Authors: Jamie Jeffries
No one would be able to see him; the light had gone from the sky, and the windows were tinted. He was trying a trick he’d seen on the internet, kicking out the tail light from inside the trunk, so a cop would stop the kid. Unfortunately, they’d been driving for so long he thought they might not be anywhere a cop could be expected to patrol. He was pretty sure they were on a dirt road.
It wasn’t much longer, though, before the SUV stopped, and the kid got out, leaving him where he was. A few minutes later, angry voices reached him.
“You stole a Pima County sheriff’s car? You idiot!” English, but heavily accented. Sounded Mexican to Thurston.
“I couldn’t help it. The cop caught me looking for drugs in the ambulance.”
“What was your mission?” the angry voice asked.
“Take care of the old man,” was the answer.
“And did you do that?”
“Yeah, ‘
mano
. I put the stuff in the bag, like you said. No one was around. It was easy.”
“And then you decided to steal drugs from an ambulance and steal a cop car. Why didn’t you just get away in your car?”
“Because, he was too big for the trunk, ‘
mano
. I needed his SUV to put him in.”
Thurston counted to three before the explosion came. “YOU BROUGHT HIM HERE?”
“Well, yeah, ‘
mano
. I couldn’t leave him there. He saw me.” Thurston couldn’t understand the rest. It sounded like a jumble of part Spanish from the angry man, part something he didn’t recognize from the kid.
Then, in English, the angry man said, “I don’t know what the hell to do with you. I ought to tie you up and put you back there with him, drive the car back to Sells, and leave you there. You’re a fuck-up, Ernesto. Don’t do anything, do you understand?
Anything!
Unless I specifically tell you to do it. And then do only what I tell you! Nothing else! It’s bad enough you dumb-shits kidnapped the woman and her husband. Who came up with the bright idea that an old couple were
Los Reyes
anyway?”
“They were asking for Jimmy, and Elder Alvarez had already been murdered. We thought...”
“No, that’s the trouble, you
didn’t
think. You should have just given up Jimmy anyway, even if those old people had been
Reyes
. You trying to get us all killed, like Alvarez? Like the others? Jimmy and his big mouth started this war, and we’ve gotta end it. We can’t fight them.”
The voices faded, as the kid who took him and what sounded like his boss walked away. Thurston didn’t like his chances if he stayed here. He didn’t like his chances of escape, or of finding his way back to civilization either.
Strange, though, the kid’s resemblance to Chaves. Was he a relative? Thurston figured he’d have plenty of time to think about it, but maybe no time to get the answer, before they came back to do whatever they were going to do with him.
FIFTY-EIGHT
The deputies looked at each other after her dad asked his question. Impatient with the delay, she took her phone out of her pocket again and dialed Lt. Wells’ cell phone. After all she’d been through last summer, he’d given it to her, but laughingly told her if she used it to get a statement from him on an ongoing story, he’d change his number.
“Don’t ever hesitate to call me if you need help.”
Alex figured this qualified. When he answered, she told him no one could reach Kevin Thurston, who was urgently needed at Sells. She added that Dylan was being held on suspicion of loitering and that two deputies were guarding the mayor of Dodge at the Sells hospital on Thurston’s orders, but not executing the warrant they had for her arrest.
“What the hell has been going on over there, Miss Ward?”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Lt. Wells. I think someone with real authority needs to come straighten all this out. I’ll try to have a sensible sequence of events written down for you when you get here.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour. Do I need backup?”
“I’ll let you talk to one of these deputies. Maybe they have a better idea than I do.” She handed the phone to the deputy who’d helped Wanda before. “He wants to talk to you.”
Alex filled her father in while the deputy spoke briefly to Lt. Wells, then handed her phone back to her. Wanda was staring blankly at the opposite wall. Alex went to her.
“Would you like to go back and sit with Hector? Dad can help you, or maybe I could round up a wheelchair so you won’t fall again.”
