The Gatekeeper

JUNE 30
Ten

Jake lifted a corner of the mattress and grimaced at what was underneath. Mack Krex’s living quarters redefined the term hellhole. A dank eight-by-ten-foot room in a boardinghouse so far on the wrong side of the tracks they weren’t even visible in the distance. The only furnishings were a caved-in bed and a rickety pasteboard bureau propped against the wall. Honestly, a cell would have been preferable, Jake thought. At least it would’ve been clean.

“Pretty foul, huh?” Mack Krex’s parole officer grinned at him, rocking back and forth on his heels. “No fast-food joint pays enough for a place without rats.”

Jake wasn’t in the mood to joke around. He hadn’t been able to forget Madison ’s tortured face all morning. “I called the manager at Plucky Chicken. He said Krex quit a few months back.”

“Yeah? Huh.”

“But he’s current on the rent here. Paid three months in advance.”

The guy shrugged, and Jake narrowed his eyes at him. The PO stood about five-six, wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt, skinny tie, cheap shoes. His scraggly goatee was a misguided attempt at trendiness, and the beginnings of a potbelly hung over his belt. He looked fifty but was probably closer to thirty-five.

“Doesn’t bother you that Krex might have backslid?”

“Maybe he got a gig under the table, working the door at a club. Some of them do that, and Mack’s a big guy.” The PO held up a hand defensively. “You want to see my caseload? I can’t babysit these guys 24/7. He showed for our meets, and his piss was clean. Far as I’m concerned he’s a success story.”

“So missing last week didn’t faze you?”

“Hey, it’s not like he was caught diddling kids. I got three of those right now, one of ’em keeps trying to move on to school property. Mack was small-time, supposed to be the muscle in a botched bank robbery. Got talked into it by some buddies, then took the fall when it went south.”

“This time he might have abducted a sixteen-year-old girl.”

The PO shrugged. “So I’ll issue a warrant. Lots of fucked-up shit in the world. All I can do is try to swim through without drinking it.”

“Nice analogy.” Jake cast one last gaze around the room. “Bit of an accent there. Where you from?”

The guy hesitated before saying, “ Mississippi.”

“Yeah? You’re a long way from home.” Jake eyed him. “What brought you to Stockton?”

“The weather.”

“Huh.” Jake glanced out the window. Stockton was in California ’s Central Valley, a region that turned into a choking dust bowl each summer. It had to be a hundred degrees outside, convection-oven territory. “So you got any leads on Krex’s known acquaintances?”

“Not much in the file, but I’ll give you what I got. If you’re done, I got a crap-load of paperwork to do.”

Jake followed the PO out. Beating himself up didn’t help matters, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He was the one who told Randall to take a hard line, refusing to continue without proof of life. It was a dangerous dance, bartering over a person’s well-being. What he’d recommended was Kidnap and Ransom 101, the baseline that any kidnapper should have recognized. Problem was, they were apparently engaged in a different tango.

The video clip was less than a minute long, shot so close it was impossible to tell what was happening to Madison. Nothing audible but her screams, nothing to show that it was filmed yesterday or a week ago. Jake hadn’t pointed that out, figuring Randall was too rattled to handle it. He had to give him a serious pep talk before sending him off to work this morning. Randall drove away slowly, hands still shaking. Not that Jake blamed him. He couldn’t even imagine watching your kid undergo that kind of pain.

A hulking guy passed them on the stairs, shaved head, lots of tattoos. He glared at Jake.

“One sec.” Jake ducked down the dark hallway, past a pay phone to the door marked Manager in tarnished, crooked letters. Knocked once, and the guy who had let them into Mack’s room opened it. He was holding a fresh bottle of Bud.

“Yeah?”

“You got a list of all the tenants?”

The guy squinted at him. Jake felt the PO peering over his shoulder. The manager glanced at him, then back at Jake. “What for?”

“Just curious.”

“Don’t you need a warrant or something?”

“Sure, I could get one of those,” Jake bluffed. He had no idea what strings Syd had pulled to convince the PO that he was a federal marshal, but figured it was best to play along. “Or I could spend the day grilling every person who walks through that door. Maybe check some of the other rooms, see what I find. Up to you.”

