Authors: Melissa Cutler
“Do you ever watch that cable TV show Real LEO?” Ben asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Never heard of it.”
“In the show, television cameras follow cops around on arrests and raids and stuff. It’s a cool show. My roommate tapes it and I’ve watched it with him a lot of times. Last week, they followed this SWAT team in Texas that raided a house. The basement looked like this.”
Rachel’s heart filled with dread. “What was that room for?”
He shone the beam of light off to the side so as not to blind her. His eyes were wide with disbelief. “It was a meth lab. I think your dad was cooking meth.”
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, filling out paperwork was Vaughn’s least favorite part of his job. Not today, when that paperwork was admitting Wallace Meyer Jr. to jail. This morning, he took his time, watching the prison guards walk Junior through his print and DNA collection, waiting outside the medical exam room while Junior underwent evaluation and a body cavity search and personally escorting him to his cell in solitary.
He would’ve loved to parade the smugly confident boy past the rows of cells first, but alerting them to the presence of the police chief’s son would’ve been advertising for trouble. Just about every prisoner had a grudge against Wallace Sr. and the rest of the Tucumcari Police Department, and would like nothing better than to introduce Junior to their fists or shivs, or worse.
Standing at the counter in the jail’s office, he watched the sun rise through the window and filled out the paperwork at a leisurely pace, relishing every minute of it.
The prison warden sidled up to him, setting his coffee mug and an elbow on the counter. “I haven’t heard that song in a while.”
“What song is that?” Vaughn asked.
“The one you were whistling. ‘Southern Nights.’ Great song.”
Vaughn hadn’t been aware he was whistling, much less “Southern Nights.” Damn, Rachel, to sneak her way into his subconscious like that.
The office secretary rolled her chair to the small television in the corner, which had been running through the local news on mute. “He’s on, everybody.”
Vaughn glanced at the screen. Wallace Meyer stood in dress uniform behind a podium. With all that had been happening, he’d forgotten all about Meyer’s conference to tout his impressive drug arrest record.
The prison warden sipped his coffee, then gestured with the mug toward the television. “It’s a strange day for Chief Meyer to hold a press conference. Everyone here expected him to cancel it given what’s going on with his boy.”
Vaughn’s cell phone rang, but Meyer had started to speak, and Vaughn couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say so he turned the volume off.
“Over the past twelve months, the Tucumcari Police Department has staged a city-wide crackdown on drug dealers and users. We have the numbers to prove that our tough new stance on drugs is paying off.”
He prattled on about arrest statistics, and Vaughn smiled a private, ironic smile knowing Junior’s tox results were in and he’d been loaded on meth at the time of the Parillas Valley shooting. That would change Meyer’s tune once word got out.
“In our continuing effort to protect and defend the citizens of our fine city against the criminals who would use it as a playground for their unlawful and immoral conduct,” Meyer continued, “today marks the beginning of a new city-wide crackdown on another type of criminal behavior, one closely linked with drug abuse—shoplifting.”
So that’s how it was going to be. All this time, Vaughn had expected Meyer to go after Rachel for shooting his precious son, but he’d decided instead to attack Vaughn’s family. He’d been joking about the idea to his dad, but maybe he would spring for a nice, long cruise for Gwen and his folks after all.
“Shoplifting, even petty shoplifting, hurts our community, bleeds revenue from small businesses, and damages our already-struggling local economy. Times are tough, and we can no longer issue ineffective slaps on the wrists of those who violate the law. This morning, I’m calling for the city council to adopt stricter penalties for shoplifters, most importantly, serial shoplifters. I have a message to those among us who have no respect for this country’s laws, their neighbors, or local businesses: be warned. We will catch you and you will pay.”
Meyer looked directly into the camera, hellfire in his eyes. Vaughn’s stomach lurched. He fumbled for his cell phone.
“As I speak,” Meyer continued, “the Tucumcari police are searching the home of one of Tucumcari’s most flagrant serial shoplifters after receiving an anonymous tip this week that this individual is responsible for a rash of larceny across our city.”
Vaughn couldn’t hear what Meyer said next over the pounding of his heart. His hands unsteady, he brought his phone out to look at the display screen. He’d missed ten calls in the last five minutes. All from his dad’s cell phone.
He dialed his dad’s phone, but it went straight to voice mail. He hit the speed dial for his parents’ land line. The answering machine clicked on. Gwen’s phone did the same. Mom didn’t have a cell phone, which left him out of options.
No. Please, God, no.
