by Alex Gilly
Rafael Aparición Perez, a citizen of Mexico and the father of four, was aboard a fifty-five-foot Hatteras Sport Fisherman called La Catrina. After allegedly failing to respond to the CBP agent’s order to heave to, he allegedly opened fire at the CBP Midnight Express Interceptor with an automatic rifle. Marine Interdiction Agent Nicholas Peter Finn (pictured) then allegedly shot him dead.
The law firm Edsall, Luna, Cheng of Los Angeles has confirmed that it is representing the family of Mr. Perez and that it intends to file a civil lawsuit against the U.S. government for wrongful death.
“The best-case scenario is that Mr. Perez is dead because he didn’t understand English,” said Jim Edsall, lead counsel for the Perez family. “The worst case? He’s dead because of endemic bias and racism within the CBP. The agent saw an Hispanic man driving an expensive boat and assumed he was a drug dealer, when in fact Mr. Perez, a businessman who owned three gas stations in the Tijuana area, was simply out fishing. This is yet another example of the total failure of our border policies.”
In a statement released to the press, the CBP said it regrets the loss of life and is conducting an internal investigation. A source within the CBP confirmed that Agent Finn remains on active duty.
Finn folded the paper and handed it back to Garcia.
“There’s an editorial, too. The DMO is pissed, Finn,” said Garcia, before walking off.
When they were alone, Diego said, “Edsall fucking Luna Cheng. They’ve got themselves the best law firm drug money can buy. You need a lawyer, Finn.”
Finn forced a grin. “Good thing I’m married to one,” he said.
He went back to scrubbing. He knew he should’ve been worrying about the lawsuit, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the sharks.
* * *
Heading up from the dock to the Long Beach Air and Marine Station, Finn saw La Catrina sitting in a cradle at the top of the launching ramp. He hadn’t seen her since she’d been lifted out of the water. He figured Immigration and Customs Enforcement had their forensics guys combing over her. Finn wasn’t a forensics guy, but he knew boats, so he figured he’d take another quick look. The director, Marine Operations would just have to wait.
La Catrina was fifty-five feet of gleaming white freeboard, superstructure, and deck. Her tinted windows were set at a raked angle, which, along with her flared, Carolina-style bow, gave her an aggressive, raptorlike look. A week after the fire in the engine bay, she still smelled of burned fiberglass. After he’d shot Perez, Finn had boarded La Catrina, found her fire extinguisher, and tried to put out the fire, but the extinguisher had failed. Diego had had to throw one over to him from the Interceptor.
Finn looked at the boat and wondered what her secret was. There had to be a reason why Perez had opened fire, he reasoned; if Perez had had nothing to hide, why had he opened fire?
Nor could Finn make sense of what the man had been doing off Catalina. As far as he knew, the cartels had no people on the island; all the action was on the mainland.
Then he thought that maybe La Catrina hadn’t been going anywhere when they found her; maybe she’d been treading water because she was waiting to meet another boat.…
The phantom.
Finn felt a rush of excitement. Maybe if he and Diego had shown up half an hour later …
Finn was more convinced than ever that the narcotics were still somewhere onboard.
Find the drugs, he thought, and suddenly Perez wasn’t a nice family man out fishing anymore.
The day was heating up. He unzipped the top part of his overalls and banged on the hull. A man in oil-stained coveralls, the letters ICE just visible under the stains, appeared from the engine bay.
“Found the stash yet?” said Finn.
The man wiped his hands on a rag. “Not even a single joint,” he said. Then he said, “You’re Finn, right? The MIA that shot the guy?”
Finn frowned. He was getting famous for all the wrong reasons.
“What about shells from an AK-47?” he asked.
The forensics guy shook his head.
“Not one? You put a dog on it?”
The man nodded. “Yep. No dice.”
“Check the fuel tanks?”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing here.”
Finn started scanning for cuts in the resin-infused fiberglass hull.
“Where’s the rest of the forensics team?”
“You’re looking at it.”
