Solomon Creed

52

Mulcahy drove off the highway and on to the dirt track, following the directions the GPS was giving him. He kept his speed down so he didn’t throw up too much dirt or shred a tyre. The message Tío had sent him had given him map coordinates and a time he had to be there. He glanced at the time-to-destination display on the GPS. It was going to be close.

Through the tall grass he could see a barn up ahead, the only building for miles. He checked the coordinates. This had to be it: rough wooden boards fixed vertically to make the walls, a steep tin roof painted with red oxide to keep the weather out — same as the barn he had just come from. He had been having an internal conversation about what he’d had to do there on the drive over, beating himself up about it and at the same time trying to justify it.

The man had been old, he was probably close to death anyway.

Your father’s old too. Would you want him to die like that?

No, but at least I made it quick.

Well, I’m sure he died grateful.

I could have killed the girl, but I didn’t.

I’m sure she’s grateful too.

What choice did I have?

You could have walked away.

Then Pop would have been cut into tiny pieces. And I would have spent my life on the run

And this is better?

Yes. If it works out, this is better.

Keep telling yourself that.

I will. Now shut up.

He slowed as he drew closer then drove a slow circle round the barn, looking for any parked vehicles or signs of life. He pulled up in back so anyone coming up the track would not see the Jeep, then he opened his window and cut the engine. Listened. The tall dry grass shushed all around him and the first sounds of evening were already starting to creep in — chirping grasshoppers, the buzz of green toads by an unseen pond, cactus wrens marking their territories with loud char-ing calls that sounded like electronic alarm clocks. High above him a jet was scratching a white line across the sky. Nothing else moved.

He got out of the Jeep and added the crunch of his boots to the sounds of the coming night. He held his Beretta in one hand and his phone in the other. He checked his messages in case Tío had sent him further instructions. He hadn’t.

He moved away from the car, studying the surrounding land. The nearest high ground was an escarpment about three miles to the west, too far for a sniper if that’s what this was about. If someone was planning an ambush here they would be out in the grass somewhere. Except the animals were too lively so he was fairly sure he was alone.

He turned his attention to the barn and approached it from the back, checking the weathered sides for any splits or knotholes that might have eyes peering through or gun barrels poking out. Despite its weathered appearance, it was actually pretty solid: no gaps, no holes.

He made his way round to the front and inspected the heavy lock holding the door closed. It was a thick, six-number rotary dial combination made from carbon steel. The hasps were toughened-steel too, the only indicator that there might be something more valuable than cattle feed stored inside. He pressed his ear to the warm planks of the door and listened to the silence inside for a while then stood back and moved round until he was standing on the shady side of the barn.

He waited.

Checked his phone. Checked his signal. Checked his messages in case he’d missed anything. He thought about calling his old man again, but he had nothing new to tell him. Not yet. If he still smoked, now would be the perfect time to spark one up, but he didn’t even have that any more. What did he have exactly?

A faint whirring noise started up, like the whine of an electric mosquito, and he pressed his ear back to the warm boards of the barn. It was coming from inside. His phone buzzed. New message. Six numbers, too short to be a phone number. He realized what it was and he moved back to the front of the barn, his shadow falling over the heavy lock. He dialled the numbers into it, copying them from the message. It clicked open and he unthreaded it from the hasps then opened the door.

The barn was about three-quarters full of hay bales stacked one on top of another to form walls with gaps between them wide enough to drive a forklift down. The forklift itself was parked to the left of the door, a thin skein of cobwebs drifting between the forks and the driver’s cab showing it hadn’t been used for a while. The whirring sound was coming from deeper inside the barn, somewhere beyond the hay wall. Mulcahy flicked off the slide-mounted safety of the Beretta and pulled the slide back to work the oil in a little then moved inside.

It was hotter inside the barn than outside, the air thick with hay dust and pollen. He moved down the main corridor of stacked bales towards the whirring sound, the sweat already beading on his skin and tickling down his spine beneath his shirt. He reached the end of the corridor, peered round the edge and saw a large area framed by four high walls of stacked bales. The space was empty, a mat of loose straw covering the floor. He stepped into the open, scanning the tops of the four walls from behind his gun. Then the whirring sound stopped.

Mulcahy tensed in the silence, waiting for the crackle of gunfire or the whoosh of an explosion. He spun round at a noise and a section of floor started to lift, spilling straw on the ground. Tío’s face appeared in the gap and he smiled when he saw the gun pointing at him. Mulcahy flicked on the safety and made sure Tío saw him do it.

‘Take this and help me out,’ Tío said, handing Mulcahy the framed photographs of his daughters. Mulcahy laid them on a hay bale along with his gun, then hauled Tío out of the hole.

‘Hand the stuff up,’ Tío called down to two men standing in the elevator shaft and gasoline sloshed inside cans as Mulcahy hauled them up out of the manhole and laid them on the straw-littered floor.

‘Heads or tails?’ Tío said from behind him.

‘What?’

‘Just call it.’

‘Tails,’ he said, hauling another gas can out of the elevator shaft.

He heard the soft ting of a nail flicking a coin then a slap like someone swatting a mosquito. ‘Tails it is,’ Tío said.

One of the guys handed up a bag and Mulcahy could tell by the solid weight and the way the contents shifted inside that it contained guns.

He turned to place it on the ground next to the gas cans and saw the barrel of his own gun appear and point down into the pit. It twitched twice, the suppressor and subsonic rounds making the shots sound like sneezes. The fatter of the two guys fell backwards, his head banging against the steel and sending a deep bonging sound echoing down the shaft.

The taller man made a move to reach inside his jacket. ‘Don’t,’ Tío said.

He didn’t.

‘Take it out slow with your finger and thumb and hand it to him.’

He obeyed and handed the gun to Mulcahy.

Tío nodded down at the body of the fat guy. ‘If the coin had been heads then it would be you lying dead in a hole. What do you think of that?’

The taller guy looked down at the dead man, lying on his back and staring up. There were two small holes in his face, one in his left cheek and one above his right eye, which was red with burst blood vessels. Blood spread from the back of his head like a dark halo. The tall guy stepped away to stop it getting on his shoes.

‘God must have saved you for a special reason,’ Tío said. ‘He must like you, Miguel. Let’s see how much. Pick up the last gas can.’

Miguel didn’t move and Mulcahy felt the air thicken.

‘You’re going to pick the can up,’ Tío said. ‘You know you will, so you might as well get on and do it.’

Miguel’s eyes flicked between the gun and Tío.

‘How’s the weather down in La Paz?’ Tío said. ‘Those salty Pacific breezes must be good for aching old joints, no?’

Something flared inside Miguel and Mulcahy thought he might leap up out of the pit and go for Tío’s throat. Instead he blinked then stooped down slowly and picked up the gas can.

‘Good boy. You think your mother knows what a good son she has? I bet she does. Apple of her eye. She knows who you work for and what pays for her nice little retirement home, all safe and quiet, away from the border towns and all those bad people? You think she knows her good son is bad people too?

‘You don’t have to answer. It’s not for us to decide who is good and who is bad. That’s God’s business. And God saved you from a bullet so He must think you’re some kind of hot shit. Let’s say we up the ante a little and see if he does it again. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to take that can of gas and pour half of it over your dead friend there and the other half over yourself, OK?’

Miguel didn’t move, a rabbit frozen in headlights, staring death in the eye and unable to get out of its way.

Mulcahy glanced over at Tío. He had a weird look about him, like he was on some drug that had made his skin go slack and his eyes glassy. Shark’s eyes.

‘You don’t think God will save you this time?’ Tío shook his head. ‘Man, if I was God, that sure would piss me off. Where’s your faith, Miguel? OK, let’s see if we can’t find something else you believe in more.’ He held his phone out so Miguel could see the screen. It was showing an address in LaPaz, Baja California, and a moan escaped from Miguel’s throat when he read it.

