by Allen Kent
“Each of these three plants has stored some of the material and sent some to training and deployment sites around the world. The Bureau began by having the three depots run inventories on their stored material. The Iowa plant came up half a dozen units short.”
“That stuff must be carefully guarded,” I observed. “How would someone get six bags that size out of the depot?”
“Rosario and two other agents are there now. It’s somewhere up near Burlington, if you know where that is. Southeast part of the state along the Mississippi. The place is under video surveillance twenty-four seven. They seem to know exactly where the missing units were stored, and it was covered all day, every day, by cameras. They’re going through the backup video, and he hopes he’ll know something by tomorrow.”
Grace spoke from beside the door, forcing Joseph to glance her way. “As much as I dislike the Greaves, I still think it’s highly unlikely they were able to get ahold of the stuff. No good way to contact anyone who had it.”
Any reply from Joseph was cut short by Marti, who stepped into the room, looking around importantly. “Pardon the interruption, but I found your man Jason Anzar. He’s on Facebook, living in Brandon, Mississippi.” She paused dramatically. “And get this. It looks like he recently left the service where he was with the 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team. His last deployment before being discharged? Northern Syria.”
15
Two huge breaks on our dead Syrian case and both frustrating as hell. What they did, basically, was move the investigation out of the county and into the hands of the Feds. Rosario was chasing down the missing demolition packs. Joseph’s call to the Bureau about Jason Anzar pretty well put that piece of the puzzle in their hands as well. That left our department with the routine and much less engaging job of keeping the locals safe from each other and from the ravages of distracted driving and drug use.
Frankie was finally able to nail Ernest Bonebrake for speeding without a license and without his seatbelt fastened. Ernie weighs in at about four hundred pounds. He’s notorious in the county for taking his wife Jan’s little Ford Fiesta for a five-mile, LeMans-style sprint from his place out on Highway MM to the Sonic for a Route 44, two bacon double cheeseburgers, and an order of mozzarella sticks. He has a pickup of his own. But it seems to be a lot easier to throw his bulk behind the wheel of the Fiesta with the seat full back, lower the wheel against his massive belly, and gun the Ford along the two-lanes that wind through the farms and timberland into town. Any unsuspecting motorist who dares to try to share the road risks being forced onto the shoulder or, in his most aggressive moments, into a drainage ditch.
Ernie has been driving without a license for nearly two years now but isn’t at all deterred by any sense of wrong-doing. On this fateful day, he’d forced Ritter off the road on a tight turn on Cloverhill Road and had enough sense not to try to outrun the deputy on the milelong straightaway that followed.
The way Frankie told the story—waiting until the evening crew had come in and he had a full audience—he could see Ernie fumbling with the seatbelt as he approached the vehicle. Frankie waited until Bonebrake rolled down his window, then said, “Ernie, what are we going to do with you? Driving like a maniac in this tin can of a car. No license and no seatbelt.”
“You nailed me, Rambo,” Ernie confessed, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “But you can’t get me for no seatbelt.”
“‘Hell I can’t!’ I told the dumbass,” Frankie recounted with more than his usual display of drama. “I pointed at his belt. He’s so damn fat that when he tried to buckle up in a hurry, he looped it through the steering wheel. Couldn’t have made the next turn without driving off the road. I got a picture of it, and we’ll see what Judge Werner does with him this time. We may have to put a tracking collar around one of them hambones of an ankle. Then, when it starts to move, we’ll know Ernie’s back on the road.”
We all knew Werner wouldn’t throw Ernie in jail but would give him a fine and order him again to stay off the roads if behind the wheel. Janet would do her best to keep him home and on whatever diet she’s trying to force on the man. Then the siren call of bacon double cheeseburgers and an Oreo cheesecake shake would overpower poor Ernie and he’d violate his probation.
Grace was committing her quiet days in the office to seeing what more she could learn about Jason Anzar. Though the Bureau laid claim to him now, she needed something that would keep her body sedentary and her mind kicked into investigative gear.
