by Joseph Badal
“What the hell,” Barbara rasped. She moved toward the van, planning to give the driver a piece of her mind, when three young men bailed from the vehicle. All three carried shotguns and wore masks.
Barbara reached for her pistol in the holster on her hip and felt a sinking feeling when she remembered she’d clipped the holster to the strap of her purse. She always did that while driving, to avoid the discomfort of wearing the weapon on her hip while she was behind the wheel. She quickly reversed direction to return to the car, opened the door, and dropped into the driver’s seat. She snatched her purse from the floor. As she pulled the pistol from the holster, she called in to the dispatcher.
Barbara identified herself and then said, “Two eleven in progress at Bernalillo County Credit Union, twelve hundred block of 4th Street Northwest. At least three armed men inside the building. One man still in a black van parked outside the entrance. I—”
The sounds of a pistol being fired stopped Barbara. Then the roar of a shotgun sounded. “Shots fired,” she shouted into the mic. “Code twenty; officer needs assistance.” She threw down the radio mic and exited the car. She used parked vehicles as cover while she moved toward the running black van. She was eight vehicles away from the building entrance when the front doors flew open and the three masked men stampeded onto the front pavement and circled around the van. One of the men dragged a leg as though he was injured.
Barbara cut around the back end of the pickup she was using as cover and ran toward the van. “Stop! Police!” she shouted, as she brought her pistol to bear on the vehicle. Movement to her left momentarily diverted her attention. Susan ran from the building, gun leveled toward the black vehicle. She rapid-fire shot at the van’s occupants as the vehicle sped away.
“You okay?” Barbara shouted at Susan.
“Yeah. Get the car.”
Barbara ran back to the Crown Vic, backed out of the parking space, and peeled out toward where Susan waited. Once Susan was in the car, Barbara asked, “Anyone hurt inside the building?”
“No, thank God. I clipped one of the guys in the leg. He fired off his shotgun into the ceiling.”
Barbara shot out of the parking lot and pulled onto 4th street. She could see the top of the getaway vehicle half-a-block ahead. “Get on the radio and give them what you know,” she told Susan. “I got the plate number.”
After Susan got off the radio, she opened her window and placed the emergency light on the car’s roof.
“You know, with this traffic, the siren and flashers probably won’t help a bit,” Barbara said.
“Bastards,” Susan blurted. “They coulda killed someone. They were armed to the teeth. Shotguns and automatics on their hips.”
Barbara saw the van turn left at the end of the next block. Traffic came to a dead stop in front of her. The oncoming lane was clogged to a standstill.
“Damnit,” she yelled.
It was 8:30 p.m. before Barbara and Susan were released by the BCSD “shooting team.” Barbara had called Otero-Hansen to let her know what had happened and suggested they meet some other evening, but the FBI agent had told her to call when they became available. “Those robbers could be the crew we’ve been investigating for months,’ Otero-Hansen had said.
At 8:45 p.m., Barbara and Susan sat across from one another at a table in the Elephant Bar in a shopping center in Uptown Albuquerque. They’d ordered margaritas and waited for Sophia Otero-Hansen to arrive. The first round of drinks disappeared almost immediately. Susan got the waitress’s attention and ordered a second round.
“Too bad Sophia doesn’t have a wonderful boss like ours,” Susan said. “Sounds like he’s putting her through the wringer.”
“Since when did you think Salas was a wonderful boss?”
“Since I came to the conclusion that Sophia’s boss makes Lieutenant Sniffles look like the boss of the year.”
“Her boss does sound like an asshole. I know the Bureau takes the lead on bank heists, but you’d think the guy would have some interest in tracking down a mass murderer who’s operated in multiple states.”
“Maybe we can help Sophia find the bank robbers. I mean, my God, they’ve hit a dozen of them in the last twelve months.”
Barbara scrunched her face. “There you go again, partner. Just because you think you’re hot stuff, doesn’t mean you can solve a case the Feds have worked since last September.”
