by Jerold Last
Vincent continued by asking, "Claro. I've got two more names on my list. Can you help me with Albert or Sadie Schaefer?"
"Y’all are into some purty heavy stuff, ain't y’all, mister? Those two are big-time trouble. They were both in school here 'bout the same time we're talking 'bout. Albert was in and out of trouble all the time. If y’all wanted to see him, the best place to look was detention. He was the guy to go to for beer or weed if y’all wanted to party. Lousy student, just got by 'nuff to graduate. Sadie was a wild little thang. A lot of the boys went out with her once, if y’all take my drift. She and Albert were together for most of high school.
"Ah suppose y’all wants to pick my brain 'bout what happened to all of them after graduation too."
Vincent nodded. "Claro. I'd appreciate hearing anything you could tell me about them."
"Jorge Guerrero's easy. The whole family moved to Arizona 'bout that time and we all lost track of him. Ah've heard rumors 'bout drug dealing and Jorge, but don't know nothin’ for sure.
"Orval stayed 'round here fer a year or two after graduatin’ before he moved to El Paso. He made a livin' sellin' used cars and trainin' guard dogs he bred. Orval was married fer a couple of years a long time ago, but that ended with a divorce and no kids fer him. There were lots of rumors 'bout him makin' and sellin' weed, meth, and crank, but he stayed out of police-type trouble. His Dobies have been a big item for the local meth lab owners on both sides of the border for the last thirty years. The word is he got paid top dollar for his guard dogs by the local trailer park chemistry industry. His dogs were well trained and real mean, just right for protectin’ a small meth lab on yer property.
"The Schaefers were real good customers for Orval's Dobies through the years. They were his friends as well as his customers. This is a rough area. We've got a purty large rural area with just a small Sheriff's department to patrol it, so there's lots of drugs comin’ over the border headed north 'round here. This is one of the biggest drug smugglin' routes in the country. There's a whole lot of killin' 'cross the border in Mexico while the different drug cartels fight it out for who controls the transport route. Scuse me a minute, honey.”
Saundra took a break to walk over to a nearby water fountain, drank a bit, and came back to continue from where she’d left off. "The Schaefers are a big part of our local drug problem. There've been rumors the Schaefers work for the DEA as informants and that the DEA protects them from the local law in return. There were also lots of rumors they were loyal to the Sinoloa Cartel, which used to be in charge of all the drug traffic on the Mexican side of the border. Somehow all of their tips to the DEA resulted in grabbin' drug shipments from, or arrests of, the Gulf cartel members, who were the rival gang back when there was a big turf war goin' full blast in Mexico. The Sinoloa cartel's mostly gone now, or in jail, or killed, but the Zetas are takin' over. They're worse killers than the Sinoloa hombres ever were. And there was a lot of whisperin' goin' on, suggestin’ the Schaefers did some of that killin' for the Sinoloa Cartel and the Zetas, on our side of the border, durin’ the big gang wars."
"Can any of this be proved or is it all just rumors?" asked Vincent.
"The only way the Schaefers are still runnin' around loose and not dead or in jail after all this time has to be the protection they get from the Federal Narcs. Y’all need to try pullin' at the loose threads from that end, if y’all want to nail Albert and Sadie. Ah'd guess there's been half a dozen different murders tied to Albert Schaefer, but the local crim’nal investigations went nowhere after the Feds got involved. Someone needs to put an end to that stuff. Murder is murder and drug runnin' is drug runnin', no matter who's payin’ y’all to do it."
Vincent thanked Saundra Clyde for all of her help, and made a big donation to the high school library fund despite her protests. Next, he drove back to the motel, parked his car, and walked over to the local Sheriff's office to talk with the local law enforcement folks.
Chapter22.The local law in West Texas
A short walk took Vincent from the motel to the Sheriff's Office. Vincent showed his credentials to a deputy at the front desk, which earned him an interview with Tom Hawks, the Chief Deputy, after a 15-minute wait. Hawks was several inches over 6 feet, in his 30s, with the heavily muscled upper arms of a serious weight lifter. He wore a standard issue uniform, addding a 10-gallon Stetson hat placed casually on a convenient hook on his wall. He stood, offered his hand for a shake. "What can I do for y’all, Mr. Romero?"
Vincent shook the proffered hand before taking a seat in the chair in front of the deputy's desk. To introduce himself he handed Deputy Hawks his business card, which Hawks examined carefully. "I'm trying to get some information about a couple of your current residents in connection with a case I'm working on in California. I was hoping you might be willing to share some information with me. Of course, it's up to you to decide what you might want to tell me about my suspects. However, I think we're talking about two of your less desirable citizens here in San Francisco, Texas. You might want to help see them be prosecuted in California, where they may be more likely to actually come to trial than around here."
Hawks looked at Vincent with an expression of curiosity on his face. "Y’all really know how to get my attention, Mr. Romero. Why don't y’all tell me who these illustrious citizens of my town are, and what sorts of crimes y’all allege they've committed in California?"
