Traitor, The (9 page)
Slater drove his convertible from Placer Hills to the airport
instead of the work truck he usually preferred. Bella loved northern California
in April. The hot sunny days of summer hadn't descended yet to turn the hills
to brown wastelands. The apricot and plum trees were in blossom, their delicate
pink and white petals littering lawns and sidewalks.
With the top down, air whiffled through her loose knot of
hair, strands escaping the band. Finally she gave up and removed it along with
the tight clips that held it in place.
She'd be a mess when they met Rafe's flight, but what did it
matter? She wasn't trying to impress him anyway. That ship had already sailed.
The only thing about Bella that intrigued Hashemi was the files she had on
Diego Vargas.
When Slater had learned about Bella's arrangement with Rafe,
he insisted on accompanying her to the airport. As sheriff of Bigler County, he
argued, he had a vested interest in where the federal agent intended to poke
his nose. And the dead body at Beale's Lake was county business.
Bella didn't protest. She felt better having Slater along.
Hashemi's flight was late. Because of enhanced security
since September 11, Sacramento International Airport denied access to the upper
level to all but ticketed passengers. Slater and Bella waited by the baggage
claim for the DEA agent to arrive.
She drummed her nails on her purse and checked her watch
again, stood up to check the flights display, and then walked back to the row
of plastic chairs where Slater sat. He glanced up from his magazine over the
tops of his sunglasses. "Sit, Bella. You can't hurry the plane by pacing."
He was right. Checking her watch every few minutes only
added to her strained nerves. She sat down, blew a strand of hair out of her
eyes, and then attempted to tuck the straggly pieces back with the hair clips.
When she began tapping her foot, Slater reached over and placed one large hand
on her knee. His slow smile made her laugh.
It was at that moment, out of the corner of her eye, that
she saw Rafe Hashemi descend on the escalator, an overnight bag in hand, what
looked like a laptop case over one shoulder, and a garment bag over the other.
Bella absorbed the hard look of him while he was as yet unaware of her. The
moment he spied her, he pulled sunglasses on and headed straight her way.
Rafe saw at once that Torres wasn't alone. He hesitated a
few feet away to observe her and the man she was with. Broad-shouldered and an
inch or two shorter than Rafe, he stood up with Isabella, his hand cupped
around her elbow.
Good looking, in an outdoorsy sort of way. Sunglasses hid
the man's eyes, but Rafe detected the hardened assurance of law enforcement in
his bearing. A cop, then.
"Agent Hashemi, this is Ben Slater, Bigler County
Sheriff."
They exchanged handshakes, warily summing each other up.
"Good flight, Agent Hashemi?" Slater asked.
"A slight delay," he smiled. "Security didn't
like me bringing my weapon."
Isabella gaped at him. "You brought a gun on an
airplane?"
Slater and Rafe exchanged glances, and a moment of camaraderie
passed between them.
Slater laughed. "It's a guy thing, Bella."
A puzzled look crossed her face, which the two men ignored
as they turned toward the automatic double doors and walked out into the
pleasant California sunshine. They were silent as they crossed the street to
the space where the sheriff had left his car, a classic convertible in a shade
of baby blue that seemed out of character for the hardened officer.
He tossed the keys to Torres and she grinned widely. "You
trust me with the baby?"
"Don't let me think about it too hard," Slater
warned.
She laughed and slipped into the driver's seat, while Slater
and Rafe stored the luggage in the trunk. As soon as she'd negotiated the
parking lot exit and pulled onto Interstate 80 heading northeast toward Reno,
Slater got down to business and explained the discovery of the dead body and
the heroin overdose.
"You think the heroin was China White?" Rafe
asked.
"It was too pure and we haven't seen that grade around
here before. Never." Slater scratched his head and turned in the passenger
seat to look at Rafe seated in the back.
