by Marc Cameron
The skinny one threw the hood over Greg’s head again, pulling it tighter this time. He leaned in close so his mouth was directly beside Greg’s ear, but screamed his threats as if he were half a block away. “Son of a whore! I told you! I told you already. We don’t have to do nothin’!”
The skinny one jerked the bag away, ripping it in the process. Letting loose a string of violent curses, he threw the bag on the ground and grabbed Greg by the hair, yanking his head backward until it looked as though his neck would break. Carmen cringed, wanting to turn away, but was too terrified to move.
“Pleeeease!” Greg pleaded. “Let me go! I’ll tell you . . . whatever you want to know.”
The skinny one shook his head. “Look at this guy,” he said. “Thinkin’ a man with a bag over his head has room to negotiate.”
“Luis,” Chago said, calling the skinny guy by name. “We need—”
But Luis wasn’t in the mood to take advice. He slammed Greg’s head forward with one hand, and with the other, buried a blade into the base of his skull. Carmen felt as if her soul might dry up and blow away. This couldn’t be happening. Only hours before she’d been joking with Greg about pajama pants. Now, his last breath was leaking out of him on some godforsaken gravel road. He gave a slow, raspy groan, and turned his head to look directly at her as he died.
Luis let the body slip off the hood and then stepped back to chuckle at his handiwork. Carmen knew enough Spanish to understand he was talking about the deathblow of a bullfight.
“Did you see that estocada, Chago, straight through the neck like a matador, eh?” He nodded at the body, bobbing and weaving, like a boxer proud of a knockout. “You stretch him out. I will see if there is an axe in the car.”
Carmen tried to swallow the acid that seared the back of her throat.
Chago shook his head, dumbfounded. “Wait. Luis, why would you look for an axe?”
“To cut off his head, you dumb bastard.”
“Ai ai ai,” Chago said. “But why do you want to cut off his head? We are all the way out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Luis raised open hands and shook his head as if it was all so clear. “Because we always cut off their heads.”
Carmen pressed her eyes shut with such force it caused her face to cramp. It was impossible to comprehend how a human being could be so cruel. They spoke like they were planning a night out instead of talking about beheading her friend.
“We cut off heads to make a certain point, pendejo,” Chago said. “Do you see anybody else out here who needs to get the point? And why did you have to kill him so fast anyway? Garza wanted us to question them both.”
“It does not matter.” Luis shrugged. “We got what we were sent to get anyway.”
“Are you sure of that?” Chago cocked his head, staring. “I looked at the cameras and they each hold two cards. These people are professionals. What if they record on both? Are you sure we got them all?”
“We got them,” Luis said.
“And you are willing to sit in the same room with Manuel Garza when he happens to see the footage on the Internet—after we assure him it has all been destroyed?”
Luis rubbed a hand through his hair, fuming now. He looked back and forth from Chago to Greg’s lifeless body. At length, he nodded, sneering as if he’d figured it all out. “The girl will know.” He stalked to Carmen and gave her a swift kick. The toe of his leather boot took her in the point of the hip, sending waves of nausea. “Wake up, bitch! The time for sleep is over!” Already in shock, it was no act when she fell over and drew herself into a ball, nearly catatonic.
Luis kicked her again and again. Most of the blows landed on her buttocks, but some took her low in the back, directly over her kidneys. She moaned, sure she would vomit. Miraculously, she was able to remain generally limp through the ordeal.
Luis screamed more threats, frustrated that she wasn’t waking up, but Chago moved in and dragged him away before he could kick her again.
“You cannot beat her into consciousness, my friend,” he said. He waved his hands at the darkness. “We are all alone. That means we have some time. I will start a fire while you find some stones large enough to sink this man you killed. She will wake up soon enough.”
“She better,” Luis said. “Or we will see if there are other, more enjoyable ways to wake her.”
Chago glared at him. “I said, she will wake up soon enough!”
Carmen cringed at the thought that one of her abductors, a terrible man, complicit in the torture and murder of her friend, had now become her protector.
