The Devil's Highway

by Timothy C. Phillips

  “What about the Mendoza case?” I asked.

  “Do you mean why hasn’t the FBI become involved?” He gave an ironic chuckle. “One murder in the desert doesn’t interest the FBI, Mr. Longville. Investigating such small potatoes is my job. There’s got to be some proof of a Federal crime to interest them, which I don’t have.”

  “But you think the Redemption Army killed Mendoza.”

  “I know that they did. Mendoza had been snooping around the area for weeks, trying to dig up something on Cushman and the Redemption Army. As a matter of fact, I think that Mendoza must have already known something, or had at least caught wind of something from somewhere, and he was out here trying to find evidence. He was making another documentary, to blow the lid off the whole thing.”

  “So Fernando Mendoza got too close? Maybe he found out too much?”

  “It had to be something like that. Maybe he found out too many wrong things. Something they wanted kept quiet out there. Whatever Mendoza dug up was enough to make Colonel Cushman very nervous. Nervous enough to take a big chance in having a public figure like Mendoza killed. In some circles, Mendoza was pretty well-known.”

  “True enough, but Mendoza’s dead, and nothing really happened. Cushman’s people are still right where they were, to begin with.”

  “Yeah. Maybe that would be different if Mendoza had made his film.” He sighed. “As it stands, though, Cushman played his cards right. The bastard sure is lucky.”

  Chapter 8

  I decided to grab some coffee and mull over this new information. A part of me just wanted to meet this Colonel Cushman face to face, and explain that what we had here was an errant college boy with a very sick father, and I had no interest in the Redemption Army, one way or the other, and could I please take the lad home, now? Thank you very much, and goodbye, good luck with your Apocalypse and all of that.

  The Mendoza killing was already working on my conscience, however. If the Sheriff’s suspicions were true, there was a lot more going on in Cushman’s desert compound than a bunch of paranoid survivalist types stocking up on beans and bullets and waiting on The Big One.

  I headed for a little diner, across the street. May’s Place, the placard out front proclaimed. I liked diners, and this place had the kind of ambience that I associated with my favorite eating place, Sally’s Diner, back home in Birmingham. I had just finished my first cup of coffee when a young woman slid into the booth across from me.

  “You’re Longville,” she said, without preamble.

  I took her in. Hispanic, early thirties, probably some Native American blood, too, judging from her high cheek bones and piercing black eyes. She was strikingly attractive. There was an accent in the background; English was her second language, but she spoke it very well. There was a deadly earnest expression on her face, and a great deal of confidence in her voice. I knew who she was before she told me, from Garrett’s description.

  “That’s me,” I said, and raised my coffee slightly in greeting.

  “What if I told you that the murder of Fernando Mendoza was tied into your case.”

  “Are you going to tell me that?”

  She smiled, and it was a disarming, honest smile. But it didn’t last long. Back to business. “Fernando Mendoza was a close friend of mine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He was killed because he talked to this young man you are trying to find. Brad Caldwell.”

  She suddenly had my undivided attention. “Just how did you know that I’m looking for Brad Caldwell, Miss . . . ?”

  “Andrea Herrera. Call me Andrea.”

  “Roland,” I replied. We shook hands.

  “Mendoza was my partner. He and I have been working on a story about the Redemption Army for almost a year. We were finally getting so close to the truth, and then . . .”

  “So I’m told. Your friend Mendoza got too close?”

  “Yes. The night Fernando died he had gone to meet—without telling me—Brad Caldwell. Since that time, no one in town has seen Brad any more. He is a young man, you know? He used to come into town and watch a movie or get dinner. He was friendly with some of the locals, unlike most of the Redemption Army people.”

  She still hadn’t answered my question about how she knew I was looking for Brad, but I let it slide for the moment. “So how did you and your friend Mendoza meet with Brad Caldwell?”

  Her middle finger described a slow circle on the table top. She looked down, and then her eyes slowly rose to meet mine.

