Extraordinary Retribution (8 page)

Lopez struggled with himself and turned away, but before a minute had passed, he found himself drawn back toward the form. He looked over quickly to make sure he was not deceived.
Still there!
Still staring!
He could see the shape a little better now, the hood slightly pulled back, a thinning in the clouds brightening the day subtly. It was a woman, young, pale in appearance, a cyan glint hopping across her burning gaze. This was a face he did
not
know. And yet, her eyes engaged his, a personal space was violated across the distance separating them. She was seeking him! Sending a message.

What message?
It seemed so inappropriate, so out of place at this time, during this ceremony. But
still
she stared, refusing to look away, pursuing him with her eyes.
Demanding.

He tore his gaze away and resolved this time to ignore this strange and disturbing woman. Whoever she was, he didn’t know her, and a pair of haunting eyes was not going to make him try to change that. He wanted this dreadful ceremony over, the priest to shut up, and his brother’s body to be given the rest it deserved. He wanted to go back home, pull out his thirty-year-old bottle of Springbank scotch, and get good and drunk. He’d just as soon kill a million brain cells and forget this day. Forget the emptiness. Forget the ghostly blue eyes.

The last stragglers were coming by and paying their respects. The rain had abated somewhat and now seemed more a fine mist in the air than precipitation. Father Lopez accompanied his parents to their car, along with his brother’s widow. He forced himself to look at her daughters, his young nieces, to give both a faint smile and hug, and try not to fall apart in front of them. Relief swept over him as he closed the door and the car pulled out. The tires dropped into a pothole and splashed a wave of muddy water over his shoes. It didn’t matter.

He walked slowly back to his car, the gravestones around him dotting his peripheral vision. In the midst of it was his brother’s grave, the ground bare and the dirt fresh. The headstones gave him a chilling impression of a dead army, rising, closing in on him. Images of bone and flesh like the terrible prophecy of Ezekiel flooded his mind; he forced them away. Never again did he want to see what he had seen on the floor of the cabin in Tennessee. He reached into his pockets and retrieved car keys, fumbling with them in some growing, irrational panic. Trying hard to see only a warm bottle of eighty proof at home.

“Father Lopez!” cried a voice. He jumped, dropping his keys into the mud.

“Mother of God!” He spun around toward the voice, straightening up. It was the pale woman from the funeral.

“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked with visible irritation, scooping his begrimed keys from the ground.

“Losing our Southern manners, Father?”

She
dared
mock him now? “Look, I’m tired. I just buried my brother. You scared me half to death with that yell. How can I help you?”

“I want to help
you
.” Her blue eyes were still very bright.

Father Lopez suppressed a sigh. “Why do you think I need any help?”

“Because you’ll need answers soon. Answers to your brother’s death that you won’t find alone.”

Francisco Lopez became very still. He didn’t know whether to hit this woman or just walk away. “Heck of a time to be talking like this.”

“I’m sorry. There isn’t a good time.”

“
I’m
not going to need your help, because
I’m
not going to be asking any questions. I’m an overworked parish priest, not a detective. The police are handling this. They can do much more than I ever could. Go talk to them if you want to help.” He turned back to his vehicle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, if I can get this damned key in the slot, I’ll be getting home.”

“You can’t trust the police.”

He sighed, the key missing and scratching the paint. “They seemed competent enough to me.”

“They’re compromised.”

“Oh for
God’s sake
, woman!” he found himself shouting. “Compromised? Are you some kind of nut?”

She stepped forward, her hood sliding down and revealing her high cheekbones and gleaming golden hair. Her blue eyes were intense, focused, and undisturbed by his shouting.

“My name is Sara Houston, Father Lopez. I worked with Miguel for many years, before he returned here. I know things that you don’t. There is a larger context to his death.”

She was standing very close to him, her face nearly touching his. Lopez was unnerved by the pulse of life in her. “Larger context? What on earth are you talking about? What does Miguel’s work in Washington have to do with this?”

