This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha (4 page)

D
etective Rick Oseguera of the Major Crimes Unit had just returned from vacation when Sergeant Patton slapped him and his partner with a new case. With a fresh cup of station coffee in hand, Oseguera sat down at his desk and looked at Patton’s thin file. There was little information, but Patton’s observations of the scene where the fisherman had found the remains and notes from the conversation with Ben Calzada told him enough. Nothing about this investigation was going to be easy. He picked up a case that Patton had only just begun to consider as the Javier Calzada murder investigation, weeks after the remains were first discovered. By any measure he was playing catch-up from his first moment back on the job.

Detective Oseguera’s west Texas roots were buried somewhere not far from the border near El Paso. His light brown skin contrasted slightly with his graying moustache, which had been part of his personality for decades. Oseguera’s first language was Spanish, but he spoke English fluently, with only a slight accent. He was a details-oriented, no-nonsense cop. His firm handshake and honest, steady gaze spoke of someone who worked with diligence, truly believed in justice, and took pride in his job. Oseguera was known among his peers as someone who chipped away at his cases until every last question had been answered, every shred of evidence discovered, and every connection
made. He was called Bird Dog because he hounded after details like a dog on the hunt.

This investigation would immediately take Oseguera deep into the Latino community living in the greater Dallas area. He would need to interview individuals normally not comfortable with speaking with the police. This was a community where families preferred to keep a low profile and avoid the attention of local authorities. It was a barrier Oseguera himself had had to surmount, and his background and language skills were essential.

Oseguera looked at the open file on his desk. A note at the end said he was scheduled to speak to Ben and Marisa Calzada later that morning. Good, he thought. At least he had a starting point where he could learn as much as possible about their missing son. He would need all the information available to get this case moving. Weeks after the remains had been discovered, there was no confirmation it was a crime, and the body still hadn’t been officially identified. Oseguera sighed as he sipped his coffee. What a way to return from vacation.

The detective’s phone beeped. It was the officer at the front desk telling him that the Calzadas had arrived. He got up and walked down a flight of stairs to the reception area where the Calzadas were waiting. Their eyes darted in his direction when he entered the room. They immediately stood and made quick work of the introductions, but then they fell silent and didn’t look him directly in the eye. These people are not used to dealing with police, Oseguera thought. In silence, the detective escorted them to a simple, stark interview room. There was nothing on the walls, door, or floor that could distract them. The only furnishing consisted of a round, white particleboard table and a few uncomfortable blue chairs.

The Calzadas had introduced themselves in Spanish, so Oseguera also spoke in Spanish. He asked them to tell him about Javier. Marisa sat in resigned silence as Ben began talking. Oseguera didn’t have to ask many questions: Ben had been waiting a long time to finally tell someone everything he knew that could lead to some sort of conclusion to his pain. Picking through what he heard, Oseguera made note of Javier’s cell phone number, the names of two of Javier’s friends, and his girlfriend’s name, address, and cell phone number. He also noted the two facts that Ben repeated, information that Oseguera knew already from Sergeant Patton’s file: Javier Calzada drove the Malibu that
was found in Dallas off Walnut Hill, and the boy’s wallet had been discovered underneath an overpass off Interstate 35.

Oseguera continued to take notes as Ben told him that his son worked at a car dealership in Carrollton. He rarely got into fights, Ben stressed. Ben said Javier hung out around Bachman Lake Park in the evening and on weekends. Finally, when there was a pause in Ben’s monologue, Oseguera quickly asked him for the name and address of Javier’s dentist so he could obtain X-rays. That’s when Marisa spoke up. She had the information with her and handed it over with the reluctance of someone who didn’t want to know the truth but had to have it.

Oseguera completed the interview and escorted the Calzadas to the front lobby. They left arm in arm, walking through the cold, gray morning back to Ben’s van in the parking lot. Oseguera returned to his office to start working the phone while the interview was still fresh in his memory. He had to double-check the information he’d just taken down.

His first call was with the Dallas Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Division. It was a clearinghouse for all information in the state, from birth dates and phone numbers to criminal records and last-known locations. In one call, he could verify the information of all the names Ben had given him. He hung up the phone with almost all his information verified, then he grabbed his coat and headed to the motor pool. He had to meet with the Dallas policemen who had been assigned the Javier Calzada missing-persons case, opened on December 18, the day after Javier failed to come home. They should have additional information and would likely want to ride along as he interviewed everyone associated with Javier.

Days later, Oseguera was at his desk reviewing the notes in the now much thicker case file when his phone rang. It was the Dallas medical examiner. The dental records confirmed that the remains were those of Javier Calzada. The ME also verified that Javier had been murdered, shot point-blank in his left temple. Only fragments of the bullet had been recovered, making ballistics tests impossible. Oseguera thanked the medical examiner for the information and hung up, thinking that at least the missing-persons case could be closed. His next phone call was to the Dallas patrolmen who had accompanied him to every interview he’d conducted over the past forty-eight hours. They agreed to close the case and send their files over to Oseguera’s office so he could
take control of the evidence they had gathered up to that point. He thanked the Dallas police for their help and cradled the phone.

