by J. A. Jance
“What an annoying sound,” Irma grumbled upon hearing the distinctive rooster crow.
“You should get yourself a phone with a nicer ring than that.”
Answering quickly, Joanna got up and moved out of earshot. “What’s up?” she asked her chief deputy.
“Fandango’s lawyer told them to go the search warrant route. Jaime’s on his way to pick up a warrant right now, then he’ll head for the airport in Tucson. He should be able to catch a flight out to L.A. this evening, but he’ll have to stay over until tomorrow morning to execute the warrant.”
“This sounds expensive,” Joanna said. “Isn’t there any other way to do it?”
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“Not really,” Frank said. “For one thing, Carmen Ortega had downloaded some of what she had filmed into an attachment and emailed it to Fandango. We don’t have the equipment it would take to download it. For another, Fandango has a networked computer system for keeping track of calendars and expenses. Again, you have to use their equipment to access it. Not only that, if any of the threats are there, we want them to be admissible in court.”
“Okay, okay,” Joanna agreed. “I get it.”
“Dr. Lawrence, the ME from Hidalgo County, is faxing over his preliminary report, but Ernie’s been on the phone with him. Detective Carpenter is right here in my office.
Do you want to talk to him?”
“Sure,” Joanna said. “Put him on.” She waited while Frank handed the phone over to Ernie. “So what does Dr. Lawrence have to say for himself?” she asked.
“It’s all pretty interesting,” Ernie answered. “Insect larval evidence would indicate that the two New Mexico victims died a week ago tomorrow.”
Joanna didn’t like to think about how succeeding generations of teeming maggots could be used to estimate the shelf life of corpses that had been left outside to rot in the elements, but she appreciated the fact that the process worked with uncanny accuracy.
‘A week ago?” she asked. “On Tuesday, you mean?”
“That’s right,” Ernie replied. “The same day as Carol Mossman’s murder. What’s even more interesting is this: Both victims were evidently fully clothed when they were shot. The doc found microscopic fabric fibers in the entrance wounds on both victims.”
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“You’re saying they were stripped of their clothing after they were killed?” Joanna asked.
“Yes, ma’am, and, considering the extent of the entrance and exit wounds, whoever did that job must have had an ironclad stomach,” Ernie told her. “First they were moved-carried, most likely, rather than dragged-from where they were killed to where they were found. Then they were stripped and finally tied up.”
“How weird,” Joanna said.
“You’ve got that right,” Ernie agreed. “But Doc Lawrence says that the rope-burn chafing on both victims’ ankles and wrists is definitely indicative of postmortem injury rather than pre.”
‘And if they were carried as opposed to dragged …” Joanna began.
“Then the killer is one strong dude who wants us to think we’re dealing with a sexual predator when we’re really not.”
Joanna thought about this last piece of information. “So we’re not out of line in thinking they were murdered because they were interfering where they weren’t wanted.”
“Which takes us right back to The Brethren,” Ernie agreed.
“I want you to get on the horn to the Mojave County Sheriff’s Department,” Joanna said after a moment’s consideration. “Talk directly to Sheriff Blake if you can.
Let him know what we’re up against, and see if he’ll have his people send us everything they have on The Brethren.”
“I doubt they’ll have much,” Ernie said.
“Maybe you’re right, but we want whatever they do have,” Joanna told him.
When she finished with the phone call, she turned back to the table where she had left Irma Mahilich, only to find it empty.
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Irma had returned to the puzzle table and her magnifying glass, having left behind a set of four completed office drawings. The last one contained seven or eight desks, but without Irma’s commentary, the names meant little.
Joanna approached the puzzle table, carrying the drawings. “Oh, there you are,” Irma Mahilich said. “I’m glad you’re finally off the phone.”
“Could you tell me a little about the people on the last drawing?” Joanna asked.
“No,” Irma said. “I can’t, not today, anyway. Thinking about all those people’s names and what they did has worn me out completely. I need to go take a nap, but I didn’t want to leave without telling you goodbye. Now if you’ll be good enough to tell the receptionist that I’m ready to go back to my room, she’ll call for one of the aides to come get me.”
“I can help you,” Joanna said. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s not that,” Irma said. “I’m a little slow and I can walk just fine, but I can’t always remember what room I’m in. My neighbors get cranky when I go up and down the halls trying my key in all the doors until I find my own place. Short-term memory loss, they call it. Drives me batty sometimes.”
Joanna looked down at the sheets of paper in her hand and at all the desk-placement arrangements and at the coworkers’ names Irma Mahilich had summoned from that long-ago time. The old woman had been able to recall all kinds of pertinent details concerning her work life and her office mates from thirty and forty years ago, but in the present she was unable to remember the number of her own room.
“It’s room one forty-one,” Joanna said. “And I don’t mind taking you there.”
“Oh, no,” Irma said. “You go on about your business. I’m fine.”
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Joanna nodded, and let Irma do it her way. “Thank you so much for all your help,”
Joanna said. “But is there a time when I could come back and talk to you again?”
