8

Cicadas buzzed, heralding the coming summer as Alvarez finished securing a final plastic case to a pine tree. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier,” he said. Inside the case was a motion activated trail camera, the kind popular with hunters. They had spent the morning driving around the boonies of the tri-county area, placing the cameras in every area they thought might possibly serve as a haunt for the wolves. The air was dry, still, and hot, even under the shade of the tree grove Alvarez had selected as being a decent place. “So are these things real time?” Jebbins asked. “I mean do they stream or anything?”

“We can remote in,” said Alvarez. “I’m going to set up the software once we get back to base. But I don’t see live streaming happening. It would be about four hours behind.”

Fisher watched the proceedings silently. He was skeptical of the technology, especially the software side; but if they got it to work it would be a major improvement to their so far lackluster tactics. He hated to disparage his own team like that, but they weren’t living up to their own standards, and that he couldn’t have. Fisher was incapable of accepting mediocrity. He pushed himself, he pushed those under him, and if they didn’t like it, too bad. His whole life was a competition against himself, and right now he was, in his estimation, trailing. It could not continue. TARP was supposed to be the best, and even with the SRT’s debacle the night before he worried about them hounding him, hounding his men, and most importantly getting the ear of the commission, and shutting his team down. He would fight tooth and nail against that, and so would Ketchum, but at the end of the day he would only be a cop and a “dysfunctional veteran,” which would not gain him much traction with the upper echelons of the municipalities. He sighed to himself and stared down at the dirt and grass caking his boots.

“How many deer and raccoons do we have to sort through before we see something useful?” Bocker asked.

“Probably a lot,” replied Alvarez.

“We’ll have to assign night and day shifts to watch the footage,” said Fisher.

“It gives alerts when they see something,” Alvarez replied. "But yeah, someone has to actually watch them."

“Well you don’t do much anyway, maybe you should just watch the cameras on permanent assignment,” Jebbins offered.

“You better shut that dick holster of yours,” Alvarez barked. “I’ve got more training and legit experience than you or Bocker or Brantwood combined.”

“A lot of good it does us,” said Jebbins.

“Shut up,” snapped Fisher, cradling his face in his hand, like a weary teacher admonishing irreverent pupils. “Like dealing with fucking children,” he moaned. “Let’s get the rest of these cameras set up and get the hell out of here. It’s hot.”

Each man picked up a camera and they split off, heading into woods, looking for tracks and game trails that could serve as promising areas for animal travel. Jebbins walked into a stand of pines, which made for easy walking, as the woods there were fairly open. He would set up the camera as soon as he was several hundred yards from the truck and head back. He didn’t feel like weathering more Fisher over being the last one back. By the time he reached a clearing that showed signs of animal activity he was sweating. He hated this kind of weather. It had been in the fifties that morning, but the temperature quickly soared into the upper seventies, and he should really have been wearing short sleeves, he thought. The realization, and the anger over Alvarez forcing this condition on him quickly gave way to a motivation to finish the job and leave as quickly as possible. He located a good-sized tree, checked that the lens would point in the proper direction, and secured it to the trunk.

He turned around to leave and stopped cold. A middle-aged man stood across from him, at the edge of the clearing. Two large gashes crossed the torso, while blood matted the hair of the naked body. Jebbins instinctively placed his hand on his Glock. “Sir,” he called. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

The man’s mouth moved up and down, but no words escaped. Despite his medical training Jebbins had little experience with serious trauma. The worst injury he had seen in patrol was a couple who were killed in a collision with an eighteen-wheeler, but there had been no true medical response there. The man had been dead and the woman dying with no hope of preserving her life. They had been mangled, gelatinous masses, with the twisted, broken bones under the skin obvious due to the shapes the appendages took. This man in front of him now was clearly in dire straits, but he was standing and conscious, and so could be treated.

