El Gavilan (7 page)

* * *

Able Hawk sat at the breakfast table with his grandson, Amos, who was in his second year of studying criminology in neighboring Vale County. Able was frustrated he couldn’t find more time to help the boy, who he sensed was struggling with his studies.

Amos—Amos Tudor Sharp—had been living with his lawman grandfather since his junior year of high school. Able’s wife, Katy, had died after a swift but brutal bout with cervical cancer several years before. Their daughter, Nancy, driven by her mother’s sharp decline and death, had gone in for her own testing, fearing there might be something genetic at work. Nancy had checked out fine in that area, but the doctors had found a lump in her right breast. Turned out it was indeed cancer, and it had already spread to Able’s daughter’s lungs and lymph nodes. Nancy was dead in less than three months. Little better than a bald skeleton when they buried her, Able’s daughter was wasted by the disease and weeks of aggressive chemo and radiation therapy that doctors later admitted probably hastened her decline and did flat nothing to stop the course of the cancer raging through her body.

Nancy had been deserted by Amos’s father when their boy was only two months old. So Able had, in every sense, been Amos’s father for the boy’s entire life.

Chip Sharp was so long missing and presumed dead by most around Horton County that no one bothered looking when Amos was orphaned. It was a presumed thing that Able would take the boy in after the cancer killed his mother.

Amos looked like his father’s side: tall and slender with natural muscle tone, not big-boned and husky like the Hawks tended to run. But Amos Sharp shared his grandfather’s law enforcement career ambitions. And Amos had a slightly darker, mistier shade of his grandfather Able’s strange gray eyes.

“You still seein’ improvement this quarter?” Able asked around a mouthful of cornflakes.

“Think I’m gonna be okay,” Amos said.

“Good. That’s good, Amos. I’m proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know you are, Grandpa.”

“Met the new chief of police of New Austin last night,” Able said. “I’m having lunch with him later today. Seems a solid sort. Former Border Patrol agent who paid a terrible price for doing the job. Fella name of Tell Lyon. New Austin’s police department has always run internships for up-and-comers like you. I’ll see if maybe he’ll consider taking you on come winter, if you keep your grades up.”

“Sounds great,” Amos said.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” the old man said. “Want to head out to the cabin for the weekend, Aim?”

Able owned a small piece of property on a private pond on the far side of Vale County, a stocked pond with a small cabin built on the pond’s wooded northern rim. It was about forty-five minutes’ drive from Horton County.

Amos said, “Maybe for the morning into afternoon? Kind of have plans for tomorrow night, Gramps.”

Able shook his head, talking with his mouth full. “The mystery girl again, huh? Gonna have to let me meet her soon, Amos. Or am I gonna have to go sleuth on your ass?”

Amos smiled and said, “Soon, Grandpa, if it looks like it’ll last. Your time’s too valuable to waste.” Amos tried to sound casual about it—not tip the old man that there might be something there that Amos thought would be an issue for Sheriff Able Hawk.

The old lawman said, “Okay. Let’s plan on bein’ up extra early then. We’ll hit the road at four thirty so we can be there just after five, when they start biting. You can do that, lazybones?”

“Hell yeah, I can do that, Grandpa,” Amos said.

* * *

Shawn O’Hara awakened to snoring from someone other than the woman who was jammed up bare-assed against him.

He awakened realizing he was in a strange bed—too short and narrow to be his own. He realized he was naked next to the woman he’d met the night before. In the dim light, Shawn could see that her hair was dark, like he always liked them, and her skin darker than his own.

Shawn had been more attracted to her friend, Carmelita Martinez … yeah, that was her friend’s name. As to the name of the woman Shawn had fucked in a drunken stupor—the one sprawled naked next to him now—he couldn’t recall
her
name just yet.

And for his part, Shawn had been cagey; he’d never gotten beyond “Shawn.”

And thank God he’d had the good sense not to take her back to his own place.

Shawn slid quietly from the bed and lifted the sheet to take another look at her bare brown body. Jesus—she was a bit heavier than he would ever go for sober. Big breasts … thick ankles. She was already showing signs of being one of those Mexican women who’d run a bit more to fat with each passing year. Stretch marks! Christ, she probably had a kid somewhere. Maybe she was sleeping around in search of a father for her child. He eyed the red and blue butterfly tattooed on the small of her back. Shawn remembered staring at it while he was doing her doggie style.

