That was when something outside the water flashed. It was a comet of light, flaring, streaking, and then dying in the space of inches and instants.
Lenore released me and kicked. I followed upward, gasping in the air for breath. My arms reached for her. But she was already climbing from the pool.
“Lenore?” I called. It was hope without urgency because I could already feel her fading from me, pulled into another orbit.
The air around where the light had flashed was still swirling with blue smoke. I caught the scent of spice and chocolate. Someone had lit a cigar, one characteristic of tobacco grown in the San Andrés Valley.
Twisting my body around, I placed both hands on the deck and pushed myself up into the cold air. I scrambled for my pants but chose to hold them up before me rather than take the time to put them on. I was more concerned about the pistol clipped to the belt than my modesty.
When I turned back, I was alone. Lenore was nowhere to be seen. I think I saw the door to the office moving the last inch to close. I couldn’t be sure. There was no point in trying to follow. If she was alone, she didn’t want me there. If she wasn’t…
Screw the pants, I decided. I looked around for the beer she had brought. It was gone. I sat on the concrete deck and pulled on my boots. Shod but bare assed, I sat under stars as the night cooled and my mind stilled. Thoughts chased me from dark corner to even darker corners. Inside I was all hollows and blackness. That grave I had escaped had somehow dug itself within me. I could feel it there, a shadowed emptiness demanding that I fill it.
The beer Lenore had poured on her breast and dropped was close enough to reach if I stretched. I did. There wasn’t much left in the can, but it was still cold.
THIRTEEN
The next day was Saturday. I had no idea until I showed up at the station—late. The work of being police chief had turned into a job. As much as that galled me, there was nothing for it but to keep doing what I had to do. I could have still bailed on everything and run. I think by then, I knew that was a fantasy. Or at least it was a last resort. I was in the middle of a tangle that needed straightening. And I was there not just because I had the job. I was in the middle because of Paris. And because of our father.
The night before, Hector had mentioned an old-school Texas Ranger Paris had been interested in. There was not a chance in the world that Ranger was not Buick Tindall. It fit. I already knew he had been in Lansdale—the grants, of course. And Paris. I wondered if he had become involved by accident or because Buick had tried to bring him in. Put that together with the people who kept trying to kill me, and there was no wonder I wanted to spend Saturday surrounded by cops.
The first thing I did was to dig up Bascom Wood’s home number and call. Baron had been found and sent home. It was time for the councilman to talk.
His phone kept ringing without going to voice mail. I called his office. A machine picked up. It directed me to a switchboard number. I decided to wait and try again later.
I didn’t wait very long. The tedium-inducing desk work of a chief of police had me squirming. Aside from that was the feeling that whatever I had to do in Lansdale needed to be done quickly—before I ran out of whatever luck had gotten me to where I was.
I called Wood’s house and office again with the same results. Then I checked in with the officer who had picked up Baron and taken him home. He reported leaving the kid at the house and not seeing Bascom Wood. But he hadn’t gone in.
An hour later I made the same calls again. By then I was completely convinced that there was no paperwork to be found onsite about grants or outside money. I gave up the paper shuffle and went out to my truck. I felt safer and much more in control behind the wheel than behind a desk. Leaving the station, I passed the city hall. I didn’t see Wood’s car. I went on. At the councilman’s house, I rang the bell and pounded on the door. No one answered. I went around the entire house looking into windows and trying the doors. No one home. And there was no car in the garage.
Still having not programmed the nonemergency number into the phone, I called 911. The officer on duty didn’t sound happy, but she said she would issue a BOLO, be on the lookout, for Councilman Wood and his car. I also asked for officers to start looking for Baron Wood. I suggested they start with finding Louisa Rey.
While they were doing that, I went drove by the gun club. I didn’t go in. I asked about Wood at the gate. The gunman seemed bored by my question. I believed him when he said Wood wasn’t there.
That time the DEA team didn’t run me down when I left. I had to go looking for them. It took a couple of passes before I found an SUV hidden just off the road. There were two men inside, the same pair of big guys who had been at the Border Crossing glaring at me over pool cues. They weren’t happy to see me pull up.
“You need to get away from here, Sheriff,” the driver said.
“Chief,” I said. “I’m the chief of police, not a sheriff.”
“Whatever.” He spat. It could have been dust. I didn’t think so. “You need to cowboy up your shit and mosey on. We’re working here.”
“What exactly is that work?”
“Hey. Fuck you,” the man in the passenger seat yelled.
The driver, trying to look like the reasonable one, held up a hand to his partner without taking his attention from me. “What do you want, Chief?”
“I’m looking for someone. He probably went to see the Machados.”
“Your councilman hasn’t been up here.”
“You seem well informed.”
The guy in the passenger seat reached out and did something on the dash I couldn’t see.
“Word gets around,” the driver said.
“Yeah. Tell me something. Are you watching the Machados or keeping watch for them?”
The driver spat again. He followed by raising his middle finger.
