by Blake Pierce
“An altercation?” said the bartender, wrinkling her nose. “What does that mean?”
Pascal called something out in Spanish behind Adele. The woman with the white hair suddenly nodded, her painted on eyebrows rising high. “Oh, I see. There could’ve been. I don’t remember. I was busy.”
Adele frowned. “You sure? Is there anything you recall?”
“I would tell you if there was. But no. Nothing comes to mind. Look, we have a competition starting in about half an hour. So, if you don’t mind, you’re going to start scaring away customers.” She made a shooing motion toward the door.
Adele bristled, but before she could reply, the man at the counter who’d been watching them cleared his throat. “Come on, Martha,” he said in understandable, but accented English. “You know. It was the woman who got attacked.”
Martha, behind the counter, frowned, shrugging and shaking her head. She pursed her lips in a disapproving gesture.
Adele turned to face the man with the backwards cap. “You recognize her?” Adele said, turning the phone toward him.
He didn’t even glance down. “I remember Rosa.” He gave a little chuckle. “She shot me down. Very pretty girl. I seen her around here a few times.”
“And she was here last week?”
The man nodded, hesitated, then said, in Spanish, something Adele couldn’t understand. Pascal leaned in. “He says a stranger approached her, tried to make a move, and when she restricted his advances, he got angry. He threw a glass at her. Then he followed her out of the bar.”
Adele could feel her pulse quickening. “You saw all this?
The man paused, then mimed drinking from a glass and said something in Spanish again.
“He says he remembers what he remembers. Not all of it is clear.”
Adele sighed. “You don’t happen to remember what this guy looked like, do you?”
“Stranger,” said the man in English, nodding his head. “He was stranger.”
“So you didn’t recognize him from before?”
The man spoke, and Pascal translated, “Our friend here with the hat is here almost every night. Says he recognizes most people.” Martha nodded, her lips still pursed in disapproval. Pascal continued, “He says the man who followed Rosa was a backpacker; hadn’t been around before.”
Adele leaned in, excited, trying to control her emotions. “And you remember what he looked like?”
“Michael,” the man said, with a shrug.
Adele wrinkled her nose.
“Name Michael,” the Spaniard said, taking a sip from his glass. He nodded. He pointed toward a table further down the booth. “There. Michael.”
“You’re sure? You know his name?” Adele turned quickly back toward the bartender. “Receipts, we need to see your receipts.”
The woman looked ready to protest but Pascal said something in Spanish, flashing her own badge, and the woman behind the counter growled, but then turned and slunk away, pushing through a swinging glass door that led into the back. Adele waited, half expecting the woman to disappear.
The man next to her was miming something with his hand. He kept brushing it through his hair and fluttering his eyes. For a moment, Adele stared at him, confused. The man sighed in exasperation and said to Agent Pascal, in good enough English, but still with an incredibly thick accent, “Pretty man, too. Not just Rosa was pretty. But man was also pretty too.” He continued in Spanish until Pascal nodded.
The Spanish agent said to Adele, “This Michael was well groomed. He took care of himself. Neatly dressed. It stood out in a place like this.”
Adele nodded quickly. Her own mind was spinning. Why would someone like that be in a place like this? Why would someone well groomed, as he’d put it, be hunting down priests and hitchhikers? People weren’t always what they seemed…
The back door suddenly opened again, swinging on ungreased hinges. Martha stalked forward, her white curls bouncing as she slapped receipts on the counter next to the cups. “Section Three,” she said. “Last six days.”
The pile of receipts wasn’t as high as Adele had feared. Section Three consisted of two tables by the dartboard. Adele quickly began to cycle through the receipts, pulling them aside. Pascal reached in and grabbed a stack; she also began to look at the names at the top. A few moments passed. And then Adele snapped her fingers. “Here,” she said, quickly. “Michael Bassols.”
Pascal didn’t look up immediately, siphoning through the rest of her stack, before nodding, saying, “No Michaels here.”
