Death, Taxes, and Sweet Potato Fries Read online

  “They weren’t given a phone number?”

  “No, and no one is answering the cell phone the girls had with them, either.”

  “Any idea where the girls might be?”

  “The last time the girls phoned their aunt before the ransom demand, Yessenia said they were in Mexico, but not far from the U.S. border. We’re not sure whether they made it across before they were kidnapped. Mexican authorities attempted to ping the phone but had no luck. We’ve tried the towers along the border here, too, but got nothing. The battery could simply be dead or the phone may have been intentionally disabled or discarded.”

  Lu cocked her head, her beehive tilting to the right at approximately a two o’clock position. “Is Hidalgo still in custody?”

  “Yes,” Castaneda said. “We’re holding him on suspicion of human trafficking. The envelopes with the birth certificates and social security cards were hidden inside the spare tire in the trunk of the car he was driving. The car was a rental he’d picked up in Mexico. He claimed he had no idea the documents were in the car and that they don’t belong to him.”

  Yeah, right. And all those potheads who claimed to be holding for a friend were telling the truth, too. “Did you ask him about the girls?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “We didn’t want to tip him off that the aunt had reported the kidnapping to law enforcement. We’re afraid he’d make them disappear.”

  The strategy made sense. “So long as he and the men in his network think they might receive the ransom, they’ll keep the girls alive.”

  “That’s what we assume,” Castaneda concurred.

  I glanced down at the photos still clutched in my hand, taking another look at the innocent faces of Nina, Larissa, and Yessenia. If he hurts any of you, I vowed silently to their pictures, I’ll make him pay. I looked back up at the agent. “Did he have any weapons on him when he came across the border?”

  “No, and he has an aggressive attorney working on his release. Unless we can convince the judge we have solid evidence against Hidalgo and that he’s a danger to others, we’ll be ordered to let him go.”

  The general rule of thumb for holding a suspect without charges was seventy-two hours, and the clock had already begun to count down the instant Hidalgo was arrested yesterday. We had a mere two days to come up with good evidence against the guy or he’d be turned loose. In other words, we’d better bust our asses.

  “Why was he in a Mexican rental car?” I asked.

  “He’d flown from Dallas to Chihuahua, Mexico, purportedly to visit relatives. He says he decided to drive to Big Bend to do some stargazing. He had a book on astronomy with him and a cheap telescope, but the story seemed flimsy. He hadn’t made reservations at a hotel or lodge in the area and didn’t seem to have a concrete plan. Our guess is that he was planning on meeting up with someone in his trafficking network to supply the papers. Or maybe he’d dropped some of the migrants just south of the border, gave them instructions on where to cross, and told them he’d meet them on the other side. We’re not entirely sure.” He exhaled sharply and sat back in his chair. “That’s the problem with this guy. He’s back and forth across the border dozens of times each year, and we’ve encountered him before not far from where we’ve picked up undocumented immigrants. We suspect he’s to blame for some of the deaths, including that extended family I mentioned, but we’ve never been able to prove any clear link to human trafficking.”

  “That’s where we come in,” I supplied for him. “You want us to see if we can come up with evidence to link the guy to smuggling activity.” It wouldn’t be the first time another agency had come to the IRS for help.

  “Exactly. The last thing I want to do is put Salvador Hidalgo back out on the streets where he can lure desperate, unsuspecting people to risk their lives while he pockets their hard-earned cash.”

  “I can check the W-2 filings for people working under the names and social security numbers from the documentation you found in Hidalgo’s car. With any luck, one or more of them will have settled in the north Texas area.”

  Castaneda somehow managed to look both encouraged and skeptical at the same time. “I’m hoping that will be the case, though I’m not holding my breath that they’ll cooperate. The undocumented migrants might be too afraid to talk, or they might simply disappear once law enforcement comes sniffing around. I see it all the time. But this plan is our only chance for nailing the guy. This is the third time we’ve arrested him. Both times before, we had to release him for lack of evidence.”

