Fire and Ice jpb-19

by J. A. Jance

  “Is dragging him along a good idea?” she asked.

  “I can only do so many things at a time,” I told her. “If I’m coming there, he’ll be with me.”

  She read off the address, and I loaded it into my GPS.

  “Anything else?”

  “We tried tracking down Miguel-the guy whose phone number was found on a scrap of paper in Rivera’s wallet. The number turned out to be a throw-away cell phone that’s no longer in service, so that’s a dead end.”

  “Oh, well,” I said. “You can’t win ’em all. See you when I get there.”

  With that I headed for the airport. I suppose I could have muscled my way past security and made arrangements to meet Marcella’s brother at the gate. Instead, I stood in a clutch of limo drivers waiting at the foot of the arriving passenger escalator. Like them, I carried a handwritten sign with the word CARBAJAL printed on it. Unexpectedly, the plane landed several minutes early. Soon after the loudspeaker announced the flight’s arrival, a young Hispanic man riding down the escalator noted the sign, caught my eye, and nodded.

  I held out my hand in greeting. “Luggage?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, hefting a small athletic bag. “Carry-on only.”

  Jaime may have been traveling light as far as luggage was concerned, but from the look in his red-rimmed eyes and the set of his mouth, he seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said.

  “Where to?” he said. “Ellensburg?”

  “No, a place called Cle Elum. My partner is on her way there to interview a possible suspect. I thought you’d like to ride along.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”

  On the drive across the mountains I brought Jaime Carbajal up to speed on everything Mel and I had learned about Marcella/ Marina. I told him about how the wallet left in Marcella’s abandoned vehicle had led us to the guy in Cle Elum. I told him about Mason Waters, his sister’s grieving fiance, and I let him in on everything I had learned from Warden Willison and Detective Lowell about Marco Andrade’s death.

  “So the California homicide investigator claims the feds shut down his investigation into Marco’s murder?” he asked. “Why?”

  “I have no idea. I’m guessing Detective Lowell didn’t tell me because he didn’t know. But the one detail he gave me, the address tattooed on Marco’s arm, is what links Marcella with the woman who was passing herself off as Marina.”

  “And the money?” Jaime asked. “The money Marcella’s son claimed she had?”

  “As far as I know, it’s gone,” I told him.

  “Figures,” Jaime said.

  He fell silent after that. A few minutes later, I noticed he had nodded off. I let him sleep. From the looks of him, he needed it.

  In the course of an hour-long hair appointment, Joanna had three separate phone calls. She apologized to Helen each time, but she needed to take them.

  The first call was from Butch, apologizing (fingers crossed, Joanna suspected) for his having missed lunch and verifying that she would be coming home before the wedding rehearsal so they could ride to the church and rehearsal dinner together.

  The second call was from Ernie. He reported that he had dropped off the Action Trails security DVD at the Department of Public Safety crime lab in Tucson. “They’ll get to it eventually,” Ernie said, “but don’t hold your breath for a fast turnaround. It doesn’t sound like this is a big priority for them. It’s our homicide, not theirs.”

  “And the wallet?” Joanna asked.

  “I picked it up,” Ernie said. “I brought it down and checked it into our evidence room, but I also did what you told me and called the information to that detective up in Washington. There was some money, a couple of credit cards, and a Washington State driver’s license.”

  “Good,” Joanna said. “Anything else?”

  “Nope, that’s it for me,” Ernie said. “See you tomorrow, then. At the wedding.”

  The third call was from Debra Howell.

  “You called that shot,” Deb said. “The lawyer one. Candace showed up with her smarmy Tucson lawyer firmly in tow.”

  “What happened when you told her Bobby said no dice?”

  “She hit the roof,” Deb answered. “Went absolutely ballistic. She told me that, if she had to, she’d go to court and have him declared incompetent.”

  “Bobby is not incompetent!” Joanna exclaimed.

