Page 34 of The Girl from Devil’s Lake (Joanna Brady Mysteries #21)

Bisbee, Arizona

“Any word on Operation Garbage Can?” Butch asked as he handed Joanna her coffee cup on Wednesday morning.

“Not so far,” she said.

As a consequence, once at the Justice Center, Joanna made a beeline for the bullpen, the room dedicated to her investigation team. When she arrived, Detective Raymond was nowhere to be seen.

“How’d Operation Garbage Can go?” she asked Detective Howell.

“All right,” Deb replied, “but it turns out Stephen Roper is a night owl. He didn’t turn off his TV and go to bed until after one, so Garth wasn’t able to stage his raid until close to two.

He came away with one bag of trash and one of recycling, but it took until seven this morning for him to drive to Tucson, make the drop-off, and then make it back to Elfrida.

He sent me a text saying he was home, and I told him to take the rest of the day off. ”

“Deservedly so,” Joanna said. “How long do you think it’ll take for the DPS crime lab to come up with a DNA profile?”

“Days if we’re lucky,” Deb replied. “Weeks if we’re not.”

“Then I guess we have to take an old, cold tater and wait,” Joanna said.

Her next stop was the chief deputy’s office. “Anything major happen overnight?” she asked.

“Not much,” Tom Hadlock said. “Two DUIs, one DV, and a couple of speeding citations. That’s about it.”

“No drop-offs from our friends at the Border Patrol?”

“Not today for a change,” he told her.

“How about the jail?”

“No problems there,” he said, “and as far as construction goes, I just checked in with Mr. Ruiz. The rough-ins for electrical and plumbing passed their inspections late yesterday afternoon. As we speak, Dave’s crew is in the process of unloading the concrete blocks for the walls.

Those should start going up later today. ”

“Sounds like everybody’s making good progress then. Good on you.”

But things didn’t seem so sunny once she arrived at her own office and found Marliss Shackleford waiting for her.

“Any progress on the Xavier Delgado case?” Marliss wanted to know.

“Nothing I can share,” Joanna told her. “When we’re ready to do updates, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I understand Jennifer is getting married at the end of this month,” Marliss said. “Is it possible that issues with planning a hurry-up wedding are interfering with your duties as sheriff? Considering your own history, maybe you’re having a hard time keeping your eye on the ball.”

Marliss had clearly gotten wind of Jenny’s impending wedding and assumed that, due to the short time frame, the bride was already expecting.

Joanna had never made a secret of the fact that she’d been pregnant at the time she and Andy had tied the knot, but Marliss’s snide insinuation that Joanna’s history was about to repeat itself with Jenny was a step too far.

Most of the time, Joanna was able to keep her temper in line, but this was not one of them.

“My daughter’s personal life is none of your damned business!” she fired off. “Now get the hell out of here before I have you thrown out.” Then she marched into her own office, slamming the door shut behind her.

An hour later, she was still fuming and regretting her angry outburst when Kristin tapped on her door and warily poked her head inside.

“Have you had a chance to cool off?” Kristin asked.

“A little,” Joanna said. “Why?”

“I’ve got a call for you from Anna Rae Green in Denver, Colorado. She says she’s with the MMIV.”

Joanna started to point out that Anna Rae Green wasn’t just with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Victims Task Force.

She was the agency’s director in chief, but she let that pass.

Knowing Jenny had used Anna Rae as a reference on her job application, Joanna assumed the woman was calling to see how things were going with Jenny’s new job at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for her phone.

“Sheriff Brady here, Anna Rae. Good to hear from you. If you’re calling about Jenny, Pima County Deputy Jennifer Ann Brady seems to be doing just fine, thanks in large measure to you.”

“I’m delighted to hear that, and I’m not the least bit surprised,” Anna Rae said, “but that’s not why I’m calling. I wanted to know more about our match.”

Joanna was mystified. “Match?” she repeated. “What match?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Anna Rae said quickly. “The notification came in to us here in Denver a little while ago. I thought for sure the DPS lab in Tucson would have let you know as well.”

Joanna was astonished. “Wait,” she said. “Are you talking about the trash evidence we delivered to them earlier this morning? They’ve already created a DNA profile and have a match? How’s that even possible?”

“Who said anything about DNA?” Anna Rae asked in return.

“The hit came in on AFIS. The DPS crime lab found a partial palm print on a soda can your detective pulled out of a suspect’s trash.

Turns out it’s a match to a partial palm print from one of our cold cases—the 1962 murder of Amanda Marie Hudson, a Lakota from Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.

What can you tell me about our suspect?”

For a moment, Joanna was too stunned to reply. Before she could, Kristin reappeared. “There’s a call for you from the DPS lab in Tucson. Do you want me to keep them on hold or will you call them back?”

“Hang on,” Joanna said to Anna Rae. Then to Kristin she said, “Transfer the DPS call over to Deb Howell.”

As Kristin retreated, Joanna turned her attention back to Anna Rae.

“That was the DPS lab calling. I turned them over to the lead detective on our case. The suspect is a guy named Stephen Roper. He’s a longtime resident of Bisbee, Arizona—a retired schoolteacher with no priors that we could find.

He was actually my English teacher when I was a senior in high school.

“He came on our radar recently after the body of a four-year-old boy from Naco, Sonora, Mexico—Xavier Delgado—was found floating in a duffel bag in the San Pedro River on this side of the border. The autopsy showed Xavier died of manual strangulation. Our suspect participates in a charity that uses a remodeled food truck to deliver food and other necessities to migrants stuck in Sonora waiting to cross the border. According to one of our sources, Xavier visited the food truck the day he went missing, making Roper possibly one of the last people to have seen him alive.”

“Have you taken him into custody?” Anna Rae asked.

“Are you kidding? We haven’t even talked to him,” Joanna replied.

“At this point I don’t believe he has any idea that he’s under suspicion.

Some of the details in the case make us suspect he might be a repeat offender.

For one thing, the victim’s body had been dipped in a bleach solution, and his fingernails had been cut off down to the quick. ”

“To destroy possible DNA?” Anna Rae asked.

“Exactly,” Joanna agreed. “That’s why I was hoping for a possible DNA match to evidence from somebody else’s cold case, but I never even considered a match might come through AFIS.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring the lead detective on our case into this conversation so we’re all on the same page. ”

“Fine with me,” Anna Rae said.

“Okay,” Joanna said. “Hang on while I call her.” Joanna was in the process of buzzing Kristin to have her summon Deb when the detective herself appeared in the doorway.

“Have you heard?” she demanded.

Joanna nodded. “Just now,” she said. “I have Anna Rae Green of the MMIV on the line. Turns out the match is to one of her Indigenous cases. I’m going to put her on speaker so she can brief us both at the same time.”

As Deb took a seat, Joanna pushed the speaker button. “All right, Anna Rae,” she said. “Go ahead. Detective Howell is here now. We’re all ears.”