Before the rain, p.17
Before the Rain, page 17
“Not at all,” she said. “Everybody’s allowed to change their minds. Mind hitting me again while you’re at it?”
Pouring a tiny shot for himself, he drained what was left of the Smirnoff into Mrs. Moon’s smudged glass. “Didn’t Tommy belong to a motorcycle club?”
“He still wears his colors now and then,” Mrs. Moon said.
“But not as much in the last year or so, right?”
“I believe that’s correct. Motorcycles didn’t excite him anymore.”
“What I’m thinking,” he said, “Tommy became less interested in motorcycles about a year ago, after he had a disagreement or maybe even a fight with another motorcycle club member, Nolan Maris.”
“Maris?” Mrs. Moon frowned.
Sunny glanced at him, wanted to move in. “I expect your Tommy is the kind of young man who loves to do favors for people,” she said. “Likes to help out.”
Mrs. Moon’s forehead wrinkles smoothed. “That’s my Tommy.”
“Someone like Jessie, Nolan Maris’s wife, maybe?”
Mrs. Moon’s eyes opened wider. Her jaw slipped. What it looked like to Ray, pieces of an old puzzle meshed. “Tommy always had a thing for Jessie. When her name was Jessie Costello and she was still in high school, they ran off. Last year, Nolan and my Tommy got into a bad a fight about her. Tommy gave him a nasty beatdown after Nolan pulled a weapon.”
“Maybe it was Jessie he ran off with this time,” Ray said.
“Maybe, but I never thought until this minute Jessie was still in the picture. Figured Tommy had enough of her and her husband. Would of a been a good choice, too, as I saw Jessie’s picture on the TV last night. Threatening to kill a bunch of people this weekend.”
“One more question,” Ray said.
“Oh, Lord,” Mrs. Moon said. “You think my boy is part of the gang who stole the Gatling gun thing I saw on the news?”
“No, not at all,” Ray said. “Jessie might have tricked him into helping her afterward, though. Does your son still own his pickup?
Mrs. Moon shook her head. “Tommy bought himself a used Peterbilt this spring, started his own trucking company. He ain’t doing good just yet, but he will.”
“You have a license number?” Ray said.
“Sure. He formed an LLC, too. The papers are in that drawer behind you.”
21
Ray used a heavy foot on the gas pedal, but their air-conditioned drive north to Phoenix seemed twice as long as the last time. The big SUV felt sluggish. Made of lead. He was antsy and not sure why.
Minutes after they’d left Caron Moon, US District Court Judge Oliver McHenry had signed an order granting Homeland Security inspection of any and all Pinacosta County records concerning Jessie Maris. By the time they reached Phoenix, the Department of Justice should have arranged a peek at that old sealed transcript of Jessie Costello’s juvenile hearing.
They planned to pick up the subpoena, and viewing order personally, walk the papers over two blocks from the Sandra Day O’Connor US Courthouse on Washington Street to Adrian Fontes County Recorder’s office on Jefferson.
He wasn’t convinced the information would identify Maris’s ambitions, but Sunny was, and that meant more to him every passing day. She might be inexperienced, but she was smart as a fox. He was hopeful the updated BOLO on Tommy Moon’s big truck could eventually lead to the missing cannon, but his gut said trust Sunny.
Maybe he’d make her run through her ideas.
A patch of lighter traffic on State Highway 85 north encouraged him to talk. Maybe it would get his mind off Alissa. “What makes you so sure we’ll be smarter after reading this decades-old juvie report?”
“What she said to me. The way she said it.”
“That’s not much. That autocannon is worth a million or more on the black market. Her notes could be a bigger diversion than we think. Our internet people picked up chatter about a dark-web demonstration and auction. They’re trying to get a ticket to the show.”
“She told me she wanted to leave home with daddy, so it’s another man in her life after that. A boyfriend of the mother’s maybe. An uncle. That’s what I expect to find in this sealed transcript.”
“Is the father listed on her birth certificate? We should check him out, anyway.”
“No, the line was blank,” Sunny said.
“And the mother’s dead, right? Eric’s staff told me Jessie might have a sister, though.”
