Probably both.
“Okay, I’m back. Listen, I’d rather you didn’t spread this around or
Lavelle will have my hide.”
Oh great. Another secret. Another promise to keep. “I’m all ears.”
“Back in July, the 14 th to be exact, do you remember hearing
the story of a Border Patrol agent by the name of Bob Shirley?”
I searched my memory but came up empty. “No, what about him?”
“He was found shot in the temple inside his truck on the reservation
not too far away from that old mining town I was telling you about last night.”
“You mean Morita?”
“Yeah,” he said with a despondent sigh. “It was a real shocker. He
was a helluva nice guy and a dedicated agent.”
“Sorry
to hear that, Walter, but why is telling me this going to upset Lavelle?”
“Because
he was her cousin, her favorite cousin since she was a kid.”
“I
see. I gather there’s a lot more to this story.”
“Yep.
For Lavelle, his death piled onto all the other problems we’d been struggling
with. The last year down there we were besieged by the humongous increase of
illegals tramping through our property at all hours of the day and night. They
wore a goddamn path through the yard! Our place was broken into twice, once
when she was home alone, and it scared the ever-living crap out of her. And
then, after what happened with Bob…well, she just couldn’t handle the strain of
living there anymore.”
The
phone hummed loudly, obliterating some of his answer. Damn, was I going to lose
the signal? I pulled the antenna up. “Sorry, Walter, can you repeat that?”
“…authorities are calling it suicide, but a lot of folks in that area
aren’t buying the official explanation.”
“What about you?”
“I wish I knew for sure.”
The note of glum skepticism in his voice kicked my pulse up a notch.
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something fishy about the whole thing.”
He sounded grumpy.
“Like what?”
“Like, what in the name of glory was he doing out there on the Indian
reservation so many hours after his shift change?”
“So, he was officially off-duty. Who found him?”
“One of the tribal police. He was parked on a really rough, isolated
stretch of dirt road that runs past Morita and comes out near Newfield not far
from the San Miguel Gate. It had been dragged just a few hours earlier and….”
I interjected, “What do you mean dragged?”
“Border Patrol vernacular. The agents drag tires behind the
vehicles to blot out footprints and such. That way when they’re looking for
signs of jumpers, they can tell approximately when the last group crossed and
how many. Although, according to the stories Bob told us, these people are
wising up.”
“How so?”
“He filled me in on some of their tricks. Smugglers especially, employ
some pretty crafty maneuvers like gluing scraps of carpet to the bottoms of
their boots. The tribal police call ‘em carpet walkers,” he added as an aside,
“but now these people are getting really inventive and using the same type of
boots as the Border Patrol to throw agents off the track. One resourceful guy
even carved cow prints on the soles of his boots.”
“Wily coyotes,” I murmured, “but getting back to the situation with
your wife’s cousin, were any footprints found near his truck?”
“Oh yeah, a bunch. It could be that a group of crossers mistook him
for their ride, rushed the truck and who knows what happened from there. But
the locals think he was most likely ambushed by drug traffickers.”
“That’s scary.”
“No kidding, but here’s the rub. The forensics team found only his
fingerprints on the weapon and they couldn’t find anything to prove that he didn’t take his own life.”
“Well, it is a pretty sophisticated science now, you know
that.” I wondered if he was reading too much into the situation considering
his personal
“Okay, I’m back. Listen, I’d rather you didn’t spread this around or
Lavelle will have my hide.”
Oh great. Another secret. Another promise to keep. “I’m all ears.”
“Back in July, the 14 th to be exact, do you remember hearing
the story of a Border Patrol agent by the name of Bob Shirley?”
I searched my memory but came up empty. “No, what about him?”
“He was found shot in the temple inside his truck on the reservation
not too far away from that old mining town I was telling you about last night.”
“You mean Morita?”
“Yeah,” he said with a despondent sigh. “It was a real shocker. He
was a helluva nice guy and a dedicated agent.”
“Sorry
to hear that, Walter, but why is telling me this going to upset Lavelle?”
“Because
he was her cousin, her favorite cousin since she was a kid.”
“I
see. I gather there’s a lot more to this story.”
“Yep.
For Lavelle, his death piled onto all the other problems we’d been struggling
with. The last year down there we were besieged by the humongous increase of
illegals tramping through our property at all hours of the day and night. They
wore a goddamn path through the yard! Our place was broken into twice, once
when she was home alone, and it scared the ever-living crap out of her. And
then, after what happened with Bob…well, she just couldn’t handle the strain of
living there anymore.”
The
phone hummed loudly, obliterating some of his answer. Damn, was I going to lose
the signal? I pulled the antenna up. “Sorry, Walter, can you repeat that?”
“…authorities are calling it suicide, but a lot of folks in that area
aren’t buying the official explanation.”
“What about you?”
“I wish I knew for sure.”
The note of glum skepticism in his voice kicked my pulse up a notch.
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something fishy about the whole thing.”
He sounded grumpy.
“Like what?”
“Like, what in the name of glory was he doing out there on the Indian
reservation so many hours after his shift change?”
“So, he was officially off-duty. Who found him?”
“One of the tribal police. He was parked on a really rough, isolated
stretch of dirt road that runs past Morita and comes out near Newfield not far
from the San Miguel Gate. It had been dragged just a few hours earlier and….”
I interjected, “What do you mean dragged?”
“Border Patrol vernacular. The agents drag tires behind the
vehicles to blot out footprints and such. That way when they’re looking for
signs of jumpers, they can tell approximately when the last group crossed and
how many. Although, according to the stories Bob told us, these people are
wising up.”
“How so?”
“He filled me in on some of their tricks. Smugglers especially, employ
some pretty crafty maneuvers like gluing scraps of carpet to the bottoms of
their boots. The tribal police call ‘em carpet walkers,” he added as an aside,
“but now these people are getting really inventive and using the same type of
boots as the Border Patrol to throw agents off the track. One resourceful guy
even carved cow prints on the soles of his boots.”
“Wily coyotes,” I murmured, “but getting back to the situation with
your wife’s cousin, were any footprints found near his truck?”
“Oh yeah, a bunch. It could be that a group of crossers mistook him
for their ride, rushed the truck and who knows what happened from there. But
the locals think he was most likely ambushed by drug traffickers.”
“That’s scary.”
“No kidding, but here’s the rub. The forensics team found only his
fingerprints on the weapon and they couldn’t find anything to prove that he didn’t take his own life.”
“Well, it is a pretty sophisticated science now, you know
that.” I wondered if he was reading too much into the situation considering
his personal
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