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Yet, Tina knew that this jewelry was the real thing. Where would a seventeen-year-old punk like Javier Escobar get an emerald rock like this?
Tina wasn’t positive that Sergio wasn’t involved. They could all have been, or maybe Sophia was right. That Sergio didn’t know until after the fact. Or she was trying to confuse the situation because her brothers were criminals.
This case had gone from straightforward to a fucking mess in the last thirty minutes.
Tina wished she had talked to both Henry and Sophia after Sergio’s confession. Maybe something would have come out then. But the county attorney was happy with the case, and she had sixteen open cases on her desk including a drug-related double homicide that had landed on her yesterday. A signed confession was as good as a conviction, and she didn’t have time to waste.
She didn’t want to believe that Sergio wasn’t the killer, but her earlier doubts rose to the surface and she looked down at her notes.
Javier Escobar, 17. Henry Diaz, 14. Bruno Martin, 14.
All lived together in a foster home that Javier’s mother, Brenda Oliver, operated.
Could be that Sergio was somehow involved, but there had been no hint that he was associated with a gang, and his employer said he was a diligent, hardworking employee. No marks on his record since he was sixteen.
Did a kid who was clean for three years just walk into a store and kill a man?
Or maybe, he just hadn’t been caught before?
Dammit. She called her supervisor and told him what she had learned.
“Get that box into evidence, then talk to the kids. See what you think after that,” her supervisor said. “But Sergio Diaz confessed. Unless you find clear and convincing evidence of his innocence, I don’t see the county dropping the charges.”
Nineteen
I left Villines another message, stressing the urgency.
“I’m heading to Flannigan’s, if you want a beer on the house. It’s important that we talk ASAP.”
I relieved Scotty and since the Suns weren’t playing, put a variety of sports on the screens, with Irish music in the background. We only put on sound for sports if it was a local team.
I sent Andy a long message about the events of the day when I couldn’t reach him on the phone, and let him know that Sergio wasn’t going to budge on his statement unless he knew that Sophia was safe. Which, practically, meant proving Javier Escobar was the killer.
Last night I had mapped out the Paradise Valley burglaries that had been identified in the crime blog. I didn’t have addresses, only intersections or a block. Though Nico said seventeen, I had twelve. Looking at it now, my theory held:
Every one of those properties could be accessed from the Phoenix Mountains Preserve.
What I thought and what I could prove were two different things.
My phone rang and it was an unfamiliar number. “Margo Angelhart,” I answered.
“Hello, Margo, this is Evelyn Edgar.”
“Hi. Did you talk to the police?”
“Yes. A detective named Tina Barrios came by. I did not like her, and I did not like the way she talked to Sophia. She’s in her room crying.”
“What happened?”
Evelyn told me that she didn’t think the detective took them seriously and said that Henry could be lying because he doesn’t want his brother to go to prison. Which made no sense to me since Henry told Sophia, not a cop or anyone else in authority.
“I don’t think the detective really listened to us.”
I didn’t know, but I wanted to give Evelyn some hope. My phone vibrated twice, indicating two text messages, but I didn’t look. “Cops aren’t going to tip their hand. You gave her information, she’ll follow up.”
“You think so?”
“She has to make a report of your conversation, and at least investigate your allegation. It might take a couple days.”
