An Absence of Principal

by Jimmy Patterson

  “Do I know you?” he asked her.

  She took the paper towels from him and helped him wipe away the final trace of the ink on his fingers.

  “You wouldn’t remember me,” she said. “It was a long time ago; I was just a kid.”

  Alex sat on the ledge over the canyon for hours. She spent the early part of the day shivering with fear and chill, and the afternoon baking and sweating. The approaching evening would bring not just several minutes of bone chilling cold but several hours worth. She remembered what the Texas-Mexico desert was like and had spent weeks in training with DEA in these parts. Nothing ever hardened your exterior to cold. Heat you could get used to. Cold penetrated your core.

  She had no idea where she was in relation to the DEA camp in which she had spent those miserable weeks, but chances were she was far, far from a place that, even though she despised it while there, she would give anything to be back now.

  The sun dropped below the mountain to her southwest and almost immediately the air temperature plummeted several degrees. It didn’t take long in the desert.

  It was a good hour into her first full night on the ledge when Alex heard the unmistakable sound of car tires on gravel. The vehicle to which they belonged stopped in the distance, and she could hear someone get out and walk around. As best as she could calculate, the car had come to rest maybe 100 or 150 feet from where she was on the ledge.

  Whoever had exited the vehicle had now returned to it. It sounded as if the car had come to a rest directly above her. She looked up and saw the beam of a headlight. Just one. Maybe not a good thing, she thought.

  Alex heard more noises above her, a shuffling sound, then something she couldn’t quite place. At times it sounded like the person above her had crawled on the ground, maybe underneath the car he or she had been driving.

  A moment later she was startled when there came a sound just to the right of her right shoulder. There was just enough light to see that whoever was above her had intended to come there for her. The noise was a rope being lowered. On the end of the rope were two large knots, or makeshift handles, and a loop at the end of the rope in which she could secure her footing.

  She stood idly for several moments frozen and unknowing what her next step would be. A man above her began cursing in Spanish and the rope began shaking. Now, she was certain she didn’t want to put her foot in the loop. But where else was there to go? What else was there for her to do? And how did the cursing Mexican above her know she was there and who she was?

  A shot rang out in the night air, and with it came the realization that if she chose not to plant her foot in the loop of the rope, the next round of gunfire would be headed downward, in her direction.

  The jailer led Ben to an interrogation room adjacent to the processing area.

  “Step in here, Mr. Doggett,” she said. She let him go ahead of her. He was not handcuffed nor were his ankles bound.

  Doggett did as he was told and stepped into the interrogation room.

  Sitting across the table from him he saw Tony Nail, a man whose life he knew he had changed. With him was Garrison Trask, a man Doggett recognized from the newspapers. The Midland sheriff was sitting next to the attorney and his client when Doggett walked in.

  “Good morning, Ben,” Nail spoke first.

  “Tony,” Doggett said, acknowledging Trask and the sheriff’s presence with a nod of the head.

  “Mr. Doggett, I’m Garrison Trask, Tony’s attorney. You may or may not know that for the last several days, I have been defending Tony on charges that he murdered Junior Walker on May 28. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  He sat silently for several seconds before speaking, looking directly at Trask, with only occasional glances at Tony and the sheriff.

  “I called the police,” Doggett admitted. “I told them Tony had been in Odessa that night, and that he’d made frequent trips to Odessa and was known to hang out with the ‘wrong’ crowd.”

  Trask was stunned. He had speculated Doggett had known something all along, but that he fingered Nail for a crime that he had no proof he committed was an entirely different story. No way he would have imagined it.

  Doggett’s status in the community carried a certain amount of added weight and significance. When he told the cops that he felt his janitor was involved because he knew he hung with the wrong crowd, they listened to what he had to say.

  “You’re telling me, then, that you implicated my client for a crime of which you have no idea whether he is guilty?” Trask asked. “Do you know how serious that is, Mr. Doggett?”

  “Yes, I do. I didn’t then. I do now,” Doggett said.

  “Why, Ben?” Tony asked.

  “Selfish interests,” Doggett said. “I’ve been sick. For months. My life, my marriage, they’ve all come undone. I don’t have a job any more. I am an alcoholic, and I have an addiction to gambling. And somewhere in my sickness, I guess there was a part of me that wanted you to have done the murder, or at least take the fall for it. I convinced myself you were guilty.”

  “There’s no excuse for falsely implicating my client, Mr. Doggett. I’m sorry for your personal situation, but you have cost my client, me and the United States government a lot of money. Not to even mention what you have done to Tony’s character.”

  “I understand that,” Doggett said. “I’m willing to pay restitution. They can add it to the list of everything else I’ve done wrong recently.”

  Trask was now even more stunned. Doggett’s latest admission told him Doggett had had no idea if Nail was guilty when he accused him.

  “But why, Ben?” Tony asked again.

  Doggett would have to spill it all now, something he didn’t particularly relish with a sheriff sitting next to him. But he had never been one to not take responsibility for his actions. He did it. He was guilty. He didn’t need a lawyer to drum up some false story about being innocent of perjuring himself. Or of taking and selling drugs. Or of stealing money and not registering his handgun.

