Carmen’s eyes flashed. “You had no right—”
“Shut up. Where you’re going, they’ll provide all the clothing you’ll ever need.”
Damien stirred at my feet. He edged along the floor and created a broad trail of crimson in his wake. His skin was a hideous white, but the anger hadn’t bled out of him. “Fuck you, McKenna,” he said in a mere whisper. “I’ll never go back to jail.”
He collapsed in front of O’Connor’s desk and his eyes closed.
My cellphone rang. I hesitated for a second and slipped the Glock into my coat. I shifted the .38 to my left hand and reached inside my shirt pocket for the phone. Caller ID said it was C.J.
In that split second of distraction, I caught a blur of motion in the corner of my eye. I swung toward Carmen, but a sharp crack sounded and pain shot through my left arm just below my shoulder. I dropped my gun. The cell fell from my hand…my head struck the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
My arms and legs wouldn’t move. I lifted my head and the world spun around like a disco ball. Dark spots jumped in front of my eyes, disappeared and then returned. A couple of slow, deep breaths cleared my head a bit. I felt a cool breeze brush over my face and body.
All I could see was the back end of the trailer and the darkening sky. Someone had removed my shirt and tethered my hands and feet to wooden stakes driven deep into the ground.
Pain shot through my left arm each time I shifted or pulled against my restraints. I turned my head to see why; Carmen’s bullet had punctured the inside of my bicep. The visible blood had congealed. Why hadn’t she finished me off?
It’s funny how the mind works. I lay bound to the ground, my life in the balance, yet all I could think of was an old episode of Have Gun Will Travel, a television show from my childhood. Paladin, a soldier of fortune, lay staked out just as I was now, left to die while his enemies fled to establish their alibis. I couldn’t remember how that story ended, but here I was, a knight without armor in a savage land.
Footsteps sounded behind me. A shadow obscured the sky. Richard O’Connor towered over me.
“Been working on your tan, Professor?” From my angle, his smile seemed twisted, grotesque. “Sun’s almost down now. Or are you having one of those ‘looking back on my life’ moments and realizing what a fool you’ve been?”
“Fuck you.”
O’Connor threw his head back and laughed. “Have it your way.”
“Tell me something.” A gust of wind blew sand into my mouth. I coughed.
“Sure. Want to know what time the coyotes will be out tonight?”
“You’re a successful attorney at a respectable law firm. Why did you put all that in jeopardy?”
“For the Lost Adams Gold. My gold. The gold your family stole from mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As the executor of your great aunt’s estate, I got to examine her finances and personal possessions in detail. I found that manuscript by James McKenna. What did he call it?”
“Red Gold. So?”
“He said he’d discovered the Adams gold and then bought the land it was on from some Irish prospector. Professor, that prospector was my great-grandfather. James McKenna swindled my great-grandfather.”
“Nobody got swindled. You’re a lawyer. You know that sale was legal. Nobody forced your great-grandfather to sell his land. James McKenna even overpaid him for it.”
“He cheated us! I found no record of any deed having been registered. Your family’s held that gold illegally for more than eighty years. It belongs to me.”
“Maybe we can work this out. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to die, Professor. One way or another, and the sooner the better. Carmen and I are taking that key and getting the map from your wall safe. We’ll get my gold and go far, far away before anyone finds your body.”
A coyote howled off in the dusk. Another answered, closer by.
“They sound hungry,” O’Connor said. He knelt down, grabbed my hair, and pulled my head up until my neck felt like it would break. “And if that map isn’t there, Professor, I’ll come right back here and what I’ll do to you will make you wish you had been eaten by wild animals. I’ll tear the truth out of you before you die.”
I struggled against the tethers. “I’ve told you all I know.”
Standing up, he kicked me so hard in my side that I gasped for breath. “That’s for messing with my tire.” He laughed again and spat on me, his spittle landing on my forehead. I tried without success to shake it off, as he walked toward the trailer. He called out in a loud voice. “Ready?”
“Almost,” Carmen called from inside.
Two gunshots rattled the rear screen door of the trailer.
“Good girl,” O’Connor clapped his hands and called back to me one last time. “Happy trails, Professor!”
The back door slammed behind him. Two car doors closed moments later, tires screeched, and a vehicle sped away. Coyote cries echoed louder. I looked up and followed the shadowy outline of the turkey vulture that circled overhead.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Facing death clarifies your mind. O’Connor was right. I had been a fool. To think I could take him, Damien, and Carmen all by myself was irrational conceit. My final mistake after all the others I’d made during my fifty-four years.
The sun disappeared below the horizon and darkness crept in. This April night, the last I would ever see, turned colder. I needed water to slake my thirst and perhaps for final absolution as well.
I considered singing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien as an existential act of defiance, but then my last words would be a lie. Every mistake and stupid thing I’d ever done flashed through my mind. Was this purgatory? I wondered. Would I regret a life I’d never fully lived? That would be my hell.
A tiny lizard tickled its way across my face, perhaps to seek the warmth of my body. He paused on the left side of my nose, looked into my eyes, and wagged his forked tongue at me. I felt him slurp O’Connor’s spittle off my forehead before he moved on. The Devil, I figured, having one last gloat at my low circumstance. I shivered and my pain intensified.
