by Irving Munro
“Can you go back, please, to the slide you just shared on JR Construction?” asked Tommy. “Yes, that’s it! The JR logo is red and blue on a white background, and I saw a photograph you presented earlier showing a construction site and there were white pickup trucks with the red and blue logo on the door. The manager at Gold’s Gym said that Mike Muguara had an altercation in the parking lot with guys who drove a white truck with a red and blue logo,” concluded Tommy.
“Okay we need to follow up on Jimmy Rodriguez as we discussed, but first let’s get to another part-owner of Venture Point Holdings - Enrique Escobar Rodriguez.
“Enrique Rodriguez owns the huge Colinas Verde Ranch, the third largest ranch in Texas, with close to 500,000 acres. The ranch is located south of Pecos, in Brewster County and Presidio County, and the south side of the ranch runs along the Mexican border. Enrique Rodriguez is the elder brother of Jimmy Rodriguez, the owner of JR Construction Services.
“Enrique Rodriquez and Garrison McMullen go back a long way and have common business interests. They both own huge ranches, breed cattle and horses, and each has significant oil drilling operations on their land. Enrique launched a transportation business in the ‘60s to transport cattle and feed. Garrison McMullen helped him do that by taking a twenty-five percent stake, and the trucking company is now one the largest in the U.S., providing trucking services to every industry. Rodriquez Trucking is headquartered in El Paso.
“Rodriguez Trucking has a contract with Venture Point Holdings to provide all haulage and storage services.
“Finally, there is Deng Tang Corporation.
“Eddie Tang is a Chinese billionaire. He amassed his fortune after he inherited Deng Shipping Lines from his father. He diversified into manufacturing, primarily high-end consumer package goods, and then he branched out into construction and operation of casinos in Hong Kong and Macau.
“Deng Tang companies have contracts with Venture Point Holdings for the supply of domestic appliances and fixtures and fittings. They also plan to operate casinos in the marina vicinity if VPH manages to secure the necessary planning approvals. There is also a contract in place between Deng Tang and Rodriguez Trucking for the transportation of all Deng Tang products for the VPH development from the Port of Long Beach, California, to Texas.
“That’s the full extent of our research to date,” said Marie. “We are continuing to work on this, but suffice to say this is a huge operation and their master plan goes a lot further than a simple marina and a few upscale homes. They plan several hotels, a conference center and at least one casino. There will be a heliport that will bring high rollers from the airport and from the Circuit of the Americas. The rail link is primarily to bring in workers to run the hotels and casinos. The revenue to Travis County from taxes will be immense, so they have full-time lobbyists working the state legislators in the state capitol to ensure they have support for their plans.”
~
“This is fantastic work!” said Tommy.
“I agree,” said Bill. “However, as Julian has said, there is nothing yet to suggest that this is in any way linked to the killing of Mike Muguara. Having said that, if Mike got in the middle of this in some way and had begun to rock the boat, I could see why he felt he needed weapons.”
“We need to keep at it,” said Tommy. “Marie, I would also like to give you the additional task of finding out all you can about Jimmy Rodriguez’s limo driver. When Bill and I visited with Martha and Jacob Goldman in Houston, we discovered a piece of information that we could potentially leverage to put the squeeze on him. We need to know his background and his connection to Jimmy Rodriguez, but we need to do it without spooking him.”
“Okay, boss, I can do that,” said Marie.
The meeting ended and Bill and Tommy left Marie to wrap up with Latisha and Julian.
~
“So what do you think, Dad?”
“Marie and the team have done great work but, as we discussed, we need to get back on the road that Mike traveled. We need to see if along that road there is a detour he took that put him in the middle of this nest of vipers. I suspect there is, and when we find it the pieces will start to fall into place. Our first step on the road is to get up to Oklahoma. I will set that up and get back to you.”
Bill went off to call the Corbin, Clayton and Anderson law firm in Lawton.
