3

The voice on the other end of the phone stopped Roderick Guerrero in his tracks. Because he hadn’t recognized the number, he’d been curious enough to answer. But from the moment he’d heard the word hello, he’d known it was his father, although they hadn’t spoken in years—ever since he’d graduated from BUD/S training and received his Naval Special Warfare SEAL classification. He still couldn’t say how Bruce Dunlap had found out he was graduating, or the time and date of the ceremony. Roderick sure as shit hadn’t told him. But someone had. After all the years Dunlap had chosen to ignore him—even lied about their relationship—he’d flown to California to attend and looked on; acting as proud as any other parent. The only difference was that his wife sat at his side, her lips pressed tight with disapproval. Edna was the kind of woman who walked through town looking down her nose at everybody. Roderick disliked her even more than he disliked his father.

He didn’t know what to say and had no desire to say anything, so he hung up. He felt no obligation to Bruce. It wouldn’t have mattered if Bruce had been calling to offer him a million-dollar inheritance. Roderick didn’t want his father’s money, his advice, his legacy or his love. His love least of all. He didn’t even use his father’s name. Legally, he wasn’t a Dunlap, anyway. He was a bastard and as such had been an embarrassment to his wealthy white father all the time he was growing up. As soon as he was old enough to contest his mother’s wishes, he’d taken her name instead. She hadn’t been happy about that. He was related to the wealthiest man in town and she wanted everyone to know it. It gave her a sense of pride, a connection to something more through him.

Or maybe she enjoyed it for other reasons. Maybe she got some pleasure from knowing her son’s very existence grated on Edna. But Roderick wanted to distance himself from the Dunlaps and all they represented as much as they wanted to distance themselves from him. He was satisfied with his mother’s name. Guerrero meant warrior. That suited him better. He’d been fighting since the day he was born.

Milton Berger stuck his head out of the conference room a few feet down the hall. “What are you doing?”

Roderick had almost forgotten that his boss was waiting to be debriefed on his latest assignment.

“Nothing.” He started to slide his cell phone into the pocket of his khaki shorts when it rang again.

“Can you shut that off and get your ass in here? I don’t have all day!” Milt snapped. As sole owner of Department 6, Milt couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing longer than five minutes. He was too busy juggling. Always in a meeting or on a call, he wasn’t an average workaholic; he was like a workaholic on speed. Roderick was beginning to think the fortysomething-year-old never went home at night.

But he didn’t care what Milt did in his off-hours. Milt wasn’t the kind of guy Roderick liked spending time with. Milt had six operatives, and every single one of them thought he was a bona fide asshole. What did that say about a guy?

As his phone continued to jingle, Roderick’s thumb hovered over the red phone symbol that would send the call to voice mail. It was his father again. Why the hell was the old man making an effort now? At thirty, Roderick was no longer a dirt-poor Mexican boy with no prospects and no family beyond a weary mother who’d come into the country illegally when she was barely twenty and cut lettuce in the fields of the selfish jerk who’d impregnated her. Whatever Bruce wanted, it was too late.

But Milt’s impatience grated on Roderick almost as much as his father’s untimely call, so he answered out of spite. “How did you get my number?”

“What the hell!” Milt complained.

Roderick ignored him.

“I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”

The question that immediately came to Rod’s tongue was why, but he knew his father’s answer wouldn’t make sense to him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it anyway, so he went with “How?”

“Jorge mentions you from time to time.”

Jorge was Bruce’s overseer. He was also the closest thing Rod had to a grandfather and the only person in Bordertown Rod stayed in contact with. Jorge loved hearing about Rod’s undercover exploits, so Rod humored him by checking in every few months and catching up. The old man had never told him that Bruce had expressed an interest. Maybe he hadn’t; maybe Jorge was attempting to engineer some sort of reunion. It’d be like him. He’d always had a soft heart. Jorge was part of the reason Rod’s mother had never left the ranch despite her difficulties. She knew he couldn’t go anywhere else and make the money he made working for Bruce. And she, no doubt, hoped Bruce would eventually “come to his senses” and accept Rod. Mostly, she’d stayed to see her son eventually have more and be more than she could hope to give if she left. “Since when did the two of you become friends?”