‘You know that address?’ Tío asked, moving his thumb over the screen of the phone. ‘Sounds fancy. Let me see if I got someone nearby I can send round and take some pictures so I can see for myself. Maybe I’ll get them to swing past a gas station on their way over.’

Gas sloshed in the can as Miguel unscrewed the cap, his breathing getting heavier as he measured what was left of his life with each half-twist. The cap came away and he turned to the body and started splashing gas over it.

‘Save some for yourself,’ Tío said, and Miguel looked up at him, his eyes dark and defeated and full of hate. Tío held the phone out again so he could read his mother’s address on it. Miguel stood up straight, slowly tipped the rest of the gas over himself then threw the can on the floor, sending another clanging sound echoing down the elevator shaft. He closed his eyes and started to pray.

‘So you’re talking to God again now,’ Tío said. ‘You should make your mind up.’

Mulcahy still wasn’t sure where this was going or how it was going to end. Now would be the time to start asking questions if that’s what this was about, but he didn’t think it was. He didn’t know what this was.

‘Get out of here,’ Tío said, and Mulcahy and Miguel both looked at him in surprise. Tío pointed at the big red button on the lifting platform. ‘Hit the button and get lost. Go run to your momma in La Paz.’

Miguel blinked then reached out slowly, still half-expecting a bullet or some fresh brand of cruelty. He pushed the button and the mosquito whirr of the engines started again as the platform began to sink down.

‘Would you do something like that to save your father?’ Tío asked, squatting down and unscrewing the cap from one of the other gas cans.

‘I am doing something like that,’ Mulcahy replied.

‘No. Hurting other people ain’t the same as hurting yourself. Ain’t the same thing as laying down your life to save someone elses.’ He grabbed a handful of straw, twisted it into the open neck of the can then fished a lighter from his pocket. ‘You ready?’ he said.

Mulcahy eyed the Molotov cocktail. ‘Ready for what?’

‘The end,’ Tío said. He sparked a flame and held it to the straw wick, tilting the can until the flame was roaring around the neck, then he took a step forward and dropped the burning can straight down the shaft.

It took a second for Mulcahy to register what had happened. The roar of the burning fuel filled the pause, getting quieter as the can fell down the elevator shaft, then there was a thud, and then there was screaming.

Mulcahy stepped over to the edge of the shaft and an updraft of heat pushed him back. He could see Miguel way below, a bright ball of fire in the shape of a man, beating at himself and bouncing off the walls. He raised the gun he’d taken off him, sighted centre mass and fired. The shot was thunderous in the elevator shaft and the burning man fell forward. Mulcahy fired four more times until the figure stopped moving.

‘Ramon would never have poured gas over himself in order to save me,’ Tío said, peering into the shaft.

Mulcahy felt the weight of the gun in his hand. It was an FN Five-seven, a mata policia. He had fired five shots, which meant there should be five still in the magazine. He could shoot Tío now and do the world a favour — do Tío a favour too, most likely. But then his father would be killed and dumped somewhere and he would have to live with that forever, and the people he had already hurt would have been for nothing.

‘The car’s parked in back,’ he said, holding out the gun with the grip towards Tío. Tío took it and nodded, like Mulcahy had passed some test. ‘We should get out of here,’ he said, walking towards the daylight and away from the smell of burning flesh.

Not long now — Mulcahy reminded himself.

Just a few more hours and all this would be over.

53

Solomon rode with the herd until they hit the river then dropped down into the gully and crossed back to the fire-scorched bank. He slipped to the ground and let his horse drink while he took handfuls of black ash and mixed it into a paste with dirt and water then smeared it on the horse’s flanks and back. They would be looking for him in earnest now. He had fled the scene of a murder. He couldn’t ride into town the way he had come out: too close to the airfield, too visible. But he couldn’t ride across the fire-blackened desert either, not on a pure white horse. He continued to camouflage the horse using methods the native tribes had employed for millennia then did the same to himself, darkening his white skin and hair with grey ash from the ground.

Discovering Old Man Tucker’s body had changed everything. His death didn’t fit the narrative he had been constructing in his head, with Holly and James Coronado on one side of the coin and the town elders on the other. But Holly couldn’t possibly have killed him. The body had been fresh when he found it and she was in custody. Also a woman was unlikely to have been strong enough to have delivered the death blow through the sternum. He pictured the body in his mind again, the neat slit above the heart. There was something not right about it: the flayed skin, the way he had been … displayed. That’s what it was like, a display — it spoke of violence and of someone using pain to extract information, but the stab to the heart suggested a degree of humanity as well as skill and control. He thought of the man with the silenced weapon standing calmly in James Coronado’s study. A man used to dealing in death. A man who had already been in Holly’s house. He wondered if maybe he was looking for the same thing Tucker had been after, the same thing he was now sure that James Coronado had died for. And what had Tucker told him, he wondered, before the killer had delivered the coup de grâce? Judging by the abruptly abandoned mess in Holly’s house, Tucker hadn’t found anything. Which meant the killer would probably circle back there. Wait for the lady of the house to return. Maybe sharpen the knife he’d used on the old man while he waited for Holly. So he could ask her questions.

Solomon stepped on a boulder and remounted the horse, the smeared mud already almost dry in the warm air.

He thought of her, tied up with strips of skin removed from her back like Tucker, and kicked the horse forward. They rose up the bank and set off at a gallop across the charred earth, the stallion’s hooves kicking up puffs of drying black ash as they thundered along. Maybe he couldn’t save her husband, but he could save her. He needed to warn her, tell her what had happened. He remembered her slipping her phone into her pocket before she left the house. He needed to get that number. But he also needed to get a phone.

He could see the town drawing nearer now and activity around the crash site — more uniforms to avoid. He was far enough away that they wouldn’t see him, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He steered the horse in a wide arc around them and drew closer to the town. There were still a few people clustered round a fire truck, some of them still in their funeral clothes, which set a thought running.

When he had told him that James Coronado was dead, Morgan had looked up; an unconscious gesture that Solomon had picked up on. He followed the remembered line of Morgan’s gaze now to where the evening sun was throwing long shadows across the red face of the mountains. He saw it about a third of the way up the lower slopes — a cross, made of plain board and painted white so the sun would catch it. The cemetery where James Coronado was buried.

Solomon dug his heels into the horse’s flank to urge it forward. They kept records of burial plots at cemeteries — who was buried, special maintenance requirements — and contact details of living relatives.

54

Cassidy was sitting in the family pew at the front of the church when his phone rang.

He had set it to silent, but the church was so quiet it might as well have been playing the Sousa March. There was no one else around so he let it ring, the insectile buzz shimmering through the quiet until, finally, it gave up. He had come here for peace and to pray and to think. He did not wish to hear whatever news the phone was bringing. He doubted it would be good.

It rang again almost immediately and he opened his eyes and stared at the twisted altar cross ahead of him. ‘God give me the strength to see out this day,’ he whispered and pulled the phone from his pocket. ‘Cassidy,’ he said, his whispering voice loud in the quiet of the church.

‘It’s Morgan. Tucker’s dead.’

He sat bolt upright. ‘What?’

‘We got a call from Ellie that there was an intruder at the ranch and by the time we got there, Pete was dead. And guess who was riding away on your horse.’

Cassidy struggled to take it all in. ‘Pete’s dead?’

‘Yes.’ Morgan’s voice dropped lower. ‘And he was tortured first.’

Cassidy felt sick. ‘Why would they torture him?’

‘Why do you think? To get information. Which means they’ll most likely be coming for us next.’

Cassidy turned and looked back towards the door, checking there was no one there, though he had locked it from the inside so knew there couldn’t be.

‘Where are you?’ Morgan said.

