by J. A. Jance
“Because that’s the way officer-involved shootings work,” Joanna explained. “The idea is that if we investigated our own people and encountered wrongdoing on their part, we might be tempted to cover it up.”
“But it sounded like Deputy Ruiz was firing back at someone who was already shooting at him. How could that be anything other than self-defense?”
Joanna laughed. “Good question,” she said. “Maybe you should consider going to law school instead of veterinary school.”
“How’s Dad doing?”
“He’s in Tucson right now with appearances there both tonight and tomorrow. He should be home on Saturday. I can hardly wait. Single motherhood isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I know I did it with you for a while, but you were older. With two little kids? Take it from me, two kids need two parents. But enough about us. When’s your next final?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at one. It’s for a psych class. That one shouldn’t be nearly as tough as the one I took this morning. I’ll go over my class notes, but I should be fine.”
“What about Maggie?” Joanna asked. “Are you going to be bringing her home when you come?”
“No,” Jenny said. “Nick is staying here over the holidays. He’ll look after her. Even with four-wheel drive, dragging her around in a horse trailer when there’s a chance of ice and snow on the road seems like a bad idea.”
“Speaking of coming home,” Joanna added. “Dad was all hot to trot to get all the Christmas decorating and baking done before you arrive. I told him not to worry. That it would give you and Beth something to do to keep you off the streets.”
If I’m even speaking to her by then, Jenny thought.
She and her mother talked for a few minutes longer. An hour later, while Jenny was still poring over her psych-class notes, Beth Rankin showed up bearing gifts in the form of a pepperoni pizza and two iced-down sodas.
In terms of peace offerings, it couldn’t have been better. By the time the pizza box was empty, all was forgiven and Jenny and Beth Rankin were friends once more, and Jenny’s earlier qualms about taking Beth home were forgotten.
Chapter 10
A call from Joanna’s chief deputy late in the afternoon boosted her spirits.
“Armando’s awake and talking,” Tom Hadlock reported. “I let Dave Newton know so he could come interview him, but I didn’t call the DPS guys with that news until after I heard what Armando had to say to Amy and his mother.”
“Mr. DPS is not going to be happy about that.”
“Too bad,” Tom replied.
“What did Armando have to say?”
“He said that when he went to deliver the protection order, Leon appeared to be under the influence, but he was in his own home at the time. Since it’s not against the law to be drunk at home, Armando handed over the paperwork and left. He was on his way back to his vehicle when he heard a gunshot behind him. It sounded like it came from inside the house, so he turned around to look. The next thing he knew, a woman came streaking up to him, and I do mean streaking. She didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. At the time Armando had no idea who she was, but we now know that the woman in question was Leon’s wife, Madison Hogan. She was screaming something like, ‘He’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna kill me!’ She took cover behind Armando’s patrol vehicle, and so did he. That’s when Leon Hogan came charging out onto the porch, firing like crazy. Armando did the only thing he could do and returned fire. Getting hit was pure bad luck. But the whole thing sounds pretty cut-and-dried to me. It’s got suicide by cop written all over it.”
Joanna might have changed her mind on that score, but Tom was just ramping up, and she let him continue his rant without interruption.
“If Dave Newton doesn’t shape up and call it justifiable homicide,” Tom continued, “I’m half tempted to punch his lights out. What the hell was Armando supposed to do? Throw down his weapon and let the guy plug him? We’ve got a nearly dead deputy and a patrol car full of bullet holes. If Armando hadn’t returned fire, he wouldn’t be in a hospital right now. He’d be in the morgue.”
“Yes, he would,” Joanna agreed. “Give Armando my best, and let him know I’m thinking about him.”
“Will do,” Tom said.
Joanna spent the rest of the day redoing the duty roster, making up for Armando’s absence as best she could. If there were callouts when people were off duty, she’d be having to pay overtime, and the budget would take a definite hit. That complex work was interrupted by several calls from reporters. Tom Hadlock was her media-relations guy. With him out of the office, dealing with journalists fell to her. Fortunately for her, Marliss Shackleford wasn’t among the callers.
