Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838)

by White, Linda J.

  “You think God was OK with you getting hurt?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Well, can you trust him on that?”

  A deep chill ran through her. She dropped her head into her hands.

  “Let it go,” he said softly. “Just let it go. Connie’s right. Let it go, and fight for joy.” He approached her, gently put his finger on her chin, and lifted her head. David must have seen something in her face, some change, because his jaw relaxed, and his lips parted, and he leaned down and kissed her, and their kiss was a sweet, sweet moment of surrender, like a leap into a rushing waterfall, or a ride on a cresting wave. He wrapped his arms around her, and as Kit relaxed into his embrace, she let go of the double weight that had threatened to drown her.

  Rick Sellers watched the couple through his binoculars. “I wonder how long that’s been going on?” he muttered to himself. Bringing the binoculars down, he turned and walked back to his truck. He started the engine and pulled slowly down the road, rolling over and over in his mind the implications of what he’d just seen. How could he use it?

  The next week seemed like a blur. David made three more runs for Lopez without incident, unless you counted the toll it took on the nerves of all the people involved. Particularly Kit.

  The team had gone over the photographs from the funeral, the license plate numbers Roger had collected, and photos taken by Jason. They found nothing out of the ordinary. Those present at the funeral seemed like normal island folk.

  Kit consulted with Chris. “Maybe we’d better set up surveillance on Cienfuegos’s house,” she suggested.

  Chris shook his head. “Hard to do, as isolated as it is. Too labor intensive. We’ll need more people than Steve can spare right now.”

  Kit frowned. “Something going on?”

  “The president is going to be in Norfolk tomorrow, christening a new aircraft carrier. So Steve has his hands full.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “We talk nearly every day,” Chris said.

  What was the deal with that? Kit wondered. Was Chris reporting on her? She avoided talking to Steve as much as she could!

  She swallowed her paranoia. “So, how do we move ahead?” she asked.

  Later, David provided the answer. “Lopez told me Cienfuegos has a longer job for me. ‘No more tomatoes.’ That’s what he said,” he told her.

  “What’s he talking about?” Kit asked.

  “I have no idea. I just know he asked me if I could drive to North Carolina. I asked him what part. He asked why, so I told him I have reasons not to go in parts of that state. That shut him up.” David shoved his hands in his pockets. “He said ‘Western.’ That’s where Hickory is. So, I think we’re getting our break. I think this is it, Kit. I think we’ve got him.”

  26

  THE REST OF THE TEAM SEEMED THRILLED. THEY CHEERED, EVEN, WHEN KIT told them. Kit felt her anxiety sinking deeper into her soul.

  David showed up at the offsite later to brief everyone. “He wants me to meet him and Cienfuegos at the tomato processing plant on Wednesday night at 9 o’clock.”

  “Why there?” Chris asked.

  “He said he’ll have a new truck for me. It’s got C&R’s logo on the side, but it’s not theirs. He said the owner is always busy on Wednesday nights, and won’t notice the activity.”

  “We have to provide perfect backup,” Kit said to Chris. “It’s got to be perfect! And David, you’ve got to blow it off if they try to move the location.”

  He nodded.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  On the grounds of the tomato processing plant sat a small, one-story house. At one time, the plant manager had used it as a residence; now its main function was storage. Kit obtained permission from Sam Curtis to use it. He didn’t ask for what, and she didn’t tell him, but she did verify he’d be in church on Wednesday evening.

  They’d had just two nights to set up the place for surveillance. To minimize their presence, they worked in the middle of the night using flashlights. Jason planted bugs in the processing plant itself. He would also wire David, so they’d be alerted in case Lopez and Cienfuegos tried to force a change in locations as they had before.

  Meanwhile, Kit and Chris worked out contingency plans. They calculated the manpower they’d need, decided how the arrest would go down if David was in immediate danger, and had even asked for a member of the AUSA’s office to be on call if they had a question about the adequacy of the evidence they were getting. They knew if they acted prematurely, they’d blow the case; if they waited too long, they’d put David at unnecessary risk.

