Remains of Innocence

by J. A. Jance

  “It’s what they call a burner,” she explained. “The minutes on it are already paid for, but it’s recommended for emergency use only. If you call people you know, even people you think you can trust, they might inadvertently put your abuser on your trail. Understand?”

  Nodding, Liza slipped the phone into the pocket of her jeans. There was no cash register at the door and clearly no expectation that she should pay for any of the goods.

  At four o’clock that afternoon, dressed in brand-new used clothing, minus her ponytail, wearing the blue scarf, and armed with the roll-aboard, the bulging athletic bag, and a slightly used Coach purse containing a sack lunch, Liza arrived at Blackie’s Truck Terminal in Albany in the passenger seat of Aimee’s bright red Prius. After parking the car among a collection of towering semis, Aimee led Liza over to an orange-and-black moving van and introduced her to the two-man team of drivers lounging outside—Sam and Joe.

  “This is Linda,” Aimee said as the three of them shook hands. “She’s on her way to L.A.”

  A few minutes later she handed Liza’s luggage and purse first into the cab and then up into the overhead sleeping compartment. “Sam and Joe are only going as far as Chicago,” she explained. “Because they’ll take turns driving through the night, you can ride up here. You should be somewhere close to Chicago by seven or so tomorrow morning.”

  “What then?”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll hook you up with your next ride before they drop you off. They won’t leave you stranded.”

  “You’re sure?” Liza asked uncertainly.

  “I’m sure. These are good guys.”

  “What do I owe you for all this?” Liza asked.

  “Not a single thing,” Aimee said. “Someone helped me years ago, and now I’m helping you. Maybe someday, when you’re in a better place, you can do the same.”

  “I hope so,” Liza said.

  The hours rolled by as the truck lumbered westward through the night. Liza could hear Joe and Sam chatting down in the cab, sometimes with each other and sometimes with other truckers over their CB radio. Above them there was nothing but silence and worry. It made Liza’s heart ache to think that she was somehow responsible for Olivia Dexter’s death. Her landlady was dead for no other reason than that—she had been Liza’s landlady. If Detective Franklin really did suspect Liza of being involved in Olivia’s death, what did that make Liza now—a wanted fugitive? Then there was her brother. What about Guy? How would her brother react when she showed up unannounced on his doorstep after all these years? The problem was, Liza had nowhere else to go. Guy was it.

  Hungry, Liza scrounged through the sack lunch Aimee had stuffed in her purse. Bologna had never been her first choice for sandwich makings, but in this case hunger was the best sauce. She devoured the sandwich, the chips, and the accompanying apple with a relish she wouldn’t have thought possible. Somewhere along the way, several hours later, the truck pulled into a truck stop. While Sam and Joe stayed at the fuel island, Liza hurried inside to use the facilities.

  She was still awake when Sam and Joe stopped for coffee and yet another pit stop. Again, Liza availed herself of the facilities but turned down the coffee. Going in and out of those places made her nervous. Security cameras seemed to be everywhere. She hurried past them, doing her best to avert her face, all the while praying that her scarf would stay where it belonged.

  Back in the truck and back on the road for the second time, she pulled the scarf off, carefully folded it, and laid it aside. Then with the steady motion of the truck rocking her, she pulled a loose blanket over her body and finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE LAST THIRTY MINUTES OF JOANNA’S TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR drive were done in relative silence. She’d summoned everyone who needed summoning. Now she appreciated having some peace and quiet as well as time to think. Why was Guy Machett dead? Most of the time the basis for murder was either love or money. Which was this?

  Had he been involved in some kind of illegal activity—drug dealing, maybe, or possibly money laundering? Or was his death related to his personal life? Was he involved in some kind of love triangle? Now that Joanna thought about it, she realized that she knew nothing about Guy Machett’s love life. Did he have a steady girl stowed somewhere who would be devastated by his loss?

