Texas Sicario (Arlo Baines Book 2)

by Harry Hunsicker

  “You’ll be safe here,” I said. “Very little crime at the Aztec Bazaar.”

  “Not counting Señor Sandoval,” he said.

  “Technically, that was next door.”

  “Technically.” Vega continued to stare at my face without blinking, almost like he was challenging me to contradict him. “And you don’t have any information on what happened or who is responsible?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Vega and I locked eyeballs without speaking. His wife looked at the far wall, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

  Finally, Javier said, “Arlo knows people at the police department. He’s got his—how do you say?—ear to the dirt on this.”

  “Ground,” I said. “The expression is ‘ear to the ground.’”

  Vega looked like he was about to reply, lips parted, finger raised in my direction, no doubt angry that a gringo was correcting his tenant.

  Quinn cut him off. “It’s OK, Frank. Let it go.”

  Vega glared at me for a moment longer and then lowered his finger, shoulders slumping forward slightly. In that moment, I realized that his aggression wasn’t coming from a place of anger or a sense of superiority.

  He was afraid.

  I decided to take a shot in the dark. “Have you been threatened? Either of you?”

  Silence. The barest hint of a glance between husband and wife.

  “Of course not.” Quinn stepped to the door. “My husband is just being overly cautious because of what’s happened in our neighborhood. Are you ready, Mr. Baines?”

  “Call me Arlo.” I opened the door, motioned for her to go first. “After you.”

  Quinn Vega meandered down the main hall.

  I followed a few steps behind, nodding hello to shopkeepers I knew.

  At one of the western-wear stores, she browsed cowboy boots. I stood in the corner and exchanged looks with the clerk, a woman in her twenties, who appeared as confused as I was about why a person like Quinn Vega was perusing footwear at the Aztec Bazaar.

  Quinn asked to try on several styles, spending a lot of time looking at herself in the mirror wearing a pair of chocolate, snip-toed boots that came to midcalf. Despite the odd juxtaposition—an expensive peach-colored sundress with brown boots—the ensemble worked. She looked good, cowboy chic. Not surprising when you thought about it. Quinn Vega had the lithe figure and demeanor of a fashion model. She’d probably look good in a burlap muumuu.

  “What do you think?” She pivoted away from the mirror to face me, one leg—as elegant and shapely as her neck—extended.

  I shrugged.

  “Surely you have an opinion?”

  “I’m not here to have an opinion. Just to keep an eye on you while you shop.”

  She chuckled like something was funny and turned to the clerk. “I’ll take these.”

  The clerk ran her credit card while Quinn removed the boots. Three minutes later, we were back in the hallway, a shopping bag in her hand.

  “What else is there to see at the Aztec Bazaar?” she asked.

  “Plenty of things. You need some off-brand perfume? Or a statue of the Virgin Mary?”

  “What I’d really like is a cup of coffee.”

  I led her around the corner to a kiosk that sold soft drinks and other beverages. She ordered coffee with cinnamon, and I got a bottle of water.

  There was a bench across the hallway in front of a shop that sold discount wedding dresses. We sat at opposite ends, the shopping bag between us.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” she said.

  I paused with the bottle of water halfway to my lips.

  That was a land mine of a question.

  My life before getting married had been pretty typical of a male in his twenties—one long party, booze-soaked weekends, trying to sleep with anything that had a pulse. Was Frank Vega’s wife part of that time?

  I ran her face through my memory bank, came up empty. Her name was unique, but I only remembered one other Quinn, a girl from the class below me in high school. She’d been overweight, with thick glasses, stringy brown hair, and blotchy skin. Nothing about her had been elegant or shapely.

  “I’ve changed a little since the last time we saw each other,” she said.

  I turned and looked at her, water bottle still poised in my hand.

  “You remember now, don’t you?” She took a sip of coffee. “Quinn Carmichael.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Algebra. We sat next to each other,” she said. “I used to have the biggest crush on you.”

  I found my voice. “My gosh, how long has it been? Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.”

  The eyes were familiar now. Hazel that looked brown in certain light. I recognized her jawline, too, angular and pointed. But everything else about her was different.

  “Almost thirty years,” she said. “You haven’t changed much.”

  I trolled the recesses of my memory, dredging up what I could about Quinn Carmichael.

  She’d been shy, blending in with the shadows. Despite a wealthy father, an Anglo, and a mother who’d been a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, one of the first Latinas on the squad, Quinn had been teased unrelentingly by the popular girls because of her weight and looks.

  Her junior year stuck in my mind, a family catastrophe of some sort. The father had lost his money, and the wife divorced him, as I recalled.

  Another memory from that time period came to me. Quinn Carmichael, alone in the cafeteria, crying. Her father had just been indicted for some financial crime, embezzling or bank fraud. The popular girls had a lot of fun with that one.

  “You were always nice to me,” she said. “Back when others weren’t.”

  I took a drink of water instead of responding, barely remembering ever talking to her, much less being nice.

  “I heard about what happened to your family,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  We were silent for a moment, both looking at each other but trying not to make eye contact.

