Fire and Ice (31 page)

“Dr. Machett isn’t going to like it,” Deb said.

“Too bad for Dr. Machett,” Joanna answered. “That’s why the county pays him the big bucks.”

Mel pulled up and stopped. I waved at her, got back into the Mercedes and drove off with her tailing behind while I followed the confident turn-by-turn directions issued by the Lady in the Dash. Just as she told me my destination was one half mile ahead on the right, I caught sight of a bright blue Chevy Cobalt parked on the shoulder of the road overlooking a bluff. It could have been a sightseer parked there to enjoy the view, but a quick glance at the text message on my phone told me otherwise. It was Jaime Carbajal’s rental, all right, and it was empty.

“Bingo,” I said aloud. It seemed likely that he had parked here and hiked the rest of the way down the hill to Miguel Rios’s house.

“You are arriving at your destination,” the Lady in the Dash announced.

Ignoring her, I drove another three hundred yards or so beyond the turnoff and pulled off onto a wide spot on the shoulder that was lined with mailboxes. That’s where I parked and got out. Mel did the same. Once out of her car, she hurried up to me and handed me a windbreaker.

“Put this on over your vest,” she said. “That way you won’t look quite so much like a cop.”

And a target, I thought.

I put on the jacket. Together we walked back toward the steep driveway that led down to Miguel Rios’s waterfront home at the base of the bluff.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Mel asked.

We had already discussed the matter on the phone. The fact that there were no emergency vehicles in sight made me think that we might have arrived in time to avert disaster, but if it all went bad, it was important to have someone up at the top of the driveway to sound the alarm and call for reinforcements.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Jaime’s a cop.”

“A cop who’s bent on revenge,” Mel said.

I couldn’t disagree with that, and I didn’t.

“Right,” I said. “I get that. My job is to talk him out of it.”

“What if talking doesn’t work?”

“Then we drop back and punt.”

It was a joke. Mel wasn’t smiling. “Is your Bluetooth on?” she asked.

I nodded. I hate walking around with the damned thing in my ear. It makes me feel like I’ve turned into a pod person, but she was already dialing my number.

“I love you,” she said into her phone. “But I’ll be listening every step of the way. If anything goes wrong…”

I could hear her voice coming from two directions, through the phone and not through the phone. On my way by, I stepped close enough to give her a glancing kiss. If she had tried to talk me out of it right then, I might have relented, but she didn’t. We both felt responsible for the part we had played in putting Jaime Carbajal in harm’s way, and we both needed to extricate him.

“Be careful,” she said.

“You, too,” I told her.

With my heart pounding a warning tattoo in my chest, I started down a single-lane paved driveway that wound through a stand of windblown cedars. It was steeply pitched. Walking downhill hurt like hell. It felt like my knees were on fire.

Why does going down hurt so much more than going up? I wondered. But all the while I was walking, I was also listening—listening for the dreaded sound of a burst of gunfire or for a car passing by on the road above me. What I mostly heard, however, were the loud squawks of a massive flock of seagulls that wheeled back and forth in the air far overhead. Other than that, it was quiet—deathly quiet. Scarily quiet.

At last I emerged from the trees and could see Miguel Rios’s place laid out below me. It was sprawled in a huge clearing at the base of the forested bluff. At first glance the house looked like a misplaced Mediterranean villa, complete with white stuccoed walls and a red tile roof. It was surrounded by an expanse of green lawn that ended in another steep drop-off where a series of wooden steps led down to a long dock that jutted out into the water. A big sailboat was moored next to the dock. Clearly Rios had done all right for himself. I also noted there was no sign of a yellow Hummer, although it might well have been parked behind one of the closed doors on the three-car garage.

“Do you see anyone?” Mel asked in my ear.

“Not yet,” I told her.

But even as I said the words I spotted someone. On the far side of the yard, near the steps that led down to the dock, stood one of those new-style swing sets—not the kind of tire-on-a-rope affairs that were in vogue back when I was a kid. No, this one was built of cedar planks that formed a playhouse sort of fort. A slide led down from that. There were also a couple of swings and a teeter-totter. I could see the figure of a man resting his butt on one of the swings. Silhouetted against a bright blue sky, he was too far away to identify, but I was pretty sure it had to be Jaime Carbajal.

“I think I see him,” I told Mel. “He’s on a swing over by the dock.”

“Maybe nobody’s home,” she said.

“Or maybe we’re already too late,” I replied.

Stepping closer, I waved at him. I could see that his carry-on bag lay open on the ground at his feet. I suspected he was armed, but I couldn’t see a weapon, not from there.

“Hey, Jaime,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Get out of here, Beaumont,” he said. “This is none of your business.”

I kept walking, moving closer all the time. “You’re wrong,” I said. “It is my business. I’m a homicide cop too, remember?”

