CAPTAIN LAW

I had just settled into my seat and was looking forward to my cup of coffee and a tortilla con carne guisada when the phone rang.

"Captain?"

"Yeah."

"This is Lieutenant Gonzalez."

"What's up, Lieutenant?"

"We have a body in a field next to the Military Highway a mile past Veterans High School."

"Give me the details."

"She must be in early twenties at most, Anglo, long blonde hair, a tattoo of a mermaid one one shoulder and a sun on the other shoulder with a ring through her belly button."

"Did you touch the body, Lieutenant?"

"Of course not, sir. She is nude and is lying on her back."

"Are there any marks of violence?"

"She has multiple stab wounds."

"How long do you estimate since she was murdered?"

"Three to six hours, sir. I would guess that she was stabbed elsewhere and her body dumped here."

"Very good, lieutenant. I'm sure you have sealed the area. Do you have back-up?"

"There are several officers here, sir."

"Don't allow anyone near the body until I arrive. Let me enjoy sip of coffee and a bite of my tortilla and I'll be there in 15 minutes."

"Yes, sir."

I was starting a Monday with a murder. At least it was alliterative. I called Public Information and let Sergeant Garcia know the about the incident. I told him to keep the facts regarding the victim to a minimum, to emphasize we were in the middle of an ongoing investigation and we had no suspect. I repeated the line about anyone having any knowledge of the crime to contact the usual number. I concluded by adding that if the newspaper or the television stations called to direct them to the crime scene.

"What happened to your Cowboys last night, Captain?"

"They got the shit kicked out of them, but nearly as bad as this little girl. I hope she wasn't your daughter?"

"Sorry, Captain."

I communicated Detective Contreras to accompany me.

"What's up, Captain?"

"We have the murder of a young girl. I need your assistance."

Whenever there was a female victim, I called Contreras or one of her female underlings. Though it wasn't quite the same as a doctor examining a woman alone in hir office, I always kept my distance. I had a 14-year-old step-daughter and though we shared a healthy relationship, I never quit reminding her mother that her daughter was her business and I was strictly Mr. Nice Guy who existed on the periphery. If she had problems, it was her mother's responsibility to solve them and to never involve me. If she needed $10 to go to the movies, she could count on me, but if she was having a traumatic teenage moment, I was leaving to go play tennis.

Investigator Contreras was a looker. As a 25-year-old vet of the Brownsville Police Department, I had successfully kept my professional and personal lives separate, but she was capable of testing all my powers of temptation. While all women pine for a romance with a man in a uniform at least one, nobody did more to enhance her attire than Contreras.

"Did you cut your hair?" I asked.

"Do you like it?" 

"I like it shorter. And have you lost weight also?"

"Divorces are miracle workers."

"It is finalized?"

"Finally. How is it with you guys that the perfect man becomes the cruelest monster?"

"We're like Dracula or Werewolf. We're victims of the elements. There are chemical changes that take place when we least expect them and we don't recognize ourselves."

"I thought that only women with their periods and menopause became emotionally unhinged, but if there's a full moon I need to keep my distance from every male?"

"I've been divorced four times and if I marry again I expect that matrimony to end. Between boredom and putting up with their shit, women lose their allure and there's another one to take their place."

"Aren't you the macho?"

"Life's too short. There is nothing worse than coming home from a hard day at work only to encounter a one-time beauty who has metamorphose into a bitch. I may have loved them once, but God has given me the power to forget them from one moment to the next. Have you started dating yet?"

"There's a lawyer, and I won't mention his name because you're the biggest gossip in town, that I've had dinner with two or three times, but he's in the peacock stage showing all his feathers and I find all this pretending irksome. Getting to know someone is as burdensome as getting rid of someone."

We arrived at the scene. Law enforcement in all its glory had gathered out of curiosity. The Sheriff' Department, DPS, the Border Patrol and even two school district squad cars had stopped to observe the commotion.

I waved and muttered "hi" since I knew most of the gathering, but I didn't stop. I spotted Lieutenant Gonzalez. He was standing with the rigidity of a guard at the White House. He had been a Marine and he could probably remain at attention for 24/7. Nobody would ever pass him without him bringing them to the ground.

