“I’m sorry, he’s with a client right now.”
“Would you please have him give me a call? Tell him it’s K.C. He’s got my number. It’s about what we discussed earlier today.” I signed off and stared moodily at the computer screen. Megan’s home phone rang. It didn’t register at first and then I was lunging for it as it dawned on me who it might be.
“Hello?”
“K.C.?” Megan said, tentative.
“You okay?”
“Oh, my God. I’m so glad it’s you. I’m really scared and I don’t know what to do.”
“Can you talk for a few minutes?”
“Yeah. But not too long.”
“Are you at the same phone you were the other night?”
“Yes.”
I thought I heard cars in the background. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“He took my car keys, my house keys, my cell phone. He gives me a few dollars for an allowance.
They’re planning something big. I’m not sure what.
There’re guns here. Lots. I’m scared.” She was almost whispering the last part.
“Are you staying with him somewhere?”
“Yes. A place in Edgewood. There’s always somebody there. Four fifty-seven Partridge. I have to go. If I’m gone too long they send somebody after me.”“Okay, listen. I know where that pay phone is. I’m going to leave a phone number there for you tonight.
Memorize it and do not repeat it to anyone. I’ll write it where you can see it.”
“I have to go. I’ll try to call you back as soon as I can.”
She hung up and I swore. That bastard. But I had an address for Chris to check now and we might be able to pull something off. I was ready to look up the address in MapQuest and just drive over there and drag Megan out of the house. It was all I could do not to. I gritted my teeth. If they were stockpiling weapons, I’d just endanger Megan doing that. And myself. And it might drive Cody and Ray deeper underground. That would make them more dangerous because they’d be even more careful. No, Megan had to stay put for now, as much as I hated that. “Fucking prick,” I muttered, for more emphasis. Sage would definitely have to take a number to rip this guy’s arms off.
“GOOD NEWS, ESA,” Chris said when she arrived. “Megan’s prints aren’t anywhere on that envelope or the disk.”
I wanted to cry with relief.
“We found Cody’s prints and Watkins’s prints.
And yours, of course. But we’re ruling you out.” She smiled and smacked me lightly on the arm.
I let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Thank God. Homicide would look really bad in my tenure file.” I went into the kitchen for an iced tea. I got one for Chris as well and handed it to her as I flopped down on the couch. She joined me.
“And here’re Cody’s police reports from Colorado.” She pulled a few sheets of paper out of a folder on the coffee table and handed them to me. I started reading as she opened her bottle of tea.
Let’s see. Vandalism of public property, East High School. Disturbing the peace in an incident that involved a screaming match with a girlfriend and her father in Aurora, a suburb of Denver. Nice, I thought sarcastically. Petty theft. Picked up at a Wal-Mart with a shirt stuffed down his pants. Probation violation.
“Is he still on probation in Colorado?” I asked as Chris took a swig.
She swallowed before answering. “Yeah. Funny, that. He has to check in once a month in Denver.”
Here Chris took another sip from the bottle of tea and then grinned at me. “Too bad I’m thorough. I called the guy up there and asked him if he was aware that Cody no longer lives in Colorado. No, he wasn’t and how long had this been going on, he asked. I told him we had a paper trail on him that said he moved to New Mexico in 2003. Well, that got him off his chair.
He’s going to make some calls.”
“For real? You mean we can get him picked up?”
“Hell, yes. He’s been violating probation.”
“So how did he check in?”
“He’d drive up there once a month and show transcripts of courses he took through Metro State College. If his probation officer was a little more attentive, he would have checked those transcripts.
It’s all online coursework.”
“Can you arrest him for probation violation?”
“Technically, yes, but I need to go through the right channels and coordinate with Colorado law enforcement. Now given that picture, there’s reasonable suspicion that he’s been involved in illegal activities here. Seriously illegal. Mark wants to bring him in for questioning, but if we get the arrest warrants from Colorado, we can hold him for that for sure and then bring this other matter up while he’s in custody.”
