Troubled Waters (11 page)

Koeppler took the documents and tossed them into the dirt. “These are crap, lady. We both know that. Now get out of the car—slowly—and tell Pancho there to do the same.”

This time the indignation wasn't rehearsed. “His name isn't Pancho,” she replied, her voice steady now. “And none of us is armed, so you don't have to be so—”

“—the fuck do I know you're not armed? Just get the hell out of the van. Now.” The softer Koeppler's voice got, the more dangerous he seemed. Jan opened the van door and was relieved to see Miguel doing the same. No heroics, she prayed. Please, no heroics, no arrogance, no challenge to Koeppler's authority. Just be cool. Snow-cool, coke-cool.

Pilar whimpered as she hauled herself out of the back of the van. She'd been sitting on a jumpseat next to where the wheelchair locked in place. She pulled Manuelito close and looked at Koeppler with terror-filled eyes. In her world,
la policía
shot first, asked questions later. “No my baby,” she pleaded. “Don' shoot
mi niño.”
In some corner of her mind, Jan wondered how much of Pilar's incoherent pleading was real and how much role-playing. They'd worked long and hard to turn this well-to-do San Salvador couple into passable migrant workers; Pilar at least was believable.

For a moment Koeppler looked almost ashamed, almost human. Manuelito at three was a beautiful kid, all huge black eyes and infectious grin. Understanding nothing but his mother's fear, he looked up at the cop with a face full of incipient tears. He clung to Pilar's shapeless dress, carefully chosen to add to her migrant farmwoman appearance, like any kid gone suddenly shy in the presence of a stranger.

It was time for the third—or were they up to the fourth?—line of defense. Miguel, true to his instructions, let himself be searched. Let Walt Koeppler put his free hand into the pockets of the baggy shorts, gun held at stomach-level. Let
La Migra
find the Mexican identification papers that would at least guarantee deportation to a country that wasn't El Salvador, a country that wouldn't torture the little family.

Once back on Mexican soil, they could try again, perhaps going through Arizona instead of Texas. There were churches down there ready to help.

It all depended on how much Walt Koeppler knew. He'd known they'd be on this road, driving a vehicle other than the church van. How much else did he know—and how had he learned it? Jan studied the immigration officer's deceptively bland face, searching for a clue that wasn't there.

“This is more like it,” he said. “At least these papers show a little finesse. A little style. I like that. Of course,” he added, giving Miguel a shove with the gun, “they're just as phony as that batch.” He waved the gun at the papers he'd thrown in the dirt. “Where are you really from?” he asked Miguel, his tone conversational. “El Salvador? Guatemala?”

Jan sighed softly, exchanging a glance with Ron, who sat rigid in his strapped-in chair. Walt Koeppler knew a lot more than he had three days earlier. Then he had been content to accept the Texas forgeries; now he questioned even the Mexican papers. Then he had let her and Dana go; now it was clear arrests were in the picture. She glanced uneasily at the Highway Patrol cop who stood guard behind Koeppler. He was a tall blond with a bright sunburn; his hand rested lightly on the handle of his gun.

A second officer stood next to Pilar; his gun was out and pointed directly at her. They'd come prepared to take prisoners.

Oh, God, prisoners. She and Ron were prisoners. Her first crazy thought: Would they handcuff Ron? Was there any point to handcuffing a man who needed braces to lift his arms as far as his shoulders?

For the first time she felt true kinship with Miguel and Pilar; for the first time she felt vulnerable. How, goddamn it,
how
had this happened? How had Koeppler found them? Short answer: Somebody told him.

Somebody who knew she'd be on this road, in this van, ferrying people who weren't Mexican-Americans, who weren't even Mexicans, had tipped off
La Migra
. She looked again at Ron, still locked into the back of the van. His chest and arm muscles strained against the strap; he looked as if he wanted to break his bonds and fly, Superman-like, to the rescue. He drew in a deep, ragged breath and visibly willed himself to a stillness she knew wasn't natural.

Who? The question burned in her brain even as she watched Koeppler reach for the handcuffs on the back of his belt. Who would do this to them? Who would send this family back to hell?

