The Burning Man (35 page)

When the elevator doors closed, leaving Peter and his father alone, Peter exhaled with relief.

"Jesus, Dad, are you sure you know what you're doing? Price is a really powerful person."

Richard turned to Peter with a wry smile.

"It's because Price is so powerful that I called him out.

I'm sure no one has talked to him like that for some time. As soon as we left the room, I bet he started thinking about what type of erson would have the balls to p dress him down like I did. And Katherine is going to tell him as soon as he asks her, which should be right about now."

"You might have made him im so angry, he won't help out of spite."

"I weighed that risk, but Pried ce is a bureaucrat. He can't afford a scandal. If someone is fucking around with one of his investigations, he won't like it." :"I hope you're right."

"We'll know soon enough."

"Dad, thanks. You put yourself out for me and I really appreciate it."

"I haven't done a thing. You're the one who's going the extra mile for a client and I'm very proud of you."

Peter's chest swelled and he felt a lump in his throat.

The elevator doors opened and Peter roll owed his father into the lobby.

"What are'your plans?" Richard asked.

Peter looked at his watch. It was after six.

it N "It's too late to drive back to Whitaker. I guess I'll get a room at a hotel and head back in the morning."

"Nonsense. We'll have dinner and you'll stay, with me. You can sleep in your old room."

"I'd like that," Peter said. He didn't know if his father realized it, but he had just given Peter the best present he had ever received.

Chapter TWENTY-NINE.

Peter was exhausted but happy when he pulled into his driveway the next evening. He and his father had not talked about the future, but it was obvious that they had 0 the together. Not right away. Peter still had a lot to prove to Richard, but the wall between them had come down.

As soon as he entered his house, Peter slapped together a quick dinner, showered and put on jeans and a sweatshirt. Then, he checked the TV listings for something completely mindless. Tomorrow morning, Peter planned to plunge back into the Harmon case with a vengeance. Tonight, he would relax and get a good rug s sleep.

The phone rang during the sitcom he was watching.

Peter turned down the sound. The voice on the other end of the phone was soft and indistinct, as if the speaker was trying to disguise it.

"Peter Hale?"

"Yes?"

"I'm only going to say this once, so pay close attention. If you want to find out the truth about Christopher Mammon and Sandra Whiley, take the highway east.

Eight point three miles from the WELCOME TO WHITAKER sign, there's a dirt road on the right. Drive down the road until you come to a barn. I'll be waiting. If you're not here by ten-thirty, I'll be gone. And come alone or I won't show."

The flatlands was a desolate stretch of cracked brown earth that began a few miles east of the Whitaker city limits. No one lived in the flatlands.

It was a place to drive through, not a place to visit in the dead of night.

As soon as the glow of the city lights faded away, Peter felt he was riding through a sea of ink. There was no moon and no other source of illumination but his headlights and the stars, which hid behind a cover of thick clouds. The highway was one lane east and west. The only trace of color was the broken white line that divided it. To the left and right the only variety was provided by an occasional tumbleweed or a patch of sagebrush.

Peter set his odometer as soon as he passed thewei, comrm -rowhitakersign. When it read eight point one, he slowed down and strained toward the side of the highway. The turnoff was more of a dirt track than a road and he almost missed it. The car started to buck as soon as it began traversing the narrow, rutted trail. Peter stared around nervously. His isolation was complete.

There was not even the broken white line to break up the monotonously bleak and barren landscape that loomed up in his headlights, then disappeared as he passed by.

After a while, Peter's headlights settled on a shape in the distance. As he drew closer, he made out the burned and rotting timbers of an abandoned barn. Peter wondered why anyone would have dreamed that farming was possible in this desert, but the thought was fleeting and it was replaced by a feeling of dread when he realized that there were no other cars in sight.

Peter kept the lights on and the motor running. There was a flashlight in the glove compartment He took it and stepped out of the car. It felt very strange to be out at night in a place where there was no artificial light.

Without the headlights, Peter would be in complete darkness.

