CHAPTER SIX

Kyle—

An hour and a half later, we pull off the exit and stop at the gas station. My phone goes off, and I pull it out of my hip pocket, glancing at the screen.

Rafe .

Grinding my teeth, I shove it back where it was.

TJ notices. "Who was that?"

"My brother."

TJ chuckles. "Probably calling for your help again."

"Oh, he's already waiting for an answer from the last thing he asked me to do."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"He wants me to hire Sutton to work for me."

"On the food truck? What'd you tell him?"

"I gave him a bunch of reasons why it would be a lousy idea. He kept shooting them down. So, I told him I'd think about it. My plan is to avoid him until he forgets about it."

"And how's that workin'?"

"Well, I'm out of town, so so-far so-good."

"Holy shit."

We turn and stare at our president, who's looking at his phone.

"What's the matter?" TJ asks.

"Check this out, guys." Cole faces his phone toward us. "I pulled up the area on my map app. You can see the neon green crap polluting the stream in the satellite image."

"Whoa," I say. "I wonder how toxic it is."

Billy glances at the horizon. "Where is this place?"

"We head east. First road, we take a right and head south."

Five minutes later, we roll up a driveway and stop in front of a white clapboard farmhouse with a big porch.

A thin, gray-haired man with skin browned from the sun comes out with a shotgun leveled at us. "Who the hell are you?"

Cole holds his hands up. "We're here on behalf of Harry Silver's widow. She asked us to look into his death. You Machado?"

The barrel of the gun lowers. "I had nothing to do with that."

"I'm not saying you did. He was working a case for you, wasn't he? I just want to know about that. Can we talk?"

A girl opens the door. We don't get more than a glimpse, but she's a looker. "You okay, Daddy?"

"I'm fine. Go back inside."

Machado sets the gun against the railing. "Have a seat."

We join him on the porch.

Cole extends his hand. "Cole Austin."

"Mateo Machado." He and Cole shake hands and take the two rockers.

"Sorry about the greeting. You can't be too careful, and you looked like trouble."

"We can be, if we need to be. Guess that's why Joselyn asked me to help."

"That his wife's name? He never said, though I remember he told me their oldest was getting married. I'm sorry for their loss. Heard about it on the news. Some detectives came by last week asking questions."

"You know anything about his death?"

"No. Like I told them, I had nothing to do with it."

Cole nods. "Tell me about what he was doing for you."

"He was helping me get some compensation for the contaminated creek killing my orchard."

"Isn't that a matter for the EPA?"

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, try calling them. You'll get nowhere."

"So, what was Harry going to do for you?"

"He was going to find out who was dumping chemicals into the creek." He points to the west. "Just upriver."

"Show us."

He stands. "We can take my pickup."

The two of them climb in the front, and the three of us crowd into the crew-cab. He pulls onto the road.

It's an older truck, and Cole rests his arm in the open window, watching the orchard of almond trees flash past us.

"There much money in the almond business?" he asks.

"It's a decent living. We aren't as big as some places around here, but it's all I know. My grandfather started this place in the forties. There wasn't much out here back then."

We drive for a bit, and he makes a couple of turns so we come up along the opposite side of his property. He pulls to the side of the road just before a small bridge over the creek. We climb out and approach it. Standing high on the bridge, we get a good look at all the neon green muck that was visible from the satellite map image. It's got a nasty smell as well.

"Gross," TJ says.

"Exactly," Machado agrees.

Cole scans the west side, pointing to a gravel section. "They're coming down off the road right there and dumping it."

"Yep."

"Have you tried to catch them?"

"I've set up game cameras, but I get nothing on camera. Just end up with my units taken."

"How often do they come?"

"There's no pattern."

"When was the last one?"

"About a month ago."

"And it still looks like this?"

He nods. "I've found some wildlife dead around here, too."

Cole lifts his chin. "Looks like a dead fox down there."

"It's such a shame."

We return to his truck.

"Anything else you want to show me?" Cole asks.

"There is."

Machado drives us to the other side near his house and slows at the far end of his property, coming to a stop but not getting out.

He points to the side of the road near a small dirt trail entrance. "See the sign warning people to keep out? My neighbor put it up."

It's hard to miss. The thing is the size of a shipping pallet and is mounted between two posts.

Cole reads it aloud. " Keep out. No trespassing. Absolutely no more riding. Not a public place. This is private property. No trespassing. Sheriff will be called and vehicles impounded ." He turns to pin Machado with his eyes. "Dude sounds pretty serious. What's that about?"

"We've had problems with dirt bikers. The creek runs between our properties. I don't care if the kids want to ride there. It doesn't bother me as long as they stay out of my groves, which they do, because what the hell do they care about some almond trees?"

"Seems like a lot of trouble when they're doing no harm." Cole spots a camera on a pole and points to it. It's aimed at the road from the entrance to the trail, which has a new-looking chain-link fence.

"That's a lot of security." Cole lifts his chin. "What's over there?"

Machado shrugs. "I don't know. Gravel pit is what I thought it was. Trucks come and go."

Cole pulls it up on his satellite map again. "This the place?"

Machado looks over his shoulder. "Yeah."

"You know what this is?" Cole points to something. "Looks like an airstrip."

"Yeah. Sometimes a plane lands over there. Mr. Big Shot flies around in a private plane, I guess."

"Mr. Big Shot?"

Machado shrugs. "Property is in the name of Warren Drake. I only know that from looking up the docs online. Never met the guy."

