Visiting Detectives & Guest Writers

Visiting Detective Emilia Cruz: “Hunt for the Missing”

The Law Enforcement landscape changes as societal needs evolve. Years ago, local police departments generally focused on car thefts, bank robberies, burglaries, the occasional drunk, domestic disputes, etc. These days, car and home break-ins are a very low priority, with drugs, human trafficking, and cyber crimes on the rise.

The increase in new crimes and more sophisticated criminals requires a level of training few departments have available, so conferences sometimes fill the gap. If the budget allows, ranking officers and detectives attend in order to discover what other people in the country (or our border countries) are doing to solve the issues causing the most harm.

That’s how I met Detective Emilia Cruz, a guest speaker at a recent conference in Virginia, not far from D.C. Her topic hit pretty close to home, since our north Jersey county, with its proximity to seaports and major highways, was also experiencing an uptick in missing women and girls. Combined with the Mexican and Central American citizens fleeing the drug cartel violence, coming with stories of horrors their families had faced, made for complex problems. I invite you to read Detective Emilia Cruz’ account:

Hunt for the Missing with Detective Emilia Cruz

“I never expected to be lecturing a bunch of norteamericano detectives about hunting for missing persons in Mexico, but there I was in Alexandria, Virginia, sweating bullets and trying to remember how to speak English. My plan was to stumble through my presentation, fly back to Acapulco and slay my boss, Lieutenant Franco Silvio, for sending me to this conference on law enforcement.

Fortifying myself with a dose of caffeine before my presentation seemed like a good idea, although I was already buzzing with nerves. All the attendees were circling around, paper cups in hand and meeting each other. Ten men to every woman. Just like in Mexico.

A fellow joined me at the coffee urn and introduced himself. “Charlie Kerrian,” he said and stuck out his hand. “You must be our guest speaker.”

“Hello, I’m Detective Emilia Cruz Encinos, from Acapulco.” We shook hands. I liked him right away. He didn’t try any stupid moves, like squeezing too hard or tickling my palm like Mexican colleagues often did. “Mucho gusto, Mr. Kerrian.”

“Call me Charlie.” He sipped his coffee. “I’m really looking forward to your presentation.”

A bell rang and we filed into the conference room.

My audience was well aware of Mexico’s organized crime situation and the violence washing through the country due to the drug trade. The United States is the biggest consumer of illicit drugs that move through Mexico and cartels are forever fighting over territory and lucrative shipping routes. Violence has spiraled in Acapulco because it’s a port of entry for the Chinese chemicals used to make synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl.

My particular area of expertise is in hunting for those who have gone missing amid the drug war violence. It’s hard to get a perfect count, because many go unreported, but over 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico over the past ten years. As many as 39 go missing every day. More mass graves are found every day, too.

Beyond a numbers tracking database, the federal government hasn’t allocated many resources to finding the missing. We have nothing like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Is it because too many of our civil and military authorities are involved with the cartels? Are they taking drug money to look the other way?

The bottom line is that in Mexico, finding the missing is left to families, private detectives and cops who hunt for the lost on their own time, like me.

I keep a binder of women who have gone missing in Acapulco. I call them Las Perdidas. The Lost Ones. I start with missing persons reports and morgue files of unidentified women. Next, I collect every scrap of helpful information that I can, starting with newspaper advertisements.

Families pay for newspaper advertisements with the headline DESPARACIDA, meaning “disappeared,” and a picture of the missing person along with a call for information. Similar notices are printed on burger wrappers or posters plastered on walls alongside ads for Jumex juice and Tía Rosa snacks.

If I’m lucky, an advertisement points to a body or a report. Usually I’m not.

Many of the women in the Las Perdidas binder are probably dead. They’ve been missing for too long. Perhaps they’re in one of Mexico’s mass graves. But without better DNA recordkeeping, we’ll never know.

Yet I have high hopes of finding one particular girl named Lila. She has swum in and out of my grasp as I investigated other crimes, but I’m going to find her again.

When I do, I will bring her home.

My presentation got a big round of applause. Charlie Kerrian asked me to write it up for an online notebook he keeps of investigative techniques. So here it is.

Thank you, Charlie, for caring about Las Perdidas. If you ever make it to Acapulco, look me up, por favor.

I could really use your help.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carmen Amato turns lessons from a 30-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency into crime fiction loaded with intrigue and deception.

Her Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series pits the first female police detective in Acapulco against Mexico’s drug cartels, government corruption, and social inequality. Described as “A thrilling series” by National Public Radio, the series was awarded the Poison Cup for Outstanding Series from CrimeMasters of America in both 2019 and 2020 and was optioned for television.

Originally from upstate New York, Carmen was educated there as well as in Virginia and Paris, France, while experiences in Mexico and Central America ignited her writing career. She has been a judge for the BookLife Prize and Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award and is a recipient of both the National Intelligence Award and the Career Intelligence Medal.

Every other Sunday, Carmen is your guide to the mystery ahead with exclusive announcements, excerpts and reviews of books she loves and think you will, too. Subscribe here: https://carmenamato.net/mystery-ahead

Please click on the titles in the riveting Detective Emilia Cruz Series to find out more.