A wind ripped across the flat, dry ground and knifed through Peter. He used his free hand to zip his windbreaker tight around his neck. Then he took a few steps from his car and stared hard at the barn. No shapes emerged, no lights flickered in its dark recesses.

Peter turned slowly in a circle. He strained for any sound, but there was only the low hum of the wind.

Nerves made Peter's stomach tighten. Maybe it would be for the best if no one did show. He was beginning to seriously question the wisdom of coming to this wasteland on the darkest of nights. He remembered the autopsy photographs of Sandra Whiley and the descriptions of the way the other victims had perished. It had to take time to die like that. He imagined the blade biting in, the pain, the terror.

"Have any trouble finding this place?"

Peter's heart streaked through his chest. He spun toward the voice, reflexively raising the flashlight like a weapon, but there was no one to strike. The area around him was black and empty.

Peter looked right and left as he tried to catch his breath. Suddenly, there was a break in the dark curtain that surrounded him. A blur became a vague shape and Christopher Mammon stepped out of the darkness.

Peter took a step back. Mammon watched him. Could he get into the car and lock the doors before Mammon got to him? Could he streak away and outdistance Mammon in the stygian darkness of this desert hunting ground?

"I hear you've been telling people that I killed Sandra Whiley."

Peter tried to talk, but he couldn't.

"Not smart. Everyone else thinks Gary Harmon murdered Whiley. If I did kill her, you'd be the only one who suspected it. It would be in my best interest to lure you to an isolated spot like this and get rid of you before you could cause any trouble."

Mammon let Peter think about that for a moment.

Then he took a step forward. There was something small and black in his hand. Peter's next step brought him hard against the side of the car. Mammon raised his hand and pointed the object at Peter. "Oh, God," Peter thought. "Don't let me die now. I'm not even thirty."

Then part of the object dropped down revealing something shiny.

"You can relax," Mammon said. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm a cop."

It took a moment for the words to register. About the same amount of time it took for Peter's brain to recognize the object in Mammon's hand as a leather carrying case for a badge. Peter sagged against his car. If it had not been there to hold him up, he would have sunk onto the dusty, rock-strewn ground.

"Now listen up," Mammon said. "If you want to learn the truth, I need a guarantee that you will never, ever tell anyone about this meeting."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm deep cover in an operation that has been going on for two years. As soon as we finish talking, I'm leaving this continent. No one at DEA will acknowledge my existence. You can file subpoena duces tecums until you're old and gray and you won't find a trace of me in any of the files you'll be searching. So you play this by my rules or I'm gone and you'll never know what happened to Sandra Whiley."

"I ... I've got no choice, then."

"That's right. And there's something else you sho I uld know. You and your father really pissed off a couple of people. I've got instructions from the top to stay as far away from you as I can."

"Then, why are you doing this?"

Mammon took a breath. For a moment, his hard features reflected doubt.

"It's Gary. That poor bastard. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't be in this fix. I was hoping he'd be acquitted.

Then I could have forgotten him. But now.. . If he was executed, I would be to blame."

"What do you mean"

"Kevin Booth lived in Seattle for a while. An acquaintance of his worked for Rafael Vargas, who runs the cocaine in the Pacific Northwest for 'a Colombian cartel.

Kevin got to know Vargas and picked up pin money acting a a mule. When he decided to move back to Whitaker last year, Vargas asked him to set up a distribution network.

"About eight or nine months ago, Sandra Whiley was busted on her wa to deliver cocaine to a customer of y Booth. The locals had no idea who Booth worked for.

Whiley spilled everything. One of the Whitaker cops called the state police and they contacted us. OSP knew we were trying to find a way into the organization Vargas works for. We had been running into a stone wall until we got this break.

"I've been in deep cover for two years building a background and trying to make contacts. I was transferred here to get close to Booth and force him into a position where he had to introduce me to Vargas."

"Did Whiley know who you were?"

"No. We couldn't risk that. She thought I was working for organized crime. Her orders were to assist me so the DEA could bust me and Booth's group. The night Booth and I were arrested at Whitaker State, I was waiting for Whiley to bring me thirty thousand dollars to pay for the two kilos of coke that were found in the car. This buy was going to give me credibility when I negotiated for an amount large enough to bring Vargas into the open.

