Chris was trying hard to listen as Danny and Amé recounted their interrogation of Eddy Rabbit. They were in Chris’s office, but through his open door, and over their shoulders, he was distracted by two of his other deputies, Tommy Milford and Till Greer, talking. Laughing—beneath Ben Harper’s and Buck Emmett’s black-banded memorial pictures. Dale Holt was out serving a summons with Marco Lucero in tow. That was it: six—all the deputies he had now, to oversee thousands of square miles in the Big Bend.
“Sheriff?” Danny asked, turning to follow Chris’s gaze out the door, as Till was still laughing out loud at whatever dumb story or joke Tommy was spinning. Chris had wanted his deputies to see those pictures of Ben and Buck whenever they walked out of the building as a reminder of what they risked each day, but now they passed those photos of their fallen friends—men they’d once known and laughed with, too—without a second thought or glance, as one day became the next day and then the day after. Until today was just another day. Maybe it had to be that way, so life could go on. Because life had to go on. But Chris still needed those photos, so he’d never forget those losses, never forget how these six men and women left behind were his responsibility, and the risks he asked them to take.
Yesterday. Today. Every day.
“I’m sorry, Danny,” Chris said. “I got distracted by those two clowns out there. Why don’t you grab the door and start again?”
* * *
—
“EDDY IS GOING TO BE A DEAD END,” Danny said. “He told us what he knows, which isn’t a whole lot. For about the last six months he’s been renting out his trailer down in the canyon as kind of a way station for drug mules crossing the river there. They give him a heads-up on these Motorola radios, and he makes sure the way is clear when they cross. The dope is stored at his place until other men come and get it and drive it out of the Big Bend. He knows nicknames . . . Gato, Flaco, Chaca . . . stuff like that, but that’s about it. His initial contact was a man named Apache. Eddy says he calls himself that because he works for some Mexican Indians or something, whatever that means. He’s the guy who approached Eddy, got him all set up. They met once, maybe twice, right at the beginning, but pretty much everything since then has been done direct with the mules, and never the same group twice. They mostly use those radios we found because Apache doesn’t believe they can be intercepted like cell phones.”
“Can they?” Chris asked. He wasn’t sure one way or the other. It was a question for Garrison, if he wanted to ask him.
Danny shrugged. “Not really my specialty. Apache told Eddy they were encrypted. We used encrypted radio comms in the military all the time, so if that’s the same thing, then he’s probably right.”
“What was Eddy’s cut?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars a trip. Or they gave him half-pound quantities of meth. Eddy said at first it was mainly marijuana bales, but then it was meth or coke or heroin.”
“How often?”
“Cada dos semanas,” Amé said, finally stepping into the conversation.
“Probably whatever she said.” Danny shrugged.
“Every two weeks?” Chris said, too loud. He’d given his grand speech to Garrison about not focusing on drug smuggling in the Big Bend, and he wasn’t naive about what that meant, but still . . . every two weeks? No wonder Garrison had questions about what the hell Chris and his deputies were doing.
“Yeah,” Danny said, “Take-Out’s been busy. But the most recent run last week didn’t go, no one reached out to him. Now we know why.”
“The men in the river,” Chris said.
“We showed him the pictures. He doesn’t recognize them,” Amé added. “But he didn’t always meet the same men. He swears he never saw anyone as young as the boy. I don’t know that I believe him . . .”
Danny picked up where she left off. “Eddy can give us shitty descriptions of the cars and trucks all day long, even the men driving them or wading across the river, but none of that gets us very far. Best we can do is keep the radios we recovered charged up and turned on, just in case someone does reach out for him. Or we try to force a face-to-face with Apache . . . I had Eddy walk me through every number in his cell phone, and I’ll follow up with a subpoena on all of them, but I’m not holding my breath. I figure Eddy’s got to have another phone or radio hidden away somewhere, but he swears he doesn’t.”
