Wrongful Death (24 page)

Another series of bullets blew out overhead fluorescent tubes, glass spraying. Jenkins grabbed his shotgun and rifle and crab-walked to the edge of the cabinets. Sloane lifted the Glock to the window and shot at random until Jenkins had darted past the door and down the short hall. A moment later Jenkins yelled.

“Okay, light it.”

The lighter sparked a blue flame. The piece of curtain lit.

Sloane counted. The flame grew bigger. “Three,” he shouted.

Sloane heard multiple shots from the back of the trailer, stood, and threw the jar out the window. It exploded in the back of the truck with a burst of flames, lighting a tarp. As the cloth burned, Sloane saw what was beneath it. Cassidy had restocked—cans of acetone, a gas can, two propane tanks.

Not good. Not good at all.

“Charlie?”

SIERRA DE LA LAGUNA
BAJA, MEXICO

THE MAN WHO
called himself Mr. Williams wore a blue ball cap and sunglasses. He had come down the ledge and taken the machete. The other man remained on the boulders above them, looking down from under a wide-brimmed straw hat. Tina sat on the rocks beside the pool of water, an arm wrapped around Jake’s shoulder, holding him close.

“I heard you caught a fish,” Mr. Williams said. “What was it, thirty-three pounds?”

Jake glared at him.

“Don’t be like that, Jake. I’m your friend. Didn’t I help you catch that salmon?”

Jake shook his head. “You’re not my friend.”

“Maybe we can go fishing again. Would you like that? Would you like to go fishing with your friend, Mr. Williams? Just tell me where the other woman is hiding and we’ll all go fishing.”

“She’s gone,” Tina said.

“I don’t think so. The woman in the camp said you all came up here. So tell her to come out.”

Tina considered that information, but was unsure why the woman would have lied. “I told you she’s not here.”

“And I told you to tell her to come out. Now.”

Tina shouted. “Alex? Alex, come out.” She looked at Mr. Williams and shrugged.

“That’s a shame,” Mr. Williams said. “Maybe she doesn’t care about you as much as you think.”

“She isn’t here,” Jake said.

“We’re going to find that out, Jake.” He looked to Tina. “Get in the water.”

“What?”

“Get in the water.”

“I’m not getting in the water.”

“Fine. Jake, you get in the water.”

“No,” Tina said, pulling Jake closer.

“It’s going to be one of you, Mrs. Sloane. Count on it.”

Tina stood. Jake grabbed her arm. “No, Mom.”

“It’s all right,” she told him. “It’s going to be fine.” She removed his arm, stepped to the edge of the pool, and dropped in, feeling the rush of cold.

“Swim out to the center.”

Tina did as instructed. Mr. Williams sat down on the rock next to Jake. “What do you think, Jake, is your mother a good swimmer?”

“Get away from me,” Jake said. “Leave us alone.”

“If I were you, Jake, I’d start calling Alex, because I have all the time in the world to wait, and I don’t think anyone is that good a swimmer, do you?”

MAPLE VALLEY, WASHINGTON

JENKINS BUSTED OUT
the bedroom window facing the grass field. Keeping his head behind the wall, he pointed the AR15 out the window and fired randomly over the blades of grass in the general direction of where the dog had been looking. On Sloane’s
count of three Jenkins looked through the scope. It was sighted to zero at 200 yards, which meant he could put the crosshairs on the man’s head. He heard the glass jar explode in the back of the truck and waited.

“Come on. Come on, you son of a bitch.”

Nothing appeared over the blades of grass. It hadn’t worked. The man was well trained.

“Charlie?” Sloane yelled from the bedroom.

Jenkins ducked back behind the wall, frustrated. “What?”

“Got a problem.”

“I know.”

“Cassidy restocked. There’s gas cans and propane in the back of the truck.”

Crap, Jenkins thought.

“You hear me?” Sloane asked.

“I heard you. Hang on.”

Another idea came to him. Jenkins hated to do it, but it was the only other way he could think of to get the man to give away his position. He lowered the rifle, picked up the shotgun, and busted out the window facing the shed. The dog, now struggling so hard with her collar she looked to be strangling herself, stopped to bark up at him.

“Charlie!”

