This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha by Samuel Logan Read Free Book Online Page A

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 mudwas 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.

CHAPTER 10
    O seguera’s arrest warrant for Brenda Paz sat in police stations across the greater Dallas area by the end of January. Policemen all over the region now knew that she was wanted for capital murder in connection with the death of Javier Calzada. If any of them picked her up for anything, Oseguera would know about it within the hour. He was pleased with himself. This case was on firm footing, even though he had begun with next to nothing. It was the first arrest warrant he issued for the Calzada murder, just under a month since the fisherman had discovered Javier’s remains. But he didn’t stop there. Oseguera considered it a stretch, but Brenda could leave the area, maybe head back to California and hide out at one of three addresses he had found in the journal in her shoebox. Before he was content to let the system do its job, Oseguera called the police departments in El Monte, Monrovia, and Bell Flowers, California, to ask them to post his warrant.
    For two weeks, Oseguera kept busy with other cases while he waited for someone to serve the arrest warrant on Brenda Paz. She was a runaway and a street kid who was likely to get into some kind of trouble, perhaps by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oseguera was content to wait.
    On Valentine’s Day, Oseguera’s cell phone brought him good news. It was a call from the Dallas Police Department. An attendant on duty had seen the arrest warrant issued for Brenda Paz and informed Oseguera that she was in custody at a hospital in Carrollton. The occasional arrest for small-time offenses was a way of life for gang members, but this time it was different. Brenda was in the hospital with one of her homies who had been hospitalized after a brutal fight with a rival gang member. He was somewhere beyond the reception area, where Brenda waited in a bad mood. She scowled at anyone who looked at her too long. The staff at the hospital’s front desk alerted law enforcement, saying there was a problem at the reception. When the police showed up, they questioned Brenda and called in her information. The attendant notified the officers at the hospital of Brenda’s arrest warrant, and then called Oseguera. Brenda was eventually fingered as a runaway and taken into custody. But because she was a minor, she had to be released after twenty-four hours had passed.
    “You come and get her now, or we’re letting her go,” the attendant told Oseguera. He agreed to go get her, and drove the forty-mile