Apache Country (36 page)

They walked up the path to the house. It
reminded Easton again of happy times he had shared here. But the
past was another country and his visa had expired.

The room in the guest cottage was silent
except for the thin hum of the DVD player. Easton switched it off,
leaned back in his chair and let out his breath in a long slow
sigh, the obscenities and degradation they had seen still flickered
in his brain like old silent movies. He felt like he needed another
bath.

“You’re sure?” he said.

Ironheel nodded. “Ázhúo. Certain. The big man
in the film is the one who killed the boy.”

“All this time we’ve been chasing a ghost,”
Easton said. “We were trying to figure out why they killed Casey,
and it was Adam they wanted.”

“Why?”

“He must have watched the DVD, recognized the
big man. Then told someone what he had seen. That’s why he was
killed.”

“Where would a kid like Adam get hold of a
thing like that?”

Easton shrugged. “That’s a good question and
I don’t know the answer. Maybe Kit and Ellen will have some
ideas.”

“Who would he have told? Who would he have
trusted?”

“Another good question, and I don’t know the
answer to that one, either. Adam was a bright kid, but he was only
eleven years old. The fact he hid the DVD away, didn’t say a word
to anyone, shows how conflicted he must have been.”

“Probably didn’t know what to do.”

“Right. But he talked to someone. And it got
him killed.”

“Madre,” Ironheel breathed. Easton had long
since realized the word was the nearest he ever got to
profanity.

“I’m beginning to understand what this thing
is all about,” Easton continued. “Pornography is big money.”

“Dachizhá,” Ironheel grunted. “Filth.”

“But lucrative,” Easton said. “Which leads to
the next question. Who’s producing it? Where? They’d need a studio
or a safe house, cameras and film processing equipment, top of the
range distribution. If Apodaca and McKittrick are involved, my bet
is it’s somewhere between here and the Texas state line. They’re
probably getting some kind of payoff for protection, a guarantee
the law won’t interfere.”

“You think the big man is making the
payoffs?” Ironheel said.

Easton nodded thoughtfully. “And I just
remembered, that chopper pilot said his name was Carl.” He stood
up. “Come on. Time’s running out.”

They walked back to the house where the two
women were sitting beside the stone fireplace. The room, dominated
by a huge smart-TV unit, had floor-to-ceiling picture windows that
opened out on to an internal patio. Opposite them stood a shining
black Yamaha grand piano that also played piano rolls: Du-Art or
Ampico, Paderewski or Fats Waller. Easton remembered how eerie it
was to hear George Gershwin playing the Rhapsody in Blue, hands
long dead moving the keys.

It had shocked him to see Ellen Casey looking
so hurt, so sad, her usual assurance so visibly affected. She
looked elegant, but lined, tired, older.

“You okay to talk, Ellen?” he said softly.
She nodded, yes.

“Then tell me how you found the DVD,” he
said.

“It was quiet accidental.” Her voice was
barely a whisper, her face paper white. “I was ... thinking about
Adam. I went into his room, sat on the bed. Touched things to … to
remember him. The closet door was open, I got up to close it and
saw his tennis racket was on a shelf, the handle sticking out. I
reached up to straighten it and everything ... fell down. And there
it was.”

“Why did you play it?”

“It had no title, no sleeve. I thought maybe
it was something he’d brought home from school that might have to
be taken back. And then … and then, when I played it and saw …
those men, the things they were doing ...”

She shuddered visibly and made a distracted
gesture with her hand. It made Easton realize how close to the edge
she was.

“Do you have any idea how Adam could have
gotten hold of it?”

Kit intervened angrily. “Adam would never
have brought something like that into this house,” she said.
“Never!”

“If you’re right, and I think you are,”
Easton said, “that leaves us with only two persons who could
have.”

“You’re not … you can’t mean Daddy? Or
Ralph?” she whispered.

“David, stop!” Ellen said angrily
.
“You mustn’t say such things. I
won’t listen! I won’t!”

“You must, Ellen,” he said softly. “Because
that DVD got Adam killed. He recognized something, someone.”

He told them about Carl, the man on the DVD,
and what he thought that might mean.

“And… you think Joe Apodaca is involved in
it, too? Joe Apodaca?”

“Tell them,” he said to Ironheel. “As gently
as you can.”

