Fred’s picture stared up at her from so many years ago-a reminder of how quickly things could go wrong, how reckless Erainya could get when it came to protecting her secrets.
She left the gun where it was, and closed the drawer.
She went to answer the door, convincing herself she could handle whatever came without violence. As long as she was safe, and Jem was safe, nothing else mattered.
8
“Dios mio,” Ana DeLeon said when she came on the phone. “Thought the operator was kidding me.”
“Long time,” I said. “How’s it going, Sergeant?”
Ana hesitated, tacitly acknowledging the mention of her new rank. I hadn’t seen her in over a year, hadn’t called to congratulate her on the promotion, or any of the other news I’d heard.
“Business is brisk,” she said. “Flood washed up some interesting corpses. Had one float out of somebody’s basement last night.”
I pinched the cell phone to my ear, turned my pickup onto Erainya’s street. “So who’s handling the Floresville Five?”
“Ugh. Not us, thank God. Department of Criminal Justice. Fugitive Task Force. They’ve got a command post here, though with the Oklahoma City shooting yesterday, the search has gone federal. Most of the manpower has pulled out and headed north. Why do you ask?”
“What happened in Oklahoma City?”
She told me about the sporting goods store manager and the off-duty cop murdered; a positive ID on two of the fugitives; fairly good evidence that Will Stirman led the robbery.
“With a cop down,” she said, “you know how it goes. FBI, U.S. Marshals-everybody wants a piece of this now. What’s your interest?”
“Stirman isn’t in Oklahoma.”
“No,” she agreed. “He’s heading north. They’re setting up roadblocks on every highway in the Midwest. Problem is: The shit-bag specialized in human trafficking. He’s got contacts everywhere. Knows how to hide and move.”
“Stirman’s here in town.”
Next to me on the bench seat, Jem sighed. He turned over in his sleep.
I was halfway down the block before DeLeon spoke again.
“Okay,” she said warily. “Aside from the fact that San Antonio would be a very stupid place for Stirman to be, seeing how many people know him here-and aside from the fact that every law enforcement agency in the country places him as about halfway to Canada… Why are you telling me this?”
I pulled in front of Erainya’s house. Two unwelcome surprises were waiting for me in the driveway-her boyfriend’s Lexus and an older BMW so god-awful yellow it could only belong to Sam Barrera.
“Tres?” DeLeon asked.
It had taken me a mile of driving to decide to call DeLeon, one of my few friends in law enforcement. I had to tell somebody about Stirman. It couldn’t wait until I spoke to Erainya.
I stared at the cars.
When I’d called Erainya from San Marcos that morning, she’d encouraged me to take Jem out to lunch after soccer, let her catch up on some paperwork. She wouldn’t be expecting us for another hour at least. She’d said nothing about a meeting with Barrera.
“I’m still here,” I told DeLeon. “How much do you know about Stirman’s arrest eight years ago?”
There was a long pause. “Since the jailbreak, the old-timers won’t stop gabbing about it. Fred Barrow-your boss’s dead husband-he was involved. Erainya must’ve told you the story.”
“Pretend she hasn’t.”
I could almost hear DeLeon’s mental gears turning, trying to figure my angle, deciding how much she wanted to tell me.
“All right,” she said. “A rancher named McCurdy tortured and murdered six illegal alien women over the course of about a year. The women were supplied as slave labor by Will Stirman. Would-be victim number seven managed to escape. She got the county sheriff to believe her. When the deputies closed in, McCurdy killed himself. National media came in, started looking into allegations that the county knew about McCurdy’s slave ranch for months, had previous complaints about mistreatment, even returned one woman to his place when she tried to run away. The county needed a scapegoat before their asses got fried in federal probes and lawsuits, so they decided to find the guy who supplied the slaves. Sam Barrera and Fred Barrow both worked the case-Barrera for the county, Barrow for some of the victims’ families. Folks were laying bets the two would strangle each other before they found anything, but they ended up working together. They lined up three solid material witnesses who tied Stirman to the rancher-the illegal who survived and two members of Stirman’s smuggling ring who agreed to turn on their boss. The PIs delivered statements to the police, gave the district attorney more than enough for an indictment.”
“You sound like you don’t approve.”
Another pause, like she was censoring herself. “There are rumors Barrera and Barrow got their results by doing what the cops couldn’t. They bent rules, used bribery, threats, whatever it took.”
“But the case stood up in court.”
“Stirman was scum. The jury would’ve handed him a death sentence if that was an option.”
“What about the arrest itself?” I asked. “Fred Barrow’s notes on the case-he makes it sound like he apprehended Stirman personally.”
“He did. Would’ve been late April ’95. Will Stirman got tipped off things were going against him. He made plans to flee the country. Barrow and Barrera got word of this, like, the night he was planning to leave. Instead of telling the police, the two of them decide to play cowboy and show up at Stirman’s apartment with guns blazing. Just the kind of cool, methodical detective work you’d appreciate. A woman was killed in the crossfire-one of Stirman’s prostitutes. Stirman was critically wounded. He just about bled to death before the police and paramedics arrived. There were some other… irregularities about that night.”
“Irregularities.”
“That’s all you get for free,” she told me. “How do you know Stirman is in town?”
I didn’t answer.
“Look, Tres-I get the revenge angle. The Task Force has considered it. I know SAPD called Erainya and Sam Barrera, along with the attorneys who prosecuted the Stirman case. They were all offered protection.”
“They were?”
“And they declined. The point is-Stirman isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t hang around here. Unless you have evidence that would change my mind. ..”
I stared at Sam Barrera’s yellow BMW. “Can I come by tonight?”
“I’ll be at the office until six. Or you can come by the house.”
“I can make the office by six.”
An uneasy pause, the wipers going back and forth across my windshield. Ana said, “Ralph would love to see you, Tres.”
“Same,” I said. “It’s just… I don’t want to barge in, with the baby and all.”
“You wouldn’t be barging in.”
I said nothing.
“Okay then,” she said. “So…”
“By six,” I told her. “Count on it.”
I folded up the phone.
I waited for a break in the rain before gathering Jem in my arms and carrying him to the front door.
Inside, the television was going. Live footage of drizzle, as if there wasn’t enough of it right outside. The weatherman warned that three area dams were already over capacity.
A leather briefcase sat next to Erainya’s living room couch. Spread out on the coffee table was a picnic
