Field of Bones

by J. A. Jance

“I seem to remember she got sideways with a supervisor back in D.C.”

  “That’s correct,” Rochelle answered, “and trust me when I tell you there are a lot of supervisors in the Bureau. The whole joint is top-heavy with them, and shit definitely rolls downhill. Robin got shipped off to Tucson—we like to say ‘remoted’ rather than ‘demoted’—because she crossed a higher-up who happens to be a micromanaging jerk. I made the same mistake with someone else, and that’s why I’m currently stuck on the bottom tier of the profiler totem pole.

  “I didn’t sign up for this job to push paper, Sheriff Brady,” Rochelle continued. “I signed up because I wanted to catch bad guys, and you’re giving me a chance to do just that. I have the skill set, but I’m lacking experience. I really want to work this case, but if I feel like I’m out of my depth, I’ll let you know and you can call in someone else.”

  “That’s more than fair,” Joanna said. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 22

  FINISHED WITH THE PROFILER CALL AND FEELING AS THOUGH she’d accomplished something useful, Joanna sent the needed phone numbers to Rochelle and then sent texts introducing Rochelle Powers to both Dr. Baldwin and Ernie. After that she went back to the immediate task at hand—laundry—taking one load to the sofa for folding, transferring one load to the dryer, and putting one load—the last one for the day—in the washer. How did people keep from going nuts when they were washing, drying, and folding clothes day in and day out? How did Butch keep from going nuts?

  Her phone rang with Sunny Sloan’s name showing in the caller ID. “Sheriff Brady, so sorry to bother you at home.”

  Giving Deputy Sloan’s widow a job in the department might have been regarded as an act of charity by some, but as far as Joanna was concerned, the young woman seemed to be doing an outstanding job. It bothered Joanna to hear Sunny sound so tentative—as though she weren’t quite up to the tasks she’d been given.

  “No problem,” Joanna said. “You’re saving me from folding onesies. What can I do for you?”

  “One of your constituents is out in the lobby, and she’s pretty upset.”

  “When you say ‘constituent,’ I’m assuming you don’t mean in a good way. Did you tell her I’m on maternity leave and she needs to speak to Acting Sheriff Hadlock?”

  “She doesn’t exactly mince words. She said she voted for you, not some blankety-blank doofus named Hadlock. According to her, he’s already screwed her over, and she wants to talk to you directly.”

  “Who is she, and what does she want?”

  “Her name is June Carver,” Sunny answered. “She says that when her son, Jack, came in and spoke to Chief Deputy Hadlock on Friday, Tom assured her that if Jack helped with the investigation, his name would be kept out of it. Today Mrs. Carver says that first thing this morning she found a reporter camped on her doorstep wanting to interview her son about his connection to a multiple homicide.”

  “Crap,” Joanna muttered. “Marliss Shackleford rides again.” After a pause she added, “How angry exactly is June Carver?”

  “Very,” Sunny replied. “Angry enough to show up here cussing a blue streak.”

  And angry enough for Sunny to have taken the precaution of moving out of June’s line of sight before making her call to Joanna. Closing her eyes, Joanna envisioned the interior of that front lobby. Nutcases occasionally turned up at police departments all over the country. If bad things ensued, there was always a chance that the women working there might find themselves on the front lines of some dangerous confrontation.

  In Joanna’s department that meant that the front counter in the public lobby was topped by a wall of bullet-resistant glass. The clerks communicated with visitors through speakers mounted in the glass and slid paperwork back and forth through narrow slots at the bottom of the barrier. That’s where June Carver was right then, most likely pacing back and forth in front of the counter.

  Recalling how easily June Carver had outmaneuvered Tom Hadlock in order to protect her son, Joanna realized that the woman had to be smart. But the real question Joanna asked herself right then had nothing to do with relative intelligence. Was Carver dangerous? Did she pose a viable threat to Joanna’s people?

  “Does she appear to be armed?” Joanna asked.

