Otherwise, Lee would move in close enough to spot Glover’s Jeep, then follow him. Once on the main highway, it might get tricky and he’d have to stay sharp. Lee didn’t want to cause an accident if some poor civilian got close to his unlit vehicle.

  It was dark enough now so that headlights were needed by the night impaired, and all but two of the homes he passed had porch lights on and TVs glowing. A woman in a cocktail waitress’s short skirt was unloading groceries, and waved as he drove slowly by. “Headlights!” he heard her yell—as if he didn’t already know. He chose not to respond, of course.

  Ahead, nearing the last two houses on either side of the lane, Lee could see the Jeep clearly, but there was something odd about it that didn’t register for a second. Glover had left home with his lights on, but switched them off during the mile-long stretch of graveled road. The man was trying to make sure that if either he or Diane were following they wouldn’t be able to see which way he’d gone.

  Too bad for him. Glover pulled out to the right, south and away from the interstate nearly thirty miles away, and drove in the general direction of Mountainair, which was more than fifty miles away on this secondary highway. To the west of that community was another pass in the mountains, which had nearly petered out by then. Beyond the mountains to the west was I-25 and the Rio Grande corridor. Maybe Glover had business in Belen or Los Lunas. The area farther west was open and sparsely populated, and the largest city between them and Texas was Tucumcari, around a hundred and fifty miles east as the crow flies. Santa Rosa was about half that distance, but even smaller than Tucumcari.

  Lee suspected that the man had a closer destination. Glover’s strength as a bully lay in his control over a rural area where most families lived in isolation or very small developments of a dozen homes or less. In Albuquerque, the man would have just been another punk.

  Before they’d gone ten miles, Glover slowed and pulled over to the side of the road, stopping to park beside several vehicles that were beside a run-down-looking place called the Buffalo Tavern. Interestingly enough, Lee recalled that it was the same bar where Glover’s neighbor had been knifed.

  Lee moved over to the shoulder of the highway about a hundred yards up the road from the bar and stopped, turning off the engine to listen. The faint guitar sounds of a country-and-western song drifted along the pine tree-lined road. A vehicle door slammed, then, about ten seconds later, the music got louder for a few seconds, then died away to a murmur.

  It appeared that Glover had gone inside. Needing more information, Lee started up the engine again and drove by, his lights on so that anyone outside the bar wouldn’t think something odd was going on. Nobody was outside, so Lee continued down the road another fifty yards and pulled over, parking off the road just enough to avoid a potential accident.

  He climbed out of the pickup, shut the door as quietly as possible, then ran quickly back to the establishment, stopping behind a tree fifty feet away to watch.

  The tavern was small, with only one customer entrance halfway down the side of the rectangular building—the side facing the parking lot, so it wouldn’t have been smart to go inside. Glover would have spotted him immediately. Lee also knew that if he got caught snooping around outside, someone was very likely to draw a knife or fetch a gun. It was illegal to bring a firearm into a liquor-selling establishment, but that wasn’t always strictly enforced in rural New Mexico, especially if you were friends with the owner. And Glover, for one, wouldn’t have taken such a law seriously anyway.

  Lee saw the neon signs in the windows promoting Coors, Bud, and the specialty of the house, buffalo burgers. Sissy wine drinkers either already knew this wasn’t their kind of place, or would learn the bad news the moment they crossed the threshold. From the bumper stickers on the vehicles, those that still had bumpers, Lee suspected this was where the bullies, not the victims, hung out. One of the least offensive messages was DON’T LIKE MY DRIVING? DIAL 277-EAT-SHIT.

  The night was quiet. Even the evening breeze sent very little information about the forest through the pines, but the guitars and wailing continued from within. Lee realized that there was an open window around the side opposite the parking lot. From the surprisingly appetizing barbecue scent wafting through the air, it was probably the kitchen window. Any eavesdropping would give him more information about the staff than the guests, probably. Still, it was worth checking out.

  Lee walked back in the direction of his car, then slipped up against the rear of the building. There was a metal door about a third of the way down and a high, concrete porch that held two big, metal trash cans. A space for combustible materials had been loosely cleared away for about ten feet, but a few weeds were popping out of the ground nevertheless. Beyond that were tall pine trees. Lee decided to approach from the forest, so he worked his way in, then turned when he got to the open window, using the big roof vents to locate the kitchen.

  The window was open at the top, serving as an additional vent, so Lee had two choices. He could get beneath the window and listen, in which case he probably wouldn’t be able to hear much except for the music, or climb a tree and look in. Providing the angle was right, he’d be able to see some of those inside then.

  The brush had been cleared away pretty well around the trees—it was a smart strategy for anyone living within a forest—and he was able to find the perfect tree. A few seconds was all it took for him to find a branch he could stand on and look through the opened window.

  There were no screens on the windows, which made him wonder about bugs in the kitchen. Maybe the windows weren’t open all evening. Lee angled to his right and was able to see right through the kitchen pass-through and behind the bar counter itself. Seated at the bar was Glover—a big sandwich and mug of Coors before him—and to his left a slender Indian girl who looked barely legal and had spiked, blond-frosted and black hair. She was wearing a halter top and had tattoos like bracelets on her arms, a watch, but no rings.

