The Searcher (28 page)

M
ORGAN WAS PACING NOW.

The coroner was in the barn with Donny McGee and a couple of forensic techs borrowed from the King Community Hospital who were processing the crime scene. They didn't get many murders, so the medics wore two hats and drew extra pay they rarely had to do anything to earn. They sure were earning it today. Morgan had moved away to the open gate of the corral so no one could overhear his conversation.

“You heard about the explosion in the Sierra Madre Mountains?”

He had a phone pressed to one ear and another in his hand. “That tells me he's coming right now.”

He held the other phone up, angled his head back, and squinted at the screen. “I also got a report from border patrol . . .” His eyes were getting worse the older he got, but he refused to wear glasses. “They found a barn on fire with a tunnel underneath it and some bodies inside. Right on the border, about an hour and a half away from here.” He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Okay, good. I got one of our SWAT teams heading here right now and some other armed units.”

The other phone started ringing, a bell that made it sound like an old phone.

“I'll be ready,” Morgan said. “Don't you worry about me. We're all set here.”

He hung up and switched phones. “Morgan.” The frown melted from his forehead. “Hey, sweetheart,” he checked his watch, “you finishing up for the day?”

He glanced over at the barn again to make sure no one could hear. Flashes lit up the inside as somebody took pictures. It was nigh on impossible to keep anything of a romantic nature private in a town like Redemption, but he and Janice Wickens had managed it for almost three months now.

“Just locked up,” she said.

It had started off as a necessity, getting her on his side so she would keep an eye on what James Coronado was pulling out of the archives. Then it became something else. She was so different from him but it seemed to work. He couldn't imagine life now without the home-cooked meals and the warm body to hold at night. Life was good, was about to get a whole lot better. All he had to do was get through tonight.

“Listen, honey,” he said, “I'm not going to be able to get away. I can't tell you exactly what's going on, but you should head on home. Have yourself an early one. And lock your door.”

“Lock my door! You've never said that before.”

“Well, there's some stuff going down. I got it, don't worry.”

“I'm not worried.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Is it anything to do with James Coronado?”

Morgan turned away from the barn. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I just had Holly in the office. She had a requisition chit for something Jim had asked for but never collected. She was . . . I
don't know, a bit distracted. She got a call while she was here and that made her worse.”

“Did you catch the name of who she was speaking to?”

“No.”

Morgan glanced over at the barn. The medics were wheeling the body out now and heading to the ambulance. Over at the house Ellie was sitting in a rocker with someone next to her, holding her hand and talking to her, though she didn't seem to notice. She just rocked back and forth, the shotgun resting across her knees while her blind eyes stared out at the reddening sky.

“I think she was going to meet someone,” Janice said, drawing his attention back. “I can't imagine who. She seemed agitated though.”

Morgan stepped aside to let one of the ranch hands ride past. He was pulling a couple of loose horses behind him, dragging them back into the corral. Morgan had a good idea who she was going to meet. “I was worried about her,” Janice said. “Considering what she's been through.”

“Don't worry,” said Morgan, and he headed back to his cruiser, parked over by the ambulance. “I'll take care of it. You go home now. And don't forget to lock that door.”

H
OLLY WALKED THE LONG WAY BACK TO HER HOUSE, AVOIDING THE MAIN
road and as many residential streets as she could. She didn't want to be seen, not after what Solomon had told her.

The news of Pete Tucker's death had shaken her deeply. She had thought of him as her enemy, partly blamed him for her husband's death, but when she heard he had been killed, her reaction had surprised her. It hadn't made her feel happy or avenged. She just felt sad and empty, like death was becoming commonplace and meaningless here. A few hours previously she wouldn't have cared. She had buried her husband and walked home through the rain with no thought in her mind but to switch it all off and turn her back on everything. Now she was keeping to the shadows, fearful of losing the life she had so casually wanted to end.

It was Solomon who had changed that. Solomon, with all his contradictions: a man who seemed to know so much yet nothing about himself, and who maintained he was here to save her husband, as if the usual parameters of life and death were no barrier to him. He had shamed her with his determination and commitment to finding the
truth. He had reignited some spark of life in her that she thought had sputtered out.

