“I usually work high school sports,” he confided with the eagerness of a puppy. “I just finished covering a track-and-field meet in Fort Davis and was on my way back to El Paso when the boss heard about the shooting on the police scanner. He sent me here.”
“Lucky you.”
My sarcasm zinged right over his head.
“I know!” he exclaimed. “This is my first shooting. It could be my big break.”
Uh-oh. Young, eager, and hot to get into hard news. This was Not Good.
“Sheriff Alexander told me you discovered the heads, Lieutenant. My cameraman’s out in the parking lot. Would you come outside so I could interview you?”
“Sorry. Military personnel aren’t allowed to comment on their involvement in ongoing investigations.”
That was stretching the truth a bit. We’re allowed to comment—if we want to put our careers on the line. My career is iffy at best, but there was no way in hell I wanted to hear my role in this bizarre incident dissected on the evening news. Or, more important, Snoopy’s role. Somehow I suspected the viewing public wasn’t ready for a rat-devouring robot.
“You’ll have to go through the Public Affairs office at Fort Bliss,” I told the crestfallen DeWayne.
He turned to Sergeant Cassidy. “I guess that includes you, too.”
Given Noel’s run-in with an undercover vice cop and ongoing sessions with his shrink, I wasn’t surprised when he evinced even less eagerness to appear in front of a TV camera than I had.
“Yeah, it does.”
“What about you?” the now-desperate reporter asked Pancho. “The sheriff wouldn’t confirm who shot the pickup driver, but several of the people I talked to said you pulled the trigger. Will you comment for the record?”
Pancho twisted up one corner of his mustache and gave the kid a blank look.
“No hablo Inglés.”
Junior Reporter’s face fell. “I could, um, find a translator.”
The suggestion met with another blank look.
I could tell DeWayne’s dreams of making it out of high school track-and-field were disintegrating before his eyes. I felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to put myself or Snoop Dog in front of a camera.
Dejected, he mumbled an insincere thank-you and left. Pen went back to her tea, the rest of us to our beer, tequila, and/or soft drinks.
I knew it wasn’t over. This head business was too sensational for the media to pass up. Still, I was in no way, shape, or form prepared for the firestorm that proceeded to engulf me.
CHAPTER THREE
THE first sinister rumblings of the storm hit not long after my team and I returned to our test site.
Don’t let the grandiose designation fool you. The site consists of five Containerized Housing Units—aka CHUs—plunked down on a remote corner of the Fort Bliss missile range. There they sat when we drove up a little past seven p.m., five aluminum-sided boxcars surrounded by shadowy cacti and spiny creosote. Our home away from home.
Two of the CHUs serve as sleeping quarters—one for the guys, one for Pen and me. Two more are linked together to form our test lab and administrative center. The fifth is our D-FAC. Officially the acronym stands for dining facility. Unofficially it . . . Well, I’d better not go there.
The D-FAC contains a kitchen of sorts, a handkerchief-sized dining table, a flat-screen TV hooked up to a satellite dish, a DVD player, various board games, wireless routers for our laptops, and taking up twice its fair share of floor space, Sergeant Cassidy’s Universal Gym.
Noel’s gunshot wound produced one unexpected benefit. Slight though it was, the injury kept him from clanking away on his weights all evening long. Thus we were able to both watch and hear the ten p.m. news coverage of the shooting.
As I’d anticipated, the local networks glommed on to the heads. But Channel Nine had scored a coup by diverting DeWayne Wilson out to Dry Springs. His was the only report with actual on-scene footage, such as it was.
Junior Reporter got shots of the pickup being towed away and the coroner’s wagon as it drove off. He also had his cameraman pan the facade of Pancho’s. The place looked considerably more decrepit on screen than it did when you drove up, hot and dusty and thirsting for something cold.
“Although all persons involved in the shooting declined to be interviewed on-camera,” DeWayne intoned solemnly, “this reporter can confirm one of them is Air Force Lieutenant Samantha Spade. Viewers might remember her from another shooting incident last year.”
