Nothing But Trouble Read online

  Fitzmaurice took the documents he’d promised Paquette out of his suit coat pocket and handed them to Ryan. “Call her on her mobile, and when you’ve finished meeting with her, give her these. Her number is attached.”

  Ryan nodded, glanced at his watch, drained the last of his pint, and stood. “You’ve given me a lot to do, otherwise I’d stay for another.”

  “You do your best work when you’re sober, John.”

  “Now, that’s a disquieting thought,” Ryan said merrily. “Thanks for lunch. Don’t tarry. I need that video file sent along promptly.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  Fitzmaurice paid the bill and made his way out of O’Donoghue’s. From their earliest days together as schoolboy chums and neighborhood hooligans, John Ryan had never once lied to him or broken his word. His only worry was Deputy Commissioner Noel Clancy, who had a keen eye for his shenanigans. If pressed, he’d plead ignorance, of course, and hope that Noel would be secretly pleased by the unusual and highly regrettable circumstances that were about to unfold.

  At the branch library he sent off the video file to the Web address Ryan had given him. On his way back to the office he sailed the DVD out the car window and into the Liffey.

  It was a pleasant, clear early Sunday morning when Fitzmaurice’s door-bell rang. He looked out the window to see Noel Clancy waiting at the door. Dressed in his Garda uniform, he had a stern look on his face and held a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.

  Fitzmaurice slipped outside, thankful that Edna was upstairs in the tub taking a soak with the door closed and Sean was away for the weekend hiking the Twelve Bens mountain range with his older brother.

  “Good morning to you, Noel,” he said with a smile. “Have you been called into work today?”

  “Have you seen this?” Clancy said, slapping the Sunday paper against Fitzmaurice’s arm.

  “Aye, I have.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what have you gone and done?”

  “Not a thing, and I’ll ask you not to be accusing me falsely.”

  “The commissioner has been getting calls from every bloody politician in the government about this. They all want answers, Hugh, and so do I. How did the interrogation video get onto a blog?”

  Fitzmaurice shrugged nonchalantly. “Hackers?”

  “How did John Ryan learn about Joséphine Paquette?”

  “Again, I’m without an explanation. Would you like me to go around to her hotel and talk to her?”

  “She returned to Canada yesterday.”

  Fitzmaurice shook his head sadly. “Bad luck that. I’ll speak to John Ryan about it.”

  “That’s already been done,” Clancy said. “He’s claiming Paquette came to him voluntarily with the information about Spalding, and the blog was not of his doing.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Fitzmaurice said with a straight face.

  “I’m putting you on desk duty until this situation is resolved by way of an official inquiry. Report to my office first thing in the morning.”

  “As you wish,” Fitzmaurice said. “But this time, Commissioner, I would gratefully appreciate it if you didn’t have me shredding old documents in the basement. It’s very bad for my allergies.”

  Clancy almost smiled at Fitzmaurice’s nonchalance. He was indeed a gifted rapscallion. “You could retire and avoid any unpleasantness.”

  Fitzmaurice shook his head. “I’ve done nothing wrong and have no plans to retire until Sean finishes university.”

  “Are you going to Sunday Mass?”

  “As a good Catholic should. Will I see you there?”

  “Not today.”

  “Will we be holding George Spalding now that the facts have come to light in the press, or be giving him over to the Yanks?”

  “He stays put at Cloverhill. The minister of justice will soon be announcing that in the matter of George Spalding all Irish and international laws will be adhered to without fail.”

  “Isn’t that a grand thing, seeing justice served?”

  Finally, Clancy smiled. “Indeed it is.”

  Chapter Twelve

  During the afternoon on the day Sara left for Iraq, Kerney spoke by phone with Susan Berman, the unit production manager for the movie, and explained he would be unable to honor his consultant contract unless child-care arrangements could be made for Patrick.

  “That’s no problem, we’ve hired a nanny for some of the cast’s children.”

  “Okay, good. There’s another problem, though. I’m going to be a day late getting to Playas. It’s a family matter.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My wife’s been deployed to Iraq unexpectedly.”