Her face pressed against the cold dirt and, too frightened to move, Carmen watched the scene unfold through the slit of her injured eye. The one called Chago turned off the headlights as soon as he got the fire going. In the flickering light, Luis opened the belly of her friend with the same knife he’d used to kill him, and then stuffed in as many stones as he could fit. He spoke absentmindedly as he worked.
“You know the police found the body of a woman a friend of mine sunk once,” Luis said. “They went to inform the husband and said, ‘Senor, there is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is that we found your poor wife’s body off the end of the jetty and she was covered with blue crabs.’ ‘Ah, mi,’ the husband said. ‘But what is the good news?’ ” Luis looked up from his work grinning maniacally. “‘Oh, this is very good news indeed, senor,’ the policeman said. ‘We have decided to throw her back in and catch many more blue crab.’ ”
Chago gave his friend a perfunctory chuckle, then turned back to his fire. Carmen tried to press further into the dirt, anything to put distance between herself and these madmen who thought life so cheap.
Stripping naked, Luis dragged Greg’s distended body into the black ocean at the end of the road. Then wincing and cursing from the frigid water, he used a large log to help him swim the body out into the darkness. One of two copies of the video footage they wanted was stuffed in a plastic baggie in Greg’s pocket. Carmen was sure he’d been trying to tell them, but Luis had been too quick to kill him. He’d been so busy stuffing the body with rocks, he’d completely missed it.
“Go further out!” Chago shouted into the blackness. Luis’s splashes were becoming quieter. “The tides are big here. You must take him out where it is deep or he will be discovered.”
Chago squatted beside the fire, stoking it with more wood he’d dragged up from the shadows. Carmen almost wet herself when he turned to look directly at her.
“We are all very tired,” he said. “I will give you until tomorrow morning to rest and think about the things you have seen.”
Carmen didn’t move.
“Luis has a nickname, you know,” Chago said. “El Guiso. Do you know what that means?”
Carmen realized the futility of her ruse and opened her good eye. She gave a painful shake of her head. “Soup?”
“Not quite,” Chago said. “In my world, we have many ways of disappearing people. Luis has a favorite, taught to him by our old boss. He will stuff the person he wants to disappear into a metal drum. Sometimes, he has to break their legs, but eventually everyone fits.” Chago sighed, as if remembering a sad story. “In any case, he then douses this person with gasoline or diesel fuel and sets them on fire. After they have expired, he will fill the drum with acid. We call this el guiso—stew. It is also what we call Luis.”
CHAPTER 18
CUTTER’S ALARM WENT OFF AT 4:05 A.M., GIVING HIM ENOUGH TIME to shower and go over the gear he’d laid out for the trip before he left to make the ten-minute drive to Lola Fontaine’s house. His grandfather’s Colt Python occupied the main spot on his war belt, though Cutter had dispensed with the black border patrol holster Grumpy had favored. His basket-weave holster had been custom made by an inmate in the Texas Department of Corrections while Cutter had been on a Witness Security assignment in San Antonio. A few inches behind the revolver on his belt was the Glock 27 .40 caliber that kept him in line with USMS policy. Including the ro
und in the chamber, the little Glock carried four more than Grumpy’s .357. An extra nine-round magazine for the Glock on his belt gave him a total load-out of twenty-five rounds—light for most modern deputy marshals, but plenty as far as Cutter was concerned. In addition to the extra mag, there was a Surefire flashlight and a pair of handcuffs on the belt. The cuff case and the belt itself were dark tan basket weave to match the holster—a color Grumpy had called “peanut brittle.” Like the holster, these were also made by the TDC inmate.
Along with the items on the war belt, Cutter carried a small jackknife, a Zippo lighter, and a second flashlight in the pocket of his trousers, opposite his cell phone. He eschewed the larger, fighting folders many of his army buddies and fellow lawmen carried, knowing from hard experience that using a knife in a fight was a nasty affair that brought with it a great deal of blood and gore. If, God forbid, he ran out of bullets, he’d much rather fight someone with a rock than a pocketknife.
