Saints and Sinners

saints and sinners

deputy allred & apache officer victor

Virgil Alexander

Dedication

The United States border with Mexico has been a magnet for criminals from both sides of the boundary since the line was first established and through all its iterations, including today’s border which was finally established by the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. American outlaws took refuge in the Mexican border towns, and Mexican outlaws took refuge in American border towns. Even the bands of marauding Apaches soon discovered that each army would stop their pursuit when they crossed the border. In some ways there is little difference today; the bad guys still try to run for the border to escape the law in their own country. This story touches on the realities of illegal border crossing into the United States from Mexico. The vast majority of those who do so are doing it simply to find work, but mixed among them are a broad spectrum of dangerous criminals seeking to supply the drug trade, to strengthen gangs in both nations, to administer revenge on enemies and competitors, and to victimize their fellow citizens and American citizens alike, through many different criminal schemes.

This book is dedicated to those who serve as sentinels on both sides of the border. To law officers serving with honor in federal, state, county, and municipal agencies in Arizona and Sonora.

Chapter 1

Superintendente del Policía Emilio Campos rarely had drop-in visitors at his office and even more rarely had the time to see them. However, he trusted Lilia’s judgment, and she said this man, Mando Garces, had information he should hear.

Send him in, he told her.

As Garces walked into the room, Emilio’s trained eye registered a slender man not quite average in height with dark brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes, with a lot of native ancestry; nothing about him would set him apart in a typical crowd. He dressed fairly well, like a moderately-successful small businessman, and with the first few words of greeting, the accent identified him as a campesino from the central Sierra Madre. After the normal greeting and introduction, Emilio said, Señor Garces, I have only a short time available, but I wish to hear what you have to say. So please start at the beginning of your story, and I will ask questions when you are finished.

For his part, Mando Garces was sizing up Emilio, an imposing figure, tall and muscular with nearly white hair and hazel eyes set in a handsome Spanish face. Garces felt intimidated by the obvious intelligence and aura of nobility about the man to whom he was about to confess; he swallowed hard like a nervous ten-year-old and let his words gush out. I was commissioned by El Lider del Liones to go to the village of San Aquinas and assassinate a seventeen-year-old girl as she sang in church. Everything was planned and in place. I had a strategically-placed motorcycle for my escape, and I was perfectly positioned for the shot. I would sit through the service and, afterwards, shoot her as she left. Then she spoke a few words and sang. Garces paused, searching the Superintendent’s face for a hint of how his story was being received. No emotion showed as the Superintendent nodded and said, Please continue.

Taking a deep breath, Garces plunged on with his story. "She was beautiful in every conceivable way. The very sight of her would melt the heart of any person who saw her. The silky olive skin with her shimmering, long blue-black hair, large black eyes, full pink lips, long doe-like neck, slender graceful arms and legs, with a body that could only be seen sculpted in marble on this earth; she is beyond mortal beauty.

"She sang the Ave Maria with such clear, sweet tones that every person within hearing had tears of joy flowing from their eyes. In the white silk choir robe as she raised her arms in supplication to the Holy Mother, for her song was pure prayer, she appeared to be lifting to flight like the angel of God that she must be. I could not breathe. I could not do the job. I put my gun on the floor of the church and left in shame.

"Now I have come to you, Superintendent of Police Campos, because you are the honest policeman; there will be others who will come to kill her. I am a bad man, a sinner, but just seeing the Saint, hearing her, caused me to tremble in fear for my sins. El Lider del Liones no longer holds any fear for me; my fear is that I will die before I can make penance. You must take her to an unknown place in the United States, away from here, or she will be assassinated; El Lider cannot have his business wrecked as she is doing. Santa Mariana de Sonora Norte must be protected."

Superintendente Emilio Esparza Campos Esposito was not just an honest policeman, but as Armando Mando Garces Calderon called him, he was indeed the honest policeman. While there were many other honest Mexican policemen, in his entire career Campos never took a pay off or bribe, never turned a blind eye to crime, always tried hard to fairly enforce the laws, and tried hard to see that in every case justice, reason, and fairness resulted.

After a few moments’ consideration, with the only sound a hum from the air conditioner, Superintendent Campos asked, How is this seventeen-year-old country girl in tiny San Aquinas hurting Jorge Esposito’s business?

