The Burning Season Read online

  “Okay, okay,” Leland said. “You can look around, just take those things off me.”

  “Not yet, Mr. P.,” Vartann said. “You and I will have a little chat while my friends search the premises. Is there someplace private we can go?”

  “My office,” Leland said.

  “Where?”

  “It’s back here,” one of the muscle guys said. “I’ll show you.”

  Vartann broke into a smile. “Cooperation. That’s what I like to see.”

  The men broke their blockade, and ATF agents filed past them into a warren of offices and warehouse facilities at the rear of the building. Enough time had been wasted to allow the Free Citizens to have hidden a truckload of elephants, but with agents surrounding the building, at least none were leaving the premises.

  The muscle man, dark-haired and fair-skinned, with a neck as big around as a telephone pole, led the way to Caleb of Leland (Tulsa)’s office. It had a window with a view of the empty car lot, a big steel desk, a filing cabinet, and a pair of mismatched visitor chairs. The walls were graced with antigovernment posters, some of which appeared to be patriotic and pro-government unless the coded message was understood. Others were less subtle, like the one depicting the president of the United States with a tall black hat and a villainous mustache, tying a bound woman labeled “Freedom” to a railroad track. A train labeled “Socialism” bore down on them. Even a quotation from Thomas Jefferson printed on a poster took on a chilling tone, in this context. On top of the desk were an open laptop computer and a legal pad with some scrawls on it.

  “Thanks,” Vartann said. “We’ll just have a little chat in here.”

  “Should I leave?” the muscle asked.

  “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Go,” Leland told him. “Get the lawyers.”

  “Okay.” The man left the office, shutting the door.

  “That’s better,” Vartann said. He unlocked the cuffs. Leland sat behind his desk, rubbing his wrists.

  “You storm troopers are all the same.”

  “Storm troopers?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I think you could use a history lesson, sir. To compare us to storm troopers is—”

  “You barge in here with no legal authority, and—”

  “I don’t know what you consider legal authority, but Clark County, the state of Nevada, and the United States of America have signed off on what we’re doing here. You don’t accept any of those?”

  “An occupation government? Hardly.”

  “Are we going to find any illegal weapons here?”

  “I can’t imagine that you would.”

  “Then there’s no problem.”

  “The problem is you storm troopers think you can stomp all over our rights!”

  “So we’re back to that?”

  “I call it like I see it.”

  Vartann moved toward the desk. Leland tried to wheel his chair away but he got snagged on the edge of the knee well. “We’re not the bad guys here,” Vartann said. “I don’t know if you are, either. But whatever you think we’re up to, we’re not. We’re trying to keep the peace. We want to make sure you didn’t have anything to do with an attack on Dennis Daniels, or the harassment of a law enforcement officer. Did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Is there any ammonium nitrate on the property?”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  Leland was spreading the fertilizer on pretty thick, Vartann thought, but he moved straight to the next question. “Do you know someone who calls himself John of Tipton, Bakersfield?”

  “Should I?”

  “Think about it. How many other groups do you know with that kind of naming system?”

  “Well, I’m sorry. That name doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “Right. Tell you what, if you happen to run across him, tell him that I strongly suggest he rethink what he’s doing.”

  “Sure, if I happen to run across him.”

  “I’m not convinced you’re taking this whole thing seriously,” Vartann said. The man was infuriating. “I could still arrest you.”

  “I’d like to see you make it stick.”

  “Trust me, twenty-four hours in captivity is no picnic, even if we end up not filing charges. Like I said, that’s really not why we’re here. I’m trying to make this easy on you, and you seem intent on making it difficult.”

  “Because I’m not letting you and your fascist thugs bully me into admitting anything?”

  “Just pass on the message,” Vartann said. He had to get away from the man before he lost his temper. “We’ll be out of your way as soon as we finish our search. For your sake, you’d better hope we don’t find anything.”

  Although the swing shift had just started, everyone on Catherine’s team had been on the job for at least an hour. She appreciated their dedication, but some part of her would have preferred that they were either resting up for the night, or out enjoying themselves, having lives away from work. She wanted her people well rounded, not obsessed with the job.

  But she couldn’t call them on it, having been at work since mid-morning herself. She knew she’d regret it later, when three or four o’clock rolled around and her body’s natural cycle wanted her to be asleep. Working night shift, she had retrained herself to an extent, but ultimately, humans were made to function best in daylight, and the hours got to everybody once in a while.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t every day they had to deal with what might have been an attempted assassination.

  She was at her desk reading over the various reports that the case had already generated when her phone rang. She raised it to her ear. “Willows.”

  “Catherine,” Jim Brass’s gravely voice said. “Remember Alec Watson?”

  “From earlier today? Sure. Why?”

  “Because that’s all that’s left of him,” Brass said. “Memories.”

  “Jim . . . ?”

  “He’s been murdered,” Brass clarified.

  “Where?”

  “His office.” Brass read off an address, which Catherine jotted down.

  “I’m on my way,” she said.

  “I’ll be here.”