Adele checked the last three receipts in her pile. This was the only one.
“Michael,” she said, quickly, shoving the receipt toward the man on the counter. “Is this what he ordered? Two beers?”
The man in the backwards cap wrinkled his nose though, and said, “No. Not beers.”
Adele’s heart fell. Before the disappointment could settle, though, Martha leaned in and said, “Waters. He ordered waters. I charged him for beers. But he ordered water. He didn’t want any alcohol.”
Adele stared at the woman behind the counter. “So you do remember him?”
She shrugged. “Vaguely. Not much. I do remember he ordered waters, though.”
Adele could feel her heart pounding. She took the receipt, lifting it. “May we borrow this?”
Martha waved her hand, gesticulating toward the door again. “Whatever gets you out of here. My busy hour is approaching. You’re going to scare away the bread from my mouth.”
Adele nodded and, with receipt in hand, began to move toward the door. John watched her, twitching an eyebrow. “Michael Bassols,” Adele said beneath her breath as she passed him. “Now we just need to find where he is.”
CHAPTER NINE
John could sense the excitement from the two women as they settled in the car again. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended scrunched in the back seat, behind Agent Pascal. The large woman was driving, claiming she knew the streets better.
He glared at the back of her head, his knees jutting against the seat. Adele was too busy worrying about paltry things like solving the case to concern herself with who drove. She was shaking the receipt excitedly as Agent Pascal rattled away into her phone, one hand on the wheel, reading the name and phone number from the bill.
John crossed his arms, reaching out to roll down the window as Pascal contacted the CNI.
This whole case was annoying. John had wanted another week off. He’d enjoyed spending time at Adele’s nearly every day. Occasionally she would come back to his bachelor pad in the basement of the DGSI. More often than not, though, he found himself at her place. He hadn’t spent the night. That would’ve been uncomfortable with the Sergeant watching. But he liked her company.
Which made it all the worse that he was lying to her.
As the two women in the front seat communicated over the phone, translating the details from the receipt to the tech team, John slipped his hand into his pocket, delicately pulling out his own phone. He scanned the missed calls. Three of them. All from the same number. Dammit.
Why wouldn’t she just leave him alone? Didn’t she get it?
He just wished she would stop calling. But then again was that fair? He was the one who’d made the choice. He’d started it with her. And now he wanted it to end. He could only imagine how she felt.
He didn’t look in Adele’s direction, his stomach twisting. He sighed, resting his head back against the head rest and wishing, with everything, he hadn’t made such stupid mistakes.
For a moment, his finger hovered over the missed calls, wondering if he ought to just respond.
He glanced toward Adele. She looked up from the receipt as if sensing his attention and shot a look toward him. Her eyes flicked toward his phone briefly, and her face twitched nearly imperceptibly. She recovered quickly, though, and just smiled, nodding at him. She then turned back toward Pascal, waiting for the woman to deliver any good news.
Adele didn’t miss much. It was one of the reasons he
liked her so much. She called him on his bullshit. But then again, Adele didn’t miss much. It was one of the things he least liked about her. She called him on his bullshit.
He sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose and staring out the window again. Maybe he should just tell her. It would make everything easier. He wouldn’t feel like he was dragging around the weight of the world. What if he told her, what then?
John hadn’t lasted this long by facing his problems. He preferred running, and at the very end, if fate demanded it, fighting to the bitter end. No, he would just ignore the calls. That would be the best thing to do. He swiped the calls aside, wiping them from the phone’s memory, and then shoved his device back into his pocket.
As he did, he half thought he would feel a bit better. And yet the twisting in his stomach only grew worse.
So it was with much gratitude that he heard Agent Pascal declare, “Right, he does?” She nodded quickly, staring through the window. “All right, I’ll tell them. Yes, right now? Perfect. Yes, send some locals there. We’re on our way.”
