El Gavilan (38 page)

Nothing.

There was a slight bump at the back of the book, however—something protruding between the board and the plastic-covered dust jacket affixed to the book with tape. Tell opened the book at the middle, bending it back wide so the dust jacket bowed up and out. Taped to the back of the rear cover was an envelope. Tell tore it loose from the book’s binding. There was a CD inside the sleeve. He returned the book to the shelf and bee-lined back to the computer terminal he had used to check his Web mail.

Tell inserted the disc and opened a file slugged “T.J.doc.” He was confronted with what appeared to be an empty or blank document. Yet the vertical scrollbar indicated something was there. Tell highlighted the document and went up to the color bar and clicked on black.

A mishmash of oddball symbols and icons filled the screen. Tell frowned, staring at the crazed, hieroglyph-like soup of characters. Biting his lip, he checked to see what font had been used and saw that it was Wingdings. Tell highlighted the document again and went back up to the menu bar and changed the font to Times New Roman.

He smiled as the letter appeared:

Tell,

Thank Christ you’re smart enough to have gotten this far. Take all these crazy precautions as evidence of how paranoid I am with Amos’s ass on the line. I don’t care about me at all anymore. But I’m not gonna see Amos’s life burned down by anything I initiated.

I confronted Walt Pierce about Luke Strider the night before I announced my resignation. If you’re as smart as I think you are, that’d be last night, your time.

I confronted Walt and we came to blows. I’d like to have killed him if he hadn’t japped me with some mace.

You see, Tell, I think Walt beat Thalia and the others to death. I don’t know about the rape stuff. About that, I don’t say anything, regarding Walt. Maybe the rapes were Luke acting alone. But I’m sure Walt beat those women to death, including my Thalia. Walt wears eight rings—big, pimp-like rings—and his hands are still bruised. I have no evidence Walt did this, understand. But I’m convinced. I know you know what I mean. And his reaction when I accused him is good as an admission.

So that’s the purpose of this note: Going after Luke Strider ain’t enough, old son. It’s Walt you have to take out too.

I wish like hell that I could help. I wish you and me could talk this out. Find a way to make it all right. But in exchange for protecting Amos and me from felony charges I promised not to have contact with you or any of my folks. I have to honor that pledge ’cause Walt’s watching. I’m under surveillance and my phone is tapped. Figure cell phones and my own computer aren’t safe to use, either.

It’s hard, Tell. I guess that’s my punishment for that other thing you caught me in. The job’s my life and I saw myself another ten years, at least, in the post of sheriff.

Cocksuckers have taken away my life.

For my sake, I hope you take Walt and Luke down, hard and fast.

And if you have any ideas about insulating me from gang reprisals, I’d appreciate having them. I figure Walt’s false claims that I’m four-square with him on his “gang” solution to Thalia’s and the others’ killings—particularly now that I’m stripped of official status and security—is Walt’s way of seeing I get my ass shot by one of them Mexican gangsters in the near term.

But I’ll do my best to protect my fat ass, Tell.

You protect yourself and yours.

Wish I could help, son. Your enemies are my own.

But they beat me.

—Able

Tell sighed and ejected the disc.

He nodded at the librarian on his way out. When he reached the front door, he broke the disc in half and dropped it in the trash receptacle.

Walt Pierce, murderer? Maybe serial rapist?

Holy Jesus.

THEN

The doctors had finally made them leave the room; made them leave Claudia there on that bed with a sheet over her face.

The Lyons stood outside in the hallway, holding tight to one another.

Later, Tell would remember that even Chris’s eyes were damp; his cousin’s chin trembling. Holding fast to his older, taller cousin, Tell managed to get out, “I want him
dead
, Chris. I want to kill this Angel with my bare hands.”

“Oh, trust me, I feel the same way,” Chris said.

“I mean it,” Tell said. “And I mean to do it. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Chris squeezed Tell’s neck, looking him in the eye. “
Never
. Hell, I’ll
help
you.”

Tell believed him. If any man understood revenge—and had no compunctions about acting on the impulse—it was Chris. “But you have to soldier through these next couple of days,” Chris said. “You have to see to Marita and Claudia …” His voice trailed off, leaving
You have to see
to their funerals
unsaid.

“Of course. But after—”

“
After
, I’ll make some calls,” Chris said. “You can’t possibly do this alone, Tell. Not and succeed. But, if you still feel this way in a few days, I swear I’ll help you do what you want. Some others and I will have your back. I swear there
will
be a reckoning.”

