Vengeance Is Mine

by William W. Johnstone

  But evidently that was what he had on his hands.

  He got out of the Blazer with the official sheriff’s department tags on it and slammed the door. The lights on top of the SUV kept flashing and turning. A couple of units, also with their lights flashing, were parked at angles between the house and the barn. The deputies assigned to them had been the first to respond to the dispatcher’s alarmed bleating on the radio. Norval Lee had been at home, sitting in his den with his feet up, sipping a beer as he watched a baseball game on the satellite dish. It was late and Willa Sue and the kids had already turned in, tired out after going to the fairgrounds to watch the Fourth of July fireworks display, but the game was being played on the West Coast and still had a couple of innings to go. He’d had his radio on the table beside him, the volume turned low, but he had turned it up when the squawking started. He would have to have a talk with Alicia Gonzales about the proper on-air demeanor for a dispatcher.

  Norval Lee hadn’t bothered to wake Willa Sue before he left to see what was what. She would never know he was gone anyway, seeing as how they’d had separate bedrooms for the past several years.

  He walked toward the barn, a big man in a polo shirt and jeans, a couple of inches over six feet and nudging 265. He would hate to have to go up against some of the offensive lineman they had in the league now, damn behemoths weighing well over three hundred pounds. Norval Lee didn’t see how anybody that big could even move around enough to play football.

  A couple of deputies stood in the open doors of the barn, keeping everybody out. Two more deputies were talking to several men who stood outside the barn, off to one side. Norval Lee spotted John Howard Stark among them. Norval Lee had been a few years behind Stark in school, but not so many that people weren’t still talking about the thirty-nine home runs he’d belted in his senior year. Stark had been a good baseball player, all right, but he was still just a baseball player in a land where football was king. And he hadn’t even been all-state, just all-district. Norval Lee had made folks forget about John Howard Stark pretty fast.

  “What’s the story here?” he asked as he came up to the deputies.

  “Tommy Carranza’s been murdered,” Stark snapped. “Worse that that, he was tortured first.”

  Norval Lee put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His badge and gun were clipped to his belt. “I was asking my deputies,” he said to Stark, keeping his voice level and civil.

  “Mr. Stark’s got the straight of it, Sheriff,” said Deputy Willie Deeds. “The body’s there not far inside the barn.”

  Norval Lee looked toward the open doors of the barn, craning his neck a little to see past the deputies who stood there. The overhead fluorescents in the barn had been switched on, so there was plenty of light for the sheriff to see the bloody, mangled corpse lying on its back.

  “Least somebody could’ve done was put a blanket over him and cover him up,” Stark said.

  Norval Lee shook his head. “No, these boys done the right thing by not disturbin’ the body. Medical examiner’s on his way out. I called him before I left town.”

  “It’s indecent, leavin’ him layin’ there like that,” Devery Small said.

  “You just let us handle this, Devery,” Norval Lee said in his best sheriff’s voice, stern so that nobody would give him any lip and soothing so they would just relax. Norval Lee didn’t really expect these ranchers to relax, though. Not after what they’d seen inside the barn.

  As for Norval Lee himself, he kept his eyes away from the corpse after that first look. He had seen plenty of ugly things in his years as a law enforcement officer—folks crushed and torn apart and sometimes decapitated in car wrecks, people with their bellies blown out by close-range shotgun blasts, cheating husbands whose wives had taken a butcher knife to them, wetbacks unlucky enough to have drowned in the Rio Grande, their bodies washed up and bloated in the hot Texas sun—but he wasn’t sure he had ever seen anything quite as bad as what had been done to Tommy Carranza.

  “Anybody got any idea who might’ve done this terrible thing?” Norval Lee asked Stark and the other ranchers.

  Not surprisingly, it was Stark who answered. “We know who did it,” he said flatly.

  Norval Lee raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Well, that’ll make my job a whole heap easier. Who done it?”

  “Ramirez,” Stark said. “The Vulture.”

