“Only in so far as the ones who attacked the reporter were male Latinos. My officers report that before they beat him, his attackers told Mr. O’Hara he was going to be punished for sleeping with your daughter and then sneaking out on her the next morning. For leaving her vulnerable to what came next.”
Mrs. Gómez seemed to consider that. Then she said, “I hope I’m wrong in my belief that you will devote more time—achieve faster results—in finding those that hurt that reporter than the man who killed my daughter.”
“Your daughter’s murder is my number one priority,” Tell said. “I know it is Able Hawk’s, as well.”
The older woman looked again at the pictures on Tell’s desk. “I’m sorry, Chief Lyon. Sorry for implying some racism on your part. Clearly that would not be so in your case. Your wife and daughter are beautiful. Where is your wife from?”
Tell smiled. “San Diego. Marita’s family was originally from Veracruz.”
Sofia Gómez smiled back. “So were we.” Sofia told Tell the story of her family’s crossing. Told him of the loss of Thalia’s grandmother and the others. When she finished the tale of their ill-fated border crossing, Sofia said, “But I’m told you were Border Patrol before coming here to be jefe. I’m sure that story of what happened to mine is nothing particularly striking to you. I’m sure you’ve seen the same, perhaps worse, there in the desert doing your other job.”
“It never stops affecting you,” Tell said. “Not unless you are truly dead inside.”
“How old is your daughter, Chief Lyon?”
“She was three when that picture was taken,” Tell said. He looked at the pictures. “My family was murdered last year. Both are unsolved killings. So I take what happened to your daughter very personally. I won’t let your daughter’s death be like those of my family—unsolved. We will get these people, I promise you that.”
“What happened to your family, Chief? If that is not too personal a question?”
“After the story you shared with me? No, I owe you a hard story of my own.” So Tell told Sofia of the killing of his wife and daughter.
She shook her head sadly afterward. “And they were never caught—their killers?”
“No,” Tell said. “It was impossible to make a case against them. They were very careful in their planning and execution to see to that. They were paid killers. Very professional.”
“But you knew who they were?”
“No, not for certain.”
That was a lie.
Tell had known well enough. His cousin, Chris, left his own family in Ohio and came to California alone—or nearly alone—for Marita’s and Claudia’s funerals. Chris had brought along a “special friend” … some dead-eyed Scots mercenary. He was another of Chris’s myriad, mysterious acquaintances collected during the years that Chris and Tell had drifted apart.
The three of them, accompanied by two of Tell’s Border Patrol confreres and a retired Texas Ranger, had gone out in the desert and sought out Tell’s family’s killers. They left the bodies of the Coyotes for the real coyotes; for the ants and big, ragged-winged desert birds.
“I’m sorry for your sake you didn’t know, that you couldn’t avenge your family,” Sofia Gómez said, looking Tell hard in the eye. “I want my baby’s killers to pay. I want them to die for what they’ve done.”
“Able Hawk has already told me he wishes to seek the death penalty for them.”
“You said something, Chief. You were speaking of my daughter’s murder and you said, ‘the ones’ who did it. You talked as though you’re sure that there is more than one who killed my Thalia. And later you vowed to me, ‘We will get these people.’”
Tell smiled. “You’re a close listener. And you’re a clever woman, Mrs. Gómez.”
“Do you have someone you suspect?”
“In a manner of speaking. First tell me, do you know if your daughter knew anybody who drives a big red pickup truck? A Dodge Ram, perhaps?”
“I don’t. I know nobody who drives one, either.” She sat forward. “Why do you ask about that car?”
“I can’t speak in detail about this, even to you, Mrs. Gómez. Not until I know more. All I will say is that it’s possible there were some camera images that captured the dropping of your daughter’s body in that field where she was found. Two men in a big red pickup truck.”
“Mexican men?”
“No. It’s impossible to say for certain right now, but I think whites.”
“Please tell me more.”
