Solitude Creek

Overby said, ‘Kathryn. You remember Commissioner Ramón Santos, with the Federal Police in Chihuahua?’

‘Commissioner.’

‘Agent Dance, yes, hello.’ The man was not smiling. Overby, too, was sitting stiffly in his chair. Apparently the conversation had not been felicitous thus far. The commissioner was one of the senior people in Mexico working on Operation Pipeline. Not everyone south of the border was in favor of the effort, of course: drugs and guns meant big money, even — especially — for the police down there.

‘Now, I was telling Charles. It is a most unfortunate thing that has just happened. A big shipment. A load of one hundred M-Four machine-guns, some fifty eighteen-caliber H & Ks. Two thousand rounds.’

Overby asked, ‘They were delivered through the—’

‘Yes. Through the Salinas hub. They came from Oakland.’

‘We didn’t hear,’ Overby said.

‘No. No, you didn’t. An informant down here told us. He had first-hand knowledge, obviously, to be that accurate.’ Santos sighed. ‘We found the truck but it was empty. Those weapons are on our streets now. And responsible for several deaths. This is very bad.’

She recalled that the commissioner was, of course, adamant to stop the cartels from shipping their heroin and cocaine north. But what upset him more was the flood of weapons into Mexico, a country where owning a gun was illegal under most circumstances although it had one of the highest death-by-gunshot rates in the world.

And virtually all those guns were smuggled in from the US.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Overby said.

‘I’m not convinced we’re doing all we can.’

Except that the ‘we’ was not accurate. His meaning: ‘You aren’t doing all you can.’

‘Commissioner,’ Overby said, ‘we have forty officers from five agencies working on Operation Pipeline. We’re making progress. Slow, yes, but it still is progress.’

‘Slow,’ the man said. Dance looked over the streaming video. His office was very similar to Overby’s, though without the golf and tennis trophies. The pictures on his wall were of him standing beside Mexican politicians and, perhaps, celebs. The same category of poses as her boss’s pix.

The commissioner asked, ‘Agent Dance, what is your assessment?’

‘I—’

‘Agent Dance is temporarily assigned to another case.’

‘Another case? I see.’

He had not been informed about the Serrano situation.

‘Commissioner,’ Dance pressed on, even under these circumstances not one to be shushed, ‘we’ve interdicted four shipments in the past month—’

‘And eleven got through, according to our intelligence officers. Including this particularly deadly one, the one I was mentioning.’

She said, ‘Yes, I know about the others. They were small. Very little ammo.’

‘Ah, but, Agent Dance, the size of the shipment probably is of no consequence to the family killed by a single machine-gun.’

‘Of course,’ she said. Nothing to argue about there.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Overby. ‘Well, we’ll look at the statistics, year end. See the trend.’

The commissioner stared at the webcam for a moment, perhaps wondering what on earth Overby was talking about. He said, ‘I have a meeting now. I will look into the situation. And I will look forward to hearing next month about a dozen interdictions. At least. Adios.’

The screen went blank.

‘Testy,’ she said.

‘Who can blame him? Over fifteen hundred people were murdered last year in his state alone.’

Then Dance’s anger returned. ‘You heard?’

‘About what?’

‘It was on the radio. The Solitude Creek unsub’s description went out, after all. It’s all over the press. Now he knows we’re on to him.’

Overby was looking at the blank computer screen. ‘Ah, well. Yes. I heard too.’

‘How did it happen? I mean, did you release it?’

Overby loved any chance to chat with the press. But she doubted he’d directly undermine her, especially after he’d agreed to back her position — besides, if he’d done it, the story would have featured his name prominently.

‘Me? Of course not. It was … I’m not sure but I think it was Steve Foster. It came from Sacramento. His turf.’ He did seem genuinely upset, though hardly as livid as she.

But she understood he was troubled for a different reason. She was concerned about spooking the unsub. Overby had been out-politicked. He’d brought Foster in to make sure the CBI got some credit for running the case, since Dance had been sidelined. But Foster had taken it one step further and made sure the kudos would go to Headquarters, Sacramento. Not the West Central Division of CBI.

Why didn’t that surprise her? ‘Whose case is it?’

‘Well, technically, Kathryn, it’s not ours.’

‘Oh, come on. We can play this fiction only so far. Foster’s here on the Guzman Connection thing. He has nothing to do with my case.’

‘O’Neil’s case. MCSO’s case. I—’

‘Charles! Never mind. I’ll go talk to him.’

‘Do you think that’s a good—’

But she was already walking down the hall. And into the Guzman Connection task-force room. Overby appeared a moment later.

‘Hey,’ Jimmy Gomez said.

‘Steve.’ Both men with that name turned but Dance’s eyes were squarely on Foster.