CHAPTER 4

Matt put the truck into park and cut off the engine, looking out across the playground at Meadow Park. Holly had just confirmed what he had feared about Will having problems and not being willing to get some help with them. The ringing of his phone pulled him from his thoughts. "Houston."

"Hey, it's Eli. Just thought I'd let you know that Roberto is going to be okay. He's got a concussion but should be released tomorrow."

"That's some good news."

"He also said that we need to look at the files from the bar. There are some very interesting things in them."

"Oh?"

"Yep. He gave me the key to his desk. Want to meet me at the station?" Gorecki was sliding into his SUV.

"Yeah, I can do that. Be there in about ten minutes or so." He hung up and pulled back out onto the road and headed east once again, his thoughts returning to Will's personal problems. Maybe if he could get his cousin to talk to him about what was bothering him... He sighed.

Surveying the parking lot outside the station, he didn't see Gorecki's vehicle and dropped the tailgate on the truck to wait for him, his thoughts drifting back to Will and the ambush that had taken him away from his family for so long.

"You okay?"

Matt's head snapped up at the sound of the voice right next to him. "Yeah...fine." He slid off the tailgate and closed it, following the fire investigator up the sidewalk.

"Looked like you were in deep thought."

"Deep something alright." He gave the man a crooked grin as they entered the building and went back toward the detective's office.

"Let's see what he found so interesting." Eli opened up the drawer and removed the files, cutting the seal on the bag and handing part of the stack to the PI. Both men had a seat and started through.

"This meshes with what I found out from my friend at Border Patrol." Matt tapped on the pictures of Jose Patrino Podilla. After relating what Oakley had sent him he leaned back in the chair. "I also talked to Holly."

"Holly? His girlfriend?"

"Yep." Shifting uncomfortably he nodded at the file that contained the clippings from the house fire. "She was the daughter of Stafford and his second wife. I didn't know that until about an hour ago." He had seen the question forming on the man's lips. "She said she didn't really remember much about him; he was gone more than he was home and the way her parents argued it was just as well. She was at a sleepover the night of the fire."

"Why didn't she come forward?"

"She hadn't heard about it." Rubbing the stubble on his chin he continued. "Her reasons for leaving Will didn't have anything to do with her father." The tone of his voice caught Gorecki's attention.

"So..." He understood then why the PI had been so distracted when he pulled into the parking lot. "He didn't know that Stafford was Holly's dad?"

"Didn't have a clue."

"Just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Wow..." He shook his head. "It happens. Okay, so she said her old man stayed gone a lot and we have good reason to suspect he had ties with Podilla. Could be our neighbor from the south had reason to want him dead."

"Could be. Those kinds of folks don't like loose ends." He stood up and popped his back, beginning to pace. "When did Stafford open the bar?"

"Uhhh..." Gorecki looked through the information in front of him. "June of '87...which was about six months after the fire." He leaned back and blew out a breath. "This thing has just gotten more complicated as the day has gone along."

"Yep." Houston continued to pace. "From what I know Podilla hasn't been spotted in the last five years or so. You have to wonder why, if he is behind the murder, why now? What changed?"

"Don't have a clue."

The PI paced some more and then stopped. "Maybe we do."

"We do?"

"Where's the file with the loan information?"

"Here..." Gorecki handed it over as Matt sat down again.

"The loan was due and payable on the 21st of November...that's a little more than a month away. Now I've looked at Stafford's financials as well as the bar's. There's no way he could pay it off. Maybe he was trying to squeeze Podilla for some money."

"But what proof did he have of anything?" Watching as Houston picked up the folder with the pictures of Podilla he could almost see the gears clicking in the man's brain.

"The only thing we have in front of us that is directly related to Podilla is this file..." Matt tapped on the pictures. "I need to do some work on these." He spied a scanner nearby and got another detective to put the files on a flash drive for him. "Maybe there's something in these that is valuable in some way. Otherwise..." He shrugged. "I don't know where else to go with it." He stood up. "I'm going back to Will's place. Call you if I get something."

Gorecki watched him leave and then went back to looking through the files. He's right – the only thing that makes any sense is Podilla. Shaking his head, he sealed up the bag and headed back to his own office, hoping that the lab might be able to give him something to point to their arsonist – as well as who might be his employer.

