by Brenda Novak
For the second time, he managed to reel in a scathing comment, but only by ignoring his father’s rejoinder. “Thanks for the papers.”
Applauding himself for his courteous veneer, he started to close the door—then jerked it open again. “By the way…”
Obviously eager to prolong the conversation, his father stepped back to the door. “Yes?”
“Is it true that Sophia St. Claire is the chief of police?”
“Sure, why? You know her?”
He knew her, all right. He’d had a terrible crush on her when they were in high school and had screwed up the courage to ask her to Homecoming for their sophomore year. Elated when she accepted, he’d thought maybe he’d been wrong about Bordertown, about his chances of succeeding in this place. It was only a school dance, but it’d seemed like a promise of hope. Never had he been so excited about life, about change. He’d spent everything he had on a suit and flowers, and eagerly counted the days until the big dance. When he found out that she’d stood him up and gone with a more popular boy, he’d felt as if she’d made a joke out of the belief that he could be more than he was. It felt like the most personal of rejections. Somehow that had cut deeper than almost anything else he’d experienced, probably because he’d been young and vulnerable back then in a way he hadn’t been since. He’d made sure of that. “We were in the same class. When I went to school, of course.”
Unwilling to address the negative aspects of the past—or, it seemed, to even remember them—Bruce skimmed over Rod’s reference to dropping out. “She’s a beauty.” He added a whistle. “Stuart talks about her all the time.”
“His wife doesn’t mind?”
“It’s Patrick who’s married, not Stuart. Chief St. Claire is single, too. For now, anyway. There’re about a dozen men who’d like to change that.”
Including Stuart, apparently. “Who’s she dating?”
“She goes out with Stuart now and then, but I don’t get the impression she’s all that serious about him. She used to see Dick Callahan, the pastor over at First Calvary Church, but that didn’t go anywhere, either.”
What, he’d figured out that her soul wasn’t worth saving? “Why not?”
“Got some young girl pregnant. It was a big scandal, as you can imagine—a church man sleeping with an underage member of his flock. To save face, and his job, he claimed to love her. And maybe he really does. Who knows? He married her. The baby’s due anytime.”
“Poor Sophia.” Rod couldn’t think of anyone who deserved to be jilted more but he tried to cloak the sarcasm in those two words. Not because he cared whether or not others found out he wasn’t all that impressed with Sophia St. Claire—he didn’t want to give his father an excuse to hang around by asking questions. “She any good at her job?” He wanted to know what he had to work with, whether or not she’d be a competent and cooperative partner in the investigation.
“Seems to be,” Bruce replied. “But she’s had a rough few months. First, she had to deal with the people in town who were opposed to seeing a woman take charge, a young woman at that. If not for Paul Fedorko and a couple others on the city council who were adamantly opposed to her main competitor, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity. But she did. And she braved the backlash. Then these killings started. If she can’t solve them in a relatively short period of time, it’ll give her opponents the leverage they need to get her fired.”
Hearing this, Roderick had half a mind to sit back and do nothing, to wait and see if she could rescue herself. He certainly wasn’t inclined to do her any favors. But he couldn’t risk the lives of innocent people just to feed an old grudge. She didn’t matter. Maybe he’d once had feelings for Sophia, but he hadn’t thought of her in years.
Well, not in the past few months, anyway…. For whatever reason, no other woman had ever affected him in the same way.
“Do you think she’ll be willing to work with me on this?”
“I don’t see why she wouldn’t. Someone with your reputation. I’m sure she can use all the help she can get. Last I heard, the sheriff had assigned a detective to the case, but he should’ve assigned two or three.”
“She’s got a lot going against her.”
“Exactly.”
Rod remembered what she’d done to him well enough that this news didn’t make him entirely unhappy. He’d been so thrilled, as that naive teenager who thought he finally had a chance with the girl he’d always wanted. But she’d set him up, probably so she and her friends could have a good laugh. “I’ll pay her a visit.”
“It’ll relieve the city council to have you involved in the investigation.”
And Rod definitely wanted to please the good ol’ boys on the city council. He swallowed a pained sigh. He hated small-town politics, but this dynamic would work in his favor so he didn’t complain. Frightened of losing her job and in need of help, Sophia would be much more likely to cooperate with him. Experience had taught him that local cops with less incentive could be very stingy with information. “Glad to hear it.”
His father didn’t seem to pick up on his lack of enthusiasm. “You need an introduction or anything else, you let me know.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Again, Bruce seemed to miss the dry note that should’ve told him that Rod had no intention of coming to him for anything.
“By the way, I brought you something else.”
Now what? Rod stretched up and gripped the top of the door frame with his fingertips. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I’ll get it.” He walked to the passenger side of his big gray double-axle pickup truck and retrieved a manila envelope.
Rod dropped his arms to his sides but didn’t comment as he accepted it. Opening the flap, which was unsealed, he withdrew a stack of money orders—the ones he’d sent at sixteen and seventeen, when he was trying to pay off his mother’s funeral. He didn’t want them, but he wasn’t going to argue over them, either. He’d done what he could for his mother. He’d repaid the debt—whether Bruce allowed him to or not.