  “You were a police officer, last I heard. A Texas Ranger?”

  I nodded.

  She took a drink of coffee and watched the shoppers go by. The seconds stretched to a minute, and I wondered if that was what she really wanted to talk about instead of reminiscing about our high school days.

  “Frank’s line of work. He ends up associating with certain types of people who are, oh, let’s just say not upstanding members of the community.”

  “They don’t call it criminal defense for nothing,” I said.

  She stared at her container of coffee but didn’t reply.

  “Just the two of us,” I said. “You can tell me whatever you want. Like if someone is making threats against you or your husband.”

  She put the coffee in the trash can next to her side of the bench as a woman pushing a stroller walked by, the baby crying its lungs out.

  “It’s not that easy,” Quinn said. “Attorney-client, all that malarkey.”

  I waited.

  “What do you know about the Sandoval murder?” she asked.

  “Not a lot. Doesn’t appear to be much physical evidence for the investigators to work with.”

  “Are you really in contact with the Dallas police department?” She turned and looked at me, her expression fearful. “Can you find out if they have a suspect?”

  I thought about Fito’s fingerprints and Throckmorton’s interest.

  “I have a source or two.”

  “I’m afraid whoever killed Sandoval might be after Frank.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She pursed her lips but didn’t reply.

  “If you want me to help, I need as much information as possible.”

  Silence.

  “Whoever killed Sandoval,” I said. “Do you think they’re connected to the people threatening you?”

  “I didn’t say we were being threatened.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  She handed m
e a card. “If you find out any information about the killing, would you let me know? Please.”

  “It would help if you’d tell me what’s going on.”

  She stood. “Frank’s probably ready to go. Do you mind walking me back to the office?”

  Ten minutes later, I watched Quinn and Frank Vega get into their expensive Italian sports car and leave.

  I wondered how I could get in touch with Throckmorton. He seemed like the best source for information, and he obviously knew more than he let on yesterday.

  I didn’t really care that much about the crime next door, except in the abstract. I would help Quinn Carmichael Vega if I could, but what I really wanted was to learn as much as possible about Fito.

  Protecting Miguel was my priority. Sandoval’s murder, the threats against the Vegas, even security at the Aztec Bazaar, that was all secondary.

  Turns out I didn’t have to look very hard for Throckmorton.

  He found me, right after the next murder.

  - CHAPTER ELEVEN -

  An hour later, after checking on Miguel, I was eating a fajita salad at the bar when Aloysius Throckmorton barged through the front door and beelined toward me, boots clacking on the concrete floor.

  It was Friday, a little after noon, so the place was doing a pretty steady business, people hanging out, drinking beer, watching soccer on one of the TVs.

  Throckmorton, eyes bloodshot like he hadn’t slept much the night before, pointed an index finger at my face.

  “You and me,” he said. “Vámonos.”

  “What’s up?” I stabbed a piece of lettuce with my fork. “You got anything on Fito?”

  “Outside. Now.”

  I pointed to my food. “How about after I finish?”

  He leaned close. “How many of your amigos in here are legal, do you think?”

  I didn’t answer. Not very many, if I had to guess.

  “You want me to call immigration and we’ll find out?”

  “Who pissed in your Rice Krispies?” I pushed my plate away.

  He looked around the room, lowered his voice. “There’s been another murder, just like the one yesterday.”

  La Cocina de Mariscos was a seafood restaurant five blocks south of the Aztec Bazaar.

  The place was part drive-in, part sit-down, a covered parking area with slots for a dozen or so cars, tables for about that many inside.

  I’d eaten there several times. They served a mean fried shrimp platter.

  Throckmorton and I were in his Suburban across the street, idling in the parking lot of a dollar store.

  Crime scene tape circled the entire property where the restaurant was located. Forensic investigators scurried about, along with a number of uniformed officers and a couple of people in plain clothes, one of whom was Ross.

  “An hour ago,” Throckmorton said. “The owner takes the trash out. He doesn’t come back, so a waitress goes looking for him. Finds him in the alley, three rounds in the head.”

  “Let me guess. A small-caliber weapon, and nobody heard anything.”

  He nodded.

  Two murders in twenty-four hours, only a few blocks apart. Not unusual in this zip code, but the similar MO wasn’t giving me the warm fuzzies.

  We were both silent for a few moments.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry for the way everything played out back when.”

  He was referring to the deaths of the people who’d killed my family and the subsequent investigation, how he’d come after me like a hooker for a sailor on shore leave. Relentless, as unstoppable as the tides, until someone else confessed to the crime.

  I thought about all the different ways to reply, various retorts that sprang to mind. I decided to keep it simple.

  “Thanks for saying so.”

  A small photograph like an old-style wallet photo from high school was stuck to the clear plastic under the dash, just between the speedometer and the tach.

  He pulled the photo off the plastic, rubbed it against his shirt like he was removing dust. Then he placed the picture back where it had been. The image was that of a young woman.

  “Who’s in the picture?” I asked.