Chapter 23: Last Will and Testament
“Good morning, Corbin, Clayton and Anderson, how may I direct your call?”
“I’d like to speak with Bob Corbin, please. This is Officer Bill Ross of the Travis County Police Department in Austin, Texas.”
“Hold the line, please, and I will check if Mr. Corbin is in his office.”
“Bob Corbin here, I’ve been expecting your call, Officer Ross!”
“Oh, I guess Claudette Weiss has already been in touch then?”
“Yes, she has, she called me and then she sent me an email with your name and contact details. If I hadn’t heard from you by this weekend I was going to call you, so it’s good we are now connected.”
“My boss, Detective Sergeant Tommy Ross, and I would like to come visit with you. When might it be convenient for us to do that? By the way, Tommy is my son, if you were wondering why we have the same last name.”
“Yes, I’m aware of the family connection as well as the working relationship. The email from Claudette was quite comprehensive. Very efficient is Miss Weiss. I will make myself available to meet your schedule, Officer Ross. By the way, you should plan on being with me for a full day, so I suggest that you stay overnight. I can recommend the Hilton Garden Inn on 281, it’s just around the corner from our offices on West Gore Blvd.”
“A whole day? Why do we need a whole day?”
“It will be clear when you get here, but just let me say that Mike Muguara left a lot more with me for safekeeping than just a Last Will and Testament.”
“Okay, I’ll talk with Tommy and get back to you, Mr. Corbin.”
“Just send your travel details to Betty and please, Officer Ross, call me Bob. Betty is my personal assistant. She can also make a reservation at the hotel for you both if needed. I look forward to spending a day with you, Officer Ross. I am sure that you will find it very interesting and worth your trip up here.”
Bill went off to find Tommy and brief him on the call. A whole day! What did Mike Muguara leave with Bob Corbin that will take a full day to explain?
~
The following day they flew from Austin to Wichita Falls and then rented a car to drive the 50 miles to Lawton. They checked into the Hilton and went off to bed. They woke bright and early and arrived at the law offices at 9 a.m. just as Betty was opening the office for business.
“Good morning, gentlemen, I trust you had a good flight and slept well last night. Go right on into the conference room and I will get a fresh pot of coffee going. I also brought some doughnuts so you can keep your blood sugar levels up. Low blood sugar can be very dangerous,” said Betty as she went off to get the coffee.
They drew a look at one other. It was obvious based on her build that Betty was diligent in keeping her blood sugar up.
A few minutes later Bob Corbin arrived. He was well over six feet tall, slender build, with salt and pepper hair. Tommy reckoned that he was in his early sixties, and based on his build probably played basketball when he was younger. As it happened, he had played for the North Carolina Wolfpack in 1974 when they defeated UCLA, earning the first national title in school history.
“Bob Corbin, good to meet you both, and thanks for making the trip up here.”
The three men shook hands and helped themselves to coffee and a doughnut.
“We’re going to be here a while, so make yourselves comfortable. Betty will get some sandwiches brought in for our lunch; she’ll come take your order later. I’ve also taken the liberty of making reservations for the three of us at Luigi’s for dinner tonight. Nothing fancy, just good Italian with pasta and pizza, hope that works f
or you boys.”
“Works fine for us,” said Tommy.
“Great then, let’s get right into this,” said Bob Corbin as he bent forward, grabbing his coffee mug in both hands. He began to tell them about the life of the late Mike Muguara.
~
“My law firm, of which I am one of three partners, is retained counsel for the Comanche Nation. The Comanche Nation complex is located about ten miles north of here. What do you know about the history of the Comanche? I ask this as to understand what I’m about to tell you. It will be helpful if you know some of the history.”
“I know virtually nothing,” responded Bill.
“That goes for me too,” said Tommy.
“Okay, then, let me try to give you some of the history by way of context.”