“Check with Charity. Get ahold of her phone, too,” Chris said, thinking out loud. “Maybe she was the real connect with Apache. Probably not, but worth a look.” Chris looked between his two deputies. “Where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us charging Eddy with the assault on me, or pulling together a decent historical case on all the dope he’s admitted to helping cross over. A dry conspiracy, but with his priors, still enough to put him away forever, if that’s what we want.”
“But I get the feeling we don’t want to do that?” Chris asked, uncertain. “I just had a difficult meeting with D.A. Moody, all but strong-arming him into charging Eddy with those bodies . . . if we could make the case.”
Amé and Danny looked at each other, but it was Danny who spoke first. “We had to pull it out of him, but in the end, Eddy didn’t lawyer up. He told us most of what he knows, and he did it without any sort of immunity agreement. What’s more, I actually believe him. Not everything, not every word of it, but I saw him run out of that cane. He was scared shitless. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a grade-A fuck-up, and if his girlfriend wants to press charges on the beating he gave her, he deserves to sit his ass in jail for that alone. But the rest of it? I’m not ready to put that on him.” Danny shrugged, let it drop.
“But those men aren’t dead if Eddy Rabbit isn’t involved. It’s his trailer, Danny. He was part of the scheme. Legally, that is the conspiracy,” Chris pressed.
“I know, but if it isn’t Eddy, it’s someone else. There’s always someone else, always another Eddy Rabbit,” Danny answered, echoing the same arguments Chris had made to both himself and Garrison. If he’d dealt with Eddy Rabbit earlier, those men in the river might not be dead, either. Chris always suspected what Eddy was up to—not everything, not every word—and could have made the case and locked him up two years ago. But Eddy had always been harmless, and Chris had wanted to believe he was doing better by him by leaving him alone.
Five dead men might think differently.
For the second time, Chris caught Danny looking over to Amé, as something passed between them they weren’t ready to share. They were having another conversation right now . . . an argument . . . that didn’t include him and didn’t have much to do with Eddy Rabbit, either.
“I told Amé that I was meeting with Joe Garrison last night. He said there are problems all along this part of the border right now, all linked to the attack on those students in Ojinaga. Our murders could be part of that. That doesn’t absolve Eddy, but . . .” That sure as hell doesn’t absolve me, either, Chris thought. He turned to Amé. “What do you think?”
“Sí, lo hago. There’s not much Eddy can do, or we can do.”
“It’d be nice if there was a homicide in this goddamn county we could actually solve,” Chris said, before immediately regretting it. It raised too many ghosts: not only the specter of Rodolfo Reynosa, but also Evelyn Ross, Sheriff Ross’s third wife. Chris had long suspected the sheriff had murdered her, but her body had never been found, and most people in Murfee still believed she’d simply run off, maybe with another man. Chris believed she’d been buried on some hunting property Ross had owned—El Dorado—although he’d gone up there several times to search alone and never found anything.
It was tough when you didn’t know exactly what to look for or have any idea what to do next. That was true now for Eddy Rabbit and the bodies in the river.
“What else did Garrison say?” Danny asked, followed by another of those looks at Amé.
“The usual cartel stuff,
how they’re all fighting each other over there. He also had some pointed questions about Chuy and Johnnie Machado and their Tejas unit in Terrell.”
“Johnnie Macho is a piece of shit. He’s like Eddy Rabbit with a badge, and probably not half as competent.”
“Not according to Garrison. To hear him tell it, that Tejas unit is one of the most effective counter-drug task forces in the whole state. He wants to know why we aren’t participating. Hell, he wants me to sign you up for it.”
“Are you?” Danny asked.
“No, we have enough to do here. Besides, he has some legitimate concerns on how that task force operates. I’ll let him figure that out on his own.”
Amé was looking down at her hands. “Did he say anything about Nemesio? Is Nemesio responsible for what’s happening in Ojinaga?”
Chris paused before answering, considering. She rarely, if ever, mentioned her brother’s former cartel by name, and never so directly.
