Never-ending-snake (21 page)

As they rode back into town, Ella was squeezed between two large, heavily armed men with barely enough room to breathe. Gary, who was driving, looked uncomfortable, and Dan, on her other side, was almost sideways in the seat. Blalock was lodged against
the far side, his elbow resting against the door frame of the open window.

“You realize that it’s going to take me some time to go through my surveillance video, right?” Dan asked. “I keep everything in case I discover someone was shoplifting, but I don’t always take the time to store the disks in any particular order. At least everything is dated and time-stamped and I don’t record over any
of the disks until after I file my quarterlies.”

“Pull out all the stops and find what we need,” Blalock said. “Those guys are bad news and you’ve seen them now.”

“No warning’s necessary. They know me, so that’s going to put my shop in their line of fire. I have a vested interest in helping you find them,” Dan said.

The ride took about a half hour. It was completely dark
by the time they arrived
at the Double Barrel, but the outside of the building was well illuminated by a pair of powerful lights on a metal pole in the parking lot. A sheriff’s officer was already there, standing beside an unmarked vehicle.

“Our transportation,” Blalock said, then glanced at Dan. “The deputy will remain here at the shop to keep an eye out while you search through your surveillance images, Dan.”

Dan
gave Blalock a half smile. “I appreciate that, but I’ve got to tell you, if those bozos make a move on my gun shop, they’re going to regret ever having been born. I could hold off a platoon in there.”

“Once we unload Bertha, hell, that gun shop’ll be like a bunker. Let ’em come,” Gary said, then looking at Dan grinned and added, “On a lighter note, our waitress, Denise, AKA Dennis, should be
showing up in a half hour to make coffee and fetch doughnuts. Not to worry, people.”

With glass cubes from the windshield in her hair, her arms all scratched up from diving into the brush, and a pound of dust in her clothes, Ella still couldn’t avoid a hearty laugh.

Once inside the shop, Blalock exchanged a few words with the deputy while Ella walked around, checking all the camera angles. “Looks
to me like you’ve got a good view of your entire shop.”

“I do. That’s why I’ll probably have multiple angles to show you once I get a hit on the day and time. The time-consuming part will be looking through hours and hours of surveillance to get there. At least I have a name to look for in my records.”

“Clah, we gotta roll,” Blalock called out to her.

The route to O’Riley’s place took them
out Farmington’s east side, down highway 64 to the eastern outskirts of Bloomfield, then onto the road to Navajo Lake. The residence, not
far from the main highway junction of State Highways 44 and 64, was actually a mobile home in a small court with several units—which increased the risk of civilian injuries if shooting broke out. A row of outdoor lights around the perimeter helped with resident
security, and many of the units had porch lights on. On the plus side, they’d have plenty of concealment with the single-wides in rows barely twenty feet apart.

The deputy who was watching the blue trailer in space twelve had parked his unit between numbers seven and nine, and waved them off the center access road when they came into the main drive, headlights off.

Ella and Blalock jumped out
immediately after coming to a stop and the deputy hurried to brief them. Ella silently noted that the residence the deputy had parked next to was currently unoccupied, with the porch light off. A big nickle padlock was on the front door, glistening in the light from the street lamps.

“I’m Deputy Salazar,” the skinny, barely twenty-one-year-old kid in the black-and-tan uniform said.

“FBI—Blalock,”
Dwayne identified himself, offering a quick, firm handshake. “This is Special Investigator Clah from the Navajo tribe. What’s the situation?”

“No sign of activity at number twelve, but there’s light and a TV’s on. The rear entrance to the suspect’s trailer backs up to that tall cinder block wall, so anyone leaving the unit will have to come around the front or back end. The sheriff dispatched
SWAT and their ETA is . . . ,” Salazar checked his watch. “Eight minutes.”

“Can you connect me with your SWAT commander?” Blalock asked.

Salazar handed Blalock a handheld radio. “Already done.”

