Fire and Ice jpb-19

by J. A. Jance

  “What the hell’s going on with Jaime?” he wanted to know, dropping heavily into one of Joanna’s chairs. “I stopped by the bull pen on the way in. I was about to tell him what I’d found out in Benson. He about took my head off. I know his nephew’s been giving him all kinds of hell, but still…”

  The “bull pen” was home to Joanna’s homicide unit. It had been crowded when only two investigating officers, the Double C’s, as Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal were called, had been the occupants. Now that there were three detectives, including one female, the bull pen was not only misnamed, it was also beyond overcrowded. Joanna’s suggestion that they steal some space from Patrol had met with adamant resistance. Her best bet in this situation was to try to placate Ernie.

  “You’re right,” Joanna said. “I’m sure Jaime has his hands full of family issues at the moment.”

  “Don’t we all?” Ernie asked.

  “Tell me what you found out.”

  Shaking his head, Ernie pulled out a notebook and opened it. He leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, and scanned a page covered with cursive writing that was tiny when you considered it came from a man of his size and girth.

  “Deb was on the money when she said we should track down the girlfriend. Believe me, LaVerne Hartley is a piece of work.”

  “From what Margie Savage told us,” Joanna replied, “I thought LaVerne was Lester’s ex-girlfriend.”

  “She was ex up until a month or so ago, but once the guy had some spending money again, she was ready to let bygones be bygones. They were back to being an item before he turned up dead.”

  “He ended up with money?” Joanna asked. “How much money?”

  Ernie nodded. “Enough that he was able to buy her a slick little turquoise ring. To hear her tell it, they were practically engaged.”

  Joanna realized that squared with what Lester Attwood’s sister had told them at the crime scene-that LaVerne was a good-time girl. According to her, if Lester had no money, there was no LaVerne.

  “So where was Lester getting all this extra cash?” Joanna asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Ernie agreed. “Whatever it was, LaVerne claimed that she had no knowledge of anything out of line. He claimed the Savages had given him a raise.”

  “Not according to Margie Savage,” Joanna put in.

  Ernie nodded. “That didn’t seem too likely to me, either. As for Jaime, he was good enough to tell me what was on the security tapes. Too bad we didn’t get better visuals, but what about this for an idea? What if drug traffickers were routinely using Action Trail Adventures as a rendezvous point? And what if Lester was in on it?”

  “Good point,” Joanna said thoughtfully. “Action Trails is a long way from anywhere, but it comes with a clear reason to have traffic coming and going on a regular basis. It would give dealers a relatively private place to make their load transfers without anyone being the wiser. Lester probably saw the wisdom of letting them do it. All he had to do was keep quiet to earn a little extra cash on the side. Everything was peachy-keen until the Savage brothers came up with the bright idea of installing video surveillance.”

  “Right. And if the traffickers were about to be caught, so was Lester,” Ernie said. “I think that’s what happened the night of the murder. Lester went out to warn them. First they took him out, and then they came back to do away with the recording equipment without realizing that the Savages had a backup system running somewhere off site.”

  “There were ATVs on two of the trucks in the video,” Joanna said. “Dave’s analysis suggests that there were three vehicles used in the attack on Lester. If they’re using the ATVs as camouflage-as a ticket to come and go from out-of-the-way places with no questions asked-what are the chances that they’ve pulled the same stunt at other spots as well-other places where ATV enthusiasts hang out? We need to find a way to enhance those videos.”

  Ernie nodded and stood up to go. “Jaime told me he was working on the enhancement situation. In the meantime, I’ll start checking to see if I can find any other locations they might have used. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find someone who bought better surveillance equipment.”

  Ernie left then, and Joanna went back to work. She had promised Butch that she’d leave by three to help out with party preparations.

  Debra Howell came by just as Joanna was clearing her desk. She was furious. “Machett turned us down,” she said. “He says that Inez Fletcher’s son refuses to allow her remains to be exhumed regardless of what his sister says.”