  The one thing that raised any red flags was the fact that when the M.E. wasn’t at work, he spent most of his time out of town. Maybe he had some kind of secret life going on. She thought about Dr. Machett’s well-groomed appearance—his expensive taste in clothing, his perfectly coifed hair.

  “What if he was gay?” Joanna said aloud, speaking only to herself. What if he spent time out of town in order to keep his love life away from the prying eyes of Bisbee’s gossipmongers? If so, evidence of that kind of relationship was bound to surface in his phone or Internet records.

  Joanna’s phone rang again as she turned off Highway 80 and onto the Douglas Cutoff. A glance at the telephone screen revealed Madge Livingston’s name.

  “Deb Howell called me a while ago,” Madge said in her gravelly voice. “She claims Dr. Machett is dead—that someone murdered him—but I’m having a hard time believing it. Is it true?”

  “I’m not at the crime scene yet,” Joanna answered, “but that’s my understanding.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Someone killed him. I don’t know any of the details.”

  “It’s a good thing I was out of town, otherwise I’d be at the top of your suspect list,” Madge said. “I’ve been ready to throttle the man for months now.”

  The fact that Madge had despised Guy Machett was hardly news. Madge was a prickly, opinionated woman who had spent her entire career working in various departments of Cochise County government. Shipping her off to the M.E.’s office had effectively moved her out of the courthouse proper and out of everybody else’s hair, as well. Over the years she had found all her bosses wanting. To hear Madge tell it, George Winfield had been the only exception to that rule, although Joanna seemed to remember there had been a few bumps in the road there, too.

  “Do you know of anyone who wished him harm?”

  “You should be asking if I know anyone who didn’t wish him harm,” Madge countered. “Guy Machett was a most unlikable young man.”

  “As far as you know, though, there’ve been no problems at the office? No threats of any kind?”

  “None,” Madge said. “At least none that I know of, but Dr. Machett wasn’t the sort who took people into his confidence.”

  “He wasn’t what you would call forthcoming?”

  “No, he was not.” Madge paused for a moment and then continued, “Deb asked me about his computer and phone. I told her if they weren’t at the house, he might have left them in the office. I believe she’s sending someone uptown to check.”

  “Good,” Joanna said.

  “Do you know how he died?”

  “No,” Joanna answered. “As I said, I’m not there yet. By now Doc Winfield may have established an approximate time of death, but I’m not aware—”

  “Wait,” Madge interrupted. “Is Doc Winfield coming back?”

  “Just temporarily,” Joanna began. “We needed an M.E. on the scene and—”

  Madge didn’t wait for Joanna to finish. “You tell Doc Winfield that I’m leaving Lake Havasu within the hour. I’ll be home to help out just as soon as I can get there.”

  The phone call with Madge ended as Joanna turned right onto Cole Avenue. A few blocks later, she paused at the top of the Vista. The cluster of flashing lights breaching the twilight told her that the crime scene was a few blocks south and to the left, across from the tennis courts.

  Due to the crush of vehicles, emergency and otherwise, Joanna was forced to park a block and a half from the crime scene and walk the rest of the way. She had shaved half an hour off the expected travel time from Silver City to Bisbee. Even so, the time lag had given media types from all over southern Arizona time to ga
ther at the scene. As predicted, the murder of the medical examiner was big news.

  Joanna was still dressed in what she’d worn to the rodeo—jeans, a western shirt, and a pair of outgrown cowboy boots she had inherited from her daughter. Out of uniform and without her badge, she found it easy to slip unnoticed through the crowd of mostly out-of-town reporters. An old-fashioned wrought-iron fence surrounded Guy Machett’s front yard. Joanna was almost to the gate when her luck ran out. Marliss Shackleford spotted her.

  “Yoo-hoo,” she called. “Sheriff Brady, have you got a minute?”

  Marliss trotted forward with a young purple-haired girl following at her elbow. Joanna recognized the young woman at once, but it took a moment to remember her name. Ruth. She and her brother had been among the volunteers who had gathered in the parking lot at St. Dominick’s during Thursday’s early morning search for Junior Dowdle.