“Tomas Rivera killed my sister.” His voice was taut, a bowstring wound too tight. “Most likely he did it on Miguel Rios’s orders, but do you think the law will ever hold him accountable? No way. I know how the system works. He’s got money. He’ll hire some hotshot attorney to get him off or else he’ll negotiate a slap-on-the-wrist plea bargain. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m going to get him to confess. Then I’m going to take him out.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Sure you will. Let’s see how the old eye-for-an-eye routine works for you. Maybe you’ll end up wringing a confession out of the guy, but if you do it at gunpoint, without reading him his rights, you’ll be winning the battle and losing the war. Nothing he says will stand up in court. He’ll get off on a technicality.”

“He won’t get off because there won’t be any technicality,” Jaime said. “I’m a good shot.”

I was close enough now that I could see the weapon. He was holding it at his side, pointed at the ground. I was glad it wasn’t pointed at me. It looked like a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson. That’s not the kind of handgun you use if you’re intending to wing someone. They call it a deadly weapon because that’s what it is—deadly.

“I know you’re doing this because of Marcella,” I said. “But I’m here because there are five other victims, five victims who are all just as dead but whose names we don’t know. I think there’s a good chance that Miguel Rios killed them as well—that he’s responsible for wrapping them in tarps and setting them on fire. But if you wreak your revenge on Rios for Marcella’s death, you’re taking away any hope of justice for those other families.”

“I don’t care about the other families,” Jaime said. “I care about my family.”

“Like hell you do,” I told him. “You don’t care about anyone but yourself. What you’re planning right now is premeditated murder. What happens to Luis if you go through with this? His parents are gone. Who’ll be left to take care of him? He’ll be devastated.”

Jaime wasn’t persuaded. “He’ll live,” he said.

“And what about the people who didn’t live?” I asked. “What about Marcella and Marco? Is your killing Miguel Rios going to bring them back?”

“Marco was scum,” Jaime spat back. “He deserved to die.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “He was working with the DEA.”

“Marco was a snitch?” Jaime returned. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“It’s no joke. Sheriff Brady told me all about it a few minutes ago. Marco was spilling his guts, and the feds were listening.”

“And they’re claiming that’s why he died?” Jaime scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

“But it’s true,” I said. “With Marco’s help the feds have spent months putting together a program that should bring down the whole cartel. It’s all supposed to happen in the next few weeks and it’s going to work—at least it may work if you don’t screw it up, that is. Because if you go through with this, Jaime, that’s exactly what will happen. The Cervantes guys will know someone is clos
ing in on them and everyone connected to the cartel will disappear like a puff of smoke. It’ll take years to bring them back out into the open.”

“You expect me to believe all this?”

“Call Sheriff Brady,” I said. “Ask her.”

“You’re saying that’s why they killed Marcella, too, because of Marco?”

“We think that’s why, but we don’t know for sure. Now give me the gun, Jaime. Let’s get the hell out of here while there’s still time. No one needs to know you’ve been here. No one needs to know what your intentions were. We just walk back up the hill, nice as you please, drive away, and let things take their course. The DEA says they’re going to bring Rios in. Let’s give them a chance to do just that.”

I don’t think Jaime heard a word I said.

“Miguel Rios had Tomas Rivera kill my sister,” Jaime countered, going back to his original position. “For that he’s going to die.”

“Look,” I explained. “The Cervantes Cartel is like a case of cancer. Miguel Rios is only one little tumor in a whole system of tumors. If you take him out, it’s not going to make any difference, because the cancer has already spread—everywhere. With Marco’s help, the feds have a plan and an opportunity to take out the whole mess. If you blow this and they don’t succeed, then trust me, Jaime, you’ll be responsible for a lot more dead people in lots more places, and every one of those unnecessary deaths will be your fault. And your sister and Marco Andrade will have died in vain.”

“But Miguel Rios will be dead, too,” Jaime insisted.

“And most likely so will you, you stupid bastard!” I growled at him. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

Suddenly I was transported back in time and space. I was standing at the bottom of a waterfall trying to talk Anne Corley out of doing something stupid. And I hadn’t been able to do it. Losing Anne had almost been the death of me. If I lost Jaime Carbajal, too…

The only thing left for me to do was beg. My voice cracked as I spoke. “Please, Jaime,” I said again. “Please don’t.”

Finally I seemed to have his undivided attention and maybe I was getting through, but just then I heard Mel’s voice shouting frantically in my ear.

“Yellow Hummer coming your way with a man and woman inside. I told them we’re from Windermere Real Estate. That you heard he might be interested in selling the property and you came here in hopes of getting the listing.”

But even though Mel was screaming at me, I didn’t take my eyes off Jaime’s face. I couldn’t afford to.

“Someone’s coming, Jaime,” I said evenly. “Give me the gun. We can still walk away.”

I don’t know how long we stood staring at each other, me with my hand outstretched and him sitting casually on the seat of the swing. Behind me I could hear the low growl of the Hummer’s engine as it wound down through the trees. Any moment it would burst into the open and it would all be over. It would be too late.

At last Jaime bent down, put the gun in the bag, and handed it over.

“All right,” he said, “but if it turns out you’re lying…”

The Hummer braked to a stop at the edge of the driveway. A man leaped out and came charging across the lawn. The woman stayed where she was.

“This is private property,” the man yelled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Someone told me you were interested in selling.”