  16

  RAY LANGSTON SWUNG by the Friends of the East Side Community Center before heading back to the lab. He was intrigued now—this whole Ruben Solis thing had taken on twists he hadn’t expected, and he wanted to see what he could find out about the missing man. If Mickey Ritz at the community center had arranged his marrow transfusion, maybe he could provide some answers.

  The building was an inviting shade of rose, with tan trim. A tall fence shielded a well-kept playground, and the grounds were refreshingly clean. Had he been young and poor, he’d have felt comfortable coming here.

  Through a large wooden door was a big, open room. People played cards at a table, a board game at another, and a couple of others were watching sports on TV. At a different table, a young Hispanic woman was helping some children with a craft project involving construction paper, beads, and copious amounts of white glue.

  Something smelled marvelous, and Ray followed his nose to a busy kitchen. Six people, most of them young, were involved in the preparation of what looked like a Mexican feast—beans and rice, tacos, burritos, carne asada, and more. “Hi,” a woman said. She was probably in her late teens or early twenties, a light-skinned African American with a fetching smile. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Mickey Ritz,” Ray said.

  The oldest person in the kitchen, a Caucasian woman in her fifties, hair going gray and hanging in her face, waved a wooden spoon down the hall. “Back that way, last door on the left before you find yourself outside again.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ray reluctantly tore himself away from the tantalizing aromas and continued down the hall. He passed a couple of older folks, grizzled white men who appeared to be homeless. They gave him a wide berth, but greeted him when he spoke to them. T
hen he stopped in front of the last door on the left, and knocked.

  “It’s open!” a voice called.

  Ray pushed the door wide. “Mickey Ritz?”

  A sturdy bald guy stood there. He had been sweating profusely; his sleeveless sweatshirt was dark with moisture, and beads of it ran down hairy, tanned legs. He held a damp towel in his hands. “That’s me.”

  “I’m Ray Langston, with the Las Vegas Crime Lab.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t shake,” Ritz said. “Just played some one-on-one with one of our better hoopsters. Damn near wore me out.”

  “It’s a demanding sport,” Ray said.

  “You don’t look like our usual clientele.”

  “I’m afraid I’m here on official business.”

  “Cop business?”

  “Something like that.”

  Ritz toweled off his face, which was still bright red from exertion. “I’m pretty protective of the privacy of my people.”

  “Believe me, I appreciate that,” Ray said. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t literally a matter of life and death.”

  Ritz lowered the towel, more interested now. “Whose life?”

  “You know Ruben Solis?”

  “Yeah,” Ritz said. His voice took on a guarded tone. “What about him?”

  “You arranged a marrow transfusion for him.” Ritz didn’t respond. “Lucia told me.”

  “Okay, yeah, I did. What about it?”

  “He’s in danger. Someone’s abducted him, cut off his hand.”

  “Oh, no.” Ritz’s legs turned to rubber. He sank back against an overflowing bookcase. The office was cluttered with papers, sports equipment, games, and more. One of Ruben’s constructions sat on a shelf—a basketball court, with a figure who looked quite a bit like Ritz at its center. Another door was open on the far side of Ritz’s desk, light streaming through, but Ray couldn’t see what was beyond it. “God, no.”

  “You know what that means? About the hand?”

  “I hear a lot of things here. I don’t believe them all.”

  “But you know Ruben is undocumented.”

  “Sure.”

  “And therefore easy prey for the kind of people who Lucia says are responsible.”

  “If the whole thing is real, yeah. I suppose.”

  “His hand is real. We took it away from a dog.”

  Ritz ran the towel over his head again. “God, no, this can’t be happening.”

  “If you can tell me anything, Mr. Ritz, about Ruben or whatever you know about these people, it’ll help.”

  “You don’t know where he is?”

  “We have no idea. We don’t know how far the dog carried the hand, and we don’t know how far it was dumped from Ruben’s location.”

  “He’s a good kid.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “No, I mean, really. Sure, he’s here illegally. But he’s smart, he’s ambitious, and he’s damn talented. He cares about others. He used to come here just to take advantage of our facilities, to have a safe place to go after school, someplace that wasn’t the streets. We try to steer kids away from gangs here, Mr. Langston. He was an easy sell. Then, these past couple of years, he’s been volunteering here, helping make the same pitch to the generation coming up behind his.”

  “Do you know anything about where the gang might be located? The one running this blackmail scheme Lucia told me about?”

  “Can you close the door, Mr. Langston?”

  “Sure.” Ray did as the man asked.

  “I trust our clients and staff with my life. This place is my life. I live here.” He flipped the towel toward the open door behind him. “I work here. Sometimes it seems like I never get away. But I love it. Still . . . there are people out in the world who I don’t trust, for a second. And some of them have hooks into some of my people, despite my best efforts.”

  “So you don’t want our conversation overheard.”

  “It’s probably not a problem at all. Still, some chances I’d rather not take.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I’ve heard the guy who runs it is called Oz, or Ozzie. Something like that. And of course, I’ve heard what they do, how they blackmail undocumented aliens. And how they’ll cut off hands to prove they’ve got them.”

