Tim Green - Above The Law

When the chair across from her scraped along the plank floor, she looked up to see the cowboy singer before turning back to her steak.

"I like your music," she said, "but you don't want my husband to walk in here right now. He's the jealous type."

"Just trying to be friendly," the cowboy said, nodding at her empty beer bottle. "Can I buy you another?"

"I'm serious. He's a cop."

"No harm meant," the cowboy singer said, raising his hands in surrender and getting up.

"None taken," she said.

After a thick mug of coffee and a brownie with ice cream that she shouldn't have had, Casey tried Jose one last time before paying the bill and heading for the door. The sounds from the restaurant had died down, and when she rounded the corner Casey could hear the steady plunk of water dripping from some unknown source into the still water of the canal. Clouds of bugs flickered under the street lamps and the dark pockets between lights along with the dripping water made Casey shiver and pick up her pace.

When she got to her door, she realized that not only hadn't she closed it tight, but she hadn't left a single light on inside. She halted on the stoop and eased the door open, peering into the blackness, straining to see the stairway she knew to be there.

That's when someone reached out from the dark entryway and grabbed her arm.

YOU WANT ME TO RIDE WITH YOU?" JOSe ASKED, FOLLOWING HIM out the door.

"Better off taking yourself," Gage said. "We got to pass the highway, and when we're done you'll want to just keep going."

The chief told his secretary that he'd see her tomorrow, and then told Jose he'd pull around front to meet him. Jose climbed into his truck and stuck the handheld GPS into the front left pocket of his jeans, covering it with the tail of his shirt. He waited along the street until he saw Gage whiz past in a brown-and-beige cruiser. He took off after him, spinning his wheel and stamping on the gas, and wondered the whole way if the chief was trying to have some fun with him.

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.

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.