  “Right,” Debra said. “I agree. He’s mad as hell, but who can blame him? That sister of his is poison, and I suspect their mother knew it, too. I went to the courthouse and checked the probate records. Long before she got sick, Inez Fletcher went to a lot of trouble to see to it that Bobby had a roof over his head and that his interests would be protected.”

  Behind Joanna, Helen Barco heaved an exaggerated sigh and pointed at her watch.

  “Good work, Deb,” Joanna said. “I’ve gotta go. Talk with you later.”

  The Lady in the Dash, as Mel likes to call our GPS, mangled the word Cle Elum when she told me to take the next exit, but the sound of her voice was enough to rouse Jaime Carbajal. Once he was awake, I called Mel.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re just now coming into town. What’s the deal?”

  “Detective Caldwell and I have been gathering what information we can. Tomas Rivera works out in the woods. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d be home by now. But we found out from his crew chief that he didn’t show up at work today. For as long as we’ve had the name and address, Lucy has kept a deputy in an unmarked patrol car parked on the street to keep an eye on the house, so we’re fairly certain that he hasn’t come or gone from there. He has an old Toyota pickup registered in his name. We’ve got people on the lookout for that, too.”

  “Does he have family?” I asked.

  “A wife and two young sons. They came home from school a little while ago and went inside.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Lucy thinks we should meet up at their house. She’ll ride with me. We’ll park a couple of blocks away. You do the same. That way we won’t have a collection of unfamiliar cars sitting out front to warn him away.”

  Following directions, we parked on a side street two blocks away from the address on Front Street; then Jaime and I walked to a small frame house that reminded me a lot of Ken Leggett’s place in North Bend. This house was of the same vintage and in much the same shape. We met up with Mel and Detective Caldwell on the rickety front porch, which creaked ominously beneath our combined weight. Detective Caldwell’s partner was nowhere in evidence. Once we had dispensed with introductions, Lucy knocked on the door frame. The door was opened by a dark-haired, dark-eyed little boy who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.

  “I’m Detective Caldwell,” Lucy said, holding up her badge. “Is your father here? Or your mother?”

  He simply stared at her and didn’t answer. Finally he turned back into the house, letting go with a volley of rapid-fire Spanish. I picked out something that sounded like police, but that was about it. From inside a woman said something back to him in equally quick Spanish. The boy started to close the door, but Jaime Carbajal stepped forward. In the very best door-to-door salesman tradition, he put the toe of his shoe inside the door and spoke softly to the boy in what sounded like fluent Spanish. When Jaime finished, there was another long pause. At last the door was wrenched open, revealing a dark-haired young woman who shoved the boy aside and then barred our way herself.

  “What do you want?” she asked, speaking slowly in heavily accented English.

  “We’d like to talk to you,” Lucy began. “To ask you some questions.”

  The woman shook her head. “No comprendo,” she said vehemently, even though her English, although hesitant, had been entirely understandable. She was young, probably somewhere in her early thirties. She wore a sweatshirt and a pair of threadbare jeans. Not fashionably threadbare-really threadbare. She looked haggard and frightened. Th
ere were dark circles under her eyes, and it looked as though she might have been crying.

  Jaime glanced questioningly at Lucy, who nodded imperceptibly, giving him the go-ahead to join in. Jaime spoke to the woman in Spanish once again. I picked out something that sounded like esposo. My foreign language skills are pretty limited. My Spanish comes from what I’ve gleaned from perusing menus in Mexican food joints like Mama’s. Even so, I believe the word esposo means husband.

  Jaime said something else. For a moment I thought she was going to slam the door shut in our faces despite Jaime’s still intervening toe. But she didn’t. Instead, relenting, she stepped aside, held the door open, and beckoned us into the house.

  We trooped into a tiny but immaculately clean living room. In one corner sat a still-warm wood-burning stove, which I suspected was the house’s only source of heat. On the wall next to it, a gold-framed picture of the Virgin Mary hung over a small table where a glass-encased candle burned. Other than the table, the only furniture consisted of a small couch, no bigger than a love seat, a single cushioned chair, and a hulking television set that looked as though it was a refugee from the eighties.

