Brute Force

Camille Thibodaux was in the kitchen, surrounded by two bushels of green beans, when the doorbell rang. She ignored it, focusing instead on the sound of the pressure cooker with her first canning batch, hissing and rattling on the stove. Glass quart jars packed with fresh beans lined the counter space on both sides of the stainless-steel sink. A cloud of steam rolled out of the dishwasher when she opened the door to take out a load of newly washed jars. She pushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes with her arm, and removed the rack of jars, flipping the dishwasher door shut with her foot.

She didn’t wear a watch, so she glanced at her cell phone that lay on the counter beside a thick wooden cutting board to check the time when the bell rang again, wondering who could be dropping by at this time of day. Government agents and the homeowners’ association Nazis tended to knock, apparently feeling the sound of their fists on the door was more intimidating than a wimpy chime. Church folk or salesmen rang the doorbell. It was that time of year again when the bug boys and security system installers descended on the DC area like locusts. They were mostly harmless, clean-cut young men from the Rocky Mountains, but it wouldn’t hurt them to wait a little minute.

The bell rang a third time, bringing shouts of “Door, Mama!” from the younger boys, who knew not to open it themselves under penalty of a swat on the butt with a Hot Wheels track.

Beads of sweat trickled down Camille’s back as she hoisted the jars onto the counter, wetting her green Marine Corps T-shirt. She’d still not lost all her weight from the last baby so T-shirts and loose sweats made up most of her wardrobe. Canning pole beans was far too hot an undertaking for sweats, so she’d slipped into a pair of basketball shorts and some well-worn Saucony runners. The older boys were out playing and the younger three were watching cartoons in the basement—giving Camille some much needed time to work.

With the special pay addendum gone that Jacques had been getting before the administration change, she had to pull out all the stops to feed seven hungry boys on a Corps salary. One of the guys at the Spotsylvania Farmers’ Market was a former Marine and knew the drill of making ends meet. He’d given her a killer deal on pole beans. Camille spent a good deal of each summer canning produce to feed her boys—and Jacques whenever he decided to come home. Always a worker, she enjoyed the industry of home production. It gave her something to take her mind off the worry over her husband, who was, it seemed, always trying to find the most dangerous people in the most awful places on earth to spend his time with.

The doorbell rang again, followed by a soft, civilized knock. She felt a pang of guilt for not answering sooner. Looking at the buckets and jars of beans, she did some math in her head as she dried her hands on a dishtowel and made her way down the hall toward the door. According to Jacques’s grandmother’s canning recipe book, she had enough beans to make twenty-eight quarts—four canner batches—with maybe a few left over to make a couple of jars of her pickled beans. Jacques loved pickled green beans.

She was thinking of how much Jacques loved pickled beans when she opened the door.

Camille tensed when she recognized the IDTF agent with greasy black curls from the day before. She slammed the door in his face, half expecting that he’d kick it in. Instead, he gave another soft knock.

“Mrs. Thibodaux,” he said. “Please listen to me. I’m a friend of your husband.”

She stood behind the closed door, considering making a run for the pistol. “I’m listening,” she said.

“I’ve come alone,” the man said, “without my partner. I’m here unofficially, as a friend.”

She looked through the peephole. “What about my husband, Mr . . . ?”

“Benavides,” the man said, smiling. “Joey Benavides. I did some work with the Gunny.”

Jacques had never mentioned a Joey Benavides, but that was not unusual. He’d worked with Jericho Quinn for several months before she’d even heard him say the man’s name out loud. Now you’d think the two had grown up together.

Sighing, she pulled open the door. If he was not what he said he was, he’d just kick it in anyway.

“What is it you want, Mr. Benavides?”

“I need to get word to your husband,” the tubby agent said, glancing over his shoulder, up and down the street. “Look, I’m taking a big risk. If my boss finds out I came here like this, it could cost me my job . . . or worse. Could I please come inside for a couple of minutes?”

Something about this guy still raised her hackles, but he had asked permission. Even when he’d come the day before with his partner, he seemed more bark than bite. Against her better judgment she stepped back. “Come in then,” she said.

The timer on the stove began to beep as soon as she’d shut the door. “I need to get the pressure cooker,” she said, nodding up the hallway. “We can talk in the kitchen.”

“Sure,” Benavides said, smiling. He seemed extremely interested in their family photos, pausing here and there, as an old friend might to catch up after a long absence.

Camille turned down the heat under the pressure cooker and picked up the stubby paring knife to cut the ends off the green beans before stuffing them in the hot jars from the dishwasher. Doing something with her hands helped her focus. “I’m all ears.”

“I don’t know how much your husband has told you about our present situation,” Benavides said, sidling up next to her at the counter.

Camille noticed right off that Joey Benavides was what Jacques called a “close talker.” The man’s idea of personal space was measured in single digits.

“You want some water or sweet tea?” Camille asked, taking a half step away.

“Sure,” he said, stammering as he tried to get back on his train of thought. “Tea . . . that would be great. Anyway, I’m not sure who to trust anymore. That’s why—”

Camille held up her paring knife, using her elbow to gain back a little more of her space as she pointed toward the fridge. “The pitcher’s in there. Help yourself.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks . . . I mean, sure, that’d be good. You want some?”

“Sweet tea,” she said, “In the blue pitcher.” She told him where the glasses were and continued to cut beans from a seemingly endless pile.

“Your husband and I thought we could get things back on track.” Benavides filled two glasses with tea as he spoke, then returned the pitcher to the fridge. “With Ronnie Garcia in custody, I need to get word to him ASAP.”

