A Voice from the Field (19 page)

Tia listened as he described the evening.

“A whole night and we didn't see so much as a hand-to-hand dope deal. That was the most legit strip club I've ever spent six hours in.”

“Yeah. I'll bet it was just killing you guys to sit around with all those half-naked women all over the place, huh?”

“Half? Hell, girl, you need to get out more often. There ain't no half about it. But yeah. We definitely took one for the team.”

Tia laughed. “I'm out of here. Same thing tomorrow night?” She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was one thirty in the morning and her first thought was that she had thirty minutes until the liquor stores closed.
You got it bad, Suarez.
She forced herself to focus on Phelps's voice.

“Yeah. We'll do it again. We'll brief at the same place. Be there by nineteen hundred hours.” She heard his car start up while he kept talking. “I'm going to run by Tanner's place. Make sure he's not out and about. Little worried that he never showed up. Hope he ain't off on some road trip by himself.”

“Tanner's place? The place we covered in briefing? The farm on the county line?”

“Yeah,” Phelps said. “Would've been good to put someone out there tonight to keep an eye on him, but we figured he'd be at the Roadhouse as usual. If I can get some extra bodies, we'll add his place as a target location tomorrow.”

“Jacobs going with you?”

“No. Says he got plans at two o'clock in the morning, if you can believe that shit.” She could sense his irritation. “No sweat. I got this.”

Tia knew what she had to do, cop to cop. “You want some cover? I can tag along.”

“Nah. It's just a drive-by. I want to see if Tanner's van is there. Only thing is, it's fifteen miles in the wrong direction for me. My wife's gonna be all pissed off. Not only did I spend the entire evening in a strip club; I'm probably not going to get home until about daybreak.”

Tia got the not-so-subtle hint. “I know where the place is at. It's pretty much on my way home. Let me handle it.”

“You sure?” The voice held feigned surprise.

“No problem. Just a drive-by to check for his ride, right?” Tia started the truck. “He still driving that white van?”

“Yep. He usually parks it near the shed alongside the main house. I went out there once before to poke around. The place is a real shit hole.”

Tia fastened her seat belt. “What's the best approach?”

“About a quarter mile west of the place there's a dirt road between the cornfields. Park and walk in from there. Once you get within about a hundred yards of the house, you should be able to eyeball the van.”

Tia held the phone away from her face and stared at it.
Fricking deputies. Drive-by, my ass,
she thought.
Sounds like a fricking recon patrol.
She knew that county cops were used to working alone and had a tendency to take a lot of unnecessary chances. Not wanting to come off sounding like a city cop or a wuss, she decided not to object.

“Just text me if it's there or not,” Phelps said. “It he flew the coop or some shit, we'll deal with it later.”

“Sounds good. I'll take care of it. Go on and get home.”

“Thanks, Suarez. I really appreciate it. These U/C vice details drive my wife nuts.”

Tia thought about Connor and what he would say if he knew what she had just agreed to. “I get it, dude. No sweat.”

“See you tonight.” She could hear his engine rev through the phone just before the call clicked off. A few seconds later she saw his truck pull out of the lot.

Anxious to be home and already regretting her willingness to help out, Tia blew out a breath.
Hell, it's not even my case,
she thought. The rain had eased off, but this little errand was going to cost her some time. If she didn't get home before Connor came by, he might not wait.

She tapped out another message.

“quick roll by for a house check then home. see u in a few. wait for me.”

Yeah, he's going to love that,
she thought. “Jesus, Suarez,” she said out loud. “The shit you get yourself into.”

Tucking her phone into her jacket pocket, Tia started the truck. She turned onto the roadway and punched the accelerator. In that same instant a sense of someone else's anxiety began to mix in with her own.

