High White Sun Read online

  Somehow, Royal made adiós sound like three words.

  “Royal, he’s not from across the damn river. He’s got an Arizona driver’s license. The car is registered out of Phoenix.”

  Royal popped his gum again. “Right . . . well, that’s where we are with that.” He picked at something on his vest. “What do you know about him?”

  “At the moment, not much. He’s got two phones. I’m going to want warrants to dump both of them.” Royal raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say no. “He had a small bag with some traveling clothes, not enough for a long stay anywhere, and about two thousand dollars in cash and an unlicensed gun beneath the front seat.”

  Royal raised a hand in the shape of a gun, pointed it at Chris. “I’ll toss on the gun charge, too.”

  “Good. Fingerprints are nothing, and there are no wants or warrants out of anywhere, at least not on the name and IDs that we have. We’re still running those down. He may not be Azahel Avalos, but if he isn’t, I don’t know who the hell he is.”

  “And no idea why he was hauling ass through the county?”

  “No, he won’t say much. He’s made one jail call to a Phoenix number and talked only in Spanish. We recorded it and Vic Ortiz translated, but I’ll get someone else to look at it, too. No one picked up the other end, so he left a message. Said where he was and that there was a problem, car trouble, and not much else. No one’s called asking about him, not yet anyway.”

  “So we still don’t know why he ran?”

  “No, no we don’t. Your guess is as good as mine,” Chris conceded, which was probably true. Although if either of them had to guess, they’d probably both pick drugs. He watched sunlight track across the dust on the floor and picked out his own boot prints there, from where he’d walked to the window and back.

  “And the car?”

  “Late-model Nissan. We tossed it and didn’t find anything. I talked to Harp about borrowing a drug dog from one of the Border Patrol checkpoints to run over it, but then this thing with Billy Bravo happened. We’ll get it done sooner or later, unless Avalos talks to us first.”

  Royal reached into his blazer, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. He scanned it with a finger and then put it back in his coat pocket. “His initial appearance is at three o’clock, in front of Judge Hildebrand. I’m not sure who’s next up on the defense wheel, but sounds like we’ll need a Spanish speaker. Might get assigned Santino Paez, at least until Avalos retains someone himself. If he can, I hope he does, ’cause Paez is a goddamn pain in my ass.” Royal tapped his barren desk. “Anything else?”

  Chris shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, unfortunately there is. One of my deputies got a little excited. Avalos said something to America Reynosa after she cuffed him. Some crude comment. Something inappropriate, something about Tommy. She let him have it.”

  “In cuffs?”

  “In cuffs.”

  Royal blew through his nose, a loud, unpleasant sound. “Not good. Not good. If he sues her, and by her, I mean both you and the department as well, go talk to Grantham. I wouldn’t say anything about it until then.” Sue Grantham was the elected county attorney, the chief legal advisor for Big Bend. She represented the county and county officials, including Chris, in all civil cases—the sort of case Avalos could now pursue after Amé’s little stunt.

  “Well, he’s not making a big deal about it now.”

  Royal waved it away. “And he probably won’t. It’s probably nothing. Who was out there, just him and your guys? This isn’t the big city, where there are a thousand people with cell phones snapping pictures and making videos.” Chris didn’t stop him to mention the dashboard cameras that he’d mandated all his deputies use, just like the one that had been running that night two years ago when he stopped those two DEA agents out by Dupree’s place. “Anyway, if you all agree to call it resisting arrest, it’s fine.” Royal pursed his lips, like he was biting down hard on his gum. “If you don’t mind me saying, it doesn’t surprise me, though. I’m not sure I’d ever have given that young lady a badge and gun in the first place.”

  “She does a good job.” Chris knew Royal was really suggesting that Sheriff Stanford Ross never would have made someone like Amé—a female, and a Hispanic female to boot—a deputy. But there was something else, too . . . that subtle suggestion that Amé shouldn’t be trusted because of what Royal and everyone else thought they knew about her and her brother. It was an old story and Chris had heard it all before, all the hints and accusations. He let it go. “Anyway, that’s all of it.”

  Royal shifted, wiped at his forehead. “Like I told you on the phone, I think we should hand this over to the Rangers. Bring in Bethel Turner.” Bethel was the Company E Ranger who covered Big Bend County. “One of your own was hurt, Sheriff, and no one expects you and your folks to be all that damn objective about it. Hell, I wouldn’t be. And clearly, they aren’t, if they’re punching our lone handcuffed defendant. On top of that, you got that murder in Terlingua, and we haven’t even started talking about that yet. Bethel and his boys are better suited to handle both things.”

  Chris had worked through this whole conversation on the drive over, trying out different responses in his head. “Look, I get it, and I’m not going to argue with you . . . much. Particularly over Avalos. We both know you have concerns about my department’s ability to conduct these investigations. Hell, Roy, you have concerns about me.” Royal didn’t deny it, didn’t say anything at all, just watched Chris over steepled fingers. “But I have Ben Harper looking into the Bravo murder, and you can’t tell me he’s not a good investigator. He worked homicide for ten years.”

