by J. A. Jance
After crossing a long, grassy plateau, she hit another steep downhill grade and there, unexpectedly, were the saguaros she had been missing earlier. They stood in tall ungainly poses, casting long shadows in the setting sun. As darkness fell, a huge metropolis of lights fanned out across the valley in front of her.
Phoenix was immense—too immense. Instead of turning off at one of the Phoenix-area exits, Liza kept right on going on I-17 until it intersected with I-10. Some two hours later she finally pulled off onto a frontage road in Tucson. It was after nine before she found a seedy enough hotel where the desk clerk accepted cash without requiring her to show any ID, which she claimed had been stolen. Naturally, the hotel in question wasn’t upscale enough to include a business center.
Once in her room, Liza ate the hamburger she had picked up at a fast-food joint across the parking lot from the hotel. Her room boasted a bed with a dingy flowered spread, an equally forlorn sofa, and worst of all, a grimy carpet. Liza didn’t care. Stripping out of her clothing, she showered. The tub was cracked and smelled faintly of mold. The torn shower curtain drooped because several of the hooks were either broken or missing. The tiny sliver of soap melted away just as the water went from hot to tepid. After drying herself with a threadbare towel, she fell into bed wearing only the oversize Trux-Travel T-shirt she’d bought in Denver.
The mattress was lumpy. The sheets felt like paper. The pillows were rock hard. The feeble air-conditioning unit under the window barely cooled the room, but none of that mattered. Oblivious to the freeway traffic roaring past outside her window and grateful to be stretched out on a bed that wasn’t moving, Liza Machett closed her eyes. Thinking about finally seeing her brother again after all these years, she fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER 24
ONCE OUTSIDE GRADY’S, JOANNA USED A PAIR OF LATEX GLOVES to retrieve Rebecca’s half-smoked cigarette from her purse. After dropping it into an evidence bag and labeling same, she called Dispatch.
“I need a deputy up in Old Bisbee on the double,” she told Tica Romero. “I’ve got something that needs to go to the crime lab in Tucson ASAP.”
“Deputy Stock is closest,” Tica answered. “He just hauled in a DUI and is getting him booked.”
“Good,” Joanna said. “Send him along. I’m up the canyon in the parking lot at Grady’s.”
“Grady’s Irish Pub?” Joanna heard the surprise in Tica’s voice.
“Don’t ask,” Joanna said. “Just tell him to get here on the double. Is Detective Howell still there?”
“She went home.”
“Too bad,” Joanna said. “Have her come meet me, too. Same place. Tell her to wear her vest. We might be paying a visit to a homicide suspect.”
Off the phone, Joanna scrolled through her contacts list until she found the crime lab number in Tucson. Her CSIs—Casey Ledford and Dave Hollicker—as well as her detectives were the people from Joanna’s department who usually interacted with the DPS crime lab folks. Without specific contacts, all Joanna could do was call the main number. Early on a Sunday evening, it took time to get someone to pick up the phone and even more time to be put through to someone working DNA issues. The guy who finally took her call was a criminalist named Calvin Lee.
“Sheriff Brady,” she told him. “From Cochise County.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “You’re the lady who has us working overtime this weekend due to your having two homicides in as many days. If you’ve got somebody running Murder Incorporated down there, shouldn’t you have your own designated crime lab?”
“Sorry about that,” Joanna said.
“Don’t be,” Lee assured her with a chuckle. “Turns out I can use the extra hours. Besides, my wife’s an animal lover. If I can help lock up whoever tortured that poor cat, I’ll earn big points with her. What’s up now?”
“Are you making any progress?”
“Some,” he answered. “We’ve determined that some of the hair samples from your injured kitty contain both human and animal blood, feline presumably. That’s easy enough. Despite what you see on TV, getting a DNA profile is not something we can wave a magic wand and have sorted before the ten o’clock news comes on. Once we have a profile, we’ll still need something to compare it to. I was also told that you want us to check the clothing of your other homicide victim, and we will. We’ve had some success doing touch DNA, but that process takes longer than your basic cheek swab.”