She reached the junction to her road and carefully peered around the corner into it, expecting to see some big black vehicle parked outside her house. There was nothing. The back road she had arrived by joined hers about halfway up. She had come this way figuring that anyone watching for her would expect her to come up the hill from the direction of the main road, not down it.

She began walking toward her house, keeping to the shady side, alert for any sign that there might be someone there. Solomon had told her not to go back but she needed a car and figured that stealing one would attract far more attention than simply getting her own. She had no idea how to steal a car anyway and didn't know who she might trust enough to call up and ask to borrow theirs. This had seemed the best option, or it had at the time. Now that she was here she wasn't so sure.

She crossed the road about forty yards back from her house and cut up the driveway of a house she knew to be empty. She slipped down a passage between the house and the garage and entered the rear garden. It was like hers, cultivated, but wild and open at the back to the desert beyond. She moved through the garden and stepped over the low fence that marked the boundary. She could see the backs of the houses and made her way to her own using the trees and plants as cover. She had the key to the car in her pocket. All she had to do was get in it and drive away.

It felt strange, creeping up to her own house through grasses and flower beds that she had planted and had always associated with relaxation. Now it was a place of trepidation and fear. She crouched behind the same clump of deer grass Solomon had hidden behind and studied the house. It seemed still. Empty, but that didn't mean it was.

She watched for a while then moved across the ground, keeping low, heading for a gate that joined the garage to the house. Her car was beyond it. It had been sitting there for a week and the battery was old and sometimes needed boosting. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all. Too late now. She pulled the keys from her pocket and held them tightly in her hand, the jagged edge of the key out in front like a tiny knife.

The hinges on the gate squeaked as she opened it. On any other day she wouldn't have noticed but today it sounded like the loudest noise in the world. Her Toyota was right in front of her, the red paintwork and windows streaked from the earlier rain. She moved to the driver's side, eyes wide and fixed on the house. The doors
thunked
as she unlocked it. She opened the driver's door and slid behind the wheel. The key rattled against the ignition slot, her hands shaking, and she had to lean forward to see what she was doing before it slid into place.

Please start
—she whispered and pulled the stick into neutral. The car was old and so was the hand brake, so she always left it in gear to keep it from rolling down the hill.
Please start
—she said again.

She twisted the key. The engine turned, sounded sluggish. Didn't start.

A hand banged on her window and Holly's heart leaped into her chest as she turned to face whoever was standing there.

“Margaret,” she said, more a sigh of relief than a word. She wound her window down and glanced back at the house.

“You okay, Holly?” her neighbor said. “Only I saw you drive away in the police car earlier.”

“I'm fine, Margaret, thank you.”

Margaret leaned in and lowered her voice. “Heard someone took a shot at Chief Morgan.”

“Imagine that,” Holly said, and twisted the key in the ignition again. The engine turned and labored, then coughed into life. It was a piece of junk, but at least it was a reliable one.

Margaret stepped back. “Well, so long as you're okay,” she said. “Anything you need, just holler. Anything at all.”

Holly smiled and revved the engine a little to warm it up. “Thank you, Margaret,” she said, checking the street behind her for cars. “That's very kind of you.”

M
ULCAHY STOOD BY A GRAY SINK THAT HAD ONCE BEEN WHITE AND SPLASHED
water on his face. The faucet said Cold, but the water dribbling out of it was blood warm from sitting in the pipes all day. He had let it run awhile but it hadn't made any difference.

He looked up at his reflection. The washroom was a piss-stinking sweat box with a bulky air conditioner that filled the room with a death-rattle sound and moved hot air around. The mirror on the wall was small and rectangular and framed in blue plastic with a starburst crack on one corner where it had been dropped on the concrete floor. The glass was cracked too, probably from the same incident, a single jagged line running diagonally across the middle in a way that made the upper part of his face appear slightly out of line with the lower part. The mirror hung from a length of greasy string hooked over a nail that had gouged in the plaster a crater that resembled a bullet hole.

Mulcahy ran his hands through his hair and studied the split image of his face. He could see his mother in it. Same eyes, almond shaped and slightly turned down at the corners in a way that made
her look sultry and him sad. Same coloring too: pale freckled skin and auburn hair that suited the Irish name his father had given him. He wondered if his father saw her in him too and that was why he often seemed mad at him. Maybe it wasn't him he was mad at and never had been. He pulled his phone from his pocket, checked the time, then called his father's cell.

