Head Wounds Read online

  The continuous media coverage of the murders gnawed at Clayton as a constant reminder of his failure to solve the crimes. But having the Feds take over was the right thing to do. The case was too complex, the scope too far-reaching, and the resources of the sheriff’s office too insufficient to mount a massive, drawn-out investigation.

  Rational justifications aside, Clayton couldn’t completely let it go. Back on duty, he’d been handed a number of fresh assault cases—currently the most popular felony undertaken by the citizens of Doña Ana County—which kept him busy. In those spare moments Clayton could wrangle at work, he continued to search the web for information about Estavio Trevino. At home in the evenings, he kept at it when Grace was occupied reading the latest offering of one of her favorite novelists or watching a popular PBS television cooking show.

  Two bits of information that came his way upped his enthusiasm to keep trolling. The German Federal Police had interviewed Herman Joseph Arensdorf, the prisoner Interpol had identified through their facial recognition program as a possible relative of Anico’s. DNA testing had confirmed it. Arensdorf and Anico were second-degree relatives.

  Additionally, Arensdorf had told the police that his older sister, her husband, and their young son had disappeared over thirty years ago during an extended Mexican holiday and were never heard from again. That meant Anico was Arensdorf’s nephew. Decades-old missing person reports filed in Germany and follow-up attempts by Mexican law enforcement to locate the family confirmed the prisoner’s story. Online, Clayton searched Mexican newspaper archives for further specific information. He finally stumbled upon an old Chihuahua newspaper story about a German couple and their young son. The family had snuck away from a guided tour in the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve and gone off to explore on their own. When they failed to return by dusk, the police mounted a search of the immediate area at first light. They were never located. However, a single set of fresh tire tracks were discovered matching the couple’s vehicle that led from some rocky terrain to the paved highway. Believing the family had left the area to continue their journey, local officials suspended the search.

  Clayton called the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency Records Section for information. They located and faxed him a copy of the investigation into the family’s disappearance. It included a supplemental notification from the Múzquiz PD that their rental camper had been found abandoned and burned on the outskirts of the city. The VIN in the engine compartment block had identified the vehicle.

  Clayton checked his file. Múzquiz was the city closest to the Mexican Kickapoo Tribe. And wasn’t El Jefe’s ranchero supposedly located near the fringes of the Bolsón de Mapimí? It was simply too much of a coincidence. Did Trevino kill the couple, take their child, and destroy the evidence? It seemed possible, but why take the child? Did he have some twisted scheme to raise the boy as his own?

  On the off chance that Trevino had contact with other Kickapoo tribes, Clayton scanned through the websites of both the Oklahoma and Kansas bands. He found nothing there. He moved on, searching the local town newspapers near the Kickapoo reservations, fishing for feature stories about the tribes and their members. In the archives of a small Oklahoma paper, he discovered an article about a recent warrior healing ceremony held for two tribal veterans lately returned from Afghanistan.

  Except for the casino, the reservation had been closed to visitors during the ceremony. It had been conducted by a highly decorated veteran and healer known only as “Bear.”

  According to Harjo, Bear was Trevino’s Kickapoo nickname. Was he both a medicine man and an assassin? If so, it made perfect sense to Clayton. Among the Apaches, some of the most famous warriors, past and present, were also healers and singers. What some people might see as a contradiction fit nicely into Clayton’s Apache worldview. He was grudgingly impressed.

  Hadn’t Harjo mentioned something about Trevino disappearing from the Mexico Kickapoo Tribe for six years? If Clayton recalled correctly, six years was the longest enlistment period allowed by each branch of the armed forces. If the healer had been Trevino, he may well have honed his killer skills in the military. Was he Special Forces, an Army Ranger, a long-range sniper, a SEAL, or a Delta Force member? Maybe none of the above.

  The article noted that the two combat veterans—both mentioned by name—had returned to active duty the day after the ceremony ended, but there was no mention of their unit assignments. Clayton called and spoke to the reporter who had filed the story. She was unable to tell him where the soldiers were stationed and added she had been warned by the tribal chairman not to interview or photograph the healer. She’d taken his word that the healer was a decorated combat veteran and hadn’t attempted to verify it. She finished with a complaint about how difficult it was to get good copy from the Kickapoos. They just weren’t that forthcoming.

  With the lead a dead end, Clayton tried the tribal chairman, who met his email requests and voice messages with silence. He tried a few members of the tribal council and got the same results. He understood their reticence. It mirrored how Apaches often dealt with outsiders.

  His effort to track down the two soldiers through various armed forces and veterans websites met with no luck. On his lunch break at the office, he called Kerney’s wife, Sara, at the ranch, explained what he needed, and asked for her help. Retired from the Army as a brigadier general after a twenty-seven-year career, she had knowledge and contacts unavailable to him.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be off that case?” she asked.

  “I can’t stop picking at it,” Clayton replied.

  Sara laughed. “You and Kerney,” she said with amusement. “Two of a kind. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you, General,” Clayton replied.

  “Stop that,” she ordered good humoredly. “No more ‘general’ stuff, okay? Anything else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Give my love to Grace.”

  “Will do. Tell Kerney I’ll call over the weekend and catch him up.”

