Flash Flood (24 page)

“Thought you dicks had given up and gone home.”

Roger smiled. “I'm glad we didn't.”

“Am I right in thinking I'm going to be detained against my will?” Eric held up manacled hands.

“Is that lawyerese for under arrest?”

“On what fucking charge? Surviving an attempted murder didn't used to be a crime.”

“Oh, let's say violation of parole. Carrying a concealed weapon—which just happens to be stolen, I'll bet.” Roger was aware that Eric knew that gave him every right and then some to lock up his ass, take him back to Milford or some federal penitentiary. Roger hadn't exactly decided what he'd do. Probably depended on Eric's cooperation. He needed him safe and out of commission. “But I think you might have some interesting things to tell us. What happens to you might be negotiable. Let's say I could have found this piece along side the road.”

“If you get what you want?”

“Something like that.”

Roger looked over at Tom, who popped a small cassette into the machine. The push of a couple levers and he was ready.

“Who set you up on the cocaine deal seven years ago?”

“Billy Roland Eklund.”

“Proof? Besides this lawyer who guaranteed the two million for taking a fall?”

“Crack cocaine found in the mats on the plane.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Damned Mahoney. Did he know about this?”

“Yeah. But he's in pretty tight with ol' Billy Roland. And he's the type who wants the show to himself. Resents you guys nosing around.”

“I could have told you,” Tom interceded. “Insurance dicks are all the same.”

“Let's hear more about the crack.”

“Ran across it myself when I was going over the plane. Found out quick that our friend, Dan, wasn't going to be of much help. That's why I got it to you guys soon as I could. Anyway, rumor has it the second wife's a user. But I think the original hauls were to pay off debt. A few million lost in bad investments, stock market in '87, a few dry wells. I used to do a little tax work for Billy Roland. That spread is a multi-million dollar operation. It takes some big bucks to keep it going.”

Roger nodded. An idiot could see that, the reason for Billy Roland needing money. And from what he'd seen of Miss Iris, keeping her in drugs might be the only way of keeping her at all.

It made sense. He knew that it would. He just needed a break to prove it. And the break turned out to be an eye witness. No wonder Billy Roland wanted this man killed, sent the sheriff to do the job. This was dynamite.

“What will you do?”

“Search warrant. Subpoena the books.”

“What's in it for me?”

“Besides staying out of the slammer?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, it's not going to be money. You can kiss that two mil goodbye forever. Let's say your reward this time around is for being Joe Citizen, just an honest stiff doing his civic duty.”

“Fuck you.”

“Thought that might be your reaction.”

“I want my identity protected.”

“As if you have any bargaining chips, my friend.”

“I've been shot at.”

“We know. That's why until this is over, protective custody is probably our best bet.”

“I'd be more useful out there undercover.”

Hadn't he lived long enough to recognize a loose cannon when he saw one? No, Roger thought to himself, you'll stay hidden for now. The man couldn't keep the bitterness from his face. This was one pissed-off joker. And that kind of anger could make a man do something stupid.

“I can better protect you if I know where you are.”

“Fuck you.”

“You said that before. Not very original. Tom, give a call to Milford. I think we need to park our baggage for a few days. But make sure he'll be accessible, phone in his cell, that sort of thing. Ask for the honeymoon suite.” Roger laughed. “You know, I've never been happier to see someone alive. You've been a great help.” There, an attempt at sincerity which from the look on Eric's face fell flat, Roger thought. But who cared? The man was an ex-con, took a dive to protect someone else probably, but he was slime. You just had to look at him to know what kind of values he had.

***

Dan had checked the house after Elaine left then took another turn around the grounds. He had distinctly heard the sound of a body hitting the deck when they had been in the study. It was muffled by closed windows and drapes, but still not a sound that could be easily confused. He hadn't wanted to alarm anyone. He couldn't very well say he knew that Eric had been snooping at the window.

