No Good Deed (30 page)
“There’s nothing,” she said quietly. “But I’ll go through everything I have.” She paused. “Barry had his vacation planned for months and he’d be back in time, which was why I wasn’t needed at the hearing. I don’t understand why—I talked to her more than anyone—but I suppose her reaction this morning was an indicator of how she operates. It could be that the AUSA thought I would do more harm than good.”
“I’m still trying to get in to talk to the AUSA before the hearing, but she hasn’t returned my calls.”
Lucy had to give something to Hans—without revealing that she’d read the letter. “It could be,” she said, “that Barry and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things.” She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t lie well.”
“That’s the reason I didn’t want you going undercover on your squad.”
She opened her mouth, surprised, then closed it. “I thought Barry and I worked fine together, but it was clear we had different approaches to our jobs. He called to check up on me, find out why my file was sealed. Agent Dunbar made a comment that led Barry to discover my personal relationship with Rick, and I think that’s why he thought I overstepped when I didn’t. If I had thought I’d done anything that would jeopardize this case, I would have said something—to Barry or Juan.”
“Yet he pushed you out of the follow-up investigation on Elise?”
“I didn’t know it at the time, but he didn’t like that I went to interview her after the fact. It wasn’t an official interview. I needed to understand her.”
“Or he didn’t like you attempting to gain information that could damage Hansen or Tobias.”
She shook her head. “He’s not a bad agent. Hans—I trust your judgment, but unless you have evidence that Barry is corrupt, I don’t believe it.”
Maybe you shouldn’t be so emphatic. He wrote that letter against you. He told Juan you hadn’t told him about talking to Elise, when you had. It could be a misunderstanding … but what if it’s not?
“Fact: When you were shot, Crawford was not in the line of fire. Fact: When you and Donnelly went to the Everett house to check on the status of the family, Crawford stayed back and you became a hostage. Fact: Crawford didn’t include you in the last two weeks of conversations with the AUSA so you don’t know what’s happening with Elise Hansen.”
“None of that is conclusive.”
“No, but it’s suspicious now that he’s missing.”
She couldn’t ignore Hans’s instincts. All she could add was, “Hans, I worked with him. Not once did I suspect that he was working for the cartels.”
Hans nodded. “You have good instincts, Lucy, and I hope you’re right. Except if the mole isn’t Barry, that means it’s someone else—and we have no idea who.”
Her phone vibrated and she looked at it. A text message from Ryan popped up.
Luce, where are you? Come to the conference room ASAP. Brad and I figured something out about the drug dealer Rollins killed five years ago.
* * *
Lucy sat in the conference room with Hans, Ryan, Brad, Nate, and ASAC Abigail Durant. Lucy tried to catch a word with Brad, to see how he was doing after this morning, but he was focused on whatever he and Ryan had uncovered.
Ryan held a sheath of notes in his left hand while he wrote the name
RAMON RAMOS
at the top of the white board.
“Ramos is the guy Rollins killed on the video Kane Rogan’s team found at Vasco Trejo’s compound three months ago,” Ryan began. “I vaguely remembered the case—but it was local, not federal. Two weeks ago, there was a hit on Trejo’s men—Donnelly and I were part of the joint task force with SAPD and ATF. We believe that Tobias was behind the hit. The same hit that resulted in the bomb being placed in the DEA evidence locker Trojan Horse style. It’s clear from Donnelly’s investigation that Tobias had two goals. The first was to plant the bomb—”
Donnelly interrupted. “Because of the quantity—over twenty pounds of heroin—it was taken to the storage locker. Nicole would know we’d be in no rush to test it because there was no pending court case or even a suspect in custody.”
No law enforcement agency had the time or resources to immediately process every piece of evidence that came into their possession. Most agencies prioritized evidence based on whether there was a suspect in custody, when the court hearing was set, and if there would be a trial.
Ryan nodded. “The second reason for the hit was to kill off anyone with a connection to Trejo or Sanchez. Sanchez was a midlevel San Antonio dealer who worked directly for Trejo. Trejo, also known as ‘the general’ though he has no known military service, used boys from foster care as mules for his drug operation. As we put together the operation, we recognized that Sanchez was the stateside boss, and Trejo was the Mexican boss.”
