Rivera thumbed open a pocket and slipped out a small notepad. His meaty hands flipped to a clean page. "Go ahead with that name again."
Hatch repeated the name and she watch Rivera write it. He was slick, and if someone else besides Hatch had been there, they likely wouldn't have caught it. But she did. As Rivera looked up from jotting the name in his pad, he made a barely perceptible glance at Munoz. Something was off. If something’s not right, figure out what. If you can't, get the hell out of Dodge until you can. Simply put, if something’s not right, it stays that way until you make it so. Her dad's words always came back to her.
"I don't want to get your hopes up, but this town is home to thousands of lost souls. Do you know how many people go missing in Nogales per year?"
For all Munoz' talking, he never once asked for any details. Not even the basics like height, weight, and clothing. Nothing. Something's not right. One glaring possibility stared her right in the face. Munoz and Rivera never asked because they already knew. The how and why were still up for debate. But following her dad's advice, Hatch decided to get the hell out of that PD lobby.
Hatch pocketed her phone. "I've got to meet back with my family and check in."
"Are you sure?" Munoz gestured to a door, different from the one the bloodied man exited. Hatch had no plans of seeing what was behind door number two.
"I'll be back." Hatch took one step in the direction of the main doors.
"We'd have a better chance of finding her if we had some kind of incentive." Rivera brightened and rubbed his thumb against his fingertips in that greedy money-grubbing sort of way.
Munoz laughed. "For us to do our job effectively in our city, we find that if additional risks are warranted, then those risks come at a price. As municipal police officers, we are not paid nearly enough for what we are asked to do."
"You mean like beating somebody half to death because he stole a piece of fruit?"
"Every choice has a consequence." He closed the gap she'd started to create. The woody notes accompanied him. His hot breath kissed her neck as he whispered in her ear, "If you have a problem with how we do business, please feel free to take it elsewhere."
Hatch reeled against the overwhelming desire to slam the side of her head into the bridge of the lieutenant's nose before spinning on her heels and walking away.
Just before stepping back into the bright light of day, she caught sight of an odd-looking man sitting on a bench. A peacock trapped in a net; he wore an olive drab fishing vest over a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt. A straw-woven fedora topped off the ensemble. The peacock chewed the end of a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth and was taking note of Hatch as she made her way outside.
She walked back past the guard, through the pedestrian gate, and onto the sidewalk. Hatch had an idea of where she would go next and started walking back toward the heart of Nogales.
A couple blocks from the police department, Hatch caught sight of the peacock man again in the reflection of a store window. He was following her. And Hatch needed to figure out why.
Eight
Hatch stood in front of a strip club. The hand painted sign depicted a stripper's bare legs standing above a T-bone steak wearing sunglasses and throwing cash. The caption, targeted at Americans, was written in English and read, Steak and legs! Get it by the mouthful!
"Their steaks aren't bad, but you might want to skip the legs—especially the morning crew." It was the peacock man. She'd stopped and waited for him to catch up. She watched as he hung back, aside from his outlandish outfit, he moved in and out of the crowded streets deftly.
She turned to the brightly colored stalker. He tipped his fedora and smiled. "If you're looking for a nice place to eat, I could take you to a café not far from here."
"I think I'll take my chances out here."
He gnawed at the cigar in the corner of his mouth, exposing his yellow stained teeth. A messy salt-and-pepper goatee framed his smile. "I saw you at the station."
"I know. You're a hard man to miss."
"Miguel Ayala, I'm a reporter with the Noticias Independientes Para La Gente, the Independent News for the People. I know, it's a mouthful." He moved his hand to a fanny pack strapped to his midriff. Hatch's left hand instinctually moved toward the small of her back. It hovered an inch from the butt of the Glock hidden beneath the white shirt.
He unzipped the pouch and pulled out an official looking press badge with the man's picture. What lent credence to the pass was that it depicted a much younger version of the peacock man. Somebody using this type of subterfuge would typically use a recent photo. And the photo on the badge was at least ten years old and showed a clean shaven and less gray version of the man standing before her.
Sometimes the reward outweighed the risk. Hatch was in a foreign territory trying to recover a girl from traffickers and, right now, she was running low on leads. And a reporter might be just the right person to remedy that. If nothing else, Miguel Ayala, the Peacock Man, seemed good company in the interim, until she figured her next step.
He leaned a little closer. Unlike Munoz and his nutty vanilla aura, Ayala's was of coffee and stale cigar. He spoke in a whisper, "To be honest, I hate this place."
"Not a steak man, eh?"
He laughed. "I hate this place and all the others like it. But that conversation is one I'd rather have away from the little birdies that fly their messages back to their master." He stepped back and spat. "Take it or leave it. I'll be at Café de Rosa. Two blocks at the corner. Great coffee. And if I may say so myself, some pretty great company."