“So you know about them?” Joanna asked.
“Only as much as Jaime Carbajal told me this morning.”
“Anyway,” Joanna continued, “it sounds like the cartel found out about Marco’s participation and took him out. That probably explains why they came after Marcella, too.”
“Jaime told me about the cartel,” I said, “but I doubt he had a clue about Marco turning on them. Where did you hear that?”
“From Bruce Delahany, the DEA agent in charge in Tucson,” she answered. “They’ve been putting together a massive takedown that’s supposed to happen within the next few weeks. Unless…”
“Unless Jaime screws it up?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Joanna replied. “Delahany is afraid that if Jaime spooks Rios prematurely, a lot of the other people involved will go to ground, but that’s his concern. I’m a lot more worried about Jaime. I can’t imagine him being pushed so far that he’d even think about going after Rios on his own.”
“I can,” I replied. “There are times when revenge sounds a whole lot better than whatever the justice system might get around to dishing out. Think about it. Jaime’s sister is dead and, most likely, so is the triggerman, the guy who actually killed her. From Jaime’s point of view it probably looks as though the guy who’s ultimately responsible for his sister’s death has a good chance of walking.”
“But what about the other cases?” Joanna asked. “The ones you’re working on, those other dead prostitutes? According to Delahany, Miguel Rios runs the cartel’s prostitution interests in your part of the country. He’s also supposedly the cartel’s chief enforcer. So maybe if one of his girls doesn’t toe the line, the next thing you know, she’s gone.”
I could see where this was going, and suddenly I felt like we were on to something. Maybe our dead prostitutes were actually Miguel Rios’s dead prostitutes, and if they had been imported by the cartel-smuggled across the border and brought north, like the girls Lupe Rivera had told us about-no wonder no one in this country had ever bothered reporting them missing.
During my momentary lapse in attention, Joanna had gone right on talking. “With any kind of luck we’ll be wrong,” she was saying when I tuned back into the conversation. “You’ll get there and Jaime won’t be. But I did ask Tom Hadlock to check with the car rental agency. Jaime is driving a blue Chevy Cobalt with a GPS. Do you want the license number?”
“I can’t write it down right now. If you could text it to me…” There was a buzz in my ear. “Sorry,” I said. “Another call’s coming in. Gotta go.”
This time it was Mel on the phone. “I’m just coming up on the bridge.”
“Good,” I told her. “You’re only a couple of minutes behind me.”
“Wait for me at the Gig Harbor exit,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you there.”
I stopped on the far side of the first gas station I saw. Then I got out, went around to the trunk, and dragged out my Kevlar vest. It was while I was putting it on that I noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining-completely. The sky was clearing. The sun was out. It had turned into a bright spring day.
A beautiful day, I thought. Too beautiful for someone to die.
Because if Jaime Carbajal had come to Gig Harbor bent on taking out Miguel Rios, it seemed likely to me that someone was bound to die. Maybe even me.
What if that one trip to Disneyland is all I’ll ever have? I wondered. What if that’s all Kayla remembers about me-that I took her to Disneyland once and got sick on the teacups?
Once inside the office, Joanna went straight to the bull pen, where she told Ernie he needed to be in touch with the folks from the DEA for information on the Lester Attwood homicide.
“They may try to put you off,” she said, “but let them know that we’re going to be dogging their heels until they give us what we need.”
“What about me?” Deb asked as Ernie reached for his phone.
“For you I have another whole problem,” Joanna said. “Take a look at what’s on this and then we’ll talk.” She plucked the memory card out of her pocket and tossed it to her detective, who caught it in midair.
“Great catch, by the way,” Joanna added. “Not just the memory card-the bridal bouquet, too.”
Looking embarrassed, Deb shook her head. “Catching that bouquet was a freak accident,” she said. “It was coming straight at me. If I hadn’t caught it, it would have hit me full in the face. Trust me, I have zero intention of getting married again. I tried it once. I’m not very good at it.”
Joanna disappeared into her office. The place was unnaturally quiet. There were no ringing telephones. No people talking. She wanted desperately to call Beau and find out what the hell was going on with Jaime, but she didn’t dare interrupt. If he was caught up in a life-and-death situation, the last thing he needed was a ringing cell phone.
When Deb appeared in Joanna’s doorway a few minutes later, her face was decidedly pale, and she was once again holding the memory card.
“These pictures are awful,” she said. “Where did you get them?”
“From Norm Higgins,” Joanna answered. “From the mortuary. They were taken by his grandson, Derek. While Norm and his sons were out of town, Alma DeLong evidently showed up with another dead client and bullied him into cremating the remains in a hell of a hurry. Once you see the photos, it’s no wonder she was in such a rush.”
“What do we do now?” Deb asked.
“I want you to go see Bobby Fletcher,” Joanna said. “Take your computer and that memory card with you so you can show Bobby the photos. It’s one thing for him to put his foot down about exhuming his mother out of respect for her or even because he’s at war with his bossy sister. But if Bobby realizes that exhuming his mother’s body might prevent some other poor patient’s suffering, I think he’ll step up and give us the go-ahead.”
“Dr. Machett isn’t going to like it,” Deb said.
“Too bad for Dr. Machett,” Joanna answered. “That’s why the county pays him the big bucks.”
Mel pulled up and stopped. I waved at her, got back into the Mercedes and drove off with her tailing behind while I followed the confident turn-by-turn directions issued by the Lady in the Dash. Just as she told me my destination was one half mile ahead on the right, I caught sight of a bright blue Chevy Cobalt parked on the shoulder of the road overlooking a bluff. It could have been a sightseer parked there to enjoy the view, but a quick glance at the text message on my phone told me otherwise. It was Jaime Carbajal’s rental, all right, and it was empty.
“Bingo,” I said aloud. It seemed likely that he had parked here and hiked the rest of the way down the hill to Miguel Rios’s house.
“You are arriving at your destination,” the Lady in the Dash announced.
Ignoring her, I drove another three hundred yards or so beyond the turnoff and pulled off onto a wide spot on the shoulder that was lined with mailboxes. That’s where I parked and got out. Mel did the same. Once out of her car, she hurried up to me and handed me a windbreaker.
“Put this on over your vest,” she said. “That way you won’t look quite so much like a cop.”
And a target, I thought.
I put on the jacket. Together we walked back toward the steep driveway that led down to Miguel Rios’s waterfront home at the base of the bluff.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Mel asked.
We had already discussed the matter on the phone. The fact that there were no emergency vehicles in sight made me think that we might have arrived in time to avert disaster, but if it all went bad, it was important to have someone up at the top of the driveway to sound the alarm and call for reinforcements.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Jaime’s a cop.”
“A cop who’s bent on revenge,” Mel said.
I couldn’t disagree with that, and I didn’t.
“Right,” I said. “I get that. My job is to talk him out of it.”
“What if talking doesn’t work?”
“Then we drop back and punt.”
It was a joke. Mel wasn’t smiling. “Is your Bluetooth on?” she asked.