Chapter Two
Eagle Pass. Maverick County, TX.
Three o'clock in the morning. The Maverick County jail facility is full to capacity. Every cell filled with illegal crossers out of Mexico—the interview rooms, all the holding areas, corridors teeming with law enforcement personnel.
Whicher leans against a marked up wall in reception—a brace of sheriff's deputies hustling by.
There's men in all variety of uniform, he thinks of an army command post—an edge in the air, catch of inter-unit friction.
At the main counter Reuben Scruggs, his boss, waits. Whip-thin in his dark suit. He tilts the black brim of his Ridge Top hat forward, studies the officer on reception. “What time you think we can get in?”
The desk man, Hector Medrano, pushes a pair of metal-frame glasses onto his bald head. “Soon as they tell me it's okay.”
Scruggs eyes him under the strip light. “Damn near waited half the night...”
Medrano leans in to the counter. Blue uniform shirt bulging.“They were arrested in Maverick—the county has jurisdiction. INS are running all the interviews.”
“Who's in for INS?”
“Carrasco.”
“Miguel Carrasco?”
The officer nods. “Border Patrol's coordinating for Immigration & Nationalization Service.”
“I got a bench warrant out of the Laredo court,” Scruggs says. “And federal authority to serve it.”
Medrano bounces a pen against a note pad. “I can't get you in. Not till they tell me it's okay.”
Scruggs drains the last of a cup of coffee. Rangy. Ram-rod straight. At forty-one, he's a career lawman—criminal investigator for the US Marshals Service. From Sonora, out in the hill country. Southern Baptist, tough as teak. “You can't find out if my bird is here? They picked up some coyotes, along with the pollos—I know they did.”
Medrano shakes his head.
“Come on. The guy's name is Creagan. Randell Creagan.”
“Can't do it.”
“He's one of the coyotes—am I right? Just tell me, yes or no?”
“Miguel Carrasco's calling the shots. Or you can take it up with Sheriff Owens.”
Whicher steps from his place at the wall.
Scruggs cuts a look at him—eyes black as jet in the leathery face.
“We've got a multiple homicide,” Medrano says. “Body count running at six.”
“How come we can't take a look?” Whicher says.
Scruggs tosses his empty cup in the trash. “Informants. People need protecting.”
Medrano nods. “How a sweep for wets escalates to this, I don't know. But everything needs to get done right.”
Scruggs stoops to a briefcase at his boot. He pulls out a sheaf of written notes. “I lean on this here counter?”
“Be my guest,” the deputy says.
“Alright. Might as well do something useful.” He takes out an A4, Xeroxed map. “You were on post, here.” Scruggs looks at Whicher. Pointing to a numbered patrol sector.
Whicher leans in.
“You're there four hours, doing squat. Then you hear shooting.”
“I saw flashes.”
“How far you figure?”
“Mile. Maybe more. I called dispatch.”
“You were closest unit, you high tail it out there, see a bunch of lights. Then you use that night scope.” Scruggs turns to Deputy Medrano. “Man has a night scope from Desert Storm...”
“It work?”
Whicher nods.
“You're looking through the scope, you see a guy running from a pickup truck. Then you see another light.”
“Yes, sir. Hunting light. Fixed to a rifle.”
“A jacklight. Somebody jacklighting the guy...”
“They were shooting at him but he kept on running, they couldn't drop him.”
Scruggs checks his notes. “You said that earlier.”
“Who has the body?” Medrano says.
“Webb County Sheriff,” Scruggs says. “I got there, the guy was dead. Webb County had a justice of the peace on call. Their officers took him.”
Medrano peers at the map. “Sounds like he was shot in Dimmit.” He looks at Whicher. “Your patrol sector was right up on the county line, there. Mile north, you're across it.”
“The guy was running,” Scruggs says. “Maybe they started shooting in Dimmit—he ends up dying in Webb. Don't make a whole lot of difference.”
“Not to him,” Medrano says. “But on the legal end.”
In back of the reception counter, a door opens.
Whicher sees a tall guy, six-five, carrying a gut in front of him like a fridge full of beer. He's wearing a high crown hat, Boss of the Plains. He's strong-looking, built like a tackle. Bad-tempered face of a catch dog.
“Jim Gale,” Scruggs says. “Bless my soul.”
The man stomps forward to the counter, sport coat tight over his bulky frame.
“I thought you was up to Los Angeles, California?” Scruggs says.
“I just got in.”
“Didn't know you were here tonight?”
“You neither,” Gale answers, none too friendly.
“We got a bench warrant to serve. Feller named Randell Creagan. Boosts cars out of Laredo, you know him?”
Gale's face is blank.
