Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  “I’m sorry I got you into all this, George,” she murmured.

  “You?” he demanded. “How did you get me into anything? Did you have any idea you were a beneficiary under Clayton Rhodes’ will?”

  “No.”

  “The man died of a cerebral hemorrhage, Joanna. You didn’t cause that either. You could have turned that ignition key on and off a hundred times, and it wouldn’t have made a speck of difference. There isn’t an ME on the planet who isn’t going to rule on Clayton’s death the same way I did.”

  “It’s still a hassle.”

  “So’s having Dick Voland show up at your office asking for copies of your prints,” George countered. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” she replied without enthusiasm. “We’re trying to get a handle on that case that turned up over by Pearce.”

  “Sandra Ridder?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I had planned to start the autopsy on her first thing this morning, but I ended up having to go to court instead. Thank God Judge Moore doesn’t believe in wasting a man’s time. But now both Detective Carbajal and Detective Carpenter have been called out of town. I won’t be able to start the autopsy until one or the other of them gets back.”

  “That’s fine,” Joanna assured him. “As far as I can see, there’s no big hurry. There’ll be time enough for that later.”

  After she finished talking to George Winfield, Joanna hung up the phone. Then she sat staring at the face of it for several long seconds—wondering if it would ring again and willing Butch to be the first to call. When no call came through, she picked up the next piece of mail in her stack of correspondence—an invitation to attend the annual Arizona Sheriffs’ Conference the last week in May.

  She started to fill out the form. Would she attend? Yes. Would anyone be accompanying her? Yes. What kind of accommodations did she require—single or double? Smoking or nonsmoking? Two double beds, queen, or king? Frustrated, she tossed down her pen and reached for the phone, but when she picked it up to dial Butch’s number, there was no dial tone.

  “Hello?” she demanded into the silent receiver. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Does this mean great minds think along the same lines?” Butch Dixon asked.

  “My phone didn’t even ring.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I dialed and you answered before the ringer had a chance. Who were you calling?”

  Joanna hesitated. “You,” she admitted finally.

  “So can we both say we’re sorry at the same time and get this over with?” he asked. “And will you have a late breakfast or an early lunch with me? And could we do it right now, since my parents just called from El Paso? I’d like to have one last quiet meal for just the two of us before all hell breaks loose.”

  Relief washed over her. “Yes, yes, and yes,” Joanna answered with a laugh. “I’d like that, too.”

  “Good. How soon can you get away?”

  Joanna looked at the stack of correspondence on her desk. She needed to make as much headway on it as she could before the current day’s batch arrived. “Let’s make it eleven at Daisy’s,” she said. “That’ll give me time to finish up what I’m doing. Which reminds me. The reason I was calling you was to ask if you’d like to attend the annual sheriffs’ conference with me.”

  “You mean you weren’t calling to apologize?”

  “I was calling for both reasons,” Joanna said.

  Butch laughed. “In that case, when’s the conference?”

  “The week before Memorial Day. We finish up on Friday. It’s up at Page. We could probably stay gone over that three-day weekend, too.”

  “Just you and me?” he asked.

  “As long as we can find someone to take care of Jenny and the animals.”

  “Sounds good. Only what’ll I do all day while you’re in meetings?”

  Joanna shrugged and glanced back at the form. When that told her nothing, she browsed through the brochure. “It says here that wives—”

  “Wives?” Butch interrupted.

  “It does say ‘wives,’ “ Joanna told him. “Remember, at this point I’m still the only sheriff who’s a woman. They’re probably not used to the idea of sheriffs who show up with husbands in tow.”

  “I’m not used to it yet, either,” Butch said. “Now, what does it say again?”

  “That wives will be offered their choices of several tours, including a bus trip to Canyon de Chelly, visiting a trading post on the Navajo Nation, and possibly doing some antiquing.”

  Butch sighed. “Well,” he said. “That’s a relief, anyway.”

  “What’s a relief?”

  “I was afraid you were going to tell me we’d all be doing makeovers and having our colors done.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” she told him with another laugh. “See you at lunch.”

  When she went back to working on the correspondence, it was with a good deal more energy. She started by filling out the registration form and authorizing the check that needed to go with it. Then she marched through the stack of mail. Would she come speak to the Willcox Kiwanis Club? Would she agree to be marshal of the Tombstone Heldorado Parade? Would she come to Douglas High School to be a part of their career-day program?

  Responding to those requests and putting the various appointments into the calendar, Joanna was well aware that the job of sheriff consisted of far more public relations work than she had ever thought possible. No wonder her father, Sheriff D. H. Lathrop, had been at work so much of the time. It was also no wonder that his wife, Eleanor, had often been in an uproar about it.

