"Let's walk," he suggested, guiding her to the ancient elevator and pressing the button for the basement floor.
When they reached the lower level, Slater led the way past the records and evidence department into the underground tunnel of the heating and ventilating system, and up the back cement stairway to the rear of the courthouse. His battered, late-model truck was parked under a clump of trees, but he bypassed the vehicle and walked to a shaded area on the sloping lawn where several picnic tables were scattered along the asphalted walk path. He sat down heavily on one of the tables, his feet planted squarely on the bench, hands dangling between his knees.
Bella sat beside him on the rough surface of the picnic table. "What's this about, Slater?"
"Waylon Harris found a dead body out by Beale's Lake early this morning." Harris, one of Slater's deputies, was his protégé. If he'd alerted Ben, this wasn't a routine death.
"Homicide?"
"Could be. Doc McKenzie's doing the autopsy. Looks like a drug overdose, but the victim didn't get out there by himself."
"What do you mean?"
Slater stared toward the eastern horizon where the slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range showed brilliant against the crisp blue of the sky. He turned westward toward the gentle, rolling foothills and their verdant farming land. "God, this is beautiful country this time of year."
Bella followed his gaze. "Yes," she said simply.
Slater sighed and finally continued, "Male victim, nude. No evidence of clothing discarded in the area, body wrapped in a tarp. Somebody dumped him out there." He scratched his blackish beard, more heavily flecked with specks of gray than when she'd worked with him last year on several other murder cases that involved an old childhood friend of Slater.
"Accidental drug overdose and subsequent cover up?" Bella stared at the side of Slater's face, not sure yet why he felt the case merited pulling her out of court. She paused, her instinct pushing into overdrive, and then ventured a guess. "Does this have something to do with Diego Vargas?"
"Maybe. I think so. Hell, I don't know. But the preliminary toxicology screen showed high-grade heroin, almost ninety-eight percent pure."
"That's ridiculous!"
Most of the heroin in California was a low-grade quality called black tar heroin that came up through Mexico from Central and South American. Bella stared at Slater's profile. "We never get that high-quality smack up here. You think the lab made a mistake?"
"That's what worries me, Bella. I have a feeling pure shit like this came straight from the Triangle."
"Afghanistan?"
"Yeah." Slater stopped, stared at the horizon, and swiveled on the table to bump knees with her. "If it's China White that killed the guy at Beale's Lake, that's sophisticated drug trafficking. We've got to get the DEA involved."
Damn it! Why did everything come back to Rafe Hashemi and his federal drug task force? If he found out about the recent death, he would definitely appropriate everything she had on Diego Vargas and likely cut her out of the loop. He wouldn't have to worry about playing nice. He probably wouldn't let her play in the sandbox at all.
"Bella?" Slater took her hands in both of his, swallowing them with his giant paws, and looked her straight in the eye like her father had when she was younger and got into trouble. "This drug case against Vargas might be bigger than we can handle here in our little county."
"But what about… about the other thing?" Slater knew all about Maria, understood that Bella referred to the human trafficking charges she wanted to bring against Vargas.
"The feds aren't so bad at prosecuting that kind of thing either," he said gently.
She jerked her hands out of his grasp and jumped off the picnic table. "I'm due back in court."
"Bella – " Slater's voice held a warning.
"I know, I know. I won't go off the deep end. I promise." She hurried toward the walkway that ran from the parking lot to the cement steps of the courthouse.
If the body lying in Dr. McKenzie's morgue were a result of a high-grade heroin overdose, Hashemi would have even more reason to usurp the Vargas case. He'd rip it out of her control faster than she could bat her lashes.
Not that she had any intention of doing that to Rafe Hashemi ever again.
Almost as if she'd been expecting Rafe and Max, Francisca Munoz answered the door at the first knock. Her bare brown feet peeked from below the hem of a modest dress that clung to her swollen belly. Her face was blotchy and her red-tipped nose glistened.
Even though Rafe had never met Francisca, a jolt of empathy hit his gut like someone had sucker-punched him. Lupe always chattered in his amiable, optimistic way about the woman who stood in front of them. Rafe saw by the lines etched in her face that she knew something about sorrow and now understood more was headed her way.
"You are the one he reports to, sí?" Her tongue trilled the R's softly in accented English. "You are Rafe? You are his amigo? Tell me this is not true, that Lupe is not dead," she pleaded, twisting her dress in frantic hands.
Rafe had no business telling her anything until the autopsy was complete, until forensics proved the bloody mass of flesh in the morgue was really Lupe Rodriquez. What had he hoped to gain by coming here and adding to her grief? He glanced down at her belly, large and hard beneath the purple and blue print of her dress. The child would grow up without a father, and life would be hard for both of them.
Rafe felt his anger mounting furiously. He wanted to hunt down whoever did this and smash him into an unrecognizable pulp. Until he resembled the scarlet heap of decaying tissue that was Lupe.
He jerked himself back from the precipice. "Can we come in, Francisca?"
Silently, she opened the door wider and ushered them inside. A small but tidy living area held an old sofa covered with a colorful throw. As he sat, Rafe felt the sharp jab of broken springs beneath his hips. No one spoke for long minutes as if the quiet were a requiem for Lupe, a mass of three.
At last Max broke the silence. "Excuse me. Where's the bathroom?"
Francisca gestured to the hall on her right, and Rafe watched Max's retreating back. Had courtesy prompted him to leave them alone? Or was Max uncomfortable around the dead Lupe's pregnant girlfriend?
Francisca laid her hand on his. "Are the police sure it is Lupe?"
Rafe nodded slowly. "Lo siento mucho."
Sorrow settled on her face and tears trickled down her round cheeks. "Me siento mucho también." She held her hand over her belly in a protective gesture. "Who killed Lupe? ¿Quién mató al padre de mi bebé?"
Who killed the father of my baby?
He shook his head. "I don't know, but I hoped you could help me. Can you answer a few questions?"
Francisca nodded.
"After Lupe left for our meeting, did he come back here?"
"He called me around eleven o'clock. He said he had something to do, but he would be home within an hour."
"Did he call after that?"
"No." Fresh tears squeezed from the edges of her brown eyes. "No, and he never came home." She fingered a tiny gold cross hanging from her neck. "When I woke up this morning and he was not beside me in our bed, I knew something terrible had happened to him."
"Francisca, did Lupe ever talk about anyone else he did business with?"
"I do not think so." She frowned. "But something was on his mind the last few days."
Rafe heard the toilet flush and a moment later Max reappeared at the end of the hall. "Do you have any idea what was worrying him?"
"No, I'm very sorry." She paused and looked down at her hands, but a moment later leaned close and whispered in his ear. "But he began to carry a gun with him when he left the apartment."