270 East: A Novel

By Dave Edgerton

270 EAST is a work of fiction inspired by real events, the story of a young womans wrongful conviction for murder and the efforts of a retired Federal Agent to exonerate and free her.

Ray Webb was a career Foreign Service Officer, Chief Criminal Investigator for the Western Hemisphere with the Inspector Generals Office of the U.S. Agency for International Development. When Ray retires, he and his wife, Melinda, come home to rural Southeast Oklahoma. The peaceful, orderly small town where they grew up is sadly changed, its stability threatened by the methamphetamine drug trade.

Ray, a deeply religious man, becomes lay pastor of a little church across the street from the courthouse, the Sheriffs Office, and the county jail. He begins to suspect that police corruption and prosecutorial misconduct have resulted in a young woman being sentenced to life in prison for a terrible crime she did not commit. Rays close, prosperous family worries that his efforts to right this apparent wrong are becoming obsessive. Melinda, and Kenny, Rays politically well-connected brother, both think that Rays stubborn determination to help this young woman arises from his failures as a father to his own troubled daughter. Ray himself believes he is acting in obedience to Gods will. Whatever his motives, Ray finds himself increasingly involved in a dangerous and ambiguous case, with criminal informants, drug-addled witnesses, a defendant who is her own worst enemy, and a local law enforcement establishment that seems determined to thwart his efforts to learn the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496913296

Dave Edgerton

Dave Edgerton's field is international development. He is a retired U.S. government contractor. He and his wife live in Bloomington, Indiana.

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© 2014 Dave Edgerton. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, places, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover photo credit: Eric Stuve/OKHighways

Published by AuthorHouse 06/05/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1328-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-1329-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

PART TWO

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

PART THREE

Chapter I

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

PART FOUR

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This work of fiction

is dedicated to M.B., who was wrongfully convicted,

and to R.B., whose continuing efforts to exonerate and free her

inspired me to write it.

And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid . . . .

Ruth 3: 9

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Richardson, Oklahoma

August 6, 2004

On the afternoon of the night her baby is murdered, Tracy Wheeler leaves the kids in the house with her mom and sister and goes over to Oscar Santiago’s to get drunk and stoned. She walks north in the August heat to the end of the row of cottages, then west across a stretch of ryegrass and dried mud, then back on the road at the Rock Island crossing, the rails receding left and right, the caution sign waiting beside its oval shadow, her own shadow quickening behind her as she crosses the tracks.

Richardson isn’t far from the Arkansas border. This far south and east, the overarching sky of the plains still looms, but the flatness gives way to rolling grasslands. The soil is pale and rocky, good for grazing cattle but not rich enough to grow crops with much success. McAlester and the string of small towns to the east—Krebs, Haleyville, Hartshorne, Richardson—lie among protrusions of coarse granite. Spanish oak, cedar elm, and redbud climb the flanks of the hills. Southern pine tops the ridgelines.

Oklahoma is in on the continuing oil and natural gas boom. At the edges of little towns like Richardson, scruffy prefabs and fieldstone cottages shoulder up against the country properties of oil-and-gas nouveau riche. There’s a horse farm across the road from the Wheelers and their neighbors—a white railed fence, a manicured expanse of rolling pasture, a pond winking in the distance, a distant prosperous house and barn.

North of the horse farm, not far from the Wheeler house, past the end of the road and across the Rock Island line—literally across the tracks—there’s a warren of leaning, rotting trailers. Many of the people who live there are addicted to methamphetamine. A few are heroin addicts. The Richardson Police and the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department know this road well.

Oscar Santiago lives in the Jewell Apartments, a pair of tumbledown buildings the size and shape of single-story army barracks, with an alleyway running between them. There’s a stenciled sign, JEWELL APARTMENTS, and a phone number. Decaying trailers stand at angles around the apartments. Scrub oak provides partial shade. The roofs of the trailers are off-center and the dank frames slope at one end or sag in the middle as if they’d been dropped from a height down in among the clumps of gnarled, suffering trees. The ground is strewn with trash and abandoned toys. The alley is deserted. Scraps of noise emerge from the insides of the trailers and the apartments—voices, radio music, a muffled shout, a keening toddler. Tracy steps over some wet-looking plastic bags and around a broken tricycle and walks up two plank steps and opens the door to Oscar Santiago’s apartment without knocking and goes in.

