Remains of Innocence

by J. A. Jance

  Butch and Dennis immediately doffed their Stetsons. Standing next to them with her hand over her heart, Joanna felt her eyes fill with tears of motherly pride. She knew that only the best riders were tapped for flag duty. Jenny’s proficiency on horseback was a skill she had acquired all on her own. Jenny and Kiddo had won countless barrel-racing competitions, but the trophies and buckles they had accumulated had everything to do with Jenny’s own pursuit of excellence and very little to do with parental guidance or insistence. Yes, Butch and Joanna made sure horse and rider made it to the various far-flung rodeo venues, but Jenny and Kiddo were the ones who put in the hours of practice, day after day and month after month.

  An hour later, when Jenny and Kiddo placed second in the barrel-racing competition, there was no hiding Butch’s disappointment. They cleared the three barrels flawlessly but had come up short in the speed department, well behind Katy Beltran on her dapple gray mare, LaLa.

  “Kiddo’s a great horse,” Butch said, “but if Jenny’s going to participate at collegiate levels of competition, she needs a mount that’s younger and faster.”

  Joanna gazed at her husband in astonishment. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not at all,” Butch replied. “If Jenny wanted to be a concert pianist, we’d be in the market for the best possible piano. This is the same thing. We should be in the market for the best possible horse. Kiddo will be fine when comes time for Denny to learn to ride, but for right now I think the horse has earned the right to retire from competition. He can hang out at home with Spot instead of being dragged all over God’s creation to rodeos.”

  “Do you understand how much good quarter horses go for?” Joanna asked.

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Butch said with a cagey grin. “More than we paid for the pickup truck and trailer we bought to haul Jenny and all her gear from place to place.”

  “You’ve been looking into this, haven’t you?” Joanna surmised, finally tumbling to the fact that she was late to this particular party. Evidently the Kiddo retirement conversation had been taking place for some time without Joanna’s being privy to it.

  Butch nodded, a little sheepishly.

  “Have you already found a suitable candidate?”

  “Katy’s dad raises quarter horses. Yesterday when we got here, Jenny and I took a look at the horses he currently has available. None of them really grabbed her. She has her heart set on one that’s about to go on the market north of Phoenix—a five-year-old mare that Dr. Ross heard about. She belongs to friends of a vet Dr. Ross knows up in Payson. They’re willing to make us a good deal.”

  “It sounds like this is already a fait accompli.”

  “Pretty much,” Butch admitted, “but remember, Joey, we’re lucky. This is all about horses, not boys.” He smiled at her, then said to their son, “Come on, Denny. Let’s go get us some hot dogs.”

  Butch and Denny left Joanna sitting alone and stewing about having been left odd man out of the new horse discussion. Still, she had to acknowledge that Butch’s final argument was a winning one. At Jenny’s age, an abiding interest in horses was far preferable to an abiding interest in boys, especially considering the fact that at seventeen, the same age Jenny was now, Joanna was already pregnant without being married. Her wedding to Andy Brady had been somewhat tardy.

  A few minutes later, when Butch and Dennis returned with hot dogs for everyone, Joanna stifled an urge to gripe about the mustard and ketchup smeared all over Denny’s face and on his relatively clean clothes. This was a time to have fun, she reminded herself, not a time to be the mean mommy. Jenny showed up a few minutes later with Desi on a lead at her side. The dog, excited by all the commotion around him, was being a handful, not at all unlike an unruly toddler. As Jenny struggled to get him to behave, Joanna once again acknowledged the wisdom in Butch’s approach—better horses and dogs than an unwed pregnancy and a baby.

  “Sorry you didn’t take first,” Joanna said, handing over the hot dog Butch had brought for Jenny. If it had been up to Joanna, there would have been two hot dogs—a fully loaded one for Jenny and a plain one for Desi—but sharing people food wasn’t an approved activity in the service dog training manual.

  “We should have done better,” Jenny said glumly, “but at least it was Katy and LaLa we lost to rather than Sonja from El Paso. I would have hated to lose to her. She’s such a snob.”

  “Yes, you should have done better,” Butch agreed. “Tough break, but there’s always the next round.”