“Agent Quiroz,” Abigail said with a quick glance at her watch, “how does this relate to Ramos?”
“Lucy pointed out yesterday that Nicole was assigned to the Los Angeles office at the time she was caught on tape killing Ramos. She asked what his murder had changed; I didn’t know, so I called a buddy of mine who’s a retired narcotics detective from SAPD. My buddy said that Ramos worked as a courier for the Zaragosa group working the triangle—San Antonio, Houston, Dallas. A small-time transport gang moving drugs and shit for whoever paid them. The theory at the time was that Ramos was skimming from Zaragosa, so they took him out. Ramos was slimy. But my contact said something else changed after his murder. The Zaragosa group merged with Sanchez’s group, effectively creating a larger network and a more stable supply chain from the border, through the triangle and beyond—into Louisiana and the Southeast.”
As he spoke, Ryan drew the connections on the board.
“And why would taking out one person result in such a powerful merger?” Abigail asked.
Brad spoke. “Ramos was an informant. SAPD didn’t know that, because Ramos worked with an undercover DEA agent. The DEA knew he was a scumbag but let him operate to catch the bigger fish. Right before he was killed, he fingered a man by the name of Garcia as being the new big man in town, so to speak. Garcia went down, and is currently serving twenty to life for manslaughter, drug trafficking, and conspiracy to kill a federal agent. Ryan and I think that Ramos’s murder closed off all leaks to the DEA, and enabled the merger between Zaragosa and Sanchez to go through.”
“Garcia,” Lucy said and glanced at Brad.
“Yes, it was Pedro Garcia,” Brad confirmed. “The same Garcia who used his boys to set up the bus to be hijacked. I’ve already contacted the Marshals and they’re preparing to transport him to an undisclosed prison and we hope to interrogate him soon.”
“But Nicole wasn’t in the San Antonio or Houston DEA at the time,” Lucy said. “How would she know or care?”
Brad shrugged. “She killed him and things changed. The DEA thought they had a major victory, but realized a year later that a new, more dangerous machine had been created. It’s one of the reasons they expanded the San Antonio office, put Sam in charge, and shortly thereafter I transferred here from Phoenix.”
Ryan continued to write on the board. “Zaragosa is connected to Sanchez. Sanchez is connected to Trejo, and Trejo is connected to Tobias. However, according to information that Kane Rogan gave Brad two weeks ago, the Zaragosa group has always been run by Tobias.” He connected the dots, which ended up making a circle.
Brad nodded. “I think what started five years ago, and again two weeks ago, was not just to solidify power, but to show force. To tell anyone thinking about taking over Tobias’s pipeline from Mexico into the States that they’d better not think about it at all. Rogan’s rescue operation south of the border severely damaged Tobias among the key players. By taking out the rest of the Trejo/Sanchez gang and firmly casting blame on them for the entire situation, they also showed force by taking out the DEA evidence warehouse.”
“Where does Rollins fit in?” Abigail studied the white board with interest.
“The enforcer?” Ryan suggested.
Hans cleared his throat. “If Nicole Rollins has been working for the cartels since before she joined the DEA, she’s more than an enforcer. She’s a leader, and Tobias or Joseph Contreras execute her orders. I have an agent in Los Angeles looking at her family and associates going back to her childhood. We know that her father may have been a bad cop. Her uncle is Jimmy Hunt—and if he is who we believe he is, he fled the country to avoid prosecution on a multitude of charges five years ago.”
“Five years,” Lucy said. “The same time Rollins came to San Antonio to kill Ramos.”
“Brad,” Hans asked, “is there any way to talk to Ramos’s handler?”
Brad shook his head. “He was killed in a car accident three years ago.”
The room fell silent.
No one had to say it was no accident. Or acknowledge that Nicole transferred to Texas at the same time.
Zach Charles rushed into the conference room. “The marshals located one of the shooters from yesterday. He’s taken hostages at a bar southeast of Mission. They request assistance.”
