White Tombs

by Christopher Valen

  In the light from the Escort’s open driver’s side door, he could see that Kehoe was directly behind her. He wore camouflage fatigues and had a gun pressed against her temple. A dark patch appeared to be expanding just below his right collarbone.

  “Don’t try anything stupid, Santana, or I’ll kill the girl.” Kehoe’s voice was loud and racked with pain.

  “Give it up, Kehoe. It’s over.”

  “Fuck you!” he yelled.

  Kehoe forced Angelina into the front seat, climbed in and started the car.

  Santana looked down at Anderson.

  “Get the asshole, John.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  By the time Santana got the Crown Vic out of the garage and onto the road, Kehoe had a thirty second head start.

  Santana held the steering wheel with one hand and with the other he buckled his seatbelt. He jammed his Glock into a pocket in his ski jacket and zipped it shut. Then he grabbed the portable bubble flasher. Swung it out the driver’s side window onto the roof and switched on the light. He reported an officer down at his address and that he was in pursuit of a felony wanted, armed and dangerous, driving a light blue Escort.

  The small car had to be doing at least sixty, but it was no match for the Crown Vic, which rapidly closed the gap between them as they raced down County Road 18.

  Kehoe made a wide right turn onto the freeway entrance ramp, and the Escort’s back tires careened off the curb. In the glare of the Crown Vic’s headlights, Santana could see him fighting to regain control as he sped up the ramp toward the bridge over the St. Croix River.

  Santana radioed dispatch that the suspect’s car was heading east on Interstate 94 toward the Wisconsin border.

  Orange and black signs at the ramp entrance warned that the westbound lanes over the river were closed due to bridge construction. Traffic was down to one lane in each direction and drivers should slow down and use caution.

  A highway patrol car with its siren screaming and red lights flashing streaked by as Santana came off the entrance ramp and onto the bridge. Invisible hands from the wash of turbulence grabbed the Crown Vic’s steering wheel and nudged the car toward the curb along the pedestrian walk.

  Santana let up momentarily on the gas until he was able to regain control.

  Up ahead, he saw the patrol car veer into the westbound lane as it overtook the Escort and tried to force the smaller car against the curb.

  Kehoe suddenly slammed on the brakes sending the Escort into a skid.

  The patrol car darted ahead of the Escort as though hurled from a slingshot. The officer braked and his car began fishtailing. The rear end slid right. When the officer overcorrected, his car went into an uncontrollable spin, skidding into oncoming traffic where it was broadsided by a semi truck going in the opposite direction. The impact sliced the patrol car in half and sent its rear end whirling back across the eastbound lane, gasoline spewing from its shattered tank, directly into the path of the slowing Escort.

  Kehoe swerved sharply, trying to avoid the wreckage, but he was too close to the pedestrian walk. Sparks flew as hubcaps ground against cement. The sparks ignited the gasoline just as the Escort rammed the remains of the patrol car. The collision lifted the wreckage over the pedestrian walk and sent it hurtling through the guardrail. For a moment the rear half of the patrol car appeared to hang in the air, as if suspended by a chain, before it exploded in flames and plummeted into the fog-shrouded blackness and river below.

  Santana had hit his brakes at almost the same instant as Kehoe, but the Crown Vic’s momentum still carried him forward, straight toward the Escort. He knew that hitting it at his current speed would most certainly send the small car through the gaping hole in the guardrail.

  He pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, trying to avoid the Escort, only to realize in one horrifying moment that he had turned the Crown Vic directly into the path of the semi’s jackknifed trailer, which had swung across the two open lanes of the freeway like a huge metal gate. Tires screaming, hands gripping the wheel, he stood on brake pedal. Knew immediately he couldn’t stop the Crown Vic in time.

