Road to Justice

by Glenn Trust

  “Why did he beat this man?”

  “Because he found him shooting at a family trying to cross the Rio Grande. The man shot one of them, and your John Sole stopped him from shooting any others.”

  “Sole did this?”

  “He did not use that name. He called himself Bill Myers, but he is the man in the picture. The one who killed your man Bernardo in Monterrey.”

  “And you say he helped the Mexicans?”

  “Yes. Yes, he did.” Lopez’s head bobbed up and down for emphasis.

  Garza considered this for a moment. He filed the information away for further reflection later and continued his questioning. “If he shot one of Krieg and Zabala’s men, why did they hire him to ride the trucks?”

  “I am told that Krieg respected his firmness, that he was a man willing to take action when needed. Krieg told the others they needed more men like him. At least that is what they told me. It was a topic of much discussion among the other men.”

  Lopez shook his head as if trying to decipher a puzzle. “Krieg is a strange man, a dangerous one. There were times when I feared he might shoot me even though I made money for him. I tell you he is crazy.”

  “Why should I believe you have any knowledge of Sole’s location?”

  Garza wondered if Lopez might actually have some insight into where Sole was hiding. The account of Krieg hiring the man who beat his employee would be unbelievable ordinarily, but Lopez was shaking too much to dare fabricate a false story.

  “Because this morning, when we loaded the trucks with the K and Z men, one of the leaders, a man called Pearce, was annoyed that he was a man short. He said that Bill Myers failed to show up and was probably sleeping with one of the whores in Creosote.”

  “Creosote?”

  “Yes.” Lopez nodded. “Just a small town, a collection of shacks really. They say Sole was staying there. If he was not on the trucks today and not killed with the others, he must still be there.” He feigned a confident, knowing leer. “Sleeping with a whore like Pearce said.”

  Lopez looked at Garza, hoping that he saw the logic of his reasoning.

  “Or, he may not have been on the trucks because he is gone, disappeared,” Garza said.

  The look of hope faded in Pepe’s eyes.

  “Still,” Garza conceded. “We must make an attempt to verify what you have told us.”

  They spent a half four planning how to find and capture the gringo if he remained in the place called Creosote. Garza left no doubt that if he was not there, Lopez’s usefulness to them would come to an end.

  The planning ended. A bodyguard escorted him to the door, and Lopez walked down the hallway, conscious of the man’s eyes on his back. He rang for the elevator, stepped on and sagged against the back wall. He didn’t bother looking into the security camera.

  In the lobby, he nearly ran to the restroom, loosening his pants as he scurried into a toilet stall to empty his loose bowels. He lowered his head into his hands as he squatted on the toilet.

  “It is not fair,” he muttered.

  Pepe Lopez offered another silent prayer, the fourth of the day, and the most fervent.

  Please Dear God, I beg of you, make sure the motherfucking gringo is there so we can kill him for this man who makes me want to shit my pants! In the name of the Holy Mother, I beg this one small favor of you. In return, I promise I will go to confession and confess my many sins to a priest.

  Pepe stopped short of promising the Almighty that he would make an effort to cease his sinning. After all, he was only human.

  He looked up at heaven, which he imagined being somewhere just above the restroom ceiling and bemoaned his fate.

  “This is all very unfair.”

  76.

  Suicide

  The night Claude Brainerd committed suicide, most everyone in Salvia County was sleeping, including Brainerd. Like most of the people in the county, he lived in one of the outlying rural communities away from the county seat.

  No one noticed the man in dark clothes park his pickup in a wash between two nearby hills. He moved silently in the dark through the brush until he came to the rear of Brainerd’s house. He wore gloves and, in his pocket, carried a screwdriver, a small pry bar, and a pocketknife. He only needed the knife.

  There were no deadbolts on the doors. Sliding the knife blade along the strike plate, he inserted the tip just enough to pry back the spring bolt. The door opened soundlessly. He smiled. You had to love country folk.