“I can’t yet. I’m sorry. I have to have the film looked at by specialists and then I may know more. And I need to talk to Sheriff Hawk. He’s not aware of this development yet; I haven’t had time to fill him in. But we are working closely together. We mean to bring the killers to justice, Mrs. Gómez. I swear to you we will do everything in our power to do that.”
“Within the law?”
“Within the law.”
“Thank you for seeing me. I’m grateful for this talk, Jefe.”
“I wish we had more time to talk,” Tell said. “But I have something else I need to be doing now.”
Sofia squeezed his arm—surprising strength in that old hand of hers. “Thank you for sharing the story of your family. You’re a strong man to come through and continue doing what you do. You’re a good man. I’m glad you’re the one working for my Thalia.”
Tell offered her his arm and she slipped her arm through his. He said, “I’ll walk you next door to collect your granddaughter.”
“The other sheriff, Walter Pierce? I do not like him, Chief Lyon. He came to my house and searched Thalia’s room. He took her sheets, her unwashed clothes.”
“He was looking for DNA then.” Tell wanted to kick himself. He should have taken a more active hand in terms of going over to the Gómez house the night of the murder instead of interrogating all those baseball players and fans who saw nothing. As simple procedure, he might have thought to have had Thalia’s bed clothes bagged. Now more possible trace evidence was denied him and Able.
Sofia Gómez stopped and took her arm from Tell’s. “My daughter did not bring men in my house. She wasn’t like that. There was never a man with her in that room. But perhaps if she had done that, she’d be alive still.”
“You can’t think like that, Mrs. Gómez.”
“I can’t control my own thoughts anymore. I can’t believe anymore. You must know what it is like. Remember when we still had God? What do we have when we no longer have Him?”
“The ones we love. The ones who matter to us.”
“And the ones who killed my daughter?”
Tell took her arm again, slipped it through his own and closed his other hand over her arm. “You have that little girl to care for. You have to protect her. Let me see to finding and punishing those men.”
“Better than I did my own, one hopes. Evelia, and my niece, who might as well be a child,” Sofia said. “She’s twenty-two and already many months pregnant without me knowing for certain the man responsible.”
“If, in the days ahead, there’s anything I might do … ?”
“Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Jefe. We’ll make it. But I’m not young, and Evelia is.”
“And your niece? You said there is no man there to take responsibility for her condition?”
“Maybe a man,” Sofia said. “A young man. Hardly more than a boy himself, really, if my suspicions are correct.”
“You believe he’s the father, then?”
“Possibly. Probably. He’s a student. A serious boy, in that way.”
“Perhaps he’ll do the right thing. Perhaps I could help you by talking to him.”
Sofia began walking again, headed on in the direction of the ice cream parlor. “Perhaps he will do this on his own. Perhaps Amos is Luisa’s best hope.”
That got Tell’s attention. “Amos? That’s the young man’s name?”
“Sí. Amos Sharp,” Sofia said. “He’s Able Hawk’s grandson. So you see, again, this Ha
wk, he disappoints me. With all the connections between our families, you think he could find time to tell me about what is happening with the investigation of my daughter’s murder.” Sofia shrugged at Tell. “You’re distracted, Chief Lyon. I see it in your face. This is pointless gossip to you, I’m sure. They are discreet and only ever together at my house, but Hawk must be blind not to know what’s going on between that boy and Luisa.” Sofia smiled bitterly and shook her head. “And you said you have to be somewhere else. I can go the rest of the way myself.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course,” she said. “I trust you to do right by my Thalia. And to keep me informed as you can. But this Able Hawk? As I’ve said to you, more than once, if he was such a good friend of Thalia’s, would he not have come to her funeral? Would there not be some discussion, or gesture, toward the resolving of this matter of his grandson, Amos, and my niece, Luisa? Amos and Able Hawk live under the same roof, after all.”
“I can’t speak to that, señora. But I do trust Hawk and I believe your daughter mattered to him. That she still matters.”
“I really don’t expect you to speak to any of that, Jefe.”
