by J. A. Jance
When Father Rowan asked, “Who giveth away?” LuAnn’s two kids gave a rousing “We do” and then sat down next to their grandmother, who, in true MOTB fashion, was weeping quietly in the second row. The ring bearer managed to drop the ring at precisely the wrong moment. When it rolled out of reach under the bride’s dress, the ring bearer promptly scrambled under her skirt to retrieve it. He popped up again, holding it triumphantly in the air, and got a hearty round of applause from the assembled congregation. The bride’s spoken vow of “I do” came through loud and clear. Frank’s was a lot quieter.
When it was over and the newlyweds marched down the aisle to the joyous strains of the Wedding March, Joanna followed along behind, realizing as she went that she had made it through the entire ceremony without once thinking about Deputy Dan Sloan.
That was a good thing. It would have been very bad form for the best man to break down and cry, especially if she smeared her mascara.
By the time we left the suicide scene in the woods outside Cle Elum and made it back to Ellensburg, we were very thankful to find that the Best Western still had one room available, a room with two double beds. At home Mel and I sleep in a queen-size bed. Doubles don’t fit us very well. When I woke up the next morning-at ten past eight-Mel was sound asleep in the other bed.
I went into the bathroom, showered with a tiny sliver of soap, and then got dressed in yesterday’s underwear. My mother would not have been amused, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant I was more or less likely to be in a car wreck that day.
By the time I came out of the bathroom, Mel was up. I know now what to expect when she hasn’t had a chance to remove her makeup properly. So I gave her a clear shot at the bathroom and told her I was on my way to the restaurant. Fortunately, Detective Caldwell had volunteered to give Lupe and her children the bad news about Tomas Rivera’s suicide. As I walked from our room to the restaurant through a chill and steady drizzle, I was grateful that I didn’t have that next-of-kin sword hanging over my head.
Once inside the steamy restaurant, I looked around for Lupe and her kids. Fortunately, they were nowhere to be seen, but Jaime Carbajal was. Uninvited, I lowered myself onto the empty bench seat of his booth, motioning for the waitress to bring me coffee as I did so.
I told him what had happened after he left-how we had found Tomas dead, presumably of carbon monoxide poisoning, in a shed with a running bulldozer.
“If the place was locked, how did he get inside?” Jaime asked.
“Ken Leggett, the heavy-equipment operator, thinks maybe Tomas was hiding inside the building-maybe in the restroom-when Ken put the dozer away and locked up for the night. Once everyone left the job site, he hot-wired the dozer and that was it.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“No.”
I think Jaime was as disappointed as I was that Tomas Rivera had croaked out on us without telling us what we really needed to know. It’s one thing to know who did something. I didn’t have a doubt in the world that Tomas was our killer. What we didn’t know was why he had done it or who was ultimately responsible.
“How does Miguel Rios fit into the picture?” Jaime asked.
“He started out as an ordinary street thug, but he’s worked his way up to a waterfront home in a town called Gig Harbor. According to what Tomas told Lupe, he used to be hooked in with a group who smuggle people and goods across the border along with a lucrative side venture into prostitution.”
A thoughtful look crossed Jaime’s face. “Tell me about those smugglers,” he said. “Did she mention any names?”
I hadn’t listened to Lupe Rivera’s entire second interview, but I had heard quite a bit of it. Removing my notebook from my pocket, I paged through the jumble of notes.
“Here it is,” I said. “Cervantes.”
Jaime Carbajal stiffened in his chair. “Cervantes?” he repeated.
I nodded. “When Lupe mentioned the name, I thought she was making a joke. I said, ‘As in Don Quixote?’ She said, ‘No, definitely not Don Quixote.’”
“That fits!” Jaime exclaimed. He was already reaching for his cell phone.
“What do you mean, it fits?” I asked.
Holding the phone to his ear, he didn’t answer. “Damn!” he said. “Went straight to voice mail.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s probably already gone to the wedding.”