But there was nothing—no footprints—the ground was hard and unyielding from a lack of rain. He checked the barns and accidentally awakened Hank, who had just gone to bed. He'd been working in the clinic and hadn't heard anything suspect. Dan felt uneasy. Some feeling of dread that he couldn't shake. Elaine called around midnight. There hadn't been any hitchhikers on the way back and no phone messages. She shared his uneasiness.

He went to bed but couldn't sleep. He got up, dressed and grabbed a flashlight. This time he made a larger circle of the property: house, barns, the corrals immediately to the south, then the county road that flanked the property starting at the end of the circle drive. At the point where the county road angled closest to the house just behind a stand of poplar, he thought there were tire tracks. Longer axle width than a car, bigger tires. A truck or van, probably.

But it might not mean anything. Whoever it was had backed into an entrance to the field in knee deep weeds that covered any footprints. Could have been a farm truck. He had seen some hands working over this way earlier in the day on a faulty irrigation pipe. They would have used this entrance to the field, too. At best a few tire tracks were inconclusive. Eric had simply vanished—with or without help.

It was the why that Dan didn't want to dwell on. At least knowing his whereabouts had given Dan a sense of security. Eric believed that he could better handle the investigation alone, on his own, that Dan knew. And didn't Dan feel his vindictiveness had already gotten in the way? Whose idea had it been for Elaine to show up to play twenty questions?

Actually, he couldn't blame her. She was trapped by this man and probably just wanted to help. And wasn't he also interested in the answers? Only, he'd just about decided that Billy Roland couldn't have had anything to do with the cocaine on Eric's plane. But how could he get Eric to listen? Maybe this J.J., Jorge and Dona Mari link would prove helpful. He could hope anyway. Dan walked back to the house.

It wasn't until three twenty the next afternoon that Dan knew exactly what had happened to Eric. He knew the minute the federal marshals pulled up, fanned out, guns in hand, waiting for Roger to give orders to search and confiscate. Roger and Tom seemed to have gained new importance poised against a backdrop of heavies. Dan noted more than a little swagger as Roger approached the front door.

Dan walked down the hall to the study and told Billy Roland that the feds were on the front lawn with a fistful of search warrants. Dan didn't try to explain, tell Billy Roland what he thought had happened. How could he? Eric Linden was supposed to be dead. He just followed the old man back down the hall.

“Mr. Eklund, I've got a feeling that this doesn't surprise you. Must have been expecting our visit.” Roger stood at the foot of the front steps, smug, crew cut standing perfectly straight, the sun reflecting off the distortion-free, optical-quality gray lenses that masked his eyes.

Billy Roland looked shell shocked, Dan thought, and suffering from a migraine. He was in a bathrobe and slippers. He shuffled forward stopping at the top step, shaded his eyes and surveyed the army of uniformed men in the drive.

“What's this here all about?”

“Let's just say we have reason to believe that crack cocaine has been discovered on your property and there's a strong indication that we'll find more.”

Billy Roland swung around to Dan. “You promised, son. You said you wouldn't use it. It was just our little secret about Miss Iris.” His voice mixed disbelief with hurt and Dan felt like he had been stabbed. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. Maybe the less said right now. Billy Roland's words hadn't been lost on Roger, either, who bounded up the steps, shoved the papers into Billy Roland's hands and proceeded into the house after one smirk at Dan.

And that's when the screaming started. Later it would seem funny but at the moment, uniformed men pushing into the house struck terror in the hearts of a dozen Mexican workers—probably all without papers—who ran yelling
“Policia Militar,
” scattering in a dozen directions, the troopers on their heels. Out the front door, around the sides of the house; it was like turning over a beehive.

Roger tried to get his men organized, but no one could hear above the bedlam. Roger collided with the cook in the hallway, who clung to his leg begging him to spare her children. It took Tom to peel the woman away only to have her grab him around the waist and continue to shriek hysterically while immobilizing Roger's right hand man.

The marshals didn't know whether to chase down the Mexican nationals or begin the search of the house. Most stood outside the barns uncertain without orders what they were supposed to be doing.

“Tom, damn it, where are you?”

