Firebreak: A Mystery (2 page)

“The spotter in Piedra Labrada is headed that way. Keep an eye on it. Anything new, call it in to Doug.” Josie glanced at her watch. “There’s a crew of smoke jumpers flying into Marfa, scheduled to arrive at four. They’re flying in for training exercises in Big Bend.”

“I hope they’ll give us a hand. Are you going to the airport?” Marta asked.

“An old friend of mine from high school is on the crew. That’s where I’m headed.”

Marta smiled. “Small world.”

Josie nodded. “It’ll be good to see him again. Then I’ll be at the briefing at the firehouse at six. I’ll fill you in.”

TWO

Josie leaned against the concrete barrier facing the airstrip, smiling as Pete Beckett caught her up on life since leaving rural Indiana after high school to discover the world. Pete was now a grown-up version of the rebel she’d once spent every weekend with: he, Josie, and two other kids had crammed into the front seat of his Ford F-250 with a rusted-out floorboard and a four-wheel drive that took them through more cornfields and creek beds than she could count.

He was taller than she remembered, more bulked up around the shoulders, wearing a white button-down shirt tucked into faded Levi’s. Pete had the leathery-textured skin of a man who worked under the desert sun. Deep wrinkles framed his eyes, and silky brown hair hung over his collar in the back, giving him the same offhand measure of cool that Josie had always loved. When she escaped from home at the age of twenty, she had lost touch with the three friends who had saved her from the chaotic world her mom had created after her father’s death. It had been fifteen years since she’d talked to Pete, and she realized how much she’d missed him.

“I couldn’t take college and a forty-year desk job,” he said. “I painted water towers for a year, moved from town to town, but I couldn’t shake that need for a rush.”

“The air force wasn’t rush enough?”

“It should have been. I joined in ’96. Two years later I was in Iraq when Clinton signed the order to bomb. It was a thrill ride.” He grinned at the memory like he was remembering an old girlfriend.

“Why’d you leave?”

He shrugged and didn’t speak for some time. Josie was certain the answer was long and complicated. His gaze followed the airstrip out into the desert flatland until it hit a jagged outcropping, part of the Chinati Mountains.

“I got tired of the hierarchy. The rules. The kiss-ass.” He turned back to Josie. “I’m not much of a rule follower.”

She laughed at his lopsided grin. “Or an ass kisser.”

“That either.”

“So you left the air force and became a smoke jumper?”

“Best decision of my life.”

Josie pointed toward the north. “We’re hearing this is the worst year yet. We had a fire pass through Presidio County that destroyed quite a few homes. People are worried Arroyo County’s due.”

“Last count there’s thirty-nine major fires burning in twelve states. In 2012, over nine million acres burned in the U.S. A record. At this rate, we’ll top that unless we get a break from the heat wave and some rain.” He nodded his head toward the airfield. “Look at that brown grass out there. Nothing but fuel.”

“Floods two years ago, then steady rain. It was beautiful for a while. Green grass across the desert. Then this year, no rain. Not a drop for nine months.”

“That’s life. Rain then drought.”

Josie tilted her head toward the north. “What’s the latest with the Harrison Ridge fire?”

“The wind’s blowing southeast through the center of Arroyo County. If the wind whips up and throws sparks into that grass?” He shrugged. The result was obvious.

“Will your crew be at the briefing tonight at the firehouse?”

“We’ll be there. The rest of the guys are inside, gathering gear up.”

Josie put her arms out to give him a hug. “I’ll get out of here and let you get to work. It’s good to see you again.”

“Hang on a minute.” Pete crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Josie hard. “I heard about your boyfriend. They arrest the bastards that kidnapped him?”

Josie took a step back at the abrupt question. “How do you arrest a Mexican cartel?”

“No kidding?” He shook his head, his expression incredulous. “He got kidnapped by the cartel? I figured that was rumor.”

She felt the familiar dread over the topic she had discussed ad nauseam since it took place. She said nothing in response, but Pete had never understood verbal cues or body language. If he had a curiosity he pursued it, oblivious to a person’s discomfort—sometimes endearing, other times infuriating.

“Why’d they kidnap him? He have a lot of money?”