  As we came into the room, a second boy, a year or so younger than the first one, hovered warily in the doorway of the next room. The woman barked an order, and the two kids scampered away, returning moments later with a mismatched pair of kitchen chairs. The woman took one of those and gestured the rest of us into the other seats while the boys sank down on the floor and huddled near their mother’s knees. There was no disguising the anxious looks on their faces.

  Under most circumstances, someone as close to the investigation as the victim’s brother would never have been allowed into that kind of interview, but we needed a translator on the spot, and if it hadn’t been for Jaime Carbajal’s presence there on the front porch, I don’t think we would have gotten anywhere near Lupe Rivera.

  He mostly asked questions that were framed by Mel and Detective Caldwell, who had spent the afternoon gathering as much information as possible about Tomas Rivera. Once the suspect’s wife answered, Jaime would translate what she said while both Mel and Lucy Caldwell took copious notes.

  Where was her husband? Lupe didn’t know. Was she aware he hadn’t gone to work that day? Yes, she was. Was he sick? That question produced a long thoughtful pause followed by a dubious maybe. Had she noticed anything unusual in her husband’s behavior lately? Another maybe. It didn’t surprise me that Mel and Lucy were deliberately beating around the bush, having Jaime Carbajal ask questions without giving away the bottom line-that Lupe’s husband was now the prime suspect in a homicide investigation. Even so, each time Lupe answered she glanced at her children. It seemed to me that she was deciding how she should answer based on the fact that her sons were sitting there listening.

  Jaime seemed to arrive at the same conclusion. He turned to me. “If you wouldn’t mind taking the boys out of here…”

  Before I could object, Mel and Lucy nodded in unison. I got the hint. It was more than a little embarrassing to be voted off homicide island by the woman of my dreams, but I set about doing what I’d been asked to do without complaint.

  “I think I have a teddy bear out in the trunk of my car,” I said, holding out my hand to the younger boy. His name was Tomas. He didn’t look to be any older than six or seven. “Would you like to go see it?”

  He nodded and scrambled to his feet.

  “How about you?” I asked Alfonso.

  “I’m too old for teddy bears,” Alfonso declared, but he got to his feet and followed Tomas and me outside. It was a good thing Alfonso didn’t want one, because the truth is, my vehicle was equipped with only one Teddy Bear Patrol teddy bear. Tomas’s small face brightened as I handed it over. Then, with him cradling his bear, we walked back to the front porch and sat down on the top step.

  We sat there in silence for a time while I struggled to find something reasonable to say.

  Mel had passed me part of the paperwork. Tomas Rivera had a Social Security number, so he was most likely in the country legally. I doubted the same held true for his wife and sons. If they were illegal immigrants, having a collection of cops show up on their doorstep had to be scary for all concerned. From their point of view, the prospect of being busted by Immigration might seem catastrophic. But this was far more serious than that since we were investigating a homicide.

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked.

  Alfonso glared at me and shook his head, pretending he didn’t understand when he was really refusing to answer. When Tomas started to, Alfonso elbowed him to shut up.

  Another long period of silence passed. Then, because Tomas seemed the more approachable of the two, I addressed my next question to him. “What does your daddy do?” I asked.

  “He works in the woods,” Tomas answered with undisguised pride. “He cuts down big trees and saws them up so people can build houses.”

  Alfonso elbowed Tomas again. “Shut up,” he said aloud.

  I ignored him. So did Tomas.

  “Your mom seemed real sad when we got here, like she’d been crying. How come?”

  “Because of the picture,” Tomas told me.

  “What picture?”

  He shrugged. “Just a picture,” he said.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “In her pocket,” he said.

  I stood up. “Wait here,” I told the boys. “I’ll be right back.”

  Once inside, I spoke to Jaime. “Ask her about the picture.”

  “Picture?” he asked. “What picture?”