“He believes the attack on those students in Ojinaga was either ordered by Nemesio or made to look like it was. It’s a power struggle between Nemesio and another cartel. Supposedly this Fox Uno, the leader of Nemesio, is at the center of it. We’re lucky enough to have our own front-row seats here in the Big Bend. Our five dead are likely just more nameless victims, and Eddy, a not-so-innocent bystander. Garrison thinks Fox Uno’s days are numbered.” Chris had stayed up for a while going through the folder Garrison had left him. It had been a tough, dispiriting read, and he’d learned more than he ever wanted to about Fox Uno. “He’s on the run or may already be dead.”
Amé stood up, leaning against the closed office door, as if she wanted to make sure none of the other deputies walked in. She looked again like that teenage girl Chris had first met wrapped in a hooded sweatshirt outside Mancha’s, her face hidden by sunglasses and cigarette smoke. Unsure, unsteady, but not necessarily afraid. “Agent Garrison is wrong,” she finally said.
“What do you mean?” Chris asked.
“Fox Uno isn’t dead, Sheriff,” Danny quickly added. “And he definitely isn’t in Ojinaga.”
“That’s because that man, my uncle, está aquí . . . in Murfee,” Amé finished.
Danny folded his arms, looking up at Amé with an expression Chris couldn’t read: worry, anger, relief. A tired mix of all three. This was what Danny had been waiting for since they’d walked in, the reason for all their shared glances. Danny knew. He’d known all along. He’d only been holding out for Amé to say it first.
“That’s why we had to talk to Eddy first thing this morning,” Danny admitted. “We needed to find out if he knew anything about Fox Uno, or could at least tie the man who showed up on Amé’s porch last night claiming to be him to the bodies we discovered. We don’t think so. Not now, not directly. My hunch is Eddy and Apache are actually working on behalf of this other cartel, these mysterious Indians he went on about. Eddy’s just too far down the totem pole to know.”
None of them smiled at Danny’s grim humor. “You’re both telling me Fox Uno’s here, now, in Murfee?” Chris asked, incredulous.
“He calls himself Juan Abrego,” Amé said.
Danny slumped in his seat. “Whoever the fuck he is, he didn’t come alone, and they’re both sitting in her apartment right now.”
SEVENTEEN
Juan Abrego watched Zita sleep on the girl America’s couch.
Su sobrina. His niece.
America—a name he did not like—had made sure Zita was comfortable before she’d left. She’d talked to her and helped her wash after days on the move. He had tried to imagine some resemblance in the two girls, something in their eyes or the way they moved; a turn of a head . . . some link between himself and them. Between himself and America. There was nothing, and it was foolish to think there would be. But America had treated Zita as her hermanita all the same. Smiling at her, saying over and over again, Tu eres muy, muy bonita . . . una princesa.
That had been a distraction, so Zita would not notice the other man, the one America had called Danny, holding a gun on them the whole time.
* * *
—
THEY TRIED TO KILL HIM IN MANUEL BENAVIDES, a place he knew better as San Carlos.
Shorty Lopez had once owned a great rancho there, La Hacienda Oriental, and Juan Abrego could still remember the parties, nights filled with the soft light of lanterns and torches, the smell of smoke and horses and perfume and mota. That was all gone now, like Shorty himself. After he and some others ambushed Shorty on the orders of La Vibora they’d taken to wearing pieces of Shorty’s broken skull on gold chains and had done so for many years. La Vibora had made the chains for them as a reminder not only of the high price of loyalty, true loyalty, but more important, the true cost of betrayal.
It was a lesson he had taken to heart.
* * *
—
JUAN ABREGO HAD BEEN IN THE SECOND VEHICLE, a van, with Gualterio in front and two more cars behind (all americano, stolen from this side of the river), when they ambushed him.
They came in a fleet of black SUVs, like a flock of cuervos, and he did not know if they were Los Hermanos Serrano, or Secretaría de Marina, or federales, or all three. They drove out of the shadows of an old barn, churning up dust as they came, and the first SUV’s windows were down so that Juan Abrego could see sunlight winking on and off the barrel of a gun—many guns—like pesos flipped end over end in the air. Those guns spat fire, and glass shattered and two of the tires blew out in the car behind him. It lifted up, up, and then rolled over and over along the packed earth of the road, throwing gravel and broken glass high into the air where it seemed to hang forever. The car behind tried to swerve away, but clipped the rear of the rolling car before it came to a stop, setting it spinning again like una tapa.
