Never-ending-snake (19 page)

“So he wants to meet out of town somewhere?” she asked, finishing his thought.

“Yeah, at a place where a few of the locals go for a little informal target practice. But we can’t come looking like cops. I used that stopping-by-the-house excuse for your benefit. With my bubba outfit I’m pretty much set except for some
boots and my shooting jacket, but you might want to change out of that dress into jeans and a tee-shirt so we can join him for a little late afternoon target
practice. I should have something that’ll fit you well enough. You’re not nearly my weight, but you’re tall enough.” He glanced over at her. “It’s a shame, though. I may never see you in a dress again.”

“At your funeral, maybe, particularly if you mention it to anyone on my team,” she joked.

“You’re safe. Nobody would believe me.”

“I actually put some of my clothes, including jeans and a jacket,
in the suitcase I brought along for show. I also packed my boots and socks, so I’m set on clothing. But if you have one, I’d like to borrow a baseball cap. Between that and my sunglasses, my face will be all but covered. That’ll give us a little added insurance, especially after that photo of me in the paper and my appearance on the TV news recently,” Ella said.

“No problem,” he said. “I’ve got
a Springfield M1903A4 sniper rifle from WWII that you can show off, too, and we can fire a couple of clips if you want. I’ll also take the M1 carbine I picked up years ago and throw a couple of targets into my old SUV. I’ve got an NRA sticker on the back bumper for street cred.”

“Why didn’t Butler just talk to you over the phone and save us all some time?”

“He was still in the shop, with a customer
due to pick up a rifle Dan’s been working on. My guess is that he didn’t want to take the chance that he’d be overheard. Dan’s as close to paranoid as you can be and not get locked up,” Blalock added.

“And a licensed gun dealer? In a way, I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

They soon reached Blalock’s home. Although he’d lived in a Farmington apartment for almost as long as she’d known him,
Blalock had recently taken advantage of a slow
real estate market and bought himself a home farther east, outside of Bloomfield. The commute to his Shiprock office was longer, but once through Farmington, traffic was easy.

As they drove up the long driveway, Ella studied the house. It seemed large—three or four bedrooms—a lot for just one person.

“Is there something you haven’t told me?” she
asked.

“Like what?”

“A large house like this one . . . for just one man?”

He laughed. “I got it for a song. It was too good a deal to pass up.”

“No new lady love?” she pressed, more curious than ever.

He grinned. “Her name’s Cat. You’ll meet her when we go in. She’s perfect.”

She knew that Blalock didn’t care for felines, so this wasn’t likely to be a stray he’d adopted. It was probably
some kind of nickname—short for Cathy or maybe Katrina. “What makes her perfect?”

“No demands and no expectations. I’m too old a horse to learn new tricks, Ella. I need someone who can accept me the way I am.”

“Old and crotchety?” she baited.

“Honorable and wise, trying to make the most of that special time in my life—after birth and before death.”

She laughed.

“But she’s not much of a housekeeper,
so don’t expect everything to be in place,” he said. “Not that I care. We don’t get much company.”

Ella gave him a surprised look, but didn’t comment. If Cat was the love of his life, being critical at this early stage in their relationship made no sense to her. A man in the middle of a passionate love affair—or even a lukewarm relationship—didn’t see his lady’s flaws.

As Ella glanced at Blalock,
she suddenly had a hard time visualizing the possibility of passion and romance from the man. Blalock was dependable, but as methodical as time. Passion wasn’t a quality she’d ever associated with him—except for his work. He was a good agent who honored his duty. But Mr. Romance when it came to women?
No way
.

When they arrived at the house, Ella saw Blalock’s old SUV, but that was the only vehicle.
Too bad. The woman’s choice might have revealed something about her personality. For example, country women in New Mexico drove pickups most of the time. But there were no other vehicles parked outside and the home only had a carport. Wondering if his lady love had gone shopping, or just didn’t have a car of her own, Ella waited as Blalock opened the door.

As it swung open, she heard a strange
sound. It was as if someone with a truly wretched voice was attempting to sing. A heartbeat later, Ella came face to face with a dog with the size and stature of a horizontal fireplug. The bulldog, with its massive wrinkles and severe underbite, had a weird looking smile on her face.

“Don’t try to pet Cat,” Blalock warned. “Wait ’til she comes to you.”