Jebbins walked towards the man, his left hand remaining on the handgun but relaxed. He knew an unarmed person was still a potential threat, and a person in shock was unpredictable. He should call for backup, he thought, but he was unsure of how to direct the others to his position. There was no clear path into the area he occupied, nor were there any clear landmarks. As he drew within six feet of the staring man he spoke again. “I’m an EMT. It’s gonna be OK. What happened to you?”

No response.

Jebbins was getting annoyed by the victim when he was suddenly hit with a frigid blast of cold. It was not wind, the tress remained still, but it was colder than any winter he ever knew, and it sucked the air from his lungs. He watched, mystified, as the exhalation froze and drifted away. “What the hell?” he said. A profound sense of dread swept over Jebbins. He had never known fear like he knew now. It set itself in his bones and hung on like a rabid animal. He continued forward in spite of the feeling. He came within inches of the man, who now appeared quite catatonic, and looked more closely at the wounds. They were deep, descending through the dermis and into the muscle. The blood was dried, even in the wound, which was something Jebbins had never seen. An injury like this should kill someone before the blood could fully clot. “What’s your name, man?” he asked.

There was still no reply, and Jebbins was now thoroughly frustrated. He took a step back, removed a GPS from his pants pocket, and attempted to get an idea of how far he was from the vehicle. Once he thought he had an impression he pulled out his Southern Linc and called Fisher.

“What is it Jebbins?”

“Hey Sarge, I’m about eight hundred yards northeast of the truck. I have a middle age white male with two lacerations up here. He looks cyanotic and catatonic.”

“What the hell? OK, we’re coming up. Stay put.”

“Roger.” Jebbins returned the appliances to his pockets and looked again at the strange victim. He still had not moved, and Jebbins reached out to feel for a pulse. When he touched the neck he felt nothing however. Not simply the lack of a pulse, but no real sensation, merely a feeling of pure ice. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded.

The man blinked. His mouth moved again, forming more complex shapes now. He was trying to say something. Still, nothing, not even sound, escaped.

He was dying, thought Jebbins. Despite being able to stand there was no question he was in hypovolemic shock, which was probably uncompensated. He might survive if they got him to Dallas in time. Fisher was probably already working on that. Jebbins reached out again to feel of the man. Jebbins had no hair on his arms but he felt that on his neck stand up. There was no way a living person, no matter how injured, should be so cold. His body nearly seemed to buzz as he felt the arm. There was a power here that he did not understand, and he had never felt anything like it before. He pulled his freezing hand away and noted more details of the expected lack of blood flow. There was no priapism, and the skin went from deep blue at the fingers and toes to pale gray farther up the appendages to shades of yellow and purple on the torso. That was odd, he thought. It almost looked like-

He noticed the eyes now. They continued to stare straight ahead, and he realized that the pupils were both fixed and dilated. He held his hand in front of them, removed it, and saw that they did not react to light at all.

He heard the others moving his way now. “Over here!” he shouted. The brush to his right side moved. He glanced over, thinking that it was odd that anyone should be approaching from that direction. The rest of the team would be behind him. He caught some movement in the plants at the edge of the clearing but could not see what it was. He was sure it was not a TARP member, however. His gun came out. He kept it at a low ready position, in case another person was in the trees. “Hey!” he yelled out. “Sarge? Alvarez? Is that you?”

They came running from behind him. He glanced back and saw Fisher at the front of the pack with his medical gear. He felt reassured now, and turned back to look again at the treeline. He stopped cold and stared. A wolf stood in the clearing, staring back. “Hold up!” he shouted at them, hoping the noise wouldn’t cause it to leap at him. It stood still, and Fisher ground to a stop, with the others nearly running into him.

Fisher took one look at the massive animal and ignored his own inclinations towards stillness or quiet. They would not make the mistake of being timid again. He dropped his backpack, snatched his gun from its holster, and shouted orders. “Fan out!” He pushed Alvarez toward his left. “Bascomb, Brantwood, on my right! Jebbins shoot that fucker!”