  It took every bit of self-control Sheriff Norval Lee Hammond possessed to keep himself from crapping right in his pants.

  Six

  Stark saw the look of terror that appeared in Sheriff Hammond’s eyes. It was only there for a split second before Hammond was able to bring it under control and banish it, but Stark had no doubts about what he had seen.

  “Ramirez didn’t kill Tommy himself, of course,” Stark went on. “But he ordered it done.”

  Hammond lifted a hand to his forehead and wiped sweat away. It was a hot night, of course, being the Fourth of July. But he hadn’t been sweating quite so hard a few moments earlier.

  “Senor Ramirez lets you in on his plans now, does he, John Howard?” Hammond asked as if it were all a joke.

  “Tommy had trouble yesterday with Ramirez, or with somebody who works for Ramirez, I should say.”

  “What sort of trouble?” Hammond asked sharply. He was more in control of himself now, Stark thought.

  “A lawyer from Dallas who represents Ramirez approached Tommy and offered to pay him off if Tommy would look the other way while Ramirez’s runners brought drugs across his land. Tommy punched the son of a bitch in the mouth.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “In the parking lot of that big lumberyard on the edge of town. Tommy was there picking up some fencing,” Stark explained.

  Hammond rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “Seems like I saw a report cross my desk about a fistfight of some sort out there. But nobody called to report it officially, and since neither of the men came forward to press charges . . .” Hammond shrugged. “I just figured it didn’t really amount to anything.”

  Stark slowly lifted a hand and pointed through the open barn doors. “That’s what it amounted to,” he said.

  Stubbornly, Hammond shook his head. “You don’t know that. Were there any witnesses to the attack on Carranza?”

  “You know better than that, Sheriff. If there were any witnesses, their bodies would be in there, too.”

  “Carranza’s got a wife and kids, don’t he? Where are they?”

  Stark hesitated. If rumors of the connections between the sheriff and Ramirez were true, then by telling Hammond where Julie and the kids were, he might just as well be telling Ramirez.

  “They’re in a safe place,” he said.

  It took a second for the implications of that answer to soak in on Hammond, but when they did the lawman’s beefy face flushed even more than normal in the light from the barn. “Damn it, Stark,” he said. “I asked you a question.”

  “And I gave you all the answer you need to know,” Stark replied coolly. He knew he might be making a mistake, getting on Hammond’s bad side this way, but at the moment he was too angry and too sick with grief over what had happened to Tommy to really care.

  Everett Hatcher spoke up. “Senora Carranza and her kids are being took care of, Sheriff. Us ranchers along the river are sort of like a family, and we look after our own.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Hammond said, “but it doesn’t excuse refusing to cooperate in an official investigation. I’ll have to talk to her.”

  Stark said, “Morning’s soon enough for that, isn’t it?”

  Hammond didn’t answer for a moment. Stark could tell he was warring with himself over how he wanted to react to this challenge to his authority. Finally Hammond nodded and said, “Yeah, that’ll be fine. Reckon somebody could bring her in to the courthouse?”

  “I’ll do that,” Stark said.

  “Fine. Guess I better take a closer look at the body.”

  Hammond turned toward
the barn. The deputies standing guard at the doors, with their backs to the body, moved aside to let him by. Stark followed, not because he wanted to see yet again what had been done to Tommy, but because he wanted to observe Hammond’s reaction to it. He thought the deputies might try to block his path, but they stayed out of the way and Hammond didn’t order them to do otherwise.

  Hammond’s steps grew more ragged the closer he got to the mutilated corpse. He stopped about ten feet away as if he couldn’t make himself go any closer. He stood there staring at what was left of Tommy. His chest rose and fell as he took several deep breaths. Then he murmured, “Good Lord.”

  “Ever seen anything like that, Sheriff?” Stark asked.

  “You know I haven’t. There’s never been anything like this in Val Verde County.”

  “I’ve heard that Colombians are especially vicious when they take their revenge,” Stark said. “Especially Colombian drug lords.”