She blew out air in frustration. “No. It was a money-laundering scheme gone bad.” She shrugged and stared at him. Four months after the incident she was still reluctant to discuss the horrific position she had been placed in as a police officer whose lover was being held captive.

“I thought the stories were just rumors gone crazy. The cartel get their money back?”

She shook her head. “That was the one satisfaction in the whole mess. The feds got the money. The county’s supposed to get a cut, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”

“How long ago?”

“Four months.”

“How’s he doing?”

Josie looked away.

“Sure, I get it. He’s going through hell,” Pete said.

She said nothing.

Pete took a step toward her. She felt his eyes on her, but she continued staring at the ground. Dillon was seeing a therapist, but he was not doing well.

“Let’s all go out one night while I’m here. Might do him good to get out and talk to new people,” he said, but Josie stopped him.

“He left me, Pete. He moved out about two months ago. He closed his business and moved back with his family in St. Louis.”

“You still talking to him?”

“I tried for the first month. I still thought he might come back. Then one day he said talking to me was too hard, the memories of what happened too awful for him to stay connected to Artemis, or to me.”

“You think about moving away too?” he asked.

She shook her head, feeling the familiar resolve. “This is my home. When we left high school, I never looked back. This is the first place that ever felt right to me. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

“You gotta be messed up after all this. You seeing a shrink?”

Josie grinned. “What’s with the interrogation? You haven’t changed a bit.”

His eyes fixed on her and his expression didn’t waver. “Seriously. Are you seeing a shrink?”

“I talked to somebody a few times. The guilt over what happened is pretty bad. The kidnapping, the murder, none of it would have happened if it wasn’t for me.”

“Murder? Are you serious?”

Josie sighed, frustrated. This wasn’t the conversation she had imagined having with her old friend. “I don’t want to rehash this, Pete. It’s all too hard to get into again. You understand?”

“The shrink doing you any good?”

Josie sighed. “I’m not sure how a therapist can fix me. I know the guilt is misplaced, but it’s still there. My involvement wasn’t intentional, but it’s a fact. And I can’t get it out of my head.”

Pete crossed his arms again and leaned back to get a better look at her. “I saw more shrinks during high school than you could count. You remember.”

She nodded. She did remember. Pete could do no right in his parents’ eyes. He had spent many nights sleeping on a cot in her garage after his own parents would kick him out for not obeying their rules. Then they’d come to collect him, to drag him off to another therapy session.

“Mom and Dad thought I was psycho because I wanted to skydive and drag race and raise hell. Everybody wanted to figure me out. Fix me. Drug me. They put me on diets. No meat, no sugar, no whatever. No alcohol. I was on so many drugs for a while I couldn’t function. It was crazy. Everybody wanted me to crawl around inside my own head twenty-four/seven. Thinking about everything but what I wanted. Talking about it. They tried to get me to live like somebody I wasn’t.”

Josie said, “I don't think that's my issue.”

“You don’t get it. You gotta get out of your head.” He paused, and she could tell some inner dialogue was taking place in his mind, swirling at speeds other people could never keep up with. He reached out and squeezed her arm, the grip tight, not friendly. “We’ll get together before I leave. I got your cure.”

Josie laughed in spite of his serious expression. “I don’t think I need a cure.”

Pete’s eyes widened and she remembered the old intensity of their days in high school. If Pete wanted something, the rest of them went along for the ride because there was no stopping him. “Josie, don’t act like I don’t know anything. I can help you. Hell, I could have helped Dillon if he was still here.”

A man dressed in a khaki jumpsuit opened the door and yelled, “Get in here and suit up, Pete. We’re headed out.”

Josie smiled. “We’ll talk again before you head back to Montana. Be careful up there.”

He nodded his head slowly and gave her a half grin. “I know the look. You’re thinking, He’s crazier than ever.”

She laughed. “That’s not true. I never thought you were crazy. Maybe a little manic, but never crazy.”

Pete looked back over his shoulder; the man who’d come to get him had disappeared. “Then trust me. I got my own method for getting your head clean.” He stood and wrapped her in a rough hug, then pulled away and jogged toward the door. When he reached it he turned and winked. “Look at me, Josie. I’m living proof.”

