Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

northern Mexico right now was dangerous. To locate the missing child, they’d have to ask questions of people who wouldn’t want the questions answered. They could run into some serious trouble.
    By five thirty, she was home again and in the shower. By six, she was dressed, not in her uniform but in uniformlike civvies: a dark blue open-collared blouse, burgundy blazer, dark blue pants, black half-boots, her blond hair snugged back out of the way. On days when she dressed in street clothes, she left her duty weapon locked up and wore her personal gun, a Glock 27, in a paddle holster that fitted into the back of her pantsor skirt. That’s where it was now, the solid heft of it smooth and cool in the hollow of her back.
    It was still dark when she went down to the kitchen, where she fed Rambo and poured a cup of fresh coffee from the coffeemaker. Then she fixed a bowl of corn flakes and milk, booted up her laptop on the table in the dining nook, and settled down to work, spooning up cereal while she logged into her secure office network and went rapidly through as many emails as possible. Connie Page, her assistant, didn’t get in until eight, but Sheila left a message on Connie’s answering machine, asking her to clear the morning’s calendar. She’d be working away from the office, reachable by cell.
    Then she phoned Bartlett, catching him before he had his coffee and his first cigarette. With her notebook in front of her, she reported on her interview with Richie Potts, on her phone conversations with Dana Kirk and China, and the strike-out with Hatch at both the trailer park and the address on Pecos Street that she’d gotten from the trailer park manager.
    “Oh, and Hatch has two priors,” she added. “Misdemeanor bad check and felony possession. He could be in AFIS.” The national Automated Fingerprint Identification System provided automated fingerprint and latent search capabilities, as well as corresponding criminal histories and mug shots. It contained data for more than sixty six million subjects in the criminal master file, much of the information submitted voluntarily by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies.
    “Good,” Bartlett said. “We’ll pull his prints from AFIS and compare them against whatever prints Butch can lift from Timms’ computer. I’ll get that done ASAP.”
    Bartlett hadn’t found Dennis Martin at home the previous evening, so that was his first stop this morning. He had worked late setting up the homicide book and was ready to start going through the storefiles. He would pull Hatch’s last batch of job tickets and assign the shop computer to Annetta Blount, to check for anything suspicious. With luck, they’d have the forensic report by noon, the autopsy by tomorrow.
    “I checked with Dispatch a couple of minutes ago,” he added. “Nothing on the Timms APB yet. We’ve checked his house—nothing there. He’s got a cabin out west of town somewhere, but we don’t have a location on it yet. The longer it takes to find him the more I think he’s our man.” He paused. “When will you be in?”
    “An hour, maybe a little longer,” Sheila said. “I’m headed over to Kirk’s place now. But first I’ll check Hatch’s residence again. Maybe I’ll catch him at home.”
    There was a moment’s silence, then “Give me the address,” Bartlett said. “Meet you there in ten.”
    “Right,” Sheila said. Under the circumstances, she was glad for the backup. She clicked off the phone, checked the doors to be sure that the house was locked, and picked up her briefcase, whistling for Rambo. The Rotti trotted eagerly toward the squad car, head up, ears alert, ready for whatever the day was going to bring. But she put him in his kennel with a hug and an apology. She wasn’t going to the station just yet, and there was no telling how the day was going to turn out. He gave her a disappointed look, then lay down, nose on paws, watching as she went to the car. Rambo was the most patient creature she had ever met, she thought. Far more patient than she was.
    Ten minutes later, Bartlett joined her on the street in front of Hatch’s house on Pecos, and they went up to the front door together. But repeated peals of the doorbell brought only silence, and after a few minutes they gave it up.
    “I’m headed to Martin’s,” Bartlett said, back at the cars. “I’ll phonethe station and get Butch to run Hatch’s prints from AFIS and compare them against