I drove on. I had gotten two bits of information from them. They had already known I was looking for Wood. And they were monitoring city police transmissions. When the passenger fiddled on the dash, I was sure he had been turning off a police-band radio. It hadn’t been to keep me from hearing what the DEA had to say.
After that I circled the town. I cruised through the Desert Drop parking lot to see if he was there looking for me. The whole exercise had me bored and pissed and worried. There was only one answer for that—tacos. I went to Ernesto’s for lunch. I had tea, no beer.
The weekend feeling of the taqueria got me thinking. Even a man pretending to do a job needed time off. I was on edge and needed a way to clear the wasps out of my brain. In my experience the best thing for taking reality out of my life was to drop a hook into the water.
Stuffed with too many tacos, I went to equip myself at Walmart. There I bought a two-piece cane pole that came with line, hooks, a float, and sinkers, all for less than five dollars. I added a tub of night crawlers, a bag of ice, and a six of beer. Out in the parking lot, I tucked the pole in the back of the truck. I dumped the ice into my cooler and stored the worms and beer inside. Then my phone rang. I expected Milo. It was dispatch.
It took a little driving around and two more calls to the station for directions to find the rutted track off a county road that took me to the water. Under a copse of cottonwoods and pecan that ran right up to the crumbling river bank were two cars. One was a Lansdale police cruiser. The other I recognized as belonging to Councilman Bascom Wood.
As I parked behind the cruiser, Officer Sunny leaned away from the open driver’s-side window of Wood’s car. Her head was canted over as she spoke into the mic at her shoulder. She kept talking and taking notes as I approached.
When I got close enough, I heard the flies. The front glass was sprayed on the inside with blood and gray matter. I didn’t bother to get much closer.
She finished what she was reporting to dispatch and looked right at me.
“His son?” I asked. “Baron?”
“He’s not here,” she answered. “Only Councilman Wood.”
I looked around the grove, grateful for that bit of news. “This isn’t in city limits, is it?”
“Is this going to be about jurisdiction?”
“Is what going to be about jurisdiction?”
“The reason I have to leave this alone.”
“Who said you have to leave it alone?”
When I didn’t say anything more, she shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“This isn’t in city limits.”
“But Bascom Wood is a city councilman.”
Sunny nodded.
“I’m guessing there’s an issue with going to the county sheriff.”
“Same as in town,” she said. “Sheriff hasn’t been seen in a couple of months. If we take it there, things end up with the feds. Their…support is all over this county.”
“What do you suggest?”
“You’re asking me?”
“I’m the new guy.”
“You’re the chief.”
“Fair enough. But I’m still asking.”
“There is a county coroner but no medical examiner. Forensics work is done through that office. There are…problems in the system.”
“So?”
“So we should double up on evidence collection where possible. Keep a set in our custody.”
“Who can I trust?”
She seemed rattled by the question. “With evidence? I’d say—”
“I’m not talking about evidence, Officer Johnson.”
“I know.”
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“Hector?”
She nodded.
“Gutiérrez?”
Sunny opened her mouth as if to say something. Then she closed it. I was about to press for an answer when she said, “She’s a good cop.”
“But?”
She shook her head. It wasn’t a negative. It was more a gesture of confusion.
“You don’t trust her?”
“Trust is hard to come by in Lansdale these days.” She didn’t seem confused about that.
“Other officers?”
“They’re okay—mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“They don’t like you and sure don’t trust you.”
“Because I’m from outside?”
“Because you suck as a chief.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I get that.”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“Hell if I know.” I shrugged. “But for now, call in whoever you trust and need.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll do what a chief does. Handle the problems when they show up.”
“What does that mean?”
“I figure you’ll know in just a few minutes.” I pointed at a fork in the trail that led down to the river bank. “I’m going to move my truck there, behind those trees.”
“Why?”
“I think it might be best if the problems don’t see me first.”
She shook her head again, more confusion with a bit of dismissal. Still, she went back to the work at hand.
I backed my truck and then angled it into the fork. I parked behind a screen of brush and hardwoods. Close by was an eddying pool with a pair of rotting logs sticking from the dark water. I pulled out my pole and worms. No sense in wasting the waiting.
From where I leaned against a tree, I could hear and catch glimpses of city cruisers rolling in. I counted three. About twenty minutes after I got a hook in the water, I pulled in a channel cat. The fish was a fighter but too small to keep. When the hook was free from his mouth and my catch had returned to the river, other vehicles were gunning up the trail.
They weren’t city cars. Even from a distance, I could hear the growl of big engines and the grind of knobby tires on hard pack. I rolled my line up on the pole and carried it with me as I took position behind a cottonwood well back from where the cops were working the scene.
Two big SUVs roared past and slid to a stop in a fury of dust and noise. Someone was trying to make an entrance.
There were seven of them, including Stackhouse. Two were the guys from the pool table at the Border Crossing. The rest I had seen blocking the road when I left the gun club. They were pros. Even before the vehicles were stopped, the doors were open, and men were flowing out. Without words, they spread in a broad semicircle centered on the bloody car and the four officers taking pictures and tucking samples into baggies.
