by Brenda Novak
It was no surprise that he knew. The previous murders had been in the papers, and Naco was right on the border, only ten miles from where some of the shootings had occurred. “Yes.”
“Who are you?”
The insolence in his eyes unsettled her, but she steeled herself against it. She’d hung out with enough Hells Angels to know better than to reveal vulnerability. “A friend. At least to them.”
He rubbed his fingers together in the classic sign that he wanted her to grease his palm. “How much you willing to pay?”
In a town where men rushed to hold parking places or dashed into the street to wash car windshields, hoping for tips, she’d expected this and planned to use it to her advantage. “Fifty U.S.”
“For…”
“Información. On either one of them. Or anyone you feel might’ve had something to do with their deaths.”
“You pay first?”
She laughed as she shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not estúpida, eh? I’ll wait in the cantina across the street.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Where they came from, how and when they crossed the border, who they were with before they died, if anyone’s seen or heard anything strange or out of the ordinary lately that might be related to their murder.”
“That’s a lot, no?”
“You gotta start somewhere.”
He thought for a moment. “Job like that could take all night, señorita. In the end, I might have nothing to show for my time. How can you be sure they came through here?”
“I’m willing to bet on it. They didn’t die far away. Find me their coyote, someone who saw them or knows them, anything you can. The more you tell me, the more I’ll pay. ¿Entendido?”
“¿Cuánto más?” someone else called.
They were asking how much more. Fifty dollars was peanuts compared to what they were paid for a successful crossing. But not every crossing was successful. “Up to two hundred dollars U.S.,” she said.
The man who’d just yelled out wiped the sweat from his forehead. “And if we find nada?”
“Then you get paid nada.” She had no choice. They’d lie to her if she gave them the slightest incentive.
“Nah.” Shaking their heads, some of the men closest to her turned away. One addressed two women huddled next to a wheeled cart where an old man was selling drinks and corn. “Hey, you want a new life?” he asked her. “You want to go to America? I can take you there.”
He spoke in Spanish but Sophia understood the gist of his message.
One of the women, obviously older than the other, scoffed. “You think I’m a fool? It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s safe,” he insisted. “And easy. I can get you there, no problem. My metal detector can find the sensors.”
“And what about that?” She waved in the direction of the tall metal fence dividing the two countries, but everyone knew the fence was virtually nonexistent in some places.
“You’re worried about three strands of barbed wire?”
“I’m worried about being forced into the desert,” she cried. “Do you want us to die?”
Sophia saw no reason he’d want them to die. He didn’t care one way or the other, as long as he got paid.
He rolled his eyes. “You won’t die in the desert. I know a shortcut. It’s an hour’s walk.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Sophia interrupted. “It’ll take much more than an hour. It could take days. And border patrol agents aren’t the only thing you have to fear. Someone is killing illegal aliens, shooting them in cold blood.”
The woman didn’t seem to understand English. But she recognized the pistol Sophia made with her thumb and finger. Muttering something unintelligible, she grabbed her companion’s hand and scurried away.
The coyote whirled around to confront Sophia. “Hey, you’re costing me money!”
“Twelve people are dead,” she said. “Twelve of your countrymen and -women. If anyone gives a damn, it should be you.”
The man who spoke the best English was openly scornful. “Why should we care? They’re just wetbacks.”
“You make your living off those wetbacks!”
He shrugged. “So?”
“If this killer keeps going, people will be too frightened to cross. Even with a reliable coyote.”
Flexing, he looked pointedly from one bulging bicep to the other, showing off for her. “I can get anyone across. For the right price.”
Since the U.S. had strengthened security along the Naco border, coyotes had a much more difficult job. They had to avoid the stadium lights that were spaced every three miles and equipped with cameras and infrared sensors monitored by agents at central command. They had to figure out ways to circumvent or slip through the Virtual Presence and Extended Defense System, which included the feared ground sensors. And they had to escape the notice of an additional two hundred agents posted at various lookouts. The services of a knowledgeable guide had gone from three hundred dollars to eight hundred dollars. Smuggling undocumented aliens was becoming so lucrative that the Mexican Mafia was beginning to traffic in humans, as well as drugs.
“Money is all that matters to you?” she challenged.
“That and a good fuck,” he said, and everyone burst out laughing.
Sophia refused to flinch at his crude language. She was hardly impressed with his attempt to shock her; thanks to Starkey and his friends, and her job, she’d heard much worse. “Good luck finding a woman who’s willing.”
“Oooh…” his friends moaned, mocking him.
Eyes glinting with a dangerous light, he swept his gaze from her head to her toes. “Maybe I won’t bother getting permission.”
“You’re not worth my time.” Jerking the pictures out of his hand, she turned away as if he didn’t scare her in the least.
She’d taken only two steps when a man from the same group hailed her. “I’ll see what I can find, señorita,” he said, and nodded respectfully when she gave him the pictures.
“Puta,” the other man spat.
