Bombshell

by Catherine Coulter

  “Agent Hammersmith, you have no right to question me,” Anna said. “You’re guessing at somethin’ you shouldn’t, do you hear me?”

  “Guilty as charged. Here I have the gall to interfere with a federal investigation. So why not take that up with your DEA boss? We could work together, help each other if you’d level with me. Otherwise, Sheriff Noble and the FBI might blow your whole investigation without even meaning to. Does that give you a different slant on things now, Agent Castle?”

  She cursed him, nice full-bodied curses, then whirled around, and said over her shoulder, “Stay here, I mean it. I need to make a call.”

  He watched her walk on stockinged feet down the hallway and into another room, heard her speaking on her cell, though he couldn’t make out the words. Five minutes passed; he timed it. When she came back, she walked right up to him, and her look was both angry and resigned. “You win. I spoke to my boss in Washington, Mac Brannon. He’s calling Mr. Maitland, bringing the FBI in with us. You’re right, I’m DEA, Special Agent Lilyanna Remie Parrish. You’ve embarrassed me, made me look incompetent to my boss. How did you know?”

  She was so close he could feel her warm breath on his face. And her mouth was too close. He stepped back. “You obviously didn’t realize you were sending out clues.”

  “I sent out clues? I’m very good. I never send out clues. What clues?”

  He smiled down at her and counted off on his fingers. “You knew quite a bit about guns, you knew about fingerprints, and the biggie—you disappeared all day Saturday. It takes a cop to know a cop, don’t you agree?”

  “That’s not much at all, not a single real clue at all. All a guess.”

  Griffin shook his head, pointed to her Glock. “Smart of you to be really careful. You went out this morning. Where did you go?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I’m psychic.” At her startled look, he said, “Would you believe I saw the double footsteps to and from your front door to your car?”

  She said, “I went to Bridy’s Market for some bagels and cream cheese.”

  He walked past her into a small living room that looked like a clone of his grandparents’ lake cottage, old and faded and a bit saggy, neither place updated since the day the front doors opened circa 1950. There was an ancient chintz sofa across from two overstuffed flowery chairs, scattered rag rugs over a banged-up oak floor, and an old fireplace belching a bit of smoke and little heat.

  Music soared, and he recognized Itzhak Perlman. “Turn off the music, please. We need to get a lot of things straight.”

  There was suddenly a loud yowl. Griffin whirled around to see a fat black tail disappear under the sofa. He turned to her, an eyebrow arched.

  “That’s Monk. He adopted me right after I moved in. He’s still scared of people.” She switched off the music, turned to face him, her Glock still in her hand. “I don’t know if he’ll come out while you’re here.”

  “What’s your real name again?”

  “Lilyanna Remie Parrish.”

  “Lilyanna. Such a sweet, romantic name. I’ll bet you’re called Anna, right? I see you’re still holding your gun.”

  She looked blank, then whooshed out a breath and stuffed the Glock back under her jeans waistband. “My mom’s maiden name is Castle, so it’s worked well. It’s a precept in undercover work—you stick as close to the truth as possible. And yeah, you’re right, everyone calls me Anna.”

  Griffin said, “So you’ve done undercover before?”

  She nodded. “A couple of times. No, no one guessed what or who I was.”

  “Let’s get to it. What are you doing here in Maestro?”

  She turned slowly. “First of all, Agent Hammersmith—”

  “Griffin. Don’t go all stiff and formal on me now.”

  “You called me Agent Castle and looked like you wanted to punch me.”

  “I did until I looked at you and realized you were not only scared, you were hurting because of your partner’s murder.”

  That was true enough. “Yes, all right, Griffin. Listen to me, I do care for Delsey—a lot. I wouldn’t do anything to put her at risk, and I haven’t. I was horrified—and very angry—when she was hurt.” She punched her fist against her palm. “My partner—his name was Arnold Racker—he was a fifteen-year DEA veteran who taught a lot of us what we know. Arnie had three grown daughters. His wife’s name—widow’s name—is Janice. He’d just become a grandfather.” The dam broke. She lowered her face and let tears roll down her checks.