“Your brother was certainly murdered, but it was not a random crime. You can’t trust the police; they’re blind pawns in a much bigger game. Soon you’ll understand that, and then we’ll talk again. You’ll need my help. Remember that, when the time comes.”

She pulled the hood fully over her head again, concealing most of her features, and turned, striding away from the car. It was like a light had been turned off, her piercing, unusual gaze and bright hair snuffed out, her white face turned away, replaced by the dark gray of her hood.

“Wait a minute!” shouted Lopez. “You can’t just say something like that and walk off!”

But she did not heed him or give any indication that she had heard. Lopez stood rooted in the mud for several moments, debating whether to pursue her or let her go.
Who was this strange woman? How could she be trusted?

Lopez watched her silhouette merge with the mist and struggled to prevent himself from following her.
It was preposterous.
He wiped the rain from his face as if to clear his vision. He had seen the police take up the case aggressively before he left Gatlinburg. He had met the officers. He trusted them. What was he thinking to go after her? He shook his head and got into the car. He would not be talking with that woman again.

Lord have mercy!

13

“A
robbery
? What are you talking about?”

Father Lopez sat dumbfounded in front of a Gatlinburg police detective. This wasn’t one of the officers he had met at the cabin. This was a different breed entirely. The man’s disorganized room – paperwork, half-filled coffee cups, litter – mirrored the confusion of his thoughts. The patronizing tone of the detective had begun to infuriate him.

“Detective Summers,” Lopez began again, trying to keep his voice under control, “I discovered my brother’s body. I walked through a giant hole blown into the wall of a mountain cabin with enough used shells on the floor and bullet holes in the wall to qualify as a war zone. My brother’s body was riddled with holes, his upper torso half blown away by something. Robbers don’t break into a cabin with dynamite. They don’t pull out automatic weapons and spray bullets around. They don’t blow people’s heads off!”

“Mr. Lopez, please, you are hysterical.”

“You are ridiculous!”

The man adjusted his eyeglasses and pulled on the knot of his tie below his neck. He looked like a man who felt he had been far more than patient with an unruly citizen, and it was beginning to try his nerves.

“Mr. Lopez—
Father
Lopez, the Gatlinburg police are far from ridiculous. If you wish to see ridiculous, you need to look no further than yourself.”

Lopez stared disbelievingly. “Is this fourth grade?”

“I am serious,
sir
. I’ve tried to be reasonable with you. Your brother was killed during a robbery. That has been the conclusion of this investigation. You were unfortunate enough to have discovered his body, and it appears to have clouded your judgment.”

“Clouded my judgment? Detective, I didn’t imagine a six-foot diameter blast hole in my family’s cabin!”

“Are you so sure of that?” asked the detective.

Francisco Lopez laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, I’m one hundred percent sure of that.”

“Well, Father Lopez, I’ve seen the photographs of the cabin. There is no hole.” The detective tossed several glossy prints toward Father Lopez, who leaned forward again and quickly scanned the images.

“There’s some mistake,” he said in disbelief. It was
impossible
. The photos showed no damage to the structure. The cabin was certainly his family’s, the location and design easily recognized. But it looked untouched. Every angle showed a well-maintained house in the woods. “When were these taken?”

“The day after the report was filed. These were taken by forensics
officers
. There is no mistake.” The detective sighed. “Father Lopez, there is counseling available for family members of victims. I suggest you look into this option. You are obviously traumatized by this incident.”

“Traumatized....” Lopez stared uncomprehending at the photographs.

“As for our department, the investigation is closed.”

“
Closed?
There are killers out there! Even if this
is
a robbery, someone killed my brother. You can’t just close a murder investigation a few weeks after the crime!”

“The decision’s been made, Mr. Lopez. Lack of any significant leads, I’m afraid. It was my superior’s choice. There is nothing I can do.”

“I want to talk to him!”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I am your contact at the station. We can’t let distraught family members harass those in charge.”