  How will Butch react to all those demands on my time? she wondered. He had been understanding enough in the past, but that was when they were just dating. Would his attitude change once he was at home keeping dinner warm for someone who never managed to make meals on time?

  Finished with as much paperwork as she could handle right then, Joanna gathered up the stack of letters in need of envelopes and mailing. When she came out through her office door, her secretary was talking on the telephone. She hung up abruptly once she realized Joanna had stopped in front of her desk. Joanna noticed that Kristin seemed uncharacteristically flustered.

  “Sorry,” Kristin said hurriedly. “I didn’t see you. Did you want something?”

  “I’m going to lunch,” Joanna said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get these all copied, addressed, and mailed. I’ve already put the appointments in my calendar, but you may want to add them to yours as well so you’ll know where I’m supposed to be and when.”

  “All right,” Kristin said. “Any idea when you’ll be back?”

  “Probably no later than twelve-thirty.”

  Joanna started to walk away, then turned back. “How’s Deputy Gregovich this morning?”

  Kristin flushed. “He’s fine,” she stammered.

  Joanna nodded. “Tell him hello for me next time he calls.”

  Out in the parking lot, Joanna stopped for a moment in the bright March sunshine. It wasn’t especially warm, and once again a blustery, chill wind was blowing in out of the west. Up on the hillside behind the department, the only visible clumps of green were either bear grass or scrub oak. At nearly five thousand feet, the mesquite was still nothing but gaunt black trunks and branches. Spring would come to the high desert country eventually, but not quite yet. It was still too soon for the emerald-green mesquite leaves to burst forth in search of sunlight.

  On her way to Daisy’s Café, a place that seemed to be her home away from home these days, Joanna remembered something she had failed to ask Frank Montoya. She reached for her cell phone and caught him just as he was leaving for the Board of Supervisors meeting.

  “Did you tell Terry Gregovich to keep an eye out for Big Red?” Joanna asked.

  “Lucy’s hawk? I think so,” Frank answered. “But maybe not.”

  “Is Terry going back out there to look some more?”

  “I don’t think so. As I told you,
he and Spike worked pretty much all day yesterday. They put in some pretty long hours. My understanding is that he’s taking some comp time off today.”

  “And chewing up my secretary’s workday by calling her on the phone,” Joanna said.

  “Want me to talk to him about that?”

  “No,” Joanna said. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll handle it.”

  Butch was waiting for her on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. “Your mother called after I got off the phone with you,” he said, as Junior Dowdle led them to a booth in the far back corner of the room.

  “What did Eleanor want today?”

  “To know whether or not I had scheduled hair and manicure appointments for you on Saturday morning.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I hadn’t, but I would. And I did. You and Jenny both are due at Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty on Saturday at eleven a.m. Helen Barco will handle the two hairdos. Helen’s daughter-in-law will be on hand for your manicure.” Butch frowned. “By the way, if Helen owns the shop, who’s Helene?”

  Joanna laughed. “When Slim Barco was making the sign for his wife’s new beauty shop, he added the extra e because he thought it would make the place sound classier.”

  “Oh,” Butch said. “I see.”

  “But you didn’t need to make an appointment for me,” Joanna continued. “I’m perfectly capable of doing my own hair.”

  “Tell that to your mother,” Butch replied. “She insisted, and in case you haven’t noticed, Eleanor Lathrop Winfield can be very persuasive.”

  “She’s a bully,” Joanna said. “Did she say anything else?”

  “She wanted to know what’s all this stuff about Clayton Rhodes’ daughter?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing. I’m not dumb enough to get sucked into that kind of deal. I told her that if she wanted information she’d have to go straight to the horse’s mouth—to you.” He grinned.

  Joanna shook her head. “Great. That means I can expect my phone to be ringing the moment I come back from lunch.”

  “Sorry,” Butch said. “But I was afraid if I said anything more than that, I’d probably stick my foot in my mouth.”

  “You’re right. I’m the one who should handle it. She is my mother, after all.”

  “She’s also inviting us over for dinner tonight. You, Jenny, and me, and my folks as well. She wants us all to have a chance to get acquainted.”

  “What did you tell her on that score?”

  “I asked her what time and told her we’d be there.”

  Joanna found herself bridling. She didn’t like having someone else tell her where she’d be going and when, but then she thought better of it. After all, she had told Eleanor that Butch was in charge of wedding logistics. It was time to shut up, take her lumps, and let him do it.

  “What time?” she asked.

  “Six-thirty.”

  Daisy came and took their order. “What’s going on at work today?” Butch asked after Daisy left for the kitchen.

