Surrogate Evil Read online

  There was nothing on the radio or local television news broadcasts, either, and it didn’t take long for Lee to realize that the entire thing was being hushed up. Perhaps no charges had been filed by the victim or the motel owners. Whatever the case, if the perps have walked, somebody had applied pressure, beginning at the police department.

  Lee’s cell phone rang. He thought it might be his Farmington district state police office supervisor, Captain Terry, when he noticed the caller ID was blocked. Instead it was Diane, calling from her office. “Hello, Officer Hawk,” she said, using her business voice.

  Conversations coming in, and probably going out from, the Bureau’s Albuquerque field office were recorded and often monitored, and both Lee and Diane were always very careful even though their actual conversations were encrypted. They knew not to provide any information to a potential eavesdropper concerning their relationship, or even worse for their careers, a hint that he was really Lee Nez, a half vampire who looked really young for a man more than eighty years old.

  “I need to take a rain check on lunch—my schedule has been shot to hell and I’m going to be at the office till late. Give me a call next time you’re in town, okay?” Diane added.

  “I understand, Agent Lopez. Till then,” Lee said without emotion, then ended the connection.

  There was no point in hanging around Diane’s apartment any more except for the obvious need to avoid direct sunlight. Lee had already showered and anointed himself with maximum-strength sunblock to keep the wavelengths of visible light at bay, the ones that caused sunburns in normal people—and immolation for vampires.

  He’d already packed up yesterday’s uniform and clothes in his travel bag, a habit he’d begun decades ago when the need to move quickly became a necessity, so basically, he was ready to leave.

  He glanced around the apartment, saw that everything was in order, then rinsed out his coffee mug and placed it in the dishwasher. Three minutes later, he was in his department black and white, traveling north on I-25.

  Lee had an early dinner alone in his Farmington apartment, a nondescript room at a fifty-unit complex along Twentieth Street, northeast of Main Street and the old downtown. He’d been assigned to the area for months now—Navajos were a large minority population in the community and he certainly fit in—except for the nightwalker part.

  He’d never seen another Navajo vampire, and all he knew of nightwalkers was from brief discussions he’d had with two medicine men, one long dead, and the other his friend, John Buck. John and Diane were the only people who knew what he was; well, besides Bridget, and he hadn’t seen that cute little blonde vampire in a year now.

  His extremely unique affliction didn’t really require blood, like with fictional vampires, but it was certainly the most nutritious food for him. The problem was in getting a good supply of fresh blood—animal, of course—without raising eyebrows and suspicion. John Buck, now living beside Navajo land close to Albuquerque, managed to get some for him occasionally from Navajos slaughtering their livestock, sheep mostly, and some cattle and hogs, but the supply wasn’t consistent, or necessary, for that matter. Like eggnog and pumpkin pie for Anglos, for him, blood was more of a seasonal treat than a year-round deal.

  Lee had never tried human blood, and the thought grossed him out—like eating a relative. But fortunately, a rare chunk of sirloin would do quite nicely—along with potatoes, whole wheat rolls, apple pie, whole milk, coffee, and anything else around, even fruit and salad. Liver would have been especially good for him, probably, but he hated liver. It was always dry and pasty tasting to him, even with onions.

  Looking at the three empty plates before him on the tiny round table beside his kitchen cubicle, Lee realized he was a pig. Anyone without his extremely high metabolism—a nonvampire—would have gained ten pounds just looking in his refrigerator, much less eating a nightwalker-size meal.

  He’d grabbed a quick nap when he first got home, and was now ready for his shift. Bussing the kitchen, he then checked his small backup .45, returned it to his pocket, then confirmed that his commando knife was secure at his ankle. Lee adjusted his retro-thirties shiny black-billed cap, bad-ass wrap-around sunglasses, stuck his hand-held at his belt, then patted his pocket to confirm the emergency plastic bottle of sunblock.

