August 21, 2004, 7:22 A.M.
Jordan took a deep breath and tried to regain his senses. He needed to stop and think, make sure he knew what he was dealing with. Having a conversation with Bill Hogue was like playing one-on-one basketball on a hot summer day; you never had time to catch your breath, and the man was smart, always two steps ahead of you. Jordan was never any good at one-on-one, and he was even worse when it came to talking to Bill Hogue.
He could give a shit about Hogue's position. Any authority over him belonged to Holister and the Town Board, not the sheriff's department. Maybe it was Hogue's disregard for all of the small-town deputies in the county, much like the INS agents, or maybe it was something more—like the fact that Bill Hogue was Ed Kirsch's uncle. Either way, Jordan didn't like the unsettling feeling Hogue's presence always seemed to evoke, especially now.
Bill Hogue was first and foremost a politician. He was in his first year of a four-year term, but it was Hogue's third term as sheriff. He was deeply entrenched in the structure of the county law-enforcement community. Hogue had been elected eight-and-a-half years ago as an alternative to a corrupt one-term sheriff who was presently on the waning end of a tax evasion and attempted murder sentence. The Carlyle County Sheriff's department had been clean of scandal ever since the then fifty-year-old Hogue took office, and no one questioned the iron-fist policies that kept it that way, or Hogue's political abilities to make sure he attained whatever goal he set for himself.
Jordan was well aware of the rumors that Hogue was considering a run for the Morland mayoral seat when that election came up in two years. So, there was no question that he was intent on taking charge of the investigation to bolster his image. He didn't fault Hogue for that, and Jordan also knew there was no way that he or the Dukaine Police Department could handle an investigation of this magnitude. But he intended to be involved as much as possible, to be in the loop, to be in the hunt for the shooter.
“I'm going to need a full report on this, McManus,” Sheriff Hogue said.
Jordan ignored the demand. He wanted to ask the sheriff if he thought he was a fucking idiot, but he already knew the answer. He watched as Sam Peterson and Charlie Overdorf tried to lift Holister onto the gurney. Hogue turned away, surveying the landscape, pushing the toe of his boot into the dry dirt.
Holister was limp, as heavy as a dead horse, and the other EMTs from Carlyle County joined in to help. They had to tilt him sideways to completely lift him up onto the gurney.
“You need to come with us, Jordan. That arm needs to be looked at,” Sam said.
“I'm fine, really. The sheriff and I need to talk first.”
“After I get Holister on his way, I'll be back down for you,” Sam said. “What about that?” he asked, pointing at the skeleton.
“Don't worry about it. There's nothing you can do.”
When Jordan turned back to Bill Hogue, the sheriff was staring at the skeleton.
“That's part of what happened,” Jordan said.
“I noticed. You better start from the beginning, and don't leave anything out. You've never been in a situation like this before. Probably don't know your ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to investigating a shooting.”
Jordan took a deep breath, ignored Hogue's supercop attitude the best he could, and told the sheriff everything that had happened from the moment he'd got the call from Holister.
Everything except the letter Holister gave him. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to filter information, especially information concerning the shooting. It was a gut feeling, a reaction to Hogue's arrogance—and the fact that Hogue had family in Dukaine, too. The sheriff's sister was Ed Kirsch's mother. Ed's father, Lee, was the real rounder of the bunch, a small-time crook who'd served two years in prison in the early seventies for burglary. After fathering nine children, Lee ran off with another woman, leaving Ed's mother to fend for herself. Jordan didn't know how tight Hogue was with Ed or any of the Kirsch kids—he'd seemed to distance himself from Dukaine and his family once he started to climb the ranks in the department. But Jordan still didn't trust the connection.
“Ginny and Celeste are going to take this hard,” Hogue said, casting Jordan a glance that penetrated his heart.
The comment left Jordan speechless, even more on guard.
“Let's go have a look,” Hogue continued without missing a beat. “If you can.” It was not a question of concern; it was an order. Hogue didn't wait for an answer. He headed straight toward the skeleton. Jordan nodded yes and made his way through the cattails close behind Hogue.
They edged along the bank of the pond and stopped about ten yards from the skeleton.
“The first shots came from over there,” Jordan said as he pointed to the big sycamore tree. Horse nettle and ragweed surrounded it, rising about six feet tall against the trunk of the tree. There were scrub trees in front of the tall trees, and even with the sun bright overhead there was a shadowy world of withering vegetation beyond the pond banks. A few game paths wound through the weeds about twenty feet from the sycamore, apparent only to a hunter or someone who knew the ways of deer and raccoons. Jordan guessed that the shooter had used the trails, at least initially, to navigate and hide among the weeds.
