by Lincoln Matt
“Seems to me like there would be simpler ways to hide who they were,” Holm said, and I had to agree with him.
“I don’t see how they could be significant,” García said, surprised by the question. “They’re just masks used at parties or sometimes religious rituals. What would a drug cartel have to do with them?”
“That is the question,” the chief said quietly. “But I don’t know that we should take that too seriously. I know that it’s disturbed some people in the neighboring areas, with all these voodoo witch doctor sightings popping up all over the place, but I just saw it as hooligans being hooligans and making trouble for its own sake. Most of these runners for the cartel are kids, after all.”
“That’s true enough,” Peña said. “But it’s something to keep in mind going forward.”
“You’ve checked into these other sightings, and nothing’s come of them?” I double-checked.
“Of course, and nothing’s turned up,” the chief said. “It’s just like your people seeing ghosts around Halloween time.”
“That’s a fair enough analogy,” Holm said. “Kind of like all those clown sightings a few years back when that movie came out.”
“Oh yeah,” I chuckled. “I remember that. But even so, it can’t hurt to keep an eye out.”
“Should I take you to the hospital to meet with the witnesses, then?” the chief asked.
“That would be appreciated,” I said. “But, I’d like to have a word with President García before heading out if that’s alright.”
A few of the silent men exchanged looks but rose and exited the conference room on the President’s signal.
“I’ll be waiting outside with the guards,” the chief said as he left, and I nodded to him in thanks.
“Now, President García,” I said when everyone had cleared out. “I noticed some discord among your advisors. Has this been going on long?”
“This situation has put a strain on everyone,” García sighed, shaking his head. “We used to work well together, as did the various local governments, but now… it is all becoming a mess, I’m afraid.”
“Are you concerned that anyone on the Dominican side is working with the cartel?” I asked, and the President looked shocked at the suggestion.
“No, I wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “These people all want what is best for both our countries. They simply have different ideas on how to get there.”
“Of course,” I said with a small smile. “I had to ask, you understand.”
“Yes, I understand,” García said. “Please, just do what you can for my country. And keep my daughter out of trouble while you’re at it, though I realize that can be a big ask.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” I assured him. “And we’ll get to the bottom of this murder and this new drug.”
I reached out to shake his hand again and noticed there were pronounced bags under his eyes.
“We’ll speak again soon,” he said, returning the gesture, and Holm and I turned to leave.
“You getting the sense there’s more going on here than meets the eye?” Holm murmured to me as we stepped into the dark hallway and the conference room door closed behind us.
“Yeah, I do,” I agreed. “But let’s just see what turns up at the hospital. I’m very interested to meet these witnesses and see this drug in action.”
CHAPTER 6
Ethan
The bodyguards and the chief of police were waiting for us outside the conference room door. Somehow, the presence of the tall, muscular middle-aged man in his police chief uniform made the group appear even more imposing.
“I’m Ramon Pérez, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand to take mine.
“Ethan Marston,” I said, taking it. “It’s good to meet you, Chief Pérez.”
“Robbie Holm,” my partner said, shaking the chief’s hand in turn.
“And you, Agent Marston, Agent Holm, though I wish it were under better circumstances,” he said. “I’ve alerted my men that we’re on our way. The hospital isn’t far.”
“The car is still waiting for us outside,” one of the guards grunted.
Holm and I moved with the group, the guards surrounding us and Chief Pérez as we walked.
“I apologize for arguing with Secretary Reyes earlier,” Pérez continued. “We’ve been at odds lately.
“Is that the man who was speaking about the embassies?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, he’s one of President García’s closest advisors. He’s a good man, but I feel he is misguided.”
“How so?” I asked, interested in hearing more about the discord in the Dominican government as of late.
“Secretary Reyes wants to preserve the border towns’ autonomy, let them self-govern and move slowly so that they are more comfortable with the situation,” Pérez said. He spoke quickly, and I could tell he was passionate about the subject. “I understand that, I really do, but we need to be aggressive from a law enforcement perspective. Surely you understand that, Agent Marston, given your law enforcement background?”
“I do understand,” I said, “but I agree with Reyes that it can be tricky dealing with local issues. You don’t want the very people you’re trying to protect working against you from the get-go.”
“This is a good point,” Pérez relented.
The ride to the hospital was short, but I still got to enjoy the views of some more colorful and interesting architecture throughout the city, much of it in a Spanish colonial style, with its u-shaped terracotta shingles and stucco walls. I thought it would be nice to come back here sometime, just to visit, without a murder case on the line. It would be good to see Alejandra when no one’s life was in danger.
Once we arrived at the hospital, Pérez led us inside and through its typical sterile white hallways to a private conference room at the back of the building where some people in lab coats were quietly talking to other uniformed law enforcement officers.
“The victim was a nineteen-year-old girl,” Pérez explained. “These are the technicians who ran her blood and looked for any toxins.”