“This is about the case with the injured cat,” Joanna said, “and that’s what I have for you now—a possible comparison sample,” Joanna told him. “Deputy Jeremy Stock is just now leaving my office east of Bisbee. He’ll be bringing along a cigarette with lipstick on the filter.”
“You want me to collect DNA from a cigarette filter?” Calvin asked disparagingly. “Couldn’t you give me a straight-up cheek swab for a change?”
“The woman who smoked the cigarette isn’t my suspect,” Joanna explained. “Her fourteen-year-old daughter is a potential serial killer who may have murdered one person and might also be responsible for torturing the cat. At least that’s my thinking at this time.”
Calvin Lee took that in. “Only fourteen?” he asked. “That sucks. Okay, I can see how getting a cheek swab under those circumstances might be problematic. When’s your deputy gonna get here?”
“An hour and a half to two hours,” Joanna said. “I’ll tell him to put the pedal to the metal.”
“Did you say Deputy Stock?” Lee asked. “That’s what his name is?”
“Yes,” Joanna confirmed. “Jeremy.”
“Okay, I’ll send his name down to reception so they’ll know he’s coming and send him right up. I’m going to go on my dinner break before he gets here, because I probably won’t have time to eat later. On the off chance that we’re able to make this happen in a timely fashion, do you want it to go through regular channels?”
“No,” Joanna said. “This is urgent. Call me directly.”
She had just finished giving Calvin the number and hung up when Deputy Stock pulled into the lot behind her with his red lights flashing. “You have something for me?” he asked, leaning down to speak to Joanna as she opened her window.
Wordlessly Joanna handed him the see-through bag holding the half-smoked cigarette.
“That’s it?” he asked, holding it up to the light. “All this fuss over a damned cigarette?”
“If it does what I think it will, it may help us take down a killer.”
“All right, then,” Jeremy said, slipping the bag into his shirt pocket and heading back to his Explorer. He had barely driven away when Deb Howell pulled up behind Joanna’s Yukon. She came around to the side and slipped into the passenger seat.
“Tica said you may have found a killer. Which one?”
“Junior’s,” Joanna answered.
“Who is it?”
“I think it may be Ruth Nolan.”
“You’re kidding—that skinny little girl with the purple hair?”
“That’s the one. I’d give you more details, but right now Ruth’s mother is planted inside that bar. I want to have a chat with Ruth before we have to actively declare her a suspect, and I don’t want to go see her alone.”
“I don’t blame you,” Deb said. “I’ll follow you there.”
After parking Joanna’s Yukon and Deb’s Explorer on O’Hara Street, Joanna led the way to the Nolans’ front door. As soon as she stepped onto the porch, she heard the unmistakable sounds of a video game shootout coming from inside. Joanna rang the bell. The front door had been left ajar. She heard the doorbell buzzing inside, but no one responded. Next she rapped sharply on the frame of the screen door. Still no answer. Finally she opened the screen door and let herself into the house with Deb on her heels. Inside the room, the noise from the video game was overpowering. Lucas Nolan sat on a shabby couch, totally engrossed in whatever was happening on his computer screen.
“Hey,” Joanna shouted, trying to be heard over the racket. “Anybody home?”
Startled, the boy looked up and then immediately closed his computer. From the guilty expression on his face, Joanna suspected that playing computer games wasn’t one of the things on his mother’s list of approved activities.
“Sheriff Brady,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. My mom’s not here.”
“I know,” Joanna said. “I just saw her. I was hoping to talk to you or your sister.”
“Ruth’s not here, either,” he said. “She went out early this afternoon, right after you left, and she still isn’t back.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Are you kidding?” Lucas asked with a grimace. “I’m her brother. Why would she bother telling me anything?”
“So then I guess we’ll have to settle for talking with you,” Joanna said. Not waiting for an invitation, she moved the computer aside and sat down on the couch. Deb chose a nearby chair. “Did any of the detectives interview you or Ruth about what happened last week?”
