Perdido County- Fentanyl

by Larry Darter

  Two hours later, Alvarez walked through the doorway of Wolfe’s office and leaned on the doorjamb. He looked up at her from behind his desk.

  “I think I’ve found something,” Alvarez said.

  “What?”

  “I went over to Rudy’s grandmother’s house to see she was doing,” Alvarez said. “She showed me a bunch of photographs of Rudy when he was growing up, and one of his high school yearbooks. She pointed out Rudy’s best friend from high school. Guess who it was?”

  “Who?”

  “Glen Martin.”

  “Glen Martin?”

  “Yeah, you know, Glen Martin the CBP agent who showed up at the stock tank the day we recovered the bodies. Chase said he also showed up the day someone burned Lopez’s rental car.”

  “Hey,” Wolfe said. “You thinking Martin could have been Rudy’s mystery partner?”

  “I think it’s worth looking into,” Alvarez said. “Seeing as how Martin didn’t mention he knew Rudy that day at the stock tank.”

  Deputy Riggs interrupted them when he shouted from down the hallway, “Olivia, pick up line one.”

  Alvarez went to Wolfe’s desk, pushed the button on the phone, and picked up the receiver.

  “Deputy Alvarez,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I’d love to have that information. Let me give you our fax number.”

  Alvarez recited the fax number to the caller. Then she hung up.

  “That was the rental car company in San Diego getting back to me,” Alvarez said. “I asked them the other day if the car Lopez rented was equipped with GPS. It was. They are faxing us a list of coordinates where the car stopped for any length of time. Once we get the list, we can run down all the locations in Perdido County. We may find where Lopez and Rudy had been before the murders.”

  “Good work, Olivia,” Wolfe said. “With the GPS coordinates and the information Ms. Bell brought in, we might also find the camping trailer.”

  4.5

  At nine o’clock the following morning Wolfe, Alvarez, and Carpenter were all back at the stock tank at the water well on the south range of the Bar 7.

  “Yeah, the car was here,” Alvarez said looking at the app on her mobile phone. “The coordinates match exactly.”

  “Probably easier to track the other coordinates on foot,” Wolfe said.

  They heard an approaching vehicle. A white CBP Ford Explorer drove up and stopped. Agent Glen Martin got out and walked over.

  “Hey, Glen,” Wolfe said. “Catch us on your eye in the sky again?”

  “Yep,” Martin said with a grin. “Big brother is always watching. You guys still looking for evidence?”

  “Yeah,” Wolfe said. “We’re looking for an old camping trailer a ranch hand saw someone pulling cross the property. Seen anything like that in your travels?”

  “Can’t say I have,” Martin said. “What makes you think it’s still around here?”

  “Don’t know for sure it is,” Wolfe said. “But, we have some GPS coordinates from the rental car company on Lopez’s car. We thought the car may have been at the same location as the trailer at some point. We’re going to track down all the locations and see if we come across the trailer.”

  “Huh,” Martin said. “I’m not busy with anything right now. Happy to help you look.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you,” Wolfe said. “I think I’ll take you up on the offer. If we split up into two teams, we can cover the ground a lot faster.”

  Martin grinned. “Always glad to help our local law enforcement partners,” he said.

  Wolfe nodded. “Olivia you and Chase take half the list,” he said. “Glen and I will take the other half.”

  Alvarez frowned at Wolfe. She tore a sheet of paper out of her notebook and handed it to him. The four of them headed out from the stock tank. As they walked along, their respective tracks diverged. Soon the two teams were out of sight of each other. Martin took the lead with the coordinates he and Wolfe were looking for entered into the app on his phone. The track took them toward the border. Soon they entered a thick stand of mesquite trees and brush. They worked their way through, taking care to avoid the one-inch poisonous mesquite thorns. While a prick from the thorns wasn’t usually serious, the poison produced an unpleasant reaction which was best avoided.

  After about a mile, Martin held up a fist to signal a halt. Wolfe walked up beside him. Martin pointed ahead through the trees. “There it is,” he said. Wolfe looked where Martin was pointing and finally made out the outlines of an old camping trailer. Both men drew their sidearms and advanced cautiously.