  Royal nodded. “Harp’s a good man. The best you got over there.”

  Chris ignored the jab. “Okay, so give him a week. Give us a week on both things, and if you don’t like what you see or hear, we’ll step aside and let Bethel handle it.”

  “Dammit, Sheriff, after a week you’ll have made a bloody mess of it all. Bethel won’t want to touch it after that.”

  “No we won’t, and Bethel won’t give a shit one way or the other. I’m asking for a week, Royal. Two weeks. That’s all.”

  Royal spit his chewed-up gum into the trash can. “Hell, I’ll think on it. Tomorrow send over everything you have on Bravo.”

  Chris stood and got ready to leave. “Will do. Harp’s got it.” He didn’t mention that Amé was helping him. Before he walked out, he had a thought. “You ever get down to Killing? Heard about anyone new down there?”

  Royal shook his head. “Killing? That shithole? No, why?”

  “It may be that Billy Bravo crossed swords with some people staying down there, bikers or something, a few days before he died. I guess they had some strong opinions about his Hispanic girlfriend that he took exception to. The sort of opinions most people keep to themselves. It may be nothing.”

  Royal shrugged. “Well, they wouldn’t be the first to have some opinions. Being fed up with all the Mexicans around these parts doesn’t make you a bad person or a racist.”

  Chris laughed, but didn’t smile, just to let Royal know he didn’t think he was funny at all.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it actually does.”

  Royal measured him, blinking in slow motion. “You know, what I have heard is that Bethel might be thinking about running for your job. He’s a good man. People know him and he’s got lots of friends in Murfee and all around the county.”

  Chris grabbed his hat. “That’s good to know, Royal. Goddamn good to know. And when the time comes, and he gets your vote, he can have the damn job, too.”

  Then he left the district attorney in his office, with his mouth still open, before he could answer.

  7

  It turned out that Billy Bravo wasn’t the dead man after all.

  His real name was William Haley, born in London, Kentucky. He’d played some football at the University of Pikeville, but dr
opped out short of graduation and drifted west, picking up odd jobs, most of them having to do with hunting or fishing. According to his older sister, June, he’d always been good—at his best—in the outdoors, working with his hands beneath big skies. But he’d also been pretty good at finding trouble—public intoxication, drunk and disorderly, aggravated assault, bad checks. You could plot the downward trajectory like a topographic map, tracing the long arc of the man’s fall with your finger until he arrived in the Big Bend.

  June Haley, now June Buford, e-mailed Harp the last good picture of her brother. It was taken right before he left Kentucky and she hadn’t seen him in all the years since, hadn’t had more than a handful of phone conversations in all that time. When she said his name she sounded like she was practicing it, reciting words she hadn’t spoken in forever. The picture revealed a tall man, handsome, with short hair and only a ghost of a beard. He looked like any college-age kid, holding a beer can up high, standing out in a field surrounded by other people, and if one of them was June Buford, she wouldn’t say. It was early summer, the grass still green from spring rains and the trees behind them thick and heavy with leaves. But one corner of the photograph was sun-blurred, lens flare nearly whiting out Bill Haley’s raised arm, like he was just starting to fade away. Harp imagined if you stared at it long enough you might really see the man’s whole image grow faint and vanish, leaving an empty space where he’d once stood all those years ago.

  Disappearing from the picture, just as he’d disappeared from his life and family in Kentucky and from all the other places he’d ever lived.

  Harp didn’t offer to send June any of Bravo’s personal effects, didn’t need to send her a current picture to identify her dead brother. She never asked who might have killed him or why, or begged Harp to do everything in his power to find her brother’s murderer. And if she was crying on the phone, Harp couldn’t tell. When he raised the issue of the burial, she just said do whatever you do for people who don’t have families.

  He was about to tell her he was sorry . . . thank her for her help . . . but by then she’d already hung up.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE SUN HAD TURNED the world to glass, reflecting all its light and heat.

  Every bit of color was burned away, but the Chihuahuan Desert still glowed, a bleached white that was impossible to look at, the air above the asphalt bent sideways by the heat. Harp had the AC in the truck dialed up as high as it would go, pushing it hard enough to drown out Billie Holiday, but there was still sweat beaded all over Amé’s face and across the smooth skin exposed by the open neck of her shirt. She was wearing her sunglasses, looking right into that colorless blaze, staring silently through the truck’s window. She’d been that way since they’d left Murfee. They were supposed to be heading back to Terlingua but he’d decided to go ahead and check out Killing first. She’d talked to Chris but she hadn’t said anything about it since getting in the truck. She hadn’t said anything at all.

  “Everything go okay with the sheriff?”

  “Sí, está bien,” she said, shifting in the truck seat. “He was mad, but . . .” She shrugged, fell silent again.

  “Did you tell him what Avalos said to you?”

  “Sí.”

  “No, what he really said.”

  Amé looked at him, before turning her attention out the window again.

  “Look, I know that piece of shit said something more than just a word or two about Tommy. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know why you won’t tell the sheriff or me, but I’m only going to let it ride for so long, then you will tell me, got it?” He passed a wooden sign by the side of the road, the words scorched away, marking something that was no longer there. “Did you go see him in lockup?”