  That explained the smug expression on Hidalgo’s face in his mug shot. But as they say, the third time’s the charm. I wasn’t about to let him leave another person to die in the desert. We’d get him this time, come hell or high water.

  * * *

  Lu turned toward her open doorway and called for her secretary. “Viola? Could you come make us some copies?”

  Viola appeared in the doorway, her gray curls bouncing as she dipped her head. “Whatever you need, boss.”

  Lu gestured for Agent Castaneda to give Viola all of the envelopes he’d brought with him. “Make a copy of each set of documentation for Tara, please.”

  “You got it.” Viola took the stack of envelopes from the man and carried them out the door.

  We discussed our strategy further while Viola was preparing the copies. I hadn’t handled a human trafficking case before, but Lu had seen a few come through the office over the years and knew what to look for.

  “Once Tara gets her hands on Hidalgo’s bank records,” my boss told Castaneda, “the activity will likely tell us whether he’s engaged in human trafficking. People who do that kind of thing make regular cash deposits in large amounts. They’ll also deposit checks where the payee line was clearly completed by someone other than the person who signed the check. Often there will be cash deposits made at banks or ATMs by the families of the person who’s being trafficked. The ones who’ve made it to the U.S. will pay to have the coyote transport other family members here, like the situation with the three missing girls. And if Hidalgo’s illegally trafficking humans, it’s a safe bet he’s not reporting the income. We’d be able to tack on some tax evasion charges.”

  “Great,” Castaneda said. “The more charges we can throw at the guy and the longer we can keep him locked up, the better.”

  chapter four

  Up, Up, and Away

  After Viola brought me copies of the relevant documentation, I walked Agent Castaneda to the elevators. “What’s it like to ride in a helicopter?” I asked as we waited for the car to arrive.

  “I could tell you,” he said, arching a brow. “But I’m guessing you might be the type of woman who’d like to find out for herself.”

  He’d pegged me. I wasn’t a mere idle observer of life. I was an active participant, grabbing life by the horns and hanging on for a wild ride, whooping all the while. I gave him a smile. “What gave me away?”

  “The gun at your waist and your steel-toed shoes.”

  “Any chance one of my coworkers could come along?” A particularly sexy one with dark hair and amber eyes?

  “So long as he can come now,” Castaneda said. “I’ve got to get back to Big Bend by the end of the day. My wife promised to make my favorite enchiladas for dinner.”

  I wondered what Nina, Larissa, and Yessenia would be fed for dinner. Ugh. Pushing that awful thought from my mind, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Nick. When he answered, I said, “You’ve got ten seconds to meet me at the elevator if you want to ride in a Black Hawk helicopter.”

  The only response was a click as he ended the call. A moment later, he careened around the corner of the hall, his boots sliding across the industrial carpet.

  With a ding, the elevator car arrived and Agent Castaneda and I stepped in, Nick rushing to jump in just as the doors began to close.

  “Where’s your helicopter?” I asked Castaneda.

  “At the city heliport at the convention center on South Lamar.�
�

  In other words, within easy walking distance. That meant there was no need to get a car to drive over. I jabbed the L button to take us down to the lobby and turned my attention back to the men. “Nick,” I said, holding out a hand to indicate Castaneda, “this is Agent Robert Castaneda with the Border Patrol search and rescue.” I swung my hand the other way. “Agent Castaneda, this is Senior Special Agent Nick Pratt.”

  The two exchanged handshakes as the car descended.

  Nick eyed the border patrol agent. “Search and rescue, huh? I’m guessing that means you work in a remote area?”

  “Big Bend,” Castaneda replied.

  “My parents took me out to the park once as a kid,” Nick said. “Beautiful place, though I have to admit I was disappointed not to see a mountain lion. Saw a rattler or two and some roadrunners, though.”

  I fought the urge to say meep-meep.

  “I’ve spotted a cougar or two from the air,” Castaneda said, “but they tend to avoid humans when possible.”