“Werner will fine him again,” she mumbled from her desk. “And that’s probably the right thing to do. A few weeks in jail won’t change him, and we can’t afford to feed him. We just need to get his place wired to the tornado sirens so when he heads for town, Jan can sound the alarm. Three short bursts will mean the world needs to stay clear of MM.”
“He’ll kill himself one of these days,” I offered. “Hope he doesn’t take anyone with him.”
“I ain’t covering that wreck,” Frankie groused. “It’ll look like someone blew up the rendering plant.” The image brought a quick halt to the Ernie Bonebrake seatbelt discussion.
I used the light afternoon to take a half-day to begin resealing the siding on my house. It was a balmy seventy degrees outside, with low humidity for a change. Perfect for brushing oil-based stain on red cedar. The house is pretty basic: two bedrooms and two baths along the back. An open kitchen-dining area separated by a waist-high bar from a great room in what I call the front, even though it opens onto a deck that extends to the south out over the edge of a timbered slope that drops away to the creek below. Beyond that, forty acres of pasture flood just often enough to keep anyone from putting barns or chicken houses on it. The house sits on sixteen acres of hardwoods about a quarter mile down a gravel lane, with no neighbors in sight in any direction. All good from my point of view and just what Joseph finds so appealing about the place.
I’d built the house with the help of the guy who had been my building trades teacher when I took a few afternoon classes at the regional tech school that serves six school districts down here along the Arkansas line. By the time I came back to Crayton, Clarence had retired and was willing to hire on as my project manager and construction guru. Between the two of us, we did all but pour the slab and finish the drywall, jobs Clarence said he was too old to do and didn’t have the patience to try to coach me through. One of his warnings before returning to his stress-free life was to re-apply a semi-transparent stain to the siding every two years.
“If you want a gray house, don’t worry about it,” he said. “If you want it to look like cedar, brush it down with soap and water and a stiff bristle brush every couple of years, then re-seal. No wire or steel wool, or you’ll get dark splotches where metal fibers stick in the wood. Just a good, stiff bristle brush, rinse it down, and let it dry well before you seal it.” It was time for a new coat of sealer.
A mindless task like brushing wood siding has all the advantages of a long drive on a freeway, when there’s no semi traffic. Hours with the task at hand on cruise control and the mind wandering. I started along the west side of the house where the afternoon sun had done the most fading, thinking I’d work my way around onto the deck where I could use the patio lights to keep going after dusk. Plus, two thirds of the wall on the deck side is window. Once I turned the corner, I should be able to make good headway and feel like I was getting a lot done the first day.
As I scrubbed, I tried to fit together the puzzle pieces that had been handed to me since I’d been jarred awake by the dam explosion and the discovery of Sayegh’s body. The question that still ate at me like a dug-in deer tick was whether the two events were connected. Did whoever blew up the dam know a body was buried there?
On the one hand, it seemed unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble of burying a body, only to blow it back into the air a few days later. On the other hand, what were the chances that someone would manage to get a contraband military demolition pack, blow up the burial place of
a man who had come into the country illegally to assassinate some Syrian refugees, and the two not be connected in some way? Pretty damn slim, it seemed to me. I moved my ladder six feet to the right, refilled my bucket with warm, soapy water, and attacked the next section of paneling with my bristle brush.
Only a fool would try to use twelve blocks of C4 without knowing what they were doing. That was enough explosive to bring down a good-sized building. Jason Anzar had been in an Army armored division and had shown up in the Hampton parking lot, but not in the Hampton Inn, at the same time Sayegh had been killed. Then, Anzar had disappeared from parking security tapes the next day. But if he was there to kill Sayegh, how did he know the Syrian was in the country when the FBI’s counterterrorism unit didn’t? And why would he go to the trouble of burying his victim, then blow him out of the ground with such a huge charge, just to have the body discovered?
