Missing and Endangered

by J. A. Jance

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Mrs. Baird brought it over.”

  Mommy was instantly irate. “You let someone into the house when I wasn’t here?” she demanded.

  We didn’t know you weren’t here, Kendall thought. She said, “I didn’t let her in. She left it on the front porch.”

  “People should mind their own business,” Mommy grumbled. “And clean all this crap up when you’re finished.”

  With that she staggered off down the hall, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Peter asked. “She was walking funny.”

  Kendall didn’t want to tell him the truth. “She’s probably just tired,” Kendall said. “She’ll be better after she has a nap.”

  They still had some of the DVDs that Daddy had left behind, so they watched Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy. Kendall was in the bathroom when the doorbell rang again. She hurried to get there, but by the time she did, Peter had already opened the door.

  “Is your mom home?” a woman’s voice was asking.

  “She’s asleep,” Peter said.

  Kendall was getting ready to slam the door when she realized that the woman wasn’t a stranger at all. She was Mrs. Walkup, their next-door neighbor, and she was holding a dish.

  “I’m so sorry about your father,” she said, “but I brought over a casserole. It occurred to me that you’re probably having company visiting from out of town, and it’s the least I can do.”

  Mrs. Walkup looked like she expected to be invited inside, but Kendall didn’t think that was a good idea. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out to take the dish. “I’ll tell Mom you were here.”

  She closed the door and carried the dish straight to the kitchen, with Peter trailing along behind. “Is that what we’ll have for dinner?” he asked. “What is it?”

  Kendall lifted the lid and looked inside. She couldn’t tell what it was, exactly. Some kind of meat-and-tomato dish with black olives scattered on top.

  “Why are people bringing us food?” Peter asked.

  “Because they feel sorry for us,” Kendall explained, “because of Daddy.”

  “Is that what people do when someone dies?”

  “I guess,” Kendall said.

  She was sorry about Daddy, too, but she was glad to have the food. Today, at least, they wouldn’t go hungry.

  Chapter 33

  By midafternoon Joanna was back in her office at the Justice Center and feeling as though she’d accomplished at least one small good deed for the day. The meeting with Rusty Miller had gone as she’d anticipated it would. Once he knew the full story, he simply nodded.

  “Sounds like these folks really want him back,” Rusty said. “They’ve already lost their son. No reason they have to lose their son’s dog, too.”

  After that he called Coon over, put him on a lead, and loaded him into the backseat of Joanna’s Interceptor.

  “He’s a good dog,” Rusty told her once the dog was in the SUV. “He’s well behaved, housebroke, knows all about walking on a lead, and is great with kids. If the Hogans end up deciding they don’t want him after all, I’d take him back in a heartbeat.”

  Joanna had driven the dog uptown, where a completely unruffled Coon walked into the lobby of the Copper Queen as if he owned the place. Joanna asked the desk clerk to call upstairs and let the Hogans know they had visitors. A few minutes later, when Lyn and Izzy Hogan stepped off the elevator, Coon went absolutely nuts. He broke free of Joanna’s loose hold on the leash and raced over to give an ecstatic greeting to the new arrivals. Then, with his tail a-wag, he stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on Izzy’s shoulders, and planted a wet tongue on her cheek.

  “Why, Coonie!” Izzy exclaimed, laughing. “You funny old dog, you haven’t forgotten me after all.”

  An embarrassed Joanna came racing to collect the lead, but Lyn beat her to it and waved her off. “It’s okay,” he said. “This guy was the runt of the litter. The breeder was going to get rid of him, but I talked him into giving him to me. Izzy brought him up, and then I trained him before we ever handed him over to Leon. I wasn’t about to send an untrained dog to a family with a couple of little kids.”

  “That’s the wonderful thing about dogs,” Joanna said. “They don’t forget the people who look out for them, and that’s clearly the case with Coon.”

  While the Hogans set off on a shopping expedition to get a dog bed, food, and dishes for their newly retrieved animal, Joanna went back to the office. She was just settling in when Kristin called to say that Dick Voland was in the outer office.

