Desert Jade

by CJ Shane

  “Anyway, when we saw what we had, we immediately requested that the court clerk issue subpoena forms so we can get subpoenas to take a much closer look at all these bank accounts and gun purchases. There seems to be one gun vendor in particular in north Tucson that sold Lyle a lot of guns. We want to see his records. Also Detective García has obtained a search warrant and will be looking at the Lyle home as well.”

  Jessica Cameron paused for full effect.

  “And you’ll be glad to know that José Gomez will be released from jail this afternoon. They just don’t have enough evidence to keep him, especially in light of recent developments. Mrs. Baird asked me to convey her gratitude and tell you that she will be sending you a bonus for your hard work.”

  “That’s good news, both about Gomez and a bonus!”

  “Also, Letty, I’ve been looking for some time now for a private investigator to work with our firm on a regular basis. I’d like you to be that investigator. You did a stellar job on this investigation. Would you be interested?”

  “Sure, if it means a steady stream of jobs. However, I’d like a break for a while from dealing with Chinese gangsters and their guns and their hatchets.”

  “I think we can give you a break from the triad gang. I have other cases for you, maybe not so exciting, but safer. So let’s stay in touch.”

  Letty locked up her office and went home. All the loose ends with her family seemed to be tied up now. She wasn’t so sure about Zhou and Jade. Letty stretched out on her couch and was immediately joined by an affectionate dog determined to lick her face.

  “Okay, Millie. Let’s take a nap now. We deserve it. And stop with the licking already!”

  ***

  Zhou spent much of the day interacting with the Chinese Consulate staffer who had shown up to take Victoria home, and with other Consulate staffers by phone. He also had a phone call with his boss Yang in Beijing, and with his colleague Jean-Pierre Laurent at Interpol in Paris, France. Zhou took Jade to the doctor just to be safe. Jade’s doctor pronounced her basically sound but suffering from bruises, a black eye, rope burns, and slight dehydration. He recommended liquids and rest.

  Evening came and Jade cooked dinner for Zhou. He protested, saying that he would take her to a restaurant, but she refused.

  “I like cooking for you, Zhou. And you like to eat my cooking.

  “I do. Especially I like those baritas.”

  “You mean burritos?” Jade’s smile had returned in full force.

  After dinner Jade washed the dishes, then she leaned back against the kitchen counter. Zhou sat at her kitchen table.

  “Zhou, what happens now?”

  “I must return to China. My boss says I have to report.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  Zhou fell silent.

  “When will you leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Jade gasped. “Tomorrow? So soon?”

  He nodded, frowning.

  “Zhou,” Jade’s voice was small and on the edge of pleading. “Please don’t go.”

  “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you,” he said.

  “Then do. Stay with me.”

  Zhou looked at her. Jade was beautiful and sweet and kind. She was everything he ever wanted. His greatest desire was to spend the rest of his life with her. He couldn’t find the words to tell her how he felt. His heart was too full.

  “Zhou, please.” She looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “I’m afraid. If you go, I’m afraid I’ll never see you again. Please don’t go.”

  Zhou stood and stepped toward her. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her roughly to him. He kissed Jade long and deeply, and she responded with her own pent-up ardor.

  Holding her close, Zhou picked her up in his arms and carried Jade to her bedroom.

  Chapter 20

  In the Months Following

  The months that followed the conclusion of Letty’s investigation went fast. She had plenty of work. Lawyer Cameron turned out to be a reliable connection with some interesting cases. Letty liked working with her because of her no-nonsense approach. So far, the cases mostly involved white-collar crimes with a focus on fraud and stolen funds. No one had shot at her or threatened to kill her in six months, and for that, Letty was glad.

  The triad smuggling business had imploded, thanks to Letty and Zhou’s investigation and action. The Border Patrol and cooperating Mexican authorities found that the weapons smuggled across the border were divided evenly between the Sinaloa Cartel and the triad gang. The Chinese moved the guns to the port of Guaymas and shipped them to China, where they were sold for astronomical sums. Everyone involved believed that it would just be a matter of time before a new criminal gang would decide that purchasing guns in the U.S. and moving them across the southern border was a great idea. Vigilance continued.

  When confronted with the fact that items from his personal laundry had gun residue on them, Fred Lyle broke during a police investigation interview. He admitted that he had shot and killed his wife. He blamed her for everything. She was selfish and demanding and expected to be taken care of like a princess, he whined. Yet when his business fell apart and he tried to generate income from another source, she couldn’t accept the illegal nature of what he was doing. She threatened to go to the authorities and tell them that he was smuggling weapons. He couldn’t allow her to destroy him like that. He would go to prison, and she would continue her life as before. So he decided to take advantage of the conflict between his son and José Gomez to blame the shooting on Gomez.

  With his father in prison, and his mother dead, Travis Lyle was sent to live with a relative in North Dakota where he could finish high school. Letty laughed when she heard that. Travis had exploited young Chinese peasant girls for his sexual pleasure, and he had paid no price for his perfidy. So to go from sunny, 75-degree winter days in the Sonoran Desert to surviving a windy and freezing cold winter in the northern plains was small justice but better than nothing.

