Side Trail
The Invisible Assassin
S. M. Harding
The smell of old grease hit me as I stepped into the aluminum-skinned relic. The screen door slammed behind me and I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight outside. I scanned the place quickly. Two old guys in ball caps and jeans in a back booth, hunched over coffee mugs. Long counter with stools for midgets, empty except for a grey-haired woman on the third from the left. Grill man behind the order window, sweat staining his white T-shirt.
So where was my contact?
The voice had sounded young, twenty-something and male. Rapid-fire speech that betrayed him as an outsider. Not New Mexico Hispanic nor Ute; not an Anglo who’d lived here long enough to absorb the slow, lilting speech.
I took a booth at the far end and opened the Amanda Cross short story collection I’d been reading. And waited. The bell pinged at the order window. I looked up and caught the cook’s glance.
“Angelo be right with you, Ma’am,” the cook bellowed through the order window. “Menu’s on the table.”
I put the marker back in the old book and pulled a plastic-encased sheet from between the napkin holder and sugar container. Blah diner food all the way, not even a breakfast burrito.
It made no sense for me to be here anyway. Out of law enforcement a lot of years, the only investigating I did now was for the mystery novels I wrote. But when a clan brother asked a favor, I couldn’t say no.
Ben had called last night, asked that I meet an informant for breakfast. Didn’t say much more except he needed someone outside the Ute Tribal Police to pick up some information.
“Can I help you?” said the voice I’d heard setting up the meet.
I looked up to see a thin young man, veins in his arms standing out against his bronze skin, hands fidgeting with the order pad.
“You’re early, better order breakfast, I don’t get my break for another half-hour,” he said, his lips barely moving.
“You’re my contact?”
“Yeah. You think I’m in the middle of nowhere, waiting tables in this dump, cause I want to experience America?”
I looked at the menu. “Two eggs, sunny-side up, toast, coffee.” I kept the menu open. “I gather you don’t want to talk here. Where?”
“You know the little park on the Chama River? End of the block?”
“Yeah. I’ll wait til you come.” I opened the book and delved into a world where mysteries were easily solved by a superior mind.
I sat on a multi-veined boulder, watching the sunlight bounce from the water as it coursed around rocks in the streambed. I’d been there a half-hour, thinking about what needed to be done at the ranch while I waited.
The whistle of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad began to shriek its pulling-out code. Beneath the high-pitched noise, I heard a shot. Pistol, not rifle. In city limits.
I jogged back up the path, scanning the park on both sides. As I rounded the last turn before the street, I saw another path to an alley that backed the Sunflower Grill. As I got closer, I saw the body lying beside the dumpster. Blood pooled beneath the head and what was left of the eyes were vacant.
I dialed my brother’s direct number at the sheriff’s office. “Tim, you’ve got a dead body behind the Sunflower Grill, gunshot wound to the head, execution style. And we’ve got a problem.”
“On my way, Kate.”
I set bottles of root beer in front of Tim and Ben Chino. The plank yellow pine table had set here, in the kitchen of our homestead, since it was built. And would continue to do so, I hoped, long after Tim and I were gone. The afternoon sun slanted through the window, illuminated the single silver strand in Ben’s long black hair.
“What the hell’s going on, Ben?” Tim asked.
“Damn mess, courtesy of the Feds,” Ben said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Coupla months back, we noticed some kids hanging around the rez. Hip-hop boys. Not Ute, not Navajo, not Apache. Chief was worried about the L.A. gangs moving onto Ute Mountain. Lotta trouble with them on the Navajo rez. Gang violence, drugs.”
“Why would they come to the Four Corners?” I asked, puzzled by the image of big city gangs swooping down on our kids.
Ben shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Maybe scouting the casino.”
“Trying to horn in on the business? Or subvert the profits?”
“OK, so you’ve got weird kids hanging on the rez . . .”
“We went on the quiet offensive,” Ben said. “Spread the word to the nephews. Kids who were about to enter the societies, or just had. Asked them to keep their eyes open and let us know if any of these kids approached them.” He splayed his hands on the table. “Nothing. Hip-hops stayed to themselves, stayed out of trouble, too.”