Matt pulled into the driveway at the cabin and removed the laptop from the truck. "Something smells good in here." He found father and son in the kitchen working on supper. "Almost smells like Mama's spaghetti sauce – but surely she wouldn't reveal her secret to you, would she?" He gave his uncle a big smile.

"You might be surprised at what she reveals."

"I've known her longer than you – I probably wouldn't be surprised." All three laughed.

"So have you found out anything else?" Will continued to stir the sauce as Matt sat down at the table.

"Maybe." He opened up the computer and popped in the flash drive. "There were some pictures in Stafford's safe...of a Mexican cartel leader."

"What the hell?" He turned to look at the pictures. "Why would he have something like that?"

"We're not sure but it looks like he might have done business with him years ago." Pulling up a photo editing program, the PI began zooming in on Podilla's surroundings. The cartel leader appeared to be relaxed and in conversation with his companions in some of the photos that were taken in the desert.

Roy leaned forward. "Zoom in, Mattlock. Now scroll to the right a little bit...there. That's a Saguaro cactus."

"Son of a … you're right." The PI zoomed back out. "Those are only found in western Arizona and the Sonoran Desert. That cuts down on the possible location." He sat back thoughtfully in the chair, and then leaned back toward the screen and began looking more closely at the background of the pictures. "Wait a minute..." Copying a section of one of the pictures, he pulled up a browser tab and did an image search with the photo that he had just copied. "Well now we have a pretty good idea of where Podilla is – or at least was at the time this picture was taken."

"We do?" Will walked over to join the other two.

"That's Cerro Tepopa..." He tapped on the screen. "This was taken in Sonora." All three men were silent for a minute. "Now what I want to know is when these pictures were taken. And I bet the DEA would like to know, too." With that he got up and walked out onto the back porch, pulling his phone out of his pocket and placing a call to DEA Agent Carl Roper. After being on hold for a couple of minutes, the call was finally answered by the man that he had worked with a couple of times before.

"Houston, what in the world do you want?" Roper laughed.

"Actually, I might have something that you want. As a matter of fact I'm certain that you will."

"Uh oh..." Roper sat down at his desk in the Los Angeles Field Office. "You sound awfully serious. What are we talking about here?"

"How about Jose Patrino Podilla?" There was silence on the other end of the line.

"You're kidding."

"Nope; I might have a location on him – might being the key word here."

"How in the hell?" Roper listened as the PI explained what had happened since the early morning hours. "Man, you just have a knack for getting into trouble. Hoyt was right about you. Good Lord."

"I'll send you what I have."

"You have no idea how much we appreciate this."

"Oh, I've got a pretty good idea." The PI chuckled and as he went back inside and emailed the information to the agent the pair caught up on the happenings in each other's lives, the agent in shock over the fact that he and CJ now had four children.

"Wow, you really do know how to get into trouble." He laughed again. "Let me take a look at what you've sent and I'll see if I can find anything on Stafford – or at least anything you don't already have. Thanks again."

Hanging up, the PI sat back down at the computer and thought over what they had. Even knowing where the picture was taken didn't tell him when it was taken or if Podilla was still there, and it didn't solve the murder of Stafford; hopefully it was a step in the right direction. As Will heaped plates full of spaghetti, he closed the laptop and set it aside, deciding to let Roper see what he could find on Podilla and see what Gorecki came up with through the lab and other resources.

While the dinner conversation was light for the most part, Roy sensed that there was more on his nephew's mind than the case that he had stumbled upon and was reasonably sure that the situation that had put Will in the bar on the night in question was eating at him. After a round of rock-paper-scissors to decide who would do the dishes, Roy rolled up his sleeves and started the task as the two younger men took a walk through the woods that separated Pine Oak Lane from Highway 38 and the lake. After crossing the roadway they walked along the shoreline and had a seat on the rocks, neither speaking for a couple of minutes. "So..." Will finally broke the silence. "What's it like having all those babies around?" He looked over at Matt who smiled.

"It's great. Wouldn't trade it for anything."

"Sure about that?"

"Yeah." Matt tossed a rock into the water and watched the ripples. "There's nothing like it."

"The closest I've ever come to that is..." He stopped, thinking about Holly's daughter Cassie. He felt his cousin's eyes on him and immediately got quiet. There was quiet for a couple of minutes. "I saw your interview with Giorgio Stavros." Looking over at Matt he watched as the man nodded and tossed another rock out into the water. "I didn't know about all of that – the Castanos deal and...your problems."