“Time has a way of changing things, Rod.”

“And some things will never change. So are you going to tell me what you want?”

“To hear me out. That’s all I ask.”

Hoping his father was about to lose the ranch and needed a loan or something, Roderick decided to indulge him. To a point. “You’ve got three minutes. Make it fast.”

“I’d like you to come to Bordertown.”

This made Roderick laugh. “You’re joking, right? I’d sooner go to hell.”

“Rod, I think you might be able to help with a situation down here. If half of what Jorge tells me is true, I know you can.”

The gravity of “a situation” should’ve piqued his interest. It didn’t. “I have no intention of helping you with anything. Ask one of your lazy-ass white sons.”

Dropping several F-bombs and claiming Rod’s “ass was grass,” Milt stormed out of the conference room, marched to his office and slammed the door. But Rod wasn’t worried about his boss’s reaction. It wasn’t as if he’d be fired. He’d just busted a large child-porn ring in L.A., which was a major coup. Local law enforcement hadn’t been able to accomplish that in more than a year, and he’d done it inside of three months. His stock at Department 6 had never been higher.

“This isn’t for me,” Bruce said. “This is for her, okay?”

Roderick gripped the phone tighter. “Who’s her?”

“Your mother.”

Now his father had his full attention. “My mother is dead. Partly because she wore herself out before she could reach forty. Partly because you ripped her heart out and stomped on it every chance you could get. You’re the reason she’s dead. You and Edna.” He pronounced Bruce’s wife’s name with the disdain he believed it deserved.

“I’m not the one who encouraged your mother to come to America. That was her decision. And I never promised her more than I gave her. I provided work, that’s all. It was as good a job as she could get anywhere.”

“You gave her a baby, that’s what you gave her,” Roderick growled. “A baby she struggled to take care of, along with her little brother.” That brother had returned to Mexico not long before Carolina’s death. Roderick had lost touch with him, but he thought about Arturo often. From time to time, he considered looking him up. He would have done it, except he was afraid Arturo was dead from some drug deal gone awry. He’d caused a lot of trouble before he left. Chances were that if he’d survived, he wasn’t on the right side of the law. He was one of those restless spirits who could never find peace. At least, that was what his mother had always said.

“I gave her some money…now and then,” his father said.

Rod was surprised he didn’t mention how hard he’d tried to persuade her to get an abortion. Or the money he’d offered her in those early years to leave the ranch, leave Bordertown. “So…what? You paid her medical expenses and gave her a few bucks to help feed the kid you fathered? That means you deserve a medal?”

“No, no, you’re right. I—I didn’t do enough. I’m sorry about that.”

“Life’s a bitch, Mr. Dunlap. Babies don’t go away just because you regret making them.” Especially if the mother refused to get an abortion and refused to give up hope that her child would someday be accepted.

“I don’t regret you. I regret how selfishly I acted. I was…scared. I didn’t want what I’d done to cost me my wife and family.”

Roderick rolled his eyes. “Or your inheritance.”

“My father wouldn’t have been sympathetic. Times were different back then. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but it’s true.”

Bruce, Sr., had never once acknowledged Rod, even when his mother made it a point to cross his path and say, “That’s your grandpa.” She was so proud of her son she couldn’t understand why the male Dunlaps, at least, couldn’t see things her way. It was the male Dunlaps who, in her mind, held the power and controlled the money.

“I wish I could go back and do things differently,” his father said. “But it’s too late for that. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

Roderick glanced at his watch. “Then why are you calling?”

Bruce sighed. “Some racist son of bitch is killing illegal immigrants as they come over the border. Shooting them at point-blank range and leaving their bodies to rot.”

“The only racist son of a bitch I know is you. Besides your father. But he’s not around anymore.”

There was a moment of silence. One that told Rod he’d hit his target. Then his father said, “I deserve that. So would he, if he was alive. But this isn’t about me. Or him. I think this case is more than the local police can handle. They don’t have the funding, the manpower or the experience to deal with it. I’m afraid a lot of people will wind up dead if we don’t get some help.”

