Head Wounds Read online

  Juan looked up. “You’re dead.”

  “Not quite yet,” Sedillo replied with a friendly smile.

  “Can I go now?” he pleaded, his voice high and quivery.

  “We have a little more work to do first. Let’s get you cleaned up and dressed.”

  “Okay,” Juan replied submissively.

  Harjo cut Juan loose from the restraints, took him outside, hosed him down, and had him towel off. Wobbly, he had a hard time dressing. It took several tries before he got his pants on. Harjo marched him inside, where Sedillo waited. The overhead lights were on. The restraint chair had been unbolted from the floor and removed, replaced by two office-style padded chairs staged for an interview with a small table in between them. On it was a legal-size accordion file. The camcorder had been repositioned to film both parties. Harjo shoved Juan in a chair and stepped back.

  Sedillo sat opposite Juan and smiled. A cordless power drill sat on the floor next to her out of camera range. A nice reminder of what could happen.

  “The man with the gun will kill you if you try to run,” Sedillo said. “Nod your head if you understand.”

  Juan glanced at Harjo and nodded.

  “If you lie to me, we’ll have to start all over again with the slideshow and all the other inconveniences. Do you understand?”

  Juan gulped. “Yes.”

  “Good. Are you ready to begin?”

  Juan nodded.

  Harjo switched on the camera.

  Sedillo recited the standard interrogator’s introduction that established the basics of who she was, the identity of the subject, the reason for the interview, and the date, time, and place. In this case at an undisclosed location.

  “Juan, did you voluntarily agree to this interview?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been coerced in any way to meet with me?”

  Juan shook his head.

  “Please answer verbally.”

  “No, you haven’t done anything to me.”

  “I have a few basic questions to begin.”

  She started out conversationally, asking about his date and place of birth, citizenship status, names of parents and siblings. Was Luis Lopez Lorenz his uncle? Had him talk about his year away at college.

  He answered without hesitation, comfortable confirming commonly known facts. Sedillo opened the accordion folder and removed a file. “You’ve been in rehab twice for drug problems.”

  Juan slouched against the back of his chair. “Yeah.”

  “Once for twenty-one days. The most recent was for twenty-eight days, two years ago.”

  “So, I had a problem. I still use, but not like I used to.”

  Sedillo flipped through the file. “What I found interesting in both cases is that your therapists diagnosed you as a borderline personality with only a mild cannabis dependence.”

  “Those records are confidential,” he sputtered. “You shouldn’t have them.”

  Sedillo smiled. “It says in the file you’re not really an addict. More like an impulsive, narcissistic, angry person with authority issues who is prone to violence. And that you’re a gifted liar.”

  Juan laughed harshly. “You must have someone else’s record.”

  “Why would anybody go into a rehabilitation program twice for a medical condition they really didn’t have?” Sedillo questioned. “Any ideas?”

  “You tell me.”

  Sedillo put the file away. “We’ll come back to that. Four years ago you brutally raped a sixteen-year-old girl. Remember?”

  Juan leaned forward. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Did you even know her name?”

  “I’ve never been arrested for anything like that.”

  “You make an interesting distinction.” Sedillo searched for another file and extracted it from the accordion folder. “The report she gave to the police states she was in town at a party when—as a prank—her companions decided to leave her behind. She was waiting for a taxi on the sidewalk to take her home when you stopped and offered her a ride. When she refused, you hit her, pulled her into your vehicle, drove to a remote location, raped her, and threw her into a ditch. Remember that?”

  Juan shook his head. “You’re making stuff up.”

  Sedillo put the file on her lap. “The Eagle Pass cop who took her statement several days later recognized you from her description. Charges were never filed because he was dirty, bought and paid for by your uncle. You got lucky because the victim never told her mother or anyone else what had happened until just recently.”

  “I’d never do anything like that,” he blustered.

  “The officer did write a report, but never submitted it. He kept it as a get-out-of-jail card to use in case Lorenz decided to retire him permanently.”

