where Emma Perez was found. And when I read through the material you sent me last night about her murder investigation, it indicated that Billy used the main trail to hike in here—that’s on the other side of the mountain. There’s no maintained trail between there and here, though it’s fairly easy to navigate. While old-timers know about the quarry, it shut down thirty years ago. The only reason I knew it was here—after I studied the maps—was because I looked at old land-use maps.”
Distant thunder rumbled. Was this storm going to delay the toxic cleanup on the other side of the valley?
“Have you looked at the weather reports?” he asked Peter.
“It’s not going to reach us this far south, but Mount Wrightson is going to get three to four inches overnight. We’ll get some moisture—not the torrential downpour they’ll see in Tucson—but the winds will gust up to forty. Flash-flooding watch starting at eight tonight, until 2:00 a.m. I’d keep your eye on it—you’re not going to want to be driving near any of the creeks around here. I’m not looking forward to the drive home, so the sooner we get out of here the better.”
Matt made a move to enter the building, and Peter stopped him.
“What’s going on?” Matt asked.
“I’ve already called the coroner. He’s on his way. The sheriff and their crime scene team should be here any minute.”
“Just tell me, Peter.”
“I’ll show you.”
One of Peter’s people was walking around the area; Matt hadn’t seen him at first. He looked a little green, his mouth in a thin line.
Matt braced himself for the worst.
He stepped through the door. At first he didn’t see much of anything; it was the smell that assaulted him. The smell of blood and death. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he stared at the rear wall. Four dark red splotches, each between five and a half to six feet up from the ground. He looked at the base of the wall. Four bodies lay there. All adult males. All dead.
He turned on his flashlight and walked carefully over to the bodies. Shined a light, then quickly turned it away.
The victims were practically faceless. Matt had seen the aftereffects of these types of gang-style executions before, but they were usually a firing squad in foreign countries. A group of people forced to stand against a wall, shot in the back, their bodies removed and the next group of people led in.
This was different. The men had been shot in the back of the head with a bullet that created maximum carnage. For show? Or because that’s what the killers had on them? The victims weren’t restrained in any way. One of the men had been shot farther to the right of the group, as if he’d tried to run.
Brutal and efficient.
“Gang revenge killings?” Matt asked, his voice gruff.
“We did a basic inspection. None of them have gang tats.”
Peter and Matt went back outside.
They’d been young, from what Matt could tell. In their twenties. Looked like retaliation. Execution. It had been brutal.
Peter said, “The truck is registered to a Jeremy Rapport, out of Tucson. I didn’t pull the wallets of any of the boys—wanted to wait until the sheriff gets here. This truck came across the border yesterday evening at seven forty-five. We log every license plate electronically, so when I ran the plates, it popped. I pulled down the photo—we log a photo of the driver—and it was Jeremy. There were three others in the truck with him. I don’t have a good image of their faces. They were waved through. Two Caucasian, one African American, one Hispanic. College age, clean-cut, truck not flagged—no reason to stop them.
“Sangre uses kids just like these boys to run drugs and people across the border,” Peter continued. “I’ve seen it before. This place hasn’t been on our radar, but they’re not coming back. They left the bodies here. They didn’t care who found them or when or even if they were found.”
“Did they come here directly from the border?” Matt asked. “Maybe to meet up with a supplier?”
“Most likely,” Peter said. “But it’s not on the way to Tucson from Nogales, so it was a planned meet. They’d had to have been here before—no one just stumbles onto this place. I’m thinking they’ve brought in drugs with them over the border—there’s no human-smuggling compartments in their truck, I looked—no false bottom in the back where people might lie down and are locked in for