  “Maybe,” Jenny agreed. “I hope so.”

  Having seen the error of her ways and been outvoted besides, Joanna decided now was as good a time as any to concede defeat. “I expect that your future barrel-racing events will be just fine,” she said, “especially if the rumors I’m hearing are true.”

  “What rumors?” Jenny asked.

  “That we’re getting a new horse.”

  Jenny turned to her mother with her face suddenly alight. “Really? You mean it?” she asked. “We can do it?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said.

  “Her name’s Maggie,” Jenny continued. “She’s a palomino.”

  Joanna could see that since the new horse already had a name, she was indeed late to the party. On the other hand, she couldn’t deny that the prospect of having a horse that shared the same name as her troublesome mother-in-law had a certain perverse appeal.

  “I can hardly wait to meet her,” Joanna said.

  They sat in the grandstand with the late-spring afternoon sun beating down on their backs and with gritty rodeo action unfolding in front of them. Denny loved every bit of it. The first bronco-riding competitor landed facedown in the dirt. Standing up and brushing himself off, he exited the arena accompanied by the rodeo announcer’s familiar but unwelcome words, “Nice try, but no time.”

  That was the moment Joanna’s phone rang. When she went to answer, Deb Howell’s number showed on the screen.

  “I went to the morgue for Junior Dowdle’s autopsy,” Deb announced. “Dr. Machett didn’t show. I’ve been here waiting for more than an hour. Ralph Whetson is here, too. He’s tried calling the M.E.’s home as well as his cell. No answer. Rather than putting Chief Deputy Hadlock in Guy Machett’s crosshairs, I thought I’d check with you first and get your read on the situation.”

  Over time Joanna had encountered plenty of difficulties in dealing with Guy Machett, but missing a scheduled autopsy had never been one of them. Scheduling was sometimes tough, but once something was on the calendar, the M.E. had always been reliable and punctual. He also demanded punctuality from any detectives who were supposed to be in attendance.

  “Have you checked with Madge Livingston?” Joanna asked.

  “Tried,” Deb answered. “With her boss out of town, Madge and some of her fellow Harley riders are off on a weekend road trip to Lake Havasu. She isn’t picking up, either.”

  “Maybe Dr. Machett had car trouble and is stranded somewhere,” Joanna suggested. “Even so, just to be sure, you should probably do a welfare check at his house. You know where he lives, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know where he lives,” Deb replied. “On the Vista. Where else?”

  The Vista, in Bisbee’s Warren neighborhood, was composed of two parallel streets that ran on opposite sides of a now mostly barren park. The Vista had long been home to members of Bisbee’s upper crust, all the way back to the town’s early mining days.

  “Keep me posted,” Joanna said as she rang off.

  To derogatory hoots and hollers from the grandstand, another bronco-riding hopeful had just bitten the dust half a leap after his horse, War Paint, a comical-looking black-and-white paint, had cleared the chute.

  “What’s up?” Butch asked over Denny’s head.

  “Dr. Machett was due at an autopsy at two, but he’s currently MIA,” she said.

  “It’s the weekend,” Butch said. “He’s a bachelor. Maybe he got lucky.”

  The bull-riding event was just getting under w
ay when Deb called back. “I hate to bother you again, Sheriff Brady, but I think you need to come home.”

  “Why?” Joanna asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Dr. Machett is dead,” Deb said.

  The words took a while to sink in.

  “Dead?” Joanna repeated. “How? What happened?”

  “At first glance I’d say he was subjected to several different kinds of torture,” Deb responded, sounding shaken. “It’s bad—as bad as anything I’ve seen.”

  “Have you contacted Chief Bernard?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. That was my first call,” Deb said. “Detective Keller is on his way, but Chief Bernard said I should call you and see if you have any suggestions about what to do. He’s asking that we make this a joint operation, but without an M.E. available, what the hell are we supposed to do about the crime scene?”

  “Give me a few minutes,” Joanna said. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Butch had heard enough of Joanna’s side of the conversation to know something was terribly amiss. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and handed a five to Jenny. “Why don’t you take Dennis down to the snow cone booth?”

