by J. A. Jance
Joanna stared at the bloodstained milk cartons as though they were leaking powder kegs.
“We’d better bag them up and get them to the lab,” Joanna said. Her comment proved to be unnecessary, since Detective Carbajal was already doing that very thing.
“Not only that,” Jaime continued as he entered the bagged cartons into the evidence logs. “It looks to me as though this end of the culvert wasn’t disturbed by the EMTs. There are a few tracks just inside here that are probably worth casting. I’ll go get my equipment.”
With Frank Montoya’s help, Detective Carbajal mixed up a batch of plaster of paris and set about making the casts. Meanwhile, Joanna took down the remainder of Hal Witter’s information-his phone number and address in Mesa, along with the names and phone numbers of friends in Bisbee with whom he was planning to stay for the next several days. When she was finished and because it was nearing sundown, Joanna offered the man a ride back into Pearce.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’ll walk. I want to finish the event. Accepting a ride would mean it doesn’t count.” He started away.
“One other thing,” Joanna called after him.
“What’s that?”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention any of what you heard or saw here this afternoon. Of course, you’re welcome to let people know that you found the victim. Good Samaritans are always appreciated, but when it comes to disclosing pieces of our investigation that you may have overheard, I’d rather you kept those quiet.”
“Certainly,” he said. “I understand. Holdbacks and all that. No problem, Sheriff Brady. I’ll be more than happy to keep what I’ve heard to myself. I just hope you catch whoever did it. Shooting some poor woman and then leaving her to die in a ditch like a run-over dog isn’t what I call civilized. The sooner those people are off the streets, the better.”
Once Hal Witter walked away, Joanna went over to where her two deputies were working. “I’m assuming the campground up at the Stronghold is full of RVers. Has anyone thought to check with those folks to find out if any of them saw or heard anything unusual last night?”
“We’re on it,” Frank Montoya returned. “Deputy Pakin went up there as soon as the helicopter took off. As far as I know, he’s still up there. I wanted him to get cracking on interviewing possible witnesses in case some of the campers pull up stakes overnight. I don’t want any of them leaving without letting us know what they may have seen.”
“Good work,” Joanna said.
By then the afternoon sun had long since slipped behind the Dragoons. The cliff-lined canyon that had once sheltered Cochise and his warrior band of Apaches was fast fading into deepening shadows. Even though she realized they were losing daylight, Joanna knew better than to try to hurry the painstaking plaster-casting process. Experience had taught her that with proper analysis, footprints can be almost as foolproof as fingerprints in testifying to a suspect’s physical presence at a crime scene.
She spent the next several minutes pacing back and forth. She was considering the possibility of heading back home and leaving Frank in charge when Deputy Lance Pakin came wheeling up in his Blazer.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“Mostly no one remembered seeing anything unusual,” Deputy Pakin answered. “I was about to give up when I ran into a guy named Naujokas-Mr. Pete Naujokas of Estes Park, Colorado.”
“What about him?” Joanna asked.
“He and his wife have a winter home in Oro Valley, but they’ve been out here in the park for several days, camping with some friends who are visiting from Colorado. Yesterday afternoon Pete had to go into Tucson on business. He planned on being back here at the RV in time for dinner last night. Things didn’t work out, though. First he was delayed leaving town, then he had car trouble that kept him in Benson for several hours. By the time he finally made it here, it was almost midnight.
“As he was coming up the road, he came across a vehicle parked up the road with its flashers flashing. He saw a woman down on her hands and knees by the Cochise Stronghold sign, and he stopped to see if she needed any help. She said everything was fine. She had lost a ring and was using the headlights to look for it. Since she didn’t seem to be in any trouble and since there wasn’t that much he could do to help, he went on his way.”
“What kind of car?” Joanna asked.
“He wasn’t sure. Late model. White. He thought it might have been a Lexus.”
