Field of Bones

by J. A. Jance

  “She’s planning on driving down tomorrow, but in order to be of any help she needs to be in on the ground floor of the investigation—including tonight’s briefing.”

  “We could Skype it to her,” Deb suggested.

  “We could, but we can’t,” Joanna replied. “She’s staying at the Grand Canyon, and their Wi-Fi system is crap.”

  “Kristin is in the process of setting up a video recording. . . .”

  “No,” Joanna said. “A video file will be huge. How about we do it the easy way in audio only?” She held up her cell phone. “Jenny does this all the time. She records stories on her phone and then sends the files to me so Denny can listen to them before he goes to sleep.”

  “How about we do both?” Deb replied. “We’ll make a recording on your phone to send, but we’ll also have a video record for us to consult later as needed.”

  “Fair enough,” Joanna said. “As soon as the briefing starts, I’ll press Record. When it’s over, I grab the file and hit Send. Rochelle probably won’t be able to listen to it until she has a better Wi-Fi connection, but she should be able to download and listen to it before she gets here tomorrow night.”

  Tom Hadlock joined them. “Before who gets here?” he asked. “And what are we talking about?”

  “We’re going to do a recording of the briefing so we can send it to Rochelle Powers and she can listen to it before tomorrow night.”

  “Who the hell is Rochelle Powers?” he demanded.

  “Our FBI profiler.”

  Tom turned on Joanna with a look of sheer wonderment in his eyes. “You got us one of those, too?” he asked.

  Joanna nodded.

  “You’re a real miracle worker!” he exclaimed. “And now since almost everyone is here, how about we get started?”

  When the briefing began, Tom opened the show. “We’re happy to have Sheriff Brady and Baby Sage with us tonight. Sheriff Brady has been working behind the scenes and has managed to put us in touch with the cadaver-dog people as well as an FBI profiler named Rochelle Powers who’s willing to work with us. In order to keep Agent Powers apprised of our progress in the investigation, we’ll be recording tonight’s briefing and sending the file along to her. Anybody have a problem with that?”

  No one did, so Joanna brought out her phone, turned it on, set it to record, and placed it on the table for all to see.

  “All right, then,” Tom said. “Since Detective Howell is the lead investigator on this case, I’m turning things over to her.”

  While Deb stepped to the head of the table, three latecomers arrived: Dr. Baldwin and Joanna’s CSI team. They paused long enough to help themselves to pizza before joining Joanna and Sage at the back of the room.

  Noting their arrival, Deb nodded in the M.E.’s direction. “Since Dr. Baldwin has succeeded in identifying one of our homicide victims, how about if we start with her?”

  Kendra put down her plate of untouched pizza and joined Deb in the front of the room. Everyone listened in silence while she related her findings—including the young victim’s name and age; the fact that she was severely malnourished; the presence of those very disturbing stomach contents; the mangled bones in the victim’s hands; the interior bruising on her tibia, just above her ankle, that was indicative of long-term confinement in some kind of restraints; indications of a recent sexual assault; and finally the grim likelihood that the victim had been confined in a freezer at the time of her death.

  “Since we didn’t find a working freezer anywhere near that field,” Tom Hadlock observed when she finished, “that means we’re not even close to finding the actual crime scene.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s all too true,” the M.E. agreed.

  “Any way to establish a time of death?” Ernie Carpenter asked. He might have been sidetracked into Media Relations right now, but the man was still a homicide cop at heart.

  “Because the body was partially frozen, it’s difficult to establish an exact time of death. However, insect larvae found on the body indicate that she’d been left out in the open for a period of several days. I’d say she was dumped on Wednesday of last week at the latest. Since there are indications that her tissues weren’t completely frozen through, I’d say that puts her time of death at sometime on Tuesday of last week.”

  Kendra paused for a moment before continuing. “The cadaver dogs will resume their search tomorrow. As far as the skeletal remains are concerned, we’ve determined that we have three separate victims, one male and two female. The male, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, would have been in his late sixties or early seventies, with a medical history of rheumatoid arthritis. The skulls of the two females both showed evidence of blunt-force trauma.”