“Whoever told you that was wrong. Now get the hell out of here!”

Jaime looked at him with unmistakable fury, then looked away. He had made his choice and he was abiding by it no matter what it cost him because Jaime Carbajal was a man of his word.

“Sure thing,” I said to Rios, giving Jaime a slight shove in the direction of the driveway. “Sorry to bother you.”

As we trudged back up the driveway, I may have been huffing like a steam engine, but to my astonishment, my knees didn’t hurt.

Not at all.

By the time we reached the trees, Jaime Carbajal was sobbing. It could have been letdown or grief or even a little of both. At the top of the driveway, Mel was waiting in the Mercedes. She had the doors unlocked and the engine running.

“Get in,” she urged. “Let’s get out of here. We can come back for the other cars later.”

And so Mel drove. Like a bat out of hell, of course. After fastening my seat belt, I handed Jaime my phone. “You’d better give Sheriff Brady a call,” I said. “She’s waiting to hear from you.”

As Jaime took the phone, Mel glanced in my direction. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I couldn’t be better,” I said. “The good guys won.”

I WAS SURPRISED WHEN JAIME CARBAJAL ASKED IF I WOULD
serve as a pallbearer at Marcella’s funeral, but given everything that had gone before, I could hardly turn the man down. Mel and I flew down to Tucson late Monday afternoon. Jaime had managed to catch an earlier flight. His sister’s remains, transferred to a deep-blue casket, traveled in the cargo hold of that same aircraft.

Mel and I sucked it up and flew commercial. Going to Disneyland was one thing, but I couldn’t see blowing thirty thousand bucks so we could go to the funeral on a private jet. Besides, once you’ve done that, flying first class seems downright affordable.

Mason Waters, looking miserable and uncomfortable in a rumpled sports jacket and a badly knotted tie, filed past us on his way to coach. He nodded in our direction, but he didn’t say anything. I was glad Jaime had invited him to come, but I was sorry about it as well.
He was grieving, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d be received by Jaime’s parents and the rest of Marcella’s bereaved family.

I needn’t have worried. Jaime had someone waiting at the airport to pick Waters up and drive him to Bisbee. Mel and I had made arrangements to rent a car, and we drove ourselves. The last time I had driven to Bisbee I had been in another rental, an underpowered Kia that barely made it over the mountain pass just outside of town. This time our new Caddy DTS had no such problem. We checked into the Copper Queen Hotel, where we were booked into the John Wayne Suite.

By the time we got to the funeral home on Tuesday afternoon, it seemed as though Mason had been taken into the bosom of the Carbajal family. He sat in the front row, between a woman who turned out to be Marcella’s mother, Elena, and a scrawny teenaged boy who, I learned later, was Marcella’s son, Luis. I wondered if Jaime had told Luis yet that he had a full-ride scholarship to the college of his choice.

When the priest spoke about Marcella as a troubled young woman who had been working to turn her life around, Mason broke down into shuddering sobs. It was Elena who put her arm around the man’s heaving shoulders and gave him a comforting hug. That was when I noticed the watch on her wrist—a brand-new Seiko. It pleased me to know that Mason Waters had chosen to give Marcella’s Christmas present watch to her mother.

I’m used to the well-manicured, perpetually green cemeteries we have in the Pacific Northwest. On that blustery April day, Bisbee’s so-called Evergreen Cemetery was anything but green or well manicured. We gathered in a surprisingly small group of twenty or so as Marcella’s Costco.com casket was lowered into the ground.

Mel and I were on our way back to the Caddy when someone called my name. I turned back to see Joanna Brady hurrying after
us, followed by a man who, although he appeared to be somewhere in his early forties, was already completely bald.

“I couldn’t let you get away without thanking you for what you did for Jaime,” she said, taking my hand and pumping it. “What you both did,” she added, turning to Mel. “I’m Sheriff Brady. This is my husband, Butch Dixon.”

What might have been an awkward moment wasn’t. As Mel and Butch chatted amiably, I turned my attention on Joanna. She seemed older than she had been back when we first met. There was that indefinable something in her eyes—a natural sadness that comes from having seen too much. And I detected a tiny patch of gray in her otherwise bright red hair.

“If you hadn’t intervened…” Joanna continued.

“Look,” I said. “For a while there, wanting to take revenge got the upper hand. What finally carried the day is that Jaime Carbajal is a good man. More than that, he’s a good cop. If he had used that gun on Miguel Rios, Jaime would have been going against everything he believes in—everything we all believe in.”

“Yes,” Joanna said, looking up at me. “Sometimes walking away is the best thing you can do.”

In the old days I would have taken that remark at face value and assumed she was still talking about Jaime Carbajal. But I’m smarter now, at least as far as women are concerned. She had changed the subject.

“And believe me,” she added, “I really appreciate it.”

Moments later, she took Butch’s hand and the two of them did just that—they turned and walked away. I knew as they did so that whatever had happened or might have happened between Joanna Brady and J. P. Beaumont was over, completely over, once and for all. She had put it firmly in the past, and so had I.

“Come on, Mel,” I said. “We’ve got a plane to catch. Let’s go home.”