Night of The Cardinal: In This Episode, Blogger Jerry Deal Works At Solving the Chapa-Rubio Case...

By STONEY HERNANDEZ
Harlingen Bureau Chief
of The Tribune

HARLINGEN, Texas - Jerry Deal was livid, was the word in the streets. No, it wasn't that some doll had taken his cash without rendering the usual favors. And no, not one of his treks to the mailbox had yielded annoying mail from Publisher's Clearing House. He'd gone through that mess. No, as the brightened sunball rose on another day in the tropical Rio Grande Valley of Texas, it was a local mystery that held sway over his brain: Why was his good friend Tony Chapa unwilling to reason-out his anger toward Private Eye Joe Rubio?

Deal, a man of honor and an avid minor league baseball fan, shook his head one more time. Clouds swirling overhead portended madness, like a full moon, when the wolves came out and no one rested easy, not even the cops.

"He has been a successful investigator, with many of his probes in the upper Valley," Deal had written on his Blog, MyLeaderNews.com, that afternoon. "How would Tony or anyone else not close to the situations know how successful Joe is, most of those cases are not public, like police information is. He was considered a good cop by his peers."

It was a horrible time in town. That's what Jerry Deal couldn't get out of his mind. A newsman by profession, he agonized over the A-plus-B-equals-C journalism equation that wasn't quite panning out. Chapa and Rubio had been great pals. Tony had even endorsed one of Rubio's mayoral campaign bids. Something was up. Something Deal couldn't quite put his finger on kept the two men miles apart. Once a trusted source on Chapa's Blog, MyHarlingenNews.com, Rubio couldn't even buy an advertisement on the website these days. Chapa coldly & stubbornly blasted away at Rubio's detective abilities, or, really, lack thereof.

Deal, meanwhile, used the slowed moments of the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings games he loved to ponder the crazy Chapa-Rubio impasse. And the way the WhiteWings were playing, Deal knew he had plenty of time to find an answer. Chapa seemed to be the problem. He simply wouldn't give Joe Rubio a chance. Rubio knew the private dick business; Tony did not, Deal ran through his brain as a screaming drive bounced off the leftfield wall and the fat hitter lugged it only to first base. He recalled similar grudges in baseball, back when Maris hated Mantle and Mantle hated Maris during that historic 1961 Yankees season, when Maris hit 61 homeruns, overshadowing a splendid season by Mantle - the favorite of the fans. Mantle was the darling of the press; Maris forever portrayed as the sulking, muscular rightfielder.

It hit Jerry Deal: That's it!

He would bring Chapa and Rubio together and tell them about Maris & Mantle, about how they hated each other, but still played hard for the home team. Both Chapa and Rubio wanted a better Harlingen; that was true. How could they go against the grain. Deal knew Tony needed Joe and Joe knew he needed Chapa. The mystery was lifting like a late-November fog in London.

And then a shot rang out over beyond the centerfield wall. It sounded, to Deal, like a .357 Magnum being fired, perhaps at someone. A second shot startled the crowd. Two more shots followed. Someone was being killed, murdered. The story would be big. Tony Chapa would want the info. Joe Rubio would get it and want to get it out to the community. "It's falling into place," Jerry Deal told himself as the bottom of the seventh inning ended and the afternoon sun fell over toward Borneo. "Thing is few people understand detective work..."

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