“What’s going on?”
But Jaime was already dialing another number. When there was no answer on that one, either, he tried a third. “Ernie!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad I caught you. You’re not going to believe it. We think the guy who murdered Marcella may have been hooked in with the Cervantes brothers from down in Cananea. I’m hoping you can call up the folks from the Border Task Force and see if they can tell us anything about what’s going on with those guys at the moment.” He paused, then added, “Sure, I understand. Have Tom give me a call. I don’t have a computer with me, but he can fax whatever they send him to my hotel here in Ellensburg.”
I waited until he finished the call. “How about putting me back in the loop?” I said. “Who are the Cervantes brothers?”
“Antonio and Jesus,” he said. “Their father, Manuel, was a good man, a copper miner at Cananea, a mining town just south of the border in Sonora. He got dusted and died.”
“Dusted?” I asked.
“Lung disease,” Jaime told me. “Once he was gone, his two sons decided they didn’t want the same thing to happen to them-and they were too lazy to work that hard. So they went into business for themselves-drug trafficking, running illegals across the border, you name it. As the bigger cartels started getting taken down, Antonio and Jesus moved in on their territories and in on their businesses, too. Prostitution, protection rackets, you name it.”
The word “prostitution” made me think about Marcella Andrade and those other five murdered girls. She had been taken out because of the money. I wondered if maybe some of the other girls had objected when they’d found out the real price of admission for their ride across the border.
I said aloud to Jaime, “Sounds like the Mafia.”
“It is the Mafia,” he replied grimly. “Mafia Mexican style.”
“But why would Miguel Rios of Gig Harbor, Washington, be dealing with people from-where was it again?”
“Cananea, Sonora,” Jaime answered. “Maybe because they’re all part of the global economy. Once I hear back from the Task Force, we may have an answer on that.”
“We?” I asked. It seemed reasonable to point out to him that this was our case, not his.
“You,” he corrected. “Obviously, if anything important turns up, I’ll pass it along.”
Mel came into the restaurant and made her way to the booth. Even in yesterday’s clothes and with minimal makeup, she looked terrific.
“Morning, guys,” she said, smiling at Jaime. “Mind if I join you?”
The reception was a catered affair in the basement of the Convention Center, a building that had once held the company store, Phelps Dodge Mercantile. The groceries, furniture, appliances, and dry goods were all gone now-had been for generations-but ghosts of the building’s commercial past still lingered. There was a reasonably good restaurant along with several boutique shops on the main floor, while the basement was devoted to a single large meeting room.
Joanna and Butch walked down the worn terrazzo stairs and made their way through the reception line, greeting the smiling bride and groom and offering congratulations. A local and very enthusiastic mariachi band, Los Amigos, was playing in one corner of the room, next to a table stacked high with wedding presents. Emily Post may have decreed that gifts shouldn’t be brought to wedding receptions, but Frank’s and LuAnn’s friends and relations hadn’t gotten that memo.
Keeping the gifts and gift cards straight isn’t my problem, Joanna thought gratefully. And neither are the kids.
True to form, the twins, still in their wedding-procession finery, were once again at each other’s throats.
Joanna knew that if she and Butch had brought Denny along, he would have made a beeline for all the excitement and put his own toddler spin on the proceedings.
Along one wall was a buffet table laden with mountains of Mexican food provided by Chico Rodriguez of Chico’s Taco Stand fame. The restaurant, in Bisbee’s Don Luis neighborhood, was little more than a hole in the wall, but the spread here, pulled together by Chico and an assortment of his female relatives, was nothing less than splendid.
Painfully aware that her hairdo battle had left no time for breakfast, Joanna took her growling stomach and headed straight for the buffet table. She and Butch filled their plates with a delectable assortment of tacos, taquitos, enchiladas, and chips. After locating two seats together at the already crowded tables, Joanna looked after the plates and places while Butch went in search of punch.