“About what happened to Junior, you mean?” Lucas asked.
Joanna nodded.
“Detective Keller asked us a few questions,” Lucas replied. “At least he asked me a few questions. I talked to him that morning in the parking lot at St. Dominick’s. I don’t know if he talked to Ruth at the same time, but most likely he did.”
“We’ve been too busy to get all the reports passed back and forth,” Joanna said. “I’m sorry to have to go back over the same questions, but can you tell us what you told Detective Keller?”
“He asked about what happened the day before and did I see anything. I told him I was here at home, working on the computer.”
“All day?” Joanna asked.
Lucas nodded.
“What about that night?”
“Same thing.”
“What about your sister?”
“She was here, too. We both were. She was sick that day. I don’t think she even got dressed.”
Joanna wondered if Lucas had any idea that Ruth had slept through the day because her mother had slipped her a high-powered pill. “What about your mom?” Joanna asked. “Was she here?”
“She was here most of the day.”
“What about that night?”
A cloud passed over Lucas’s face. He didn’t answer immediately.
“I take that to mean that she wasn’t here,” Joanna suggested. “I understand your mother spends a good deal of time at Grady’s up the canyon. Is that that where she was that night?”
Lucas bit his lip and nodded. “Probably,” he said.
“Did you go outside at all that night?” Joanna asked.
“No, I already told you. I was here the whole night. Most of that time I was here in the living room.”
“What about Ruth?”
“She was here, too.”
“Could she have slipped out without your knowing she was gone?”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “The only time I get to play my games is when Mom isn’t here. She’s always complaining that I play them too loud and that they’re going to damage my ears. Ruth might have left and I didn’t notice, but I doubt it.”
“Had there been anything out of line in the neighborhood that day or in the preceding days—strangers or vehicles that you didn’t recognize or ones that shouldn’t have been there?”
“Not that I remember,” Lucas answered. “I went to bed before Mom got home. The next thing I knew it was morning. Mom was shaking me awake and telling me that Junior had gone missing. She said everyone in the neighborhood was going down to the church to help look for him, and we needed to go, too.”
“You knew Junior?”
Lucas nodded. “He was a little weird. You know, different. He was like a grown man and a little kid, all at the same time. Ruth felt sorry for him, but she’s like that about everything. She once found a grasshopper with a broken leg, and she wanted to take it to the vet.”
“What happened to it?” Joanna asked.
“To the grasshopper? Mom stepped on it.”
Joanna’s opinion of Rebecca Nolan’s mothering skills dropped several more notches.
“What about Roxie?” Joanna asked. “What happened to her?”
“You mean Ruth’s dog?”
Joanna nodded.
Lucas shrugged. “She ran off, I guess. She got out of the house and disappeared. We looked everywhere for her for days, but we never found her. She was tiny. I think maybe an eagle got her or else a coyote.”
With serial killers, there was often some traumatic event or a series of events in their past that set them off. From what little Joanna knew of Ruth’s life, there seemed to be plenty of possible triggers: she had lost her dog; her parents had divorced; she had moved to a new town where she was a perpetual outsider due to being homeschooled. Added together, Joanna could see how all those separate events could take a serious emotional toll. Maybe it was unfair to focus so completely on Ruth, but right now that purple-haired girl was Joanna’s primary target.
“Do you miss your old home?” Joanna asked, turning her attention back to Lucas.
“Are you kidding?” he asked derisively. “How could anybody ever miss Gallup? I hated it. I liked where we lived before—that was back in Missouri while Dad was going to seminary. When he graduated, we got shipped off to Gallup. That’s what they do—they ship the new guys off to the worst places.”
“What about Ruth?” Joanna asked. “Did she hate Gallup, too?”
“She didn’t mind it as much as Mom and I did,” Lucas said. “Especially after Dad gave her that dog. He got the dog for both of us, really—for our birthday. People do that with twins. They think one birthday present is enough for two people. Dad said we were supposed to share, but Roxie was Ruth’s dog. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“Do you like being homeschooled?” Deb asked. “It must be tough to meet other kids.”
