by J. A. Jance
Looking over the schedule, Joanna was reminded of her stop at University Medical Center. Picking up her phone, Joanna dialed Frank’s number. “All the inmates and all the jail employees made and signed get-well cards for Yolanda Cañedo,” she said. “Have the deputies done anything similar?”
“Not that I know of,” Frank replied.
“Is Deputy Galloway on duty?”
“He should be. Why?”
“If you can track him down, let him know I need to see him.”
Deputy Kenneth W. Galloway was one of Joanna’s problem children. He was the nephew and namesake of another Cochise County deputy, Ken Galloway. Ken Galloway the elder had been part of the corrupt administration that had preceded Joanna’s. He had died as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident during a high-speed car chase. A coroner’s inquest had ruled his death accidental, but years later, many members of the Galloway clan still held Joanna Brady personally responsible for his death.
At the time of his uncle’s death, Ken W, as he was called, was fresh out of the academy. He was still far too young and naive to have been involved in any of his uncle’s underhanded dealings. After her election, Joanna had allowed Ken W. to stay on with the department. He had been a capable enough deputy, but he had never made any pretense of loyalty to Joanna or her administration. His obvious antipathy to Joanna made him a natural for membership in and eventual leadership of Local 83 of the National Federation of Deputy Sheriffs, where he had recently been elected president.
Months earlier, one of Joanna’s decisions had resulted in saving Deputy Galloway’s life, but if she had thought that would make her relationship with the union leader any smoother, she had soon been disabused of the notion. More than half hoping Frank wouldn’t find the man, Joanna returned to the morass on her desk.
One whole stack was devoted to requests for civic appearances: Rotary and Kiwanis meetings where she was asked to be the guest speaker; a call-in talk show on a radio station in Sierra Vista, where she would be joined on the air by a group of Latino activists who were concerned about racial profiling by various members of the law enforcement community, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department included; and Elfrida High School, which wanted to know it she would be the main speaker at its career-day program.
As Joanna penciled one obligation after another into her rapidly filling calendar, she realized that even without having officially announced her candidacy, as far as the people of Cochise County were concerned, she was already running for reelection. Every appearance put her in front of voters. Eventually she would have to make an official announcement one way or the other. Right that minute she wasn’t sure what she would do. The morning’s confrontation between Butch and photographer Owen Faulk of the Arizona Reporter had left her feeling as though the most important pieces of her world were at war with one another.
Butch Dixon had yet to come to terms with the idea that being married to Arizona’s only sitting female sheriff meant giving up all claim to anonymity. The incident with Owen Faulk wasn’t the first time Butch had bridled at the unaccustomed and unwelcome intrusion of the press in their lives, but it was certainly the most serious. The fact that Butch had been protecting Jenny made it easy for Joanna to forgive his overreaction, but she doubted that the rest of the world would be equally understanding.
Dealing with that volatile situation had required Joanna’s personal intervention and all her diplomatic skill. First Joanna had had to persuade Butch to cool it. Then she’d had to soothe Jenny, who, after her grueling interview with the Double Cs, was even more traumatized. And, after all that, she’d had to smooth Owen Faulk’s ruffled feathers, managing to dodge a potential liability suit in the process. She had offered assurances that Faulk’s expensive equipment, if broken, would be repaired or replaced. Since the photographer had accepted her offer without any argument, Joanna surmised that Owen Faulk realized that he, too, had been out of line.
So that thorny problem was solved for the time being, but dealing with it had taken Joanna’s attention away from her job and away from the conference room, where Sally Matthews, with Burton Kimball present, was still being interviewed by Raul Enemas, a detective with the City of Bisbee Police Department, and Frank Bonham, one of the officers from the Multi-Jurisdiction Force, along with a representative from the county attorney’s office. By the time Joanna had finished handling the photographer uproar, the interview with Sally Matthews had been in process for well over an hour. Joanna had known better than to walk in and interrupt, and it bothered her that, all this time later, it was still going on without her.
Realizing she’d have to content herself with reading the transcript, Joanna had gone into her office and tackled her logjam of waiting correspondence, only to be interrupted shortly thereafter by Casey Ledford poking her head into her office.
“Mr. Haskell is outside,” Casey told Joanna. “Kristin suggested I bring him back by here so one of the detectives could interview him.”
“That would be great except for one small glitch,” Joanna replied. “At the moment we’re fresh out of detectives.”
“What should I do with him then?”
“Let me talk to him.”
Ron Haskell looked up when Joanna entered the lobby. “Both my detectives are busy this afternoon,” she told him. “Are you planning on going back out to Pathway to Paradise?”
Haskell shook his head. “Amos Parker gave me the boot. He said that since I had violated Pathway rules and was insisting on leaving again without completing my course of treatment, that he’s keeping my money, but I’m not welcome to return. He had me pack up my stuff before I left this morning. I drove into Bisbee on my own.”
“Will you be staying here then?”
