Buried Ladies: A Novel of Murder, Mystery, and the Dark Web

By Angela Hausman

Some men are just evil. And, when Joan calls 911 to report the murder of her friend, Estella, she starts a manhunt for pure evil, but not in the way she expected.

Buried Ladies, tracks a serial killer on both sides of the US-Mexican border. But, he’s not even the most evil man in this novel of murder and the dark web. That title might belong to Arturo Vasquez, who once loved Estella, but now holds her hostage as part of a cartel operation that nearly ends the lives of her husband and Joan when they try to rescue her. Or is it Hector Mateo, who runs the Gulf Cartel using a cruel form of justice that eliminates an enemy’s entire family. Maybe it’s even Detective Morales, who has a single-minded focus that makes it impossible to accept evidence unless it supports the suspect he’s chasing.

"Buried Ladies" is a fast-paced novel set along the Texas/ Mexican border -- a place called the valley. It's here that our story starts with a 911 call to report Estella's murder. But, there's no body - only a missing person and a red stain on the carpeting in the home she shares with her husband, Jaime. Soon, bodies turn up in a construction site north of McAllen, but none of them is Estella. So, what's happened to Estella?

Jaime flees McAllen soon after police interview him about his wife's disappearance -- they don't buy his story that she's visiting relatives. As he prepares to fly out, he runs across the real serial killer, a ruthless man who kills his victims as part of his sexual release. Many are poor women from Mexico.

In the search for Estella, the story winds its way through Mexican cartels, especially the Gulf Cartel, where readers learn about how these organizations operate outside the law with impunity due to their vast wealth in a poor country. Arturo is one of the leaders. He lives in an opulent home -- really a compound where he enforces the rules of his cartel masters and stores drugs destined to reach the US through its network of mules.

Through a series of twists and turns that take us to a job hacking into the DEA computer for the Gulf Cartel and efforts to discover the serial killer responsible for at least 5 dead women in the Rio Grande Valley, we learn about the inner workings of a truly evil mind.

Readers who enjoyed the convoluted plots of The Short Drop or the cyber sleuthing of Dead Beef will enjoy the twists and turns that keep you reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angela Hausman
• Release date: May 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781539891802

Angela Hausman

The Buried Ladies series (Buried Ladies, Scars of the Past, and 1 more) are the first fiction written by Angela Hausman since creating ahighly acclaimed (by fellow 6th graders, teachers, and family) science fiction series as a teen. Dr. Angela Hausman was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and later received undergraduate and MBA degrees from the University of Pittsburgh before completing a Marketing PhD at the University of South Florida. Over her career, she lived in many places and met diverse people, which she filed away to create her plots and characters. Angela currently lives in Washington, DC, where she works asa marketing consultant and teaches marketing at George Washington andUniversity of Maryland. She writes in her home office, where various dogs and cats block her in until she's finished the day's writing quota.

Book preview

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my children, Sarah, Rebecca, and Sam who patiently, and not so patiently, helped create it. And, to the people of the Rio Grande Valley who inspired it.

Chapter 1

Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency? she said by rote. God, she thought, I hope it’s not another loony tune. She was 10 hours into a double—helping Lupita who was home with a sick kid. At least it beat trying to sleep in this sauna, where you couldn’t even breathe when you got outside. And her A/C was on the fritz … again.

That’s what she’d had today—loony tunes. Some nutcase even called to complain that his fries weren’t hot enough at McDonalds. Wanted a cop out there to arrest the fry kid. Maybe the hot weather just brought out the crazy in folks. Jeez, she hoped Lupita’s kid was….

He killed her. He killed his wife.

That shut up her inner voice. I’m sorry, did you say he killed his wife?

Yes.

Can I please get your name and phone number … in case we get disconnected. Lots of folks didn’t like to leave their name. Afraid of getting involved … having to testify in court. Sure, an anonymous tip was fine because she already had the address as part of the 911 system; had already dispatched a patrol car as soon as she knew what help was needed, but she tried to get the information. By the book.

It’s Joan, Joan Kavenaugh. Please hurry.