The response was rapid and overwhelming. Jebbins managed to hit the head on his first shot, and as the animal ran forward he pivoted, holding his gun on it as he ran to his right, twisting at the waist and emptying the magazine. One of the shots from the first volley managed contact with something in the nervous system. It stumbled and limped as it tried to attack all of them at once. Even as Jebbins fired the other four were running in the same direction as he was, avoiding crossfire and forcing the wolf to divide its attention. Its left eye exploded from one of the nine-millimeter Winchesters at the same instant its rear left leg snapped at the knee from another. It went down in the grass and rolled violently while blood poured in streams. Jebbins inserted an extended magazine, ran up close to the writhing form, switched to automatic, and dumped thirty-three rounds of lead and copper into the torso of the screaming creature. It raised its head high, a sudden madness in its eyes, and screamed bloody murder.

“Fuck!” Jebbins yelled, jumping back.

The scream finally died, and then the animal with it. It hit the ground like a concrete sack and rolled slightly. The sudden quiet was almost as bad as the brass like thunder of the shooting had been. No one had been adversely affected by the sound. Auditory exclusion and the open area had done their part in preserving their hearing.

Alvarez realized that Fisher had been yelling something during the shooting, but he had not comprehended it. That was normal.

Jebbins bent over in the tripod position, his hands on his knees. “Oh fuck,” he moaned. “Oh fuck. Fuck me running.”

“Everyone all right?” asked Fisher. “No holes?”

They answered in unison. Beyond their nerves everyone had made out fine.

“That one didn’t seem too tough,” said Brantwood, out of breath and with a chronically dry throat.

“Jebbins,” said Fisher. “Where’s that victim?”

“He’s...uh.” Jebbins reoriented himself and walked over to where the man had been. “He’s, well he’s gone, Sergeant.”

“How?” Fisher walked over and looked. There were no signs anyone had been in the area at all. “You made it sound like he was dying on the phone.”

“Well he was. I’m telling you, I never seen anyone this bad and still standing.”

“All right,” said Fisher. “Let’s pick up our shit and get back to the truck. We’ll come back with long guns and go over the area.”

They walked quickly and silently back to the Tahoe and found Michetti standing beside it. “What happened?” she asked.

“We had a pretty good gunfight,” said Fisher, who was quite willing by now to concede the advantage he had previously believed he had. It clearly mattered little that the opponents lacked firepower.

“Hey,” said Alvarez. “Can she come back in with us?”

Fisher considered that. He didn’t like the idea of taking an unarmed person with them. There was probably some sort of research Michetti could do with the body, though. “OK,” he said.

They donned plate carriers, retrieved their rifles, and headed back into the woods. Alvarez explained the situation to Michetti while they walked.

“And there’s a body?” she said.

“Yeah, it’s all yours,” Alvarez said.

They walked into the clearing, and Michetti quickly pulled on nitrile gloves and began poking at the corpse while the rest walked into the woods, heads turning like turrets. After thirty minutes of searching they rendezvoused back at the clearing and conferred with Michetti.

“There’s no way that bastard could get out of here,” said Fisher. “Not on foot, not with those kind of injuries.”

Jebbins shook his head. “It was the damndest thing. I think, well he looked like he had livor mortis.”

Fisher’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that this guy, standing up, and blinking, has dependent lividity? Seriously?”

“I know, I know how it sounds but I’m telling you Sarge, this guy looked like a day-old body.”

“Jebbins don’t be stupid,” said Fisher. “There is no way he had livor mortis. We can’t even prove there ever was a victim here. You just need to reread your medical textbooks. Let’s go.” He walked off, ignoring Michetti and leaving the others to follow.

Jebbins let the others pass, taking one final look into the woods and hanging his head.

“I believe you,” Alvarez said quietly as he passed the younger man.

Jebbins looked up at him but said nothing. He took up the rear and they left the strange area.