  Sunny thought about that for a moment before she replied. “Not that I can tell, but since she’s carrying a big purse, she might very well be.”

  It wasn’t the answer Joanna had hoped to hear.

  “Okay, this is what I want you to do,” she suggested. “Go back out front. Turn your phone on speaker and offer it to Mrs. Carver via the pass-through. Tell her that I’m on the line waiting to speak to her. Under no circumstances should you go out into the open lobby. Once she has possession of your phone, direct her into the conference room so she’ll have some privacy, while I see what I can do to straighten this out.”

  “Will do,” Sunny said.

  “And thanks for the way you’ve handled it, Sunny. Good job.”

  As soon as she said the words, Joanna wanted to retract them. It was the same kind of praise parental units heaped on toddlers when they started getting the hang of potty training. Not a smart thing to say to an adult employee, especially one with a young child, without sounding condescending.

  “You handled what could have become a dicey situation in a diplomatic and professional fashion,” Joanna added. “Keep up the great work.”

  As Sunny walked back to the front office, Joanna heard footsteps and the sounds of doors opening and closing. Moments later she heard an exceedingly angry female voice addressing Sunny.

  “So that’s how Sheriff Brady’s department treats one of her voters?” she fumed. “You just turn your back on me and walk away? Where did you go? Was it time for a coffee break? Did you need to go grab a doughnut?”

  “No coffee break, Mrs. Carver,” Sunny replied reasonably. “I was trying to get Sheriff Brady on the phone for you, and here she is. You’re welcome to take my phone into the conference room so you can speak to her. That way you’ll have the benefit of some privacy and the conversation won’t be broadcast to everyone passing through the lobby.”

  “Oh,” June Carver said, sounding somewhat mollified. “All right, then, where’s this conference room?”

  “Back there and to the left,” Sunny directed. “Just go inside and close the door behind you, but please remember to drop off the phone on your way out.”

  Joanna wanted to set the tone for this verbal meeting. It was important to make Marliss the bad guy here and take the focus off the department. Knowing some of June Carver’s history, Joanna came out swinging.

  “Marliss Shackleford is a piece of work,” Joanna announced as soon as June’s voice came on the phone. “Did you clean her clock?”

  Clearly that wasn’t anything close to what June Carver had been expecting.

  “Since you already know it was Marliss, are you the one who told her, then?” June demanded. “It’s bad enough that my son had to see that ghoulish sight yesterday, but to have her show up at my house first thing this morning, demanding to talk to Jack and implying that he maybe had something to do with a—”

  “No,” Joanna interrupted. “I told Marliss nothing. She’s a busybody who’s always poking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. And I want you to know that both Acting Sheriff Hadlock and I are as upset about that article as you are. Once we figure out where the leak is coming from, we have every intention of shutting it down. Having unauthorized information out in public like that can sometimes be the one thing that screws up the prosecution of a case and keeps us from getting a conviction. So tell me, how did Marliss approach you?”

  “Like I said, she showed up on our front porch about the time I was putting breakfast on the table. She rang the doorbell and asked if Jack was home.”

  “So she knew his name.”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She said that she was aware that there were multiple victims out
there, and she wanted to know how Jack was connected to the case. I told her to take a hike, but what if she goes ahead and prints a story with his name in it anyway? You know how people are. Once they start thinking he’s involved in something bad, his life will turn to crap.”

  “Mrs. Carver,” Joanna put in, “we both know that what Jack did after finding that skull was undeniably stupid. He never should have picked it up and brought it home. He should have left it lying right where it was and called in law enforcement, but the truth is, his being stupid is part of what is putting my department on the trail of a serial killer in a timely fashion.”

  Joanna heard a sharp intake of breath on the line. “You said a serial killer?” June murmured.

  “Yes, I did,” Joanna confirmed, “someone who has most likely been operating unseen right here in Cochise County for an extended period of time, so let me be the first to say thank you for your son’s involvement. Stupid or not, I’m very grateful that Jack led my investigators to that crime scene when he did.”

