“You’re missing a really treat.” He removed his hat and wiped a sleeve across his brow, then pushed the hat back on, positioning it just so. “Like I said. Turn right at the billboard. Can’t miss it. Drive another mile or so down the dirt road. It can wash out when the rains come, but ...” He glanced at the sky with festering eyes. “Don’t look like we’re getting rain today. You’ll pass a stand of cottonwoods and a creek over on the right. A little farther on, you’ll see a fish mailbox and a swing gate. It’s usually open. If it isn’t, you’ll have to get out of your nice shiny car and open it. Don’t be afraid of the snakes, mind. They don’t bite unless you try to pet them.” He sniggered. He must have told the joke a thousand times. “There’s a big old wooden gate with an overhead sign branded with the Coyote name. The ranch house is a quarter mile on. White adobe with a wide veranda. Corral off to the right. Stables to the left. Missus should be home. Saw her only yesterday.”
“Fish mailbox?”
“Looks like walleye pike to me. The missus says catfish. It’s green and ugly.”
When Cordelia arrived at the ranch, the tires of her rental car trailing a cloud of dust, the primary and indeed only occupant of the ranch house—Jacqueline Wilcox Coyote—was sitting outside on her shaded porch and drinking something cool from a tumbler. Cordelia pulled over and got out of the car. Putting a flattened hand to her brow, she glanced at the big sky and the land beneath. Both stretched into tomorrow and back toward the mountains.
Jacci Coyote was studying her visitor. “You’re either lost or know exactly where you are.” She set down the tumbler and stood up like a flag pole.
“The latter,” Cordelia said.
“Then you must be Cordelia Burke. Hank called to tell me you were on your way. Guess you ought to come on up. Fair warning. Cleopatra here has a mean bite.” A rangy mutt with an inquisitive nose and a panting tongue rose to her feet, tail wagging.
Keeping a wary eye on the dog, Cordelia picked her way over the path. “I’ll bet she doesn’t.”
“You’d bet right.”
An outdoor courtyard and stone gates led toward slatted steps. The rambling ranch house was styled after a Mexican hacienda. Arched central doorway. Red-tiled roof. Adobe walls. Arched windows with shudders. It was a sturdy house. Able to withstand heat, winds, and floods. And welcoming.
Its owner was equally welcoming. “I’m Jacci Coyote, your resident-in-chief, as if you didn’t already know. Expected you over an hour ago.”
“My flight was delayed.”
“Ah, that explains it.” She reached out a hand.
Cordelia took it and looked around. The property bordered a creek, a wooden bridge spanning the divide, scrubby trees providing the backdrop. Horses wandered in the cool of the shade while cows grazed nearby. The animals had the run of the place but weren’t very interested in straying far.
Swinging her vision from the picturesque landscape into the piercing eyes of Jack Coyote’s adoptive mother, Cordelia dug into her blazer pocket and presented her business card. Jacci Coyote was surly. She didn’t trust many people. Certainly didn’t trust this visitor, who made it her business to come all this way just to nose around and ask prying questions, questions she wouldn’t want to answer.
Jacci looked over the card with interest, rubbing her thumb speculatively over the surface as if to gather insight from the description. “Financial Analyst. Monetary Compliance Network. Vienna, Virginia. Down the road from the CIA. Ever since you called, I’ve been reading up on you folks. I’m guessing you’re a CPA. Worked in the public sector before going to the dark side.” This dignified lady with silver-laced hair and a proud almost insolent bearing snorted at her own joke. Her tense demeanor relaxed. Once again, perhaps for the third or fourth time, she raked her eyes over her visitor. She was still leery, of her guest and her guest’s mission. “I guess you really are who you say you are. And you’re here about Jack. You didn’t say, but I guessed. And now I know. Do you like your iced tea straight up or laced with bourbon?”
“Bourbon, please,” Cordelia responded.
“She’s polite, besides. And a government bureaucrat, to boot. Well, hallelujah. Sometimes miracles really do happen.”
They had formed a tenuous understanding, however prickly.