Susan pouted. “I’m devastated. My own partner doesn’t think we’re better than the FBI. I bet you if we were on the case, we’d quickly find the bad guys.”
Barbara smiled at Susan. “If you were a better shot, that team of robbers would no longer exist.”
Susan frowned. “I’ll have you know, the only shot I had was the one guy I hit in the leg. The other two were screened by citizens. Any time you want to go out to the range and test my shooting prowess, just say so.”
Barbara looked at her cell phone to check the time just as it rang. She saw Otero-Hansen’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” she answered. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, except I’m running about thirty minutes late. I apologize for—”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll order another round of margaritas. There’ll be one waiting for you.”
“Thanks. After this day, I’ll need it.”
Barbara put down her phone. “That was Sophia. She’s running late. Sounds like she’s had a bad day.”
“Every day’s a bad day when you work for an asshole,” Susan said as the waitress delivered their drinks.
“Tell me about it,” the waitress said and walked away.
Barbara smiled at Susan. “Maybe we don’t have it so bad after all.” Then she narrowed her eyes and said, “You never told me about that date you had the other night.”
Susan frowned and shook her head. She snatched up her glass, licked salt off its rim, and downed a third of the drink. “Ah,” she exhaled. “What do you want to know about my date?”
“The usual. What did he look like? Did you like the guy? Where’d you go to dinner? Any romance? You know.”
Susan sipped her drink and said, “Suffice it to say that’s the last time I use one of those online dating services.”
“You didn’t?”
“I did.”
“Why would you do that? There are dozens of guys panting after you.”
“Yeah, but they’re all cops. I thought I’d branch out a bit. You know, maybe meet a man with interests other than murder and mayhem.”
“The date didn’t go so well?”
“You could say that.” Susan scowled and paused, as though she considered not continuing with the story. Then she said, “You promise not to laugh?”
Barbara met Susan’s gaze. “No way. It’s one thing to keep your stories to myself; it’s another to promise not to laugh. That’s something I can’t control. If you don’t want to tell me, fine.”
Susan took two slow sips of her drink while Barbara continued to stare at her. When Barbara thought Susan had decided not to relate her dating experience, she picked up her own drink and sipped it.
“Okay, I’ll tell you.”
Barbara held her drink in two hands and waited.
Susan put down her glass. “So, I signed up on this dating website. Had to put up my picture, likes and dislikes, physical description, education. You know, all that stuff. My posting’s up maybe three hours and hits start coming in.”
“How many hits?”
“At least fifty.”
“No way.”
“Yes, way. There were so many I lost track.”
“How’d you decide who to contact?”
“I picked the best looking guy of the bunch. Besides he’s a nuclear engineer at Sandia Labs. That’s about as different from being a cop as it comes.”
“How good looking?”
“Chris Pine-good looking.”
“That’s pretty good looking,” Barbara said. “I’d say something about your super
ficial criteria for selecting men but I don’t want to interrupt your story.”
Susan scowled again. “Anyway, the guy calls me after I emailed him. We arranged to meet at Seasons Restaurant down in Old Town.”
“Good start.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”
“I got there fashionably late. He was standing at the bar. My heart seemed to stop. I mean, this guy was drop-dead gorgeous. He’s wearing a suit that’s got to be Armani and it fits him perfectly. Oh my God, his eyes. They were so hazel, they were almost green. It was all I could do to not hyperventilate.”
Barbara tried to keep a smile off her face, but the longer Susan’s story went, the harder it became. “What happened? Did you skip dinner and go straight to his place?”
Susan squinted at Barbara. “I may be hot-blooded, but I’m not that easy.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“We sat down to dinner. Nice little table in the back. Good view of the whole place. He’s got his back to the room. The waitress comes over and hands him a wine list. He looks it over for maybe thirty seconds and says, ‘Bring us a bottle of the Cakebread Cellars chardonnay.’ ”
“Henry ordered a bottle of that one time. Cost over a hundred dollars.”
