by J. A. Jance
“Why?” Joanna asked. “I’m a student here. I know the campus is pretty well shut down for the holiday weekend. All I wanted to do was show the place to my daughter.”
The other woman was wearing a name tag of some kind fastened to her lapel. Only then did the distance between them close enough that Joanna could read what was printed there. DETECTIVE CAROL STRONG, CITY OF PEORIA POLICE DEPARTMENT.
A chill that had nothing to do with the weather passed through Joanna’s body. “What’s wrong?” Joanna asked. “Has something happened?”
“A woman was hurt earlier this morning in an automobile accident,” Carol Strong answered. “She was hit by a car.”
“Leann?” Joanna asked, feeling almost sick to her stomach. “Leann Jessup?”
Carol Strong frowned. “Do you know her well?”
“We’re friends,” Joanna began raggedly. “At least we’re starting to be friends. She was supposed to come to the Hohokam this afternoon to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Is she all right?”
“At the moment she’s still alive,” Carol answered. “She’s been airlifted to St. Joseph’s Hospital and admitted to the Barrow Neurological Institute. She should be out of surgery by now.”
As if not wanting to hear any more, Jenny slipped her hand out of Joanna’s and walked away. She stood on the grassy patch in the middle of the jogging track, watching a long freight train head south along the railroad tracks. Shaking her head, Joanna stumbled over to the edge of the breezeway and sank down on the cold cement.
“I warned her not to go jogging so late at night,” Joanna said miserably. “I tried to tell her it was dangerous.”
“What’s your name?” Detective Carol Strong asked, sitting down on the sidewalk’s edge close to Joanna but without crowding her.
“Joanna Brady. I’m the newly elected sheriff down in Cochise County.”
“And you’re a student here?”
Joanna nodded, giving the detective a sidelong glance. “Leann and I are here attending the APOA basic training course. Classes for this session started last Monday.”
Carol Strong seemed to consider that statement for a moment. “And you’re also staying in the dorm?”
“My room’s just beyond Leann’s, between hers and the student lounge.”
A slight, involuntary twitch crossed Carol Strong’s jawline before she spoke again. “I see,” she said. “I suppose that figures.”
Then, after a pause and a brief look in Jenny’s direction, she added, “Is there anyone over at the hotel right now who could look after your little girl for a while?” she asked. “If so, I’ll be happy to give you a lift long enough to drop her off. Then we can go by my office to talk. I’m going to need some information from you. The sooner, the better.”
“Jenny’s grandparents are there, but I don’t understand why ... “
“Sheriff Brady,” Detective Strong began, and her voice was grave. “It’s only fair for you to know that we’re not investigating a simple traffic accident. Your friend Leann wasn’t injured while she was out jogging. She was hit by a car after falling of a moving pickup. She was naked at the time. Both hands were tied behind her back with a pair of pantyhose.”
That shocking news washed over Joanna with the same wintry impact as if she’d been splashed with a bucketful of ice-cold water. “You’re saying it’s attempted murder then?”
“At least.”
As the last train car rumbled past, Jenny turned back and waved at her mother. There was something trusting and wistful and heart-breaking in that wave, something that brought Joanna Brady face-to-face with her responsibilities, not only to her child, but also to her newfound friend.
She stood up. “Come on, Jenny,” she called. “We have to go now.”
Jenny came trotting toward them. “So I can go swimming?” she asked.
Joanna nodded. “Most likely, and so I can go to work.”
“But it’s Thanksgiving,” Jenny objected. “You never work on Thanksgiving.”
“I do today,” Joanna said.
But the plan to leave Jenny at the hotel with her grandparents fell apart back at the hotel, where Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady were nowhere to be found. “You’ll have to come with me, then,” Joanna told her disappointed daughter.
“Couldn’t I just stay here by myself? I promise, I won’t go swimming until they get back, and I won’t get into any trouble. I could watch my tapes on the VCR and—”
“Why not bring the tapes along?” Carol Strong suggested. “There’s a VCR in the training room. You can watch a movie in there while your mother and I talk in my office. It’ll make it easier for her concentrate.”
