THE PRETENDER: DRIVEN BY HATRED
Jim Bevan

CHAPTER III: ON PATROL

Del Rio, Texas

Jarod looked out at the steady stream of cars, stretching for miles back into Mexico, each one eagerly awaiting passage through the checkpoint. The sun was much brighter and hotter here than he'd experienced in Arizona, and his head was pounding from the heat. Still, he had a job to do, and a little headache wasn't going to keep him from completing it. He walked over from the booth to a beat up Oldsmobile Cutlass where his colleague, a black man in his early 30s and clad in an identical white shirt, gray pants and black hat bearing the insignia "United States Border Patrol." Currently, his partner was in a scuffle with the car's driver.

"Listen Shipton, the last three times you've been through this checkpoint you're carrying something you shouldn't be," the black man said to the driver, a young white man with a brown crewcut and a rodent-like face. "Now contrary to what you may think, employees of the federal government are not stupid. So if you're coming this way again, then there is a strong chance you have some more illegal contraband with you. So tell me where it is!"

"Ah, come on Officer Anderson," Shipton responded in a typical Texan drawl. "Look, I admit I made a few mistakes in the past, everyone does. But I'm hurt, hurt by your accusation that I'm continuing in a criminal trade. People change, and I think I proved it. You searched the entire car from engine to trunk, including my person, which I both enjoyed and objected to," he gave a superior, insulting smirk, "and you've yet to find anything. Now, does this mean I can go."

"You'll go when I tell you to, Punk!" Anderson shouted to his face. "I know you have smuggled goods on this car and I'm going to find them. Now make it easy on yourself and tell me where you hid them!"

"There a problem, Mark?" Jarod asked, coming up from behind his partner. "It seems this man is giving you quite a bit of aggravation, and I don't want to think about how the people behind him feel."

"Jarod, say hello to Eric Shipton." Shipton waved to Jarod following his introduction. "Repeat offender. Apprehended three times last year carrying in a whole mess of stuff wanting to make a profit: liquor, cigars, illegal fireworks, et cetera. Now I believe history repeats itself, and he's trying to pull this again. Only problem is, I checked over the entire car and couldn't find a damn thing."

Jarod rubbed his chin, wondering where the smuggled goods might be kept. He looked at the man in the driver's seat. Reminded him of Argyle, and Jarod knew what a pain he was. He figured that Shipton acted like Argyle as well, tried to be clever but was actually a fool. He leaned in through the window. "Good afternoon, Mr. Shipton."

"Please, call me Eric." He extended his hand out, and was met with a hearty handshake. "You seem like a nice guy. Can you tell Boss Godfrey to stop being so mean? Forget the past and let bygones be bygones. I mean, come on, I don't have anything with me."

"Boss Godfrey?"

"What, you never seen Cool Hand Luke? Gotta watch it, great movie, one of Newman's best. I loved it. 'What we have here is a failure to communicate!' A classic."

"Sorry, I haven't seen too many movies. However, I am inclined to agree with Officer Anderson in suspecting you have smuggled goods on board. Mark, you checked the seats, trunk, all that, right?" Anderson nodded in agreement. "Well, we could always check inside the tires. Got a knife?" Anderson produced a pocket knife, and Shipton promptly panicked."

"Whoa, woah! You ain't carving up my car on some hunch! I got rights, and I haven't paid off the insurance yet."

"Relax, Mr. Shipton, it's just a little joke. However, I would like to examine your trunk again. Could you open it for me?"

"Sure can, got a button that opens it from the inside. Don't think it'll do ya any good, though. Ol' Mark checked it twice already, found nothing."

The trunk was popped, and Jarod proceeded to the back of the car. "Sometimes it pays to take a closer examination." He looked inside and saw a variety of material: a tire iron, dirty magazines, spare clothes. Everything seemed to be in order. But something seemed different, out of place.

"Mark, come here for a minute," Jarod called his partner over. He came and looked into the trunk. "Does anything about this seem. out of the ordinary? Nothing really obvious, just not commonplace?"