Again Ron Haskell shook his head. “I just heard that Connie’s sister, Maggie, is still in town. She’s saying all kinds of wild things about me and making lots of unfounded allegations. I think it’s a bad idea for me to be here when she is. Not only that,” he added, as his eyes filled with tears, “I guess I need to plan Connie’s funeral.”
Knowing Maggie MacFerson’s penchant for carrying loaded weapons, Joanna Brady heartily concurred with Ron Haskell’s decision to leave town. “That’s probably wise,” she said. “Your going home, that is.”
“From what I’ve heard, Maggie seems to think I’m responsible for what happened to Connie,” Ron added. “And she’s right there, you know. I am responsible even if I didn’t kill her myself. I’m the one who made the phone call and asked her to come down to Paradise to see me. If it hadn’t been for that, she’d most likely still be at home—safe and alive. But Connie was my wife, Sheriff Brady. I loved her.” His voice cracked with emotion.
While Ron Haskell struggled with his ragged emotions, Joanna thought about how difficult it would be for her already over-worked detectives to schedule an interview with him once he had returned to Phoenix, two hundred miles away.
Time to make like the Little Red Hen and do it myself, she thought.
“I expected my homicide investigators to be here this afternoon, but they were called to Tucson this morning,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go ahead and ask you a few questions myself.”
“Sure,” Haskell said. “I guess that would be fine. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Do you want an attorney to be present?”
“I don’t really need one. I didn’t kill my wife, if that’s what you mean.”
“All right, but I’ll need to record our interview and have another officer present when I do it,” Joanna told him.
“Fine,” Ron Haskell said.
Joanna went out of her office and knocked on Frank Montoya’s door. “Care to join me playing detective?” she asked. “Ron Haskell is here and ready to be questioned, except Ernie and Jaime are both in Tucson.”
“Where should we do it?” Frank asked.
“The interview room is still busy with the Sally Matthews bunch. I guess it’ll have to be
in my office.”
When Joanna reentered the room, Ron Haskell was standing by the large open window and staring up at the expanse of ocotillo-dotted limestone cliffs that formed the background to the Cochise County Justice Center.
“I really did love Connie, you know,” he said softly, as Joanna returned to her desk. “I never intended to do that—love her, you see. And I didn’t at first. Maggie must have figured that out. She didn’t like me the moment she first laid eyes on me. She said right off the bat that all I was after was Connie’s money, and to begin with, money was all I wanted. Why not? I’d had to struggle all my life. I went to school on scholarships and had to fight and work for everything I got while Connie was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Other than taking care of her folks when they got old and sick, she never had to work a day in her life. When we got married, she had money—enough, I suppose, so the two of us would have been comfortable as long as we didn’t do anything too wild or crazy.
“But then she made it too easy for inc. She gave me free rein with running the finances—turned them over to me completely. About that time is when I came up with the bright idea that I could turn that tidy little sum of hers into a real fortune for both of us.”
“I take it that didn’t work?” Joanna asked dryly.
Ron nodded miserably in agreement. “I got hooked into daytrading—tech stocks and IPOs mostly. I figured it was just a matter of time before I’d hit it big, but I ended up taking a bath. Connie’s money slipped through my fingers like melted butter. And that only made me try harder and lose more. It turned into a kind of sickness.”
“Which is how you ended up at Pathway?”
“Yes.”
Frank came in then, carrying a tape recorder which he set up on Joanna’s desk. “Tell us about last Thursday,” Joanna said to Ron Haskell, after Mirandizing him and going through the drill of starting the recording and identifying the participants.
“I called Connie,” Ron Haskell said. “I went down to the general store in Portal a little before noon. I called her at home without having Amos Parker’s express permission to do so. Clients at Pathway aren’t allowed to have any contact with their families until Amos gives the go-ahead, but I wanted to talk to her right then. I needed to tell her what had happened and explain what was going on. By then I was sure she had to know the money was gone, but I wanted to see her in person.”
“What money?” Joanna asked.
“Her money,” Ron Haskell said. “The money her parents left her. I had lost it all playing the stock market, and I wanted to tell her about it face-to-face.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No. She wasn’t home. I left a message on her machine,” Haskell said. “I asked her to come down to Pathway that evening so I could see her. I planned to slip out to the road and meet her there—to catch her and flag her down before she ever made it to the guard shack. That was my plan.”
“But then you got put in isolation,” Joanna offered.
Haskell shook his head. “No,” he said. “That was what I intended. I counted on being put in isolation. Otherwise there are chores for clients to do and work sessions to attend. When you’re in isolation, you’re left totally alone. I figured that once it was dark, I’d be able to slip off and meet her without anyone being the wiser.”
“You’re telling us that when you went to make your illicit phone call, you actually planned on being caught?” Joanna asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What happened?”
“It worked out just the way I wanted it to. As soon as it was dark, I made my way out of the isolation cabin and back to the road. I stationed myself in a ditch just the other side of Portal—between Portal and the entrance to Pathway. I waited all night, but Connie never showed up. When she didn’t, I was hurt. I figured that she’d decided not to bother; that she’d found out about the money and had just written me off. When you told me she’d tried to come see me after all, I ...”
