Free Missings, The by Peg Brantley

sad. But when he walked toward her she stood, hands on hips, and watched him walk toward her. She looked like she was accusing him. Daring him.
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Benavides. We’ll do everything we can to find your sister’s murderer.”
    “That’s not good enough.”
    “I understand how you—”
    “You understand nothing.”
    Chase pulled out his notebook. “I know you’ve already given your statement, but do you feel up to telling me what happened?”
    “That’s why I’m here, Detective.”
    Elizabeth Benavides sat down, back straight, hands folded in her lap. “I got a call on my cell phone. A man told me I could find my sister at the old abandoned silver mine on the west side of town. Actually, the asshole called it “Spic Town.”
    She fell silent and Chase gave her time to collect her thoughts. Elizabeth began to massage her thumbs, took a breath and continued, “When I arrived my cell phone rang again. Same guy. He said I would find myself in a similar position if I continued to talk to the police.”
    Elizabeth closed her eyes. “That’s when I saw her, Detective. Rachelle . . . she was lying on her side, her back to me. She didn’t move. The nude body of my sister. I ran to her to save her. To bring her back to me. But before I even got close I knew . . .” Tears ran unstopped down her face and fell into her lap. Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice.
    The young woman took a great breath. Exhaled. “And then I saw her. Oh, God. I saw the butchered body of my baby sister.”
    “I’m so sorry, Miss Benavides.”
    The young woman nodded, opened her eyes and slapped the tears off her face. “Someone murdered my sister. He thinks he can threaten me and scare me off. Mierda! He thinks he will control me as easily as he controls my neighbors. He is a culero . That asshole picked the wrong chicana to murder.”
    “You’re very brave.”
    “I’m not brave. I’m enojada . An angry person doesn’t need bravery.”
    “I promise I’ll keep you updated during the investigation,” Chase said.
    “As I said before, that’s not good enough.”
    Uh-oh
. “What is it you would like me to do?”
    “I want to be involved in the investigation.”
    “Ms. Benavides—”
    “Elizabeth.”
    “This is not a game. There are dangers and we’re equipped to deal with those dangers. You need to let us do our job.”
    “With your supervision or without it, I’m going after the son-of-a-bitch who killed my sister. I just thought maybe you could figure out a way to use me.”
    “Okay, I appreciate your position. I’ll run your request by the chief of police. It will be up to him.” Give her some space and maybe she would see reason. “Go home for now. I’m heading out to the scene and you don’t need to be there again.”
    “Wrong. I’m coming. I figure you can either have a hope of controlling me or you can count on a rogue investigator out there who could potentially mess everything up for you.”
    “Messing things up for us messes them up for you as well.”
    “Not necessarily. I don’t operate under your constraints.”
    Chase felt the familiar tension building in his neck and shoulders. There wasn’t anything routine about the murder of Rachelle Benavides. And her sister had significantly upped the ante.
    “Ms. Benavides—Elizabeth—you need to back off and let us do what we’re trained to do.”
    “Detective, I’ll back off and let you do what you’re trained to do whenever I see you doing something I can’t. But in the meantime, I can get information for you from my community you’re unlikely to get from any other source. I can bring you things from Rachelle’s experience. Do you get that? Without me you may as well send in RoboCop—one that only speaks Russian.”
    Chase’s chest constricted. Punching someone in the face would help. She’s not even thirty. She makes a lot of good points, but hell. She’s a civilian. His instinct wanted him to tie her to the very chair she sat in