“And you didn’t find anything?” I asked, turning to the nearest person in a lab coat, a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties with hair pulled back in a ponytail.
“Nothing that would’ve caused this,” she said, shaking her head. “Some alcohol and small-time drugs, but nothing else. I’m Dr. Sánchez, by the way.”
Holm and I both introduced ourselves.
“I had them send a sample to your people in Miami,” Pérez said. “Same with the drugs.”
“Yes, it should arrive in the morning,” Dr. Sánchez said. “We shipped it overnight. I spoke with one of your lab techs there. He was very nice.”
“That would probably be Clyde,” I said, making a mental note to check in with MBLIS sooner than later. “He’s a good one.”
“May we see the body?” Holm asked.
“If you insist,” Dr. Sánchez said. “But be warned, it’s brutal.”
“We can take it,” I assured her, and she led Holm and me out the door and down a hallway toward the morgue.
“I’ll just stay here and… uh, update the troops,” Pérez called after us as the door swung closed.
“He did not stomach it well when he first saw the body,” Dr. Sánchez explained when we were out of earshot. “No one has, to be honest. I don’t blame him for not wanting to see it again.”
Holm and I exchanged a look.
“It can’t be that bad, can it?” he asked. “I mean, we’ve seen it all by now.”
“Every time I think I’ve seen it all, something turns up and changes my mind,” I said.
This was no exception. Dr. Sánchez showed us the body behind glass, so we weren’t right next to it. But it was every bit as horrifying as the chief had suggested. The girl was barely recognizable as a person, her lips foaming at the mouth, and large pieces of her flesh seared and practically burning off of her.
Holm took several steps b
ack, swung to face the wall, and just about threw up on the floor. And this was a decorated Navy SEAL, not some schmuck who’d never seen anything in his life.
I felt my own stomach do a few backflips, though I made myself sear the image of the girl into my brain, so I knew just what we were fighting against.
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Dr. Sánchez asked. “Who would make something like this and sell it to kids?”
“And you really can’t find any sign of anything wrong with her?” I asked, bewildered despite myself.
“Oh, we can find everything wrong with her,” she said with a wry laugh. “Massive organ failure, skin lesions, her brain’s turned to mush, pretty much everything in the book. We just can’t find what caused any of it. She was a perfectly healthy teenager a day ago, according to her medical records.”
“So, what makes you think it was a drug?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be some kind of virus or infection or something?”
“She was at a party doing drugs,” Dr. Sánchez explained. “And there have been several cases like this one, all tied to dealers from the Haitian drug cartel. And none of the victims have had any contact with one another, nor are there any markers for viruses or bacterial infections. It must be a drug, and yet nothing appears in her system.”
“I’m no scientist, but that doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “And yet here we are.”
“Can we be somewhere else?” Holm asked groggily.
“Sure,” I said, casting one last glance at the grisly body. I’d never been more determined to catch these guys. The murder of the white man was just the tip of the iceberg. There was far more at stake here than one guy.
Dr. Sánchez led us back down the hall toward the conference room.
“We were told that her friends were still here,” I said. “The ones who were with her when it happened.”
“Ah, yes, I believe they are being questioned in another room still,” she said. “You’ll have to ask one of the officers.”
“Bad, isn’t it?” Chief Pérez asked when we returned to the conference room, where the officers and other doctors were still discussing the case.
“You could say that again,” Holm said. His face was ashen, and I figured mine probably was, too. In all my years in the Navy and MBLIS, I’d never seen anything quite like that.
“Can we speak with the witnesses now?” I asked.
“I was down there earlier, so I can take you there,” one of the nearby officers, a young man who couldn’t be much older than the victim herself, offered.
“Thank you, Officer Díaz,” I said, leaning in to read the name on his badge. “What did they have to say?”
“Not much,” the young man said as he led us in the opposite direction. “They’re pretty shaken up, and high themselves.”
“Did any of them take the drug?” Holm asked.
The officer shrugged. “As I said, they’re not doing much talking. The whole situation is pretty messed up. They don’t speak much English, so I can translate for you.”
I watched him closely. He seemed pretty shaken up himself.
“How long have you been on the force?” I asked.
“Not long,” he said. “This is my first real case.”
“Hell of an introduction,” Holm said, and the kid laughed nervously.
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “You could say that.”
“You’re young, have you heard anything about this around town?” I asked him.
“I don’t really roll with that crowd,” Díaz said. “But I’ve heard parties have been pretty wild lately. Just some whispers. The chief’s talking about sending some of us undercover at some point to see what’s going on for ourselves.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I admitted. “And I can see why he’d pick you for it, but that’s a tough assignment.”
“I’m up for it,” Díaz said with confidence, sticking his chest out a bit in an attempt to look older and taller. I decided I liked this kid.
We arrived at another small conference room. There were panicked voices speaking in Spanish coming from inside. Díaz tapped on the door, and an older officer let us inside.
