The Border Lords Read online

  “Touching his toe or toes.”

  “Correct. And he was talking very quietly. Conversationally. I couldn’t hear the words. Weirdest thing, Charlie. A drunk, muttering priest with my husband in his bed. Playing with his toes. It made me . . . mad. I thought maybe he was one of those molester priests.”

  Seliah finished her first glass of wine and poured another. She smiled and offered the bottle but his glass was still almost full.

  Hood watched her pour, saw the orange of sunset on her cheek and the sheen of perspiration. There was a cool breeze coming onshore and he felt a chill through his denim jacket.

  “I feel hot,” she said, smiling. “It takes me hours to cool down after ten miles.”

  “I’m enjoying the story. So you’re looking through the screen at Sean and the priest—”

  “And all of a sudden the moths and bugs got spooked and flew and their wings were noisy and flapping. I could see their wing dust floating in the light. Then Leftwich turned around and I saw something fall from his hands to the floor. It landed in the bedspread. The spread was bunched on the floor because it was way too hot to sleep with it over you. Joe popped right up and opened the door for me. Big smile on his face. A bunch more bugs went flying. I went inside and asked him what he was doing and he said he was praying and watching Sean sleep. He said he was about to come get me. He said they’d had a great conversation. But he’d rarely seen a man of such moral fiber and spiritual goodness so dispirited by his work. He said Sean had reserves of strength and goodness that were rare. He hoped that he had helped a light go on in Sean’s mind—the idea that his work against drugs and guns was vital to the freedoms that we Americans enjoy at home. Vital, he said. He said he tried to paint the world in simpler terms than Sean’s complex, shaded, compromised world. He said it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done but he finally convinced Sean to think of himself as good. Good. A good man. And I said, ‘Well, that’s all fine and dandy, Joe, and pardon my French, but what the fuck were you doing with his toes?’ He chuckled and his face lit up and he said he was shooing away a fly. ‘Some of them can draw blood,’ he said, ‘make a nasty little sore—the owner’s son lost a toe to an infected bite, ask him about the flies here. He’ll show you his half toe.’”

  “And what were you doing while this priest was going through all that?”

  “Looking for what fell into the bedspread.”

  “I knew it. I like your curiosity and your practical side, Seliah. Tell me what it looked like. What was the first thing you thought of when you saw this thing fall into the spread?”

  “I barely saw it. It happened so quickly and I was upset and the light was bad. It was something heavy and small, inside something larger and loose. Like . . . like a golf ball wrapped in a washcloth. But we couldn’t find it. Joe saw it, too, and came over to help me look. We lifted up the bedspread and shook it real good but nothing was there. Nothing under the bed, either. Joe just kept talking away. I could smell the booze on his breath, though to be truthful it could have been the booze on my own. Sean just lay there snoring through the whole thing. That’s when Joe told me he thought Sean and I were special, that we’d do great things on earth. I said getting Sean to his own room would be a good start. I finally woke him up, which wasn’t easy. He walked to our room and crashed down on the bed and fell asleep again. I tried to get his shirt off but he was just too heavy and dead asleep. I took off his flip-flops. He’d dinged a toe on the walk over, so I got an alcohol wipe and cleaned it up. Just a drop of blood, not even that. Or maybe it was one of the flies Joe was shooing.”

  “Did you see the blood before you got him home?”

  “No.”

  “But the light in Joe’s room was on, right?”

  “Yeah, but weak, like I said. And the ceiling fan, chopping it into spokes. But the blood was nothing, Charlie, less than a drop. That isn’t the point. The point is the whole way Leftwich pried into Sean’s life. And kind of . . . what . . . pointed Sean in a new direction. Changed him. He woke up a new man. I’m not saying the new direction wasn’t good. I know the priest meant well. But he drinks Sean under the table with his secret concoction and watches him sleep and plays with his toes. The whole thing just basically gave me the creeps.”

  “What did the priest look like?”

