And it was Eddie who foiled that kidnapping, chasing the bad guys back into the house. Eddie saved Rosalia--and probably Betty, Abigail and me.
And no, it wasn’t me who found her; it was the FBI, various cops and one Marine. Will was with me, dragging me out the front door and back to safety with Abigail and my unpaid apprentices, Gerry and Hannah.
Rosalia is in an ICU ward somewhere down in Chula Vista now. She’ll survive, but she’s terribly damaged, like Betty and Buddy.
Matt continued to catch me up on Harks’ call.
As I said, the Deacon has amazing connections, which allowed Matt and I to know more about what was going on than we could have otherwise. Really amazing.
The Deacon’s connections told Matt that about a hundred yards below the Mexican border the son of Antipapa, ContraCristo, had already been found eyeless, earless and noseless. And without hands and most of his teeth. Next to him was a similarly mutilated corpse, another Hidalgo gang member, who remains nameless as well as almost faceless.
I wondered aloud how they identified ContraCristo.
“Harks said he was wearing an upside down cross around his neck—that matched one around the father’s neck.”
I knew this to be the work of Eddie. Earier, when I was sitting in St. Peters Church, it occurred to me that I needed to say a prayer for Eddie’s soul. I just didn’t quite know how to word that prayer. I just didn’t know what I thought about this man, who could shoot so well and torture so well, all in the name of justice. Or vengeance. Or personal rage.
Back with Matt, though, I only said, “I pray the world never hears about ContraCristo’s death.”
“So did the authorities in Tijuana. They’re so terrified of the reign of violence that Antipapa would unleash against their population that they’ve buried the two in a pauper’s cemetery outside Tijuana. Harks says there’s no way of knowing who mutilated the two Hidalgos, Eddie or the Tijuana cops.” Matt.
Again, we made eye contact.
“Unless the fool police chief has kept the cross as a souvenir.” He grinned that Irish grin I love so much. I was thinking some rum must have found its way into his Coke.
“Anyway, a spokes-hole for the Feds has leaked that ContraCristo is still hiding somewhere in the US. Probably to keep his Papa searching. We think they’re just helping out another terrified border town by floating this rumor.”
Matt also told me that these same “leaks” had contained the information that the reason the authorities moved on the house when they did was that a white truck was spotted approaching the west side of the little house, and they believed it was the key get-away car.
Some of this he’d picked up from Harks, some of it he’d heard on television as I was sitting on a pew.
Which returned me to another question that had jigged around my mind: what might happen to me, Hannah and Gerry, because we rushed pell-mell down Snakebite Hill into the jaws of terror to help rescue the girls? My guess was nothing, based on what transpired in the final moments after the rescue.
Learner took custody of me, Gerry and Hannah and led us off to his vehicle in the mass confusion of all those rescuers. We were later quietly transferred into Matt’s truck and driven up to Gerry’s car.
You get the picture. We were spirited away before our names became known and our pictures were taken.
So probably nothing would happen to us.
Matt’s final comments on the recent events, before slipping back to sleep, was that when he and Learner worked out the “a dress” Nana had given them, Learner was using an iPad.
“An iPad, for crying out loud. A cop. You can’t believe what you can do with an iPad, Rache, in the friken middle of nowhere.”
He was green. I almost reminded him Christmas was coming. But he knew that.
While he was dropping hints about Christmas presents, he slipped in his burning question.
“So, did you fire your gun today?”
I decided simple was best and answered, “No.”
Again, our eyes locked, his slightly glazed. We both pondered the fact that Eddie had been the one doing all the shooting this morning.
Or was he still letting me know he was pissed because I’d gotten in the middle of things?
But Christmas was coming and presents can make lots of things better. The great American act of penance.
To the music of Matt’s light snoring, I rose to join Wisdom on the back deck, wrapping a sweater around me against the Southern California November chill. The sun had set and still we could hear the gnus stampeding through the wild animal park. Wisdom was thinking about what it would be like to run with them.
I thought about my dogs.
Our first dog had been Joy. She was the shepherd of our twenties and early thirties. Our second was Prophet. Prophet had guided us through the rest of our thirties and well into our forties. Matt liked to spell the name Profit with an f.
And then had come Wisdom, who lingered with us now, not wanting to give up his little bit of spirit to the winds just yet.
We’d discussed it--out of earshot of Wisdom of course--and decided our next shepherd, since he or she would take us into our sixties, we would name Comfort.
A quilt can be called a comforter. The Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as The Comforter. It fit for me.
And maybe after that one, Path.
As I pondered the evil I had rubbed shoulders with recently I wondered what Ruth’s take was on all this. Last month she’d left me with the message to “Love them all, anyway.”
A few minutes later, I heard the phone ring in the house and I turned to go answer it. Matt beat me to it, tossing over his shoulder as he entered the kitchen to get the phone, “Take a listen to this news.”
It was CNN again.
“For those of you just joining us, fourteen-year-old Mary Kaye Barnacle has sent her parents a text message. I’m going to read it again now and if any of you have any information about this, please let the authorities know. Mary Kaye’s text says, “Mom, dad, i’ve been kidnapped. i think they’re taking me to mex. i keep telling them my name isn’t abigail….”
My heart skipped a beat. Another girl was in trouble. And in the throes of fear again, Matt finally handed me the phone.
“Here, this is for you. I think its Hannah but she’s not making any sense.” I noted the sarcasm in his voice. He was still feeling conflicted about my new girlfriends.
I carried the phone back out to the deck.
“Hi Hannah, have you been watching…?”
“Rachel! My mom! She’s awake! Rachel. Ruth is back!”
“What..?”
“She’s come up from the medically induced coma. She’s all there, talking with the kids, asking for coffee.”
I heard Ruth’s scratchy voice call out in the background. “Tell her…,”
I couldn’t make out the rest.
“Hannah..?” Me.
Her kids were laughing and screaming so much in the background I couldn’t tell what was happening.
“Wait. What mom? Oh, yeah. She wants me to tell you ‘Sometimes you have to use tough love,’ or something like that.”
Tough love?
Then I heard Ruth call toward the phone as clear as day. “Like a gun! Use a gun on them. And you need to clear your thoughts. I can’t get through to you.”
The phone went dead. At first I thought Hannah had hung up, but then I saw that my cell phone had run out of juice.
I smiled. Ruth was back, and so was all her unbelievable magic. Of course, none of us admitted to any of this. Not openly.
And, of course the gnus weren’t really stampeding. They were just kicking up their heels.
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Ripping Abigail, a Quilted Mystery novel Page 34