  “Any chance they’ll check David for wires?” Chris asked.

  “They haven’t been that careful lately.”

  “Then certainly they won’t check the building for bugs.”

  “No way. Besides,” Kit said, “Jason swore they’d be invisible.”

  “Oh, did I tell you?” Chris said. “Steve is coming to watch this go down.”

  “No, you didn’t tell me that. Why?”

  “Why is he coming? The president is gone. I guess Steve has the time.”

  Kit didn’t necessarily buy that.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Kit worried. Why was Steve coming? She was the case agent, so why hadn’t he informed her?

  He did inform her … when he was on the way. She kept her irritation suppressed, her conversation crisply professional. But she dreaded facing Steve. Why did he have to come up now? Sometimes she wondered why he had hired her. Had he been told by some higher-up that he had to take her?

  She checked her watch. It was a quarter to four. David would be here soon to get wired up. She would have to be brutally professional with him. Cold, even. Hopefully, she’d have a chance to explain. Hopefully, she’d …

  Her cell phone rang. She looked at the number. It was from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Ramsfeld?

  Indeed. What did she want?

  “Kit, I need to tell you something.” Ramsfeld’s voice was almost a whisper. “He creeped me out, I’m telling you. Really creeped me out.”

  “Who, Brenda?”

  “Do you know that Coast Guard guy, Rick Sellers?”

  “Yes.”

  “He approached me at the beach. Started asking all kinds of questions about you—did I know you, had I seen you, that sort of thing. I felt like he was stalking you or something.”

  “I assure you I haven’t given him any encouragement.”

  “It’s weird. Actually, it’s more than that. Like when he asked me about this other guy, David, that you’re seeing.”

  “What?”

  “He seemed to know a lot about him, and a lot about you. Pressed me for what I knew. It was so weird. About your case, too. I’m telling you, he gave me the creeps.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing! Just that I knew you on a professional basis.” Ramsfeld sighed. “You know he’s friends with Joe Rutgers?”

  Joe Rutgers? That was curious. They didn’t seem to be anything alike.

  Kit tried to blow off that phone call. She had other things to worry about. Still, Brenda Ramsfeld’s words bothered her. What was the connection between Rick Sellers and Joe Rutgers? Friendship only? And why was Sellers asking all those questions about her? What was he up to? Was it merely a personal interest in her? Or something else?

  And if Rutgers was the white man who asked Martinez to hold the backpack with meth in it, was Sellers connected to that?

  A sudden thought crossed her mind. Sellers had initially failed to tell her about the Coast Guard’s use of IOOS, the current tracking system that could have told her approximately where the beach child had been dropped into the ocean. Later, he apologized and filed the reports she’d asked him to file … he’d even given her copies. A call to the Coast Guard’s Search and Rescue headquarters in Norfolk would confirm whether he was being up front about that.

  Curious now, Kit tracked back through the information on her Bureau
phone, found the number of the Norfolk Coast Guard Office, and called. She’d left the copies of the reports Rick had filed at the cottage in Chincoteague, but maybe, just maybe, they’d have a way of tracing them.

  A bored receptionist transferred her to an enlisted Coast Guardsman who listened carefully to her questions. “I’ll check the status of those reports, ma’am, and call you back,” he said.

  The small house near the tomato processing plant would serve as a bunker from which she and her team would monitor David’s meeting with Carlos Cienfuegos. She wondered why anyone driving by at 9:00 on a Wednesday night wouldn’t wonder about activity in the plant. But David had said that Carlos had specifically picked that time, because he said the owner, Sam Curtis always attended church on Wednesday nights, and then he and his wife went with friends to a nearby diner for a late dinner. The routine stayed the same, week after week, and Carlos was going to take advantage of it.