“It tasted like it,” Susan said. “It was pure ambrosia.”
“Sounds like a great date so far.”
Susan sniffed. “That’s what I thought. While we waited for the wine, he leans in and asks me where I grew up. I told him about being a kid in Northern New Mexico and then moving to Albuquerque when I was sixteen. While I’m telling the story, I notice he’s not making eye contact. The more we talk, the more obvious it becomes. I mean, this guy’s eyes are all over the place. The more his eyes wander, the more I laser in on his face with my eyes. That just seems to make him antsier. Finally, I can’t take it anymore and say, ‘Are you looking for someone?’
“His face goes red; then he turns pale. ‘No, no,’ he says. He leans in closer to me and whispers, ‘It’s not that I’m not listening to you; it’s that I’m really tired, and when I’m really tired and look someone in the eye, that’s when they take me.’ ”
“Who takes him?” Barbara asked.
Susan raised a hand to hold Barbara off. “I’m getting there. That’s what I asked. He says, ‘The little people.’ I asked, ‘You mean little people like aliens?’ He says, ‘Exactly.’
“Now, I’m thinking this guy is putting me on. But I figure I’ll go along with the joke. I asked, ‘How many times have the little people taken you?’ He says, ‘At least four times, as far as I can remember.’ So, I ask, ‘What do they do with you?’ He tells me they experiment on him.”
“What sort of experiments?” Barbara asked.
“Sexual experiments. Kinky stuff.”
“This is getting interesting. Was he specific?”
Susan glared at Barbara. “If you’re that interested, I could introduce you to him.”
“No, that’s all right. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your love life.”
Susan scoffed again.
“What did you do after dinner?”
“Are you out of your mind? I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“You haven’t seen him again?” Before Susan could respond, Barbara broke down in side-splitting laughter. When she finally got control of herself, she looked Susan in the eyes and said, “You’re telling me that a guy playing with nuclear weapons out at Sandia National Laboratory believes in alien abductions?”
Susan’s face reddened. “I hadn’t thought about that. Nuclear weapons and psychotic behavior really don’t mix very well, do they?”
“What about nukes and psychotic behavior?” Sophia Otero-Hansen asked as she sat down between Barbara and Susan.
Susan shot a warning glance at Barbara.
“Nothing,” Barbara said. “Susan was telling me a joke.”
“Come on, girl,” Otero-Hansen said, “tell me.”
Susan waved a hand as though she had nothing important to say.
“Sorry I’m late,” Otero-Hansen said. “Got away from the office later than I expected. Then I had to go home to let out the dog and change.”
“How’s your husband doing?” Barbara asked.
“Fine. He’s out of town for the week for a legal continuing education class. Poor baby had the choice between Miami and San Diego.”
“Better than Albuquerque this week,” Susan said. “It’s supposed to rain, maybe even snow, tomorrow.”
“Sorry about getting you in trouble with your boss,” Barbara said.
Otero-Hansen smiled. “I’m a big girl, Barbara. You didn’t force me to do anything.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m still sorry.”
Otero-Hansen shrugged.
“Anything new on your end?” Susan asked.
“We discovered the black van used in the attempted robbery of the credit union was stolen a week ago. APD found it abandoned near the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on 12th Street. The perps scrubbed it clean of evidence. The only thing we got were blood samples off the carpet in the back of the vehicle. So we’ll have DNA if we ever arrest these guys. You two did good.” Otero-Hansen looked at Susan and said, “I can’t believe you shot one of the robbers. The lobby was packed with people.”
“I had a three-inch window, so I took the shot.”
Otero-Hansen looked at Barbara. The look on her face seemed to say, “She’s kidding, right?”
Barbara smiled at her and asked, “Anything new from Las Vegas?”
