Strawman's Hammock (20 page)

“Got some information on Gary's foreman we need to follow up.”

“Got anything to do with our killing?”

“Honestly, Lou—I don't know if it ties in at all. But there's only one way to find out.”

*   *   *

Jarold Pearson offered to drive Barrett and Cricket out to the deer camp that held Isabel's and a dozen other families. A steady rain drummed on the hood of Jarold's Tahoe. The cold front had stalled against a buffer of humid Gulf air to produce a deluge that washed out roads and culverts all over the county. The flatwoods were, for a welcome change, saturated. Barrett stretched out in the back of Jarold's Fish & Game vehicle, giving Bonet the shotgun seat. Much more room, in here, than in the Impala. And Barrett was grateful to have four wheels pulling.

Jarold informed them that the camp itself was on a lease that could normally be reached in about a half-hour from Mayo's town square, but today it would take longer. He was right. After twenty minutes on the county road, it took another twenty minutes of slipping and sliding through drenched ruts of mud before Jarold found the narrow cleft in a wall of pine that led to the camp.

A community of refugees materialized slowly out of the rain and pine, emerging in shapes at first indistinct before coming into sharper focus. Between swipes of windshield wipers, Barrett made out jerry-rigged shelters, tarpaulins mostly, draped over saplings to make rude canopies or tents. As they entered the camp he spotted two shacks that appeared original to the site, fairly large. Shingles and tarpaper. The doors would not close on their own. They banged open and shut in synchrony with the wipers' cycle, and through those unsecured doors you could see the yellow fade of newspaper that offered dangerous and flammable insulation.

Isabel was playing ankle deep in mud beside the one water pump. Barrett saw one small child squatting alongside. Took him a moment to realize she was urinating. The grownups padding back and forth between tarps or sheds seemed unconcerned for the girl's hygiene or their own. As the lawmen pulled to a stop, Barrett saw Dolores step from the nearest shack to bundle her daughter inside.

She stiffened momentarily as Jarold Pearson debarked. But then Barrett got out of the vehicle to bring recognition and relief.

Barrett let Jarold begin with formal greetings. Hospitality was offered in return—an astounding thing, Barrett thought, given the obvious poverty of the worker's situation.

He accepted instant coffee without sugar or cream, taken beneath a tarpaulin. Dolores introduced Barrett and the other lawmen to Isabel's father—
“Mi esposo.”
Jorge Hernandez stood with his hat in hand during the entire conversation that followed. Probably a half-dozen men joined in. Two women, besides Dolores.

They all knew that the boy who took dirty pictures of Isabel had been brought before a judge and punished because of the Negro teacher. They knew, too, that the black woman who had championed Isabel was Barrett's wife, and that Señor Slade's son was forced to admit his crime and apologize, in writing, for his misdemeanor. Isabel rushed inside, fetching the court-ordered apology for the lawmen's admiration.

Jerry Slade was also restrained by court order from riding the bus, Barrett learned. Isabel could now ride to school without fear of her stalker. But Laura Anne had new antagonists in Principal Alton Folsom and school board member Rolly Slade, the very folks whose blessing she needed to be hired full-time. The laborers seemed to fully appreciate that dimension of Laura Anne's sacrifice. Will she be fired? workers anxiously asked on her behalf. Will Señor Folsom take reprisal?

The fact that Laura Anne was willing to put her job at risk on behalf of Isabel was what ultimately gained her parents' trust and, by extension, the trust of the migrants in the Hernandez camp. And once these curious, nomadic people extended their trust, it was as absolute as a child's.

Barrett asked first if the community could give him more details about El Toro.

They all had the same complaint. You either took the Bull's wages and paid him a kickback or you never baled straw.

“(We would like to move on. Find work elsewhere,”) a soiled Latin man told Barrett. “(But we don't even have money for gasoline!)”

Was the Bull a violent man? Barrett asked.

An old, weather-lined laborer chattered vociferously in response to that question.

“I couldn't follow him,” Barrett turned to Jarold.

The game warden worked the toe of his boot into the sand as if extinguishing a cigarette in the damp earth.