Finn looked up, furious. It must’ve shown, because the guy said, “Hey, don’t look at me. That’s the order from the boss. Said we couldn’t afford the manpower.”
“But it’s going to take you all week!”
The guy raised his hands in the universal gesture of helpless frustration and said, “You don’t think I know that?”
“Keep looking,” muttered Finn. “It’s there, I know it. He didn’t want to get stopped, and there’s a reason for it.”
“Well, if there are narcotics here, they’ve been real clever about hiding it, is all I can say.”
Finn tapped the hull.
“They’re drug traffickers. They’re not that smart.”
* * *
The director of Marine Operations’ secretary told Finn that the boss was busy and he’d have to wait. He passed the time looking at photos of past directors, of the commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection Agency, of the secretary of Homeland Security, and of the president of the United States, each and every one of them posed before a background of the Stars and Stripes.
Finally he was invited in.
DMO Glenn didn’t look like he’d been busy. Without getting up from the high-backed leather throne behind his vast, glass desk, he waved Finn toward a seat. Finn’s mood blackened. First the floater, now this.
There was nothing on Glenn’s desk except a near-empty in-box, a severe-looking desk lamp, a framed photo facing out toward his visitors, a whiff of Windex, and a copy of the day’s Times. A leafy potted plant drooped in the corner near the door, far from the morning sunlight streaming through the window. A flag hung from a pole in the other corner.
DMO Glenn was a small man with a small, round, close-cropped head. His eyes darted around behind small, round glasses perched on a pug nose, and he had a rash-colored mustache. His small, womanish hands were clasped over the copy of the Times. He wore a blue uniform shirt, meticulously pressed, and a gold badge on the left side of his chest, his name embroidered on the right. The framed photo facing out, which was meant to be seen by visitors, showed Glenn in shorts and a singlet, standing by a striped marlin hanging from its tail on a dock. The chief had the thin white legs and flabby triceps of a man who worked all year behind a glass-and-metal desk. The marlin was as long as Glenn was tall, not counting its bill, and Finn figured it to be at least 180 pounds. He wondered how Glenn had landed it and decided he hadn’t. Then he wondered how the Long Beach Air and Marine Station had ended up with a civilian DMO, one who’d been parachuted into the position from Miami, which meant that nobody knew anything about him, other than that he was an asshole.
Finn held Glenn’s gaze, waiting for the man to get to the point. Glenn looked away, taking a long moment to look out his window, which Finn figured he was doing for effect, since the view was of the windowless wall of another building.
Then Glenn turned, swept away an imaginary speck of dust from his spotless desk, and said, “A hundred miles from the border and you managed to create a border incident. This is a terrible mess, Agent Finn.”
“If you mean Perez, the guy opened fire on us. I just—”
Glenn pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I don’t care about Perez. I mean this!” he said, bringing his finger down on the copy of the Los Angeles Times. “Have you read the editorial? No? Here’s a summary: they’re saying you’re a cowboy, with your lasso trick. They make it look like we’re all a bunch of cowboys who shoot first and ask questions later. It’s a PR disaster. We’re in full damage control. You got a lawyer or you want a
union one?”
“I didn’t shoot first. And you’re worried about what the newspapers are saying?” said Finn.
The pitch of Glenn’s voice jumped a couple of notes. “Of course I’m worried about what the newspapers are saying. There’s a bigger picture, Agent Finn. There’s more at stake here than a few pangas landing on the beach. This could go national. We have to fix this.” Glenn’s face was flushed the color of sunburn.
“Fix it how?” said Finn.
With thumb and forefinger, Glenn stroked his mustache. “I called the paper, said I wanted to make a statement. And I spoke to the assistant commissioner in Washington. He suggested we conduct a proper inquiry, and I agreed.”
Finn looked quizzical. “A proper inquiry?” he said.
Glenn leaned forward. “The Office of Internal Affairs in Washington is sending out two of their guys. Guys with no connection to this station or even to Air and Marine. We need to make it clear to the media that we’re doing things thoroughly. That we’re not hiding anything.”