Deputy Salazar started to put his hand on Ella’s arm,
then pulled it back. “Um, ma’am, I’m sorry about the loss of Sergeant Lonewolf. I heard about his death this afternoon. Is this O’Riley character
a suspect in the shooting?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Stay focused. O’Riley and his companion are well armed, and they’ve already ambushed two law enforcement officers today,” she warned.

Salazar nodded, then walked over to his vehicle, brought out his department-issue shotgun, and fed a round into the chamber.

While Blalock was coordinating the arrival of SWAT on the tactical
radio, Ella walked to the back end of the mobile home and checked the alley noting that, while dark, there was still enough illumination to see anything that came through. A quick walk up to number eleven, and she could see the opposite view of unit twelve.

Ella returned to where Blalock was standing, studying the area. “I’m going to cover the back door, Dwayne, just in case,” she said. “They
could have parked the Silverado on a side street and walked in.”

Blalock nodded. “I’ll be in touch as soon as SWAT arrives on scene. Then we’ll have to evacuate the neighbors as quickly and quietly as possible.”

Ella hurried to the back row of odd-numbered spaces. From where she stood near number eleven, she had a clear view of number twelve’s back entrance. It was closed and she could see that
the entire length of the single-wide was clear of everything except for a humongous dried-up tumbleweed that had blown in and become jammed between opposing walls.

A little over five minutes later Blalock gave her a heads-up, and she joined him to help evacuate the trailer court residents. Once that was done, SWAT advanced in teams of four, armed with shotguns and protected by thick body armor.
From farther back, the team leader, using a hand mike,
ordered the occupants to surrender and come out, unarmed, with their hands up.

Someone parted a curtain in the window and looked out. Ten seconds later, a terrified young woman, carrying an infant, opened the door of number twelve and stepped out onto the wooden porch. She had one hand raised, and the other around the child. She was either
the world’s best actress, or truly in fear for her life.

An officer came up and led her and the infant away to safety, then SWAT officers rushed into the mobile home, covering each other as they entered.

“Clear!” came the call three times. Then an officer appeared at the door. “That’s everyone,” he reported.

Blalock and Ella went up to the woman, who was standing with two officers. Her child,
an infant probably a year old, was screaming at the top of his lungs.

“This is Patricia Arens,” the SWAT leader reported. “She’s given one of our team members permission to retrieve her purse and ID from inside the residence.”

“Ma’am, we’re looking for Shawn O’Riley,” Blalock said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the baby’s wails.

“You’re not the first to come by looking for that man.
He has some strange friends. They drop by at all hours. Last time it was two huge bikers. I called the Bloomfield Police Department but, by the time they got here, the bikers had already left. Check it out if you don’t believe me.”

“You sure you don’t know O’Riley? This is the address listed on his vehicle registration,” Ella said, wondering if the woman was his girlfriend.

The woman rocked
the crying child. “All this commotion woke Donnie up, and he’s like this whenever he gets frightened. Let me put him back in his crib with his teddy bear, then we can talk.”

While deputies on the scene interviewed the returning neighbors about O’Riley, Ella and Blalock joined the woman
in her living room. The little boy, back in his crib now, had quickly fallen asleep.

“All I really know about
O’Riley is that he rented this unit before I did,” she said.

“How long have you occupied this residence?” Blalock asked.

“Three weeks now, I think. I haven’t even finished unpacking,” she said, waving a hand at the boxes against the wall. “My boyfriend took off the day after we moved in, and working a split shift at the truck stop I’ve had a terrible time finding a reliable sitter. I’ve barely
had time to take a breath.”

Ella sympathized with her. If it hadn’t been for Rose, she wasn’t at all sure how she would have coped with the demands of being a single mom.

“Do you know anything about the former renter?” Blalock asked. “Any idea where he lives now?”

“No to both questions. All I know is his name, something I learned fast enough from his friends, if that’s what they really are.
The manager lives in the unit closest to the park’s entrance, you might ask him.”

“Please don’t take offense, but how thoroughly have you cleaned since you moved in?” Ella asked.

“Not very,” she answered honestly. “I wiped the bathroom and kitchen down with disinfectant to protect Donnie, but except for sweeping and cleaning up spills, that’s about it. I haven’t washed the walls or cabinets.”