Jenkins fired the shotgun, obliterating the tie ring embedded in the side of the shed along with the chunk of the aluminum to which it had been bolted. The dog flinched at the blast, flopped onto her side and somersaulted back to her feet.

“Go,” Jenkins said. “Go.”

The animal looked up at him, then took off like a shot across the grass, the rope trailing behind her.

“Charlie!”

Jenkins dropped the shotgun, quickly picked up his rifle, and hurried back to the window. He wedged the butt of the rifle firmly against his shoulder and lowered his eye to the scope, watching the
blades fold as the dog’s brown head crested the tops of the grass, anticipating her destination.

She surprised the man, as Jenkins had hoped. He rose from his crouch. When he did, Jenkins scoped him in the crosshairs, and fired. He looked up from the scope and watched. The dog popped up, circling and barking. The man did not reappear.

He picked up the shotgun and rushed down the hall. Sloane was waiting by the door. “Let’s go.”

Sloane bolted out the door and down the steps, running for the tree line, Jenkins behind him. Halfway there he heard the explosion behind them. He felt a rush of energy, like a shove to his back that propelled him forward and off balance.

Sloane lay on the ground with his head down. When he didn’t feel anything fall on top of him he rolled over. Jenkins lay next to him. The white truck had been flipped upside down and crashed through the side of the trailer, like footage of a mobile home park after a Midwest tornado. Paint cans and debris fell from the sky along with the burning embers of the tarp. Smaller explosions began inside the trailer.

“The whole thing is going to go up,” Jenkins said. “And it will look like the dumb son of a bitch burned himself up in a methamphetamine lab.”

“What about the guy in the grass?” Sloane said, scrambling to his feet and still struggling to catch his breath.

“He’s dead.”

“Maybe he has some identification, something that would tie him to Argus.”

“You saw their operation. What do you think the chances are of that? The body will be gone by the time the police and fire get here. We need to get out of here.”

Sloane stood and looked at the trailer.

His last witness lay dead inside.

SIERRA DE LA LAGUNA
BAJA, MEXICO

JAKE’ S VOICE GREW
hoarse as he became more and more upset, crying. He shouted. “Alex!”

“I’m fine, Jake.” Tina continued to reassure him, but her arms and legs had become heavy and her right calf had developed a persistent cramp. Each time she tried to float on her back to rest, the man above her dropped a rock into the water, a subtle reminder of their first warning—Jake would join her. With each passing minute it became more difficult to keep her head above the water.

“Let her out,” Jake yelled. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything, Jake. As soon as Alex comes out from wherever she’s hiding, your mom can get out of the water, and we’ll all go fishing together. I told you that, and I always keep my word. Better call out again.”

“Alex!”

Tina went underwater for a moment, holding her breath and hoping to rest her arms. When she came back up, Jake was kneeling at the edge of the rock, Mr. Williams holding him to keep him from jumping in.

“Mom! Mom!” Jake swung a fist at the man, but Mr. Williams blocked it and grabbed hold of his wrist.

“I’m fine, Jake. Leave him alone.”

“You’re wasting time, Jake,” Mr. Williams said.

Tina opened her mouth to shout and swallowed water. She gasped, coughing and gagging, trying to recover her breath. It caused her to exert more energy she didn’t have and she slipped beneath the surface, this time not on purpose.

“Mom!”

She came up gasping. “I’m…all…right…Jake.”

“Let him go.”

Alex appeared from the scrub on the rim of the ridge. She held no gun.

Mr. Williams stood, keeping hold of Jake. “Alex, nice of you to join us. You’ve proved the old adage about better late than never. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Sloane?”

“Shoot him,” Tina said, tired and out of breath.

“Yes, Ms. Hart, shoot me,” Mr. Williams said, mocking her. “There’s no need for violence. No one needs to get hurt. Walk down and we’ll all leave together.”

“I don’t think so,” Alex said. “I have another suggestion.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“You’re going to let Jake go. Tina’s going to get out of the water, and you and your partner are going to put down your weapons and get in. Then we’re going to walk out of here without you.”

Mr. Williams laughed. “You’re quite the optimist. Meanwhile, as we have this debate, I’m not sure how much longer Mrs. Sloane can hold out.”

“Mom,” Jake cried out.

The cramp in Tina’s leg worsened. She slipped underwater to massage it and came back up gasping for air.

