Chapter Thirteen
Maverick County, TX.
Across the flat expanse of brush, heat's already stacking into a colorless sky. It's early morning, buzzards wheeling in the distance, the highway deserted as Whicher drives his truck west.
First stop of the day had been Carrizo Springs, the county courthouse. He'd picked up the faxed directions from Brady Iverson; a map, crudely sketched up in pen.
He studies the land butting up to the edge of the highway—short brown grass, the dirt thin, hard as cement. The land's fenced. Flat, dry, grazed out. Why lease a hunting concession in a place like this?
A caliche track runs south into the brush—Whicher slows, turns the truck onto it, big tires lifting up a cloud of fine white dust.
He picks the hand-drawn map off the seat. Holds it in one hand as he steers.
Creagan was killed someplace, chained to a freight car—till his body fell off. According to Jim Gale, it was a way of moving a corpse—low risk, no chance getting caught with it, no evidence left behind in any vehicle. If you knew where the loads stopped, Whicher guessed you might retrieve it.
He stares through the windshield at a group of tracks leading off the caliche road. The sketch arrows a trail ranging west; Whicher picks it out, steering into featureless scrub.
A hundred yards on is a group of low buildings—crude shelters, board shacks painted red and yellow. An iron windmill turns slow, pumping ground water. The marshal lifts off the gas, slowing to a roll.
At the edge of the track he sees a carved wooden figure set on top of a pile of stones. He brakes the truck to a stop. The figure is a praying woman. At the foot of the stones are candles, all burned out.
In the shade of a yellow shack, a Hispanic woman sits, arms working, grinding something.
He steps from the truck. Straightens the Resistol.
She's grinding maize, making up a pile of corn tortillas.
“Morning. I'm with US Marshals Service.”
Her face is sunburned, clothes worn thin.
“Looking for a hunting concession? Man named Randell Creagan?”
She shakes her head.
Whicher glances around the property, a water tank—a mule standing by a clump of mesquite. In a wired-off run, chickens peck the bare earth. There's no vehicle, but tire marks. Stains of oil and gasoline. “You live out here?”
Her arm moves steady, grinding the corn. “Si.”
“What's the story on the statue?” He jerks his head toward the track.
Her eyes slide away.
“It some kind of a shrine?”
In the dirt yard, tin flowers turn in the wind. Rusted, abandoned years ago. All except for one—still bright with turquoise paint. Turquoise, like the bead from the girl at the ranch.
He touches his hat brim to the woman. Steps back to the truck, climbs in, feels the cold air of the cab.
Brady Iverson's sketch shows the hunting lease somewhere up ahead. He drops the transmission into drive.
Along the worsening track he scans the brush for signs—evidence of people on foot. A bunch of mojados coming through at night, they'd be safe from the regular patrols. The border must be twenty miles, the highway running parallel—on foot, it'd make a good route.
Behind a dense bank of agarita he sees a dirt spur leading off the track.
He slows, swings the Chevy into a half-acre piece of cleared ground in the scrub—three sagging trailers in its center, up on blocks.
He parks. Climbs out.
All around is a litter of debris, old clothing, rags, abandoned shoes. The trailers are bleak-looking. Beneath them, scores of crumpled water bottles blown in on the wind.
He squats. In the earth are wheel marks, two or three different dimensions of tire and tread.
He draws the Glock from its holster. Listens. Walks to the trailers—footprints everywhere.
At the nearest trailer, he mounts a cinder block step. He pulls at the door. It opens.
Inside, flies are buzzing, the heat intense. A bunch of thin, dirty mattresses are strewn around the floor. He stoops to a discarded shirt—like the shirt of the campesino laying dead across the wall of the Channing Ranch.
He'd have to check the distance, he guesses it between twenty and thirty miles through the brush.
At the end of the trailer is a pile of ripped T-shirts, covered in dirt and dust and a fine red powder.
He thinks of climbing the steel ladder welded to the side of a hopper car—climbing up to look inside, white gray dust, some kind of mineral. That, and a fine red powder that left a stain.
He picks out one of the T-shirts, rubs the stained collar against the back of his hand.
It marks his skin. It leaves a red mark, just the same.
Carrizo Springs, TX.
In Dimmit County at the courthouse, Marshal Reuben Scruggs is already waiting. He sits behind the office desk, grunting answers into the phone.
Whicher enters the room.
Scruggs nods, one hand running up and down his tie, phone clamped at his neck.
