“Yes, you do.”
“Hey!” I leaned over and punched her lightly on the arm. “So what’s your perfect type, Detective Hard-to-get?”
“She’s got to have her own house.” She smiled at me. Chris had a really nice endearing smile that always pushed the right side of her mouth up first. It gave her a sheepish look. She was...well, not beautiful. Handsome might be a better word for her.
Plus, she had a quiet confidence that lots of women seemed to find really attractive. Objectively, as a whole, Chris was pretty damn sexy.
“And?”
“And what? Kase, you know I don’t look for relationships. Sometimes they find me. But I’m not interested in that. I don’t think I’m destined for it.”
“We’ve been together for ten years.” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.
She smiled and playfully smacked my arm. “Shit, you’re right. But you know what I mean. That relationship intimacy stuff just doesn’t work for me.”
“Have you really tried it?”
She took a sip of her tea. That was Chris’s way of avoiding an answer.
“Ah, I see. Detective I’m-a-cop-and-not-relationship-material hasn’t really gone down that road.” I was surprised.
“Maybe. Maybe not. You know how I am.” She looked at me. “I don’t need a relationship. I like my work, I have my friends, I’ve got my family.
Relationships bring complications and require work that I’m not willing to do.”
“So Trish—”
“Don’t go there.” Her voice had a clipped edge.
“Hey, I’m your friend. That was the closest I’ve seen you come to really liking someone.”
She shrugged. “She didn’t like the cop stuff.”
“So she wasn’t the right one.”
“Whatever.” She took another drink. “I’m in law enforcement. I have fucked-up hours, dangerous shifts, and I deal with the worst of people every day.
That leaves a residue on your aura, whether you want it to or not. You think I have walls to protect me from getting hurt? Well, they’re also there to keep my personal shit off the people in my life. And here’s the loco part. I love what I do.” She sighed. “And the price I pay for that is accepting that intimate relationships probably aren’t going to work out for me.”
I stared at her. “Chris, that is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” I moved closer and impulsively wrapped her in a bear hug. “And I don’t believe it. You just haven’t met her yet.”
She put her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re the incurable romantic. Thank God the world still has people like you.”
“Don’t let that be a self-fulfilling prophecy.” I released her. “Because I’ve seen you at your best and your worst and dammit, you’re a hell of a woman. But if you insist on keeping that attitude, fine. When you’re old, cranky, and decrepit I’ll keep a room made up for you.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure that’ll go well with whatever woman latches onto you.”
“She’ll love you, too, and we’ll treat you like the crazy sister we both wish we had.”
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically though I knew she was teasing. She stood up and took her empty bottle into the kitchen. “I’m beat. Okay if I sleep in the bed with you?”
“Duh. But if you start sprawling, I’m shoving your ass over.”
“How romantic.”
“That’s me.” Yep. Romantic. I headed to the bathroom.
Chapter Eight
I ARRIVED AT the Flying Star at nine forty-five and got in line for counter service, looking longingly at the pastry case as I stood there. When it was my turn, I ordered the breakfast scramble, a mixture of tofu, green chile, potatoes, and a variety of other vegetarian-type things. I also bought a large café mocha and carried my beverage and my number, clipped to its little stand, to an empty table, waiting for both Judy and my food. Like its sister stores in the city, the interior here was an oddly harmonious mix of bright colors, earth tones, and post-modern sensibilities. Call it Jetsons meets Swedish design.
I sat waiting for my food and for Judy, reading through a copy of the Albuquerque Journal, the local paper. I was feeling amazingly relaxed after a great night’s sleep. At eight Chris had gotten up and made coffee. She checked around outside and didn’t find anything that looked out of order. She was due at her grandmother’s to take care of some repairs around the house so she showered and left by nine. Chris would call me later to let me know more about the gang unit.
When I left the house that morning, I didn’t see any activity at Sage and Jeff’s. They were either at work or sleeping a good time off. I caught myself as I got into my car, thinking that I was hoping to see Sage. Total eye candy if nothing else.