Tell looked up; Chris met his gaze. “It’ll be goddamn ugly, Chris. I’m warning you up front—this will be bloody. I
want
it to be bloody.”

Chris said softly, “I can’t imagine it any other way.”

FIFTY THREE

“You seem sullen, Shawn,” his doctor said. “It concerns me.”

Shawn typed,
I’m fine
.

“I don’t see that,” his doctor said. “It’s early yet, but I’m going to give you a look at your face. Most of it, anyway. I’m going to show you things are coming along. The swelling’s gone. Soon the stitches will come out. We’re going to look at freeing up your jaw today too. Let you talk. We’ve reevaluated your X-rays and determined there wasn’t a break of your jaw or your palate. That’s very good news—I feared you might suffer a permanent speech impediment. But that’s off the table now.”

Shawn typed,
You’ll do all this now?

“Yes,” the doctor replied. “But understand—I’ll be angling the mirror. I don’t want you looking at your jawline until we get those implants in place. Good news there, parenthetically. You’re covered on those. By insurance, I mean.”

Shawn shot the doctor a thumbs-up.

“Understand, also, there’s some scarring. We’ll address that cosmetically, and quite soon. Your right eyelid will require a procedure too. To eliminate its droop, I mean. But overall, I think you’ll be quite surprised to find you’re in better shape than you think you are. Then, after, we’ll get you in that wheelchair for a spin. You must be beyond stir crazy.”

* * *

Tell sat at his desk, staring at the pictures of Thalia, Esmeralda, Marisol and Sonya he’d hung on his side of the divider wall with pushpins.

He felt snookered. His impulse was to run back before the cameras and report that he’d expanded his investigation to include Walt Pierce as a person of interest. But to do that would be to tacitly acknowledge that he’d had contact with Able Hawk.

That meant one course left him, so far as Tell could see: arresting Luke Strider and somehow getting him to flip on Walt Pierce. But Tell still needed a toe in on that front and something that would
stick
.

Billy Davis was seated at his desk across the room, sucking on a jamocha milkshake and munching on Arby’s curly fries.

Tell said, “Billy, I want you to see if you can get me a meeting with your friend Tom Winch.”

Billy bit the end off a knot of seasoned fries and swallowed. “He might agree to that if we can find a safe place to meet. Today is Tom’s day off. You want to try and do a meeting today?”

“Today for certain,” Tell said. “Soon as possible. I want to end this.”

“Where could you do that? Where could you do that meeting where Tom would feel safe, I mean?”

“Let’s have him meet me out at our shooting range,” Tell said. “You’ll follow Tom out there to be sure that he isn’t followed by anyone else. You’ll lock the gate behind us and stand guard. See we really have no company.”

* * *

Able couldn’t stand it any longer. The flaw with his bid to communicate with Tell—well, the whole thing had been fraught with flaws—but the
big
drawback from the standpoint of granting Able some flavor of peace of mind was the one-sidedness of his means of reaching out to Tell. He just didn’t know if Tell had gotten his warnings about Walt Pierce’s presumed complicity in the murders. He didn’t know if Tell had found the hidden disc.

He put on his shoes and called to Sofia, who was in the kitchen starting plans for dinner. “I’ll be back in ten minutes or so,” he said to her. “Just running a quick errand.”

Evelia was right there again. “Can I go too, Pap-Paw Hawk?”

“Sorry, honey. No, I have to go alone. But I’ll be back real quick. Maybe bring you a surprise.”

Able drove to the New Austin Library and walked straight back to the mystery section. He took a deep breath and pulled down Chris Lyon’s book. He slipped his big hand between the dust jacket and cover. He smiled.
Tell, the clever cocksucker
.

It was just too bad Tell had come along at the end—when Able was to be forced off the job. If they’d had three or four years of overlapping service together, the things they might have accomplished … ?

But if Tell succeeded in taking Pierce down, and if Pierce didn’t try to lighten his load by ratting out Able on a plea bargain, there was no saying Able couldn’t run for sheriff again—reclaim his post. Able figured those odds for fifty-fifty. The best prospect was Walt getting himself killed resisting arrest … or opting for suicide by cop.