"Where's the body, Gonzalez?"

"Ten yards straight ahead, sir."

"Has forensics arrived, Gonzalez?"

"No, sir."

"Keep your position and don't allow anyone near the victim until forensics arrives."

"Yes, sir."

"Detective Contreras! Follow me."

We walked through the severed stalks of corn until we reached the body. I stared at her naked body with its many slits from knife thrusts. I couldn't help but notice that she had the most beautiful pair of tits and that she shaved her pussy. I was an old-school guy. I liked a hairy cunt. There was something about hitting that hairline when you seduce a woman that added to the excitement as your hand crept southward.

"Take a closer look, Detective, but don't touch anything. Remember we must leave our shoes with forensics because they might find evidence on our soles."

Contreras gingerly walked around the body. She leaned over the supine figure for extended moments and then would step lightly forward in a circular movement. It was going to be a typical humid day. Perspiration was collecting on my brow. I hated South Texas summer months. After sleeping in air-conditioning all night, the still, thick air was no way to greet the day. It was worse than hitting a wall. The temperature might rise throughout the day, but in the late afternoon the breezes would blow off the gulf and you could comfortably sit in the backyard and drink a beer. Nothing caught my eye except I could discern the direction the body had been dragged to its present location. I yelled to Gonzalez to make sure that nobody stepped on the improvised path. There were no discarded clothes anywhere. I waited for Contreras to finish her inspection.

"What did you find, Detective?"

"There are at least 30 stab wounds. I believed she was rape by the discharge I observed around her vagina. There was some blood around her fingernails, which leads me to deduce that there was a struggle. I didn't note any bruises and I have little doubt that she was dead when her murderer dumped her here."

"Very good, Detective. Write your report when we arrive at the office."

In the few minutes we had stood at the victim's side, all the experts had arrived. I gave them a general lay of the land and once again pointed out the path along which the victim had been dragged. They guaranteed me photos and reports by tomorrow at the latest and possibly by the end of the day. Everybody went methodically about their assignments. It wasn't a sloppy mess as when a body has been rotting in the sun for several days or there are three or four mangled bodies in a head-on collision.

"She was a beauty," said Contreras. "I'm surprised that nobody has filed a missing-persons report. She obviously wasn't a vagrant. Do you have any theories, Holmes?"

"Holmes wouldn't have been such a wooden figure if he had had you as his Dr. Watson, but on the surface I'm going to surmise that we will have it solved by the end of the day."

"I wouldn't expect anything less from The Legend."

"This is a crime of passion based on the stab wounds. The murderer was so overwrought that he couldn't stop stabbing her once he lost control of himself in a fit of jealous rage. The murderer is her boyfriend or her lover or whatever title you choose to designate the person with whom she was having an intimate relationship. She had either cheated on him or was going to leave him and he went berserk. He convinced her to meet him under any number of pretexts. Once he had her in the car, I don't doubt that he drove into the country, somewhere near this site I would gander, took her down a dirt road off the highway and ripped off her clothes, raped her, succumbed to a stabbing frenzy and then quickly rid himself of the body. He isn't a professional criminal, so our colleagues will find more than sufficient evidence to nail the subject. Once we locate her family, everything will fall into place."

"You are like a computer shooting out information, Captain. Don't you feel any emotion?"

"It is our job to solve the crime, not live the crime. We're like the pound. We collect the dead dog. We don't preoccupy ourselves imagining the car hitting the animal. It's our job to pick up the pieces. We can't lose sleep over the fact that we can't put the pieces back together again. But I must confess that I do have an empty feeling."

"That's gratifying to hear. At least there's some humanity left in you."

"You miss my point, Detective. When I received this call, I was going to eat my breakfast. I'm starving. Breakfast is on me."

"If all men are as cold as you, Captain, I'm doomed."

"After huevos rancheros, Detective, life won't seem so bleak. I have found that a woman with a full stomach is much more optimistic about her future."