Santiago is bowing before the open fridge, pulling out a 16-ounce can of Miller.

Howard Conner is sitting on the couch, legs out straight. There’s a bong between his feet.

Conner says, Fuck you doin here.

What you think I’m doin here, Howard.

Santiago straightens up, closes the fridge, pops his beer, and looks at Tracy.

Tracy looks back. Oscar, you got some Lortabs?

You got money?

Conner says, She’s got the money I gave her.

Howard Conner is a cocky, runty punk with pasty skin, short brown hair, big dark brown eyes, and a handsome-guy jaw and Roman nose. Jeans, work shoes, white t-shirt, jailhouse forearm tattoos, cap on backwards.

Tracy says, You know how much you gave me, Howard. She’s still looking at Santiago.

Conner says, I gave you money for the kids.

Now she looks at Conner. You gave me sixty dollars.

Santiago says, Come on, now, don’t chawl start.

Conner says, I’m not talkin bout how much, Tracy.

Howard, that money’s for the kids.

Conner is up off the couch. Ain’t that what I just said? He rocks his head in mockery. "Big fuckin re-spohn-sible momma. He takes a step toward her. Done a buncha crank, now you’re crashin, comin in here tryin to score pills. He adjusts his cap for emphasis. I want it back, Tracy."

Tracy backs up. The room is tiny. Howard, I ain’t got it.

I ain’t talkin bout the crank. I’m talkin bout the fuckin money.

Santiago parks his beer on top of the fridge and advances uncertainly. Okay, yawl gon start, go on get the fuck out, I don’t need no…

Conner is standing in front of Tracy. She’s backed up against the door.

Howard, that money’s at home.

Conner rocks his head and mocks her again. "That money’s at ho-o-owm . . ."

That money’s for the kids, Howard.

I want it, Tracy.

Conner makes a grab for Tracy’s strap purse.

Howard, quit it, I ain’t got it.

Tracy straight-arms Conner and they start turning and tussling. Tracy’s hand is on Conner’s chest. She’s drawing back her shoulder to keep his hand away from her purse strap. Conner is holding onto her wrist in front of his chest and windmilling with his free hand, trying to grab the purse. His foot hooks the base of the bong and it topples onto the filthy shag and he lets go of Tracy’s wrist and falls to one knee and gets back up.

Santiago comes up behind them and starts shoving at both of them. Go on now, I mean it, go on do your arguin someplace else.

Santiago’s tone has a wheedling edge to it. Santiago is thirtyish, with thinning hair and a paunchy Tex-Mex laborer’s build. He’s a good deal bigger than Conner, but he’s warily afraid of him, afraid of Conner’s quick surly wit and rabid temper.

Conner re-sets his cap, opens the door, and steps out onto the top step.

Tracy stands facing him in the open doorway.

Howard, that’s child support money.

I want that money back.

You owed me that money, Howard.

Conner does his gangsta growl. I don’t owe you nothin, bitch.

Santiago is backing into the middle of the room, sorrowfully eyeing his upended bong. Yawl better go on get the fuck out.

Viscous mud-brown liquid is dripping from the bong down onto the shag.

Tracy says, That money’s for child support, Howard.

"Bitch, you ain’t got nothin cep what I give you."

Conner struts down the steps, pivots back around at the bottom, and looks up at her.

Nothin. He adjusts his cap. Rest of that crank is mine, too.

Howard…

Comin over here tryin to score pills. Think you’re the fuckin queenasheeba.

Howard, I ain’t givin you back no money.

Okay, bitch.

And I ain’t got your crank, neither.

Uh huh. Yeah I bet.

Conner’s jeans aren’t baggies, but he hitches at his crotch anyway. One way nother, you gon give me back that fuckin money.

Conner swivels left, kicks off on one leg, and takes off gangsta-limping and pimp-rolling down the alley, eyes front, fondling his crotch, calling out, his voice echoing along the alley walls.

"Resta that crank, too, hear me, bitch?"