His legs felt like they were trapped in concrete. The weight of the universe pressed down on him, smothering him where he stood. Scrubbing a hand over his hair, he clutched his phone and tried to concentrate on the words of the local news anchor who’d returned to the screen.
“Our sources here at Local KQSN News believe the arrested suspects to be the family of the Quay County Sheriff, Vaughn Cooper . . .”
He stumbled away from the desk, fighting for air. The room had gone dead silent. He tore his gaze from the screen to look at his employees. Every one of them was staring at him, some with pity, some with shock, others with cruel judgment.
“. . . Sheriff Cooper’s parents, Greg and Maria Cooper, along with their daughter Gwen Cooper, who has a long history of petty shoplifting charges. Our cameras are on the scene of the breaking news this morning. Whitney Numos is standing by with a report.”
The image snapped to a field reporter standing in a street, the home behind her instantly recognizable.
“No.” Panic, like thousands of needles digging into him, almost dropped him to his knees. He spun in place, searching for the door. He couldn’t remember where it was, but he had to get out of this room. Had to get to his parents before the unimaginable happened, if it hadn’t already. Oh, God, he had to save them. Digging through his pocket for his car keys, he rubbed his eyes as his vision grew dark around the edges. Someone was talking to him, their voice muffled by the whoosh of blood in his ears, the taste of acid on his tongue.
“. . . This dramatic footage was filmed moments ago, when Tucumcari police surrounded a local area house, their battering ram ready should the owners refuse them entrance.”
In a trance, he forced his eyes to the screen. Police in SWAT gear ran around the perimeter of his childhood home. The sight of a long, black metal battering ram jolted his system. With a strangled gasp of horror, he turned and ran. He must’ve found the door because the next thing he remembered, he was in his patrol car, the sirens and lights on, blazing down the road to his parents’ house ten minutes away.
The only thoughts in his head were, This is my fault. I did this to them. I failed my family.
He ground to a stop as close to the police barricade as possible and fought his way through the crowd. Gwen sat in the back of a squad car, sobbing. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel sorry for her. He scanned the scene for his parents, and when he saw them near the open garage door, he tipped over the edge of sanity.
“Get those off of her!” he bellowed, jumping the barricade. He evaded the officers lunging at him as he ran toward the man handcuffing his mother.
“Get those off of her! You son of a bitch, that’s my mother.”
He was tackled halfway up the driveway, dropped to his stomach by someone dressed in black, the wind knocked clean out of him.
“Sir, stop. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Like it could get any harder.
“Vaughn, don’t worry,” his mom called. The quaver in her voice cut his heart out. “We’re going to be okay once this is sorted out.”
Oh, hell, she was trying to comfort him. His mother, while being cuffed and read her rights, was worried about him. It was more than he could take. He dropped his forehead to the concrete and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Let this be a nightmare. Please, God.
But when he looked up again, it was to see his mother being walked past him toward the squad car. “No, no, no.”
His dad marched past his line of sight next. “Don’t lose it, Vaughn. We need you to keep a cool head. Keep it together for your mom.”
Keep it together? He’d already spiraled into hell.
But Dad was right. Whatever had happened to bring this on, he couldn’t do his parents any good in his current wretched state. He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing into the ground.
You’ve failed them so completely that somehow you must find the will to pull it together and right the wrongs you’ve caused.
“Let me stand,” he said to the person holding him down. “I won’t make a scene.”
Maybe because of his title, or maybe it was because the officer accepted the resignation in his voice, but he moved his knee away from Vaughn’s ribs and stood aside for Vaughn to push himself up. He kept his back to the patrol car his parents were being led into, knowing that if he saw his mom, he’d lose it again.
Pressing his palms to the sides of his head, he pushed his tongue around his mouth, digging deep for the strength to speak calmly. “On what charge are they being arrested?”
The officer looked on him, but didn’t say anything. He glanced around, as though anxious that his colleagues would notice him fraternizing with the enemy.
“If it was your family, you’d want me to tell you.”
The officer continued to look around, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “Thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise, along with methamphetamine and marijuana.”
“That would be Gwen. Why my parents?”
“The drugs and drug paraphernalia were found in the master bedroom and kitchen.”
Vaughn wasn’t sure who he hated more at the moment, himself or his sister. Either way, she was lucky to be driving away in a squad car right now so she didn’t have to face Vaughn’s wrath. Yet. “They’re being taken to the Tucumcari station house?”
“Yes.”
Vaughn nodded. “Thank you.”
