Joanna was puzzled. “Why?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“A possible informant has come forward, but she doesn’t want to come to my office, and since she’s a migrant who can’t be caught on the wrong side of the border, I can’t exactly bring her to yours.”
“What time?”
“Say two o’clock?”
“Two it is,” she said. “Give me the address, so I can key it into my GPS.”
Arturo gave her the address before adding, “One more thing—well, two.”
“What?”
“No uniform and no official vehicle.”
“In other words, your informant doesn’t want anyone to know she’s talking to the cops.”
“Exactamente,” Arturo said. “See you at two.”
At noontime, Joanna went home to change clothes. She hadn’t planned on disturbing Butch because she knew he was hard at work on his next manuscript. Nevertheless, he emerged from the den as soon as she stepped into the house.
“Did I somehow forget that you were coming home for lunch?” he asked, following her into the bedroom.
“You didn’t forget because I’m not home for lunch,” Joanna told him. “I’m coming here to change into civilian clothes and to trade my Interceptor for the Enclave.”
“How come?”
“I need to pay a visit to Naco, Sonora, this afternoon. Arturo Peña has a potential informant in the Xavier Delgado case, and she’s not someone who can cross the international border without going to jail and jeopardizing any chance of her being allowed to enter the US illegally.”
“So a migrant then?”
“Evidently.”
“But you will be home for dinner.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Okay, then,” Butch said. “Good luck, but I’m going back to work. I need to make some forward progress before the kids get home from school.”
At five to two, Joanna cleared the border anddrove to the Peña residence, a modest home on Calle 5 de Mayo, right on the edge of town. Arturo answered the door when she rang the bell.
“Come in,” he said. “She’s already here.”
He led Joanna into the living room where a dark-haired middle-aged woman wearing jeans and a leather jacket sat on a sofa.
“This is Señora Aña Mendoza,” he said, indicating the woman, “and this is Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
Joanna was taken aback when Arturo made the introductions in English, but Aña didn’t seem surprised, so Joanna responded in English as well. “Glad to meet you,” she said.
“I’m glad to meet you, too, Sheriff Brady,” Aña replied. “Before my father was murdered, he taught English at the Universidad Americana in Managua. He also taught me. He was a good teacher with the wrong politics. For people like that, Managua can be a dangerous place. After he was murdered, I was afraid I would be next, so I applied for refugee status in the US, but rather than stay in Managua, I came here to wait. I don’t actually live at the camp. I have the means to rent a room, so I do, but at the camp, although no one pays me to do it, I try to teach the kids to speak English, and when I’m there I hear things. The kids trust me. That’s why no one must know that I have spoken to you.”
“In other words,” Joanna said, “you wish to be a confidential informant.”
“Correct,” Aña said. “Confidential. So what do you know about an organization called Hands Across the Border?”
Joanna thought about that. “It’s my understanding that it’s a charitable organization that provides assistance to migrants waiting to cross the border into the US.”
Aña nodded and smiled. “That’s right, and there are chapters in towns all along the border. They provide necessities wherever possible—food, clothing, blankets, that sort of thing.”