“I hope so. She could know who Jessie’s target is. The FBI’s in charge of looking for her, but nothing’s turned up yet.”
Ray shifted lanes, their turnoff coming. “Okay, but why does Jessie have to shoot this somebody with a cannon? Why not a semiautomatic like she shot her husband? Why blast this abuser with exploding shells?”
“Maybe it’s not just him,” she said. “Maybe she wants to make a statement for women everywhere—a dramatic, attention-getting spectacle. Maybe that’s what she wants. The notes kind of back that up.”
A mile from their destination, Ray resumed his general questioning. “Did you sleep with your weapon last night?”
She laughed. “I did. Every night this week.”
“What’s funny?”
“I was thinking about something else. Not my Sig Sauer.”
“I can guess. Any target practice since Wednesday?”
“No, but maybe we can stop at that range north of Phoenix after the courthouse, shoot a box.”
“Sure, I’ll go with you. There’s a taco joint there makes carne asada with prime beef.”
He pulled into a municipal parking lot. He’d seen Sunny fumble her weapon in that convenience store parking lot. She’d almost gotten herself killed searching the crime scene alone. Worse, he could still hear his mentor in Afghanistan, a grizzled lifer talking about inexperience. “Nothing kills you faster.”
He turned off the ignition. But other things he’d noticed, Sunny was a clever investigator and thinker. Also a quick learner who grabbed hold of good advice. Sleeping with her Sig Sauer already had changed the way she treated her weapon. He’d seen her familiarity grow.
Sunny noticed the motorcyclist as Ray first parked. But she wasn’t sure, the city traffic busy, so she didn’t say anything, at least not until they left the shiny glass and metal US Courthouse minutes later. Carrying Judge McHenry’s paperwork, she noticed the same biker—long, curly dark hair and beard—watching their movements from a block and a half away. His bike sat tucked between sedans parked along the sidewalk.
A shadow fell across her bright day.
The biker wasn’t wearing his colors, the sleeveless jean jacket, so maybe she was mistaken. Long hair and dark beards were far from uncommon among motorcycle enthusiasts. Almost a cliché. But to her, the shaggy biker perfectly resembled that loser in Hollywood’s gang. The man who’d called her a bitch.
And said no one would find their sexually abused bodies.
She pointed him out to Ray. “Recognize that biker from the Maris property? I saw him behind us when we parked, too.”
“Could be the guy who threatened us. Let’s get closer. Press him.”
Ray shifted to a semi-jog, and she fast-trotted in her rubber-soled loafers. People on the sidewalk changed direction or walking speed to avoid them. The temperature had cooled off. Only ninety-eight degrees this afternoon. She hadn’t hustled twenty yards before perspiration beaded her neck. At least the humidity was practically zero. At a ninety-eight degree temperature in Quantico, she’d already be dripping.
The biker watched them approach, leaning relaxed against his motorcycle. Like he was fine waiting and having a chat. But he sparked into fast action when the traffic light changed at Fourth Avenue, opening a path for them to quickly jaywalk across Jefferson Street.
The bike took a hike, a screeching U-turn in front of a honking taxi, then burned rubber another ten yards on Fourth. Blue vapor slowly clouded her view, but she got a good look at the biker’s face when he reversed direction—that twisted mouth inside a bug-infested beard, the greasiness of his long, ropey, black hair.
“That was definitely Hollywood’s righthand man,” she said. “I’ll never forget that sneer, the oily sheen on his hair.”
By the time they reached the corner, he’d raced away with another motorcycle beside him, the second bike coming out of nowhere, two blocks distant.
“He and his buddy must have followed us all day,” Ray said. “I can’t believe I didn’t see them.”
“They could have had a car, too.”
“Maybe. Tell you what,” he said. “At least we know why your new love interest—Hollywood, you call him—has been so helpful, don’t we?”
Sunny glanced at him, shook her head. “He’s not a love interest. And seeing this creep doesn’t prove Dennis Williams or his gang committed the theft of our autocannon.”
“Really? Pretty strong evidence, I’d say.”
