Partner In Crime

by J. A. Jance

  “Aberdeen Juvenile Detention Center opened in the spring three years ago and was operating at full capacity within three months. By the time fall came along and the rains started, the walls began weeping moisture and forming mold. Latisha Wall immediately reported the facility’s shortcomings to her supervisor. When inmates complained that the food they were given was full of bugs and wasn’t fit to eat, she passed that information along as well. Nothing happened. No corrective measures were taken, and no additional expenditures were allowed. Finally, Latisha was told that dealing with the ongoing difficulties was her problem. At that point, she went to her supervisor’s supervisor, with the same result.

  “The final straw came when Ms. Wall discovered that her assistant – her second in command – had been routinely covering up prisoner complaints of misconduct on the part of a number of guards. The inmates were troubled kids who had been put in her charge in hopes of straightening them out. Rather than getting help, they were being abused both sexually and physically. When Latisha tried to fire the guards involved, along with the guy responsible for the cover-up, UPPI cut her off at the knees. They told her she wasn’t allowed to fire anybody. That’s when she finally figured out that not only had she been suckered but so had the state of Washington.

  “Latisha Wall was underqualified for the position she held and was being very well paid to do it. UPPI expected her to take her money, go with the flow, and keep her mouth shut. Instead, Ms. Wall went to Ross Connors’s office and told her story there. She resigned. The facility was shut down completely a few months later.”

  “She was a whistle-blower, then.”

  “Right,” I answered. “What wasn’t in the papers – what Ross Connors did his best to keep out of the media – was that once the scandal went public, Latisha Wall was subjected to numerous death threats. None of them could be traced back to UPPI Headquarters in Chicago, but that’s where the AG theorized they came from. Latisha Wall thought so, too.”

  “So your boss put her in a witness protection program and shipped her here, to Bisbee, under the name of Rochelle Baxter.”

  “Right,” I told her.

  “And you think someone from UPPI came here to kill her?”

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” I said.

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “Because there’s a civil trial coming up in Olympia in a little more than a month. Based on lack of performance at the Aberdeen facility, Washington State has terminated all contracts with UPPI, and they’re suing for breach of contract. Latisha Wall was scheduled to be the state’s star witness. Without her, UPPI may walk away with a bundle.”

  Finished with my recitation, I paused. “So what’s the deal, then?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What have your guys found out?” I asked. “We need to know – the attorney general’s office needs to know – what’s going on.”

  “My ‘guys,’ as you call them – my investigations unit,” she corrected stiffly, “which isn’t all male, by the way – has been working the problem. As far as your need to know or your boss’s need to know, Mr. Beaumont, that’s up to me.”

  I could see that I had stepped in it big time without really knowing how. Sheriff Brady had been chilly when she had first escorted me into her office. Now she was downright frosty.

  “Please, Sheriff Brady, I don’t want you to think I’m taking anything away from your people-”

  “Oh?” she said, cutting me off. “Is that so? You could have fooled me. I thought that’s exactly what this is about. What you’ve told me just now is what your office could and should have told me two days ago. Right this moment, Special Investigator Beaumont, I can’t think of a single compelling reason to tell you any of what my people have learned so far. Not until that information is in some kind of reasonable order. Give me a day or two to think it over.”

  She smiled coolly, then added, “Actually, two days sounds just about right. Let me know where you’ll be staying. I’ll give you a call, say Monday or Tuesday, and let you know what’s happening. After all, that’s how long it took you to get to us. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m somewhat busy.”

  In other words, “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” And I did mind. I minded very much, but there didn’t seem to be much point arguing about it. I heard people’s voices out in the hall. The way her green eyes darted toward the door, I could tell Joanna Brady was far more interested in what was going on outside than she was in talking to me. There are times when pushing works and times when it doesn’t. I had a feeling that Sheriff Joanna Brady would react badly to pushing. I took the hint, stood up, and headed for the door.

  “One more thing,” I said. If I wasn’t going to be doing anything for Ross Connors for the next two days besides sitting on my butt, I could just as well be doing something for me.