Santiago is on his knees beside the bong, scrounging in the shag with his fingertips for the dope that spilled out.

You can stay if want to, Tracy.

Tracy shuts the door.

What was in there?

Maui buds. You want some?

Okay. Could you give me a couple Lortabs, too, Oscar?

Santiago looks up at her.

You want to give me some love?

What if Howard comes back?

What if he does? Howard don’t own you.

Not no more, he don’t.

. . . .

Conner quits gangsta-limping as soon as he rounds the corner and takes off at a purposeful stride down a filth-strewn path towards Jeannie Mason’s trailer in pursuit of his two remaining projects for the day: finding some more crank, and trying to get in Jeannie Mason’s pants.

There’s always a bench warrant of some kind out on Conner. Except when circumstances call for strutting, Conner keeps to any available shadows and strives to walk like a sober, nondescript laborer. As he moves along the path he keeps an eye out, peering through the twisted shade of the scrub oaks, in case a Richardson Police Department patrol car should come gliding into view out there in the sunshine with its antennas and white side panels and black hood and trunk.

. . . .

Hey, Jeannie. Sup.

Hey, Howard.

Can I come in?

Yeah.

A concrete block in front of the trailer door serves as a front step. Jeannie holds the door open for Conner with her cigarette hand. Conner adjusts his cap and strokes Jeannie’s thigh as he steps up and in.

Jeannie pushes his hand away. Settle down, Howard.

A curl of singe stink rises from the sparse hair on Conner’s forearm as her cigarette brushes by. Jeannie has gone around a time or two with Conner and is tired of him. She’s older now, in her mid-twenties. Couple kids. Off drugs, sort of. Hanging onto a counter job at JR’s. Conner’s gangsta routine might still work with the teenies at JR’s, but not with Jeannie.

Where’s your kids at, Jeannie?

At the park with Amanda and Jennifer.

Jeannie goes over to the kitchenette and flips her ash in the sink and turns around and stands and looks at Conner with her arms crossed. There’s a neon lemon lighter on the counter beside a half-empty pack of Camel Lights. Without asking, Conner picks up the pack of Camels and the lighter and shakes out a cigarette and lights up.

Hey Jeannie?

Yeah?

You got some crank?

I don’t do crank no more.

Not what I heard.

Yeah, well I don’t.

I bet you got some, though.

Smatter, Howard, you out?

Tracy’s holdin some for me.

I thought you two done broke up.

Yeah, well, you know how it is.

No, I don’t. How is it, Howard?

Conner’s libidinal interest in Jeannie is waning fast, and normally he might not tolerate this much bitch dissing, but he holds his temper in the hopeful expectation that Jeannie has some stash and that he can get her to give him some. He retreats to the room’s only armchair and sits down, legs out straight, hands folded behind his head.

C’mon, Jeannie. Be a friend.

Smatter, Howard, won’t Tracy give it back?

She keeps it over at her mom and dad’s. Old Lloyd threw my ass out.

Conner unfolds his hands from behind his head and sits forward and folds them earnestly on his knees.

Come on, babe. Let’s you and me do a little crystal. Old time’s sake. Don’tcha want to?

Howard, I’m tired, I got my period, and I got kids to take care of.

Conner turns his hands palm-up in supplication.

Well then gimme some stash, Jeannie, okay? I’ll pay you for it later. I promise.

Jeannie just wants him out of her house.

Yeah. Okay, Howard.

. . . .

Conner is back at Santiago’s apartment. Santiago has the door locked. Conner is standing outside on the top step, thumping on the door with the heel of his fist.

. . . Open the fuckin door, Oscar… I know yawl are in there…

The streetlight at the top of the alley is shining through the drawn venetian blinds on the front window, striping the wall in the darkened room, Conner’s shadow prancing and gesturing in the strips of light. Santiago positions himself in front of the bolted door. Tracy is standing behind him, buttoning her blouse.

Santiago and Tracy both know Conner is ripped, high on methamphetamine. It’s obvious from the sound of his voice, crackling through the door at them like static.

Santiago puts his mouth next to the door jamb.

Howard, I ain’t lettin you in if you gon carry on and make a scene.

Conner’s muffled, crackly speed-voice comes through from the other side.