‘Church.’

‘Good. That’s good. You should stay there. You’ll be safe. Throw up a few prayers while you’re at it.’ Cassidy bristled at that but said nothing. ‘Listen, I’ve stepped up the manhunt for Solomon Creed. We’re hunting a murderer now, not a horse thief, but I’ve kept it local — only my men, no outside agencies, nothing on the wires.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we don’t want him captured, we want him dead. If we get outsiders in, they’ll ask him all kinds of questions. We can’t afford for that to happen.’

Cassidy stood and started walking past the cross to the dark fresco beyond. ‘What’s the point?’

‘What do you mean?’

Cassidy stopped in front of the mirror and stared at his dim reflection, the painted devil on one side, the angel on the other. ‘Say Solomon Creed is responsible for the plane crash and we give him to Tío, you think that will be enough? Remember that last message we got from him?’

‘El Rey.’

‘Exactly. It means the whole town is at stake now.’ He shook his head and stared hard at his reflection, forcing himself to gaze upon the man he had become. ‘We can’t let the people suffer because of what we did. This town is what’s important, and the town is the people. We need to protect them, not ourselves. The people are what’s important. I deserve whatever’s coming to me.’

The painted devil stared out at him, the painted angel too.

‘Call everyone,’ Cassidy said. ‘The DEA, the FBI — anyone who wants Papa Tío’s head on a plate. Tell them you’ve discovered a conspiracy here to import drug shipments using the airfield, and that you believe Tucker and I are behind it. I’ll back that story up if I make it that far, there’s no need for you to go down too. The town will need someone to look after it. Tell them about the crash, tell them who was on it and tell them you think Papa Tío is on his way here to personally wreak his revenge. Tío may be able to muster an army, but so can we. We need to save the town — that’s all that matters. I’ll take my chances, either way.’

55

Solomon saw the track cutting up the scree-sided lower slopes of the Chinchuca Mountains and steered his horse towards it. A sign pointed up, a simple board cut in the shape of an arrow, a cross burned on it with a hot iron to show day trekkers they were on the right track. He doubted there would be any tourists plodding their steady way up to the cemetery today, not after the fire. It would be some time before it was business as usual in this town.

He hit the track at a trot and kept it up as they rose, pushing the horse hard enough to make good time, but not so hard as to exhaust it. He would need the horse for more than this journey. The sun was dropping lower now and bathing everything with the warm blood glow of dusk. He could see the town below him, long shadows stretching from the taller buildings, the church glowing white in the centre of everything, white like the cross marking the cemetery above him, white like he was.

He reached the top of the track where it forked left and continued up the mountains and right to where the tall cross stood by a stone hut. A wall stretched away from it on both sides, high railings sticking up with spikes on the top. The hut had a deep verandah and a tie rail and trough for horses. There were water bowls for dogs and a map of the local area on a board with hiking routes and points of interest marked on it and a sign saying ‘No guns please — graveyard is full’. Another sign in the window of the door said ‘Closed’ though the big iron gate was wide open.

Solomon walked the horse over to the trough and slid to the ground. There were noises coming from beyond the hut, the faint scrapes of a shovel across ground. Solomon breathed in, instinctively trying to catch the scent of whoever was there, but the wind was in the wrong direction.

He stepped on to the porch, carefully cushioning his footfalls so they made no sound, and peered through the window into the darkened office. He saw shelves filled with graveyard memorabilia and the same things he had seen in the stores down in the town. Jack Cassidy’s memoir was stacked up by the cash register. He tried the door, hoping that whoever was working in the graveyard had unlocked it and forgotten to flip the sign round, but it was locked tight.

The scraping sounds continued and he heard some soft clangs as the blade of a shovel patted the ground.

Gravedigger. Probably tidying up James Coronado’s plot after the funeral. He might have information about the funeral. Holly’s contact number. A key to the ticket office. Something.

Solomon moved softly across the boards and peered round the edge of the wall.

The cemetery was small and densely planted with bodies. Simple boards bristled up from the ground, white flaking paint with names carved on them picked out in black. Most graves were over a hundred years old. The only stone tomb was in the centre, close to where a large cottonwood offered some shade, its roots nourished by the graves. A pick-up truck was parked under it, barrels of tools lashed to the back. A man in green overalls was working on a patch of ground a little way beyond it, shovelling stones on to a fresh mound of earth and patting it flat. Solomon watched him work, his back to him, his eyes fixed on the ground. It was the same man Mayor Cassidy had pointed out when the fire was still raging, the man who had given him the cap he had left in Morgan’s car and the sunscreen he’d been using. Useful man to know.

Billy Walker.

Solomon glanced back at the pick-up. If there was an information sheet relating to the cemetery, it would be in there. Probably be a phone in there too. All of which was academic because what was also in there was a very large dog. It sat behind the wheel, its huge head pointing at its owner, its tongue lolling from its mouth, the half-open window next to it smeared with drool.

American bulldog, his mind told him. Powerful, loyal, known to form extremely strong bonds with their owners.

He glanced back at the office door. He could break the glass, but the man might hear. The bulldog would for sure. He leaned close to the door; it was fitted with security glass, a grid of wire running all the way through it. It was bound to be alarmed too, a building like this, isolated and out of the way. Hard-wired to the local police. Smash the glass and a cruiser would show up. No good.

He studied the locks. There were two, both heavy-duty. He pictured the tumblers and barrels within, the deadbolt, the levers, the detainers.

Could he pick them?

Perhaps, if he had the tools. But he didn’t and the door would be alarmed too. He would need a key or a code to disarm that, and he had neither. He looked back round the edge of the building.

Billy Walker was finishing up now, scraping the last loose rocks into a pile on James Coronado’s grave. A triangle of sweat had soaked through the back of his overalls and the band of his cap. He must have been here for some time, tidying up, clearing away. Long enough that he might not have heard what had happened at the Tucker ranch. Either way, it was a risk he had to take.

Solomon moved silently back to the trough where the horse was drinking, cupped his hands into the water and rubbed at his face and hair to wash the ash from it. Then he grabbed one of the dog bowls and filled it.

The dog turned its head towards the sound of Solomon’s boots crunching across the gravel. Its ears pricked forward and it barked, a single deep cough that stopped Billy Walker working and made him turn round. He squinted at Solomon from beneath the shade of his cap and leaned on the handle of his shovel.

‘Hello again,’ Solomon said, waving a greeting and holding up the dog bowl. ‘Thought your dog might want a drink.’

Billy shrugged. ‘I guess so.’

Solomon drew closer to the truck and looked in at the solid knot of muscle and teeth. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Otis.’

‘Is he friendly?’

‘He’s friendly enough if you’re giving him food or sumpn’ a drink.’

Solomon placed the bowl down in the shade and opened the door to let Otis out. The truck rocked on its springs when he jumped down. Otis ignored Solomon and headed straight to the bowl, sniffed it, then started slurping the water down.

‘Tough to be wearing a fur coat in this weather,’ Solomon said, stepping out of the shade and walking over to Billy. ‘Is that James Coronado’s grave?’

Billy turned and looked at the neat mound of stones as if he had only just noticed it. ‘You knew him?’

‘Long time ago. I heard about what happened and was in the area, so I thought I’d come by. Then the fire happened and …’ He let the sentence trail off. ‘Thanks for the hat, by the way. I left it with Chief Morgan to give it back to you. Didn’t figure on bumping into you again. He took me over to Holly’s house so I could pay my respects, only she wasn’t there.’ He stared down at the grave. ‘Reckoned I’d come here instead.’

‘You missed the funeral,’ Billy said, dropping the shovel on to a tarp along with a rake and a pair of work gloves.

‘I guess I did.’

Billy rolled his tools in the tarp and walked up the slope to his truck. The dog glanced up from his bowl then carried on drinking.

