think.”
She made it through the photo session in good shape. The dove-gray silk ensemble her mother had found was a perfect complement for the tuxes worn by Frank and the ring bearer.
True to Father Rowan’s words, the ceremony went off without a hitch. Well, mostly without a hitch. As the ring bearer, Joanna, and Frank filed into their places at the front of the church, Frank looked nervous and more than a little pale. Joanna worried that if Frank keeled over, she’d have a hard time holding him up. But then LuAnn Marcowitz, the bride, came walking down the aisle accompanied by both her son and daughter. The radiant smile she turned on Frank seemed to bolster him. He straightened his shoulders and a bit of color seeped back into his pallid cheeks.
When Father Rowan asked, “Who giveth away?” LuAnn’s two kids gave a rousing “We do” and then sat down next to their grandmother, who, in true MOTB fashion, was weeping quietly in the second row. The ring bearer managed to drop the ring at precisely the wrong moment. When it rolled out of reach under the bride’s dress, the ring bearer promptly scrambled under her skirt to retrieve it. He popped up again, holding it triumphantly in the air, and got a hearty round of applause from the assembled congregation. The bride’s spoken vow of “I do” came through loud and clear. Frank’s was a lot quieter.
When it was over and the newlyweds marched down the aisle to the joyous strains of the Wedding March, Joanna followed along behind, realizing as she went that she had made it through the entire ceremony without once thinking about Deputy Dan Sloan.
That was a good thing. It would have been very bad form for the best man to break down and cry, especially if she smeared her mascara.
By the time we left the suicide scene in the woods outside Cle Elum and made it back to Ellensburg, we were very thankful to find that the Best Western still had one room available, a room with two double beds. At home Mel and I sleep in a queen-size bed. Doubles don’t fit us very well. When I woke up the next morning-at ten past eight-Mel was sound asleep in the other bed.
I went into the bathroom, showered with a tiny sliver of soap, and then got dressed in yesterday’s underwear. My mother would not have been amused, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant I was more or less likely to be in a car wreck that day.
By the time I came out of the bathroom, Mel was up. I know now what to expect when she hasn’t had a chance to remove her makeup properly. So I gave her a clear shot at the bathroom and told her I was on my way to the restaurant. Fortunately, Detective Caldwell had volunteered to give Lupe and her children the bad news about Tomas Rivera’s suicide. As I walked from our room to the restaurant through a chill and steady drizzle, I was grateful that I didn’t have that next-of-kin sword hanging over my head.
Once inside the steamy restaurant, I looked around for Lupe and her kids. Fortunately, they were nowhere to be seen, but Jaime Carbajal was. Uninvited, I lowered myself onto the empty bench seat of his booth, motioning for the waitress to bring me coffee as I did so.
I told him what had happened after he left-how we had found Tomas dead, presumably of carbon monoxide poisoning, in a shed with a running bulldozer.
“If the place was locked, how did he get inside?” Jaime asked.
“Ken Leggett, the heavy-equipment operator, thinks maybe Tomas was hiding inside the building-maybe in the restroom-when Ken put the dozer away and locked up for the night. Once everyone left the job site, he hot- wired the dozer and that was it.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“No.”
I think Jaime was as disappointed as I was that Tomas Rivera had croaked out on us without telling us what we really needed to know. It’s one thing to know who did something. I didn’t have a doubt in the world that Tomas was our killer. What we didn’t know was why he had done it or who was ultimately responsible.
“How does Miguel Rios fit into the picture?” Jaime asked.
“He started out as an ordinary street thug, but he’s worked his way up to a waterfront home in a town called Gig Harbor. According to what Tomas told Lupe, he used to be hooked in with a group who smuggle people and goods across the border along with a lucrative side venture into prostitution.”
A thoughtful look crossed Jaime’s face. “Tell me about those smugglers,” he said. “Did she mention any names?”
I hadn’t listened to Lupe Rivera’s entire second interview, but I had heard quite a bit of it. Removing my notebook from my pocket, I paged through the jumble of notes.
“Here it is,” I said. “Cervantes.”
Jaime Carbajal stiffened in his chair. “Cervantes?” he repeated.
I nodded. “When Lupe mentioned the name, I thought she was making a joke. I said, ‘As in
“That fits!” Jaime exclaimed. He was already reaching for his cell phone.
“What do you mean, it fits?” I asked.
Holding the phone to his ear, he didn’t answer. “Damn!” he said. “Went straight to voice mail.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s probably already gone to the wedding.”
“What’s going on?”
But Jaime was already dialing another number. When there was no answer on that one, either, he tried a third. “Ernie!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad I caught you. You’re not going to believe it. We think the guy who murdered Marcella may have been hooked in with the Cervantes brothers from down in Cananea. I’m hoping you can call up the folks from the Border Task Force and see if they can tell us anything about what’s going on with those guys at the moment.” He paused, then added, “Sure, I understand. Have Tom give me a call. I don’t have a computer with me, but he can fax whatever they send him to my hotel here in Ellensburg.”
I waited until he finished the call. “How about putting me back in the loop?” I said. “Who are the Cervantes brothers?”
“Antonio and Jesus,” he said. “Their father, Manuel, was a good man, a copper miner at Cananea, a mining town just south of the border in Sonora. He got dusted and died.”
“Dusted?” I asked.
“Lung disease,” Jaime told me. “Once he was gone, his two sons decided they didn’t want the same thing to happen to them-and they were too lazy to work that hard. So they went into business for themselves-drug trafficking, running illegals across the border, you name it. As the bigger cartels started getting taken down, Antonio and Jesus moved in on their territories and in on their businesses, too. Prostitution, protection rackets, you name it.”
The word “prostitution” made me think about Marcella Andrade and those other five murdered girls. She had been taken out because of the money. I wondered if maybe some of the other girls had objected when they’d found out the real price of admission for their ride across the border.
I said aloud to Jaime, “Sounds like the Mafia.”
“It is the Mafia,” he replied grimly. “Mafia Mexican style.”
“But why would Miguel Rios of Gig Harbor, Washington, be dealing with people from-where was it again?”
“Cananea, Sonora,” Jaime answered. “Maybe because they’re all part of the global economy. Once I hear back from the Task Force, we may have an answer on that.”
“We?” I asked. It seemed reasonable to point out to him that this was our case, not his.
“You,” he corrected. “Obviously, if anything important turns up, I’ll pass it along.”
Mel came into the restaurant and made her way to the booth. Even in yesterday’s clothes and with minimal makeup, she looked terrific.
“Morning, guys,” she said, smiling at Jaime. “Mind if I join you?”
The reception was a catered affair in the basement of the Convention Center, a building that had once held the company store, Phelps Dodge Mercantile. The groceries, furniture, appliances, and dry goods were all gone now-had been for generations-but ghosts of the building’s commercial past still lingered. There was a reasonably good restaurant along with several boutique shops on the main floor, while the basement was devoted to a single large meeting room.
Joanna and Butch walked down the worn terrazzo stairs and made their way through the reception line,
