Page 24 of The Girl from Devil’s Lake (Joanna Brady Mysteries #21)
Bisbee, Arizona
On her way to the Board of Supervisors meeting the next morning, Joanna checked in with Tom Hadlock to make sure everything with the construction team was on track. Fortunately, it was.
“What’s up with the big meeting this afternoon?” he asked. “Is something going on that I should know about?”
“There is, and you’ll know about it when everybody else does,” Joanna told him, “and that includes me, by the way. Just be there.”
The Board of Supervisors meeting kicked off promptly at ten at the Cochise County Complex on Melody Lane south of Huachuca Terraces.
As per usual, it was both boring and interminable.
Since Joanna’s spot on the agenda was at the very end, she had to sit through all of it.
Admittedly, she let her mind wander. Today was already December first. Jenny’s wedding was only twenty-two short days away, but other than settling on a date and a dress, as far as Joanna knew, no other arrangements were in place.
Then, once she tired of stewing about wedding issues, Joanna’s thoughts meandered over to the homicide investigation.
She was tempted to send Casey a text asking for a preview of what would be coming in this afternoon’s meeting, but in the end, she didn’t.
She’d do just as she expected Tom Hadlock to do and find out the details at the same time everyone else did.
As the minutes ticked by, though, she couldn’t help but worry that she might be making a huge error.
Steve Roper had been part of the Bisbee community for decades.
It was likely the whole town would be in an uproar if they heard so much as a hint that he was being investigated in conjunction with Xavier Delgado’s homicide.
Of course people already were in an uproar about that.
Even though the Department of Public Safety had not yet provided the final DNA results giving them a positive identification on their victim, Marliss Shackleford had somehow gotten wind of the boy’s name and had posted it on her website.
Damn her hide anyway , Joanna thought. Where the hell is she getting her information?
“Sheriff Brady,” Claire Newmark said. “Hello, are you there?”
The sharp summons yanked Joanna out of her reverie. Claire was president of the Board of Supervisors, and the impatience in her voice suggested this wasn’t the first time she’d spoken. “Do you or do you not have a report for us this morning?”
“Sorry,” Joanna said, quickly rising to her feet. Walking up to where the board members were seated, Joanna handed out printed copies of the report she had written the day before. Then she sat down again, allowing the board members time to read through the information.
Once they had done so, a discussion followed.
Naturally they voiced concerns about the added expense of rehousing prisoners and asked questions about the time it would take to complete the remodel now that it was finally underway.
Joanna bit back the urge to tell them that most of the delays had been due to stalling from the county’s planning and zoning department and that the project’s completion date would be entirely dependent on when the building department got around to signing off on inspections.
Once Joanna’s grilling was over and the meeting let out, she headed for Daisy’s.
Each Friday, as an antidote to her usually challenging meetings with the Board of Supervisors, she and Reverend Marianne Maculyea got together for lunch.
Marianne had her own set of problems, mostly due to testy meetings with the church council, exacerbated over challenges created by ever-rising costs along with an ever-shrinking church membership.
Their weekly luncheons gave both women a private place to vent their frustrations.
They’d been friends for so long that they could read each other’s mood at a moment’s notice. “Why the long face?” Marianne asked as Joanna slipped into their customary booth.
“The usual,” Joanna said. “The supervisors are all in a twitter because the jail remodeling project is taking so long. The problem is, most of the delays are coming from red-tape issues with county-run departments.”
“What about that awful homicide?” Marianne asked. “Are you making any headway on that?”
As the department’s official chaplain, it came as no surprise that Marianne knew a good deal about the Xavier Delgado case.
In fact, it would have been odd if she hadn’t.
In addition, Marianne was the only civilian with whom Joanna was free to actually discuss active investigations.
Still, with regard to the Stephen Roper situation, she held herself to the same no-comment standard she had required of her CSIs.
“Maybe,” she said. “We have some suspicions, but that’s all, nothing concrete as far as physical evidence is concerned and zip when it comes to probable cause.”
“All right then,” Marianne said, “let me give you some good news. I’ll be going to Tucson tomorrow for a three o’clock appointment with Jenny and Nick. That meeting will take the first of the premarital counseling sessions off the list. There’s not much time to squeeze in all three.”
On that much happier note, they ordered their respective lunches. By the time Joanna showed up at the Justice Center an hour later, she was feeling a whole lot better than she had when she’d left the county administration complex after the board meeting.
When Joanna entered the conference room at five minutes to two, she glanced around the room.
Since all the invitees were already in attendance, there was no reason to wait around for the appointed start time.
Closing the door behind her, she made her way to the head of the table.
Usually she would have taken a seat there. This time, she remained standing.
“First off, I want everyone in the room to turn off their devices—no iPhones and no tablets.” She paused, waiting while people complied before continuing. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’ve been summoned to a mandatory meeting with no advance hint as to what it was about. Here’s the deal.
“Yesterday, Captain Arturo Pena, the commander of the Federales unit posted to Naco, Sonora, called me to say that a possible informant had come forward with information about the homicide victim found floating in the San Pedro River on Saturday afternoon.
It turns out the informant is a woman who teaches English to the children at the local migrant camp.
She overheard two of her kids talking about a young boy who had followed some older ones when they had gone to visit what they call ‘The Free Store’ on Friday morning.
“The Free Store in question isn’t a store at all.
It’s a refurbished food truck, owned and operated by a local member of an organization called Hands Across the Border.
Every two weeks it crosses into Mexico at the Naco point of entry on Friday mornings, bringing food, clothing, and other necessities for the people living in the camp.
Earlier in the investigation, Detectives Howell and Carbajal had visited the camp, showing the kids a photo of Xavier Delgado, the boy we believe to be our murder victim.
“At the time they were interviewed by Deb and Jaime, they all claimed ignorance, but the informant overheard two of them talking, saying that the boy in the picture had followed them to the Free Store and was still inside the truck talking to the proprietor when they left. That’s the last time any of the kids saw Xavier alive.
According to them, while in the truck Xavier had been particularly interested in a pair of high-topped sneakers.
As you may or may not be aware, a pair of high-topped sneakers were found with Xavier’s body during the ME’s autopsy.
“After speaking to the informant, Captain Pena was later able to consult with border crossing personnel to confirm the identity of the driver of the truck, but here’s the problem.
That individual happens to be a longtime resident of this area.
He’s also someone with whom many of us have interacted over the years.
“I’ve asked Casey Ledford and Dave Hollicker to gather whatever information they can on the individual in question, and I’ll be turning the meeting over to them in a moment so they can give us their report, but before I do, I want to offer a word of caution.
Not one word about our person of interest is to be mentioned or discussed with individuals not currently in this room.
That includes family members as well as personnel inside this department.
Evidence Dr. Baldwin discovered in the course of the autopsy—the fact that the body had been dipped in a bleach solution and the fact that Xavier’s fingernails had been cut down to the quick—suggest that our perpetrator is knowledgeable about crime scene evidence and is likely to be a repeat offender.
At this point I don’t believe the person in question has any idea that we’ve made a connection between him and our victim.
Until we have more solid information to go on, I want it to stay that way, understood? ”
She sent a searching look around the table, focusing on each face in turn and waiting until that person nodded in agreement before moving on.