Strong Rain Falling: A Caitlin Strong Novel (Caitlin Strong Novels)

by Land, Jon

  “If you’re talking about trying to get a match on the knife that did this, forget it. Maybe a million drop and clip point knives get sold in Texas every year. Makes for a difficult database to build.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about the blade be appreciated all the same.”

  Whatley took a deep breath that stopped halfway through, all the color washed out of his face. “I was at Waco, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He seemed unsteady on his feet, his voice cracking. “Never thought I’d get those burned bodies out of my mind. But they didn’t seem real, nothing left visible that was even remotely human, like something out of a horror movie. But this,” Whatley continued, stealing a glance back at the bodies and swatting away some flies buzzing before his face, “this is real.”

  Caitlin could only look at him.

  “I thought after the day I identified my own son’s remains there’d be nothing that ever scared me again.” This time Whatley’s gaze lingered longer on the tangle of limbs and young faces twisted in agony behind him. “Looks like I was wrong.”

  Caitlin was spared a response when her cell phone rang, jarring both of them, and she excused herself to answer it with the number for Company F headquarters showing in the Caller ID.

  “Where are you, Ranger?” Captain Tepper greeted.

  “Where do you think I am, D.W.?”

  “Well, get back in the chopper and get back here on the double.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She could hear Tepper stripping off the cellophane on a fresh pack of Marlboros. “Enough shit’s about to hit the fan to fill a cesspool, Caitlin, and you’re standing right in front of the blow.”

  21

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  Cort Wesley was tossing a football around with Dylan in the front yard of their house, while Luke skateboarded on the vert ramp they’d built out of plywood and cinder blocks.

  “Dad?”

  “What?”

  “You spaced out again,” his oldest son told him. “What’s up?”

  “What happened last night’s not enough for you?”

  “I think it has something to do with that stop we made before, on the way back from the chop shop.”

  “Not at all,” Cort Wesley lied.

  * * *

  “There’s a Brindles Ice Cream just down on Heubner,” Cort Wesley said, the engine still running after he parked in the lot of the Wells Fargo Bank on Vance Jackson Road. “Take your brother and get something.”

  Cort Wesley handed Dylan a twenty and eased open his door.

  “Can I drive?” Luke asked.

  “Sure you can, son: year after next.”

  Cort Wesley stepped down, leaving the door open so Dylan could come around from the passenger side. Only the boy had already hopped over the console into the driver’s seat. He closed the door and backed up, and Cort Wesley watched him pull out of the parking lot before entering the bank. He was late for his appointment with assistant manager Royce Clavins, but, fortunately, Royce was still in his cubicle, waving him in as he spoke on the telephone. He’d hung up by the time Cort Wesley reached him, powdery dry hand extended across the desk.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Masters?” Clavins asked, sitting back down as Cort Wesley took the chair in front of his desk.

  “You can start by calling me Cort Wesley. We did go to the same high school.”

  “I seem to recall you kicking the shit out of me on at least one occasion.”

  “Puts you in good company, Royce.”

  Clavins waved him off. “Water under the bridge, Cort Wesley.” He cleared his throat. He had gone bald young and didn’t bother to hide it, having shaved his scalp for at least a decade now. Today he’d left some stubble in place and it looked like a grease smear in the cubicle’s overly bright lighting. “So I reviewed your situation.”

  “My situation?”

  “As in financial. We’re glad you kept us on as your bank after your wife’s passing.”

  “She wasn’t my wife, she was my girlfriend. And her passing came as a result of a bullet.”

  Clavins cleared his throat again. “I’d like to help you, Cort Wesley.”

  “People who say that usually can’t.”

  Clavins leaned forward and folded his hands before him. “You have … well, let’s call it an unusual credit history.”

  “How’s that?”

  “No credit cards, no car loans, no mortgage, no IRA, no lines of credit. Just the one bank account and your sons’ college account.”