He patted his pockets for his keys, but didn’t find them, so he retraced his steps from his car. The Tucumcari police on scene were giving him a wide berth, but watching his every move. With his eyes on the pavement, looking for his keys, he slipped between barricades and pushed past his parents’ gawking neighbors, who whispered to each other and darted looks at him. The lights were still flashing on his patrol car, the keys still in the ignition and the engine running.
At least he’d managed to throw it in park.
Reaching across the dash, he opened the glove compartment. After a few attempts to peel open the cellophane wrapper from the cigarette box with his unsteady fingers, he ripped it off with his teeth and hung a cigarette from his lips. Even before lighting it, he felt steadier, more able to cope with the horror and fury coursing through him. The lighter took him a minute of rummaging to find, but find it he did, and clicked a flame into being.
He drew deeply on the cigarette until he felt it settling into his bones and brain. His radio squawked at him, so he snapped it off. He didn’t want to talk to anyone in his department. Not until he had a handle on the situation. Another flick of his fingers turned his sirens on.
Exhaling, he watched the smoke swirl and dissipate in the closed confines of his car, making his eyes water. Fuck it. He wasn’t even going to bother opening a window. It wasn’t as if he had anything more to lose in his life.
With another slow, deep inhale, he pulled away from the curb and tried not to think about the sight of his mother’s face when she’d seen him, nor the look of the metal cuffs on her wrists. Instead, he concentrated on the image in his head of Wallace Meyer’s sneering, walrus face, and imagined all the ways he’d make the bastard pay for his sins.
Chapter Fifteen
Rachel paced on the ground adjacent to the canal, her cell phone to her ear.
Restless and curious, Ben had left the notifying to her while he examined the flow mechanism on the far end of the canal section. There’d been two vents in the underground room, so that was most likely the second swamp cooler.
She didn’t want to talk to Vaughn, but couldn’t see a way around it. Even if she requested to speak to Deputy Binderman, Vaughn had made it clear that he wasn’t going to hand the case over to anyone else. So, as seemed to be their eternal fate, they couldn’t escape each other no matter how hard they tried. Life kept pulling them together in painful, impossible ways.
When his home phone went to the message machine, she pressed end and drew a fortifying breath. He hadn’t answered his cell phone either, so her only remaining option was to phone his office. Irene picked up.
“Hello, Irene. Is Sheriff Cooper in?” Her heart was pounding out of her ribs, but there was no getting around this call, no matter how it would hurt her to hear his voice.
Irene was silent for a beat, then, “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Nothing, dear. It’s not my place. The officer on duty is Deputy Binderman, but he’s on the other line. Would you like me to leave him a message to call you?”
“It’s urgent. I’ll wait.”
“If there’s an emergency, you’d best explain it to me so I can dispatch someone right away, get you the help you need.”
If only it was that easy. But there was no way to save her from the shattered illusions of her past. What could she say?
My father isn’t the man I thought he was. He wasn’t a lazy dreamer and a cheat. He was far, far worse. Everything I thought I knew about my life was wrong.
“Urgent, but not an emergency.”
“Of course, dear. Bless your heart. I’m going to put you on hold.”
Ben was farther away now, walking through the next section of canal.
She kicked a clump of wild alfalfa and felt the first cracks in her composure. Deputy Binderman had better not dally because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it together. The horrible truth about her father had been stewing in her mind too long as it was. Rage simmered inside her, close to boiling. She wanted to scream at the heavens or beat her fists against her truck.
She wanted to find her sisters and tell them, “You were right. He did ruin our lives. I’m sorry I ever defended him.”
She kicked another clump of weeds. Damn him.
Damn him to hell for his lies. He’d known full well Rachel had staked her life on this farm, on the alfalfa crop. She hadn’t gone to college; she didn’t have a backup plan. All she had was this farm and her dream to keep it running. He knew that, yet he’d sabotaged the irrigation and ruined her chance on purpose. He’d brought drugs and criminals onto their property. He’d bankrupted Rachel and her sisters’ future. And for what? If he’d been running a meth lab, where was the money from it? He certainly hadn’t shared it with his children or wife. Where did the oil drilling fit in with his illicit schemes and drug trade? Where did Wallace Meyer Jr. and his buddies fit in?
She wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to those questions. Wasn’t sure she cared anymore. She reached down, into the dry dust, and ripped the weeds up by their roots, growling with the effort.
She’d believed in her father, despite his many faults. She’d convinced herself she felt lost because she’d lost him—first, to his shortcomings and addictions, and then to an untimely, accidental death. But now she knew the truth.
She ground the heel of her boot into another wild patch, releasing the cut grass scent she used to love. Her father hadn’t been the man who rescued her when she was lost, but the one who set her adrift. All this time she’d thought their alfalfa business died because she’d failed as a farmer, as a daughter. But that wasn’t it at all. It was he who failed her. In every possible way a father could.