  “Oh,” June said.

  “How old is Jack?”

  “Seventeen, why?”

  “He’s still considered a juvenile. When juveniles are involved in criminal proceedings, most publications—as a matter of courtesy—don’t publish their names in print. When it comes to Marliss Shackleford, courtesy is in as short supply as common sense, but I’ll be happy to have a chat with her, if you like. I’ll let her know that if she so much as mentions your son’s name in connection to this case—if she does so in a fashion that might somehow jeopardize his future—that you are fully prepared to take her to court.”

  “I’d rather punch her lights out.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Joanna agreed, “and that makes two of us, but that would probably be a bad thing for you, for your son, and for my future as sheriff.”

  June actually laughed aloud at that. Hearing the sound, Joanna knew she had successfully defused the situation. For the first time in several minutes, she allowed herself to take a deep breath.

  “So you’ll talk to her, then?” June asked.

  “With pleasure.”

  “Well, all right,” June said. “You do that. And about what I said before? Since we’re moving to Tucson, I won’t be able to vote for you next time around, but I’m glad I did this time.”

  Which meant that June Carver’s vote was one of Joanna’s sixty-seven-vote margin.

  “So am I,” Joanna said. “Thank you for your support.”

  When the call ended, Joanna dialed Marliss’s number—one she just happened to have in her phone. The call went to voice mail. She didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead she dialed the number for Media Relations.

  “Hey,” she said when Ernie answered. “Tom told me that when he left the presser, you were doing a bang-up job.”

  “It seemed to go all right,” Ernie said. “Did you listen to it? Kristin said she was going to send you a copy.”

  “It’s probably in my computer, but I haven’t had any computer time available. Did you talk to Rochelle Powers?”

  “For a minute,” Ernie answered. “She asked about recording tonight’s debriefing. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  “It may not be a good idea,” Joanna said, “but I want that debriefing recorded anyway. I want to be able to hear it, and I want Agent Powers to hear it, too. She’s willing to help us off the books and in a hurry. That means she needs access to everything we have sooner than we could pass along reports.”

  “So you want me to bring in Kristin again?” Ernie asked, sounding less than happy. “It’s all I can do to operate the fax machine. Recording stuff is way outside my wheelhouse.”

  “Call her in,” Joanna ordered. “Everybody else is piling on the overtime. Why shouldn’t she?”

  Chapter 23

  WHEN LATISHA OPENED HER EYES, SHE WASN’T SURE WHAT HAD brought her awake, her aching tooth or her aching toes. The broken tooth hurt all the time now. She had tried pulling it out by yanking on it with her thumb and forefinger, but it wouldn’t budge. In order to pull it, she’d need a tool of some kind—like a pair of pliers—and she didn’t have one of those.

  In this case, though, the real culprit was her toes—her big toes—coming in contact with the blankets. Her toenails hadn’t been trimmed the whole time she’d been here. They were far too long, ingrown, and turned under. If she’d had shoes, she wouldn’t have been able to wear them, and the weight of the blankets on them was absolute agony. Looking for relief, she poked her feet out from under the covers. That helped with the toenail problem, but not for long, because in this unheated basement the cold made her feet hurt, too.

  So what time of year was it? As cold as it was, it had to be sometime in the winter, but when? Was Thanksgiving over and Christmas on its way? It was maddening not to know what day it was, or even what month.

  She lay there alone in the murky darkness that passed for daylight in the dungeon, wondering about the slow progress of time. How long had the Boss been gone? It seemed longer than usual, four or five days at least. There were dueling worries in the back of her mind. One said that he might never return and the other that he would. And if he did come back and brought along someone new, what was the likelihood that he would decide it was time to be in with the new and out with the old? What were the chances that sooner than later Latisha would be sent down the same path as Sandra, Sadie, and Amelia? As if to amplify her worries, from across the room, she heard the telltale click as the compressor in the freezer came on. Needing to keep that sound at bay, she got up and limped as far as the toilet, dragging her chain behind her.