  “Mendoza called me that night, after he met with Brad, and he told me about their talk. Fernando also said that he had video and audio proof that the RA was involved in some kind of illegal activity to fund its operations. But he wouldn’t tell me any details, and he never made it back to Delgado alive.”

  “And when they found his body, all of the evidence he spoke of was gone.”

  “Of course. It was staged to look like a robbery. Fernandos’ wallet was emptied out in the seat; only the money was missing. Everyone at the compound had an alibi, of course; naturally, they were provided by other Redemption Army members. And there was no evidence at the scene of Fernando’s murder to suggest that it was anything other than a robbery gone wrong. But no one here in Delgado believes that.”

  She sat for a minute more without saying anything. Then she looked at me with a vacant look that was still somehow intense, as though she was deeply considering a matter that took her thoughts elsewhere.

  “You’ll need help with the Redemption Army. I know them better than anyone.”

  “You want help, Andrea, not me. You need me to help prove that Cushman ordered your friend’s killing.”

  She paused, then nodded. “Yes, of course I do. I was lost and without a purpose for a while after Fernando’s death. But now I want nothing more than to complete the work we started here, to expose Cushman and the Redemption Army. For Fernando.”

  I looked at this woman, and it was hard for me to imagine her lost and without purpose. But then I know how grief is. You lose someone you love, and it seems like your world is at an end. You suffer, you mope, you go a little crazy. Then one day, despite even what you want to feel, you wake up and you feel like you’re going to make it.

  “If you find anything that links Cushman to Fernando’s death, naturally I’d like to see it,” she said, her voice slightly coy.

  “So you’re offering to help me, then.”

  She leaned across the table, suddenly passionate. “However you want to see it. Roland, our goals are tied together. You want to get Brad Caldwell out of that compound, well . . . I can help. But I want what they took from Fernando, or at least Brad’s testimony about what he revealed to Fernando.”

  “I can use all the help I can get, Andrea.” I put some money down on the table and got up to leave. “I have a feeling that you and Sheriff Garrett agree on a lot of things.”

  “Garrett? He’s a good man. I believe he can be trusted.”

  “I’m glad you think so, because I get the idea I’m going to need some trustworthy people working with me.”

  “Let me warn, you, Roland. You’re going to have to take on Cushman and his people to get to Brad. That won’t be easy. They are very well organized, very well armed, and, I should warn you, a bunch of fanatics. But the people around here hate them and want them gone. They want it like it was before Tolbert came. I think that when people realize you’re out to get Cushman, a lot of them are going to be on your side.”

  Your side.

  Suddenly, there it was; I was on a side now, to Andrea’s way of thinking, and maybe the whole town of Delgado’s thinking, too, for all that I knew. I hadn’t come here to go up against a militia leader and his minions, but the situation was a hell of a lot more complicated than anything I’d bargained for, sitting on that comfortable couch in an upscale Atlanta neighborhood. And whatever happened, it was going to be a lot harder than scolding some errant college kid and dragging him home to chagrined parents.

&
nbsp; “I’m staying at the Fermosa Hotel,” Andrea said as she slid out of the booth. “Call me when you get a chance.” I smiled as she walked away. I was staying there, too. I had a feeling I’d be seeing Andrea Herrera again, pretty soon.

  I went back over to the Sheriff’s office. Claire said the Sheriff was out on a call, but she called out on the radio and caught a deputy on his way out. He came into the lobby and gave me an inquiring look. He was a tall, thin, gangly young man, wearing glasses that were, I thought, a tad thick for Law Enforcement. He wore a straw hat and cowboy boots. I wondered absently if all law officers in Texas dressed like that. His name tag identified him as Hughes.

  I nodded. “Where’s Mendoza’s car? Any problem with me looking it over?”

  He nodded, like he’d been expecting the question. “Sheriff Garrett figured that you might want to do that. He said it would be all right. We’re through with it, as far as evidence gathering goes. It’s in the yard out back where we park our squad cars. Not a lot to see, though, I have to say. It’s the burgundy Altima. Claire can get you the key.”