  Joanna stopped short. “Sorry, Marliss. I don’t have a minute,” she said. “And in case you haven’t noticed, this is a crime scene. It’s no place for children.”

  “I’m not a child,” Ruth objected. “I’m fourteen years old, and I’m a blogger. Ms. Shackleford is letting me shadow her for the day. I was hoping I could interview you.”

  Joanna favored Marliss with what she hoped was a sufficiently withering glare before turning back to Ruth.“If you want to interview me, you’ll need to make arrangements by contacting my office, not by showing up at a crime scene. Right now I have a job to do. I’m surprised Ms. Shackleford didn’t inform you of that.”

  The girl looked disappointed. Marliss Shackleford simply shrugged off Joanna’s implied criticism.

  “Still,” Marliss insisted, “as long as you’re here, if you could just shed a little light . . .”

  “As you can see, I’ve only just arrived,” Joanna answered brusquely. “That means I don’t know anything, and I can’t tell you anything, either. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to get inside.”

  “But—”

  A bright light went on and Joanna realized that Ruth was using a cell-phone camera to record everything that was being said. As a result, some of the other media types started paying attention.

  “Turn that thing off,” Joanna ordered.

  “Sorry,” Ruth replied, quickly stowing the offending machine.

  It occurred to Joanna that she was dealing with a kid and perhaps her response had been more forceful than necessary. The truth was, Marliss Shackleford had an unerring ability to bring out the very worst in her.

  “Call my office next week sometime,” Joanna told the girl. “We’ll set up a time for an interview.”

  With that, Joanna donned a pair of gloves, shoved open the gate, and made for Guy Machett’s low porch, where the front door stood wide open. Through that Joanna glimpsed lights and movement inside the house, but no glimmer of light showed through any of the windows. Once she was on the porch, Joanna saw that the blinds on all the windows were closed and most likely covered with an inside layer of pulled drapes or curtains as well.

  A uniformed Bisbee police officer stood next to the door. “Evening, Sheriff Brady,” he said as she paused long enough to slip on a pair of paper crime scene booties.

  “Is Chief Bernard here?” she asked.

  “No, he and Detective Keller just left to join Detective Carbajal at the second crime scene.”

  “What second crime scene?”

  “Up the canyon, at the morgue,” the cop said. “Dr. Machett’s office up there has been ransacked, too.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Probably sometime last night, the same as everything else. But they just found out about the problem uptown a little while ago when Jaime went up to Old Bisbee to check out the office.”

  Attempting to step inside, Joanna almost collided with George Winfield. Their momentary do-si-do might have been comical but neither of them was in any mood for joking around.

  “You’re done already?”

  “With as much as I can do here,” George replied with a nod toward the back of the house. “Ralph Whetson will be back to pick up the body once Detective Howell finishes taking the crime scene photos. I told him that when he comes back to the morgue, he should bring a detective with him so we can go ahead and do the Dowdle autopsy.”

  “Tonight?” Joanna asked. “How can you? I was just told that the morgue is under investigation as a possible crime scene.”

  “That’s right,” George answered. “As a matter of fact I just finished having a telephone conversation with Alvin Bernard on that very topic. He’s still up at the morgue with Matt Keller and Jaime Carbajal. According to the chief, damage at the morgue is limited to Dr. Machett’s private office. There’s no sign that anyone entered or disturbed the lab area. Chief Bernard said he’s designating the office area as off-limits, but we’re free to work in the lab. Junior’s autopsy has already been postponed for two days. I’m sure Moe and Daisy are anxious to move forward with funeral arrangements. This will allow them to do so. As for my performing an autopsy tonight? Your mother’s already mad enough to spit nails, so there’s not much point in my hurrying home. I could just as well get as much done as possible while the getting is good.”

  Joanna had plenty of firsthand experience with her mother’s moodiness, but she doubted that she would prefer performing or observing an autopsy to doing battle with Eleanor Lathrop Winfield.

