Fire and Ice (27 page)

“Did you happen to notice what kind of a vehicle Miguel was driving?” Mel asked.

This time Tomas was the one who piped up. “One of those trucks like army guys drive.”

“A Hummer, you mean?” I asked.

Tomas nodded. “Except it wasn’t brown and tan,” he said. “It was yellow.”

“Washington plates?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Alfonso said. “I’m not sure.”

I signaled for the bill. “Time to go,” I said. “This is information Detective Caldwell needs to have ASAP.”

Joanna was polishing off the last of her crème brûlée and chatting with Frank Montoya’s mother when the waitress came up and whispered, “Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff Brady. There’s someone who would like to speak to you. His name is Norm Higgins, and he’s waiting in the bar.”

Shaking her head in exasperation, Joanna put down her napkin. She had thought Norm might object to Jaime’s using a store-bought coffin, but she was astonished that the man would track her down at a private function to hassle her about it. After all, the Carbajals were the ones making Marcella’s funeral arrangements. Joanna had nothing to do with it. But then again, Higgins and Sons was a family-owned business. If their bread and butter was going away, Joanna supposed Norm had reason to be upset.

She walked into the bar and found Norm sitting in a booth at the back of the room. She didn’t know him well, but she recognized him. He was nursing a beer and seemed engrossed in watching a televised basketball game.

“Hi, Norm,” she said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Thanks for stopping by, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “Won’t you have a seat?”

She didn’t want to have a seat. Summoning her away from another function seemed incredibly rude. Not wanting to create a scene, however, she did as he asked and slipped onto the banquette across from him.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” she said. “I’m due back in the other room.”

That should have been enough of a hint, but Norm didn’t take it. Instead he sampled another sip of beer.

“I knew your father,” he said.

That was hardly surprising. In its copper-mining heyday, Bisbee’s population had topped out at around sixteen thousand. Once the mining activity disappeared, so did half of the population. In a town of eight thousand people, everyone pretty well knew everyone else.

“Old D.H. was a good guy,” Norm added. “Someone you could count on. I miss him.”

It didn’t seem likely that Norm had summoned Joanna into the bar to reminisce about her father.

“I miss him, too,” she said.

“But you’re a sheriff now, just like he was. DNA’s odd that way,” he added. “I studied to be a mortician and so did both my boys. Now it’s my grandson. Third generation.”

So? Joanna wanted to say, but she didn’t. Norm was clearly working his way up to something. She needed to let him do it at his own speed.

“In this kind of a business climate, when you’re trying to keep the wolf from the door—from the whole family’s door—you sometimes do things you’re not proud of,” Norm said. “You do things you would never do under ordinary circumstances.”

Joanna maintained her silence.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what?” he asked.

“I don’t need to,” she said. “It’s what you came here to tell me.”

Norm nodded. “You’ve met Alma DeLong?”

For the first time Joanna understood that the conversation had nothing to do with Delcia’s cut-rate arrangements for her sister-in-law’s funeral.

“Yes,” Joanna said noncommittally. “I’ve met her.”

“Not a nice person.”

“Not nice,” Joanna agreed.

“Forceful, though,” Norm said. “Very forceful, and a good saleswoman. Knows how to overcome objections.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Joanna said.

“I do,” Norm said mournfully. “That’s how I got into this mess.”

“What mess?”

“The group-sales agreement with Caring Friends. When clients check into her facility, they have a section of paperwork that deals with End of Life Arrangements. If the family doesn’t have a personal preference, they can simply agree that Caring Friends will handle things, which means that, for a steep discount, we get the business.”

“That may be goulish,” Joanna said, “but it doesn’t sound illegal.”

“Have you ever met my grandson, Derek?” Norm asked.

“A few times,” Joanna said. “Didn’t he play basketball in high school?”

Norm nodded. “Won a basketball scholarship to ASU. He dropped out after his freshman year, though. Now he works in the family business. And that’s why I’m here.”

He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a camera memory
card, and put it down on the table. He studied it in silence for a time before shoving it in Joanna’s direction.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Last fall my boys…” He paused and then specified, “my sons and I went deep-sea fishing down at Guaymas.”

