When they got to the open gates of the workers' entrance to the ranch, Gage left his car off to the side of the drive and climbed in with Jose. Jose could see from Gage's face, even behind the mirrored glasses, that he was all business.
"No sense wasting my shocks when I don't have to," Gage said, pointing for Jose to proceed.
They passed a handful of faded barns. Behind them, and through a gap in the trees, Jose caught just a glimpse of at least a dozen long rows of tenant houses. In the gap, two emaciated little girls in soiled white dresses jumped a dirty piece of rope.
Jose slowed his truck, and while he could no longer see the tenant shacks or the girls, the smell of raw sewage seeped into the cab through the crack in his window.
"That's a lot of shacks over there," he said, angling his head back toward the barns and sniffing.
Gage glanced toward the shantytown, then focused ahead before he said, "Big ranch. Lots of hands. None of my business. None of yours."
"Couple thousand head of cattle or something?" Jose said. "Cotton, too?"
Gage grinned at him. "You are a detective."
"Observant," Jose said. "Sometimes places like that, with that many workers, are breeding grounds for trouble."
"What, like Cesar Chavez kind of strike stuff?" Gage asked.
"I was thinking gangs and drugs."
"Mosquitoes on a puddle," Gage said with a shrug. "All you do is spray it every once in a while, keep things cleaned up."
Jose let up on the brake and kept going.
For several miles they traveled over rough and rutted roads until they came to a rare cluster of low hills scarred with farm fields and topped by hardwood. Jose recognized the widely spaced rows of bright green sprouts distending from the brown furrows as corn when they climbed out and hiked up the hillside toward the crown.
About fifty yards from the upper edge of the field, Gage stopped and eyed first one tree line, then the other, as if to triangulate his position, then started for the wood that ran up the hillside. Jose carried the file with him and leafed through the report as he followed Gage into the wood. Late-day copper light filtered through the young leaves. Pollen floated past, glittering like stardust, and insects buzzed and darted about, cutting tiny arcs through the beams.
"Says Elijandro sat in front of the senator," Jose said, tapping the report, "about twenty feet and off to his left."
"Bird was out there," Gage said, pointing back at the place where they'd stood in the nascent corn. "Senator Chase sat here, and the guide sat there. Decoys were lower down, but the bird came to a strut up there, through that gap, right in line with the guide."
Gage pointed past a large oak, then swung his hand to the left, pointing a line over the top of a low stump closer to the field.
"And Elijandro-the guide-jumped up when the senator shot?" Jose said, his eyes darting about the area, soaking it in.
"Bird was right out there," Gage said, directing a thick finger toward the field and following his own finger to the spot in front of the stump. "Blew his brains all over. Rain got to it, I guess, and the bugs."
The chief toed some dead leaves, leaving a scuff mark.
"I didn't see any photos of the body in the file," Jose said.
"This ain't CSI," Gage said.
"What about the shell casing?" Jose asked.
Gage's eyebrows shot up. "What about it?"
"Senator right-handed? Shoots a right-handed gun?"
"I believe so. Why?"
Jose looked back to where the senator had sat and scanned the forest floor off to the side where the shell would have ejected. He shrugged and said, "Just details."
Pointing to the gap between the two trees that would have been the senator's aim point, Jose said, "That's a real narrow lane to shoot through."
"He's not much of a hunter," Gage said, "the senator. Probably got excited."
After a silence, Gage said, "Wayson said you used to be a homicide detective. This ain't that. No question about the weapon, senator's twelve-gauge. Not much reason to look for the shell casing, but help yourself if you like."
Jose looked up and grinned. "Nah. Just thinking out loud. I'm good. I saw the place. Pretty clear how it all happened."
"Cut and dry."
"That's what I'll tell her," Jose said. "Sorry to drag you out here."
"It's on my way."
Jose let the chief lead the way out, but before he followed, he reached into his pocket and set the GPS.
The two of them trudged back to Jose's truck. He dropped the chief off at his cruiser, noticing for the first time the camera mounted above the gates. As he left, he watched the cruiser disappear in his rearview mirror, guessing that the chief wasn't going home but to report in to the senator.
Jose took the highway a couple of exits north, then got off and found a diner where he had a plate of hash and eggs and several cups of coffee in a booth next to the dusty window. He took his time eating and spread the police file out across the tabletop of his booth, digging into it, and burning through the last light of day.
CHAPTER 24
CASEY LURCHED AWAY, STUMBLING AND LOSING HER FOOTING because of the unrelenting grip on her arm.
She curled her fingers into a claw and slashed up and across in the direction she thought her attacker's face must be. The nails caught something, slicing through like butter, and the man cried out without letting go.
Casey screamed.
"Casey Jordan!" he shouted. "Are you Casey Jordan?"
She could see him in the light now, not the abusive husband of Soledad Mondo but a bulky, fiftyish man with a bulbous nose, wearing a tweed sport coat, and with a bad, frizzy gray comb-over hanging half off his balding head.
"Let me go, you son of a bitch!" she shrieked, swinging again.
This time he caught her hand and grabbed hold of it tight, backing her down into the doorway, surprising her with his strength.
"Are you Casey Jordan?" he hollered.
"Yes," she said. "Let go of me!"
The man released her wrists and stepped back into the shadows, fumbling with something inside his coat pocket, maybe a knife, maybe a gun. She gasped and thought to run, or kick him in the balls, but felt stuck in cement with limbs paralyzed by their own weight.
Whatever he took out flashed in the gloomy entryway. She blinked.
"I'm serving you with court papers," he said, extending the packet and jiggling it at her while he patted his bleeding cheek.
"You hide in my entryway?" she said, not taking it. "You think you can just do that?"
"It was all open," he said.
"You're a process server?" she asked.
"Sometimes people run," he said. "You cut me. Anyway, here."
She took it and he stepped around her.
"What's this about?" she asked, wheeling on him.
He shrugged and stopped in the glow of the light, examining the blood on his fingertips and stopping up the slash marks with a handkerchief from his pocket.
"I just serve them," he said. "But I always tell people, if they think about it… they'll know."
Casey watched him shuffle away down the canal. She pulled the door shut tight and threw the bolt, flipping the light switch and tearing open the sleeve that held the court documents. With practiced precision, her eyes quickly found the meat of it.
Her lip curled up off her teeth and she snarled.
"You asshole," she said, thinking of her ex-husband as she went up the narrow stairs. "You sick, pathetic, washed-up asshole."
She slapped the papers down on the dark green granite of the kitchen island, went to the fridge to pour a glass of sauvignon blanc, then picked the papers back up again, shaking her head. She crossed into the living room and flopped onto the couch, snatching up the phone.
"Paige? It's me. I got a new low for you."
"The DA?" she said.
"My ex," Casey said. "He's suing me."
"You're divorced already."
"For slander."
Casey heard the rustle of her putting her hand over the phone to whisper. She said, "You told someone about his pecker?"