  “And if the hands aren’t mailed to the family—”

  “That usually means they’re dead. Then it’s a warning to the rest of the community. Keep quiet, don’t make waves, this could happen to you.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just this. If you find Ruben and he’s been killed—then I hope to God you kill whoever did it. I’m not a violent man, Mr. Langston. I’ve had my troubles in life, like everybody does. There was a stretch for over ten years that I’m really not proud of. If you knew me in my twenties, you’d be astonished that I’m alive today. But I came through it, and I’ve turned things around. That’s how I know that anybody can do it, because I did, and I’m nothing special. And I’ve never laid a hand on anyone in anger since then. If I had this Ozzie here now, though . . .”

  “When we find him, Mr. Ritz, we’ll arrest him and let justice take its course.”

  “Sometimes that’s not good enough.”

  “It’ll have to be. And let me assure you, Mr. Ritz, we’re good at what we do. When we make a case against this Ozzie, we’ll make sure we have the evidence in hand to nail him to the wall.”

  “Supervisor Willows,” Jim Brass said. “This is Justine Marie Taylor.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Ms. Taylor,” Catherine said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “He was a great man, Ms. Willows. Not just a great American, but a great man.”

  “I’m sure.” She didn’t yet know the woman’s connection to Alec Watson, but she looked like she had been crying for hours. She was stout, solid, the kind of woman who looked like she couldn’t be knocked over by anything short of a major hurricane. Her hair was short and blond, her fingers thick.

  “Ms. Taylor was Mr. Watson’s office manager,” Brass explained.

  “Our relationship was purely professional,” Justine said, answering a question that hadn’t been asked. “But I had the deepest respect for him. And something like love, I suppose. Not physical love, but spiritual. He was just . . . such a dear, devoted man.”

  Catherine had a hundred questions, but Brass had probably asked them already, so she let them slide for now. She had brought Greg along, and he was already photographing the office in which Watson had been shot.

  Watson’s office was an upscale affair in a private building. The plaque outside that announced Elementary Magazine and BOOM looked like solid gold. Inside, the floors were marble, the furnishings top of the line. Early American art graced the walls—originals, and most of it stuff Catherine would have expected to see in museums. She was sure she had walked past a Grandma Moses in the corridor, and something that looked like a Currier and Ives.

  “I’m going to see what I can learn in the office,” Catherine said. “I’ll be there if you need me.”

  “Okay,” Brass said. He took Justine’s arm and steered her away. “They’re the best in the business,” he was saying. “If there’s anything to be found in there, they’ll find it.”

  She appreciated the vote of confidence. Brass had shown her where Watson’s private office was, and she went in. Greg’s electronic flash was going off as she entered. “Are you about done with that?” she asked.

  “I am,” Greg replied. He put the lens cap on the camera and tucked it into a bag. “Glad I put on two pairs of booties, too.”

  “It’s definitely a mess.” Catherine had double-bootied, too. These days, any scene at which bodily fluids had been spilled had to be considered a potentially toxic zone. There were bodily fluids in copious amounts in Watson’s office, and protecting their own health was just as critical a decision as any other when it came to working the scene.

  Watson had been sitting behind a massive wooden desk, one tha
t looked like something the signers of the Declaration of Independence might have gathered around to put their signatures on that document. His body was on the floor behind the desk, now, where it would stay until Catherine released it into the care of the medical examiner’s office. When she went around the desk, she could see at least a dozen bullet holes in him. There were more in the wall behind the desk, some glazed with blood spatter and brain matter. Somebody had opened up with an automatic weapon at close range, and the result was a body that was barely recognizable as human.

  Blood had pooled around the body. Plasma and platelets beginning to separate, and the process would continue until it was cleaned up. The center of the pool was so dark it was almost black; toward the edge, where it was mostly plasma, it verged toward pink. The dual death smells of copper and sugars—common in plasma, along with every protein found in the body—hung heavy in the air.

  Slugs had chewed up the desk’s surface and struck the desktop computer that sat on it. Papers were strewn all over the place, knocked about by the bullets or by Watson’s death throes.

  Catherine set her field kit down on a clean wooden cabinet across the room from the carnage. The office was vast and decorated in a style that might have been called early American Patriot, if it had a name at all. Behind and to the left of the ornate wooden desk were crossed flags of the United States and Nevada, causing Catherine to wonder if Watson had suffered Oval Office envy. She took latex gloves from the kit, pulled a pair on over her hands, and then a second pair over those. There was no such thing as too much protection, and if the outer pair were contaminated she could remove them and replace them with a second outer pair.

  She scanned the whole room once again, looking for her starting point. With two of them, one could work on recovering trace while the other focused on the body, the bullets, and the spatter. It seemed, at first glance, fairly obvious what had happened to Watson, but that was just the kind of assumption a criminalist had to guard against. That first glance could prove to be wrong. They had to let the evidence dictate what had taken place, not let their initial biases dictate what evidence would be found.