“When you see Julie, my dispatcher, please tell her the radios and phones are unmanned back at headquarters.”
Sofia Gómez watched, curious as Tell Lyon ran back toward the police station.
THIRTY FIVE
Tell got out onto the road, then called back to the station house on his cell phone. “Julie, I need Able Hawk’s home phone number and address.”
Julie said, “I have Sheriff Hawk’s cell phone number, Chief Lyon.”
“Right. Good. But I need his home number, Julie. And I need it right now.”
* * *
Tell rolled to a stop in front of Able Hawk’s house. He pulled curbside and looked it over. It was a widower’s house: a sprawling, two-story wood structure at least a year past a needed painting. And it was too big for two people. A deep front porch was cluttered with wicker chairs. The chair pads were faded and rotting from not having been stored for winter. There looked to be another living quarters sitting atop the too-large, unattached garage.
Tell punched in Able’s home phone number then looked back up at the house. Three rings, then a pickup. The voice was a young male’s. “Yeah?”
Tell said, “This Amos Sharp?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“New Austin police chief Tell Lyon—”
“My grandfather said you might take me on as an intern,” Amos said, cutting Tell off. “But that’s a few months out. My break from school, I mean.”
“It’s not like that, Amos,” Tell said. “This is official business. I need to talk to you. This is about the bogus documents you’re manufacturing and selling to undocumented workers. I’m parked in front of your place. This could go a lot of different ways, son. And your being Able Hawk’s grandson makes it all the more complicated. We need to talk this out. See where we end up. Like I said, I’m parked out front. I want you to hang up the phone and come straight out here. Don’t get ideas about calling your grandfather first. Nothing cute like that.”
Tell hesitated, then said, “Just to underscore how bad an idea trying to tip Able would be, I’m going to tell you I know about Luisa and her baby. And I suspect, in that, I’m way ahead of your grandfather. Now come on out and let’s take a ride together, Amos. Just to talk.”
“Be right there,” Amos said. Like Shawn before him, he sounded like a scared little boy.
* * *
“Amos, I’m going to be honest with you,” Tell said, “and I hope you’ll be just as honest back. I don’t know what I want to do here. I know what I should do, up to a point, but even that leaves me uncertain in some key ways. Why are you making these false identification cards? Is it for the money?”
Amos Sharp looked out the window. He seemed fascinated by a barley field whipping by on his side. “Sure,” Amos said. “For the money. Yeah, it was for the money.”
“You’re a lousy liar, Amos. You said your grandfather mentioned something about interning with me. You really want to be a cop?”
“More than anything.”
“You’re never going to get there if I press this with the cards. That’s a career killer, son, and that’s on the light side. What you’re doing is a felony … a two-decade bounce, minimum, if you’re convicted.” Tell’s stomach growled; he checked his watch. “You hungry, Amos?”
“I was until you called,” Amos said. “But not now.”
“Me neither, I guess. Your grandfather, Able—you’re doing this for him, aren’t you?”
“Best just arrest me, Chief Lyon. Charge me.”
“I’m not sure I want to do that, Amos. Maybe I want answers more than an arrest. My notion is that your grandfather hit on this brilliant, if misdirected, Machiavellian and very illegal notion of providing the false IDs to Horton County’s illegals. Able set up a low-cost and wicked way to control his own undocumented workers problem. And damned if it’s not working like a charm.”
“Not from where I sit,” Amos said.
“No,” Tell said. “Not since I know now.”
“So what do you want to do to me, Chief Lyon?”
“Stop it, Amos. Just stop it cold. I’ll talk to your grandfather and persuade him that he needs to go along. I know what it’s going to cost him, and a dark part of me actually admires his cleverness. But this is very wrong. And just as I did, someone will eventually figure it out and they’ll act on it. Say, the INS, or maybe some American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. The ACLU is hot to burn your granddad down for his treatment of illegals. If the ACLU got wind of this, you and your grandfather would be destroyed by those bastards. You’ll both go to prison if anyone catches you and prosecutes. Prison for a cop is a place worse than hell.”
