by Glenn Trust
“What about Krieg’s operation,” Sandy said. “That’s a violation of federal law, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Sole agreed. “They will put that together through the murder investigation, and if you wanted to come forward, you could.” He looked into the mirror. “What would you add? That you know who killed Krieg? That you wanted to kill him yourself. Would you give up Reggie Prince? He helped get you out, saved your life, but it’s your choice. I won’t stop you if that’s what you want to do.”
Sandy was quiet, thinking it over. He shook his head. “No, but it seems like there should be something we can do.”
“I agree,” Isabella snapped. “You’ve painted this picture of the cartel with its money and killers and that they can reach anyone, but the government has money and can reach anyone too.”
“It seems that way, but it’s not that simple,” Sole said, nodding.
“Why?” Isabella refused to accept that nothing could be done to get their lives back.
“Alright, let’s say you had information to give them about a federal crime the cartel was involved in, which you don’t, but assuming you did, the Feds would use it and move on.”
“Move on? What does that mean? Abandon us?”
“They don’t look at it that way, but yes, that would be the effect. Oh, they’d arrange new identities for you, set you up in a new city, help you find employment, but after a while, you and Sandy and Jacinta would be on your own. There won’t be guards standing outside your house or driving you to work or shopping. It’ll just be you.”
He shook his head. “The cartel can wait. If it takes a year or ten years to find you, they will, and when they do, after the Feds are gone and no one is watching, you will disappear … all of you.”
“But you were there. You could explain it all.” She stopped. “But then they would put you in prison for killing the cartel man after your wife died, and there was ….” She stopped short of mentioning Claude Brainerd’s suicide. How many others, she wondered?
“I thought of doing that,” Sole said. “Turning myself in would be the simplest way.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want that either.”
“It’s my decision, not yours. I would do it to protect you all if it would help, but it won’t.”
He struggled for a way to explain “If I go to the FBI, confess, tell what I know, what I have found out, what I’ve done, they’ll use that information. Other agencies will get involved, DEA, ICE, all of them and as they close in, the cartel will know it and eventually will find out who talked. It won’t take much for them to piece it all together. They know I was with you in Creosote. You would become a target, a warning to others who might turn on them. I would be in prison, unable to protect you, and the result would be the same. You would disappear … forever.”
“Disappear? You mean …”
“One more thing.” He wanted her to understand everything. “This is more than cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys. This is personal for them. Forget the cartel drug dealer I shot. They will come for me because they butchered my family.”
“No.” Isabella shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Think of it this way. If the situation was reversed, and I had murdered their loved ones, they would never stop looking for me … ever. They assume the same about me, that I will never stop coming for them … ever.” He didn’t mention to Isabella that their assumption was valid before he met her and she damped the fire inside him.
He continued, “It’s how their minds work. They have to find me and eliminate me, and everyone I care about, or I will always be a threat, someone who could show up one day when they least expect it.”
“A blood feud … Hatfield and McCoy sort of thing …” Isabella’s lip curled in disgust. “They kill yours; you kill theirs until there is no one left to kill.
“Vendetta,” Jacinta said.
“Yes. Vendetta.” A thought came to him, a way to illustrate their predicament. “Have you ever heard of Whitey Bulger?”
“A gangster,” Sandy said from the back seat.
“Right. A mob hitman. No one knows exactly how many men he killed, but with all the killing, he made enemies along the way. He was also an FBI informant for a while. The mob put a contract on him. He was a young man when he started killing people.”
He paused and looked at her. “He was eighty-nine years old serving time for racketeering in a federal prison when another inmate put a padlock in a sock and beat him to death. The mob never forgets.”
“But that’s the mob, not the ones who are after you.” Isabella tried to sound hopeful.
“The people looking for me, the cartel … they’re worse.” Sole shook his head. “Even if I gave it up. They would not, and now they are looking for you so they can get to me.”
He stopped talking. They tried to absorb everything he had said. Finally, Isabella spoke.
“This is bullshit.” She was angry and had a right to be. “Our lives are over. According to you, we’ll always be on the run.” She glared at him. “All because you’re on some quest, some road you think will lead to justice, but there won’t be any justice, just more killing.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “How could you do this to us?”
Her words cut deep into his heart. She felt betrayed. Isabella had come to mean more to him than he had dared admit to himself, and he had just lost her.
“I had no right to become … to involve you in my life,” he said stoically. “I’m taking you to a place where you should be safe. I’ll leave you and go somewhere else … leave a trail for the cartel to follow so they come after me and away from you. It’s the best I can do, for now, Isabella. I’m sorry.”
He looked at her, but she turned away, staring out the passenger window.
You did this, John, he told himself. Everything you touch turns to pain. He promised himself it would never happen again.
83.
The Saddest Part
Enrique Valera walked into Sheriff Dermott’s office, formal and stern-faced. Dermott greeted him with a handshake and offered him a side chair where they could talk more informally than if the sheriff remained behind his desk.