He packed light, with just a change of underwear, an extra wool shirt, a fleece jacket, and a blue Helly Hansen raincoat. His brother’s Xtratuf boots rounded things out, in the event the going got too wet for the Zamberlan hiking boots he normally favored.
* * *
Cutter rolled up in front of Lola’s condo off Minnesota Drive just after five. Larry Fontaine was waiting in the living room for him to drive up. The goober stepped shirtless between the curtains and the window before Cutter could even put his SUV in park. Unwilling to come outside and actually talk face to face with the man who was about to drive away with his wife, Fontaine did nothing but flex his muscles and glare.
“Chihuahua courage, I shih tzu not,” Cutter muttered under his breath. It was something Grumpy used to say to describe dogs or people who barked their heads off as long as they were behind the safety of a screen door.
Not one to shy away from confrontation, Cutter returned the squinty stare and flung open his car door. It had the same effect as stomping his foot at a timid dog and Larry Fontaine vanished like a vapor, leaving nothing but a billowing curtain where he’d once been. Cutter walked to the door and knocked, standing off to the side.
The walls of the condo were thin and it was easy to hear Lola’s voice coming through. “Will you get that?”
“I’m not getting it. You get it!” Larry’s voice was tight and hushed, but still easy enough to hear. “I don’t want to see that guy.”
“Holy hell, Larry,” Lola said, sounding exasperated. “He’s not going to bite—”
Lola flung open the door midsentence. She wore a pair of jeans and a tight black T-shirt that showed off her upper arms and complemented her olive skin tone. Thick, black hair hung past her shoulders, framing a flushed face and a forehead glistening with sweat. “Nearly there,” she said. “Just have to pull my hair outta my face and put on my gun.” She stepped back and waved Cutter inside. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want some.”
Larry ducked from where he’d been lurking beside the living room sofa and slithered down the back hallway. “For Pete’s sake, Lola, don’t invite him in—”
Lola grimaced. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“I already picked up coffees for us. I’ll be in the car when you’re ready.” Cutter was all business.
Five minutes later, Deputy Fontaine tossed her office-issue duffel in the backseat, and then slid in a black hard case containing a short-barreled AR-15 rifle. Unsure about reinforcements on the island if the manhunt turned nasty, Cutter had asked her to bring the long gun. She had Hayden Starnes’s powder-blue warrant folder in her hand when she opened the passenger door and flopped down in the seat.
She shot Cutter an embarrassed smile and then sniffed, pulling the sleeve of her T-shirt up to her nose. “Sorry, boss,” she said. “I was afraid I’d miss my workout today so I got up early to get her done. Took a cool shower but I’m still pouring sweat. Afraid I got me a serious case of girl stink.”
Cutter ignored the comment. Too much talk of things like girl stink had led to his last marriage—which had failed miserably. As Fontaine’s supervisor, there was really no appropriate way to respond.
Fontaine shot him a toothy grin and pulled the sleeve of her T-shirt up even farther, flexing her bicep. “It was an awesome workout, boss. Look at that. Want to feel my pump?”
Cutter leaned away as if she had suddenly caught fire. “No,” he said, “I don’t want to feel your pump.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. My point is, you don’t get muscles like this by skipping a workout, even if you have to get up at three in the morning to squeeze in said workout.”
Cutter hoped they found this Starnes guy quickly. He nodded toward the cup of coffee in the center console and then pulled away, out from under the gaze of Fontaine’s jealous husband.
She saw him looking at her house. “I really am sorry about that back there,” she said. “I’m only trying to lighten the mood since we’ll be working together. Larry just makes me crazy.”
“That’s what I meant on the phone last night,” Cutter said. “You don’t have to work the task force if your husband has a problem with me.”
She leaned back in her seat and let her head fall to the side, facing him. The normal cockiness was gone from her face. “Larry’s not my husband,” she said. “Not as of four thirty-seven p.m. yesterday afternoon when Judge Salvatore signed the dissolution paperwork.”
