Extreme Denial

  “Sure,” Esperanza said, obviously not buying the story. He shook hands with them, comparing their trim-hipped, strong shouldered build to Decker’s similar physique. “Are these more real estate salesmen who know about setting bombs off by remote control?”

  Hal looked puzzled. “Bombs? Is that what happened next door? The place exploded?”

  “Sergeant, would you give me a moment to be alone with my friends?” Decker started to guide Hal and Ben toward a door that led to a small barbecue area off the kitchen. “No,” Esperanza said.

  Decker stopped and looked back at him. “Excuse me?”

  “No. I won’t give you a moment to be alone with them.” Esperanza’s weathered face hardened. “From the start, you’ve been evasive and uncooperative. I won’t tolerate it any longer.”

  “I thought you said you’d been asked by the FBI to stay away from the case.”

  “The attack on your house. Not the explosions next door.”

  “The FBI?” Ben asked, puzzled.

  “Whatever you need to tell these men to bring them up to speed, you tell them in front of me,” Esperanza said. “Bring me up to speed.”

  “The FBI?” Ben said again. “I don’t get it. What does the FBI have to do with this?”

  “Sergeant, I really do need to speak to these men alone,” Decker said.

  “I’ll arrest you.”

  “On what charge? A good lawyer would have the charges dismissed by tonight,” Decker said. “At the very least, I’d be out on bail.”

  “On Saturday of Fiesta weekend? Your lawyer would have a hell of a problem finding a judge to listen to him,” Esperanza said sharply. “You wouldn’t be out of jail until tomorrow, maybe Monday, and I don’t think you want to lose that much time. So pretend I’m not here. What do you want to tell these men?”

  Time, Decker thought, anxious. I’ve got to start looking for Beth right away. I can’t afford to lose two days. Frantic, he felt tom between conflicting motives. Until now, he had been determined to protect his former employer from being implicated in the investigation, but other, more urgent priorities now insisted—he had to find Beth; he had to find out who wanted to kill her.

  “I used to work for the U.S. government.”

  “Hey, be careful,” Ben told Decker.

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “The government?” Esperanza came to attention. “You’re talking about—”

  “Nothing I can’t deny,” Decker said. “These men were associates of mine. They’re here to help find out if the attack last night had anything to do with sensitive matters I was involved with.”

  “Take it easy,” Hal told Decker.

  “That’s as specific as I’m going to get,” Decker told Esperanza, his gaze intense.

  Esperanza’s gaze was equally intense. Slowly, the detective’s lean features became less rigid. He nodded.

  Decker turned to Hal. “You got here sooner than I expected.”

  “We were in Dallas. We had the company jet. It’s less than a two-hour flight.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Well, it seemed the only way,” Ben said. “We were told telephone contact with you wasn’t secure. We wanted to touch base, clear up some confusion about something you said when you reported the attack, and then get in touch with the local feds.”

  “Which you’ve already done,” Esperanza said. “Talked to the FBI.”

  “No,” Hal said with concern.

  “Not in person, but over the phone,” Esperanza said.

  “No,” Hal said with greater concern.

  “But the head of the local FBI office spoke to me this morning and made an official request to take over investigating last night’s attack,” Esperanza said.

  “You mentioned that earlier, but I didn’t understand what you were talking about,” Ben said. “No one on our end has talked to the feds yet. We wanted a firsthand look before deciding if we had to involve them.”

  Decker felt a deepening premonition, a quickening through-out his nervous system.

  Esperanza anticipated the question for which Decker urgently needed an answer. “Then, if you didn’t ask for federal intervention, who in God’s name did?”

  4

  Steering sharply from Old Santa Fe Trail onto Paseo de Peralta, Sanchez drove the police car as quickly as he could without sounding the siren in the congestion of downtown Fiesta traffic. Stark-faced, Hal sat in front with him. Conscious of his rapidly beating heart, Decker hunched between Ben and Esperanza in the back.

