Chili's Wheels In Mexico?

By HANDS VELA
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - A color snapshot appearing to show the car driven by missing Brownsville Police Detective Chili Perez has surfaced thanks to a citizen's quick-thinking photography, city officials confirmed this morning. Perez has not been seen or heard from in 10 days, ever since he was named lead detective in the case involving slain college student Louise Perez.

"Well, yes, it could be his car," Mayor Tony Martinez told story-hungry reporters gathered outside The Toddle Inn. "Today, we're sending the cellphone photo to the FBI's crime lab in Washington, D.C. to see if they can clear the latest mystery surrounding Chili."

The blurry photo, Martinez said, was turned-in by resident Leopardo "El Mofle" Morales, an unemployed graphics artist. Morales said he was "cruising Matamoros for cheap street tacos" when he spotted a battered 1980 Volvo moving up Avenida Insurgentes. "I grabbed my new cell and began shooting," he told police. "It was the best I could do, man. Four-hundred dollar phone and I'm just getting the hang of that danged thing!"

Det. Perez has been the object of a wide-ranging search characterized by officials as the most intensive since 1987, when a woman reported seeing the Loch Mex monster in a local resaca. The search proved fruitless, and there are some in town who insist that failure to catch the toothy serpent is the reason for this bordertown's ceaseless bad luck. Said Maria "La Mostasa" Salas, a resident whose home is along the banks of the resaca in question, "We hear the goddamned serpent swimming out there in the middle of the night. It splashes and then dives, comes up and splashes again. You don't think that's weird? It makes the hair on my body, all of it, tremble."

According to the chief of police, the department has placed all its resources on the search for Perez, who was on the search for the person or persons who murdered 23-year-old paleantology student Louise Herrera and left her body under a craggy mesquite along a ravine frequented by coyotes. Miss. Herrera at the time had accused Paz Files writer Rudolf Von Bulow of repeatedly raping her inside his ornate South Padre Island condo following a long, long night of drinking. Von Bulow is back in the Valley after vacationing in Paris prior to Herrera's death.

Chili Perez is believed to be working on a theory that has Von Bulow at the center of the murder plot. A city police officer who spoke on conditions of anonymity said this, "I've got no problem with Chili going underground, but he needs to call his mother. She's worried sick, bro."

City officials expected results from the FBI on Chili's car by the middle of next week, promised Mayor Martinez. He said the city is still considering posting a reward for info leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with the murder of Louise Herrera, but he noted there is still discord about that within the city commission...

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