A Flower in the Desert (26 page)

The air was cold but the sun was bright. Snow was melting off the scrub pines, and above the huge silence of empty space I could hear the drip of meltwater patting against the drifts, and an occasional soft thump as clusters toppled off the branches and puffed against the smooth white banks.

About fifty yards ahead of me, back toward town, the road rose slightly and angled to the right, out of sight. Behind me, a thin unsullied swath of snow led off through the trees. Farther along, another mile or two beyond the hills, was the river and Diablo Canyon.

Time passed, maybe fifteen minutes. Except for the melting snow, nothing moved. If there were any animals out there, they were in hiding.

Cold started to seep into my boots. I stomped my feet.

I heard the car before I saw it. A big engine snarling low in its throat as it shifted. At least six cylinders, probably eight. I took the Smith from my jacket pocket, bent down over the fender of the wagon, sighted at the rise in the road, and waited some more.

The car came more quickly than I had expected, a big black Bronco bouncing over the rise, and it had two men sitting up front. I had believed there would be only one, and I thought for a moment that these two were a couple of cowboys out for some winter fun, and then the man on the passenger side rolled down his window and started shooting at me.

He couldn't hit anything with a handgun, no one could, not at that distance, and not with the Bronco skidding in a slide to a stop, then kicking up snow and dirt as it spun, turning, into reverse. But it gave me pause for thought. And then, for just a second, the Bronco was broadside to me and I poked up my head to take a shot, but the man on the passenger side didn't care for that at all and he had a gun with a lot of cartridges in it, and he used some of them. I heard a loud brittle pop as a headlight on the wagon went, and then a high-pitched buzz, like a wasp, as a slug zipped by my ear. And then the big Ford's rear end was slamming left and right across the road as the car raced up the rise and over it, gone.

I jumped into the Subaru, banged the door shut, threw the stick into first, and jammed my foot against the pedal. Tires hissing, the car vaulted forward.

Twenty-One

I
T WAS FUCKING STUPID, JOSH
,”
SAID
Hector Ramirez.

“I know, Hector.”

“What were you gonna do? Make a citizen's arrest?”

“That's probably what I told myself. Something like that. I wasn't thinking very clearly.”

“You weren't thinking at all.”

“Yeah. Right.”

We were in Hector's cubicle at the Santa Fe Police Station, on Airport Road. Hector sat behind his desk in rolled-up shirt sleeves, his tie loosened. The taupe-colored tie was silk. The neatly pressed shirt was cotton, off white, patterned with thin vertical taupe stripes. Hector dressed well, but it must've cost him some money to find shirts with a nineteen-inch neck and enough room in the sleeves for twenty-five-inch biceps.

“So you lost them,” he said.

“I lost them. Couldn't keep up. By the time I reached St. Francis, they were gone.”

“You get the number off the tag?”

“Covered with mud. But the Bronco had to be either stolen or a rental. They didn't drive it up here from El Salvador.”

“You don't know they came here from El Salvador.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“Lot of dumb things make sense to you.”

“Like coming here, to talk to you.”

Hector said nothing. He leaned forward, picked up the object on his desk. Covered with a shiny yellow epoxy, it was about the length of a cigar and about the width of two double-A batteries placed side by side. Idly, he turned it over in his fingers. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“One notion does spring immediately to mind.”

Below his bandito mustache he smiled bleakly. “Fifteen years a cop and I gotta take insults from some cowboy PI.”

“You could have someone take a look at it. You must have experts somewhere, or access to them. According to Leroy, it's state of the art. It runs on lithium batteries that last for three months, and it's got a range of over five miles. He couldn't find it with a standard RF sweep. He had to use a wide-band receiver. It's a frequency hopper—it jumps all over the band, between a hundred and sixty to five hundred megahertz. He says there's something better, but it's something only the feds have, some Captain Marvel transponder that can bounce signals off a satellite.”

“You don't think the feds planted this thing?”

“No. The only fed involved in all this, that I know about, is Stamworth. Maybe there's some other bunch of whiz kids floating around, but I haven't turned them. And Stamworth had already talked to Deirdre Polk. He probably got her off Melissa's phone bill, like the FBI people who talked to her in August. If he wanted to kill her, he could've killed her last month. Besides, what's the motive?”

“What's the motive for your Salvadoran?”

“I told you. He wants to get to Melissa Alonzo. He's not particular how he asks his questions. Afterwards, he has to clean up the mess.”

“He wants to get to Alonzo because of something that happened down in El Salvador.”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “It's a stretch.”

“I thought so too. But Deirdre Polk told me that Melissa had seen something down there. Melissa's sister was killed last week. Deirdre was killed last night, the same way.”

“Alonzo took off in August. Why'd this guy wait so long to start whacking people?”

“I don't know. And I don't know why Stamworth started hanging around last week either.”

“There's a lot you don't know.”

“No shit.”

He turned the oblong device over in his hand. “Why not give this to the state boys? Deirdre Polk is their case.”

“I give it to them and that'll be the last I hear of it. Far as they're concerned, I'm still a suspect.”

“Withholding evidence.”

“I'm not withholding anything. I'm giving it to you. And who's to say that this thing is connected to Deirdre Polk?”

“You are.”

“But I can't prove it.”

Hector lightly tapped the device against his desktop. He looked up at me. “No PI in New Mexico has a concealed carry permit.”

“I know that, Hector. Maybe I carted the gun out there in my glove compartment.”

“That what you did?”

