Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [80]
The last thing Joanna wanted to do was offend the detective. “Nothing,” Joanna said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
She was saved by the ringing of a telephone. Randy Trotter reached over to answer it. “Sure enough, Bobby,” he said. “We’ll finish up here and be at the morgue in ten minutes or so. Thanks for coming all the way into town for this. It’s a big help.”
It was only a matter of blocks from Randy Trotter’s office to the morgue. After a short discussion, they decided to walk. A hot, dusty wind blew in their faces, but off to the south Joanna spotted a bank of clouds building on the horizon. The summer rains had missed Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks display, and so had Joanna Brady; but it looked as though the monsoons might come—sooner rather than later.
The Hidalgo County Morgue consisted of two rooms carved out of a basement corner of the Lordsburg Funeral Home. “Hello, Bobby,” Sheriff Trotter said to the middle-aged man waiting just inside the front door. “This is Mr. Diego Ortega. We believe he knows both victims. One of them is believed to be Mr. Ortega’s sister.”
Bobby Lopez nodded gravely. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” Diego said softly, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
Bobby Lopez opened a door to usher them into an interior room. Joanna hung back. “Are you coming?” Randy asked.
Joanna shook her head. “Identifying victims isn’t a spectator sport,” she said. “And Mr. Ortega doesn’t need an audience. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait right here.”
“Good thinking,” Randy said. “I believe I’ll join you.”
Detective Cruikshank and Diego Ortega, looking decidedly pale, were back in the lobby in less than a minute. “It’s them,” Diego said shakily. “It’s Carmen and Pam. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he added, taking a cell phone from his pocket, “I need to call my mother. From the descriptions, we were pretty sure, but she’s back home in Garden Grove hoping against hope that we were wrong.”
He turned back to Bobby Lopez. “Any idea when the bodies will be released so my mother can start planning a funeral?”
The ME’s assistant shook his head. “Dr. Lawrence will perform the autopsies on Monday. It’ll be several days after that.”
“I understand,” Diego said. Holding the phone to his ear, he stepped outside. Joanna and the others stayed where they were.
“We’ll need the other victim’s next of kin as well, Sheriff Trotter,” Bobby Lopez said.
“Right,” Randy said. “We’ll try to get it for you.”
Diego remained outside for several long minutes. Joanna was more than happy to be out of earshot. It was bad enough to have seen the despair on Diego’s face as he emerged from the morgue’s back room. She didn’t want to bear witness to the phone call that would finally shatter all of a grieving mother’s hopes and dreams for her daughter.
When Mr. Ortega returned to the waiting room, he seemed to have regained control. “All right,” he said. “What next?”
“We’ll need to gather some more information, if you don’t mind,” Johnny Cruikshank said. “There’s a little coffee shop just around the corner. Maybe we could go there and talk.”
Esther’s Diner was a long, dingy place with a counter on one side and a string of booths on the other. At mid-afternoon on a Saturday, the place was virtually deserted. Even so, Johnny led them to a booth in the far corner. With no peanut butter anywhere on the menu, Joanna settled on ordering a tuna sandwich. Johnny Cruikshank ordered key lime pie, while Randy Trotter and Diego Ortega had coffee.
“Please tell us about your sister,” Johnny urged Diego once their gum-chewing waitress had departed with her order pad.
Diego’s eyes dimmed with tears. “She was always such a cute little kid,” he said. “She was what my mother called an afterthought—one of those babies that come along when women think their childbearing days are over. My brothers and I were all in high school or college when Carmen was born. My parents were good Catholics. They wanted to have a whole bunch of kids, but after I showed up, Mama had several miscarriages in a row. The doctor told her she’d never