Joanna was still waiting for him to return when Eleanor and George stopped in passing to say hello. George moved on to visit with someone else while Eleanor, eyeing Joanna’s loaded plate, bent over and whispered in her ear.
“Try not to spill any salsa on that gray silk,” she warned. “That stuff will never come out.”
After imparting that bit of wisdom, Eleanor moved on.
“What did your mother want?” Butch asked when he returned a couple of minutes later.
“The usual,” Joanna replied with a laugh. “She was giving me the benefit of her years of experience with silk suits.”
For the next half hour or so, Joanna enjoyed herself immensely. It was fun to see her people-uniformed personnel and not; some active and some retired; sworn officers and not-enjoying themselves together. She knew that on this Saturday afternoon her department was functioning with only a skeleton crew, and she hoped nothing momentous would happen while they were all off having a good time.
A few minutes later, as the bride was gearing up to toss the bouquet, Joanna heard her cell phone’s distinctive chirp. Joanna’s outfit had no pockets and she wasn’t carrying a purse. Butch pulled her phone out of his pocket and handed it over. Caller ID told her the number was unavailable.
“Hello,” Joanna said.
Just then a cheer went up as Deb Howell, looking surprised, stood in the front row of onlookers holding LuAnn Montoya’s bridal bouquet. The band swung into another number, and the accompanying din rendered Joanna’s phone useless.
“Hang on a minute,” Joanna said to her unidentified caller. “I can’t hear a word. Let me go outside.”
Pushing away from the table, she made her way through the crowd and up the stairs. Once she was on the ground floor, she spoke again.
“If this is Sheriff Brady, where the hell are you?” a man’s voice asked. “In a bar somewhere?”
It wasn’t a very pleasant way to start a conversation with a stranger. As far as Joanna was concerned, it was none of his business if she was at a wedding or raising hell in a local cantina.
“Who’s calling, please,” Joanna returned coldly.
“Agent in Charge Bruce Delahany,” he replied brusquely. “What the hell do you people think you’re doing down there? You’re about to screw up fifteen months of work!”
In Joanna Brady’s circle of acquaintance, Bruce Delahany of the Drug Enforcement Agency was a known but none-too-popular addition. Joanna’s department had worked closely and successfully with several of Delahany’s predecessors. In fact, until Delahany had taken charge, Joanna’s department had hosted regular meetings of a DEA-sponsored coalition, the Border Task Force. Delahany preferred to have the meetings held closer to his own bailiwick, preferably at his offices in downtown Tucson.
Joanna had been forced to sit through any number of seminars and meetings where the square-jawed Delahany, often with Arizona’s newly elected governor at his side and with an absolute absence of humor, went on at tedious length (ATL, as Butch called it!) about the importance of interdepartmental cooperation. It wasn’t lost on Joanna that Delahany talked the talk without ever walking the walk. He appeared to be far too focused on creating his own law enforcement fiefdom.
If Joanna’s people had some kind of conflict brewing with the DEA, this was the first she’d heard anything about it.
“What seems to be the problem, Agent Delahany?” she asked.
“Problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is,” he shot back. “Your people are asking questions they shouldn’t be asking. We’re working on bringing down a major organization, one that has ties all over the West. We can’t afford to have your ham-fisted people come barreling through and messing it up. For the time being, the Cervantes Cartel and everyone in it is absolutely off limits. Understand?”
Of course Joanna recognized the name. You couldn’t be in law enforcement along the U.S./Mexican border and not know about Sonora’s own home-grown drug cartel wunderkinder, Antonio and Jesus Cervantes. There was no danger of their ever crossing the U.S. border in person. Joanna understood that the two brothers lived in absolute luxury in specially built and well-fortified mansions next door to each other in an exclusive private compound south of Cananea. People who had dealings with the two came there to see them, and it was from that remote location that they ran a growing, murderous, and exceedingly profitable crime syndicate that had tentacles covering the entire western United States.