An attorney-at-law in good standing in Pima County, Jacci Coyote was officially semi-retired but according to an internet search, still practiced family law. In the late 1800s, her husband’s European ancestor arrived in the valley and settled on three-hundred acres of unspoiled land. As master of his empire and with a motley crew of ex-Confederate soldiers and Mexican caballeros, he raised cattle and horses, selling them to the Army. After burying a wife and two sons, he remarried, this time to a señorita, the offspring of a Chiracahua chief and his Spanish bride, the union an alliance that heralded peace to the valley, this despite ongoing Indian wars in other parts of the territory. The family name was changed to Coyote in accordance with the reverence the pioneer held for the woman who bore him several more sons, including the five-times grandfather of Jack Coyote.
“We’ll be more comfortable in here,” Jacci said, welcoming her visitor into the cool of the hacienda.
Cordelia hadn’t expected the magnificence of the interior, masterfully decorated with textured walls of earthy coral and turquoise, the color scheme carried from the deserts and mountains into the tranquil indoors. They passed through a roomy foyer furnished with painted wooden benches and handcrafted tables, and entered a sunny salon with a cozy seating arrangement set before a wood-burning fireplace. Collections of sepia photos depicting early pioneers, scruffy cowboys, and vanquished people from a bygone era were hung in pleasing arrays on either side of the fireplace. It was pleasant in here, charming, the rustic motif and decorative choices matching the land.
Jacci pointed out a powder room where Cordelia could freshen up and went off to a big country kitchen equipped with cupboards galore and a magnificent dining table that could easily seat twelve. “Just make yourself at home,” she called back.
An old yellow hound got up from her bed before the picture window and greeted the visitor, tail wagging.
“Don’t mind Yeller,” her hostess called from the kitchen. “Just like Cleo, she won’t bite. Not unless she has to.” She laughed. She enjoyed keeping people on edge. She gloried in it.
Eight-by-tens lined the mantelpiece. In several of them, Cordelia recognized a much younger Jack Coyote.
“Jack, of course,” Jacci said, coming up behind her. “His mother Elly. And his Uncle Fred, my late husband. That’s his dad. Jackson Finlay. Goes by Jake. For all I care, he can go straight to hell. Charming as the day is long. Good looking, too. Swept Elly off her feet and married her on the spot. The two of them set out, roaming across the country in search of riches. Found only heartache. At least, Elly did. I wouldn’t know about Jake. Never knew what went on in that man’s mind, and don’t ever care to.”
Cordelia studied the photos. Anyone would take notice of Elly Coyote Finlay. She was a wild-eyed beauty with jet-black hair, sunburnt complexion, and the bone structure of her distant ancestors. The Scots-Irish genes of her husband must have sufficiently diluted the Apache features of their son, allowing him to blend in anywhere.
“You can see how they take after each other, Jack and his dad. Almost spitting images. Both rebellious as all get out. Both smart as the dickens. Neither capable of being tied down. They blow like the wind, those two. Stubborn as mustangs. Wild. You might not think, but it makes them loveable. Also explains why they can’t be loved, either of them. Jake abused Elly. Emotionally. Spiritually. Toward the end, physically. He terrorized his son with backhands and switches. Elly and Jack lived like vagabonds, following Jake from town to town. He picked up odd jobs, most of them cowboying, saddled as he was with a wife and kid. He wasn’t bred for settling down. He started drinking. A little. And then a lot. By the time Jack was twelve, his mom was buried in the family plot and his dad had drifted off to God knows where. Things turned
around for Jack. A stable home and grown-ups for parents can do wonders for a boy. The scars stayed hidden for the most part, but they were always there.”
Jacci Coyote set out highball glasses for her and her guest, and measured out a concoction of iced tea mixed with room-temperature bourbon and lemon. They sat at opposite ends of an oversized davenport upholstered with plump cushions.
Cordelia nodded toward the photographs. “Where’s his dad now?”
“Haven’t heard from him for ... I don’t know ... twenty years maybe. Dead for all I know. Jack’s better off without him. He’s had troubles enough in his life.” She sat back and swirled her drink, ice cubes rattling against the sides. “Not much I can tell you, except to tell you that I don’t know where Jack is.”
