“And why would Peter know something like that?”
“We’ve been aware for some time that a humanitarian organization calling itself Desert Angels has been operating across the border. They’ve been good at keeping a low profile, so we don’t know much about them. Peter Bisonette wasn’t even on our radar until you showed up. Since we’ve started looking at him, he’s become more and more interesting to us. We’re pretty sure now that he’s a Desert Angel. Because a lot of the illegals function as mules for the cartels, Peter has quite possibly dealt with some. Maybe they told him something about Rodriguez’s operation, maybe something he passed along to his father or his father’s people. And maybe his father saw a way to take a bite out of the competition. Maybe Peter was going to help his father steal that cache. Maybe he already has.”
“And Rodriguez has grabbed him and Rainy as leverage to get the drugs back? That’s your theory?”
“One of them. Look, we don’t really have a problem with Peter. We’re after the big players here.”
I’d handled interviews on that side of the badge for a good long while, and although I figured some of what he’d told me was true, there was probably a lot more to this than he was saying. He was giving me a nugget of truth, maybe so I would overlook what was not true.
I decided to give him my own nugget.
“I can’t imagine that Peter’s involved in drug trafficking. I do know he’s been helping guide undocumented women and children safely across the Arizona desert. That’s his only interest in all this. We’d been told, Rainy and I, that Peter often used the old mines as temporary sanctuaries for these people. That’s what I was looking for. One of the mines.”
“What mine?” Deputy Crockett asked, his first and only question.
Now my own untruth. “The Vermilion One.” Which was actually the name of a mine on the Iron Range in Minnesota.
“How’d you hear about the mine?” Sprangers said.
“Rainy had heard of it. I don’t know how. Maybe from one of her conversations with Peter at some point. That’s why I asked Bob Wieman to fly me over the Santa Margaritas.”
“And then he gets beat up and you get that bad shave,” Vega said. “If I was you, I’d be thinking there’s a leak somewhere. Someone’s been giving inside information to Rodriguez. Who did you trust that you shouldn’t have?”
“You think I haven’t been asking myself that same question?” I wanted to use my fist to wipe that smug look off his big face.
“We’re not the enemy, O’Connor,” Sprangers said. “We’re just trying to do our jobs, which is to enforce the law. You wore a badge once. You get that. Do we always agree with the laws? Did you? So cool down for a moment and think. Who sold you out?”
Once again, I gave them names, the list of people I’d talked to: Michelle Abbott, who’d loaned me her pickup; the Harrises; Jeanette Saunders from the Goodman Center; even Marian Brown. When they figured they’d got everything from me they could possibly squeeze in the interview room, they told me I was free to go.
“The two men I took down yesterday with the Winchester. You get anything out of them?”
“Nothing yet,” Vega said.
“No IDs?”
“They were clean, carrying nothing. Their prints aren’t in the system. We’ve traced the vehicles they were driving to a leasing company in Nogales. Company claims the vehicles must have been stolen, that they didn’t know about them being missing until our people contacted them. We’ll lean on them, but it’ll take a while to get anywhere, if we ever do.”
As I left, Sprangers said, “Unfortunately, that monsoon downpour this afternoon washed out any signs that might lead us to this Vermilion One Mine. But BP agents are scouting the Santa Margaritas even as we speak. If we find the mine, and if Peter Bisonette is there, we’ll let you know.”
I had a parting comment for him as well. “Let me ask you something, Sprangers. Could the leak be coming from your own people? I don’t know who all is involved in this big operation of yours, but it seems to me you ought to be asking yourself the same question you asked me. Is there someone you trust but shouldn’t?”
Although his face remained stolid, I saw in his eyes that I’d struck home.
It was near dark when I left the law enforcement center. It was cooler, too—the effect of the monsoons. I drove to the parsonage and parked in front. I went directly through the house and paused only long enough to cut a short length of red ribbon and pencil a note that read: May have found him again. I left by the back door, circled the block to the church, quickly tied the ribbon to the angel’s finger, and put the note under the cross on the altar. Then I retraced my steps to the pickup.
I headed to Sierra Vista to locate the hospital where they’d taken Jocko. The whole way I went over everything I knew at the moment. It was a confusion of information in which I couldn’t see any pattern yet. My movements were being tracked. Certainly by Sprangers, who claimed to be interested in bigger fish than Peter. Perhaps by Rodriguez, who had a bounty on Peter’s head. Maybe even by the vigilante group called White Horse, whose interest appeared to be either misplaced patriotism or, more probably, simple racism. Much of the information I was operating on had been leaked to others besides me. Two good things: No one seemed to know that Rainy was safe and with her ex-husband, and they seemed to be as clueless as I was about Peter’s current situation.
I found Frank Harris sitting in the hospital hallway outside Jocko’s room. Harris looked beat to hell himself, emotionally anyway. He was drinking from a vending machine coffee cup.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“He’ll live. But, God, did they work him over. If I hadn’t showed up when I did, they might have killed him.”
“Tell me what happened?”
“After you left last night, Jocko came to our place for dinner. We ate, drank some good wine, talked about Peter and Rainy and this whole mess. Then I took Jocko back to his ranch and dropped him off. I didn’t see anything unusual. When I was almost home, I realized that he’d left his rifle in my truck. With everything that’s going on these days, he’s been pretty careful to keep it with him. I figured the wine had made him forgetful. I turned around, and when I pulled up to the ranch house, I saw some men take off running through the pasture to the south. I found Jocko, beat to hell and unconscious. I called 911.”
“Has he been able to talk?”
“They’ve had him pretty sedated. He’s mostly been out.”
“You get a decent look at these men?”
He shook his head. “Just caught a glimpse of them in my headlights. How about you? Any luck finding Peter?”
Who have you trusted that you shouldn’t have?