“Should I go up to the room and get one?” Jenny asked.
Joanna nodded. As Jenny skipped off toward the elevator, Joanna shot Carol Strong a wan smile. “It won’t just make it easier for me to concentrate,” she corrected. “It’ll make it possible.”
They left the hotel minutes later and followed Carol Strong to her office. The Peoria Police Department was located in a modern, well-landscaped complex that included several buildings that seemed to have grown up out of recently harvested cotton fields.
“Why’s that statue giving God the finger?” Jenny asked, as Joanna guided the Blazer into the parking lot. Turning to look, Joanna almost creamed lumbering VW bus that was the only other vehicle in the city parking lot that holiday morning.
“What are you talking about?” Joanna demanded.
Looking where Jenny was pointing, Joanna saw a towering piece of metal artwork—a male nude figure with upraised arm fully extended—that dominated a central courtyard and fountain. Viewed from where the Blazer was situated in the parking lot, the statue did indeed appear to be making an obscene gesture.
“I’m sure he’s really reaching for the sky,” Joanna said. “And wherever did you learn about giving somebody the finger?”
“Second grade,” Jenny answered.
Pulling into a parking place, Joanna shook her head, sighed, and turned off the ignition. “Get your tape and come on.”
When Joanna opened her purse to toss the Blazer keys into it, she caught sight of the video Leann Jessup had given her the day before. That carefree exchange in the student lounge and their lighthearted lunch at the Roundhouse afterward seemed to have happened forever ago. Yesterday, Leann Jessup had been a vital young police officer and a dedicated if foolhardy midnight jogger. Today, she was a crime victim, a surgical patient at the Barrow Neurological Institute, fighting for life itself.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Joanna pulled the out of her purse and handed it over to Jenny. “‘This was on the news the other night. You may want to see it. Leann said I was on it. We both were.”
Jenny stopped in mid-stride and looked her mother full in the face. “Do you think your friend is going to be all right?” she asked.
Joanna gave her daughter a rueful smile. “I hope so.” After a pause she added, “You’re a spooky kid sometimes, Jennifer Ann Brady. Every once in a while, it feels like you can read my mind.”
“You do it to me,” Jenny said.
“Do I?”
Jenny nodded. “All the time.”
“Well, I guess it’s all right, then,” Joanna said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Cute kid,” Carol Strong said, leading the way down a long, narrow hallway. They had left Jenny in the Peoria PD training room, happily ensconced in front of the opening credits of E.T.
“Thanks,” Joanna replied.
“Your husband was the deputy who was killed a few months back, wasn’t he?”
Joanna nodded.
Carol turned into a small office cluttered with four desks. On entering, she immediately kicked off her shoes. Shrugging off her tweed blazer, she turned to hang it on a wooden peg behind her chair. Only then did Joanna note both the slight bulge of the soft body armor Carol wore under her cream-colored silk blouse as well as the Glock 19 resting discreetly in i
ts small-of-back holster in the middle of the detective’s slender waist. Joanna had
considered purchasing an SOB holster for herself but had nixed the idea because she thought it would be too uncomfortable. The gun and holster didn’t seem to bother Carol Strong, however. Crossing one shapely leg over the other, she massaged the ball of first one foot and then the other.
“Pardon me,” she said apologetically to Joanna. “In this business somebody my size needs all the help she can get, but these damn shoes are killing my feet.”
For several moments, neither woman said anything while Joanna studied Carol Strong. Her age was difficult to determine. Her skin was generally smooth and clear, although dark circles under her eyes hinted at a world-weariness that went far beyond simple lack of sleep. Here and there a few strands of gray misted through the feathery cloud of black hair that surrounded her face. Her sharply tapered nails were lacquered several layers deep with a brilliant scarlet polish. Everything about the way she looked and dressed seemed to celebrate being female, but there was an underlying toughness about her as well. Joanna sensed that anyone who mistook Carol Strong for just another pretty face was in for a rude awakening.
