Neil Knight Private Dick

I've Got an Idea

In 1854 the California State Legislature authorized the creation of the California State Rangers as a statewide law enforcement agency.

Their initial mission was to capture the gang leader Joaquin Murrieta, who had been born in northwestern Mexico in Sonora around 1829, and then moved to California with his young wife during the Gold Rush of 1849, with the hope of striking it rich.

By early 1850, Murrieta had found success as a prospector, but the land he had moved to had undergone a radical change after the territory was ceded by Mexico to the United States in 1848, after the Mexican-American War.

As American miners overwhelmed the region, they banded together to harass and drive Mexican prospectors out of the area. When they came to Murrieta's house to demand his mining claim he refused, so the white miners tied him up, raped and murdered his wife.

His troubles continued when a white mob who, claiming a horse Murrieta had borrowed from his half-brother was stolen, whipped him and hung his sibling 'like the dog he was'.

Murrieta had had enough.

Turning his back on the law, he tracked the members of the lynch mob down and killed them one-by-one. He set his sights once again on gold, this time assembling a gang of fellow Mexicans, and began to target American miners, pulling them off their horses with lassos, murdering them, and stealing their bullion.

The Murrieta Gang became famous throughout the territory, with tales of the renegade Mexican redistributing stolen gold to poor Mexican natives, as he simultaneously targeted the people who were taking advantage of them.

With their marching orders clear, the California State Rangers, with the assistance of a US Army lawman Harry Love, tracked Murrieta and his gang down, finally capturing him and killing him at the Arroyo de Cantúa in Coalinga, California.

Years later, in 1919, long after the first version of the California State Rangers had been disbanded, Johnston McCulley, a pulp writer, was looking for a heroic figure on which to base a new book. Murrieta seemed like a good candidate.

And so, the masked persona of Zorro, who fought for the poor and downtrodden around the time of the California Gold Rush, was born.

Almost a century later, a similarly named Harry Love, a Captain in the California State Police, on loan to the State's Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, had no such historical visions of grandeur. His assembled team of 60 Special Weapons and Tactical team officers were prepared to raid, with assistance from the FBI, numerous criminal laboratory sites in Santa Ana, where members of Vincente Eduardo Fuentes gang were producing high grade methamphetamine, opioids and fentanyl under the direction of the recently released Hanes 'The Pharmacist' Winston.

At 10:00 a.m., on the twenty-third of January, they rolled out from the Orange County Sheriff's Department parking lot toward Artesia Pilar, South Coast, Portola Park and Washington Place.

No sirens. Just convoys of silent lights spreading out over the city. The Lopers would be caught completely off-guard. Another victory in the war against illicit pharmaceuticals.

Voices crackled positions. Each team calling in turn.

"Team One 5 miles out."

"Team Three 4 miles out."

"Team Four 1 mile out."

Harry Love monitored their progress as each group approached their targets in a synchronized manner, timing their arrivals so that no one site could alert another.

"Team Two in position."

When all four had notified the command center they were ready, three police SUVs and one FBI sedan at each site discharged their officers and entered the buildings.

Locked doors splintered, and flash bang grenades lit up the four laboratories. Flasks, beakers, pipettes, separatory funnels and Bunsen burners shattered from the concussive effect.

The lawmen entered the rooms, guns drawn.

But at each location they were met with empty stares from vacant rooms.

The lights had been on, but no one was home.

"What the fuck?" exhaled Love.

"Someone tipped them off" he exhaled. "Search the buildings."

But the buildings remained quiet, yielding only a whisper of recent activity.

"Jesus" said Dee Dee turning from a monitor to face a sublime Cotton Spradley. Screens all around the room displayed the faces of stunned policemen and the movements of retreating gang members.

"And that was the benefit of the 'Police Tracker' app" Cotton said, stating the obvious.

"But we heard the gang members voices too, saw them as they left the buildings before the police arrived. How was that possible?" asked Dee Dee.

"Well. When our friend Vinnie asked me to program them a new version of the tracking application, I thought I'd add a little something extra. I hijack the audio and video inputs from their cellphones and record their conversations and movements to my server farm here in the basement. That's what you were seeing on screen."

"How long have you been recording...since when?"

"Since April Fools Day, when I delivered the app. I thought the date was an appropriate way to make a subtle, yet poignant point."

"That's ten months" said Dee Dee.

"Holy Shit" said the third man in the room.

The men both turned and stared at the ashen Salvadore Malafronte.

"Now you know why I invited you here" said Cotton.

"From the conversations I've listened to, especially the one you had with that detective at the Aloha Hawaiian Barbeque, you're an honest man, and they're not many in this town from what I can tell" stated the programmer.

"Holy Shit" said Sally. "This is..."

"...better than Netflix?" suggested Cotton.

"Not exactly the metaphor I was going for" said Sally.

"Frightening? Mindblowing?" suggested Dee Dee. "But certainly not admissible in court."

"Not sure I agree on that count" said Sally, turning toward Cotton. "You say Vinnie instructed you to program this app for them and then he and his gang members installed it on their devices of their own free will? You provide updates when new options are requested? Not exactly fruit of the poisonous tree."

"Vinnie invited you to become part of his criminal organization by essentially hiring you to program this application for him. Legally a case could be made that you're a member of the Lopers, Mr. Spradley. You're an invited participant to each conversation and act."

"You're simply an archivist Cotton, collecting evidence for historical purposes."

'An archivist' thought Cotton.

"Sounds better than a gang member" he mused.

"Now" said Sally. "what's the best way forward..."

"I've got an idea" said Sue Ellen as she entered the room.