Not sure it’ll do no good since she’s dead already, she thought as she added the name so responding officers knew who to talk to, but, she didn’t say it. They monitored your calls and that kind of remark got you written up. Plus, she really cared about the people of the Rio Grande Valley. She’d lived here all her life. Knew most folks until the Maquila plants started going in, bringing folks from Minnesota and all kind of places where the work wasn’t so good and the snow piled up like white dunes.

Ok, just slow down, Joan. Are you in a safe place? Tell me where you are and what you saw.

Well, and Marylou could hear the catch in her voice. I’m at home. And, I know Jaime, Estella’s husband, did it. Killed her right there in the living room.

Are you sure she’s dead or do I need to call an ambulance? No response.

Joan … Joan. You still there? Tell me what you saw. She really didn’t need this, but she loved getting all the details. Shared them with her friend at the laundromat on Saturday afternoons. People loved her stories, she thought. Are you in a safe place? she repeated, getting back to business.

Safe, yes, I guess so. Just scared. Can you send the police now?

Already got a call in to them, honey. Should be there in about 10 minutes, she said consulting the update on the 911 system. Danny and Mike were responding. While we’re waitin’, can you tell me a little more about this alleged murder? I hate sayin’ stuff like that, but that’s the rule. Gotta give all them murderers the benefit. Don’t wanna hurt their feelin’s or nuthin. Lawyers! she thought. She was simply stalling, trying to keep Joan calm until the police arrived.

Well, it was last week. Jaime said Estella was heading up to Maine to stay with her aunt for a while—her aunt has breast cancer, going through chemo. But, I never believed it. She would have called me. Told me something. We’re best friends, after all. She’d never have waited this long—it’s been almost two weeks and she’s not answering her phone. Plus, we’re supposed to leave for South Padre in a few days; spending the Labor Day weekend there. She definitely would have called or texted if she couldn’t make it.

So, you didn’t actually see the murder? Did you see the body? Marylou was trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Oh, crap. Another looney tune. Gotta be the heat.

Danny would tease the heck out of her when he got back from talking to this nut job. Why’d she always get the crazies? Like the time she sent SWAT, or what passed for it in this town, out on a call about some explosives. Turned out some old bat heard fireworks. Had her hearing aid turned up too high and thought she heard Armageddon starting

Danny picked on her for weeks after that. Of course, the cops didn’t like getting all suited up in flak jackets and such, especially in this heat, but it wasn’t her fault when crazy people called with their imaginary emergencies.

Danny was sooooo handsome. Hot, his brown skin without a mark on it. And that thin film of sweat he had most times on account of the 90-degree heat made him look even hotter. It made his skin just shine. And, I bet I could bounce a quarter off his abs. He must do like 200 sit-ups a day to stay that tight. ‘course she’d never seen him with his shirt off, but you could just kinda tell with the tight shirts he wore.

"….. and she’s always out there puttering around with her prize roses by now. Pruning and feeding.

Wow, she really spaced out. Why was I thinkin’ about Danny. He would be there soon. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the double today, what with my mind wanderin’ like that. I might miss something important. After this call, I’ll grab myself another coffee. That might help keep me focused.

Well, the police is on the way. I can stay on with you ‘til they git there, if you wan’.

Nah, that’s OK. I can hear them coming up the street now. I’ll just go out and meet them.

You take care, hon. And she hung up.

Joan looked out the window as the cops came down the street. While she watched the police car make its lazy way down the street, Joan thought about her friends Estella and Jaime. Estella came from Matamoros, just like Jaime. That’s where they met. Estella and Jaime married at 19, had to, she was pregnant.

Unfortunately, Estella lost the baby soon after the wedding. They’d been trying for another, but, so far, it hadn’t happened. Instead, she poured her maternal instincts into her flowers.

Jaime. What was he trying to do? Why did he kill his wife? They’d only been married a few years and they seemed so happy. Did the baby, or lack of a baby, finally make him crack?

Poor Estella. She was only 25, just a few years younger than Joan. So young and beautiful. Such as lovely person, always willing to help anyone who needed her. Like the couple down the street who struggled with their yard. She went over and helped them choose the right plants for this arid climate … showed them how to set up the irrigation system. Now their yard was almost as nice as the one in front of Estella’s house.