“We need to check those trails,” Jordan said, making sure Hogue was aware of them.
“You don't need to worry about that. I got boys all over the place, checking every trail, every path in and out of here. Just like I got to do.”
Jordan's arm throbbed and he felt light-headed. The blaring sun hurt his eyes and he had a pounding headache, but he tried to ignore the pain, tried not to show Hogue any weakness.
Holister's .38 lay on the ground a few feet from the skeleton. Hogue pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and picked the weapon up to examine it. “This Holister's?”
Jordan nodded.
“The damned old fool never would change, would he? If he'd been carrying a Glock things might've turned out different,” Hogue said.
“He didn't trust plastic.”
“I don't know that I'd trust a fifty-year-old weapon.”
“It shoots just fine.”
Hogue looked at Jordan oddly and smirked.
Jordan walked away from Hogue, restraining himself from striking out, and took his first close-up look at the skeleton. The butterscotch brown bones were covered with dried mud, but everything looked intact; the rib cage poked out of the ground perfectly, even the fingers were still attached. Flies had lost the opportunity to lay their eggs in the flesh long ago; there were no signs of insects anywhere, except the ever-present cloud of mosquitoes that swarmed over the pond. It looked like the bones had been there for a long, long time, hidden under the water and muck. At its normal level, Longer's Pond would have been about five feet deep where he stood, and Jordan wondered how the divers could have missed the skeleton when they searched the pond.
The skull bothered Jordan the most. He hesitated, and then reached down and touched the top of the head. It was warm from the sun, and he recoiled quickly. The skeleton was real. Just like the blood on his shirt.
He had never seen anything like it. The only skeleton he could recall ever seeing was in his eighth-grade biology class, and it was made out of plastic. It felt strange standing in an open grave, exposed by the lack of water and the erosion of time. All sorts of images flashed through Jordan's mind: Halloween decorations dancing in the wind; a faceless little boy struggling to breathe, sinking deep into the water, stuck in the mud; and finally, fish and snapping turtles picking flesh off the bone as if it were bait, an unexpected feast.
A siren blared in the distance. The ambulance with Holister was pulling away, heading toward St. Joseph's Hospital in Morland. Jordan glanced up, then returned his gaze to the skeleton. “Are you really Tito Cordova?” he asked silently.
Hogue gently returned the .38 to the spot where he found it. “Doesn't look like he had time to get a round off,” he said.
“No, he didn't.”
The sheriff didn't immediately respond—it looked like he was thinking, plotting out his next question. “Hard telling how long it's been here,” Hogue finally said, easing up next to Jordan, looking down at the skeleton.
“Holister seemed to have a good idea. Pretty close to twenty years, if he's right.”
The sheriff looked at Jordan curiously.
“Holister thought the skeleton belonged to Tito Cordova.”
“Why in the hell would he think that?”
Jordan started to tell Hogue about the letter, again, but remained quiet. He would put the information in his report, turn in the medal and letter as evidence, once he was certain Hogue was going to allow him to be involved in the investigation, once he saw where things were going from here. “Holister was obsessed with the Cordova disappearance. We reviewed it every year. I think he really wanted to solve that case before he retired.”
“These bones could belong to anybody.”
“That's what I thought,” Jordan paused. “Do you remember when Tito Cordova vanished?”
“I'd just started with the department when that happened. Nothing but a greenhorn looking for a way to show myself off to old Ben Gunther, the sheriff back then,” Hogue said with a nod. “I sure as hell remember it. Things like that just didn't happen around here. Kids disappearing with no trace. I was over here every day walking through fields, checking every nook and cranny in the SunRipe plant. If it would've happened during harvest, I would of thought one of the Mexicans was responsible, but they were gone.”
“All of them except José Rivero and Tito's mother, Esperanza,” Jordan said, watching Hogue closely. “But Holister talked to José and ruled him out from being involved because he'd been away when the kid disappeared. If I remember right he left a few days before, and returned a few days after the search ended. Everyone Holister questioned led to a dead end. I don't think he ever accepted the idea that Tito was abducted by a stranger, but that was the final word.”
“Well,” Hogue said. “That's the way it looked to me, too. If something like that happened now, I might look at it the same way Holister did. I'm going to want to see Holister's original report. I'm sure our department's report is still on file, too. I need to refresh myself on the details.”