“I don’t want these, and you know it.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d take them. I can’t explain why, but…it’s important to me.”
“Whatever.” Rod was about to close the flap and toss the envelope onto the small table by the door when his fingers encountered something with an entirely different texture. What was this?
When he pulled it from the envelope, he saw a snapshot of him and his mother standing outside their shack at the ranch. Carolina, young, beautiful and still healthy, was wearing one of her inexpensive cotton shirts, a wide-brimmed hat to protect her from the sun and a pair of jeans that had been cut off at the knees and rolled up a few inches. She was smiling and hugging him close.
Rod was maybe three or four, too young to remember having the photo taken. “Where did you get this?”
It was harder now, harder to keep the anger under control. Looking at Carolina, he could understand why Bruce had been attracted to her. She was beautiful. But that didn’t make Rod willing to forgive him for taking advantage of her, not when Bruce already had everything a man could ever want.
“I took the picture myself.” His father must’ve known from Rod’s expression or the tension in his body that it was time to leave because he mumbled a quick goodbye and walked away.
Rod didn’t respond. He could no longer speak or move. All he could do was stare at that picture as memories of his mother crashed over him.
Sweat rolled between Sophia’s shoulder blades, making her feel sticky and uncomfortable in her uniform as she went from trailer to trailer, getting formal statements from everyone who could have heard the gunshots that killed José and Benita Sanchez. Three shots had been fired. She knew that from the spent casings. But only one person—Debbie Berke, in the closest trailer—had heard enough noise to get her out of bed. Mac White, who lived next to Earl and Marlene, said he “might’ve” heard something. He told her he’d been awakened but shrugged off whate
ver had disturbed him. He was too used to Earl and Marlene’s fights to worry about a little yelling. Randy Pinegar said he had a sleep disorder for which he’d taken a sleeping aid. But everyone knew he was an alcoholic. Sophia guessed he’d been in a stupor. And Ralph Newlin, the only other neighbor in that circle of trailers, had been in Phoenix, picking up his daughter from the home of his ex-wife. He was still gone, on his way to Disneyland.
Planning to ask Debbie a few more questions about the “thumps” she’d heard, Sophia had just stepped onto the landing when her cell phone rang. According to caller ID, it was Detective Lindstrom.
She nearly ignored it. But Councilman Fedorko had called this morning and added even more pressure to what she was already feeling. He’d told her the other city council members were getting nervous, that they were wondering if she had the experience to get the job done. He implied that there were two members, in particular, who were talking about replacing her. He claimed Mayor Schilling was even lamenting the fact that they hadn’t promoted Leonard. Paul seemed to believe that, questionable character aside, Leonard would have a better chance of catching the UDA killer. Sophia knew it was fear that was making the city council second-guess their decision. They were scared that someone who wasn’t a UDA would get shot and a battle would erupt between the two factions. But she didn’t appreciate their lack of faith.
Bottom line, she had to cooperate with Lindstrom, had to trust the detective despite the warning bells in her head and the sick feeling in her gut. She couldn’t do this alone. There was too much work.
She hit the talk button. “Chief St. Claire.”
“You identified the victims?”
She’d left Lindstrom a message to that effect after her chat with Fedorko. “I did.”
“How?”
“Naco was worth the trip.”
“I let the Mexican consulate know about the murders. You might want to alert them to this new development.”
“I already did.”
“Who’d you speak with?”
“Same guy you did. Deputy Consul Rudy Ruybal.” He’d been their contact from the beginning.
“I pushed him to do the DNA testing for Philip Moreno. Did he say anything about it?”
Philip Moreno was among the victims in the second incident. They’d identified him via SIRLI, by posting a picture of the unusual eyeglass case found near his body and the logo on his T-shirt. “He didn’t mention it.”
“I can’t believe they’re dragging their feet on this.”
“It’s expensive. Rudy needs approval.” When there was no other way to be sure of a deceased UDA’s identity, the consulate had Baylor University do a DNA test, hoping to match the body with relatives back in Mexico. But it was a time-consuming and expensive process that had to be approved by the foreign ministry’s headquarters in Mexico City, and the government wasn’t too thrilled about doing it unless they were fairly sure it would be successful. Just in the past decade, thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them unidentified, had died in the Southwest. The logo on Moreno’s T-shirt was the only thing they had to indicate he was from Durango. But if they could confirm his identity, it might help them identify the female who was traveling with him. Sophia suspected they were the brother and sister the Moreno family in Durango had reported missing.
“Did he seem upset?” Lindstrom asked.
“Definitely. He requested a meeting.”
“You don’t think he’ll try to make us look bad by going to the media, do you?”
Fedorko had been worried about the same thing. He said any negative press would work against her, because it would give the mayor the ammunition he needed to bring the council to a consensus. “He will if he thinks it’s in his country’s best interest. But I don’t think he wants this to turn into a war any more than we do.”