  “What about DNA?” Ernie asked.

  “There may be some good news there,” Dr. Baldwin said. “The technology keeps moving forward, and there’s a new DNA-extraction kit that can be used on skeletal remains. It’s expensive, and I haven’t used that technique before, but given the severity of this case, I believe the added expenditure is warranted. I’ve ordered the kits, and they’re due to arrive at my office via FedEx tomorrow. Questions?”

  There were none, so Kendra returned to her seat.

  Deb consulted her notes. “As far as the canvassing is concerned, our people have covered a lot of ground, but I’ve been checking reports as they filter in from the field, and so far we’ve come up empty. Nobody has reported seeing anything out of the ordinary.”

  Just then the door opened and Jaime Carbajal entered the room carrying a sheaf of papers. “The CDLs?” Deb asked.

  Nodding, he took a seat.

  “How many?” Deb asked.

  “Five hundred forty-eight,” he replied, “all of them registered to people residing in Cochise County.”

  “Wait, why are we looking at people with commercial driver’s licenses?” Ernie asked.

  “Because Agent Powers, the FBI profiler who’s working with us, has suggested that our perpetrator might be a long-haul trucker, using his vehicle to transport his victims. Now that Dr. Baldwin has narrowed down the time of death, tomorrow we need to start talking to all these individuals and find out where they were on Tuesday of last week. It’ll be another big needle-in-a-haystack job, but we should be able to verify their whereabouts using their logbooks and company GPS records. We’ll put you in charge of that, Jaime, and if you need help, grab a deputy or two off patrol.”

  “Will do,” Jaime told her, “starting first thing in the morning.”

  As nods of agreement went around the table, Joanna felt the attendees’ sudden shift in mood. Coming into the briefing, everyone had been tired and dispirited. Now that the M.E. had established a time of death and Rochelle Powers had given them what seemed like a concrete lead to pursue, people were invigorated again. They had a renewed sense of purpose. Joanna suspected that some of them might even decide to go back to work when the briefing ended.

  “Anyone else?” Deb asked.

  Casey Ledford rose to her feet. “I’ve got something,” she said, “and it may give us another break. Two loaded trash bags were discovered in close proximity to Amelia Salazar’s body. When Dave brought them back to the lab, we found they contained packages of discarded food items—long out-of-date meat and vegetables. Unbelievably, the labeling on several of the meat packages was still faintly legible. It turns out they came from the Safeway store in Douglas.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joanna objected. “Didn’t that store shut down years ago?”

  “Yes, it did,” Casey said, “in 2011.”

  “Sounds like someone finally got around to cleaning out their fridge,” Tom put in. “Come to think of it, there might be stuff that old in mine.”

  “More likely a freezer than a fridge,” Casey corrected. “I think the killer chucked the food out of a freezer in order to cram Amelia inside. What’s good news for us is that when he was dealing with the food, he must have been in a hell of a hurry, because he didn’t bother using
gloves.”

  “You’ve got fingerprints, then?” Deb asked.

  “Lots of them,” Casey answered. “I lifted them from the outsides of the garbage bags and from the food packages themselves. I ran the prints through AFIS and didn’t get a hit, but I’m hoping there’ll be enough cast-off DNA to get a profile. In other words, once we identify a suspect, we’ll for sure be able to place him at the scene of the crime.”

  “At the scene of the dump site,” Deb specified. “Unfortunately, as Chief Deputy Hadlock pointed out, we have yet to locate the actual crime scene. Anyone else?” When no one responded, Deb turned to Joanna. “Sheriff Brady,” she said, “I believe you’re next.”

  Joanna, listening to the briefing, had been feeling more and more ill at ease. These people were all professional law-enforcement types, discussing the nitty-gritty of terrible crimes in gruesome detail. Was it fair to bring Amelia Salazar’s grieving aunt into this conversation? Rosa Moreno had expressed her willingness to speak with the investigators, but now Joanna had her doubts.