Patton and the Calzadas have been right all along, Oseguera thought to himself. He had suspected that this was a murder case, but up until minutes ago, he didn’t have the official confirmation. Now, sitting at his desk with the case file spread out in front of him, Oseguera looked it over and frowned. He still didn’t have much to work with, and the stakes had just gotten much higher. This was now officially a murder investigation.

B
y the end of the first week of 2002, Oseguera had contacted everyone on his list of names associated with Javier. He had spoken with the victim’s two best friends, his girlfriend, his brother, and a number of other people loosely associated with Javier’s peer group. Oseguera had already gathered all the information he could from interviews, so he decided next to focus on the physical evidence.

Oseguera left his office and headed to the car pound behind the station to pick through Javier’s Malibu. He had arranged for it to be towed from the Dallas Police Department auto pound to Grand Prairie. The detective immediately noted that the car had low-profile tires with expensive chrome rims. Raising an eyebrow and thinking about how much each one of those rims cost, Oseguera concluded that they alone were reason enough to steal the car.

The detective knew that the crime scene investigators had lifted latent prints from the interior window trim of the backseat. They also found a cigarette butt and had collected soil samples from the floorboards in the car. Soil samples with red stains taken from the crime scene matched the soil samples in the car, placing it at the scene of the crime.

When the tow truck driver had picked up Javier’s car from Walnut Hill, he had to move one lug nut from a front tire so he could secure a back tire that was missing all of its lug nuts. It was clear that someone had tried to remove them. Oseguera saw that the left front rim was
missing two lug nuts and the left rear rim was missing three, consistent with the tow truck company’s account. He spent another couple of hours picking over the car, making sure nothing had been left behind, undiscovered or unconsidered.

By midmorning Oseguera was exhausted and a little frustrated. He felt like he was spinning his wheels. There was nothing else in the car, nothing that generated a new lead. Back in his office, he had concluded that he was unable to draw a clear suspect from Javier’s group of friends. Oseguera had gone over his notes from the bits and pieces of stories told to him by wary teenagers suspect of anyone asking questions. No one wanted to get arrested. Many were willing to talk, even visit Oseguera at the Grand Prairie police station, but few remembered all the details. Slowly, however, he was able to piece together some of the facts and rule out all of Javier’s friends as suspects.

They don’t call me Bird Dog for nothing, he thought as he poured another cup of coffee. Though he didn’t have any real answers, Detective Oseguera knew that his diligence with the details would pay off. As he ruminated over the first two weeks’ work, he ticked off in his mind the facts that he was dealing with. He was now certain that Javier was last seen at Bachman Lake Park, about 8:30
P.M.
, eight days before Christmas. Through eyewitness accounts, he knew that someone speaking English had called Javier later that night, and he had deduced that the caller wasn’t a friend or acquaintance that he had interviewed. Someone had tried to steal the tires off Javier’s car. Oseguera furrowed his brow in puzzlement as he tested a thought. Javier was not in a gang. He did hang out at Bachman Lake Park, but the area wasn’t known as a hangout for gang members. Besides, gang activity in Grand Prairie was nearly nonexistent. But if none of Javier’s friends or acquaintances killed him, then who did?

O
seguera’s murder investigation languished for another week until he got a surprise phone call from a detective with the Dallas Police Department’s Gang Unit. Its primary role was to document and track gang activity within the city of Dallas, and the detective had stumbled across Oseguera’s murder case during one of his investigations.

Oseguera stroked his graying moustache as he listened to the detective explain why he was calling: through colleagues in Virginia, they had tracked an out-of-state member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang. It was the first time Oseguera had heard of the gang. He had to repeat the name a couple of times in his head to get it straight. When Virginia cops had issued an arrest warrant for the gangster, he decided to get out of the state and lay low. He was hiding out with his homies in Dallas, where they took care of him and protected him from the police.

Oseguera listened closely and quietly took notes as the detective continued detailing the story. Apparently, the gangster’s flight wasn’t enough to shake off the Virginia cops, and they had succeeded in tracking the guy to Dallas. They had alerted the Dallas Gang Unit of his presence, possible whereabouts, and likely associates. By mid-January, members of the Dallas Gang Unit were searching for two suspects, the gangster on the run and Brenda Paz, someone they thought was hiding him from the law. When members of the Gang Unit, following up on intelligence from Virginia, visited a low-income apartment com
plex in north Dallas, they recovered a shoebox that belonged to Brenda. As he listened, Oseguera made a note of the new name: Brenda Paz. Not one of Javier’s friends, he thought. The Dallas detective then told him that inside the weathered cardboard container was evidence related to Oseguera’s case.

