Red Man Down (24 page)

Sarah called Admin at Pima County and placed a request for transport for Joey García. The officer who took the call said, ‘Hold one second, I think I saw—’

He came back on the line a few seconds later and told her, ‘Joey García made bail late yesterday and was released at eight-fifteen last night.’

Sarah held her breath until the red cloud of rage that had formed in front of her eyes dispersed. When she was fairly confident of keeping her voice reasonable she said, ‘Who secured the bond, do you have that information?’

He gave her the name of a bondsman she knew slightly. She called his office in the jail and asked who brought the bail money.

‘His mother,’ the bondsman said. ‘Teresa García.’

‘She can’t drive herself right now,’ Sarah said. ‘Who brought her in?’

‘Um … I think she said it was her daughter.’

‘Which one?’

‘No idea.’

Sarah called each of them and got no answer, then called Chico, with the same result. Feeling as if she might be going to explode from frustration, she hurried into the ladies’ room to splash cold water on her face. When she came out she walked into Delaney’s office and told him their prisoner was loose.

‘Damn,’ Delaney said. ‘I thought you said you were going to get the bail amount raised.’

‘Leo tried. Judge Kahler said she had already set it at the maximum amount allowed. She was trying to teach him a lesson.’

‘Seems like he’s not getting the message,’ Delaney said. ‘What’s the fallback plan?’

Sarah, looking horrified suddenly, said, ‘The mechanic.’

‘The wildcat who worked on his car? How can he help you?’

‘He can’t – but I think we better help him.’

‘How?’

‘We should find him and tell him his customer’s out of jail.’

Delaney popped his eyes and said, ‘Why?’

‘He didn’t want to have anything to do with us, but we muscled in on his life and made him talk about that Toyota.’

‘So?’

‘So three people are dead and we think it’s all about the money, don’t we? I think we better tell that guy his prize customer is out of jail and probably armed and quite possibly dangerous.’

‘Oh. OK, give him a call.’

‘No cell phone, boss. No computer. This guy’s off the grid and barely feeding his family.’

‘Sarah,’ Delaney said, looking at his call-back list, ‘what do you want?’

‘We gotta go find him, talk to him. He probably ought to fix cars at another location for a while.’

Delaney sighed. ‘We have a great deal to do.’

‘This guy’s smart and he’s connected down there. If we make him a friend he could help us. Jason and Oscar can find him fast – they did before.’

‘All right.’ Delaney waved her away. ‘Then talk to the arresting officer for that last break-in Joey did. See if there’s any other charge he can come up with, so we could issue a warrant for a fresh arrest.’

‘Oh, I like that. Thanks, boss.’

When she told Jason, he said, ‘See, I told you we were going to mess up that poor guy’s life.’

‘Blame me all you like after you find him,’ Sarah said. ‘But right now will you hustle your butt down across Valencia and find that guy? I’m getting hives.’

She was tackling the fresh pile of messages that seemed to be spontaneously proliferating on her desk when she answered her ringing phone and heard a voice yell, from some outdoor space filled with traffic noises, ‘Is this Sarah Burke? Right. This is Sam Rollins at the impound yard.’

‘Yes, Sam?’

‘Yeah, well, your name’s on the charge slip so I thought you better know. Somebody cut the padlock off the backyard gate last night, and that old Toyota you sent me yesterday is gone.’

‘Is that the only vehicle missing?’

‘Yup. So I guess you know who’s to blame, huh? And, hey, probably we should be grateful he left the chain-link fence alone – I’ll just replace the padlock and I’m good to go. But I think you’re looking for a Camry and the man who owns it, both.’

‘Yeah, looks like we gotta go around again. Thanks, Sam.’ She ran and told Delaney, who said, ‘Well, there’s our new charge. Will you write up the warrant? I’ll put out the Need to Locate, city and county.’

‘What about Border Patrol? We think he’s a flight risk.’

‘Right. Soon as you finish that warrant call them, give them all the information on the warrant and ask them to turn him around if they find him.’

They got busy, and soon every car in Tucson and Pima County was looking for the Camry, and had a copy of Joey’s last arrest photo in the car.

In the middle of all that busy work, Jason called Sarah from the weedy lot in front of the inconspicuous repair shop.

‘We’re looking in the front window,’ Jason said. ‘The ceiling light is out and the door is locked. The van he kept his tools in is gone too, and all those file boxes where he kept his records. Looks like our boy’s an old hand at this – he knows when to take a powder.’

