by Marc Rainer
“Fine,” Trask said. “And what can we do with your statement—your answers—if you talk to us?”
“You can use it against me in court.”
“Thank you, Mr. Diaz.” Trask turned to John Foote. “Your show.”
He nodded. “I’ll ask you the questions, Arturo. Billy will be taking notes. Understand?”
“Yes.”
There was the usual preliminary dance. They made the witness comfortable before asking easy questions all having to do with his name, age, address, education level, family in and out of the States. Foote asked Diaz about his occupation.
“I am a mechanic,” Diaz answered.
“And who did you work for at the time of your arrest this morning?”
“Pedro Cortez. Everyone calls him ‘Papi.’”
“How long have you worked for Papi?”
“About six years. I’ve been his lead mechanic now for two years.”
“You said you were originally from Mexico, Michoacán state. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Is that how you knew Papi? Was he from Michoacán, too?”
“Oh, no. Papi is originally from Havana. Cuba.”
“Tell us how you met Papi and how you ended up working for him.”
Two hours later, they had chapter and verse on the operation. Cocaine was muled into the area from the Los Zetas cartel on Mexico’s eastern seaboard; the dope was pulled out of every vehicle compartment imaginable inside Papi’s shop bays; a local network of Michoacanos distributed the coke on both sides of the state line. Foote was professional and thorough. Trask had had to play a role himself in some of these interrogations in the past; this time, he had the luxury of just observing—no participation was required.
Trask did stick his nose in just as Foote was about to wrap up.
“Arturo, you’ve told us about a lot of coke and some weed coming in and going out. Anything else you’d like to put on the table?”
It was nothing more than a fishing expedition, but Trask knew that he couldn’t catch anything without throwing a line in the water.
“There was one guy who came in. A guerro—”
Diaz used the Spanish slang term for a white guy, an Anglo. He paused.
“Go on,” Trask said.
“He would have us unload heroin.”
Trask resisted the temptation to look at Foote or Graham. Doing so would have accented their interest in the new topic and might have encouraged their new witness to fudge his answer. “How did you know it was heroin?” Trask asked.
“The bricks were the right size—not the same as those for the marijuana or the cocaine—and one of the packages got scraped open one time when we were pulling it out of his gas tank. I saw the black tar inside.”
“Could it have been just some goop to conceal some cocaine?” Foote asked him. “You know, grease, coffee grounds, something to throw off a detection dog?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Diaz said. “The gash in the package was pretty deep. Papi cussed out the kid who gashed the wrapping and made him rewrap the package. I’ve seen black tar heroin before. This was heroin.”
“Did Papi’s boys sell heroin, too?” Trask asked. “In addition to the coke and weed?”
“I don’t think so. We would just pull some of the packs out of the guerro’s gas tank whenever he would come to town.”
“What was this guy driving?” Trask asked.
“A white pickup. Texas plates.”
“You remember the plate number?” Billy Graham asked, ready to jot it down.
“No. Sorry.” Diaz shook his head.
“What happened to the heroin after you pulled it out of the tank?” Foote asked.
“We just gave it back to the guerro. He would pay Papi for our work in putting the truck up on the rack and pulling the stuff out of the tank. The guerro would put the stuff in a bag and leave with it.”
“Anything else?” Trask asked.
Diaz shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“A very good start,” Trask told him. “We’ll talk again.”
Arturo nodded, his gaze sinking to the floor as the reality of his new situation began to sink in. Graham escorted him back to the holding area. He would be going to one of the lockups for the weekend with all the others.
“Are we adding the heroin to our indictment?” Foote asked me.
“Not the ones we’re presenting next week,” Trask said. “That sounds like a separate deal—a side play for Papi and someone else—and it would complicate our existing conspiracy indictment with a whole bunch of issues if we tried to add it now. We can always charge a new and separate conspiracy later between Papi, this guerro, and his local customers.”
“Local because he’d have left the stuff in the tank unless he had customers in this area. Safer to drive with the junk in the compartment, but he had to pull it to sell it somewhere around here.” Foote was thinking out loud, and accurately.
“That’s how I read it,” Trask said. “Let’s see how Cam did with the other talker.”
Cam was down the hall a bit, speaking to some of the other arrest team members, when he saw Trask and Foote come out of the room. He checked his watch.
“That was a long song, hero,” he said, looking Trask’s way.
“And very tuneful.” Trask added. “How’d yours go?”
“Not nearly that long, and not nearly as melodic. As you probably figured, he was scared shitless about relatives back in the homeland. All his answers except one were monosyllabic grunts, and that’s a real feat for someone speaking Spanish.”
“Except one?” Trask prompted him.
“Yeah, he probably figured it couldn’t hurt, since it would appear to be a separate piece of evidence we found on our own. Our man Papi didn’t completely trust his crew, and he had a closed-circuit security cam system watching his boys when they worked in the bays. The recorder is hidden in a closet inside his office. Our man had stumbled on it by accident one day mopping up in the room after Papi spilled his coffee.”
Trask clapped his hands. “Thank God for sloppy and lazy dope bosses.”
“And attentive underlings and clever co-counsels,” Cam said, patting himself on the back.