 

TWENTY-THREE

Angelica stood in the sunlight looking out over the courtyard of the only home she'd ever known. She wore the brightly colored dress her grandmother had made for her
quinceañera
almost two years ago. Her feet were bare but clean and she could feel the warm, dry earth beneath them. The cuts and bruises that had covered her body were gone, along with the pain, but her memory of the awful place remained clear in her mind. It had been real, she was certain of that, but now it was over. She ran toward the red adobe house, flew into her mother's open arms, and pressed her cheek against the careworn skin of the old woman's face. She had escaped, but how? The journey to America had taken days. Now, in the blink of an eye, she had returned home.

It was a miracle. God had heard her prayers after all. She stepped back from her mother and twirled around, again and again until she dropped to the ground from dizziness, her head spinning and her long black hair falling across her face. She looked between the strands into the deep blue Mexican sky, which was streaked by white wisps of clouds that looked like long, delicate fingers.
The Virgin Mary's hands,
Angelica thought,
protecting me.
She reached out as if to touch the sky and laughed out loud, overcome with joy.

A short-tailed hawk flew high above, circling over her. Angelica stared at the hawk, amazed by the grace and ease of his flight. She watched as he circled lower and lower, until he tucked back his wings and began to dive toward her, then opened his wings again and grew larger and larger until he blocked out the sun and darkened the sky.

The world went cold and black. The hawk plunged lower, the sound of his wings like the beat of a drum. His open beak grew into a maw that threatened to swallow her. His talons plucked her from the earth and Angelica woke with a start, surrounded by darkness. The muted sound of thunder replaced the wings of the bird.

 

TWENTY-FOUR

Damn, is this it?

Tia found the dirt road just where the deputy had said, but it looked more like a path between two cornfields than anything that would qualify as a road. She turned off the two-lane highway and drove in slowly, headlights off. Leaning over the top of the steering wheel, she stared hard through the windshield, though she couldn't see more than a foot past the hood. She used the sound of corn leaves brushing up against both sides of the truck to navigate the narrow passage. Knowing she would eventually have to back out, Tia stopped after about twenty yards. Surrounded on all sides by eight-foot-high summer corn, she felt swallowed whole.

She opened the driver's door, slipped out, and closed the door without making a sound. It began to rain and within seconds she was drenched from a full-on downpour with raindrops that could fill a shot glass. The rain sounded like hammer blows on the metal surface of the truck. Tia flipped up the hood of her jacket, shook her head, and spoke out loud, no longer worried about the noise. “You've got to be shitting me.”

She braced herself against the truck for a moment, looking out over a sea of corn that was swaying wildly in the wind. A four-foot-high fence of rusty barbed wire on either side separated her from the field itself. She vaulted over the nearest fencepost easily, but the mud caused her to make a slippery, cartoon-like landing. Tia grabbed the post with both hands and righted herself, but the near fall only added to her growing irritation.

After just a few steps into the field, her sense of direction vanished. With no moon or stars and no man-made light to steer by, her vision was limited to a few inches in front of her face and she was no longer sure she was walking in a straight line. Even if she had one, using a flashlight would be way too risky. Then again, if she wandered too far into the field and became any more disoriented she might still be wandering around come daybreak. Tia pulled her cell phone from her pocket, cupped her hand over the screen, and pulled up the compass app. According to the deputy, the house should be about two hundred yards due east. She set the phone flat in her hand, got a bearing, and stepped off, thinking to herself,
Quick drive-by, my ass. Who am I? Vasco frickin' da Gama?

A lightning bolt flashed across the black sky, immediately followed by a crack of thunder. The dark blue strobe of light gave Tia a flash glimpse of her surroundings.

Corn.

She risked another glance at her phone, making sure the letter
E
was directly in front of her, and kept walking. A minute passed and Tia figured she had to be at least halfway to the house, maybe more. A lightning bolt even stronger and brighter than the last arced low overhead, striking nearby. An instantaneous explosion of thunder shook the ground. Tia was pretty sure she felt a jolt of electricity through the soles of her boots.
Damn
.
That was close.

The rain fell even harder and the mud sucked at her boots. Each step took her farther from the safety of her truck, not to mention her warm, dry house.