"How often do these planes come and go?"

"Every couple of days. Usually just before sunrise, I'll hear one come in. It never stays long."

Cole frowns. "Have they got landing strip lights over there?"

Machado shrugs.

"They come this morning?"

"Nah."

"So maybe they'll come tomorrow?"

"Probably."

"Mind if we go across your land and check out what's going on over there?"

"You think it's why Mr. Silver was killed?"

"Maybe. Security cameras, mysterious pre-dawn flights in and out… Something's going on. Maybe Silver stumbled upon it when he was trying to find out who polluted your stream."

"So, if I hadn't contacted him for help, he'd still be alive?" The man looks forlorn.

Cole slaps a hand on his shoulder. "I'm gonna find out who killed him. It wasn't you. You didn't want anyone dead, so don't feel guilty."

He nods, but I'm not sure he's buying Cole's words. "Still, I got this ball rolling."

"Let's go check it out."

Machado returns us to his property.

"You got a pair of binoculars?" Cole asks.

"Yeah, give me a minute." He disappears inside and returns with two of them. Then he leads us through the orchard of trees toward the back of his property.

"Stay away from the left side of the grove. The bee keepers are busy today," Machado warns.

I give a side-eye to the nearby trees, hearing the buzzing among the pretty white blossoms. The ground is covered with white petals.

"Look at all these," Billy says, kicking some up with his boot.

"They call it valley snow," Machado says. "Lasts from February to mid-March while the almond trees are in blossom." We come out at the far end of the rows of trees, and he points at the creek and a dusty dirt hill rising on the other side that runs the length of his property. "That's where they used to dirt bike. You'll see the trails."

Cole stares at the creek. "We need to get across."

Machado points to the left. "It's pretty shallow down that way."

We head downstream and find a place to avoid getting our boots soaked.

"There may be more cameras," Cole says. "Stay low. You two go that way." He points to Billy and TJ, passing them one set of binoculars, then looks at me. "You're with me, kid."

We get low and move up the hill until we can see over it. There's a maze of dirt bike trails and some old plywood jumps they've made with boulders. We lie flat on our bellies, and Cole looks through the binoculars.

"See anything?" I ask.

"There's an airstrip and a metal shed. Looks like an old gravel pit, but nobody's working it."

"You see any vehicles?"

"Nope. Not a soul."

We stare at each other.

"So, they've got all this security," I muse. "But no one's out here."

"Maybe they only care about it when that plane comes in."

"What are you thinking?" I ask.

"I'm thinking they're smuggling drugs and distributing them by hiding the shipments under the gravel they haul out. Who's gonna dig through it if they get pulled over?"

"So, you think Harry stumbled across this?"

"I think Harry contacted the owner. Since he's not on the property, maybe he found his contact information listed with the county property records. He sent them a letter. Maybe he even met with this guy. He probably just wanted some basic information since his property borders on the other side of the contaminated creek. Maybe he was thinking a class action lawsuit against the EPA or something. Who knows?"

"If this guy's doing illegal shit, that wouldn't make him too happy," I add.

"Exactly. I'm thinking Harry knew nothing of what was going on in the middle of the night, but the last thing this guy wants is a government agency snooping around."

"So, he had Harry taken out?"

Cole shrugs. "It's just a theory, but it makes sense."

"And Harry's trip to Vegas?"

"Maybe that leads to Warren Drake, the guy listed on the deed."

"Now what?"

Cole studies the land. "I'm gonna leave TJ and Billy out here tonight. See if they get lucky."

"Then?"

"Then hopefully we'll know what we're dealing with."

"If a plane flies in, you want them to follow the truck when it leaves?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not getting my guys killed over this, but I want to know what's happening in our own fucking backyard."

"Maybe we take a load," I suggest with a grin. "Steal the product out from under them."

"It may come to that. I just want to know how big a fish we're dealing with first."

The four of us head into Santa Nella and grab some lunch at a diner. Over cheeseburgers, Cole tells TJ and Billy everything we discussed.

"Man, I never expected this when we headed out here," TJ says, dragging a fry through a puddle of ketchup.

Cole pulls up the map app on his phone.

"You realize that almond farm is seventeen minutes from where they found Harry Silver's body?"

"Really?"

"Yep. Just a little over seven miles."

"They didn't go far, did they?"

"Why should they? I'm sure they figured they'd never get caught."

"From Machado Almonds to Las Vegas is 470 miles, seven hours via I5 and I15. If they take the back roads, it's 508 miles and a little over nine hours."

"Maybe they're going closer," I suggest.

Cole checks his app. "It's about 280 miles to Los Angeles, about four hours and forty-five minutes. Just under a hundred miles to San Jose, about an hour and a half drive. San Francisco is about the same."

"Lots of places they could be headed," Crash mutters. "My guess is LA."

"We'll see," Cole replies.

"What the hell are we supposed to do out here until midnight?" Billy asks.

"It's almost three now. You really want to haul ass to San Jose just to turn around in a couple of hours and ride back?" Cole replies.

"Guess not."

"Machado said you can wait at his place until nightfall. Maybe his daughter will bake you a pie or something," Cole teases with a wink and a kissy face.

"If there's nothing I need to do with the club, I can work tonight, but I'll need to get going soon, so I can have the food truck ready for the dinner crowd," I say.

Cole nods and picks up the check. "Let's hit the road."

We leave TJ and Billy at the diner and head to San Jose.