Impressed at the deep voice and cultured delivery, Mando hesitated at first, then forced himself to speak. You know El Lider’s name, yet still live. There is a miracle. Farmers are repenting and burning their fields of drugs, smugglers are abandoning their loads, users are quitting years of habits—many have been off their drugs for months. Informers are leaving him, police on his pay are leaving him, the populace is turning against him, people are coming from all of Sonora to be blessed by being in her presence, and now his hit men are quitting him, all because of this Holy Girl.

Garces resisted the urge to squirm as he endured another period of silence by the Superintendent, who finally spoke. It sounds like she is safe, protected by the large number of penitents that surround her. Where could she possibly be safer?

Believe me, Superintendente, she is not safe. El Lider will kill the whole village if necessary to stop her. He will be furious when he finds that I have quit him. I must get to my brothers first and warn them to leave, or he will kill them and their families to punish me. If I live, I will come back to you and help you fight the Liones gang. Go, get her to safety before many are hurt and the Saint is martyred.

What makes you think I am going to let you, a self-confessed murderer, walk away?

"Because if you don’t, two honest men, their wives, and seven little children will be slaughtered, and it will be on your head. I am the only one in my family who has shamed our name by joining the gangs; I listened to the corridos, and I saw the money, but my family saw honor, hard work, and love. Let me go. They can go to our mountains where they will be safe. I am already a dead man, but I must save them and help to end the reign of El Lider before I am buried. I will come back to help you if I am not killed. That is my mission from God—the only way I can pay in part for my sins."

Mando thought Emilio was unbothered by the things he had told him, but inside his calm demeanor, Emilio was agitated. Trusting his intuition, Emilio agreed. "I have little to lose, either way. Esposito has a dozen more where you came from. If you are on a mission for God, perhaps you really will be a help to me. Go, Mando Garces, go with God."

"Gracias, Superintendente Campos. Vaya con Dios."

In the small farm town of Pima, Arizona, two Graham County deputies and Sergeant Allen Victor of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Police met each week for lunch. Victor and the deputies, Sergeant Brendan Allred and Deputy Manny Sanchez, were responsible for crime prevention and investigation in the far western precincts of Graham County, including the eastern portion of the San Carlos Reservation. Between them, they were responsible for law enforcement in approximately 1,500 square miles of Graham County, consisting of numerous mountain ranges, three large fertile valleys, a few small towns, some other sparsely-populated spots, and vast unoccupied cattle range, forest, desert, and wilderness.

Sergeant Bren Allred arrived at the Taylor Freeze last because he had been discussing a fence dispute with two land owners northeast of Eden. A new resident put up a fence on his property, blocking his neighbor’s access to a spring. The neighbor removed a span to allow his stock to water, and the fence builder called the Sheriff’s office. After explaining that the law says access to water cannot be arbitrarily blocked because of a property line, Bren suggested the two work together for an amicable solution, and the situation seemed headed for resolution. The episode made him about ten minutes late for this meet up.

As he uncoiled his six-foot-two sinewy body from his county SUV, Bren waved at the two waiting policemen standing in the shade of the building. The officers greeted him, and they headed toward the indoor order window. Manny and Al were a striking contrast. Al, a full-blood Apache, was tallest of the three, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and heavily muscled, while Manny was five-foot-eight with a compact athletic build and a boyish look, in spite of his twenty-two years of age. Bren was likewise in contrast to the others, being somewhat a look-alike for a younger Robert Redford, fair-skinned, blue-eyed and blond, and almost as tall as Al but leaner.

They first ordered their lunch, then selected the back table in the dining room; they missed the picnic table and shady cottonwood behind the restaurant, a victim of enlargement of the business. With the privacy of the outdoor table missing, they guarded what they talked about when others could hear and spoke quietly.

Bren and Al were old friends, having first worked together as young policemen in Globe. Manny had gone to work for the sheriff almost two years earlier; in his first weeks on the job, he forged a friendship and good working relationship with the other two officers while working a murder case. These weekly lunch meetings were both a social event and an opportunity to compare notes and keep up on what was happening in their three overlapping beats.