Joan was angry. She loved Estella like a sister. She’d loved Jaime, too. But he did something to Estella. The amount of blood she’d seen meant her friend was dead … you couldn’t lose that much blood and live. So what if the woman from 911 didn’t believe Estella was dead. Joan didn’t care, Joan knew it.

Looking out her dining room window as the police pulled up, she saw Estella’s rose bushes were getting leggy and overgrown. They looked thirsty, too. Estella spent hours weeding, watering and fertilizing. She was very proud of her flowers.

Estella had beautiful flowers, especially her roses. She had reds, pinks, and whites with a small fountain in the middle of the bushes. On either side of the front door, massive planters contained geraniums, pansies, and other native annuals. Along the driveway, Texas sage bloomed with tiny purple flowers and bright ornamental peppers added a splash of color in between large king sago palms along the front of the house.

She wouldn’t just leave everything, even to help a sick aunt, like Jaime said. She would have asked Joan to water her roses before she left. She would have told Joan she was leaving … sent a text at the very least.

No, Jaime killed her for whatever reason. And, he had to be punished.

She put on her shoes and got ready to leave the relative cool of the house for the unrelenting heat of a McAllen summer—105° and 90+% humidity. That’s what really got you—the humidity. Without shoes, the short walk to Estella’s place would be like walking on burning coals. Maybe it would rain this afternoon. It didn’t help much; just increased the humidity, but the flowers liked it.

Flowers.

That reminded her why she’d called 911. Her mind was wandering so much today. Thinking about Estella, the Estella she loved, and her fear … certainty … that she was gone. Everything was just getting so mushed up in her head.

She hadn’t seen Estella in almost two weeks—no way she’d been up in Maine all that time without calling her or answering the 50-something calls she’d made to Estella’s cell. Then, last night she saw Jaime take the living room carpet out—the one where she’d seen the massive red stain. He burned it. That’s when she knew.

All morning she’d agonized about what to do. She’d even had a fight with Steve about it before he left for work this morning. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and made the call.

Joan walked out her front door and into an oven. Heat radiated from the street making it look like a small river of undulating water. By the time she met the policemen getting out of their car, she was covered in a patina of sweat.

Hi, I’m Joan. I called you.

I’m Officer Ramirez and this is Officer Rodrigues. I understand you reported a murder. Where is the body?

I don’t know. But, I know Estella’s dead and her husband, Jaime, murdered her, said Joan pointing to the cozy cottage next door. It was covered in light yellow stucco and trimmed in a shade of yellow a little darker than the stucco; looking so happy it belied her words. The windows facing the street were rounded at the top and had bright red drapes. They could see a little of the hardwood floors and the red and brown sofa by tilting their heads a little to the right as they walked up the sidewalk to the front door, as directed by Joan.

See, that hardwood floor is new; I saw the company come yesterday to install it. They carried the threadbare yellow carpet out to the curb before they laid the flooring. But, when he came home from work he, Jaime, that is, carried it out back and burned it.

I’m not really following you. Without a body how do you know she’s dead? Or that her husband killed her? Ma’am, can you start at the beginning?

Sure, sorry, Joan tried to calm down. Now that the police were here, everything just tumbled out of her mouth. She understood why they couldn’t connect the dots. Nothing made sense. Even she didn’t want to believe it, at first, and Steve still didn’t believe her.

My neighbors, Estella and Jaime Gross, live next door. At least he still does. She’s always out working in her flowerbeds and puttering around the house—she works from home, you see. Doing transcription for doctors’ notes and stuff. And, I’m home most days until three, so we usually see a lot of each other. Plus, we’re best friends. We usually have coffee together a couple times a week and our families have adjoining rooms at the Hilton on South Padre for Labor Day weekend. She wouldn’t just disappear without letting me know.

Danny stood in the heat balancing his notebook and writing in the cramped style his wife complained about every time he left her a note. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and onto the page as he listened to her story. Meanwhile, Mike stood by, appraising Joan, while she recounted her tale. He and Danny had been partners since Danny left the academy. Mike was a good guy, but he let Danny take the lead on questioning witnesses. He still treated Danny like he was a kid learning the ropes, but, after five years on the job, Danny didn’t feel like the new kid.