  Leaving Sage and her infant seat in the corner, Joanna took her place at the front of the room, where, to her surprise, she was greeted with a round of enthusiastic applause. That was gratifying. It was good to be here in the department, even if it happened to be for all the wrong reasons.

  “Thank you,” she said. “This afternoon Acting Sheriff Hadlock was out of communication range when Dr. Baldwin identified our victim. With Tom unavailable, she asked me to do the next-of-kin notification. I spoke to Amelia’s aunt, Rosa Moreno, in El Paso, Texas, and she expressed a willingness to speak to the investigators working her niece’s case. I told her you were gathering here tonight and asked if it would be okay if I gave her a call. Since my phone is doing the recording, I’ll need someone else’s to place the call.”

  Deb handed over her phone. Joanna keyed in the number and then switched the phone to speaker and full volume. Rosa Moreno answered after only one ring.

  “Hello,” she said warily.

  “It’s Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said.

  “Thank goodness it’s you. I was afraid it might be that reporter again.”

  “A reporter?” Joanna repeated. “What reporter?”

  “I didn’t catch her name.”

  Joanna didn’t have to be told the name, because she was quite sure she already knew which reporter that was.

  “We’re in the briefing I told you about, Ms. Moreno,” Joanna explained through gritted teeth. “Is this a good time to speak to you?”

  “Yes,” Rosa said. “I’ve been waiting for you to call. Once we’ve spoken, my cousin Ricardo and I will be leaving for Juárez to go tell my mother.”

  Even though Amelia’s relatives were just being notified, Marliss Shackleford already had access to confidential information and was using that to nose around, yet another indication that the woman had to have an inside source. Fuming at the thought, Joanna fought to maintain a civil tone with Rosa.

  “This briefing is being recorded on an open line,” Joanna continued. “Is that all right with you, Ms. Moreno? Do you mind if we record what you have to say?”

  “No, I don’t mind at all. I’m happy to do whatever I can to help.”

  Over in the corner of the room, Sage uttered a small, preliminary whimper, one that boded ill for Joanna’s ability to conduct an interview.

  “I’m turning you over to Detective Deb Howell, the lead investigator on your niece’s case. She’ll be the one asking the questions.”

  With that, Joanna handed the phone back to Deb. She raced back to her chair, grabbed up Sage’s infant seat and the diaper bag, and fled the room. She managed to escape into the hallway before the whimper morphed into a full-throated screech.

  Retreating to the privacy of her office, Joanna sat at her desk nursing Sage and fuming about Marliss Shackleford. By the time Sage was fed, changed, and rewrapped, Joanna was wondering if, on her way home, perhaps she should pay the reporter an unannounced visit.

  Joanna was packing up to return to the break room when Kristin popped her head inside. “There you are,” she said. “The briefing just broke up. I’m on my way home. I came by to bring you your purse, return your phone, and say thank you.”

  “Thanks,” Joanna said, taking the purse and tucking the phone into her pocket. “These days I seem to be having a tough time remembering both the purse and the diaper bag, but what are you thanking me for?”

  “For helping me win two hundred bucks,” Kristin answered.

  “How did I do that?”

  “I won the pool,” Kristin said with a grin. “The one about how long you’d be out on maternity leave. Today was my day, and here you are.”

  Yes, Joanna thought ruefully once Kristin departed, when it comes to flunking maternity leave, I’m nothing if not consistent.

  Chapter 26

  IT WAS AFTER TEN BEFORE JOANNA LEFT THE JUSTICE CENTER with her baby, diaper bag, purse, and phone all safely in hand. She’d been sorry to be out of the room during the last half hour of the briefing, because she’d wanted to hear what Rosa had to say. Still, as she belted Sage’s infant seat into the Enclave, she realized that as long as the audio file was on her phone, she’d be able to listen to whatever she’d missed at the same time she was sending a copy to Rochelle Powers.

  Her initial intention was to go straight home. She was at the exit signaling to turn left and about to do just that when she changed her mind and turned right instead. With Sage once again fast asleep, now was as good a time as any for her to pay an unscheduled visit to Marliss Shackleford. And since Marliss had been up and out early in the morning in order to lay siege to the Carvers’ house down in Douglas, it seemed only fair that somebody should return the favor that very night by keeping her up late.