The snoring was louder down the hall. Carmelita, maybe? Drunk as they all were, why the hell hadn’t he pressed for a three-way?

The reporter didn’t want to risk waking anyone, so he slipped on his underwear and jeans, then picked up his socks, shoes and shirt and slid out the front door, leaving it unlocked behind him.

He threw his clothes over his shoulder and quietly let himself into his car. He was parked on a sloped driveway in front of a string of West Side townhouses. Shawn knew the neighborhood from dozens of crime reports. He was damned lucky his car hadn’t been broken into overnight.

Shawn held the door with his left hand, steadying it so he wouldn’t have to slam it and maybe awaken anyone in the apartment he’d just snuck out of. He turned the ignition to Auxiliary but didn’t start the car—just engaged the electrical system enough so he could put it in gear and let it coast backward down the driveway onto the sloping street with the engine off.

Shawn backed onto the street, shifted into Drive and let it roll a few dozen yards from the apartment he’d snuck out of. Then he started his car and drove away fast with the lights off so nobody could get a look at his license plates.

The journalist checked the dashboard clock—time enough to go home, shower and grab a breakfast at McDonald’s. Then he’d maybe see about smoothing things over with prettier and skinnier Patricia Maldonado so he wouldn’t be forced back into the clubs next Friday night.

* * *

Thalia stood naked in her girlfriend’s bathroom, surveying the ruin of her face. She frowned at the marks on her neck and breasts from his “kisses.” Felt the soreness between her legs and in her ass.

Sweet Jesus
, what had she
done
?

Down the hall, Carm was snoring up a storm. Carmelita had allowed Thalia to borrow her vacationing roommate’s room.

But Thalia couldn’t believe she’d accepted the offer—the man’s or Carmelita’s. What was the guy’s name? John? Maybe John.

Jesus
. At least he looked clean. Maybe he hadn’t given her anything.

She desperately wanted a shower, but she was already in danger of being late for work. She felt nauseous, hung-over and dizzy. But not like any of the rare hangovers she had suffered before. She felt drugged. Had John … ?
er
, Tom … ? put something in her drink?

Thalia dressed and phoned her mother from downstairs. Her mother promised to see that Thalia’s daughter, Evelia, would get to school on time. Thalia cringed again, thinking of the tone of bitter disapproval in her mother’s voice. It was gratuitous—Thalia was already disgusted with herself … angry enough for both of them.

She let herself out of the apartment and then realized she left her car at the club where she’d met John … Tom … Ron?

Cursing, Thalia dialed for a cab.

Her cell phone died just as the dispatcher picked up.

Damn it!

She started walking toward the bus stop three blocks distant, already anticipating the hell she’d catch from her boss. Dreading the grief she’d get from her mother. She cursed the burning ache between her legs as she walked in the muggy morning heat.

Goddamn
him
! Goddamn John … Tom … Ron …
Shawn
!

That
was his name.
Shawn
!

And Thalia knew that she knew his face from somewhere, if he could just place it. She saw a coin box for newspapers when she reached the corner and the bus stop. She indulged a hunch and dug out a couple of quarters and bought a copy of the
New Austin Recorder
. She flipped through the paper until she hit the editorial page. There he was—blond and blandly good-looking. Smiling at her from the little picture that ran each week with his column. Shawn O’Hara.

Thalia folded the paper so she could look at the picture while she sat on the bus. She looked down the road, but saw no sign of the bus.

The streets were still dead; just a lonely red pickup truck approaching slowly from a distance.

THEN

Thalia met her husband at a work-sponsored picnic. Both worked in a hospital serving the greater Dayton area. Thalia was employed as a cook in the hospital’s cafeteria. Rafael was a parking lot attendant.

Sofia Gómez wasn’t pleased by the relationship; she’d hoped her daughter would find a white man. The fact that Rafael’s family was also originally from Southern Mexico didn’t endear him to Sofia as Thalia had hoped.

Despite her mother’s misgivings, Thalia and Rafael were married six months after their first date. They were expectant parents three months after that. In between those two landmarks, the hospital where they worked was bought out by an HMO that promptly shut it down for cynical tax purposes.

