Three days later, Marquez picked up Sheryl at LAX as she returned home. ‘John,’ was all she said as she got into the car. As he pulled away from the curb and threaded into traffic she pressed her palms flat on her thighs and stared through the windshield. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and cut at an angle that fell across her cheeks. She closed her eyes as a car somewhere behind them honked.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been better. I went back and talked again to Alicia, the girlfriend, and she showed me things Jim had written her. Not long love letters or anything but notes, and it’s his handwriting. She showed me jewelry he gave her. They’ve talked about names for the baby. I don’t know what he was planning, but he wasn’t denying it was his baby, and one of the names they were kicking around was his middle name. He told her he was going to move to Baja. He didn’t say how he’d make a living.’ She exhaled and leaned back. ‘He was out of here, John.’
‘How was he when you were there?’
‘Tense, but I always think he’s tense, especially when he says he’s relaxed. He had five beers in him when we went out that night. I had three.’ Sheryl turned and looked at him for the first time since getting in the car. When their eyes met she said, ‘Here’s what I know. He had a girlfriend. That’s confirmed, and I can tell you she’s pregnant and grieving. Even if the Salazars or somebody made her get involved with Jim, she’s in shock. And there was a bank account in La Paz. I drove down there and the bank manager took me through it.’
‘How much money went through it?’
‘Three hundred sixty-three thousand dollars in six and a half months, but maybe he got a pay raise I didn’t hear about.’ She reached over and touched his arm. ‘I didn’t tell you that, OK. Let Holsten tell you.’
‘Does Holsten know you went to La Paz?’
‘He sent me. Everything I’ve done in Baja he’s directing. You don’t know that either, but that’s not about you, John. It’s about the leak. He said he won’t trust anyone until we know how the Salazars got the identities of our squad.’
‘It may not have been the Salazars.’
‘Same point.’
‘OK, what else did you learn in Baja?’
‘I’ve got to say this first, I’ve let myself start believing things about Jim I couldn’t have imagined two days ago. When he disappeared I said bullshit, bullshit, bullshit to what the Mex Feds were telling me. Now, I believe it’s all possible, and it’s making me question everything. I don’t know what to do with that.’
‘Don’t do anything with it yet.’
‘All right, I’m trying not to, but Pete Phelps showed up with more evidence. The ATF was already on Jim.’
‘That’s according to Phelps?’
‘Pete is one of the good guys.’
If you say so, Marquez thought, and then lined up in traffic getting on to the 405. It was going to take a while to get Sheryl home. He turned over the idea of Pete Phelps showing up and the ATF watching Osiers.
‘Were you really the one to ID his body?’ she asked.
‘I think LAPD figured it out first and I confirmed it.’
‘Holsten wants me to look at the panel truck. He thinks it might be the one Jim and I saw at the beach. What did they do to Jim?’
‘Crushed his skull.’
‘Oh, God.’ For several minutes she didn’t say anything and then, ‘The ATF thinks Jim was trying to squeeze too much money out of the Salazars and they got tired of it.’
‘Is that a Phelps opinion or an ATF conclusion?’
‘Pete is actually OK, John.’
She didn’t talk after that but she was right, he didn’t trust much of anything Pete Phelps said. They drove in silence most of the rest of the way to her house where Marquez said, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow and let’s get lunch. I’ve got a meeting with Holsten in the early morning. I’ll call you after that.’
‘I’d like that. I need to talk.’
‘So do I. See you tomorrow.’