  Joanna’s history with her former chief deputy was complicated. First there’d been their rivalry in that initial election, followed by her politically expedient move of appointing both her former rivals as co-seconds-in-command in her administration. Dick’s tenure had ended abruptly when it became apparent that he had developed a crush on Joanna. Once she put the kibosh on that, Dick had left the department. His later entanglement and subsequent breakup with Marliss Shackleford hadn’t helped matters. With all those complexities in the background, Joanna was grateful Kristin had given her a moment to put on her game face before ushering the man into the room.

  She greeted him cordially. “Hey, Dick,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “I’ve got something I think you’ll want to see,” he said. Taking a seat in one of her visitor chairs, he pulled a small white vial out of his coat pocket and placed it on Joanna’s desk. “In fact,” he added, “you may want to ask Casey Ledford to run an analysis of the contents.”

  Joanna had seen a vial just like that once before—in an evidence bag of items collected from Leon Hogan’s living room. With a nod she reached for her phone.

  “Hey, Casey,” she said. “Can you stop by for a minute?” Then she turned to Dick. “Assuming this is what we both think it is, where did it come from?”

  “Let’s just say I happen to know that Leon Hogan had been dosed with scopolamine and was completely out of his head when he was gunned down,” he said. “How’s Armando, by the way?”

  Joanna didn’t like hearing that the officer-involved shooting investigation had sprung a leak, but Dick had so many friends inside the department she let it go. It could have been anyone, and for right now she was better off not knowing who the leaker was.

  “Armando’s doing better than expected,” she answered. “We’re hoping he’ll be released sometime next week, but when he comes back to work, it’ll be desk duty only for the foreseeable future.”

  “Too bad,” Dick muttered.

  Joanna nodded. “Tell me about it, but if this turns out to be scopolamine, I need to know where it came from.”

  “And I need to protect my sources,” Dick replied, “but here’s a hint. You might want to take a long, hard look at Floyd Barco, the nighttime bartender at the Nite Owl. There’s a lot that goes on in that joint that isn’t exactly kosher. He sells these out of the glove box of his car as needed.”

  Joanna nodded. “I’ve heard about the Nite Owl,” she said. “It sounds like a real hot spot, and not in a good way.

  Just then Casey popped her head in the door. “Hey, hi, Dick,” she said when she spotted him. “Good to see you.” Then to Joanna she added, “You wanted to see me?”

  Joanna picked up the vial and handed it to her. “How long will it take you to tell me if this is scopolamine?”

  “Two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” Casey replied. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get the results.”

  She departed at once, and Joanna turned back to Dick. “Have you mentioned any of this to Frank Montoya?”

  “As a matter of fact, I just did,” Dick said. “I told him there was a lot going on in his bailiwick that didn’t meet the eye and maybe he should look into it.”

  “And?”

  “He allowed as how he would.”

  “Did you tell him anything about a possible connection to the Hogan case?” Joanna asked.

&
nbsp; “Not a word,” Dick replied. “Didn’t seem like a good idea to get caught in a crossfire between the two of you.”

  “Fair enough,” Joanna said.

  “As you know from Jorge Moreno, I was hired to work on Leon’s behalf,” Dick continued. “And that’s how I ended up looking into the Nite Owl—because I learned Leon’s wife and her boyfriend hang out there a lot. Randy can be a real jerk sometimes, and some of the other customers don’t much care for him. The guy who gave me the tip this morning just happens to hate the guy’s guts.”

  “A tip to what effect?”

  “Randy’s got a chance to buy into an important chunk of the local drug trade for an up-front cost of a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “The same amount of money as the expected proceeds from Leon’s group insurance policy,” Joanna murmured.

  “You got it,” Dick said. “So according to my source, Randy and Madison showed up at the bar last night and got into a hell of a fight. During the course of a very heated argument, Randy was overheard to say, ‘If you ain’t got the money, you worthless bitch, then we are done!’”