Joan didn’t look like your typical kook, Danny thought. Of course, there wasn’t a typical kook. They came in all shapes and colors. Joan was very pretty, though, tall and rail thin, yet she looked powerful. She was wearing a cute little white sundress that complimented her tan and had tied her blond hair up in a messy bun that showed off her long, lean neck. She moved with a fluid grace that made her seem like a gazelle dancing in a field. But she was definitely imagining things here.

According to Joan, Estella disappeared without a word about two weeks ago. Not normal, but nothing to worry about. Joan tried calling and texting, but she never got any response. After a week or so, she caught up with Jaime on his way to the mailbox and he told her Estella had gone to visit an aunt who had breast cancer. The aunt lived in Maine. He said she’d be back in a week or two.

Joan blushed when she admitted; I peeked in her front window when I couldn’t reach her by phone. I saw a bright red splotch, right there, she said, pointing to a place near the living room sofa. It looked like blood—a lot of blood. Then, yesterday, two men came to install the bamboo flooring Estella ordered.

Danny wished she’d just get to the point. The heat was working its way through the soles of his shoes. His feet were burning. This lady sure likes to hear herself talk.

It took the men all day to install the flooring. When they were done, they took the old, yellow carpet out to the curb for the garbage collectors. Then, last night, Jaime dragged that nasty old thing out into the backyard and burned it. The smell, it was hard to miss, like burning rubber.

Burning carpet was against city ordinances, but that didn’t stop some people. It also didn’t mean murder.

McAllen had quickly grown into a modern city from some little backwoods place primarily populated by folks drifting over from Mexico—folks who brought their old ways with them. Just last night Danny had visited his mother and found the head of a cow in the refrigerator waiting to become Barbacoa. While he relished the delicacy, he still couldn’t stomach the old way of making it from a cow’s head rather than buying it at the grocery store. He shivered, despite the heat, thinking of those sad cow eyes staring back at him.

I’m sorry, but, with no body, there’s not much we can do. Here’s my card. Give me a call if you think of anything else or see something you feel might help with this, said Mike. He wanted to get this over fast now that he knew they were dealing with a nutcase. They had real crime to deal with. He wrote his email address on the card before handing it over to Joan.

Danny wasn’t so sure. While there wasn’t anything he could do officially, Danny had to agree with Joan, it was a little suspicious. Since he was here, he might as well look around outside and maybe check in with Jaime.

Chapter 2

Danny called in his report to Detective Morales, who worked homicides. Morales also thought Joan was a kook, but suggested they run over to the University of Texas and question Jaime Gross so they could close the case. Normally, Morales or one of the other detectives would take care of the investigation, but this didn’t look like there was anything to investigate and they were shorthanded. Besides, Danny made no secret that he wanted to join the detective unit. He spent a lot of time hanging around the unit after his shift was over, poking around … offering help. Looking at his watch, Danny figured there was plenty of time to ask Jaime a few questions before end-of-shift.

Danny and Mike headed over to the university where Jaime worked. The University of Texas-Pan American recently changed its name to UT-Rio Grande Valley after merging with UT-Brownsville and adding a medical school. Jaime worked in the School of Business, managing the computer center and helping the faculty and staff when they had a computer problem.

Despite the new name, the campus looked pretty much the way it had when Danny and Mike went there. Well, except for the new Academic Health Center and the Child Center, both near the School of Business. Danny remembered when they broke ground for the Academic Health Center. That and the new medical school were designed to bring better healthcare to the valley and improve access for low-income residents who often went to the ER for routine medical help, overloading the capacity of the hospitals to handle truly sick patients. The SOB was on the edge of the campus, sandwiched between a building housing the chiller that supplied cool air to the campus and the mathematics building.

While the school might look the same, the school’s enrollment had swelled over the last few years, so parking was at a premium. In their marked car, they felt safe leaving it in front of the chiller building, despite signs warning that unauthorized vehicles would be towed. The campus was hopping with students struggling to find new classrooms since the semester was only a week old. Soon, things would quiet down as everyone fell into a routine.

Walking toward the front of the building, two groups stopped to greet each other; chatting loudly in Spanglish—a peculiar mixture of Spanish, English, and border Mexican, nearly unintelligible to Mexicans living in the interior of the country and baffling Americans who felt you should speak only one language at a time. The students hugged and talked about what they’d done over the summer—some working, some interning, and all enjoying time with friends, family, and just goofing off. Oh, to be young and carefree again!