He opened the door a crack while it dialed and started to ring. Tío was standing by the pump, the sky behind him glowing red like an ember. He was half-bent over a five-gallon can with the price label still tied to the handle, one hand on the gas nozzle sticking out of the can, the other on his hip. He didn't notice Mulcahy spying on him. He was too busy studying the legs of the woman at the next pump who was leaning against a Harley while her boyfriend filled it up. To anyone else he would look like a small-time Mexican farmer getting gas for his generator. The phone connected and he let the door close.

“
Bueno.
”

“Could I speak to my father, please?”

There was a sigh and some handling noise, then his father came on the line. “What the hell, Mikey!”

The sound of his father's voice made his throat feel tight. “You okay, Pop?”

“I been better.” He sounded tired and old and frightened.

Mulcahy swallowed, cleared his throat. “They treating you okay?”

“I guess. They ain't hurt me again, if that's what you're asking.”

“They ain't going to hurt you, Pop. You'll be out of there soon, you just got to hang in there a little longer is all.”

“How much longer?”

“Not long. They're going to get a call in a little while, then they'll let you go. When they do, you take off, okay? Don't go home, don't go anywhere anyone might know you. Check into a motel someplace,
eat takeout and watch TV for a few days until you hear from me, okay?”

“Okay, but I don't got much cash on me.”

“I'll make sure you get some. Just do what I say, all right?”

“What the hell is this, Mikey? What did you do?”

Mulcahy closed his eyes. He wondered if his pop would have ended up where he was if he had never met his mother. Would he have carried such sadness around with him and gambled so hard? Who knew. It didn't matter really. He was in a fix and Mulcahy could get him out of it. That was what mattered. Everything else was just details.

“Listen, Pop . . .”

“What?”

“You know I appreciate all you ever did for me, you know that?”

“Sure. What are we talking about here?”

“I love you, Pop.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What you saying that for?”

“In case.”

“. . . In case what?”

“In case I forget to say it later.” He cleared his throat again and wiped water from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Put Gomez back on, would you? And remember what I said.”

“Sure, Mikey.” There was a pause, then his father spoke again, softly, like he didn't want anyone else to hear. “I love you too, son.” Then he was gone.

Mulcahy stared at his split image and wiped more water from his face that wasn't water anymore.

“
¿Si?
” The voice sounded bored and Mulcahy wondered how many of these kinds of jobs Gomez had done.

“Thank you for looking after my father,” he said. “I appreciate it. You'll be getting a call soon. When you do, give my father some cash. A few hundred or so will do it. I will consider it a personal favor and will make sure you get paid back triple.”

“The fuck you say?”

“Just wait for the call,” Mulcahy said. “You'll understand when you get it. And give him his cell back too. He won't give you no trouble. Wait for the call.”

He hung up before the man could say any more, this stranger who would kill his father without thinking twice. He studied his cracked image. His mother's eyes staring back but leaking tears for his father. He doubted hers ever had. He wondered if they had ever cried any for him.

He opened his messages, found one he had been sent a month earlier when he had first been contacted with the proposition he had ultimately taken, the one that meant he might finally be free. The message contained a phone number and he dialed it. The phone clicked in his ear as someone answered. “We're an hour away,” he said, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. “You can track me on this number, I'll leave it switched on.”

“Good. We'll be waiting.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“My old man. Any chance you can let him go now? He's old and the stress of all this will kill him if he spends any more time with a gun to his head.”

“I'll make a call.”

“Thanks. I told the guys holding him to give him a few hundred bucks too—you think you could remind them of that?”

“You want me to get him a hooker and some takeout while I'm at it?”

“I'm giving you the keys to the kingdom here, a few hundred bucks is nothing.”

“All right, I'll tell them. Just make sure you're there in an hour.”

“We'll be there.”

There was a click and the phone went dead.

Mulcahy slipped the phone in his pocket and looked at himself again. He blotted his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. He didn't want Tío to see he'd been crying. Tío fed on the discomfort of others and Mulcahy didn't want to give him any fuel.

An hour.

He took a deep breath of unpleasantly moist, piss-tainted air and blew it out again.

One more hour.