The Covert Element (37 page)

"Aren’t you at all surprised that your old Ranger Sergeant
turned out to be a drug kingpin?"

"Not sure."

Talking with Bull could be maddening.

"You’re not sure whether you are surprised?"

"Not sure he was Santos."

"How can you not be sure he was Raphael Santos? He admitted
it to the cops. His face was matched through the FBI database. For
God’s sake, his own wife identified him. How can you not be sure?"

"Maybe he took the blame for Santos."

"How do you get by all that evidence positively identifying him
as Santos? Why would his own wife say it was him?"

"Same reason."

Having a conversation with Bull was like trying to solve a
Rubik’s cube. It twisted your brain in multiple directions at once.

"I’m trying to follow here. Let me see if I’m understanding you
correctly.

"You think that both Fuentes and Santos’ wife identified
Fuentes as Santos to protect Santos?"

"Maybe."

"What about the facial recognition match?"

"Not a hundred percent."

I tried another direction.

"What evidence would prove to you that Fuentes was Santos?"

"You got prints?"

The fingerprint analysis had positively identified Fuentes as
Fuentes. Neither the U.S. nor the Mexicans had fingerprints on
record for Raphael Santos.

"No."

"DNA?"

DNA taken during Fuentes term in the Rangers had also
confirmed the body was Fuentes. As with the fingerprints, a DNA
comparison for Santos was lacking.

"No. But how would Fuentes get the information on the
Los
Cinco
banks accounts if he weren’t Santos?"

Bull couldn’t deny that one.

"Santos maybe gave it to him."

"God dammit, Bull. Why will you not just admit that Fuentes
and Santos are the same guy?"

Bull leaned forward. I think he may have been offended by my
intimidation tactic. I have to admit it was a poor choice considering
my subject.

"
You
think a while."

Bull sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

He had challenged me to figure it out for myself. Damn that
Bull. He knows I can’t resist a good puzzle. He’d made me switch
from adversary to ally in this argument using four little words.

Starting at the beginning . . . evidence of a single shooter at the
Mexican Massacre tended to support Santos’ presence in
Minnesota. He was the sort of leader who could command universal
attention. He’d probably gotten the men to take the poison
voluntarily, as a part of a ceremony . . . or maybe a toast. If so,
Santos was definitely a traitor against
Los Cinco
. But that didn’t
prove Fuentes wasn’t Santos.

Then again, Fuentes stated that he had seen the person who
killed the twenty-three Mexicans. Maybe he recognized Santos,
realized that Santos was a traitor, and chanced joining forces with
him to defeat the cartel. That was plausible.

If Santos was, indeed, a traitor, he would have wanted to kill
Dosdall and Ashcroft to further hamper cartel operations. Or he
may have wanted them dead so they
couldn’t
identify Fuentes.
Santos could have arranged for them to be present at the Elevator
for the explosion. But if Fuentes was Santos, he could have done
that, too.

What about Santos’ wife identifying the body? Why would she
lie? Or the better question is, why would she identify the body as
that of Santos?

If the body was her husband’s, she would have no reason to lie
and would identify it as Santos’ corpse. If the body was someone
else . . . a traitor to the cartel . . . she might have conspired with her
husband to fake his death. In that case, she would still identify the
body as Santos. Maybe she was even complicit in Santos’ plan to
bring down the cartel.

I was becoming irritated that Bull had me thinking in circles.
Why can’t things be as they seem . . . just once? No questions. No
complicating factors.

"Why would Santos’ wife help him take down the cartel her
father founded?"

"Maybe she didn’t."

"Yeah. But if she did . . . why?"

"Money."

In the final analysis, crimes of all sorts usually are motivated by
one of two things – jealousy or money. Other than in gang
shootings, motives like grudges, lifelong quests and lust for revenge
seldom play a major part in killings. Based on this logic, it was more
likely that Santos and wife would try to bilk the cartel out of its
money than to destroy it for ideological reasons.

But the governments seized all the money. Or did they? Had
the jump drive contained information on
all
cartel accounts? Or just
some of them? Omission of a single account could net Santos
hundreds of millions. And the cartel would assume that money had
been seized by the governments along with the rest.

Was Santos really that smart?

If that was his plan all along – to steal from the cartel, and to
dismantle it at the same time so he would not be a lifelong target –
he wouldn’t need Fuentes’ assistance. On the other hand, why
chance his own arrest if he could be free and wealthy without
risking the American criminal process?

