The Devil's Highway (6 page)

I greeted her and smiled back. “Hi, Claire. Is the Sheriff in? I’m Roland Longville, a private investigator. I need to speak with him about a missing person case that has brought me to your town.” I showed her my identification as I spoke.

“Sheriff Garrett is out on the road,” she informed me in a soft Southwest Texas accent. “Let me radio him, and I’ll see if he can come in to speak with you, Mr. Longville.”

I could see that she was the combination desk clerk/dispatcher for the office. She sat at a desk covered with three telephones, two computers, and the base station for the department’s radio dispatch. There was also a television tuned to a cable news station playing silently on a bracket in the corner behind her. A very busy lady. Back in Birmingham they might call her the head bottle washer.

The Sheriff, it turned out, was just coming back into town when Claire called out to him on the radio. He appeared around fifteen minutes later, a figure from another time. He was everything a West Texas Sheriff is in Hollywood’s imagination, a tall, serious-looking man with a strong jaw and broad shoulders, and a star on his chest. He was also wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and they fit him well.

After I gave him a brief rundown on my quest, he reflected silently, nodded to himself, and looked me in the eye when he spoke.

“We’ve had our run-ins with the Army of Redemption, to be sure. The old man—Colonel Tolbert—you could reason with him. He was pretty out there, mind you. He had his strange ideas, to my way of thinking, but he kept the other nuts on the compound in line. They were out there getting ready for the End of Time, but they were a fairly quiet bunch.”

Garrett smiled in recollection, but then his face darkened and his tone altered.

“Since his death, though, there have been some incidents. The situation has become rather worrying at times. When Tolbert was alive, The Department of Homeland Security kept agents out here, monitoring the group. That was one big reason they kept so quiet, I suppose. He was a real dissident, you might say. He’d written a book that a lot of extreme types took as the gospel, so the Feds thought he was worth keeping an eye on. After his death, though, the feds went away. Seems they don’t care if the news media doesn’t, either.”

“I’ve read his book, and I agree with you, he was a real kook.” I said, and Garrett laughed. “Is there no leader now?” I asked.

“Most definitely, and that’s our biggest problem. The new leader is Tolbert’s former right hand man. Now he calls himself Colonel Cushman, and if you ask me, he’s a dozen times worse than old Tolbert ever was. The problem is, Cushman likes to stay out of the spotlight. He’s smart, too. He hasn’t written any crazy “Redemption Manifesto” like Tolbert did, to bring him to the attention of the Feds. He gives his speeches with a big picture of Tolbert on the wall, reads from Tolbert’s book, keeping the old man’s paranoid gospel alive . . . but Cushman does what he wants, and doesn’t care if it contradicts the old man’s teachings now and again.”

Garrett tilted his hat back and his voice lowered a bit, looking and sounding more than a little like Gary Cooper.

“Back before the Compound became so isolated from the town, his people and ours did some trading and talked some. From what we know, Cushman rules the compound with an iron fist. When he took charge, he brought in this South African guy, a man named Johannes Kiker, to be his own right hand. I’ve been in Law Enforcement for twenty-odd years, and I’ve seen some bad apples, but I can tell you, that man Kiker is bad through and through. One of the kind who would kill on orders and wouldn’t let it trouble his sleep. Wherever he’s from, I’ll bet he’s got some bad history there.”

Kiker. I filed the name away for future reference. I’d seen the type, and a militia compound would surely be haven for someone like Sheriff Garrett described.
 

“You say you’ve had trouble with the Redemption Army, here in Delgado.”

Garrett paused, as if weighing the wisdom of discussing the subject with me.

“There have been some fights between the Redemption Army members and the townies, to be sure, but that was a while back. When Tolbert first moved in here with his first few hardcore supporters, we had some incidents. There was some tension every time they came to town. There were a few bar brawls for the most part, no worse than the type of thing we see any given weekend. That all changed when Tolbert died. When Cushman took over, he put the bars here in Delgado off limits. I had several of his people in the jail overnight, more than once. It started to look like the Redemption Army was starting its own bail bonds service. Cushman got tired of that, and set up his own bar, out on the compound. Now they can get hammered on the Compound on their day off, and that keeps them out of Delgado.”

“So the only problems you’ve had with the Redemption Army people is bar fights? That’s all?”

He looked very pensive, “No, it’s not. I thought you would already know about the Mendoza murder.”

I shook my head. “I haven’t heard anything about a murder. Who was this Mendoza?”

“Well, it’s all public knowledge now, so I’ll tell you about it. Fernando Mendoza was the murdered man’s name. He was part of an award-winning documentary filmmaking team, and that’s how he introduced himself to me when he blew in here, three months ago. They’d won some kind of big award for a documentary he made on Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur. I’ve seen it, and knew who he was.”

That rang a bell with me. “I’ve seen the Darfur piece. I didn’t know the man who made it was dead.”

“He wasn’t, until about six weeks ago. He showed up out here, like I said, with a Mexican-Indian woman named Andrea Herrera, who was his filmmaking partner. Gorgeous woman, and a trouble-maker, let me tell you. They were intent on making some kind of movie about the Army of Redemption, Tolbert’s legacy, Cushman, the whole ball of wax.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said, somebody killed him.”

“Do you have any idea who?”

“The Army of Redemption, if you ask me. I believe they acted on Cushman’s orders, more specifically. That’s my theory. I can’t prove that, of course. And nowadays, they keep to themselves, out there on the compound.”

“What kind of compound is it?” I asked.
 

“Colonel Cushman’s got money coming in from somewhere. He has to have anonymous supporters or something lucrative on the side. I’ve seen some militia compounds, a few years back, out in Oklahoma. They were just small clusters of buildings, out in the boonies, most of them without even a fence. They relied on their remote locations for security. Not so with Cushman, although the Redemption Army compound is certainly isolated.”