“Cat’s a dog?”

“She’s my son’s pet, really.
Her name comes from ‘Cat 9,’ a Marine Corp reference to someone beyond dumb. Apparently, Category 5 is the lowest score you can get in the entrance exams. Needless to say, Cat’s virtually untrainable.”

“How did she end up here with you?”

“Andy conference-called his mother and me. They were deploying him overseas where he couldn’t take Cat, and he didn’t want to give her away. My ex, Ruthann,
isn’t big on pets so I ended up with the dog-sitting gig.” Dwayne looked down at the dog and smiled fondly. “Cat’s a bit on the crabby side and dumb as a stump, but there’s something about her
that gets to you. The best part of it is that Andy drove her here and we all got to visit for a while. Ruthann came, too, with our boy facing deployment in a combat zone.”

“When’s the last time Ruthann,
Andy, and you all got together?” she asked, petting the dog, who’d finally decided to come over.

“Years. Andy’s a captain in the Marines now, and after two tours in the Persian Gulf he’s been stateside, training future Marines. But the Corps came up with new orders for him, and he’s now going to see more action. As far as seeing Ruthann again . . . I forgot how much we had in common.”

Blalock
led the way into his den, opened a tall weapons safe tucked away in a closet, and brought out the rifle, carbine, and ammo for both. The targets were on a shelf. With Ella’s help, they carried them out to his SUV, adding a couple of realty signs that the man obviously used to hold his targets, and two headsets for hearing protection. Once everything was loaded up, they transferred their department
weapons, except for their handguns, into the trunk of the sedan.

Five minutes later, after changing clothes, they left Cat behind the sofa chewing a rawhide bone roughly the size of Ella’s forearm and drove off, heading north out of Bloomfield.

“You never told me how it went with you and Ruthann,” she said, still curious.

He took a deep, steadying breath. “That’s one of the reasons I asked
you about your connection to Kevin. You know that Ruthann and I called it quits a long, long time ago. Our grown son is really the only tie that binds us. Yet when we were all here under the same roof . . . it just felt good.

“I know. It’s crazy,” Blalock continued. “We were ancient history, Ella. But with Andy, Ruthann, and me all together and the dog running around—we were like family again.
All the anger and nonsense that led us to the divorce didn’t
seem so important anymore.” He paused for several moments. “I haven’t been that happy in a long time. The really strange thing is that we all felt it. Ruthann and I . . . Well, we’ve kept in touch since then, and she’s been back twice already.”

“And that’s why you bought the house?”

“I moved in right before my family arrived, and I
think that’s what helped me see things in a new light,” he said. “Or maybe I was already in the right mind-set, so things fell into place.”

“So, are you and Ruthann thinking of getting back together?”

He paused. “Three months ago if you’d asked me that same question I would have burst out laughing. Now, I can’t answer that. I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

“Do
you
want to get back together?”

He hesitated. “Well, I’ve kept the house, and it’s not just for the dog.”

Ella shook her head. “Here’s a hint. When you talk to Ruthann, phrase things differently. Women like to have things spelled out a little more, shall we say, romantically?”

“I suck at that,” he muttered.

“She knows that already, but she’ll appreciate the effort.”

Blalock adjusted his baseball cap. “There’s a UNM Lobo
cap in the glove compartment that’ll fit you. Harmless enough unless Dan’s an Aggie fan.”

Ella slipped it on, then pulled her ponytail out the gap in the back. “What’s your plan when we meet this Dan guy?”

“We’re going to have to play it by ear.”

“Good enough. Now tell me about this place we’re going.”

“There’s a mesa a few miles ahead where people go and shoot across a ravine into the opposite
side. Somebody has set up a few old, sand-filled oil drums painted white with big black Xs. It’s just a safe place for locals to go plinking or
check out their hunting rifles. But here’s a heads-up. People have a tendency to bring just about anything, from black powder muskets to machine guns. One time someone actually brought a Civil War cannon.”

“Wait—how do you know this place so well?”

“Dan Butler’s helped me out on a few cases, and this is where he likes to meet. I’ve been here before, so even if someone were to see him and me out there we’d blend in with the other good ole boys.”

“What about women? I’m assuming some hang out there, too?”

“Enough so that you’ll fit in, particularly wearing jeans and that Lobo cap. Here’s the turnoff.”

