* * *
“Guess we should figure out who the sheriff is here, and call,” Letty said to Kaiser. Kaiser was looking at her oddly, and she asked, “What?”
“You okay?”
“Well, yeah—no bullet holes or anything,” Letty said.
“But . . . you just killed Max Sawyer? I’m not seeing a reaction there.”
“He was trying to kill us,” Letty said. She shrugged. “I’m supposed to be embarrassed?”
“Never mind,” he said. He added, “I would like to keep the shotgun. I would also like to stay out of jail.”
“When the cops get here,” Letty said. “Make yourself as important as you possibly can.”
* * *
Texas has roughly a billion counties, and after pulling up a map on Kaiser’s iPad, they couldn’t decide which one they were in. They finally called the Odessa Police Department, described their location, and were told that they most likely were in Santa Anna County. The cop who answered the phone gave them an emergency number for the county sheriff’s office.
Letty called, explained the situation, and was told that an officer would be on the way. Ten minutes later, a patrol car rolled in the driveway, stopped with its headlights on them and on Sawyer’s body beside the Jeep.
A deputy got out, a pistol in his hand, and called, “Are you . . . ?”
“Yes. We’re agents with the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C.,” Kaiser called back. “We have one man shot and dead here in the driveway, you can see him. There’s another victim in the building, also dead, shot by the man out here. The dead man.”
“How did he get dead?” the deputy called.
“We shot him after he shot the man inside. We believe the man inside is Roscoe Winks, the owner of this company. We don’t know that for sure. Both men were involved in a high-level oil theft ring operating out of Monahans.”
“You keep standing there where I can see you—I’m going to call for more help,” the deputy said.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, another patrol car rolled in, and five minutes after that, the sheriff himself, in his personal SUV. The two deputies conferred with the sheriff, still back at the beginning of the driveway, then they heard the sheriff ask, “You haven’t even looked?”
“We think these two are still armed . . .”
“They called us so they could shoot some deputies they don’t know?” The sheriff sounded exasperated and he marched down the driveway toward Kaiser and Letty, followed by the deputies, and asked, “You got ID? You say Roscoe’s in there?”
“Yes, this guy”—Letty pointed at Sawyer’s body—“walked right in and shot him first thing, didn’t even bother to shut the door,” Letty said. “Anyway . . . what’s your name, Sheriff?”
“Clayton Rhodes, I got a card in my truck, I’ll give it to you later.” Rhodes was a stocky older man with a sun-and wind-lined face, white hair. He was wearing chinos and a white shirt under a blue sport jacket. “About those IDs?”
Kaiser and Letty showed him their IDs and Rhodes asked one of the deputies for a flashlight so he could read them. He did that, looked up at Letty, and said, “U.S. Senate, huh?” then put his flashlight on Sawyer’s body and said, “Bless my soul. This boy’s been shot and then shot again. Who did that?”
Letty said, “Me. He was shooting at us and I had to put a couple of hasty shots out there, hit him in the legs, I think. You might find some buckshot in him, too, from three shots fired by Agent Kaiser with his shotgun. I put the cherry on the cake with that shot above his eye.”