This was a surprise. “He sure sounded like your husband at the office yesterday.”
Fontaine closed her eyes. “He thinks it’s too soon for me to be dating again.”
Cutter raised an eyebrow. “You and I aren’t dating. We work together.”
“And now you see why I got a divorce,” Fontaine said.
Cutter gave a low whistle. “I’m not the one to talk about healthy relationships.”
“Yeah,” Fontaine said. “And I’m not one to talk about my personal problems. But you were just a witness to the Shitty Mornings with Lola and Larry Show, so I thought you deserved an explanation. We’ve had heaps of problems for a long time. I’m just letting him stay in the condo until he finds something else. It’s a two bedroom.”
Cutter shook his head, still processing. “And you’re not worried about him staying there?”
“Nah,” she said. “Larry’s jealous, but he’s a wuss. I could kick his ass if I had to, but we’re both ready to move on. I’ll keep using Lola Fontaine until headquarters ships me my new creds.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll go back to my maiden name, Teariki.” She pronounced each vowel separately and the R a hard, almost D sound. Te-a-ri-ki.
“Lola Teariki,” Cutter said. “I like that.”
“Yeah,” Fontaine said. “It means something like ‘the big chief’ but it’s pretty common where my parents come from. My mum says my family are like coconut palms.”
“How’s that?” Cutter asked, almost interested.
“I guess palm trees lean slightly uphill. The coconuts that roll down, float to new islands, the others fall a little higher up the mountain with each successive generation. Anyhow, I guess we’re known for not being satisfied where we’re at.”
“Teariki,” Cutter said again. “Cool name.”
She chuckled. “My mum says Lola Tuakana Teariki sounds a lot less like a stripper than Lola Fontaine.” She sniffed again, opening the blue folder on her lap. “You want me to read you more about Hayden Starnes on the way to the airport?”
“That is a good idea,” Cutter said, happy to veer off the rickety track of the deputy’s personal life.
Fontaine spent the duration of the fifteen-minute drive to Ted Stevens Anchorage International giving him a more complete rundown on their bandit.
* * *
Starnes was a thirty-seven-year-old screwup, born and raised in Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. The lawyer at his original trial for sexual assault when Hayden was just twenty-two insisted his client had been molested as a child. Starnes had no siblings and his par
ents were both dead, so no one was around to refute the claim. A softhearted judge had sentenced him to two years and counseling to help him deal with his past trauma. The victim of his assault, a college senior his same age, sucked it up and went on to graduate school where she studied marketing.
Just weeks after he was released from prison, Starnes kidnapped a college freshman by pretending to be security at the University of Oregon and offering her a ride back to her dorm during a rainstorm. He’d held this one in a remote cottage for three days before she’d finally wriggled free from her bonds and run, naked, to a neighboring cabin.
Subsequent interviews with family friends led investigators to believe Starnes’s claims of molestation as a child were fabricated. When offered a plea deal of ten years flat if he told the truth, he came clean. He explained that everyone at his first trial, including the prosecutor and the judge, believed that people who did what he did had to have been molested as a child. And besides, he pointed out, he didn’t so much as make it up, as he just agreed with everyone when they suggested it.
At his eventual sentencing, Starnes’s victim spoke of recurrent nightmares, but went on to lead a campus advocacy group for rape survivors and graduated from the university with honors. Starnes received medication and counseling at taxpayer expense—for the mental issues that his attorney insisted were the root of his predatory nature.
He’d been out a grand total of eight months when he violated supervised release and skipped town, failing to register as a sex offender. This landed him at the top of the US Marshals Service capture list. Bandits tended to graduate to the crimes a level above their last if they reoffended, so the fact that a young woman had disappeared on the same island where Starnes had been located gave both deputies plenty of cause for worry. The natural progression beyond a kidnapping often turned out to be murder. If the hunt went very long, Cutter planned to call on districts in western Washington and Oregon to send up deputies from the Pacific Northwest Violent Offenders Task Force to assist in the manhunt.
