Books roared, emitting an inhuman sound, and Joe was driven back, turning, Books’s gun turning with them, sweeping in the direction of Melissa.
Click. The Glock’s firing pin unseated, stopping short of the round’s primer.
Another click.
“Run!”
Joe fell backward, crashing to the floor by the entryway, Books on top of him. He felt a sharp, almost paralyzing pain course up his left arm and through his shoulder. For a crazy moment, the short Hispanic doctor from GIMC flashed into his mind, reprimanding him for not taking it easy. Then he felt something like a hammer on his forehead. Books punching again. Blood on Books’s fist. Through a white haze, he saw his daughter. She was screaming.
He shouted. Told her to run. Fought to stay conscious, his grip weakening on the gun.
He knew he couldn’t overpower this animal on top of him. He had only one chance left. His weapon. He hadn’t tried for it before, because he’d needed both hands to control Books’s gun. He brought his leg back, took his right hand off Books’s Glock, and reached for his ankle holster.
Another blow struck him, this time on his right cheek. Fire ripped through his head. Blood filled his mouth. Joe grasped the handle of his own Glock. He pulled. For a second, he thought it was free, but then his hand wouldn’t move.
Books smiled down at him. He had his hand on Joe’s Glock, trying to wrench it away.
Joe glimpsed Melissa again. Why hadn’t she run? Now Books would kill them both. He felt a cry of rage rising from deep inside. Hopeless rage. Powerless rage.
Then a loud thunk.
Another.
He heard a distant voice yelling, “Get off him!”
For a fraction of a second, Books’s hold on Joe’s gun weakened. Without hesitation, Joe yanked his right hand up, breaking Books’s grasp. Then he pushed the gun forward into the big man’s side. He pulled the trigger. Pulled again.
He blinked through his own blood, through the white haze. Books fell forward, pinning him to the floor. Off to the side, his daughter stood, arms raised, Bluehorse’s kachina held high with both hands.
OCTOBER 16
SATURDAY, 11:51 P.M.
JOE EVERS’S APARTMENT, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
They sat on the bed, not saying anything. Joe held her close, wrapped tightly in his good arm. He hadn’t let the EMTs take him to the hospital. He’d go later. Right now, Melissa needed him. She’d just seen her father almost killed, and she had been forced to do something that might haunt her for years. A man was dead, deservedly so, but still dead. He knew the way of the haunted. Not only at night, when he closed his eyes, but during the day, too. The terror of what had just happened and of that day on Jones Ranch Road would linger. It would visit him in his dreams. Bluehorse would visit him. Worst, the knowledge that he had been the cause of his friend’s death would be the most unwelcome caller.
He didn’t want any of that for Melissa. But how could he stop it? All he could do was try to be there for her. Here and now. As long as he could.
She’d shut down when the police had arrived and hadn’t spoken since. Joe comforted his daughter while only yards away officers processed the crime scene. He felt worlds away, lost in his own thoughts of fatherhood and his concerns for his daughter. He would be there for her for as long as she needed him to be there, for as long as it took for her to feel safe again.
OCTOBER 25
MONDAY, 11:12 A.M.
BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Over a week had passed since Joe’s confrontation with Books. The doctors had checked his injuries and restitched his cheek. His arm had significant bruising, but in the end they gave it a clean bill. He’d been sent home with strict orders to rest. The remainder of that week, he spent with Melissa. For the first few days, reporters hung around outside the apartment building, waiting for an interview or at least a photo. But they got neither. Joe and Melissa stayed inside, not feeling up to facing the world, even if that meant a simple trip for groceries. So he found a store that delivered, and they watched TV and talked, played board games and talked some more. A lot of talking. By Friday, cabin fever had set in, and the reporters had given up, so they ventured outside to Sierra’s house for a chicken cordon bleu dinner.
Today, Melissa was on a plane back to New York. He had taken her to the airport two hours ago and then waited to see her flight take off.