“Dick Voland told me you had great legs,” Joanna said.
“Who the hell is Dick Voland?” Carol Strong asked in return. “And why was he talking about me.”
“He’s one of my chief deputies,” Joanna explained. “He was the one who helped you when you came down to Paul Spur to pick up Jorge Grijalva. I had planned to come talk to you about that.... “
Carol Strong’s easygoing manner changed abruptly. “About what?” she demanded.
“About Serena and Jorge Grijalva. I know Juanita Grijalva, you see. Jorge’s mother. She asked me to look into things.”
A curtain of wariness dropped over Carol Strong’s face. “And have you?” she asked. “Looked into things, that is?”
There was no sense in being coy about it. “I’ve done some informal nosing around,” Joanna admitted. “I went to see Jorge Monday night down at the Maricopa County Jail. And I picked this up from Butch Dixon, the bartender at the Roundhouse Bar and Grill.”
Taking the yellow pages of Butch’s essay out of her purse, Joanna handed them over to Carol and then waited quietly while the other woman scanned through them. “And?” Carol said finally when she finished reading and pushed the pages back across the desk to Joanna.
“And what?”
“Did you reach any conclusions?”
“Look,” Joanna said. “I’m leaning toward the opinion that Jorge didn’t do it. That’s based on nothing more scientific than intuition, but my conclusions don’t matter one way or the other. I’m not here to hassle you about Jorge. Let’s drop it for the time being. I want to know about Leann Jessup. I assuming I’m here because you think I could be of some help.”
Carol Strong closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, she focused directly on Joanna’s face. “We are discussing Leann Jessup,” she said wearily. “We have been all along.”
“But I ...” Joanna began.
Carol passed a weary hand across her forehead. “You’re a newly elected sheriff, but you’ve never been police officer before, right?”
“Yes, but ...”
“Do you know what holdbacks are?”
“Sure. They’re the minute details about a case that never get released to the media—the things that known only to the detectives and the killer. They’re helpful in gaining convictions, and they also help separate out the fruitcakes who habitually call in to confess to something they didn’t do.”
“Right.” Carol Strong nodded. She leaned forward across the desk, her smoky gray eyes crackling with intensity. “Sheriff Brady, what I’m about to tell you is in the strictest confidence. We had plenty of physical evidence in the Grijalva case. Jorge had a new secondhand truck, one he claimed his wife had never ridden in. But when the crime lab went over it, we found trace evidence that Serena had been in the car, including fibers that appear to match the clothing Serena Grijalva was wearing the last time she was seen alive. We also found dirt particles that tested out to be similar to soil near where Serena’s body was found. The murder weapon was a tire iron. With paint particles and wear marks, we’ve managed to verify that the tire iron that was missing from Jorge’s truck at the time we arrested him was the same one we found at the murder scene. Sounds like a pretty open-and‑shut case, doesn’t it?”
This was the first inkling Joanna had of how extensive the case was against Jorge Grijalva. “I didn’t know about any of that,” Joanna admitted. “Certainly not the physical evidence part of it.”
“No, I don’t suppose you did,” Carol Strong agreed. “And there’s no reason you should. It wasn’t a big-name case, and Joe Blow domestic violence is old hat these days. The public is so inured to it that most of the time it doesn’t merit much play in the media. In this particular case, though, I did keep some holdbacks—one in particular was more to spare the children’s feelings than it was for any other reason.”
Carol Strong paused. “Serena Grijalva was naked when we found her. And she was bound with her own pantyhose, trussed with her arms and legs tied behind her in exactly the same way Leann Jessup was found this morning. I may be wrong, but the knots looked identical.”
The crowded little office was silent for some time after that. “How could that be?” Joanna asked finally. “Jorge Grijalva’s still being held in the county jail, isn’t he?”
Carol nodded. “Actually, it could mean any number of things. One of which is that Jorge had an accomplice. The most obvious possibility, however, is that we’ve arrested the wrong man.”