“Don’t know? Or won’t say?”
“He’s out there. Running for his life. That’s all I know. Wish I knew more. I pray for him every night, lot of good that’ll do, God-fearing Christian that I am.” Her eyesight traveled beyond the walls. “This property? Originally covered several hundred acres of prime grazing land. Parcels were sold off over the years. After my husband’s death, the Bureau of Land Management acquired the remaining acreage. We kept a few acres and claimed riparian rights to the creek. Around these parts, cattle ranching and horse raising are pretty much an occupation of the past. Our livestock? They’re just for show.” She chortled. It must have been an old knee-slapper. “Jack will inherit, but I fear he will never live here again, after what they did to him.”
“What did they do to him?”
“Made him a scapegoat.” She gazed soulfully into her glass. “I’m sorry, Miss Burke. I thought you wanted to see me for a different reason. I thought someone had finally seen the truth. Wishful thinking, I guess. I love that boy like he was my very own. Like I carried him in my womb for nine months. Like I was there for everything. Wish I had been. Maybe then, all of this wouldn’t have happened.” She kept staring into her drink, swirling the ice cubes around and around.
Cordelia didn’t know what to say. Words that came to mind would have sounded lame. Empty. Worse than empty. Hostile. She couldn’t very well tell Jacci Coyote that she meant to track down her nephew and take him into custody.
Jacci broke the uncomfortable silence that had gone up between them. “This much I can tell you. Jack isn’t a thief or a sexual pervert. Or a killer.”
“Ted Bundy’s mother never believed her son was a killer either,” Cordelia said. “Yet he confessed to over thirty murders and described himself as, I quote—‘the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet’—unquote.”
Jacci vehemently shook her head. “Jack is a patriot. He believes in his country. His country, sad to say, stopped believing in him. He’s not a murderer, no matter how much they make him out to be one. And he doesn’t have a hidden agenda, except to expose the traitors from within.”
“Traitors?”
“You heard me. He never told me, not in so many words, but I know him. I can see into his heart. He was a good boy. And he’s a good man.”
“Have you been in touch with him?”
“I have. But I won’t say how. You’ll never track him down unless he wants you to find him.” She shifted her position, went on swirling the ice in her glass, and let her eyes drift toward the photos sitting on the fireplace mantel. “Exactly what do you want, Ms. Burke? Why did you come here?”
“I guess ....” Cordelia hesitated. It was difficult putting it into words without being insulting. “I guess I want to know as much about your son as possible.”
“Forewarned is forearmed, is that it?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly.”
“I would. And just have.” Jacci Coyote was blunt, that much was certain. She never minced words. And never equivocated. She leaned forward and poured herself another drink. Straight bourbon over ice this time. She sipped. Sipped again. And sat back, expelling a sigh that relaxed her ramrod posture and softened the set of her mouth. When she spoke, her voice was clear, friendly even. Yet her eyes were fierce, and focused directly on Cordelia. “Monetary Compliance Network. Do I have that right? What does the Monetary Compliance Network do exactly?”
So magnetic was the woman, Cordelia couldn’t help but meet her eyes. “Track illegal wire transfers.”
“Money laundering. The fifty million. He was no more responsible for that than he was for the death of Milly. He’s not a rogue agent. Quite the opposite. He was working for a rogue government.”
Cordelia chose her words carefully. “That’s not how we look at it.”
“You wouldn’t. But if you’re really determined to investigate the strange case of John Jackson Coyote, eventually you’ll discover a cabal of evil men who will stop at nothing to get what they want.”
“Which is?”
“Power and money, absolute and total.”
Cordelia feared to ask. “Who are they, these evil men?”
“The already powerful and moneyed. From the top down.”
“You don’t mean to say―?”
“Sure, I do.”
“Including President Lowell?”
“Who’s to say? But the future occupant? Or the one after him or her? Man is not patient. History is. And let us all be damned to hell if we could have stopped it now— before it reaches the point of no return—and didn’t.”
A small but unpleasant lump of fear took hold in Cordelia’s gut.
