The Killing Tide, page 5
Stacy looked confused. “She’s a woman.”
“That doesn’t matter. You know how many women I’ve arrested for violent crime?”
“Not as many as guys.”
“That’s not the point.”
As soon as she said it, Alexa knew she had spoken with too much heat. Stacy’s face didn’t fall; it collapsed. The poor girl got no affection at home. No guidance. She came here to feel like she was welcome, and anything more than gentle chiding to wash the dishes or make her bed was greeted like Alexa was telling her she never wanted to see her again.
The girl slumped, staring at the floor and looking every bit as bereft as Olivia had a few minutes before.
Alexa sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“Sorry for snapping at you. It’s just I want to know you’re safe. There are a lot of bad people in the world.”
“Sorry. I’m dumb.”
“You are not dumb.” Some snooty girl in her class, who got straight As, had told Stacy she was dumb. Stacy was a C student. How could she be anything else when she had no stable home life? Alexa did what she could, but given the demands of her job, that only went so far.
When the girl didn’t respond, Alexa gave her another squeeze and asked, “So how are Smith and Wesson?”
Mention of the horses immediately brightened her up. “I fed them and curried them. They’re doing fine. I also rode Wesson out down the old mining trail. Poor Smith acted all jealous when we got back.”
“Well, you’ll have to take Smith out tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Stacy giggled. “They always get jealous of one another. Why don’t we go riding together?”
“I’ll be in Benson.”
The mood darkened again. “Oh. Right.”
“Sorry. I probably won’t have to be there long.”
“That’s what you always say.”
Alexa sighed. Yeah, that is what she always said.
How could she give this kid what she needed when she was gone all the time?
CHAPTER SIX
Downtown Phoenix, the next day
Kurt Billings, Arizona state prosecutor, was having his typical stressful day.
He had a big case coming up in court. The wife of a guy with a meth lab was being tried as an accessory. The husband was already in jail, having been caught red-handed cooking up in the bathroom of a sleazy motel. The wife claimed she knew nothing about it. Records of their texts and social media didn’t show anything incriminating, but it didn’t take too much intelligence to keep quiet on things like that.
But there was plenty of circumstantial evidence. Material for making meth kept in the garage or in the trunk of the husband’s car, which the wife frequently used because her own car got poorer mileage. There was also all the unexplained money that the wife didn’t hesitate spending.
So yeah, she was guilty as hell. The problem was proving it beyond a reasonable doubt.
God, he hated that phrase. What it meant was that even if everyone on the jury knew in their gut that the defendant was guilty, they had to let them off if there was any halfway decent argument in the defendant’s favor.
Ugh. The public defender in this case was Alexander Zimmerman. One of the best. Good at making criminals look like victims. He’d paint a picture of an innocent, somewhat stupid woman who believed all her husband’s lies and would never dream of making dangerous narcotics.
What crap.
Kurt Billings buzzed to the next office to call Hannah, his legal assistant.
“You got those notes typed up yet?”
“Almost, Mr. Billings.”
“Almost isn’t good enough. Get it done.”
Billings shook his head. Slow. Hannah was too damn slow. Granted, typing up notes was the secretary’s job, but if he could trust Hannah with anything more complicated, he would.
He really should just fire her. A new graduate of the pre-law program from Arizona State University, he had brought her on board because she had good grades, nice legs, and a serious rack. He thought he could mix work with pleasure.
Fat chance. Every time he got the least bit flirtatious, she’d start talking about her boyfriend, who apparently had a black belt in judo.
She didn’t exactly threaten; she was as subtle and as offhand as his advances were. Both of them kept a “reasonable doubt.” It was still annoying. He should can her. Can that secretary too. Oh, Geraldine was capable, really capable. It’s just that she was pushing sixty. A man’s got to have fun in life.
Next he buzzed Jenna.
“Those briefs come in yet?” he demanded.
“They’re not supposed to come in for another hour.”
Ugh! Surrounded by idiots. He needed a bump.
“Geraldine, I’m busy for the next few minutes. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“All right, Mr. Billings.”
The state prosecutor opened the bottom left-hand drawer of his desk, rummaged through some stinky old gym clothes he left there so no one would snoop, and pulled out an Altoids tin. Inside was a little mirror, a razor, a rolled up hundred dollar bill, and a baggie of cocaine.
“Huh. Almost out.” He reminded himself to call his dealer later. A respectable dealer. One who lived in a decent zip code, who didn’t gun down people in the street, and only sold to respectable people who could handle their drugs.
Not like that husband and wife meth team who deserved to go to jail for ten years.
With the same care with which he prepared his series of successful prosecutions, he placed the mirror on his desk, shook out a portion of cocaine, closed and replaced the baggie in the Altoids tin, and began to cut up the cocaine with the razor.
As he did so, he ran through how he was going to convict that white trash meth chick. Basically he’d just railroad her, talk circles around her until she started contradicting herself. She was already upset at what had happened, stressed out by the trial and the loss of her husband and means of support. It should be easy enough to get her to contradict herself.