  Juan crossed his legs.

  “That same officer set me up to use you as a confidential informant. You remember that, don’t you? Did you really think I’d fall for it?”

  Juan averted his gaze, drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  “I know your father, Gilberto, is your uncle’s partner,” Sedillo said. “And I’m guessing you are the heir-apparent to run the family business. All the dots connect. Your makeover as a useless, unreliable black sheep was a perfect cover that gave you lots of flexibility. The setup to make me believe you were a dealer willing to trade information to stay out of prison was a fine con. But that was all spoiled by the fact that only you have open, direct access to both brothers. When I uncovered the two money-laundering streams Sammy used to split the profits between Luis and Gilberto, I knew my theory was valid, and I went after the weak link, you.”

  Sedillo gestured at the accordion folder. “It’s all in there.”

  Juan eyed it warily. “What do you care? You’re gonna die soon anyway.”

  “Once Luis learns about our little chat, your days in the syndicate may be numbered. If you were in your uncle’s position, what would you do to a snitch, family or not?”

  Juan sneered. “Depends on the circumstances, bitch.”

  “Remind me how the syndicate works,” Sedillo prodded. “Are there any members besides Sammy, Longwei, Luis, Gilberto, and you? I don’t think so, but I’d like to be certain. How do Lorenz and your father communicate? That’s always mystified me. What’s El Jefe’s role?”

  Juan rubbed his nose. “I’m not going to tell you shit.”

  “Protecting your family is admirable,” Sedillo replied approvingly. “But we don’t want you or your family, just El Jefe. I told you that from the start of our relationship. Remember?”

  “Then why ask me all this other stuff?”

  “To confirm what we already know. Lie to me and we’ll have to begin all over again.” Sedillo glanced at the cordless drill at her feet. “Don’t make me have to hurt you.”

  Juan blinked and looked at the ceiling. “Ask your questions again,” he replied in a whisper.

  Sedillo smiled. “Of course.”

  He gave it all up. The basement meeting room built when the new Shen’s Famous Chinese Restaurant was constructed. The two secret underground tunnels to the meeting room from nearby cartel safe houses. Exact locations. The secure, buried landline for important conversations with Gilberto at his residence. The second line that ran to Lorenz’s homes. The brothers’ twice-a-year meetings at their private seaside estate in Costa Rica. Lorenz traveling alone from Mexico City, Garza alone from Houston. El Jefe, a Kickapoo also known as Estavio Trevino or the Bear, his place of residence a remote hacienda outside of the tribal lands.

  Juan gave a good description of Trevino. Dark long hair, five-nine or -ten, deep-set brown eyes, long in the face, with a wide mouth.

  Agent Sedillo stood. “We’ll stop here.”

  Harjo turned off the camcorder.

  “What’s next?” Juan asked nervously.

  “Let’s take a break.”

  Sedillo promised Juan food and something to drink, but he’d have to stay locked in the equipment shed for
a little while longer.

  They gathered up the power drill, folder, laptop, and camcorder and carried everything outside. Gabriela and Catherina waited, seated at the wrought-iron table on the rear patio.

  “Did he confess to what he did to me?” Catherina demanded.

  “Not in so many words, but yes,” Harjo replied, texting on his cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Sedillo demanded.

  “Letting Fallon and Istee know what we learned about El Jefe. What’s next for you?”

  “I’m taking what we’ve got to an assistant U.S. attorney in Houston I trust. A second copy will go to Samantha Hodges in El Paso.”

  Gabriela glanced at the equipment shed. Juan was pounding on the door to be let out. “Are you finished with him?”

  Sedillo nodded.

  “Then you both need to leave now,” Catherina said.

  Harjo looked up to see Catherina holding a broom, anger in her eyes. “Don’t do anything foolish,” he admonished.

  “We’re just going to even the score,” she replied calmly.

  Sedillo ignored the comment, slipped the camcorder memory card into her pocket, and smiled at Harjo. “Get your truck and let’s go.”