  “He’d like that. We’ve both been following the news.”

  “Other than football, crime is America’s favorite spectator sport,” Clayton observed.

  “How depressing,” Sara replied.

  He disconnected, stuffed his half-eaten sandwich in a desk drawer, and left to find Alonzo Ortiz, a drunk who’d assaulted his best and oldest alcoholic friend outside a homeless shelter for refusing to share his bottle of cheap whiskey. Apparently, for some, the tie that binds can only be stretched so far.

  The weekend was looming, and Grace would be teaching a Saturday continuing education workshop for preschool teacher aides. He’d have the entire day free to devote to learning more about El Jefe, Estavio Trevino, Bear, or whoever the hell he really was.

  At his hacienda, Trevino did all the essential background work needed to prepare for his next target, and this time it was personal. The Internet had made it easy to gather basic facts about almost any person on the planet. Very few people lived lives that were private enough to keep even a curious tech-savvy amateur at bay.

  He started with the people in Istee’s life. His wife, their two children. His mother, father, and half-brother. His father’s wife. He soon knew where everyone lived and had recent photographs of all of them, which he memorized. He pieced together readily available personal histories of the family and turned them into brief biographies. Istee’s early years at Mescalero, his college years in Silver City, his law enforcement experience, and the misstep that tarnished his reputation and caused his resignation from the New Mexico State Police.

  The same with Kevin Kerney’s wartime service in Vietnam and his citations for gallantry. His rise through the ranks in law enforcement, retiring as Santa Fe chief of police. And his reputation as a cop who apparently was more willing than most to use deadly force.

  He found particularly interesting his wife’s brilliant military career and her decorations for bravery under fire. Educated at West Point, rising to the rank of one
-star general, and commander of the Military Police Corps, she was a true woman warrior. Trevino was impressed.

  Their son, Patrick, a star high school student and athlete, had received a congressional recommendation for an appointment to West Point and an early admission to MIT. About to graduate from high school, he was a young lion poised to leap into manhood.

  What Trevino found most interesting about Kerney was his wealth. Some years ago, he’d inherited a large tract of northern New Mexico real estate worth millions from the estate of his mother’s best friend. He’d used some of it to buy a ranch outside of Santa Fe, had given a very small chunk to Istee to pay for his children’s college educations, and dabbled in raising and training a small herd of fine cutting horses. He’d wisely invested the rest.

  Trevino wondered how much Kerney might be willing to pay in ransom for the return of his kidnapped half-Apache son. The thought gave him pause. Kill Istee outright or kidnap him, get the ransom, then kill him?

  Istee’s wife and mother were strong Apache women. In photographs, Grace, his wife, oozed a self-confident refinement. Her achievements as a teacher and mentor spoke of high intelligence. Istee’s mother, Isabel, a retired head nurse and tribal elder, looked to be a woman one could learn much from.

  All that he discovered about Istee’s children told him they lived fully in the modern world yet retained close ties to their native roots. Not only was the daughter a head-turner, she was an athlete and scholar. The son, a medical school student, was serious and brilliant.

  Trevino had read up on the Apaches and was intrigued by their matrilineal family structure, which was far different from that of the Kickapoos. Regardless, there was a tribal identity and strength about them similar to that of his own people. He appreciated the evident pride they had in their heritage.

  All that aside, Istee’s family were potential pawns that could be put into play if necessary. A lot depended on a final plan. That wouldn’t happen until he’d finished reconnoitering them on their home ground.

  He turned away from the whiteboard that was filled with his research notes and photographs and opened a satellite program on the computer. He entered and saved all the primary locations for the family. He’d study them more before leaving for Juárez in the morning. There he’d load up on the necessary weapons and equipment—all untraceable—buy an inconspicuous vehicle, and meet with Lieutenant Ulibarri of the Texas DPS before crossing over to El Paso for the short drive to Las Cruces.

  It was about to begin, and he was ready.

  In the ten years Roger Ulibarri had been selling confidential police information to El Jefe, he’d met the man only twice. At his first meeting in Juárez, he’d handed over current intelligence information on a Mexican with dual citizenship living in El Paso, the son of the federal attorney in charge of criminal investigations in the state of Chihuahua. His body was found two days later scalped and dumped outside his father’s home. The lawyer resigned his position immediately and moved away.

  The second meeting with El Jefe took place recently when Ulibarri delivered the corpse of a man killed in a shoot-out with a police officer in Mescalero, New Mexico. At that time, he’d tried to break away from El Jefe’s control, only to be subtly threatened with severe consequences if he made such an attempt. He left feeling if he’d asked any questions about his bizarre smuggling of a corpse into Mexico, he never would have returned home.

  Over the years, except for those two meetings, Ulibarri had provided El Jefe the information he wanted by cell phone. Now there was to be a third meeting, again in Juárez.

  El Jefe’s instructions for the meeting were specific. Ten o’clock at night, at a closed diner on the corner of an intersection in an older downtown neighborhood. He was to enter through the unlocked rear door.