Wanda nodded. Alex went down the hall toward the nurse’s station to get one of the wheelchairs that she’d seen waiting there. There was no one at the desk so she took the wheelchair without asking and rolled it back down the hallway. She and her dad helped Wanda into it and the entire party trekked around the corner to Hector’s room. The door was closed.
“Maybe the nurse is in there with him,” Alex said. “No one was at the nurse’s station when I was there.” She hesitated.
She didn’t want to barge into the room if the nurse was doing something that would embarrass Hector if she came in. Even if he wouldn’t know, Wanda would. She turned her eyes to her dad and raised her eyebrows. He knocked on the door. Hearing nothing, he opened it.
Inside, Hector lay still. No one else was there, so they rolled Wanda in. Dad was looking at the telemetry machine’s electronic readouts, a puzzled look on his face. Alex went to join him.
“I don’t get these readouts,” he whispered. It all looks like...”
Before he could finish his sentence, a shriek from Wanda made both of them jump and turn. Alex caught a brief sight of one of the deputies putting his hand on his gun. Wanda was standing over Hector, both hands on his face.
“No! Hector! Not yet! Not yet!” Alex hurried to her side and cradled her in both arms, afraid she would fall as she had before. Paul went to the intercom and called “Code Blue.” Alex looked at him in confusion.
“The telemetry... he’s gone, Alex. Someone needs to get here. Where is the floor nurse?”
As soon as he spoke, one deputy whirled and ran down the hall, presumably to hunt down a nurse or doctor. The other, the one she thought of as helpful, stood in the midst of the chaos with apparently no idea what to do.
It took only a minute or so for the sound of running feet bringing the crash cart to echo down the hall. The deputy jumped out of the way as the cart rounded the corner.
“Out, all of you!” shouted one of the medical personnel. Alex eased Wanda into the wheelchair and rolled her out, with Paul in the rear. The doctors, or EMTs, whoever they were, were already working frantically over Hector’s still form.
“He’s gone,” Wanda moaned. “Make them stop. He’s gone.”
Paul stepped into the doorway. “His wife wants you to stop your efforts. She received word from his doctor earlier that he has irreversible brain damage. She’d like him left in peace.”
“Can’t do it, man,” one of them panted. “No living will. We’ll pronounce him if we can’t get a pulse in five minutes.”
Alex heard the remark. Five minutes! If he weren’t already a vegetable, that would ensure it. Her hand tightened on Wanda’s, as the older woman wept. Tears of sympathy rolled down her cheeks as well.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Wanda whispered. “This is my fault.”
Alex didn’t know what to say to comfort her. Her eyes implored her dad for help, but he just shook his head. “Later,” he mouthed.
By the time Lt. Wells arrived, Hector had been pronounced dead and taken to the morgue, while Paul and Alex were protecting Wanda by standing off with the deputies, who had been instructed to execute the arrest warrant in such an event. The helpful one was clearly reluctant to do it and was only supporting his partner because that’s what cops did. Wells’ arrival on the scene relieved Alex so greatly that she burst into tears again.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” were his first words to the group.
“Lt. Wells, we’re very glad to see you,” said Paul. “My daughter has been too busy to get you that timeline she mentioned, but if you can make these clowns stand down so we can make you aware of everything, I think we can clear up most of the confusion.”
Wells glanced at the deputies, who were both bristling at Dad’s words. To her horror, Alex let out a snort of amusement. She was exhausted.
“All right, let’s clear the hall here. I’ll see if there’s anywhere we can talk,” Wells said.
Within a few minutes, everyone but Wanda was in the cafeteria at a corner table. Fortunately, few other people were there with them. The place was about to close, but Wells had arranged permission for them to be there, even after the doors were locked.
Wanda had been taken to the ER for observation. The two deputies, charged with guarding and then arresting her, were shifting nervously in their chairs. They’d been relieved of both assignments by Wells.