That was always a good technique, although you had to be careful. Juries didn’t like slick, rich lawyers browbeating defendants. At least not middle-class ones who could put on an air of respectability. This chick, with her country twang, poor diction, and slow responses, wouldn’t get much sympathy as long as he didn’t come on too strong.
His line was ready. He tightened the roll on the hundred dollar bill and took a single, long sniff.
Sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he put away his gear and tucked it under the old socks and shorts, shutting the drawer. That line would kick in within a few minutes.
Now for a coffee at Desert Roast, the nice café down the street, made nicer by that college girl, whatshername, who worked the day shift. Billings had been putting the moves on her for a few days now, ever since she had started working there. Big tips and a few jokes (nothing dirty to scare her off), and compliments about how good she made his coffee. Yeah, he’d get there. And he was always funnier when he’d had a line.
Besides, he needed to get the hell out of this office. He’d never score with anyone here.
* * *
Sitting at the window of a Starbucks across the street, the man who wanted Billings dead waited, and watched.
Billings usually came out of his office at about this time. The last three workdays he had gone to the pricey independent café down the street. The day before that he must have been in a hurry, because his personal assistant had come here into Starbucks to pick him up a coffee.
The man hunting Billings already recognized the personal assistant, and knew she was getting coffee for her boss because she picked up what he always got, a red eye—a regular cup of black coffee with a shot of espresso.
Long hours, stressful job, heavy cocaine use, caffeine addict … that man was heading for a heart attack before he was fifty.
It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t live long enough to get one.
No, he deserved to die far, far sooner than that.
The man hunting Billings perked up. The state prosecutor had just left the building, taking those long strides he always did when he had just snorted a line or two.
Time to tail him. He kept his Starbucks cup even though it had been empty for twenty minutes. Always good to have a prop. Who would commit a murder with a coffee in his hand?
Billings sped through the downtown crowd, weaving his way between equally hurrying businessmen, younger service workers staring at their phones, and a few shoppers. He nearly tripped over the baby carriage pushed by a woman and cursed under his breath. The woman glared at him, but Billings had already passed. No one paid any attention to the nondescript man with the Starbucks cup walking half a block behind him.
No one paid much attention to anything, the murderer realized. When he had been casing out the homes of the two judges, no one had stopped him despite his having driven through several times, and run through in the evening posing as a jogger.
He had been careful. Most criminals got caught because they slipped up one way or the other. They were drunk or high when they committed the crime, or bragged about it afterwards, or were simply stupid.
He would make none of those mistakes. He would plan his crimes carefully, patiently, and get his revenge on every one of these so-called “upholders of justice.”
Caution and patience were of the utmost importance, because the list was very, very long.
As he expected, up ahead he saw Billings enter the Desert Roast. The murderer slowed his pace, giving Billings a bit of time to settle in.
He passed the glass front of the Desert Roast less than a minute later. Inside he saw Billings standing in front of the counter talking loudly and waving his hands in the air as a pretty college-aged barista kept up an awkward smile. Two young guys at a nearby table grinned and pointed at Billings behind his back.
High again, just like he had been at the trial. No wonder Billings had messed up.
He’d pay for that. Oh yes, he’d pay.
The killer paused, muscles tensing. His hand strayed to the clasp knife he had hidden in his pocket. Not as big as he liked, but good enough to do the job. It would be so easy to go in there right now and plunge it right between the prosecutor’s shoulder blades as he tried to sweet talk the barista.
No. Not today. If he went in there now he’d only get caught. He had to maintain control. Stick to the plan. This little bit of shadowing had only been to confirm Billings was a man of habit, despite his erratic record in the courtroom. If the state prosecutor kept to his usual schedule, the murderer knew exactly where Billings would be late tonight.
And that’s when he’d strike. He had it all planned.
And he planned everything very, very well.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Alexa predicted, her partner blew down the highway, ignoring the speed limit and weaving between traffic. Twice they ran through speed traps, popular in Arizona as ways for local police departments to raise extra revenue, and both times Stuart got on the police radio installed in the dashboard of his unmarked car and politely told them to get lost.
“You must have been terrifying as a teenager,” Alexa said.
“Wrapped my grandma’s ‘82 Nissan Stanza around a tree.”
“I didn’t need to know that.”
“Don’t worry. You should have seen me drive a Hummer through Karbala.”
“Arizona is rough enough for me.”
Stuart turned to her and grinned. “Hanging out with you is rough enough for me too.”
“You’re going a hundred. Watch the road.”
“Anything from the team back in Phoenix?”
“They’ve been going through the records. Eliminated a bunch from the list but haven’t come up with any good suspects.”
“Damn.”
“They said they’d call immediately if anything came up.”
“You don’t sound very hopeful.”
“That’s because I’m not.
“Neither am I. Well, here we are,” Stuart said.
