by J. A. Jance
“You wanted to see me?” Joanna asked when Sunny showed up a few minutes later.
Sunny nodded. “I do. You know about my dad, right?”
“That you lost him a few months ago?” Joanna asked. “Yes, I’m aware of that, and I’m so sorry. How are you doing?”
“He’d been so sick for so long that it was a blessing for both Anne and me when he was gone. It takes time, but things are getting better.”
Joanna knew that Anne Coyle was Sunny’s stepmother. She also knew that when Sunny had first started working, Fred and Anne had both stepped up to provide child care for their granddaughter, Danielle, who was now a six-year-old first-grader.
“Did you know that after Daddy died, Grammy Anne invited Danielle and me to move in with her?” Sunny asked.
“I had no idea.”
Sunny paused for a moment, as if reluctant to go on. Finally she found her voice. “I’ve loved my job,” she continued. “When you first offered it to me, I didn’t think I’d like it at all, but that’s changed.”
Uh-oh, Joanna thought, she loves her job, but she’s about to quit. Great! Just what I need, another job to fill!
Sunny drew a deep breath. “But what I’d really like to do now,” she said, “is become a deputy.”
That pronouncement left Joanna utterly floored. “Really?”
Sunny nodded. “When Dan was here, I didn’t really know any of the people he worked with, but I know them now. They’re my friends the same way they were his friends. I’ve seen how everyone around here pulls together to help others, and I’d like to play a bigger role in that.”
For a moment Joanna struggled to find a reasonable response, but the first words out of her mouth weren’t her best. “You know that being a deputy can be a dangerous job,” she cautioned.
“You think?” Sunny replied with a sad smile.
“It would mean your having to go through police academy-training,” Joanna added after a pause. “You’d have to spend at least six weeks away from home in Phoenix.”
Sunny nodded.
“And once you’re a deputy, you’d be doing shift work.”
Sunny nodded again. “I know that, too, and if it weren’t for Grammy Anne, I wouldn’t even be able to consider it, but she and Daddy started looking after Danielle while she was just a baby. Sometimes I think Grammy Anne is more of a mother to her than I am. But Anne knows this is what I want, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. And as far as supporting my family, she and I both know that I’ll make more money as a deputy than I do as a clerk. “Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “it would be my way of honoring Dan’s memory.”
Joanna knew there were plenty of biological mothers who had stepped into this kind of child-care role when necessary, but a stepmother? That seemed downright remarkable. Anne Coyle had to be someone special.
As for the wage disparity between office clerks and deputies? Unfortunately, Joanna knew that was all too true, and she found herself looking at Sunny with new eyes. She was young but dependable, trustworthy, and physically fit. In the last several years, she had earned an A.A. degree from Cochise College by taking classes both at night and online. She was smart, eager, and motivated, and it wasn’t as though she was blind to the inherent risks of being a cop. In addition, she was a hometown girl. If the department paid her way through the academy, it wasn’t as though Sunny would immediately take off for parts unknown.
“You really want to do this?” Joanna asked.
Sunny nodded. “I do,” she said.
With Armando destined to be confined to desk duty for the immediate future and with another deputy—let’s face it, with Deputy Raymond—moving into investigations, Sunny’s offer was a godsend.
“Okay,” Joanna said, standing up and reaching across her desk to shake Sunny’s hand. “Deputy it is. I’ll call the academy and see how soon they have an opening.”
After Sunny left, Joanna didn’t let any grass grow. She immediately called the Arizona Police Academy, where they just happened to have a class with an opening starting after the first of the year, on Tuesday, January 2. Joanna reserved a spot in Sunny’s name and asked for enrollment forms to be forwarded directly to Sunny.
Once that was done, she sat for a moment or two, thinking. Now that she had inadvertently tricked herself into making up her mind on the upcoming detective vacancy, there was no reason to stall any longer. She picked up the phone and called Garth. He sounded surprised to hear from her.
“Are you enjoying your day off?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m helping Gran put up the Christmas tree, but if you need me to come in . . .”
“Actually, I’d like you to do just that if you don’t mind. I want to officially introduce you to your new colleagues.”
“My new colleagues?” Garth echoed uncertainly.
“Yes, as of January first, when Ernie Carpenter retires, you’ll be the newest member of my investigations unit.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I’ll be there in an hour or so,” Garth said, “maybe a little less.”
When Joanna hung up the phone after that call, she realized that for the space of at least fifteen minutes she’d managed to keep from thinking and worrying about Jenny and Beth and about Butch driving north on far too little sleep. For right now not worrying was a good thing. With a sigh, she, like Jaime and Ernie, turned to do battle with that day’s worth of paperwork.
Chapter 38
A campus cop arrived at Conover Hall at nine forty-five to drive Jenny and Beth to the admin building for their individual exams, which were overseen by a secretary in a conference room next door to the president’s office. As expected, the sociology test was easy. Jenny breezed through it and finished up twenty minutes early. Beth worked on hers right up until time was called.
When they left the building together, another cop was on site, waiting to take them back to the dorm. Neither of them objected. The fact that someone had tried to murder Jenny the night before wasn’t lost on either of them, and they both felt as though they were walking around with targets on their backs.
