by Jack Heath
“The I-69 would have been faster,” Thistle says. “And if so, why didn’t he do it yesterday? Maybe he lives down this way.”
“He worked at a dump in Louisiana,” I say. “Two and a half hours east. He would have found a job closer to his house.”
We drive in silence for five minutes or so. I watch the scrub rush by out the window. Out here, you can see why some people still think the world is flat. Beyond the wasteland of stunted trees and dying grass on our left, refineries are coughing black smoke into the sky, their spires and stacks like a futuristic city. A forest is approaching on the right.
If the guy doesn’t live out here and isn’t headed for the border, there’s another possibility.
“Or,” I say, “he’s on to us. He’s trying to lead us as far away from—”
Just then, the Mazda swerves off the road into the forest without signaling.
“Shit.” Thistle hits the brakes, but not fast enough. She’s missed the turn—because there was no turn. Just a gap in the rotting fence which lines the road, invisible unless you know it’s there. The Mazda is already gone, hidden by trees.
Thistle backs up, talking into her radio. “Dispatch, this is Agent Reese Thistle.”
The radio hisses. “Go ahead, Agent.”
“I’m in pursuit of a suspect driving a white Mazda, registration...” She tosses the radio to me and maneuvers the Crown Vic into the gap in the fence line. I recite the number and pass the radio back.
“Requesting backup,” Thistle says. She floors the accelerator, and the Crown Vic bounces through the undergrowth, crushing shrubbery and startling birds. Police vehicles have overinflated tires and modified suspension, but even so, I’m worried the car will shake itself to bits. Every lurch throws me against my seat belt or crushes me into my seat. There are two thick ropes of muscle inside the front of the neck, on either side of the windpipe; I’m not sure what they’re called, but I can feel them straining to keep my head attached.
“Understood, Agent,” the radio says. “Cars inbound to your location. ETA six minutes.”
Not a bad response time, but not good enough. Now that he’s off-road, there are an infinite number of directions Gomez could be headed in. Roadblocks won’t help. If we don’t get this guy within our sights again soon, he’s gone for good. I should have let Thistle call for backup earlier.
Thistle yells over the screaming engine: “Anything?”
I’m frantically scanning the trees, but I can’t see any sign of the Mazda. Nor is there any crushed vegetation ahead of us to indicate which way he went. Which means—
“He doubled back,” I say. “We already missed him. Turn around.”
Thistle does exactly what the other driver must have done. She shifts into reverse and backs into the forest at an angle, far enough that someone else driving past wouldn’t see us. Then she spins the wheel, switches to Drive and zooms back out of the brush, jolting back toward the highway.
“Left or right?” Thistle asks.
I still can’t see the Mazda. But unless the guy is a master of double-bluffing, he won’t have pulled that trick only to keep going the same way he was before.
“Left,” I shout. “Back toward Houston.”
Thistle sends the car careening back onto the road and puts the pedal to the metal. The engine roars, and the scratched-up Crown Vic hurtles up the highway. She flicks on the siren. I notice a trail of splotches on the tarmac, like old chewing gum stains on the sidewalk.
“He’s leaking,” I say, shouting over the siren. “Gas, or maybe oil. His car isn’t designed for off-road.”
Thistle swerves around a rusty pickup. “How long can he keep going?”
“No clue.” I’m not a mechanic, and even if I was, I don’t know how much gas or oil he started with.
Then I see the Mazda up ahead. It’s still going fast, but we’re gaining. The Crown Vic has a more powerful engine, and it’s not leaking.
“I see it,” Thistle says. She pulls out the radio and presses the loudspeaker button. “This is the FBI. Pull over.”
Her distorted voice bounces back off the other vehicles. The Mazda doesn’t slow down.
“Can you sideswipe him?” I ask. “Knock him off the road?”
Thistle is about to reply when a police car coming the opposite way swerves across the dividing line into the Mazda’s path, lights flashing. The backup came early.
The Mazda goes into a skid as the driver tries to avoid a collision. The front wheels tumble off the side of the road and spin in the dirt. The engine stalls.
Thistle slams on the brakes and leaps out of the Crown Vic. She draws her Glock and advances on the car, head low, perfectly even footsteps keeping her aim steady. “Show me your hands!” she shouts. “Levante las manos.”
The other cop climbs out of his car. He’s old, but in good shape, with clear blue eyes buried in his sun-weathered face. His pistol is already up.
The driver of the Mazda gets out. I can see him more clearly now—full lips, angled brows under a long fringe. Definitely the guy from the dump. He’s wearing jeans and a loose T-shirt. He’s terrified.
I’ve done some bad things in my life. Consequently I don’t experience fear the way normal people do. It’s the same calculation I did with McLean, but the stakes are higher—if this guy had murdered sixteen people, would he look so scared?
I get out of the car.
“Manos arriba,” Thistle says, getting closer to the guy. “Hands up.”
The other cop stays behind the open door of his car. A car door won’t stop a bullet, but it will slow one down.
