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“What’d you say?”
“I said, Let’s get to the car, Godoy’s gonna want to hear what we have to say.”
“Okay. Should we go to his house?”
“Yeah, we can make a good impression, show him how professional we are.”
They walk away and Johnny patted his pockets, saying, “Have you got the keys?”
Jesse said, “You were driving, don’t you have them?”
“I thought I gave them to you.”
“You didn’t give them to me.” He hesitated a beat, “You locked the car didn’t you.”
“Yeah, but I gave the keys to you.”
“You didn’t give them to me! You locked them in the car!”
Johnny said, “Well, you’re gonna have to break the window this time. I did it the last time and I cut my hand and it got infected, remember? Took two months to heal.”
“Let’s just get to the car. I’ll break it out all right; I’ll use your head to break it.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The moon silhouetted them as they left: a macabre rendition of two upright grizzlies, growling away at each other as they faded into the deeper darkness of the brush and trees along the Rio Grande.
CHAPTER 8
The first rays of morning sunlight lit the tops of the cemetery’s bushes and trees, not yet dropping full day to the earth. Wayne Rockman knelt beside a flat tombstone and dusted a few leaves from the etched letters. Three y
ellow roses leaned across the grey stone, showing the first signs of whither. Hunter had been here. She always left yellow roses. He touched the inscription and stayed that way for a good two minutes.
His wife, Angie. God, had it been four years? Fragmented thoughts played in his mind: He and Angie, ten years old and playing and laughing; Angie smiling at him and winking during their wedding; holding her at night and feeling complete; the doctor’s prognosis, cancer, flashes of two years of surgeries, radiation, and the terrible effects of chemotherapy. Him asking, hat literally in his hand, for financial help from the richest people in the county and being told, sorry... Seeing Angie, wasted away to a husk, taking her last breath.
Wayne patted the stone, “Miss you, Ange,” a wave of grief swept over him and he had to take a deep breath to steady himself. “They’ll get theirs. They’ll all get theirs.” He stood, took a last look at the grave, then walked to his vehicle and drove out of the cemetery. As Wayne drove through downtown Marfa he thought, I’ve killed five men upholding the law in this county, been working fifteen years and just now making thirty-six thousand a year. He met another car and saw it was one of the ricos who had turned him down five years ago. The man smiled and waved, the morning’s sun glinting off his diamond encrusted Piaget wristwatch. Wayne waved back. The man didn’t see Wayne’s face. Wayne heard the man’s voice from five years ago, “Sorry Wayne, but money’s tight right now.” Wayne remembered the man bragging a month before that, showing everyone at the cafe his watch, telling how, while on vacation in Europe he bargained the Paris jeweler down to thirty-five grand, and paid him right then, cash on the spot.
A Border Patrol vehicle crossed the street in front of him and Wayne recognized Hunter, so he turned and followed her to a convenience store where she parked and was about to go inside. He got out and said, “Hey, you doin’ okay this morning?”
Hunter said, “So far.”
Wayne said, “You got a minute?” He indicated the passenger side seat.
Hunter hesitated, then got in. Wayne sat behind the wheel and smiled at her. “Remember how I said we need to work together?” Hunter didn’t say anything. Wayne continued, “I meant it.” He opened the console and took out some papers. “I’ve got too many things on the burner right now, so I thought you might want to work this one.” He handed her the papers, “Only thing is, like I told you and Raymond the other night after our..meeting, there’s supposed to be a snitch in the law enforcement community up here, so you need to play this close to the vest.”
Hunter was reading, but nodded. She said, “What have you got that’s more important than stopping a ton of marijuana coming across the River?”
“Trying to catch a murder suspect.”
Hunter raised her head, suddenly interested, “You got something on the ones who killed the children?”
“No. This is a different case. Nothing’s turned up on the kids yet.”
“What about the toothpick?”
“That whittled twig? No, nothing. Austin said there was nothing on it.”