‘You wouldn’t have any idea how I might contact the widow, would you?’ Solomon said. ‘Be a shame to be in town and not get a chance to say hello and offer my sympathies.’

Billy dumped the tarp in the back of the truck and turned to him. ‘You don’t got her number?’

‘I lost my phone. Must have dropped it out by the fire line. Lost all my numbers too. Pain in the ass.’

Billy nodded then moved round to the driver’s seat and reached inside. Solomon tensed. If he knew what had happened at the Tucker ranch, now would be the moment he would pull out a shotgun.

‘I saw what you did there at the fire line,’ Billy said, pulling a phone out of a dashboard charger. ‘Taking charge and shifting the line like that. That was a ballsy move. I guess this town owes you something for that. You can use my phone to call Mrs Coronado if you like.’ He handed him the phone and pulled a folder out of the door pocket with a map of the cemetery pasted to the cover. ‘I got her number in here someplace.’

56

Holly Coronado descended into the cool, polished gloom of the town museum, a worn, stone block of a building that faced the church and filled one whole side of the town square. It had originally been the Copper Exchange, built to house all the offices and personnel who ran the mine and traded copper when the town was booming. Now it was part town hall, part museum, with the museum on the first two floors and the archive in the basement.

She caught Janice Wickens coming out of a pebbled-glass door with ‘Archive Office’ painted on it and noted the look of sympathy that passed across her face.

‘Mrs Coronado,’ she said. ‘I’m so very sorry for your loss.’

‘Thanks.’ Holly forced a smile. ‘I was wondering if I could check something.’

Janice already had the key in the lock. ‘Well, I was fixing to close up for the day.’

‘It will only take a moment, please.’ She held up the requisition. ‘Jim had this in his personal things. I wanted to pick it up for him.’

Janice Wickens was a metronome of a woman who lived in a house wrapped in plastic to keep everything clean and in perfect order. Precision was important to her, more important than friends even, and Holly could feel the turmoil her request had roiled up inside her. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘For Jim.’

Even the plastic-wrapped heart of Janice Wickens couldn’t hold out against the wish of a widow invoking her dead husband’s name. ‘One moment then,’ she said, turning the key and opening the door again.

Holly followed her into a room with oak panels and wide floorboards and a counter at waist height that made it feel like an old mutual savings office or the clerk’s desk in an old hotel. Janice took the requisition slip, checked the number on it against a handwritten ledger, then disappeared through a door leading to the main archive.

Holly paced and waited. Checked the time on her phone and frowned when it started ringing. She didn’t recognize the number. She let it ring a few times, debating whether to let it go to voicemail. Then she answered. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s me. It’s Solomon.’

‘Hi,’ she stepped away from the counter.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in the Cassidy archive.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In town. Opposite the church.’

‘What happened at the police station?’

‘Nothing. They left me alone in a room for a while then let me go.’

‘OK, you need to get out of there now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Pete Tucker’s dead.’

‘What! How?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Listen, don’t go home. Don’t talk to the police. Don’t talk to anyone. I think you’re in danger. You need to get out of town as fast as possible. Don’t let anyone know where you’re going.’

Holly felt like the ceiling had started to lower and the walls were closing in. ‘Where are you?’

‘Up at the cemetery.’

‘I want to meet up.’

‘Not here.’ There was a pause and Holly turned to the door. She could hear Janice returning on the other side. ‘The place your husband died, is it easy to find?’

She knew exactly where he had died but hadn’t wanted to go there. Not now. Perhaps not ever. ‘Yes. All right yes. It’s about three miles east of town on the Chinchuca road, the road that winds up through the mountains. There’s a stone near the road with a wagon-trail marker on it like an eagle.’

Janice Wickens walked back in holding an envelope. Holly smiled and Janice handed it to her then turned the ledger round so she could sign for it.

‘OK,’ Solomon said. ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can. Be careful.’

She signed her name, feeling as if she was watching everything through the wrong end of a telescope. ‘I will.’

The phone clicked and she looked up. Janice was regarding her with concern. ‘You OK, dear?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She placed the pen down on the ledger and started backing away, trying to remember what she’d said and how much Janice might have heard. Don’t talk to anyone, Solomon had said. She felt panicked. ‘Thanks for this,’ she said, holding the envelope up. ‘I appreciate your time.’ Then she turned and left the room, her boots sounding far too loud as she hurried away across the polished stone floor.

57

Solomon ended the call and studied the stone tomb in front of him.

He had drifted away from Billy Walker during the conversation to stop him overhearing and found himself beside the largest grave in the cemetery. Like the mansion in the centre of town it was bigger and grander than anything around it and had been constructed for the same man. He read the carved inscription on the stone:

The stone was white, like the church. Imported. There were marks along the top and sides, jagged lightning bolts where the stone had cracked open and been repaired with cement that didn’t quite match the stone.

‘What happened here?’ he asked, running his hand over the cracks and feeling the edges of the broken stone.

Billy didn’t reply and Solomon felt a shift in the air. He turned to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun for the third time that day.

‘Hands where I can see ’em,’ Billy said.

He was holding a second phone in the same hand he was cradling the stock of the gun and Solomon guessed what had happened.

‘I didn’t kill Pete Tucker,’ he said, raising his hands and taking a step forward.

‘Stay right where you are.’

‘You’re not going to shoot me.’

‘You want to find out? Keep on walking.’

‘You ever killed a man, Billy?’ Solomon took another step. ‘Ever stared into his face and watched the life leave him? You don’t want that on your conscience. Thanks for the phone, by the way.’ Solomon lobbed it towards him and Billy followed it with his eyes, instinct telling him to catch it and stop it falling to the floor and breaking.

Solomon used the distraction, sprang forward and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. He knocked it aside and pulled hard, yanking gun and man forward. A boom crashed the silence as Billy’s finger triggered a shot and buckshot tore through the broad, heart-shaped leaves of the cottonwood. Solomon continued his spin, driving his elbow backwards, aiming for the forehead and not the nose. A hard blow to the nose could drive bone shard back into the brain and kill a man.

How did he know all this? How did his body know the moves to disarm a man pointing a shotgun at him? How did he know what would kill and what would not?

His elbow connected with Billy’s head, snapping it back. Solomon yanked the barrel again, pulling it free from his hands.

‘Otis!’ Billy hollered. ‘Otis — kill!’

Solomon continued to spin, using his momentum to pull him round. He felt the heat of his rage again, like an unstoppable urge. He drove his other elbow hard into the side of Billy’s head, relishing the feel of the impact. Billy crumpled to the floor, eyes rolling up into his skull, and Solomon dropped down with him, his hand grabbing a stone from the ground, his anger like a physical thing now trying to burst out of him. He could feel the pressure of it in his chest and his hand squeezed the solid rock as he raised it over his head.

Bring it down, a voice inside him said. Bring it down hard on this man’s head. Break his brain out. That will ease the pressure. That will show you who you are.

He could picture it — the rock, the skull, the blood — the images so vivid he thought he must have done it. The stone came down, hard and fast, and struck the ground by Billy Walker’s head. Solomon wasn’t sure what had nudged his hand away from its murderous path. It might have been him or something else. Whatever it was, it had spared a life and Solomon let go of the rock and pushed himself away before something else made him pick it up again.

He was sweating and breathing hard but not from the effort of the fight. It was his rage boiling inside him.

There was a grunt over to his right and he looked over at the bulldog, lying by the bowl, his great head resting on his front paws. He twitched, like he was trying hard to move, then grunted again, as much of a bark as he could manage before finally he gave up, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Solomon took a deep breath. Let it out slowly then went to work.