  The electronic gate swung open as they left the compound. Harjo resisted the impulse to look back. They were out of the colonia and on pavement when Sedillo spoke.

  “Don’t even ask,” she snapped.

  “About Juan’s fate? I wasn’t planning to. What’s all this about you dying?”

  “True enough,” Sedillo replied. She settled back against the headrest. “No more questions. Drive me to San Antonio. I’ll catch a flight there. After that, do what you have to do.”

  Harjo clamped his mouth shut, thinking that sympathy for those who were dying was frequently nothing more than a balm for the living.

  CHAPTER 13

  Harjo pulled into a passenger drop-off space outside the San Antonio airport terminal and glanced at Sedillo. “Good luck in Houston.”

  She smiled. “Do you think I’ve got enough for the agency to go after Gilberto?”

  “You’ve opened a big crack in the Lorenz cartel that wasn’t there before.”

  Sedillo took her hand off the door lever. “That’s not a resounding yes.”

  An airport cop on the sidewalk waved at Harjo to get moving. He flashed his shield, the officer nodded and stepped away. “An assistant U.S. attorney you trust may have the juice to get things started, but …” Harjo shrugged.

  “I’ve thought about that.”

  “Also, it could turn around and bite you in the ass.”

  “I know.”

  “If it does?”

  “Unless they fire me, I’ll work this case until I drop.”

  Harjo leaned close. “And when exactly will that be, Agent Sedillo?”

  Sedillo smiled. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. Under six months and counting, if I’m lucky. And please don’t ask me more questions. It’s a very depressing subject.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m heading back. There’s a lot that Juan didn’t tell us. I need to do some reconnaissance before I decide on my next move.”

  Sedillo nodded. “I thought so. You’re going to be in deep shit for this. There’s no way I can justify your involvement.”

  “I volunteered to help—end of story,” Harjo replied. “I’ll email you a corroborating statement about our interrogation. Look for it when you land in Houston. Anything you want me to leave out other than we threatened Juan with death, drugged him, psychologically destabilized him, and left him in the hands of two very angry, revenge-filled women?”

  Sedillo smiled and opened the passenger door. “Oh, what monsters we are. You might say I convinced Juan it was in his best interest to confess and that the interrogation took place in an abandoned building outside Eagle Pass. I’ll fill in the blanks.”

  “Good enough.”

  She grabbed her bag and the camcorder and stepped out. “What are you going to do back in Eagle Pass, Agent Harjo?”

  “Consider my options.”

  Sedillo laughed. “Goodbye, Bernard.”

  “Adios, Maria.”

  He merged into traffic, watching her in the rearview mirror standing curbside until she was out of sight.

  The San Antonio car dealer, a middle-aged man named Carl with skinny legs and no butt, looked aghast when Harjo drove the pickup truck onto the lot. Once Harjo explained the vehicle was only cosmetically trashed but not damaged, Carl took a closer look, decided Harjo was right, and relaxed.

  “You turning it in?” he asked.

  “Exchanging.” Harjo pointed at a 2007 black Pontiac Grand Prix at the back of the lot with a sale sticker of $1,995 on the cracked windshield. “How many miles on it?”

  “Over a hundred and sixty thousand, if you believe the odometer, but it’s not a rental.”

  “Does it run?”

  “Yeah, but for how long I can’t say. Motor seems okay, rubber is not so good. I wouldn’t speed in it.”

  Harjo inspected the car. He looked under the hood, opened the trunk, cranked the engine, and drove it around the block with Carl in the passenger seat. It stank of stale tobacco smoke and the upholstery was pockmarked with cigarette burn holes.

  “I’ll give you sixteen hundred cash if you throw in license plates that make it look registered and include a decent spare.”

  Carl looked pleased. “Deal, but the law says I got to verify you have insurance.”

  “I’ll sign a waiver promising to provide that information tomorrow.”

  “That’ll work.”

  In the trailer that served as Carl’s office, Harjo did the paperwork for the Grand Prix. “I need a haircut. Where do you go?”