“The Comanche Nation were lords of the plains and their original homeland, Comancheria, occupied an area 600 miles from north to south and 400 miles from east to west. Today this region makes up the West Texas Llano Estacado, the Texas Panhandle, the Texas Hill Country, eastern New Mexico, and western Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma Panhandle, the Wichita Mountains, southeastern Colorado and southwestern Kansas.
“I won’t go into the entire history of the Comanche as that would not be productive for our meeting today. The most important part of their history as it relates to Mike Muguara began when Texas won independence from Mexico in 1836.”
“The Comanche were still in control of the Texas plains. They frequently conducted raids on frontier settlements from San Antonio to northern Mexico. In May 1836 a particularly destructive raid occurred at Fort Parker, a settlement near the Navasota River in East Texas.”
“The Comanche attacked the blockhouse, killed several settlers, and took five hostages, including nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker, who then lived with the Comanche for the next twenty-four years. Parker became the wife of Chief Peta Nocona and the mother of Quanah Parker, the last great Comanche chief.”
“In an effort to stop Comanche destruction on the Texas frontier, Sam Houston, the first elected president of the Republic of Texas, instituted a policy aimed at establishing peace and friendship through commerce. Houston's peace efforts were hampered because the Texas Congress refused to agree to the one Comanche requirement for peace: a boundary line between Texas and Comanchería.”
“Peace commissioners did succeed in negotiating a treaty with a band of Penateka Comanche led by Chief Muguara, but the Texas Senate never ratified the treaty. When Houston left office in late 1838, Texan-Comanche relations were rapidly deteriorating.”
“Mirabeau Lamar, who succeeded Houston as president, abandoned the peace policy, which he considered a failure, in favor of waging war on the Comanche Nation. Lamar's policy culminated in the Council House Fight, a tragic incident that occurred in San Antonio in the spring of 1840 when Texas officials attempted to arrest a Comanche peace delegation. Fighting broke out, and thirty-five Comanche, including their leader, Chief Muguara, and eleven other chiefs, were killed. The remaining thirty Comanche, primarily women and children, were imprisoned by the Texans.
“That’s the brief Comanche history lesson. Any questions at this stage, gentlemen?” said Bob Corbin as he walked across the room to refill his coffee and grab another doughnut.
“So I’m guessing that Mike was a descendant of this Chief Muguara who was killed in the council house fight?” said Bill.
“Right first time, Bill! There’s a reason why you’re a detective,” laughed Bob.
~
With fresh coffee and more sugar treats at hand, they sat back around the conference room table.
“I first met Mike Muguara a couple of years ago when he came to visit with the elders of the Comanche Nation. I happened to be visiting with them at the same time and we grabbed a coffee together. I then invited him to have dinner with me.”
“He told me that he was trying to establish who his birth parents were. His grandfather and grandmother on his father’s side of the family had raised him, so he knew he was of the Muguara lineage. They gave him love and taught him some of the history of Comanche and the sub-tribe called the Penateka—the honey eaters. Chief Muguara was a chief of the Penateka Comanche who live in the southernmost regions of Comancheria, what is today the Texas Hill Country, including the area that is now Austin.
“He was also told that, being a descendant of Muguara, he had inherited the power to speak to those who had passed on. Muguara meant spirit talker. His grandparents took him out each night to look at the stars and listen for anyone from the past who wanted to communicate with the living. He believed completely that he had these powers and, as he said while we drank coffee together, he talked to the spirits every day. He said that he had talked to them each night in the desert of Iraq and that they had kept him safe and helped him in his work there.
“His grandfather told him that he and his wife had left the reservation only one time and that they had taken their three children with them. In 1952, the federal government initiated the Urban Indian Relocation Program. It was designed to entice reservation dwellers to seven major urban cities where the jobs supposedly were plentiful.
“Relocation offices were set up in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Dallas. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees were there to orient new arrivals and manage financial and job training programs for them. Grandfather Muguara and his family went to Dallas. At the time Mike’s father, Achak, was only one-year-old. When Achak was eighteen his parents decided to return to the reservation and Achak didn’t want to do that. He stayed in Texas and worked various jobs, eventually getting a good job working on the McMullen Ranch outside of Austin.”