“Wait—I do get it. You’re hanging me out to dry.”
“I’m not ‘hanging you,’” said Glenn, making air quotes, but saying it like he wished he were. “I’m establishing a proper, multichannel internal investigation that will get to the truth—”
“We already had our own investigation—”
“That was before the family sued and the Times got the story.”
“What difference does that make?”
“A statement from you and a statement from Agent Jimenez is not a proper investigation—”
“You planning to get a statement from Perez?”
Finn heard the squeak as Glenn shifted in his leather chair.
“This isn’t a joke, Agent Finn. The government’s being sued. People in Washington are asking questions. Worse than that, the media’s having a field day. They’ll say there was a cover-up. Customs and Border Protection gets enough bad press as it is.”
It had been a long night. Finn was tired. He wasn’t in the mood to argue. But he pushed back because he knew it mattered.
“Doesn’t matter whether they say there was a cover-up or not, so long as there wasn’t one. He was shooting at us. I did my job. That’s it.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“You mean it’s ruining your chance of promotion?”
“You’re forgetting that I’m your boss.”
“Exactly. You’re meant to be on my side.”
“Of course I’m on your side,” said Glenn, “But let’s not make it about who’s on whose side. Don’t be so black-and-white.”
Finn fumed. This was what it meant to have a civilian for a boss. No sense of corps.
“What about La Catrina?” he said.
“What about her?”
“You’ve only got one forensics guy searching her. It’s not enough.”
“We had a team go over her, top to bottom. There’s nothing there.”
“Of course there is, otherwise Perez wouldn’t have run. They just haven’t found it yet.”
“I can’t waste precious resources, Agent Finn.”
Finn gave up. He got up to go.
“One moment, Agent Finn. The IA agents want to speak to you, obviously. I’ve arranged an interview for tomorrow morning, nine A.M.”
“An interview?”
“To establish the facts.”
“You could’ve just e-mailed them my incident report.”
“They said they want to hear it from you.”
Finn walked toward the door.
“Oh, and one more thing,” said Glenn. “Obviously, you’re going to have to stay under the radar for a while.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “‘Under the radar’?”
“I’m pulling you off the water and seconding you to field operations. Just until this blows over.”
Glenn, in his perfectly pressed uniform, behind his gleaming, empty desk with the framed photo of his prize on it, leaned back in his chair.
“I’ve got the highest intercept rate on this station, sir,” said Finn.
“Cargo inspection is a worthwhile job. You’ll do fine. And above all, don’t talk to any media people. Any journalist tries to talk to you, you send them to me, you hear? Any questions?”
Finn pointed at the photo on the desk. “What bait did you use?”
It took Glenn a moment to understand. “Mackerel,” he said.
Finn nodded. “That’s a striped marlin,” he said. “Protected species, right?”
“Not down in Mexico. I took that one off Alijos Rocks, in Mexican waters,” said Glenn, his voice swelling with pride.
“Mexican waters,” said Finn. “Right.”
He left the room.
* * *
Finn walked out of the Long Beach Air and Marine Station, a single-story, cinder-block, flat-roofed building behind a stand of drooping gray gum trees that did nothing to disguise the architect’s half-assed effort. Put some razor wire on the wall and you’d think it was a prison block like the ones down the road, he thought. Like every other CBP agent stationed on Terminal Island, Finn had to drive past the brand-spanking-new coast guard HQ, all glass and steel and irrigated lawns, on his way to work. And in Washington they wondered why the CBP had the lowest morale of any federal agency.
He walked through the lot to his dual-cab Tacoma, pressed the remote key without taking it out of his pocket, stepped up into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut behind him.
He flipped down the visor and looked in the vanity mirror. His nostrils flared with each heavy breath. Angry red lines webbed from his pale blue irises. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes had deepened. He flipped up the mirror, unlocked the glove compartment, unclipped his holster, and put his service weapon in the box, next to the binoculars and Maglite he kept there for when he was doing boat-ramp surveillance.