  Carl handed him the keys. “Benny’s Village Barbershop. Turn right out of the lot, go straight two miles. It’s on your left in a strip mall. Come back anytime.”

  “You bet I will,” Harjo replied.

  He gassed up at a nearby convenience store and found Benny’s, a two-chair establishment that had posters of stylish-looking young guys with great haircuts on the wall.

  “Cut it all off,” he told Benny.

  Benny gave Harjo’s long hair a close look. “All of it?”

  “Buzz-cut it and then shave my head.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  When Benny finished, Harjo almost didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. He paid cash, tipped big, and walked out whistling. New car, new look. A light rain dampened his shaved head. The pitter-patter on his noggin felt particularly unusual.

  He decided to drive to Del Rio, where he wasn’t well known, and spend the night. It was an Air Force town, which kept the place thriving. He’d cross into Mexico in the morning and head west to Piedras Negras. He’d stayed before in Del Rio at the All-American Motel, a mid-century, veteran-owned establishment that displayed a sign on the office door: PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON. It was a clean, no-frills mom-and-pop place, perfect for an anonymous good night’s sleep once the late-night Amtrak train left the station. He hoped it hadn’t changed hands, been renovated, gone downhill, or been demolished. He was no fan of the cookie-cutter national motel chains.

  With luck, the Pontiac wouldn’t let him down.

  Inside the terminal, Sedillo imported the memory card to her tablet, attached the files to an email, and sent it to Samantha Hodges in El Paso, along with a note that read:

  I’m about to deliver the attached recording to Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Shapiro, DEA Houston. I don’t know if the district office has a bad cop or two on the Lorenz Drug Cartel payroll, but I’m playing it safe. We’ve had our differences but I know you’re ethical and can be trusted. Watch the interview. It could help the agency dismantle the narco trade in Piedras Negras.

  M. Sedillo

  She deleted the sent message. At a concourse electronics store, not sure if she was being paranoid or simply cautious, she bought an inexpensi
ve point-and-shoot digital camera, a new memory card, and imported the camcorder recording to the camera. In the privacy of a stall in the bathroom, she removed the memory card and threw the camera in a trash bin on her way out.

  Before the airplane’s cabin doors closed, Sedillo called Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheila Shapiro, and made an appointment to see her late in the afternoon—Shapiro’s only free time. As the plane taxied to the runway, she sat back wondering what kind of reception she’d get at the office once the substance of Juan Garza’s deposition became widely known.

  The Houston office sat on an access road to Interstate 610, known locally as the Inner Loop. The building next door housed the offices of the consulate general of Russia. Sedillo had often speculated how many listening devices were pointed in both directions, and what high-tech jamming apparatuses were in place to combat spy-shop eavesdropping.

  But that wasn’t the question in her mind as the unmarked DEA vehicle transporting her to the airport pulled out of the secure parking structure. She wondered if the two agents with her, the driver and a DEA pilot in the passenger seat, were really going to fly her back to Eagle Pass or drop her out of an airplane without a parachute ten thousand feet above the Gulf of Mexico. Time, and not much of it, would tell.

  Her ten hours at the Houston office had been the most grueling, depressing, eye-opening experience in her career. Attorney Shapiro turned out to be less than trustworthy and more concerned with her next move up the DOJ ladder. After watching the recording, she immediately called in the higher-ups. What began as an intelligence breakthrough into the Lorenz drug cartel became an interrogation designed to discredit and malign Sedillo.

  Why did she allow Bernard Harjo, a suspended agent, to assist her? Why did she fail to report his presence in Eagle Pass to her immediate supervisor? Was it possible Harjo falsified his corroboration of the events as she reported them in order to help her story? Why did she refuse to reveal the location of the Garza interview? What were her reasons for withholding the important intelligence information Wanda Cantu had attached to her suicide note? Where was Juan Garza now? Where was Special Agent Harjo? Why did she fail to transcribe the recording into a written statement and secure Garza’s voluntary signature?