The manager grunted and scratched himself. Clearly Jake wasn’t winning friends and influencing people in Stockton. Maybe it was outside his target demographic. Without another word the manager turned and shuffled off. A second later he returned with a smudged spreadsheet. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Jake tucked it under his arm, then strode down the hallway. The PO fell in step behind him. Maybe Jake was being paranoid, but he half expected to feel a knife in his back.

Alone in the car five minutes later, he rang Syd.

“Anything?” she asked, sounding breathless.

“Are you jumping rope back there?”

“Give me a break, I was across the office dealing with something. Any leads on Krex?”

“Not really. Just finished up at his place, now I’m headed to where he used to work. I got some names for you to run down.” He read them off, made sure she had the right spelling. “Another thing. Get me background info on Krex’s PO and find out who owns that boardinghouse.”

“Okay.” The sound of typing in the background. “Am I looking for anything specific?”

Jake glanced back at the building, three ramshackle stories that in happier times had been painted bright yellow. “Something feels off here. The PO was too laidback about Krex slipping off his radar, and there are a bunch of doppelgängers shacked up there, too.”

“Not unusual. Can’t imagine many places rent to ex-cons.”

“I know, but still. Look into it. Might be nothing, but…”

“Hey, I’m not complaining, it’s good to have something to do. I was down to arranging my pens by color.”

“We only bought blue pens.”

“You see my problem.”

Jake grinned. “All right. I’ll check in later.”

“Later, partner.”

Jake sat for a moment, drumming his fingers idly on the steering wheel. Mack Krex had slid off the grid, not unusual for an ex-con. But then he turned up at the airport as part of an elaborate plan to kidnap a sixteen-year-old girl in exchange for nuclear secrets. Someone was pulling the strings here, and he’d bet it wasn’t a third-rate felon with an eighth grade education. He pressed Redial and waited for Syd to pick up. “Hey, can you get me in to see the warden at Corcoran? Maybe he knows more than the PO.”

“Sure thing.”

Jake hung up and shifted the car into Drive. The fast-food joint where Mack used to work was a mile away. Unless something shook loose there, they were pretty much back where they started. And Madison was running out of time.

Randall sipped nervously at his cappuccino, trying not to look as terrified as he felt. He had left work shortly after arriving, complaining of a stomach bug. Barry, no stranger to intestinal distress, agreed to cover for him. And the truth was he’d been nauseous ever since that awful video last night. He clenched his fists at the memory. Randall wished again that he was someone different, the kind of guy who would find the people responsible and wring their necks. Unfortunately, he had to rely on Syd and Jake to do that for him. And so far, they hadn’t really helped.

He was sitting in a park on the outskirts of Concord, a patch of green etched out between office buildings. Like most of the East Bay, the town was a mix of strip malls, office parks and suburban neighborhoods wound around cul-de-sacs. To his immediate right a bronze memorial to 9/11 read, “Through blurred eyes we find the strength and courage to soar beyond the moment.” Under the current circumstances, it struck him as particularly ironic.

Randall glanced at his watch again: 11:00 a.m. He’d arrived late, there was construction on the 680 and traffic had slowed to a crawl. A shadow blocked the light, and he squinted up. A man stood over him, head cocked to the side. He was white, medium-build, wiry-looking; not the same guy who first approached him. Dressed in jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt despite the weather, his features masked by aviator sunglasses and a Giants baseball cap. Randall’s throat closed up with rage at the sight of him. He gripped the bench’s armrest to prevent himself from doing something stupid.

“Dr. Grant, right?” His voice was a chain smoker’s rasp. “You got something for me?”

Randall reached into his jacket pocket for the flash drive. The guy’s hand clamped down on his wrist, stopping him. “Don’t get cute, Grant.”

“You tell that son of a bitch he fucked up by hurting my daughter,” Randall said. “I told him I’d get it, I just needed more time…”

“You give us what we want when we ask for it. You knew that was part of the deal. Can’t stall and expect nothing to happen.”

“I want my daughter back.”

“Behave yourself and we’ll cut her loose this afternoon.”

