Left for Dead

31

8:00 A.M., Monday, April 12

Nogales, Arizona

Sheriff Renteria called into his office as he drove into town. “Going to get a haircut,” he told his secretary. “I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

Sheriff Renteria didn’t need a haircut so much as he needed information. In the old days, crooks and cops had found common ground in churches. They may have been good guys and bad guys, but they were Catholic good guys and bad guys, with priests functioning as the diplomats who moved back and forth between them.

That was no longer true. A lot of the younger people on both sides had moved away from the Church. Now the man who stood with a foot in both camps was Sheriff Renteria’s cousin, his father’s brother’s son, the barber Ignacio.

When Sheriff Renteria arrived, the barbershop was empty. Ignacio was sitting in his barber chair, reading a newspaper. He smiled, picked up his cape, and shook it out. “Need a little trim?” he asked.

“A little.”

Manuel didn’t have much to trim these days. Ignacio fired up his clipper and went to work. As long as the clipper was running, neither man spoke.

“What do you hear from Pasquale?” Manuel asked once the shop went silent. They both knew what he meant—that they were talking about the shooting.

“He didn’t do it,” Ignacio answered at once. “The people he works for didn’t do it, either. That was the agreement he made with you, that your guys wouldn’t be targeted.”

That was the informal peace treaty Sheriff Renteria had negotiated with Pasquale years ago, back when he was first elected. Some would have called it a deal with the devil. There had been nothing in writing. The sheriff had met with Pasquale in his father’s barbershop. The two had spoken briefly, then they shook hands. That had been it. The drug business was like a many-headed hydra. An agreement with one division didn’t necessarily cover another, but as far as the Nogales area was concerned, Pasquale had enough influence to make it work.

“Was Deputy Reyes dealing?” Manuel asked.

On the surface, it was a stupid question. Sheriff Renteria had seen the evidence himself—the plastic-wrapped packages in the trunk of Jose’s patrol car; the hundred-dollar bills lying scattered on the ground like so many dead leaves.

“Pasquale says no,” Ignacio said quietly. “At least not for the Nogos.”

“What would happen if he was dealing for someone else?”

“That would mean he was poaching on Nogo territory,” Ignacio said. “Pasquale wouldn’t like it, and it would also take your deal off the table. What if somebody set him up to look like he was dealing?”

In the mirror, Manuel Renteria met and held his cousin’s gaze. “Any idea who?”

Ignacio shook his head.

“We found drugs at the scene,” Manuel said. “If they didn’t come from Pasquale, where did they come from?”

“I’m sure Pasquale is asking the same question.”

Ignacio brushed loose hair from the back of Renteria’s neck, removed the cape, snapped it clean, and folded it up.

“Thanks,” Sheriff Renteria said. “Tell Pasquale I said hello.”

Standing up, he pulled out his wallet and pulled out five ten-dollar bills. One at a time, he counted them into Ignacio’s outstretched hand—ten bucks for the haircut and forty bucks for the tip, in every sense of the word. As far as Sheriff Renteria was concerned, it was well worth it. Ignacio had hinted at a possibility the sheriff hadn’t considered—that maybe Jose Reyes really had been set up.

He thought about it for a time, but not for long. As much as he wanted to believe it, he couldn’t. There was too much compelling evidence that said otherwise.