“So Cushman is well set up out there?”

 
Garrett looked dour for a moment, then he smiled slightly. “Know what they say about Texas, everything is bigger out here? Well, the Redemption Army has a big spread, it’s a real base. They’ve got a security perimeter, guard towers, and around-the-clock guards. They’ve even got a helipad out there. Cushman’s got all the licenses he needs, as well as a fake security company set up, to make their automatic weapons and paramilitary equipment legal on paper. The feds were sniffing around when Tolbert was here, but since Cushman’s taken over, he’s stayed quiet or greased some palms, because I haven’t seen a Fed out here in well over a year.”

“What about the Mendoza case?” I asked.

“Do you mean why hasn’t the FBI become involved?” He gave an ironic chuckle. “One murder in the desert doesn’t interest the FBI, Mr. Longville. Investigating such small potatoes is my job. There’s got to be some proof of a Federal crime to interest them, which I don’t have.”

“But you think the Redemption Army killed Mendoza.”

“I
know
that they did. Mendoza had been snooping around the area for weeks, trying to dig up something on Cushman and the Redemption Army. As a matter of fact, I think that Mendoza must have already known something, or had at least caught wind of something from somewhere, and he was out here trying to find evidence. He was making another documentary, to blow the lid off the whole thing.”

“So Fernando Mendoza got too close? Maybe he found out too much?”

“It had to be something like that. Maybe he found out too many
wrong
things. Something they wanted kept quiet out there. Whatever Mendoza dug up was enough to make Colonel Cushman very nervous. Nervous enough to take a big chance in having a public figure like Mendoza killed. In some circles, Mendoza was pretty well-known.”

“True enough, but Mendoza’s dead, and nothing really happened. Cushman’s people are still right where they were, to begin with.”

“Yeah. Maybe that would be different if Mendoza had made his film.” He sighed. “As it stands, though, Cushman played his cards right. The bastard sure is lucky.”

Chapter 8

I decided to grab some coffee and mull over this new information. A part of me just wanted to meet this Colonel Cushman face to face, and explain that what we had here was an errant college boy with a very sick father, and I had no interest in the Redemption Army, one way or the other, and could I please take the lad home, now? Thank you very much, and goodbye, good luck with your Apocalypse and all of that.
 

The Mendoza killing was already working on my conscience, however. If the Sheriff’s suspicions were true, there was a lot more going on in Cushman’s desert compound than a bunch of paranoid survivalist types stocking up on beans and bullets and waiting on The Big One.
 

I headed for a little diner, across the street. May’s Place, the placard out front proclaimed. I liked diners, and this place had the kind of ambience that I associated with my favorite eating place, Sally’s Diner, back home in Birmingham. I had just finished my first cup of coffee when a young woman slid into the booth across from me.
 

“You’re Longville,” she said, without preamble.

I took her in. Hispanic, early thirties, probably some Native American blood, too, judging from her high cheek bones and piercing black eyes. She was strikingly attractive. There was an accent in the background; English was her second language, but she spoke it very well. There was a deadly earnest expression on her face, and a great deal of confidence in her voice. I knew who she was before she told me, from Garrett’s description.
 

“That’s me,” I said, and raised my coffee slightly in greeting.

“What if I told you that the murder of Fernando Mendoza was tied into your case.”

“Are you going to tell me that?”

She smiled, and it was a disarming, honest smile. But it didn’t last long. Back to business. “Fernando Mendoza was a close friend of mine.”

“I’m sorry.”
 

“He was killed because he talked to this young man you are trying to find. Brad Caldwell.”

She suddenly had my undivided attention. “Just how did you know that I’m looking for Brad Caldwell, Miss . . . ?”

 
“Andrea Herrera. Call me Andrea.”
 

“Roland,” I replied. We shook hands.

 
“Mendoza was my partner. He and I have been working on a story about the Redemption Army for almost a year. We were finally getting so close to the truth, and then . . .”

“So I’m told. Your friend Mendoza got
too
close?”

“Yes. The night Fernando died he had gone to meet—without telling me—Brad Caldwell. Since that time, no one in town has seen Brad any more. He is a young man, you know? He used to come into town and watch a movie or get dinner. He was friendly with some of the locals, unlike most of the Redemption Army people.”

She still hadn’t answered my question about how she knew I was looking for Brad, but I let it slide for the moment. “So how did you and your friend Mendoza meet with Brad Caldwell?”

Her middle finger described a slow circle on the table top. She looked down, and then her eyes slowly rose to meet mine.
 

“Mendoza called me that night, after he met with Brad, and he told me about their talk. Fernando also said that he had video and audio proof that the RA was involved in some kind of illegal activity to fund its operations. But he wouldn’t tell me any details, and he never made it back to Delgado alive.”

“And when they found his body, all of the evidence he spoke of was gone.”

“Of course. It was staged to look like a robbery. Fernandos’ wallet was emptied out in the seat; only the money was missing. Everyone at the compound had an alibi, of course; naturally, they were provided by other Redemption Army members. And there was no evidence at the scene of Fernando’s murder to suggest that it was anything other than a robbery gone wrong. But no one here in Delgado believes that.”

She sat for a minute more without saying anything. Then she looked at me with a vacant look that was still somehow intense, as though she was deeply considering a matter that took her thoughts elsewhere.

“You’ll need help with the Redemption Army. I know them better than anyone.”

“You want help, Andrea, not me. You need me to help prove that Cushman ordered your friend’s killing.”

She paused, then nodded. “Yes, of course I do. I was lost and without a purpose for a while after Fernando’s death. But now I want nothing more than to complete the work we started here, to expose Cushman and the Redemption Army. For Fernando.”