He moved over to the truck and found a knife, some rope and a pack of black plastic cable ties in a box in the back. He used the ties to bind Billy’s wrists and feet, then dragged him over to the trunk of the cottonwood and wrapped most of the rope round him, fastening him tight to the tree. He tied it off, cut a twelve-foot length from the end, then tucked the knife in his belt and found a crate of bottled water in the truck. He pulled two bottles free, drank one straight down before unscrewing the cap from the second and carefully pouring a quarter of the remaining Ambien into it. He had taken it from Holly’s bedroom and used about a quarter of it in the dog’s water bowl — enough to knock him out, not enough to kill him, he hoped. The dog was snoring loudly now so he must have guessed the dose right. He shook the bottle to dissolve the powder and left it next to Billy’s slumped form so he would reach for it when he roused and send himself straight back to sleep again. Then he emptied the shells from the shotgun and flung it deep into the cemetery where it couldn’t easily be seen.

The stallion raised its head from the trough when Solomon stepped on to the wooden porch, then lowered it again and carried on drinking. Solomon glanced down the road and the pony track, checking no one was heading his way, then moved over to the map by the door.

He found the cemetery marked on it and traced his finger along the lines of roads until he came to the one leading east into the Chinchuca Mountains. It curled and looped like the coils of a long, thin snake, following the contours of the land.

Solomon looked out across the town to the mountains beyond, his hands working the rope now, knotting and tying it quickly and expertly while his eyes studied the line of the road, calculating how he could get there without riding through town. The track he had arrived on continued in the right direction, but only for a way; after that he would be cross-country, which was why he needed the rope.

He tugged a final knot tight and walked over to the horse.

‘Come, Sirius,’ he said, slipping the rope halter over his head. ‘We’re going for an evening ride.’

He secured the rope halter behind the stallion’s ears then jumped on his back, settled then moved in circles around the car park for a minute, testing it. It was good, it allowed him to sit up straighter and made it possible to steer him by the head. He would need that over the loose terrain he was about to cross. He wouldn’t be any use to anyone lying in a gully with a broken arm. He wouldn’t be any use to Holly.

Was that why he was here? Was he here for her and not her husband? He did feel responsibility to her. That was why he had taken the Ambien. He didn’t want her to die. He knew if he let that happen he would have failed somehow, though he couldn’t say why.

He moved away from the building and towards the track, glancing out at the burned desert stretching away to the northwest. The sun was sinking lower in the sky now, a burning disc of shining copper. He thought about the ranch beyond and the bloodied body in the barn. He thought about the man with the gun in Holly’s house. He thought about who might have sent him and what else might be coming their way. Then he turned on to the track and eased the horse into a trot to make time over the easier terrain, his shadow leading the way, long and dark across the broken land.

58

Mulcahy stared at the dirt track unspooling ahead of him.

He was driving, the smell of gasoline clinging to his clothes and skin, the smoking barn getting smaller in his rear-view mirror. The little execution-and-burn situation had disturbed him. He had always had Tío down as a fundamentally reasonable man, ruthless but reasonable. What he had just seen had no reason in it. And if you took reason away all you had left was ruthlessness and that didn’t fill him with confidence, given his father’s current situation.

‘What did they do?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

‘Those human candles we left back in the barn.’

‘I didn’t trust them. They annoyed the shit out of me too. I can trust you though, right?’

‘Of course you can,’ Mulcahy said. ‘What else am I going to say?’

Tío laughed and slapped his leg. ‘I like that about you. No bullshit. You should be crawling up my ass, the situation I got you in, but you’re still calling it like it is. I need to get me some more people like you instead of all these kiss-asses.’

The wheels bumped across the verge as they rejoined the road and the shadow of their vehicle stretched out on the road ahead of them as they started heading east.

‘Tell me something,’ Tío said, like he was asking for a bit of advice. ‘How come you’re so loyal to your pop?’

‘He’s family.’

Tío shook his head slowly. ‘No, he’s not. He’s no more your father than I am.’

Mulcahy’s hands tightened on the wheel. He had never told anyone about his childhood — partly from shame, partly from loyalty — though he’d figured someone with Tío’s resources could dig it up if he wanted to. He obviously had.

‘So your mom,’ Tío continued, all his attention on Mulcahy, like he was feeding on his discomfort, ‘what was she — a dancer, a whore?’

‘You probably know better than me,’ he said, forcing his voice to stay steady. ‘I never really knew her.’

‘No. I guess not. How old were you when she took off — seven?’

‘Six.’

‘Six years old and she ups and leaves you with some loser she’s only been banging for a coupla months. What kind of a bitch does that?’

Anyone else, anyone in the world, and Mulcahy would have taken his Beretta out right there and shot them straight through the head.

‘You ever find out what happened to her?’ Tío continued, probing, enjoying it.

Mulcahy shook his head. He’d had plenty of opportunity to find out during his time as a cop. He had a name, a physical description, a last-known whereabouts and access to all the missing persons databases. But when it came down to it, he didn’t want to know, not the details at least. He knew enough to figure that it wouldn’t be a happy ending, so what was the point in knowing exactly how unhappy or what specific form of sadness it had taken.

‘Why don’t you take a guess,’ Tío said, like he was suggesting a game of I-Spy to pass the time.

Mulcahy focused on his breathing like a sniper preparing to take a shot. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and sweat starting to prickle at his scalp. Tío knew, he could hear it in his voice; he knew what had happened to his mother and he was about to tell him.

‘What you think?’ Tío persisted. ‘Overdose? You think she was beaten to death by some fucked-up john? Or she cut her wrists in some rat-hole motel when she couldn’t face another day of her shitty life? You must have wondered about it.’

‘Can’t say I ever did.’

‘Bullshit. You must have thought about it all the time when you was a kid, wondered what had happened to your mom, why she’d never come back for you.’

‘No,’ Mulcahy said, trying to shut the conversation down. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Well, that’s cold. I thought you was a good kid, the way you stick your neck out for your old man and all, even though he ain’t really your old man. Now I find out you don’t even care what happened to your real mother. That’s stone cold. That’s ice. I’m disappointed in you.’

Mulcahy shrugged. He hoped Tío would drop it, but knew he wouldn’t. He was enjoying it too much and information was his thing, knowing something that you didn’t know, telling you things you didn’t want to hear.

‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ Tío said, taking his phone from his pocket, ‘you take a guess at what happened to her and if you’re close I’ll call my guys and get them to cut your pop loose right now. What do ya say?’

‘What if I don’t want to play?’

‘Then I’ll get them to break something instead — a finger, an arm maybe — and I’ll stick it on speakerphone so we can both hear him screaming. How’s that sound?’

Mulcahy didn’t say anything. He was trembling and trying hard not to show it.

‘Come on, we got to pass the time somehow. These long desert roads bore the fuck out of me. You see that rock up ahead?’ Tío pointed at a large red boulder by the side of the road. ‘When we pass that, you got to give me your answer. I got to put a time limit on this thing, and don’t you be slowing down to stretch it out neither. If you cheat, I’ll get them to cut an ear off and you’ll still have to give me an answer.’

Mulcahy glanced down at his speed. He was doing a steady fifty. The rock was a mile or so away, rising up above the desert like a tombstone. They would reach it in a minute. Maybe two. No more.

He hadn’t thought about his mother much in years, blocking her out like a traumatic experience he wanted to forget. When he’d been little and she was freshly gone, his pop had talked about her a lot, like she was away somewhere, visiting a relative or something, and she’d be coming back any day. Whenever they did something fun he’d always say, ‘We gotta remember to tell your mom about this.’ So for a long while she remained present in his life even though she wasn’t there. And because of this he genuinely thought she would come back one day and that they’d carry on as a family, all together, like his pop clearly wanted to — like he wanted to.

Then, when he was eight or nine, his pop took him to a diner one day and there was a woman there, sitting in a booth, a woman who wasn’t his mother. His pop had sat next to her and held her hand and said, ‘This is Kathleen, she’d like to live with us and be a family, what do you think about that?’