From his position Rafe could see Isabella's eyes in the
rear-view mirror. She tracked him during the entire conversation, her large brown
eyes luminous. Their gazes met for a moment and she looked away quickly. Why
the wariness? What did this cop mean to her?
"Hard to imagine where that quality dope could've come
from," Slater continued. "We get a lot of the black tar heroin, but
nothing as pure as this stuff."
"Any I.D. on the body?" Rafe asked.
"Nope. Waiting for DMV records and fingerprint hits
through AFIS."
Rafe leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes.
God, he was tired. Nearly forty-eight hours straight and he'd hardly slept.
He barely dozed off when the wailing musical tones of what
sounded remarkably like a Willie Nelson tune startled him awake. Sheriff Slater
reached into his pocket for his cell phone and flipped it open. He listened for
a few minutes with no response other than a few grunts.
"What's happening?" Torres asked Slater in a familiar
tone that made Rafe think she and the sheriff were longtime friends.
"DMV records on the dead body."
Rafe leaned forward, his interest piqued.
"A Hollywood actor, twenty-five," Slater said, "name
of Jacob Foster. Ever heard of him?"
"Nope," Rafe said, looking at Torres. "Are we
supposed to know him?"
"He's a new star on that daytime soap," she
supplied, "called 'The Heart and the Heartless.'"
The look Slater gave her was comical. "You're kidding,
right?"
Isabella laughed. "You've never heard of the show?"
Slater reached over and tousled her hair. "Why the hell
would I have heard of it, Bella?"
"I've never heard of it either," Rafe added.
"What a pair of Neanderthals. Jake Foster is the newest
hottie on the 'tween scene."
"Humph, that explains it," Slater grumbled.
"The important question," Rafe interjected, "is
why a well-known Hollywood star is lying naked and dead in your county?"
The words had a sobering effect, and Slater and Isabella
exchanged a meaningful glance. Slater unloosened his seat belt and turned fully
around so he could look Rafe straight in the eye.
"And you're gonna help us find the answer to that
question, right Agent Hashemi?"
Rafe had a feeling he wouldn't like to go toe to toe with
Sheriff Slater. Should it come to that, the sheriff would be a formidable
opponent.
#
Slater, Rafe, and Bella joined Dr. McKenzie, the coroner, in
the basement of the Sutter Memorial Hospital which housed the Bigler County Morgue.
The medical examiner pulled out the metal drawer which held the body of Jacob
Foster and pulled the sheet down to his waist.
In death Jacob Foster, budding movie star, wasn't as pretty
as on daytime television. Bella stared at the putty-like, sallow flesh of his
face and neck. The Y-shape of the autopsy incision slashed crudely through his
torso. The pathetic body of this young man contrasted sharply with the
ebullient, lively actor Bella remembered from the small screen.
"The toxicology report is on your desk, Sheriff,"
McKenzie said. "But the lab confirmed a lethal dosage of a 97% pure
quality of heroin in the bloodstream."
"Addicts think they're taking a lower quality and
unintentionally overdose," Rafe speculated.
"But where'd he get it?" Slater asked. "You
can't find high-grade heroin around here. Our local addicts prefer meth. It's
cheaper and easy to make." He rubbed his five-o'clock shadow. "There's
been no word on the street about this stuff."
Bella shifted her feet restlessly. She knew the drug
connection was important and Slater had to follow up on it, but she didn't want
to lose focus on the human trafficking problem.
"Let's go back to my office and talk," she
suggested, turning away from the empty body. "We need to tie Foster's
death to Diego Vargas."
Both Slater and Rafe stared at her like she was crazy, but
she spun on her heel and walked to the elevator leading up to the hospital
lobby. They hastened after her, catching the elevator doors as they were
closing.
Slater spoke first. "Let's take Agent Hashemi to his
motel room, and then we can get together and talk about the case."
Bella looked to Rafe for his opinion, and when he nodded,
her fervor died down. They were right. She had a bad habit of rushing into
situations without first thinking through the consequences. She slanted a
glance at Rafe as the elevator rose to the first level. When would she learn?