As they approached the dorm lobby entrance, Jenny felt a sense of relief, but then the door opened and she walked into a reality-based version of Family Feud. Beth stopped short just inside the door. “Mom? Dad?” she said uncertainly. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to get you,” Madeline Rankin stated flatly. “I don’t care what your grandmother wanted or what happens to her money. It can go straight down the drain and good riddance! We are pulling you out of this evil place and taking you home.”
“You can’t do that,” Beth declared. “I’m not quitting school, and I’m not leaving.”
“Yes you are,” Madeline screeched back, waving a brown envelope in her daughter’s face. “We’ve seen the pictures, Beth. This place is Sodom and Gomorrah, and it’s turned you into a godless Jezebel. You are not staying here a moment longer. Not one moment!”
Jenny watched Beth’s face turn white. Meanwhile the sound of raised voices was attracting a lot of undue attention around the lobby, including that of the dorm’s on-duty resident assistant.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” she interjected, coming around from behind the reception desk. “There are people here who are trying to study. Please keep it down.”
“Keep it down my eye!” Madeline returned furiously. “What are they studying anyway, pornography? This place isn’t a dormitory, it’s a whorehouse.”
“Ma’am, please,” the RA insisted, “if you don’t calm down, I’ll be forced to summon a campus police officer.”
“You do that,” Madeline taunted her. “Go ahead. I can hardly wait to show him what people have been up to around here. They’ve defiled my daughter and turned her into a filthy piece of garbage.”
With those words still hanging in the air, Beth fled into the elevator. Jenny remained in the lobby, realizing that everything her roommate had said about her
awful mother was absolutely true. But Jenny’s real focus was on the envelope in Madeline Rankin’s hand.
“Those are pictures of Beth?” Jenny asked.
“Of course they’re her pictures,” Madeline snapped, “although they’re probably only some of the pictures instead of all of them. God alone knows how many of these there are.”
“How did you get them?”
“How do you think?” Madeline returned. “Someone sent them to us in the mail. The envelope showed up at the post office this morning with more than a dollar’s worth of postage due. Who are you?”
“My name is Jenny Brady. I’m Beth’s roommate.”
“Her former roommate, then,” Madeline said. “You go on upstairs and tell her I said she should pack her things and get back down here. Kenneth and I are leaving, and so is she.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Jenny replied. “Beth has no intention of going with you, and she doesn’t have to.”
“Yes she does,” Madeline said, “and if you won’t go get her, I will. What room is she in?”
“I’m sorry,” the RA put in, “I can’t allow you to go upstairs. I believe your daughter has made her intentions clear. She has no interest in going anywhere with you. And since she doesn’t want to speak to you either, I’ll have to ask you to leave. As of now you’re unwelcome guests trespassing on university property.”
Beth’s father attempted to intercede. “Come on, Madeline,” he said. “We’re not wanted here. We should go.”
“I’m not going anywhere without my daughter,” Madeline declared, “and don’t you try to make me.”
“Jenny,” Butch said uncertainly, speaking from behind Jenny’s back. “What’s going on here?”
Jenny had been so focused on what was happening that she hadn’t noticed the lobby door slide open and then close behind her. She spun around and found Butch standing there. “It’s Beth’s parents, Dad,” she said. “They’re upset.”
“Upset?” Madeline echoed. “Are you kidding? I am not upset. I’m furious. These people have brainwashed my daughter into becoming something she’s not, and I want her back.”
By then the RA had returned to the reception desk and picked up the handset on the phone. No doubt she was dialing 911. Jenny knew that she and Beth had been given strict orders to stay under the radar and say nothing to anyone. Being caught up in an altercation that included an appearance by the campus cops didn’t amount to keeping a low profile.
“I have to go, Dad,” she said quickly. “I’ll call you later.” With that, Jenny, too, disappeared into the elevator. Even before she opened the door to her room, she could hear Beth’s inconsolable sobs. She lay facedown on the bed, weeping into her pillow.
“He sent the pictures to my parents,” Beth wailed when Jenny eased herself down onto the bed beside her. “How could Ron do something so awful?”
“Because he is awful,” Jenny replied. “Because he’s a scumbag who should be ground into the dirt like the cockroach he is.”
“Yes, a cockroach,” Beth hiccupped something that was almost a laugh. “That’s exactly what he is,” she added, taking a deep breath. “Are my parents still down in the lobby?”
“I doubt it,” Jenny replied. “When I left to come up here, the RA was calling the cops. I believe they’ll be encouraged to leave the campus, and I expect they’ll have a police escort to make sure they do.”
“I told you my mother was bad news,” Beth said.
“Yes, you did,” Jenny said, “but she’s way worse than I ever imagined. So are you ready?”
“Ready?” Beth repeated.
“The other person who’s down there now is my dad. We just had our last finals, and the two of us are on Christmas break, remember?”
Beth smiled weakly. “I almost forgot,” she said.
“Get a move on,” Jenny ordered.
Beth heaved herself into a sitting position. “I will,” she said determinedly. “Because I’m going to Bisbee, and my mother and Ron Cameron can both go to hell.”