A woman approached with a stroller, the only other person to enter the park since Randall had arrived. The guy clasped his shoulder, guffawing as if Randall had said something hilarious. As he exerted pressure, Randall fought not to cry out.

Once the woman passed them, the guy said in a low voice, “We had a deal, Grant. And that deal included delivery dates.” He released his grip.

Randall watched the young mother wheel the stroller away. Funny, sometimes it seemed like yesterday he was pushing the girls around in one of those. His mind flashed back to a day at the zoo when they were still tiny, the two of them hanging off the metal fence around the penguin compound, laughing, and his stomach seized up. Without a word, he dropped the flash drive in the man’s hand.

“Good. Now get back to work, we need you there in case anything goes wrong.”

“You said she’d be free this afternoon!” Randall protested.

The guy laughed. “Just fucking with you, Grant. Don’t screw with us and we’ll return her safe and sound.”

Randall snorted. “I’ll be lucky if there isn’t an armed detail waiting at my desk.”

“Yeah, that would be unlucky. For both of you.” The guy drew a pack of gum from his pocket, peeled off a piece, and stuck it in his cheek. “Remember, we’re watching you.”

“Fuck you.”

The guy grinned and sauntered away. Randall watched as he slid into the passenger seat of an SUV with tinted windows. As soon as it turned the corner he slumped and buried his head in his hands. He’d royally screwed everything up again.

Jackson Burke leveled the barrel. He nodded once, and the trainer released the dogs. They surged toward the cattails lining the pond. A dozen mallards exploded from the reeds, necks straining upward as their wings beat the air. He got one in his sights, led it, then squeezed the trigger. He lowered the rifle and watched, satisfied, as the mallard stopped dead before spiraling back down. Tails wagging, the dogs dove into the water to retrieve it.

Jackson tugged his hat brim up an inch.

“Not bad for an old man,” his companion remarked.

Jackson grinned at him. “Not too old to whip your ass.”

“Not in a fair fight.”

“I always thought that was an oxymoron. A fight’s a fight, the goal is to win.” Jackson leaned against the bumper of their 4x4.

“Sorry to hear about Duke. He was one of a kind.” The young man propped a rifle against his shoulder. They were both dressed in matching camouflage and waders.

“He surely was.” Jackson nodded. “Terrible shame. But maybe some good will come of it. Woke some people up, made them realize the enemy is already inside our gates.”

“Absolutely.” The young man nodded and spit a long stream of tobacco juice out the corner of his mouth. “If they stay this angry, we might finally push that bill through in the next session.”

“Oh, I believe you will.” Jackson watched the trainers drop the lifeless birds into a cooler before loading the dogs back in their crates. “More trouble coming, you can bet on that.”

“You think?” The young man squinted toward the setting sun. “Speaking of which, I heard a rumor the governor is naming you Morris’s replacement. That true?”

Jackson smirked. “Little birdie tell you that?”

The other man laughed. “Fine, Jack, don’t tell me. But we need more people like you up on the Hill. It’d help keep some focus on this border problem.”

“Change is coming, boy. Trust me on that.” Jackson settled back into the passenger seat with a grunt.

“Always an optimist.”

“Hardly. An optimist hopes for the best. A pragmatist makes sure it happens.” Jackson pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes again and nudged the driver. “Let’s get going. I’m fit to eat a horse.”

“Celia, I’m so sorry.”

Celia eyed her through the screen door. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Kelly had been standing on this exact spot asking for Emilio. And now the boy was dead.

“What you want?”

Kelly shifted awkwardly. It was a fair question, and one she wasn’t sure she could answer. Rodriguez didn’t know where she was-she’d slipped out of the task force room, figuring she’d come up with an excuse on her drive back. If McLarty knew she was here, he’d already be filing her termination papers. But she didn’t care. A kid had been hurt on one of her cases last fall, and still hadn’t fully recovered. Now she’d have Emilio’s death weighing on her conscience as well.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Celia glared at her. “Mi Emilito is dead.”

“I know. Like I said, I-”

“You sorry.” Celia snorted, then turned and shuffled away. Kelly took that as an invitation to follow and hesitantly opened the screen door. She glanced around. Yesterday she’d been so focused on Emilio, she hadn’t taken note of the interior. It was small, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room. Shabby and filled with secondhand furniture, but clean.