“Money to spend, but no jobs?” Tim asked. “Staying on the rez?”
“Money to spend, no jobs, forty foot Winnebago at the casino’s RV park. We ran the plates against their park registration form. All legal.”
“Gambling?”
“No, but they spend a lot of time in the game room. We were content to wait, see what developed. But the Feds weren’t. New DEA agent from Denver came up, said he was putting an undercover agent in the area.”
“Ah, Angelo,” I said.
“Jorge Rodriguez was his real name. From L.A.”
“So why was he working in Chama?”
“Getting set up to grab a job at the casino. Scope out the traffic going north.”
“But ”
“Look, it didn’t make sense to me, either. He shoulda been in Shiprock if he wanted to take a gander at traffic north.” Ben took a sip of beer, began peeling the label. “Whole thing felt wrong. Then Jorge called, said he had info but didn’t want to risk giving it to a police officer. Wanted a civilian.”
“And you sent me into a situation that felt bad to you? Without warning or backup?”
“You’re the only civilian I know who’s got law enforcement training.” Ben shook his head. “Sorry, Kate. I thought it’d be a quick in and out with the info. Safe for both of you.”
“He must have felt his cover wasn’t secure,” Tim said. “How’d he contact you?”
“I got a throwaway cell. He was the only one with the number.”
“Why didn’t he feed you the info then?”
Ben shrugged. The bottle label littered the table in soggy shreds. “He was talkin’ low, got the feeling he was at the diner. You find a cell phone on him?”
Tim shook his head, stood and dumped his empty bottle in the recycle bin. “I’ll get the phone records for the diner, could be a lead to Jorge’s contacts in the Valley. The body’s in Albuquerque, doubt if the lab will get much from it. The bullet smashed into the dumpster, no ballistic matches possible. The shooter picked up his brass. We canvassed the area, no witnesses. Like the shooter came out of nowhere, then disappeared. Invisible.”
After I’d bedded down the horses for night, I took Malitsoh and walked through the meadow to the family of aspens that marked the beginning of the steep slope to the mountain. I watched her track some animal into the brush, then lose interest. Gorgeous creature, mostly wolf, I envied her liquid movement, native intelligence, and assessment skills. As soon as she knew the animal was long gone, or gone to ground, she moved on to the next possibility.
I settled on a cedar bench my dad had made. He’d spent many a sunset here, and so had I. Good spot to sort things, watching the sun slip behind the mesas on the other side of the valley. And I had things to sort.
I knew Ben had believed my mission was riskless or he never would have asked. He was sharp, but had missed something. The new DEA agent, Andy Hooper, had placed Jorge. So why was Jorge reporting to Ben rather than Hooper? And why in the world was he in Chama? If something was going down on the rez, Chama wasn’t a logical base in anybody’s book. Except Hooper’s. What hadn’t he told Ben?
I thought back to my encounter with Jorge. He’d been impatient. Or nervous? The two old men? If I’d placed them right, they belonged to the Los Ojos sheep co-op, been in the valley since they were born. The woman at the counter? I’d never gotten a good look at her, except from the back. I closed my eyes to the warm light casting long shadows. Worn boots resting on the ledge beneath the counter, clumps of dried mud sticking out from the inside of the heel. New jeans, Wranglers. Phoenix Suns jacket. Dry, grey hair done up in a bun. Cane hanging from the counter next to her. A tourist who hadn’t taken the train? And the cook, a big guy, bald, hishi necklace. In this part of the country, cooks were transients.
Had one of them overheard our conversation? The cook and the two old men had been too far away, and I doubted if the woman had been able to hear anything but my order. But all of that might be incidental. If Jorge took his break out back, anyone who’d been watching him would have known.
I needed to talk to Ben.
I walked into Ben’s office the next morning, a space made warm by the colors of earth and sky. A small hoop with eagle feathers attached to the four directions hung at the window. “Morning, Ben. I’ve been thinking.”
He shot me a look that was pure dread. “I was wrong to involve you in this, Cousin. But that involvement has ended.”