A sign said the town was a mile ahead. Stuart slowed, then got down to a respectable 50 mph as they went through Benson, a little settlement of 5,000 people given over mostly to the tourist trade and as a local center for farms, ranches, and mines. They passed a decent-looking motel. Alexa made a mental note of it. They might have to stay here tonight. As a precaution, they had both packed bags and put them in the trunk.
Alexa’s bag contained, carefully wrapped in one of Alexa’s shirts, Robert Powers’s journal. She hadn’t had the time to read any the previous night, not with the kid needing cheering up. She’d read some tonight, though.
For some reason, that made her nervous.
“Keeping going straight,” Alexa said.
They passed a sign saying, “San Pedro River,” then went across a short concrete bridge. Beneath them was a dry wash green with scrub and a few trees clinging to the banks.
“Huh. A river without any water,” Stuart said.
“It has water in monsoon season.”
“Monsoon season?”
“Wait a bit. Starts every summer around this time. It’s actually a bit late this year. Storms come up from Mexico every afternoon and dump a huge amount of water in a couple of hours. The lightning displays are awesome. An hour after it stops, everything is dry again. But you have to be careful. If you get caught in a wash, that’s a dry riverbed, you can drown.”
“Wow. That should be interesting. I’ll try surfing a wash next month.”
Alexa chuckled. Then what he had said made her think. Would he be here next month? This collaboration between the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI was only a temporary experiment. Would he be back East in a month? What would she do for a partner then?
“This used to be a perennial river,” Alexa said for something to say. “But the water table has lowered with the rise of population. Too many people sucking out too little water. A hundred years ago this was a proper river. There were even beavers living in it.”
“Careful. Canada might invade.”
“We’ll get you back in your Hummer if that happens. Take a left here. Judge Rodriguez’s home is just up that road there.”
As planned, they found the local sheriff waiting for them outside a ranch home in a small housing development of scattered houses at the edge of the green area fed by the subsurface damp of the San Pedro. Once Stuart parked behind the sheriff’s patrol car and they got out, Alexa breathed in the rich smell of well-watered land. At least well-watered by Arizona’s standards.
“Close to a so-called river and we’re still in desert,” Stuart muttered. Alexa only smiled.
A portly Anglo sheriff walked up to them, hand extended.
“I’m Sheriff Hank Tyson, good to have you on board.” Alexa noticed he shook her hand first, and addressed her. Sheriff Tyson knew she was bringing an FBI agent along, and shared many local lawmen’s distaste for the feds.
Of course, the U.S. Marshals was a federal agency too, but people in these parts didn’t think that way. The Marshals had helped tame this land, long before J. Edgar Hoover created the FBI in Washington.
“Mrs. Rodriguez is inside,” the sheriff told them, his face going grim.
“Really?” Alexa was surprised.
“She’s a tough lady. Told me this has been her home for twenty-five years and no killer was going to scare her out of it. We got someone watching the place, of course.”
Alexa let out a huff of air. She had been hoping to put off meeting the widow.
“Let’s go see what we have,” she said.
Sheriff Tyson knocked on the front door. After a minute, it was answered by a Hispanic woman in her late fifties. Her movements were stiff, her expression distracted. The sheriff took off his hat, revealing a bald pate.
“Hello, Carmen,” the sheriff said. “Sorry to disturb you, but they’re here now. This is Deputy U.S. Marshal Alexa Chase and Special Agent Stuart Barrett of the FBI.”
“Pleased to meet you. Do come in. Would you like some coffee?” This was said without any intonation whatsoever. The poor woman was running on automatic.
“That would be great, Carmen,” the sheriff said quietly.
They came to the living room, brightly decorated with flowers and photos of family on both sides of the border. The mantlepiece was covered with sympathy cards in English and Spanish. The coffee table groaned under the weight of an array of cakes, preserves, and home-baked bread. A large cooler sat in the corner.
Carmen Rodriguez moved to a side table where there was a hot plate and a coffeepot.
“I’m afraid I can’t make it properly, but I’m not supposed to go in the kitchen. That’s where it happened. Hank, you still take cream? I know the doctor told you no more sugar. And how would you two like it?”
Still that automatic, almost robotic speech. This woman was in shock.
She shouldn’t be staying here, Alexa thought. But who am I to tell her to leave her home?
“With cream, thank you Mrs. Rodriguez,” Alexa said.
“Black, ma’am,” Stuart said.
“Feel free to help yourselves to the food on the coffee table. Everyone came with something. Far more than I could ever eat.”
Alexa wondered if this woman had eaten anything since coming back to a murdered husband. Alexa didn’t touch any of the food. Neither did the two men.
Carmen got to work on the coffee. The silence lengthened. Sheriff Tyson glanced at Alexa, who took a deep breath and asked,
“Do you know anyone who might want to harm your husband?”
Carmen gave a little shrug. “Hank asked me all these questions before, but I guess you need to ask again. As I said, there are lots of people. Antonio put away a lot of bad people over the years. Murderers, arsonists, the head of a child pornography ring, coyotes—those are the men who bring illegals over the border—a team of bank robbers, gang members. All kinds.”