  Overnight the toilet-paper cushion she’d wrapped around the clamp on her ankle had come loose and disappeared. She sat on the toilet and made a new one—a thicker one this time—all the while trying not to think about what would happen if the Boss didn’t come back. Eventually there would be no more toilet paper, no more food, no more electricity, no more water, and no more Latisha.

  And maybe, at long last, that’s what she really wanted. Maybe dying wasn’t such a bad thing compared to wasting away in the darkness with no idea of what was going on outside. Maybe she should just stop forcing herself to eat the dog food, lie down on her mattress, and wait to die. At least then it would be over.

  Then, above the steady humming of the freezer, she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. She knew the sound of the Boss’s pickup all too well—all the girls recognized that one. This was different. Either the Boss had changed vehicles or someone else was approaching.

  Latisha was in the basement, and that would go a long way to muffle any sound she could make, but the brick building upstairs was old and rickety. And so she tried calling for help, but her voice, unused for days on end, refused to cooperate. What she hoped would be a piercing scream emerged as little more than a pitiful squeak. Her cries of “Help, in here! Please help me!” died away unheard, swallowed by the earthen floor of the basement and the rough planks of the ceiling and the floor overhead, along with the bricks on the outside walls.

  The vehicle came, seemed to slow, and then it went away. No car doors opened or closed, indicating that someone had gotten out. There were no accompanying voices. No one pounded on the outside door upstairs, asking for admittance. Within a minute or so, maybe less, she heard the vehicle receding into the background, driving away, and leaving in its wake one sound only—the hum of the freezer.

  Latisha cried for a while after that, shedding silent tears into the rough wool of the blanket that formed her pillow. At last, though, she sat up and reached for her food container. When she shook it, she noticed that it was noticeably lighter than it had been. Even with Amelia’s food added in, it was disappearing faster than it should.

  She ate the kibble one piece at a time, chewing and swallowing and wondering about that strange vehicle. In all the time she’d been here—however long that was—no vehicle other than the Boss’s had ever shown up. If someone had come here today, m
aybe whoever it was would stop by again. If that happened, she needed to make sure that her voice worked well enough so someone standing outside would be able to hear her. Maybe it was time to pray again, asking for a miracle. On this occasion and just for practice, she said the words aloud.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  Chapter 24

  SAGE WAS STILL YOUNG ENOUGH THAT SHE WAS ASLEEP MORE than she was awake. Late in the afternoon, with the bed remade and with the last load of laundry in the dryer, Joanna turned once again to her father’s journals.

  Word is out that Sheriff Garner will decide next week who’s in and who’s out. I’m hoping for in. I haven’t been doing much writing in this of late because I’ve been boning up on criminal justice in case I do manage to make the cut.

  I went down to the bookstore at Cochise College and bought up all the books that are required reading for their criminal-justice program. I’ve been reading them through and making good progress, especially when I’m working night shift, because the house is quiet when I get home. If I do get hired on, I’ll have to spend six weeks at a police-academy facility up in Phoenix, but I figure doing all this reading in advance will give me a head start.

  That’s just the course work. There’s also a marksmanship component. When I work days, I’ve been sneaking out to the rifle range after my shift and doing some serious target practice. I’m still not perfect, but I’m a lot better than I was to begin with.

  The guys at work are razzing me about maybe leaving. They keep putting doughnuts in my lunch pail and telling me that the people who become cops are either former juvenile delinquents or lazy. It turns out that they’ve got me fair and square on both counts, but I’ll never admit it. I’d sure as hell rather ride around in a squad car in a clean uniform—eating doughnuts, thank you very much—than be down in the dark mucking out a stope. If that’s lazy, then color me lazy. As for the other? That’s between me and my Maker and nobody else.