“Ms. Sorentino? It’s Deputy Binderman. What can I do for you?”
Her mind was caught in a flurry of noise and hate too toxic to speak. “Yes,” she said, her breathing labored. “Yes.”
“Ms. Sorentino, are you hurt?”
Yes, I am. “No. Out of breath.” Resting her hand over her forehead, she fought to get a grip. “My foreman and I found something this morning at our irrigation canal.” She took another pained breath, so enraged that her lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves. “Near where the graffiti had been written. We don’t know much about these things, but we think it might be a . . .” Another breath. Goddamn you for doing this to me, you son of a bitch. “A meth lab.”
“Oh.” Binderman paused, like her words were still sinking in. “Oh. Get away from it. Far away. Meth labs are unstable. You said it’s by the graffiti sites?”
Her arm started shaking, so she cupped the phone with both hands. “Yes.”
“That’s far enough away from the house that we don’t need to worry about evacuating. I’ll meet you in your driveway in twenty minutes, and I’m calling for backup and a fire truck.”
“Whatever you need to do is fine.”
Binderman clicked off the line.
Ben was far enough away that it made more sense to call his phone than holler at him. “We’ve got to get to the house to meet the police.”
“On my way.”
She closed her eyes and let her ulcer flare, sizzling her body from the inside out. How was she going to explain this to her sisters? She was so damn tired of giving them bad news. All she wanted was peace. All she wanted was not to feel lost or hurt anymore. But the hits kept on coming.
Screwing her mouth up, she bit back a fresh scream of rage and pivoted, hurtling her phone into the canal. It shattered into pieces. Good riddance.
Ben backed up, his eyes wide.
She sniffed, swiping a hand across her dripping nose. “I’m riding in the back. Fresh air.” Head down, she stalked to the truck, grinding every blade of alfalfa with her heel along the way, and climbed into the bed.
At least Ben was smart enough not to say anything. He settled in the driver’s seat and set off toward the house.
She stood with an arm hooked around the bar strung across the cab, holding her hat. She released her hair from its band and let the wind whip it around her face as the truck bounced down the road, her gaze settling over the terrain. The browns and oranges of the burnt ground, the deep greens and yellows of the trees and shrubs that were as much survivors of the harsh, unforgiving high desert landscape as she was. Scrappers who defied the odds, even with all the forces of nature and man working to destroy them.
When they pulled around the side of the stable into the yard between the stable and the main house, they weren’t greeted by squad cars and fire trucks, but by Amy, Jenna, and Sloane, along with Mr. Dixon, Tina, the farmhands, and both of the inn’s guest families. Everyone was hugging and laughing and snapping pictures with Tulip, who’d been dressed to the nines with a funny little red hat and a wreath of flowers.
Rachel’s heart sank to her knees. She’d forgotten about the big group send-off.
When they noticed Ben’s truck pulling into the yard, everyone clapped and cheered. Rachel cursed under her breath and replaced her hat on her head.
“There’s our cowgirl,” Jenna said in a perky voice.
“Here I am.” She forced a smile as she leapt over the side of the truck bed. “I need to have a word with you, Jenna, Amy.”
Amy looked at her like she’d lost her marbles. “Now?”
“Right now.”
She stalked toward the stable, her sisters in tow, then slid the door closed behind them.
“Now’s not the best time, Rach,” Amy said. “We’ve got a yard full of people.”
“I know that. Which is why we need them to leave. Now! Is Mr. Dixon driving them to the airport?”
Jenna waved her arms. “Hold on. What are you talking about?”
Rachel opened her mouth, but the sound of sirens approaching cut through the air.
“Ben and I had no choice but to call the cops. We found something bad out on the west end field. Another one of Dad’s secrets.”
Jenna and Amy nodded, getting enough of the point to spur them to action. They pushed past Rachel and threw the door open as a fire engine and three squad cars barreled into the yard. Rachel had trouble getting her legs to work. Her eyes turned up to look at the space above the door.
Her lucky horseshoe.
Another illusion she’d held on to for too long.
She couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it there one moment longer to gloat at her. She banged the stable’s tool closet door open and found a tire iron. Maybe she’d take the shoe to her father’s grave and bury it right alongside her false memories of the man she’d idolized. Then again, that would be too much effort expended on the man who obviously hadn’t loved her all that much.
Three pries with the tire iron and the nails gave way. The shoe flipped from the wall and sailed over Rachel’s head to fall into the scoop she used to muck out the stalls. A fitting end for a rotten lie of a story.