  Taking a quick three-sixty, he confirmed that everything was where it should be, then he walked out of the apartment and locked it up tight, leaving a broom straw wedged in the weatherstrip to record any unauthorized entry while he was away.

  Fifteen minutes later Lee parked in one of the parking slots in the gravel lot beside the rented redbrick building that contained the Farmington district state police office. The array of antennas and dishes, some of them obsolete now but nevertheless intact, gave away the purpose of the structure from several blocks away.

  He’d passed the Farmington Police Department headquarters along the way and noticed a roofing crew hard at work. Part of the roof of the two-story, flat-topped structure had peeled away during a violent but relatively dry thunderstorm recently, and was hastily being resurfaced.

  In New Mexico, during what locals referred to as the monsoon season, massive thunderstorms could build up in a matter of a few hours. Invariably preceded by the sudden burst of violent winds, the sky would open up for a few minutes to an hour. Or, almost as frequently, as happened last week, all they’d get was the wind, and the water would either evaporate on the way down, or flood a spot of land only a half mile away. Rain was nearly always hit and miss during monsoon season, and, around here, that often extended into September—if New Mexico was lucky that year.

  Fire season was in full bloom, however, and already the helicopters and fixed wing aircraft had been used statewide in air drops of water and slurry on natural fires. He couldn’t remember the last year without a big fire in the news during the summer months.

  Lee checked his shades, adjusted his hat, then picked up his notebooks and handheld and exited his cruiser. He locked the door, something he’d done since joining the department for the first time in 1943, then stepped into the station lobby, out of the late-afternoon sun.

  The station was small, all business, and he saw only one person behind the counter—a young, half-Navajo woman with reddish, curly hair and surprising green eyes. She was doing something with the mouse and keyboard right now, but Gail also handled dispatch responsibilities. The radio unit itself was on an adjoining table, and Gail wore a cordless headset and microphone to give her more freedom of movement.

  “Hey, Officer Hunk,” Gail called out with a flashy smile. “You’re early. I just made fresh coffee. Wanna cup?”

  “Hey, Gail. Coffee sounds good. Any calls under way?”

  “Just the field work for a TA near Flora Vista. No fatalities. Officer Valdez will be tied up for another hour, probably,” Gail said, then stood and walked to the small table against the wall where the coffee was brewed. She filled a foam cup with the steaming brew, then refilled her own black mug, which was decorated with the gold department emblem and diagonal white stripe.

  “Careful. It’s really hot,” she said, handing Lee the cup and managing to touch his hand at the same time.

  He smiled, always careful to be friendly but not flirt. Gail was attractive, slender with almost no hips in those long black slacks, and was juggling two boyfriends already, if his last count was still up to date. Gail didn’t know about Diane, of course.

  “Captain Terry said to send you in once you arrived. More than just a briefing tonight, I think.”

  Lee nodded, already having an idea what was coming. “Gotcha. Thanks for the coffee, Gail.”

  “Anytime, Lee.” The girl winked, then sat back down at her chair, studying the computer monitor once again.

  Lee knocked twice on the thin wooden door and heard the captain’s chair creak as he sat up. “Come on in, Officer Hawk.”

  He went inside the sparsely furnished office, which contained a few wooden file cabinets, a big matching desk with
computer screen and drawer-level keyboard, and a bookcase with various manuals. A photo of his average-looking but very pleasant wife, Marie, was on his desk, facing toward the captain. Professor Marie Terry had a Ph.D. and taught computer science at the local community college, Lee knew.

  “You enlisted in a joint vice strike force without telling me, Officer Hawk?” Captain Terry said, his ruddy, round face wearing a phony scowl as he motioned Lee to a chair. The amusement in his eyes gave him away. Captain Owen Terry had risen in the department through good instincts and management skills, not his ability to play bad cop. Lee suspected that if the captain played poker, his inability to bluff made him the loser every time.