‘Anytime,” Irma said. “I’m always here. You’ll probably have to remind me of what this is all about, because I won’t remember from one day to the next. And bring those pieces of paper along with you. It helps me to have something to look at, something physical. As Hercule Poirot might say, that helps get the little gray cells up and working.”
Joanna went to the receptionist’s desk and then waited while a young Hispanic aide in a flowered smock stopped by the puzzle table to accompany Irma Mahilich back to her apartment. Watching their slow progress across the lobby and down a long corridor, Joanna Brady had a sudden awful glimpse of her own future. She could only imagine the vital businesslike young woman Irma Mahilich had been when she held court inside the PD General Office years ago, first as a clerk in the employment office and finally as private secretary to Otto Frayn, the local branch’s general manager.
Was Joanna doomed to have something similar happen to her? Would she one day come to a point when she’d be able to recall details of long-ago murder investigations from her days as sheriff and the names of all the investigators who had worked them while not being able to find her own way home? She hated to think about what a long, slow, debilitating decline like that would mean not only for her and for Butch, but also for her children -for Jenny and for the unborn child she carried in her womb.
And as she made her way to the Ciwie she had left parked outside, for the first time it occurred to her that, tragic as her father’s sudden death may have been, perhaps D. . Lathrop had
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been lucky to go the way he did. Seeing Irma Mahilich made Joanna think that there were far worse alternatives.
It was a subdued and thoughtful Sheriff Brady who drove into the Justice Center parking lot forty minutes later. She stepped into the lobby outside her office long enough to let Kristin know she had arrived, then she returned to her desk and started sifting through stacks of loosely organized papers.
She had barely made a dent in the first pile when there was a tap on the door. She looked up to see the hulking figure of Detective Ernie
Carpenter filling her doorway.
The grim set of his mouth told her something was wrong.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just had a call from University Medical Center,” he said, shaking his head. “Maria Elena Maldonado didn’t make it.”
“The little boy’s mother?”
Ernie nodded. “She died a little over an hour ago. They just now got around to letting us know.”
“Where’s Jaime?” Joanna asked.
“On his way to Tucson to catch his plane,” Ernie replied. “Why?”
Without answering, Joanna picked up her phone and dialed Frank Montoya’s extension.
“Meet Ernie and me over at the jail interview room ASAP,” Joanna told her chief deputy after passing along Ernie’s news. “The three of us are going to have a little chat with our friendly neighborhood SUV driver. You might want to bring along your tape recorder and a fresh tape.”
“Wait a minute,” Ernie said as he followed Joanna down the corridor. “If we’re going to ask him questions, shouldn’t we call his attorney?”
“Who said anything about questions?” Joanna returned.
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“We’re going to give that son of a bitch a message. He’s still jailed as John Doe, isn’t he?”
Ernie gave her a somber, questioning look before nodding. “That’s right, boss. We ran his prints through APIS and came up empty.”
Once at the jail, Joanna detoured long enough to stop by the booking desk before she met up with Frank and Ernie inside the jail’s stark interview room. Joanna took Frank’s proffered recorder and handed it over to Detective Carpenter.
“I’ll talk,” Joanna said. “Frank will translate. Ernie, you listen.”
They were standing, ranged silently around the perimeter of the interview room, when the shackled prisoner, walking with the aid of crutches and with his left foot in a cast, was led inside a few minutes later. The tape recorder, already running, sat on a table in front of Ernie Carpenter.
“Are you interested in having your attorney here?” Joanna asked as soon as the man was seated.
Frank translated the question, and the man shook his head. “I just want to go home,”
he said in Spanish. “Back to Mexico.”
Joanna walked over to the table, stopping only when her face was no more than a foot away from the prisoner’s. “Do you know another of your passengers has died?” Joanna asked as her emerald eyes, blazing with fury, bored into his. “The mother of the little boy you murdered,” she continued. “Now she is dead as well.”
“Not murder,” the man objected, again with Frank translating. ‘An accident. It was only an accident.”
“The deaths occurred in the course of your committing a crime,” Joanna returned.
“Smuggling illegal aliens into this country is a crime-a felony. I’m sure your attorney explained to you
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that when death occurs in the course of committing a felony, that results in an automatic charge of murder.”
“No,” the man said. “It was not my fault. The car was old-“
“Do you believe in heaven and hell?” Joanna asked, interrupting Frank’s translation.
Frank paused before passing along her question, as though he couldn’t quite believe that was what she meant for him to say.
“Go on,” Joanna urged impatiently. ‘Ask him.”
With a reluctant shake of his head, Frank did as he’d been told. Once he heard the question, the prisoner shot Joanna a quizzical look and then shrugged his shoulders dismissively as though the question didn’t merit an answer.
“You’re here as John Doe,” Joanna continued. “You may think that because we don’t know your real name, you can’t be charged with a crime. And the truth of the matter is, because of jurisdictional considerations, we may not be able to hold you here much longer. Federal law may take precedence and you may very well end up being deported.”
The prisoner smiled knowingly and began to nod as Frank neared the end of that translation.
That was how the system usually worked. It was what the driver had expected to happen.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Joanna said. “The one about heaven and hell. Do you believe or not, yes or no?”
“No,” he said.