My only present comfort was that death would bring me closer to Holly. To be with her again, in any way, made it possible to leave everything else behind. I closed my eyes, nearer to her now than at any time since her death.
The sound of gravel beneath the weight of car wheels snapped me back. How had O’Connor returned so soon? I waited for the end.
Muffled voices drifted out of the darkened trailer. Two men and a woman. A light came on.
“No! No!” the woman cried. I’d heard her voice before.
The men talked quietly, with a sense of urgency in whatever it was they said. The back door of the doublewide opened and light spilled into the early night. A hulk of a man stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light within.
“I’ll check out back.” The shadow grew as the man strode toward me. I held my breath. “Over here!” he said.
My voice stuck inside the raspy dryness of my throat. I managed a hoarse whisper, “Help me.” I tried to hold my head up; it fell back against the ground.
The man took a knife to the ropes that bound me. I lay still and stared up at the stars. Something silver on his chest flashed in the moonlight. A badge. He lifted me to my feet, half-carried me back inside the trailer, and put me on a small folding chair. I looked at the plastic tag on his chest: Cibola County Sheriff Stephen Velez.
“I’ll get you some water. Stay here.”
Like I could move.
He hurried to the wet bar. I wiped my brow with my right forearm and gazed around the trailer. Ten feet to my left, the body of Jason Damien lay crumpled on the floor. He’d sneered his last.
Rebecca Turner knelt beside him and wept. She rocked with such force I was afraid she might fall over. My bullet in his chest may have brought her brother down, but the two in his head had ended his life. Carmen hadn’t missed with eithe
r shot.
The sheriff held a glass to my lips. I swigged some water and looked toward the door as Sam Archuleta walked in. He looked my way and shook his head. Then he and Velez searched the trailer.
Too weak to do much of anything, I figured my contribution could be to put my shirt back on, stay upright and not fall off the chair.
Sam reached under O’Connor’s desk and came up with a cellphone in his gloved hand. He held it up and looked my way. “This yours?”
“You’re too far away,” I said.
He walked over and held it close to my face.
“Yeah, that’s mine.” My voice was weak.
“You ought to kiss it,” Sam said.
“The GPS thing worked?”
“How else would we be here? I got a frantic message from Curtis Jester. He had me call the third number you’d given him. The Accu-Trak service gave me the coordinates of your phone’s GPS signal. I picked up Rebecca Turner like you asked. She told me about this place. We drove toward the coordinates. ”
I managed a weak smile. O’Connor hadn’t been the smartest guy in the room after all.
Rebecca was still crying. I motioned Sam and Velez closer and lowered my voice. “The body is Jason Damien.”
“I figured,” Sam said. “I recognized him even with those holes in his forehead.”
“I put the shot into his right side, but Carmen Flores killed him. And either Damien or Carmen killed Ricardo Ramos.”
“What?” Archuleta’s jaw dropped.
“And the whole thing in Catron County—the fire, the death of Chato, the fake kidnapping—O’Connor planned it all and Carmen was in on it all the way.”
“Shit.” Sam looked stricken.
“First Singleton, now Damien. O’Connor certainly knows how to shed his help when it’s no longer needed.”
Sam stared at Damien’s body. “Sonofabitch.”
“You okay, Sam?” Sheriff Velez called from across the room.
Archuleta shook his head. “Four people murdered and there’s a bad cop in the middle of it. Wait ‘til the media get hold of this.”
The front door opened and C.J. limped in.
“What’s the big idea of following us out here?” Sam sounded exhausted.
C.J. ignored the question as he came and stood by my side. “You okay?”
I shrugged.
He stared at Sam. “No way I’d let Gabe down.” He looked down at my arm. “Nasty.”
“I owe you my life. Thank you, C.J.” I looked at Sam. “Time’s wasting. O’Connor and Carmen think they have the key to a safe in my house. They’re on their way to open it right now. There isn’t any safe. I fed them a lot of bull. But then he’s gonna come back here to beat the truth out of me and finish me off. He’s driving a late model Lexus. Silver.”
“Relax, Gabe,” Archuleta came over and laid his hand on my right shoulder. “As soon as I got Jester’s call, I notified my man on duty outside your house. Then I sent a patrol car over to help. If O’Connor tries anything, they’ll nab him. I doubt he’ll come back here after he sees the patrol car.”
“You sure?”
“Let me check on it right now.” Sam walked outside.
As soon as he left, C.J. bent down and whispered to me, “Man, I’ll get you out of this, don’t worry. You shot that guy in self-defense. They got nothin’ on you.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Go see if there’s any whiskey in the bar. I could use a stiff one.”
C.J. nodded and hobbled off to check, just as Archuleta came back from his phone call.
“A silver Lexus just pulled up to the curb outside your house and then sped away. The squad car had to remain there in case it was nothing, but they called in an alert and there’s an APB for a silver Lexus, one male driver and one female passenger. O’Connor’s plates are out there as well. They won’t get far, and if they come back here, we’ll be waiting.”
“Sam, I just had an idea,” I said.
He slumped a bit. “What is it this time?”