“I’d rather be lucky than good,” Foote said.
“I’d rather be both,” Cam quipped.
Trask smiled. He’d heard this universal mantra uttered by cops from Miami to DC, and now he’d heard it in KC.
“That, too,” Trask agreed. He turned to Foote.
“We still have guys securing the place,” Foote said. “I’ll keep ’em there ’til you get us a warrant for the camera and recorder.”
Trask turned back to Cam.
“I’m writing the warrant now,” Cam said, heading for his car in the parking lot. “I’ll see you back in the office.”
Raytown, Missouri
It was nearly 8 p.m., and long past dark when Trask finally headed towards home. He took the 50/350 exit off I-435 South, a highway that took him through Raytown, a bedroom suburb east of Kansas City, on the way to Lee’s Summit. Trask had already learned to avoid this road during rush hour because of the traffic, but everything had thinned out by now and it was a more direct route.
Trask was tired and hungry, and he wanted to get home. He made it past the slowdown where there was a Walmart wedged in the median between the east and west lanes, and bumped the speed up to 45, even though the limit was 40, using the old “I’m safe at five over” rule. It was a rule that apparently wasn’t honored in Raytown, Missouri. Trask pulled over when he saw the lights come on behind him. He was wondering where this cop had been hiding as he grabbed his license and registration. He certainly had never seen the patrol car.
The officer that approached Trask’s window looked like he should still be in high school. Make that junior high school.
Wonderful, Trask thought. Probably his first shift of duty, and I’m his first citation. A trophy.
“Do you realize you we
re speeding, sir?” the cop asked Trask as he took the driver’s license.
“I was a little over,” Trask admitted. The irony of the day suddenly struck him, and Trask started chuckling.
“You think this is funny, sir?”
“No, no. You’re just doing your job.” Trask couldn’t stop laughing, however.
“Why don’t you tell what is funny, then. Have you been drinking, sir?”
Trask collected himself. “No, not a drop. Since you asked, I’ll tell you. Normally I wouldn’t, because—like I said—I was a little over the limit and you’re doing your job. I’m a federal prosecutor, and the reason I’m going home this late and hurrying a little is because we’ve spent all day arresting, questioning, and processing sixty dope dealers downtown. Then I try to hurry home and get stopped myself. It’s a little ironic, and that’s why I was laughing. Sorry.”
The cop took in what Trask told him, and he wasn’t laughing. Trask could hardly believe his eyes, but the officer was sniffling. No, it was more than sniffling. He was actually crying.
“I’m sorry, sir.” The cop’s voice broke up in sobs as he tried to talk. “I wish you had told me before ... now I’ve already started the citation and I can’t tear it up, and I can’t [sniff], I can’t [sniff], can’t just give you a warning. You should have told me—”
“We’re not supposed to do that. I would be using my position improperly.” Trask tried to console the kid. “It’s okay. I was in the wrong and you were doing your job. Just finish the ticket and I’ll mail in the fine. Okay?”
The officer managed his own “okay” between more sniffles, apologized some more, and then handed Trask the ticket.
“Your first day on the job?” Trask asked him.
“No, sir. Second. How did you know?”
“Just a guess. Stay safe.”
“Yes, sir. You, too.”
Trask reached into the compartment of the door where he kept all the poor man’s tissue: the spare napkins from far too many meals grabbed from the drive-thru windows of fast food joints. He handed the kid a couple so he could blow his nose.
“Thank you, sir,” the cop said. Then one final time: “I’m sorry.”
Trask smiled and started the car, heading home a little slower, and still chuckling.
Dallas, Texas
Tyler Cannon picked up his cell and hit the contact number.
“What?” Dom Silvestri answered.
“Hello to you, too. Where are you?”
“In a very expensive dump of a hotel in New York City, thanks to you.”
“Those are your customers, Dom. Your problem. I told you I had to get home.”
“Yeah, you told me. Whadda you want? It’s late here.”
“You know that dude you had me see to get my tank pulled when I roll into town in KC?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The feds picked him up, along with fifty or sixty other guys. It’s all over the news up there. Papi’s wife called me. He had a list of people she was supposed to contact on her phone if anything like this happened.”
“Well, shit. You didn’t tell him anything about me, did ya?”
“Of course not. He didn’t even know you gave me his name in the first place. I’d just roll in, get the stuff pulled, throw it in my bag, pay the dude, and leave. Did he know you?”
“Nah. I just heard about the place from some guys in the bar, and I gave you the name of the place so you could check it out. It seems to have worked pretty good ’til now.”
“It did. Now I just have to find another place. I’ll try and line one up before my next trip up there.”
“Okay. Hey, thanks for the heads-up, and I’m sorry about being so pissed at ya at the bar. I just hate makin’ this drive.”
“Welcome to my world. Now you know why I charge you what I charge you.”
“Yeah. Look, check with me before heading my way next trip. I gotta find some new distributors in town before I can handle any more weight locally, okay?”
“Yeah. Will do. Drive safe goin’ home, Dom.”
“I’ll try and stay awake. Indiana bores the hell out of me.”
“Later.”
