The last person I wanted to find in the Brooke Army Medical Center waiting area was a homicide detective.
Ana DeLeon was leaning against the reception desk, talking to a couple of uniforms and another plainclothes detective.
She might’ve been mistaken for a young professional-a hospital administrator being hit on by the three male cops-unless you noticed the sergeant’s badge clipped to her belt, or the shoulder holster under her blue silk blazer. Or unless you knew, like every guy in SAPD, that the last cop who tried to hit on Ana DeLeon pulled desk duty for a month and still had trouble sitting down without pain.
She saw me approaching, told her colleagues something on the order of: Here comes Navarre. Get lost or I’ll make you talk to him.
They got lost.
“I stayed at the office until seven last night,” she told me. “I keep wondering-if you’d showed, would we be here now?”
“What’s the word?”
“No change in condition. And no leads on the shooter, unless you’re bringing me something.”
I used to have a martial arts instructor who could press his hand very softly on the center of my chest, and no amount of effort could dislodge him. I’d swear he was barely making contact, but after thirty seconds, his touch left a bruise. DeLeon’s eyes were like that.
“I’m going upstairs,” I told her.
“No visiting hours for ICU.”
“The hell with visiting hours.”
She studied my face. “I suppose I’ll chaperone, in case you need arresting.”
After a few conversations with nurses and some badge-waving from DeLeon, we were admitted to the gunshot ward.
J. P. Sanchez lay cocooned in linen and bandages, hooked up to so many tubes and monitors the machines seemed to be feeding off him rather than keeping him alive. His eyes were bruised, his skin as gray as his hair.
“They’re trying to stabilize him,” DeLeon told me. “They’ll do another round of surgery if he makes it through the night.”
“Did he talk at all?”
“Tres, he flat-lined in the ambulance. He wasn’t in a talkative mood.”
I touched the guardrail of his bed. Even through the hospital odors, I could smell his cologne.
I imagined his wry smile. Give me a chance, Tres.
“Come on.” DeLeon’s hand gripped my shoulder. “Buy me coffee.”
She steered me toward the elevator.
In the hospital food court, I was vaguely aware of the other plainclothes detective-an Anglo guy built like a linebacker-falling in behind us. He kept his distance, out of earshot.
I bought two tall coffees. DeLeon and I took a corner booth. I drank while DeLeon emptied sugar packets into her cup, three at a time.
“That’ll kill you,” I told her.
“I’ve been promised faster deaths.” She stirred, sipped without even making a face. “So where is Stirman?”
“Ask your Fugitive Task Force.”
“Yesterday, you said he was in town.”
I stared into my coffee.
My day had begun with Folgers and goat’s milk, prepared by a blind woman on a ranch. Here it was evening, and I felt like I was still drinking from the same cup, no wiser than I had been before.
Erainya was missing. An innocent man was upstairs dying. Sam Barrera was cracking under stress. And I’d been asked to tell the police nothing.
“Around five this evening,” DeLeon said, “patrol got a call. One of Erainya’s neighbors reported seeing her in her front yard with a gun. She was pointing it at Dr. Sanchez. Then Sanchez calmed her down. They left together before patrol could get there. Two hours later, we found Sanchez bleeding to death behind Paesano’s. Erainya was missing. One possibility: She shot her boyfriend and fled.”
“That’s absurd.”
“It’s also Major Cooper’s working theory.” She nodded toward the linebacker, who sat two tables away, feigning interest in the bluebonnet paintings.
“Major,” I said. “That’s a Department of Criminal Justice rank.”
“Fugitive Task Force,” she said. “I asked him to come with me. Just in case you had something to say. For the record, Major Cooper does not believe Stirman would stay in San Antonio.”
“He wants a few more people to die?”
“He needs convincing.”
I tried to look her in the eyes, but it was damn uncomfortable.
In the year since I’d seen her last, her face had filled out. Her skin had taken on that healthy glow you see in new mothers, her hair cut short to keep little baby hands from grabbing fistfuls.
She seemed more confident, balanced. Maybe that came from the marriage, or the baby, or the promotion. I didn’t know. The fact that I didn’t know made me sad.
I told her about my encounter with Stirman at the soccer field, the videotape he’d sent to Barrera, the McCurdy Ranch, Barrera’s admission that Stirman had been framed.
DeLeon listened, and drank her coffee. I knew she was mentally recording every statement.
