Abaddon's Locusts

by Don Travis

  When he ran down, Betsy reached over and covered his hands on the table with her own. “I am so sorry you went through a nightmare like that. But you seem amazingly well recovered from the ordeal. Especially the cocaine.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I had help from some Navajo healers. They put me on a diet.”

  “Good. Do you still crave the drug?”

  “Something fierce, sometimes. But I just drink some green tea or eat a beet or something until I can handle it.”

  “Then you are already on the proper diet, but you need counseling. Bishop Gregory can help us there.” Her pleasing, powdered countenance creased in a frown. “This Silver Wings. Do you know who he is?”

  “Yes, ma’am. His name’s Haldemain.”

  Betsy gasped and clutched Jazz’s hands so tightly he looked as if he wanted to wince. “Haldemain? Our Haldemain? I can’t believe it. Which one?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve seen photos of both, but I can’t pick him out. If I saw him in person and heard his voice, I’d know.”

  “They… they do look a lot alike. But the eyes. What color eyes did he have?”

  Jazz looked confused. “Black, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Sometimes they were greenish brown. Hazel, I guess you’d call them.”

  She went paler than her powdered cheeks. “Both of them?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. It was the same man all the time. That much I know for sure.”

  “How?”

  Jazz flushed. “Uh… I’ve seen…. Uh, I know it was the same man.”

  Betsy reddened. “Oh, I see.”

  “No, ma’am, but I did.”

  Paul stifled a nervous laugh.

  I stepped into the awkward moment. “We think he wore contact lenses to confuse the issue. Even though he obviously didn’t intend for Jazz to survive.”

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “The plane ride, Betsy. Did either of the brothers have an Asian houseboy named Kim?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know much about the Haldemains’ domestic situation. We’re good friends at the office but don’t socialize. After they lost their wives, that is.”

  “Which one of them is a pilot?”

  “They both are.”

  “I believe you told us Roscoe was divorced, but William lost his wife to a car accident. When was that?”

  “About five years ago. In 2005, I believe.”

  Gene took over the questioning, and Betsy grew more guarded. Gene found out little, in fact, nothing that we did not already know. The brothers lived on the west side just off Coors NW in houses about a mile apart. Betsy had been a guest in both places, although not recently, but recalled nothing that helped us. Both homes had large backyards with pools. She did not recall a bungalow at the far end of either lawn.

  When Gene finished, I dropped another bombshell in her lap. “Jazz also identified another individual who attended the pool parties Silver Wings held.” I slid a photo across the table.

  “Lieutenant Bolton?” she exclaimed. “Oh my Lord! Jazz, was there ever a black pastor at these parties?”

  Jazz shook his head. “No. No black men.”

  Her sigh of relief was audible. Then she straightened her back. “I’m finding it difficult to accept what you’re saying. The Haldemains are upstanding citizens and decent men. And Lieutenant Bolton? No, I simply cannot accept this. You’ve provided no proof of any sort. Just this man’s word.” She clutched Jazz’s hands again. “And after the ordeal he’s suffered, it’s no wonder he’s confused.”

  I raised my hands palm up across the table. “And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the crux of our problem. Credibility.”

  LATER THAT afternoon, Jazz and I slipped into a district courtroom where Roscoe Haldemain was defending a case. We both wore shades but otherwise made no attempt to disguise ourselves. Jazz tensed as he gazed at the man addressing the court.

  “That’s him!” he said. “Well, maybe,” he whispered in a lower tone. “Something about the voice. Close, but… but….”

  I leaned over to him. “We have to be certain, Jazz. We’re about to ruin a man’s life. Let’s sit and watch and listen awhile.”

  I could feel the tension building in Jazz. He dry-washed his hands and jiggled his right knee. He licked his lips. It was easy to see the need for a crack pipe rising inside him. Betsy and Mrs. W. were right. The detoxing diet was helping, but he needed counseling. Nonetheless, we sat at the back of the spectators watching the trial of two men accused of home invasion, unlawful restraint, and assault. Apparently the prosecution was finished with its case, because Roscoe Haldemain called witnesses and put them through the paces. When the judge announced a recess for the day, we remained where we were until Roscoe finished talking to his clients and walked down the aisle past us. His attention was diverted by his second-chair lawyer, so he passed without taking notice of me.

