If I had a lot of money and lived in Tucson, the Tucson Mountains west of the city is where I’d live. Just as tony as the residential areas in the Catalinas, but far more private, with houses a half mile apart and backing up to the protected Saguaro National Park lands. Dark volcanic rock ripped through the dirt into saw-toothed ridges. It was a world of brown and gray and merciless sun.
Chaco’s house was a good indication of his arrogance. Single story, mortar-washed burnt adobe, with no perimeter fence, no cameras, and no guard dogs that I could see. It sat alone on the far side of a dry gully that looked as if it had last seen water during the Middle Ages. The house bespoke a man with nothing to hide and that was probably true on this side of the border. I didn’t think Chaco would keep anything here that would incriminate him in a U.S. courtroom, and I wasn’t going to change that. I wasn’t here to leave something; I was here to take it.
I pulled into the U-shaped driveway, parked by the front door, and rang the bell. A hollow echo from inside was the only response.
There was no other house within sight, but just in case somebody with binoculars could see me, I pretended to check the time on my watch and tap my foot impatiently for a moment, before “remembering” that I was supposed to go around back. I scuffed my way around the side of the house, obscuring my footprints as much as I could. A scorpion, looking like a tiny lobster with a cramp in his tail, scuttled sideways out of my path. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
There was no easy entrance on the north side, nor the back of the house, although the sliding glass door back there was tempting. Too obvious. I’d have to leave broken glass everywhere.
I was in luck on the south side of the building. Someone had left a bathroom window cracked open two inches with only a screwed-on screen for protection. A little jimmying with my Swiss Army knife and a slit along the edge of the screen was enough to get my hand in and on the window crank.
Once it was open, I hauled myself up and in. The house was so quiet you could hear the refrigerator hum. I tiptoed down a dark hallway and into the living room. Chaco had a taste for modern furnishings, all black leather and sharp angles against a concrete floor dyed bloodred. Bright woven throw rugs were the only nod to his Mexican ancestry.
I tried the kitchen first, using sleeve-covered fingers to open cupboards and drawers. Everybody has a spare set of car keys. Where would Chaco keep his? The kitchen drawer that I would have used as a catchall held only coins—both American and Mexican—and menus from take-out restaurants downtown. The cupboards had four of everything—mugs, glasses, plates—but there were no fancy pots and pans or exotic appliances. It looked like he did most of his dining as take-out. There were no drawers in the sleek modern tables in the living room.
The bedroom was more reflective of the gangbanger I’d met in that Nogales bar: a furry tiger-stripe bedspread on an unmade bed, a set of weights including an Olympic barbell with a hundred pounds of plates fastened on it, and a velvet painting of an Aztec warrior with his shield and arm raised in a victory cry. I skirted a metal footlocker at the end of the bed and headed to the small table on the far side of the room.
I’d found Chaco’s catchall drawer. I pulled my shirtsleeve down over my hand again and opened the drawer. A fifty pack of banana-flavored Durex condoms. The receipt for a car stereo with a ten-inch subwoofer. Two comic books about Araña Verde—the Green Spider. And there, tucked under the paper and magazines, two sets of keys.
One set were house keys, maybe to his uncle’s place or a storage unit, but the other was what I was looking for: the spare keys to his Cadillac.
I shoved the keys into my pocket and backtracked through the hallway and out the bathroom window, winding it almost shut just like I’d found it.
I stopped for a cold drink at a convenience store on Stone, making sure that my brother’s car was outside the range of the store’s camera, but that I was caught on their video, to give myself time-stamped proof of being in Tucson. Then I headed south.
As much as I wanted the car near me for a quick getaway, I couldn’t afford to have any record of the trip to Nogales this afternoon. I parked in the same lot where we’d left Guillermo’s car before.
I’d been concerned about an ID check at the border. Our last visit to Nogales would have been shown as an entry, but no return to the U.S. since we’d walked through the desert to get north. When a scan of my passport on the U.S. side didn’t result in any alarms going off, I breathed a sigh of relief and hurried through the Mexican security area.
I stuck to the side streets to get to the Braceros’ hangout. A block away, I hunkered down in an alley with a narrow view of the bar’s parking lot and front door. The smell of rotting tomatoes and moldy beans rose from the dumpster at my side and I sweated in the still air, almost screaming when a fat brown rat crawled over my shoe. Nobody went in or out of the bar, but there, in the second row of parked cars, sat a midnight blue Cadillac like the one I was looking for.
With no traffic from either direction, I ran across the street, then hugged the buildings to stay out of sight of the bar. Getting down in a duck-walk made my calf scream, but it was the only way to reach the Cadillac unseen. I inched my way down the row. Yep, the same key scratch ran down the side of the car.
I pushed the unlock button on the Cadillac key and the lock released. Opening the passenger-side door just wide enough to get my shoulders through, I made a small slit in the carpeting on the floor and tucked Miguel’s knife up tight against the car’s frame. Then I closed the door as quietly as I could and clicked the lock shut again.