  “That’s probably the first he found out that the money he was counting on wasn’t coming.”

  “And he wasn’t happy about it either,” Dick said.

  “What happened then?”

  “Randy left. Madison stayed on until closing time, kept right on drinking, and ended up leaving with somebody else.”

  Joanna’s phone rang. “Contents test positive for scopolamine,” Casey said when she came on the line

  “Good,” Joanna said. “Thanks.”

  “Anything else?” Casey asked.

  “I’ll let you know,” Joanna said. She turned back to Dick Voland. “Sounds like I’d better touch bases with Frank,” she said.

  He stood up. “Sounds like,” he agreed. “Again, the guy who’s my source is a friend of mine. I’m not naming him. That way when questions start flying, he won’t be singled out, but I’m pretty sure he’ll talk, and so will others. As I said, Randy Williams isn’t exactly Mr. Congeniality around there, and I don’t think there’ll be too many zipped lips.”

  “Thanks, Dick,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  “And for the record, Leon Hogan was a good guy who didn’t deserve what he got.”

  Joanna nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that, too.”

  Dick walked as far as the doorway and then turned around. “One more thing,” he added as an afterthought. “When you talk to Frank, you might want to mention that Floyd Barco is a convicted felon, currently on parole. He drives a 1994 Chevrolet Suburban that is currently operating with a broken taillight, and he’s known to keep an illegal handgun in his glove box, along with a ready supply of scopolamine. After the bar closes each night, he generally hangs around for a tipple or two after he finishes cleaning up, not that he does much of that.”

  “You took a pretty deep dive into the Nite Owl, didn’t you?”

  “We aim to please,” Dick replied with a grin.

  “Thanks for the background info,” Joanna told him. “Appreciate it.”

  Once Dick was gone, she picked up her phone and dialed Frank Montoya’s number. “I think we need to talk about the Nite Owl, Floyd Barco, and Leon Hogan,” she said when he answered, “not necessarily in that order.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “It sounds like we need to do a lot more than just talk.”

  Chapter 34

  Wanting privacy, Jenny waited until Beth went into the bathroom to get ready for bed before calling her folks to report in.

  “So how are things?” her mom wanted to know.

  “Better,” Jenny replied. “As we were heading for the interview with the FBI, Beth was still a basket case. I thought for sure she would fall to pieces, but she didn’t. It was actually pretty amazing.”

  “What was amazing about it?” Joanna asked.

  “The way Agent Norris handled her reminded me of when Jim Carter brought that wild mare to Clayton Rhodes and asked him to fix her. Remember that?”

  Joanna did. For decades Clayton had been Cochise County’s premier horse trainer. Because his land abutted the original High Lonesome Ranch, he’d also been Joanna’s nearest neighbor. After Andy’s death he had been a huge help in terms of pitching in with chores.

  At some point Jim Carter, Jenny’s 4-H leader, had bought a wild horse at auction that had been culled from one of the herds running loose on Bureau of Land Management pastureland. When Jim couldn’t get anywhere with the animal, he brought it over to Clayton. The old man was in his eighties by then and unwilling to tackle actually breaking the horse, but Jenny had been old enough and interested enough to take a front-row seat at the patient way he’d gentled the terrified animal and brought her around.

  “I mean,” Jenny continued, “Agent Norris was asking about things that had to be really upsetting to Beth, and I expected the interview to turn into a disaster. Instead the process somehow made Beth better. It was fascinating.”

  “It’s what cops do, Jen,” Joanna said. “They’re trained to establish a connection with the people they encounter, whether they happen to be suspects, victims, survivors, or family members. It takes rapport and trust to elicit information. So did it work?”

  “I’m not sure how much useful information was added to the mix, but once we finished, Beth was ready to go to the food court for lunch. Before the interview I didn’t think I’d be able to get her to leave our room. It was as if Agent Norris superglued Beth back together. We did learn one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The photo Ron used to set up his dating profile was from the obituary for a guy from Tucson who died in a car wreck two years ago.”

