Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,14
noteworthy to report. She asked when he was coming next, and he told her he had a thing he needed to do with Ange’s boyfriend. Maybe the following weekend.
When they’d exhausted all the current events and spent a few minutes talking about wishing they were together, Alex said she had to go. Dylan couldn’t resist telling her, one more time, to be very careful with her blog. One last ‘I love you’, and she was gone.
A few minutes later, Ange and her boyfriend, Bill Hicks, arrived. Ange was going to stay and watch the boys while Dylan and Bill took a ride over to the cop shop and consulted with Kevin Thurston. Thurston, Bill’s immediate supervisor and lead deputy of the local branch of the Sheriff’s department, had changed his attitude about Dylan after their last run-in. Now, Thurston was interested in knowing what he knew about Los Diablos. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much, but maybe now Thurston was on it, they’d learn more.
Bill left his car with Ange in case of emergency, and rode with Dylan in his Silverado to the cop shop. Thurston was already there. After handshakes all around, they got down to business.
“Dylan, I’ve got to say, I haven’t seen anything illegal going on since you pointed them out last November. Far as I can tell, they hole up in that bar most of the time. Even when they go out riding in a bunch, they stay on the right side of the law. Can’t even catch ‘em driving drunk.”
Before his two missteps with Dylan, when he refused to pay attention and even suspected Dylan of wrongdoing, that sentence would have come out heavy on the sarcasm. Tonight it was just frustration. Thurston seemed as uneasy as Dylan that a motorcycle club with ties, at least in name, to an outlaw gang from California had taken up residence in their little town.
“You ever see them bunched up around a tractor-trailer rig on their bikes? Or an SUV even?” Dylan suspected Los Diablos of a cartel connection, but in the six months or so they’d been watching, neither he nor Thurston’s department had been able to spot it. Only the memory of a Latino man with a heavy accent talking to a member of the MC at Jen Mackey’s bar the previous July kept Dylan convinced there was a connection. The others were losing faith.
“Not that we’ve seen. It would be a little obvious if we tailed them every time they rode out of the parking lot,” Thurston answered. Dylan looked at Bill for some support, but found none.
“When you have tailed them, do they ride north or south?” There were only two ways out of town on paved roads—North on highway 85, toward Phoenix, or southeast, which soon curved back slightly southwest through Organ Pipe National Monument to the border. Of course, from US 85, one could turn off on highway 86 east toward Tucson from south of town, or on highway 8 north of town, leading to Casa Grande to the east or Yuma to the west. Towns and roads were few and far between out here.
“South, mostly. Sometimes they run to Sells, on the reservation, or Gila Bend. They don’t usually go far.”
“It’s a decoy,” Dylan said. “Got to be. What’s in Dodge for them, anyway? And how do they support themselves? Do any of those guys work?”
“Don’t know. We don’t have the resources to tail every one of them, Dylan. And they’d spot that, too.” Thurston was still being civil, but Dylan could sense he was tired of the conversation.
“What if we tailed a couple at a time? I could help, on my off time.” Dylan didn’t have much hope of getting away with that one, but he was going crazy trying to figure out what these guys were doing in Dodge.
“Not without authorization, Dylan. I can’t have a civilian getting mixed up in this, especially if it turns dangerous.”
That was what he’d suspected. He had an idea. “What if you deputized me? You know I’m qualified for law enforcement, Thurston. It’s not like I’m really a civilian.”
“Look, the best I can do is ask my superiors. I know you’re qualified, you’re right. Do me a favor, though, and don’t go doing anything I’m going to have to arrest you for, before I have a chance to square it with the department. Okay?”
Dylan had to admit this new Kevin Thurston was a lot easier to work with than he used to be. There’d been