As they piled out, I slipped closer, keeping the brush between them and me.
Of the DEA team, five carried M4a1 carbines, and one had a tactical shotgun at the ready. Stackhouse strode into the half circle with only his holstered Glock. He was trying to look like the reasonable one.
“You’re out of city limits, aren’t you?” Stackhouse called to the officers.
“And you’re out of the zoo,” Sunny Johnson called back. “We won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Funny.” The way he said it sounded like he’d never actually found anything funny. “You’re kind of small for a cop, aren’t you? You can’t weigh more than a buck.”
I expected to hear some kind of smart comeback. Instead, Sunny said, “Kiss my beautiful black ass.”
It wasn’t funny, but it got a titter out of the macho guys surrounding her. Stackhouse shut them up with a glance.
I decided that was my cue to be ready. I unwound my wrapped fishing line. At the same time, I eased forward, out of my wooded cover.
“We’re taking over this scene and this investigation,” Stackhouse said, speaking up for everyone to hear. “You’re going to leave all your evidence, turn over all notes and files, and clear my perimeter.”
“This isn’t federal,” Sunny said. “Murder is local.”
“This has jurisdictional overlap written all over it, sister. And my swinging fed dick carries more weight than your black ass. Clear my scene.”
“No.”
Officer Sunny Johnson was a hell of a woman and the kind of cop you wished they all were. These guys must have been impervious to her charms, though. Someone pulled back a charging bolt on his weapon.
“I don’t think you understand,” Stackhouse said.
That was when Sunny and the other cops first looked scared. They were the police. Until they heard the edge in Stackhouse’s voice, they didn’t believe they could be in danger from fellow officers. I could have told them they were giving the feds way too much credit.
At the end of the DEA line closest to me was the man with the shotgun. He was holding it at port arms. I snuck up and to his side as close as I dared.
I pulled back with my cane pole and whipped forward with my line. The hook and sinker wrapped around the barrel of the weapon and the man’s forearm. When I jerked, the barbed hook dug in. The sudden bite and pull caused him to discharge the shotgun, narrowly missing one of his partners. Once the gun went off, I dropped the pole and pulled my .45. In three steps I was right behind the shooter and kicking hard into the back of his knee. He dropped, and I smacked my pistol against the side of his head as he went.
He sprawled out with his badge face up in the dirt.
I kept my weapon sighted on the center of his back.
“Tindall,” Stackhouse shouted.
I almost looked around for Paris.
“This is a DEA operation. Step away from my officer.”
“Show me your badge,” I said. One of the men pointing weapons at me snickered, but not for long.
“I’ll show you the goddamned morgue if you don’t back away from my officer.”
“Your officer?” I bent down and took a closer look at the man’s badge. “Why’s he wearing a treasury badge?”
“Joint operations.”
“There you go,” I said, sneering up at Stackhouse. “Bragging about your joint again. I think you owe my officer an apology.”
“He sure as hell does,” Officer Sunny said. She had her weapon out and aimed in a two-handed shooter’s stance. My other three
officers were in the same positions.
“We’re all on the same team here.” Stackhouse tried the reasonable route again.
“You’re DEA, he’s treasury. What about these other guys?”
No one said anything.
“Well, never mind. Our place on the team is filled.”
Then Stackhouse asked me, “What do you want?”
“Information,” I answered. “Inclusion.”
“You’re not cleared.”
“Have you reported your badge missing yet? I know a guy in the DOJ might be interested.”
“Whatever.” Stackhouse turned to his men. “Lower your weapons.” He pointed to the treasury agent still on the ground. “Help Connors.” Turning back to me, he said, “I’ll be in touch.”
“Why seven?”
I could tell by the look on his face that Stackhouse knew what I was asking. He tried ignoring me.
“Six of them and you. It doesn’t seem like a good number for a team. Awkward.”
“What would you know about it?”
“Now I know you have someone undercover.”
“You’re a fucking bomb in a convoy, you know that? All chaos, no tactics.”
They left. They didn’t go happy. The officers of the Lansdale Police Department looked proud of themselves. I was darn proud of them too. They went back to work, and I untangled my line and headed back to the river. That time I didn’t fish. I opened a beer and leaned on the bed of my truck to concentrate on keeping my hands and breathing steady.
Officer Sunny Johnson looked me up when they were ready to clear the scene. “I called a tow truck for the car and the coroner for the body,” she told me.
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“I’m not. At least not about the coroner.”
“Anything we can do about that?” I asked, opening the cooler. I might have pulled that second beer if she hadn’t looked at me the way she did.
“We can send the body to Houston for autopsy.” She sounded ready for disappointment.
“Think it will do any good?”
“Probably not.”
I nodded. “Then why do it?”
“Sometimes you just want them to know you’re doing your job. They don’t own you no matter what they think.”
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