Kissing Arizona (17 page)

‘Ah, here we go,' Dick said. ‘The story.'

‘Yeah, well, why not? It's a good story. Patriotic.' He laughed happily. ‘I's cruisin' my Twitter one day,' he said, ‘and this fine girl whose tweets I follow sometimes, she comes on with this remark that she's at a border patrol checkpoint, and she says, “Just showed my passport. No ID check! Black beautiful here! Not Mexican!” So I think, Hey, check it out, and I run down to Nogales in my green machine. And I find out, that sweet-faced little tweeter is right! Black gets treated fine at the border! So now,' Freddy O. said, looking more and more as if he was licking up cream, ‘I often visit our good neighbors to the south.'

His two faithful companions chuckled comfortably, endorsing the legend of Freddy O. The car she was riding in and the carefree way he spent money suggested that Freddy O's street smarts and unmistakably American face had already brought him plenty of luck. And Vicky could see that it was not all a happy accident, Freddy was careful about details. For instance, the back seat of this luxurious car was equipped with kiddie locks. Now that the top was up, there was no way out unless he let her out.

NINE

‘
E
verybody always thought we were twins,' Fran Gerke said. ‘Because we looked so much alike. But we were three years apart, and Lois was older, so she was the boss. I think that's why she's so good at running the store, she practiced on me growing up.'

‘Yet you stayed friends all your lives,' Sarah said. ‘So you didn't mind being bossed when you were little?'

‘No, I complained to Mom and called her a pushy brat,' Fran said. ‘We fought all the time. But I went away to college, married a man from Cleveland and stayed away till five years ago when my husband died. By the time I moved back to Tucson Lois had her hands full with her family and the stores. She needed a refuge by then, someplace to be peaceful. I didn't have any children and I guess I was glad to find somebody who needed me. We shared the church, Bingo nights . . . after a while I got her started quilting and we did that together on Sundays. It's funny, as grown-ups we were like two different people.' Fran's eyes overflowed suddenly. She pulled tissues out of a box and wiped her face. ‘Sorry. I miss her more every day. I guess it's beginning to sink in that she's really gone.'

‘I'm very sorry for your loss. I'll try not to take up too much more of your time.'

‘Oh, no, take your time, I'm glad to have somebody to talk to about it. Murder's so grotesque, you know. My friends don't want to hear about it, they think it's creepy. Well, it is weird, Frank exploding like that after so many years.'

‘Nicole says their relationship was pretty troubled.' Sarah expected a stream of invective against Frank Cooper. When it failed to flow she asked, ‘Did you hear them argue a lot?'

‘Didn't hear them argue. Didn't hear them agree. I saw Frank Cooper on Christmas and Easter, when I went to their house for a meal because Lois insisted. Otherwise, he didn't exist for me and vice versa.'

‘You couldn't stand each other?'

‘We never had a cross word. But by the time I moved back to Tucson, Frank and Lois had arranged their lives so they saw as little of each other as possible outside the stores. She came here in her own car, he never came with her.'

‘Did she complain about him?'

‘Never. Her pride was at stake, I think. She didn't want to acknowledge that her marriage had become a business arrangement. And what Lois wanted or didn't want, you know, always came first. That part hadn't changed since we were kids.'

‘So you just didn't talk about her husband?'

‘If something came up about the store, you know, she might say, “Frank thinks so-and-so, but I'm not sure.” And then go right on, as if it was just a matter of two opinions that hadn't been sorted out yet. But from things Nicole would say I could tell it was total war when they didn't agree.'

‘How about Tom, did he get in on the arguments?'

‘I think he tried to, when he was younger. But Frank came down on him so hard, by the time he was out of high school he was afraid to open his mouth around his father.'

‘Really?' Sarah looked up from her notes. ‘I got the impression he was quite aggressive.'

‘Yes, well . . . I suppose he tries to imitate his father. That was kind of a tragic situation. Tom could never please his father and his mother was always sure he was perfect. Pretty hard for the kid to figure out who he really was, I think. Maybe he'll be able to do that now.'

