Twenty-Nine

Long arms were killing her. She couldn’t reach him and here it came again. A jab slipping past her hands to be stopped by her nose. Fuck that hurt. Her eyes watered but she could see the roundhouse right coming for her jaw. She slipped the punch, moved into him, pounded his floating rib, his kidney, the small of his back as he turned. He gave her a pink smile over his shoulder. Just as she thought he was breaking off, the back of his heel caught the side of her head.

She went down, lights exploding behind her eyes, legs disintegrating under her. He dove onto her chest, cocked his strongest hand for the kill. But he pulled his punch and rested his knuckles on the bridge of her nose, his hand so big she couldn’t see much except the edges of another pink grin, his mouth guard smirking at her. He got up and toweled off, humming to himself.

Chelsea, the Krav Maga instructor, stepped onto the mat and handed Aragon a tissue. Aragon tore it in half and shoved a wad into her bleeding nose.

“Nothing you can do that’s legal against someone with that much size. I know it sucks,” Chelsea said.

Chelsea, five-two, same as Aragon, trained at Albuquerque’s Jackson-Winkeljohn Gym. She claimed to have sparred with Holly Holm.

She kicked off her shoes and tugged at the big guy’s elbow, pulling him back onto the mat. “This is what you can do on the street.”

Chelsea circled him. He dropped into a fighting crouch. The bright pink smirk was gone. Aragon saw uncertainty, maybe fear in his eyes.

“Hit me,” Chelsea said

He came with that roundhouse right and was met with a blur of feet attacking his groin, a heel strike to the back of his knee that brought him down, teetering on the bad leg until it gave out. Chelsea was on him from behind with her fingers inside the corners of his mouth rearing him back like a rider on a horse.

“You okay?” she asked. The pink mouth guard, wet with saliva, was on the mat. The big guy grunted and nodded. She released the reins and he curled into a ball.

“You’ve got the strength to really hurt a guy,” Chelsea said as Aragon helped her up. “No matter how big. But you’re dead unless you close fast and hit him where no amount of bone or muscle can protect him. I’m talking about more than breaking balls. You can gouge eyes. Eight, ten pounds of applied, lightning-quick pressure, you’ll have an ear in your hand. Crush her to your chest, facing each other,” she told Aragon’s sparring partner, on the mat hugging knees to his chest. “C’mon, big guy.” She tapped her toe on his hip and he crawled to his feet.

Aragon stood in close, wanting to learn, tasting blood in the back of her throat. He locked his hands across her back and lifted her off her feet in a bear hug. Her arms were pinned to her side. Her cheek was against his. He squeezed her hard and it hurt.

“What to do? That gun you trust is out of reach. You’ve got teeth, Denise. Use them.”

Aragon opened her mouth and closed on the soft skin along the guy’s jaw line.

He let go and stepped back with a hand to his face.

“Excellent. Now grab her from behind, she’s facing away from you.”

“I don’t want to,” the big guy said.

“C’mon, she’s half your size.”

“She bites,” he said, but stepped in and wrapped his arms around Aragon, his face behind her head. Again he lifted her off her feet.

Aragon tried kicking his groin but couldn’t connect.

“Where is the strongest guy weak no matter how he’s covered in muscle?” Chelsea asked, enjoying this. “Not just his nuts. Think.”

Aragon reached back for his eyes but he turned his head. She got his ear and pulled hard. He dropped her immediately.

“Great job,” Chelsea said. “Eyes, groin, ears, throat, groin. When they’re bent over protecting their crotch, kick them in the head as hard as you can. Neck up, that’s you’re killing field.” She smiled, the fierceness gone. “You’re growing a pair of shiners. I like a yellow-tinted concealer for dark bruises. Start heavy around the eyes, then cover your whole face lightly. You need a powdered foundation to match your skin tone. If that doesn’t do the trick, there’s always sunglasses.” The hardness returned. “Forget that crap about raw steak and liver. Eat it, don’t put it on your eyes.”

Chelsea had invited her down to the gym in Albuquerque. Female cops in the bigger city had formed a Krav Maga class to learn skills against knives and fists. You could always shoot, but that meant automatic suspension, paperwork, Professional Standards in your face, lawsuits. Aragon was definitely interested. No matter how much iron she pumped, how many miles she ran, she would always be smaller than what she ran into on the street. She liked the idea of bringing down monsters with bare hands. Or teeth.

The water at her feet ran pink as she showered in the locker room. Before she toweled off she stuffed a dry plug of tissue in her nose. She tucked into Dillard’s at Coronado Mall for the makeup Chelsea recommended. She purchased sunglasses in a less confrontational style than the mirrored pair she wore on duty. The clerk at the register couldn’t stop staring at the bloody tissue in her nostril.