“He did a little bit of everything on the ranch, working with the cattle and the horses, and in return got a paycheck and a place to stay. Life was good.”
“Over the years Mike’s grandparents lost touch with Achak. The next time they saw him was when he turned up on the reservation with his wife and a nine-month-old baby boy. They asked the grandparents to look after the boy until they got on their feet. In the native Indian tradition, the grandparents accepted this obligation no questions asked. That was the last time they saw their son and his wife. They never heard from them again. That nine-month-old baby boy was Mike Muguara.
“Mike told me that his grandparents knew nothing about Achak’s wife; all they knew was that her first name was Alyana and, as that was a native Indian first name for a girl, they assumed that she was first nation.”
“Any questions about what I have just told you?” asked Bob.
There were no specific questions and the three of them just sat around the table going over all of what Bob Corbin had explained.
~
Betty took their orders for lunch. The sandwiches arrived soon after and they had a pleasant lunch, with Bob reminiscing about his youth and the excitement of being on a basketball team that had won the national championship. Bill talked about his life growing up in Scotland and his love of Kilmarnock FC. When Tommy said that he was an Oakland Raiders fan, Bob Corbin put his arm around him playfully and said, “I feel your pain, buddy!”
“And now to the main event,” said Bob, wiping some mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s hear from Mike Muguara!”
Tommy almost choked on his last mouthful of pastrami on rye. A projector screen slowly dropped from the ceiling, and with the touch of a button Bob Corbin brought Mike Muguara to life. Mike was seated in the same conference room where they now sat and, at his side, Bob Corbin.
Today’s date is Friday, January 10th, 2014 my name is Mike Muguara. Bob has agreed to be witness to this recording and he is now sitting beside you there today. You must be from some branch of law enforcement as Bob is only authorized to share this recording in the event of my death with those who seek to solve my murder. I want to tell you what I know and also what I don’t know and can only speculate. You can then take it from there and find and bring to justice
those responsible for my death.
For some time now I have been trying to track down my birth parents. It’s my belief that they are now both dead. Part of what I will say here will explain why I think this is so, as I don’t have absolute proof of their passing. I believe that they were both murdered and that, including my own death, there are three killings for you to solve.
My father’s name was Achak Muguara, and he worked for Garrison McMullen on his ranch outside Austin, Texas from 1968 until his death. He worked primarily in the cattle and horse-breeding part of the business, and in doing so he had reason to interact on many occasions with workers from the Colinas Verde ranch in southwest Texas. This ranch is owned by Enrique Rodriquez.
Enrique Rodriguez and Garrison McMullen are close friends and business partners. They both have huge herds of cattle and horses. Some horses they raise to be used by the cowboys who work the ranch, some they race and some they sell. They raise beef cattle and cattle to be used for milk production. The Colinas Verde ranch is the exclusive supplier of cattle to the huge milk-producing facilities in and around El Paso.
In 1964 before my father became employed on the McMullen ranch, Enrique Rodriguez and Garrison McMullen created a trucking company to haul their animals to market and, when needed, to bring in feed. Rodriguez Trucking, is now one of the largest in the nation and has diversified into hauling every type of product, not just livestock and feed.
Enrique Rodriguez has a younger brother, Jimmy Rodriguez. Jimmy was appointed as the first general manager of Rodriguez Trucking; however, he hated living on the Colinas Verde Ranch and wanted to be closer to the bright lights of Austin. Garrison McMullen suggested that he come live on the McMullen Ranch and help run the place in addition to the trucking line. Jimmy agreed and moved into the McMullen Ranch in 1965.
In 1966 Garrison McMullen met the love of his life at a rock concert in Zilker Park in Austin. Alyana Reyes was the daughter of Fernando Reyes, a very successful Hispanic businessman in Houston. They fell madly in love and married in the spring of 1967.