“Not really,” Lucas said with a shrug. “I go down to the Boys and Girls Club. And there’s a new gym in town where some of my friends and I go to lift weights. Then there’s a different bunch of us who play video games and keep score in a chat room.”
“What about Ruth? Does she have any friends?”
Lucas sniffed. “Not many. She mostly hangs out with Jason Radner, and sometimes Junior.”
Joanna was under the impression that Ruth’s interactions with Junior were limited to midnight serenades. “She hung out with Junior Dowdle?” Joanna asked.
“Sure, he lived just down the street. Everybody knew him. Mom says Ruth thinks it’s her job to fix every broken bird. She and Jason spent time with Junior. I didn’t.”
“Did Ruth ever say anything to you about finding a cat?” Joanna asked. “A dead cat?”
Lucas frowned and then nodded.
“When did that happen?”
“I don’t know. A while ago. Jason found it and then told Ruth about it.”
“Did Ruth ever say anything to you about how the cat died?”
Lucas shrugged. “Not to me.”
Joanna was running out of questions. Worried that Rebecca might come home and find them there, Joanna decided it was time to leave. The last thing she needed was to end up in a confrontation with a pissed-off drunk.
She stood up, and so did Deb. “We’d better be going and let you get back to your game. Are you winning?”
“I was a little while ago,” Lucas said. “Before I closed the computer.” He added, “I’m real good at games, though. I’ll be able to catch up.”
Joanna pulled a business card out of her pocket. “My numbers are all there,” she said. “When Ruth comes home, tell her I’d like to talk to her. Have her give me a call.”
“Will do,” Lucas said.
Back outside, it was full dark with only a few sparse streetlights to illuminate the way as Deb’s and Joanna’s shoes crunched on the gravel. Between the sides of the narrow canyon a tiny sliver of moon was rising on the far horizon.
“If Ruth really is our d
oer,” Deb said, “where is she? It’s past suppertime. Shouldn’t she be home by now?”
“I don’t think Rebecca Nolan is big on family dinners,” Joanna said, “and that means I have no idea where Ruth might be.”
As Joanna said the words, an eerie chill washed over her, one she couldn’t shake. The neighborhood seemed peaceful enough, but she had a feeling that something evil was out there, prowling the darkening streets and hunting for another victim.
CHAPTER 25
JOANNA WAS IN THE YUKON AND SLIPPING THE KEY INTO THE IGNITION when her phone rang. “Where are you?” Dave Hollicker demanded.
She heard the excitement and urgency in his voice. “Up in Old Bisbee and on my way home. Why?”
“I’ve found something interesting, and I want to show it to you.”
“What is it? Can’t you just tell me?”
“No, that would be like trying to give someone a haircut over the phone. Maybe I’m wrong. I want you and Deb to see it together so I can tell if the two of you have the same reaction I did.”
Obviously, as far as Dave was concerned, his discovery couldn’t wait until morning. “Okay,” Joanna agreed reluctantly. “I’m coming, and I’ll call Deb next.”
After letting Deb know, Joanna drove through Bisbee’s quiet streets. On Fridays and Saturdays the town filled up with out-of-town tourists. The motorcycle riders partying in Grady’s were typical weekend visitors, but by Sunday evening, most of the out-of-towners went back home, leaving Bisbee’s winding thoroughfares and steep streets to the locals.
As Joanna drove, she worried. If Ruth Nolan wasn’t home, where was she? Would Joanna awaken tomorrow morning to discover that someone else had been murdered overnight? Should she call Alvin Bernard and Matt Keller and put them into the picture, or should she sit on her suspicions for the time being? Because that’s all she had right now—suspicions. Tomorrow she’d contact Rebecca Nolan and ask her to bring Ruth into the department so they could take a set of elimination prints to match against the prints Casey Ledford had lifted from the window surround outside Junior’s bedroom or maybe from the grate at the glory hole.