Cursing loudly, she tossed the tire iron aside. It clattered to the ground as she marched from the stable, ready to face her new reality.
It took the sheriff deputies and firefighters a solid eight hours to assess and process the new crime scene on Rachel’s farm. Ben had been right—what they’d found was indeed a meth lab. Undersheriff Stratis and Deputy Binderman estimated it’d been used as recently as the previous winter. Right about the time the oil derricks were installed.
The timing baffled Rachel as much as it seemed to baffle the sheriff deputies. She would’ve figured it’d gone out of use at the time of her dad’s car crash, which the sheriff’s department was no longer calling an accident. When she pressed for details, all they would tell her was that the case had been reopened due to new evidence.
As if Rachel and her sisters could handle any more tough news.
Then again, if her dad had gotten himself killed, she’d bet the house it had something to do with the drugs. There wasn’t a drug dealer or cooker on the planet who ever died of natural causes, that was for sure.
The whole day long, she kept her eyes open for a sign of Vaughn, but he never showed up. Not to her farm, and not to the station house, where she’d followed Stratis’s squad car for a more formal interview in the late afternoon. She’d been certain he’d at least want to make sure she was okay, but his silence broke her heart all over again.
Her interview with Stratis at the station house was free of the unpleasant tension and innuendos of wrongdoing that had plagued their first interview. Probably because Rachel was too far mired in her pain to care, but also because Stratis was all business. His features and words were wooden, his demeanor stoic. All the questions he’d asked her earlier, he asked again, along with a dozen more. Questions mostly about her dad’s last few years of life. She answered the best she could, but nothing about her memories of her dad seemed real anymore.
He never once brought up Vaughn. None of the deputies did, for that matter. Save for the name plaque on his office door, it was as though he’d ceased to exist.
When Stratis released Rachel at a few minutes to five o’clock, she nearly stopped by Irene’s desk to ask after Vaughn’s whereabouts. She simply couldn’t reconcile the idea that he’d heard about what she was going through and had chosen not to check on her. But Stratis was on her heels, walking her to the front door, so she kept moving.
In the parking lot, she climbed into her stuffy truck and rolled the windows down. She sat, at a loss of where to go or what to do. What she really needed was wide-open space, but the places she’d always found solace in reminded her of her father. If she went to her house, she’d have to deal with her sisters, and she didn’t have the strength for that yet.
She started the truck’s engine and cruised down the main road. Old habits died hard; and she couldn’t help but scan for Vaughn’s truck or squad car in every parking lot she passed. Three blocks down, Smithy’s Bar came into view. No evidence of Vaughn in the lot, but she turned in to the parking area anyway.
She needed the company of Catcher Creek locals like she needed a hole in the head, but a cold beer might be nice. And Smithy’s had a pay phone out back if she worked up enough courage to call Vaughn out on his neglect of her.
The air inside the bar was cool and smelled of cleaning products and spilled beer. A Merle Haggard song poured from the jukebox in the dark corner to her left. The place was crowded, being after normal workday hours on a Friday. Rachel squeezed onto a bar stool between two older men she didn’t recognize, hoping no one would bother to notice her except Gloria, the bartender.
After a few minutes, Gloria worked her way and sailed a cardboard coaster in front of her. “The usual, hon?”
“That’ll do. Thanks.”
She tapped the coaster on its side against the bar and kept her head down while she waited, hoping to avoid catching anyone’s eye.
Gloria returned with a bottle of beer, but instead of setting it down and leaving, she lingered. “Surprised to see you here, Rachel.”
Rachel set her hand on the cold glass bottle and looked at Gloria’s overdone face and bouncy, peroxide blond hair.
“Why’s that?” Rachel asked, too grumpy for small talk.
Gloria arched one of her drawn-in brows. “Because of what happened today with Sheriff Cooper’s family. We all figured you’d be consoling him. Are you two on the outs?”
Rachel sat up straighter. “What happened to his family? Is someone hurt?”
“Only their pride,” Gloria said.
“Tell me what happened. Please. I didn’t know.”
She got a saucy twinkle in her eye that turned Rachel’s stomach. “Early this morning, the Tucumcari police raided his parents’ house. It was all over the news. They arrested his sister and both his parents on shoplifting and drug charges.”
Gossip like that was too horrific to be true. Even still, her hand itched with the urge to slap Gloria, she sounded so gleeful at the revelation. “That can’t be right.”
Then she thought about Vaughn’s contentious rivalry with Chief Meyer and the possibility didn’t seem so outlandish.