Karl lowered the pistol. “Damn, you’re right.”

He dipped two fingers into his shirt pocket, came out with a pair of small keys on a ring and tossed them at me. I caught them on reflex. I held them up. The handcuff keys.

“Unlock yourself,” Karl said.

“I’m not going to help you kill me.”

“You want to die like a man on your feet, or like some squirming coward?”

“I don’t want to die at all.”

“Tell you what,” Karl said. “Sit there and give me shit, and I’ll belly shoot you like the senorita wants. Do what I tell you, and I’ll make it quick and clean.”

I stood, pushed the chair away with my foot. A quick death wasn’t much comfort, but damn if I would just blink at him like some idiot coon hound and wait to be shot. I’d unlock the cuffs and then make some kind of play, jump at him, try to catch Karl off guard. Anything. I didn’t have a prayer, but a one in a million chance was still a chance. I unlocked the cuff on my wrist, braced myself to spring.

“I’m gonna put this shot right between your eyes, kid. I’d say sorry, but frankly I’m just not that sorry.” He squinted, sighted down the barrel at my face.

“Drop it, Karl.”

Karl froze. The new voice startled me.

“I said drop it.”

Karl began to turn his head to look at her.

“Do not turn around, Karl. Stay still and put the gun down.”

Karl muttered curses under his breath. “You don’t know what’s going on here, Amanda.”

“That’s true,” Amanda said. “But I’m pretty sure I just heard you describe how you were going to murder Toby here, and that’s definitely not in the handbook. Now, put the gun down please.” She stood with a two-handed grip on her automatic.

Amanda was athletic and thin, tan, almost as tall as I was. Brownish red hair cut short like a boy’s. The khaki deputy’s uniform hid sinewy girl muscles, like a tennis pro might have, but I knew she got hers from rock climbing and long distance cycling. I’d seen her score perfect marks on the gun range and armlock truckers twice her size when things got rowdy at Skeeter’s.

Karl didn’t put the gun down. She kept her Glock on him, and he kept his on me. I stood as still as stone and tried not to piss myself. The hellcat watched from her cell with big brown eyes.

“I’m waiting, Karl.” Amanda’s pistol never wavered from him.

“Okay, but you put your gun down too, and we can talk about this.”

“That’s not how it works, and you know it, Karl,” she

said.

“This is bullshit.”

“Karl.” Amanda’s voice was calm, just above a whisper. “I’m going to give you three seconds to drop the gun.

Three seconds went by and nobody moved.

Bang.

The shot nearly made me crap my pants.

Karl dropped his gun and went to the floor face down, squirming and cursing a blue streak. “You fucking cunt. Oh, fucking shit! You shot me in the ass, you bitch. Damn, that hurts.”

“Just stay down, Karl. Toby, get his pistol.”

I grabbed it.

“Oh, you complete fucking whore.” Karl was making fists and groaning between outbursts, his eyes crushed closed against his ass pain.

Amanda took a step closer, spared me a glance. “I got your message, but when I tried to call, the phone was out. Didn’t think I’d be shooting anyone today.”

“It’s been that kind of night.”

She said, “Karl, I’m going to grab one arm and Toby’s going to get the other, and we’re going to drag you as gently as possible into the cell, okay? Then we’ll fetch Doc Gordon. You give us any trouble, and I’ll put another one in you. Understand?”

Karl nodded. His face was a sweaty grimace.

We hauled him into the vacant cell, dropped him on the cot and locked it.

“Toby, put that chair over by the far wall and have a seat.”

I did what she told me.

She slapped one cuff on my wrist, the other to the radiator.

“Oh, come on.”

“I don’t have time to hear your story right now, Toby. Sorry. Can’t take any chances. We’ll see what happens when I get back with the doc.”

“Great.”

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the hellcat. “You can start by explaining who the hell that is.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Doc Gordon worked on Karl’s ass in the cell. I heard him tell Karl to hold still, but Karl hissed and bitched every time the doc poked at him. Amanda swung a leg over the edge of the desk, regarded me with her hard, cop eyes.

I’d never have eyes like that, I realized. I’d never make it in the cop business because I wouldn’t be able to put that expression on my face. I knew Amanda, liked her a whole lot better than I’d liked Karl or Billy. She treated me more or less like a fellow deputy, not a part-time errand boy. But right now she was looking at me like some interesting species of bug under a microscope. She’d been a cop back in Eastern Oklahoma. Claremore, I think. She’d said she’d wanted to live farther out in the wilderness, do outdoorsy stuff like hiking and the rock climbing. So here she was in Coyote Crossing just under a year.

Anyway, I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie to those cop eyes. Besides, I needed to tell somebody. Unload. So I started the story at the beginning with losing Luke Jordan’s body. She didn’t seem surprised to hear about me and Molly, and I figured it didn’t really need to be a secret no more anyway since Doris had run off. I told her about the truck full of Mexicans and putting an axe through Billy’s neck and my upside down Nova. I told her about Roy’s big-rig and the hole I put in the Mona Lisa Motel. I told her about my son.

I felt exhausted by the end, put a cigarette in my mouth.

“You’re not supposed to smoke in the stationhouse,” Amanda said.

The look on my face must’ve been the saddest thing in the world because she rolled her eyes and said, “Go ahead then.”

I smiled a weak thank you at her and puffed one to life.

“Where’s the chief?”

I frowned. “I got a bad feeling he’s dead.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He went out to the Jordan’s place and that was the last anyone heard of him.”

“You think the Jordans are part of the smuggling?”

I nodded, puffed.

Doc Gordon came up behind us, cleared his throat for our attention. He wore an undershirt and pajama bottoms and carried a black doctor’s back. The pajama bottoms were green and covered with fish. He was in his late fifties and stooped, hair gone completely white. Round, thick glasses. He looked like a man who didn’t want to be awake.

“How is he?” Amanda asked.

“I cleaned him up,” Gordon said. “And I gave him a shot for pain, so he’s sleeping. Bleeding stopped. I got a bandage on him. He’ll need to get over to county, so somebody can pry the bullet out, but he’ll be fine for a while.”

“Thanks, Doc. Send the bill to the town council like usual, okay?”

“Them? They don’t get around to paying bills very fast. But there’s no hurry, I guess. What happened?”

“Part of an ongoing investigation.”

The doc waved that away like he was swatting a fly. “I can take a hint. Fine then. I’ll be back in the morning to change his dressing.” He left grumbling, but that was just Doc Gordon’s way. He wasn’t happy if he wasn’t grousing about something or other.

I looked at Amanda. “Now what?”

“Now we call in some help. We’ve got to find the Jordan brothers and the chief, and we’ve got a crapload of illegal aliens running helter-skelter all over the county.” She picked up the phone.

“That won’t work.”

She put the phone to her ear, frowned. “I thought it was just my phone.”

“Nope. I was thinking the main junction box.”

“You think something happened to it?”

“Or somebody.”

“Damn. This place needs a cell phone tower.”

She unlocked the cuffs. “I’m going to level with you, Toby. You’re probably going to come out okay with Billy. It was self defense. I don’t know what they’re going to say about all the other stuff. You can’t just let a bunch of illegals loose on a town, and you sure as hell can’t crash a truck into a motel. But I need you right now to stay here and watch these two. I’m going to check the juncture box. Stay by the radio, okay? I’m taking the number two squad car.” She handed me Karl’s Glock. “Just sit tight and stay out of trouble.”