I grimaced as my picture filled the screen. It was a stock photo dredged from the news coverage of the incident DeWayne cited. To my disgust, I looked wild-eyed and more like a shooter than a shootee.
“Forensic specialists hope dental impressions and facial recognition software will identify the severed heads. In the meantime, the FBI’s regional office has made a tentative identification of the alleged shooter.”
“That didn’t take long,” Dennis commented.
My face disappeared and the camera cut to the El Paso Regional FBI Office. An all-too-familiar figure strode toward a bank of mikes.
“Hey.” Dennis adjusted his Coke-bottle lenses for a closer look and shot me a quick glance. “Isn’t that your pal?”
My stomach did a quick roll as Special Agent Paul Donati looked into the cameras. Pals we weren’t. Donati and I had locked horns on previous occasions when I mucked around in an official investigation. His words, not mine. I was completely innocent this time, but his eyes seemed to spear right through me as he issued a brief statement.
“I can confirm that the FBI has made a tentative ID. We’re withholding that ID, however, pending notification of the next of kin.”
Reporters peppered him with questions, but he had nothing more to add. I breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon, it turned out.
“In what has to be one of the most bizarre aspects of an already bizarre incident,” Junior Reporter gushed when his cameraman cut back to him, “it appears the, um, body parts may have been nosed out by a robot.”
“Oh, no!”
My stomach took another plunge. So much for keeping Snoopy’s role in this incident away from the viewing public.
Apparently DeWayne had pumped various residents of Dry Springs for detail. He’d also conducted an Internet search and nosed out Farmer Farnsworth’s website. I cringed as wild rumor gave way to even wilder speculation. And I knew I was in trouble when Junior Reporter described Snoop as a flesh-eating robot.
“The implications are staggering,” he intoned, wide-eyed. “Just think of it. A vehicle that could feed on battlefield corpses and go forever.”
Groaning, I dropped my head to the table and covered it with both arms. I guessed it was only a matter of hours, if not minutes, before my cell phone started pinging.
I was right.
The first call came from my studly Border Patrol agent. I’ve assigned him a special ringtone. It’s the theme from the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western
Hang ’Em High
, which pretty well sums up what Mitch does for a living. His image popped into my head with the first few notes. Tall, rangy, with white squint lines at the corners of his hazel eyes. Those little lines crinkle when he grins, but I could tell from his response to my chirpy hello that he wasn’t smiling at the moment.
“Jesus, Samantha! What have you gotten mixed up in now?”
That seemed pretty unfair, seeing as Jeff Mitchell had figured prominently in my previous two encounters with persons of the dead variety. When I said so, however, he brushed my tart observation aside.
“This has all the earmarks of a murder for hire. Don’t get any more involved than you already are. Let Paul Donati handle it.”
“I intend to.”
“I heard Sergeant Cassidy took a bullet. How’s he doing?”
I glanced at Noel. Although his leg wound kept him out of the iron cage, he’d stripped down to his T-shirt, planted an elbow on the table, and was doing curls with a twenty-pound dumbbell while watching the news coverage.
“Mitch wants to know how you’re doing.”
Biceps bulging, he nodded. “Tell him I’m fine.”
“He’s fine.”
“Good. So when are you coming home?”
“We should wrap things up Friday afternoon.”
“I’ve got patrol Friday night.” Mitch’s gruff tone softened. “How about I swing by your place after debrief Saturday morning?”
“Sounds good,” I replied as little shivers of anticipation danced down my spine.
“I’ll see you then.”
I spent a happy five minutes or so envisioning all kinds of matutinal delights. Did I mention that Mitch is really well toned?
When my cell phone jangled again, one glance at caller ID wiped every salacious thought from my mind. Swallowing, I hit answer.
“Hi, Paul.” As in Special Agent Donati. “I just saw you on Channel Six. Have you really made a tentative ID?”
“The alleged shooter is Victor Duarte. We’ve withheld his identity . . .”
“Pending next of kin,” I supplied helpfully.
“The bastard has no next of kin. None that we’ve turned up, anyway. We held back his ID to give us time to try to track his movements until he showed up in Dry Springs.”
“Have you?”