‘Did you ask around the neighborhood if anybody’s seen him?’

‘Of course. Tried the neighbors on both sides. Talked to Ulysses, the guy in the hairnet that calls himself the
chef de cuisine
at the hot dog stand. Oh, and you know that unisex hair styling shop where I told you all the girls had big eyes for Oscar yesterday? He got so charming in there a few minutes ago I almost fell in love with him myself, but they don’t have a word of advice for him today. Nobody down here wants to talk to us now – they all say, like, “Juan who?” We’re poison in this part of town.’

Sarah ate lunch at her desk, answering emails and fielding calls. When she walked into the break room to make tea she found Leo sitting there, watching a rerun of an old Barney Miller show on his iPad. She stood by him through a couple of eruptions on the laugh track, till he finally peeled his eyes away and said, ‘What gives you the right to interrupt my lame-brained lunch break, which helps me maintain my sunny disposition the rest of the day?’

‘Don’t know if you’ve heard,’ she said, and started to tell him about the bail-out.

‘I know about the bail-out,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

She told him about the Toyota stolen from impound. ‘What does that suggest to you?’

‘Flight. Or a mission. Maybe there’s still some money to retrieve? You know,’ he closed his iPad and stood up, looking energized, ‘there’s one very simple thing we haven’t tried. What if there’s an account somewhere in the name of Joey García?’

Sarah did a modified light-up followed by a quick douse. ‘Would he dare?’

‘A man who breaks into houses and steals guns for resale to drug lords is not risk-averse.’

‘So are you going to ask your examiners to scan for it?’

‘Damn right.’

‘Don’t forget, his legal name is José. His social security account must be in that name.’

‘Middle initial?’

‘Mmm. Don’t know. Can’t you start them looking while I try to find Teresa?’

‘Is she missing?’

‘I don’t think so but she hasn’t answered her phone lately. In fact, I’m not getting any answers from anybody in the García family, and they haven’t called me.’

‘Why should they?’

‘They just did the one thing we agreed they wouldn’t do, get Joey out of jail. You’d think they might like to explain what they have in mind.’

‘Have you forgotten we’re the police? People lie to us, make excuses and hide things. You want a nice friendly explanation of something, call your mother.’

Ignoring his advice, Sarah called Pilar, who was no more friendly than usual but at least answered the phone this time. She denied having delivered her mother to the bail bondsman, and was immediately angry at her mother for reneging on her promise to leave Joey in jail.

‘She told me this time it would be different. But when he whines to her she always gives in. It makes everything I do for her seem pointless and stupid.’

‘I’m very sorry to tell you there’s another problem.’

‘What now?’

‘Well, you know, we impounded his car yesterday.’

‘I didn’t know, obviously. Why?’

‘We showed probable cause to suspect it was involved in a series of home invasions.’

‘Probably was. So?’

‘So last night he cut the lock on the impound gate and took back the car. He’s at large somewhere in Tucson now, and we have to find him before he does any more damage. You’re saying you haven’t heard from him?’

‘No.’

‘If he does call you, will you let me know?’

‘Yes. But he won’t. He might call Cecelia, but he won’t call me.’

‘All right. Do you know where your mother is now?’

‘Actually, I do. She has a monthly appointment at a spa where she gets a massage and body wrap. It takes all day and she enjoys it a great deal. I delivered her there this morning, and I’m due back at five to take her home. Just think – she let me take her there and never said a word about getting Joey out of jail. When was she going to tell me, I wonder?’

‘I need to know what name Joey has on his social security number. Do you think it’s all right if I call her there?’

‘You bet. Why should she be all relaxed and happy in her aloe wrap when the rest of us are dealing with the results of her foolishness?’

‘Good. May I have the number for her spa, please?’

‘Actually, why don’t you just give me yours?’ Pilar said. ‘I’ll see to it that she calls you – it will be my pleasure.’ She hung up, still fuming, leaving Sarah wanting to beg for a little mercy for Teresa. But there was no time; Oscar and Jason walked onto the floor just then, talking to each other and then to Sarah.

‘We stopped at Chico’s place on the way back,’ Oscar said. ‘He says Joey called him last night, asking for a couple of phone numbers in Mazatlan. Anything we can do to keep him from going there?’