“This proves the bearded guy hopes we’ll lead him to Jessie and the autocannon now, not that he stole it.”
“Maris and his men stole the weapon,” he said. “You saw it in his barn. These guys are in the same gang. Your logic seems strained, and my gut says different. Screams different, in fact.”
He figured emotion was her problem. Her attraction to Williams. Better logic should be employed. A critical use of intelligence, the life and experiences collected to make better decisions.
They crossed Jefferson and entered the Pinacosta County Recorder’s Office on Third Street beneath an enclosed walkway. The air bridge between buildings saved taxpayers on air-conditioning costs, no doubt, all those doors otherwise opening and closing all day. Attorney comfort probably had nothing to do with it.
After showing identification at the security window, explaining their official purpose, they were allowed to keep their weapons.
When Ray arrived at the front of the line, showed the man his paperwork, the clerk ran away and brought back an overseer. The middle-aged woman wore her hair short and dyed, flame red, solid red glasses, and a SUPERVISOR nametag. She wore a firm expression suggesting she was in charge of the western hemisphere.
Ray noted her name beneath the SUPERVISOR title. Vivian Pearl.
She smiled at him. “You’re from Homeland Security—General Ray Hauser?”
“Yes I am, Miss Pearl. You have my juvie hearing transcript?”
She smiled. “Not me, no. But my boss said they set up a special reading room for you to view the sealed documents. You and your part—”
“Who’s they?” he asked.
“The Juvenile Court. Whichever judge is in charge today.”
“Okay, where is the Juvenile Court?”
“The court itself is in Mesa, about fifteen miles away.”
“What?”
“No, no, you’re good,” Pearl said. “The documents are here. Most of the old records are. Judge McHenry’s clerk called earlier to make arrangements.”
Pearl stuck her hand and arm outside the sliding glass window, pointed to the main hallway. “Turn right there, follow that corridor to the end. There’s a man waiting to show you to a reading room. His name’s Axel Braun.”
Ray frowned. “Axel? How will I—?”
“Believe me, General, you can’t miss him. Axel is bigger than you. We call him Brawny, but only behind his back.”
Ray didn’t miss Axel. No one would ever miss Axel.
A human male of extra king-size proportions, Ray himself being king-size, Axel read from his cell phone. He tapped buttons every few seconds as they approached. Three-hundred pounds, plus, and nearly seven-feet tall, maybe seven and a half if you included his spiked purple hair. Six or seven sharp points rose from his scalp like stalagmites.
He posed in a wide stance before three ten-foot flagpoles at the end of the hall, Axel a highly conspicuous part of the official welcome from Pinacosta County, Arizona, and the United States of America. Staring at his phone.
Axel only looked up when Ray’s shoes pushed close enough to occupy a strategic patch of marble floor behind Axel’s phone screen. No smile on his glance. More of a thousand-mile prison stare, that hard, distant gaze of indifference Ray saw mostly on cops and criminals.
Different sides, but the same business.
After three beats, Axel’s lips moved. “You Hauser?”
22
Ray and Axel stared at each other like schoolyard bullies trying to establish hierarchy. Axel wore the two-toned brown uniform of the Pinacosta County Sheriff’s Posse. Same as Angel Alcides, the pistol-packing cowboy who’d called himself Garcia at the train tracks, tied up Sunny and kidnapped her. Not a look she held in high regard.
But Ray’s hard-ass approach wasn’t making progress. Maybe being allowed to see Jessie Maris’s juvenile hearing transcript required honey, not hostility. Sunny shifted closer and grinned. “Hi, Axel. I’m Special Agent Hicks. The clerk said you’d show us the way to a special reading room.”
Axel returned his dark gaze to Ray. For public-dealing volunteers, the Pinacosta County Sheriff’s Posse appeared to lack basic skills in community relations. Not to mention a complete absence of goodwill toward man.
“The reading room,” Sunny said. “Please?”
Axel grunted and headed for another hallway, a perpendicular offshoot of the main, flag bearing aisle. He crossed into the narrower passage like a thoroughbred, a model of coordinated movement, even grace. He didn’t care if they followed or not.