  “I’m a dinosaur, Royce. I like to use cash. But unfortunately I’ve hit a bit of an economic dry spell and, since you’ve got kids of your own, I don’t have to tell how expensive they are to raise. So I came here to review my options.”

  Clavins started opening and closing his fingers, Cort Wesley fighting not to show how annoying that was. “Your only real asset is the house your wife—excuse me, girlfriend—had insured under a separate policy to pay off the entire mortgage in the event of her…” The banker let his remark trail off and cleared his throat again, then raised a hand to his mouth long enough to stifle a cough. “The current assessed value is just short of four hundred thousand dollars, which would normally make you a perfect candidate for a mortgage to take advantage of the great rates we’re offering.”

  “Normally?”

  Clavins stifled another cough, fidgeting nervously now. His gaze cheated beyond the glass partitions of his cubicle as if to reassure himself there were others inside the bank. “You don’t have any W-twos to prove a viable means of income and your credit, well, we discussed that problem already.”

  Cort Wesley was starting to feel warm, each shift of his frame seeming to crack the stiff upholstery.

  “The only asset you can borrow against is that college fund set up with your girlfriend’s life insurance payment and—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not interested, Royce. Those dollars are not to be touched. Let’s try something else.”

  Clavins started to lean forward again, but stopped and settled as far back as his desk chair would let him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Cort Wesley. There is nothing else. But, look, since you say your financial issues are short-term, what’s the harm?”

  “That money stays where it is, Royce.”

  “It will. You’d only be borrowing against it and I’d be able to lend you whatever you needed at three percent. How’s that sound?”

  Cort Wesley rose, feeling his pants and shirt peel away from the tight faux leather fabric. “Like I’ve got to think of something else.”

  Clavins rose, almost reluctantly it seemed, and just as reluctantly extended his hand across the desk. “If you change your mind…”

  “I won’t.”

  “But if you do.”

  Clavins tried to hand Cort Wesley a business card, but he strode out of the cubicle without taking it.

  * * *

  “You were all sweaty when you met us in the ice cream place,” Dylan said, holding the football now.

  “It’s hot out, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Also seems strange to me you left us on our own. Then I figured you knew he must have been watching.”

  “Who?”

  “The big guy,” Dylan said. “And he’s watching us right now, isn’t he?”

  Cort Wesley didn’t bother denying it, looking at his eighteen-year-old son and wondering which one of them was in charge here. “He or his men, yeah.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is, under the circumstances.”

  Dylan stiffened a little and his next throw was short and off line. “He doing this to make up for the fact he had Mom killed?”

  Cort Wesley held the ball until he could get his mind straight again. “You’d have to ask him that, though I don’t want you in his company.”

  “He saved yours and Luke’s life last night, di
dn’t he?”

  “That coach from Brown called,” Cort Wesley said, eager to change the subject. “Estees.”

  “It’s pronounced Es-tes.”

  Cort Wesley tossed the ball back to Dylan, his shoulder starting to ache a bit. “Anyway, it sounded like you impressed the hell out of him.”

  “I did?”

  “He’d just finished watching that game film you put together before he called.”

  Dylan passed the ball from his right hand to his left and back again. “So what’s the bad news?”

  “Your weight. Coach Es-tes doesn’t think a hundred fifty-five pounds is gonna cut it at that level. Says if you put on twenty more and keep your speed in the forty below a four-seven, there’ll be a spot for you. He wants you to call him tonight. I’ve got his number inside.”

  “Damn,” Dylan said, finally tossing the ball back Cort Wesley’s way.

  “Funny, that’s exactly what I said.”

  Dylan’s features tightened. “He ask about last night?”

  “That was the main reason for his call. To make sure you were okay. He wasn’t a hundred percent it was even you, until one of the news reports mentioned a Texas Ranger. The follow-up is sure to cover Caitlin in all her glory.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes and caught Cort Wesley’s next throw on his fingertips. “I’m sure she’ll just love that.”