“Gerry Far,” she said, “the informant who sold out Stirman eight years ago. We found him this morning-or what was left of him-floating in the San Antonio River. I called the FBI. They weren’t impressed. A guy like Far makes lots of enemies, they told me. Even if Stirman did kill him, he did it days ago, on his way north. Their most recent reliable sighting places Stirman last night in Kansas. They get a hundred leads a day, all of them north. Since the Oklahoma City shooting, every crime from Colorado to Missouri, some jittery witness decides he saw the Floresville Five. I’m just another paranoid local cop, in the city where Stirman’s least likely to be.”
“Stirman’s here. I didn’t imagine him.”
“You want me to call Major Cooper over?”
“So he can dismiss me as paranoid, too?”
“Cooper’s good. Best they’ve got on the state task force. He’s skeptical Stirman would be so stupid as to stay here, but he’s willing to listen.”
“If the manhunt moves here in force, the media will find out. They’ll broadcast it. Stirman will feel the net closing. He’ll disappear.”
“Not if we do it quickly and quietly.”
We locked eyes. I wondered if she believed her own words. With a media circus like the Floresville Five, there was no way to handle it quickly or quietly. Every law enforcement officer in the state would want a piece. Catching Will Stirman would be like chasing a speedboat with an aircraft carrier.
“Stirman won’t bother with a hostage if he’s forced to run,” I said. “Erainya will die.”
“If she’s not already dead. I’m sorry, Tres.”
I shook my head. “If he wanted Erainya dead, he would’ve left her in that alley along with Sanchez. He took her alive. She’s got something he wants.”
DeLeon stared at the elevator doors.
“You told me there were rumors,” I said. “About the night Stirman was arrested.”
“Maybe I didn’t give you the worst version.”
“How much worse can it be?”
“After Stirman was shot, he was ranting in the hospital, okay? A couple of cops who were guarding him heard the whole story. For one thing, Stirman claimed the PIs had stolen his money. He was this low-tech guy, you understand. Didn’t trust bank accounts or computers. He said he was about to leave on a chartered jet with two duffel bags full of cash. The PIs supposedly took the money.”
“Assuming it existed, how much would we be talking about?”
“Don’t know. How much could you fit in two large black duffel bags?”
“Jesus.”
I remembered Stirman at the soccer field, his barely restrained rage as he looked down at Jem. Tell your mother- She knows what I want. She’d best give it back.
“There’s more,” DeLeon said.
“The woman who died was his wife.”
DeLeon looked momentarily impressed. “Yes, but not just that. Stirman claimed the PIs didn’t only shoot her. They shot their baby.”
I stared at her.
DeLeon curled her fingers over the stack of torn sugar packets on the table. “There was no baby at the scene. No sign there had ever been one. But according to Stirman, the mother and child were both killed. Maybe accidentally. Barrow and Barrera let Stirman almost bleed to death while they destroyed the evidence and toted away the cash. There was no cash at the scene when the police arrived.”
“Did anybody believe Stirman’s story?”
“Why should they? Cons say shit about their captors all the time. Of course, Stirman also claimed he was innocent of supplying the women to McCurdy’s ranch. Nobody believed that, either.”
“Killing a child doesn’t sound like Sam Barrera’s style.”
“Neither does framing somebody.”
I glanced over at Major Cooper, who was still admiring the bluebonnet pictures. “Why hide a child’s death and not the mother’s?”
“Killing an illegal immigrant woman is one thing,” DeLeon said. “Killing an infant-that’s something else. Even the shittiest public defender could make use of that in Stirman’s trial. Let’s say Barrow or Barrera panicked. One stray bullet. You’ve just murdered a child. You’re going to live with that on your conscience forever. As soon as the media find out, you’ll be publicly crucified. You can guess what happens. We get a dozen cases like this every year. The child’s body conveniently disappears. A lot easier to conceal that kind of murder than the death of an adult.”
I wanted to say it wasn’t possible.
Then I remembered Barrera’s haunted look as he toured the McCurdy Ranch, as if he needed to remind himself there’d been justification for what he and Barrow had done.
Erainya had killed Fred Barrow only a few weeks after Stirman’s arrest. Fred had been treating her like dirt for years. Maybe something besides the abuse had made her snap-some new proof Fred Barrow was a monster.