  I got the key from Claire and walked around back. There it was, a burgundy Nissan Altima. Nothing impressive about it in the least; it was a mid-sized, fuel-efficient, four-door sedan. Something like you might rent at a budget car rental place.

  I took my time examining the car. Like Deputy Hughes had said, there was really nothing much to see; I knew that Sheriff Garrett would have brought in crime lab technicians to go over the vehicle. If Cushman’s people had done the killing, they undoubtedly would have gone over the car, and Mendoza’s body, as well, and cleansed the scene of evidence.

  The killers certainly had time and opportunity to do so. Still, in my line of business, you look, anyway. The driver’s side glass had been down, when whoever or whatever had stopped Mendoza made him pull over to the side of the road. Maybe it was someone he recognized, or maybe they used a ruse to get him to pull over.

  The killer had walked up to the side of the car and shot Mendoza twice in the side of the head. Bang, bang. You’re dead. They had then, according to Andrea, taken a camera and a digital audio that Mendoza had carried with him that night. That equipment had yet to be recovered.

  I stood, looking into the car’s front seat. There was blood on the passenger’s side; not a lot, but as Shakespeare once wrote, ‘tis enough; ‘twill serve. I was reminded of Brad’s abandoned Subaru, just another car that had become an artifact of some calamity. Hopefully, Brad was still alive somewhere, unlike Mendoza.

  “I saw them kill him,” came a voice from behind me.

  I whirled, not knowing what to expect. There was an older man there, tall and lean, with the dark skin and sculpted features of a Plains Indian. There was an impassive look on his face, but his eyes looked a bit glassy, and he was dressed in dark blue coveralls that had seen a lot of wear. He looked and sounded like many a habitual drinker I had seen, a little out of focus. His words came a little hesitantly to his lips.

  “Name’s Ira,” he said, and his speech was slightly slurred. “I, uh, saw them kill the man in this car. The Mexican.”

  “Then why haven’t you told someone before now?”

  “Truth is, I didn’t remember it right away. I was, well, I got pretty drunk that day. I was drinking some fortified wine, and that stuff messes with me. Figured it out a couple days ago . . . I mean, it came back to me, you know? Sometimes I forget things, they come back to me later. Sometimes a lot later.”

  I did indeed know what he meant. I’d stayed in the bottle for a couple of years myself, and the last year was all blackouts and dimly-remembered phantom events. Which was one reason I didn’t drink any more.

  “What’s your name again?” I asked the old man.

  “I’m Ira. Ira Greywolf. I’m a friend of Andrea Herrera’s.”

  I wondered if she had sent him over to tell me his story, and decided that she must have; Andrea was a very busy woman. I smiled to myself, before asking, “What do you remember, Mr. Greywolf?”

  “Call me Ira. Regularly, I do plumbing work, any kind you need. I do a lot of work for folks around here. But sometimes for extra money I go out and hook cans, you know? That’s what I was doing. I was out picking up cans, out on the old Devil’s Highway. I ain’t paranoid, but when I hear folks driving up, sometimes I lay low and wait for them to pass. Lots of shady things go on out in the desert these days.”

  The last remark was in a low, mysterious tone.

  “What kind of shady things, Ira?”

  “All kinds of things. Smugglers trying to sneak in illegals, drug runners, gun runners, you name it. I’d had a little to drink already, that day, and sometimes the young folks will mess with me when I’m tipsy, so I try to stay out of sight most of the time. I just drink by myself and do what it is I do. Well, my van was parked around back of a hill, so no one could see it. I didn’t want whoever it was driving up to catch sight of me, either; that could have been trouble. So I ducked down behind some big mesquite bushes and just watched the road.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a flatbed truck came up, two men inside. They came down the highway, and pulled over to the side. One man, he got out and put the hood up. After a minute or two, the fellow in this car,” he indicated the Altima, “comes along from the other direction. He stops and rolls his window down, the man smiles and goes over to the window, pulls out a gun, and just shoots the man. Then, his friend gets out and they go through the car, real methodically, take things out of it and put them into the truck. All the time the man who done the shooting is talking on a cell phone. Then, when they finish, they turn the truck around and go back the way they came.”

