Head Wounds

by Michael McGarrity

  Clayton paused on the sidewalk. The two old men sitting at the curb had moved to the shade of a recessed entrance of a boarded-up store across the street. The homeless woman was nowhere to be seen. An idling Chevy van halfway down the street raised his concern for a moment until a man came out of a small package liquor store carrying a case of beer and quickly drove away.

  A second set of instructions enclosed with Clayton’s plane ticket directed him to take a different route back to the airport from the Legends Lounge. Smart thinking, but was it necessary? What exactly did Agent Harjo want to keep secret? His L.A. operation, whatever that was? Or his involvement in hunting for El Jefe?

  Clayton didn’t doubt Harjo’s word that the sicario had assassinated Goggin and Nautzile. But he’d feel easier about it if he had some additional confirmation.

  He walked past another complex of flat-roofed, rectangular, windowless buildings to a bus stop where a group of eight males, all older Mexicans and smokers, patiently waited for the next Metro local to arrive.

  He stood a safe distance away from the cloud of tobacco smoke that hung over the men, figuring if there were no traffic tie-ups or airport delays, he’d arrive back in Las Cruces in time to stop by the office and review Harjo’s credentials.

  Before Harjo, Clayton’s most recent experience involving a DEA agent hadn’t gone well, resulting in an explosive gunfight with four people dead, including a New Mexico State Police officer who’d been a friend. And although Harjo’s proposal intrigued him, he wasn’t interested in becoming bait to snare a big-time Chinese-Mexican gangster. But he did want to learn more about Harjo and the CI willing to lead the way to El Jefe. What were their agendas, really?

  Did it matter? If after dinner he told Grace where he’d been today and why, it would make it almost impossible to go undercover in Mexico without risking his family. He could either be honest with Grace or respect the confidentiality of his meeting with Harjo.

  Clayton decided to hold off deciding anything until he’d done his research and considered all the options.

  Delayed on the flight out of L.A., Clayton arrived in El Paso late in the afternoon. From his unmarked unit in the airport parking lot, he left a voice message for Grace asking her not to hold dinner for him. Driving north on 1-10, he broke protocol and didn’t inform dispatch he’d returned to duty. He wanted time without interruption to read through the files Harjo said would be on his desk.

  Except for the rugged and starkly beautiful Franklin Mountains that filled the eastern horizon, there wasn’t much to admire on the short drive to Las Cruces, and the heavy long-haul truck traffic on I-10 kept Clayton’s attention on the road. By the time he arrived at the office, Sheriff Vasquez and Captain Rodney had radioed that they were home and off-duty. All the better. He’d rather brief them in the morning, when he knew more about the players in Harjo’s scheme.

  Swing shift was out on the streets and only Vasquez’s administrative assistant and gatekeeper Charlene Romero was still at her desk at the reception area outside the sheriff’s office.

  Thankfully, no detectives were loitering after-hours in the Investigations Division, and the area was quiet. Settled at his desk, Clayton quickly entered a summary of his meeting with Harjo into the case file before turning to the folders in his in-basket.

  He started with Harjo’s confidential informant, Juan Jose Garza, the man who allegedly knew how to find the nameless El Jefe. A native-born U.S. citizen with extended family in Piedras Negras, Garza was thirty-two years old and had a history of substance abuse. He’d been arrested and convicted of petty crimes including shoplifting and disturbing the peace, had a more serious DUI offense, and pled out to one breaking-and-entering charge that put him on probation for a year.

  Busted a year ago for possession of marijuana with intent to sell—a felony that could have cost him hard time in a Texas prison—Garza had cut a deal with the DEA to report on conversations with his uncle, a high-ranking commander in the Piedras Negras Municipal Police Department who was, according to an intelligence report, the local drug lord.

  Juan Garza’s earlier reports had given the DEA good information on key members of the cartel who’d gunned down rival gang members in a shoot-out in front of a Mexican drug treatment center. The information had been turned over to the Mexican authorities, but how it had been used was absent from the file. Furthermore, there was nothing to suggest Garza had personal knowledge of El Jefe or actually knew his whereabouts.