  Glover was working on his sandwich, not talking, and the woman was sipping a cola through a straw and picking at a plate of french fries, the kind with the skins still on them.

  The only other thing Lee could see was the big-haired barmaid—and the shelves just below her, which held kegs on tap and a cut-down pump-action shotgun. The downside was that somebody had turned the music up—maybe from an old-time jukebox still in service—and the chances of hearing anything less than a gunshot made eavesdropping impossible.

  Lee tried to read lips, but couldn’t get anything from Glover. At the moment Glover was concerned with dinner, not conversation, though he seemed to be watching the Indian gal’s breasts more than anything else in the bar.

  The young woman seemed amped up—edgy and nervous—and Lee began to wonder if she was supporting a habit. Perhaps she intended to score tonight in exchange for her services. Was Glover her supplier, or just a potential customer?

  Hoping he wasn’t going to have to watch or listen to a sex show tonight before a drug sale went down, Lee debated the best time to drop back out of the tree and get ready to relocate before his quarry took off.

  He watched Glover taking a final bite of sandwich. As he was chewing, the young lady reached over and tickled the center of his palm with her finger, leaning toward him at the same time, licking her lips. Glover sat up straight. When he picked up his beer and finished it with a long, hurried swallow, Lee knew it was time to move.

  Diane quickly put on a pair of black polyester slacks, long-sleeved spandex top, and black cap, tucking her hair up inside. She’d already placed her burglary tools in a fanny pack along with the small digital camera, so the final step was to put on the latex gloves.

  Making certain that the phone was set on vibrate, hooked to her belt, she stepped out onto the porch with her fanny pack in place and her other gear in hand. She’d turned out the lights in the house several minutes ago, and now her eyes were accustomed to the dark. With the city lights on the opposite side of the mountains and the only illumination coming from the yellow bug light atop Glover’s porch, the sky was surprisingly clear, the stars twinkling in the cool of the evening. There was just a slight breeze at the moment, but toward morning there would be a downhill flow from the west, she suspected. Although the silence that surrounded her would help her hear Glover’s Jeep coming up the road, hopefully Lee would tip her off long before that.

  Then she heard footsteps. Crouching low, she froze as a slender figure in a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants ran up the street and stopped in front of Glover’s gate. From the style of canvas shoes and the curve of the person’s hips, Diane got the impression the person was a female. Whoever it was looked around nervously, then opened the gate and ran up to Glover’s door.

  Diane heard scraping sounds, like metal on metal, but she couldn’t see what was going on. The person was in a hurry, only spending a half minute in front of the door before turning, putting something into her pocket, then running back out of the yard.

  “Shut the gate, dummy,” Diane heard, then the woman went back, closed Glover’s gate, and raced back down the street.

  Diane walked out slowly, watching the fleeing figure. A few minutes later, the porch light of the second house down on the south side came on for just a second, then went back out again.

  “Let’s see what you’ve done,” Diane muttered to herself as she put on her sunglasses. It was a foolhardy move in nearly any other nighttime situation, but this was to save her night vision and speed up the entry into Glover’s house. Walking across the road quickly and as quietly as possible, she opened the gate and crossed to the front porch. The previous visitor had used a sharp object to scratch GLOVER SUCKS into the painted metal door. The crude message was at least four inches high.

  Quickly Diane cupped the aluminum foil cover she’d fashioned earlier over the porch light and held it in place while she pressed the attached duct tape to the building itself. A few extra strips of tape were needed to get a really good seal, but now she could be sure the foil wouldn’t come loose.

  The whole operation had taken about twenty seconds, and with the light hidden, nobody could see her picking the lock. She took off her sunglasses and stuck them into a pocket. It would have been a lot easier to have just broken the bulb, but her visit tonight had to go unnoticed.

  Diane brought out a small flashlight with a tightly focused beam and got to work with her simple tools. She’d learned a lot about defeating locks since she’d met Lee, and she knew she’d be able to get inside quickly.

  What she was doing was illegal, of course. There was no warrant and the Patriot Act sneak-and-peek provisions couldn’t be applied here. But she and Lee had formulated a plan that required two things—gathering intelligence on Glover’s activities so they could focus their efforts to nail him and whoever was working with him, and secondly, to convince him they couldn’t possibly be undercover cops. Lee had suggested that they find a way to confront him and get him angry—basically to show him that they were equally bad, but enemies to him.

  Thanks to what had happened at midday, they’d already reached their second goal. Now they needed to know more about what was going on in Glover’s criminal life besides possessing possible stolen property and pissing off his neighbors.

  Diane heard the click of the lock and moved it slightly so it wouldn’t relatch. She swept the penlight beam around the opening, looking for any alarms. Lee hadn’t seen any on his morning examination, but she was certain Glover had made some provisions inside to indicate if someone had trespassed. Maybe an interior camera that swept the doorways, or a motion detector, or something very low-tech.

  Then she saw a cord, a large, round one like those attached to an appliance. Opening the door about a foot, she saw the cord went to an upright vacuum cleaner standing against the wall, out of the way but within arm’s reach of the door. The vacuum was plugged in, which seemed odd. Had Glover acquired a cleanliness fetish?

