Blood Trade: A Sean Coleman Thriller (9 page)

Sean was outside of the front door in no time, standing on a small cement porch that
revealed another man’s footprints in the snow. The door quickly slammed behind him.

When Sean circled around to the front of a small garage that
protruded out a bit
from the house, he found Ron Oldhorse, now fully clothed in jeans and a homemade
coat that looked to be made of buckskin. He stood in the driveway close to the garage
door, smoking a cigarette that was dark in color, and definitely not store-bought.
It was probably homemade as well.

“Is that you, Oldhorse?” Sean asked. “It’s hard to recognize you with your pants
on.”

“Bite me,” said Oldhorse.

“Is that a peace pipe?” Sean asked sarcastically.

“You wish,” Oldhorse muttered. His voice exuded the same monotone depth Sean was
accustomed to from their sparse dealings in the past.

Snow continued to fall from the dark sky above as Sean drew in closer. “So how long
has this being going on?” he asked, still trying to wrap his mind around Oldhorse’s
relationship with Joan. To him, they were polar opposites. Joan was uptight, conservative,
and very outspoken. Oldhorse was a socially inept free spirit who diligently kept
to himself.

“A while,” Oldhorse said before taking a smooth drag on his cigarette.

“Is it supposed to be a secret or something?”

Oldhorse said nothing, glaring out beyond Sean’s shoulder with indifference.

He wondered if Oldhorse knew the answer himself or was just being aloof. He pivoted
to stare out into the night in the same direction as Oldhorse. As a frosty breeze
brushed along his face, Sean thought about Toby and what it might mean to him to
have a man back in his home after so many years. Like Sean, Toby’s father had abandoned
him at a young age. Sean knew it had to be tough for Joan to raise a boy with autism
on her own, but it was clear that she had done a good job thus far. He just hoped
that she had thought through bringing someone like Oldhorse into their lives. After
a few moments, he spoke. “That boy’s special, you know?”

Oldhorse nodded his head and took another drag. “That’s why his mother doesn’t want
you around him.”

Sean let a conceding chuckle escape his lips. “I know,” he said. “I guess that’s
what makes her a good mom.”

About a minute went by without either man speaking a word. They just stood there
in conjoined silence as delicate flakes of snow dotted their bodies.

“You need a ride?” Sean offered, aware that Oldhorse didn’t own a car. “Or are you
staying here tonight?”

“Staying here.”

“All right.” Sean headed for the car when Oldhorse unexpectedly spoke again.

“I’m meeting with Lumbergh in the morning.”

It was unlike Oldhorse to prolong any form of small talk. From Sean’s experience,
a conversation with the man was typically like talking to a brick wall. It made no
sense to Sean why his brother-in-law would need to talk to Oldhorse, a man who had
no interest in town business whatsoever. He wasn’t even sure the two had spoken since
the Montoya shooting. He glanced back. “Lumbergh? Why?”

Oldhorse shook his head, his gaze still trained forward. He took another drag before
saying, “Don’t know. He left a note on my door. He wants to meet. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

Chapter 5

P
olice Chief Gary Lumbergh’s exhausted eyes burned a hole through the thin computer
screen that was propped up along the center of his redwood desk. His dark, thinning
hair was uncharacteristically frazzled. A light green, button-up shirt that had been
neatly pressed that morning now hung off his short, thin, 135-pound frame in a rumpled,
dampened mess. Half of it was untucked, dangling over the edge of his pleated pants
following a hasty trip to the restroom.

His left arm was suspended below his chest in a wide sling. It was an irritating
but necessary companion following his recent shoulder surgery, glenohumeral joint
reconstruction. He hoped it would be the last time he would have to come under the
knife.

The past six months hadn’t been easy for the chief. The hail of automatic gunfire
that had left him with a collapsed lung, a broken humerus, and a family of lead lodged
under his flesh was a memory he had hoped to one day leave behind. His small, damaged
body, however, seemed determined not to let him forget.