“Thank you for coming, Comandante.” Dermott took a seat across a small coffee table from Valera. He placed a folder on the table between them.
“There is much to discuss, Sheriff.” Valera crossed his legs and waited for Dermott to begin.
Valera had contacted the sheriff regarding the shooting of the Mexican crossing the river. Since his visit from Emmett Brewer, information on the matter had dried up.
“Yes, there is.” Dermott nodded, opened the file, and began going through the notes he prepared for the meeting.
As a matter of professional courtesy and in the interest of maintaining reasonably amicable, if uncertain, international relations, the sheriff included almost every detail of the investigation—almost. He explained that, while they had not been able to prove who pulled the trigger, it seemed likely that an employee of Krieg and Zabala was the shooter, and the most likely suspect was one Ralph ‘Lucky’ Martin.
“This man then, he is under arrest?” Valera asked.
“No. I’m sorry.” Dermott took a breath. “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” Valera’s brow furrowed. “You found his killer then, and this will perhaps lead you to a motive for the wounding of the father at the river. Whoever was behind the incident may have wanted the shooter dead and unable to talk.”
“Yes.” Dermott nodded. “That is the likely scenario, but we have not been able to determine who gave the orders to shoot at the family at the river or who killed the shooter. We agree, however, that the two are almost certainly linked together. At some point, we’ll be able to connect the pieces.”
“At some point.” Valera frowned. “You’ll excuse me for saying so, but that is not very reassuring.”
“I know,” Dermott said with an exasperated sigh. “Comandante, this is as frustrat
ing for us as it is for you.”
“I’m sure it is.” Valera nodded and spoke his next words less formally. “And our friend and comrade, Emmett Brewer, is there any progress on finding his killer?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Dermott nodded. “He was a friend and a dedicated professional. We found him by the river. No doubt, he was searching for evidence regarding the shooting at the family and the murder of the shooter.”
“So, once again, there is a connection, but the person who killed Brewer is unknown, and there are no suspects.” Valera remained silent for a few seconds and then asked, “May I see the file?”
“Surely.”
Dermott spread the file and its contents on the table between them. Both huddled over it, examining reports, looking at crime scene images, discussing their theories. They talked for more than two hours, reviewing every document and report.
When they finished, there was nothing more to review, and nothing more to say. Valera rose to leave. They shook hands.
“Thank for the courtesy of seeing me, Sheriff.”
“I wish I could give you more. I promise you, we will stay on the investigations until there are answers.”
Valera nodded without speaking and did not seem reassured. “Thank you, Sheriff. I am sure you are doing all that you are capable of.”
He left. Dermott took the file and slumped into the chair behind his desk. The words stung. All that you are capable of.
With no hint of rudeness or confrontation, Valera managed to give him a solid slap in the face regarding his thoughts on the investigative capabilities of the Salvia County Sheriff’s Office. Dermott had to agree. He rubbed his eyes and reached for his desk drawer, retrieving another file and a small plastic evidence bag.
The file contained the investigative report regarding the suicide of Deputy Claude Brainerd. He had been out on paid time off and never reported back to work for his next assigned shift.
The duty lieutenant sent a deputy to investigate. He found Brainerd, three days ripe, sitting up in bed, a bullet hole in his head, his duty weapon on the floor. There was no evidence of foul play, no signs of a struggle, nothing. Brainerd lived alone, and of all the fingerprints lifted from the house and the gun, not one matched anyone except the deputy.
Those same fingerprints were also all over the three .32 caliber shell casings in the plastic bag. They had been taken from Emmett Brewer’s pocket by the deputies collecting evidence while Dermott responded to the Krieg murder.
He laid the evidence bag beside the investigative report. The key to the puzzle was there, and the only men able to answer questions and put the puzzle together, Tom Krieg and Claude Brainerd, were dead, one executed in his own barn, the other dead of an apparent suicide.
“What were you up to, Claude?” Dermott muttered out loud. “What did Krieg have you doing?”
That Krieg paid Brainerd to do his dirty work was entirely believable. That the deputy put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger? It was inconceivable.
Dermott shook his head. There was no way in hell he would ever believe that Claude Brainerd decided to end his own pathetic, moneygrubbing life.
Valera was right. They were doing all they were capable of, and that was the saddest part of all. It was not enough.
84.
Dead Man Running
“Did you think you could hide?”
The old rags that had covered him in the night were ripped away. Pepe Lopez blinked up at the tall man standing over him. A terrified wail began low in his throat and rose to a crescendo, filtering out of the small shack into the morning air.
The shack belonged to his aunt, his mother’s sister—Tía Ramira. His eyes darted around the one-room hovel and found her sitting in the small chair that was her only piece of furniture. Her head was tilted back, the wide gash in her throat smiling at him, bright red in the rays of light shining through the single window.
“Noooo!”
“Yes.” Alejandro Garza nodded.
