by J. A. Jance
Joanna shook her head. The last thing she needed right then was to become entangled in yet another debate about whether or not Jenny was being baby-sat. “You be good,” she said. “And help Butch with the animals.”
“All right,” Jenny grumped. “I will.”
And don’t be such a sourpuss about it, Joanna wanted to add, but she didn’t. There wasn’t much point.
In the Blazer, she started the engine. Before she could back out of her parking space, Butch came over and knocked on the driver’s window. Joanna rolled it down.
“Just because the women in my life are feuding doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a good-bye kiss, does it?”
“No,” she returned, smiling and giving him a peck on the cheek.
“Drive carefully,” he added.
“I will,” she said.
Fifty yards from the wash and out of sight of the limo, Joanna spotted the driver, squatting on his haunches and dejectedly smoking a cigarette. When Joanna drove up behind him and rolled down her window, he stood up.
“Still no tow truck?” she asked.
The driver shook his head. “No such luck. According to the dispatcher, it could be more than an hour before they send somebody out.”
“As I said before, I have a winch on this thing,” Joanna said. “I’m sure I could raise you up enough to get your vehicle out.”
“Thanks, but no, thanks,” he returned. “Madame made it quite clear that she didn’t want any help from you. She’s using my cell phone right now to tell the American Automobile Association exactly what she thinks of their service, and that’s all to the good. If she’s yelling at somebody else, at least I’m not the target.”
“Ms. Singleton did strike me as a little prickly,” Joanna said.
“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. Just because she flew into Tucson International on somebody’s private jet, she seems to think the whole world is supposed to bow and scrape before her. I’m hoping that Triple-A tow truck takes a long damned time to show up. As long as the battery in that cell phone doesn’t run out of juice, it’s no skin off my nose. After all, I’m being paid by the hour.”
Joanna put the Blazer back in gear. “I’ll be going then,” she said. Suddenly remembering that she was still in possession of Clayton Rhodes’ skeleton key, she stopped long enough to dig it out of her purse.
“By the way,” she added, handing it over to the driver. “This is the key to Ms. Singleton’s father’s house. Under the circumstances it’s probably better if someone besides me gives it to her.”
The driver nodded. “I’m sure you’re right about that,” he said. “See you,” he added with an offhand wave.
Down by the wash, Joanna followed the trail Butch’s Outback had blazed through the sand in order to detour around the stalled Lincoln. Reba Singleton looked up as the Blazer went past, but she made no acknowledgment, and neither did Joanna.
Out on High Lonesome Road, Joanna settled back to drive. The crime scene was a good half hour away, well beyond the little farming community of Elfrida and outside an even smaller hamlet called Pearce. She was about to call into the department for directions, when Larry Kendrick, her lead dispatcher, beat her to the punch.
“Sheriff Brady?”
“Here, Larry. What’s up?”
“I just had a stolen-vehicle alert come in from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, and I thought I should let you know about it right away.”
“What is it?”
“A woman named Melanie Goodson called in early this morning and reported her Lexus stolen. She thinks the person who took it was a guest in her home last night. The name of this alleged car thief is Sandra Ridder.”
“Ridder?” Joanna said. “Wait a minute; isn’t Ridder the same name as that of the fifteen-year-old runaway Frank Montoya was just telling me about?”
“It is,” Larry replied. “Sandra Ridder is Lucinda Ridder’s mother. She went to prison for manslaughter and has spent the better part of the last eight years as a guest of the state of Arizona in the women’s unit up at Perryville. She got out yesterday. Melanie Goodson was Sandra’s defense attorney on the manslaughter charge, and the two women were on good-enough terms that Melanie drove up to the prison and picked Sandra Ridder up yesterday when they let her out.
“The Goodson woman was going to bring Sandra on down to her mother’s place-to Catherine Yates’ place-today. Instead, when Melanie Goodson woke up this morning, Sandra Ridder and Melanie Goodson’s Lexus were both among the missing. Goodson called in and reported the theft right away. She told the Pima County officer that Sandra was probably headed this way. Unfortunately, vehicle theft is such a low priority up in the Tucson area that no one got around to shipping the report down to us until just now.”