He recalled sitting next to Oldhorse that fateful July day, drooped over in the passenger
seat of a car as they sped down a twisty mountain road, desperate to make it to the
hospital. He’d been a bloody mess, with cloth strips torn from an old sweatshirt
holding his arm together. He’d been shot up badly by Alvar Montoya and was fading
in and out of consciousness. He’d barely made it to the hospital alive.

As if the surgeries weren’t reminder enough of that day, recent
revelations were
now playing a far more cruel game on his psyche. He had learned at the beginning
of the month that Alvar’s older brother, Lautaro Montoya, had escaped from a maximum
security prison in Chihuahua, Mexico. He’d been serving time for drug trafficking
on top of a murder rap for taking out a rival dealer. His escape route was an underground
tunnel that he’d been working on over what local authorities believed was a span
of two years.

“He was a committed man,” the warden of the prison had told Lumbergh in a thick Spanish
accent over the phone.

The tunnel, thirty-five inches in diameter, had extended over fifty yards. It led
straight from a removable cluster of tile in the wall behind Montoya’s cot to the
open desert just beyond the outside prison walls. Left behind in the tunnel were
several makeshift chisels and a sledgehammer, thought to have been supplied to him
by a corrupt prison guard.

In Montoya’s cell, a number of articles from Mexican newspapers detailing the death
of his brother Alvar were found taped to a slab of cement. The shootout between Alvar
and Lumbergh had been big news in Chihuahua. The Montoya family had a long criminal
history throughout the area, much of it pertaining to violent, sadistic behavior
including several suspected homicides. Most were never proven. With one brother behind
bars and the other reported dead, celebrations ensued throughout numerous localities,
and the tale of Alvar’s slayer, Chief Gary Lumbergh of Winston, Colorado, spread
like wildfire south of the border.

The discovery of the newspaper clippings in Lautaro Montoya’s cell was information
relayed to Lumbergh not by Mexican authorities but by a local journalist covering
the story, who thought it important to pass along.

Lumbergh initially gave little credence to the journalist’s concerns, but a week
later, when he began receiving eerie calls at the office from a man speaking only
a single word in Spanish before hanging up, the chief ’s worries intensified.

Marranito
. Translated into English, it meant “baby pig.”

The chief ’s attempts to trace the number back to an individual proved fruitless
as the calls were placed from a prepaid cellphone. He was, however, able to determine
that the phone had been purchased in a border town just south of Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Anyone traveling from Chihuahua to central Colorado would pass through Las
Cruces on Interstate 25.

Sitting alone in the silence of his office, with the past still on his mind, Lumbergh
continued to punch buttons along his keyboard, using only his right hand. He’d been
doing it for hours as his mind drifted into memories.

He stopped for a moment, sliding open the top drawer of his desk and latching onto
a brown prescription bottle. His thin, slightly trembling fingers worked its lid
in an awkward motion as he cradled the bottle against his chest. Using a technique
he had mastered in recent months, he was able to twist off the lid and conquer its
safety mechanism without having to use his other hand.

He popped a couple of mid-sized white and yellow capsules into his mouth, hesitating
a moment before flinging a third one in. He then reached for the three-hour-old,
half-empty mug of coffee that sat on a coaster on his desk. He washed the capsules
down his throat in a single gulp and then used his tongue to pry the long-expired
wad of chewing gum from the inside of his cheek. He brought it back to the center
of his mouth and gnawed on it feverishly before glancing at a picture propped up
on the corner of his desk. It was of him and his wife celebrating his recent thirty-ninth
birthday at a local restaurant. Both wore broad smiles.

After returning the mug to its coaster, his hand went back to his computer mouse
resting on the blue pad that had a digital image of a police badge emblem on it.
He navigated to a couple of web browser windows he had opened earlier that night,
logging back into various law enforcement databases whose connection sessions had
timed-out.

His eyes surveyed a handwritten list of names from the top sheet of a notepad that
lay on his desk. The word “Aliases” was written and underlined. Half of the names
he’d already crossed out with a pencil. He typed the next unblemished one into an
input field on the computer screen. A tap of the “Enter” key revealed multiple rows
of thumbnail pictures: prison mug shots. All were of men with dark hair. Most looked
of Hispanic descent. He clicked on one of the pictures.

