Southtown by Rick Riordan Page B

in Oklahoma.”
    “No,” she agreed. “He’s heading north. They’re setting up roadblocks on every highway in the Midwest. Problem is: The shit-bag specialized in human trafficking. He’s got contacts everywhere. Knows how to hide and move.”
    “Stirman’s here in town.”
    Next to me on the bench seat, Jem sighed. He turned over in his sleep.
    I was halfway down the block before DeLeon spoke again.
    “Okay,” she said warily. “Aside from the fact that San Antonio would be a very stupid place for Stirman to be, seeing how many people know him here—and aside from the fact that every law enforcement agency in the country places him as about halfway to Canada . . . Why are you telling me this?”
    I pulled in front of Erainya’s house. Two unwelcome surprises were waiting for me in the driveway—her boyfriend’s Lexus and an older BMW so god-awful yellow it could only belong to Sam Barrera.
    “Tres?” DeLeon asked.
    It had taken me a mile of driving to decide to call DeLeon, one of my few friends in law enforcement. I had to tell somebody about Stirman. It couldn’t wait until I spoke to Erainya.
    I stared at the cars.
    When I’d called Erainya from San Marcos that morning, she’d encouraged me to take Jem out to lunch after soccer, let her catch up on some paperwork. She wouldn’t be expecting us for another hour at least. She’d said nothing about a meeting with Barrera.
    “I’m still here,” I told DeLeon. “How much do you know about Stirman’s arrest eight years ago?”
    There was a long pause. “Since the jailbreak, the old-timers won’t stop gabbing about it. Fred Barrow—your boss’s dead husband—he was involved. Erainya must’ve told you the story.”
    “Pretend she hasn’t.”
    I could almost hear DeLeon’s mental gears turning, trying to figure my angle, deciding how much she wanted to tell me.
    “All right,” she said. “A rancher named McCurdy tortured and murdered six illegal alien women over the course of about a year. The women were supplied as slave labor by Will Stirman. Would-be victim number seven managed to escape. She got the county sheriff to believe her. When the deputies closed in, McCurdy killed himself. National media came in, started looking into allegations that the county knew about McCurdy’s slave ranch for months, had previous complaints about mistreatment, even returned one woman to his place when she tried to run away. The county needed a scapegoat before their asses got fried in federal probes and lawsuits, so they decided to find the guy who supplied the slaves. Sam Barrera and Fred Barrow both worked the case—Barrera for the county, Barrow for some of the victims’ families. Folks were laying bets the two would strangle each other before they found anything, but they ended up working together. They lined up three solid material witnesses who tied Stirman to the rancher—the illegal who survived and two members of Stirman’s smuggling ring who agreed to turn on their boss. The PIs delivered statements to the police, gave the district attorney more than enough for an indictment.”
    “You sound like you don’t approve.”
    Another pause, like she was censoring herself. “There are rumors Barrera and Barrow got their results by doing what the cops couldn’t. They bent rules, used bribery, threats, whatever it took.”
    “But the case stood up in court.”
    “Stirman was scum. The jury would’ve handed him a death sentence if that was an option.”
    “What about the arrest itself?” I asked. “Fred Barrow’s notes on the case—he makes it sound like he apprehended Stirman personally.”
    “He did. Would’ve been late April ’95. Will Stirman got tipped off things were going against him. He made plans to flee the country. Barrow and Barrera got word of this, like, the night he was planning to leave. Instead of telling the police, the two of them decide to play cowboy and show up at Stirman’s apartment with guns blazing. Just the