Dark Moon Crossing (Kendall O'Dell Mystery series)

by Sylvia Nobel

  “He’s glad to be alive and frankly, so am I.”

  Walter put in, somberly, “It’s always amazing to me how these degenerates manage to justify the most horrific crimes. I guess that’s the only way they can get up every day and look at themselves in the mirror.”

  “That’s sure true in this case,” I concurred. “I hate to admit it, but he had me fooled. Talk about great acting. He certainly did an admirable job of hiding his loathing for the entire Hispanic race.”

  “Any idea why‌”

  “It started when he was a child and has apparently been festering inside him all these years. When he told me that his father had died suddenly, I assumed that he’d suffered a heart attack or something. Actually, he’d been brutally murdered by a bunch of Mexican criminals who crossed the border and broke into their ranch house one night. Afterwards, they raped his mother.”

  “Je-zuss!” Tugg muttered. “That’s enough in itself to traumatize a kid for life.”

  “That was just for starters.” With the usual mealtime pandemonium going on behind me in the background, I explained to them how his mother’s deteriorating mental condition had ended with her abandoning both children.

  According to the statement Bethany had given sheriff’s detectives, Payton suffered from severe bouts of depression and recurring nightmares during the short time they were married. “It really put him over the edge when his sister, Laura, died three years ago because she didn’t get the heart transplant she desperately needed. I checked the date of the surgery at the University Medical Center in Tucson where she was on the waiting list. Whether it’s true or not, Payton believed that Congressman Stanley’s wife, who just happens to be Hispanic, received the heart his sister should have gotten.” I had a quick flash of the newspaper photo on the wall in Jason’s room with the knife protruding from the woman’s heart. The text beneath it confirmed that the congressman’s wife had entered the hospital on the exact date of Laura Kleinwort’s expected surgery. “Payton was close to a mental breakdown at that point anyway,” I went on. “He was working three jobs to support Bethany’s extravagant lifestyle and pay the medical bills he’d incurred for his sister.”

  “Oh, I’m starting to get the picture,” Tugg mused with an undertone of wonderment in his gruff voice. “This whole elaborate scheme of killing the immigrants was his warped way of avenging his parents’ and sister’s deaths. His own twisted version of supply and demand.”

  “True,” I replied. “But remember, in his mind he was providing a valuable service by helping to alleviate the critical shortage of organs.”

  Walter jumped in with, “Well, how did he get away with this‌ Doesn’t anyone ask where the organs are coming from‌ There must be a paper trail.”

  “I had a chance to get on the Internet and do a little research on this subject,” I answered with a yawn. “Needless to say, I haven’t slept very much these past few nights. It’s been hectic and rather traumatic, to say the least.”

  “Small wonder,” Tugg murmured.

  “Anyway, in the past few years, there has been a threefold increase in demand in the United States alone. He knew he couldn’t get away with selling them here because The National Organ Transplant Act passed in 1984 classifies human organs as a national resource and prohibits their sale in this country, so he had to hire private pilots to fly them out of the country.”

  “Where to‌” asked Walter.

  “Mexico City. From what the authorities have discovered so far, he’s got contacts on the payroll at several hospitals there, including one transplant surgeon. They falsified documents certifying the legitimacy of the donors, forged signatures on consent forms, and then falsified the death certificates.”

  “Un-friggin’ believable,” Tugg marveled, as I went on to explain how I’d also learned from my research that the ‘shelf life’ for organs is between two and forty-eight hours, depending on the organ. It was clear now why Payton had been in such a hurry to get the coolers to the airstrip before he could drive me to Dean’s ranch last Monday, following my escape from Morita. Believing that he was hauling live rattlesnakes had been disconcerting enough, but knowing now that the coolers jostling around behind me in his camper contained the freshly harvested organs of recently murdered immigrants, gave me a double case of the shivers.

  “Clever,” Tugg said. “The Feds would be watching flights coming in because of drug runners, but not going out.”