  “I had no idea your wife was in the military. Of course you can delay your arrival. If I’m not around when you get here, ask for Libby. She’s the nanny. Including Patrick there will only be five children in her care, so he should get a lot of attention.”

  “Good,” Kerney said, “he’ll need it.”

  “This must be very hard on you.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He spent the rest of that afternoon wrapping up little details; dropping off a change-of-address form at the post office, arranging for a lawn service to keep the grounds of the Arlington house tidy until the property sold, notifying utility companies where to send final bills, and meeting with the real estate agent to give him a house key.

  The agent assured him the house would sell quickly and at a handsome profit. Kerney didn’t doubt him; real estate values had skyrocketed in the D.C. area over the last three years and the resale market was strong.

  On Saturday the movers came to take everything away and put it into storage until Kerney and Patrick returned from the Bootheel. After they departed, Kerney and Patrick took a number of boxes filled with usable castoffs and nonperishable food to a local charity. Then they went back to the house to clean it up.

  Patrick seemed to welcome the activity and pitched in as best he could. Once all was in order, Kerney spread out Patrick’s sleeping bag on the bare living-room floor and gave him his stuffed pony.

  “You need to take your nap, son.”

  Patrick looked around the empty room. “Everything’s gone.”

  “To our Santa Fe home,” Kerney said. “That where we’re all going to live from now on.”

  “Will Mommy be there?”

  “Yes, but not right away. I’m going to need your help with the horses.”

  The thought of the horses cheered Patrick slightly, but he still looked unhappy as Kerney tucked him in. After he fell asleep, Kerney sat on the front stoop and called his old and best friend Dale Jennings, who’d been hired as a wrangler for the movie. He gave him a heads-up about Sara’s deployment to Iraq and his delayed arrival in Playas.

  “Damn, if that isn’t bad news,” Dale said with a heavy sigh, concern flooding his voice. “Seems we both have wives who are in a fix.”

  “What’s up with Barbara?”

  “She had an emergency appendectomy three nights ago, and I had to bow out on the movie job. We’re not going to Playas.”

  “Is she all right?” Kerney asked.

  “She’s healing up nicely but sore and cranky,” Dale replied. “The girls went down to Las Cruces this morning to enroll late in their fall classes at the university, so I’m chief cook, bottle washer, and nurse until Barbara gets back on her feet.”

  “Give her my best,” Kerney said, trying to sound upbeat, although the thought of missing out on Dale’s company in the Bootheel wasn’t a happy one.

  “I sure will. Tell Sara we’ll be praying for her and thinking about her.”

  “Thanks.” Kerney hung up, feeling a bit depressed. With Sara in Iraq, Kerney’s enthusiasm about the movie had waned, and now that Dale wouldn’t be there, the whole idea was even less appealing. But he’d promised Sara he’d take Patrick and go, so he would do it.

  On Sunday morning, after spending the night in a hotel near the airport, Kerney and Patrick flew home to N
ew Mexico. Usually a good traveler, Patrick was hyperactive and irritable during the flight. Not even Pablito the Pony or any of his favorite toys held his attention for long.

  At the ranch Kerney decided the best medicine for his son would be to wear him out. They spent the remainder of the day cleaning out stalls, laying down fresh straw and sawdust, rearranging the tack room, and clearing manure from the paddocks. It was slow going, with Patrick taking frequent breaks to give biscuits to the horses and getting brief rides around the paddock on Hondo’s back while Kerney led the horse by the halter.

  “I want to go see Mommy,” Patrick said as Kerney plucked him off Hondo and carried him to the house.

  “Mommy has to work in a place where children can’t go,” Kerney said. “She can’t be with us until the army sends her home.”

  “Fourteen days.”

  “Is that what Mommy said?”

  Patrick nodded. “The last time she went away.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  Patrick pouted unhappily.

  “She’ll be gone a little longer than that.”

  “No,” Patrick said emphatically, as if to make it so.