  He made no move toward her, although he wanted to, but he knew it wouldn’t be smart. He simply waited.

  She got herself together, scrubbed her hands over her face and walked to the fireplace to warm her hands. Good luck with that.

  He said, “I’m very sorry, Anna.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” she said. “About all of it. About Delsey gettin’ involved, about her seein’ Arnie dead, about Arnie bein’ dead.”

  “We’re going to work together now to get these bastards. Tell me how all this started.”

  “All right. You’ve heard of the Transnational Threat Alliance? It involves collaboration at all levels of law enforcement, even international, to bring down criminal organizations moving drugs across borders.

  “Our own National Drug Intelligence Center picked up on a flood of marijuana and very pure cocaine comin’ into the D.C. metro area startin’ last summer. And not only D.C., but other cities in the area—Baltimore, Richmond, even Philadelphia.

  “We traced its source to this general area with a new technology I’m sure you know about, the National License Plate Reader program. Customs and Border Patrol have installed handheld license plate readers at all our land ports of entry. They can’t catch everythin’ because there’s a lot of commerce and travel they can’t disrupt. You’re heard how the cartels started concealin’ drugs in car transmissions, truck manifolds, gas tanks, even produce, and it’s tough for them. But they record all the license plates.

  “We’ve expanded that program with established fixed locations inside the U.S. police cruisers, municipalities—even private companies—now have automated readers. We mine that data and cross-reference it with known and suspected gang members and drug traffickers. You want to hear the kicker? Turns out there was simply too much of that kind of traffic in and out of this area for it to be a coincidence.”

  Griffin nodded. “And since Maestro is only an hour away from I-95, it makes a good drop-off and distribution center? Is that what you think is happening? In the perfect cover of a peaceful small town?”

  “That’s right. But there’s more. The drug trade within a few hundred miles of here has some new players. The Mara Salvatrucha, a gang of mostly Central Americans, was always a threat, but they were mostly a loose aggregate of local gangs, more of an association than an organized cartel. You probably know them better as MS-13. Now they’ve established a major smugglin’ center in Mexico, and they’ve become major local players in drugs, money launderin’, even arms dealin’ into and out of Mexico. Someone is makin’ them into a force in this area, someone with the money, muscle, and guile to do it.”

  “And that person is here in Maestro?”

  “We think so. We think that person is Rafael Salazar.”

  Griffin felt the shock of surprise. Surely not possible. But—“We’ll get into that in a minute. Start at the beginning again. What do you know about him?”

  “We heard last summer from the Spanish National Police—the Cuerpo National de Policía—that Rafael Salazar was a person of interest to them. He’s part of a powerful Salvadoran family, the Lozanos, involved in guns and the drug trade. They spread their business into Spain, primarily through North Africa some two generations back, and now they could be branching into the U.S. The Spanish police alerted us Salazar was on his way here, to Stanislaus, for at least a year. Tha
t jibed closely with our own investigation, and it rang big alarm bells.”

  “You thought that Salazar’s coming to Stanislaus meant the Lozano family was widening their influence to the local Maras?”

  She nodded. “And the establishment of new sources for them from Mexico and South America.”

  Griffin was shaking his head. “Salazar is a world-famous classical guitarist. You believe he’s a drug trafficker, too? It sounds nuts. Why would he do it? It makes him a criminal, and surely he’s got to realize if caught he’d be playing guitar to prisoners for the rest of his natural life. No more fame, adoration from fans, no more money in his pockets. You’re saying he’s also involved with his family in drugs? He’s the one running organization MS-13 here at Stanislaus? I can’t get my brain around it.”