“I want to be present at the meeting.” Lindstrom sounded as if she was prepared for an argument, but Sophia was certainly willing to let her deal with Deputy Consul Ruybal.
“No problem. It’s at two. When you go, please tell Rudy I’m busy with the investigation and couldn’t get away.”
There was a long pause. “You set me up.”
“You set yourself up,” Sophia said. “There’s no reason for both of us to be there.”
“Fine. Whatever. Tell me what happened in Naco. I want every detail, everything you know, so I can show him we’re doing all we can and that we’re making progress.”
“The Sanchezes came by bus from Nayarit to Naco, where they crossed on Friday night along with thirty others. They were led by two runners—Miguel and Juan Martinez. According to Juan, they were an hour or so into the walk when they were spotted by the border patrol and everyone scattered. José and Benita struck out alone.”
“Then there’s no way to track who saw them last,” she complained. “Their killer could be anyone who came across them.”
“Anyone with a silencer,” Sophia said.
“You think the culprit used a silencer?”
“I didn’t realize it right away, but it occurred to me that those shots would’ve disturbed more people if they’d sounded like regular gunfire.”
“Silencers aren’t easy to come by.”
“It’s not as tough here as it is in some states.”
“I’ll check with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to see if anyone in this area obtained one through legal means in the past year or so.”
Sophia doubted it would be that simple. This guy was too smart. But they had to eliminate whatever possibilities they could. There were fewer silencers on the market than guns. “I know someone who might have a bead on the black market. I’ll ask him to poke around, see what he can find.” She didn’t add that her contact was also an ex-boyfriend, who just happened to be intimately acquainted with that sort of thing.
Debbie Berke came to the door even though Sophia hadn’t knocked yet. “I thought I heard your voice.”
Sophia held up a finger to indicate she’d be with her in a second. “While you’re talking to ATF, see if they have any undercover agents working in the area that we might be able to speak with. Maybe they’ve heard something about the sale or trade of a silencer.”
“That’s not a bad idea. So when’s the autopsy?”
“Hasn’t been scheduled yet. I’ll let you know when I hear.”
“Sure you will,” Lindstrom said, and hung up.
Sophia was about to turn to Debbie to ask whether the shot she’d heard might have been fired through a silencer when a Hummer drove up and a man got out. The glare of the sun made it difficult to see him clearly, but the moment she raised a hand to shade her eyes, Sophia realized it was Roderick Guerrero.
Roderick hadn’t expected to find Sophia here. He’d merely come to take a look at the crime scene. Since everyone in town was talking about the murders, it hadn’t been hard to learn where they’d occurred. But there she was, standing in front of a heavyset woman Roderick was sure he’d never met. This grouping of trailers had been here when he’d lived in Bordertown, but he’d never associated with the people inside them.
The older woman watched him curiously. He could’ve ignored her and gone about his business. But now that Sophia had seen him, he had no choice except to confront her and explain his presence.
She tensed as he approached. Did she recognize him? He didn’t see why she would. She hadn’t considered him good enough to notice. She’d dated wealthy ranchers’ sons, not illegitimate half-breeds who lived in shacks with dirt floors. The one time she’d agreed to go out with him, she’d made him a laughingstock to his two half brothers.
“Chief St. Claire?” he said.
“Yes?” Suspicion lit the eyes he remembered so well. Framed by thick black eyelashes, they were a very pale green. As a boy, Roderick had thought they were the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen and he had to admit that nothing in the past fourteen years had changed his mind.
“I’m Roderick Guerrero.” He wasn’t planning
to mention that they’d once known each other. That wasn’t significant. “I work for a company called Department 6.”
“Isn’t that the outfit that sent a couple of operatives to Paradise last summer to investigate the Covenanters?” the woman with Sophia chimed in.
“It is,” he replied, and offered her a polite smile. “We do a lot of undercover work, mostly for the DEA, but I know my way around an investigation.”
Sophia reclaimed his attention. “And you’re here because…”
“Bruce Dunlap called me about the recent shootings. He said you don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing and he asked me to come down here.”
“He’s paying you?”
“No, I have a…vested interest in seeing this solved.”
“You don’t think that’ll happen without you.”
He couldn’t help reacting to the edge in her voice. “You said it. I didn’t.”
She pressed her lips so tightly together, all the color disappeared from them. “So we’re going to pretend we’ve never met?”
“It’s been years,” he said calmly. “And it was such a minor acquaintance I didn’t expect you to remember.”
“Minor. I see.”
The other woman was listening so avidly her mouth hung open, but he refused to pay her any heed. Pushing his sunglasses a little higher, he gestured at the markers that had been placed at the crime scene. “What’d you find out here?”
Sophia folded her arms. “And now you’re assuming that my answer is yes.”
“I’m assuming you’re smart enough to realize when you’re—”
“Looking at the solution to all my problems?” she broke in.
He felt a muscle tic in his cheek. “Getting something for nothing.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You have no official right to be here. This is like some spectator going to the coach in the middle of a game and saying, ‘Here, let me take over.’”