  When they reached the trailer, the men found someone had forced the door, and they had left it open. They went inside where they found laboratory equipment strewn across a table and the countertops of the cabinets along the walls. They also found bags of chemical precursors and bags of finished product.

  “What is it?” Martin said.

  “Bulk fentanyl,” Wolfe said. “An informant told us Rudy Martinez, one guy we recovered from the tank, was cooking it in this trailer. He sourced the precursor chemicals from a contact in Mexico.”

  “Huh,” Martin said. “We’ve seized a lot of fentanyl at the point of entry, but I’ve only ever seen it in pill form.”

  Wolfe spied a key ring on a countertop. He picked it up. Along with keys, there was a Saint Christopher’s medal attached to the key ring.

  “This belongs to Rudy Martinez,” Wolfe said before putting the key ring into his pocket. “Proves Rudy was here.”

  After finishing the search of the trailer and finding nothing else of interest, the men holstered their weapons and went outside.

  “I’ll have to get a truck out here to tow the trailer,” Wolfe said. “They sure didn’t bring it in from the way we came. Let’s continue through the trees and see if we can find the route they used to bring it in here.”

  Martin stood with his back to Wolfe looking straight ahead.

  “Yeah, I think I see a clearing on the other side of the trees,” he said. “They probably brought the trailer in from that way.”

  “Let me ask you something, Glen,” Wolfe said. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Rudy Martinez when you were at the tank the other day. You saw the body.”

  Wolfe saw Martin’s shoulders tense.

  “I didn’t know him,” Martin said. “I’d never even seen him.”

  “I beg to differ,” Wolfe said. “We have a high school yearbook with several pictures in it of you and Rudy together. His grandmother told us you and Rudy were best friends growing up.”

  “Sheriff, you think I was involved in those murders?” Martin said. “That’s ridiculous. I’m a federal officer.”

  “It’s been my experience all men are capable of murder under the right circumstances,” Wolfe said. “Another thing is this. I was following you while you tracked the coordinates we were looking for, but I was also tracking them on my mobile phone. I noticed we deviated off the track, Glen. It seems you knew right where to find the trailer.”

  Wolfe watched as Martin’s right hand moved toward his holstered sidearm. By the time Martin grabbed the grip on his pistol and spun towards him, Wolfe had already closed the distance between them. As Martin brought the pistol up, Wolfe clocked him with a right hook that sent Martin sprawling face first onto the ground. Wolfe bent and scooped up Martin’s dropped weapon. Then he knelt beside Martin, pulled the handcuffs from the case on Martin’s belt, and handcuffed Martin’s wrists behind his back.

  Martin recovered his senses after the punch. “Sheriff, this is crazy,” he said. “You’re way out of line here. You just assaulted a federal law enforcement officer.”

  “Not much of a crime punching a man when he was about to shoot me,” Wolfe said pulling Martin to his feet and leaning him against a tree trunk. “I’m confident when we test fire your sidearm and get the ballistics result we’ll find it was the gun that killed Lopez and Martinez.”

  “All right,” Martin sneered. “But, I didn’t kill Rudy. He
was my friend, and he was my partner.”

  “Then why is he dead?” Wolfe said.

  “Because he did something stupid,” Martin said. “Rudy didn’t understand how the cartel worked. Three days ago he called me and asked me to meet him here at the trailer. When I arrived Rudy was here with a stranger, a Mexican Cartel guy. Rudy introduced him as his source for the precursor chemicals. He thought we should take the guy on as a partner to get a better price on the raw materials.”

  “But you objected?”

  “Hell yes,” Martin said. “That asshole didn’t want to be partners. He told us the cartel was buying our business. When we said no, the son of a bitch pulled a gun and shot Rudy in the chest. I guess he thought I would shit my pants and hand over the business. But with what I’d been through in Afghanistan I just reacted.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Damn right I did,” Martin said. “There was no way that son of a bitch was leaving here alive after he killed my friend.”

  Wolfe turned his head and spit.

  “Why did you get involved with pushing drugs, Glen?”