  The intruder slipped his boots off on the back porch and moved silently into the small frame house in his socks. Sounds of snores came from a bedroom in the back.

  He moved cautiously, a step at a time, careful not to cause the floorboards to creak. It wouldn’t have mattered. He crept into the bedroom and found Brainerd profoundly asleep, unaware of anything, dead to the world. The man paused to consider the irony.

  His plan required a weapon that belonged to the deputy, and he had come prepared to force the issue. That turned out to be unnecessary.

  Most people secure their firearms, or at least hide them away in a closet or nightstand drawer. Not so with Brainerd.

  The enormous Sam Brown belt that he strapped around his bulk every day hung over a chair in the bedroom. His service weapon, a Taurus 24/7, sat snuggly in the holster.

  It was an unusual choice of weapon for a law enforcement officer. The Brazilian manufacturer made pistols priced on the lower end of the market, which was probably the reason Brainerd selected it.

  Sole took the pistol from the holster and examined it. At least Brainerd kept it clean. Pulling the slide back, he checked for a round in the chamber. There was.

  Brainerd slept through it all. The man stood for a moment, watching him and feeling a little guilty about what was going to happen, but not much.

  The deputy had been involved with Krieg in a business that kidnapped young women and girls, imprisoned them, raped them, and sold them into sexual slavery. He was the worst kind of cop. Justice was coming tonight, and Brainerd’s mouth would be closed permanently.

  The man tapped the sleeping deputy’s foot with the barrel of the Taurus. Brainerd grumbled, snorted, and continued sleeping.

  He lifted the gun high and slammed it down on his big toe. Brainerd jerked up in the bed and grabbed his foot, letting out a stream of profanity.

  “Goddamn, son of a bitch, motherfucker!”

  He rubbed his foot for a second, still groggy, trying to comprehend what had happened. Lifting his eyes, he became aware of the man in the room with him and of the pistol in his hand—his pistol—pointed at his face.

  “What the fuck … you’re…”

  “Sit up.”

  “What?” Brainerd shook his head, trying to get his brain around what was happening to him in his own bedroom.

  “Sit up straight in the bed. Put your back against the headboard. Do it.”

  The man holding his pistol advanced toward him. Brainerd complied and sat up, leaning back against the headboard.

  “You’re right-handed?” the man asked.

  He already knew the answer from the side the holster was positioned on the Sam Brown belt, but he was a careful man. Details were important.

  “Right-handed? Yeah, I’m right-handed. Now you get the fuck out of my house!”

  There were no other details to confirm. The man stepped quickly to Brainerd’s right side, placed the pistol an inch from his skull, and pulled the trigger. The deputy finally understood what was about to happen. At the last moment, he started to move, but the man was quicker.

  The gunshot reverberated through the small house. Outside it was a dull popping thump. A hundred yards away, it was barely discernible among the night sounds of chirring insects and distant coyotes. If any of the neighbors heard it, they did not feel motivated to leave their beds and investigate.

  Claude Brainerd slumped, blood pouring from the holes in his head, entry and exit wounds. The man took the pistol and wrapped Brainerd’s dead hand aro
und the grip to make sure his prints would be clearly identifiable.

  Then he stepped to the side, lifted Brainerd’s arm to shoulder height, and let it drop. The gun fell out of the dead man’s hand, striking the floor hard. Taurus pistols had a reputation for discharging unexpectedly from impacts, but this one did not.

  The man left the same way he had come in and made his way across the back fields behind the cluster of houses. Five minutes later, he pulled his truck back on the county road.

  When Sandy and Jacinta revealed that Brainerd had found them and taken them to Krieg, Sole recognized immediately that the deputy presented the greatest threat to their plans. Isabella suggested that he was worrying too much because Brainerd would be condemning himself if he told what he knew.