Able replaced the book on the shelf and shook his head. He shouldn’t kid himself. The only way he’d ever be free to be a cop again—the only way for Amos to live out from under a shadow—would be for someone to put Walt Pierce in the ground. And Able was sorely tempted to see to that bloody chore. Not just for himself and for Amos, but for Evelia’s mother and the other murdered Mexican women.

Able bit his thick mustache. He needed to talk to Tell. Tell might talk him out of his sudden strong compulsion to kill Walt Pierce. Tell might have something to share that would give Able some glimmer of hope that Walt Pierce might really yet be taken down on something that Tell might have uncovered since he and Able had last spoken. He’d watched Tell’s televised interviews and press conferences, hoping Tell truly had the goods he hinted at … that he wasn’t lying to the press now as Able had once pressed Tell to do.

Able sat down at a computer and registered for another free Yahoo e-mail account. He e-mailed Shawn again. He asked the reporter to pass along another note to Tell—this one asking Tell for a meeting at eight
P.M.
in the New Austin Kid’s Association ball fields—site of the recent Latino Festival and the fields fronting the scrub wasteland where Thalia had been found.

If Tell had nothing on Walt Pierce, then the risk of the meeting with Tell would soon enough be moot. If Tell couldn’t touch Pierce, then Able was determined to put the Vale County sheriff down himself.

Able told himself that he would kill Walt, all consequences to himself be damned.

* * *

Diego Ortiz flinched as the fat cop with the buzz cut got down in his face again. The cop’s big hand was moving toward Diego’s face—the rings on his fingers catching light. Diego could imagine those rings cutting into his flesh; breaking his bones and teeth.

Sheriff Walt Pierce grabbed hold of the red bandana tied around Diego’s head and wrenched it off. He shook the red rag in the teen’s face. “Fucking gang colors. You’re one fuckin’ sad-ass mess, you know that, Diego? You and the rest of your so-called gang are just a bunch of weak-willed pussies.
El Gavilan
and that New Austin cop, Tell Lyon, they’ve blown through your numbers like you was just a bunch of pussy-assed cunts. And your butt-boy buddy, Jésus? Did you hear the docs chopped his leg off? That’s right, your fuckin’ leader is now a cripple. Figure that sorry gimp’ll be passed around to the old timers to cornhole once we get him to prison. Your other members too—the ones that don’t get shipped back to Mexico to be cornholed by their own in some Juarez rat hole.”

“I didn’t do that shit,” Diego said, surly. “They didn’t murder them
chicas
. And even if they did, I wasn’t there or close to it anyway. I ain’t done nothin’. And I’ve got
real
papers, I’m American-born, just like you.”

“More’s the pity. Fucking American kid getting dragged into this fuckin’ Mexican gang shit.” Pierce spat tobacco in Diego’s face. “Don’t you fucking wipe that off, asswipe,” Pierce said. “You’re a fuckin’ disgrace.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“You don’t get no fuckin’ attorney, Diego. We’re kickin’ you loose, ’cause, like you say, we got nothin’ on you.
Yet
. But we
have
got somethin’ on that cousin of yours living with you, that fucking Magdaleno. Him and his baby sister and his folks? They’s all illegal. We’ll be comin’ for them soon as the paperwork comes through from Tell Lyon and Able Hawk. Should have it by tomorrow morning. Then we’re raiding your house and shipping them all back to old
Meh-hi-co
.”

“Hawk ain’t sheriff anymore,” Diego said. He tilted his head—trying to keep the stinking stream of chewing tobacco trailing down his cheek from reaching his own mouth.

Sheriff Pierce shook his head. “Able resigning from his post don’t mean
El Gavilan
ain’t still helping me on the immigration-control front. Don’t believe stuff you see on the news. And Lyon’s ex-Border Patrol, so you know how he feels about your kind. Hawk still hates you Mexicans. I couldn’t make half the arrests I’m making of illegals without their help. And now, your so-called gang is on Lyon’s and Hawk’s radar in a big way. The only hope you and yours have is that some Mexican gang with some real stones—say, MS-13 or Calle 18—snuffs Hawk and Lyon. And they’d need to do it tonight to save that family of yours. To save you. ’Cause, swear to God, Diego, I’m going to take you down, hard. What do you think your mother and sister will do for cash once your drug money’s deprived them? Figure they’ll both be hooking inside a week. Lots of your kind, and I guess mine too—whites, I mean—they like fuckin’ tight little thirteen-year-olds. Not that I really think that sister of yours is a virgin.”