Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  “If she was at the crime scene when her mother was,” Joanna mused, “she might have seen what happened.”

  “Or she might have been involved in what happened.”

  “You’re still thinking Lucy might have had something to do with what happened to Sandra?”

  Frank nodded. “It’s possible,” he said. “According to Catherine Yates, Lucy is desperately unhappy that her mother is getting out of jail. Embarrassed, probably, more than unhappy. It’s like I said the other night. She sneaks up on her mother armed with a gun that she knows how to use. Maybe she goes to the sign for the same reason her mother did—looking for whatever was in that damned Tupperware bowl. Maybe she’s still there when her mother arrives. That could just be a coincidence, or maybe Lucy knew that’s where her mother would go the first moment she had a chance.

  “One way or the other, regardless of what Catherine Yates told us about Lucy refusing to have anything to do with her mother, I think she was wrong. I’m pretty sure Lucy and Sandra did meet up that night.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Remember the necklace Sandra Ridder was wearing when she was found?”

  Joanna nodded. She hadn’t seen the necklace, but she remembered hearing it described by Hal Witter. “The devil’s-claw necklace?”

  “Right. Well, guess what. According to Catherine Yates, that necklace actually belongs to her granddaughter. Lucinda Ridder was wearing it the last time Catherine saw her.”

  Joanna followed that line of reasoning for several long moments. “Maybe the whole thing was set up,” she suggested at last. “Suppose Sandra Ridder contacted her daughter without Catherine Yates’ knowledge and arranged for Lucy to meet her at the Cochise Stronghold in the middle of the night.”

  “Seems far-fetched,” Frank said, “but I suppose it could have happened that way.”

  “And,” Joanna continued, “if Spike and Terry can’t pick up Lucy’s trail after that, it probably means that Lucy left the scene on her bike or in a vehicle of some kind. The first question that comes to mind, then, is whether Lucy Ridder is a suspect or a fellow victim in this case. If she took a ride, was it voluntary or not? Did whoever drove off in the missing Lexus take Lucinda and Big Red and the missing bicycle along with him?”

  “What would a UDA want with Lucinda Ridder and her red-tailed hawk?”

  “Nothing good,” Joanna answered with a slight shiver. “Not every illegal who comes across the line looking for work is a fine upstanding citizen.”

  “No,” Frank agreed, “especially when you take into consideration the fact that Sandra Ridder was shot in cold blood.”

  “Getting back to the necklace,” Joanna said. “Did you take a look at it?”

  Frank nodded. “Doc Winfield showed it to Ernie and me before he returned Sandra’s personal effects to her mother. That’s when Catherine told us the necklace really belonged to Lucy—that Catherine’s mother, Lucy’s great-grandmother—had commissioned it made for Lucy’s tenth birthday. It’s a pretty little thing—two silver prongs that seem to be growing out of a tiny turquoise bead. Beautiful workmanship, and signed, too.”

  “Signed?”

  “Catherine said it was made by a friend of her mother’s—someone who lives over in Gallup, New Mexico. The signature was too small for me to read with the naked eye, but the doc had checked it out under the microscope. Vega is the name of the guy who made it. L. Vega.”

  “Valuable, do you think?” Joanna asked.

  “Maybe,” Frank responded. “Depends on the reputation of whoever made it.”

  “Try to find out,” Joanna said. “I’d like to know more about the artist who made it and also about how much it cost. But more than that, I want to know why it’s still here.”

  Frank wrote himself a reminder. “You mean why didn’t whoever killed Sandra Ridder take the necklace at the same time they took the car?”

  Joanna nodded. “Exactly. It stands to reason they would, if robbery was part of the equation.”

  “What if they only wanted the car?”

  Joanna shook her head. “I’ve never yet met a car thief who wouldn’t steal something else as well if the opportunity presented itself. By the way, what are Jaime and Ernie doing today?”

  Detectives Jaime Carbajal and Ernie Carpenter, the Double Cs, as they were sometimes called, constituted the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department entire Detective Division.

  “Jaime was supposed to sit in on Sandra Ridder’s autopsy this morning, but Doc Winfield had a conflict. So now they’re both heading out to the valley. They’ll most likely stop by and see Catherine Yates again, then they plan on going to Elfrida to interview Lucinda Ridder’s friends and classmates. Jaime thinks that if Lucy had plans, she might have confided them to someone out there at the high school. After that, Jaime will go on up to Tucson. He has an early-afternoon appointment to see Melanie Goodson. He also plans on going out to Old Spanish Trail. He wants to nose around Mrs. Goodson’s neighborhood to see if anyone there saw something out of line. Ernie will be coming back to Bisbee to sit in on the autopsy.”

  Joanna nodded. “Sounds as though that’s all moving forward as well as can be expected.” She pulled her desk calendar over in front of her. “On another front, what’s coming up at the Board of Supervisors meeting this morning?”