  As Joanna prepared to answer, she worried about restarting the previous night’s quarrel. “Dick Voland came around for those fingerprints.”

  “Did you give them to him?”

  “Casey Ledford did. I told her to.”

  “All right, then,” Butch said. “I suppose you know what’s best.”

  And that was the end of it. They went on to enjoy their lunch. They were done with their burgers and drinking coffee when Joanna’s distinctive cell phone with its roosterlike ring crowed in her purse.

  “Sheriff Brady,” Tica Romero said when Joanna answered. “A call just came in from Tucson. The man first asked to speak to one of the detectives. When I told him neither of them was available, he asked to speak to the sheriff. Do you want me to patch him through?”

  “Please,” Joanna said. “What’s his name?

  “Quick,” Tica said. “Mr. Jay Quick.”

  “And where’s he from, again?”

  “Tucson.”

  “Did he say what this was about?”

  “No,” Tica replied. “Just that it was important, and he wanted to speak directly to someone in authority.”

  “I guess that’s me, then,” Joanna said. “Patch him through.”

  Moments later a male voice came through the phone. “Hello? Sheriff Brady?” he said.

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “This is Sheriff Brady.”

  “Sorry,” he said uncertainly. “I thought I was still talking to the nine-one-one operator. I didn’t expect the sheriff to be a woman.”

  Joanna laughed. “You and a lot of other people, but I really am the sheriff. What’s your name again?”

  “Quick. Jay Quick. I live in Tucson.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Quick?”

  “I just heard a report on the radio about a homicide down in your neck of the woods. The report said the dead woman’s name was Sandra Ridder and that she had recently been released from prison. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Joanna replied. “That’s correct.”

  “And is that the same Sandra Ridder who went to prison several years ago for shooting her husband up here in Tucson?”

  “That’s also correct, Mr. Quick, but why are you asking? Do you know something about this case?”

  He hesitated before he answered. “The report also said that Sandra Ridder’s daughter has disappeared and that she’s a person of interest in her mother’s death. Is that true as well?”

  Joanna found herself sitting up straighter in the booth. Her grip on the telephone tightened, as though, by holding the device more firmly in her fist, she could somehow force Jay Quick to get to the point and tell her why he had called.

  “Yes,” she said smoothly, trying to keep from betraying her rising excitement. “Lucinda Ridder—Sandra Ridder’s fifteen-year-old daughter—has been missing since the night her mother was killed. She is a person of interest in that case. She’s not a viable suspect at this time, although in the course of our investigation, she may turn into one.”

  Now it was Joanna’s turn to pause. She waited for Jay Quick to say something. When he did not, she continued. “Why are you asking these questions, Mr. Quick? Do you know something about the missing girl—something that would help us locate her?”

  “Lucinda Ridder called my house at three o’clock last Saturday morning. She was looking for my mother. I wondered about it, but I didn’t think anything more about it until a few minutes ago, when I heard about Sandra Ridder on the news.”

  “You say Lucy was calling your mother?”

  “Yes. Evelyn Quick, my mother. Years ago she used to be Lucinda Ridder’s ballet teacher at the Lohse Family YMCA here in downtown Tucson. Lucy sounded very upset on the phone, and what I had to say didn’t help. My mother’s dead, you see. She died two—almost three—years ago. When I told Lucy that, she just started sobbing. It broke my heart. I asked her what was wrong and was there anything I could do to help, but she said no, no one could help her now. Do you think it’s possible that she killed her own mother, Sheriff Brady? She sounded desperate on the phone. The poor girl’s been through so much trauma for someone her age. I wonder if she didn’t just snap.”

  “Did you ask where she was? Get a phone number?”

  “I asked, but she wouldn’t tell me. I could hear what sounded like trucks in the background, though. My guess is she was using a pay phone at a truck stop.”

  “Whereabouts are you, Mr. Quick?”

  “At my office. Quick Custom Metals out on Romero Road in Tucson.”

  “Give me your phone number. And your home phone number as well. I’ll try contacting my detectives. If one of them can’t meet with you this afternoon, I will.”

  As Joanna hung up the phone, Butch was looking at his watch. “And where exactly is this Mr. Quick?” he asked.

  “In Tucson, on Romero Road.”

  “And you’re thinking of going up there, seeing him, and still being back in tim
e for dinner at your mother’s?”

  “I’m sure I can make it if I have to.”

  Butch sighed and shook his head. “Good luck,” he said. “But I’m not holding my breath.”

  CHAPTER 13

  It was shortly after noon when Joanna left the restaurant. Her cell phone rang the moment she closed the car door. “I just got lucky,” Frank Montoya said.