Chris Zapata drove while his sister sat in the passenger seat. Cait’s left arm was bandaged from shoulder to elbow and protected by a sling. She’d been very lucky. The bullet from Marsdon’s gun had burned a shallow groove in the flesh of her upper arm. Nothing disabling.
Cait picked up her cell and tapped out a text to Jack. “We’ll head up the mountain soon, where there’s no cell service. I’ll update you soon as I can. Love you.” He was recuperating from brawling with Mac Spitzer, and working with investigators to piece together how his former boss had managed to fool them all.
“Are you sure you’re up for a long hike?” Chris glanced at Cait, who’d insisted on going along.
She reassured him she wasn’t hurting. “The Tylenol works great,” she lied. “I promise I’ll keep up. Do you really think you can track him down? It seems like such a long shot.”
“It’s a her,” Chris said. “The footage from the trail cams we retrieved from the Rincons showed a female jaguar.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“Very. All the other jaguars sighted in Arizona mountains have been wandering males from Mexico, trying to establish territory.”
The big dually truck ahead, fitted with a camper shell, was driven by Jon Angel, a biologist from Saguaro National Park in Tucson. Angel had agreed to join Chris in a clandestine hunt for the big cat that Cait and Jack were convinced had escaped from the Para ranch. They hoped to find the animal, if it still lived. The plan was to tranquilize and transport it for release someplace safer and more remote than the Manzano Mountains outside of Albuquerque.
Brother and sister had talked late into the night before about the career risks Chris was taking. Both he and Jon could lose their jobs and face charges for illegally trapping an endangered wild animal. But the two Park Service employees couldn’t see another ethical way around their plan. The jaguar had to be quietly captured and released. They didn’t want to notify state and federal authorities about the cat, because word of its existence would inevitably seep out. The media would have a field day and hunters would beat a path to the Manzanos. Jaguars had been sought out and killed in southern Arizona after news had been released about their likely locations.
“If you want something done right, do it yourself. That’s an old saw, but it’s true. If we’re unsuccessful, we will have to tell the feds and state wildlife people that a jaguar might be living in the Manzanos. But if we catch it ourselves, mum’s the word on where we release it,” Chris had said. “I don’t want to see it end up as a pelt in someone’s trophy room.”
Jon Angel had agreed. He knew the researchers at Wilderness Protectors, environmental advocates who conducted wildlife studies around the Sky Island mountain ranges in Arizona. The group could help rehome the spotted cat.
It was decided that Jon would contact the Protectors. Then he and Chris had sketched out a plan of action.
Now their vehicles turned off Rio del Oro Loop. They took a series of back roads and passed through an unlocked gate leading to the John F. Kennedy Campground on the edge of the Cibola National Forest. The place looked abandoned. A bullet-riddled sign on the far end announced the start of several trailheads. Remnants of picnic tables were strewn around the grounds.
“This place was ruined by vandals. Only a few hikers come here anymore.” Chris surveyed the empty lot. “There’s less chance anyone will be around to see us if we happen to come back with a jaguar.”
They parked and got out, pulling on heavy jackets, hats and gloves and grabbing backpacks filled with everything to sustain them for a grueling effort. Jon’s pack was the largest. He would haul a tranquilizer gun, extra water, first aid supplies, and dog food.
Once everyone was ready, Angel released three slightly out-of-control hounds from the rear of his camper. The animals tore around the parking lot until Jon corralled them with treats and attached leads to their harnesses.
Angel unloaded his own version of a Native American travois—a pair of long two by fours crossed and lashed together to form an x. Wood and mesh supports reinforced one end where a tranquillized jaguar would ride on a pad of cushions and canvas.
The biologist looked stressed. “This is going to be a test of endurance. Two of us at a time will have to drag the cat. It’s the only way I could think of to transport a drugged jaguar that could weigh up to a hundred and fifty pounds. A wheel barrel won’t cut it.”
Cait surveyed the mountains looming above them, outlined by the cold gray light of sunrise. “You’ve captured mountain lions before?”