Bren told them about his fence dispute and a few other minor things that he had handled. Al was working on a lead concerning possible manufacturing of meth somewhere in the Bylas area; he had tips from three people, but none of them knew exactly who was cooking the meth or where the lab was located. Manny reported that rancher Jim Martin had seen an older white F350 delivery van that apparently picked something up in Aravaipa Wash near the spring below the divide. He said two men, probably Hispanic, had driven away in the truck.

I took a look around, and it looks like people have been camping there frequently, said Manny. There’s a lot of litter, and there were some fresh tire tracks. There were some older tracks as well, but I couldn’t tell if they were from the same vehicle. There are prints of probably eight people on foot coming from the brush to the cargo door of the van.

Bren asked, Do you think it was a rendezvous of illegal workers with a transporter?

That seemed most likely at first, continued Manny. Jim saw them last evening just as they finished loading whatever they were hauling and left. It was about dusk. He was on horseback without a phone, and it took him about an hour to get home to call me, so they could easily have been on Highway 70 and long gone by that time. When I looked at the scene this morning, it looked like only one man got out and back into the truck; the driver never got out. The others hiked back to the south, the same way they came. That doesn’t sound like people trafficking to me.

Al asked, So you are sure about the tracks of the walkers coming and leaving the same way?

Yes. The tracks coming north were partially obliterated by the ones going south. The south tracks were the most recent. Also, I remember how you showed me the difference between a burdened walker and an unloaded walker; the northbound tracks were loaded, southbound not.

Al nodded agreement. Al was an expert tracker, having been a tracker in the army, and over time Bren and Manny had learned some tracking skills from him.

Bren instructed Manny to keep a distance from any similar activity. They are apparently transporting contraband, most likely drugs. That means they will be armed, and if so, you’ll be seriously outgunned. I’ll have the border patrol officer in Wilcox contact you; they may want to take a look at the scene.

Al added, Yeah. Remember, my friend, an AK-47 can do a lot more damage than a shovel, so be much more careful than you were with our rabid environmentalist.

In his first year as a deputy, Manny had turned his back on a suspect and was knocked unconscious by the suspect’s shovel. After a bit of small talk, the three lawmen shook hands and headed off, each in their own direction, for their afternoon patrols.

Hermosillo, Sonora. Emilio Esparza Campos Esposito, Superintendente regional del policía, región nordestal de Sonora, found himself agitated by Mando Graces’ story. Two thoughts in particular deeply bothered Emilio: Jorge Esposito is operating in my region, and some of my officers are, or were, on the take. I must seek out some of the penitent police officers that Garces mentioned and find out just what has been going on. I am furious at Cousin Jorge. I had hoped it would never come to this.

Years ago Emilio had heard rumors that Jorge was involved in criminal activity at the Port of Mazatlan. When he broached the subject, Jorge denied it saying, As you know, my father created one of the largest freight-shipping businesses in the country. Why would I risk that for some criminal gain? There is always suspicion on businesses that ship and distribute large numbers of containers in and out of the country, but we do all we can to prevent illegal activities in our business. Besides, even theoretically, if I were to engage in some illicit activity, I would not do it in Sonora where it would pit our family against each other.

For a family that rightly took great pride in their Castilian legacy, patriotism, and public service to Mexico, illegal activity was unacceptable. They had a stellar reputation as educated and humane leaders. The thought of this disgrace made Emilio sick with shame and anger. If Garces’s story checked out, Emilio swore he would personally set it right by bringing Jorge to justice. First he decided to see if the situation of the girl was as serious as Mando claimed.

Because Emilio was in charge of a regional police district, he was required by regulation to have bodyguards. When at the office, there were layers of protection between his office and the public reception area of the building, with his assistant, Sergeant Ilia Avalos, being his final protector. She was skilled at and enjoyed doing the work of an administrative assistant, but she was also a highly trained and decorated veteran police officer. Emilio considered her his secret weapon and pitied any bad guy who might try to force his way into the office. Ilia would have him lying on the floor with broken bones, if she didn’t shoot him.

In addition to specially-trained drivers, clerks, and guards, Emilio had three captains who served as special aides. The aides individually or as a group traveled with him any time he left the office. Each aide had served in the military—one as a US Navy SEAL and the other two in the Mexican super-secure counter-insurgency forces—and since joining the police force, they had received all the training offered police in Mexico with additional training by the US FBI and the Chilean Policía Nationale. In addition to special projects, each was responsible for a separate and autonomous internal affairs team that worked secretly in the region. Only Emilio knew what all three were working on.

