Untameable: Merciless

“Was there something else?”

“No, nothing else. I just wanted you to know I was out.”

“Thank you.”

Another pause. “You made a mistake.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah. You want to be careful. My family gets even with people who hurt it. Always. I’ll be seeing you, Agent Blackhawk.”

He hung up.

Jon stared at the receiver before he replaced it. “It takes all kinds,” he muttered.

He was on his way out the door when Joceline called to him.

“Rick Marquez wants you to stop by his office while you’re out,” she told him. “He says it’s important.”

“What is it about?” Jon asked, turning.

She put a finger to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I see mountains. Trees. Birds flying.” She opened her eyes. “However, not being psychic, I have no idea.”

“He didn’t say?”

“Apparently not.” She smiled vacantly. She cocked her head. “Would you like to know what the new skirt length is out of the Milan fashion shows …? Sir, it’s not polite to turn your back on people who are talking to you!” she called after him.

“One day I’ll strangle her,” Jon muttered to Rick Marquez while they were sitting at the detective’s desk, drinking coffee. He’d just related Joceline’s latest verbal coup.

Marquez chuckled. “You’d never replace her,” he commented. “I’ve seen paralegals come and go. Joceline is in a class all her own.”

“I know.” The other man sighed. “I wouldn’t have half my cases solved without her. She can dig out information that I can’t get. I have no idea how she pulls it off, either.”

“She’s psychic,” Marquez said with big eyes.

“She is not. She’s just very good with a telephone, and she can talk people into telling her things that they don’t want to.”

“She’s a paralegal. Why isn’t she working for a judge or at least a firm of attorneys?” Marquez asked with a curious frown.

“She started out as legal secretary to a firm of attorneys. But the senior partner retired, several more attorneys joined the firm and she was doing the work of three paralegals with the pay of one,” Jon said. “We got her as a result. It was a good thing that Garon Grier didn’t have her put on the rack when he started work at the office,” he added thoughtfully.

Marquez burst out laughing. “What?”

“He was used to female workers making coffee for him. Joceline doesn’t do menial tasks. Or what she considers menial tasks.”

“Our administrative assistants make coffee,” Rick said smugly. “Good coffee,” he emphasized with a pointed look at Jon.

Jon sighed. “None of us can make drinkable coffee. On a bright note, our potted palm seems to thrive on caffeine.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everybody dumps their coffee into it when we aren’t looking.” He chuckled.

Marquez sighed. “Oh, the adventure of working at a federal office.”

“At least we have decent expense accounts,” he replied. “We don’t have to have a receipt for a cup of ice.”

Marquez made a face. “It was a very hot day and our air conditioner wasn’t working.”

“You’re from Mexico originally, and you live in southern Texas. You should be used to the heat,” Jon commented.

“Yeah. Go figure.” Marquez wasn’t comfortable talking about his childhood. In fact, nobody except his adoptive mother, Barbara, in Jacobsville, even knew what his background was. And neither he nor Barbara knew the whole truth, but they were trying to find it. However, he had no plans to share that news with his visitor, even though he liked and respected the FBI agent.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” Jon said, sensitive to the expression that flashed just briefly across the other man’s face. “I know about racial issues. You might have noticed that my ancestry includes feathered headdresses and mounted combat.”

Marquez relaxed, and smiled. “So does mine, actually. One of my forebears was Comanche.”

“Really? So was one of mine,” he replied.

“No kidding? Small world.”

“My mother has Cherokee, my father was full-blooded Lakota,” Jon said.

Marquez’s eyebrows arched. “Cherokees come from back East originally.”

“Yes, they were relocated on the ‘Trail of Tears.’ Cherokees were rounded up in 1838 and removed to Oklahoma in late 1838 and early 1839, in the winter cold and snow without proper clothing, because of gold discoveries.” He shook his head. “One of my ancestors said that we could never coexist with a materialist culture, because we shared everything and the conquerors wanted to own everything,” he added.

“Interesting thought.” He put down his coffee cup and became somber. “Harold Monroe’s been hinting about retribution to one of my informants.”

“I heard they cut him loose.”

“Yes, they did. Like the rest of his family, he has something of a reputation for revenge.” He looked pointedly at Jon. “He’s been accused of racketeering, gambling, prostitution, you name it, but he’s never spent more than a day in jail on any charge. One of the prosecutors in a murder case against his uncle-by-marriage died under mysterious circumstances, along with the only witness, and he was let go. Nothing was ever proven. You had Monroe in jail for several months while his lawyer worked to get the charges dropped.”

“He should blame himself for putting little girls in the hands of pimps.”

“That’s not how he sees things. He said the kid was living in starvation-level poverty. He was just helping her find a better life. Simple.”

“Yes. I saw the result of that better life,” Jon said without elaborating, but the expression in his eyes was eloquent. “Well, they can drop charges, but I still have witnesses who’ll testify. One was the man who sold his daughter to Monroe.”

“That’s the problem.” Marquez grimaced. “The witness says he won’t testify and he’s withdrawn his statement.”

“No problem,” Jon said. “I know where we can find three more witnesses in the same family, two of whom are perfectly willing to testify despite any threats from Monroe.”

“Give me their names and we’ll help you locate them so you can get depositions, since it’s a federal charge he was arrested on,” Marquez replied. “Why didn’t the witnesses come forward before?”

“Because they fell through the cracks,” he said. “We had one witness, the father, who gave us a deposition, and the mother, as well as a sister. The federal prosecutor didn’t think he needed more than a handful. Now we do.” He shook his head. “I hope they don’t go the way of the witness who was supposed to testify against Jay Copper at his trial about the death of that teenager in Senator Sanders’s case. He accidentally fell off a ten-story building.”

Marquez wrote down the names of the witnesses. “We do our best,” he said defensively.