One of the other dark SUVs, and there were so many Juan Abrego lost count, pulled alongside the wrecked vehicle and men in even darker clothes got out and approached it in a crouch, leading with more gunfire. Someone tried to crawl out of the twisted metal and a line of bullets stitched his body, making him jerk and shake.
Juan Abrego grabbed Zita and pulled her close to him as heavy rounds punched into his van. Bulletproof plates had been welded onto the frame, making it heavy and slow, and his driver—a young man Juan Abrego did not know—fought the wheel and talked on a handheld radio at the same time. Over the screams of Luisa, who’d squeezed flat into the floorboards at his feet, Gualterio was calmly giving the remaining cars in their caravan instructions.
Over the open radio channel, there was the echo of more gunfire.
Metal on metal and men yelling.
The man in the front passenger seat of the van had foolishly rolled down the window, firing his AK-47 out of it, so that the spent shells—a sound like wooden castañuelas—clattered back into his lap and on the dashboard and all over Juan Abrego and Luisa and Zita. Juan Abrego reached out and pulled two of them out of Zita’s hair, still hot to the touch, and kissed her and told her it was okay. Then the man with the AK-47 was shot through the mouth and the temple, one right after the other—sudden, harsh sunlight appearing above his right eye—and he fell completely apart in the seat around them and sprayed them all with his hot, pumping sangre.
Crazy with fear, Luisa screamed louder, raised up, and tried to crawl out of the open window of the moving van, and a bullet caressed her throat. She reached for it, surprised, as her sangre spouted into her face and her eyes rolled back in her skull.
The driver tossed his radio aside, pushing the van to its limits. They’d left the road and were driving downward through scrub, through ocotillo and yucca. They were bouncing up and down, the whole world shuddering, and what Juan Abrego had thought were bullets punching the sides and belly of the van were instead harmless rocks, churned up by the spinning wheels.
The driver, his expensive sunglasses crooked on his head and his face red from the
sangre of the two fresh bodies in the car, called back to Juan Abrego.
“Padrino, I can buy you a few minutes, nothing more than that, so you and the girl can run, run . . .”
Juan Abrego had a small leather bag with him, the same bag he’d always carried for a moment like this. His son Martino had bought the bag for him in Los Angeles, or maybe San Diego. It was Gucci, expensive, and he rarely opened it. It had a few documents, a thick wad of both americano money and pesos, three cell phones, and a silver-plated Ruger. It would be easy enough to take the Ruger and shoot Zita and then himself, save them both from whatever horrors awaited them if they were caught alive . . .
Or he could run.
Zita huddled against him, crying. There was sangre in her hair, on the hands he held her tight with. His hands, again. He looked back to his driver, this man he did not know, who was no different from any of the men who’d surrounded him for years. Young, his thick mustache crimson. Sweat and blood plastering his wavy hair to his head. He truly looked like a little boy playing grown-up. He was scared. Shaking all over, but still he kept driving.
“What is your name?”
The driver did not turn, staring instead through the dust and sunlight that rose in front of them like a wall. “I am Abrahán Sierra. My family, my wife and my own daughter, are in Parral. Remember them, please, and this thing I do now.”
“I knew a Sierra once, long ago. I knew many men.”
“Please, padrino, they live in Parral. Parral.” He spat at the shattered windshield, adding, “Here . . . I can stop for a moment here . . . but no more than that.” He waved with a shaking hand. “This is a low place, sheltered. Follow the arroyo and they may not see you. I’ll drive back toward them, try to lead them away.”
Juan Abrego pulled Zita toward him, too roughly, and told her to get ready. “I will remember them, Abrahán. Parral. Your wife and daughter. La familia Sierra.”
This Side of Night Page 14
