Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  I walked my roan over. Two shallow impressions were in the mud, right where he pointed.

  “How long ago?” the Chief asked.

  Wes shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’m Apache or something.”

  The Chief scowled. I hid my smile behind my horse’s broad neck.

  Wes knelt and sniffed the water. “It’s good.”

  We watered the horses and rested a few minutes. Wes and I wandered around the water hole until we found Pete’s tracks.

  “Still north,” I muttered. “Where’s he going?”

  Wes shrugged. “If we called El Paso, they might be able to get us a helicopter. Maybe from the Army or something. Then we’d find him quick.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and if manure were music, we’d have a mariachi band.”

  Wes grinned beneath his mustache.

  “Let’s mount up!” the Chief barked at us.

  We rode for another hour, but the wind kicked up, erasing the footprints in front of us. The Chief spurred us to a trot, but we couldn’t outrun the wind.

  Wes finally reined up to a stop. “No good,” he told the Chief, squinting.

  The Chief grunted a curse and spit. “He’s been heading due north. We could just ride.”

  Wes shrugged. “We could. But if he hooked to the east or west—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” the Chief waved his comment away, then cursed again.

  I scanned the horizon. There was naught but desert and hills, arroyos and ravines. A man could go anywhere out here and get nowhere.

  “We’ll need to be relieving Earl back at the Tres, anyway,” I said, trying to mitigate the turn of events. “The crime scene has to be processed.”

  The Chief said nothing.

  We waited until the Chief had stewed long enough to spit, wipe, and curse again, before wheeling his horse around and heading back to John and the trailers. Then we followed.

  Some small towns are boring enough that stories about a barroom murder would be on page one of everyone’s mind for months or years. In La Sombra, miles from the Rio Grande and old Mexico, death was common enough to brush the news aside after a few weeks. Ranchers shot and killed illegals crossing their property pretty regularly. The DEA and Border Patrol put a violent end to drug runs. Coyotes packed their human luggage too tight in the heat and lost a few poor souls on almost every smuggling trip. Death was everywhere. So after a month or so, people stopped talking about Pete and the cowboy from New Mexico. But they didn’t forget.

  Neither did the Chief. He and John sat at the station, boots kicked up on their respective desks, and chewed on the topic almost daily. Wes and I kept fairly quiet about it.

  “Musta died out there,” John said, every chance he got.

  “Maybe.”

  “Not enough water, ’specially this time of year. And him on foot?” John shook his head. “Naw, he’s buzzard food.”

  “He coulda found water. Or come across somebody,” the Chief said. “Coulda circled around and gone ’cross the Rio.”

  “Never make it.”

  “He coulda.”

  Then they’d fall silent and think on it a while, both chewing and spitting.

  Turned out the Chief was right.

  I knew I’d be the one to get the call. Call it God’s way of giving me a second chance, or call it fate, but as soon as we turned our horses away from Pete’s disappeared trail, I knew in my gut that I’d see him again.

  The night was clear and still. I’d parked out on the edge of town and swung my door open wide to take in the wide expanse of stars above. Isabella’s dark eyes were on my mind, when Molly’s voice erupted through the radio.

  “Sam-25!”

  I keyed the mike. “Go ahead.”

  “Carl! Get over to the Tres! Pete Trower’s back, and he’s got a gun!”

  I pulled the door shut and started the Explorer.

  “Carl! You hear me?”

  “On my way,” I told her.

  “Copy. I’m calling the Chief.”

  I made it to Tres Estrellas in less than a minute. Four Mexican men burst through the front door as I jumped out of the truck. Jack Talbott hurried behind them, hauling a strawberry-haired waitress by the arm.

  “That sumbitch is crazy, Carl!” he hollered at me.

  “Who else is in there?”

  “Hell if I know! Everyone bolted as soon as he pulled the gun.”

  I pushed past him and went inside.

  Isabella stood behind the bar, stock-still and staring straight ahead. Her eyes were flat and her face impassive. Pete stood on the opposite side of the bar, a small revolver leveled at her.

  I eased my .45 out of my holster and took up a position behind a four-by-four post. “Pete,” I called to him, keeping the sharpness out of my voice.

  Pete didn’t turn away from Isabella, but I saw his eyes shift in the large mirror behind the bar.

  “Ain’t your business, Carl,” he said in a flat tone.

  “Maybe not mine,” I said, “but it’s police business.”

  “Have it your way,” Pete replied, and turned his eyes back to Isabella. “I wish it could have been different between you and me.”

  Isabella didn’t reply. Her eyes didn’t soften.

  “Because I would have treated you right,” Pete said, his voice thick with emotion. “I would never have treated you like a whore. Not like those guys did. Not like all of them did.”

  I raised my barrel slowly, drawing a bead on Pete’s upper back, aiming center mass.

  “Could you have loved me?” he pleaded with her. “Ever?”

  I didn’t want her to answer that. I didn’t want him to hear the truth if she said no, and I didn’t want to hear the truth if she said yes.

  Isabella shook her head slightly. “Lo ciento, Pete. I’m sorry.”

