Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  “Sounds to me like you’re getting the runaround,” Joanna said.

  “Sounds like it to me, too,” Jaime replied. “I tried asking if maybe she was attending a meeting somewhere, thinking we might be able to catch up with her at lunchtime, wherever she is, but the secretary clammed up on me and said I’d have to talk to her once she returns.”

  “Great,” Joanna sighed. “Now what about the Pima County detectives working the Melanie Goodson case?”

  Ernie Carpenter shrugged. When he frowned, his eyebrows seemed to come together, forming a solid caterpillar of hair across his broad forehead. “What about them? Like I said before, they’re not going to give us the time of day unless a specific order comes down to them from upstairs, preferably one signed in God’s own handwriting.”

  Joanna scribbled Bill Forsythe’s name on the top line of her day’s to-do list. “I’ll get right on it,” she said. “Any information about when the Goodson autopsy will be completed?” she continued.

  “Preliminary results today,” Ernie said, consulting his own notes. “But it’s going to boil down to toxicology reports, so you know that’s going to take time—a week or so, most likely.”

  “Frank, what about you?” Joanna asked. “Do you have anything to add?”

  “Fortunately, our working relationship with the City of Tucson PD is a little less troubled than our dealings are with Pima County,” Frank answered. “Consequently, I did manage to lay hands on a copy of the original case file for the Thomas Ridder shooting.”

  “Complete with ballistics reports?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes,” Frank said. “I think so.”

  “Does it say what size bullet killed him?”

  Montoya opened the thick file and thumbed through several pages before stopping to peruse one in particular. “Here it is,” he said. “Says here he died of a twenty-two-caliber bullet wound. The slug hit him in the heart, killing him instantly.”

  “Was the weapon ever recovered?” Joanna asked.

  Once again Frank consulted the file. “Not that it says here; why?”

  “How soon can we get a ballistics report back from the DPS gun lab on the bullet that killed Sandra Ridder?”

  “Today, probably, if I call up and ask them to rush it. But what’s going on?”

  “What if the murder weapon is what was hidden in Sandra Ridder’s Tupperware bowl all this time?” Joanna asked. “All along I’ve been thinking that Sandra Ridder may have been killed with the gun Lucy lifted from her grandmother’s place. But what if that isn’t the case? What if she was killed with the same gun she used to shoot her husband years ago?”

  “I’ll call up to Tucson and check as soon as we finish up with this meeting.”

  “Would a twenty-two fit in that Tupperware container?” Jaime Carbajal asked.

  “Sure,” Frank said. “One of those little featherweights would fit in a minute.”

  Joanna turned to her detectives. “Ernie, what are you and Jaime doing today?”

  “Paper, mostly. Then, if you can clear us to talk to those Pima County guys, I’d like to be able to shadow their investigation as closely as possible. Sandra Ridder’s funeral is scheduled for this afternoon at two over in Pearce. I don’t see any reason for both of us to go, so Jaime’s going to handle that.”

  Joanna looked at the younger detective. “And here’s something else you can take care of at the same time. I’ve gone through all the Tom Ridder material Frank gave me yesterday. Nowhere does it refer to Melanie Goodson as being Sandra Ridder’s court-appointed attorney.”

  “Somebody paid the bill,” Jaime said at once.

  “Right,” Joanna returned. “Since you’ll be at the funeral, maybe you can ask Catherine Yates if she’s the one who paid Melanie Goodson’s fee. If it was somebody other than Sandra’s mother, let’s find out who that person was.”

  “Will do,” Jaime said.

  Joanna directed her next request to Detective Carpenter. “Ernie, you’re the one with contacts out at Fort Huachuca. I want to know more about Thomas Ridder’s dismissal from the army. He evidently punched out a superior officer, but that officer is never once mentioned by name. I want to know who he was and what the beef was all about.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”

  “Yes, there is one more thing. As you know, I’ll be gone all next week. I’m going to expect you to give Chief Deputy Montoya here your utmost cooperation. With any kind of luck, things will stay pretty quiet, but we all remember what happened last summer as soon as Doc Winfield left town on his honeymoon.”

  “We’ll keep things under control, Sheriff Brady,” Ernie Carpenter assured her, standing up. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  The two detectives were almost to the door when Joanna called Jaime Carbajal back. “What happened at Pepe’s game last night?” she asked.

  A wide grin suffused her young detective’s face. “I made it to the field in time for the last two innings, including Pepe’s third home run of the season.”

  “And Delcia didn’t kill you?”

  “Not yet,” Jaime answered, “but there’s another game tonight.”

  “Get out of here,” Joanna said.

  Once the two detectives were gone, Joanna and her chief deputy turned their attention to the stack of incident reports. Forty-five minutes later, Joanna was back in her office and dialing Sheriff Bill Forsythe’s number up in Pima County.