Joanna felt a sudden clutch in her gut. At mention of the word, she realized she had failed to pass along Larry Kendrick’s message about Melanie Goodson’s supposedly stolen Lexus. Now it seemed that a Lexus might play a pivotal part in this case as well.
Finished with their casting job, Frank Montoya and Jaime Carbajal came walking toward Joanna. Between them they carried a collection of several plaster casts.
“What’s this about a Lexus?” Frank Montoya asked as he loaded the casts into boxes in Jaime’s van.
“One was seen near here late last night. Up by the Cochise Stronghold sign. And I believe we now may have a line on our victim,” Joanna answered. “My guess is her name is Sandra Ridder.”
Montoya frowned. “Ridder,” he repeated. “Any relation to Lucinda Ridder, the runaway?”
Joanna nodded. “Sandra is Lucinda’s mother. She was released from prison up in Perryville sometime yesterday afternoon. And it turns out she’s so well-rehabilitated after spending almost eight years in the slammer that she took the first opportunity that presented itself to steal her attorney’s Lexus overnight.”
“When did this all come up and why didn’t I know about it before now?” Frank Montoya demanded.
“Larry Kendrick told me about the bulletin on the stolen Lexus as I was on my way here. I meant to mention it to you as soon as I arrived, but with everything else that was going on, it slipped my mind. It wasn’t until Lance here mentioned a Lexus that I remembered. Exactly how far is it from here to Lucinda’s grandmother’s house?”
“It’s off on Middlemarch Road. Two miles, give or take.”
“Maybe we’d better drop by and see her,” Joanna said.
“Catherine Yates told me her daughter was due home either today or tomorrow,” Frank replied irritably. “But she didn’t say from where-certainly not from prison. All Catherine said was that she wanted Lucy home when her mother got there. Any idea what the mother was in for?”
“Manslaughter. I don’t know any of the details. Just that she got sent up for ten years and served eight.”
“All of which puts Lucy’s disappearance in a whole new light.”
Joanna nodded grimly. “Doesn’t it just,” she said. She turned back to Deputy Pakin. “Lance,” she said, “I’m going to go with Chief Deputy Montoya in his car. You stay here and assist Detective Carbajal. When it’s too dark to see, I’d like you to stay here and keep the crime scene secure until we can get a crew of techs back out here in the morning.”
“Will do,” Deputy Pakin agreed. “What about emergency calls?”
“Call into Dispatch and let them know you’re on assignment. If the need arises, they’ll have to bring in officers from other sectors to cover problems in yours. And when you go off shift, have the Night Watch Commander send someone else out here to take your place.”
“Sure thing.”
Leaving her Blazer parked on the shoulder of the roadway, Joanna followed Frank to his waiting Crown Victoria. Without a word, Frank got in, slammed the car door shut, started the engine, and then rammed the gearshift into drive for a tire-spinning, gravel-spattering U-turn. From the set of Frank’s jaw, Joanna knew her chief deputy was ripped. For the next several minutes they maintained a strained silence, punctuated here and there by radio chatter.
“What’s wrong, Frank?” Joanna asked at last.
He turned and glowered at her. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I feel like you left me out of the loop back there. Like there were things going on that I should have known about and nobody told me.”
> “Come on,” she pleaded. “Don’t make a big deal out of this. It was nothing but an oversight on my part. It certainly wasn’t deliberate. We were all busy, Frank, and it slipped my mind. Besides, until Lance brought up the subject of the Lexus, there was no possible way for anyone to see a connection between the two cases.”
“I suppose not,” Frank grumbled, but Joanna could tell he was still provoked, and that made her uneasy. Not only was Frank Montoya her chief deputy, he had long been Joanna’s greatest ally in the department. She could ill afford to offend him.
“Tell me about Catherine Yates,” she said, trying to change the subject. “If she didn’t bother to mention that her daughter was being released from prison, she wasn’t exactly being forthright with you. What’s her story?”