  The moon was up, a beautiful half-moon, silvery and shrouded by wispy clouds. Kit could see it through the trees, and she thought about how even now it was shining down on her grandmother’s house on Chincoteague, and on the waves on Assateague, and on Bob Stewart’s grave. The moon had been shining down on the little beach child, too, as the ocean gently rocked him until it laid his body on Assateague. Would she ever find out who had killed him?

  She felt anxious, ready for this operation to be over. If David could get Carlos to say on the wire that the “cargo” David was to pick up in North Carolina consisted of people, the AUSA said he’d go to the grand jury with it. Get an indictment. Push the case against Hector Lopez and Carlos Cienfuegos.

  Then the games would begin. Turning one suspect against the other. Getting witnesses to confirm what they’d suspected. Negotiating plea bargains with some of the underlings so they could nail the suspects they really wanted to nail: Cienfuegos for trafficking, Lopez for Bob’s murder. And someone for the murder of the beach child.

  Tonight could be the beginning of the end of her case. Oh, Kit was ready!

  “Everything’s all set,” Chris said, coming up behind her. “It won’t be long now.”

  Absolutely, she thought. This had to end soon.

  Jason and his recording equipment filled one small room in the house. He’d be monitoring the wire. The small transmitter on David was very short-range—the radio signal would only carry about one hundred feet. Plus, Jason had other bugs in the building itself, cleverly hidden in light fixtures, heat ducts, and behind vents.

  Roger stood right next to Jason. Kit would be listening with headphones, too, so she could give the go-ahead once they had what they needed. Chris and Steve and six other agents completed the team in the house.

  Of necessity, the group had to keep the house completely dark, working only with tiny red lights. Any appearance of activity could alert Cienfuegos to their presence. They had to be very careful.

  At Kit’s insistence, they had practiced what they were going to do early on Sunday morning at the offsite. Although David had teased her, she was determined to do everything she could to make tonight go well. If that meant pushing the team, that was fine.

  They’d even constructed a list of admissions they needed him to get out of Cienfuegos and/or Lopez. There were four of them, and she’d made David memorize them.

  Kit looked at her watch: 8:55 p.m. Any moment now …

  “All set?” Steve Gould appeared at her side. He had parked with the others, a mile away, at the old church, and Chris had driven him in, and hidden his car behind the house.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nervous?”

  She swallowed. “We’ve worked very hard to get this right, but yes, sir, I am.”

  He nodded.

  Kit’s bureau cell phone vibrated. She answered it. It was the Coast Guardsman from Norfolk.

  “I don’t see those reports, ma’am. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “Nothing on the body found on Assateague?”

  “No, ma’am. Not a thing. I’ll keep looking, but I went through all of our files. Nothing from CPO Sellers. Nothing at all.”

  Had Sellers lied to her? Kit pursed her lips.

  But there was no time to worry about Sellers now. Headlights in the drive leading up to the tomato processing plant announced someone was arriving. Kit trembled in anticipation.

  David pulled his SUV into the parking lot of the tomato processing plant and parked it nose out, about thirty feet from the building. Staging his car for a quick getaway remained an old habit. He wiped his hands on his jeans, pulled the key out of the ignition, and stepped out of the car. He glanced toward the house where he knew Kit was working.

  The night sky was nearly dark. A half-moon, shrouded by clouds, hung overhead. From somewhere, an owl hooted. Then David heard another engine and Lopez pulled up in a box truck with C&R’s logo on the side. Was it Bob’s truck, now disguised? He suspected it was.

  “Buenos noches,” Lopez said, leaving his vehicle. He grinned like a cat standing over a fresh kill, and David wondered for a second if he was being set up.

  But no, he reassured himself, Lopez was just like that. He nodded in response, and breathed a silent prayer. Please, get me through this one more meeting. Lopez made his skin crawl. David touched the iPod in his pocket and prayed that the transmitter would not fail. That Jason would record what they needed. That tonight would be the last of it.