“Can we just go get her right now? We have the address.”
She looked at me, pity in her dark eyes. “You know we can’t do that. We need cause to go busting into private property.”
“What if I convince Megan to leave the house and we meet her somewhere? Can we do that?”
Chris smiled gently. “Yes, we can. But if we don’t have a back-up in place—if we don’t make sure that Cody and whatever other cucarachas he runs with aren’t rounded up and we don’t have good information—Megan’s not really safe. And they’ll go deeper underground. You of all people know how this goes. Now that the police are involved, we have to go by the book.”
I made a disgusted noise in my throat.
“Amiga, we’ve got to do this right. If they’re stockpiling, this is a federal matter, too. We’re going to get Megan out. But let’s take out the nest, too.”
I nodded slowly. “So what exactly are you going to do?”
“I’m supposed to hear from this guy in Colorado tomorrow or Tuesday and then I’ll let you know.” She sat looking at me for a moment. “Which brings us back to your wild-ass plan.” She was clearly not happy. “Kase, there’s a reason that civilians aren’t cops. It’s because they’re not trained to deal with potentially violent fucks like this guy. What is meeting with him going to accomplish?”
She had a point. But I can be really stubborn.
“Normally, I’m so on that page with you. But Megan wants to leave him and I want to get a sense of what he’s up to. Megan said that they’re planning something big. Maybe he’ll tell me. I’m sure gonna try to get it out of him. Besides, you just said it. The more info we get, the better.”
“How do you know Megan’s not setting you up?”
Chris’s tone was hard and flat. I hadn’t thought of that but my instincts immediately said no.
“I don’t think so. She didn’t even know I was in town until recently. And she’s been checking in regularly with Melissa, which tells me that she wants to maintain her ties to the outside world. If she had totally bought in to this shit, she wouldn’t even have bothered with Melissa.”
“What time on Tuesday?”
“Four. At Eight Ball.”
“I have to be in court.”
Shit.
“But that’s in the morning. I’ll make it a point to take a trip up there.”
I breathed easier. “You can’t be with me when I meet him.”
“I won’t. And you won’t know where I am, so you won’t be able to blow my cover. But if anything weird goes down, I’ll be all over his ass faster than flies on shit.” Her expression hardened. “Don’t look for me.
Okay?” She was in cop mode.
“Okay.” I felt very small.
She reached into the file and pulled out another sheet of paper. “And now Mr. Whistler-Watkins. He’s the one who was poking around the other night. He’s originally from Salt Lake City and our boy has a rap sheet there. Apparently, he beat up on his sisters and mom and the Mormon elders in the ward threw his ass out.” Her eyes twinkled. She was out of scary cop mode. “I called and checked.”
“Chris, I so love you. I would bear your children if you wanted them.”
She laughed. “Well, you won’t have to worry a
bout that. How about you just buy me dinner?”
“For a week. No, for a month.” I took a drink. “So what other kind of trouble did Mr. Watkins get himself into?”
Chris looked through the paperwork. “Ah. This one you’ll like. Big gun. No permit. He was pulled over for speeding near Logan and the cop found it in the car. He ran the check and discovered that Ray really shouldn’t have a gun, which opened all kinds of possibilities. Sure enough, Ray had a few more illegal weapons at his house. Rifles and pistols.
There’s mention of white supremacist literature on the premises. He was placed on probation and jumped ship. I’ve got calls in to Utah and I’m just waiting for the warrant to come through.”
So Watkins aka Whistler had a history of fanaticism with the right. Growing up in a Mormon household may have helped that, since most Mormons—even more mainstream believers—are required to stockpile supplies in event of apocalypse.
Beating up on family members was another matter.
Watkins might be unstable in and of himself or he might have learned the behavior from Daddy. Or both. Regardless, he was messed up and he had a history of violence.