Now he sat at his desk, the Edgerton file spread out. The case file had been copied and sent to the FBI. Murder on the reservation was officially their territory. When Nick Garcia’s body had been found, Andi had opened a murder investigation, but she’d never pushed the issue and had let Joe run with it. But now, with three bodies, it had clearly moved into their jurisdiction. BIA could assist, but the FBI would be lead. And Joe was off the case. On paid leave because of the shooting. But he needed to do something.
So he reviewed photos from the search of the congressman’s office.
Technically, it was Cordelli’s case. He was BIA’s point agent for the Edgerton murder investigation, as it was now called in the news. But Wonder Boy had taken some time off himself. Joe guessed the young agent would need that time to decide if he really wanted to be in law enforcement. Being shot in the chest and surviving would alter anyone’s perspective. Sadi had also taken this week off, but for a different reason. And Joe understood that, too.
He pulled Ellery Gates’s interview from the file: a half-page memo documenting that the congressman had lawyered up and refused to talk to the agents. That was two days after Edgerton went missing. Gates had still been in Albuquerque, having come to meet with Edgerton and then staying in the state, even after Edgerton hadn’t shown. What was strange was that Gates had traveled alone. No aid. No wife. He hadn’t wanted witnesses to the meeting. Grace had said Gates came to New Mexico to go fly-fishing with Edgerton. If that were true, then it was an amazing coincidence that the supposed fishing trip was the same day Congress had announced their probe into allegations of bribery and corruption against Edgerton and Gates. No doubt Gates had come to New Mexico to talk about the probe. He or Edgerton had gotten advance warning, and they were getting together to work out a strategy.
But Edgerton had been killed that day.
The two bodies had been identified as those of Edgerton and Faye Hannaway. They’d been buried next to each other almost two hundred yards from the vehicle. Joe and Andi surmised the only reason Nick, the driver, had been found so close was because he’d been too heavy to drag far.
Another piece of evidence was the result of the Colt 1911 ballistic examination. Andi had collected the gun from Grace Edgerton’s home after Bluehorse’s funeral and sent it to Quantico for an expedited comparison. She’d phoned him earlier this morning with the result: The round recovered near the vehicle had been fired from Edgerton’s gun. That piece of information had not hit the news. Andi would play that one close. Nothing to the press.
A week ago, he’d thought Othmann could have been behind Edgerton’s disappearance. He would have been okay with allowing Cordelli and the FBI to sort it out. But the ballistic report changed all that.
When he’d told Sierra about the bodies, she cried in joy and in sorrow. For Sierra, the fact she would no longer have to defend her sister was enough. But he felt the need to give her more. The answers to the who and why of every investigation. Only then would true closure be possible.
He picked up a photo of Edgerton’s office taken during the BIA’s search in the days following his disappearance. The gun Andi had collected from Mrs. Edgerton had been a gift to her husband from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Something a politician would keep visible. In the photo was a bookcase, and on the second shelf from the top sat a wooden display frame the size of a shoe box. Through a magnifying glass, he could see a nickel-plated Colt 1911 inside. The only two people of Edgerton’s inner circle who had access to that gun—and could have put it back afterward—were Grace Edgerton and Kendall Hol
mes.
OCTOBER 26
TUESDAY, 2:21 P.M.
ALBUQUERQUE AIRPORT, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Joe’s plane had been scheduled to leave at 3:05, but the flight information board by the gate now flashed DELAYED. The new departure time was 3:45.
He made a phone call.
Helena answered on the first ring.
“Hey, cowboy. I don’t think I ever thanked you for the heads-up on the two bodies.”
“You didn’t, but maybe you can pay me back. Are we off the record?”
“Ooh, pillow talk.” She may have purred. “Shoot.”
“Tell me everything you know about Senator Kendall Holmes.”
OCTOBER 26
TUESDAY, 8:16 P.M.
GATES RANCH, SOUTH OF KAUFMAN, TEXAS
Joe reached out the car window and pressed the intercom button. A few seconds later, a woman’s voice came through the speaker.