  He ignored my question. “The DPS needs an asset. Somebody off the books.”

  “Why are you talking like a spook?”

  “These aren’t the only two murders, Arlo.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “At least two before this in Dallas,” he said. “Maybe more. Plus one in Hillsboro.”

  Hillsboro was a town about an hour south of the city, straddling Interstate 35, a NAFTA superhighway that ran from Laredo up to the Canadian border, the backbone of the country.

  “I read your file yesterday,” he said. “You were a damn good investigator.”

  “You get that I already have a job, right?”

  “Sandoval and the guy across the street, they’re not something that the Texas Rangers would normally be involved with.”

  I waited, wondering where he was going with this, telling me something I already knew.

  The Rangers handled plenty of murder cases, but most were in unincorporated areas of the state or small municipalities without a dedicated homicide department. There would be little reason for the organization to be involved in a crime like this in a city such as Dallas.

  He continued. “But Austin wants eyes on these investigations.”

  “You think there’s a reason the police can’t handle the job?”

  “I think the more people looking at this, the better. That’s why I want to hire you.” He mentioned a daily pay rate. “DPS has some discretionary funds available. You’d be paid in cash, of course.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. The coroner’s van pulled up across the street.

  “What’s so special about these murders?” I asked.

  “The two victims you know about, Sandoval and the restaurant guy. Put on your investigator hat; describe them to me.”

  I thought about it for a moment and then told him what I knew about Alejandro Sandoval and the man who owned the seafood joint. Both were small-time businessmen, immigrants from Mexico, hard-working people. Responsible. Industrious.

  “How much do you think Sandoval pulled down at the tire store?” he asked.

  “Small place like that, maybe he grosses a couple of hundred K a year.” I shrugged. “He’s probably taking home fifty or sixty thousand.”

  Throckmorton opened the console of his truck and retrieved a file marked with the logo of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He fished out an eight-by-ten picture and handed it to me, an image obviously taken with a telephoto lens.

  The photograph, also marked with a DEA stamp, showed a house on a hill, an enormous place that looked like a Miami Beach brothel, white stucco and palm trees, a multicolored tile roof. A circular driveway curved in front of the structure, dominated by a fountain containing statues of three apparently life-size horses running through the water.

  “Sandoval’s legal residence is a shack in Pleasant Grove,” Throckmorton said. “You know that part of town, don’t you? The butthole of Dallas.”

  I pointed to the photo. “Then what’s this?”

  “That’s his weekend crib, up in Denton County. Horse country. Wife paid one-point-nine mil for it.”

  I looked across the street again. The restaurant was small and wood framed, peeling white paint on the walls, a pitched roof that looked like it needed to be redone. A modest place, almost a dump, not unlike the tire store.

  “Sandoval and the guy across the street.” Throckmorton paused. “The intel I’m getting, looks like they’re affiliated with the Vaqueros.”

  I swore, felt my heartbeat ratchet up a notch.

  The Vaqueros were the dominant narco traffickers along the Rio Grande, ultraviolent, even by the standards of drug cartels.

  The organization had been founded by an ex-priest turned rancher who ran the group like a paramilitary religious order, their activities part
of a higher calling.

  A favorite trick of the Vaqueros was the forced conversion of their enemies by full immersion baptism. Not all that bad, except for the fact they used acid instead of water.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Sandoval’s been here for years. He’s probably owned that tire store longer than the Vaqueros have been in existence.”

  He tossed the photo of the garish house on the console and gave me a deadpan stare.

  The cartel had started in Reynosa less than a decade ago, a small town across from McAllen, near the Gulf of Mexico.

  From there the Vaqueros had spread like a pandemic along the river, making inroads as far west as the Juarez / El Paso area. But as far as I knew, neither they nor any other cartel had a significant presence beyond the border region. The distribution side of the business was left to local groups.

  “The DEA is convinced this is shaping up to be a turf war,” he said. “Two groups making a play for Dallas.”

  I looked up and down the street, seeing everything with fresh eyes, shopkeepers and customers, parents and children, people living their lives, minding their own business.

  What Throckmorton described was law enforcement’s worst-case scenario, the violence that had plagued the border for years advancing northward. If that actually occurred, nothing would be the same in this city.

  “Everybody wants to run silent on this,” he said. “You can understand why.”

  I certainly could. This wasn’t exactly chamber of commerce material: Come for the mild winters. Stay for the narco-trafficker wars. Widespread panic would erupt if word got out that two cartels were about to go Scarface on the streets of the city.

  “You still haven’t told me why you need someone else working on this,” I said.

  Throckmorton scratched his mustache with an index finger, refusing to look in my direction, hand shaking slightly.

  “No-no-no.” I shook my head. “Please don’t say there’s a leak.”

  “Potentially.” He paused. “Maybe.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We had intel. One of the jefes was coming across the river. Guy called his cousin in Dallas, said he’d be in town in a couple of days.”

  Not many people were aware of the fact, but the Texas Rangers ran a surprisingly sophisticated intelligence operation along the Rio Grande.