Best Laid Plans (32 page)

That was exactly what Lucy had been thinking, though Elise hadn’t explicitly said it. “I can get her to talk,” Lucy said. She didn’t like browbeating the girl. Elise wasn’t cooperating, but she was scared and Lucy understood what these girls had to do to survive. Survival often made them hard and prickly, and often the only way to crack them was to be just as hard.

“There’s no doubt,” Barry said. “But in the meantime, maybe we should take another run at Mona Hill.”

“She’s not going to give us anything unless we have something on her—something to trade, like her freedom.”

“The solicitation charges won’t stick, and she knows it,” Barry said.

“Any way you can get a warrant to search her apartment?”

“All we have is her sending a prostitute to a john—if that. She said, she said.”

“Elise is underage.”

“She’s over fourteen. There’s a different line.”

Lucy hated that line. Girls fourteen and under were special victims. Over fourteen and while prostitution was still illegal, the penalties weren’t as extensive. There were fewer resources to get the older girls out of the life. One cop had told Lucy that by the time the girls were fourteen, they were lost causes.

And sometimes they’re lost at a much earlier age.

Lucy didn’t believe that. Most of the girls in prostitution as teenagers had been abused by their families or manipulated by much older boyfriends into a life in the sex trade. Some had made one bad decision and felt they couldn’t come back from that. They often felt they didn’t deserve to go back to their families, or that their families wouldn’t want them back after they knew what they’d done. And some families were like that. But many welcomed their daughters back with open hearts. She didn’t know where Elise fell on that spectrum, but it was clear from her street smarts and her attitude that she’d been on her own a long, long time. Was there even anyone for her to go home to?

“What if,” Lucy said, “we work Mona to give us the name of the person who vouched for Elise? Give her a pass on everything if she gives that up.”

“We have to find something on her first.”

“Between us and Tia, we could pull together enough for a search warrant. Specifically to look for the photos Elise claims she took and the drug used to kill Worthington.”

“Do you believe her? That she didn’t know that she’d killed him?”

Lucy considered the conversation. “Yes and no. She’s a habitual liar, so everything she said we need to verify. There was a lot of truth there, but some misdirection. I believe she went in thinking she was going to take compromising pictures. But I think she knew he was dead when she left the room. But based on her reaction—I don’t think she knew the drugs would kill him. Someone gave her the syringe. Mona admitted that she sent her out on the Everett job, and while Elise didn’t explicitly say Mona sent her to Worthington, I think we can make the case that Mona was involved. With the right judge, we can get a warrant to search Mona’s place for drugs, syringes, photographs, and computers.”

“Computers?”

“If they were digital photos, she would have downloaded them. So we’ll need any camera or recording equipment, phones—maybe we’ll get lucky and find out who arranged the meeting with Worthington. Because I’ll bet money that he wasn’t expecting a prostitute.”

“Slow down, Kincaid,” Barry said. “Elise didn’t say that Mona sent her to Worthington. She said she was here in San Antonio
because
of Worthington, but called Mona for more work. We might be able to tie Mona to James Everett, but we can’t tie her to Worthington.”

“But it’s plausible. Not only that, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“We have no proof. No evidence. The problem with organizations like Mona Hill’s is that she knows a lot of secrets about a lot of people, many of those people with a lot to lose. We need to convince the AUSA that we have probable cause for a warrant and not just a fishing expedition. I don’t think we’re even close. I’ll take it to Juan, it’s his call.”

Tia returned. “Okay, we’re set on the guard.” She glanced over at the nurse’s desk to where a young man stood waiting. “Mr. Rabb?” she said.

He turned, obviously surprised to see the three of them conversing. “Detective. I just want to make sure that the girl I brought in last night was okay.”

“She’s resting,” Tia said. “She’ll make a full recovery.”

He approached them with a shy smile. “I guess I wouldn’t be able to see her?”

