Bloody Basin Page 21

  The fireworks had started. Not to be outdone, Detective Gore and his wife got into the spirit of the moment and smooched under the moonlight. The music started with trumpets and horns, and the fireworks overhead filled the sky with every imaginable color of the rainbow. Thousands of people cheered and clapped at the spectacle overhead.

  Suddenly Detective Gore received a message on his pager. It was from a coworker who had forgotten to tell him that he had received a package at work addressed to Detective Gore, Department of Public Safety, Phoenix, Arizona. There was no return address, and it looked like the package had been put in the mail in the Flagstaff area.

  Detective Gore reached over and tapped Agent Tygard on the shoulder. “What do you make of this?” he asked.

  Agent Tygard shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, “but for now, let’s enjoy the fireworks and our families. We can worry about this on Monday.”

  Detective Gore’s wife chimed in. “Hey, honey,” she said, “Lank is right. Let it go for a few hours and worry about it on Monday.”

  Detective Gore put the pager back on his belt, then leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “You’re right, sweetheart. This can all wait until Monday.”

  Paul thought, I hope Lank appreciates everything I am doing for him. He went and took an ice-cold bottle of beer out of his cooler and enjoyed the music and fireworks during this Fourth of July celebration. Paul then opened the container that held Fena’s remains and slowly poured them into the dark water. He quietly whispered ashes to ashes.

  Chapter 21

  Break The Chain

  It was a quiet, overcast morning in Washington, and Paul Rossi had just finished his second cup of coffee at a small café on Main Street. This was going to be a long day for Paul. He had to leave Washington especially early today to drive to Falls Church, and if everything went according to plan, he wouldn’t be back home until early evening.

  “Would you like some more coffee?” asked the waitress. “Just a warm-up would be fine, thank you,” he told her. “Which way to the men’s room?” The waitress pointed toward the back of the restaurant. “I’ll be right back,” Paul said.

  After he finished his third cup of coffee, he decided to visit a pharmacy he’d seen driving into town. The quaint old pharmacy, known to most of the residents as the drugstore on Main Street, was relatively quiet, with only two or three customers. Paul made his way back to the pharmacy counter, while looking for the name of the pharmacist on duty that morning. Paul got the pharmacist’s attention and asked him a rather basic question regarding nasal spray, and the pharmacist in turn made a recommendation to Paul.

  “Are there any other questions?” the pharmacist asked.

  “No, thank you. You’ve been extremely helpful,” Paul told the man.

  He left the building and made his way down the street to a row of payphones, where he deposited the appropriate amount of money, then dialed the number to Delmo Estranho’s residence. The phone rang several times before Delmo answered.

  “Good morning. How can I help you?”

  “Hello, sir,” Paul said. “I’m sorry to bother you. This is Kevin Smith over at the pharmacy, and I wanted to let you know that one of our drivers is bringing a prescription to your address by mistake. Our delivery driver has several stops to make, and I am not quite sure when he’ll reach your residence, but when he does, would you please tell him to come back to the pharmacy?”

  Delmo, not in a particularly good mood after staying up most of the night watching the fireworks and drinking, was always the professional diplomat. In his best voice, he happily agreed to the request.

  “Thank you so much, sir. I’m deeply sorry to bother you, and again, I’m not quite sure when our deliveryman will be at your home.”

  “I’m happy to help,” said Delmo. He wished the man a happy day and said goodbye.

  That worked out better than I had hoped, Paul thought. Now that he knew Delmo was home and, by the sound of his voice, hungover, he would continue with the rest of his plan. Paul was driving into Delmo’s neighborhood, but before he went to the house, he drove slowly through the residential area and looked for anyone or anything that could possibly identifying him.

  Pulling the van into Delmo’s driveway, Paul remembered he had adjusted the side door of the garage to open with just a slight nudge. He also remembered that side of the property was completely protected by tall shrubs and trees, so Paul was able to turn the van around in the large parking area and back up next to the side door.

  The doorbell rang several times before Delmo appeared and opened the door, where he saw a man in white coveralls holding a brown paper bag.

  “I have your prescription,” said Paul. Delmo opened the storm door, and in his most professional voice, went on to tell Paul that he was to return to the pharmacy because they had sent him to the wrong address. “Are you sure?” asked Paul.

  “Yes, I’m sure” said Delmo. Paul removed his hand from his jacket pocket and, in a flash, pushed a stun gun into Delmo’s chest, sending him back into the house and falling to the floor. Paul then quickly entered the home, closing the doors behind him and kneeling next to Delmo. He again used the stun gun, this time placing it directly over Delmo’s heart. As Delmo thrashed on the floor like a fish out of water, Paul rolled him onto his chest and quickly thrust the hypodermic needle into the base of his skull, killing Delmo almost instantly.

  Paul then reached into the brown paper bag he had and removed the plastic body bag, which he rolled out onto the floor next to Delmo’s lifeless body. Within a few moments, he had removed all Delmo’s clothing. Taking the clothing with him, Paul went upstairs to the master bedroom and separated the clothing into the appropriate light and dark color baskets the housekeeper had set up.