"Our arrest was bad luck and it came at a really bad time. I had -to stay credible in Vargas's eyes, so it was arranged for Booth to win his preliminary hearing and for me to lose mine."

"Wait a minute. What do you mean when you say it was arranged for Booth to win at the prelim?"

"That whole thing was a hoax. O'Shay was contacted by a higher-up in the Justice Department. He asked her to throw the prelim and she did."

Peter was stunned. He'd never heard of anything like this.

"Who was in on the fix?"

"O'Shay, Mancini and the judge."

"What about Earl Ridgely?"

"He was out of town for the week and O'Shay was asked to keep the whole thing from him. He's too much of a straight arrow to go along with fixing a court case.

She told the judge that she had Ridgely's approval, but that was a lie. Ridgely still doesn't know why Booth won his prelim. Even Booth didn't know.

"O'Shay, Mancini and the judge worked out a scenario that would provide a legal basis for cutting Booth free. I stayed in jail to make it look like I could be trusted, then I made bail.

"The night of the murder, I was meeting Booth to convince him to take over my part in the final stage of our plan to bring down Vargas. The plan worked. We not only caught him red-handed with twenty kilos of cocaine, but we have wiretaps and other evidence that implicate him in the importation and sale of many times that amount. Vargas knows he's facing life without possibility of parole. We hoped he would ' d cave and give us a way to get to the next level in the cartel. He broke three days ago."

Mammon paused. He looked embarrassed.

"When I arrived at the Stallion on the night of the murder, Harmon was sitting with Booth. I had to get rid of him, so I told him Karen Nix had the hots for him.

I'm the one who caused his argument with Nix. If I hadn't taken advantage of him, the poor bastard wouldn't have been convicted for a crime he didn't commit."

"How can you be so certain that Gary is innocent?"

"I know who killed Whiley."

"Who is it?" Peter asked anxiously.

"While Gary was arguing with Nix, I went outside and talked with Booth. While we were talking I saw Whiley follow a man to his car. They argued over something, then they drove off together. The man was a customer of Booth. Someone to whom Whiley had delivered cocaine. Steve Mancini."

"Oh, my God," Peter said. Everything made sense now. Whiley must have threatened Steve. Mancini could not afford a scandal with Mountain View's finances hanging in the balance. When Gary was arrested, it was a godsend, and Mancini did his best to make certain that Gary would be convicted by hooking up Peter with an inept investigator, sabotaging the motion to suppress and making certain that Gary was represented by a selfcentered, incompetent fool.

"You've got to testify for Gary."

"No. Not now. Maybe not ever."

"How can you refuse? Gary may die if you don't come forward."

"I'm leaving for South America tomorrow. If I stay and testify, my cover will be destroyed. I'm this close to being accepted by the cartel. If Mancini is going to be caught, you're the one who has to do I've risked my career by meeting you. I'm not going to destroy it."

"How am I going to prove any of this?"

"I don't know, Hale, but I hope to God you can."

Chapter THIRTY.

Peter had been sitting in Amos Geary's waiting room for half an hour when the office door opened. During that half hour, Clara Schoen had not spoken one word and the few times she stared in Peter's direction it had been to beam death rays at him. As soon as Geary stepped into the waiting room, Clara's head swiveled in his direction and her thin lips twitched in anticipation of the dressing-down Peter was certain to receive from her boss So, it was with astonishment that she saw Geary smile at the scoundrel whom he had so recently driven from their offices.

"Come on back," Geary said, as he walked past Peter.

Clara's mouth gaped open. Geary was almost out of sight when she remembered to remind him about his first court appearance.

"I know, Clara. Lenny Boudreau at ten-fifteen in judge Staley's court," Geary said without looking back.

Clara's mouth gaped wider. "Hold my calls until Peter and I are finished Geary closed the door behind them and went to his filing cabinet while Peter took a chair.