  A smart decision on the cat’s part. Encounters with humans often weren’t a good thing for wildlife.

  * * *

  We stepped out into the lobby and exited the building. Castaneda stopped and glanced around, as if trying to get his bearings.

  “This way,” I said, gesturing to the left.

  The half-mile walk took us only ten minutes, during which the agent regaled me and Nick with stories of harrowing rescues he’d performed.

  “The worst was during a flash flood,” he said. “Several people were trapped in a canyon, clinging to the walls, trying to fight the current. I went down on my rope but the wind was so strong it kept slamming me into the canyon wall. When it was all over I was one big bruise, black and blue from head to toe. It was a wonder none of my bones was broken.”

  My exploits had caused me injuries, too, ranging from minor burns and a broken tooth to a major concussion. Besides having one target plant an explosive under my car and another try to trap me in a burning building, I’d been shot at, hit in the head with a baseball bat, plunged into a vat of melted chocolate, and stabbed by an armed rooster at a cock fight. No matter where I went, or how hard I tried to avoid it, trouble just seemed to find me. But maybe this case would be different. Maybe this one would be uneventful.

  Heh, I mentally scoffed. Even I didn’t believe myself.

  The men being, well, men, compared the size and power of their equipment on the way over.

  “How fast can your helicopter fly?” Nick asked.

  “Top speed is a hundred and fifty-nine knots,” Castaneda said. “That’s one-hundred and eighty-three miles an hour. Cruising speed’s around a hundred and fifty-three knots or a hundred and seventy-three miles per hour.”

  “I’ve got me a bass boat,” Nick said. “Three hundred horses in the engine.”

  “That’ll get the job done.”

  “Sure will.”

  I was tempted to toss out some exciting facts about my 2200-watt hair dryer and four-slot toaster, but I doubted they’d be impressed.

  Minutes later, we stepped up to the Black Hawk helicopter, which despite its name, was actually gray in color. The aircraft was much larger than I’d expected, with a huge propeller on top of the main body and another at the end. With its wide windshield wrapping around the sides, it looked like an enormous metal dragonfly.

  As we climbed in, I motioned for Nick to take the front seat.

  Excitement gleamed in his eyes. “Really? You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I figure it might make up for not sharing my sweet potato fries last night.”

  “We’ll call it even.”

  Nick took his seat up front, while I strapped myself into a canvas fold-down seat behind them. All around me was equipment used in the search and rescue missions. Ropes. Harnesses. Cables. All manner of hooks and straps. Even a couple of those basket-type things used to raise injured people up into the chopper.

  Once I was secured, I glanced into the cockpit. There seemed to be no end of switches and buttons and dials on the control panel, which took up not only the dash but also the center console and part of the ceiling. How anyone could make sense of it all was beyond me.

  Agent Castaneda sat straddling the enormous control stick. He donned a pair of padded headphones and handed me and Nick each a pair for ourselves.

  “Ready?” he called though his microphone.

  “Ready!” Nick and I called back.

  Castaneda flipped a series of switches, and the long blades began to move overhead, slowly at first but rapidly speeding up until they morphed into a mere blur through the upper part of the window. When we lifted off, my stomach forgot to come with the rest of me, seemingly dropping down into my lower abdomen to keep my reproductive organs company. I breathed through my mouth, hoping that would prevent me from getting motion sickness. I wasn’t usually prone to it, but the aircraft was vibrating much more than an airplane and had an entirely different feel to it. I felt like a can of paint in one of those automated mixing machines at the hardware store.

  A moment later, the upward movement turned into forward movement, and we swooped up and over the Dallas skyline. In my excitement, any discomfort I’d been feeling was totally forgotten. Seeing the city from this angle gave me an entirely different perspective. The people walking around the city below looked like ants in an ant farm. I’d never realized there were so many rooftop gardens, and the tall construction cranes, which normally loomed far overhead, were at eye level now. Oddly, though we were only at a higher elevation and hadn’t grown, of course, I got the sense of being a giant. Nick glanced back my way, the broad grin on his face telling me he was having a heck of a time, too.

