Astride a Pink Horse (28 page)

Kimiko Takata was having a hard time sleeping, so she’d decided to take a three thirty a.m. bath. The hot water, though soothing enough, wasn’t helping her psyche. Thirty minutes earlier she’d been awakened by a call from the Goshen County sheriff informing
her that Sarah Goldbeck had been murdered; that Sarah’s husband, Buford, had insisted that he call Kimiko immediately; and that the sheriff would come by to interview her concerning the murder the next morning at nine. She’d already had a disturbing late-evening call from an FBI agent named Richter who’d asked for a time he could speak with her as well.

Adjusting the water flow, she told herself that things had started to go downhill from the very moment Rikia had called early in the evening to say he’d be coming home from his conference in El Paso a day later than he’d planned. When she’d told him that Sarah Goldbeck had called her three times in the space of two hours and that she’d sounded scared to death, Rikia’s response, “I’ll deal with her when I get back,” had been anything but reassuring. She’d called Sarah back to let her know about Rikia’s delay, only to be forced to listen to fifteen additional minutes of Sarah’s fearful whining. The whining had finally caused her to scream, “Sarah, shut the hell up!”

Deciding that no hot bath would be able to erase her problems, she leaned forward, flipped up the drain lever, and sat immobile in the water as it slowly swirled away.

Even though he was exhausted, Silas Breen understood exactly why he’d agreed at four in the morning to drive 250 miles from Oklahoma City to Amarillo, rather than to Lubbock. Five thousand dollars! A five grand bonus that F. Mantew, in response to Silas’s fax, had promised, in a surprise call to Silas’s cell phone, to pay if he had his delivery to Amarillo by first thing the next morning. Silas didn’t like the idea of racing to Amarillo and risking another
citation, but with a packet of No-Doz, a thermos of coffee, and his grandfather’s crowbar lying on the seat beside him, he was back on the road, thinking of how he’d spend his extra five grand.

The bonus money had been incentive enough for him to call OT back and let him know he’d checked out his cargo and determined that he wasn’t carrying anything illegal and to assure him that there’d be no need for either of them to call the cops. After agreeing to meet Mantew outside Amarillo at nine a.m., just off I-40 at exit 74, he’d felt euphoric. Knowing that an unexpected bonus was in the offing and that he might also actually finally find out what he’d been hauling, he’d decided that
hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
seemed the most prudent tactic.

Thaddeus Richter was sitting in a wingback chair across from the front desk in the lobby of the JW Marriott at seven a.m., reading the
Denver Post
, when Cozy came down to get a morning newspaper and breezed past him. As Cozy turned to head back upstairs, newspaper in hand, he spotted the spit-shined, black-and-white wingtips and the Panama hat that Freddy had joked about when he’d described Richter to him. Before Richter could stick his head out from behind the newspaper, Cozy asked, “How’s the weather outside, Agent Richter?”

“Just beautiful. Sunny, 72, no wind,” Richter said, unfazed.

“Can’t beat that. So, why the visit? You are looking for me, aren’t you?” Cozy asked, sounding equally nonchalant.

“Afraid not. I’m here to talk to Major Cameron. She’s here, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you should call her, give her a heads-up, and let her know I’m here before we head up?” Richter said, rising from his chair. “Wouldn’t want to put a damper on what the two of you do in private.”

“Chivalrous of you, but there’s no need,” said Cozy.

“Your call,” Richter said, smiling.

Cozy folded his newspaper in half, tucked it under an arm, and, with Richter leading the way, headed for the elevator.

Bernadette, barefoot and dressed in loose-fitting running shorts and a lime-green T-shirt, seemed less surprised to see someone at the door with Cozy than by the fact that Cozy had returned without refreshments. “What, no raisin rolls?” she asked.

“I got intercepted,” Cozy said, rolling his eyes. “Meet FBI Agent Thaddeus Richter.”

“My pleasure,” said Richter, shaking Bernadette’s hand. “Sorry about your raisin rolls. I’ll order some up. On me.”

