Read Online Accustomed to the Dark by Walter Satterthwait - Free Book Online Page B

to permit only one vehicle through at a time. Two troopers leaned against the side of one of the cruisers, arms crossed over their chests, while two others waved the cars up, stopped them, spoke with the drivers, and checked inside the trunks.
    When it was my turn, the trooper tipped the brim of his Smokey the Bear hat at me. “License and registration, please, sir.” I knew a few state cops, but I didn’t recognize this one. I didn’t recognize the other trooper, either, the one who strolled around to the back of the Cherokee, hand on the butt of his Glock, and peered in the tailgate window.
    The shotgun and the boxes of shells were under the rear passenger seat, the Beretta was under the front passenger’s, Rita’s .38 was in the glove compartment. But these two weren’t looking for guns.
    I handed over the papers. The first trooper glanced through them, glanced at me to make sure I matched the photo on the license, then handed them back. “Thank you, sir. Sorry for the delay.”
    â€œNo problem.” I drove off.
    It didn’t seem possible that Lucero and Martinez had gotten through roadblocks like these. But it didn’t seem possible that they had run around Santa Fe, from the penitentiary to Airport Road to Rita’s house. And they had.

PART TWO

9
    A FTER LEAVING S ANTA Fe, I-25 heads southeast for a while, looping through the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos before it gradually swings toward the north and Las Vegas. Up there the mountains are on the left—the easternmost slopes of the Rockies, only rolling ridges nearby, speckled with piñon and juniper, but growing larger and darker and more massive off in the blue distance. To the right is prairie, the Great American Plains, looking as flat as a plate but slowly descending off to the east as far as the eye can see, and a lot farther, down through the Texas panhandle, through Oklahoma and Arkansas, all the way to the Mississippi River.
    The weather was clear again, the sky was the color of turquoise. The road was nearly empty. I passed the turnoff for Lamy and Eldorado, passed the turnoffs for Glorieta and Pecos, but I really wasn’t paying attention. Out of habit, partly, and partly out of hope, I kept playing in my head the conversation I might have had with Rita.
    â€œ It seems to me,” I told her, “that the way to find Martinez and Lucero is to find whoever brought in the drugs. And that’s Sylvia Miller. If she brought in drugs, she could’ve brought in a gun. And she could’ve been the accomplice who cut the perimeter wires at the pen .”
    â€œ If she brought in the drugs,” said Rita. “You have only Jimmy McBride’s word for that .”
    I pictured us sitting out on the patio at her house, the sun shining, the air warm. She was wearing a long white cotton skirt and a silk blouse that matched the sky. At her throat was a small golden cross that sometimes caught the light and flashed at me like a tiny beacon. No one had fired a rifle at this Rita, and no one ever would .
    â€œ I think McBride was telling the truth,” I said. “He was pretty motivated at the time .”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What provided the motivation, exactly? ”
    â€œ I leaned on him a little .”
    â€œ That must have been very rewarding for you .”
    â€œ No. Not very .”
    She nodded. “Do the police know about Miller? ”
    â€œ I don’t think so. Jimmy McBride says not .”
    â€œ And Jimmy McBride was motivated .”
    â€œ Yeah. It doesn’t matter whether they know, Rita. If they do know, they won’t be telling me. The only option I have is go ahead with what I’ve got .”
    â€œ Why not give it to them? Tell them about Miller? ”
    â€œ They’ve already screwed up. Twice. First, they let Martinez get loose. Then they didn’t tell us about it .”
    She frowned. “Joshua, Hector didn’t