  Martin laughed. “The money,” he said. “I did three tours in Afghanistan, getting my ass shot at and watching my buddies die to protect a shit hole country that will collapse as soon as we pull out. Then I took the job with CBP when I got home. Know what I learned? The crooked politicians in Washington won’t give us the money for the personnel and resources needed to secure the border. Not only that, they pass laws that invite and encourage half of Central America to cross the border illegally by the thousands. Hell, instead of funding CBP at all, those bastard politicians should just hang up welcome signs. After trashing their own countries, the illegals come here to trash this one.”

  “I understand the frustration, Glen,” Wolfe said. “But, it doesn’t justify what you’ve done.”

  Martin laughed bitterly. “You know, Sheriff,” he said. “They paid me to go to Afghanistan to kill my country’s enemies. Now it looks like I’m going to jail for doing the same damn thing here.”

  The explosion of semi-automatic rifle fire cut the conversation short. Bullets thumped into the tree next to where Wolfe and Martin were standing. Wolfe grabbed Martin by the shirt collar and threw him onto the ground in a shallow depression then dived in beside him. Bullets slammed into the dirt above them while others whizzed over their heads.

  “AK-47,” Wolfe said. “I was in the Army too. In Iraq.”

  The rifle fire continued unabated.

  “Then you know we can’t stay here in a kill zone,” Martin shouted. “Only chance we have to get out of here alive is if you take these handcuffs off and give me back by sidearm.”

  ◆◆◆

  Alvarez and Carpenter had just located the coordinates they had been looking for when they heard the rapid staccato of semi-automatic rifle fire erupt somewhere to the south.

  “Owen!” Alvarez screamed as she turned and sprinted full speed toward the sound of the gunfire with Carpenter at her heels.

  ◆◆◆

  The gunfire continued with the shooter firing three and four-round bursts.

  “We have to flank the shooter,” Martin said. “We have to split up to take him out.”

  Wolfe didn’t like Martin’s idea much, but he knew the man was right. He fished a key out of his pocket and removed the cuffs from Martin’s wrists. Reaching behind his back, he pulled Martin’s pistol from his waistband and handed it to him butt first.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” Wolfe said.

  Both men low crawled in opposite directions until they got some cover between them and the shooter. They got to their feet and ran hunched over, one to the right and the other to the left of the shooter’s position with bullets whizzing all around them and smacking into trees.

  As Wolfe closed on the gunman’s position, he spotted Martin coming up on the man’s right. The shooter turned toward Martin and aimed the assault rifle. He fired. Martin went down. But it seemed the weapon had jammed or was empty. The gunman tossed it aside, pulled a handgun, and aimed it at Martin intent on finishing him off. Wolfe burst through the trees behind him.

  “Drop the weapon!” Wolfe said.

  The man, a solidly built Hispanic wearing a black tracksuit, froze.

  “You going to shoot me in the back?” he said.

  “I have every right to,” Wolfe growled.

  The man tensed, then whirled toward Wolfe to bring the pistol to bear. Wolfe shot him twice in the chest with his government model Colt. The gunman went down hard under the force of the impact from the .45 caliber slugs. Wolfe went over and kicked the man’s fallen weapon away from the body.

  “Drop the weapon, Sheriff,” Martin said.

  Wolfe looked over his shoulder to see Martin leaning against a tree favoring his left leg. He had worked his way around behind Wolfe and now had his pistol pointed at him.

  “I could shoot you right now,” Martin said. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. I only want time to get away. Drop the weapon, and I’ll leave you handcuffed to a tree.”

  “Drop it, Martin!” Alvarez said. “Drop the gun or you’re a dead man.”

  Wolfe could see Olivia standing behind Martin, crouched in a shooting stance, her pistol held in a two-handed grip. She was taking great gulps of air, clearly winded. But she held the pistol steady as a rock, not wavering an inch. Wolfe glanced at Martin. He could see the indecision in his eyes. Then Martin pressed the decocking lever on the side of his pistol and held the weapon out to Wolfe grip first.

  “The cartel sent that guy to kill me in retaliation for killing Lopez,” Martin said. “They won’t stop coming, Sheriff. They won’t quit. Not ever.”