Noise, coming from the reception area, indicated the other operatives were returning from lunch, so Rod stepped into the conference room Milt had just vacated and shut the door. He was acting tough, but speaking to his father shook him, made him feel like a little boy again. A hurt little boy. And the hurt resurrected the anger he’d shoved down deep inside. News of the killings brought that anger back, too. He kept imagining women like his mother creeping across the border with the hope of being able to make enough to feed themselves and their families, and being murdered by some vigilante who felt he had the right to take the law into his own hands. It was so easy to feel self-righteous and superior when you had a comfortable home, a safe place to live and a full stomach. “What, exactly, do you expect me to do?”

“According to Jorge, you’ve got the skills to help. If you want to.”

“I’ll have to thank Jorge next time we talk.”

His father ignored the sarcasm. “You won’t believe this, but I’m proud of you.”

“Like you were proud of me when I was cutting lettuce in your fields and you’d come by and completely ignore me?”

Bruce didn’t respond to the jab, but the tenor of his voice changed, grew softer. “You could make a difference to what’s happening here. I know it.”

“Since when did you start caring about Mexicans?”

“I’ve been a member of this community all my life. Do you think I want to see senseless hate crimes tear it apart? I’m not a monster, Rod. I may not be happy about droves of people entering this country illegally, but that doesn’t mean I want to see them murdered.”

“Yeah, where would you be if you had to pay for white labor?”

“I’m good to my workers.”

It was true that he’d been more generous than some farmers. That was another reason his mother had stayed. She interpreted this generosity to mean more than it really did. But Rod didn’t want to give him even that much. Besides, what was happening in Bordertown wasn’t Rod’s problem. He’d finally escaped. No way was he willing to let this draw him back. “I live in California now, Mr. Dunlap. Since my mother died, there’s nothing left for me in Arizona.” Except Jorge. But speaking to him on the phone and sending the occasional package was enough.

“I’ll pay you,” Bruce offered.

“Absolutely not.” He rubbed his temple to relieve the beginnings of a headache. “I don’t want your money.”

“You took it readily enough when your mother died!”

Clenching his jaw, Roderick spoke through gritted teeth. “Are you kidding me? I was sixteen years old and had just lost the only person I had in the world. I couldn’t have paid for a decent burial without that money, and you know it.” That was the only reason he’d taken it. He would never have accepted it if it hadn’t been for her. “Besides, I paid you back. I made a payment every month afterward, even if it meant I went hungry.” He’d had a hard time surviving the next two years. He’d mostly drifted, taken odd jobs as a dishwasher or a field hand or a painter. He’d probably still be rambling around without tether or anchor if not for a certain navy recruiter who’d worked down the street from an office he’d been painting. After badgering him for weeks, Linus Coleman had talked him into getting his G.E.D. and joining the navy. Rod had signed on the dotted line mostly because he’d been promised a free college education. But his commitment to the armed forces had quickly evolved into much more than that. In the navy, he’d found a home, friends who were more like brothers, purpose in what he did, some self-esteem. But it hadn’t been an easy road.

“I never cashed those checks, Rod,” his father said. “That’s your problem. They were money orders. It’s not as if you were doing me any favors by not cashing them.”

“I thought there might come a time when you’d actually include a return address on the envelope so I could send them back. I brought them with me to your BUD/S graduation, but…you didn’t give me the chance to pull you aside long enough to speak privately. I never begrudged you a cent of that money.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I guess…I guess I was trying to point out that there’ve been times when I’ve…tried to help.”

“If that’s ‘trying to help,’ you’re even more pathetic than I thought,” he said, and disconnected as Rachel Ferrentino, a fellow operative and good friend, came into the room.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

She looked concerned, so he plastered his usual easygoing smile on his face. “Nothing. Why?”

“Milt’s throwing a fit. Says you have no respect for his time.”

“It’s not just his time. I have no respect for him.”

He expected her to laugh, but she refused to let him throw her off track. She’d figured out that something significant had occurred.

“That was important, huh?” She eyed his phone.

Trying once again to bury the memories conjured up by his father’s call—and the pain associated with them—he drew a deep breath. “Not really.”