“We’d like your permission to come in and check for fingerprints the former renter or his guests might have left behind,” Blalock said.

“No problem, but do you think you could come back in the morning to do all that? I’ll leave the key in the mailbox. My son and I will be gone by seven-fifteen.”

“That’ll be fine,” Blalock said.

As they turned to leave, Ella was surprised to see Justine
standing
on the porch steps, waiting. Ella walked down to join her. “What’s going on?”

“County called Big Ed and he briefed me about your operation here. Once I got the name of the suspect, I ran him through NCIC, NIBRS—and basically every database available. We already had something from the New Mexico DMV, but I got a lot more. DOD has records because O’Riley served with the Army—in the infantry.” She
took out the man’s photo and handed it to her, along with a printout of the man’s military record.

“Thanks,” Ella said. He wasn’t the guy who’d carried the ArmaLite, but from the quick glance she’d had of the man behind the wheel, she could make the ID. “This matches the driver of the Silverado.”

Justine nodded. “Good. I’m off to talk to the county crime scene team. We’re going to pool our forensic
information and see if the slugs retrieved from the incident today—assuming they can find one sufficiently intact—match the ones from the airstrip. There are plenty of casings to check for ejection and firing pin correlations as well. We also have the round they took out of Adam. That one was pretty much intact, with clear rifling marks.”

“Justine, there’s something you need to know about Adam
Lonewolf,” Ella said, her voice barely above a whisper as they walked down the drive.

“No need. I know where you’re headed with that. Big Ed brought us in on it after the press conference and told us what was really going on. Good strategy, getting him out of the way.”

“How did the other officers on the team handle the little deception? We had to make it look real.”

“We knew right away that
something was going on when you and Blalock didn’t show up at the press conference, so everyone took the news in stride. But you might
want to reassure the new officers on the team that it wasn’t a trust issue, just an operational maneuver,” Justine said. Seeing Ella nod, she continued. “Big Ed also told us that we’d be kept up to speed on Adam’s condition, but warned us not to try and contact
the family. Makes sense.”

“Have you heard if Adam’s made any progress?”

“No change—and I’ve been told that’s not a good thing,” Justine answered in a somber voice.

After Justine left, Ella joined Blalock and headed to the manager’s unit. SWAT was already packing up and would be gone in a few minutes.

With jurisdiction needed, Blalock took the lead, and after informing the man about tomorrow
morning’s return visit by deputies, they returned to the unmarked vehicle they’d borrowed from county.

Ella checked her watch. It was close to 10.00
P.M.
now. “It’s late, but I say we keep going. What say you?”

“Let’s go back to the Double Barrel and see what, if anything, Dan’s managed to find for us.”

“Do you think he’s still going to be there working?”

“Oh yeah. That shop’s his entire life.
He even lives above it. That man was raised dirt poor and worked hard so he could have his own business. The Double Barrel is his American Dream. He loves that gun shop and it’s as much a part of him as law enforcement is to us.”

“And an incident like this threatens it,” Ella said, nodding slowly.

“Exactly. You can bet he’s going to do everything in his power to protect it, and that means making
sure people like O’Riley and his partner don’t end up giving his shop the kind of reputation that’ll send him into bankruptcy.”

Ella looked away from the headlights and stared blankly out the window at the businesses and homes that lined the highway between Bloomfield and the much larger city, Farmington. As her thoughts drifted, she considered her pending
job offer in D.C. Among its many advantages,
conducting background checks and evaluating security procedures promised regular hours. She’d be able to spend more time with her daughter, something she’d welcome wholeheartedly. This was the time to enjoy their special mother-daughter closeness and it was slipping right through her fingers.

“You’re thinking of John Blakely’s offer again, aren’t you?” Blalock said.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “From
a logical standpoint alone, it makes a lot of sense for me to accept it and move on.”

“But your heart’s not really into it. That’s the real problem, right?”

She nodded. “I have a life here, one that I happen to like. D.C., on the other hand, is a great big question mark.”

“But with solid career opportunities at every bend.”