“I don’t know. She’s an Indian-part, anyway. Apache, I believe. She told me that her granddaughter has lived with her for several years. She implied there was some kind of family problem-a sticky divorce or something. But when I asked if Lucy might have gone off to live with her father, she said that wasn’t possible. That he wasn’t in the picture.
“Here’s the turnoff to her place,” Frank added, switching on the turn signal.
“Wait,” Joanna said. “Stop here a minute and let me check something.”
Obligingly, Frank pulled over next to a mailbox on top of a leaning wooden post and put the Ford in neutral. Meanwhile, Joanna plucked Frank’s radio microphone out of its clip and thumbed the “talk” button.
“Larry,” she said when the dispatcher’s voice came through. “When Pima County sent down the information on that stolen Lexus, did they include a rap sheet on Sandra Ridder?”
“Sure did.”
“Does it say what she went to prison for?”
“Man-one. Sentenced to ten years and served almost eight.”
“Does it say who she killed?”
“Yup, her husband, one Thomas Dawson Ridder.”
“Thanks, Larry,” Joanna told him. “That’s a big help. What about a mug shot?”
“We’ve got one of those, too.”
She glanced at Frank. “Is your wireless fax working?”
Frank Montoya had spent months and several thousand drug-enforcement dollars turning his Crown Victoria into a fully equipped mobile office.
He nodded.
“Fax everything you have to Frank’s computer.”
“Will do, Sheriff Brady,” Larry Kendrick replied. “But it’s going to take a couple of minutes. I’m here by myself and another call is just coming in.”
“Take your time, Larry,” she told him. “No rush.”
Putting the microphone down, Joanna turned back to Frank. “Being dead is a damned good reason for the father not being in the picture,” she said. “So what do you think is going on?”
“This is how it looks to me.” Frank held up one hand and began ticking off his fingers. “On the surface of it, it’s easy to say that a marauding band of UDAs is responsible for whatever went on back there and let it go at that. But I’ve got a different idea. How does this sound? First Mommy whacks Daddy, and somebody sees to it that Mommy goes to prison. Later Mommy gets out of prison. As soon as she does, somebody whacks her. Immediately prior to that or else immediately thereafter, Baby Daughter disappears. Sounds to me like one way or the other, we’ve got a whole new set of reasons to go looking for Lucinda Ridder. Either she’s a victim, too, or else she’s something a whole lot worse.”
Sighing, Joanna leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. “Let’s go. By the time we finish talking to Catherine Yates, we’ll have what we need from Dispatch. In the meantime, I have to say, I hope to God you’re wrong. I don’t want to be stuck tracking down some nice, gun-wielding fifteen-year-old.”
“That’s funny,” Frank said.
“What’s funny?”
“That’s exactly what Catherine Yates told me earlier this afternoon about Lucinda. She said Lucy’s a nice girl.”
“Right,” Joanna returned sarcastically. “I’ll just bet she did. That’s what grandmothers always say-that their particular little darlings are nothing but sweetness and light. I’ll bet if someone had asked Lizzie Borden’s grandmother, she probably would have given the exact same answer: She would have said, ”Little Elizabeth’s an adorable child. She’s just as nice as you please and wouldn’t hurt a fly if her life depended on it.“ ”
CHAPTER 7
As soon as Frank’s Crown Victoria pulled into Catherine Yates’ yard, the porch light snapped on and the front door slammed open. A stocky woman in blue jeans and a flapping denim shirt came hurrying off the front porch of a tiny square house.
“Did you find her?” she demanded of Frank Montoya as he rolled down the driver’s window.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry to report that we still haven’t found your granddaughter. I’ve brought Sheriff Joanna Brady along with me, Ms. Yates. She and I need to talk to you for a few minutes. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Joanna stepped out of the car and went around to the other side, offering her hand. “How do you do, Ms. Yates.”
Catherine Yates’ work-hardened fingers closed around Joanna’s with a surprisingly gentle touch. “Nice to meet you,” she said grudgingly. “I guess I didn’t really expect that the sheriff herself would show up.”