Kelly followed Celia into the living room. On top of a bookshelf sat a small shrine. Votive candles burned in front of framed family photographs: sepia-toned ancestors, a school portrait of Emilio with his hair slicked back, a younger shot of him kneeling beside a soccer ball. A dime-store painting of the Virgin Mary hovered watchfully above. In one corner an ancient television perched on wooden legs, bunny ears askew. Celia dropped into an easy chair that released an anguished gasp. She gestured to the seat opposite her. “Siéntate.”

Kelly perched on the edge of a love seat that bore the faded remains of a floral print. She crossed her hands in her lap. “I pulled the processing papers, and it looks like there was a mix-up at the sheriff’s office. Someone stuck Emilio on the wrong bus. It was a mistake.”

Celia snorted again. “No mistake.”

“I believe it was. I spoke personally with the administrator who filed-”

Celia shook her head. “This gun mi Emilito find, that gun kill the senator, yes?”

Kelly shifted uncomfortably. It was only a matter of time before that detail was leaked to the media, but for the moment she preferred to keep it under wraps. “What makes you think that?”

“My English not so good, but I clean houses here for twenty years. I see things.” Celia pointed to her eyes. “FBI involved, for a gun? Must be reason.” Kelly started to respond, but Celia cut her off. “And I know this man who die.”

“Know him how?”

“Always on television, Mexicans this, Mexicans that…” She waved a hand in the air to illustrate her point. “Then my Emilito is killed. Mix-up you say. A white man kill him.”

“It happens in jail. There are a lot of…racial tensions.”

“My friend Rosa see a van full of gringos, same day Emilito find the gun.”

Kelly furrowed her brow. “Saw them where?”

“By that house, with los Salvadoreños de perros. Early, she saw them.”

“So you’re saying there’s some connection between this van and the gun that we found?”

Celia stared her down without responding.

“Maybe they were workers,” Kelly suggested.

“Aquí?” Celia rolled her eyes.

She had a point. In a predominantly Latino neighborhood, cheap labor was rarely provided by Caucasians. “They could have been lost.”

“No. Rosa say she no like how they look.”

“Did she see them get out of the van?”

“ Rosa go to work, she must be there at seven or no more job.” Celia pointed a finger at her. “But those men leave the gun. And they kill my Emilito.”

Kelly didn’t want to point out the flawed logic-the white man who shivved Emilio was in lockup, not driving around in a van. “Okay. Can I talk to your friend Rosa? Maybe she got a license plate number?”

“She no talk to police,” Celia said with finality.

“Well, then.” Kelly stood. “Thanks so much for your time, Celia. I’m so sorry again for your loss.”

Celia’s eyes filled with tears and she crossed herself.

Kelly let herself out. As she walked to her bu-car an Eldorado cruised past, filled with teenage boys who challenged her with their eyes. One of them whistled, and another laughed. Kelly ignored them, thinking that a van full of white men would definitely stick out like a sore thumb here. But there were any number of explanations, and a canvass of the neighborhood would probably only result in more slammed doors. Still, it was hard to shake the sense that she was missing something. Why would a group of white men kill Duke Morris, their purported champion, and stow the gun at an MS-13 stash house? Sure, it had stirred up considerable interest in their cause, but to commit murder for that reason seemed excessive.

She flipped open her phone and dialed.

“Where the hell are you? I thought-”

Kelly cut Rodriguez off. “Did you ever run down where the tip came from, for the raid?”

“What, on the MS-13 house?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” He sounded irritated.

“Just do it, Rodriguez.”

“You know, I’m not your assistant, I’m your partner.”

“Fine. I’ll get someone else on the task force to do it.” Kelly gritted her teeth as she pulled away from the curb.

A pause. “You’re thinking someone wanted us to find that gun, right?”

“Maybe. It’s something we should follow up on.”

“It’s not a bad theory,” he conceded. “All right, I’ll check it out.”

As Kelly drove back to the station she tried calling Jake, but he didn’t answer. With any luck his day was going better than hers, she thought grimly as she hung up.