  Sole nodded and did not argue. He didn’t want to worry Isabella, but he knew that, while Brainerd might remain silent because of his involvement with Krieg, it was only a matter of time before Sheriff Dermott put some of the links together, and Claude Brainerd was the weakest link of all. He would snap like a twig under any investigative pressure.

  The clock on the nightstand showed three in the morning when Sole climbed back in bed with Isabella. She put an arm over him, rested her head against his chest, and held him close. She did not ask where he had been.

  77.

  Damnedest Thing

  The days passed in relative quiet. The news of Tom Krieg’s death buzzed through Creosote, raising all manner of speculation among the locals. Theories about the killer’s motives were plentiful. The lord of Salvia County had no lack of enemies and, despite the deference shown from those intimidated by his bullying, few friends.

  Isabella served beers at the café while the cowboys and locals tossed their theories back and forth. John Sole, whom the locals simply called Bill, spent most of his time with Isabella helping in the kitchen and working the bar with her.

  He became an accepted member of the community. They walked side by side from Isabella’s house to the café each day, talking and holding hands. The citizens of Creosote sat on their stoops and smiled as they passed. It was good that Isabella didn’t spend her days alone anymore, they said among themselves, and this Bill Myers seems like a good enough sort.

  A sort of domestic tranquility settled over Sole and Isabella. He reminded himself he would leave one day. The need to complete his mission still nagged at him like a sore tooth, but the longer he stayed with Isabella, the less he felt the nagging. An uncomfortable thought crept into his mind. Maybe he should let it go.

  Shaye’s dead voice whispered to him in the quiet hours of the night as he lay beside Isabella, that he should let it go. Move on, be happy, find peace, she whispered. He had done enough. There was nothing else to do. Lying beside Isabella, he was almost persuaded.

  His life became entwined with hers, and he kept putting off his departure. Next week would be soon enough to do what he had to do, he thought. Or, maybe even the week after. For now, he soaked up the time with Isabella, spending every possible minute with her.

  “We have company.” Isabella peered through the café’s dusty window at the pickup, pulling up out front.

  Sole was in the kitchen washing dishes. They had a working arrangement. She did the cooking, something she was an expert at. He did the cleaning, something he was learning to do to her standards.

  He came through the door, wiping his hands on a towel. Outside, Sheriff Paul Dermott exited the pickup, stretched, gave a glance up and down the street, and headed for the door. He pulled it open, a look of concern replacing the customary smile for his constituents.

  “Isabella,” Dermott said, giving her a greeting nod. “And …”

  “Myers,” Sole said with a smile. “Bill Myers.”

  “Right.” Dermott nodded. “Myers, the new man in town I heard about.”

  “Not so new now,” Isabella chimed in, doing her best to smile. “Bill’s been helping me out for a while.”

  “That’s good.” Dermott gave Sole the usual law enforcement scrutiny, alert for something out of place, a nervous tic, eyes that wouldn’t meet his, Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down in his throat from nervous swallowing.

  There was nothing. Bill Myers apparently had no secrets to hide. Dermott turned his attention to Isabella.

  “Need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Alright. Can I get you something? Some lunch? Coffee?”

  Dermott stood by the counter without taking a seat. He hadn’t come for lunch.

  “Coffee would be good. Thanks.”

  She turned away to pour the coffee and hoped he didn’t see her hand shake. Sole reached for it when the cup was full and placed it on the counter in front of the sheriff.

  Dermott focused on the coffee and lifted the cup. “You always make a fine cup of coffee, Isabella.”

  “Thanks, Paul. You should come around more. We don’t see you in Creosote much.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I stay pretty busy, county business, constituents, that sort of thing. It all ties up my time.” He sipped the coffee and looked her in the eyes. “Something else has been tying up my time.”

  Here it comes. John had warned her that one day they would ask questions. Today was the day. The key, he emphasized, was to tell the truth, except for any truth that would come back to bite them in the ass. Remain calm and answer the questions—to a point, at least.