Right that minute, however, Joanna had no idea which of her officers might have expressed an interest in the Cervantes Cartel or why. She seemed to remember that Jaime Carbajal had mentioned the name in regard to his murdered sister. The exact details eluded her right then, and Joanna wasn’t about to let Agent Delahany know about any of it, not until she understood the situation herself.
“We’ve been involved in this top-secret operation for months now,” Delahany continued. “We’ve had assets in play, keeping an eye on things. And just when we’re about to spring the trap on them…”
Joanna wondered if Delahany’s outburst might have something to do with Ernie’s checking into other ATV hangouts around the county. Was that what had gored Agent Delahany’s ox?
“We’re investigating a murder that took place at Action Trail Adventures near Bowie last weekend,” she told him now. “If there happens to be some overlap between your investigation and ours, so be it.”
“I don’t believe you’re hearing me,” Delahany said, his voice rising. “I want you and your people to stand down. This is important. We need to bring these guys down all at once, not piecemeal, one dumb crook at a time.”
“And I’m working on solving a homicide that happened inside my jurisdiction,” Joanna said firmly. “And we’re going to keep on working that homicide.”
“I swear, if you mess up this operation…”
Joanna didn’t wait long enough to hear the remainder of his threat. “This conversation is over, Agent Delahany. Have a nice day.”
He was still blustering into the phone when she ended the call. When her phone chirped again a few seconds later, she didn’t answer. Instead, she made her way back downstairs, where George had commandeered her seat and was talking with Butch.
When she said she needed to leave, Butch started to stand up. “Let’s go then,” he said.
“Stay here and have fun,” she said. “Ernie or Deb can give me a ride.”
George immediately grasped the transportation dilemma. “Give Joanna the car keys and let her drive herself,” he said. “Ellie and I will be glad to take you home later.”
Joanna plucked Ernie off the dance floor and Deb from the line of people waiting for punch. “Come on,” she told them. “We have work to do.”
One of the most unusual additions to Ross Connors’s Special Homicide Investigation Team in recent years is a remarkable guy named Todd Hatcher, who originally hails from southern Arizona. In the course of a year, our department had made good use of Todd’s geeky Ph.D. in forensic economics and his computer savvy.
In terms of background, I doubt anyone in his senior class at Benson High School would have voted him Most Likely to Succeed. Born the son o
f a convicted repeat bank robber and a waitress, Todd had grown up with a father who had ostensibly been imprisoned for life. He had been raised in a home where money was in short supply but library books were plentiful. He had turned into a serious student who had won a scholarship to the University of Arizona, where, with a combination of scholarships and summers spent working as a ranch hand, he had earned both a B.A. and master’s degree in economics. Later on, a fellowship had brought him to the University of Washington to work on a Ph.D.
When Todd’s father had developed early-onset Alzheimer’s, the prison system had seen fit to turn him loose and make him his wife’s problem rather than theirs. The strain of caring for her seriously ill husband until his death had been too much for Todd’s mother. She had died within months of her husband. With that painful family history in his background, Todd had proposed doing his dissertation on the unfunded medical expenses caused by our country’s aging and permanent prison population. The project had been nixed by his dissertation adviser, so Todd had completed the project on his own, turning out a modestly successful book in the process and turning my boss, Washington Attorney General Ross Connors, into a devoted fan who had brought Todd’s talents to bear on any number of sticky projects.
Given Todd’s considerable talents, I was pretty sure he’d be able to dig up plenty of information for us as well. Out in the car, I called Ross and asked him to put Todd on the case of Miguel Rios and the Cervantes brothers. Then I headed for Seattle.
Once again, because Mel had gone on ahead and because I was driving solo, my mind was running full speed ahead. Yes, people like Todd can use computers to put together amazing connections, but so can ordinary old-fashioned human beings. And just like the night before with North Bend and Ken Leggett, it was a road sign on the freeway that jarred me into making the connection out of the previous day’s collection of word salad. It was the one for Highway 18, from I-90 to Tacoma.