“Don’t be stubborn, Alex. That stunt you pulled at the bar was clever and resourceful, but you’re outgunned and out-manned.” Mr. Williams’s partner pointed a handgun up the mountain at Alex. “I’m not interested in hurting women and children.”

“That’s good to know. It will make it easier for me to kick your ass.”

“Really? Did you somehow manage to charm the entire fraternity to come hiking with you?”

“Not the fraternity,” she said.
“Amigos, ya pueden salir.”

The Mexican rancher emerged on the ridge wearing a cowboy
hat and holding a rifle. Another appeared beside him, then a third and a fourth. Others appeared on horseback, ringing the pool, each armed. Two men came out of the path behind Mr. Williams. One cocked a shotgun and leveled it at the man’s back.

Alex smiled. “You better hope you swim as well as you fish.”

MILLER RANCH
ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

C
harles Jenkins pointed up at flashing lights, one red, one white, and one green amidst the multitude of stars in the night sky. “Here they come.”

Friday night, he and Sloane stood on the private landing strip on the ranch in Ellensburg, Washington. The woman who had sold Jenkins the two Appaloosa horses did not hesitate when he asked her about using the ranch’s airstrip. A widow, she spent much of the winter and spring in Florida. The caretaker would assist him with the lights for the landing strip, and provide access to the two guest homes, one green, the other yellow. The property also included several barns, a main log cabin, a bunkhouse, and a stocked trout pond, something Sloane hoped would make Jake happy and keep him occupied.

As the Beechcraft jet approached, the caretaker hit a switch on the side of one of the barns, and a string of white bulbs lit up each side of the asphalt pavement.

When Alex finally called, Sloane had felt an overwhelming
rush of relief. That relief was replaced by anger when he learned that the man who had come to Three Tree Point, Mr. Williams, had followed through on his threat. That Alex had left the man and his accomplice treading water in a mountain pool guarded by armed men from a nearby ranch did not relieve Sloane’s anger. They all knew it would be naive to believe the two men would be detained long. Argus officials would eventually get them out of Mexico.

As the plane continued its approach, Sloane considered the expansive property. A heavy locked gate at the entrance prevented anyone from driving onto the single access road. Unlike western Washington, which was lush and green nearly year-round, Ellensburg was arid and barren, with open fields of brown grass to rolling hills. Fields of recently harvested hay and alfalfa surrounded the three houses. No one would easily sneak up on them. Not that Sloane was overly concerned. The pilot had filed a flight plan from Baja to San Diego, with Boeing Field the plane’s final destination. He omitted the stop at the private landing strip in Ellensburg, and there was also no discernable connection between the property and either Sloane or Jenkins. Argus would have had a difficult time locating it even if motivated to do so. Sloane doubted they were. With Michael Cassidy dead, there was no reason for Argus to continue its pursuit of Sloane. Cassidy was the last person who could have testified that the official witness statements were not what actually occurred the night James Ford died, and Sloane had no other evidence to prove that Ford was not acting incident to his service. Come Tuesday, Judge Jo Natale would dismiss Ford’s complaint, and the matter would be closed.

“You all right?” Jenkins asked.

Sloane nodded.

“It was the right call. Don’t beat yourself up. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”

“I want someone to pay for what they did, Charlie.”

“You make it personal and you make stupid decisions.”

“They made it personal.” Sloane took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m just not sure how she’s going to react, what she’ll want to do.”

“About what?”

“About us. About staying together.”

Jenkins frowned. “You’re talking crazy. Tina loves you.”

“She has a son to think about.”

“
You
have a son to think about. Jake loves you too.”

Sloane watched the plane circle the property, lining up for the approach. A minute later the high-pitched roar of the Beechcraft’s engine broke the country silence. The back wheels hit the runway with a skid, the front wheel dropped to the ground, and the plane rolled past where they stood, down the strip. It circled at the end and rolled back toward them, stopping. A door on the side of the plane lowered and a staircase unfolded. Sloane watched the doorway. His heart felt like it was stuck in his throat.

Alex appeared first. She ducked and made her way down the stairs. Jenkins left Sloane’s side, walking at first, then breaking into a run. Alex leapt two stairs from the bottom, wrapping her arms around his neck as Jenkins swung her in a circle.

