CHAPTER 15
For several long seconds after Butch turned off the ignition, Joanna sat in the car staring up at the towering steeple of Saint Dominick’s Catholic Church.
“What’s wrong?” Butch asked.
“This is the first time I’ve been back at Saint Dom’s since Deputy Sloan’s funeral,” she said. “I’m afraid that as soon as I step inside, that day will all come back to me.” Even now, closing her eyes, she could see the uniformed police officers standing row on row and hear the bagpipes wailing. It was overwhelming.
“This is a wedding rehearsal,” Butch reminded her. “You’ve got to let that other stuff go. Put it out of your mind.”
Nodding, Joanna knew he was right, but it was easier said than done. Butch came around to the passenger side of the car and lifted Dennis out of his car seat. Then he opened Joanna’s door and held out his free hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Just inside the double doors, Joanna was assailed by the screaming voices of two children. It turned out that the flower girl and the ring bearer, four-year-old fraternal twins, were in the throes of a total meltdown. The bride and the children’s mother were ineffectively trying to broker a peace agreement between the two warring children. Finally Father Rowan, the rector of Saint Dominick’s, stepped into the fray. With a calming word or two, he somehow put a stop to the battle.
The priest then turned to Joanna, smiled, and held out his hand. “How good to see you again, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “You know what they say. If the dress rehearsal is a disaster, opening night should be great.” He turned his attention to Dennis. “Is this your little boy?” he added. “With that red hair he clearly takes after his mother.”
Just as the priest had somehow managed to settle the hash between the two battling four-year-olds, his kind words and unexcited manner calmed Joanna as well.
“And where’s your lovely daughter this evening?” Father Rowan asked.
“Staying overnight with a friend,” Butch said. “Somehow coming to a wedding rehearsal and dinner just didn’t do it for her.”
“No,” the priest said with a smile. “I don’t suppose it would.”
Once the rehearsal started in earnest, Father Rowan walked the wedding party through their paces twice for good measure. The first time the recalcitrant flower girl was determined to go stand with her ring-bearer brother after her trip down the aisle and had to be convinced that her place was on the bride’s side of the ceremony. The second time she raced down the aisle at a dead run and had to start over at a more decorous pace. Dennis, seeing that the other kids seemed to be allowed free rein at the front of the church, wanted desperately to join them. Besides, since his mother was standing right there in plain sight, why shouldn’t he be up there, too?
It turned out that the ongoing uproar over the kids was good for Joanna’s nerves, reminding her that this occasion was all about beginnings rather than endings. It helped immeasurably that Frank Montoya was nervous, too.
The rehearsal dinner was held in a private room at the clubhouse for Rob Roy Links, a golf club out near Palominas. They were driving there with Butch at the wheel when Joanna’s phone rang. The caller was Jaime Carbajal.
“We have a suspect,” he said.
“Who?”
“Tomas Rivera, the guy whose driver’s license was left in Marcella’s vehicle.”
“Do they have him in custody?” Joanna asked.
“No, not yet, but at least we know who he is. His wife found Luis’s school photo from last year hidden in her husband’s underwear drawer. When she saw the picture, she thought her husband had been fooling around behind her back and that Luis was her husband’s son with some other woman. I was able to tell her that wasn’t true. Turns out he was doing a lot worse than screwing around.”
“Does his wife know what he’s done?”
“Not yet. The detectives running the interview were cagey about that. They didn’t let on why we were there.”
“Does that mean you were there, too?” Joanna asked. “For the interview? I thought you were just going to the morgue to make arrangements to bring Marcella’s body home.”
“It’s a long story,” Jaime said. “I happened to be there at the time and was able to help out. They needed someone to translate, and I was the only one who spoke Spanish. While we were just asking general questions, it didn’t matter that much, but once we saw the picture, Detective Caldwell terminated my involvement. She took Lupe Rivera to her office and has an official translator helping with the next part of the interview. Beaumont dropped me off at the hotel.”
“Has anyone been able to figure out Rivera’s connection to Marcella?” Joanna asked.
“Not so far,” Jaime said. “Once they take him into custody, I’m sure someone will ask. For right now, though, it looks like he may have taken off and left his wife and kids to manage on their own, which isn’t going to be easy. The way I read the situation, he has a green card. She doesn’t. Neither do the kids.”
“How are you doing?” Joanna asked. “You sound tired.”
“I am tired,” Jaime admitted. “At this point, I’m not sure why I bothered coming. Delcia was on the phone with the M.E. while I was still on the plane. She helped my mother order a casket through Costco.com. They’ll deliver it to the M.E.’s office here in Ellensburg sometime on Monday. They’ll release the remains to me at that time and give me the necessary paperwork so I can fly home with the casket Monday evening. I’ve hired a hearse from a funeral home here to get the casket and me to the airport in Seattle. Norm Higgins from the funeral home in Bisbee will send a hearse to Tucson to meet the plane. He’s cleared the funeral-home chapel schedule on Tuesday, so we can hold the service at our convenience. Since it’s going to be private-family only and officiated by Father Rowan-we can be pretty flexible about timing.”
It seemed to Joanna that Norm Higgins of Higgins and Sons Funeral Chapel wouldn’t be thrilled to hear that a casket was coming his way from Costco.com. She herself never would have thought of ordering one online.
“Good,” she said.
“And Delcia has spoken to the
“It has?”
“That’s what he said. Someone came around to see Marcella’s landlord and asked about it. The landlord went to Marcella’s place, found the money where she’d hidden it, and gave it back to whoever came looking for it.”
“That’s a relief,” Joanna said.
“I’ll say. Beaumont also said that once Marcella got to Washington it seemed like she was trying to get herself straightened out. She was working at a regular job for the first time in her life-waiting tables in a restaurant-and staying out of trouble. She had asked Marco for a divorce so she could marry a new boyfriend-a nice one. According to Beaumont, the guy is a truck driver who had even given Marcella an engagement ring. He’s hoping we’ll let him come to her funeral.”
“Will you?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t know,” Jaime said. “The idea that Marcella would ever hook up with someone decent sounds far- fetched, but Beaumont gave me his name and number. I thought I’d give the guy a call and check him out.”
By then Butch had parked the car in the Rob Roy Links lot and had been waiting patiently for Joanna to finish the call. Meanwhile, most of the wedding party had walked into the restaurant. Finally Butch gestured at his watch. “We need to go in,” he mouthed.
“I have to go,” Joanna told Jaime. She didn’t say she was going to the rehearsal dinner. The fact that Jaime was missing Frank Montoya’s wedding was one detail that didn’t bear repeating. “But if you need anything…” she added.
