She frowned at my choice of words. ‘It was you that saved us, Joe.’
Shaking my head, I said, ‘If you hadn’t got Samuel off me that first time, I don’t know what might’ve happened. He could quite easily have killed me, and I dread to think what would’ve happened to you all if he had. Then, when that dirty cop almost killed me, you saved me again. That’s twice I owe you my life.’
She went silent for a while, working through what I’d said, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. She told me what had happened between the two cops, and how Lewin had murdered his sergeant when he’d realised the gig was up. And how helpless she’d felt when Lewin had taken her prisoner a second time.
‘I should have thought about his connection to the Logans sooner. I’m sorry I put you through that again.’
‘Everything turned out well in the end,’ she said. ‘And we now know everyone responsible. At least it’s over with.’
A couple of outstanding issues still remained, but I wasn’t about to bring them up. Not yet. Notwithstanding the whereabouts of Helena Blackstock and Carla Logan, the reason for the Logans selecting specific lookalikes continued to elude me.
‘Let’s collect the others and get the hell out of here,’ I said.
Jay perked up, anticipating the longed-for reunion with her friends.
The cliffs were etched under the glare of the SUV’s headlights, the yawning caves like the open mouths of a choir. Flicking the headlights to announce our arrival, I guided the vehicle to the foot of the cliff where I’d left Nicole and Ellie. We were a good distance from the ranch, but I didn’t doubt that they had heard the recent gunfire. They couldn’t know who had triumphed, of course, and would still be wary of whoever was arriving so soon after. I’d have preferred a more low-key approach, but Jay had unbuckled her seat belt and was out of the door before I could caution her.
‘Nicole! Nicole!’
Jay had no clue which of the caves held her friend, but it didn’t stop her running for the foot of the cliff. From inside the SUV, I searched for the cave mouth I’d tagged in my memory and saw two figures emerge from it. There were corresponding shouts of joy as Nicole and Ellie began clambering down the rock face. I didn’t want to interrupt their reunion, so busied myself with another task. I climbed out of the cab and turned to survey the nightscape, holding my reclaimed S&W in one hand and Carson’s semi-auto in the other. The girls were safe for now, but I wondered how long that status quo could be maintained, because there was yet another outstanding issue I’d neglected to mention.
As we’d driven past where Samuel had fallen, his body was no longer there.
27
I’d expected a shit storm and that’s what happened. Investigative teams descended on the area en masse: cops, crime scene investigators, dignitaries from the Navajo Nation, the mayor of Holbrook, camera crews and newspaper reporters. Crime scenes were marked at various locations on a large triangle that included Peachy’s gas station to the Logan ranch and back to the road where my rental and the body of the dead police sergeant were located. Even a troop of National Guardsmen was press-ganged into helping cover the extensive search area. The only ones missing were the FBI; I wondered how long that would last.
Thankfully we were spared much of the circus that erupted, but the compromise was that we were all held in separate rooms at the police office in Holbrook. For hours, we were each interviewed over and over again about our respective involvement in the case. I’d briefed all the girls during our drive to the town, stressing one point: I told them to hide nothing, tell everything else as they remembered it and everything would be OK. The truth was the best policy and attempting to cover up the fact I’d killed three men wouldn’t help in the long run. The men I’d killed were monsters and deserved what they got, and I didn’t think there’d be too many recriminations when the full story came out. Yet there was a major complication.
Because two Navajo County police officers were involved in fatal shootings, their case was farmed out to the State Police Office ensuring ‘transparency’ was maintained during the ongoing investigation. Jay’s testimony, she told me, was at first met with disbelief, but I suspected that the forensics would prove everything and Lewin would be confirmed as Sergeant Espinoza’s murderer.
Two state police detectives took over from the local cops, who’d been hammering me with cross-examinations since our arrival at Holbrook, and they loaded me into an unmarked Lincoln sedan to transport me to an office in downtown Phoenix, apparently the one where the infamous Miranda versus Arizona investigation took place. Funnily enough, as in that landmark case, I wasn’t offered my rights either. Though I took that as a good sign.
Detective Andrew Chambers was the younger of the two, a man indisposed to smiling. He had straight black hair, finger-combed back from his high forehead, and pointy ears. Maybe he was conscious that he looked like a Vulcan from Star Trek when he allowed his bangs to fall forward. He was wearing a navy blue suit, a pale yellow shirt and no tie. His shoes were scuffed at the toe, a sure sign that he did most of the driving. His partner, a fifty-something guy called Michael Witherspoon, with a florid face and a gut that overhung his belt buckle, was the more amiable of the two. I guessed he was supposed to be the good cop.
I was parked on an uncomfortable bench in the busy waiting area while the detectives organised their next move. When they returned to collect me, Chambers just grunted and jerked his head at me to follow him. The cubicle they took me to was your standard interview room, with a video camera, audio recording equipment, and bolted-down table and chairs. If not for the flickering overhead strip light I’d have thought there was a power outage, because all the electronic equipment was dead. Isolated more like, because our conversation was the type they refer to as ‘off the record’ in police circles.
I chose the seat reserved for the bad guy: the one nearest to the recorder and opposite the lens of the CCTV camera. My chaperones sat across from me. Chambers had a ring folder with him that he placed on the table top. He opened it to reveal a single acetate pouch containing a number of papers. Through the semi-opaque plastic, Chambers made a perusal of the details on the uppermost sheet. It was a printout from my military file. There wasn’t much on it that hadn’t been blacked out under the Official Secrets Act, other than a ten-years-out-of-date mugshot, my birth date and service number. He glanced up at me, then across at his partner. I waited for the inevitable.
‘You’re a bit of a mystery man, ain’t you?’ Chambers said.
‘What you see is what you get. There’s no mystery.’
Chambers tapped the acetate, as if confirming something, then closed the file. He frowned, exhaling loudly. Witherspoon only offered me a twinkling eye.
‘Care to tell me a little more about yourself?’ Chambers asked.
‘I’ve already gone over everything with your buddies at Holbrook.’ I leaned forward and mimicked his action of tapping the file. ‘It’s all in there and I know you’ve already read and absorbed it. I don’t know anything extra I can add.’
Chambers scowled now, his intimidating look, but it had no effect on me. ‘See, the way I see it, when we get hold of a military file that has more lines scored through it than my school report, it tells me we’ve got a problem on our hands.’
‘You were academically challenged? I’m surprised you made it to detective.’
Chambers sat back, his face frozen, more at Witherspoon’s chuckle than at my sarcasm.
Now it was Witherspoon’s turn to tap the file, but his action was dismissive. ‘I think we can stop blowing smoke up each others’ asses. What do you say, Hunter?’