Page 48

CHAPTER 46

ALMOST TWELVE HOURS later, around eight fifteen in the evening, Tiago Garza stood near a vertical heating duct, which carried down the muffled sounds of the couple upstairs talking over dinner. A little later, he heard the clinking of dishes as they cleaned up.

Garza napped. When he woke up, he could just make out the sounds of the laugh track to a late-night talk show coming from the bedroom TV on the second floor.

He waited another hour and ten minutes. It was now after 1 a.m. The house was quiet. Garza stepped out of his hiding place, did some stretches, put his coat back on, and patted his pocket, reassuring himself that the .22 was there. Picking up his machete and keeping his head down, Garza climbed a half dozen steps and opened the door leading into the kitchen and the rest of the house.

The house was in darkness, but he’d been here before. He knew where the chairs, end tables, and entertainment unit were, and how to avoid them. He also knew where the main staircase was. He headed for it and started to climb, then crossed the landing and took the remaining stairs to the second floor. He paused at the half open bedroom door and listened for movement or any sound—but heard nothing.

Garza slipped into the bedroom and stood with his back to the wall. He could see by the light of the clock on the nightstand that two forms were lying on the bed. Taking two steps toward the bed, he pulled out his stolen gun and aimed it at the man gently snoring beside his wife. He fired into the center left of the man’s chest, killing him instantly.

Sandy stirred and rolled toward her husband, giving Garza a clear shot of the back of her skull. He fired and her body bucked. She turned over again, this time toward Garza. His shot had landed but hadn’t killed her.

She sputtered, “Who are you? What did you do?” Her eyes opened and her left hand flew to the side of her head.

“Sandy. Do what I say,” Garza instructed. “Turn over. Put your arms around your husband.”

Garza shot her again, this time in the forehead, and gave the husband another shot to the heart for good measure.

Neither of his targets moved. But Garza wasn’t finished yet. He rearranged the bodies so that they were lying face down and administered the coups de grace.

Based on the bedside clock, less than twenty minutes had passed since Garza first stepped into the room. He left the bedroom and walked down the hallway to the bathroom, where he placed his bounty in the bathtub, along with the machete. He removed his hoodie, turned it inside out, and tied it around his waist. Then he washed his face and hands, ran water over the machete, and dried off with a bath towel. He took the towel, the gun, and his machete with him, and returned to the ground level.

He collected his bag of tools. Then Tiago Garza left the same way he came in.

It was just before noon when, nine and a half hours after leaving number 1848 and crossing the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Garza drove his truck to a prearranged spot outside a junkyard in La Joya, where his friend Juan Carlos Allende greeted him. They exchanged a few words as Juan Carlos opened the gates. Garza drove the truck into the asymmetrical mess of a junkyard, then took out the bag of tools and handed the truck’s keys to his friend, along with a folded inch of cash. He tossed the hoodie into the fire that burned in a fifty-five-gallon drum.

Juan Carlos in turn handed Garza the keys to a late-model Honda as well as a cage holding two chickens. Garza got into the car, pulling his wallet with Mexican ID from between the front seats. Twenty minutes later, he was at his house near Tijuana. As he carried the chickens into the backyard, he said to them, “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”

He killed, gutted, and plucked the birds in the yard, then brought the carcasses inside to be thoroughly cleaned.

His wife, Luisa, hugged and kissed him in greeting.

“Sweetheart, please put the birds in the sink,” she said in Spanish. She poured two glasses of wine and asked, “How did it go?”

“I don’t think there will be a trial anytime soon,” Garza told his wife. “It was a good day.”