  “Neither could I, at least for a while, but our information was solid. Salazar’s mother, Maria Rosa, belongs to the Lozano crime family, originally out of San Salvador, as I said. At least three generations of extortion, weapons, drugs, prostitution, you name it. Several of the cousins are high up in the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador. The Spanish police told us they didn’t believe Maria Rosa had any involvement with the criminal part of the family enterprise, and that like her sons, she was a fine musician.

  “But Salazar—we discovered he spent a good deal of his time with his mother’s brother, Mercado Lozano, when he was growing up. His mother sent him there every summer from Spain. Mercado is now the kingpin of the Lozano operation in El Salvador. So the Spanish police have watched him for years now. But nothin’ has stuck yet.”

  “I understand Salazar’s brother invited him here,” Griffin said. “Is Hayman involved, too?”

  She shook her head. “To the best of our knowledge, Dr. Hayman has never dealt with the Lozano family, except, of course, his mother, Maria Rosa. She seems to have kept him out of the family business. Don’t forget, he never lived with his mother, has never met any of his relatives in San Salvador, so far as we know.”

  Griffin nodded. “Twins, separated as boys. Look what happened to the two of them.”

  “Very different upbringings, but the same deep well of talent.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange Dr. Hayman has no clue who and what his twin brother is? And his mother?”

  “Yes, I agree with you, and so do my bosses. I’ve been keeping an eye on Dr. Hayman, but in six months I’ve seen nothing suspicious at all, and his name hasn’t appeared anywhere it shouldn’t. And so, Griffin, this is why I was sent here undercover. No one outside the DEA knew I was here, not even local law enforcement.”

  Griffin spoke his fear aloud. “Anna, he wants Delsey very badly.”

  “It bothered me as well until I realized she was probably only his obsession du jour. Since his arrival in September I’ve seen him focus on other graduate students, and after a while, he moves on.”

  He prayed she was right. “How did the DEA get Stanislaus to let you in?”

  “Three of us agents applied, with the help of some imaginative letters of recommendation supplied by the Agency, but I was the only one to pass the audition.”

  He gave her a long look, nodded slowly. “What were you supposed to do exactly, search Salazar’s house, his office? Or lie low and listen?”

  “Maurie’s Diner is gossip central, the perfect place to pick up random information and news. I know about every extramarital affair in Maestro. Now, as for Salazar’s house, he’s got a state-of-the-art alarm system, no gettin’ around that, and I did try. But I did have occasional access, since he invites students to his house. But I could rarely look around alone; he’d have noticed.

  “Finally in December I got into his office long enough to find a hidden drawer in his desk with records of large foreign bank transactions, and this was enough to get a federal warrant for electronic surveillance.

  “Then about a week ago we got word from an informant in Baltimore that the MS-13 gang there was expectin’ a large shipment from this area. With the federal warrant, we were set to move, so Arnie was sent in to set up surveillance in Salazar’s house. He took a job with the Golden Goose Catering Company in Henderson because we knew Salazar would call them for the party Friday night. It gave him the opportunity to set up during the party.”

  “You never saw him after that,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  She shook her head, misery shining out of her eyes. “Someone got onto him, I don’t know who. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She swallowed. “When I didn’t hear from Arnie Saturday morning, I called him on his throwaway cell phone several times, but there was no answer. I called the Golden Goose, and they told me he hadn’t helped with the clean-up at the party; they were really angry about it. That’s when I knew for sure somethin’ had happened to him. I went to his apartment house in Henderson and waited for Mrs. Simpson to go out so she wouldn’t see me. I went to his apartment and cleaned it out before someone else did. I took his files and his computer but left his clothes.”

  Griffin said, “And that’s why there were only the basics there by the time Dix’s people arrived at his apartment. At least you got the stuff out before the drug dealers did.”

  “A good thing, since I was in those files. They would have found me.”

  Monk meowed, pressed his face against her leg. She reached down and picked him up. He was a behemoth, at least twenty pounds, and she had to brace herself. Then she stood rocking the cat, shifting from one foot to the other. He could hear Monk’s manic purrs from six feet. She pressed her face against his thick black fur.

