Dark Reservations

 

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To my wife, Kim,

and my children, Samantha, Sabrina, and Sydney

(who just wanted to see their names in print)

I love you.

In memory of

Frank Friel

a fine cop, a fine mentor, a fine friend

 

S
EPTEMBER
23

T
HURSDAY
, 6:35
A.M.

S
KY
C
ITY
C
ASINO
, P
UEBLO
OF
A
COMA
,
N
EW
M
EXICO

When Joe Evers arrived, his squad was already donning their vests and checking their weapons. He was late and had missed the briefing.

“You're with us,” Stretch said. “Sadi and I have the rear. You have outbuildings and vehicles.” He handed Joe a picture of the subject, Roy Manygoats.

Cordelli was the case agent and had designated the casino's rear parking lot as the staging area. From here, they would go to Manygoats's residence to make the arrest. If he wasn't there, they would go mobile, trying to track him down as quickly as possible.

Standing beside his vehicle, Cordelli spotted Joe. He shook his head and said something to Dale, who glanced at Joe and laughed.

“Let's hurry up,” Dale said. He wore his vest high over his rather generous gut, the large, yellow BIA letters sitting just below his chin.

“What are you doing here?” Joe asked.

Dale walked away, ignoring his question. He rarely went on operations, not since becoming squad supervisor six years earlier, which coincided with his outgrowing his tactical vest. Too much desk time, he'd said. Too many tacos, the squad had said.

Stretch charged his M4 carbine. “He thought you would be a no-show.” The assault rifle appeared petite in front of his six-foot-seven frame.

Perhaps it was guilt, but Joe thought his friend and former partner was going to add
again.
He put on his vest and started for the passenger door of Stretch's unmarked Suburban.

“Don't even think about it,” Sadi said, and reached past him for the handle. She jogged a thumb toward the backseat.

They traveled in convoy, three vehicles, into the heart of Acoma, which was located off I-40, west of Albuquerque. This was Indian Country. Reservation land. Rural, desolate, and hard.

Four dirt roads later, they arrived at a trailer a little more than a mile from an adobe village that sat atop a plateau and was known as Sky City. As they pulled up, a couple of scrawny rez dogs came from behind the building, both mutts, both starving. Stretch drove to the rear, stopping ten feet from the back door. They climbed out, guns drawn.

The other half of the team was at the front door, making entry.

A few hundred feet behind the trailer were the remnants of a corral, two abandoned vehicles, and an outhouse.

Cordelli's voice came through the radio. “His mother's saying he's not here.”

Joe checked the vehicles. Empty. He made his way to the dilapidated corral and searched behind a pile of car tires. The land here was devoid of trees, only scrub grass and a few scraggly bushes, no place for a person to hide.

He moved on to the outhouse, a plywood special in need of paint. From twenty or so feet away, the air was already redolent with the smell of human waste. Tasking him with the outhouse was punishment. He was the senior agent, but he'd been put on the perimeter. He'd been put on shit duty.

A dog barked.

Sadi and Stretch were by the back door of the trailer, which was now open. Cordelli stood in the entryway. One of the mutts challenged them from the building's corner.

A sound emanated from the outhouse, a soft creaking. Joe raised his Glock.

“Police! Come out!” he said, not sure if there was someone inside, but not wanting that person to hear his uncertainty.

The door burst open and a skinny kid in a blue T-shirt came running out, away from Joe, into the open field beyond.

Joe cursed and holstered his weapon, then took off after him. It wasn't a kid, but a teenager. He called for the teen to stop.

The runner ignored him, heading toward an arroyo some two hundred yards beyond. The ground was rocky and dotted with flat cacti and mesquite brush, but the teen proved agile. Joe knew he was too old and too out of shape to chase this guy far. All he could do was try for an all-out sprint and get him quickly, or else let him go. He took longer strides and focused on his breathing. The gap between them closed. The teen turned.

It was Manygoats. All nineteen years of him. He had the look of a rabbit chased by a dog—an old dog.

Joe reached out and grabbed for his shirt. Fabric ripped. The effort threw Joe off balance and he stumbled forward, taking long, erratic bounds to stay upright. But he was going too fast. He fell to the ground, dragging the teen with him. They rolled. Joe lost hold of the shirt. They both came up on a knee. Manygoats's eyes revealed the terror of a man facing a lifetime in prison.