The Latino man doesn’t put his hands up. He looks from Thistle’s gun to the other cop’s and back. He swallows.
“Don’t shoot,” I say. “He’s unarmed.” No side holsters, no room in his pockets. And given that he just got out of the driver’s seat of a car, he doesn’t have a gun tucked into the back of his pants.
Thistle ignores me. “Hands in the air!” she says. “I won’t ask again.”
The guy still doesn’t move, his brow beaded with sweat.
“He wants you to shoot him!” I say. “Hold your fire.”
The guy hears me. Before the police have time to process what I’ve said, he suddenly reaches behind his back, as though he does have a gun.
Thistle doesn’t shoot.
The other cop does.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Who was the president of the USA before
John F. Kennedy was assassinated?
“How did you know?” Thistle asks.
We’re in the waiting room at the hospital, drinking crappy coffee out of paper cups. The doctors have told us nothing. But at the scene, the wound looked superficial. Like the first little wedge an ax takes out of a tree. The blood flowed from the guy’s upper arm, but didn’t squirt out of it.
His hand, when it came out from behind his back, had been empty.
“You ever try driving with a gun in the back of your pants?” I ask. “Me neither—because it would be a stupid thing to do.”
“Not that,” Thistle says. “How did you know he wanted us to shoot him?”
I look down into my coffee, which is somehow swirling even though no one stirred it. I think of the way the guy stared at those two guns. Looking for a way out, then finally seeing one. Taking a deep breath, like he was about to jump into a cold river.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I say finally.
“Hell of a risk for not sure.”
“I was sure—I just don’t know why I was sure.”
Thistle leans back in her chair.
“Thanks for trusting me,” I add.
“You’ve never been wrong before.”
I grimace. “Actually, I’m wrong all the time.”
“Now you tell me,” she says, with something that
’s almost a smile.
A doctor emerges from the double doors. But it’s not Gomez’s doctor, and she ignores us.
“So you don’t know why he did it,” Thistle says.
I shrug. “Didn’t want to go back to Mexico?”
“I’ve been to Mexico,” Thistle says. “I did some training in Cancun with an anticartel unit. Mexico isn’t that bad. I can imagine risking my life to stay here, but I can’t imagine killing myself to avoid going back.”
Her phone rings, and she answers. “Yeah?”
I watch her from the corner of my eye. As always, I’m worried it’s a call from Vasquez. We’re pulling Blake’s house apart. There are bodies in his freezer. Arrest him, now!
“Thanks,” Thistle says. “See you soon.”
She hangs up. “That was Vasquez.”
My heart speeds up a little. Maybe I feel normal fear, after all. “Yeah?”
“The guy’s name is indeed Hector Gomez,” she says. “He’s undocumented. But he has family here. A wife, a brother and two kids. Five and seven.”
“What are you getting at?”
“His kids were born here. They’re US citizens. ICE is unlikely to deport the parents of an American-born child.”
“You think he knows that?”
“For sure,” she says. “Undocumented immigrants know the system better than the politicians do.”
“So when he ran from us the first time, he wasn’t scared of getting deported.”
“No. He was scared of something else.”
A doctor appears. Tall, with a JFK haircut and hooded eyes. “He says he doesn’t want a lawyer. You can go in.”
Hector is sitting up on his hospital bed with a handcuff around one wrist. His other arm is bandaged and hanging from a sling. He looks up at us fearfully when we walk in, but seems almost relieved when he recognizes us. Makes me wonder who he was expecting.
“Hector Gomez?” Thistle says. “I’m Agent Reese Thistle, and this is—”
“You have to go to my house,” he says. “Please.” His Mexican accent has faded into the background. I’d guess he’s been in Texas at least five years.
“First let’s talk about why you ran,” Thistle says.
“There’s no time,” he says. “They will kill my boys. I can’t protect them from here.”
“Who threatened your kids?” I ask.
Groaning with frustration, Gomez pulls at his cuffs. “I will tell you everything, okay? I swear it. But you have to send someone to my home, right now. My family is in danger.”
Thistle looks at me, eyebrows raised in a question.
I nod slightly. I’m pretty sure he’s telling the truth.
“Okay,” Thistle says. She pulls out her phone and calls Vasquez. “Hi again. You got Gomez’s address there?... Great. I need you to send a patrol car to his house... Right. No, not at this stage. Sounds like a potential retribution thing... Sure. Let me know.”
She hangs up. “The police are on their way to your house. You want to tell me what they’ll find?”
Gomez relaxes. “Hopefully nothing. They are probably not even home.”
“Tell us who threatened you,” Thistle says.
Gomez takes a breath. “Okay.”
* * *
She was pretty, for a white lady. A tall blonde, thirties, with clear skin and full lips. He thought she had a great figure, too, under her narrow gray skirt and that silk blouse. But he didn’t look directly at her. He didn’t want to be rude. And anyway, he had been married for nine years.
Here at the dump, she looked incredibly out of place. Like a flight attendant who had walked out of a crashed aircraft, unscathed. Hector was just walking back to his pickup—it was sunset—when she waved to him.