 

 

Begin your thrill ride with CLIFF DIVER: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 1

 

 

 

 

HAT DANCE: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 2

DIABLO NIGHTS: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 3

KING PESO: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 4

PACIFIC REAPER: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 5

 

 

43 MISSING: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 6.

 

 

 

 

RUSSIAN MOJITO: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 7

NARCO NOIR: Detective Emilia Cruz Book 8

MADE IN ACAPULCO: The Emilia Cruz Stories

THE ARTIST/EL ARTISTA: A Bilingual Short Story for Language Learning

FELIZ NAVIDAD FROM ACAPULCO: A Detective Emilia Cruz Novella

THE LISTMAKER OF ACAPULCO: A Detective Emilia Cruz Novella

Many thanks to Carmen Amato for taking the time to visit with the Kerrians! As in her books, her article is based in fact.

 

 

 

 

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Visiting Detective Kylee Kane “HOA Murder”

Sunset in Beaufort, South Carolina

If there are no paragraph separations in this article, please double-click on the title to create a more readable version.

The Jazz Corner is one of our favorite venues for dinner and live jazz when we’re visiting Hilton Head Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Tonight was the last night for a popular NYC jazz combo. As usual, the tables are scrunched together in the intimate setting, making it next to impossible not to eavesdrop on folks seated at adjacent tables.

Sheila’s just placed her standard order for She-Crab soup and crab cakes, when I hear the woman at the next table say, “Mom’s right. Whoever killed Finley put that trophy deer head in his lap to sidetrack authorities. And it’s working. Deputy Ibsen’s convinced one of the Bambi-loving crowd is responsible.”

Bambi lovers? A corpse holding a trophy deer head? I can’t pretend I didn’t hear. My curiosity won’t let me. The couple’s conversation sounds matter of fact. Neither the man nor the woman—I’m guessing they’re either late forties or early fifties—seems shaken or hysterical. I decide it’s okay to intrude.

“Hi, I’m Charlie Kerrian, and this is my wife, Sheila,” I begin. “We just arrived on the island a couple of hours ago for a mini-vacation. I apologize for listening in, but our tables are so close. Was someone murdered here recently?”

“Not here,” the woman replies. “The murder took place on Hullis Island Friday night. I apologize. We shouldn’t have been jabbering about it in a restaurant. You needn’t be concerned. There’s no Lowcountry crime wave. Please don’t let my big mouth ruin your vacation.”

Sheila chuckles. “My husband failed to mention he’s a detective. You haven’t worried him, just piqued his curiosity.”

“That’s a relief.” The woman smiles. While her short, curly hair is snow-white, her smooth skin says the white hair is premature. “I’m Kylee Kane,” she adds, “a retired Coast Guard investigator.”

“And I’m Ted Welch,” the man says. “I’m hoping Kylee will soon change her standard introduction and say she’s a security specialist for Welch HOA Management. That’s my company. We manage more than a dozen homeowner associations in Beaufort County, including Hullis Island where the man was murdered.”

Kylee shakes her head and grins. “Ted, I’m not going to start introducing myself as your security specialist. My consulting gig won’t last that long—just until this killer’s caught, we find out who’s sending hate mail to Mom, and your HOA clients quit worrying about crazed killers sneaking into their neighborhoods.”

“Can you back up?” I ask. “What did you mean about the killer trying to pin the rap on Bambi lovers, and why is your mother getting hate mail? Are the two related?”

“Afraid so,” Kylee says. “Hullis Island has a deer overpopulation problem. The board of directors of the HOA decided to solve the problem by opening the island’s nature sanctuary to hunters as soon as the peak tourist season ends. Finley, the man who was murdered, was a loud proponent of slaughtering all the island deer. His landscape company’s sales had nosedived after people decided buying edible plants amounted to a free lunch program for deer.”

“And how was your mother involved?” Sheila asks.

“Mom doesn’t think the board has the right to open our nature sanctuary to hunters without allowing the HOA membership to vote on the matter,” Kylee adds. “She sent an email to all her neighbors expressing her opinion. Mom knows the overpopulation has to be addressed, but she thinks there are less drastic solutions. A postcard that said it was time for hunters to target old-lady busybodies as well as deer was hand-delivered to Mom’s mailbox a few hours later.”

Ted adds, “I just wish the authorities weren’t so fixated. They seem convinced the neighborhood feud about the island deer explains why Finley was killed. But the deceased wasn’t a likeable guy. He’d accumulated lots of disgruntled customers. Kylee and I plan to talk to some of those folks. My new security specialist excels at interviewing people.”

“Yes.” Kylee laughs. “In your sales pitch for me to join your firm as a security consultant, I believe you described me as having the ‘tenacity of a demented squirrel looking for a buried nut stash.’”

“True,” Ted agrees. “An apt description. Hasn’t changed since you worked so hard to ignore your little brother and me in grade school.”

The lights flicker and a man takes the small stage to introduce the jazz combo. “Please respect our talented musicians,” he says. “No talking during the performance.”