  “Anything you can tell me on a preliminary basis?”

  “Not much. Tentative time of death is overnight sometime, probably in the early morning hours. I’ll know more about that later. There was a struggle. Guy’s watch got broken and stopped at 11:46 P.M., but I’m estimating that the time of death is several hours later than that. From the number of visible cuts and contusions, he put up a hell of a fight. He had burns on his chest and groin that would be consistent with being repeatedly hit by a stun gun.”

  “Any idea about cause of death?”

  George shrugged. “Unofficially, I’d say this was a case of waterboarding gone bad. Some of the bruising on his chest would be consistent with a failed attempt to revive him. What that says to me is that the assailants were trying to get him to tell them something, but he died before they got it out of him.”

  “He drowned?”

  “I suppose it could have been something else,” George said. “We’ll have to wait and see. More on that later—probably tomorrow sometime.”

  With that, George continued on his way. Once Joanna was inside, her immediate impression was that the living room resembled a war zone. The remains of a shattered coffee table lay in front of a sofa. A plasma TV had been knocked from its supports over the mantel of the fireplace, and the hearth and a good part of the living room carpet were covered with a debris field of splintered glass from the broken screen. Off to one side of the room, an easy chair that matched the sofa lay tipped on its side. A scatter of mail covered the floor. Looking at it, Joanna imagined Guy coming into the house with an armload of mail only to be attacked from behind with so much force that the mail had been propelled into the air and across the room.

  The plush beige carpet was dotted with spatters of blood and a dusting of microdots from a deployed Taser cartridge. A long archway marked the line of demarcation between the living room and the dining room. Several antique dining room chairs lay in broken heaps of wood next to a matching table, the polished top of which was marred by spatters of blood. Each piece of debris and blood spatter was accompanied by a numbered crime scene marker. The thin layer of black dust that covered every available surface indicated that Casey Ledford had already been here checking for prints.

  “Deb?” Joanna called.

  “Come on through,” Detective Howell replied. “I’m in the kitchen bagging up the victim’s clothes. Casey’s working in his home office. Welcome to the party.”

  “Some party,” Joanna said, pausing in the doorway of the kitchen.

  The room was a scene out of a 1950s horror flick. The familiar gray Formi
ca table and matching chairs were the same ones Joanna’s former in-laws still used, but the chair sitting in the middle of the room also sat in the middle of a spray of blood spatter that covered the floor. Deb stood in front of the kitchen sink carefully removing an item of discarded clothing from a heap on the floor and preparing to slip it into an evidence bag. Joanna thought she recognized the item in Deb’s gloved hand. It looked very much like the jacket to one of Guy Machett’s expensive Italian suits.

  Joanna knew that in the aftermath of serious assaults, perpetrators shed DNA along with their victims. She also understood that in some situations it was possible to retrieve DNA and even fingerprints from items made of cloth. The hope of finding usable evidence accounted for Detective Howell’s careful handling of the clothing, and it was something Joanna applauded. She waited quietly until Deb finished.

  “Can you tell how this went down?” Joanna asked. “From the looks of the living room, I’d say it started in there.”

  “Yup,” Deb agreed. “No obvious broken windows, so no breaking and entering. I’d say someone picked the lock on the back door. They let themselves in and then sat around and waited for Machett to show up.”

  “No alarm?”

  “He has one,” Deb said. “It may have been turned on, too, but with the access code posted on the wall right next to the keypad, it didn’t do a whole lot of good.”

  “Why put the access code there?”

  “For a cleaning lady maybe, so she could let herself in and out without triggering the alarm?” Deb suggested. “Machett wouldn’t have needed to write it down for his own use because the code was nothing but his birthday—month, date, and year. He probably used the same code for the alarm at his office, which means that once the bad guys had one code, they had them all. It also explains how they were able to access his office at the morgue without triggering an alarm there, either.”

  “If Guy Machett was that lax about security,” Joanna mused, “he must not have thought he was in any danger. What about his neighbors? Did anyone see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”