  He released his seat belt and shoulder harness and in one quick motion opened the driver’s side door and leapt out. His feet hit first and catapulted him forward. He heard a loud crunch of metal and glass, the whine of the Crown Vic’s engine, and then silence as he hugged his chest and tucked his chin and let momentum carry him forward. He hit the concrete hard. Felt the air rush out of him as he rolled, once, twice, three times before he landed on his back and stopped.

  The sky dimmed above him, and a momentary flash of panic overcame him as he struggled to breathe. Then his diaphragm relaxed and his lungs began filling with air again. He moved his feet, his hands. Lifted his legs and arms. Hoped that his heavy jacket and jeans had cushioned the impact, kept him from breaking anything. He got up slowly.

  Debris from the patrol car lay scattered on the freeway amidst serpentine ribbons of burning gasoline and black smoke. The Crown Vic was halfway under the semitrailer. Its roof had been ripped back like the lid on an aluminum can. Somewhere in the fog that blurred the light from the street lamps and swept over the bridge like a fast-moving glacier, distant sirens wailed.

  Santana took a step. Wobbled for a moment. Saw spots in front of his eyes. He stopped again and got both feet planted firmly under him. He took a deep breath, cleared his head. Then he drew his Glock from a pocket in his ski jacket and moved cautiously between the flames toward the Escort.

  The driver’s side door fell open. Kehoe staggered out, a gun in his right hand. Blood soaked his camouflage shirt, and a deep gash ran across the bridge of his nose.

  When he saw Santana coming, he reached into the front seat with his free hand and dragged Angelina Torres out as he would a body bag. Clamping one arm around her chest from behind, he held her in front of him.

  “She’s still breathing, Santana.” He pressed the muzzle of the gun to her temple, and Angelina moaned as if in reply. “But she won’t be if you come any closer.”

  Santana was within ten yards of Kehoe and Angelina. He held the Glock with both hands, the barrel pointed at the two of them, as a cloak of thick fog suddenly dissolved their features into shadows. The milky vapor misted on his face and eye lashes.

  The fog, the bridge, the flaming river, and the two shadows before him were oddly familiar. As heat from the small fires along the freeway burned away the haze like the parting of a curtain, Santana suddenly remembered his recurring dream. Now he understood why he felt he had known Angelina before, and whom it was he had felt lurking in the shadows.

  Kehoe said, “Drop the gun, Santana.”

  It was Angelina who had been on the bridge in his dream, not his sister, Natalia. Ofir could have helped him see that it was a premonition of the future and not a dream of the past.

  “Drop it, Santana, or I swear I’ll kill the fuckin’ spic.”

  “Let me,” Santana said, and fired a round into Angelina’s chest.

  Kehoe’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?” Letting Angelina Torres go, he watched in stunned silence as she slid down his body and lay still on the ground. Eyes wide with astonishment, Kehoe stepped back from her as though she was suddenly lethal.

  “Drop your weapon, Kehoe, and get down on the ground. Now!”

  Kehoe shifted his gaze from Santana to Angelina, and then to Santana again. The expression on his face slowly changed from shock to understanding.

  “Don’t do it,” Santana said.

  Kehoe’s face split into a crooked grin. The barrel of his gun moved in Angelina’s direction.

  Santana shot him.

  The impact dropped Kehoe to his knees. His gun clattered to the pavement as he pressed both hands against his stomach in a futile attempt to stop the blood loss before he toppled over and lay curled in a fetal position.

  Santana walked over and stood beside him.

  Kehoe’s breathing was quick and sh
allow as he slipped into shock. He gave a sideways glance and coughed up blood. “You gut shot me you prick.”

  Santana said, “Solo se capa al marrano una vez. You only cut the balls of a pig once, Asshoe.”

  “I need a paramedic,” he rasped.

  Santana waited. The sirens he had heard earlier were louder now and much nearer.

  Kehoe opened his mouth to speak, but then his body convulsed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he released a final breath.

  Santana holstered his Glock and went to Angelina Torres. She lay on the cold pavement with her eyes closed, still as a corpse. He knelt down beside her.

