Chapter 5

We got down to the headquarters, on the north side of Marquette across from the city and county office building, and inside, about 15 minutes before the time. By the time we'd gotten visitors passes and directions to the task force meeting, and arrived outside the door, it was about five minutes after 10. As we sat down on uncomfortable plastic chairs in the hall, I told Cecelia, "I guess we should have come sooner."

"In hindsight that is clear, but you've clearly never had this sort of delay in getting where you wished to go in this building."

"True, true, not that I've ever been frequent here."

And so we sat. After 15 minutes or so I began to wish I'd brought a book – my current one was Sizzling Sixteen, one of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mysteries. I could have grabbed the Galway Kinnell collection I was reading at odd moments – I can't read poetry just anywhere, the way I can fiction. After a while I would have settled for a selection of canned goods – I've read their labels on occasion when there was nothing else to hand.

I made it a point not to glance at my watch every time I got bored or decided to shift in my chair, but on one of the occasions I did found myself really unhappy. "We've been here for an hour," I said to Cecelia.

She checked her own watch, and then reached into the pocket of her jeans – for her cell phone, I saw. She dialed a number from memory and put the phone to her ear. After a few seconds, she said, "Rudy, we're here."

After that it was the disjointed sentences that you get when you only hear one side of a conversation. "We have been patient, Rudy. We came upon request, and we have tolerated these so-called chairs for 60 minutes or more ... I am not prepared, amigo, to endure the torture of these devices indefinitely ... Then I suggest that you inform Lieutenant Stubblefield that if he did not require our presence until the meeting had been underway for some time, that he ought to have not summoned us to appear at such a considerably earlier time ... In that case, Rudy, Darvin and I will take ourselves home forthwith, and Mr. Stubblefield can appear in our office and await our pleasure." And she snapped the phone shut.

"From 'Lieutenant' to 'mister'," I said. "You ain't no happy camper." I rose as Cecelia did. "I take it Rudy's under orders."

"He is, and that is why I did not screech at him; he can no more help the duncery of his superiors than he can alter the composition of granite."

I nodded, and we started down the hall. Just then a voice behind us called out. "Hold on, you two!"

We turned, and there was a balding, paunchy man in a suit – brown, with an off-white shirt and a loosened blue tie – waddling toward us. "Just hold on a minute," he said as he came up to us. I noted the Albuquerque Police Department badge on his belt, and detected a gun under the coat on his left side – it was probably a short .38 that was, as Louis L'Amour might have said, rigged for a crossdraw.

"Yeah," I said, not too politely. I'm not as confrontational as Cecelia can be, but I wasn't pleased with sitting around at the behest of someone's rudeness.

"You're Darvin Carpenter?" the man said.

"Yeah – an' this is my wife, Cecelia," I told him pointedly.

"Yeah, Mrs. Carpenter," he said hastily, and then focused back on me. "I'm Lt. Stubblefield. What do you mean walking off like that?"

"I mean that we been settin' out here an hour an' more, an' we don't neither of us appreciate it nan bit."

"Well, we can't run our meeting on your timetable—"

That was as far as he got. "Mr. Stubblefield," Cecelia said, and knowing her I knew that the choice of honorific was a deliberate insult, "you have slighted us both for a considerable span of time, and disregarded me in this encounter. You have displayed an astounding lack of simple courtesy, and indeed a degree of disesteem which astonishes me. I do not propose to further subject myself to this, and therefore intend to return to my work."

"Hold on, hold on," Stubblefield said. "Okay, I was wrong." I had the idea he didn't really grasp what he was apologizing for, but didn't dare not apologize. "I'm sorry. Look, we ran into some snags, but we'll bring you in right now, okay?"

I looked at Cecelia, who lifted her eyebrows at me – a shrug of sorts, leaving the decision up to me. I looked back at Stubblefield. "Lead on, then. But this had better be good."

Inside the meeting room, which had a polished wooden conference table with a flock of computer chairs surrounding it, I saw the task force. Rudy was the first one to catch my eye – he was in full APD uniform including necktie, and his face was expressionless. There was also a guy in the tan of the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office with stripes that I took to mean he was a sergeant, and a captain in New Mexico State Police black. I've thought, since the first time I saw one, that the NMSP uniforms look almost exactly like those of the Gestapo, though my limited dealings with the State Police have always been pleasant.

Everyone else was in civilian clothes, and as Cecelia and I found empty chairs, Rudy took it upon himself to make introductions. "Amigos, this is Sergeant Harris of BCSO; Captain Jones of the State Police; Sergeants Rodriguez, North, and Willis of APD; and Special Agents Gordon and Frank of the FBI. You know me, of course, and you've met Lt. Stubblefield."

I grinned, and it didn't feel like a pleasant grin. "Yah, we met out in the hall. Thanks for passing on the message."

Stubblefield glared at Rudy, but though he apparently was in charge of the task force, Rudy's rank was equal and, knowing Rudy, he wasn't a bit scared.

"Let's get on with this," Stubblefield said, dropping into his chair.

Cecelia just couldn't resist. "We were ready to proceed an hour ago – longer. We are only joining the proceedings now, because we found it obligatory to loiter in the hallway until this assembly saw fit to preconize us." I know my wife – she was boiling mad, and was tossing out more big words than she normally does in order to needle Stubblefield.

"Yeah, yeah," Stubblefield said. "I got the message. Now..." He took a big breath. "Now that you are here, let me get right to why you're here. Rudy strongly recommended I call you in, Mr. Carpenter, and Mrs. Carpenter too, because you've got some things that we don't."

I raised my eyebrows – I seemed to be doing that a lot all of a sudden. "I got resources that you can't get from the combined might of the police, the deputies, and the Fibbies? By the way," I added, realizing that I wasn't exactly calm myself, "why ain't y'all just agents? Doesn't anyone know that if everyone's special, being special ain't so special after all?"