  Walter cut in with an impatient, “Is there really that much money to be made‌”

  “More than you’d imagine,” I answered, thumbing through my research. “Mmm, let’s see, a kidney can bring twelve thousand, a liver seventeen, hearts command about eighteen grand, and that doesn’t include all the other organs he harvested.”

  “What a sick son-of-a-bitch,” Tugg boomed out. “He must have been raking in a fortune! But wait a second, how the hell did he have the expertise to pull off something like this‌ Wouldn’t you have to be a doctor‌”

  “Get ready, this is the worst part.” The information I’d gathered from my phone interview with the transplant surgeon in Tucson had chilled me to the bone, and my heart stopped every time I thought of how close Tally had come to being the next victim of Payton’s madness.

  “If the person removing the organs doesn’t care whether or not the donor survives, then Payton’s year of medical schooling plus his experience as a veterinary assistant provided sufficient know-how to complete the job.” I explained that the animal mutilations he’d performed two years ago, which also helped perpetuate the accounts of UFO sightings, served as practice for the real thing, but the most stomach-churning detail of all was the knowledge that he’d exacted his fiendish revenge on the Mexican people by injecting the migrant donors with a rarely used drug called Tubocurarine. I said somberly, “It allowed him to remove their organs while they were still conscious.”

  “Mother of God,” Tugg exclaimed, his voice rising sharply. “Are you saying that those poor people were alive when he cut them open‌”

  “I’m afraid so, and they didn’t kill them all at once. Some people were held prisoner in the cages for several days, until he was ready for another shipment. Can you imagine the horror‌”

  “That is the most nightmarish, most depraved thing I’ve ever heard of in my entire life,” Walter commented glumly.

  I agreed. “I can hear Payton’s defense attorney now entering a plea of insanity, and who knows, the jury just might buy it.”

  “How’d he get mixed up with the Knights of Right‌” Walter inquired.

  “Through his association with Jason. These were likeminded people who felt the same all-consuming hatred towards the illegals that he did, for different reasons of course. But, nevertheless, it provided a perfect vehicle for him to carry out his sadistic plan of revenge. The group got the funding they needed to finance their mischief against the local Hispanics, influence election results to vote out politicians they believed were Mexican sympathizers like Lyle Stanley, and also purchase arms for their cockeyed plot to overthrow the Mexican government. Cripes, you should have seen all firepower they had stored in that cave. And, Walter, you were right about the fact that these groups have gone underground, except for an occasional rally.” I added. “Payton came up with the idea for the coded e-mail messages after reading Brett fairy tale stories.”

  “So, was he the leader of the group‌”

  “The authorities still aren’t sure and admit they may never know the identities of everyone concerned, but they do know that he was responsible for bailing Jason out under the guise of the Ranch Coalition.”

  “What about the dad, was he up to his neck in this scheme also‌”

  “No. That’s why Payton didn’t go to the extra expense to bail him out too. But, he needed Jason on the job that night, along with Cutter and the two other Sundog ranch hands, both of whom are members of the Beaumont Ranch Patrol within that coalition.”

  “So, Champ Beaumont is still in jail‌�
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  “From what I heard earlier, he was finally released a few hours ago, and Twyla’s brother, Dean, is on his way to get him now.”

  “What an unbelievable mess,” Tugg muttered.

  “No kidding.”

  “I still don’t understand something,” he continued. “Whose idea was it to lock you up in the Morita jail‌ I’m assuming it was their plan that you be there to witness their UFO…show, for lack of a better term.”

  “I still don’t have the full answer to that,” I replied. “But, from what I’ve been able to piece together from the various confessions, Jason was listening in on my phone call last Monday and he alerted Payton, who already knew I was going there before we met for lunch. For obvious reasons, they didn’t want me nosing around, so they arranged to set up a UFO sighting, hoping it would either scare me off or discredit me.”

  “So…you don’t think they planned to just let you die there‌”

  “Jason claims they didn’t but I’ll probably never know for sure because, thank goodness, Russell Greene found me.”