“I know where the report is. I think,” Jordan said. Holister's office looked like a rat's nest. Piles of unread papers covered his desk and his filing cabinets were ancient, burgeoning with faded manila folders and old newspapers. Holister hated doing paperwork, and no matter how much Louella goaded him and tried to keep him organized, he resisted, almost like a teenager staking his ground, not cleaning his room. But the Cordova file was special to Holister. So special, he kept it hidden in the false bottom of a briefcase he kept secured in the gun locker. Jordan never understood why, and never asked. He wished he would have now.
“The way it looks now, the boy might've just wandered in here and drowned. It might not have been a crime at all,” Hogue said.
“The Cordova place was on the other side of town. That would've been a five-mile walk. Somebody would've surely seen him before he got here.”
“Could be. But they checked the pond.”
“That's what I was thinking. Holister and I talked about that. The water wouldn't have been that deep here. How'd they miss him?”
“Hard to say. The report should name the divers. If they're still around, I'll talk to them and find out. Then again, maybe the skeleton isn't Tito Cordova. Maybe it wasn't here when the divers went in,” Hogue said. “Looks like I'm going to need a forensics team out here to find out for sure.” He turned away from the bones and walked back over to the .38. “How about you, McManus? Did you get a shot off?”
Jordan stood up. “I told you, I unloaded three magazines.”
Hogue nodded. “Let me see your weapon.”
Jordan hesitated, then placed the Glock in Hogue's puffy right hand.
“If you don't mind, I think I'll hold onto this,” the sheriff said.
“Excuse me?”
“I'm going to hold onto it until we get the ballistics back. It looked liked Holister was shot more than once.”
Jordan could barely breathe; he felt trapped. “Are you accusing me of shooting Holister?”
“No offense, McManus, but it was just you and him out here. I don't see any sign of your shooter. I got boys crawling all over this place. Maybe we'll find something, maybe we won't. Ballistics will tell the story about your weapon. Hard to say whether I'm accusing you of anything or not. So, let's just call it procedure.”
“Why in the hell would I shoot him?”
Jordan wasn't sure if Hogue was trying to intimidate him or humiliate him. There was no better way to degrade a cop than take his gun from him. And to make things worse, make him a person of interest or a suspect in the shooting of another cop.
“I don't know, McManus, why don't you tell me? I'm just considering all the possibilities, just doing my job. This whole situation seems a little fishy to me.”
“And I was just doing mine,” Jordan said, his voice rising. “This is the craziest fucking thing I've heard all day. Damn it, like I'd have a reason to shoot Holister Coggins?”
“Are you sure you've told me everything?”
Jordan hesitated. He was about to lie, about to break another rule, and he didn't like it, but felt like he had no choice now. If Hogue was going to make him a suspect the letter could help clear him—but something told Jordan the sheriff wasn't going to budge, letter or no letter. The letter might not have cleared him of any suspicion with the angle Hogue was taking. He could easily say Jordan had written it as much as anyone else—there was no proof otherwise. Along with ballistics, there'd be a handwriting expert involved. Besides . . . Holister had given him the letter. Hogue was an outsider. An outsider that Jordan didn't trust, at the moment.
“Yes,” Jordan said.
“Well I'm sorry, McManus, that's the way it's going to be. The gun's going in for ballistics testing. I'll inform the proper people in Dukaine about my decision, and it'll be up to them what to do with you from there. From the looks of that arm you're going to have a few days off anyway. Maybe by then, this will be all cleared up.”
“What the hell did I do? Shoot myself to make it look good? That's stretching it a little bit, don't you think?”
“I thought about that. But it's a flesh wound. Could have happened a million different ways other than the story you gave me. I have to look at all of the possibilities, McManus. I'm sorry if you don't agree with my methods, but I quit believing in stories a long time ago. I need evidence. Cold, hard evidence. Can you prove to me that the blood on your arm is a bullet wound?”
“No. You just have my word.”
“Well, that's not good enough today.”
Sam Peterson appeared at the foot of the path that led up to the parking lot. “Jordan, come on. We need to get you looked at.”
Jordan stared at Hogue. “I didn't shoot Holister, goddamn it.”
“Well, you don't have anything to worry about then, do you? Just make sure you stay close to town. I'll want to talk to you once the report comes back.”
Sam walked up next to Jordan. “Come on,” he said as he grabbed Jordan's good arm. Jordan pulled away and started to say something; he wanted to make his case against the shooting no matter what. But the world began to spin again, his head throbbed like a marching band was using it for drum practice, his fingers tingled, and everything went black.