He slowed, left the highway, and headed
northeast down a dirt road. Low, wide junipers dotted the gently rolling hills, and knee-high sagebrush provided cover for cottontails and jackrabbits. It was close to sunset, and though the daylight hours were long this time of year, they only had usable light for perhaps another hour.

After a bumpy two-mile drive along fresh and well-defined tire ruts, Blalock turned up a long, gentle rise.
Once at the top, he parked beside two pickups. Beyond was the rim of a steep drop-off, more of a cliff, and below a small canyon. On the far side was another steep mesa. The wide ravine made a perfect bullet trap as long as shots were directed into the base of the opposite slope. Three bullet-ridden barrels rested at that spot, though one had managed to get tipped over.

As they climbed out, three
men also exited a red and white Dodge Ram and walked in their general direction. They all had what looked like military handguns at their waists. Dan, whom Ella recognized, wore a black German leather holster, probably containing a P-38 pistol or a Luger. His companions had M1911 .45 autos in GI style leather holsters with U.S. stamped on the flaps. One of them also carried a late World War II
German assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
It was either an MP-43 or 44, she couldn’t remember which, though she was pretty current on the last hundred years of weapon history.

“Dan,” Blalock greeted, shaking the offered hand. The gun shop owner was a tall, slightly balding male in his mid-forties, wearing a red pullover shirt and yellow-tinted shooting glasses. “This is a friend of mine,
Ella.”

“Good to meet you,” Dan said, with a raised eyebrow that suggested his cop radar had just gone off. “These two pistol-packing bozos claim to be friends of mine. Gary and Dennis,” he added, “meet Dwayne and Ella.”

His companions, both about Dan’s age and looking fit in jeans, tee-shirts, and open windbreakers, shook hands with her. Although Navajos generally avoided physical contact with
strangers, Ella went along with it. Silently noting the automatic weapon Dennis was cradling over his forearm, she said, “I saw one of those in that Private Ryan movie. A German assault rifle, isn’t it?”

“You know your firearms, lady. This is an MP-44, one of the
first
assault rifles. This particular baby fires a 7.92 short from a 35 round magazine. The Russians used it as inspiration for their
AK-47. Ever fire a full automatic?”

“No, but maybe I’ll get the opportunity someday. I like weapons with a bit of history behind them.” Playing innocent and letting herself be impressed seemed the best strategy at the moment. “My dad fought in World War II, and he owned a surplus M-1 that he let me fire several times. Dwayne’s brought me out for the chance to shoot his Springfield .30-06 with
the original Weaver scope, too. Supposed to be a fine sniper rifle.”

“Sure was, but you’ve got to see my MG 42. Best rifle-caliber machine gun ever made—in my not-so-humble opinion,” Gary added with a grin. “Sweet and reliable, though it goes through ammo like there’s no tomorrow. It’s over there in my pickup bed. Wanna take a look?”

Ella glanced at Blalock, who was trying to get a few quiet
words with Dan. Deciding that he’d do better getting information from his source if he got some time alone with Dan, she walked over with the others to admire the big World War II–era German machine gun. It was mounted on a bipod and resting inside an open wooden crate. A canvas tarp tossed to the side obviously served as a dust cover during transport.

“I’m afraid one of these days I’ll get pulled
over by a deputy and he’ll freak out when he looks under the tarp,” Gary said with a chuckle. “I can’t exactly carry it on a rack behind the seat rest, and my old lady won’t let me drive her minivan off-road since I trashed the oil pan a few months back.”

Back in the days when she’d served with the Bureau, Ella had received extensive firearms training, and she’d taken it upon herself to learn
how to operate virtually any firearm she might encounter. Although she didn’t have any actual experience with a belt-fed machine gun on a tripod or bipod, she’d fired several submachine guns and assault rifles, all at semi and full auto.

Ella kept Dennis and Gary busy, flattering their egos, and revealing just enough background knowledge to keep the conversation going.

“So, Ella, ready to work
your way up to fully automatic? You might want to start out with Dennis’s machinenpistole. It’s easy to aim and control. Then you can explode some targets with the big girl, if you’re still eager,” Gary said. “We’ve got fresh targets taped onto two sand-filled fifty-five-gallon drums down there in the wash.”