  “My life was going along pretty well earlier this year, Tony. You may remember,” Doggett said. “I had it all. Beautiful wife. Loving family. Nice home. Great job. The respect of my peers. I think some people might have even mentioned my name when it came time to finding a successor to Superintendent Martin whenever he decided to step down. That’s all gone now.”

  Doggett rubbed his face trying to find the words, and a half-ounce of self-respect, but found nothing. Trask stared intently at Doggett. Nail’s look was more one of disbelief. The sheriff sat calmly by, wondering what Doggett’s next words would be.

  “And then,” Doggett continued, “in the flash of a few short days, maybe a couple of weeks, one bad decision after another and everything I had was gone.”

  “What happened first to lead to all of this, Mr. Doggett?” Trask asked.

  “It was the gambling, no doubt,” Doggett said. “I remember sitting at my computer one day in my office and one of those annoying pop-up ads came up. I had just gotten out of a particularly tough meeting downtown, and I figured, what the hell, I’ll just click and see. I filled in my name, credit card, all that stuff. I don’t know why I did it. I had never before done anything so careless. But I have a history of addiction and addictive personality disorder in my family. Seemingly normal folks all over my family tree who are professionals and functioning, valuable members of their community who, with just a little slip, begin a big fall. I had been to Vegas on occasion and decided I would never go back because I had found myself way too fond of the Black Jack table. I’d had some success during my visits. I clicked on the Black Jack option and began playing. Then I began winning. In one afternoon, I had won five thousand dollars, and I’m telling you, that will make a man think about Lady Luck and his ability to get the best of her. It will make a weaker man think he can go on doing that forever.
”

  The sheriff continued to study Doggett. He had long been an admirer of the principal and had always respected him from a distance. It was no secret in the community that the sheriff was a poker player and a darn fine one. He’d won a state Hold ’Em Championship several years running when he was younger, and he knew how easy it was to get the fever.

  “That first day I won about $5,000, and it went right into my bank account just like the web site said it would. Man, I was feeling good. Good about me, and my marriage. Good about everything. I went into work the next day, and I felt so good I gave my secretary a little hug, and it … it lasted a little longer than it should have, and bam, in my weakening emotional frame of mind, it was an instant physical attraction. I can’t explain it and don’t care to remember much about that and how it went wrong so fast. When a man hurts his family because of an irrational and sudden attraction to another woman, it hurts to talk about for a lot of reasons. When a man does that, when he cheats on his wife with another woman, he cheats on more than just his wife.”

  “What’s all this have to do with blaming me for Junior Walker’s death, Mr. Doggett?” Nail asked.

  “I’m getting there, Tony.”

  Doggett paused again, reflecting on the hurt and shame he had brought to his family just through the illicit affair with Shanna.

  “One thing led to another with Shanna, and … I became suddenly so sickened with what I had become that it drove me back to the online casino, and that’s when everything really started going bad for me. Here I had gone from being recognized and honored by my peers, then winning $5,000, and the next day having an illicit affair with my secretary, and tanking at the online casinos. Went from $5,000 to $10,000 down in three days. Before long I found myself in such financial trouble that all I was doing was playing to try to recoup some of what I’d lost. The more I played, the more I lost.”

  The losing plummeted Doggett into a dangerous mix of remorse, depression and self-pity. He had gone from being on top of the world to being in survival mode in the span of two weeks. Doggett told Trask, Nail and the sheriff how, as he wallowed in self-pity, his sole focus in life was to find a way to return the money he lost, gambling away his family’s finances.

  “I decided I would stop at nothing to get it all back,” Trask said.

  CHAPTER 21

  From his office in downtown Fort Worth, Pierce Wallace picked up the phone and with a couple of words, increased his stock riches threefold. Wall Street was up, particularly tech stocks, and news of the death of an icon of the tech world would, while momentarily causing a letdown in the price of a share, bullet upward. The now late CEO of the world’s most powerful tech stock left behind a gift for his adoring public. Pierce knew about the announcement hours before it came. When news of his passing and the subsequent invention that would revolutionize smart phones was announced, shares skyrocketed.

  Wallace had acquired three thousand shares of the stock the day before, when he first knew the CEO was on his death bed, and an additional five thousand shares when a late night phone call from an always reliable source told him about the announcement that would be on the evening news of the CEO’s death.

  When Tuesday came, Wallace’s Wall Street portfolio had blown through the roof, temporarily making him one of the richest men in Fort Worth. Certainly the most reviled of Fort Worth’s wealthy.

  Pierce Wallace considered his Wall Street profits his play money, and with the windfall he recorded upon news of the untimely passing of an American technology genius, he would be able to do some real psychological damage to the object of his latest game.

  Pierce and Alex had been married five years and even had a child together before Alex had decided she would take her cocaine discovery journey. When she fool heartedly left her daughter and husband, Pierce resented her for the decision. They remained married simply because a divorce was something Alex didn’t have time for before she left the country, and Pierce, too busy to play daddy, left their daughter with Alex’s mother in Dallas. Alex made repeated attempts to call Pierce in the early stages, but after six weeks worth of nothing but voice mails, she gave up any attempt at contacting him. She would just deal with him, and their crumbling relationship, when she was finished with her work.