Pepe Lopez had run and stumbled and hidden for several days after leaving Garza’s men dead at the house in Creosote. He knew only one direction to go and eventually found his way to the Rio Grande. Near starvation and with only creek water to drink, he barely had the strength to wade across a chest-deep ford in the river. Fortunately, crossing from the north into Mexico was not nearly as difficult as going in the other direction.
Once in Mexico, he worked his way along the bank until he came to a village and paid a local farmer to take him to a place he remembered from childhood visits with his mother. Tía Ramira never left the small settlement where she grew up.
She opened the door for Pepe, eyed him up and down, and shook her head in disgust because she knew he must be in trouble or he would not have come to her. Then she stepped aside and allowed him to enter. She asked no questions about his business, and he provided no information.
That was yesterday. This morning she was dead.
“Did you think you could hide?” Garza repeated his question.
“I—I was going to come to you. I had to find a way back to Mexico to report to you.”
“I don’t think so.” Garza smirked and shook his head. “Your movements were predictable. We simply spread the word to villages along the Rio Grande. A reward was offered. You should know it wasn’t an enormous reward. It seems your life is not as valuable to others as to you.”
“It was him.” Pepe spoke rapidly. “The one you are looking for. He was in the town. He killed your men.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Garza shook his head. “You become less valuable by the second.”
“No, please,” Pepe begged desperately. “I did everything you said. It wasn’t my fault. I ran because there was no other choice. He killed your men and would have killed me.”
“It may have been better if he had,” Garza said matter-of-factly as he knelt and Pepe cringed away on the pile of rags.
Pepe’s throat and mouth froze, unable to speak or plead for his life. He wept and turned, trying to scramble away on all fours. Garza put out a hand and pushed him face down in the dirt. With a knee on Pepe’s back, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a knife. He thumbed the release, and the well-oiled blade sprang open.
As it did, he passed it across Pepe’s throat, pulling back hard into the tissue to make sure he severed the carotid artery. Rising to step away from the spurting blood, Garza wiped the blade on Pepe’s pants and watched.
For a minute, Pepe continued to move, ever more feebly as the seconds ticked by. He tried to crawl away, but he found he could not crawl away from death. When he ceased moving, Garza turned and left the shack.
Outside, three men stood facing outward. They were the new security detail replacing the men Pepe called Gordito and Flaco, who now lay nameless in a morgue in Salvia County, Texas.
One opened the door to their car, and Garza took a seat. The others kept an eye on the scattering of nearby shacks that made up the village. There was no movement. Everyone remained as far out of sight as possible while the men from Los Salvajes did their work.
***
The trip back to Lázaro Cárdenas took several hours. First, he rode by car from the village thirty miles across the Sonora Desert to a small airfield the cartel occasionally used as part of its narcotics smuggling operations. From there, he rode by helicopter, making several stops for fuel along the way.
By the time he arrived at Bebé Elizondo’s hacienda on the hillside overlooking the Pacific, he was fatigued. He had been gone since leaving to meet with Lopez and arrange the ambush in the mountain pass.
“It is good to have you back, Alejandro.” Bebé greeted him on the veranda, a smile spreading wide across his round face.
“It’s good to be back.” Alejandro took a seat in a cushioned, rattan chair across from Elizondo.
“It seems our American is a difficult one to trap.”
“It would seem so.”
“Have we underestimated him?” Bebé examine
d Garza’s face. The point of the question was clear, although Bebé would never say it so directly to his friend and partner. Have you underestimated him, Alejandro?
As always, Garza answered immediately and without equivocation or resentment. “Yes, I may have.”
Bebé nodded without comment. Garza would be harder on himself for his failure to bring the American’s head back to him than Elizondo could ever be.
“So, what shall we do about him?” Bebé asked. “Perhaps write him off and forget about him. It may be time to move on to other matters.”
“We cannot. This is personal. What would you do in his place, if you found your wife and children murdered?”
“A valid point.” Elizondo nodded, understanding. “If it took the rest of my life, I would rip the heart from the man who did it while he was still living. He would feel every cut of the knife.”
“And that is why we must find him and end this, or one day we will look up, and he will be standing over us, with our blood on his hands.” Garza looked into Bebé’s eyes, an expression of remorse on his face. “I have failed you … twice now. Once when I visited his home and now here.”
“You are too hard on yourself, my friend.” Bebé shook his head. “He was not present on both occasions. That is not a failure on your part.” Bebé shrugged the matter of failure away. “He is a lucky man. That is all.”
“Still, I promise you I will not fail again.”
“As I said, you have never failed me, Alejandro. Let us not speak further of failure.” Bebé took his time lighting a cigar and puffing it to life before he leaned back in the chair and said, “This lucky norteamericano, this John Sole, he is on the run now. So we must either follow or find a way to bring him to us.”
“He is running. This is true.” Garza nodded and made a pledge. “The direction, away from us or to us, is of no importance. I promise you this. He is a dead man running.”
