J. Jance - Fire and Ice

“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, greeting the smiling bride and groom and offering congratulations. A local and very enthusiastic mariachi band, Los Amigos, was playing in one corner of the room, next to a table stacked high with wedding presents. Emily Post may have decreed that gifts shouldn’t be brought to wedding receptions, but Frank’s and LuAnn’s friends and relations hadn’t gotten that memo.

Keeping the gifts and gift cards straight isn’t my problem, Joanna thought gratefully. And neither are the kids.

True to form, the twins, still in their wedding-procession finery, were once again at each other’s throats. Joanna knew that if she and Butch had brought Denny along, he would have made a beeline for all the excitement and put his own toddler spin on the proceedings.

Along one wall was a buffet table laden with mountains of Mexican food provided by Chico Rodriguez of Chico’s Taco Stand fame. The restaurant, in Bisbee’s Don Luis neighborhood, was little more than a hole in the wall, but the spread here, pulled together by Chico and an assortment of his female relatives, was nothing less than splendid.

Painfully aware that her hairdo battle had left no time for breakfast, Joanna took her growling stomach and headed straight for the buffet table. She and Butch filled their plates with a delectable assortment of tacos, taquitos, enchiladas, and chips. After locating two seats together at the already crowded tables, Joanna looked after the plates and places while Butch went in search of punch.

Joanna was still waiting for him to return when Eleanor and George stopped in passing to say hello. George moved on to visit with someone else while Eleanor, eyeing Joanna’s loaded plate, bent over and whispered in her ear.

“Try not to spill any salsa on that gray silk,” she warned. “That stuff will never come out.”

After imparting that bit of wisdom, Eleanor moved on.

“What did your mother want?” Butch asked when he returned a couple of minutes later.

“The usual,” Joanna replied with a laugh. “She was giving me the benefit of her years of experience with silk suits.”

For the next half hour or so, Joanna enjoyed herself immensely. It was fun to see her people-uniformed personnel and not; some active and some retired; sworn officers and not-enjoying themselves together. She knew that on this Saturday afternoon her department was functioning with only a skeleton crew, and she hoped nothing momentous would happen while they were all off having a good time.

A few minutes later, as the bride was gearing up to toss the bouquet, Joanna heard her cell phone’s distinctive chirp. Joanna’s outfit had no pockets and she wasn’t carrying a purse. Butch pulled her phone out of his pocket and handed it over. Caller ID told her the number was unavailable.

“Hello,” Joanna said.

Just then a cheer went up as Deb Howell, looking surprised, stood in the front row of onlookers holding LuAnn Montoya’s bridal bouquet. The band swung into another number, and the accompanying din rendered Joanna’s phone useless.

“Hang on a minute,” Joanna said to her unidentified caller. “I can’t hear a word. Let me go outside.”

Pushing away from the table, she made her way through the crowd and up the stairs. Once she was on the ground floor, she spoke again.

“If this is Sheriff Brady, where the hell are you?” a man’s voice asked. “In a bar somewhere?”

It wasn’t a very pleasant way to start a conversation with a stranger. As far as Joanna was concerned, it was none of his business if she was at a wedding or raising hell in a local cantina.

“Who’s calling, please,” Joanna returned coldly.

“Agent in Charge Bruce Delahany,” he replied brusquely. “What the hell do you people think you’re doing down there? You’re about to screw up fifteen months of work!”

In Joanna Brady’s circle of acquaintance, Bruce Delahany of the Drug Enforcement Agency was a known but none-too-popular addition. Joanna’s department had worked closely and successfully with several of Delahany’s predecessors. In fact, until Delahany had taken charge, Joanna’s department had hosted regular meetings of a DEA-sponsored coalition, the Border Task Force. Delahany preferred to have the meetings held closer to his own bailiwick, preferably at his offices in downtown Tucson.

Joanna had been forced to sit through any number of seminars and meetings where the square-jawed Delahany, often with Arizona’s newly elected governor at his side and with an absolute absence of humor, went on at tedious length (ATL, as Butch called it!) about the importance of interdepartmental cooperation. It wasn’t lost on Joanna that Delahany talked the talk without ever walking the walk. He appeared to be far too focused on creating his own law enforcement fiefdom.

If Joanna’s people had some kind of conflict brewing with the DEA, this was the first she’d heard anything about it.

“What seems to be the problem, Agent Delahany?” she asked.

“Problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is,” he shot back. “Your people are asking questions they shouldn’t be asking. We’re working on bringing down a major organization, one that has ties all over the West. We can’t afford to have your ham-fisted people come barreling through and messing it up. For the time being, the Cervantes Cartel and everyone in it is absolutely off limits. Understand?”

Of course Joanna recognized the name. You couldn’t be in law enforcement along the U.S./Mexican border and not know about Sonora’s own home-grown drug cartel wunderkinder, Antonio and Jesus Cervantes. There was no danger of their ever crossing the U.S. border in person. Joanna understood that the two brothers lived in absolute luxury in specially built and well-fortified mansions next door to each other in an exclusive private compound south of Cananea. People who had dealings with the two came there to see them, and it was from that remote location that they ran a growing, murderous, and exceedingly profitable crime syndicate that had tentacles covering the entire western United States.

Right that minute, however, Joanna had no idea which of her officers might have expressed an interest in the Cervantes Cartel or why. She seemed to remember that Jaime Carbajal had mentioned the name in regard to his murdered sister. The exact details eluded her right then, and Joanna wasn’t about to let Agent Delahany know about any of it, not until she understood the situation herself.

“We’ve been involved in this top-secret operation for months now,” Delahany continued. “We’ve had assets in play, keeping an eye on things. And just when we’re about to spring the trap on them…”