“¡Hola!”
He held his credentials in front of the tiny camera lens poking through the intercom housing.
“Joe Evers, BIA.”
“Okay,” the voice said with a thick Mexican accent. “Come up to the main house.”
The ten-foot-high wrought-iron gate swung inward, the huge G at its center splitting in half. An arch straddling the road read: GATES RANCH.
He drove up to the large timber and stone house. Joe guessed the term lodge would be a better description. He parked behind a navy Land Rover. A woman waited on the front porch. She gestured for him to come in—or maybe hurry up. He did both.
They walked inside, where the woman led him into a huge room constructed of massive timber beams. At the room’s center sat an impressive stone fireplace. The woman glanced at the bandage on his cheek. She gave a look of displeasure but did not comment.
“Mr. Gates wants you to join him for dinner.” She did not wait for his reply, but instead started walking.
He followed.
They came to what he guessed was the dining room, but he would have been just as comfortable calling it a dining hall. Ellery Gates sat at the far end of the long table. A second place setting was arranged next to his seat. At least they wouldn’t be shouting.
“Welcome, Agent Evers.” Gates stood and walked to Joe, hand outstretched. “I hope you don’t mind. I took the liberty of holding dinner for you. When you said you were flying down so late in the day, I thought you might enjoy a good meal. And I don’t get much company out here, so entertaining a guest has become an infrequent joy for me.”
They shook hands.
“I learned about the shooting incident on the news and am sorry about the officer’s death. Please accept my condolences for you and the officer’s family.”
Joe nodded, unsure how to respond.
“Now please, come and sit down,” Gates said, walking back to his seat at the table. “Mariana cooks up one of the finest T-bones you’ll ever have, I guarantee it. So for the next hour or so, if you don’t mind, I’ll treat you to some fine food, good spirits, and some straight talking. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have. Sound good?”
Joe sat down and admired the elegant dinner service and expensive crystal. “I would be a total heel if I turned down such an offer, Mr. Gates.”
“And cut the mister crap. It’s Ellery.” Gates clapped him on the back. “Mariana, bring out a bottle of red. Something he can brag about tryin’.”
Mariana started them off with a salad and a small bowl of posole. The T-bone followed and was as good as Gates had promised. Over the next hour, they talked about Texas, Oklahoma, and the BIA. They talked about everything but the Edgerton case. And Joe didn’t mind. Gates was enjoyable company. A gentleman, a history buff, and an entertaining storyteller.
After dinner, they retired to what his host called the “smoking room.” It smelled of whiskey and leather, just as Joe imagined every smoking room should. Gates poured them each a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue. Joe would have to sleep in his car tonight rather than chance driving back to Dallas. Gates then brought over a humidor and Joe selected a Nicaraguan cigar. He clipped the end and lit it. The tobacco tasted sweet, as though touched by honey, the smoke earthy. Joe was getting too comfortable.
“I guess it’s time we talk about Edgerton,” Joe said.
Gates examined his cigar, rolling it slowly between his fingers. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Tell me about the day you went to Albuquerque. I read your report. It said you wouldn’t speak to the investigators. That you lawyered up.”
“Of course I did. I had just learned that I was being investigated for corruption. I knew enough to heed the advice of my attorney, Irvin Ritterhouse. He was an old friend, and a hell of a good tax attorney. Not much of a criminal one, though, but he did keep me out of jail. He and the two other law firms I hired. Irvin died last year. Lung cancer.” He again held his cigar out for inspection. “His last few months, he spent here. I set up one of the bedrooms for him. He’d outlived his wife. His two kids were miserable bastards. His elder son didn’t even show up at the funeral.” He paused, seeming to reflect. “But I suppose you’re not interested in all that.”
Gates went on: “Back when I was in Albuquerque, your counterparts came to talk to me. Irv told me to keep my yapper shut. His words, not mine. And I did. But afterward, after the hearings and the fines, and all the rest, I did talk to one of your agents. I told him all I knew about Arlen.”