  “Did you get a look at the death certificate?”

  “Better yet, I have a copy of it.”

  “Who signed it?”

  “Someone named Dr. Clay Forrest.”

  “Never heard of him,” Joanna said.

  “He’s from Tucson,” Debra replied.

  “Which means he’s probably a close personal friend of Alma DeLong,” Joanna said. “See what you can find out about him.”

  Debra nodded and headed for the door. “By the way, have fun at the party tonight,” she added on her way out.

  “I don’t understand why I couldn’t invite everyone,” Joanna said. “I mean, we’ve all worked together for years.”

  She had been upset when she had learned that Dr. LuAnn Marcowitz’s bridal shower was scheduled for the same evening and time as the bachelor party.

  “Don’t give it another thought,” Deb said. “I spend more than enough time with these clowns. I’m happy to be going to a ladies-only event.”

  “I’d be glad to trade places.”

  “Too bad, boss.” Deb Howell grinned. “No way. Hosting the bachelor party goes with the best-man territory. I hear you’re playing poker?”

  “That’s right,” Joanna said. “Texas Hold’Em.”

  “Is Dr. Machett coming?”

  “He may,” Joanna said. “We invited him because we pretty much had to, since George Winfield will be there, too. After all, Machett will be working with Frank’s department as well as ours. I don’t know for sure if he sent back an RSVP.”

  “If he shows up, then,” Deb Howell said, “do me a favor and clean his clock.”

  Joanna nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

  When I returned from my musings, Mel was still on the phone. She had dragged her notebook out of her purse and was taking notes with a kind of indecipherable shorthand that is beyond my capability.

  “Okay,” she said finally to Barbara. “Thanks for the good news. Sounds like we’re making progress.”

  “What progress?” I asked when she closed her phone.

  With any other woman, it would have been different, but Mel doesn’t carry a grudge. We may have spats from time to time, but when the fight is over, it’s really over, as this latest one evidently was.

  “Brad may have found Marina’s vehicle,” she said.

  Brad was Brad Norton, one of our colleagues and a fellow investigator for S.H.I.T.’s Squad B.

  “Stolen?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” Mel said. “Brad was checking statewide for any 4-Runners that showed up in police reports around the time Marina disappeared. He found one with Arizona plates that had been parked with the hazard lights on and the keys still inside at an abandoned weigh station on I-90 east of Issaquah.”

  That sounded about right to me. “When was it found?” I asked.

  “In the early morning hours of November 9.”

  “That would fit,” I said. “That’s right in line with the time Marina disappeared.”

  Mel nodded in agreement. “When the vehicle was found it was in good running order,” she continued. “The keys were in it and it still had gas in the tank. When a Washington State Patrol officer ran the plates, he found out that the registered owner was a woman named Frances Dennison, who lives in Tucson. She told him that the previous summer she had decided that the 4-Runner was getting to be too much for her. She wanted something smaller, but since the dealer wouldn’t give her what she thought her vehi
cle was worth in trade, she had sold it herself.”

  “When was this?”

  “Back in July. She listed it in something called the Nifty Nickel and sold it to a young woman-a young Hispanic woman-who paid her thirty-five hundred in cash and promised that she would go straight to the vehicle licensing office to change the title.”

  “Which, of course, she didn’t do.”

  “Right.”

  “Does the woman in Tucson have a bill of sale?”

  “Yes,” Mel answered. “Brad asked her to look at it, and she did. Evidently the buyer’s signature is an illegible scribble.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I asked. “What happened to the car?”

  “Brad says there was no sign of foul play in the car. No blood; no nothing, including no fingerprints. The steering wheel and door handles had all been wiped clean, which was suspicious, but since Frances was still the registered owner of the vehicle, they returned it to her. Her grandson flew up, paid the impound fees, and drove it back to Tucson.”

  “Is the grandson still driving it?” I asked.

  “As far as we know.”

  “There might still be forensic evidence inside,” I said.