“Hector Gomez?” she said.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss. You have me confused with someone else.” His name at work was Greg Post.
She smiled, showing perfect teeth. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not a cop. I have a job offer for you.”
“Thank you, but I already have a job,” he said. “Excuse me.”
He tried to keep walking toward his truck, but she stepped out in front of him. “A former employee of mine, Judah Price, he said you could use some extra money.”
Hector hesitated. Judah had worked at the dump with him until recently. A big white guy with an army tattoo on his shoulder. He spoke a little Spanish, and he and Hector had gotten on well. Judah had left unexpectedly, and Hector wondered if he’d found better pay elsewhere.
“You know Judah, right?” the woman said. “A wide gentleman? Army tattoo?”
“I really have to go,” Hector said.
“My boss will pay you an extra hundred dollars per day,” the woman said. “For less than two hours’ work. Sound good?”
Hector did need the extra cash. He was about to have to buy some more schoolbooks for his boys, and Cesar needed a new uniform. Hector’s car had a rattle, which was getting worse, and he couldn’t fix it himself. Plus, the rent was going up at the apartment.
But something Hector’s mother used to say came back to him. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Back in Cancun, the only people who offered such “easy” money were the cartels. If the lady had offered him twenty bucks he might have taken it. But a hundred? Every day? He didn’t want the risk.
“Thank you for the offer,” he said. “But I’m not looking for more work right now.”
He got in his pickup. The woman let him do it. Then she tapped on the window.
Reluctantly, he rolled it down.
She passed him a fat envelope. “This is just for considering the offer.”
Then she started to walk away.
Hector could have chased after her, made her take the envelope back. But he thought about the schoolbooks. The rent. The rattle.
The woman got into a dark blue sedan and cruised out of the parking lot.
Hector sighed and opened the envelope.
What was inside wasn’t what he had expected. No money. Just printed photos. Dozens of them.
They were all photos of Cesar and Miguel. Some had been taken from outside the front gates of their school. Others were shots from the soccer field. A couple were shots from outside the church.
With shaking hands, Hector reached the final photo. It showed his boys sleeping. The picture had been taken from right outside their bedroom window.
There was one more thing in the envelope. A flap, thin and pale, like parchment, but as soft as good-quality leather. Hector didn’t know what he was holding until he saw the army tattoo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Forward I’m heavy, backward I’m not. What am I?
The clock ticks in Gomez’s hospital room.
“You should have taken the money,” I say finally.
He looks at his feet. “You don’t think I know that, now?”
“What did she actually want you to do?” Thistle asks.
He swallows. “She wanted a key to the container, the one with the filing boxes. I had to steal it from my boss’s desk, then copy it. I was supposed to add her license plate to the database so the gate would open for her automatically. I parked a truck in front of the security camera whenever she entered or left. And sometimes she gave me something to get rid of, like a phone. I was supposed to break it up and bury the parts so deep they wouldn’t be found for a hundred years.”
“How often did she come?”
“Most nights. Twice, maybe two hours apart.”
“For how long?”
“The last few months.”
I exchange a glance with Thistle. Is it possible that there are more victims we don’t know about? Maybe hundreds?
“Did she bring a phone every time?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “That
was rare. One every two or three weeks.”
“On these dates?” I recite the twelve dates that Biggs highlighted on the wall planner.
“I don’t think so,” Gomez says. “The last time was last week—the second.”
I’m guessing that was Daniel Ruthven’s phone. “What about cars?”
“Just the one car. It was still in the crusher when you guys showed up.”
“Tell me about the shipping container,” I say.
“I don’t know why she wanted to go in there,” he says. “There are just files. After the first time, I went in to look around. It didn’t look like she had touched anything.”
I think of the bloody fingerprints on the planner. Biggs, trying to tell us something.
“You should have come to us,” Thistle says.
“The next time we talked—the day after she gave me the envelope—she told me not to talk to the police. She said her boss would skin my boys. She told me Judah had disobeyed him. That is why I ran, the first time you saw me.”
“We could have protected you. We still can.”
“I mean no disrespect,” Gomez says, “but police don’t always take the side of the undocumented. Even legal aliens, they are treated with suspicion.”
“The woman didn’t threaten your wife?” I ask. “Just your children?”
“Just my children? I take it you’re not a father, Mr. Blake.”
“You realize you’ve assisted with a range of homicides?” Thistle says.
“No, no!” Gomez shakes his head vigorously. “When she arrived, she usually had a man with her. One of them, I knew his face. On my son’s birthday, I had seen him working in the kitchen of the T-Rex.”
T-Rex is a Tex-Mex restaurant in Houston’s south. I’ve never been inside.
“The day after the woman took him to the dump, I went to the restaurant,” Gomez continues. “He was there. I was relieved to see him alive. So I thought she was using the container just for sex. Not murder.”
“A shipping container at a dump?” Thistle says doubtfully.
“Some people, they have strange tastes,” Gomez says.
“Do you still have the skin?” I ask. “With the tattoo?”