After checking with several reliable sources and with his aides, Emilio concluded the girl, Mariana, was indeed in danger; so he and his three aides developed a plan to move the girl to safety, and he had Ilia begin to make preparations for some undercover travel in the United States. Within forty minutes they left for San Aquinas. As they drove, Emilio asked, Do we have any coyotes that we can trust completely to do what is assigned to them?

Yes, I have a man who would do whatever is required of him, said Patricio, the former Navy SEAL.

How competent and knowledgeable is he at moving undetected through the US?

He is the best, and he is one of us.

Juanito, the second bodyguard, laughed, Are you telling me that Señor Coyote Sabio is a policeman? I have been trying to find out who he really is and to catch him for years. I was sure he was bribing officers on both sides of the border.

Señor Coyote Sabio was the trade name of the man known as the best of the human smugglers; he drew the highest pay for his services. His card had a picture of Wile E. Coyote of Roadrunner cartoon fame as its logo. Coyote Sabio translates roughly as wise coyote.

He is the best, is he not? asked Patricio.

Rafael, the third of Emilio’s protectors, nodded, No wonder he seemed to know what we were doing.

Emilio continued, I want two other coyotes to go along. In case something goes wrong, there will be somebody else who can get the girl to her destination. Do we have two others that are competent and absolutely trustworthy?

Rafael asked, You must know about El Cuchillo, because we are going to his home village.

I have heard of him. Adelaido Jordan Gomez, right? I assume his trade name means he is good with a knife?

Rafael answered, Yes, he is said to be an expert with all manner of bladed weapons.

But he has always been our target, not our ally. Why do you nominate him?

I identified him, his family, his modus operandi, and was discovering his contacts when he went to church with his family and claims he underwent a religious change. He stopped his illegal activities, gave all his money—thousands of dollars—to the church, and started working at any job he could find in town. I figured he sensed we were on to him so he cooled it for a while. He hasn’t smuggled anything or anyone for over two months. It is really strange, because he was making a lot of money; he was one of the best. I believe he has undergone a true change of heart.

Why would we trust him?

Because we have him dead to rights; we know everything about him. If he doesn’t cooperate, he is out of business and goes to jail. Second, I believe he has changed and will truly want to help Mariana.

We will also pay him generously—more than he would ever get for a normal border crossing, Emilio added.

"Ah, la zanahoria y el palillo."

Yes, except the stick is very big, and the carrot will be even bigger; we will also offer him amnesty for past crimes. If he is truly penitent, he will want that.

Juanito said, My contribution will be El Zorrito Gris. He may not be penitent, but we own him; he is in Pueblo San Antonio Jail for smuggling drugs out and guns in. We know where he lives, know everything about him. His family is in Salt Lake City, Utah. We also got his drugs and his guns, so his employers would like to put his head on a post as an example. We can get him on either side of the border. He will cooperate completely.

And what is his real name?

Pedro Tomas Zaballos Garcia.

Does he have enough sense to carry out the mission no matter what?

Yes, he knows he can’t double cross us; there is no other safety for him.

I want them at the church in San Aquinas today—all three of them.

They stopped on a hill in line with a cell tower across the valley, and all three aides made phone calls. In half an hour, they reported that the three coyotes would be at the church by noon.

Emilio asked, Is there a priest at the church?

Not every day. He comes to the village twice a week. They have some deacons who service the day-to-day needs of the congregation. This is Wednesday, so the priest will be here tonight, replied Rafael.

So he will celebrate Mass?

Yes, and Santa Mariana may speak and sing.

You know about Maria Ana Villalobos Olivares?

I do. She is amazing.

"You called her Santa Mariana. Do you believe she is chosen of God too?"

Sir, it would be hard not to believe it. The effect she has on people is amazing. You will see what I mean.

Perhaps I will. I want to try to meet with the priest prior to the Mass. I want our three miscreants to sit in the sanctuary while we meet privately with the priest. They will also attend the Mass; it can’t do them any harm.

"That may not be possible, sir. The church fills two or three hours before a Mass. The windows and doors are opened to allow people in the street to