Lee’s Summit, Missouri
“Hi, you hungry?”
“I’m starving. What’s on the menu?”
“I just tried something new with some chicken. I already ate. Let me warm yours up. How’d it go today?”
Trask started to fill Lynn in on all the events of the day, when she told him to look behind him.
Trask turned and saw all three dogs in the center of the kitchen. Nikki was on his left, Tasha on his right, and in the center stood a very happy Boo, ice-blue eyes shining with joy, even with a very large cone anchored around her neck.
“She can see again,” Lynn said, her own eyes welling with happy tears. “I picked her up this morning.”
Trask bent down and got the trio of kisses, sticking his face inside Boo’s big plastic cone to receive hers. He gave them all a rub on the head and gave Boo some extra ear massages. “Welcome back, Boo-Boo,” he told her. Her tail was going a mile a minute.
“We’ll have to add two or three rounds of eye drops to her insulin shots after breakfast and dinner,” Lynn told him. “The vet loves her to death, and says she’s her new, all-time favorite patient. Follow-up check-up is next week.”
She put the plate in front of Trask and he dug in immediately. Whatever she had done to the chicken had certainly worked.
“Why don’t you eat first?” Lynn said, laughing. “We can talk when you’re done.”
When he finally sat back, she just said, “Well?”
“Sixty charged and in custody. Some very good post-arrest interviews and additional evidence. And, I got a ticket driving home.”
“You what?!” She was laughing already.
She cracked up even more when he told her about the crying boy-cop.
She leaned over and kissed him. “I’m proud of you, as always. You done?”
Trask pushed the plate forward. “If I ate seconds every time I wanted more of your cooking, I’d weigh three-hundred pounds.”
She pointed toward the living room. “I think Boo would enjoy some school tonight after dinner.”
They finished their meal and then fed the pups. Boo had already begun settling into a new after-dinner routine. She sat still for her insulin injection, and then sat calmly while Trask dropped four rounds of eyedrops into each of her surgically restored eyes. A small treat reinforced all the positive behavior after the eyedrops were done.
“Ready for school, girls?” Trask asked all three dogs.
He pulled out the treat box and started arranging three rows in the opened top which served as a tray. He walked in and sat on the couch. It was a ritual they had had either to suspend or substantially amend when Boo went blind a few months back. Renewing it with a new home and furniture arrangement wouldn’t have worked before, but with Boo’s eyes working again, it was time and they were very ready.
They posed in their usual order. Nikki sat on the left, Boo in the center, little Tasha on the right. They went through their old seven tricks—sit up, high five, kisses, shake hands, down, run around the coffee table, sit and stay. They each did their routines perfectly, as if they’d never missed a day, even though Boo bumped her cone going around the table. Trask sat and looked at the three furry, happy little faces, and wished that fleeting moments of perfection like that could last forever.
Kansas City, Missouri
Cam Turner, John Foote, and Billy Graham sat in Trask’s office as they went through their checklists. John and Billy still had to review the footage from the security cameras inside Papi’s chop shop. One of them had to transport all the cocaine found by the arrest teams—more than six kilos—to the Kansas City Crime Lab for testing. They had several preliminary field test results—all positive for cocaine—to use in the grand jury.
Trask needed to review Cam’s draft of the detention memorandum before they filed it wit
h Judge Hamilton. Their grand jury session was set for that afternoon.
“How many of the intercepted phone calls do you think we’ll need for trial?” Foote asked Trask.
“For now, I have no idea. It depends on how many defendants actually want a trial. I really don’t believe that that number will be a high one. For now, we’ll use the grand jury summary as a guide. We’ll see who’s left for trial, and we’ll bump the number of intercepts up for them.”
At Trask’s request, Foote and Graham had pulled three-to-five calls for each defendant, with as many as possible corroborated by physical evidence or informant statements. There were ten available for Papi, who had directed the actions of his crew, but rarely got his hands dirty by moving any product himself. Those compartmentalized summaries of evidence would be what they would use in the grand jury session to show that there was reason to indict each of the sixty targets.
“We can even hand out those summaries as part of our discovery disclosures in the detention hearings on Tuesday,” Trask continued. “I should say, in the defendants’ initial appearances. It’ll help drive in some early guilty pleas. If Hamilton agrees with our statement of the applicable law in our memo, the defendants who are illegally in the country won’t even be entitled to detention hearings, especially if ICE is filing detainers on them. Where are we on those?”
Trask knew that most seasoned magistrates viewed a notice of intent to detain by the immigration authorities as a fait accompli. Even if the judge thought a defendant should be released, if that defendant was not legally present in the country, and if Immigration and Customs Enforcement had filed a notice that they were going to detain the defendant if the magistrate cut him loose, the judge usually saw no point in having a hearing on the issue.
“We have an ICE rep in the CCU,” Graham said, using the abbreviations for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service and for the local police department’s Career Criminal Unit. “He’s been knocking those out all weekend. We should be ready with them and have them all filed with the court by tomorrow.”
“Great.” Trask nodded with approval. The team was working well, due in large part to them already being assembled and working together at CCU. Tommy Land had done a good job of minimizing all the intramural agency conflicts.