  Jazz followed close on my heels as I trailed after the two men. They halted for a final word before parting. Just as I opened my mouth to call him, Haldemain’s brother appeared at his side and detained him with a hand on his arm.

  Jazz’s arm shot out. “That’s him! That’s Silver Wings.”

  I gripped his shoulder as he started forward, but the damage was done. William glanced up at the sound of Jazz’s voice. He kept a practiced, passive attorney’s look on his face, but the eyes flickered as he took a second look at Jazz. This was Silver Wings.

  “BJ,” William Haldemain called. “What are you doing here? Testifying on a case?”

  “No, not today.”

  “Who’s your friend?” he continued, holding out a hand.

  Jazz ignored the offer to shake, but his hands balled into fists.

  “This is a friend of mine who’s been missing for a few months,” I said. “Thankfully, we’ve found him.”

  “Excellent.” He turned back to his brother.

  “You bastard!” Jazz snarled. “You tried to kill me!”

  I tried to rein him in. This was neither the time nor place for a confrontation, especially if Jazz became physical. “Take it easy.”

  He shrugged me off. “You did kill Kim. Almost got me too.”

  “Kim?” Roscoe said. “You’re speaking of Kim Liu? Why he returned home to Taipei a month ago. Isn’t that right, William?” Nobody called William Haldemain Bill, not even his brother.

  “Precisely. I don’t know what your problem is, but you’ve obviously confused me with someone else. And if you repeat such nonsense again, you’ll find yourself back in this building… this time as a defendant in a slander case.”

  “I think you should know, Haldemain, that park rangers are searching right now for Kim’s body,” I bluffed.

  “BJ, you’re wasting your money. The malpais is a very big area to search for a body. But if you find one, and it proves to be Kim, please let me know. I’ll send condolences to his family in Taiwan.”

  With that, the brothers walked away.

  “You’re just gonna let him go?” Jazz demanded.

  “For the moment. But William Haldemain, Esquire, just made a big mistake, and I’ve got it recorded right here.” I patted the digital recorder on my belt. I’d thumbed it on when we walked over to the Haldemains.

  “How’s that?” Jazz asked.

  “Neither one of us mentioned the El Malpais National Monument, but that’s where he assumed we’d be looking because he knows that’s where he dumped Kim out of the plane.”

  “Great! Then we got him.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. The monument covers something just under 200 square miles. And the drop site might not be in the national monument, just somewhere in the vicinity.”

  “Crap!”

  “But right now we’ve got other things to worry about. We’ve tipped our hand. Now we have to make sure you’re safe.”

  “I can handle that punk!” A snarl tinged Jazz’s voice.

  “Right. But it won’t be him coming for you. And if it is, yo
u won’t see him until it’s too late.”

  Chapter 34

  THE NEXT morning, which happened to be a Saturday, folks all up and down Post Oak Drive NW were atwitter at the police car parked in front of number 5229. Gene insisted on posting a twenty-four-hour guard on my house… even though Jazz was secretly stashed across the street with Mrs. Wardlow. That was okay; the cop was handy to either place, should he be needed. I knew how boring such duty could be, so the officer, a sandy-haired fellow named Pedington, spent a lot of his time inside the house in front of the TV or talking by cell phone with his wife or playing chess with Paul.

  Betsy Brockmire phoned me at ten, sounding worried.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I-I couldn’t believe what you told me yesterday, so I came back to the office and began looking through records. Only my office girl and I were here, so I didn’t raise any alarm bells,” she hastened to add. “But I found something disturbing.”

  She was obviously having trouble facing this thing and needed prompting. “Yes?”