“But what about all the trace evidence?” Joanna asked. “Where did that come from?”
Detective Strong shrugged. “Either the evidence is real or it isn’t. Either we found it there because Serena was in the truck at some time or else the evidence is phony, and it was planted there to mislead us, to frame Jorge Grijalva—an innocent man—for the murder of his wife.”
“Planted,” Joanna echoed. “Who would plant evidence? How would they know how to go about it?”
“A trained police officer would know,” Carol Strong answered. “Here’s the recipe. You stir in some planted evidence, add in a plausible suspect, and sprinkle it liberally with public-dictated urgency for closing cases in a hurry.” She shrugged. “Add to that an ex-husband who’s willing to cop a plea, and there you go.”
“Jorge is willing to plead because he doesn’t want go to court,” Joanna said quietly.
“If he didn’t kill her, why would he do that?” Carol returned.
“Because he was afraid the prosecution would bring up Serena’s whoring around. He wanted to protect his kids from hearing about it.”
Carol shook her head. “The defense would have brought that up, not the prosecution. It’s a hell of a lot harder to convict someone of killing a known prostitute to than it is to convict them of killing a nun.”
There was a momentary lull in the conversation. “If, as you say, the evidence was planted by a cop, do you have any idea what cop?” Joanna asked. “One of yours?”
“Tell me what you know about Dave Thompson?” Carol said.
“From the APOA?” Joanna winced, aware her question made her sound like some kind of dunce.
Carol nodded. “One and the same.”
Joanna thought for a moment before answering. “He was a cop somewhere around Phoenix.... “
“Chandler,” Carol supplied.
“I heard a rumor that he got into some kind of hot water. That the Chandler city fathers dumped him by putting him on permanent loan to the APOA.”
“That’s pretty much right. I talked to the new chief in Chandler just this morning, right before you showed up on campus. The case against Thompson was a domestic. Never came to trial because Thompson’s ex refused to testify. She simply took the kids and left town. This was back in the good old days when there was still a certain tol
erance for cops who beat up their wives, but there was enough of a stink that they had to get rid of him.”
“You’re saying Dave Thompson did this?”
“Did you ever hear of Tommy Tompkins?” Carol Strong asked.
Joanna nodded her head impatiently. Talking to Carol Strong was like being led through a maze of riddles. “I’ve heard of him,” she said. “Tommy Tompkins International. He’s the ex—TV evangelist who used to own the property the APOA now occupies, isn’t he? I heard he went to prison on some kind of tax evasion charge.”
“Right, but what most people don’t know is that the person who brought Tommy to the attention the IRS was a woman, one of his seminary students who claimed Tommy had broken into her room in the middle of the night and raped her. No charges were ever filed. TTI bought her off for a lot money, and that was what raised all the red flags. Randy revivalists are so prevalent these days that it’s become a cliché. These guys paid off so much so fast, that the IRS auditor figured they must hiding something. Turns out there was a whole lot more to it than just cooking the books, but I didn’t figure some of it out until tonight.”
Joanna waited without comment while Carol Strong drew a long breath. “Did you ever wonder about the mirrored tiles on that one whole side of your room?”
“Not particularly,” Joanna answered. “As part of a decorating scheme, I thought they were odd—a little cold.”
“They’re odd, all right,” Carol said. “What I discovered tonight is that some of them are two-way mirrors. Mirrors on your side, windows on the other. Someone could see in, but you couldn’t see out. If you go into that little private courtyard between Dave Thompson’s apartment and the dormitory, you’ll see what looks like the door to a storage shed of some kind built into the back of the building. It’s not a storage shed at all. There’s a long, narrow passageway back there that runs the whole length of the building and dead-ends on the far side . It’s only about twenty inches wide, so it’s not recommended for claustrophobics. It’s not big on comfort, and the ventilation stinks. But from the number of cigarette butts we found in there, I’d say Dave Thompson or someone else spent a good deal of his off-hours time in there.”