“You may exercise your right to remain silent now,” Lucy said.
He lunged for her. It happened so fast, Lucy almost missed it. Nate didn’t. He was up and between Zapelli and Lucy so fast she barely saw him move. Nate didn’t say a word; his expression spoke volumes. Zapelli froze.
“Turn around,” Nate said in a low voice. “Put your hands on the back of your head.” He got out his cuffs.
“You can’t do this,” Zapelli said. “I’ve done nothing. This is bullshit, and you know it. I don’t know what that bitch has been saying about me, but I’ve done nothing. I came here to help her. That’s all I did.”
“Did? So you did see her?” Lucy asked.
“That’s not what I said!”
“Yes it is. You helped her how?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions without a lawyer!”
“That is correct,” Nate said. He searched the guy after he cuffed him.
“They already did that!” Zapelli said.
“Procedure,” Nate replied.
The process humiliated Zapelli, making him turn red and even angrier. Angry criminals talked.
“You’re all screwed,” Zapelli said. “None of you will get out of this alive.”
Nate pushed him against the wall. He held him there without much effort. “Is that a threat?”
Zapelli scowled.
Nate held on to him and said to Lucy, “Grab the recording, I want to make sure his threat is loud and clear for the judge when we arraign him. Threatening a federal officer is a felony.”
“Yes it is,” Lucy said.
Nate turned Zapelli over to two DHS guards and said, “He gets one call, to his attorney, and that’s it. You have a cell in this place, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put him in it, do not let him out unless I or my boss, Noah Armstrong, authorizes it.”
“Yes, sir.”
They waited until Zapelli was gone. “I wanted to break his neck,” Nate said.
“He didn’t slip much. Nothing that we can use with a judge.”
“He threatened us. That’s good enough for me to arrest him. I didn’t even raise my voice.”
“You never do.”
Villines called. “Kincaid? We hit the lottery. The rental car has a GPS system and guess what? Our number one suspect used it extensively. I’m sending you the printout of everywhere he’s been since he picked up the sedan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
By the time they regrouped at Villines’s office, Noah had arrived and Villines himself had already mapped out the route Angelo Zapelli had taken. Lucy suspected that because his in-laws were involved, he wanted this done quickly and done right. He had assembled a small group of deputies to help them.
“You are in this room because I know each and every one of you and your families. Because this is a sensitive situation, I want to make sure that whatever we find is handled with complete discretion and sensitivity.” He stared at everyone in turn to drive home his point. “I’m turning this over to Supervisory Special Agent Noah Armstrong, who has been instrumental in keeping this office in the loop as far as the FBI investigation goes, which I appreciate.”
A stamp of approval for federal involvement in a local office made the whole process run smoother.
Noah stood, thanked Villines, and said, “I’m going to be as brief as possible. I’m not from Texas; you all know this area far better than I do. I’m originally from Colorado Springs, I served ten years in the Air Force, and for the last five years have been working out of the Washington, DC, Regional FBI Office. I’m running the San Antonio Violent Crimes Squad temporarily while the current SSA is on paternity leave.”
Lucy had never known Noah was from Colorado. What else didn’t she know about him? She felt awkward, like she should have asked-they’d become friends over the last two years, but she knew so little about him.
“My partner Agent Kincaid and I were sent to Freer to take the statement of a photojournalist who has been looking for two missing young women, Marisol and Ana de la Rosa, who disappeared over two years ago from Monterrey, Mexico. She has known these women their entire lives and believed they had been kidnapped or manipulated into the sex trade. Ms. Walsh followed a trail that led her here, after the abandoned baby known as Baby Elizabeth was left at the door of a Catholic church outside Freer.
“Assistant Sheriff Villines has already distributed photos of the two sisters. However, we believe there are more women who may have been held captive by the same criminal organization. And while they may have started out being trafficked into border cities, we believe that these particular young women have been used as breeders. Agent Kincaid uncovered evidence from a nurse involved in the conspiracy that seventy-two infants were born to women like the de la Rosa sisters and sold into the black market over the last two years. One woman known only as Eloise was found dead in a Dumpster, her baby boy cut from her womb. She was shot in the back of the head.”
He let that information sink in. He had everyone’s attention.
“Witnesses who found Marisol de la Rosa contacted your office; unfortunately, Marisol met up with a man she believed she could trust, who may have killed her or taken her back to the people she ran from. We believe that Marisol is the mother of Baby Elizabeth, and left her baby at the church in an effort to protect her from a black-market sale.
“What Deputy Villines and I need is for you to assist us in visiting every place that Mr. Zapelli went during his five days in Texas. Mr. Zapelli has been detained and is in custody at the airport pending transport to a federal jail prior to his arraignment. I won’t lie to you-we don’t have much evidence against him. He has a lawyer and has stopped talking. He gave us no information on the whereabouts of these girls, and denied seeing Marisol. However, physical evidence found on his belongings is being tested to see if it matches the young woman; if so, we will arrest him on felony kidnapping charges. We are going on the assumption that she was with him at some point Tuesday night. Right now, we’re holding Zapelli for threatening a federal agent, as a material witness to a felony, and because he’s a foreign national and a flight risk. A good lawyer will get him out in a matter of days.
“We need to find Marisol, who can testify against Zapelli. But we are also looking for her sister, who is nearing the end of a high-risk pregnancy with twins, and up to twelve other women whom we believe were impregnated solely to deliver babies into the black market. All the evidence we have uncovered shows that this was done to them against their will. They are the victims, and they need to be treated as such.”
There were a few questions, but the assembled force seemed eager to hit the streets. Villines made the assignments, even sending two officers to Del Rio to check out the place Zapelli was parked overnight. He finished by saying, “If you find these girls, contact me immediately. Siobhan Walsh, the photojournalist, personally knows them and she can help facilitate their cooperation so they know we’re here to help.”
Lucy glanced at Siobhan, who was standing in the back of the room. Siobhan looked like she was running on fumes. Lucy had assumed that Siobhan had seen bad stuff as part of her job. Lucy had seen many of her photos-poverty and pain interspersed with beauty and love and the simple life. The Sisters of Mercy primarily worked on helping poor villages learn to care for themselves in the basics of hygiene, agriculture, building homes, medicine. But in that, there was death and poverty and tragedy, like the mudslide that had killed half the people in the de la Rosas’ village. To Lucy, that would be emotionally and physically devastating, yet what was going on here seemed to overwhelm Siobhan, and Lucy didn’t understand why.
When Villines was done, Lucy approached her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but Lucy didn’t believe it.