It was close to time for her to go home and time for the Rob Roy restaurant to open when she put in a call to Myron Thomas, reserving the club’s banquet room for the evening of December 26 as the site for Ernie’s retirement bash.
She was barely off the phone with that when Ernie presented himself in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” Joanna asked. “I distinctly remember your saying you’d be taking two days off.”
“I heard about Armando,” he said. “I know DPS is in charge of the investigation, but I wanted to come in to see if I could help out. Where is everybody? Both Jaime and Deb are nowhere to be found.”
“I believe Jaime is currently conducting a vehicular-homicide investigation between Elfrida and Willcox. As for Deb? I suspect she’s out in Sierra Vista following up on a couple of leads concerning the well-being of Leon and Madison Hogan’s two children.”
Over the next several minutes, Joanna laid out her concerns about Kendall and Peter Hogan.
“Anything I can do tonight to help?” Ernie asked when she finished. “I’m still a member of this team, you know, and if there’s work to be done, I’m here to do it.”
“Yes,” Joanna said, “but not right now. Tomorrow will be fine, but FYI, you should know that I just now reserved the Rob Roy banquet room for your retirement party. It’s scheduled for December twenty-sixth.”
“All right, then,” Ernie said with a somber nod. “I’ll start letting people know I’m leaving. Any idea who you might bring on board as your new detective?”
“Not yet,” Joanna answered.
“Well,” Ernie added, “if I were you, I’d take a close look at Garth Raymond. He’s young, but he’s got a lot on the ball.”
“Thanks,” Joanna said. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
Once Ernie left her office, Joanna did the same, heading home somewhat earlier than usual. She helped with dinner and got the kids down for the night. Then, after changing into her nightgown and robe, she went to work on the remaining Christmas cards, determined to finish those off before bedtime. She was making good progress when, right around ten, both dogs got up and headed for the back door. Assuming they were ready to go out one last time, Joanna followed. She opened the back door and security shutters just as a pair of arriving headlights swung into the yard.
Alarmed, she was about to head for the gun safe when Lady let out a joyous bark and went galloping toward the approaching vehicle. Lucky, deaf since birth, had never quite mastered the art of barking, but he went racing toward the car as well just as Joanna heard the garage door on the far side of the house rolling open.
When Butch had designed their new home, she had looked at the original drawings and shaken her head. “Most people have a two-car garage. This looks like a four-bedroom, two-garage house.”
“It is,” he had said, “and don’t worry. Once Jenny starts to drive, we’ll need it.”
He’d been right about that. Both Joanna’s work vehicle, the Interceptor, and her Buick Enclave occupied her garage, while Butch’s latest Subaru stayed in his. With Jenny off at school, the second parking spot in his garage was currently open.
Closing the door, Joanna went back inside. She met up with Butch just as he and the two cavorting dogs entered through the family room. Once he dropped his bags, she gave him a heartfelt hug. “What
are you doing here? I thought you were staying in Tucson tonight and tomorrow.”
“The Green Valley event started at six and was over before eight. Since it was still early, I canceled my hotel room and came home. I can drive back and forth to Tucson for tomorrow’s Oro Valley event. People who live in Tucson and work at Fort Huachuca make that kind of commute every day of the week.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No, but after being on the road and eating restaurant food, what I want more than anything is a peanut butter and honey sandwich. The only way to get one of those in a fine dining establishment is to order off the kiddie menu.”
“Do you want me to fix it?” Joanna asked.
“No, I will,” he told her with a grin. “You never slather on nearly enough peanut butter.”
While he headed for the kitchen, Joanna went back to the dining-room table. She didn’t have that many cards to go—only fifty or so—and it seemed silly to stop when she was that close to the end. Shortly after she returned to her task, Butch entered the room, bringing along both his sandwich and a glass of milk. He sat down next to her. Once the sandwich was gone, Butch began stuffing signed cards into envelopes and sealing them shut.