"Jarod, I checked it twice. I've been on the job 16 years. If something was out of the ordinary I'd have noticed it."

"Yes, I could tell, but I've had a little experience with cars. And from what I know about a Cutlass, the trunk seems. smaller than usual." He began banging on the back of the trunk's interior: nothing but a few dull thuds from the knocks. Still, instinct told him this was wrong. He was vindicated by the nervous look on Shipton's face. He knew that if Anderson hadn't taken the keys, he'd be flooring it right now. Jarod craned his head into the trunk and screamed out, "Policia! Salido con sus manos arriba!"

"No me lastime, por favor!" a muffled voice came from inside the car, originating from behind the backdrop of the trunk. The fake back was kicked down, and a middle-aged Mexican man was revealed to be curled up in the real rear. "Me entrego."

"Ah, Pedro we were almost clear!" Shipton shouted in disgust. "You couldn't have stayed quiet for a few more minutes?!" He banged his head against the steering wheel in frustration. Anderson came up to the driver's side, opened the door, grabbed him by the wrists and led him out.

"I knew it. My instinct told me you had something. This is actually a step up for you. Keep transporting people, you would have been a rich man. If, you hadn't passed by our way, of course." Now Anderson gave the superior grin to the grumbling Shipton as he led him to the checkpoint booth to be held until the police arrived.

By the car, Jarod was trying his hardest to comfort the Mexican man. He was disheveled, his clothes dirty and he was panicing. Jarod put a comforting
hand on his shoulder. "Relaje, usted no tiene nada temer. Mi nombre es
Jarod, le ayudare a conseguir su casero."

"So this Shipton guy's a career smuggler," Jarod asked Anderson as he drove them back to the Del Rio main office that evening. Their shifts had ended, and the only real excitement during their workday had been the incident with Mark Shipton. He'd been taken into custody by the police, and the Mexican man, Pedro Salovar, was being returned home. with promises of receiving an immigration application in a week (suggested by Jarod.)

"Yeah, he's been doing it about 2, 3 years now. Wasn't up until a few months ago that people started getting wise to him. We've caught him on a few separate occasions, but most of the time he manages to get through. I don't know, maybe some of the agents are on the take, but I know almost all of them, and they wouldn't do something like that. Still, never thought a guy like Mark would decide to go coyote."

"A coyote?" Jarod inquired.

"Little slang term we use for people who transport illegals into the country. Don't ask me where it came from, but it's a commonplace expression now."

"Jarod sat back in his chair and thought about the connotation. "So, if Shipton's the 'coyote', I guess that makes us a couple of roadrunners, eh Eric."

Anderson chuckled at the joke. "Man, you've got a good sense of humor, Jarod. But how the hell could you know that there was a false back in the trunk?"

"I told you, I've had a little experience with cars. Spent five weeks at Dawson's garage in Phoenix." Anderson laughed at this one as well. "What a wit. My buddies will love you. They'll be back from their shifts about now, so we'll sit around, play some cards, chat. Hopefully you'll join us."

"I can't wait, sir."

The car finally pulled up to the small stone building on the city outskirts. Jarod and Eric got out and entered through the front door. Inside they found two men sitting at a table, laughing hysterically, munching on chips and playing cards. Anderson cleared his throat and alerted the others. They stopped playing and laughing and looked up from the table.

"Jarod, I'd like you to meet Steven Bell," he waved to a 30-ish man with a blonde mullet, "and Patrick Finn, our Deputy Chief Patrol Agent," he motioned to a man in his early 40s with a black pompadour. Anderson then pointed to Jarod. "Steve, Pat, this is our newest officer, Jarod Collins. You're not gonna believe this, but first day on the job he managed to bust Mark Shipton for immigrant smuggling."

"Wow, now that is impressive," Finn said in amazement, getting up to shake Jarod's hand. "Usually it takes the new guy about four months to catch Mark in the act. I can see why the bigwigs in Miami gave you such a good review."