  Hammond swung his eyes away from the gruesome remains. “If you’ve got something to say, Stark, why don’t you just go ahead and say it?”

  “Not feeling quite so friendly now, Sheriff?”

  “Why should I be friendly to somebody who keeps ridin’ me for no good reason?” The flush on Hammond’s face deepened to a dark, furious red. He snapped a hand at the corpse. “You act like I had something to do with this! The first I knew about it was when the dispatcher’s call came over the radio a while ago. Not that I owe you or anybody else an explanation!”

  Stark kept his own temper reined in, though doing so cost him in effort. “All I want to know, Sheriff, is what you intend to do about this.”

  “Get to the bottom of it, of course,” Hammond answered without hesitation. “Find out who did this and arrest them. After that it’s up to the district attorney and the grand jury and out of my hands.”

  “So you’re going to carry out a full investigation?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Stark shook his head, aware that he had pushed things about as far as he could tonight. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said. “Everybody along the river will want Tommy’s killers found and brought to justice. You can start by looking at men who work for Ramirez.”

  “I’ll start by examining the crime scene and following established procedure.” Hammond glanced past Stark out the doors of the barn. “And since you’ve already given a statement to my deputies I’ll have to ask you to leave now. The medical examiner’s here.”

  Stark looked over his shoulder and saw more flashing lights as an ambulance pulled up. Its lights were on, but the driver wasn’t using the siren. Somebody must have told him that there was no need.

  Tommy wasn’t going anywhere.

  Stark gave Hammond a curt nod and walked out of the barn to rejoin the other men. “Let’s get back to the ranch,” he told them in a low voice.

  They started toward their parked pickups, but one of the deputies called after them, “Hold on a minute, fellas. What if the sheriff wants to talk to y’all some more?”

  “He knows where to find us,” Stark said over his shoulder without slowing down.

  To think that once he had actually voted for Norval Lee Hammond, Stark mused in disgust as he drove back toward the Diamond S. That had been when Hammond ran for sheriff the first time, before the rumors about his possible corruption had become so thick. All John Howard had really known about him at the time had been that he was some stud football player in high school, had played pro ball in the NFL for a few years, and had been a cop and then the chief of police in Del Rio for a while. Seemed a decent enough sort, other than being a little blustery when he talked to folks.

  Then after the election the whispering about him had started in earnest. Stark didn’t pay much attention to it at first; he wasn’t the sort who went in for a lot of gossip. But he couldn’t help but hear the talk about possible connections between the sheriff and the bosses of the drug gangs on the other side of the border, up to and including the notorious Vulture. Stark didn’t want to believe it at first. His natural inclination was to give folks the benefit of the doubt. And although Hammond had a nice enough house and his personal car was relatively new, he didn’t live the sort of flashy, expensive lifestyle that seemed to go with being a corrupt police official on the take. Of course, maybe Hammond was just too smart to flaunt it that way.

  Stark was alone in his pickup, followed by Everett Hatcher, Devery Small, and a couple of other ranchers who had come over with them. His big hands were wrapped tight around the steering wheel. He couldn’t seem to get that awful image of Tommy’s body out of his mind. He saw it in the glow of the dashboard and in the long wash of headlights along the river highway. From the corner of his eye he even seemed to see Tommy sitting on the pickup seat beside him.

  Settle the score for me, John Howard, that ghostly figure seemed to be saying. Pleading, actually. Avenge my death. Find the men who did this to me and rain down fire and brimstone on their heads.

  That was crazy, of course, Stark told himself. No bloody wraith sat on the seat beside him. And he was just a rancher. He wasn’t some sort of avenger. Raining down fire and brimstone was the Almighty’s job, not his.

  Something darted across the road in front of him, flashing through the twin cones of light. Stark caught just a glimpse of it, barely enough to recognize it as a coyote. The real kind, not one of the lowlifes who smuggled illegals across the border for a high fee. The coyote was there and then gone, bent on some mysterious errand known only to its primitive brain.