  After dinner Kerry saddled up Hondo and took Patrick for a ride to the railroad tracks. They got there just in time to watch the excursion train that ran from Santa Fe to the village of Lamy pass by. The tourists riding in the old carriages waved, smiled, and pointed at the cowboy and his son on horseback. The engineer tooted his horn as the train rumbled by at ten miles an hour over the spur line.

  Patrick loved trains. He waved back at the passengers until it passed out of sight and, on the ride back to the ranch, didn’t ask once about Sara. It gave Kerney hope that Patrick would adjust to living with him.

  That night, long after Patrick was asleep, Kerney turned on the television news and listened with growing interest as a local weekend anchor reported a breaking story out of Dublin. George Spalding, a U.S. Army deserter and international fugitive now in custody, had named Thomas Carrier, a retired colonel with close ties to high-ranking defense officials and senior White House aides, as a member of a smuggling ring that had operated during the Vietnam War.

  As the news anchor talked about how the story had been leaked, a video clip from the blog was shown, and Kerney got his first look at George Spalding. Except for a touch of self-importance in the way he held his head and moved his mouth, he was nondescript in every way.

  On the Sunday-morning television news show panels Carrier was a hot topic. Spokepersons from the White House and Department of Defense distanced the administration from Carrier. Opposition party leaders called for an investigation. Legal analysts discussed complex judicial issues. Spin doctors predicted the controversy would either fade away or cause irreparable damage to the credibility of key government officials.

  Kerney wondered how the story had surfaced. Sara had hinted that it might go public, but she’d refused to say how. He worried that the brass would put her in their crosshairs again.

  The morning they were to leave for the Bootheel, Kerney woke up dreaming of rows of flag-draped caskets. He shook off the sensation as best he could, checked his e-mail for a message from Sara, and found a short note. She’d arrived safely, reported to her brigade, been assigned a billet, and had immediately started working. She’d write again within the week when she had time.

  He fired off a quick note in return and went to the kitchen to fix Patrick a breakfast of apple pancakes. There were still no blueberries in the house.

  As they drove into Playas, Patrick stirred in the car seat and looked around eagerly. With a full movie crew in town Playas was a beehive of activity. The baseball field on the edge of town had new bleachers, lights, and a bandstand for the filming of the country-music benefit concert. Behind the nearby community swimming pool a parking lot had been established for a fleet of trucks and trailers, with a separate area cordoned off for cast and crew vehicles.

  In the village center all the buildings looked occupied and prop vehicles were parked along the streets. The area had been dressed with lampposts, street signs, and parking meters. Several of the residential neighborhoods had been spruced up and there were rows of houses made to look inhabited with fresh coats of paint, curtains in the windows, and landscaped front yards complete with flower beds.

  Dozens of people were out and about. Some were unloading props, others were building flats, and a long line of extras was queued up at the back of a wardrobe trailer.

  Kerney parked and walked with Patrick past a dozen or more makeup trailers, motor homes, prop trucks, light- and sound-equipment vehicles, and a small fleet of transportation vans used to take the cast to and from locations.

  The old mercantile building where the tech scout team had taken meals had been turned into an office. Desks and chairs were scattered around the large room and large bulletin boards on rollers were plastered with assignment sheets, shooting schedules, inventory documents, and memos.

  Kerney checked in with a production assistant, who told him that Malcolm Usher and a crew were on location at the Jordan ranch. She gave him his housing assignment and directed him to the location of the child-care center. It was in a house on the hill where the mining company managers had once lived.

  Libby, the nanny, was a pleasantly plump, young-looking woman with soft brown hair and a calm manner. She immediately took charge of Patrick and introduced him to her four other charges, three girls and a boy who ranged in age from two to five. Patrick eyed his new companions warily for a minute before making a beeline for a toy train set that sat on a pint-size table.

  Kerney watched Patrick settle in, and by the time he left he felt that his son was in good hands and among friendly children. At the apartment he and Patrick had been assigned—a far cry from the house Johnny Jordan had promised to provide—he dumped the luggage and left for the Jordan ranch.