  Wolfe took the gun. “Me either,” he said.

  Alvarez bent over double, her hands on her thighs, still trying to catch her breath. Mesquite thorns had ripped her uniform shirt in several places where they had caught in the fabric as she had crashed through the trees.

  Carpenter, also winded, broke out of the trees.

  “Damn,” he sputtered gulping air. “I just got outrun by a woman. She’s fast.”

  ◆◆◆

  Wolfe was at his desk finishing his report. Martin had admitted he had arranged unguarded points along the border where Rudy Martinez could bring in the precursor chemicals without detection from the CBP. Then Martinez cooked and distributed the fentanyl and they shared the profits.

  It was pushing five o’clock in the afternoon. Wolfe’s deputies had all left for the day as had Judy, his receptionist. As Wolfe typed the final sentence, there was a knock on the door frame of his open door. Wolfe looked up at a tall, solidly built man in his early forties wearing a tailored grey pinstripe suit, starched white shirt, and navy tie. Wolfe recognized him immediately, Brian Murphy, a homicide detective with the Dallas police.

  Murphy grinned and said, “Sheriff Wolfe, long time no see.”

  He sauntered into the office and set a six-pack of Lone Star on the desk.

  “I was in the neighborhood, and thought I’d buy you a beer,” Murphy said. “You’re a Lone Star man aren’t you?”

  Wolfe nodded. “Good memory,” he said. “Hello, Murph.”

  Murphy popped the top on a beer and handed it to Wolfe. He opened another for himself and sat down on the chair across the desk from Wolfe. He held up the can in a small salute and took a drink.

  “Nice job on the double homicide, ace,” Murphy said. “The lady at the convenience store where I bought the beer told me all about it. Sounds like a crazy case with a border patrol agent the killer, and the connection with the Mexican Cartel.”

  “Well, all homicides are crazy in their own way,” Wolfe said. “You know that Murph. You’ve been in the business longer than I have.”

  Murphy nodded and took another swig of beer. “You always were a good murder cop, Owen,” he said. “Glad to see you haven’t lost a step since you’ve been out here in the sticks.”

  “What brings you to Perdido County, Mur
ph?” Wolfe said. “I know you didn’t travel five hundred miles to have a beer with me.”

  “No, you’re right, Owen,” Murphy said. “I didn’t. After your partner died last year, the detectives assigned to the case said you wouldn’t leave them alone. You called almost every day. You gave them a good cussing about not doing their jobs. They actually described you as obsessive. Then after a month, nothing. When one of them tried to reach you with an update recently, you didn’t answer your phone. You didn’t return any of his calls.”

  “Can’t dwell on the past, Murph,” Wolfe said. “I tried it. I found out it’s unhealthy. Now tell me why you’re here.”

  Murphy took another drink from the can and then set it on the desk. “I’m here about one of my cases, Owen,” he said. “The victim was a guy named Luis Vargas. Hispanic male, thirty-eight. He sold narcotics and ran some prostitutes down on the east end. Had a compact Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semi-auto pistol in his apartment we found when we searched it. Ballistics analysis showed it was the same gun used to kill your partner. So, you know, we believe he was the one who killed her.”

  “Well, there you go,” Wolfe said.

  “But, here’s the thing, Owen,” Murphy said. “He’s dead. We found him with a bullet in the back of his head in a shallow grave down by the Trinity River. So, I’ve got to ask you something, Owen.”

  “Ask.”

  Murphy picked up the can of beer. He finished the beer. Then he set the empty can back on the desk.

  “Owen, did you drive back up to Dallas five months ago to hunt down and kill the man who shot your partner?”

  Wolfe stared at Murphy across the desk for a moment.

  “No, Murph,” Wolfe said. “I don’t believe I did.”

  About the Author

  Larry Darter is an American writer of crime fiction, primarily of the mystery/detective genre. His most well-known works are the novels written about the private detective Ben Malone, set in modern-day Los Angeles.

  Darter also writes a series featuring T.J. O’Sullivan, a New Zealand expat woman working as a private detective in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Owen Wolfe Mysteries is his third crime fiction series.