“And ocelots and black bears. To put on tracking collars and take blood and DNA samples. But never a jaguar.”
Chris unfolded a topographical map of the area they would hike into. Jon pointed out a series of drainages that ran down the western slopes of the Manzanos in the direction of the Para compound. “We’re just south of where the cat escaped, and I would expect it would head straight up into the mountains. Of course this is a crap shoot. The Manzano range is forty miles long. I’m praying these guys get a good scent.” Jon patted one of the dogs.
Chris unzipped a mesh compartment on his pack, took out a double-wrapped, plastic bag of jaguar poop.
He handed the baggy to Jon. “Time to work your magic.”
“They’re the magicians, not me.” Jon knelt by the dogs and held it to their noses. “Go find us a jaguar.”
***
Cory Marsdon was awake when Jack poked his head inside the hospital room at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
“Ok if I come in?” Feeling awkward, Jack waited to be invited. After all, he had been the one who shot Cory. But that was after the gang task force leader had charged up the trail, firing a gun and hitting Cait.
“Sit down. I owe you an apology.” Propped up on pillows, Cory gestured at a bedside chair. “I panicked. I didn’t recognize you until too late. I thought Spitzer had Para send someone to finish me off. Like they did Russell Connor.”
“It’s Cait you’ll have to apologize to,” Jack said. “I’m sorry I shot you. But I assumed the worst when you fired at us.”
“How is she?” Marsdon asked.
“She’ll have a scar on her arm. But she’s back to her old feisty self. I’m just glad to see you sitting up and talking.” Jack was full of questions for Cory, but he restrained himself.
Marsdon had already been interviewed by internal affairs officers. He’d told them what he had suspected back in January: someone in local law enforcement had leaked information to Sonny Para, and possibly helped engineer the fatal shooting of detective Russell Connor and the bombing in Jack’s apartment. So Marsdon had gone to Para and his lieutenant, Joe Tafoya, and managed to convince them he was a bad cop with information to sell.
Cory believed that Para had been given Jack’s and Russell’s routines and schedules. Hoping to catch the culprit, he had offered to sell APD intel on the Los Brutos gang, explaining that he had money troubles.
His luxury home in far north east Albuquerque had been bankrolled by his wife’s substantial heritance. But Para and Tafoya didn’t know that. He’d told them he was on the verge of bankruptcy from casino gambling losses and too much rich living. Marsdon had fed relatively harmless tidbits to Tafoya. He insisted to investigators that he had not warned Sonny Para about a planned raid on the South Albuquerque warehouse the gangster had been using for his drug business.
Cory had started to think he was wrong until the evening he went to meet Tafoya and Para at the ranch outside of Los Lunas. There, he heard the two thugs mention Mac Spitzer. That was the same night Jack had been caught, although Marsdon had no idea the detective was being held captive.
Now Jack could tell Marsdon needed his rest. He patted his hand. “Take it easy. Call me if you want anything.” He left the hospital and drove to his office downtown, musing over how fast things had turned around after the showdown on the Domingo Baca trail.
In the early morning after Jack and Cait had fled Para’s compound, emergency dispatchers had received a call from a convenience store in Los Lunas, something about a commotion at a ranch outside of town. Jack had also called 911 after he and Cait had returned to his parents’ home.
That morning, Las Lunas police, Valencia County deputies and state authorities had descended upon the Para ranch with a warrant. They intercepted a rental truck leaving the compound and seized a large quantity of powdered fentanyl. The drug had been disguised as a shipment of plaster of Paris imported from Mexico.
During the raid, Joe Tafoya, Para’s enforcer, and other men had scattered into the desert but were picked up with the help of a state police helicopter.
Now Jack understood Elana Tafoya’s final message in the emergency room. “No more candy, Paris” made sense in light of what authorities found. Para had stopped distributing fentanyl in the form of candy, and disguised the drugs as plaster of Paris.