  He turned back to Lupe and asked the question. Her face seemed to dissolve. For a long time she said nothing at all. Finally she reached into the pocket of her jeans. Slowly she removed a photo-a small wallet-size color photo, the kind of head shot that comes home each year with every school-age kid.

  She held it out to me. I was about to reach for it, but Jaime Carbajal beat me to it. “Oh my God,” he croaked, grabbing the picture out of her hand.

  “It’s Luis!” he exclaimed, staring at it. “That’s my nephew. Where the hell did you get this?”

  Where indeed!

  CHAPTER 15

  For several long seconds after Butch turned off the ignition, Joanna sat in the car staring up at the towering steeple of Saint Dominick’s Catholic Church.

  “What’s wrong?” Butch asked.

  “This is the first time I’ve been back at Saint Dom’s since Deputy Sloan’s funeral,” she said. “I’m afraid that as soon as I step inside, that day will all come back to me.” Even now, closing her eyes, she could see the uniformed police officers standing row on row and hear the bagpipes wailing. It was overwhelming.

  “This is a wedding rehearsal,” Butch reminded her. “You’ve got to let that other stuff go. Put it out of your mind.”

  Nodding, Joanna knew he was right, but it was easier said than done. Butch came around to the passenger side of the car and lifted Dennis out of his car seat. Then he opened Joanna’s door and held out his free hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Just inside the double doors, Joanna was assailed by the screaming voices of two children. It turned out that the flower girl and the ring bearer, four-year-old fraternal twins, were in the throes of a total meltdown. The bride and the children’s mother were ineffectively trying to broker a peace agreement between the two warring children. Finally Father Rowan, the rector of Saint Dominick’s, stepped into the fray. With a calming word or two, he somehow put a stop to the battle.

  The priest then turned to Joanna, smiled, and held out his hand. “How good to see you again, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “You know what they say. If the dress rehearsal is a disaster, opening night should be great.” He turned his attention to Dennis. “Is this your little boy?” he added. “With that red hair he clearly takes after his mother.”

  Just as the priest had somehow managed to settle the hash between the two battling four-year-olds, his kind words and unexcited manne
r calmed Joanna as well.

  “And where’s your lovely daughter this evening?” Father Rowan asked.

  “Staying overnight with a friend,” Butch said. “Somehow coming to a wedding rehearsal and dinner just didn’t do it for her.”

  “No,” the priest said with a smile. “I don’t suppose it would.”

  Once the rehearsal started in earnest, Father Rowan walked the wedding party through their paces twice for good measure. The first time the recalcitrant flower girl was determined to go stand with her ring-bearer brother after her trip down the aisle and had to be convinced that her place was on the bride’s side of the ceremony. The second time she raced down the aisle at a dead run and had to start over at a more decorous pace. Dennis, seeing that the other kids seemed to be allowed free rein at the front of the church, wanted desperately to join them. Besides, since his mother was standing right there in plain sight, why shouldn’t he be up there, too?

  It turned out that the ongoing uproar over the kids was good for Joanna’s nerves, reminding her that this occasion was all about beginnings rather than endings. It helped immeasurably that Frank Montoya was nervous, too.

  The rehearsal dinner was held in a private room at the clubhouse for Rob Roy Links, a golf club out near Palominas. They were driving there with Butch at the wheel when Joanna’s phone rang. The caller was Jaime Carbajal.

  “We have a suspect,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Tomas Rivera, the guy whose driver’s license was left in Marcella’s vehicle.”

  “Do they have him in custody?” Joanna asked.

  “No, not yet, but at least we know who he is. His wife found Luis’s school photo from last year hidden in her husband’s underwear drawer. When she saw the picture, she thought her husband had been fooling around behind her back and that Luis was her husband’s son with some other woman. I was able to tell her that wasn’t true. Turns out he was doing a lot worse than screwing around.”

  “Does his wife know what he’s done?”

  “Not yet. The detectives running the interview were cagey about that. They didn’t let on why we were there.”