‘Inman, is that his name? The detective?' Phil Cruz's nostrils flared as he looked around at the video monitors, the pushed-to-the-wall girlfriends carrying babies. The Pima County Adult Detention Center was not his kind of place – it smelled of dirty socks, hangover sweat, and bleach. The poor audio and static on the phone system meant there was always somebody who couldn't hear, yelling, ‘What? What?'

‘No, no,' Sarah said. ‘Inman's the check-writer. The detective's name is Ed Cokely.' She understood Phil's distaste. DEA Special Agents did not ordinarily waste their time in the county lock-up, talking to orange-suited losers in flip-flops. Cruz was accustomed to high-dollar arrests, cases that made headlines. Pima County was where the street vendors went, the young cowboys botching burglaries and staging gun battles in parking lots.

Nevertheless, she was hoping Cruz would show a little respect for Ed Cokely, a hard worker who just might have finally turned up a decent lead on the Soltero crew.

Smallish for a cartel but too big and dangerous to be called a gang, however you classified the secretive and tight-knit outfit headed by Rafi Soltero and Huicho Valdez, it was ‘rumored' – some said, ‘known' – to be moving big loads of cocaine through Tucson now. The pair had taken to riding in caravans of big new SUVs filled with attentive-faced thugs who jumped out first and scanned the street before they held the doors for Rafi and Huicho. They were ‘strongly suspected' of half a dozen murders in the last three years, which was bureauspeak for ‘guilty but not nailed'.

Cruz had been close to them a couple of times. He'd had clearance last year for a stake-out on a stash house, crews in place with night vision goggles and the whole nine yards, when the house exploded and burned to its foundation, leaving no trace in the ashes that it had ever held anything more incriminating than futons.

To get the goods on Rafi Soltero and Huicho Valdez, Sarah knew, Phil Cruz would sit around Pima County Jail chatting with assholes like Calvin Inman until they ran out of breath to say one more inane thing. But pride required that he show his disdain, be a little condescending when he assured Sarah there'd be a nice little cut of the proceeds for the TPD if this contact led to convictions. Meantime he had his nose in the air like a debutante at a mud-wrestling contest, making Sarah feel protective of law enforcement spear-carriers like Ed Cokely.
Like you weren't trying to get him off the phone yourself yesterday morning
.

Even so . . . a few more minutes in this grimly sanitized moral graveyard with Phil Cruz, Sarah thought, she'd be siding with the prisoners.

The CO walked them in through the sliding master-controlled metal doors, to where Cokely waited by an interview room. She introduced them and they shook hands, friendly smiles fronting measuring eyes like two cops anywhere. Ed told the story about this pile of bad checks he'd compiled to make it a felony offense. Glancing sideways at Sarah, he recalled how his prisoner saw the newspaper story about her ‘discovery' of the bones, and realized he knew whose they were.

‘Or so he says.' Ed had a barely-there shrug, like his shoulder muscles were being saved for finer things. ‘Calvin Inman has a very relaxed way with the truth. But he says he has verification, so . . . you decide.'

‘Mmm. I can't use a witness who's under indictment, of course. He'd have to make restitution first . . . how much did you say it all comes to?'

Ed named the dollar figure, just under two thousand. Phil's face suggested he shouldn't have to waste his time like this. They all knew the forfeiture from the Solteros, if they were ever convicted, would be huge – piles of cash if you could find it, houses, SUVs, jewelry and boats. Not that DEA needed to worry about the dollar captures – the agency was well funded, recession-proof. But drug seizures provided a much-needed boost to the budgets of local police chiefs and sheriffs who assisted in the arrests and claimed a share of the loot. The DEA shared generously – it was the headlines they needed, to keep justifying their budget. They liked a big splashy arrest now and then, front page photos of guns and drugs, presided over by proud men in uniform. Rafi Soltero's surly head shot with the prison drape around his neck, a sidebar detailing all his bad deeds, that was the catnip a DEA Special Agent wanted to roll in.

Another corrections officer brought Inman into the room and seated him at the scarred metal table. He looked smaller and older than yesterday. His mustache ends had lost their upward curl and he had a scrape on one cheek, as if he might have been in a scuffle. Sarah found herself hoping Phil Cruz liked his story.