I’m not gon make a scene, I just want to talk to Tracy.

Howard, you sound like you’re kinda fucked up.

No I’m not. Come on, Oscar, let me in. I’m not gon make no scene.

Howard, I dunno, man…

Now it’s Conner’s turn to wheedle.

Come on, dude, I’ll be cool, I promise, just let me in.

I don’t know, Howard.

Oscar, I’ll be cool. I promise. Okay?

Tracy finishes buttoning up. It’s all right, Oscar, let him in.

Santiago turns the knob on the deadbolt and opens the door.

. . . .

Mid-evening.

Saturday night partiers have gathered at Santiago’s apartment. Howard Conner and Tracy Wheeler are standing at the base of the plank steps, in the alley between the Jewell Apartments, shouting at each other.

. . . what you was doin in there…

. . . what do you care, Howard…

. . . and I’ll tell you what else…

Santiago has just thrown Conner and Tracy out, again—both of them, this time.

. . . you don’t care nothing about me…

. . . you better not be…

. . . you don’t even care about your own children… .

. . . callin no Welfare on me…

. . . all you care about’s yourself…

. . . you go callin Dee H Dubya on me again…

Santiago is standing in his open doorway, looking down at Conner and Tracy at the foot of the steps. He’s on his cell phone, talking to Tracy’s sister Erika.

Erika, you hear that?

Amused onlookers are gathered in the doorway behind Santiago, passing a joint.

Several bicycles are propped in a heap against the wall of the apartment. Conner and Tracy are toe to toe beside the bicycles, shouting in each other’s faces.

Think I don’t know what you and Oscar was doin in there?

You don’t own me, Howard.

Know what you are, Tracy?

Tracy’s arms are folded in front of her, ready to protect herself.

You’re a fuckin whore.

Conner begins advancing and Tracy retreating in small slow steps, in a sort of dance.

Santiago speaks into his cell phone.

Erika, you better come over here git your sister.

I don’t care what you call me, Howard.

Santiago is holding the cell phone away from his face, talking at it.

Erika, can you hear that? Tracy and Howard are raisin so much ruckus somebody call the po-lice we all gon be in trouble, know what I’m sayin?

Tracy and Howard are still shouting.

That right, Tracy? Don’t care what I call you?

Tracy stops backing up. That’s right.

Their faces are inches apart.

Tracy lowers her voice a notch.

You can call me all the names you want, Howard…

Uh huh.

". . . cause everbody in this town knows what you are."

Oooh. Is that ri-i-ght? What am I, Tracy?

You’re a pitiful burnt-out meth head.

Conner is silent.

You’re a pitiful crank-head junkie.

Conner gazes down, puts his hands on his hips, nods, and says, Uh huh. Pitiful.

Then he cocks his head and looks at Tracy and nods again and says Uh huh.

Then he seizes her one-handed by the throat and murmurs Show you some pitiful and shoves her back against the stack of bicycles and starts slapping her steadily with his free hand, gripping her throat, hard, ranting in rhythm as he strikes her. "Want some pitiful? Here’s some pitiful. You gon be pitiful in jist a-bout . . ."

Tracy is flailing back at Conner, keening though her constricted windpipe, scratching him, kicking at him, turning her head in an effort to avoid his blows, the stack of bicycles sliding and clattering behind her.

Santiago drops his cell phone and lumbers down the steps. Roy Sánchez, his cousin, comes down the steps behind him, backing him up. Santiago seizes Conner by the shoulders and pulls him back away from Tracy. In response to Santiago’s pulling, Conner keeps his feet in position and bends at the knees like a limbo dancer, spine curving backwards. Instead of wrestling Conner to the ground, Santiago just lets go of him. Feet still planted, Conner pops back up like a released spring and Tracy steps aside and Conner falls forward onto the bicycles, sprawling among upended sprockets and handlebars and frames.

There’s an instant of silence.

Conner turns, raises himself on his elbows, and peers out over a bicycle seat.

A front wheel is rotating slowly beside his head.

Santiago and Sánchez advance on him and two other guys start down the steps. Conner shoves away the bicycle that’s on top of him and staggers to his feet. Sánchez swings drunkenly at him and misses and Conner takes off sprinting down the alley and around the corner.

