7th Sigma (14 page)

“How the—do you know where it's coming from?”

“It's Mexican meth, made in Chihuahua but airdropped from a Texas-California overflight. They drop it at fifteen thousand feet with small drag chute. It's crystal meth. They don't care that it hits the ground hard. They're going for accuracy.”

“Where? Where do they drop it?”

“At the south end of the Stevens Ranch, just short of the old refinery.”

The refinery was an active bug site. It was avoided by day, but especially by night, when you could crush a bug accidentally in the dark.

“Night drop?”

“Just before dawn. Next one is Thursday morning, in three days.”

“Are the Stevens involved? Any of their people?”

“Don't know. It's the biggest ranch in the area and they've lost cattle before. The deputies have blanket permission to sweep for rustlers. No one would think it odd.”

“Anything else?”

“They've mostly been selling out of town, wholesale. But they figure they can make a bigger profit getting into retail. They're eyeing the college kids, figuring they can sell it as a ‘study' aid. They plan on busting one of them for pot dealing and blackmailing him into dealing for them. That was Deputy Pritts' idea. He's a real asshole.”

“How on earth did you learn this?”

“The idiots use their own product. Practically everyone I talked to said what assholes the deputies were. Aggressive. Some of them thought it was a
good
thing. That they were tough on the ‘criminal element.'”

“You've seen meth users before?”

“Sure, in the capital. Street people do all sorts of drugs. I was on the street for over a year.”

“Okay, so what about all those details? You heard that?”

“They have a clubhouse—the Deputies Den, they call it—a two-story building behind the town hall. The sheriff doesn't go there. The off-duty deputies practically live there, even the married ones.” Kimble looked uncomfortable. “They have women there, too. You know how meth users get their thing on?”

Bentham nodded evenly. “Right. Hypersexuality. Where were you, Kimble?”

“On the roof.”

Bentham closed his eyes. “On the roof.”

“It was the best place to listen.”

“Your teacher is going to kill me. I wanted you to look for kids, teenagers, who were using. Whoever sold them the drugs. We would've traced back from the users.”

Kimble turned his hands palm up. “I looked. I hung out. I talked to rich kids and poor kids and two homeless kids. There's a little local weed and a lot of underage drinking, but no real stimulants. Then I found a fifteen-year-old girl coming off of crystal, down by the river, crying up a storm.”

“From withdrawal?”

Kimble clamped his mouth shut and looked down at the ground. He started hyperventilating.

Bentham took a step forward, concerned.

Lujan spoke. “She'd been raped.”

Kimble lifted his head and spat out, “It was Pritts. He took her back to the clubhouse and got her high and went at her. He told her no one would believe her. That all the deputies would hang together.” Kimble's face was almost completely unrecognizable, contorted with rage.

“Ah,” said Bentham, stepping back again. “What's her name?”

“Francesca Cruz. Her father is a migrant worker, probably from Mexico. She's terrified of his reaction and terrified he'll be targeted or deported. That's just sick.”

“Where is Ms. Cruz?”

Lujan said, “Outside of town, at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy. They run a shelter for battered women.
They
aren't going to talk to the deputies. In their experience, the deputies tended to side with abusive husbands. Also, one of their previous clients was the former Mrs. Pritts.”

Bentham reached out and touched Kimble's shoulder. “The girl told you about the clubhouse?”

“What the hell do you think? Of course she told me!” Kimble's voice didn't rise at all but Bentham's head jerked back.

“What do you want, Kimble?”

“
I want it never to have happened!
”

Bentham nodded. “Right. Barring that?”

“I want to cut his balls off! I want to shove a cactus up his ass!” He took a deep breath and said in a quieter voice. “I want him to die.”

Bentham nodded. “Understood. Then help me get him. The girl told you about the clubhouse. Next?”