They talked about the bad paper first, Phil rubbing Inman's nose in it, curling his lip as he asked again for the total dollar figure. ‘Assuming I get the nod for funding,' he said, ‘you'll have to make the restitutions yourself.' Inman nodded, trying to look matter-of-fact. Already with a little light in his eye, Sarah saw, speculating about the chances of making side deals with complainants, keeping some of the cash. Cruz put the light out with admonitions about an ankle bracelet, verifying phone calls. Then he was abruptly bored with the process and asked to hear Calvin's story about the bones, making it clear he was dubious. ‘You've really been dealing for Rafi Soltero?'

‘Never.' Calvin pulled back, as best he could in the small space. ‘Never did any street dealing for anybody.' He looked away into the corner, till he decided how to buff up the next part. ‘Just did a little job once for Chuy Maldonado.' Cruz raised his eyebrows, waiting. Calvin twisted on his plastic chair. ‘Because I owed him a
favor
.'

It took him a while to spell it out. He'd cashed a check in Chuy's cousin's bar. ‘In good faith, I'd been assured the funds were on the way.' But when he ‘came up short' at the bank, ‘you know, that whole family is just hard as nails'. Cousin Bebe started talking about broken knees.

But Chuy happened to be in the place. ‘He listened to his cousin yelling all these threats at me, and after a while he asked me would I like to work it off.'

The discussion bogged down then in Calvin's concerns about the quid pro quo. ‘So far I'm no better off than when we started to talk – when do I hear about the bennies?'

Cruz quickly grew a disgusted look, stood up and said, ‘I can't waste my time on a guy blowing smoke.' He clicked off his recorder.

‘I'll give you plenty of straight answers as soon as you get me out of here!' Calvin cried.

‘I can't justify parole until you convince me you really know something.'

Calvin put his face in his hands for a minute, and sat with his shoulders shaking. When he raised his head he looked into Sarah's eyes and asked her, ‘Will this guy do what he says he'll do?'

Surprised, Sarah searched the normally tricky face of Calvin Inman, impressed by how quickly it had been reduced to sincerity by this jailhouse full of brutal teenagers. ‘Yes, Calvin,' she said, hoping Cruz was enjoying this blurb. ‘Phil Cruz is the real deal. You better tell him what you've got.'

Calvin sighed, patting his hair, which had somehow retained its elaborate waves. ‘OK, Mr Real Deal, turn that thing back on.' He folded his hands on the cold metal table in front of him, deciding where to start.

‘Chuy said, if I'd rather work off the debt than get my knees broken, I should meet him at the baggage claim area at the airport tomorrow morning early. He wouldn't say where I was going. Just said, “Don't tell nobody,
claro
?” Like I'd be likely to brag about getting up before sunrise to meet Chuy Maldonado. I asked him if we were going out of town and he said, “Why, you got a date with the mayor?” Every thing he said was like that, mean.

‘He met me at the baggage area and we walked outside. He told me a hangar number and pointed, told me to walk down there, and disappeared. I walked a long way, down to the end where the private planes are kept. When I got there he was getting out of a car; he could have given me a ride, he just enjoyed making me walk.

‘It was still dark but there was a plane out on the apron, a pilot walking around it. I don't know anything about airplanes,' he said, seeing Cruz with his mouth open and pen poised. ‘Two propellers on a Beechcraft, that's all I can tell you.'

‘You got in it without knowing where it was going?'

‘I didn't have a lot of good options. The pilot seemed to be in a hurry. Nobody talked. I rode in the passenger seat in front. Chuy supervised the loading and then waved us off. The cargo space was filled with bricks of cocaine wrapped in plastic.'

‘You're sure? What size?'

‘Chuy told me when I got in, “Keep your hands off the product.” So I never picked one up, but they looked like kilos to me. The guys on the other end who unloaded them didn't have any trouble moving them, no grunting or any of that.

‘We stopped for fuel at a small airport someplace in Arkansas, otherwise we flew nine hours straight. Before we took off from Tucson, Chuy had told me what to do – carry the briefcase, count the money, keep my mouth shut.