  Clayton put the file aside and opened Harjo’s dossier. In his mid-forties, he’d been with the DEA for seventeen years, recruited out of the Tucson PD, where he’d worked undercover for three years. He graduated valedictorian in his DEA training class and returned to Tucson, where he continued undercover until his reassignment to the U.S. Consulate General Office in Guadalajara, Mexico.

  After the Guadalajara duty tour, Harjo was assigned to the El Paso Division. His duty stations after El Paso had been redacted from his file. Citations for his various departmental honors and awards were also missing. It made Clayton suspicious. Such a big black hole in a dossier with so many commendations meant Harjo was a special asset.

  Doing what? Clayton wondered. Something dirty? Something wet?

  Appended to Harjo’s file was Special Agent Danny Fallon’s résumé. He was all Harjo claimed him to be; a highly decorated Army Special Forces combat veteran fluent in Navajo, Spanish, and English, with some Chinese and Arabic. He was a certified wilderness survival and combat arms instructor who’d been visiting faculty at the FBI Academy and DEA Training Academy in Quantico.

  Fallon had received a DEA Superior Performance Award for identifying and confiscating over thirty million dollars in laundered drug money funneled into British Columbia by a Chinese export company. He was thirty-five years old, divorced, with no children.

  Clayton locked the files in his desk drawer and looked up to see Sheriff Vasquez coming through the door.

  “Charlene snitched on me that I was back, didn’t she?” Clayton said with a smile.

  A cop first and politician only as an afterthought, Vasquez nodded and pulled up a chair. “Of course, that’s her job. How did it go with Harjo?”

  “You read the files he sent?”

  Vasquez nodded.

  “Then you know he wants me to partner with a kick-ass ex–Special Forces DEA agent and a Mexican-American CI former drug user who can allegedly guide us to our supposed killer, the mysterious El Jefe, living somewhere in the wilds of Northern Mexico. What a plan.”

  Vasquez flashed an easy grin. Along with his smarts, his sincerity and calm personality had won him a solid victory in his race for sheriff. “You’re not convinced?”

  “I told Harjo I want to first look for El Jefe my way.”

  Vasquez crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. “And which way is that?”

  Clayton smiled sheepishly. “I’m thinking about it.”

  Vasquez laughed.

  “I’ll rewind the investigation from scratch,” Clayton proposed. “There’s a clue out there I’ve missed.”

  “You’ve got three days,” Vasquez said.

  “What?”

  “Three days,” he repeated. “By then, if you’re still spinning your wheels, we’ll do as Harjo asks.”

  “Why?”

  Vasquez sighed. “Because DEA convinced the Department of Justice to increase our federal grant to fund body cams, drones, upgraded communication systems, new onboard vehicle computers, and state-of-the-art surveillance cameras—all stuff we badly need. But authorization is predicated on our playing ball with Harjo.”

  Clayton grunted. “Great.”

  “But I did get you three days.” Vasquez put a three-ring binder on the desk. “That’s the intelligence report on current High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Operations in the Eagle Pass–Piedras Negras sector that Rodney put together, along with some demographic facts and interesting information about the Kickapoo Indians. Happy reading.”

  Clayton
laid his hand on the binder. “Exactly what happens in three days?”

  “That has yet to be made clear. Agent Harjo will be in touch. This is highly confidential. Not a word to anyone.”

  “I’m not happy about this, Ramon.”

  “I want this case solved, Clayton. There’s a lieutenant’s slot opening soon. Keep that in mind.”

  Clayton smiled at the maybe promotion offer. He’d lost his lieutenant rank once to politics and once to his own stupidity. “Do you think the third time would be the charm, amigo?”

  Vasquez shrugged and grinned. “In your case, who knows?”

  Clayton’s expression turned serious. “If I do this, I want protection twenty-four/seven for my family, and that includes Hannah at NMSU and Wendell in Albuquerque.”

  “I can swing that.”

  “Promise.”

