El Gavilan (23 page)

“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 Hawk, 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 investigation: 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.”

Tell knew. But it was better to let Parks say it, in case it became an issue later. Parks said, “Pierce is going after Amos Sharp. He’s Able Hawk’s grandson. Hawk is going to go apeshit, Lyon. This is going to be fucking Armageddon.”

Tell said, “We need to move fast, then. You going to break the news to Hawk, or should I?”

Parks said, “I think it could cause trouble for me later if I’m not the one to give Hawk the heads-up on this.”

“Good thinking,” Tell said. “Do it
now.
Thanks for the tip, Doc.”

Tell closed his phone.
Jesus Christ
.

He walked around and slipped back behind the wheel of his cruiser. He said, “Amos, I’ve got another personal question for you.” Tell’s voice sounded strange to himself. He could tell it unsettled Amos too. Tell said, “You and Luisa made a decision to have a baby to enhance her prospects of dodging deportation. You must love her very much to do that. Have you two ever used condoms?”

“Not in at least nine months,” Amos said, red-faced.

“Right. Anyway, you obviously couldn’t risk being alone with her at your place. They don’t make many cars big enough to have sex in anymore. Where’d you two go to be alone? It’s important kid, or I wouldn’t ask you a question like this. Where’d you go to have sex with Luisa?”

Amos said, “Her aunt works three days a week. So did Thalia. Luisa sleeps on a cot.” He looked at his rings. “We used Thalia’s bed.”

“Thalia know?”

Amos looked ashamed. “Not unless Luisa told her.”

“Did Luisa tell you that Sheriff Pierce has recently searched Thalia’s room … took away her bedding?”

Tell saw it in Amos’s face when it clicked. “Oh, God.”

“Warrant’s being issued now, Amos. Get out of the car, son.”

Amos hauled himself out. “What are you going to do? Hold me for fucking Pierce to come and get?” The boy looked crazed.

“No, Amos,” Tell said, a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to arrest you for manufacturing and selling fraudulent identification cards. I’m sorry for what this is going to do to you, kid. Sorry for what it’s going to do to your ambitions. But you, of all people, in the hands of Walt Pierce? That’s too much potential leverage over your grandfather
.
Get in the backseat, Amos. I’m not going to cuff you, but get in the backseat, son.”

THEN

It was the night before his last day in the field as a Border Patrol agent. Monday morning would find him starting his new desk position.

Tell had cranked up the AC in the house—the new position came with a significant raise, so they could splurge a little at last. The summer heat was unbearable, the humidity insane as the clouds were swollen with threatened rain that wasn’t yet falling. All that heat and humidity was hardest on Marita, now eight months pregnant. The heat had been making the nights even longer for his wife as she struggled to find a way to position herself in their bed, wrapped around a long, puffy pregnancy pillow.

Marita shivered and snuggled in tighter against Tell. She pulled the covers up snug around her chin. “It’ll be safer, won’t it? No more Coyotes or drug traffickers to take shots at you? No more having to look for bodies out there?
God
, it
has
to be better, right?”

“Yes,” Tell said, one hand on her swollen belly. He believed his answer to be an honest one. “It’ll be much safer.”

THIRTY SIX

Tell heard Able arrive. There was a bellow at Julie Dexter. “Let me the fuck back there, now, or so help me … !”

Tell called, “Let Able come, Julie.” He nodded at Billy Davis—increasingly looking to be, to Tell’s pleasant surprise, his most dependable right hand. Tell said, “Sit with Amos and Trent here, Billy, while I talk to Hawk.”