Slater dropped Rafe off at the Wiltshire Extended Motel just
off Interstate 80 and gave him directions to the courthouse. They agreed to
meet at 4:00 in Bella's office on the second floor. They wouldn't be
interrupted because Charles Barrington would have left by then.
The district attorney never stayed past four. He pretended
he was out and about on county court business, but Bella knew he was just
cutting his workday short.
Slater and Bella decided to have a late lunch in the interim,
and after leaving Hashemi at the Wiltshire, they drove to a local Chinese
restaurant in Placer Hills near the courthouse where she often ate with Slater
and his girlfriend Dr. Kate Myers. This week Kate was in D.C. at a forensic
science conference where she was the guest speaker.
After ordering – walnut prawns for her, explosion beef for
Slater – Bella sipped on her fully-loaded Pepsi and eyed him speculatively. "So
what do you think?"
"About what?"
"Agent Hashemi, of course."
Slater always had the knack of sizing her up immediately.
She could never hide anything from him, much like her older brothers, who'd
always kept close tabs on her in high school. Now he looked at her as if he
knew that she wasn't talking about Hashemi's government credentials.
"Seems pretty competent to me," Slater drawled, "if
a little intense."
"He's aggressive," she said flatly and then leaned
in and lowered her voice. In a small town like Placer Hills, you always assumed
your conversations could be overheard and repeated back to you a few days later
with a gossipy-skewed slant. "He really wants the Vargas case."
"I know that, Bella. I was there when Barrington laid
down the law."
"I can't let him take over my case, Slater."
He lifted one shaggy brow. "Can't or won't?"
She tossed her head. "Same difference."
He touched her shoulder in a reassuring pat. "You sure
you're not letting pride get in the way? Now, hear me out," he continued
when she would've protested. "This Rafe fellow seems like a stand-up kind
of guy, right?"
She nodded grudgingly.
"And even though he's a federal lackey," he joked,
"I don't think he's going to cheat you out of your fair share of the
glory."
"It's not the credit I want, Slater," she
corrected. "You know that."
"Right." He smiled gently. "But one day you'll
have to let go of that." He lifted her chin and made her look at him. "If
you don't, it'll eat you alive."
She batted his hand away. "Sure, sure, you always think
you know everything."
She smiled to let him know she'd take his advice into
consideration, and then turned serious. "I just want to get this bastard,
Ben. Vargas is pure evil and I want him so bad I can almost taste it."
"Eliminating Rodriquez was a big mistake," the man
said, leaning against the car's fender, a cigarette dangling from the corner of
his mouth, "and threatening the agent was even more stupid."
Gabriel Santos placed a hand on the car's trunk and hovered
close to the man's ear. Although they were the same height, Santos outweighed
the man by at least fifty pounds.
"El Vacquero
does not think
so," he said, although he privately agreed.
"Fuck
El Vacquero!"
The man pushed off from
the car, spat out the butt, and ground it beneath his boot. He stabbed a finger
at Santos' chest, a move the bodyguard found both amusing and dangerous. "Vargas
wants my cooperation, he plays by my rules. Rodriquez was a mistake."
The cop had been an invaluable contact for a number of years,
and perhaps it was best to let him continue to think he was in charge. Santos
contemplated him thoughtfully and nodded briefly. "I will pass the message
on."
"Good," snarled the man, his pale eyes eerie in
the dim reflection from the car's taillights. "See that you do. I put my
career on the line for the information I passed on to Diego." He reached
into his pocket and withdrew a set of keys. He opened the car with the alarm
button and settled behind the steering wheel. "I had the situation under
control. Now the DEA's gonna be crawling up my ass."
Santos remained silent. He'd learned long ago how to hold
his tongue and bide his time. One day, when the cop was no longer necessary to Diego's
organization, he would regret the insults that now flowed so easily from his
mouth. Vargas had a long memory.