When Sloane looked back up the stairs, he saw Jake in the doorway, Tina behind him. They stepped out slow and cautious. Sloane walked to the foot of the stairs. Despite what must have been a thrill to ride in a private jet, Jake looked somber.

“Are you okay?” Sloane asked, searching Tina’s face for some answer.

Jake lunged at him, wrapping both arms around Sloane’s midsection and burying his face in his chest. The boy’s shoulders heaved, and tears he had apparently been holding back released in sobs. Sloane felt horrible. He knew what the boy had been through.
He knew the trauma and the fear Jake had endured watching his mother suffer, thinking she was going to die.

Sloane had experienced that same fear as a boy. The nightmare still haunted him.

From the dirt ground, hidden beneath the bed, he watched the horror in silence as each man forced himself upon her, violating her. Blood from the beatings trickled from the corner of her mouth and her eye had become a swollen red pulp. But the other eye found him beneath the bed, imploring him to remain silent, to say nothing. Then she closed it and turned her face away from him.

When the last of the men had finished, a gloved hand pulled her from the ground by a tuft of her long, dark hair, her body hanging limp as a rag doll.

“Dónde está el niño? Dónde está el niño?” Parker Madsen had shouted at her repeatedly. “Where is the boy?”

But she had not answered him.

Madsen squatted to stare into her face, screaming his question. Still, she did not verbally respond. With what little energy and saliva she could muster, she spat, her final act of defiance, her final motherly act being to protect him.

The blade caught the flickering light of the moon as it sliced the darkness like a sickle through wheat, nearly decapitating her.

Sloane pressed Jake’s head to his chest. Tina stepped to his side, resting her head on his shoulder, an arm still wrapped around her son. Sloane held them, no one speaking. Jake and Tina’s sobs mixed with the sound of the crickets and insects in the fields, and the occasional croak of a bullfrog.

SLOANE, TINA, AND
Jake stayed together in the yellow farmhouse. Alex and Jenkins would stay in the green house. Sloane opened the front door and led Tina and Jake inside.

“Jake, come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

Sloane slid open a glass door and stepped out onto a wraparound porch. Tina and Jake followed. Sloane pointed. Though it was dark, the light from the moon and abundant stars outlined the trout pond, a small pier, and the reeds surrounding it.

“Can you see it? A trout pond.” He held his hands apart. “I’m told there are some trout in there that are five to six pounds and nearly two feet long. They’ve never been caught. Not once. Are you up for the challenge?”

Jake stared out into the darkness.

“We could get up early and let these country fish see what a true fisherman is really like,” Sloane said.

Jake took a tentative half-step forward, and a sense of relief rushed over Sloane. Then the boy pivoted and turned away, his voice barely audible. “No, thanks.”

Sloane felt his heart sink. “I brought poles and I picked up earthworms in town. The man told me the bigger fish can’t resist them. Everything’s all ready to go. I did it myself. I have the hooks on, weights.”

Jake spoke to his mom. “I’m tired. Can I go to bed?”

Tina rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “Sure, honey. Go on upstairs. We’ll be up in a minute.”

Jake started into the house, stopping at the sliding glass door. He looked back at Sloane. “You’re staying, right? You’re not leaving?”

Sloane nodded. “I’ll be in the room right next door.”

Jake turned and went inside.

Sloane closed his eyes and shook his head. All the progress he had made over their two years together to gain the boy’s confidence had been squandered. Jake no longer trusted him.

“He’ll be okay,” Tina said. “It’s just going to take some time.”

How long? Sloane wondered. It had taken him a lifetime and
still the dreams occasionally haunted him. Even now, he would awake in Tina’s arms, sweating, crying out.

He did not wish that on anyone. He did not want that for Jake.

“How about you?” he asked. “How are you doing?”

“It will take me some time too,” she said. “I’m not sure when I’ll swim again.”

“Tina, I’m sorry. I—”

She pulled him to her.

He smelled her beauty as he buried his face in her hair. “I should not have let you go alone.”

“You didn’t. Alex was there. It was the right decision,” she said. “Don’t excuse what they did by blaming yourself.”

He pondered his next question, not sure he wanted to hear her response, not wanting to see her face for fear it would provide an answer he could not take.