“The grandfather here says that his son was killed by El Toro.”

“Killed?” Cricket was suddenly alert.

A young Latino drew his hand across a throat tattooed with a wreath of serpents.

“Muerte. Sí.”

“But never charged,” Jarold finished his translation. “In fact, the señor blames the police. So I don't know how much credibility we ought to give to his story.”

“Absolutely correct,” Barrett replied, and then returned his attention to the gathered migrants.

“(How did the foreman get his nickname, the Bull?)”

“(Because of the women.)”

“(I see. So he is a ladies' man?)”

That did not translate well. Barrett tried again.

“(Women like the Bull?)”

“(Oh, no,)” came the reply. “(He abuses them. He turns them to prostitution. Rapes them. Even his own niece he pimps.)”

“(His niece. Does she live in a camp?)”

A collective shrug of the shoulders.

“(She started in the straw. But when she began to bleed …)”

“Menstruate,” Jarold translated.

“(… El Toro takes her one night to town. When he comes back she is bruised in the face and arms. But he has a wad of green. Yankee dollars. He brags about the money.)”

“(But she did, too, poor thing.)” Isabel's mother bit her lip. “(She made money for him. But she liked the money herself. She said it was easier than straw.)”

“So you knew the girl?” Cricket's question was translated for the frail Latin woman.

“(Yes, I know her. Her name is Juanita. Juanita Quiroga.)”

Barrett reached inside his jacket and pulled out the manila folder that offered poor protection for the sketch inside.

“(Is this Juanita Quiroga?)”

Barrett displayed Jane Doe's reconstructed image for the workers. A half-dozen heads nodded in unison.

“(Yes,)” Isabel spoke up. “(That's her. Where is she? Where did you get that picture?)”

Eleven

“Now at least we know who the victim was,” Barrett declared.

All four wheels spun mud as Jarold's olive Tahoe pulled away from the Hernandezes and their extended migrant family.

“And we know who her uncle is,” Cricket grated. “Lying son of a bitch. I vote we pay El Toro a visit.”

Barrett agreed. “Even if he's not the killer, he's clearly hiding something.”

“Protecting somebody?” Cricket raised an auburn brow.

“Protecting his job, certainly. Maybe his contracts.”

“Or maybe his boss,” Cricket finished that line of conjecture.

Barrett shrugged.

“Do y'all regard the uncle as a suspect, Bear?”

This from Jarold Pearson.

“Not yet. We certainly don't have enough to warrant an arrest. But this time when we interview Señor Bull, we'll have some leverage. We know he lied to us when he denied knowing his niece. And we can always go after the man for labor violations and assault. So what Cricket and I will do now is interview the man, see if we can carrot-and-stick some useful information from him. That may lead to an arrest down the line or it may not.”

Cricket belched.

“But first we gotta find the son of a bitch.”

“He won't be baling straw.” Jarold straddled ruts silver with water. “Straw has to be dry before it can be baled. There won't be any crews at work in this damp.”

“First week in months it's rained and gives our perp a day to ramble,” Cricket grumbled.

“Not that many places for him to go.” Barrett's cell phone beeped.

“Agent Raines.”

“Sheriff Sessions.” Lou's voice came back like gravel. “Thought I'd see if you turned up anything useful.”

Barrett summarized events.

“You have any idea where this character's staying?” Barrett asked.

“None,” came the answer.

“Well, if you see him can you give us a shout?” Barrett requested.

“If I see him, I'll interview him myself,” the sheriff came back and broke off the call.

“So much for intra-agency relations,” Cricket commented drily, and then to his partner, “and dollars to doughnuts Lou knows where the bastard's staying.”

“He lives in a trailer.” Jarold Pearson surprised them both.

“A trailer?”

Jarold nodded.

“On the backside of Linton's deer lease. Not far from Strawman's Hammock.”

“Does the sheriff know that?”

“I don't know, but we're a whole lot closer to the lease than Lou is. And I know the way in.”

“Warden Pearson.” Barrett settled back. “You have the helm.”