Ron Haskell’s voice broke and he lapsed into silence. Joanna’s mind was racing. She had thought his being in isolation had given Haskell an airtight alibi, but she had been wrong. In fact, just as Ernie Carpenter had suggested, it had actually been the opposite. Caroline Parker had told them Haskell had been left alone from Thursday on. That meant he could have been AWOL from Path-way to Paradise for the better part of four days without anyone being the wiser. That would have given him plenty of time to murder his wife and dispose of her body. It also meant that he had no alibi for the night Dora Matthews was murdered, either.
“How long did you stay away from the cabin?’’ Joanna asked.
“I came back just before sunrise Friday morning. I had sat on the ground all night long, so my back was killing me, and I was heartsick that Connie hadn’t shown up. I was sure she loved me enough that she’d come talk to me and at least give me a chance to explain, but by the time I came back to the cabin that morning, I finally had to come face-to-face with the fact that I’d really lost her. That’s why it hurt so much when I found out she had tried to come see me after all. She really did try, after everything I had done.”
“While you were waiting by the road,” Frank said, “did you see any other vehicles?”
“A couple, I guess.”
“Anything distinctive about them? Anything that stands out in your mind?”
“Not really. The cars I saw go by were most likely going on up to Paradise—the village of Paradise, I mean. I’ve been told there are a few cabins up there and one or two B and Bs. One of them did stop at the guard shack for a few minutes, but then whoever it was left again almost right away. I figured whoever it was must have been lost and that they had stopped to ask directions.”
“What about insurance?” Joanna asked.
“Insurance?” Ron Haskell repeated. “We had health insurance, and long-term care—”
“What about life insurance?”
“There isn’t much of that,” he said. “Stephen Richardson, Connie’s old man, was the old-fashioned type, not somebody you’d find out pushing for equal rights for women or equal insurance, either. There was a sizable insurance policy on him when he died, but all he carried on Claudia, his wife, was a small five-thousand-dollar paid-up whole-life policy. Connie told me one time that her father had started ten-thousand-dollar policies on each of his daughters, but Maggie cashed hers in as soon as he turned ownership of the policy over to her. Connie still had hers.”
“For ten thousand dollars?” Joanna asked.
Ron Haskell nodded. “Not very much, is it?” he returned.
“But you’re the sole beneficiary?”
“Yes,” he said. “At least I think I am. That policy was paid up, so it’s not like we were getting bills for premiums right and left. I know Connie talked about changing the beneficiary designation from her sister over to me right after we got married, but I’m not sure whether or not she ever got around to doing it.”
“And that’s all the insurance there is—just that one policy?” Joanna asked.
Ron Haskell met Joanna’s gaze and held it without wavering. “As far as I know, there was only that one. There’s one on me for Connie’s benefit but not the other way around. I know you’re thinking I killed her for her money,” he said accusingly. “But I didn’t. I didn’t have to. When it came to money, Connie had already given me everything, Sheriff Brady. What was hers was mine. I was doing day-trades and looking for a way to give back what she’d already given me. By the time it was over, I sure as hell wasn’t looking for a way to get more.”
“Did your wife have any enemies?”
“How would she? Connie hardly ever left the house.”
“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Haskell?” Joanna asked. “Someone who might think that by getting to her they could get to you?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of other than Maggie MacFerson, if you want to count her.”
The room was silent for some time before Ron Haskell once
again met Joanna’s gaze. “If you’re asking me all these questions,” he said, “it must mean you still don’t have any idea who killed her.”
Joanna nodded. “It’s true,” she said.
“But last night, when I talked to you out at Pathway, you said something about a series of carjackings. What about those?”
“Nobody died in any of those incidents,” Joanna replied. “In fact, with all of the previous cases there weren’t even any serious injuries.”
“And nobody was raped,” Haskell added bleakly.
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “Nobody else was raped.”
“Anything else then?” Ron asked. “Any other questions?”
Joanna glanced in Frank’s direction. He shook his head. “Not that I can think of at the moment,” Joanna said. “But this is just a preliminary session. I’m sure my detectives will have more questions later. When you get back to Phoenix, you’ll be staying at your house?”
“If I can get in,” he said. “There’s always a chance that Connie or Maggie changed the locks, but yes, that’s where I expect to be.” “If you’re not, you’ll let us know?”
“Right,” he said, but he made no effort to rise.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Haskell?”
Ron nodded. “When I came in this morning, I had to fight my way through a whole bunch of reporters, including some that I’m sure were from Maggie’s paper.” He looked longingly at Joanna’s private entrance. “Is there any way you could get me back to my car out in the parking lot without my having to walk through them again?”
“Sure,” Joanna said. “You can go out this way. Chief Deputy Montoya here will give you a ride directly to your car.”
“Thanks,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’d really appreciate it.”