“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 Señor 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 Peña 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 Señora 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 Peña, Joanna made her way to the bullpen. “Itold 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.”
Chapter 30
Bisbee, Arizona
Spring 2023
By the spring of 2023, Stephen finally started feelinglike his old self again. He had regained most of the weight he’d lost. He began wearing bright pink cancer-survivor T-shirts and became a one-man evangelist, letting people know that, when it comes to breast cancer, men can have it too. Once his postchemo hair grew in, it was terribly thin. Rather than resorting to a comb-over, he began wearing hats.
While undergoing treatment, he’d watched a lot of PGA golf, and since Bryson DeChambeau was his favorite pro golfer, Stephen bought himself several Bryson DeChambeau–style golf hats in every available color. On Fridays, though, the golf hat stayed home in favor of his red-and-white Santa Hat. That clashed with his pink T-shirt, but since the migrant kids didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about his mismatched wardrobe, neither did Stephen.
By the end of April 2023 he was ready to resume operating the Free Store, which, in his absence, had been managed by other Hands Across the Border volunteers. During that time, one of the group’s Bisbee volunteers had begun providing fifty or so homemade sack lunches for him to distribute each time he went across the border. That meant that before driving to Naco, he had to stop by her house and pick them up.
Unfortunately the lady’s idea of transporting her bagged lunches consisted of a never-ending collection of plastic grocery bags to say nothing of multiple trips. Looking for a more suitable arrangement, while on a routine shopping trip to Sierra Vista, Stephen happened across Target’s collection of duffel bags.Why not use one of those?he thought.
The bags came in several colors. Since blue was Stephen’s favorite color, he chose a blue one, leaving four more still on the shelf. Then, thinking about how much other fetching and carrying was involved in stocking the Free Store on a daily basis, he decided,What the hell? Why not take them all?
That’s just what he did.
Chapter 31
Bisbee, Arizona
Thursday, December 7, 2023
On Thursday morning, Joanna had barely settleddown at her desk when a call came in from Anna Rae Green. “We’ve got two more possibles,” she said.
“Two?” Joanna asked. “Really?”
“Really,” Anna Rae replied. “The first one happens to be back in Dan Pardee’s patch. A girl named Inez Johnson disappeared from Bylas, Arizona, in June of 1972.”
“Oh, no,” Joanna said. “Not another girl from the San Carlos!”
“I’m afraid so,” Anna Rae said. “She left home planning on hitchhiking from Bylas to Globe to visit friends but never arrived. Two days after she was reported missing to tribal police, her body was found floating in the San Carlos Reservoir. She was found naked, although there was no sign of sexual assault. Her clothing was never located nor was the turquoise and silver squash blossom necklace she reportedly was wearing at the time she disappeared.”
“Cause of death?”