“That’s okay,” Bernadette said, trying to sound unflustered and leading the two men into the suite’s sun-washed anteroom.

“So, how’d you run us down?” Cozy asked, taking a seat on the couch next to Bernadette.

“I’m FBI, remember?” Richter said with a wink as he took a chair facing them.

“Yeah, almost forgot,” said Cozy.

Adjusting himself in the chair and looking briefly at his shoes, Richter said, “I understand that you’re no longer assigned to the Tango-11 investigation, Major.” He glanced down at the maps that Bernadette had spread out on the floor next to the couch,
seeming to take a lingering interest in the red dots that pinpointed the hundreds of onetime active missile sites in each state.

“No, I’m not.” Bernadette leaned down and gathered the maps and the yellow tablet she’d been writing on into a neat stack, making certain that she placed the tablet facedown on top of the maps.

Richter smiled, leaned forward in his chair, and pushed the tablet aside, partially exposing the map of Colorado. He adjusted his designer reading glasses backward on his nose. “Lots of nuclear payload holes still out there in the Colorado ground, wouldn’t you say, Major?”

“Two hundred or so.”

“And all of them arranged so neatly into such nice little quadrants,” Richter said, continuing to stare down on the red-dotted Colorado map.

“Air force magic,” said Bernadette. “And we prefer to call them ‘flights’ rather than ‘quadrants.’ ”

“I see. So what’s your continued interest in them? I mean, since you’re off the Tango-11 investigation.”

“Just fascinated by maps, I guess.” Bernadette shot a nervous glance at Cozy. A glance that as much as shouted,
I’m winging it here
.

“I think
fascinating
might be the better word choice here, Major Cameron. Fascinating enough, it seems, that you were the first person Buford Kane called after he found his wife murdered last night. Now, that’s a good healthy amount of fascination, wouldn’t you say?” Richter eased out of his chair, knelt, wrinkling the knees of his perfectly creased pants, and slipped the Colorado silo-site map aside to reveal a map of Wyoming. “More
flights and more red dots,” he said smiling and retaking his seat. “But I think I’ll just cut to the chase. We’re dealing with two murders now, in case you missed it, Major. Murders that might very well be related to national security. So, as the old TV ads from the 1980s used to say, which I expect the two of you are far too young to remember, ‘It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile.’ Now, do either of you have any information about those murders that I should know about?”

Glancing at one another, Bernadette and Cozy remained silent.

“It’s your career, Major.”

“You can ease up on the threats, Richter,” Cozy said. “I’m the nosy investigative reporter here, not Bernadette. Since I’m not in the air force and I don’t have some windbag career-conscious colonel peering over my shoulder telling me what I can and cannot do, maybe you should direct your questions my way.”

“Okay. Why not?” Richter said, relaxing back in his seat, awaiting Cozy’s response.

By the time Cozy finished bringing Richter up to speed on everything he and Bernadette had learned during their Tango-11 investigation, starting with Cozy’s visit to the Tango-11 site shortly after Giles’s body had been found and ending with Silas Breen’s mysterious destination-changing trucking assignment, it was a little past nine. Looking satisfied and as if he’d just finished a delightful meal, Richter, who’d taken two and a half pages of notes, ran an index finger slowly down his first page and said to Bernadette, “And the name of that woman again at Gromere Electronics and Engineering?”

“Elaine Richardson.”

“And you’re thinking she and Sergeant Giles may have been more than just friends?”

“Yes.”

Richter flipped the page. “And you haven’t been in touch with Silas Breen himself, just his father, correct?”

“That’s right,” said Cozy, miffed that Richter seemed intent on either repeating or questioning everything he’d just been told.

Noticing Cozy’s frustration, Richter said, “I’ll call the father.”

“Do you plan to do anything about intercepting whatever it is that Silas Breen’s hauling?” asked Bernadette.

Skirting the question and glancing down at his shoes as if to make certain there were no new scuff marks, Richter said, “It’s a beautiful day here in Denver. I’d recommend enjoying it.”

“Meaning we should stay put here and butt out?” Cozy said sharply.