Roger pushed past Dan to look in the study. Dan could see Tom pleading with the cook to release him, the two of them entangled just inside the kitchen door. By now they had run out of what few words of English they had in common.

“Get over here.” Roger stuck his head out the door of the study and had caught sight of Tom. “Now. What the fuck's wrong with you?”

Roger ducked back into the room, obviously relishing the fact that he had the prime location all to himself, Dan thought. Dan couldn't see where Billy Roland had gone, but he decided to go down to the barns, get out of the house.

“Sorry, pal, nothing I can do.” He pushed past Tom and the cook.

He had just reached the back steps when he heard the explosion and within seconds saw the flames. The office or the clinic. He couldn't tell which. Maybe both were on fire. The first barn of horses was bedlam. He paused to slip a halter on Baby Belle, then grabbed the lead ropes of two other horses tied in the breezeway and ran with the three outside. Others were pounding against their stalls and whinnying in that shrill high-pitched call of alarm.

A nearby corral was open, and he unsnapped the leads before he turned them loose and ran back to the barn. A number of stable hands, Dan thought he counted five, were working as a team and emptying the barns of livestock. Dan helped with two geldings, and was almost trampled by their eagerness to escape the tendrils of smoke that seeped through an air duct and hung in the still air above the stalls.

The corrals closest to the barns were filling up. In the distance Dan could see calves and adult cattle being herded into the surrounding fields. As he headed toward the clinic, he fleetingly thought of Shortcake Dream and hoped someone would be with her. But, for now, he had to help with the fire. Hoses attached to mini compressors were already pumping water in a steady stream both on the inside and the outside of the building, directly onto the clinic.

Dan stood back as Hank ordered a group of men to take axes to the outside door and then cut holes in the roof. Aluminum ladders had been dragged from somewhere and now each leaned against the building. The smoke continued to billow outward and upward, but there were no flames.

“What happened?” Dan asked Hank, who stood next to him, his eyebrows singed off and streaks of soot in his hair.

“Iris used to do a little free-basing. I was going to destroy the evidence, tipped over a bunsen burner. I had some chemicals on the counter. The place just went up.”

“Jesus.” Dan didn't say more. This was just fodder for Roger. He'd jump all over a suspect fire in a clinic and if he found any traces of drugs….

“Look, I'd do anything to protect that old man. He means everything to me. He gave me a chance, a lot of responsibility right out of school.”

“I know. I feel the same way.”

Dan and Hank moved back to make room for two men pulling a hose to be handed up to those on the roof. He knew they wouldn't have long to wait before Roger was on the scene. Dan watched as Roger gave orders to a man standing outside the kitchen then trotted toward them. Showing academy form, Dan noticed, elbows tucked, landing on the balls of his feet.

“What's going on?” Roger was out of breath.

“Everything's under control,” Hank said.

“That isn't what I asked.” Roger swung to face Hank. “What the fuck was on fire?”

“The clinic.”

“You in charge?”

“Yeah.”

“What started it?”

“Carelessness. Moving some volatile chemicals from a cupboard to the counter.”

“You responsible?”

Hank nodded.

“You know what kind of trouble you'll be in if we so much as find a whiff of drugs in that mess?” Roger gestured toward the blackened interior of the clinic, smoke still rolling out through the battered door. “Ever hear of tampering with evidence?”

Hank just stood there. Roger, infuriated, pushed Hank against a support post.

“Don't jerk me around.”

Hank's face was completely impassive, Dan thought. Then Hank broke Roger's grasp. Not roughly, but with authority.

“If you have something to discuss, come find me. I'm not going any place. I have an apartment next to the clinic.” And then he walked off. Left Roger fuming and staring at what he undoubtedly thought was a cover-up. Dan had to smile. Roger was flunking search and seizure. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Dan walked through the barn to check on Shortcake Dream. The stall was empty. He questioned one of the workers, who pointed to an adjoining outside corral. Dan could see the subdued-looking heifer in the far corner. Scared, but safe. Billy Roland would be relieved.