  The living room area carpet was a dark red, with a deep, soft pile and the pattern of the vacuum cleaner’s sweep was clear even with her penlight. A quick look around the room didn’t indicate any surveillance gear installed—no cameras in the corner, for instance—so Diane took a step into the room and closed the door behind her.

  The only sound was the creaking of the building, contracting from daytime heat to evening cool, still, and the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Like their own double-wide, Glover’s had a dining room alcove on the other side of the living room, with counters and the kitchen area to the side. Beyond the kitchen was a small utility area and the back door.

  Diane took a cautious step, then aimed her penlight down and noted she’d left a footprint in the carpet. Glover had gone low-tech. She’d just have to remember to vacuum up and replace the appliance in the same spot before leaving. After noting the pattern Glover had left on the carpet from his cleaning, she stepped into the room. The carpet ended in the dining room section, and down the hall to the right, so she had only one area to deal with.

  Glover was no interior decorator, but there were a couple of decent-looking paintings of the Southwest, though they were impersonal enough for a credit union’s decor, and Lee had correctly described the expensive furniture. The glow from a small monitor on the kitchen counter gave a decent view of the backyard, almost reaching to the fence, which was too dark to show any detail.

  She moved quickly now, confirming more of the same items that Lee had reported, and took photographs with the digital camera. The flash probably wouldn’t show beyond the street, certainly not all the way down the road to the next two houses in the development.

  The hall closet held a couple of jackets and some kind of air purifier, unplugged, on the floor. She moved along and looked into the closets of each room, and, besides the expected clothing, found cases of expensive scotch, unopened, packaged video games, music CDs, iPods, computer software, and a high-quality scanner on a table—alone. There was undoubtedly a computer around somewhere, probably a laptop. She took photographs, close-ups to show the serial numbers on as much of the gear as possible.

  When she got to the possible blackmail photographs in Glover’s bedrooms, the ones with the people having sex, she took more photographs, getting as close as possible, but keeping the camera at an angle so the flash wouldn’t bounce right back and mess up the image. If she hadn’t been worried about the extra light, she would have turned on the lamp on the dresser to get better exposures.

  If any more compromising contraband, like drugs, was around, she wasn’t able to find any in the time she’d given herself, fifteen minutes. Nor did she find any weapons or a computer. She did find at least a thousand dollars in cash in the refrigerator, in the produce drawer at the bottom in one of those self-sealing bags. More money was probably hidden around the place, but she was running low on time.

  Backtracking her route, she verified that nothing was out of place—at least from her visit—and the backyard monitor was clear of intruders, not counting moths around the lights. Finally back in the living room section, she took a quick look outside, verified that her cell phone was working, then turned on the vacuum and erased her footprints across the red carpet. Setting the vacuum back in its original place, she set the lock and backed outside, pulling the door shut.

  The sound of a vehicle coming slowly up the graveled road alerted her to the danger. A quick grab and pull removed the cover over the light, and she wadded up the foil and tapped it into a big ball with one hand, then stuffed the flattened mass into her pocket. As she walked away, she quickly pulled off her gloves and placed them in another pocket.

  The vehicle didn’t stop and turn at one of the houses down the street, so she passed through the gate, shifted the fanny pack to her side, then started jogging toward the oncoming headlights, staying on the side of the road. She hadn’t gone a hundred feet before the car stopped and a spotlight came on, focused on her. Stopping and faking surprise, she shielded her eyes with one hand, then noted the white, blue-striped sheriff’s department vehicle. “Something wrong?”

  “Good evening … ma’am. I noticed you came from up the street. You staying at that double-wide up on the right?”

  “No, Officer. The guy who lives there is a real asshole. I wouldn’t stay with him if you paid me. I live across the street. That’s my boyfriend’s SUV in the driveway.”

  She heard the deputy step out of his unit, though she couldn’t see him because of the glare. Looking away from the light, she walked toward the front of the car, keeping her hands out, away from her body. No sense in getting shot because of a misinterpreted motion.

  “Carrying any identification on you?” The deputy, clad in the tan uniform worn by Bernalillo County officers, was a tall Anglo man with graying temples, glasses, and big ears. The county man looked remarkably fit for a man in his early fifties. His flashlight swept up and down her body twice, lingering on her breasts a little longer than was necessary, but understandably considering her cover identity. She’d minimized her makeup, not wanting to leave any physical evidence at Glover’s, but her hot, easy-chick look, with the rebel hair and tight top, was sending signals to every man she met.

  “My driver’s license is in my wallet inside my fanny pack. Wanna see?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Please take out your wallet slowly, then remove the license.” The flashlight lingered on her hands and waist, but the deputy’s free hand was lingering above the butt of his service weapon. It was an intelligent practice, considering he was alone and backup was probably a half hour or more away.

  She’d been careful to put her ID, wallet, and house keys in a separate zippered pocket of the fanny pack. Showing a camera and burglary tools to a stranger or cop wasn’t a smart move. She brought out her wallet. “Here you go, Deputy Harmon,” she said, reading his name tag.