Steve stayed at the house with the two lovebirds for the next few weeks while he went house hunting himself. That’s when he learned Coach Nielson was putting his place on the market. Not only that, it was listed for sale fully furnished. That was too good of a deal to pass up, and Steve jumped on it. With the help of Gramps’s generous bequest, he was able to purchase the property in an all-cash deal with some money left over.
Once the sale closed, it was time for Steve to move out of his mother’s place completely. During that process, and at a time when both Freddy and Steve’s mom were away from the house, Steve donned a pair of gloves and made a thorough search of the master bedroom.
Freddy’s chosen hiding place for his stash wasn’t exactly inspired. A baggie half full of a white substance Steve assumed to be LSD was concealed on Freddy’s side of Gramps’s old bed, hidden between the mattress and the box spring. Steve emptied the substance he’d just found into his own baggie, the one loaded with cocaine. After shaking the resulting bag thoroughly to mix the contents, he refilled Freddy’s bag with a matching amount of the new concoction and slipped it back into its original hiding place. After that Steve was able to complete his move with no one being the wiser.
But waiting around to see what would happen wasn’t easy. At one point, he dropped by the Country Inn ostensibly to have lunch with his mother, but in reality he wanted to know what, if anything, was going on. Not surprisingly, his mother appeared to be totally distracted.
“You look upset,” he said to her. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s Frederick,” she answered. “His blood pressure has shot through the roof.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
She nodded. “They have him on medication, but he’s not getting better.”
Two weeks later Frederick suffered a massive stroke. He was transported by ambulance to the local hospital but died in the ER before being admitted. Since he was already under a doctor’s care, his death was ruled to be natural causes and no autopsy was performed. When no other relatives could be located, a grief-stricken Cynthia Roper had Frederick Chalmers buried in the Hawkins’s family plot in Fertile Memorial Cemetery.
During the postfuneral reception, Steve slipped into the bedroom and removed the baggie. He flushed the contents down the toilet. As for the baggie itself and that unused derringer? Knowing he needed something to remember Freddy the Freeloader by, Steve put the derringer in the baggie and added it to his cigar box. Sherlock thought the whole thing was hilarious, and he laughed and laughed.
That was the first time ever that Steve heard any of his voices laughing, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Chapter 11
Bisbee, Arizona
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Joanna came to work on Tuesday morning in somewhatbetter shape than she had the day before. For one thing, she’d gotten more sleep. She’d still tossed and turned some, but at least she’d had something to worry about other than having a police officer’s daughter working the graveyard shift. Now she had an upcoming wedding to plan. Somehow it was easier to fall asleep while thinking about wedding cakes, flowers, and reception logistics than it was while worrying about murder and mayhem.
Dave Ruiz called half an hour later with the welcome news that the last of the building permits had finally been issued. With that one set of prisoners now being held in Phoenix, the way was finally clear for him to start work on the new solitary confinement part of the jail, and he expected to have a crew on-site bright and early the following morning. Off the phone with him, Joanna spent a good forty-five minutes with Terry Gregovich, zeroing in on exactly how work on the jail would proceed without the construction crew interfering with her prisoners and vice versa.
Shortly after that session ended, a call came in from Captain Peña. “How’s it going?” he asked when Joanna answered.
“Fairly well,” Joanna answered. “What’s up with you?”
“If I were to stop by about two this afternoon with Elena Delgado in tow, would you happen to have an available interview room?”
Joanna had doubted that the boy’s mother would agree to come in for an interview, so she was pleasantly surprised. “Absolutely,” she said.
“She doesn’t speak any English,” Arturo added. “Do you want me to translate?”
Joanna thought about that. “I should probably have someone from my team,” she said a moment later. “I’ll have my chief detective, Lt. Jaime Carbajal, sit in. But is she going to want an attorney present? My people will have to read her a Miranda warning.”
“I asked about that,” Arturo said. “She says she needs to know for sure if the child is Xavier. That’s why she agreed to be interviewed. She doesn’t need an attorney, but she’d like me to be present during the interview.”
“No problem,” Joanna agreed.
“Okay,” Arturo said. “See you then.”
After consulting with Jaime and letting him know the lay of the land, Joanna made arrangements to have the interview live streamed to the computer in her office. That way she and Detective Raymond would also be privy to everything that was going on.
The rest of the morning passed quickly. With plenty of routine office work to do, Joanna had brought along a sandwich from home and ate lunch at her desk. At ten minutes to two, Arturo appeared in the doorway to her office with a young woman in tow.
Considering Elena Delgado’s occupation as a sex worker, Joanna had expected someone rather sexy. Beneath a mane of thick black hair, she was plain as opposed to pretty and a bit on the plump side. She was dressed in a maroon sweatshirt with a fading Corona beer logo affixed to the front. The tears in the legs of her threadbare jeans spoke of long use rather than strategic designer distress.
Over the years, Joanna had picked up enough Spanish to get through the preliminaries. She rose from her desk and steppedforward with her hand extended saying, “Buenas tardes. Bienvenido. Lamento mucho su pérdida.”
Elena nodded. “Gracias.”