While Sheila and I came to hear the music, I’m sorry I’ll have to wait to hear more of the story.

 

Linda Lovely

Warm thanks to Linda Lovely for stopping by to chat with the Kerrians and give us a straight-up-fun peek into Kylee Kane’s (and Ted Welch) encounters with murder at the HOA. To find out how the story ends, you’ll have to read:

Multi-layered plots are always central to Linda Lovely’s novels. With her fully fleshed out central characters perfectly set up to navigate the twists and turns of the story lines, this entertaining mystery writer always delivers a thoroughly engrossing read. “With Neighbors Like These,” is a stellar, page-turning beginning to her brand new HOA Mystery Series. Launch date was set for July 13, 2021. Click on the link to order.

Please visit https://www.lindalovely.com to learn more about Lovely and her upcoming events.

 

*Photos supplied by Linda Lovely.  🙂

 

 

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Visiting Detective Chloe Jackson “Murder at the Sea Glass Saloon”

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Sheila and I were visiting friends down in the Florida Panhandle last week and saw firsthand the famous beaches and emerald green water they had raved about on the phone. Honestly, they had undersold both. The view of the water is remarkable, and the white sugar sand is so fine that it’s a pleasure to walk on, bum legs and all.

Three days into the trip, we passed a place on the beach called the Sea Glass Saloon. Sheila and I both saw crime scene tape flapping around the dumpster out back and skidded to a stop. Well, no real skidding can happen on sand, but we did stop pretty quickly. Sheila looked at me, eyebrows raised and asked, “Feel like getting a drink before lunch?” She knows me well.


We entered the empty bar and sat ourselves off to the side. Our waitress’ paper name tag said, “Chloe,” and since it was written in magic marker, she was probably new to the job. We tried to be polite and avoid the Crime Scene Tape Topic, just in case Chloe was jittery about whatever had happened, but Sheila couldn’t stand the suspense anymore than I could. We introduced ourselves and Chloe laughed.


“Nice to meet you. I could tell as soon as you came in that at least one of you was a cop.”

I was surprised and said so.

Chloe grinned and waved to the still empty room. “You’re the first people in here today and you chose a table with your backs to the wall, not the table with the best view like most tourists do. I’m Chloe Jackson, former children’s librarian in my hometown of Chicago, now a waitress in a bar in Emerald Cove, Florida. Life has a funny way of laughing at my plans.”

The bartender called her over and she told us she’d be right back, but after they bent their heads together at the bar, she wasn’t smiling anymore. Something was bothering that young woman.

 

Meet Chloe Jackson:

“Why do I know anything about cops? I read a lot of mysteries and they all seem to mention cops and their backs to the wall so there must be some truth to it. Also, both of them took a good look around like they wanted to know where the exits were and assessed Joaquín the bartender and me. Apparently, they decided we weren’t a threat because they didn’t get up and leave. I almost walked over to them with my hands up. They were pleasant when I asked what they’d like. He ordered a Guinness. She wanted a mimosa.

 

I had to call the police more than once about the patrons at the library – not the kids I work with but sometimes their parents or nannies. As I walked back to give Joaquín their orders, I thought about yesterday morning. I had to call 911 yesterday when I found the body of one of our patrons back by the dumpster behind the Sea Glass Saloon. Elwell Pugh, the man I found murdered with a channel knife sticking out of his neck, was a bit of an odd duck, but a good tipper and never caused me any problems.

 

On the other hand, he wore an armadillo shell as a hat which seemed really odd to me, but I’d only been in the panhandle of Florida for a little over a week. What did I know? Maybe lots of people wore armadillo shell hats down here. What worried me more is I’d overheard the owner of the Sea Glass, Vivi Slidell, arguing with a man last night after the bar closed.

 

I was mopping floors when I heard the raised voices back in the kitchen. I couldn’t make out their words or see them and I’m not certain it was Elwell that Vivi was arguing with. After a door slammed Vivi came into the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon and a glass before she noticed me mopping. I’d never seen Vivi drink anything stronger than sweet tea up to this point.

 

She told me to leave and to go out the front which faced the Gulf of Mexico. I complied but was uneasy about the whole thing. However, when the deputy questioned me yesterday, I left the bit about the argument out. It might not have anything to do with the Elwell’s death. If it did, it might mean I was working for a murderer.”

 

We told Chloe to keep the drinks and sweet tea coming, if she could call next door to the lunch place for sandwiches and tell us more of the story. And what a jaw-dropping story it was. You can read all about it in “From Beer to Eternity.”

 



Sherry Harris, an Agatha nominated author, writes the brand new Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon Mysteries. “From Beer to Eternity” features Chloe and a cast of wonderful characters – some of them mentioned in the teaser you just read.

Her first series, Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries, is non-stop terrific.

 

Many thanks to Sherry Harris/Chloe Jackson for stopping by the Visiting Detectives corner.  🙂  We always love a great crime scene tale!

Please visit www.sherryharrisauthor.com for more information about her books and where to buy them. Get every single one.  🙂

 

*Photos courtesy of Sherry Harris.

 

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