There were three crazed teenagers all on one side of the room behind the far side of one long rectangular table that stretched along the perimeter, opposite two officers on the other side. Holm, Díaz, and I slipped past the officers to sit across from the kids, two boys and a girl. The girl and one of the boys looked like they’d been crying, while the other boy was pacing from wall to wall. They all looked like they were on something.
“Can we get samples of their blood sent to MBLIS, too?” I asked the officers.
“I’ll ask the chief about that,” one of them said, leaving the room all too readily.
“Debrief us on what you’ve covered so far,” Holm instructed the remaining officer.
“They’re not talking,” she said, looking annoyed. “They’re hysterical, especially that one. I think he’s her boyfriend.” She gestured at the pacing kid.
“Did you ask them if they took anything?” I asked.
“We’ve tried, but they’re tripping on something,” she shrugged. “And they’re very upset. It’s strange, half the time I don’t think they know she’s dead, so they keep having to go through hearing it over and over again, and then they freak out again, and then the cycle repeats itself. Good luck getting anything out of them.”
The girl suddenly started screeching again in Spanish and rocking back and forth, holding her head. The boy sitting next to her wrapped an arm around her and continued to cry, while the pacing boy appeared to be oblivious to the fact that there was anyone else in the room but him.
“Can you try talking to them again?” I asked Díaz, thinking the other officer needed a break.
“I can try,” he said, swallowing hard and turning back to the kids.
He began to speak to them in Spanish, and his voice was kind. They didn’t pay him any attention, though. He turned back to me helplessly.
“They do not wish to talk,” he said apologetically.
“Tell them that they can still help their friend,” I said.
Both officers gave me a questioning look. “I’ve already had to tell them that she is dead fifteen times,” the woman officer protested.
“Exactly, what does another one hurt,” I reasoned. “And it’s not untrue. They can help bring the people who did this to her to justice.”
Just then, there was a rap on the door, and the third officer entered with Dr. Sánchez. She crossed over to the kids with a set of medical supplies.
“We’re going to take their blood for testing,” she explained.
She then tried to reason with the kids in Spanish. The two sitting at the table resisted at first but then relented. The other boy was a problem, though. When she tried to take his arm, he pushed her away, hard.
I bolted up and grabbed hold of him by the elbows, holding his arms down against his sides.
“Tell him he can’t lash out like that, or you’ll have him arrested,” I said, and Sánchez translated in Spanish. I knew bits and pieces of the language, but not enough to get by in a situation like this.
The boy didn’t budge, and he even tried to wrestle his arms away from me.
“Tell him it will help his girlfriend,” I said.
Sánchez spoke to him some more, and Díaz crossed over to help while the other officers and Holm lingered by the door.
The boy resisted some more, but Díaz reasoned with him, and he finally relented, handing his arm over to the doctor.
“What did you say to him?” I asked, a little surprised that it had worked given the kid’s emotional state.
“As you suggested, I just said that we’ll never know what happened to his girl if he didn’t cooperate,” Díaz said, looking a little guilty. “He may think she’s still alive. I don’t know. I left it vague. He might think we need to know what she took so the doctors can save her.�
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“It’s a white lie,” I assured him, still holding the kid’s arms. “We need to know, so no one else gets hurt, and so the girl can have justice.”
Dr. Sánchez extracted the last of the blood samples and then headed out.
“We’ll run them here ourselves and then send them to your people,” she said.
“Good,” Holm said. “Let us know as soon as you have the results.”
She nodded and slipped out, with one of the officers following close behind her.
“All right, you got through to him before,” I said to Díaz. “See if you can get anything else out of them.”
“What should I say?” Díaz asked, shifting nervously on his feet. He and I were still standing on either side of the boy, while Holm and the other officer still sat on the other side of the table.
“Just try to get through to him some more,” I urged. “Connect with him. The other two, too. Tell them we really need to know what happened to them, what led to all this. Any details they can share, even if they want to redact specifics for now, could be helpful.”
“Right, the main priority needs to be figuring out what this drug is and how it got here,” Holm added. “Not catching some small-time dealer.”
“Okay,” Díaz said, and then began to speak to the boy in Spanish some more.
At first, the kid backed up against the wall, shaking his head and growing irate again. I stepped forward in case I needed to grab him again, but Díaz waved me off.
“No, I’ve got this,” he said, and then continued speaking to the kid in Spanish.
Suddenly, the girl started speaking rapidly to Díaz, taking me off guard since she and the other boy had practically turned into zombies when Dr. Sánchez left the room.
“What’s she saying?” Holm asked.
“She’s saying that they don’t know what happened,” Díaz said. “That they can’t really remember, it’s all hazy.”
“Okay, so what’s the last thing they do remember?” I asked.
Díaz repeated the question in Spanish, and the girl answered, with occasional input from the boy sitting next to her.