I set the newspaper down and looked up in time to see Judy enter the restaurant and get in line. I waved at her. She smiled and waved back. Another granola-type, Judy’s long blond hair hung most often in a braid down her back. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and baggy cotton capri trousers. More often than not, Birkenstocks adorned her feet. I checked. Yep. She wore a pair today. Her faded blue T-shirt had a yin/
yang symbol above her left breast. The line moved quickly and soon she was joining me at the table holding a cup of coffee. I stood after she put her coffee on the table and gave her a hug.
“Good to see you, Kase,” she said as she sat down.
A young hippie chick with a pierced eyebrow brought my food out. I looked apologetically at Judy, who smiled. “Go ahead. I just ordered a bagel.”
“Thanks.” I was really hungry and dug in as Judy sipped her coffee.
“So what’s going on?”
Between bites, I briefly outlined the situation with Megan. Judy did know about my relationship with Melissa though they’d never met. I first contacted Judy when I was in grad school and we maintained a professional research relationship. Though I was open about Melissa, Judy didn’t know about Megan’s addiction problems and I didn’t bring them up. I stopped eating and retrieved a manila folder from one of the other chairs at the table and handed it to her.
“Do you recognize these guys or these tattoos?”
Judy’s bagel arrived and she took a bite as she looked at the photos I had printed out from Megan’s hard drive. “I do recognize this guy.” She pointed to the man I had decided was Roy, based on Sage’s description. “Roy Whistler,” Judy confirmed.
“Hardcore. He’s been on our radar for a couple of years now.”
“Is he from here?”
“No. But I’m not sure where he’s from. He’s had some contact with Matt Hale’s group. You know.
World Church of the Creator.”
“When did he come here?”
“That I don’t know. At least two years ago, which is when he started showing up on our watch lists.”
“So is he still doing Creator crap?”
“No, he started a chapter of Hammerskins but it’s not very well-organized. Not like in other states.”
“Does he have a criminal record?”
“Probably.” Judy took a sip of her coffee. “We just try to track them locally and maybe find out where they came from if they’re not from here. We don’t have the resources to get more extensive than that.”
I nodded and reached for my coffee. I’d have Chris check him out, now that I had a name for him.
“Any other kind of group?”
“Not that I know of, but the tattoos on this young man look neo-Nazi. Nothing about the Hammerskins, though.”
“Do you recognize him?”
Judy was looking at the photos of Cody. “He does look familiar. Maybe because he hangs out with Whistler. What’s his name?”
“Cody Sorrell.”
Judy shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. But that doesn’t mean anything. He might use a different name for different things that he does.”
“Have you heard anything about any local groups preparing for the end?”
“Aren’t
they all?” She laughed, though not necessarily because it was funny.
“True.” I smiled wryly. “Anything along the lines of what The Order did?”
She thought about it. “Hold on. Whistler’s Skins were having some kind of meetings last year. We found a couple of flyers of theirs and they did mention buying some land in the East Mountains to get ready for ‘the big one.’ ” She took another bite of her bagel.
“The big one? You think it’s the usual apocalypse crap or is this Whistler a little more action-oriented?”
Judy regarded me over the lip of her cup. “I honestly don’t know. But he is a charismatic leader-type and I can see people following him no matter what kind of schemes he puts together.”
“Charismatic like Bob Mathews was with The Order?”
Judy paused, thinking. “He does have that way about him. He’s very soft-spoken and because he’s older, younger guys seem to really gravitate toward him as an older-brother type. And, like Mathews, Whistler leads by example. He’s one of those who will start digging the ditch, showing that he’s one of the guys.”
“Then he’ll Tom Sawyer you into painting the fence.”
She laughed. “Exactly.”
“So have you heard of any new groups that might have moved into the area?”
“Since last year, there have been three neo-Nazi groups. One is an offshoot of Butler’s Aryan Nations.