"Tell Diego I'll deal with the mess he's made,"
the man flung out the window as he pulled away, "but no more hits unless I
give the word.
Capeesh?"
Santos merely nodded again and watched the dwindling
taillights as the man pulled out of the docking area, wondering again at the
man's hubris.
¡Poli del idiota!
Speaking bad Italian to
un mexicano.
If Santos ran Diego's organization the way the police ran
theirs, they would have been out of business long ago. Unfortunately, having a
man like him on the inside made Santos' life easier. For the time being.
He walked the few blocks to where he'd parked the black
Chrysler. Good, the wheels and rims were intact. He could never be certain here
at the docks near the Gerritson Housing Project where the local gangs did not
recognize the automobile belonging to Diego Vargas. Some young gang member
might want to jump in by stealing expensive hubcaps.
The trip to his infrequently-used apartment in West
Sacramento took over an hour, and when he arrived, Santos permitted himself a
single nightcap before retiring to set the alarm for his early morning ride
north to pick up Diego.
Before extinguishing the light, Santos reached into the
nightstand drawer and withdrew the ancient photograph. He had only a vague
notion of why he kept the picture, but he'd had it so long now that its
familiarity was like an old acquaintance, perhaps even a friend.
Its faded colors had taken on a sepia look now and the
corners curled up. Slashes cut by folds and long ago fingering of the photo
made the girl's features nearly impossible to see clearly.
But he knew that she was very beautiful, a woman such as he
had never before seen. That mane of rich chocolate was not easily forgotten.
Santos remembered every glint of the Mexican sun that reflected off her head
and captured the reddish strands running through it. In his dreams, he felt its
silken touch as it slid through his fingers, thick softness like the rich pelt
of a fine breed of animal.
He sighed. He had been a very young man then, easily
captivated by a pretty girl, but he did not think it was his youth that caused
him to remember this particular one.
Ella era muy hermosa – she was very
beautiful
in a fragile, unearthly way. But with a strange core of strength
in her, like the tensile of thin wire.
Santos turned off the light and contemplated the long
journey to pick up Diego at
La Casa de Mujeres. Ay,
he despised the ugliness
of this part of the business.
#
"Why is Torres so bent on making this case?" Rafe
asked as he and Slater waited in the sheriff's small office. "She's
resisted the drug angle with Diego Vargas from the start. Doesn't she
understand it'll be easier to prosecute that case than the human trafficking?"
"You'd better let her explain her reasons for that ...
when she knows you a little better," Slater answered, his feet propped up
on the edge of his desk.
Rafe assessed the office. Crammed with several filing
cabinets, Slater's desk, and the guest chair, it offered little room to turn around.
A wide window looked out into the bullpen where he could see Torres talking on
one of the phone lines.
She gestured wildly with her hands, the receiver tucked
under her chin. A moment later she slammed down the receiver and spat air
through her lips so hard that Rafe saw the loose brown strands tangle around
her mouth.
Catching his eye through the window, she froze a moment, her
lips still pursed, color starting to rise in her cheeks, a pretty pink color
even in the harsh fluorescent lights of the bullpen. She frowned and then
gestured for them to join her in the bullpen.
"Let's go to my office." She gathered her folders
from the purloined desk of a broad man with the face of glistening coal who
stood respectfully to the side.
A smile carved the man's face. "You reckon I can have
my desk back now, Ms. Torres?"
"What? Oh, sure, sorry, Waylon. I'm in a mood today.
Thanks." The smile that lit her features transformed them into the woman
more like the one Rafe had first met in the bar.
Torres' office was more expansive than Rafe had expected for
an assistant district attorney. Located at the end of the second floor of the
courthouse and wedged between two courtrooms, it maintained the elegant,
polished-mahogany look of the historic old building.
She'd made the place her own with a few personal effects
scattered throughout – a photo of a young girl, maybe six or seven with an
older girl who had Isabella's same large dark eyes and wide smile. Another
picture of the two women Rafe had seen in Stuckey's Bar with Torres and an
older woman, their mother he guessed.