  The coyote was some sort of mythic figure in Indian legends, Stark recalled. A symbol of the trickster, the sly evildoer. If there was any truth to that, then surely tonight some coyote in the spirit world was laughing at the trick that had been played on Tommy Carranza. Less than thirty-six hours earlier, Tommy had been going along peacefully, enjoying his life, loving his wife, and raising his kids.

  It was a travesty, an affront to the universe, that the scum who had done that to Tommy were still alive. Every breath they took was a waste of perfectly good air, Stark thought. Somebody ought to do something....

  It always came back to that. Somebody ought to do something. But who?

  He had to put that question out of his head as he drove through the open gate of the Diamond S and piloted the pickup toward the house. He hadn’t gone very far before he slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the men who stepped into the road, rifles in their hands.

  Stark cranked down the window and leaned out to call, “Damn it, Uncle Newt, I could’ve run over you!”

  “We didn’t know who y’all were at first!” Newt shouted back at him. “Hubie an’ me figured we better stop you.”

  “By stepping in front of the pickup? If I’d been one of Ramirez’s men, I would have floored it.”

  Newt gave a cackle of laughter as he stepped up to the vehicle. “Chaco’s over yonder in the mesquites with a rifle, and ol’ Ben Cobb’s on t’other side o’ the road with a twelve-gauge. They’d’a opened up on you if you hadn’t stopped.”

  That made a little more sense, Stark thought. He asked, “Who’s up at the house?”

  “W.R. and the rest o’ the hands, along with some o’ the folks who was here for the party and ain’t gone home yet. W.R.’s in the house with Elaine and Senora Carranza and the kids. Ain’t nobody gonna bother ’em.”

  “Did you tell Elaine what happened?”

  Newt bobbed his head. “Sure did. And she told Senora Carranza, just like you said.”

  Stark felt a pang of sympathy for his wife. Breaking bad news was never easy. And this was just about the worst news of all.

  “How did Julie take it?”

  “How do you expect? There was a heap o’ weepin’ and wailin’. Elaine done the best she could to comfort her, but there weren’t a whole lot she could do.”

  Stark shook his head slowly. “No, I imagine not.”

  “Any more news from over there?”

  “The sheriff showed u
p.”

  Newt snorted in contempt. “What did ol’ Norval Lee have to say about it?”

  “Not much of anything. He said he would conduct a full investigation.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  “Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt,” Stark said, but his words sounded hollow.

  “What I doubt is that Hammond’ll do anything to really find out who killed Tommy.”

  Stark couldn’t argue with that.

  “You and Hubie and the rest come on back to the house,” he told his uncle. “All the neighbors can go home now. I reckon it’s all over for the night.”

  “What if Ramirez’s men come lookin’ for Senora Carranza and her young ’uns?”

  “There’ll be plenty of men here to look after them, what with you and me and Chaco and the rest of the boys.”

  “Yeah, I reckon.” Newt stepped back and waved the line of pickups on.

  It looked like every light in the house was on as Stark drove up and stopped the pickup. As he got out, one of the ranch hands stepped out from under a cottonwood tree and said, “Senor Stark?” He held a shotgun.

  “That’s right, George.” Stark moved past the man toward the house, resting a hand on his shoulder for a second as he did so.

  He went inside, hanging his Stetson on a wall hook beside the door. Elaine must have heard him come in, because she hurried down the stairs toward him.

  She came wordlessly into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly. She pressed her head against his broad chest as he folded his arms around her and returned the hug. He felt a little shudder go through her, then another and another as she began to cry.

  Stark stood there holding her as she let the sobs well out of her. His own eyes were suspiciously damp. Tommy Carranza hadn’t been so close that he was like a member of their family, but he had been a very good friend. And nobody—friend, foe, or anywhere in between—deserved what had happened to Tommy. Stark wouldn’t even wish such a fate on the men who had tortured Tommy like that. A bullet in the head, now, he wouldn’t have a problem with that.