“We did talk about this—that they killed the Blackburns because Boxie Blackburn had figured something out. They didn’t want to kill Winks, which would have sealed them off even better, but he was their money man. That made sense to me. Then they went and killed Winks anyway, which means something changed.”
“Yes. Us,” Letty said. “We went after Sawyer, and I asked Sawyer about Low, and about stealing oil, which was a mistake. Sawyer told them about that, and they decided to clean up their operation. Kill Winks, burn the truck and that shack. But would they have done all that if they weren’t about to pull the trigger on something bigger?”
“I don’t know. We do have to be careful about one thing—becoming overly paranoid,” Kaiser said. “Maybe nothing much is happening?”
“Three murders,” Letty said. “That’s something. That’s the death penalty in Texas, and they’re not shy about using it down here.”
* * *
As they were approaching the hotel, Kaiser, who’d made the trip mostly in silence, said, “A local cop might know more than the Feds. Somebody who grew up here. I wonder if the El Paso cops have somebody who specializes in the militias?”
“I’ll find somebody to ask. And I’ll call Colles,” Letty said.
“Don’t forget that you think you saw something down by Alice Serrano’s house. You were going to remember what that was.”
“I’ll call you when I remember,” Letty said. “Meet for dinner at seven, and we can figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
SEVENTEEN
Letty spoke to Billy Greet at DHS about the FBI response to the warnings of imminent trouble, and Greet asked, “Letty, are you sure that trouble is really imminent?”
“No. No more than people who warned about Osama Bin Laden were sure that Nine-Eleven was imminent. I’m fairly sure that something is under way—when it takes place, I don’t know.”
“I can tell you that the FBI is moving, but . . . not so fast as you want them to,” Greet said. “Frankly, you’re part of the question—you’re a new twenty-four-year-old employee, and . . .”
“I got the same attitude from the agent we talked to. So, all right, I’ll continue poking around with John. But if the federal building blows up, don’t call me to complain.”
“Letty!”
“Two words, Billy: C-4, I-beams. They’re not making firecrackers.”
“It’s the end of day, here. I’ll press this tomorrow morning. Promise.”
* * *
When she finished with Greet, Letty went to her computer and began digging through years of news stories coughed up by Google and Bing without making much progress. There were women in the local militias, and some had happily spoken to the media about their political beliefs, which stretched from hard right to the seriously dysfunctional, Democrats-drink-the-blood-of-white-babies fringe.
None of them seemed likely as the organizers of a major conspiracy. Some of the women might be willing to kill, given the opportunity, Letty thought, but—to steal a phrase from Kaiser—they couldn’t lead a Marine into a whorehouse, much less manage a huge conspiracy.
The evening was still too hot for a run, and the local area didn’t seem particularly congenial to running, so she brought up a heavy-duty YouTube yoga session, took a shower, and went down to the lobby to meet Kaiser.
“Where to?”
He shook his head. “If you’re not thinking gourmet, I’m told we could walk a block or so to a pizza joint.”
“That’s fine,” she said.
The pizza place was nice enough, and they went halves on a mushroom （Letty） and pepperoni （Kaiser）。 “Did you talk to the cops?” Kaiser asked.