Danny thought of his own kids, Tomas, eight and Maria, four. Maybe they’d be here someday, carelessly strolling the campus between classes. Of course, Tomas would have to buckle down and master his math class or he’d never go to college. He hated math and refused Danny’s help. Only in 3rd grade, he was already struggling to keep up.

Danny thought about his time here fondly; he even liked drilling in the Texas heat with his ROTC Battalion. Those men and women were still some of his best friends. They’d lost a few during deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and some were still serving in those thankless posts that made the Texas heat feel like a spring day.

Outside of the camaraderie of fellow 1st lieutenants, he didn’t like what came soon after graduation—two deployments to Iraq that ended with a medical discharge when an IED scrambled his brains during his second tour. He missed his friends and felt a little guilty that they were shouldering the burden of war without him.

He’d only been in Iraq six or seven months during his second tour when it happened. He was on patrol with his squad when a roadside IED erupted. Patrick was killed, despite Danny’s efforts to help him. Ignoring his own head wound, Danny had put a tourniquet above Patrick’s leg wound and applied pressure to the wound in his abdomen, but the blood wouldn’t stop. He could feel Patrick’s pulse get weaker and weaker under the palm that covered his abdominal wound. He saw the life go out of Patrick’s eyes. He still had nightmares about his time in Iraq; couldn’t figure out why the US was there in the first place. Sad. So many young men and women had lost their lives or came home damaged. Like him.

He liked being near his family again, though. Soon after he was separated from the Army, he married his college sweetheart and went to the police academy. He’d nearly failed the medical, but his military conditioning meant he passed the physical tests with ease, so they overlooked some of his war injury-related medical conditions. So many officers were guardsmen and women, now deployed in the Middle East, the McAllen police force couldn’t afford to be too picky.

Danny enjoyed the police force and was happy he was partnered with Mike (Miguel) most days. Looking over at Mike, he saw a smile on his face, too. Being back on campus made you feel like a college kid again.

Mike hadn’t had much to smile about lately. His divorce was finalized last month after about a year of fighting over terms with his ex. It had been very acrimonious. They still fought almost every time Mike went over to pick up his three kids. Mike moved into a small apartment because most of his salary went to child support and alimony. He was happy to take care of his kids, but his ex-wife was never satisfied, even though they lived in the house he still paid for, along with her girlfriend.

Mike was a good guy. A little older than Danny, he looked like Poncho Villa—he was short, with brown skin, dark eyes and a dull, dropping mustache that most police departments wouldn’t have allowed. He’d served in the first round of Desert Storm—didn’t the government ever learn anything. Of course, Halliburton, which was just down the road, loved all the money coming in from the war—millions from the meals and supplies sold to the government for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Danny had never been in the SOB building before and had no idea where the computer lab was. They stopped by the dean’s office where an undergrad gave them a map of the building and showed them where to find Jaime. They thanked her and followed the directions to the computer lab, which was on the second floor.

Jaime, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Danny said, introducing himself and Mike then pointing to a chair away from where the few students sat working on computers. He wanted a little privacy for this conversation.

Jaime retained the bulk he’d put on helping in the fields, even though he wasn’t needed there much anymore. Jaime, like Estella, was born to decedents of Jews who immigrated to South America during and after WWII. Unlike Estella’s family, who were wealthy Jews, his family came from a much humbler background. Instead of arriving on a luxury ocean liner with jewels sewn into their coats, his family arrived when a great aunt followed her new husband to Argentina in the 1930’s. With little formal education and speaking only Yiddish, the uncle got himself a little tinker’s cart and sold trinkets, sharpened knives, and spent too much time swapping stories with other Jews lucky enough to make it out of Nazi Germany before being shipped to the death camps.

That hard-talking great uncle supported Jaime’s family when they joined the Jewish exodus from Greece after the war and provided the money they put up to buy a little farm outside Matamoros in the ‘80’s, when Jaime was just a baby. Raising crops didn’t generate enough money for hiring hands to work the farm in those early years, so the entire family worked to help with the planting and harvesting, which explained the sinewy muscles running down his exposed arms and the massive chest and legs outline by his clothing.

