The Drum Within

by James R. Scarantino

  He asked a few questions, eased her into talking about herself. He focused on her face while she talked, shutting down the trained cop habit of sweeping eyes back and forth so you knew everything going around you. He was focused on her. She liked that.

  A girl leaned out of the drive-up window and yelled that their order was ready. Rivera placed his cup on the bumper and went for their burgers and fries.

  She took his cup with her into the truck and cleared the console so they would have a makeshift table. He returned with red, white, and blue bags that filled the cab with smells of grilled meat and green chile.

  He took a bite of his first Lotaburger.

  “Paired perfectly with Sauvignon Blanc,” he said with a full mouth.

  “Anything on the prayer flags?” she asked, steering them back to Cynthia Fremont.

  “Definitely not Tibetan. We ran photos over to a guy at the Smithsonian. He says the writing is something called Ogham, the language of Druid priests.”

  “Druid words on Tibetan prayer flags. Stonehenge meets Shangri-La. Strange even for The City Different.”

  “We’ve learned a little more about Cynthia Fremont.” He poured more wine for both of them. “High school grad, dropped out of North Carolina-Wilmington her freshman year. We’ve learned this from social media. She was studying religion at some alternative kind of school outside Asheville, The Institute for Spiritual Awakening. Classes in yurts and teepees. The school’s owner says Fremont stopped after a couple sessions of drumming and chanting.”

  He dropped a French fry in his mouth, followed it with a sip of wine.

  “She liked ravens. Used one as her Facebook profile. She was blond in earlier photos, hair dyed black since then. Her page hasn’t been updated in about eighteen months. No Twitter account. A couple Amazon reviews of books about spirituality, Celtic culture, Himalayan religions. One with a chapter on celestial burial. We’re still trying to locate relatives. So far no luck finding parents.”

  “You’ll find them.”

  They ate in silence, like old friends who didn’t need to talk. She tried to remember if she and Miguel had ever come here. He’d been killed before he started driving. This place was too far from home for them to have walked.

  “I need this,” Rivera said. “Fremont lying on those rocks.” He stared through the windshield, all of him following his gaze outside the truck. “What the birds did to her,” pulling words from deep inside, “watching the cut at OMI, pretending I don’t smell anything, I don’t mind being there. I need to grab ahold of life.” He was back inside, close, his eyes on hers, again all of him following his gaze. “I know that sounds like a beer commercial. But,” his hand on her arm, “you know what I mean? This is nice.”

  She liked the honest, vulnerable tone in his voice. The crisp FBI-speak was gone. A man in pain was speaking. A good man. An attractive man.

  She’d had the same feelings before the Krav Maga class. Darkness pushing in, blotting out the light, turning every color grey, bled out. Sparring had chased the shadows while she focused on the big guy’s pink smile, the punches snapping her head back. Rivera was talking about another kind of human contact. That would be good, too.

  “I’d kiss you,” she said. “But my nose would bleed.”

  “Give me your hand.”

  He held her palm to his lips. His breath was warm and soft.

  “Smells like onions.” He kissed her hand and they returned to a comfortable silence.

  “Does the FBI have jurisdiction over crimes on BLM lands?” she asked when she finished her burger.

  He didn’t answer right away. She heard him sigh. “This was about the job all along.”

  The light of the drive-in’s neon showed hurt in his eyes. She had to look away, wondering what was wrong with her.

  “What category of crime are we talking about?” Sounding again like the Special Agent, now glancing at cars pulling into the lot instead of focusing on her.

  “You need to hear it from Walter Fager.” She’d ruined the evening. She might as well keep going. “He’ll call you no later than the day after tomorrow.”

  Rivera wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth and folded an empty burger wrapper into a perfect rectangle. She balled hers up and refrained from chucking it out the window.

  “He’s all over the news,” Rivera said. “Someone who’s been a nightmare for our side now stumping for law and order. He’s going to call me about a crime on BLM land? Should I ask how you know?”

