Jack rang Fern Bush’s doorbell while Cait admired the view of the Catalinas. Knife-edge spires of rock and vertical cliffs formed mountain goat aeries inaccessible to humans.
Fern was apologetic when she opened the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been helping Clark get comfortable. They let him come home but he’s got to take it easy.” She motioned them in.
“How’s he doing?” Cait asked.
“As well as can be expected. It’s all my fault.” Fern pulled at thin, dyed blonde hair. “You’re the detective Clark’s told me about? Maybe I can talk to you about things. I don’t want to further upset my son. I appreciate you coming over.”
Fern led them down a long hallway. Cait admired the home, older but clean and pleasant. Skylights brightened rooms with natural light, and large windows offered inspiring views of mountains and desert.
They stood in the doorway of a bedroom where Clark lounged in bed, supported by a nest of pillows. He wagged a hand in greeting. “Hey guys, long time no see.”
“How are you feeling?” Cait asked.
“A little woozy, but it could be the blood thinner they have me on,” Clark said. “I knew I needed to exercise and lose some weight. Now those goals are a priority.”
Fern twisted her hands. “I’ll get more chairs. Would anyone like something to drink?”
“I’m fine.” Cait turned to Clark as soon as the older woman left the room. “You’re sure your mom already made that investment?”
“Yep. It kills me. I think she’s been had. She gave the guy a cashier’s check, and there’s no way to put a stop on that, is there?”
“Probably not,” Jack said. “What do you know about him?”
“Rod Stone runs something called Galaxy Financial out of an office on Broadway. There’s no website, no answering service, and no background on him that I can find. He doesn’t have a city business license and Galaxy Financial isn’t listed with the state or the feds. I would assume he needs some kind of professional license if he has a fiduciary responsibility to clients, like investing their money.” Clark looked downcast.
Cait moved toward the doorway. “I’ll go check on your mom.”
A minute later she was back. “Fern’s asleep on the couch. She must be worn out with all that’s happened.”
Clark shifted upright and swung his legs off the bed. “That worries me. Yesterday we were talking, and mid-conversation, she seemed to stare off into space. It’s like she mentally tunes out of things. And she tires so easily.”
“So she has doubts now about Stone. It probably won’t do any good, but did she try to get out of the investment?” Cait asked.
“She called the bank. The money’s gone.” Clark twisted his hands.
“We need to act fast,” Jack said. He might be on his way out of town.”
“Let’s find his office. Where does he live?” Cait looked at Clark.
“No idea. Like I said, he won’t return my calls. Here’s his office address.” Clark picked up a piece of paper from a bedside table.
“I know you’re under a lot of stress. Try to relax,” Cait said.
Jack rose and touched Cait’s shoulder. “Let’s go find Galaxy Financial.”
They said goodbye to Clark and walked softly down the hall past the living room, where Fern slept.
Outside, Cait climbed in the driver’s seat. “I can’t believe she threw away that money.”
“That’s why I’d like to land on Rod Stone like a ton of bricks. Clark said his mom made the cashier’s check out to Rod Stone, not to Galaxy Financial. I wonder how many other victims there are.” Jack set his jaw and gazed at ritzy homes on either side of the road. “I bet Fern winds up having to sell her house and move to more modest digs.”
“Hope not.” Cait headed south on Swan to Broadway and hung a left toward Craycroft. She parked near a nondescript one-story office complex set back from the street. A sign on the building advertised rent-by-the-month office suites.
Jack and Cait entered a foyer and inspected a tenant directory on the wall. There was no listing for Galaxy Financial.
“Clark said we want suite 110,” Jack said. “That must be it.” He walked down the hall to an unmarked door and knocked.
When no one answered, he pressed his ear to the door, then pulled out a compact set of lock picks from a jacket pocket.
“That how you put yourself through college?” Cait raised an eyebrow as he went to work.
“I’ve got talents you don’t know about.” Jack inclined his head toward the building entrance. “Keep an eye out.”
After he defeated the flimsy lock, they entered the office and closed the door.
A small front room was decorated with framed Grand Canyon posters and outfitted with a small desk and chair that looked like they came from a government surplus store. No computer, filing cabinets, or office supplies. Nothing to indicate who occupied the space except for a lone business card on the desk: Galaxy Financial, Rod Stone, investment advisor.
Jack peered into an unfurnished back room. “Galaxy Financial is Rod Stone’s retirement plan. This is just an address to con his clients.”
“Damn.” Cait shoved a desk drawer shut with her foot. “Clark’s mom must be off her rocker to trust this guy. Maybe the landlord has a residential address or driver’s license from Stone’s rental application.”
She ran into the hall and out the front door to get the phone number from the sign outside the building. Tapping her cell phone, she spoke with someone about renting an office. “We’ll be there in ten minutes tops.”
They hurried outside. “So how’s this supposed to work?” Jack sounded doubtful as they returned to the jeep. “You’re pretending to rent an office?”
“You have a better idea? Sometimes you have to run a con to catch a con man.” Cait steered out of the parking lot and drove down westbound Broadway.
She parked by a Bank of America branch and they hurried to an adjacent two-story building. The management office was on the ground floor, the door propped open.
“Hi there.” Cait smiled at a woman seated at a desk and checking her lipstick in a compact mirror. “Hope you’re not closing up? I called about renting an office. It’s in the Peppertree Center, 40555 Broadway. You have month to month rentals, right?”
“The rate is higher for those, $300 a month versus $265 for a six-month lease. There’s some paperwork to do.” The woman glanced at her watch, torn between signing Cait up and clocking out for the day.
“Month to month sounds better. I’m starting a web design business, and I don’t want to be locked into a lease just yet.”
