The Searcher (25 page)

M
ULCAHY DROVE OFF THE HIGHWAY AND ONTO THE DIRT TRACK, FOLLOWING
the directions the GPS was giving him. He kept his speed down so he didn't throw up too much dirt or shred a tire. The message Tío had sent him had given him map coordinates and a time he had to be there. He glanced at the time-to-destination display on the GPS. It was going to be close.

Through the tall grass he could see a barn up ahead, the only building for miles. He checked the coordinates. This had to be it: rough wooden boards fixed vertically to make the walls, a steep tin roof painted with red oxide to keep the weather out—same as the barn he had just come from. He had been having an internal conversation about what he'd had to do there on the drive over, beating himself up about it and at the same time trying to justify it.

The man had been old, he was probably close to death anyway.

Your father's old too. Would you want him to die like that?

No, but at least I made it quick.

Well, I'm sure he died grateful.

I could have killed the girl, but I didn
't.

Well, I'm sure she's grateful too.

And what choice did I have?

You could have walked away.

Then Pop would have been cut into tiny pieces. And I would have spent my life on the run.

And this is better?

Yes. If it works out, this is better.

Keep telling yourself that.

Thanks. I will. Now shut up.

He slowed as he drew closer, then drove a slow circle around the barn, looking for any parked vehicles or signs of life. He pulled up behind it so anyone coming up the track would not see the Jeep, then he opened his window and cut the engine. Listened. The tall, dry grass shushed all around him and the first sounds of evening were already starting to creep in—chirping grasshoppers, the buzz of green toads by an unseen pond, cactus wrens marking their territories with loud
char
-ing calls that sounded like electronic alarm clocks. High above him a jet was scratching a white line across the sky. Nothing else moved.

He got out of the Jeep and added the crunch of his boots to the sounds of the coming night. He held his Beretta in one hand and his phone in the other. He checked his messages in case Tío had sent him further instructions. He hadn't.

He moved away from the car, studying the surrounding land. The nearest high ground was an escarpment about three miles to the west, too far away for a sniper if that's what this was about. If someone was planning an ambush, they would be out in the grass somewhere. Except the animals were too lively. He was fairly sure he was alone here.

He turned his attention to the barn and approached it from the back, checking the weathered sides for any splits or knotholes that might have eyes peering through them or gun barrels poking out. Despite its weathered appearance, it was actually pretty solid: no gaps, no holes, and still no sign of life.

He made his way around to the front and inspected the heavy lock holding the door closed. It was a thick, six-number rotary-dial combination made from carbon steel. The hasps were steel too, the only indicator that there might be something more valuable than cattle feed stored inside. He pressed his ear to the warm planks of the door and listened to the silence inside for a while, then he stood back and moved around until he was standing on the shady side of the barn. Then he waited.

He checked his phone. Checked his signal. Checked his messages in case he'd missed anything. He thought about calling his old man again, but he had nothing new to tell him. Not yet. If he still smoked, now would be the perfect time to spark one up, but he didn't even have that anymore. What did he have exactly?

A faint whirring noise started up, like the whine of an electric mosquito, and he pressed his ear back to the warm boards of the barn. It was coming from inside. His phone buzzed. New message. Six numbers, too short to be a phone number. Then he realized what it was.

He moved back to the front of the barn, his shadow falling over the heavy lock, and he dialed the numbers into it, copying them from the message. It clicked open and he unthreaded it from the hasps then opened the door.

The barn was about three-quarters full of hay bales stacked one on top of another to form walls with gaps between them wide enough to drive a forklift through. The forklift was parked to the left of the door, a thin skein of cobwebs drifting between the forks and the driv
er's cab showing it hadn't been used for a while. The whirring sound was coming from deeper inside the barn, somewhere beyond the hay wall. Mulcahy flicked off the slide-mounted safety of the Beretta and pulled the slide back to work the oil in a little, then moved inside.

It was hotter inside the barn than outside, the air thick with hay dust and dry pollen. He moved down the main corridor of stacked bales toward the whirring sound, the sweat already beading on his skin and tickling down his spine beneath his shirt. He reached the end of the corridor, peered around the edge, and saw a large area framed by four high walls of stacked bales. The space was empty, a mat of loose straw covering the floor. He stepped into the open, scanning the tops of the four walls from behind his gun. Then the whirring sound stopped.

Mulcahy tensed in the silence, waiting for the crackle of gunfire or the whoosh of an explosion. He spun around as a section of floor started to lift, spilling straw on the ground. Tío's face appeared in the gap and he smiled when he saw the gun pointing at him. Mulcahy flicked on the safety and made sure Tío saw him do it.

“Take this and help me out,” Tío said, handing Mulcahy the framed photographs of his daughters. Mulcahy laid them on a hay bale next to his gun, then hauled Tío out of the hole.