  “Routine stuff, as far as I can see,” Frank told her. “Nothing major, as far as the department is concerned.”

  Months earlier, one of the sheriff department’s previous investigations had uncovered a trail of graft and corruption, which had resulted in the abrupt resignation of a member of the board. Since then, Joanna had tried to maintain a low profile at Board of Supervisors meetings. Whenever possible, she sent Frank Montoya in her place.

  “Nothing you can’t handle?”

  “Right.” Frank pursed his lips. “What about the press, Joanna? I’ve already had a couple of calls from reporters this morning. I haven’t returned any of the calls. I’m assuming they’ll be asking questions about Clayton Rhodes, and about Sandra Ridder as well. How do you want me to handle this?”

  “Refer all Clayton Rhodes inquiries to George Winfield’s office. For the time being, his natural-causes ruling dictates our official handling of the case. Sandra Ridder’s next of kin have been notified, so there’s no need to hold back on her identification. For right now, we’ll say that the victim’s unnamed daughter, a juvenile, is missing and is considered a person of interest in the investigation of Sandra Ridder’s death.”

  “What about Reba Singleton’s accusations as well as Dick Voland’s so-called investigation? How do you want those handled—containment?”

  “Trying to squelch them isn’t going to work, Frank,” Joanna answered. “You and I both know that Dick and Marliss Shackleford are an item. She’s not going to miss out on a chance to show me in a bad light, especially if she can do it with the help of insider information. She told me yesterday in church that she’s going to be writing Clayton’s obituary.”

  “Great,” Frank said. “That should give her ample opportunity for a little gratuitous editorializing.”

  Just then Kristin Marsten’s voice came over the intercom. “Sheriff Brady?”

  “What is it?”

  “I know you don’t like to be interrupted during the briefing, but Casey Ledford is on line one. I told her you were busy, but she said this is important. She says she needs to talk to you right away.”

  “Thanks, Kristin. I’ll take the call.”

  A year and a half earlier, a windfall of unexpected money had become available for Joanna’s department to create its own Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Casting about for someone to get the system up and running, Joanna had stumbled on Casey, a young college dropout and a single mother supporting her four-month-old baby by waiting tables at the Copper Queen Hotel.

  With a tiny baby to support, no college degree, and no law-enforcement training, Casey’s application might well have gone nowhere. The good news w
as that her unfinished degree was in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Arizona. She was a capable artist who was also savvy with computers. Joanna reasoned that she’d be able to use her artistic skills for the manual augmentation of prints necessary to make the AFIS scans work. What ultimately carried the day, however, was the fact that Casey Ledford was the only candidate who had applied for the job. In the intervening months, she had become a valued member of Joanna’s team. If anyone remembered that the AFIS tech had no Police Science degree, it no longer mattered enough for people to mention it.

  Joanna punched down the lit and flashing button that indicated line one. “Good morning, Casey. What’s up?”

  “Dick Voland is here and he—”

  “He’s asking for a copy of my fingerprints,” Joanna supplied.

  “That’s right, and I told him—”

  “I want you to give them to him,” Joanna interrupted. “I also want you to give him whatever additional assistance he may deem necessary. If that includes going out to Clayton Rhodes’ place and lifting prints, I want you to do that as well. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts, Casey. This is important. Mr. Voland is to have your full cooperation. Is that clear?”

  “Yes. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Wait, Casey. Before you go, I have a question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have you had a chance to lift any prints off the water jugs Jaime Carbajal brought in from the Cochise Stronghold crime scene on Friday?”

  “I tried,” Casey replied. “But there weren’t any.”

  “Not one? That’s odd.”

  “Yes, I thought so, too. I’ve looked at several sets of those water jugs over the months I’ve been here,” Casey said. “I’ve never seen one with no prints on it before. Since when did UDAs start either wearing gloves or wiping their jugs clean?”

  “They don’t as far as I know,” Joanna said.

  “Right,” Casey said. “It’s something that doesn’t fit. One of the jugs still had some water in it. I’ve taken that down to the lab and asked Ernesto to check on it and see if he can tell where it came from.”

  “Probably from a well in Old Mexico or from somebody’s stock tank somewhere between Pearce and the border.”

  “But how many towns in Mexico chlorinate and fluoridate their water?” Casey asked back.

  “Not many,” Joanna said. And then, seeing where Casey’s line of thought was leading, she added, “Same goes for ranchers and stock tanks between here and the border. Is it possible to get a match on where the water came from?”

  “Maybe,” Casey said. “Ernesto’s making some follow-up phone calls on that right now.”

  “Good work, Casey. Have him call me with his results. In the meantime, give Dick Voland whatever assistance he needs.”

  “Will do,” Casey replied.

  Sitting on the far side of Joanna’s desk, Frank Montoya had followed enough of the conversation to know what was going on. “That Casey Ledford has a good head on her shoulders,” he said. “It’s a shame we have to keep her locked up in the print lab.”