  “Short side, muscular. Black hair and blue eyes. From Dublin. Had the accent. The drunker he got, the stronger the accent. He had . . . what—charisma? Force of character? Sean hasn’t been the same man since he crashed out that night. He woke up filled with optimism about his work, and us, and having a family someday soon. That was all good. But after it wore off, then all the things that he wrote in the e-mails started up. All the pain and the aches and the insomnia and hyperactivity. All his crazy talk about being chosen to do a mission, that someone or something was guiding him. All the . . . Just everything. Then, what you say he did down in Buenavista. That was not my husband. That could not have been Sean.”

  “It was but it wasn’t.”

  Seliah swirled the wine and drank. “And I have to admit, Charlie, I’ve been feeling the same way. The same . . . wrongness. The same strangeness. I can’t . . .”

  “What?”

  “Explain it any better to you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Like what I said to Janet. I don’t say things like that. I don’t think things like that.”

  Seliah finished the wine and ordered another bottle. They ate the clams and ordered dinner. The sun set in a red-black sky and fell out of sight. Seliah took off her sunglasses and Hood saw that even in this soft darkness her pupils were closed down hard against the light. She excused herself, slinging her little bag over her shoulder and navigating between the tables. An older woman at the adjacent table gave Hood a disapproving look. Seliah was back a few minutes later. She ate quickly—her swordfish, all of the bread, dessert—and drank most of the second bottle of wine.

  “We’ll get through this, Seliah. We’ll get him back.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know what.”

  “If what you say happened really happened, then I won’t see him for a good long while.”

  “It’s up to us. When we know the whole story, things will make sense.”

  “I believe that, Charlie. I believe things will make sense and that Sean and I have a future.”

  Hood reached out and put his hand on hers and felt the startling heat.

  Later he drove her home and walked her to the door.

  “Let’s see what Sean wrote,” she said.

  “Good.”

  23

  Inside she leaned over the laptop and tapped the keyboard. “Excuse me, Charlie.”

  He heard the bedroom door shut. He sat and watched the in-box fill on the computer screen. A few minutes later she came out wearing a long, cobalt, satin bathrobe. The sash was tight to her waist and the lapels framed her breasts. Her eyes were darkened by new makeup and her lipstick was fresh. She gave him an embarrassed glance.

  “Glass of wine?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, Seliah. You go ahead.”

  She was back a moment later with an oversize goblet half-full. She smiled and sat down close to him on the couch. Hood was unhappily aroused. She reached across him and deleted a few messages, then opened the one from Sean. She took a long drink of the wine, then put the glass on the coffee table and set her hand on Hood’s knee.

  From: Sean Gravas [[email protected]]

  Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 9:19 p.m.

  To: Gravas, Seliah

  Subject: end of faith

  Dear Seliah,

  Tearing up my Bible was a terrible thing. I’m still exhausted by it. It must sound like some kind of symbolic destruction but it wasn’t. It was REAL and genuine destruction. I felt a piece of my soul leaving with each page I yanked out. When I saw what happened to Juan Batista I felt personally fooled and betrayed. He was a good man. So was I. AM. I’m moving toward th
e ACCOMPLISHMENT of the MISSION. Or at least toward the opportunity to accomplish it. If I sound doubtful now instead of optimistic it is only because I AM. I once thought that God led us to the brink of things, to the very edge of the cliff, and helped us do what was best. But now I see that WE lead ourselves to our own cliffs and heights and WE decide what is best.

  We are free to be brave and free to be terrified and I am BOTH.

  All of this GREAT JOURNEY will lead me back to you. When I’m finished we’ll be together. We’ll resume our life and begin our FAMILY. We will be THREE then more.

  I ache for your touch. I want to be welcomed back into the vast universe of your heart and the warm mystery of your flesh.