  “Right,” Mel said. “Brad’s already working on that.”

  That’s one of the good things about working for S.H.I.T. We’re all on the same team and usually on the same page, and we all pull in the same direction. I don’t get the feeling that there’s someone waiting in the woods to undermine me. Ross Connors is the state attorney general, but he’s someone who engenders a lot of personal loyalty. Yes, he’s a politician who has a bit of a problem with demon rum, but he’s also the best boss I’ve ever had. He’s a straight shooter who doesn’t stand on ceremony. He always backs up his people, and he gets as good as he gives.

  Nursing a case of pre-party jitters, Joanna came home to find what they had come to call the “Gang of Four”-Jenny and Dennis and Carol Sunderson’s two grandsons, Rick and Danny-playing in the side yard, where she and Butch had installed a redwood kiddie gym set, complete with a minifort, slide, teeter-totter, and swing.

  It was a busy scene. Dennis was strapped into the toddler seat on the swing, with Danny, Carol’s younger grandson, pushing him to what Joanna considered breathtaking heights. Rick, the older boy, was practicing pitching tennis balls into the far distance, with three of their collection of dogs-Jenny’s Tigger and Lucky along with the Sundersons’ sheltie, Scamp-racing to retrieve them. Joanna’s more dignified Australian shepherd, Lady, was content to look on from the sidelines while Jenny practiced her lassoing technique on the handle of the teeter-totter.

  Joanna parked in the garage. Not ready to face the house, she left her briefcase on the car seat and went to see the kids.

  Over the months, she had found plenty of reasons to be grateful for the tragedy that had brought Carol and her two boys into the picture. After a fierce trailer fire left Carol’s husband dead and her and the two boys homeless, it had been Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, who had come up with the idea of letting Carol and the grandsons live in Joanna’s old house on High Lonesome Ranch in exchange for helping manage Joanna and Butch’s sometimes chaotic household. The arrangement gave Carol a job that came with a stable place for her and the children to live. Within weeks of Carol’s arrival on the scene neither Butch nor Joanna could imagine how they had functioned without her.

  The Gang of Four was a natural outgrowth of that arrangement. Over the months the four kids had become pretty much inseparable. Despite the age differences, they seemed to get along fine. Jenny had taken it upon herself to teach Rick and Danny both how to ride her sorrel quarter horse, Kiddo. And all three of the older kids were tremendously patient with Dennis, whom they regarded alternately as either an annoying pest or else a beloved mascot.

  Hearing Dennis’s gleeful squawk, Joanna realized this had to be one of the mascot days.

  “Hey, Mom,” Jenny said. She caught the handlebar with her rope, shook it off, and then recoiled it to throw it again. “Butch and Carol threw us out. They’re setting up for the party and said no kids or dogs allowed.”

  All of which made good sense.

  “But we get to have pizza for dinner,” Danny added. “Pepperoni. Wanna come?”

  “She can’t,” Jenny told him. “She’s got to go to the party.”

  Joanna had grown up as an only child. She had been an adult when she finally met her older brother, who had been given up for adoption long before her parents married. Jenny, too, had spent most of her young life as an only child. With that kind of background, Joanna had been amazed to see how the four kids managed to cope with one another. Sometimes the four were all the best of friends; sometimes they weren’t. Joanna often found herself wondering if that wasn’t how real sisters and brothers functioned.

  There was a redwood picnic table next to the gym, and Joanna eased herself onto one of the benches. “I think I’d rather have pizza,” she said.

  Jenny gave her mother a questioning look and then came over to sit down beside her. Jenny was about to turn fifteen, but she was already a good five inches taller than her mother and still growing.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” Jenny asked. “Are you okay?”

  “The best man seems to be having a case of nerves,” Joanna admitted. “I’ve never been to a bachelor party, much less hosted one.”

  “I don’t know why you’re worried about it,” Jenny told her. “You should be used to doing weird things by now. You’ll be fine.”