Vincent relaxed and sat back in his chair. "The crimes I'm talking about are the murders of two of your former citizens, Orval Krause and Jorge Guerrero. There are also probably some drug-related felonies involved, but for now I'd prefer to focus on the murders. The illustrious citizens of your town, to use your phrase, are Albert and Sadie Schaefer. Claro. I gather they've been on your radar for a long time, but are somewhat untouchable around here. I don't think we'd have that problem with the jurisdiction involved in California. Ironically enough, the first killing occurred in San Francisco de California."
Hawks' face took on a pained expression as if he'd bitten into something with a bitter taste. "Officially, I can't talk to y’all about anything to do with an open case, so the Schaefers are off limits. Unofficially, I go off duty at 7 P.M., and I'd be open to the suggestion that y’all buy me a beer at the San Francisco Bar to celebrate the remarkable coincidence that we both come from cities with the same name." The deputy stood, shook Vincent's hand, and gave him directions to the bar.
Vincent spent the remaining time before his appointment walking around the small town to get a feeling for the place and a little bit of much needed exercise. He walked into the front door of the San Francisco Bar promptly at 7:00. It was a narrow, deep building with the bar running the length of the wall on the right. Most of the stools in front of the bar were occupied, almost all of them by men sitting alone or in pairs, quietly drinking beer a glass at a time. The lighting was dim as compared to the sunny street, but you could see who the people were after your eyes adjusted. The wall on the left was set up as a line of booths, most of which were occupied by couples or by groups of four people. Beer in pitchers was the drink of choice at the tables, some of which also had tubs of peanuts to accompany the beer. Between the booths and the bar were a couple of aisles to walk from the front to the back of the bar, with a series of tables and chairs down the middle, wherever they could fit in. There was a good-sized crowd at the tables. Immediately to the left of the door was an old-fashioned jukebox spewing out country-western ballads. This was a drinking crowd, not a dancing one, as evidenced by the thick layer of broken peanut shells coating the floor under and around the tables.
Tom Hawks waved Vincent over to a booth near the back of the bar. A pitcher of beer and three empty glasses sat in the middle of the table, probably waiting for him. He noticed the deputy’s hospitality didn’t include peanuts. Vincent slid onto the bench across from Hawks.
"Good evening, Deputy Hawks. I assume you had enough time to check me out since we talked this afternoon. Is everything OK?"
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bsp; "Your identity checks out. Y’all seem to be who y’all say y’all are, at least as of last year. Nobody in Los Angeles or San Francisco knows much of anything about y’all and it's impossible to find any paper ‘bout y’all that goes back more than a year or two ago. On the other hand, your boss Roger Bowman gets glowing reviews from several police detectives I talked to and that's good enough for me. I think that translates to my talking to y’all tonight is OK with my boss. I've invited the Sheriff to join us. He goes back a lot further than me in this town, so should know a lot more about the history of things than I do. In the meantime, we can talk ‘bout our most frustrating criminal problem and try to help y’all help us to solve it."
Deputy Hawks poured two glasses of beer for himself and Vincent. “The Sheriff will want to talk to y’all about some of the things y’all been askin me ‘bout earlier. While we wait for Sheriff Harkins to join us here, let me tell y’all some background about what law enforcement is like when a small Sheriff’s department has the responsibility to patrol a rural area larger than many whole states back east. Most of it’s empty space, sandy desert, canyons, and small mountains. A lot of it is unfenced ranch land and now windmill farms generating electricity. We’re understaffed, underfunded, and asked to do the impossible every day.”
He took a long draught of beer from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There are substations managed by a deputy in each of the towns in our county, but most of these are one-man operations. We have a couple of small planes to patrol large areas of empty space, but if they spot anything that looks like it needs investigation, the response time for a patrol car can be hours. The border basically runs on the honor system and leaks like a sieve. There aren’t enough Federal Border Patrol officers in the entire county to make any difference. Directly across the border is a war zone where rival drug cartels are better armed than the Mexican Army. Some of that violence spills over across the border and affects us. This is a poor county, except for a few wealthy ranchers who own most of the land, so we have all of the crime that goes with poverty. Cottage industry out here is often a trailer in the middle of nowhere that serves both as a home for a family and as a meth lab. The meth makers compete with each other and with the Mexican cartels for the local customer base. And I mean competition with automatic weapons and shotguns.”
Hawks poured the second round of beers. “So now y’all know part of why we haven’t arrested and tried all of the locals that we think are involved in drug trafficking. There are other reasons too, which the Sheriff will talk about with us shortly. I see him comin’ in the door, so y’all will finally get to meet him.”
The deputy did the introductions. Sheriff Harkins was shorter than his deputy by at least six inches, in his late 50s or early 60s, deeply tanned, wore western garb rather than a uniform, and sported a large mustache with long sideburns. The deputy filled the third glass of beer while Harkins sat down at the booth. Vincent noted the Sheriff chose to sit on his side of the booth, effectively pinning him in place on the bench they both occupied. Whatever his intent, Harkins” move definitely seemed more intimidating than friendly.