Jarold launched his four-wheeler down the road like a bolt from a crossbow. The sandy loam ribbon on which they traveled was saturated with water. Creeks that hadn't run for months cut sand roads into gullies. The warden's wipers smeared mud across a windshield that offered only momentary glimpses of the road.

“Jarold, we won't find him any faster if we have a wreck.”

“We're fine.”

He braked into a curve. The Tahoe's ass end lost traction, broke free. Off the accelerator. Counter-steer. Accelerate gently.

“We're fine,” Jarold said again and launched down the rain-soaked road.

Within minutes they were at the gate on the boundary of Linton Loyd's deer lease.

“Tire tracks.” Jarold turned off his windshield wipers briefly. “Recent.”

Only a chain on a nail to secure the gate. Barrett got out to open it, then hopped back in the Tahoe as Jarold pulled through. The way in was not a road so much as a swath of beaten undergrowth. Tangles of vine and low-lying cypress blinded the way ahead, slapping the windshield at intervals contrapuntal to the wipers' unvaried rhythm.

They splashed straight through the heart of Linton's deer camp. Bear recognized the gallows that remained. The pickle bucket was still there. Filled to the brim.

Once through the camp, they immediately plunged back into what seemed impenetrable undergrowth, following a snaking trail that opened up to flatwoods rowed in slash pine. The rows of that artificial arbor then guided their way, straight ahead and regular, until the warden turned his four-wheeler hard from their shelter into a primitive watered marsh where they floundered, all four wheels digging to reach solid ground and a grove of palmetto.

“We're there about.” Jarold bottomed out in a small stream between a pair of wild hickories, then pulled up sideways to present the length of his car to a thirty-foot Prowler goosenecked to the bed of a big Ford diesel.

“Roberto's truck.” Jarold nodded.

There was one other vehicle, too, a vehicle familiar, if unexpected. Gary Loyd's Humvee nosed up to the trailer beside his foreman's Ford.

“Looks like the boss man's spending some time with his help,” Barrett remarked.

“You think they're talking about straw?” Cricket asked.

Barrett checked his radio.

“I don't know, but I think we ought to ask.”

Cricket slipped a clip of nine-millimeter slugs into his Clock and cleared the chamber. Barrett unsnapped the leather strap that holstered his own weapon.

“You armed, Jarold?”

“Yes, sir.”

That calm, professional voice.
Goddamn,
Barrett thought.
This man could have been a fighter pilot.

“We'll do this by the numbers,” Barrett went on for the warden's benefit. “We aren't here to arrest anybody, so we don't go in with weapons showing or anything like that. But we're not gonna be stupid, either. I'll approach from the front door. Cricket will cover the back.”

“Be on your left,” Cricket said and opened his door.

“Jarold.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stay with your vehicle. Be ready to back us up.”

The game warden unlimbered the twelve-gauge from its rack.

“I'm set.”

“All right. Nice and easy.”

Barrett followed Cricket out of the Tahoe's passenger door on the side away from Quiroga's trailer. Cricket strolled left to disappear behind the trailer. Barrett waited a moment, waiting to see some movement at the front door. Normally, if you drove up to a man's house in broad daylight, somebody came out. Unless they were preoccupied.

“Hit the horn, would you, Jarold?”

Jarold laid down on his horn. You'd have to be deaf not to hear.

“All right.”

The horn stopped. Nothing, now, but the splatter of raindrops big as thimbles. Barrett's radio broke static.

“I'm set.” Cricket's voice rasped over the ether.

A decision had to be made.

“I'm approaching the door,” Bear declared, his hand pressed instinctively to his Kevlar vest.

He used Quiroga's truck to cover his approach to the side of the front door. Two quick, firm knocks.

“Señor Quiroga? Agent Raines, señor. FDLE.”

Not a blind. Not the sway of weight inside the interior.

“Maybe they're out hunting,” Cricket rasped over the radio, and in a small slice of that split-second, El Toro kicked open the front door.

“I kill him!”

The Bull had Gary Loyd collared at the throat. The foreman had his smaller frame well shielded with Linton's straw-haired son. An automatic weapon pressed like an iron against Gary's temple.

Bear's handgun snapped up.