Authors: John Fortunato
Melissa had her arms raised, eyes wide.
Books walked to the center of the living room.
Joe needed his hands free, so he leaned to his right to place the food container on the thin table that sat against the wall next to the door, the same table where Bluehorse's oak kachina now rested.
“Don't put it down.” Books was on to Joe's tactic, and he probably guessed Joe wore an ankle holster. He waved the gun toward the kitchen. “Walk.”
As Joe moved, Books also moved, placing himself by the door.
Joe stopped in front of Melissa. Fear paid him a visit. Not the fear he would be killed, but the fear he wouldn't be able to protect her.
“Why did you come back? Why didn't you run?”
Books shook his head. The gesture meant nothing.
“I'm retiring,” Joe said. “I'm not coming after you. You can still get away.”
“That's funny. I was retiring, too. Made all my plans. Had all the money I needed. And then you came along investigating Eddie and ruined everything.”
“I wasn't interested in Eddie. I was looking into Congressman Edgerton's disappearance.”
“No. Mr. O. said you were investigating Eddie, too.”
“I wasn't. Another agent was. The one Othmann was paying off. He lied to you. I wasn't interested in Eddie. Just Edgerton. So you had nothing to worry about. You weren't even with Othmann when Edgerton went missing.”
“You were investigating Eddie. Mr. O. didn't have anything to do with the missing congressman.”
“How do you know he didn't have anything to do with it?”
“He's coking all the time now, doesn't know what he says anymore.” Books held his gun in his left hand. It seemed unsteady, as though he wasn't used to the motion. His right hand hung down by his side, motionless. “That's why I'm retiring. He's flaking out. I asked him when he was floatin' if he killed the congressman. He said no. I believe him. He's crazy. He likes to tell his dead father the shit he does. If he had anything to do with your guy, he would have told me.”
“You don't have to do this. You can still leave. Run. Retire.” Joe watched Books's right arm. It was unnatural. He suspected Books had injured it. Perhaps the blood at the shooting scene in Jones Ranch was from that arm. He was probably right-handed and that's why his left appeared choppy. That could be a weakness Joe could exploit.
“It's too late now. You fucked everything up. Eddie fucked things up, too. I can't hurt him anymore, but I can hurt you.”
“Let my daughter go. She has nothing to do with this.”
Books looked directly at Melissa. “Come here.”
In that instant, Joe knew what Books intended. He would hurt her in front of Joe. Make him suffer the ultimate pain. Books had come back not because he wanted to stop Joe from going after him. No. That had probably been Othmann's foolish idea. Books wanted revenge.
Joe sensed her moving. He reacted, stepped to the side, making sure his body was between Melissa and the gun, and launched himself at Books, throwing the food container first.
Seared beef and grilled vegetables exploded on the big man's face and upper chest even as he raised his arms to stop it, the gun still in his hand.
A deafening blast. Another.
Joe felt nothing. He crashed into Books, driving him back with his shoulder, both his hands on the Glock. He grasped the top of the weapon, pressing on the slide, pushing it back so it would unseat the firing pin, twisting it down and to the side so it would face away from Melissa.
Something hit the back of his head. His vision went white.
“Run, Lissa! Run!”
Another crack to his head. He knew he would lose consciousness soon.
Books punched at him again and again with his right fist. Joe had been wrong. His right arm may have been injured, but it wasn't incapacitated. Books had simply been favoring it. His one advantage was now gone. Anger welled up inside him. Anger and desperation. He struck at Books with all his strength, trying to give this monster pause, a break in the attack to get clear of him so he could draw his own weapon.
Books roared, emitting an inhuman sound, and Joe was driven back, turning, Books's gun turning with them, sweeping in the direction of Melissa.
Click
. The Glock's firing pin unseated, stopping short of the round's primer.
Another
click
.
“Run!”
Joe fell backward, crashing to the floor by the entryway, Books on top of him. He felt a sharp, almost paralyzing pain course up his left arm and through his shoulder. For a crazy moment, the short Hispanic doctor from GIMC flashed into his mind, reprimanding him for not taking it easy. Then he felt something like a hammer on his forehead. Books punching again. Blood on Books's fist. Through a white haze, he saw his daughter. She was screaming.
He shouted. Told her to run. Fought to stay conscious, his grip weakening on the gun.
He knew he couldn't overpower this animal on top of him. He had only one chance left. His weapon. He hadn't tried for it before, because he'd needed both hands to control Books's gun. He brought his leg back, took his right hand off Books's Glock, and reached for his ankle holster.
Another blow struck him, this time on his right cheek. Fire ripped through his head. Blood filled his mouth. Joe grasped the handle of his own Glock. He pulled. For a second, he thought it was free, but then his hand wouldn't move.
Books smiled down at him. He had his hand on Joe's Glock, trying to wrench it away.
Joe glimpsed Melissa again. Why hadn't she run? Now Books would kill them both. He felt a cry of rage rising from deep inside. Hopeless rage. Powerless rage.
Then a loud
thunk.
Another.
He heard a distant voice yelling, “Get off him!”
For a fraction of a second, Books's hold on Joe's gun weakened. Without hesitation, Joe yanked his right hand up, breaking Books's grasp. Then he pushed the gun forward into the big man's side. He pulled the trigger. Pulled again.
He blinked through his own blood, through the white haze. Books fell forward, pinning him to the floor. Off to the side, his daughter stood, arms raised, Bluehorse's kachina held high with both hands.
O
CTOBER
16
S
ATURDAY
, 11:51
P.M.