  Letty’s nights had become more tolerable. The violent dreams of exploding IEDs were fewer now. Those sudden, stabbing memories of Chava seemed to come less frequently, although Letty firmly believed that she would never get over his death. Often now when she remembered his face, Chava was smiling. It was a relief, and at the same time, a little sad. Letty didn’t want to forget him. She wanted to honor his life and their love always. But she had to admit to herself that she was grateful for even the smallest respite from that pain she had carried for years.

  What Letty didn’t take into account was all the attention that the Chinese gangsters and the Lyle case would bring. The media were all over her for a few days. Newspaper and television outlets were fascinated that Chinese gangsters had been operating in southern Arizona. They wanted all the juicy details. Letty had to close her office for a couple of weeks just to avoid the media. She stopped giving interviews because she was saying the same thing over and over again, and she couldn’t get any work done. She became worried that having her photo widely distributed was going to disrupt her work as a private investigator. After all, would she ever be able to do a stakeout again if everyone in southern Arizona recognized her on sight? So Letty went off the grid for a while until some new face and a new event grabbed the media’s attention.

  The upside was that Valdez Investigations became the go-to agency in Tucson. Between her new popularity and her relationship with Jessica Cameron, she had plenty of work. Letty considered bringing on a new employee but was unsure that she could afford to do that. A part-timer, a temporary worker available only for certain jobs would be better. If only Zhou were here, Letty thought. If only Zhou were here.

  Meanwhile, she called on Marv Iverson about once a month. He grumbled as expected, but he always took the jobs she offered him. He actually liked stakeouts so she gave those to him. Despite his constant reminders to her that he was retired, Marv always seemed quite agreeable to taking on an occasional job with Valdez Investigations.

  Ed
uardo found a job and started classes at the community college. Esperanza was welcomed warmly into the Ramone and Antone families. She found a once-a-week cleaning job on the reservation. She discovered the thrill of American thrift shops. She had already sent some money and used clothing back to her family. Progress was being made toward a wedding. She was still an undocumented worker, though, and it was going to take time and effort to make her legal. Eduardo was working on it.

  Clarice and Will seemed more sober in their love than Letty ever imagined they would be. They bicycled together, they studied together, and they cooked together. They did everything together, and they seemed very happy. Much to Letty’s approval, Will’s grades went up.

  And then there was Facebook and Millie. Will had posted a picture of himself with Millie several months before the Chinese triad incident. Someone copied the photo later and added the news story about how Millie had saved Will’s life. The story went viral. Thousands of shares on Facebook, then on the Internet, made Millie the world’s most famous pit bull. A new generation of female pit bull puppies received the name “Millie.”

  One day in May, Will received an email from someone named Jack Gilliam. He said he was from El Paso, Texas. He claimed he was a trainer of K-9 dogs used by law enforcement in Texas and nearby states. Many were drug sniffers, but they had other duties as well. Gilliam said he recognized “his” dog Ruby from the Facebook posts.

  Will asked Letty what he should do. He was obviously worried.

  Letty thought about it for a while, and then said to Will, “It would be nice to find out where Millie came from. So I’ll check him out to see if he’s legitimate. But he can’t have Millie. She’s ours.”

  Letty discovered that Gilliam was indeed a dog trainer, and a well-respected one in high demand among police and sheriff’s departments in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. After more email exchanges, Gilliam was invited to visit Tucson to see Millie himself.

  Gilliam said he was delivering a dog to Phoenix and asked if he could stop by on his way home. When he arrived, Letty let him in the side gate into the back yard. Gilliam saw Millie sitting next to Will on the back steps.

  “Oh, man. She’s had a rough time,” Gilliam said when he first saw Millie.

  “Yep. We think she was used as bait in a dog-fighting ring. I found her half-dead dumped out in the desert.”

  Millie lifted her head at the sound of his voice, and her ears went up. She ran to Gilliam happily wagging her tail.

  “Hello, Ruby, girl.” Gilliam rubbed her ears.

  He then proceeded to tell Letty and Will all about “Ruby.” Originally she was meant to be a companion for his children. She came to live with them when she was only three months old. The children were supposed to train “Ruby” in the proper ways of a family dog – basic commands like sit and stay, don’t pee in the house, don’t pester the family cat, that kind of thing. But Ruby had other ideas. She liked following Gilliam into the training area on his property where he worked with those dogs, mainly German Shepherds, that were destined to become police dogs.

  “I guess she was really paying attention. I regularly teach dogs to attack on command when we see a criminal with a raised arm holding a gun. I guess Ruby...I mean Millie…learned how to do that just from watching the other dogs. She’s pretty smart. But now you need to train her properly to attack only on command. Otherwise, she might think someone raising their hand for some innocent reason is attacking her alpha.”

  After a pleasant conversation, Gilliam announced that it was time for him to get home.

  “You’re not going to try to take Millie, are you?” Will asked.

  “Nah. Of course not. She’s your dog now. She’s bonded to you. And obviously she thinks it’s her job to keep you safe. Ruby is Millie now, and she lives in Tucson. You’ll be glad to know that I got my kids another dog…actually two more since then. So they are not wanting for canine companionship.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gilliam. We’re really glad to know about Millie’s first home and how she learned to protect those she loves. After all, Millie saved my brother’s life,” Letty added.