“Right,” Jenny said. “Let’s do it.”
They had both packed earlier in the morning, so now it was just a matter of gathering things together. When they were ready to head out the door, Jenny punched her dad’s number into her phone.
“Is the coast clear? Are they gone?”
“It was either leave on their own or get hauled off to jail,” he said. “Fortunately for all concerned, they chose the former.”
“Good,” Jenny said. “We’ll be right down.”
Chapter 39
After getting off the phone with Garth, Joanna called Tom Hadlock to let him know her decision. He was pleased to hear it. Half an hour later, Jaime called. “Hey, boss,” he said. “We’re taking Barco into the interview room.”
“Good enough,” she said, “I’ll be right there.” On her way she stopped by Kristin’s desk long enough to give her a credit card and ask her to go into town to pick up an assortment of pizzas.
“How come?” a puzzled Kristin wanted to know.
“It turns out we’ll be having a departmentwide celebration early this afternoon.”
As soon as Joanna caught sight of Floyd Barco, handcuffed to the table in the interview room, she recognized the type. He was a smarmy little man with a chip on his shoulder and plenty of attitude meant to make up for his diminutive stature.
“Look,” he sneered, “you guys have me dead to rights—DUI, weapons charge, and more than my fair share of weed in the vehicle. So what’s this all about? Just send me back to the pen and get it over with.”
“It’s not that simple,” Ernie told him. “We’re actually here to talk about a homicide.”
Floyd’s eyes bugged. “A homicide?” he repeated. “I’ve done lots of bad stuff, but I never had nothin’ to do with something like that.”
“We’ll see,” Ernie said. “Why don’t you tell us about Randy Williams and Madison Hogan? I understand they’re friends of yours, right?”
“They’re not friends, they’re customers at the Nite Owl. That’s where I work, and they’re regulars.”
“So maybe they drop by for more than just good company and booze,” Jaime suggested. “Maybe one or the other purchased another kind of goods from you fairly recently.”
Floyd squirmed in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“When you were taken into custody, the arresting officers noticed that you had several bottles of eyedrops in your glove box,” Jaime mentioned.
“I’ve got allergies real bad,” Barco said. “I have to use drops all the time, day and night.”
“That’s surprising,” Ernie observed. “I didn’t know scopolamine was good for allergies.”
Floyd took a deep breath and said nothing.
“You might be interested in knowing that an empty eyedrop container just like the ones in your Suburban was found at the crime scene where Leon Hogan was shot to death,” Ernie continued.
“So?” Floyd asked with a shrug, trying to regain some of his lost composure. “What does that have to do with me? Hogan was killed by some trigger-happy cop. Everybody knows that.”
“What everybody maybe doesn’t know is that Mr. Hogan was hopped up on scopolamine at the time he died,” Ernie said. “Randy Williams’s handgun was found at the scene. It would appear that someone dosed Mr. Hogan with scopolamine, possibly with the intention of killing the guy while he was out of commission and unable to defend himself. Not surprisingly, the most likely candidates on that score turn out to be Randy Williams and Madison Hogan. The only question now is whether you were in on it, too.”
“Me?” Barco asked faintly.
“Yes, you, Mr. Barco,” Ernie said. “As it happens, we’ve heard from more than one source that when it comes to scopolamine, you’re the go-to guy in the neighborhood. We’re also under the impression that Randy and Madison were looking to score a cool hundred G’s in life-insurance proceeds by taking Leon Hogan out. So let me ask
again, were you in on it or not? Did Randy and Madison pay you outright for the drugs they used, or were you in on the deal for a percentage of the take? Or is it possible you were going to be in on the cartel deal that Williams was cooking up?”
Floyd stayed quiet for a long moment. “I want a lawyer,” he said finally.
“Absolutely,” Ernie said. “And we’ll see to it that you get one. At the moment, however, since we’re holding you on other charges, we won’t have to add conspiracy to commit homicide to the mix, at least not right now. But when your attorney shows up, you might let him know that possible charges on that score are pending, especially if either Randy or Madison drops the dime on you.”
“But I . . .” Floyd began again, but then he seemed to think better of what he was about to say and fell silent once more.
“Fair enough,” Ernie said. “Detective Carbajal here will be happy to escort you to your cell.”
On Joanna’s way back to her office, Butch sent a text saying they were in the car and headed south with Jenny at the wheel. They were out of Flagstaff and coming home! Joanna’s relief at the news was palpable. For the first time all day, it felt as though she could draw a full breath.
In Kristin’s office she found Deputy Garth Raymond crouched down next to Mojo’s bed, scratching the old dog’s ears. He lurched to his feet the moment Joanna appeared.
“Good afternoon, Sheriff Brady,” he said, wiping his petting hand on his pant leg. It was his day off. Rather than wear his uniform, he’d shown up in work clothes—a worn plaid flannel shirt, work boots, and jeans.
Joanna smiled back at him. “Don’t worry about a few dog germs, Detective Raymond,” she said. “I’m immune.”
“Wait,” Kristin demanded, leaping to her feet, “Did you just say Detective Raymond?”