“Look, there are things about this case that just don’t add up. One, the hip-hop boys. Why are they here and why haven’t they done anything but hang around the RV park? I thought I could ”
“They’re gone, packed up yesterday afternoon. Went down to I25 and headed west.”
“Gone? Well, hell.”
“Screwed up your plans?” Ben threw up his hands. “Tim would wring my neck if he knew I was even talking to you about this case.”
“Tim’s my brother, not my damn keeper.” I plopped in the chair across the desk from Ben. “So they were bait.”
“Bait? Who?”
“The hip-hop boys were on the rez to lure someone up here. Or maybe just out into the open.” I leaned forward. “You have surveillance photos?”
“Kate ”
I stared at the ceiling. “Now, if I was just wondering who these guys are, I’d forward those photos to the L.A. gang unit. See what colors they belong to. Ask about them informally.”
“They’re gone. They committed no crime while they were here.” Ben leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his neck. “Besides, I did that when they first showed up.”
“You’re a brat, Cousin. So? What gang?”
“Very minor players with the Serpents.”
“Bait. Or decoys.” I leaned back and looked at Ben. “What do you know about Jorge Rodriguez and Andy Hooper?”
“Not much. Hooper’s new to this area.”
“Where’d he come from?”
“Don’t know, he’s not very chatty. Just waltzed in here, wanted cooperation from us. Didn’t ask real polite.”
“Check on him. Why would he need you as liaison with one of his own agents? Especially since nobody around here would know either one of them.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe he knew some of the players from his old patch. Knew they’d recognize him.”
“What DEA office?” When Ben didn’t answer, I looked out the window to the mountain beyond. Sleeping Ute, the warrior who protected the People. “So we’ve got three hip-hop boys, don’t leave the park, don’t try to contact any of our kids. And then a DEA agent comes in, all lathered up about drugs flowing into the rez. Smells like a damn dead fish.”
I’d been out of law enforcement too long to know the younger DEA agents, but I knew an old one. Egan Hennessy had retired to trout fishing and solitude in an old cabin that backed up to the Jicarilla Reservation. As I bounced up his road, I wondered on which stream he’d be fishing. But I saw smoke coming from his chimney.
“Surprised to see you without a rod and creel,” I said, closing the truck door and walking toward him.
“Thought I might get a visit from law enforcement,” he said, running his hand through a full head of white hair. “Wasn’t expecting you.” His eyebrows raised as punctuation for the unasked question.
“I was supposed to collect intel from Rodriguez. For Ben.”
His eyebrows inched upward. “Good day to sit on the porch with some iced tea.”
I settled in a rocker that squeaked with every movement. Egan returned with two tall glasses. “What has Ben and the Ute Tribal Police got to do with the DEA?”
I told him what I knew and what I’d sniffed. “Do you know either Rodriguez or Hooper?”
“Heard about Rodriguez. Good agent, smart, tough. He was on special assignment.” He folded his arms. “Don’t know how much I should tell a civilian, Kate.”
“You’re a civilian.”
“And still part of the good ole boys network.” He grinned at me, started rocking a slow trot. “Never worked with Hooper, but word said he was pretty much a loose cannon. Had a good arrest record, but not such a great conviction rate.”
“Illegally obtained evidence?”
“That and other things.” Egan sighed. “My guess? Rodriguez was here to keep an eye on Hooper. You don’t get transferred from a border command to Denver unless somebody wants to rein you in.”
“Hooper’s dirty?”
Egan shrugged. “Could be if he got frustrated enough with having to serve the law.”
When I got back to the ranch, I called Tim and told him he needed to talk to Egan. I hung up before he could tell me to butt out. Malitsoh gave me one of her steely looks: settle down.
“Enough, already!” I stooped and gave her a hug, rubbed her chest. “I’m just like you curious. My curiosity is satisfied, Malitsoh. Something stinks and it looks like it’s an agent named Hooper.”
I settled down with the Amanda Cross book, keeping my curiosity firmly channeled into how she constructed her plots.
“You’re going to lose your wife if you don’t go home for dinner more often,” I said, placing two thick lamb chops onto Tim’s plate.
