The Devil's Highway by Timothy C. Phillips Read Free Book Online Page A

was this Mendoza?”
    “Well, it’s all public knowledge now, so I’ll tell you about it. Fernando Mendoza was the murdered man’s name. He was part of an award-winning documentary filmmaking team, and that’s how he introduced himself to me when he blew in here, three months ago. They’d won some kind of big award for a documentary he made on Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur. I’ve seen it, and knew who he was.”
    That rang a bell with me. “I’ve seen the Darfur piece. I didn’t know the man who made it was dead.”
    “He wasn’t, until about six weeks ago. He showed up out here, like I said, with a Mexican-Indian woman named Andrea Herrera, who was his filmmaking partner. Gorgeous woman, and a trouble-maker, let me tell you. They were intent on making some kind of movie about the Army of Redemption, Tolbert’s legacy, Cushman, the whole ball of wax.”
    “What happened?”
    “Like I said, somebody killed him.”
    “Do you have any idea who?”
    “The Army of Redemption, if you ask me. I believe they acted on Cushman’s orders, more specifically. That’s my theory. I can’t prove that, of course. And nowadays, they keep to themselves, out there on the compound.”
    “What kind of compound is it?” I asked.  
    “Colonel Cushman’s got money coming in from somewhere. He has to have anonymous supporters or something lucrative on the side. I’ve seen some militia compounds, a few years back, out in Oklahoma. They were just small clusters of buildings, out in the boonies, most of them without even a fence. They relied on their remote locations for security. Not so with Cushman, although the Redemption Army compound is certainly isolated.”
    “So Cushman is well set up out there?”
      Garrett looked dour for a moment, then he smiled slightly. “Know what they say about Texas, everything is bigger out here? Well, the Redemption Army has a big spread, it’s a real base. They’ve got a security perimeter, guard towers, and around-the-clock guards. They’ve even got a helipad out there. Cushman’s got all the licenses he needs, as well as a fake security company set up, to make their automatic weapons and paramilitary equipment legal on paper. The feds were sniffing around when Tolbert was here, but since Cushman’s taken over, he’s stayed quiet or greased some palms, because I haven’t seen a Fed out here in well over a year.”
    “What about the Mendoza case?” I asked.
    “Do you mean why hasn’t the FBI become involved?” He gave an ironic chuckle. “One murder in the desert doesn’t interest the FBI, Mr. Longville. Investigating such small potatoes is my job. There’s got to be some proof of a Federal crime to interest them, which I don’t have.”
    “But you think the Redemption Army killed Mendoza.”
    “I know that they did. Mendoza had been snooping around the area for weeks, trying to dig up something on Cushman and the Redemption Army. As a matter of fact, I think that Mendoza must have already known something, or had at least caught wind of something from somewhere, and he was out here trying to find evidence. He was making another documentary, to blow the lid off the whole thing.”
    “So Fernando Mendoza got too close? Maybe he found out too much?”
    “It had to be something like that. Maybe he found out too many wrong things. Something they wanted kept quiet out there. Whatever Mendoza dug up was enough to make Colonel Cushman very nervous. Nervous enough to take a big chance in having a public figure like Mendoza killed. In some circles, Mendoza was pretty well-known.”
    “True enough, but Mendoza’s dead, and nothing really happened. Cushman’s people are still right where they were, to begin with.”
    “Yeah. Maybe that would be different if Mendoza had made his film.” He sighed. “As it stands, though, Cushman played his cards right. The bastard sure is lucky.”

 
    Chapter 8
     
    I decided to grab some coffee and mull over this new information. A part of me