  Tugg growled, “You are one lucky lady.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I responded solemnly.

  Walter interjected, “What was the point of stealing your car‌”

  “So no one would know I was there, including Russell. Jason claims some other group stripped the car after they ditched it near Amado. The whole scenario was designed to get me the hell out of town and believe me, if Tally hadn’t shown up, it would have worked.” I couldn’t help remembering Payton’s benevolent offer to drive me to Tucson.

  “But, you were leaving that afternoon anyway, why bother to go to all that trouble‌” Tugg mused.

  “Because, during that same phone conversation with Walter, I told him that I planned to return and continue the investigation after my vacation. They sure didn’t want to risk that happening.”

  “This is making me sick,” Walter complained. “Okay, I have to know. Was Bob involved in this scheme‌”

  “Not directly, but apparently Hank Breslow was. He offered Bob sizeable sums of cash to look the other way on his rounds near Morita, but after finding the frightened migrant and hearing his UFO story, he got suspicious and told Hank he wanted out of the deal. That’s when Hank cooked up the idea to anonymously implicate Bob in a drug smuggling ring. He figured that would be enough to discredit him and get him out of the picture, but Payton was afraid he already knew too much. They lured him out to the reservation that night on some phony pretense and apparently he was just starting a letter of confession for Loydeen to read to their children, in case anything happened to him, when they jumped him. Payton administered the Tubocurarine, placed Bob’s own firearm in his hand and pulled the trigger.”

  “Where’d he get all these drugs‌”

  “They don’t know for sure yet, but they suspect he obtained them from one or more of his contacts at the hospitals in Mexico City.”

  “Wouldn’t they have found the drug in Bob’s system during the autopsy‌”

  “According to what I learned from the medical examiner, they screen for social or street drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, barbiturates and so on, but they would not have been looking for this particular drug because it’s not commonly used. I’m sure his body will be exhumed for testing now.”

  Walter said, “I’m surprised Loydeen didn’t press the authorities on that point. She had to suspect he’d been murdered.”

  “She did, but Cutter and Jason warned Loydeen to keep her mouth shut and accept the verdict of suicide without question, or she and her kids would be next. You remember that agent you mentioned a few days ago that disappeared right after Bob’s funeral‌”

  “You mean Alberto Morales‌”

  “Right. The intelligence guys at the Border Patrol I talked to this morning suspect he may well have been involved too, but decided to cut and run before the same thing happened to him. Apparently, it’s a pretty widespread problem.”

  Walter blew out a surprised whistle. “Damn. Lavelle’s gonna have a stroke when I tell her that he was mixed up in something this…this awful.”

  “That brings up another question,” Tugg interjected. “What was the point of the UFO light show and prancing around in these space getups scaring the shit out of these people‌”

  “So that if anyone escaped, like the first guy and then Javier, no one would believe them. They had no qualms about killing off the coyotes that brought the loads across either. I have to admit that if I hadn’t already suspected what was going on, it might have fooled me. It really was an ingenious enterprise.”

  “How did they figure out this kid was at the mission and that he knew anything‌”

  “Unfortunately, they actually traced it back to me. Because of Froggy, Payton knew I’d been at the mission and he was aware of my meeting with Mazzie La Casse from day one. Cutter saw me at the Shirley place, and when Froggy told Payton about Javier’s nightmares, he finally put everything together and the poor little tyke ended up back at Wolf’s Head, where the whole thing started.”

  “Why’d Kleinwort choose that particular place‌” Tugg continued.

  “He’d known about the hidden caves since childhood, so when the Morita property became available, he purchased it through a phony mining corporation he’d set up in Nevada. He posted no trespassing signs to keep people away, but when the hiker Walter told me about earlier died after falling into one of the old mine shafts, Payton couldn’t take a chance on more people stumbling into his little den of horrors. He fenced the place and hired Russell Greene to keep people away from the area. Poor Russell. Payton convinced him that he and the others were conducting secret government CIA experiments for testing new weapons or some such nonsense, and for whatever reason he chose to believe it. Jason confirmed that he hadn’t known what was going on inside the cave.”