J
OE
E
VERS
'
S
A
PARTMENT
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO
They sat on the bed, not saying anything. Joe held her close, wrapped tightly in his good arm. He hadn't let the EMTs take him to the hospital. He'd go later. Right now, Melissa needed him. She'd just seen her father almost killed, and she had been forced to do something that might haunt her for years. A man was dead, deservedly so, but still dead. He knew the way of the haunted. Not only at night, when he closed his eyes, but during the day, too. The terror of what had just happened and of that day on Jones Ranch Road would linger. It would visit him in his dreams. Bluehorse would visit him. Worst, the knowledge that he had been the cause of his friend's death would be the most unwelcome caller.
He didn't want any of that for Melissa. But how could he stop it? All he could do was try to be there for her. Here and now. As long as he could.
She'd shut down when the police had arrived and hadn't spoken since. Joe comforted his daughter while only yards away officers processed the crime scene. He felt worlds away, lost in his own thoughts of fatherhood and his concerns for his daughter. He would be there for her for as long as she needed him to be there, for as long as it took for her to feel safe again.
O
CTOBER
25
M
ONDAY
, 11:12
A.M.
B
UREAU
OF
I
NDIAN
A
FFAIRS
, O
FFICE
OF
I
NVESTIGATIONS
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO
Over a week had passed since Joe's confrontation with Books. The doctors had checked his injuries and restitched his cheek. His arm had significant bruising, but in the end they gave it a clean bill. He'd been sent home with strict orders to rest. The remainder of that week, he spent with Melissa. For the first few days, reporters hung around outside the apartment building, waiting for an interview or at least a photo. But they got neither. Joe and Melissa stayed inside, not feeling up to facing the world, even if that meant a simple trip for groceries. So he found a store that delivered, and they watched TV and talked, played board games and talked some more. A lot of talking. By Friday, cabin fever had set in, and the reporters had given up, so they ventured outside to Sierra's house for a chicken cordon bleu dinner.
Today, Melissa was on a plane back to New York. He had taken her to the airport two hours ago and then waited to see her flight take off.
Now he sat at his desk, the Edgerton file spread out. The case file had been copied and sent to the FBI. Murder on the reservation was officially their territory. When Nick Garcia's body had been found, Andi had opened a murder investigation, but she'd never pushed the issue and had let Joe run with it. But now, with three bodies, it had clearly moved into their jurisdiction. BIA could assist, but the FBI would be lead. And Joe was off the case. On paid leave because of the shooting. But he needed to do something.
So he reviewed photos from the search of the congressman's office.
Technically, it was Cordelli's case. He was BIA's point agent for the Edgerton murder investigation, as it was now called in the news. But Wonder Boy had taken some time off himself. Joe guessed the young agent would need that time to decide if he really wanted to be in law enforcement. Being shot in the chest and surviving would alter anyone's perspective. Sadi had also taken this week off, but for a different reason. And Joe understood that, too.
He pulled Ellery Gates's interview from the file: a half-page memo documenting that the congressman had lawyered up and refused to talk to the agents. That was two days after Edgerton went missing. Gates had still been in Albuquerque, having come to meet with Edgerton and then staying in the state, even after Edgerton hadn't shown. What was strange was that Gates had traveled alone. No aid. No wife. He hadn't wanted witnesses to the meeting. Grace had said Gates came to New Mexico to go fly-fishing with Edgerton. If that were true, then it was an amazing coincidence that the supposed fishing trip was the same day Congress had announced their probe into allegations of bribery and corruption against Edgerton and Gates. No doubt Gates had come to New Mexico to talk about the probe. He or Edgerton had gotten advance warning, and they were getting together to work out a strategy.
But Edgerton had been killed that day.
The two bodies had been identified as those of Edgerton and Faye Hannaway. They'd been buried next to each other almost two hundred yards from the vehicle. Joe and Andi surmised the only reason Nick, the driver, had been found so close was because he'd been too heavy to drag far.
Another piece of evidence was the result of the Colt 1911 ballistic examination. Andi had collected the gun from Grace Edgerton's home after Bluehorse's funeral and sent it to Quantico for an expedited comparison. She'd phoned him earlier this morning with the result: The round recovered near the vehicle had been fired from Edgerton's gun. That piece of information had not hit the news. Andi would play that one close. Nothing to the press.
A week ago, he'd thought Othmann could have been behind Edgerton's disappearance. He would have been okay with allowing Cordelli and the FBI to sort it out. But the ballistic report changed all that.
When he'd told Sierra about the bodies, she cried in joy and in sorrow. For Sierra, the fact she would no longer have to defend her sister was enough. But he felt the need to give her more. The answers to the
who
and
why
of every investigation. Only then would true closure be possible.
He picked up a photo of Edgerton's office taken during the BIA's search in the days following his disappearance. The gun Andi had collected from Mrs. Edgerton had been a gift to her husband from the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Something a politician would keep visible. In the photo was a bookcase, and on the second shelf from the top sat a wooden display frame the size of a shoe box. Through a magnifying glass, he could see a nickel-plated Colt 1911 inside. The only two people of Edgerton's inner circle who had access to that gunâand could have put it back afterwardâwere Grace Edgerton and Kendall Holmes.
O
CTOBER
26
T
UESDAY
, 2:21
P.M.
A
LBUQUERQUE
A
IRPORT
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO
Joe's plane had been scheduled to leave at 3:05, but the flight information board by the gate now flashed
DELAYED
. The new departure time was 3:45.
He made a phone call.
Helena answered on the first ring.
“Hey, cowboy. I don't think I ever thanked you for the heads-up on the two bodies.”
“You didn't, but maybe you can pay me back. Are we off the record?”
“Ooh, pillow talk.” She may have purred. “Shoot.”
“Tell me everything you know about Senator Kendall Holmes.”