Chapter Twenty
Zavala County, TX.
Whicher hits the turn for Crystal City, powering the truck along the four-lane. He makes a left at the intersection with the main drag, scorched palms stretched out either side of the road.
At the next intersection, he sees a sign for Zavala County Sheriff.
The stop light's against him. He brakes. Stares along the side road at the brick law enforcement center.
He makes a right on red—parks, steps out, strides to the wall-mount payphone.
Taking the notepad from his jacket, he feeds quarters into the slot. He dials the number for Jug Line Harris—he could tell him to drive to Carrizo Springs; just bring himself in, ask for Scruggs or Benita Alvarenga.
The phone rings over and over. No answer.
Whicher slams it down, rattled.
What the hell was he doing?
Back at the truck he turns around, drives to the end of the street. He swings onto the main drag. Floors it out.
Up the road, he sees the restaurant, the Mexican grill.
He pulls in to the lot, takes a breath.
From a pocket in the door he finds a pair of cuffs. He steps out, crosses to the restaurant.
Lindy's setting tables. She looks up, shrinks at the sight of him. “I got nothing to say to you...”
The owner, Perales, moves out from the bar.
Whicher holds up a hand to him. “Two times I've come for you, Lindy.”
“Leave me alone.”
“You need to come with me, now.”
“Hey,” Perales says, “she hasn't done nothing, man.”
The marshal doesn't look at him.
“I'm working,” she says.
Whicher reaches for the cuffs. “This is a multiple homicide investigation.”
She steps back. “I didn't have a thing to do with any of this...”
Perales moves closer. “Come on, man, her boyfriend was killed. Give her a break...”
Whicher gives the man a final look of warning. “Lindy Page,” he says. “I'm arresting you for obstructing a law officer in the line of duty. Put your hands out in front of you...”
Carrizo Springs, TX.
On the upper floor of the Dimmit County courthouse, Whicher waits outside the holding cells. Deputy Benita Alvarenga approaches along the corridor.
“I'm going in and talk with Lindy,” he says. “I'm just letting her cool down a piece.”
“You read her her rights?”
He nods.
Under one arm Alvarenga's holding a document wallet. “You might want to see this.” She slips it out. “It's from the Southern Surety Bank in Eagle Pass.”
“That account? Randell Creagan?”
“I asked if we could take a look. They faxed a written agreement.”
“They said yes?”
“Marshal Scruggs has gone to get a warrant, he wants full access.”
Whicher thinks of Scruggs getting paperwork in front of a judge—he must be feeling the heat.
Deputy Alvarenga gestures at the cell door.“You think a female officer might do some good?”
“Be my guest.”
She takes a set of keys from her duty belt.
Inside the cell, Lindy's sitting on a fold-out cot. Blank look on her putty-like features.
“Lindy. My name is Deputy Benita Alvarenga. I'm the officer you spoke with yesterday.”
Lindy looks up. Mole eyes blinking in the light.
“We spoke about you meeting with the marshal here. He's going to ask you a few questions. I'm going to sit in.”
“You do whatever the hell y'all want to.” Lindy turns away to stare at the floor.
Whicher steps in the cell, leaning back against the wall. Arresting waitresses not among the reasons he joined the service. “This thing's about gone far enough,” he says.
She twists her head an inch.
“You don't need to be here,” he says. “I don't want you here.”
She presses her small mouth shut.
“Why don't you just tell us what happened?” Alvarenga says. “Nobody's accusing you of anything.”
“I already told him.” She glares at Whicher. “I cain't. You people need to listen what I'm tellin' you...”
“You claim you spoke with a law officer,” Whicher says. “You need to tell me who it was.”
She puts both hands to her face.
“Lindy,” he says. “We're trying to find out about Todd getting killed.”
She rocks back and forth.
“Who killed him, and why.”
She shoots up from the side of the cot. “I'm glad that little prick is dead. You think I give a God damn about his ass?”
Alvarenga looks at her.
“He was nothing but a mistake. You never made a mistake?”
“We think Todd was trafficking aliens,” Whicher says. “Did you know about that?”
She crashes back down to the cot, puts her head in her hands.
“You've got to be smarter than this,” Alvarenga says.
“If somebody approached you,” Whicher says, “if a trafficker threatened you, we can protect you. We run the witness protection program...”
Lindy looks up, eyes shining. “I got nothing more to say to you people.”
“It's not playing out like that, Lindy. You think this is a game?”
“Y'all don't even know what this is, you got no idea. I said all I got to. I want a God damn lawyer.”
“Marshal,” says Alvarenga. “I think we need to step outside.”
At the take-out window of the roadside cantina down the block, Benita Alvarenga buys quesadillas. The store owner heats flour tortillas on a griddle, melting grated cheese. He spoons red salsa, peppers, guacamole.
Alvarenga faces Whicher. “Are we keeping Lindy? Are you going to charge her?”
“Scruggs wants her.”
“Marshal Scruggs wants a lot of things today.”
The vendor wraps the quesadillas, handing them over in paper napkins.
Alvarenga pays the man, passing one wrapped tortilla to Whicher. “She gets a lawyer. She interviews on record.”