As I reached the corner that turned across the deck wall, light was beginning to fade into a muted orange behind the oaks to the west, and a theory was beginning to form in a dim corner of my brain. Anzar had been following Sayegh. Someone else had been following Anzar and wanted his work exposed, including the fact that the Syrian had been buried in the dam.
The tick burrowed a little deeper, itching where I couldn’t scratch. I brushed my way across the top of the windows that now reflected the deck lights against a dark interior. Why would whoever was following Anzar want to make certain Sayegh was found? To lead to Anzar? To send a message back to the dead man’s family that their assassin had failed, been killed, and unceremoniously disposed of? The desecration would be as grave an affront to Sayegh’s family as the killing. This last thought stopped my stiff bristle brush in mid-stroke. No one would want to send that message more than the Haddad brothers. Maybe the Feds had taken over, but this mess had just fallen right back into my own lap.
My cell buzzed in my hip pocket. The display read “Marti.” I stepped down from the short ladder and dropped the brush into my bucket.
“Hi, Marti. What’s up?”
In the background, I heard pounding and the slurred baritone of a man shouting.
“Tate. You need to get over here as fast as you can.” Marti’s voice was a panicked cry. “Nolan’s not home, and Sal’s trying to break in to get to Grace. He’s got a gun with him, and she’s got hers out. One of them’s going to kill the other if he gets through the door.”
I was on my way through the house before she could finish the sentence. Marti and her husband farm four hundred acres of corn and soybeans a mile north of town. Their house sits back off the road in a grove of ancient walnut trees, far enough from neighbors that a shot wouldn’t be heard.
“Easy, Marti,” I said, trying to calm her panic as I fought to control my own. “Call Larry and Bobby. See if either’s closer, and get them over there. I’ll be about ten minutes.”
“Larry’s up north by Taylorville,” she whispered against the pounding on the door. “I called him first. He’s started this way. But he’ll be at least half an hour. I can’t raise Bobby. He must be in one of the dead zones.”
I swept the keys and my sidearm from the hook beside the back door and sprinted toward the Explorer, the phone still clutched in one hand. “Keep him out as long as you can. I’ll run with the siren on. Maybe I can scare him off.”
“Hurry,” she begged. “He’s threatening to shoot us both.”
The route between my place and Marti’s is a winding, tree-lined ribbon along a ridgeline that drops down into a patch of farmland northeast of town, divided by narrow gravel roads that run at right angles with the section lines. My drive over would have impressed even Ernie Bonebrake. On the way, I voice-dialed Dave Johansson, the state patrolman assigned to the Crayton area, pulling him away from dinner.
“Dave, there’s an active shooter at the Bleasdale farm. He’s after Grace Torres who we have staying there after the guy beat her up. Do you have an officer on duty in the area? I may need some help.”
“On my way,” Dave said. “It’ll be about twenty minutes.”
I could see the lights of the old family farmhouse across a field of soybeans a half-mile away. If Salvador was still trying to break in, he should hear the wail of the siren and see the flashing red and blue of the light bar.
As I wheeled the Explorer into Marti’s drive, the rear passenger and drivers-side windows shattered as I heard the sharp report of a handgun. Sal Becerra stood unsteadily on the lighted porch, waving a blocky pistol in my direction. I spun the patrol car off the drive behind two of the giant walnuts and bailed from the car behind one of the trees. I was still fifty yards from the house.
“Sal, put down the gun,” I shouted across the darkening expanse of lawn. A second shot took the sideview mirror off the Explorer.
“Damn it, Sal! I don’t want to have to shoot you, you stupid sonofabitch. Put the gun down, and let’s talk this over.”
“You think my woman’s your puta?” he yelled back, firing a shot that barked the tree beside my shoulder. “You saved me hunting you down. I’ll kill you here, then she’ll wish she’d never let you touch her.”