Richter smiled, buffed his wingtips on the backs of his pant legs, and rose to leave. “I meant exactly what I said, Mr. Coseia.” He walked quickly across the anteroom toward the suite’s door, with Bernadette trailing him. “Enjoy the rest of your day. I’ll be in touch.” He smiled back at her as he let himself out.

Bernadette stood at the door for a few seconds, looking bewildered, before walking back into the anteroom to find Cozy down on one knee, flipping through her maps.

“Lots of holes in the ground,” Cozy said, mimicking Richter as he stared intently at the red-dotted map of Wyoming.

“Right at two hundred in Wyoming,” Bernadette said, playing along.

“Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana, Nebraska, Missouri. Why the heck not Ohio or Tennessee or New York?”

“Because they lack a certain Western essence,” Bernadette said smugly.

“Which really means that the holier-than-thous back East would have had a cow if the government had tried to punch a bunch of holes for nukes in their backyards.”

“Probably,” Bernadette said, shrugging. “So should we enjoy the day, like Agent Richter suggested?”

“Absolutely. And you know what? I think we should start by flying south to warmer weather.” Cozy flipped his way slowly through the rest of the maps.

“Lubbock?”

“No,” said Cozy. “Albuquerque.”

“What? I thought we were taking
Sugar
down to Lubbock.”

“Nope. Your maps got me thinking otherwise. New Mexico, after all, is, as it says on their license plate, the ‘Land of Enchantment.’ Besides, it’s where Howard Colbain lives.”

“I thought we were out to track down Silas Breen.”

“We are, and we will, but those maps of yours got me to thinking about, of all things, baseball diamonds, the shortest routes to fly balls, defensive infield positioning, and Texas.”

“You’re talking in riddles, Cozy. Want to translate for me?”

“Okay. I’ll give you part of the translation. I haven’t quite figured out the rest. Your maps and Silas Breen’s ever-changing delivery destination got me to thinking about baseball and Texas. Freddy and I bumped around the Lone Star State working for Freddy’s dad, oil-rigging our butts off, for three college summers.
We both know the place pretty well, in fact. Turns out, if you think about the location of the cities Silas Breen’s been headed for, Amarillo and Lubbock, they’re pretty much two points of a triangle. Wanna guess what the final city is in that triangle?”

“It wouldn’t be Albuquerque, would it?” Bernadette said, feigning surprise.

“You’ve got it, beautiful. Ready to fly?”

“Absolutely,” Bernadette said excitedly. “Absolutely.”

The dry, static-electricity-filled Texas Panhandle day broke blustery and cold, and the weather forecast called for high winds and record-breaking below-normal temperatures for the rest of the week. Parked at an I-40 truck stop two miles east of where he was supposed to meet F. Mantew, Silas Breen had just rummaged through his foul-weather gear and dug out his watch cap and gloves after seeing that the thermometers mounted on his sideview mirrors were reading 38 degrees. He wasn’t as tired as he’d thought he’d be after his four-hour, fifteen-minute mostly predawn highball from Oklahoma City—in fact, he was riding a wave of payday exhilaration, and since he wasn’t scheduled to meet Mantew until nine, he had almost an hour to take a last look at his load.

Shivering and with his watch cap pulled down over his ears, he’d gotten out of the cab, sprinted to the rear of his truck, and unlocked the cargo door when a boy who looked to be in his teens strolled by and asked, “Cold enough for you, mister?”

Silas shrugged without answering.

Looking disappointed, the boy continued across the motel parking lot, never looking back.

A half hour later, after opening three crates, searching through them from top to bottom, and finding the very same thing he’d found inside the crate he’d broken into a few hours earlier, Silas
felt a lot more comfortable about his decision to deliver his cargo early, collect his money and bonus from Mantew, and head back home without calling the cops.

He was back behind the wheel with the engine idling and the heater on high when the boy he’d encountered earlier walked back across the parking lot. “Feels a little warmer now,” he called out to the boy after rolling down his window. Looking detached, the boy kept walking without offering a response.