  “What’s up?” he asked once the kids were out of earshot.

  “Guy Machett is dead,” Joanna said. “Murdered. Deb just found his body. She’s called Chief Bernard. He’s asked for our help, but with no M.E. to do the preliminary crime scene analysis . . .”

  Butch didn’t let her finish the sentence. “Of course you have to go,” he said. “Just put Denny’s car seat in the truck. He can ride home with Jenny and me tomorrow.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Butch said. “We’ll be fine. You go do your job.”

  Joanna left the grandstand at a run. Out in the parking lot, she jumped into Butch’s Subaru. Once inside that, she drove through the part of the lot that was reserved for participants’ horses and trailers. When she found their rig, Kiddo and Spot were tethered together near the back of the trailer, munching away on a pile of hay. Jenny had been unwilling to leave Spot to fend for herself alone in a relatively new corral over the weekend, so the blind horse had come along for the ride.

  The two horses looked up with interest as Joanna raced past to put Dennis’s car seat in the back of the truck. Headed back to the Subaru, she paused long enough to give both horses a quick scratch on their respective noses.

  Then, leaving the horses to their hay, Joanna hurried back to the car, connecting her Bluetooth as she went. Before she got into the car, she pulled a set of bubble lights out of the glove box, attached them to the top of the Subaru, and turned them on. Heading out of town, she couldn’t help noticing how much the landscape around Silver City and Tyrone, complete with miles of flat-topped rust-colored mine tailings dumps, reminded her of Bisbee.

  Only when she was well under way did Joanna place her first phone call. That one was to Claire Newmark, a member on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors and one with whom Joanna had developed a reasonably cordial relationship. Claire answered on the third ring.

  “Sheriff Brady here,” Joanna said urgently. “Sorry to interrupt your Saturday afternoon, but we’ve got a problem.”

  “Sounds bad,” Claire returned.

  “It is,” Joanna answered. “Someone has murdered Guy Machett.”

  “Our M.E.?” Claire was clearly shocked. “Are you serious?”

  “Very. I’ve got an active homicide crime scene with investigators there or else en route, but until there’s a medical examiner to perform a preliminary analysis, there’s no way to process anything.”

  “A while ago, when Dr. Winfield was unavailable, didn’t we bring in an M.E. from Pima County on a contract basis?” Claire asked.

  “You’re right. We did. The problem is, they would only send someone to us if there wasn’t something urgent in their own jurisdiction. Even if their workload is clear, any sub they could send out instantly is still more than two hours away. And we’re not just dealing with the Machett case, either,” she added. “We discovered his homicide only after he failed to show up to perform a previously scheduled autopsy.”

  “The one on Junior Dowdle?” Claire inquired.

  “Yes,” Joanna agreed. “Junior’s.”

  “Okay, we’re talking two cases rather than one,” Claire confirmed. “What are you suggesting?”

  “My mother will probably give me all kinds of hell for this, especially since she and George are about to head out for their summer cabin in Minnesota. Even so, I might be able to talk them into delaying their departure long enough for George to help us out. He’s familiar. We know him, and we know his work. If we offered to take him on a contract basis with the same kind of pay we’d have to fork over for a sub from Pima County, George might be willing to help out for a time. The problem is, I don’t want to raise the issue with George without first having some sort of go-ahead from the board. Before I broach the subject, I need to be able to say with some confidence that he’ll be adequately paid for his trouble.”

  Claire thought about that for a moment. “Even if we offered him the same hourly rate, we’d still be getting a bargain because we wouldn’t be having to pay travel time, too. Right?”

  “That’s how it looks to me. Assuming he agrees and is currently available, we could have someone at the crime scene at least two hours before anyone else could get there. Time counts in cases like this, Claire,” Joanna added. “The sooner we process the crime scene, the sooner we can get to the bottom of whatever happened.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “I just left the rodeo grounds in Silver City. The GPS says I should be back in Bisbee in a little under three hours. With my blue lights flashing, I’ll be able to shave some time off that. If you can get me some kind of quasi-official go-ahead, I’ll call Doc Winfield and see if I can negotiate a peace treaty with him.”