Her eyebrows knotted with skepticism. “You’re full of crap. You know that?”

“That’s what I’ve been told,” he replied, and sauntered past her, chucking her on the chin as if his heart wasn’t racing like a rabbit’s.

The air-conditioning at the station was working double time to counter the heat of another one hundred and ten degree day, but Sophia was far from comfortable. She knew Detective Lindstrom would be showing up any minute. Lindstrom had called while she was at the crime scene, almost as soon as she’d hung up with the mayor, which meant she’d had two agonizing conversations in a row. Lindstrom had heard about the shooting via her police radio and was furious that Sophia hadn’t notified her. Sophia had used the excuse that she couldn’t be sure this shooting was related to the others, not until she’d had a look, but that had—understandably—done little to placate Lindstrom. By the time she arrived at the scene, there’d been nothing left except the tape that cordoned off the area and a spot of blood from the male victim’s body. Along with the limited artifacts found in the victims’ clothing, Sophia had taken the spent shell casings, and the morgue had taken the bodies. Because they were dealing with homicide victims, there’d be an autopsy, but Sophia didn’t expect it to reveal anything she didn’t already know, at least about the manner of death.

Ironing out the sheet of paper with the phone number she’d found on “José,” she picked up her phone. She needed to identify the victims so she could call the Mexican consulate and have them notify the families of the deceased. With luck, the person at this number would be able to help.

Six rings. Then a voice speaking English with a strong Mexican accent told her to leave a message.

She was about to do so, but hung up when Lindstrom slammed her way into the reception area. Sophia could hear the detective’s shrill voice, demanding Grant get Chief St. Claire immediately.

Grateful that Christina, who did the clerical work and disliked Lindstrom as much as she did, was away on vacation, Sophia got up and opened her door. “Detective Lindstrom? Would you like to step into my office?” She almost smiled at Grant’s obvious relief but the temptation disappeared the minute Lindstrom stalked past the three desks in the front lobby. Brown eyes sparking with indignation, she leaned forward as she charged ahead, reminding Sophia of a dog straining at a leash.

“What happened this morning is completely unacceptable,” she said. “Completely unacceptable.”

“So you’ve said.” Sophia told Grant to go home. It was time for him to get some rest. Then she waved Lindstrom in and motioned to a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

“No. I still can’t believe you’d go out there without calling me. We’re supposed to be working this case together, Chief St. Claire. How can we do that if you cut me out?”

Maybe Sophia wouldn’t have tried to cut her out if she could trust her. But Lindstrom had been childhood friends with Leonard Taylor’s sister, and she’d made it clear that she didn’t think Leonard was guilty of wrongdoing. Besides that, the woman was a high-strung pain in the butt. With her red hair slicked back into an unforgiving ponytail, she even looked uptight.

“You’re a bit too intense, you know that?” She closed the door. “Any chance you could calm down?”

Lindstrom’s eyes widened despite the pull of that ponytail and her mouth opened and closed several times. “Calm down? How do you expect me to react to what you did?”

Pretty much the way she was reacting. But Sophia’s first obligation was to bring a killer to justice, and she had to protect herself and her job at the same time. As much as she wanted to believe these murders weren’t politically motivated, the possibility remained. From what she knew about Leonard and those who’d rallied around him, she wouldn’t put it past Lindstrom to “miss” some clue or sit on a piece of evidence long enough to make sure she was publicly shamed, maybe even fired, before the case was solved.

“Look, we have a job to do, so why don’t we get to it?” Sophia said.

“And forget about this morning?”

“Why not? It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“You know it was,” she said. “But you won’t have control much longer.”

Sophia straightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The FBI is putting together a task force. They won’t tolerate anyone who plays the maverick.”

Contrary to what Lindstrom seemed to believe, Sophia welcomed the help. In fact, she’d requested it. “You think I don’t know they’re planning to get involved? I just wish they’d hurry. Because of those shake-ups in the Sierra Vista Resident Agency, they haven’t been able to get on it as quickly as I’d hoped.”

“You want their help but not mine?”

“They’re not good friends with my enemies.”