Whicher steps out in the corridor, looking for Benita Alvarenga.
Scruggs finishes up the call. “That was scene of crime up to Eagle Pass. They got 'emselves into Creagan's auto yard.”
“They find anything?”
“They're saying nothing out of place for a vehicle yard. The man was shot with hollow-point rounds—there'd be a bunch of blood, at least.”
“Anything else?”
“Police department are going to trace all the vehicles in the yard—that's pretty much it.” Scruggs pushes the phone up the desk, clearing space. “Where you get to, anyhow?” He fixes the younger marshal with a look.
“That hunting concession,” Whicher says. “The land Creagan was leasing?”
“You find it?”
“He had a bunch of trailers out there.”
“What kind of trailers?”
“Single-wides. Up on blocks. It looked to me like some kind of laying-up spot.”
Scruggs leans back from the desk. “Makes you say that?”
“They had a pile of mats on the floor, old clothes, general garbage—just about everything you'd expect to see if people were stopping, breaking up a journey.”
“You think he could've been killed there?”
“No sign.”
The older marshal grimaces.“We don't find where, we got the Devil's own time saying who. We don't even know when.”
“I'd like to know was Creagan still alive the night Todd Williams was killed? With the mojados at the ranch.”
Scruggs pushes himself up out of the chair, smoothing down the black suit. “Supposed to be a doctor showing up around now, autopsy doctor.”
“A coroner?”
“County don't run to a coroner, they have a doctor appointed in place. What's on the back of your hand?”
Whicher rubs at the mark. “Some kind of dye.”
Scruggs looks at him.
“Off the clothes at the trailers—the same stuff was all over the hopper cars in Laredo, the night I went looking for Johnson.”
“That a fact?”
“You think chemicals could be among the shipments Merrill Johnson handles? Trains could be a connection, those illegal crossers could have traveled up from the south.”
“What if they did? Mexican's been riding up on freight trains since forever.”
“But if we could narrow it down—specific trains, loads, specific lines.”
“You think Merrill Johnson will be at the heart of it?”
“First time I went looking for him in Laredo, I nearly got my head took off by a guy with a wrench.”
Scruggs studies on the thought.
“Jim Gale reckoned whoever chained Creagan to a rail car, knew about freight.”
“You're quoting Jim Gale?”
Whicher feels heat rise in his face.
“Williams and them wets were found in the brush,” Scruggs says. “Miles from any rail line.” He adjusts the set of his hat. “Let's go take a walk upstairs, find the sheriff. I want to see if the doc made it in.”
Whicher follows his boss along the back corridor toward the central lobby. He spits on a finger, tries to rub the mark from the back of his hand.
“You see any of that on the bodies out at the ranch?” Scruggs says. “Red marking.”
Whicher shakes his head. “The autopsy could've picked something up, you think they tested for toxicology? Chemicals could be something, there's a possible link to the runner, Saldana—guy had a stillborn son, something linked to pollutants...”
Scruggs blows the air from his cheeks.
“He was arrested in Brownsville trying to find out what happened with his kid...”
“Cousin, you're reaching.”
They cross the back of the lobby, climb the set of stairs to the next floor.
The scent of the sheriff's cigar is already in the air. Stationed outside his office door is a uniformed deputy, short guy with a horseshoe mustache.
The deputy looks at his watch. “Going to be couple of minutes.”
“The autopsy doctor get in?”
“Doctor Schulz, yessir. They're in there now.”
Scruggs turns for the opposite end of the corridor, Whicher follows all the way down to the holding cells.
They stand by a row of locked doors. Steel plate painted white, every bolt welded.
“I had some time this morning,” Scruggs says, “I made a couple calls.” He lowers his voice. “I called Laredo Police Department, Detective Simms.”
“The detective that put together the auto theft case on Creagan?”
Scruggs nods. “Simms reckons before LPD ever caught up with him, FBI already suspected the man of running cars into Mexico. Running them over the border, returning in clean cars. With illegal aliens, on false papers. LPD didn't like it. Feds dicking 'em around. After I got done with Simms, I called up my buddy at Houston FBI. Gerry Nugent.”
“He confirm any of that?”
Scruggs stares back down the corridor, eyes unfocused. “In twenty years of law enforcement, I never had the impression anybody was less than straight with me. But it was flat out denied.”
Whicher looks at him.
“I never felt like anybody tried to brush me off, or sell me a bullshit line.” Scruggs runs a thumb over the skin beneath his chin. “Until today.”