For a moment, Ironheel looked uncertain, then
he squatted on his haunches in front of Kit. He gently took her
hands in his and held them, looking into her eyes.

“Doo baa shil gozhóó da,” he said softly. “My
heart is full of sadness, lady. But you have to know. I was there.
I saw Sheriff Apodaca kill your father. The big man in the film
killed your son.”

The two women nodded in unison, their eyes
fixed on Ironheel as if he had hypnotized them. Kit’s lips moved
but at first no sound came out. When it did it was like the dry
rustle of autumn leaves blowing along a sidewalk.

“How?” she whispered. “Tell me, please. How
did they …?”

Ironheel turned to glance questioningly at
Easton. “N’diih doleel,” he said. “It will cause pain.”

“I know,” Easton nodded, “but go on.”

Ironheel hesitated for a moment, then turned
back to face the two women.

“They were arguing,” he continued. “I think
the hastiin – the old man – realized they were going to kill the
boy and tried to stop them, Apodaca shot him.”

“And ... Adam?”

Kit’s voice was little more than a murmur, as
though she was afraid if she spoke too loudly, something would
shatter.

“He ran away,” Ironheel said, pushing his
hand forward, thumb up. “Dáhále. Fast, like a rabbit. The big man
went after him. And …”

He lifted a shoulder, leaving it
unspoken.

“Dear God,” Kit said softly.

She looked at Ironheel through eyes drowning
in grief. Then her head came up and she let go of his hands. He
stood up and stepped aside as she rose and faced Easton.

“Tell us the rest of it now, David,” she said
firmly. “I want to know everything.”

Beginning with the mid-morning call from Bert
Bonnell, Easton briefly recounted the events of the day that ended
with the murder of Jerry Weddle.

“When Weddle came to the jail, Ironheel told
him what he had seen up at Garcia Flat,” he said. “A couple of
hours later Weddle was murdered in his motel room. It looked like a
walk-in robbery that went wrong. But it wasn’t.”

“Are you saying they killed him to protect
Apodaca?” Ellen asked.

“Has to be that,” Easton said. “Weddle made
two calls, one to his boss and one to Olin McKittrick, by the book
routine procedure. But by calling McKittrick, he signed his own
death warrant.”

“McKittrick … killed him?” Kit said.

“No,” Easton said. “Whoever killed Weddle was
a pro. When I went down to the jail to tell Ironheel what had
happened, he told me what he’d told Weddle.”

“What surprises me is that you believed him,”
Ellen said.

“I’ll confess, I didn’t know what to do. I
suppose if I were to dig down deep inside I’d find I was trying
hard not to believe him. But then I remembered something. When Joe
and I got to the crime scene he knew where Adam’s body was. We
hadn’t talked to CSI, nobody. I must have filed it subconsciously,
because it didn’t surface until Ironheel told me what he’d
seen.”

“What did you do?” Ellen asked.

“I realized his life was in danger, maybe
mine too, so I took the whole thing to McKittrick, told him
everything. He came up with the idea of getting Ironheel into an
FBI witness protection program until Apodaca was arrested and
indicted. I didn’t know McKittrick was part of it until he sent a
couple of hit men to kill us.”

“Olin McKittrick,” Ellen hissed. “Damn him,
damn him!”

She looked up at Easton, her face strained
and pale. He could only imagine what pain she was experiencing, a
blowtorch searing away decades of comfortable assumption and trust.
She’d always been the strong one, the rock. He could only hope she
would have enough strength to get past this.

“We can bring him down,” he said to both
women. “All of them. But we need your help.”

“We’ll help you,” Ellen said. “Count on
it.”

Her voice was assured, her posture confident
again. It was as if, like a soldier, she had dreaded the battle,
but now it had commenced, she was able to summon up the courage she
needed. “What can we do?”

“Do you think you could get Joe Apodaca away
from his house for a couple of hours?”

“I think so, but I’d need some sort of
reason,” she said. “Why?”

“I want to squeeze some information out of
his wife.”

“But Alice is …” Ellen began, then stopped
herself. Easton knew what she had been going to say: she’s a
drunk.

“Tell him you’re making arrangements for the
funeral and you need to talk everything through with him,” he said.
“Traffic arrangements, who to invite, catering, all that stuff.
Think you could bear it?”