“You’re the only one who can’t leave the past where it belongs. And I’m tired of you trying to stonewall me. Sheriff Cooper will hear about this.”

“Fine. Call him right now if that’s what it’ll take to get you to focus on something else.” Sophia wasn’t too worried. She knew Cooper liked her. They’d already discussed her concerns about Dinah. He’d explained that he didn’t have anyone else he could assign right now and asked her to have patience and do the best she could. He’d also said that he, too, had contacted the FBI.

She and the detective had a stare-down. Finally Lindstrom huffed, set her bag on the floor and sank into the worn seat opposite Sophia’s desk. “What did you find this morning?”

Sophia took the brown sack containing the shell casings from her desk and handed it over.

Lindstrom opened the top and gazed down at them. “What’s with the bulge?”

“I don’t know, but a defect like that would be handy if we ever came up with the murder weapon.”

“Looks like a .45 of some sort.” There was still a sulky quality to her voice.

“I’m hoping a ballistics expert can tell us the make of the gun.”

“Unlikely. There might be fingerprints, though. Have you checked?”

“I’m leaving that for the crime lab.”

Lindstrom returned the sack with the shell casings. “Anything else?”

“Five hundred pesos. A love note. And a number.” Sophia slid the paper she’d just used to make that call across her desk so Lindstrom could see it.

“That’s not a lot to carry across the border.”

“They generally don’t have much, do they?”

Lindstrom frowned as she considered what she’d been told. “He should’ve had a lot more money on him, close to sixteen hundred dollars. People who cross the border don’t pay their guides until they’re safely across, and it’s not cheap.”

“This couple must’ve had friends or family waiting for them, someone who’d pay when they arrived.”

“You don’t think they were robbed?”

“No.”

“Where was the money?”

“In the male victim’s right sock.”

“He could’ve been robbed,” she insisted. “He might have started out with more. But considering the smell of these people after walking so long in the hot sun, I wouldn’t want fifty bucks badly enough to fish it out of his sock, either.”

“He wasn’t robbed. I’d bet my life on it.”

“Fine.” Leaving the note on the desk, she leaned back. “Who’s at the other end of the line when you call that number?”

“No one yet. I got voice mail. A man, someone with a strong Mexican accent says, ‘Leave a message.’ I didn’t.”

“Any idea what part of Mexico these people came from?”

“No, but I’m guessing they crossed via Naco. It’s the closest port of entry.”

“You could be wrong about that. With the current security measures, more and more coyotes are taking their patrons farther west, near Sasabe.”

Sophia shook her head. “That’s a forty-five-mile walk and can take several days. These people weren’t on their feet that long.”

“How do you know?”

“They weren’t totally dehydrated.”

Lindstrom’s voice turned sharp again as she arched her eyebrows. “They’ve done the autopsies already?”

Once again wishing the FBI would hurry with their promised task force, Sophia grappled for patience. “Dehydration causes your blood to…boil, for lack of a better word. When people who are dehydrated die, even if they actually die of other causes, blood will often ooze from the orifices of the face. There was none of that with these two. They didn’t have any water with them, so they’d been walking long enough to run out of whatever amount they’d been carrying—and I’m assuming they were carrying some because they’d be crazy not to. But they hadn’t been out for days. They weren’t severely dehydrated. They probably came through Naco hoping to reach High way 90 where someone could pick them up, but somehow got off course.”

“More guessing.”

“Yes.”

“So…are you going to contact the Mexican consulate? Or should I?”

“Go ahead.” Sophia was pretty safe letting Lindstrom handle that part. It required a diplomat more than it required a cop. She didn’t see Lindstrom as diplomatic, but if it saved her from being the bearer of bad news—why not? “Tell them I think the first name of the male victim is José and the woman was his wife.” She lifted a hand, explaining before Lindstrom could say anything. “José signed the love note, and the woman was wearing a ring.”

Sophia held the note up for her perusal. Lindstrom studied it, gave a curt nod to signify that she was through, and Sophia put it back on the desk.

“Meanwhile, you’re going to do what?” Lindstrom asked.