“I came because we need to speak to you about your daughter,” Joanna said.
“About Sandra?” Catherine asked. “How come? My granddaughter’s the one who’s missing.”
“You told Frank that you were expecting Sandra home soon. Is it possible that she and Lucinda took off together?”
Asking the question, Joanna knew she was stalling for time, postponing the inevitable moment when she would most likely have to deliver the painful news. Joanna fully expected Larry Kendrick’s mug shot would confirm that Catherine’s daughter was dead. In the meantime, asking questions was an acceptable delaying tactic. Even so, if Sandra was the victim, the awful task of telling Catherine Yates that her daughter was dead couldn’t be put off indefinitely. Notifying bereaved next of kin was Sheriff Joanna Brady’s job-part of it, anyway.
Behind her, Frank switched off his Crown Victoria-his Civvie, as he preferred to call it-and emerged into the chill early evening air.
“No,” Catherine Yates was saying. “That wouldn’t have happened. Lucy wouldn’t have gone anywhere with her mother.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Joanna asked. “Her mother’s been away for some time. Doesn’t it stand to reason that she’d be glad to see her?”
Catherine Yates simply shook her head and said nothing.
“All right, then,” Joanna said with a sigh. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about your daughter’s recent whereabouts.”
Catherine glanced warily at Frank Montoya before she answered. “I heard from Sandra just yesterday afternoon,” she said. “Sandy called from Tucson and told me she had been released. She said she was spending last night in Tucson with a friend. I told your deputies that earlier. I expect her home sometime today or tomorrow.”
“What friend?” Joanna asked.
“A friend, that’s all.”
“Look, Ms. Yates, I’m sure this is all terribly painful for you to discuss. Otherwise you would have told Chief Deputy Montoya the whole story earlier. We already know that your daughter was released from prison yesterday afternoon, so it’s no secret. Just tell us. Have you heard from her since then?”
Catherine Yates bowed her head. For a moment her face was obscured by a curtain of shoulder-length gray hair. Seeing her face in the dim glow of a yard light, it was easy to understand why Frank might have been in doubt about the woman’s ethnic heritage. She could easily have passed for either Hispanic or Indian, although there was clearly some Anglo blood mixed in as well.
“No,” Catherine said finally. “Sandra hasn’t called me, and I haven’t tried reaching her, either. In fact, I’ve been dreading talking to her all day
long-ever since I realized Lucy was gone. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Sandy that Lucy had run away.”
“Who’s the friend?” Frank interjected. “The one Sandra’s supposed to be staying with?”
Catherine bit her lip. “Her name’s Melanie Goodson, and she’s not much of a friend, if you ask me. She lives somewhere out on Old Spanish Trail. She was Sandy’s attorney years ago. She’s also the one who let that stupid plea bargain go through. I don’t know if she was lazy or what. I don’t think she even tried to take Sandy’s case to court. If she had, I’m sure my daughter would have gotten off. What happened between Sandy and her husband should have been ruled self-defense. He was abusive, and my daughter never should have gone to prison for manslaughter. After all, Tom Ridder beat her up. If I’d‘a been her, I would have shot the son of a bitch, too.”
Listening, Joanna remembered what Catherine had said earlier-about Lucinda Ridder not being willing to go anywhere with her mother. “How did your granddaughter feel about her father’s death?” Joanna asked.
Catherine Yates was a stout woman. When asked that question, her broad shoulders seemed to shrink inside her shirt. She shook her head sadly. “Lucy loved her father,” Catherine said. “All she remembers is this tall handsome devil in his smart army uniform. I’ve tried talking to her about it, tried explaining that as far as Tom Ridder is concerned, looks weren’t everything. Tom looked a whole lot better than he really was.
“But it’s like talking to a wall, Sheriff Brady, and it hasn’t done a bit of good. No matter what I say, Lucy still blames Sandy for her father’s death. You know how kids are. Once they get some wild idea in their heads, nothing short of an act of God is going to shake it loose.”