Breaking Point

flitted from face to face and didn’t linger long enough to make a connection. To Joe, he sensed equal parts fear, indignation, and contempt. He pursed his lips before saying to Reed, “I’m Juan Julio Batista. People call me Julio. You’re the sheriff in charge?”
    Reed introduced himself, then started to introduce his deputies, but Batista cut him off.
    “Where are the bodies?”
    “In the bags,” Reed said. “We left them open for your identification.”
    Batista paused cautiously, as if sensing a trap.
    “You assume I know them personally?” he asked.
    Reed shrugged. “You don’t? I thought they worked in your shop.”
    “The EPA is not a
shop
,” Batista said. “We’re a very large agency with eighteen thousand full-time employees. So no, I don’t know each and every employee personally.”
    “Sorry,” Reed said, “I just assumed . . .”
    “Let’s not do that,” Batista said, looking past the sheriff and toward the hole in the ground. He took a deep breath and turned to the man behind him, and said, “Bring the files.”
    Reed extended his hand to the second man and said, “And you are . . . ?”
    “EPA Special Agent Supervisor Heinz Underwood,” Batista answered for him. Underwood simply nodded, and didn’t shake Reed’s hand.
    Heinz Underwood was in his mid-sixties, Joe guessed, but he was solidly built and ramrod-straight. He had short-cropped silver hair, a bristled white mustache, pockmarked cheeks from an ancient but serious bout of acne, a heavy jaw, and piercing eyes. Unlike his boss, he seemed to revel in full-on stares designed to intimidate until the recipient looked away. After finishing off Woods and Reed, he did it to Joe, who willed himself to look back without blinking. After a beat, Underwood smiled slightly. Joe wondered what the contest had been about, who had won, and when it would resume.
    Batista gestured for Underwood to follow him, and the two walked past Joe and toward the bodies. As he passed, Underwood gave Joe another look. This time, Joe smiled back. He got the impression Underwood was a tough professional who enjoyed his job.
    Chuck Coon stayed where he was, and seemed suddenly fascinated by the laces on his shoes. Joe sidled up to him and said in a sarcastic whisper,
“‘This is Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI.
Clear the crime scene immediately . . .’”
    “Not now, Joe,” Coon said sharply.
    “Politics?”
    “By the truckload. I got a call this morning from the second in command of the Department of Justice in Washington, right over the head of my director. He told me to drop everything I was doing to accompany Mr. Batista up here and to use our chopper. So cut me a break, Joe.”
    “So the FBI is now on call to the EPA?” Joe asked.
    “Seems that way. But when the DOJ calls me direct, I do what I’m told.”
    Joe nodded and punched Coon affectionately on the shoulder.
    “Don’t let them see you do that,” Coon hissed.
    They turned to watch Batista and Underwood match up the faces of the bodies with photos from the personnel files they’d brought along. Batista said, loudly enough for everyone to hear: “Holy Mother of God.” Joe noted a tinge of a Hispanic accent in the phrase he hadn’t heard Batista use before.
    “Where did he come from?” Joe whispered to Coon.
    “Political appointee. I don’t know his history, but he seems to have a lot of juice.”
    “Ah.”
    Batista turned and walked deliberately over to Reed until he was uncomfortably close, Joe thought, and so he could tower above him and make the sheriff tilt his chin up to see his face.
    “Those bodies over there are EPA special agents sent up here in the line of duty,” Batista said.
    “That’s what we thought, and my condolences. Do they have names?” Reed asked.
    Batista looked over his shoulder to Underwood, and Underwood opened his files. “Tim Singewald and Lenox Baker,” Underwood said. “Singewald worked for the agency for twelve years, and Baker for two and a half. Baker leaves a young family behind.”
    Over his shoulder, Batista said to Underwood: “Make sure you call the next of kin. Give them my deepest sympathies and say it’s from my heart.”
    Underwood nodded crisply. “Do you want to talk to them as well?”
    “No, I’m busy here. I’ll have a letter sent.”
    “We’re very sorry this happened here,” Reed said to Batista, cutting in. “We’ll do our best to bring the killer to justice.”
    Batista nodded to himself as if