He seemed to be wandering off on yet another tangent. Joanna wanted to grab him by the shirt, shake him, and say, “Get to the point!” Once again she kept still.

“We were gone for five days,” Norm said. “Came home with a whole carload of red snapper. But it was the first time we left Derek on his own. Left him in charge.”

“And?” Joanna prodded.

“While we were gone, he had a call from Caring Friends, from Alma DeLong. She said one of their clients—a woman named Faye Carter—had died. When Derek went to pick up the remains and bring them back to town, Ms. DeLong presented him with a signed death certificate, but she seemed quite anxious to have things handled in an expeditious fashion. She showed Derek paperwork that indicated it was the family’s wish to have Faye cremated and that there was to be no service whatsoever. Ms. DeLong told him that she’d come pick up the cremains the next day. But when Derek brought the body back to the mortuary, this is what he found.” Norm nodded grimly in the direction of the memory card.

“Derek took photos?” Joanna asked.

“They’re pretty graphic,” Norm said. “Of course, if you’re accustomed to seeing autopsy photos…”

Joanna picked up the memory card and slipped it into her pocket.

“But Derek also knew Ms. DeLong was a good customer of ours. Since none of us was on hand for a consultation, he decided
on his own to take the pictures, but he also did what she wanted him to do. Faye Carter was cremated the very next day. Her ashes were turned over to Caring Friends.”

“And the photos?”

Norm shook his head. He seemed close to tears. “That’s the bad part,” Norm managed. “Derek gave them to me. I was shocked when I saw them. Appalled, even. With elderly bedridden patients, there are bound to be bedsores occasionally, but this was dreadful. Criminal.”

“What did you do?” Joanna asked.

“I’m ashamed to say I did nothing,” Norm said. “I took the photos from Derek. I told him I’d handle it and report it to the proper authorities, but I never did. I didn’t want to rock the boat. Then I heard about Philippa Brinson. I knew Philippa Brinson from years ago, and I couldn’t stand the thought that if she hadn’t run away, Alma DeLong and her people might have done the same thing to her. It took a day or so for me to work up my courage to do something about it, but I did, and now you have them.”

And if you had spoken up earlier, Inez Fletcher might not be dead right now, Joanna thought in sudden fury. But there was no need for her to say it aloud. Norm Higgins knew it all too well.

“Thanks for your help,” Joanna said, getting to her feet. “We’ll take it from here.”

“Will this be enough to put her in jail?” Norm asked hopefully.

“I’m not so sure about jail,” Joanna said. “That’s best left up to a judge and jury, but if it’s as bad as you say, it should be enough to shut her down.”

“I hope so,” Norm said plaintively.

So do I, Joanna thought.

I seem to remember that sometime in the not-too-distant past I hated computers. And there are times when I admire people like Warden Willison and Harry I. Ball, who prefer keeping records on paper; but from a law enforcement standpoint, computers are amazing. Databases are amazing. Search engines are amazing. Back at the sheriff’s department, we went to the Records Department, where a clerk put in three separate fields in the Department of Licensing database—Hummer, yellow, and Miguel. Within seconds, out popped a name—Miguel Escalante Rios, with what turned out to be a waterfront address in Gig Harbor just up Highway 16 from Tacoma.

When we went looking for Mr. Rios’s rap sheet, what we found was interesting. He had several convictions in his early twenties—grand theft auto, several drug-related offenses, and pimping, but those convictions were all nearly thirty years old. The most recent incident was a domestic-violence arrest three years ago, one in which charges were dropped when the wronged wife refused to take him to court. The mug shot from that arrest showed a handsome enough Hispanic man somewhere in his fifties. Only in profile could you see the vicious scar that ran down one side of his face where he was missing a good part of his right ear.

“So what’s your guess?” Mel asked me, once we’d both had a chance to read through it. “Does it seem likely to you that this guy, just like Mama Rose, decided to straighten up and fly right?”

“No,” I said. “I’m of the opinion that he just stopped getting caught.”

