The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (89)

“Down to the border,” the waitress said. “I don’t think you can leave town. One of the guys here has a wife on her way to Van Horn and she called and said the road is blocked about five miles out of town . . . There’s a big stand of palm trees there, we call it Palm Grove Corner, because you go around a corner there . . .”

“Saw it when we came in last night,” Kaiser said.

The waitress: “Lucy, this guy’s wife, said they cut down all the palm trees and piled them across the road and they’re behind the palms with guns and not letting anyone through.”

Letty said, “That’s not good.”

“It’s a crying shame, is what it is. Those trees were there for a hundred years, I bet,” the waitress said. “You still want to eat, honey?”

Kaiser said, “Yes. We better. Don’t know what’s going on, or how long it’s gonna last, we better stock up now . . . What’s good?”

“Most everything, but I’d personally stay away from the open-faced beef sandwich . . .”



* * *





When the waitress came back with pancakes and hash browns, Letty asked, “Is there a thrift store here in town?”

“Yes, there is. You go on up the hill to the next street, turn right, and it’s two blocks. Mavis Thrift, it’s called. Run by Mavis Sparks.”

Kaiser was tasting the hash browns: “Gonna need ketchup.”

The waitress brought a bottle of ketchup, and Letty called Greet: “There was shooting down by the border station, a demonstration of firepower, and I think the Customs and Border Protection quit. Probably disarmed. We’ve also been told we can’t leave town because the militia cut down a grove of palm trees and dropped them across the highway and they’ve got armed men backing up the roadblock.”

“Jesus! It’s an invasion.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Letty said. “There’s supposed to be a town meeting at noon, called by the militia. I’m not in a good place to talk. I’ll be calling you.”

“I’ll pass along what you have to say. People are freaking out, they’re talking about sending the Army down there.”



* * *





One of the men by the front windows turned and said, “Shouldn’t we be doing something?”

Another: “Like what? These people are like the Army.”

Another: “You think they’d really shoot us?”

Another: “You heard that gunfire.”

The first man said, “I’ll tell you all what: I’m going back up to my house. If they try to dig me outta there, they’ll have a problem on their hands. I got a shotgun and I’ll kill any asshole tries to come in there.”

A couple of other men agreed. One said, “That’s the best thing. Hole up in your house. They can’t dig us all out. I’ll kill a couple of them fuckers myself.”

Another: “Easy, easy, let’s see what they do . . .”

The argument was continuing when three men armed with AR-15s pushed through the door and one said, “Hiya, folks, hope you’re okay in here . . .”

One of the men near the windows asked, “What are you guys doing?”

“We’re borrowing your town for a couple of days,” the lead militiaman said. “There’s a caravan headed here and we’re not going to let it cross. But the main thing is, we don’t mean any of you harm. We really don’t want to hurt anyone. You heard that shooting, it all went up in the air, to convince the Customs people that they shouldn’t try to take us on. They agreed. They won’t do that. You shouldn’t do that, either: the fact is, you should be with us. We’ll be talking about that at a noon meeting down by the border station . . .”



* * *





One of the men was scanning the diner as the leader went on and his eyes stopped when they got to Letty. He looked at her for a moment, then turned to a man by the window, who said, “You know, there are a hell of a lot more guns in this town than you got . . .”

“We don’t want a war, no way,” the leader said. “But if you want one, we got it.”



* * *





When the militiamen left a minute later, Kaiser said quietly, “That guy was checking you out.”

“Yes. Let’s get out of here.”

They left the diner during a lull in the pickup traffic and hotfooted it up the hill to the first street, turned right, and hurried along to Mavis Thrift, which appeared to be closed. “There’s somebody in there,” Kaiser said, peering through the door window. He knocked until a woman came to the door and shouted, “We’re closed.”

“We need help,” Letty shouted back through the glass.

The woman fussed for a minute, but finally let them in. “I need some of everything and I’ll pay cash,” Letty told her.

“Are you . . .”

“No, we’re not with them.”

The woman, like those in the diner, was on the heavy side. She had a face that might have had a permanent worried frown graven into it, overlaid by a whole new set of worries from that morning.

“They been shooting people up, whoever they are,” the woman said. “I got a gun, but I’m no damn good with it.”