  “Thought you might have gotten a call about that, Captain. I got the feeling it might just fade away once the connection with Senator Bartolucci came to light. I don’t know if you took a look at my report yet, but Special Agent Lopez and I were just responding to what we observed to be illegal activity.”

  “I was faxed a copy of your report. Look familiar?” The captain opened one of two manila folders atop his desk and handed Lee the forms. Lee opened up his notebook, took out the copy he always made of every sheet of paperwork he did, then looked over what should have been identical pages.

  Lee overlaid the sheets and held them up to the light. Except for the image of a rubber stamp that gave the source as the Albuquerque district on the copy sent to Terry, the two papers were identical, even to the punctuation marks. Nothing had been altered.

  “Know Senator Bartolucci personally, I see. Guy’s a bastard, all right, but at least he didn’t have the paperwork ‘edited.’”

  Lee nodded. “I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut about all this?”

  “From the senator, to the senator’s senior aide, to the state police chief, to me, and now to you. In a word, yes.” Captain Terry shook his head slowly. “Friggin’ politicians. Make their own rules.”

  Lee shrugged. He wondered if Diane had gone through a similar briefing. “What excuse did they use, national security? Let me guess—the senator’s ex-employee stole a stack of official government stationery when he cleaned out his desk and might be intending to use it to send terrorist memos. The two men peeking in his window and bugging his car were protecting democracy, Mom, apple pie, and baseball from a suspected liberal.”

  “Your spin is pretty close to theirs. The official excuse was that the senator’s staff believed Mr. Hart had made copies of the senator’s classified reports and was going to make them public. The men you caught were security people being, maybe, a little overzealous in investigating that particular possibility. No charges will be filed, and the senator’s office will apologize to Hart. The men involved will be warned and face whatever discipline the senator decides to provide. Probably have to stand in the corner for a half hour because they got caught and embarrassed the senator. Officially, no harm, no foul, case closed.”

  “And the attempt to smear Mr. Hart with the male prostitute?”

  “What prostitute?”

  “Right. So how does all this affect me?” And Diane, Lee thought to himself.

  “Not at all, if I have anything to say about it. You know, I just love it when the state police has to suck up to the senior senator, don’t you?” Terry was on a roll now, and though Lee agreed with what he was saying, he also knew that Captain Terry’s butt would be on the line, too, if word got out to the press about last night. Loyalty going down the chain of command as well as up was something rare today.

  “Thanks, Captain, for covering my back. Anything else?”

  “I had a brief conversation with SAC Logan. He’s making sure nothing detrimental ends up in Agent Lopez’s file from this. She and you have made him look good more than once, and he appreciates that. We’re on the same page, it looks like.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s settled, I hope, but I still want you to stay below the radar for a while, Lee. Senator Bartolucci is a sneaky SOB, and he knows his office handed us a load of crap. His men were way across the line, and he’s liable to be looking for a way to discredit you in case the need arises.”

  Lee hated the idea of anyone watching him. He lived a secret life already, and the idea of being in somebody’s spotlight made him particularly uncomfortable. Anyone checking deeply into his background might stumble across the fact, eventually, that he looked amazingly similar to a Navajo cop who had mysteriously disappeared way back in 1945. Diane Lopez had been the first, so Lee knew the information was out there for anyone with the tenacity to find it.

  Worst-case scenario, Lee could drop out of sight again, but it was much harder to get lost in today’s world than it had been with his previous identities, and it would also cost him Diane. If Lee had to disappear, there was no way she could remain part of his life. He’d risk a lot before risking losing her.

  Lee watched Captain Terry as he picked up the second folder on his desk. “How familiar are you with the East Mountain area, Lee?”

  “East of Albuquerque and the Sandias? Cedar Crest, Moriarity, Chilili, Manzano. Off I-Forty north and south?”

  “Well, I’m thinking of south rather than north, but that’s the general area. Ever go into that area on patrol or answering a call?”