  Amé flinched, a small movement, but it was enough.

  He shook his head. “Old Vic didn’t tell on you. Whatever’s going on, get it straight in your head and then we’ll get it figured out together if we have to. Fair enough? We all got our little secrets, but you owe the sheriff better. He’ll go to the mat for you, always does, so don’t make him regret it.”

  Amé nodded, resigned. “Lo sé. How did you know? How did you know I went to see Avalos?”

  He laughed. “Because I’m a goddamn good cop, that’s how.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE FIRST THING that greeted them driving down the hill into Killing was the old Catholic church, a tilted collection of mismatched wood barely held up by the wind. It was the tallest building in town, rising above the other adobe and concrete dwellings. It was the only dwelling made of wood, one of the few things made of wood in the entire place, except for the crosses . . . dozens of crosses, scattered on the small hill behind the church, rising up into the rock and scrub.

  The town sat in a bowl formed by the Chinati Mountains, along a finger of what was supposed to be the Alamito Creek, although with all the heat, the dusty, shallow course looked like it hadn’t seen water in a long time. It appeared drained, wrung out, discarded: a snakeskin peeled and left behind. Like Terlingua, Killing was an old mining town whose best years had been in the forties. Silver, lead, and gold had been taken out of the hills, and Harp had caught the telltale sight of a mine shaft on an outcrop of rock just before they’d turned down into the town. Some science fiction movie had been made here back in the seventies, or so he’d read, and that had been the last time anyone had had any interest in the place.

  It was damn easy to see why.

  He nosed the truck down the main road, trying to do a mental head count of how many people might be here. There were old cars in front of a few of the adobe buildings but they looked nearly as old as the place itself. An ugly dog stood in the middle of the road, part shepherd and part something else, crouched down because one leg was twisted and bad. It bared yellow teeth and didn’t give an inch, so he drove around it.

  It pissed a dark stream onto the ground as he went past, staring up into the windows, gauging whether it could get in.

  He’d had Buck Emmett talk to the Mex girl again to get a better handle on these men Bravo had had his run-in with. The first night there had been three of them, an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair, a younger one with a close-shaved head, and a third one that had been huge, bigger even than Billy. She couldn’t remember their names except for the big one, who’d never said anything. The others had called him “Joker,” but there’d been nothing funny about him at all. He’d never said a word, never cracked a smile, just stood with his tree-trunk arms crossed when he wasn’t drinking his beer.

  They’d caught each other staring, and he’d rolled out his massive lower lip at her, inked with a skull.

  Only the other two had been there last night, showing up on their big bikes, and she hadn’t stayed long after they’d arrived. She was tired already and she hadn’t liked the men anyway; the things they’d said and the way they’d eyeballed her, mostly the younger one. The old man, with flame tattoos all up and down his arms and strange crosses on his neck, had more or less ignored her—more interested in drinking—but the other one had kept looking at her, his cold eyes crawling up and down her body, lingering here and there. He’d been wearing a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing sunburned skin and massive tattoos of guns on each forearm, like the ones she’d seen in Old West movies.

  And that was what she remembered most—all his tattoos.

  The word HATE across the knuckles of his right hand and the numbers 1488 on his left.

  LIE OR DIE stenciled on one side of his neck, and GOD FORGIVES BROTHERS DON’T on the other.

  A grinning skull in the palm of one hand and two bullets in the other.

  Just like Amé had said: Un hombre muy malo.

  * * *

  • • •

  THEY FOUND THE BIKES, two Harley Fat Boys plus a couple of Low Riders, parked in front of a ram
bling adobe ranch house, along with a Fleetwood Southwind showing rust, its big front windshield blocked with sheets or blankets. He and Jackie had once looked at RVs, contemplating spending the better part of the year on the road hitting the best fishing lakes, so he knew something about them, and this beast was a gas guzzler, probably a dozen years old. It sat like a great boat on a dry lake bed, tilted at an angle, with sand and tumbleweeds collected under it. But the tires still looked good, so it had arrived in Killing under its own power; it hadn’t quite settled into the earth to rot and decay like most everything else in town. There was also a Grand Marquis parked next to it that might once have been green or blue but was now some other, hard-to-peg color. It was probably a surplus cop car bought up at an auction, and it looked like there were bullet holes along its flank.

  He was going to tell Amé to take down the plates of both, but she was already on it, glassing them with the small Bushnells he kept in the center console, so he slowed to a crawl as they went past, giving her a chance to get them all.

  More blankets and sheets covered windows of the ranch house, everything hidden by something else. The house had been expanded, spreading out in a slow creep toward a large hill or bluff rising behind it, the additions all tacked on with pitted concrete and cheap siding. Beer cans littered the ground—glowing hot spots in the afternoon sun—and broken glass shined like diamonds. There was a burn barrel with a tongue of smoke lolling from it, disappearing into the high desert haze, and then, just like that, there was a man smoking a cigarette and watching them roll by from the shadows of a side porch on the house.