“Exactly.”
I said, “My problem is personal. The people who are watching Robin, the ones who chased us with guns, they’re ongoing, too. So everybody needs to understand there’s an innocent civilian here and I’ll do what I have to do to protect her.” My machismo didn’t carry me far. I watched her face and ran it all through my head. So after a pause, I added, “I just don’t want to get in somebody’s way.”
But I knew that I already had.
Maybe we should have canceled the trip to Washington. Maybe we should have gone and stayed. I’ll never know.
We went and came back, a long weekend. It gave me a chance to wear the good, navy wool topcoat and gray fedora that I had bought years ago in Denver, and of course to see Lindsey. It was cold and the sky was the color of granite for those five days, a nice change for a native Phoenician. As our jetliner took off for home, snow began to fall. By the time we touched down at Sky Harbor twelve inches were on the ground back in D.C.
Before I left, I had asked a retired cop in the neighborhood to keep an eye on the house. He didn’t ask questions. A former Marine with a gruff exterior and a great sense of humor, he was now an artist living off his cop’s pension. He liked to walk around the neighborhood and keep an eye on things, talk to people. I dubbed him “the Mayor of Willo.” As we drove home, I hoped his walks had been uneventful.
On the flight I tried to make sense of things. Some things. Robin’s boyfriend had been murdered in the signature style of one of the most notorious gangs anywhere. His identity was a fraud and if the ring was his, it meant he might be a hit man for the Sinaloa Cartel. So far the criminal calculus worked fine. The hit man had gotten crosswise with his employer, who outsourced his assassination to La Fam. The thug watching our house that night had La Familia connections, too. So far, so good.
But why Robin? They sent her an emphatic message via FedEx. Then they tried to ambush us outside the Sonic. What had she seen or heard? We had talked about it so much that I was convinced she really didn’t know. And Kate Vare’s behavior was strange, too-the case going from priority to back-burner in days. Then there was Deadeye and his gun shop, with Mexican cops, the feds, and my La Fam watcher all drawn to the store up on Bell Road. Maybe the feds had backed Vare off-but if so, why hadn’t they tried to contact and interview Robin?