“From what you said, it sounds as though the two women are friends,” Joanna suggested. “In fact, you’d have to be damned good friends for someone to make a two-hundred-mile round trip to pick up someone who’s just been let out of prison. Isn’t it possible Melanie lent her car to Sandra Ridder and doesn’t want to admit it?”
“According to the report in hand, Ms. Goodson was very firm on that,” Larry Kendrick responded. “She says that Sandra Ridder has been out of circulation for nearly eight years. That means she has no insurance and no valid driver’s license.”
“See there?” Joanna asked. “And if anything happens to the car while Sandra Ridder is driving it-if it ends up in some kind of wreck-Melanie Goodson’s insurance will still be valid as long as she claims the car was being driven without her permission at the time of the accident. This also gives us a pretty good idea of how and why Lucinda Ridder disappeared. As soon as Grandma Yates goes to sleep, Sandra Ridder pulls up in the Lexus-stolen or not-and then she and her daughter drive off into the sunset.”
“Do you want me to call this over to Chief Deputy Montoya?”
“No,” Joanna said. “Don’t bother. I’m almost there now. I’ll tell him myself. In the meantime, give me all the pertinent information on that missing Lexus.”
Driving with one hand, Joanna used her other hand to make a series of quick notes on the notepad that was mounted to the Blazer’s dash. By the time she had jotted down the make, model, and license number of Melanie Goodson’s missing Lexus, Joanna was driving through Elfrida.
Ending the radio transmission, Joanna watched as the little farming community sailed past her windows. Elfrida was a one-horse town, even more so than Bisbee. If gossip-mongers in Elfrida were anything like the ones in Bisbee, having the mother of a local student get out of prison and come to town to retrieve her daughter would be big news. This was the kind of juicy tidbit that could keep jaws flapping for weeks. Maybe Sandra Ridder and Lucinda wanted a little privacy-a little family time to get reacquainted before facing the rest of the community. A desire for privacy was something Joanna Brady could understand, although stealing a car didn’t seem like the right way to go about conducting a mother-daughter reunion.
At Pearce, Joanna turned left and started up toward Cochise Stronghold and the Dragoon Mountains. For a short while the road was paved. Just when the road surface changed to washboarded gravel, Joanna met a group of people-twenty or so-walking in groups of two or three along the sandy shoulder of the road.
Joanna’s initial thought was that this was some kind of protest march. Then she remembered, a group of Volksmarchers had been scheduled to have an event that weekend-a ten-kilometer walk from Pearce to Cochise Stronghold and back. The very thought made Joanna groan. That’s what every homicide investigation needs-several hundred sets of unidentified footprints walking through and over the crime scene.
She picked up her radio and had Larry Kendrick patch her through to Frank Montoya. “Did you know there’s a Volksmarch scheduled for Cochise Stronghold today?” she asked her chief deputy.
“Sure I knew that,” Frank responded. “The guy who’s in charge of the march is named Hal Witter. I thought I told you about him. He’s the one who fou
nd the injured woman lying in a ditch.”
“You said someone found her, but you didn’t happen to mention that the guy had a hundred or so people with him when he did it.”
“One hundred three, to be exact,” Frank Montoya replied. “That’s how many people are participating in today’s march, but it turns out Mr. Witter was all by himself when he found the victim.”
“Well, then,” Joanna returned. “I guess we should be thankful for small favors.”
CHAPTER 6
When Joanna arrived at the crime scene, her Blazer was third in line, behind both Frank Montoya’s Crown Victoria and Detective Carbajal’s Ford Econoline van. Frank Montoya, Jaime Carbajal, and another man Joanna didn’t recognize stood pointing off the road into a brush-clogged drainage ditch.
“I know it would have been better if we hadn’t had to disturb the crime scene,” the unidentified man was explaining to Detective Carbajal. “But as long as there was a chance of saving her, I figured that took higher priority than preserving evidence.”
