmth had taken hold from the morning frost, though it was still nippy out. Eventually, things would warm up to a decent mid-50s probably. Not quite warm enough for Jace, but not too bad. Then, as she and Rory headed in to work tonight, it would cool down all over again.

  It came to her suddenly, like a blow from a fist.

  Candy.

  Invisibility.

  Barry Ezrin, a captain with the Texas Rangers, had once told her Bobby liked his candy.

  . . . his family was gone one night, he robbed the house, looking for candy money.

  When Ezrin said candy, he meant drugs. And when he said Bobby, he meant Inmate Bobby.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Jace?”

  “I misread Inmate Bobby.”

  “How’d we get to him all of a sudden? Come on, this is a great day.” She waved a hand in the direction of the jail. “Piss on that place. Give it a rest.”

  Wrubel had been an addict, or had been selling, or both. Had Inmate Bobby been selling? He was an addict, too, and Kerr had told her to look up the food chain but only slightly up. Who was up from an inmate, but only slightly? A trusty. Up from there was civilian staff, then jailers, then roadies, then administration and the sheriff and the judge.

  “Misread him about Wrubel’s murder,” Jace said.

  Rory wiped the condensation from her beer bottle, let it drip from her fingers. “What are you talking about?”

  I
nvisible. Mercer had never left medical but Inmate Bobby had been within a few feet of Wrubel’s death. Invisible in his jail uniform and with his jail mop bucket. Had Inmate Bobby stabbed Wrubel with the scapel, hidden it in the mop water, then jammed the shank into the doc before Jace ordered him into the go-between? Then later dumped the scalpel somewhere in the huge custodial room, with so many places to dump it, and gone on to his cell for the night?

  “I think it was Inmate Bobby.”

  “What?” Rory’s head snapped around. Her eyes dug hard into Jace.

  “Preacher says everyone is a killer given the right context.”

  “That crazy old man is probably right. Everybody is a killer, things roll the right way.” Rory played with the bottle. “But this?”

  Jace put it all out while Rory slowly pulled the label off her beer. “It could be that Wrubel and Inmate Bobby got crosswise about something in medical; something legitimate. Inmate Bobby wanted something or thought he needed something and Wrubel wouldn’t give it.”

  Silence answered Jace.

  “Or maybe everything we’ve heard is right . . . maybe they’re both selling to inmates and Wrubel was cutting into Inmate Bobby’s profit.” Jace shook her head. “I’m not sure I believe Wrubel was selling drugs but if he wasn’t, then a drug thing makes no sense. Records would tell me if Inmate Bobby has ever been in medical.”

  “Maybe they met in the hallway.”

  “A casual hallway meeting isn’t motive for murder.”

  Rory sighed and her gaze slipped away from Jace and into the winter sky, as though the answers were hidden behind clouds and if she looked long enough, west Texas would blow everything clear. “Bobby’s in on distribution. Not the first time, either.” Rory set the beer bottle aside, a last few swallows left in it. “Wrubel’s name is on a drug list and Bobby’s down for distribution.”

  “Dr. Vernezobre’s name is on that list, too.”

  “And Inmate Bobby was near the body.” Rory stood, stretched, yawned. “We could have ourselves a winner, folks, in the Please-Send-Me-To-Prison-For-Murder category.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “No.” Rory’s hands went to her hips and her head shook vehemently. “Absolutely not.”