  Pete’s gun hand wavered. In the mirror, I saw tears spring to his eyes. Huge drops rolled down his cheeks.

  “Pete…” I tried to get his attention.

  “Gitana,” Pete croaked. “Gitana cara.”

  The blast exploded from the barrel of his gun and Isabella disappeared behind the bar. I fired immediately after, double-tapping. The force of my rounds hurled him into the bar. His gun clattered to the floor. Pete slid down the side of a barstool.

  The biting odor of cordite stung my nostrils. I approached Pete carefully. He lay motionless.

  “Señorita? Are you okay?”

  No answer.

  “Isabella? It’s safe.”

  “¿Seguro?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Isabella rose from behind the bar and her eyes scanned the room. “Pete?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. She ran around the end of the bar to where Pete had fallen. I started to stop her, but with Pete’s gun outside of his lunge area, I let her go. While she touched his face, I secured his weapon.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Isabella, wondering if she were really grieving for a man she just told she could never love. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  She ran her hands across Pete’s forehead, smoothing a lock of his hair. I stood silently, listening to the slowing trickle of alcohol dripping from broken bottles behind the bar and the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Isabella stood and pushed her own jet-black hair back. I waited for her to turn to me for a comforting embrace, to thank me for saving her life. Instead, she shot me a glance of pure venom, turned and stalked away.

  Gitana, Pete had said. Gitana cara.

  Enchantress. Dear, precious enchantress.

  Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her and had fired into the booze rack instead.

  At least, things were clear for him now. At least, the woman had loved him for a moment, even if it were his last. I stood in the empty bar, the odor of gunpowder in the air, watching blood seep from Pete’s dead body, and waited. For what, I don’t know.