“Hand the stuff up,” Tío called down to two men standing in the elevator shaft, and gasoline sloshed inside cans as Mulcahy hauled them up out of the manhole and laid them on the straw-littered floor.

“Heads or tails?” Tío said from behind him.

“What?”

“Just call it.”

“Tails,” he said, hauling another gas can out of the elevator shaft.

He heard the soft ting of a nail flicking a coin then a slap like someone swatting a mosquito. “Tails it is,” Tío said.

One of the guys handed up a bag and Mulcahy could tell by the solid weight and the way the contents shifted inside that it contained guns.

He turned to place it on the ground next to the gas cans and saw the barrel of his own gun appear and point down into the pit. It twitched twice, the suppressor and subsonic rounds making the shots sound like sneezes, and the fatter of the two guys fell backward, his head banging against the steel and sending a deep bonging sound echoing down into the shaft.

The taller man made a move to reach inside his jacket. “Don't,” Tío said.

He didn't.

“Take it out slow with your finger and thumb and hand it to him.”

He obeyed and handed the gun to Mulcahy.

Tío nodded down at the body of the fat guy. “If the coin had been heads, then it would be you lying dead in a hole. What do you think of that?”

The taller guy looked down at the dead man. He was lying on his back and staring up. There were two small holes in his face, one in his left cheek and one above his right eye, which was red with burst blood vessels. Blood spread from the back of his head like a dark halo. The tall guy stepped away to keep it from getting on his shoes.

“God must have saved you for a special reason,” Tío said. “He must like you, Miguel. Let's see how much. Pick up the last gas can.”

Miguel didn't move and Mulcahy felt the air thicken.

“You're going to pick the can up,” Tío said. “You know you will, so you might as well go on and do it.”

Miguel's eyes flicked between the gun and Tío.

“How's the weather down in La Paz?” Tío said. “Those salty Pacific breezes must be good for aching old joints, no?”

Something flared inside Miguel and Mulcahy thought he might leap up out of the pit and go for Tío's throat. Instead he blinked then stooped down slowly and picked up the gas can.

“Good boy. You think your mother knows what a good son she has? I bet she does. Apple of her eye. She knows who you work for and what pays for her nice little retirement home, all safe and quiet, away from the border towns and all those bad people? You think she knows her good son is one of those bad people too?

“You don't have to answer. It's not for us to decide who is good and who is bad. That's God's business. And God saved you from a bullet, so he must think you're some kind of hot shit. Let's say we up the ante a little and see if he does it again. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to take that can of gas and pour half of it over your dead friend there and the other half over yourself, okay?”

Miguel didn't move, a rabbit frozen in headlights, staring death in the eye and unable to get out of its way.

Mulcahy glanced over at Tío. He had a weird look about him, like he was on some drug that had made his skin go slack and his eyes glassy. A shark's eyes.

“You don't think God will save you this time?” Tío shook his head. “Man, if I was God, that sure would piss me off. Where's your faith, Miguel? Okay, let's see if we can't find something else you believe in more.” He held his phone out so Miguel could see the screen. It was showing an address in La Paz, Baja California, and a noise escaped from Miguel's throat when he read it.

“You know that address?” Tío asked, moving his thumb over the screen of the phone. “Sounds fancy. Let me see if I got someone nearby I can send around and take some pictures so I can see it for myself. Maybe I'll get them to swing past a gas station on their way over.”

Gas sloshed in the can as Miguel unscrewed the cap, his breath
ing getting heavier as he measured what was left of his life with each half twist. The cap came away and he turned to the body and started splashing gas over it.

“Save some for yourself,” Tío said, and Miguel looked up at him, his eyes dark and defeated and scared—and full of hate. Tío held the phone out again so he could read his mother's address on it. Miguel stood up straight, slowly tipped the rest of the gas over himself, then threw the can on the floor, sending another clanging sound echoing down the elevator shaft. He closed his eyes and started to pray.

“So you're talking to God again now,” Tío said. “You should make up your mind.”

Mulcahy still wasn't sure where this was going or how it was going to end. Now would be the time to start asking questions if that's what this was about, but he didn't think it was. He didn't know what this was.

“Get out of here,” Tío said, and Mulcahy and Miguel both looked at him in surprise. Tío pointed at the big red button on the lifting platform. “Hit the button and get lost. Go run to your mama in La Paz.”

Miguel blinked then reached out slowly, still half-expecting a bullet or some fresh brand of cruelty. He pushed the button and the mosquito whirr of the engines started again and the platform began to sink.

“Would you do something like that to save your father?” Tío asked, squatting down and unscrewing the cap from one of the other gas cans.

“I am doing something like that,” Mulcahy replied.