All were silent as they drove back to the Air Base, with Jebbins staring absently out of a back window. He was equally angry and hurt that Fisher would doubt him. Few would call Jebbins intelligent, and he never had thought of himself as smart, but he had passed his medical training the same as anyone on the team. He had proven himself on the most experienced tactical unit in the area, and in only two years. He respected Fisher as both a SWAT officer and a military NCO, and while he would not say so out loud, he wanted Fisher’s approval. He thirsted for the approval of someone with that sort of experience, and a lifetime of being told he was stupid had caused him to both resent it but also ignore such insults for the most part. To have his commander imply he was stupid, however, meant something. It meant someone whom he might depend on, and who depended on him, did not fully trust him, and that was the worst feeling he could imagine. So he sat quietly fretting, feeling the anger and fear claw at him, mixing with the dissipating adrenaline and forcing him to clench his hands together to assuage the trembling.

I know what it looks like, he told himself. I’m right. Livor mortis, or dependent lividity, or hypostasis, referred to the tendency of blood to pool in a corpse in the direction that gravity pulled it. The result was patterns of purple, yellow, blue, gray, and similar sickly hues that heralded the process of decomposition. Any body displaying the characteristic would be at least two hours old. Which negated the possibility of someone standing, moving, or attempting to speak with livor mortis. But then unresponsive pupils were just as sure an indicator of death. He had to talk to Alvarez, he decided. Like the man or not, Alvarez had said he believed him, and why would he say that? He needed to find out.

Bascomb broke the silence. He turned to Michetti and spoke. “Did you find anything from that body?”

“That thing was a monster,” she said. “I cut off some tissue. We’ll send it in to be analyzed. I didn’t notice anything that’ll help you guys, though.”

Alvarez always felt vaguely uneasy whenever one of the scientists talked about studying one of the wolves. He had no idea if there might be some way for them to determine what they were actually looking at, that it was not simply some canine. He tried to dismiss the worry as paranoia.

They arrived back at the base, walked inside, and left their armor and weapons on the cleaning table. “Bocker, come over here!” shouted Fisher. When the corporal walked over from his cubicle Fisher explained what had happened and asked where Garcia was.

“He’s outside,” said Bocker.

“OK, get him in here. You’re coming with us. We’re taking the helo to look for that guy. Alvarez, you stay and watch the camera. Jebbins, you stay and do your statement.”

“Sergeant I-”

“Jebbins, shut up.” Fisher turned and followed the others to the table to reload. “And leave out any shit about livor mortis,” he said. Within five minutes they were heading back out the door, while Alvarez and Michetti set up the computer software and Jebbins sat at his workstation, sighing.

“OK,” said Alvarez. “We have the cameras on line.”

“So we get an alert anytime it takes a photo?”

“Right,” said Alvarez. “It’s a live response.”

Jebbins finished his statement quickly, and he walked over and looked at the camera display. “Hey, Alvarez.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you any good at writing? In English? I need-”

“You want me to proofread your statement?”

Jebbins nodded.

Alvarez pushed back from the desk. “OK,” he said without enthusiasm. He sat down and read over the narrative. The grammar errors were immediately obvious, as were several misspellings that the computer had missed, but overall the document was passable, and Alvarez simply fixed the mistakes without calling Jebbins’ attention to them.

“Hey,” said Jebbins. He spoke in a low voice. “Why did you say you believed me?”

“Check this out,” said Alvarez. He opened the Law Enforcement Retrieval Management System software and moved his chair aside so Jebbins could log in. Jebbins was mystified about what Alvarez was doing but he deferred to the agent as he seemed to be sure of himself, certainly more sure than Jebbins was about anything at the moment. Alvarez spoke slowly as he queried the records, attempting to speak and focus on the computer at the same time. “This is the missing persons list from the past year.” He pulled up the name of the first white male listed, then copied the name to the driver license database. Once the portrait came up he closed it and immediately pulled up the next missing white male. “You know the school is haunted, right?” he asked Jebbins.

