Page 22 of Into the Fire

Meaning no. That was okay, I didn’t want to get him into hot water for helping me.

Rick Devlin approached Jack’s desk. I knew Rick well—he and Jack had been in the academy together and had become best friends. Last year when Jack took the detective’s exam, Rick took the sergeant’s exam.

Rick looked like crap, but I didn’t say anything. “Hi, Margo,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

Rick said to Jack, “One of my guys is coming in with a possible DV victim. Can you sit in, assess the case?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. They’ll be here in five.”

He walked away and I said quietly, “Something happen with Rick?”

“Caroline isn’t coming back from France.”

“What about Samantha?” Rick had a little girl he was head over heels about. “She’s not taking her, is she?”

“No. She gave Rick full custody and she’s asking that Sam be allowed to spend one month every summer in France. It’s all very civil, but he’s devastated.” He glanced around to make sure no one else was listening, then said, “I knew this would happen. As soon as Caroline said she was going to France for six months with her company, I knew she wasn’t going to come back. She’s only seen Sam once since she left.”

“Poor Rick.”

“It really sucks,” Jack said, not looking at me. I followed his gaze—he was looking at a photo of him, Whitney, and Austin at the Phoenix Zoo during the Christmas Lights celebration last month. My heart sank. No matter how much I didn’t like his wife, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to his marriage. It would kill him.

He turned back to me. “I need to get back to work. But Margo, call me if you find yourself in a pickle, okay? I know you can take care of yourself, but some situations are harder to get out of than others.”

“I hear you,” I said. “I’ll call. Promise.”

“I’m holding you to that, sis.”

Eleven

I left a message for Detective Ambrose when my call went to voicemail.

Then I went to the library and spent the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon reading everything I could find on crime in the area of 19th and Camelback, plus articles and studies about gangs and gang activity in Phoenix. Maybe this wasn’t a gang thing, and my impression of the shooter was wrong. In addition, according to Andy, Sergio had no known gang ties, so why he’d take the fall for a gangbanger made little sense.

So I switched gears and started looking into other robberies. Similar robberies to the Cactus Stop, then robberies in the general area, then I stumbled onto an article about the case Nico told me about—the seventeen linked burglaries. It was interesting—police thought it was two people, possibly three, who stole from homes in Paradise Valley, an upscale community east of highway 51. The culprits entered whether or not there was a security system. Police believed they cased the homes and knew response times—both private security and law enforcement—so even if an alarm was breached, they had a few minutes to grab things.

It was a pretty smart plan, I thought as I read. The burglars broke a window or door and took what they could carry in two backpacks. They always went to the master bedroom first, which was most likely to have easily pawned valuables. They stole jewelry, cash, and small electronics. If there was a security system, they were in and out in less than five minutes. They had never been seen by responding officers or private security. Police suspected they came into and left the neighborhood on foot, using trails and backyards to disappear. Paradise Valley PD and Phoenix PD had created a joint task force to investigate the crimes.

It was interesting, but a wholly different MO than the Cactus Stop thieves. However, I wondered about another set of robberies. There were eight total, including the Cactus Stop, between the day after Christmas and ten days ago—the day Rodriguez was killed.

A crime blog dedicated to central Phoenix—with a writer who, based on his or her posts, had an in with Phoenix PD—detailed each robbery. They all happened in the same one-mile radius, east of I-17 and west of 10th Avenue. I mapped them out. The Cactus Stop was within the boundaries of the crime spree.

In each robbery, three young men came in wearing hats and sometimes masks—whatever they needed to obscure their faces. They grabbed easy pickings and left. At convenience stores, they took junk food and sometimes beer. At a clothing store, they grabbed jackets and sunglasses. At one restaurant, they entered near closing and knocked condiments to the floor, broke dishes, and created a mess. They smashed a small display under the cash register and grabbed the contents—candy.

They acted like bored teenagers with nothing to do and no one paying attention to them.

That didn’t sound anything like Sergio Diaz who worked more than fifty hours a week and was fighting for custody of his siblings.

On a whim, I mapped the foster homes that Sophia and Henry lived in—both houses were just inside the crime area. That didn’t necessarily mean anything...yet I couldn’t help but think that Sergio’s confession had something to do with his family.

I couldn’t see myself pleading guilty to a murder I didn’t commit, but if I were to do such a thing, it would be for family.

I had an hour before school got out so I went up to Orozco’s, my cousin’s restaurant, for a late lunch. I needed to think about my options. I wanted to talk to Henry and Sophia, but they were kids. How did I approach them? At school? At their homes? How much did they know about Sergio?

I almost called Gene, the old PI who had trained me. I didn’t know what direction to go. I had all this information rattling around in my head, but didn’t even know if these robberies had anything to do with the Cactus Stop. What if my instincts were wrong? Maybe I just wasn’t ready for a confusing case like this with no straightforward path. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a private investigator.

---