  The night suddenly came alive with the sound of doors slamming, men shouting and feet slapping on concrete. Then two paramedics appeared and dropped to their knees, one next to Kehoe, and the other opposite Santana.

  “I’ll need you to move back, sir.”

  “I’m a cop,” Santana said.

  “Hey!” the paramedic kneeling beside Kehoe said, “this guy’s been shot.”

  The paramedic kneeling next to Angelina Torres appeared to be about twenty-five. He peered at Santana through a pair of dark framed glasses and pointed to the bullet hole in her parka. “This one’s been shot, too.”

  Santana unzipped Angelina’s parka and looked at where his .40 caliber slug had lodged. “Give her a moment.”

  “She’s wearin’ Kevlar,” the paramedic said to Santana, with a questioning look.

  “Angelina,” Santana said.

  When she remained motionless, Santana feared something had gone terribly wrong. But then her eyelids fluttered and opened, and her honey-colored eyes gazed up at him, as if she had awakened from a long, deep sleep.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “There was an accident.”

  She placed a hand on her chest, palm down. “It hurts here.”

  “You’ll have a bruise for a while, but then the pain will go away.”

  “And you?” she said, grasping his scarred hand in both of hers.

  Santana could see the sky and stars clearly now that the fog had lifted, but not the hunter’s moon. A cloud had slipped across it, and shadows fell like dark spirits around him.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  WINTER LINGERED LIKE AN ILLNESS until mid-May when the temperature finally started climbing, the spring rains came, and the grass changed from dull brown to bright green.

  Construction was progressing on the new Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center on the lower east side after the city council became convinced that the SPPD would not have to merge with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department and would have as much space as they had now.

  Santana spent his free time working out and walking in the woods along the riverbank with Gitana, the golden retriever he had left at the pound after finding it in Rubén Córdova’s house. While Gitana clearly enjoyed the walks, she stayed close to him, whether they were in the woods or the house. Often, Santana caught her looking at him with her big doe eyes, wondering, perhaps, if he intended to leave her again.

  In the evenings he would sit on his balcony with the dog and a cup of hot chocolate, watching the bald eagle that perched in the tall, dead oak along the shore. He would think about Colombia and his sister, Natalia, and the choices he had made that launched him on his mission and led him to this moment in time. He would wonder why justice was only a temporary salve for the wound infecting his heart, and why the peace that he sought was always as fleeting as the twilight and as elusive as a bird.

  Rick Anderson had died on the way to the hospital from the injuries suffered as a result of the stabbing. Santana was one of the six pallbearers at his funeral attended by hundreds of police officers from around the state.

  Luis Garcia was found handcuffed but alive in the trunk of Kehoe’s car. Garcia’s attorney, Alvarado Vega, eventually cut a deal with Pete Canfield and the Feds in which Garcia got a reduced sentence and a guarantee he would not be sent back to Mexico in return for his cooperation regarding Kehoe’s involvement in the visa scam. Santana promised he would keep an eye on Garcia’s mother while Luis served his time.

  The highway patrol officer involved in the accident on the bridge had miraculously survived the crash with the semitrailer with only a few bruises and was already back at work.

  Richard Scanlon had been arrested; a grand jury returned an indictment, and the archbishop was arraigned and released on $250,000 bail. One of Scanlon’s former students came forward and agreed to testify that Scanlon had sexually abused him while he was teaching at Seton Hall. Pete Canfield was confident the student’s testimony along with the video tape from the Riverview Lofts and DNA evidence would be enough to convict Scanlon for Rafael Mendoza’s murder, despite Scanlon’s not guilty plea. After nearly two months of deliberation, the Catholic Church had appointed a new archbishop. Scanlon’s trial was expected to begin in July.

  Gabriela Pérez had called Santana to thank him for bringing her father’s killer to justice and to offer an apology for not trusting him. She had decided to become managing editor of El Día, her father’s newspaper. A free dinner was waiting for Santana at Casa Blanca, the restaurant she formerly managed, whenever he wanted. She hoped he would accept her offer, soon.