  “What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?” he asked.

  “We have a murder down here in Cochise County with possible links to one of yours—the Melanie Goodson death out on South Old Spanish Trail.”

  “What kind of links?”

  “One of Melanie Goodson’s neighbors saw her driving her Lexus with another woman in the vehicle. Two hours later, our homicide victim was spotted with that same Lexus near a campground in the Dragoon Mountains down here in Cochise County. The next morning, Melanie Goodson called your office and reported the Lexus stolen, even though she herself was the last person seen driving it.” Joanna paused for breath. “It seems to me that, based on all that, there should be enough connections to justify the sharing of information.”

  “That remains to be seen.” Bill Forsythe replied. “I take it the officers in question are the same ones who were making nuisances of themselves out at our crime scene yesterday afternoon?”

  “My detectives were doing their jobs,” Joanna answered evenly. “They were asking questions. They had an early-afternoon appointment to speak with Melanie Goodson at her office. When she stood them up, it was for the very good reason that she was dead. Wouldn’t you find that a coincidence worthy of asking questions, one of which has to be: ‘Who didn’t want Melanie talking to my investigators?’ “

  “Give me the name of the neighbor who talked to your guys,” Forsythe said. “The one who claimed to have seen Melanie Goodson driving her car. Once my dicks talk to him or her, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “What you’re saying is, none of your ‘dicks,’ as you call them, have yet spoken to Melanie Goodson’s neighbors.”

  “We’re still very early in the investigation—”

  “Can it, Sheriff Forsythe. You want your department to piggyback on my detectives’ work and then you may or may not decide to share information with us. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  “Sheriff Brady, you don’t have to get hysterical about it.”

  Hysterical? The word buzzed in Joanna’s ear like an angry wasp.

  Her voice dropped to the bare whisper that people who knew Joanna Brady well also knew as a warning to duck for cover. “Believe me, Sheriff Forsythe,” she told him icily, “I’m a long way from hysterical. I am pointing out, however, that our two departments have a long-standing mutual-aid agreement—one that predates your election, and mine as well. I expect both of our departments to live up to the terms of that agreement.”

 
“Right,” Sheriff Bill Forsythe responded. “When pigs fly!” With that he slammed the receiver down in her ear.

  A stunned Joanna Brady was still sitting with the phone in her hand when Kristin came into her office moments later carrying that day’s stack of mail.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were still on the phone.”

  “I’m not. That rotten SOB hung up on me. He had the gall to say I was hysterical. Do you believe it?”

  “Well,” said Kristin guardedly, “you do look a tiny bit upset—”

  “Upset?” Joanna repeated, as flame rose in her cheeks. “I’ll say I’m upset! First I’m going to solve these two damned cases—his and mine both—with no help from him or from those arrogant jerks he mistakenly calls detectives. And then, after that—”

  Joanna paused in mid-sentence while a faraway look crossed her face and a slight smile curved her lips.

  “What now?” Kristin asked. “What’s so funny?”

  “This,” Joanna replied. “When Butch and I go to that Arizona Sheriffs’ Conference meeting in Page the last week in May, maybe I can lure Sheriff Bill Forsythe into a late-night poker game and whip his ass.”

  “You can do that?” Kristin stared at Joanna in wide-eyed amazement. “I didn’t know you knew how to play poker.”

  “Neither does Sheriff Bill Forsythe,” Joanna said grimly. “But with any kind of luck, the man’s sure as hell going to find out.”

  An hour later, at lunch with Butch, Joanna told him about the personality clash with her neighboring sheriff. “So basically, you’re mad because you regard yourself as a woman scorned,” Butch philosophized. “Professionally scorned, but scorned nonetheless.”

  “Forsythe wouldn’t have talked to me that way if I were a man,” Joanna declared. “Men get mad; women get hysterical. Men are aggressive; women are pushy.”

  “Isn’t there a chance you’re being overly sensitive about this?”

  Joanna thought about it. “Maybe,” she finally admitted reluctantly, “but what do you suggest I do?”

  Butch shrugged. “Seems to me like you already have a handle on that.” He grinned back at her. “Solve the two murders and then whip Forsythe’s ass at poker. What could be better than that?”

  “Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Joanna was back from lunch and hard at work early that afternoon when Frank popped his head in her office. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “Nothing much.” Frank shut the door and came on into the office, settling into one of the chairs. “I faxed what information we had on the Tom Ridder murder weapon to the Department of Public Safety firearms expert at the lab up in Tucson. I just now got off the phone with the guy.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That it’s possible to get a match, but he won’t be able to tell for sure unless he can put both bullets under the microscope.”

  “What are the chances of that happening?” Joanna asked.