  Esperanza finished a hasty conversation on a cellular telephone, then pressed a button that broke the connection. “He says he’ll be waiting for us.”

  “What if he doesn’t tell us what we want to know?” Decker asked.

  “In that case, I’ll have to make some phone calls to Virginia,” Ben said. “Sooner or later, he will tell us. I guarantee it.”

  “Sooner,” Decker said. “It better be sooner. It’s been two hours since Beth ran down that slope and got in that car. She could be in Albuquerque by now. Hell, if she went directly to the airport, she could be on a plane to anywhere.”

  “Let’s find out.” Esperanza pressed buttons on the cellular phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Security at Albuquerque’s airport.”

  “What if she used the airport in Santa Fe?” Hal asked. “I’ll call there next. The local airport has only a few small passenger flights. Prop jobs. It won’t be hard to find out if she was on one of them.”

  Someone answered on the other end of the line; Esperanza started talking.

  Meanwhile, Decker turned to Ben. For a disturbing moment, he suffered a kind of double focus in which he was still being questioned by Ben and Hal as they drove him through Manhattan the previous year. Or maybe that debriefing had never stopped and what he was going through now was a waking nightmare.

  “Ben, when you arrived at my house, you said you wanted to clear up some confusion about something I mentioned when I reported last night’s attack. What were you talking about?” Ben pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “This is a faxed transcript of part of your phoned-in report.” Ben ran a finger down the page. “The case officer you spoke to said, ‘But you’re not our responsibility any longer.’ You replied, ‘Hey, you sure thought I was when I quit. You were all over me. I figured your security checks would never stop. Damn it, two months ago, you were still keeping me under surveillance.’ ”

  Decker nodded, feeling a swirl of déjà vu as his words were read back to him. “So what’s the problem?”

  “The case officer didn’t comment at the time, but he had no idea what you meant by your last statement. He double-checked your file. No one from our organization has been maintaining surveillance on you.”

  “But that’s not true,” Decker said. “Two months ago, I saw a team. I—”

  “At the start, when you first came to Santa Fe, we kept a watch on you, yes,” Ben said. “But then it seemed easier and cheaper to monitor your financial records. If you suddenly had more money than your new occupation could explain, we would have been all over you, wondering if you’d been selling secrets for cash. But everything about your income has been copacetic. You seemed to have gotten over your attitude toward the problems that made you quit. There wasn’t any need for visual surveillance. Whoever was watching you, the team definitely wasn’t from us.”

  “You expect me to believe Brian McKittrick decided to watch me on his free time when he wasn’t working for you?”

  “Brian McKittrick?” Hal asked sharply. “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you I saw him.”

  “Two months ago?”

  “McKittrick was in charge of the surveillance team,” Decker said.

  “But McKittrick hasn’t worked for us since February.” Decker was speechless.

  “His father died in December,” Ben said. “With no one to protect the son, your complaints about him began to sink in. H
e screwed up on two other assignments. The organization dumped him.”

  Esperanza put his hand over the mouthpiece on the cellular phone. “Can you guys keep it quiet? I can hardly hear. Luis?” He leaned forward toward Sanchez. “The Albuquerque police want to know if we’ve got a description of the car Beth Dwyer drove off in. Did the eyewitness give you one?”

  “The old lady didn’t know much about cars.” Sanchez steered around a crowded curve on Paseo de Peralta. “She said it was big, it looked new, and it was gray.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Swell. Just swell,” Esperanza said. “What about the man who was driving? Did she get a look at him when he hurried out to put Beth Dwyer’s suitcase in the trunk?”

  “When it comes to noticing people, this woman has twenty-twenty vision. The guy was in his early thirties. Tall. Built solidly. Reminded her of a football player. Square jaw. Blond hair.”

  “Square jaw? Blond ...?” Decker frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Reminded her of a football player? That sounds like—”

  “You know somebody who looks like that?”