At home she tried the makeup. The face in the mirror made her glad she had sprung for shades.

Rivera sat in the back of the Eldorado’s bar nursing a Scotch on ice. He wore a silk purple shirt under a black, narrow-lapel jacket. Aragon knew she looked like hell. At least her nose had stopped bleeding. It would flow again, she knew, with the slightest touch. Like noses bumping during a kiss. Not that anyone would kiss the face she brought to Rivera’s table.

“What happened to you?” He pulled out a chair.

“Five left jabs and a reverse spin kick. But it was fun.”

She told him about her afternoon on the mats.

“What’ll it be, a drink or shot of morphine?”

“Iced tea, please. Hold the tea.”

“Just ice?”

“Roger.”

He returned from the bar with a glass of ice, a proper iced tea and a goblet of white wine.

“I’m just guessing here,” he said.

She wrapped the ice in a napkin and held it against her temple.

He handed her a folder that had been resting on an empty chair.

“You wanted photos of Fremont’s boots, on her feet with laces tied were my instructions.”

“Thanks. Up or down?”

“Up or? Oh, the direction of Fremont’s wounds. A little light conversation over drinks.” He drank the last of his Scotch. “Up. The cut started above her knee on the right thigh and continued for ten point three inches. Same pattern on the left, but that wound was only three inches long.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Bothers you. Why?”

“Think about it. Fremont’s laying on the ground, you’re the killer, leaning over her, kneeling, most likely over her legs. She’d had sex.”

“Rough, maybe rape. Go on.”

“She’s on her back after you’ve ejaculated. You sit back, knife in hand.” She raised her fist. “Probably holding it like this. You’d pull the knife towards you. Pushing it away is too awkward.”

“What if the killer was kneeling at her side? Then he’d be pulling the knife up the thigh?”

“Any sign of restraints? Ligature bruising?”

“No. She was doped up pretty good. But not enough to not feel a knife slicing her thigh.”

“So how did they hold her?”

“Maybe from behind. There was bruising on her collarbone and shoulders. A strong grip could do that. Remember, we have semen in her anus. Different DNA. You were right about the two people.”

“That was Lewis. He saw it first.” She paused. “God. Did they cut her while they raped her? The guy in her ass reaching around to slash her thighs?”

“All wounds were antemortem.”

The couple at the next table got up and moved to another spot in the bar.

“Maybe we should take this somewhere else.” Aragon tried the wine. “This is good. Surprising how much energy you burn having the shit beat out of you. I need dinner.”

“Food’s good here. My treat.”

“I’ve got something better.”

He didn’t say anything about the pickup truck she was driving or the country music that blared when she turned the key in the ignition. They swung by a liquor store and he ran in for a bottle of wine. She took them to the nearest Blake’s.

“I’ve seen these all over New Mexico, always wanted to try one,” he said as they rolled to the drive-up window.

They ordered Lotaburger combos and asked for two empty cups. Instead of pulling ahead to the next window to wait for their food, Aragon parked in a corner of the lot. They stood outside leaning against the tailgate in the crisp night air. Rivera produced a corkscrew he had bought with the wine. He poured. They touched cups.

He started with how much he loved the high desert and mountains after years with the Bureau in sweltering D.C. Never married, a brother with Homeland Security, parents in a retirement community south of Tucson. He wanted them to move to Santa Fe to be closer to him and a little farther from the border.

He asked a few questions, eased her into talking about herself. He focused on her face while she talked, shutting down the trained cop habit of sweeping eyes back and forth so you knew everything going around you. He was focused on her. She liked that.

A girl leaned out of the drive-up window and yelled that their order was ready. Rivera placed his cup on the bumper and went for their burgers and fries.

She took his cup with her into the truck and cleared the console so they would have a makeshift table. He returned with red, white, and blue bags that filled the cab with smells of grilled meat and green chile.

He took a bite of his first Lotaburger.

“Paired perfectly with Sauvignon Blanc,” he said with a full mouth.

“Anything on the prayer flags?” she asked, steering them back to Cynthia Fremont.

“Definitely not Tibetan. We ran photos over to a guy at the Smithsonian. He says the writing is something called Ogham, the language of Druid priests.”

“Druid words on Tibetan prayer flags. Stonehenge meets Shangri-La. Strange even for The City Different.”

“We’ve learned a little more about Cynthia Fremont.” He poured more wine for both of them. “High school grad, dropped out of North Carolina-Wilmington her freshman year. We’ve learned this from social media. She was studying religion at some alternative kind of school outside Asheville, The Institute for Spiritual Awakening. Classes in yurts and teepees. The school’s owner says Fremont stopped after a couple sessions of drumming and chanting.”