  James Kehoe’s involvement in the Pérez-Mendoza murder case had generated a lot of heat at city hall, and the mayor’s standing in the pre-election polls plummeted. The current Chief of Police resigned and mounted a law and order campaign against the mayor. The Chief was expected to win in a landslide. Deputy Assistant Chief of Operations, Carl Ashford, was appointed Chief of the SPPD after taking much of the credit for solving the Pérez-Mendoza murders. The appointment momentarily assuaged the disappointment Ashford felt about his lost political opportunity.

  Santana spent a week in Sante Fe with Philip and Dorothy O’Toole, visiting, relaxing and eating home-cooked meals. Talking through a homicide investigation with Phil, an ex-homicide detective, always helped Santana bring closure to a case.

  After returning to St. Paul, he took Rita Gamboni for dinner at W.A. Frost’s. At a quiet candle-lit table, they ate steak and drank an excellent bottle of Cabernet.

  She thanked him for keeping his promise he would not tell Ashford that she had known about the visa scam. Then she said, “Tell me something honestly, John. You baited Kehoe, didn’t you?”

  Santana drank some wine and looked at her without answering.

  “I suppose it really doesn’t matter now,” she said.

  “Anderson’s death matters.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.”

  “I didn’t need a backup.”

  “He was your partner.”

  “He was more than that, Rita.”

  It would have been easy for her to say that he should have followed procedures and eventually Canfield would have made his case and Kehoe would have been charged with murder one like Scanlon. But she kept quiet. Maybe it was because she still loved him, or maybe it was because she had once been his partner and knew what he was feeling. He chose to think that maybe it was a little of both.

  She said, “You would’ve gone with Anderson if the roles were reversed.”

  Santana knew that what she said was true, but also knew that Anderson would never have put him in that situation. Anderson would have played it by the book. If anything had gone wrong, it would have been a procedural mistake rather than a fatal one. But Santana had never let procedures get in his way.

  They talked about a cold case she wanted Santana to look into, and then, over snifters of brandy, she gazed into his eyes and said, “You want to tell me now, John?”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “You promised.”

  “I remember.”

  “You can trust me to keep your secret.”

  He had trusted her with his life when she was his partner. He knew he could trust her now to keep the secret of his past. Yet talking about his mother’s death and how he had killed the Estrada broth
ers when he was sixteen made it seem as if it had all happened yesterday.

  He took a long time telling it.

  When he finished he gave her a smile to lighten the mood, but it felt tight and forced.

  “I’m so sorry, John.”

  Her eyes were warm and gentle, and as she leaned forward, closing the distance between them, she gazed at him with a tenderness that caused a lump in his throat.

  “It explains a lot about you,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like why we …” she paused, and he sensed her sudden reluctance to continue.

  “Why we’re not together?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re beautiful and smart, Rita. Smart enough to know that I’m too much of a risk.”

  “Physically or emotionally?”

  “Both.”

  “Maybe I’m willing to take that chance.”

  “Tonight maybe, but not tomorrow.”

  She sat back in her chair and let out a sigh of frustration. “You think I’ll let my rank get in the way of our relationship?”

  “Maybe you won’t, Rita. But someone else will.”

  “You’re always so damn sure of yourself, John Santana. Never any doubts.”

  “Doubts can get you killed.”

  “Maybe that kind of thinking makes you feel safer,” she said, “but it can also leave you isolated and alone. Is that the way you want to spend the rest of your life?”

  That was a question for which he still had no answer.

  An Invitation to Book Clubs

  I would like to extend an invitation to book club members across the country. Invite me to your book club and I’ll be happy to participate in your discussion. I’m available to join your book club discussion either in person or via the telephone. (Book clubs should have a speakerphone.) You can arrange a date and time by contacting me through my website: www.christophervalen.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1