happened. I couldn't give Rosa any closure. All I had were suspicions. But that morning at the cemetery, Longoria's smile had given me all the proof I needed. I thought about his pleasant eyes, his black wool coat, his gold college ring. He was a hunter with no remorse. He had found Julio Gomez, probably put a bullet through his head, dumped the body and gone out afterward for dinner and a show. He would've done the same for Ralph Arguello, or me for that matter, if we'd happened to cross him.
Why did I want people like that in my life?
I slipped Julio Gomez's file back into my cabinet. I stared at the picture of my dead best friend's daughter Lucia on my computer screen. Ana DeLeon's brief note: Love from both of us.
I closed the email program.
In the living room, Maia hung up the phone. She sat with her fingers laced, staring at the coffee table. I knew she was gathering her composure before she came to talk to me. Especially during the first trimester, pregnancy had played hell with her hormones. She got emotional much more easily than usual, and she hated it. She spent a lot of time alone at the coffee table.
In six months, give or take, I would be a father. When I thought about the legacy I had from my own dad, what did I come up with? His old service revolver, a warped view of law enforcement and some painful memories from a childhood spent on Rebel Island.
I stared at the telephone. Then I picked it up and dialed my boss at UTSA. I told him I was thinking of going full-time. He said he'd start the paperwork immediately.
Chapter 30
Benjamin Lindy watched the sunrise through a hole in the wall.
He'd always been an early riser. When he was a child, his job had been to tend the chickens on the ranch. He'd get up before first light and check for eggs, remove snakes from the hutch when necessary and let the chickens out to feed.
Early rising had been bred into him. It was a physical need. Around four in the morning, his feet would start to tingle and the sheets would begin to feel itchy. He had to get out of bed. On the rare occasion when he overslept and woke up to daylight, he felt sluggish and out of sorts, cheated of his best time.
This morning, he'd had several hours to think before the sun came up. He'd decided he would have to kill someone today.
The room he was standing in had been a parlor suite. Sometime during the night, a telephone pole had pierced the wall - crossbeams, wires and all. It stuck about five feet into the room, hanging crookedly in the ragged hole it had made, the top of the pole pushing against the ceiling. Lord knew where the telephone pole had come from. There were none on the island, as far as Benjamin could recall. When he came into the room, his first impression was that a sailing ship had rammed the building with its bowsprit.
He slipped his hand into his pocket. The gun was still there. It was his spare sidearm, too small for his hand, but now he was glad he'd brought it. Years ago, he'd bought the gun for his wife, but she'd never touched it - one of the many things she'd left behind. He supposed there was some sort of justice in him using that gun today.
He watched the sky turn from black to steel. He still burned from the indignity of having his .45 taken from him, as if he were a child. A year earlier, the state had tried to take away his driver's license, simply because he was old. Then a murderer had taken away his daughter, as if old age did not rob a man of enough. Navarre had no right to rule over him. Benjamin had been wrong to trust Navarre. He would do no more than the law.
He remembered his last conversation with Peter Brazos, who of all people should've been his ally. Peter had turned all his attention to prosecuting the drug lords. He poured his rage into his work. But Calavera...Peter saw the assassin as a tool, not the real target. When Benjamin had tried to warn him what the Marshals Service was doing, tried to suggest they take action before the assassin could cut a deal, Peter had shut him down.
"Not another word,"