  Joanna couldn’t help laughing at that bit of reassurance. That one word-weird-pretty well said it all. In Jenny’s book, having her mother be sheriff or “best man” was pretty much one and the same.

  Danny let Dennis out of the swing and he came racing toward Joanna at a toddler’s broken-field dead run. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” he squealed gleefully, hurtling himself into her lap. “Denny swing! Denny swing.”

  “I saw you,” she said, gathering him into her arms. “What a big boy you are.”

  She hung out with the kids for a while, but before long Carol emerged from the house. “All right, kids,” she said. “Time to gather up and head out. We’ll keep the dogs at our house tonight. Except for Lady, of course.”

  Scamp and the kids piled into Carol’s station wagon and she drove away, with Lucky and Tigger trailing behind. Meanwhile Lady shadowed Joanna as she closed the garage door, collected her briefcase, and went inside.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked.

  Glancing at his watch, Butch came over to kiss her hello. “Not a thing,” he said. “Carol and I have it all under control. The rented card tables and chairs are all set up, the food and drinks are in the fridge, chips and dips are out. All you need to do is get dressed. And you’d better hurry. People will be here soon.”

  Joanna disappeared into the bedroom and stripped out of her uniform. She had bought a bright green blouse to wear with her jeans that night, along with a pair of boots that she had inherited from Jenny when her daughter outgrew them. As for Jenny appropriating some of her mother’s clothing? Jenny’s last sustained growth spurt made that no longer an issue.

  With her hair combed and her makeup retouched, Joanna headed out to the living room to play hostess just as the first guest arrived. In terms of food, Butch and Carol had clearly outdone themselves. They had assembled an inspiring array of chips and dips and salsas to serve as ice-breaking snacks. Knowing that most of the guests would have a law enforcement background, Frank had insisted that his bachelor party would be a booze-free zone. Since Frank was now joining Joanna in a media fishbowl, she had applauded the decision. Neither she nor Frank could afford to have any of their officers picked up and charged with post-party drunk driving.

  Frank had also made his wishes clear when it came to proposed party entertainment. He placed an absolute embargo on the idea of strippers. Period. He and Butch had settled instead, on the idea of a roast augmented by a charitable poker party, with all proceeds from Texas Hold
’Em going to Frank’s charity of choice, the Jail Ministry. Since this would be considered social gambling, there had been no need to purchase any kind of gaming license, but just to be sure, Butch had checked out the applicable statutes with the county attorney well in advance of the party. His inquiry to Arlee Jones’s office had given Butch the information he needed, but it had also backfired and generated a minor tempest all its own due to the fact that Arlee-also at Frank’s behest-hadn’t been invited to the party.

  The guests arrived one and two at a time. With the exception of a couple of relatives, most of the guests came from Frank Montoya’s world of work. Some were old colleagues and some new colleagues. To begin with, the two sets of folks seemed to stalk around one another, stiff-legged and suspicious, until Butch’s smooth program of hospitality began to work its magic. Before long, people were laughing and talking and settling in to have fun.

  In advance of dinner being served, Ted Chapman, the Jail Ministry’s executive director, circulated among the snack-munching guests hawking poker chips. “Best of luck to you,” he said with a smile each time he managed to extract a twenty- or thirty-buck donation from someone’s pocket. “And don’t worry. There are plenty more where these came from. God does provide, you know,” he sometimes added with a wink.

  Joanna’s mother and stepfather had delayed their planned springtime departure for Minnesota long enough to enjoy the festivities. That meant George Winfield was there on his own. As M.E. emeritus, he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. To Joanna’s considerable relief, Guy Machett was a welcome no-show. The last guest to arrive was Frank’s older brother Thomas, who had driven down from Phoenix. When Joanna opened the door and found him on the porch, she felt more than a little guilty. By rights, Thomas Montoya should have been Frank’s top choice for best man, but he didn’t seem the least bit offended by the oversight. He greeted Joanna warmly, first with a handshake and then, after a moment’s consideration, with a hug as well.