“Did they find him?” Adele said, quickly, her eyes wide.
“Yes,” Pascal replied. “A man named Michael Bassols recently checked into a campground not far from here. About thirty minutes north.”
“Really?” Adele said, her eyes wide. “Does he match the description?”
“We can’t confirm. But he did check in with his identification, and they’re sending over the details now.”
“Are the police on their way?” John growled, looking over the shoulder of the seat. Agent Pascal glanced back, nodding once. “Yes, we’ll have backup.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. You need to tell the locals to stay back until we get there. We don’t need them trampling over the crime scene or spooking anyone.”
He could feel his own heartbeat pounding. He breathed in, out, trying to calm himself. Agent Pascal flashed a thumbs-up. She put the car in gear and floored it. John jolted back, Adele gripped the armrests, and they tore through the streets of Leon, ignoring the speed limit while hastening north.
John stared wide-eyed over the seat in front of him, wondering if this was how Adele felt whenever he drove.
To her credit, as she wove in and out of traffic, Agent Pascal displayed a remarkable acuity behind the wheel.
A man named Michael Bassols was at a nearby campground. What were the odds? So close to Leon. So close to an altercation with the second victim. Still no connection at all to Father Fernando. But a start. He had seen Adele work before. Like a bloodhound with a scent, she hunted down even the smallest lead. He would follow her wherever she led. He would just have to hope he didn’t hurt her in the process. His large hand covered his pocket as if shielding the device within. His stomach turned, this time having nothing to do with the rapid pace through the city streets.
***
“What did I say?” John snapped, flinging open the door and stomping through the grounds.
He could feel his cheeks heating, his anger rising. He turned back, gesticulating wildly as Agent Pascal also exited the vehicle from where she had parked in the camping lot. To her credit, she looked sufficiently sheepish, wincing and scratching at the back of her head.
“I told them to wait,” she said, beneath her breath.
John growled, wheeling back around. Police were everywhere. Nearly fifteen of them that John could see moved through the campground, speaking with anyone and anything. One of the cops was even petting a dog. The chances of anyone engaged in anything illicit sticking around were next to zero.
John shook his head, clenching his fists. Some people just couldn’t think tactically. “What site?” he demanded.
Adele caught up with him, shaking her head, “The registration said he was staying at the fifth campground. Open air. I think…” She hesitated, glancing at wooden signs on the edge of the trailhead.
John followed her gaze. He couldn’t read Spanish. But he knew numbers. He pointed and snapped, “There. See? One through ten.”
Adele followed his attention and both of them spotted the white arrow pointing off to the right at the same time. Police were still moving through the area, a group of five heading toward Camp Site Five.
John felt his temper rising as he stalked forward, following the white arrow, Adele quickly keeping pace. Agent Pascal hesitated, but then moved off toward a sergeant who was barking instructions to some of the other officers. The Spaniards could keep each other in check. John, on the other hand, had a sinking suspicion they wouldn’t find anything now.
“I told you,” John growled, “they needed to wait for us to get here.” Adele sighed, but didn’t reply. Normally, when she didn’t say anything, it was either because she didn’t want to bother confronting him or because she knew he was right.
They reached the campground, standing next to a couple of officers who were now picking through a small green tent. One of the officers pulled the flap back, looking inside, unzipping it the rest of the way with a quiet sound. Inside, the tent was empty. A couple of protein bar wrappers sat in a plastic bag, which had been tied off to one of the tent poles. Whoever had rented the site didn’t even want to litter. A Boy Scout? Was this the sort of person who would murder two people in cold blood?
John glanced around the space, his eyes traveling over the dusty clearing and moving toward the tree line.
“You kicked over the damn hornet’s nest,” he snapped at one of the officers. The woman just shrugged at him, shaking her head apologetically. “No comprendo.”
“No comprendo, my ass,” John muttered. “Amateur hour.”
