New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) (19 page)

A few days later Mathew came back into Steve’s house
after a walk to gauge progress on Caspar’s Cottage, as he called the manager’s
house. Lenny,
Fred
and Federico were hard
at work with the contractor gutting the rooms and ripping out walls.
 
Back in the kitchen, he poured a mug of
coffee and went down to his room, composing the text in his mind to his
father’s attorney about contacting his birth mother.
 
He would follow up with a phone call in a day
or two if he did not hear
back
.
 
Down the hall, sounds of Steve and Ivy in
what they now called their office drifted toward him.
 
They worked on the Fuentes case before
breakfast, on and off during the day around tasks on the farm and sometimes
after dinner.
 

He poked his head in the room after sending off his inquiry
and said, “Morning.
 
Any insightful
discoveries?”

“Yes,” Steve replied.
 
“The genetic tests from the parents show the fellows we killed last year
are the Fuentes brothers.
 
However,
Eduardo may not be his father’s
son.
 
Particular chromosomal differences
may point to parentage by a close relative.”

Intrigued Mathew asked, “Any guesses on who?”

“Possibly the father’s brother.
 
Gunned down in a drive-by shooting the same
year as Eduardo was abducted and Cruze went off to juvie.
 
Tell him about Annetta, Ivy.”

“A cousin named
Annetta,
who often appeared in photographs with the Fuentes boys disappeared that same
summer,” Ivy said.
 
She put an image up
on the screen.
 

“Strong family resemblance.
 
Wow, she is striking!” said Mathew.
 
“Any indication of where she went?”

“Not so far.”

“She ever
reappear
?”

Ivy put up another snapshot.
 
This one of the three Fuentes siblings with the twins grown from boys to
men and Eduardo as a teen.
 
A fourth
young man stood in the picture.

“I don’t understand,” Mathew said, peering over her shoulder
for a closer look.

Ivy honed in on Annetta, isolating her face.
 
She did the same for the fourth man and then
she said. “We think she became
a he.
 
Check out the features of the two faces.
 
The Bureau ran its new Next Generation
software for facial recognition.
 
Their
analysis points to the same person.”

“Why would she want to transform herself into a man?
 
What a stunner she was as a teenager!”

“A lovely teen who transformed into a handsome young man,”
Steve said.
 
“Might have been
genomic.
 
Felt masculine or perhaps she
perceived an easier path to gain power and control was to become a man.”

“The brothers knew.
 
That’s obvious,” said Mathew

“One of the Behavioral Analysis
Units
is doing a profile for us.
 
Two Fuentes may still be around to deal with, Cruze and this transgender
cousin called Julio.
 
He appears in
snapshots sometimes over the years.
 
They
continued to be close.”

Ivy put up another pair of photos and said, “The other
interesting point we discovered is how much Eduardo changed after the
abduction.
 
Here he is in the last shot
from before those thugs nabbed him.
 
Notice how
Eduardo
gives the
impression of a bright, happy kid in the photo on the left taken in the spring
of 1985.
 
Then look at this
picture
taken in the summer of 1986.
 
Notice how he stares at the camera without
smiling.
 
His jaw is set as if he is
clenching it and his whole body looks taut like he is ready to flee.
 

“In all the photographs after the trauma, he never
smiles,
and he grows
stranger
looking.
 
See here
two years later when he is fourteen.
 
Sure he is entering his
teenage
years,
but his eyes have that wary look of a far older person who has seen too much.”

Mathew nodded and said, “Yeah, I see what you mean.
 
Sometimes he looks sad and sometimes angry,
but never do the photos show that happy kid he used to be.”

“See how Cruze always stands to the side in each photo and
Cristo is more in the center?” Steve said.
 
“When they are together, he seems to want Cristo featured more than
himself.
 
Could be he let Cristo
lead.
 
If true, Cruze will be a lost soul
without his twin.”

“Cruze dropped out of the operations after the sting in
Mexico City,” replied Mathew.

“Wanted out and got out by sticking an actor in his
place?
 
Left Cristo and Eduardo to
dispose of the business?” Steve continued.
 
“We know from the phone calls we intercepted between Cristo and Eduardo
they wanted to sell the drug business.”

“Remember how you traced the funds during the money
laundering research to the Middle East before the trail disappeared?”
 
Ivy asked.
 
“Perhaps those reserves became Cruze’s share and
he
re-invested the wad elsewhere.”

“Possible,” Mathew said.
 
“Did he or this transgender cousin travel in or out of the country in
the last year?”

“Based on the
aged
photo from the Bureau yes,” Steve said.
 
“About 12 different instances of people with
various
names coming and going in the last year.
 
We’re going through them today.
 
A man who resembled Cruze has entered the
States twice in the last month or so.
 
The others resemble Julio.
 
No
hits on the Annetta appearance.
 
No name
matches.”

“Any hints on whether they remain in-country?” Mathew asked.

“Julio perhaps.
 
The
Cruze alias flew to Rome.”

“Good findings,” Mathew said.
 
“Anything else?”

“We’ve worked our way through other leads – the contacts on
Eduardo’s and Cristo’s cell phones, other family members including
two second
cousins who emigrated from Cuba
around 2000 –”

“What!
 
Not more
Fuentes!”
 
Mathew exclaimed.

“Mother’s side,” Ivy said.
 
“Last name of Machado.”

“By tracing transactions, we think the brothers put those
cousins through college and med school via deposits into the Mother’s bank
account,” Steve said.
 
