A Fine Balance Page 5

“We’re trying to keep the count down.”

  “Lotsa luck. It’s gettin’ worse and you know it. If you ask me the stuff should be legal. That’d cut down the bloodshed.”

  “Talk to your assemblyman, congressman, senators, the big money interests that defeated the last referendum on recreational weed. We got another one coming up. Who knows how it’ll go. Make your voice heard,” Jack drawled. “The voice of the people and all that bullshit.”

  “If I could afford TV time my voice would be louder. At least you’re on the job.” Leo smiled. “I sleep better at night.”

  “You sleep better at night cause you’ve got a permit for medical marijuana.”

  “Hey, I’m old. I got health problems. My knees for one.”

  “You and me both.”

  “That knee of yours giving you trouble?” Small town. Everyone knew what ended Jack’s NFL career.

  “A twinge or two now and then.” Jack smiled, picked up the bag and slipped it in his jean pocket. “Thanks, Leo. I owe you.”

  “Bring me a bottle of your wine we’re square.”

  “Will do.”

  Jack drove over the mountains to Willits, parked in front of Mailboxes, Inc., walked past the throng of Latinos hanging around outside and pushed open the door. Moving toward the bank of mail boxes on the west wall, he scanned the icons. Since he was dressed in jeans and T-shirt, his car unmarked, no one here recognized him as law enforcement. He was concerned whether anyone was watching the box. But the clerk behind the counter was busy with a long line of customers and none of the men outside were looking his way.

  So far so good.

  And there it was.

  Way down on the bottom row, away from the door, behind a display of packing containers. He must live right. A minute later he was squatting down in front of it, his body turned slightly to further shield the box from view. Drawing a vinyl glove from his pocket, he slipped it on, fit the key to the lock and felt his pulse rate spike as it turned. Pulling the door open, he drew in a small breath. Christ. That was a helluva lot of money.

  Sliding a folded mailing envelope from under his shirt, he flipped it open, shoveled the contents of the box into it, shut the mailbox door, pulled out the key and dropped it back in the zip bag. Stripping off the glove, he shoved it and the zip bag into his jean’s pocket and after a glance around to see that he’d not been observed, rose to his feet.

  A minute later he was backing his car out from between two beat up pick-up trucks and a minute after that, he swung out onto Highway 20. Driving to the Safeway parking lot a block away, he pulled in, shut off the ignition, shoved his seat back and opening the glove compartment, scrounged around for the packet of disposable gloves he kept there. Suitably gloved, he picked up the mailing envelope from the passenger seat and shoving aside the rumpled bills that he’d have checked out later for serial numbers, he lifted out two items. Dropping the mailing envelope back on the seat, he placed a much folded sheet of paper on his thigh and opened a passport that still retained the curve of someone’s back pocket.

  A photo of a young boy–three, four years old--stared up at him. Name, birth date, place of birth, expiration date of the passport. Unfolding the sheet of paper, he found a birth certificate in the same name. Luis Hernando Mata, born in San Diego, nine years ago.

  He’d bet a million the surname of the deceased was also Mata.

  Which probably meant that Mata’s killers were hired guns indifferent to the identity of their victim or they would have taken more notice of him kicking off his shoe. And the boy must be well hidden. Otherwise Mata wouldn’t have risked his murderers seeing his Hail Mary gesture.

  So–where was the kid hidden?

  Did he know his brother’s killers?

  Did the killers know him?

  Would he stay hidden long enough for Jack to find him or would the bad guys get to him first?

  Shoving everything into the envelope, Jack headed back to Bragg. First, call Morrie, bring him up to date. Then after the feds parked their choppers for the night, he’d go up into the hills on a scouting mission.

  Chapter 10

  The moon was brilliant. Lemon yellow, luminous, perfect for tracking. Like a raiding moon from ages past when Borderers rode out, poachers poached and brigands plied their trade.

  Jack drove his SUV as far as he dared up a derelict logging road, then left the car and set out on foot. Following a deer trail used by the backwoods growers, he climbed the thin, winding path up the gulch. The footing was always precarious on these steep inclines, particularly when a tree canopy pitched the trail into deep shadow. But he knew enough to travel light. It was too easy to be thrown off balance by an overloaded backpack and once you started to slide, your only hope was that some tree would stop you before you crash dived to the bottom.