The Records clerk, who had two sons of her own, happened to have an old GameBoy in the bottom drawer of her desk. She kept it around to use on those occasions when her kids dropped by to see her at work and she needed to keep them occupied. When we headed off to join Lupe Rivera, Detective Caldwell, and the trans
lator in the interview room, Alfonso and Tomas were seated side by side in a worn armchair with their faces glued to the tiny screen.

Mel knocked on the door of the interview room, and Lucy Caldwell came out. “I hope you’ve got something for me,” she said. “Either she knows nothing and she can’t tell, or she knows plenty and she won’t tell. Either way, I’m not making any progress.”

“Let’s try a reality check,” I said. “How about we drop Mr. Rios’s photo in front of her and see what happens?”

Lupe Rivera’s reaction to seeing Miguel Rios’s face was every bit as jarring as her sons’ response to hearing the man’s name. Her skin turned ashen; her jaw dropped. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before,” she said.

Not true!

“Look,” I told her. “Up till now, you haven’t been in any trouble. But if you start lying to us, you will be. You may not realize this, but if you don’t tell the truth, we can put you in jail. Besides, we know you have seen this man before, just this morning, as a matter of fact. Alfonso says he came by the house today, looking for your husband. What did he want?”

As the translator delivered my words, Lupe buried her face in her hands and began to weep.

“Tell us,” Mel urged. “We need to know what’s going on. That’s the only way we can help you.”

Gradually, over the next hour or so, the story came out. Tomas had come to the country illegally and had arranged a green-card marriage. He had divorced the woman once he had his permanent residency, then had gone back down to Mexico and married his childhood sweetheart. Sometimes he came home and sometimes he sent money. Still not a citizen and wanting to have his family
with him, he had made arrangements to smuggle Lupe and the boys into the country.

“And that’s where Rios came in?” I asked.

Lupe nodded. “Not Miguel himself but people who work for him.”

“Do these people have a name?”

“Tomas used the same people who brought him across the border years ago. Now it’s more expensive. He had to save his money for a long time. Bringing us here cost him twenty thousand dollars in cash. We came across the border at a place called Agua Pri-eta and then rode north in a big Suburban with blacked-out windows. They dropped us off somewhere down around Tacoma. Tomas met us there and brought us here.”

“When was this?” Lucy asked.

“Two years ago.”

“And were you and your boys the only passengers on the trip north?”

“No. There were two men and some young girls—three of them—teenagers. They weren’t much older than my boys, but they were traveling alone. They didn’t have any money for food, so we shared what we could with them. On the second night, the driver asked one of the girls to have sex with him. She told him no. Later on I heard the driver and the two men joking about it. ‘That’s all right,’ the driver said. ‘She can tell me no now, but I’ll have her later. After they get cleaned up, they’ll smell a lot better.’”

I glanced at Mel and saw the tension in the muscles of her cheeks. She takes a very dim view of men who prey on young girls.

“In other words, the girls would be working off the price of their fares,” she said. “As prostitutes.”

Lupe nodded. “Sí,” she said in a very small voice.

“Did the girls have any idea about what was in store for them?”

“No,” Lupe said. “I don’t think so.”

“What did Miguel want when he came here this morning?”

“I know Tomas did things for Miguel sometimes, things he wouldn’t talk about. This morning Miguel was very angry. He wanted to talk to Tomas, but my husband was already gone. Miguel said that I should give Tomas a message—that there were worse things than being dead.”

“What do you think he meant by that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happened then?”

“I called Tomas’s boss at work, hoping to talk to him and let him know Miguel was looking for him, but my husband wasn’t there. He hadn’t shown up. And then I started thinking about what if Tomas was in some kind of trouble? What if he ran away and left us? That’s when I went through his drawers and things. If he was supposed to keep his mouth shut, I thought maybe I might find something that would let me know what was wrong.”

“And that’s when you found the photo?” Mel asked.

Lupe nodded.

“The photo of the boy you thought might be your husband’s child by another woman?”

Lupe didn’t answer for a very long time. “If I tell you the truth now and if it’s different from what I told you before, will you still put me in jail?”

“That depends,” I said.