Her chin came up a fraction, as though he had
challenged her.

“Yes, David, I think I can manage that.
When?”

“Soon, tomorrow, in the evening maybe.”

“You want me to call him now?”

Easton smiled. “There’s time. But be careful,
Ellen. He’s not a fool.”

“Neither am I,” she said crisply.

“A question,” Ironheel said, frowning. “We’re
going into Riverside?”

“Me, yes,” Easton said. “You, no.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’ve got to convince Apodaca and McKittrick
we’re a long way away from there,” Easton said.

“Ah,” Ironheel said. “I make a distraction.
Nzaadyú. Far away. Yes?”

“Somewhere on the Reservation,” Easton said.
“If they think we’re up in the mountains, they won’t be expecting
me down in the valley.”

“Daiaá daabini’,” Ironheel said. “Our
thoughts are alike.”

“Okay,” Easton said. “Here’s the plan. James
will leave for the Reservation tomorrow, while it’s still dark.
Once he’s there, he’ll let the dogs see the rabbit. It’s Federal
property, so the Sheriff’s Office can’t just bring in an army in
and take over. While they’re figuring it out, I’ll be heading
toward Riverside in the trunk of Ellen’s car.”

“What about the roadblocks?” Ellen reminded
him.

“I think I know a way around that,” Easton
told her.

“This dog and rabbit thing,” Ironheel said.
“How long you want it to last?”

“Two days should be enough,” Easton said.
“Think you can stay out there that long and not get caught?”

“If Rambo could do it,” Ironheel said, “So
can I.”

And this time the smile really did touch his
lips.

At 9:18 a.m., the beat-up HP Pavilion in Joe
Apodaca’s office gave the little warning buzz that signaled
incoming e-mail. He clicked it open and recognized the logo on the
letterhead of Cellnet Southwest’s Albuquerque branch. Below a short
note from the regional supervisor was a list of all the calls
placed within the last twenty-one days on the cellphone Easton and
Ironheel had stolen from the elderly couple in Peachtree
Canyon.

Apodaca printed out a copy, taking it back to
his desk. There were seventeen numbers on the list, all area code
575. Only one of the calls had been made in the last three days. He
picked up the phone and dialed. The long flat note of the
“unobtainable” signal brought a frown to his forehead. Quickly
breaking the connection, he called another number and identified
himself to the operator who replied.

“Urgent police business,” he told her, gave
the required code and waited while she verified it on the great
computer in the sky.

“How can I help you, Sheriff?” the operator
asked.

“I need a subscriber name for this number,”
he told her, and read out the number.

“One moment, please.”

He waited patiently, imagining her
keyboarding the details into her computer terminal, waiting while
the machine did its search. He heard a click as the operator came
back on the line.

“The subscriber is a Ralph H. Twitchell.
That’s T-W-I –”

“I know how to spell it.”

“Do you need an address?”

“I know that too,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Y’welcome.”

So the call had been made to the Casey ranch.
Apodaca shook his head. He knew Ralph Twitchell had gone to Santa
Fe for three or four days and was not due back until tomorrow.
Which meant his wife had taken Easton’s call.

Unless it was … Ellen Casey?

He made another call, this time to the Casey
home in Riverside.

“Señora Casey is visiting her daughter at the
ranch, Sheriff,” the maid told him. “Do you have the number?”

“I do,” he said. He picked up the phone again
and dialed Olin McKittrick’s private line.

“Get your ass over here,” he said when
McKittrick answered. “Now.”

~*~

Below Pacheco, the road made an elongated ‘W’
through the hamlets of Sundown and Wayside. A couple of miles after
that, it became a twin highway that ran due east all the way into
Riverside. Unless they had moved it, Ellen Casey told Easton, the
police checkpoint she’d spotted on her way up would be where the
divided highway began. The second was at the truck crossing just
outside town.

“Drop me somewhere around here,” he told her
as she drew level with the blacktop turnoff that ran south from the
highway to the Diamond A ranch. She looked better today, more
composed. The crisp black Donna Karan suit and the simple white
shirt with a cameo brooch at the throat fastening made her look
businesslike and efficient. He wondered what she and Kit had talked
about after what he had told them. How did you begin to deal with
something like that?