  He stopped from time to time to catch his breath before slogging on. By the time Ten Mile River was nothing but a silver ribbon way the hell down at the bottom of the gulch, the skunky odor of weed was unmistakable. Tangy, pungent, familiar as an old pair of sneakers. Close.

  Time to move with caution. The harvest wars were in full swing; some of the fields set up perimeter guards. He’d prefer not getting shot. Or more likely shot at. Farm hands weren’t exactly top notch marksmen. Although letting loose a clip of AK rounds was pretty effective, good aim or not.

  But he’d always had steady nerves, a glib tongue, and a well-honed cop’s talent for side-stepping the truth. Not to mention, after five years in the big leagues of L.A. undercover he had a well-developed skill set for recon in a hostile environment. He’d learned that if you sized up the head honcho, eyeballed him mano a mano for that requisite second like a pitcher against a pro hitter, then if your gut gave you the go-ahead, you flashed him a big old smile and started shoveling the bullshit. Nine times out of ten you made it in without any lasting scars. In that one out of ten instances, you hit first or shot first or disappeared faster and quicker than a mirage.

  Tonight though no special magic was required.

  Jack walked into three camps on what were for him routine pretexts. Once the usual initial taut moment had blown over with no one getting shot, he pointed out–with a friendly smile and few obscene references to the Feds– that he was on their shit list too. All he wanted tonight was some information. Then he’d take out the morgue photo of the cleaned-up deceased, show it around, ask a few questions and pretty much get the same answer. Everyone denied knowing or ever seeing Mata. It was like a cop asking questions in the ghetto. Strictly negative eye contact, head shakes, silence. They were good at avoiding answers, knew not to snitch. Not that he’d been expecting sweet confessions.

  But at the fourth field he noticed a small, fleeting glance pass between two farmhands as the picture made the rounds. Bingo. He was getting closer. After repeating his soothing mantra: I’m not here to bust anyone. I’m not the Feds or Immigration. I don’t give a shit about Immigration, he mentioned a couple of well-known Latinos he counted as friends. Mentioned the wedding of Xavier Sanchez’s daughter he’d attended last week. Let them know the Feds were in town for at least a couple more weeks so they should keep their heads down. He never hassled the slave labor; their life was shit already. The cartels were a different matter; those he took down whenever he could. But tonight he was on a different mission so he just thanked everyone for their non-existent help and moved on.

  Because he seriously believed in hunches. Some of his best work had been based on hunches. In fact the end of his marriage–not that he necessarily considered that good–had blown up in his face when he’d noticed a hint of smugness in Monty’s voice as they were shooting the shit before a daily briefing one morning. That night he’d skipped out on his surveillance gig, walked into his house at two and found Sarah and Monty going at it hot and heavy.

  The police psychologist had told him he needed help with his anger management. He’d wanted to tell her he could have killed Monty and didn’t because he was managing his anger. He hadn’t
said that of course. He’d said, “Yes Ma’am. I’ll get some help.” And some day he might. At the time he’d just gone to pick up his stuff–all neatly packed and set in the garage thanks to Sarah’s mother who’d always wanted a different husband for her daughter and hadn’t minded saying so. The house had been quiet. If Sarah was inside, she wasn’t in a chatty mood. Staring at five years of married life condensed into a stack of cardboard, he’d considered knocking on the door, making a last stab at reconciliation, trying for that second chance. But the image of Sarah’s legs wrapped around Monty’s ass had jolted him back to reality; he’d loaded up his car instead and driven north.

  Oh crap! He’d almost walked into space. Teetering on the edge of the trail for a second before stepping back, he dragged in a shaky breath and stood motionless for a ten count before slamming the door on useless memories.

  As if he were being rewarded for the power of positive thinking, not more than ten minutes later, he came up over a rise and saw what he’d been expecting–a pot field. Although he hadn’t been expecting a crop wilted beyond salvage after two days in the hot sun without water. The kid must have split. Automatically calculating the loss, he knew that some people who didn’t know squat about farming were going to be pissed. Minimum three mil worth.