  “It’s connected to his wife’s case.”

  “Why can’t I hear it from you?”

  He brushed back his dark hair with the side of his thumb. Miguel had done that. Was that why she was pushing him away, afraid how much he reminded her of a dead boy she couldn’t save? Did that scare her?

  She felt even worse for having hurt him. She said, “Not because lying to a federal agent is a felony. Because I don’t want to lie to you.”

  To herself she said, don’t be afraid.

  “Denise, where are we going?”

  She’d sensed Rivera wondering where they were headed for the past several miles. The roadway had narrowed from four lanes to a narrow gravel road. Santa Fe and its darkened mountains were behind them. In front, sixty miles away, low clouds caught Albuquerque’s glow.

  “We’re going here.”

  The gravel road curved down a hill to a pan of hard sand under ponderosa pines. The nearest lights were a mile distant.

  She cut the ignition, turned off the headlights.

  “There’s room in the back,” she said.

  She watched his face in the residual light from the dashboard. Then it went dark in the cab. She felt his hand on her cheek. The dome light went on as he climbed out and got in the back through the supercab’s rear door.

  It was dark again. She lifted the steering column and pushed it away. Her pants zipper made the only sound. She hooked her thumbs at the top of her jeans and pushed them and her underwear to her feet and over her cross-trainers.

  The console was big enough to crawl over. Her hands reached Rivera’s knees, pants still on his legs.

  “Hey, what’s this?”

  The sound of a belt buckle being undone, the pop of a metal snap, a zipper grating. She grabbed fabric and tugged, then walked her hands up his bare legs. Good muscles, warm skin. She pulled her body forward and sat on his thighs, crossing her legs behind his back.

  He was ready for her. She gasped, air leaving her lungs like it had been displaced when he entered her.

  “Man, you’re strong,” Rivera said. “You could break me in half.”

  She squeezed tighter.

  “Easy,” he said.

  “Easy,” she said and moved slowly, her head brushing the ceiling each time she rose then lowered herself.

  When they were still he stroked the bristle on her scalp.

  “I really like this. Lewis told me why you wear it so short. You’re all in, aren’t you?”

  She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. Rich, black hair. Soft and thick like a boy’s.

  Like Miguel’s. And that was okay.

  Thirty

  For the first time Thornton saw weakness in Walter Fager. She had never heard him talk from the heart about anything except the joy of kicking DA ass. But his words at the funeral service, his off-script comments at his press conference—he was showing himself to be human, and capable of being hurt like anyone else. She needed a minute of quiet to think how to use it.

  What she didn’t need was a hysterical client screaming at her.

  Geronimo had gone straight to his ranch from the airport on his return from New York, or Paris, or wherever he had been. Someone had broken in, he was saying. Broken glass all over. Footprints marking his clean floor. The surveillance camera was gone. She could hear trucks roaring by. He was screamin
g at her from the shoulder of the interstate. She hung up, closed her office door, and thought about Fager.

  Geronimo called two hours later. He was back in Santa Fe and still screaming. He had seen the news. Walter Fager on every station. A television crew was setting up outside his gallery, yelling questions from the sidewalk. He swore he saw the bald lady cop circling the block for the fourth time.

  “I paid you. Now look here.”

  “No, you look,” Thornton shot back. “It’s wheel-spinning. They’re frustrated. Your case is going nowhere. I’ve taken care of it.”

  “The police found my ranch. It was Aragon who broke in. I know it.”

  “We don’t know that. It could have been anybody. And there’s nothing there for them to find, right? You followed my instructions.”

  “Someone’s at the door. They have cameras.”

  “Don’t answer. I’ll be over to handle the media,” she said, seeing a chance to get her face on the news. “While I’m out in front keeping them busy, you leave by the back. Walk to the river, to the stone foot bridge. I’ll meet you and take you home. Okay? Are we calm now?”

  Geronimo mumbled something about turning a hose on the camera crews.