Thalia, Rafael and Sofia moved on to Horton County, where Rafael found work at a propane plant.

Their baby, Evelia, was born in a hospital other than the one where her parents had met—a sentimental letdown for the first-time mother and father. Their wedding too, had been a bittersweet experience, particularly for Thalia. Throughout the ceremony, the bride couldn’t keep from thinking of the family who should be there sharing the day with her: her grandparents, her dead father, Francisco … her surviving but now distant brother and sister. Another parking lot attendant gave the bride away.

All her dead.

Standing there in church, Thalia vowed to herself that her own child would never know such loss.

EIGHT

Tell arrived twenty minutes early for lunch, thinking he’d squeeze in some paperwork while he waited for Sheriff Hawk, but Able was already sitting there in a big wrap-around booth, holding court with a bunch of codgers who were laughing and slapping the tabletop at some joke. Tell was pretty sure the half-overheard punch line involved the word “tits.”

Able spotted the New Austin chief of police approaching and said, “Duty calls, boys!”

The old men dispersed quickly and Tell took a seat. The peace officers shook hands across the Formica-top table.

“You doin’ okay, Chief?”

“Yeah,” Tell said, feeling ashamed. “Sorry about last night. Sorry you saw me that way.”

“Like I said at the scene, you had good reason. That’s all we’ll say on that subject ever again, ’cept, have you seen the daily paper?”

“No.”

Able smiled. “That EMT you rightly clocked has been suspended. Fire chief may not be far behind. Paper’s editorial is calling for sweeping reforms. Fucking newspaper’s honchos insisting all Horton County civil servants be given mandatory Spanish language instruction. There’s a photograph too. Guess we’ll have to wait and see how the weekly newspaper treats it all. With Shawn, hell, it could go either way.”

Able passed Tell a copy of the daily newspaper. The Mexican woman was photographed holding her surviving toddler daughter to her chest, crying as she was comforted by Tell and Able. Able said, “We two at least come off as sympathetic. Not that that matters. But, of course, we both know it matters.”

Tell nodded and smiled faintly as the waitress brought him a plastic glass of water with a lemon wedge. She tossed a paper-wrapped plastic straw in front of Tell. Able Hawk was working on a piping hot cup of black coffee.

“Sure was a pretty girl you were with last night, Chief,” Able said.

Tell shook his head, tearing the top off the straw wrapper. “She’s Shawn O’Hara’s girlfriend. Or so I gathered. Her folks own the restaurant. She was just being hospitable while she waited for Shawn to get there.”

“But she is attractive.”

“She is certainly that.”

“Sorry for touching a nerve last night, my friend. I am so sorry for your loss, Tell. God knows, I know what that’s like. But I should have known better than to stupidly raise the issue of your family in that setting and that company. Particularly when it’s so damned raw. Jesus H. Christ, less than a year …”

Tell nodded. “I’ll confess that I’ve been researching
you
since last night, Able. Read some archived articles from the
Recorder
’s Web site. So I know that you know plenty about loss yourself. You know what it’s like—losing your wife and your child, almost all at once.”

That set Able back, but he covered it well enough. He said, “So maybe we’re sorry kindred, Lyon.”

Tell said, “We sure seem to share the same flavor of loss.”

Able nodded. “Suspect that bloody business with your family impelled you to leave the Border Patrol and try to get distance from all that Mexican shit by comin’ up here,” Able said, talking fast before Tell could get his back up or maybe interrupt. “But surely you see, Tell, just looking around here now that you’ve arrived, and after last night, that even out here in the sticks of Ohio now-a-days, the goddamn border is nearly every-fucking-where.”

“Too true, in every sense, I guess,” Tell said.

“What do you think about this wall they want to build along the border?”

“I think they better have the illegals build it before they kick them out,” Tell said. “Only way that damned wall will be anything like affordable.”

Able laughed and rummaged through the open briefcase on the bench next to him and pulled out a yellow envelope. He tossed it on the table between them. “The copies of fake operator’s licenses and Social Security cards you requested,” Able said. “These are your copies to keep, Tell. And there are a couple of originals in there from some of the illegal ones we’ve already sent back across the border. You can keep those too—to help train your folks.”