Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(96)

“He and some of the other inmates were in the rec room watching the noon news. Then, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.”

“He attacked someone else?” Joanna asked.

“Like I said. He attacked himself. If we hadn’t been able to put him in the interview room, our next step would have had to be a straitjacket.”

“And he only wants to talk to me?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Do you have any idea what story on the news triggered him?”

“The guards asked some of the other guys in the rec room. They said they were watching a story about two people being found dead after the fire at the Nite Owl in Sierra Vista early this morning. That’s when he went berserk.”

“All right, then,” Joanna said. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

On the drive into Bisbee, there was still snow on Juniper Flats at the top of the Mule Mountains, but the white stuff that had been on the road and along the shoulders earlier in the morning had melted away into nothingness.

Once Joanna arrived at the Justice Center, she entered through her own office and then headed for the interview rooms. A glance in through a two-way mirror showed Floyd Barco sitting alone in one of them. A paper cup with water and a straw in it was on the table and well within his reach, but the way he kept glancing uneasily around the room told Joanna that the smug attitude he’d exhibited the day before was long gone. The individual she saw sitting there now was scared to death.

He jumped when Joanna opened the door and let herself into the room. “You wanted to see me?” she asked.

Barco turned an anguished face in her direction. “There are cameras in here, right?”

She nodded.

“You gotta turn them off before I talk to you. If anyone finds out what I said, I’m a dead man, Sheriff. They’ll kill me. Randy and me were friends and sort of partners, so I’m probably a dead man anyway.”

“In the first place, the cameras aren’t on,” Joanna assured him as she sat down on the far side of the table, “so there’s no need to turn them off. But who’s going to kill you, Floyd, and what’s this about Randy? Do you mean Randy Williams?”

It was Barco’s turn to nod. “He’s dead, ain’t he? They said that two people were dead at the Nite Owl, and he’s got to be one of ’em.”

Joanna said nothing, neither confirming nor denying.

“And the other one’s probably Madison,” Barco went on. “That means they’ll come looking for me next.”

“Who’ll come looking for you?”

“I can’t say,” he said, “and I won’t, not until you get me into witness protection.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Barco,” Joanna said. “I’m a county sheriff. Witness protection is a big deal, and it’s way above my pay grade. I don’t have any direct access to that.”

“Then you need to get me to someone who does,” he said, “because I can tell you all of it. The parts about Maddie and Randy wanting to knock off Leon, the parts about the goons who most likely took out the two of them, and the guy down in Agua Prieta who’s running the whole show. He’s an American citizen who lives in Mexico now, but he’s the guy behind it all.”

“You’re claiming you can name names?”

“Big time,” Barco replied, with just a hint of his old swagger.

“All right,” Joanna agreed, “I’ll call the U.S. attorney up in Tucson and see what he has to say. Maybe he’ll want to talk to you, maybe he won’t.”

“What happens to me in the meantime?”

“You stay right where you are, here in the Cochise County Jail.”

Barco’s momentary swagger vanished. “But you don’t understand,” he whined. “He has people who can get to me even here.”

“Who can get to you?”

“The guy I told you about, the one in Agua Prieta, but like I said, I’m not naming names. Not until I’ve got myself a deal.”

Joanna rose from her chair. “All right, Mr. Barco,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Are you sending me back to my cell?”

She nodded.

“You can’t. You got to put me somewhere by myself,” he said. “Otherwise I’m done for.”

“We’ll see,” Joanna said.

She left him there and headed back to her office, stopping by Tom’s along the way.

“Well?” her chief deputy asked. “What’s Barco want?”

“A private cell and witness protection,” Joanna said. “He claims he can bring down a big-time drug-cartel boss from Agua Prieta. Barco’s also worried that the guy will hire someone inside the jail to take him down just like they did Randy Williams and Madison Hogan.”

“He knows they’re dead?” Tom asked with a frown.

Joanna nodded. “He does.”

“Who gave him their names?” Tom asked. “You?”

“I didn’t tell him, and I’m sure you didn’t either,” Joanna said. “As soon as he saw that piece on the news about the fire at the Nite Owl, he must have figured it out on his own and decided he was probably next up.”