“There’s nothing going on between me and Grace,” I called back. “You’re going to get yourself a life sentence over nothing.” His response was another round that whined past the tree without hitting anything. Four shots. I guessed the weapon to be the Glock 19 he’d threatened us with at his house, which meant a fifteen-round magazine. If he hadn’t fired before I got there, he still had eleven rounds. There wasn’t time to try to run him out of ammunition. His firing was erratic, but I’d be just as dead if hit by an erratic bullet. Sucking in a deep breath, I broke from behind the tree, zig-zagging to the next closest trunk. The effort drew two more shots but put me thirty yards from the porch.
I hadn’t shot at a man since Iraq. When I ran for sheriff, I knew it would always be a possibility, but one I hoped I could do the job well enough to avoid. This wasn’t looking promising. Grace had been on the force for three years before I was elected, and the gossip had stayed pretty low key until I appointed her chief deputy. Everyone agreed that of the people we had, she was the right choice. Smart. Tough. Decisive. Well-trained. If she’d been male or homely as a box of rocks, no one would have given it a second thought. But a lot of the men in the county couldn’t imagine working side-by-side with someone who looked like Grace without making a move on her. And a lot of the women suspected the men they knew were thinking just that. The only thing that kept speculation from running rampant was Grace’s relationship with the asshole who now had me pinned behind a walnut. I knew if I shot the bastard, the rumor mill would go ballistic.
The siren of Larry Newby’s cruiser wailed across the night-shrouded field of soybeans, the red of his light bar dotting the horizon.
“Sal, backup’s coming,” I called from behind the tree. “You can’t take us all on. Put the weapon down, and don’t make things worse for yourself.” I dropped prone and peeked around the base of the trunk. Sal had stooped into a crouch behind a flimsy rail post, squinting in the light of the porch at the approaching squad car.
Newby swung into the drive, spotted my Explorer, and wheeled left to flank the shooter. He swung around to blast the porch with his headlights, threw open the driver’s door, and crouched behind it.
“Stay low,” I shouted. “He’s taken six shots at me and won’t put down the weapon.”
Larry had twenty years with the Springfield PD before moving to private security work for Jack Henry. He’s pretty well seen it all and isn’t rattled by anything.
“Sal. Better give up on this before you get yourself killed,” he yelled over the car door. Sal’s answer was a frantic shot that blew out one of Newby’s headlights.
“Can you get to that tree closer in on your right?” Larry called in my direction. “I’ll give you cover.”
“Okay. Now!” I jumped to my feet and sprinted for the lone oak in the front yard, a towering red oak with a trunk as thick as a whiske
y barrel. Larry covered with two quick shots, both of which were returned in his direction. I rolled behind the tree and flattened against the trunk.
“Time to put the gun down,” I yelled at Sal. “Larry, I’m going to give him a three count. You ready over there?”
No response from Newby.
“You okay, Larry?” More silence.
“Newby? Give me a shout if you’re alright over there?” No answer.
From the porch, I heard another shot smash into the lock plate on the door. I bolted to my feet, spinning from behind the oak into a low crouch, weapon extended. Sal had stepped back and was about to drive a heel into the shattered door lock.
“Becerra,” I shouted.
He spun, eyes flashing red in the beam of Newby’s single headlight. The tree beside my face shattered into wood shrapnel. My shot caught him square in the chest, throwing him back against the broken door and splattering it crimson. Sal hung for a brief moment against the stained wall, then pitched sideways onto the porch.
16
If the county commissioners had had their way, there would have been no investigation. Sal Becerra had a reputation as a mean, hot-tempered SOB who liked to pick on anyone he thought he could push around. Especially women. People couldn’t understand what Grace saw in the guy or why she’d put up with him for nearly two years. Word spread fast around Crayton that he’d beaten her pretty badly. Outside of the office, Marti Bleasdale is generally as tight-lipped as a Carmelite nun. But in this case, she made it her personal mission to pass along vivid descriptions of the thirty minutes of terror that led up to Sal’s shooting. Still, there had to be an investigation. Someone, in their infinite wisdom, had written an “officer-initiated shooting” procedure into our departmental bylaws.