  He then took the chair from the desk and, standing on it, retrieved the small box of documents from its hiding place inside the walk-in closet. After doing so, Paul put the chair back at the desk and carefully, with the side of his foot, brushed over the indentations in the carpet made by the legs of the chair, making them not so obvious. Lying on the desk in plain sight was the tanned leather satchel that Delmo had carried with him everywhere he went, and Paul wasted no time opening the bag. He found it to be stuffed with paperwork and a neatly wrapped bundle of hundred-dollar bills. He wasted no time emptying the bag and placing the packet of money into one of the large pockets in his coveralls.

  Paul then made his way into the basement, where he went about retrieving the cash and other documents hidden behind the basement wall. He went back to the living room and made sure that the storm door and the heavy wooden main door to the home were securely closed and locked. As he dragged the body bag that contained Delmo’s lifeless corpse over to the side door of the garage, he scanned in every direction, looking for anything of importance that he might have missed.

  With the push of his hip, he popped the side door open, and carefully looking around the side of the house, he made his way to the van. He opened the rear doors so he could deposit the body bag. Paul took the bag that contained the cash and documents and placed them on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He also deposited Delmo’s wallet and ring of keys onto the floor of the van.

  Paul quickly went back to the side door, closed it, then walked back to the van, getting into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. Paul knew that at approximately one o’clock this afternoon, the housekeeper would arrive to perform her job. Completely vacuuming the floors throughout the house, making the beds, and doing the laundry in addition to dusting everything she could lay her hands on. Paul quietly made his way out of the residential neighborhood, heading west for his two-hour drive to the tallow factory where he would completely and thoroughly dispose of Delmo’s body.

  Carolyn and I were beginning to wake up after an evening of fireworks and entertainment put on by the city and enjoyed by tens of thousands of valley re
sidents. We were both surprised to see our son sitting at the kitchen table as if he was waiting for us. The coffee had been made, and there were doughnuts sitting on the counter.

  “Isn’t this a nice surprise,” Carolyn told her son. “Fresh coffee and doughnuts? This is almost too good to be true,” I said, and the three of us laughed.

  Philip produced a letter that he placed in front of Carolyn. “Go ahead, Mom. Read this!”

  A moment later, Carolyn jumped to her feet, shouting, “This is wonderful!” She went to our son and gave him a big hug. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it.”

  “Do what?” I inquired. “I’ve been accepted to attend law school at the University of Chicago,” Philip said.

  “That’s wonderful, son. I’m proud and happy for you!” I told him, then gave him a big bear hug and a kiss on the cheek, which got all of us laughing again.

  “So my son will be moving to the windy city,” Carolyn said.

  “That’s right, Mom,” replied Philip. “But the bad news is my grades and test scores were good enough to get me into the program but not good enough to get a scholarship.”

  “Don’t worry about that, son. Your mother and I have been planning for this since before you were born, and tomorrow I’ll call Joe Feather up in Show Low so he can arrange to pay for your tuition and housing out of our investment accounts.”

  “Are you sure you can do this, Dad?” asked Philip.

  “You just let your mother and me worry about the cost. Your job is to work hard and pass those classes. Tonight, we are going to celebrate with a fine meal, but for now, I want to hear your plans for moving to Chicago and everything you can tell us about the law program over there.”

  After we spent the next hour or so drinking coffee, eating doughnuts, and talking about law school, Carolyn and I decided not to tell Philip about the money. He would have enough to worry about for the next three years.

  The two-hour drive felt more like twelve hours to Paul. He finally arrived at the tallow plant. He cautiously drove onto the property seeing that, just as he’d arranged, one of the access doors had been left open, allowing him to drive into the building. He was completely unseen and quickly removed the body bag from the back of the van. He emptied the contents into a swirling vat of chemicals that would completely dissolve any evidence of a body ever being there within an hour or two.

  Paul then made his way to a large gas-fired furnace, where he opened the door and tossed the body bag inside. It promptly turned to ash. The last thing he did before leaving the tallow factory was place an unmarked envelope containing several thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills in an old Prince Albert tobacco can sitting on the ground next to a small stack of rusted scrap metal. Within five minutes, Paul was back on the road, driving east toward Washington, D.C., where he planned to spend the rest of his weekend reading the documents he had retrieved and doing a final count of the cash he recovered.

  Agent Tygard was on a mission of great importance. He was at the grocery store trying to decide which charcoal to buy for that evening’s cookout, and as any man with any amount of intelligence knows, in a situation like this, you grab the first store employee you can find and ask them which is the better option.

  Tonight, Agent Tygard and his wife were hosting a cookout for their coworkers from both the FBI and his wife’s medical practice. It was always fun to get those two groups of people together. The medical practitioners were always hesitant to talk to the FBI, and the members of the FBI were always afraid to mention any of their aches and pains to the medical practitioners, so for the first hour or so of the get-together, there was somewhat of an uncomfortable party atmosphere. But that gave way to laughter and an evening of good food and enjoyment.