  “What’s that?” Joanna Brady asked.

  “How long have you lived in Bisbee?”

  “All my life. Why?”

  “Did you ever know of someone named Anne Rowland?”

  It took a moment for Anne Corley’s maiden name to register in Joanna Brady’s mental database, but it did eventually – with visible consequences. “I didn’t know her personally,” the sheriff said guardedly. “I know of her. Why?”

  “She was my wife,” I said. “I was hoping maybe I could meet someone who knew her when she was growing up and maybe talk with them for a little while.”

  Joanna Brady blinked. “I can’t think of anyone right off,” she said.

  “All right.”

  “Where will you be staying?” she asked.

  “At a place called the Copper Queen Hotel.”

  “Good,” Sheriff Brady said distractedly. “If anything comes up, I’ll call you.”

  I reached out, took her hand, and shook it. Her handshake was firm, but that was to be expected. Not only was she the sheriff, she was also a politician. I opened the door and let myself out, leaving Joanna Brady standing in what looked for all the world like stunned silence.

  ONCE THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND HIM, Joanna went back to her desk and sat down. Of course she remembered Anne Rowland Corley. Who wouldn’t? People in Bisbee thought about Anne Rowland Corley’s guilt or innocence the way lots of people think about O. J. Simpson’s: She was a killer who had gotten away with it.

  It had happened only a year or so before Joanna’s father had been elected sheriff. The saga of the Rowland family’s series of tragedies was one that wouldn’t go away. Anita and Roger Rowland had two daughters, Patricia and Anne. The older girl, Patty, was developmentally disabled and died after an accidental fall in their Warren neighborhood home. Shortly after that, Roger Rowland too was dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. Because both deaths had occurred inside the city limits, the cases had been investigated by the Bisbee Police Department. Joanna remembered her father fussing about that.

  “Roger Rowland and Chuck Brannigan have been asshole buddies for years,” Joanna remembered D.H. Lathrop complaining. “If Chief of Police Brannigan were actually smart enough to think his way out of a paper bag, he would have recused himself and let someone else take charge of the investigation.”

  But Brannigan hadn’t removed himself from either case, and neither had the then Cochise County Coroner, Bill Woodruff, who was another of Roger Rowland’s cronies. Brannigan and Woodruff were two good old boys working together. Their hasty but official determinations of “accident” and “suicide” had stuck despite the fact that, shortly after Roger Rowland’s funeral, his younger daughter, Anne, had claimed she had fired the shot that had killed her father. That claim had never been investigated. Instead, Anne had been packed off to a private mental institution somewhere in Phoenix.

  One of the city detectives from that time, a man named Dan Goodson, had left Bisbee PD shortly thereafter to work for Joanna’s father, Sheriff D.H. Lathrop. He had told his new boss that he had quit Bisbee PD partly out of disgust at the way the Rowland cases had bee
n handled.

  “Anne Rowland isn’t crazy,” Joanna’s father had reported an outraged Danny Goodson as saying. “Not a bit of it. She’s a killer, and with Chuck Brannigan’s and Bill Woodruff’s help, she’s getting off scot-free.”

  Although rumors about Anne Rowland’s guilt continued to swirl around town, the coroner’s rulings had remained unassailable.

  Joanna vaguely remembered hearing or reading that Anne Rowland Corley had died a violent death somewhere out of state several years earlier, but she couldn’t recall any details. Now it turned out that this same woman had once been married to Detective J.P. Beaumont?

  Lost in thought, Joanna jumped reflexively when the phone on her desk rang.

  “Mom?” a tearful Jenny sobbed into the phone.

  “Yes. What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Sadie,” Jenny wailed. “Something awful’s wrong with her. I just got home from Cassie’s. Her mom dropped me off. Sadie’s lying on the back porch. She won’t get up.”

  “Where’s Butch?” Joanna asked.