  Lee thought about it a moment. “Just traffic accidents in Tijeras Canyon and near Clines Corners, farther east. During bad weather there are always accidents around Clines Corners.”

  “So there’s no reason for anyone in that general area to recognize you if you went undercover, is that correct?”

  “Far as I know. It’s pretty rural out there anyway. What’s the situation?”

  “It’s been on the back burner for a while, but all this was passed down to me this morning, for reasons that will quickly become obvious. It originated from a retired judge who had all he could take and moved out of the East Mountain area recently. He contacted the Albuquerque district and asked the department to look into a situation that’s been building for several years now.”

  “Local corruption? Drugs?”

  “A little of everything, the contact reported. There’s a civilian who has everyone intimidated, apparently, especially in the mostly rural area southwest of Tijeras that runs up into the foothills of the Manzanos.”

  “What’s the guy’s name, and what’s he supposed to be doing?”

  “Man’s name is Newton Glover. He’s got a military record, with rank and years of service blacked out—classified. Served in an army intelligence unit and gets a monthly check from Uncle Sam. Seems too young to have served twenty years, but his official age is forty, so it could have happened. Supposedly Glover lives in a manufactured home on a half acre and has basically been lording over the region for a couple of years now. He’s been accused of everything from stolen vehicles and property, vandalism like breaking windows, setting fires, shooting or running off livestock, dealing drugs, prostitution—a whole list.”

  “What about the local sheriff’s department? Most of that is Bernalillo County.”

  “Glover’s been hauled in several times, but nothing seems to stick. Evidence disappears, witnesses don’t show up—like that. Our source thinks people are getting paid off or intimidated, including some of the deputies and local judges.”

  Lee shook his head. “So there’s no way of knowing who to trust. I wish I knew why his military record is classified. Maybe he did special ops work. Is Glover violent, or just smart?”

  Terry looked down at his papers. “Both, apparently.” The captain read a few lines, then looked up. “He’s worked over some of his neighbors, putting more than one in a hospital, but ends up getting off with a self-defense plea or having the charges dropped. Some people have disappeared, but there is no evidence of foul play, or a body. And Glover seems to know the law, using every legal trick, apparently. The source says he’s become virtually untouchable.”

  “Chances are he’s got some contacts in the community that are on his payroll in one way or the other. Racketeering is a team sport, and
nobody deals with drugs or prostitution on their own. He needs products and supplies, and if he’s pimping—women. I’m guessing he’s not selling his own body.”

  “No, though our information is just heresay on some of the accusations. What we need is for someone to go in, live in the community long enough to find out what’s going on, then get something that’ll put him away for a long time. My superiors agree that it’s vital to break Glover’s hold on the community. We’d also like to nail anyone else who’s dirty so they don’t just pick up where he left off.”

  “And that’s where I come in. Puts me below the radar, all right. I move into the community and try to blend in while conducting my own investigation. That about it?” Lee asked.

  “On the money. But I want you to have backup, Lee. We can’t count on the locals, some of them are obviously involved, and you can be pretty isolated out there a half hour or more from the main highway, and longer than that for reliable backup to arrive. I just went over the preliminary plan with the Albuquerque district officers, but it’s still pretty rough so far. The idea is to pair you with a woman officer. Like you’re a couple. The name that’s at the top of the list is Sergeant Linda Hill. Ever met her?”

  Thor, Lee thought to himself, but didn’t voice it aloud. It was the tall, chunky blonde Amazon’s nickname among those who’d worked with the female officer. According to what he’d also heard, she was a real hard-ass who tended to get into fights, even with fellow officers, over the slightest provocation.

  Lee had shaken hands a few times and exchanged information at a crime scene, but had otherwise never interacted with the woman. Although he was concerned that Sergeant Hill might discover too much about him if they roomed together for a week or two, maybe even longer than that, Thor was also said to be tough and reliable, and that’s something he could live with. With undercover work, staying alive was always a concern.