"Yeah, with you working here, Jarod, Finn's gonna have to watch out or else you'll pass him up for CPA post," Bell chimed in

"Nice try, I'd kill you before you beat me out for CPA." Finn laughed hysterically and slapped Jarod on the back. He jerked forward, quickly regaining his composure and joining in the laughter.

"Well, now that we all know each other, let's play a little 7-card stud," Bell suggested.

"Oh, man I'd love to, but I have some work to do at home. Sorry, we'll do this tomorrow." Jarod said goodbye to his colleagues, left the building and started walking off toward the city.

The cool night air felt wonderful on Jarod's face, a welcome respite from the heat he'd endured all day. "The night has this strange effect on people," he thought to himself. "Everyone is overcome by this feeling of calm, serenity. I've always thought that the image of the night sky and the stars affects certain sensory receptors, and that's what causes the feelings of peace of relaxation." He waved to a cyclist travelling past him on the street, and turned onto Hamilton Lane. There he walked to a massive building of stone and steel, surrounded by a barbed-wire gate. A bronze sign on the gate read Val Verde County Prison. Jarod walked up to pillars by the front doors and rang a buzzer, signaling the intercom.

"This is Agent Collins of the Del Rio border patrol. I have an appointment to see Daniel Ramirez." The doors opened before him.

"Come right in Agent Collins," a female voice came over the intercom. "We've been expecting you." He walked through the gate and entered the main area.

"Please wait right here, Mr. Collins," the woman at the front desk said. "I'll get one of the guards to escort you to Mr. Ramirez's cell." The woman headed off and Jarod pulled his latest red notebook out of his pants pocket. He flipped through to see the articles he'd collected. The first one showed a picture of two beautiful Hispanic girls in their early 20s, smiling and hanging out together. TRAGIC FATE FOR MEXICAN GIRLS, the headline read, accompanied by the subhead Friends since childhood found strangled, bodies uncovered in river.

The second article showed the girls in individual photos, still with gleeful expressions on their face. They were identified as Meche Gabrillo and Diana Cortez. INNOCENCE LOST, DREAMS DEAD, this headline read. Victims of brutal murder hoped to start new lives in America. The last article showed a picture of a Hispanic man in his late 20s being escorted by police. SUSPECT APPREHENDED IN MURDER OF MEXICAN WOMEN. The caption informed readers that the man was Daniel Ramirez, while the article told that he was a recent immigrant to the country who knew the two victims when he lived in Mexico, and who had already been in jail for a series of felonies in the past. Jarod looked up from his book with a sorrowful expression on his face.

"Agent Collins, we're ready to take you to Mr. Ramirez's cell," said a large man who'd appeared. He took Jarod down the hallway, passing by a number of convicts who were sobbing, screaming, swearing and pounding their heads against their cell walls. They stopped at a cell, and the guard opened the door. "You've got 10 minutes with him. Be careful, because as far as we can tell, he's a killer."

Jarod entered the cell and the door was closed behind him, the guard standing close watch. He moved over to a man lying on a cot. He was about 27, had his brown hair cut short, and was silently sobbing into his pillow. "Daniel?" he asked with a wavering voice. "Danny, can I talk to you for a minute."

Ramirez looked up from his pillow and stared at Jarod, tears in his eyes. "Go away, man. I just wanna be by myself," he sobbed with a slight Hispanic accent.

"I need to ask you some questions, Danny."

"Please, just go away. I told the police everything I know and they didn't believe me. I'm not a liar or a killer, and I don't want anyone else calling me one."

"I know you're not lying," Jarod said in a sympathetic tone, "and I know you didn't kill those two girls. I just want to know why you're in jail, and why the man who murdered them is still free." Ramirez stopped crying and looked at Jarod's smiling face. He felt, knew he could trust this man. And he knew this man would trust him, probably help get him out of here. He silently prayed to God for help and invited Jarod to sit next to him.