“I know, I know. You think I’m being melodramatic. But let me ask you this, Miss Burke―”
“Cordelia.”
“Cordelia, then. What will you do when you find Jack? You don’t have to answer. I already know. You’ll bring him in. Making your goal the same as the people who did this to him.”
The lump turned into acid. “I really don’t think―?”
“—that they set him up for the fall? Sure as hell do. Just remember this while you’re chasing him. You don’t have to be their patsy. You don’t have to do the dirty work for them.”
“What if it’s my job?”
“Are you asking me? Or yourself?”
The acid ate away at her stomach lining. “I ... I really don’t know.”
“At least that’s an honest answer.” Jacci looked away and once again ran her eyes across the photos of her beloveds. As if coming to a decision, she nodded to herself and swung her eyes back around. “I’m going to say something I really shouldn’t. I’m going to trust you. Not that I don’t think you’ll probably do whatever your agency tells you to do. What I’m driving at ... what I’m asking of you ... is that you’ll consult your conscience before doing anything that will slam the coffin lid on my boy. Agreed?”
Cordelia hadn’t expected the directness of Jack Coyote’s aunt. She also hadn’t expected the woman’s absolute grasp of what could happen to her son in a cold-hearted system run by rules and expedience rather than heart and soul. “I guess ... I guess can go along with that.”
Jacci Coyote studied the contents of her glass, consulted her conscience, and nodded, accepting her guest’s response at face value. “Fair enough. But if I’m going to keep calling you Cordelia, we should be friends.”
“I can go along with that, too.”
“Well then, friend, let me tell you a little about my boy Jack. And about you, too.” She slanted her head, getting the measure of her new friend. “Here’s what I think. Powerful forces want to silence him for good and all. If it means bringing him home to face life imprisonment and solitary confinement in Leavenworth, so be it. If it means burying him alive in a black ops site where he can be tortured until nothing is left to bring home, so be it. And,” she said with a shuddering sigh, “if it means putting a bullet in the back of his head, so be it. The method is unimportant. The result is the same. They’ll do whatever it takes, use any means, and go to any lengths to make sure that whatever he found out doesn’t ever come to light, or if it does, will be dismissed as just another conspiracy theory. And they’ll do the same to an
yone he’s ever talked to. Be careful, my fine friend. And watch your own back. You only have one.”
25
Paris, France
Friday, August 22
MICHEL REPORTED in after several days of radio silence.
Cat was furious. “Where the hell are you? What happened? Don’t ever do that to me again. Do you hear!”
On her right soared the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, the high Gothic symbol of piety, showing off its flying buttresses, its soaring colonettes, its tracery screens, its rose windows, and above all, its majesty. She spewed several more accusations at Michel, laced with the worst obscenities known to man or woman, most in French, some in English. Passersby on the Quai de Montebello stared wide-eyed at this woman who moved with the grace of a gazelle but spoke with the mouth of a guttersnipe. She caught the interest of a gendarme but marched boldly past him, throwing him one of her most alluring smiles. He was charmed. They were always charmed, these commonplace men so easily disarmed by her arresting beauty, her insouciance, and her conceit. She was the paragon of everything most appealing about French women. None of these men, whom she could scrape beneath the toe of her shoe, knew just how dangerous this particular belle femme ... this femme fatale ... really was. She honked at the irony.
“You’re laughing,” Michel said to her.
“Pute de con. Fils de pute. Go fuck yourself! And fuck your mother, too! I am angry with you. More than angry. If you were here, I would strangle you with my bare hands. In public. And afterwards, toss your lifeless body into the Seine.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You would make love to me on the pavement, in front of everybody, and we would both be arrested for public indecency.” He was probably right, which maddened her even more.
The presence of the cathedral brought to mind the treasured memories of her beautiful maman, who often took her impressionable daughter to pray before the Holy Virgin. She had to laugh at yet another irony. Surely Cat would go to Hell for her many sins. When that day arrived, she would pray as she had prayed many times before. Of being delivered to her fate on a chariot of fire with her name emblazoned in the sky. She would welcome her destiny with glee, or perhaps a sigh, but more likely with a howling screech. The test was yet to come.
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