  “Had you ever seen these men before, Ira?”

  “One of them. I do work out on the Redemption Army compound, too. The shooter . . . he’s always with that Colonel Cushman. A man named Kiker.”

  “That was all?”

  “That’s it. I thought you should know.”

  With that, the old man wandered away, headed down the street. He and Andrea knew each other, which meant that she knew what he had told me. I doubted that Ira had come over to give me his account spontaneously. Andrea was serious about taking sides, it seemed. One thing was for sure, if sides were being taken I’d do my own choosing, though I was already leaning pretty heavily her way. However bad he sounded, though, I had to know more about this Cushman and his works. I prefer to get my impressions first-hand.

  I went back into the Sheriff’s Office. Deputy Hughes was there. “You’re becoming a regular around here,” he commented. “The Sheriff’s not here just now. You can hang out with me back here, if you like. I’m working on some projects.”

  Curious, I followed Hughes to a room off the main lobby. It was cluttered with all sorts of things on tables that appeared to be in some state of disrepair: computers, electric motors, a couple of flat screen television sets, and electric guitar. It was obvious from the opened panels and hanging wires that someone was working on all of it.

  “Part time job?” I asked Hughes, who grinned.

  “Welcome to Deputy Hughes free repair service,” he said, and did a comic bow. “I like to tinker with things. Ever since I took my remote control cars apart as a kid and fixed them where they would run faster, I’ve found I have a knack for it. I like to invent little gadgets, and if people have things that are broken . . . .” He made a sweep of the room’s impressive array of broken things with an outstretched hand. “. . . . Well, I see if I can’t make them work again, in my spare time.”

  “That’s a useful talent,” I commented.

  Hughes grinned. Except for his height, he looked like a twelve-year old. “I was going to be a mechanic in the Army, but my eyesight wasn’t up to spec. The Texas Peace Officer requirements let me get by with adjusted 20/30 vision, so here I am.”

  “Thinking of leaving Law Enforcement one day?”

  “Shoot, no. I love being a deputy. It lets you know all the things that are going on
in town. I figure that I’ll probably follow in the Sheriff’s footsteps one of these days.”

  I watched Hughes tinker with a television set for a few minutes, then wandered back out front, to where Claire was making some coffee.

  Garrett got back into town about two cups of Joe later, saying that he had answered something called a “livestock call” on a feeder road near some area farms.

  “What, you were moving cows out of the road?” I asked him with a smirk.

  He drew himself to his full height and saluted. “Protect and serve. It comes with the territory,” he said drily.

  I told him about my encounters with Andrea and Ira.

  “Like I told you, Andrea likes to stir things up. The woman came out here with Mendoza. Since his death, she’s been hanging around, basically trying to continue his work, and prove that the Redemption Army killed him. The Redemption Army won’t let her anywhere near their compound, and everyone out there is forbidden to speak to her. Naturally she’s frustrated and looking for an ally.”

  “What about Ira Greywolf?”

  “Everybody in Delgado knows Ira. He was in the Marine Corps. He came back from Vietnam with a chest full of medals, but that war got to him, like it did a lot of people. He’s generally well-liked around town. He does damned good plumbing work when he’s sober, and he’s sort of a hero to the Vets around town. He spends a lot of time in the drunk tank, otherwise.”

  “Can his word be trusted?”

  “It can, and it can’t.” Garrett sighed. “On the one hand, if Ira says he saw it, he saw it, no doubt in my mind. On the other hand, though, I seriously doubt the District Attorney is going to sign a warrant based on the testimony of the town drunk. The defense would pick him to pieces on the witness stand, and Cushman, Kiker, and the rest of their lot would walk. That means we have to talk to your friend Brad Caldwell. Follow up on Andrea’s story, find out what Mendoza knew. Otherwise, everything you have is just rumor and speculation. ”