He dropped a French fry in his mouth, followed it with a sip of wine.

“She liked ravens. Used one as her Facebook profile. She was blond in earlier photos, hair dyed black since then. Her page hasn’t been updated in about eighteen months. No Twitter account. A couple Amazon reviews of books about spirituality, Celtic culture, Himalayan religions. One with a chapter on celestial burial. We’re still trying to locate relatives. So far no luck finding parents.”

“You’ll find them.”

They ate in silence, like old friends who didn’t need to talk. She tried to remember if she and Miguel had ever come here. He’d been killed before he started driving. This place was too far from home for them to have walked.

“I need this,” Rivera said. “Fremont lying on those rocks.” He stared through the windshield, all of him following his gaze outside the truck. “What the birds did to her,” pulling words from deep inside, “watching the cut at OMI, pretending I don’t smell anything, I don’t mind being there. I need to grab ahold of life.” He was back inside, close, his eyes on hers, again all of him following his gaze. “I know that sounds like a beer commercial. But,” his hand on her arm, “you know what I mean? This is nice.”

She liked the honest, vulnerable tone in his voice. The crisp FBI-speak was gone. A man in pain was speaking. A good man. An attractive man.

She’d had the same feelings before the Krav Maga class. Darkness pushing in, blotting out the light, turning every color grey, bled out. Sparring had chased the shadows while she focused on the big guy’s pink smile, the punches snapping her head back. Rivera was talking about another kind of human contact. That would be good, too.

“I’d kiss you,” she said. “But my nose would bleed.”

“Give me your hand.”

He held her palm to his lips. His breath was warm and soft.

“Smells like onions.” He kissed her hand and they returned to a comfortable silence.

“Does the FBI have jurisdiction over crimes on BLM lands?” she asked when she finished her burger.

He didn’t answer right away. She heard him sigh. “This was about the job all along.”

The light of the drive-in’s neon showed hurt in his eyes. She had to look away, wondering what was wrong with her.

“What category of crime are we talking about?” Sounding again like the Special Agent, now glancing at cars pulling into the lot instead of focusing on her.

“You need to hear it from Walter Fager.” She’d ruined the evening. She might as well keep going. “He’ll call you no later than the day after tomorrow.”

Rivera wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth and folded an empty burger wrapper into a perfect rectangle. She balled hers up and refrained from chucking it out the window.

“He’s all over the news,” Rivera said. “Someone who’s been a nightmare for our side now stumping for law and order. He’s going to call me about a crime on BLM land? Should I ask how you know?”

“It’s connected to his wife’s case.”

“Why can’t I hear it from you?”

He brushed back his dark hair with the side of his thumb. Miguel had done that. Was that why she was pushing him away, afraid how much he reminded her of a dead boy she couldn’t save? Did that scare her?

She felt even worse for having hurt him. She said, “Not because lying to a federal agent is a felony. Because I don’t want to lie to you.”

To herself she said, don’t be afraid.

“Denise, where are we going?”

She’d sensed Rivera wondering where they were headed for the past several miles. The roadway had narrowed from four lanes to a narrow gravel road. Santa Fe and its darkened mountains were behind them. In front, sixty miles away, low clouds caught Albuquerque’s glow.

“We’re going here.”

The gravel road curved down a hill to a pan of hard sand under ponderosa pines. The nearest lights were a mile distant.

She cut the ignition, turned off the headlights.

“There’s room in the back,” she said.

She watched his face in the residual light from the dashboard. Then it went dark in the cab. She felt his hand on her cheek. The dome light went on as he climbed out and got in the back through the supercab’s rear door.

It was dark again. She lifted the steering column and pushed it away. Her pants zipper made the only sound. She hooked her thumbs at the top of her jeans and pushed them and her underwear to her feet and over her cross-trainers.

The console was big enough to crawl over. Her hands reached Rivera’s knees, pants still on his legs.

“Hey, what’s this?”

The sound of a belt buckle being undone, the pop of a metal snap, a zipper grating. She grabbed fabric and tugged, then walked her hands up his bare legs. Good muscles, warm skin. She pulled her body forward and sat on his thighs, crossing her legs behind his back.

He was ready for her. She gasped, air leaving her lungs like it had been displaced when he entered her.

“Man, you’re strong,” Rivera said. “You could break me in half.”

She squeezed tighter.

“Easy,” he said.

“Easy,” she said and moved slowly, her head brushing the ceiling each time she rose then lowered herself.

When they were still he stroked the bristle on her scalp.

“I really like this. Lewis told me why you wear it so short. You’re all in, aren’t you?”

She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. Rich, black hair. Soft and thick like a boy’s.

Like Miguel’s. And that was okay.