  “It can’t be.” Decker felt breathless. What he’d just heard didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. “Brian McKittrick. The description fits Brian McKittrick. But if he isn’t working for you,” Decker said to Ben, “who is he working for?”

  5

  Decker didn’t wait for Sanchez to brake to a full stop in a no-parking zone before he rushed out of the police car and over to a long, three-story-high, clay-colored government building. Flanked by Esperanza, Hal, and Ben, he ran up wide concrete steps to a row of glass doors, in the middle of which a fortyish man of medium height and weight, with well-trimmed hair and short sideburns, waited for them outside. The man wore slacks and a blue sport coat. A pager was hooked to his belt. He carried a cellular telephone.

  “This better be good. I was at a Fiesta party.” The man pulled out a set of keys and prepared to unlock one of the doors. His sober gaze was directed toward Esperanza, who hadn’t had an opportunity to change his singed, soot-covered shirt and jeans. “What happened to you? On the phone, you said this has something to do with what we discussed this morning.”

  “We don’t have time to go up to your office,” Decker said. “We’re hoping you can tell us what we need right here.”

  The man lowered his keys from the door and frowned. “And just who are you?”

  “Stephen Decker—the man whose house was attacked,” Esperanza said. “Mr. Decker, this is FBI senior resident agent John Miller.”

  Decker immediately asked, “Why did you intervene in Sergeant Esperanza’s investigation of the attack?”

  Miller was caught by surprise. He took a moment before replying, “That’s confidential.”

  “It looks as if the attack wasn’t against me, but against a woman I’ve been seeing. My neighbor. Her name is Elizabeth Dwyer. She calls herself Beth. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  This time, Miller didn’t pause. “I’m not prepared to discuss the matter.”

  “Her house blew up this afternoon.”

  Miller reacted as if he’d been slapped. “What?”

  “Have I finally got your attention? Are you prepared to discuss the matter now? Why did you intervene in the investigation about the attack on me?”

  “Elizabeth Dwyer’s house blew up?” Startled, Miller turned toward Esperanza. “Was she there? Was she killed?”

  “Apparently not,” Esperanza said. “We haven’t found a body. Someone who looked like her was seen getting in a car on Fort Connor Lane a few seconds before the explosions.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this when you called?”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  Miller glared. “I don’t like being manipulated.”

  “And I don’t like being shot at,” Decker interrupted. “Who’s trying to kill Beth Dwyer? What do you know about a man named Brian McKittrick? How are you mixed up in all this?”

  “No comment,” Miller said flatly. “This conversation is over.”

  “Not until you give me some answers.”

  “And if I don’t?” Miller asked. “What are you going to do if I don't give you answers?”

  “Doesn’t it matter to you that Beth’s life is in danger?”

  “Whether it does or not is none of your business.” Decker felt heat surging through his veins. As he returned the agent’s glare, he wanted to slam Miller against the door. Beth! he kept thinking. Whoever wanted to kill her might have caught up to her by now. But this son of a bitch didn’t seem to care.

  “Well?” Miller asked.

  Decker took a step backward. He told himself to calm down. He told himself that it wouldn’t do Beth any good if he got himself arrested for assaulting an FBI agent. Calm down, he repeated, his chest heaving.

  “Smart,” Miller said.

  “We need to talk about this,” Esperanza said.

  “No,” Miller said, “we don’t. Excuse me. I have several important phone calls to make.” He opened the door and walked into the building. With an angry glance through the window, he locked the door, then turned away.

  “When this is over, he and I will talk,” Decker said.

  6

  As Decker got out of the police car in his driveway, he peered dismally up Camino Lindo toward the remaining fire trucks and the smoking ruin of Beth’s house. Onlookers crowded the side of the road. A TV crew had a camera aimed toward the wreckage.

  “Sorry.” Remaining in the police car, Esperanza made a gesture of futility.