“But that’s a lie, isn’t it?” Joanna said, pulling a slip of paper out of her pocket.
“I stopped by the property room,” she said. “This is an inventory of your personal possessions, the ones that were taken away from you when you were booked into my jail. The second item here is listed as a crucifix. People who don’t believe in God or in heaven or hell don’t usually wear crucifixes.”
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The prisoner stared at the silently whirring pins in the tape recorder and said nothing.
“So even though I don’t know your real name, God does,” Joanna continued. “You can call what happened an accident if you want, but God knows better. He knows that the blood of all those people-including the blood of that little boy, Eduardo, and his mother, Maria Elena-is on your head and your hands.”
Joanna paused after that and waited for a response that didn’t materialize. “It may be true that you don’t believe in God or in heaven or hell, but you might want to reconsider,” she added several long moments later. “Because when you are deported, I’m going to let it be known among some of our friends in the federales that the reason we let you go is that you told us everything we needed to know about the people behind this coyote syndicate. We’ll say you told us who they are and that we’re just waiting for one of them to cross the border so we can arrest them and put them on trial.”
The prisoner shifted in his seat. For the first time in several minutes, his eyes met Joanna’s. “No,” he objected. “You must not do this. It is a lie. I’ve said nothing to you about them. Nothing.”
“We know that, you know that, and even God knows that,” Joanna agreed with a slight smile. “Unfortunately, the people you work for will not know that. Call Border Patrol,”
Joanna added briskly to Frank. “Tell them to come get Mr. Doe and take him back to Mexico. It’s too much trouble to keep him in my jail any longer.”
The prisoner, who up to now had required a translator, suddenly burst into perfect English. “No, senora,” he begged. “Please. You don’t understand. If they think I have told you anything, they will kill me.”
Joanna shrugged. “Too bad,” she said. “That’s your problem and God’s, Mr. Doe, not mine.”
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“But what if I do tell you what you want to know?” he asked. “Then will you let me stay?”
“I can’t say because it’s not up to me,” Joanna replied. “I suggest you call your lawyer and talk to him. Have him see what kind of deal he can negotiate. Your attorney may be able to help you. I can’t.”
Turning her back on the prisoner, Joanna walked as far as the door and knocked on it to summon the guard. “We’re leaving now,” she announced as the guard unlocked and opened the door. “If the prisoner wishes to speak to his attorney, let him use the phone.”
“Wait,” the prisoner called after her. “Senora, wait, please. My name is Ramon-Ramon Alvarez Sandoval. I will tell you whatever it is you want to know, but you must understand that the men I work for are evil. If they find out what I have done, they will kill me, and my family, too.”
Joanna stared hard at the prisoner. She wanted to spit in his face and grind it into the ground. Here was a man whose wanton disregard for others had left a total of seven people dead. And yet he was, as she had told Jaime Carbajal earlier, very small potatoes. Drivers were entirely expendable-to both sides. What she really wanted was a list of the names of the people running the syndicate-the ones giving the orders and collecting their blood money while giving not the slightest consideration to the lives that might be lost in the process.
“You’re right,” Rarnon added softly a moment later. “I do believe in God, and you do, too
.”
Slowly Joanna moved away from the door and returned to the table. Not taking her eyes off Ramon, she sat down across from him. “I am only a sheriff,” she said quietly.
“I’m not with INS or the FBI. I’m not a prosecutor. I can’t make plea bargains, 290
I
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and I can promise nothing, but if you help us put the animals you work for out of business-if you will tell us what you know and agree to testify if they can be brought to trial-I will do what I can to help you. Do you understand?”
Ramon nodded. “Yes,” he said.
Joanna looked at Frank Montoya. “Talk to the prosecutor’s office,” she said. “Check with Arlee Jones and see who all needs to be here to witness Mr. Sandoval’s statement-in addition to Mr. Sandoval himself and his attorney, that is. Then set it up for tomorrow if at all possible!
“But, Sheriff Brady,” Frank began. “There are all kinds of jurisdictional complications here.”
“You’re good at sorting out complications, Chief Deputy Montoya. You always have been. Does this meet with your approval, Mr. Sandoval?”
“Yes,” Ramon said softly.
“Then you’d better talk with your attorney and clear it with him. If he advises you not to go through with this, or if you change your mind, you’re to notify Mr. Montoya here at once. Do you understand?”
“You have given me your word, and I have given mine,” Ramon Sandoval said. “I will not change my mind.”
As Joanna left the jail to walk back to her office, she was not surprised to notice that the sky had darkened overhead. A stiff, cooling breeze took the edge off the July heat and kicked up puffs of dust devils that danced and jigged across the parking lot. Off in the distance, thunder rumbled. Joanna couldn’t tell if the sudden lift in her spirits came from the possibility of breaking up a major illegal-alien-smuggling syndicate or from the desert dweller’s hard-wired joy at the prospect of coming rain.
Fifteen minutes later Joanna was back at her desk when Ernie 292
Carpenter once again appeared in her doorway. “How the hell did you pull that one off?” he demanded morosely. “Here we busted our butts to get all those UDA interviews, and you never even bothered to mention them.”