Well, he hadn’t thought much, but they bought him a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake and an ice cream and his pop laughed real hard at her jokes, so he thought, if it made Pop happy, maybe it would be OK.

Kathleen had been nice enough but it hadn’t worked out. Pop stopped laughing at her jokes pretty quick and she got mad that he was always on the road and spent too much time at the track or in back-room poker games. And because Pop was away so much he had ended up home alone with Kathleen and, though she was never mean to him, he could tell by the way she looked at him that she didn’t like him much. ‘He sure must have loved her to keep you around like he does,’ Kathleen had said to him one day, about a week or so before she moved out for good. ‘He sure don’t love me nearly so much.’

There were a few Kathleens over the years, well-meaning women who thought they could turn his father into a home-bird instead of a night owl. All of them went the same way as the first. But with the Kathleens around, Pop didn’t talk about his mom any more and it was his aunt who finally told him, ‘You know your momma ain’t never coming back for you.’

She had said it one evening when his pop was on the road and he was at the kitchen table in his school clothes eating a Kraft dinner. ‘Woman like that don’t got time for no children. Bad for business is what it is. She stuck around long enough to get her hooks into your daddy, then she took off leaving you behind like a pair of shoes she got tired of wearing. She picked a good man to dump her child on, I’ll give her that much, but I won’t give her nothing more. You should forget about her. She’s forgotten you by now, if’n she ain’t dead in a ditch somewheres.’

‘Here comes that rock,’ Tío said. ‘You got an answer for me?’

Women like that …

He had found a picture of her once in his father’s room, hidden behind a framed school photograph of him that Pop kept on his bedside bureau. It was a flyer for some revue bar featuring a reed-thin, red-haired woman dressed for the tango, all long hair and legs. ‘Hot Salsa starring Blaze’ it said. Her face was in profile but he recognized enough of himself in it. The picture was creased, like it had been stuffed in a jacket pocket. The next time he looked for it, it wasn’t there. He wondered if one of the Kathleens had found it and made Pop get rid of it. Maybe his old man got rid of it himself.

Mulcahy had hung on to that image of her, young and beautiful, even after he became a cop and saw how fast the street wore down women like she had been, all those crumbling beauties with caricatures of their younger selves painted on to sagging skin, walking the streets and working the bordellos, winding up dead in alleys, or in dumpsters or abandoned cars, beaten and bloated and tossed aside like sacks of garbage.

Working Vice, he had also seen the lives the kids of these women led: dead-eyed and feral, lousy with fleas and stinking of piss, parked in front of cartoon channels while their mommas went to work in the bedroom or sometimes behind a thin blanket tacked to the ceiling to make a divider. That was the life his father had spared him and that was why he owed him so much.

The rock grew big and red by the side of the road and they cruised past, the sound of the car’s engine reflecting back off its side.

‘She’s dead,’ Mulcahy said.

Tío shook his head. ‘Not good enough. You got to do better than that if you want to win a prize. How’d you reckon she died?’

‘Overdose.’

‘Final answer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Died of an overdose. Eeeeergh. Wrong.’ Tío swiped the screen of his phone and started reading. ‘Madeleine Mary Kelly, born April 3rd, 1952, also known as Blaze, Scarlet, Red Riding Hood, Mary Kennedy …’

He swiped the phone again and held it out. Mulcahy wanted to knock it from his hand. He wanted to scream and cover his ears so he didn’t have to hear whatever Tío was about to tell him.

‘… is now known as Mary Schwartz and living in Southlake, Texas with her husband Garry Schwartz and their two lovely teenage sons.’

Mulcahy felt like someone had reached into his chest, torn his lungs out then stomped on them. He couldn’t breathe. His ears were singing. He looked at the phone, his eyes struggling to focus on the photo. It showed two boys, awkward and a touch overweight, standing either side of a country club couple, a balding man with a paunch that strained against the middle of his pink polo shirt, his cookie-cutter corporate wife beside him. She was slightly taller than he was, her red hair straightened and salon shiny, her face collagened and botoxed and filled with expensive dental work that gleamed from her full smile.

‘Eyes on the road,’ Tío said, and Mulcahy snatched at the wheel, breathing fast, pulling the Jeep back on to hard blacktop from where it had almost drifted on to the soft verge.

‘How that make you feel?’ Tío asked, still holding the phone out, taunting him with the photo. ‘She upped and left you with a stranger, then traded up. Looks like she made a smart choice though, huh? Dumping her unwanted kid on some travelling salesman so she could hook up with Mr Country Club here. What you think he drives — Lexus? Lincoln Town Car with the full package? She’s probably got a Mercedes too, little two-seater in a garage bigger than your old man’s apartment.’ He let that thought sink in before carrying on. ‘Mr Mom here works for some big travel company, something in accounts. Sounds boring as shit to me, but I guess it’s nice and safe. How much was it your old man was into me by the time you stepped in and settled his debts?’

Mulcahy swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. ‘Just north of three hundred.’

Tío nodded. ‘Three hundred g’s. I bet this guy earns that in a year — probably more with bonuses and all his health and dental crap. Yep, I reckon your mom made a smart move, dumping you and that loser you call your Pop. She saw a chance and she took it. You got to admire someone for doing that.’

Mulcahy nodded. ‘I guess you do.’

He could see buildings on the road ahead, a motel or something, and he fixed his eyes on them to stop from sliding off the road again. Everything he knew about himself had been turned on its head in the space of a few minutes. He had always thought his mom was living some tragic life and that was what had stopped her from coming back or looking for the son she had abandoned. Either that or she was dead. It had never occurred to him that it might be shame that had kept her away: not shame of what she had become but shame of what she had left behind.

The buildings started taking shape, a Texaco sign fixed to a large concrete awning stretching across a six-car forecourt.

‘OK if we stop for a minute?’ he said. ‘I need a bathroom break.’

‘Why not,’ Tío replied, squinting through the windshield at the old-fashioned gas station with its modern pumps. ‘We can get us some more gas too. And more cans to put it in.’

59

Morgan was pacing now.

The coroner was in the Tucker barn with Donny McGee and a couple of forensic techs borrowed from the King Community Hospital who were processing the crime scene. They didn’t get many murders so the medics wore two hats and drew extra pay they rarely had to do anything to earn. They sure were earning it today. Morgan had moved away to the open gate of the corral so no one could overhear his conversation.

‘You heard about the explosion in the Sierra Madre mountains?’

He had a phone pressed to one ear and another in his hand. ‘That tells me he’s coming, and right now.’

He held the other phone up, angled his head back and squinted at the screen. ‘I also got a report from border patrol …’ His eyes were getting worse the older he got, but he refused to wear glasses. ‘They found a barn on fire with a tunnel underneath it and some bodies inside. Right on the border, about an hour and a half away from here.’ He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. ‘OK, good. I got one of our SWAT teams heading here right now and some other armed units.’

The other phone started ringing, a bell that made it sound like an old phone. He squinted at the number. Recognized it.

‘I’ll be ready,’ Morgan said. ‘Don’t you worry about me. We’re all set here.’

He hung up and switched phones, the frown melting from his forehead. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he checked his watch, ‘you finishing up for the day?’

He glanced over at the barn again to make sure no one could hear. Flashes lit up the inside as somebody took pictures. It was nigh on impossible to keep anything of a romantic nature private in a town like Redemption but he and Janice Wickens had managed it for almost three months now.

‘Just locked up,’ she said.

It had started off as a necessity, getting her onside so she would keep an eye on what James Coronado was pulling from the archives. Then it became something else. She was so different from him but it seemed to work. He couldn’t imagine life now without the home-cooked meals and the warm body to hold at night. Life was good, was about to get a whole lot better. All he had to do was get through tonight.

