J. Jance - Partner In Crime

“Who the hell is he?”

“Some high mucky-muck with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. He called me at home this morning when I should have been on my way to work.” She didn’t add that Harry Ball’s unwelcome call was the only reason she hadn’t been even later to the board of supervisors meeting.

“What did he want?”

“His office is sending someone to bring us Latisha Wall’s file because the material is too volatile to be sent any other way than in person. Not only that, whoever they send is supposed to hang around and keep an eye on us – an observer to bird-dog us the whole time we’re doing the Latisha Wall investigation. I believe the exact phrase he used is that his boss didn’t want anyone to ‘let something slip.’ The good folks up in Washington are evidently convinced that our department is totally incapable of conducting an adequate homicide investigation. If you ask me, Mr. Ball sounded exactly like some of those high-handed yahoos from the other Washington, and just as screwed up.”

“When does this so-called observer arrive?” Frank asked mildly.

“Who knows?” Joanna shot back. “And who cares? His name’s…” She paused again to consult her note. “J.P. Beaumont. All I can say is, Mr. Beaumont had better stand back and stay out of my way.”

Frank shook his head and unlocked the door to his waiting Civvie. “Want to stop off and grab some lunch before we head back to the office?” he asked. “Something tells me you’re running on empty.”

Joanna gave him a sidelong glance. “What makes you say that? Just because I’m ranting and raving?”

Frank nodded. “The thought crossed my mind.”

“We’ve been working together for too long,” Joanna said, grinning in spite of herself. “And lunch is probably a good idea. Butch left the house early this morning. I ran late and skipped breakfast.”

“I thought so,” Frank said.

Minutes later Frank and Joanna turned their matching Crown Victorias into Chico’s Taco Stand in Bisbee’s Don Luis neighborhood. The building that housed Chico’s had once served as the office of a junkyard. The wrecked cars had all disappeared, and now the building itself had been transformed. The tiny restaurant consisted of a counter where people lined up to place their orders. In addition to the counter’s four stools, there were five booths that consisted of sagging, cigarette-scarred red vinyl benches with matching chrome-and-chipped-Formica tabletops. All of the furnishings had been purchased secondhand from a soon-to-be-demolished diner in Tucson. Several dusty, fading piñatas and a few unframed bullfight posters provided what passed for interior decor.

Fortunately, Chico’s lunchtime clientele was in search of good food rather than trendy surroundings. Customers lined up daily for some of Chico Rodriguez’s signature tacos, made from a recipe passed down from his great-grandmother to his grandmother, then to his mother, all of whom had spent decades cooking in various Bisbee-area Mexican eateries. When the last of the Rodriguez women retired, Chico had followed in their footsteps and opened his own establishment, one where his mother still filled in occasionally so Chico could have a day off.

Joanna and Frank went to the counter and placed their order. Taking their drinks, they retreated to a recently vacated booth, where they were obliged to clear their own table. Minutes later, Chico himself delivered their orders. The food came on paper plates accompanied by paper-napkin-wrapped plastic utensils. The shredded-beef tacos, made from crunchy homemade corn tortillas, were piled high with chopped lettuce. The lettuce was sprinkled with a generous helping of finely grated sharp cheese and topped by a dollop of tomato salsa that was more sweet than hot. It was that special combination of ingredients that made Chico’s tacos taste better than any Joanna had eaten elsewhere.

As she took her first bite, Frank grinned at her. “As soon as you’re no longer a raving maniac, tell me more about your call from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office and this so-called observer they’re sending.”

“I’ve pretty much told you what I know,” Joanna returned. “The guy’s name is Beaumont. That’s about it.”

“When can we expect him?”

“Tomorrow or Sunday, I suppose,” she said.

“And the purpose of his visit?”

“Other than spying on us and getting in the way? Beats the hell out of me. Like I said before, talking with Mr. Eyeball, as you called him, was like dealing with feds from back east. He fully expected me to spill my guts and tell him everything we know. But that isn’t going to happen, at least not until that file gets here.”

“He didn’t go into any details as to why the state of Washington is so concerned about Latisha Wall’s death?”

“No, and the longer they keep us working in the dark, the easier it’ll be for us to make that slip Harry Ball seems to be expecting.”

Frank jotted himself a note. “When we get back to the office, I’ll go on-line and find out what I can about Ms. Latisha Wall. It must be a pretty high-profile case to garner this much attention from the attorney general’s office. There may be newspaper coverage that will tell us some of what we need to know.”

“Good idea,” Joanna said. “We should also check with Casey and Dave to see how they’re doing with processing all the evidence they brought back from the crime scene.”

Frank nodded and made another note as Joanna finished the second of her two tacos. She was scraping the last of the refritos off her plate when the phone in her purse crowed.

“Hello, boss,” Detective Jaime Carbajal announced when she answered. “Sorry to bother you. Kristin said you were at a board of supervisors meeting. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

“The meeting’s over,” Joanna assured him. “Frank and I stopped off at Chico’s to grab some lunch. What’s up?”

“I still haven’t heard a word from anybody in Washington,” Jaime complained.

Joanna’s laughter barked into the phone. “I have,” she told him. “And I can tell you now, you’re not going to like it. Meet us out at the department. I’ll bring you up to date, and you can do the same.”

Jaime Carbajal was waiting in the outside office when Joanna arrived. As predicted, he was irate at the idea of an outsider prowling around on his turf and messing around in his case.

“What about the opening at Castle Rock Gallery?” Joanna asked when she, Frank, and Jaime had exhausted the topic of Ross Connors’s unconscionable interference.

“I didn’t go,” Jaime replied.

“You didn’t go?” Joanna asked. “Why not?”

“It was canceled. When I got there last night, I found a sign on the door saying the opening had been canceled due to the death of the artist. Sorry for any inconvenience, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Dee Canfield canceled the show after all?” Joanna mused. “She must have come to her senses then. The last I heard she was determined to go through with it. I wonder why she changed her mind…”

AS I PULLED my Porsche 928 out of the Belltown Terrace parking garage at seven that morning, I wasn’t thinking about traffic or even about work. I was thinking about my mother and about how fortunate it was that she was dead and had been for more than thirty years. I still miss her, of course, but if I had told her about my new job with the Washington State Attorney General’s SHIT squad, she would have been obliged to wash my mouth out with soap no matter how old I was.

Somewhere in the wilds of the state capitol down in Olympia was the out-of-touch Washington State bureaucrat who had dreamed up the name for the Special Homicide Investigation Team of which former Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont was now the newest member. If you say the name word for word like that – Special Homicide Investigation Team – it sounds fine, dignified, even. The same holds true if you print it out on stationery or business cards. And that’s exactly what that same dim-witted state official did. He went nuts ordering reams of preprinted stationery, forms, envelopes, and business cards.