Ray touched her shoulder. “Something’s not right. This feels hinky. Let me walk closest to him. You keep an eye on our back.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Whatever you say, but we’re in the Pinacosta County Recorder’s Office. How hinky could things get inside a building filled with lawyers, cops, and cameras?”
“Your logic is always worth noting. But as you well know, past and current members of the Pinacosta County Sheriff’s Posse were involved in your kidnapping and probably the theft of the Air Force’s weapon.”
“We’re armed,” she said. “Nobody’s going to start a gunfight in a—”
Like a skilled dancer, Axel spun on the ball of one foot. He stopped with half a turn, his gaze pinned on Ray. “You two won’t be packing long. No weapons allowed in the reading room today. Judge’s orders.”
Ray’s thick, tanned face turned a shade darker. His forehead creased, his nostrils flared, and his neck muscles defined themselves. Axel didn’t intimidate him, and Sunny figured that was maybe their biggest problem. No Recorder’s Office, no Jessie Costello hearing transcript. Ray’s refusal to take crap could get them tossed.
“Tell the judge I’m keeping my weapon,” Ray said.
She touched Ray’s arm and showed Axel a pleasant smile. “I think what Agent Hauser means to say, sir, is that our official business was established by the Recorder’s main security. They said as Federal officers we are entitled to carry any—”
“You are entitled to dick,” Axel said. He pointed a thick forefinger at the closed door directly on her left. “That’s your reading room today. If you want to use it, you’ll have to surrender your weapons to the guards inside.”
Sunny hesitated.
“It closes at four-thirty,” Axel said. “You don’t have much time.”
“We’ll take all the time we need,” Ray said. “And I’m keeping my weapon.”
Sunny twisted the handle and pushed into a classroom-size space with two walls of bookshelves, including shelves above the door. Every inch was stuffed with red or purple-bound legal volumes. The library faced two walls of framed, stuffy photographs. Black suited, past and present Pinacosta County Recorders who glared down at the reading tables.
Less imposing despite their large size, two Pinacosta County Sheriff’s Posse members sat facing the doorway behind a centrally placed rectangular table. Both men had been chosen for their physical magnitude, though neither matched up to Axel. The two posse members were at two hundred-fifty pounds, six feet or more in height. Sitting made their exact size hard to judge,their knees and legs stuffed beneath the table.
One said, “Come on in, little honey. We got what you’re looking for.”
The speaker’s blond, butch-cut crown of hair failed to hide his balding top. As he’d spoken, he slid down in his chair and extended his legs toward Sunny and the door. Man, did those black cowboy boots stick out. And then, obscenely, the loser spread his feet wide apart. Forcing on everyone a close-up view of his bulging crotch. What a creep.
Sunny’s molars pressed together. After she’d gagged.
Ray brushed quickly past Axel and Sunny to position himself between the butch blond’s stretched, spread-out feet. But Hauser kept going, bumping the desk with his huge thighs. Stood between the guy’s knees.
She cheered inside when Butch Blond’s smile faded. He sat up and dragged his boots back, Sunny imagining his feet weren’t the only body parts retreating. She touched Ray’s arm again, both in congratulations and also trying to say, easy boss. Don’t kick Butch between the legs or you’ll get us thrown out before we see the transcript. Quite a long message for a touch, but she thought they clicked pretty well as investigative partners.
“Either one of you have my hearing transcript?” Ray said.
The two posse men pushed their chairs back and stood menacingly. Jaws and chests poked forward. Had to show her and Hauser how big they were.
Each posse man wore a semiautomatic pistol on his belt.
Behind Sunny, Axel blocked the open doorway.
Butch tucked his thumbs inside his belt, one pale sausage-thick finger touching his holster. “Let’s have your weapons, agents.”
Ray glared at him. “No.”
Her pulse ticked higher. If she ever teamed regularly with this man, she might have to see a doctor about meds. Some kind of anti-anxiety pills.
“If you want to see those transcripts, place your weapons on the table,” Butch said. “The Recorder’s Office closes in twenty minutes.”
