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“Jugo as in Juice? Describe him.”
“I told you—tall, skinny Mexican.”
“Mexican national or Latino?”
“I didn’t ask him for no papers.” Her gaze swung over Daniel’s shoulder, toward the front door, her watery eyes squinting as if the guy might walk in any second. “He talked like he was from around here. All Tex Mex. Tall, real brown, light blue eyes, made him look weird. A gold tooth that showed when he smiled. He was always smiling at Shawna. I thought he had a thing for her. But Shawna said that was in the past. I guess she’d known him for a while.”
Katz pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Get me an address for a Juanita Piedras. Yeah. Home address. Yeah, then see what you can do about getting me search warrants for the All Night Donut Shop and for that home address. See if we can get sketch artist. Yep. That’s right.”
“You said if I told you—” Her face white, Juanita’s mouth worked and her voice rose to a high-pitched scream that grated on Daniel’s decimated nerves. “You’re a liar!”
Daniel leaned over the counter and grabbed her arm so he could pull her face close to his. “Shut up and listen. You were the last one to visit Shawna. You saw her at least once a week. That’s no casual friendship. It’s a long drive to the prison. If you had something going with her, I’ll find out what it was. If you had something to do with this little boy’s disappearance, you’re doing time. Until we find Mr. Weird Eyes, you’re a prime suspect. Get used it.”
Juanita jerked from Daniel’s hold and tried to lunge past Katz. Coffee cups flew. Liquid splattered. A pot slid from the counter and crashed at their feet in dozens of pieces on the cracked, greasy linoleum.
“Juanita Piedras, you’re under arrest for assault on a public servant.” A lazy grin on his face, Katz grabbed both arms and pulled them behind the struggling woman. The handcuffs made a satisfying clink when they snapped around her wrists.
Holding her with one hand, Katz grabbed a coffeepot with the other. “Care for some more coffee, gentlemen?”
Shaking his head, Daniel slid from his seat. He shoved through the front door of the donut shop and stood on the sidewalk. The afternoon sun warmed his face, but he was still freezing. Katz pushed through the door behind him.
“She doesn’t know anything.” Daniel didn’t like the way the man had handled the arrest. Too much of a showboat.
Katz chewed a toothpick, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. “You don’t know that.”
“She wasn’t in on it.”
“No, but she may know who was.”
“She didn’t give us much to go on.”
“We got this guy Juice.”
“He could be one of the names on the visitors’ list,” Daniel conceded.
“I’ll get some guys to run the names through the database and start pulling up pictures. Give her a couple hours without her rocks and she’ll cooperate. If that doesn’t work, we’ll get a sketch artist. One way or the other, we’ll get an ID.”
Daniel started toward the Explorer. They didn’t have Shawna Garza, they didn’t have the drugs. All they had was a name. Jugo. Juice.
It would have to be enough.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex slapped another folder on the stack of paperwork he was digging his way through. Tómas Chavez had a record a mile long. Most of it preceding his short stint as the lease holder on Ray’s ranch. Alex’s gut said there had to be a connection to the little girl. Finding it was the problem.
He shifted in the hard chair the sheriff’s deputy on duty had allowed him to use. They weren’t too thrilled at having a PD homicide detective in their workspace on a Sunday afternoon, but Coop had paved the way like a bulldozer. Who cared about jurisdiction when the minutes were ticking—for Benny. Even with the clock banging in his head, Alex had to squeeze in time for a little girl who had been killed and dumped into an unmarked grave like unwanted trash. On the flip side of the coin, working a kidnapping and a murder case simultaneously had the dubious benefit of making it possible for Alex to forget Deborah’s brush-off at the church. Almost.
The things a guy did for a woman. Like spending an hour in church fighting off memories that refused to remain at bay. His sister in a white confirmation dress. Sitting between his parents who refused to look at each other throughout the entire service. Mouthing songs that had no meaning as he dreaded the silent ride home and the explosion of argument that started when they pulled into the driveway and rocked the house for hours afterward. No place to hide. All he could do was run. Neither of them ever noticed he was gone.
Alex’s stomach growled. He ignored it and began combing through the files. The former tenant at Ray’s ranch had done various stretches in the Bexar County jail on misdemeanor drug possession charges. Chavez’s pen pack at the jail showed he’d admitted to an affiliation with the Latin Kings, a local gang with an increasingly violent hold over a good chunk of the south side’s drug trade.
The next time he’d been busted, Chavez had graduated to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for possession with intent to distribute. The stay must have done him good or made him smarter. He hadn’t been in the system in almost five years until a recent arrest for drunk and disorderly and assault after a bar fight.
Alex slapped the folder shut and reached for the next one. It was more interesting. Deputies had been out to Spanish Oaks Ranch half a dozen times on domestic dispute calls over a two-year period that ended five years ago. They’d made Chavez leave the property twice. No charges had been filed.
Sheriff’s deputies had escorted CPS workers to the ranch on one occasion. A young child had been removed. A little girl named Nina Chavez.
Sick excitement rolled through Alex. His hand hovered over the phone. One more folder, thicker than the others. He opened it. Tómas Chavez had filed a missing person report about six months after the CPS visit. Missing persons, actually. His wife and five children.