A day after her accident, Elana had been murdered in intensive care. An autopsy revealed she had been injected with strychnine. The identity of her killer was unknown. She had received no visits from family or friends, so investigators suspected the poison had been administered by a hospital worker or someone posing as one.
Captain Mac Spitzer had been arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Cory Marsdon and Jack Gallegos, and conspiracy in the murder of detective Russell Connor. Albuquerque police were looking at Spitzer’s bank accounts based on suspicion he had been paid off by Sonny Para in exchange for tips on police investigations into Los Brutos.
Back in his office downtown, Jack sat at his desk, lost in thought. He was interrupted by a knock on his partly-open door.
Mike Odero from internal affairs popped his head in. “Got a minute?”
Jack stood. “All the time in the world. Java?” He indicated a stainless steel coffee machine on top of a file cabinet. Cait had bought it for him after she’d tried the break room coffee.
“Sure.” Odero took a seat. “Marsdon’s recovering well.”
“I know. I saw him earlier.” Jack poured water and grounds into the machine.
“It’s all over for Mac, I’m afraid.” Odero crossed his legs and grabbed an ankle.
“It’s hard to believe.” Jack was still stunned by the revelations about his former superior.
The final shocker was that Spitzer had discovered that Marsdon was also dealing with Sonny Para, so he talked Cory into a hike in order to kill him.
Marsdon had realized he was in trouble during that trek and had managed to record Spitzer’s comments.
Jack remembered Cory’s whispered warning as he lay on the trail, felled by a bullet from Jack’s gun. “Don’t trust . . . taped him on my phone . . . tried to kill you.”
While waiting for 911 responders to arrive, Jack had listened to the recording and emailed himself a copy. Then he had turned the phone over to Bernalillo County deputies when they showed up.
The tape would be Spitzer’s undoing. On it, he told Marsdon he was going to kill him. “You stupid Dudley Do-Right. I’ve carried a badge for fricking thirty years and for what? A gold watch and a crappy pension? I’ll be lucky to eat at Blake’s Lotaburger once a week when I retire. Screw that. I deserve to live high on the hog for once, go on vacations and drive a nice car. I’m going to live well. Unlike you.”
On the recording, Marsdon had asked Spitzer if he’d had anything to do with the death of detective Connor and the bomb in Jack’s apartment.
“Those guys knew what they were up against,” Spitzer had said. “Sure, I told Para how to get to them. So what? Russell and his smart-ass partner could have bought it any of a hundred ways. Life’s a gamble. A drunk runs a red light, or a semi clips you on the freeway. Which reminds me. Your time’s up too.”
Marsdon’s smart phone had recorded everything. He had shot at Spitzer knowing the captain meant to kill him. He didn’t know that Spitzer wore a bullet-proof vest under his down coat.
Now Jack eyed the IA investigator. “Is Spitzer talking?”
Odero’s gray eyes studied Jack. “Nada. We found a lot of cash in a storage unit he rented. He won’t say where the money came from, but at this point it doesn’t matter. He’s sunk.”
“’You’re sure Marsdon was only pretending to be a crooked cop?” Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I have no reason to doubt him,” Odero said.
“That’s good to hear.” Jack nursed his coffee, keeping his own secrets. He’d gone along on the raid on the Para ranch. There, he had surreptitiously bagged a few clumps of animal feces from the empty warehouse cage where the jaguar had been kept.
He’d given the plastic baggie to Cait’s brother. Jack hoped that Chris and his cohorts had a safe and successful jaguar roundup. The animal’s chances of surviving undetected long term in the Manzanos were slim, being so close to a big metro area.
Sonny Para’s desire to own the big cat hadn’t gone well for him. During the raid on the gangster’s ranch, authorities had discovered his mauled body buried in a hastily dug grave in the desert nearby. His skull had been crushed by the jaws of a large carnivore. The medical examiner had suggested a bear or mountain lion. Jack knew better. El tigre norteno had exacted its revenge on the man who had imprisoned it.