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“Anything else?” Joa
“Not from us,” Ernie said.
“All right then, you and Jaime go ahead and get with the program.”
The two detectives stood up as one. “Wait a minute,” Jaime Carbajal said. “What about that weird guy from Saint David, the one who was with you last night when you stopped by Alice Rogers’ place? Whatever happened to him? Did you locate his family?”
“What guy?” Dick Voland asked.
Caught being less than candid with her subordinates, Joa
“I guess I just haven’t gotten around to telling you,” Joa
“Where’s this Junior now?” Voland demanded. “You didn’t take him home with you, did you?”
“No,” Joa
“Whoever he is, he’d better have experience,” Voland growled. “If anything happens to that guy while he’s in our custody, our ass will be grass. His family may not have wanted him last Sunday, but if he croaks out while we’re in charge of him, you can bet they’ll hit us with a million-dollar lawsuit so fast it’ll make our heads spin.”
“Nothing is going to happen to him,” Joa
“Who says, and how are you going to go about finding his family?”
“I don’t know yet,” Joa
“Let me remind you, Sheriff Brady,” Voland said. “We’re in the business of law enforcement, not social service. Considering what’s gone on around here the last few days, we’ve got our hands plenty full playing cops and robbers without going out of our way to collect lost retards and drag them home.”
Joa
“The proper term is developmentally disabled, Deputy Voland, not retard,” Joa
Voland backed down. “It’s clear all right,” he said.
Joa
He nodded glumly. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“And now,” Joa
“Not me,” Voland said.
“Frank?”
“You’ve checked his clothing for ID?”
“Right,” Joa
“So you’re suggesting that whoever left him in Saint David did it on purpose, that they don’t want to be found.”
“Right.”
Frank tapped a thoughtful finger on his forehead. “Maybe we should take a lesson from that television show, ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ Let’s try to spread the word on this. Maybe we could even hit the wire services. We’ll show Junior’s picture, tell where he was found, and all that. If we make a big enough splash, maybe someone will recognize him.”
“That might work,” Joa
“This is human-interest stuff. I think it’s the kind of story Marliss Shackleford could really sink her teeth into.”
“Not Marliss!” Joa
“Yes, but I bet she’d jump on this one, especially if it gives her a crack at national exposure.”
Of all the people involved in the local news media, Marliss was Joa
“All right,” she agreed. “When you finish up with the Oak Vista Estates press conference, see if Marliss will play ball. Speaking of Oak Vista, what do you plan to tell the press?”
During the meeting Frank had continually thumbed through the sheaf of incident reports. “My usual media soft shoe, I suppose.” He gri
“Whether or not the county is under attack by a bunch of outside environmentalists who are going to try to bring the current building boom to a screeching halt. They’re going to want to know the same things we do-where the protesters come from, what they’re doing here, and who’s behind them. Tell the reporters that when we have some answers, so will they.”
Recovered from Joa
“I still think you’d better provide full documentation concerning anything and everything to do with your friend Junior since you took charge of him,” he said. “That’s the only way to go on a deal it that, otherwise you can pretty mulch count on the incident coming back and biting us in the butt.”
“Dick,” Joa
“About Junior?” Joa
“About the full documentation bit. Are you sure the person Junior’s staying with is absolutely trustworthy?”
“I can tell you this,” Joa
“I’m sure that’s true,” Frank agreed.
They both fell silent. There wasn’t much more to add. “So what are you going to do now?” Joa
Frank nodded. “That’s right. Back to my home away from home. What about you?”
“I plan to take a crack at the correspondence. When I finish up with that, I’m going to head out to Sierra Vista to talk with Alice Rogers’ attorney.”
“While you’re out that way,” Frank suggested, “you might consider stopping by to see Mark Childers.”
Frank Montoya may have been a latecomer to the Oak Vista crisis, but already he had some helpful suggestions for handling the situation.
“How come?” Joa
“You do know who his girlfriend is, don’t you?”
“No, who?”
“Karen Brainard.”
Joa
“None other. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard rumors here and there that Childers backed her to the hilt, that he even helped bankroll her campaign.”
“And now, miraculously, he’s gotten permission from the board of supervisors for a controversial construction project lots of other people around here hate.”
“Have you looked it over?” Frank asked.
Joa
“Maybe the tree-huggers are up at arms for a good reason. I’ve never been much of an environmentalist myself, but I hate to see another section of the Huachucas get chewed up by uncontrolled development.”