They had maybe ten members and haven’t had a meeting since December last year. The other is home-grown. They call themselves the Aryan Desert Rats.
I’d never heard of them and they don’t seem to be affiliated with any parent organization. This one I’m uneasy about. We can’t figure out how many members there are but they have meetings at least once a month, according to APD. From their reports, there are at least twenty members at any one meeting.”
“Is Whistler part of that group?” Desert Rats, huh?
“I don’t know. You might check with APD.”
I flipped through the pictures and found the one of Cody that showed the tattoo I didn’t recognize on his bicep, showed the picture to Judy. “Is this their logo?”
“Yep.”
“What about the third group?”
“It seems to be an offshoot of Hale’s group.
There’s Creator literature associated with that one and they haven’t had a meeting since March of this year. Last we heard, they were calling themselves Blood of the Creator.”
“How special.” I slipped the print-outs back into the manila folder. “What else can you tell me about the Desert Rats?”
She sat back. “We started finding flyers about a year ago. What’s interesting is that they don’t specifically say who they are, though they’ll use the logo. They refer to cornered rats and fighting to the death quite a bit. They talk about that standard Aryan pride stuff and taking a stand for the white race. You know, the usual.”
“So how do you know they call themselves the Desert Rats?”
“APD raided one of their meetings. One of the members had a parole violation and APD got a tip and did a bust. The officers heard them say that the meeting of the Aryan Desert Rats was about to come to order. Now it’s official, as everybody there was fingerprinted and checked.”
I thought for a bit. Cody was part of this group. It had neo-Nazi overtones, seemed fairly well-organized, and might be planning to buy some land.
If Roy Whistler was hanging around Megan’s place, chances were he and Cody ran in the same groups, which meant that Whistler might be part of the Rats as well. He might be on file at APD and I might be able to find some pictures of his tattoos. If I found Whistler, maybe I’d find Cody. And if I found him, Megan might not be far. “Any idea when their next meeting is?” I glanced over at Judy.
“No. They move times and locations quite a bit.
And dates. It was luck that APD tracked them in February. We’re hoping to get a handle on their patterns.”
“How do you know they’re still active?”
“Internet activity. Chat rooms. We’ve got a couple of interns who have infiltrated. But they use a code of some kind to schedule meetings and we can’t figure out what it is, yet. Our interns claim they’re in Texas, so nobody wonders why they’re not coming to the meetings.”
“Do the Rats have their own Web site?”
“No. But they frequent a local link through a Klan chapter based in Missouri.”
Which made it hard to track individual users. I thought back to Megan’s bookmarks. I’d have to check and see if any of them were that Klan chapter.
Judy checked her watch. “Sweetie, I have to go.
Call me if you need anything else. And if you find anything out...”
“Definitely. I’ll update you.” I stood and hugged her.“It’s good to see you, Kase. Next time get me caught up on your personal life.”
“Please.” I laughed. “What personal life?”
She smiled and waved as she left. Almost eleven-thirty. I’d swing by Cody’s aunt’s house.
I CRUISED SOUTH on Juan Tabo, a main boulevard that paralleled the base of the Sandias in the Far Northeast Heights. I turned right on Claremont and left on Tippet and slowed down, watching the addresses on the houses until I found 11593. It looked like it had never seen better days, not even when it was built sometime in the 1970s, by the looks of it. What little grass made up the front lawn was yellowed and probably gasping for help. A battered lawn chair stood on the covered front stoop, strips of plastic hanging off the frame, and a raggedy Chinese elm tree stood near the street, looking as forlorn as the chair. One of the front windows had a crack in it and dingy, once-white drapes hid the inside from the outside. I caught a glimpse of a chain link fence in the back, surrounding a yard that looked like it hadn’t been visited in months. A few weeds that stood about three feet tall lined the gate that led into the back.