  When Alex’s calls stopped, what little feeling and caring Pierce had had for her disappeared completely. Even though he had never picked up the phone to talk to Alex, it had at least felt like she had a shred of decency left in her; maybe they still had a chance to save their marriage? But when her calls stopped, Wallace’s rules changed.

  Pierce had always teetered on the edge of decency and integrity even before the marriage went sour. Through the years he would become involved in integrity-pushing plans that bordered on schemes. They called him “The Boa” behind his back in Fort Worth financial circles, because he would stop at nothing to slither his way up whatever ladder was nearby and squeeze the life out of whomever was in the way. He didn’t care who he had to kiss to get there if it meant more power, and, ultimately, more money.

  Pierce had a secretary and an advisor he kept at arm’s length; a money man who would fill him in on insider secrets. He paid the man well. McTeague was a man of British ancestry, and he could smell a deal a mile away. Pierce would give him a high percentage of every good stock transaction he made possible.

  When his marriage went bad, Pierce became the kind of ruthless villain everyone in his inner sanctum knew he was capable of being.

  It was a musty day in September in Fort Worth with the wind kicking up not just the dirt that was blowing in from West Texas, but the cow manure that was ever present in Fort Worth.

  “Amigo, que pasa?” Pierce spoke into his cell phone and then paused as the voice on the other end spoke to him. “Good, good news. You’ve just earned your Christmas bonus for the year, my good man.”

  Sinister laughter filled the office as Pierce listened to the latest escapades of his men on the border.

  The man driving the truck carrying Alex Wallace that would cross the border into the United States turned his Bluetooth on. He was slightly hearing impaired, and trying to make out what Pierce was telling him through the tinny reception of a cell phone in the middle of the Chihuahuan borderlands was difficult. He could make no mistake on this part of the trip. He knew that.

  “Simple,” Pierce said. “I want the body. Drive across our friendly border checkpoint west of Juarez, put a bullet or two in her and push her out the door at mile marker 57, two miles outside of Tornillo. That’s my ranchland, amigo, you remember? I want her body picked over by the vultures while it rests on my land. Comprende, amigo?”

  “Si, senor,” the Mexican man said. He was nervous. Sweating. Shaking.

  “Oh, and Manuel,” Pierce added. “You screw this one up, my man, and you won’t be needing a Christmas bonus. I’ll be spending that money on a pine box for you. Comprende, amigo?”

  Manuel shook his head nervously, so scared he didn’t realize a head nod didn’t communicate well over a Bluetooth.

  “You got that, man?” Pierce repeated.

  “Si, senor,” Jamie said.

  Alex had regained consciousness in the back of the truck in time to hear the conversation between her captor – was there one or two this time? – and her husband about being rescued. The uncertainty of whether it was his voice was completely removed when she heard Comprende, senor in his lousy and condescending Spanish accent. He had said it to any number of business acquaintances that she knew about in Fort Worth, where he frequently conducted business over the phone from their upscale, two-million-dollar Fossil Creek mansion. Pierce had used the phrase flippantly, sarcastically. When she heard his tone over her captor’s Bluetooth it not only removed all doubt, it also answered plenty of questions.

  It had become clear to Alex that the farther she went into her journey, the mysterious presence that had at fir
st seemed to help her had became less helpful and more dangerous. It had seemed to start when she had been raped repeatedly in the boxcar rolling across the interior of Colombia. She realized she was no longer being accompanied by a guardian angel but by a devilish force who cared nothing about her well being, yet didn’t quite want her dead yet. The presence that accompanied her through the journey knew every step she took. And she was just now beginning to understand it was Pierce.

  Alex had always been aware of, and even impressed by, the power her husband wielded. She considered herself equally adept at information procurement, but despite her position with DEA, she was never able to crack through and learn all there was to know about her husband and his standing. It had always bothered her. She knew there was something not right about him. She felt that way even at the height of the romance in their marriage. Now she wondered if there had ever been, or if he had married just to make inroads into the narco community in Northern Mexico.

  She screamed inside knowing she couldn’t make a discernible sound over the noise of the grinding transmission of the antique truck that rolled her closer and closer to her death. She began to cry as her thoughts turned to Carly. She suddenly found herself consumed with the thought of her daughter’s well being — and the sudden thought that danger was very near.

  Was Carly even alive now? Or had Pierce ordered some amoral narco-terrorist to kill her and push her out into the desert, too? Nothing was impossible with Pierce, she knew.

  Alex wiped the tears from her eyes, realizing she was running out of time. In the dim, almost non-existent light, her eyes fixed on a box in the far corner of the truck. It was the size of box used to carry whiskey by the case. She crawled across the truck and pulled out her key chain, turning on the pen light she always carried. Stamped on the side, La Familia de Puente, Aguileres, Argentina.

  Alex opened the lid. Inside she found two kilograms of top-shelf South American cocaine.