Scruggs rubs the back of his neck. “The man works coyote now and again. We heard he could be into this thing tonight.” He turns to Deputy Medrano. “He gets to go in, we don't?”
“He's western district,” Medrano says, “it's his beat.”
Gale grins. “Haul your skinny ass back to southern, you don't like it.”
Scruggs glances at Whicher, then back at Gale. “Did you meet my new partner?”
Whicher takes off the Resistol. Puts out a hand.
Gale takes it, grips it, squeezes hard.
“John Whicher.”
“How come y'all ain't down in Laredo, bustin' drunks?”
Whicher fits the Resistol back in place. “Mostly go where I get told...”
“What you do before? Let me guess—a cop? Laredo police department?”
“3rd Armored Cavalry.”
Gale looks at him, surprised. “Army. Up to Fort Bliss?”
“Man ain't long back from Desert Storm,” Scruggs says.
Gale folds his arms over his big gut. “You kick some ass out there?” He bunches his shoulders under the sport coat.
Whicher stares at him, saying nothing.
Medrano takes down his glasses.
Scruggs eyes the pair of them. “How about LA?” he says. “Them riots.”
The big man twists his mouth.
“I seen the coverage on my TV.”
Gale grunts. “Never known a thing like it.”
“They say the city damn near lost control.”
“National Guard couldn't stop it, what the hell were we supposed to do? I say shoot the sons of bitches before they shoot you.”
Scruggs clears his throat. “Tell you what, John?”
Whicher nods.
“Whyn't you take a ride back out to that ranch house? No sense the both of us waiting here. See what you can find at the scene, talk to folk. Then meet me back here, don't look like we're going home any time soon.”
Whicher buttons his suit jacket over the shoulder holster.
“Do me one thing?”
“What's that, sir?”
“Don't be finding no more dead people...”
The desert sky is tinged in the east—a faint cold light of coming dawn. Whicher steers the Chevy down the pitted track. Stomach churning with the bite of hunger.
The truck rumbles over hard packed dirt. Dense brush spreads in all directions; ranch land, grazed out—through south Texas, down into Mexico.
Ahead, he can just make out the house, the Channing Ranch, what's left of it. A darkened mass above the uniform gray.
He reaches to his shirt, pulls out his cigarettes. Takes one, tossing the pack on the seat.
He pushes in the lighter on the console center.
The jail at Eagle Pass had been a waste of time. He thinks of tac-op centers, forward posts—men in desert cam, night cam, nomex. No cohesion. Everybody with an axe to grind.
The lighter springs back. Whicher touches the end of the cigarette against the red hot coils.
He thinks of the bodies up ahead. Memories of desert villages flicker. He draws the burning glow up the cigarette—paper and tobacco crackling. Images flash in his mind, mud brick rooms, bodies, all ages, indiscriminate. He pushes the thought away.
At the far reach of the headlight beam is a stand of trees, a thicket.
He searches for any vehicle—law enforcement, crime scene. The clearing at the back of the house is empty.
It should be full of vehicles.
He drives in, brakes the truck to a stop. Rolls the window, cuts the motor. He stubs out the cigarette, flipping open the glove box. Inside is a flashlight, he takes it out.
Adrenaline's running, he can feel it, though he can't say why. He opens the door of the truck, steps out. Night air a living mass.
“Anybody here?”
He walks across the churned up dirt to the doorway. Switches on the flashlight.
The room is clear. Empty. No bodies, nothing from before. There's no way a crime scene should be finished, it's the site of a multiple killing, no way the bodies should be gone. He sweeps the beam of the flashlight across the dirt floor. Winged insects scatter in the glare.
On the wall, blood is splattered. A dark pool at the base. Across the beaten earth floor, he remembers tipped-out clothing, water bottles. He picks his way across the room.
He shines the light through the interior doorway, onto the broken outer wall. The campesino in the long-sleeved shirt is gone.
He stands inside the broken ruin. The silence numbing. Thinks of five young people shot to death. If they put up any fight, it hadn't amounted to much. They must have died within seconds of each other, died ugly. He stares up through the gaping roof of the house. Black wings dart in the space above him. Bats. Gorging on insects.
He turns, runs the flashlight beam over the dirt floor. A glint of color winks back. A turquoise bead is wedged at the foot of the wall. Whicher thinks of the young woman, arm caught in the broken necklace, beads scattered. He kneels. Picks it out. Folds it into his hand.
In his mind's eye he sees the running man, sees him tearing through the brush. He pushes the thought down, the moment it's formed.
It falls to you.
He sees the clearing—the man, knees drawn up. His own hand laid upon his shoulder.
He thinks of the blood red of the road flare. Windmill and the stock tank caught in its angry light.
It falls to you.