"Have a seat." Torres indicated two large,
comfortable-looking chairs in front of a highly polished but alarmingly
cluttered desk.
"What's up?" Slater asked casually, crossing his
foot over a knee and sinking back into one of the deep chairs.
Rafe took the other one which faced the west end of the
building and a floor to ceiling bank of windows that overlooked the side lawn
of the courthouse.
"Santos," she answered in a clipped voice. "That's
what's up." Her lips flattened in a tight line as if the name on her lips
was bitter.
Rafe looked up in surprise. "Vargas' henchman?"
"And his attorney of record, too." Her dark eyes
were large in her pale face. "Nevada County picked him up for speeding. A
friend of mine works in the sheriff's office up there." She slanted a look
at Slater that might've been a token apology for stepping on his toes.
Slater shrugged and spread his hands wide as if he couldn't
care less.
"Anyway, it was a bogus move. They wanted to have a
reason to look inside the vehicle."
"Find anything?" Slater asked.
"Thirty grams of marijuana, single bag."
"Just enough to be a little trouble, right?" Slater
thought a moment. "Was Santos alone?"
Torres nodded.
"Where was he coming from?"
"South. Maybe on his way to
La Casa de Mujeres."
Rafe noted her perfectly accented Spanish and the smug look Torres flashed him.
"Picking up Vargas, you think?"
"Likely."
The cryptic, short exchange irritated Rafe. "What the
hell are you two talking about?"
"The house of wom – " Torres began.
"I know what the damn phrase means," he
interrupted. "What's that got to do with Vargas' drugs?"
"Diego Vargas owns two whore houses in Nevada County,"
Slater explained, "both legit. But Torres thinks he's running at least one
illegal brothel where he supplies his customers with ... special
requests."
Rafe lifted his brows, but he already knew the answer.
"Underage girls," Isabella provided flatly, "some
of them as young as seven or eight."
"Jesus." He hadn't known that, but he should've.
"Right," she confirmed sarcastically, "but I
don't think Jesus had that much to say about it. You still think the drug angle
is more important?"
Rafe shook his head dismissively. "That's not the point
– which one's more important. We could butt our heads against that wall all
day. What we can actually
convict
Vargas on, what'll hold up in court is
the main thing."
"So you say." Torres tapped her foot, still
standing behind her desk even though both the men were seated in front of her.
Rafe looked from Slater to her and back again. "You
have any intel on an illegal house? Any idea where it's located? Evidence of
ownership by Vargas?"
Torres shook her head, and Rafe figured it cost her to admit
to that weakness in her case.
He made a hand gesture as if her silence made his point. "Then
let's talk about drugs. How is Nevada County holding Santos with barely more
than an ounce of weed? He should've been out already."
"They're pushing it," Torres admitted.
"Tell them to spring him," Slater suggested. "You're
right, Bella, it was a bad move on their part."
"He was doing sixty-nine on I-80 coming over Donner
Pass," she complained. "They ran the plates when they pulled him
over, saw it was registered to Santos, and used his parole from Chino to search
the vehicle."
"That's legit," Rafe said.
"Yeah," Slater answered, "but dumb. Now
Scarface knows he's being watched carefully."
"Scarface?" Rafe asked.
"You've seen his picture?" Slater countered.
"Actually, no. I've been looking at Vargas. He's our
main concern," Rafe answered.
"Vargas already knows he's on our radar," Slater
commented. "Santos, not so much. Maybe."
"You should watch out for Santos," Torres warned,
the same distasteful set to her mouth.
"The power behind the throne," Slater added.
"How do you mean?" Rafe asked.
Torres finally collapsed in a heap on her chair. "Diego
Vargas is a very evil man," she explained, carefully formulating her
reply. "But Santos? He's not only bad, he's smart."
"Like a fox," Slater added.