Hmm.

But why would his wife shoot Fuentes, knowing she would be
arrested?

Was Santos, the master manipulator, able to convince his wife
that she must silence Fuentes before he could change his mind?
And that she would never go to prison, because she could bargain
her knowledge of the cartel into a deal for Witness Protection? Was
he that smart? Was she that stupid and greedy?

Damn.

It was too late to find out now. She had already identified
Fuentes’ body as Santos. Once she realized she had been double-crossed by her husband, the authorities would never believe her
even if she changed her story at this point.

Was this the perfect crime? Or was Fuentes really Santos, as I
had assumed all along?

"Bull. Do you know for sure whether Fuentes was Santos?"

"Uh uh."

"Do you know how to figure this out for certain?"

"Nope."

I stood.

"Well . . . thanks for nothing. When I woke up this morning I
knew I had done right. The bad guys had been caught. The drug
operation was tanked. The cartel had been seriously wounded."

"Mostly true either way."

"But now I don’t know whether I got scammed. Man, I hate to
get scammed!"

"Better to be ignorant?"

Bull had a way of inserting irrefutable logic into a discussion at
the opportune moment. I wasn’t biting.

"Yes! In this case . . . hell, yes! Give me the ignorance I had this
morning."

"Sorry," said Bull. "I take it all back. Fuentes was Santos. No
doubts.

"Are you better now?"

I shook my head, then began to laugh. I laughed so hard I
almost cried.

I walked over to where Bull was sitting to give him a big hug.

"No hug."

I laughed some more.

"I give up. You win. You are the master and I am the pupil. I
vow to never doubt you again."

Bull stood up. He wore a big smile.

"You lie. But it’s still nice of you to say."

He pumped my arm vigorously.

I gave him a big hug.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

When I got back from Bull’s I had to decide if I would share
what he had said with Beth.

I parked the Pilot in the garage and entered through the back
screen door.

Slam!

"Honey, I’m home."

No answer.

I wound my way through the first floor. When it became
obvious she wasn’t there, I checked the front porch. Success! She
was hand-sewing a blouse while reclining on the love seat.

"Honey, I’m home." I kissed her on the forehead.

"Oh, hey, Babe. How is Bull?"

"He’s good . . . at least as far as I can tell."

"Um hmm. Did he have anything interesting to say?"

I had decided not to pass my aggravation along to Beth this
time. I sat in a wicker chair.

"You know Bull. He’s quite the talker."

Beth chuckled.

"He snuck up on me while I was waiting at his front door.
Scared the bejeebers out of me."

"I’m glad you boys like playing together. I bet he was happy to
hear all the info from Gunner. Did he have anything to say about all
that?"

"Not so much . . . no. I mean I think he was glad to hear that
we’d managed to keep his name out of things with the cops. Other
than that, he was just his usual merry self."

"I was kind of worried that he might be down over his
Sergeant’s death," Beth said. "But he’s doing okay, huh?"

"Doll, I could sooner tell you what a rock is thinking than Bull.
The man is absolutely and unequivocally inscrutable. He didn’t ‘say’
he was depressed. But then, I don’t suppose he would. Anyway, he’ll
be all right. And he and I are okay. He’s not holding a grudge
against me or anything."

"I’m glad to hear that. He’s such a nice man."

A nice man who shoots people in the head on occasion. But
then, I suppose that described me once, as well.

* * *

That night, Beth and I were both propped up in bed reading.
The whole cartel drug affair still weighed on my conscience. It’s true
that my past life had put Beth and our family in danger more than
once. But this was the first time my
current
activities had struck so
close to home. I put down my book.

Beth noticed and put hers down, too.

"What’s the matter? Your lips are all pinched and you’ve got
lines in your forehead. Spit it out."

Was I really that transparent?

"I know I’ve apologized to you about this whole Mexican drug
cartel mess. And you’ve forgiven me. But I’ve decided that, in this
case, an apology is not enough."

I looked into Beth’s eyes.

"Beth, I’m going to cut out the recreational investigating . . .
stop playing private eye. Nobody needs or even wants my help on
these cases. With this drug case, I placed you in a good deal more
danger that I had anticipated. I won’t make that mistake again. I’m
done."

Beth looked at me.