  Cienfuegos arrived at 9:13 p.m., driving a pickup truck, not his Escalade. David had never seen it. He parked the truck, acknowledged David and Lopez, and then Cienfuegos unlocked the door, and the three men walked in, their boots loud on the concrete floor. Cienfuegos wore jeans and a white Western shirt and black, alligator skin Western boots. Not the sort of thing you’d wear if you were going to do something messy, like kill somebody. That reassured David.

  They walked through the building to the area where the tomatoes were sorted. There, Cienfuegos stopped, leaned up against a conveyor belt, and smiled. “So, Señor Castillo, you have been doing a good job?”

  “You tell me,” David responded. The white cinderblock walls and strong overhead lighting made the sorting shed as bright as noonday. He smelled a faint odor of bleach. Stacks and stacks of empty packing boxes lined the walls. In the back corner, a faucet with a hose connected was dripping … dripping.

  Cienfuegos kept talking. He had a gun in his belt. “You do a good job. You get the trucks back, you not get stopped, you not ask questions … we like that, eh, Hector?”

  Hector Lopez grinned and spit off to the side.

  “So now, we make you another offer. A bigger job. For bigger pay. How you think about that?”

  “You tell me what it is. And I’ll tell you if I’ll do it.”

  In the house, Jason pressed the audio headphones to his head, and concentrated on what he was hearing. The transmitter remained at full strength. He gave a thumbs-up to Kit, who nodded. She had just one headphone pressed to one ear, so she could hear Roger or Chris or Steve if they said something. Chris was doing the same thing. Together, they’d decide when they had enough information to make an arrest.

  “My job is to help farmers get workers for their fields,” Cienfuegos said, continuing, “and to help poor Mexicans get dollars to send to their families back home. It is a public service, really, a good thing. Bringing workers and work together. But sometimes, you know, the red tape, it keeps the good from being done. I have some workers coming to North Carolina from Mexico.”

  “They’re illegal?”

  “They need to come here. To work. For that, I need a driver I can trust.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Take a load of tomatoes to Norfolk. Then keep going, to North Carolina. And bring back my load of people.”

  “In the truck?”

  “SÍ, yes. Without getting stopped, you know?”

  “What about the weigh stations.”

  Cienfuegos smiled. He rubbed two fingers together. “You know the right people, you fi
nd out when they are closed. I get you that information.”

  David shifted his weight on his feet. “These people, they are men, eh? Pickers?”

  “Some, some …”

  “Women, too?”

  “We supply a lot of different kinds of labor, no? Field workers, domestic help, cleaning people. There are lots of needs in America.”

  “No green cards? Passports?”

  “Some have passports.”

  “Where in North Carolina?”

  “What does that matter?”

  David narrowed his eyes. “I got reasons not to go in some parts.”

  Cienfuegos nodded, accepting his answer. “Hickory. In the Western part.”

  “And where do I bring ’em to?”

  Hector Lopez grinned. “Casa Cienfuegos.”

  Carlos frowned and looked at David. “We have rooms for them.”

  “And where is that? Around here?”

  “Yes. Close by here. You take the job, I tell you where.”

  David rubbed the back of his neck. “How much?”

  “5,000.”

  “Man, I get caught, those are federal charges.”

  “Don’t get caught.”

  David paced away, frowning. Then he turned quickly and looked at Cienfuegos. “I read in the paper, when that cop got shot, they found a broken-down white box truck.”

  Cienfuegos cursed. David’s statement had caught him off guard. “That driver was stupid, eh? You, David Castillo, are a smart man. That would not happen to you.”

  “5K isn’t enough. They’ll be looking at white box trucks.”

  “All right, then, seven.”

  “Make it 10K and I’ll do it.”

  Cienfuegos looked at Hector Lopez. “This man drives a hard bargain.”

  “Let’s just kill him.”

  Cienfuegos laughed. “No, no. I said he is smart. So OK, Señor Castillo, we pay you an outrageous 8K.”

  “I want the money up front.”

  “Half up front, half when you deliver.”

  David nodded. “When do we do it?”

  Cienfuegos’s eyes sparkled. “Now!”