“Maria’s visiting her folks. Worried about her mom’s diabetes.”
“And you just dropped by to get fed?”
Tim shrugged. “This way, you can’t hang up on me.”
“I don’t want to hear it. You’ve got this end of the investigation to cover, Ben didn’t seem involved. I talked to an old friend what’s so bad about that?”
“You won’t stop. You’ll think of something else we’re not doing and follow that up, too.”
“So what aren’t you doing?”
“None of your business, Kate.”
“You think Hooper was the shooter?”
Tim put down his knife and fork. “If I don’t tell you, you’ll poke around until you find someone who will. And stir up all kinds of dirt, swirling behind you as you head off the cliff.”
“Nice image, Brother. But this isn’t the first time we’ve talked about an active investigation. You’ve never hesitated.”
“We’ve never dealt with gangs, drugs, and crazy DEA agents. These gang bangers are just plain mean. Enjoy inflicting pain. You’re way out here by yourself and I don’t have the manpower to post a deputy at the end of the drive.”
Warriors are here to protect the women and children. Too bad Tim can’t get it through his head I’ve always been a warrior, too. “You talk to everybody at the diner?”
“Everybody we could identify.”
“And?”
Tim speared a piece of lamb and popped it into his mouth.
“Unless you want to see me eating breakfast at the Sunflower Grill tomorrow morning, you better tell me now.”
Tim chewed, stared at me. After a long swallow, he said, “We’ll talk after dinner, otherwise I’ll have a case of indigestion that’ll last into next week.”
After he eventually finished, we moved onto the porch for coffee and watched the setting sun. A slight breeze brought the scent of pine off the mountain. I wasn’t going to break the silence.
“Cook’s been here about six months, originally wanted to get a job with one of the casinos, but liked the pace of Chama. Said the Sunflower was an easy gig and the pay OK.”
“He from L.A.?”
“Little town in Minnesota. No record except a DUI when he was nineteen. He said the two old guys were regulars. You were right, they’re from Los Ojos. Left before you’d finished, according to Cook.”
“And the woman?”
“Cook figured her for a tourist passing through. She left shortly after you.”
“I wouldn’t have placed her as a tourist, but then I didn’t see her face.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t know. Let me think about it.” The coffee smelled good in the cool of twilight. I took a sip and watched the light show in the sky. “What about Hooper?”
“Clear. In his office all day, from 6:00 that morning to 5:30 in the afternoon. With witnesses.”
“Well, that doesn’t leave much for us to go on, does it?”
“Us, Kate?”
I woke up in the morning convinced the woman in the diner wasn’t what she seemed. A woman with a cane wasn’t going to tramp through a cattle pasture. Cattle pasture? In the mud on her boots were bits of hay, not something she’d picked up on the streets of Chama. And the bottom of her cane was clean.
I dialed Tim’s home number and he picked up on the second ring. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you meet me at the Sunflower around 10:30?”
“Cook’s not going to like it, we had him in yesterday to do a sketch.”
“And Identikits produce a recognizable human being?”
“We have a computer program. The kits haven’t been used in years, Kate.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to recognize the woman. I never saw her face.”
“And why would you recognize her?”
“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it.”
“Looks like the grumpy old woman character we watched when we were kids,” I said, squinting at the ugliest human being I’d ever seen. “Remember, Timmy? On Laugh-in? Ruth something?”
Tim glared at me. “Cook didn’t remember much.”
The screen door banged after us. Since the place was empty, we settled in the booth by the kitchen door.
“Thanks for waiting until the rush is over,” the cook said, wiping his hands on his apron. “Gets crazy with the tourists wanting a quick breakfast before the train pulls out.”
“I didn’t catch your name,” I said, after introducing myself.
“Cook, Joe Cook.”
“Joe Cook. I see.” I held up the computer sketch. “Was the woman really this ugly?”
“Naw, but I couldn’t figure what was wrong when I was at the station. She had so much makeup on, that might’ve thrown me off.”
“Makeup?” I asked.