“Don't make it worse,” Joe said between breaths.

Manygoats tried to get to his feet.

Joe lunged and slammed him to the ground. They wrestled. Joe felt movement by his right hip, his holster. Manygoats had the Glock halfway out. Joe clamped his right elbow down over his weapon and the young hand, then raked it backward with all his strength, knocking the weapon away. He seized the teen's arm and wrenched it behind his back. Manygoats shifted and tried for the gun with his free hand, but he didn't have the reach, and before Joe could retrieve it, a boot came down on the grip.

Cordelli stood above him.

Joe cuffed Manygoats, then dusted himself off.

Stretch grinned as he handed the weapon back to Joe. “Maybe I should hold on to that for you, seeing how much trouble you're having with it?”

The rest of the squad gathered around them.

Dale wanted to know what had happened. Joe told him, leaving out the part about losing his weapon.

“Good work,” Dale said.

“Tell him about your gun, cowboy,” Cordelli said. Half Italian and half Ute, Cordelli had the face and body of Michelangelo's
David,
with a mouth that spat arrowheads. Joe carried a few scars.

Stretch came to stand next to Joe. “Why don't you shut up, Cordelli.”

“What about it?” Dale asked.

“Nothing. The punk tried to grab for it when I put him on the ground. I had it under control.”

“You're just lucky I came along.” Cordelli pointed a finger gun at Joe. “You might've been retiring in a box.”

Stretch pulled Joe toward his vehicle.

“Write it up, Joe,” Dale said. “Get it to Cordelli before the detention hearing.”

A report would be embarrassing, but Joe didn't argue. He had only three months left. At least things couldn't get any worse.

S
EPTEMBER
23

T
HURSDAY
, 11:42
A.M.

B
UREAU
OF
I
NDIAN
A
FFAIRS
, O
FFICE
OF
I
NVESTIGATIONS
, A
LBUQUERQUE
, N
EW
M
EXICO

Joe and Stretch stood in the middle of the squad room, looking up at the television suspended from the ceiling. The news ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen announced breaking news. Authorities had found Congressman Arlen Edgerton's vehicle on the Navajo reservation.

What the ticker did not tell viewers was that the congressman, two of his staff, and the vehicle they'd been traveling in had gone missing more than twenty years earlier. But soon the news anchor, a young, attractive brunette who looked strikingly similar to every other brunette news anchor, reported the full story, punctuating the facts with provocative questions that rivaled the skills of the most accomplished true-crime writer: Did the corruption probe prove Edgerton was taking money? Why, after a two-year-long investigation, did the independent counsel find only one suspicious transaction involving Edgerton?

“They'll be spinning it by noon,” Stretch said.

“Who?”

“His wife. Her campaign. She's dirty, just like he was.”

Joe nodded, not really caring. He knew his friend, knew he enjoyed passing judgment, everything black and white, never a shade of gray, never a faded edge.

On the screen, superimposed over the background to the assembly-line brunette, was a picture of Congressman Edgerton and his secretary, Faye Hannaway, he in a conservative dark gray suit, she in a red look-at-me dress. The photo appeared to have been taken at a campaign party. A banner in the background read A
RLEN
E
DGERTON FOR
C
HANGE
.
It seemed only the candidates got swapped out, never the slogans.

“Joe!” Dale called from the doorway to his office. “Get in here.”

When Joe entered, Dale waved him to a seat in front of his desk. He ripped a sheet of paper from his notepad and handed it to Joe.

“That's the number for the officer who found Edgerton's vehicle.”

Joe stared at the paper, confused. On it was written “Randall Bluehorse,” below that a phone number.

“What's this for?”

“You're catching it. The FBI's letting us run with it. We handled the disappearance back in '88.”

“And I'm handling it? Bullshit. I'm out of here in three months.”

“Clear it and you go out big.”

“Is this because of this morning?”

“No. It's because you're still my senior agent.”

Dale didn't say
best agent
. He wouldn't say that. Not anymore. Joe tossed the paper to Dale. It landed atop a red '76 Datsun 510, part of Dale's model-car collection, a replica of the car Paul Newman had driven to win several of his first professional races.