THREE

The Artemis firehouse was located a block west of the police department. The town was laid out in a grid formation aligned with the Rio Grande, just six miles to the south, and the Chinati Mountain range, about twenty miles to the north. Artemis struggled to keep the storefronts around the town square occupied and the businesses if not thriving, at least maintaining. Several large ranching operations brought most of the commerce into town. Artemis was primarily populated by those who wanted little to do with the outside world; they desired privacy and the freedom to run their lives as they saw fit with as little government interference as possible. Living off the grid wasn’t just unplugging from the electric company: it was an isolated way of life that Josie respected and often aspired to.

The streets around the firehouse were already packed with a mix of firefighters’ pickup trucks, sheriffs’ cars, and police jeeps. Josie parked in her designated place at the PD and walked to the firehouse, sticking to the side of the street where the shade trees provided a measure of relief from the sun. The bank sign down the street read 103 degrees, and the heat showed no sign of breaking. Temperatures in the hundreds down in the river valley were typical for early July, but Josie held out hope for an early monsoon season, especially with the fire risk so high.

Josie walked through the empty engine bay and figured the fire truck was probably already positioned up north near the mudflats and the prairie grasses. An open door at the back of the bay led to a training room for the volunteer fire department. She found every seat taken, and most of the standing area in the room occupied as well. Dozens of voices mixed together as worried officers and firefighters prepared for the worst.

Officer Otto Podowski stood at the other end of the room, smoothing down the white flyaway hair that never seemed to stay put on his balding head. He had been her boss when she’d first been hired by the police department, nearly fifteen years ago. When he decided to give up the extra stress that came with running the department he’d encouraged her to put in for the chief’s position. Otto was a first-rate cop and one of her closest friends.

He offered a friendly smile as she approached, although his demeanor was sober. “What’s the word?” he asked.

“Marta’s at the watchtower. I saw smoke in Piedra Labrada just before she came on duty. I called it in to Doug. We’re hoping it doesn’t jump the river,” Josie said.

“I hope Mexico’s got somebody working it. We’re stretched pretty thin.”

“We’ve got some extra help coming in today. I just left the Marfa airport,” she said. “I met up with an old friend of mine from high school that’s with a smoke jumper crew out of Montana.”

He leaned back slightly at the news. “No kidding?”

She smiled. “I hadn’t seen him since school. I’d heard he was jumping but I never imagined we’d meet again like this.”

The noise level of fifty people all talking among themselves died down as they noticed Fire Chief Doug Free walk to the front of the room. It didn’t take long for him to get their attention. People were desperate for news. Not only were the group of first responders worried about their town and their neighbors, but they were also concerned for their own homes and families.

Finally Doug began. “Thank you all for coming. You know we’re low-tech here. No air-conditioning and no microphone, so bear with me. This should take about twenty minutes with the law enforcement, then I need the firemen to stick around another twenty for direction. I’ll get you back out on the front lines as soon as possible.” He pulled a blue bandanna out of his back jeans pocket and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. He had brown hair that he wore combed back to one side and he had dark-brown eyes filled with an intensity that was evident even from across the room. He was a trim man with an athletic build. Josie noticed that all the firefighters in the room were in good physical shape. In the field they carried fifty-pound water sacks, additional equipment, heavy fire suits, and they had to be able to walk for miles at a time.

“As you know, yesterday I requested a voluntary evacuation for the southern part of Arroyo County,” he went on. “The northern half of the county has already evacuated. But things just got worse about ten minutes ago. We’re looking at a mandatory evacuation. The Harrison Ridge fire is headed toward us from up north. It’s slowed down somewhat as the wind gusts have died down. Hopefully as evening falls we’ll lose the wind and be able to stay on top of it. The bad news is we’ve got a fire that started late afternoon in Piedra Labrada. My spotter just called and said the fire’s jumped the river in two places. I just sent Joey, Jake, and Luke over there about twenty minutes ago. The wind has me worried. We’ve got wind gusts coming up out of the canyons down by the river blowing northeast. And the Harrison Ridge fire is continuing to spread south. Both fires could potentially strike Artemis.”