  After scanning the bordering tree line, Jack surveyed the woods above the field more carefully and listened, his head cocked, the wind licking at his face. Only normal night sounds: small animals moving through the brush; an owl’s warning hoot; the wind off the ocean ruffling the withered crop. No sign of a hit squad.

  They hadn’t come up the trail; he would have seen their tracks. They could have come down from Rockport. Although with a field of dead weed staring him in the face, if they’d been here, they knew the boy was gone.

  He wasn’t surprised Luis had flown the coop. In the incestuous world of the Emerald Triangle, news of the murder would have traveled fast. The jungle drum informational highway moved at warp speed up and down these hills. What he’d really like to know though is why Mata was murdered now? Why someone was willing to disregard a three mil loss? Another few weeks, the harvest would have been in. Time enough to off a difficult employee then he would have thought.

  So–Mata must have been pressing someone. Hard. Hard enough to warrant losing this crop. Hard enough to crucify him in grisly warning to anyone else who might consider following his lead. That computer message on the body hadn’t been printed up at the dumpsite. Some planning had gone into Mata’s murder.

  Which thought prompted him to clear his holster for action before continuing his search. Approaching the western boundary of the field, Jack stopped again, listened. The wind gusts had died down, the silence was thick, smothering, several acres of wilted plants stifling sound. Moving on a moment later, he skirted the northern boundary, stopped again. His nostrils flared like a wolf on the scent. Something, not just weed. His hand was poised above his Beretta as he rounded the corner of the field. Then he dropped his hand and skidded to a stop like Wily Coyote at the edge of a cliff.

  No cliff, but ten yards to his left, hard up against a steep limestone escarpment, under a moon so bright it could have been high noon were the remains of the Mata’s camp. What had passed for living quarters had been rifled and tossed, food, clothing, the inconsequential components of their simple lives strewn and scattered to the wind. A small lean-to unnecessarily smashed. Everything destroyed.

  Someone had gone ape shit. Pissed off at missing the boy, they’d taken out their frustration in mindless vandalism. These weren’t trained professionals. Not even close.

  The smell of spilled coffee was still pungent in the air, the trampled food not yet devoured by the birds and wild creatures, a chain saw upended on its blade still drained oil, drip by drip. They’d been here today, not yesterday. Which meant that they’d discovered young Luis’s existence after the murder.

  Which meant he wasn’t too late. Which meant he was looking at a game of cat and mouse–the nearest thing to religion for him; each new case a chance for ultimate salvation. The good guys win, the bad guys lose, justice prevails, you get that warm fuzzy feeling all over and for a brief shining moment the world’s a better place. Sometimes. He wasn’t delusional.

  But right now he was feeling mighty fine as he surveyed the forensic gold mine before him. Boot prints carpeted the ground. Fingerprints, possible DNA were just waiting to be collected. The people who’d done this had been reckless. Or perhaps they were outsiders without criminal records–by definition invisible to law enforcement. Or well-connected. Or more likely dumb fucks.

  Dropping his backpack, he took out a flashlight, snapped on some gloves and began picking up cigarette butts and other useful litter, dropping them into zip lock bags, tossing them in his pack. Police work was primarily about slow, steady process. Orderliness. Start at the beginning and add to the confirmable facts until everything falls into place. He didn’t discount intuition, those ah-ha moments, his adrenaline junkie hunches, but he’d take DNA any day for a steel-trap, open and shut case.

  It would have been useful to call in the tech team now, but the locals had been fighting cell phone towers on the North Coast for a decade and other than the one erected in town to assuage local businesses and griping tourists, cell phone coverage in the boondocks was spotty to nil. So he was the tech team until the professionals showed up.

  After picking up what he considered valuable, including a dozen spent casings some yahoo had fired for the hell of it, Jack checked out the boy’s escape route. He found where young Mata had waited, pacing, at the top of the trail and followed the small footprints. A straight-as-an-arrow route. No hesitation in his stride. Direct to the stream bank. Had the boy been coached about hiding his trail? Or had he seen how to lose pursuit in water in some movie or special ops video game? Did poor kids like Luis even have access to a movie or video game?