Mad Cow, my buddy at HandsOn up in Phoenix, would never have believed my story if I had called and asked her to do a remote unlock on a car I didn’t have the title to. And even if I could have convinced her, there would have been a record of it. This was better all the way around.
I’d thought about leaving the knife in Chaco’s Tucson house, but that would have made the cops’ job more difficult. Chaco would have gone to great pains not to keep anything there that could be associated with his Bracero life. And it probably would have been tough for the cops to get a search warrant for the house, based solely on the anonymous tip I planned to phone in.
But I could make it easier for them. I picked up a fist-sized rock and tapped gently on the Cadillac’s right taillight until the bottom of the red plastic covering shattered and the bulb inside was visible. Now they had a reason to stop him, and once they ran his name and license information, Chaco’s Bracero affiliation would be enough to make them look a little more closely at his car. I crabbed back to the safety of the wall, then joined a group of tourists whose arms were loaded with the baskets, glassware, and serapes they’d bought as souvenirs.
At the border, we passed single-file through the U.S. Customs and Immigration area. The tiny, gray-haired woman in front of me groaned when the line slowed to inspect a package.
“Damn tourists.”
“You’re not just visiting Nogales?” I asked.
“I’m not that kind of tourist. I come down once a month to get my prescriptions filled,” she said, holding up a paper bag that rattled with a half dozen plastic bottles. “I call it Arizona Medicare.”
Neither of us got much scrutiny when it was our turn. As day visitors walking across, we didn’t need visas and didn’t have to go through the more rigorous screening given those folks who were traveling from farther south in Mexico, beyond the border tourist zone.
I headed back to the parking lot where I’d left the car.
It was after four o’clock when I got back to Tucson. I crawled through the window at Chaco’s house one more time and put the keys back in the bedside drawer where I’d found them, then dropped Martin’s car off with him at the firehouse. From there, I took the bus back to Guillermo’s place, stopping to get cash at a Wells Fargo ATM so that I’d have another time stamp to offer the cops if they got curious.
Good thing, too, because Detective Sabin was waiting for me at the curb.
“I still don’t understand why I had to come downtown for this,” I said once the forensic technician had taken a mouth swab to test my DNA. “Couldn’t you have done it right there?”
“Why should I inconvenience our forensic team on a Friday afternoon when I can inconvenience you?” Sabin replied. “And this way we get a chance to talk.”
“I’d like to call my lawyer now.”
“Raisa Fortas? She’s up at a legal seminar in Phoenix for the weekend. What a shame.”
“You asshole. You did this on purpose.”
He ignored my characterization of him. “Did what? Pick up a murder suspect?”
“We’re ready for her,” a female officer said, sticking her head through the door.
Sabin took my elbow and escorted me into another room down the hall. Four other women about my age were already there, lined up against the height chart on the back wall. I glanced down the row. We all came in just under the five-foot eight marker, except the woman in the first position who looked to be more like five-six. All blondes, too, although only one had the spikes I did. Sabin handed me a long-sleeved white shirt and gestured for me to roll the sleeves down so my tattoos didn’t show.
A few moments later a disembodied voice came from the mirror in front of me. “Turn to your right. Now face forward.”
I stared straight ahead, holding my breath, willing the eyewitness behind the glass to develop myopia on the spot. A long two minutes later we were let out of the lineup area and Sabin took me back to the first interview room.
“Where’s Deke?”
He ignored my question and flipped through his notes. “We’ve got a witness who saw your sister’s car in front of the house where Carlos Ochoa and Reuben Sanchez were killed.”
I folded my arms again, tighter this time. Holy shit. Had the witness identified me? And had he seen Guillermo, too? Reuben Sanchez must be the Bracero whose throat Miguel had cut as we left.
“What’s in it for you, Jessie?” Sabin cocked his head like a curious predatory bird. “You moving drugs for the Braceros? Maybe using the HandsOn network to pass on messages and drops?”
Let him talk. I turned sideways and gave him my profile.
“We know you didn’t kill Markson, but you could have been involved with him. We’ve got that call from you to his cell phone that night.”
“That was after he was attacked, you idiot! I was trying to find out if he was okay!”
“Maybe.” He didn’t look convinced. “Or maybe you already knew what was going on. You sure hooked up with Felicia Villalobos quick, and look what happened to her. Did she tell you about a deal between Markson and the Braceros? Did your Bracero friends think she was going to rat them out? And then you’re spotted where her boyfriend gets killed, and you’d marked that house on your map.”
He leaned back in the chair and hooked his hands behind his head. The picture of comfort and ease. “That DNA sample comes back as a match? I’ve got you, girl.”
“That’s it!” I slammed my hands on the desk. “No more questions without my lawyer. You either arrest me or I’m walking out.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” He reached to the back of his waistband where his handcuffs rested. “Jessica Dancing Gammage, you’re under arrest for the murder of Carlos Ochoa and Reuben Sanchez.” He wasn’t even waiting for DNA results.
Sabin called a female officer in to take me to booking. I already knew the way. It hadn’t changed much in three years.