  “What’s tying up your time, Paul?” Isabella asked.

  “This damned Krieg murder.” He shook his head. “It’s a puzzler.”

  “Really? I figured you’d have things wrapped up pretty quick. Krieg had a way of pissing people off.”

  “Yes, he did.” Dermott laughed. “But so far, I haven’t been able to figure out which one got so pissed off they put three slugs in his brain.”

  Isabella’s face paled. She never saw the body before they rushed from the barn the day they rescued Sandy and Jacinta.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you.” Dermott was sincere. He added, nonchalantly, “Haven’t seen Sandy around in a while.”

  “He’s on his great adventure.” Isabella smiled and leaned on the counter as if excited to share her son’s exploits with the sheriff. “I told him the time had come for him to go off and see some of the world.”

  “Want to get him out of Creosote, huh?”

  “Not really. Just wanted him to realize there’s more to this world than this old town.”

  “For sure,” Dermott said with a nod. “How about you, Bill Myers? You strike me as a man who has seen a good bit of the world.”

  “I have.” Sole nodded, his eyes on Dermott’s. “That a problem?”

  “Nope. Not at all.” Dermott shook his head. “Just commenting. You know how it is. A new man in town. Prominent citizen gets murdered. Makes a person wonder.”

  “Wonder if I did away with Krieg?”

  “Something like that. It’s not unheard of,” Dermott said, smiling pleasantly and added, “You worked for him, didn’t you?”

  “Briefly.” Sole nodded.

  “What sort of work?”

  “Relief driver on one of his trucks. Picked up tomatoes down below Monterrey … sometimes avocados.”

  “Anything ever happen on those trips?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. Usually took most of the day. Got home late.”

  “You hear about what happened to their trucks down in Mexico … the ambush?”

  “I did.”

  The news of the K and Z trucks ambushed by hijackers in a mountain valley and the resulting bloodbath had spread like wildfire through Salvia County.

  “But you weren’t there?”

  “Nope. I was here.”

  “You quit your job?”

  “I did.”

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  “Don’t mind at all. Krieg was an asshole.”

  “Can’t argue with you there,” Dermott said, laughing good-naturedly. “But here’s what I find interesting. Krieg’s murder took
place on the same day as the ambush, when you were here and not out on the trucks. That’s curious.” His brow wrinkled as if trying to decipher a riddle. “Don’t you think that’s curious?”

  “It is odd.” Sole nodded. “I’ll give you that. Guess I’m just lucky.”

  Sole was familiar with this game, had played it many times himself. He decided it was time to stop playing games. The longer the back and forth went on the greater the chance they would say something to open a hole in their story, and Sole had no doubt the smiling sheriff would pounce on it if they gave him a chance.

  “Now, I’ll ask you a question, Sheriff,” Sole said.

  “Shoot.” Dermott put the coffee cup down calmly and returned his gaze.

  “Am I a suspect in the murder of Tom Krieg?”

  “No,” Dermott said honestly. “Not now, at least.”

  “Not ever,” Isabella interjected. “Bill spent the day here with me … all day. He did not leave.”

  “Well, I guess that answers that,” Dermott said. He looked at Sole. “You have my apology, Mr. Myers.”

  “No need,” Sole said. “Doing your job. I get it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” Dermott scratched his head. “Not too good it seems. Thing is there’s some other murders I can’t explain. Lucky Martin, Emmett Brewer and now old Sherm Westerfield.” He looked at Sole, his eyes narrowed. “Now who would want to kill old Sherm? Most harmless fella I ever knew.”

  “That’s a good question.” Sole nodded. “He was my friend.”

  “How about Lucky Martin? Was he your friend?”

  “Nope.” Sole shook his head. “Only met him once, and far as I could tell he was an asshole like his boss.”

  Dermott laughed. “You damn sure got that right. Biggest asshole in the county.” He shook his head. “Then there’s Claude Brainerd.”