Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,15
a time Thurston would have thrown him in jail on a trumped up charge to keep him out of the way. In fact, he’d done exactly that before.
~~~
Alex was intrigued by the knowledge that the Patriots, who she’d heard of only because of the group being listed as suspects in a number of her unidentified ruins cases, were headquartered right here in Casa Grande. She understood the hostility of the upstanding citizens of Arizona toward drug runners. Most of them didn’t resort to murder.
She even understood the hostility toward poor illegals who just wanted work. After all, it was work that US citizens needed, too, and people who hired illegals drove wages down for citizens as well, making it all but impossible for someone to make a living in some jobs anymore. Landscaping and construction came to mind. While she could understand the Patriots’ frustration, she couldn’t grasp their mindset that it was okay, even patriotic to gun people down for crossing the border illegally. She’d never understand that.
If the group was headquartered right here, would it be possible to interview some of the leaders? That would be a story worth pursuing, not to mention something she could really get her teeth into for her blog. Instead of taking Dylan’s warning to be careful around them to heart, Alex began brainstorming how she might get close enough to the group to get some insight.
Meanwhile, her new activist friends planned their next peaceful protest for Saturday, and they’d recruited Alex to document it with photos and a write-up for the school newspaper. She met with them on Wednesday to get the particulars.
“We have a permit for a march,” Dawn said to start the meeting. “We’ll gather here at the Student Union building. Everyone be sure not to block the entrances. Who’s bringing signs?”
Alex listened and took notes as Dawn expertly organized the group. It sounded as if there would be many more to march on the day of the parade. Each person here was responsible to bring a squad of up to twenty more people, and some had several other organizers under them, each with their own squads. By her estimation, it could be over two hundred people.
The majority of the marchers seemed to be Pima and the Maricopa who shared their reservation. They planned to march from the campus down East 6th Street to a nearby park, where there would be speeches. With music and a barbecue following the speeches, it seemed more like a big party than a demonstration. Alex didn’t quite see the point, but it did sound like fun.
She was glad to be part of it. This was the very type of thing she’d been missing as a commuter. Between the driving itself and her duties at the paper in Dodge, she’d never been able to participate in these gatherings. As much as she took seriously the plight of her new friends’ people, she was still a young woman who enjoyed a bit of fun, and there wasn’t nearly enough of this kind of fun in Dodge. Maybe she would even be able to tempt her housemates to join her. She’d envisioned doing things with them, but their interests were so diverse it hadn’t happened yet. They’d met Dylan, of course, and it was cool they didn’t care when he spent the night. Still, that didn’t really count as doing stuff with them.
On Saturday, Alex braided her long hair into twin pigtails and slipped on a cool sundress with a short skirt and wide straps. She slathered her fair skin with half a bottle of sunscreen and finished the look with low-heeled sandals and a floppy hat to keep the sun off her face. It was cooler than usual this time of year, but that wasn’t saying much. With the sun beating down on her from mid-morning until the rally broke up, seventy-six degrees would feel more like ninety, especially on the seven-block walk to the park, on hot city streets. Her housemates had just laughed when she invited them.
“Pool,” said Lisa. Natalie just grinned without bothering to answer. They’d invited her to go to Rocky Point with them for shrimp some time, and she’d probably go, as long as it wasn’t on a weekend that Dylan could visit. Hell of a long drive just for shrimp, though. She’d also need to get a passport first. Rocky Point was on the shores of the Gulf of Baja California, in Mexico. She’d never been, even though the locals