‘Listen, honey,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to be able to get away. I can’t tell you exactly what’s going on, but you should head on home. Have yourself an early one. And lock your door.’

‘Lock my door! You’ve never said that before.’

‘Well there’s some stuff going down. I got it, don’t worry.’

‘I’m not worried.’ He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Is it anything to do with James Coronado?’

Morgan turned away from the barn. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I just had Holly in the office. She had a requisition chit for something Jim had asked for but never collected. She was … I don’t know, a bit distracted. She got a call while she was here and that made her worse.’

‘Did you catch the name of who she was speaking to?’

‘No.’

Morgan glanced over at the barn. The medics were wheeling the body out now and heading to the ambulance. Over at the house Ellie was sitting on a rocker with someone next to her, holding her hand and talking to her, though she didn’t seem to notice. She just rocked back and forward, the shotgun resting across her knee while her blind eyes stared out at the reddening sky.

‘I think she was going to meet someone,’ Janice said, drawing his attention back. ‘I can’t imagine who. She seemed agitated though.’

Morgan stepped aside to let one of the ranch hands ride past. He was pulling a couple of loose horses behind him, dragging them back into the corral. Morgan had a good idea who she was going to meet. ‘I was worried about her,’ Janice said. ‘Considering what she’s been through.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Morgan said, heading back to his cruiser, parked over by the ambulance. ‘I’ll take care of it. You go home now. And don’t forget to lock that door.’

60

Holly walked the long way back to her house, avoiding the main road and as many residential streets as she could. She didn’t want to be seen, not after what Solomon had told her.

The news of Pete Tucker’s death had shaken her deeply. She had thought of him as her enemy, partly blamed him for her husband’s death, but when she heard he had been killed her reaction had surprised her. It hadn’t made her feel happy or avenged. She just felt sad and empty, like death was becoming commonplace and meaningless here. A few hours previously she wouldn’t have cared. She had buried her husband and walked home through the rain with no thought in her mind but to switch it all off and turn her back on everything. Now she was keeping to the shadows, fearful of losing the life she had so casually wanted to end.

It was Solomon who had changed that. Solomon with all his contradictions: a man who seemed to know so much about things yet nothing about himself, and who still maintained he was here to save her husband, as if the usual parameters of life and death were no barrier to him. He had shamed her with his determination and commitment to finding the truth. He had reignited some spark of life in her that she thought had sputtered out.

She reached the junction to her road and carefully peered around the corner into it, expecting to see some big black vehicle parked outside her house. There was nothing. The back road she had arrived by joined hers about halfway up. She had come this way figuring that anyone watching for her would expect her to come up the hill from the main road, not down it.

She began walking towards her house, keeping to the shady side, alert for any sign that there might be someone there. Solomon had told her not to go back but she needed a car and figured that stealing one would attract far more attention than simply getting her own. She had no idea how to steal a car anyway and didn’t know who she might trust enough to call up and ask to borrow theirs. This had seemed the best option, or it had at the time. Now she was here she wasn’t so sure.

She crossed the road about forty yards back from her house and cut up the driveway of a property she knew to be empty. She slipped down a passage between the house and the garage and entered the rear garden. It was like hers, cultivated but wild and open at the back to the desert beyond. She moved through the garden and stepped over the low fence marking the boundary. She could see the backs of the houses and made her way to her own using the trees and plants as cover. She had the key to the car in her pocket. All she had to do was get in it and drive away.

It felt strange, creeping up to her own house through grasses and flower beds that she had planted and had always associated with relaxation. Now it was a place of trepidation and fear. She crouched behind the same clump of deer grass Solomon had hidden behind and studied the house. It seemed still, empty — but that didn’t mean it was.

She watched for a while then moved across the ground, keeping low, heading for a gate that connected the garage to the house. Her car was beyond it. It had been sitting there for a week and the battery was old and sometimes needed boosting. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Too late now. She pulled the keys from her pocket and held them tightly in her hand, the jagged edge of the key out in front like a tiny knife.

The hinges on the gate squeaked as she opened it. On any other day she wouldn’t have noticed but today it sounded like the loudest noise in the world. Her Toyota was right in front of her, the red paintwork and windows streaked from the earlier rain. She moved to the driver’s side, eyes wide and fixed on the house. The doors thunked as she unlocked it. She opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. The key rattled against the ignition slot, her hands shaking, and she had to lean forward to see what she was doing before it slid into place.

Please start — she whispered and pulled the stick into neutral. The car was old and so was the handbrake, so she always left it in gear to stop it rolling down the hill. Please start — she said again.

She twisted the key. The engine turned, sounded sluggish. Didn’t start.

A hand banged on her window and Holly’s heart leaped into her chest. She turned to face whoever was standing there.

‘Margaret,’ she said, more a sigh of relief than a word. She wound her window down and glanced back at the house.

‘You OK, Holly?’ her neighbour said. ‘Only I saw you drive away in the police car earlier.’

‘I’m fine, Margaret, thank you.’

Margaret leaned in and lowered her voice. ‘Heard someone took a shot at Chief Morgan.’

‘Imagine that,’ Holly said, and twisted the key in the ignition again. The engine turned and laboured then coughed into life. It was a piece of junk but at least it was a reliable one.

Margaret stepped back. ‘Well, so long as you’re OK,’ she said. ‘Anything you need, just holler. Anything at all.’

Holly smiled and revved the engine a little to warm it up. ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ she said, checking the street behind her for cars. ‘That’s very kind.’

61

Mulcahy stood by a grey sink that had once been white and splashed water on his face. The faucet said ‘cold’ but the water dribbling out of it was blood-warm from sitting in the pipes all day. He had let it run a while but it hadn’t made any difference.

He looked up at his reflection. The washroom was a piss-stinking sweat box with a bulky air conditioner that filled the room with a death-rattle sound and moved hot air around. The mirror on the wall was small and rectangular and framed in blue plastic with a starburst crack on one corner where it had been dropped on the concrete floor. The glass was cracked too, probably from the same incident, a single jagged line running diagonally across the middle in a way that made the upper part of his face appear slightly out of line with the lower. The mirror hung from a length of greasy string hooked over a nail that had gouged a crater in the plaster resembling a bullet hole.

Mulcahy ran his hands through his hair and studied the split image of his face. He could see his mother in it. Same eyes, almond-shaped and slightly turned down at the outsides in a way that made her look sultry and him sad. Same colouring too: pale freckled skin and auburn hair that suited the Irish name his father had given him. He wondered if his father saw her in him too and that was why he often seemed mad at him. Maybe it wasn’t him he was mad at and never had been. He pulled his phone from his pocket, checked the time then called his father’s cell.

He opened the door a crack while it dialled. Tío was standing by the pump, the sky behind him glowing red like an ember. He was half bent over a five-gallon can, the price label still tied to the handle, one hand on the gas nozzle sticking out of the can, the other on his hip. He didn’t notice Mulcahy spying on him. He was too busy studying the legs of the woman at the next pump who was leaning against a Harley while her boyfriend filled it up. To anyone else he would look like a small-time Mexican farmer getting gas for his generator. The phone connected and he let the door close.

‘Bueno.’

‘Could I speak to my father please?’

There was a sigh and some handling noise then his father came on the line. ‘What the hell, Mikey!’

The sound of his father’s voice made his throat feel tight. ‘You OK, Pop?’

‘I been better.’ He sounded tired and old and frightened.

Mulcahy swallowed, cleared his throat. ‘They treating you OK?’

‘I guess. They ain’t hurt me again, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘They ain’t going to hurt you, Pop. You’ll be out of there soon, you just got to hang in there a little longer is all.’

‘How much longer?’