“Of course. When I was on training they took me out there and I saw the ghosts walking around inside.”

“Well,” said Alvarez. “I don’t think it’s just the school.” He collated several license photos into a line up and blew it up on the screen. “Do any of these guys look familiar?”

Jebbins leaned forward and eyed the mugshot like pictures. “No…no…wait. Here.” He stabbed at one of the photos, and Alvarez went back to the license information, then pulled up the missing person report in LERMS. “Carrey Gatlin,” said Alvarez. “Reported missing by his family last November. Still in NCIC.”

“So you think he’s-”

“I think he’s dead,” said Alvarez. “I think that was livor mortis.”

“Holy shit,” said Jebbins.

“Don’t spread this hypothesis around, but I don’t think most of these missing persons made it out of the woods.”

“The dogs?”

Alvarez nodded. “Most likely.”

“So what do we do?”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about the ghosts,” said Alvarez. “I don’t think they’ll find anything out there. We just need to kill all of the animals.” He swiveled in the chair and eyed Jebbins. “I’ve gotten the feeling you don’t like me very much.”

Jebbins considered how to respond. It was true, but here he was asking Alvarez for help. He was not used to admitting to not being in control, and he was not sure how to deal with the awkward situation. “No,” he admitted. “Not really.”

“Well I don’t care if you like me or not. I want to kill these things as fast as possible and light the hell out of here all over again. And I do my best to get that done as fast as possible. None of you have to like me, but I’m doing my damndest to get this done and forget it all.”

Jebbins nodded. “Fair enough. So how do we get it done?”

“Aggressively,” said Alvarez. “This is everything we need to focus on for now. The way we killed that one today, that’s how it needs to happen. Every time we see one we chase it all the way to hell and make it die of exhaustion if we have to. These things are serious, I hope you’re convinced of that now. All of TARP just needs to recognize that. Forget about the ghosts, we just have to kill every dog out there.”

“This is why you do proper recon!” Clearborn slammed the folder containing the preliminary findings of the previous night’s debacle on the conference room table. “Those goddamn idiot detectives! I’ve said it a thousand times. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. It’s happened in other states, at other departments. The writing’s been on the wall for years and these three dickheads couldn’t do something as simple as proofread a document. A discoverable document!” He tapped the page of the search warrant which bore the mistaken address loudly, the sound nearly echoing in the sparsely populated room.

Will Davis rubbed his eyes. He was tired of Clearborn’s theatrical antics. They had been going over the incident all morning. The call had rousted him out of his house a mere thirty minutes after the department’s two internal affairs qualified detectives had arrived, and he had spent the next five hours listening to the shrill voices bitch just as much as Clearborn now was. Several merciful hours of sleep had punctuated the torture, and then he was back at headquarters, with barely a meal in him and much more coffee, which was driving his esophagus into spasms that threatened to eat away what lining he still possessed. “How long are we looking at?” he asked. The question was directed at Donovan Spence, the captain of investigations, and current head of this particular investigation, which remained in limbo until DPS decided whether or not it would become involved. The question referred to the length of time between ironing out the details of exactly what had occurred, and the final report confirming what had happened, over what period, and making recommendations on charges and other issues for the courts to determine.

“My ballpark guess would be three weeks, maybe a month. Two until it goes before grand jury, and of course that’s optimistic.”

The heads of the assistant sheriff and the narcotics lieutenant nodded.

“What about the media?” Deltain asked.

“It could make national news, but I doubt it,” the lieutenant answered. “We can keep it quiet for now, I think. Play it by ear. If they get lawyers involved, well…” he shrugged. “My guys are fucked, civilly, to be honest. Maybe the county will settle, but that’s outside of here.” He shrugged again.

Deltain shook his head. “So how much do we have so far? What do we know up to this incident?”