  “With him or with your mother?” Claire asked.

  That was one of the reasons Joanna and Claire got along so well. Claire’s prickly relationship with her own mother was surprisingly similar to Joanna’s relationship with Eleanor Lathrop Winfield. Claire may have been the person elected to the board of supervisors, but her mother, Winifred Holland, considered herself to be an ex officio member of that same body, complete with all the rights and responsibilities thereof.

  “A little of both,” Joanna agreed with a slight laugh. She was not looking forward to tackling Eleanor on the subject, but if it had to be done, she was the one to do it. Joanna doubted George Winfield would mind stepping up to the plate if the county needed him, but she knew her mother would be less than thrilled.

  “Drive safely,” Claire advised. “I’ll be back in touch.”

  Joanna’s phone rang before she had time to call anyone else. “Chief Bernard here,” Alvin said. “You know what’s happened?”

  “Yes,” Joanna answered. “Deb brought me up to speed.”

  “Is it okay with you for me to declare this a joint operation?”

  “Whatever you need.”

  “Where are you now?” Chief Bernard asked.

  “Coming back from Silver City as fast as I can,” Joanna told him. “What’s happening on your end?”

  “For right now, we’ve got the crime scene secured. No one’s to go back inside until we’ve got search warrants in place. Detective Keller is on his way to see Judge Moore with warrant requests for Guy Machett’s home, his office, his Internet accounts and telephone lines, as well as his banking information.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Joanna said.

  “Since no one’s allowed at the crime scene right now, I’d like to draft Deb Howell to help my officers canvass the neighborhood.”

  “Done,” Joanna said. “I’ll call Dispatch to summon my troops and put them at your disposal.”

  “What about the M.E. situation?” Chief Bernard asked.

  “I’ve got a phone call in to Claire Newmark on the board of supervisors. I�
�m waiting for a call back.”

  “How do we handle the crime scene?” Alvin asked. “When it comes to investigating homicides, Fred, my poor little CSI guy, is completely out of his depth.”

  Joanna knew that to be true. After the Bisbee Police Department’s longtime evidence tech, Charles Reppe, had retired a year earlier, budgetary constraints had sent the city personnel department looking for the cheapest possible replacement. Joanna was familiar with the old saying “There’s cheap, fast, and good. Pick any two.” In that regard, Fred Harding was in a class by himself. With a diploma in crime scene investigation from a none-too-up-and-coming online school, he was cheap, all right, but he was also neither quick nor good.

  “I know Dave Hollicker got hurt yesterday,” Alvin continued, “but if your people could help us out here, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Since Dave is on crutches, he won’t be much use at a crime scene, but he’s not bad when it comes to computers and data-mining searches. Let’s use him to see if he can uncover what’s behind this. I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but we both know that it’s a good bet that Guy Machett was killed by someone he knew, or, rather, by someone who knew him.”

  “You’re suggesting that we put Dave to work doing a background check on the victim?”

  “Yes,” Joanna answered.

  “Good,” Alvin Bernard said. “I’ll direct that all the telecommunications info gleaned from the warrants should go to him.”

  “As for the crime scene itself,” Joanna suggested, “Deb Howell may be a relatively new homicide detective, but she’s also taken every crime scene investigation course the Arizona Department of Public Safety offers. Working together, Deb and Casey Ledford should be able to get the job done.”

  “Thank you.” Alvin sounded relieved. “I owe you one. Maybe even two.”

  Joanna sped along for the next hour or so, alternately making and receiving phone calls. She summoned her folks to the crime scene, outlined what was expected of them, and let them know that until the M.E. situation had been clarified, there might be precious little for them to do.

  As she traveled the almost empty highways, cruising around whatever traffic was out there, she had time to think. The murder of a medical examiner was bound to be big news. That meant there would be a media storm surrounding this case. In the process, whatever had happened to Junior Dowdle was likely to be pushed to a back burner no matter how determined Joanna was to prevent it. She had a limited number of assets at her disposal. With two homicides to solve in as many days, she would find her investigative resources stretched to the breaking point.