He did a quick scan of the empty restaurant from the entrance. Nothing moved. A weary Mexican man wearing a food-splattered white apron appeared from the back. Seth ordered a beef tamale plate and a cup of black coffee. He was getting his change when a man came into the restaurant behind him. Seth carried his coffee to a dark booth second from the back of the empty restaurant. He took out the newspaper and started to read the Denver Post’s uninformed review of Everest’s murder investigation.
He was turning the page when the man Barton had interviewed sat down in the booth behind him. Seth didn’t look up from his paper, and the man didn’t say anything. After a few minutes, a teenager wearing a loud headset set their food in front of them.
“Lefty,” Seth said. He made sure not to look straight ahead.
“Pancho,” Rick Lopez said. “I thought you’d never figure it out.”
“Took me a while to look at the tapes,” Seth said. He kept his eyes straightforward. “Fuck me for thinking you were dead, Lefty.”
Rick chuckled.
“You drinking?” Seth asked.
“Sober,” Rick said. “A year in the hospital does that for you. What’s your excuse?”
“Mitch made me do it,” Seth said.
Rick laughed.
“Usually works,” Seth said.
“What do you say now that Mitch is dead?” Rick asked.
“I need a new excuse?” Seth asked. “Shit.”
“I saw a photo of you and some sweet young thing in England.” Rick gave a slow whistle. “CNN said she was your wife. Is she as crazy as the other one?”
“No, with your help, I completed my crazy-woman phase with Emily,” Seth said.
“That’s a good thing, Pancho,” Rick said.
Seth fell silent and ate his tamale. The tamale was one part beef and one part heaven.
“You going to ask?”
“You going to tell me?” Seth asked.
“Not here,” Rick said. “Car’s in front. I’ll meet you outside.”
Seth dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table in appreciation for greatness and left the restaurant. An ancient black Buick with dark-tinted windows was idling at the curb. Seth opened the passenger door.
“Pricks in back.” Rick’s wife Soledad grinned at him from the driver’s seat.
Seth gave her a curt nod and got into the back seat. He slid over when Rick came out of the restaurant. Rick got in the back seat. Soledad drove them through Alamosa and out into the San Luis valley. They drove for a while before pulling off the highway onto a dusty, unpaved road. It was another two miles before a small house appeared.
Soledad pulled up to the locked gate. She gave Seth the key, and he got out to open the gate. She waited for him on the other side. They drove another mile to the house. She went around the back and helped Rick out of the back seat.
“Can you get his other arm?” Soledad asked.
Seth took Rick’s other side, and they helped him into the house. Once in the house, a yellow Labrador wearing a leather guide-dog harness trotted up to them. Rick grabbed the harness. The dog led Rick to a comfortable chair next to a fire ring on the enclosed patio. Rick dropped into the chair with clear relief. Soledad let two German Shepherds out of a kennel. They sniffed at Seth and wandered into the property. Seth sat down on the bench next to Rick’s chair.
“Can I bring you something, Seth?” Soledad asked.
“Coffee,” Seth said.
“I made some before we left,” Soledad smiled.
“Nice of you to remember,” Seth said.
“You and Mitch . . . Mitch was so sick, and he still came to the funeral,” Soledad said. “I felt bad about . . .”
Soledad gestured to Rick.
“You know Mitch,” Seth said. “He would have thought the whole thing was funny.”
Soledad nodded and went into the kitchen. She returned with two cups of coffee.
“Black, right?” she asked.
Seth nodded.
“The kids?” Seth asked.
“College,” Soledad said. “I was pregnant when . . .”
Soledad took a quick breath in, and Seth nodded.
“He’s asleep in the back,” Soledad said.
Seth smiled. Rick hadn’t moved since he sat down.
“I made some cookies,” Rick said.
“I’ll get them,” Soledad said.
Seth took a long drink of his coffee. Soledad returned with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and the coffee pot. Rick reached out his hand for her. She took his hand and he kissed hers.
“Stay,” Rick said. “Please.”
Soledad gave a quick nod and sat in a chair next to Seth.
“Would you mind lighting the fire?” Soledad asked. “It’s too much for Ricky, and I . . . well, you know.”
Seth got up and went to the fire ring. He heard them whisper back and forth while he made the fire. When he stood, the fire was going, and they looked like they had reached a decision.
“Will you tell me?” Seth asked.
“There isn’t a lot to tell,” Rick said. “I was working this weird mutilation case.”
Rick shrugged.
“I mean it was weird, but it wasn’t weirder than anything else,” Rick said. “Someone went out into the desert and preyed on illegals. It wasn’t all that different from the pedophiles snatching immigrant kids or the pimps finding illegal pre-teens to sell or . . . It was just another ‘illegals for your sick pleasure’ case. I didn’t think anything of it. It was just a case.”
“Until the guy started fucking with you,” Seth said.
“Right,” Rick said. “But I’m not as bright as you, O’Malley. I didn’t get what was going on until . . .”
Rick fell silent. Seth waited.
“I kept it to myself,” Rick said. “Looking back, I don’t really know why. I should have called you and Mitch or let my friends know. I didn’t even let Soledad know what was going on.”
As if he were looking back on his own history, Rick nodded.
“I thought it was just another case,” Rick said. “God, I’d been a cop almost all my life. My dad was a cop. His dad . . . I thought . . .”
Rick fell silent, and Seth waited. Rick looked at him and then at Soledad.
“He was attacked in the police parking lot,” Soledad said. “The guy hit him with some kind of stun gun and then . . .”
Soledad looked at her husband.
“Show him,” she said to Rick.
He took off his glasses. His right eye socket was empty. He had a deep scar that ran along the side of his face. He pushed his hair back to show a star-shaped scar on his forehead.
“The rest I can’t show you,” Rick said. “I don’t want to give you a thrill.”
Rick grinned, and Seth chuckled. Seth let Rick settle in before he asked a question.
“Can you tell me the whole story?” Seth asked.
“Attacked me in the police-department garage,” Rick said. “I saw him . . . He walked right up to me with a smile on his face. So handsome. He asked me a question, I don’t remember what, and bam! I was down on the ground.”
Rick pointed to the scar on his forehead.
“Incredible, unbelievable, soul-shocking pain,” Rick whispered. He touched his head with the memory. “Then he set to work . . .”
“It was one of those things, Seth,” Soledad said. “Ricky drove his police sedan every single day that year. But our daughter was having her quinceañera.”
“That weekend,” Seth nodded. “I remember.”
“I knew the only way to get him to the tailor was to make sure he didn’t have a car,” Soledad said. “I was waiting for him in his parking space. He thought I wasn’t there yet. I’d already started the car when he came out. I got to him only minutes after . . . They were hacking my husband, and that animal had just started up . . .”
Soledad gestured to her behind.
“What did you do?” Seth asked.
“I shot them,” Soledad nodded. “One in the hip. The other, I don’t know. He was just standing there. I shot that . . . thing.”
Soledad made a pistol with her fingers and gestured three shots.
“That one—the handsome one—he said, something like, ‘There’s no point, we will find him,’” Soledad said.
“‘Look at where you are. You think it’s an accident we can do this in a police garage?’” Rick’s voice held an eerie tone.
Soledad nodded. Seth scowled.
“I shot at them again,” Soledad said. “They grabbed their animal and ran. Just then, I heard a door close and looked up. The chief was standing at the door to the stairwell,” Soledad said. “He looks at me and says, ‘Go.’ That’s it. ‘Go.’”