“I’m not sure Granddad will be able to accept this. He doesn’t like being ordered to do anything.”
Tell shook his head. “He has no choice, this time. Fact is, if I figured it out, and did it after just a few days in town, it’s just a matter of time—and not much time, I’m afraid—until someone else does too.”
“You’d really let me walk on this?”
“I want a promise from you you’ll stop,” Tell said. “Promise you’ll stop now.”
Amos put out a hand. “I promise.”
Tell hesitated, then shook Amos’s hand. He palmed the wheel, making a U-turn and heading back toward town. They were in Vale County now, and Tell didn’t want to further provoke Walt Pierce by driving around the bastard’s county in a New Austin cruiser. He said, “There’s this other thing. You are the father of Luisa’s baby?”
Amos couldn’t look at Tell again. He stared out the window at the industrial park this time.
“Luisa is illegal,” Amos said. “She came over from Juarez like so many do now—moved in with family that’s legal to buy time to get herself set up here. The quickest way to do that, is, well, if she’s pregnant with my baby …”
“I get the logic—and the law—so far as it goes,” Tell said. “Able doesn’t know? Doesn’t know about the baby? Doesn’t know about Luisa?”
“No.”
“You need to tell him about that too,” Tell said. “From what I understand, Luisa’s not too long away from delivering.”
“No, a few more weeks, maybe.”
Tell said, “Did Thalia know about you two? About you and her cousin?”
“She knew. She was the only one who knew.”
“No, Luisa’s aunt knows too. What was Thalia like?”
“Nice. I liked her a lot. But it was hard for her, with the little girl and not much money. And she never really got over her husband dying like he did. He was blown to pieces in an explosion at the propane plant. Static electricity, they said. One spark while he was filling a container. Gone.”
Tell said, “There’s no good way to put this, and with your career ambitions, I’m going to trust you’ll take this question in the spirit of i
nvestigation: Thalia, did she spend the night with a lot of men?”
“God, no,” Amos said. “That thing with the reporter, so far as I know from things Granddad said and shared, that was a fluke. I think she was out alone, she was drinking, and maybe she thought this reporter was a better guy than he turned out to be. It was a fluke.” Amos hesitated, then said, “Wouldn’t surprise me if Shawn O’Hara was the first man Thalia had sex with since her husband got blown up.”
“Okay then,” Tell said. “Thanks for the fill. I think we’re through here. Just need to decide between us which one of us is going to talk to Able about this identification card mess. And about Luisa.”
“You really going to let me walk on this thing with the cards?”
“Keep your promise and, yeah, I mean to.” Tell’s cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID panel: it was the number for the Horton County coroner. The coroner had keyed in “911.” Code for an emergency.
Tell said, “I have to return a call.” He pulled curbside in case he needed to take down any notes and called up Doctor Parks.
Parks said, “Thank God you’re prompt, Lyon. This is another thing I’m not giving you, Tell. You alone? Nobody else in earshot?”
“One second.”
Tell said to Amos, “Stay here, son. I need to take this in private.” Tell got out and parked his ass on the hood. “Go ahead, Doc.”
“Some information leaked my way. A couple flunkies were having conversation over handball with some opposite numbers in Vale County’s coroner’s office. Seems Walt Pierce conducted a search of Thalia Ruiz’s bedroom. They’ve got some DNA from her sheets. Semen, hairs. So Pierce is getting a warrant. Like Shawn O’Hara, it’s another screwball thing. The suspect Pierce has identified is not a repeat offender, so the DNA isn’t in the system that way. Pierce’s suspect went through a Junior Police Academy camp a couple of summers ago. Something Vale County runs for aspiring young cop-hopefuls. The participants all got typed and their DNA samples just never quite got tossed.”
Tell’s mouth was dry. His hands were moist. He could already see where this was going. Parks said, “You’re not going to fucking believe who Walt Pierce is about to arrest and question in the murder of Thalia Ruiz.”
El Gavilan Page 18