“Not now,” Tia said. “I’ll give her your contact information if she wants to reach out to you.”

“You don’t have to. She just reminded me of my little sister. I feel better knowing she’s okay.”

“We’ll walk you out,” Tia said, leading the way. “Ignore the two grumpy feds.” She glanced back at Lucy and Barry with a grin. “They’re probably as hungry as I am.”

Rabb thanked Tia and they parted ways in the lobby.

Tia said, “He was a good Samaritan. Not everyone would stop for a gunshot victim, I’m sad to say. But I wasn’t lying—I’m starved. It’s nearly two. Let’s go to Mi Tierra. It’s not far, and it’s my favorite place. Good food and cheap. Too bad we’re on duty, because they make a wicked margarita.”

*   *   *

Brad Donnelly picked up Ryan Quiroz at FBI headquarters that afternoon.

“What’s the story?” Ryan asked as Brad pulled out of the parking lot.

“Body found in Atascosa County. Two gunshot wounds in the leg, one in the back of the head. Blood type AB positive—the same as the shooter who got away at our crime scene.”

“ID?”

“No, but the M.E. said there were gang tats, and the estimated time-of-death fits.” Brad tossed Ryan a file. “Ballistics from the crime scene.”

Ryan opened the file. “They confirmed the guns were from the stolen shipment based on the ammo?”

“Yep. The shipment of guns that Vasco Trejo sold to Tobias. At least, that’s what we think was going on based on a partial conversation.”

“Something you overheard when they captured you?”

Brad hesitated, then nodded. Lucy had overheard the conversation, but he couldn’t say that. “Basically, Tobias was furious that Trejo had lost part of the gun shipment to Kane Rogan’s mercenaries. He wanted his money back.”

“How many guns are still out there?”

“A lot. Rogan was only able to retrieve two trucks but suspected that twice as many disappeared with Tobias or his people.”

“And some of the guns that Trejo controlled—ostensibly to sell to Tobias—killed Tobias’s people.”

“If Sanchez’s team joined Tobias.”

Ryan said, “Why would Tobias sell guns to one of his rivals? And since Trejo is dead and Rogan thinks Tobias had the guns, why would he kill his own gang?”

“Maybe he sold them to a rival group, who then turned on Tobias.”

“But there’s been no retaliation. This case is giving me a headache.”

“It’s too fucking quiet. It’s making me itchy.” Brad paused, then added, “ATF is taking over as primary. They say since it’s an international gun incident, it’s theirs.”

“That really sucks. A million dollars in drugs and they walk in? None of the guns were found on scene.”

“They’re wrong, and it’s going to get in the way. This isn’t about guns, this is about the cartels and their growing foothold in southern Texas. It’s a power play, pure and simple. I think they took it because the DOJ doesn’t trust us after Nicole. We’ve had bureaucrats up our ass for two months.”

“Did you talk to Rollins?”

Brad’s hands clutched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Sam told me she was a cold bitch, but she goes beyond cold. She wants witness protection. I just can’t figure out if she really has valuable intel, or if she’s just playing us.”

“What did she say?”

“If the remainder of the Trejo/Sanchez gang was taken out, Tobias allowed it or did it himself.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would Tobias want to take out his own gang? And leave the drugs?”

“Distrust, skimming, loyalty issues.”

“They were Sanchez’s people. We know next to nothing about Tobias. We don’t know where he calls home base and have only a vague description. And,” Ryan continued, “if we think that Tobias has been neutered, we focus our attention on the shooters—not Tobias himself.”

Brad’s knee began to tighten, and he shifted in the driver’s seat. He had a doctor’s appointment at the end of the day; he’d moved it up from Friday. He needed to be officially cleared for duty. The only reason Sam had let him work this case was because it was mostly a passive investigation at this point, he was officially “consulting” with the SAPD, and Ryan was assisting in the field.

He really despised being babied.

