Fire and Ice

I’ll hand over what we’ve got and see what they can do with it.”

I dropped Mel off at the restaurant parking lot where she’d left the Cayman, and we drove back into town in the throes of afternoon traffic. I know, I’m always griping about the traffic here, but I can’t help it. There are too many cars and not enough roads, and when I see one of those signs that say construction is coming and drivers should find alternate routes, I know it’s a joke. For a lot of roads around here there are no alternate routes.

Once back at Belltown Terrace, Mel went out for her daily run while I worked my way through several crossword puzzles. After that, we set out on foot to find some dinner. Even on rainy days, the late afternoons and early evenings are often clear and warm. And that was the case as we walked down Second Avenue.

When I first moved to the Denny Regrade, the streets had been lined with tiny sticks of newly planted trees. Now they’re fully grown, complete with root systems that play havoc with the smooth surface of the sidewalks. Still, I enjoyed our walk along beautiful, tree-lined Second Avenue with bright green leaves softening the hard-scape lines of surrounding buildings.

We walked as far as Mama’s Mexican Kitchen, where we managed to score an outside table. That gave us a chance to watch the varied denizens of the Regrade-from the homeless people wheel-ing their possession-laden grocery carts to the high-flying BMW drivers jockeying for free parking spaces.

But we also talked shop. While Mel sipped her Dos Equis and downed a combination plate and I nursed a root beer along with my order of taquitos, we picked apart everything we had learned about the timeline of Marina Aguirre’s disappearance and death. I had just popped the last bit of taquito in my mouth when the phone rang.

“Bingo,” someone said in my ear.

I didn’t recognize the voice, and I didn’t recognize the phone number, either. For a moment I thought maybe it was one of those annoying solicitation calls where the Knights of Something or Other want me to buy a ticket to their annual charitable auction.

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “Who’s calling, please?”

“It’s Lucy,” she said. “Detective Lucy Caldwell from Ellensburg. This is my cell. I thought you’d want to know that we’ve IDed our victim. I just got the notice from Bob Craft over in the M.E.’s office. They entered her dental X rays in the national dental records database and got a hit. Her real name is Marcella Andrade. She was reported missing on July 16 of last year.”

I had pulled my notebook and pencil from my pocket, and tipped my head in order to hold the phone to my ear while I took notes.

“Marcella Andrade,” I wrote. “Disappeared July 16. From where?”

“From Arizona,” Lucy answered. “The missing persons report was written by someone named Detective Jaime Carbajal. He’s with the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department,” she added. “He’s also listed as the next of kin because he’s the victim’s brother. Dr. Hopewell and I thought that since this goes across state lines and since the attorney general’s office is involved, it might be best if the next-of-kin notification came from you instead of from one of us.”

That’s what I mean about God having a sense of humor. I had been reluctant to blab to Mel about my partnership with Big Al Lindstrom, but that was nothing compared to this!

You see, I happen to know the sheriff of Cochise County. Her name is Joanna Brady. She’s a cute little redhead-make that a feisty little red-haired fireball. The two of us had worked a case together a couple of years ago. In the aftermath of a dramatic shoot-out where either one of us might have been killed, Joanna and I had shared a powerful but momentary attraction.

And that’s all it was-momentary. Admittedly it was a hug that could have turned into much more, but Joanna Brady was married, even if I wasn’t at the time, and neither one of us was prepared to play that game. So I came back home to Seattle, she stayed on in Bisbee, and life went on as usual. Until now.

“What?” Mel wanted to know.

I ignored her. “How do you spell that last name again?” I asked.

Lucy read off the letters. “It’s Hispanic,” she explained. “I believe the j’s are pronounced like h’s.”

I remembered meeting Detective Jaime Carbajal. The j’s were most definitely h’s.

“What’s going on?” Mel asked.

“They’ve identified our victim,” I told her.

“Where’s she from?”

“Arizona,” I told her. “Bisbee, Arizona.”

But, of course, Lucy hadn’t said a word about Bisbee. I had supplied that little detail on my own.

“Obviously you know Cochise County,” Lucy said. She sounded relieved. “I hope that means you’ll be willing to handle the next-of-kin notification. I’ve only done one or two of those, and I’m not very good at them. I’m always afraid I’ll fall apart and make a fool of myself.”

“Right,” I agreed. “We’ll take care of the next-of-kin notification. Can you give me the contact information?”

So she did. She dictated all the gory details-the phone numbers and addresses that would make it possible for me to mess up Detective Carbajal’s life with the terrible news that his sister had been murdered. And just because he was a cop wouldn’t make it easier. In a way it made it worse, but diligently writing it all down gave me a chance to put off having to tell Mel what she was waiting to hear. It was a useless diversion, however. It didn’t work, not at all.

Mel was still gunning for me when I got off the phone. “Something’s the matter,” she said accusingly. “I saw the look on your face. It was like you had seen a ghost. What’s going on?”

The waiter came by. “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

He had people standing outside, waiting for tables. The question was a polite way of saying how about getting moving, but I didn’t take the hint. Instead, I ordered another beer for Mel and another root beer for me. Then I told Mel everything. I told her all about my encounter with Sheriff Joanna Brady; about how the two of us had chased a bad guy down a dry riverbed and how we had survived a shoot-out that left the bad guy dead. As for us? We were very much alive and grateful to be so.

“But nothing happened,” I said as I finished. “Nothing at all.”

There was a long disturbing moment when Mel said nothing. Finally she nodded. “All right then,” she said, making up her mind to accept what I’d told her at face value. “You should call Sheriff Brady. If the victim’s brother works for her, she’s the one who should tell him. It’ll be better coming from her rather than from a complete stranger over the phone. And we shouldn’t make that kind of call from here.”

Mel looked around the sidewalk patio and caught the waiter’s eye. “Check, please,” she said. “We need to go.”

We started back toward Belltown Terrace walking hand in hand.

“Did I ever tell you about Big Al Lindstrom?” I asked.

“Not really,” Mel said. “Other than what you told me today. Why?”

“He’s a great guy,” I told her. “I worked with him for a couple of years-up until he got himself shot.”

“Oh, boy,” she said. “Don’t tell me this is another one of those J. P. Beaumont missing partners stories, is it?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“You’d better tell me then,” she said. “I need to know.”

So I told her about that, too. Thinking about it now, I can see exactly what I was doing-stalling. The longer it took us to get back to Belltown Terrace, the longer I could put off making the call to Sheriff Brady and ultimately to Jaime Carbajal.

No matter how long I do this job, making those tough calls never gets any easier.

Once dinner was over, people began sorting themselves into tables for the poker games. Joanna had learned to play poker at her father’s knee. D. H. Lathrop had taught her well, and her skill at the game was well known both within the department and beyond. As a consequence, her table was the last one to fill up.

The other tables had already started playing and Joanna was about to cut the cards for hers when the landline phone rang in the kitchen. For several years after Joanna’s first election, she had served as county sheriff while still keeping her residential phone number listed in the phone book. In the course of a rancorous reelection campaign, however, she’d been the target of so many crank calls that she and Butch had finally been forced to