The Investigators, Inc. The Case of the Twin’s Friend. Chapter 5. Gangs.

The Black Wolves had just rescued the young woman from the shop, after her employer left her with some rough looking men. He learned that was not a good idea, from one of the Black Wolves. Some other Black Wolves killed the four attackers and took the woman to Kat for safety. We are now well into Plan B, since Plan A was a bit of a failure. This one isn’t off to a good start either and we will soon learn who those men were that we killed.

I wanted to find someone who would be willing to help us out by telling us if all 3 women were shopping, or only 2, at the time the police chief was supposed to have been killed. No one wanted to help us out though. The information won’t help get Visty out of prison, but it will help us know what went on that day. Unfortunately Visty’s story was a bit mixed up, and it’s obvious she is using drugs. However, that may have started after she ended up in prison, since she has been here for a few months now.

Misty and Cristy were a bit mad at me for not believing their friend, so Sky had a talk with them. Afterward they shuffled over to me and apologized. I smiled at them, gave them each a hug, and everything was fine again. Later that night Kat communicated with me that the shop clerk did see all 3 of the girls in their shop at the time that the police chief was said to have been killed.

But she had been told to say that only 2 women had been there, otherwise her two friends would end up in a garbage bin somewhere, dead. And she would be beaten so badly she would never look the same again. She was terrified, so she did what she was told. She told Kat that around here, people do what the gangs tell them, or bad things will happen to them or their families. She has no family, so her friends were threatened.

Apparently her parents and grandparents were killed in a car accident when the brakes didn’t work and they rolled down a steep hill. That was 2 years ago. Her father had 3 brothers, all were members of a gang and all were killed in a fight with a gang in Mexico. Her father was not a gang member. I called Hannah and asked her to check on this woman’s family to see if there were gang connections. This woman is an only child, as was her mother.

She does have a few cousins, but none will speak to her, likely because they are involved with gangs too. By morning Hannah had information for me, and the woman’s father was indeed a gang member too. Perhaps he managed to keep it a secret from his daughter. But this means she is in greater danger, so I told this to Kat. The woman is not Mexican, but comes from L.A. and she used to come down to Mexico every other winter for a vacation.

That’s why she came down here a year ago, for a vacation. But while here she was robbed and all her ID was stolen, and she has been trying to get new ID ever since, but it has been a very slow process. This one small shop owner gave her a job anyway, and she made enough money to live on, barely. Then he told her she could make much more money as a model with his brother’s studio. It was fine at first, but things changed after 2 months, and she wasn’t allowed to quit since she had signed a contract for 2 years.

The contract likely isn’t legal, but she wouldn’t know that. She told Kat that the motorcycle men were part of Ramon’s gang, she saw their tattoos on their arms, a black hawk with an R under it. Ramon has the largest gang in the city and he basically runs the prison. He calls himself the “General”, then his second in command is the “Major”, then there are 3 lieutenants. One of those lieutenants was killed by our Black Wolves last night when they rescued Evelynn.

That could cause some problems for us, killing one of the top men is not a good thing and they will likely want to retaliate. I communicated this to Carine who then told Aari. Carine communicated back that Aari agreed about possible retaliation, so they will be extra careful. Meanwhile. “Well, what did you find out?” asked Major.

“Lieutenant Wilfredo and the 3 men with him are dead,” said the man, “and the shop owner was beaten, but the woman was gone and didn’t go home last night. She must have gone with whoever did the killing. They rode motorcycles, that’s all we know. Maybe from Fernandez or Mauricio, no one else would dare.” “True, we don’t want to start a fight with either of them while Ramon is away,” said Major, “keep looking for some positive identification.”

Fortunately I had told Aari to have everyone wear just plain shirts last night so if they were seen by anyone, they would not be easily identified. Also, the 4 biggest Wolves were not along as they stand out too easily. Well, at least we know that Visty was telling the truth, so I apologized to the twins. They blinked like they always do, which almost makes me dizzy, then they looked at each other, then back to me. Then they smiled and threw their arms around me. Nice to know we’re still friends.

Now to figure out how to get Visty out of prison. That is not going to be easy if she is now in the solitary confinement area, even with our ghosts. However, we can use our ghosts to have some fun with the guards and lead them away from their posts. Then with Sky’s help we can search the solitary section. At the same time we will stage a little distraction over on the men’s side of the prison where we know some of Mauricio’s men are serving time.

That will make things look legitimate for a prison break, and keep attention away from our area, at least for a while. Hopefully we will have enough time to get Visty out of there. If we fail on this attempt, they will likely kill her, and we don’t want that to happen. Back to Kat and Evelynn. Kat told Evelynn that we would take her back to Los Angeles and make sure she gets all of her ID back again. She was surprised that we could do that, but Kat told her we had a lot of important connections, so we can get things done.

But Evelynn was still afraid to go back home too, though she knows she can’t stay in Mexico either. So, Kat told her we could relocate her to anywhere she wanted to go in the world. We would give her some money to start over and find a job for her as well. She was so surprised we would do all that just because she told us the truth about Visty. Then Jennifer communicated with me, giving some more bad news…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.