“Okay, begin at the beginning and tell me everything,” Wells said. Everyone started talking at once. He held his hand up. “Miss Ward, you first.”
She began with Dylan’s discovery the previous Monday of Herman Alvarez’s murder and detailed what she knew in sequential order through tonight’s discovery of Hector’s death after she called Wells. She left out that she and Dylan had taken Sophia to her house, believing it irrelevant and also not wanting the deputies to know. She’d tell him later in private, if it seemed important.
Wells turned to the deputies, having understood from Alex that her father became involved only when she called him to come help her with Wanda this evening. “Where’s Thurston?”
The not-helpful deputy elected himself spokesman. “Damned if we know. We’ve tried his house, his cell, and the unit radio. Hank, at the office, says he hasn’t been there all afternoon.”
Alex spoke up. “Lt. Wells, is there any such thing as suspicion of loitering? Dylan could help with this, I know, but he’s been thrown in jail with no recourse until tomorrow.”
Wells laughed. “If there is, it’s the first I’ve heard of it. You’re either loitering or you aren’t. And it’s not an offense that usually goes to court. More like a traffic ticket. What do you guys know about this?” The last was directed at the deputies, who shrugged. “Call your buddy, Hank, and tell him to release Chaves. Tell him that I want Chaves to call me.”
Turning back to Alex, he took up his questioning again. “Tell me again why Wanda and her husband were searching for this person, uh, Jimmy Chaves. Is he any relation to Dylan?”
Alex couldn’t answer satisfactorily. She didn’t really understand it herself, especially Jimmy’s relationship to Dylan. She also didn’t want to say anything that would get Dylan in trouble for helping Jimmy leave. “I think Dylan would be the best one to answer that question, Lt. Wells. Unless you want to ask Wanda.”
“I don’t think Wanda’s in shape for questioning. My only dilemma is whether to have Dylan drive over here, or move this little party to Dodge. I’d opt for the latter, except that would leave Wanda alone.”
Alex remembered that Anna was a relative of Wanda’s, of sorts. Maybe she could be persuaded to come and sit with Wanda, while the rest of them went to Dodge to sort out the rest of the story. She excused herself and called home. To her relief, Jen answered the phone. She asked for Sophia and got a number for Anna.
“Anna, this is Alex Ward. Can you come to the hospital to be with Wanda? I’ll explain when you get here. And, by the way, please don’t mention where Sophia is.”
FIFTY-NINE
Dylan was waiting at the sheriff’s department when the rest got there in a caravan with two deputies in a department SUV, Lt. Wells right behind them, and Alex and Paul in separate cars behind him. Wanda must still be at the hospital with Hector.
Wells commandeered the biggest room in the place, which was Thurston’s office. He sat behind the desk, offered chairs to Alex, Paul, and Dylan. He ordered the deputies to leave but remain in the building.
“Now, Dylan, I’ve heard Alex’s story. Let’s hear yours.”
Dylan also began with Herman Alvarez’ murder. He was able to provide more detail, including why Wanda had involved him in the search for Jimmy and how they found Wanda and Hector at a Gila enclave.
In response to Wells’ question, he said he could get them to the turnoff, but doubted he’d be able to remember all the turns after that. It would be virtually impossible to find it again without Jimmy.
About Jimmy, he could only say he’d put him on a plane to Salt Lake City. He couldn’t guarantee Jimmy had gone on to Alaska as planned; hadn’t heard from him since.
“Were you aware you were aiding and abetting a wanted criminal?” Wells asked.
“No, sir, nothing of the kind. I was aware I was helping a relative avoid being killed by
Los Reyes del Desierto
cartel. I was not then, nor am I now, aware that Jimmy was wanted by anyone but Kings.”
Dylan took out the phone that had been returned to him upon his release, intending to call Rick before this got out of hand. He noticed a missed call, with an unfamiliar number. “Anyone know where area code 907 is from?”