Camille nearly dropped the knife at the mention of Ronnie’s name, but kept cutting beans as if it meant nothing to her. She glanced up in time to see Benavides reach into the pocket of his slacks and bring out a small pill, which he dropped into one of the tea glasses.

“You need sugar or anything?” he asked, swirling the doped glass in his hand, presumably giving whatever he’d slipped her time to dissolve.

“You’re sure enough not from the South,” she said forcing a smile. “It’s sweet tea. The sugar’s already in it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Benavides winced. “Of course.”

Camille continued to play naïve while her mind raced for the next move. She was stupid, stupid, stupid to let this guy in her house. Whatever she did, she had to do it in a hurry, before he realized she knew anything. Jacques always said most people lost a fight while they’re standing around deciding what to do. Maybe the pill was a vitamin or something, and he meant it for himself. Maybe . . .

She made up her mind when he held the doped tea glass out for her to take.

Her paring knife caught him where his thumb met his forefinger, just behind the glass. Bringing her left arm across, Camille used both hands to drive the blade downward, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Porca Vacca!” The Italian curse was one hundred percent fear, but it had the startling effect of a war cry.

The glass of sweet tea crashed from Joey B’s hand as her knife pegged him to the wooden cutting board. His own gurgling screech rose above hers when he looked down and saw blood pouring from the wound.

“You biiiittchh!” he shrieked. “I’m—”

She cut him off with a quart jar full of green beans to the side of his head. Sinking like a sack of sand, he fell to the kitchen floor in a pile of blood, beans, and broken glass. The heavy cutting board, still attached to his hand with the knife, followed him down and bashed him in the head.

Her mind racing to figure out what Jacques would do, Camille bent quickly to snatch the pistol from a holster on the man’s belt. She took a step back with trembling knees. She’d just stabbed a federal officer—maybe even killed him with the jar. Then she thought, maybe she should kill him. He had tried to drug her, but there was no going back from what she’d done.

“Mama?”

Her oldest son’s voice nearly sent her out of her skin. He was twelve, and already sounded a lot like his father. She spun, biting her lip to keep from breaking down right then and there.

“Mama,” the boy repeated. All three of her older sons had come in from the yard and stood wide-eyed in the doorway to the kitchen.

Denny, the third in line at eight years old, had gone pale. “You’re bleeding. . . .”

She glanced down to see blood running out of her hand and dripping off the point of her elbow. The jar must have cut her when she hit Benavides in the head. She grabbed a paper towel and pressed it to the wound. It was not as bad as it looked, but it might take a while to stanch the blood.

“Help me, boys,” she said, as if she’d just asked them to bring up some laundry. “We need to get this bad man into the bedroom and tie him up.”

Dan, the second oldest nodded. “Want me to call 911?”

She shook her head. “This man is a policeman,” she said, wrapping her hand with a towel as she spoke. “But trust me, he’s a bad one. He was trying to hurt your mama.”

All three boys bristled at that and looked ready to stomp Joey B where he lay.

“Come on,” she said, “he’s a big guy. It’s going to take all four of us to move him.”

Ten minutes later, Camille Thibodaux and her sons of twelve, ten, and eight had dragged, rolled, and lifted Joey Benavides onto her bed. She’d considered using the guest bed, but her four-poster had strong oak rails at the head and foot, giving her something to chain his arms and legs to. Jacques’s grandfather had been the sheriff of Terrebonne Parish, and Camille had been able to find two pairs of his old handcuffs in the drawer where Jacques kept what he called his “important tactical shit.”

She used ropes and duct tape to secure Joey’s ankles, sure it cut off his circulation, but she didn’t really care.

Satisfied Benavides wouldn’t be able to escape when he woke up, Camille stepped back to try to work out what to do next. If he’d told anyone he was here, she was screwed. Help would be along anytime. But considering the fact that he’d tried to drug her instead of arrest her, she hoped his visit was unofficial and off the books.

The three boys stood behind her, flushed and glowing that they’d be able to tell their dad about being men of the house while he was gone. Jacques had instilled in them from birth that “protector of the mama” was the highest of callings.

Camille handed Dan the keys to Joey B’s sedan, holding up the ignition key so he’d know which one it was, and told him to drive the car around back so it was off the street and out of sight. At ten, he was the best driver of all the boys and often took the wheel when they went to their grandpa’s farm in Louisiana. Besides that, she wasn’t about to leave them alone in the house with this creep, even if he was tied up.

She sent the other two boys to clean up the glass in the kitchen and picked up her cell phone with trembling hands to make another futile attempt at calling Jacques. He rarely spoke of it, but she knew his life was full of stabbing and head bashing. He would surely know what to do. Benavides had said that Ronnie Garcia was in custody. Though Camille didn’t know everything, she was smart enough to read between the lines and see that if IDTF agents had found Ronnie, everyone she was associated with was in mortal danger.

She got Jacques’s voice mail, listened to all of it just to hear his voice, then tried again, holding on to hope while it rang. Still nothing. Cursing under her breath in staccato Italian, she paced back and forth, her eyes locked on the unconscious man tied to her bed.

“Come on, Jacques,” she said, barely holding her sobs at bay. It was all over the Internet what these IDTF guys did to their prisoners. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach. Jacques and Jericho were both AWOL so they would be no help. It was up to her to figure out what to do to help Ronnie. She was smart and relatively fit, but she knew she couldn’t do this by herself—whatever it was she was doing.

With no one else to call, she scrolled through her list of contacts and took a deep breath before punching in the number to the last person on earth who should want to help Veronica Garcia.