“If this is too much for you and Jake, if you decide this isn’t what you wanted, for either of you—”

She pulled back. “What are you talking about?”

“What happened in San Francisco, now this. If you wanted something more…I don’t know. Stable.”

She looked wounded. “You don’t get it, do you?”

He looked at her, uncertain of the cause of her pain.

“
You
are all that I want.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “You were all that I thought of the entire time I was away. I was worried sick about
you
, and I felt awful for leaving the way I did.”

“But what they did to you, the fact that I wasn’t there to stop it, the fact that I caused it.”

“You didn’t cause anything, David. Don’t start blaming yourself again for the world’s evils.”

“I should have listened to you. I should have never taken this case.”

She put out her hands and he was uncertain whether she wanted to cradle his face or strangle him. “And so you think I’d
want to leave you? Do you think that little of me, of my commitment to you?”

“No, I don’t doubt that.”

“Do you know how long I waited for you? Ten years. And I would have waited another ten if I had to. I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I first set eyes on you, and these past two years I’ve only grown to love you more every day. What hurts most is that you don’t understand that.”

He felt a sense of relief, but also the numbing, hollow emptiness much like he used to feel. “I’ve never had this before. I’ve never loved any two people as much as I love you and Jake. I’m afraid of losing that. I’m afraid of being alone again. I can see the pain in Beverly Ford’s face. Her loss is irreparable. She’ll never be over it. She’ll never stop loving him.”

Tina pulled him close. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Jake. This is our family, and we’re not going to let anyone take that away from us the way they took it away from her.”

Later, they sat in the dark on a porch swing covered by a wool blanket. Tina rested her head on his chest, the porch swing creaking rhythmically, the sound of the insects in the fields reverberating around them.

“What happens now?” Tina asked.

He rubbed her shoulder. “The hearing on the motion to dismiss is Tuesday. That will likely be the end of it.”

She lifted her head and sat back to look him in the face. “So they’re going to get away with it?”

“All the witnesses are dead,” Sloane said. “I have no evidence.”

“That’s not good enough,” she said. “I know you—you can find a way.”

Sloane smiled. “You’re remarkable, you know that? After all that happened, you still want me to pursue this?”

“No. I want you to pursue this
because
of what happened. I might not like it, but you were right. This is what you do. If an
injustice was done to that man and to his family, someone needs to stand up for them, just as you said.”

Sloane blew out his frustration. “I don’t know how at the moment.”

“You’ll figure out a way,” she said.

“I don’t have a lot of time to do it.”

“Then you better get started.”

She put her head back on his chest and they swung in silence. Sloane thought of Argus and Robert Kessler and Mr. Williams. He thought of revenge. Then he thought of Beverly Ford and her children, Althea with the bright smile beaming up at him, and he realized this wasn’t about revenge. He’d been down that path before, a path that grew darker with each step, and without end. He thought instead of justice.

SUNDAY MORNING, SLOANE
and Jenkins walked out into a field. Sloane outlined his plan, starting with the hearing on the motion to dismiss.

“It’s risky,” Jenkins said. “Too many things could go wrong.”

“Who’s raining on the parade now?”

“This is different. The stakes are higher. You could get killed. You have a wife and son to think about.”

“So did James Ford.”

“I told you, don’t make it personal.”

Sloane looked away. “I’m not. I’ve thought this through. This is the best option.”

“Sounds like the only option.”

“Maybe,” Sloane said. He turned to the man who had become his best friend. “I need your help, but I understand you also have someone else in your life now to consider.”

“Are you kidding? You haven’t seen personal until you’ve seen Alex angry. And she is pissed.”

Sloane chuckled at that. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’ve been pissed for a long time.”

“I thought you said not to make this personal.”

“I told
you
not to make it personal,” Jenkins said. “I’m part Cherokee. It’s always personal.”

Sloane smiled. “Did you and Alex set a date?”

“Summer, probably August. I’ll need a best man. You know anyone?” Jenkins said.

“No one who would stand up for you,” Sloane replied, smiling.

They turned back toward the houses. Sloane caught a glimpse of someone walking across the lawn. “Look at that,” he said, pointing.

Jake walked across the field toward the pond carrying what looked like two fishing poles.

“Looks like you’re going fishing,” Jenkins said.

Sloane smiled. “Looks like I am.”