“This is the spot then?” Joanna asked, walking up behind them.
The three men turned to face her. “Sheriff Brady,” Frank said. “Yes, this is it. Down in the culvert. And this is Hal Witter, the man who found the victim.”
Joanna held out her hand. From her height of five feet four, Hal Witter seemed tall. He was silver-haired and in his mid-to-late sixties. Distinguished-looking, he carried himself with the straight-backed bearing of a military officer.
“Glad to meet you, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “I’ve had some dealings with your office over traffic concerns for our various Volksmarches, but I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting you in person.”
“You say the victim was hidden in the culvert?” Joanna asked.
Hal Witter nodded. “Completely out of sight. I’m guessing she was there but unconscious this morning when we all walked past. It’s a miracle we didn’t miss her this afternoon as well. I was bringing up the rear. That’s my self-imposed task assignment. I keep an eye out for stragglers. In Volksmarching, everybody walks at their own pace. I don’t want to rush anybody, so I give everyone else plenty of space and let them go on ahead.
“I was walking by myself when I heard a moan. At first I was afraid one of my marchers was sick or hurt-that maybe someone had fallen and twisted an ankle. Sprains are pretty common at these kinds of events. As soon as I saw all the blood, though, I knew getting help ASAP was a matter of life and death. I used my cell phone. The cops and medics who showed up did what they could for the poor woman and then called in a helicopter. But I guess she was too far gone. Mr. Montoya here tells me she didn’t make it.”
Joanna nodded. “That’s right.”
Witter shook his head. “It’s too bad, but I was afraid that’s what would happen. I’ve seen gunshot wounds before. This one didn’t look survivable.”
“Where’s that?” Joanna asked. “Where have you seen gunshot wounds?”
“In the service,” he said. “I was in Korea and Vietnam both. Something like this brings that other stuff back-stuff I wish I’d forgotten.”
As he turned away from her, Joanna noticed him brushing away a tear. Wanting to give the man some privacy, she focused her attention on Jaime Carbajal. Armed with a camera, the young detective had clambered down into the ditch and was snapping pictures around the entrance to the culvert.
“It’s real sandy down here, Sheriff Brady,” he reported. “And it looks like the EMTs pretty well tore things up getting her out of here. I doubt we’re going to get any useful pictures out of this, and we sure as hell aren’t going to get any usable footprints.”
“Do the best you can, Jaime,” Joanna told him.
By then it seemed Hal Witter had regained his composure, so Joanna redirected her attention to him. “Since you were first on the scene, Mr. Witter, is there anything you saw to begin with that may have been disturbed by all the coming and going?”
Witter frowned. “You might want to check the weeds here. See where they’re mashed down? I suspect she was pushed or thrown out of a vehicle, rolled down into the ditch, and then dragged into the culvert. That’s just my initial impression.”
Joanna looked up and down the road. If a vehicle had been there once, now there was no sign of it. Other than the three parked official sheriff’s department vehicles, the road was totally deserted in both directions as far as the eye could see.
For the next several minutes, Joanna and Frank Montoya scrutinized the winter-brittle grass along the roadside. As Hal Witter had suggested, broken stalks testified to the fact that something sizable had rolled from the roadway down into the ditch. Careful not to step inside the area, Frank and Joanna marked it off with a boundary of yellow crime-scene tape so it could be searched later for any kind of trace evidence.
Finished with that, Joanna turned back to Hal Witter. “You found no identification?” she asked.
He shook his head. “None, and I checked, too. There was no purse, but people sometimes wear medical identification tags. There wasn’t one of those, either, but I did find a necklace-a little silver necklace with a strange turquoise-and-silver pendant on it.”
“What kind of pendant?”
“It looked like a devil’s claw,” Hal answered. “You know, those funny two-pronged gourds? It resembled a tiny one of those, with a pearl-sized seed of turquoise showing through from inside the gourd and with the two prongs made of silver. Why someone would walk around wearing a silver devil’s claw around her neck is more than I can figure.”