The lieutenant spoke again. “We had surveillance on the residence occupant for three months. Two weeks ago we did a controlled buy on a known associate, who’s been seen with him. From there we got the search warrant, and they made social media posts referring to being armed, so we turned the raid over to the SRT. It looks like where things went wrong is the search warrant.” He stood, walked over to Clearborn, and retrieved the folder from the commander. He set it down on the table, opened it, and flipped through it. As the others leaned forward to watch he brushed apart a series of photographs with one hand. “You see here, fifty-two El Gordo, that’s the right target house. Now,” he retrieved the search warrant from farther back in the manila folder, “on the warrant, fifty-one El Gordo is listed, umm…” the warrant was several pages, and he sorted through each for several seconds, “is listed on every page that mentions the target residence. It doesn’t look like they put down the right place once.”

“And who did you say did the warrant?” Deltain asked.

Davis spoke up. “William. Carsta William. Been in narcotics for three years.”

“And neither he nor any of the other narcs confirmed the address during the briefings?” said Deltain. It was ludicrous to imagine, and he refused to believe something so vital had gotten past everyone involved.

Clearborn sat down and shifted in the seat. “Narcotics wasn’t present at our briefings. They gave us the mission parameters and a copy of the warrant, and the rest was in house.”

Deltain simply stared, then finally rubbed his face. “Oh, for crying-,” he moaned. He pulled a piece of paper across the desk and scribbled a note on it. “It’s too early to say where everything went wrong,” he observed. “But it’s not too early to start working on best practices.” He continued to look at the paper when he spoke. “When you’re serving a warrant for someone else, Mr. Clearborn, it might be a good idea to coordinate the details beforehand, especially on a non-knock, high risk raid, in a residential area, no less.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Clearborn, his leather duty gear creaking as he shifted once again in discomfort. The obvious, the minute, so often these were the things that made or broke missions, and resulted in grief and death. And the idea of his team, his men, failing in such a way would have been beyond the pale for the team commander only twenty four hours before. But his confidence and trust had now come back to haunt him. Well, no, that wasn’t fair, of course. Legally, he and his team would be fine, but primarily due to their own tactical ineptitude. Had they talked to the narcs before going in, they might have arrived at the proper address, or they might become accessories to the debacle. As it was, they had acted in good faith, and were protected under color of law. They were all going to be sued, regardless.

“And Lieutenant,” said Deltain, eyeing the narcotics supervisor. “I think it would behoove you and your people to work more closely with the units you’re depending on in the future. I don’t need to say it, I don’t think I do at least, but this is unacceptable. We caught enough flak for the ‘07 massacre. And we lost a lot of people afterwards. People we’re still trying to replace. Worst case scenario, narcotics gets gutted, by prosecution, by firing, by transfers or resignations. This isn’t a warning, or a threat at this point. It’s a prophecy. Some or all of this is going to happen, so get your asshole ready. I don’t want to see it, and I’m not pushing for any of it, but I can’t tell you how the sheriff feels, I can’t tell you if the State’s getting involved, and I can’t tell you if the family will run to lawyers or reporters. So just get ready.”

The lieutenant nodded solemnly.

Deltain turned to Davis. “What are William and the other narcs on this case doing?”

“William is on admin leave, since he’s the case agent. IA is currently tearing him some new assholes. The other two are still downstairs, but Burrows is keeping them in the office for now. If you want I’ll put them on leave or the desk.”

“No,” said Deltain. “No, not right now. Let’s not burn anymore cows than we have to. Keep them on modified assignment in house for now. I don’t know what anyone else is saying; it’s probably the only thing patrol is talking about, but we need to keep this within Special Operations as best as possible. Don’t spread anything about this meeting around, understood?”

The heads nodded around the table.

“All right.” Deltain leaned back in the leather office chair. “Check your emails when you leave. I’m moving the crime stat reports up to eleven. That’s mainly patrol and detect’s issue, but I need something to calm Coleman down when I see him. Property crime is supposed to be down so I’m hoping to hell the stats reflect it.”