‘Plenty,’ Sarah said, and told them about all the processes under way. ‘We need to capture the rest of that money, which must be what he’s going for. Unless he’s already across the border without the money. But we think he’s going to try to get it, and then make a run. So we’ll try to get him at the border.’

Her phone rang then, and Teresa said, ‘Oh, Detective, my daughter says I have done such a foolish thing. But you know, he’s my baby …’ She made a small, painful sound and began to cry. Through sobs, she finished, ‘You can’t just … turn your back … on a person you love.’

‘I understand, Teresa. But right now … I need to know what name he uses on his social security account.’

‘Social security? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘We think he’s got some money he’s hiding … money that isn’t rightly his, you understand? And that he’s got it in another town, in a bank, under his birth name. Does he have a middle name or initial?’

‘José
is
his middle name.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. We named him after his father. But then, it was awkward having two Vicentes, always together. So for convenience we called him by his middle name, José. And then when he grew up a little he wanted to be called Joey instead.’

‘But his social security card reads Vicente José García?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Thanks for calling me, Teresa, I’m sorry I had to interrupt your spa day. Don’t worry now, I know you did what you thought was right.’

‘I know I have no right to ask, but … if you arrest him again, will you let me know?’

‘Yes. I’ll be in touch, Teresa.’ She ran to Leo’s space, found him on the phone and stood in front of him making time-out signals. He said, ‘Hold one,’ into the phone. Then, to her, ‘What?’

She waved a paper under his nose, saying, ‘I have the name you should search for.’

He said, into the phone, ‘Gotta go. Talk to you later.’ He grabbed the paper she handed him, read it and caroled, ‘Oh, yes, baby!’ as he dialed the bank examiners’ number that, by now, he had memorized.

Walking away, she looked at her watch and said, aloud, ‘Four o’clock, though. Rats!’

Ollie popped his head out of his cubicle and asked her, ‘What’s wrong with four o’clock? Perfectly good time, almost quitting time.’

‘That’s what’s wrong with it. The bank examiners have all gone home, probably, so they won’t start scanning the state for Joey García’s account till tomorrow. And by then he’ll have the money in Mexico, what do you bet?’

‘Don’t we have a wants order on him at the border?’

‘Sure. You didn’t get the memo about the system not working to perfection? He’ll find some way to slip through the net.’

‘Sarah, this case is making you gloomy and paranoid.’

‘Yes, it is. What is it with this guy? He makes so many dumb mistakes, but yet he always seems to stay one step ahead of us.’ She didn’t say, ‘Of me,’ not wanting to own the failure. But that was how it felt, as if she had inadvertently engaged in
mano-a-mano
combat with Joey García, and he was winning.

Till the next morning at six a.m., when Delaney called and said, ‘Well, we found Joey García’s car. Joey’s in it, and he’s dead.’

‘L
uz told me I’d find him in this part of town,’ Sarah said. A sign across Speedway said, ‘Elegant Junque,’ and another advertised, ‘Cash for Gold.’ The strip mall in the next block included a tattoo parlor, some factory close-outs and a motorcycle repair shop. Off-track wagering was featured in the nearby bar, and if that didn’t suit there were four more bars within easy staggering distance. ‘She was right. This is Joey’s natural turf.’

The Toyota was parked on a small bridge across the ditch that ran along Arcadia Street. Tall cottonwoods and scrap underbrush grew all along the ditch, so the car was hard to see until you were almost on top of it. The patrolman who found it in the dark said his lights just happened to reflect off the one spot on the rear bumper that wasn’t too dirty to reflect anything.

Delaney was worried about the big traffic jam he was sure was going to form along the narrow shoulder on the Arcadia Street side as soon as all the techs and detectives got here. ‘I don’t want anybody getting hurt here,’ he told Sarah. ‘Why don’t you go park in that empty parking lot behind the bar that’s over there on the other side of the ditch?’

Sarah parked behind the bar and walked back to the bridge, where the photographer was already busy taking pictures of the car. The rear of a fingerprint specialist protruded from the driver’s-side doorway, and a DNA tech was leaning into the car from the other side. Both of them kept readjusting the portable lights they’d clipped onto the doorframe. It was very dark on the bridge; the trees blocked out the street lights and the bar had only one small light burning over the door. But the DNA tech said, ‘I’m smelling a lot of sweat on the passenger’s seat. I’m going to swab this side really well and maybe I’ll do you some good. Damn, the light is tough, though!’