“No cop wants to believe a guy like Stirman,” DeLeon said. “None of them spread these rumors outside the department. By the time Stirman got to trial, he’d gone tight-lipped. He never mentioned the dead child or the money again. Like he’d already started planning his own revenge. But if you’re wondering why Barrera and your boss weren’t anxious to bring in the police…”
“Give me a few hours,” I said. “Let me talk to Barrera.”
“Major Cooper is willing to listen now. He might not believe you, but if he gets the idea later that you held back information-”
“I could deal with Stirman more effectively my way.”
“You mean Ralph’s way.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to tell her about her husband’s track record for finding his enemies, or what he did with them afterward. I knew she wouldn’t want Ralph to have any part of this.
She sipped her coffee, no doubt trying to contain her anger. “Tres
… if somebody killed my baby… I wouldn’t care how much money they stole from me or where they hid it. Do you understand? I wouldn’t trust myself to keep them alive long enough to find out. And this is me talking, the law-abiding one. When I think about how somebody like my husband might react…”
She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.
“Just a couple of hours,” I said. “I’ll call you tonight.”
She looked at Major Cooper, two tables away. She shook her head.
“You didn’t see what Gerry Far looked like when we pulled him out of the river, Tres.” She slid out from the booth, pulled on her raincoat. “For Erainya’s sake, don’t wait too long.”
When I got home to 90 Queen Anne, the two-story craftsman was dark except for my little in-law apartment on the side. Rainwater streamed down the driveway, carrying away petals from my landlord’s purple sages and blue plumbagos.
Sam Barrera waited on my stoop in the glow of the porch light. He was catching moths and shaking them like dice.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“It’ll cost you.”
Sam studied me.
I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him with a five-o’clock shadow before, or with his tie loosened.
He said, “Cost me?”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir. Two bags full.”
He released his moth, watched it flutter up the side of the screen door. “So you know.”
In my younger days, I would’ve hauled off and decked him, but I’d mellowed over the years. Now I was perfectly willing to breathe deep, thinking rationally, and invest the few extra minutes it would take to invite him inside, find a gun, load it, and shoot him.
“Mi casa es tu casa,” I told him.
I unlocked the front door, just missed stepping on the dead mouse Robert Johnson had left for me on the carpet.
The offending feline sat smugly on the kitchen counter. He had one paw in the middle of his empty food dish. A subtle hint.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said.
I cleaned up the present and filled Robert Johnson’s dish with tortilla chips and flaked tuna.
Sam Barrera made the grand tour of my apartment. That takes about thirty seconds. Once you’ve seen the futon and the built-in ironing board and the tai chi sword rack above the toilet, you’ve pretty much seen it all.
“Talk,” I told Barrera. “If I have to ask, the bathroom sword is coming unsheathed.”
Barrera sat down on the futon. He opened that annoying notepad of his.
“Sam, it’s not a lecture,” I said. “Put away the notes.”
“Fourteen million dollars,” he said, quietly.
I set down the tuna can. “Fourteen million.”
“How much we stole. Yeah.”
My fingers felt numb. I wanted to say that was a hell of a lot of money. Large change. A truckload of kitty nachos. Two big goddamn duffel bags. All I could say was “Damn.”
“Stirman called an hour ago,” Barrera said. “He wants an exchange for Erainya. Tomorrow night. Any police involvement, she dies.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s fucking great, Sam. So we just hop over to Stop-N-Go with our ATM cards, and we’ve got it covered.”
“I don’t have any money. I used my half to build up I-Tech a long time ago. I don’t know what Erainya did with Fred’s share. She sure as hell didn’t put it into the agency.”
“Erainya’s been scraping for money ever since I’ve known her. She’s got no hidden cash.”
“She had to know.”
I thought about the note to Erainya from H., telling her the package from Fred was safe.
“She would’ve turned it in,” I said, trying to believe it. “ You should’ve turned it in.”
“We had to take it,” Sam said. “Stirman would’ve paid for the best defense. That kind of cash… we didn’t even trust the cops. Stirman had friends in the department, in the state attorney’s office. We didn’t want any chance he’d get off the hook. There was no choice.”
“Doing your civic duty,” I said. “A real self-sacrifice. What about Stirman’s baby, Sam? Was there no choice on that, too?”
His eyes took on the kind of deadness I was used to seeing in victims of violence, or collared criminals.
“We didn’t mean to,” he said.
Rain rattled at the window screens.
Robert Johnson pushed his food dish around.
I tried to think of something to say-some condemnation strong enough.