  Ulibarri’s headlights illuminated the badly chipped yellow-and-orange-painted building as he swung into the small parking lot. A large Coke sign on a steel pole towered over the structure. Below it the name of the joint was missing from an empty rectangular frame. It was nothing more than a dark, abandoned converted lunch shack.

  He entered through the rear door to the sounds of mice darting around the kitchen floor and found El Jefe waiting behind a shuttered customer order counter that faced the sidewalk, his features barely discernible in the glow of a corner streetlight.

  “You’re on time,” Trevino noted pleasantly.

  “As you asked,” Ulibarri replied, relaxing slightly.

  Outside, the sounds of an approaching garbage truck emptying dumpsters clanged and thumped its way down the street.

  “You have always done as I’ve asked, and I appreciate that.”

  Relieved, Ulibarri smiled in the darkness. “Thank you.”

  “And now you must do one more thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  Trevino’s perfectly placed shot stopped Ulibarri’s heart, and he collapsed dead on the floor.

  Outside, the garbage truck ground to a halt, the engine idling. Rapid footsteps followed. Two men appeared, wrapped the body in a blanket, and carried it away. The metallic sound of the truck’s hydraulics emptying the dumpster followed and then the truck drove away.

  Trevino stayed in the darkness of the corner until he heard Ulibarri’s car leave the parking lot. Sometimes remaining untraceable made for regrettable acts.

  CHAPTER 15

  Grace and Clayton had finished a light Friday morning breakfast when Sara called. Grace picked up.

  “I’m sure you know Clayton is still fussing around with that horrible double homicide case,” Sara said.

  “He fiddles with it when he thinks I’m not looking,” Grace replied with a pointed glance at Clayton. “Has he roped you in on it?”

  “Yes, but he asked nicely,” Sara replied. “I have information for him.”

  “I’ll put him on.”

  “He won’t like it.”

  Grace passed the handset to Clayton, who tried to look guileless.

  “Did you find the subjects?” he asked.

  “I not only found them, but I’ve saved you from spinning your wheels any longer. I spoke to the commanding general of the Army Criminal Investigation Command, who agreed to have both soldiers interviewed by Army CID special agents at their duty stations. One soldier is with the Seventy-Fifth Rangers, the other with the Tenth Mountain Division. Based on their religious beliefs, they refused to answer any questions about their participation in the Kickapoo warrior healing ceremony. Without a legal basis to question them further, you’re out of luck. And given the fact that neither soldier broke the law, don’t waste your time.”

  “Nothing breaks easy with this case,” Clayton complained. “Thanks for trying. I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome, but don’t hang up. Kerney wants a word.”

  Clayton punched the speaker button.

  “Why are you still monkeying around with this?” Kerney chided. “It’s out of your hands.”

  Clayton nodded, looking directly at Grace. “I know, I know. You’re right. I’m stopping, promise.”

  “Good. If Grace is listening, make sure he keeps his word.”

  “I will.”

  “Doesn’t anybody trust me?” Clayton groaned theatrically.

  Kerney guffawed. “You get no sympathy. Keep in touch.”

  “Ten-four,” Clayton said with a laugh. He put the handset in the cradle.

  Grace kissed him. “That’s better. Now I have one less thing to worry about.”

  “I don’t see how. I’ll always be obstinate.”

  Grace kissed him again. “Go to work.”

  There was much Trevino wanted to learn before striking at the man who’d killed Whistling Bear Who Paints with Clay, and he planned to do it invisibly. In El Paso, he shopped at three sporting goods stores, purchasing all he needed to camp rough in the high-country forests outside of the towns and cities he would reconnoiter. He loaded up on wilderness survival food and ingredients to season whatever edible critt
ers he trapped or killed. He would move camp frequently, re-provision at various stores and gas stations outside his zones of concentration, avoid all improved campsites, and stay away from the hiking trails and old logging roads that drew adventurous outdoor enthusiasts.

  Although it wasn’t yet hiking and camping season, with night temperatures still cold and deep snow covering the high mountain trails, it was best to remain cautious. He studied detailed geological survey maps and memorized escape routes out of the locations he’d selected as campsites.

  In town, his only visible footprint would be his ten-year-old dull gray Jeep Wrangler, which wouldn’t draw undue attention in the expanding automotive world of the pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, and four-by-fours Americans seemed to love. There would be no trace of him to be found at any hotels, restaurants, or local establishments. He had no fixed schedule, no timetable. He’d take as long as needed.

  Initially, he’d thought to subdue Istee, drug him, and bring him to his hacienda, but he soon discarded the idea. One small mistake or oversight might bring the outside world to his doorstep, and that he could not allow. Everything would happen north of the border. He’d yet to decide whether to attempt a kidnapping and ransom, or simply kill the man slowly and leave his disfigured body where it would easily be found. Either way, money or not, Istee would die.

  On his first night, Trevino camped on the banks of a wide, dry arroyo outside a small ranching community in the Sacramento Mountains south of the Mescalero Apache Reservation. He’d followed a nearly impassable, muddy old ranch road to the abandoned ruins of a house tucked in a slot canyon. Snow covered the higher peaks and clung to the north face of the foothills. By evening it was pleasantly cold, a nice change from the often dry and dusty Sierra Madres of Northern Mexico.