  Your Shooting Star,

  Sean

  Hood felt Seliah’s hand tighten on his knee. Surprisingly strong. He heard the rough rumble of her breathing, then a catlike purr from deep inside her. She looked at him and the tears rolled down her cheeks. Her pupils were tiny and there were small beads of perspiration along her upper lip. She turned back to the screen and stared at it, breathing slowly. Hood felt her hand trembling on him. Time passed but the trembling did not. Then Seliah placed her free hand over the hand on Hood’s knee, pulled it away and stood.

  She was in the bathroom a long time. Then the bedroom. She came out wearing a red silk tank that covered her to mid-thigh and that was apparently all. Her body was damp and lotioned. Her makeup was fresh, her blue eyes set in darkness. Her platinum curtain of hair swayed as she flicked off the living room lights and sat down next to him again, the smell of her surrounding him. He could hear the deep rumble down in her chest again—a catlike purr or the rattle of mucous—he couldn’t tell. She leaned into him and put her nose to his ear. Rattle. Purr.

  Utterly flummoxed, Hood stood and walked into the dimly lit kitchen and looked back at her. She stared at him for a long moment, almost dreamily, then strode over. She lifted his hand to her lips and watched his eyes while she kissed it. Then she stepped into him and put her arms around him and raised her mouth to his. Hood felt the heat of her breath and the weight of her body and his own swift reaction. He unwrapped her arms and held her at arm’s length and tried to read her face in the half-light. Gradually Seliah’s dreamy expression became a small smile and she tried to embrace him again but Hood held her away. She was very strong and Hood stumbled and she let him overcorrect and it seemed that she was playing with him. She pulled him in closer without effort, as if he were a toy, and looked at him with an expression unreadable to him. He moved her away and felt the unlikely strength of her arms. She bit at him, her teeth clicking together. She laughed. The laugh ended and the smile departed, and Seliah looked down at herself. She easily broke free of his grip and ran from the kitchen into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  Hood stood there in the kitchen with his heart pounding, wondering what to do. His standard default options seemed pointless. He felt as if he’d been led to the edge of chaos and was being asked to jump into it. The water in the master bath went on. He went to the bedroom door and listened.

  Then back to the living room. He sat in front of the laptop and rubbed his hands down his face. He looked at her wineglass, empty. She’d had a beer and a bottle and a half of wine with dinner. Another big glass here. But alcohol didn’t account for this, just another explanation rendered pointless by Seliah Ozburn.

  When she had been gone ten minutes Hood went again to the bedroom door and listened. The water was no longer running.

  “Seliah? Seliah?”

  The knob turned in his hand and Hood pushed open the door. The room was dark but the light was on in the master bath. She was talking to herself.

  “Hang in there, Seliah,” she said softly.

  “Seliah. I’m coming in.”

  “Go home. I don’t want you here. Hang in there, girl; be steady now.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m all right. Go away.”

  “I want to see that you’re okay.”

  “Hang in there, Seliah. Get away from me! You’re good. You’re gonna be just fine, hon. That’s it . . . Hang in there.”

  He walked to the threshold of the bath. In the hard light Seliah sat on the tile floor near the toilet. She was wearing the red tank and nothing else. She tracked his eyes and lifted the shirt off her thighs and sneered at him. She had handcuffed one wrist to the toilet seat hinge. Saliva hung from her chin. With her free hand she swept it away and wiped it on the tile.

  He drooled all down his shirt and pants. He growled like a wolf. He became strong as a chupacabra. He bit and raped his wife for four days. He repented and locked himself here to die. To save her life.

  Hood took a step in and sat on his haunches on the floor a few feet away from her and looked only at her eyes.

  “Let’s get you to a doctor.”

  “Why?”

  “Look at you.”

  Her sneer had dropped away. “A pretty girl drinks a little too much and wants to kiss you, so you call a doctor? Maybe the doctor should be for you.”

  “I want a good doctor to take a look at you.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “That was easy, Sel.”

  She raised her rump and with her free hand pulled the tank to cover her more and held it there. She sighed. “I know you’re right. You can’t believe how tired I am.”