“All right,” I said. “We know where Megan is. We know she’s scared. We know that to a certain extent, she’s a prisoner. Or at least that’s what it looks like.
What’s next?”
Chris pursed her lips, thinking. “Like I said, we don’t know for sure that Megan’s telling us the truth and we need cause to go in. Now, we do have reason to pick Sorrell up and as soon as I get the go-ahead from Colorado, we’ll issue an arrest warrant and take care of that. Watkins is clearly flying under the radar, given his history and run-ins with law enforcement.
Plus, he’s using an assumed name here,” she said. “So we should be able to finagle some help out of Utah law enforcement. After all, the guy bailed. So we can easily get a warrant for him. But he could be a tip of the iceberg and we might be able to use him to figure out how extensive the movement is here.”
“Maybe he’ll plea bargain.” I reached for my bottle of tea.
“Maybe. But from what you’ve told me, this gringo believes in martyrdom. And they might have some serious weaponry at the Edgewood place.”
I thought for a moment. “Megan said there’s always somebody there. Which means Cody doesn’t trust her as completely as he should a true convert.
Maybe she knows something and that’s why he’s holding on to her. If he thought she was the real white deal, he wouldn’t keep her under lock and key.”
Chris shrugged. “Or he might just be your basic asshole abuser and this is part of how he deals with women.”
“Possibly. But Cody’s into the movement. And I think he does have a little bit of a power struggle going on with Whist—Watkins. So I think the movement comes first for him right now. And I think if he could, he’d dump her but he can’t right now because she’s seen too much. She told me on the phone that they were planning something big but she didn’t know what.”
Chris ran a hand through her hair and exhaled slowly. “I’m gonna go with your instincts on this, Kase. But we still need all our ducks in a row before we go busting in. Nobody wants another Waco or Freemen. You know that.”
I nodded, feeling my heart sink. A stand-off meant days of tension and people might get hurt or even killed, like what happened in the Waco conflagration.
There really was no easy answer, but Chris was right.
For all its flaws, it was best to negotiate stand-offs as law enforcement did with the Freemen. I wished I had superpowers. I’d just swoop in, kick ass, and fly Megan to safety and round up all the bad guys.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
Chris reached over and squeezed my shoulder.
“Hey. You’ve done a hell of a job gathering information in a short period of time.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“True,” she said, teasing me, “but I wouldn’t even have started if you hadn’t shown up.” She finished off her tea. “So,” she said, throwing a knowing glance at me. “You wanna take a drive to Edgewood?”
Chapter Fifteen
CHRIS PULLED INTO the parking lot of the Allsup’s convenience store from which Megan was making her calls. She scored a parking slot at the front of the building. Two pay phones stood near the store’s entrance, each nestled in a graffiti-riddled shell that provided only a modicum of privacy.
We got out of her car and I went to the pay phones while she went inside. I took a black Sharpie out of the right-hand cargo pocket of my shorts. The phone closest to the store’s door was the one Megan had been using. The number on its face told me that. I picked up the receiver to make sure it was working. I pretended to be looking something up in the beat-up phone book that hung in a hard plastic case from the shelf underneath the phone. Pages were missing and people had written all sorts of things on it. And I wasn’t the only one with a Sharpie to visit this phone.
Names and numbers were scrawled on the metal shelf and the walls of the kiosk. I noticed cuss words and dirty cartoons as well. I chose the blank left corner of the metal shelf and and wrote the number of my temporary phone and then “Kase” underneath that, which was a nickname that Megan would recognize.
What I had written took up maybe an inch-and-a-half of space. I hoped Megan found it. I didn’t want to write it bigger because it might draw the wrong kind of attention. I stepped back and looked around while I waited for Chris. Edgewood had a much different feel than Albuquerque. The first town drivers came to when they emerged from the Sandias on I-40 headed east, it was unincorporated though it had a population of probably ten thousand people. The vast New Mexico plains stretched farther east to the Oklahoma and Texas borders. So in addition to the mountains, Edgewood residents were treated to flat prairie interspersed with dry, rolling hills and a near-constant wind, especially in winter and spring.