“Yeah, that coverup stuff, what do they call it? One of the guys I worked with in Chicago was a drag queen. He used it. Had a food name.”
“Pancake?”
“Bingo. It was so thick it looked like it would crack off any minute.”
“Lipstick? Eye shadow, mascara?”
“Uh, no, come to think about it.”
“Interesting. Did you see her come in?”
“Yeah. I was just putting an order up. She limped in and I thought for sure she’d sit at a booth. With a bad leg, you know, it’d be easier than the counter.”
“Which leg was bum?”
“Weird. When she came in, the cane was in her left hand, but when she went to leave, it was in her right. It was hard to tell which leg was hurting.”
I slapped the table. “I knew I’d seen those shoulders before! But I was thinking older woman, not somebody my age. Invisible.”
I watched the sun’s rays peak over the Brazos Cliffs. And my brother’s scowling face. He’d had a rough time convincing Judge Aguilar to give him a warrant on the basis of footwear, an unneeded cane, and shoulders. Then I’d pressed him to ride along. Civilians shouldn’t be present when arrests are going down. They get in the way, and God help the cops if they get hurt.
“I’ve promised, I won’t budge, even if I see her escaping. You want a blood oath?”
He sighed. “I sure as hell don’t want to screw things up. If we find her disguise, you can identify her back. That’s all.”
“Let’s just hope she hasn’t gotten rid of it.” I switched my gaze to the ranch ahead.
The bust went smoothly, the jacket and wig found in a bag at the back of her closet with the gun wrapped firmly in the middle of the bundle. Tim signaled from the porch, and I picked one from three women sitting at the kitchen counter, their backs toward me.
“How can you be sure?”
“The only woman around with shoulders wider than her hips.” I pointed at her boots. “Still hasn’t cleaned them. Bet you can get trace from the foot rest at the café. It’ll match.”
The women turned around and I recognized two detectives and Nora Bergstrom. Whom I’d fingered.
“Why the hell can’t you keep your nose out of other people’s business?” Nora asked as the wig and jacket were placed in a paper bag.
“Why, Nora? You’ve got a ranch. Why risk it on easy money?”
“You got out of the cattle business, what do you know anymore? Feed’s gone sky-high, beef prices keep tanking. First the red meat thing, then Mad Cow, now vegan mania. I couldn’t lose this ranch. It’s been in the family since my great-grandfather bought the land. They just wanted to use part of the barn.”
“There had to be another way than smuggling drugs, killing people.”
“I got in too deep, I had no other choice.”
“Horsefeathers.”
Tim and Ben had taken me out for dinner to celebrate the arrest at Spruce Tree House, a restaurant on the way to Heron Lake.
“She was cornered, Kate,” Tim said, twirling his wine glass. “Approached by Hooper to provide cover for transit of his drugs. At first, he told her she’d be OK, it was a sting operation. When she was deep in it, he sprung the trap.”
“She’s talking?” Ben asked.
“Won’t stop. Even turned over some evidence she’d been collecting,” Tim said. “Heroin was shipped in hay bales. She swapped one out. Insurance, I suppose.”
“She’s still going down for murder one,” I said. “She’ll lose the ranch or at least, never see it again.”
Tim shook his head. “She’s being cooperative. She’s got the blackmail angle. She could be out in five or six years.”
“Hell and damnation.”
“At least we shut down this pipeline. Maybe we won’t have to worry about the kids on the rez for awhile,” Tim said, folding his napkin and pushing back from the table.
“For how long, Cousin?” Ben said, crossing his arms.
The waiter brought our dinners then and we left another threat to tribal life to wait in the night. When we’d finished, Tim pushed away his plate and looked at me. “So what made you think of Nora Bergstrom?”
“Besides the fact that tourists wear running shoes, not old corral boots? Besides the fact that a woman who’d use pancake makeup would also use lipstick, mascara, the whole shebang? Maybe it was something you said: the shooter was invisible.
“Then I read a line in an Amanda Cross short story. Went something like ‘there’s nobody more invisible than an older woman.’ So I started thinking about somebody who wasn’t invisible but disguised as an older woman.”
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