  “Casey likes the print lab,” Joanna reminded him. “She’s good at what she does, and as long as she’s not afraid to think outside the box from time to time, we have the benefit of her smarts in more than one direction.”

  “Sheriff Brady?” Once again Kristin’s disembodied voice came over the intercom. “Is Chief Deputy Montoya still in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you tell him that Marliss Shackleford is out in the public lobby waiting to speak to him?”

  Frank stood up. “Time to go earn my keep,” he said. “Why do you suppose she wants to talk to me?”

  “The last I heard, you were still our Media Relations officer,” Joanna said.

  “Media Relations!” Frank snorted, heading for the door. “For this I ought to qualify for hazardous-duty pay.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The bell on Joanna’s private phone line jangled before the door finished closing behind Frank Montoya. Hoping the caller was Butch and wanting to compose herself and not sound too eager, she let the phone ring twice more before she answered. “Hello.”

  “So how is my partner in crime this morning?” George Winfield asked. “According to Reba Singleton, you and I are schemers of the first water—conflict of interest, collusion. The woman seems to have a whole laundry list of grievances. Is there anything you and I aren’t guilty of?”

  “How’s it going, George?” Joanna said, swallowing her disappointment.

  She felt more than a little guilty about talking to him. Despite his having left two separate messages on Saturday, all of Sunday had passed without Joanna actually speaking to the medical examiner. She had attempted to call him—once each at home and at the office—but when he hadn’t answered after several rings, she hadn’t left messages and she hadn’t attempted to reach him again, either. She might have tried harder, if she had known exactly what to say.

  Sheriff Joanna Brady cringed at the idea that the mere existence of a relationship between the two of them had caused the medical examiner’s professional integrity to be called into question. It made her feel responsible and more than a little embarrassed. She was also cautious. Eleanor Lathrop hadn’t mentioned a word about the situation to Joanna during their ride out to the High Lonesome after the Sunday-afternoon wedding shower. Joanna had taken her mother’s lack of comment to mean that Eleanor Lathrop Winfield was still in the dark about Reba Singleton’s allegations. And, since George hadn’t had nerve enough to broach such a touchy subject with his wife, Joanna thought it wise to follow suit. Still, given the seriousness of the situation, she hardly expected George to be joking around about it.

  “Does Mother know what Reba Singleton is up to?” Joanna asked.

  “Not exactly,” George admitted. “At least not yet. I didn’t want to discuss it with her and get her all wound up until you and I had a chance to talk. However, I just left Madame Singleton in the courthouse lobby in what can best be described as a state of high dudgeon. The way the grapevine works around here, it’s probably only a matter of hours before Ellie hears about it and the you-know-what hits the fan. What’s this about the FBI’s being expected to ride to Reba’s rescue at any moment?”

  “As far as I know,” Joanna told him, “all that’s happened so far is that she’s hired Dick Voland to investigate. His task assignment is to dig up enough evidence of wrongdoing to bring in the Feds.”

  “Dick Voland?” George Winfield asked. “Your ex-chief deputy?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What is he now, a PI?”

  “Right again. He was here at the department just a few minutes ago picking up fingerprints records on me. You see, since I’m the one who found the body, my prints are on Clayton’s ignition key.”

  “Why, that ungrateful son of a bitch!”

  “George,” Joanna interjected. “Dick Voland is only doing the job he was hired to do. And give the man some credit. He did me the common courtesy of stopping by yesterday afternoon to clue me in about what was going on. Giving me that advance warning wasn’t something he had to do. In fact, if Reba Singleton knew about it, I’m sure she’d be pissed as hell. Which reminds me, what was she doing in court?”

  “Seeking a court order to require me to have another autopsy done by an outside medical examiner—with the county paying the tab, of course. She lost. Superior Court Judge Cameron Moore told her to take a hike. Then, once the hearing was over, she demanded that I release her father’s body immediately, along with my results and tissue samples so she can hot-foot it up to Tucson for a second-opinion autopsy which she’ll pay for.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “ ‘No dice, lady. You can’t have it both ways.’ If she wants a second opinion, fine. She’s more than welcome to one. But I’m not sending my results out of town. And I’m not releasing tissue samples, either. That means
Clayton Rhodes’ body stays in my morgue until Ms. Singleton’s second-opinion autopsy is complete. She wanted to know what she’s supposed to do about a funeral. I told her that depends on how soon she can find some circuit-riding ME to come down here to Bisbee to do it. If Reba Singleton wants accountability, I’ll show her accountability. In spades.”

  George Winfield wasn’t joking now. He was hot. Joanna recognized that his earlier attempts at humor had been entirely for her benefit—to make her feel better. Clearly he was as disturbed by Reba’s unfounded allegations as she was. And, far more than his earlier joking, knowing that did make Joanna feel better.