Kimble stared off into the river bottom. “I went up at dusk. There's a wisteria trellis on the back. The trellis is rotten and brittle but the vines are massive. Pritts and two others on the day shift got there about eleven. Pritts and one of the others started using—smoking rock, I think—and they began discussing the whole scheme. They talked about whether they'd have enough for the local market. Pritts said they'd have plenty after the Thursday drop. One of the others pointed out that the delivery could overshoot and hit the old refinery. Pritts said that hadn't happened since the second drop and there'd been thirty since then that went off without a hitch.

“Then the other one said, ‘Except for the time the load took out one of the Stevens' steers.' They all laughed. They had a barbecue.”

Bentham frowned. “Thursday morning.”

“Yeah. An hour before dawn. They don't want anyone to see it drop but they want the light to look for it. Bugs.”

“Which deputies go out to the drop?”

“All of them. They talked about a time they only sent two and they couldn't find the package. They were afraid a ranch hand would find it first. Now they all go, to do a fast wide sweep.” He shook his head. “They talked a
lot
. Typical meth users.”

Bentham nodded. “Talkative, yes, but also paranoid. It was dangerous!”

Kimble didn't deny it.

Bentham questioned him for another half hour, getting every detail. Finally he settled back on his heels. “Well, we'll watch them do the pickup and we'll watch them hand it over to Dashefsky. As he hands off to his distributors, we'll take them. Then we'll take Dashefsky and the deputies. I don't know if we can prosecute the rape, dammit. Maybe we can get one of them to plea deal, to rat him out, otherwise…” Bentham shrugged.

Lujan snorted, “Don't be so sure. The Sisters have SOEC kits and have been trained in their use.”

Bentham said, “Oh, real-ly?” He smiled, but it was all teeth and it made Kimble cold to see it.

Kimble's anger had faded to depression. “What does that mean?”

Lujan explained. “Sexual Offense Evidence Collection kit. Means we have a good chance of getting him on the rape, too. We'll send it outside for DNA matching with a sample taken from Pritts.”

“What kind of sample?”

“Usually a mouth swab. Why?”

Kimble shrugged. “The bigger the sample the better, right? I suggest you send a tissue sample. A large tissue sample.” He gestured down.

“We can't cut parts off of him, Kimble,” Captain Bentham said.

“That's a great pity.”

*   *   *

SINCE
Captain Bentham was coordinating his trap for the deputies and their associates, as well as liaising with the DEA to identify the outside-the-territory members of the chain, it was Lujan who delivered Kimble back to Perro Frio, dropping him on the road between the dojo and the village.

“Didn't know what to think,” Lujan said, “when the cap'n brought you in, but you done good, kid. Now I understand why he was so impressed.”

Kimble's jaw dropped open. “He sure hides it well!”

Lujan shook his head. “I meant it. Work with you anytime.” He turned his team north for the capital and Kimble walked south with his bedroll.

He arrived just as evening class began. He slipped back into his room, changed into practice clothes, and bowed in.

Later, Ruth asked him, “Did you eat?”

“A bit—dried fruit and jerky.”

“I baked today. Come on.”

She fed him bread and honey and tea. He was dreading her questions but she didn't ask any, cleaning the counter and then resuming work on a half-finished basket.

After a while he began talking. He told her about Pritts and the deputies and the rape of Francesca Cruz and the drug drops. He didn't tell her about hiding on the roof to eavesdrop.

When he'd stopped talking she put the finished basket aside and said, “Do you think you should have gone?”

He'd been wrestling with that all the way from Parsons. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Pretty awful people,” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah. Makes Sandy Williams look like a saint.”

She grimaced. “Wouldn't go
that
far. I still have my doubts, but if it keeps any more girls from being assaulted—”

“Raped,” said Kimble emphatically. “It's rape!”

She blinked then nodded. “Yes. Rape. No euphemisms, right?”

“I didn't want to know this.
I didn't want to
. Not so up close.”

“Oh, Kimble.” She exhaled. “I can't take it away. You can't un-know it.”

“I used to think innocence was just not doing bad things. That it was just being innocent of wrongdoing. But it's not that simple, is it?”