As they worked, she brought him up to date on everything she’d learned in the course of the afternoon.
“The murder weapon is registered to one of the wife’s pals?” Butch asked when she told him about the Glock.
“Maybe,” Joanna hedged. “We think Williams might be Madison’s boyfriend, but we don’t know that for sure.”
“And you think Madison brought it to the crime scene?”
“That’s how it seems.” Joanna nodded. “She might have fired that first shot—the one Armando heard coming from inside the house as he was on his way to his vehicle.”
“You’re saying you think it’s possible she started the whole thing?”
“Maybe,” Joanna said, “but at this point there’s no way to prove it, and there probably won’t be.”
“No GSR?” Butch asked.
Suddenly a light went off in Joanna’s head. “I wonder what happened to the robe?”
“What robe?”
“While Madison was sitting in the back of that Huachuca City patrol car, someone—one of the neighbors—brought a robe for her to wear. I wonder what happened to it—if it went to the hospital with Madison or if the EMTs returned it to the neighbor?”
“Why would you need to find the robe?”
“She might not have been wearing it at the time of the shooting, but if she fired that first shot, she would have had GSR on her hands, and there could be cast-off traces of it inside the sleeves.” Joanna glanced at her watch. It said 11:23. “Too late to call Ernie,” she said.
“Call Ernie?” a puzzled Butch asked. “Why would you need Ernie to go chasing after Madison’s GSR? Wouldn’t that be up to Detective Soccer Ball?”
“My primary concern right now is the Hogan kids,” Joanna said. “We know their mother has had multiple domestic-violence arrests if not convictions. If she was brandishing and firing a weapon at her former husband’s home, what does that say about her qualifications for being Mother of the Year? Not only that, as soon as Madison was let loose from the ER, Child Protective Services sent the kids right back home to their mom.”
Butch reached across the table, took one of Joanna’s hands in his, and gave his wife a searching look. “I see where you’re going with all this, Joey,” he said. “For some reason you’ve decided that Madison Hogan is an unsuitable mother. How come?”
“She locked her kids in the bedroom, for one thing,” Joanna said defensively.
“And?”
“She swore out that protection order against her husband and then dragged her kids out to his house to spend the night.”
“Maybe she changed her mind,” Butch offered. “People going through divorces do all kinds of stupid things—including changing their minds about protection orders.”
“So you think I’m wrong?” Joanna asked.
Butch chose his words carefully. “I think there’s a possibility that you might be jumping to conclusions,” he said.
Joanna thought about that for a moment. “Maybe I am,” she said. “I almost hope you’re right, because suitable or not, she’s the mother they’re stuck with.”
“But you’re not going to back off?”
“Nope,” said Joanna, signing the very last card and passing it over to Butch. “First of all, I want to know about the GSR on that robe. Depending on what we find out, I’ll go from there.”
“To bed, then?” Butch asked.
Joanna nodded. They were headed for their bedroom when Joanna stuck her hand in the pocket of her robe and discovered the dollar bill she’d left there.
“Oh, wait,” she said. “I almost forgot. It’s Tooth Fairy day. This morning Sage showed up with a new tooth, and this afternoon Denny lost one.”
“One tooth in and one out,” Butch said. “That seems like an even trade to me.”
With that, Joanna hurried off to Denny’s bedroom and exchanged a dollar bill for the tooth in the specially designed Tooth Fairy pillow that Grandma Eva Lou had given him. Back in their bedroom, Joanna opened the top drawer of her dresser. Inside, there were two small white boxes, one with Denny’s name on it and the other with Jenny’s. One day there would be a box with Sage’s name on it as well.
Joanna dropped the baby tooth into Denny’s box and then returned it to her drawer. She wasn’t sure why she carefully saved all those teeth, except for the one of Jenny’s that had disappeared when she bit into a bean burrito. Someday she’d give them to the kids. Then it would be up to them to decide if they wanted to keep them or throw them away.