In this shoebox, Brenda had stored a number of items, including a receipt from Blockbuster video with Ben Calzada’s name printed on it. Oseguera immediately made the connection. The detective explained that they had followed up on the address they had obtained from the Blockbuster membership file, hoping to find Brenda and the runaway gangster she was hiding. Ben Calzada had answered the door when the Gang Unit detectives arrived. Mr. Calzada had explained to the officers that his son was recently murdered in Grand Prairie. They showed Ben some of the contents of the box that allegedly belonged to Brenda Paz, and he had identified some cassette tapes that belonged to his son.

Along with the tapes, they found a pair of white Adidas tennis shoes stained with mud, a blue bandanna with
MS
13 stitched on it, a notebook, and a few letters addressed to Brenda Paz. Wrapping up his story, the detective told him they had left the shoebox with the attending officer at his police station.

Oseguera thanked the detective and hung up, then walked downstairs to take possession of the shoebox, with the intention of examining the contents in more detail later. At that moment, he didn’t want to focus on the contents of the shoebox. Maybe they held some clues, but this inspection would have to wait, Oseguera thought as he walked from the lobby to the evidence locker to drop off the shoebox before heading to the motor pool. He was headed to Dallas to follow up on a hunch, something he thought might be connected to the Calzada murder. He drove to the Dallas County Jail to dig a little deeper into a suspect he wanted to question in connection with an armed robbery in Grand Prairie. His investigation had revealed that there were two suspects, a young woman and a man. During the phone call with the detective from the Dallas Gang Unit, Oseguera had begun to realize that his armed-robbery suspects might be connected to the Calzada murder. He knew from Dallas Intelligence that his male suspect had been arrested on Christmas Day and was in prison in Dallas County.

He checked in with the attendant and passed through security before rounding the corner to the holding pen where they had placed his suspect. Oseguera looked at him and saw something he had never
encountered as a veteran police officer in Texas. The skinny Latino man had
MS
tattooed across his forehead in bold, three-inch gothic script. Its placement shocked the detective. There was a tattooed teardrop under his left eye, and the name
VETO
was tattooed in a vertical line up one side of his neck. Tattoos snaked up and down his arms, forming a crude canvas of body art. He was looking at Brenda’s boyfriend, Veto.

Oseguera didn’t know at the time, but the
MS
on Veto’s forehead and the teardrop tattoo were hard-earned symbols of status and power in the Mara Salvatrucha. The teardrop was a common street gang symbol that meant one thing: at some point the wearer had killed in the name of his gang. Within the MS, a teardrop symbolized murder, but it took more than one murder to earn the right to tattoo the name of the gang above the neckline. This was no wannabe. Oseguera was looking at his first true-to-the-death gang member. The gang life was his reality, and he was willing to die and kill for it.

Veto exuded an extraordinary confidence—too much for a man of slight build dressed in a prison jumpsuit and slippers. Yet his eyes were dark and void of emotion. Despite Veto’s manner, Oseguera thought he was probably the kind of man who didn’t have the courage to stand up to someone else on his own. Oseguera got over the shocking tattoos before he cuffed Veto and signed him out for the seventeen-mile trip back to Grand Prairie. His suspect didn’t say a word the whole ride. Oseguera escorted Veto into the Grand Prairie police station, where he was read his rights in Spanish, fingerprinted, and photographed.

“Quiero un abogado,” Veto said. “I want a lawyer.”

Veto clearly knew his rights. He appeared to be a hardened gang member and had said nothing on the ride. He’d obviously been in a similar situation before. Oseguera concluded that Veto would never talk, so he submitted Veto’s prints and photo to the Grand Prairie police database for comparison, but little more could be done. After only fifteen minutes at the Grand Prairie police station, Oseguera drove Veto back to the Dallas County Jail. His hunch hadn’t panned out. But it was something he had to check. Leave nothing unturned, Oseguera thought as he got out of the car back in Grand Prairie. He stopped by the evidence locker to grab the shoebox and tucked it under his arm for the quick walk back to his office. He placed the box on his desk, pulled the top, and removed the contents, carefully spreading them out before he started sifting through the evidence.

The white Adidas shoes were too small to be Javier’s, but the mud
was useful. He logged the shoes and took a sample of the mud to have it compared to the mud removed from the floorboards of the car. The blue bandanna with
MS
13 stitched on it might be interesting, but he didn’t focus on it. What caught his attention was a letter addressed to Brenda Paz. In the upper left-hand corner of the envelope was a Dallas County prison inmate ID number, 01098008. With the letter in front of him Oseguera grabbed the phone to call the Dallas Sheriff’s Department to confirm the number. He was surprised to learn it was assigned to the same inmate he had just returned to the Dallas County Jail.

Oseguera smiled as he hung up the phone. He now had a link between Veto and Brenda Paz. He could also connect this Brenda Paz with Javier Calzada because of the Blockbuster receipt found in her shoebox. Together, it was enough to arrest Brenda for her connection with the Calzada murder and to seriously consider Veto as a second suspect. Oseguera called Dallas Intelligence and learned that Brenda had a local address in Carrollton, Texas, and was listed as a runaway. She was now a prime suspect.