  “At the other house. He left a note that he’d be back by one, but he isn’t. I need someone here now. She’s real sick, Mom. Is she gonna die?”

  Joanna closed her eyes and remembered how, the last few days, Sadie hadn’t been quite herself. How she hadn’t wanted to run home to the ranch. How she hadn’t wanted to eat the Cheer- ios or the green chili casserole. No doubt something was wrong with Sadie. Joanna hadn’t paid enough attention to notice.

  “I don’t know, Jen,” she told her daughter. “But you hold tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  With everything else forgotten, Joanna grabbed her purse and dashed out the back door into the parking lot.

  Ten

  JOANNA PULLED INTO THE YARD at High Lonesome Ranch and stopped the Civvie in a cloud of dirt and gravel. As she raced home, she had expected to find Jenny in hysterics, but that wasn’t the case. She found her daughter and both dogs grouped on the back porch. Tigger leaped off the porch and came to greet her while neither Jenny nor Sadie moved. Jenny sat with the dog’s head cradled in her lap, gently stroking Sadie’s long, floppy ears. The dog’s sides heaved as she struggled to breathe.

  Stepping close to her daughter, Joanna saw there was ample evidence that Jenny had been crying, but she wasn’t crying now.

  “She doesn’t like it when I cry,” Jenny explained. “It upsets her, so I stopped. And I already called Dr. Ross’s office. She says we should bring Sadie right over.”

  Sadie was a big dog – seventy-five pounds at least, Joanna estimated. “How will we get her to the car?” she asked.

  “We have to, that’s all,” Jenny replied.

  “Wait here while I go get the keys to the other car,” Joanna said. “Sadie will be more comfortable in the Eagle than in the Civvie.”

  Jenny nodded. “Hurry,” she said.

  Joanna dashed into the house, grabbed the keys to the Eagle, and hurried back outside. Sadie and Jenny hadn’t moved.

  “I tried giving her some water, but she wouldn’t drink it,” Jenny said. “That’s a bad sign, isn’t it.”

  It was a statement, not a question. Joanna blinked back her own tears. “Probably,” she agreed.

  Years of hefting hay bales had served both mother and daughter in good stead. As soon as they lifted the dog, though, it was clear Sadie no longer weighed what she once had.

  When did she lose so much weight? Joanna wondered. Why didn’t I see what was happening?

  Once Sadie was loaded into the car, Tigger wanted to go along. “No!” Jenny told him. “You stay.”

  With his tail between his legs, the dejected mutt retreated into the yard and curled up, moping, on the porch. Joanna got in and turned the key in the ignition. The Eagle was driven so seldom nowadays that she worried if the battery was charged, but it started right away. Once the engine was running, Joanna expected Jenny to clamber into her seat. Instead, blond hair flying behind her, she darted back into the house. She emerged moments later carrying Sadie’s blanket.

  “Good thinking,” Joanna said. For the remainder of the drive into town, neither mother nor daughter said a word.

  Veterinarian Millicent Ross’s office was only a mile or so past the Cochise County Justice Center. Joanna was there less than ten minutes after leaving home. Millicent was a broad, more-than- middle-aged woman who had returned to college to become a vet only after her three children had graduated.

  She came out to the parking area to meet them, bringing along a gurney that had been designed with animals in mind. Sadie, who had never liked going to the vet, started to struggle as Dr. Ross began to transfer her to the gurney. Jenny held Sadie’s head and spoke soothingly until Dr. Ross was able to strap the dog down. As they rolled the gurney toward the building, Joanna’s cell phone rang. She stayed outside to take the call and was grateful to hear Butch’s voice.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “I came home and found your Civvie here, but no Eagle, no Joey, no Jenny, and no note. What’s going on?”

  “It’s Sadie,” Joanna said brokenly. “She’s sick. We’ve brought her to Dr. Ross’s office. I’m afraid she’s not going to…” Her voice faltered. She couldn’t continue.

  “I’ll be right there,” Butch said.