I shut my car door and locked it. Half the houses on this stretch of Tippet looked like Aunt Terry’s. The other half seemed well-kept. I noticed a beat-up blue Ford Taurus in the driveway. Would Terry be home? I stepped onto the porch and pressed the doorbell. I heard it echo inside, setting off a chorus of small-dog yaps. Somebody yelled at the dogs to shut up but it didn’t do much good. I heard motion within, along with what sounded like dog claws on the door.
Lovely. The door opened a crack. “Yeah?”
Stale cigarette smoke wafted to my nostrils. Could this be any more stereotypical?
“Hi, I’m lookin’ for Cody. He around?” I affected a thick Texas drawl, the kind my cousin Luke had.
She opened the door a little more. “Who the hell are you?” She wore a tattered robe and dirty slippers.
She looked to be about forty-five, but maybe a life hard-lived had wrung extra years from her. She glared at me with watery red-rimmed eyes. A beat-up New York Yankees baseball cap clutched her head.
Nice. “I’m Sandy, from Dallas. My cousin went to high school with Cody and I met him a few years back. We kep’ in touch and he told me to stop by if’n I was ever around.” I tried a smile. “So here I am.”
“He ain’t here.”
I tried to look downcast. “Will he be back later? I really would like to see him. My brother and him got along real good and Jimmy’s gonna go huntin’ up here and he’d like to see Cody.”
“Huntin’?”
“Yeah. Didn’t Cody talk about Jimmy? He an’
Cody went huntin’ up in Colorado a coupla times.
Didn’t get nothin’ but had a good time.”
She opened the door a little wider. “What’d you say your name was?” Three pairs of buggy chihuahua eyes stared at me from just above her ankles.
“Sandy. You must be his Aunt Terry.”
She held a cigarette in her right hand. She took a drag, blew it out. I fought an urge to cough. “Cody done skipped out on me two months ago. Little shit never paid no damn rent, never paid no damn bills. I told his sorry ass to get a job, but he wanted to go play fuckin’
war games with his damn friends.”
“War games?” I tried to look confused.
She made a disgusted noise. “Loser skinheads. Sit around and do nothin’ but talk big and watch TV.
And drink alla my goddamn beer.” She took another drag, then looked thoughtful. “I’ll give him that,” she said grudgingly. “Cody never touched the stuff. But he didn’t do nothin’ ’round here. Hooked up with some pretty little thing and didn’t come home most of the time.”
“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. Jimmy didn’t say nothin’ about that.”
“Oh, she’s a looker. And sweet. What she sees in him I’ll never know. Lazy sumbitch.” She sucked on her cigarette again and the smoke oozed out around her words. “I ain’t seen him. You might check over at that Roy’s house. Roy what’s-his-name. Whistle or something faggy like that.”
“Roy Whistler?”
“Yeah, that’s it. He’s over on San Pedro and Coal.
Those shithole apartments. ’Cause he’s a loser like the rest. Me, I own my home.” She dared me to challenge her.“Well, I sure am sorry I bothered you. I was hopin’ to get his number so’s Jimmy could call him.”
“Hell, I can give you that. Hold on.”
I waited as she moved away from the door, leaving it mostly shut. One of the dogs shoved its nose into the gap and sniffed noisily. A couple of minutes later she returned. “Here. He figgered hisself some big man, got hisself some fancy cards.” She opened the screen door just a bit and slid the card to me. I took it.
“Thank you, ma’am. Do you want me to tell him anythin’ if I can get a hold of him? Maybe tell him he shouldn’t be disrespectin’ his aunt?” Validation always built rapport.
She studied me for a moment before replying.
“Yeah. You tell that sorry-ass sumbitch he owes me money and he’d better not come showin’ up lookin’
for a handout without it. And my advice to you, Sarah—” I didn’t bother to correct her—“you steer clear of Cody. He ain’t right. Bad temper on that boy.”
And with that she closed the door and locked it.
I returned to my car and looked at what she had given me. A standard-sized business card. On the front Cody had listed his name, phone number, and e-mail address, which I already had. The back was blank. I turned the card over and read his name again.
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