Out on the road, forty feet away, a Richardson Police Department patrol car comes gliding forward into a pool of streetlamp light—black hood, antennas, windshield, white side panels, Protect and Serve.

With spinning brainless alacrity, like a panicked chipmunk, Conner leaps up and turns in place in the air and tears back into the alley, the way he’d come, and rounds the corner and his head strikes the edge of a protruding room air conditioner with a resonant crack, and he stops and stands in place a long moment and then sinks to his knees, eyes front.

Rust flakes from the air conditioner grill sift down around him. Blood wells up in his hairline and multiple rivulets run down over his ears and forehead and the features of his face and little burgundy Rorschachs begin to form and spread across the front of his t-shirt.

The partiers are clustered up the alley, contemplating their pile of bicycles. Now they turn and gape down the alley at Conner.

Tracy and Santiago separate themselves from the group.

Conner is still on his knees.

Tracy kneels down beside him.

Aw, Howard…

She looks back up the alley at Santiago.

Oscar, run get him a towel.

The oblivious patrol car cruises on without pausing, nosing through the dark behind the twin shafts of its headlamps. The white side panel—Protect and Serve—then the blank rear window, then the black trunk, disappear around the corner where the road loops back toward town through the trees on the far side of the Jewell Apartments.

. . . .

Now Howard and Tracy are standing in the road at the Rock Island crossing. Conner is gripping the caution sign to steady himself, pressing Oscar’s towel against his forehead with his other hand. The cut doesn’t bleed as long as he keeps pressing on it with the towel, but if he lets up it starts bleeding again.

They’re still arguing—about money, about child support, about whether or not Tracy has any meth. Their voices rise and fall. They’re a good distance from the trailers and apartments now, standing in the road in the dark. Their voices descend from shouting to weary bickering.

. . . all I’m sayin…

. . . I know what you’re sayin…

. . . you don’t have no right…

. . . you done said it fifty times…

Fatigue comes gliding over Tracy like a winged shadow. The starry moonless sky is weighing down, weighing down, the trees, the road, the trailers, the railroad track, the sagging ponderous power lines, dimming, thickening, weighing down. Howard is weighing down. Howard looks like a squat troll, standing there with his rag on his head, gripping the caution sign.

Tracy’s mouth is dry as paper. Her voice drops to a tremulous monotone.

Howard, I’m just real tired, okay?

Tracy, you’re crashin. Go on home.

What you gonna do about your head?

My head’ll be fine. Don’t worry about my fuckin head. You just go on home. You don’t go home you gon fall asleep in the middle of the fuckin road. Maybe I’ll come over after while.

I’mo be asleep.

I know. If Danny gits up I’ll take care of him so you can sleep.

. . . .

Conner is back at Jeannie Mason’s trailer, standing in the open doorway, dripping blood.

Jesus, Howard.

Five guys jumped me.

Two women are sitting on the couch. Jeannie Mason’s boys, a four-year-old and a toddler, are sitting on the floor. The women and the four-year-old are watching TV. The women are a lesbian couple, friends of Jeannie’s. They both work at True Value. Sometimes in the evenings they help Jeannie with the boys. The toddler has taken off one of his shoes and is pummeling a toy telephone with it. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding . . . .

The two women stand up as Jeannie closes the door behind Conner.

Conner says, Sumbitches threw me on toppa some bicycles.

Now the boy is on his feet.

Busted my fuckin head open.

The toddler stops hitting the toy telephone, looks at Conner, and begins to wail. One of the women scoops up the toddler and the women herd the four-year-old into the bedroom ahead of themselves and shut the door.

Conner is sweating and unsteady.

Jeannie says, Howard, seddown before you fall down.

Can’t.

Conner’s jaw is clenched tight. He’s pacing in place, side to side, a manic two-step, one-two, one-two. Blood drips down rhythmically off the end of his chin and onto the carpet.

Jeannie says, Guess you did up that crank.

Yeah.

All of it?

I guess.

Jesus.

Yeah, I know.

Howard, you’re getting blood all over the carpet.