No one spoke, no one present was especially concerned with that issue. Every division had made multiple felony arrests in the past month, ranging from parole violations to a stolen gun case that was being turned over to the ATF. The deputy in that one had already been recognized for his police work. As long as the incident at 51 El Gordo could be shined over, all would remain right in the world of Arredondo County. All that was, except for one other issue keeping Deltain and Davis awake.

No one had to say it, but the time was short when the operation to kill the wolves started, and the time was only running out, with TARP bringing precious little good news to the table.

Back at the air station Alvarez checked and rechecked the connection to the monitors. “Good to go,” he said.

“Matt, you take the first watch,” ordered Fisher.

“Roger that.”

“Alvarez, you’ll have the second one,” said Fisher. “We’ll be back here at twenty hundred. You want anything for lunch?”

When they returned Bocker informed them that he had seen nothing besides a deer on the cameras, and that there seemed to be a fair amount of lag from the devices. With the exception of Alvarez everyone else left, and Bocker retrieved his backpack from beside the computer desk as Alvarez eased into the chair. As soon as he hoisted the bag, however, Bocker stopped and put it down. “Hey Alvarez, can I ask you something?”

“Um,” Alvarez nodded, eyes fixed on the screen for the moment.

“What’s the deal with you and Evans, and this whole place, really? No one’s been happy to see you, but I’ve never actually heard why.”

“Evans and I just never saw eye to eye on a lot of stuff,” said Alvarez. “Example: I offered some advice to him when we’re going in to clear a house one night and he said to fuck off because I wasn’t SWAT and didn’t know anything. So, he’s just always kind of rubbed me the wrong way.”

“Well, everyone thinks he’s an idiot.”

Alvarez snorted. “I was saying that five years ago. Ketchum agrees, if you ever ask him about the guy. He’s just a redneck, but he thinks he’s some tough guy. That’s one of the most annoying species of cop.”

“You weren’t ever on the SRT were you?”

“No,” Alvarez shook his head. “No, they didn’t want me for some reason. I never could figure out why.”

“I feel like you would have been good on it.”

“Well thanks Bocker, I appreciate that.”

“And the, uh, why did the department...?” Bocker was not sure if it was even appropriate to ask his next question, though he had always wondered about the answer.

“Why’d they throw me under the bus? And by they I don’t just mean the brass. That’s my real problem with Evans. He was there with me, but he didn’t say word one about what actually happened, just went along with whatever the investigation wanted to hear. Losa tried his best to help, but he was a rookie and they had him going in circles. Corval just got pissed and called them on their bullshit, so they kept him from continuing to testify. I was the SRO, so they singled me out most of all. They wanted to keep the other three, of course Corval had enough and left himself. But there weren’t enough deputies. They would have just three or four people to a shift a lot of nights after that, so they wanted one guy they could paint as the reason shit hit the fan, and I drew the short straw. Not just then, but all the way back when they made me the SRO because SRT didn’t want me and they wanted me off the street after the OIS.”

“Damn,” said Bocker. “They really did you dirty, huh?”

“Do yourself a favor,” said Alvarez. “Don’t trust anyone around here. Anyone at all. A uniform will stab in the back faster than a criminal.”

Bocker decided he had learned enough for the time being about the sordid past of the town, and he picked his backpack up again and said goodbye to Alvarez, who was grateful for the respite.

As he had suspected, monitoring the cameras was boring, and he soon occupied himself with his phone. The computer would alert him if it saw anything. The hours crawled by, punctuated by sightings of the occasional armadillo and, on one occasion, a fox. But as the sun disappeared and nocturnal creatures came out in force Alvarez still had not seen the elusive prey he wanted.

It was around three in the morning when his dozing was interrupted by an alarm. He started upright and looked at the photos. The size, the tail, the paws. It was all there. All ready to kill. He reached for the phone.