  First he’d check in with Susan Berman and then see if he could find out if Ray Bratton, the young Border Patrol officer, had begun his undercover assignment as an apprentice set dresser. As he drove the empty highway, the events of his earlier trip to Playas flooded into his mind: the dying Border Patrol agent he’d found on the highway to Antelope Wells, the mysterious airplane that had landed south of the Jordan ranch, Walter Shaw’s late-night trip to the old barn on the Harley homestead, and the beacon light on the shut-down copper smelter that guided smugglers and illegal aliens across the Mexican border.

  Kerney had some questions for Agent Bratton. Had the feds developed any more evidence against Jerome Mendoza, the Motor Transportation officer who lived in Playas? Had they identified the man Kerney had seen driving away in Mendoza’s van?

  He thought about Walter Shaw, the ranch manager at the Jordan spread. The cursory background research he’d done on Shaw had been inconclusive. He’d turned the task over to Detective Sergeant Ramona Pino for follow-up and had heard nothing back.

  Rhetorically, he wondered if he should just drop the whole damn thing and let Agent Bratton deal with it. It wasn’t Kerney’s case or even within his jurisdiction. He should forget about it and give his full attention to Patrick.

  Kerney knew he couldn’t do that, no matter how tempting. He still carried a shield, a law enforcement officer had been murdered, and those responsible for the crime remained at large. With that locked in his mind he turned off the highway and headed down the dirt road past the rodeo grounds, toward the Jordan ranch.

  From a distance Walter Shaw stood in front of his house at the Jordan ranch and watched Julia flirt with Barry Hingle, the construction supervisor for the movie. The two were off by themselves, away from the cast and crew that had assembled around the director at the cattle-guard entrance to the ranch headquarters. Julia leaned against Hingle, talking, touching him on the arm, laughing and smiling. Shaw wondered if she’d screwed him yet.

  At one time Shaw would have been jealous, but that was many years ago, before he’d come to realize that she was nothing but a slut. Once, he’d hoped
to marry her—for the ranch, not for love, although sex with Julia was outstanding.

  Shaw’s plans for marrying Julia had been quickly discarded when he’d come upon her straddling a hired hand in her pickup truck at the Shugart cabin. When Shaw had ridden up, she had stared at him with her eyes wide open through the rear window of the truck as she bounced up and down on the cowboy’s lap, her lips thin and her teeth bared like those of an animal pouncing on its prey.

  Out of convenience Shaw still slept with Julia now and then, when she was between new bedroom talent. But he kept his emotional distance as he would with any feral animal.

  From time to time he toyed with the idea of killing Julia and her parents. But he could never hit upon a strategy that promised to give him legal control of the ranch once they were dead, not with Johnny still in the picture.

  Shaw had been successful in the past when it came to murder. As a child he’d bounced from one foster home to another, until Ralph and Elizabeth Shaw had adopted him at the age of twelve and turned him into an indentured servant on their Virden farm. Over the next six years Elder Ralph and Sister Elizabeth recited the glorious teachings of the Mormon church while they worked him day and night during the summers, and every early morning, evening, and weekend during the school year.

  When spiritual instruction and honest labor failed to keep him in strict bounds, they employed corporal punishment. Two or three times a week he paid for an ill-advised remark or look with a beating.

  At eighteen, unconverted to the faith, mean, and filled with hate, he graduated at the bottom of his high-school class, escaped into the navy, and spent the next six years on an aircraft carrier. After his discharge he worked on a ranch outside of Willcox, Arizona, before taking the manager’s job with Joe and Bessie, where he bided his time for a while.

  Every year the residents of Virden celebrated their Mormon ancestors’ trek to the Gila River Valley after being forced to flee Mexico in 1912 because of the revolution that made Pancho Villa famous. During one such celebration, while the villagers were at the annual picnic, Shaw sneaked into Elder Ralph and Sister Elizabeth’s house, found their last will and testament leaving everything to a Mormon clinic in El Salvador, destroyed it, and loosened the gas line to the bedroom wall heater.