Jack gave Cait a droll look as the woman reached into a desk drawer for application forms. She stuck a sheaf of papers on a clipboard and handed it to Cait. “If you’ll give me your driver’s license, I’ll make a copy while you fill these forms out.”
“Sure thing.” Cait handed over the license to the woman, who headed for a back room. As soon as Cait heard a printer running, she leaned over the desk and pawed through the half-closed drawer. Fished a handful of papers from a manila folder and stuffed them down the waist of her jeans.
The woman returned as Cait stepped back from the desk. “You know what, I forgot my checkbook to make a deposit and pay rent. How about if I come back tomorrow? Here’s your clipboard, and I’ll take my license back.”
As she and Jack left the office, Cait could feel the woman’s eyes on them.
As they hurried outside, Jack snickered. “So what did you filch in there? You’d make a good undercover cop. Or a shoplifter.”
“Are you kidding? I was nervous as hell. It’s Rod Stone’s application for the Peppertree Center.”
She pulled the paper from her jeans, paged through a two-page form stapled to a grainy photocopy of a driver’s license.
“Oh my God.” Cait dropped the photocopy of Rod Stone’s license as if the paper singed her fingers. “It can’t be. It is.”
***
Como Rico sipped coffee in his kitchen in southwest Albuquerque and looked out at a cotton candy sunrise. He tried to fill his mind with the beautiful sky instead of the job he had to go to.
The past four months had been a slow descent into hell, working at one of Sonny Para’s warehouses, repacking fentanyl-laced candies to be shipped to metro areas around the country. The stress of the job was wiping him out. By the time he got home in the late afternoon, his head and stomach hurt. Tequila gave him little solace. He snapped at his wife, kept to himself and avoided old friends.
A noise behind him made him jump.
“What’s wrong?” His wife Zena stood yawning in the doorway, wrapped in a bathrobe.
“Nothing. Why do you tiptoe around like a cat?” He immediately felt guilty for being so crabby.
His wife headed for the coffeemaker. “We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave her a sideways look.
“I’m tired of this. You’re a bear to live with. You’re always tense and in a bad mood. You think I don’t notice how the tequila bottle goes down, and you replace it with another and another.” Zena speared long, red-painted nails toward him.
“I said I’m sorry. You don’t know what it’s like at that place. It’s a matter of time before they dispose of me. I know too much.” Como made a slicing motion with his hand under his throat. His words burst out in a confession. “The pay is good. That’s why I started and why I’ve stayed so long. But if I leave, that will be the end of me. Of us.”
“Ay yi yi! What have you gotten into?” Zena rapped her coffee cup on the counter, the blue ceramic cracking and brown liquid spattering onto the floor. “Who exactly do you work for?”
“You know Los Brutos and Sonny Para?” Como hung his head.
“Eeeee, you joined a damn gang? You said you worked for some importer.” Zena’s eyes bugged out. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I made a huge mistake. All I could see was the money. I’d never make that landscaping or washing dishes. I tried to ignore how ugly it is. I can’t anymore. All I do is pack up drugs that look like candy. They send it all over the country. I’m scared of what I’ve gotten into. My boss is a guy named Joe Tafoya. He’d kill me in an instant. I think he bumped off someone I used to work with.” Como held his head with both hands.
Zena looked at him through angry eyes. “Drugs that look like candy? What happens if a child eats one? Or a handful? How many people will die from this stuff? What an idiot you are. Now you’ve done it. If you quit, they’ll come looking for you.”
“That’s it in a nutshell.” He looked out a window at their small backyard, an idyllic vignette with bird houses hanging in a tree and plastic chairs arranged on a well-swept brick patio.
“I’ll understand if you want to leave me. I’ve made such a mess of things.” His face revealed the pain he felt.
Zena was silent for a moment. “Why not go to the police?”
“Sonny would know. He has cops in his pocket. There was one who came by once. Not in uniform, but it was obvious. Well-dressed white guy with shoulder holster under his jacket. Tafoya brought him into the office and closed the door. That spoke volumes.”
His cell phone on the kitchen counter buzzed, and he recognized the number on the screen. “Let me get this.”
“Hola?” He picked up, wondering if the call was a setup.
“Jason! You’re where?” He listened. “So you’re coming back? I’ve got to go. Call me tonight after eight.”
He hung up and rubbed his chin. “You won’t believe who that was.”
Zena glared at him. “Another gangbanger?”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said defensively. “I made a mistake taking that job, but it doesn’t mean I’m tight with those people. I knew Joe Tafoya’s family, his aunt and nephews, and one thing led to another. I wish I’d looked before I leaped. Anyway, that call was from a kid named Jason who got sideways with Sonny Para. Jason’s parents were the couple who ran that taqueria on Bridge Boulevard, and were found shot. Jason left town right after that.”
“Why’s he calling you?”
“Before the murders, he told me he’d been confiding in some detectives. He’s coming back to town to talk to the police. I’d like to help him, maybe help us.” Como touched sparse, silver hair.
“You’ll get us killed like Jason’s parents. Keep out of it.”
“It’s too late. Time’s running out for me at work, I can feel it. Tafoya used to act friendly. Now he looks at me like I’m a rat to be squashed.” Como took a sip of coffee, afraid to catch Zena’s eye.
“When were you planning to tell me all this?” She tossed her broken mug into the trash. “For once we have a nice place of our own. I’ve been planning a big garden out there this spring. Tomatoes, herbs, flowers. For the first time in my life I live in my own house, not some tiny apartment. Now we have to give all this up, go hide somewhere?” She spread her arms to indicate the breadth of her dream.
“Jason told me about a cop he trusts. There’s a chance he and I can bring down Para.”
“You’re stupid and crazy.” Zena chewed on a knuckle. “Cops don’t care about people like us.”