  “Fine. Handle it by yourself. I’ve got other clients who follow the advice they pay for.”

  Geronimo screamed again, then said he would meet her at the bridge.

  “I’m not charging enough,” she told herself after hanging up.

  Before his arrest, she had billed Geronimo hourly. With him facing charges she’d insisted on a flat fee, paid up front, plus costs such as copies, postage, supplies, expert fees and the mileage she would charge for being his chauffeur tonight. She also billed Montclaire’s time and expenses as costs. Half of Lily’s hourly rate was profit for her.

  If the case came up during dinner or drinks, she applied the “Palace Bar Rule,” Fager’s terminology, after what had once been the hangout for Santa Fe lawyers and judges. Just mention the client and the tab became a litigation cost.

  It was a great deal for her but she needed a new agreement. There was going to be a lot more work to do.

  She phoned Montclaire.

  “Lily. We need someone watching the grand-jury room. The ground’s shifting.” She heard male voices in the background and Montclaire shouting something away from the phone. She wondered how many men Lily had with her. “I want someone there every day. This could go on for a while. We’ll talk tomorrow at nine. Have fun. Night.”

  She called Montclaire back as soon as the line went dead.

  “It’s me again. Listen, Walter mentioned something at the service about leaving the army all fucked up. FUBAR, he said. When I worked for him he’d stand at the door and ramble on with war stories. He talked about being in Bosnia with Bronkowski and how it was like Laos. I never understood what he meant. See what you can find.” Male voices again in the background. Laughter, glass breaking. “Lily, how well do you know those guys with you? Right, you’ll know them a whole lot better in a couple hours. Try not to draw blood. Bye.”

  She brushed her hair and threw a jacket over her shoulders. Nighttime. The casual relaxed look for the cameras.

  But she was far from relaxed. Instead of facing down reporters in front of Geronimo’s gallery, she needed empty time to let her mind run, see a strategy she could kick into gear. Aragon wasn’t going away. She had never stopped working the case despite direct orders from the Deputy Chief and what turned out to be a meaningless suspension. It probably was Aragon who broke into Cody’s ranch house. God knows what she found that Cody wasn’t telling her about. She and Lily had been there once when they were setting up the white knight corporation to shield the asset from creditors. She knew then she would return on a criminal case. Cody was a busy boy and expected mommy to tidy up after him.

  What if Tasha Gonzalez rose from that irrigation ditch pointing a bony finger in Cody’s direction? Estevan Gonzalez had gotten rich bleeding Cody for hush money. He’d come back for more the minute law enforcement contacted him. Cody insisted he had never touched Tasha. She had always suspected Estevan killed his own sister to take her out of his deal with Cody. But Estevan had more to talk about than the disappearance of one Mexican woman.

  The Judy Diaz barricade wouldn’t hold if the DA really pushed. She could see the Supreme Court overturning Diaz’s ruling and assigning the case to another judge. Judy had jumped the gun. It would have been better to let the case move through normal procedures before derailing it. The Supremes might bring in a judge from another district, one of the good-old boys from the oil patch who could give a shit about Santa Fe and its politics. Straight up rulings on the law, evidence you couldn’t dodge, public fury over a brutal crime, no friendly softballs from the bench.

  Hell, she needed to think like Walter Fager.

  At five minutes to one, Thornton gave up trying to sleep and rolled out of bed. She turned on a light and pulled a legal tablet from a drawer.

  She started with evidence. Her favorite was Cody’s book purchase. Someone buying an art book. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, that’s our murderer?

  She’d get a few snickers. But if Judy Diaz’s ruling were overturned? That key under the body was a major problem. They’d be ordered to return the bones found in Cody’s pocket. Luckily, they hadn’t been photographed. Maybe risk turning over pigeon bones, better than claiming the bones had disappeared. Any judge, even Judy, would allow the prosecution to argue negative inference from the destruction of evidence.

