by Dave Butler
“We’ve got four locations to hit this morning,” she said. “Castillo’s home, his office, and two warehouses out in the valley, not far from here. You’ll see those outlined on the maps in front of you. Tracy and I have assigned teams of at least one U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent, one city police officer, and one sheriff to each location. We’ve got additional officers ready to back you up on the scene; they’re only a radio call away. You won’t be surprised to hear that Tracy and I will visit Señor Castillo. In my humble opinion, I deserve nothing less than the satisfaction of showing up at his front door.”
“We’re done here,” she said, as the officers began to rise, “so unless there are any final questions, let’s synchronize our watches so we arrive at each location at exactly the same time. I want no screw-ups.”
Chapter 33
Parked in an unmarked Police Interceptor SUV down the curved block from Castillo’s house, Willson sat nervously while Brown, behind the wheel, watched the house through binoculars. The front steps, porch, and front columns were built of river rock, the house soared into gables and dormers above, and the yard was immaculate.
Willson checked her watch for the fourth time in the past five minutes. “I never thought this day would come,” she said. “I hope the señor is in his casa, because I want to personally see the look in his eyes when we walk through his front door.”
When their watches beeped 11:00 a.m., Brown floored the SUV and then screeched to a halt in front of Castillo’s house. A Spokane Police Department car arrived at the same time from the opposite direction, the two vehicles parking nose to nose against the curb. A deputy sheriff’s truck pulled in behind the police car.
The occupants of the three vehicles strode up the shrub-lined walkway and climbed the rock steps to the porch. Warrant in hand, Willson pounded on the heavy wooden door. The officers heard the sound of movement inside. The door opened to reveal a Latino woman in her late fifties, her greying hair in a severe bun. Her eyes widened when she saw six uniformed officers on the porch.
“Yes … can I help you?” she asked.
“I am National Park Warden Jenny Willson and with me is Special Agent Tracy Brown from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I have a warrant to search these premises and we now intend to do that.”
“Uh … I am only the housekeeper here,” said the woman, her voice shaky. “I must let Señor Castillo know you are here.” She moved to close the door, but Willson pushed her way into the front foyer, the others following. The door remained open behind them.
The officers heard a voice from the far end of the hallway. “Who is it, Juanita?”
Willson, standing to the left of Brown, saw a head poke around the corner of a far right-hand doorway. Having stared at his picture many times over the last few days so that his image had begun to appear in her dreams, Willson immediately recognized Luis Castillo. Instead of a monster or an ogre, he was just a man, a man who looked small and alone. But his eyes were dark, calculating, evil. Filled with a sense of triumph, she smiled at him.
“Señor Castillo, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” she said. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time.”
Castillo did not move. He stared at Willson and her colleagues, his eyes wide in overt surprise. A clock ticked in the hallway, measuring the silence. Then, as if he recognized that he had to act, Castillo strode down the hall toward them.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion into my home?” he asked as he approached Willson.
“Señor Castillo, these officers say they have a warrant to search the house,” said the housekeeper, wringing her hands.
“A warrant?” asked Castillo. “What is this all about?” He looked at each of the officers in turn. He paused, visibly stiffening when he saw the Parks Canada crest on the shoulder of Willson’s uniform jacket.
Willson aggressively pushed a copy of the warrant, rolled into a cylinder, hard into Castillo’s chest. The man automatically reached up to grab the document.
“Luis José Castillo,” said Willson, her voice strong and confident, “that is your copy of a warrant signed by a federal court judge under the authority of the Lacey Act. It gives us the legal right to search this residence and all associated outbuildings.”
“You have no right to do this,” said Castillo. “You stay there. I want to call my lawyer.”
“Feel free to call your lawyer,” said Willson, moving a step closer to Castillo, “but I can tell you that we will begin an immediate search of this residence. If you hamper our efforts in any way, one of these police officers will arrest you for obstruction. Do you understand?”
The officers watched Castillo’s facial expression shift through a range of emotions. They all knew that a woman taking control of the situation as Willson had would boil the man’s blood. They were on edge, waiting for Castillo’s reaction.
To their surprise, Castillo simply smiled. “Very well,” he said, “but I am going to phone my lawyer so he can deal with this charade.” He turned and walked quickly down the hall toward the back of the house. The housekeeper stood unmoving, her eyes darting between Castillo and the officers in the front foyer.
Willson turned to one of the deputies. “Please stay with Mr. Castillo to ensure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” she said firmly. With a high likelihood of weapons in the house, she didn’t want to take chances.
The deputy nodded and strode down the hall, following Castillo.
Willson faced the remaining officers and reminded them of their assignments. At that moment, they heard a door slam somewhere in the back of the house.
“He’s running!” the deputy shouted. They heard pounding footsteps and then the deputy sprinted back through the same doorway where they’d first seen Castillo. “He grabbed keys,” the man said as he rushed by them, “and was already in his car when I got to the door.” They heard the sound of squealing tires and turned to see a black Lexus pass them on Park Drive. Castillo was gone.
Willson made a snap decision. “You follow him,” she yelled at the deputy as he went out the front door toward his truck. “We’ll be right behind you.”