  Walter asked, “Where’d they get all the props and costumes‌”

  “Ah, that’s an interesting twist. They were leftovers from a science fiction film that had been shot on the Sundog several years ago. That’s where they got that fake plastic boulder they used to hide the mouth of the cave.” I told them I hadn’t found out yet exactly what kind of equipment they’d used to simulate the UFO, but that the investigators had found a strobe light that was powered by the same type of batteries they’d used to run the generator.

  Rascal came up beside my chair and nudged me with his nose. As I petted his silky fur, it triggered the memory of the giant dust-covered battery I’d seen underneath Jason’s bed the night I’d been in his room. I added, “Payton got the idea for terrorizing the immigrants after Mazzie La Casse questioned him about seeing strange lights on his nocturnal snake hunts. He pumped her for information and then followed up by doing his own research on the alien abduction phenomenon.”

  “You mean he really was collecting snakes‌” Tugg asked with surprise.

  “Oh yes. It was the perfect cover. He’d pretty much thought of everything.”

  Walter interjected, “What about this Hoggwhistle woman‌ How does she fit into the picture‌”

  “Initially, it looks as if she’ll be indicted on smuggling charges along with the rest of them. But one of the sheriff’s deputies I talked with this morning says he doubts they can make the charges stick. She’s claiming that she never physically helped to bring the undocumented migrants across nor did she receive any payment. She’s staying with the same story that her sole purpose is to feed, clothe and provide transportation for needy people. And she can always say she had no way of knowing they were illegals.”

  “So…do you think she was in cahoots with this Kleinwort fellow‌” Tugg asked, sounding confused.

  “On the contrary. Not long after she’d renovated the mission and opened her doors to immigrants, the Knights of Right decided to put her out of business. First, Payton sent Hank and a couple of the other agents to hassle her. When that didn’t work he dispatched Cutter and his goons to burn the place down, but
he changed his plans after running into Froggy one night at the saloon. Froggy was tanked as usual and blabbed that he suspected that she was working hand in hand with several coyotes smuggling immigrants across the border. Apparently he thought she was extracting large payments in exchange for helping the migrants.”

  “And was she‌”

  “Who knows‌ She continues to maintain that she’s merely helping people in need, regardless of their legal status.”

  “Humphhh!” Tugg snorted in my ear. “You know the old saying, religion is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

  I laughed and went on. “Anyway, Payton decided it would be easy pickings to simply siphon off some of the illegals from her loads. Froggy got paid handsomely to let him or Jason know exactly when to come pick them up, and of course, Hank Breslow made sure they got to their final destination in Morita. Oh, and Froggy also got paid to ferry shipments of weapons out to the cave inside his camper shell.”

  “Pretty industrious fellow,” Walter commented dryly. “He was making money all over the place. But how did he know about this woman’s prison record‌”

  “He’s Johnny Ray Barker’s step-brother. He told the deputies that Barker suspected she’d hidden the money someplace before her arrest and planned to get it when she was released from prison. Froggy followed her out here and threatened to divulge her new identity if she didn’t pay up. When she wasn’t around he turned the place upside down hunting for the money she’d supposedly skimmed from the nursing home scam.”

  Walter cut in to say his wife was waiting to pick him up, congratulated me on the story and thanked me for clearing Bob Shirley’s name before hanging up. I wondered how much relief Lavelle would actually feel, knowing that her cousin had been murdered instead of committing suicide. Either way, it was a tragic ending and a lot of issues were left on the table, unresolved. In fact, there’d been a lot of unhappy endings to this sordid story and I wasn’t feeling too great about the results of my ability as a reporter at that moment. When I voiced my thoughts to Tugg, he remarked, “Well, I gotta say, that was one hell of a way to spend your vacation.”