“We’re not very big on small talk hereabouts,” the Sheriff began. “There’s a couple of things that bother me about y’all. If y’all can explain them we can talk ‘bout our local problems a lot more frankly than if I’m still bothered by them. Do y’all get my drift here?”
Vincent turned around to look directly at him, trying to give an image of confidence. “Loud and clear. What do you want to know, Sheriff?”
Harkins returned the look, staring directly at Vincent. “When we called back to check out your story with the local police in California, they told us y’all were who y’all said y’all were and your detective agency is on the up and up. But, and it’s a big but, nobody knows anything about y’all before last year. Do y’all want to explain?”
Vincent tried on an aw-shucks, gee-whiz look of total innocence. “Claro, there’s no mystery about my past, Sheriff Harkins. Until last year, I was teaching biochemistry at the University of Chile branch campus in Iquique. I worked there for most of my adult life.”
Harkins continued to stare directly at him. “Are y’all a Chilean citizen?”
Vincent sipped some beer and leaned forward directly towards the Sheriff. The body language said, ‘we’re just two guys talking here’. “No, I’m an American, born and raised in Wisconsin. I moved to Chile when I married my wife, after we finished college here in the United States. She has dual citizenship, American and Chilean.”
Harkins visibly relaxed a bit. “Good answer. Is there someone I can check it out with?”
Vincent leaned back, sipped some more beer, and responded, “Yeah, you could check this out with my partner in the detective agency, Roger Bowman, in Los Angeles. Or you can call the University of Chile in Iquique, but that would take a bit of time or somebody who can speak fluent Spanish on the phone.”
Harkins finally picked up his beer, drank some, and leaned back a bit. “That’s no problem. Most of the folks here, around the border, know some Spanish. I may just do that tomorrow. For now, I think I believe y’all enough to have that talk y’all wanted to have. What do y’all want to know from me? And is this all ‘bout me telling y’all things y’all want to hear, or do we get some information back in return?”
Vincent looked thoughtfully at the Sheriff and his deputy while he decided how much he wanted to tell them. Finally he decided when in doubt telling the truth was a good policy, but only as much of the truth as he had to. No more. Neither of these two lawmen was either naïve or gullible.
“Claro. My partner Roger Bowman is working undercover for a major national corporation. He’s investigating alleged criminal activities at the large dog shows that are held more or less weekly in California and its surrounding states through most of the year. There have been a couple of murders recently at the dog shows. They seem to be connected because both of the victims originally came from around here. I assume you’re both aware that Orval Krause and Jorge Guerrero were killed at California dog shows where they were judges?”
He paused to let that sink in then continued. "Roger has obtained evidence a couple of other citizens from here may be involved in drug dealing at these dog shows. If that were true, it puts them near the top of the suspect list for the murders. I’m talking about the Schaefers. I also know it’s an open secret around here that Albert and Sadie are drug dealers and probably killers, and they could be connected with the Zeta cartel in Mexico. I’ve been told the Schaefers seem to lead a charmed life because they are DEA informants. For whatever reason, it appears the DEA is protecting them from the law, which would be you two here in town. That’s why I came to talk to you.”
Vincent took another sip of beer, hoping the Sheriff and deputy were ready to believe he was as stupid as he sounded. If he came across as dumb enough not to be a real threat to them, they might let something slip out. Deputy Hawks refilled all three glasses. “What I’d like to know is how much of my information is true, and whether you two would like to help me build a case that’ll get the Schaefers in jail for life in California, well out of your jurisdiction, no matter what the DEA thinks it wants.”
“Y’all are well informed, Mr. Romero,” replied Harkins. “The broad picture is exactly as y’all described it. And nothing would make me and Deputy Hawks happier than seeing both the Schaefers in striped uniforms at a maximum security prison anywhere y’all want to put them. So I’ll fill in some details for y’all. We knew about Krause's death, which was big news around here. We hadn't heard about Guerrero being killed, but he lives in Arizona these days and there's no reason we should have been notified about his murder. Was it done the same way?”
Since he could find that information on the Internet, Vincent had no reluctance to tell him. "Yes, he was strangled with a dog leash, just like Krause."
The Sheriff had another question. "What makes y’all think the Schaefers did it?"
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sp; This time he didn't need to know. "I really don't know the answer to that question. Roger hasn't had a chance to tell me yet. Before I left Los Angeles this morning, I didn’t hear about any arrests in this case. There's clearly a need for more evidence than they already have against the Schaefers. Which is why I came out here to talk to you and where I hope you can help."
The ball was back in Sheriff Harkins' court and the expression on his face let Vincent know that he knew it. "OK, let me explain to y’all how things got so messed up out here. We arrested the Schaefers more than a dozen years ago for making and selling methamphetamine. It wasn't the first time either had been arrested, but this time we had them cold. We caught them red handed with a lab in their trailer and several kilos of meth all neatly weighed and packaged ready to sell. Less than an hour after we arrested them, their lawyer showed up and advised them not to say anything to us. They hadn't talked at all until then and they sure weren't about to after the lawyer told them to shut-up.”