“Both of those
cousins are pediatricians in Miami.
 
They
practice together and do pro bono work in the Cuban community.
 
No evidence that they were involved with the
Fuentes brothers or are into any wrongdoing.”

“Nothing on the rest of the family?” Mathew asked.

Ivy shook her head.
 
“Most are still in Cuba.
 
Not
finding ties to the brothers.”

“This is Ivy’s work,” Steve said proudly.
 
“She found the photo album and put it all
together, along with a chronology and a family tree, at least as much as we can
construct thus far.
 
Next,
we will connect with a squad out of the
Santa Fe office to go over the Fuentes property.
 
The FBI have held the house and grounds
pending final case closure.
 
They are
bringing a couple of guys to explore the old wells in case any evidence missed
last year is packed away there.
 
You fine
with the two of us going?”

“When are you heading out?” asked Mathew.

“Bubird tomorrow morning at five.
 
We expect this to be a day
trip
unless we make any remarkable
discoveries.”

“Did they scan the land last year?”

“Their work is suspect,” Steve said shaking his head.
 
“I’m having the parcel rescanned with metal
detectors and having geo soundings taken in case any unidentified underground
chambers or tunnels exist.”

“What are you searching for?” Mathew said, stepping towards
the stairs.
 
He would mull over this new
twist with the Fuentes while he worked outside.

“See if we can find more lines of inquiry including any hints
on where Cruze might be or who he may have teamed up with.
 
Plus somewhere the Fuentes must have tucked
away a crisis plan – an escape strategy or a way to reach each other,” Steve
said.
 
“Only a hunch on my part.”

“Your hunches are better than most agents’ facts.
 
Sounds
like we bailed too fast on this case and the takeover team failed to be
thorough.
 
Did they spot the
Annetta/Julio connection?” Mathew asked, leaning against the wall.

“Nothing in the file.
 
The photos appear untouched by the FBI until we requested having them
scanned
.
 
They did not wrap up the case as they should, leaving loose ends and
overlooked information.”

“Shoddy.
 
The case
wrap-up should include having everything
fully
researched and documented.
 
You wouldn’t
let us throw things in a box, no matter how much we wanted to be working on
your next case.”

“You want to come along with us to the Fuentes house?” Steve
asked.

The offer tempted the trained FBI agent still living in
Mathew.
 
That side of him had come back
to life during Susannah’s
kidnapping. However
the vineyard and the construction project each needed his attention.
 

“Too much going on here with tracking the fermentation
processes, the new acreage, Casper’s Cottage,” Mathew said.

“Casper’s Cottage?” Ivy asked, echoing the name back.

“My nickname for the old manager’s house.
 
Remember Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

“Spook Hills theme.
 
Should we change the name of the tree house too?” asked Steve.

“Hobgoblin’s Hideaway?”
 
Ivy said with her characteristic laugh.

“Glimmer’s Glade?” Mathew said.
 
He walked away chuckling as he headed for the
stairs.
 

The next day Ivy and Steve tramped around the Fuentes
land near Madrid, New Mexico, starting up the squad to scan the surrounding
acres in widening concentric circles.
 
They walked over to the site of the old well near the house as an agent
out of the Albuquerque office pulled on a harness to
be lowered in
.
 

“What am I going after?” the
agent
asked.

“A place where
the Fuentes
might have squirreled
things away – a small box perhaps holding safety
deposit box keys or a few papers or even a thumb drive,” Steve said, frowning
that his instructions to the local leader had not been passed on.
 
“While a large box or chest could
be stashed
down there, I suspect a small
container may be concealed near the top of the well.
 
Expect it to be obscured.”

When constructing the
old
well, the diggers had
spaded
out dirt and
stones until they located a clean supply of water, then they had reinforced the
walls and set up a pulley and rope for the water to come up in a bucket.
 
The frayed end of the rope hung over the
well.
 
The old bucket had long since
disappeared, perhaps down in the bottom of the well.

After securing himself to a cable attached to a winch
mounted on a big Ford 450 Super Duty pickup truck, the agent kicked off, using
a rappelling technique to go around the well in a slow circle, before dropping
down a few feet and repeating the procedure.
 
He wore a headlamp and carried a powerful hand-held flashlight.
 
After splashing down in the bottom, he
reversed the hunt while another man winched him back up three feet at a
time.
 
Most of the way to the surface, he
stopped and shone his light back and forth.
 

“Got something,” he said, raising his voice to be heard by
those above him.

“What?” Steve asked.

“A brick wedged in a rock layer.
 
Odd.
 
Make sure I am locked here to hold steady.”
 
The agent hung the lamp on his belt and took
out a hammer and short pry bar.
 
He
tapped the tool into the wall.
 
After
loosening both sides, he put the tools away and wriggled the brick out with his
hands.
 
He tilted his head to illuminate
the hole.

“Nielson, you psychic?” the agent yelled up.
 
“A box is jammed in here.
 
Four inches high.
 
Thinking titanium.
 
I’m going to pull out a stone or two and hope
the wall stays together.
 
Pull me out if
I give a
yell
or you hear a rumble.”
 

The agent resumed the extraction with the hammer and pry
bar, working three adjoining rocks out of the wall until he made enough space
to jiggle the box out.
 
“Got it.
 
Bring me up.
 
I’ll come back down to scout out any other anomalies in the last third
of the well.
 
First, let’s figure out
what I found.”