Sophia felt like drawing her gun. The cocky, sexist pig deserved to have a woman get the better of him. But she wasn’t in Mexico to start trouble. She was here to get answers.
She ignored him.
“Two hundred U.S.?” The one who was taking the assignment asked. Short and stocky, with a jagged scar on his cheek and an elaborate snake tattoo on his arm, he appeared to be much older than the others, probably in his late forties.
“If the information is accurate,” she clarified, and with another nod, he strode off.
5
It wasn’t a cheap system. What with all his money going to support his wife and kids—two households now—Leonard Taylor had had to sell his riding lawn mower and all his saws and power tools. That was the only way he could get enough to purchase the listening devices he’d found on the Internet. He’d spent nearly two thousand dollars at that spy site. But he was extremely happy with the quality of what he’d been sent. The UHF transmitter camouflaged as an outlet adapter looked just like the real thing. No way would Sophia or anyone else be able to tell it from any other adapter. And the two pens looked every bit as genuine. Even better, the receiver he’d bought, together with the transmitters, wasn’t very big. He’d easily be able to carry it in his pocket or his truck, where he could hide it under the seat if he had to. By the time he finished placing the transmitters, he’d be able to pick up anything Sophia did or said, as long as he was within range, and she’d never have a clue.
He’d never dreamed he’d have such a golden opportunity to plant them. Detective Lindstrom had called him on her way home from work to complain about Sophia and to tell him she wished she could be working with him instead, and she’d mentioned that Sophia was going to Mexico tonight. The second those words were out of her mouth, he’d known that it was time.
Under the guise of saying hello to Officer Lawrence, who was dating a distant cousin of his, he’d stopped by the station first. He�
��d had to sit around shooting the bull with Grant for more than an hour before Grant finally excused himself to go to the restroom. Then he’d stepped into Sophia’s office and set the pen on a ledge under her desk. Even if she found it, that pen would look as if it had somehow fallen out of one of her drawers.
Bugging her office had taken all of five or ten seconds. He was back in his seat before Grant could flush the toilet. When Grant returned, Leonard casually said he had to be at work early in the morning and should be getting home.
From there, he’d driven down Sophia’s street to make sure her neighbors were in bed, parked a good distance away and walked to her house. He’d been prepared to break in; he’d brought the tools. But that hadn’t been necessary. He’d found her spare key under a decorative turtle in her front planter. Maybe, because she carried a gun, a baton and a Taser, she wasn’t as worried about safety as another woman might be. Or, more likely, she left that spare key where it was for Rafe’s benefit. She loved Starkey’s boy. He knew that from how much she’d talked about him when they’d worked together.
Now he just needed to figure out where to place the pretend plug adapter. He wanted it somewhere central. That would increase his chances of picking up most of her conversations. So, tempted as he was by the bedroom—simply because that seemed like even more of an invasion of privacy, which she deserved—he avoided it. The transmitter should go in the living room, he decided. The living room was between the kitchen and the bedroom, plus the screened-in porch at the back. He’d be able to listen in on more conversations there than anywhere else.
Turning in a circle on her living room rug, he searched for the outlet he wanted and spotted one behind a table that held nothing but framed photographs. If he had his bet, this outlet never got used. She’d probably forgotten it was even there.
“Perfect,” he murmured once he’d had a chance to test the device using his transmitter. “And now for the car.”
Striding into the kitchen, he checked the keys hanging on hooks near the cupboards, identified the set that went with the cruiser sitting out front and walked outside to unlock it and put the pen under the dash. This was the trickiest part, since he could be spotted by any neighbor who happened to get up for a drink of water, so he made quick work of it. Then he locked up and headed back down the street.
He was whistling by the time he reached his vehicle. Maybe it’d taken a while to collect the money he needed, and it had taken even longer to catch Sophia on a night when she was out of town…
But his patience had been well rewarded.
It was after midnight and the man who’d walked away with her photographs of José and his wife hadn’t returned. Sophia wasn’t sure how long she should wait. Had he given up and gone home? Was she sitting here, wasting time? If he hadn’t been able to get any information, there was no guarantee he’d come back to tell her….
The cantina was beginning to empty, but the table at the front was still occupied. The man who’d called her a puta and one of his friends had followed her into the bar and seated themselves close to the door. They’d stayed there ever since, brooding, drinking and glaring at her. Sophia knew they were trying to intimidate her. What she didn’t know was whether they’d act on the not-so-subtle threat in their eyes.
Feeling the pressure of her Glock against her calf, she glanced at her watch and decided to wait another fifteen minutes. Any longer was too dangerous. She didn’t want to be the last to leave the bar. That would give her friends near the front an easy opportunity to get her alone. The gun made her fairly confident that she could defend herself if attacked. But she didn’t want to shoot anyone, especially in Mexico. There was no telling how that would go down with the local police or the Mexican government. They might not believe she’d acted in self-defense, and the fact that she’d brought a weapon into the country wouldn’t be a point in her favor.