  “What do you think happened Friday night?”

  “Arnie called me that night, about six o’clock, as usual, told me he’d arrived with the other caterers at Salazar’s house. I remember he told me how easy it would be, said since he was one of the crew he’d be able to move easily around the house without bein’ noticed. He said the house would soon be filled with people, so he’d have all the cover he needed.

  “I remember when I told him to be careful, I swear I could see his smile over the phone. He told me it was a bummer I’d had to be here for six months with nothing more to do than serve hamburgers and play my fiddle. I could tell from his voice how wired he was.” She swallowed, looked at the wisp of smoke drifting out of the fireplace. “But it didn’t work out that way.” She paused. “I never spoke to him again.”

  “But even if Salazar or someone who works for him caught Arnie wiring the place,” Griffin said, “why would Salazar have a federal officer killed? They had to know it would bring the wrath of God down on them. How was that worth it?”

  “If Mac Brannon had thought Arnie’s life was at risk, he’d have never sent him in there. The gang—MS-13—most of them are anything but smart; they’re street thugs. One of them might have panicked, or gone into a rage. Or Arnie might have seen something or someone that was too threatening to let him go. We don’t know yet.”

  “So why not pull the trigger? Bust in there, clap the handcuffs on Salazar, interview all the guests and caterers to see if someone saw something?”

  “That’s what I wanted to do on Saturday as soon as I saw that sketch of Arnie,” she said. “Mr. Brannon was hot to do it, too, but he got orders to lay back and keep me undercover. We could have arrested Salazar and all the gang members within three counties, but we’d have had nothing firm to hold them on, and you can bet we’d never have found where they stashed the drugs. And since Arnie wasn’t killed in Salazar’s house, there wouldn’t be any trace evidence there, nothing to tie him to Arnie’s murder.

  “I wanted to tell you everything I knew, but there was too much riding on taking down Salazar entirely. Mr. Brannon told me to lie low and wait. We all know there has to be panic, even chaos, behind that scene Salazar staged for you at his house on Saturday. They have to know we’ll be there at any minute, and people who are panicked make mistakes.

  “Everyone in ou
r local office is out in the field. If Salazar and the gang make the mistake of trying to move the drugs away too soon, the chances are good we’ll get them.”

  “And what’s to keep Salazar from getting on a plane back to Madrid?”

  “If either Salazar or Dr. Hayman, for that matter, buys a plane ticket or tries to leave the country, we’ll know, and we’ll arrest him.”

  “How does Delsey fit in?”

  He saw her flinch, saw a flash of guilt in her eyes. “All right, I realized Salazar was interested in her, not his obsessive sort of interest, and I thought it would be smart to get close to her. But listen, that was only at the start. I really came to care for Delsey, and she for me. I didn’t want to use her, all I ever wanted to do was protect her.

  “When Professor Salazar guilted her into coming to his party, it never occurred to me there’d be any problem, and there shouldn’t have been. Who knew Dr. Hayman’s margaritas would make her sick and she’d leave early?”

  “Early enough to see a dead man in her bathtub and get bashed on the head. How in the world did that happen?”

  “I was as shocked as you were. Even though Arnie spoke to Delsey a couple of times at the diner, they were never introduced. But he knew where she lived. The only way I can put it together is that they got a couple of gang members to haul him back to his apartment to search it and see what he had on them.”

  She drew a deep breath, picked up Monk again, and began to stroke him really hard. He reared back and nearly toppled her over as he struggled to get out of her arms. “All right, all right.” She set him down. “Arnie knew he couldn’t take the thugs to his apartment. There was too much for them to find there. He had to decide fast where to take them. He knew Delsey was at the party. He also knew she lived alone—and that’s the biggie—so I’m thinking he directed them to her place instead. They broke in the back door, realized soon enough it wasn’t his apartment. I’m betting he made a run for it, but they forced him into the bathroom and killed him there.”