by Josh Karnes
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The Grady family filed purposefully into the police station to find an officer they didn't recognize at the desk. “We're here to see Ortiz,” James said in a manner that didn't invite debate.
“Yes. This way,” is all the officer said, and he led them back to the conference room command center.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grady,” Allison Morales said by way of greeting as they entered the small room. James piped up before she could continue.
“Where's Agent Ortiz?” he said.
“ASAC Ortiz,” Morales corrected, “is not here at the moment. He's in the field investigating a lead.” Morales was curious about James's outburst. He didn't have this energy yesterday. She wondered if he knew something or had something to add to the investigation “What can I do for you?” she asked.
“Well,” James began, suddenly feeling the fire being extinguished. He really didn't know exactly what he wanted her to do for them.
“You need to put us to work helping find my brother,” Eli said firmly, bailing James out. “There has to be some base we can cover.”
Morales was mildly surprised and even the slightest bit impressed with the signs of life from the Grady family this morning. She quickly considered what task she could put them on, at least to keep them busy. Maybe there was something they could help with after all. And it would be much easier keeping them from stepping on the toes of the Fajardo region police if she had them working on something here in the Vieques office. “Sure. I have something for you to work on,” she began as she stepped over to the table and sat down in front of her laptop. With a few clicks and keystrokes she recalled a document. The Grady family was assembling behind her to see over her shoulder. “This is a list of the other people who were on the diving tour with you,” she said glancing over her shoulder at Eli. “I am going to transfer this to another computer here in the office so you can look at it. If you scroll through,” she said as she demonstrated scrolling the document, “you can see most of them have a picture, their passport photos or whatever photo we had on file. I want you to look through all of them and try to think if anyone here was talking to Joseph. We may want to interview some of them, especially the ones that rode back on the other boat who may have talked with Joseph or seen where he was. Anyone who looks familiar, you pick them out for me. Okay?”
This was busywork, James could tell. But it might be useful. And what did he expect? “Okay,” James said. “The boys can look through that but what do you want us to do?” Melissa stepped a foot closer to James in solidarity.
“We'll figure something out. For now just go through these pictures with them and maybe you will notice something too,” Morales said. She was improvising. They hadn't planned on putting the Grady family to work at all.
“Maybe we should go back out to El Pliegue,” Melissa said. “Or to that island. You didn't get a chance to go over the coastline did you?” she said to James.
“No. That's not a good idea. Look, we have police detectives searching everywhere and they will handle all of that. When ASAC Ortiz returns, we will put together a better plan.” It was all she could think to say.
James brought his hands to his head and turned in place in an expression of exasperation. “Okay,” he said, looking to Melissa. “Get us set up. We'll see what we can see in the pictures. But I want to talk to Ortiz when he gets back.” It was a start, and it was better than nothing.