  So much she didn’t know. Aragon had found something in the garbage behind the store. Someone might have seen Cody through the window. Laura Pasco could emerge as a hostile witness.

  Walter and his grand jury dreams. Crazy.

  Or not.

  At 2:47 a.m., after rearranging furniture, checking investments, booking a facial and massage online at Ten Thousand Waves, and sorting out clothes she was tired of, she opened a bottle of merlot and the Roads of New Mexico atlas. She determined which county contained Geronimo’s ranch and called her client. She didn’t care what time it was.

  “Tomorrow morning call the Valencia County Sheriff. Report a burglary at your place and theft of a surveillance camera. Yes, the camera. Tell them you had it aimed outside the back window, up the canyon. No, you’re not really hoping to get it back, but don’t say that.”

  She emptied her glass. Just one more thing to tell the Great Artist and her mind could rest.

  She waited for a break in his tantrum: Those reporters outside his gallery. They trampled flowers in his garden. How could they show his work on television without his permission? What good were copyright laws? Nobody respected private property anymore.

  “That metal table at your ranch, that sick antique,” she said, out of patience, interrupting a whine about the way his gallery appeared on the news like some cheap pawnshop. Now he was acting surprised that she knew what was in his workroom on the ranch. “How do I know? The corporation you hired me to front paid for it. Shipping cost more than the thing itself. Either get rid of it or dress it up so the sheriff doesn’t see it for what it is, if he comes out on your burglary complaint. Cody. Stop. Do it. Good night.”

  Thirty-One

  Joe Donnelly knew she and Lewis would not give any statements to Professional Standards outside the presence of a union representative. Yet here he was at her door unannounced, dropping in like family, the low morning sun behind him making her shield her eyes.

  What he said stopped Aragon from closing the door in his face.

  “You did the right thing saving those paper towels. We’ve got Geronimo’s DNA, and Linda Fager’s blood.”

  Aragon tugged at her night shirt, her toes cold from the outside air. She said, “Skin cells. Love ’em,” and forgot what she really wanted to say.

  “If you had waited any longer, the evidence could have disappeared into a garbage t
ruck.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To tell you good job, Denise. When was the last time you heard that? And what the hell happened to you?”

  There it was. Using her first name, just as when he had come around to her side in his first internal affairs investigation of her work.

  “Just made coffee,” she said, and led the way to the kitchen area in her efficiency apartment. Donnelly did not scan her place like an investigator making the most of an opportunity. She handed him a cup that said, “NRA Whitington Center.” Her cup said, “Girls Just Wanna Have Guns.”

  “Black,” he said, and she poured. “Like those shiners. I hope the other person looks worse.”

  She swept newspapers off the sofa. She had gone to sleep without pulling it into a bed. Before Donnelly knocked on her door she had been reading the front-page story on Fager’s crusade. The morning television news had his story again: The heroic fight for justice, one man against a heartless system. Never mind how he used that system when he had a paying client.

  She sat and pulled a blanket over her legs. Donnelly remained standing, nowhere to sit except on the blanket next to her.

  “First, I’m telling you, Judge Diaz’s complaint to the mayor about you taping Geronimo talking to Thornton, it’s going nowhere. I talked to a dozen law professors and ex-judges. Only Diaz’s lefty teacher at UNM Law saw any problem with what you did. Mascarenas shared with us a brief Fager wrote for him. It’s good. We stepped off the area where you recorded Geronimo. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Objectively reasonable being the test, I learned. It’s Judge Diaz who’s unreasonable and never objective.”

  “Worse when Marcy Thornton’s on the case.” Aragon let it go at that. She wasn’t about to stick her neck out with accusations she couldn’t corroborate.

  “We both know the score on those two,” he said, surprising her how easily he said it. “But that’s a long-term project. We can’t do anything on the state level. Forget the DA taking on the Chief Judge. The AG lives by the rule that you don’t prosecute members of your own party. We’d need friends at the federal level.”