Finn locked the glove compartment and sank back in the seat. He wanted a drink. Back in the old days, he would’ve gone out and had one. A year and a half ago, he’d almost lost his job and his marriage to drink. He thought about Mona, how close she’d come to walking away. He was thinking about the things she’d said that day, and about the promise he’d made to her, when knuckles rapped on his window, startling him. A heavy man of medium height with thinning black hair, an unshaven chin, and the kind of quick smile common to guys who never grew out of their high school wisecracking habits stood on the other side of the glass. Garrett Smith, a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Times, was wearing a tie, loosened over an unbuttoned and poorly ironed shirt, no jacket. Finn had known him for a few years now—Customs and Border Protection was Smith’s beat. Finn rolled down the glass.
“You here to apologize?” he said.
“You see me holding flowers?” said Smith.
“What do you want, Smith?”
“Jesus, you’re not being too friendly to your friendly beat reporter.”
“I read your article.”
Smith straightened his smile. “Hey, listen, I know the suit’s bullshit, Finn. Edsall, Luna, Cheng? Come on. But I had to write it. It’s my beat.”
Finn frowned. “You quoted Edsall saying I was racist. He said I liked to shoot Mexicans.”
Smith wagged a finger. “He implied it, he didn’t say it. There’s a difference.”
Finn drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“What are you doing here, Smith? Apart from being an asshole?”
“I heard you stole breakfast from a shark.”
Finn said nothing.
“You know there’s been a bunch of sightings lately off Catalina?” said Smith.
Finn looked at him blankly.
“Come on, Finn. Shark attacks sell newspapers. Give me something.”
Finn wasn’t feeling generous.
“Can you give me something about the victim, at least?” said Smith. He had his pen and spiral pad out.
“Sure. The victim is definitely dead.”
Smith tapped his notebook with his pen. “Any idea what kind of shark it was?” he said.
“A hungry one.”
“All right, I get it. You’re mad at me. Forget the shark. How do you respond to the allegation that you used disproportionate force when you put a bullet through the Mexican fisherman?” said Smith.
Finn flipped him the bird as he drove away.
CHAPTER THREE
Finn and Mona rented half a stucco-fronted duplex two blocks back from Redondo Beach. They couldn’t afford a view of the sea but could afford to live close enough to smell it, which Finn figured was good enough for the time being. Since there was no garage, he kept two beach cruisers chained to a downspout out behind the house to get them to the pier. The bikes smelled of the WD-40 he continually sprayed on their chains and sprockets to guard against the salt. Mona complained that he put so much on, it stained her clothes, and then the chains rusted anyway, but Finn was dogged about it. On weekend mornings when he wasn’t on shift and she wasn’t working a pro bono case, they would make love, then ride the push-bikes to the fish market and waterside restaurants.
The summer before, Mona had worn a wide-brimmed straw hat she’d seen in a fancy boutique, which he’d bought for her even though he’d privately thought it was way too expensive for a straw hat. Once, Finn had glanced at Mona pedaling away alongside him, her hair lifting off her shoulders and the brim of the straw hat curling back, and he had realized he was happier than ever before. That was why he was so diligent with the anticorrosion spray.
By the time Finn got home, Mona had left for work. He showered and shaved, plugged his phone into the charger on the bedside table, and got into bed.
He woke to find Mona sitting on the edge of the bed. Late-afternoon light gilded the edges of the palm fronds that scraped against the windowpane.
“You’re home,” he said.
Mona had her sable-colored hair back in a ponytail. She was wearing a tan suit skirt and a collarless white blouse tucked into it. The suit jacket, along with her black “good fake” handbag, lay on the end of the bed next to Finn’s feet. She was wearing what she called her no-nonsense lawyer outfit. Mona was a voluptuous woman, even in her most somber clothes: her blouse stretched tautly over her breasts, her skirt curved around her rump. Her long brows arched over kind, almond-shaped eyes. She smiled and her cheeks dimpled.