“How so?”
“The franchise owner is a guy named Oscar Terranova. The locals call him Baby Head.”
“What?”
“He’s got a shaved head and I guess people think it looks like a newborn baby’s.”
Juarez laughed and shook her own head.
“At least it’s original,” she said.
“Anyway, the license was opposed by other tour operators, who said there were already too many franchises in town,” Stilwell said. “They claimed it would hurt all of their businesses. But Mayor Allen supported the application, saying the competition would grow the market. The town council voted, and Baby Head got the license.”
“And did it grow things like the mayor said?”
“Not so much. Two of the other companies went bankrupt, but the mayor conveniently blamed the COVID epidemic for that. Tourism did tank out here back then. But Gaston said that he and Baby Head sabotaged those businesses. He said they did all kinds of stuff, from slashing tires on the competitors’ carts to outright stealing them and dumping them off cliffs on the back side of the island.”
“And he’ll testify to all of this?”
“If he gets a deal. But that’s minor stuff compared to what else he says he’s got, starting with the dead buffalo. He said Baby Head ordered him to kill the buffalo so it would make news and would get blamed on aliens.”
Juarez laughed again. “And of course that would bring more customers to his magical mystery tours,” she said.
“Exactly,” Stilwell said.
“What evidence do you have for all of this?”
“Well, last week I got a search warrant signed by Judge Harrell and went to Terranova’s cart barn. This is when I first met Gaston. I seized a saw handle that tested positive for blood. I have it locked up but haven’t submitted it to the lab yet for comparison to blood from the buffalo.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been busy with a murder investigation, and the buffalo case will be such a low priority at the lab that it’ll be six months before I get a report back. Unless I have a prosecutor pushing it through. That’s what I was sort of waiting for.”
Juarez shook her head.
“That’s a catch-twenty-two,” she said. “I don’t think I could press charges without results. And I couldn’t push for results without charges in place.”
“But now Gaston wants to cooperate.”
“To save his own neck. It’s not a good look if he’s the one who killed and cut up that poor animal.”
The desk clerk reappeared behind the check-in counter. Stilwell saw that it was Fred Nettles, the night manager he had dealt with during the eviction dustup. He had apparently just come on duty. Stilwell lowered his voice so that he would not be overheard.
“Gaston says he was also working in the cart barn when Terranova met with Allen about this proposal to build a giant Ferris wheel out on the point past the Casino. Publicly, the mayor’s already supporting it as a big boost to tourism. But Gaston says Allen and Terranova are shadow partners in it. The mayor gets a piece of the action for supporting the project, and he chips off a piece for Terranova.”
Juarez’s body language changed. She leaned in toward Stilwell, and her face lost the mirth it had displayed earlier at the mention of Baby Head.
“Can we trust this guy Gaston?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Stilwell said. “He’s desperate. I leaned on him last week when I was at the barn conducting the search. A couple days later his wife reported him missing. I thought maybe he had lammed it, but then he walks into the sub today and says he’s been hiding because Terranova is going to kill him to keep him quiet.”
“Over a dead buffalo?”
“He says Baby Head’s afraid he’ll bow to the pressure I put on him and talk. About everything. The buffalo, the Ferris wheel, and everything else he knows. And that’s exactly what he’s willing to do if we cut him a deal.”
“Does this Baby Head have any record that supports this kind of reaction?”
“None.”
“Is he from the island?”
“I heard he came here about the time he applied for the tour license.”
“From where?”
“The mainland. He’s got a tattoo on his arm. Six-six-one. That’s the area code for Bakersfield.”
Juarez was quiet as she thought about how to handle the situation. Stilwell looked at his watch. It was getting late and he wanted to go back to the sub to check on Gaston before he went home for dinner.
“What do you think?” he prompted. “You want to talk to Gaston? I have to pick up some food to take him and another guy I have in lockup. That other one you’ll deal with tomorrow. Assault on a law enforcement officer with GBI.”
“Well...” Juarez began. “Sure, we can go talk to him, but this is really something I should bring to the public integrity unit. All corruption-of-government-officials cases go there. They would have to make the call.”
Stilwell nodded. He knew this but was disappointed because taking the case to the PIU would slow things down considerably. An investigation of an elected official was always fraught with consequences for any misstep by prosecutors or their investigators.
“Why don’t we go talk to him so you can get a sense of him and the situation,” he said. “If you want to kick it over to the public corruption team after that, that’s your call. We can meet up with Tash afterward and grab dinner.”
“Okay,” Juarez said. “Sounds like a plan.”
31
Stilwell immediately knew something was wrong. The main door to the substation was locked, and it shouldn’t have been. He had two deputies on duty for the evening shift, Esquivel and a man named Porter whom he had pulled off the midnight shift. He had told Esquivel to stay in the sub while Porter handled patrol duties. If Porter needed backup on a call, Esquivel was to alert Stilwell. The bottom line was that he wanted one man in the sub at all times as protection for Gaston.
But locking the front door was not part of the plan. The substation was supposed to be open to the public 24/7 and locked only when all personnel were in the field.
“This isn’t right,” Stilwell said.
“What do you mean?” Juarez asked.
“Esquivel’s supposed to be in there and the door shouldn’t be locked.”
“Is he a deputy? Maybe he got a callout or something?”
“Then he would have called me.”
Stilwell put the bag containing the meals they had picked up for Gaston and Spivak on the ground and pulled out his keys.
“You stay out here until I check it out,” he said.
He unlocked the door and entered. He moved through the waiting area and into the bullpen. There was no sign of Esquivel, and the first thing Stilwell noticed was that the door to the tech closet was standing open. He looked in and saw that the middle shelf of the equipment rack was empty. The external hard drive was missing.
Stilwell drew his weapon and moved toward the jail section. The first cell he came to was where Spivak was supposed to be. But he was gone. Instead, he saw Esquivel lying face down on the concrete floor, his hands cuffed behind his back, an orange scrub shirt wrapped around his head and soaked with blood.
Stilwell quickly unlocked the door, slid it open, and went to Esquivel. He pulled the shirt away from his head and used two fingers to check for a carotid pulse. Esquivel was alive but unconscious. Stilwell used his cuff key to release his arms and then turned him onto his back. There was a deep gash across Esquivel’s forehead, and blood was flowing back into his hairline. Stilwell reached over to the bed, pulled the pillow and blanket off, propped the pillow under Esquivel’s head, and used the edge of the blanket to try to stanch the bleeding.