As the cuffs closed on Miguel, Manuelito squirmed free of his mother and ran toward Koeppler.
“Papi, Papi,”
he screamed, his three-year-old lungs bursting with anguish. Tiny fists beat on Koeppler's khaki-clad leg.

“Manuelito, no,” Pilar cried, rushing toward her son.

“Don't come any closer, ma'am,” Koeppler warned, pulling his gun from his waistband and pointing it at Pilar.

“You,” he said to Jan, “get this kid off me.”

Jan stood numbly at first, unable to will her body to move. Both Highway Patrol cops had drawn their guns. “Everybody stand still,” the older, dark-haired cop said. Jan would have felt better if his voice hadn't been shaking.

She moved with a speed she couldn't believe. She snatched Manuelito around the waist, registering in a few accelerated seconds the child smell of his damp hair, the pudgy roundness of his tummy under her thin arms, the red of his new K-Mart sneakers. She pulled him away, breaking the hold his tiny hands had on Koeppler's pant leg. It was like pulling a kitten off a sweater.

At the same time, Pilar rushed forward, keening. Not even Spanish, just the wordless howl of an animal mother watching her young face a predator. Her body, lithe under the shapeless housedress, moved with speed and power. Koeppler turned the gun on her, his hand shaking.

“Stop right there,” he shouted. Miguel, hands cuffed, lowered his head and drove into Koeppler's stomach like a bull, butting him backward onto the dirt road. Both uniformed cops ran toward him, dust flying under their hard shoes.

A shot rang out. Jan screamed; Pilar shrieked. Manuelito began to howl. “Fuck,” Koeppler shouted, then repeated the shout as blood appeared on his khaki shirtfront.

The two Highway Patrolmen reached Miguel at the same time. One reached for the handcuffs in his belt; the other shook his head as Miguel fell forward into the dirt.

“God, no.” The words were wrung from Ron; his face gray, he gave up all pretense of stillness and pushed himself against his bonds. The claw hands stiffened into what might once have been fists. Pilar threw herself over the still body of her husband, and Manuelito sobbed, “Papi, Papi.”

Jan begged God to take back the last five minutes. She'd stay sober, she'd give up smoking, she'd go back to Toledo and have nothing to do with refugees ever again if that was what He wanted. She had the message now; please don't make Miguel pay for what she had to learn.

Please, God, take back the last five minutes, let them all be sitting in the van, air conditioning on high, bumping over the dirt road on their way to the lake. Let Manuelito point at the
agua
like any little kid on his way to a beach.

The blood on Koeppler's shirt was Miguel's. The Immigration officer holstered his gun and then bent down and lifted Pilar to a standing position. She shook her head and fought, but the uniformed cops cuffed her hands behind her and walked her toward the waiting car.

Koeppler knelt in the dust and turned Miguel over. He opened one eye, then bent over and breathed into Miguel's open mouth.

One of the Highway Patrolmen came back from the car, but made no move toward the wounded man. His drawn gun caught the bright sunlight and made reflections as hurtful to the eye as the glinting lake water.

Back at the blue-and-white, with Pilar sobbing in the back seat, the other cop picked up a hand radio and called for an ambulance. But how far away was the nearest hospital?

Jan stood motionless except for the hand that stroked Manuelito's damp hair. The boy was still crying, but it was quieter now, as if even he understood that what was happening couldn't be changed by tears.

Miguel made an ugly noise somewhere between a gasp and a clogged drain. His hands grabbed at his shirt, sodden with blood where the bullet had struck. The shirt grew redder and redder.

“Grab a towel or something,” Koeppler called out. “Somebody stanch the blood.”

Jan moved toward the van, Manuelito hefted on her hip, her breath coming in short puffs. There were towels in the back, orange beach towels just like the one draped around Ron's shoulder. Camouflage in case they were stopped. She opened the hatch with one hand and pulled them out, her hands shaking.

Ron was shaking too, still rocking, working to break free of the straps that held him in place. She reached out a hand, wanting to touch his cold flesh, to reassure even though she knew he could feel nothing. Then she pulled back. It was Miguel who needed her now. Ron would have to wait.

This couldn't be happening. Not on her first run without Dana.