Waving the waitress away when the girl circled back to see if she wanted another ginger ale, Sophia toyed with the change on the table. Why hadn’t she asked Starkey to come down here with her? He would’ve loved the chance to play protector. He enjoyed nothing more than acting tough. He was tough. But she knew better than to accept any favors from him. That would only get his hopes up that she’d take him back, and she didn’t need that right now, not after years of trying to convince him that they were over for good.
Still, giving him a call would help pass the time and take her mind off the two thugs at the door, one of whom had basically threatened her with rape. The way she’d spouted off about the money she’d be willing to pay for information made robbery another possibility….
She checked her watch again. The minute hand was creeping toward 12:25 a.m., but there was no need to worry that she might wake Starkey. She’d never known him to go to bed before two or three. He partied with the other Angels almost every night.
Pulling her cell from her pocket, she hit the key for Starkey’s number. She expected it to go through its usual speed-dial sequence, but she got an error message instead, warning her that she was out of network range. Because she was within twenty miles of the town where she lived, she hadn’t realized her phone wouldn’t work. But, of course, that made sense. She wasn’t in the States, anymore.
“Oh, boy,” she muttered, and put the phone away.
Ten more minutes passed before she stood. She’d promised herself she’d stay fifteen, but another four people had sauntered toward the exit, making her worry that she’d delayed her departure too long already. Bracing for what could happen when she passed that front table, she started to leave. But as she took a step toward the door, the man she’d been waiting for came charging into the cantina, along with two lanky companions. At least twenty years younger than their sturdier counterpart, they looked like identical twins—until they came close enough for Sophia to see that they were only siblings. “Señorita, I have what you want,” the man she’d hired stated proudly.
This was promising—if it was real and not something he’d concocted in an effort to get paid.
As she sank into her seat, she gestured for the men to join her.
They were short a chair, but borrowed one from an empty table.
“Juan can help you.” Indicating the guy to his left, the man who’d accepted her offer tapped the pictures. “He and his brother, they act as polleros…er—” deep groves lined his forehead as he struggled with English “—guides? Sí, guides, for these people. They take them across la frontera.”
“They’re coyotes?”
“No. They work for a coyote who can no longer cross.”
“Why can’t he cross?”
“He get caught by La Migra? The CBP? He go to jail. You understand?”
“He’s on the list. If he gets caught trying to cross again, they’ll prosecute him.”
He nodded emphatically. “Sí. These are his runners.”
She pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen she’d shoved into her back pocket. “And who are you?”
“Enrique.”
“Enrique what?”
“Castillo.”
She wrote that down. “And your friends?”
“Juan and Miguel Martinez.”
As soon as she’d recorded this, she eyed Enrique’s friends. “Can you tell me who these people are?”
They looked confused until Enrique jumped in. “Juan y Miguel no hablan inglés, señorita. I translate. But first, we talk price. One hundred U.S.” He tapped Juan’s shoulder, then Miguel’s and then his own chest to make sure she understood that they each expected one hundred American dollars.
Sitting back, she folded her arms. “That’s more than I offered.”
A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. “We have to live, to eat. And we have to pay the police, no?”
Juan and Miguel seemed to understand that Enrique was arguing for higher pay. They made noises of agreement.
She arched her eyebrows. “You expect me to cover your bribes?”
“They have to be
paid or we no work.”
Some coyotes made several thousand dollars a week even after they shelled out the standard ten percent to the Mexican military and police. Many camped along the border, sometimes for days at a time, tracking border agent activity, searching for any vulnerability. Among other things, the bribes helped insure that the Mexican police wouldn’t interfere with their reconnaissance. But if Enrique went to the extra effort of scouting the guards, Sophia had a feeling he wasn’t too successful. “There are no snitches here to tell anyone about our deal,” she pointed out. “Why get greedy?”
His pitiable expression changed to grave. “They will find out. Soplónes…snitches…they are everywhere.”
An additional hundred wasn’t enough to argue about, not when it was getting so late. Sophia calculated the amount of money she had in her pocket. “I have two hundred and fifty-three dollars. That’s all. Take it or leave it. And I’ll pay you only after you’ve given me what I want.” If they could give her what she wanted. She had no delusions; these men would cheat her if they could.
They conferred and quickly agreed, as she’d expected them to. Everything in Mexico was negotiable. “Gracias, señorita.”
“What can you tell me?” she asked.
“Nombres.” Enrique nudged Juan, who pointed at the two pictures.
“José y Benita.”
Sophia’s heart began to race. She hadn’t mentioned that she knew the man’s first name. Enrique wasn’t trying to con her. He’d found the people she needed to talk to.
“Can you give me a last name?”
Her words made no sense to Juan, but Enrique explained.
“Sanchez” came the response.
“José and Benita Sanchez,” she repeated. “He’s sure?”
“Sí.” All three men nodded in agreement and apparent satisfaction.
“Does he also remember where they’re from?”
Again, Enrique addressed his companions before responding. “Nayarit.”