The sun hung low in the west by the time Kenzie Malone pulled into the economy parking lot of the small San Antonio International Airport. Small for her, at any rate, because she’d grown up in LA and flew out of the cumbersome and miserable LAX. They always seemed to be in the middle of construction. One perk of having seniority over Emilio was that she could pull rank and drive. She showed her badge to the sheriff’s deputy who had called in the sighting of Agent Crawford’s car.
Three Bexar County Sheriff patrols were parked near Barry’s gold Dodge Charger. She recognized it immediately. She remembered when he’d bought it last fall. He’d had a beat-up Mustang for years and needed something more reliable. Ever practical, he waited until the new models had been released, and bought a year-old but new vehicle.
She didn’t need to approach the car to know there was a dead body inside. If she couldn’t tell by the smell of decomposition, the hundreds of flies circling the car did the trick.
“Shit,” she said. “No one could tell there was a body in there?” She glanced around. They were on the edge of the lot, with cars parked in every third slot. She liked to park in the same place because she didn’t have to search for a spot and never forgot where she parked.
“According to security,” the deputy said, “earlier today a passenger notified the shuttle driver that there was a foul smell coming from this vehicle, but the driver admitted he forgot until the end of his shift. As soon as he saw the flies, he alerted security.”
Julie Peters, the deputy coroner, was already on site. “I waited until you arrived, but we’re all ready to open the vehicle.”
“I can’t believe no one noticed the flies and smell before now,” Kenzie said.
Julie shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. People don’t usually think
dead body
when they see flies. They think
rotten food
. Or they’re just shitheads who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.” She walked toward the coroner’s van.
Julie was difficult to read. She oozed both confidence and disdain, an odd combination. She didn’t seem to have many friends, though Lucy had gotten really chummy with her. Kenzie had the distinct impression that Julie hadn’t liked being asked to wait.
Julie and her assistant had on full gowns and gloves that seemed longer and thicker than the typical gloves they wore when processing a crime scene. They also put on safety goggles before breaking the lock to get into the trunk.
A powerful stench rolled out of the car that even Kenzie and Emilio, who stood a good forty feet away, could smell. She turned her head and gagged, her eyes watering.
Emilio cringed, but had more control. He’d been a paramedic for ten years before joining the FBI. And while Kenzie wasn’t squeamish, she’d never gotten used to seeing a dead body. Or maybe it was the smell.
“Barry,” she said.
Emilio didn’t say anything.
“What are you thinking?” she said. “It has to be him. It’s his car. He didn’t get on a plane—any plane—this weekend.”
“I don’t know what to think, to be honest,” Emilio said.
Kenzie walked as close as she dared. “Julie—can you ID him?”
Julie turned to Kenzie. Her mouth was a grim line, and her eyes looked bigger behind the goggles. She snapped, “A body has been in the trunk of a car for God knows how long in the middle of hot and humid Texas and you think I can take one look and ID him? I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman yet. All I see is chunky soup wrapped in clear plastic.”
Bile rose in the back of her throat and she turned away. She’d never eat soup again.
Emilio squeezed her arm and steered her away from the car. “Who else would it be, Kenzie?”
She just shook her head. If she talked she would puke.
Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out. Eric. Dammit, she’d forgotten to tell him she’d be late. She stepped a couple feet away from Emilio—and farther from the car.
“Hey,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dead body. It’s a bad one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I want to see you—especially tonight. But I might be late. It’s already eight o’clock, I don’t know when I’ll be done here, and I’ll need to go home and shower.”
“You can always shower at my place, babe.”
Warmth rushed through her remembering the last night they’d spent together. Sunday … was it really only two nights ago? It seemed like it had been forever.
“But I don’t have clothes at your place,
babe
.” The nickname wasn’t her favorite, but it had become something of a joke between them.
“Hmm, didn’t we exchange keys a while back?”
“Yes, I believe we did.”
“I get off duty in thirty minutes. I’ll swing by the store and cook up a home-cooked meal at your place.”
“You cook?”
“Not well, but I can make a few things.”
“Deal. I’ll text you when I have an ETA, but it won’t be before ten.”
“I know how it is, Kenzie. I’ll see you when I see you.”
She hung up and took ten seconds to enjoy falling in love. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt this way about a guy.