  Hanging up, Joanna turned off her phone. For once her family’s needs would take precedence over the people of Cochise County. If something important came up, somebody else would have to handle it.

  Inside the office waiting room, Jenny sat disconsolately on a chair, clutching Sadie’s blanket to her chest. “Dr. Ross took her into the back for X rays,” Jenny explained matter-of-factly. “To see if she can find out what’s wrong.”

  Joanna sat down on the chair next to Jenny’s. “That was Butch on the phone,” she said. “He’s back at the house. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

  Jenny nodded. “Okay.”

  Since Jenny wasn’t crying, Joanna didn’t either. Instead, she thought about how many years the long-legged bluetick had been part of their lives. Jenny was barely a year old when Andy brought the gangly, ill-mannered six-month-old puppy home from work. Another deputy had bought it for his son but had subsequently discovered that both his wife and son were allergic to dogs. Or perhaps just to that particularly energetic and rambunctious dog. He had been on his way to drop Sadie off at the pound when Andy had intervened.

  Initially, Joanna had voiced the same kinds of objections to Sadie that she would attempt to use years later when Jenny wanted Kiddo. They didn’t need a dog. Dogs were too much trouble, too much work. But Andy had insisted, and Jenny had been ecstatic. “Mama” or “Dada” may be the first words most children speak, but for Jennifer Ann Brady, it was “’Adie.” It would be another two years before she’d be able to get her little tongue around that initial S.

  And if Jenny was crazy about the dog, the feeling was mutual. The two were inseparable. Joanna could recall few family snapshots of Jenny that didn’t have Sadie lurking, lop-eared and panting, in one corner or another. Only in more recent ones had Sadie been joined by Tigger’s clownish presence.

  Fifteen minutes after his phone call, Butch drove up and parked beside the Eagle. When he entered the waiting room, a buzzer in the back of the office announced the newcomer’s arrival. The sound of the buzzer reminded Joanna of the jangling bell over the door of the Castle Rock Gallery. Determinedly, she shut the thought away. Now was not the time.

  Butch took the chair on Jenny’s far side. “What’s happening, Tiger?” he asked.

  Jenny looked at him for a long minute before she answered. Then her long-lashed blue eyes filled with tears and she threw herself into Butch’s arms. “It’s Sadie,” she croaked. “She’s sick. I think she’s going to die.”

  Butch held her and stroked her hair. “There, there,” he said, while his eyes sought Joanna’s over the weeping child’s head.

  Joanna bit her lip, nodded in confirmation, and wondered why Jenny had gone to Butch for comfort rather
than to her own mother. The obvious snub hurt Joanna in a way that surprised her.

  “I’m sorry, Jen,” Butch continued, holding her tightly. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Jenny’s desperate sobs subsided finally, but they were all still sitting that same way – with Jenny in Butch’s arms and Joanna off to one side – a few minutes later, when Dr. Ross emerged from the backroom. “Joanna, if you’d like to come with me and…”

  Seeing the grim expression on the vet’s face, Joanna knew it was bad news. By taking Joanna aside, Millicent Ross hoped to spare Jenny further heartache. But in this instance, Joanna decided, Jennifer Ann Brady had earned the right to be treated as a grown-up.

  “Sadie is Jenny’s dog,” Joanna said, shaking her head. “Whatever’s going on – whatever has to be decided – we’ll all hear about it together.”

  Millicent sighed and nodded. “Very well,” she said. She eased her stocky frame into another of the waiting-room chairs. “I’ve looked at the X rays. Sadie has a large tumor on one of her lungs and a smaller one on the other. The larger one is affecting her heart.”

  “Tumors?” Jenny asked. “How can that be? She hasn’t been sick or anything.”

  “It’s like that with animals sometimes,” Millicent Ross explained gently. “Tumors come on swiftly. A few months ago, when Sadie was here because of that poisoning incident, there was no sign of a tumor. Now there are two. Her lungs are filling up with fluid. That’s why she’s having such difficulty breathing.”

  Jenny’s lower lip trembled. “What can you do?”