Joe had not found any report in the file documenting a follow-up interview with Gates. “Do you remember who it was you spoke to?”
“I don’t recall the name. A Native American gentleman. Tall. I recall we talked about the Long Walk. And that’s what makes me think he was Navajo.”
Joe knew who the lead agent was back then. “Does the name Malcolm Tsosie sound familiar?”
Gates was thoughtful. “All I remember was our discussion about the Long Walk. He claimed Kit Carson was responsible for a near genocide. I suggested that while Carson brought about the surrender of the Navajo at Canyon de Chelly and the scorched-earth policy, it was probably not his intent to decimate the tribe. He did not much care for my account. He compared Carson to Hitler. I reminded him that Carson had married a Cheyenne woman, and he nearly ended the interview.” He laughed. “It was my own fault for discussing a topic of such cultural import. Other than that, he was friendly enough.”
“What did you tell him about Edgerton?”
“I told him I never saw Arlen that day in Albuquerque or since. When I got there, Arlen never showed up. Later, they said he’d disappeared.”
“Why did you go to Albuquerque that day?” This was the test. The fishing trip story had been a sham. Joe knew that just as surely as he knew Gates had been involved in the corruption back in ’88. But he also knew this old gentleman in front of him was working hard to try to redeem himself for that past indiscretion. The former congressman would either live up to the seemingly honorable image of a man who had learned from his mistakes or he would fall to his own vanity and self-righteousness and remain that man of twenty years ago.
“A friend had told me the ethics committee was going to announce the investigation and Arlen and I were the targets. I wanted to meet with Arlen to exchange notes. Please don’t ask me the name of the friend who told me. I can assure you she was in no way involved.”
“So you knew Arlen was taking money?”
“No. I suspected he was taking money. We were often on the same side of the issues. And let me set the record straight. I did take the money. I took it not because I needed it but because I believed that was how politics worked. I’d been around it my whole life. A game of favors played by people who saw the deal as more important than the issue. Whoever wielded more backroom influence was the winner. I liked to win back then. And winning meant doing favors and then asking for favors. Foolish, yes. Naïve about what was really important, like self-respect and honor. Guilty as charged.”
So Gates didn’t know for sure if Edge
rton was on the take? Then who else was in a position to influence the legislation?
“Tell me about Kendall Holmes.”
“Have you heard the term heterochromia?”
Joe had not.
“People with two different-colored eyes. I don’t know if that was the reason, but I never trusted him. It was that or the tinted sunglasses he always wore. Very self-conscious. And he looked like a mobster. They could have called him the ‘Teflon Don,’ too, because his association with Arlen and the corruption investigation never tarnished his political career. About four years after Arlen’s disappearance, he won a state senate seat. And then a few years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Very savvy in his political undertakings. Now I hear he might throw his hat in the next presidential primary. He’s not a household name yet, but that doesn’t matter. If the party likes you, you’re in. And they like him.”
“Mr. Holmes had told the agent investigating the case back then that he had gone to the airport to pick you up the day Edgerton went missing. Did you spend the rest of the day with him?”
“What I remember was sitting in the airport, furious, because he was about an hour late. I called Arlen’s office, but no one answered. Ken finally showed and we did spend the rest of the evening together, waiting for Arlen. We had dinner and then started calling around when Arlen didn’t show. We were at Arlen’s office when the news broke about the ethics investigation.”
“Did you tell Mr. Holmes about the investigation?”
“No, but I think he already knew. Arlen had friends, like I did. He probably got a tip. Ken was his chief of staff. Arlen would have told him to work up a spin. And Ken was a lawyer. Duke, I think. Maybe Georgetown. Never practiced, went straight into politics. A policy man.”
They talked a little more, and Joe declined a second Johnnie Walker. When it was time to start the fifty-mile trek back to Dallas, Gates insisted Joe spend the night. The former congressman must have been a powerful persuader when he was in office, because Joe found himself not only accepting the offer but feeling indebted to his host.
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