  “Anybody sends a news crew here, you can be the one to stay between them.”

  The boy pursed his lips and blew out some breath. “You better teach Luke to shoot for real this time, Dad.”

  Cort Wesley was spared a response when Miguel Asuna pulled up in a pickup truck with a huge light rack atop its roof.

  22

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  Asuna climbed out accompanied by a man with a beer keg for a torso and cheeks as red as a fire engine. Asuna approached Cort Wesley, while the other man leaned against the big truck, making it wobble slightly.

  “We need to talk, amigo,” Asuna told him, his light grin and cocky sneer missing. His normally playful eyes shifted about uneasily, as if certain there were things about he couldn’t see.

  “Nice to see you too, Miguel.”

  Asuna’s gaze moved to Dylan. He seemed to relax slightly. “So you’re a football player.”

  “Trying to be,” Dylan told him.

  Asuna moved closer. “I hear you’re one tough hombre. And not just from your father either.”

  “Can’t believe what he says, anyway,” the boy quipped, smiling at Cort Wesley.

  “He was my late little bro’s best friend. Saved his life even. Not the only man he did that for either.” Eyes back on Cort Wesley now. “Let’s take a walk, amigo.”

  Cort Wesley let his gaze wander to the man with a beer keg for a torso.

  “He’s here for protection, that’s all.”

  “Whose exactly?”

  “Hey, you got soldiers from a death squad watching you from shit knows where, who am I to take chances?”

  Cort Wesley stiffened. “I’d ask you to watch your mouth in front of my son, Miguel.”

  Asuna waved his hands apologetically. “Hey, lo siento. I’m sorry, okay? Now let’s take that walk.”

  Cort Wesley gave Dylan a long look before joining Asuna on the sidewalk. They started down the street, passing homes with similarly well-manicured lawns, and a combination of Volvos, minivans, and portable basketball hoops occupying the driveways.

  “What’s got you so spooked, Miguel?”

  “What’s got me spooked? A few hours ago, you asked me to check some shit out. So I checked the shit out. That’s what’s got me spooked.”

  Cort Wesley felt the tightness return to his shoulder and just about everywhere else. “Keep talking.”

  “You asked me to look into who’s coming after you, targeting your kids.”

  “I know what I asked you.”

  “Well, I did it. See, there’s a kind of rule of law at play here, amigo. You want to do violence of that scale, you gotta inform certain parties so they can make sure they stay clear, get alibied up. They don’t like your plan, they say so and you go away.”

  “So?” Cort Wesley prompted when Asuna stopped there.

  “So nobody asked permission to do nothing. The network I’m talking about, remnants of the old Mexican Mafia La Eme combined with MS-Thirteen, didn’t have a clue about who’s behind what happened last night at Six Flags.”

  “I’m guessing things don’t stop there, Miguel.”

  “You’re right, they don’t. I asked around, talked to the kind of people who know what’s what south of the border. That clear enough for you?”

  “Crystal. Now get to the point.”

  “You got your share of enemies in Mexico for sure, but none of them have much interest in messing it up with you. That stretch you did in Cereso Prison made you a kind of legend. What was it they called you?”

  “El Gringo Campeón.”

  “Nice.”

  Cort Wesley realized his head was hammering, his blood feeling superheated as it raced through his veins. His heart seemed to bang against his chest wall.

  “Where’s this leading, Miguel?”

  “Last night wasn’t about you.”

  “Bullshit. Ten gunmen went after my kids at almost the same time in two different states. What else could that be about?” And then Cort Wesley realized, his skin going cold so quickly, it felt like it’d been sandblasted on the surface. “Oh shit, it’s Caitlin. They were coming after Caitlin.…”

  But Miguel Asuna shook his head. “Not her either, amigo.”

  Cort Wesley struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. “No, no, Miguel. My oldest has been in his share of scrapes, but my youngest? Come on, don’t try to tell me this was about them.”

