Mason’s mind was made up, and I didn’t try changing it.
“So what’s going to happen to her now?” he asked woodenly. “To her body, I mean.”
“Her brother, Jaime Carbajal, is due in on a plane from Tucson later this afternoon. I’m supposed to pick him up at the airport a little more than an hour from now. Once the M.E. in Ellensburg releases the remains, he’ll be taking the body back to Bisbee for burial.”
“Bisbee,” Mason mused. “That sounds familiar. I think I drove through there years ago, hauling a load of equipment down to Douglas. Do you think her family would mind if I came to her funeral?”
“I doubt they’d mind,” I said. “When I see her brother, I’ll mention you to him. I think her family would be glad to know that she had someone like you in her life.”
“And what about her son?” Waters asked. “Louis. What’s going to happen to him?”
Marina had told him that much of the truth-that she had a son, but Waters had only heard the name spoken. He hadn’t seen it written down. “It’s L-U-I-S,” I corrected. “From what I’ve been able to learn, he’s staying with his aunt and uncle on a temporary basis.”
Which will probably become permanent, I thought.
I stood to leave. “I can show myself out,” I said. “I’m sorry to have brought such bad news.”
Waters nodded. “It’s all right,” he said. “I guess I’ve been expecting it all along, and knowing is better than not knowing.”
“Is there anyone you can call?” I asked. “Someone who could come stay with you.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ll be all right. I’ve been alone with it all these months. I can be alone with it now.”
I left him sitting there brokenhearted, and made my way back outside. I had turned off my phone when I went inside to speak to him. When I turned it back on, there was a missed call from Mel. I called her right back. “Detective Caldwell and I have been tracking on Mr. Rivera. It turns out he didn’t show up at work today. Lucy’s afraid he may have skipped. She’s got an unmarked car stationed outside the suspect’s house in Cle Elum. Rivera’s truck isn’t there at the moment, so apparently he’s not home. She asked me if I wanted to be in on a sit-down with the suspect’s wife. I’m on my way there now. Care to join us?”
“Give me the address. Once I pick up Jaime Carbajal, we’ll come there, too.”
“Is dragging him along a good idea?” she asked.
“I can only do so many things at a time,” I told her. “If I’m coming there, he’ll be with me.”
She read off the address, and I loaded it into my GPS.
“Anything else?”
“We tried tracking down Miguel-the guy whose phone number was found on a scrap of paper in Rivera’s wallet. The number turned out to be a throw-away cell phone that’s no longer in service, so that’s a dead end.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “You can’t win ’em all. See you when I get there.”
With that I headed for the airport. I suppose I could have muscled my way past security and made arrangements to meet Marcella’s brother at the gate. Instead, I stood in a clutch of limo drivers waiting at the foot of the arriving passenger escalator. Like them, I carried a handwritten sign with the word CARBAJAL printed on it. Unexpectedly, the plane landed several minutes early. Soon after the loudspeaker announced the flight’s arrival, a young Hispanic man riding down the escalator noted the sign, caught my eye, and nodded.
I held out my hand in greeting. “Luggage?” I asked.
“No,” he said, hefting a small athletic bag. “Carry-on only.”
Jaime may have been traveling light as far as luggage was concerned, but from the look in his red-rimmed eyes and the set of his mouth, he seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Let’s go, then,” I said.
“Where to?” he said. “Ellensburg?”
“No, a place called Cle Elum. My partner is on her way there to interview a possible suspect. I thought you’d like to ride along.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”
On the drive across the mountains I brought Jaime Carbajal up to speed on everything Mel and I had learned about Marcella/ Marina. I told him about how the wallet left in Marcella’s abandoned vehicle had led us to the guy in Cle Elum. I told him about Mason Waters, his sister’s grieving fiance, and I let him in on everything I had learned from Warden Willison and Detective Lowell about Marco Andrade’s death.
“So the California homicide investigator claims the feds shut down his investigation into Marco’s murder?” he asked. “Why?”
“I have no idea. I’m guessing Detective Lowell didn’t tell me because he didn’t know. But the one detail he gave me, the address tattooed on Marco’s arm, is what links Marcella with the woman who was passing herself off as Marina.”
“And the money?” Jaime asked. “The money Marcella’s son claimed she had?”
“As far as I know, it’s gone,” I told him.
“Figures,” Jaime said.
He fell silent after that. A few minutes later, I noticed he had nodded off. I let him sleep. From the looks of him, he needed it.
In the course of an hour-long hair appointment, Joanna had three separate phone calls. She apologized to Helen each time, but she needed to take them.
The first call was from Butch, apologizing (fingers crossed, Joanna suspected) for his having missed lunch and verifying that she would be coming home before the wedding rehearsal so they could ride to the church and rehearsal dinner together.
The second call was from Ernie. He reported that he had dropped off the Action Trails security DVD at the Department of Public Safety crime lab in Tucson. “They’ll get to it eventually,” Ernie said, “but don’t hold your breath for a fast turnaround. It doesn’t sound like this is a big priority for them. It’s our homicide, not theirs.”
“And the wallet?” Joanna asked.
“I picked it up,” Ernie said. “I brought it down and checked it into our evidence room, but I also did what you told me and called the information to that detective up in Washington. There was some money, a couple of credit cards, and a Washington State driver’s license.”
“Good,” Joanna said. “Anything else?”
“Nope, that’s it for me,” Ernie said. “See you tomorrow, then. At the wedding.”
The third call was from Debra Howell.
“You called that shot,” Deb said. “The lawyer one. Candace showed up with her smarmy Tucson lawyer firmly in tow.”
“What happened when you told her Bobby said no dice?”
“She hit the roof,” Deb answered. “Went absolutely ballistic. She told me that, if she had to, she’d go to court and have him declared incompetent.”
“Bobby is not incompetent!” Joanna exclaimed.
“Right,” Debra said. “I agree. He’s mad as hell, but who can blame him? That sister of his is poison, and I suspect their mother knew it, too. I went to the courthouse and checked the probate records. Long before she got sick, Inez Fletcher went to a lot of trouble to see to it that Bobby had a roof over his head and that his interests would be protected.”
Behind Joanna, Helen Barco heaved an exaggerated sigh and pointed at her watch.
“Good work, Deb,” Joanna said. “I’ve gotta go. Talk with you later.”
The Lady in the Dash, as Mel likes to call our GPS, mangled the word Cle Elum when she told me to take the next exit, but the sound of her voice was enough to rouse Jaime Carbajal. Once he was awake, I called Mel.
“Okay,” I said. “We’re just now coming into town. What’s the deal?”
“Detective Caldwell and I have been gathering what information we can. Tomas Rivera works out in the woods. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d be home by now. But we found out from his crew chief that he didn’t show up at work today. For as long as we’ve had the name and address, Lucy has kept a deputy in an unmarked patrol car parked on the street to keep an eye on the house, so we’re fairly certain that he hasn’t come or gone from there. He has an old Toyota pickup registered in his name. We’ve got people on the lookout for that, too.”
“Does he have family?” I asked.