“Then I would like to speak to the officers assigned to the case that day.
They
were sure it wasn’t a robbery.”

The detective removed his glasses, his face grim. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mr. Lopez.”

“Why? I demand to speak with those officers!”

“You can demand all you want. It won’t do any good. You can’t see them.” He sighed again, more heavily. “They’re dead, Mr. Lopez. They were killed a few days ago when their patrol car went over the edge of one of the mountain roads. A terrible accident.”

Lopez suddenly felt very cold.

He stepped out of the police station like a man drugged. He was not crazy, that much he knew. Those photos were fakes. He could prove it. He would return to the cabin and examine the scene of the crime himself. Take his own damn pictures. Confront these idiots with the truth. He forced himself to believe this, because he needed the sense that something could be done. He needed the sense that order could come of this chaos. Otherwise, this feeling would overtake him, that something darker and more evil even than his brother’s murder was present. He could be swallowed up in that irrationality, where there was no clear path, only shadows and echoes of shadows.

Half-dazed, he stumbled down the stairs leading away from the station toward the street where his car waited. These new smartphones recorded everything about photos—date, time, location.
Perfect evidence.
He would document the damage, and then bring the photos back to these idiots. He could think of nothing else to do.

As he neared his vehicle, he glanced up the sidewalk and saw her. She stood with her arms folded across a dark car coat, a crisp spring breeze tossing her yellow hair about. Her expression was serious.

“We can talk here,” she said, placing a small black box on the restaurant table. “This device will scramble directed microphones. Talk softly; you weren’t followed, but we don’t need to advertise anything at this stage.”

The crowd at the Tennessee diner seemed to have gotten over their initial surprise at seeing a black-clad Mexican priest enter with a young woman who seemed every bit the fitness model from her physique. The drone of conversation picked up again, eyes returned to their own tables. Two coffees were placed on the table.

“Ya’ll orderin’ anythin’
else
?” came the irritated voice of the waitress.

Houston answered assertively. “Not for now, thank you.” The waitress rolled her eyes and turned to other customers.

Lopez shook his head, staring at the device Houston had placed on the table. “What on earth have I gotten into here?”

Houston eyed him carefully. “How much do you know about what your brother did with the government, Father Lopez?”

He felt unnerved again by her sharp eyes. “Not much, actually. Besides the troubled relationship we’d had for some time, he was pretty tight-lipped about it all. No one knew. He worked as some consultant on issues of national security he wasn’t allowed to talk about. Had top-secret clearances. Seemed to pay well.”

“What if I were to tell you that he was not a consultant.”

Lopez squinted at her. “Not a consultant? What do you mean?”

She sighed. “Miguel never worked as a consultant in D.C. That was a cover.”

“OK,” began Lopez cautiously, “so what the hell
did
he do? Did he even work for the government?”

“Yes, he did.” She stared into his eyes. “He worked for the CIA.”

“The CIA?” Lopez nearly spilled his coffee. “Miguel was some kind of secret agent?”

“Miguel was a CIA agent, Father Lopez. A highly trained specialist at CIA. He was under deep cover because he performed some extremely sensitive missions.”

“I’m about to fall down the rabbit hole. I can feel it.” Lopez shook his head.
Secret Agent Miguel Lopez. Under deep cover performing sensitive missions. What the hell?
“And you’re here because you think that his death had something to do with those missions.”

Her expression was grim. “I don’t know. But I
suspect
. What did the police tell you?”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. They said it was a
robbery.
Let me tell you, Agent Houston -”

“Sara,” she said, touching the top of his hand fleetingly with her finger, breaking his concentration, breaking through the normal protective barriers spacing strangers.

He corrected himself and tried to refocus his thoughts. “OK. Sara. Then you call me Francisco. So, Sara, I saw a hole big enough to drive a
car
blown through the cabin wall. Enough bullets and casings for a combat zone. There is
no way
that was a robbery. I don’t know
what
it was, besides murder.”