“Can you sit on this for a while?”
Archuleta stared at me with a look of incredulity. “And be accused of a cover up because a police officer is one of the perps? Gabe, I have a career. I’d like to go out as one of the good guys.” He lit a cigarette and put the match out between his fingers.
“He’s right,” C.J. said. “No way you put a lid on this. Here.” He handed me a shot glass filled to the brim.
I slugged it down. “If we could buy some time…maybe twenty-four, thirty-six hours before anything gets out…let O’Connor and Carmen think nobody is on to them yet. Maybe they aren’t so careful. Maybe they slip up.”
Sam took a long drag. “You’re not thinking. They just saw a cop car outside your house.”
My head felt light and I slouched against the chair. “Hit me again?” I lifted the shot glass toward C.J.
Sam intercepted it. “You’ve had enough for now. Look Gabe, I’m not sure what you’re thinking here, but I’ve got two killers on the loose and a responsibility for the public’s safety.”
Rebecca moaned quietly. Her right hand brushed back and forth across Damien’s bloody chest, his shirt and her hand both a bright crimson. She still rocked, but I saw no tears. We left her alone to mourn.
A police siren grew louder and then cut off as a car skidded to a stop on the gravel outside. Two Cibola County deputies entered the trailer. Dr. Alvarez, the Medical Examiner I’d met in the morgue back in Grants, followed them inside. He ignored us and walked straight to the body.
Sheriff Steven Velez and one of his deputies came over to our side of the room. A second deputy stalked through the trailer and out the back door, a flashlight in hand.
“Been a while since we had anything like this, Sam.” Velez took off his hat and ran a hand through his dark hair.
Archuleta and the sheriff retreated to a far corner of the doublewide. Velez stood a head taller as he put his arm around Sam’s shoulder during their animated, minute-long conversation. Velez nodded, took out his phone, and made another call. Sam came back our way.
“Sheriff Velez is calling for an ambulance. Damien’s body will go to Grants once Dr. Alvarez finishes with it and all the evidence is bagged. I’m having Rebecca taken back to Albuquerque for psychiatric evaluation. At the very least, she’s gonna need to be watched, maybe sedated.” He turned to me. “And you—”
“I’m not riding in another ambulance, Sam. I’ll go back to town with C.J. Can you arrange to have my rental car brought back to my place? You’ll need these keys.” I reached into my pocket and handed them to the startled lieutenant.
“Your arm needs treatment,” he said. “You’ll have to be questioned. When the sheriff is through here, I’ll follow you both back to the UNM Trauma Center.”
“And my car?”
“We’ll take care of that after Velez and his men get a chance to go through it.”
“My silver flask is on the front seat.”
“No doubt empty. I’ll have them leave it in the car.”
“Can I go home after I drop Gabe off at the hospital?” C.J. said.
“No. Stick around once we get there. I’m not through with you either.”
Another hour passed. The cops had to pry Rebecca away from her brother to get his body into the ambulance. They found my gun in the corner behind O’Connor’s desk. Three empty chambers. They bagged it for ballistics. Carmen must have used it to finish off Jason. I prayed that forensics would find her prints. Nobody had more reason to wish Damien dead than I. Why did I open my big mouth and say I’d shot him?
An unmarked car took Rebecca away. She never looked at me. Maybe she didn’t see me.
“She can’t go back to her apartment while O’Connor is on the loose. She won’t be safe there,” I said.
“I’ll see that she receives proper care and protective custody.” He lit another cigarette. “Now you two get in that hearse, or whatever the hell it
is. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Will I get a chance to speak with Rebecca?”
“Eventually. Maybe. First stop is the hospital. No tricks.”
C.J. brought his car up from the road. I collapsed into the passenger seat. Archuleta signaled us with a single blast of his horn, and we were off to Albuquerque.
I didn’t look down at C.J.’s left leg to see how he managed the pedals. I didn’t look outside, or at the road, or at the sky.
“You mind?” He pointed to the radio, clicked it on, and station-hopped until Otis Redding told us all about the pain in his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
April 18
Six stitches closed the wound from Carmen’s bullet. I received treatment for dehydration, and was given more painkillers. The hospital was full, so I tossed and turned in a semi-private room. The guy in the other bed slept straight through the night. I would have asked him how he did it, but he was still asleep the next morning when they discharged me into the loving arms of Lieutenant Archuleta. He had a private room waiting for me down at police headquarters.
Sam had me sit in the front seat of his police car rather than in back behind the cage. “Be careful of that arm,” he said.
I eased my way in. “I’m fine.” My sling was less help than nuisance.
The car reeked of stale tobacco. Sam lit up before he pulled into traffic. “You want a lawyer to be present when I question you? You have that right.”
“My lawyer and I just parted ways.”
“I can have one assigned. You did discharge a firearm. It might be advisable.”
“When I need advice, I’ll ask for it. Let’s get this over with.” Each pothole and bump sent a fresh jolt of pain through my left arm. “You need to get your springs fixed.”
Sam said nothing more until we arrived at headquarters. I had time to consider what I would and would not say once my interrogation began. I was on thin ice and it looked like a very warm day ahead.
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