  ***

  Everything seemed to have a happy ending except for Zhou and Jade. After that last night of emotional sharing and erotic pleasure, Zhou left very early the next morning.

  Jade found a note on her kitchen table. “I will call you. I will return soon. I promise. Wo ai ni.”

  Through her tears, Jade looked up the words “wo ai ni” in an Internet Chinese-English dictionary. The words meant, “I love you.”

  Zhou called from the San Francisco airport. He called Jade again twenty hours later from Hong Kong. In the following three days, he called her twice more from Hong Kong. He also called Letty from Hong Kong.

  “Letty, I have two topics to discuss with you. First, I learned that there is a …you call it ravine? Yes, a ravine about half a kilometer from the abandoned drop-off house on the reservation. I was told that triad gang dropped dead bodies there.”

  “What dead bodies?”

  “When they were smuggling girls for sex trafficking, sometimes one would die. Her body was left there. I wonder if the bones of Carlos might be found there also.”

  “I will check it out.”

  “Second, I met with Ting and convinced her to leave us alone and to give up her smuggling efforts in southern Arizona. She wasn’t happy with me. She said she lost a lot of money because of me. She told me that she had no interest in complying with my wishes. I was able to convince her otherwise.”

  “How on earth did you do that, Zhou?”

  “What is it you say from that film? ‘I make her an offer she cannot refuse.’”

  “The Godfather,” Letty said. “I look forward to hearing the details of your offer when you come home.”

  Zhou liked hearing the word “home” coming from Miss Letty.

  ***

  After her call with Zhou, Letty asked Eduardo and Mando to see if they could find the ravine with human remains. The two men invited Mando’s friend Johnny Chiago on his day off. The three went out on horseback. They found the ravine fairly quickly. Eduardo climbed down into the narrow top of the ravine.

  “Uncle Mando, there are a lot of bones here. What should I do?”

  Shadow Wolf Chiago responded, “Bring them up in groups that seem to be close together. We’ll bag them.”

  Eduardo brought up several bones that he found in a small pile.

  “Definitely human,” said Chiago, shaking his head. “This one is a human femur – a leg bone. And this is from an arm.”

  “Looks like the coyotes had a go at them,” Eduardo said.

  “Yep, they gotta feed their pups,” Chiago shrugged.

  By this time, Mando was down in the ravine, too.

  “Oh, my god. I found a skull,” he called up to Chiago.

  “Not surprised.” This wasn’t Chiago’s first time to find bodies in the desert.

  There were the remains of several human bodies, more than expected. The first estimates were six humans. They were taken to Pima County’s medical examiner. After acquiring DNA samples, one set of bones was identified as belonging to Carlos Lopez. Another set belonged to Kevin Kwok, the Tucson businessman who had disappeared around the same time as Carlos. In the end, they found bones from seven bodies. One of the others was a male, probably one of the cartel smugglers or maybe an innocent migrant who got caught up in the smugglers’ web. The other bones were from the bodies of four female Asians, the medical examiner told them. The ME said they were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two.

  Letty found it difficult to tell Jade about the bones, but she knew it had to be done. Jade cried and thanked Letty. “Now I can let him go,” she said.

  One month later, a memorial service was held for Carlos Lopez at San Augustine Cathedral. Hundreds of people came. Carlos was born and grew up in Tucson, and he had many friends and acquaintances. It seemed that they all came to his memorial, and several had kind words to say about him
. Jade sat in stoic silence. A black lace mantilla covered her face. She thought about the years that she’d lived with Carlos. And she thought about a Chinese cop named Zhou who had disappeared just like Carlos had disappeared. Jade was numb with grief.

  ***

  A few days after his call to Letty from Hong Kong telling her about the bodies in the ravine, Zhou called Jade from Nanjing. He told her he that he was visiting his family. He told her that he saw his mother, his aunties and uncles, and nieces and nephews.

  A week later, his call came from Beijing. Zhou said he was going to see his boss and go over the details of the case.

  Then the calls stopped.

  Nothing.

  Jade was frantic. She didn’t know who to call. She tried his number again and again.

  Nothing.

  Then Letty got involved and tried to help. She contacted Interpol and after several conversations with Interpol agents, she eventually was connected with Zhou’s colleague Jean-Pierre Laurent.

  “Yes, I am aware of your working relationship with our colleague Mr. Zhou. You will not be happy to learn that he is in jail. That is why he is not calling.”

  “Jail! What the hell? Why is he in jail?”

  “His superior Mr. Yang claims that Zhou is corrupt and that Zhou received bribes from a Hong Kong triad gang.”

  “That is not true!” Letty said vehemently. “Zhou is a very honest and ethical person.”

  “I agree with you, Mademoiselle Valdez. All of us here at Interpol agree with you. We are attempting now to prove Zhou’s innocence. Mr. Wong is helping us. He is the father of Victoria, the girl you rescued. We have some preliminary proof that it was Mr. Yang who was, in fact, taking the bribes. He put Zhou in jail to cover up his own illegal activities.”