  “I mean tonight. Now.”

  “Okay, Charlie. I know you’re a true friend. I was trying to protect you. See? I flushed the key. These cuffs are Sean’s. I don’t know why the Juan Batista story affected me so strongly. I feel very drunk.”

  He was not crazy. He went with the devil.

  Was he an evil man?

  No. He always loved God.

  If he loved God, why did he go to the devil?

  The devil came to him. In the caves of his blood.

  “I’m going to call for the paramedics, Seliah. They can help.”

  “Are you going to leave me locked up until they get here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good thinking. But you better stay here and keep an eye on me because I could chew off my arm and escape. Come, sit right here.”

  She let go of her blouse and patted her palm on the tile beside her.

  “I’m good here, Seliah.”

  She laughed. “Charlie, if you get in range, I’m going to yank you close and kiss your cute little mouth right off. Then I’ll eat you alive. Stop that, Seliah! Hang in there, girl.”

  Her smile collapsed and she wiped her chin again and the tears came down her face in rivers.

  Hood sat on the bed and called Soriana, who said he could circumvent the ER. He’d also get some of Seliah’s background information to the examining physician ahead of time. She sobbed and talked to herself, then went quiet. When Hood went back into the bathroom she was asleep with her head on the toilet lid and a hand towel folded over for a pillow. He could have used his ATF hand-cuff key to set her free but he left her sleeping as she was.

  The doctor was Tim Brennan, a general practitioner affiliated with San Clemente Hospital. He was young and cheerful for being called from home to work at ten thirty p.m. He let them into a small examination room.

  Seliah was calm. After the paramedics arrived, Hood had taken off her cuffs and she’d gotten into a simple white tee and the hiker’s pants and athletic shoes of earlier in the day. Now she sat uncomfortably upon the exam table, looking close to exhaustion. Brennan asked a thousand questions and made notes on a yellow legal pad with a thick wood-bodied pen. Hood stayed for the interview and sat in an empty waiting room down the hallway while she was examined. The TV was on but Hood muted it and thought about Seliah while images of her terrible beauty flashed out of order through his brain.

  Brennan found him there and sat down in the chair beside him. Hood glanced at the closed door of the examination room. “I want to keep her tonight. She’s okay with that. She’s very tired and fairly intoxicated. I’ve given her a light sedative. I took so
me blood and a urine sample and now she can get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll probably have a vastly improved young woman. I’ve got a few questions for you, Deputy Hood. I got most of this from Agent Mars over the phone, but the husband, Sean, he’s been living away from home for how long?”

  “Fifteen months.”

  “Isn’t that long for an undercover assignment?”

  “A year is usually tops but this one was . . . Well, it was especially important.”

  “ATF tries to control guns going south into Mexico?”

  Hood nodded.

  “So Sean Ozburn, working undercover, is active in infiltrating the criminal drug cartels, posing as a gun seller or buyer or what have you?”

  “That’s what we do.”

  “Has anything happened recently to Sean that could be a precipitator to Seliahs behavior? Some disaster or very negative event?”

  Soriana’s job, not mine, thought Hood. “No.”

  “Is there any chance you could bring him back from his assignment, or whatever you call it? Just let him come home and help take care of his wife?”

  “He can’t return right now. Soon, we hope.”

  “I understand. Seliah probably started feeling the stress well over a year ago—before her husband even left. And that stress has continued to build for a very long period of time. Still, she has a clear grasp of the world around her, and of herself. We’ll determine which of her symptoms are real and which ones might be imagined, or stress-related. We have tests for just about everything, as you know. My job right now is to find out if what she says is going on really is going on. She’s got a respiratory tract infection for certain, and a low fever. She says she’s had dramatic mood swings and emotional outbursts, in addition to the physical symptoms. Speaking generally, I think she’s a strong woman with a bad chest flu who has reached the end of that strength.”