‘Not long. They’re going to get a call in a little while, then they’ll let you go. When they do you take off. Don’t go home, don’t go anywhere anyone might know you. Check into a motel someplace, eat takeout and watch TV for a few days until you hear from me, OK?’

‘OK, but I don’t got much cash on me.’

‘I’ll make sure you get some. Just do what I say, all right?’

‘What the hell is this, Mikey? What did you do?’

Mulcahy closed his eyes. He wondered if his Pop would have ended up where he was if he had never met his mother. Would he have carried such sadness around with him and gambled so hard? Who knew. It didn’t matter really. He was in a fix and Mulcahy could get him out of it. That was what mattered. Everything else was just details.

‘Listen, Pop …’

‘What?’

‘You know I appreciate all you ever did for me, you know that?’

‘Sure. What are we talking about here?’

‘I love you, Pop.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What you saying that for?’

‘In case.’

‘… In case what?’

‘In case I forget to say it later.’ He cleared his throat again and wiped water from his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Put Gomez back on, would you. And remember what I said.’

‘Sure, Mikey.’ There was a pause, then his father spoke again, softly like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘I love you too, son.’ Then he was gone.

Mulcahy stared at his split image and wiped more water from his face that wasn’t water any more.

‘¿Si?’ The voice sounded bored and Mulcahy wondered how many of these kinds of jobs he had done.

‘Thank you for looking after my father,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it. You’ll be getting a call soon. When you do, give my father some cash. A few hundred or so will do it. I will consider it a personal favour and will make sure you get paid back triple.’

‘The fuck you say?’

‘Just wait for the call,’ Mulcahy said. ‘You’ll understand when you get it. And give him his cell back too. He won’t give you any trouble. Wait for the call.’

He hung up before the man could say any more, this stranger who would kill his father without thinking twice. He studied his cracked image. His mother’s eyes staring back but leaking tears for his father. He doubted hers ever had. He wondered if they had ever cried any for him.

He opened his messages, found one he had been sent a month earlier when he had first been contacted with the proposition he had ultimately taken, the one that meant he might finally be free. The message contained a phone number and he dialled it. The phone clicked in his ear as someone answered. ‘We’re an hour away,’ he said, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. ‘You can track me on this number, I’ll leave it switched on.’

‘Good. We’ll be waiting.’

‘One more thing.’

‘What?’

‘My old man. Any chance you can let him go now? He’s old and the stress of all this will kill him if he spends any more time with a gun to his head.’

‘I’ll make a call.’

‘Thanks. I told the guys holding him to give him a few hundred bucks too — you think you could remind them of that?’

‘You want me to get him a hooker and some takeout while I’m at it?’

‘I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom here, a few hundred bucks is nothing.’

‘All right, I’ll tell them. Just make sure you’re there in an hour.’

‘We’ll be there.’

There was a click and the phone went dead.

Mulcahy slipped the phone in his pocket and looked at himself again. He blotted his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. He didn’t want Tío to see he’d been crying. Tío fed on the discomfort of others and Mulcahy didn’t want to give him any fuel.

An hour.

He took a deep breath of unpleasantly moist, piss-tainted air and blew it out again.

One more hour.

62

Morgan was parked on the main road behind a hotel sign that kept him hidden but gave him a view of the junction into Goater Way, the street Holly Coronado lived on, named after Susan Goater, muletrader, and one of the town’s original citizens. He watched the red Toyota pull out on to the main road and head out of town. He hunkered down as it passed him by then rose again and watched in his mirrors until it was far enough down the road for him to pull a U-turn and start following.

He was driving the County Coroner’s Plain Crown Victoria because it was about the most inconspicuous car ever manufactured and was a lot more discreet than his cruiser. Still, he kept at a steady distance. From what Janice had told him, Holly was jumpy and he didn’t want her to spot that she was being followed: he wanted her to carry right on to where she was going and take him to Solomon Creed.

Solomon was the one loose end he still needed to tie up. He’d run some further searches on him, got a friend of his at the hospital to check the AMR to see if he was on the Medical Register, but he wasn’t. If he’d got his medical training in the United States there was no record of it. He’d even tried to find out if there was a national register for albinos, but all he got was a Facebook page that looked more like a political action group. He had scanned through some of the pictures but Solomon didn’t really resemble any of the people on it. They were generally more pink — pinkish skin, pink eyes, freaky — whereas he was pure white and his eyes were a pale grey. He was extraordinary-looking, he had to give him that. Probably had no bother at all with the ladies. Hell, plenty of women would be into him, thanks to all that vampire shit they had these days. Maybe that’s what he was — a vampire.

He caught sight of the Toyota up ahead, the brake lights glowing red before turning off and heading up another road. Morgan slowed right down. He didn’t need to follow close to know where she was going. The only place that road led to was the cemetery and this road was the only way in or out.

He turned on to the road then pulled over and left the engine running while he checked his phones. No messages on either. He unclipped the safety tab on his holster and removed his gun, checked it over, oiling the slide, removing the magazine and slotting it back in again. He had never once fired his gun anywhere but the range, not even to shoot cans out in the desert. That didn’t mean to say he couldn’t. But Solomon was a fugitive from justice now, which meant he was more likely to do something stupid and desperate. And if he did, he would put him down, no question. There was far too much at stake for some loose cannon to come along and mess it all up.

Morgan flexed his hands and felt the ache spread beneath the dressings then picked up his phone again and dialled dispatch.

‘Hi, Chief.’

He never could get used to caller ID. ‘Hey, Rollins, you ever off duty?’

‘Never. What you need?’

He told him then sat back and waited, thinking about Janice Wickens and the easy life he might have with her if she didn’t get too clingy and naggy like they usually did.

Four minutes after he’d put in the call, a cruiser drew up alongside him. He wound his window down and saw Donny McGee behind the wheel and Tommy Miller riding shotgun. ‘Follow me, boys,’ he said, and put his car in gear. ‘Get yourselves ready for a resisting-arrest-type situation.’

He pulled away and threw the car into the turn on the mountain road. He crunched over the loose gravel and kept the speed up until he saw the red Toyota parked up ahead by the tourist office. He pulled up in front of the car and Donny slid in behind to stop it from getting away.

Tommy was out first, a dark vest tied tight over his shirt, his gun pointing at the ground as he ran. Donny was close behind. They ran past Morgan’s Crown Vic and he followed.

He heard shouts ahead then a scream and he took out his gun and picked up his pace. He passed through the gate and saw a pick-up truck parked in the shade of the cottonwood and Billy Walker tied to a tree with his dog Otis asleep on the ground next to him.

Margaret Bender was standing between Donny and Tommy, hands raised, eyes wide as she pleaded with them. ‘He was like this when I found him,’ she shrieked. ‘I was trying to untie him.’

Morgan stepped forward, starting to realize what had happened. ‘Where’s Holly Coronado?’

‘I’m not in trouble, am I, Chief Morgan?’ She looked terrified.

‘No, you’re not in any trouble. Just tell us why you’re driving Holly Coronado’s car.’

‘She asked if she could borrow my station wagon because she wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff — you know, Jim’s stuff. She said after the funeral she wanted to clear out some things, take them to the church hall.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you’re driving her car, Mrs Bender, or why you came up here.’

‘She said she left her purse up here at the funeral and couldn’t face coming up to get it, so of course I said I’d be happy to fetch it for her and she gave me the keys to her car, then asked if I wouldn’t mind doing it while she was away borrowing mine.’ She pointed at Billy Walker and his dog. ‘They were like this when I got here. I didn’t have a thing to do with it.’

Morgan looked over at them. Donny was on his knees, checking Billy over.

‘He’s alive,’ he said. ‘Dog’s alive too.’

Morgan turned back to Margaret and caught her staring at the dressings on his hands. He clenched his fists and felt them sting.

Goddamn woman had played him for a fool again.