  Like I said, things are blurred along t
he border.

  ~~~

  Jack’s Town

  “Sam-25?” the radio crackled.

  Molly’s voice cut through the still night air. I was parked out on the edge of town with my boot lodged against the wide open door of the police Explorer, staring up at the expanse of stars across the West Texas sky. I’d been thinking about Isabella’s dark eyes and her hair falling down.

  I grabbed the mike. “-25, go ahead.”

  “I have a call,” she said, then paused. When she spoke again, her voice held a tone of reluctance. “Can you Signal 8 Dispatch, please?”

  My eyes narrowed. Why’d she want me to call her on the phone? Why couldn’t she just broadcast the call over the air?

  I turned the ignition key and the Explorer’s engine rumbled to life. The cell phone mounted in the center console booted up and beeped its readiness. I punched in the number for Dispatch from memory. She answered on the second ring.

  “Carl?”

  “What’s going on, Molly?”

  She sighed. “I just got a 911 call.”

  I put the Explorer in gear. “Where?”

  “It sounded like a domestic,” Molly said.

  “Where?”

  Molly hesitated. Finally, she said, “It came from the Talbott house.”

  I cranked the wheel left, driving in that direction.

  “Carl?”

  “I heard you,” I said, and turned on my overhead lights. “John and Wes still on duty?”

  “Wes is driving John home. But—”

  “Send them to back me up.”

  “Copy that,” Molly said. “Carl—”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Doris.”

  “What’d she say?”

  Molly hesitated again. “Not much. Just that Jack was worse than usual.”

  “Was there anything physical?”

  “I asked her that. She just told me to never mind and hung up.”

  “Could you hear anything in the background?”

  “Just music.”

  “All right. I’ll be on scene in about forty seconds. Get Wes and John up here.”

  “Copy. Be careful, Carl.”

  I broke the connection. The night desert air rushed through the open driver’s window. The cool bite of Fall mixed with the smell of cottonwoods.

  Jack Talbott. Richest man in La Sombra, probably in the whole county. He owned a ton of real estate, plus the cattle ranch and one of the car dealerships. I’m sure he had his fingers in a few other pies as well.

  I smiled grimly at that last thought. It was probably true in more ways than one.

  The city road near Jack’s place was untended gravel, but the quarter mile driveway that was labeled Talbott Lane was paved in smooth asphalt. I cut all my lights and pulled onto what looked like a black stream that led to the house.

  I parked short of the house, killing the Explorer’s engine. I grabbed my flashlight and got out, closing the door gently. My boots clacked lightly on the asphalt as I approached the large French doors. A giant ‘T’ boldly adorned both in the center. I knew the artist who carved the letters into the wood. He told me Jack rejected the first two attempts and then docked him for the delay.

  There was nowhere to hide on the wide expanse of the porch. I tried to peer through the thickly curtained window next to the door, but the tan curtains were drawn shut. Light seeped around the edges from inside of the house. I listened for movement, but could only hear the faint strain of music and the occasional yelp from Jack’s hunting dog in the kennel around back. I moved to the side of the door and lightly rapped on it.

  There was a long silence, then I heard the light sound of approaching footsteps. The footsteps stopped near the door. I rapped again.

  “Police,” I said.

  No response.

  “Mrs. Talbott, it’s Carl Riggins,” I said, this time a little louder. “Open the door, please.”

  Another pause.

  I was about to speak again when I heard a click and the door opened.

  The first thing I saw was Doris Talbott’s small, slender fingers. Long, manicured nails, painted a deep red, caught my eye. The nails on the middle and ring finger were torn and ragged. When the door swung open further, I saw the same red on her lips. The lipstick on her bottom lip was smeared downward toward her chin. A brighter red flared around her left eye.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, stepping forward.

  Doris held up her hand to stop me. She swallowed. “I’m fine, Carl. Really. Please, just go.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do that, ma’am.”

  Her lip trembled. “You have to.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  Her hand rose reflexively to her eye. She shook her head. “No. I, uh...” Her eyes darted away from mine. “I walked into a door.”

  “Into the knob?”

  She squinted at me, then winced and touched her eye again. “The knob?”

  “Did you walk into the knob?” I repeated.

  “No. The, uh, frame. The door frame.”

  I stared at her without speaking.

  She stared back, blinking. “What?”

  “You didn’t walk into a door, Mrs. Talbott.”

  “Sure I did.”

  “No,” I said, “you didn’t. That injury obviously came from a closed fist. Now why did he hit you?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “He didn’t,” she whispered.

  “Is he here?”

  She nodded.

  “Where?”

  She cleared her throat and wiped away the tears gingerly. “In his den.”

  “Drinking?”

  Her composure shifted and a sarcastic tone crept into her words. “Oh, yes. He is having himself a drink.”

  I moved forward to enter the house. I thought for a moment that she might refuse to let me in, but her automatic good manners took over and she stepped aside. Once I was inside, she closed the door behind me.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I ignored her question. “Do you want to go somewhere else tonight, Mrs. Talbott?”

  “Go somewhere else?” She shook her head. The motion was tentative at first, then stronger. She squared her shoulders, brushed back a lock of her hair and stared me directly in the eye. “No! I won’t be driven from my own home, Carl.”

  “It might be safer for you.”

  “I’m perfectly safe here.”

  I shrugged. The haughty tone I was used to from her had returned. With that, I knew I’d never get her to go to a shelter or even a friend’s house. “Where’s the den?”

  She regarded me for a moment. “It isn’t worth it, you know.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Going up against Jack. He’ll win. He always does.”

  “I’m not going up against anyone,” I lied. “I just want to talk to him about what happened.”

  “I told you. I walked into a door.”

  “And that’s why you called 911?”

  She bit her lip for a moment. “I...was confused.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  She didn’t answer me, only regarded me carefully.

  “The den,” I said.

  She pointed down the hallway to my right.

  I turned and strode down the tiled hallway. My boots didn’t click on the tile surface so much as they made a satisfying thud. I took a short flight of stairs up to another hallway. This one opened up into a cavernous, almost museum-like room full of overstuffed furniture. The oil paintings on the wall depicted grand generals, including one of Napoleon on a rearing mount.

  Straight ahead, the hallway continued, but my eyes went to the dark mahogany door to my left. Strains of guitar music slipped through the cracked door into the great room.

  I gave the door a nudge. The music grew louder as the door swung open. The guitar had a Mexican twang to it, but the tune was classical. Jack Talbott sat in a high-backed leather chair, his eyes closed. He held a glass half-full of amber liqu
id in one hand and an unlit cigar in the other. Were it not for his sagging jowls and round belly, he’d have the look of an athlete just barely past his prime. His gray-white hair was stylishly combed over to disguise how much it had thinned.

  I stepped into the room. Talbott must have heard the sound of my boots on the den’s hardwood floor because he opened his eyes. A moment of surprise registered in them before the veil of arrogance fell back into place.

  “Officer Carl Riggins,” he rumbled over the sound of the Mexican guitar. “What’s the occasion?”

  I pointed at the stereo. “Can you turn that down?”

  Talbott regarded me for moment, then reached for the remote on the table next to him. He pushed a button and the music died abruptly. “I’m surprised,” he said.

  “Surprised at what?”

  “The music. I would’ve figured you to like it, given the obvious Mexican influence.” He smiled coldly. “But I guess where Mexican is considered, you only like what comes out of the gutter.”

  Isabella’s image flashed in my head. A small ball of hate for Jack Talbott burned in my chest. I tried to ignore it. “What’s going on here tonight, Jack?”

  He raised the drink to his mouth. The ice cubes clinked as he sipped. “Nothing,” he said when he finished swallowing. “I don’t even know why you’re here, unless you’re looking to buy a new Ford or something.”

  “Doris called 911.”

  “I’m sure it was a mistake.”

  “She’s got an injury. Her eye.”

  “Really?” He took another drink. “And how did that happen?”

  “You hit her,” I told him.

  He smiled. “Is that what my lovely wife told you?”

  “She didn’t have to tell me. It’s obvious from the injury.”

  “Really?” he said again. “You’re an expert on injuries, are you?”

  “Enough of an expert to know she didn’t walk into a door.”

  Jack took another slug from his glass, draining it.

  “I’m going to have to take you in, Jack,” I told him.

  He chuckled and set his empty glass on the table beside him. He clamped the unlit cigar between his teeth and shook his head indulgently. “No, Carl, I don’t think so. I think what you’re going to do is turn your ass around and get the hell out of my house.”