“No. Hurting other people ain't the same as hurting yourself. Ain't the same thing as laying down your life to save someone else.” He grabbed a handful of straw, twisted it into a rough fuse, then fished a lighter from his pocket. “You ready?” he said.

Mulcahy eyed the Molotov cocktail. “Ready for what?”

“The end,” Tío said. He sparked a flame and held it to the straw wick, tilting the can until the flame was roaring around the neck, then he took a step forward and dropped the burning can straight down the shaft.

It took a second for Mulcahy to register what had happened. The roar of the burning fuel filled the pause, getting quieter as the can fell down the elevator shaft, then there was a thud and then there was screaming.

Mulcahy stepped over to the edge of the shaft and an updraft of heat pushed him back. He could see Miguel way below, a bright ball of fire in the shape of a man, beating at himself and bouncing off the walls. He raised the gun he'd taken from him, sighted on center mass, and fired. The shot was thunderous in the elevator shaft and the burning man fell forward. Mulcahy fired four more times until the figure stopped moving.

“Ramon would never have poured gas over himself in order to save me,” Tío said, peering into the shaft.

Mulcahy felt the weight of the gun in his hand. It was an FN Five-seven, a
mata policia
. He had fired five shots, which meant there should be five still in the magazine. He could shoot Tío now and do the world a favor—do Tío a favor too, most likely. But then his father would be killed and dumped somewhere and he would have to live with that forever, and the people he had already hurt would have been for nothing.

“The car's parked in back,” he said, holding out the gun with the grip toward Tío. Tío took it and nodded, like Mulcahy had passed some test. “We should get out of here,” he said, walking toward the daylight and away from the smell of burning flesh.

Not long now—Mulcahy reminded himself.

Just a few more hours and all this will be over.

S
OLOMON RODE WITH THE HERD UNTIL THEY HIT THE RIVER, THEN DROPPED
down into the gully and crossed back to the fire-scorched bank. He slipped to the ground and let his horse drink while he took handfuls of black ash and mixed it into a paste with dirt and water then smeared it on the horse's flanks and back. They would be looking for him in earnest now. He had fled the scene of a murder. He couldn't ride into town the way he had come out, it was too close to the airfield, too visible. But he couldn't ride across the fire-blackened desert either, not on a pure white horse. He continued to camouflage the horse using methods the native tribes had employed for millennia, then did the same to himself, darkening his white skin and hair with gray ash from the ground.

Discovering Old Man Tucker's body had changed everything. His death didn't fit the narrative he had been constructing in his head with Holly and James Coronado on one side of the coin and the town elders on the other. But Holly couldn't possibly have killed Tucker. The body had been fresh when he found it and she was in custody. Also a woman was unlikely to have been strong enough to have de
livered the deathblow through the sternum. He pictured the body in his mind again, the neat slit above the heart. There was something not right about it: the flayed skin, the way he had been . . . displayed. That's what it was like, a display—it spoke of violence and of someone using pain to extract information, but the stab to the heart suggested a degree of humanity as well as skill and control. He thought of the man with the silenced weapon standing calmly in James Coronado's study. A man used to dealing in death. A man who had already been in Holly's house. He wondered if maybe he was looking for the same thing Tucker had been after, the same thing he was now sure that James Coronado had died for. And what had Tucker told him, he wondered, before the killer had delivered the coup de grâce? Judging by the abruptly abandoned mess in Holly's house, Tucker hadn't found anything. Which meant the killer would probably circle back there. Wait for the lady of the house to return. Maybe sharpen the knife he'd used on the old man while he waited for Holly.

Solomon stepped on a boulder and remounted the horse, the smeared mud already almost dry in the warm air.

He thought of her, tied up in a barn with strips of skin removed from her back like Tucker, and kicked the horse forward. They rose up the bank and set off at a gallop across the charred earth, the stallion's hooves kicking up puffs of black ash as they thundered along. Maybe he couldn't save her husband, but he could save her. He needed to warn her, tell her what had happened. He remembered her slipping her phone into her pocket before she left the house. He needed to get that number. He also needed to get a phone.

He could see the town drawing nearer now and activity around the crash site—more uniforms to avoid. He was far enough away that they wouldn't see him, but he didn't want to take any chances. He steered the horse in a wide arc around them and drew closer to the
town. There were a few people clustered around a fire truck, some of them still in their funeral clothes. It set a thought running.

When he had told him that James Coronado was dead, Morgan had looked up, an unconscious gesture that Solomon had picked up on. He followed the remembered line of Morgan's gaze now to where the evening sun was throwing long shadows across the red face of the mountains. And he saw it, about a third of the way up the lower slopes—a cross, made of plain board and painted white so the sun would catch it. The cemetery where James Coronado was buried.

Solomon dug his heels into the horse's flank to urge it forward. They kept records of burial plots at cemeteries—who was buried, special maintenance requirements—and details of living relatives.