“I was wearing it on my watch chain, next to my Phi Beta Kappa key.”

“Not funny, Josh. You should've come to us. Or gone to the state police. We could've set something up.”

“Listen, Hector—”

“No, you listen. I know you're pissed off because someone planted this thing on you, this homer. And maybe you're right, maybe that's what led them to Deirdre Polk. So you feel like shit. You feel guilty. I understand that. But that doesn't give you the right to start acting like Dirty Harry. A stupid Dirty Harry. If you'd come to us, we could've arranged something. Some cars, some backup. Those two assholes wouldn't still be out on the street.”

“I know that, Hector. That's why I'm here now. You're not telling me anything I haven't already told myself.”

“A little late for it, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

“They could've whacked
you
, you know.”

“They didn't.”

He nodded. Bleakly. “Fucking funeral would really screw up my month.”

“Good thing I didn't get whacked.”

He smiled faintly. “I didn't say that.”

I smiled faintly myself. “So are you going to check that thing out?” I nodded to the transponder.

He shrugged. “Only people I can give it to are the feds. They're the ones with all the shiny equipment.”

“So give it to the feds.”

“And what happens if it's one of theirs?”

“They'll try to smoke you, and then you'll know it's one of theirs. But like I said, I don't think it is. They've got better stuff, Leroy says. But he also says that the government, the federal government, has dumped a lot of second-string technology in third world countries. Maybe that's how that thing ended up in El Salvador.”

“You're really pushing this El Salvador business.”

“Because it fits.”

“For you it fits.”

“Okay. For me it fits. What about Juanita Carrera?” If the state police believed my story, they would already be looking for her. Juanita Carrera might be afraid of the police, state or otherwise, but right now, it seemed to me, the more people who were looking for her, the better.

He nodded. “I'll talk to Missing Persons.”

“And you'll have someone check the car rental places?”

“It's an amazing coincidence.”

“What is?”

“How I was just sitting here hoping you'd come in and ask me to run some little errands for you.”

“These guys broke the law, Hector. Attempted murder.”

“Murdering a PI is considered a public service in some circles. Mine, sometimes.”

“They discharged a firearm within the city limits. They discharged it a lot. One of those big nine-mil jobs. Fourteen rounds in the clip.”

“Only your word for that.”

“And a busted headlight on the station wagon.”

“Time you got a new car anyway.”

“Fine. I'll check them myself.”

“I wouldn't want you do to that. You're too busy buzzing around playing Cowboys and Indians. Takes it out of a guy.”

“So we're talking yes?”

He sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Won't hear anything for a day or two. Besides, they've probably dumped the Bronco already.”

“Probably. But if they used plastic to rent it, maybe you can trace them through the card. I appreciate it, Hector.”

“I see it as an honor.”

“You're a prince.”

“And you're an asshole.” He tossed the homer to the desk. “Listen to me. Hear me good. Don't fuck up again.”

“Right.”

I picked up the local newspaper on my way to the office. Deirdre Polk had made the first page. My name wasn't mentioned in the article.

When I got back to the office, there were a bunch of messages on the machine. The first, the third, the sixth and seventh were from Roy Alonzo. He seemed anxious to talk to me. The second call was from Norman Montoya, the fourth from Rita, and the fifth from Bob Neiman, a reporter I knew who worked for the same newspaper I had just tossed into the wastebasket.

I picked up the telephone receiver and the green light on Leroy's box suddenly started glowing. I called Norman Montoya.

He answered the phone himself. Maybe the hired help was off negotiating a merger with General Motors.

“This is Croft,” I said.

“Ah, Mr. Croft. Good of you to return my call. I understand that you had visitors last night.”

Norman Montoya evidently possessed sources of information other than the newspaper.

“State police,” I said. “You know about Deirdre Polk?”

“Your telephone line is clear?”

“Supposed to be.”

“I know that you are alleged to have visited her on the evening of her death. Presumably she is connected in some way to Melissa and Winona.”

“A friend of Melissa's.”

“I find that very disturbing.”

“So do I.”

“Whom do you believe responsible?”

“Right now I'm leaning toward the Salvadoran.”

“Yes. I understand that the state police are searching for the man.”

Good. Among other things, that meant that Hernandez and Green had believed my story. Provisionally, anyway. “The state police keep you informed of their progress, do they?”

“I learn what is in my interests to learn. Mr. Croft, once again I make you an offer of assistance. Perhaps it would be wiser of you not to continue with this project on your own.”

“Thanks. If it looks like I need someone, I'll call you.”

“I do hope, Mr. Croft, that you will not let your pride lead to your downfall.”

“So do I. By the way, the Salvadoran's not alone. He has a friend.”

“Mr. Croft, please. Allow me to send my nephew, George, to assist you. You know him, and I assure you that he is quite capable.”

“I only mentioned the other guy so that you and your people will know what they're up against. I'm all right. And I'll call you if things start looking grim.”

“Please do so, Mr. Croft.”

“What about Juanita Carrera? Have you found anything?”

“Ah. Some good news, I believe. It seems that she may still be somewhere nearby. I should be learning more later today and, naturally, I shall keep you informed. But in view of recent events, and, of course, assuming that you are willing, I should like to make some small changes in our arrangement.”

“What changes?”

“If my people succeed in locating the woman, I should like them to bring her here, to my home, where I can guarantee her safety. The remainder of our agreement will remain unchanged. I will make no attempt to learn from her the whereabouts of my great-niece and her mother.”