“Not yet.” He paused a moment. “This guy’s a real badass, Samantha. A contract killer.”
“That’s what Mitch guessed.”
“Mitch got it right.” Another pause, followed by a terse question. “Have you checked the FBI’s Most Wanted website lately?”
“I didn’t know you
had
a Most Wanted website.”
“We do. You might want to take a look at it.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because Duarte is number two on our list. The FBI is offering a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to his capture and/or arrest.”
“What!”
My mind spun like the wheels of the slot machines at my prior place of employment
“Capture?” I squeaked out, seeking clarification. “Does that mean, um, dead or alive?”
“Dead or alive.”
Dollar signs flashed in front of my eyes. Mesmerized, I was envisioning all the ways I could stimulate the economy, when reality set in.
“You do know Pancho was the one who took him down, don’t you?”
“Pancho claims he wouldn’t have fired if you and Sergeant Cassidy hadn’t flushed the bastard out. Far as I know, the reward is yours to split however you three work it out.”
The dollar signs lit up again. In avocado-toned neon this time!
Let me insert a small caveat here. I don’t consider myself particularly materialistic. I’m very content in my small El Paso apartment. I drive a relatively new Sebring convertible. It used to be bright and shiny and undented until I deliberately rammed the vehicle of a bad guy trying to make a getaway a few months back. That, sadly, eliminated its new-car aura, but it’s been repaired and can still go from zero to sixty in mere seconds. And since I spend most of my waking hours in uniform, I don’t need a closet full of expensive finery.
Although . . .
If I had a big wad of dollars to blow, I might just splurge on several pairs of Stuart Weitzmans or Kate Spades. After clumping around in combat boots all day, I usually go the flip-flop route. Some really expensive, really girly footwear would make for a nice change.
I might also lipo-suck away the teeny-weeny dimples I recently discovered on my thighs. How and when they got there is a total mystery. Just a little over eighteen months ago I was collecting major tips while prancing around in a short skirt and ruffled panties that showed off firm, un-dimpled thighs. But I hit the big three-oh some months ago. Now I avoid looking at my lower extremities in a mirror whenever possible.
Once restored to my former sleekness, I mused, I might just whisk Mitch off for a week or two in one of those luxurious Tahitian over-the-water bungalows I saw recently on the Travel Channel. Best I recall, they went for around eighteen hundred a night, plus change.
Lets see. Ten or twelve nights at eighteen hundred bucks. That came to . . .
Special Agent Donati broke into my happy calculations. “You need to be careful, Samantha. Duarte was a real slime. Whoever hired him to make these hits falls into the same category.”
That was one way to bring me back to earth. Pancho laid another on me when I called him right after Donati and I disconnected.
“Did you catch the news?”
“No.”
A rattle of glass punctuated his reply. Empty beer bottles, I guessed. Or Pen’s rose-covered teapot. The mental image that conjured up almost made me forget why I’d called.
“I suppose we were the lead story,” Pancho commented, pulling me back to the present.
“And then some! The FBI IDed the shooter. His name is Victor Duarte.”
There was a small silence. It didn’t occur to me until that moment I might have gotten involved in something more than a chance encounter with a gun-wielding stranger. Pancho’s past is nothing if not murky. My heart skipped several beats and all kinds of unwelcome thoughts cartwheeled through my mind until he responded.
“Never heard of the guy.”
I let out a slow breath. I would never deflate Pancho’s swaggering machivity by telling him so, but he’s become something of father figure to me. Maybe it’s a result of his years of tending bar. Or the sympathetic gleam in his good eye when I start to complain about life in general and the military in particular. Or it could be that he’s more involved in my life than my real father was. Not that Dad had much time to get involved before Mom chased him off with a gin bottle. Whatever the reason, I didn’t want to believe Pancho was mixed up in anything shadier than the high-stakes poker game that took place in the bar’s back room every Saturday night.
“According to Special Agent Donati,” I told him, “Duarte is a hired killer.”
“Must be why he was toting those heads around with him,” Pancho mused with apparent unconcern. “Proof he’d completed the job.”