“We need her under pressure,” Whicher says.
“We need rules of custody applied.”
The marshal follows her to a bench, sits down at her side. He takes a bite, suddenly hungry. “You believe any of what Lindy has to say?”
“Tell you the truth—I think she's enjoying it. For once in her life, she's the center of attention. How often you figure that happens to a Lindy Page?”
The salsa, cheese and peppers are hot in Whicher's mouth. “Nobody seems to miss Todd Williams...”
Alvarenga chews slowly. “Except his mother.”
“I talked with two of Todd's friends, Zach Tutton and Shanon Summers. Neither one of 'em was busted up. You think we're missing something? People that knew him better.”
“I don't see he had a bunch of friends.”
“Neither him, nor Randell Creagan.”
“That bother you?”
He takes another bite. Thinks about it. “I don't know.”
“We know Todd Williams had a job in Chicago,” she says. “Plus he worked with Creagan, at that auto yard.”
Whicher leans back into the bench. “Creagan drove trucks, ran hot cars. And trafficked people.”
“You don't have to like them,” she says. “Just catch whoever killed them.”
Back in the courthouse, Benita Alvarenga picks up a pile of cargo manifests from the desk in the office. “What exactly is all this?” She pulls out a chair.
He eyes the stack of paperwork.“US Customs records.”
“What're you looking for?”
He shrugs. “Bulk chemicals, maybe. Loads recorded coming in by rail.”
“When Marshal Scruggs gets back, I have to speak to him about holding Lindy. Meantime, we could go through these. You want to give it a shot?”
He nods, sits on the side of the desk. “Keep an eye out for horse imports. Or imports by road.”
She looks up.
“Merrill Johnson's into horses. A lot of horse transports are crossing the border.”
“They'd never get people through that way.”
“Maybe Creagan's name will come up,” Whicher says. “The guy was a truck driver, Johnson knew him from that.”
She shuffles the papers. “How far back are we going to look?”
He stares at the forms, eyes already blurring.
For ten minutes they work in silence—scanning each sheet, placing it in order on a separate pile.
Alvarenga glances up. “You really think Lindy's scared?”
“Something ain't right.”
The deputy pauses. She takes another look at the sheet in her hand. Places it on the floor by her foot.
“What?” Whicher says.
Alvarenga's already staring at the next sheet. “Chemical and mineral. This one and the one on the floor.”
“I take a look?”
She hands him both. “There's a third here,” she says.
He reads through the listed information. A deal brokered through Merrill Johnson—the name prominent. Clearing US Customs at Eagle Pass. Exporting address given as a company in Jalisco, Mexico—maybe seven hundred miles south.
The manifest lists titanium oxide, plus assorted mineral pigments. For use in the construction industry. The marshal checks the other forms—all three the same, spaced at intervals a couple of weeks apart.
Titanium oxide was white, so far as he could remember. He could check. Mineral pigments—there'd most likely be a red. “There someplace we can make copies?”
“Xerox machine off reception—down the hall.”
Whicher steps in the corridor, walking fast to the central lobby.
In a wall recess he sees a printer-copier.
He thinks of bulk chemicals—the most likely way to bring them up would be in hopper cars, sheeted over. There'd be space inside, space for people to get in. They wouldn't fill them, they'd never keep 'em on weight.
A sixty mile-an-hour train, running seven hundred miles—they'd be breathing dust, getting it on their clothes, their skin—eleven, twelve hours straight.
He opens the cover on the Xerox machine. Feeds in the sheets.
The main lobby doors open. Silhouetted in light from the square is the giant figure of Sheriff Cole Barnhart—palm straw hat tipped back on his head.
Beside him is Marshal Scruggs.
The copies arrive at the base of the machine, Whicher picks them out of the tray.
He steps out from the recess.
“I got the warrant,” Scruggs calls over. “For Creagan's account in Eagle Pass.”
Sheriff Barnhart breezes by toward the stairs.
“I want this executed, right now,” Scruggs says, “before Marshal Lassiter shows up.”
Whicher takes the signed paper.
“Look for large sums, any pattern of transaction that stands out for a low-life like Creagan. Go over the records with one of the clerks,” Scruggs says. “And get a print-out.” He looks at Whicher. “You get a hold of Lindy Page?”
“Upstairs. Arrested.”
His eyebrows arch. “She talking now?”
“Asking for a lawyer.”
Scruggs scowls.
“Deputy Alvarenga found something from customs,” Whicher says. He holds up the Xeroxed sheets. “Records of chemical shipments by rail...”
“Head on up to Eagle Pass.” Scruggs reaches in his jacket, pulls out an envelope. “By the way—I meant to give you this.”
Whicher looks at it.
“It's a list of workers from the Laredo switching yard. Everybody rostered—the night you got jumped.”
“I already got the names.”
“This is the official list. I spoke with the boss of the yard, when I was kicking my heels waiting on Laredo court. I told him to get it done, else I'd come at him for lax security. Bring along Border Patrol.”
Whicher takes it.
“You're so fired up about trains an' all, maybe it'll turn out something.”