The state cops were called in to process the shooting scenes, but wouldn’t get there until the next day. The bodies were left where they fell, covered with black plastic tarps, and watched by border patrolmen, as much to keep the coyotes away as to protect the scenes.
Shortly after the last fight, a helicopter roared in from El Pasoand took Bob away. Lucas met Rae wandering around by the foundation headquarters, put an arm around her shoulders: “How is he?”
“Aw, he’ll be okay. Take some time, some rehab. The medics slowed down the blood loss. He was still okay when they loaded him into the chopper.”
“You talk to your SOG people yet?”
“No, I haven’t gotten around to it. I’m sort of stunned,” she said.
“So’s everybody. Let’s find a place to sit, you can call your guys, I’ll call Forte and fill him in.”
They did that. Everybody was unhappy about Bob, everybody was happy that Poole and Darling were dead. “Five people murdered at one spot, including that kid,” Forte said. “We needed to take them off the board, any way we could. Not to go all bureaucratic on you, I’d like the names of all the Border Patrol and Highway Patrol people who cooperated with you—when we put out the press release, we’ll go big-time on the help they gave us. This will be a nice story tomorrow, give us a chance to put some serious grease in the wheels. And... say, did you find any cash? Or gold? That could be big.”
“Tell you about that in an hour or so,” Lucas said. “I think I know where their vehicle is.”
—
AFTER HEgot off the phone, Lucas told Rae about the grease comment, and she said, “I don’t know about you former small-time cops, but grease is close to the top consideration with the federal government. Might even bethe top. Don’t care who got killed, how many got killed, but they do care about the grease.”
“You okay?” Lucas asked.
“Shoulder hurts. Medic looked at it, said it’s a bunch of cuts, he gave me some antibiotic cream for it, told me to see a doc as soon as I can. How about you? You look a lot worse than me, that bloody rag around your head.”
“Got a little headache, that’s about it,” Lucas said. “Scared the hell out of me when I couldn’t see at first.”
“How’s your eye now?” Rae asked.
“I can see fine, but my eye is watering a lot.”
“Let’s go find one of those medics... take a quick look.”
—
THEY FOUNDa medic, who looked at Lucas’s eye with a magnifier, said he couldn’t see much, but that Lucas’s eye was bloodshot. He irrigated the eye, which made it feel worse than it had before the irrigation. The medic said that was normal.
He then washed off Lucas’s forehead, said there was a lot of brick dust embedded in the skin above his eye. He suggested that Lucas have a doctor check it. “If you get an infection, it could leave some scarring. Go see a doc.”
—
RAE TOLD HIMthe SOG people were mostly concerned about Bob and would fly a couple of supervisors into El Paso to talk with him. “Gonna ask him if you fucked up, is what they’re going to do,” Rae said. “I already told them you didn’t, that we were all great, but there’s gonna have to be an after-action report. Hope you’re ready for a blizzard of paper.”
“Want to see an even greater blizzard?” Lucas asked. “Follow me and listen carefully.”
He led Rae around the buildings, to the place where he’d first seen Darling crossing a fence, into the field. “He was carrying a bag. He lost it somewhere along the way... and I gotta believe he’d dumped the truck right where he was crossing into that field. There are three white trucks parked by the buildings.”
Rae said, “Money. Let’s get some lights and more witnesses.”
They rounded up O’Brien, the Border Patrol boss, and Guiterrez, the highway patrolman who’d led them down from I-10, and a couple of other guys, everybody armed with heavy-duty flashlights. They located the place where Darling had crossed the fence by the crushed-down weeds on the other side, and six feet into the field, found a light brown canvas duffel bag.
Lucas pulled it open. Inside was some paper, two passports, and enough cash, as Guiterrez put it, “to choke a Texas hog.”
O’Brien said, “We know about cash seizures. Bring that bag outa here, and I’ll have a couple of our guys count it, with witnesses.”
Rae said, “That might not be all of it. Lucas thinks he knows where Darling ditched his truck.”
Lucas swiveled his flashlight across the dark field to the buildings, to a line of white pickups parked behind it. “Let’s get that museum lady out here. She should know who belongs to which trucks.”
The museum lady did know: the two trucks on the ends were a museum truck and a truck that belonged to a museum worker. The one in the middle—the one with the Arkansas plates—she didn’t know.