  Castaneda made three wide circles around the city. We could see the smaller skyline of Fort Worth to the west, as well as the roller coasters at Six Flags and the enormous Dallas Cowboys stadium in the nearby city of Arlington. To the south loomed the Cotton Bowl and the Ferris wheel in Fair Park. To the east lay White Rock Lake. Being able to take all of this in at once was amazing, and made the city seem much smaller.

  On our last go-round, Castaneda drew close to Reunion Tower, which resembled a handheld microphone, tall and narrow on the bottom with a big glittering ball on top. Nick and I had spent New Year’s Eve there, though he’d been exhausted and jet-lagged from traveling internationally on two big cases. Such were the lives and sacrifices of government agents.

  Castaneda came in for the landing and expertly set us back down. Our ride over now, my stomach ascended to its appropriate place behind my belly button.

  Nick and I climbed out of the helicopter and thanked Castaneda.

  “That was incredible!” Nick said.

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” the agent said. He turned my way, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a business card, which he held out to me. “Let me know what you can find out. The sooner the better.”

  I ducked my head in acknowledgement as I took the card from him. “I’ll get right on it.”

  chapter five

  Form over Substance

  Nick and I returned to the IRS office, parting ways in the hall as he turned left into his office and I turned right into mine.

  Though my desk sported a tall, off-kilter stack of pending files roughly the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I ignored them and honored my word to Agent Castaneda, making his case a priority. After all, the clock was ticking. Unless I could find some hard evidence to implicate Salvador Hidalgo within forty-eight hours, the killer and kidnapper would be released.

  A search of tax filings showed Hidalgo had filed no returns. Although State Bank of Dallas had reported some interest income in his name, it was not enough to give rise to a filing requirement. Did he have unreported income from his trafficking activities? I suspected he did. Now, I just had to prove it.

  I turned my attention to the names on the social security cards, birth certificates, and voter registration cards Agent Castaneda had given me, the
ones that had been found hidden in the rental car. I searched the W-2 wage filings first. Whoa. The name and social security number for Julio Luis Guzmán turned up on no less than seventeen W-2s for the preceding year. According to the forms, Julio allegedly lived in as many different places, ranging from as far west as Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida, in the east. Twelve W-2s appeared in the name of Francisco Arturo Soto, while nine included the name and social security number for Camila Teresa Contreras. I searched the other names with similar results.

  Due to the fact that the tax returns filed by the real Julio, Franciso, Camila, and others did not include all of the wages reported by the employers on the W-2 forms, the taxpayers had received notices of the discrepancies and either a bill for the revised amount owed or a refund when the amount of income tax withheld from the numerous payments exceeded the revised amount due. In each instance, the taxpayer had filed a Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit, informing the IRS that incorrect information had been reported under his or her name and tax ID number.

  “What a mess,” I muttered at my computer screen.

  Knowing I had neither the time nor authorized budget to travel far from the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, I culled through the W-2s for addresses in the north Texas area. If I could track down some of the immigrants nearby, maybe I could get Agent Castaneda the information he needed to nail the coyote Salvador Hidalgo once and for all.

  One of the Julio Guzmáns—whom I dubbed Julio Número Uno—lived in Euless, one of what were often called the “mid-cities” that sat between the larger cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. Per his W-2, he worked at a Mexican restaurant called El Loro Loco. I knew the word loco meant “crazy,” but loro was a new one for me. After running it through a Spanish to English translation tool I found online, I learned that loro meant “parrot.” Another of the Julio Guzmáns—Julio Número Dos—lived in South Dallas, his W-2 issued by Saint Lucia Catholic School. A third Julio Guzmán—Número Tres—lived in Garland, which sat to the northeast of Dallas. His W-2 had been issued by Ellington Nurseries Inc.