  “Dozens of young people, mostly children, go through the council. I keep good records, so I can tell you what happened to most of them… until they leave the bishop’s program, of course. But… but….”

  “Spit it out, Betsy.”

  “I find that three of them seemed to have disappeared before they made it to the church. Mind you, these are unstable people who are not terribly reliable.”

  “That said, you’ve found something that bothers you. Tell me about it. What about these three cases caught your attention?”

  “They… they were all boys. Sixteen to eighteen years. The overwhelming majority of the victims we deal with are female, so….”

  “These stick out like sore thumbs.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Were they reported to the police?”

  “No. So many of them change their minds after they’re rescued and just want to go home. Unless there’s a reason, we don’t contact the authorities.”

  “Do you have names and descriptions?”

  “I have better than that. I have photographs.”

  “Fax them over to me. Any files you have, as well.”

  “I… don’t… know.”

  “Betsy, you’ve come this far with me. Now it’s time to come the rest of the way. You’re worried about these boys. So let’s find them.”

  She cleared the line, and a few minutes later, a sheaf of papers began chugging through my fax machine providing information on the missing boys. I re-sent the papers to Charlie’s fax at home before calling him and asking him and Hazel to see if they could trace the three. Sometimes my conscience bothered me when I handed out assignments on weekends, but not this time. These youngsters might be in danger, and we needed to locate them. Charlie readily agreed.

  After that, I sat in my home office and thought for a minute as an idea slowly built. I picked up the phone and called Mrs. W., asking her to sweep off the sidewalk or something and hail me when I went out to the car. Until we knew more, it was best to continue the charade that Jazz was inside my house under guard. A minute later I slammed a baseball cap on my head, stuffed my copy of the papers in a case, and went out to the car. Today it was parked behind Paul’s Charger, so I was at the end of the driveway where Mrs. W.’s thin treble caught my attention. We met in the middle of the street.

  We exchanged greetings, and she tittered when I mentioned the effect on our neighbors of a cop car staking out my house. “That’ll give the busybodies something to talk about until Christmas,” she noted.

  “Invite me in for a cup of coffee or something. I want to show Jazz some photos.”

  Two minutes later we walked into her kitchen where Jazz was repairing a frayed cord on her toaster. He brightened when he saw me.

  “Anything new?”

  “Maybe. I want you to look at some pictures and tell me if you’ve ever seen any of these boys before.”

  I spread photos of three good-looking but haggard youths on the table. Jazz looked at each in turn, shaking his head until he reached the third. He did a double take. “Damn, I know this guy, but he sure looks different now.”

  I took the photo from his hand. It was labeled James Guess of Ardmore, Oklahoma. “Different how?”

  “Skinny. He looks buffed in that picture, but last time I saw him, he was lots skinnier.”

  “The drug,” Mrs. W. said. “That’s what long-term use does to you, Jazz.”

  “Damn!” Jazz repeated.

  “How do you know him? Where did you see him last?” I asked.

  “He was at some of Silver Wings’… uh, Haldemain’s pool parties. They called him Jamie, and he came with a guy they called Sam.”

  “Ever hear a last name?”

  “No. They always used phony names around me. But I got a feeling this kid was permanently attached to the guy. And I figured Sam was in construction. The others were always asking him questions about how to build this or repair that. Once he offered to have his construction foreman come around and look at someone’s house. That was the doc, I think.”

  “Doctor? Of what?”

  Jazz shrugged. “Dunno. They just called him Doc.”

  “Was Jamie coerced?”

  “Didn’t seem to be. He hung all over Sam like he was a lap dog or something.” Jazz flushed suddenly. Likely wondering if he appeared the same way to Jamie. Not if I knew Jazz.

  I departed, leaving Mrs. W. to pull Jazz out of the funk I’d dumped him into. Before I was halfway to the office where I had better databases to conduct searches, Mrs. W. phoned to say Jazz remembered some talk about Sam being the guy who built the bungalow at the end of the backyard where Jazz stayed. By the time I walked through the door to my office—discovering Hazel and Charlie already there and hard at work—the task I’d given myself had changed.