“No,” she said. “It's not. We all have to learn it at some point in our lives. It's never easy.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

9

Keiko, Keiko, Keiko

It was a different Kimble who came back to the two-room schoolhouse that September. He was quieter, burning through his math and science workbooks for the entire year before the end of October. Taken by surprise, Mrs. Sodaberg had to shoot an unscheduled order off to the capital for the next workbooks in the series. In the interim, she lent Kimble to Mrs. Sedaris to help with the elementary students in the other schoolroom.

One day, when the upper form was off on a field trip to the river bottom, Charlotte Ann Johnson fell in class and cut her forehead on the corner of a desk. Mrs. Sedaris left Kimble in charge as she hustled Charlotte to the village medical office so Marisol Aragon could glue the wound back together.

“You're not the boss of me.”

“Excuse me?” said Kimble looking up from his novel.

Johnny Hennessey, a large boy who had failed to move out of elementary the year before, had gotten up from his desk and was glaring across the room at Kimble. It was not a secret that his problems were both academic
and
behavioral.

“Did you need some help with your math, Johnny?”

“You can't boss us around, you're not the teacher.”

After Mrs. Sedaris and Charlotte Ann had left the schoolroom, the only thing he'd said was, “Do whatever Mrs. Sedaris assigned.” Kimble raised his eyebrows and said, “Okay. I'm not the boss of you.” He looked back down at his book. That would probably have been it, but several of the younger kids giggled.

Johnny glared around then said, “You're scared, aren't you. You're yellow.” He took two steps up the aisle. “I knew that crap was phony about your martial arts stuff.”

Kimble sighed and closed the book, his finger marking the space. “Johnny, you could be finishing your assignment. And so could everyone else, you know?”

“Yeah,” said Pete Romero, a kid on the front row. “
Some
of us are ready to move to the upper form.”

Pete was one of the smartest kids in the elementary room, but saying that when Johnny Hennessey, who outweighed Pete by fifty pounds, was standing right beside him was
not
smart.

Johnny dove at Pete, knocking over the desk and spilling both boys to the floor, Johnny on top. He raised a fist to smack Pete and suddenly the world changed.

Pete was no longer under him but off to one side, cradling a bruised elbow. Johnny could see that because his head was facing that way and
only
that way because his cheek was grinding into the floor and his arm and shoulder were positioned so that he couldn't look in any other direction. Or move. Not without a shooting pain from his wrist to his spine.

“Shhh,” Kimble said. “You really shouldn't struggle. You could hurt yourself. Oh, damn. You made me lose my place.”

By the time Mrs. Sedaris returned with Charlotte Ann, Johnny and Pete were back in their seats and, if not productive, at least quiet.

Later that week, Buck Hennessey came in to complain about upper form students being allowed to manhandle the elementary students. He glared around the schoolyard and demanded which of the assembled children was the brutal bully, Kim Monroe.

Kimble heard this and stepped forward, standing across from Johnny, who was a full head taller than him and fifty pounds heavier.

Mr. Hennessey complained a bit more but not quite so enthusiastically. Regretfully, Mrs. Sedaris sent Kimble back to the upper forms. Johnny Hennessey avoided Kimble in the schoolyard and Pete Romero started attending the kids classes at the dojo.

*   *   *

KAREN
Sensei and Athena were the first to arrive for the dojo's grand opening, but they were by no means the last. They came two days early, this time renting horses and coming without a guide.

“We're quite the intrepid explorers,” Athena said.

The horses, as prearranged, were boarded at the Kenney's ranch. Kimble gave up his room again, but this time to Athena
and
Karen. There were so many people coming that they expected to double up in each of the four deshi rooms, fill the practice area with sleeping bags, and overflow into some of the local students' homes.

Kimble's old bed in the cottage, the one Karen had used on her last visit, was reserved for Tamada
Shihan
. Kimble was cleaning the room in preparation when he overhead Karen and Ruth talking.

“He's actually coming?” Ruth said.

Karen answered emphatically, “Absolutely!”