“Good,” Joanna said. “You do that, and tell them we want a rush on it.”
“Right,” Deb observed dryly, “but just in case you didn’t catch the news, it was a bang-bang, shoot-’em-up weekend in and around Tucson with a couple of lethal shootings and two fast-water fatalities. We’re from out of town. That means we’ll have to take a number and get in line.”
Joanna knew from experience that no matter where you lived, DNA requests from small-town jurisdictions were generally slow in coming.
“Okay then,” she said. “We’ll have the DNA results when we have them. What else?”
“From what the mother said,” Deb replied, “it’s possible the kids from the migrant camp are among the last people to see Xavier alive. We need to interview them, but given they’re in Mexico, and we’re not, that’s going to be complicated.”
“You’re right,” Jaime said, “but how about this? Instead of sending uniformed officers across the border, what if Deb and I head down to Naco in plainclothes? Maybe we could talk to them, with Detective Howell asking the questions and me doing the translating. We’ll show them Xavier’s picture and tell them we’re looking for a little lost boy without mentioning we’re cops.”
“I’ll check with Arturo, but that sounds good,” Joanna agreed. “My guess is you’re more likely to get answers that way than if you go around flashing badges and looking tough. Anything else?”
Casey raised her hand. “Our killer clipped off Xavier’s fingernails down to the quick, so the victim must have inflicted some physical damage on his killer in the course of the murder. The killer also went so far as to dip his victim in bleach. That tells me our perpetrator is most likely a repeat offender who has done this before, so I’ll start doing a computer search looking for similar unsolved cases—murdered children where the killer has gone to great lengths to make sure no usable DNA has been left behind.”
Joanna nodded. “Good thinking,” she said. “I’ll see if Arturo can do the same on his side of the border. Anything else?”
With no further comments forthcoming, the meeting broke up. Joanna headed for her office only to find Marliss Shackleford lying in wait, parked on a chair in the waiting room next to Kristin’s desk.
“Do you have a minute?” Marliss asked.
Joanna took a deep breath. As far as local press coverage was concerned these days, Marliss’s website was the only game in town. There was no sense in pissing her off.
“Of course,” Joanna replied. “Come in.”
Marliss didn’t waste any time getting down to business. “Are you making any progress in identifying the little kid the Highway Department pulled out of the San Pedro River in St. David on Saturday?”
“We’re working on it,” Joanna said. “We have a tentative ID, but we’re currently awaiting DNA results for a final determination. Once we have that, we’ll let you know.”
Marliss wasn’t happy with Joanna’s reply. “I’m hearing rumors that the victim might be a kid from across the line in Mexico rather than someone from here in the States.”
“No comment,” Joanna said.
Saying those words to Marliss Shackleford and leaving her frustrated was one of the few perks of Joanna’s job. She was not allowed to discuss active investigations with anyone outside law enforcement, and there was nothing she enjoyed more than being able to say so to some nosy reporter, this one in particular.
“So no suspects? No persons of interest?”
“Marliss,” Joanna said with growing impatience, “the investigation is ongoing. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”
“Then why were you seen having lunch in Daisy’s yesterday with Captain Arturo Peña, a member of the Federales unit based in Naco, Sonora?”
That was one of the hazards of being a cop in a small town where everyone knows everyone else along with a good deal about everyone else’s business.
“Captain Peña and I are friends of long standing,” Joanna answered. “We may be on different sides of an international border, but we run law enforcement agencies in the same general area and have many of the same concerns. The fact that the two of us meet from time to time to discuss those mutual concerns shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.”
“So more than forty-eight hours into what’s likely to be a homicide investigation, you and your people have absolutely nothing, and you’re sticking to no comment?”
“That’s the general idea,” Joanna said with a dismissive smile.
At that point Marliss rose to her feet and stormed from the room.
Good riddance, Joanna thought.And don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out!
At home that night, dining on what Butch assured her were the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, she related the story to him.
“You shouldn’t torment the poor woman,” Butch chided gently. “She’s just doing her job.”
“And I’m doing mine,” Joanna replied. “The sooner she figures that out, the better.”