  At two in the morning it was pointless searching the stream. Trees bordered the water, the banks were in shadow. He might get lucky and find where the kid exited the water but he’d more likely waste a helluva lot of time. So he unfurled one of those metallic blankets that folded into a six inch square, curled up in what was left of the lean-to and went to sleep.

  The birds woke him at first light, the pre-dawn sky pale grey, cloudless. He lay still, listening. Sound traveled up the gulches, along the ridges. Birds were chirping and twittering up a storm, a snatch of Spanish echoed faintly from a field below, the rushing stream gushed and gurgled over the rocks. Nothing untoward. No posse on the way. He would have heard them. Ninjas they were not.

  Tossing the space age blanket aside, Jack came to his feet, shoved the metallic fabric into his pack, slung the backpack over his shoulder and a few moments later he was standing on the stream bank debating.

  Up or down?

  A mental coin toss or a gut call or a spiritual whisper from his unspiritual soul.

  Up.

  He stepped into the icy water.

  After almost two hours, after back tracking twice, he found the spot where the boy had left the mountain stream. You had to give the kid high marks for covering his tracks. Definitely coached, he decided. Accomplished even. If not for the underlying schist shaved off a boulder over a couple millennium, the thin moss at the base of the rock wouldn’t have given up the faint imprint of a small heel.

  Delicately smoothing out the heel mark–leave no clue–Jack felt a relief so pure and clean that he considered there might be mercy in the world after all.

  Now it was just a matter of slow, meticulous tracking. A skill he’d learned as a boy from his aunt who used to own all this land north of Bragg before she’d deeded the bulk of it to the Mendocino Land Trust.

  Ella had gone back to nature after her husband died. It was hippie days; she wasn’t alone in leaving civilization. Like Thoreau, she had enough money to live well. In fact, the sumptuous log cabin she’d had built was the Taj Mahal compared to the shack on Walden Pond.

  Some of h
is fondest childhood memories were of summers spent with Ella.

  She collected guns, smoked kif, drank single malt, didn’t believe in rules and had every book of interest to her in a separate structure she referred to as The Library. She could also track like an Indian thanks to her interest in the subject and the tutelage of a Crow Indian from Montana who’d come west and gone hippy too.

  So thanks Ella, Jack silently acknowledged when he came within sight of the kid’s hideaway.

  It was seven-thirty, the air still cool, the sun low in the sky.

  The small green glade in shadow.

  Chapter 11

  Slowly raising his hands, Jack held them palms out, walked to within twenty feet of the cave entrance and stopped. He dropped his backpack, took off his jacket and slid out the old Beretta SBC holstered on his belt. Then he drew his smaller Sig P-239 from a tac rig at his back, placed both handguns on the ground, stepped away from the weapons and speaking Spanish said, “My name’s Jack Morgan. I’m a deputy sheriff. I’m here to help you.” He let a moment pass, gave the kid a chance to see him as non-threatening and useful before defining his usefulness. “I can take you to safety. I can keep you safe from the people who trashed your camp yesterday. You might have seen them. They’ll be back I guarantee. They’re not going to stop until they find you.” And make you disappear. He retreated ten paces and sat down. His size could be intimidating.

  Ten minutes. Fifteen. Nothing. Not a sound.

  Understanding that time wasn’t their friend, he tried again. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. Why should you? You’ve never seen me before.” He kept his voice neutral, remained seated. “But the men on your trail are dangerous. You probably know that or you wouldn’t be hiding. I’m not armed. You saw. Double check?” He stood up, lifted his T-shirt, turned around slowly, then sat down again. “The tattoos are Japanese, not gangbanger in case you’re worried.” He had colorful tattoo sleeves of Japanese mythical figures executed the old fashioned way with a bamboo pick. “If you want to stay in the States I can make that happen. Someplace safe. Or if you have family in Mexico, I’ll see that you get home. I need an answer soon though. We don’t have much time.”