Adele placed her hand on his arm, trying to soothe him. But John could feel his own temper rising. If he was honest, if he took a moment, he thought he might trace back some of his anger, some of his frustration, to origins entirely separate from the case. But that would’ve required a willingness to be honest. And John had spent a long time trying to avoid this. And so he fanned the flames of his own anger, stomping behind the tent and searching for anything else that stood out.
As John stood there, towering over the tent, something moved out of the corner of his eye. John frowned, turning ever so slightly. There, in the tree line, a face was peeping over a branch, watching them. John stiffened, not quite turning fully and pretending he hadn’t noticed, continuing to glance in other directions around the trees. He moved surreptitiously toward Adele, one hand shielded by the tent while gesticulating wildly.
A second later, Adele noticed his motion and frowned in his direction.
John met her gaze and then, shielding his hand with his frame, he pointed off to the trees, jerking with his eyes in that direction.
Adele hesitated and then realized what he meant and looked over.
A second later, John heard a curse followed by the sound of cracking branches and retreating footsteps.
They’d been made. John cursed, spinning on his heel and breaking into an all-out sprint, charging toward the trees.
The figure was now moving through the forest, heading away from the campground rapidly, breathing heavily, popping ragged gasps of air beneath the branches.
John picked up his pace, charging forward, yelling, “Stop!”
As he sprinted, he was glad the man didn’t stop. There was something invigorating about a breakneck pace across the dusty ground, beneath branches, ripping through leaves and boughs, tearing through undergrowth. Even the welts from whipping branches and leaves with needles didn’t deter him. John appreciated the pain. He liked the motion. He liked the chase.
His adrenaline pumped, his arms like pistons; he slammed into a toppled log, smashing it in half, the rot and mold flying.
The man ahead was lagging, struggling to make way through the undergrowth. “Stop!” John yelled.
The man looked back, his eyes wide; he let out a squeak. He was dressed in a neat suit, with combed hair. He looked a bit like a Mormon missionary.
The man cursed, trying to disentangle a velvet
tie from a branch.
John could’ve called for him to stop again. But he’d already made up his mind. He was in the mood for a good tussle.
And by running, the man had agreed.
Adele shouted incoherently behind him. He heard other yells throughout the campsites, the sound of other footsteps making after him, but John didn’t need the backup. He didn’t even reach for his weapon. Instead, five paces away, he took another step and then flung himself bodily through the air, like some Olympic jumper, feeling, in that temporary moment before impact, a sense of weightlessness. It was euphoric.
The man with his tie caught in the branches managed to let out a small squeak before John slammed bodily into him, sending both of them careening into the nearest tree.
The man hit it first with a thud, letting loose a sound like a whoopie cushion.
John didn’t even feel the pain. Only the adrenaline, the exhilaration.
Their bodies hit the ground with John on top, holding the backpacker down.
“Stop moving!” he yelled. “Stop it!”
The man let out another whimper, like a leaking balloon, and then went still.
CHAPTER TEN
The father tapped his fingers against the small cotton handkerchief he’d rested against the handlebars of his new vehicle. The rental car was now gone—he couldn’t travel in it anymore. The origin of his journey started in Northern Spain, and it was permitted to reach there by vehicle, but once the journey started?
The Lord judged those who used motor vehicles.
Wind ushered across his form, ruffling his neatly combed hair. The man readjusted the handkerchief trapped beneath his palm, careful not to let it flit away from the motion of his bicycle up the back roads he navigated outside Burgos, within sight of the Picos de Europa.
Northern Spain was lovely this time of year, the glimmer of the sun above warming where his hand rested. The handkerchief prevented smudging the handlebars. He liked keeping things immaculate. The cotton fabric fluttered on either side of his hand from the breeze. For a moment, white cloth fluttering, it looked as if he’d trapped a butterfly beneath his fingers, holding it in place with sheer will. He glanced from his fingernails, across his well-lotioned hands to the flapping cloth, eyes alert and attentive.