“One of the men, Stanley Bukowski, who was killed in the Las Vegas parking lot, was shot. But the weapon that killed him wasn’t found at the scene.”
“Huh,” Barbara said.
“Yeah. And one of the other men, Eric Matus, is a very curious guy.”
“How so?” Barbara asked just as a waitress came to the table.
“Please come back in five minutes,” Susan told the girl, while she continued to stare at Otero-Hansen.
“I told you earlier he was former military.”
“Yeah.”
“Right. Well, he ran a talent agency in Salt Lake City. We sent a field agent to his office. The landlord let him in. Bunch of glamour shots on the walls, but no receptionist. The file cabinets all empty. No computers. The place looks like a front for something.”
Barbara said, “Do you find it interesting that this guy Matus was in Las Vegas around the same time that the three football players were murdered and the Bellagio incident happened? Interesting coincidence.”
“Yeah. I don’t believe in coincidences,” Otero-Hansen said.
Barbara said, “If you checked his credit card activity, you might be able to place him on the same dates in the cities where murders occurred.”
“That’s a good idea,” Otero-Hansen said. “But I can’t do that with my boss looking over my shoulder.”
Susan grimaced. “Right.”
“Then we’ll do it,” Barbara said.
Race counted his cash before he pulled away from the Ledbetter residence. He was down to forty-three hundred dollars. He’d already decided to get far away from Las Vegas. There was plenty of cash in his Las Vegas safety deposit box, but he was too cautious to take the chance of returning to the city. He knew the police wouldn’t identify him from the burned out Impala he’d left in the office building lot—he’d bought it with cash under a false name and had burned that set of ID. He’d sanitized the vehicle before he’d parked it in the lot, and the explosion and fire that had destroyed it had surely eradicated any other forensic evidence he might have left behind. But he needed cash, and his closest safety deposit box outside Las Vegas was in Albuquerque.
He followed Nevada 93 from Henderson southeast to Interstate 40 at Kingman, Arizona. From there, he went east on I-40 and finally had to stop for gas in Winslow. By that time, it was almost 11 p.m. and he was dead-tired. After he gassed up the truck, he found a motel that had seen better days. As he always did, he gave a fict
itious name, paid cash, and gave the clerk a twenty dollar tip. That always seemed to discourage them from demanding ID. When he rarely stayed at first rate hotels, he presented one of several sets of false ID, but still paid cash. When they asked for a credit card, he had a standard response: “Don’t believe in the damned things. Always pay cash for everything.” Then he’d hand over a hundred dollar bill to cover incidentals.
Eric Matus had thought Race’s ways were eccentric; thought he was unnecessarily careful. In addition to his cash-only policy, he never traveled by air; always drove cars he owned in false names. Never rented a car because the rental agencies demanded a driver’s license and a credit card. He paid cash at least five years in advance for safety deposit boxes.
There was only one other car parked in the Winslow motel lot. Good, Race thought, maybe it will be quiet. I might get a good night’s sleep . . . assuming the dream doesn’t wake me. He turned on the television and only half-listened to a local channel while he undressed. The news anchor had just finished a report about some charity fund drive in Winslow, when he suddenly said, “We have breaking news about a home invasion in Flagstaff. A couple in the Sunrise Estates Country Club area was found murdered, along with their three grandchildren. The children’s parents returned from a business trip and discovered the bodies.” The anchor paused. “We warn you that the following may be disturbing for some viewers.”
The words “home invasion” caused Race to stop undressing. He sat on the bed, eyes riveted to the set.
A picture of a young female reporter, backlit by the flashing lights of a dozen emergency and police vehicles, popped onto the screen.
The female reporter said, “This is Melissa Chan. I am just thirty yards from the scene of the grisly, depraved murders of two adults and three children. The murders apparently occurred about twenty-four hours ago. The family’s exterior security camera caught the suspected intruders as they entered the residence and then fled two hours later. If anyone has any information about these men, please call the telephone number at the bottom of the screen.”