  Heartsick, Decker was too preoccupied to respond.

  “I’ll keep working on him,” Esperanza said “Maybe he’ll let something slip.”

  “Sure,” Decker said without conviction. He had never felt so helpless. Hal and Ben stood next to him.

  “I’ll keep prodding the Albuquerque police and airport security,” Esperanza said.

  “Maybe Beth and McKittrick drove toward Denver or Flagstaff,” Decker said. “Hell, there’s no way to guess which way they went.”

  “Well, if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Just make sure you return the favor. Here’s my card.” Esperanza wrote something on it. “I’m giving you my home telephone number.”

  Decker nodded.

  The dark blue police car pulled away, turned to avoid the congestion of fire trucks and onlookers at Beth’s house, and went back the way it had come.

  Squinting from the westerly sun, Decker watched the cruiser raise dust as it receded along Camino Lindo.

  “He’s not obligated to tell us anything,” Hal said. “In fact, he has to be suspicious about us. Certainly, he can’t just take our word that we’re somehow connected to the intelligence community.”

  “Affirmative,” Ben added. “Right now, he’ll do everything he can to check our backgrounds. Not that he’ll learn anything.”

  “At least he knew enough not to identify you as intelligence officers to that FBI agent,” Decker said. “Given the FBI’s turf wars with other agencies, Miller would have revealed even less than he did.”

  “Even less? Hey, he didn’t tell us anything,” Hal said.

  “Not true.” Decker watched the police car completely disappear, then turned to open his courtyard gate. “Miller’s interest in Beth confirms that she was the real target, and when I mentioned Brian McKittrick, I saw a look of recognition in Miller’s eyes. Oh, he knows something, all right. Not that it does us any good.”

  Hal and Ben looked uncomfortable.

  “What’s the problem?” Decker asked.

  “ ‘Us,’ ” Hal said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were sent here to do damage control if what happened last night was related to any of your former assignments,” Ben said.

  “And?”

  “It wasn’t.” Ben looked down, scuffing the gravel driveway with his shoes. “Whatever Beth Dwyer’s problem is, your pro
blem is personal. We’re not authorized to help you.”

  Decker didn’t say anything.

  “As soon as we report in, we’ll be recalled,” Ben said.

  Decker still didn’t say anything.

  “Honestly,” Hal said, “it’s out of our hands.”

  “Then, damn it, get in your car and leave,” Decker said. “I’ll do this without you.”

  “How?”

  “There has to be another way. Whatever it is, I’ll find it. Get out of here.”

  “No hard feelings?” Hal asked.

  “Do I sound like I have hard feelings?” Decker said bitterly. He entered his courtyard and slumped on a bench beneath the portal, murmuring despondently, thinking, If Esperanza doesn’t learn anything from the Albuquerque airport, if he decides to hold back on anything he does learn ... The words dead end passed through Decker’s mind. He automatically applied their literal meaning to Beth. Was she being threatened at this moment? Why was she with McKittrick? Why had she lied? “Something.” Decker impatiently tapped his right hand against the bench. “There has to be something I’ve missed, another way to connect with her.”

  Decker heard footsteps enter the courtyard. He looked up, to find Hal standing next to him.

  “Did she ever mention that she’d like to go to any particular place?” Hal asked.

  “No. Only that she wanted to close the door on her life back east. I thought you were leaving.”

  “No rush.”

  “Isn’t there?” Frustrated, Decker imagined Brian McKittrick driving Beth along Fort Connor Lane as she felt the rumble of the explosions that blew her house apart on the street above her. If only the old woman who had seen the car drive away had gotten the license number. Numbers, he was thinking. Maybe the record of the telephone calls Beth made from her hospital room would provide a direction in which to search.

  Or calls she made from her home phone, Decker thought. I’ll have to remind Esperanza to check on that. But Decker’s skepticism about Esperanza continued to make him uneasy. What if Esperanza holds back information?