Joanna glanced in Frank Montoya’s direction and was relieved to see that he was busily taking notes. For the time being, that meant she didn’t have to. She was also relieved to know that the victim was wearing a piece of what sounded like very distinctive jewelry. Something that unusual might possibly make the prompt identification of an unknown victim far more likely than it would be otherwise.
“What did the woman look like?” Joanna asked. “How old was she? Anything you can tell us about her would be a big help.”
“Native American or Hispanic,” Hal Witter said at once. “I’d guess she’s somewhere in her mid-thirties. Dark hair-not really black-and going a little gray around the temples.”
“Wearing?”
“A sweatshirt-a red sweatshirt with nothing on it-no logo, no Walt Disney characters, or anything else. Jeans. Tennis shoes-Keds, I think. No socks. Nothing really memorable or remarkable about any of her clothing.”
“Other than the necklace you already mentioned, was she wearing any other jewelry?”
Hal shook his head. “No watch. No rings, and no sign that she had worn either one recently.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when you wear a ring long-term, it usually leaves an indentation around the base of the finger. And in this climate, watches and rings both leave pale spots wherever the sun doesn’t reach. There wasn’t one of those either.”
Joanna shot Hal Witter a quizzical look. “That’s pretty observant for a civilian,” she said.
He grinned back at her. “Thanks,” he said. “I trained as a cop once, years ago. After Korea and before I re-upped in the army, I was a trooper in upstate New York.”
“Why’d you quit?” Joanna asked.
“Couldn’t afford it,” he said. “The hours were too long and the pay too low. I figured I was better off back in the army. The pay wasn’t that different, but it came with a place to live and a chow line.”
“Career army then?” she asked.
He nodded. “Retired Special Forces. Colonel.”
Just then Jaime Carbajal’s voice came from behind them, from the far side of the road opposite where he had disappeared into the culvert. “I may have found something after all. Look at this.”
As the three people on the road turned to look, Jaime materialized at the far end of the culvert holding three plastic milk cartons aloft. Two were empty. One still contained a quart or so of water.
“I think so,” Jaime replied.
“But they could have been through here anytime. There’s no way of saying they were here last night, is there?”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” the detective answered. “One of the handles is stained with something that looks a whole lot like blood. I wouldn’t be surprised if it matches up with our victim’s.”
Joanna found the very suggestion chilling. In recent years the steady stream of undocumented aliens coming north from Mexico had turned into a vast flood, one that threatened to overwhelm the resources of local law-enforcement jurisdictions and of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as well. Increased enforcement in one place only caused the flow to move to some other likely crossing point. It seemed to Joanna that as soon as INS officers plugged one hole in the border fence, another opened up a mile or two away.
In the past few months, the UDA crisis had gone from bad to worse. Recently the number of illegals apprehended in rural Cochise County rivaled those captured in San Diego, with far fewer officers and far less money available to deal with the problem. As the number of illegals increased, a vocal group of ranchers whose properties lay on the most traveled routes had been raising a call to arms.
Several isolated ranch owners had been victims of unsophisticated burglaries. They complained that cattle had died after ingesting abandoned plastic bottles that the illegals used to carry life-sustaining water as they walked across long stretches of unforgiving desert. Ranchers reported that faucets on stock tanks had been left open, allowing precious water to drain out, that fences had been cut down, allowing livestock to stray onto roads and highways, and that their properties were littered with human waste. Several of the most vociferous of the frustrated cattlemen had threatened to take the law into their own hands. Their position was that if the government couldn’t be counted on to protect them from foreign invaders, the ranchers would do so themselves and round up any illegal found trespassing on their land.
Joanna knew that she was dealing with an extremely volatile situation, one already rife with threats of vigilante justice. She dreaded what might happen once news of this incident was made public. The specter of armed illegals preying on lone women motorists along deserted stretches of highway might well ignite a whole new style of range war. It wasn’t difficult to see how this added element of fear might provoke a few rabid individuals into shooting first and asking questions later.