"Yep."

"You never said anything."

"I tried to when..." He stopped, not really wanting to mention his cousin's attempt at suicide a few years back.

"When I was planning the great swan dive." Will gave a humorless chuckle. "Not one of my smarter moves in life. But then not many of them have been."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" He turned halfway toward Matt. "You know I've thought about it – what the worst decision was that I ever made in my life. It was joining the Army. If that had never happened..." They both got quiet again. "What about you? What was the worst decision you ever made?"

"Huh." Matt chuckled. "There have been plenty. Kinda makes it hard to decide which one was the worst."

"Bull. You've always made good decisions."

"The hell I have..." Cutting his eyes over at his cousin he shook his head. "Putting off my love for CJ, not talking to Daddy for two years, almost marrying a nut job – now that one damn near got me killed."

"But the Army wasn't a bad decision for you."

"In some ways it was. But if I hadn't..." He stopped and looked at the rocks in the palm of his hand, considering his next words as he picked the next stone. "...If I hadn't I wouldn't be able to do what I do now. It was a blessing and a curse." He chucked the stone into the water.

"Come on now – a curse? You've bounced back just fine. Don't understand why I can't." Will hurled a rock into the lake.

"Maybe it just takes a little longer for some folks. Maybe you just haven't found the right way."

"Do you have any idea how many shrinks I've talked to since you brought me back?" He watched as his cousin shook his head. "I don't either – but there've been a lot of 'em."

"You know, I think the worst part for me was the dreams...actually that's the wrong term: nightmares." Matt tossed another stone, watching as it skipped out across the darkening surface.

"Do you still have them?" Will's voice gave him away; Matt knew without looking that was part of what had been plaguing the man.

"Not so much now..." He couldn't tell him about the raid in Afghanistan that he had carried out with a team of Navy SEALs that had eliminated one of the world's top terrorist threats. "Nowadays other things get to me...mostly stuff that involves kids getting hurt. But that was part of what tore me up about being over there – the kids."

Will nodded and swallowed. He had seen the horrors that the war had brought to the thousands of kids in harm's way. And the women. And the innocent people who wanted nothing more than to live their simple lives in peace. Not everyone there was a bad guy and that was part of what made it so tough – not knowing exactly who was an enemy and who wasn't. Thoughts of those times went through his mind again and he closed his eyes, the memories playing like a bad movie. Matt's voice cut into them. "You're seeing it now." He nodded again.

"Why won't it go away? Why did it go away for you but not for me?!" Suddenly he stood and hurled the handful of stones into the water and began throwing larger rocks in, his anger burning hotly as both the splashing of the rocks and his voice echoed across the water toward the dam on the western end of the lake. Matt got to his feet and stood helplessly by and watched, not knowing what to say to him. As quickly as the anger had surfaced it went away and the man sank back down onto the rock where he had been sitting, the quiet resuming once again. "Well, I guess that was stupid."

"No...did it make you feel any better?" He watched as Will shrugged. "When was the last time you tried talking to somebody?"

Blowing out a breath he looked upward at the clouds beginning to move in from the west. "It's been about four months or so. But trying to get in to see somebody..." He went quiet. "There are a lot of folks out there that want to talk to them. I just feel like I'm wasting everybody's time."

"You aren't."

"Who did you talk to? Besides Stavros."

"When I got back I was busy trying to catch Castanos...and believe it or not being focused on him helped. It made me feel useful again." He picked up a few more stones and began skipping them across the water. "But I've talked to a couple of folks since then. And being around the ranch working with the cows and horses seems to help a lot. That's what I do now when things start to get to me." He wanted to add and talking to CJ but considering the circumstances he thought better of it.

"When I got up here at first being out in the woods and on the water seemed to help..." He picked up a couple of stones and examined them. "I don't know – it's like everything I've tried works for a while and then it just happens all over again."

"What if I could get you in to see one of the folks I talked to – would you go...and follow through with it?" Matt watched as his cousin tossed another stone out, brushed the dirt from his hands and stood up.

"I...yeah." Will nodded.

"I'll make a couple of phone calls in the morning – fair enough?"

"Yeah, thanks." Both turned and trudged up the hillside and went back to the cabin.