To the remaining officers, Willson’s order was curt. “Stay here, secure the residence, do not allow anyone inside, and wait for us to get back.”
Brown stood wide-eyed, apparently shocked at how quickly the situation had changed.
As Willson moved quickly out the front door, she yelled over her shoulder at her American colleague, “Are you coming or what? The fun’s just begun!”
With Brown driving, they pursued Castillo through the streets of Spokane, wailing sirens and flashing lights clearing a path through the midday traffic. They roared down South Grand Boulevard and followed Fourteenth Avenue west to Monroe, blowing red lights and passing gaping motorists. They watched as Castillo narrowly missed a municipal garbage truck, averting a crash by centimetres. They then followed him northbound on Monroe and then Lincoln, passing under I-90. Willson looked at the speedometer. Sixty miles an hour. She couldn’t remember what that was in kilometres an hour, but it was fast, particularly in the middle of a city.
“I bet he’s heading to his office!” yelled Brown as she worked to stay in sight of the speeding sheriff’s vehicle ahead of them. “There must be something there he doesn’t want us to find.”
Willson didn’t answer; she was too busy hanging on, astonished at how quickly the day had changed.
With one hand on the steering wheel, Brown grabbed the microphone from the dash, calling her USFW colleague at Castillo’s office. “We’re northbound on Lincoln in downtown,” she said, “and the suspect’s heading in your direction.”
Willson heard the response. “We’re at his office now, so we’ll say hello when he gets here.”
As they turned left onto Main Street, heading toward a turn north on Monroe again, the radio crackled to life. The voice of the deput
y ahead of them was surprisingly calm.
“Agent Brown, the suspect apparently saw police vehicles at his office,” he said, “so he pulled a U-turn and is heading back in our direction southbound on Monroe.”
By now, Brown’s vehicle had reached the four-lane bridge where Monroe Street passed over the Spokane River. They could see Castillo’s car speeding directly toward them in the inside lane, down the hill on Monroe, the deputy behind him, his red and blue lights flashing. He ignored them as he went by.
Brown tried to turn to follow him. As she did so, she clipped the back corner of a southbound Spokane Transit bus in the outside lane. The SUV spun twice, coming to a sudden stop against the railing on the east side of the bridge, the front air bags deployed. Brown’s vehicle blocked the two northbound lanes, the stalled bus the two southbound lanes. Castillo was gone.
While Willson sat in shock, the fine white powder from the air bags filling the air, Brown was immediately back on the radio after wrestling the deflated fabric out of her way.
“Suspect is headed south on Monroe,” said Brown, “and we’ve been involved in an MVA that’s blocked all lanes on the bridge.”
Brown and Willson heard the deputy speaking into his shoulder-mounted microphone, his head tilted to the left as he sprinted toward them from his vehicle, now pulled to a stop on the north side of the accident. “We need other units here to deal with the MVA and to divert traffic at both ends of the bridge,” he said, “and we may need an ambulance. Stand by and I’ll advise.”
The deputy peered in the window of Brown’s vehicle. “Are you all okay in here?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re okay,” said Brown. “Go help the bus passengers.”
Willson slammed her hands down on the dashboard. “Shit!” she exclaimed in frustration. “That lucky fucker got away from me … again!”
Chapter 34
It was nearly an hour before the downtown accident scene was cleared, written statements taken by traffic officers, and Willson and Brown transported to Castillo’s business offices on the north side of the river. By then, their suspect had disappeared into downtown Spokane traffic, despite the fact that a BOLO (Be On Look Out) had gone out to all police officers and sheriff’s deputies in the area. If he was seen or stopped for a traffic violation, or if he showed up at a border crossing or airport, they would know it.
When Willson and Brown arrived at the offices, the search was winding down. “The bad news,” said the lead Fish and Wildlife officer on the scene, “is that the only evidence we found that might relate to poaching is a single photograph hanging on the wall of Castillo’s private office.” He handed a framed eight-by-ten print in a clear plastic evidence envelope to Willson.
She saw an image of Castillo kneeling beside a dead mountain goat. “There’s no way to tell where this was taken or when, but let’s seize it regardless,” said Willson.
“Yes, we’ve done that,” said the officer. “We’ve also interviewed the twelve employees who were here today and they all say they knew their boss liked hunting.”
“Okay,” said Willson, “you said that was the bad news. What’s the good news?”
“Come with me,” said the man. He led Willson and Brown down a carpeted hall to a spot where they could look through the floor-to-ceiling glass window of a small conference room. On the far side of a table, they saw a thin, hawk-like man dotting his face with tissues. One eye twitched nervously when the man saw the officers at the window. An African-American woman sat across the table from him, a pad of lined paper by her right hand.
“Who is this?” asked Willson.
“Meet Luis Castillo’s chief financial officer,” said the officer. “James Whistler. When we searched Mr. Whistler’s office, we found a large bag of fentanyl tablets hidden in a file cabinet in his office. He claims they’re not his. That’s a Spokane detective interviewing him now.”
“Are you kidding me?” Willson asked. “Can we seize the drugs and link them to Castillo?”