The phone rang. I pulled the ironing board away from the wall.
Sam said, “You’ve got a phone behind your ironing board.”
“You must be a detective.” I reached into the alcove, which had been constructed by some day-tripping carpenter in the sixties, and picked up the receiver. “Tres Navarre.”
Silence.
Then Will Stirman’s voice said: “Shitty little apartment, Navarre. Can’t she afford to pay you better?”
I snapped my fingers to get Barrera’s attention, but I’d lost him. He was still staring at the ironing board, trying to come to terms with the phone’s unorthodox location.
“Put Erainya on, Stirman,” I said. “Let me hear she’s okay.”
He ignored my request. “Instructions: I’ll call Barrera’s mobile number tomorrow evening, around midnight. I’ll tell you where to bring the money. You, Sam and Erainya’s boy. Nobody else.”
“You think I’m going to bring Jem anywhere near you, you’ve been locked up in the wrong kind of institution.”
There was a pause I didn’t like at all. “We’ll all be better behaved with the kid around. A lot less anxious for the guns to come out.”
There was something about his tone I couldn’t quite nail down. What the hell did he want with Jem?
“Nothing that happened to you was Erainya’s fault,” I said. “It damn sure wasn’t her son’s.”
I looked out the dark windows. Stirman could be on the street right now. Or in the alley. He could’ve cased my place days ago.
“Mr. Navarre,” he said, “eight years ago there was another mother and child. They hadn’t done anything, either. I won’t hurt the Manoses, as long as you and Mr. Barrow don’t disappoint me.”
“What makes you think the money is still around, or that I can get it?”
“You’re a resourceful young man. And Mr. Navarre, be smart. If I get indications you have talked to the police, it will go very hard on you and everyone you care about. And don’t think Austin is far enough away.”
He hung up.
Robert Johnson leapt onto the ironing board. He pushed his back against my hand. I wanted to think he was consoling me. More likely, he was reminding me that he liked dessert after tuna nachos.
“Well?” Sam asked.
I told him the details. “How much cash could you raise?”
“If I liquidated everything? Took everything out of savings? I don’t know. Nowhere near three million.”
“Seven,” I said.
“What?”
“Your half was seven million.”
He kept his hand on his notepad, as if it were a railing.
“Right,” he said. “That’s what I meant.”
“Where would Fred Barrow stash his loot?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “The money won’t save us. Stirman will kill her. We have to find him before tomorrow night. We have to get to him first.”
For once, I agreed with him.
“I have to call Maia,” I said. “I need to tell her…”
What?
Sorry, honeybun-the psychopath knows where you live. Don’t forget your AK-47 when you take Jem to the playground.
“We’ll figure something out,” Barrera told me. “We’ll talk on the way.”
“The way to where?”
“Castroville.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“The McCurdy Ranch. I’m supposed to take you there.”
The air thickened around me.
“Sam,” I said, “we already went to Castroville… this morning.”
He hesitated a couple of heartbeats. “I just meant… That’s what I said. This morning.”
I stepped around the ironing board, sat down across from him. “Sam, let me see your notebook.”
He didn’t move.
I took the notebook out of his hands.
Inside, meticulous notes-where Barrera worked, directions to his house, who he had called that day. Addresses. Phone numbers. Names-his secretary Alicia, Erainya Manos, Will Stirman. Descriptions of each person. My name, with a small notation: Erainya’s PI. Be careful about him.
“Sam,” I said, “do you know who I am?”
His eyes were watery with frustration. “Of course I do.”
“What’s my name?”
He glanced at his empty lap. “I never forget a name. The whole damn case is in the details.”
“When were you diagnosed, Sam?”
Barrera stared at the wall, his jaw tightening. “I’m fine. They gave me some pills.”
“Do you remember what happened, the night you took down Will Stirman?”
A long silence. “There was something… something important.. .”
He gazed across the room, helpless.
“We’re going to get through this, Sam.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. “I’m going to help you, okay?”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Are you better in the mornings?”
“Yeah. I’m fine in the mornings.”
“I’m going to drive you home then, and keep your car for the night. I want you to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Damn it,” Barrera said. “Goddamn it.”
He pushed away my hand, and got up by himself.
We took our second ride together in his mustard-colored BMW.
As the windshield wipers slashed back and forth, I realized I was going to need other help finding Stirman fast.
I was going to have to call on an old friend. A friend I’d rarely called for help without somebody ending up dead.