A strange philosophy permeated it. Sort of a western “don’t fuck with us and we won’t fuck with you” kind of ethos. It’s mostly white and pretty conservative. Billboards often showed up along this section of I-40 that advertised the evils of illegal immigration and the importance of Christianity in America. I’d checked one of the official Web sites for Edgewood, and it informed me that the town’s official values include individual property rights and the spirit of independence. So it was no surprise that a small group of white supremacists was based here.
Looking at the small houses across the street, it occurred to me that I should find out who owned 457
Partridge Lane. I’d check with the County Assessor in the morning.
I kept scanning the immediate surroundings.
Megan had to be close, since she didn’t have access to a car. The neighborhood seemed run-down, an attempt at suburbia that didn’t work. Poor and working-class, the two not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some of the nearby homes appeared well-maintained, edged with clean, nicely mowed front yards. Others reminded me of Cody’s aunt’s place, sagging on their foundations and marred by broken siding, beat-up cars, and patchy grass. The Allsup’s fronted a semi-busy street off the freeway. Given the way this neighborhood looked, I suspected these pay phones got a lot of traffic because I doubted that cell phones were part of the budgets of some of these households. The air hung tired and neglected over the store and its parking lot, infused with an undercurrent of distrust.
“Ready?” Chris appeared at my elbow holding two Diet Cokes.
I followed her back to her car, a silver Pontiac Vibe, kind of an odd vehicle for her because I saw her as a truck woman, though the Vibe was pretty sporty.
I got in and buckled up. She slid into the driver’s side.
“How about we take a little side trip and see what we can see?”
“Okay.” I tried to quell my anxiety.
She backed up and exited the parking lot, turning left onto the side street closest to the phones. At the first cross street she turned right and slowed down.
“That�
��s it,” she muttered, gesturing with her chin at a small white house on the left. A four-foot chain link fence surrounded the front yard and a couple of pit bulls lolled in the sun, showing only mild interest in us as we passed. Nondescript brown drapes covered the front windows and the front porch was little more than a small stoop. I caught a glimpse of a darkened interior through the screen door, which had a huge tear in the lower left-hand corner. Probably from the dogs. Three different vehicles stood in the driveway, shoved in off the street. One was a beat-up older model white Ford pick-up, another was a brown Chevy Lumina that had a right rear tire so low I wondered if it had been driven recently. And the third was Megan’s blue Toyota Camry.
“Shit,” I breathed. It was all I could do not to jump out of the car and go racing in there to drag Megan out. Sensing that, Chris put a hand on my arm.
“No, Kase. Not yet.” She accelerated slightly and didn’t take another cruise past the house, probably because she didn’t want to arouse suspicion.
“All right,” she said. “Here’s the deal. I’m going to contact Utah tomorrow and see what we can get going with Watkins. See if you can find out who owns that place. I’ll also talk to Mark about Eight Ball on Tuesday. If I can get the okay to bring Sorrell in, we’ll do so. But before we do that, we need to know exactly what he’s up to. Bringing him in might endanger Megan because if he doesn’t trust her, chances are his friends don’t either, and she’s the first one they’ll blame if anything happens to their noble leader. So let’s see how things go on Tuesday.”
I stared out the windshield, watching the lengthening shadows as we approached the mountains for the twenty-five-minute drive to the other side.
“You okay?” Chris asked quietly after a while. She took my left hand with her right, stroked the back of it with her thumb.
I sat for a minute longer before responding. “It’s different, when what you research becomes so personal.”
Chris didn’t respond and we sat in silence for a few minutes. Chris broke it first.
“On the plus side, she’s alive and probably okay physically. And if you’re right, she seems to want out.” Chris squeezed my hand. “We’ll get her out.
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