“I’m going to use a reverse directory to see if I can get a name to go with this number. If I can track down the owner, maybe he can tell us more about our victims. I’m also sending the casings to the state crime lab, as I mentioned. Then I’m leaving for Naco.”

The last comment distracted Lindstrom, as Sophia knew it would. “Not on the Mexican side.”

“Of course on the Mexican side. Isn’t that where the coyotes are? I don’t know very many people who are trying to sneak across the border into Mexico.”

Lindstrom leaped out of her chair. “But you’re not supposed to leave the country!”

“We have to take a few risks if we want to figure out who killed these people.”

“You think it was a coyote?”

“Not necessarily.” Sophia thought it was Leonard shooting these Mexicans, that he was completely cracking up. Considering the timing and the fact that all the killings fell within her jurisdiction, she didn’t feel it could be anyone else. He was her only enemy, and he had a very good reason to hate UDAs. But logic suggested these murders could also be perpetrated by a renegade border patrol agent who’d grown a little too sick of his job. If that was the case, the UDAs who tried to cross but were caught, and people who worked in the smuggling industry, might be able to tell her more than anyone on the American side. Maybe they’d encountered an agent who was acting peculiar or who was particularly aggressive.

It was a long shot but, at the moment, long shots were all she had. “In any case, a new perspective can change everything.”

“You won’t have any perspective if you get yourself killed. My husband works for the DEA, Chief St. Claire. Trust me. It’s dangerous down there these days. He tells me that all the time. You don’t want to go to Mexico.”

Was Lindstrom really concerned for her safety? Or was she afraid Sophia would solve the case and salvage her job? “Like I said, we have to talk to people on both sides. I need to figure out exactly where our victims came from and how they crossed, meet the people they met while there’s still a chance they’ll be remembered.”

“You could get some, if not all, of that information from the person who has that number.”

“Maybe, maybe not. At this point, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to reach him.” She picked up the phone. “Hang on.” She tried the number; again, there was no answer. But this time she left a message. Then she accessed a reverse directory via her computer to see if she could come up with a name.

“It goes to a prepaid cellular phone,” she said. Which told her nothing. It wasn’t even anything she could trace.

“Maybe he’ll call back.”

“Maybe he will. But I’m not going to sit around and wait.”

“You can’t go into Mexico,” Lindstrom insisted. “What about the other victims? Surely there’s more work to be done there.”

The other victims didn’t offer the same opportunity. By the time they’d been found, their bodies were severely decomposed, too decomposed for a photograph to help with identification or anything else. Documents recovered from the bodies had identified some, relatives who’d contacted a foreign ministry field office in Mexico had identified others, but she still didn’t have information on three of them. And time was running out. Mayor Schilling had said so just this morning. He’d hinted that he was under a lot of pressure, that he didn’t know how long he could keep the city council and Bordertown’s most powerful citizens behind her. But he’d been hoping to replace her with someone “proven” from the beginning, even before they were dealing with a serial killer. To him, she’d always been a stopgap because of her age and now he was convincing others.

He didn’t spell out exactly how much time she had left, but she knew it wasn’t much. Soon she’d be fired. And then it wouldn’t matter that she’d ousted an officer who was as bad as the criminals he went after and had become the youngest chief of police in the state. She’d be publicly shamed and out of a job, single-handedly setting back the cause of women in police work here, in southern Arizona, by a decade or more.

“The Mexican consulate already posted on SIRLI whatever we could supply as far as physical descriptions and came up with nothing,” she said. SIRLI was the Spanish acronym for a computer system that allowed the Mexican consulate to upload information that could be viewed by staff at the Mexican foreign ministry offices—not only in Mexico but throughout the world. “Unless someone comes forward to say they’re missing a brother, a father, a friend, we have little hope of determining the identity of those earlier victims.”

“But we have the shell casings this time. That should provide at least some answers.”

“We also have a fresh kill. If we can retrace this young couple’s steps, we might finally be able to gain some traction in this case.”

“Maybe you have a point.” Grudgingly, she sank back into her seat. “But there’s no way my husband will let me go with you.”

Wouldn’t you know it? The one time Sophia wouldn’t have minded Lindstrom’s company—some company, anyway. “Then I’ll go alone.”