Connor was probably getting off work right about now. If he got to the farmhouse and she wasn't there, he'd worry.
Forget this shit,
she thought.
Tell the deputy the damn van was parked right where it belonged and be done with it.

Not an option.
Tia trudged on, once again admonishing herself for getting caught up in this bullshit assignment.

She made out the black outline of a structure another twenty yards out. She hunched down low and slipped closer. Three low-watt lampposts cast a dull, gray light over a clear space that barely had room for the buildings it held. As she took in the scene, there was no doubt in her mind that this was the home of the lowlife tweaker militia freak, ass bag Jessup Tanner.

The disorganized clearing looked like a poorly managed junkyard. A ten-foot chain-link fence topped off with looping razor wire surrounded the entire area. A half-dozen rusted-out trucks and ancient relics of boxy sedans sat abandoned inside the enclosure, left to die in place. Kitchen appliances, busted-up furniture, and a dozen or so heaps of junk were scattered around, a couple of the piles several feet high. A mountain of wood chopped for a fireplace was tall enough to last several Wisconsin winters. In the middle of it all stood a two-story brick house that was only slightly distinguishable from the trash and rubbish surrounding it. Most of the windows were boarded over and the stone steps leading to the front door appeared to be crumbling away. Dim shapes in the crawl space had her guessing that several large dogs were sleeping under the house. Lording over it all, a tall flagpole rose from the ground like a stubborn middle finger. In the hazy light of the compound Tia could see a soaked and tattered yellow flag tangled in rope and bound against the pole. She could barely make out enough of the image of a snake and a few letters to guess that it was the “Don't Tread on Me” banner. Away from the house, set off by itself, she saw the dark outline of a low-slung woodshed with a corrugated metal roof.

Tia strained her eyes, staring into the darkness, trying to spot Tanner's van. Staying low to the ground, she moved closer—way closer than she wanted, but the rain was playing hell with her vision. She looked back at the house, telling herself that if Tanner did happen to glance out and get a glimpse of someone sneaking around his cornfield he was likely to shoot first and ask questions later … and not many Wisconsin farmers would blame him one bit.

A massive lightning bolt ignited the sky like an illumination grenade, giving Tia a short but thorough glimpse of the entire compound.
There
. Backed up against the entrance of the shed. A van, and it sure as hell looked like the one she remembered so clearly. It was white, gray, or something similar. She couldn't be sure, but it was good enough. She whispered to herself, “I'm calling it white, Deputy. You owe me big-time.”

Mission accomplished, Tia fought the urge to turn and break into a run. She wanted distance between herself and Tanner's goddamned Bates Motel of a house. She oriented her compass due west and began retracing her path back to the truck. In her mind she was practically home, and each step brought a growing sense of relief. The sounds of the wind and rain surrounded her. And something else. A voice, quiet but firm, asked her to be calm and listen.

Ella aqui.

Stunned by the sudden presence of another, Tia answered in a frantic whisper, “What? Who? Who's here?”

Frozen in place, she waited, heart pounding. Nothing. She shook her head, telling herself this was no time to lose it, and took another step. The voice came again.

Escucharla.

Tia listened, holding her breath, concentrating hard, trying to break down each wave of sound into its components. Wind. Rain. Ten thousand rustling cornstalks. The whining engine of a big rig, ten miles away on the interstate. Mixed in with all that, barely discernable, were muffled voices. Then another sound. A clink of metal against metal, it came from the shed.

Damn it, what is that?

She heard it again. Definitely metallic and coming from inside Tanner's compound. A scraping sound. Another clink. Oddly familiar, but out of place here on this sorry excuse for a farm. Laughter. Men's voices. Hunched over at the waist, Tia took two steps back toward the fence line, staring at the faint light that came from inside the shed, already regretting what she was about to do.

 

TWENTY-FIVE

In the darkness she heard water seeping through the roof and walls above her head, making new puddles on the muddy floor. A cool breeze from somewhere above blew against her face. She closed her eyes, trying to return to her mother's arms. To see the adobe house again.
I saw it,
she thought.
I know I did.