One of the patrolmen stepped up to Koeppler. “County says they can be here in fifteen minutes, give or take.”

Koeppler's eyes told Jan Miguel didn't have fifteen minutes. She leaned on the van, suddenly light-headed, dropping the orange towels onto the road. Getting them dirty.

No. They shouldn't be dirty. Miguel needed them, needed them to stop the bleeding. They shouldn't be dirty. Jan leaned down and picked up the towels. First one, then the other, with careful precision. She had to do this right, had to get the towels over to Miguel. If she did it right, he would live until the ambulance came. If she dropped them again, if they got dirty, he would die.

It was that simple.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

My beeper vibrated against my waist. I looked down at the number. Local. I nudged Ron and said, “Don't answer any questions. I've got to return a call.” I pushed my way through the press crowd and walked back into the courthouse.

The phone was picked up on the second ring. “Governor Tannock's campaign headquarters,” a woman's voice announced.

John Wesley Tannock. The man I'd lusted after in 1969, the man who'd gone on to an active career in Ohio politics. He'd been governor for only one term and was now running for the Senate.

“May I speak to the governor, please.” I deliberately lowered my voice at the end, making it a statement and not a question.

“May I ask who's calling?”

I smiled, visualizing Wes hearing my name again after so many years. “Cassandra Jameson.”

I was put on hold for a maximum of ten seconds. An efficient office operation.

“Cass?” The deep voice startled me. It took a moment to realize it wasn't Wes's rich baritone, but a heavy-sounding bass. The tuba to Wes's trombone. I should have known I couldn't call John Wesley Tannock without running into his perennial campaign manager, Paul Tarkanian. Tark the Shark.

I pictured him as he'd been in the summer of '69, leaning back in a swivel chair, his feet propped up on a desk, a wet cigar clamped in his teeth. The picture of a ward heeler. Of course, when I'd known him, the ward heeler had sported a mountain man beard and the longest hair in northwest Ohio. Black and curly, it hung down in waves.

“I suppose you cut your hair.” I hadn't realized I'd said the words aloud until I heard Tarky's laugh.

“Bought a suit, too.”

“If memory serves,” I said, “I'm returning your call. Before the operator cuts me off, what's up?”

“We need to talk.”

“About what? And who's ‘we'? You and I and Wes and who else?”

“All of us. Including Jan, unfortunately. I want to set up a meeting, discuss the implications of her return.”

“Implications for Wes's campaign, you mean.” I'd only been in Toledo for a couple of hours and I'd seen at least one hundred “Tannock for Senator” posters.

“I'm only concerned with one implication,” I said, highlighting the word, “and that's how this whole mess affects Ron. Everything else is decidedly secondary.”

“I can understand that,” Tarky said slowly, “but I still think you should hear us out. Wes is due at a fund-raiser at eight, but we could meet after six. The question is, where?”

The operator cut in; I fished in my purse for a nickel and fed the pay phone. Someday I'd give in all the way and get a cellular.

“If you want Jan there,” I said, “then it has to be at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oregon. Jan's been placed under house arrest until the hearing. She's staying in a cottage behind the church.”

“That's a hell of a long way from the Heatherdowns Country Club,” Tarky complained. “I don't want Wes showing up late at his own testimonial.”

“Look at it this way,” I pointed out. “The press won't make the trek either. If you don't roll up in a stretch limo, you have half a chance of getting there without being followed.”

“We'll be there at six.” Tark hung up without a goodbye.

At five, after checking in to the fanciest motel in downtown Toledo, chosen because it had the best accommodations for the disabled, Ron, Zack, and I headed east on Route 2 toward Oregon, the little town where Father Jerry Kujawa had his church.

I was in the front seat, next to Zack. I turned my head to look at Ron, who was strapped in his chair in the rear of his specially equipped van. “Somehow I pictured us all meeting on the front porch of the White House, but that doesn't make sense, does it?”

“I don't even think that house is there anymore,” my brother replied. “I think they tore it down when they put the expressway through.”

“Too bad,” I said, keeping my voice light. “That house had a lot of character. And a lot of memories.”

“You think they should have put up a plaque?” Ron raised one eyebrow; a talent I'd always envied.