  “You have my word. If and when this is a go, you can tell them you’re on a special assignment, but that’s it.”

  Clayton powered down his computer and pushed back from the desk.

  “Understood.”

  “Good. Buy you a drink?”

  Clayton smiled. “Let’s go.”

  For most of her married life, Grace had lived with the daily uncertainty that comes from being a cop’s wife. There were times when it took all her willpower to say nothing about her fears. When Clayton was late coming home for dinner, she’d sit in her favorite living room chair and read, listening for the sound of his police car in the driveway.

  Tonight, she struggled to concentrate on a historical novel set in Elizabethan England. Rather than any undue concern for Clayton’s lateness—he’d called to say he was having a drink with Ramon Vasquez—it was the endless melodrama of the novel that kept pulling her out of the story.

  She put the book aside, resolved to do a better job of selecting titles on her next library visit.

  It wasn’t like Clayton to stop for a drink after work. In fact, Grace couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. What was this about? Nothing bad, she hoped. After all, Clayton and Ramon had been friends for years. Still, Ramon was sheriff and ultimately Clayton’s boss.

  The tuna casserole she’d made warmed in the oven. If he wasn’t home in thirty minutes, she’d go ahead and eat without him. Their daughter, Hannah, a NMSU cross-country runner, had eaten early and left for a team meeting.

  Sometimes, alone in the house, with Wendell in Albuquerque and Hannah busy at school, she missed the closeness of her family in Mescalero. On the weekend, she would go home to participate in the burial rituals for She Who Could Not Be Named and to offer comfort to Blossom and the girls. She expected Clayton to go with her. In fact, she yearned for the day when they could permanently return.

  The sound of an arriving car brought Grace to her feet. She retreated to the kitchen to remove dinner from the oven. She turned as Clayton entered and almost dropped the casserole dish. He was unshaven, wearing his most ragged shirt and a pair of paint-splattered blue jeans suitable only for house chores. On the job, he’d never dress so shabbily unless he was undercover. Something he’d promised not to do ever again.

  “What’s this?” she demanded crossly.

  “I haven’t been demoted to janitor, promise,” Clayton replied with an unconvincing smile.

  She placed the casserole on the counter. “Tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  She glared at him.

  “Don’t get steamed. I had a meeting today with an undercover federal agent.” He tugged at his shirtfront. “For his protection, this is how he asked me to dress.”

  Grace pulled off the oven mitts. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  “It was about a lead in the double homicide. For now, that’s all I can say.”

  Grace bit her lip.

  “Okay?” Clayton asked.

  She reached for the dinner plates. “Fine.”

  But it wasn’t, and they both knew it.

  CHAPTER 4

  In the morning before breakfast, Clayton checked his email and found photographs of Sammy Shen and Carmella Schuster, aka Celine Shepard, sent by Special Agent Harjo. A good headshot of the woman captured her innocent-looking brown eyes and symmetrical features accentuated by a slightly prominent chin that suggested a toughness about her.

  Sammy Shen’s image was a rather grainy telephoto shot. Lean, with angular features and wide-set eyes under thick brows, Sammy wore a finely tailored expensive suit and had a slight smirk on his face.

  Over toast, bacon, and coffee, Clayton and Grace sat with Hannah, who was excited about an upcoming college track-and-field invitational to be held in Austin. She’d been training hard to surpass her personal best in the five-thousand-meter race and hoped to return home with a win. Her infectious enthusiasm for the competition allowed Clayton and Grace to avoid renewing the previous night’s mild squabble.

  He left home an hour before his shift started, informed dispatch he was traveling to Mescalero, and pushed back the memory of Grace’s tight-lipped smile after he’d kissed her goodbye. As he approached the summit of the San Augustin Pass with the stunning view of the wide Tularosa Basin stretching to the distant Sacramento Mountains, his police radio crackled with static.

  Unsure if dispatch was trying to contact him, Clayton responded. Captain Rodney replied, asking why he was going to Mescalero.