  Frank Montoya shrugged. “That depends on whether or not Tucson PD kept a bullet from that long ago. And, if the bullet does exist, stashed away in their evidence room, it further depends on whether or not anyone can lay hands on it for us in a timely fashion. I have someone up there looking for it, but she wasn’t very encouraging. She said she’d get back to me, but she wanted to know if I understood that working on a closed ten-year-old case takes a backseat to working on something current. I tried convincing her that ours is a current case, but I don’t know how successful I was. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  He paused before continuing. “How’d you do with Bill Forsythe?” he added.

  Joanna shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

  “That good,” Frank mused.

  “He wanted us to give him whatever we had, including the name and address of that neighbor of Melanie Goodson’s, the one Jaime and Ernie talked to yesterday afternoon. Once we tell him everything we know, Forsythe will decide whether or not in his opinion we’re worthy of having his department’s cooperation.”

  “That’s certainly big of him.”

  “Right,” Joanna said. “That’s what I thought. I guess we’ll have to do this without him.”

  Just then Joanna’s intercom buzzed. “Sheriff Brady,” Kristin said. “There’s someone out here to see you. Her name is Sister Celeste. I know she doesn’t have an appointment, but she says she’s driven down from Tucson to see you.”

  Joanna took her finger away from the intercom, muting her side of the conversation. “What do you think?” Joanna asked Frank.

  “Is this the disappearing nun the Double Cs have been trying to make an appointment with for at least two days?” Frank asked.

  Joanna nodded. “She’s the one.”

  “How about if I scoot out the back door,” Frank suggested, nodding toward Joanna’s private entrance. “That way you can see her alone.”

  “That’s not necessary, Frank,” Joanna said. “Stay. We’ll hear what she has to say together.”

  Seconds later, Kristin opened the door and ushered a tall, spare, horse-faced woman into the room. Wearing jeans, sweatshirt, and hiking boots, the woman looked as though she might have been an extremely physically fit phys-ed teacher in her late fifties or early sixties. She held out a strong, lean-fingered hand and shook Joanna’s, pumping it forcefully.

  “Sheriff Brady,” she announced. “As your secretary told you, I’m Sister Celeste. I’m afraid I was a bit abrupt with you on the phone the other day, and I apologize. I was on my way into a faculty meeting that afternoon, and I didn’t want to be late. But the truth is, in addition to being late, I also didn’t want to speak to you right then.”

  “This is Frank Montoya, my chief deputy,” Joanna said, motioning toward the chairs. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  Sister Celeste smiled. “I suppose when you heard a nun was outside, you expected someone in a habit. I do wear mine at work during the school week, but now that habits are optional, the rest of the nuns at Santa Theresa’s and I have taken to having dress-down days occasionally. Sort of like casual-dress Fridays in the rest of the world. And the truth is, there are times when jeans and sweatshirts make a lot more sense.”

  “Yes, there are,” Joanna agreed.

  Sister Celeste appeared to be on edge about something, and Joanna was content to let her babble on about the weather and what a nice drive she had had without further interruption. Finally, pausing in the middle of her verbal torrent, the nun took a deep breath. “I suppose you’d like me to tell you why I’m here,” she said.

  Joanna nodded. “That would be helpful. I’m assuming it has something to do with Lucy Ridder’s Saturday-morning phone call.”

  “Yes,” Sister Celeste admitted. “Lucy did call me that morning.”

  “And you spoke to her for some time,” Joanna prompted.

  “That, too. About fifteen minutes or so, I’d say. She was very upset.”

  Perhaps she had just shot her mother, Joanna thought. “Where is Lucy now?” she asked.

  “I know, but I can’t say,” Sister Celeste returned. “Or rather, I won’t say. There’s a difference.”

  Joanna’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, there certainly is a difference. Sister Celeste, I must tell you that Lucy Ridder is wanted for questioning in regard to the death of her mother, Sandra Ridder. Are you aware that interfering with a homicide investigation and harboring a criminal are both serious felony offenses?”

  Sister Celeste leaned back in her chair. “I am aware of that,” she said. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  “Why?”

  Sister Celeste merely shrugged and said nothing.

  “If you can’t or won’t say, why are you here?” Joanna demanded.

  Sister Celeste leaned down and opened the large, satchel-like purse she had placed on the floor next to her chair. Rummaging through it, she pulled out a three-and-a-quarter-inch computer floppy disk. “I came to gi
ve you this,” she said, handing the small blue diskette over to Joanna. “I’m hoping it will provide all of us with some much-needed answers.”

  “What’s on it?” Joanna asked.

  “I have no idea. According to Lucy, this is the reason her mother died. I tried looking at it myself on my computer at school, but it didn’t work. I can see there are files. In fact, I tried using my disk utilities program on the thing. It told me that the disk is full, but I wasn’t able to open any of the files, and I wasn’t able to view them, either.”