New River Blues by Elizabeth Gunn Page A

female supervisor in Auto Theft that Sarah suspected she was trying to offload him.
    There had been no complaints in Homicide about his work, he did his share and got his reports in on time. But the man was so sure of himself, so macho and serenely condescending to women, that she knew from the first week she’d guessed right about his transfer.
    Oscar Cifuentes, it turned out, could make her angry by saying, ‘Good morning.’ Or by not saying it. Recognizing the unreasonable nature of her reaction to him and ever vigilant about her performance evaluations, she was careful not to get overtly hostile toward him. She just found ways to stay away from him as much as she could, and treated him, when they worked together, with strictly controlled civility.
    Right now, it amused her to see, he looked about ready to jump off this bedroom’s elegant balcony.
    â€˜I’ve just finished talking to Mertz,’ Delaney said. ‘I’m waiting for him to call me back with his opinion.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, remind me,’ Sarah said. ‘Mertz?’
    â€˜Our legal advisor.’ Looking about as grim as a man could without bleeding, Delaney closed the door between the dressing room and the bedroom. Doesn’t want the crime-scene specialists to hear this, oh my. ‘It seems that Oscar here is going to have to recuse himself from this case because of a previous intimate acquaintance with the female victim. He didn’t tell me about it before he came over here and poked his face into the crime scene, so now I’m trying to find out if prompt and full disclosure of the problem will be sufficient, or if he’s tainted the case so badly we might have to surrender it to County.’
    Sarah didn’t need to ask what the prospect of passing off a high-profile homicide case to the Pima County sheriff was doing to Delaney’s digestive system. Reluctant to meet Cifuentes’ eyes for fear her own might show how pleasant it was to see him in the weeds, she stood vacantly inspecting the shower curtain for the longest ten minutes in world history. Finally Delaney’s phone rang, and she continued her scrutiny of the shower curtain through a long dry crackle of lawyer’s terms, broken by Delaney’s occasional monosyllable.
    â€˜Yes. No. Mmff. Right.’ Finally he closed the phone and told Cifuentes, ‘Go back to the station and wait till I tell you what comes next.’ He added, as the hapless detective turned to go, ‘Do not speak to anyone on the way out, do you understand? Do not discuss this case with anyone, at work or anywhere else, today or ever.’
    Despite the obvious unenforceability of Delaney’s last order, Cifuentes said only, ‘Yes, sir,’ and walked stiffly away.
    Sarah waited again while Delaney consulted his watch for several seconds, chewing gum ferociously and blinking as if the time was too incredible to be believed. Apparently satisfied at last that it was in fact 7:42.19, he raised his head and calmly started over.
    â€˜Mertz thinks we can salvage this case if we build a firewall and keep Cifuentes on the other side of it. So let’s figure out what we have to do. You’ve got, what, two other cases where you’re primary?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Sarah said, ‘but the drive-by, you know, we’re probably never going to get much on that. None of the eyewitnesses will talk. The other one, though, the domestic that we think’s a murder-suicide? That’s going to take some work.’
    â€˜Mostly lab work, though. I’ll get you all the help I can with that one if you’ll take the lead on this case, Sarah. It’s going to need very careful handling. All the physical evidence I see here is the kind that gets questioned endlessly by busybody jurists who know zilch about the subject but they’ve seen this thing on TV . . . blood evidence and gunshots with no casings, could you design a