  He explained that he now had photographs of Sammy Shen and Carmella Schuster. “I’m going to show them around and see what shakes loose.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Rodney replied agreeably. “Check in with me when you get back.”

  At the casino, Selena Kazhe granted Clayton permission to conduct additional staff interviews. He concentrated on workers most likely to have had repeated contact with Celine Shepard, especially parking attendants, housekeepers, salon beauticians, and servers at the upscale resort restaurant.

  Nothing new emerged until he spoke to Truman Balatche, a valet parking supervisor working the day shift for a sick friend. Clayton had gone to high school with Truman’s mother. A former Marine sniper, Truman had returned from Afghanistan with a Combat Action Ribbon, a Purple Heart, and a severely mangled foot that made him limp badly. Several surgeries at a VA hospital hadn’t corrected it, but Truman kept going anyhow.

  He smiled and nodded at the photograph of Sammy Shen. “Man, I remember him and his ride. Top-of-the-line, sweet Audi Q8. Had to cost over a hundred K. He always tipped a twenty, even if he only stayed for ten minutes.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Couple years ago. He wasn’t a guest. He’d just come to pick up his lady friend.”

  “Celine Shepard?” Clayton showed Truman her photograph.

  “Yeah, that’s her. Some hot number.”

  “Did you record the Audi’s license plate?”

  Truman shook his head. “No need. He was just here to pick her up and drop her off. But it was a Mexican plate.”

  “Remember the state that issued it?” Clayton asked.

  “No, but I think it was one of the frontier plates Mexicans have if they live along the U.S.-Mexican border.”

  Clayton held up Sammy’s photo again. “Are you sure this man drove the Audi?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Do you recall anything else?”

  “The lady liked to shop at this one store in town, High Country Boots on Sudderth. They sell handmade cowboy boots and custom hats that are way beyond my pay grade. Sometimes she’d come back loaded down with three or four shoeboxes.”

  “What about her personal vehicle?”

  “Always a car with Texas plates.”

  “Any chance you’d have a record of it?”

  Truman shook his head. “Not from so long ago. Check with reception.”

  “A computer crash wiped out the records,” Clayton replied.

  Truman nodded. “Something is always going wrong around here. Last week our internal phone system went down in the morning for an hour. Pissed off a lot of
guests who couldn’t get room service.”

  Clayton smiled. “Not good for business. Thanks for your time, Truman.”

  “No problem. You might want to talk to people at the airport. Most of our big-money guests fly in on private jets and keep a spare car there. Must be nice to live the good life.”

  “Must be,” Clayton echoed. “Say hi to your mom for me.”

  Truman turned to greet an arriving vehicle. “Will do.”

  Clayton drove a canyon road to the village of Ruidoso, where a large, illuminated sign on Sudderth Drive directed motorists from town to the casino. Ruidoso was strung along gullies, gaps, and ravines with a noisy, narrow river running through its heart. The high mountains of the surrounding national forest gave the village most of its charm.

  High Country Boots fronted the two-lane street through town in a retail area that drew the majority of the tourist business. It was too early for the stores to open, and in the chilly March air only a few pedestrians wandered the sidewalks. A CLOSED sign in the window of the boot store prompted Clayton to continue on to the Sierra Blanca Regional Airport.

  Although the name of the airport suggested something grand and it had a postcard view of Sierra Blanca, there were no commercial flights. Dozens of corporate jets and small private airplanes were either tied down in neat rows, parked under sunshades, or stored in individual hangars.

  At the administration building, Clayton spoke to the airport manager, Wilson Gramm, a round-faced, friendly man with a full head of white hair. He nodded in recognition at the photograph of Sammy Shen.

  “He stopped flying here a couple of years ago,” Gramm said. “Haven’t seen him since. Owned a Gulfstream. Kept a car here, too, a nice Audi. In fact, it sat untouched for over a year. A private trucking company came, loaded it on a flatbed, and hauled it away.”

  “I need all the information you’ve got on the aircraft, the car, and the trucking company that fetched it,” Clayton said.

  Gramm gestured in the direction of his office. “Sure, that’s not a problem.”