  Jenny heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath. “That suggests that whoever Ron is, he has some kind of Arizona connection. And if he decides to change from strictly cyberwarfare into something physical—”

  “I know,” Jenny interrupted. “Agent Norris already told us that Beth and I both need to be careful. One thing that came out in the interview was that Ron was really pissed about Beth and me being friends.”

  Beth emerged from the bathroom just then. Not wanting to say any more within her earshot, Jenny ended the call. “Okay, Mom,” she said hurriedly. “Talk to you tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Your mom?” Beth asked as she settled onto her bed.

  Jenny nodded. “I was telling her about the interview.”

  Jenny was starting to undress when an arriving text dinged on her phone. The phone number wasn’t one she recognized, but the message made her heart sink.

  Maggie is down in her stall. What do you want me to do?

  Maggie was sick? How could that be? The horse had been perfectly fine the day before—with no sign of lameness or fever, but if she was down, it was possible that she’d suffered a career-ending injury.

  “Oh, no,” she said aloud.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth asked.

  “It’s Maggie,” Jenny said as she texted a reply.

  Okay. On my way.

  She reversed course as far as getting ready for bed was concerned. Instead of continuing to remove clothing, she started putting it back on.

  “Where are you going?” Beth asked.

  “Where do you think? To the Lazy 8 to check on Maggie.”

  “But it’s the middle of the night,” Beth objected.

  “When a horse is down like that, waiting until morning to call a vet could be fatal,” Jenny returned.

  Beth made as if to climb out of bed. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t need to,” Jenny said. “I’ll be okay.”

  “What about the buddy system?” Beth asked.

  Jenny was already pulling on her jacket. She was tempted to ask exactly how much Beth knew about sick horses, but she thought better of it. It seemed likely that if Ron were after anyone, it was Beth, but hadn’t Agent Norris warned both of them to be careful?
And if Jenny expected Beth to take her advice, shouldn’t she do the same?

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Jenny said. “I’ll call Nick and ask him to meet me at the ranch if you’ll call the RA to come stay with you while I’m gone.”

  “Call the resident assistant?” Beth demanded. “I don’t need a babysitter!”

  “And neither do I,” Jenny said, “but Nick’s dad was a large-animal vet. He might be able to help me figure out what’s going on with Maggie. I doubt you can.”

  Beth thought about it for a time before nodding in grudging agreement. While she dialed the resident assistant’s number, Jenny called Nick, who answered after only one ring. When she told him what was up, his response was immediate.

  “Sure thing,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

  With her mind focused on whatever might have happened to Maggie, Jenny drove to the Lazy 8 faster than she should have. On the way she chatted with Nick on her cell phone’s speaker, bringing him up to date with everything that had happened since they’d last seen each other.

  Approaching the lighted entrance to the Lazy 8, she knew he was only half a mile or so behind her. As she slowed for the turn, she noticed that a vehicle of some sort—a small sedan—stopped on the shoulder of the road just ahead of her. It wasn’t until she was almost even with the parked car that she realized someone was standing next to it. At that moment a lifesaving glimpse of the man’s backlit silhouette revealed that he was holding a weapon in his hand, one pointed directly at her.

  “Oh, my God!” she screamed into her phone as she jammed her foot on the gas pedal. The truck lurched forward as a bullet that had been intended for her pinged harmlessly off the bed of her truck.

  “What’s happened?” Nick yelled frantically into her ear. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a guy parked on the road!” she shouted back. “He just took a shot at me!”

  “The hell he did!” Nick roared back. “Call 911!”

  In her rearview mirror, Jenny saw the parked vehicle’s headlights flash on. The driver seemed to be making a U-turn in order to follow her, but then another pair of headlights bore down on the turning vehicle and the scene turned into a dazzling whirl of headlights as Nick’s truck plowed head-on into the much smaller sedan and sent it spinning.