Mauricio Fernandez couldn't have been happier.

Here he was, being sworn in again as mayor of one of northern
Mexico's most exclusive communities, and he had wonderful news to
share: "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was asking
for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City," he told his
cheering supporters Saturday in San Pedro Garza Garcia, near
Monterrey.

The problem was that the barefoot, blindfolded corpse of "Black
Saldana" - whose real first name is Hector - wasn't found for
another 3½ hours, according to Mexico City prosecutors. And he
wouldn't be identified for two days.

Now this cartel-plagued nation, usually nonchalant about a spate
of kidnappings, extortion and executions, is engrossed with this
not-so-straighforward murder that links drug lords and politicians.

The mayor is facing tough questions about the killings: How did
he know his nemesis was dead before the authorities apparently did?
Does he have associations with the cartel that may have killed the
men?

And what exactly did he mean when he said, during his acceptance
speech, that he knew Saldana and his associates wanted to hurt him,
and that "by fair means or foul, we are not going to accept any
kind of kidnapping ... and if not, they will pay for it."

The mayor's initial answer, repeated in a series of interviews,
was simple: "Sometimes there are coincidences in life; it's better
to look at it this way."

But when pressed, Fernandez offered an intriguing explanation.
He said U.S. authorities tipped him off that somebody intercepted
cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him,
and he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was
dead hours before the bodies were found.

A Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in Washington, Paul
Knierim, said Tuesday he couldn't comment on Fernandez's situation,
but he said U.S. agents routinely coordinate with Mexican
investigators trying to crack down on cartels.

"And if we learned in the course of an investigation that
somebody's life was being threatened, we would definitely,
definitely make sure that information was passed on to the
appropriate authorities," Knierim said.

Newspapers around the country on Tuesday demanded answers about
how Fernandez could have known of the deaths hundreds of miles
(kilometers) away before police even arrived at the scene. A
columnist in one of the nation's leading newspapers, Reforma,
speculated he might have something to do with the killing. "Death
squads?" the headline asked.

Fernandez wasn't apologetic.

During a radio interview Tuesday, he said he's setting up a
group to clean up crime in San Pedro Garza Garcia and surrounding
communities.

"Will this cleaning group act outside the law?" he was asked.

"In some form that's correct," he said.

With upscale strip malls, posh private schools and well
developed parks, San Pedro holds beautiful and well-guarded estates
that are called home by some of the nation's leading business
executives - and allegedly some leaders of the Beltran Leyva
cartel.

Until recently, the suburb of Monterrey, about 135 miles south
of Laredo, Texas, was considered one of the cleanest, safest towns
in this country.

But a spate of kidnappings and extortion changed that. Fernandez
blamed Saldana, who allegedly took over the Beltran Leyva drug
cartel operations there a few months ago.

Fernandez told the El Norte newspaper that Saldana and his gang
had been kidnapping two or three people a week, demanding about
$375,000 each. Fernandez said they also were demanding monthly
payments from stores, restaurants and bars.

Six months earlier, while running for mayor, Fernandez set off a
national debate over ties between politicians and gangsters when
Mexican news media broadcast a recording of him telling supporters
that he knew top drug traffickers lived in the town and had an
interest in keeping it quiet.

His words were widely taken to suggest that he would avoid
confronting the Beltran Leyva cartel to maintain the peace.

Fernandez acknowledged making the remarks, but he said they were
taken out of context.

"I don't know, nor have I sat down with or anything of the
sort, with anyone from organized crime," he told The Associated
Press.

But his remarks highlighted the dicey course political leaders
face in this country where drug cartels wield tremendous power.

"There is no question that, in some places, organized crime has
penetrated into municipal governments, while in others mayors are
struggling to find ways to keep organized crime at bay," said
Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico
Institute. "Mayors face a difficult decision when they are not
sure if the state or federal government can protect them."

On Saturday, during his acceptance speech, Fernandez said he was
going to crack down on crime, with or without federal or state
assistance.

"We will take the bull by the horns," he said. "We will do
this directly."

The statements drew a plea from state security secretary Carlos
Jauregui that all elected officials should abide by the law when
confronting organized crime.

"We should all govern with state, federal and city laws and we
cannot transgress from that," he said.

Hours after Fernandez's speech, authorities found four bound
bodies - Saldana, his brother, his half brother and another man -
shoved in an SUV in Mexico City. They bore a clear message:
"Kidnapper" was scrawled across three of their backs in black
marker.

There were notes there, too. One said "For kidnapping," and
was signed: "The Boss of Bosses" - a relatively new nickname for
alleged drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, one of Mexico's most wanted
criminals. Another note said "Job 38:15," a reference to the
biblical verse "The wicked are denied their light, and their
upraised arm is broken."