“Tell me someone picked you up,
pendejo
,” he muttered.

A sudden thud somewhere from the front of the building yanked his attention from
his computer. His mouth slid open. His gaze zipped past the numerous plaques and
awards that hung from his office wall—recognitions he had earned in his former life
as a police lieutenant in Chicago. He felt like the accolades were taunting him as
he swallowed some bile and quickly flicked off his desk lamp.

The lamp was the only light in the room other than that coming from his computer
monitor, which he briskly turned off as well. He hurriedly rose from his leather
office chair and reached into the brown leather side-holster stripped below his ribcage.
He pulled out the Glock and relieved its safety, wincing from a jolt of pain that
went up his opposite arm from the movement.

Quietly he moved to the open doorway of his office. There, he dropped to a knee before
peering out into the darkened hallway of the police station, his gun pointed out
in front of him with his arm straight and parallel with the floor. He scoped out
the two solid wooden doors at the entrance that were closed and appeared still locked.
His head then spun toward the back door of the building.

He made his way down the hallway, keeping low and scanning the interior of each side
room in the small architecture. He scrutinized each nook and cranny, searching behind
every desk and file cabinet until he was certain that he was the only one inside
the building.

He slowly walked toward the entrance. Beads of sweat ran down the sides of his face
as he stood straight and pressed his shoulder
against one of the front doors. With
the muzzle of his gun, he pulled back the shade that covered the door’s window.

“Show yourself, you son of a bitch,” he muttered. His heavy breathing left an imprint
on the frosty glass.

A dim street lamp lit up the narrow parking lot in front of the station. The only
car in the lot was his Jeep and the fresh snow revealed no new tracks. None from
tires, none from shoes.

He patted his front pocket to make sure his keys were snugly inside, and then carefully
unlocked the door, twisted the knob, and opened it up about an inch or two. The cry
of dry hinges brought a wince to his face and he mouthed a silent obscenity. He crouched
and slid his arm and head outside. Large flakes of snow fell from the sky, coming
down in a steady stream, tapping his shoulder and head as his eyes carefully panned
the outside area.

Nothing looked out of place until his gaze drifted far beyond the street and quiet
nearby shops to the town square where the silhouette of Zed Hansen’s statue stood.
Beneath it, there had always stood two newspaper vending machines, but now there
was only one; at least, only one that he could see from his distance. It was a peculiar
discrepancy, but nothing that warranted immediate attention.

He took a few steps outside, searching for anything else that looked wrong as the
cold, stewing wind pressed up against his body. He found nothing. Satisfied, he stepped
back inside and closed the door behind him, then locked it.

He took a deep breath and let the silence settle back in. He slid the gun back into
its holster and let his shoulders sink as the tension receded from them. Wiping dampness
from the back of his neck, he made his way back down the hallway to his office, taking
a moment to first adjust the thermostat along a wall.

A subtle tapping noise that would have otherwise gone unnoticed had things not been
so quiet stole his attention. His face tightened. He craned his head toward the back
door where the sound seemed to be coming. It was an intermittent noise, but it continued.

Aware that there was no outside light at the back of the building, Lumbergh retrieved
a flashlight from his office. He lit it up and carefully made his way toward the
back door. The percussion didn’t sound as if anyone was trying to enter; more like
something was brushing up against the door, possibly due to the strengthening wind.

He kept his gun holstered, not sensing danger, but instead complying with an urge
to settle the nagging curiosity. Still, there was an eerie chill in the air that
tensed his muscles—something frigid that didn’t feel spawned from a draft outside.

He approached the door and glided the flashlight beam along its edges before twisting
the lock on the doorknob at its side, then slid the deadbolt. He wedged the flashlight
in his armpit and slid his hand around the doorknob. His fingers trembled under the
ray of light.

With a twist and a pull, the door barely budged. Some frost and ice had built up
around the doorframe. Gritting his teeth, he planted a foot against the wall and
gave the door a hard tug.