Eventually, the farm made enough profit to allow Jaime and his brothers to study at universities in Texas, where they remained after graduation. Jaime, who studied information technology, came to UT-RGV to work in the computer lab, while his brothers worked in Austin and Houston.

Today, he wore a grey polo shirt emblazoned with the UT-RGV logo tucked into neatly ironed khakis. His shoulder-length chestnut hair was clean and neatly combed. He certainly didn’t look like a man who just killed his wife. He removed his rimless glasses as he approached the two officers.

Sure, how can I help?

I’d like to ask you some questions about your wife.

Jaime’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. She’s visiting her aunt in Maine. She, the aunt that is, has breast cancer and the chemo made her sick. Estella went to help out— take her to appointments, fix supper for the family, do a few loads of laundry. Why do you ask?

Can I get her number and maybe the number for the aunt? I just need to talk to her—clear up a few things.

Danny noticed sweat spring out on Jaime’s lip and forehead despite the coolness of the computer lab. Jaime wiped it with the back of his hand and looked away.

Uh, Jaime?

Yeah, sorry. See, I can’t give you her number. She forgot her cell phone on the dresser when she left and the aunt doesn’t have one. She’s a little crazy, complained about getting too many sales calls. She figured she was the subject of identity theft and didn’t want those folks tracking her through her phone’s GPS.

What about an email address—something where we can reach her?

Maybe if you’ll tell me what all this is about, I can help. No need to bother Estella. She’s busy with all the kids and running around. I’m sure I have whatever information you need.

I’m really gonna have to insist that I get contact information. Has something happened to Estella? Something you’re not telling me?

Jaime’s face went white and his lip trembled; Danny even saw a slight shake in the hand holding his glasses. Jaime definitely had something to hide … was all closed up—arms crossed, shoulders scrunched up, legs crossed, feet tucked tightly under him. He wouldn’t make direct eye contact. Something just wasn’t right here and Jaime knew what it was.

Well, you’re gonna have to talk to my attorney because I don’t have anything more to say, Jaime said and handed Danny a crinkled-up card from his wallet. She’s in Maine. With her aunt. That’s it. Now please leave so I can get back to work. There’s an exam tomorrow and I have to load up software on these computers so students can do the test. I’m very busy.

Weird, thought Danny. Why does a little computer manager need an attorney? Ask practically anyone on the street and you’ll find most don’t have one or know one and they certainly don’t carry a card for one in their wallets. He looked at the card. John Temmer, esq at Temmer, Temmer, and Stock, a pretty high-powered (and expensive) law firm for a guy probably making $50K a year. Joan was starting to make some sense.

OK, thanks for your time.

As they left the building and headed toward their car, Danny and Mike glanced at each other and Danny shook his head. That’s a guy who knows more than he’s saying. We need to find out more about his guy.

Mike just nodded. Turning the AC to high, they started back to the station to fill Morales in on their encounters. Morales asked Danny to pull any information he could find on Jamie Gross, if he didn’t mind doing a little detective work on his own time before he went home.

Chapter 3

Joan puttered around her kitchen, but she couldn’t really concentrate on anything.

Where was Estella? What happened to her?

Was she going crazy? The police certainly seemed to think she was.

Maybe everything was perfectly fine and she was overreacting, like Steve said. She sat there recalling her conversation with Steve earlier.

Steve, I’ve got to do something about Estella. Something’s happened to her. I think her husband killed her.

Are you crazy? What would make you say a thing like that? She’s just busy, he said as he knotted the tie around his neck. He probably could have worn a polo shirt and dress pants, but he was still used to dressing for that fancy prep school where he taught in NY. He had given up the jacket in deference to the heat, however.

I don’t buy that story about the aunt in Maine. She would have called me, especially because she knows we’re supposed to spend this weekend together.

Honey, just think for a moment. Don’t do anything rash. Isn’t it possible she just lost track of time? She’ll probably call later today … tomorrow at the latest.

The longer I wait, the colder the trail gets.

He thought she’d watched too many crime dramas on TV, but he didn’t say so. That would just make the argument worse and he had to leave for work. He hated to let anger stew all day so he pushed down his anger … putting their relationship above his need to win an argument. Better to lose the battle and win