Conner drops down obediently in the armchair he had presumed was his earlier in the evening. He’s still clutching his bloody towel. Jeannie jerks the towel out of his hand, goes over to the kitchenette, drops it in the sink, gets a clean dish towel out of a drawer, and brings it back to him.

Connor is hunched forward, staring, clutching his midriff, jiggling his legs, dripping blood on the chair. He’s sweating, but he acts freezing cold, like a person with malaria. He’s shivering. His teeth are chattering. He reaches up and puts the clean towel on his head and holds it there.

Jeannie can you like make some butterfly stitches maybe or put a bandage on there for me or somethin I don’t wanna k-k-keep bleedin all over…

Jeannie heads for the bedroom door.

. . . know what I’m sayin like g-git somethin for me or s-somethin to stop all the f-fuckin bleedin or somethin…

Howard, chill out, okay, I’ll see what I can find.

The bathroom is through the bedroom, at the back of the trailer.

Jeannie opens the bedroom door.

One of the women is standing beside the nightstand, hanging up the phone.

Conner stands up and declares to the empty room, That dyke called the cops.

Then he pivots, stiff-legged, like an automaton, walks stiff-legged to the front door, reaches for the door handle, rests his hand on it, and speaks once more, cocking his head, looking fixedly at the handle, as if he were addressing it.

I’mo come back after while and kill them fuckin dykes.

The darkened café curtain over the front window lights up, red-blue red-blue red-blue red-blue red-blue . . .

. . . .

Officer Isaiah Trudeau is sitting in his patrol car in the dirt lane in front of the trailer, lightbar on, engine running, elbow draped out the window.

Hey, Howard.

Hey, Tru-do.

Trudeau’s name is pronounced TRU-do in Oklahoman.

What’d you do to your head, Howard?

Conner pulls the door shut and steps down onto the concrete-block front step.

Five guys jumped me.

Did, huh.

Conner steps down onto the ground.

Yeah. Five or six.

Five or six.

Uh huh.

Officer Trudeau is chewing on a toothpick.

You do somethin to make em mad, Howard?

Naw. They was drunk, is all. Threw me on a stack a bicycles.

Stack a bicycles.

Uh huh. And I hit my head on a air conditioner.

Howard, we got a warrant on you. You know that?

No.

Well we do.

What for?

Failure to appear.

Oh.

Officer Trudeau takes the toothpick out of his mouth, flips it in the dirt, and tilts his head at the rear door.

Come on, get in, Howard.

CHAPTER 2

February 2008

Raymond Webb looks a little like the actor Richard Dreyfus. He gets that a lot. People who go over to McAlister to the movies tell him that. He’s a wiry, smallish blue-eyed man in his early ’60’s, with lean, carved, weathered cheeks and a full head of short gray wavy hair.

Don’t get the wrong idea about the Richard Dreyfus thing. There’s nothing Hollywood about Ray Webb. There’s nothing on God’s outspreading buzzard-wheeling cattle-fenced pine-ridge earth but rural Southeast Oklahoma about Raymond Webb, Federal Agent, Retired.

Over much of his career, Ray was Special Agent in Charge—head of criminal investigations—for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. He speaks fluent Spanish, and gets by in Portuguese. His specialty was nailing white-collar weasels: embezzlers, bribe-takers, contract fiddlers, padders of inventories. Guys who own fictitious warehouses. Guys who can make off with the contents of real warehouses without leaving their cushy offices. CPA wizards who can make a container of road equipment or prescription drugs vanish from Puerto Barrios and reappear in Newark.

Ray never much liked to carry his sidearm, a 9mm Browning semi-automatic. He carried it when he needed to. He felt like it weighed him down, made him favor one leg.

He liked the heft of his badge, though. When one of his major investigations would arrive at its conclusion, he liked to make the key arrest himself. He’d walk into an office or onto a dock or an airstrip and take out his badge and introduce himself in his even, courteous, churchgoing drawl and then make the sorry bastard take the badge and inspect it.

Now, I’mo have you actually take this badge in your hand, okay?

He’d place the neat dark square of burnished cowhide wallet with the solid gold shield onto the sorry bastard’s open palm. The hand would always drop half an inch under the surprising weight of the thing.

In his mind, in his often prayerful inner