Page 37 of The Girl from Devil’s Lake (Joanna Brady Mysteries #21)

Sierra Vista, Arizona

By noon, a still weary Detective Garth Raymond showed up at the Justice Center.

He hadn’t been able to fall asleep at home and decided he might as well come to work.

Consequently, when Detective Howell set off for Sierra Vista that afternoon, Garth was riding shotgun.

On the way Deb brought him up to date with everything that had come to light that morning.

“Wow,” he said when she finished. “Sounds like my garbage raid really paid off!”

“It sure as hell did,” Deb agreed.

Once in Target, they located the manager, one Mr. Hobart, introduced themselves, and then told him what they needed. They had come armed with a copy of the information on the tag in the duffel bag that had been hauled out of the San Pedro.

After some dinking around on his computer, Mr. Hobart said, “Oh, yes, that’s our five-star duffel—a very popular item. According to this, we started out with five bags in this dye lot. We still have some in other colors, but the blue ones are completely sold out.”

“Can you tell when they were sold?”

“Unfortunately I can’t. For that I’d need to see actual receipts.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hobart,” Deb told him. “You’ve been very helpful.”

He beamed at her. “You’re quite welcome,” he said.

“But he wasn’t helpful,” Garth objected once they left the store.

“I think he was,” Deb returned. “The fact that all the blue ones are gone suggests to me that one person may have scored the whole batch.”

“If we could subpoena Roper’s bank records, we could find out if it was him,” Garth muttered, “but without that, we’re stuck.”

“Maybe not,” Deb said. “I think someone needs to make another trip south of the border.”

“How come?”

“To find out if any of the migrant kids have ever seen Senor Santa Claus using a blue duffel bag.”

When they got back to the Justice Center, they dropped by Joanna’s office to make that suggestion.

“I’ll check with Captain Pena and see what he says,” Joanna agreed.

Once she had Arturo on the phone, she laid out everything that they’d learned over the course of the day. She could tell he was as excited as she was, but when she suggested sending Jaime and Deb back down for another visit with the migrant kids, he drew the line.

“At this point Roper still has no idea he’s under suspicion, correct?”

“As far as I know,” Joanna replied.

“If you want to keep him in the dark, sending your officers back down here is a mistake. The Free Store is due to be here again this coming Friday, right?”

“Correct.”

“Let me talk to Senora Mendoza to see if she can learn anything more from the kids without giving away the farm. She usually holds her classes with the migrant kids during the mornings. I’ll be in touch with her tonight and let her know it would be helpful to know if any of them have seen any sign of one of those blue duffel bags. ”

Off the phone with Pena, Joanna made her way to the bullpen.

“I told Arturo what’s happened. He thinks we’re better off working with our informant rather than sending anyone across the line, but good work,” she told Garth and Deb.

“We still don’t have probable cause, but thanks to you, we’ve at least got some lines of inquiry to follow up on.

That’s a hell of a lot more than we had before. ”