“Normally, we couldn’t because the search warrant doesn’t cover it. But today, we don’t have to. It seems that Mr. Whistler has agreed to give us a full statement — without his lawyer present — about the drugs and about Mr. Castillo’s business affairs.”
“Does he realize he’s not compelled to say anything and that because drugs weren’t in our search warrant, he probably can’t be charged without a confession?” asked Brown. At that moment, her cellphone rang, so she moved away to answer it.
The officer smiled at the question. “He does. We were clear with him, and we read him his rights. It appears he wants to get things off his chest. From what he’s told us so far, he joined the company believing it was a legit business. When he discovered that some of it was and some of it wasn’t, he started asking questions, as any good financial professional would do. When Castillo heard about his inquiries, he sent two of his so-called security staff to visit Whistler at his condo. They strongly encouraged him not to tell anyone about his suspicions. And they suggested that resigning wasn’t an option for him. It seems the last CFO disappeared soon after he threatened to call the police. At that point, Whistler knew he was in over his head and it was too late to back out. It’s almost like he’s happy to see us. I’ve never seen such a willing witness in all my years on the job.”
“Wow. Do we know what he’s going to talk about?” asked Willson.
“Oh, yeah,” said the officer, “he’s already told us stories of bribing government officials for construction contracts, having city staff on their payroll, and inexplicable injections of cash in and out of Castillo’s businesses. We found the official financial statements ourselves, and Mr. Whistler just showed us where the shadow books are kept. He told me about interstate and inter-country transportation of illicit goods — weapons, counterfeit money, drugs. To me, it looks like there’s money laundering going on, too, and that means links to organized crime.”
As they peered at the man through the window, Brown moved back toward them, her face dark. “I’ve got bad news,” she said. “At one of Castillo’s two warehouses in the valley, our officers walked in on a group of armed men. They were loading bundles of counterfeit money and weapons into the false floor of a semi-trailer truck. There was a shootout. One of the sheriff’s deputies was badly wounded. He’s going to make it, but the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and even the Secret Service are now involved, and it looks like this has gone far beyond wildlife poaching.”
“This thing gets more and more interesting by the moment,” said Willson, shaking her head in amazement. “This is great work. There’s not much more we can do here. You have it under control. Tracy, can we get a ride back to Castillo’s residence? I’m itching to see what we find there.”
Back in South Hill again, Willson and Brown were met by a Spokane police officer on the front porch of Castillo’s house.
“Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” asked Willson.
“Nothing like your experience,” said the officer. “Are you guys okay? I heard what was going down on the radio.”
“Other than being seriously pissed off about losing Castillo, we’re fine,” said Willson.
“His lawyer showed up about twenty minutes after you left,” said the officer. “He read the warrant, tried to push his way into the house, and nearly got his ass arrested. By the time he left, he was threatening to sue everyone involved. Other than that, it’s been quiet, with no sign of Castillo.”
Like Willson, Brown was anxious to start the search, so they pushed open the front door. Using the same approach they’d planned two hours earlier, they started their methodical examination of the house, floor by floor, room by room.
Willson was the first to enter Castillo’s trophy room on the main floor, to the right of the sweeping staircase. She turned on the lights, took a single step into the room, and stood
still. The soaring walls were covered with trophies of animals from across the globe. Once alive and watchful, their glassy eyes now stared into eternity. She saw species from Africa, South America, North America, and Eurasia. Many were ungulates, some carnivores. Willson, used to seeing wildlife alive in their natural habitats in the parks, was sickened by the gallery of human greed. Her guts churned, her heart pounded, and her vision blurred with unshed tears. For her, it was everything that was wrong with trophy hunting, all in one place.
Willson felt Brown put a comforting hand on her shoulder. They stood in silence.
“After all that’s happened, is that what you’ve come for, Jenny?” asked the American agent quietly, pointing to a bull elk and a mountain goat billy on one wall, and a bighorn sheep ram on the next wall to the right.
Without a word, Willson pulled from her briefcase the full series of Jim Canon’s images of the Jasper bighorn ram, and the professional photographer’s images of the Banff elk a few days before it was murdered. She walked across the room toward the massive head, a deep pile carpet dampening the sounds of her footsteps. She studied the head, looking at it from the front and then from both sides. When compared to the images in her hand, Willson knew it was the missing sheep head. The horns were the same shape and length, the growth rings a perfect match to those in the photographs. After doing the same with the elk, she looked toward Brown with great sadness, nodding once in the affirmative.
By late that evening, the officers had peered into every corner of the massive house. Castillo’s housekeeper followed them, still wringing her hands but saying nothing. They not only seized the three trophies of interest to Willson — the elk, the sheep, and the goat — but they also took a black rhino and a polar bear, likely shot illegally elsewhere. They gathered two boxes of documents, one of which contained a receipt from a local taxidermist for a caribou head. It was dated a day or two after Castillo had last entered Canada. While it was possible to hunt barren-ground caribou legally in some parts of Canada, one of Brown’s colleagues was immediately dispatched to seize the head on the assumption it was the endangered mountain caribou taken in British Columbia. They also found rifles and handguns, all of which were seized as evidence.