  There were literally hundreds of small construction and repair shops in Albuquerque, but I decided to start big. An hour later I was ready to call Paul and ask him to have Officer Pedington bring him and Jazz to the office, cautioning him to go through back alleys to pick up Jazz without being seen.

  Thirty minutes later the patrol cop ushered Paul and Jazz into the office. I called them all into the conference room to an array of photos on the table.

  “Jazz, see if you can identify this Sam fellow. Haldemain is a powerhouse lawyer, and it stands to reason his associates will be, as well. I’ve identified the city’s most prominent commercial, apartment, and residential homebuilders and found pictures of most of them. Some are fuzzy newspaper shots, but others are advertising brochures and program advertisements. Take your time and go through them. See if you can identify Sam.”

  Jazz lifted his ever-present thermos and took a quick gulp of green tea before nodding. I left Jazz and Paul and the officer shuffling through the information while I returned to the computer to start looking for James Guess of Ardmore, Oklahoma.

  I’d located what I believed to be his parent’s house and telephone number by the time Hazel and Charlie reported they’d contacted the other two missing boys’ relatives. No sign of either of them. But we managed to find one of the missing youngsters before Jazz was finished with his search. Charlie faxed photos of the missing youths to a friend in the medical examiner’s office on the off-chance one or both met a bad end. His hunch paid off. Brian Jones, a drug overdose case, lay in the morgue labeled John Doe. Charlie’s friend didn’t have the details at home but promised to check the record Monday morning to see if there was anything suspicious about the death.

  I’d just digested that tragic news when Jazz rushed into my office waving a slick sales brochure. Paul and Pedington were hard on his heels.

  “I found him, BJ! I found him.”

  Sam turned out to be Willard Dean Metz, one of the largest custom-home contractors in the state. His Metz Homes, Inc. built subdivisions in Albuquerque, Belen, Rio Rancho, and Santa Fe, turning Dean into a millionaire many times over. I knew him casually as a
married man who gave off sparks letting insiders know he was available for any kind of action. He was one of those macho guys who paraded his wife around on his arm while casting a predatory eye on anything that walked upright.

  Charlie and I got on the phone to contacts and soon came back with the identical interesting tidbit. Dean Metz had a nephew living in a small guesthouse on the grounds of his mansion. Someone variously identified as James or Jamie. Bingo!

  Charlie called Tim Fuller, one of the retired cops who helped us out now and again, to start sitting on the Metz home to keep an eye out for Jamie Guess. We generally called on Tim for these kinds of stakeouts because he was divorced, whereas Alan Mendoza, our other fallback help, was married.

  I WENT to bed satisfied we’d made a little progress today. With any luck Tim would get a line on this “nephew” living at Metz’s house. He’d turn out to be Jamie Guess, more than likely. Apparently Paul was gaining some confidence as well, because he and Pedro wanted to prowl. And whenever they were on the prowl, I ended up exhausted… happy but exhausted.

  Paul had just snapped off the table lamp after a cat’s lick—a quick wash—when I sat up. “What was that?”

  “Dunno.” He frowned. “A boom!”

  I bounded out of bed and grabbed my slacks. “Handgun.” Stuffing my feet into slippers, I grabbed my Ruger from the lamp table and raced outside as another explosion sounded from across the street. The police unit was empty with the door half open, as if Pedington left in a hurry.

  When Paul and I reached the front of Mrs. W.’s white brick, we heard noises from behind. Taking our cue from that, I slipped through the gate and motioned Paul to remain behind me. As I arrived the back-porch light came on, giving me a clear view of the large backyard. I saw nothing other than Pedington flashing a torch in the far corner with his weapon clenched in his right hand. I hailed him softly to keep from startling him.

  “Somebody tried to break in,” he said as he walked toward us. “The widow met him with a forty-five. She’s a spunky old gal.”

  “Ex-DEA,” I explained. “And the second shot?”