Brad said, “I really hate that the director and DOJ are considering Nicole’s request for witness protection, but Sam made a plea that she didn’t deserve to breathe free air. Nicole mentioned it to me again. She said our house isn’t clean.”

“Did you tell your boss?”

“I tried, but Sam cut me off. She said we can’t believe anything she says. That she’ll say and do anything to get out of prison.”

“What do you think?”

“I think Nicole knows more than she’s said, but not as much as she claims.”

“She could have been goading you. If you think you can’t trust your team, you’re all at risk.”

And that bothered Brad on a deep, indescribable level.

His phone rang. It was Ash from the SAPD investigative unit. Brad had left three messages for him. “Donnelly,” he said. “It’s about time you got back to me.”

“Don’t start with me. The ATF has been having me re-run every fucking test, including ballistics, then they took all the bullets we extracted. Then, I had to walk them through the entire scene at two this afternoon. Do you know how fucking hot it was at two? Hotter than hell. And they kept me for
two hours
when I have a shitload of work piled.”

“You need a beer.”

“Damn straight.”

“Did ATF take the heroin?”

“No.”

“Have you tested it? Ryan and I are here, and we can’t figure out why the drugs were left behind.”

“It’s still in evidence. We did the field test on one sample, confirmed for heroin, but I need to sample each brick, determine the purity, input the data, run it through the system to see where it came from—you know the drill.”

“Let me know when you have the report. I promise—I’m not nagging you. We have a line on the injured shooter.”

“Is he talking?”

“He’s dead. But we still may get something out of him yet.”

Brad hung up and turned off the highway.

The Atascosa County morgue was housed in the basement of the lone county hospital. If the county had a complex homicide, they’d send the body to Bexar County and their state-of-the-art facilities. Brad might still ask them to do so once he and Ryan examined the evidence.

The coroner, Frank Hernandez, doubled as a staff doctor. He was a small, wiry older man with sharp eyes behind thick glasses.

“Thought this might be one of yours,” Dr. Hernandez said after Brad showed his DEA identification. “This smacks of drugs and gangs.”

“Thank you for contacting our office so quickly,” Brad said. “The body was found this morning?”

“At dawn, a trucker pulled off the highway to take a leak. Found the victim in the ravine. Two days later, there’d have been nothing left but bones. As it was, the only reason the trucker saw anything was because a couple coyotes were chomping down on the corpse. Hope you haven’t eaten, ’cause it ain’t pretty. I’m not planning to do the autopsy ’til morning—I just came off a twenty-four-hour shift, stayed late to meet you boys.”

“We appreciate it,” Ryan said.

“But you examined the body?” Brad asked.

“Course I did.” He pulled open one of the drawers and unzipped the body bag. The victim hadn’t been cleaned, prepped, or undressed. “I need an assistant to help prepare the body and preserve the evidence, ’cause this is a homicide. Know you need everything you can get.”

The victim was a Hispanic male approximately twenty years of age. His face was beaten and swollen. The doctor pulled on gloves and motioned toward the box for Brad and Ryan to do the same. Then he turned the victim’s head. “First, the swelling is from decomp, though you can probably see he’d been beaten pretty bad.”

Hernandez gestured to the dried blood on the back of the head, then he pulled at the matted hair to reveal a hole.

“Gunshot. The bullet’s still in there—I did a full body x-ray when he came in. Looks fragmented, though. Don’t know if you’ll be able to match it with anything.”

“Caliber?”

He shrugged. “Small caliber—probably a nine millimeter, maybe a thirty-eight. The left leg had, I believe, two gunshot wounds.”

“You can’t tell?”

“There’s one bullet still inside, a higher caliber round, that’s lodged in his bone. The other is gone—and with the coyote bite marks, it’s hard to tell, but I think there was a second lower on the leg. Could have been a clean shot, through and through, or the coyotes swallowed it. I should know after the autopsy.” He looked up from the mangled leg. “Unless you want me to send the body up to Bexar.”