  Agent Tygard’s wife had owned and operated her own medical practice for the last eighteen years. She had a staff of nurses and office personnel, and from time to time, she would take on another doctor on a part-time basis. Now that her husband was nearing retirement, she was more motivated than ever to sell the practice and enjoy her golden years with him. They were both avid aviators and had thousands of hours of flight experience, and she was the one that had suggested they take a couple of months off and fly to the Bahamas, island hopping and enjoying the crystal-clear water. That evening’s cookout was a success, with all the guests enjoying themselves while eating their fill of chicken, ribs, and an assortment of side salads.

  It was late afternoon when Paul returned the van to its parking place and the keys to their hook. Then he quietly made his way down the street to his own parked car. It had been a long day and a longer weekend, and he looked forward to a cool drink and examining the documents he’d retrieved.

  First things first, he thought. He took off his shoes and put on his slippers, then went into his study, where he poured two fingers of bourbon into a small glass with several cubes of ice. He cleared off his desk to make space for the documents to review along with the cash he needed to count. He unlocked his desk and removed the cash and documents he had retrieved from Fena LaStrange’s apartment. He counted the money. There was no less than $466,000 in cash from the two conspirators. He started to examine the documents, first from Fena.

  There were copies of field reports from the Southwest FBI district and copies of supervisor communication with Washington. The supervisor paperwork is ripe with names of field agents who work not only in Arizona but also in Southern California, Paul thought to himself, wondering if information from these reports was somehow funneled back to the Salazar crime family. He read the document and found no less than six field agents named along with the names of border patrol agents and the offices they were assigned to.

  He went on to examine the documents from Delmo’s stash of paperwork. Along with copies of the same types of field agent reports, there were copies of classified operations that were going to take place all along the southern border. This was big news, and it was worth a fortune to the drug cartels. The other documents Paul examined were notes taken from nothing less than White House briefings, and to his amazement, it looked as though the White House was going to ease its policy on drug interdiction, making the entire process of securing the southern border virtually nonexistent in the coming months.

  It was Paul’s policy to burn everything once he felt a case was closed, so he proceeded to set a match to the documents he had before him, including the notes from the White House briefings. If they were ever found in his possession, he could be looking at serious prison time, so he placed them in his burn basket and made sure there was nothing but charred ash left at the bottom of the container.

  Paul poured himself another drink and turned on the television to the local news channel. For the next fifteen minutes or so, he watched one of the local talking heads spew the manufactured news over the airwaves. Having lived in Washington for so long, Paul knew that much of the news was all made of bullshit that just helped confuse people and have them look in the wrong direction. But tonight, Paul was waiting to hear anything regarding missing persons. To his delight, nothing was reported. It was even possible that in the next few days, one of his private clients could be contacting him with a job to find the whereabouts of Delmo Estranho.

  Chuck McGowan’s secure line began to ring, and he knew it could mean only one thing: Paul Rossi was calling him. “Hello, this is Chuck,” he said.

  “Chuck, this is Paul. How’re you doing?” “Business is great. and I’m feeling rather good. I was able to take care of a couple of undesirables not too long ago.”

  “I hope you were careful,” said . “And just to let you know, I’ve also been cleaning out the trash here in Washington.” Chuck told Paul that the newest member of the team was also cleaning house.

  “In that case,” Paul said, “include the new guy. The reason I’m calling is that I think the team should meet one more time. I have things to tell you, and I have a retirement gift for our friend. Do
me a favor, and when you can, contact our other team members and set up a date to meet in St. Louis.”

  “I’d be happy to give our friends a call tomorrow when everyone is back to work,” said Chuck. “So do you think anything we’ve done will actually make a difference?”

  There was a moment of silence on the phone. Then Paul said, “I really believe that our efforts have disrupted the flow of information to the cartels and that we’ve done everything we could break the chain.”

  Chapter 22

  Share And Share Alike

  It had been a long and relaxing weekend for Detectives Gore and going back to work this morning was especially difficult for him. He was beginning to feel somewhat depressed that he hadn’t produced any evidence against the crime family despite all the hard work and time he had put into investigating the Salazar family and their property holdings. Walking into his office, he noticed a package sitting on top of his desk. It was addressed to Detective Gore, Department of Public Safety, Phoenix, Arizona, with no return address, and it looked as though it had been mailed from Flagstaff.

  I wonder what this is, he thought, and after he grabbed a cup of hot coffee, he went to work opening the package. Not only was the package wrapped in brown paper, but the inner contents were also wrapped in clear plastic. After sipping his coffee, he went to work stripping the clear plastic away from a small brown notebook that had the smell of bleach. This was enough to tell the detective he had better wear some rubber gloves before proceeding any further. The detective also took several photographs of the book and its wrappings before he proceeded any further.

  As he turned the pages, he saw that the first portion of the book consisted of handwritten notes he assumed were in Spanish. After that, there was a series of clear plastic pages, some of which contained business cards to storage facilities that spanned the width of the United States. The detective’s phone rang. When he answered, the sound of Agent Tygard’s voice greeted him.