For right now, though, they belonged to Joanna, and she planned on keeping them until she was ready to let them go. As she headed for bed, however, her thoughts returned to Kendall and Peter Hogan. Was anyone hanging on to their lost baby teeth?
Joanna hoped so, but it didn’t seem likely.
Chapter 11
Beth Rankin, who had never before had any friends to speak of, now had two. Sure, she’d known a few kids her age, from church mostly. In a brief bow to Beth’s physical fitness and assuming that all activities would be conducted under parental scrutiny, her mother had tried enrolling Beth first in swimming lessons and later in gymnastics. Both pursuits had turned out to be dismal failures. Swimming had come to grief because Beth was terrified of water, and the swim instructor was totally unable to effect any changes in that. Gymnastics had ended abruptly when her mother had declared team uniforms to be immodest.
Beth had been thrilled to leave swimming behind, and she hadn’t minded quitting gymnastics either. She’d had nothing in common with the other girls. Their lives centered on electronic devices and connections—on things like e-mail and video games and Instagram and chat rooms. As for the kids she met at church, the ones her mother would have preferred she socialize with? Out of spite Beth had refused to pal around with any of them. If they were good enough for her mother, they weren’t good enough for her.
Now Beth had two friends in her life—Jenny and Ron—and last night she’d been caught in a crossfire between them. One of the things she loved most about Ron was that he was interested in her. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to know her favorite color? Green. The name of her favorite pet? Blue Boy, a now-deceased parakeet, was the only one she’d ever had. Her favorite TV show? That was easy. She didn’t have one. Her favorite author? She had two possibles, J. K. Rowling and Arthur Conan Doyle. Her favorite food? Pizza, now that she’d finally had a chance to actually try it.
Ron talked to her about the classes she was taking, the books she’d read, the movies she’d seen—there weren’t many of those. And every time they spoke, he never failed to tell her how special she was and how smart. He had never met anyone like her before, and he could hardly wait until he got done with the special project he was working on so he could fly out to meet her
.
He also said he thought she was beautiful. That was something that most definitely had never happened to Beth before. So when he started asking her to send him selfies, she didn’t see any harm in it. In fact, the first selfie she sent to him was the first one she ever took. As soon as he got it, he wrote back telling her no wonder green was her favorite color, adding that the only way most people had eyes that green was if they wore contact lenses.
Of course he sent one of himself. It turned out the guy was a hunk and everything those romance writers were always talking about—tall, dark, and handsome. Just thinking about him took Beth’s breath away. How could she possibly be so incredibly lucky as to have someone like Ron in her life?
So when he asked her to send a photo of herself in her bra, it had creeped her out in a way but excited her, too. He didn’t see her as a kid. Ron saw her as a woman—a real woman—and someone he wanted to spend his life with. Besides, when he asked and she said no, he didn’t hassle her about it. A couple of weeks later, on his birthday, she sent a bra picture to him as a surprise. Of course he’d loved it, and naturally, too, he’d wanted more—a photo of her completely nude.
When it came to discussing the birds and the bees, there was only one piece of advice Madeline Rankin had ever bestowed on her daughter. “Mark my words,” she’d said, “if you give a boy one thing, he’s going to want more.”
Madeline had probably expected her comment to function as a deterrent, but it had the opposite effect. If her mother was against it, Beth was for it. Two nights ago, when it had been time to say good night, Beth had promised Ron that the following night they would do their chat with her completely in the nude.
Their video chats were one-way only. Ron said that security restrictions at his job made it necessary for him to keep his current image blurred on-screen, but that didn’t matter to Beth. In fact, that somehow made the whole idea seem even more mysterious and exciting. Once they started, he’d been thrilled beyond measure. He wanted to see all of her, exploring her body one piece at a time, as though he were taking a guided tour. For Beth the experience had been both terrifying and exhilarating—right up until Jenny knocked on the door.