  “It wasn’t,” Asuna said, almost too softly to hear.

  “Miguel, if you don’t start speaking a language I can understand, all the human beer kegs in the world won’t be able to protect you. What went down last night had to be about something.”

  “Oh, it was, amigo, and someone too. For sure.”

  “You plan on telling me who?”

  And Cort Wesley felt his stomach sink to his feet when Asuna answered him.

  23

  MEXICO CITY

  Ana Callas Guajardo sat in the rear of the presidential limousine, enjoying the cool blast of the air-conditioning. She kept the window cracked open just enough to hear Mexican president Hector Villarreal address a jam-packed crowd in the Zócalo, the capital city’s sprawling open-air plaza reserved for only the most special of events. The Zócalo has been a gathering place for Mexicans all the way back to the Aztecs, serving as the prime location for the major public ceremonies and military performances, anything with great pomp and circumstance. The plaza was enclosed by buildings on three sides and bracketed by towering flagpoles showcasing the Mexican flag billowing in the breeze.

  Guajardo had watched many a swearing-in, issuance of a royal proclamation, military parade, and Holy Week ceremony from the rooftop Portal de Mercaderes restaurant, looking east to the entire complex known as the Palacio Nacional. From her vantage point today, in the secured VIP parking area next to an equally famed cathedral, Guajardo could hear the president just fine but couldn’t see him thanks to distance and the shaded stage on which he stood. She had already reviewed his speech carefully, enough to arrange for one particular section not to be loaded onto the teleprompter.

  Villarreal reached that part of his speech, stammering briefly before springing into ad-lib format while never covering the subject Guajardo had removed from his prepared words. She could hear the tension in his voice as he struggled to keep his composure and figure out what to say now that there was no speech scrolling before him.

  Ana Guajardo slid the window all the way up, the oppressive heat and humidity having become too much to bear. She knew Villarreal’s speech was over when the Zócalo erupted into cheers and applause at the end, followed by music as the preside
nt left the stage.

  Then, moments later, a security guard yanked open the door so the president could vanish into the air-conditioned cool of his limo.

  He sneered at the sight of Ana, shaking his head. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course it was, señor presidente.”

  He snickered, pouring himself half a glass of American single-malt scotch whiskey and adding ice cubes. “You make my title sound like a punch line.”

  “Because you have turned the office you hold into one.”

  Guajardo let her gaze drift out the window again at the crowd dissipating in all directions. From the rooftop restaurant, it would’ve had the look of ants scattering from their nest. She had first watched events in the Zócalo with her father, the great man having chosen to mentor her over her brother, whose behavior had proven a burden for the Guajardo family. Her father had given him innumerable chances, finally renouncing the young man after his embarrassments and indiscretions became too much for the storied family to endure.

  As a young girl, Guajardo recalled the Zócalo being little more than a decaying concrete block dotted with light poles and train tracks and a single flagpole rising from the center. By the time her father began bringing her with him to watch major ceremonies from the rooftop he’d personally rented for his guests only, the train tracks and light poles had been removed and the entire Zócalo repaved with pink cobblestones.

  Coincidentally, the next time the plaza fell into disrepair was right around the time her father was reduced to a vegetative state thanks to a four-story plunge off his bedroom balcony. As much a testament to him as anything, Ana had personally underwritten the effort to raise the three hundred million dollars needed for a complete repair and upgrade of both the Zócalo and the surrounding buildings. Today it stood as a monument to Mexico’s potential to succeed and thrive with no help whatsoever from the United States, which, in her mind, sought to keep her beloved country impoverished to suit its own ends.

  “How did you know I didn’t commit the speech to memory?” Villarreal asked, after taking a hefty sip of whiskey.

  For someone who didn’t drink, like Guajardo, the scent was overpowering, reminding her of the antiseptic smell that hung over her father, admittedly preferable to the stench sometimes rising from his diaper. “Because that would have required you giving up time from your precious whores,” she told the president of Mexico.