  Despite the thirty-year age difference between them, Marliss had always been bosom buddies with Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, but she’d never been a friend of Joanna’s—quite the opposite, in fact. Marliss’s column, “Bisbee Buzzings,” often contained snarky comments about Joanna’s department in general and her job performance in particular. It had always bugged Joanna that her mother had stayed close friends with someone who was clearly one of Joanna’s top critics.

  When Dick Voland, one of Joanna’s original chief deputies, left the department, he and Marliss had struck up a whirlwind romance. They’d been married for a while, but that relationship, like Marliss’s first two marriages, had ended in divorce, and Dick had left town shortly thereafter. Joanna supposed that Marliss had probably shared the gory details behind their parting with her good friend Eleanor. If so, mother and daughter had never discussed them, and that was fine. Whatever was going on in Marliss Shackleford’s love life was none of Joanna’s business.

  Marliss had come away from her first divorce with custody of the family home on Wilderness Trail out in San Jose Estates, and she had hung on to it through thick and thin ever since. And that’s where Joanna was headed at ten fifteen on Sunday night, turning onto Highway 92 at the Traffic Circle and driving out through Don Luis.

  Wilderness Trail was the last street on the western edge of the development. As Joanna turned onto it, she was surprised to see a vehicle back out of the driveway at the far end of the street—Marliss’s driveway. It came barreling toward her with its headlights on high beam. Joanna moved over to the shoulder to get out of the way, and that’s where she was when the speeding vehicle, a small white SUV with a crumpled left front bumper, whizzed past. She had seen that vehicle before, parked in the employee lot at the M.E.’s office uptown in Old Bisbee, and she knew it to be a Kia Sportage belonging to one of Dr. Baldwin’s mortuary assistants, Ralph Whetson.

  It didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out why Ralph might be paying a late-evening visit to Marliss Shackleford. The moment Joanna realized who was at the wheel, she was sure she had also identified the person responsible for leaking confidential details of her homicide investigation to the media.

  Ralph wasn’t exactly
the brightest bulb in the pack. He was overweight, not especially good-looking, and at least twenty years Marliss’s junior. Still, in Marliss’s manipulative hands he would be an exceedingly useful idiot. In fact, Joanna thought in a sudden moment of clarity, access to the inner workings of Joanna’s department had probably been a big part of Marliss’s intense but short-lived interest in Dick Voland.

  Joanna pulled into Marliss’s driveway just as the porch light blinked off. With her guest gone, Marliss was most likely intent on locking up and getting ready for bed.

  “Not so fast,” Joanna muttered aloud. “I believe you’ve got some explaining to do.”

  Shutting off the engine, Joanna looked in the backseat to check on Sage, who was sleeping peacefully. “I’m locking up and leaving you here,” Joanna explained. “Believe me, I won’t be long.”

  There’s a distinctive sort of police knock that is designed to intimidate and encourage unsuspecting people to open their closed doors. Joanna had never quite managed to duplicate that knock, at least not with her bare knuckles. To that end she dragged a Maglite out of the glove box and took that along with her, locking the car doors behind her as she exited the SUV.

  “Police!” Joanna announced, hammering on the door with the flashlight. “Open up.”

  “Who are you?” Marliss asked a moment later. “What do you want?” She didn’t open the door, but she was obviously standing on the far side of it.

  “It’s Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “I need to speak to you.”

  “What about? It’s the middle of the night. I’m not dressed. Can’t this wait until morning?”

  “Not dressed, really?” Joanna asked. “And with your gentleman caller just now leaving? Isn’t that interesting! But no, I’m here on police business, and what I have to say can’t wait until morning. Either you can open up, or I’ll stand here yelling it through the door. I’m sure your neighbors will take notice.”

  The porch light flashed back on, a dead bolt turned in the lock, and the door swung open. Marliss, dressed in a robe, her makeup marred and her hair in more than its usual disarray, stood in the doorway with her arms folded across her ample chest.